SC judges meet CJI over Justice K M Joseph seniority issue

VOL. 13, ISSUE 218 | Tuesday, 7 August 2018 | New Delhi | Pages 16 | Rs 3.00

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Will send you to Tihar if you obstruct sealing: SC warns BJP councillor

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court warned on Monday that those blocking the government officials from carrying out sealing of unauthorised and illegal constructions in Delhi would be sent directly to the Tihar jail from the court.

The stern warn-ing came from a bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta, which accepted an unconditional apol-ogy tendered by Mukesh Suryan, the chairman of the wards committee of the Najafgarh zone, against whom allegations were levelled that he had threatened the officials.

The Forum of MCD Engineers had alleged in the apex court that Suryan had threatened the officials

when they had gone to seal unauthor-ised constructions as per directions of the court-mandated monitoring committee.

During the brief hearing, Suryan’s counsel told the bench that he had filed an affidavit tendering uncondi-tional apology and he would not repeat

any such thing in the future.

“Make sure that it is not repeated and if you do it again, then come to the court with a suitcase as you will go directly to Tihar jail from here,”

the bench said.The apex court had earlier warned

against threats given to officials, who were carrying out sealing of unauthor-ised constructions, and said that such kind of ‘dadagiri’ (bullying tactics) would not work.

OATH-TAKING CEREMONY OF JUSTICE K M JOSEPH, TWO OTHERS TODAY

MPOST BUREAU

NEW DELHI: The oath-taking cer-emony of three judges elevated to the Supreme Court - Justices Indira Baner-jee, Vineet Saran and K M Joseph - will take place as scheduled on Tuesday in the order of seniority notified by the Centre.

Highly placed sources in the Supreme Court said that nothing much could be done at this stage and the con-cerns raised by some of the apex court judges would be discussed after the three judges are sworn in on Tuesday.

The sources said except Justice Ran-jan Gogoi, a member of the apex court collegium who was on leave; others had “informally” deliberated on the Cen-tre’s alleged decision to lower down the seniority of Justice K M Joseph.

However, it was decided that the oath-taking ceremony should take place.

“Let the oath-taking take place. There is no time. The oath-taking can’t be deferred. It has to be seen what can be done later,” one of the sources said about the discussion that was held among the judges on Monday morn-ing at the judges’ lounge before they commenced the day’s working in the apex court.

Judges including members of the collegium comprising Justices M B Lokur, Kurian Joseph and A K Sikri met Chief Justice Dipak Misra.

The sources said that the judges

were of the view that there was a need to sit together and ponder over the issue.

They said that the CJI, who heads the collegium, assured the judges that he would consult Justice Gogoi who is the senior-most after him and take up the issue with the Centre.

The Centre on Friday last came out with the notification on the appoint-ment of the three judges to the apex court by putting at number three the seniority of Justice K M Joseph.

In the notification, the names of Justice Indira Banerjee, Chief Jus-

tice of the Madras High Court, was at number one, followed by that of Jus-tice Vineet Saran, Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court.

It is the convention that seniority of the judges is determined by order of names notified by the government.

The President signed the warrants of appointment of the three judges on August 3.

Justice Joseph’s elevation to the apex court put an end to a protracted stand-off between the government and the judiciary.

Justice K M Joseph, the Chief Justice of the Uttarakhand High Court, headed a bench which had quashed the impo-sition of President’s Rule in the state in 2016. Uttarakhand was then under the Congress rule.

Facing the heat of opposition as well as judges of the Supreme Court over the issue of lowering the seniority of Justice KM Joseph, the government on Monday came out with facts stat-ing that the decision has been taken as per the law and no ‘inappropriate’ trend has been followed. See P5

SC judges meet CJI over Justice K M Joseph seniority issue

Muzaffarpur re-run: 24 girls rescued from UP shelter home

MPOST BUREAU

DEORIA/LUCKNOW: Twenty-four girls were rescued from a shelter home in Deo-ria after an allegation of sexual exploitation of the inmates came to light, prompting the Uttar Pradesh government to swing into a damage control mode by removing the district magistrate and ordering a high-level probe.

Police said three people, including a couple who ran the shelter, were arrested in connection with the matter.

“Twenty-four girls were rescued on Sunday from the shelter home at station road in the name of Ma Vindhyawas-ini Mahila Prakishan Evam Samaj Sewa Sansthan, which has 42 inmates. Eighteen inmates are still missing. We have sealed it,” Superintendent of Police Rohan P Kanay said in Deoria.

Taking a serious note of the matter, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath ordered the immediate removal of Deoria District Magistrate Sujit Kumar, UP Minister for Women and Child Welfare Rita Bahuguna Joshi told reporters in Lucknow.

She said Adityanath had sent a high-level probe team to Deoria for on-the-spot inquiry. The chief minister has asked the probe team to prepare a report by Mon-day night.

“Besides this, the then district proba-tion officer (DPO) Abhishek Pandey has been suspended and a departmental probe ordered against the two other officers.

“Additional Chief Secretary Renuka

Kumar and ADG (Women Cell) Anju Gupta have been rushed to Deoria, and they have been asked to submit their report by tonight,” Joshi said.

The minister said that the recognition of the NGO was revoked one year back and funds were stopped.

“We will probe how it was function-ing till now and see who is responsible for this,” she said.

Abhishek Pandey was the district pro-bation officer when the recognition of the NGO was revoked.

“The probe will be fair and strict action will be taken against the guilty. The probe team will talk to inmates and take into account their ordeal while preparing the report,” she said.

She said that the chief minister had already issued an order on August 3, after Muzaffarpur incident in Bihar emerged, asking DMs in UP to check all such shel-ter homes.

“All DMs have been asked to submit their report within 12 hours,” the minis-ter said.

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Harivansh likely NDA choice for RS Dy Chair;

Oppn to name pick todaySIMONTINI BHATTACHARJEE

NEW DELHI: The stage is set for a keen contest between the NDA and the Opposition for the post of Rajya Sabha deputy chairman with JD(U) MP Har-ivansh emerging as the candi-date of the ruling alliance for the August 9 election.

The Opposition has often prevailed over the govern-ment in the numbers game in the House, but the BJP is hopeful of turning the tables on its rivals with the support of regional parties such as the AIADMK, BJD, TRS and YSR Congress - all of whom have lent support to it now and then.

Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu announced in the House that the election would be held at 11 am on August 9.

He also suggested that the deputy chairman should be elected by consensus. The nomination papers will have to be filed before noon on August 8.

The post of the dep-uty chairman has been lying vacant since June this year fol-lowing the retirement of P J Kurien, who was elected to the Upper House of Parliament on a Congress ticket from Kerala.

While the BJP-led NDA did not make any formal announcement, sources said Harivansh, a veteran journal-ist and first-time parliamentar-ian, is likely to be their choice for the post.

The BJP’s decision to opt for a member of its ally as its choice is driven by its desire to be more accommodative to its partners, many of whom have often expressed their res-ervations at the saffron par-ty’s treatment of them since the government was formed in 2014.

The current strength of the Rajya Sabha is 244 and sup-port of 123 members would be needed for a win in the full House.

Besides the nominated and independent members affili-ated to it, the BJP is banking on the support of 13, nine, six and two members of the AIADMK, BJD, TRS, YSR Congress respectively, its floor managers said.

If all four parties support the NDA candidate, then the

numbers add up to 126.However, even if par-

ties like BJD or TRS abstain from voting, then things will become tricky for the ruling alliance.

However, the United-opposition is yet to name their candidate. Reportedly, the final decision will be made after another meeting of Opposi-tion on Tuesday afternoon.

On Monday evening a meeting by the opposition par-ties was attended by Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ahmed Patel and Kapil Sibal of Congress, Ramgopal Yadav of Sama-jwadi Party, Tiruch Shiva of DMK, Satish Chandra Mishra of Bahujan Samajwadi Party, Praful Patel of NCP, D Raja of CPI, Derek O’Brien of TMC, Misa Bharti and Manoj Jha of RJD, CM Ramesh of Telegu Desam Party, and TK Ranga-rajan of CPIM.

The last time an election took place for the Rajya Sabha deputy chairperson’s post was in 1992. The fight was between Congress candidate Najma Heptulla, who is now with the BJP, and Renuka Chowdhary, who was the opposition can-didate. Najma Heptulla won with 128 votes against Renuka Chowdhary’s 95. See P5

FOR RUNWAY INCURSION AT RIYADH

Build single facility to prevent misuse by NGOs: Maneka

DGCA suspends licence of 2 Jet Airways pilots

MPOST BUREAU

NEW DELHI: In the after-math of the alleged sexual assault of minor girls in Muzaffarpur and Deora, Women and Child Devel-opment Minister Maneka Gandhi on Monday asked states to build a single large central facility to house such children in a bid to prevent “abuse and misuse” by NGOs.

She said the adoption and skill development pro-grammes in a central facil-ity would be much easier and it would also help in checking “abuse and mis-use” by NGOs who are running their own shelter homes with grants from

the government.“I have been asking for

a scheme where each state should have a single large facility to house all such girls and children which should be run by the state government,” she said.

Other homes in the state should only pro-vide temporary shelter to women, girls and children in distress situations and after clearance by the Child Welfare Committee, Gan-dhi said. See P7

MPOST BUREAU

MUMBAI: The Directorate General of Civil Aviation has suspended the flying licence of two Jet Airways pilots for attempting to take off an aircraft from a taxi-way parallel to the runway at Riyadh airport in Saudi Arabia last week.

As many as 148 peo-ple on board the Mumbai-bound Jet Airways flight escaped unhurt after the aircraft went off the runway following an aborted take off from there on August 3, the airline had said.

An official of the avia-tion regulator DGCA had said that the pilots aborted

the take off after they were informed about a “barrier” on the runway.

The aircraft was taxing at 100 knots. It veered off the runway due to sudden stop-ping, the official had said.

“The DGCA has sus-pended the flying licence of both the pilots involved in runway excursion incident at Riyadh, pending investiga-tion,” a senior DGCA official said on Monday.

Highlights » Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu announced in the House that the election would be held at 11 am on August 9

» The current strength of the Rajya Sabha is 244 and support of 123 members would be needed for a win in the full House

» The post of the deputy chairman has been lying vacant since June this year following the retirement of P J Kurien

DM removed, high-level probe ordered

US YOUTHS BEAT SIKH, SAY ‘ YOU AREN’T WELCOME HERE! GO BACK!’ PG10

DELHI METRO’S DDSC-LAJPAT NAGAR LINE OPENS FOR PUBLIC PG3

PARL PASSES BILL TO PROVIDE DEATH TO CHILD RAPE CONVICTS PG7

In today’s paper

...

Govt trying to start 5 river inter-linking projects in FY19

NITIN GADKARI

CITY

MAN KILLS WIFE, THEN HANGS HIMSELF 4

NATION

CONSTITUTIONAL STATUS TO NCBC 6

EDIT

INDIA’S ARTIFICIAL MILK GLUT 8

INTERNATIONAL

PTI ‘APPOINTS’ IMRAN ITS PM NOMINEE 10

BUSINESS

INDRA NOOYI IS STEPPING DOWN 13

SPORT

‘PRESSURE ON OTHERS TO AFFECT KOHLI’ 14

I HAVEN’T MADEIT BIG YET: VAANI KAPOOR PG16

NO HALF TRUTHS

MATARAM: A powerful earth-quake flattened houses and top-pled bridges on the Indonesian tourist island of Lombok, killing at least 98 people and shaking neigh-bouring Bali, as authorities said on Monday that rescuers still hadn't reached some devastated areas and the death toll would climb.

It was the second deadly quake in a week to hit Lombok. A July 29 quake killed 16 people and dam-aged hundreds of houses, some of which collapsed in Sunday eve-ning's magnitude 7.0 temblor, kill-ing those inside.

National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told a news conference that damage was "massive" in northern Lombok.

In several districts, more than half the homes were destroyed or severely damaged.

The ruins of a mosque that col-lapsed in Lading-Lading village while people prayed inside was being pulled apart by a backhoe in search of victims.

Some areas still hadn't been reached as of mid-afternoon,

with rescuers battling collapsed bridges, electricity and commu-nication blackouts and damaged roads blocked with debris.

Nugroho said the death toll had risen to 98, after warning earlier that it would "definitely

increase".More than 230 people were

seriously injured. Thousands of homes and buildings were dam-aged, and 20,000 people were in temporary shelters.

The quake, measured at mag-

nitude 7.0 by Indonesian authori-ties and 6.9 by the US Geological Survey, struck at a shallow depth of 10.5 kilometres (6 miles) in the northern part of Lombok. Shallow quakes tend to cause more damage than deeper ones.

"We were sitting there having dinner at about 7 o'clock last night; we just felt a massive shaking, and the lights went off, and everyone just ran," Australian tourist Kim Liebelt said as he waited with other travellers for a flight out at Lom-bok's international airport.

"And then the roof started fall-ing on us, rocks and rubble, and then just everyone running to get away," he said.

Videos showed screaming people running in panic from a shopping mall and a neighbour-hood in Bali where parked vehi-cles swayed. AGENCIES

At least 98 dead in powerful Indonesia quake FLATTENED HOUSES AND TOPPLED BRIDGES

Devastation caused by an earthquake in Sembalun, on Lombok Island, Indonesia AP/PTI

pNIFTY 11,387.10 (+26.30) pSENSEX 37,691.89 (+135.73) qDOW JONES 25,430.71 (+31.87) pNASDAQ 7820.41 (+8.40) pRUPEE/DOLLAR 68.88 (+0.28) pRUPEE/EURO 79.53 (+0.20) pGOLD/10GM 30,585 (+35.00) pSILVER/K 39,200(+100.00)

» Decision has been taken as

per the law, says government

MPOST BUREAU

CHENNAI: The condition of ailing DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi has "declined" and keep-ing his vital organs functioning remains a "challenge", Kauvery Hospital said on Monday, indicating the next 24 hours could be crucial.

The 94-year-old five-time Tamil Nadu chief minister was continuously monitored and treated with active medical support, a press release issued by the hospital said.

"There has been a decline in the medical condition of DMK president and former Chief Minister M Karunanidhi.

Maintaining his vital organ functions continues to remain a challenge considering his age-related ailments," it said.

"His response to the medi-cal interventions over the next 24 hours will determine the prognosis," Executive Director of the Hospital Dr Aravindan Selvaraj said in the terse two-paragraph release.

Soon after the news of a decline in Karunanidhi's con-dition spread, hundreds of his supporters gathered outside the hospital, including a large number of women, some fail-ing to control their tears.

Karunanidhi's condition

declines, next 24 hours crucial

» Justices M B Lokur and Kurian Joseph, who are members of the collegium, met the CJI at the judges’ lounge during the tea before the start of the day’s working

» The sources said that the CJI assured the judges that he would consult Justice Gogoi and take up the issue with the Centre

Justice Indira Banerjee Justice Vineet Saran Justice K M Joseph

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2 MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 7 August, 2018mp around town

SKILLING THE UNDERPRIVILIGEDThere is a unique opportunity to mark the beginning of celebration of 72nd Independence Day! What can be better than attending a talk on unquestionable importance of skilling of unprivileged children. Join for the 29th edition of Tara Ali Baig Memorial lecture, organized by SOS Children’s Villages of India. Prof M M Pant, Former Pro-Vice Chancellor, IGNOU will spearhead the talk show. WHEN: August 8 WHERE:  Vishwa Yuvak Kendra TIMINGS: 5:30 pm onwards

DIFFERENT TASTES OF INDIACome and join the food celebration to commemorate a fortnight full of delectable dishes of 14 regions. The buffet will serve cuisine of one region each day followed by the mega brunch on the 72nd Independence Day of India will be served.WHEN: Until August 15 WHERE: Blooms Restaurant, Eros Hotel, Nehru Place TIMINGS:  For Lunch and

Dinner

A SOULFUL EVENINGThe season of monsoon arrives with beautiful rains and ever changing moods of the nature. Keeping that in mind, Ministry of Culture and Kalpana Verma of Kalahetu, present a soulful evening – accompanying the different shades of nature with Shringar Rasa, Karun Rasa, Adbuta Rasa and Bhakti Rasa respectively as a part of Navrasa 2018.WHEN: August 8 WHERE: Kamani Auditorium TIMINGS: 6:30 pm onwards

GEAR UP FOR CRICKET LEAGUEParticipate and enjoy in one of the most exciting and engaging indoor cricket event in India with SMAAASH. The league will bring together cricket enthusiasts from all across the country fuelled by their common love for Cricket. There will be 1500 teams from 10 regions WHEN: Until September 15 WHERE:  SMAAASH (12 Cities)

DAYINDAYOUT What’s on Around Town

OUR CORRESPONDENT

RENOWNED DANCER and Guru Pad-mashri Geeta Chandran  presented a Bharatanatyam Arangetram by her dis-ciple Sowmya Laxmi Narayanan at Chin-maya Mission Auditorium, New Delhi. The evening witnessed a large turnout of music and dance lovers.

A 12th class student of The Moth-ers International School, Sowmya is the daughter of Mythili and P.K. Narayanan. The day was more sig-nificant to her than just the date or her first solo performance, as it marked eleven years of her engagement and dedication to Bharatanatyam.

All those dance classes sowed and stirred the seed of passion within Sowmya, who after crossing the threshold of six, found artistic sanctorum under Guru Geeta Chandran at Natya Vriksha. Since then dance and Sowmya have been inextricable.

Sowmya performed many dance pieces depicting the range of the Bharatanatyam repertoire. She began with Alarippu, the basic eye, shoulder,

and neck movement in the racy khan-dam nadai (beat), followed by Jatiswaram, which is pure dance. In the central item, she did a 40-minute long Shringara Var-nam, wherein the Nayaka (the protagonist) is asking her sakhi to get Lord Kartikeya as this is the right time for love. She was accompanied by Geeta Chandran (Nat-tuvangam), K. Venkateshwaran (Vocal),

Manohar Balatchandirane (Mridangam), G. Raghavendra Prasath (Violin) and Rajat Prasanna (Flute). Her performance received a standing ovation from critics, artists, and well-wishers.

“Arangetram is an important occa-sion in the career of any Bharatanatyam

dancer. After eleven years of ardu-ous training, Akka (Geeta,

Guru) is confident that I'm ready for a solo perfor-

mance, and it is an hon-our to her; as it marks the first milestone in

my journey into the ocean of Bharatanatyam”, says Sowmya.

An elated and very pleased Guru Geeta Chandran, said, it

was an honour, a true trib-ute from a disciple to her

Guru. I'm very happy with the way she performed, her skill, stamina, and immersion in the spirit of the dance was a treat to watch. I hope she will

take her art to new highs.

A tribute to Geeta ChandranBharatanatyam Arangetram:

OUR CORRESPONDENT

INDIA INTERNATIONAL Hospitality expo 2018, which will take place from August 8 – 11, recently announced the congregation of hos-pitality, retail, baking, housekeeping and F&B industry. Aiming to make hospitality industry a catalyst for economic growth, the expo will be held at India Expo Centre and mart, Greater Noida Expressway.

With over 200 exhibitors and over 8,000 vis-itors, this show is the first chapter of country’s largest and most comprehensive sourcing hub for the Hospitality, Retail, Baking, Housekeep-ing and F&B Industry. Further, it has been built on a grand vision - to become the biggest hos-pitality show in Asia. 

The four-day mega event will be inaugurated by Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Union Cabinet Min-ister of Food Processing Industry, Interaction of Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu, Minister of Com-merce and Industry and Civil Aviation with the industry and a fashion show curated by Sunil Sethi Design Alliance and food menu by Chef

Manjit Gill in the Banaras Evening. The event will also see different sessions of culinary the-atre by celebrity chefs such as Manjit Gill, Devin-der Kumar, Gunjan Goela, Gautam Chaudhary, Nishant Chobey and others. Being true to their vision, IHE 18 has got a stellar board of indus-try stalwarts with over 40+ years of experience in the hospitality industry and will play a host to celebrated influencers.

Speaking about the expo, Rakesh Kumar,Chairman, IEML and Executive Direc-tor, EPCH said,“ This mega congregation caters to the powerful trio of Food Products, F&B Equip-ments and Décor Solutions along with the key decision makers (producers, distributors, mar-keters, service providers, restaurant and hospi-tality companies, and the entire gamut) who are shaping the hospitality industry.”

“The expo has been planned after a due under-standing of business goals of the hospitality indus-try and our team is working hard to maximize your returns as partners with us”, said Sunil Sethi, Chairman, Steering Committee IHE 18, Direc-tor, IEML, Founder Sunil Sethi Design Alliance.

Rakesh Kumar Chairman, IEML and Executive Director, EPCH, Sunil Sethi, Chairman, Steering Committee IHE 18, Director, IEML and Founder Sunil Sethi Design Alliance, Hari Dadoo, President IHE 2018, Chef Manjit Gill, President, Indian Federation of Culinary Associations, Anil Malhotra, MD, Hospitality Sales and Marketing Company Asia and Nirmal Khandelwal, MD FCML at the press meet to announce the expo

200 exhibitors to take part in IHE 2018

NEW YORK: Do people depend on gut feeling for taking tough decisions? Not really. They think through difficult moral problems and do not primar-ily rely on automatic “gut” reactions to make tough decisions, finds a study.

The findings suggested that adolescents and adults reason deeply about complex moral issues, belying the popu-lar notion that we rely on our ‘guts’ and don’t think through challeng-ing questions on right and wrong.

“When confronted with very, very hard ques-tions about the value of life, decisions are

grounded in multiple and sometimes competing considerations about harm, welfare, individual rights, fairness, and justice,” said lead author Audun Dahl, Associate Professor of psychology at the University of California in the US. 

“Contrary to popular belief, people are quite able to articulate all of this when asked to justify how

they arrived at their decision,” he added in the paper detailed in the journal, Monographs of the Soci-ety for Research in Child Development.

In the study, he ana-lysed moral reasoning by sharing examples of hypothetical dilemma scenarios, with 432 ado-lescents, college students, and other adults.

In the first scenario, a train hurtling down a track was about to hit and kill five people, but

a bystander could throw a switch and divert the train to

another track, saving five lives. In the second, five people were tied to a track. A

bystander on a footbridge above the track could push one man to his death on the track, taking one life to

save five others.  In both situations, people recognised the value of

life, they want to maximize the welfare of all. In addition to the number of lives that would be

saved, “both adolescents and adults considered a number of factors: the fundamental value of life, the intrinsic rights of individuals, and their responsibili-

ties in the sce-narios, as well as guilt and social repercus-sions,” he noted.

“Our findings rebut that adults can’t rea-son about moral issues,” Dahl said. IANS

REASONING, NOT GUT, behind tough decisions

Neem has been referred to as a “wonder herb” for the many beneficial prop-erties it possesses. It has as many as 130 different biologically-active com-

pounds that enhance the well-being of several bodyparts such as skin, hair and blood, among others.

This wonder herb is a cornerstone in preventive health remedies to achieve holistic wellness. Dur-ing monsoon, there is an increased risk of infec-tions, and your skin and hair also require extra care, all of which neem can help you with.

Experts elaborate on how neem has properties that can benefit various parts of our body. 

Skin: In Ayurveda, it’s commonly known that neem is an incredibly effective acne combat-ant and is often associated with naturally beautiful, glowing skin. During the monsoon, the sebaceous glands that are responsible for producing body oils and regulating perspiration, go into overdrive due to the increased humidity. This can lead to break-outs and oily skin. The anti-bacterial properties of neem have a positive impact on any pimples or black/whiteheads. The harmful effects of bacte-ria that cause these breakouts are nullified by the anti-inflammatory properties of neem. Mild skin problems like rashes, irritation, burns and infec-tions can also be healed with this herb. 

Hair: Dandruff and dry scalp can also be treated with neem. The change in weather can affect your scalp’s pH balance, making your hair oily, frizzy or dandruff-prone, depending on your skin type. Because of the antibacterial properties of neem, a dry scalp and dandruff can be tackled. Dandruff, much like acne, can be significantly reduced with the purifying properties of neem. It can also be used to strengthen hair and pre-vent hair fall. 

Blood Purification: The changing seasons are said to have a huge impact on the body and, compounded with unfavorable diet and lifestyle, leads to a build-up of toxins in the body. Ayurveda recommends cleansing of blood as a healthy mea-sure against the toxin build-up, to boost immu-nity, prevent infections and promote overall well-being. Neem, which is rich in natural anti-oxidants, and has other medicinal properties, is traditionally known to be a very effective blood purifier. It is also known to support key organs – the liver and kidney – that assist in taking out waste and toxins from the body. Neem also helps to promote blood circulation by supporting healthy dilatation of blood vessels. Regular intake

has also been useful in controlling high blood sugar and regulating blood pressure. 

Intestinal health/Digestive wellness: A healthy digestive system is extremely important for one’s overall health. Prevention is always bet-ter than cure, and neem is very beneficial in main-taining and supporting a healthy digestive system. During monsoon, the integrity of your food, espe-cially leafy vegetables, is compromised. This often leads to stomach issues and infections or parasites. The herb can be used to treat intestinal worms, nausea, belching and phlegm. The anti-inflamma-tory properties of neem make it incredibly useful for intestinal health as it soothes the entire digestive system. It is a great immu-nity booster and its regular use can help one feel naturally energised. 

Oral health: Neem is used as an active ingredi-ent in many toothpastes and mouthwashes and can also be used to treat

toothaches. During monsoon, complaints about sensitive teeth increase due to the cold air and changing weather. Neem helps stave off gingivitis and suppress swelling and inflammation of the gums. In many places, neem twigs are chewed as a natural substitute for brushing teeth; this is because it is a natural oral deodorant with antibac-terial properties. The antimicrobial and antifungal properties present help minimise plaque build-up and reduce the presence of bacteria associated with tartar and gum diseases. 

There are multiple reasons to incorporate neem into your life, but these are some areas where

it is known to have incredibly pos-itive effects. This monsoon, take

that extra step to prevent seasonal health issues. A natural road to

health and wellness can start with bringing neem into

your life in a significant way. IANS

Beat monsoon woes with

Experts say that a natural road to health and wellness can start with bringing neem into your life in a significant way

NEEM

mp city 3MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 7 August, 2018

Delhi Metro’s DDSC-Lajpat Nagar line to cut travel time

Pink line’s new section was inaugurated by Union Minister Puri, Kejriwal

Foundation stone laying of Dwarka Expressway by PM to be delayed

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday said that Delhi was facing an "emer-gency situation" due to mountains of garbage as it expressed dissatisfaction over the response of authorities on waste management.

"Will there be any person alive in Delhi in such a situa-tion?" an irked apex court said and sought details of how plans on management of solid waste could be implemented, espe-cially on segregation of house-hold waste.

The bench comprising justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta also sought details from authorities on pilot project for segregation of household waste launched in some areas like Defence Col-ony, Green Park and Maharani Bagh here and also about the problems being faced by the agencies in its implementation.

The court fumed at Addi-tional Solicitor General (ASG) Pinky Anand's submission on residents of Sonia Vihar objecting to a landfill site, saying the people had every right to question the decision and even went on to say that the civic body should dump the "waste on the Raj Niwas Marg", where Delhi Lieutenant Governor's official residence is located, instead of treating people like this.

It said that segregation of waste at household level was an

important issue and asked the authorities to inform the apex court as to whether an aware-ness campaign in this regard could be started throughout the city.

"It is an emergency situa-tion and unfortunately your reactions are not indicating any solution," the bench told the ASG.

The bench took exception that area falling under the South Delhi Municipal Corpo-ration (SDMC) was generating 3,600 tonnes of waste everyday out of which 1,800 tonnes was thrown at the landfill site.

The ASG told the bench that the authorities were work-ing on it and taking steps in this regard and by December 2019, all the waste generated in SDMC area would be sent to waste to energy and process-ing plants.

"Ganga Ram Hospital has done a study which says that 50 per cent of population of Delhi has a chance of hav-ing lung cancer even if they do not smoke. The Niti Aayog says that in 2019, there will be shortage of water in Delhi. Will there be any person alive in Delhi in such a situation? 1,800 tonnes a day is huge. What will happen from now till Decem-ber 2019," the bench observed.

The ASG said that in East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC), the issue of having a landfill site at Sonia Vihar was being opposed by residents of the area.

Waste management: Delhi facing ‘emergency

situation’, says SC

PIYUSH OHRIE

GURUGRAM: There may be a dismay again for over 90,000 families living around Dwarka expressway as Prime Minister Narendra Modi may not be able to lay the founda-tion stone of the 28-kilometer stretch on August 15. Accord-ing to sources, the delay has happened due to lack of meet-ing the deadline of the Kundli -Manesar -Palwal (KMP) Expressway at the Sonepat stretch. The Prime Minister was expected to launch the projects simultaneously. To fur-ther add to the disappointment, the projects may now be inau-gurated either in September or in October.

Angry over yet another delay, the residents have chosen

"Independence Day" to hold a symbolic protest in order to pressurize the government authorities over improving the infrastructure of the area. There have been several announce-ments by senior officials as well as the ministers in regard to the highway which has been pend-ing for over 11 years.

The Gurugram Metropol-itan Development Author-ity (GMDA) chairman V Umashankar, in June this year, had announced that the high-speed corridor is likely to be completed within 18 months. The public official also men-tioned that construction is expected to begin as soon as all the litigation regarding the expressway has concluded. Following the announcement, there has been a hectic process

that has been followed for allot-ment of the plots and razing all the structures.

No one can relate more to the challenges in the growth and expansion of Gurugram than the 90,000 home buyers on both sides of the carriage-way. For long the residents have been demanding for the com-pletion of 28-kilometre of road

that will lead to the growth of social infrastructure in the area. However, legal hurdles in land acquisition and inad-equate compensation provided to villagers have resulted in the project prolonging since 2007.

In order to put pressure on the government, certain resi-dents have taken an online por-tal to put forth the difficulties

faced by them. “Around the Dwarka Expressway, we are liv-ing in a stone age, no light, no water, security, sewerage, roads, and hospitals. School children must be brought from all over the city to demonstrate what stone –age in the urban sce-nario looks like,” says Sushil Kumar. A grievance that is being shared by lakhs of home buyers from Delhi–NCR was expressed by Sanjay Singh who said, “We are moving to the poor category slowly by pay-ing the rents and easy monthly instalments (EMI),” As NHAI is expected to take over the reins of developing the express-way, residents are also demand-ing that the Kherki Dhaula toll should be removed and better streamline connectivity should also be developed.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Citing improved ridership figures, Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Monday hinted another hike in Delhi Metro fares was unlikely, even as he favoured concessions for senior citizens and students. "The Metro ridership has gone up to 28 lakh in past 20 days and I believe it could go up to 45 lakh although the conservative esti-mate of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation(DMRC) manag-ing director puts it at 39 lakh," he said.

The Housing and Urban Affairs Minister was speaking to reporters after the inaugu-ration of Durgabai Deshmukh South Campus-Lajpat Nagar section of Pink Line. The good news is that the Delhi Metro rail is reaching a point of maturity and the ridership is increasing, he said. On being asked about any future hike in the Delhi Metro fares, the min-ister said, "Let me tell you, this time I am convinced that the steps we have taken and the improved financial condition

(of DMRC) as well as good rid-ership, I do not think we need to increase the fares".

The metro fares had almost doubled after two phased hikes in May and October last year, following recommendations of the fourth fare fixation com-mittee which comprises rep-resentatives from the Centre and the Delhi government. Puri noted if revenue situation remained good, there was no question of recommending an increase in the fares. He also underlined the need to bring technology-based solutions to provide "respite" to senior citi-zens and students availing the metro rail services.

The Union minister, who was accompanied by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejri-wal, said solutions to problems like delayed Phase IV would be found in a cooperative manner. He said it was the duty of both the Centre and the Delhi gov-ernment to support DMRC in its expansion plans. "It is our duty- myself and Chief Min-ister Arvind Kejriwal- to sup-port them (DMRC) which we are doing,” Puri said.

Future hike in Delhi Metro fares unlikely: Puri

NEW DELHI: South Delhi Municipal Corporation has made special arrangements to counter the fear of an increase in malaria cases this year dur-ing monsoon. SDMC Mayor Narendra Chawla said that staff entitled to handle malaria will be working on Sundays and their weekly holiday will be granted on Wednesday in lieu of their working on holidays.

This stride will enable

them to contact residents on Sundays and provide the information in regard to the prevention of malaria and other precautionary mea-sures. It enables them to meet citizens at their places on Sunday which is a holiday for most.

Apart from this, the staff can also dispense informa-tion to the citizens on preven-tion from Malaria Anopheles Mosquito.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: At least 21 cases of malaria have been reported in the first four days of July in Delhi, taking the total number of people affected by the vector-borne disease in the city this season to 109, according to a municipal report released on Monday. Two cases of malaria were reported in February, one each in April and March, 17 in May, 25 in June, 42 in July and 21 till August 4, according to the report released by the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC), which tabulates data on vector-borne diseases for the city.

Of the total 56 dengue cases this season, seven were reported till August 4, 19 were reported in July, six in Janu-ary, three in February, one in March, two in April, 10 in May and eight in June.

Two fresh cases of chikun-gunya have also been reported in the last week, taking the total

number of people affected this season to 37.

A senior doctor at a gov-ernment-run facility said both dengue and malaria have dif-ferent carriers. Therefore, it is not unusual for malaria cases to be reported in larger number compared to dengue.

He advised people to take all precautions, like wearing full-sleeve clothes and not allowing breeding of mosquito larvae inside homes.

"Water coolers should be dried up when not in use as dengue infection carrying mos-quitoes breed there a lot. Mos-quito nets should be used at home," the doctor said.

The cases of vector-borne diseases are usually reported between July and November, but the period may stretch to mid-December. No vec-tor-borne disease case was reported till January 13.

The report said domestic breeding checkers have found mosquito breeding in 77,272

households in the city till August 4.

It said 77,508 legal notices have been served for various violations and "9,292 prosecu-tions have been initiated".

On June 28, Delhi Lt Gov-ernor Anil Baijal had directed

local bodies and other agen-cies to intensify vector con-trol measures. He had also asked for regular meetings at the level of district magistrates with all stakeholders to review the situation in their respective districts.

109 malaria, 56 dengue cases reported in Delhi this season

YOGESH KANT

NEW DELHI: The much awaited section of Pink line, 8.1-km Durgabai Deshmukh–Lajpat Nagar, formally became operational on Monday. This new stretch comes as a big relief to commuters as it is expected to cut down the major traffic away from the Delhi’s arterial roads. The stretch was inaugu-rated by Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of State ( indepen-dent charge), Housing and Urban Affair and Chief Min-ister Arvind Kejriwal at 9:30 am during a ceremony.

The new section has six sta-tions –Sir Vishweshariah Moti Bagh, Bhikaji Cama Place, Sarojini Nagar, INA, South Extension and Lajpat Nagar. Except Moti Bagh, all five are underground. INA and Lajpat Nagar are also interchange sta-tions for the Yellow Line and the Violet Line respectively.

The Durgabai Deshmukh South Campus (DDSC)-Lajpat Nagar section will reduce travel time for commuters drastically. One will be able to travel from INA to Rajouri Garden in 23 minutes, instead of the earlier 40 minutes. Lajpat Nagar to Rajouri Garden would take 28 minutes now, instead of the earlier 45 minutes, while it will take 39 minutes instead of 47 minutes to travel from Lajpat

Nagar to Netaji Subhas Place in the Red Line. Twenty trains will ply from Majlis Park to Lajpat Nagar with a frequency of 5 minutes 25 seconds dur-ing peak hours from Mon-day to Saturday, said a Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Lim-ited (DMRC) spokesperson.

Addressing the gathering on the occasion, Puri said, “Metro serves a very useful purpose because it takes the pressure off private means of transport and brings more people to an efficient, green mode of public transport.” Meanwhile, Delhi Chief Min-ister Kejriwal applauded the Delhi Metro for the opening of the section and said, “It is a day of happiness for the peo-ple of Delhi as a section of the Pink Line from Durgabai

Deshmukh South Campus to Lajpat Nagar is being started. This section will connect the city’s prominent markets by Metro. The problem of park-ing in these markets will also be solved.”

DMRC’s Managing Direc-tor, Dr Mangu Singh said that DMRC’s engineers had con-structed the section in the best possible manner with high quality artwork, landscap-ing etc. All the six stations of the newly inaugurated sec-tion were also awarded with the ‘Platinum’ rating by the Indian Green Building Coun-cil (IGBC) for adherence to green building norms. With the opening of this section, the Delhi Metro network has now become 296 kilometres long with 214 Metro stations.

Union Ministers Hardeep Singh Puri (C), Ananth Kumar (L) and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal flag off a section of Pink Line metro in New Delhi

Special arrangements to fend off malaria

SAYANTAN GHOSH

NEW DELHI: Delhi Com-mission for Women (DCW) is set to conduct a social audit of all shelter homes for women and girls in Delhi. DCW Chief Swati Maliwal has set up an expert committee on the matter which will conduct social audit of all shelter homes and sub-mit its report in three months. Commenting on the matter, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said, "A detailed and thorough investigation of all homes should also be done."

The Delhi Commission for Women has set up an expert committee to conduct a detailed social audit of all the shelter homes in the city where women and girls are residing. This committee shall consist of academicians, lawyers, mental health experts as well as social workers. "The commission on

its own has conducted several inspections in govt run shelter homes in Delhi.

The commission has also inspected several private homes on receipt of complaints. This committee shall undertake comprehensive social audits. Muzzafarpur and Deoria inci-dents have shocked the entire nation. It is the need of the hour to comprehensively audit the functioning of each and every shelter home in the country," said Maliwal.

Officials said that the com-mittee shall have the mandate to inspect and assess the condi-tions of govt as well as private run shelter homes for women and girls. The expert committee shall give detailed observations on the condition of girls and women in the homes, the facil-ities provided in the homes, the security measures under-taken and the rehabilitation

programme being followed by the shelter homes. "To the best possible extent, the com-mittee shall ensure surprise inspections of these homes. The members of the expert committee shall be required to have detailed interviews with the girls and women to prop-erly ascertain if any problem exists in these homes," said an official.

Recently, a horror unfolded in Muzaffarpur shelter home, in which at least 34 girls sex-ually abused have shaken the entire nation. As the investiga-tion by the CBI further unfolds, shocking facts have been revealed. It was also revealed that at least 11 women and four children were reported missing from another home. On this, the second FIR against Brajesh Thakur, the man who runs the shelter home, was registered against him by the police.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: In a bid to create more awareness and enhance the measures, prom-inent doctors have come up with specific guidelines to res-cue people who suffer cardiac arrest. The Indian Association of Anaesthesiologists (ISA) comprising of doctors from AIIMS and other prestigious hospitals across India have sug-gested Compression-only Life Support (COLS) for cardiopul-monary resuscitation (CPR) to save the life of people who suf-fer cardiac arrest and is isolated from the medical facilities.

According to the experts, “The guideline clearly pre-scribes the procedures to be followed before the patient is rushed to a hospital. They said, in most of the cases, chest-compression can save the life. "Chances of survival of patients gets doubled or tripled by using such procedures during the golden minutes," said Dr Rakesh Garg, associate profes-sor of anesthesiology, intensive care and palliative medicine at AIIMS. He also said that they will disburse the certificates for the training session so that people would rely on them for urgent needs.

These guidelines were pub-lished in Journal of Indian Journal of Anaesthesia. "The compression-only CPR is sim-ple and can be easily performed by any untrained layman. Till date only international guide-lines were accepted in India but now, ISA along with the AIIMS experts have developed the first Indian CPR guidelines for common people."

ROUSHAN ALI

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Assembly on Monday witnessed high drama after a BJP MLA used an 'objectionable' word against a ruling AAP legisla-tor during a discussion on water shortage in the national Capital. When BJP MLA Om Prakash Sharma made an 'objectionable' remark against AAP legislator Amanatullah Khan in the Delhi Assembly, Speaker Ram Niwas Goel referred the matter to the Privileges Committee of the House.

Goel's action came after the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legislators demanded action against the Viswas Nagar MLA's remark which they called an "insult of the House". "The word used is objectionable. I am referring the matter to the Privileges Committee and order them to present a report as soon as possible," Goel said.

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia also condemned Sharma's language and said it can-not be tolerated in the House. He said those in power at the Centre and in opposition in Delhi have a mentality of dividing the country. "The country belongs to all and not just any one reli-gion. This is not the question of an MLA in power or the opposition," Sisodia said in the House. Sharma was raising water and sewage issues in the assembly during a discussion on the problems faced by the public. During the speech, Sharma also attacked the Delhi govern-ment officers.

When Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA used objectionable language for an IAS offi-cer, Khan interrupted him. In reaction, Sharma asked Khan to "behave like humans" and used objectionable language for Khan as well. Later, the Speaker expunged the word used by Sharma from the House proceedings. Demanding apol-ogy and action against Sharma, several AAP MLAs gathered near the Speaker's podium.

Following ruckus over the issue, Speaker adjourned the House for 30 minutes. When the House sat again, Burari MLA Sanjeev Jha pro-posed to refer the matter of Sharma to the Priv-ileges Committee. While proposing to refer the matter of Sharma to the Committee, Jha alleged that country cannot be "divided" in the name of religion.

DCW to conduct social audit of shelter homes across Delhi

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The APP gov-ernment will challenge the Delhi High Court verdict that quashed its notification on the revision of minimum wages for workers, Labour minister Gopal Rai said on Monday.

In its August 4 verdict, the court scrapped the Delhi government's much-touted March 2017 order revising the minimum wages for all classes of workmen in sched-uled employment, saying the "hurried" decision was taken without hearing the employ-ers or employees who would be affected and would violate the Constitution.

In a meeting with officers of his department, Rai reviewed the court order.

"Delhi government will challenge the verdict through a special leave petition in the Supreme Court," Rai told reporters.

The strategy to be followed by the government in challeng-ing the High Court verdict will be discussed with the counsel of the department in a meeting on Tuesday, he said.

The minister claimed that the order impacts the inter-ests of around 50-60 lakh employees, and the opinion of the trade unions will also be sought on the issue through a meeting with them on August 9.

The government will also explore administrative ways to find a solution, he said.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: On the first day of the Delhi Assembly mon-soon session, the AAP govern-ment passed a resolution for the creation of Delhi Public Service Commission, which will not only give power to the state government over offi-cials recruited through the commission but also provide

basic "services" in the city. While presenting the resolu-tion, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Chief Spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj said that the Com-mission would be created "within a period of six weeks from the date of adoption of this resolution."

Taking cognizance of huge number of vacancies in various sectors of governance, Bharad-

waj said: "Unfulfilled vacancies are increasing in number every year due to huge workload on and set priorities of recruiting agencies such as UPSC, leading to further deficiencies in deliv-ery of services."

Hence, he said, the legisla-tive Assembly of NCT of Delhi resolves that there shall be a separate Public Service Com-mission for Delhi.

Doctors suggest CPR guidelines

Delhi Govt move to SC against quashing of

minimum wages

Opposition Leader Vijender Gupta, O P Sharma talking to media after walkout from the Delhi Assembly on the first day of the session PIC/NAVEEN SHARMA

BJP MLA uses objectionable word against AAP legislator

Resolution passed for creation of Delhi PSCNEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court expressed unhappiness on Monday over the function-ing of the authorities in restor-ing Rajghat, a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi, and termed it "really unfortunate".

A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Jus-tice C Hari Shankar said it was "saddening" to see the treat-ment being meted out to the

samadhi. "This is very sadden-ing that the samadhi, which is considered as a temple, is being treated in such a way," it said.

The bench pointed out that the trees planted by the digni-taries are "dead" now and even the original drawing of the samadhi was not there.

"We feel we could have done something for the Father of the Nation," it said, adding

that "it is really unfortunate".It also observed that in

so many days, what has been transpired was that the authori-ties were not willing to do any-thing for restoration of the memorial.

The bench was given an assurance by Additional Solic-itor General Maninder Acha-rya, appearing for the Centre, that every step will be taken to

restore the samadhi.It also said that the exper-

tise of professor K T Ravindran, former dean of the School of Planning and Architecture, be utilised in the matter and the deficiencies pointed out be rectified.

"We expect that every necessary step to restore the samadhi shall be taken," the bench said. AGENCIES

HC unhappy over condition of Rajghat

mp city4MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 7 August, 2018

Man kills wife before hanging himself from ceiling fan

REGULAR SERVICE OF EKATMATA EXPRESS TRAIN TO RESUME FROM AUGUST 7NEW DELHI: It is notified to the general public that for the convenience of the rail passengers, regular service of Ekatmata express (train no 14262/14261 Lucknow-Mughalsarai-Lucknow), two days in a week will commence from August 7. The Ekatmata ex-press train (14262 Lucknow-Mughalsarai, now Pt Deendayal Upadhyay Jn), two days in a week will depart on every Tuesday & Thursday from August 7 from Lucknow at 11.35 pm to arrive at Pt Deen-dayal Upadhyay Jn at 06.55 am the next day. In the return direction, the Ekatmata express train (14261 Pt Dindayal Upadhyay Jn-Lucknow) two days a week will depart on every Wednesday & Friday from August 8 at 11.00 pm to arrive at Lucknow at 05.10 am the next day.

SPECIAL TRAIN BETWEEN DELHI JN AND SHRI MATA VAISNO DEVI KATRA NEW DELHI: In order to clear extra rush of passen-gers, Northern Railway will run the special train No 04409/04410 Delhi Jn to Shri Mata Vaishno Devi (Katra-Delhi Jn) as per the following schedule. The 04409 Delhi Jn-Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra Express Special Train will depart from Delhi Jn on August 10 & 14 at 09.10 pm to reach Shri Mata Vaishno Delhi Katra at 11.30 am the next day. In the return direc-tion, the 04410 Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra-Delhi Jn. Special train will depart from Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra on August 11 & 15 at 01.30 pm to reach Delhi Jn at 03.00 am the next day.

MAN KILLED IN ROHINI JAPANESE PARK NEW DELHI: A man was murder in the Japanese Park area in Rohini on Monday. The deceased was identi-fied as Prashant who lived in Naharpur area and was a native of Bihar. The police claimed that the victim had gone to the park where he had an argument with some persons after which they attacked him with a blunt object and fled the spot. He was declared brought dead at hospital.

BOY ALLEGES HARASSMENTNEW DELHI: A minor boy on Monday has alleged that he was harassed by another kid in Vivek Vihar area inside a bus. The police claimed that they have received the complaint and investigation is on.

CITY BRIEFS Police book over 300 during ‘reclaiming public space’ drive

Delhi Police to question militant

arrested in Jammu

Street crime: Women gang rob half-a-dozen men after seeking help

Thieves attack PCR team with stones, nabbed

2 arrested for robbing hair worth Rs 25 lakh

Car runs over maid, accused

arrested

Thousands of commercial units at risk of being sealed by MCG

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Delhi Police on Monday claimed that it has arrested two persons for robbing hair worth Rs 25 lakh from the Outer Delhi area. The accused were trying to sell the hair but before they could do so they were arrested.

The accused were identi-fied as Mangel Sain and Ajay Kumar. On July 27, a PCR call was received at Nangloi police station regarding the rob-bery of hair (used in prepar-ing wigs).

The complainant Jahangir Hussain stated that three per-sons posing as customers had visited their shop and started inspecting the hair. “Suddenly, one person put out a Deshi Katta and overpowered the complainant and his brother. They confined them to a room and then robbed five to six gunny bags of hair and cash Rs 30,000 along with mobile phones of the complainant,” police said.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Outer) Seju P Kuru-

villa stated that they analysed the CDRs and IMEIs of sus-pected persons. After using one SIM card for three to four days, the accused used to change the SIM cards. “The team identi-fied Mangal Sen and on August 5, he was nabbed from Ram-pur in UP and recovered three mobile phones from his posses-sion,” said the DCP. He further claimed that the accused along with Rahul, Rajesh and two other persons hatched the con-spiracy with one Ajay Kumar.

On the day of the incident Sain along with two persons entered the premises of the complainant posing as custom-ers and committed the crime while the others remained in the car outside the complain-ant’s house.

Ajay was arrested from Outer Delhi. He disclosed that the robbed hair was kept in Laxmi Nagar area. There-after, the police conducted the raid and recovered 118 kg of the robbed hair on his instance from Ganesh Nagar, Pandav Nagar and from his godown in the presence of complainant.

NEW DELHI: Even after being attacked with stones by thieves, the staff of a Delhi Police PCR unit on Sunday nabbed one of them from North Delhi’s Burari area.

Police claimed that on the intervening night of 4-5 August, a PCR call was received at about 2.30 am that two boys are carrying a motorcycle under suspicious circumstances. Deputy Com-missioner of Police (PCR) SD Mishra stated that a PCR team that was immediately rushed to the spot saw two boys carrying a motorcycle.

When the boys saw the police, they tried to flee but the PCR staff started chasing them. Head Constable Ishwar Daya managed to overpower one of the thieves. Finding his accomplice caught, the other thief started throwing stones at the PCR staff. As a conse-quence, Assistant Sub Inspec-tor Amar Singh sustained injuries on his face and eyes. The accused who was identi-fied as Sunny was handed over to the local police. MPOST

ZAFAR ABBAS

NEW DELHI: In the wake of armed scuffles between stu-dents in which a 17-year-old student died in North East Del-hi’s Jyoti Nagar and another severely injured in Shahda-ra’s Krishna Nagar, the Delhi police have sent its men in uni-form to schools to spend some time with the students. The purpose of the initiative is to build a sense of security among school students.

Policemen and lady offi-cers on Monday were seen outside as well as inside the school premises interacting with students aiming to build confidence.

When the Millennium Post talked to Shahdara DCP Meghna Yadav, she was quick to add that the presence of police around the school and interaction is going to posi-tively channelise the students’ energy instead of negative diversions.

“We also feel that the pres-ence of policemen around the school will deter the anti-social elements and the girls in all-girls schools, as well as Co-ed, will feel safer. They can freely discuss their issues with

the police team helping us to build a more secure environ-ment,” said Meghna Yadav, DCP Shahdara.

Through interaction with students, the police team also intends an image makeover for the force. “We also plan a police station visit for the students anytime soon. This will also bring the children a bit closer to the law enforcement agency. They will come out of their prejudices against the men in uniform. We are sure this will

bring a positive change about the perception of the police force,” the officer said.

On being asked about the continuation of the interaction process, she stated, “Yes, we intend this procedure of inter-mingling and interaction with students to continue. It is an ongoing process and we have done this in various forms. Delhi Police’s ‘YUVA’ scheme is the best example where we are directing the energy of stu-dents in a positive direction.”

ABHAY SINGH

NEW DELHI: ‘Reclaiming Public Spaces’ drive of Delhi Police has surprised more than 300 people who were booked under different sec-tions of Indian Penal Code for their illegal activities in pub-lic spaces.

Police claimed that more than 400 cases have been reg-istered. According to police, around 179 cases were reported under Section 283 (Danger or obstruction in public way or line of navigation) of IPC from 13 police stations in North Delhi.

The highest number of cases were from Roop Nagar area (46 cases), Lahori Gate (35 cases) and Kotwali (33 cases). Most of the cases were of the encroachment of public spaces

like the road which caused sev-eral problems for the inhabit-ants. In this regard, police have booked around 150 people. Under Section 188 (disobedi-ence to order duly promulgated by public servant) around 149 cases were further reported and more than 150 people were booked.

Reclamation of pub-lic spaces has been aimed at improvement of the built environment solely for pub-lic usage.

Recently, it was found that families started avoiding public spaces due to the presence of anti-social elements fostered by illegal activities like gambling and drinking liquor.

Around 50 cases were regis-tered under the Gambling Act and more than 10 cases were reported from Subzi Mandi

police station. Nine cases were reported from Civil Lines area. Police booked several people under the section whosoever is found gambling in public spaces.

Under Section 40 (A) of Delhi Excise Act, more than 200 cases were reported in 13 police stations. The highest number of cases were reported from Subzi Mandi (66 cases), Sarai Rohilla (65 cases) and Burari (19 cases). Over 200 people were booked under 40 Excise Act and 242 Kalandra was issued.

To keep North Delhi safe, park patrolling was done to sanitize public spaces from anti-social elements. “Night patrolling is going on in the district to make sure the resi-dents feel safe,” said a senior police officer.

RAHUL SINGH

GREATER NOIDA: A 47-year-old man reportedly committed suicide by hang-ing himself from the ceiling fan after brutally murdering his wife in Galaxy Vega residential society of Greater Noida West on Sunday night. Police said that the couple was found dead in their house on late Sunday night and the man had writ-ten in detail about the murder.

Girish Bhatnagar had been living with his 30-year-old sec-ond wife Manisha in flat num-ber E-1802 in the society. The couple often quarrelled with each other over petty issues ever since they shifted to the society more than six months ago, said some residents of the society.

According to Superinten-dent of Police (rural) Ashish Shrivastava, the deceased’s brother alerted the police after he failed to reach his sister even after several calls on her mobile phone and also on the intercom.

“The woman’s brother tried

calling his sister since evening but no one received the call. He suspected something fishy and alerted the police on late Sun-day night. A team from Bisrakh police station along with her brother and the guards from the society reached the flat but found that it was locked from inside.

The police broke the door and found that the woman was lying dead in a pool of blood on the floor while her husband was found hanging from the ceiling fan in the drawing room of the house,” said Shrivastava.

The officer further said that the woman was brutally mur-

dered with a blunt and heavy object and a suicide note was recovered from the spot in which the man had detailed about the murder.

“The woman was found murdered with a blunt object and her face was crushed with a heavy object. The police recov-ered a suicide note from the spot in which the accused had mentioned that he murdered his wife over family feud,” added Shrivastava.

The police said that the bodies of both the deceased persons were sent for post-mortem and investigations are underway.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Delhi Police will interrogate a militant who was arrested with eight gre-nades in Jammu late on Sun-day night, days ahead of the Independence Day. A team of Delhi Police’s Special Cell is in Jammu and will be questioning Arfan Wani, a resident of Awa-ntipora in Pulwama district of south Kashmir. Eight live hand grenades and Rs 60,000 in cash were recovered from his possession.

Acting on intelligence inputs, police intercepted a bus in Gandhi Nagar area in Jammu late Sunday night and arrested Wani, a police officer said. Police and other security agencies are alert in the wake of intelligence inputs that mili-tants of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Hizbul Mujahideen plan to carry out terror strikes in Jammu and New Delhi on the occasion of Independence Day on August 15.

Violent clashes lead police to hold interaction sessions with students

Through interaction with students, the police team also intends an image makeover for the force

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Two women who used to rob men on the pretext of seeking help or by enticing in South East Delhi were arrested by the patrol-ling staff from Amar Colony on August 4.

The police claimed that dur-ing the crime, they also used to threaten the victims with lodging false charges against them if they tried to report the matter to police. The accused women disclosed that in the past two-three months, they robbed around 5-6 men and fearing social stigma, the vic-tims might not have reported the matter to the police.

The accused were identi-fied as Sweety (24) and Muskan (25). On the day of their arrest, the ERV staff of Amar Colony police station were patrolling near Moolchand Metro Sta-tion. During the patrolling, they noticed that one person was shouting chor chor and was running behind two women. Later, the women were nabbed and the incident was found to

be a case of snatching. Deputy Commissioner of

Police (South East) Chinmoy Biswal stated that the complain-ant stated that he was going to his home on his motorcycle and at about 9.30 pm. When he reached near Moolchand Metro Station, he was signalled by the two women who were shouting Help! Help!

When he stopped his bike, one of the women whose name

was known as Muskan slapped him. He fell from the motorcy-cle. The second woman Sweety took out his purse and both ran away towards the Ring Road, Lajpat Nagar. “In order to earn their livelihood, the two women started robbing single men in the night. They used to allure the victim as well as seek help. When the victim came to extend his help, they would rob him,” added the DCP.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police has booked a 20-year-old driver for allegedly running over a housemaid in Model Town on Sunday.

The police said that the accused Chandan while tak-ing a turn accelerated and ran over the woman.

She has been admitted to a hospital where she is undergo-ing treatment. Locals gathered at the spot demanding action against the accused. Accord-ing to police sources, the car belonged to a local doctor, Dharam Rastogi.

“We have registered a case under section 279 and 337 of IPC. The driver has been arrested,” said a senior police officer. The 28-year-old woman worked as a domestic help in the Model Town area and was returning home when the inci-dent took place.

She was immediately rushed to hospital after the incident and the police were informed. The woman is from Darbhanga, Bihar.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

GREATER NOIDA: Accord-ing to the residents of Gal-axy Vega Society of Greater Noida West, the couple, who were found dead in their flat, used to quarrel with each other frequently.

“Very often, we used to hear loud scream and shouts from the flat but it was not clear over what issues they used to fight. As time passed, we came to know that the woman was his second wife while he had a son from his first wife who used to live in a flat with his grandpar-ents at another residential soci-ety of Greater Noida West,” said Ajay Singh, a resident of Galaxy Vega Society.

Another resident said that a property dispute broke out between the couple after the marriage which soured their relations. The woman also sus-

pected him to be having an illicit relationship with another woman. “The woman did not mix up with neighbours and other residents. From her dis-tant relatives, we came to know that she was upset with her husband over his illicit rela-tion with some other woman and also she wanted her rights to the property of the man so as to secure her future,” said a resident of the society.

Girish got married to his second wife Manisha in 2016 through a matrimonial website. He mentioned in his suicide note that his wife claimed that she was single but later it was revealed that she was divorced from her first husband which led to disputes between them. He also mentioned in his last note that the woman’s family members used to harass him and quarrel with him over a property dispute.

Property dispute, illicit relation lead to tragic end of couple

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: A 29-year-old man shot at his friend after a heated argument during their phone conversation in Vasant Kunj in South West Delhi.

The accused was identified as Lalit who was arrested from Gurugram on July 6. The police claimed that on the day of the incident, Lalit along with his three associates had come to meet his old friend Tushar in Satya Niketan.

They all had food and bev-erages at this get-together. Thereafter, Lalit dialled one of his friends Tushar to ascertain his well being. Lalit who was

heavily drunk had a heated argument during their phone conversation which angered Lalit.

He immediately took an exit from the house with a weapon and rushed to Satya Niketan market where Tushar was and fired two rounds from his revolver at him.

The police started the search for the accused and scanned areas around pubs on MG Road in Gurugram and Hauz Khas in Delhi. At least, 125 persons were interrogated by the police before the accused was nailed down. Finally, he was arrested from Udyog Vihar, Gurugram.

PIYUSH OHRIE

GURUGRAM: The Munici-pal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) is all set to act against the commercial units that have not paid the property taxes.

Action may be initiated by the municipal body after the deadline for the payment of the taxes came to an on July 31. To encourage the citizens to pay the taxes in large numbers, the MCG had given a rebate of 10 per cent. The carrot and stick policy adopted by the munici-pal body seems to have paid off as the number of taxpayers this season is likely to go up. As of now, the property tax collected amounts to Rs 110 crore.

A major challenge for the public agency is to check the growth of commercial struc-

tures in residential colonies. Association of DLF Phase-2

has stated that there are over 159 houses which have allowed commercial activities in their premises. A notice was sent to one of the owners in Saraswati Kunj who was running a hotel in his house. The chaos and con-flict that can break out with a delayed action was experienced last year in Beverly Park situ-ated along the MG Road. The

public agencies literally clashed with residents of Beverly Park who tried to prevent the demo-lition of commercial structures in their area.

DLF Phase-3 has a large number of PG houses and guest houses, owing to its proximity to various commercial areas like Cyber City and Golf Course Road. Most of these PGs are not licensed. These houses are built in an area of 150 to 200 square yards with more than five sto-reys. Further, most of the land-owners in lieu of greater profit are taking in more tenants than required.

Even though notices by the Department of Town and Plan-ning (DTP) have been sent to these landowners in the past, there has been no concrete action taken against them.

A major challenge is to check the growth of commercial structures in residential areas

Man shot at by friend after heated argument

No spirituality can be attached to criminal activities: High Court on famous Hanuman statue at pavement

NEW DELHI: No spiritual-ity can be attached to criminal activities, the Delhi High Court said on Monday, observing that it was “unfortunate and pain-ful” that a 108-foot Hanuman statue was allowed to be raised on public land’s pavement in the city.

The court, which had earlier directed the CBI to probe how the famous Hanuman statue came to be built on public land in the busy Karol Bagh area of the city, asked the agency to ensure that the matter is dealt with seriously and stringent action is taken against all the law breakers.

A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar said if prose-cution is launched against any person, the court concerned

shall ensure that the matter is dealt with expeditiously and guilty are brought to book.

The court said a “very unfortunate” stand was taken

by land owning agencies in this matter as none of them have come forward to say that the land belongs to them.

“It is very unfortunate that a 108-foot statue has been allowed to come on a public land...,” the bench said.

It added that the issue required a closer scrutiny and the facts manifest grave issues of corruption and public fraud.

The bench said it was “pain-ful” that this kind of encroach-ment has been allowed to be raised on a pavement on the main road and every person party to this “fraud” needs to be dealt with a heavy hand.

mp nation 5MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 7 August, 2018

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Amidst an ongoing controversy over the National Register of Citizens (NRC), former Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Mon-day asked the Narendra Modi government to publish a ‘white paper’ on the number of foreign-ers it has detected and deported during its four-year rule.

The senior Congress leader also claimed that the NRC, being updated in Assam, was conceived by his government in 2005, but the BJP has been try-ing to hijack it for political gain.

“I demand that the govern-ment publish a white paper on how many Indians were detected and deported in last four years and what action have been taken to seal the border (with Bangladesh). We want a clear picture,” he said at a press conference here.

Gogoi said it was the Con-gress government under him that had first launched the pro-cess of updating the NRC and set up a committee under the chairmanship of the then Min-ister Bhumidhar Barnman in 2005. He said in that commit-tee, the then minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who is now a min-ister in the Assam’s BJP govern-ment, was a member.

Another sub-committee, headed by Sarma, was also con-stituted in 2007 to expedite the NRC updation process.

“The NRC is my baby, the Congress’s baby. We are the nat-ural father. (Narendra) Modi is the foster father. We want the NRC to be implemented in a just and fair manner. All genu-ine Indians must be included in the NRC,” he said.

The former chief minis-ter said the draft NRC, which was published on July 30 and excluded names of over 40 lakh residents of the state, did not give any indication how many foreigners were found in the exercise. “Till now there is no idea about foreigners”.

“On one hand the govern-ment is saying we could not describe anyone as foreigner and on the other hand BJP president

Amit Shah is saying that they were all illegal immigrants. This is a complete contrary view,” he said.

Gogoi said a pilot project of the NRC was launched in 2010 but it had to be put on hold due to violence. He said the moni-toring of NRC by the Supreme Court had started only in 2014 but the exercise was started in 2013 by his government, which also appointed NRC coordina-tor Prateek Hajela.

“Now everybody wants to take credit. The BJP is good in hijacking everything. They hijacked (legacy of Mahatma) Gandhi, (Sardar Vallabhbhai) Patel, Swami Vivekananda and even (B R) Ambedkar. They are expert in hijacking,” he said.

Blasting BJP president Amit Shah for his reported comments that the 40 lakh people excluded from the draft NRC were “ille-gal immigrants”, Gogoi said how did he know that all were foreigners when there was no data on it.

Shah had described the NRC as the soul of the Assam Accord but at the same time his party is the architect of the Citizen-

ship Amendment Bill, which supports citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains who have entered India till 2014, he said.

“The NRC and the Citizen-ship Amendment Bill cannot go together. The cut-off date for NRC is 1971 while the Bill provides for citizenship to those who have entered India till 2014. It is nothing but double stan-dard. The Bill violates the spirit of secularism and the Constitu-tion,” he said.

The veteran Congress leader claimed that the vast majority of the 40 lakh people who were excluded from the draft NRC were Indian nationals, and at the same time many foreigners were included.

“Former chief minister Anowara Taimur’s name was excluded. Two security offi-cers of the chief minister (Sar-bananda Sonowal) were not in the NRC. They are ‘D’ (doubt-ful) voters. There are many defects and leakages in NRC. Vast majority of the ‘D’ vot-ers are Bengali Hindus. We are fighting for all - Hindus, Mus-lims everyone,” he said.

Tarun Gogoi says NRC Congress’ baby; demands ‘white paper’ on foreigners

OUR CORRESPONDENT

MUMBAI: Latching onto Union minister Nitin Gadkari’s “where are the jobs” remark over Maratha quota stir, the Congress on Monday said the comment is an “endorsement” of its claim that the Modi gov-ernment had “failed” in creat-ing jobs.

Maharashtra Congress president Ashok Chavan also asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi where were the jobs the latter had promised to in the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

“What we have been saying from last 4 years on the fail-ure of Modi Govt in Job cre-ation, is now being endorsed by Mr Nitin Gadkari, Modiji nation wants to know #Where-AreTheJobs which you prom-ised,” Chavan said on Twitter.

Gadkari, while respond-ing to reporters’ questions

in Aurangabad on Saturday, on the ongoing agitation by Marathas for reservation and similar demands by other com-munities in Maharashtra, had said, “Let’s us assume the res-ervation is given. But there are no jobs.” “Because in banks, the jobs have shrunk because of IT. The government recruit-ment is frozen. Where are the jobs?” he had asked.

Gadkari had also said that there was a “school of thought” which wants policy-makers to consider the poorest of poor in every community.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi latched onto the remark made by the senior BJP leader on Monday and said, “Excellent question Gad-kari Ji. Every Indian is asking the same question.”

The Congress was attack-ing the government, alleging that it had “failed” to provide jobs as promised by it before

coming to power. The politi-cally-influential Maratha com-munity, constituting around 30 per cent of Maharashtra’s population, has been agitating to press their demand for res-ervation in jobs and education.

Meanwhile, Mumbai Con-gress president Sanjay Niru-pam has attacked the BJP-led NDA governments in Maha-rashtra and at the Centre over the Maratha reservation issue.

He said Union minis-ter Nitin Gadkari’s remark is “contradictory” to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fad-navis’ assurance yesterday that the statutory obligations per-taining to the Maratha quota will be completed by Novem-ber-end this year.

“On one hand, Fadnavis announces that all the Con-stitutional obligations will be completed by November-end while on the other hand a Union minister (Gadkari) of

the BJP is questioning the ratio-nale behind this entire idea (of granting reservation by ques-tioning the availability of gov-ernment jobs),” Nirupam stated in a release today.

He alleged the BJP is oper-ating in a “self-contradic-tory” mode on the issue and is trying to “hide” something “desperately”.

“In their manifesto for 2014 polls, the BJP had promised to create two crore jobs per year. At a time when approximately 30,000 youngsters are joining the job market every day, the government is providing jobs to only 450 of them. Where are the remaining youngsters supposed to go? What alterna-tive the government has pro-vided to the job aspirants?” he questioned.

The Congress leader said the government has been “apathetic” to the cause of the Marathas.

‘Gadkari’s remark an endorsement of Congress claim on lack of jobs’

DHIRENDRA KUMAR

NEW DELHI: Facing the heat of opposition as well as judges of the Supreme Court over the issue of lowering the senior-ity of Justice KM Joseph, the government on Monday came out with facts stating that the decision has been taken as per the law and no ‘inappropri-ate’ trend has been followed to decide the seniority of judges in the country.

According to a senior gov-ernment official, the seniority of judges has been decided on the basis of the date on which they take the oath of a high court judge.

“The notification regard-ing the elevation of Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Vineet Saran is on the basis of their seniority only. Banerjee was appointed as High Court Judge on February 5, 2002, while Saran took the charge of HC Judge on February 14,

2002, and Joseph on Octo-ber 14, 2004,” the official said, adding that both the judges are senior to Justice Joseph in all India seniority of high court judges.

As per the official, Justice Banerjee is at fourth place, while Justice Saran is at fifth, and Justice Joseph is at 39th place in all India seniority of HC judges, which means both the judges are much senior to Justice Joseph.

According to an official note issued by the Law Minis-try, it has been stated that none of the three judges will become the Chief Justice of India as there are other Supreme Court judges who have been elevated to the Supreme Court and are senior to them.

Terming the allegations that government is trying to kill the prospects of Justice Joseph’s ele-vation to the CJI level as base-less, the note said that Justice Joseph will retire on June 16,

2023, and Justice Chandra-chud, who is senior to all the three judges, will continue till November 2014.

Citing the example of ele-vation of the incumbent CJI Justice Dipak Misra, the min-istry through an official com-muniqué said, “Justice Misra had become HC judge on Jan-uary 17, 1996, while Justice

Chelameswar had become HC judge on June 23, 1997. Inter-estingly, Justice Chelameswar became Chief Justice of a high court in 2007, which is much earlier than Justice Misra as he became Chief Justice of HC in 2009.”

“Justice Misra retained the seniority over Justice Chelameswar as the appoint-

ment of Chief Justice of HC doesn’t alter the all India seniority of HC judges,” the note said.

The President of India had on Friday appointed Madras High Court Chief Justice Indira Banerjee, Orissa HC CJ Vineet Saran and Uttarakhand HC CJ K M Joseph as judges of the Supreme Court.

Notably, at present, the SC has 22 judges. With Friday’s appointments, it will have six vacancies. With the elevation of Justice Banerjee, the SC will have a total of three woman judges, that includes Jus-tices R Bhanumathi and Indu Malhotra.

Justice Joseph is, currently, the longest-serving Chief Jus-tice of a HC in the country and has served as CJ of Utta-rakhand for a little over four years. Justice Joseph will have a longer tenure as SC judge as compared to Justices Banerjee and Saran.

Govt defends Joseph’s seniority

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Accusing the BJP-led Centre of unleashing "super emergency", TMC lead-ers on Monday protested out-side Parliament to voice their objections to the government's "interference" in media houses and the implementation of NRC in Assam.

Armed with placards, sev-eral Trinamool Congress lead-ers staged a 'dharna' outside Parliament over the issues.

"Prominent media houses are either being bought over or threatened. Resignations of two top executives, editor-in-chief and popular anchor of ABP News Network, indi-cate increasing government interference. Shows are being blacked out and defamation cases have been filed against

news organisations," TMC MP Derek O'Brien told reporters.

Pointing fingers at the BJP, TMC also criticised the ruling party, alleging that the govern-ment was using the CBI and the ED to "crackdown" on opposi-tion party leaders.

No one can question the government, the party said.

Quoting TMC chief Mamata Banerjee, the party lawmakers alleged that every single action of the BJP-RSS was one of "deliberate destruc-tiveness and political vendetta".

The ruling party in West Bengal has criticised the BJP-led central government on sev-eral other issues, including the implementation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam after nearly 40 lakh peo-ple did not find their name on the final draft.

BJP unleashing ‘super emergency’ in country

OUR CORRESPONDENT

BENGALURU: BJP on Mon-day asked the first family of the JDS to decide who among its members was the real Karna-taka chief minister as it taunted the regional party amid reports about ‘interference’ of PWD Minister H D Revanna, son of JDS supremo H D Deve Gowda, in other departments.

Also terming Chief Minis-ter H D Kumaraswamy, brother of Revanna, as “crippled CM”, it said Karnataka was still wait-ing for a government that can function. “The state of Karna-taka apparently has 3 CM. HD Kumaraswamy the crippled CM, HD Revanna the super CM, HD Deve Gowda the supreme CM,” the Karnataka BJP said in a tweet.

“With so many CMs the state is still waiting for agovt that can function. We think Deve Gowda’s family should first decide who really is the CM,” it said. BJP’s attack on the Gowda family has come amidst reports about Revan-na’s alleged interference in the affairs of other departments, upsetting several Congress Ministers in the coalition gov-ernment. JD(S), often referred to as the party of “father and sons” following Gowda and sons’ alleged control over the party, was now being accused of similar conduct in the coali-tion government. Hitting back at BJP over its tweet, newly appointed JD(S) state President H Vishwanath advised the saf-fron party to speak with sense. “Any one can speak or com-ment, no one can stop it in a democracy...its leaders when they speak should speak with sense..,” he said.

Decide who is the ‘real’ CM in your family, BJP asks

Deve Gowda

BENGALURU: Continuing with his letter writing spree, former Chief Minister Sidda-ramaiah has shot off another missive to Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, asking him to reconsider shifting the film city from Mysuru to Ramanagara.

Siddaramaiah, who is the Chairman of the Congress-JD(S) coalition coordination committee, has so far written four letters to Kumaraswamy on a host of issues, including the one to reconsider the bud-get announcement to increase fuel prices.In the letter, he asked the Chief Minister to recon-sider the budget announce-ment to shift the film city to Ramanagara, Kumaraswamy’s assembly segment, and take steps to set it up in Mysuru, Siddaramaiah’s home district.

Pointing out that it has been the dream and demand ofthe Kan-nada film industry for a film city to be set up inMysuru, the CLP leader described the ‘pal-acecity’ as the most sought after destination by film producer-snot only from Kannada, but also from the Hindi, Tamil and Telugu film industries.

Since 1945,film shooting had been taking place in Mys-uru, he noted as he recalled contributions of studioslike ‘Navajyoti’ and ‘Premier’, which produced talented actors and technicians. “Kannada thespian late Dr Rajkumar had dreamed aboutthe film city in Mysuru, realising which the previous Congress government decided to set up a film city in the city and approved hundred acres of land for this purpose. MPOST

Letter politics: Sidda sends one more missive to HDK

OUR CORRESPONDENT

THIRUVANANTHA-PURAM: Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has plunged headlong into a fresh row with remarks about Prime Minis-ter Narendra Modi donning “outlandish” Naga and other headgear on his trips but refus-ing to sport a Muslim skull cap, comments the BJP dubbed as insulting to the people of the North-East.

Union Minister Kiren Rijiju also demanded that the Con-gress apologise for Tharoor’s comments.

“I ask you why does our prime minister wear all sorts of outlandish headgear wher-ever he goes around the coun-try or around the world? Why does he always refuse to wear a Muslim skull cap?

“You see him in Naga head-gears with feathers. You have seen him in various kinds of extraordinary outfits which is a right thing for a prime min-ister to do. Indira Gandhi has also been photographed wear-ing various kinds of costumes. But why he still always says no to one?” Tharoor said.

The former union min-ister was addressing a semi-nar on “Standing up to hatred, violence and intolerance in contemporary India” here yesterday.

Tharoor, who had recently kicked up a controversy with remarks that the BJP, if voted to power again, will rewrite the Constitution and pave the way for creation of a “Hindu Pakistan”, said Modi shunned the green colour as he felt it was associated with Muslim appeasement.

Tharoor’s comments drew a sharp response from Union Rijiju, who said the Con-gress leader’s remarks insulted tribals and people from the North-East.

“I demand apology from

the Congress Party for insult-ing the people of India’s North East & Tribals. Shashi Thar-oor described North-East peo-ple & Naga Tribal headgears as funny looking outlandish & hilarious,” Rijiju, a native of Arunachal Pradesh, said on Twitter.

“Shashi Tharoor insults the proud cultural heritage of the people of North-East. This condescension & arrogance towards the people of India have become hallmarks of @INCIndia,” Union Informa-tion and Broadcasting Minister Rajyavardhan Rathore tweeted.

BJP general secretary Ram Madhav also took to the micro-blogging website to say,”For Shashi Tharoor, Naga head-gear is outlandish and hilari-ous. In his over zealous love for skull cap, Tharoor doesnt mind insulting d customs of d Nagas n other NE people.”

Nagaland CM Neiphiu Rio on Monday took strong objec-tion to Congress leader Shashi Tharoor’s “outlandish” Naga headgear remark. Without tak-ing Tharoor’s name, the chief minister sought an apology and withdrawal of the statement.

Tharoor wades into another row with comments on PM’s headgear

LUCKNOW: Declaring that there was a complete "jungle raj" in BJP-ruled states, BSP chief Mayawati on Monday said there should be no cover-up of the incidents of alleged sexual exploitation reported from shelter homes in Bihar's Muzaffarpur town and Uttar Pradesh's Deoria district.

At least 24 girls were res-cued from a shelter home in Deoria yesterday after allega-tions of sexual exploitation came to light. Around 18 girls are still missing, officials said today. The incident comes in the backdrop of the alleged sex-ual abuse of young girls at a state-funded shelter home in Muzaffarpur, which led to a public outcry.

"The allegation of sexual exploitation of the inmates in a shelter in Deoria (similar to Bihar) proves the rampant anarchy in the BJP govern-ments, and the feeling of rising insecurity and pathetic condi-tions is a matter of shame and worry for the entire country," Mayawati said in a statement

issued here.Calling for strict action

in both the cases, the Bahu-jan Samaj Party supremo said there should be no "lipa poti" (attempt to cover up the incident).

"There is complete 'jun-gle raj' in the BJP-ruled states, and like law and order, women security and respect is not a priority. It is the last subject of concern for them," Mayawati said.

"The Uttar Pradesh govern-ment should (have) had imme-diately learnt a lesson from the unfortunate incident, which took place in Bihar, and come in alert mode, but the govern-ment continued to remain in slumber," she added.

Complete ‘jungle raj’ in BJP-ruled states: Maya

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Considering a major boost to the Opposi-tion show, Telegu Desam Party (TDP) MP CM Ramesh won the Public Account Committee (PAC) election in Rajya Sabha on Monday. Ramesh won with 110 votes, where the other two candidates, Harivansh Narayan Singh (NDA) got 26 votes and single largest party BJP's candi-date Bhupendra Yadav bagged 69 votes.

In Rajya Sabha NDA has 89 members, out of which BJP alone has 73 members. While the United Progressive Alli-ance (UPA) has the strength of 57 members, in which 50 members belong to the Con-gress. TDP, which recently had broken alliance with the NDA, has six members in the upper

house. The anti-BJP parties which include Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Nationalist Con-gress Party (NCP) have four members each, while Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and CPM have three and five members respectively. Samajwadi Party and Trinamool Congress have the strength of 13 members each.

The Public Accounts Com-mittee (PAC) is a committee of selected members of Parlia-ment, constituted by the Parlia-ment of India, for the auditing of the revenue and the expen-diture of the Government of India. The PAC is formed every year with a strength of not more than 22 members of which 15 are from Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Parliament, and 7 from Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament.

TDP MP Ramesh wins PAC election in RS

GAUTAM LAHIRI

NEW DELHI: The day Chairman of the Rajya Sabha announced the date for the election of Deputy Chair-man post, the election for the membership in the prestigious Public Accounts Committee got huge attention among the political parties.

In the election, united opposition defeated JD(U) candidate Harivansh Nara-yan Singh, an ally of ruling BJP with a huge unexpected margin.

Ruling NDA is contem-plating to put the first timer Harivansh as their candidate for the post of Deputy Chair-man. But before that election win of opposition candidate boosted the morale of the opposition parties. In fact, a meeting of the opposition par-ties was held on Monday, dur-ing which they discussed the strategy to get the required numbers to defeat the NDA candidate. The parties are likely to finalise their strategy and decide the name of their candidate tomorrow at 1 pm.

Monday’s election for two posts in the PAC got huge attention. Earlier, TDP MP CM Ramesh was the mem-ber of that PAC when they were the partner of ruling BJP. After their departure from the Central Govern-ment, Presiding Officer of the house decided to shift Ramesh from PAC to another Com-mittee on Public Undertak-ing. Instead, Harivansh and BJP MP Bhupender Yadav were nominated in the PAC. But opposition parties did not take this lightly. In fact, they had a discussion with the BJP floor leaders that let Ramesh be allowed to continue in the PAC. Leaders took time to decide on the issue.

Earlier, when TMC leader Derek O’Brien asked for a reply from the BJP leaders they did not give any response as their top leadership did not agree on Ramesh’s name as a member of the PAC.

In fact, opposition leaders gave suggestion to BJP that Ramesh would give resigna-tion from COPU and Har-ivansh also should withdraw

his candidature from the PAC which BJP leaders did not accept. Therefore, the election was necessitated for two posts of the PAC as three candidates were in the fray.

At the end it was found that TDP MP came on top with first preference votes of 110, Bhupendra Jadav came second with 69 votes and Har-ivansh faired poorly with only 26 votes.

The Congress party did not mobilise all their sup-port. Ramesh was moving in the parliament house that he would have got at least 140 votes if all the members voted on Monday. He claimed he got some votes from the BJP members too.

People were speculating about how AIADMK mem-bers voted. In fact, after this votes, opposition parties are now upbeat and took it a chal-lenge to defeat NDA candi-date in the Deputy Chairman election. But BJP floor man-agers are confident that what happened in the PAC election would not be repeated in the Deputy Chairman election.

PAC win boosts opposition morale

A file picture shows former Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi addressing a press conference regarding the National Register of Citizens (NRC), at New MLA hostel in Guwahati last week PTI

MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 7 August, 2018

OVER 45 PER CENT SEATS VACANT IN ENGINEERING COLLEGES, SAYS HRDNEW DELHI: Over 45 per cent seats remained va-cant in AICTE approved engineering colleges across the country in the last four years, the Lok Sabha was informed on Monday. Minister of State for Human Resource Development Satya Pal Singh said 48.79 per cent seats remained vacant during 2014-15 academic session while the percentage of seats that remained vacant during 2015-16, 2017-18 and 2018-19 was 47.68 per cent, 49.70 per cent and 49.30 per cent respectively.

MEGHALAYA STEPS UP CHECKING OF PEOPLE AT CHECKPOINTS: POLICESHILLONG: Meghalaya is all set to carry out “rigor-ous” checking of people entering the state following the publication of the NRC complete draft in Assam, a senior police officer said. Superintendent of Police (infiltration), Debangshu Sangma said that every person entering the state would be checked at the checkpoints. “At the checkpoints, the people need to show any identification document that proves that he is an Indian citizen and the exercise will continue till further orders,” Sangma said.

HC GRANTS BAIL TO EX-ANDHRA BANK OFFICER IN MONEY LAUNDERING CASENEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Monday granted bail to a former Andhra Bank director who was arrested in connection with a money launder-ing probe in an alleged Rs 5,000-crore fraud case. Justice Mukta Gupta granted the relief to Anup Prakash Garg, arrested by the Enforcement Direc-torate on January 12 in connection with the case involving a Gujarat-based pharma firm.

RLYS ASKS STAFF TO AVAIL BENEFITS UNDER GOVT’S INSURANCE SCHEMESNEW DELHI: Railways has requested its employees and contractual staffers to avail benefits under the government’s flagship insurance schemes, saying they were of national importance. In a letter dated August 2, Railway Board Chairman Ashwani Lohani asked the zonal general managers to encourage their employees as well as the contractual staffers to avail the benefits of the Pradhan Mantri Surak-sha Beema Yojana (PMSBY) and the Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Beema Yojana (PMJJBY).

NATION BRIEFS

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OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The telecom department has sought views of the industry on technical measures that can be adopted for blocking mobile apps like instagram, Facebook, What-sApp, Telegram, etc in situa-tions where national security and public order are under threat.

The Department of Telecom (DoT) on July 18, 2018, had written to all telecom opera-tors, the Internet Service Pro-viders Association of India (ISPAI), industry body Cellu-lar Operators Association of India (COAI) and others and asked for their inputs to block the applications under Section 69A of the IT Act.

“DoT in the letter had said that the Ministry of Electron-ics and IT and law enforce-ment agencies have raised issue around blocking of cer-tain mobile apps like Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, Telecom, etc to meet requirement under Section 69A of IT Act,” an offi-cial source said.

The Section 69A of IT Act talks about power to issue

directions for blocking for public access to any informa-tion through any computer resource.

The law authorises the cen-tral government or any officer authorised by it to issue direc-tion to block the information on Internet in the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, secu-rity of the state, friendly rela-tions with foreign states or public order or for preventing incitement to the commission of any cognisable offence relat-ing to them.

Recently, there have been widespread incidents of mob lynching in the country based

on rumours spread through social media apps. The popular messaging app, WhatsApp, has been in the eye of storm over abuse of its platform for circu-lation of fake news that resulted in incitement of mob fury.

An IT ministry official, who did not wish to be named, said, WhatsApp has not committed itself on “traceability” and attri-bution of messages, which had been one of the key demands of the government.

Hence, the ministry’s con-cerns have not been addressed and the potential for misuse still remains, the source said.

Last month, the government had expressed dissatisfaction

over measures previously listed by WhatsApp for checking fake news that have, in several cases, triggered mob violence.

The IT ministry, in its mis-sive, had said that WhatsApp cannot escape from its respon-sibility for such rampant abuse of its platform and needed to find originators of provocative messages.

The government, in its sec-ond notice to the Facebook-owned messaging service, had warned that in the absence of adequate checks, it will treat the messaging platform as ‘abet-tor’ of rumour propagation and legal consequences will follow.

WhatsApp told the gov-ernment it is building a local team, including India head, as part of steps to check fake news circulation.

The mobile messaging plat-form also said that attributing messages on WhatsApp would undermine the private nature of WhatsApp and create the potential for serious misuse. It added that the focus of the firm is on improving its plat-form and working closely with others in society to help keep people safe.

DoT seeks industry views on blocking mobile apps OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Parliament on Monday passed a bill to pro-vide constitutional status to the National Commission for Backward Classes, as several members in the Rajya Sabha urged the government to make public the findings of the caste census and implement reserva-tion accordingly.

The demand was raised during a debate on the Con-stitution (123rd Amendment) Bill 2017 in the Upper House, which was passed by the Lok Sabha on August 2 superseding the amendments earlier carried out by the Rajya Sabha.

On Monday, the Upper House adopted the legislation along with the amendments made by the Lok Sabha, by 156 votes to nil.

Over two-third majority of those present voted in favour of the bill, which is a necessity for amending the Constitution.

The Rajya Sabha had earlier passed the measure on July 31 last year, along with an amend-ment and sent it to the Lower House. The Lok Sabha had passed the bill last week with alternate amendments as well as some more changes unan-imously with over two-third

majority.Replying to the debate

on the bill, Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Thaawarchand Gehlot said it would help the backward classes people fight atrocities against them and ensure quick justice to them. “This bill would provide justice to the OBC peo-ple, it is the need of the hour,” Gehlot said.

Referring to the suggestions by the opposition parties, he said the NCBC would have female representation.

He also assured that it would also not encroach upon the rights of state governments as they would have their own backward class commissions. “This commission has no rela-tion with the state governments but is related to the Centre only.”

He said the state govern-ments had their own lists of

castes of OBC people, while the Centre had its own. The NCBC would recommend only to the central government regarding inclusion or deletion of a par-ticular caste in the list.

“This is an important issue. There was demand for a con-stitutional status to OBC Com-mission from the 1980s and Parliament had held discus-sions several times. It has been discussed by the Standing Committee,” Gehlot said and urged the members to pass it expeditiously.

He said once the bill is passed by Parliament, the gov-ernment would immediately form the commission.

Participating in the dis-cussion on the constitu-tional amedment bill and the National Commission for Backward Classes (Repeal) Bill 2017, Bhupender Yadav (BJP) urged political parties to

shun “vote politics” and sup-port these measures.

He charged the Congress of sabotaging the issue earlier and said it had chance to rectify its mistake by ensuring passage of the Bill in the Rajya Sabha.

“Last time the Bill fell in Rajya Sabha...UPA in its two terms failed to bring this amendment... OBC is a reli-gion- neutral term and the Bill failed last time because poli-tics defeated social justice,” Yadav said. He said the Bill is long overdue and lamented that many states have not imple-mented 27 per cent reservation to the OBCs and added that parties should “rise above vote bank politics and work towards social justice”.

Chaya Verma (Cong) sought reservation in Parlia-ment and Assemblies for OBCs said creamy layer should be removed. She asked the gover-ment how it will implement the quota when it was encouraging contractual jobs.

Narendra Jadhav (Nom) demanded that the findings of the socio-economic caste cen-sus be made public. He said the Rohini Commission report and the census data should be compared to prepare fresh data of OBCs.

Parliament passes bill to grant constitutional status to NCBC

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: A bill seeking to empower district magistrates to pass orders for adoption of chil-dren to reduce the time taken for issuing such directions, was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday. Currently, there is an inordinate delay in issuing adoption orders by the courts due to “heavy work load”.

Against this backdrop, the Juvenile Justice (Care and Pro-tection of Children) Amend-ment Bill, 2018, was introduced by Women and Child Develop-ment Minister Maneka Gandhi.

As of July 20 this year, as many as 629 cases relating to passing of adoption orders are pending in various courts.

The bill seeks to amend the Juvenile Justice Act to empower district magistrates to issue orders for the purpose of adoption.

“This would ensure timely processing of adoption cases and provide orphaned, aban-

doned and surrendered children with familial care and protec-tion,” the bill’s Statement of Objects and Reasons said.

Besides, the bill provides for transferring of all the pro-ceedings pending before any court relating to adoption orders under certain provisions of the Juvenile Justice Act to the dis-trict magistrate having jurisdic-tion over the concerned area.

“Due to delay in issuing the adoption orders by the courts, the child continues to languish in the child care institutions, even after getting a family,” the statement said. Under the Juvenile Justice Act, the adop-tion proceedings should be dis-posed of by the court within two months from the date of filing of an application.

The Act came into effect from January 15, 2016, with comprehensive provisions for the children allegedly found to be in conflict with law as well as those in need of care and protection.

Govt introduces Bill in LS to amend Juvenile Justice Act

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: In a bid to pro-mote sports in the country, Union Minister Rajyavardhan Rathore on Monday said that a games period will be made mandatory in schools after reducing the syllabus by 50 per cent by next year.

“We have come to a stage where sports is not a part of education, it is education. The ministry of education is ensur-ing that the syllabus in schools by 2019 is reduced by 50 per cent and there will be a sports period on a regular basis,” Rathore said.

Rathore said the ministry is planning several things to make sports more relevant.

“We are also ensuring that the SAI (now SI) reduces its man power by 50 per cent by 2022 so that they can cater to sports and it has a lean body and money is spent on sports.

“This year we will have

20 specialised sports schools and the government of India will pump about Rs 7-10 crore each. The idea is to have a very pointed approach so each school will have only two or three main sports. They will be very focussed,” he said.

Rathore also welcomed the Rugby World Cup 2019 tro-phy tour in India by unveil-

ing the Webb Ellis Cup in the presence of World Rugby CEO Brett Gosper, Asia Rugby Presi-dent, Aga Hussain, actor Rahul Bose and Rugby India Presi-dent Numazar Mehta.

Also present at the event were Sports Secretary, Rahul Bhatnagar, SAI DG Neelam Kapur and IOA secretary, Rajeev Mehta.

The two-year Trophy Tour, which aims to engage and excite new and existing rugby fans ahead of Rugby World Cup, will travel to Mumbai and Bhubaneshwar next.

It will be the first time that the tournament will be played in Asia when Japan hosts the Rugby World Cup 2019.

“We are delighted to wel-come the Webb Ellis Cup to India in the run up to the World Cup. We are happy to see India included within the 18 nations that will be visited by the Rugby World Cup 2019 Trophy Tour,” Rathore said.

50% of school syllabus to be reduced, says Rajyavardhan

Games period will be made mandatory in schools: Minister

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) is yet to take a decision on remov-ing a portrait of Muhammad Ali Jinnah from the office of its students’ union, an issue that had triggered a controversy in May, Parliament was informed on Monday.

The information was shared by Satya Pal Singh, Minister of State for HRD, in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha.

“The students’ union has been dissolved and any decision on the issue can only be taken by the newly-elected union, when formed,” Singh said.

BJP MP from Aligarh Satish Gautam had objected to the portrait of the founder of Pak-istan on the walls of the AMU students’ union office and writ-ten to the vice-chancellor of the university, seeking its removal.

Violence had broken out on the AMU campus on May 2 as

the row over the portrait trig-gered a right-wing protest and sparring between two leaders of the ruling BJP.

At least six people were injured when the police lobbed teargas shells to disperse the AMU students demanding the arrest of those who had earlier barged into the campus shout-ing slogans.

A function to grant life membership of the students’ union to former vice-president Hamid Ansari, scheduled on the same day, was called off and Ansari had to return to Delhi.

No decision on removal of Jinnah’s portrait yet: AMU

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Nearly a year after the defence ministry ordered closure of 39 military farms across the country, the Army has decided to “transfer” all the cattle kept there to gov-ernment departments or dairy cooperatives at a nominal cost of Rs 1,000 per animal.

Minister of State for Defence Subhash Bhamre, while reply-ing to a question in Rajya Sabha, said all the cattle in the mili-tary farms will be transferred to central and state govern-ment departmets or to state cooperatives.

He said a cost of Rs 1,000 will be charged per animal.

The minister was asked whether high-yielding cows numbering 15,000 have no buyers given their high main-tenance cost.

Army to give up cows in

military farms for ̀ 1K each

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday refused to grant anticipatory bail to two priests, accused of sexually abusing a married woman in the Kerala church sex scandal, and asked them to surrender before police by August 13.

A bench of Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan said the two priests were at liberty to seek regular bail once they have surrendered. 

The Crime Branch of the Kerala Police had on July 2 reg-istered a case against four priests on the basis of a statement given by a woman belonging to the same church who has accused them of sexually assaulting her on many occasions. 

The four priests attached to the Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church were accused of sexually

abusing the 34-year-old married woman by allegedly using her confessional statement. 

While two of them surren-dered, two others -- Father Sony Verghese and Father Jaise K George -- had approached the apex court for anticipatory bail after their plea was rejected by the Kerala High Court on July 11.

During today’s hearing,

senior advocate V Giri, appear-ing for Kerala police submitted a status report of investigation and said no interrogation has taken place so far of the two priests who were earlier granted protection from arrest by the apex court.

The bench said, “We have granted protection from arrest to them but it does not mean that they can’t be interrogated.” 

Senior advocate R Basant, appearing for the two priests, said the accused are willing to cooperate in the investigation and record their statements.

Counsel for the victim also filed an interlocutory applica-tion in the case and informed the court that the accused priest had allegedly uploaded a video on the internet to blackmail the woman.

He said that this video contained some disparaging

remarks against the victim and was uploaded on the internet even when the investigation in the case was underway.

Giri said these allegations are something new, which he did not have any knowledge. “If true, this is a very grave and serious issue,” he said.

Basant said that he would ensure that these things do not happen again.

Giri replied that there is no question of doing it again and the damage has already been done.

The bench then asked the counsel for victim to raise these issues before the trial court and said that “it is not a fit case for grant of anticipatory bail” 

On July 19, the two priests were granted protection from arrest by the apex court till it pronounced a verdict on their anticipatory bail pleas.

Kerala Church sex scandal: SC asks 2 priests to surrender by August 13, refuses pre-arrest bail

THIRUVANANTHA-PURAM/KASARGOD: Violence has no place in the Constitution, President Ram-nath Kovind said on Monday, and voiced concern over recur-ring political clashes in Kerala on a day the news came of a CPI-M youth wing activist being stabbed to death allegedly by BJP-RSS cadre.

Inaugurating the ‘Festival of Democracy’, a conference to mark the conclusion of dia-mond jubilee celebrations of the Kerala Assembly in Thiru-vananthapuram, Kovind said all parties and enlightened citizens should do their best to check political violence.

He said the history of “debate, mutual dignity and respect” for each other’s point of view has been the “hallmark” of Kerala society, prominently placing Malayalees among the thought leaders of the country.

“Nevertheless there remains

the paradox of political violence in Kerala, especially in some regions of the state.

This is unfortunate and does little justice to the glorious tradi-tions of the state and its people.

“Debate, dissent and dis-agreement are perfectly accept-able and should be welcomed in our polity. But violence has no place in our Constitution,” he said.

Kovind’s remarks followed reports that a 25-year-old Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) worker, was attacked by two motorcycle-borne men in Kasargod dis-trict’s Uppala, about 600 km from Thiruvananthapuram, late last night.

Siddique was rushed to a nearby hospital but could not be saved, a police official said.

Kerala’s ruling CPI-M’s state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan blamed the killing on the BJP-RSS combine. MPOST

Prez voices concern over political violence in Ker

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Meticulous monitoring and systematic approach was required for cleaning Ganga from Haridwar to Unnao, the National Green Tribunal on Monday said as it formed a committee headed by a former high court judge to oversee the river rejuvena-tion work.

A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel said that Ganga rejuvenation was a “huge task” and people of eminence who devote full time were needed to achieve the desired result.

“Though some progress has been made but it cannot be said that the progress made meets the complete expectation,” the bench, also comprising justices

Jawad Rahim and S P Wangdi, said.  The green panel formed a committee comprising former judge of Allahabad High Court, to be nominated by chief jus-tice of the high court, nominees from the Central Pollution Con-trol Board and the Indian Insti-tute of Technology and directed

it to submit a quarterly report on the work done.

The NGT asked the commit-tee to assume charge within one month from today and said it might preferably function from Kanpur but it would be open to the members to participate from the place they consider

to be appropriate.It clarified that the National

Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) would be the nodal agency to coordinate with the committee and it would be at liberty to coordinate and pro-vide inputs to the panel.

It also asked the NMCG, in coordination with other author-ities, to prepare an action plan for the stretch starting from Unnao to Bay of Bengal within four months. 

The green panel has divided the work of cleaning the river in different segments Gomukh to Haridwar (Phase-I), Haridwar to Unnao (termed as segment B of Phase-I), Unnao to border of Uttar Pradesh, border of Uttar Pradesh to border of Jharkhand and border of Jharkhand to Bay of Bengal.

NGT forms committee on Ganga cleaningOUR CORRESPONDENT

KORBA (CHHATTIS-GARH): An elderly woman and a minor boy were among three people trampled to death by wild elephants in two dis-tricts of Chhattisgarh, police said on Monday.

While the woman, Itwari Bai (60), and the boy, Rohit Kumar (6), were killed by jum-bos in Korba district, a man, identified as Laksmi Prasad (37), died in an attack by ele-phants in Surguja district, they said. Both incidents took place on Sunday.

In Korba, few families belonging to the Pahadi Korva tribe were shifted from their homes in Futhamuda village

to the local anganwadi centre after reports that an elephant has been sighted in the area, Balaco Forest Range (Korba forest division) officer Farukh Siddhiqui said.

On Sunday night, two ele-phants broke the window of the anganwadi building and dragged Itwari and Kumar out with their trunks while they were sleeping and trampled them to death, he said.

In the second incident, which took place in the Udai-paur forest range of Surguja district, one Lakshmi Prasad, resident of Lakhanpur village, was trampled to death by wild elephants when he had gone to collect woods in jungle, another forest official said.

Elderly woman, boy among 3 killed by jumbos in C’garh

mp nation 7MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 7 August, 2018

MUZAFFARPUR SHELTER HOME CASE

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Four senior offi-cials, including the one looking into the the Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud case, have been granted extension in the CBI.

The decision was taken in a recent meeting of a selec-tion panel headed by Central Vigilance Commissioner K V Chowdary, officials said on Monday.

The move assumes signifi-cance amidst reports of power tussle between Central Bureau of Investigation Director Alok Kumar Verma and the second senior-most officer Rakesh Asthana.

Those given exten-sion include DIG of Bank-ing, Security and Fraud Cell (BSFC), Mumbai C H Naga-raju, a 2003 batch IPS officer of Kerala cadre, investigating the PNB scam involving diaman-taire Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi.

The tenure of Nagaraju has been extended from December 16 this year to June 30, 2019, an order issued by Personnel Min-istry said.

His wife Harshita Attaluri, who is also posted in Mumbai heading the Anti-Corruption Branch of the CBI, has been

given extension for the same period.

Besides them, Manish Kumar Sinha and Jasbir Singh have also been given exten-sion. Sinha, who is working in the BSFC of the agency in Bengaluru, will have tenure till November 5, 2020, the order said.

Singh, a 2003 batch IPS offi-cer of Nagaland cadre, who had successfully cracked the rape and murder case of a minor girl in Kotkhai, has been given tenure till July 31, 2020, it said.

A 16-year-old girl had gone missing after school hours on July 4 this year and her body was found in the forests of Kot-khai near Shimla in Himachal Pradesh

After nearly nine months of intense probe and ruling out all possible suspects, the agency managed to arrest the perpe-trator of the crime.

4 officials including one probing Nirav Modi case

get extension in CBI

OUR CORRESPONDENT

PATNA: Under fire over alleged rape of 34 girls at a gov-ernment-funded shelter home, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday blamed “system flaw” for the case and rejected demands for sacking his social welfare minister Manju Verma only on the basis of allegations by opposition leaders.

Kumar also announced his decision to phase out the prac-tice of shelter homes being run by NGOs and said the state government would take over administration of all such cen-tres over a period of time.

He said Verma can be asked “to go” only if she is found to have facilitated any wrong-doing and not because of “noises” being made -- a stance that found support from Deputy Chief Minister and BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi.

Kumar also took potshots at his former party colleague Sha-rad Yadav and other opposition leaders for attending a protest in the national capital on the issue, saying it was amusing to see people having spoken unkindly of women holding candle lights at an event organ-ised by a person facing corrup-tion charges.

Soon after Kumar replied some media queries during his weekly public interaction pro-gramme “Lok Samvad” while referring specific questions

to officials on why the main accused Brajesh Kumar was

never taken into police cus-tody, his deputy chief minis-ter also asserted there is no need for resignation of Verma or any other minister “just because some people are giv-ing statements”.

Verma is in the eye of storm ever since name of her husband has cropped up in the Muzaf-farpur sex scandal, in which medical reports have con-firmed rape of 34 out of a total of 42 inmates of the shelter home. The opposition parties have been gunning for the min-ister’s head.

“Investigations are on. If it is found that she had in any way

facilitated any wrongdoing, she may have to go, but (not)

because people are making noises,” Kumar said.

Hitting back at opposition leaders, Kumar said where were these people, who have

suddenly grown so sensitive, when the first FIR was lodged on May 31 and wjy have they woken up to the scandal in the last few weeks.

Coming in support of Verma of JD(U), Modi said no minister needs to resign just because some people are mak-ing noises.

“They are voicing their per-sonal opinion and that is not the party line,” he said, refer-ring to his party colleague C P Thakur reportedly favour-ing Verma’s resignation. Modi dismissed demand for resigna-tion of another minister, BJP’s Suresh Sharma as well.

Nitish blames ‘system’, rejects demand for Min’s resignation

OUR CORRESPONDENT

TIRUPATI: A 28-year old man allegedly killed his three young sons, including a tod-dler, by throwing them into a deep pool of water in a river, about 70 km from here, police said.

Venkatesh, a lorry driver and stated to be an alco-holic, was arrested today, they said adding the motive for the shocking act was under investigation.

He had thrown the chil-dren -- aged six, three and ten months -- into the river at Gangadhara Nellore on Sunday.

The incident came to light after locals spotted the bodies of the children floating in the water on Monday morning and informed police.

After investigations, police arrested the man, who was allegedly found in an inebri-ated condition.

The man had two wives as his first wife did not have any children, they said.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday adjourned hearing on a batch of pleas chal-lenging the constitutional valid-ity of Article 35-A, which gives special rights and privileges to people of Jammu and Kashmir, saying its three-judge bench has been hearing the case and will consider whether it has to be referred to a larger bench.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice A M Khanwilkar said the matter has to be heard by a three-judge bench and Justice D Y Chand-rachud, who is also a part of the bench, was not present.

The apex court has listed the matter for hearing in the week

commencing August 27.CJI Misra observed that

the apex court has to consider whether Article 35-A goes against the basic structure of the Constitution.

Article 35-A, which was incorporated in the Consti-tution by a 1954 Presidential Order, accords special rights and privileges to the citizens of Jammu and Kashmir and denies property rights to a woman who marries a person from outside the state.

The provision, which leads to such women from the state forfeiting their rights over prop-erty, also applies to their heirs.

“Once you have challenged the constitutional validity of Article 35-A, it has to go before

a Constitution bench. A three-judge bench will determine it. A three-judge bench has been dealing with it,” the CJI said.

“A three-judge bench will consider whether it has to go before a Constitution bench.” 

The Jammu and Kashmir government had on August 3 moved the apex court seeking adjournment of today’s hear-ing on petitions challenging the validity of Article 35-A, cit-ing the upcoming local body elections.

During the hearing on Mon-day, the counsel appearing for the petitioners challenging the validity of Article 35-A opposed the move by the state govern-ment seeking adjournment of the matter.

Several interlocutory peti-tions have been filed in sup-port of Article 35-A by various individuals and civil society groups seeking continuance of the special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

Top court adjourns hearing on pleas challenging Article 35-A

Veteran Cong leader Dhawan passes away

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Foreign tourist arrivals in India has seen a 14 per cent jump in 2017 and for-eign exchange earnings in the sector during the same period was Rs 1.77 lakh crore, Union Tourism Minister K J Alphons said on Monday.

Alphons also said in Lok Sabha that is a shortage of two lakh rooms in the tourism sec-tor, mostly in the mid-segment.

The minister said there has been a 28.8 per cent increase in domestic tourist visits in the country between 2014 and 2017 while 20.4 per cent jump in foreign tourist visits in the same period.

As many as 10.04 million foreign tourists have visited the country in 2017 which was a growth of 14 per cent in comparison to the previous year, he said during the Ques-tion Hour.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Seeking to pro-mote tourism, the government has extended e-visa facility for citizens of 165 countries at 25 airports and five seaports, the Lok Sabha was informed on Monday.

Tourism Minister K J Alphons also said the gov-ernment has launched the ‘Incredible India 2.0’ campaign,

marking a shift from generic promotions to market-specific promotional plans.

A 24X7 toll free multi-lin-gual tourist helpline has also been put in place as part of the efforts.

To promote tourism in India, events such as ‘paryatan parv’ (tourism festival), Inter-national Buddhist Conclave and International Tourism Mart too have been organised.

Govt extends e-visa facility for citizens of 165 countries

14% jump in foreign tourist arrivals: Government to LS

OUR CORRESPONDENT

RAIPUR: At least 15 Maoists were gunned down on Mon-day in an encounter with secu-rity forces in a dense forest in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district, police said.

This was one of the biggest anti-Naxal operations in the history of Chhattisgarh, where 15 bodies of rebels were recov-ered in a single incident, state’s Special Director General of Police (anti-Naxal operations) D M Awasthi told reporters here.

Two Naxals, including a woman who was injured the gunbattle, were also arrested from the encounter site.

Based on intelligence inputs about locations of Naxal camps in south Sukma, two teams of security forces were sent into the forest from different direc-tions last evening, Awasthi said.

The teams included per-sonnel of the District Reserve Guard, Special Task Force, Central Reserve Police Force and its elite unit Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA).

One of the patrolling teams, comprising around 200 per-sonnel of the STF and the DRG, spotted a Maoist camp this morning at the forest in Nalk-

atong village, located around 500 km from here, following which it started encircling the place, Awasthi said.

A gunbattle took place between Naxals and the patrol-ling team for about half-an-hour, he said.

After guns fell silent, bodies of 15 Maoists and 16 weapons, including 315 bore and 12 bore guns, were recovered from the spot, Awasthi said.

Besides, an area committee member and an injured woman Naxal were arrested from the spot, he said.

The killed rebels were from three separate militia forma-tions of Maoists active in the tri-junction forest of Konta, Golapalli and Bhejji areas in south Sukma, he said.

Militia platoon commander Vanjam Hunga was among the killed naxals, Awasthi said, adding that identities of the other 14 cadres were yet to be ascertained.

The injured Naxal was taken to a hospital.

Another patrolling team that had launched the opera-tion from Bhejji area was still inside the forest and conduct-ing its task, he said.

Intensive search operations were underway in the nearby forest areas, he said.

15 naxals killed in encounter with

police in C’garh

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: As many as 709 people have lost their lives in incidents related to floods and rains in seven states during the monsoon season so far, the Home Ministry said on Monday.

According to the Home Ministry’s National Emergency Response Centre (NERC), 166 people lost their lives in Uttar Pradesh, 158 people have died in West Bengal, 142 have died in Kerala and 139 have died in Maharashtra.

As many as 52 people lost their lives in Gujarat, 44 died in Assam and eight perished in Nagaland.

A total of 16 people were also missing in Kerala (10), West Bengal (5) and Nagaland (1), while 207 others received inju-ries in rain-related incidents in the states. The deluge and rains have hit 26 districts in Maha-rashtra, 22 in West Bengal, 23 in Assam, 14 in Kerala, 11 each in Uttar Pradesh and Nagaland and 10 in Gujarat.

In Assam, 11.45 lakh people have borne the brunt of rains and floods, which also hit crops in 27,552 hectres of land.

Govt: 709 dead in rains, floods

during monsoon

NEW DELHI: Former Union minister and veteran Congress leader Rajinder Kumar Dha-wan passed away at B L Kapur hospital here around 7 pm on Monday. He was 81. The former RS MP, who was a close aide of former Prime Min-ister Indira Gandhi, was admit-ted to the hospital last Tuesday for age-related ailments. Expressing its condolences to the family of the senior leader, the Congress tweeted, “We’re saddened to hear about the pass-ing away of RK Dhawan, a val-ued member of the Congress party. Our thought and prayers are with his family tonight.” Dhawan started out as Gan-dhi’s personal assistant and was with her from 1962, until the day she was assassinated in 1984. The senior Congress leader was also a part of the former PM’s innermost circle during the Emergency years.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: In a major embarrassment to the Cen-tral Bureau of Investigation (CBI) during a court hearing pertaining to the Urtan cap-tive coal block case, which was earlier allocated to Jindal Steel and Power Limited (JSPL), the prosecutor of the investigating agency on Monday made argu-ments contrary to the evidence in their own chargesheet.

The CBI had filed a chargesheet and the matter was in pre-trial stage.

During the arguments on framing of charges on Monday, CBI Prosecutor VK Sharma claimed that JSPL had filed three applications and was bound to submit three drafts of Rs. 10,000 each with each application amounting to Rs. 30,000. The prosecutor further alleged that JSPL had submit-ted only one demand draft of Rs. 10,000- thereby causing loss of Rs. 20,000- to the national exchequer and cheated the government.

The allegation made by the prosecutor came as a cause of laughter in an otherwise tense courtroom. Further embarrass-ment followed as the Defence Counsel Dr P Hariharan for the company stood up, emphati-cally alleging that the CBI Pros-ecutor was “misleading the court”. Dr Hariharan pulled out an annexure from the evidence from the CBI chargesheet which demolished the earlier allegation made by the pros-ecutor VK Sharma.

The annexure Hariharan showed to the court out of the evidence relied upon in the CBI chargesheet clearly highlighted alongwith Demand Draft numbers that JSPL had depos-ited three different Demand Drafts of Rs 10,000 each drawn at the State Bank of India (SBI) alongwith the three different applications. Was it a costly error made by the prosecutor or indeed an attempt to mislead the court may be clarified once the mat-ter comes up for the hearing later.

CBI prosecutor errs in JSPL coal block court argument

Man kills three sons by throwing them into river in Andhra: Police OUR CORRESPONDENT

JAMMU: In a major success against drug trafficking and possible narco-terrorism, the Jammu and Kashmir police on Monday seized 51 kilograms of high-grade Afghan-origin heroin worth over Rs 250 crore from a Punjab-bound truck here.

The police also arrested the truck driver and his helper fol-lowing “the biggest ever catch” in Jammu region and are ques-tioning them to unveil the persons involved in the drug trafficking, Jammu’s Inspector General of Police S D Singh Jamwal told reporters here this evening.

Without ruling out the possibility of the consignment being part of narco-terrorism with the sale proceeds of the consignment meant for ter-ror funding, the IGP said, It’s a matter of investigation and we are on the job.

Terming the catch as the biggest surgical strike on the menace of drugs, the Jammu police chief said the truck laden with scrap paper was going to Punjab from Hand-

wara area of north Kashmir’s border district Kupwara and was intercepted by the police near Narwal-Bhatindi bypass on outskirts of the city on a spe-cific information.

The consignment kept in 51 packets of one kilogram each was concealed in a specially created cavity on the side walls of the truck, he said, adding that the timely seizure of the consignment saved the lives of the youth. It is an alarming sit-uation the drug traffickers are using Jammu as a transit route to smuggle narcotics to Pun-

jab, Delhi and other parts of the country and even abroad, the IGP said, adding 90 per cent of the heroin smuggled to the world comes form Afghan-Pakistan region and “the noto-rious agency of Pakistan” is involved in its smuggling.

Asked how it was possible to smuggle such a huge quan-tity of heroin through the bor-ders which were being guarded round-the-clock, Jamwal said the geography of the region and tough terrain posed an acute challenge to the security agencies.

‘Biggest ever haul of heroin worth over ̀ 250 cr seized in Jammu

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Parliament on Monday passed a stringent legislation prescribing death penalty to those convicted of raping girls below the age of 12 years and making the law against such sexual offences harsher.

The Bill replaces the Crim-inal Law (Amendment) Ordi-nance promulgated on April 21, following an outcry over the rape and murder of a minor girl in Kathua in Jammu and Kash-mir and the rape of another woman at Unnao in Uttar Pradesh.

The Criminal Law (Amend-ment) Bill 2018, which was passed in the Lok Sabha on July 30, was approved by a voice vote in the Upper House.

While replying to a debate in the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju assured the House that the concerns and issues raised by the members would be looked into by the government, even as he did not agree with the demand of several MPs to send the bill to a Select Com-mittee for scrutiny.

Terming the bill as one of national importance, Rijiju said the law is aimed at providing safety to minor girls as he high-lighted various aspects of the

measure.He said the government

brought the bill, as in the last few months, several heart-rending incidents of rape of under- aged girls have taken place in the country.

Rijiju said four states had already brought a law in their respective assemblies for cap-ital punishement those who commit rape gainst the girl child who are under the age of 12.

The states are Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh.

“We have introduced cer-tain changes in the Indian Penal Code, Criminal Court Procedure, Evidence Act and there are consequential effects on prevention of atrocities against children,” the minis-ter said.

The bill stipulates stringent punishment for perpetrators of rape, particularly of girls below 12 years. Death sentence has been provided for rapists of girls under 12 years.

The minimum punishment in cases of rape of women has been increased from rigorous imprisonment of seven years to 10 years.

According to the bill, in case of rape of a girl under 16 years, the minimum punish-ment has been increased from

10 to 20 years, extendable to imprisonment for rest of life, which means jail term till the convict’s “natural life”.

Stringent punishment for rape of a girl under 12 years has been provided with the minimum jail term being 20 years which may go up to life in prison or death sentence. Gan-grape of a girl under 12 years of age will invite punishment of jail term for the rest of life or death.

The measure also provides for speedy investigations and trial. The time limit for inves-tigation of all cases of rape has been prescribed, which has to be mandatorily completed within two months.

The deadline for the com-

pletion of trial in all rape cases will be two months. A six-month time limit for the dis-posal of appeals in rape cases has also been prescribed, the bill says, adding that there will also be no provision for antici-patory bail for a person accused of rape or gangrape of a girl under 16 years.

Participating in the debate, several members made a case for sending the bill for scrutiny to Select Committee, saying there were several shortcom-ings in it.

Some members argued that the provision of death penalty could affect reporting of cases of sexual assault as in many cases the accused happened to be relatives or known persons.

There was also an opinion that the provision of death pen-alty could endanger the life of the victim.

Many members suggested that the government change the term ‘woman’ in the bill appropriately and make it gen-der- neutral as such crimes do happen with boys as well.

Sukhendu Sekhar Ray (TMC) wondered why there are different punishment accord-ing to the age of the vicitm. He also expressed concern over the large pendency of cases in courts in the country.

Manoj Kumar Jha (RJD) expressed concern that pro-vision of death penalty may endanger victim’s life, while Kahkashan Perween (JD-U) suggested that like in Bihar, there should be women police stations in all states.

Chhaya Verma (Cong) said punishment should be the same for those convicted for rape, irrespective of the gender of child victim.

Ravi Prakash Verma (SP) said the bill should be sent to a select commitee as it took care only of girls and not boys.

Citing a survey, he added that the cases of sexual violence were more against boys.

Rajeev Gowda (Congress) also aked the government refer it to a select committee.

Parl passes Bill to provide death to child rape convicts

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi during Lok Samvad programme at CM’s residence, in Patna on Monday PTI

mp editorial8MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 7 August, 2018

NANTOO BANERJEE India may be the world’s largest pro-ducer of milk, but when it comes to per capita consumption, it is still far below countries such as the

US, EU member nations, Russia, and even Brazil. Moreover, much of India’s milk is used for sweetmeat production. According to market researchers, India’s annual per capita milk consumption is still well below 100 litres, compared to the US (nearly 300 ltr), EU (over 280 ltr), Russia (220 ltr) and Brazil (156 ltr). Therefore, the recent statement in the Lok Sabha by Minister of State for Agriculture Krishna Raj seeking to raise the country’s milk production to 254.5 million tonnes by 2021-22 makes sense. The minister said: “Milk production in the country was 165.4 million tonnes during 2016-17 and 176.35 million tonnes (provisional) during 2017-18.”

However, what the minister did not say is the reason behind the current ‘milk glut’ in the country despite the low per capita consumption, leading to the distress sale of milk by their produc-ers to procurers, notably private dairy farms. The procurement price offered by most private dairy farms is around Rs 18-20 per litre of milk while the mar-ket price of packaged milk is Rs 40-44 per litre or more. Packaged pasteurised homogenised cow milk with as low as four per cent fat content could cost around Rs 44 per litre. Whole milk is, of course, dearer. The procurement price by private dairies in most states such as Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odi-sha and Madhya Pradesh does not even cover the cost of production, especially by small farmers, creating an artificial milk glut in the market. About 78 per cent farmers are small and marginal, who own totally about 75 per cent of female bovine.

Gone are the days when the legend-ary ‘milkman of India’ Joseph Kurien, spearheading the country’s ‘white revo-lution’, offered to pay procurement price up to 85 per cent of the market price of milk (including bonus) to farmers. Most private dairy farms and political lead-ers-controlled cooperatives in states like Maharashtra are squeezing small milk producers. The latter make big money out of processed milk and products. The prices of dairy products have gone up substantially in the last 10 years while the basic milk suppliers have been strug-gling to feed their cattle. Many are ask-ing the government for subsidies up to Rs 6 per litre to save themselves and

their cows and buffaloes from starva-tion. The balance sheets of dairy farms such as Amul, Mother Dairy, Orissa State Cooperative Milk Producers Federation, Kwality Limited, Andhra Pradesh Dairy Development Cooperative Federation, Karnataka Co-Operative Milk Federa-tion, Dynamix Dairy of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu’s AAVIN Dairy, Kerala’s MILMA Dairy and Gujarat’s Dudhsagar Dairy show that the industry, in general, is doing extremely well. In fact, the dairy industry is on a major expansion mode.

There is no dearth of government projects and schemes to improve the dairy sector infrastructure. However, what appears to be missing is a political will to assure small and marginal milk producers, who are contributing the most to the country’s milk production, of some guaranteed procurement price that the dairy farms will have to pay. Mar-ginal farmers are agitated. Recently, in Maharashtra and Odisha, they poured milk on streets instead of selling to farms to protest against the abysmally low pro-curement prices offered by these farms. Milk production in large quantities is no longer limited to a few states. Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Mad-hya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Bihar and Bengal are among the top milk producers, today. They welcome such projects and schemes

as Rashtriya Gokul Mission, National Programme for Dairy Development, Dairy Entrepreneurship Development Scheme and Dairy Processing Infra-structure Development Fund if they help farmers earn a modest livelihood. Lower procurement prices of milk have driven many milk producers, as well as private distributors, to follow highly dis-honest means to adulterate milk causing a serious health risk to consumers. This is one area that the government must strongly step in to protect milk quality and consumers.

Large milk producers are, how-ever, ready to cooperate with the Cen-tral and state governments to supply good quality and nutritious milk to consumers. The Food Safety and Stan-dards Authority (FSSAI) has asked state food authorities to keep a strict vigil by regularly drawing food samples and taking strict action against offenders. Lately, it distributed electronic milk adulteration testing machines to states and the Indian Railways for detection of fat, SNF, protein, lactose, density and added water as well as adulterants like urea, detergent, ammonium sulphate, caustic soda, hydrogen peroxide, soda and salt in the raw milk. Over 30,000 large test kits have been funded under the National Dairy Plan being imple-mented through NDDB. Similarly, the government plans to fund 28,000 elec-

tronic milk adulteration testing equip-ment to help address adulteration. Such efforts are most welcome. However, their success will depend on the effec-tive implementation of the schemes.

Fortunately, not all private dairy farms in the country are out to squeeze milk producers — big or small. India’s largest private sector dairy farm — Rs 4,000-crore Hatsun Agro in Tamil Nadu — pays farmers Rs 26 a litre. So does Heritage, a company run by the family of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chan-drababu Naidu. Multinational corpora-tions like Nestle often pay a little more to their milk producers. This is also true in the case of players like Britannia and Hindustan Unilever. Suffice it to say that the country’s future success to emerge as a major global milk consumer rests on the health of our milk producers. The country should not deviate from the social and economic ideologies of Kurien which helped India emerge as the world’s No1 milk producer. Kurien had, actually, influenced the global milk structure by showing how to restrict the cost of procurement, processing, mar-keting and distribution within 20 per cent of the market price for milk. In the process, he also introduced a sys-tem that kept politicians or bureaucrats at bay from milk producers. IPA

(The views expressed are strictly personal)

India’s artificial milk glutEDITORIAL

Despite a booming dairy industry, small and medium dairy farmers are recurring losses due to abysmal procurement rates

There is no dearth of government projects and schemes to improve the dairy sector infrastructure. However, what appears to be missing is a will to assure small and marginal milk producers of some guaranteed procurement price that the dairy farms will have to pay

In less than two months, Telangana Chief Minister and Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) Chief K Chan-drasekhar Rao (KCR) has met Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi in New Delhi twice. In the first meeting in

June, he is reported to have briefed the Prime Minister the issues on which he wanted the support of the Centre. He also raised a demand for a number of development proj-ects for the state. In the second meeting on August 4, he again put up a long list of demands before the Prime Min-ister. Among the major demands included the release of central grant of Rs 20,000 crores for Kaleshwaram Project being built on Godavari river. The total cost of the project if Rs 80,000 crore. But more significantly, the buzz is that he discussed the prospects of BJP and TRS contesting the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections in the state as a coali-tion. The two leaders have reportedly agreed to chalk out a post-poll alliance if a pre-poll alliance is not feasible. In the current Assembly, TRS has 63 seats, Congress 22 and BJP 9 in a house of 119 members. There are 17 Lok Sabha seats from the state. If there is any truth in the rumours doing the round that TRS is getting closer to BJP and TRS may support BJP in the post-poll scenario when BJP may be scouting for support from smaller and regional parties. For TRS, this would be a major shift from its earlier stand of forging an alliance of regional parties on the national level to prop up a non-BJP, non-Congress federal front. The TRS leader had created a high-decibel buzz at the national level by proposing the formation of the federal front. Immediately after he articulated his desire to cre-ate a third front, he received messages of support from many opposition leaders strong in their region. West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chief was first to call him up and lend her support to his efforts to unite regional parties. He also received similar feedback from Bahujan Samaj Party Chief Mayawati among oth-ers. KCR had also proposed an alliance of regional par-ties in southern states including the CPI-M which is in power in Kerala to stop BJP from making fresh inroads in the electoral politics of southern states. But even as the opposition parties moved forward with their unification drive, KCR gradually lost interest in the federal front that he initially proposed to form and lead. Making a complete turnaround, KCR is now reportedly ready to be part of the BJP strategy to take on the same opposition that he once vowed to strengthen.

The compulsions for this change in stance are many. As the elections draw closer, KCR finds that many of the promises he made during the last election are far from fulfilled. He also discovers that in order to keep the prom-ises he made to his voters, he needs active support of the Centre. From funding various development initiative to securing central government projects, he has to depend on the Modi government. If he does not act fast and make some credible moves on his promises quickly, the voters are likely to punish him in the elections. Since he came to power in 2014, nearly 3,000 farmers have committed suicide in the state. His cup of woes is full and he needs some urgent help to overcome the odds that he faces at his home turf. Working for opposition’s unit and hop-ing to oust BJP from power at the Centre can be a good idea but that will not help him in his state. Rather, it may backfire and people might vote for Congress and BJP in the upcoming elections, leaving TRS in the lurch. So, the TRS Chief has changed his strategy and is eying to keep his options open to tie up with BJP in a post-poll scenario where he might need the support of other parties to remain in power. For the same reason, BJP has a point in keeping its options open for an alliance with TRS, whose support may be needed after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. After losing Telugu Desam Party (TDP), the BJP-led NDA is on the lookout for new entities under its fold. As the com-mon perception goes, BJP may not win as many seats in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections as it did in the last elec-tion. The anti-incumbency factor and a united opposition determined to dislodge the party from power form the background of the Lok Sabha elections this time around. This is a drastically different scenario compared to the last election when BJP rode a massive anti-incumbency wave against the UPA government.

In a letter written in 1956, American author Ernest Hemingway had told his publisher that he had fin-ished writing five new short stories. “They are proba-bly very dull stories but some are very funny I think,”

he wrote. “Anyway, you can always publish them after I’m dead.” Six decades later, a literary magazine is doing just that. One of those long-lost stories, A Room on the Gar-den Side, is being published for the first time in The Strand Magazine with permission from the Hemingway estate. A signature Hemingway, written 62 years ago, the short work of fiction has all the trademark elements readers love about Hemingway: War, wine and male camaraderie. In his signature staccato style, Hemingway opens the story inside the Hotel Ritz in Paris, where a group of soldiers are discussing combat, poetry and romance over drinks. “We were all up in the room at the Ritz and the windows that overlooked the garden were open,” Hemingway begins. “I was lying back against four pillows on one of the beds with my boots off reading and the other bed was covered with maps of the country we had gone through.” As fans of Hemingway know, much of his work, like For Whom the Bell Tolls, was inspired by war. His classic novel, A Farewell to Arms, drew from his time serving as an ambu-lance driver during World War I, and Hemingway was also a correspondent in Paris during World War II, when A Room on the Garden Side takes place. In an afterword, Kirk Curnutt, a Professor and board member of the Ernest Hemingway Society, writes that, most of all, the short story captures the importance of Paris to Hemingway and the world. “Steeped in talk of Marcel Proust, Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas and featuring a long excerpt in French from Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal, the story implicitly wonders whether the heritage of Parisian culture can recover from the dark taint of fascism,” Cur-nutt writes. Like A Room on the Garden Side, several of Hemingway’s classic works like A Moveable Feast, The Garden of Eden, and The Dangerous Summer were also published posthumously, after the author took his own life at the age of 61 in 1961. Along with other Heming-way papers, A Room on the Garden Side is housed in the John F Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. And according to Curnutt, few people besides biographers and historians have ever read it. Now oth-ers can, too. Interestingly, this is not the first time that unpublished works of famous authors or poets have sur-faced long after their death. Unseen paintings, unheard compositions and unknown works have emerged to the delight of countless many.

KCR’s new-found love

Hemingway makes a comeback

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millenniumpost.inA VERY WELCOME STEPDear

EditorA new sub-jail has been established for fresh offenders involved in petty crime such as theft, brawls and chain snatching. The circular of the Madras High Court directed magistrates in Chennai to remand first-time under-trial prisoners to the Saidapet sub-jail rather than to remand them to regular prisons, where they can mingle with hardened criminals. And also advised to go in for reformatory programmes. Now, in spite of living in jail, their mornings begin with yoga and meditation. Post lunch they play volleyball, chess, and carrom. This is a historical and admirable step by the Madras High Court. This circular will play greater and influential role to reduce crime. QEYAMUDDIN Via email

He who opens a school door, closes a prison

Quote martial

VICTOR HUGO

Against the background of intense speculation about US President Donald Trump’s growing indifference to

India’s security needs and the landmark India-US Nuclear Cooperation Agree-ment, came the dramatic announce-ment of the “Tier 1 waiver” for India. This exception from the export con-trol regime will allow the US to export sensitive technology to India without individual licences or approval from Congress, where anti-India interest groups used to hold them up through filibusters.

The waiver is historic and marks a new stage in the India-US strategic partnership. No other country in the region has ever been granted such a waiver, normally allowed only for the US’s NATO partners or key allies like Japan and South Korea. Only 36 nations currently have this status. It also brings India one step closer to full NSG mem-bership, a goal so tantalisingly close and yet denied because of Chinese intransi-gence and insistence on linking it with Pakistan’s membership.

Commonly referred to as Tier-1 of the US Department of Commerce’s Strategic Trade Authorisation Licence Exception, the waiver will not only ensure a much required high-tech upgrade for India’s lagging defence industry but will also promote the ‘Make in India’ initiative. It will bring US defence companies for the first time into India. The competition with other foreign companies already in India, including from France and Russia, will eventually translate into a win-win situ-ation for the country.

US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross described it as a “very important change” in India’s status, noting that “US companies will be able to more

efficiently export a much wider range of products to Indian high technology and military customers. India’s new sta-tus will benefit the US manufacturers while continuing to protect our national security”. Also, he added that “it finally reflects India’s status as a major defence partner of the US”.

Ross said this new designation reflects India’s membership in three of the four multilateral export control regimes, as well the development of its national export control system. He asserted that the US companies will be able to more efficiently export a much wider range of products to Indian high technology and military customers. He said India’s new status will benefit US manufacturers while continuing to pro-tect its national security.

Speaking at a panel discussion of the first Indo-Pacific Business Forum organised by the US Chambers of Com-merce, Indian Ambassador Navtej Sarna

highlighted that the Trump administra-tion’s decision acknowledges the secu-rity as well as the economic relationship between the world’s two largest democ-racies and boosts their defence partner-ship in a big way.

“It is a sign of trust not only in the relationship but also in India’s capabili-ties as a valued economic and security partner. It presupposes that India has the multilateral export control regime in place, which would allow the transfer of more sensitive defence technologies and dual-use technologies to India and without the risk of any proliferation,” Sarna noted.

India is a member of three of the four international export control regimes including the Australia Group, the Was-senaar Arrangement and the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). These developments, along with the civil nuclear cooperation agreement with the US, have also strengthened India’s

case for a permanent membership of the UN Security Council. NSG mem-bership is now vital for India since this group controls the export and import of high-grade nuclear-related technology. India has been repeatedly checkmated by the Chinese veto, cleverly disguised in the plea of equating India and Paki-stan’s pending membership applications.

In September 2008, the NSG had approved an exemption allowing its members to conduct nuclear trade with India. Following this, India signed nuclear cooperation agreements with Russia, France, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Canada, Argentina, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Namibia and Australia. India continues to partici-pate in international nuclear trade. In arguing for NSG membership, India has portrayed itself as a responsible nuclear power, pointing to its positive record on non-proliferation and consistent sup-port for complete nuclear disarmament.

Ultimately, the Trump administra-tion has given a timely and important signal that India remains a vital stra-tegic partner in the region. Washing-ton demonstrated through the waiver for India (which remains outside the NPT regime) that the country is a vital ally in maintaining international peace and security.

This, in turn, expands India’s stra-tegic space, enabling it to leverage its enhanced relationship with the US in order to upgrade its relations with other partners and bringing closer its future NSG membership. It puts India in a cat-egory of major global players and New Delhi as an indispensable destination for leaders across the globe. IANS

(The author is a retired Indian dip-lomat. The article is in special arrange-

ment with South Asia Monitor. The views expressed are strictly personal)

It will bring US defence companies for the first time into India. The competition with other foreign companies already in India, including from France and Russia, will eventually translate into a win-win situation for the country

Washington’s licence waiver marks a historic chapter for Indo-US strategic partnership also inching India closer to NSG membership

Win-win for India

The new waiver has come as a pleasant surprise in the backdrop of Washington’s indifference to India’s security needs (Representational Image)

Dairy farmers poured their produce on the streets, protesting against low procurement prices

BHASWATI MUKHERJEE

VISHNU KESHRI

GYAN PATHAK

9mp in focusMILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 7 August, 2018

Poverty is no crime because a poor man does not commit a crime by not being

able to overcome his poverty. He is rather a victim of the complex socio-political sys-tem that makes him poor, keeps him so, and extracts a penalty for him not being able to over-come his poverty. The banks in India are doing precisely the same. They have raised about Rs 5,000 crores in pen-alties from poor account hold-ers in the financial year ending March 31, 2018, for their fail-ure to maintain sufficient bank balance. On the other hand, the same banks have been giving billions of rupees to the rich under the legal protection of ‘action taken in good faith’ that they can never get back. They seem to follow the rule: ‘you will be given if you have; and if you don’t have, whatever you have will be taken away’. The predicament of the poor does not end here, because there are numerous decisions of the gov-ernment working against them. They are at the receiving end in almost all matters.

However, the policies of the present government have been camouflaged in such a way that they seem outwardly pro-poor but they are not such in reality. One can take another exam-ple of the Pradhan Mantri Ujj-wala Yojna. It was launched in 2016 with the claim that people living below the poverty line would be given free LPG con-nections. But the beneficiaries of the scheme know that they are not free. The poor do not pay at the time of receiving the connection, the stove, and the first refill, but they are actually a loan made available to them by the oil marketing companies on equated monthly instalment (EMI) to be paid by the ben-eficiaries later. Until the poor beneficiaries return the loan amount they are not given even the ‘subsidies’ they are enti-tled to. This subsidy amount is taken by the oil marketing companies to recover the cost of giving LPG stoves and cylin-ders. Then, where is free LPG to

the poor? There is also a third element between the cost of the LPG refill and the subsidy amount. That is tax, which is taken from the poor benefi-ciaries. We can cite numerous such examples of so-called pro-poor initiatives of the govern-ment, which have indirectly fooled poor people.

Now, let us come to the min-imum balance penalty for those people who do not have enough money to maintain their bank balance even to the minimum benchmark arbitrarily fixed by various banks. Minimum bal-ance requirement varies from bank to bank, ranging from Rs 1,000 to Rs 5,000, failing which penalties are imposed on the account holder. This is the case

with the public sector banks. Many private banks have an even higher minimum balance benchmark. One wonders how different amounts can be jus-tifiable, especially when they are fixed for exacting penalty for the same nature of offence. What is the legal authority they have to make ‘withdraw-ing money from one’s own saving’ a punishable offence? What is the rationale for fixing a penalty amount and a mini-mum balance? Doesn’t a person have the right to get the money that is rightfully his? Should a civilised society deny this right and make it an offence with a provision of penalty? Never-theless, the minimum balance amounts fixed by banks and

the penalties for withdraw-ing one’s own money are arbi-trarily fixed. They are not in accordance with the principles of justice.

Moreover, the policies of the government have cornered the poor, giving no option but to open an account in a bank even when he knows that he cannot maintain the minimum bal-ance requirement. The policy of the Direct Benefit Transfer scheme is being implemented all over the country. If anyone wants to derive its benefit, he must get an account opened in a bank. In many cases, as in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005, the wages and pay-ments other than subsidies are

directly sent in the accounts. Scholarships to the weaker sec-tions, old age pensions, finan-cial support to widows and other victimised women, all sorts of compensations, reim-bursement of fees in educa-tional and other institutions, and a large number of other schemes require a bank account in the new scheme of things. A bank account is a good thing for all, especially the poor, who needs it for his financial inclu-sion into the new system of governance. In brief, the poor are under compulsion to have a bank account.

This compulsion must not be used against him if he is unable to maintain sufficient bank balance. They must be

supported or encouraged to have a larger bank balance, but should not be penalised for fail-ing to have a certain amount of balance. The crisis that Indian banks are suffering from is of their own making – a result of their own omission and com-mission. For any loss, the bank officials and staff are solely responsible. The legal protec-tion they get by the provision of acting in ‘good faith’ does not mean that they should go on increasing NPAs and other losses. They should be penal-ised for their misconduct, and should not be allowed to recover their losses on account of intentionally giving ‘bad loans’ to the rich businessmen and industrialists by penalising

the poor people in the name of failing to maintain the mini-mum balance.

Though this new practice of exacting penalty from the poor account holder has been made legal, it is, in essence, unethi-cal and immoral, because the poor need more financial help from the system than any-one else. It’s quite dishearten-ing that through this practice the banks have raised Rs 4,988 crore in 2017-18. The top five penalty collecting banks are SBI Rs 2,434 crore, HDFC Rs 590 crore, Axis Rs 530 crore, ICICI Rs 317 crore, and PNB Rs 211 crore. After collecting such a huge penalty amount, the banks are now mischievously saying that people should open zero balance account called BSBD (Basic Saving Bank Deposit) accounts if they don’t want to maintain a mini-mum balance. They do not care about the present saving bank account holders, and, instead, suggest that people undergo another trouble of opening new accounts.

All this is happening under the nose of the Prime Minis-ter, Finance Minister, and the Reserve Bank of India, who are supposed to protect the interest of the people and help the poor overcome their poverty. RBI has the principal responsibil-ity of supervising banks in the right direction as it is mandated under law. Even though terms like “financial inclusion” are not used by the Reserve Bank of India Act 1934, the Preamble explains the primary objectives which make the RBI implicitly responsible for these. It must protect account holders in general, and the poor account holders in particular from the legalised loots by banks in the name of ‘penalty for not main-taining minimum balance’ only for making up for their losses. Rather, RBI and the govern-ment should take strong action against bank officials and staff who in connivance with the rich give ‘bad loans’ and make the banks suffer huge losses. IPA

(The views expressed are strictly personal)

Despite several ini-tiatives that have attempted to erad-icate the curse of

tuberculosis, achieving a TB-free society is still a distant dream. As we commemorated another March 24 as World Tuberculosis Day, the grim reality of societal suffering from tuberculosis looms large. Numerous remarkable endeav-ours by myriad governmental, non-governmental, and private social organisations worldwide have not successfully contained tuberculosis and it continues to dominate as a prime infec-tious killer.

‘Delhi End Tuberculosis Summit’, held at New Delhi, was a passing event that failed to yield any concrete result. But through this platform, Prime Minister Narendra Modi affirmed his commitment to ending tuberculosis by 2025, even though the global target for it is 2030. India has con-solidated its strong buttress for a tuberculosis support plan in eradicating the disease.

However, a remarkable out-come of the summit was that it set stage for the September 2018 UN high-level meeting on tuberculosis where it would be discussed in the UN General Assembly (UNGA) for the first time. Earlier, at the beginning of this year, around 100 repre-sentatives including ambassa-dors, deputy ambassadors and counsellors had participated in the World TB Day commemo-ration at the UN headquarters at New York to discuss actions towards initiating the first-ever UN General Assembly high-level meeting (UNHLM) on TB.

TB is primarily caused by the Mycobacterium Tuber-culosis, which mostly affects the lungs. Prolonged fever, cough, night sweats, weight loss are symptoms identifying

tuberculosis. A weak immune system, poor nutrition, unhy-gienic environment and con-tagious bacterial infection are some of the major causes that build up a platform for the dis-ease to breed. Experts reveal that Mycobacterium Tuber-culosis spreads through the microscopic droplets present in the air. After an infected per-son comes in contact with an uninfected person and coughs, sneezes, spits, laughs or speaks, the microscopic droplets are released into the air, making a direct medium of transfer of infectious bacteria to the unin-fected one.

Although unpleasant to accept, it is true that India leads with the highest num-ber of deaths in the world due to tuberculosis. On the global benchmark, last year, India alone accounted for around 33 per cent of global TB deaths among HIV-negative people. And, around 26 per cent of the combined total of TB deaths in HIV-negative and HIV-posi-tive people. However, experts reveal that people living with HIV are 20 to 30 times more

prone to developing this dis-ease than those without HIV. More than 10 million new cases of TB are diagnosed each year, and almost two million people die from the disease. Globally, 1.7 billion people are estimated to be infected.

This global infectious killer is not restricted to adults. According to a World Health Organisation database report, tuberculosis in children is also one of the major causes of suffering. In 2017 alone, around one million children were diagnosed and around 2,50,000 children died due to this socially-maligned disease. This estimate is with HIV neg-ative children. And, children who die having both TB and HIV co-infection are interna-tionally classified as death from HIV. Pulmonary TB is the most common type of TB in chil-dren between the age group of 1-4 years.

Today, experts opine that Multi Drug-resistant Tuber-culosis (MDR-TB) and Extensively Drug-resistant Tuberculosis (XDR-TB), the advanced stages of tuberculosis,

is a growing concern. The bac-teria in these advanced stages develop high resistance to the anti-microbiological drug that is used to cure the disease and are practically incurable by the standard first line of treat-ment imparted to patients. This has become a major challenge within the medical fraternity throughout the world. Highly drug-resistant TB threatens to give birth to extremely fatal dis-eases, especially in countries with limited resources. Drug-resistant TB is a serious emerg-ing problem, and boosting the body’s own immune system against the disease is a strin-gent step in the battle against the antibiotic resistance devel-oped by the bacteria.

As per a latest research rev-elation, a new type of blood test has been found to accurately predict the development of this disease up to two years before its onset in people living with active TB, through measure-ments of a combination of four-gene signatures in the blood, says Professor Gerhard Walzl, leader of the Stellenbosch Uni-versity Immunology Research

Group, Tygerberg, South Africa. “This study is the first step, and now the impact of this test on the prevention of TB will have to be tested in multi-centre clinical trials,” he added.

Governmental, semi-gov-ernmental and non-profit organisations worldwide are fighting to create a benchmark in eradicating this curse. How-ever, in order to control and eliminate TB permanently from the grassroots level, the governing bodies from village panchayats to the national-level have to coordinate effec-tively with adequate planning and execution. Providing free medicine and aid is not enough – masses have to be educated about its symptoms, suffering, and precautions. Alongside advance policies and a target-oriented approach, govern-ments have to ensure adequate implementation to ensure a concrete output.

In a country like India, with a high burden of tuberculosis patients, tremendous effort needs to be made with com-prehensive implementation of its plans to completely elimi-nate TB.

Even though the Union Health Minister J P Nadda has fast-tracked many new initia-tives that aim to achieve all the core tenets of Universal Health Coverage, articulated in its National Health Policy (NHP), of providing free medicines, improving diagnostics access and strengthening and chan-nelising a smooth health care system for its easy access and benefit – healthcare officials must get to the ground and chalk out proper implemen-tation plans. A multifaceted approach is integral to contain this venomous epidemic.

(The author is Chief Sub-Editor with Millennium

Post. The views expressed are strictly personal)

Though this new practice of exacting penalty from the poor account holder has been made legal, it is, in essence, unethical and immoral, because the poor need more financial help from the system than anyone else. It is quite disheartening that through this practice the banks have raised Rs 4,988 crore in 2017-18

Providing free medicine and aid is not enough. Masses have to be educated about its symptoms, suffering, and precautions. Along with advance policies and a target-oriented approach, governments have to ensure adequate implementation to ensure a concrete output

Penalising for povertyPenalising the poor for maintaining insufficient bank balance is inhuman and

reflects indifference towards their plight

Tuberculosis and its malignContaining and ultimately eradicating tuberculosis is possible through

policy intervention and meticulous implementation

India accounts for about 33 per cent of annual TB deaths among non-HIV persons

Compelling the poor to open bank accounts and then penalising them for their inability to maintain balance is downright unethical (Representational Image)

tweetRETWEET

SHASHI THAROOR @ShashiTharoor

My Bill also removes the discretionary powers of the State to ban films. The State should only resort to the power of suspension of films as a last resort in order to maintain public order. We should not be held hostage by vigilante groups & self-appointed 'moral police'.

BRAHMA CHELLANEY @Chellaney

From imperial overreach to sanctions overreach: As the first round of American sanctions against Iran enter into force tomorrow, it's important to ask if the US is damaging sanctions as a tool of statecraft by imposing them all too often....

PRASHANT BHUSHAN @pbhushan1

Firstly the renaming of Mughalsarai Jn to Pt Deendayal Jn is itself ridiculous. But then making the renaming function into a party campaign rally at enormous cost of public money is nothing short of criminal.

OMAR ABDULLAH @OmarAbdullah

Protecting #Article35A is a tacit acceptance that J&K’s future lies within the Constitution of India otherwise how would it matter if it were struck down or diluted?

mp world10MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 7 August, 2018

US youths beat Sikh, say ‘ You aren’t welcome here! Go back!’

NEW YORK: A 50-year-old Sikh man was beaten up mul-tiple times by two white men who yelled racial slurs that "You're not welcome here!, Go back to your country!" in the US state of California, prompt-ing police to investigate the "heinous" hate crime, authori-ties said.

The incident happened last week near the intersection of Keyes and Foote roads in Cali-fornia as the man was putting up campaign signs alone along a rural stretch on the outskirts of Keyes, the police was quoted as saying by The Sacramento Bee.

Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson said the assault is being investigated as a hate crime.

"This is a random despica-ble criminal act against a mem-ber of the Sikh community,"

Christianson said.Sheriff Sergeant Tom Letras

said the 50-year-old victim was placing signs for local candi-dates when two white men wearing black hooded sweat-shirts ambushed him and beat him to the ground.

He was struck multi-ple times as the assailants screamed, "You're not wel-

come here!" and "Go back to your country!" They then spray painted his truck, Letras said.

"This is a heinous crime and we are aggressively investigat-ing it," Letras said.

The victim required med-ical attention so an ambu-lance was called and he treated on scene for cuts and other wounds. According to a Face-

book post, the man was beaten on the head with a rod. But he escaped major injury because of his turban, which is tradi-tionally worn by Sikh men, the report added.

Also, the post shared an image of the pickup truck, which was spray painted in large black letters with the words "Go back to ur country" alongside a Celtic cross. The image is a well-known white supremacist symbol, according to the Anti-Defamation League which tracks anti-Semitic and other hate crimes across the country, the report added.

The department is looking for help identifying the sus-pects or witnesses to the crime. The incident is considered an assault with a deadly weapon and hate crime. The victim's identity is not being released at this time, Letras added.

Hate crimes against the Sikh community have raised alarm in the Central Valley numerous times over the years. After 9/11, a spate of local crimes against Sikh people were attributed to misplaced anti-Muslim bigotry.

The valley has one of the largest and oldest Sikh popula-tions in the US. The first Sikh temple, or gurdwara, in Amer-ica opened in Stockton in 1912. There are an estimated 500,000 Sikhs in the US and 25 million worldwide making it the fifth most popular religion.

Earlier, The Sikh Coali-tion, a national Sikh advocacy and civil rights group, issued a statement saying they were see-ing a "new wave of hate crimes" against the Sikh community. It reported that Sikhs in the US are experiencing an average of one hate crime per week since the start of 2018. AGENCIES

‘US allies don’t defeat al-Qaida ... they just pay it to go away’

ATAQ(Yemen): Again and again over the past two years, a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and backed by the United States has claimed it won decisive victories that drove al-Qaida militants from their strongholds across Yemen and shattered their ability to attack the West.

Here's what the victors did not disclose: many of their con-quests came without firing a shot.

That's because the coalition cut secret deals with al-Qaida fighters, paying some to leave key cities and towns and let-ting others retreat with weap-ons, equipment and wads of looted cash, an investigation by The Associated Press has found. Hundreds more were recruited to join the coalition itself.

These compromises and alliances have allowed al-Qaida militants to survive to fight another day and risk

strengthening the most dan-gerous branch of the terror net-work that carried out the 9/11 attacks.

Key participants in the pacts said the US was aware of the arrangements and held off on any drone strikes.

The deals uncovered by the AP reflect the contradictory interests of the two wars being waged simultaneously in this southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula.

In one conflict, the US is

working with its Arab allies particularly the United Arab Emirates with the aim of elimi-nating the branch of extremists known as al-Qaida in the Ara-bian Peninsula, or AQAP.

But the larger mission is to win the civil war against the Houthis, Iranian-backed Shi-ite rebels.

And in that fight, al-Qaida militants are effectively on the same side as the Saudi-led coalition and, by extension, the United States. AGENCIES

Nasa completes six years of Curiosity on red planetWASHINGTON DC: NASA's Curiosity rover — a mission that has spotted evidence of liquid water as well as potential signs life and habitability on Mars - has completed six years on the red planet.

"I touched down on #Mars six years ago. Celebrating my 6th landing anniversary with the traditional gift of iron oxide. (It puts the red in Red Planet.)," the rover's social media handle tweeted.

The Mars Science Labora-tory mission's Curiosity rover landed on the red planet's Gale Crater on August 6 using a series of complicated land-ing manoeuvres never before attempted. Curiosity's mission is to determine whether the red planet ever was, or is, habitable to microbial life.

The rover, which is about the size of a car, is equipped with 17 cameras and a robotic arm containing a suite of spe-

cialised laboratory-like tools and instruments. The special-

ised landing sequence, which employed a giant parachute, a

jet-controlled descent vehicle and a bungee-like apparatus called a "sky crane," was devised because tested landing tech-niques used during previous rover missions could not safely accommodate the much larger and heavier rover. The Curiosity rover is currently experiencing a global storm that has been rag-ing in Mars for weeks.

In 2013, the Curiosity rover found that ancient Mars had the right chemistry to support liv-

ing microbes.The rover discovered evi-

dence of sulphur, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and car-bon - key ingredients necessary for life - in the powder sample drilled from the "Sheepbed" mudstone in Yellowknife Bay.

The sample collected by the rover also revealed clay min-erals and not too much salt, which suggests fresh, pos-sibly drinkable water once flowed there. AGENCIES

Senior Indian-origin doctor in UK forced to resign over online posts under pseudonymLONDON: Arvind Madan, one of the senior-most doc-tors in the UK's state-funded National Health Service (NHS), has been forced to resign over his controversial online com-ments over the closures of small general practitioner sur-geries across the country.

The Indian-origin general practitioner stepped down as NHS England's Director of Pri-mary Care after his pseudonym posts over the closure of small GP surgeries in the country triggered outrage among fel-low family doctors.

The London-based GP had been making online comments on stories on 'Pulse On Mon-day' medical journal's website under the pseudonym "Dev-il's Advocate" for a number of years, often speaking in favour of NHS England policies.

However, readers of the magazine were able to work out his identity when he posted clarifications using his real name on articles he had writ-ten with his "Devil's Advocate" pseudonym.

On Sunday, Madan admit-ted that he had been posting provocative comments under the pseudonym on the 'Pulse

On Monday' website and in his resignation statement apolo-gised to colleagues for having lost their confidence.

"As part of my attempts to challenge the negative views and even conspiracy theo-ries held by a small but vocal minority in the profession, I posted on an anonymous online forum used by GPs," he said.

"It was never my intention to cause offence, but to pro-voke a more balanced discus-sion about contentious issues acting as a devil's advocate.

"I wish to make it categor-ically clear that these com-

ments are not a reflection of NHS England policy, and it is now clear to me that trying to move the debate on in this way is not compatible with my role as director of primary care," he said. His resignation came after a group of more than 8,000 GPs called for him to step down from his NHS post, with the British Medical Asso-ciation (BMA) writing to NHS England "raising concerns and demanding action".

"We have written to NHS England raising our concerns and demanding action after Dr Madan's damaging com-ments caused significant anger

amongst the profession at a time when GPs require support from NHS England," said Dr Mark Sanford-Wood, BMA GP Committee deputy chairman.

"The key revelation from the pseudonym postings, spe-cifically his belief that individ-ual GPs losing their practice, and their business, is not only necessary, but something he thinks should be welcomed, has severely compromised his integrity," he said.

Small GP practice closures across England have affected thousands of patients, who have been forced to find new doctors. Madan commented routinely on such closures, anonymously posting that those remaining open should be "pleased" that less viable businesses were shut. Other comments took aim at doctors complaining about workload pressures and mounting costs.

NHS England has not com-mented on the resignation of Madan, who has been a GP in the UK for around 23 years and was coming towards the end of his three-year second-ment to NHS England from the Hurley Group Practice in east London. AGENCIES

Ex-Bangladesh PM Khaleda Zia gets six months’ bail

in Cumilla bus arson caseDHAKA: The Bangladesh's High Court on Monday granted six-month interim bail to former prime minister and opposition BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia in a case of fire-bombing of a bus in 2015, local media reported.

Eight people were killed and 20 others were injured when unidentified assailants hurled a petrol bomb at the bus in Comilla's Chouddag-ram upazila on February 2, 2015, during protests against the government.

Justice AKM Asaduzzaman and Justice SM Mozibur Rah-man granted the 72-year-old leader the bail on Monday, the bdnews24.com reported.

The bail petition was filed at Cumilla Special Court showing the three-time former prime minister as an arrestee in the case under the Special Powers Act, her lawyer Barrister AKM Ehsanur Rahman.

Judge KM Shamsul Alam had endorsed the police's move to name Khaleda as an arrestee in the case but did not take any decision about her bail plea, setting August 8 for the hear-

ing. Then Khaleda's lawyers had moved the High Court with a bail petition.

The court had ordered the Cumilla court to settle the bail appeal by July 26. But the court rejected the appeal on July 25 and the lawyers filed another bail petition at the court.

The court had set on Mon-day for the decision after hear-ing the appeal on July 29.

Two separate cases one for murder, the other under the Explosives Act were filed over the incident. "A petition was filed on May 28 to dismiss the case. That is on hold for the next hearing," said AKM Ehsa-nur Rahman, according to the report. AGENCIES

PTI formally ‘appoints’ Imran its PM nominee

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Teh-reek-e-Insaf 's parliamentary committee on Monday offi-cially nominated Imran Khan as the party's prime ministerial candidate.

The party of the 65-year-old cricketer-turned-politician emerged as the single largest side in the National Assembly in the July 25 general elections.

Khan was nominated by PTI's parliamentary commit-tee which met at a hotel here. The meeting was attended by several top leaders and elected members of PTI including Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Asad Umar, Pervez Khattak, Chaudhry Sar-war, Fawad Chaudhry, Arif Alvi and Shafqat Mahmood.

Qureshi, the party's senior vice president, presented a reso-lution in favour of Khan's nom-ination to become the party's parliamentary leader, which was accepted by the members.

The meeting was taken into confidence about the formation of the government and it unani-mously decided to nominate Imran Khan as party nominee for the Prime Minister, accord-ing to PTI sources.

Khan thanked the members for showing confidence in his leadership.

Earlier in the day, Khan left

his Banigala residence for the first time after his party's vic-tory in last week's elections. Despite Khan's explicit instruc-tions and refusal to travel with a large protocol, a number of cars and heavy security tagged along with him.

While the exact date of the swearing-in of Pakistan's new prime minister has not been announced, reports say it could take place on August 14, the Independence Day of the country.

Pakistan's National Assem-bly comprises a total of 342 members, of which 272 are directly elected. A party can only form the government if it manages to clinch 172 seats in total.

PTI spokesman Fawad Chaudhry claimed that allies and reserved seats will take the party tally to 174 seats in the National Assembly. AGENCIES

Osama’s son marries lead 9/11 hijacker Md Atta’s daughter

LONDON: Hamza bin Laden, the son of slain Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden, married the daughter of Mohammed Atta, the leader of the hijackers who carried out the deadly 9/11 ter-ror attacks in the US, according to a media report.

The family of the deceased Al-Qaida leader confirmed that Hamza married Atta's daughter, the Guardian quoted Osama's family as saying.

Atta, an Egyptian national, piloted American Airlines Flight 11, which was the first of the hijackings, into the North Tower of the World Trade Cen-ter- killing all 92 onboard and around 1,600 people, includ-ing emergency responders, in the tower.

Hamza, 29, has assumed a senior position within Al-Qaida and was aiming to avenge the death of his father, who was shot dead during a covert US military raid in Pakistan's Abbottabad seven years ago, Osama's half-brothers Ahmad and Has-san al-Attas were quoted as saying.

In May 2011, US Navy SEALs stormed Osama's Abbottabad compound where

he was living with three of wives and shot him dead. Hamza's brother Khalid was also killed in the US raid.

Hamza is the son of one of Osama's three surviving wives, Khairiah Sabar, who was living with her husband in a com-pound in Abbottabad, near a large Pakistani military base, when he was killed.

"We have heard he has mar-ried the daughter of Moham-med Atta," said Ahmad al-Attas.

"We're not sure where he is, but it could be Afghanistan."

Hamza, the potential suc-cessor of al-Qaida chief Ayman Al-Zawahiri, has released sev-

eral audio speeches calling for attack on Western inter-ests, including one in 2016 in which he vowed to avenge his father's death.

Western intelligence agen-cies have been increasingly focusing on the whereabouts of Hamza over the past two years, seeing him as more likely than anyone else to galvanise followers.

His marriage to the daugh-ter of Atta appears to confirm that the 9/11 alumni remains a central hub of Al-Qaida and that the organisation itself con-tinues to be organised around Osama's legacy, the report added. AGENCIES

Mali presidential challengers go to court alleging vote fraudBAMAKO: The three main opposition candidates in Mali's presidential election announced on Monday they were mounting a legal chal-lenge in the country's consti-tutional court alleging "ballot box-stuffing" and other irreg-ularities, after incumbent Ibra-him Boubacar Keita took the lead in the first round of the vote last month.

Keita won 41.42 per cent of votes in the July 29 presiden-tial poll in the sprawling west African nation, easily ahead of the second place rival Sou-maila Cisse with 17.8 per cent. They will face off in a runoff vote next Sunday.

"Soumaila Cisse filed last night (Saturday) around 20 submissions to the constitu-tional court for ballot box-stuffing, violations of the electoral law and other irregu-larities," a spokesman for the candidate said.

"The ballot box-stuffing explains IBK's tallies in the north and centre" of the coun-try, the spokesman added, using Keita's initials.

He said a motion had also been filed seeking the "recusal of six of the court's judges on

suspicion of bias, including its president" Manassa Danioko.

Third-placed Aliou Boub-acar Diallo, who won 7.95 per cent of the July 19 vote, has also filed a complaint to the consti-tutional court "concerning the results and the vote tallying," his spokesman Cheick Diallo said.

And in fourth place with 7.46 per cent in the first round, Cheick Modibo Diarra -- for-mer transitional prime minis-ter in 2012 -- has also appealed to the highest court about the "reports of irregularities", according to a statement from his political group.

The nine-judge consti-tutional court must officially announce the results of the first round by Wednesday to

kick off campaigning for the run-off vote -- which Keita is heavily favoured to win -- on August 12.

When questioned by AFP, the court's secretary-general Mamadou Magassouba said he could not confirm receipt of submissions because such "requests come in confidenti-ality". He also declined to com-ment on allegations of bias in the court.

Cisse, 68, whom Keita defeated in a 2013 run-off vote, has called the latest vote results "neither sincere nor credible" and "a fraud". Violence dis-rupted the first-round election in several areas beset by ethnic and jihadist unrest despite the deployment of 30,000 security personnel. AGENCIES

Five killed, dozens shot in Chicago 'violent night'

WASHINGTON DC: Forty-four people were shot across the Midwestern US city of Chicago on Sunday, US media reported, with five killed in a wave of vio-lence police branded "totally unacceptable."

Chicago Police chief of patrol Fred Waller told a press conference on Sunday after-noon some of the shootings were "targeted" and related to gang conflicts.

"The city of Chicago experi-enced a violent night. Incidents of either random or targeted shooting on our streets is totally unacceptable,"he said.

CNN reported multiple shootings took place between midnight and 2:00 pm local time -- with 10 taking place in just three hours from 1:30 am.

Gunmen targeted groups including one gathering of peo-ple who had attended a funeral repast, police said, adding that one of the injured victims was an 11-year-old boy.

Chicago experienced a near 20-year record number of murders in 2016, prompt-ing President Donald Trump to regularly single out the city for criticism. AGENCIES

5 die as small plane crashes in US mall parking

WASHINGTON DC: A small plane crashed in the parking lot of a mall in the US state of California, killing all five people on board, the authorities said.

The twin-engine Cessna plane was en route to John Wayne Airport when the pilot declared an emergency and crashed around 12:30 pm local time in Santa Ana yester-day, near the South Coast Plaza shopping mall, CNN reported.

The plane crashed just a block away from the mall. There were no injuries on the ground. The plane hit an unoccupied, parked vehicle on the ground, but the owner was in a store at the time of the crash, said Tony Bommarito, the public informa-tion officer with Orange County Fire Authority. AGENCIES

mp worldMILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 7 August, 2018

11

Saudi sets example, snubs Canada for ‘interference’

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia said on Monday it was expelling the Canadian ambassador and had recalled its envoy while freez-ing all new trade, in protest at Ottawa's vigorous calls for the release of jailed activists.

The kingdom gave the Canadian ambassador 24 hours to leave the country, in an abrupt rupture of relations over what it slammed as "inter-ference" in its internal affairs.

The move, which under-scores a newly aggressive for-eign policy led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, comes after Canada demanded the immediate release of human rights cam-paigners swept up in a new crackdown.

"The Canadian position is an overt and blatant inter-ference in the internal affairs of the kingdom of Saudi Ara-bia," the Saudi foreign minis-try tweeted.

"The kingdom announces that it is recalling its ambas-sador to Canada for consulta-tion. We consider the Canadian ambassador to the kingdom persona non grata and order him to leave within the next 24 hours." The ministry also announced "the freezing of all new trade and investment transactions with Canada while retaining its right to take fur-ther action".

Canada last week said it was "gravely concerned" over a new

wave of arrests of women and human rights campaigners in the kingdom, including award-winning gender rights activist Samar Badawi.

"We urge the Saudi author-ities to immediately release them and all other peaceful #humanrights activists," the foreign ministry tweeted on Friday.

Samar was arrested along with fellow campaigner Nas-sima al-Sadah last week, the latest victims of what Human Rights Watch called an "unprecedented government crackdown on the women's rights movement".

Samar is a vocal cam-paigner for blogger Raif Badawi, her brother who was arrested in 2012 and sentenced to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in jail for "insulting Islam" in a case that sparked an interna-tional outcry.

The latest arrests come weeks after more than a dozen women's right campaigners were detained and accused of undermining national security and collaborating with enemies of the state. Some have since been released.

The Saudi foreign ministry slammed the Canadian state-ment, signalling its growing irritation over Western criti-cism of the kingdom's poor human rights record.

"Using the phrase 'imme-diately release' in the Cana-dian statement is very unfortunate, reprehensible, and unacceptable in relations between states," the ministry tweeted.

Prince Mohammed, heir to the region's most power-ful throne, has introduced a string of reforms such as lifting a decades-long ban on women drivers in a bid to overhaul the

kingdom's austere image as it prepares for a post-oil era.

But the 32-year-old has simultaneously pursued a hawkish foreign policy -- including leading a blockade of neighbouring Qatar and a bombing campaign against Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen -- while cracking down on dissent at home.

"The rupture in Saudi dip-lomatic relations with Canada reinforces how the 'new' Saudi Arabia that Mohammed bin Salman is putting together is in no mood to tolerate any form of criticism of its handling of domestic affairs," said Kristian Ulrichsen, a fellow at Rice Uni-versity's Baker Institute in the United States.

In April, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed his "serious concern" over the continued jailing of Badawi to Saudi King Salman.

Badawi's wife Ensaf Hai-dar has been granted asylum by Canada, where she is rais-ing their three children now aged 14, 13 and 10 as a single mother.

Riyadh's expulsion of the Canadian ambassador was meant to send a strong mes-sage to other critical Western governments, observers say.

"Canada is easier to cut ties with than the rest," Bessma Momani, a professor at Can-ada's University of Waterloo, said. AGENCIES

Bangladesh Cabinet approves death penalty for road crashes

DHAKA: Giving in to the demands of student protesters, Bangladesh's Cabinet on Mon-day approved a new road safety law and promised to consider death penalty for deliberately causing accidents as violent clashes between the demon-strators and police continued to cripple normal life here.

The protests sparked last week after two teenage stu-dents --a boy and a girl - were killed when two buses racing to pick passengers, a common occurrence in the city, hit them and wounded several others. One of the bus drivers fled the scene, although both were later arrested.

Police on Monday lobbed tear shells, used water cannons and charged batons to disperse a procession brought out by the Dhaka University students demanding safe roads and protesting the ongoing attacks on students, The Daily Star reported.

The government rushed the new draft of the Road Trans-port Act 2018 to the Cabinet amidst pressure from student protests for safe roads and an unannounced strike by bus operators in response to the demonstrations.

"The Cabinet on Monday approved the Road Trans-port Act 2018 with provisions of highest five years of rigor-ous imprisonment for reckless driving while the term was three years," Cabinet secre-tary Shafiul Alam told a media briefing after the Cabinet meet-ing chaired by Prime Minister

Sheikh Hasina.Law Minister Anisul Huq

told a separate briefing that if police investigations found drivers to have deliberately caused accidents to kill some-one, they would face death pen-alty under the country's penal code.

Though buses returned to Dhaka roads in limited num-bers after eight days of com-plete shutdown, protesters clashed with police at various parts of the city.

During the protests, school children took to the street to regulate traffic and check driv-ers' licenses and vehicles fit-ness, forcing authorities to declare school holidays.

Armed men attacked a convoy of cars carrying the US envoy to Bangladesh in the cap-ital Dhaka on Saturday night. Ambassador Marcia Bernicat and her security team were able to get away unharmed, but two cars were damaged.

Hasina on Sunday appealed to agitating students to return home, saying vested quarters infiltrated in their campaign

for safer road to "catch fish in troubled waters".

Hasina said non-student "saboteurs" were using school uniforms and ID cards as "the third force has appeared at the scene".

Police arrested an actress on Friday night for spreading rumours to insitigate violence by alleging that four protesting women students were taken to hostages at ruling Awami League's Dhanmandi office.

Detectives also detained award winning photographer Shahidul Alam, founder of Drik Picture Library, last night for interrogation over his Face-book posts on the ongoing stu-dent protest.

The government warned of tough punitive actions against instigators of student dem-onstrations. Police launched a nationwide 'Traffic Week' to crackdown on reckless driving.

Bangladesh appeared to be one of the world's worst acci-dent prone countries with the World Bank saying more than 4,000 people die in road acci-dents each year. AGENCIES

Italy fuel truck blast kills 2, injures 70

... Gives Iran envoy visa to work in consular officeTEHRAN: Saudi Arabia has granted a visa to an Iranian diplomat to work in a consular office in Jed-dah, state media re-ported, in a rare sign of a thaw between the rival powers. For-eign ministry official Mohammad Alibak has been permitted to serve as head of Iran’s Interests Section in the consulate, state news agency IRNA reported on Sunday. There was no immedi-ate confirmation from Riyadh. Sunni power-house Saudi Arabia and Iran, the predom-inant Shiite power, have for decades stood on opposing sides of conflicts in the Middle East in-cluding the Syrian civil war. AGENCIES

MILAN: A tanker truck car-rying flammable material exploded on Monday on a highway overpass near the northern Italian city of Bolo-gna, killing at least two people and injuring up to 70 as it par-tially collapsed the raised road-way, police said.

Some people were report-edly hit by flying glass as win-dows shattered in nearby buildings.

Italian police said between 60 and 70 people had been injured, some with severe burns, in the midday accident on a major highway north of the city.

Officials did not immedi-ately know what kind of explo-sives were in the tanker, but the news agency ANSA said it was liquefied petroleum gas.

The explosion reportedly came after a traffic accident. Videos show flames shooting up in the air after the explo-sion, replaced later by a thick black cloud of smoke. Aerial photos showed a gaping hole in the raised highway next to the tanker.

Italian television Sky TG24 said the flames fell to the lower level, setting off secondary explosions in a car lot below. It said some of the injured had been hit by flying glass when windows in nearby buildings exploded. Firefighters said the flames were extinguished some three hours after the explosion, and they were working to cool the area to facilitation opera-tions, ANSA reported.

Authorities said a major highway interchange had been closed north of the city due to the accident. The interchange connects two major highways linking northern Italy with the Adriatic coast, a popular des-tination as Italy heads into its major summer holiday next week. AGENCIES

6 arrested over assassination

attempt on Nicolas MaduroCARACAS, VENEZUELA: Venezuela's government said on Sunday it had arrested six "terrorists and hired killers" over an alleged assassination attempt on President Nicolas Maduro using explosive-laden drones.

Interior and Justice Minis-ter Nestor Reverol announced the arrests on state television, saying "several vehicles have been seized and hotel raids carried out in Caracas where important information was collected."

Reverol said the "assassi-nation" attempt was carried out by two remotely operated drones and each carrying a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of plas-tic explosive C4 -- "capable of causing effective damage over a 50-meter (164 feet) radius."

He said one of the drones flew over the tribune where Maduro was giving a speech to mark a military parade but that it became "disoriented by sig-nal inhibiting equipment" and was thus "activated outside the assassins' planned perimeter."

The second drone lost con-trol and crashed in an adjacent building, Reverol added.

He said it was "a crime of terrorism and assassination" and that the "material and intel-lectual authors inside and out-side the country" had been identified, with further arrests "in the coming hours" possible.

He said seven soldiers had been injured, with three of them in a critical state. Reverol said one of the six detainees was already wanted for involvement in a daring raid on a northern military base a year ago, in which rebels made off with a cache of weapons. AGENCIES

China tests hypersonic

aircraft... with N-warheads

BEIJING: China on Monday announced that it has suc-cessfully tested its first hyper-sonic aircraft which could carry nuclear warheads and penetrate any current genera-tion anti-missile defence sys-tems, seen as a breakthrough in developing cutting-edge weapons.

The Xingkong-2 or Starry Sky-2, was launched in a tar-get range located in Northwest China on Friday last, the state-run China Academy of Aero-space Aerodynamics (CAAA) said in a statement.

The United States and Rus-sia have been carrying out similar experiments.

Launched by a multi-stage rocket, China's waverider was released in the air after about 10 minutes. It flew independently, made large-angle turning maneuvers, and landed in the targeted area as planned, the statement said. AGENCIES

Twitter bots being used to promote vapingWASHINGTON DC: Twitter bots - accounts run by internet robots - are being used to promote vaping and underplay the health threats of e-cig-arettes, a study has found.

Scientists from the San Diego State University (SDSU) in the US found that much of the discussion around the health threats posed by e-cigarettes are driven by bots. Most of the automated messages were posi-tive toward vaping.

More than 70 per cent of the tweets analysed by researchers appeared to have been put out by robots, whose use to influence public opinion and sell products while pos-ing as real people is coming under increased scrutiny.

The discovery of the apparent bot promotion of vaping was unex-pected. The team originally set out to use Twitter data to study the use and

perceptions of e-cigarettes in the US and to understand characteristics of users discussing e-cigarettes.

"Robots are the biggest challenges and problems in social media analyt-ics," said Ming-Hsiang Tsou, from SDSU. "Since most of them are 'com-mercial-oriented' or 'political-ori-ented,' they will skew the analysis results and provide wrong conclu-sions for the analysis," said Tsou.

The findings come amid announcements by Twitter recently that it would be removing suspicious and fake accounts by the millions and also introduce new mechanisms to identify and fight spam and abuse on its platform, among other measures.

"Some robots can be easily removed based on their content and behaviours," Tsou said.

"But some robots look exactly like human beings and can be more difficult to detect. This is a very hot topic now in social media analyt-ics research," he said. For the study, the team compiled a random sample of nearly 194,000 geocoded tweets from across the US posted between October 2015 and February 2016. A random sample of 973 tweets were analysed for their sentiment and source (an individual versus an organisation, for example). AGENCIES

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman PM Justin Trudeau

Lanka may exempt Indian tourists from visaCOLOMBO: Indian tourists visiting Sri Lanka may soon be exempted from visa requirement as the government is mulling granting visa free entry to visitors from countries like India and China, Tourism Minister John Amaratunga said on Monday. Amaratunga said that Prime Minis-ter Ranil Wickremesinghe has appointed a task force to study the possibility of granting visa free entry to visitors from certain tourist friendly nations to boost arrivals. AGENCIES

Apple removes podcasts of man who said US September 11 attacks were staged

CUPERTINO (California): Most of U.S. conspiracy the-orist Alex Jones's podcasts from his right-wing media platform Infowars have been removed from Apple's iTunes and podcast apps, the media news website BuzzFeed quoted a company spokesman as saying on Sunday. The move by Apple is the most sweeping of a recent crackdown on Jones's programs by Facebook and other online sites that have suspended or

removed some of his conspir-acy-driven content.

Apple told Buzzfeed that it has removed the entire library for five of Jones's six Infowars podcasts including the shows "War Room" and the daily "The Alex Jones Show".

Only one program provided by Infowars, "RealNews with David Knight" remained on Apple's platforms on Sunday, according to media accounts.

An Apple spokesperson was

not available for comment early on Monday.

In other recent actions against Jones, Facebook sus-pended the radio and Inter-net host's personal profile for 30 days in late July from Face-book's site for what the com-pany said was bullying and hate speech. Also, Spotify, a music and podcast streaming com-pany, removed some specific episodes of Jones's programs last week. AGENCIES

My client Ms. Roopsi Agarwal availing housing loan from LICHFL Greater Noida U.P to Purchase the Apartment No. 101 on First Floor area 425.28 sq. mtr. in Earth Court Tower-2 “Jaypee Greens” situated at, Block-G, in Greater Noida in Distt. Gautam Budh. Nagar (U.P). from Dr. (Ms) Sudha Madhra & Dr. Kavin-der Madhra who are the owner of said property by virtue of Conveyance Deed regd. on 03.12.2008 as per document no. 14284 in her favour. Dr. (Ms) Sudha Madhra & Dr. Kavinder Madhra has lost and misplaced the original Provisional Allotment Letter dated 18.04.2006 & Possession Letter dated 27.11.2008 and regarding which police complaint has also been lodged on 22.06.2018. If any body finds the misplaced Original document, the same may be returned to the LIC Housing Finance Ltd Greater Noida, if anybody misuses the same, the same shall be at his/their own risk. If any body has any claim, right, interest in the said flat shall also inform within 21 days to the undersigned on Telephone No:- 0120-4164364, 9891119162 & 9891119161. as applicant is mortgag-ing the above property to LIC Housing Finance Ltd.

Sd/- [S.C. Varshney] Advocate

(Lichfl Panel Adv.)R-14/178,Raj NagarGhaziabad-201002

PUBLIC NOTICE

mp business12MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 7 August, 2018

NEW DELHI: The govern-ment on Monday said it has received representations from trade bodies alleging irregu-larities in various aspects of the proposed acquisition of Flipkart by Walmart and that have been sent to concerned agencies for necessary action.

“Yes,” Minister of State for Commerce and Industry C R Chaudhary said on a question whether the government has received representations from various trade bodies urging to quote into the modalities con-cerning the merger of Flipkart and Walmart allegedly circum-venting the FDI policy/guide-lines on e-commerce.

“The representations

received have alleged irregu-larities in various aspects of the proposed acquisition of shares of Flipkart by Walmart. These representations have been sent to the concerned bodies of the government for neces-

sary action,” he said.In May, the US-based

retailer Walmart Inc announced acquisition of 77 per cent stake in Flipkart in its biggest takeover till date. The deal values the 11-year

old Indian e-commerce firm at $20.8 billion.

Replying to a separate ques-tion, the minister said during the last three years (from July 2015 onwards), in matters relat-ing to five cases, certain irreg-ularities have come to notice due to which the State Trad-ing Corporation had suffered financial losses.

“Three cases were referred by STC to CBI. FIR has been lodged in one case with local police. In addition, STC has ini-tiated disciplinary proceedings in four cases,” he said.

The corporation has recorded Rs 38 crore profit after tax in 2017-18 as against a loss of Rs 166 crore in 2016-17. PTI

Representations against Flipkart-Walmart deal sent to concerned dept, assures Govt

NEW DELHI: Japanese con-glomerate SoftBank Group on Monday said its operating profit has jumped over 49 per cent in the June quarter, helped by its sale of shares in Indian e-com-merce firm Flipkart.

The company, which regis-tered operating income of 715 billion yen ($6.42 billion) dur-ing the quarter, also attributed the growth to sale of the major-ity of chip designer ARM Hold-ing's Chinese operations.

"(Operating income was) Boosted by valuation gain of 244.9 billion at SoftBank Vision Fund: valuation gain of 164.3 billion ($1.4 billion) was recorded for Flipkart based on the expected sales price, follow-ing the sales agreement," Soft-

Bank said in a statement.It also recorded a "one-time

gain of 161.3 billion following Arm's China business becoming an associate from a subsidiary due to the establishment of a joint venture", it added.

SoftBank said it estimates that the sale of Flipkart shares will occur within 24 months of the inception of the investment.

It added that the company has "calculated the deferred tax at 43.68 per cent, being the

Indian short-term capital gains tax rate expected to apply to the sale of Flipkart shares".

In May this year, SoftBank had decided to sell its about 20 per cent stake in Flipkart to US retailer Walmart. The deal is estimated to help SoftBank rake in about $4 billion from the sale.

SoftBank had invested $2.5 billion in Flipkart last year through Vision Fund that is touted to be one of the world's largest private equity fund.

"Investments totaling $27.1 billion to date at SoftBank Vision Fund amounted to fair value of $32.5 billion... Total committed capital of $97.7 bil-lion at SoftBank Vision Fund and Delta Fund," SoftBank said. PTI

Japanese SoftBank profit soars 49% on Flipkart, ARM stake sales

BERLIN: Private equity invest-ment in real estate fell by 22 per cent to Rs 10,080 crore during April-June quarter, even as the inflow in office segment rose by nearly 40 per cent, accord-ing to property consultant Cushman & Wakefield.

PE investment in real estate stood at Rs 12,970 crore in the year-ago period. The consul-tant and realtors' body CRE-DAI released a joint report at a conference held here.

The CREDAI-C&W report said that although PE inflows into real estate dipped 22 per cent year-on-year (Y-O-Y) to Rs 10,080 crore during the sec-ond quarter, it was still second highest investment in Q2 in the last 11 years.

According to the report, the PE inflows in housing seg-ment fell to Rs 1,510 crore from Rs 2,290 crore during the period under review. However, the inflows in office segment, which is in demand from both domestic and global investors, rose to Rs 4,300 crore during the second quarter of 2018 from Rs 3,090 crore in the year-ago period.

Mixed use projects saw PE inflows of Rs 1,850 crore, up from Rs 610 crore in the year-ago period.

In retail segment, PE investment fell to Rs 1,740 crore from Rs 2,840 crore dur-

ing the period under review. Industrial segments saw a sharp fall in PE inflows to Rs 680 crore from Rs 3,760 crore.

"The surge in office invest-ments was an expected trend, in line with our observa-tions made in Q1 2018, dur-ing which there was a forecast of some marquee deals in the office sector by private equity majors," C&W India Coun-try Head and MD Anshul Jain said.

As office space supply and demand continue to experi-ence a robust increase, coupled with the emergence of co-working spaces in a phenom-enal way, he said the investor confidence in the sector would

continue to remain intact.Retail also continues to

grow strong, with declining mall vacancy rates constituting the heightened investor inter-est in this sector, Jain said.

Investment inflows in Mumbai fell during this quar-ter at Rs 2,800 crore although the city still receives the high-est investments observed among the major cities.

Leading the investment volume among all cities with a share of 28 per cent, Mum-bai noted the quarter's larg-est transaction with Brookfield Asset Management acquiring Essar Group's Equinox Busi-ness Park in Bandra Kurla Complex for Rs 2,400 crore. PTI

Private equity inflows in realty dip 22% in Q1

NEW DELHI: Bharti Airtel and Telecom Egypt on Mon-day announced a strategic part-nership through which the Indian firm will get the right to use sub-marine cable net-works -- MENA and TE North, which stretches from Cyprus to France via Egypt.

Airtel said that the partner-ship will enable it to diversify its global network to serve the massive growth in demand for data services, particularly in emerging markets across South Asia, Africa and Middle East.

The geographic location of Egypt on the Red and Mediter-ranean seas has enabled Tele-com Egypt to connect more than 11 cable systems from the east and 13 from the west that are further linked with a cable corridor that has seven diversi-fied routes across Egypt.

Internet data across coun-tries and continents are transmitted through large sub-

marine cable systems. Greater access to various sub-marine cable system enhances data transmission capacity of a tele-com operator's network.

"Airtel will get IRUs (Inde-feasible Right of Use) on Middle East North Africa Sub-marine Cable (MENA Cable) and TE North Cable Systems," a joint statement from the two companies said.

Telecom Egypt has signed the deal with Orascom Tele-com Media and Technology (OTMT) to purchase its stake

in MENA cable system -- an important route for Airtel which has operations across 14 African countries.

"In addition, Airtel will also take large capacities on a long-term basis on two new state-of-the-art Cable Systems (SMW5 & AAE1)," the statement said.

The SEA-ME-WE-5 (South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe-5) cable system runs across 18 countries between France and Singapore while AAE1 connects 20 countries between France and Hong

Kong including Thailand, Combodia, India, Saudi Ara-bia and Egypt.

"The partnership including MENA Cable and TE's network will be a good addition to our global network portfolio and provide us with a high quality and diversified new route to Western Europe and the rest of the world.

"With the explosion of data usage in emerging mar-kets, including India and Africa, this asset will provide us a scalable and diverse high capacity highway to serve our customers,"Ajay Chitkara, Director and CEO - Airtel Business said.

Telecom Egypt CEO Ahmed El Beheiry said: "Our reach and position as an inter-national hub with tens of Tbps (terrabyte per second) lit capacity, makes us the partner of choice for Euro-Asian and Euro-African transit traffic. PTI

NEW DELHI: Foreigners com-ing to India may not get GST refunds on goods purchased and carried back by them as the government has not invoked relevant provisions of the Inte-grated Goods and Services Tax Act yet, the Finance Min-istry has said in reply to an RTI query.

It was asked to provide details on procedures for for-eigners to get GST refunds on goods purchased by them in India.

Some western nations pro-vide refunds of certain taxes on goods purchased by foreign-ers there.

Please note that Section 15 of the IGST (Integrated Goods and Services Tax) has not yet been enforced. Therefore the reply of this office is nil infor-mation currently, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) said in reply to the Right to Information (RTI) application filed by this PTI correspondent.

According to the section, integrated tax paid by a tourist leaving India on any supply of goods taken out of India by him shall be "refunded in such man-ner and subject to such condi-tions and safeguards as may be

prescribed".For the purposes of this sec-

tion, the term tourist' means a person not normally resident in India, who enters India for a stay of not more than six months for legitimate non-immigrant pur-poses, the Act says.

The IGST makes provisions for the levy and collection of taxes on inter-state supply of goods or services or both by the Central government.

According to senior GST professional Sandeep Chilana, the government should come out with terms, conditions and

safeguards for refunds of GST paid by international tourists in India

GST is a consumption-based tax. To the extent con-sumption is happening in India the taxes should stay in India. In case the goods are purchased in India and taken by the tourist outside India, it should be seen as export and necessary refund should be available, he said.

In order to ensure there is no misuse, the mechanism for such a refund process would need to be robust, said Chilana, a partner of the law firm Shardul

Amarchand Mangaldas. While selling these goods

to international tourists, shop-keepers will have to charge IGST only and not local taxes. The government may also require shopkeepers to issue some form/certificate verify-ing the details of the purchases along with passport number and other relevant details, he said.

Like other developed coun-tries, it is likely that the foreign tourist would need to show the form/certificate along with invoices etc at refund counters

that need to be set up at exiting points like international air-ports, so that tourists can get refunds of the GST paid on the goods brought by them, the tax expert said.

He added that foreign coun-tries, mainly in Europe, have established a provision that a foreigner needs to show a form or receipt that he has got on purchase of particular goods to get refund.

I feel having a provision for refund of taxes to foreign tourists will definitely act as a motivation for international travellers. It will encourage them to spend more money in India. It will promote tourism in the country and help in gen-erating foreign exchange from the tourists. It will give huge impetus to demand for various industries including handicraft, textiles etc., Chilana said.

The Goods and Services Tax came into force on July 1, 2017.

But Section 15 of the IGST has not been brought into force yet. It is more than a year since we implemented the GST and the IT system has also stabilised to a great extent. It is high time we bring into effect this provi-sion of refund of GST taxes to foreigners, he said. PTI

Foreigners may not receive GST refunds: Finance Ministry

April-June PE inflows in the housing segment collapsed massively to `1,510 crore from `2,290 crore

Airtel, Telecom Egypt tie up for global submarine cable systems

NEW DELHI: The National Company Law Appellate Tri-bunal (NCLAT) on Monday extended the deadline for sub-mission of revised bids for debt-ridden Bhushan Power and Steel by one week on the plea of Tata Steel, a resolution applicant in this.

Modifying its earlier order, the appellate tribunal has now said all three bidder -- Tata Steel, Liberty House and JSW -- may file their revised offers by August 13 for Bhushan Power and Steel Ltd (BPSL).

Earlier, on August 1, an NCLAT bench headed by Chairman Justice S J Mukho-padhaya had allowed all three bidders to file revised offers by August 6.

However, NCLAT's August 1 order was challenged by Tata Steel before the Supreme Court last week, opposing the revi-sion of the offer. The Tata Group company was picked as

the highest bidder for BPSL a day before that on July 31.

During the proceedings of NCLAT, counsel appearing for Tata Steel submitted that as its appeal against the August 1 order is expected to be heard by the Apex Court on Friday this week and requested to extend the time line for submission of the revised bids.

According to them, if Com-mittee of Creditors (CoC) take a decision based on the revised offers, then their position may be altered.

Following this, NCLAT extended the time line for a week.

The NCLAT last month had vacated its stay and asked the CoC to consider resolution plans submitted by three firms -- Tata Steel, Liberty House and JSW Steel. The tribunal on July 20 gave a go-ahead to the CoC meeting, directing it to finalise a bid for the company. PTI

NCLAT extends deadline for submission of revised bid

for Bhushan Power & Steel

NEW DELHI: Nestle India's instant noodles brand Maggi has attained over 60 per cent market share and almost touched the pre-crisis level in value terms, said a top company official.

However, volume-wise Maggi is still away from the pre-crisis period, when Nestle used to dominate the market with 75 per cent market share.

"We are little over 60 per cent (market share). In busi-ness terms, we are almost back to where we were (in terms of pre-crisis). In value terms, we are almost back there," said Nes-tle India Chairman and Manag-ing Director Suresh Narayanan.

He further said, "We still have some time to catch up that pre-crisis volume."

Presently, Maggi contributes around one-third of the total sales of the company.

"Total contribution from

the prepared foods (Maggi and Maggi franchise) is about 30 per cent," said Narayanan in a media roundtable here.

Nestle India had in 2017 crossed the Rs 10,000-crore sales mark.

Maggi was banned by Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) in June 2015 for five months for allegedly containing lead beyond per-missible limits, forcing Nestle India to withdraw the product from the market.

Following legal battles, the popular noodles brand was back in the market in Novem-ber 2015. PTI

Maggi attains over 60% market share, touches pre-crisis level in value terms

CMD Suresh Narayanan

BENGALURU: Honda Motor-cycle and Scooter India Pvt Ltd has become the first two-wheeler brand to cross the five-lakh mark in sales in the South, between April and June 2018, the company said on Monday.

With this, the company has strengthened its leader-ship position as the number-one two-wheeler brand in the South covering Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, a press statement said here.

The statement quoted senior vice-president - sales and marketing, Honda Motor-cycle and Scooter India Yad-vinder Singh Guleria as saying that the southern States were also driving the demand in the two-wheeler industry across the country.

Honda expanded produc-tion capacity in Narsapura plant in Karnataka, making the unit the largest two-wheeler plant in the world, he said.

The company has more

than one-crore customers in the South riding on the back of an overall double-digit growth with more than 17.6 lakh two-wheelers sold in FY 2017-18, the statement said.

The company has a market share of 35 per cent.

While Activa continued to rule as the highest selling auto-matic scooter in the region, CB Shine leads in the 125cc motor-cycle segment, the statement said.

In the southern region, Kar-nataka is the biggest market where, in the first quarter of this year, sales have crossed the 1.1-lakh mark posting a double digit growth of 14 per cent, the statement added. PTI

Honda India two-wheelers crosss 5 lakh mark in sales

NEW DELHI: Fulfilling aspi-rations of the business frater-nity, an exclusive multi-product B2G/B2B exhibition, first ever India Show has been resched-uled by India Trade Promotion Organisation(ITPO).

Now, this first ever four- day event will be organised at CCIT, Chandybil Avenue, Ashgabat (Turkmenistan) from October 16 to 19, 2018. Earlier, the event was scheduled to be held in August 2018.

The ITPO is a public sector enterprise under the aegis of the Department of Commerce, Government of India and com-mitted to globally showcase excellence of ‘Brand India’. MPOST

ITPO reschedules India Show in Turkmenistan

GURUGRAM: Oriental bank of commerce launched Ori-ental Bank Rewardz program on August 4, 2018 as an initia-tive to promote usage of digital channels.

All transactions performed through Internet Banking, Mobile Banking, UPI and Debit card would be rewarded with OBC points.

These points will further allow customers to shop from a wide-ranging catalogue of mer-chandise, online air ticket, hotel bookings, recharges etc.

All transactions performed on and after April 1, 2018 has been rewarded with OBC Points. MPOST

Oriental Bank of Commerce starts Rewardz Program

BEIJING: China has tightened controls on trading in its yuan to discourage speculators after a decline against the dollar amid a tariff dispute with Washington fueled fears of a damaging out-flow of capital from the world's second-largest economy.

Traders must post a 20 per-cent deposit starting Monday for contracts to buy or sell yuan on a future date. That raises the cost of betting it will drop and might help to discourage spec-ulative trading.

The tightly controlled yuan has been allowed to decline by about 8 percent against the dol-lar since early February. That

helps Chinese exporters that face US tariff hikes by lower-ing their prices in dollar terms. But it also encourages investors to shift money out of China, which would have a broader impact by raising financing costs for other industries. On Friday, the yuan slipped to a 13-month low of 6.91 to the dollar, close to the highly symbolic level of

7, before strengthening to 6.83 after the margin requirement was announced.

The deepening US-Chinese tariff fight prompted suggestions Beijing might weaken the yuan to help exporters. But analysts say the decline has been driven mostly by China's slowing eco-nomic growth and the diverg-ing direction of US and Chinese interest rates.

Washington imposed 25 percent tariffs on 34 billion of Chinese goods on July 6 and is considering an increase on an additional 16 billion, with another 200 billion list of goods threatened. PTI

Trump tariffs: China tightens controls to slow currency’s fall

mp business 13MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 7 August, 2018

EXCELLENT BUSINESS

Tata Power Delhi Distribution (Tata Power-DDL) has been adjudged as the ‘Industry Leader’ for crossing landmark score of 650+ in its Tata Business Excellence Model (TBEM) assessment 2017. The award was presented by Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus, Tata Sons and N Chandrasekaran, Chairman, Tata Sons to Praveer Sinha, Chairman, Tata Power-DDL and CEO & MD, Tata Power and Sanjay Banga, CEO, Tata Power-DDL at the JRD QV Award function held recently at the National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA) in Mumbai

NEW YORK: Indra Nooyi will step down as PepsiCo's CEO after heading the world's sec-ond-largest food and beverage giant for 12 years, the company announced on Monday, with its Indian-origin top executive exuding confidence that the "best days are yet to come" for the soda and snacks firm.

Nooyi, 62, will leave the company on October 3 after 24 years with PepsiCo. She will remain as chairman until early 2019.

President Ramon Laguarta was elected by the board of directors to succeed her. Laguarta was also elected to the board, the company said.

"Growing up in India, I never imagined I'd have the opportunity to lead such an extraordinary company," Nooyi, one of the world's most powerful and influential business leaders, said in a statement.

"I'm incredibly proud of all we've done over the past 12 years to advance the interests of our stakeholders in the communities we serve. What I admire about our global team is an incred-ible drive to compete to be the best, to remain the best," the Chennai-born executive said

on Twitter."Today is a day of mixed

emotions for me. @PepsiCo has been my life for 24 years & part of my heart will always remain here. I'm proud of what we've done & excited for the future. I believe PepsiCo's best days are yet to come," she tweeted.

Among the few executives to break the glass ceiling in cor-porate America, Nooyi had also scripted history by being among the few India-born females to lead a global giant when she took over the reins at PepsiCo.

"Guided by our philosophy of Performance with Purpose delivering sustained perfor-mance while making more nutritious products, limiting our environmental footprint and lifting up all the communi-ties we serve we've made a more meaningful impact in people's lives than I ever dreamed pos-sible," she said.

"PepsiCo today is in a strong position for continued growth with its brightest days still ahead," said Nooyi, a rarity on Wall Street as a woman and a minority leading a Fortune 100 company.

It was not immediately clear why Nooyi decided to step

down. Laguarta, a 22-year vet-eran of the company, has been president since September, over-seeing global operations, corpo-rate strategy, public policy and government affairs. Prior to that, Laguarta served in leadership positions in the European and sub-Saharan Africa divisions.

Laguarta said Nooyi has transformed the company with her bold vision and outstand-ing leadership, and he is for-tunate to have her as a mentor and a friend.

"I look forward to working more closely with all of you in the months and years ahead, and to continue growing this special company long into the future," he said.

Laguarta has held a number of executive and general man-agement roles in his 22 years at PepsiCo. Since September 2017, Laguarta has served as President of PepsiCo, oversee-ing global operations, corporate strategy, public policy and gov-ernment affairs.

In 2017, Nooyi was placed at No 2 on the US Fortune's list of 'The Most Powerful Women in Business' outside the US. She also topped the list of highest-paid female CEOs.

With Nooyi's departure, the rest of PepsiCo's senior leadership team will remain unchanged, the company said.

PepsiCo's premarket stock price declined slightly after the announcement, CNBC reported.

Under Nooyi's leadership, PepsiCo said it has delivered strong results.

Since December 31, 2006, total shareholder return of 162 per cent through December 31, 2017, total cash returned to shareholders through divi-dends and share repurchases of $79.4 billion since the begin-ning of 2006 through the end of 2017 and net revenue growth from $35 billion in 2006 to $63.5 billion in 2017, a com-pound annual growth rate of 5.5 per cent.

Nooyi's exit is the latest in a series of high-profile CEO departures in the food and bev-erage industry, as big brands lose shelf space to smaller, trendier entrants and established players

scramble for growth. Speaking on behalf of Pep-

siCo's Board of Directors, pre-siding director Ian Cook said Nooyi provided "outstanding leadership" over the past 12 years, serving as a model both within the industry and beyond for responsible corporate stew-ardship in the 21st century.

"She has delivered strong and consistent financial per-formance, managing with an eye toward not only the short-run, but the long-run as well. As CEO, she grew revenue more than 80 per cent, outperforming our peers and adding a new bil-lion-dollar brand almost every other year, Cook said adding that shareholders have also benefited as $1,000 invested in PepsiCo in 2006 is worth more than two-and-a-half times that amount today.

During her tenure, Nooyi also focussed on corporate sus-tainability and responsibility.

Cook said as one of the first Fortune 100 CEOs to embed sustainability targets into busi-ness operations, Nooyi was a "pioneer, paving the way for a new generation of business leaders who seek to 'do well by doing good." PTI

TEHRAN: With the Trump administration set to re-impose some sanctions on Iran on Mon-day, the country's Central Bank lifted a ban on exchange offices, allowing them to resume work in a move aimed at bringing in badly needed hard currencies.

The bank also gave the green light for Iranian "legal institu-tions and businesses" to bring gold and foreign currency into Iran, according to the governor, Abdolnasser Hemmati.

A first set of US sanctions that had been eased by the Obama administration under the terms of the landmark 2015 Iran nuclear deal will take effect again on Monday, following President Donald Trump's deci-sion in May to withdraw from the accord.

Those sanctions target Iran's automotive sector as well as gold and other key metals. Renewed sanctions targeting Iran's oil industry and banking sector

will resume on November 4. Hemmati told sate TV late on Sunday that "money exchang-ers are allowed to sell and buy foreign currencies" once again, to help Iranians get better access to "services and travel abroad." The official exchange rate of the national currency, the rial, will remain at 42,000 rials to the dollar for vital imports such as

medicine and food, he added.The decision goes into effect

on Tuesday. Hemmati said the Central Bank will try "not to intervene in deciding on the price" of foreign currencies.

Foreign currencies had recently doubled in price on the black market.

The ban on the exchange offices, introduced in March,

had left the offices idle over-night: gone were the familiar, daily long lines of Iranians wait-ing to buy or sell dollars. The measure also backfired, and the black market flourished.

Hemmati said the govern-ment's decision in April to enforce a single exchange rate to the dollar had caused "seri-ous problems" for the country.

He maintained the Central Bank's decision reflects Iran's "strength" in the face of renewed U.S. sanctions.

"We are facing an economic war and the US government is restoring sanctions and also try-ing to increase them," he said. "But our government is power-ful ... and is capable of opening up the foreign currency market on the same day." Hemmati said Iran has exported some 15 bil-lion worth of non-oil products from April to July.

The United States has also been pushing its allies to halt their import of Iranian oil ahead of the November dead-line. Among the top importers of Iranian oil are China, India, Turkey and South Korea.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, meanwhile, has sug-gested Iran might block the Strait of Hormuz in response to a shutdown of its oil exports. PTI

Iran braces for US sanctions, lifts ban on exchange offices NEW DELHI: The board of

ONGC has, for the second time in just over a month, approved selling its entire 49 per cent stake in helicopter service pro-vider Pawan Hans alongside government's privatisation bid, officials with direct knowledge of the development said.

ONGC board had first on June 29 approved exiting Pawan Hans and its interest being clubbed with the 51 per cent government stake that is already on offer for sale.

Officials said ONGC on July 2 wrote to the government communicating the decision of the board but the Department of Disinvestment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM), which is managing the sale of government stake, sought certain clarifications from the company.

Among others, ONGC was asked to state if the terms on which government stake sale is being sold would be acceptable to it. The company board at its meeting on August 2 endorsed such terms, they said.

This now paves way for the government to make a revised offer to sell 100 per cent stake in Pawan Hans.

DIPAM, which floated the offer for sale for govern-ment's 51 per cent stake in Pawan Hans twice in the last 10 months, is likely to issue an amended expression of inter-est (EoI) shortly. Officials said ONGC is of the view that its

investment in Pawan Hans is no longer strategic as it charter hires helicopters to ferry staff to its oil and gas locations, mostly offshore, through competitive bidding. Of the 22 helicopters it currently has on hire, just seven or less than a third are from Pawan Hans.

Pawan Hans owns a fleet of 46 helicopters.

ONGC board wants to consolidate business and focus resources on core oil and gas exploration and production business and not scatter band-width of management in unre-lated businesses, they said.

Officials said when the gov-ernment had first floated an offer to sell its 51 per cent stake in October last year, ONGC made an offer to DIPAM that its 49 per cent stake be also sold on same terms.

At that time, the com-pany was told to get its board approval.

Meanwhile, the govern-

ment in early April withdrew its offer for sale as only two bidders including Indian heli-copter major Global Vectra Helicorp and US-based Con-tinental Helicopters made an offer.

A revised offer for sale was floated later that month, which fetched about half a dozen bidders.

DIPAM is of the view that a revised offer for sale would have to be floated as some bid-ders may have been deterred by 51 per cent stake and would now prefer to bid when 100 per cent is being offered.

Pawan Hans operates seven Dauphin N3 Helicopters for ONGC's offshore operations. These helicopters, based at Juhu airport, Mumbai and Rajah-mundry, undertake passenger crew change service and pro-duction trips on a regular basis to meet the offshore require-ments of the state-owned oil and gas producer. PTI

ONGC Board okays full 49% stake sale in Pawan Hans

Indra Nooyi is stepping down as PepsiCo CEO

NEW DELHI: Adani Power on Monday said its consolidated net loss widened by 82 per cent to Rs 825.15 crore in the quarter ended June 30, 2018.

The company's consolidated net loss stood at Rs 452.84 crore

in the quarter ended June of the previous fiscal, a BSE filing said.

Com-pany's total income in the quarter under review declined

to Rs 3,959.40 crore from Rs 5,601.25 crore a year ago.

The company said that this reduction in income was due to lower PLFs and billed avail-ability. The Average Plant Load Factor (PLF) or capacity utili-sation achieved during the first

quarter of 2018-19 fiscal was 38 per cent, compared to 63 per cent achieved in Q1 of 2017-18 financial year. The drop was on account of lower domestic coal availability at Tirada and Kawai, as well as commercial shutdowns due to high imported coal prices, it added.

Gautam Adani, Chairman, Adani Group in the statement said, "The government's com-mendable efforts in provid-ing power connectivity to each household under the SAUBHA-GYA Scheme and 100 per cent village electrification will help the power sector by expand-ing the addressable market and growing base demand. Meeting this demand will require timely assurance of key enablers such as domestic fuel availability, power offtake by DISCOMs and distribution reforms through focused action." PTI

NEW DELHI: Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) on Monday reported 9 per cent decline in consoli-dated profit to Rs 697.40 crore for the first quarter ended June 30, 2018-19.

It had posted net profit of Rs 767.52 crore in the April-June quarter of last fiscal, 2017-18, APSEZ said in a filing to BSE.

The company's consolidated income also decreased to Rs 2,703.86 crore during quarter under review, from Rs 2,959.63 crore in the year-ago period.

Its total expenditure dur-ing the said period was at Rs 1,781.46 crore as against Rs 1,867.43 crore in April-June 2017. The company said in a separate statement that it com-pleted acquisition of Kattupalli port during the first quarter of the current fiscal, and recom-menced operations at its Vizag

Terminal. Cargo volume grew by 9 per cent over year ago quar-ter, it said.

"The growth was led by crude which grew by 65 per cent and containers which grew by 16 per cent. The cargo vol-ume growth was led by our three larger ports. While Mundra port grew by 5 per cent, Hazira grew by 14 per cent and Kattupalli port grew by 13 per cent," it said.

At nine per cent, the com-pany has clocked its highest quarterly throughput, APSEZ Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Whole Time Director (WTO) Karan Adani said in the statement.

"This has been possible due to our continued efforts to diversify cargo at all our ports. Port EBITDA (earnings before interest taxes depreciation and amortization) margins have expanded...we expect EBITDA

to continue to expand due to our focus on higher capacity utilisation, automation and mechanisation through use of technology. Our focus will be to further strengthen our bal-ance sheet and to continue best practices in health, safety and environ-ment pro-cesses," he said.

Adani Ports and Special Eco-nomic Zone is India's leading port developer and operator. APSEZ has 10 strate-gically located ports and termi-nals, including Mundra, Dahej, Kandla and Hazira in Gujarat, Dhamra in Odisha, Mormugao in Goa, , and Kattupalli and Ennore in Chennai. PTI

Adani Ports' quarterly profit sinks by 9% to `697 crore

Adani Power net loss widens to ̀ 825 cr in Q1

Escorts Group Chairman Rajan Nanda passes awayNEW DELHI: Escorts group Chairman Rajan Nanda (76) passed away on Sunday after a brief illness, a company statement said on Monday. Nanda joined Escorts in 1965 at the age of 23, and in 1994, he took over as the Chairman of Escorts Group, when his father and the founder Chairman, H P Nanda, stepped down after a 50 year-long innings. Rajan Nanda was an active member of several apex trade and industry bodies. As a member of the CII National Council, he had served as Chairman of its Agriculture Committee. Escorts is a leading manufacturer of tractors and construction equipment in the country. It also caters to railways with its various products. PTI

NEW DELHI: Indraprastha Gas Ltd on Monday said it has bagged a licence to retail CNG to automobiles and piped natural gas for cooking to households in Meerut, Muzaf-farnagar and Shamli districts of Uttar Pradesh.

IGL already retails CNG and piped natural gas (PNG) in the national capital region that includes Delhi and adjoin-ing cities of Ghaziabad, Noida and Greater Noida.

It also has city gas distribu-tion (CGD) licences for Rewari and Karnal in Haryana.

"IGL has received a let-ter of intent dated August 4, 2018, from Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) for grant of authori-zation to the company for devel-opment of city gas distribution

network in the Geographical Area of Meerut (except areas already authorided), Muzaf-farnagar and Shamli districts," the company said in a regula-tory filing.

It also enclosed a copy of the authorisation letter.

PNGRB in the letter asked IGL to submit a performance bank guarantee of Rs 50 crore within 30 days of issue of the authorisation. PTI

IGL gets city licence for Meerut, Muzaffarnagar

MUMBAI: For the fifth con-secutive month, debt-laden Air India has not paid salaries to its employees on time and is yet to communicate the possible date of payments, sources said.

There has been a delay in payment of salaries every month since March.

The national carrier, which is facing acute financial crunch, is yet to issue any specific com-munication on when the pay-ments are likely to made, the sources said.

Air India has more than 11,000 permanent staff.

Sources at Air India said that last month's salaries are yet to be deposited in the bank accounts of employees.

An airline spokesperson said salaries for the month of July are likely to be disbursed

in a couple of days. Generally, the airline disburses salaries by 30th or 31st of every month.

The delay in salary pay-ments also comes against the backdrop of the government seeking Parliament's nod for Rs 980 crore as supplementary grants for equity infusion into the airline.

On July 26, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha told the Lok Sabha that there was a short delay in the payment of salaries for May and that the same was paid subsequently.

"Salaries have been paid to all employees, including the sal-ary for the month of June, 2018, which was paid on July 2, 2018," the minister had said.

At the end of March 2017, the national carrier had a debt burden of more than Rs 48,000 crore.

Last month, the Civil Avia-tion Ministry said that Air India has received Rs 27,195.21 crore worth equity infusion under the Turn Around Plan (TAP) and the Financial Restructur-ing Plan (FRP) approved back in 2012.

After the carrier defaulted on payment of employees' May salary this year, one of its pilots' unions had urged the manage-ment to ensure that the situ-ation is not repeated in the future. PTI

Air India delays its employees' salaries for 5th straight month

Graphite India Ltd Q1 net profit

zooms to ̀ 957 crNEW DELHI: Graphite India Ltd has reported financial results for the period ended June 30, 2018. The company has reported net sales of Rs.1995 crores during the 3 months period ended June 30, 2018 as compared to Rs.436 crores dur-ing the 3 months period ended June 30, 2017.

The company has posted net profit of Rs.957 crores for the 3 months period ended June 30, 2018 as against Rs.30 crores for the 3 months period ended June 30, 2017. The company has reported EPS of Rs.49.08 for the 3 months period ended June 30, 2018 as compared to Rs.1.54 for the 3 months period ended June 30, 2017. Shares of company hit a new high of Rs 1,080 per share, rising 2.4% on the BSE in intra-day trade. MPOST

Walmart strikes deal with 6-year-old

toy boy millionaireNEW DELHI: A six-year-old boy called Ryan, who reviews toys on YouTube will start sell-ing his own brand of toys on Walmart’s 2,500 US stores and website from Monday. Chris-tened ‘Ryan’s World’, the range of toys will expand to other retailers in October.

Reviewing toys on You-Tube has made the six-year-old a millionaire, having earned $11 million from the activity last year.

The star of the YouTube channel Ryan ToysReview, known simply as Ryan, his last name and location are held secret, was the 8th best paid YouTuber last year and has over 15 million subscribers.

Ryan's six YouTube chan-nels have enthralled children, often drawing more than 1 bil-lion views a month to videos of him playing with toys and reacting to them. His family has kept his last name secret given his young age.

His family started record-ing and posting videos of him in March 2015, the then 3-year-old's first video showed him open a Lego box and playing with it.

News agency Reuters reported last month that Pocket.watch has negotiated

licensing deals for a handful of online video stars to expand their reach through toys, apparel and home products.

The Ryan's World mer-chandise, designed for ages 3 and up, is the first to come to market.

The products include T-shirts with four designs fea-turing some of Ryan's favorite things, including pizza.

Ryan is certainly a shrewd businessman, as the US toy market is underserved since a large toy retailer, Toys 'R' US, shut all its 885 stores after going bankrupt — meaning plenty of customers crying for toys. AGENCIES

ANTI-IMPERIALIST ICON: Iran President Hassan Rouhani

Ryan

mp sport14MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 7 August, 2018

ARTURO VIDAL INKS CONTRACT WITH BARCABARCELONA: Chile midfielder Arturo Vidal has signed a three-year contract with Barcelona after passing all required medical tests, the Spanish club said on Monday. After signing the contract along with Barcelona vice president Jordi Mestre, Vidal headed to Camp Nou for his official presentation, reports Efe. Camp Nou’s doors were closed for safety purposes due to the ongoing construction work at the stadium.

SOUTH KOREA NAMES VENUES FOR SEPTEMBER FOOTBALL FRIENDLIESSEOUL: South Korea’s football federation, KFA, on Monday confirmed the venues for the upcoming friendly matches of the men’s national team against Costa Rica and Chile at home. The KFA said the team will take on world No. 23 Costa Rica at Goyang Stadium in Goyang, on September 7 and play against world No. 9 Chile in Busan on September 11.

LEICESTER CITY SIGN GHEZZAL FROM MONACOPARIS: Algerian winger Rachid Ghezzal has moved from Ligue 1 club AS Monaco to English Premier League (EPL) side Leicester City. The 26-year-old winger on Sunday signed a four-year contract with his new football club for an undisclosed fee, reports Xinhua news agency. He will reunite with Leicester City manager Claude Puel, who was in charge of Lyon where the winger progressed through the academy.

BIRMINGHAM: England coach Trevor Bayliss feels the seemingly peerless Virat Kohli can be put under pres-sure if the home team’s bowl-ers can continue to tame the rest of the Indian line-up in the ongoing Test series.

“If Virat Kohli is not the best batsman (in the world), he’s very close to it. The way he played the first and second innings was high-class stuff. If we can put pressure on the other batsmen in the Indian team, that’s going to add to the pressure on him,” Bayliss told reporters here.

“I don’t think it’s any dif-ferent for us. We’ve got a few guys who are not necessarily cemented in the team and that put extra pressure on people like Joe Root and Jonny Bair-stow,” said Bayliss.

India lost the first Test here by 31 runs after two succes-sive batting collapses, during which Kohli stood out with his heroics — a 100 in the first innings and a half century in the second essay.

“In this first Test, the four innings had wickets falling left, right and center all bats-men were in trouble, even Kohli, who I don’t think was all that comfortable early on. It was difficult to bat, probably more difficult than it looked from outside,” he added.

Bayliss said he expects the Indian team to learn quickly from the mistakes committed while tackling the moving ball just as his team would look to address its weak handling of

spin, in the remaining four matches of the series.

“India are a very good team. We’re very much in the hunt here. When the ball’s moving, we’ve shown that a few of their guys do struggle against the moving ball. I’m sure that they’ll be going away working out how they can play it as we’re going work-ing on how to play the off spin,” he added. All-rounder Ben Stokes will be appear-ing in Bristol today to answer charges of affray during a pub brawl. England have drafted in pacer Chris Woakes as replacement with 20-year-old batsman Oliver Pope getting his maiden call-up in place of Dawid Malan.

Bayliss said the home team is well-settled.

“His (Stokes’) preparation and approach was no different to what we’ve seen before. You wouldn’t have known there was anything coming up. He’s been absolutely golden. It will be interesting to see who can step up and take his place,” Bayliss said. “(But) I’ve got no concerns about it. Ben has no concerns about it as well. Obviously it’s something we would have liked to not be happening,” he added.

Talking about Woakes’ recall, he said: “Chris was fine here. We had him bowl-ing in the nets. One of first practice days here, he bowled 14 overs in the nets. He’s gone back and played a couple of T20 games and back into match mode. Fitness wise he should be fine.” AGENCIES

‘Pressure on others will affect Kohli’

India U-20 team stun Argentina counterparts

NEW DELHI: A 10-man India Under-20 football team defeated powerhouses Argen-tina U-20 2-1 in what Coach Floyd Pinto described as one of the “biggest days for Indian Football” in the Under-20 COTIF Cup in Spain. Eight boys who represented India in the FIFA Under-17 World Cup started the day for India with the rest all being from AIFF’s developmental team Indian Arrows, according to the state-ment issued by AIFF.

Goals from Deepak Tan-gri (fourth minute), and a crisp free-kick from Anwar Ali (68th) along with some determined pressing, defending and astute passing helped India register the upset victory against Argen-tina Under-20 who have won six FIFA Under-20 World Cups over the years. For the record, this is the second time the two sides met — the first time being in the 3rd Nehru Cup in Cal-

cutta in 1984 when India lost 0-1. The Argentina U-20 is being coached by 2006 World Cupper Lionel Scaloni while

Argentine great Pablo Aimar has also accompanied the team as the Technical Director of the side. AGENCIES

NEW DELHI: Australian pace legend Glenn McGrath feels Ishant Sharma needs to figure out his role in the Indian team, observing that he has been more of a workhorse than a strike bowler.

Ishant had a good first Test against England, where he took seven wickets including a five-for in the second innings and the Aussie pace legend is happy that he is slowly adapting to conditions.

“When Ishant started off, he took the world by storm bowl-ing good pace. He is probably not bowling at the same pace. But he is much more experi-enced now with good control. The Edgbaston Test showed that Ishant has started adapt-ing a bit more,” McGrath said on the sidelines of fast bowl-ers’ camp organised by Hary-ana Cricket Association and MRF Pace Foundation. How-ever, McGrath acknowledged the fact that playing on sub-continent tracks might have contributed to a not so impres-sive record of Ishant, who has taken 244 wickets in 83 Tests. “I guess a lot of pitches in India are tough to play on. Probably, he didn’t bowl that many spells. May be, he has been used more as a workhorse rather than an

attacking bowler. I think he needs to find in what role he fits in,” said the Aussie pace legend, who has 563 wick-ets in 124 Tests. Ishant’s stock ball is the one angled into the right-hander but he has not got enough balls to straighten.

For someone, who was immaculate with his top of off-stump line, McGrath believes that Ishant will need to hit the seam more often.

“You have got to hit the seam and may be a bit of move-ment off the pitch will help. My weapon was bounce and occa-sionally bit of seam movement. In my case, there was Warnie, Lee and Gillespie bowling from other end to build pressure.

“I liked bowling long spells and that helped. If you are only bowling short of length always, you are looking at stopping runs but you need to take wick-ets.” He feels that a month and a half month at Sussex under former Australian pacer Jason Gillespie has helped him evolve as a bowler.

“If you are bowling same lengths in India, Australia and England, you can’t be success-ful. In England, where the ball swings, you have got to be a bit fuller, so his stint at Sussex did him a world of good.” AGENCIES

Ishant needs to figure out his role in team: McGrath

NEW DELHI: The Centre has urged all states to enforce the 2011 Sports Code so that it is followed by the state federations who must ensure ‘free and transparent’ election process, Sports Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore said on Monday.

“Sports Code of 2011 lays down very spe-cific guidelines as to how the elections will be conducted and the government through its observer ensures that Sports Code is followed at least by the national federations,” he said in the Rajya Sabha.

He said the Sports Ministry has written a letter to all Chief Ministers requesting them to enforce the Sports Code so that it is followed by the state federations.

Rathore said some sports federations have been derecognised because of certain lacunae in their functioning.

“Along with the Indian Olympic Associa-tion, we try and ensure that these federations overcome those issues and hold proper elec-tions. Once those elections are held and they apply for recognition by us, we grant them con-cerned recognition,” he said.

The minister said the Centre deals with matters relating to the national level sports federations and not with the matters relating to their state/UT associations, including hold-ing of their elections.

“Complaints alleging irregularities in the functioning of their affiliated units, includ-ing Tamil Nadu Kabaddi Association, were received in the past. Since Government of India does not deal with such matters, the complaints were sent to Amateur Kabaddi Federation of India (AKFI) for their appropriate action,” the minister in a written reply. AGENCIES

State sports federations must ensure transparent polls: Rathore

NEW DELHI: His life thrown hay-wire by a rape allegation, leading Indian table tennis player Soumyajit Ghosh has married his accuser four months after his career nose-dived owing to the crisis.

Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong for the 25-year-old in the year he attained a career-high 58th in the International Table Tennis Fed-eration rankings.

In March, he was accused for rape by an 18-year-old, that led to the two-time Olympian and India’s young-est ever national champion hitting “rock bottom”. Four months on, he has not even felt the racket in his hand, is heavier by more than 10 kgs and is a married man.

“They say a sportsperson in India has to go through a lot to achieve something. The grind prepares you for the worst but what happened with me four months ago hit me hard and hit me out of nowhere. I did not know how to deal with it,” Ghosh said.

“Everyone thought about the girl. That she was young. I was young too. If she was a minor, I was 22 when we started dating. I am still young. Hav-ing said that, there is no point looking back. I rather look ahead. Hope my court case is over soon and I get back to training,” said the skilful player, who will be “dearly missed” at the upcoming Asian Games in Indone-sia. Ghosh was playing in Germany in March when he heard about the FIR filed against him by the teenager

in Barasat, Bengal. Fearing arrest on arrival in India, he chose to stay back in Europe and stayed in “three-four different countries” before returning home in May.

“It was only during that time, I found out who were actually my well-wishers. I was devastated. I was at the peak of my career, playing for a good club in Germany and then something like this happens.”

“I would not name them yet but I survived that phase because of just two people and my parents of course,” he said. In fact his teammates — the vet-eran Sharath Kamal, G Sathiyan, Har-meet Desai — also stood by him. If it was not for the rape allegations, Ghosh would have gone with the team to the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, where the contingent came up with a best-ever performance.

The Indian team is stronger than ever but Ghosh remains an inte-gral part. AGENCIES

Married to girl who accused him of rape, paddler

Ghosh picking up pieces

PRESS NOTICE HARYANA PWD (B&R)

Notice for inviting Tenders The Governor of Haryana invites the bids from eligible bidders through online bids in the website:

https://haryanaeprocurement.gov.in for the work detailed in the table.

For further details and e-tendering schedule visit website http://haryanapwd-bandr.org https://haryanaeprocurement.gov.in

For & on behalf of Governor of Haryana Sd/-Superintending Engineer

PRDH-Advt. No:-1081/11/5224/1819/69766 Gurugram Circle

mp sport 15MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 7 August, 2018

Kuznetsova saves 4 match points, wins title

WASHINGTON: Two-time Grand Slam champion Svetlana Kuznetsova saved four match points and rallied to defeat Croa-tia’s Donna Vekic and win her 18th career WTA title at the Washington Open.

The 33-year-old Russian, ranked 128th in the world, defeated 44th-ranked Vekic 4-6, 7-6 (9/7), 6-2 for her first WTA title since 2016 in Moscow.

It was also Kuznetsova’s first title since left wrist surgery that had sidelined her earlier this year.

“I know I’ve been a little bit lucky today,” Kuznetsova said.

Kuznetsova, winner of the 2004 US Open and 2009 French Open, claimed a second Washington title to go with the one she won in 2014, her only other appearance.

“There’s something going on with Washington,” Kuznetsova said. “I never lose here. I played two times and I won both.”

Vekic, 22, won her only WTA titles in 2014 at Kuala Lumpur and last year at Nottingham.

Missing out on another after coming so near left her wiping away tears on the court as she accepted a runner-up trophy follow-ing only her second final in three seasons.

“Sorry for what happened today (Monday),” she told coach Torben Beltz. “Hopefully we can have some more finals together.

“Tennis is not an easy game. It’s not easy when you lose with match points up. But I love this sport. Hopefully, I can be in some more finals and win some more

titles.” A sympathetic Kuznetsova offered con-

dolences, praising her effort and saying, “I’m sure your victories will come.”

“Tennis is a little bit difficult sport. When you lose it’s really bad and when you win you have everything.”

Vekic had two match points in the 10th game of the second set but Kuznetsova denied her to reach a tie-breaker.

Kuznetsova gave the Croatian two more match-point chances in the tie-breaker but saved each with a forehand winner before forcing a third set.

Kuznetsova rolled through Vekic in the final set, leading 5-0 and breaking her in the final game to claim the crown after two hours and 31 minutes, jumping for joy in celebration. AGENCIES

Ben Stokes lost control in street brawl,

court told BRISTOL: England cricketer Ben Stokes lost his self-con-trol and knocked two men unconscious in a street fight last September, a court heard on Monday as his trial for affray began.

Stokes, acting in “revenge, retaliation or punishment”, was involved in a “sustained epi-sode of significant violence”, prosecutor Nicholas Corsellis told a jury at Bristol Crown Court in southwest England.

Stokes, 27, who starred on Saturday as England beat India at Edgbaston, is being tried alongside 27-year-old Ryan Ali and Ryan Hale, 28. They each deny the charge of affray.

They had all been drinking inside a Bristol nightclub. The fight took place outside after 2:00 am on September 25 last year, the prosecutor said.

They were all involved in threatening and/or using unlawful violence towards each other, it is alleged.

Corsellis said only the defendants knew how the fra-cas began and it could have been stopped very quickly.

“During the incident, Mr Stokes lost his control and started to attack with revenge, retaliation or punishment in mind. Well beyond acting in self defence or defence of another,” he said.

“He knocked Mr Hale unconscious and then — after time to pause for thought, to calm — he did exactly the same to Mr Ali. Mr Ali received sig-nificant injuries included a fractured eye socket and required hospital treatment.”

Wearing a blue suit and red tie, Stokes sat in the far left of the dock, Hale in the middle and Ali on the far right. AGENCIES

India A heading for big win against South Africa A

Mirabai can’t compete at Asian Games: Coach

Kapil is once-in-a century cricketer, don’t compare Pandya with him, says Gavaskar

BENGALURU: Pacer Moham-med Siraj produced another fiery spell, pushing India A towards a big win against South Africa A on day three of the first unofficial Test.

When stumps were taken due to bad light, the visitors were trailing by 239 runs after India A declared their first innings at 584 for eight, fol-lowing half centuries from Hanuma Vihari and Srikar Bharat.

Zubayr Hamza and Rudi Second were batting on 46 and 4, respectively, as South Africa A ended the day at 99 for four in their second innings.

Earlier in the day, Vihari made 54 off 108 balls with three boundaries and Bharat scored 64 off 77 balls with five fours and four sixes. Vihari was unfortunately run out of Beuran Hendricks and Bharat was caught by Senuran Muth-usamy off Duanne Piedt.

Axar Patel remained 33 not out with a boundary and a six.

Captain Shreyas Iyer made

24 before he was caught by wicketkeeper Rudi Second off Hendricks.

In the first session, Agar-wal disappointed the fans as he fell without adding a sin-gle run to his overnight 220. He was adjudged leg before off the very first ball he faced from Hendricks.

Trailing by 338 runs, South Africa-A lost three wickets under nine overs in their sec-ond innings against Siraj, who had taken a five-wicket haul in the second innings. Openers

Sarel Erwee and Pieter Malan were snapped up by Siraj for three and zero. The pacer once again struck by sending off cap-tain Khaya Zondo, who failed to open his account.

However, Zubayr Hamza and Senuran Muthusamy did well in the last session to take the total to 92 for four. The duo added 86 crucial runs for the fourth wicket.

Thereafter, Muthusamy was snapped up by Vihari off Siraj, giving him his fourth wicket of the innings. AGENCIES

NEW DELHI: World Cham-pion Mirabai Chanu’s partic-ipation at the Asian Games appears doubtful with India chief coach Vijay Sharma rec-ommending that she must pull out of Jakarta event to be fit for the Olympic qualifiers, later this year.

The reigning CWG cham-pion is struggling with an unidentified lower-back prob-lem since May and is yet to begin full-fledged weight training.

“I have submitted a report to the federation. Now they have to take a decision. I am

of the opinion that in such less time it’s not good to take heavy load. The Olympic qualifiers event is approaching and that is more important than the Asian Games,” Sharma said.

When pain subsided last week, Mirabai travelled to Mumbai to resume training and start mobility exercises.

Vijay said the pain returned on Sunday and he doesn’t want to risk aggravating the injury.

The World Championship, scheduled to be held in Ash-gabat from November 1, will be the first Olympic qualifying event this year.

“She is in constant touch with the federation. She was okay but felt slight pain yes-terday in training. She stopped training but has resumed it again today,” he added.

Doctors across the country were unable to diagnose the cause of pain in her back.

“It is a rare problem, the doctors say there might be small tear in the ligament. That is why the MRI’s and CT scans are coming clean,” Sharma said.

Meanwhile, IWF Secretary Sahdev Yadav said final deci-sion on her participation will be made by Thursday. AGENCIES

NEW DELHI: Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar on Monday rubbished com-parisons between Kapil Dev and Hardik Pandya, saying the legendary all-rounder is a once-in-a century cricketer and cannot be compared to anyone.

Batting great Gavaskar was not at all amused when asked about the tendency among some experts to compare the two. “Kapil Dev should not be compared with anyone. He is not just a once-in-gen-

eration player but a once-in-a century cricketer just like Sir Don Bradman and Sachin Tendulkar. We should not compare him with any-one,” a visibly agitated Gavas-kar said.

Gavaskar is also unhappy with opener Shikhar Dhawan’s approach in the longer format.

The Delhi player scored 26 and 13 in the first Test against England at Birmingham.

“Shikhar simply does not want to change his game,” the 69-year-old said.

“He believes in playing in the same manner which has brought him success till now. You can still get away with such shots in one-day cricket because there aren’t many slips and the push or the edge goes for a boundary through the slip cordon.

“But in Tests, such shots will only result in a fall of wicket. Till a player makes a mental adjustment, he will continue to struggle against the red ball in overseas conditions.”

Since India are trailing in the five-match series, Gavaskar said they should play an extra bastman in the second match at Lord’s.

“I will play one more bats-man at Lord’s in the form of (Cheteshwar) Pujara. He has the technique and patience required for a Test match. Whose place he’ll take will depend on the pitch. If the wicket isn’t that green then I will pick him in place of Umesh Yadav and retain Har-dik Pandya.” AGENCIES

millenniumpost NO H ALF TR U THS

millenniumpost.in

I, Shekhar S/o Shri Leeladhar R/o H.No.D-33, Jhilmil Colony, Shahdara Delhi-110095. My minor son’s Daksh Singh name has been written wrongly as Daksh Thakur in my Son’s school record, but his actual name is ‘Daksh Singh’ for all future purposes.

CHANGE OF NAME

DGIPR/2018/2019/2305

LONDON: Writer Anna Todd’s ‘After’ book series, which initially began as Harry Styles fan fiction, is being turned into After: The Movie.

The movie is set to star Harry Potter’s hero Fiennes Tiffin as Hardin Scott (the original Harry Styles character) alongside Josephine Langford.

“I was a struggling army wife going to com-munity college who didn’t know what to do with my life,” Todd told the BBC.

“I would read a lot of fan fiction on (pub-lishing website) Wattpad and felt I had read everything so one day I decided to write a chapter. When I started I had no followers but I did it for fun. After I wrote the first chapter I wanted to know what happened so every day

I would write a chapter and it became more popular,” she added.

Till date the book has sold 11 million cop-ies, while the online version has had 1.5 billion views. PTI

mp Entertainment16MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 7 August, 2018

I haven’t madeit big yet: Vaani Kapoor

The 29-year-old actor made her film debut in the 2013 romantic comedy Shuddh Desi Romance

NEW DELHI: Actor Vaani Kapoor made her film debut with Parineeti Chopra and Sushant Singh Rajput starrer 2013 romantic comedy Shuddh Desi Romance and later signed a three-film deal with the Yash Raj Films.She says that she is yet to

reach a point where she can say that she has made it

big in Bollywood.“I haven’t made it big yet,”

Vaani told when asked if she wants to talk about the hurdles

that she faced while making it big in the industry.

Revealing how she takes up bad phases in her stride and how such failures made her become stronger, the actor says, “You have moments when you sulk, when you crib and cry and feel that, ‘why me and why all these things are happening with me’. We are only human .”

“It’s about facing your fear and not giving up because you are the only person who will

support yourself at the end of the day and if you don’t do that than nobody else will,” she added.

Her performance in her debut film earned her several awards and nominations, including the Best Female Debut at an award function.

Post that, in 2014, she ventured into the South Indian film industry with the Tamil and Telugu language romantic comedy Aaha Kaly-anam, that proved to be a moderate box-office success and her portrayal of the lead female character was praised.

In 2016, Vaani appeared in Aditya Cho-

pra’s romantic drama Befikre opposite Ranveer Singh. The film was set in Paris and showed the actor in a very glamorous role. 

Talking about working with Yash Raj Films, she said: “I have been fortunate enough to work with them so I would say yes they gave me won-derful opportunities.” 

She also says that “you always learn from each and every project that you become part of.”

“Every new project, every new team and everything teaches you with something which you haven’t learnt or done before,” she said.

Vaani, who was signed by the Elite Model Management for modelling projects before venturing into Bollywood, believes that mod-elling gave her the confidence to own up in front of the camera. “It did give me confidence,” she said.

The 29-year-old actor has been closely asso-ciated with glamour world, but she says that it never forced her to run after trends.

Talking about following trends just because others do so, she states,“I do tend to sometimes keep myself updated with whatever is trend-ing but I don’t really follow fashion trends . Just because it is in trend, it doesn’t necessarily mean to be in my wardrobe.” IANS

MUMBAI: Actor Kajol believes women need to realise that they have their own identity even after embracing motherhood.

Kajol, who will be seen as a single mother in her upcoming Helicopter Eela, feels motherhood can be so consuming that it can make women forget themselves.

“It’s very normal and nat-ural. It happens to everyone, who gets so involved in the tag of being a mother. You become so much of a mom that you forget that a piece of yourself

also belongs to you.” The Pradeep Sarkar-directed film also

stars National Award winning actor, Riddhi Sen who will

be playing Kajol’s son, along with Neha Dhupia and Tota Roy Chowdhary.

Kajol, who also celebrated her birthday at the trailer launch of Helicopter Eela, said motherhood is

not about being a caretaker.“You have to realise that you have an identity of your

own, that you have feelings, emotions and everything that makes up a human being. You have to realise that you are not just a caretaker mom,” she said.

Produced by Ajay Devgn, Helicopter Eela is set to release on September 7. PTI

‘Women shouldn’t forget their identityafter turning mothers’

I have been fortunate enough to work with Yash Raj Films. I would say yes they gave me wonderful opportunities. I think you always learn from every project that you become part of

‘Need time to focus on my sobriety’

Bruno makes history in HawaiiHONOLULU: Grammy-winning singer Bruno Mars has broken a record in his native Honolulu with three back-to-back sellouts at Aloha Stadium.

Mars has become the first artiste to break the Aloha Stadium concert attendance records of popular rock band U2 and of late singer Michael Jackson, both of whom played for two nights at the 50,000-capacity stadium, reports variety.com.

As part of his ‘24k Magic World Tour’, the tickets to the shows quickly flew off the shelves, prompting Mars to add a third date at Aloha Stadium.

Tickets moved swiftly as Mars offered priority sales to zip code-

restricted Hawaii residents for the first 48 hours.

The newly added show will take place on November 8, while the two previously booked concerts will be held on November 10 and 11.

The ‘24K Magic World Tour’ is in support of Mars’ 2016 album ‘24K Magic’. IANS

The Grammy-winning singer’s ‘24K Magic World Tour’ is in support of his 2016 album ‘24K Magic’

LOS ANGELES: Two weeks after Demi Lovato was hospitalised fol-lowing an overdose, the singer has spoken out about her battle with addiction, saying she needed “time to heal and focus on my sobriety”.

Lovato, 25, wrote in an Insta-gram post that she has learned her addiction “is not something that disappears or fades with time.” 

“I have always been transpar-ent about my journey with addic-tion. What I’ve learned is that this illness is not something that disap-pears or fades with time. It is some-thing I must continue to overcome

and have not done yet,” she wrote. “...I now need time to heal and

focus on my sobriety and road to recovery. The love you have all shown me will never be forgotten and I look forward to the day where

I can say I came out on the other side,” she added.

Lovato has struggled with sub-stance abuse for years, and the over-dose comes from a relapse after six years of sobriety, which she revealed in June in her single ‘Sober’.

In her post, the singer thanked God, her friends and her fans, say-ing that their support and prayers had helped her navigate “this dif-ficult time”.

She also thanked her family, team and the staff at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Hollywood, who she said had been at her side since she

was admitted on July 24.“Without them I wouldn’t be

here writing this letter to all of you.” She was found unconscious in

her Hollywood Hills residence. She was then taken to Cedars-Sinai hos-pital, where she listed in stable con-dition and has remained since the incident. 

The ‘Sorry Not Sorry’ hitmaker has received treatment for bipolar disorder, bulimia, and substance abuse in the past, and documented many of her struggles in her You-Tube original documentary Simply Complicated. PTI

I have learnt that addiction is not something that disappears or fades with time

ONE DIRECTION fan fiction getting movie adaptation