Trump card for India: USA gives it 'leading global power' status

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PUBLISHED FROM DELHI & KOLKATA VOL. 3, ISSUE 343 | Wednesday, 20 December 2017 | Kolkata | Pages 16 | Rs 3.00

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In today’s paper

...CITY

GOVT TO RENOVATE 7 HOOGHLY GHATS 4

NATION

SENA ATTACKS BJP OVER GUJARAT 6

EDIT

UNLOCKING FURTHER GROWTH 8

INTERNATIONAL

NORTH KOREA REJECTS US TALKS OFFER 10

BUSINESS

COMPANIES AMENDMENT BILL PASSED 12

SPORT

INDIA EYE TRIUMPH IN T20s 14

OUR CORRESPONDENT

SHIMLA: Union minister J P Nadda and five-term MLA Jai-ram Thakur have emerged as frontrunners for the chief min-ister’s post in Himachal Pradesh. The shock defeat of the BJP’s chief ministerial candidate Prem Kumar Dhumal has thrown open the leadership race in the state and brought Health Minis-ter Nadda into contention.

Nadda’s proximity to the party brass is seen as a big plus for him even though some party leaders believe that the BJP’s central leadership may finally choose the CM from among the MLAs. Jairam Thakur, Mohin-der Singh, who won for a sev-enth time, five-term MLA Rajiv Bindal, former state BJP chief Suresh Bharadwaj and Krishan Kapoor, both elected for a fourth term, may also be considered.

Some in the state party unit continue to bat for Dhumal despite his defeat.

Nadda, Jairam Thakur lead race for

HP CM’S post

CENTRAL OBSERVERS ARUN JAITLEY & SAROJ PANDEY TO CONSULT ALL GUJARAT BJP MLAs

SIMONTINI BHATTACHARJEE

AHMEDABAD: As the Gujarat Assembly election verdict came in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the party leadership heaved a sigh of relief at being able to retain power in the home turf of both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief Amit Shah. Uncertainty, however, remains about the chief ministerial face of the state.

Although Shah mentioned incumbent Vijay Rupani’s exten-sion during the poll campaign, the latter’s failure to conquer “Mission 150” has created a bit of a ques-tion mark on his chances. It also witnessed a hasty call of the BJP’s Parliamentary Board meeting in the presence of PM Modi on Mon-day evening at the party headquar-ters in the national capital, where an observation team was formed with Union Minister Arun Jaitley and party general secretary Saroj Pandey.

The team will take feedback from all BJP MLAs of Gujarat and submit a report to the Par-liamentary Board and then the CM’s name will be announced. Reportedly, the central leadership of the saffron party is considering replacing Rupani despite his vic-tory from the Rajkot West seat.

Meanwhile, a few names have

also being reported— Union Min-ister Mansukhbhai Mandviya and BJP Gujarat state unit president Jitubhai Vaghani are the front-runners. Mandviya was the par-ty’s in-charge for Saurashtra for the Assembly elections, which has been the epicenter of the Pati-dar agitation and Hardik Patel’s bastion.

Sources said that he also played a key role in exposing the CDs of Hardik Patel. But the saffron party failed to retain the trust of Patidars in the region. BJP state president Jitubhai Vaghani is believed to be the dark horse, because despite the Patidar agitation in Saurashtra, he managed to win from Bhavnagar (West) in the region.

Vaghani is also a prominent young Patidar face for the saffron

party and enjoys close proxim-ity with BJP chief Amit Shah. The emergence of two young leaders Alpesh Thakor and Jignesh Mev-ani, with the support of the Con-gress, also indicate that the saffron party needs to project a young, charismatic face to counter them.

Sources said that BJP insiders have given an indication that after the loss of 16 seats in Gujarat, the party brass is now keen to appoint someone who has a strong public appeal and, as the next CM, can deliver on the promises made to the people of the state. The “99 seats” in BJP’s bag also indicate that the incumbent party has to hunt a lot for a credible face who can hold sway over the people and hold the party’s Gujarat fortress intact, feel observers.

Rupani again?No, Aadhaar linkage not must for property deals

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: There is no pro-posal to make Aadhaar link-age mandatory for property transactions, Parliament was informed on Tuesday.

In a written reply in the Lok Sabha, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri, how-ever, said that the rural devel-opment ministry had advised the states and union territo-ries to explore the possibilities of using consent-based Aad-haar authentication for regis-tration of properties under the provisions of the Registration Act, 1908.

The comments assume sig-nificance in the backdrop of Puri reportedly stating last month that seeding Aadhaar to property transactions was a great idea and as the govern-ment was linking Aadhaar with bank accounts, it might take some additional steps for the property market also.

To a query on the issue, the minister said, “At present, there is no proposal to make Aadhaar linkage mandatory in property transactions.”

To questions, including one on whether the govern-ment had set any time-frame for linking the unique identi-fication number for property dealings, he said, “(The ques-tions) do not arise.”

Earlier, Prime Minister

Narendra Modi had hinted at a crackdown on “benami” properties and thus, there was a speculation that linking Aad-haar with property transactions could be a step in that direc-tion. A “benami” property is one which is held by the owner in someone else’s name.

NEW DELHI: To avoid a repeat of a Bharti Airtel-type fiasco, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) on Tuesday directed banks to seek an explicit consent of the beneficiary before changing the account to which the government subsidy is being remitted. Also, the banks have been asked to intimate the beneficiary about the change within 24 hours through SMS and e-mail as well as provide an option to the person to reverse the change, said a Gazette notification issued by the UIDAI.

CONSUMER NOD MUST TO ALTER BANK A/C THAT GETS SUBSIDY

PEOPLE NO LONGER ACCEPT MODIJI’S GUJARAT MODEL: RAHUL

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Congress pres-ident Rahul Gandhi said on Tuesday that the Gujarat elec-tion results have raised ques-tions about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s credibility and show that the country is not listening to him any more. Gandhi calling Modi’s Gujarat model of development “good propaganda and able market-ing” but “hollow from within”.

“I came to know there (in Gujarat) that people actually

do not accept Modiji’s model,” the Congress president said. “It was thought that the Congress would not be able to fight the BJP in Gujarat...You saw the results and it has dealt a ‘zabar-dast jhatka’ (a massive jolt) to

the BJP in Gujarat.” “We lost, but we could have

won...but fell short by a small margin,” he said. “A big ques-tion has been raised on Modiji’s credibility…. Frankly, Modiji has a credibility problem and he will find it very difficult... Because what he is saying, his forces and his organisation are repeating that.”

“But the country is not lis-tening to that. This, the Guja-rat election has shown. In the coming times, you will see this clearly,” he said.

‘Gujarat poll result has created credibility problem for Modi’

WASHINGTON DC: US Pres-ident Donald Trump has asked Pakistan to take “decisive action” against terror groups operating on its soil, as he unveiled Amer-ica’s new National Security Strat-egy. The US will also encourage Pakistan to continue demonstrat-ing that it is a responsible steward of its nuclear assets, the National Security Strategy (NSS) said. Man-

dated by the Congress, Trump released his first NSS, according to which the US has asked Paki-stan to intensify its counterterror-ism efforts. “We have made clear to Pakistan that while we desire continued partnership, we must see decisive action against ter-rorist groups operating on their territory. And we make massive payments every year to Pakistan.

Act decisively against ultras: US to PakLALIT K JHA

WASHINGTON DC: Describing India as a “leading global power” in its newly unveiled National Security Strategy, the USA’s Trump adminis-tration said that it will deepen Amer-ica’s strategic partnership with India and support its leadership role in maintaining security in the Indo-Pacific region. The 68-page docu-ment said that the USA will seek to increase quadrilateral cooperation with Japan, Australia and India.

“We welcome India’s emergence as a leading global power and stron-ger strategic and defence partner,” said the National Security Strat-egy unveiled by President Donald Trump. “We will expand our defence and security cooperation with India, a Major Defence Partner of the United States, and support India’s growing relationships throughout the region,” the NSS said, noting that its vision for Indo-Pacific excludes no nation.

India-US defence relationship

was mentioned in the context of Indo-Pacific region, whereas it gave a very prominent role to India in South

and Central Asia. “We will deepen our strategic partnership with India and support its leadership role in Indian Ocean security and through-out the broader region,” according to the NSS which the White House said sets a positive strategic direction for the US that will restore America’s advantages in the world and build upon its strengths.

With an eye on China’s One Belt One Road (OBOR) and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the US administration said

that it will help South Asian coun-tries “maintain their sovereignty” as China increases its influence in the region. “We will help South Asian nations maintain their sovereignty as China increases its influence in the region,” it said.

The recent Chinese moves in Sri Lanka and the Maldives are seen as efforts on their part to encroach eat on their sovereignty, with similar fears in Pakistan. India has objected to the CPEC as it passes through Pak-istan Occupied Kashmir (POK). PTI

Trump card for India: USA gives it ‘leading global power’ statusUS NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY WELCOMES ‘INDIA’S EMERGENCE AS A STRONGER STRATEGIC AND DEFENCE PARTNER’

Virat married in Italy... not a patriot: BJP MLAGUNA: A BJP legislator from Madhya Pradesh has ques-tioned the patriotism of Indian cricket team captain Virat Kohli for preferring Italy over India to get married to Bolly-wood actor Anushka Sharma. The legislator from Guna, Panna Lal Shakya, told a gath-ering: “Virat earned money in India... But he didn’t find any place to marry in the country.

Is Hindustan untouchable?”He went on to add, “Lord

Rama, Lord Krishna, Vikra-maditya, Yudhishthir got mar-ried on this land. You all must have got married here. None of us goes to a foreign country to get married ... (Kohli) earned money here and spent billions there (Italy)... (he) doesn’t have any respect for the country. This proves he is not a patriot.”

Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma got married at a private ceremony in Tuscany, Italy, last week. MPOST

OLA TO ACQUIRE FOODPANDA’S INDIA UNIT, PUMP IN $200 MN PG12

500 INDIANS LANGUISHING IN PAKISTANI JAILS PG10

SECOND SLEAZE RACKET BUSTED IN KOLKATA PG4

MUSIC WAS SECONDARY IN RECENT FILMS OFFERED TO RAHMAN PG16

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Quick News44

Very disturbed that 2 brothers from Kashmir were assaulted in Bengaluru

J&K CM MEHBOOBA MUFTI

NEW DELHI: Citing a shortage of IAS bureau-crats at the middle-level, the Narendra Modi government has asked all states to spare more officers for central deputation, according to an official communique. A total of 493 posts out of 1,051 ones earmarked for IAS officers on central deputation are filled, leaving a vacancy of 558 or about 54 per cent.

In a letter to all states, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) said the move-ment of the officers from states to the Centre and back is crucial for building capabilities at the state-level and contributing towards develop-ing national perspectives at the decision-making levels in the government of India.

“It would, therefore, be appropriate consid-ering the fact that there is general shortage of IAS officers at Deputy Secretary/Director level, if a conscious attempt is made while forward-ing the names of the officers, so as to share the shortage proportionately between the Centre and the states and also that every eligible officer has an opportunity to serve at the Centre at least once at the middle management level,” it said. P5

NEW DELHI: The Rajya Sabha on Tuesday passed a bill, extending greater autonomy to the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) by restricting the government’s role in their functioning and granting them power to award degrees to their graduates. The Indian Institutes of Management Bill, 2017 — which was passed in the Lok Sabha in July this year — grants statu-tory powers to the IIMs in their running includ-ing the appointment of directors and faculty members. The bill gives them powers to award degrees instead of post-graduate diplomas. P7

Citing shortage, Centre asks states to send more IAS officers

RS passes bill to grant more autonomy to IIMs

CAG raps FSSAI for roping in poor food testing labs

DHIRENDRA KUMAR

NEW DELHI: In a major blow to the food regulator, the government auditor Comptroller & Auditor Gen-eral (CAG) of India has rapped Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) for issuing licences to food business operators on the basis of incomplete documents in more than 50 per cent cases being scruti-nized by the apex auditor. The CAG in its report has also raised questions over the quality of testing as 65 out of 72 state labs are not National Accredi-tation Board for Testing and Calibra-tion Laboratories (NABL) accredited.

“Neither FSSAI or the state food authorities have documented policies and procedures on risk-based inspec-tions and the food regulator does not have any database on food business,” the CAG said in its report on Perfor-mance Audit of Implementation of Food Safety and Standard Act, 2006, which was tabled in both the houses of Parliament on Tuesday. According to the report, the CAG audit found “systemic inefficiencies, delays and deficiencies in the framing of various regulations and standards, amend-ments to regulations in violation of the Act and the specific direction of the Supreme Court”.

“The FSSAI has no data on whether all the notified empanelled food laboratories have qualified food analysts. Audit test check found that 15 out of 16 test checked food labora-tories didn’t have qualified food ana-lysts,” the CAG report stated. A test check by audit of five state licensing authorities and three central licensing authorities found that in 3,119 out of 5,915 test checked cases licensed had been issued to FBOs (food business operators) on the basis of incomplete documents, the report said.

The report said that the possibil-ity of manufacturing and selling of unsafe food items cannot be ruled out as the regulator failed to monitor and cancel licenses issued under the product approval system which was declared unlawful by the Supreme Court.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Cen-tre favours including petro-leum products in the ambit of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) but would want a con-sensus with the states before taking such a step, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Tuesday. During Question Hour in the Rajya Sabha, Congress leader and former finance minister P Chidam-baram sought to know the union government’s position on bringing petrol and diesel under the GST. He also sought to know why the prices of pet-rol and diesel did not decline with a fall in the global crude prices.

Jaitley responded by say-ing that a person familiar with the issue had asked the ques-tion. He said that the UPA in its draft GST bill had kept pet-rol out of its ambit as it knew that the issue would be a deal-breaker between the Centre and the states.

FM: GST for oil products

needs states’ consensus

2 mp around townMILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Wednesday, 20 December, 2017

GOLFERS BATTLE IT OUT AT THE ITC CUP

The ITC Cup has truly emerged as one of most prestigious events in the golf calendar in the city of Kolkata. ITC has associated with this tournament at the Tollygunge Club for more than 25 years, and each edition has brought out the best of fellowship, team spirit and skill that golf is legendary known for. This year, over 600 golfers played over four days, from December 14 to 17, and at the end of the tournament, Sanjiv Puri, CEO and Executive Director, ITC Ltd presented the awards to the winners. The ITC Cup is arguably, Asia’s finest corporate golf tournament. It is indeed a tribute to the rich sporting tradition of the vibrant city of Kolkata that over 600 golfers spent special moments over numerous rounds and several days, making the tournament even more memorable and momentous. The ITC Cup also provided a platform for individuals from different walks of life to come together and enjoy the tournament at Tollygunge Club, which is steeped in his-tory in the finest tradition of this game.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

Get the best of woollen products at Jan-path’s Handloom Haat as National Handloom Development Corporation (NHDC) Ltd. is organising Wool Fab

2017 till December 30. The Wool Fab exhibition is exclusively organized to promote and support weav-ers to sell their wool fabric cloth and other creations

of woollen fabric to the people who look for qual-ity in a product.

National Handloom Development Corporation (NHDC) Ltd., with a mission to augment the devel-opment of handloom sector and provide the desired marketing support, organises Wool Fab exhibitions in various metropolitan cities every year. These expos are organized under the aegis of Development Commissioner for Handlooms, Ministry of Textiles,

Government of India which supports this activity for the benefit of handloom weavers by providing financial support required for the infrastructure and publicity for holding these expos.

The handloom sector of India employees 45 lakh people directly or indirectly which is next only to agriculture sector in the country. Even though the art of handloom weaving is very old, it is spread all over the country since it still has some traditional values attached to it.

In this exhibition, various State Government bodies/ Apex societies - primarily handloom weav-ers’ societies and handloom agencies associated with ‘Integrated Handloom Development Scheme’ - are participating.

These agencies, from all over India are market-ing their products directly to the consumers without the involvement of middlemen/channel of agents/wholesalers and retailers. Through these exhibits, handloom agencies not only market their products at the most reasonable rates but also get to know customers’ choice with regard to colour, design and weaving for future improvement of the product.

This exhibition will be open to the public from 11 am to 8 pm with a total of 50 stalls belonging to more than 10 states i.e., Gujrat, Himachal Pradesh,

Jammu-Kashmir, Uttrakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Maha-rashtra, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and North

Eastern States, showcasing exquisite woollen fab-rics and works.

This winter, find exquisite fabric at Wool Fab 2017

“MILLENNIUM POST”, Printed & Published by Jaiyendra Kumar Sharma on behalf of Front Row Media Pvt. Ltd. and printed at Aaj Kaal Publishers Pvt. Ltd., BP-7, Sector-V, Bidhan Nagar, Kolkata - 700 091 and published from Tivoli Court 1A, Ballygunge Circular Road, Block-A, Flat-94, 1st Floor, Kolkata-700 019. Editor: Durbar Ganguly, Executive Editor: Arya Rudra. Email: [email protected], [email protected]. For marketing, contact: 9836292306, 9830532306. For editorial, call: 9836072100

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

100 YEARS OF DHANRAJ BHAGATOn the ocassion of 100th birth anniversary of eminent sculptor Padmashri Dhanraj Bhagat, an exhibition is going to open where more than 400 works of Dhanraj Bhagat’s works will be displayed on the theme of ‘Journey from the Physical to the Spiritual’. This exhibi-tion intends to acquaint visitors with Bhagat’s work from the NGMA collection and artist collection that has hitherto largely remained unseen. The exhibition will be inaugrated on December 20 at 6 pm and then, will be open for public viewing.WHEN: December 20 – February 20, 2018WHERE: National Gallery of Modern Art

TIMINGS: 11 am – 6:30 pm

MASTERS OF BENGAL‘Evolving Identities: Masters of Bengal’ is an exhibition of drawing and paintings tracing the development and evolution of modern art practices. On view are original works by Rabindranath Tagore, Gaganendranath Tagore, Abanindranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, Binode Bihari Mukherjee, Ram Kinkar Baij, Jamini Roy and others. The exhibition also includes some Kalighat paintings.WHEN: Till December 30WHERE: Kamaldevi ComplexTIMING: 11 am – 7 pm

A MUSICAL EVENING‘Rang-e-Khusrow’ – a musical evening in mem-ory of Hazrat Amir Khusro whose tremendous body of work is beyond comparison – will

see the coming together of musical maestros. Poetic Reflections by Laxmi Shankar Bajpai, Sitar and Ashaar Recital by Sitar Maestro Sudip Rai, Poetry by Pratap Somvanshi and Vocals by Shakeel Ahmed will keep you hooked. WHEN: December 22 WHERE: Amaltas Auditorium, India Habitat Centre TIMING: 7 pm onwards

CATCH ‘SANAM’ LIVEIndia’s hottest and digitally most followed music band ‘Sanam’ is amongst the top 10 independent YouTube channel artist. Catch the band’s performance live as they are well- known to create a distinguished sound and style of their own. The band also writes, composes and produces their own songs.WHEN: December 23 WHERE: JLN Stadium TIMING: 4 pm onwards

DAYINDAYOUT What’s on Around Town

More than half of December is gone, and this is a good time to not just make a to-do list for 2018 but also stick to it and complete it. Here are five smart resolu-

tions to make for the coming year :

5 SMART resolutions for the NEW YEARNew Year comes and goes and so does the

resolutions. For 2018, try to stick to the plan and complete them one by one

1. SAVE MORE, SPEND LESS (AND PAY BILLS ON TIME)

A no-brainer really, but easy to say and tough to do. Check your past spends and work out how much you want to save each month. Allocate part of your income auto-matically so you're not tempted to use the money elsewhere. This could be in an auto-sweep fixed deposit, a SIP in a mutual fund or a transfer to another bank account. Use a money management app to track your spends, create a budget and get reminders to make your bill payments on time. 5. REMEMBER TO HAVE FUN

Working 9 to 6 daily, five (or six) days a week can take a toll of your health and personal life. Make a conscious effort to set aside time for your family and friends. Plan mini-breaks every quarter and a full-fledged vacation once a year.Do something that makes you happy, take up a new hobby, travel somewhere you’ve never been before – all these will help you refocus and realign your goals and priorities. IANS

2. CLEAR HIGH-INTEREST DEBTDo you have several credit cards that are maxed out to the available credit limit, and are you paying only the minimum due each month? If so, you are headed for financial disas-ter. If you have multiple credit cards, give them up and keep a maximum of two, with the highest credit limit. Avoid any fresh spends on your cards till dues are cleared. List all your debts, from highest to lowest, and clear them in that order.

4. DOCUMENTATION AND NOMINATIONSounds boring, but it is a good idea to ensure your spouse/family is aware of your finances – not just investments and insurance, but also debts. Likewise, while opening a bank/demat/mutual fund account, not many pay attention to adding a nominee – or in case of a life insurance policy, updating beneficiary from parents to spouse. Documenta-tion can be further split into financial/debt, health/life and legal (if applicable). Ensure it is easily accessible to next of kin in case something happens to you, so they are spared the running around and unnecessary paperwork.

3. HEALTH IS WEALTH – INSURE ITBeing healthy and fit is the best gift to yourself and your family and dependents. Cut down on wasteful spending and eat-

ing/drinking, make actual use of that gym membership, get a complete health check-up done and make it a yearly habit.Set aside money each month for an emer-gency fund worth 6-8 months of living expenses to see you and family through any medical emergency. Regardless of whether you are single or have a family, get a life and health insurance policy so that you/your next of kin don’t suffer financially if some-thing happens to you.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

TO EXPLORE the beauty of the blue bodied god Rama, an exhibition has been organized by the National Museum. ‘Rama Abhirama: The beauty of Rama in Indian art and tradition’ was inaugurated on December 18 by Dr Mahesh Sharma, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Culture, Government of India.

This exhibition majorly focuses on Rama – who is a manifestation of compassion – through the lens of emotion and sentiments. It also brings forth the visual representations of episodes from the Ramayana. The exhibition looks at Ramayana as a living tradition and highlights it’s ritualistic aspects.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Sharma said, “Lord Ram has always been an inspiration, teach-ing the values of life to everyone. It’s amazing to see how beauti-fully some artists have presented his life through their artworks. I am told that there are cer-tain exhibits which have never been witnessed by anyone in the country. They were only kept locked in the museums and archives. We need to bring them out so as to make our new generations aware of it.”

Elaborating further on the necessity of muse-ums in a country, he said, “Museums hold great importance as they bridge the gap between our rich history and the millenni-als. Today, young generations are hardly aware of their his-tory. National Museum, which was established on December 18, 1960, has been successful in achieving everything it was expected of. I con-gratulate the entire team for organizing such amazing events and exhibitions.”

Bringing to life the story of Rama,

the exhibition showcases the seven Kan-das of Ramayana i.e. the Bala, Ayodhya,

Aranya, Kishkindha, Sundara, Yuddha and Uttar, highlighting the beauty of each of them.

The exhibition narrates the story and splendour of Ramayana, while exploring his morals, in the folk and vernacular style. The artefacts in the exhibition consist of bronze and terracotta sculptures, wood carvings and

miniature paintings belonging to differ-ent schools, gold coins, worship icons that reflect the artistic brilliance imbibed with

devotion and a lot more.The inauguration was followed by the

book launch ceremony of five books namely ‘Archaeology of Ancient Madhyadesa’, ‘Archaeological Myths in Early Evolu-tionary History of Indian Civilization’, ‘Archaeology History and Numismatics of South India’, ‘Sri Dandayudhapani Swamy Temple Complex at Palani and Origin and Development at Muruka Worship in South India’ and ‘Ramayana, Poetic expression on Temple Hanging.’

The exhibition is open until Janu-ary 31 at National Museum, New Delhi.

Depicting the beauty of Rama through art

mp city3MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata |Wednesday, 20 December, 2017

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: State Tourism Minister Goutam Deb said on Tuesday that the government is working towards facilitat-ing the land sought by the Air-ports Authority of India (AAI) for expansion of the Bagdogra airport.

“The expansion of Bagdogra airport is aimed at developing international facilities. We do not have the required land needed so we are talking to two tea gardens for arranging the same,” state Tourism minister Goutam Deb said here at the ICC Travel India 2017 event.

It may be mentioned that the government is talking with Gangaram tea garden owned by the Duncan group and the Bagdogra Tea Estate. “If either of these lands is available, the requirements of AAI will suf-fice,” the minister said.

According to him, the land would have to be bought by the

state government and handed over to the AAI in the form of its equity contribution.

The AAI is expected to spend Rs 300 crore for the expansion of the Bagdogra air-port. A new terminal and creat-ing additional parking bays are on the anvil. It may be stated that the government has already handed over 24 acres of land for creating night landing facilities at the Bagdogra airport as a pre-requisite of the AAI. The cur-rent terminal at Bagdogra has a capacity of 1 million passengers per annum but it is set to handle 2 million passengers this year.

Recently, the Confedera-

tion of Indian Industries (CII), North Bengal, had made a slew of appeals to Union Minister for Civil Aviation Ashok Gajapathi Raju about the infrastructural upgradation of the Bagdogra airport. Introduction of morn-ing flights to and from Delhi and Kolkata, flights between Bagdogra and Kathmandu, an additional terminal at Bagdogra Airport, night landing facility were among the demands. The Union minister was returning to Delhi after visiting Gangtok when a team from CII met him.

It may be noted that the number of passengers travel-ling via Bagdogra airport has gone up by 60 percent for April to October 2017 compared to travel data corresponding the same months of the previous year. According to officials, the state government’s decision to waive off tax on Aviation Tur-bine Fuel in Bagdogra and the attraction of Dooars and the Hills contributed to the rise.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: The repairing of the century-old Tallah overhead tank, the world’s largest over-head reservoir, is in full swing.

The estimated cost of repair is Rs 80 crore. This is for the first time when such a major repair has been taken up since its con-struction in 1909. Propped by steel columns and girders, it is 110 feet high and can store 9 million gallons of water. It was designed by WB Mac Cabe, Chief Engineer of Kol-kata Municipal Corporation (KMC) and the estimated cost was Rs 5 lakh.

A heavy duty crane from France has been brought in and is being used in the repair work. All the four chambers will be repaired without the supply of water getting affected.

It may be mentioned that because of water scarcity faced by the European community who used to live in the Espla-nade area in 1857 during the Sepoy Mutiny, steps were taken after the Mutiny ended to set up a water treatment plant in Kolkata, the then capital of the British Empire, so that uninter-

rupted water could be supplied to the areas where the Europe-ans used to reside. Hence, when the Tallah tank was prepared, KMC tried to ensure that sup-ply of water to the city is not disrupted.

Accordingly, planning was done and Palta Water Works was set up in 1868. It was India’s first water pumping station where raw water from river Hooghly was lifted and purified.

Tallah has a unique feature. No separate lines have been used for filling up and deliv-ery. The pipes that fill the tank are used for delivery. Hence, the overhead tank serves as a balancing tank.

When the underground tank at Tallah is spilled over with the incoming supply from Palta Water Works, 24 km upstream of Kolkata, the sur-plus water is stored in the over-head tank and again when the water level in the underground tank goes down, it compensates for the loss.

Bibhas Maity, Director General (Building) Water Sup-ply of KMC said another two years would be required to com-plete the repairing work.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: A huge quantity of heroin worth nearly Rs 1 crore in the international market was seized by police on Tues-day from Samsergunge in Mur-shidabad. One person has been arrested in this connection.

Acting on a tip-off, a police team raided Dhulian Station Road area late on Monday and seized around 1kg of heroin and arrested a person identified as Samir Seikh, who was involved in the racket. The accused has been booked under Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Sub-stances Act, 1985.

According to the prelimi-nary investigation, police sus-pect that the accused might have been part of a inter-state smuggling racket. The police also came to know in the inves-tigation that the accused was trying to smuggle the heroin to Jharkhand. During interro-gation, the accused told police that he was a resident of Nim-titi village under Samsergunge police station. He said that he was assigned to transport a bag containing the heroin, up to the Jharkhand border and he did

not have any further informa-tion about the racket.

The investigators are not, however, relying upon what the accused claimed. They suspect that the accused had been a part of the racket whose job is to take these items to vari-ous places. The accused was remanded to police custody after being produced in a dis-trict court. Police are interro-gating the accused to know the details. It may be mentioned here that Murshidabad district police had seized heroin and also the raw material used for manufacturing it in a past few occasions recently. In march this year, heroin weighing 1.4 kg and valued at an estimated Rs 1.5 crore was seized from a village at Lalgola in the district. Police were trying to know if there had been any connection between these incidents.

According to a senior police officer in the district, those involved in the trade procure the heroin from across the bor-der and process it in the vil-lage. Police are interrogating the accused to know the names of the other accused involved in the racket.

Bagdogra airport expansion: State govt in talks with tea gardens

Timeout for Tallah: Repair work of reservoir in full swing

Cops seize heroin worth Rs 1 cr from Murshidabad, one held

PRITESH BASU

KOLKATA: The state Trans-port department will operate 100 special shuttle buses on Christmas Day to ensure safe and hassle-free journey of com-muters up to their destinations from Park Street and its adjoin-ing areas during night hours.

The festive mood ahead of Christmas has already set in with Park Street being decked up with lights. Now, the wait is only for the day when thou-sands of people visit Park Street and its adjoining places to soak in the fervour.

Usually, the crowd starts to gather from the evening and the place remains packed till 11.30 pm to midnight. So the state Transport department has decided to operate 100 shuttle buses that will connect Park Street with different points in and around the city for a few

hours from the evening on Christmas Day, an official said adding that buses will be parked at Maidan area which is a walk-ing distance from Park Street.

It would not be possible to operate the buses right from Park Street crossing as it will lead to unnecessary traffic con-gestion. People will have to walk up to Maidan area to avail the

shuttle buses to reach their respective destinations in and around Kolkata.

There was a coordination meeting with the officials of the state Transport department and top brass of the Kolkata Police regarding the same. A proper plan of action has been chalked out to ensure that people do not face any inconvenience while

returning home on that day.The Kolkata Police have also

prepared an elaborate plan to ensure safety and security of one and all. There will be a tight security arrangement in the area to avoid any untoward incident on the day when thou-sands will be visiting the place.

It may be mentioned that during FIFA Under-17 Foot-ball World Cup in October, the state Transport department had engaged 100 shuttle buses from Vivekananda Yuva Bharati Kri-rangan in Salt Lake on different routes to help people reach the nearest points from where they could take another transport to reach their destinations. It turned out to be a huge success.

It may be mentioned that there will be shuttle services from Eco Park as well on December 31 and January 1 when a record number of peo-ple is expected to turn up.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: In a bid to ensure bet-ter connectivity in different parts of the state, the Mamata Banerjee government will invest another Rs 70 crore to introduce around 270 new buses.

Chief Minister Mamata Baner-jee on Tuesday flagged off 165 buses which will be operating on differ-ent routes and 117 fire tenders and pumps in front of the state Secre-tariat Nabanna.

Sovan Chatterjee, minister of the state Fire and Emergency Services department, Suvendu Adhikari, the state Transport min-ister, Chief Secretary Malay De, Surajit Kar Purkayastha, Direc-tor General of Police and Alapan Bandyopadhyay, Additional Chief Secretary of the state Transport department, were also present at the function. In the programme, the Chief Minister said: “Today 165 buses have been introduced and in the second phase another 260 to 270 more buses will be introduced. At present Rs 40 crore has been given and the state government will give another Rs 70 crore.”

The 165 buses that have been introduced on Tuesday is the Christmas gift of the state govern-ment to the people of Bengal.

She added that historic changes have been witnessed in the trans-port sector of the state with several initiatives being taken to ensure better services to the people. “As many as 18,000 vehicles have been

introduced in the state under the Gatidhara project. At the same time, 400 jetties have been renovated and 180 bus terminuses were being set up across the state,” she said after taking a dig at the Central minister without naming anyone. She said: “Some come just to flag off a car or a bus, but here we inaugurate many projects from one programme.”

Wishing a merry Christmas to the people of the state, the Chief

Minister added that her govern-ment’s target has been to extend services to the doorsteps of the common people.

While speaking about the Safe Drive Save Life campaign, she said it is going on in full swing. Kolkata Police have introduced speed limits on different roads which the state police have to implement too.

She further stated that Safe

Drive Save Life campaign has to be continued properly as most acci-dents take place in winter.

Banerjee, who also flagged off fire tenders in the same programme, said: “We don’t want people to face any problem. But it is important for us to stay prepared with such initiatives of improving infrastruc-ture to fight incidents of fire or any other emergency situation when-ever there is any need.”

100 special shuttle buses from Park Street on Christmas Day

Mamata flags off 165 new buses, 117 fire tenders and pumps

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: A new road is being laid for smooth passage of airport-bound traffic near Eco Park during Christmas and New Year.

A high-level meeting was held to discuss the secu-rity arrangements on Christ-mas eve, Christmas and New Year’s eve and on New Year’s day on Tuesday evening. It was attended by senior offi-cials of New Town Kolk-ata Development Authority (NKDA), police, senior engi-neers of Housing Infrastruc-ture Development Corporation (HIDCO) and the state Trans-port department.

As Eco Park is coming up as the most important urban park in Bengal, management of visitors during the festive season has become an impor-tant exercise for the adminis-tration. The new road is being constructed near Akankha More and on Christmas and New Year’s Day, police will divert traffic so that airport-bound passengers do not face any problem.

Special cleaning drives will be conducted at Eco Park dur-ing the day. There will be extra toilets and watch towers to con-trol the visitors. CCTVs will also be installed. There will be additional ticket counters. Attempts are on to run 100 buses to take the visitors to Eco Park from different parts of the city. Car parking lots will be set up for the visitors. Senior offi-cials of Eco Park will be posted to oversee the arrangements on these important days.

Special arrangements have been made to control the visi-tors near the seven wonders inside the Eco Park. The min-iatures of seven wonders of the world are attracting huge crowd and on last Sunday, around 12,000 people had vis-ited the place.

The visitors will be con-trolled near the site just like it happens during Durga Puja at important puja pandals.

Eco Park is expected to experience record number of visitors this year.

Renamed by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as Prakriti Tirtha, this urban park is com-ing up very fast as a tourist spot.

New road to ease airport-bound

traffic on X-Mas, New Year

Soon, toll policy for state highways OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: The Bengal government has decided to prepare a toll policy for the state highways.

The green signal in this connec-tion has come during the Cabinet meeting held at Nabanna on Tuesday.

This is the first time since Inde-pendence that the Bengal government has decided to prepare a toll policy and it has been done to ensure proper maintenance of the roads.

Partha Chatterjee, the state Par-liamentary Affairs minister, said: “A decision has been taken in today’s (Tuesday) Cabinet meeting to prepare a toll policy. The state Public Works Department (PWD) has been directed to decide the tax policy on the basis of roads.”

According to sources in the state Secretariat, the West Bengal High-way Development Corporation (WBHDC) will initiate the process of collecting toll tax as soon as the policy is prepared and the tax slab for each of the roads get finalised fol-lowing necessary assessments to be carried out by the concerned officials and engineers of the state PWD. Nec-essary infrastructure that is required for collection of toll tax will also be constructed.

Bengal has around 4,000 km of state highways but toll is levied only on national highways and some state-run bridges.

As per the preliminary estima-

tion of the PWD officials, it would be possible to collect toll tax on 15 state highways.

The Bongaon-Kalyani state high-way is of 151 km, Krishnagar-Gosaba highway is of 266 km, Jhalda-Digha highway is 466 km and the smallest of all the state highways is the Dubraj-pur-Debogram highway which is only 14 km long.

Sources added that a high-level meeting in this connection is going to be held at Nabanna soon and it is also learnt that some senior officials of the WBHDC will be present in the meet-ing to discuss issues related to the toll policy with officials of the state PWD.

It may be mentioned that the road connectivity has received a facelift in Bengal in the past six years with the state government giving major emphasis on construction of roads and its maintenance. The state gov-ernment needs to carry out yearly maintenance of the state highways that often get damaged as large num-ber of heavy trucks keep plying on the roads.

The maintenance of the roads costs crores of rupees to the state’s exchequer. So according to an official, the toll policy was quite essential as it will help in further improvement in road connectivity.

Minor reshuffle of state IPS cadres

Dengue drives at private offices, institutions to intensify from new year

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: In a minor reshuffle of Bengal IPS cadres, the state government on Tuesday made Rajesh Kumar Singh the commissioner of Bar-rackpore Police Commissionerate in place of Subrata Kumar Mitra.

Mitra was made the DIG, Burdwan Range in place of Singh, a notification issued by the state government said on Tuesday.

The notification said the Deputy Commis-sioner, Detective Department (DC DD) of Bar-

rackpore Police Commissionerate, Ajay Kumar Thakur has been transferred as the Command-ing Officer, Eastern Frontier Rifles (EFR) 3rd battalion. Anoop Jaiswal, SP of Cooch Behar was made the Commanding Officer, State Armed Police (SAP) 6th battalion, while DC Kolkata Armed Police (KAP) 5th battalion Bholanath Pandey replaced him, it said.

Shrihari Pandey who was the commanding officer of the 6th battalion of the State Armed Police has now become Special Superintendent of the CID.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: The Kolkata Municipal Corporation is tak-ing a tough stand regarding its dengue drive at private insti-tutions and offices across the city from January 2018. “We will take up emergency clean-liness drives if we find garbage or stagnant water in private institutes and offices and will

charge a compulsory fee for this in the form of a demand notice. If the recipients do not pay the charge within the date mentioned in the notice, we will initiate action as per law,” Member Mayor-in-Council (Health) Atin Ghosh said.

It may be mentioned that the civic body used to charge fees for such services in pri-vate places but not in such a

systematic manner mention-ing time frames. Interestingly, the Solid Waste Management (SWM) department and the Health department will con-duct joint drives against vec-tor-borne diseases from next year to strengthen the cleanli-ness drive.

The demand notice will be slapped by the SWM department.

The joint team will stress on door-to-door campaign and Councillors will be roped in for the drive.

“We will try to visit every single house and wherever we will find breeding of mosqui-toes is happening, we will do frequent visits. We will also inspect reservoirs located on top of residences,” a senior offi-cial of KMC’s Health depart-

ment said.Ghosh chaired a prepara-

tory meeting on the KMC’s plan to prevent vector-borne diseases at the civic body head-quarters and chalked out a road map.

Officials from SWM department, Borough chair-mans and Borough health executives were also present in the meeting.

According to Ghosh, the formal awareness campaign against vector-borne diseases will begin on January 20, 2018 and Mayor Sovan Chatterjee will lead an awareness walk from the KMC gate and travel to the adjacent areas. Council-lors of all 144 wards will under-take similar awareness drives in their respective wards on the same day.

BIRDS OF A FEATHER

A flock of crows fly over Maidan on a foggy morning in Kolkata on Tuesday PTI

Millennium Post - Kolkatta Edition to carry the Ad with Kolkatta Tel. No. Only. Schedule Date :- 06/12/2017

TJM/TTL/17/ENG

Kolkatta Tel.: 033-2215 1850 e-mail : [email protected]

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee with Sovan Chatterjee, Suvendu Adhikari, Surajit Kar Purkayastha and Malay De at the flag-off event on Tuesday PIC/MPOST

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mp city4MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Wednesday, 20 December, 2017

SHADES OF WINTER

Flower vendors make bundles of flowers during a foggy morning in Howrah on Tuesday PTI

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I, Lokesh Paswan, S/o. Harendra Paswan R/o. Mamra Bazar, MAMC, D u r g a p u r – 7 1 3 2 0 6 , P.S.–New Township, Dist.–Burdwan, that I have changed my name from Lokesh Paswan to Lokesh Bharati for all future purposes. That Lokesh Paswan and Lokesh Bharati are the same person.

CHANGE OF NAME

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: A radiation oncologist from the city on Tuesday warned about expo-sure to radiation, which might lead to cancer.

Speaking at a conference on com-prehensive cancer care organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) at a city hotel, Dr Tanmoy Mukhopadhyay, a city-based radiation oncologist said that women and children are more vulnerable to various radiations.

Dr Mukhopadhyay said that radia-tions caused due to X-rays, CT scans and MRI scans can cause cell damage. Some-times, it is found that the body can repair the damage. If the body is unable to repair the damage, there is a possibility that peo-

ple can get cancer. Bone cancer and thy-roid cancer can be caused due to the types of radiation.

Dr Mukhopadyay also stated that there are certain natural sources of radi-ation which the people cannot avoid. The radiation caused from medical sources like the instruments of X-ray and other

scans also contribute to the disease. He suggested that while conducting

the tests, the radiologist must have a strat-egy to reduce the level of radiation. Those working in the labs where these tests are performed, must take some measures to minimise the exposure to radiation. Awareness is another issue that people must stress upon.

Children can develop leukemia at a very early age due to radiation. Compared to men, women are more at risk of getting the disease, the doctor opined.

Dr Bhabatosh Biswas, former vice-chancellor of the West Bengal Univer-sity of Health Sciences, who attended the conference, stressed on the importance of building awareness among the people and early screening.

Seed of cancer might be lying hidden in X-ray, CT scans, warns city oncologist

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: A sleaze racket was busted in the posh area of Gariahat on Monday night, in which 11 persons were arrested.

Acting on a tip-off, the Anti Women Trafficking department of the city police raided an apartment on Rashbehari Ave-nue near Gariahat on Monday night and arrested the accused including some women. According to police, the racket has been operating from a rented flat situ-ated on the second floor of the building for quite some time.

Police said that among the arrested were six sex workers, a manager and two touts. There were also some customers who were found in a compromising posi-tion. During preliminary investigation, police came to know that the manager had rented the flat.

Police have seized liquor bottles and some hard cash from the room. In the course of investigation, they also came to know that the sleaze racket was going on in the flat for quite a long time. The investi-gation revealed that the arrested sex work-ers, aged between 21 and 27, used to visit

some other places in the city as well. They are being interrogated in this connection.

Some of the policemen went to the flat, posing as prospective customers and caught the accused red-handed. Police have started a case under the Immoral Trafficking Act. Police suspect that many other persons might have been involved in the incident. Police had received complaint from the local people saying that certain

“illegal” activities had been taking place inside the flat. On the basis of the infor-mation, police raided the flat on Monday night. They have started a detailed probe in this regard and are trying to know the names of others involved.

It may be mentioned here that last week, Bidhannagar police had arrested six persons including three women, from a flat at Salt Lake for running a sleaze racket.

Second sleaze racket busted in Kolkata11 arrested from Gariahat flat, including 6 sex workers

SOUMITRA NANDI

KOLKATA: The state Mass Education & Library depart-ment is developing Career Guidance Centres at three libraries in the city, to facili-tate students who are appearing for competitive examinations like West Bengal Civil Services (WBCS).

The department will equip these libraries with books and other relevant study material so that the aspiring students can spend time in the library, pre-paring for their examination.

“We have come across a number of students, partic-ularly among the minority community, who do not have a conducive environment for making preparations at their home. They can come in these libraries and utilise the books available here to prepare for the examinations,” minister of state for Mass Education & Library Siddiqullah Chowdhury said.

The three libraries that will have this infrastructure are based in Ultadanga, Ballygunge and Kidderpore. The depart-ment has plans to extend this facility to some district librar-ies in future as well. It may be

mentioned that the department is also trying to rope in teachers who can guide these students for competitive examinations.

According to Chowdhury, the government is taking a slew of measures to encourage the young generation to visit the libraries in the state. There are around 2,480 libraries and 300 of them have closed down.

“We have recently done a survey on the state libraries, conducted by a Gurgaon-based agency. It has come to light that people of the age group of 55 to 60 visit the state librar-ies. A number of libraries do

not have toilets and drinking water. A library in the city has also been found with no facili-ties of drinking water and toi-let. This is not desirable and we are working for developing these basic facilities,” the min-ister said.

The government has decided to turn 80 libraries into model libraries and they will be receiving Rs 3 lakh each for complete overhaul of infrastructure.

The minister informed that the government is also provid-ing funds to non-government sponsored libraries for boost-

ing infrastructure. There are 1,036 such libraries in the state and in this current fiscal, a total fund of Rs 1.76 crore has been allocated to these libraries. “In the next financial year we will raise this allocation to nearly Rs 3 crore,” Siddiqullah said

Reiterating the strong resolve of his department to popularise the libraries across the state, he said that the department will be observing 52 days in a special manner in the state libraries, dedicated to the birth or death anniversa-ries of religious leaders from all communities.

Career Guidance Centres to come up in 3 city libraries, says SiddiqullahKOLKATA: A 20-year-old girl

from Ghatshila in Jharkhand, who come to the city for under-going air-hostess training, went missing.

Family members of the victim lodged a complaint with the Kalighat police sta-tion. According to the police, the girl had come to the city on December 6 for taking air-hostess training. She had enrolled herself for the train-ing from a private company at Park Street and had rented a house on Iswar Ganguly Street in Kalighat.

The family members of the girl told police that they had talked to the girl for the last time on December 10. After failing to contact the girl, her family members called up one of her roommates on Decem-ber 11, who told them that she had been absconding. Follow-ing this, the family members of the victim came to the city and lodged a complaint in the local police station.

A relative of the girl told police that four youths used to disturb the girl by calling on her mobile phone.

The victim’s elder brother also told police the names of the four youths. They alleged that she might have been abducted. MPOST

Girl goes missing in city

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Five investigation centres including one in Kolk-ata will be set up for prevention of crime against women.

The decision has been passed in the cabinet meeting held in Nabanna on Tuesday, in which it has also been decided to create 1,220 new posts in different categories for vari-ous departments of the state government.

As many as 94 new posts will be created for the five investigation centres. The deci-sion to set up the investigation centres has been taken for bet-ter policing that will ensure safety and security of women.

Narendrapur police sta-tion will be set up, bifurcating the jurisdiction of Sonarpur police station. Similarly, Pala-shipara police station will be set up to reduce the jurisdiction of Tehatta police station.

As many as 46 new posts have been created for the new police station.

In Purulia, Tamna police station will be set up, bifurcat-ing the jurisdiction of Puru-lia Mafatsal and Kenda police stations.

At the same time, a deci-sion has been taken to upgrade the 60-bed Kotalpur Hospital in Bishnupur to 80-bed ones and for this, 15 new posts have been created.

Territory care cancer cen-tres will also come up in Burd-wan Medical College and Hospital and Sagar Dutta Hospital. For this, 35 new posts have been created. Twenty new posts have been created for the critical care unit in Frazerganj.

State to get 5 investigation centres to prevent crimes

against women

KOLKATA: The state govern-ment is set to repair and ren-ovate seven ghats along river Hooghly at Dakshineswar and Belur Math at a cost of Rs 34 crore. The decision has been taken in the cabinet meeting held in Nabanna on Tuesday.

State Education minister Partha Chatterjee said: “The Centre had assured of doing many things to check erosion in river Ganga. But nothing has been done yet in this connec-tion. Ultimately, Chief Min-ister Mamata Banerjee took the initiative and it has been decided to repair the ghats at Belur Math and Dakshineswar.”

Three ghats at Dak-shineswar – Chandni Ghat, Panchabati Ghat and Ferry Ghat - will be repaired. Three ghats in Belur Math and Mayer Ghat in the opposite bank will also be repaired.

There will be an investment of Rs 17 crore for the projects at Dakshineswar and another Rs 17 crore will be invested for the projects at Belur Math and Mayer Ghat. There will be iron fencing on the bank of river Hooghly in Belur Math. MPOST

Bengal govt to renovate 7 ghats along

Hooghly river

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: CK Prasad, Chair-man, Press Council of India (PCI) on Monday said credibil-ity of the media is a major issue and the threat to the freedom of Press and media is more from within than external factors.

Prasad, who was speak-ing at the Sumit Sen memorial lecture organised by Kolkata Press Club, said the most seri-ous issue that concerns the media is credibility and if that is maintained, all other issues will fall in line.

On the issue of freedom of Press and media under threat, he said “The threat to the free-dom of Press and media is more from within rather than external factors”. Job security

and financial security of jour-nalists would enable them to work more freely, he said.

On the issue of killing of journalists in the country, Prasad said there should be a clear distinction about killing of scribes for his journalistic work and his personal reasons.

“Killing of any individual, be it journalist or non jour-nalist is bad, but we mix up in many cases. I would appeal to the journalistic community to distinguish between killing of a journalist for his journalistic work or for his personal rea-sons,” he said.

He also underlined the need for data about the num-ber of journalists in the country so that welfare schemes can be planned for their benefit.

‘Credibility the main issue ailing media’

1,220 new posts to be created in different categories for various depts of the state govt

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Fire broke out at a shop in West Midnapore’s Patashpur and later spread to two other shops, injuring two youths.

According to the prelimi-nary investigation, police and fire officials suspect that the fire might have been caused due to the explosion of a gas cylinder, which was kept inside the shop that had caught fire. After see-ing smoke billowing out of the shops, local residents rushed to the spot and took part in the rescue operation.

Two victims, identified as Shakti Mondal and Kamal Mondal who sustained burn injuries, were immediately rushed to a nearby hospital where they have been under-going treatment. After being informed, two fire tenders were swung into action to douse the flames.

According to police, a road-side eatery had caught fire fol-lowing the explosion of a gas cylinder on Monday night while two workers were there inside the eatery.

Patashpur shop goes up in flames,

two injured

KOLKATA: After a painting session in the open, women inmates of a correctional home near here would take part in a cake cutting ceremony in this festive season in an effort to bring them back to main-stream society.

Dumdum Central Correc-tional Home authorities, in collaboration with an NGO, have taken these steps to make these inmates feel wanted and be a part of mainstream society.

“We always extend sup-port to such initiatives. Such steps will enable the inmates to return to mainstream soci-ety and not feel ostracised,” DG & IG of Correctional Services Arun Kumar Gupta said.

Chaitali Das, Managing Trustee of Rakshak Founda-tion, the NGO involved in the project to empower women inmates, said the inmates would participate in a cake cutting ceremony in the upcoming Christmas-New Year season. AGENCIES

Cake-cutting ceremony to bring joy for

jailed women

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Panic spread among patients and their rela-tives after there was a leakage from the oxygen cylinder at the main block of SSKM Hospital on Tuesday evening.

The patients mistook the leakage of gas as smoke and apprehended that there might be an incident of fire. The patients started running from various wards and rushed downstairs.

The nursing staff members and other employees of the hospital found that a room at the main block was filled with smoke, caused due to leakage of a cylinder. The matter was informed to the fire brigade.

Two fire tenders were pressed into action. The oxygen cylinder that had the leakage was removed from the block by the fire personnel.

The situation was brought under control within half an hour, following which nor-malcy was restored.

False alarm: SSKM patients mistake oxygen

leak for fire

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REPRESENTATIVE IMAGE

5mp nationMILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Wednesday, 20 December, 2017

PANEL ASKS GOVTIndia has world’s maximum women

pilots, claims Jayant Sinha

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: India has the maximum number of women pilots in the world, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jay-ant Sinha said here on Tuesday.

“India is the country with maximum number of women pilots in the world, be it in Air India or Indian Air Force. This is a testimony of the con-tribution made by women to the aviation sector and also by the country to their careers,” Sinha said. The minister was addressing the gathering at golden jubilee celebrations of the India Women Pilots Asso-ciation (IWPA) here.

“While the presence of women has contributed to the progress of the aviation sector, their support is still needed to strengthen the area,” he said.

Sinha also suggested that the traffic problem in the coun-try can be addressed if the sky area is “utilised”. “The traffic problem can be dealt with if we decide to go vertical and uti-lise the sky area. It happens in many countries,” he said.

The event was also attended by Air Chief Marshal Birender Singh Dhanoa who also lauded the contribution of women to the aviation sector.

Ease access to Gandhi assassination records: CIC to National Archives

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Central Information Commission has directed the National Archives of India (NAI) to create a spe-cial icon or window on its web-site’s home page for easy access to records related to the assas-sination of Mahatma Gandhi.

Information Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu said the NAI has to develop a mechanism of easy access to the assassination records along with information of Gandhi’s life and national movement.

“In online records of NAI, one will find the title of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose papers. There is also a separate page for Netaji papers, which can be accessed by a click of a mouse. There is no such easy access to Mahatma Gandhi papers,” he said.

The commission also directed the NAI to make it easy for people to access records related to noted leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Guljari Lal Nanda and Indira Gandhi among others.

“The commission finds it strange that why the NAI has not created access to papers of our father of nation Mahatma Gandhi, first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Val-labh Bhai Patel, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Guljari Lal Nanda and Indira Gandhi, etc,” Acharyulu noted.

He also instructed it to pub-lish list of categories of records it has, catalogues etc as a volun-tary disclosure under Section 4 of RTI Act.

“In the first place, on pri-ority, the Commission rec-

ommends the easy access mechanism, both physical and on line, to papers of father of the nation, as soon as possible and others within reasonable time,” Acharyulu directed the NAI, the official archive keeper of the country.

The case pertains to RTI applicant Nitin Sagar who approached the NAI seeking to know the process for obtain-ing documents like FIR, court proceedings, judgements relat-ing to the murder trial of Gan-dhi claiming that he is neither a student nor a research scholar.

The NAI said scholars, non-scholars or ordinary persons are invited and also provided with photocopies of documents

sought by depositing Rs 2 per page as prescribed fee.

“The appellant wanted to know about the access to an ordinary person other than scholar and researcher. His RTI request should have been con-sidered as a good suggestion to make such records available easily either on line or off the line,” Acharyulu said.

He also said that if someone approaches through non-RTI route also they have to provide the easy access and other facil-ities, without postponing the access by 30 days.

“The time of 30 prescribed under RTI Act is not to deny information till 29th day,” he said.

WTO must incorporate emerging issues to remain relevant: Prabhu

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The WTO must incorporate emerging issues if it wants to remain relevant in the changing times, Union Minister Suresh Prabhu said on Tuesday, asserting that India will organise a “mini ministe-rial” meeting of the global trade body in February to help realise this objective.

The talks collapsed at last week’s WTO 11th ministerial conference in Buenos Aires. The meeting ended without any declaration or substantive out-come with the US going back on its commitment to find a permanent solution to the public food stockholding issue, leaving India and other devel-oping nations disappointed.

“We are in the next few weeks going to organise a major conclave in India wherein we want to bring in the top coun-tries of the world. We call it the mini Ministerial for the WTO (World Trade Organization), Prabhu said.

Addressing a CII con-clave, he said the idea behind the mini-ministerial was that WTO must focus on some of the very relevant issues of the world on Tuesday.

Otherwise, he said, “WTO will be a very good historical institution, which will have a very good place in some of the good regions of the world”.

“But if you want to make sure that WTO becomes rele-vant to times that are changing, then we must also incorporate into WTO some of the very emerging important issues,” he added.

Separately, at a meeting with Ficci members, he said India will host the mini-min-isterial in February to further its position on the multilateral trade body and pursue its inter-est in a fruitful manner.

According to a Ficci state-ment, the minister said that the WTO process needs to be strengthened and taken for-

ward as India has a strategic interest in the functioning of the multilateral trade system.

Prabhu emphasised on the need for India to increase its share in world trade for enhancing GDP growth and creating jobs, saying that it should set a target and work towards it.

Developed nations at the WTO have been form-ing groupings to prepare the ground for pushing investment facilitation, preparing rules for e-commerce, promoting gen-der equality and reducing sub-sidy on fisheries.

India has been keenly push-ing agricultural issues at the WTO. It has also been rais-ing its voice against bringing in new issues, especially those

which are not directly linked to trade, on the negotiating table.

At the Services Conclave organised by industry body CII, Prabhu said India must have a clear-cut, holistic strat-egy to realise the true potential of its services sector, which can create a large number of jobs.

A strategy to boost the share of services in the export basket of the country is being formulated, he said.

Moreover, he said, efforts must be made so that services contribute significantly to the global trade, particularly India’s exports.

Prabhu said the Commerce Ministry is working in collabo-ration with the EXIM Bank on a market strategy, clearly defin-ing each market and geography with the kind of products that will be sold there.

He stressed that India must become the front office of the world in providing services globally.

He added: “It is a unique position that we enjoy on Tues-day, that we are actually the ser-vice providers. I don’t want to call ourselves as some other countries wanted to described India some time ago, that we are the back office of the world.

Not allowed to board aircraft:

wheelchair-bound passenger

OUR CORRESPONDENT

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Kerala government on Tuesday dismissed as “base-less” reports in a section of media that it tried to intervene in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Ockhi-hit coastal areas in the state.

In an official communications, the Chief Minister’s Office denied the reports quoting “BJP sources” that the state government did not want Modi visit the cyclone affected areas near here. The denial came as the prime min-ister tours cyclone-hit southern Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Lakshadweep on Tuesday.

He is scheduled to visit Poonthura, a fishing

hamlet about 20 km from here, this evening.“The prime minister’s programme is pre-

pared by the PMO. The state government has no role in deciding the PM’s places of visit or date of visit,” the Kerala government said in its release.

A message on the prime minister’s visit was received at the CMO on December 16 stating that Modi was likely to visit the southern state on December 18, 19.

However, there was no mention about his visit to the cyclone-affected fishing hamlets here in the tentative programme. Only in the con-firmed final programme, the PM’s places of visit and discussions with the state government had been included, the statement said.

BENGALURU: A wheel-chair-bound passenger on Tuesday alleged he was not allowed to board an Air India flight from Bengaluru to Kol-kata on December 17 as he had declined to “remove wires” from the battery of his wheelchair.

Kaushik Majumdar, an Associate Professor at Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), told PTI here that the battery is disconnected every time the wheelchair is loaded in the air-craft and this time too he dis-connected it.

“Some weird staff, however, insisted on removing all the wires from the battery, which would have completely ruined the equipment, on which I depend,” he said, adding, he declined to do so.

Majumdar said he never faced this type of a “weird” sit-uation since he started travel-ling by Air India after joining the ISI as a faculty member in 2009. “My electric wheelchair is always loaded in the cargo hold and this time too it was to be loaded there.I never asked for its loading inside the passenger area,” he said.

In all airlines including Air India, disconnecting the bat-tery from the wheelchair joy-stick controller is enough, Majumdar said.

“Why then an exception was made in AI 776 on Decem-ber 17? Who are responsible? I want an answer,” he said.

Even the CISF smoothly cleared the chair, but right before boarding some Air India staff raised security issues with the battery, he said. MPOST

Why only few countries growing GM crops?

DHIRENDRA KUMAR

NEW DELHI: The Standing Committee of Parliament has raised its eyebrows over the introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops in the country. In a report tabled in the Parliament, the panel has asked the government to find out as why 17 of the world’s most developed 20 countries have not yet introduced GM crops farming.

“Even after 21 years of the introduction of GM crops, 90 per cent of the world’s GM crops are being produced in six countries, including India. What is the reason that GM technology, claiming to be the most advanced technology in agriculture, has been adopted by only a few countries,” the Standing Committee of the Par-liament of Science and Technol-ogy, Environment and Forest Affairs, chaired by Congress

MP Anand Sharma, said.The panel in its report has

asked the government to do a comparative study as why a majority of countries have adopted GM technology and only a few have introduced the modified crops farming. The panel has also suggested the gov-ernment to find out the future prospects of the GM crops in India.

“It has been found that the regulatory standards for accept-ing GM crops are strictly on paper only, but in reality, it is

quite weak. It is surprising that after the availability of so many steps of the investigation, the decisions are taken by relying only on the figures given by the applicant for the environmental impact assessment of the GM crop,” the panel said in its report.

The committee in its report has recommended field trials in its monitoring through an independent body with the help of agricultural universities for environmental impact assess-ment. The committee has also raised a pertinent question in the report saying that in their study no evidence found about the long-term study of the effect of GM crops on human health prior to permitting GM crops.

Rapping Department of Health Research (DHR), the committee said that how the DHR approved the commer-cial production of GM crops without studying the impact on human health.

ASHWINI SHRIVASTAVA

NEW DELHI: Citing a short-age of IAS bureaucrats at the middle-level, the Narendra Modi government has asked all states to spare more officers for central deputation, accord-ing to an official communique.

A total of 493 posts out of 1,051 ones earmarked for IAS officers on central deputation are filled, leaving a vacancy of 558 or about 54 per cent.

In a letter to all states, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) said the movement of the officers from states to the Centre and back is crucial for building capabili-ties at the state-level and con-tributing towards developing national perspectives at the decision-making levels in the government of India.

“It would, therefore, be appropriate considering the fact that there is general short-age of IAS officers at Deputy Secretary/Director level, if a conscious attempt is made

while forwarding the names of the officers, so as to share the shortage proportionately between the Centre and the states and also that every eli-gible officer has an opportunity to serve at the Centre at least once at the middle manage-ment level,” it said.

Referring to the Central Deputation Reserve (CDR), which determines the extent to which officers could be sent on deputation to the govern-ment of India, it asked all the state cadres to nominate eli-

gible officers for Central Staff-ing Scheme (CSS) or on central deputation.

“The middle level com-prising deputy secretary and director level officers is a cru-cial decision making level in bureaucracy. The shortage of officers may affect governance,” a senior officer said.

However, he clarified, there is a general shortage of such officers at the Centre and the deficiency mentioned in the DoPT letter talks about vacan-cies in all positions.

West Bengal has deputed 11 of 56 IAS officers, Uttar Pradesh has allowed 50 officers of 121 and Gujarat has sent 19 of 51 officers on central depu-tation, the letter said, referring to the deficiency.

BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh has deputed 25 IAS officers out of the CDR of 75, Chhattisgarh has sent only five bureaucrats out of 31 and Haryana has sent 12 officers out of permissible strength of 31, it said.

Similarly, 19 IAS officers out of the authorised central deputation reserve of 35 are working with the Centre.

In Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram and Union Territory or AGMUT cadre, 42 IAS offi-cers are on central deputation against the authorised limit of 56. A total of 38 officers of Assam-Meghalaya cadre, 36 from Bihar and 22 from Him-achal Pradesh are working at the Centre against the autho-rised CDR of 45, 48 and 26 respectively.

As many as 11 IAS officers

of Jammu and Kashmir cadre (out of 19), 10 of Jharkhand (against 28), 19 of Karnataka (against 44) and 20 of Maha-rashtra (out of 65) are deputed at the Centre.

A total of 32 IAS officers of Kerala cadre are at present working at the Centre, two more than the desired central deputation reserve, according to the letter.

The status of IAS officers on central deputation is compara-tively slightly better in north eastern states. A total of 12 IAS officers of Manipur cadre, eight of Nagaland, four of Sikkim and 10 of Tripura are on central deputation against the autho-rised positions of 18, 15, eight and 15 respectively.

As many as 18 IAS officers of Odisha (against authorised CDR of 40), 15 bureaucrats of Punjab (out of 39), 13 of Rajas-than (against 50), 24 of Tamil Nadu(out of 65), 11 of Telan-gana (against 21) and seven of Uttarakhand (out of 19) are working on central deputation.

Citing shortage, Centre asks states to send more IAS officers

Govt, oppn hold talks over PM’s remarks against Manmohan

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The government and the opposition on Tues-day held meetings to resolve the impasse in Rajya Sabha over Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi’s “conspiracy with Pak” remark against his prede-cessor Manmohan Singh dur-ing the Gujarat poll campaign, but the stalemate on the issue continued.

Opposition leaders met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar and his deputy Vijay Goel in Parliament and sought a resolution of the issue.

They demanded that the prime minister should clarify his remarks in the Rajya Sabha.

The half-an-hour meeting in Jaitley’s chamber was attended by Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Anand Sharma, besides opposition leaders Ramgopal Yadav, Satish Misra, D Raja and others.

After the meeting, Jaitley separately met Leader of Oppo-sition in Rajya Sabha Azad in the latter’s chamber.

Earlier, before the House commenced, the Congress lead-ers had also met Rajya Sabha chairman M Venkaiah Naidu for the resolution of the issue with the Vice President suggest-ing that the matter be resolved between the opposition and the government sitting across the table.

Azad also raised the issue in the House after which Naidu suggested that the two sides sit together and resolve the issue. Leader of the House Arun Jait-ley agreed to do so and the two meetings with the opposition followed.

“The meeting has been held. Opposition leaders have given their proposition to the govern-ment,” Congress leader Anand Sharma told reporters.

“We are still waiting whether the justifiable demand of the opposition is acceptable to the prime minister so that we can bring a closure to the contro-versy which was painful, which was of his creation and was entirely avoidable,” he said.

Sharma said the prime min-ister has said something which in their view is a constitutional transgression because he holds the office of the prime minister.

Information Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu said the NAI has to develop a mechanism of easy access to the assassination records along with information of Gandhi’s life and national movement

Railways draws CAG flak for installing ‘defunct’ bio-toilets

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Indian Railways faced the ire of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) for installa-tion of ‘defunct’ bio-toilets on trains. The national auditor in its report said that majority of bio-toilets installed in trains face operation deficiencies, including choking, foul smell and inadequate supply of bac-terial inoculum.

The CAG also highlighted that out of the nine firms, on which orders were placed, seven firms, had complaints pending against them regard-ing quantity and quality of material supplied during 2015-16 and 2016-17.

The report indicated that no awareness campaign was conducted by railway zones - except Southern Railway. Moreover, only 36.62 per cent supervisory and 23.21 per cent non-supervisory staff were trained in maintenance of bio-toilets.

The ‘bio-toilet’ (using bio-digester technology) is an eco-friendly waste management solution, which reduces solid human waste to bio-gas and water with the help of a bac-

terial inoculum through bio-logical degradation of human waste. It eliminates the direct discharge of human waste from coach toilets onto railway tracks and platform aprons in stations, and helps avoid man-ual scavenging while keeping the platform aprons and trains clean.

An audit conducted in 30 coaching depots of 15 zonal railways in 2016-17 by CAG indicated that out of 613 trains being handled in these depots, 160 trains did not have any bio-toilets fitted. “In remaining 453 trains with 25,080 bio-toilets, 1,99,689 instances of deficien-cies were noticed,” the report said.

It was in January 2015 that the railway board decided to eliminate the provision of direct discharge toilets in new coaches by the end of 2016-17.

However, during 2014-15 to 2016-17, utilization of funds for retrofitment of bio-toilets remained between 34 per cent and 71 per cent. For the year 2016-17, Minister of Railways had announced that 20,000 bio-toilets were to be inducted through retrofitment.

Railway Board fixed an internal target of 50,000 bio-

toilets to be inducted through retrofitment.

“As against this target, var-ious Zonal Railways could achieve induction of 22,198 bio-toilets through retrofit-ment. The shortfall of more than 30 per cent was noticed in five Zonal Railways out of 16 Zonal Railways (East Cen-tral-67 per cent, North Cen-tral-49 per cent, Northern-42 per cent, South Eastern-44 per cent and Western-43 per cent),” the CAG report added.

The report also indicated that due to the inadequate progress of retrofitment of bio-toilets in passenger coaches by Zonal Railways, Railway Board decided to place a bulk order for supply, installation and commissioning of approxi-mately 80,000 bio-toilets in in-service coaches.

“As against 33,783 bio-toi-lets which were to be supplied to 16 Zonal Railways up to March 2017, only 14,274 bio-toilets were supplied by the firms. Out of these, 12,016 bio-toilets were fitted in coaches up to March 2017,” the report said.

When asked, Railways Min-istry officials refused to com-ment on the finding of the CAG.

All stations to be 100% LED lit by April 2018:

RailwaysOUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: In an eco-friendly measure to cut power consumption, the Indian Rail-ways on Tuesday said it was planning to make all stations cent per cent LED lit by March 31, 2018.

The railways said it was actively working to provide 100 per cent LED lighting for energy needs in railway staff colonies, stations and platforms.

“Ministry of Railways has decided to make all railway stations 100 per cent LED lit by the end of current finan-cial year by March 31, 2018. It is a huge initiative to pro-vide energy efficient lighting which will eventually greatly help in the conservation of environment as well,” it said in a statement.

LED or light-emitting diode bulbs are more energy efficient and have a longer lifespan than traditional lamps.

Till November 2017, about 3,500 railway stations had already been provided with cent per cent LED lights. About 20 lakh such lights were installed.

Kerala govt denies reports that it tried to stall PM’s visit

6MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Wednesday, 20 December, 2017

mp nationGujarat polls: Heavyweights, MLAs, ministers bite the dust

OUR CORRESPONDENT

AHMEDABAD: As many as 16 senior leaders from Gujarat, including ministers from the outgoing BJP-led dispensation and Congress heavyweights, were humbled in the just-con-cluded Assembly elections.

Sitting and former MLAs were among those defeated in the polls, the results of which were declared yesterday.

Though the BJP will form the next government in Guja-rat after a sixth straight victory in the state, the results came as a blow to the party with six of its ministers and the Speaker of the Assembly, Ramanlal Vora, losing to the Congress.

Top Congress leaders and party heavyweights also bit the dust, even though the opposi-tion party fared better than it did in 2012, winning 77 seats as compared to the 61 it scored then.

Among the senior Congress leaders defeated were Arjun Modhwadia, Shaktisinh Gohil, Siddharth Patel and Tushar Chaudhary.

Modhwadia, who was the leader of the opposition in the state Assembly between 2004 and 2007, lost to state fisher-ies minister and senior BJP leader Babubhai Bokhiriya by a narrow margin of 1,855 votes.

Bokhiriya had defeated him in 2012, too, from Porbandar.

Gohil, the sitting MLA from the Abdasa seat in Kutch district, who would have been in the race for the chief minis-ter’s chair in the event of a Con-gress victory, lost the Mandvi constituency of Kutch, which the BJP’s Virendrasinh Jadeja won by a comfortable margin of over 9,000 votes.

Gohil, who is the national spokesperson of the Congress, had served as a minister of finance, health, education and Narmada in the two consecu-tive Congress governments.

He was the leader of the opposition in the Gujarat Assembly from 2007 to 2012.

In 2012, he was defeated from the Bhavnagar-Rural Assembly segment, but had won from Abdasa in a 2014 by-poll.

Siddharth Patel, son of former Congress chief min-ister Chimanbhai Patel, lost to Shailesh Mehta of the BJP from the Dabhoi constituency of Vadodara.

Patel, who was appointed the party’s campaign commit-tee head for the 2017 elections, was also defeated in the 2012 elections from the same seat.

Former MP and union min-ister Tushar Chaudhary, who is the son of tribal leader and

former Congress chief minis-ter Amarsinh Chaudhary, lost to BJP’s Mohanbhai Dhodiya from the Mahuva seat of Surat district by over 6,000 votes.

Several BJP leaders, MLAs and ministers also met with a similar fate this time. Six min-isters in the outgoing state government, including two of cabinet rank, fell by the wayside.

Among those who tasted defeat was the minister of state for urban development and Health, Shankar Chaudhary. In a tightly-contested election, he lost to Congress’s Geniben Thakor by around 5,000 votes.

Cabinet rank minister and BJP’s Dalit leader Atmaram Parmar was defeated by Con-gress’s Pravinbhai Maru from the Gadhada (SC) Assembly seat in Botad district.

Another cabinet minis-ter, Chimanbhai Saparia, who holds the agriculture and energy portfolios, lost to Chi-ragbhai Kalariya of the Con-gress from Jamjodhpur.

Minister of state (MoS) for backward class welfare Keshaji Chauhan lost by a narrow mar-gin of 972 votes from the Deo-dar constituency.

Congress’s Premsinh Vasava defeated forest and tribal wel-fare MoS Shabdsharan Tadvi for the Nandod (ST) seat.

CEC & ECS TO VISIT MEGHALAYA TO REVIEW POLL PREPAREDNESSSHILLONG: An Election Commission team led by Chief Election Commissioner A K Joti will visit Meghalaya lat-er this week to review the preparedness of the state to hold assembly elections due early next year, officials said on Tuesday. “A team of Chief Election Commis-sioner A K Joti and Election Commissioners O P Rawat and Sunil Arora will be visiting the state on December 22-23 to review the poll preparedness in the state and to settle down any issues related to EVMs and oth-ers,” Chief Electoral Officer F R Kharkongor said. The Commission will assess the overall preparedness of the state election machinery to conduct the polls following which the date will be announced shortly, he said. The Commission will meet the SPs and DCs and the repre-sentatives of political parties on December 22 and the following day, the team will meet the chief secretary and the DGP, the CEO said. Earlier this month, a team of the Commission had visited Meghalaya to see re-view the preparedness of the state election machinery.

61 FARMERS ENDED LIVES IN C’GARH IN 8 MONTHS THIS YEAR: GOVTRAIPUR: Sixty one farmers have committed suicide in Chhattisgarh between April and November this year, the state government informed the Legislative Assem-bly on Tuesday. State Revenue Minister Premprakash Pandey gave this information in a written reply to a question asked by Leader of Opposition T S Singhdeo. “Sixty one farmers have committed suicide across Chhattisgarh between April 1 and November 30, 2017,” the minister said. As per the reply, 14 farmers have committed suicide in Balodabazar district during the period, followed by Kabeerdham (13), Bemetara (9), Rajnandgaon (9) and Durg (4). Similarly, three suicides were reported in Dhamtari district, two each in Raipur, Balod, Kanker and Mahasamund while one in Janjgir-Champa, the reply said.

2 ARRESTED FOR KILLING EX-BJP MLA’S SON IN UTTAR PRADESHLUCKNOW: Two people were arrested on Tuesday for allegedly killing the 36-year-old son of a former BJP MLA from Domariyaganj, police said. Vaibhav Tiwari, the son of Prem Prakash Tiwari alias Gippy Tiwari, was shot dead outside Kasmanda appartment in Hazratanj area, barely 300 metres from the UP legislature build-ing and the state BJP headquarters here on the night of December 16. The main accused, Suraj Shukla and Vikram Singh, who were absconding since then, were arrested by the city police on Tuesday, ADG (Law and Order) Anand Kumar said. Gippy Tiwari was BJP MLA from Domariyaganj in 1989, 1991 and 1993. Then in 2014 he went to the Samajwadi Party. In this year’s Assembly elections, however, he campaigned for the BJP. Vaibhav was the only son of the former MLA.

DEBT-RIDDEN FARMER KILLS SELF BY JUMPING BEFORE TRAINNASHIK: A 37-year-old debt-ridden farmer alleg-edly committed suicide by jumping before a running train near Lahavit station in the district, railway police said on Tuesday. Jagadish Bahiru Shirsat, a resident of Bhagur, took the extreme step on Monday. “He had taken a loan of Rs 1.5 lakh and was unable to repay it,” an official from Devlali Railway Police said. He said a suicide note was found from his pocket. According to the officer, the farmer said in the note that he had received the loan under a state government scheme. “But due to the natural calamities, I suffered losses and cannot repay the amount, which is why I am taking this step,” the officer quoted the farmer as saying in the note, addressed to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. In the note he also sought “justice” for his family, the officer said, adding a case has been registered in this connection and investigation was on.

NATION BRIEFS

AAP appoints Sisodia as in-charge of Punjab unit

SAYANTAN GHOSH

NEW DELHI: After major set-back in the Punjab civic polls, the Aam Aadmi Party on Tues-day appointed Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia as in-charge of its Punjab unit. The post has been lying vacant since Sanjay Singh resigned as its in-charge in May follow-ing the dismal show in Delhi Municipal elections, where AAP won only 48 out of 270 wards amid a BJP sweep.

“After assessment of the prevailing political situation in the state of Punjab, the Politi-cal Affairs Committee of Aam Aadmi Party on Tuesday has appointed senior party leader Manish Sisodia as Prabhari (in-charge) of Punjab,” said a senior AAP leader.

Meanwhile, the Punjab unit of AAP has welcomed the appointment of Sisodia as the in-charge of the state unit. Also, in a Press note issued here, party leaders thanked Delhi CM and party convener Arvind Kejriwal for the same.

“Manish Sisodia is one of the strongest leaders of the party and a good administra-tor. His education model has been widely accepted. We think that the party will fight the best under his leadership in Punjab,” said a senior party leader.

AAP saw a severe drubbing in the recent Punjab municipal

polls. The party won just a single ward in Bholath (Assembly con-stituency of AAP MLA Sukhpal Khaira) in Kapurthala district out of the total 414 wards. On the other hand, Congress swept the civic polls, winning 267 of 414 wards of municipal coun-cils and Nagar Panchayats, along with the three municipal corpo-rations of Amritsar, Jalandhar and Patiala.

AAP leader Sanjay Singh, in April this year, had resigned from the position of in-charge of its Punjab unit following the party’s debacle in the Delhi MC polls.

Manish Sisodia is the Dep-

uty Chief Minister of Delhi since February 2015. He also holds Education, Tourism, Art, Cul-ture & Languages and other important departments.

Previously, he was briefly a Cabinet Minister of Delhi between late December 2013 and February 2014, during which he looked after Educa-tion, PWD, Urban Develop-ment, local bodies and land and building. Prior to being elected to the Legislative Assembly of Delhi in December 2013, Siso-dia was a social activist and jour-nalist as well as a member of the National Executive Committee of the Aam Aadmi Party.

Himachal CM Virbhadra Singh tenders resignation

OUR CORRESPONDENT

SHIMLA: Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh tendered his resignation to Governor Acharya Devvrat on Tuesday, a day after his Con-gress party suffered a drubbing in the assembly polls.

The governor accepted the resignation and asked Singh and his cabinet to continue in office till a new government was formed.

Faced with a strong anti-incumbency wave, the Con-gress managed to bag only 21 seats in the 68-member assem-bly. The BJP won the polls by sweeping 44 seats. The CPI(M) bagged one seat while two seats were won by Independent candidates.

A scion of the Rampur-Bushahr royal family, Singh, 83, won for the eighth time in a state Assembly election from Arki, defeating Rattan Singh Pal of the BJP by a margin of 6,051 votes.

Singh began his politi-cal journey at an early age

and became the youngest Lok Sabha member in 1962. He has had a chequered political career spanning 55 years.

He served four terms in the lower house of Parliament, the last one between 2009 and 2012.

He served six terms as chief minister from 1983, when he first took the oath of office of the chief minister.

He replaced Ram Lal as the chief minister of the state in April 1983 and consolidated his hold after going for mid-term assembly polls in 1985 and steered the Congress party to a massive majority.

BJP supporters offering sweets to Uttarakhand CM Trivendra Singh Rawat as they celebrate the party’s win in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections, in Dehradun on Monday PTI

Sena attacks BJP over Gujarat poll results

OUR CORRESPONDENT

MUMBAI: The Shiv Sena on Tuesday launched a sting-ing attack on its ally BJP, say-ing “the much-touted Gujarat model has shaken” and the poll outcome in the state was a “warning bell” to those who believe in an autocratic rule.

The Sena said Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Patidar leader Hardik Patel had been ridiculed as “mon-keys” but “these ‘monkeys’ have slapped the ‘lion’”.

The Sena attack on the BJP came in an editorial in its mouthpiece ‘Saamana’, a day

after the BJP retained power in Gujarat with a reduced tally of 99 seats against 115 last time.

The Congress increased its tally from 61 seats last time to 77 this time.

The Sena said the BJP had “barely managed to pass” the electoral exam but was pre-tending to have passed with distinction.

The BJP won Gujarat and Himachal, but the Congress also did not lose, the editorial said. “The dream of a ‘Con-gress-Mukt Bharat’ (Con-gress-free India) remained unfulfilled,” the Shiv Sena said.

This election result in Guja-rat is a “warning bell for those who believe in an autocratic rule”, the Sena said.

“The BJP may have won the election but the discussion is about the strides Rahul Gan-dhi has taken. It was said that we (BJP) won’t get a single seat less than 150 in Gujarat, but it proved to be a tough task even to reach the 100 mark,” said the editorial.

Five of 905 Independent

candidates win in Gujarat, HP

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Only five of the 905 independent candidates who fought the Assembly polls in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh romped home, Elec-tion Commission data reveal.

Three of the five won from Gujarat and two in the hill state, according to the election results announced yesterday.

A total of 793 independent candidates were in the fray for the polls in Gujarat and 112 in Himachal Pradesh.

Three out of 793 such can-didates (or 0.37 per cent) in Gujarat and two out of 112 (or 1.78 per cent) in Himachal Pradesh were successful.

Independents, however, were in the third position in terms of votes polled, after the BJP and the Congress.

In Gujarat, they got 4.9 per cent or 12,90,213 votes. BJP got 49.1 per cent or 1,47,23,481 votes and Congress 41.4 per cent or 1,24,38,349 votes.

AAP leader Sanjay Singh had resigned as the in-charge of the party’s Punjab unit in April this year following its debacle in the Delhi MC polls

Notice Inviting e-Tender No. 40 of 2017-18SE/SWC/PWD, Midnapore invites e-tender for the work (1) Construction of Warehouse for storage of EVMs and VVPATs within the premises of the S.D.O’s Office at Kharagpur. Estt. Amt. : Rs. 1,24,29,369.00. Bid Submission End Date is 12.01.2018 at 16.00 Hours. Tender ID : 2017_WBPWD_144007_1. Any Corrigendum / Addendum related to this NIT, if published, will be available in the e-portal only. For details, visit the website - http://wbtenders.gov.in Sd/-

SE/SWC/PWD

Abridged NITNotice Inviting e-Quotation No. - WBPWD/SE/SWEC/

NIQ29/2017-18Tender ID: 2017_WBPWD_144097_1 Name of Work: Construction of new Court Building (G+2) storied at Bishnupur in the District of Bankura- Supply, Installation, Testing and Commissioning of Passenger LiftsWork Site : Bishnupur CourtLast date of submission of bid :-02/01/2018 up to 16:55 Hrs. Further details can be seen in the above mentioned office during working hours or in Official Website www.pwdwb.gov.in For all details and online tender submission visit https://wbtenders.gov.in

Government of West Bengal O/O The Superintending Engineer PWD South Western Electrical Circle

Sahid Mangal Pandey Sarani, Midnapur-721101

7mp nationMILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Wednesday, 20 December, 2017

RS passes bill to grant more autonomy to IIMs

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Rajya Sabha on Tuesday passed a bill, extending greater autonomy to the Indian Institutes of Man-agement (IIMs) by restricting the government’s role in their functioning and granting them power to award degrees to their graduates. The Indian Institutes of Management Bill, 2017 -- which was passed in the Lok Sabha in July this year -- grants statutory powers to the IIMs in their running including the appointment of directors and faculty members.

The bill gives them pow-ers to award degrees instead of postgraduate diplomas.

“The bill offers autonomy to these institutes. Through this bill we will remove all inter-ference of the government, bureaucracy in the function-ing of the IIMs. They will them-selves decide how to manage and run these premier insti-tutes,” HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said while initiating a discussion.

Replying to the debate, he said the rules would be framed soon and assured the Rajya Sabha members that their sug-gestions would be considered. The bill was passed by the Upper House unanimously.

The minister assured the House that no poor students would be denied admission in

IIMs and said the government would bear the interest on the education loan.

He said the existing board of IIMs would continue but changes would be made to comply with the provisions of this bill related to representa-tion of SC, ST and women in the board of governors.

Javadekar said that the government would withdraw its four representatives from the board. Jairam Ramesh of the Congress earlier sought to know about the fate of the existing boards. Justifying the autonomy for IIMs, Javadekar said, “This is new beginning...We must start believing in our best educational institutes.”

He said the government was thinking of granting greater autonomy to best institutions.

“Good institutions should have freedom,” he added.

Seeking support from the opposition parties, he added that the bill seeks to bring about a positive change in the educa-tional system in the country and hence should be supported wholeheartedly.

Congress member MV Rajeev Gowda, while support-ing the bill, asked the govern-ment to ensure that the lack of resources do not come in the way of anybody who wishes to study in the IIMs.

While laying emphasis on identifying talent for the fac-ulty positions, he also asked the government to ensure that SCs, STs and OBCs get scholarships and get admissions for doctoral programmes around the world.

“This initiative should be

taken on a mission mode,” Gowda said.

D Raja of the CPI said said the legislation should ensure academic freedom and end social discrimination. He also advocated more spending on education. Naresh Agarwal (SP) said the educational sylla-bus should be uniform across the country and demanded that government investment on education be increased. He also said there should not be any politics in education.

AIADMK member N Gokulakrishnan, Nadimul Haque (TMC), Kahkashan Parveen of JD(U), Prasanna Acharya (BJD), K Somaprasad of CPI(M), Vijay Sai Reddy (YSRCP), Anil Desai (Shiv Sena) also participated in the debate.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Former Calcutta High Court judge C S Karnan is set to be released tomorrow after serving a six- month jail sentence, which was handed out to him by the Supreme Court for contempt.

Karnan was arrested from Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu on June 20 after he evaded the police for over a month.

His wife, Saraswati Kar-nan, who resides in Chennai, is scheduled to arrive in the city this evening, along with her elder son.

“He (Karnan) is scheduled to be released tomorrow. I am coming to Kolkata to accom-pany him back to Chennai,” Saraswati Karnan said over phone.

Saraswati Karnan, a profes-sor of economics in a Chen-nai college, said she had last met her husband at the Presi-dency Correctional Home here

a month-and-a-half ago.“I found him in good spirits

and health,” she said.Karnan had earned the

dubious distinction of becom-ing the first sitting high court judge to have been sentenced to jail. The apex court had sen-tenced him to six months in jail for contempt of court on May 9. Karnan was a serving judge of the Calcutta High Court at that time.

A seven-judge bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice of India J S Khe-har, had asked the West Ben-gal director general of police

(DGP) to take Karnan, who was on a warpath with the apex court for months, into custody.

The Supreme Court had earlier issued a bailable war-rant against the judge to secure his presence before it in con-nection with the contempt case.

Karnan had appeared before the apex court on March 31, a first in the coun-try’s judicial history, and asked for restoration of his powers as a pre-condition for his re- appearance, but the plea was rejected. Karnan, who had enrolled as an advocate with the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu in 1983, was appointed a judge of the Madras High Court in 2009. He was transferred to the Calcutta High Court on March 11, 2016.

He was transferred from the Madras High Court for his repeated allegations against and run-ins with the then chief justice and fellow judges of the court.

Ex-HC judge Karnan to be released from jail today

UP police alert all SPs after RSS

group’s Xmas threat

LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh Police on Tuesday directed all district police chiefs to ensure that Christmas festiv-ities go smoothly without any untoward incident, two days after the Hindu Jagran Manch warned Aligarh schools against celebrating the festival.

ADG (Law and Order) Anand Kumar also directed all district police chiefs of the state to ensure the freedom of prac-tising one’s religion is protected and appropriate action should be taken in this regard.

“The Aligarh SSP (senior superintendent of police) and all district police chiefs have been directed to take strict legal action against those indulging in intimidation of any sort,” he said.

This directive comes after the Hindu Jagran Manch, an RSS affiliate, issued a circu-lar on Sunday, threatening the management of all Aligarh schools against celebrating Christmas saying, if they did so, it would be “at their own risk”.

“The circular would be reaching all schools very shortly and we will decide a course of action on receiving their response,” Sonu Savita, city president of the Hindu Jag-ran Manch, told reporters in Aligarh on Sunday.

Aligarh SSP Rajesh Pandey has, however, made it clear that the district authorities would not allow anyone to force any school not to observe or cel-ebrate Christmas. MPOST

IAF lands AN-32 at strategically vital Chinyalisaur airstrip

UTTARKASHI: The IAF on Tuesday success-fully landed an AN-32 multi-purpose aircraft at the strategically important Chinyalisaur airstrip in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi district after visibil-ity improved in the region.

Efforts were underway for the past three days to land the 56-seater aircraft at the airstrip, but it could not be done due to poor visibility, an IAF official said requesting anonymity. Air Commo-dore S Banerjee of the Central Air Command expressed happiness over the aircraft’s success-

ful landing at the strategically important airstrip. Earlier, an IAF team from the command and the aviation department had inspected the airstrip to find if it was fit for landing such an aircraft.

Inspections had also been conducted yester-day by an IAF team from Bengaluru. Ninety-five per cent of the work on the 1,165 metre-long and 30 metre-wide Chinyalisaur airstrip is through, an official said, adding that work on an ATC tower, a terminal and levelling of the area around the runway remains to be done. MPOST

Zeliang appoints 10 new Advisors with cabinet minister rank

KOHIMA: Nagaland Chief Minister T R Zeliang on Tues-day appointed 10 new Advisors to the state government with the rank of cabinet minister.

The 10 include - E E Pang-teang, Dr Chotisuh Sazo, Yita-chu, N Thongwang Konyak, N Thomas Lotha, Vikho-o Yhoshu, R Tohanba, T Tore-chu, Tovihoto Ayemi and N Jacob Zhimomi.

The chief minister admin-istered the oath of office and secrecy to the 10 new advi-sors at state Banquet Hall here tonight.

Zeliang had earlier reshuf-fled his cabinet minister by inducting six new ministers but is yet to allocate portfolios.

Replying to newsmen after tonight s swearing in, Zeliang said “the portfolios would be distributed very shortly.”

Asked on the Court case being filed by pressure group in the state against appointment of parliamentary secretar-ies and advisors in the min-istry, Zeliang said “it is okay until judgement is passed while there is no stay order from the court.”

On the disgruntlement of Lotha Hoho over the sacking of two Lotha cabinet ministers Y Patton and Mmhonlumo Kikon, Zeliang said “we have no comment, because ministry is formed by the elected mem-bers and the party”.

“If anyone is dropped or expelled from the party, the tribal hoho need not come in

between such action,” Zeliang said.

Replying to a query on the statement of the Rengma Hoho that legislators should first resign if they are talking of solution of Naga political issue, Zeliang said “there can-not be pre-condition from the NGOs, but it depends on the Government of India and the Naga nationalist political group whether they will come to a conclusion.”

The CM said, “how one tribal hoho can ask legisla-

tors to resign, because we are established by the Constitu-tion of India, and it will go according to the Constitution.”

Kashmiri youths assaulted in

B’luru; Mehbooba demands action

OUR CORRESPONDENT

JAMMU/BENGALURU: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Tuesday demanded strict action against those who allegedly assaulted a Kashmiri student and his brother in Ben-galuru last week for not speak-ing in Kannada, a Dravidian language spoken mainly in the state of Karnataka.

According to media reports, a 24-year-old hotel management student from Kashmir and his elder brother were reportedly beaten up and their vehicle damaged by a group of men near a bus stop in north Bengaluru’s Sanjay Nagar locality.

The incident happened on the night of December 11, but came to light only yesterday, police said on Tuesday.

“Very disturbed by the news of 2 brothers from Kashmir being assaulted in Bengaluru. I would urge the authorities to take strict action against the accused,” Mufti posted on Twit-ter on Tuesday.

Two persons -- Mahesh and Harish -- have been arrested based on the CCTV footage installed near the bus stop. Both are now out on bail, said Chetan Singh Rathore, deputy commissioner of police (Ben-galuru North).

Mahesh is a fashion designer while Harish a driver, the police said.

A friend of the victims, requesting anonymity, said the student, studying in a col-lege here, and his brother were returning home in the early hours of December 11, when one of them stopped the car to answer a phone call.

Around that time, two motorcycle-borne youths reached there and asked them something in Kannada.

The student told them that he did not know Kannada, fol-lowing which the youth insisted that they speak in Kannada,

“When he and his brother objected, the youth called a few more people and started hit-ting them with stones. They even damaged their car,” said the friend.

The two suffered injuries and were treated at a nearby hospital.

ABRIDGED -e-NIT e-NIQ ref. no

Name of work Last date of Bid submission

NIQ-71(2nd Call) of 2017-18

Preparation of Detailed Project Report (DPR) for “Construction of proposed G+2 storied building of Siliguri Mahila Mahavidyalaya, Dist. Darjeeling”

05/01/2018 upto 14.00 hours

Sd/- Executive Engineer North Bengal Development Department

Details can be seen in the Official Website www.wbnorthbengaldev.gov.inn For all details and online tender submission visit https://wbtenders.gov.in

Government of West Bengal North Bengal Development Department

Branch Secretariat Uttarkanya, Fulbari, Jalpaiguri

ICA - 2612(6)/2017

ABRIDGED -e-NIT NIT ref. no.

Name of work Estimated Amount

Last date of Bid submission

NIT-124 OF 2017-18

Construction of 09 Nos. Dwelling Houses Named ‘Adiwasi Niwas’ for beneficiaries at Malbazar and Rajganj Block in the Dis-trict of Jalpaiguri.

3101205.00 03/01/2018 upto 12.00 hours

Sd/- Executive Engineer

North Bengal Development Department

Details can be seen in the Official Website www.wbnorthbengaldev.gov.in

Government of West Bengal North Bengal Development Department

Branch Secretariat Uttarkanya, Fulbari, Jalpaiguri

Tender NoticeThe Executive Engineer, Siliguri Division, Housing Dte., Siliguri has invited open tender against NIT No. 10 of 2017-18 for Mtc. & Repair work at R.H.E., Pilkhna, Jalpaiguri/N.N. Road, Coochbehar and Milanpally, Siliguri under Siliguri Division, Housing Dte., SiliguriThe last date and time of applications are 02.01.2018 up to 14:00 hours (IST).Details may be had from the office Notice Board on any working days within office hour.

Executive Engineer Siliguri Division, Housing Dte,

Siliguri

mp editorial8MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Wednesday, 20 December, 2017

AMIT KAPOOR

On Saturday, Con-gress had a regime change with 47-year-old Rahul

Gandhi taking over the reins of the party amidst speculations that his mother and predeces-sor Sonia Gandhi might retire. Sonia also has been expressing publicly that her role now was to retire. But will Sonia Gan-dhi really retire even though she has yielded her place as the Congress chief to her son?

She may not, if she is going to continue as the Congress Parliamentary Party chair and also the UPA chairperson, as her party asserts. Generally, when politicians quit public life, they quit all positions but Sonia is not destined to be one of them. She might have only given up the party presidency.

Why so much confusion about her retirement? The Gan-dhi family (read as Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka) is a very close-knit unit and have made all decisions pertaining to the fam-ily members taking all along. It was the family, which per-suaded Sonia not to become the Prime Minister in 2004. It was the family, which decided when Rahul should be elevated. It was the family, which decided when Sonia should take a back seat when her health deterio-rated two years ago. It was the family, which thought it was time for Rahul to take over now. Therefore, the family must have created a new role for Sonia Gandhi even after her so-called retirement.

So why will Sonia find it hard to retire? Ill or well, the Congress will cling to Sonia

as she had brought the party to power not once but twice (2004 and 2009). It was not a small achievement. Rahul Gandhi has not proven to be a winning vote catcher though he has been drawing crowds in the recent Gujarat polls. The party would like to cling to tried and tested leaders like Sonia rather than put all its eggs in the basket of Rahul Gandhi, though it is not averse to giving him a chance.

Secondly, the old guard in the party is quite apprehensive of Rahul’s leadership. In fact, within the party, it was often said that it was the old guard, which was blocking Rahul’s ele-vation for some years although Sonia would have liked to put her son as the party chief much

earlier. Rahul Gandhi’s sup-porters had been complaining that he was not having a free hand because of the old guard. Senior leaders feel quite com-fortable with Sonia Gandhi and would rather work with her than her son. Also, they were apprehensive of their future in the Rahul regime, as Rahul has been favouring younger men in his team.

Thirdly, the party needs a senior leader like Sonia to head the Congress Parliamen-tary Party. In the upper house the Congress-led Opposition is quite belligerent and can block government bills. BJP has to wait for some more time to get a majority in Rajya Sabha although it has got one more

seat than the Congress and has become the single largest party in the upper house. So far the old guard like Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma and oth-ers, who have been running the show, are all close to Sonia Gan-dhi. If Rahul brings a young team who do not know much of the parliamentary prac-tices, it may not serve the pur-pose. As for dealing with the other leaders of the Opposi-tion, who better than Sonia to lead the Opposition? Despite taking a backseat in the past few months, it was her leader-ship, which brought 18 political parties together to choose the opposition candidates in the recent presidential and vice-presidential elections.

Fourthly and more impor-tantly, the Congress is look-ing to do better in the 2018 Assembly polls and the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The party knows that it is the arithmetic which works in elections. Sonia has proved that she can keep the UPA together although it is shrinking a little. The UPA needs more allies nearer the Lok Sabha polls. Senior opposi-tion leaders like Sharad Pawar, Mamata Banerjee, Lalu Prasad Yadav and others may not like to work under Rahul Gan-dhi’s leadership while they had no hesitation in working with Sonia. The CPI-M leader Sitaram Yechury has said in a recent TV interview that Sonia was the glue that kept the UPA intact and without her the UPA will break. Therefore, the Congress would like Sonia to continue at least until the 2019 polls.

So, it is not surprising that Sonia may continue to be the CPP leader and the UPA chair-person though she shed the post of the party president on Saturday. Rahul as the new party chief will concentrate on the organisational affairs. The party is sinking slowly and it needs full-time attention of the Gandhis. Once Rahul has established himself as a vote-catcher, things will improve for him. Rahul has already emerged as a credible Opposi-tion leader in the recent Gujarat poll campaign. All that he has to do is to build the organisa-tion and prepare foot soldiers before the 2019 polls. IPA (The views expresssed are strictly personal.)

The Indian telecom industry is passing through complex times. It has been almost two decades since the Atal Bihari

Vajpayee government heralded the tele-com revolution with the formulation of the National Telecom Policy (NTP) in 1999. When the policy was enforced, India merely had a million subscribers. Since then, the industry has grown on to become the second-largest telecom-munications market in the world that is now well past the billion-mark in terms of subscribers.

Over the years, the sector has become a significant contributor of the country’s GDP and job growth. According to one estimate, it contributed 6.5 per cent of India’s GDP while providing direct and indirect employment to four million people in 2015. The industry has also been one of the fastest-growing sectors in the country with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.3 per cent over the last decade. This is the result of the dynamic and hyper-competitive nature of the Indian telecom market. Compe-tition among telecom companies has risen to the extent that tariffs are one of the lowest in the world.

However, the pace of transforma-tion of the industry over the course of last year has been astonishing, even by its own standards. It all began in Sep-tember 2016 with the entry of Reliance Jio into the telecom fray that was already saturated with giants such as Bharti Air-tel, Vodafone India, Idea Cellular and BSNL, along with other smaller players. Until then, the industry had derived 75 per cent of its revenue from voice and as each operator tried to gain a market share by offering competitive prices, it seemed to have bottomed out reaching as low as $0.01 per minute.

Jio’s entry last year changed the mar-ket in more than one way. First, the battle shifted from voice to the data front. Reli-ance had spent the last few years build-ing the largest LTE (long term evolution) network in the country that allowed it to provide Voice over LTE services at virtu-ally no extra cost -- enabling it to offer free calling and only charge for data.

The second significant impact of Jio’s entry has been a consolidation wave that has swept the industry due to escalated levels of competition. This has been so intense that scale has become a neces-sary prerequisite. In fact, to quantify the increase in market concentration, we calculated the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) for the telecom market

before and after the entry of Jio using TRAI data.

In a scale of 0 to 10,000 with a higher score implying higher concentration, we found that HHI increased by almost 1,000 points from 1,543 to 2,490 between June 2016 and June 2017. To put matters in perspective, the US Department of Justice considers a market with a HHI of less than 1,500 to be competitive, one between 1,500 and 2,500 to be moder-ately concentrated and one beyond 2,500 to be highly concentrated.

This rise in HHI has been a result of a spate of mergers that have taken place since Jio’s entry. Bharti Airtel has acquired the telecommunication ser-vices of Tata, Telenor and Videocon, while Vodafone is in its final stages of merger talks with Idea. After the merger, Airtel will lose its two-decade-long held position as the industry leader since the Vodafone-Idea combine will com-mand a subscriber base of 400 million as compared to Airtel’s 320 million. At

last count, Jio’s subscriber base stood at 138.6 million in September 2017. Con-sidering that it had started from scratch a year ago, the figure is simply gargantuan and presents the incumbents with effec-tive competition and takes the industry towards maturity. The final impact of Jio’s entry, which is often less talked about, is in its effect on increasing mobile and data accessibility. The Indian telecom indus-try was adding an average of 54 million wireless and 50 million Internet sub-scribers each year until mid-2016, as per TRAI (April-June) reports. In contrast, over the course of the last year (June 2016-June 2017), the industry added over 150 million wireless and 80 million Internet subscribers. Jio’s entry in Sep-tember 2016 has had a clear effect on the acceleration in adoption of mobile tech-nology and, especially, Internet.

An ICRIER study recently pointed out that a 10 per cent increase in the rate of growth of Internet subscribers will result in a 2.4 per cent increase in the

GDP rate. Therefore, there will be clear economic gains from the industry devel-opments that have recently taken place.

India’s telecom revolution has been the driving force of the economy since the turn of the century and it has done well to evolve with the times and climb the data bandwagon. It has largely gone unnoticed, but this year India has also become the highest mobile data user in the world with monthly usage exceed-ing a billion GB. As data accessibility of Indian consumers increases, it cre-ates a multitude of opportunities for the government to reach out and enable social progress by providing services that were previously not feasible. Tap-ping into these opportunities can unlock the next phase of growth for the Indian economy. IANS

(Dr. Amit Kapoor is chair, Institute for Competitiveness. Chirag Yadav, senior researcher at the Institute has contributed to the article. The views

expressed are strictly personal.)

Unlocking further growthEDITORIAL

Tapping the telecom sector for next phase of GDP growth

Rahul Gandhi’s supporters had been complaining that he was not having a free hand because of the old guard. Senior leaders feel quite comfortable with Sonia Gandhi and would rather work with her than with her son

Over the years, the sector has become a significant contributor of the country’s GDP and job growth. According to one estimate, it contributed 6.5 per cent of India’s GDP while providing direct and indirect employment to four million people in 2015. This is the result of the dynamic and hyper-competitive nature of the Indian telecom market

The Gujarat elections came to a close with BJP ulti-mately securing a victory; yet, in tandem with the course of the build-up to the elections, the results too deserve deep deliberation and introspection. Since

the Narendra Modi government rose to power in 2014, BJP has gone on to only strengthen its power across the country, improving its stakes with each election and exhibiting a resolve that complements an aggressive fighter who isn’t willing to bow its head even in the face of the strongest adversity. Habituated to massive victories, the idea of defeat has become a trigger that only strengthens performance. As the Congress attempted to capitalise upon the anti-incumbency sentiment, BJP amplified its performance, ringing in its most powerful leaders, with the Prime Minister himself organising massive rallies and grand road shows. While Narendra Modi has always been a public face and it is no surprise that he takes to the masses as they do towards him, this time around, the exigency with which he attended to Gujarat showcased a vulnerability that was seeping into the party which had acclimatised itself to only securing wholesome victories across state Assembly elections. Coming to its bastion, it probably did not expect to be seized in its own citadel, as it almost was by the Congress, this time around. It is astonishing how ordinary individuals have almost written off the fate of the Congress which had once been the flag bearer of our modern economy. The reducing relevance of Sonia Gandhi has not yet been replaced by her son’s vigour. Nevertheless, Rahul did turn the tables around, displaying a performance that was the least expected by our population or the exit polls. Even those that desired to defeat the Modi-Shah led BJP, were not confident enough to rest their faith upon the young Gandhi scion, who displayed less political acumen than his competitors, with the latter having mastered the careful craft of manipulating voters’ minds and successfully tapping onto electoral mandates. The Congress, after repeated defeats since 2014, when its relevance in the Parliament was reduced to a meagre 44, adopted a different strategy this time around, hoping to tap into the various sentiments floating against the BJP. While this is an effective mood, there must be more to one’s own credibility that will ultimately ensure victory. When Modi swept to power in 2014, he banked on the twin ideas of Congress-shaming and BJP-appraising. The independent idea of only ridiculing the BJP will assist the Congress, only to a cer-tain extent. A voter’s mind is quite amorphous; it is willing to adopt the strain that fits well into its shifting ideology. How-ever, the voter today is also well-informed. Whether on the basis of misinformation rallied to it by dedicated cadres of one party or circulated social media messages—it is able to grasp onto prevalent sentiments that suit its make-up. The Congress has had a great learning experience from the Gujarat election, as probably has the BJP too. While in the public face, neither Amit Shah nor Narendra Modi will express any grievance or hesitation towards the result that has ultimately ensured its vic-tory—it is unarguable that the secured seats falling short of 100 have surely irked the saffron giants—especially because, this is Gujarat that is being battled. Till a few months back, after the gigantic success of the Uttar Pradesh elections, nobody would bat an eyelid before assuring Gujarat to the BJP, with a mas-sive margin. The BJP is one term short of equalling the com-munist regime in Bengal that lasted from 1977 to 2006, before being wiped out of sight by the TMC in 2011. If the same fate befalls the BJP, it would much rather desire to lose a few elec-tions and resume its propaganda. However, the BJP functions very differently from the communists in Bengal—for one, the BJP still has able leaders that can help it see the light at the end of the tunnel. The Gujarat mandate has been an awakener for both the major parties of our country. In a sense, it has shown that the population, aside from workers of each party, remain unsatisfied with the performance of either. The Modi charm continues to work in favour of the BJP as does its effective booth-level management. The Congress played the caste card well in Gujarat, roping in the support of Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakore and Jignesh Mevani. Yet, by itself, the Congress still remains aptly inadequate. Its policy for the Gujarat elections worked well; however, this policy was a Gujarat specific policy that cannot necessarily be replicated across every other state. It still lacks strong leaders at the local level who can mobilise the population and work among the voters. The BJP-cadres have repeatedly performed exceptionally well in the management of booths and securing the challenges of each constituency. The Congress managed some success this time, simply because of the caste leaders who were local boys familiar with the flavour of the region. It must broaden its vision now and tap into the lowest level of the population if it wishes to pose a challenge ahead of 2019. There are many lessons to learn from the Guja-rat elections. The absence of a clear black or white makes it a fertile ground for introspection and improvement.

The mountains are known for their tough terrains—literally and metaphorically—as has been thrown up this time around in the election results. Despite the BJP securing a comfortable victory, falling just two

seats short of ensuring a two-thirds majority, top leaders of the saffron brass were ousted by the voters, losing to less formi-dable faces who stood up against them. The hills of Himachal have never allowed the same party to remain in power for two consecutive sessions. This has ensured the highest quality of governance in the state as ruling parties were forced to exhibit their best governance in a bid to secure the next elections—each time failing to match the standards of expectation of the hill population. Unsurprisingly then, the Congress lost this time around, failing to continue its governance, with the BJP coming to power. However, as a massive setback to the saffron party, its CM face, Prem Kumar Dhumal lost to Congress’ Rajinder Rana in Sujanpur. This outcome was a possible result of the fact that Dhumal changed his traditional constituency in the last minute, moving out of Hamirpur. This move cost the BJP its CM face, on whose back it rode to success in the hill state. Not just Dhumal, top faces of the BJP, including Satpal Singh Satti, Ravinder Singh Ravi, Gulab Singh Thakur (father-in-law of Anurag Thakur), Indu Goswami and Randhir Sharma, all lost their respective constituencies. Despite a massive victory, the BJP was thrown in a soup regarding its chief ministerial can-didate. On the other hand, despite the Congress being handed a defeat, erstwhile chief minister Virbhadra Singh and his son Vikramaditya Singh, both managed to secure their respec-tive constituencies. The Congress defeat came about as a no-brainer, not only because of the trends in Himachal, but also because of the money laundering and disproportionate assets case tagged against chief minister Virbhadra Singh. He has also been accused of negligence in managing the Shimla gang-rape case. The BJP announcing its primary concerns surrounding women’s safety, securing better roads for transportation and promises of ensuring jobs, came to power, missing a leader to cement its position. The tussle now stands between JP Nadda and Jai Ram Thakur, with the latter being considered the front-runner in assuming the seat for becoming chief minister. Leav-ing a bitter-sweet taste, the elections of Himachal came to an expected close with sprinkles of surprise for BJP leaders, despite the party doing well overall. Now, with power in their hands, the BJP must deliver on its promises as the people of Himachal have displayed less subservience than the rest of the country. They will not bat an eyelid before ousting the erstwhile gov-ernment if their satisfaction is not adequately met. The hilly roads with their soothing winds have yet again propped some unexpected bumps.

Greys of Gujarat

Rocky roads

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The matter of waste management is a serious one that needs to be addressed promptly and com-petently. Mountains of trash only block productive land and supplies toxins around. Burning garbage is to cause environmental hazard through air pollution. Leaving it be will poison land and water. The way out of it remains to recycle it. The Scandinavian countries import garbage to produce their electricity. We have plenty. People must be sensitised to the need of keeping bio-de-gradable and non-bio-degradable wastes separate so as to recycle them. And for the time being, with the boon of cheap labour, the task of segregating garbage can generate employment.

But ill or well, the Congress will still cling to Sonia GandhiRahul must rebuild Congress

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Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant

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A recent study pointed out that a 10 per cent increase in the rate of growth of Internet subscribers will result in a 2.4 per cent increase in the GDP rate (Representational Image)

New Congress president Rahul Gandhi kisses on mother and predecessor’s forehead

9mp in focusMILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Wednesday, 20 December, 2017

A THOUSAND MIRRORS

GARGA CHATTERJEE

African National Congress’s five-day national confer-ence, currently underway, will end on December 20

with the nomination of the next head of ANC replacing Zuma. The confer-ence attains much importance for the simple reason that whoever gets elected will be the nominee in the 2019 Presi-dential elections, the most important general elections in post-apartheid South Africa.

The National Conference will dis-cuss ways of strengthening the capac-ity and capability of the state as an important factor towards good deliv-ery of services. It will also focus on strengthening the ability of the ANC to plan, implement, enforce, monitor, and achieve the desired objectives in the service of all South Africans.

The South African state and its institutions over the past five years under review have been confronted with numerous challenges and com-peting interests. Of major significance have been persistent high unemploy-ment, rising poverty, widening income inequalities, and unresolved land redistribution. These challenges have applied pressure on state institutions and called for a review of the manner in which the state is governed.

The ANC goes to conference hav-ing reviewed its policies and to deter-mine a new path that will ensure that the leadership lives up to the hopes and aspirations of South African people. The 5th National Policy Conference of the ANC was held from the 30 June to 5 July 2017, at which detailed policy proposals relating to legislatures, gov-ernance and the macro-configuration of the state were discussed.

Like any other developing coun-try, the various problems have badly divided the leadership and accusa-tions are also being made that a sec-tion of the leadership is in hand in glove with the capitalist forces. The accusing fingers are primarily raised towards businessmen who, by origin, are not Africans. They migrated and settled there. Their approach has been self-centered and insidious to the eco-nomic condition of the country.

The mandate and scope of the Leg-islature & Governance Sub-committee is transformation of the State and the overall governance arrangements. The

L&G Sub-committee is crucially con-cerned with the implementation of ANC policy and decisions and notes that whilst many past conferences have adopted extremely progressive policies, some of these have not been fully implemented. The 54th National Conference will examine the effective-ness of governance and accountability mechanisms, including the role of Par-liament in providing oversight.

Of late it is being noticed that a section of the leadership and cadres have not been willing to practice the political line of accountability, which is why the conference will exercise thrust on the policy to emphasise account-ability, effectiveness, support, and development

The ANC conference will have to work out a comprehensive plan for urbanisation and spatial planning. Numerous studies estimate that nearly 80 per cent of the total population will be living in urban areas by 2050. One of the biggest challenges of urbanisation is the ‘urbanisation of poverty’, which is increasing, especially in townships. A major portion of the population lives in dispersed and impoverished rural set-tlements, many in the former apartheid homelands. In these areas poverty and unemployment are high and millions of people effectively rely on the state to meet their basic needs.

The main challenges of poverty,

inequality and land dispossession per-sist. The capacity and capability of the state is the most critical factor to the solution of this challenge. The core issues are governance, configuration of the state, the public service, efficiency and effectiveness of the administra-tion, the framework for state-owned entities and the cadre development policy, supported by a clear account-ability framework.

With Jacob Zuma, who was re-elected to a second term in 2014, is ineligible to stand for re-election as President it is expected that the elec-tion for the office would be between Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma and Cyril Ramaphosa. Ramaphosa is caught deep in controversy and is accused of corruption for promoting capitalist forces. There are pervasive complaints in South Africa that it is the small ANC elite which selects the next president of the country. This, it is said by many, is undemocratic.

Two reasons are cited for it. First, ANC electoral procedures are deeply corrupted by money changing hands, personal ambition and factionalism. Second, it should be the people, not the party, which should be entrusted with electing the country’s leader. Interest-ingly this proposal has been made by the ANC’s Gauteng provincial con-ference that voting rights should be given to the ordinary voters directly

to elect presidents, premiers, and may-ors. This is of particular interest given that Gauteng is one of the ANC’s most powerful provinces, and at the same time, one which is often at odds with the party’s current leadership.

The debate about electoral reform in post-1994 South Africa has largely focused on the system used to elect MPs and their counterparts in the country’s nine provinces. In 2002 the Van Zyl Slabbert Commission had rec-ommended for electoral reform. But there has been relatively little debate about whether the president and pre-miers should be directly elected. The survey conducted on behalf of Com-mission indicated that 63 per cent of respondents would have liked to vote for the president directly.

The virtue of the direct election of key political leaders is said to be that it renders them directly accountable to voters rather than to their political par-ties. On the face of it, it is an attractive argument, and it is one which could usefully introduce more diversity into the South African political system.

Meanwhile, senior ANC mem-ber Nathi Mthethwa said the colour of monopoly capital doesn’t matter and that if monopolies were black-owned, they would still be against what the ANC stands for. The South Afri-can Communist Party first referred to white monopoly capital a decade ago. Transforming the economy tops the ANC’s agenda, but, for a party osten-sibly committed to uniting South Afri-cans across the fault lines of race, class, and gender, the term white monopoly capital is problematic. Mthethwa says the ANC decided at its last national conference in Mangaung, five years ago, that it should focus on radical social and economic transformation emphasising that the idea is party pol-icy and not a notion cooked up by a few individuals.

One thing is absolutely clear that this year’s conference will prove to be decisive for the existence of the ANC. The election of the new President would provide an indication which path the ANC intends to follow; join hands with the western capitalist forces or define its own distinct ideological and political line. IPA

(The views expressed are strictly personal.)

There was widespread sabotage of Pakistani installations including the daring amphibious attack by Bengali freedom fighters on the Chittagong port that crucially disabled the Pakistani Navy and supplies. There were Muktibahini units which fought alongside the Indian Army as part of the Joint command during the final push. The first attack in that final assault was done by the rudimentary Bangladesh Air Force

Transforming the economy tops the ANC’s agenda, but, for a party ostensibly committed to uniting South Africans across the fault lines of race, class, and gender, the term white monopoly capital is problematic. One thing is absolutely clear that this year’s conference will be decisive

Propagating misinformationAn India against Pakistan war may suit certain narratives but it does

not match historical facts that are well-documented

Clamour for greater democratisation

On December 16, 2017, the official Twitter and Facebook accounts of the Additional Directorate General of Public Information

(ADGPI), IHQ of MoD (Indian Army) with more than 5 million followers combined wrote the following “16 December 1971. On this day, 46 years ago, 93,000 Pakistani troops raised white flags and surrendered to the #IndianArmy. #IndoPakWar71 #VijayDivas #ThisDayThatYear @SpokespersonMoD @PIB_India”. This is simply false. This false-hood was retweeted and shared thousands of times, thus adding to the culture of jingo-istic misinformation that exists around such matters. A popular Twitter account called @IndiaHistorypic with about 5.5 lakh follow-ers also tweeted the same sort of misinfor-mation- “1971 : Pakistan Soldiers Surrender to Indian Army In Bangladesh. 93000 Sol-diers Surrendered and Were Sent Back to Pakistan” (they have removed the tweet ever since, after the present author pointed it out). The ADGPI of the Indian Army repeated the same sort of false information about the surrender at Sylhet, again in both its Twit-ter and Facebook accounts, where it wrote – “16-17 December 1971. Surrender at Syl-het. Two Pakistani Brigadiers signed Sur-render documents in presence of the then Commanding Officer 4/5 GR(FF), Lt Col A B Harolikar. 107 officers, 219 JCOs & 6,229 other ranks of Pak surrendered to the #Indi-anArmy #VijayDiwas #IndoPakWar71”. This tweet was even retweeted by @MIB_India, the official twitter account of Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India. Spreading of such misinformation by such powerful government agencies is a matter of very serious concern. The truth is that in the territory of Bangladesh, no sur-render to the Indian Army took place. All the surrenders were to the Joint Command of the Indian and Bangladesh Forces in the Eastern Theatre.

In the 1971 Bangladesh liberation strug-gle, the India Bangladesh Joint Command forces or Mitrobahini (Alliance army, an alliance between Indian Army and Bangla-desh Liberation forces like Muktibahini and Mujibbahini) as it is called by Bengalis, pro-vided the final push in what was already a widespread guerrilla struggle. The huge role of the Bangladesh forces was stressed yester-day by Abhay Krishna, the current General Officer Commander-in-Chief (GOC-in-C), Eastern Command of the Indian Army in the “Victory Day” function in Kolkata. There was widespread intelligence on the ground that Pakistani Army didn’t have. There were huge swathes of East Bengal that was held by local freedom fighter armies controlled either by various left-wing groups and pro-Awami League groups like Tangail’s Kaderia

Bahini led by Bongobir Kader “Bagha” Sid-diqui. Then there was widespread sabotage of Pakistani installations including the dar-ing amphibious attack by Bengali freedom fighters on the Chittagong port that crucially disabled the Pakistani Navy and supplies including oil. Then there were Muktiba-hini units which fought alongside the Indian Army as part of the Joint command during the final push. In fact, the first attack in that final assault was done by the rudimentary Bangladesh air force. And all this happened in the context of years of Bengali national-ist political mobilisation in Bangladesh. To reduce this to an Indian Army versus Paki-stani Army war may suit certain narratives but certainly doesn’t match historical facts on the ground that is well documented for anyone who would care to look. And noth-ing established this fact more clearly that the text of the final surrender document of the Pakistani forces that happened in Dhaka on 16th December, 1971 in the Race Course ground. The full text of that document is reproduced below:“Instrument of SurrenderSigned on December 16, 1971

The PAKISTAN Eastern Command agree to surrender all PAKISTAN Armed Forces in BANGLA DESH to Lieutenant-General Jagjit Singh Aurora, General Officer Commanding of the Indian and BANGLA DESHI forces in the Eastern Theatre. This surrender includes

all PAKISTAN land, air, and naval forces as also all para-military forces and civil armed forces. These forces will lay down their arms and surrender at the places where they are currently located to the nearest regular troops under the command of Lieutenant-General JAGJIT SINGH AURORA.

The PAKISTAN Eastern Command shall come under the orders of Lieutenant-Gen-eral JAGJIT SINGH AURORA as soon as this instrument has been signed. Disobedi-ence of orders will be regarded as a breach of the surrender terms and will be dealt with in accordance with the accepted laws and usage of war. The decision of Lieutenant-General JAGJIT SINGH AURORA will be final, should any doubt arise as to the mean-ing or interpretation of the surrender terms.

Lieutenant-General JAGJIT SINGH AURORA gives a solemn assurance that personnel who surrender shall be treated with dignity and respect that soldiers are entitled to in accordance with the provisions of the GENEVA Convention and guarantees the safety and well-being of all PAKISTAN military and para-military forces who sur-render. Protection will be provided to foreign nationals, ethnic minorities and personnel of WEST PAKISTAN origin by the forces under the command of Lieutenant-General JAGJIT SINGH AURORA.[Signature](JAGJIT SINGH AURORA)

Lieutenant-GeneralGeneral Officer Commanding-in-ChiefIndian and BANGLA DESH Forces in theEastern Theatre

[Signature](AMIR ABDULLAH KHAN NIAZI)Lieutenant-General Martial Law Administrator Zone Commander Eastern Command (PAKISTAN)”

Nowhere is the term “Indian Army” mentioned in this Instrument of Surrender. Spreading of misinformation from an official Twitter account of ADGPI, Indian Army is a serious matter since the ADGPI is entrusted with the function of “Public Relation (PR) activities, Media Relations, and Monitoring, Info release, Publicity, Image Projection and Perception Management (PM). It primar-ily aims to establish conditions that lead to confidence in our Army and its readiness to conduct ops in peacetime and war.” Surely, in such efforts, truth should not be a casu-alty in an Army formed under the aegis of a Constitution whose motto is “Satyameva Jay-ate” (Truth always wins). This is also in vio-lation of the “Policy on use of Social Media by All Ranks in the Indian Army” that has been posted by the Facebook account of the ADGPI, Indian Army, which clearly states, “Users of social media, both serving and vet-erans are cautioned to verify the facts before accepting before accepting content circu-lation in Social Media as truth”. Does this not apply to the people running the official ADGPI social media accounts themselves?

Why is it so important that the Joint Com-mand was mentioned in the surrender docu-ment and not the Indian Army, as ADGPI would like Indian citizens to believe? Firstly, that was the reality. But from the New Delhi stand-point in 1971, this was much more than a technicality. New Delhi had always maintained during its feverish diplomatic efforts in the United Nation and various capi-tals that it was not the aggressor (which was Pakistan’s constant charge) and that they were merely assisting the already existing armed liberation struggle in the context of a huge refugee influx when no other way was left and that too after Pakistan’s declaration of war. New Delhi maintained this as its posi-tion till the very end. In fact, this is why it is said that Indira Gandhi has insisted that the first assault in the Eastern front happened in the hand of a Bengali liberation force. This is the now legendary air sortie. Today, when USA is Modi’s India’s dear friend, it is easy to forget the cold-war politics at the United Nations, when the Soviet Union siding with India and Bangladesh was crucial to the suc-cess of the liberation struggle and keeping out China and USA from direct involvement in the Bangladesh war, averting a multi-front

struggle that would be disastrous. In 1971, if the Indian Army had claimed that it went in to defeat Pakistan Army all by itself and hand over East Bengal to Bangladeshis, it would have been disastrous. Thankfully, the Indian Army of the time was not in the business of making random claims and quasi-political statements in public forum and TV shows for public consumption. It let the civilian government do the talking, as it should, as per the Constitution. The Indian Army is not an autonomous institution and is squarely under the Ministry of Defence just like any other Union government entity is under its corresponding Ministry.

Such statements by the Indian Army also have consequences for the present. The obvi-ous one is of course that Indian citizens are being fed misinformation about the past of the army they pay for by the army itself. But outside the Indian Union, in the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, a crypto-Islamist narrative exists that uses every opportunity to play down and dilute the crucial role of the Indian Army in the Bangladesh liberation struggle using various conspiracy theories. Misinformation propagated by official Indian Army sources only adds credibility to the mischievous and communally inspired con-spiracy theory peddlers for whom the Hindus of Bangladesh are essentially leftover Indian citizens and the role of the Indian Army in the liberation struggle is synonymous with some “Hindu” role in the liberation struggle that does not fit their narrative. The present government of the People’s Republic of Ban-gladesh is trying to fight these kinds of com-munal elements and this sort of false claim by the Indian Army puts the government in a very tough spot. Delhi does not exactly have a good reputation in Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and very recently Maldives has swerved into the Chinese camp. New Delhi might want to do a bit of honest soul-search-ing about why this is the case.

The misinformation that the ADGPI is part of a larger narrative that exists in the Indian Union’s domestic space. In the Indian Union, the 1971 liberation war has a certain crypto-communal subtext, as being a rever-sal of the 1947 religion-based Partition. It is looked upon as a negation of the Two-Nation theory with the result of that being a validation of the favourite Hindu nationalist “Akhand Bharat” or One Nation idea. But the reality is, 1971 didn’t reverse 1947. East Bengal didn’t join the Indian Union after 1971. It charted its own path, demonstrat-ing that the reality of South Asia is not of One composite nationality or Two religion-based nationalities but of multiple language based nationalities.

(The views expressed are strictly personal.)

ANC conference is a harbinger of new reforms, writes Arun Srivastava

tweetRETWEET

MANOHAR PARRIKAR@manoharparrikar

MALEEHA LODHI @LodhiMaleeha

SHAKEEL AHMAD@Ahmad_Shakeel

SHASHI THAROOR@ShashiTharoor

Greetings to the people of Goa, on the occasion of our 56th Liberation Day. On this memorable day, let's recall the valiant efforts of our freedom fighters who fought against oppression, and the remarkable role played by the Indian Army in liberating Goa from Portuguese rule.

Pakistan regrets the US veto of the resolution on Jerusalem in the Security Council today. One veto cannot change the will of the international community. Nor can it alter the legality of numerous resolutions by the Security Council and General Assembly on the status of Jerusalem

Politics is really unpredictable. In Himachal Pradesh, both CM Veerbhadra Singh and his son have won despite party’s defeat, but BJP’s projected CM candidate and ex-CM Mr Prem Kumar Dhumal has lost despite party’s victory.

I think it's clear in Gujarat: the BJP has won but the Congress has not lost. @INCIndia

Pakistan’s Lt Gen AAK Niazi signs the instrument of surrender in presence of Lt Gen JS Aurora on December 16, 1971

Delegates chant slogans as they arrive for the 54th National Conference of the ruling African National Congress in Johannesburg , South Africa on December 16, 2017

mp world10MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata |Wednesday, 20 December, 2017

WANNACRY CYBERATTACK

Kremlin denounces imperialist character of US strategic report

MOSCOW: The Kremlin denounced on Tuesday the “imperialist character” of the American report on national security strategy, accusing Washington of clinging to a “unipolar world”.

“The imperialist character of this document is obvious, as is the refusal to renounce a unipolar world, an insistent refusal,” President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Pes-kov told reporters.

“No doubt we cannot accept that the country is treated as a threat to the security of the United States,” he added.

US President Donald Trump on Monday unveiled his first National Security Strat-egy that pilloried Russia and China as “revisionist powers” bent on rolling back American interests.

The 68-page strategy report was put together by key aides and said Russia challenges “American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity”.

At the same time, Trump used the launch of the report to laud benefits of cooperation with Russia.

He noted that a recent CIA tip-off about a terror attack on a landmark Orthodox cathe-dral in Saint Petersburg, Putin’s

hometown, had prevented deaths “in the thousands”.

Peskov praised the US report’s “modest” positive fea-tures, pointing to what he said was Washington’s readiness to cooperate with Russia in areas such as an exchange of security information.

“This agrees with our approaches because Moscow is also looking for cooperation with the USA where this would serve our interests,” the Krem-lin spokesman said.

Moscow will have to study the document closely, he added.

Donald Trump’s adminis-tration said that Russia inter-feres in the domestic political affairs of countries globally, but stopped short of accusing Mos-cow of meddling in the 2016 US election.

The criticism of Russia, laid out in a new national security strategy based on Trump’s “America First” vision, reflects a view long held by US diplomats that Russia actively undermines American interests at home and abroad, despite Trump’s own bid for warmer ties with President Vladimir Putin.

It avoided directly citing what US intelligence agencies say was Russian meddling in last year’s US presidential elec-tion. AGENCIES

North Korea was ‘directly responsible’, US has evidence

WASHINGTON: The US is poised to publicly blame North Korea for carrying out an unprecedented cyber-attack that caused widespread disrup-tion to public services, com-panies and homes around the world earlier this year.

The regime was “directly responsible” for the WannaCry attack that crippled hospitals, banks and other infrastructure in May, a senior White House official said. The malware infected more than 300,000 computers in 150 countries.

“The attack was widespread and cost billions, and North Korea is directly responsible,” Tom Bossert, homeland secu-rity adviser to Donald Trump, wrote in an op-ed piece for the Wall Street Journal.

Bossert said those respon-sible for carrying out cyber-attacks against the US would be held accountable, but he did not mention specific actions Washington was considering taking against Pyongyang.

News reports quoted a senior Trump administra-tion official as saying that the US had surmised “with a very high level of confidence” that the Lazarus Group, a hack-ing organisation that works on behalf of the North Korean government, was behind the WannaCry ransomware attack.

Ransomware is a particu-larly nasty type of malware that blocks access to a computer or its data and demands money to release it.

The public shaming of North Korea, which has not been confirmed by the White House, is designed to hold the regime accountable for its actions and “erode and under-

cut their ability to launch attacks,” the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Bossert said the US would “publicly attribute” WannaCry to North Korea, describing the attack as “cowardly, costly and careless”.

“We do not make this alle-gation lightly,” he wrote. “It is based on evidence. We are not alone with our findings, either. Other governments and private companies agree. The United Kingdom attributes the attack to North Korea, and Micro-soft traced the attack to cyber affiliates of the North Korean government.”

Bossert added: “North Korea has acted especially badly, largely unchecked, for more than a decade, and its

malicious behavior is growing more egregious.”

He called on govern-ments and businesses to work together to reduce the risks of cyber-attacks and for harsher punishments for the groups and individuals behind them. “Malicious hack-ers belong in prison, and total-itarian governments should pay a price for their actions,” he said.

While North Korea is believed to run a sophisticated cyber warfare operation that has traditionally targeted South Korea, the regime has repeat-edly denied that it was behind WannaCry.

The malware infected com-puter systems at NHS hospitals in Britain, forcing thousands of

patients to reschedule appoint-ments. FedEx was among the hardest hit on WannaCry’s list of corporate targets, with the firm saying it was expecting a $300m hit to profits as a result of the attack.

The Lazarus Group is also thought to be behind the 2014 cyber-attack against Sony Pic-tures, which resulted in the leak of several unreleased films and caused massive disruption to the company’s email and other parts of its internal computer network.

That attack forced Sony to cancel the release of The Inter-view, a comedy about two reporters who are hired by the CIA to assassinate the North Korean, leader, Kim Jong-un.

Meanwhile, Cybersecu-

rity experts have warned busi-nesses against meeting hackers’ demands for money in the wake of the “unprecedented” attack on hundreds of thou-sands of computer systems around the world.

Ransomware is a type of malicious software that blocks access to a computer or its data and demands money to release it. The worm used in Friday’s attack, dubbed WannaCry or WanaCrypt0r, encrypted more than 200,000 comput-ers in more than 150 countries for ransoms of $300 to $600 to restore access.

The full damage of the attack and its economic cost was still unclear, but Europol’s director, Rob Wainwright, said its global reach was prece-dented, and more victims were likely to become known in the coming days.

The extent of the Wanna-Cry attack prompted questions about what to do in the event of a ransomware infection, with many experts advising against paying the ransom, saying not only could it fail to release the data, it could expose victims to further risk.

Peter Coroneos, the former chief executive of the Internet Industry Association and an expert on cyber policy, said whether or not to agree to ran-somware demands presented practical and ethical dilemmas.

“As a matter of principle, the answer should always be no … based on the simple dynamics of perpetuating bad conduct.

“However, as a matter of practicality and necessity, the situation is somewhat more complex.” AGENCIES

Philippine storm toll rises to 43 as

hopes fade for dozens missing

MANILA: The death toll from a tropical storm that pum-melled the central Philippines rose to 43 with hopes fading for dozens of others still miss-ing after massive landslides, authorities said on Tuesday. Slow-moving Kai-Tak finally swept out to the South China Sea on Monday after inducing days of heavy rain that led to deadly floods and landslides as it sliced across the central islands last weekend.

The government’s disaster monitoring agency listed 43 dead in an updated tally and said 45 other people were still missing, many of them feared buried by mud avalanches that struck the small island of Biliran.

“The retrieval operations are still ongoing but we are not finding anyone alive. We only find dead bodies,” Sofronio Dacillo, a disaster monitoring officer, told AFP by telephone from Biliran.“We still have not given up hope of finding some-one alive but the chances are slim.” Bulldozers continued to dig for survivors in houses buried by landslides on Bili-ran, located about 500 kilome-tres southeast of Manila. The island accounted for 30 of the 43 deaths, with 31 residents missing, authorities said.

The storm’s slow movement caused large volumes of rain to fall on the central Philippines, government weather forecaster Jun Galang told AFP.

“It stayed almost stationary so it dumped a lot of rain and caused a lot of landslides which caused many deaths,” Galang said. About half of the more than 100,000 people who fled their homes remained inside evacuation centres this week, the government said. As rescue efforts continued, Philippine authorities monitored another low-pressure area in the Pacific Ocean that the state weather service said could develop into a storm and strike the archi-pelago. AGENCIES

Houthi ballistic missile ‘intercepted over Riyadh’

RIYADH: The Saudi-led coali-tion battling Yemen’s Houthi rebels said it intercepted a bal-listic missile near Riyadh on Tuesday, Saudi state media reported.

Witnesses in the Saudi cap-ital posted pictures on social media showing a cloud of smoke in the air, and there were no reports of any dam-age, the BBC reported.

The Houthi movement’s al-Masirah TV said rebel fighters had fired a Burkan-2 mis-

sile at the al-Yamama Palace. Last month, a similar missile came close to hitting Riyadh’s airport.

Saudi Arabia and the US

have accused Iran of supply-ing the Houthis with the mis-sile. However, Iran has denied arming the Houthi movement, which has been fighting a war against Yemen’s government and the Saudi-led coalition since 2015.

The missile targeted “a meeting of the leadership of the Saudi regime in al-Yamama Palace in Riyadh”, it said. The palace is the main headquar-ters of the king’s office and the royal court. AGENCIES

Saudi Arabia to launch tourist visas in early 2018RIYADH: Saudi Arabia will begin issuing tourist visas in the first quarter of 2018, its top tourism official said, a first for the kingdom as it undergoes major economic and social reforms.

Prince Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz told AFP that “all government approvals” are in place for the launch of electronic visas next year to “all nationals whose countries allow their citizens to visit” Saudi Arabia.

“We are now just prepar-ing the regulations — who is eligible for the visas and how to obtain them,” added the head of the Saudi Commis-

sion for Tourism and National Heritage, who is a son of King Salman.

The move to open up its tourism sector is a major shift for Saudi Arabia as powerful Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman seeks to radically overhaul the kingdom’s oil-dependent economy and shed its ultra-conservative image.

Apart from the mil-lions of Muslims who travel to Saudi Arabia annu-ally for the Hajj pilgrimage, most visitors face an ardu-ous process and steep fees to enter the kingdom.

Saudi Arabia currently grants tourist visas for a lim-ited number of countries, but even those applications involve a range of restrictions, includ-ing requirements to travel through an accredited com-pany and stay at designated hotels.

Prince Sultan said the cost of the new tourist visa had not yet been settled, but stressed that it would be “as low as pos-

sible, because we believe the cumulative economic impact is greater than the cash from the visa”.

Saudi Arabia, though richly endowed with natural beauty, is notorious worldwide for its longstanding bans on the mixing of the sexes, alco-hol consumption and women driving -- making it an unde-sirable destination for many.

In recent months, the king-dom has broken with some of its most rigid rules -- lifting a cinema ban, allowing genders to mix at a national celebration and announcing that women will be allowed to drive next June. AGENCIES

Over 500 Indians in Pakistani jails: Report

LAHORE: More than 500 Indians, mostly fishermen, are languishing in various jails in Pakistan, according to an offi-cial report.

The Interior Ministry said there were a total of 996 for-eign nationals, including 527 Indians, in Pakistani jails for allegedly being involved in var-ious crimes, including terror-ism, murder, drug smuggling, and for illegally entering into the country.

Most of the Indian prisoner are fishermen who have been arrested for fishing illegally in Pakistan’s territorial waters in the Arabian Sea, it said.

Fishermen from Pakistan and India are frequently taken

in to custody for illegally fish-ing in each other’s territorial waters since the Arabian Sea does not have a clearly defined marine border and the wooden boats, used by them, lack the technology to avoid them from drifting away. Last month, 55 Indian fishermen were arrested by the Pakistan Maritime Secu-rity Agency for fishing in the country’s territorial waters.

Among the other foreign prisoners are, a Saudi national and two Chinese, the minis-try said.

On the other hand, a total of 9,476 Pakistani nationals were in prisons in 100 coun-tries, a Foreign Ministry official told the Lahore High Court on Monday.

While hearing a plea by families of prisoners incarcer-ated in the Gulf countries, the official said, majority of Paki-stani prisoners abroad are in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

The high court then ordered the government to place before it within two months the country’s consular protection policy. AGENCIES

Japan to install two new anti-missile systems

TOKYO: Japan on Tuesday approved the incorporation of two land-based missile inter-ceptors due to North Korea’s growing military clout, the Defence Ministry said.

The government autho-rised the purchase of two units of the US-made Aegis Ashore for its ground forces, a minis-try spokesman told Efe news.

Japan already has Aegis systems installed in several destroyers of its Maritime Self-Defence Forces.

In order to streamline the deployment of these sys-tems, which are expected to be ready “as soon as possible”, the ministry has planned to allocate a part of the supple-mentary budget for this year and increase by 730 million yen ($6.49 million) its record budget of 5.26 billion yen requested for 2018.

On Friday, the Japanese government is expected to

approve a draft of the gen-eral budget for the country for next year.

It remains to be decided where they will deploy the two anti-missile units, through which Japan seeks to cover the security of its entire terri-tory, where until now the only land-based missile defence system deployed was the Patriot Advanced Capability 3 (PAC-3). The last units of the PAC-3 were deployed in Hokkaido Island in Septem-ber, in response to two North Korean missiles that flew over the region - one in the same month and another at the end of August - before falling into the ocean. Although the Japanese Constitution estab-lishes that Japan can only have defensive military capabilities, the conservative government under Abe has pushed for its reinterpretation in order to bolster its defences. AGENCIES

Vladimir Putin with Donald Trump

Prince Sultan said the cost of the new tourist visa had not yet been settled

Saudi Arabia and the US have accused Iran of supplying the Houthis with the missile

North Korea rejects US offer of talks without precondition

PYONGYANG: North Korea on Tuesday rejected a recent offer by the US for talks without preconditions, calling it a ploy to make Pyongyang give up its nuclear programme.

Last week, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that Washington would be willing to talk to Pyongyang without the precondition of North Korea’s denuclearisation, reports Efe news. “The US is trying to shift responsibility for tensions on the Korean Peninsula to us with its dialogue offensive,” the North Korean daily Rodong Sin-mun said in a report.

However, the White House also pointed out in a statement that dialogue was not possible unless North Korea changed its position on its weapons program. In Tuesday’s report, Pyongyang said Washington’s offer “is seen as being intended

to set the tone for manipulat-ing new UN Security Council resolutions that may include a maritime blockade if we do not accept dialogue aimed at dis-cussing the abandonment of our nuclear weapons”. Tillerson himself hinted at the possibility of intercepting the shipping of products with origin or destina-tion to North Korea as punish-ment for the Intercontinental

Ballistic Missile (ICBM) that was fired on November 29.

“There is no change in our stance that we will not budge an inch in our march toward strengthening our nuclear force,” the daily added. North Korea claimed after launch-ing its latest missile, its most advanced ICBM so far, that it has completed its state nuclear force. AGENCIES

Kim Jong-un

EU governments agree renewable energy targets

for 2030BRUSSELS: European Union environment and energy ministers on Monday agreed renewable energy targets for 2030 ahead of negotiations next year with the European Par-liament, which has called for more ambitious green energy goals. Ministers said they would aim to source at least 27 percent of the bloc’s energy from renewables by 2030, up from a target of 20 percent by 2020. In October, the European Parliament called for this tar-get to be increased to 35 per-cent, a level also put forward by a group of big technology, industry and power companies last week.

As part of the package of measures, ministers also agreed on the share of renewable fuels to be used in transport, while setting a cap on first-generation biofuels, which critics say com-pete for agricultural land with food. EU member states set a 14 percent renewables target for fuels used in road transport by 2030, with bonuses given for the use of renewable electricity in road and rail transport.

The inclusion of rail into the renewable transport targets was criticised by the European Commission. AGENCIES

S Africa’s struggling ANC elects Ramaphosa as new head

JOHANNESBURG: South African deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa was narrowly elected head of the ruling ANC party, winning a bruising race that exposed deep rifts within the organisation that led the fight against apartheid.

Thousands of raucous Ramaphosa supporters sang and chanted in the conference hall as rival backers of defeated candidate Nkosazana Dlam-ini-Zuma appeared dejected yesterday.

Ramaphosa won 2,440 votes to Dlamini-Zuma’s 2,261.

“We declare comrade Cyril Ramaphosa the new president of the African National Con-gress,” an official told party del-egates in Johannesburg.

The victory puts Rama-phosa in line to succeed Presi-dent Jacob Zuma, whose reign has been plagued by corruption scandals, economic slowdown and growing anger at the once- omnipotent party. The vote was a long and acrimonious pro-cess. Delegates who had trav-elled from around South Africa cast their ballots after repeated delays caused by disputes over who was entitled to vote. Presi-dent Zuma was seen as backing his former wife Dlamini-Zuma, allegedly to secure protection from prosecution. AGENCIES

65 journalists and media workers killed globally in 2017: RSF

PARIS: Sixty-five journalists and media workers were killed worldwide in 2017, according to annual figures published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on Tuesday.

Among them were 50 pro-fessional reporters, the lowest toll in 14 years. However, the downward trend is due at least in part to journalists giving up working in the world’s deadli-est spots.

War-torn Syria remains the

most dangerous country in the world for journalists, RSF said, with 12 reporters killed, followed by Mexico where 11 were assassinated.

They included Javier Val-dez, one of the most prominent chroniclers of Mexico’s deadly drug war, whose murder in May sparked a public outcry.

The 50-year-old AFP con-tributor was shot dead in broad daylight in the street in the violent northwestern state of

Sinaloa.His last book, “Narco-jour-

nalism”, recounted the tribu-lations of Mexican reporters who try to cover the country’s extremely violent “narcos” drug cartels.

RSF said Mexico was the deadliest country not at war, saying those who “cover polit-ical corruption or organised crime are often systemically tar-geted, threatened and gunned down.”

The Philippines has become Asia’s most dangerous country for reporters, with at least five journalists being shot in the last year, four of whom died of their injuries.

The rise comes after what RSF called an “alarming com-ment” by President Rodrigo Duterte who said in May that “just because you’re a journal-ist you are not exempted from assassination if you’re a son of a bitch.” AGENCIES

Cyril Ramaphosa

mp world 11MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata |Wednesday, 20 December, 2017

B’desh, Myanmar form joint group to repatriate RohingyasDHAKA: Bangladesh and Myanmar on Tuesday formed a joint working group and signed an agreement detailing the terms of its mandate to begin repatriation of the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya ref-ugees who escaped a military offensive in Rakhine state.

Bangladesh’s Foreign Min-istry representative Mohamed Shahidul Haque and his coun-terpart from Myanmar, U Myint Thu, inked the agree-ment to create the joint work-ing group, which will comprise 15 representatives from each country, Efe news reported.

“In the arrangement Ban-gladesh and Myanmar signed in Myanmar’s capital Nay Pyi Taw in November there was a mention of a Joint Work-ing Group. Now it has been formed, we will start working on the next phase,” Bangla-desh’s Foreign Minister A.H. Mahmud Ali said.

“I cannot say exactly when it will start, but it will start soon. It’s important to start. I am really satisfied,” Ali said.

Myanmar signed an agree-ment with Bangladesh on November 23 to repatriate the more than 650,000 Rohingyas who had crossed over to Ban-gladesh fleeing the violence that erupted on August 25 in Myanmar’s Rakhine state after

the Army launched an offensive following a series of attacks on government posts in the region by Rohingya rebels.

According to the agree-

ment, the repatriation process would start within two months of the signing of the agreement.

Myanmar, which does not recognise the Rohingyas --

a Muslim minority commu-nity -- as citizens, had agreed to their return provided they have the required documents and are not involved in alleged

acts of terrorism.The Bangladeshi Foreign

Ministry said that the accord will “include mechanism of verification, time schedule, transport and logistics arrange-ments, reception procedures, communication etc. to com-mence the repatriation pro-cess within the stipulated time frame”.

The working group will be assisted by international bodies such as the UN High Commis-sioner for Refugees and other international partners in vari-ous stages of repatriation.

Several human rights organisations, however, have repeatedly denounced that conditions are not appropri-ate for the safe return of the Rohingyas to Myanmar, where, according to recently-arrived refugees, the offensive against them is still underway.

The UN and several human rights organisations had con-demned alleged abuses against the Rohingyas as part of the offensive and called it “ethnic cleansing”.

The non-profit Méde-cins Sans Frontiéres (Doctors Without Borders) reported in a study last week that at least 6,700 Rohingyas, including 730 children aged below five, had been killed in Myanmar in the first month of the crisis. AGENCIES

US vetoes UNSC resolution on Trump’s

Jerusalem decision

WASHINGTON: The US has vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that called on Pres-ident Donald Trump to with-draw recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, exercising its veto power for the first time in six years.

Trump on December 6 announced that he would rec-ognise Jerusalem as Israel’s cap-ital and move the US embassy there from Tel Aviv, triggering protests and strong condemna-tion from across the world.

Even America’s closest allies on the 15-member Council, the most powerful body in the UN system, voted for the resolution.

The one-page resolution, drafted by Egypt, reiterated the longstanding position of the Security Council, in several res-olutions dating back 50 years, rejecting Israel’s sovereignty claim over Jerusalem.

They warned that Trump’s announcement about Jerusa-lem, which upended decades of American policy, threatened to subvert the effort to solve one of the world’s most intractable conflicts.

This was the first veto exer-cised by the Trump administra-tion and the first one by the US in six years.

“The fact that this veto is being done in defence of Ameri-can sovereignty and in defence of America’s role in the Mid-dle East peace process is not a source of embarrassment for us; it should be an embarrassment to the remainder of the Secu-rity Council,” US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley has said in defence of exercising veto.

“What we witnessed here on

Tuesday in the Security Council is an insult. It is one more exam-ple of the UN doing more harm than good in addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” she said on the draft resolution that would have called upon all states to refrain from establishing dip-lomatic missions in Jerusalem.

“The US will not be told by any country where we can put our embassy...On Tuesday, for the simple act of deciding where to put our embassy, the United States was forced to defend its sovereignty. The record will reflect that we did so proudly,” the Indian-origin US ambassa-dor to the UN said.

The resolution calling on Trump to withdraw recog-nition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was supported by close allies of the US Britain, France and Japan. “We disagree with the US decision unilaterally to recognise Jerusalem as the cap-ital of Israel before a final status agreement and to move the US embassy to Jerusalem,” said Brit-ish Ambassador to the UN Mat-thew Rycroft.

“As recent events in the region have shown, these deci-sions are unhelpful to the pros-pects for peace in the region, an aim that all of us in this Council remain committed to. The Brit-ish Embassy to Israel is based in Tel Aviv and we have no plans to move it,” Rycroft said.

Rycroft said that the sta-tus of Jerusalem should be determined through a nego-tiated settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and should ultimately be the shared capital of the Israeli and Palestinian states. AGENCIES

Myanmar signed an agreement with Bangladesh on November 23 to repatriate the more than 650,000 Rohingyas who had crossed over to Bangladesh fleeing the violence that erupted on August 25 in Myanmar’s Rakhine state

US could broaden its

use of nuclear weapons

WASHINGTON: The Trump administration sig-naled that it could broaden the use of nuclear weapons as part of a new security strat-egy, unveiled by the president on Monday.

The wider role for nuclear weapons against “non-nuclear strategic attacks” was one of several ways in which Trump’s approach differed from his predecessor. The threat of climate change went unmentioned. The word “cli-mate” was only used four times in the National Secu-rity Strategy (NSS), and three of those mentions referred to the business environment. Americans were instead urged to “embrace energy dominance”.

Announcing the NSS, Donald Trump depicted his election victory and his presi-dency as an unprecedented turning point in US history.

“America is coming back, and America is com-ing back strong,” the presi-dent said. “We are rebuilding our nation, our confidence, and our standing in the world...[W]e will stand up for ourselves, and we will stand up for our country like we have never stood up before.”

On the same day of the NSS launch however, the US found itself isolated on the UN security council, where the other 14 mem-bers, including Washing-ton’s closest allies, voted to rescind Trump’s rec-ognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

The US envoy, Nikki Haley, called the vote an “insult” that “won’t be forgotten”.

Piling on the insults, the French foreign minister, Yves Le Drian, said on a visit to Washington that US isola-tion on several global issues “forces President Trump to have a position of retreat on most topics rather than mak-ing proposals”.

Under the slogan of “peace through strength”, Trump emphasised the mili-tary buildup he had ordered, involving what the president described (wrongly) as a record in defence spending, $700bn for 2018. AGENCIES

Al-Qaida divisions may aid Assad as he eyes Syria’s IdlibBEIRUT: As President Bashar Assad seeks to reassert his authority in Idlib, the only remaining province in Syria where his forces have almost no presence, he may be aided there by deep fractures within al-Qaida, the militant group that dominates the region.

A recent wave of detentions and a spate of violence within al-Qaida have also raised fears of an all-out war between insurgents in the heavily pop-ulated province near Turkey as Assad’s forces make their push.

Assad lost control of Idlib nearly three years ago and he has vowed to recapture it, but that is expected to be a bloody and costly fight. The militant haven is heavily fortified and home to thousands of fight-ers who transferred there from

other parts of the country. It is also where tens of thousands of civilians settled after flee-ing fighting in Aleppo, Homs, the suburbs of Damascus and elsewhere.

Tensions inside Idlib have been on the rise for months, reflecting a power struggle between hard-line foreign

fighters loyal to al-Qaida’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, and its more moderate Syrian members.

The tensions worsened in late November after a wave of detentions by an al-Qaida-linked group against more extremist, mostly non-Syr-ian members. Among those detained were two of al-Qai-da’s most esteemed leaders and founding members of the extremist group’s branch in Syria, who were set free days later after pressure by factions within the group who threat-ened to withdraw from the bat-tlefield in protest.

The Nov. 27 raids by the al-Qaida-linked Hay’at Tahrir al Sham — Arabic for Levant Liberation Committee, also known as HTS — took many

by surprise and angered al-Zawahri, who accused his top man in Syria of betrayal.

The detentions, ordered by HTS leader Abu Moham-med al-Golani, were the clear-est indication yet of the sharp divisions within the interna-tional terror network. They also come as al-Golani appears to be edging closer to Turkey, which is trying, along with Iran and Russia, to bring an end to the country’s civil war, now in its seventh year.

HTS was until recently on the ascendant in Syria, crush-ing potential opponents in Idlib as its rival, the Islamic State group, faced significant set-backs, losing most of the terri-tory it once held in the country.

Those who were detained included Jordanian citizens

Sami Oraidi, al-Qaida’s former top religious figure in Syria, and the highly secretive for-mer military commander in southern Syria, Ayad Toubasi, also known as Abu Julaybib al-Urduni, brother-in-law of the late al-Qaida in Iraq leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

After their detentions, other al-Qaida officials, including a prominent cleric, went to ask al-Golani why their comrades were detained. But the men ended up being taken into cus-tody themselves.

Days after al-Shami’s warn-ing, intense clashes broke out between HTS and the Jund al-Malahem faction that split from it in October and is close to the detained al-Qaida offi-cials, leaving at least seven peo-ple dead. AGENCIES

CREW OF THREE DOCKS AT INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATIONMOSCOW: A three-man space crew made up of American and Japanese rookie astronauts and an ex-perienced Russian cosmonaut successfully docked at the International Space Station to begin a six-month mis-sion on Tuesday. NASA TV footage showed the Soyuz MS-07 capsule containing Scott Tingle of NASA, Anton Shkaplerov of Roscosmos and Norishige Kanai of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency dock at the ISS at 0839 GMT following a two-day flight. AGENCIES

UK cannot have a special deal for the City: EU’s Brexit negotiator

BRUSSELS: Britain cannot have a special deal for the City of London, the European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator has told the Guardian, dealing a blow to Theresa May’s hopes of securing a bespoke trade agreement with the bloc.

Michel Barnier said it was unavoidable that British banks and financial firms would lose the passports that allow them to trade freely in the EU, as a result of any decision to quit the single market.

“There is no place [for financial services]. There is not a single trade agreement that is open to financial ser-vices. It doesn’t exist.” He said the outcome was a conse-quence of “the red lines that the British have chosen them-selves. In leaving the single market, they lose the financial services passport.”

The stark declaration quashes the hopes of the Brexit secretary, David Davis, for a unique trade deal that would include financial ser-vices. The Brexit secretary has called for a “Canada plus plus plus” deal with the EU, a ref-erence to the free trade agree-ment struck between Ottawa and Brussels in 2016, but with the crucial addition of finan-

cial services.In an exclusive interview

with European newspapers, including the Guardian, Bar-nier gave examples of his own three pluses – judicial coop-eration, defence and security and aviation.

The negotiator also said:A trade deal could be

agreed within a two-year transition period, but would have to be ratified by more than 35 national and regional parliaments.

The UK could not stop Brexit unilaterally, arguing that overturning the deci-sion to leave would require the consent of 27 EU member states – a view at odds with one of the authors of article 50, Lord Kerr.

The UK must follow all rules and regulations of the EU during the transition period, including new laws passed after the UK has left.

The UK could negotiate trade agreements with the rest of the world during the transition, but they could not come into force. He would not confirm British estimates that the final Brexit bill – the UK’s outstanding obligations to the EU – would be no more than €45bn (£39bn). AGENCIES

Bashar Assad

mp business12MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Wednesday, 20 December, 2017

NEW DELHI: A bill to amend the companies law to strengthen corporate gover-nance standards, initiate strict action against defaulting com-panies and help improve ease of doing business in the coun-try, was passed by Parliament on Tuesday.

The Rajya Sabha passed the Companies (Amendment) Bill, 2017 by a voice vote. It was adopted by the Lok Sabha in July this year during the Mon-soon Session.

Replying to issues raised by the members during a dis-cussion on the bill, Minister of State for Corporate Affairs P P Chaudhary said the amendment would ensure better corporate governance and improve the ease of doing business in the country.

The bill provides for more than 40 amendments to the Companies Act, 2013, which was passed during the previous UPA regime.

The bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha in March 2016 and then referred to the Stand-ing Committee on Finance. After taking into consideration the recommendations of the panel, the Cabinet had cleared a revised bill in March this year.

The Companies Act, 2013 has already been amended once under the present government.

The latest legislation would help in simplifying procedures, make compliance easy and take stringent action against default-ing companies, Chaudhary said.

The minister dismissed the apprehensions raised by mem-bers that the government was not doing enough to ensure that companies comply with the Corporate Social Respon-sibility (CSR) provisions.

Intervening during the reply, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said CSR has become PSR or political social responsibility, especially for the public sector undertakings.

"There should be an inde-pendent audit for the objective of the CSR" spending of PSUs, Ramesh said.

The minister said the gov-ernment has already issued notices to many companies for not complying with CSR provi-sions under the Companies Act.

On the government's promptness in taking action against companies at fault, the minister said the government has taken several step against such firms which were not taken in last several years.

He said the government has taken action against over two lakh shell companies and Spe-cial Fraud Investigation Office was looking into it.

Under the Act, certain classes of profitable compa-nies are required to shell out at least two per cent of their 3- year annual average net profit towards Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activi-ties. In case of non-expendi-ture, such entities are required

to provide the reasons for it to the ministry.

R Ramakrishna (BJP) said there was no provision of carry-ing forward the CSR funds and they should be given more time to use these funds.

The minister said the upper limit of 300 days for fil-ing returns under the Act led to non-compliance and hence changes have been made in the law to improve timely filings.

While the minister was

pushing the bill for passage, for-mer finance minister P Chid-ambaram pointed out,"Why are you taking power to prescribe another number when Direc-tors' Index Number (DIN). DIN is a number. Why do you need another number? What is the idea?"

He also opposed the pro-posal to give loans to directors and persons, saying a com-pany should not give loans to the director or to those of inter-est to a director.

He also opposed the amend-ment to delete Section 195 and 196 which provide for prohi-bition of insider and forward trading.

The minister said insider and forward trading is barred d under the SEBI law and there-fore there was no need of this provision in the Act which would anyway is superseded by the SEBI law.

Chidambaram said the pro-vision should be part of the Act as SEBI does not have juris-diction over unlisted compa-nies and there could associate or subsidiary companies of listed companies, which can do insider or forward trading.

The minister said unlisted companies do not do insider

or forward trading.V Vijayasai Reddy (YSRCP)

said the independent directors should not have any pecuniary interest in the company and they should not continue for longer terms.

He also proposed having a statutory body for appoint-ment of independent directors and provision of special reso-lution for their removal from the board.

T S Reddy (INC) said the independent directors should not be responsible for compa-nies' liabilities as this would dis-courage them to come on board.

D Raja (CPI) did not sup-port the bill, saying it was a reiteration of the government to secure private capital and extend help to private corpo-rates and big companies.

Naresh Gujaral (SAD) opposed the provision to make it mandatory to have full time company secretary for those firms whose paid equity capital is Rs 5 crore and above irrespec-tive of turnover as per Section 2 and 3 of the Act.

Tapan Sen (CPI-M) said that this bill would not lead to ease of doing business in the coun-try but would take our country to ransom. PTI

MUMBAI: The Indian rupee swung back with a vengeance to end at a three-month high of 64.04, surging by 20 paise against the US dollar on bur-geoning optimism over BJP's win in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.

Forex market sentiment turned highly buoyant after an overnight fallout from the rupee's wide swings in knee-jerk reaction to poll outcome on expectations of policy con-tinuity amid strong reforms measures. A fresh recrod closing in local equity mar-kets along with robust capital inflows also supported recov-ery momentum even as dollar remained soft overseas. PTI

MUMBAI: Investors put their money where their mouth is as key stock indices Sensex and Nifty hit it big with new closing peaks on Tuesday, latching on to the BJP's electoral victory in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.

Auto and consumer durable stocks drove the show.

"Euphoria from election verdict and progress in US tax cut fuelled the market to rally near the all-time high... A strengthening rupee and posi-tive global cues will continue to attract domestic liquidity," said Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Financial Services.

Rising for the fourth straight session, the 30-share Sensex hit 33,836.74 -- a fresh closing high -- with a gain of 235.06 points, or 0.70 per cent. It had risen 548.64 points in the last three sessions.

The previous closing high was on November 6 at 33,731.19.

At 10,463.20, it was a life

high at the close for the 50 -share Nifty too, which advanced 74.45 points, or 0.72 per cent. Its pre-vious record of 10,452.50 was hit on November 3.

Risk appetite grew as the BJP got down to forming gov-ernment in Gujarat and Him-achal Pradesh.

The rupee climbing to an over three-month high against the dollar during the day came

as a morale booster.While Asian shares were

mixed, Europe opened higher after a record-setting session on Wall Street on bets that US law-makers would pass the sweep-ing tax legislation.

India's largest car maker Maruti Suzuki was in top gear, with a maximum rise of 5.33 per cent. Other auto stocks were also in demand. PTI

MUMBAI: Domestic air travel demand surged nearly 17 per cent in November to 10.48 mil-lion passengers over the year-ago period on the back of festive season demand and addition of new flights and routes, the DGCA data shows.

Domestic carriers flew a total of 10.48 million passen-gers in November, compared to 8.96 million in November 2016, thereby registering a growth of 16.99 per cent, according to the DGCA monthly traffic data released on Tuesday.

The passenger load factor, which is a measure of how full the plane flies, has shown an increasing trend in November compared to previous month primarily due to the ongoing tourist season, the DGCA said.

November is also the month when airlines' winter schedule comes into full effect, during which carriers announce new

flights and routes besides add-ing frequencies. Significantly, market leader IndiGo, which accounted for a little over 39 per cent (4.13 million) of the total domestic traffic in November, slipped to second position in on-time performance (OTP) with rival SpiceJet delivering the highest OTP at 81.9 per cent from four major metro airports, as per the data. Besides, Spice-Jet also clocked a seat factor of over 90 per cent for the 32nd

consecutive month at 95.5 per cent in November.

"Our on-time performance at 81.9 per cent was the best of all airlines in India. SpiceJet also recorded the highest load fac-tor for the 32nd month in a row. The load factor at 95.5 per cent is also the highest in SpiceJet's his-tory. This has set a new thresh-old in global aviation and we are proud of that," SpiceJet chair-man and MD Ajay Singh said in a statement. OTP of an airline

is measured from the time an aircraft gets detached from an aerobridge or step ladder for the push back at the departing air-port to the time it gets attached to an aerobridge or step ladder at the arriving airport.

At present DGCA publishes monthly on-time performance of domestic airlines from four metro airports--Delhi, Mum-bai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.

Naresh Goyal-promoted Jet Airways' OTP hit rock bot-tom in November as nearly half (54.1 per cent) of its flights along with subsidiary JetLite)failed to depart or arrive at their destina-tions on time, DGCA November data shows.

Regional carrier TrueJet can-celled the highest number of flights among all the 12 domes-tic carriers while Air India saw the maximum number of pas-sengers complaints against its services during the month. PTI

NEW DELHI: The gov-ernment on Tuesday said it has withdrawn stock hold-ing and turnover limits on sugar dealers with immediate effect as demand-supply situ-ation is likely to be comfort-able with the estimated rise in production.

Prices are also expected to remain stable at reasonable level, the food ministry said in a statement.

Sugar production of India, the world's second largest pro-ducer, is estimated to increase at 249 lakh tonnes in the 2017-18 marketing year (October-September) from 203 lakh tonnes in the previous year.

"During the current sugar season 2017-18, crushing oper-ations in all major sugar pro-ducing states has commenced smoothly. The total sugar pro-duction is estimated to be

around 249 lakh tonnes by the end of the season against esti-mated consumption require-

ment of about 250 lakh tonnes," Food Ministry said in a statement.

With the carry over stock, the ministry said the total avail-ability of sugar is sufficient to meet the estimated domestic demand.

There would be smooth availability of sugar and prices in the domestic market are expected to remain stable at reasonable levels, it added.

"Given the current com-fortable position of produc-tion and in order to further smoothen the supply chain for easy availability of sugar in all regions, the government has withdrawn stock holding and turnover limits on dealers of sugar with immediate effect," the statement said.

The stock holding and turn-over limit was imposed till December this year. PTI

NEW DELHI: A Department of Telecom survey through automated calls has found around 8 per cent reduction in call drop complaints over the last 10 months, telecom minis-ter Manoj Sinha informed the Rajya Sabha.

"TSPs (telecom service pro-viders) have resolved approxi-mately 50,770 individual cases by taking remedial actions until October 31, 2017 and the call drops reported by individ-ual subscribers have shown a drop of over 8 per cent in the last 10 months," Sinha said in the Rajya Sabha last week.

According to the data shared by Sinha, the Depart-ment of Telecom received 2,622 call drop complaints against state- run firm BSNL, 2,597 against Bharti Airtel, 1,309 Vodafone, 1,251 Reli-ance Communications, 946 Reliance Jio, 802 Idea Cellular, 473 MTNL and 255 complaint against Aircel between January 1, 2015 and December 6, 2017.

Separately, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India received 546 call drop com-plaints against Airtel, 346 against Vodafone, 166 against Idea, 157 against RCom, 70 against BSNL, and 37 against Aircel during January 1, 2015 to December 8, 2017. Twenty-six complaints against Reliance Jio and 19 against MTNL were received during the period.

The minister said the government made sufficient spectrum available for mobile services including auction of 965 MHz in 2016 to help com-panies reduce call drops.

It held periodic review of expansion of mobile networks and related improvements car-ried out by the Telecom Ser-vice Providers (TSPs) which lead to addition of around 6.35 lakh additional base trans-ceiver stations (or mobile sites) on aggregate basis for 2G,3G and 4G services dur-ing the period- July 2015 to November 2017. PTI

MUMBAI: American tech major Microsoft will be focus-ing more on the government and the small business segment to grow its India revenues, a top official has said.

“The SMB (Small and Medium Businesses) segment and the segments around dig-ital India (and) government would be clear areas of focus for us in addition to all the work around enterprise and consumer that we have been doing,” Microsoft India presi-dent Anant Maheshwari said.

He pegged the overall infor-mation technology opportunity in the country at $107 billion, but declined to break down the contribution of the government and small businesses in it.

Refusing to disclose the revenue contribution from the country, he said India is one of the top 14 priority regions

for the company and a “faster growing market”.

The company has two lakh enterprise customers in the country, apart from 9,000 part-ners and also works with 5,000 startups. On the government side, it serves the centre as well as 29 states, he said.

When asked about home-grown IT companies’ reserva-tions about working with the government, especially with

the way contracts are struc-tured and also with regard to timely payments, Maheshwari conceded that there are “chal-lenges” in every market.

“In any exciting geogra-phy in the world, there are always challenges to do busi-ness and India is no different,” he explained.

“The government has rec-ognised that over the last couple of years with all the focus on

ease of doing business, there are some improvements,” he said.

When asked about the implementation of GST (Goods and Services Tax) resulting in some tax notices to IT players, Maheshwari said Microsoft sees the indirect tax reform as a big opportunity.

“There may be some chal-lenges as the tax regime tran-sitions, but broadly for me, I would think of GST as a mas-sive opportunity for anybody who is trying to do digital tran-sition,” he said.

The company employs over 8,000 people in the country who work out of nine offices in various cities. Apart from serving the local market, its staff, the largest in any coun-try outside of the US, also serves the global needs, espe-cially on delivery, research and innovation. PTI

US Microsoft to focus on govt, small businesses to grow its India revenues

Domestic air traffic up 17% in Nov; IndiGo slips to Number 2 in OTP

Companies Amendment Bill passed

The latest legislation would help in simplifying procedures, make compliance easy and take stringent action against defaulting companies

Stocks hold on to BJP's poll win, hit life high

Open:10,414.80

Open:33,732.08

1614 159 12 1310 11 14

Intra-day on December 19, 2017 Intra-day on December 19, 2017High:33,862.07 Low: 33,666.62

BSE SENSEX

Low: 10,406.00High:10,472.20

15 16 9 12 1310 11

NSE NIFTY

Previous close: 10,388.75

Close:10,463.20

Previous close: 33,601.68

Close:33,836.74+74.45

(0.72%)

+235.06(0.70%)

bounces to 3-month high, up 20 paise against $

NEW DELHI: India's bulk drug imports from top five countries stood at Rs 18,372.54 crore in 2016-17 with China accounting for 66 per cent, Parliament was informed on Tuesday.

In a written reply in Lok Sabha, Minister of State, Chemi-cals and Fertilisers Mansukh L Mandaviya said the other four major countries from where India imports bulk drugs are Germany, the US, Italy and Singapore. India's import of active pharmaceutical ingredi-ents (API) from China stood at Rs 12,254.97 crore in 2016-17, while that from the US was at Rs 820.18 crore.

API import from Italy was at Rs 701.85 crore during the year under review, while the same from Germany and Singapore was at Rs 485.11 crore and Rs 422.01 crore respectively.

"It may be mentioned that most of the imports of bulk drugs/API (are) being done in the country because of eco-nomic considerations," Manda-viya said. As India is a signatory to the WTO and TRIPs agree-

ment, import restrictions have been removed, he added. In 2015-16, India's total bulk drug imports from the top five coun-tries were at Rs 21,225.97 crore and it was Rs 19,833.19 crore in 2014-15, the minister added.

Replying to another query, Mandaviya said the Depart-ment of Pharmaceuticals has asked medical device associa-tions, healthcare industry bodies and relevant regulatory agencies to help in categorising medi-cal devices.

The purpose is to catego-rise medical devices so as to have different trade margins for various categories for differ-ent segments, considering the vast diversity and the logistics required in delivering them to patients, he said. PTI

China accounts for 66% of India's bulk

drug imports in FY'17

‘Call drop plaints reduce by 8% in last 10 months’

Govt withdraws stock holding, turnover limits on sugar dealers

NEW DELHI: The finance ministry on Tuesday said it is difficult to "pinpoint" the impact of demonetisation on the economy and affirmed that there was no stagnation.

The overall growth of the Indian economy is dependent on many factors, including the rate of capital formation and savings and utilisation of technology, among others, said Minister of State for Finance P Radhakrishnan in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

"It is difficult to pinpoint the impact of demonetisation," the minister said.

The government was asked whether Indian economy was stagnant due to demonetisa-tion, which was announced in November last year. PTI

Difficult to pinpoint impact of noteban on

economy: FinMin

KBK graphicsInfo

Sugar Production

'01-'02

'09-'10

In lakh tonnes

'16-'17

'17-'18

29.8%

'16-'17

185.3

283.6

203.0

Source: ISMA

(SugarSeason:Oct-Sept)

Oct 1-Dec 15

69.40

53.46

NEW DELHI: Cab hail-ing app Ola on Tuesday said it will acquire Foodpanda's India business from Germany-based Delivery Hero Group in exchange of its stock.

Besides, the SoftBank-backed company has commit-ted investments to the tune of $200 million in the Foodpanda India business, which is the larg-est such funds infusion in an Indian online food ordering and delivery company till now.

Under the deal, Foodpanda's India business will be trans-ferred to Ola in exchange of the latter's stock, Ola said in a statement.

It, however, did not divulge details about the number of shares that will be part of the transaction.

In 2014, Ola had forayed into the food delivery business with Ola Cafe and had expanded the offering to cities like Delhi,

Mumbai and Bengaluru. How-ever, Ola Cafe was later shut down.

The competition has been intense in the segment with the likes of Zomato and Swiggy competing aggressively to cap-ture the market. It heated up further after the entry of Uber-EATS -- the food delivery ser-vice of Ola's rival Uber -- in the Indian market a few months ago.

According to industry sources, the Softbank-backed Ola had been working on get-ting back into the food deliv-ery business to compete against UberEATS and that the acqui-

sition of FoodPanda India is a step in that direction.

They did not wish to be iden-tified as the discussions are pri-vate. Ola did not comment on the matter.

Ola said Foodpanda India will benefit from its scale and efficiencies as a platform and it will continue to collaborate with Delivery Hero on building the online food delivery ecosys-tem in India.

Saurabh Kochhar, who was the CEO of Foodpanda India until recently, has decided to move on to pursue other opportunities.

Ola Founding Part-ner Pranay Jivrajka has been appointed as interim CEO of this business unit, supported by the existing leadership team at Foodpanda India.

Foodpanda has over 15,000 restaurants across 100 Indian cities on its platform. PTI

NEW DELHI: To avoid mul-tiple disclosures, markets reg-ulator Sebi on Tuesday asked exchanges and depositories to disclose consolidated holding of each shareholder includ-ing promoters and public on the basis of the PAN and folio number.

This will help in avoiding multiple disclosures of share-holding of the same person, Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said in a circular.

According to Sebi, holding disclosures of promoter and promoter group, public share-holder and others must be accompanied with PAN num-ber (first holder in case of joint holding).

Folios are numbers desig-nated to individual investor accounts, though one investor can have multiple accounts. PTI

Sebi asks bourses to disclose

consolidated stake of shareholders

NEW DELHI: The govern-ment on Tuesday said the Income Tax department has seized assets worth Rs 900 crore till March 2017 post demonetisation.

The IT department con-ducted searches on 900 groups during November-March 2017 and undisclosed income of Rs 7,961 crore was admitted, said Minister of State for Finance P Radhakrishnan in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

"The Income Tax Depart-ment takes appropriate action in suitable cases, which include searches, surveys, assessment of income, levy of tax, penalty and filing of prosecution com-plaints before criminal courts, whichever is applicable," he said.

Further, during April to October, around 275 groups

were searched by the depart-ment, where assets worth Rs 573 crore were seized and a dis-closure of over Rs 7,800 crore was made by the assesses con-cerned, he added.

The minister also said there there have been visible trend of an increase in households' assets held in bank deposits, life insurance and mutual funds, a reduction in cash circulation, especially substantial reduc-tion in high value currency notes, among other things post demonetisation. PTI

I-T dept seizes assets worth `900 crore in Nov-Mar 2017

Ola to acquire Foodpanda’s India unit, pump in $200 mn

mp business 13MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Wednesday, 20 December, 2017

NEW DELHI: The revenue department recovered only around 9 per cent of service tax arrears in 2016-17 even as the number of cases detected increased from the previous fis-cal, government auditor CAG said on Tuesday.

The department had an opening balance of Rs 2,658.31 crore in arrears to be realised in 2016-17, but with an addition of Rs 6,176.31 crore during the fiscal the total went up to Rs 8,834.62 crore.

However, it could realise only Rs 783.33 crore, a mere 8.87 per cent of the total recov-erable, said the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report, 'Indirect Taxes - Ser-vice Tax', tabled in Parliament on Tuesday.

The department disposed of demands worth Rs 4,285.29 crore last fiscal, ending the year with a closing balance of Rs 3,766 crore as arrears that could be recovered.

"It can be seen that only 8.87 per cent of recoverable arrears could be recovered by the department during 2016-17.

Given the significant amounts of arrears to be recov-ered, it is essential that the tax department specifically focuses on legacy issues even after tran-sition to GST," said the CAG report. PTI

CORPORATE KALEIDOSCOPE

United Bank Of India celebrated its 68th foundation day on Monday. The function was marked by the Bank’s CSR initiatives in which it distributed blankets to the impoverished and slum-dwellers through Ramkrishna Mission, Bag Bazar. The bank also launched a host of products and services. UBI MD & CEO Pawan Bajaj, ED Ashok Kumar Pradhan, and GM Debashish Mukherjee attended the celebration

NTPC-Ramagundam organised a communication workshop for employees on Tuesday. Theme for the Communication Workshop was :Media Relation-with thrust on Print, Electronic and Social Media. Inaugurating the workshop, Chief Guest D K Dubey, ED-Ramagundam underlined the importance of effective communication which is the building block of successful organisation

Power Grid Women’s Committee Chairperson Usha Jha distributed blankets and sweets among the residents of an old-age home in Gurugram on Monday. Vice Chairman of the institution Neerja Singh, Mani Srikanth, and Nirmala Singh and other senior members were also present on the occasion

NEW DELHI: The govern-ment is set to roll out a pan-India “faceless and nameless” e-assessment procedure for income tax payers from 2018 with the CBDT on Tuesday con-stituting a high-level commit-tee to prepare a quick roadmap for the implementation of this ambitious proposal.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the policy- mak-ing body for the Income Tax Department, notified a nine- member committee--headed by a Principal Chief Commis-sioner rank officer -- and has set for it a deadline of February 28, 2018, for submitting its report.

“The deadline of February end to the committee is an indi-cation that the government and the CBDT want to usher in this new regime from the first half of the new year,” a senior tax officer

privy to the development said.The committee is being con-

stituted as the “department is embarking upon the concept of a faceless and nameless e- assessment procedure”, the CBDT order, issued late eve-ning, said.

The CBDT has been running a pilot project in a few major cities and has been testing the feasibility of implementing this new regime of tax assessment for the last few years.

The initiative was launched to reduce visits by taxpayers to I-T offices and their interface with the taxman, thereby curb-ing corruption.

“As such, there is an impera-tive need to re-deploy the avail-able manpower in the light of the proposed e-assessment,” the CBDT order said. PTI has accessed the CBDT order.

The terms of reference of the committee are to propose the new deployment of man-power in view of the imple-mentation of e-assessment; to propose modalities and stages of re- deployment of manpower from existing stations and to

recommend the requirements of additional manpower and infrastructure, if any, in the light of this new initiative.

The committee will also “recommend distribution of manpower between assess-ment units, investigation wing

and DG Systems (the techni-cal wing of the CBDT) in view of the new areas assigned to the investigation wings in mat-ters related to Operation Clean Money”, launched by the gov-ernment to check black money post demonetisation.

A blueprint prepared by the CBDT earlier this year had said the number of income tax pay-ers opting for paperless assess-ment, under the pilot project, rose by 78 per cent over the last three years.

An official CBDT state-ment issued at the conclusion of the two-day ‘Rajaswa Gyan Sangam conference (national meeting of top tax officers of the country), held here this year, had said the government wanted I-T assessing officers to “be encouraged to maximise e-assessment in a phased man-

ner and to ensure that work be completed online so that there is complete transparency.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had inaugurated the conference, had also asked I-T employees to create an envi-ronment that instills confidence among honest taxpayers and uproots corruption.

A new link--e-proceed-ing-- was recently hosted by the department on the per-sonal login of the taxpayer on the e- filing website (https://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in).

The new regime of e-com-munication will, however, be voluntary and taxpayers can take a call on whether to con-duct their dealing over the e-sys-tem or through the existing procedure of manual submis-sions of documents by visiting the tax office. PTI

Full I-T e-assessment from next year; CBDT forms committee

NEW DELHI: Airtel has deposited an interim penalty of Rs 2.5 crore with the Aad-haar-issuing body UIDAI after an action against the telecom operator for allegedly open-ing payments bank accounts of its mobile subscribers with-out their 'informed consent', according to sources.

The company is learnt to have given the assurance that it will return Rs 190 crore that had flown into the 'unsolicited' payments bank accounts of 31 lakh mobile subscribers over the next 24 hours and will also inform the customers that their subsidy-linked account is being switched back to the originally-chosen account.

Airtel has deposited an interim penalty of Rs 2.5 crore "unconditionally" to the Unique Identification Author-ity of India (UIDAI), a person familiar with the development said.

"They (Airtel) have also stated that all 31 lakh custom-ers will be intimated by Air-tel that their subsidy money is being transferred to the orig-inally-chosen accounts and that henceforth such money will flow into those designated accounts," the source added.

Meanwhile, an e-mail query sent to Airtel with regard to deposit of Rs 2.5-crore interim penalty remained unanswered.

Once the entire pro-cess is complete, Airtel will be required to report to the UIDAI with compliance and the authority will take "appro-priate view" on the matter at that stage.

Airtel, on Monday, wrote to the National Payments Corpo-

ration of India (NPCI) prom-ising to return Rs 190 crore (along with interest) to the con-sumers' original bank accounts that were linked to the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).

The NPCI is an umbrella organisation for all retail pay-ments in India.

Both Airtel and Airtel Payments bank came under fire after the the Sunil Mit-tal-led firm allegedly opened accounts of its mobile phone subscribers without seeking their "informed consent", and LPG subsidy worth crores was deposited into these accounts.

The government acted swiftly in the matter and the UIDAI, in a strong move late last week, temporarily barred the company from conducting Aadhaar-based SIM verifica-tion of mobile customers using eKYC process, and e-KYC of payments bank clients.

Suspending the 'e-KYC licence key', the UIDAI also ordered PricewaterhouseC-oopers to conduct an audit of Bharti Airtel and Airtel Pay-ments Bank to ascertain if their systems and processes are in compliance with the Aadhaar Act. PTI

Airtel deposits ‘interim penalty’ of `2.5 cr with UIDAI

NEW DELHI: South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) on Thursday awarded first prize for conservation of energy through its LED replace-ment programme in the Munic-ipal sector. President Ram Nath Kovind bestowed National Energy Conservation Award on SDMC Commissioner Puneet Kumar Goel for his untiring efforts and inspiring leadership to his team for successfully exe-cuting the world’s largest LED replacement programme in the short span.

According to the report, SDMC is annually saving around 9 crore units of energy under the Street Lighting National Programme launched by Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narender Modi. The total con-nected load of 2.8 lakh sodium Vapour Streetlight has been reduced from 37.5 MW to

18.31 MW after replacement of these lights with energy effi-cient LED lights. The reduction in the connected load of street light corrects the energy deficit situation in Delhi, resulting in to more reliable power supply to the residents of Delhi.

“SDMC has achieved the reduction of energy consump-tion by nearly 9 crore units per annum. Therefore reduction

in energy conservation charge will be nearly Rs 65 crore per annum. Earlier SDMC used to pay Rs 28.5 crore per annum for line maintenance. However, same has been reduced to Rs 8.32 crore per annum, there-fore total saving on account of energy consumption and line maintenance will be approxi-mately Rs 85 crore per annum,” said a Corporation official. MPOST

NEW DELHI: Hyundai Motor India Ltd. (HMIL), the coun-try’s second largest car manu-facturer and the number one car exporter since inception, keeping up its commitment to provide the best of services to customers, on Tuesday announced the 25th Edition of the nationwide ‘Free Car Care Clinic'.

The customer connect pro-gram will be held from Decem-ber 19 - 25, 2017 across over 1,300 service points across the country. Speaking on the ini-

tiative, YK Koo, M D & CEO, Hyundai Motor India Ltd, said, “Being a Customer Centric and a Caring Brand, Hyundai has always laid a strong emphasis on unique service initiatives. These efforts have made us achieve Number 1 Rank in JD Power 2017 India Customer Service Index (Mass Market) study with a score of 923 making a strong “Service Brand Image” within customers. The 25th Free Car Care Clinic is a step further to make Hyundai ownership a delightful experience.” MPOST

Hyundai commences 25th free car care clinic

NEW DELHI: Union Power Minister R K Singh said on Tuesday that the government had set a deadline of January 2019 for bringing down power losses due to theft and unme-tered supply to 15 per cent of the total generation in the country.

Replying to questions in the Rajya Sabha, the minister said the deadline was fixed at a meeting of power ministers of all states as some states had more losses than others.

He cited the example of Uttar Pradesh which has suf-fered a lost of 21 per cent.

He said the main reason

for power losses were theft and unmetered supply of power.

“We have kept a target for bringing down power losses in the country. At a meeting of state power ministers held recently, we have set a target of January 2019 by when such losses would be brought down to less than 15 per cent.

“After that we will bring a regulation under which power losses of over 15 per cent will not be accepted in the power tariff. All state power minis-ters agree to this and we have set this deadline,” he told the House. He said in an ideal world, the power losses should

be down to 5-6 per cent. “But this is not an ideal world and power theft does take place and unmetered supply of power is there.”

In response to another question, Singh said against the target of 100 gigawatt of solar energy to be achieved by 2022, the country generates about

16.62 gigawatt.He said that a few weeks

ago the government formally issued bids. “In the next three months, we are going to have bids for about 7,000 gigawatt more. Next year, we are going to have bids for 30,000 gigawatt and the year after that we are going to have bids for 30,000 gigawatt more,” he said.

The minister said that apart from bids for floating solar power plants for which the government has assessed the potential, “we have sent teams to assess the poten-tial in huge water bodies in Bhakra Dam, etc.” PTI

NEW DELHI: The First edition of ‘ONGC Para Games’ kicked off on Tuesday at Thyagraj Sta-dium, New Delhi.

The 3-day event, a first of its kind corporate initiative, will witness participation from 120 Employees-100 men and 20 women with Disabilities from 16 work centers from across the country. The first ONGC Para Games is majorly focused on Athletics, Badminton and Table Tennis. The participants belong to different categories of disabilities, namely, VH (Visu-ally Impaired), HH (Hearing Impaired) and OH (Orthope-dically Handicapped).

The events are categorised into 8 sub categories- Gender-wise, age wise and disability wise.A total of 46 Events will be held in the 3 days extrava-ganza, which comprises of 5

categories in Badminton, 3 cat-egories in Table Tennis, 4 Cat-egories in Wheelchair and 34 in Athletics including 100 mtr, 200 mtr, 400 mtr, 2 Km Walk, Long jump and Discuss throw. Inaugurating this special event, ONGC CMD Shashi Shanker, said, “ONGC is committed to ensure social inclusiveness and

providing Equal Opportunities in Employment for the specially abled, in line with the Govern-ment of India’s mandate, for which various measures are being put in place.” He also added that ONGC currently employs 282 Persons with dis-abilities with more likely to join the organisation. MPOST

ONGC organises first edition of Para Games

‘Govt recovered less than 9% service tax

arrears in FY17’

SDMC bags first prize for energy conservation

NEW DELHI: The government would support manufacturing and selling of electric vehicles (EVs) by giving incentives such as lower road taxes so that the automobile sector continues to play a major role in India's GDP and job creation, Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said on Tuesday.

He said in the long run, India must become a major manufac-turer of automobiles, batteries and interoperable charging sta-tions, and help reduce pollution in cities. This, he said, should be done in a manner that does not disrupt combustion vehicle manufacturing.

"We would like to support electric vehicles by providing vast range of initiatives such as

lower road taxes."And the government will

act as a catalyst so that auto-mobile sector continues to play a major role in India's GDP and job creation as well as in exports," he said at an event

organised by industry body Assocham. Kant pointed out that today, automobile along with automobile component industry is one of the key driv-ers of India's economic growth, contributing 7.2 per cent to

the GDP. Citing several stud-ies, Kant said by 2027-28, the cost of EV battery will come down from $273 per kWh to $73 per kWh even without taking Indian demand into consideration.

"If you take Indian demand into consideration, then it will come down to $60 per kWh," he noted.

Niti Aayog in a recent report had estimated that accelerated adoption of electric and shared vehicles could save $60 billion in diesel and petrol costs by 2030.

According to Piyush Goyal, who held power portfolio till recently, India aims to become 100 per cent e-vehicle nation by 2030. PTI

Govt to give incentives to boost e-vehiclesNEW DELHI: Telecom opera-tor Bharti Airtel on Tuesday said that it has signed an agreement with Millicom International Cellular S.A. to acquire 100 per cent stake in its Rwanda opera-tion which operates under the brand name of Tigo Rwanda.

"Bharti Airtel Limited...has entered into a definitive agree-ment with Millicom Interna-tional Cellular S.A. (Millicom) under which Airtel Rwanda Limited will acquire 100 per cent equity interest in Tigo Rwanda Limited," Bharti Air-tel said in a statement.

Under this deal, Tigo's 370 million customers will join the network of Airtel Rwanda.

The acquisition will make Air-tel Rwanda the second largest operator in the country with revenues of over $80 million and a revenue market share of over 40 per cent, the statement said.

"The consideration for the transaction is based on approxi-mately 6x EBITDA multiple, payable over two years. The agreement is subject to regula-

tory and statutory approvals," the statement said.

Airtel at present operates in 15 African countries apart from India and South Asia.

"Airtel and Tigo have already merged their opera-tions to create a strong viable entity in Ghana. Today, it has taken yet another important step to acquire Tigo Rwanda to become a profitable and a strong challenger in a two-player mar-ket," Bharti Airtel Chairman, Sunil Bharti Mittal said.

In the past, Airtel acquired assets in Uganda (Warid) and Congo B (Warid), Kenya (yu Mobile) and consolidated oper-ations in Ghana (Millicom). PTI

Bharti Airtel to acquire Millicom’s cellular operations in Rwanda

LONDON: UK-based Indian-origin metals tycoon Sanjeev Gupta's Liberty House Group has completed the purchase of the South Carolina-based Georgetown steel mill from ArcelorMittal, the company has announced.

The deal between Liberty House and NRI steel mag-nate Lakshmi N Mittal's US steelworks, which includes a 540,000- tonne a year electric arc furnace and 680,000-tonne a year rod mill, had been agreed earlier this year.

The sale marks the first in a series of strategic North Ameri-can acquisitions and new proj-ects targeted by Gupta-led GFG Alliance. The 600,000-square-foot plant, serving the construc-tion and automotive markets, is set to re-start melting and roll-

ing next year as the first step in GFG's investment plans for the American steel industry.

"Securing the Georgetown furnace and mill is a major milestone for us, marking our first major step in the USA. The melting and rolling facilities here give us a formidable entry to the American market and provide a strong platform for expansion," GFG Alliance and Liberty House chief Gupta said in a statement on Monday.

The steel tycoon said he wanted to apply his Green-Steel sustainable strategy to the American plants, in line with the UK and Australia.

"We've already had custom-ers contacting us about placing orders, so we're keen to get back up and running as quickly as possible," he said. PTI

Indian-origin steel tycoon purchases ArcelorMittal's

US-based steel assets

Jan-2019 deadline for reducing power losses to 15%: SinghSingh said against the target of 100 gigawatt of solar energy to be achieved by 2022, the country generates about 16.62 gigawatt

mp sport14MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata |Wednesday, 20 December, 2017

LEO MESSI RECEIVES AWARDS FOR TOP SCORER, BEST PLAYER IN LA LIGABARCELONA: Barcelona star Lionel Messi has received La Liga’s top scorer and best player awards for the 2016-2017 fooball season. The Argentine striker scored 37 goals in league action last season to earn his fourth Pichichi award for most goals in La Liga and his fifth Alfredo Di Stefano trophy for best player, reports Efe.

INDIA UNDER-15 WOMEN THRASH NEPAL 10-0 IN SAFF CHAMPIONSHIPS DHAKA: Priyanka Devi and Sunita Munda struck hat-tricks as India’s U-15 women’s football team scored five goals in each half to thump Nepal 10-0 in the SAFF Championship. Hattricks by Devi and Munda was com-plimented by a brace from Lynda Kom, with goals from Santhiya and Anay Bayi completing the rout.

YERAY TO RETURN TO ACTION SIX MONTHS AFTER CANCER RELAPSEMADRID: Athletic Club Bilbao defender Yeray Alavarez will return to action after six months fighting against cancer when he plays in an Under-23 game against Swansea in the English Premier League Cup on Wednesday, his football club have confirmed. The Spain Under-21 international has not played since May 21.

Pujara grabs third spot in ICC Test Player Rankings DUBAI: India’s middle-order batsman Cheteshwar Pujara improved a place to grab the third spot in the latest ICC Test Player Rankings here on Tuesday. Pujara, who has scored 4,396 runs at an average of 52.96 in 54 Tests, currently has 873 points in the list of Test batsmen, headed by Australia captain Steve Smith, who continued to top the rankings for almost two years. Top-ranked Smith moved closer towards Don Bradman’s highest-ever ranking points after a match-winning double-century in the third Ashes Test against England. AGENCIES

India eye triumph in T20s against Sri Lanka CUTTACK: The bench strength is expected to be tested but India are unlikely to lower the intensity when they take on Sri Lanka in a three-match Twenty20 series starting here on Wednesday, aiming to extend their dominance in the shortest format as well.

The Test series in pocket, India, without inspirational skipper Virat Kohli, hardly broke a sweat to clinch the one- day series 2-1 and Rohit Sharma and Co. will look to polish off the T20I series on a perfect note.

Sri Lanka have been no match to India barring their one- off spectacular bowling effort in Dharmasala in the opening ODI.

After India bounced back in Mohali, Sri Lanka had their best chance in Visakhapatnam but they collapsed from 136/1 to be bundled out for 215.

A resilient India quickly got into the act after an inspira-tional stumping by MS Dhoni. This was followed by the spin twin of Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal running through the Lankan batting to claim three wickets each.

However, Twenty20 is a different ball game and India would look for a smooth transi-tion to the shortest format, hav-ing endured a batting disaster in the first one-dayer.

India do not have happy memories of the solitary T20I at the Barabati Stadium despite the fact that they lead Sri Lanka 7-4 on head-to-head count and are yet to lose against them in

the last four outings.India had folded for 92

against South Africa in the lone T20I played here in 2015 as crowd trouble brought infamy to the venue and the hosts would look to give a bet-ter account of their batting.

India’s batting will heavily rely on skipper Sharma, who will have KL Rahul for com-pany at the top. Having lost his first match as captain, Sharma’s record double hundred led a 141-run rout in Mohali and he will look to continue that form in the shortest format.

A good start will be crucial for India to minimise the work-load on the middle and lower order, which will be steered by Dhoni whose ability was doubted in the series against

New Zealand.Saurashtra left-arm pacer

Jaydev Unadkat, who last played in a T20I against Zim-babwe in June last year, has been recalled and India have three first-timers in Washing-ton Sundar, Basil Thampi and Deepak Hooda.

Baroda all-rounder Hooda had scored the fourth fastest Twenty20 century (108) by an Indian during the Syed Mush-taq Ali Trophy in February.

It remains to be seen, how-ever, if he’s handed his debut cap with India already having two finishers in Dhoni and Hardik Pandya.

In the pace department, death bowling specialist Jas-prit Bumrah will shoulder the responsibility after Bhuvnesh-

war Kumar was rested.Kerala pacer Thampi has

shown his ability to bowl york-ers with consistency during his Gujarat Lions stint in the IPL.

While India will have a bit of concern in the pace depart-ment, Yadav and Chahal are expected to deliver.

Sri Lanka, on the other hand, have lost five T20Is on the trot, starting from the match against Bangladesh in April. For the visitors, Upul Tharanga was in imperious form during his 95 in the third ODI and he would be the key for Sri Lanka.

Former skipper Angelo Mathews, who scored a century in the second ODI, would be the vital cog in Sri Lankan wheel. AGENCIES

Indian young Turks not perturbed

anymore: Karthik

CUTTACK: Dinesh Karthik on Tuesday said the Indian team’s uncapped players are not “perturbed” anymore and their IPL experience will hold them in good stead in the T20I series against Sri Lanka, starting here on Wednesday.

With star skipper Virat Kohli being rested, the Rohit Sharma-led Indian squad has three uncapped players — Basil Thampi, Deepak Hooda and Washington Sundar while the likes of Jaydev Unadkat and Mohammed Siraj are also low on experience.

“All of them have come with a lot of IPL experience behind them — some have played 20-30 games. They are not as perturbed as they used to be in earlier days. It gives them a lot

of confidence to come into the International set-up,” Karthik said on the eve of their T20I series opener.

“I’m sure these are exciting times for the young boys. I’m very confident that they will make best use of the chances given to them. It’s a great opportunity for all the young boys coming in.”

The Indian wicket-keeper batsman said the ODI team has got a settled look but in the shortest format they’re try-ing out different options to get that perfect balance.

“We are trying to assess how each one reacts to differ-ent situations. These are great platform for a lot of young guys to come in and showcase their talents. As senior players, we just try and help these young guys as much as possible,” said the 32-year-old from Chennai.

“The Indian team has reached a stage where no mat-ter which team we are playing, we are a very strong side and we are trying to achieve some good thing on the field every time,” he added. AGENCIES

The new Bradman? Quirky Smith rises to exalted heights

SYDNEY: Steve Smith has broken English hearts and smashed records with his phe-nomenal Ashes batting and is being acclaimed as the best Australian batsman since the greatest of all, Don Bradman.

That is rarefied company for the quirky 28-year-old skipper, who led Australia to reclaiming the Ashes with an imperious 239 — his high-est Test score — in Austra-lia’s mammoth first innings 662 for nine declared in the third Perth Test victory on Monday.

Ashes-winning skipper Smith has almost single-hand-edly batted Joe Root’s team out of the series, accumulating 426 runs in just four innings at an average of 142, which allowed his bowlers to do the rest.

Smith, whose idiosyncratic style — moving across his stumps as the bowler delivers — flies in the face of cricket’s purists, has a career average of 62.32 from 59 Tests.

That places him second only in Test history to Brad-man, whose average of 99.94 at the pinnacle was forged from 1928- 48.

Records have tumbled for the cricket-obsessive Smith, who broke into the Test arena as a leg-spin bowling all-rounder batting at number eight in 2010.

Since then Smith has reeled off the milestones to draw comparison with the greatest batsman the game has ever seen.

He has amassed 22 Test centuries, 14 of them in 29 Tests as captain.

Bradman made 14 hun-dreds in 24 Tests as skipper.

Smith is only the fifth Aus-tralian captain, one of them being Bradman, to have scored two Ashes double hundreds.

Skipper Root has tried everything during the current series to dislodge Smith, to get him out of his “bubble”, but to little effect. AGENCIES

PAKISTAN HOCKEY HEAD COACH FARHAT KHAN RESIGNS KARACHI: The Pakistan hockey team’s coach Farhat Khan stepped down after less than six months in the position following the team’s debacles in the Asia Cup and the four-nation invitational event in Austra-lia. However, the former Olympian said that he had resigned due to personal reasons. He was brought in as head coach in July. after Pakistan fared badly in the World hockey league tournament in London and replaced Khawaja Junaid and Hanif Khan. But even his tenure was littered with disappointments with Paki-stan failing to make the final of the Asia Cup. AGENCIES

Skipper Thisara confident of

bouncing back in T20s v India

CUTTACK: Skipper Thisara Perera is confident of a Sri Lanka comeback in the T20 series against India, insisting that his side would look to “flush out” the negativity fol-lowing heavy defeats in the pre-ceding Tests and ODIs.

From being ordinary in the Test series, Sri Lanka caught India unawares with a surprise bowling effort in the first One-day International, but could not capitalise on the momen-tum and lost the series 1-2.

As the long tour enters its final leg, both teams are look-ing to shift to T20 mode.

“It was a bad ODI series but we have to take good things from the first match. There were a lot of positives. We have to flush out the negatives. It’s a new series and we hope to start well,” Perera said on the eve of the T20I series opener at the Barabati Stadium.

“We have good talents, death bowlers, power hitters. We will do our best tomorrow. I’ve to give more confidence to the young players. I don’t think they have pressure, they have to give 100 per cent. Per-sonally I know they have good mindset and they can come very strongly.” The ODI series was locked one-all after Rohit Sharma single-handedly led the side with his record third dou-ble hundred. AGENCIES

Gopichand feels no alternative for complex scheduling

NEW DELHI: National badminton coach Pul-lela Gopichand on Tuesday acknowledged the “complex” scheduling issues faced by Indian shuttlers but conceded that there was no alternative in sight to deal with them.

The debate on scheduling kicked off after the legendary Prakash Padukone recently observed that the Indian players were “definitely play-ing more tournaments than required”.

Gopichand said there was a need to “space the tournaments well” but also went on to list the complexities involved.

“Scheduling affects the entire world, not just India. But the fact that we have the Com-monwealth and Asian Games, which are important, makes it a lot more complex for India,” Gopichand told reporters on the sidelines of the launch of a sports foundation here.

“European countries are not playing in the CWG or the Asian Games. But there is no alternative (for us), we have to adjust. You keep training dur-ing travelling,” he said. AGENCIES

Indian players during a practice session for the inaugural T20 cricket match against Sri Lanka, in Cuttack on Tuesday PIC/PTI

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mp sport 15MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata |Wednesday, 20 December, 2017

Win-hungry NorthEast United face Mumbai CityGUWAHATI: Having picked up just four points from their opening five games in the fourth season of the ISL, North-East United FC will be hungry to log a win against Mumbai City FC here on Wednesday. Joao Carlos Pires de Deus’s side have found it difficult to breach the opposition defences and score goals. So much so that the Highlanders have netted a grand total of two goals thus far. Their opponents at the Indira Gandhi Athletic Stadium, Mumbai City FC, are facing nothing of that sort. Alexandre Guimaraes team will, in fact, be yearn-

ing to relaunch their bid to overtake local rivals FC Pune City and occupy a spot in the top four of the table. This is some-thing they failed to do in their last game, against ATK at home. While talking to reporters on Tuesday, Joao acknowl-edged that his team needs to score more goals. But the Portuguese emphasised that “it’s too early” to predict which four teams qualify for the business end of the season. NorthEast will be without their first choice goalkeeper TP Rehenesh after he received a red card in their last game against Kerala. AGENCIES

India need more matches against strong teams: Striker Balwant

MUMBAI: Striker Balwant Singh reckons that the Indian football team needs more expo-sure against strong teams in order to improve its standard.

India had attained their highest position (96th) in the FIFA rankings earlier this year but at the year-end they have dropped to the 105th spot.

“Everyone is doing their work — from the coaching staff to all the players. Hope-fully, we’ll get good results. We should play more interna-tional matches against the good teams; it will help us improve,” Balwant said.

“And for the youngsters, they are getting many chances so they should take their chance with both hands and capitalise on it.” The biggest success story in Indian football of the year was qualifying for the 2019 Asia Cup after missing out on the 2015 edition. They have qualified for the continen-tal showpiece only three times (1964, 1984, 2011).

“We are happy to qualify for Asian cup 2019 and hope-fully, we’ll get the good result because everyone is working hard and every one motivates each other,” the former Mohun

Bagan ace, who made his inter-national debut in 2014, added.

The Punjab-born striker also praised his former club and said the Kolkata football giants is very close to his heart.

“Yes!!! Mohun Bagan is very close to my heart as I have played for three long years in that club and I have great memories of my career there. There is no big reason behind choosing the ISL to play; I just wanted to play here,” he said.

Balwant was roped in by Mohun Bagan for the 2014-15 season on a one-year deal. He was then loaned out to Indian

Super League franchise Chen-naiyin for the inaugural season and then retained in 2015 edi-tion on loan.

When asked about the dif-ference in playing with Mohun Bagan and then playing with Chennaiyin FC and Mumbai City FC (current ISL club), Bal-want said that each club has different fans, but playing with Bagan is experience in itself.

“Each club is different. Their fans are different. Play-ing with Bagan was an expe-rience in itself but that doesn’t make it any easier when I’ve played with other teams. My

only aim has been performing well for whichever team I’ve played for,” he said.

Balwant singled out the goal which he scored on his debut against Mauritius was his most memorable one.

“For country, when I scored my first senior national game against Mauritius. It was a memorable moment as I was wearing the blue Indian jersey.

“For club, it’ll be hard to single out but there have been many with the likes of Churchill brothers, Mohan Bagan, and I scored against East Bengal twice,” he said. AGENCIES

Neroca hold Mariners 0-0KOLKATA: A spirited NEROCA side held Mohun Bagan to a goalless draw at the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata on Tuesday.

Mohun Bagan coach brought back Ansumana Kromah and Sony Norde into the starting XI, who replaced Naro Hari Shrestha and Dipendu Dowary. Rana Gharam came in place of Eze Kingsley who was sent off against Shillong Lajong in the previous match.

NEROCA coach Gift Raikhan fielded his team in a 4-2-3-1 formation with midfielder Aryn Glen Williams pairing up with Varney Kallon Kiatamba in the central defence. Kyr-gyzstan international Israilov Akhlidin got his maiden start in the number 10 position just behind Felix Chidi.

Mohun Bagan did not look convincing with their attacks in the first half as the trio of Kro-mah, Norde and Dicka failed to produce their magic. The Haitian superstar did not look fully fit as he often struggled with the ball on the pitch. He was seen limping twice during the match.

Raikhan’s NEROCA, on the other hand, impressed right from the word go. They took an attacking approach and continuously imposed pressure on the Bagan defence. Their attacks were mostly generated by Subash Singh from the left flank.

Both the teams got a couple of chances to take the lead but none could find the back of the net. The teams went into halftime break with the scoreboard flashing 0-0.

The home team started the second half with more intent. At the 51st minute, Sony Norde found the back of the net from Kromah’s pass but much to his and the fans’ discontent, the linesman signalled for off side.

The Manipuri outfit shifted a defensive

approach, indicating that they were content with a point against giants Mohun Bagan.

Sanjoy Sen brought in Sourav Das around the 75th minute in place of Shilton D’Silva to increase the intensity upfront. Norde tried his level best to stay on the pitch but his body gave up around the 83rd minute, when the Haitian went down in pain and agony. Sen replaced the winger with Azharuddin Mullick, who made a comeback into the side after a prolonged period away from the field due to injury.

The Bagan coach took a gamble by fielding half-fit Norde and Kromah as he was desper-ate for a positive result. But as the match pro-gressed it was clear that none of the foreigners had attained match fitness ahead of the game. Kromah too was replaced in the 89th minute.

Mohun Bagan’s woes continues with back to back draws as they remain third in the league table with nine points from five matches. Ner-oca will continue in fifth with seven points from four games. AGENCIES

Sizzling Saini takes Delhi into Ranji finalPUNE: Young speedster Navdeep Saini bowled one of the most devastating spells of recent times in Indian domes-tic cricket as Delhi humiliated Bengal by an innings and 26 runs to enter the Ranji final.

In one of the most hostile spells bowled in recent times, Saini (12-3-35-4) intimidated the Bengal batting as they were all out for 86 in 24.3 overs in their second innings. He was ably supported by left-arm pacer Kulwant Khejroliya (8.3-9-40 -4).

This was after Mohammed Shami bowled his heart out to take 6 for 122 in 39 overs to

bowl out Delhi for 398.Having kept the lead down

to 112 runs, Bengal were

expected to put up a fight, but ran into Saini — a serious India prospect — who unnerved the

batsmen with raw pace.He followed the ‘bible’

for fast bowlers — ‘top of off stump’ — something the Aus-tralian legend Glenn McGrath had mastery over.

Saini, who is certain to don India whites in 2018, followed it religiously as Bengal batsmen didn’t have a clue as to what he was bowling.

Sudeep Chatterjee (21) couldn’t bring his bat down as the delivery moved a shade to hit off bail.

Manoj Tiwary tried to cover the swing and the deliv-ery was an unplayable one as he was beaten for pace. AGENCIES

Vidarbha fight back against K’takaKOLKATA: Ganesh Satish’s unbeaten half- century and a brisk 49 from Apoorv Wankhade helped Vidarbha wipe out the first-innings def-icit and go ahead by 79 runs in their Ranji Trophy semifinal against Karnataka on Tuesday.

The third day’s play ended with Vidarbha reaching 195 for four.

At stumps, Satish was going strong on 71 while Akshay Wadkar was batting on 19.

Sreenath Aravind was the pick of the Karnataka bowlers, claiming two wickets.

The 83-run partnership for the fourth wicket between Satish and Wankhade ensured Vidarbha get some runs to defend. After losing in-form opener Faiz Fazal — the sec-ond highest run getter in Ranji trophy this season — for a duck, their innings was some-what steadied by the experi-enced Wasim Jaffer (33).

Aravind was hitting the deck hard with his in-dippers, and they were troubling the batsmen a lot. The pressure

finally paid off with the wicket of Jaffer.

Aravind got the most important wicket of Jaffer, who was looking set for a big one, and the batsman was clearly unhappy with the umpire’s lbw decision.

Just before tea, Vidarbha were dealt a body blow when Wankhade holed out at mid wicket, driving a Aravind delivery straight to Vinay Kumar. The score at tea was

174 for four for a lead of 58.Earlier in the day, Karna-

taka were all out for 301 to take a vital first-innings lead of 116 runs. Overnight bats-men Karun Nair and R Vinay Kumar could add only seven runs to the total. Karun was dismissed after playing a superb knock of 153.

Rajneesh Gurubani picked up five wickets while India pacer Umesh Yadav claimed four. AGENCIES

NEROCA

Chennai defeat Churchill 2-0GOA: Chennai City outclassed Churchill Brothers 2-0 to regis-ter their first win in this season at the Tilak Maidan Stadium in Goa on Tuesday. The defeat extends Churchill Brothers’ run of defeats to five games.

Alfred Fernandes held on to a similar starting XI that lost 3-2 against East Bengal except for the injured Dhanachandra Meitei being replaced by Alber Gonsalves.

Chennai City, playing their fifth consecutive away game, came into the tie with two changes. Dharmaraj Rava-nan and Alexander Romario

replaced Henry Monsang and Charles Anandraj Lourdusamy.

Though Soundararajan V’s side went into the break lead-ing by a goal scored at the stroke of half-time, they should have taken the lead inside 15 minutes but for Jean-Michel Joachim missing a sitter from handshaking distance as he headed wide a Edwin Vans-paul cross. The woodwork saved Churchill Brothers twice in quick succession. Michael Soosairaj’s shot from distance rattled the crossbar and Osagie Monday cleared the ball from Murilo just in time.

Soon after, Pandiyan Sini-vasan’s half volley came crash-ing off the horizontal after Churchill had just defended a corner. Nicholas Fernandes’s free-kick was then almost headed into his own net by Veniamin Shumeiko as the ball marginally missed the left post in the 24th minute.

Churchill goalkeeper James Kithan pulled off a save from close distance to deny Murilo who was played inside the box by Joachim at around the half hour mark and just before the half time whistle the score-board got ticking. AGENCIES

millenniumpost NO H ALF TR U THS

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CHANGE OF NAME

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16MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Wednesday, 20 December, 2017

mp Entertainment

MUMBAI: Grammy and Oscar winning composer A.R Rahman says that in the last few years, he had not been offered many musical scripts where he could project his magic. He says his upcoming film 99 Songs will be the answer to several questions.

Since the 1990s, Rahman has delivered hit songs like “Hamma hamma”, “Rangeela re”, “Chaiyya chaiyya” and “Jai ho”. But if we look at some of his latest compositions, some believe that he has missed out in keeping the ‘Rah-man magic’ alive. Asked if he could find out the missing link in his latest work, Rahman said, “It also depends on what the director wants to do, like the problem that I dealt with in the last few years was that. All the films that came to me were different, where music was secondary.”

“The kind of music that you are talking about needs a certain conviction. Are they (filmmakers) coming to me with enough of that, to create good musical stories?”

He said that his upcoming production 99 Songs would be the answer to the questions being raised. “The ques-tions that you are asking, about me not being able to cre-ate such magic, the fact is, those kind of scripts are not coming anymore,” he added.

On producing films, he said: “There is a reason why we put so much effort to set out our production company. From here, I want to make musical stories and celebrate music ideas. So yes, in a way, in the last 25 years, my life has changed – from being a music composer to a vision-ary, from a writer to producer and film director,” said the artiste, who has earned the title ‘Mozart of Madras’.

The musician is currently performing in different Indian cities, including Delhi, for his live gig A.R. Rahman which celebrates 25 years of his journey as a composer. 

Asked to choose his favourites, he said: “Choosing five songs is tough. I would say ‘Humma humma’, ‘Tu hi re’, ‘Maa tujhe salaam’, ‘Chaiyya chaiyya’, ‘Khwaja mere Khwaja’, but there are more.”

Which one is the closest reflection of his personality?“I think all my compositions are the reflection of my

personality and I am the combination of everything. I am funny, light-hearted when I spend time with family. And then there are times when I get into the zone of spiritual-ity. I think such emotions and moods are there in all of us.

At times, music takes us to different zones too,” he said. On why Rahman failed to impress his fans with Mohenjo Daro. He said, “It was not a ‘Lagaan’ where the picture was clear. In ‘Mohenjo Daro’, Ashu tried something dif-ferent. At least, we should appreciate that,” said the music maestro. IANS

Music was secondary in recent

FILMS OFFERED TO RAHMAN

The music maestro says, his upcoming film, ‘99 songs’, will be an answer to all those who believe that he has missed out in keeping the ‘Rahman’s magic’ alive

MUMBAI: In his upcoming directorial venture 83, which is based on India’s first Cricket World Cup win in 1983, film-maker Kabir Khan says his attempt is to let Ranveer Singh adapt the persona of veteran cricketer Kapil Dev, yet retain his identity. Underdog India outclassed mighty West Indies by 43 runs in the final played at

the Lord’s on June 25, 1983 to lift their maiden World Cup under Dev’s

leadership.“Audience knows he is

Ranveer and he is going to play the role of Kapil Dev in the film. Today, there is technology to

make Ranveer look exactly like him, but that is not the attempt.”

“He needs to get the persona of Dev and yet retain his identity as Ranveer. We

want the audience to see and enjoy Ran-veer playing Dev,” Kabir told in an inter-view. He said Ranveer has already begun preparations for his role in the film.

“It is a simple brief to Ranveer. He just has to see Kapil Dev playing the game. The iconic body language of Kapil Dev, the way he used to bowl, bat. He (Dev) is monitor-ing it (training),” he added.

Kabir said the members of the 1983 World Cup team are set to supervise and

MUMBAI: Actor Richa Chadha, who is working in Sudhir Mishra’s Dasdev, says that each actor should work with the director once in their lifetime.

“I feel each actor should once work with Sudhir Mishra in his or her life because you get to learn a lot from him,” Richa said at her 32nd birthday celebra-tion, here.

“Most well-known director of today’s time like Anurag Kashyap, Imtiaz Ali and Nikhil Advani have assisted Sudhir sir and Sudhir sir has assisted well known directors like Shekhar Kapoor, Mahesh Bhatt and Kundan Shah so it was nice opportunity for me to work in old classic which is coming up with it’s new adaptation,” she added.

The actor, who is currently enjoying the success of her latest release Fukrey Returns, says that she loves her character Paro in Dasdev.

“I think Dasdev is one of his best film so I am really excited for it. I did film like Fukrey Returns which was commercial film but Dasdev comes under very serious, political satire and drama zone. I really hope that film get appreciated by the audience,” said Richa. Talking about her professional journey in 2017, Richa says,“As actors, we go through lots of ups and down so we should be normal as much as possible, even though, I am happy right now because I worked in many films which has received critical acclaim and commercial success.” IANS

‘Ranveer needs to retain his identity while playing Kapil’

coach the rest of the actors. Several mem-bers of the 1983 World Cup winning team, including manager Man Singh, were present at a function when the director announced the project. The team members such as Roger Binny, K Srikkanth, Madan Lal, Yashpal Sharma, Balwinder Singh Sandhu and Sand-eep Patil had narrated some anecdotes dating back to the historic day.

Kabir added he would not need to take “cinematic liberities” during the filming as, “there is lot of material, we have hours and hours of sessions with the cricketers (the players), so it is a gold mine of material.” He said the team would be majorly shot in London and they have the support of cricket authorities like the ICC and BCCI. PTI

‘Each actor should work with Sudhir Mishra once’

LOS ANGELES: A list of 10 films, including Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Blade Runner 2049, Dunkirk have advanced to the next round in the visual effects category for the 90th Academy Awards.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAAS) has announced a shortlist of movies, with big-budget films such as Alien: Cov-enant dominating the line-up.

Small-budget movies South Korean action-fantasy Okja and Guillermo del Toro’s take on Cold War, The Shape of Water also made it to the list.

Other films that have advanced to the next round are – Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets and War for the Planet of the Apes.

The members of Academy’s Visual Effects Branch Executive Committee, will now be invited to view 10-minute excerpts from each of the shortlisted films on January 6. The mem-bers will then vote to nominate five films for final Oscar con-sideration. PTI

The Last Jedi, Blade Runner, Dunkirk in

Oscars VFX shortlist

LOS ANGELES: Veteran actor Meryl Streep has responded to Rose McGowan’s critical remarks against herself and other actors who plan to protest sexual harassment by wear-ing black to this year’s Golden Globes.

McGowan had called out Streep for working with producer Harvey Weinstein despite his reputation as a sexual predator and condemned their form of protest.

In her response, Streep said she “wasn’t deliber-ately silent” in Wein-stein’s treatment of women in Holly-wood because she did not know it was happening.”

“It hurt to be attacked by Rose McGowan in banner headlines this week-end, but I want to let her know I did not know about Weinstein’s crimes, not in the 90s when he attacked her, or through subsequent decades when he proceeded to attack others.”

“I wasn’t deliberately silent. I didn’t know. I don’t tacitly approve of rape. I didn’t know. I don’t like young women being assaulted. I didn’t know this was happening,” Streep said in a statement to the Huffington Post.

The 68-year-old actor added that not everyone who worked with Wein-

stein knew the depth of accusations against him. “Rose assumed and broadcast something untrue about me, and I wanted to let her know the truth. Through friends who know her, I got my home phone number to her the minute I read the headlines. I sat by that phone all day yesterday and this morning, hoping to express both my deep respect for her and others’

bravery in exposing the mon-sters among us, and my sym-

pathy for the ongoing pain she suffers.”

“No one can bring back what enti-tled bosses like Bill O’Reilly, Roger Ailes, and HW took from the women who endured attacks on their bodies and their

ability to make a living.And I hoped that she

would give me a hearing. She did not, but I hope she

reads this,” Streep added.”The actor said she was “truly sorry”

that McGowan sees her as an “adver-sary”. “...We are both, together with all the women in our business, standing in defiance of the same implacable foe: a status quo that wants so badly to return to the bad old days, the old ways where women were used, abused and refused entry into the top levels of industry.” PTI

I wasn’t deliberately silent: Streep responds to

Rose McGowanLONDON: Actor Emilia Clarke and her ‘Game of Thrones’ co-stars are not allowed to share anything from the set of the upcoming final season on social media.

The 31-year-old actor – who plays Daenerys Tar-garyen in the drama series - delighted fans last year with candid pictures of herself and co-star Kit Harington lark-ing around when the cam-eras had stopped rolling, but fans are in for a disap-pointment over the com-ing months as everyone who works on the HBO fantasy saga have been warned about sharing anything online.

“We have a very strict social media ban this year because peo-ple need to stop spoiling it for

everyone. It’s really frustrat-ing,” Clarke told the Sunday Telegraph’s Stella magazine.

The actor added that she has no idea how the remaining episodes will play out and vari-ous measures are being taken to stop it from getting leaked.

“They’ve written a num-ber of different end-

ings. So none of the cast know what the actual ending is. If there’s ever a leak of any kind, don’t believe it

because it’s probably

not true,” she said. PTI

Game of Thrones cast have strict social

media ban: Clarke