FADNAVIS GOVT PLANS TO ALLOT `̀100 CRORE TO THACKERAY TRUST 11
SC FAST-TRACKS CONTEMPTCASE AGAINST MALLYA FORMOVING $40M TO KIDS’ A/CS 13
SONIA ABROAD FOR MEDICALCHECK-UP, LIKELY TO RETURNIN 3RD WEEK OF MARCH 10
Four sailors were airliftedfrom INS Sandhayak af-
ter they allegedly exchangeda few blows with officers onthe high seas. The ship wasdeployed off Paradip. P 11
Sailors airliftedafter ship fight
To initiate the roll-out oflatest communications
technologies, the Centre isset to hold a 5G spectrumauction this year. Such net-works may be commercial-ly available in 2020. P 19
5G spectrumauction this yr
AMU, Allahabad and Pon-dicherry universities
are among 11 central varsi-ties termed as “non-perfor-ming”. HRD ministry hassought an academic audit ofthese varsities. P 10
AMU among 11‘laggard’ univs
The Twitter account ofBollywood producerBoney Kapoor was
hacked re-cently andthe hackerused thehandle tosend re-quests tofriends and
members of the film frater-nity to transfer money to“his ewallet account to raisefunds for a show” in Luck-now. Kapoor, who is abroadfor a film shoot, was alertedon March 3 after he was con-tacted by one of his friends,reports V Narayan. P11
Fraudster hacksBoney Kapoor’sTwitter account
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
A slew of exit polls onThursday agreed thatthe BJP would be the
frontrunner in Uttar Pradeshwhile disagreeing on whet-her it would get a majority.
In Punjab, there was una-nimity that the ruling AkaliDal-BJP combine would facea meltdown but no consensuson whether Congress or AamAadmi Party (AAP) would fi-nish in front. The polls also
differed on the outcome in Ut-tarakhand and Manipur whi-le projecting BJP as the lar-gest party in a possibly hungGoa assembly.
While each of the exitpolls put BJP in front, the SP-Congress alliance in secondspot and BSP third in UP, thenumber of seats projected for
BJP and its allies varied from161 to 285, a range that makeseither a hung house or a clearwinner possible if any of thepolls is accurate.
The lowest estimate forthe BJP alliance came fromCVoter, which gave the saf-fron combine around 161seatsin the 403-member assembly;
the top of the range was Toda-y’s Chanakya’s estimate of285. Three of the six polls sawno clear winner while the restgave BJP a majority.
On Punjab, all but one pollpredicted a single-digit tallyfor the ruling Akali-BJP alli-ance in the 117-member as-sembly. One pollster, CVoter,
gave AAP a clear majoritywith 63 seats and another, Ax-is, gave Congress a majority,but the rest predicted a closecontest between the two and ahung house. In fact, two sug-gested absolute parity betwe-en AAP and Congress.
Edge For BJP InGoa, U’khand;Manipur Split
BJP ahead in UP; could be AAPor Cong in Punjab: Exit polls
EXIT POLLSTERS, ENTER UNCERTAINTYUTTAR PRADESH (403)
BJP+ SP-Cong BSP
Times Now-VMR 200 120 65
India Today-Axis 265 100 35
ABP News-Lokniti 170 163 66
India TV-CVoter 161 141 87
India News-MRC 185 120 90
Today’s Chanakya 285 88 27
PUNJAB (117)
SAD-BJP Cong AAP
India Today-Axis 5 66 46
ABP News-Lokniti 22 51 41
India TV-CVoter 9 45 63
India News-MRC 7 55 55
Today’s Chanakya 9 54 54
UTTARAKHAND (70)
BJP Cong
India Today-Axis 50 16
ABP News-Lokniti 37 26
India TV-CVoter 32 32
India News-MRC 30 38
Today’s Chanakya 53 15
GOA (40)
BJP Cong AAP
India Today-Axis 20 11 7
India TV-CVoter 18 15 2
MANIPUR (60)
BJP Cong Oth
India Today-Axis 19 33 8
India TV-CVoter 28 20 12Where the projections were in a range, mid-point was taken
�BJP in U’khand? P 15
FULL COVERAGE: PAGE 15
Lucknow: With exit polls onThursday suggesting that BJPwill emerge the single largestplayer in Uttar Pradesh, Sam-ajwadi Party chief and CMAkhilesh Yadav said it was themoral responsibility of all se-cular forces to come togetherto stop the saffron outfit.
“In order to stop commu-nal forces and... provide secu-
rity and prosperity to all sec-tions of society, all secularforces have a moral responsi-bility to come together to givethe people of Uttar Pradesh ademocratic government,”Akhilesh told TOI just afterexit polls suggested that hemight not return to office.
Akhilesh did not specifical-ly mention BSP in his pitch for“secular” unity. But with Cong-ress already his ally, the call se-emed to be clearly aimed at the
Mayawati-led party which hasbeen at loggerheads with SPsince the mid-90s when theircoalition came apart.
Speaking to a news agency,the CM seemed keen to avoidthe prospect of the state comingunder central rule in case theoutcome on Saturday threw upa hung House. He said no onewould prefer that as BJP wouldhave the remote control.
Akhilesh signal to Maya: Secularforces must unite to form UP govt
�Bitter SP-BSP history, P 15
Satta markets in Mumbaiand Rajasthan’s Churu are
betting for BJP bagging 190-201 seats in UP, SP-Congress119-128 and BSP 62-65. BJP’schances brightened after PMNarendra Modi started cam-paigning, according to booki-es. Both the markets predict ahung assembly in Punjab withAAP and Congress projectedto get 53 to 55 seats each, withthe ruling Akalis managing amaximum of seven. P 15
Bookies give UPto BJP, see hunghouse in Punjab
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Lucknow/Bhopal: A for-mer Indian Air Force (IAF)airman was among two peo-ple caught by the UP anti-ter-rorism squad on Thursday inconnection with the blast inthe Bhopal-Ujjain passengertrain, taking the total numberof arrests in the case to eight.
Police said Ghouse Mo-hammad Khan, who servedin the IAF for 15 years, was a“hardcore member of theterror module” which wasallegedly responsible for theblast on Tuesday.
While five members ofthe module radicalised by the
so-called Islamic State (IS)have been arrested from UP,three others have been arres-ted from Madhya Pradesh.Another member of the mo-dule, Saifullah, was killed inLucknow early on Wednes-day. The UP police claimedthat with the arrests on
Thursday, all members of themodule were in its custody.
Describing Khan as a“technical” hand, UP ADGPDaljit Singh Chaudhary saidthat he was the “main accu-sed and mastermind”.
Ex-IAF airman among 2held for MP train blast
With the Trump ad-ministration seri-ously mulling
H-1B visa reforms, at leasthalf a dozen bills have beentabled in the US House ofRepresentatives and theSenate, contending that theprogramme that is popularamong Indian IT firms eatsinto American jobs.
Authors of all these billsfrom both the Republican
and the Democratic partiesbelieve that H-1B work visas,which are highly popularamong Indian techies and In-dian IT companies, tend to re-place American workers. Af-ter Trump took oath as the45th US President, Republi-
can senator Chuck Grassley,and assistant Senate minori-ty leader Dick Durbin, intro-duced the “H-1B and L-1 VisaReform Act” to prioritiseAmerican workers and re-store fairness in visa pro-grammes for skilled workers.
H-1B visas hurting US, say bills in Congress Women working in the
organised sector willnow be entitled to paid ma-ternity leave of 26 weeks, upfrom 12 weeks, as Parlia-ment on Thursday passed abill that will benefit about1.8 million women. The newlaw will apply to all estab-lishments employing 10 ormore people. Page 13
Nod for 26-weekmaternity leave
Stone-pelter killedduring encounter
Days after the Army chiefwarned civilians in J&K
against disrupting operationsby the forces, a 15-year-old boywas killed while pelting stonesat security forces during anencounter in Pulwama in southKashmir, reports SaleemPandit. Two LeT militants werekilled in the encounter. P 8
Visa row: Premjimeets IT minister
Wipro chairman AzimPremji on Thursday met
IT minister Ravi ShankarPrasad amid growing concernsover proposed changes in theH-1B visa norms in the US. Theminister told Premji that Indiahas taken up this issue atsenior level in the USadministration, sources said.For Wipro, the US contributesover 55% to its revenues. PTI
� FULL REPORT: PAGE 18
TNN & AGENCIES
�Saifullah’s house, P 8
FULL COVERAGE: PAGE 8�‘Enemy of nation’: Sonsdisown ‘terrorist’ dad, P 8
Delhi on alert over‘IS revenge’ plot
Delhi was put on high alerton Thursday in the wake
of inputs that members of theso-called Islamic State maytarget the capital to avengethe Lucknow encounter.Patrolling in crowdedmarkets and deploymentaround religious places hasbeen increased. P 8
Three patients who wereundergoing dialysis at
Indira Gandhi GovernmentMedical College and Re-search Institute in Pudu-cherry died following a sud-den power outage. The hos-pital’s generators did notrestore supply for sevenminutes, sources said. P 8
Power outagekills 3 patients
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