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PUBLISHED FROM DELHI & KOLKATA VOL. 3, ISSUE 96 | Monday, 10 April 2017 | Kolkata | Pages 16 | Rs 3.00

RNI NO.: WBENG/2015/65962

NO HALF TRU THS

82% VOTES CAST IN KANTHI DAKSHIN PG3

In today’s paper

...CITY

GOODS TRAIN DERAILS 4

NATION

GUV’S ROLE UNDER DISCUSSION 6

EDIT

A DOMINO EFFECT 8

INTERNATIONAL

CABIN CREW HELP DELIVER BABY AT 42K FT 10

BUSINESS

BULLET TRAIN CROSSES MAJOR HURDLE 13

SPORT

BAGAN BEAT EAST BENGAL 15

‘RS 5,400cr WORTH OF UNDISCLOSED INCOME DETECTED’ PG5

TAX DEPT SLAPS FRESH DEMAND NOTE OF `10,247 CR ON UK CAIRN PG12

SWARA HOPES TO KEEP DOING OUT OF THE BOX ROLES PG16

VOTING PERCENTAGE AT ABYSMAL 6.5

Indian, Chinese navies rescue merchant ship in Gulf of AdenMPOST BUREAU

NEW DELHI: Notwithstand-ing the strain in ties, the navies of India and China carried out a well-coordinated operation to rescue a merchant ship in the Gulf of Aden which was hijacked by Somali pirates on Saturday night.

After getting a distress call about the attack on the cargo vessel OS 35, Indian Navy sent warships INS Mumbai and INS Tarkash while the Chinese Navy also responded to the call for help by moving in its missile frigate Yulin.

The merchant ship, with 19 Filipino crew members, was travelling from Kelang in Malaysia to the port city of Aden in Yemen when it came under attack from Somali pirates.

While the Indian Navy deployed a helicopter that

provided air cover, the Chi-nese side sent in a team of 18 personnel to sanitise the mer-chant ship registered in the Pacific island of Tuvalu. The two Indian warships were in the region as part of an over-seas deployment.

“In a show of international maritime cooperation against piracy, a boarding party from the nearby Chinese Navy ship went on board the merchant ship, while the Indian Naval

helicopter provided air cover for the operation. It has been established that all 19 Fili-pino crew members are safe,” Navy spokesperson Capt D K Sharma said.

The well-coordinated operation by navies of India and China comes amid strain in ties between the two Asian giants over a range of issues including the Dalai Lama’s visit to Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh, China’s opposition to

India’s NSG membership and Beijing blocking India’s effort to get JeM chief Masood Azhar declared as global terrorist by the UN.

At the end of the operation, the Chinese Navy thanked the Indian navy for its role in suc-cessful operation. The Indian Navy also complimented the Chinese side.

The Indian Navy had swung into action after getting a call from UK’s Maritime Trade Organisation UKMTO that keeps a vigil on movement of the ships in the region. Paki-stani and Italian warships had also responded to calls for help and reached the spot.

The Indian warships estab-lished contact with the captain of the merchant vessel who along with the crew had locked themselves in a strong room on board as per standard operat-ing procedure.

An Indian Navy helicop-ter undertook aerial reconnais-sance of the merchant vessel at night and at sunrise to sanitise the upper decks of the mer-chant ship and ascertain the location of pirates, if still on board.

The pirates had fled from the ship after warships of India and China moved in.

“Indian Navy’s helicopter cover, and on receiving the ‘all clear signal’ that no pirates were visible on the upper decks, some crew members gradu-ally emerged from the strong room and carried out a search of the ship and ascertained that the pirates had fled the ship at night,” the navy spokesperson said.

The captain of the merchant vessel profusely thanked the Indian Naval ships for their response and for providing air cover, he said.

CONDEMNS VIOLENCE BY COW VIGILANTES

MPOST BUREAU

NEW DELHI: RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on Sunday advocated a nation-wide law against cow slaughter, calling it a “vice” that must be removed, but condemned violence by cow protection groups as it “defames” the cause.

He also pitched for step-ping-up of cow protection efforts by bringing more peo-ple in the drive while “com-pletely obeying the law and the Constitution”.

His remarks at an event to observe the birth anniversary of Lord Mahavir came against the backdrop of the lynching of a Muslim man by cow vigi-lantes in Alwar in BJP-ruled Rajasthan that sparked pro-tests from opposition parties and put the saffron party on the defensive.

“Nothing should be done while protecting cows that hurts the belief of some peo-ple. Nothing should be done that is violent. It only defames the efforts of cow protectors... The work of cow conservation should be carried out while completely obeying the law and the Constitution,” Bhag-wat said.

He said many states where RSS functionaries, a reference to BJP leaders with RSS back-ground, have been in power have enacted such a law and expressed confidence that other governments will fol-low suit by dealing with local “complexities”.

“Our wish is that there should be a law against cow slaughter across India,” he said.

In several northeastern states, including somewhere BJP is in power, cow slaugh-ter is not banned while beef is consumed widely in states like Kerala and West Bengal where the party is working to emerge as a strong political force.

The RSS chief suggested that enactment of such a law everywhere will take time due to the complexities of politics.

If there is a law, it will be for promoting non-violence not violence, he said, not-ing, “There cannot be a law that says you do violence. It is impossible.”

“I am confident that wher-ever RSS workers are in power, they will deal with local com-plexities and work in that direc-tion,” he said.

Cow protection should be promoted in such a way that it wins over more and more people to the cause and brings praise for those doing it, Bhag-wat said. Non-violent efforts will only help change the law accordingly, he said.

Bhagwat demands national law against cow slaughter

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday attended the high profile dinner hosted by President Pranab Mukherjee in honour of visiting Ban-gladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. A host of dignitaries including Prime Minis-ter Narendra Modi attended the dinner. Top luminaries broke bread in a congenial atmo-sphere and exchanged pleasantries.

The Bengal Chief Minister attended a slew of official engagements with PM Modi and Sheikh Hasina on Saturday. Banerjee had a novel answer to the Teesta water question. She suggested that both nations should stop harping on the Teesta and instead carry out a study on how to utilise the waters of some other rivers like the Torsa.

The Bengal chief minister is expected to hold a meeting with all TMC MPs on Monday to discuss some pressing matters. Banerjee is expected meet some top political leaders including BJP veteran LK Advani. She will also take up some Bengal projects stuck in limbo with the Centre.

GUWAHATI: The Assam government on Sun-day announced a draft population policy which suggested denial of government jobs to people with more than two children and making edu-cation up to university level free for all girls in the state. “This is a draft population policy. We have suggested that people having more than two children will not be eligible for any govern-ment jobs,” Assam Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said at a press conference here. Any person getting a job after meeting this condition will have to maintain it till end of his service, he added. “For employment generation schemes like giving tractors, offering homes and others government benefits, this two-children norm will be applicable. Besides, all elections such as panchayats, municipal bodies and autonomous councils held under the state election commis-sion will also have this norm for candidates,” Sarma said. PG5

Mamata to meet party MPs in Delhi today

Soon, 2-child norm for Assam govt jobs

8 killed, scores wounded during Srinagar LS by-poll

MPOST BUREAU

SRINAGAR: Eight people were killed in firing by security forces as unprecedented election-day vio-lence marred the by-poll for Sri-nagar Lok Sabha seat today which saw the voter turnout plunge to an all-time low of 7.14 per cent.

Rampaging mobs took to streets in scores of places across the Lok Sabha constituency straddling Srinagar, Budgam and Ganderbal districts, perpetrating wanton vio-lence and arson, even setting ablaze a polling station and attempting to set on fire two others, amid a boy-cott called by the separatists.

“The tentative voter turnout for the Srinagar Lok Sabha constitu-ency is 6.5 per cent,” Jammu and Kashmir s Chief Electoral Officer Shantmanu told reporters at the conclusion of polling. However, the revised figure issued later in the evening put the voter turnout at 7.14 per cent of the 12.61 lakh electorate.

The seat had recorded 26 per cent polling in the 2014 general elections.

In the 1989 election, National Conference’ s Mohammad Shafi Bhat had won the seat uncontested.

The previous lowest turnout in the prestigious seat was 11.93 per cent in 1999 when Omar Abdullah had defeated Mehbooba Mufti in a straight contest.

“There were more than 200 incidents of violence in the con-

stituency, mostly in Budgam dis-trict, which included stone-pelting, petrol bomb attacks, setting ablaze of a polling station, some vehicles and attempt to burn two other poll-ing stations,” Shantmanu said.

“It was not a good day as you know. Six lives were lost in these incidents of violence... 17 civilians were injured, while over 100 para-military and police personnel also sustained injuries,” he said.

Shortly after the press confer-ence, two people were reported killed in Chadoora area of Budgam district and Barsoo in Ganderbal district in firing by security forces, taking the death toll to eight.

The CEO said a decision on repoll in violence-hit areas will be taken after examining the diaries of presiding officers.

While two people each were killed Pakherpora in Chrar-e- Sharief and Beerwah areas of Bud-

gam district, two more deaths were reported from Chadoora area of the same district and another in Magam town, which is known as the gateway to Gulmarg. Another person was killed in Barsoo in Ganderbal district.

Almost 70 per cent of the poll-ing booths in Budgam district were abandoned by the polling staff due to the spate of violent protests in several areas, officials said.

The Army was called out to help security forces quell a ram-paging mob which threw stones and hurled petrol bombs to set a polling booth ablaze in the Gan-derbal district of the constituency.

Hundreds of protestors stormed a polling station at Pakherpora in Chrar-e-Sharief area of Budgam district and ransacked a building housing a polling booth, officials said, adding the security forces fired several warning rounds to disperse

the mob, which did not relent. Six persons were injured in the fir-ing, of whom two, 20- year-old Mohammad Abbas and 15-year-old Faizaan Ahmad Rather, suc-cumbed to bullet wounds.

In another incident, secu-rity forces opened fire to quell a stone-pelting mob in Ratxuna Beerwah area, leaving one Nissar Ahmed dead. At the Daulatpura in Chadoora assembly segment of Budgam district, one person, iden-tified as Shabir Ahmed, was killed in firing by security personnel.

A youth, Adil Farooq, suc-cumbed to multiple pellet injuries in the Magam town, about 20 km from here. One Aqib Wani was shot dead as police opened fire on a crowd of protestors in the Beer-wah area in the afternoon.

National Conference working president Omar Abdullah said in his 20-year political career he had never seen such a bad environment for elections.

Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti expressed distress over the civilian killings, saying she was pained that most of them were teenagers who were yet to under-stand the intricacies of the issues. Meanwhile, separatists have called for a two-day shutdown against the killing of civilians in firing by secu-rity forces, saying it was the only way for them to express solidarity with the families of those killed and the cause for which they laid down their lives. More reports on PG5

MINISTERS ASKED TO LIST FIVE MAJOR ACHIEVEMENTS

Govt mulling making Aadhaar or passport must for flying

45 dead, 119 injured in ISIS blasts at Egypt's Coptic churches

MPOST BUREAU

NEW DELHI: The Modi gov-ernment, ahead of its third anni-versary in power, has asked all ministers to submit their five major achievements that have benefitted people, including key reforms and comparative data reflecting the progress made since the BJP took office.

In a letter sent out this week, Information and Broadcasting Minister Venkaiah Naidu has asked all ministers to submit the data and observations to him.

It will be compiled in a book-let that the government plans to publish before May 26, the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi took charge three years ago.

In his letter, Naidu asked the ministers to send him “a three-page note in bullet form only”. It said the note should cover five aspects:

* Five major achievements of the ministry concerned which have benefitted the people or appreciated by the people.

* Key performance indicators of the ministry

* Comparative data/statistics

of flagship schemes of the ministry which signifies what was the posi-tion in 2014 and now in 2017. For example, how many LPG connec-tions were there in 2014 and what is the number now in 2017.

* Three reforms brought by the ministry- process, policy, func-tioning, programmes, etc; and

* Two top success stories in one paragraph each.

In an earlier letter dated March 21, Naidu urged the ministers and senior BJP leaders to com-municate with the people on the positive changes that have been brought about by the Modi-led NDA government. Asserting that the mood of the nation is clearly in

“favour of the BJP and PM Modi”, Naidu said, “We all take pride in being a member of Team Modi, whose relentless pursuit to turn around the fortunes of millions of people, hitherto neglected by successive governments, is bear-ing visible fruits.”

“... We must prepare a concrete action plan and be ready with facts, figures, data to propagate the government’s achievements in a big way,” he said.

According to the letter, the government has made a list of ministers who would prepare a note on specific sectoral topics assigned to them.

Minister of State for Exter-nal Affairs M J Akbar has been asked to prepare a note on the highlights of the prime minister’s tour abroad, major outcomes from those tours and increased invest-ment flow from foreign countries.

Similarly, two other MPs have been assigned to compile a note on intellectual discourse and counter any possible negative narrative on topics like less than promised employment generation, so-called threats to freedom of expression among others.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The government is in the process of making Aad-haar number or passport man-datory for booking domestic flight tickets amid its plans to create a no-fly list to deal with unruly passengers.

“Aviation regulator DGCA will start working on a civil avi-ation requirement (CAR) this week,” R N Choubey, secretary in the Ministry of Civil Aviation told PTI. The ministry has asked the DGCA to draft the CAR by next week for consultation with stakeholders in this matter.

Aadhaar number or pass-port will be useful in identifying an “unruly passenger” who has been barred from flying.

Minister of State for Civil

Aviation, Jayant Sinha, in a series of tweets on Saturday, had warned that unruly behav-iour by passengers will result in “severe consequences” which would include police action as well as being placed on the

no-fly list. The no-fly list was mooted by Air India on the day Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaik-wad hit the national carrier’s staff R Sukumar with his slipper. Air India had said that they were “examining” to create such a list.

The following day, the Fed-eration of Indian Airlines, which has Jet Airways, SpiceJet, IndiGo and GoAir as its members, while announcing a ban on Gaikwad, also proposed the promulga-tion of a “no-fly list which shall include the names of all unruly passengers.” On Friday, TMC’s Rajya Sabha MP Dola Sen had allegedly fought with the crew over not getting seats of her choice in an Air India flight from Delhi to Kolkata result-ing in it being delayed by nearly 40 minutes.

CAIRO: At least 45 people were killed and nearly 120 others injured in powerful blasts triggered by ISIS in two churches packed with worshippers cel-ebrating Palm Sunday in Egypt’s Tanta and Alex-andria cities, the deadliest attacks on the minority Coptic Christians in recent years.

The first blast took place in the Coptic church of Mar Girgis, also known as St George, in the Nile delta city of Tanta, about 120 kilometres from Cairo, killing 27 people and injuring 78, the Health Ministry said in a statement.

Security sources said the primary investiga-tions suggest that a person put an explosive device inside the church during the Christian prayers cel-ebrating the Palm Sunday. However, others said the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber.

The explosion targeted the front rows in the church hall.

Among those killed is Samuel George, the head of Tanta Court.

Hours later, a suicide bomber struck the Saint Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Alexandria’s Manshyia district, police said.

Citing Health Minister Ahmed Emad, ON TV news channel said at least 18 people, includ-ing police personnel, were killed while 41 others injured in Alexandria’s suicide attack.

The latest figure puts the combined death toll from the Tanta and Alexandria attacks at 45.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the twin attacks on churches on Palm Sunday, one of the holiest days of the Christian calendar.

“Islamic State squads carried out the attacks on two churches in Tanta and Alexandria,” said the group’s propaganda news agency ‘Amaq’ on its social media accounts. In a statement, the Inte-rior ministry said a suicide bomber had planned

to blow up himself using an explosive belt inside the church in Alexandria, but the security forces stopped him.

A police officer and a policewoman, as well a low-ranking police officer, were killed while pre-venting the suicide bomber from entering the cathedral, the ministry said.

It said Pope Tawadros II was inside the cathe-dral leading Palm Sunday Mass, but he was not harmed in the attack. However, Egypt’s Coptic church said Pope Tawadros II, Pope of Alexandria, had left the church just before the blast.

Saint Mark’s Cathedral is the historical seat of the Pope of Alexandria, the head of the Coptic Orthodox Church.

Meanwhile, security forces have dismantled two explosive devices at Sidi Abdel Rahim Mosque in Tanta city. The mosque, which includes a Sufi shrine, is considered the second most important mosque in city, Al-Ahram Arabic reported.

President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi condemned the attack and said such terrorist acts will not terrify Egyptians. He also phoned Pope Tawadros II to offer his condolences. He ordered the opening of military hospitals to receive the injured. AGENCIES

3RD ANNIVERSARY OF MODI GOVERNMENT

TO CURB UNRULY FLIERS

Youths throw stones at Security forces during clashes in Srinagar on Sunday PTI

The ministry has asked the DGCA to

draft the CAR by next week for consultation with stakeholders in

this matter

mp town2MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Monday, 10 April, 2017

DAYINDAYOUT What’s on Around Town

GOD’S SUMMITA solo show by Temsuyanger Long-kumer envisions a utopian conversation amongst the Gods and Prophets about the predicament of what humanity has done to itself. Temsuyanger highlights events from global history at some key pivotal moments where irreversible change has occurred. This seminal piece of work raises the question of what it means to have power, control, authority, wisdom, vision.WHEN: April 8 – 19WHERE: Kamadevi Complex 40, IICTIMING: 11 am – 7 pm

FILM SCREENING: LEELA IN KHERIYA The film ‘Leela in Kheriya’ directed by Dr Molly Kaushal tells the stories of a few individual lives in Kheriya, deeply en-meshed with the Ramlila performed every year in the village. Kheriya is located near the township of Firozabad, known for its glass making factories. In the film of 53 minutes, the furnaces of these fac-tories serve as metaphors for rhythms of life, its grit and grime, as also its sublime essence. Lives of both Hindus and Muslims of Kheriya converge on the Ramlila stage, making it a moment of self liberation and self realisation for each. Prof Pushpesh Pant and Dr Sukrita Paul will discuss the film after the screening. WHEN: April 17WHERE: CD Deshmukh Auditorium, India International Centre (IIC) TIMING: 6:30 pm

HANUMAN: IMAGES BEYOND IMAGINATIONSThe exhibition will showcase installation, a 3D production of thousand year old hymn ‘Hanuman Chalisa’. The installation has been screened at several festivals and has been created by Charuvi Design Lab. It will be a unique animated and digital experience of a mythological figure, Lord Hanuman. The exhibition shall also display a ‘Kaavad’ narrating a story of Hanuman Chalisa and paintings on Hanuman by Shri Shyam Sharma. Each of these paintings have a caption and a quote from Ramcharitmanas. A video presentation on Recitation of Hanuman Chalisa by Shri Amitabh Bacchan will also be played at the exhibition.WHEN: April 11- 30WHERE: Hall no1, Basement, 11 Man-singh Road, New Delhi-1TIMING : 10:00 am to 6:00 pm

OUR CORRESPONDENT

Observing that it is often in times when poetry is impos-sible, that the best kind of poetry is written, pioneering

Malayalam poet and theorist K Satchi-dandan said it was important to be able to hurt and affect sentiments in an increas-ingly charged and gentrified world.

“The freedom to disturb and agitate is one of the most important rights a poet has, especially in the history we find our-selves living in today. Poetry is the free-

dom to conceive, to create alternative worlds, different ways of seeing, going beyond reality to escape it. Or perhaps even oppose the real and inhabit other realities,” said Satchidanandan, during a thought-provoking evening conversation at Vak: Raza Biennale of Indian Poetry, an event held in the Capital recently.

The scholarly panel discussion, titled ‘Poetry as Freedom’, was held at the  Triveni Kala Sangam as part of the three-day Biennale. The first-of-its-kind celebration of verse in the country was organised by the Raza Foundation – set

up by the late master artist Sayed Haider Raza in 2001 and helmed by eminent Hindi poet Ashok Vajpeyi, the Manag-ing Trustee.

“Though it is but words, poetry is ultimately an act of imagination and a kind of conversation. To use meter, rhythm, metaphor, rhyme, syntax, struc-ture, style and imagery to follow or break with diktats and rejuvenate and recreate language in order to make apparent the invisible,” added K Satchidandan. Cit-ing the importance of the discussion, Vajpeyi said, “Poetry is perhaps the best

embodiment of the ideals of freedom. It has become all the more crucial today when there are many curbs on freedom of expression and in a world where the idea of freedom has been divorced from ideas of equality and justice.” The hour-long conversation also featured promi-nent educationist and former NCERT director Krishna Kumar, award-winning author and academic Ananya Vajpeyi and Apoorvanand, renowned professor of Hindi at Delhi University.

Describing poetry as the “last refuge” against tendencies of systemic oppres-

sion and reductionism, Ananya Vajpeyi traced the influence poets and their works have exercised on the sub-conti-nent across epochs.

Contending that a “little amnesia” would help the contemporary shake off the shackles of the past, iconic litterateur Keki N Daruwalla said that poetry was an important counterweight against the canonisation of myth as memory.

“The danger of myth becoming scrip-ture and memory, as something to be remembered as having lived or occurred is something we must all be wary of. This sort of co-option – the darker side of memory – is linked to nostalgia. A little amnesia would benefit us all,” said Daruwalla, sparking a lively discussion at event. He linked the conflation of myth with historical and racial anger and dis-trust. The discussion saw impassioned rebuttal arguments from noted social scientist Shiv Visvanathan and celebrated Gujarati poet-playwright Sitanshu Yas-haschandra at the Biennale.

“Indian poetics understands that memory, like literature, gives you space for and elasticity of interpretation. Indian literature traditionally used memory as metaphor. Like literature, memory should be permitted to cheat us and play with us,” Yashaschandra said.

‘Freedom to disturb and agitate is the RIGHT OF ALL POETS’

The first-of-its-kind celebration of verse in the country set up a scholarly panel discussion, held in the Capital as part of a three-day Biennale

Dogs – known as the man’s best friend – are also capable of adopting human perspec-tive to correctly interpret

cues and find food that they cannot see themselves, research has revealed.

The findings showed that by adopt-ing the position of a human or seeing things from their owner’s point of view and following their gaze, dogs can iden-tify whether a human has an eye on a food source and, therefore, know where the food has been hidden.

“The ability to interpret our behaviour and anticipate our intentions, which has obviously developed through a combination of domestication and individual experience, seems to have supported the ability to adopt our perspective,” said led investigator Ludwig Huber from the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna.  Within the first four or five years of life

human beings develop the ability to understand and interpret mental states such as emotions, needs and intentions of their fellow-being and react accordingly, while it is usually denied in animals. 

In the study, pub-lished in the jour-nal Animal Cognition, researchers developed a new ‘Guesser looking away’ test, which gave clear evidence of dogs being able to adopt human perspective and take advantage of it.

In the experiment, a person in the middle hides the food and the potential informants were kneeing left and right of this hider.

“To get the food, the dogs have to understand who knows the hiding place

(Knower) and who does not and can, therefore, only guess

(Guesser). “They must identify the

informant they can rely on if they have to decide for

one food container,” Huber noted. In nearly 70 per cent of the cases the dogs chose

the container indicated by the Knower. Being able to adopt the

perspective of a human does, how-ever, not require the ability to under-stand intentions or wishes. “But the study showed that dogs can find out what humans or conspecifics can or

cannot see. “By adopting the positions of

humans and following their gazes geometrically, they find out what humans see and,  therefore, know – and consequently whom they can trust or not,” Huber said. IANS

EVER WONDERED why babies love and adore superheroes? It may be because they are born with a sense of justice – a concept por-trayed through the heroic acts of the charac-ters, researchers say.

The findings showed that infants, as young as six months old, who can barely talk, are capable of recognising the heroic acts of jus-tice and thus find themselves drawn to figures who protect the weak. This also explains why kids and adults alike have a never-ending love affair with superhero stories in popular culture, the researchers said.

“Six-month-old infants are still in an early developmental stage and most will not yet be able to talk. Nevertheless they can already understand the power dynamics between different characters, sug-gesting that recognising heroism is perhaps an innate ability,” said David Butler from Kyoto University in Japan. For the study, the team conducted a series of exper-iments where infants were shown ani-mations of one geo-

metric character chasing and bumping into another, as a third character watches from a distance. 

In one version, this third party character intervenes, and in another, it escapes in another direction. When the infants were then shown real life replicas of these intervening and non-

intervening characters, they were more likely to choose the intervener, the

researchers said. “In human society, self-

lessly protecting the power-less is considered an act of heroic justice,” added Yas-uhiro Kanakogi from the Kyoto University. 

However, understanding these may be complex as one has to first grasp the power relationship between the actors, then understand that the hero’s actions

are favourable for the victim but not for

the villain, and finally, that the hero acted deliberately,

Kanakogi said.  IANS

FIND FOODBy adopting the positions

of humans and following

their gazes geometrically, dogs find out

whom they can trust

Your baby’s love for superheroes may be innate

Grey hair linked to higher heart disease risk in menMEN WITH MORE grey hair – irrespective of age – may be at increased risk of heart disease, warns a new study.

“Our findings suggest that, irrespective of chronological age, hair greying indicates biological age and could be a warning sign of increased cardiovascular risk,” said Irini Samuel, a cardiologist at Cairo University, Egypt. 

Atherosclerosis, build-up of fatty material inside the arter-ies, and hair greying share simi-lar mechanisms such as impaired DNA repair, oxidative stress, inflammation, hormonal changes and senescence of functional cells. 

“Atherosclerosis and hair grey-ing occur through similar biologi-cal pathways and the incidence of both increases with age,” Samuel added. 

This study – presented at

EuroPrevent 2017, annual congress of the European Association of Preventive Cardiology (EAPC), being held

at Malaga, Spain from April 6-8 – involved 545 adult men.

The researchers assessed the prevalence of grey hair in patients with coronary artery disease - usually caused by atherosclerosis – and whether it was an indepen-dent risk marker of disease.

The amount of grey hair was graded using the hair whiten-ing score – one referring to pure black hair, two to black more than white, three to black equals white, four to white more than black, and five to pure white. 

Data was collected on tradi-tional cardiovascular risk factors including hypertension, diabe-tes, smoking, dyslipidaemia and family history of coronary artery disease.

The researchers found that a high hair whitening score (grade three or more) was associated

with increased risk of coronary artery disease independent of chronological age and established cardiovascular risk factors. 

Patients with coronary artery disease had a statistically significant higher hair whitening score and higher coronary artery calcification than those without coronary artery disease.

“A larger study including men and women is required to confirm the association between hair greying and cardiovascular disease in patients without other known cardiovascular risk factors,” Samuel said.

“Further research is needed, in coordination with dermatologists, to learn more about the causative genetic and possible avoidable environmental factors that determine hair whitening,” she add. IANS

Canines can adopt humans perspective to

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mp city 3MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Monday, 10 April, 2017

We saw a presentation by a Korean company that showed us plug points with AI (Artificial Intelligence). This system studies patterns of electricity consumption over a period of time and minimises power consumption

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: An estimated 82 percent polling was recorded in the by-poll to Kanthi Dakshin Assembly in East Midnapore district on Sunday in a peace-ful election, an Election Com-mission official said.

“Polling was peaceful in the Kanthi Dakshin Assem-bly today (Sunday). Around 82 percent voting was registered till polling ends at 6 pm,” dep-uty electoral officer Amit Jyoti Bhattacharya said.

There was no report of any untoward incident from anywhere during the polling in which 2.5 lakh voters exer-cised their franchise amid strict security maintained by six companies of central forces accompanied by the state police, Bhattacharya added.

Five candidates battled it out at the hustings: Chan-drima Bhattacharya of the TMC, Sourindra Mohan Jana of the BJP, Uttam Pradhan of the CPI(M), Nabakumar Nandi of the Congress and another candidate from the SUCI(C).

The by-election is necessi-tated by TMC MLA Dibyendu Adhikari’s election to the Lok Sabha from Tamluk seat.

The counting is scheduled to be held on Thursday.

In booth numbers 59, 66 and 197, the poll process began

late due to the malfunction-ing of the EVM machines. Out of 2,07,337 voters, around 1,06,467 were male and 1,00, 869 female while the number of the third gender was one. The poll was conducted in as many as 258 booths.

Around six company of central forces and 1,000 state police personnel were also deployed to conduct the elec-tion. The central force jawans

also carried out route marches in various areas so that people could freely come out to exer-cise their franchise.

Braving the heat, voters came out in huge numbers from the morning. Voters in large numbers were seen stand-ing before all the 258 booths spreading across the constitu-ency as the day progressed.

According to a senior official in the district, a total

number of 1,032 persons were deployed on election duty. Around 258 EVM machines were used to conduct the poll.

Apart from TMC, Con-gress, BJP and Left Front-supported CPI candidate, a SUCI(C) candidate is also in fray.

TMC candidate and senior party leader Chandrima Bhat-tacharya said the RSS and BJP were trying to play communal

cards not only in the Bengal but also throughout the coun-try. People will once again defeat the vindictive and com-munal politics of the RSS and the BJP. District Trinamool Congress leaders alleged that the RSS and BJP have been trying to incite commu-nal violence in the state and people will once again reject them and vote for peace and prosperity.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: There would be no respite from the discom-fort in the next couple of days in the city and its adjacent dis-tricts despite a forecast of rain-fall in some.

As per the MeT depart-ment, there would be partly cloudy sky in Kolkata on Mon-day with possibilities of inter-mittent rainfall.

Besides Kolkata, there are possibilities of isolated rain-fall in South Bengal districts including Hooghly, Howrah, East Midnapore, Murshidabad, Nadia, South and North 24 Par-ganas in the next 24 hours.

But the dry weather will prevail on Tuesday in both Kolkata and Howrah respectively.

The rainfall for a long stretch of time is not predicted as the upper air cyclonic circu-lation over Chattisgarh adja-cent to Jharkhand was less.

Despite the sky remaining cloudy, the humidity and the discomfort level is not expected to go down.

Interestingly, the maximum temperature recorded on Sun-day was one degree less than the normal temperature. It was recorded 34.6 degree Celsius.

Despite the maximum tem-perature remaining one degree Celsius below normal, peo-ple had a tough time battling against the uncomfortable and dry weather.

In Digha, the maximum temperature was two degree Celsius less than the normal and there was rainfall of 0.1 mm in the past 24 hours. The weather in Purulia, Bankura and Birbhum would remain as

dry as on Sunday for the next three days.

In North Bengal too, there is prediction of isolated rain-fall in all the districts apart from Malda, North and South Dinajpur. In view of this humid weather and the heat, people

are opting for hill stations. Many are travelling to nearby hill stations that have recently experienced rain and snowfall. With snowfall in Sandakphu, many have chosen Darjeeling to get respite from the scorch-ing heat in the plains.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: The state Health department has decided to conduct eye surgeries on poor patients at several state-run hospitals completely free of cost by the inclusion of eye segment under the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna (RSBY).

To provide health services to all patients who cannot afford their treatment at private clinics, the state government is introducing free eye surgeries under RSBY. This will not only immensely benefit the poor patients in the BPL category but also address eye problems among them that has become so rampant across the state. Incidentally, it will also reduce the rush in OPDs at almost all the state-run hospitals that are so full of patients suffer-ing from various eye-related problems.

Objective of RSBY is to pro-vide free health services to BPL households so that these fami-lies can get insurances in case a patient is admitted to a hospi-tal. Beneficiaries are entitled to get hospitalisation coverage up to Rs 30,000. The patients can avail the facilities of the Cen-

tral scheme from the first day of hospitalisation.

Earlier, the patients requir-ing eye surgeries did not get the benefits of the scheme. This has become possible after the state government decided to include those suffering from eye prob-lems under this scheme. The coverage may extend up to five members of a family including the head, his spouse and three of his dependants.

The patients belonging to the BPL category were entitled to get the insurance coverage under this scheme for bypass surgery, other surgeries or in any case of hospitalised. But in case of phaco, cataract or

other eye surgeries, the insur-ance coverage was not available for the patients under RSBY scheme.

According to a health department official, both the Central and state governments provide fund for the imple-mentation of the RSBY scheme.

The scheme has been pushed by the state government as there are a large number of poor patients who cannot avail the facilities of the Central scheme in case of eye surgeries. In case of the same, the patient does not get the insurance cov-erage under the RSBY scheme. Now, poor patients will be able to avail the insurance cover-

age under this scheme whereby phaco, cataract and other eye surgeries will be conducted on patients. Now, all the patients can get their eye surgeries done at free of cost from the gov-ernment hospitals empanelled with the RSBY.

Patients who require power spectacles after the cataract sur-gery for proper vision will be get them at free of cost and will be provided by the hospi-tals, a senior health department official said. The beneficiaries need to pay Rs 30 for the regis-tration to avail the treatment at the state-run hospitals.

Earlier, patients requiring a cataract surgery could not avail the Central scheme due to technical problems. In most of the cases of cataract surger-ies, the patient does not require hospitalisation.

Patients are released from the hospital after the opera-tion. But the patients admitted to the hospital are only enti-tled to get the coverage under this scheme. As a result of the norms, many patients could not get the insurance coverage under the Central scheme as they did not get admission in case of a few eye surgeries.

PRITESH BASU

KOLKATA: The state transport department is carefully consid-ering a proposal of introducing “rent-a-bike” service after the immense success of bike taxis and rent-a-car services.

According to sources in the state Transport department, within a few days after the bike taxi was introduced, a proposal was received in which a private company wanted to enter into an agreement to initiate “rent-a-bike” service.

“It is in a very nascent stage. We have just received the pro-posal. The department has to look into each and every aspect before introducing the rent-a-bike service,” the official said adding that they also have to look into the financial viability of the project.

“Most importantly, we give priority to security aspects of the person using a partic-ular service. Whether it is an app-based car, bike taxi or rent-a-car service, we have always taken steps to first ensure secu-rity of passengers. Similarly,

in this case as well, we have to be sure about the pros and cons of the service,” the officer said adding that at the same time, the department will pre-pare a guideline that has to be followed if the services get

introduced.Though it has not been

decided yet as to where the service will be introduced first but it is expected that if the pro-posal is accepted, then it may initially commence in urban

areas and tourist spots, the offi-cial said.

It may be mentioned that rent-a-bike service is available in some parts of the country. It is also available at tourist des-tinations where one can rent a

bike for a few hours where he or she has to make payments on an hourly basis. Again, one can also rent a bike even for a week or a month. There is a minimum time limit for which one has to pay if a bike is rented out. Such matters have to be finalised if the state transport department decides to intro-duce the service.

It may be mentioned that the initiative of the state trans-port department to make self-driven hired cars available in the city has gained much popu-larity. The service was launched in September and people had started hiring cars to drive on their own to different tourist spots including the hills. Many, who visit the city from other states for work, also started hir-ing cars to drive on their own to reach their destinations instead of availing luxury taxis or other public transport services.

Similarly, the K-Bike taxi that has been introduced in Rajarhat and New Town has also become a huge hit as a last-mile connectivity vehicle within a very short time.

BYPOLL: 82% VOTES CAST IN KANTHI DAKSHIN

After bike taxis and rent-a-car services, state govt mulls rent-a-bike scheme

Forecast for rain in specific areas; heat, humidity to continue

All streetlights in New Town to be controlled by on-off timers

KOLKATA: The Vice-Chan-cellor of the Presidency Uni-versity, Anuradha Lohia, has regretted the premier institu-tion’s inability to find a place among top 100 colleges, and blamed it on Union HRD min-istry’s National Institutional Ranking Framework.

Lohia said that the univer-sity had nothing to do with it since every formality had been completed correctly and the NIRF itself had acknowledged it. “They should have given us a score as every communication was made correctly and the completed form had been sub-mitted and returned by them saying it was in order.

From our side there was no failure. So it is a failure of the NIRF,” Lohia said in an inter-view on Saturday. “Perhaps they did not even consider giv-ing us a score because they did not have anyone to compare with,” she quipped. While Pres-idency is not among the top 100 institutions in the country in this year’s NIRF ranking, it had scored 63.56 out of 100 in last year’s NIRF assessment and had been ranked 41st among universities. AGENCIES

DEBAMOY GHOSH

KOLKATA: In a unique move, New Town Kolkata Develop-ment Authority (NKDA) recently took a resolution at a board meeting that all street-lights in New Town will be con-trolled by on-off timers so that energy wastage doesn’t take place at daytime.

“We have taken this deci-sion recently. I got a certificate in writing from chief engineer of NKDA and chief engineer of WBHIDCO that all street-lights of New Town have been connected to automatic on- off timers,” said Debashis Sen, WBHIDCO chairman-cum-managing director. NKDA

have also installed some pilot motion-sensor switches in WBHIDCO Bhavan that switches off room lights auto-matically there. This system will work when there would be no human movement detected for as long as 15 minutes at a stretch. “We saw a presenta-tion by a Korean company that showed us plug points with AI (Artificial Intelligence). This system studies patterns of electricity consumption over a period of time and minimises power consumption,” Sen added. “More importantly, we have asked electrical staff not to switch on room AC machines in the morning before the officers enter the room at

WBHIDCO,” he added.“The previous concept was

to switch on the AC machines to cool the room before offi-cers reached their offices. But I observed that some officers were busy in field assignments and other important duties and they did not reach office by 10 am. So switching on the AC machine from 9 am was not right. I have instructed the electrical staff to switch on AC machines after the officers reach,” Sen added.

Lohia regrets Presidency not

getting HRD score by NIRF

Now, poor patients can avail free eye surgeries at several state-run hospitals

There were no reports of any untoward incident from anywhere during the polling in which 2.5 lakh voters exercised their franchise

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: State Transport minister Suvendu Adhikari will flag off a fleet of 10 air-condi-tioned mini buses on Monday.

Five air-conditioned mini-buses will be flagged off at gate number Adhai near Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Inter-national Airport. MP Sougata Roy and the state IT minister Bratya Basu will also be present during the ceremony.

Another five such buses will be flagged off from the bus depot of the West Bengal Transport Corporation at Joka where, besides the Transport minister, state Education min-ister Partha Chattopadhyay, Mayor and Minister of the State Fire and Emergency Services Department Sovan Chatterjee and MP Subrata Bakshi will be present.

Alapan Bandyopad-hyay, Principal Secretary of the Transport Department, will be present in both the programmes.

It may be mentioned that this is the first time ever in the history of the state’s transport sector when such air-condi-tioned mini-buses are getting

introduced. Five of the buses will be plying on Kolkata Air-port to Esplanade route and the other five on Behala Joka to Esplanade route. Such air-conditioned buses are going to be introduced considering the fact that people need to travel in extreme heat for seven to eight months in a year.

Each of the buses with 30 seats is the first-of-its-kind in the state to have panic buttons and different electronic gad-gets fitted in them for security purposes. There will be GPS

system and surveillance cam-eras in the buses. The gadgets have been fitted to improve the security arrangement as by pressing the panic button one can alert the police or con-cerned authorities about any impending danger. The GPS fit-ted buses have ensured that the real-time location of the buses can be tracked and it can also be identified using the newly launched “Pathadisha” app of the state Transport department.

It had been a long-stand-ing demand of Kolkattans to introduce the air-conditioned bus services up to the central business district from Joka and Airport.

With the state Trans-port department’s decision to introduce the buses, hun-dreds heaved respite as they do not have to toil much in sum-mers this year to reach their destinations.

There are many air-condi-tioned buses plying on differ-ent routes in the city. But this is the first time when air-condi-tioned mini buses are going to operate in the city. More such buses could get introduced depending on the success of these buses.

10 air-conditioned mini buses to be flagged off today

Voters queue up since morning at Kanthi Dakshin Assembly seat

According to sources in the state Transport department, within a few days after the bike taxi was introduced, a proposal was received in which a private company wanted to enter into an agreement to initiate ‘rent-a-bike’ service

Boys jump into river Ganga to beat the heat in Kolkata on Sunday PTI

Representative image

mp city4MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Monday, 10 April, 2017

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: It is now being suspected by the police that the same gang that was involved in the two recent incidents of dacoity at two gold loan offices — one at Park Street and the other in Dunlop few months ago — might have carried out the robbery at IIFL Gold Loan office on Khardah Station Road near Arunachal More on Sat-urday. Involvement of dacoits from Bangladesh has also not been ruled out.

According to preliminary investigation, police suspect that the miscreants might have links with some Bangla-deshis as well. Senior police officers of Barrackpore police commissionarate have already spoken to their counterparts in the bordering areas of North 24-Parganas.

Raids are being conducted in the bordering areas to nab the culprits. Police are not rul-

ing out the possibility that the dacoits have already crossed the border and fled to Bangla-desh. The investigating officers are also in talks with senior officials of the Border Security Force.

A woman was shot at by some miscreants who stormed into IIFL Gold Loan office and

looted ornaments at gun point. The injured woman is undergo-ing treatment at a hospital. The incident took place at around 9.10 am on Saturday.

The woman, identified as Sarbari Ghosh, a customer was shot at from close quarter when she refused to hand over the ornaments which she had

brought to deposit at the office. According to investigation, police found that the miscre-ants had looted gold ornaments worth a few lakh rupees.

Police have already col-lected the CCTV footages of the financial institution but they are yet to trace the culprits. The local residents and employ-

ees of the various offices at the building are quite insecured after the incident and are mull-ing to deploy full-time security personnel at the building. They will also soon urge the police for their co-operation.

Cops have also found that the miscreants have carried out the crime in almost in the same manner as in the earlier two incidents at Park Street and Dunlop few months ago. A gang of armed robbers made away with around 30 kg gold worth crores from a gold loan firm in Dunlop area.

The robbers came on bikes and stole around 25-30 kg of gold along with cash from Manappuram Finance Limited branch in Dunlop in December last year.

In another incident, four miscreants stormed into a firm at Park Street offering loans in lieu of gold and looted 10 kg of the yellow metal worth Rs 2.88 crore in January this year.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Vegetables, mainly bitter gourd, produced in Alipurduar in large quan-tity is all set to get exported to Singapore.

Bitter gourd from Alipur-duar is sent to several other parts of the country including Maharastra, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir. This comes when the state government has consider-ably inspired farmers for direct sell instead of taking assis-tance from middlemen, who hoard vegetables for making more profit and on the other hand doesn’t give money that a farmer deserves.

In the past few years, a co-operative of bitter gourd farm-ers has been formed and it is the same one that took the ini-tiative to export the produce. First, a survey was conducted in the area and a data con-taining all details about bitter gourd cultivation was prepared. It took around six months to complete the survey. The data revealed that there were around 2,000 bitter gourd cultivators. Subsequently, the co-operative was formed that started work-ing for the benefit of farmers.

They were also being helped by Jalpaiguri Central Co-oper-ative Bank.

Formation of the co-oper-ative society helped in increas-ing their market where they could sell their produce. The farmers were aggrieved that they had to incur losses almost in every session as there were no proper markets to sell their produce. Now, the farmers can sell their produce at the right price and make profit as well. It may be mentioned that since the change of guard in the state, priority has been given to ben-efits of farmers and measures have been taken to ensure that not a single cultivator suffers any losses.

It may be mentioned that

the farmers had repeatedly approached the erstwhile Left Front government with requests to take steps to ensure a more profit for farmers and to help increase their market. The co-operative society is now, trying all out to export the same in many other coun-tries as well.

It may be mentioned that a few months ago some Farm-ers’ Producers Organisations (FPOs) from Bankura had ini-tiated the export of organic vegetables including green chillies, collacassia, papayas, onion flowers and pumpkins to countries in the Middle East. It was also exported in South East Asian countries, UK and the US.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: A city doctor has written to the President of India Pranab Mukherjee seek-ing his intervention to stop the implementation of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) 2017, the national level undergraduate medical entrance examination con-ducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE).

In his letter to the Pres-ident, Dr AK Maity, a city based doctor has argued that the CBSE has no right to con-duct the nationwide medical entrance examination. He said that the Centre formulated a law to conduct the NEET in 2016 and asked the Medical Council of India (MCI) to take the decision on how the exam-ination would be conducted and who would conduct the examination.

The highest regulating body will also decide what would be

the pass marks to qualify the entrance examination. The MCI was also asked to publish a gazette notification, thereby attributing the power of con-ducting the examination on a particular agency. But the MCI has never given power to the CBSE to carry out the examina-tion by publishing any gazette notification since the enact-ment of law to conduct the NEET –UG 2017. The MCI was also asked to formulate a policy in this regard.

Dr Maity said that the MCI did not assign the CBSE to conduct the examination after the promulgation of the law in 2016. MCI is saying that they have given the CBSE the power to conduct the entrance exami-nation but it has not published any notification assigning the job to the CBSE since the law was formulated by the Centre in 2016.

Therefore, the CBSE has no right to conduct the exam-

ination. The MCI, however, says that they have assigned the CBSE to carry out the job around 5 years ago.

It is not possible as MCI was asked by the Centre to formu-late policy on the examination after a Bill was passed in the Parliament in 2016, Dr Maity maintained.

The letter says: “The CBSE has no power to hold NEET (UG) - 2017 examination. The minimum qualifying marks 50 percentile for unreserved (UR) category and 40 percen-tile for SC/ST/OBC categories in NEET (UG) - 2017 are not legal.”

The NEET 2017 examina-tion is scheduled to take place on May 7 throughout the coun-try in which around 11.5 lakh medical aspirants will take part. In West Bengal, there are around 75,000 candidates who will appear in the national level medical entrance examination this year.

‘Same gang involved that robbed Dunlop, Park St gold loan offices’

Bisorjon shows that love does not follow religion, says Kaushik

Now, Bengal’s bitter gourd is Singapore-bound

Doctor writes to prez urging intervention to stop NEET implementation

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: A scuffle broke out between two factions of BJP in front of the Central minis-ter Vijay Sampla at Bolpur on Sunday.

The two groups got engaged in a heated altercation over gaining entry to a hotel to meet the Central minister. Subsequently, it led to a scuf-fle between the two factions of Dilip Ghosh, the party’s vice president of Birbhum dis-trict, and another leader Ujjal Majumdar. There was gather-ing outside the hotel and many tried to enter the hotel along with the Central minister. One group tried to enter the hotel first but they were restricted by others which led to the alter-cation. They jostled among themselves and finally started pushing each other in front of the minister. The glass panel of a door in the hotel was dam-aged during the scuffle. The situation came under control

when other leaders from the area intervened. Police were pressed to ensure that the situ-ation did not go out of control.

The party leaders, however, have brushed out the allega-tion of factional feud that led to the incident. It took place when Central ministers are visiting the state with a tar-get of strengthening the par-ty’s organisation. According to political analysts, such inci-dence at the very beginning of the programme of the Central ministers would affect the par-ty’s attempt of strengthening their organisation in Bengal.

It may be recalled that on April 4 last year, a clash broke out between the two groups in the party at North Howrah over filing Roopa Ganguly as can-didate for the Assembly Elec-tions from there. It led to the embarrassment of the party as it took place when senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj was in the state to attend an election rally in Durgapur.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: In another inci-dent of gross medical negli-gence, a pathological laboratory at Chakdah allegedly adminis-tered anti-rabies injection on a patient who came there for ECG test.

The family members of the victim lodged a complaint against the private lab at the local police station on the basis of which police have started an investigation. The victim, Bidyut Sarakar, a resident of Sahishpur village under Chak-dah police station went to the lab to undergo an ECG test as he was advised by a local doctor to do so after suffer-ing from heart ailments. The victim has alleged that after he stepped into the lab, some of its staff members administered an injection on him. Follow-ing the incident, Sarkar fell ill. He later came to know that he

was administered anti-rabies vaccine. The incident that had taken place on Saturday night triggered tension in the area.

The victim alleged that the confusion was created among the staff members as there were two patients of the same name. As a result, the staff members mistook him as the other per-son who came there to take anti-rabies vaccination. The lab authorities have, however, admitted their mistake. They also said that the injection would have no side effects on the victim.

In another incident, a nurs-ing staff member of Raigung District Hospital has been accused of denying to put an oxygen mask on a patient suf-fering from tuberculosis as he was kept inside a stinking room. The family members of the elderly victim alleged that the patient died as he was denied the oxygen mask.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: A BJP leader from Siliguri allegedly shot a mid-dle-aged man from the same area to death following a dis-pute over land-related issues.

The incident triggered ten-sion at Darjeeling more are of Siliguri. Local people said that a quarrel broke out between the accused Harindar Yadav and the deceased Satyender Prasad over promoting a piece of land. It has been alleged that the accused was giving pres-sure on the victim to sell a 6 cottah land. Prasad was not ready to sell the land to the accused. This had caused trou-ble between the two.

Prasad was returning from his parental house at Gopalganj in Bihar. When he was crossing the Kharibari area in Siliguri, the accused called him into a dhaba where the latter was waiting for him. When the vic-tim stepped into the Dhaba, the

accused asked him to sell the land to him. As he denied to do so, a quarrel broke out between the two. The staff members of the Dhaba tried to calm the accused down but nothing hap-pened. The accused suddenly took out a gun and shot him from a point blank range. The victim received two bullet inju-ries on his chest and abdomen. The local people and Dhaba employees informed the mat-ter to the police, who rushed to the spot and took Prasad to a private nursing home in Sili-guri. The doctors of the nurs-ing home pronounced him brought dead.

According to the doctors the victim died due to excessive bleeding. The family members of the victim lodged complaint with the police. The accused has, however, fled his house since the incident took place. Police are conducting raids at different places to nab the culprit.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: In a major break-through, the Criminal Inves-tigation (CID) arrested the kingpin of the racket that had duped different co-operative banks of around Rs 100 crore late night on Saturday.

A senior CID officer said the accused Debanjan Roy, a resident of Dum Dum, was remanded in police custody when produced before the Bankura District Court.

The CID had initiated a probe into the allegation of Bankura District Central Cooperative Bank that the accused had duped the bank of Rs 15.2 crore which he had taken to buy bonds of different nationalised banks.

Debanjan being a “sharp and well educated person” did not have much difficulty in convincing the officials of the cooperative banks to rely on him and had managed to make them believe that he could buy bonds of nationalised banks by his tall talks.

He had chalked out the plan and created fake documents posing as the owner of a firm and told the bank officials that he would buy bonds of nation-alised banks for the coopera-tive banks.

Initially, officials of the bank didn’t understand that they were getting duped. Bankura District Central Cooperative bank officials were the first to understand that the per-son was cheating them when he had failed to provide some documents asked by the bank authorities.

The cooperative bank authorities did not allow him to leave their bank until the man had managed to give them those relevant documents. He somehow managed to come

out of the bank after assuring the officials that he would give them all documents within a day. But he did not return. The bank authorities lodged a complaint with the local police station.

After understanding that the accused had duped Bankura District Central Cooperative Bank, officials of the other banks including Sheorafuli-Baidyabati Cooper-ative Bank and East Midnapore Bolageria Cooperative Bank lodged similar complaints with the police.

The case was later taken up by the CID when it was found that he had duped many other cooperative banks.

The investigating officers are trying to find others who were involved with Debanjan in the crime.

KOLKATA: Director Kaushik Ganguly, whose Partition-themed movie Bisorjon got the National Award for best Ben-gali film, says the project gives a message that humanity and love remain over and above all religions.

“Bisorjon talks about the love between a Muslim man and a Hindu woman living in India and Bangladesh respec-tively. It says humanity is over and above all religion. It says love doesn’t follow religion,” Kaushik said here.

Asked about the signifi-cance behind the name of Bisorjon, the director says, “It

is about the Bisorjon (immer-sion) of love. And we have shot the sequences of real life immersion of Durga idols on Vijaya Dashami day on river Ichhamati in Taki, where the river flows along the boundary

of the two countries.“On Vijaya Dashami the

border ceases to exist during immersion time and idols from both India and Bangladesh are taken out in boats on Ichha-mati for immersion. This is a

unique spectacle and we have sought to capture the moment in the film,” Kaushik says. Talk-ing about the film’s relevance in the present situation in the country, Kaushik says, “I don’t understand politics. I believe in airing my views through art.

“I wish the film is viewed in both countries, as we are con-nected by a common language, Bengali. There are many peo-ple in Kolkata who have their ancestral homes in then Purbo-bango (East Bengal). They still converse in the dialect of that place. Same is true for people living on the other side of the border. I wish the film is seen

by everyone,” he says.Happy that Bisorjon will

be released on Bengali New Year in India, Kaushik says, “I am keen it is commercially screened in Bangladesh very soon.” Bangladeshi actress Joya Ahsan, who had been cast in Srijit Mukherjee’s Rajkahini, plays the Hindu woman in the film, while Bengali actor and Kaushik’s Bastushaap protag-onist Abir Chatterjee essays the male lead. “Abir has por-trayed the character of a rural folk and his diction, body lan-guage were unbelievable. You will also see a different Joya Ahsan,” Kaushik says. AGENCIES

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Train services were disrupted after a goods train derailed near Kharagpur railway station late on Saturday night. No casualties or injuries were reported.

Around five coaches of a goods train derailed between Madpur and Jakpur in How-rah-Kharagpur section of South Eastern Railway at around 11 pm on Satur-day leading to disruption for around 10 hours along with cancellation of various trains, a railway official said. Train services both in Up and Down lines were badly affected. Ser-vices in the Howrah-Kharag-pur and Tatanagar-Kharagpur were the worst affected. Several local trains and a few long dis-tance trains were also cancelled due to the accident. How-rah-bound Purulia and Adra

Express trains were stranded till late night. Many other trains were also stranded at differ-ent stations. Railway engineers

and senior officials were rushed to the spot and rescue opera-tions and repair works were carried out on a war-footing.

It was completed overnight and train services resumed in the Up line from Sunday morning. However, in the Down line, ser-vices were affected till Sunday afternoon.

Many trains in Howrah-Midnapore and Howrah-Kharagpur sections were also cancelled. Many long dis-tance trains including How-rah-Mumbai Gitanjali Express, Coromondel Express, Howrah-Tirupati Express were resched-uled. Scores of passengers were stranded at Howrah station due to the accident.

According to a senior rail-way official, the movement of 11 pairs of local trains was also affected. Railway officials were trying to run at least eight pairs of local trains. Movements of South India and Odisha-bound long distance trains were delayed due to the derailment, a railway official added.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: A youth was beaten up by miscreants for protesting against their repeated threats to the family members of a 14-year-old girl to withdraw complaint of gang-rape. The incident took place at Chanchal in Malda late night on Saturday.

Police said that the 14-year-old girl was allegedly gang-raped on February 28. The complaint was lodged against three local youth– Shahjahan Ali, Rabiul Haque and Najimul Haque. But the police are yet to arrest them.

The family members alleged that they had been receiv-ing repeated threats from the accused who are forcing them to withdraw the complaint. But the victim’s family members are not ready to withdraw their complaint.

On Saturday night, the vic-tim’s house was allegedly raided by the accused who threatened the victim’s parents to with-draw the complaint.

Misbaul Islam, the vic-tim’s neighbour, ran to the spot when he found that the accused were threatening the girl’s family members. The accused started beating up Misbaul for intervening. They continued the beat-down till he fell on the ground. He was thrashed with wooden logs and bamboo sticks.

Local people alleged that they would have killed Misbaul if the locals had not reached there on time. Finding some local people coming out of their houses and approaching the spot, the accused fled the spot. The youth was taken to a sub-divisional hospital from where he was shifted to Malda Medical College and Hospital as his condition deteriorated.

Scuffle breaks out between 2 BJP factions in front of Central minister

3 more cases of medical negligence

BJP leader shoots man dead

CID arrests man for duping

cooperative banks

Goods train derails, rail traffic hit for almost 10 hours

Youth thrashed by miscreants for protesting against threats

Senior police officers of Barrackpore police commissionarate have already spoken to their counterparts in the bordering areas of North 24-Parganas

The CID had initiated a probe into the allegation of Bankura District Central Cooperative Bank that the accused had duped the bank of Rs 15.2 crore which he had taken to buy bonds of different nationalised banks

REPRESENTATIVE IMAGE

KHARDAH ROBBERY

5MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Monday, 10 April, 2017

mp nation

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: A whopping Rs 5,400 crore worth of “undis-closed income” has been detected by law-enforcing agencies till January 10 since demonetisation came into force last November, the government has told the Supreme Court.

It also made references to “various malpractices” which came to fore post demonetisa-tion, including the use of old currency notes for buying gold.

Giving details about the raids and recoveries by the law -enforcing agencies, it said that after the demonetisation period of November 9 to December 30, 2016, the Income Tax depart-ment had initiated “Operation Clean Money” on January 31 to leverage technology and data analysis for e-verification of the cash deposits made during that period.

The Ministry of Finance in an affidavit said that between November 9, 2016 and January 10, 2017 alone, there were more than 1,100 raids/surveys con-ducted by Income Tax Depart-ment on various persons.

During this period, over 5,100 notices were issued for verification of “high value sus-picious cash deposits made in

bank accounts”, it said.“As a result of the raids and

other strict measures enforced, more than Rs 610 crore in cash (including cash of Rs 513 crore out of which Rs 110 crore was in new currency) and valuables were seized by the IT Depart-ment and other government agencies.

“The undisclosed income detected in the above actions was more than Rs 5,400 crore,” the affidavit said.

It said that out of 1,100 raids and surveys, more than 400 cases were referred to the Enforcement Directorate and the CBI for further action in accordance with law.

“The exercises have resulted in the identification of approx-imately 18 lakh persons for

such online verification, who appeared to be not in line with tax-payers’ profile. At pres-ent, more than 12 lakh online responses from 8.38 lakh dis-tinct PANs/persons have already been received.

“It is submitted that in case there has been due explana-tion, the verifications are being closed after proper analysis and examination. Similarly, where there have been depos-its made in Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojna (PMGKY), then also the verifications are being closed.

“It is further submitted more than 3.78 lakh out of the approximately 18 lakh high-risk cases have been detected and taken up for assessment and investigation,” it said.

For railways, Santa Claus never came all this while: Prabhu

IT dept issues summons to TN minister, actor, educationist

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The EVMs are robust and tamper- proof and even the manufacturers cannot manipulate them at the time of production, the Election Commission said on Sunday, countering allegations that the machines are unreliable.

With the Opposition’s ques-tions on the reliability of the electronic voting machines getting louder, the Commis-sion has come out with a list of ‘frequently asked questions’ to put across its views in public domain. Recently, the Com-mission had issued two state-ments defending the machines. The FAQs are the third attempt by the poll watchdog to coun-ter the doubts on the machines’ reliability.

One of the first questions

the FAQ addresses is whether the machine can be hacked?

No, asserts the Commission.The M1 (model one) of EVM

was manufactured till 2006 and had all necessary technical fea-tures it “non-hackable contrary to claims made by some activ-ists”, it said.

The M2 model of EVMs pro-duced after 2006 and up to 2012 incorporated additional safety

features. It can detect “malicious sequenced key presses”.

“Further, the ECI-EVMs are not computer controlled, are stand alone machines and not connected to the Internet or any other network. Hence, there is no chance of hacking by remote devices... also do not have any frequency receiver or decoder for data for wireless or any exter-nal hardware port for connec-

tion to any other non-EVM accessory or device. Hence no tampering is possible,” the poll panel said.

The Commission also rejected suggestions that the machines can be manipulated by the manufacturer itself.

“Not possible,” it said. The EVMs have been manufactured in different years since 2006 and sent to different states.

The manufacturers -- ECIL and BEL -- would not know several years ahead which can-didate will contest from a partic-ular constituency and what will be the sequence of the candi-dates on the ballot unit,” it said.

It also asserted that no ‘tro-jan horse’ can be injected into the EVM in the field. In fact, the new M3 EVIN produced after 2013 have additional features like tamper detection and self

diagnostics.The tamper detection feature

makes an EVM inoperative the moment anyone tries to open the machine. The self diagnos-tic feature checks the EVM fully every time it is switched on. Any change in its hardware or soft-ware will be detected.

It said contrary to “misinfor-mation and as alleged by some”, India does not use any EVMs produced abroad.

The EVMs are produced indigenously and the software programme code is written in-house and not outsourced.

“The programme is con-verted into machine code and only then given to the chip man-ufacturer abroad because we don’t have the capability of pro-ducing semi-conductor micro-chips within the country.

SBI branch opened 2,000 accounts to

channelise black money

UIDAI cracks down on 1000 operators in 3 mths

for malpractices

Air India pilot turns up drunk for flight, grounded for three months

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: An Air India pilot has been grounded for three months after he tested positive in the mandatory pre-flight alcohol test, minutes before operating a flight to Abu Dhabi from here.

The pilot was rostered to fly the Air India Express IX 115 Delhi to Abu Dhabi flight, which was scheduled for depar-ture from Indira Gandhi Inter-national Airport at 8:50pm on Saturday.

“The pilot who was on dep-utation with AI Express tested positive in the pre-flight breath analyser (BA) test. Since this was the first time he has failed his test he has been grounded for three months,” an Air India source said.

Rule 24 of the Aircraft Rules prohibits crew members from partaking any alcoholic drink, 12 hours prior to the com-mencement of a flight, and it is mandatory for him or her to undergo an alcohol test both before and after operating a flight. Any crew member who tests positive in the pre-flight medical check or refuses to take a breathlyser test is required to be taken off flying duty and his or her licence is suspended for three months.

In case of a repeat offence, the licence of the crew member is suspended for 3 years.

However, despite strict provisions, DGCA sources say pilots failing the breathlyser test is a common occurrence.

“We suspend anywhere between 1-4 pilots every month for this offence,” a DGCA offi-cial said.

Rs 5,400 crore worth of undisclosed income detected: Govt to apex court

OUR CORRESPONDENT

CHENNAI: The Income Tax department has summoned Tamil Nadu Health Minister C Vijayabhaskar, actor- poli-tician R Sarath Kumar and a noted educationist to appear before it here on Monday in connection with a tax evasion probe.

“Yes. It is a normal pro-cedure,” IT sources told a news agency when asked whether the department has issued summons to the three persons including the Vice-Chancellor of Tamil Nadu Dr M G R Medical University, Geethalakshmi.

The health minister, mean-while, said he would appear before the department on Monday and extend his full cooperation to the probe.

“I have received the sum-mons. I am a law-abiding citizen.

So, on Monday morning I will definitely be in the IT office and give my full coop-eration,” he said.

On Saturday, Vijayabhas-kar’s father Chinnathambi, and a relative had appeared before the department in Tiruchirapalli in connection with the April 7 searches.

Nearly 100 sleuths of the IT department along with secu-rity personnel had conducted searches at over 30 locations across the state belonging to the official residence and properties owned by Vijayab-haskar and also at the home of Sarath Kumar in Chennai.

The searches on the prem-

ises of an associate of the min-ister allegedly revealed routing of Rs 89 crore for “distribu-tion to voters” in R K Nagar Assembly constituency which goes to the poll on April 12.

Vijayabaskar is a promi-nent loyalist of AIADMK (Amma) faction’s candidate T T V Dinakaran for the R K Nagar bypoll and the first state minister to come under the lens of tax men. He is among the key campaigners in the bypoll.

Vijayabaskar had slammed the raids by the I-T depart-ment saying, “their intentions were not fulfilled.”

“They have not seized any unaccounted money or documents.

Their intentions are not fulfilled by the raids,” he had said.

The bypoll to the R K Nagar Constituency has been necessitated due to the death of former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha in December 2016.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Over 2,000 fresh accounts were opened in a Bareilly branch of State Bank of India post- demonetisation till December 31 to allegedly channelise black money in which at least Rs 8 crore were deposited in old notes, a CBI probe has found.

The CBI has now registered an FIR against unknown bank officials and unknown persons for criminal conspiracy, cheat-ing and corruption.

Based on source informa-tion, the CBI had carried out a surprise check in the Civil Lines branch of State Bank of India in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly on January 2.

During the operation, the CBI detected that a huge amount of cash was depos-ited in the bank after Novem-ber 8 last year, when the notes ban was announced, in newly-opened accounts and the dor-mant accounts which had been activated. The CBI had found that 2,441 new accounts were opened by bank officials between November 8 and December 31.

Out of these accounts, 667 were savings accounts, 53 were current, 94 were Jan Dhan accounts, 50 PPF, 1,518 FD, 13 festival accounts, two senior

citizen accounts and one gov-ernment account.

The probe found that there were 794 instances at the bank when cash of over Rs 1 lakh and more was deposited. In cer-tain cases huge cash deposits were also made but the sources refused to disclose the amount.

These accounts were opened by bank officials alleg-edly in connivance with private persons which enabled depos-its of huge cash and currency conversion without keeping proper records.

“It is observed that 267 dormant accounts have been activated after declaration of demonetisation by the bank officials in connivance with pri-vate persons in order to facili-tate the deposit of old currency notes,” the FIR said.

Even manufacturers can’t manipulate EVMs: EC

AIR INDIA MULLING SETTING UP AVIATION VARSITYNEW DELHI: Air India is mulling establishing an avia-tion university for providing various programmes that can also be an additional revenue stream for it in the long term. The national carrier, which is work-ing on ways to improve its financial position, has already started exploring various options for having a university, airline officials said. The idea is to have an institution that offers a range of aviation training programmes for pilots, cabin crew, operations and engineering staff, among others, they said.“We want to create a world class university and make it heav-ily commercial,” Air India CMD Ashwani Lohani told media. The national carrier has also approached Edu-cational Consultants India Limited (EdCIL) to look at the possibility to convert its Central Training Establishment (CTE) in Hyderabad into a deemed-to-be-university.

POLICE SEIZE 1.750 KG OF GOLD WORTH RS 50 LAKH FROM VAISHALIHAJIPUR(BIHAR): Police on Sunday arrested two smugglers and seized 1.750 kg of gold worth Rs 50 lakh from them in Vaishali district. Superintendent of Police, Rakesh Kumar said acting on a tip off, police raided Ganga Bridge Colony under Industrial police station area in Vaishali district and seized 1.750 kg of gold from the two smugglers who had hid the gold biscuits in their thighs. The arrested smugglers have been identified as Mohammad Fakhruddin, a resident of East Midnapur and Najjo Shah, a resident of West Midnapur district of West Bengal, the SP said adding that both the smugglers had coloured the gold biscuit with ink in order to hide it. The smugglers were ar-rested by the police while they were carrying out deal to sell the gold, he said adding that seized gold biscuit bore the mark of Thailand and Myanmar.

40% SHORTAGE OF FACULTY AT IITS, CENTRAL VARSITIES: JAVADEKARPUNE: Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar on Sun-day said there are 40 per cent vacancies of faculty members in central universities and IITs. He observed that the process of recruitment needs to be streamlined in order to bring in good faculty members. “We too can offer world class facilities and infrastructure to the students here, but there are constraints. We do not have faculties. There are 40 per cent vacancies in Cen-tral Universities and IITs,” the minister said. He was ad-dressing an International conference on ‘The Changing Landscape of Internationalisation of Higher Education’, organised by the Symboisis International University in collaboration with the Association of Indian Universities.

BRIEFSNATION

CBI registers cheating case against 2 firms in Chandigarh

PANAJI: Railway Minis-ter Suresh Prabhu on Sun-day said electrification of rail lines will be fast-tracked and doubled in the next five years.

He said the railways reached a new record this year in terms of “electrifi-cation, laying of new lines, track-doubling work and fit-ting of bio toilets”. “The num-ber of bio toilets installed in trains in the last one year matches the figure of the past six years,” he told a gather-ing after launching various infrastructure-related initia-tives of Konkan Railway in Maharashtra and Karnataka.

“The Railways has elec-trified 48 per cent of the country’s tracks and aims to double the same in the next five years. Only broad-gauge

lines will be covered under conversion drive. When Rail-ways converts narrow and metre-gauge track into broad gauge ones, they will be elec-trified too.

“The drive will reduce the use of diesel, cut down cost, protect environment and help in smooth movement of rail traffic,” the Minister said.

Prabhu said the govern-ment is also focusing on track- doubling work. “In the last two-and-a-half years, we have sanctioned 12,500 km of track-doubling work. In the last 75 years, we covered only 15,000 km.”

The project will reduce congestion, end train delays, improve safety and ensure fast move of passengers and freight,” he said.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

PANAJI: Railway Minis-ter Suresh Prabhu on Sunday drew a parallel between the Centre’s decision to get railway infrastructure financed from resources outside the Budget to that of Santa Claus coming on Christmas eve.

“Santa Claus comes only when he wishes to. He will not come when you want him to come. The railways has been waiting for Santa Claus for too long,” he said addressing a gathering after launching vari-ous infrastructure projects of the Konkan Railway simulta-neously in Maharashtra and Karnataka.

“Unfortunately, the Santa Claus had many-many other children to take care of, so he did not find railway as a very attractive destination,” he said.

The minister was referring to the union government’s ini-tiative to have railway infra-

structure financed by raising resources outside the Budget.

“We have started financ-ing railway infrastructure by raising resources outside the Budget. I prepared a (infra-structure upgradation) plan of Rs 8,66,000 crore which I pre-sented to the Parliament more than two years ago.

“I am happy to say that dur-ing the last two and a half years,

the amount of capital expendi-ture we have created is about Rs 3,50,000 crore,” he said.

“This year the capital expenditure, the plan outlay is Rs 1,31,000 crore. The finance minister has provided the sup-port of Rs 65,000 crore, so the balance of Rs 66,000 crore is coming from outside the Budget.

“So if we don’t create infra-

structure at the right time and if we still wait for the Santa Claus to come, it will not hap-pen,” the minister said.

Prabhu said all these years the lack of funding for railways resulted in several negatives.

“Railways did not get money and it suffered. The suffering of the railways was reflected in the fact that our capacity to add freight was going down, efficiency had gone down, we were not able to upgrade infrastructure... elec-trification and all of this had taken a big hit,” he said.

Hailing the achievements for last couple of years, Prabhu said “at first we (government) decided to raise the resources.”

“The World Bank is keen to finance the railways and the Asian Development Bank has also come up with the proposal to finance the railways as they claim that they have seen so much action in this depart-ment,” he said.

‘Electrification of rail lines to be fast-tracked’

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The UIDAI has blacklisted or suspended around 1,000 operators while FIRs have been filed against 20 individuals in the last three months for malpractices such as charging for Aadhaar enrolment.

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has also slapped a penalty of Rs 10,000 each on these err-ing operators besides removing them from its system.

“We have received certain complaints...we have a zero tol-erance policy on overcharg-ing. We have identified about 1,000 such operators since December 2016...in the last three months, these operators

have been removed from our system and we are also impos-ing a penalty of Rs 10,000 each on them,” UIDAI CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey told a news agency.

Removal of these operators from the system implies they would not be able to conduct enrolment for Aadhaar from anywhere in the country.

UIDAI is the nodal body responsible for rolling out Aadhaar, the 12-digit unique identification number that identifies residents based on biometrics.

The authority swung into action after it received certain complaints about some of these operators charging money for enrolments -- a service that is free of charge.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The CBI on Sun-day carried out searches at three locations in Chandigarh and Mohali after registering a case against a company for allegedly cheating Punjab National Bank to the tune of Rs 1,301 crore.

The agency has charged Chandigarh-based Kudos Che-mie Limited and its directors -- Kabir Sodhi, Jitendra Singh and Gurmeet Sodhi -- with crimi-nal conspiracy and cheating based on a complaint filed by the bank.

The complaint stated that the accused produced fake and fabricated documents to avail credit facilities.

The directors cheated the bank to the tune of Rs 1,301

crore by siphoning off funds, the bank alleged.

In a separate case, the agency is also carrying out searches at three more loca-tions in Jabalpur and Reva in Madhya Pradesh after booking a company for allegedly duping Canara Bank of Rs 43 crore.

The case has been regis-tered against Jagdamba AMW Automotive Limited and its four directors – Pushpendra Singh, Yogendra Singh, Shailendra Singh and Pratima Singh -- for allegedly submitting fake and fabricated documents to avail credit facilities.

The bank alleged that the company did not repay funds availed through credit facili-ties, causing a loss of Rs 43.77 crore to it.

Based on source information, the CBI had carried out a surprise check in the Civil Lines branch of State Bank of India in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly on January 2

Those with more than 2 kids may be denied govt jobs in AssamMPOST BUREAU

GUWAHATI: The Assam gov-ernment on Sunday announced a draft population policy which suggested denial of govern-ment jobs to people with more than two children and making education up to university level free for all girls in the state.

“This is a draft population policy. We have suggested that people having more than two children will not be eligible for any government jobs,” Assam Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said at a press conference here.

Any person getting a job after meeting this condition will have to maintain it till end of his service, he added.

“For employment genera-

tion schemes like giving trac-tors, offering homes and others government benefits, this two-children norm will be applica-ble. Besides, all elections such as panchayats, municipal bod-ies and autonomous councils held under the state election commission will also have this norm for candidates,” Sarma said.

Sarma, who is also the Edu-cation minister, said the policy also aims to give free education to all girls up to university level. “We want to make all facilities free, including fees, transpor-tation, books and mess dues in hostels. This step is also likely to arrest the school dropout rate,” he added.

Sarma further said the pro-posed population policy will

seek to debate on increasing the legal age of marriage from 18 years for girls and 21 years for boys.

If anybody has child mar-riage then he will be ineligible for government job, the min-ister said.

The policy will also seek stringent laws to prevent vio-lence and sexual abuse of women, he added.

“Besides, a proposal for providing incentives is also included for poor persons, who take care of their elderly parents. The policy will also care for the adolescents. We will work for public awareness and reach out through religious leaders, NGOs, parliamentar-ians and media in this regard,” Sarma said.

ASSAM GOVT ANNOUNCES DRAFT POPULATION POLICY

TN Health Minister C Vijayabhaskar

Union Rail Minister Suresh Prabhu

mp nation6MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Monday, 10 April, 2017

MAHA GUV FOR OBSERVING MAHAVIR JAYANTI AS 'AHIMSA DIWAS' MUMBAI: Maharashtra Governor C Vidyasagar Rao on Sunday said teachings of Bhagwan Mahavir can save the world from devastation and suggested his birth anniversary be observed as 'Ahimsa Diwas' at the global level. The Governor was speaking at a programme to mark the 2616th 'Janm Kalyanak' of Bhagwan Mahavir (Mahavir Jayanti) here. "The concept of 'Ahimsa' (non-violence) as propounded by Lord Mahavir had wider connotations," Rao said. He asserted that 'Ahimsa' does not mean refraining from killing of any living being alone.

RS 3 LAKH MORE FOR AVALANCHE VICTIM SOLDIERS' KIN RANCHI: Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das on Sunday announced Rs three lakh more to each of the families of three soldiers who died in avalanche strike in Jammu and Kashmir on April 6. This amount would be given to the next of kin of the deceased soldiers, who were from Jharkhand, in addition to the Rs 2 lakh compensation Das had announced earlier, an official release said here. The Rs three lakh would be given to them from the "Mukhya Mantri Vivek Anudan" (Chief Minister's Discretion Grant).

871 KM OF THE BRAHMAPUTRA IN ASSAM WILL BE DREDGED GUWAHATI: A total of 871 km of the mighty Brah-maputra in Assam will be dredged with the Centre bearing its expenditure, said a senior official of the Inland Water Transport department. Survey of 300 km of the Brahmaputra has been completed so far by the state PWD department for dredging of the river, said Inland Water Transport director, B B Dev Choudhury while participating in an All India Radio News talk show last night. Choudhury said help of experts will be taken for the dredging.

SUDARSAN PATTNAIK SELECTED FOR MOSCOW CHAMPIONSHIP BHUBANESWAR: Noted sand artist from Odisha Su-darsan Pattnaik has been selected to represent India in 10th Moscow Sand Art Championship 2017. With a theme "The World Around us", the championship is scheduled to be held from April 22 to 28 at Kolomen-skoye, Moscow, Pattnaik said. Top sand sculptors from different parts of the world are slated to take part in this championship, he said. In the 9th edition of the championship last year, Pattnaik had won gold medal for his sculpture of Mahatma Gandhi on World peace.

BRIEFSNATION

RAIPUR: Over 200 two-wheelers were on Sunday gut-ted after a fire broke out at an authorised parking area of Rai-pur Railway Station in Chhat-tisgarh's capital here, police said. No one was injured in the incident, police said.

The fire was noticed in the vehicles stationed in a cor-ner of the parking lot in the railway station premises at around 12 noon, SHO Gov-ernment Railway Police (GRP) Raipur Rajkumar Borjha said.

Fire and emergency ser-vices were immediately informed and GRP and RPF (Railway Protection Force) personnel were pressed into service to evacuate parked two-wheelers, including motorcycles and mopeds, to safe places, he added.

It took about two hours to completely douse the flames and bring the situation under control, he added. By the time fire was put under control,

over 200 vehicles, some bicy-cles were gutted in the blaze.

The summer heat coupled with winds and fuel spill aided spread of the fire, said police.

"We are still assessing the exact number of vehicles burnt in the incident but prima facie it appears, it would be more than 200," the SHO said.

Around 1,000 two-wheel-ers and bicycles were parked in the parking area during the time of the incident.

Police personnel and res-cuers evacuated more than half of the vehicles to prevent it from catching fire, he said.

"No person was injured in the incident," the SHO added.

The exact reason behind the fire was yet to be ascer-tained, the SHO said, adding, investigation was on keeping in view whether there was any mischief behind it. A case has been registered in this con-nection and further probe is underway, he added. AGENCIES

PANAJI: The Goa government has decided to adopt a carrot-and-stick approach to curb ille-gal extraction of mines.

The Goa Mines and Geol-ogy department announced that those informing about ille-galities in extraction of mines would be rewarded while those indulging in unfair and acci-dent prone transportation of ore would be punished.

Goa had witnessed a total ban on iron ore extraction after union government constituted M B Shah Commission pointed out at largescale illegalities in this trade. The department, which is busy reviving the iron ore exports after two-and-half year long ban which was lifted in 2014, has now said that they will reward any mining firm who will point out the illegali-ties committed by fellow lease holder.

"If the lease holder reports the illegalities of another les-see, the person or the firm will be rewarded. And the one who is indulging in illegalities will be punished by reducing the iron ore extraction limit allot-ted to him," Director of Mines and Geology Prasanna Acha-rya said.

In a step to control acci-dental deaths caused by trucks which transport the ore, the department said "in case of accidental death involving the truck carrying ore, the produc-tion quota of the firm whose commodity (ore) it is carrying would be reduced up to one lakh ton per year." AGENCIES

7 killed as SUV and bus collide Azamgarh (UP): Seven persons were on Sunday killed and four others seri-ously injured when a SUV collided with a roadways bus near Bheera Rajadepur village in Bardah area, police said. The incident occurred around 5.40 am when a SUV carry-ing passengers from Ballia to Vidhyachal Dham in Mirzapur collided with the bus, they said. Those killed were identified as Seema Yadav (40), Happy (1), Chhoti Yadav (4), Asha Rani (42), Yusuf (29), Anita (18) and Shivdulari.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

LUCKNOW: The clearance for construction of a house in Uttar Pradesh will be given only if there is a provision of rainwater harvesting facility in the map.

UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, while going through the presentations of the Urban Development Department which went on till late last night, directed officials that provisions should be made that a map of a house is passed only if it has the rainwater har-vesting facility mentioned.

Expressing concerns over the depleting groundwater level, he suggested rainwa-ter harvesting as a remedial measure.

The Chief Minister said that

the intention of his government is to ensure that people of the state do not face shortage of drinking water.

He directed the UP Jal Nigam officials to ensure that the benefits of various gov-ernment schemes reach to the doorsteps of the needy.

Adityanath, during the meeting, instructed the officials to ensure that drinking water is available at all places, and if

needed, then the handpumps may be bored again.

He also directed the offi-cials to link Mathura and Vrindawan under the Agra Water Supply Scheme (Agra Jal Sampurti Yojana), and said that the scheme must be com-pleted by March 2018.

The Chief Minister also emphasised on e-tendering, and said that in the next 100 days, the cities must be made clean and roads there be made pot-hole free.

Adityanath, while explor-ing the option of transform-ing Ayodhya-Faizabad and Mathura-Vrindawan into municipal corporations, directed the 14 municipal cor-porations of the state to dis-charge their responsibilities diligently.

Pass house map if it has rainwater harvesting facility: Yogi to officials

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Finance Min-ister Arun Jaitley on Sunday received a pat from President Pranab Mukherjee for com-pleting the budget exercise by March 31 and not seeking a the Vote on Account, which happened for the first time in many years.

"I congratulate the Finance Minister for completing the budgetary exercise and seek-ing the approval of both Houses of Parliament, all the expenditure proposals, and all matters relating to the Finance Bill within March 31," Mukherjee said.

"And after many years, I do not remember of after how many years, no Vote on Account was taken this partic-ular year," the President said.

The Vote on Account is an interim arrangement under

which approval of Parlia-ment is obtained to withdraw money from the consolidated fund when the budget for new financial year is not passed.

The President was speaking after the mega draw of Lucky Grahak Yojana and Digi Dhan Vyapar Yojana at the Rashtra-pati Bhavan.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government this year advanced the budget pre-sentaion to February 1 from the traditional presentation date of February 28 or the last working day of the month. The move was aimed at helping the government begin the invest-ment cycle right from the first day of the new financial year, April 1.

The nearly century-long practice of having a separate railway budget was also ended and it was merged with the General Budget.

FM gets Prez pat for finishing Budget process by March 31

HASINA AT AJMER DARGAH

OUR CORRESPONDENT

CHENNAI: Passengers of a city bus and a car driver escaped unhurt on Sunday when a section of an arte-rial road suddenly caved in near the site of underground tunnelling for the Metro Rail here, police said.

The incident occurred on Sunday afternoon at Anna Salai area, in the heart of the city.

The passengers of the bus, around 35 of them, evacuated the vehicle after the driver raised an alarm and the car's occupant jumped out after the earth started buckling in.

No one was injured in the incident that triggered panic among road users, even as police cordoned off the area and diverted traffic.

Incidentally, the tunnelling work had last month caused a foam leakage close to the spot where the road caved in today.

The bus was stationary at the Gemini stop and the car was passing alongside it when the road caved in. The front portions of the vehicles sank into the crater that was around

four to five feet deep.The spot of the incident

is about 1-km from the area where the Chennai Metro Rail Ltd (CMRL) has undertaken tunnelling work for its project along Anna Salai.

"The bus halted at the Gemini bus stop as usual and suddenly, we realised the bus was going down. Immediately, the driver alerted the passen-gers to evacuate," bus conduc-tor Ramesh told reporters.

Initially, the driver thought it was a puncture, he said.

Pradeep, the sole occupant

of the car, said, "As soon as the car went in, I jumped out."

Tamil Nadu Finance Min-ister D Jayakumar, and top police and district officials have inspected the spot.

Talking to reporters, the minister said there were no casualties in the incident.

"Normally, soil test is con-ducted randomly whenever metro rail officials take up tunnelling work. We will take this incident as an experience and work in future so that these kind of accidents does not recur," he said.

NEW DELHI: A meeting of top NDA leaders will be held tomorrow and representa-tives of 32 parties, includ-ing Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, are likely to attend it.

The meeting, the sec-ond since the NDA came to power in 2014, will be presided by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Sources said TDP chief and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and his Jammu and Kashmir counterpart Meh-booba Mufti among others, besides BJP President Amit Shah, will attend the meet-ing. The leaders will take stock of the political situ-ation and decide on future strategy of the alliance.

Besides, a number of Union ministers will be present at the meeting, the sources said. They said rep-resentatives of all the allies of the BJP across the country will participate in the meet-ing during the evening, fol-lowed by dinner. MPOST

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: A key panel of the Inter-State Council on Sunday discussed the use of discretionary powers by Governors dur-ing government formation, a development that came against the backdrop of the BJP forming its governments in Goa and Manipur despite not having a majority.

The meeting of the Standing Commit-tee of the ISC, held after a gap of 12 years, also discussed the tenure of Governors, guidelines to them on use of discretionary powers in appointment of Chief Ministers, besides a host of other issues.

"We discussed threadbare the role of Governors. Many states felt that a Gover-nor should be qualified, non-partisan and above politics," said Finance Minister of Andhra Pradesh Y Ramakrishnudu, who deputised for Chief Minister N Chandra-babu Naidu.

Ramakrishnudu said states wanted Governors to not have a say in politics.

The appointment of Chief Ministers in Goa and Manipur recently had got embroiled in controversy after leaders of BJP, which finished second to Congress in both states, were invited to form govern-ments with the help of smaller parties and independents.

There have been many instances in the past when unhappy over a Governor's decision, the affected parties have gone to court and got the gubernatorial decisions overturned.

According to the M M Punchhi Com-mission's recommendations on the Cen-tre-State relations, which came up for consideration at Sunday's meeting, the Governor should follow clear guidelines in the appointment of Chief Minister by sticking to "clear order of preference".

The commission has recommended

that a Chief Minister should be asked to prove his majority within a clear time limit before he is dismissed.

In such a scenario, the Chief Minister should prove his majority within 5 days to maximum 30 days, it has said.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh chaired the meeting, while Finance Min-ister Arun Jaitley, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his Odisha, Tripura and Chhattisgarh counterparts Naveen Patnaik, Manik Sarkar and Raman Singh attended it.

Chief Ministers of Rajasthan, Punjab and Andhra Pradesh, who are also mem-bers of the committee, did not attend the meeting and sent their representatives.

According to an internal note of the Inter-State Council, Bihar has called the role of a Governor "redundant", while a few other states felt that Governors should have no role in governance or politics of the state under their charge.

As many as 19 states have given their suggestions on the eligibility criteria for the post of Governor. Bihar has said the post of Governor should be abolished, while Gujarat and Haryana feel the pres-ent parameters with regard to qualification of the Governor suffice.

Punjab has said that while appointing the Governor, state government should be consulted.

There was a general consensus among the states that politicisation of the post of Governor was taking place which was "unhealthy" for Centre-State relations.

On another controversial issue of granting prosecution sanction against a member of the Council of Ministers under section 197 CrPC, seven states, including Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, contested the Punchhi Commission's recommendation that the Governor should follow Supreme Court interpretation that a Governor is not bound by the advice of the CoM.

Guvs role under discussion at Inter-State Council meet

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh with Tripura CM Manik Sarkar, Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik and Rajasthan Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria before the Inter-State Council in New Delhi

NDA top guns to meet today to formulate

future strategy

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at the shrine of Muslim Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer on Sunday. She paid obeisance at the shrine and offered a chadar (shawl) at the grave of the 12th century Sufi saint

OUR CORRESPONDENT

HYDERABAD: A local BJP MLA has stoked a controversy with his remarks that the heads of "traitors" opposing construc-tion of Ram temple in Ayodhya will be chopped off.

T Raja Singh, who repre-sents Goshamahal constitu-ency in Hyderabad, is heard saying this in a video where he is addressing a gathering as part of Ram Navmi celebra-tions held here on April 5.

Asked about his remarks, Singh today said he can give his life for the sake of Ram temple and "even take the life of trai-tors who oppose the building

of Ram temple"."We will not allow the peo-

ple who believe in destroying this nation to stay in this coun-try. It is our pledge to build a Ram temple in Ayodhya and we will abide by it. We can give our life for Ram temple and even take the life of trai-

tors who oppose Ram temple in Ayodhya," he said.

The Congress hit out at the BJP, saying its "mask" has fallen off and alleged that there "is intimidation of the minorities" under its rule.

The BJP, however, sought to douse the controversy assert-ing that the Ram temple can be built only with consen-sus. Party leader Shaina NC said that the Prime Minister has made it clear that there is no space in a free and elected democratic society for people who choose to be the so-called moral custodians of society.

She indicated that if needed, action can be taken against the

MLA. "We are a disciplined cadre, and if we feel there is need to pull up somebody, I am sure the person concerned will have to bear the brunt," she said.

However, the Congress was unimpressed as its spokesper-son Sanjay Jha said that the BJP cannot wash off its hands by calling those making inflam-matory statements as fringe elements. "The truth is that there is no fringe anymore. These are mainstream elected BJP leaders either in parlia-ment or the assembly.... This is a political strategy. This is a manifestation of the most ugli-est form of politics," he said.

Narrow escape for bus passengers as road in Chennai caves in

A car and a Metropolitian Transport Corporation (MTC) bus sink into a huge crater formed after a portion of the road caved in at the arterial Anna Salai in Chennai on Sunday

Over 200 vehicles gutted in Chhattisgarh fire

'Will behead traitors who oppose Ram temple' Goa govt policy to curb illegal mines

extraction

BJP MLA T Raja Singh

SAD SUNDAY

MPOST BUREAU

NEW DELHI: The govern-ment is making all out efforts to ensure that families of troops killed in the line of duty are provided a compensation of not less than Rs one crore, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said on Sunday.

Singh declared this after inaugurating a new govern-ment website, along with actor Akshay Kumar, that will allow common people to make mon-etary donations to families of paramilitary troops killed in action, with an upper limit of Rs 15 lakh to a single family.

"It has been our constant effort to ensure that a family of a martyr who is killed in action does not get a compensation amount less than a crore...I have said that I am even ready

to spread my hands and seek funds from my countrymen in this regard," Singh said dur-ing the ceremony which also marked the annual 'Valour Day' event of the CRPF.

He added some state gov-ernments also provide such

funds to families of slain troops but still some "gap" remains and their effort is to fill up these.

The Minister added the country will remain indebted to its soldiers forever and that their welfare is his "top priority" by saying: "hum aapka ehsaan

kabhi nahi utaar payenge" as he lauded the men and women of paramilitary forces deployed for operations in some of the most difficult and hard areas in the country.

As per present compen-sation norms, the family of a slain soldier of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) like CRPF, BSF, ITBP, CISF, SSB, NSG and Assam Rifles gets about Rs 50-60 lakh and the "gap" the Minister talked about ranges between Rs 40-50 lakh before they get the Rs one crore compensation.

The website, www.bharat-keveer.gov.in, is a step in this direction and has been launched after Akshay Kumar met Union Home Secre-tary Rajiv Mehrishi about 2.5 months back with a proposal in this regard.

'Govt to ensure minimum Rs 1 cr compensation to CAPFs martyrs'

Home Minister Rajnath Singh with actor Akshay Kumar presenting special award to Head Constable (retd) Balwan Singh during 'Shaurya Diwas' celebration at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi on Sunday

7MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Monday, 10 April, 2017

mp nation

PAK MARINES CAPTURE 18 INDIAN FISHERMEN OFF GUJARAT COASTAHMEDABAD: The Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (PMSA) has apprehended 18 Indian fishermen and seized three boats off the Gujarat coast, an official said on Sunday. Three fishing boats from Porbandar, Okha and Mangrol were seized and 18 fishermen sailing on them captured by PMSA late last night from near the International Maritime Border Line (IMBL), National Fishworkers’ Forum (NFF) Secretary Manish Lodhari told media. The captured boats had set sail from the coastal town of Porbandar a few days ago, Lodhari said.

IRANI ATTACKS RAHUL, SAYS HE HAS NO TIME FOR AMETHI PEOPLEAMETHI:Stepping up attack on Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, Union Minister Smriti Irani on Sunday said the Amethi MP has no time for the people of his constituency. She also accused the Nehru-Gandhi family of doing little for the development of the district. “When I came here in 2014, I saw that it is in the grip of a political family. The political family has not thought about the development of Amethi and its people. Another point of concern is that a Member of Parliament does not have any time for his constituency and people,” the BJP leader said.

JINNAH HOUSE IN SPOTLIGHT OVER CONFLICTING DEMANDS MUMBAI: Can history be wished away by demolish-ing buildings - this searching question asked by cricket legend Imran Khan sums up the sentiment of histori-ans for Jinnah House, witness to Jinnah-Gandhi talks and meetings of the Muslim League that shaped the subcontinent’s destiny. The sprawling palatial struc-ture spread across 2.5 acre at Malabar Hill in South Mumbai was built by Mohammed Ali Jinnah in 1936 at a cost of Rs 2 lakh. He personally supervised the construction brick by brick and lived there till the partition of India in 1947. Lying vacant for nearly three decades, the mansion was designed by architect Claude Batley in European style, complete with Italian marble and walnut woodwork.

BRIEFSNATION

Theft in ND-Patna Rajdhani Express, 7 RPF men suspended

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Hundreds of kilometres of national and state highways in states like Maha-rashtra, Himachal, Uttara-khand, Rajasthan and others have turned into local, munic-ipal or district roads, just a few days after a Supreme Court order banning liquor sale along highways.

Most states have not speci-fied any reason for changing the categories and some have even denied that the step has been taken in view of the Supreme Court verdict.

Yet, most of the decisions have come in the wake of the April 31 order of the Apex Court, lending it the shape of a nation-wide trend.

Last week, the Maharashtra government okayed proposals from three municipal corpora-tions to classify highways pass-ing through their areas to city

roads, while Himachal Pradesh re-notified 16 state highways as major district roads (MDR).

Maharashtra state PWD Minister Chandrakant Patil said that the government had received proposals from Jalgaon, Latur and Yavatmal municipal corporations seeking de-noti-fication of the highways which were okayed.

The West Bengal govern-ment declared around 275 km of

state highways passing through various municipalities as ‘arte-rial roads’.

The notification posted on the state PWD website on March 16, came in between the Supreme Court order on high-way liquor ban on December 15, 2016, and its reaffirmation by the apex court on March 31.

The state government did not give any specific reason for the denotification which covers

stretches along all the 16 state highways.

Uttarakhand took a similar decision with its cabinet allow-ing denotification of state high-ways located in the areas of local civic bodies and re-categorised them as other district roads say-ing highway specifications were coming in the way of their main-tenance and expansion.

The argument did not cut ice with the opposition Con-gress which claimed it was just a “pretext” for helping liquor trade which is a major source of revenue. Some road stretches were denotified in Rajasthan while the Punjab government also denotified the bypassed stretches of seven state highways and turned them into a part of the city roads.

Officials of both Punjab and Rajasthan governments said that the denotified roads were only bypassed stretches.

Meanwhile, in Goa, the

Manohar Parrikar government faced heat from some opposi-tion leaders who demanded that he come to the rescue of the tourism industry in the state.

The AAP demanded that the state government work towards getting state highways de-noti-fied wherever legally feasible.

“India is a vast country...Goa is a tourist state, we need some relaxations. But I am not going to denotify highways,” Parrikar had said at an event.

Union road, transport and highways ministry officials in Delhi said they had received “several requests” from different states to convert National High-ways to district roads apparently to protect revenues.

Officials said they had received peculiar requests to de-notify national highways at a time when the Centre plans to take the length of such roads to 2 lakh km from the existing about 1 lakh km.

Highways across country turn local after Supreme Court’s order banning liquor sale

MPOST BUREAU

PATNA: Thieves fled with luggage of passengers in four coaches of New Delhi-Patna Rajdhani Express in wee hours prompting the railway authori-ties to suspend seven RPF per-sonnel in this connection, an official said.

The thieves got into Patna-bound Rajdhani Express (Train No 12310) and lifted luggage of several passen-gers in four coaches before deboarding with stolen items at Gamhar outer (in Uttar Pradesh) when the train stopped there between 03:29 AM to 03:53 AM due to red

signal, the East Central Rail-way (ECR)’s Chief Public Rela-tions Officer (CPRO) Arvind Kumar Rajak said.

There was conflicting ver-sion in specific coaches in which theft of luggage took place with the train superin-tendent naming B7, B 8 and A4 and BE1 while the GRP identifying these coaches as B7, B8, A3 and A4, he said.

The train was escorted with one ASI(RPF) and six RPSF constables all of whom were being placed under suspen-sion, the ECR CPRO said.

The coach attendant, who has been blamed by passen-gers for theft in the train, has been detained by GRP Patna, Rajak said.

Three women passengers have lodged FIR in this con-nection with GRP Patna, he added.

Record polling in Karnataka

BYPOLLS HELD IN 9 ASSEMBLY SEATS IN 6 STATES

Australian PM arrives on 4-day India visitOUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turn-bull arrived here on Sunday on a four-day India visit during which he will hold talks with his Indian counterpart Naren-dra Modi on ways to boost ties in key areas including defence, security, energy and trade.

However, the much-antici-pated economic pact between India and Australia will not be inked during his visit. Accord-ing to External Affairs Minis-try, the two countries are likely to sign a number of MoUs cov-ering a range of areas including

defence and security, environ-ment, renewable energy, sports and trade.

It will be Turnbull’s first visit to the country after assum-ing office in 2015. India is also likely to raise the issue of secu-rity of Indians in Australia in the wake of incidents of attacks on some of them. Ahead of his

visit, Australia’s High Commis-sioner to India Harinder Sidhu had clearly said that the Com-prehensive Economic Cooper-ation Agreement (CECA) will not be signed during the trip.

“Negotiations are underway but the pact will not be signed,” Sidhu had said.

The talks for CECA were launched in 2011 and dur-ing the visit of former Austra-lian PM Tony Abbott in 2014, the two sides had expressed the hope that the pact would be inked by the end of 2015, a deadline which has already been missed.

However, the Indian side

has reiterated its commitment to the free trade pact. Some of the sticking points in the nego-tiations include India’s high tar-iff structure for dairy and agri products as also Australian wine. On the much-delayed supply of uranium from Aus-tralia to India, Joint Secretary (South) in the External Affairs Ministry Jaideep Mazumdar had said Australian parlia-ment had cleared a legislation for the supply of uranium to India last year and now “com-mercial negotiations” for it are going on, indicating that there was no firming up of any such pact so far.

Centre launches 350 projects for affordable housing

MP: Two firing incidents reported in Ater seat

MPOST BUREAU

BHOPAL: Firing incidents were reported from at least two places after Congress and BJP workers clashed during the bypoll in Madhya Pradesh’s Ater assembly seat on Sunday.

The State Electoral Office dismissed reports of booth capturing. Two more Special Armed Forces (SAF) compa-nies (nearly 200 personnel) have been pressed into service at Ater, where 34 per cent poll-ing was recorded by 1 PM.

In Bandhavgarh (Umaria), another assembly segment where polling is underway on Sunday, voter turnout was 37 per cent by 1 PM.

“The firing incidents were reported from two places.

The security personnel fired in the air at Sankri village booth to avoid a clash between the BJP and Congress workers.

“Another incident of fir-ing was reported near booth number 172 (Goarkala),” State Electoral Officer of Madhya Pradesh Salina Singh told reporters at a press conference.

“The incident of firing took place one kilometre away from booth number 172 and as of now more details of this inci-dent are awaited,” said Singh.

She denied any booth-

capturing in Ater and Bandhavgarh.

“There was no booth cap-turing incident reported from Ater and Bandhavgarh. All the booths in Ater were declared sensitive. We have talked to the state DGP. After these inci-dents, we have called two addi-tional SAF companies from Morena to strengthen the secu-rity arrangements,” she added.

When asked about alle-gations of Congress that gun shots were fired at its candi-date in Ater Hemant Katare at Sankri village booth, Singh said that there was a dispute between booth agents of Con-gress and BJP.

“The Congress candi-date stayed for a long time inside the booth. This deteri-orated the situation resulting in a clash between the poll-ing agents. Police had to fire in the air to control the situa-tion. Some vehicles were also damaged during this clash,” she added.

Singh said that both the Congress and BJP candidates were provided additional security.

The State Electoral Officer also informed that six police officials were transferred late last night on a complaint of Congress.

She said that EVMs and

voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines were changed at five places in Ater and three places at Band-havgarh during the mock poll.

“One voter had complaint about VVPAT at one place in Ater but his complaint was found to be untrue,” she added.

In Ater, the Congress has fielded Hemant Katare, son of former Leader of Opposition Satyadev Katare, whose death necessitated the by-poll.

From BJP, former MLA Arvind Singh Bhadoria is con-testing the byelection.

The by-election in Band-havgarh seat was necessitated after its MLA Gyan Singh was elected to the Lok Sabha in November last year.

The main contest in Band-havgarh (ST) seat is between BJP’s Shivnarayan Singh, son of Gyan Singh, and Savitri Singh of Congress.

The counting of votes will take place on April 13.

MPOST BUREAU

BENGALURU: A record 80 per cent turnout in bypolls to Karnataka’s Gundlupet and 76 per cent in Nanjangud (reserved) assembly constitu-encies on Sunday.

“About 80 per cent of vot-ers exercised franchise in Gundlupet and 76 per cent in

Nanjangud by 5 p.m. The per-centatge is likely to go up, as many voters were in queues in some booths when poll timing ended officially at 5 p.m.,” state Chief Electoral Officer A.K. Jha told reporters here.

In the April 2013 assem-bly elections, polling percen-tatge in Gundlupet was also a record 87.05 and in Nanjun-gud, it was 77.59.

Barring stray incidents like voting being held up due to glitches in the EVMs in some booths and poll boycott in a village in the Nanjangud segment, the bye-polls were peaceful in both the segments amid tight security.

Though the polling process began at 7 a.m., voting only gathered momentum during the day and turned brisk after 3 p.m. despite the weather being hot and humid.

A 94-year-old woman died at her home on return from a pooling booth after casting her vote at Hangala village in the Nanjangud segment, said police.

In another incident, about 700 voters boycotted poll-ing in protest against lack of basic amenities in their vil-lage (Mahadevanagara) in Nanjangud.

“The electorate were not willing to exercise their fran-chise in protest. Some of them, however, went to a polling booth later and voted,” said Jha.

The bye-poll for Nanjan-gud (Scheduled Caste) in Myusuru district has been necessitated by the resigna-tion of former Congress law-maker and Revenue Minister Srinviasa Prasad, who is re-contesting on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket.

The ruling Congress has fielded K. Keshavamurthy, who lost to Prasad in the 2013 assembly elections as a Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) nominee. Ten more candidates, includ-ing Independents are also in the fray.

Fresh clash erupts in R K Nagar, two seriously injuredCHENNAI: Two persons were on Sunday seriously injured in a clash between the two AIADMK groups in R K Nagar assembly constituency, where bypoll is scheduled for April 12. Police said the clash oc-curred following altercations between the AIADMK (Amma) and AIADMK (Puratchi Thalaivi Amma) groups during campaigning in a street in Ezhil Nagar. One person each from the rival groups was seriously injured in the clash, police said, add-ing, the incident was recorded in a CCTV camera installed in a shop in the street.

72.15% voting in Jharkhand bypollRANCHI: Amid tight security, 72.15 per cent of the over 1.95 lakh voters exercised their franchise in Jharkhand’s Littipara assembly bypoll on Sunday, an election official said. Pakur Deputy Commis-sioner-cum-Returning Officer Muthu Kumar said the polling began at 7 a.m. amid tight security. Ten candidates are in the fray for the seat, the contest for which has become a prestige issue for both the ruling BJP and the opposition JMM.

67% voting in Dhemaji seatGUWAHATI: Around 67 per cent polling was regis-tered in the by-election to Dhemaji Assembly con-stituency on Sunday, much lower than the turnout of the Assembly poll held last year. “The election has ended and we have reports of 66.97 per cent of voting till 5 PM,” Returning Officer Roshni Aparanji Korati told media. In the Assembly elections of 2016, 80.65 per cent of the electorates voted in Dhemaji. Polling was peaceful, Korati said.

Over 63 pc voting in Bhoranj seatHamirpur (HP): Over 63 per cent voting was reported in Bhoranj (SC) assembly by-election in Himachal Pradesh which went to polls on Sun-day. Barring reports of some snag in EVMs which delayed voting by an hour, the polling process remained peaceful and no untoward incident was reported from any part of the constituency.The polling started on a moderate note at 8.00 AM but picked up after 10.00 AM and 47 per cent polling was reported till 2.00 PM. The final report of polling at 5.00 pm was 63.26 per cent, Chief Electoral Officer Narinder Chauhan said.

NEW DELHI: The govern-ment on Sunday launched over 350 projects to build about two lakh houses with a private sec-tor investment of Rs 38,000 crore, a first major initiative of corporates in the Centre’s affordable housing scheme.

The move comes a day after the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) held a meeting with private real estate developers with a focus to remove “bottle-necks” to ensure private sector participation in the govern-ment’s ambitious ‘Housing-for-all by 2022’ programme.

Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (HUPA) Minister M Venkaiah Naidu launched the housing projects at a func-tion at Gandhinagar in Guja-rat. The Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India (CREDAI) members will invest over Rs 38,000 crore to build these houses. MPOST

Polling took place in two Assembly constituencies each in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, one each in West

Bengal, Assam, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and DelhiVoters showing ink-marked fingers after casting vote for the Ater Assembly

bypoll in Madhya Pradesh on Sunday

Malcolm Turnbull

Robbery victims at Patna junction on Sunday

mp editorial

Last month, my mother, who is 92, fell in the bathroom and broke her pelvic bone. I live

in the rural town of Phaltan in western Maharashtra and to get a simple X-ray done was a nightmare.

We called the local ortho-paedics hospital and they sent a ramshackle ambulance. How an old Maruti Omni van got permission to ply as an ambu-lance is anybody’s guess. Even a healthy passenger would feel sick and his/her bones would be rattled in that ambulance while going along the potholed roads of Phaltan. Some of the worst roads in the country are in Maharashtra, especially in rural Maharashtra.

The driver of the ambu-lance also doubled up as the paramedic and his callous and non-empathetic attitude almost broke my mother’s heel. He almost threw my mother on the stretcher! Most of the ambulances in rural areas are like that with hardly any facil-ity to help the patient. I had to use an old saree to tie my mother to the stretcher so that her broken pelvis did not shake very much.

At the hospital, after a good deal of arguing, we got her X-ray done quite quickly. Otherwise, it takes forever to get it done. Since the pelvic bone was fractured, the doc-tor advised complete bed rest and told us to take her home. In such cases, there is no sur-gery needed but just plain bed rest so that the broken bone heals by itself. That was also the reason why I did not take her to Pune for treatment.

We brought her home and were immediately confronted by the stark reality of who will

take care of her nursing needs. We tried to locate nursing care in Phaltan but were unsuccess-ful. Even the hospitals do not provide that facility. The rela-tives of patients do that in most rural hospitals.

Finally, after great diffi-culty and searching, we got a 24-hour help (who had almost no training as a nurse) from Pune. This helped relieve our emotional and physical stress.

Searching on the inter-net and talking to my doctor friends, I have finally been able to convert my mother’s room into a home health-care facil-ity. This includes the adjustable hospital bed with an air mat-tress and a specially fabricated small wheel-chair, which can navigate the narrow passages of the house and can go into the bathroom. I feel I could get all this done because of our resources and ability to spend time searching for solutions. Most of the rural population does not have this luxury.

Another tragedy in rural

areas is that no doctor wants to do a home visit. No matter how ill or old the patient is, they insist that he/she should be brought to the hospital or their clinic. I was able to get a person who was not an MBBS doctor but could administer saline or do basic dressing for bed sores. That was a partial relief.

Secondly, I was greatly helped by my brother, who is an orthopaedic surgeon in Australia. He constantly advised us on the basic care and his telemedicine greatly helped us.

Very frequently I have seen that in rural -- and also in urban -- areas, the missing ingredient in patient care is good nursing facilities. Putting a patient in hospital (whether he or she is terminally ill or suffering from non-life-threat-ening ailments) means end-less headache for relatives, who have to stay in the hos-pital, undertake the nursing care of the patient and run

continuously to get medicines and medical supplies. Besides, the hospitals charge exorbitant amounts for surgeries and for lots of unnecessary tests per-formed on the patient.

The government has mooted quite a number of good schemes which provide hospitalisation for below pov-erty line (BPL) patients and take care of their bills through insurance cover. Yet I have seen these schemes misused by doctors and hospitals where they admit the patients at the slightest pretext and charge them the full amount even for minor ailments. The money is then paid to the hospital by the insurance company.

Our medical care system in rural areas is, therefore, quite broken with very greedy doc-tors and hospitals that, in col-lusion with insurance agents, fleece both the patients and the government. A hospice or home care health system might alleviate this problem greatly.

This system will rely on

specialised agencies that pro-vide trained nurses (at nom-inal cost) for homes, simple equipment like small wheel-chairs, beds, commodes and the like, and qualified doc-tors on duty who can respond through the internet or mobile phone to the queries from the nurses - and, in an emergency, make home visits. At present, there are no such agencies but they are urgently needed.

For the terminally ill, a home-care system which pro-vides nursing care and basic equipment will be extremely helpful. He/she will be sur-rounded by family and nursing care given by trained nurses will help relieve the pain.

Financially, this system will be much more viable than hav-ing a dedicated hospice facil-ity. The financial arrangements on how the government can help organisations in facili-tating such a system need to be worked out. A possible solution could be to provide insurance coverage for such a home-care system.

Also, such a facility can provide home care for patients who are discharged from the hospitals. Too often, relatives and the family have to provide prolonged post-operative care --which they are ill-equipped to do. Such a facility could be a boon for those patients.

In urban areas, better med-ical facilities, including good ambulances, can provide timely care. In rural areas, in the absence of such facilities, it is very necessary to have a home-care facility. IANS

(Anil Rajvanshi is the Director, Nimbkar Agri-

cultural Research Institute in Maharashtra. The views

expressed are personal.)

8MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Monday, 10 April, 2017

A curious combination of judi-cial and saffron activism is posing a serious threat to employment prospects,

thereby undermining the economy when it is dealing with the phenom-enon of jobless growth because of automation.

According to NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant, at least one million jobs will be lost by the Supreme court’s order banning the sale of liquor near the highways, affecting tourism “which creates jobs”.

As many of the highways pass through the cities where five-star hotels are located, they, too, will have to go “dry”, prompting Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Kirron Kher to ask: “How logical is it that you can’t serve liquor in a five-star hotel?” As the hotel indus-try is a major employment provider, it is a question of “more than a million jobs”, she said.

But it isn’t only the promotion of abstinence which can be fatal for employment prospects. The crackdown on illegal abattoirs and even meat shops in Uttar Pradesh and in other BJP-ruled states will also kill jobs.

The closure of legal and illegal slaughterhouses will affect three sectors of Uttar Pradesh’s industries -- meat packaging, livestock, and leather. With the second-highest unemployment rate in the country -- after Jharkhand -- the state can hardly afford to add more to the statistics of 58 unemployed out of 1,000 against the national average of 37. Besides, the country as a whole will suffer since meat and leather goods are major export earners.

Instead of focusing on the mod-ernisation and mechanisation of the abattoirs so that they produce whole-some, hygienic meat, the governments of Yogi Adityanath in Uttar Pradesh and of other BJP Chief Ministers have engaged in wholesale closures although the original promise was to shut down only those slaughterhouses as well as meat shops which were functioning without licences.

But the BJP’s spectacular victory in Uttar Pradesh seems to have made all its Chief Ministers more enthusiastic about imposing their fetishist prefer-ence for vegetarianism on the common man. As Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said after the passage of the law decreeing life imprisonment for

cow slaughter, his goal is make the state vegetarian.

Even as the Allahabad High Court has taken up the plea of the meat traders about the forcible closure of their estab-lishments, the Rs 22,000 crore ($3.5 billion) meat trade in Uttar Pradesh and the Rs 50,000 crore leather busi-ness is in turmoil with thousands of jobs at stake.

What these crackdowns on the sale of liquor and on meat shops show is that the judicial and political authori-ties do not always consider the effects of their decisions before taking them. Yet, it should have been obvious that sudden bans on items of consumption can have a hugely unsettling fallout.

Apart from depriving thousands of employees of their daily bread, the strict regulation of the hospitality sector will not show India as a welcoming destina-tion to visitors and investors. As a coun-try which wants to climb up the ladder as a place where it is easy to do business, India cannot afford to be hemmed in by a restrictive environment.

Not surprisingly, the government is

trying to wriggle out of the parameters set by the judiciary by denotifying the highways by making them ordinary roads or, as in the case of one five-star hotel, allowing entrances from a gate well outside the 500-metre limit set by the Supreme Court.

In any case, there was something odd about the limit, for it would not stop a habitual drinker from buying a bottle from elsewhere and then driving along the highway. Outlawing the sale of liquor is not the ideal way to reduce accidents due to drunken driving. A more effective course would have been to introduce intensive police patrolling along with regular and repeated breath-alyzer tests. More visible road signs and warnings against driving under the influence of alcohol -- “Better be late, Mr Motorist, and not the late Mr Motorist” -- can help in checking reck-less driving.

Steep fines and the cancelling of licences for prolonged periods can be some of the other deterrents instead of quick-fix solutions which can create more problems than they will solve.

Society has become far too complex and intertwined for such hasty, band-aid remedies. A ban in one sector can destabilise several others.

In any event, a ban -- whether on drinks or food or books or films -- is intrinsically a flawed measure on two counts. First, it is an invasion of private space which is increasingly resented in a time of growing individualism. Sec-ondly, it smacks of an authoritarian, ‘Big Brother knows what’s good for you’ attitude which militates against democ-racy. Considering the huge backlog of cases in the law courts -- 27 million at the last count -- it is odd that the judi-ciary should invite the charge of over-reach by taking upon itself the task of infusing patriotism via the playing of the national anthem in cinema halls and keeping the roads safe by banning liquor shops near the highways.

Where the BJP’s obsession with diet is concerned, its “sabka saath” (taking everyone along) slogan doesn’t seem to embrace everyone.

(Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. Views expressed are personal.)

A domino effectEDITORIAL

Liquor ban, abattoir crackdown pose serious threats to job market

A ban is intrinsically a flawed measure on two counts. First, it is an invasion of private space which is increasingly resented in a time of growing individualism. Secondly, it smacks of an authoritarian, ‘Big Brother knows what’s good for you’ attitude which militates against democracy

One of the tragedies in rural areas is that no doctor wants to do a home visit. No matter how ill or old the patient, they insist that he or she should be brought to the hospital or their clinic

The Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of Ban-gladesh, Sheikh Hasina, arrived in New Delhi on April 7 for her 4-day visit. During this period, 22 agreements were sealed between the two coun-

tries. The wide-ranging talks included key sectors of defence and civil nuclear. This comes as a major boost to bilateral ties. This is her first bilateral visit to India in seven years after January 2010. Upon her arrival, Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi personally received Sheikh Hasina at the airport. India’s relation with Bangladesh is also telling of the Indian Union’s strategic concern to look upon Bangladesh as part of its geo-strategic sphere of influence. Beijing’s growing influence, with the recent signing of a strategic partner-ship agreement with Dhaka during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent visit, also presents a compelling backdrop. Besides promising $40 billion in investments and selling two submarines, China has sought to usurp India’s influ-ence in the country. On the terror front, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s singular focus on Pakistan-sponsored terror has received the unflinching support of the Bangla-desh government -- a real convergence of interests. Within the international community, Bangladesh has proven to be India’s greatest supporter in its recent conflagration with Pakistan. The recent spike in terror-related violence in Bangladesh is indeed a potent backdrop to the signing of a major defence agreement between the nations. India set to announce a line of credit of $500 million for the supply of military hardware to Bangladesh, and Bangladesh, in turn, has addressed almost all of India’s security concerns vis-a-vis ISI operations, terrorists, FICN, etc. Highlights include facilitating training and study tours for personnel in mass media and public relations between the two countries. India willing to help Bangladesh modernise its railway network: Dhaka-Kolkata Maitree Express to have more frequent trips, four trains from Dhaka and four from Kolkata every week.

Bangladesh is India’s largest trading partners in South Asia with the volume of bilateral trade between the two nations standing at $6.6 billion. Although there are esti-mates that trade between the two countries will cross $10 billion by 2018, there is scope for much improvement. The balance of trade heavily works in India’s favour, but given the relative sizes and economic potential of both nations, one can expect such an outcome. Anti-India forces in the country have argued that the massive trade deficit impinges on Bangladesh’s economic sovereignty. The same forces, however, seem to have no problem with the trade deficit the country shares with China, which incidentally is a lot bigger. Nonetheless, there must be a concerted effort to reduce this deficit, as Bangladesh currently imports goods worth $5.45 billion from India, while exporting just $690 million. The crucial Teesta deal was set to be inked way back during then PM Manmohan Singh’s visit to Bangladesh in September 2011. But it was postponed at the last moment due to objections by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Teesta water holds great significance for Bangla-desh, especially in the leanest periods from December to March. The Centre reportedly will not go ahead without taking the West Bengal on board.

The Bangladeshi Prime Minister’s visit is also marked by a few symbolic gestures. The two Prime Ministers released the Hindi translation of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s book ‘Unfinished Memoirs’. Rehman was the founding figure of Bangladesh and father of Hasina. Sheikh Hasina also paid tributes to Indian soldiers who died in the Liberation War of 1971 that gave birth to her country and met veterans who had served in the war which led to the break-up of then East Pakistan and the formation of an independent Bangladesh. The Khwaja Mouinuddin Chisti dargah com-mittee in Ajmer welcomed her at Buland Darwaja where she offered prayers.

Enriching the ties: India and Bangladesh

Some immediate relief

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Pratap Bhawan, 5 Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi 110 002

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EDITOR

This government is always in a hurry to pay tribute, like it did to great late Dr. Abdul Kalam but turned out to be quite thoughtless in doing so. Renaming an im-portant road after him is a stupid idea for several reasons.This is nothing less than unnecessary expense for eyewash at the cost pf tax-payers. And once again, renam-ing Race Course Road Lok Kalyan Marg is just repeating the avoidable. Adding to this list is Sheikh Mujibur Rahman street. Has this city got absolutely no place to make a new road?

AMULYA GANGULI

If I'm gonna tell a real story, I'm gonna start with my name

Quote martial

KENDRICK LAMAR

Anil K. Rajvanshi explains the need for good home-care health system in rural areas

The plight of rural patients

In a significant development, the new Uttar Pradesh government last week waived loans worth Rs 30,729 crore taken by small and marginal farmers. In his first Cabinet meeting, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath also

decided to forego non-performing assets worth Rs 5,630 crore of seven lakh farmers. Reports indicate that these mea-sures are likely to benefit 86 lakh farmers who have loans up to Rs 1 lakh. One of the main poll promises of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which won a massive majority in the Uttar Pradesh elections, was that it would waive off farm loans. For the time being, many farmers in the state can breathe a sigh of relief, and it is a positive step for their immediate welfare. More than half of India’s 90 million households engaged in agriculture are in debt, and they need the gov-ernment’s support. But the evidence seems to suggest that when a government spends vast sums on loan waivers, it reduces the scope for necessary public expenditure in agri-culture. However, the concerns of the agriculture sector in India are structural in nature. What it needs is serious reforms, including making land leasing easier and legal, bet-ter access to markets for farmers, and massive investment in areas such as irrigation, superior storage facilities, water saving practices, and in-depth research into better agricul-tural practices to reduce dependence on the monsoon. Do farm loan waivers address these concerns? Do they resolve any of the above concerns? The answer is no.

Juxtaposing this development against the scene in Tamil Nadu, many farmers in the state are in dire straits after another failed monsoon last year, and some of them have taken their protests to the national capital. Among other acts of protest, they held the skulls of farmers who had com-mitted suicide in their region to communicate the desper-ate state of affairs in their area. The protesters demanded a farm loan waiver, saying they are not in a situation to repay their debts because of severe droughts. The court, how-ever, directed the State government to waive all farm loans issued by nationalised and cooperative banks and ensure that no punitive action or loan recovery is initiated against them. In the order, the court made no attempt to differen-tiate between those farmers with large or small land hold-ings, and in fact argued that this distinction was “arbitrary”.

What is needed from governments is greater political will to implement all these reforms and measures. What farmers need is better remuneration for their crops, particu-larly in a time when land holdings are growing smaller, the quality is soil is deteriorating, and input costs are rising. A one-time loan waiver will not resolve any of these concerns. With these extreme events taking place, the question is not just about conjuring up a solution or ignoring the matter in the worst case. It is about ensuring a workable solution beyond effective crisis management.

ANWESHA BANSAL Via email

Representational Image

Representational Image

The purpose of eco-nomic development in any region is to provide opportuni-

ties for improved living and jobs to people. While industrial development invariably creates more jobs in any region, possi-bilities of adverse effects on the environment also increase, if adverse effects are not reduced.

Industrialisation has led to environmental degradation. With industries operating, a 100 per cent pollution-free environment is a myth. It is neither possible nor necessary.

However, it is imperative to ensure that industrial units cause the least pollution. Ade-quate and efficient pollution control measures are required so that adverse effects on the environment are minimised. Necessary technological know-how and institutional backup support are available in this regard. Dust, smoke, fumes and toxic gas emissions occur as a result of highly-pollut-ing industries such as ther-mal power plants, coal mines, cement, sponge iron, steel & ferroalloys, petroleum, and chemicals. In industry-specific clusters, these have become not only hazardous but also cause irreparable damage to our ecol-ogy and environment, often breaching the environment’s carrying capacity.

High emission level of pol-lutants at industrial clusters has been reported in Raipur-Durg, Korba-Bilaspur, Vapi-Anklesh-war, Dhanbad-Bokaro, Vizag, Tarapur, and Ludhiana. This is despite the fact that the num-ber of power plants switched over to super-critical tech-nology. Steel, cement, chemi-cals, and petroleum refineries have adopted state-of-the–art technology. There is an urgent need to review and rework the strategies of setting up indus-try-specific clusters based on comparative advantage.

Water pollutionThe National Green Tribu-

nal recently pulled up imple-menting agencies for allowing untreated sewage into the Ganga through 30 drains along the river’s Haridwar-Unnao stretch and ordered a CBI inquiry. Discharge of untreated industrial effluents from industries such as tan-neries, power plants, textiles, jute units, and chemicals along the entire stretch of the river from Kanpur to Kolkata is one of the leading causes of pollut-ing the Ganga, despite the cen-trally-funded Namami Gange project.

Incidentally, the Ganga Action Plan (GAP) Phase 1 started in 1985. Discharge of effluents from industries located in Haryana (Yamuna Nagar, Ambala) has been pol-luting the Yamuna since long. Instances of Damodar pollu-tion in eastern India have also been reported. The Supreme Court had earlier come down heavily on the implementing agencies and closed down tan-

neries (Tamil Nadu) and iron ore mining in Goa for flouting environmental laws and caus-ing damage.

This reflects weakness on the part of law enforcement agencies, lack of coordina-tion among regulatory agen-cies (Centre and states) and the absence of commitment and efficacy of the agencies and industries. Mere legisla-tion on pollution control would not serve any purpose. Compli-ance with anti-pollution laws has to be strictly enforced by the state agencies.

Utilisation of waste

Accumulation of industrial waste has assumed enormous proportions while its utilisation has been neglected for long. When conservation of the envi-ronment is of prime impor-tance, a lot of weightage should be given to recycling and reus-ing discarded components.

Scientists have been researching worldwide towards the development of innovative recycling techniques. Products

made out of recycling such as fly ash cement, fly ash bricks, recycled aluminium, recy-cled tiles, recycled steel, envi-ronment-friendly paints, and bamboo-based products are available in India.

India recycles 90 per cent of its Poly Ethylene Terephthal-ate (PET) annually whereas the recycling rate for PET in Japan is 72.1 per cent, 48.3 per cent in Europe, and 31 per cent in the USA (CSIR-NCL study, Hindustan Times February 27, 2017). However, recycling plastic waste is far from sat-isfactory in India. Commer-cial utilisation of fly ash, blast furnace slag, cathode/anode carbon scraps, red mud, iron ore, and blue dust fines are in progress. Recycling of residual waste obtained after incinera-tion of toxic and highly inflam-mable chemical waste with cement clinker is being under-taken in the cement industry.

A huge market remains untapped (metals, mobile phones, computer hardware equipment). Recovery of

e-waste is abysmally low, and we need to encourage recycling of e-waste on a vast scale, so that problem of e-waste dis-posal is tackled.

It is reported that e-waste concentration on the Indian soil is twice the global average. Delhi alone generates 15,000 tonnes per year in addition to the e-waste imported for recy-cling. High levels of tetra and penta PCB congeners were observed in soil samples from East Delhi (Hindustan Times, February 19, 2017).

It is, therefore, impor-tant to step up commercial utilisation of industrial waste which can be accomplished by involving industries, users, states, and Central govern-ment departments. Industries have to be made responsi-ble regarding recycling on a regular basis through strict enforcement. DOWN TO EARTH

(The writer is former Adviser, Planning Commission and Chief Executive, Haryana

Environmental Management Society. Views are personal.)

9mp in focusMILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Monday, 10 April, 2017

Negligible or zero priority accorded to the music critic by the media magnates impacted deeply on Kishori Amonkar’s emotional make-up. Her tantrums became notorious. In fact, her pain was deeper. She could not forget the shabby treatment meted out by organisers in days when women singers like Kesarbai Kerkar, Hirabai Barodekar and, above all, her own mother, Mogubai, were shuffling themselves out of their “Bai” identity

It is imperative to ensure that industrial units cause the least pollution. Adequate and efficient pollution control measures are required so that adverse effects on the environment are minimised. Necessary technological know-how and institutional back-ups are available in this regard

No hospitality to cultureKishori Amonkar soared despite media’s neglect of classical music. But what has

never existed is a tradition of knowledgeable music critics

Environmental concern amidst industrialisation

SAEED NAQVI

SAMAR LAHIRY

As soon as I read that Kish-ori Amonkar was no more, I called up Raghu Rai, the pioneering pho-

tographer. Raghu had, with me in tow, done a remarkable photo fea-ture on Kishori. Here was an occa-sion to republish the photographs of our greatest classical singer. Connois-seurs would place Ustad Amir Khan on the same pedestal, but I have my own very subjective preferences.

Raghu’s response was something of a shock: “Where is there any space for the arts in the Indian media?”

I had momentarily deluded myself that a singer of such brilliance would, in her passing away, generate fierce competition between media houses to show the best of Kishori. I had forgotten that, by and large, there is no hospitality accorded to culture in either print or our burgeoning TV channels. And this is not a new phenomenon.

True, by the time of Kishori Amonkar’s death, classical music had reclaimed sufficient audiences to warrant front page coverage and reasonable obituary notices in the past 25 years. Amir Khan, Bhim-sen Joshi, Kumar Gandharva, Hira-bai Barodekar, Mallikarjun Mansur, Ali Akbar Khan, Vilayat Khan, Ravi Shankar, Nikhil Banerjee did not go into the sunset unnoticed. The last three or four names were towering banyan trees in whose shadow com-parable talents -- Abdul Halim Jaffer Khan, for instance -- were dwarfed. The Hindu’s Friday Review did have Kishori on the cover.

What has never existed is a tradi-tion of knowledgeable music critics. During a seminar organised by the late Narayana Menon, then Director General of All India Radio, Yehudi Menuhin, great violinist, pointed to musicologist Nicholas Nabokov (brother of Vladimir Nabokov, of “Lolita” fame) seated opposite him. “I perform better when Nicholas is in the audience.”

That level of art criticism the Indian media has never aspired for. Professional dilettantes, not critics, has been the order.

So, Raghu’s plaint stands. In fact, when we entered The Statesman on Barakhamba Road, in 1965, for our first journalistic employment, the newspaper boasted of no regular crit-ics for cinema, theatre, music, dance, painting. And The Statesman was

numero uno of Indian newspapers those days.

Much before feminism became a vogue, Amita Malik (Amy as we called her) burst upon the scene with her breezy, aggressively Brahmo par-tisanship, always tipping the scale for the Bengali, particularly if there was a Punjabi in the bargain. This prob-ably derived from Amy’s unhappy marriage with a sophisticated broad-caster from Government College, Lahore. She was India’s first cinema, radio and (when TV arrived) televi-sion critic. She was, like all critics, not on the paper’s staff. Amy, made a pittance, lobbying mostly with Lak-shman, the news editor’s secretary, to inflate the column inches on the

basis of which her cheque of a few hundred rupees was delivered to her every month.

The cultural scene in the media was dominated by a Hungarian of great elegance, Charles Fabri. Mau-rice Chevalier could have learnt a thing or two from Fabri’s flirtatious style with some of India’s greatest dancers. Once he turned up in the reporters’ room with a brochure on Indian dance, placed his felt hat on a Remington typewriter and, smacking his lips, turned the pages -- “Damy-anti Joshi, Yamini, Indirani,...” clos-ing the brochure, he looked at us triumphantly.

Fabri was a pioneer in building up the capital’s art and theatre scenes as

well. He died in virtual penury.Kishori had begun to make waves

but it was her mother, Mogubai Kur-dikar, who made a mark on Pandit Shingloo, The Statesman’s Hindu-stani music critic. He was a tall man of aristocratic bearing, a Java Dawson cigar from Trichy between his teeth was as much part of him as his long sherwani and matching cap which did not cover the silver-white ring-lets up to the nape of his neck. He walked into concerts armed with a pad, pencil, rubber, and a torch. No sooner had the “alaap” begun than Shingloo’s torch was focused on the pad balanced on his knees. His pen-cil would race along until there was something resembling a false note.

Instantly, the rubber was brought into play, making room for more crit-ical adjectives to be inserted.

Shingloo was the darling of the news desk because at 10 p.m. sharp, at whatever stage the concert may have been, Shingloo’s copy, precisely nine inches in a single column, was delivered to a beaming chief sub, because it was well in time for the city edition.

For Carnatic music and dance, Subbudu was matchless. During the winter “Season” at the music acad-emy, Mylapore, Chennai, a dancer of means would buy Subbudu’s up and down second class train ticket and look after his board and lodging for the duration of what in my expe-

rience is one of the world’s greatest festivals of dance and music. Sub-budu’s financier would, of course, receive a puff in direct proportion to favours done. But all other perfor-mances came in for critical scrutiny by a razor sharp mind.

It did not matter that Subbudu was a Lower Division Clerk in North Block. He was a quintessential Brah-min, steeped in music -- that is what mattered.

Negligible or zero priority accorded to the music critic by the media magnates impacted deeply on Kishori Amonkar’s emotional make-up. Her tantrums became notori-ous. In fact, her pain was deeper. She could not forget the shabby treat-ment meted out by organisers in days when women singers like Kes-arbai Kerkar, Hirabai Barodekar and, above all, her own mother, Mogubai, were shuffling themselves out of their “Bai” identity.

A genius like Kishori would have none of it, almost to the point of being prickly. At a performance in which Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah was present, the clatter-ing of saucers, pans and cups would not stop even after Kishori had taken the stage. She furrowed her brow and held the Chief Minister in a fierce gaze: “You are not on a prostitute’s terrace; you are in the Durbar of an artist.”

I would put it down as one of the more difficult assignments, that interview with her. She would not open up until she had reduced us to shaky amateurs. Eventually, she psyched us down to where she wanted us to be -- as her “rasias” or devotees.

I do not know whether she kept up her mother’s tradition to visit ‘gharana’ guru Alladiya Khan’s grave for floral offerings on March 14, his death anniversary.

As for her singing, there will not be another. Momin’s couplet encapsulates it: “Us ghairat e Naheed ki

har taan hai DeepakShola sa lapak jaaye hai,

awaaz to dekho”(Each taan or ascending passage

of that singing bird is like the Deepak raga; her notes touch the upper octaves like a leaping flame) IANS

(Saeed Naqvi is a commentator on political and diplomatic affairs. The views expressed are personal.)

With industries operating, a 100% pollution-free environment is a myth. It is neither possible nor necessary

A century ago, Indians became Satyagrahis & fought colonialism. Today, let us become Swachhagrahis & create a Swachh Bharat, #MyCleanIndia

NARENDRA MODI@narendramodi

Taliban is being domestically manufactured. #MakeInIndia

SANJAY JHA@JhaSanjay

tweetRETWEET

Yes, the turn out in Kashmir by-election seems abysmal but the story is Six People were killed today.

MIRZA WAHEED@MirzaWaheed

Idhar tau waqt ajab kuchh qayamati aaya/ amaaN usay bhi nahin jo teri panaah mein hai #NaseerTurabi #Sun-daySher

HUSAIN HAQQANI @husainhaqqani

Representational Image

Grand old lady of Hindustani classical music Kishori Amonkar (April 10, 1932 – April 3, 2017)

mp world10MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Monday, 10 April, 2017

CAIRO: The blast that occurred on Sunday at Mar Girguis church in Tanta was not the first attempted terror-ist attack, as a similar planned attack failed 12 days ago.

Security services defused a bomb in the same church on March 29 after reports indi-cated that there was a bomb inside the church, located on Ali Mubarak street. The two-way street was blocked until explosive experts were able to defuse the bomb; there were no casualties.

Sources from the church said on Sunday that another bomb was found next to the church a few days ago. Experts were able to defuse the bomb after it was noticed on surveil-lance cameras.

Tighter security measures are being carried out in the wake of the blast at the mean-time. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ordered for the injured to be treated at armed forces

hospitals. The explosions followed a

number of attacks by Islamic State militants targeting Egypt’s

minority Christians. And on Sunday, the group claimed

responsibility for both bomb-ings. An online statement shared by sympathizers and attributed to the militants said: “A security detachment of the Islamic State carried out the attacks against the two churches in the cities of Tanta and Alexandria.” The bombings happened weeks before Pope Francis was to visit Egypt, and a week before Easter.

The second attack took place while worshipers at St. Mark’s were leaving at the end of Palm Sunday Mass. The ser-vice had been led by the Cop-tic pope, Tawadros II. The pope had already left when the explosion happened.

A security official told the state news agency they believed the blast had been caused by an explosive device planted inside the church. After the first blast, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi ordered military hospitals to treat the injured, Sky News Ara-bia reported. AGENCIES

MOSCOW/TEHRAN: Rus-sia and Iran have warned the US they will “respond with force” if their own “red lines” are crossed in Syria.

Following Friday’s cruise missile strike on a Syrian air base, in retaliation for the chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun earlier in the week, the alliance supporting Syr-ian President Bashar al-Assad made a joint statement threat-ening action in response to “any breach of red lines from whoever it is”.

“What America waged in an aggression on Syria is a crossing of red lines. From now on we will respond with force to any aggressor or any breach of red lines from whoever it is and America knows our abil-ity to respond well,” the group’s joint command centre said.

US President Donald Trump said the strike with some 60 Tomahawk missiles on al Shayrat air base, near Homs, was “representing the world”. The base was allegedly used by Syrian forces to conduct the attack, which killed more than 80 people.

On Sunday the UK’s Defence Secretary, Sir Michael Fallon, demanded Russia rein in Assad, claiming that Moscow is “responsible for every civilian death” in Khan Sheikhoun.

Sir Michael said the attack had happened “on their watch” and that Vladimir Putin must now live up to previous prom-ises that Assad’s chemical weapons had been destroyed.

Experts have dismissed Russia’s claim that a rebel chemical weapons facility caused the deaths. Britain, the US and France accused Assad’s regime of gassing civilians in the opposition-held town, but Damascus claimed it destroyed its toxic stockpiles following an international agreement struck in 2013.

The Russian defence minis-try put out a competing version of events claiming legitimate Syrian air strikes against “ter-rorists” had struck a ware-house used to produce and store shells containing toxic gas, which were allegedly being sent to Iraq.

The joint command centre also said on Sunday the missile strike would not deter it from “liberating” Syria, and that the US military presence in the north of the country amounted to an illegal “occupation”.

Putin and Iranian leader Hassan Rouhani have called for an objective investigation into the chemical attack.

The army chiefs of Rus-sia and Iran discussed the US strikes in Syria by phone on Sunday, and vowed to continue the fight against “terrorists” and their supporters, Iranian media reported.

The two chiefs of staff, Major General Mohammad Bagheri and General Valery Gerasimov, “condemned the American operation against a Syrian air base which is an aggression against an inde-pendent country”, state news agency IRNA said. AGENCIES

LONDON: A number of prominent British television journalists from the BBC and Sky News are reportedly on an Islamic State hit-list.

A website of the dreaded terrorist group is encouraging “lone-wolf” attacks on news-readers alongside the loca-tion of their offices, the ‘Daily Star’ reported. The newspaper said it has contacted police to alert them about the website and counter-terrorism officers are now looking into the case. “The Islamic State website posts instructed followers to target BBC and Sky news readers and posted the location of their offices,” the daily said.

“Terror bosses went on to instruct fanatics to attack pop-ular tourist attractions.

They include Downing Street, Big Ben and, chillingly, Westminster, the scene of last month’s terror attack,” it adds.

Further posts reportedly

provided a list of names of British MPs, police stations, government buildings, Army bases, shopping centres and airports.

The “terrifying lists” were posted on an “offshoot” of a well-known terrorism website, the newspaper claims.

The website had pictures of alleged victims of a coali-tion bombing in Mosul, Iraq, with the message: “By Allah! We will not forget! Even after some time we will never for-get!” Security expert Will Geddes told said that pub-lic figures commenting on Islamic State should take security seriously. AGENCIES

Terrorists previously attempted to attack in Tanta

Cabin crew help deliver baby at 42,000 ft

Russia, Iran to use force if US crosses ‘Red Lines’ again

UK news presenters on Islamic State hit-list

ISIS claims responsibility for bombings that killed scores at two Coptic churches

LONDON: An Indian-ori-gin woman has become the first non-white judge to sit at the Old Bailey Court of London.

Anuja Ravindra Dhir, who was advised to take up hair-dressing by a teacher at her high school, is also the young-est circuit judge currently to sit at the court.

The 49-year-old told the media this week that she is often mistaken for a witness or a defendant since she entered the legal profession.

“I remember going to a crown court out of London and the man at the gate didn’t believe I was a barrister. In the end I had to show him my wig and gown before they would actually let me into the build-ing,” she said.

“I’m often asked if there is a glass ceiling. I think some-times there are two ceilings - or no glass ceiling at all. There is one glass ceiling that’s in our minds, that’s what we think

we can achieve so perhaps we impose our glass ceiling and that has happened to me several times... most clients did not want a young, Asian, Scottish female representing them, so that made it harder for me to build a client base,” she said.

Dhir was born in Dundee, Scotland, to Indian immigrant parents and studied at Har-ris Academy before studying English and Scots law at Dundee University.

She subsequently won a Gray’s Inn scholarship in London, calling to the bar in 1989 where she practised for 23 years as both prosecutor and defence counsel.

She recalls her dyslexia in school led her teachers to advice against dreaming of a legal career.

Dhir donned her judge’s robes as a circuit judge at the Central Criminal Courts, known as at the Old Bailey, in London in February. AGENCIES

STOCKHOLM: Swedish police have brought in seven people for questioning over an apparent terror attack in which a hijacked delivery truck mowed down pedestrians in Stockholm, killing four people, authorities said on Sunday.

A 39-year-old Uzbek man was arrested earlier as the sus-pected driver of the truck that rammed into crowds in the Swedish capital on Friday. The man had been known to Swed-ish security services but had no clear links to militant groups.

A further 15 people were injured when the beer delivery truck barrelled down a busy shopping street before crash-ing into a department store

and catching fire. “Seven peo-ple have been brought in for questioning as a result of these events,” Jonas Hysing, national head of police operations, told public broadcaster SVT, after several raids on addresses around Stockholm over the weekend. Hysing declined to give further information about the raids, but said “the evi-dence looks very strong” that the Uzbek man was the driver of the commandeered truck.

The Uzbek, detained on Friday night on suspicion of terrorist offences, appeared to have acted alone but police could not rule out that more people were involved, national police chief Dan Eliasson said

on Sunday. Police said they had now identified three of the four dead, one of whom was a Bel-gian citizen, according to a tweet from Belgium’s foreign minister. In neighboring Nor-way early on Sunday, police set off a controlled explosion of a “bomb-like device” in cen-tral Oslo and took a suspect into custody. Police across the Nordic region went on heightened alert after the Stockholm attack. Vehicles have also been used as weap-ons in Nice and Berlin in the past year in attacks claimed by Islamic State militants. Stock-holm was returning to normal-ity on a bright Sunday morning with police barricades taken

down along the Drottning-gatan street where the attack took place. Hundreds of flower bouquets covered steps lead-ing down to the square next to where the truck ploughed into the Ahlens department store, with more piled up under boarded-up windows.

Ten of the injured people remained in hospital, two of them in intensive care, Stock-holm authorities said. A memo-rial service was planned in Sergelstorg, the central square next to Drottninggatan, at 2 pm. Sweden has long taken pride in its tolerant liberal democracy and been among the world’s most welcoming nations to immigrants. AGENCIES

LONDON: The body of the police officer killed in the UK Parliament terror attack will lie in rest in a chapel here ahead of a full police funeral on Monday, police said on Sunday.

Scotland Yard Police Con-stable Keith Palmer was guard-ing the gates of the Palace of Westminster, which houses the Parliament, on March 22 when terror suspect Khalid Masood stabbed him to death in an attempt to gain entry into the building. The 48-year-old’s cof-fin will be taken to the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft in the Palace of Westminster where it will remain for 24 hours before his funeral. The rare honour is usually reserved for leading parliamentarians and requires the consent of Queen Elizabeth II. “Her Majesty The Queen has given permission for PC Palmer to lie in rest ahead of his full force funeral within the Chapel of St Mary Under-croft, within the Palace of

Westminster,” the Metropolitan Police said.

“Palmer will be greeted by a Guard of Honour, formed by officers from his team at the Parliamentary and Diplo-matic Protection Command (PaDP),” they said. A private service will be held, attended by close members of Keith’s family. Following this service, officers from PaDP will form a cata-falque honour guard to watch over PC Palmer’s coffin, police said in a statement.

“This will remain in place throughout the night and will be made up of two officers at a time, remaining in place for an hour,” the Met said. The body will stay at the Palace over on Sunday and Monday morn-ing before being taken to the Southwark Cathedral for the funeral service on Monday afternoon. Police colleagues from across the UK and mem-bers of the public are expected to pay their respect. AGENCIES

A Turkish Airlines jet arrived at its destination with an

extra passenger after cabin crew helped a woman give birth mid-flight.

Nafi Diaby, suddenly went into labour while flying from Conakry, Guinea, to Ouaga-dougou in Burkina Faso.

The mother — who was 28-weeks pregnant — had ear-lier in Burkina Faso, according to the airline.

Unfazed by the on flight frisson, the crew coped admirably and the little girl, Kadiju, entered the world at 42,000 feet.

Mother and baby were taken to hospital when the aircraft, a Boeing 737-900, landed. Both are reported to be doing well.

The airline tweeted pictures of its crew posing with the new-born baby, along with a mes-sage which read: “Welcome on board Princess! Applause goes to our cabin crew!”

This is not the first time this

has happened. Flight crews are trained to deal with such emergencies.

Kadiju’s place of birth, and ultimately her nationality, could be an interesting matter

of debate.She could get her nation-

ality from her mother or she could be classified as hav-ing been born in the country in whose airspace the plane was flying.

Just to add to the confusion, the United Nations, considers that the baby should be classi-fied as having been born in the country where the plane was registered, in this case, Turkey.

Whether this would mean that she is entitled to Turkish citizenship would depend on how the country’s national-ity laws treat babies born on its soil. For example another baby, Chloe, was also born over Canadian airspace in 2015 with legal experts arguing she had the right to claim Canadian citizenship.

Turkish Airlines allows expectant mothers to fly up to their 28th week of pregnancy without a doctor’s report. After 28-weeks pregnant women must have a letter from their doctor to say they are fit to fly. AGENCIES

LONDON: Britain said on Sunday Russia bore respon-sibility by proxy for civil-ian deaths in Syria last week caused by a poison gas attack that Washington says was car-ried out by the Moscow-backed government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

At least 80 people died in what the United States says was a chemical weapons attack in rebel-held Syria.

The attack prompted the United States to fire 59 cruise missiles into a Syrian air base from which it said the attack was launched.

Damascus and Moscow denied Syrian forces were behind the gas attack but West-ern countries dismissed their explanation that chemicals leaked from a rebel weapons depot after an air strike.

Russia has warned that the

US missile strikes could have serious consequences for the region.

The missile strikes cata-pulted Washington into con-frontation with Russia, which has advisers on the ground aid-ing its close ally Assad.

British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon criticized Rus-sia’s support of Assad, describ-ing the chemical attack as a war crime that happened “on their watch”. “By proxy Russia is responsible for every civilian death last week,” Fallon, whose government voiced support for US President Donald Trump’s decision to target the Syrian air base, wrote in the Sunday Times newspaper.

“If Russia wants to be absolved of responsibil-ity for future attacks, (Presi-dent) Vladimir Putin needs to enforce commitments, disman-

tle Assad’s chemical weapons arsenal for good and get fully

engaged” with the UN peace process on Syria. AGENCIES

ADEN: Eight people were killed in a fire on Sunday that broke out near an oil pipeline damaged by sabotage in the west of war-torn Yemen, a gov-ernment official said.

“Dozens of people had gathered at the site of the pipe-line with bowls and other containers to fill with petrol spilling from the pipeline” in Hodeida on the Red Sea, the official in Yemen’s recognised government told AFP.

He said the fire broke out because of the use of an elec-tricity generator, leaving eight dead and 13 others with burns. Medical sources in Hodeida said at least eight people died.

More than 7,700 people —most of them civilians — have been killed in fighting between Shiite Huthi rebels and the Yemeni government backed by a Saudi-led Arab coalition since March 2015, according to the United Nations. AGENCIES

Indian-origin woman is 1st non-white judge at London court

Sweden questioning seven people over deadly truck attack: Police

Officer killed in London attack to lie in rest

UK: Russia responsible by proxy for Syria chemical deaths

Fire near sabotaged Yemen oil pipeline kills 8

One dead in raid on Syria ‘chemical

attack’ townBEIRUT: One woman was killed in an air strike on Sun-day on the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhun, site of a suspected chemical weapons attack ear-lier this week, a monitor said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was unclear if the strike on the rebel-held town in north-west Syria’s Idlib province was carried out by Syrian planes or those of government ally Russia.

The death was the first in the town since a suspected chemical weapons attack on Tuesday that killed 87 civilians, including 31 children, and left hundreds suffering symptoms including convulsions, vomit-ing and foaming at the mouth.

Much of the international community pointed the fin-ger at President Bashar al-Assad’s government for the attack, though it denied any responsibility.

US President Donald Trump ordered the first direct US military action against Assad’s government in response to the attack, launching missiles against an air base in central Syria. Khan Sheikhun has been hit several times since Tues-day, including in a strike in the hours afterwards on a hospital treating victims. AGENCIES

Iran’s Rouhani calls Assad to stress backing for Syrian stateTEHRAN: President Hassan Rouhani stressed Iran’s support for the Syrian state in “its war against terrorism” during a call with his counter-part Bashar al-Assad on Sunday, condemning a US missile strike on Syria as a violation of its sov-ereignty. Syrian state news agency said Assad told Rouhani the Syrian people and army were “deter-mined to crush terrorism in every part of Syrian territory” and thanked him for Iran’s support for “the Syrian nation”. The US launched a cruise missile attack on Friday against a Syrian airbase in response to a chemical weapons attack which killed 87 people including 31 children and which Washington says was carried out by the Syrian government. AGENCIES

Police make 2nd arrest in Sweden

truck attack STOCKHOLM: Swedish police have arrested a second person in relation to the deadly truck attack in the capital and a court has appointed the person a legal representative, a court official said on Sunday.

“Police have arrested a per-son and we have appointed a public defender,” Helga Hull-mann, judge at the Stockholm District Court said. She said lawyer Johan Akerman was the legal council appointed. Police arrested a 39-year-old Uzbek man on Saturday on suspicion he was the driver of the truck that killed 4 people and injured a further 15.

Police said they had now identified three of the four dead, one of whom was a Bel-gian citizen. AGENCIES

Unfazed by the on flight frisson, the crew coped admirably and the little girl, Kadiju, entered the world at 42,000 feet. Baby’s place of birth, and ultimately her nationality, could be an interesting matter of debate. She could get her nationality from her mother or in whose airspace the plane was

EXPLOSIONS AT COPTIC CHURCHES IN EGYPT

mp world 11MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Monday, 10 April, 2017

Prez Trump seeks options to eliminate N Korea nuke threatWASHINGTON: As a US strike group led by an aircraft carrier steamed toward the Korean peninsula on Sunday, a senior official said US Presi-dent Donald Trump has asked to be provided with a range of options for eliminating the North Korean nuclear threat.

The US naval move will certainly raise tensions in the region and comes hard on the heels of a US cruise mis-sile strike on Syria that was widely interpreted as put-ting Pyongyang on warning over its refusal to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

North Korea denounced Thursday’s attack as an act of “intolerable aggression” and one that justified “a million times over” the North’s push toward a credible nuclear deterrent.

Secretary of State Rex Til-lerson insisted in an inter-viewed broadcast Sunday that the United States does not intend to try to remove the regime of Kim Jong-Un.

“That is not our objec-tive and so the whole reasons underlying the development of a nuclear program in North Korea are simply not credible,”

Tillerson told the ABC pro-gram “This Week.” He said the United States expects China, the main ally of North Korea, to do more to rein in the regime in Pyongyang.

“They have indicated that they will and I think we need to allow them time to take

actions,” Tillerson said.US National Security

Adviser HR McMaster insisted, however, that in the meantime it is “prudent” to send the strike group to the Korean penin-sula, criticizing North Korea as a rogue, nuclear-armed nation engaged in provocative

behavior.“Presidents before and

President Trump agreed that it is unacceptable, that what must happen is the denuclearization of the peninsula,” McMaster told Fox News.

“The president has asked them to be prepared to give

us a full range of options to remove that threat,” he added, apparently referring to Trump’s advisers.

Pyongyang is on a quest to develop a long-range mis-sile capable of hitting the US mainland with a nuclear war-head, and has so far staged five nuclear tests, two of them last year.

Expert satellite imagery analysis suggests it could well be preparing for a sixth, with US intelligence officials warn-ing that Pyongyang could be less than two years away from developing the means to deliver a nuclear warhead to the conti-nental United States.

North Korea on Wednesday fired a medium-range ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan ahead of a US-China summit.

The isolated North is barred under UN resolutions from any use of ballistic missile technology.

In February, the North simultaneously fired four bal-listic missiles off its east coast, three of which fell provoca-tively close to Japan, in what it said was a drill for an attack on US bases in the neighboring Asian country. AGENCIES

MOSCOW: Russia slammed London on Sunday after British Foreign Secretary Boris John-son cancelled a scheduled visit to Moscow over its support for the Syrian regime, claiming Britain has “no real influence” internationally.

The cancellation “once again confirms doubts about the added value of dialogue with the British, who don’t have their own position on the majority of current issues,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

The British have “no real influence on the course of international affairs, remain-ing ‘in the shadow’ of their stra-tegic partners,” it added.

“We don’t believe we need dialogue with London more than (London) needs it (with us),” it said.

The statement added there was a “fundamental misunder-standing or ignorance of what is happening in Syria and Rus-sia’s efforts to resolve the crisis.”

Johnson announced on Saturday he would not travel to Moscow next week, saying that “developments in Syria have changed the situation fundamentally”.

“My priority is now to con-tinue contact with the US and others in the run up to the G7

meeting on 10-11 April,” he said. “We deplore Russia’s con-tinued defence of the Assad regime even after the chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians.”

Johnson then called on Rus-sia to do “everything possible to bring about a political settle-ment in Syria and work with the rest of the international community to ensure that the shocking events of the last week are never repeated.”

His decision came in

response to a suspected chem-ical weapons attack on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheik-hun on Tuesday that killed at least 86 people according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Moscow has sought to deflect blame from its long-time ally Bashar al-Assad over the incident and says Syrian jets struck a rebel arms depot where “toxic substances” were being put inside bombs. AGENCIES

Mogadishu bomb blast: 15 killed

Google underpaying female workers

Swedes to hold peace vigil after truck attack, probe deepens

Norway police neutralise explosive device, arrest suspect

MOGADISHU: A car bomb targeting senior officials leav-ing a military base in Moga-dishu killed at least 15 people and destroyed a minibus car-rying civilians, the Somali mili-tary said on Sunday, an attack claim by Islamist al Shabaab militants.

It occurred a week after President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed replaced his security chiefs and called on al Shabaab fighters to surrender within 60 days in return for education and jobs

“At least 15 people, mostly civilians, died in (Sunday’s) the blast,” Somali Major Hussein Nur told Reuters. “We do not know the exact figure of casu-alties. All the people on board the ruined minibus perished. Soldiers and other private secu-rity guards also died.”

A Reuters witness at the scene of the explosion saw a wrecked minibus, human flesh and damage to the tarmac road. Roads were sealed off even to private ambulances.

A government official said

given the state of the dead bod-ies, it would be difficult to give an exact death toll.

“Many people died but we cannot know the exact figure of casualties. We cannot count human flesh,” Abdifatah Omar Halane, spokesman for Moga-dishu’s mayor, said.

Al Shabaab, waging an increasingly deadly campaign of bombings despite losing most of its territory to African Union peacekeepers support-ing the Somali government, was behind the attack, according to Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Qaeda-affiliated group’s spokesman for military operations.

Nur said the car bomber appeared intent on hitting a convoy carrying Somali mil-itary commander Ahmed Mohamed Jimale and other senior officers, but was not close enough to cause any casu-alties among his entourage.

Al Shabaab confirmed Jimale was their intended tar-get, and that they had killed seven of his bodyguards in the attack. AGENCIES

SAN FRANCISCO: Govern-ment investigators looking into how Google pays its employees have accused the tech giant of shortchanging women doing similar work to men.

A US Department of Labour official disclosed the agency’s allegations during a Friday court hearing in San Francisco. “We found sys-temic compensation dispar-ities against women pretty much across the entire work-force,” Janette Wipper, a Labour Department regional director, testified, according to a report published by The Guardian.

Google said it vehemently disagreed with the charges, which the Mountain View, Cal-ifornia, company said it hadn’t heard until Wipper’s court appearance.

“Every year, we do a com-prehensive and robust analysis of pay across genders and we have found no gender pay gap,” Google said in its statement.

Google and other technol-ogy companies have been try-ing to improve hiring practices that have historically doled out most of their technical jobs to white and Asian men. Their efforts to strike a better bal-ance have been mostly unsuc-cessful so far.

For instance, only 19 per cent of Google’s technology jobs are held by women. Over-all, nearly one-third of Google’s more than 70,000 workers are women.

The Labour Department’s probe evolved from a lawsuit filed in January seeking to bar Google doing business with the federal government unless the company complied with an audit of its employee-compen-sation records.

Google has said it has turned over some of the requested records, but with-held other information that it believes would invade its workers’ privacy. AGENCIES

STOCKHOLM: Thousands of people were to gather in cen-tral Stockholm on Sunday for a “Lovefest” vigil against ter-rorism, as police pursue their investigation into this week’s deadly truck attack.

Shocked by Friday’s attack that left four dead and 15 injured — for which a 39-year-old Uzbek man is in custody — Stockholmers mobilised on Facebook, organising a vigil for 2:00 pm (1200 GMT) at the Sergels Torg plaza near where the truck rammed into shop-pers. Sweden has been try-ing to get back on its feet this weekend after what authori-ties termed a terror attack, the motive for which was still unknown. The method, how-ever, was similar to previous attacks using vehicles in Nice, Berlin and London, all of them claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group. There has been no immediate claim of responsi-bility for the Stockholm attack — the third in Europe in two

weeks, coming on the heels of the car and knife assault outside London’s parliament and the Saint Petersburg metro bomb-ing. Police have not named the suspected driver of the truck, whom they arrested on Fri-day evening, but authorities said he was known to Sweden’s intelligence service for undis-closed reasons. The man is sus-pected of speeding a stolen beer truck several hundred metres down the bustling pedes-

trian street Drottninggatan in the heart of Stockholm. The vehicle mowed down shop-pers before slamming into the facade of the busy Ahlens department store. “There is nothing to indicate that we’ve got the wrong man. On the contrary, the suspicions have strengthened,” Swedish police chief Dan Eliasson said on Sat-urday. He said police found a suspect device in the cab of the truck. AGENCIES

STAVANGER: Police in the Norwegian capital of Oslo said they neutralised an explosive device found in a busy area of downtown Oslo and said they had arrested a suspect.

Police Chief Vidar Peder-sen confirmed last night that the device, initially described as “bomb-like,” was an explosive.

The police Twitter account said it had been defused or neutralised.

Police would not give any details about the suspect, or further information about the device. Pederson said the device was found on the street just outside the Groenland underground station, and police swept through the area to remove people from bars and restaurants.

“Every restaurant was being closed,” said 23-year-old Malin Myrvold, who witnessed the scene from a fourth-story win-dow. “You could see cops in

heavy armour going in every store and restaurant. “We were trying to see what was going on. The police were screaming at us to get back inside and stay where we were,” she added by telephone.

Norway was put on high alert after neighbouring Swe-den suffered a truck attack in the capital that killed four peo-ple and injured 15. The suspect in Friday’s attack, a 39-year-

old native of Uzbekistan, has been arrested. It was unclear whether he was also a Swedish citizen or resident or even how long he’d been in the country.

The Norwegian inci-dent happened less than a mile from the government buildings that were dam-aged in a deadly bomb attack carried out by right wing extremist Anders Breivik in 2011. AGENCIES

Building collapses in Poland: Four killed, 4 injured;

2 missingWARSAW: An apartment house collapsed on Sunday in southwestern Poland, leav-ing four people dead, four injured and two others miss-ing, authorities said.

Scores of firefighters with dogs were searching the rub-ble of the building in the town of Swiebodzice (Shvyeh-’boh-tchi-tseh), according to Daniel Mucha, regional spokesman for the firefighters. He said the col-lapse of two floors of the three-floor building might have been caused by a gas explosion.

Regional governor Pawel Hreniak said the search-and- rescue operation was expected to continue even on Monday.

“I confirm a fourth vic-tim, an elderly man,” Hreniak said. “But another resident, an elderly lady, contacted us to say she was away from the house and was fine.”

Still, firefighters looking for two more survivors said there were no sounds yet coming from the building’s bricks and broken wood.

The governor of Swie-bodzice, Bogdan Kozuchow-icz, said the pre-World War II building was recently reno-vated and had been in good technical condition.

The injured were taken to hospitals in Swiebodzice and in Wroclaw. One survivor, iden-tified only by her first name Stanislawa, told TVN24 that she was “miraculously saved.”

“I was in the kitchen and suddenly it was dark and full of debris and some bro-ken wooden planks,” she said from her hospital bed in Swie-bodzice. “I got on top of those planks and started calling ‘Help! Help!’ Two firefighters came and pulled me out by the arm.” She said her husband was resting on the bed at the time of the collapse.

“I don’t know what has happened to him,” she said, her voice trembling. With her teenage son, also a survivor, at her side, she said the family had lost everything.

The head of the medi-cal rescue workers, Wojciech Kopacki, said two of the dead were children. AGENCIES

BRIEFSWORLDMAN AT NRA HEADQUARTERS ACCIDENTALLY SHOOTS HIMSELFVIRGINIA: In a somewhat ironic twist of fate, a Na-tional Rifle Association employee has accidentally shot himself while doing firearms training at the organisa-tions headquarters. The 46-year-old man accidentally discharged his pistol while he was holstering it at the NRA’s National Firearms Museum in Fairfax, Virginia. The staffer of the National Firearms Museum, a site within the NRA’s Headquarters, suffered a minor wound to his lower body and was taken to a hospital for treatment. No criminal chargers have been filed.

TRUMP NOMINATES NEW HEAD OF IMMIGRATION AGENCYPalm Beach:President Donald Trump intends to nominate Lee Francis Cissna to head the US Citizen-ship and Immigration Services. The White House an-nounced the nomination in a statement Saturday.The US Citizenship and Immigration Services pro-cesses immigration and naturalization applications. The agency is part of the Department of Homeland Security, where Cissna currently works as director of immigration policy in the Office of Policy.

SYRIA: SUICIDE BOMBING INSIDE REFUGEE CAMP, SEVERAL INJUREDDAMASCUS: A suicide bombing rocked a refugee camp inside the Syrian territories near the Jordanian borders on Saturday, activities said. The explosion, believed to have been caused by a car bomb, rattled the Rukban camp located in the far Syrian desert on the borders with Jordan, leaving many people wounded, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The London-based watchdog said unidentified warplanes flew over the area after the blast. Mean-while, the Observatory said clashes erupted between the IS terrorist group and other rebel groups in the Tanf area close to the Rukban camp.

FRANCE ENSHRINES DECISION TO CLOSE OLDEST NUCLEAR PLANTPARIS: The French government on Sunday published a decree for closing the country’s oldest nuclear plant, fulfilling a campaign-trail pledge made by President Francois Hollande who is now in the final weeks of office. The decree, gazetted in the Official Journal which publishes government decisions, sets down the conditions for closing a nuclear plant at Fessenheim, near the border with Germany. Fessenheim will cease operations when a new reactor, currently being built at Flamanville on the Normandy coast, “enters ser-vice,” the decree said. France’s nuclear plant operator EDF last month said the Flamanville reactor a project that has run into deep problems will begin opera-tions in 2019. The closure of the twin-reactor plant at Fessenheim is part of a plan to slash France’s depen-dence on atomic energy.

Moscow slams London after British FM cancels visit

1st Jewish campus in Berlin after the HolocaustBERLIN: Rabbi Yehuda Teich-tal doesn’t get much sleep these days, but says it’s well worth it. The community rabbi and head of the Jewish outreach group Chabad in Berlin has been campaigning relentlessly to turn his dream of creating a Jewish campus in Germany into a reality.

For years, he’s lobbied the German authorities, raised mil-lions of euros (dollars) in funds and bought a 3,000 square meter (32,000 square feet) plot of land next to Chabad’s syn-agogue in the German capi-tal’s Wilmersdorf district. More than just a new facility, Teichtal sees the center as a step toward

Chabad’s goal of re-establishing a vibrant Jewish community in the former Nazi capital, in part by welcoming and integrat-ing Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union and encouraging interactions with non-Jews. “Everyone in Europe talks about fears and uncertain-ties, we’re talking about going forward,” said the 44-year-old orthodox rabbi, looking across the large empty plot where a few containers have been set up as a temporary extension of Chabad’s kindergarten. The planned seven-story build-ing will be dedicated to Jew-ish education, culture and sports, the first of its kind in

Germany. If all goes to plan, the ground-breaking is sched-uled for September and the

entire campus is slated to be finished in late 2019. German authorities approved some of

the still-outstanding permis-sions earlier this month. “With all the challenges we’re facing today, building this campus is a signal: We’re here to stay — otherwise we wouldn’t build,” says Teichtal, who wears a tra-ditional beard, a velvet kippah and a black caftan. Germany has experienced a strong influx of Jews in recent decades and Berlin has the biggest Jewish community in Germany, with about 40,000 members. Those numbers are still a far cry, how-ever, from Germany’s flourish-ing Jewish community of more than 500,000 before the Nazi period, with some 120,000 Jews in Berlin alone. AGENCIES

Explosive device case takenCOPENHAGEN: Norway’s security service on Sunday took over an investigation into an explosive device found near a busy subway station in Oslo after police defused the device and arrested a suspect. Norway’s security service PST said early on Sunday it had taken over the investigation for several reasons but did not elaborate. Norway was put on high alert after neighbouring Sweden. AGENCIES

A poster with the planned new Jewish Campus is displayed at the Chabad Educational Centre in Berlin, Germany

The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson and other US ships, seen in the Philippine Sea in March

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson

mp business12MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Monday, 10 April, 2017

Tax dept slaps fresh demand of ̀ 10,247 cr on UK Cairn

NEW DELHI: Within weeks of tax tribunal ITAT uphold-ing levy of retrospective tax, the Income Tax Department has slapped a fresh demand note of Rs 10,247 crore on British explorer Cairn Energy Plc.

ITAT in its March 9 order held that Cairn Energy was liable to pay tax on the 2006 transfer of India assets to newly created Cairn India, prior to its listing. It, however, held that interest cannot be charged on it as the demand was raised using retrospective tax legislation.

The Income Tax Depart-ment had raised a tax demand of Rs 10,247 crore and another Rs 18,800 crore in interest for 10 years.

“Following the ruling of the ITAT, an amended tax demand, received on March 31, 2017, noted that late payment inter-est would now be charged from February 2016, i.e. from 30 days following the date of the original 2016 final assessment order,” Cairn said in a notice to shareholders.

Cairn said the decision of the ITAT is “potentially subject

to appeal.” The company had on Janu-

ary 24, 2014 received a draft assessment order for the alleged capital gains it made in 2006. The order restrained the company from selling the residual 9.8 per cent stake it

holds in Cairn India.Cairn Energy had in 2011

sold Cairn India to Vedanta.“Then, on February 4,

2016... a final assessment order in respect of the Indian fiscal year ended March 31 2007, (was) issued by the

Indian Income Tax Depart-ment (IITD) in the amount of Rs 10,247 crore plus interest back dated to 2007 totalling Rs 18,800 crore,” Cairn said.

The final assessment order did not include any penalties which may also be applied to the final assessment (poten-tially up to 300 per cent of any tax finally agreed).

“The final assessment order was appealed to the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, Delhi which ruled on March 9, 2017 that tax in the amount of Rs 10,247 crore remained payable but that the company could not be required to pay inter-est,” it said. This is because the tax demand was raised on the basis of a retrospective amend-ment done to the income tax act in 2012 and Cairn could not have anticipated that payment of tax would be required.

Stating that it strongly con-tests the final assessment order, Cairn said enforcement of any tax liability deemed due by the tax department will be limited to India assets, which had a value of about USD 750 mil-

lion as of December 31, 2016.These assets comprised

principally Cairn’s residual shareholding in Cairn India.

Cairn said it had on March 11, 2015 filed a Notice of Dis-pute under The UK-India Investment Treaty in order to protect its legal position and shareholder interests.

“The international arbi-tration proceedings for-mally commenced in January 2016 following the agree-ment between Cairn and the Government of India on the appointment of a panel of three international arbitrators under the terms of the Treaty,” it said.

“However, supported by detailed legal advice on the strength of the legal protections available to it under interna-tional law, Cairn strongly con-tests the actions of the IITD in these matters.

“In addition to the resolu-tion of the tax dispute, Cairn also seeks full recompense for the loss of value result-ing from the restriction on its Cairn India shares,” the notice added. PTI

The final assessment order was appealed to the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, Delhi which ruled on March 9, 2017 that tax in the amount of Rs 10,247 crore remained payable but that the company could not be required to pay interest

CHANDIGARH: India is looking for young entrepreneurs to build business houses and cre-ate more jobs, Commerce and Industry Minis-ter Nirmala Sitharaman said on Sunday, asking business graduates to become fountainhead of commercially viable ideas.

“India needs several entrepreneurs who can become fountainheads of commercially viable ideas that will make a difference to the econ-omy and the country,” Sitharaman said while addressing the graduating students at the cam-pus of Indian School of Business (ISB) in Moh-ali, near here.

“Develop your ideas. You should develop ideas ... and that is what I look up to graduates coming out of institutions like ISB,” she said.

Sitharaman, who gave away certificates to the graduating students, said the young minds of this country must build business houses and create more jobs. “I would like the young minds of this country to build business houses and cre-ate more jobs,” she said.

She also touched upon the GST, saying with GST coming, India becoming one market and simplified taxation structure, it was also time for us to look into what exists in logistics.

She said logistics needs a lot of research.“Logistics is something on which India has

to develop its own model ... You have logistics developed according to Western economies and their model, the Chinese have developed their own but do we have an idea of how we are going to have efficient logistics in this country.

“I think that is one area where there is lot of research waiting to be done,” she said.

Adi Godrej, Chairman of the ISB Executive

Board, Sunil Kant Munjal, Chairman, Mohali Campus Advisory Board, Professor Rajendra Srivastava, Dean, ISB, members of the ISB Board, also spoke on the occasion.

Sharing his experiences with the graduat-ing students, Adi Godrej, who is also Chair-man, Godrej Group, said, “as a management student, one of the key things that I had learnt is the power of team work and the importance of building teams and retaining people, an idea that I imbibed early in my career and it is now with me all through”.

Referring to the role of family businesses in the economy, he said, “family managed busi-nesses are the unsung heroes of the Indian econ-omy. They make up more than two-thirds of the world s companies, employing half the world’s workforce and contribute to well over half the world’s GDP.” PTI

NEW DELHI: Religare Enterprises will sell its entire 80 per cent stake in Religare Health Insur-ance to a consortium of investors led by private equity fund True North Managers for an esti-mated Rs 1,040 crore.

“The company has entered into definitive agreements with a consortium of investors led by True North Managers, an India based private equity fund, to divest its entire stake in Religare Health Insurance Company Ltd (RHI),” Relig-are Enterprises Ltd (REL) said in a BSE filing on Sunday.

“This transaction values Religare Health Insurance at Rs 1,300 crore and Religare Enter-prises currently has 80 per cent shareholding on a fully diluted basis in the company,” it said further.

Union Bank of India and Corporation Bank

also hold 5 per cent stake each in RHI.The consortium of buyers includes domes-

tic investors such as Gaurav Dalmia and Faer-ing Capital.

Religare Enterprises said the transaction marks the single largest investment in a stand-alone health insurance company in India.

Commenting on the deal, Religare Enter-prises Group CEO Maninder Singh said: “This sale is a continuation of REL’s strategy to consoli-date and focus on its core businesses. We are con-fident that RHI will continue on its high growth trajectory under the new ownership.”

Religare Health Insurance reported gross written premium of Rs 503 crore for the year ended March 31, 2016. JP Morgan acted as exclu-sive financial advisor to Religare Enterprises on this transaction. PTI

NEW DELHI: A transaction of Rs 1,590 has bagged a Cen-tral Bank of India customer lucky bounty of Rs 1 crore under the government’s pro-motional scheme to popula-rise digital payments.

President Pranab Mukherjee picked up the lucky winners from the 100th draw of lots under digital pay-ments promotion schemes at Rashtrapati Bhavan here.

He congratulated the six winners -- three consum-ers and three merchants -- of Lucky Grahak Yojana and Digi Dhan Vyapar Yojana.

In the consumer section, the first mega prize of Rs 1 crore went to a customer of Central Bank of India, while the second prize of Rs 50 lakh went to a Bank of Baroda cus-tomer. A customer of Punjab National Bank is the winner of third prize of Rs 25 lakh.

All the three customers

had done transactions using their RuPay debit cards. The names of three winners were not yet known as the draw only displayed their transac-tion numbers. These will be matched with card details to identify the winners. Three merchants also won prizes of Rs 50 lakh, Rs 25 lakh and Rs 12 lakh, respectively.

The winners will be felici-tated by Prime Minister Nar-endra Modi on April 14 at Nagpur on the occasion of Ambedkar Jayanti.

Following demonetisa-tion of old Rs 500/1000 notes on November 9 last year, the government took a slew of measures to promote digital payments in the country.

The government launched the Lucky Grahak Yojana for consumers and Digi Dhan Vyapar Yojana for merchants on December 25, 2016 to pro-mote digital transactions. PTI

India needs young entrepreneurs to create more jobs: Nirmala

Religare to exit Religare Health Insurance for ̀ 1,040 crore

MF inflows in stocks drop 27% to ̀ 51,000 cr in FY17NEW DELHI: Mutual fund managers’ investment in equities declined by 27 per cent to over Rs 51,000 crore in 2016-17 due to volatility in stock markets.

However, fund houses are upbeat about the industry’s performance in the new fiscal while expecting investment from new investors to fuel the growth of the sector.

As per data released by the Securi-ties and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), mutual fund managers invested a net sum of Rs 51,352 crore in stock markets during 2016-17, lower than Rs 70,130 crore invested in the preceding fiscal.

In 2014-15, fund mangers had infused close to Rs 41,000 crore in stock markets -- the first net inflow in six years. Prior to that, they had pulled out over Rs 14,000 crore.

“The equity market has overall been more volatile in 2016-17 than 2015-16 with a lot more negative sentiment.

Investors may have seen the volatil-ity of the year as a positive to average out costs,” said Srikanth Meenakshi, COO at FundsIndia.com, an investment por-tal for MFs. Apart from equities, fund managers invested a staggering Rs 3.14 lakh crore in debt markets.

The past fiscal saw a surge in the number of retail investor accounts, or folios, in equity, equity-linked saving schemes and balanced categories, which grew by more than 58 lakh to 4.4 crore.

According to market experts, the mutual fund industry is at a take-off stage in terms of growth and Indian investors are warming up to investments in equity as an asset class.

“The positive net inflow in equi-ties can be credited to maturity of retail investors who have come up in the ‘learning curve’ by contributing 1.3 crores monthly systematic investment plans (SIPs), adding more than Rs 4,000 crore per month in various top per-forming equity schemes,” Bajaj Capital Group Director Anil Chopra said.

A mutual fund pools the assets of its

investors and invests the money on their behalf. It provides diverse investment instruments like stocks and bonds with-out requiring investors to make separate purchases and trades. PTI

The past fiscal saw a surge in the number of retail investor accounts, or folios, in equity, equity-linked saving schemes and balanced categories, which grew by more than 58 lakh to 4.4 crore

Chinese economy likely to grow at 6.8% in Q 1

BEIJING: China’s economy, which is reeling under con-tinued slowdown, is likely at grow at 6.8 per cent in the first quarter this year, according to a Goldman Sachs forecast.

The world’s second largest economy slowed down to 6.

9 per cent last year and the government has cut down the growth to 6.5 per cent this year.

The bank said in a research report that purchasing manag-ers’ index (PMI) readings from both official and private sur-veys have implied firm activ-ity growth overall. It expected China’s GDP growth to reach 6.6 per cent for 2017. Goldman Sachs expected China’s indus-trial production to rise 6.4 per cent in March, slightly higher than the 6.3 per cent growth for January and February.

Fixed asset investment growth is likely to remain strong, expanding 8.9 per cent in the first three months of the

year, unchanged from that in the first two months, the Gold-man Sachs forecast said.

It expected weaker auto sales to continue weighing on the country’s retail sales, which may increase 9.4 per cent in March, slowing from the 9.5 per cent growth registered in the first two months, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The bank said growth of the country’s consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of infla-tion, may rebound to 1.3 per cent in March from 0.8 per cent in February as distortions from the Chinese New Year effect disappeared.

In the fourth quarter of 2016, China’s economy grew 6.8 per cent year on year.

China is scheduled to release its first-quarter eco-nomic data, including GDP growth, fixed asset invest-ment, industrial output and retail sales, on April 17. PTI

Govt asks PSBs to finalise next wage revision before Nov 1

NEW DELHI: The finance ministry has asked the heads of public sector banks to final-ise the modalities for timely implementation of the next pay revision from November.

There are 21 public sector banks, post merger of six lend-ers with SBI, in the country. They together employ about 8 lakh people.

In a communication to CEOs and MDs of the state-owned banks, the minis-try advised them to initiate the steps for smooth conclu-sion of next wage revision of the employee within the time-frame.

“However, it is seen that several banks are yet to proceed in the matter,” it said, request-ing the PSBs to “look into the matter and conclude the next wage revision prior to the effec-tive date of November 1, 2017”.

The wage revision of pub-lic sector bank employees takes place every five year.

The last revision was effected in November 2012. In the last wage negotiation between PSU banks employee unions and bank management, Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) had settled at 15 per cent hike.

Recently, Banks Board Bureau chief Vinod Rai had made a case that the compen-sation package across the board of public sector banks needs to be improved.

“Maybe, we are not able to do much with the fixed part

of compensation package but (with) variable part we are hopeful that in the next finan-cial year (2017-18), we will be able to introduce a far more attractive package which do have bonuses, ESOPs and other performance linked incentives as part of the package,” he had said.

Rai has also suggested that managing directors of the public sector banks should be appointed for minimum 6 years. PTI

Conduct special audit of PF trusts: Panel to labour ministry

NEW DELHI: A parliamen-tary panel has asked the labour ministry to conduct special inspection or audit of private EPF trusts that have been found to be investing their workers’ retirement savings in own firms through mutual funds.

The private trusts, regu-lated by the EPFO, maintain PF accounts and retirement sav-ings and are required to invest these funds as per the invest-ment pattern approved by the government. These trusts are called exempted establishments because they do not deposit EPF contributions of their employees with the Employ-ees’ Provident Fund Organisa-tion (EPFO).

“Investing in own business is improper and is being done to serve their own interest,” the Parliamentary Standing Com-mittee on Labour said in its report tabled in Parliament on April 7.

The panel further said, “There is need to have spe-cial inspection or audit of all such companies and the EPFO should take early action on the requisite process for restricting investment through this route and take immediate corrective steps and re-divert such invest-ments in other... instruments.”

It further observed: “From the list of 317 such firms, on whose board of trustees sur-charge was levied (for devi-ating from the investment pattern), most of the estab-lishments were closed against which the cancellation orders

were issued... such futile exer-cise needs to be tackled with regular physical inspection.”

As per the EPF scheme, the violation of not sticking to the investment template is only limited to three instances, and beyond that, the exemp-tion granted to the firm can be cancelled. The panel suggested that the exemption given to these private EPF trusts should be reviewed after a prescribed period so that the EPFO is aware of the exact financial status of the firms, which will help in protecting the interest of employees. PTI

Private trusts, regulated by the EPFO, maintain PF accounts and retirement savings and are required to invest these funds as per the investment pattern approved by the government

People sending demonetised notes abroad by courier: Customs

NEW DELHI: The customs department has unearthed a new modus operandi of sending demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes abroad by courier in a bid to get them converted here later. After these high denomination notes were taken out of circulation by the government in November last, Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) were given a longer window till June 30 to get them exchanged, whereas citizens who were in the country at that time were allowed to deposit the old notes till December 30, 2016.

Customs officials have registered a few cases, where demonetised banknotes were sent abroad by courier, and seized over Rs 1 lakh in such notes, a senior official said today.

People were found trying to send the old notes abroad by falsely declaring them as arti-cles such as books, he said. “The aim could be to take help of their relatives or friends abroad to get the old notes exchanged with the new ones,” the official said.

In two cases, couriers were booked from Punjab for Australia and the content inside them were declared as book. The customs official, who are keeping an eye on outbound parcels at for-eign post office here, found them having demon-etised notes. Similar consignments were booked for Korea and the United Arab Emirates contain-ing the defunct notes. “In all, over Rs 1 lakh in old currency notes were seized from these cou-riers,” he said.

Such cases have also been registered at for-eign post offices located across the country, the official said. After scrapping Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes on November 8, the government had per-mitted people to deposit them in banks up to December 30, 2016.

The RBI has allowed Indian citizens, who were abroad during November-December 2016, to exchange the scrapped notes up to March 31 and NRIs up to June 30. This facility is available at RBI offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chen-nai and Nagpur only. NRIs coming to India are required to come through Red Channel disclos-ing to the Customs authorities at the airport the amount of the demonetised notes and secure a certificate to be tendered at the RBI at the time of exchange. PTI

RSS body wants govt to impose 30% import

duty on pulses NEW DELHI: Concerned over declining prices of pulses produced domestically due to cheap imports, an RSS- affil-iated body today urged the government to impose a 30 per cent import duty on them to help safeguard farmers’ interests.

In a letter to Union Com-merce Minister Nirmala Sith-araman, the Swadeshi Jagran Manch has asked her to step in while fearing that the coun-try’s food security will be at the mercy of international markets.

It said unless the govern-ment imposes customs duty on pulses, the situation may turn worse and farmers would be disinclined to produce more pulses domestically, due to poor productivity and low prices. Manch national co-con-vener Ashwani Mahajan told Sitharaman that her Ministry has exempted import of pulses from paying the 10 per cent imports duty which has led to

large-scale imports at lower prices.

Mahajan said the custom duty exemption notification on pulses expired on March 31 and urged the government not to issue a fresh notification for continuing with the exemption.

“I take this opportunity to urge you to kindly not pro-nounce any such notification of exemption from duty, after lapse of this notification.

“There after kindly impose at least 30 percent duty to safe-guard the interest of the farm-ers and for the food security of the nation,” he said. The Manch said the exemption of pulses from import duty, done to support domestic supplies and keep prices of pulses low for consumers, does not have rel-evance now as domestic prices of the commodity have come down. It said it is unfortunate that due to zero duty import of pulse traders have flooded the market with yellow peas. PTI

Digital payments: Central Bank of India customer wins ̀ 1 cr

CIL’s new projects to cut

import bill NEW DELHI: State-owned Coal India will come up with three coal bed methane and coal mine methane projects in Jharkhand and West Bengal in 2017-18, a move that may help lower the country’s import bill and cut carbon emission. “Coal India (CIL) will come up with three CBM and CMM projects in the current fiscal,” an official in the know said, adding that the action plan for the same is at the implementation stage.

While one plant will be set up in Raniganj in West Bengal, two will be located in Jharia in Jharkhand, the official said.

The global tenders for the same will be out in the cur-rent fiscal. “Before awarding the project for developing it, Coal India will ensure all the clearances including forest and safety are in place,” the official said. CBM, an unconventional form of natural gas found in coal deposits or coal seams, is now considered as an alterna-tive source of augmenting the energy resource. PTI

mp business 13MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Monday, 10 April, 2017

ITR must mention loans, card payments above ̀ 2 L in cash

NEW DELHI: All cash pay-ments of over Rs 2 lakh for pay-ing loans and credit card bills during the 50-day period post demonetisation will have to be disclosed in the new one-page Income Tax return form.

The tax department a few days back notified new Income Tax Return (ITR) forms for fil-ing of returns for the Assess-ment Year 2017-18 (financial year 2016-17).

Besides providing for declaring income, exemp-tion claimed and tax paid, the forms have a new column pro-viding for declaration for any deposit of over Rs 2 lakh in bank accounts made during November 9 and December 30, 2016 after the old 500 and 1,000 rupee notes were demonetised.

This column is also to be used for declaring cash pay-ments in excess of Rs 2 lakh for repayment of any loan or settlement of credit card bills during this 50-day period, a senior official said here.

“The column is an attempt to match the cash deposits made post demonetisation with the annual income,” he said. While all credit cards are linked to permanent account number (PAN) of the holder, almost all loans by scheduled banks are also provided on fur-

nishing of PAN.The tax department will

collate the data it has of cash payments made in excess of Rs 2 lakh with the returns filed.

“We want to see if the income profile matches with the cash payments made,” he said. The move comes amid concerns of unaccounted cash or black money being used to settle bills after credit cards were used to make heavy pur-chases. It could also be that black money could have been used to repay loans.

Post-demonetisation, the government had provided

a 50-day window beginning November 9, 2016 to deposit the junked notes in bank accounts. For those with unac-counted cash, it gave them one last opportunity to come clean by depositing 50 per cent of it as tax and parking another 25 per cent in a zero- interest bear-ing deposit for four years.

The changes made in ITR are an attempt to catch tax evaders, the official said.

Revenue Secretary Has-mukh Adhia had last week told that the new column of cash deposits made during November 9, 2016 and Decem-

ber 30, 2016 was a one-time feature in the ITR and would not be there in the ITR from next year onwards. The ITR, he had said, would evolve or change every year depending on the need. While coming out with new ITRs, the CBDT had also rationalised them and cut down the number of forms to seven from earlier nine.

While all taxpayers will have to now mandatorily link Aadhaar with their PAN cards, ITR1 (Sahaj) form has been shortened from 7 page to 1 page to enable filing of returns by people with income up to Rs

50 lakh by July 31.ITR2 is to be filed by indi-

viduals and HUFs who do not have income from business or profession and ITR3 is filed by individuals and HUFs hav-ing income from a proprietary business or profession.

Also ITR 2 and ITR 3 also have a Schedule AL which require assessees to declare their assets and liabilities at the end of the fiscal. ITR4 (Sugam) is filed by those individuals who have opted for income calculation under presump-tive income from business and profession. PTI

The new forms have a new column providing for declaration for any deposit of over Rs 2 lakh in bank accounts made during November 9 and December 30, 2016 after the old 500 and 1,000 rupee notes were demonetised

Bullet train crosses major hurdle over BKC land

NEW DELHI: The railways have crossed a major hurdle in rolling out the ambitious bullet train project as the Maharash-tra government has agreed to give land at the Bandra-Kurla complex (BKC).

The starting point of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high speed corridor at BKC was a bone of contention between the railways and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Develop-ment Authority (MMRDA) as the latter was strongly opposed to giving land to the public transporter.

The proposed bullet train will start underground from BKC and travel 21 km in a tunnel passing through the sea before emerging overground at Thane.

The MRDA had wanted to use the BKC land for the pro-posed International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) at BKC.

The state Urban Develop-ment Department had also asked the railways to explore alternatives near Bandra Ter-minus and Kurla.

However, the railways had rejected the suggestion and managed to convince the MMRDA that India’s first high speed rail project should be constructed at an underground terminus at BKC, a senior Rail-way Ministry official said.

Since the station is planned to be built underground, the above space can be utilised for IFSC construction, the official said.

There are a total of 12 sta-tions on the 508-km route four of which are in Maharashtra and eight in Gujarat.

A formal announcement is likely to be made by the rail-ways and Maharashtra soon ending the uncertainities over location of the starting point of India’s first bullet train project, the official said.

The total land available at BKC is about 67 acres and the project needs about 10 acre land.

Passenger area, platforms, escalators, lifts among oth-ers will be constructed under-ground at BKC.

Estimated to cost about Rs 97,636 crore, 81 per cent of the funding for the project will

come by way of a loan from Japan. The project cost includes possible cost escalation, inter-est during construction and import duties.

The west central state of Maharashtra and the western state of Gujarat will also share 25 per cent cost each for the project.

Currently geo-technical survey is going on to be fol-lowed by the final location sur-vey to mark the alignment and exact spots for the pillars on which trains will run at higher speed to reduce the travelling time between Mumbai and Ahmedabad drastically.

It takes about seven hours to travel between the two cit-ies and the bullet train aims to reduce it to about two hours.

Construction of the corri-dor is expected to start in 2018 and is estimated to be com-pleted by 2023. PTI

NSE cuts fee on options, currency derivatives to deepen market

MUMBAI: Looking to bring in more liquidity in derivatives, leading stock exchange NSE has significantly lowered trans-action charges in equity options and currency derivatives.

Trading members will now have to pay a flat Rs 2,500 transaction fee for a month on a billable monthly turnover or premium value of up to Rs 3 crore in equity options.

The move follows changes in transaction charges by rival BSE, which has started charg-ing on per trade basis in certain segments. Besides, the BSE has been gaining market share in the currency derivatives space.

Furthermore, the NSE has introduced a slab-based struc-ture for turnover above Rs 3 crore. Under the structure, transaction charges per lakh of premium value will fall as turnover increases. So far, the NSE levied a transaction fee of Rs 5,000 on billable turnover of up to Rs 1 crore in equity options and gave incentives for trades over Rs 1 crore.

At the same time, the NSE has also lowered transaction charges for currency deriva-tives trades and has put in place a slab-based mechanism, a move which will help reduce trading and hedging costs for

various entities, including small and medium enterprises.

The fee starts at Rs 110 per crore of traded value for incre-mental monthly turnover of up to Rs 1,000 crore in the cur-rency derivatives and comes down as turnover rises.

The transaction charges for currency derivatives had been linked to traded value and compliance points.

The NSE’s move, which was announced through separate circulars, is based on market feedback and is expected to benefit small and big market players as well as encourage more investor participation.

“The reduction in the trans-actions charges in response to feedback from markets will encourage more participation and is very inclusive as it would benefit both small and large investors and members,” an NSE spokesperson said.

“This reduction will make Indian markets more com-petitive and would encourage wider participation, thereby infusing more liquidity.”

As per the new slab struc-ture in the equity options seg-ment, incremental billable monthly turnover or premium value between Rs 3 crore and Rs 100 crore will attract Rs 50

per lakh as transaction charges.Similarly, transaction

charges will be Rs 47.50 for turnover between Rs 100 crore and Rs 750 crore, Rs 42.50 for Rs 750-1,500 crore, Rs 37.50 for Rs 1,500-2,000 crore and Rs 30 for over Rs 2,000 crore.

Under the slab-based

mechanism for currency futures, incremental monthly turnover of up to Rs 1,000 crore will attract Rs 110 for every one crore of traded value.

The transaction charges for currency futures range from Rs 110 to as low as Rs 30 as the trading value goes up. PTI

FinMin may seek relaxation of public float deadline for PSBs

NEW DELHI: The Finance Ministry may request cap-ital market regulator Sebi to extend the August deadline for PSBs to meet 25 per cent public float norm as it mulls various options to pare government stake in state-run banks.

There are seven public sec-tor banks (PSBs), including United Bank of India, Indian Bank, Bank of Maharashtra and Central Bank of India, where the government hold-ing is above 75 per cent.

Post second round of capi-tal infusion in March, the gov-ernment stake in some more banks could go beyond 75 per cent. As per guidelines of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), govern-ment stake in PSUs should be 75 per cent or less by August 2017.

“Effort is there to meet the Sebi s public float guidelines but in case some banks are unable due to market condi-tion, then we will approach the regulator seeking exemption from minimum public share-holding (MPS) requirement of 25 per cent in those cases,” a Finance Ministry official said.

There are still five months to go and various options are

on the table, like public offer and selling stake to LIC, the official added.

There are four PSU banks where government hold-ing is more than 80 per cent, while it is between 75-80 per cent in three lenders as of December 2016.

Government holding in United Bank of India is at 88.72 per cent, followed by Indian Bank (82.10), Bank of Maharashtra (81.61), Central Bank of India (81.28), Punjab and Sind Bank (79.62), Indian Overseas Bank (79.56) and Uco Bank (76.67). PTI

Macro data, Q4 show next triggers for marketNEW DELHI: A clutch of macro data points, start of the fourth quarter results season and geo-political dynamics post US missile attack on Syria will determine market movement this week, experts said. Release of a handful of key data is due, including industrial production (IIP) for February and consumer price index-based (CPI) inflation for March on Wednesday. “Q4 FY17 earnings, macroeconomic data and trend in global markets will drive market sentiment in the truncated trading session this week,” said Vijay Singhania, founder Director, Trade Smart Online. IT heavyweight Infosys will kick off the earnings season as it gets ready to announce its fourth quarter and annual results on Thurs-day. “Any major confrontation in Syria is likely to impact the global markets,” said Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Financial Services. PTI

Mother Dairy turnover up

9% at ̀ 7,850 cr in FY17

NEW DELHI: Mother Dairy’s turnover grew by 9 per cent in the last fiscal to about Rs 7,850 crore helped by better sales in value-added dairy products and edible oils businesses.

Mother Dairy, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), had posted a turnover of Rs 7,186 crore in 2015-16.

“Our turnover has increased by over 9 per cent to about Rs 7,850 crore during 2016-17 fiscal. In value-added dairy products and edible oils, our growth was nearly 20 per cent,” Mother Dairy Manag-ing Director S Nagarajan said.

The company sells value-added dairy products like ice cream, curd, paneer and ghee.

However, Nagarajan said the company’s sales in fruits and vegetables segment remained muted. About 75-80 per cent of the company’s sales come from dairy business, he said. The edible oil business contributes about Rs 1,000 crore, while fruits and vege-tables add about Rs 600-700 crore. Mother Dairy plans to launch new flavours of ice-cream soon as it targets higher growth this fiscal. PTI

Govt allows linking Aadhaar with PAN through ID proof scan, OTP

NEW DELHI: Individuals struggling to link their Permanent Account Number with Aadhaar because of differently spelt names can now simply upload a scanned copy of PAN to get the work done.

Besides, the tax department is planning to introduce an option on the e-filing por-tal through which taxpayers can choose to link the Aadhaar without changing the name by opting for a One-Time Password (OTP), provided that the year of birth of the person matches in both documents.

With the linking of PAN with Aadhaar being made mandatory, individuals can log on to e-filing website of the income tax department or NSDL but the seeding can-not happen if the name is differently spelt in the two cards -- like use of full name in PAN and initials in Aadhaar.

In such cases, government has allowed a simple uploading of a scanned copy of PAN on the Aadhaar website.

The tax department will start educating taxpayers from this week through media outreach on ways to link the PAN with Aadhaar, an official said.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had through amendment to tax proposals in the Finance Bill of the Budget for 2017-18, had made Aadhaar mandatory for filing income tax returns and provided for link-ing of PAN with Aadhaar to curb tax eva-sion through use of multiple PAN cards.

The e-filing portal has already activated a functionality of linking PAN with Aad-

haar. Over 1.08 crore assessees have already Aadhaar-linked PAN but the number is abysmally low as there are over 25 crore PAN card holders in the country, while Aadhaar has been issued to 111 crore peo-ple. As per statistics with the tax depart-ment, only 6 crore people file income tax returns at present.

The official said that linking of PAN with Aadhaar should not be cumbersome for people whose registered mobile num-ber with the Unique Identification Author-ity of India (UIDAI) is active.

“In case the taxpayer is unable to link PAN with Aadhaar because of discrepancy in name, we are advising them to log in to the Aadhaar website, request for a name change and upload a scanned copy of PAN card as supported proof. This is the sim-plest way to update name in Aadhaar and only the registered mobile number has to be functional,” the official said. PTI

BookaTruck to raise ̀ 25 cr to

expand opsNEW DELHI: Truck book-ing startup BookaTruck looks to raise about Rs 25 crore in the third quarter of this fiscal to expand its presence across the country.

BookaTruck launched the app-based service for booking of heavy commercial vehicles in February this year.

The firm’s Co-Founder Harshit Khetawat said it is looking to raise about Rs 25 crore in the third quarter of 2017-18. “We aim to reduce transportation cost by making trucking efficient and simple,” Khetawat said.

He said the company is a technology-enabled logistics service provider and offers a one-stop solution for all truck transportation needs through-out India.

“Through this service, one can also track the move-ment of the vehicle as they are equipped with GPS technol-ogy and we provide 24x7 cus-tomer care,” he added. Since its launch, it has seen about 1,300 app downloads, registered over 10,000 trucks and catered to over 100 companies.

Another Co-Founder Manuj Khetawat said the app offers users the option of instant truck booking and real-time pricing.

It is currently available only on Android, but the founders plan to soon launch an iOS ver-sion as well. PTI

Biz confidence hits record high with cos upbeat on economy: CIINEW DELHI: With companies being optimis-tic that economic activities will gather pace this year, the CII Business Confidence Index soared to an all-time high in the Jan-March quarter. “A sharp uptick in business outlook, at the onset of 2017, underpins the hope that the reform ini-tiatives of the government would unravel a host of investment opportunities for firms, going forward,” industry body CII said on the surge in the index.

The significant rise in the index this quar-ter could be attributed to the distinct improve-ment in the ‘Expectations Index’ even as there is a marginal uptick in the ‘Current Situation Index’, indicating that business sentiment is strong and firms are particularly upbeat about activity in their sectors in the future, the indus-try body observed.

However, asked to rank their concerns in the coming six months, a majority of the firms stated low domestic demand followed by fragile global economic recovery and rise in commodity prices as their key concerns.

“The turnaround in business expectations, as indicated in the survey, gives credence to the belief that a new growth narrative is being scripted for the country based on improved busi-ness sentiment and investor confidence,” CII Director General Chandrajit Banerjee said. The CII Business Confidence (BCI) Index recorded an all-time high of 64.1 during the January-March period against 56.5 recorded in the pre-vious quarter. There has been a sharp rise in the index after it remained subdued in the last few quarters. The findings are a part of CII’s 98th edition of quarterly Business Outlook Survey, which was based on around 200 responses from large, medium, small and micro firms, covering all regions of the country.

Business conditions are expected to improve as over 63 per cent of the firms expect an increase

in sales in Jan-Mar 2017, as compared to only 39 per cent who experienced the same in October-December 2016.

On similar lines, 60 per cent of the respon-dents anticipate an increase in new orders during Jan-Mar 2017 as compared to 41 per cent who witnessed the same in the preceding quarter.

Much of the recovery in business conditions is expected to be domestically driven as a large proportion of firms (61.8 per cent) expect to maintain status quo on their export orders in Jan-Mar 2017. PTI

The turnaround in business expectations, as indicated in the survey, gives credence to the belief that a new growth narrative is being scripted for the country based on improved business sentiment and investor confidence

CII Director General Chandrajit Banerjee

NEW DELHI: Insurance firms will have to mandato-rily appoint a chief informa-tion security officer by April 30 whose main job would be ensuring data protection.

This is part of sector reg-ulator Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) cyber security guidelines that will be imple-mented in series, the first phase of which begins on April

30 and complete a full circle by end-March 2018.

“By March 31, all insur-ance companies will have to appoint a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) who will be responsible for artic-ulating and enforcing the policies to protect their infor-mation assets and forma-tion of Information Security Committee (ISC),” Irdai said in circular.

The guidelines entail data, applications, operat-ing systems and network lay-ers. Security audit and legal aspects on cyber security are other aspects of the guidelines.

Insurance firms who are in existence for less than three years, however, have been exempted from the require-ment of a full-time appoint-ment of a CISO.

However, they can give

responsibility of CISO to any of the functionaries reporting to Board, Irdai said.

Data security is impor-tant and needs proper guard against theft and misuse as insurers and related enti-ties share significant amount of personal and confiden-tial policy holder informa-tion, at times even sensitive health-related ones, with third parties. PTI

Irdai asks insurers to appoint data security officer by Apr 30

FPIs pour in $2.45 bn in just four trading sessionsNEW DELHI: Foreign investors have pumped in a staggering $2.45 billion in capital markets in the last four trading sessions on the back of improved investor sentiments driven by pas-sage of GST bills and growth in manufacturing sector. This comes following a record net inflow of Rs 56,944 crore ($8.7 billion) last month, mainly on expectations that BJP’s victory in assembly polls would lead to faster reforms. In February, Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) had made a net investment of Rs 15,862 crore in equity and debt markets. Prior to that, FPIs had pulled out more than Rs 80,000 crore between October 2016 to January 2017. A major boost to the investor sentiments came last week from the latest Nikkei India Manufacturing PMI data, which showed the factory output growth rising to a five-month high in March. PTI

IPL TURNS 10: MATCH PREVIEW

mp sport14MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Monday, 10 April, 2017

PURPLE CAP HOLDER RASHID KHAN WARNS OPPONENTS, SAYS MORE TO COMEHYDERABAD: Sunrisers’ Rashid Khan, who bagged the purple cap for taking most number of wickets so far in this edition of Indian Premier League (IPL), on Sunday said he will try to top the list till the end of the Twenty20 cricket tournament.“It’s a wonderful moment for me to take this purple cap. Hopefully I’ll try to keep this with me right till the end,” he said.

PAES SHOULD NOT SULK; BOPANNA IS NO. 1 DOUBLES PLAYER, SAYS BHUPATHIBENGALURU: Leander Paes has no reason to “sulk” after being excluded from India’s playing squad since he was conveyed in advance that his place was not confirmed in final four, non-playing captain Mahesh Bhupathi said on Sunday. Bhupathi had picked Rohan Bopanna ahead of Paes to play against Uzbekistan and defended his decision.

WE KNEW RASHID IS GOING TO BE A THREAT, SAYS BRAD HODGEHYDERABAD: Gujarat Lions coach Brad Hodge said they always knew that young leg-spinner Rashid Khan would prove to be threat and blamed his batsmen for not putting enough total against Sunrisers Hyderabad. Rashid, the teenaged leg-spinner from Afghanistan who is the first-ever player from the war-torn country to make his debut in IPL, claimed three crucial wickets.

Pandey smashes unbeaten 81 to help KKR post 178/7

MUMBAI: Manish Pandey smashed an unbeaten 81 off 47 balls to help Kolkata Knight Riders recover from a mini col-lapse and reach 178 for seven against Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League here on Sunday.

The visitors, asked to bat first, made a brisk start when openers Chris Lynn (32) and captain Gautam Gambhir (19) put on 44 runs in four overs before losing their way against left-arm spinner Krunal Pandya.

Krunal’s twin strike in the fifth over reduced the Knight Riders from 44 for no loss to 48 for two and then 87 for four before the innings was revived by Pandey.

The Karnataka batsman struck Mitchell McClenaghan for two sixes and as many fours in the last over of the innings that produced 23 runs.

It was mainly due to the Karnataka batsman s clean hit-

ting that the total crossed the 150 mark.

But apart from his superb knock, the KKR innings lacked character.

Krunal finished with fine figures of 3 for 24 while Mal-inga got 2 for 36 while McClen-aghan finished with 1 for 51.

Kolkata were off to a flyer with Lynn and Gambhir scor-ing freely against the medium-pacers so that after four overs the score was an impressive 44 without loss.

The duo had come into the game after powering the Knight Riders to a comprehensive ten-wicket win over Gujarat Lions at Rajkot two nights ago after putting up a first wicket all-time high record of 184 with Lynn cracking a 41-ball 93.

He again looked in good touch and also smacked a short ball from McClenaghan over the mid-wicket area into the stands when the left arm bowler from New Zealand

pitched short.Lasith Malinga, the IPL s

highest wicket taker who had missed the last IPL edition, was off target initially and gave away runs.

Jasprit Bumrah was hit for two successive fours by Gamb-hir while McClenaghan too was expensive and it was Krunal who arrested the Knight Riders progress with a double strike in the fifth over of the innings that packed off Gambhir (19) and one-down Robin Uthappa (4).

Bumrah came back into the attack and dismissed the dan-gerous-looking Lynn, trapping the batsman leg before when he played across the line.

The early momentum gone, Harbhajan Singh was brought into the attack after eight overs and the offie, who was surpris-ingly omitted for tactical rea-sons in the away lung-opener against Rising Pune Supergi-ant, kept the batsmen quiet in his first two overs.

Krunal picked up his third wicket later by inducing his Baroda teammate Yusuf Pathan to loft the ball to long off for his brother Hardik to accept a straight-forward catch which left KKR at 87 for four after 12 overs.

The 100 came up in the 14th over before Surya Yadav struck Harbhajan for two fours in the bowler s last over to spoil his figures a bit.

The well-set Pandey lofted Bumrah over long on for his second six and then hit him for a four too in the 16th over before Malinga returned to the attack and picked up Yadav with his first ball, caught by Kieron Pollard at long on, and followed it up with a similar dismissal of Chris Woakes in his final over.

But Pandey remained till the end and smacked the ball around especially in the final over bowled by McClenaghan.

In the day’s other match,

David Warner roared back to form with a blistering 76 after rookie Afghan spinner Rashid Khan weaved a mesmerising spell as Sunrisers Hyderabad overpowered Gujarat Lions by nine wickets in an IPL encoun-ter on Sunday. It was Rashid’s 3 for 19 that helped Sunrisers restrict Lions to a paltry 135 for 7 in 20 overs and then Warner blasted his way to an unbeaten 76 off 45 balls to finish the match in 15.3 overs.Brief Scores (Match 1) Gujarat Lions: 135/7 (Dwayne Smith 37, Jason Roy 31, Praveen Kumar 1/16)Sunrisers Hyderabad: 140/1 (David Warner 76, Moises Henriques not out 52, Rashid Khan 4-0-19-3). Brief Scores (Match 2)Mumbai Indians vs Kolkata Knight RidersKolkata Knight Riders: (Man-ish Pandey 81, Chris Lynn 32)Mumbai Indians: Krunal Pan-dya: 3/24. AGENCIES

RCB face KXIP in another test of

characterINDORE: Having notched up a morale-boosting win over Delhi Daredevils with-out some of their star players, Royal Challengers Bangalore face another test of character when they face Kings XI Pun-jab in their third IPL match here on Monday.

RCB began their campaign without skipper and star bats-man Virat Kohli as well as another key player AB de Vil-liers due to injuries and lost their opening match against defending champions Sunris-ers Hyderabad.

RCB have also lost India batsman Lokesh Rahul for the entire tournament owing to an injury and the talented Sarfaraz Khan will most likely be unavailable for the season after hurting himself on the field during a practice match.

Kohli is almost certain to miss Monday’s match as there has not been any word on his status since the BCCI’s advi-sory on April 2 which said that his fitness will be assessed in the second week of this month.

Explosive South African batsman de Villiers is once again a doubtful starter for and in his absence Shane Watson would continue to lead the side as an interim captain.

Watson had marshalled his bowling resources well in RCB’s 15-run win over Delhi at home, himself taking one wicket and bowling economically by con-ceding just 21 runs from his quota of four overs.

Watson choked Delhi’s Amit Mishra for runs at the closing stages of the match and that contributed to RCB’s first win of the tournament. He also contributed a run-a-ball 24, the second highest score, in RCB’s total of 157 for 8.

Billy Stanlake and Yuzven-

dra Chahal grabbed two wick-ets apiece but it was Pawan Negi, picked by Watson to bowl the final over, who did the trick for RCB by dismissing Rishabh Pant, the only Delhi batsman who could have won the match for his side.

On the batting front, RCB surely missed Kohli and de Villiers though Kedar Jadhav once again showed his utility by smashing a 37-ball 69 to sin-gle-handedly take his side to 157 for 8. ‘Universe Boss’ Chris Gayle failed to get going as he scored just 6 on Saturday after his 32 in RCB’s first match.

Kings XI Punjab will come into Monday’s match with a lot of confidence after a comfort-able victory over Rising Pune Supergiant in their opening match. Australian Glenn Max-well led from the front with a quickfire 44 off just 20 balls to chase down the target with six balls to spare.

Maxwell was making his captaincy debut in the match against RPS and he would look to continue against RCB on Monday also at the Holkar Stadium which is KXIP’s sec-ond home venue along with Mohali.

Though they have retained their core group, Kings XI bought eight players in the IPL auction including well known names like Morgan, Darren Sammy, Martin Guptill and Varun Aaron. The KXIP squad has been training at the Hol-kar Stadium for about 10 days now and should be well-versed with the conditions. The team was dealt a blow in the run up to the IPL when senior bats-man Murali Vijay was ruled due to an injury. Pacer Ishant Sharma, who went unsold in the auction, was named Vijay’s replacement. AGENCIES

IPL captaincy will help Warner return to form, says Ponting

MELBOURNE: Former Aus-tralia captain Ricky Ponting has tipped David Warner to be one of the contenders for IPL’s ‘Player of the Tournament’ award as he feels extra respon-sibility always gets the best out of the dashing opener.

Warner didn’t have a good Test tour of India and will be aiming to get back to form with some good scores for defending champions Sunris-ers Hyderabad in the IPL.

“On the back of a slightly disappointing Test series, he’s back at a championship-win-ning team and he’s captain,” Ponting told a private website.

“I think he loves that responsibility. And he’s an opening batsman. You’d think the Player of the Tournament is going to be a spinner or an opening batsman. That’s the way the T20 game is right now, so I think Davey will be Player of the Tournament,” the Aussie legend said.

Ponting is confident that Warner will not be affected by his dry spell during Test series as he remains in a happy space while playing for the Sunrisers.

“You always like to go into any tournament with a lot of runs under your belt, but to me Davey is the sort of guy that it won’t bother too much. He’s back into a really comfortable environment.”

The flat tracks in India is ideal to get back into form, especially while playing white ball cricket.

“And I think the fact that it’s T20 cricket, against the white ball and on very good pitches that you get in India. I am sure he will have another good tour-nament,” Ponting said.

Warner had a terrific IPL last year scoring nine half-cen-turies in 17 games.

It takes a strong character to be an IPL captain and Ponting reckons that Warner can bring in the overseas and Indian play-ers on same page. AGENCIES

BCCI ‘SGM’ adjourned, Srinivasan attends meetingNEW DELHI: The BCCI on Sunday adjourned its “Special General Meeting”, which was attended by former President N Srinivasan, after the Commit-tee of Administrators (COA) sought Supreme Court direc-tives on some issues.

The decision to adjourn the meeting was taken after it was learnt that COA had sought Supreme Court directions on who all are eligible to be BCCI’s representative in ICC meetings.

The SC hearing is on Mon-day and the Board has again called a meeting on Wednesday.

“The meeting was adjourned as SC is hearing the matter tomorrow (Monday). Since legal implications are involved, Amitabh Chaudhary, the joint Secretary announced

adjournment,” former Saurash-tra CA head Niranjan Shah told reporters on Sunday.

The meeting was attended by most of the veteran mem-bers rendered ineligible by SC order based on Lodha reforms.

The likes of Srinivasan, Niranjan Shah, TC Matthew, Ranjib Biswal and G Ganga Raju -- all above 70 years of age -- attended the meeting in clear violation of norms.

From Himachal it was Arun Thakur, former Presi-dent Anurag Thakur’s younger brother, in attendance. Rail-ways and Services also had their representatives in the meeting.

The only notable absentee was Delhi and District Cricket Association as per Justice Vik-

ramjit Sen’s direction.Acting president CK

Khanna chaired the meeting and also signed the minutes of meeting.

When a state unit mem-ber was asked whether anyone objected to Srinivasan attend-ing the meeting, he told PTI: “No one had any objection. The

only problem was legitimacy of the meeting with SC hearing on Monday.”

“Some felt that one should have waited before call-ing the next meeting on Wednesday. But majority in the meeting were of the opin-ion that let’s call it on Wednes-day,” one member said after

adjournment.The 70-plus office-bear-

ers are claiming that Fre-quently Asked Questions to the Lodha Committee, which formed the basis of their age-related disqualification, are not verdict and hence they are still eligible to attend the meeting. AGENCIES

New role: ‘Helmet Dalo’, Sachin tells bikers at traffic stop

HYDERABAD: Cricketer-turned-parliamentarian Sachin Tendulkar turned into a road safety activist at a traffic stop here, urging bikers to wear helmets even as they seemed more keen on clicking selfies with him.

Tendulkar, a Rajya Sabha MP, posted a video on his Twit-ter page, in which he can be seen on the back seat of a car and telling bikers to not drive without helmets.

“Helmet Dalo!! Road safety should be the highest priority for everyone. Please don’t ride without a helmet,” he posted.

In the video, a couple of bikers without helmets look on stunned as Tendulkar calls on them to follow the rules. After the initial surprise, one of the men took out his smartphone to capture a quick selfie with the iconic cricketer.

“Promise me you will wear

a helmet. It’s dangerous for you. Life is very precious. Is that a promise?,” Tendulkar tells them

before his car goes past the duo.The two men are heard

saying “yes sir” to Tendulkar’s

question.As his car drives off, Ten-

dulkar was also seen waving at other motorists and urging the ones without helmets to follow the rules.

It happened during Ten-dulkar’s recent visit in Hyder-abad where he had gone to attend the opening ceremony of IPL. AGENCIES

United in Grief: Pant shows steely resolve like Sachin, Virat

NEW DELHI: It happened in Bristol 18 years ago during a one day game.

One saw how an emotional Sachin Tendulkar looked heav-enwards after his hundred in a World Cup match against Kenya. That iconic moment was just days after he had lost his father Ramesh and his mother Rajni had not allowed him to grieve the loss. Nobody has forgotten it. Something similar happened closer home in Delhi in 2007 during a Ranji Trophy game. A few witnessed it and lot many heard what is now a part of Indian cricket’s folklore. Virat Kohli lost his father, Prem, during a Ranji Trophy game against Karna-taka at midnight. Delhi was in doldrums and Virat made 97, saved his team and per-formed his father’s last rites in the evening.

Something similar hap-pened again on Saturday night

in Bengaluru. Everyone saw it but very few knew what went through Rishabh Pant’s mind.

One still doesn’t know how Rishabh’s career will pan out after a decade but if it comes to strength of character, he showed that he is at par with Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli. It’s not easy for a teen-ager to lose his father, perform the last rites and then join the humdrum of a high octane T20 game. He loves to chuckle, laugh and joke. But on Satur-day night there was a stone faced ‘Man Boy’ at the crease for Delhi Daredevils in an IPL match against Royal Challeng-ers Bangalore.When he pulled Tymal Mills’ slow bouncer for a six, it wasn’t just a cricket shot, it was something beyond that. It wasn’t just the bowler at the end of 22 yards, he was dealing with. He was dealing with grief and irreparable loss. Another six over deep mid-wicket and

the mind would ask how is he even maintaining that Zen like calm in a packed stadium? And what was that man wearing lav-ender coloured training Jer-sey sitting in that Delhi dugout thinking? Well, Rahul Dravid was at the other end when Tendulkar came out to bat that morning in Bristol. On Sun-day, he was again present at the ground as Rishabh’s coach. Did he tell Rishabh about how Ten-dulkar had coped with tragedy on that day? Nobody knows. The 50 wasn’t celebrated. The job wasn’t finished yet. Mills bowled a slow bouncer and he hooked it behind square for a six. But it wasn’t just about cricket. It was way beyond that.

Alas, it didn’t happen. Pawan Negi bowled him round the legs. He couldn’t believe it. As he trudged back slowly, it was difficult to make out if tears were mixed in the beads of sweat. AGENCIES

The decision to adjourn the meeting was taken after it was learnt that COA had sought Supreme Court directions on who all are eligible to be BCCI’s representative in ICC meetings. The Supreme Court hearing is on Monday and the Board has again called a meeting on Wednesday

Helmet Dalo!! Road safety should be the highest priority for everyone. Please don’t ride without a helmet

Tendulkar, a Rajya Sabha MP, posted a video on his Twitter page, in which he can be seen on the back seat of a car and telling bikers to not drive without helmets

Man United defeat 10-man Sunderland 3-0

LONDON: Manchester United claimed a 3-0 away victory against 10-man Sunderland in round 32 of the English Pre-mier League (EPL) on Sunday, to continue competing for a position among the top four.

Swedish striker Zlatan Ibra-himovic opened scoring for the visitors after 30 minutes. Sun-derland Swedish midfielder Sebastian Larsson was sent off just 13 minutes later for a challenge against Manches-ter’s Ander Herrera and it gave United a big advantage. The Red Devils easily dominated the game against the 10-man rival before Armenian mid-fielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan scored the second goal for Manchester United just 47 sec-onds after the beginning of the second half. English forward Marcus Rashford scored the third goal one minute before the final whistle. AGENCIES

RCB’s Kedar Jadhav will be the man to watch out for after his smashing performance against Delhi Daredevils on Saturday

KKR’s Manish Pandey (left) enroute his unbeaten 81 against Mumbai. In the day’s other match, David Warner smashes the ball against Gujarat Lions in Hyderabad PICS/PTI

mp sport 15MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Monday, 10 April, 2017

DAVIS CUPBagan beat East Bengal to close gap on I-League leaders Aizawl

SILIGURI: Mohun Bagan rode on two superlative first-half goals from Sony Norde and Azharuddin Mallick to hand 10-men East Bengal a 2-1 defeat and reel in leaders Aizawl FC in a I-League tie at the Kanchenjunga Stadium here on Sunday.

Norde (35th) scored from a free kick while Mallick (43rd) doubled the margin with a din-ked effort from the edge of the box as Bagan trimmed the gap to one point on Aizawl who lost earlier in the day to defending champions Bengaluru FC by a solitary goal.

Rowlin Borges pulled one back for the visitors in the sec-ond half injury time.

Bengaluru FC’s Serbian recruit Marjan Jugovic ensured both Kolkata outfits had every-thing to play for ahead of the derby by scoring the winner for Bengaluru against surprise leaders Aizawl who remained on 30 points from 15 games.

Bagan, on 29 points after the convincing win, have a game in hand to both Aizawl

and East Bengal who stayed on 27 points from 15 outings.

East Bengal’s Trinidad & Tobago import Willis Plaza was given marching orders in the 66th minute.

In Siliguri, as expected, it was end to end stuff from

the first whistle. Bagan got two early chances with Dar-ryl Duffy and Balwant Singh taking a swipe at goal from 35 yards and the edge of the box respectively.

At the other end, Plaza headed down a Mehtab Hos-

sain floater for a lurking Wed-son Anselme whose shot was deflected off a Bagan defender for a corner from which noth-ing transpired.

Bagan centre-back Eduardo Fereirra then almost made a hash of a regulation backpass

with Plaza bearing down on him forcing home team keeper Debjit Mazumdar to avert the danger.

Balwant came close at the other end with a volley on the turn which sailed over the bar while Norde dribbled past few defenders to sky his attempt.

Norde made amends min-utes later, curling in a delectable free kick that beat East Bengal goalkeeper T.P. Rehenesh all ends up to nestle into the top right corner.

Azharuddin doubled the Sanjoy Sen coached side’s tally sending the sparse Bagan sup-porters in a tizzy two min-utes before halftime. Picking up the ball from Duffy, the lanky Under-22 player waltzed past East Bengal play-ers and chipped the ball over an onrushing Rehenesh from outside the box. The ball took a deflection off the post to sneak in. In between both the goals, East Bengal coach Trevor Morgan replaced U-22 player

Abhinas Ruidas for Austraian striker Chris Payne in search of an equaliser.

The red and gold shirts started with more intent post the break, with Payne forcing Mazumdar into a good save early on. But it was not the away side’s night as Plaza was sent off for a reckless challenge on Bagan defender Anas Eda-thodika. As the match neared its final whistle, East Bengal players seemed to losing their cool, engaging in hasty duels and verbal exchanges with their counterparts. Morgan tried to inject pace by introducing the nippy Jackichand Singh in place of Romeo Fernandes as East Bengal threw everything but the kitchen sink in the dying minutes of the match.

Borges got a goal back too in second half added time but that proved to be too little too late as East Bengal were left red faced with their rivals stealing a march on their bitter rivals. AGENCIES

Ramkumar wins but Prajnesh bites dust; India win 4-1

BENGALURU: A clean-sweep could not come through but India stamped their authority over Uzbekistan by winning the Davis Cup tie 4-1 to advance to the World Group play-offs, here on Sunday.

India’s place in the World Group play-offs, to be held in September, was secured once a 3-0 lead was grabbed on Satur-day in the Asia/Oceania Group I second round tie. The team was eyeing a whitewash but fell short in the second reverse sin-gles’ match.

Ramkumar Ramnathan continued India’s domination of the home tie by outclassing Sanjar Fayziev 6-3 6-2 in just 67 minutes in the first reverse singles at the KSLTA stadium.

Left-handed Prajnesh Gun-neswaran, though, had a hard battle at hand against the big-serving 406th ranked Ismailov.

Ismailov negotiated the conditions much better than Fayziev and emerged a deserv-ing 7-5 6-3 winner in the sec-ond reverse singles.

Both the players served big but debutant Prajnesh buck-led under pressure in crucial moments and that made a dif-ference to the outcome of the match.

Ismailov’s victory meant that India could not force a whitewash. The last time India enjoyed a clean-sweep was in February 2014 when they hammered Chinese Tai-pei in Indore.However, it was a brilliant start for new cap-tain Mahesh Bhupathi, who has introduced a few rules for the players and has his own style of carrying out business.

Fayziev struggled to adjust to the bounce and speed of the court while Ramkumar turned it into his advantage. He con-sistently sent down bouncy serves, enticing errors from his opponent.

In his first service game, Fayziev was down 0-40 and was broken when he smashed an overhead volley long and wide on the second breakpoint.

Ramkumar quickly ran away with a 3-0 lead with an easy hold and could have been 4-0 up when Fayziev commit-ted three consecutive double faults but the Uzbek managed to hold.

A backhand passing winner handed Ramkumar a break-point in the sixth game but the Uzbek served well to save that.

The Indian also approached the net better in the open-ing set, easily putting away Fayziev’s feeble returns from the baseline. He served out the set in the ninth game. After squandering two break chances in the opening game of the sec-ond set, Ramkumar earned a third with a brilliant lob and converted when Fayziev fluffed a volley. Fayziev served better in the following games and returned well but Ramkumar still managed to get another break in the seventh game to open up a 5-2 lead and served out the match in the next game.

“I played clever today (Sunday). The tie was sealed so I focused on a few things. I did not want to commit a lot of double faults, I wanted to return better. I played smart and all the effort paid off,” Ramkumar said. AGENCIES

Relief for Real as Neymar sees red in Barca’s 0-2 defeat to Malaga

MADRID: Neymar was sent-off as Barcelona lost further ground on Real Madrid at the top of La Liga in a shock 2-0 defeat to Malaga.

Real are now three points clear and have a game in hand despite Antoine Griezmann’s classy finish five minutes from time snatch-ing a 1-1 draw for Atletico Madrid earlier at the Santiago Bernabeu.

However, Real can now afford to lose to Barca at home in two weeks’ time and still have a first title in five years in their own hands.

Neymar picked up the first red card of his Barcelona career for two bookable offences as the Catalans were left to rue letting Sandro Ramirez join Malaga for free last summer.

Sandro exposed some awful defending from Jeremy

Mathieu to sprint clear on goal and slot past Marc-Andre ter Stegen at his near post.

Malaga also had the bet-ter chances of the second-half filled with controversy as Juanpi shot straight at Ter Ste-gen when clean through.

Neymar had been shown

his first booking for delay-ing a Malaga free-kick whilst tying his shoelaces and stupidly charged into Diego Llorente 25 minutes from time to see red.

The hosts then had a goal wrongly ruled out for offside when substitute Adalberto

Penaranda finished off a flow-ing counter-attack.

However, Barca were also infuriated with referee Gil Manzano when he somehow awarded a free-kick on the edge of the box when Sergi Roberto had been brought down clearly inside the area.

Malaga finally picked off the 10 men in the final minute when Pablo Fornals unselfishly squared for Jony to smash home from close range.

Barca’s defeat meant Real’s disappointment earlier in the day was short lived.

Pepe’s towering header early in the second half looked to have Real heading five points clear at the top in the Madrid derby.

However, Griezmann rounded Keylor Navas to slot home at the near post five min-utes from time. AGENCIES

Bayern crush Dortmund; Hamburg

stun Hoffenheim

MUNICH: Bayern Munich cruised past Borussia Dort-mund 4-1 thanks to a brace from Robert Lewandowski, while Hamburg shocked Hoffenheim 2-1 riding on a couple from Aaron Hunt in the Bundesliga football championship.

Bayern returned to winning ways after beating Dortmund 4-1 in a one-sided affair as two goals within 10 minutes on Sat-urday smoothed the way for the 21st victory of the season, reports Xinhua news agency.

Carlo Ancelotti’s men caught a bright start in front of 75,000 spectators at the sold-out Allianz Arena as French veteran winger Franck Ribery broke the deadlock with just four minutes into the game after a square pass from Philipp Lahm. Bay-ern gained momentum and doubled the lead through Polish hitman Lewandowski, who curled a free kick from 20 metres into the bottom left corner, with 10 minutes played.

Hapless Dortmund showed a vital sign and reduced the arrears out of the blue in the 20th minute as Raphael Guer-reiro utilised a misplaced clear-

ance from midfielder Arturo Vidal to hammer home.

After the restart, Bay-ern started where they left off as Dutch veteran winger Arjen Robben made use of a through ball from Ribery to drill the ball from the edge of the box into the far post corner to restore the two-goal lead in the 49th minute.

However, Bayern were not done with the scoring and added another goal to their lead as Lewandowski converted a foul play penalty to mark his 26th goal of the season to put the result beyond doubt in the 68th minute.

Bayern remain atop the standings with a ten-point advantage while Dortmund stay on the fourth place after suffering the sixth loss of the season.

Hamburg extended their unbeaten streak to nine games as they surprisingly beat third placed Hoffenheim 2-1.

The hosts staged a pow-erful performance from the kick off whereas Hof-fenheim needed some time to gain a foothold into the game. AGENCIES

India thrash Belarus 4-0, enter final of Women’s Hockey World League Round 2WEST VANCOUVER: The Indian women’s team stormed into the final of Hockey World League Round 2 after a 4-0 thrashing of Belarus in the semifi-nals here. India now play Chile in the summit clash. With this semifinal victory, India won a berth to take part in the Women’s Hockey World League Semi-Final to be held in June/July, which is a qualifier for the FIH Women’s World Cup 2018.India were the dominant side right from the start. Even though Belarus won two early penalty corners in the fourth and the ninth minutes, the Indian team’s defence was impressive as they denied an early lead to their op-ponents. India were quick to earn their first penalty corner in the 13th minute and it was Gurjit Kaur whose stunning goal gave India a 1-0 lead in the first quarter. India took 2-0 lead in the 20th minute through skipper Rani when she successfully converted a penalty stroke. Both teams traded penalty corners in the third quarter with India winning one in the 33rd minute but the strike was wide. Belarus, on the other hand, won a penalty corner in the 40th minute but Yuliya Mikheichyk’s hard-struck drag flick was saved by India’s goalkeeper Savita. The Indian women played fast-paced hockey, breaching into the op-position striking circle quite often. Rani made a solo attempt and scored a bril-liant field goal that took India’s lead to 3-0 in the 40th minute. Though Belarus were awarded a penalty corner in the 42nd minute, their attempt to score was denied yet again by Savita. It was Gurjit Kaur’s splendid penalty stroke goal in the 58th minute that took India’s score to 4-0 and sealed the match. AGENCIES

We have not achieved anything yet: Constantine

NEW DELHI: National team coach Stephen Constantine believes Indian football has “not achieved anything yet” but the quantum leap in FIFA rankings has intensified the team’s quest to qualify for Asian Cup 2019 and break into the top 100.

In the latest world rank-ings issued by FIFA, the country was placed 101, a significant achievement in the context of Indian football.

The Briton, though, is not reading too much into the recent growth story.

“We need to stay focused and make sure we understand we have not achieved anything yet. I would rather be 101 in the FIFA rankings and qualify for the Asian Cup UAE 2019 than be 95 and not be there,” Con-stantine said.

The 54-year-old, in his sec-ond stint with the Indian team,

optimistically added, “If we do our job and work hard we will, I am sure, achieve both of those goals.”

In March 2015, India’s position had slipped to 173 out of 209 countries, its worst ever ranking, and they improved to 135 the following year.

Constantine warned his players to keep their feet firmly on the ground.

“It’s been a difficult road. We had last qualified for the World Cup Qualifiers long back and we were struggling on all fronts. Of course you can’t change things overnight but we will continue to try and improve and get better,” he said.

“Bringing in new blood and creating competition for places in the team has been a process, and I’m pleased we are moving in the right direction.”

Hamilton coasts to 5th

title at Chinese Grand Prix

SHANGHAI: Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton steered clear of a chaotic start to the Chinese Grand Prix and coasted to vic-tory on Sunday, claiming his fifth title in Shanghai.

Hamilton started from pole position and led from begin-ning to end to capture the 54th race title of his career and his first of the new Formula One season.

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel recovered from a mishap-filled start to finish in second place, 6.2 seconds behind the Mer-cedes driver. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen improved from 16th position on the starting grid to finish third, fighting off a spirited challenge from team-mate Daniel Ricciardo on the final lap. Ricciardo ended up in fourth position, followed by Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen in fifth and Mercedes’ Valt-teri Bottas in sixth. A drama-filled start on a wet track from rain earlier in the day set the stage for Hamilton’s victory and Mercedes’ recovery after Vettel surprisingly captured the sea-son’s opening race at the Aus-tralian Grand Prix last month. The drivers had barely left the starting grid when Williams’ Lance Stroll bumped against Sergio Perez of Force India and spun off the track into a bed of gravel. A short time later later, on the fourth lap, Anto-nio Giovinazzi hit a wet patch and slammed into the wall, severely damaging his Sauber car and bringing the race to a halt again. During the safety-car slowdowns to remove both cars from the track, the top drivers pitted to change tires, reshuffling the starting order. Hamilton emerged from the fray with a hold on the lead, but Vettel and Bottas slipped back several places and had to fight the rest of the race to catch up. AGENCIES

We’re certain to meet May 15 deadline: Kochi U-17 WC official

NEW DELHI: Left red-faced after a stinging assessment by a FIFA team on their readiness to host the U-17 World Cup matches, the local organisers in Kochi on Sunday vowed to keep the stadium ready before the deadline set by FIFA. A FIFA team last week had expressed “deep concern” over the pace of work at the Jawaha-rlal Nehru Stadium in Kochi, one of the six venues selected to host matches in October, and set May 15 as deadline for com-pleting the work.

Jamie Yarza, FIFA’s head of events and who led the inspec-tion team, had issued a veiled ultimatum to speed up work on a war footing if the venue wants to host the World Cup matches. The venue was later allotted six Group matches, one Round of 16 and one quarterfinal match.

FIFA’s concerns were mainly on two issues. The first is the secu-rity risks to the players, officials and fans because of the stores inside the stadium complex and the installation of bucket seats at the 55,000-capacity sta-dium, which is mandatory for any venue hosting FIFA tour-

naments or matches. Yarza had made it clear during the visit that these stores will have to be removed or closed down. Some of these stores have even gen-erators and fuel tanks, which is a grave safety and security concern.

Hanish Mohammed, the

nodal officer posted by Kerala government to speed up work at the stadium the local organ-isers have been working on war footing and he is certain to finish work before the May 15 deadline. He said the Ker-ala government had submit-ted a written assurance to the FIFA team as well as the Sports Ministry that all the renovation work will be complete and con-cerns of the world body will be resolved.

“We have sped up the ren-ovation and other works at the main stadium, we are work-ing on a war footing. We can’t fail the football loving peo-ple of Kerala. We are 100 per cent sure that all the reno-vation work as directed by the FIFA team will be com-pleted before the deadline,” Mohammed said. AGENCIES

GERMAN BUNDESLIGA

Bayern Munich players celebrate after scoring against Dortmund

Gonzalo Higuain brace as Juventus warm up for Barca

MILAN: Gonzalo Higuain hit his second brace in as many games as Paulo Dybala-inspired Juventus warmed up for their midweek Champi-ons League clash against Bar-celona with a shaky 2-0 win over Chievo. Juve’s 25th win of the campaign took the Turin giants, chasing a record sixth consecutive scudetto, nine points clear of Roma, who face Bologna on Sunday looking to tighten their grip on second spot. Juve are also set to meet Lazio in the Italian Cup final after a 5-4 semi-final aggre-gate win over Napoli in mid-week, when Argentina striker Higuain scored twice in a 3-2 second leg loss at the San Paolo stadium. But despite see-ing Dybala deliver an inspiring performance against Chievo, coach Massimiliano Allegri

will be expecting improve-ments on Tuesday when Juve host Barcelona for the first time since losing the 2015 final to the La Liga giants in Berlin.

Nevertheless, it was a defi-ant Allegri who fired a pre-emptive strike at eventual

critics looking for more of the beautiful game from the Italian giants when he told Premium Sport: “It makes me laugh when I read about ‘spectacular football’. That’s okay for the cir-cus, but our job is to go out and win. “I have really good players, and it’s not about entertaining. There are dirty games some-times, not all games are the same. But we still have to go out and win them.” Gianluigi Buf-fon’s 616th appearance in Serie A meant the Juve ‘keeper over-took retired Inter Milan great Javier Zanetti (615), although he remains behind Paolo Mal-dini’s impressive tally of 647 games. Although he had lit-tle to do in a first half that saw Higuain fire past Andrea Secu-lin from Dybala’s smart cutback on 23 minutes, Chievo kept Juve running throughout. AGENCIES

ITALIAN SERIE A

India’s Ramkumar Ramnathan being greeted by Sanjar Fayziev of Uzbekistan after their reverse singles match at Asia Oceania Group 1 tie in Bengaluru on Sunday. Ramnathan won the tie 6-3, 6-2 PIC?PTI

Sony Norde (35th minute) scored from a free kick while Mallick (43rd) doubled the margin for Mohun Bagan

Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Kochi

SPANISH LA LIGA

FT: MOHUN BAGAN 2 EAST BENGAL 1

mp Entertainment16 MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Monday, 10 April, 2017

MUMBAI: The reports of ugly spat between Farhan Akhtar and Aditya Roy Kapur have been doing the rounds for a while now and the actor-filmmaker on Sunday shut down the rumours by posting a happy picture of them on social media.

There were reports that Farhan got miffed with Aditya’s closeness to Shraddha Kapoor and the duo got into a fight during the 30 years anniversary celebration of Vishesh Films. “And that, as they say, is that.. RIP rumours. #lastnight #chill-times,” Farhan captioned the photo of him and Aditya smil-ing for the camera.

Shraddha and Aditya first sparked dating rumours close to the release of their blockbuster Aashiqui 2, while the actor’s budding romance with Farhan started making headlines after they collaborated on Rock On 2. PTI

Farhan Akhtar rubbishes rumours of fight with

Aditya Roy Kapur

KOLKATA: Actor-filmmaker Aparna Sen who helms and stars in the forthcoming film Sonata said she included a transgender character in the English drama to enhance vis-ibility of the marginalised.

“I felt, apart from friendship, the film was exploring many aspects of the ‘feminine’. I wanted to broaden that spectrum, include a person from a different economic strata and include a transgender female because transgenders are becoming a reality,” she said here at a discussion on ‘Text in Context’.

Sonata is an adaption of the eponymous play by playwright Mahesh Elkunchwar. It will hit the screens on April 21.

The English drama is a psychological exploration of three unmarried women facing a mid-life crisis. It stars Lilette Dubey, Sen and Shabana Azmi. Sen said the marginalised sections of society are “completely invisible”.

“There was a time when I started including a challenged

person in almost all my films because of only one reason... because we have made them completely invisible and people have had no exposure to them,” explained the filmmaker and actor.

“So I don’t want to make

them invisible. Let

there be this transgender girl who is a friend of ours. So that’s the reason I included a transgender character,” she added. IANS

Transgenders becoming reality: Aparna Sen

NEW DELHI: As Swara Bhaskar turned a year older on Sunday, she said that she wants to keep doing out of the box characters like Anarkali from her latest film and Chanda of Nil Battey Sannata.

Swara, who received critical acclaim for her portrayal of an orchestra singer in the recently released Anarkali of Aarah, says she hopes her upcoming year in the film industry will be full of opportunities.

“This year has been really excit-ing, I did two extremely different roles first mother of a 15-year-old in Nil Battey... and another an orches-tra party singer, and by the grace of God both got appreciated by all.

“I hope the upcoming year is

filled with opportunities, I hope I get to do the best of roles that’s unheard and out of the box,” said Swara.

The 29-year-old actor, who is in Delhi to celebrate her birthday with her grandmother, says she prefers to do house parties and loves being with her closed ones on special occasions.

“I love celebrations irrespective of the occasions. I like house parties with only close friends and family because it’s where I can be myself.

“The most important person of my life is my grandmother, sadly she has not been keeping well since a few days. I will be celebrating my birthday only with her, spending quality time,” said the Anarkali of Aarah actor. PTI

OUT OF THE BOX ROLES

Swara hopes to keep doing

Having done two very different

roles this year which were appreciated by all, Swara

Bhaskar hopes

for a year filled with

opportunities ahead

I am not dying to work in films: Raveena Tandon

MUMBAI: Actor Raveena Tandon says she has now reached a stage in her career where she can be choosy about work as she does not crave to be in the limelight.

“Films are not my life. They are part of my life. I have children, husband, home, par-ents, shows and endorsements. I have a lot of things to do. I am not dying to work in films. I would’ve signed all the films which came my way if I wanted to see my name every Friday. I am not interested in that,” said Raveena.

The National award winning-actor, who is currently gearing up for the release of Maatr, insists that she wants to play roles that chal-lenge her.

“I am enjoying the work I am doing now and the mental space I am in right now. I am very content with myself and am not trying to chase anything. Being in my 40s, I think it’s a great time for me. I’ve seen life, matured over the years,” she says. Directed by Ashtar Sayed, the revenge thriller is a story of a mother fight-ing to get justice for her daughter, who is raped. “I can feel the pain of this person that I am playing in the film. Life is the best teacher you can get,” she says. Raveena says the film tack-les a realistic subject without bowing down to commercial pressure. “Maatr” is scheduled to release on April 21. PTI

KOLKATA: Perplexed at a par-ticular Bollywood dance step while filming The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel in India, British cine icon Judi Dench had likened that part of the choreography to “shampooing the dog”, recalls co-star Lillete Dubey.

“There was a step she couldn’t understand... so she came to me and said ‘Are we doing that step now where we are shampooing the dog’... I didn’t destroy the illusion. She didn’t question why in a wedding song would we be shampooing a dog... I let it be,” reminisced Lillete amid peals of laughter at a Friday night ses-sion on ‘Text to Context’ on the

forthcoming film Sonata.The Second Best Exotic

Marigold Hotel is a 2015 com-edy-drama film directed by John Madden and written by Ol Parker.

A prolific theatre actor her-self, Lillete dubbed Dench, the Oscar winner and globally-acclaimed for playing ‘M’ in the James Bond series (till 2012), as an “institution” and hoped she could emulate the Shakespeare in Love actor for her zest for life.

The Monsoon Wedding actor brought up anecdotes on Dench while discussing Sonata, the Aparna Sen-directed adaptation of the eponymous play by playwright Mahesh Elkunchwar. It is slated to hit

the screens on April 21. The English drama is a psychologi-cal exploration of three unmar-ried women facing a mid-life crisis. It stars Lillete, Aparna and Shabana Azmi.

“When I grow old and turn 80... I want to be Judi Dench... I want to have a new boyfriend... I want to have new knees and I want to do a film with Hoffman or his like,” added Dubey. Con-necting the forthcoming film’s premise to the hope and possi-bilities for life at any age, show-cased in the Marigold Hotel series, Lillete said: “We were shooting the end of the film... there’s a big Bollywood num-ber where everybody dances, including Judi...” IANS

When Judi Dench ‘shampooed the dog’ for a Bollywood song

LOS ANGELES: Sean Penn has said ex-film pro-ducer and current White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is a “Hollywood wannabe”.

The two have worked together more than 25 years ago on Penn’s directorial debut, The Indian Runner. Penn described Bannon as “bitter” and “bloated” to website Death and Taxes, reported People

magazine.“Bannon was then, as

he is now, simply another bitter Hollywood wan-nabe who went rogue by way of toxic narcissistic iconoclasm.

“But, deep in his heart, he’s just a conniving hateful bloated punk who despises mankind. And then there are also the bad things about him,” Penn said.

Penn is not the only Hollywood star to take a shot at Bannon as actor George Clooney had told a French news channel that, “Steve Bannon is a failed film writer and director.” PTI

Sean Penn calls Bannon a ‘Hollywood

Wannabe’

LOS ANGELES: India-born US-based actor Freida Pinto, who was earlier in a relationship with actor Dev Patel for seven years, is currently single. She says it feels like she is born again.

“For the first time, I finally understand the concept of self-love and self-care. I’m single and happy, and busy. I haven’t been single for a long time. It’s like being born again,” Pinto told dailymail.co.uk.

Freida and Dev, who started dating during the filming of Slumdog Millionaire, which released

in 2008, parted ways in December 2014.

“You can be with someone and it can

be really good for your growth.

That’s what Dev was for me.

The seven years I was

with him were so impact-ful. But I ended

up being single when I

started thinking about these other things,” she said. IANS

‘Being single

is like being

born again’

LONDON: Singer Cheryl, who welcomed her first child with boyfriend and One Direction star Liam Payne last month, reportedly got emotional when her first husband and footballer Ashley Cole wished her.

Cheryl and Cole were married for four years before divorcing in 2010 amid cheat-ing allegations. According to a source, Cole reached out to

Cheryl and Payne to congratu-late them for welcoming their son, reports dailymail.co.uk.

“(He) wished Cheryl and Liam only happiness in their future,” the source told Closer magazine.

“He told Cheryl how lucky her son is to have her and he always knew she’d make an amazing mum. Ashley’s mes-sage brought Cheryl to tears

and she admitted it finally felt like closure for their relation-ship,” the source added.

After Cole, Cheryl married restaurateur Jean-Bernard Fer-nandez-Versini in July 2014. Their relationship came to an end last year. Harry Styles, Payne’s bandmate has said he would be “honoured” to be the godfather of Cheryl and Liam Payne’s baby. AGENCIES

Ashley’s message brought Cheryl to tears