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Prime Minister NarendraModi was accorded a rous-

ing welcome on Sunday whenhe arrived at the crowded NRGstadium on Sunday to addressthe Indian-American commu-nity with people chanting“Howdy, Modi.”

Trump, who joined Modias a “special gesture” by the USPresident to underscore thespecial bond between the twocountries, said, “Modi is doingextraordinary job for Indiaand under him the world is wit-nessing a strong India.

While addressing theIndian diaspora, Trump said, “Iam hapy to be here at theHouston event. We are cele-brating everything that unitesIndia and the US. The rela-tionship between India andthe US is stronger then everbefore... We are strengthenedby our love of liberty. Theconstitutions of both the coun-tries begin with three beautoful words — We, the people.”

It is for the first time thatTrump and Modi shared astage together and address arecord crowd of 50,000 Indian-Americans.

Modi introduced Trump toIndian-American community;describes him as a “specialperson”. Modi entered on thestage with folded hands. He

bowed before the audience,thanking them for such anamazing welcome.

Welcoming Modi, HoustonMayor Sylvester Turner high-lighted the significance of the

event and said that Indianshave been a key figure in thedevelopment of his city.

Turner told the crowd thatHouston is the most diversecity in the county. “In Houston,

we say howdy in more than 140languages,” Turner said, “andthis morning we are sayinghowdy to Modi!”

After welcoming Modi atthe event, Turner presented

him the keys to the HoustonCity, which has one of thelargest concentration of theIndian-American communityin the US. About two dozengovernors and members of the

US Congress are also attendingthe event.

Democrat Steny Hoyerwelcomed Modi and invokedMahatma Gandhi and formerPrime Minister JawaharlalNehru in his speech. He saidboth Indians and Americanshave the same purpose, grow-ing the partnership between thetwo countries.

Earlier, Trump said he andhis “friend” Modi will have a“good time” at the mega event.

“Look forward to beingwith our great India lovingcommunity!” he tweeted.

Responding to Trump’stweet, Modi said he was look-ing forward to meet the USleader in Houston. “It surelywill be a great day! Looking for-ward to meeting you very soon@realDonaldTrump,” Moditweeted.

Organised by the non-prof-it Texas India Forum, the event,with the tagline ‘SharedDreams, Bright Futures’, willshine light on the tremendouscontribution of Indo-Americans in United Statesand the strong and lasting part-nership between the US andIndia. Ahead of Modi’s address,Indian-American artists fromTexas and elsewhere performedcultural programmes. Modiwelcomed Trump and the twoleaders embraced each otherand walked together towardsthe stage.

Dallas-based Ashok Magosaid ‘Howdy, Modi’ is anopportunity for the two lead-ers to showcase to the world theshared values and principles ofthe two largest democraticcountries of the world.

“This meeting has greatsignificance,” Mago said. “It(Howdy Modi) shows thatPresident Trump wants theUS-India relationship strongand is committed to this. I donot think that Trump hasshared a dais with a visiting for-eign leader like this,” Dallas-based Mago told PTI.

An eminent IndianAmerican, who has played akey role in strengthening IndiaUS relationship, Mago was onefour Indian-Americans whowere invited by the WhiteHouse to meet the president onhis arrival at the Joint ReserveBase.

Accompanying Mago tothe air force base, Piyush Patelsaid that this was a dream cometrue. “For me this mega eventwill take India-US relation-ship goes to a whole new level,”he said. India, he asserted,should be treated as a mostfavoured nation as is the casewith major the European coun-tries. Defence, technology andenergy are some of the key sec-tors he identified as majorareas of co-operation thatwould take the relationship toa new level.

“Today, there are no otherleaders like Trump and Modi.For both of them the countrycomes first. Both of them areworking for the people of thecountry,” he said.

Earlier in the day, Modihad a “special interaction” witha 17-member delegation ofKashmiri Pandits here andassured them of “building anew Kashmir” which would befor everyone.

The delegation, whichincluded Kashmiri Panditsfrom across the US, met Modion his arrival in Houston aspart as part of his week-longvisit to the US.

“Kashmir mein naee havabah rahee hai (New winds areblowing in Kashmir) and wewill all build a new Kashmirtogether that will be for every-one,” he told the delegation.

The Indian Governmenton August 5 revoked the spe-cial status given to Jammu andKashmir and bifurcated it intotwo union territories. Modialso thanked the communityfor their patience for over 30years. “I had a special interac-tion with Kashmiri Pandits in Houston,” Modilater tweeted.

Earlier, MEA spokespersonRaveesh Kumar tweeted thatthe Kashmiri Pandits expressedsupport for the steps taken bythe Indian Government forthe progress of India.

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Blaming late Prime MinisterJawaharlal Nehru for the

creation of Pak-OccupiedKashmir (POK), Union HomeMinister Amit Shah on Sundayexhorted voters of Maharashtrato “show the place” theydeserved to political partiesopposing the abrogation ofArticle 370 of the Constitution,in the State Assembly polls.

Launching the BJP’s cam-paign for the MaharashtraAssembly polls at a party work-ers’ rally held at Nesco groundat Goregaon in north Mumbai,Shah laid the blame for the cre-ation of the POK at the door ofthe then Prime Minister Nehru.“Maharaj Hari Singh cededKashmir to India on October26, 1947. On the following,Indian forces began to de-throw and capture areas underKashmir. One fine day, Nehrudeclared ceasefire withPakistan-supported forces.POK would not have come intoexistence had Nehru notdeclared ceasefire at that time.It’s because of Nehru’s blunder,

we have POK now,” the BJPpresident said.

“Later on January 1, 1948India approached the UnitedNations. Had India invokedcharter 51 instead of charter 35,POK would have been part ofIndia. But India invoked char-ter 35 which is meant for dis-putes. And the POK came to bedeclared as disputed territory,”Shah said.

Charging that the Congressand its ally NCP were “shame-lessly” opposing the abrogationof Article 370 of theConstitution, Shah said: “ Ihave come here to appeal to seefor yourself who is in favour ofthe annulment of Article 370and who is against it. There aretwo major political formationsin the fray.

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Prices of onion have onceagain gone up by around 50

per cent from �30-40 per kg to�50-80 per kg due to unevendistribution and supply in thewholesale markets across thecountry and floods in majorsupplying States such asMaharashtra, Karnataka andMadhya Pradesh.

Taking note of increasingonion prices, the NDAGovernment is mulling impos-ing stock limits on oniontraders.

Onion prices are on therise despite several measurestaken by the Ministry of Foodand Consumers Affairs toboost supply. The onion sup-ply is expected to improve inNovember when the new cropwill come in the market. TheCentre has a buffer stock of56,000 tonnes of onion, ofwhich 16,000 tonnes have beenoffloaded so far. In Delhi, 200tonnes a day is being offloaded.

The trade data showed

retail onion prices skyrocketingto �70-80 per kg towards theend of the last week from �50-60 per kg in the previous week.At wholesale market ofLasalgoan, onion prices rose to�45 per kg last week, whencompared with less than �10/kgduring the same period lastyear.

The retail onion prices inDelhi and National CapitalRegion(NCR) areas are Rs 50-80 per kg depending on thelocalities and quality. “Onionprices have almost doubled inthe last 7 to 10 days.

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The DMK’s Lok Sabha elec-tion expenditure affidavit

submitted to the ElectionCommission has put its alliancepartners CPI(M) and CPI in atight spot.

As per the affidavit sub-mitted on September 20, theDMK has given �10 crore toCPI(M) and �15 crore to CPIwhich were allotted two seatseach in Tamil Nadu by themajor alliance partner DMK.Interestingly, this �10 croredonation from the DMK is notreflected in the CPI(M)’s affi-davit to the ElectionCommission.

The CPI(M) had submittedthe first expenditure affidavit onJuly 10 and on September 13the party claimed that its totalelection expenditure acrossIndia is around �7.2 crore in

their last affidavit. The CPI hasnot yet submitted their affidavitto the Election Commission.

According to the DMK’saffidavit, it had given �10 croreto the CPI(M) through banktransfer in three installments onApril 5, 8 and 9. The DMKtransferred �15 crore to the CPIthrough bank in two install-ments on April 5 and 16. TheDMK also gave �15 crore to oneof their regional alliance part-ners Kongu Nadu DemocraticParty, which was allotted oneseat in Lok Sabha electionsfrom the DMK-led alliance.

It is interesting to notethat the DMK’s self-declaredtotal expenditure is �79.26crore including the above men-tioned total �40 crore dona-tions to its alliance partners.The DMK won 22 seats inTamil Nadu. The CPI(M) in itsexpenditure affidavit showedaround �82 lakh as receiptsfrom Coimbatore and Maduraiconstituencies, while theDMK’s affidavit claims theyhave given �10 crore.

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A44-year-old widow wasallegedly beaten to death

by the landlord in South Delhi’sMehrauli after the he suspect-ed her of being a thief. Policesaid they have arrested fourpersons, including the landlord.

The deceased woman hasbeen identified as Manju Goyaland she is survived by her twochildren who were in Haryanaat the time of the incident.Goyal’s brother Mahesh Jindalinformed police on Saturdaylate evening that she was beat-en up by three-four people.

“When a police teamreached the spot, he said his sis-ter was staying at the house ofone Satish Pahwa as tenant. OnSaturday morning, Jindal’s wife

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The fragrance of the highrevenue-earning aromatic

plants seems to have caught thefancy of the small farmersresiding in the high-altitudecold arid zones of Leh-Ladakh.

Tapping in on this growinginterest among farmers,Ladakh Farmers and ProducersCooperative Limited (LFPCL),Leh and Ladakh recently inkeda pact with Council forScientific and IndustrialResearch’s (CSIR) Palampur-based lab, Institute ofHimalayan BioresourceTechnology (IHBT) for culti-vation of the high-value aro-matic crops like rose, marigoldand mint.

Under the Memorandumof Understanding (MoU), aprocessing unit to churn outessential oils from these cropsat village Ranbirpura, Thiksayand Leh is being set up. Dr

Sanjay Kumar, Director, CSIR-IHBT, Palampur said process-ing unit is indispensable forvalue addition of aromaticplants and establishment ofthis facility in Leh will benefit the local farmers ofLeh district.

“As the region is deprivedof natural irrigation facilitiesand is suitable for the cultiva-tion of high value aromaticcrops such as damask rose,

chamomile, wild marigold, dra-cocephalum, lavender and saf-fron, so CSIR-IHBT recog-nised this area for the cultiva-tion of these crops,” heexplained.

Dr Kumar said seeds ofwild marigold, chamomile andsaffron have also been provid-ed to the farmers along with thecomplete information packageof agro technologies whichwill help them in proper culti-

vation of these crops.The project is being under-

taken under the CSIR’s AromaMission programme startedtwo years ago with an aim topromote the aromatic cropsand to bring additional area of5,500 ha under these crops forsocio-economic upliftment andemployment generation forfarming community and ruralmasses.

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With as many as four ele-phants having died at the

Nandankanan Zoo in a span ofa month after being infected byEndotheliotropic Herpes Virus(EEHV), a worried OdishaGovernment has sought assis-tance of experts of Assam andKerala to fight the virus.

“The State Governmenthas contacted experts in Assamand Kerala, where a similarvirus killed several elephants inthe past,” said Forest andEnvironment Minister BikramKeshari Arukha on Sunday.

Efforts are on to save theremaining jumbos, Arukhasaid. Out of these four ele-phants, three are adults. TheEEHV mostly affects elephantsbelow 15 years of age. Sincemost of the elephants were

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Three seperate incidents ofshootout and encounter

between the Delhi Police andcriminals were reported in thelast 24 hours in national Capitalfrom Akshardham MetroStation, Najafgarh andSeemapuri in which one gang-ster sustained injuries and fourwere arrested.

In the Akshardham metrostation shoutout on Sundayaround 10.45 am, the gang,however, managed to escape.

The incident took place atwhen police was trying to nabthe criminals involved in dup-ing several people near themetro station, police said.

According to police, a teamfrom Mandawali Police Stationlaid a trap and when the white-coloured car carrying the crim-inals approached, it was sig-nalled to stop, a police officersaid.

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Many years ago I wasinvolved in a project on

post-Mao China. Readingthrough copies of the BeijingReview, I was captivated by theChinese method of encapsu-lating long statements and con-cepts in a couple of words. Ofcourse, the ‘double hundred’,was easy to understand, it wasMao’s policy stating “Let a hun-dred flowers bloom, let a hun-dred schools of thought con-tend,” but several others werenot so simple. The ‘two what-evers’ referred to followingwhatever policy Mao laid down,and whatever instructions hegave, which in the post-Maoperiod was not recommended.‘Eating from the same pot’,meant that everyone got thesame payment, regardless of theamount and quality of the workdone, while ‘the iron rice bowl’was a term for a permanent job,which could not be terminatedon any grounds. Even somelonger phrases were intriguing,for instance, “The Kremlinwants to pluck the ripe appleand put it in the basket.” In thiscase, the ‘ripe apple’ was a ref-erence to Iran.

I was reminded of all thiswhen I read several memoirsrelating to China’s CulturalRevolution. Among them wereJi-Li Jiang’s Red Scarf Girl, JiXianlin’s, The Cowshed:Memories of the Chinese

Cultural Revolution ; andAnchee Min’s Red Azalea. Inthe Cultural Revolution, keyphrases, included the ‘FourOlds’ and the ‘Four News’. RedScarf Girl, is actually a book foryoung people, describing Ji-Li’slife between the ages of 12 andfourteen, at the beginning ofthe Cultural Revolution, whichlasted from 1966-1976. The redscarf they proudly wore was asymbol representing commu-nism and Mao. The name ‘Ji-Li’ means ‘lucky and beautiful’,and Ji-Li was a happy younggirl till she was twelve. In theprologue to the book she says,“I never doubted what I wastold: Heaven and earth aregreat, but greater still is thekindness of the CommunistParty; father and mother aredear, but dearer still isChairman Mao.”

Unfortunately for Ji-Li herfather was the son of a landlord,and this meant the family wasunder threat, landlords beingamong those out of favour inthe new China. Every day thepeople of China listened toChairman Mao on the impor-tance of removing the ‘FourOlds’, old ideas, old culture, oldcustoms and old habits.

As the Cultural Revolutionset in, the names of shopsreflecting old culture had to bechanged, for instance ‘GreatProsperity Market.’ ‘Prosperity’,

‘good fortune’, ‘innocent’ andeven ‘peace’ were among namesconsidered part of old culture.‘Prosperity’, for instance, couldonly be achieved by exploita-tion, and ‘good fortune’ indi-cated superstition. Clothes tooreflected the old, such as point-ed shoes and pants with narrowlegs. Gradually Ji-li felt increas-ingly confused, as the ‘Four

Olds’ were extended to allwalks of life, and youngstersgained the right to tormentothers. Respecting parents,teachers and elders, long hairworn in braids, the prevailingeducational system, protect-ing one’s own property, storingold clothes of the pre-revolu-tionary period, reading storiesfrom other lands, were all

among the ‘four olds’. Even pic-tures of people of the past wear-ing long gowns or mandarinjackets, were burnt. Weak stu-dents used the opportunity tocriticise those who did well.Getting good marks in schoolwas a hazard. Youngstersbecame Red Guards whilethose even younger werenamed Red Successors. Final

exams were abolished in Ji-li’sschool. She could not go to thehigh school of her choice. RedGuards approaching withgongs and drums ransackedhouses looking for ‘four olds’.Punishments began to bemeted out to older people bythese young Red Guards.When Ji-li’s house was searchedeven her stamp album wastaken away. Her father wasdetained, her mother andgrandmother suffered. Thingsimproved after Mao’s death,and finally, Ji-li moved to theUSA in 1984, where she wrotethis book.

Anchee Min too moved tothe US, and began writingbooks, Red Azalea, being thefirst, an account of growing upduring the Cultural Revolution.She and her family lived inShanghai, and she describeshow from the age of six shetook care of her younger broth-ers and sisters. Soon shebecame a Red Guard, she wascalled on to give speeches, asshe was well-versed in Mao’sLittle Red Book. A poignantincident takes place when sheis brainwashed into speakingagainst her beloved teacher, anddenouncing her as an

American spy. Her mother, aformer school teacher, sent towork in a shoe factory, isdeeply disturbed by this, andAnchee too knows it is wrong.Later, she is among the otheryoung people sent to work ina farm under harsh condi-tions, producing food for thepeople. Even there the youngwomen did not lose their faithin Mao, doing everything andundergoing all hardships forhim. These books record howMao had become a kind of god,with his picture everywhere,and people bowing to it, per-haps even praying.

The Cultural Revolutionhad some good points, itemphasised equality, the digni-ty of labour and the need to for-get about a ‘glorious heritage’and move into the future. Buteverything was taken to illogi-cal extremes. Higher educa-tion suffered, scholars werecondemned. Behind this revo-lution were political strugglesand Mao’s attempts to retain hispower. Gradually the extremephase of the Cultural Revolutionsubsided, and after Mao’s deathin 1976, China began to rethinkits policies. According to statis-tics 1.5 million people died

during the Cultural Revolution.Many were killed by RedGuards, others committed sui-cide. Fighting among RedGuard factions killed somemore. Did this phase in China’shistory have long-term effects?Was eliminating aspects of thepast a contributing factor inmaking China an economicsuper power?

The effect of dictators suchas Mao also raises questions onthe forces of history. Can oneperson actually take a countryin a different direction? Whatwere the other forces at play?Were youngsters, who chieflyparticipated in killing and vio-lence against older people,yearning to break free from theconfines of a traditional society?What were the economic fac-tors that allowed this to hap-pen? And what psychologicalfactors can lead to mass worshipof one individual? Historianshave attempted to answer thesequestions, but an analysis ofthese memoirs would alsoreveal some answers.

(A PhD in ancient IndianHistory, the writer lives inDehradun and has authoredmore than ten books)

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Time and again the matter ofencroachment on BHEL

land in Shivaliknagar and Tibdiarea has surfaced but the town-ship administrators are turninga deaf ear to the problem.Recently, the foundation for abuilding was laid by a scrapdealer on BHEL land wherephase V of Shivaliknagar is pro-posed but no action has beentaken by the administrators,alleged a local activist.

Haridwar-based activistAditya Sharma has alleged thatone Gulshan Ansari, a scrapdealer dug foundation for abuilding on the vacant groundon the back side of Chinmayadegree college.

The land adjacent to theHRDA certified Inderlokcolony on one side and RawliMehdood village on the otherside is being encroached uponby some business man for con-struction purposes.

While the BHEL officebearers are passing the buck oneach other for taking action, the

dealer smartly covered his foun-dation by planting some trees.

When this correspondenttried to contact the townshipadministrator Naveen Lunia, his

phone was found switched off. Ina written complaint to the BHELgeneral manager of HumanResource, Sharma has com-plained that some BHEL officials

are sheltering the trader and nottaking action against him.

Speaking to The Pioneer,activist Aditya Sharma said, “Iwas asked to approach BHEL

Sarkari Grah Samiti which islooking after construction ofthe phase V of Shivaliknagar totake action in four days butnothing happened. Now theperson concerned is notresponding.”

Head of BHEL Sarkari GrahSamiti, Aftab Khan told this cor-respondent that the matter wasbeing undertaken by the BHELtownship administrator, andwhatever action is needed, willbe taken by him alone.

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The body of the minor girlwho had jumped into the

canal earlier this month onSeptember 17 near TikonaPark in Vikasnagar has beenrecovered by the local authorities.

According to police, shehad a row with her familymembers after which she lefthome in a fit of rage andjumped into the canal.

The deceased has beenidentified as Julie, a resident ofYamuna Colony, Dakpatthar.According to police, she wasstudying in Class IX atGovernment Inter College(GIC) Dakpatthar.

For the recovery of herbody State Disaster ResponseForce (SDRF) and water policeconducted a search and rescueoperation. Her body has beenidentified by the parents andwas sent for post-mortemexamination.

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The trailer of the Hindimovie Little Baby shot

entirely in Dehradun waslaunched here in the presenceof State Minister Dhan SinghRawat, Dehradun mayor SunilUniyal ‘Gama’ along with thedirector and producer of themovie among others on Sunday.

Speaking on the occasionRawat said that a new film pol-icy, subsidy for film makers andsingle window system intro-duced by the State Governmentwill further boost film shoot-ing in Uttarakhand.

There are hundreds of sitesin the State which are morebeautiful than even foreignlocations, he added, whileappreciating the movie makers.

Mayor Sunil Uniyal ‘Gama’appreciated the movie makersfor giving space for local actors.

He added the local artistesshould also be given prominentroles and not only those ofextras. Pauri MLA MukeshKoli, Lansdowne MLA DilipSingh Rawat and State minori-ties commission chairman DrRK Jain among others alsoexpressed their views on theoccasion.

Earlier, movie directorShekhar Jha said Uttarakhandis one of the most beautifulIndian States.

Stating that it took 20 daysto complete the film shootingin Dehradun, he thanked theState Government, local resi-dents and local actors for theircontribution.

Appreciating the StateGovernment’s policy, he saidthat they had secured the nec-essary permission for shootingthe film in one day.

Movie producer RinkuSingh recalled that though

Dehradun was the first choiceof the director, she was initial-ly apprehensive.

However, shooting themovie here was a good decisionsince all equipment, locationsand about 90 per cent of theactors in the movie were foundin Dehradun, she said.

Slated to be released onSeptember 27, Little Babyexplores various facets of rela-tionships between a concernedfather and a fiercely indepen-dent teenage daughter.Priyanshu Chatterjee plays thefather while Gulnaz Siganporiaplays the rebellious daughter.

In the movie, police officerDushyant working Dehradun,played by Chatterjee, needs tobreak flesh-trade racket in

town. In one such raid, manyyoung college students includ-ing his only teenage daughterSasha are caught.

Dushyant’s world comescrashing down. Sasha is unre-lenting, a rebel — who hatesman made laws and championsthe cause of freedom fromnorms, rules and everythingthat restricts.

She is not ashamed of,what she was doing. Dushyantis heart-broken, shattered,alone and helpless. He needshelp — psychiatric help andwith no one else to go to, helooks at his daughter who ishappy to help. Communicationbetween daughter and fatherstarts again and the dynamicschange.

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In the deaths of six personsafter consumption of illicit

liquor in Pathariya Peer colonyat Neshville Road on Thursday-Friday, the Dehradun Policehave already caught the personaccused of selling liquor ille-gally in the area but the biggerfish accused of selling liquor tothis accused person are yet tobe caught.

The case has once againraised question on the rampantillicit liquor supply in state, asmany locals have alleged thatthese suppliers come from apolitically sound background.

Dehradun SeniorSuperintendent of Police (SSP)Arun Mohan Joshi though hasstated that strict steps will betaken against the accused irre-spective of their backgrounds.

If sources are to bebelieved, the local police areunder considerable pressure.Authorities may say that theyare still uncertain about theexact cause of deaths, but thefact remains that the illicitsupply of liquor is a problem inthe State.

According to police, duringthe initial interrogation arrest-ed accused Gaurav has statedthe name of two people fromwhom he use to buy liquorapart from licensed liquorshops — Raja Negi alias Rajuand a former councillor AjaySonkar. Sources also stated,

that police are gearing up forraids at possible hide-outs ofthese two accused.

So far, Rajendra (40),Guddu (30), Sharan Singh (64),

Akash (32), Surendra (35) andInder (40) have died whileAvinash alias Lucky, Karan(25), Praveen and Raju (63)have been admitted in All

India Institute of MedicalSciences (AIIMS) Rishikesh.With two more patients admit-ted in Max Hospital onSaturday, the total numbers of

patients there is four. The patients have been

identified as Kishori Lal,Mukesh Kumar, Vinod andVishal Kumar.

��

After the imposition ofMotor Vehicles

(Amendment) Act 2019 citi-zens everywhere have becomealert about traffic offences.

Even though a fraction ofpopulation in the state is stillobjecting to the increasedpenalties and the amendedsentencing provision, the statetraffic law enforcers are indeedhappy with the changes thathave been made.

A traffic sub-inspector saidthat it is easy to blame thepolice for any horrible accidenton the road, but in most of thecases the accident is caused dueto traffic offence that has beencommitted by either the victimor the accused. According tothe information provided bytraffic directorate, from themonth of January to Augustthis year about 937 road acci-dent cases have been reported,in which 581 people have losttheir lives and 1,038 peoplewere severely injured.

The cause of maximumnumber of road accidents wasreported to be over speedingand rash driving — about 403such cases were reported inwhich 227 people died and 397were injured.

The second highest num-

ber of road accident cases inState is due to people’s tenden-cy of driving on the wrong side.

About 112 road accidentscases have been reported underthis category, in which 62 peo-ple were killed and 115 wereinjured. Third major cause ofroad accidents in Uttarakhandis people wrongly overtakingthe vehicle moving aheadwhich caused about 96 acci-dents in which 54 people losttheir lives and 103 were injured.

The traffic offence of drinkand drive or driving or ridingunder the influence of otherintoxicants is the fourth majorcause of road accidents — 92cases have been reported due tothis factor in the state, in which51 people lost their lives and 69were injured.

Another traffic personnelsaid, “Corruption is in everydepartment, but we face themaximum flack for it. Justbecause there have been fewalleged cases of corruption ontraffic police in Uttarakhand,that undermines all the goodwork that we have done. If youwon’t break any rules, there willnot be any room for corrup-tion. However, people do notwant to follow the rules, theythink that by paying someoneoff they can get away with it.Now, after the amendment inMV Act, maximum number ofpeople voluntarily have startedfollowing the rules.”

Dehradun SeniorSuperintendent of Police (SSP)Arun Mohan Joshi said, “It isour appeal to every citizen to

abide by the traffic rules. Trafficrules are not only for your pro-tection but also for the protec-tion for those you are sur-rounded by. Rest assured, if anypolice personnel are foundinvolved in any corrupt activ-ity strict actions will be takenagainst them.”

��

Union Minister for HumanResource Development,

Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank hassaid that after a period of 33years, a new education policyis going to be implemented inthe country which will set themilestone of the developmentof the country.

Nishank said recently hehad called on all the EducationMinisters of the country where-in 26 Education Ministers gavetheir viewpoints.

Over two lakh suggestionscame from across the countryout of which important sug-gestions will be implemented inthe new education policy.

He said with the coming ofnew education policy a revo-lutionary change will come inthe education system. Nishankhad come to to meet the chan-cellor of Dev SanskritiVishwavidyalaya, PranavPandya on Sunday.

The Union Ministerappraised Pandya about theaccomplishments of NarendraModi government in hundreddays. Nishank told the mediapersons that Pandya will facil-itate admission of 100 Kashmiristudents in his university byreserving seats for them andalso give free education to students of economically weak-

er section.On Kashmir issue Nishank

said that after scrapping ofArticles 370 and 35A, the peo-ple of Kashmir are happy.

He said earlier the Statehad become property of just

four families but in the hun-dred days of its second inningsthe Modi Government hastaken many historic decisionsand has shown a ray of hope tothe last man of the country.

He added that Modi has

emerged as a powerful leaderin the world and India’s rapporthas been enhanced on worldplatform.

People are thronging tomeet Modi in America duringhis visit, he added.

��

Two lions in sitting positionlooking alert and majestic

on the two sides of GangaCanal in Roorkee can never bemissed by anyone enteringRoorkee and Haridwar viaGanga canal road route.

There are five statues oflions in Roorkee around whichare significant landmarks sincethe colonial era when theGanga Canal was constructedunder the supervision ofColonel PB Cautley.

Cautley was an army offi-cers who was made in-chargeof the canal construction.These lions which act as marksof danger zone in canal must beconserved, say the local resi-dents and IIT engineers.

Four lion statues are builtalong the Ganga canal, twoeach at Roorkee and Mehwarvillage while the fifth one isinstalled in Sher Kothi inRoorkee.

This fifth lion was first builtas a model and after it was per-fected and finalised in design,the four other statues were builtalong the canal, say the IITengineers. The famous Gangacanal stretches till Kanpur tra-

versing through Muzaffarnagar.Retired professor of IIT

Roorkee SC Handa said,“Going from Roorkee toHaridwar there is a villagecalled Mehwar located 2.5 kilo-metres from Roorkee on theupstream side.

Two lions are built on thetwo edges of the canal at thatpoint. Lot of land filling had tobe done for the canal to keepthe required level betweenRoorkee town and Mehwar.

The two lions at each pointwere built to indicate that the

canal in the filled up portion isin danger zone and lions arethere to safeguard the region.If there can be a breach in thezone, the canal being at greaterheight compared to the sur-rounding land will inundate thesurrounding area and flood so

many villages nearby.”The reference of these lions

comes in the book titledHistory of Thomsan College ofEngineering (earlier name ofIIT Roorkee), which is theoldest engineering college ofIndia wherein there is mention

of the figure of a lordly lion, sit-ting but alert, paws stretchedout and head held high, confi-dent in his majesty and power,but showing neither fear norferocity. This lion was adoptedas the embodiment of the spir-it of Roorkee college. While thedesign of the emblem changeda few times over the years, thelion continued to be its integralpart and is still very muchappearance in many places.

The apathy of districtadministration and irrigationdepartment has led to encroach-ment of the area Sher Kothi,where Cautley used to live.

“These are historic land-marks and the governmentmust take measures to conservethem. Irrigation departmentpaints the lions after years butSher Kothi sample lion is inshambles,” said a local resident,Kamal Kumar.

It is said the lions are sim-ilar in structure to the oneserected in Trafalgar Square inLondon, England. They aremade of black granite while thelions in Roorkee are of bricksand lime mortar since cementwas not available at that timebut dimensions and formmatches that of the lions inLondon.

�� :�

The carcass of a tiger found onSaturday evening in the

Dhela range of Corbett tigerreserve was disposed off afterveterinarians conducted a postmortem examination onSunday. According to depart-mental officials, the death of thetigress is believed to have beencaused by injuries resulting froma fight with another big cat.

Staff on patrol during

Saturday night had come acrossthe body of the tiger in Dhela.The department staff took pos-session of the body on whichthe post mortem examinationwas conducted on Sunday.

According to the sub divi-sional officer Ramakant Tiwariinformed that the tigress wasaged about five years. As aresult of the fight with anothertiger, the tigress had a brokenjaw and a bone of her neck wasalso found to be broken, he said.

��

On Sunday morning thedeath of another person

in the Pathariya Peer colonyraised speculation among thelocals and the authorities thatthis death might have beenanother fatality in the illicitliquor consumption case.

However, the death wasnot directly related with thecase, but is an alleged aftereffect of the incident.

Circle Officer (city)Shekhar Suyal said, “Health ofa 65-year-old male in the samearea suddenly deteriorated,after which he was taken to

Mahant Indiresh Hospital, fromwhere the doctors then referredhim to AIIMS in Rishikesh.There the doctors declaredhim dead. The family said thathe was going through traumaafter the deaths in his familyand in the area. He was also noteating properly and had nottouched alcohol for quite sometime which ruled out the pos-sibility of his death being causedby consumption of liquor. Hisfamily though did not wantpost-mortem, but registrationwas done.”

The deceased has beenidentified as Gurdeep Singh(65).

�� -� ��

After meeting the familymembers of those who

died after consuming liquor inPathariya Peer area, thePradesh Congress Committeepresident Pritam Singh met thesenior superintendent of policeArun Mohan Joshi on Sunday.

Submitting a memoran-dum to the SSP, the PCC pres-ident demanded that action betaken on a war footing againstthose illegally supplying intox-icants in the Pathariya Peer areaand those protecting them.

He said that it is known toall that half a dozen people diedand others were hospitalisedafter drinking spurious liquor.

The business of illegal liquorand intoxicants has been thriv-ing in this area for quite sometime. He said that the Congressdelegation had visited the affect-ed area where the locals werecomplaining that despite sucha big incident, the trade of illic-it liquor and intoxicants is stillcontinuing in the area.

Later, while talking tomedia persons, the PCC pres-ident blamed the StateGovernment for the incidentwhile alleging that some mem-bers of the party in power werealso involved in the case. Hesaid that a delegation of theCongress would visit the RajBhawan on Monday and meetthe governor on this issue. He

also demanded that the stategovernment should announceRs 10 lakh compensation eachfor the bereaved families ofthose who have died after con-suming the spurious liquor.

Meanwhile, MahanagarCongress workers staged aprotest and burnt the state gov-ernment in effigy.

The party’s Mahanagarchief Lalchand Sharma allegedthat the BJP State governmentwas encouraging the actions ofthe liquor mafia in the state.The state’s excise policy accordsprotection to the liquor mafia,encourages the smuggling ofliquor and aims at supplyingliquor to all homes in the State.

The involvement of BJP

leaders and departmental offi-cers in the Pathariya Peer inci-dent is a proof of this, heaverred. Sharma furtheralleged that illicit liquor trade

has been thriving in Dehradunfor some time due to BJPmembers working in con-nivance with departmentalofficers.

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Following the death of a stu-dent in Children

Home Academy school inRanipokhri, district police isstill waiting for an official com-plaint to be lodged.

The chairperson of StateCommission for the Protectionof Child Rights (SCPCR) UshaNegi is slated to visit the schoolon Monday. The commissionhas also submitted a letter tothe office of Dehradun SeniorSuperintendent of Police, ArunMohan Joshi, seeking a reporton the matter in a week.

In its letter the SCPCR stat-ed that the school concernedhas a history of hiding the truthbehind deaths in their premis-es which has earlier beenproven in the Vasu murdercase. Stating the circumstancesof the death and then theimmediate cremation of thebody raise suspicion, chair-person Negi said that she her-self will visit the school andinspect the premises.

She has also askedDehradun district magistrate tofind out why the school wasstill functioning even after thelicence cancellation of theschool by CBSE.

According to the sources,local police have still notreceived any official complaintor letter to lodge the case, butthey have spoken with thedoctors who treated the minorand they said that it was a caseof pneuomonia.

It is pertinent to mentionhere that on Friday, class VIIIstudent Abhishek Ravidas (12)was found dead.

The deceased is a native ofJalandhar, Punjab. The schoolsaid that he died of dengue. Thesame reason was intimated toparents as well.

�� (((

From Page 1Bare study of affidavits

filed by parties shows that all ofthem are trying to tally with themaximum expenditure limit of�70 lakh per Lok Sabha con-stituency specified by theElection Commission. Majorparties BJP and Congress havenot yet submitted their affi-davits. As per the Aam AadmiParty’s affidavit, their totalexpenditure is �1.3 crore only.However, Biju Janata Dal (BJD)which contested only in Odisha(along with Assembly elec-tion) shown �227.79 crore astheir expenses. They also filedan earlier affidavit (part expen-diture) of �39.7 crore.

The NCP showed �72.35crore and earlier affidavit of �11crore as their expenditure dur-ing the Lok Sabha election. TheBSP declared their expenditureas �55.39 crore and theSamajwadi Party declared itsexpenditure as just �5.5 crore.The Trinamool Congressdeclared �83.6 crore and �10core in two affidavits. TheAIADMK declared around �20crore as their entire expendi-ture. Jagan Mohan Reddy’sYSRP declared �86.15 crore astheir expenses in the Lok Sabhaand Assembly elections of 2019.

The JD(U) declared �10.71crore as their expenditure inthe Lok Sabha elections.

The BJP and Congress,which contested in majorityseats, are yet to declare theirexpenditure to the ElectionCommission and it is learnedthat their chartered accoun-tants are busy with preparationof the expenses in co-ordina-tion with their State units.

�� 222From Page 1

Dr ML Mantoo, CEO, LFPCL and for-mer adviser to the Ministry of RuralDevelopment said this partnership willallow them to work in collaboration withpremier CSIR institute in cultivating aro-matic crops in lager area of Leh and Ladakhregion and to provide maximum benefit tofarmers. Dr Rakesh Kumar, PrincipalScientist, CSIR-IHBT said Leh and Ladakhregion is suitable for cultivation of highvalue aromatic crops where unique aromacompound can be produced which havehuge demand in the international per-fumery and fragrance industries.

To promote cultivation, awareness-cum-training programme has been held invillages like Ranbirpura of district Lehwhere large number of farmers participat-ed. Leh- Ladakh is located in the northern

part of the Indian subcontinent with an areaof about 59,146 km.

With CSIR-IHBT’s efforts, HimachalPradesh has already become the largest pro-ducer of high-quality wild marigold essen-tial oil in India, meeting the demand of per-fume, flavouring, and condiment industries.A good number of farmers in Uttarakhand,Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmirhave already taken up the cultivation. Infact, an area of about 214 hectares has beenbought under wild marigold cultivation bymore than 600 farmers in the hilly region.The crop is suitable for cultivation in theplains as well as on the hills as a mono-cropor inter-crop in orchards/forest/medicinal/aromatic plants.

Aromatic crops are widely cultivatedaround the world due to its high-revenueearning essential oils which are utilised inperfumery, food, flavoring, pharmaceuti-cal and agrochemical industry.

From Page 1One political formation

owes its allegiance to BharatMata i.e., BJP and its allies,while the other formation --Congress and NCP -- believesdynastic politics. The votershave to chsose between thesetwo political formations”.

Making the abrogation ofArticle 370 main plank in theelections, Shah said: “As aleader and president of BJP, Ihave come to you with anappeal. Maharashtra is a landof Chhtrapati Shivaji. It was onthis land that freedom strugglebegan. The fight againstMoghuls started here. At thetime when the elections arehappening, the people ofMaharashtra should decide

and show the people theydeserve to the political partiesopposing the abrogation ofArticle 370 of the Constitution”

Taking a strong exceptionto Congress’ former presidentRahul Gandhi’s statement thatabrogation of Article 370 wasa political issue, Shah said:“We have been fighting for thisissue since the Jan Sangh days.Bharatiya Jan Sangh’s first pres-ident Shyama PrasadMukherjee made the first sac-rifice for Kashmir. We havebeen fighting for Kashmir sincethen. Rahul baba says thatArticle 370 is a political issue.Let me tell that three genera-tions of our party since our JanSangh days have been fightingfor the abrogation of Article370. Rahulbabu, for you it maybe a political issue, but for usthe removal of Article 370 isnot a political issue but an issuethat is needed for uniting andintegrating India”.

Expressing confidence thatthe BJP-led NDA government

would return to power withthree-fourth of majority in theAssembly polls, Shah said:“When I say that our victory isa foregone conclusion, I do sowith on some basis. I am say-ing this on the basis of themanner in which chief minis-ter Devendra Fadnavis ran hisgovernment in Maharashtra,the Modi government per-formed at the Centre duringthe last five years. Throughtheir mandate given in therecent Lok Sabha polls, thepeople have made public theirintention that DevendraFadnavis will become the chiefminister once again inMaharashtra”.

In some other part of his30-minute speech, Shah heapedpraise on Fadnavis and said:“Our Devendra Fadnavis hasgiven a given a corruption-freegovernment. Devendraji hasgiven a development-orientedgovernment. He has increasedhonour of Maharashtra. Hehas brought back Maharashtra

to top position in the country.In the field of education, he hasbrought the state to 3rd posi-tion from 17th position. Interms of investment, he hasbrought the state to secondposition in the country. Theagriculture growth rate hasalso increased substantially.Even on the corruption elimi-nation front, Devendra hasdone between the Congressand NCP”.

Shah said that more thanthe performance of theDevendra Fandnavis govern-ment, the voters of the state hadto choose between the forcesthat were with the govern-ment in its decision to abrogateArticle 370 of the Constitutionand those who opposed it.

Shah, who was briefingthe party workers on the issuesrelating to abrogation of Article37o, said that the Jammu &Kashmir-based job aspirantsfrom the SCs STs and OBCswould benefit from the abro-gation of Article 370.

He said that the annulmentof Article 370 of theConstitution would contributeto eliminating corruption in thevalley state, where the State hadlost a staggering Rs 2,27,000lakh crore owing to the lack ofanti-corruption bureau there.

Dismissing criticism of thecriticism about the alarmingsituation in Jammu andKashmir, Shah said: “No bullethas been fired between August5 and September 22. No life hasbeen lost. He asked the criticswith “political agenda” as towhy they scaring peoplethrough a false propaganda.“After the abrogation of Article370, the people are livingpeacefully in Kashmir. Theprohibitory orders have beenlifted in all but two places.Ninety nine per cent of landlines have started working.Fifty seven per cent mobilephones are working. Curfewhas been lifted from mostplaces. Business is going on asusual in Kashmir”.

�� !��

From Page 1Earlier the wholesale price

of onion was �15 per kilogram,now it is being sold at �30 to�45,” said Rajendra Sharma, awholesaler of Delhi’s biggestAzadpur wholesale vegetablemarket. Sharma attributed thedifference in demand and sup-ply due to floods in several statesbehind the hike. “Supply is lessthan demand. Due to rains inMaharashtra, Madhya Pradeshand Rajasthan, there is a short-age of onions in Delhi,” he said.

According to the Ministry,the retail onion prices rose to Rs50-60 per kg in Delhi, Rs 50-70per kg in Mumbai, Rs 45-60 perkg in Kolkata and Rs 40-50 perkg in Chennai last week. Theprices were quoted at Rs 60/kgin Gurgram and Jammu duringthe same period. The retailonion prices were high in poshcolonies across the country.

Right now, stored onionsare sold in most parts of thecountry as fresh kharif (sum-mer) crop will hit the marketfrom November onwards,traders said. Traders furthersaid that there is enough supplyof stored onion of the previousyear’s crop in the country but itstransportation has been affect-ed because of heavy rains.

Much of the onion is storedin Maharashtra, where rainsdisrupted the transport of thekitchen staple to other parts ofthe country, said a wholesaletrader from Lasalgoan inMaharasthra, Asia’s largestonion market.

Sources said that the gov-ernment has taken several mea-

sures in the last few weeks toimprove the domestic supplyand check further increase inprices of onion. “However,retail prices have suddenly shotup in the last 2-3 days becauseof supply disruption due toexcess rains in the growingstates,” sources added.

It is a short-term supplydisruption and if the situationdoes not normalise in the next2-3 days and prices rise, thenthe government may considerseriously imposing stock hold-ing limits on onion traders, thesource said.

According to theMeteorological Department,main onion producing regionsespecially Maharasthra,Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh,Gujarat, eastern Rajasthan andwestern Madhya Pradesh havereceived excess monsoon rain-falls in the last two days.

The Centre has taken sev-eral measures to arrest theprices of onion in Delhi andother parts of the country. It isoffloading onion from its bufferstock through agencies likeNafed and NCCF which are sell-ing at around Rs 22/kg andstate-run Mother Dairy at Rs23.90 per kg in the national cap-ital. The state governments havebeen asked to boost supply intheir states lifting central bufferstock. Some states like Delhi,Tripura and Andhra Pradeshhave shown interest so far.

Besides, the Centre hasdiscouraged export of onion byincreasing the minimumexport price and withdrawingincentives. It is also crackingdown on blackmarketeers.Besides rains, prices are underpressure on likely fall in kharifproduction of this year owingto less planted area underonion on account of excessrains, the sources added.

��<<<From Page 1

received a call from Pahwa whoaccused Goyal of theft,” said a senior policeofficial.

“Jindal rushed to Pahwa’s residence andfound that his sister was beaten up byPahwa, his son Pankaj and others on theallegation of theft, police said. Jindal tookhis sister to his house after she complainedof chest pain. As her condition deteriorated,he called doctors at his home, where Goyalsuccumbed to injuries in the evening,” saidthe senior police official.

“Her body has been sent to AIIMSmortuary for post-mortem. Satish Pahwa(54), his wife, son Pankaj (29) and theirmaid Kamlesh have been arrested,” saidAtul Kumar Thakur, the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP),South district.

From Page 1The occupants were asked

to come out of the car, howev-er, they fired at the policeteam. Police retaliated andboth sides fired one round ateach other, however, no onewas injured, police said. Thegang drove towards GeetaColony flyover and the policeteam gave chase but could notcatch them, they added.

According to officialinvolved in the Najafgarhshootout, a few criminals man-aged to flee from the spot. InNajafgarh incident which fallsunder the jurisdiction ofDwarka district, the sleuths ofthe Delhi Police arrested threegangsters after an encounterthat broke out on Najafgarh’sKair- Mitraon road on Saturdayevening. Police said the accused

are members of DeepakDhankhar group, a proxygroup of gangster of KapilSangwan alias Nandu.

The accused have beenidentified as Vicky (27), Naveenalias Tinku (20), both residentsof Najafgarh and Deepak (28),a resident of Gurugram inHaryana.

Deputy Commissioner ofPolice (DCP) Dwarka AntoAlphonse said after receivinginformation on Saturday thatVicky, along with his two asso-ciates possessing illegalweapons would come toNajafgarh on Kair- Mitraonroad to attack some business-man for extortion.

“Acting on the inputs a trapwas laid and at around 7:40 PMon Saturday, Vicky was spottedon a bike with two of his asso-

ciates. Police team signaledhim to stop but he tried to flee.The police team asked them tosurrender but Vicky and hisassociates opened fire upon thepolice team,” said the DCP.

“After brief exchange of fire,the team succeeded in arrestingall the three criminals. Vicky sus-tained a bullet injury on his legwhile one bullet hit the bulletproof jacket of constableKulbhushan,” said the DCP.

“During interrogation, itwas revealed that all threecriminals had been involved inarranging funds for the crim-inal of Kapil Sangwan aliasNandu. On September 21, theaccused had threaten a busi-nessman and would have evenfired upon same person toensure that their threat is nottaken lightly and victim(s)

actually provide them extortionmoney, but their luck ran outand they were arrested by thepolice team,” said the DCP.

Meanwhile, Delhi Policehave also arrested a 40-year-oldman after an encounter inSeemapuri area on Saturdaynight. Police have recovered acountry made pistol along with22 cartridges from the posses-sion of the accused.

The accused, identified as,Aasif (40) a resident of NandNagari, was involved in 40cases of Dacoity, Murder,Robbery, Snatching etc. Hewas also arrested by Hyderabadpolice in May 2013 and bookedin 10-12 cases of snatching.Police had also declared areward of Rs 25, 000 on infor-mation leading to his arrest.

According to Amit

Sharma, the DeputyCommissioner of Police(DCP), Shahdara district, fol-lowing a tip off on Saturdaynight a trap was laid nearSeemapuri when at about 2:00am, Aasif was seen riding a bikeand was signaled to stop.

“Seeing police Aasif tried toflee away and in order to escapehe fired three rounds at theteam. In retaliation staff firedcouple of rounds and lateroverpowered him,” said theDCP. “During interrogation itwas revealed that Aasif was alsowanted in the murder case ofhis wife and was abscondingsince then. He further revealedthat he was also planning tomurder his sister-in-law andmother-in-law, who were pur-suing the murder case of hiswife,” said the DCP.

��

From Page 1brought from different

forests of the State, blood sam-ples would be collected toensure that the EEHV has notspread to the wild one also, hesaid. Nandankanan ZooDeputy Director Jayant Dassaid all precautionary mea-sures are being taken to savelives of the remaining ele-phants. It is not known whetherthe virus has also affected theseelephants, he added.

�� :�

Holding free medical camps to facilitate the services of spe-cialist doctors for the needy is a very commendable job, said

the Ramnagar municipality chairman Mohammed Akram. Hewas speaking after inaugurating a free medical camp held at Saificlinic with the support of Navjeevan multispeciality hospital onSunday.

He also said soon the municipal council would also hold afree medical camp to enable the services of specialist doctors tothe town residents.

The various doctors conducting the camp attended to 467persons and also provided free medicines. The free medical camporganiser Dr Zafar Saifi, ward member Rubina Saifi and manyothers were also present on the occasion.

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In another major terror crack-down, the Punjab Police has

busted a terrorist module of therevived Khalistan ZindabadForce (KZF), backed by aPakistan and Germany basedterror group that was conspir-ing to unleash a series of ter-rorist strikes in Punjab oradjoining states.

The police have also seizeda huge cache of arms includingfive AK-47 rifles, pistols, satel-lite phones and hand grenades.

Given the internationallinks and the ramifications ofthe conspiracy, Punjab ChiefMinister Capt Amarinder Singhhas decided to hand over furtherinvestigations in the case to theNational Investigation Agency(NIA) to ensure that the entireconspiracy is fully and expedi-tiously unravelled.

With initial investigationsrevealing the use of drones todeliver terrorists weapons andcommunication hardwareacross the border, the ChiefMinister has also urged theCentral Government to directthe Indian Air Force (IAF)and Border Security Force(BSF) to launch necessarycounter-measures to checkany further threat fromdrones to the border state of

Punjab.The state Director General

of Police (DGP) Dinkar Guptasaid that the weapons weresuspected to have been deliv-ered recently across the Indo-Pak border from Pakistan overdrones launched by the Pakestablishment, the Pak ISI,and the State-sponsored Jihadiand pro-Khalistani terroristoutfits working under its com-mand.

Gupta said that the large-scale infiltration appeared tohave been aimed at scaling ter-rorism and militancy inJammu and Kashmir, Punjaband the Indian hinterland, inthe wake of the recent devel-

opments in the Valley.The operation was based

on different inputs gatheredfrom sources that activists ofthe banned KZF planned tocarry out multiple terroriststrikes in J&K, Punjab andother States, he said.

In an operation carried outby Amritsar AIG (CounterIntelligence) Ketan BaliramPatil, along with variousPunjab Police teams based inChandigarh, four modulemembers have been arrestedand a large quantity of arms,ammunition, explosives andcommunication devices, hasbeen seized by the CounterIntelligence Wing of Punjab

Police.Gupta said that the mod-

ule was backed by Pakistan-based chief of KZF, RanjeetSingh alias Neeta, and hisGermany-based associateGurmeet Singh alias Baggaalias Doctor, who had re-organized their terroristgroup to revive terrorism inPunjab.

With the help of localsleeper cells, they had spot-ted, radicalized and recruit-ed local members, besidesarranging funds and sophis-ticated weapons from acrossthe border for operationaliz-ing the local module mem-bers.

Those arrested have beenidentified as Balwant Singhalias Baba alias Nihang,Akashdeep Singh alias AkashRandhawa, Harbhajan Singhand Balbir Singh. B othAkashdeep and Baba BalwantSingh have a criminal pastwith multiple criminal casesagainst them.

Preliminary investiga-tions have revealed that MaanSingh, currently lodged inAmritsar Jail in an Arms Actand UAPA case, at the behestof his handler Gurmeet Singhalias Bagga, had recruitedAkashdeep Singh, when theywere lodged together inAmritsar jail.

Recipient of the consign-ment, Baba Balwant Singh isa member of Babbar KhalsaInternational (BKI) terroristorganization, and was earlierarrested in a UAPA and ArmsAct case in Mukandpur policestation (SBS Nagar), and ispresently on bail and facingtrial in that case.

A FIR, dated September22, 2019, has been regis-tered at Police Station StateSp ec ia l Operat ion C el l(SSOC), Amritsar, underUAPA, Arms Act, ExplosiveSubstances Act, Prisons Act,and various relevant sec-tions of the Indian PenalCode (IPC).

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Jannayak Janata Party (JJP)senior leader and former

Hisar MP Dushyant Chautalaon Sunday promised 75 percent of jobs for youth of thestate in private and governmentsector.

Dushyant, while address-ing a ''Jan Samman Divas'' rallyto mark the birth anniversaryof former Deputy PrimeMinister Chaudhary Devi Lal

here said that if comes topower, his party would reserve75 per cent of jobs for youthonly and also, assured hisparty’s support to employees ofthe state.

“The JJP is the only viablealternative. Your vote willdecide the future of Haryana,"he said, while making an appealto the people to support theparty in the elections.

The elections to 90 assem-bly seats in the state will be held

on October 21 and the resultswill be declared on October 24.

Hitting out at rulingBharatiya Janta Party (BJP)Government, he said that theBJP has befooled the common people of Haryana forlast five years and now, eachsection of society wants to getrid of BJP.

Slamming the HaryanaGovernment for the poor lawand order situation, he said thatHaryana was burnt thrice in

the past five years under theirrule.

“80 people died duringthese incidents,” he said, in anapparent reference to the vio-lence suffered by the state dur-ing the episodes linked withself-styled godman Rampal,Jat agitation and the convictionof Dera Sacha Sauda chiefGurmeet Ram Rahim Singh.

He also cornered the BJPled government at Centre andstate over economic slowdown,

unemployment and farmers’woes.

“Farmers and small busi-nessman are in crisis. Farmersare not getting remunerativeprices for their produce. Therate of unemployment hasincreased in the last five years,"he said.

Unemployment, farmers’woes and law and order are thekey poll issues, Dushyantadded. He said that two weeksago, Prime Minister Narendra

Modi had also addressed arally at this same place and halfof the pandal was empty whichshows people are fed up withthe false promises of BJP lead-ers. Targeting the Congress,Dushyant said that their partyleaders are already indulged ininfighting and it is a dividedhouse.

“When tickets areannounced, these Congresspeople will once again fightamongst themselves,” he said.

The JJP leader also attackedthe Indian National Lok Dalsaying that he and his brotherwere expelled from the party.We made a separate party withthe support of leaders andworkers and became people'sfirst choice, he said.

Notably, the JJP wasformed nearly a year ago aftera split in the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) fol-lowing a feud in the Chautalafamily.

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Onion has brought tears toconsumers with a steep

rise of its price in the marketsacross the State following mas-sive floods in Karnataka andMaharashtra, from where theessential vegetable is imported.

The price has soared to Rs50 per kg in the markets. InBhubaneswar, the retail pricehas even touched Rs 60.

While it is available atbetween Rs 40 and 44 at thewholesale market in Aiginia on

outskirts of Bhubaneswar, theprice of onion imported fromAndhra Pradesh and Nashik(Maharashtra) crossed Rs 50 atsome local markets in the State capital.

“Two days ago, the price ofonion was Rs 33-34 in Nashik.It suddenly shot up to Rs 42-43on Friday. The onion price mayskyrocket after the vegetablereaches Bhubaneswar fromNashik,” said advocate ShaktiShankar Mishra, who is secre-tary of the Kuberpuri tradeunion here.

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In a gesture to honour the lateMarshal of the Indian Air

Force Arjan Singh, the force onSunday felicitated a trustfounded by him and his wife,with Air Chief Marshal B SDhanoa applauding the noblework done by it towards welfareof serving and retired air war-riors. The felicitation ceremo-ny was held at Akash Air Forceofficers’ mess here on the estab-lishment day of the trust.

In his speech, Dhanoaexpressed his gratitude to thefounders of the trust and“applauded the noble workdone by the trust towards wel-fare of the serving and retiredair warriors including theirwidows

and dependents.’ TheMarshal and his wife Teji Singhhad contributed their person-al funds of Rs 2.25 cr to estab-lish this trust on September 22in 2004, IAF officials said.

Marshal Arjan Singh, aPadma Vibhushan awardee,had played a crucial role in

1965 by stopping Pakistaniarmour offensive code named‘Operation Grand Slam’. Hewas also appointed as the LtGovernor of Delhi in 1989,according to a statement issuedby the IAF.

Arvind Singh, son of theMarshal and a life trustee of theorganisation, delivered an emo-tional speech.

To mark the felicitationceremony, a leaflet on the trustand a poetry book “Abhi KaamBaaki Hai” on the Marshalwere launched jointly by theIAF chief and Air ChiefMarshal (retired) Arup Raha,the IAF statement said.A memento was also present-ed to the trust.

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The CPWD, a prime con-struction agency of the

Central Government, hasrequested the Ministry of HomeAffairs not to examine its projectestimates as it causes delay in tak-ing up the construction works.

In a letter to Union HomeSecretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla,CPWD Director GeneralPrabhakar Singh said that it hasbeen observed that proposals orestimates submitted by theCentral Public WorksDepartment are examined atvarious levels in the MHA orCentral Para Military Forces.

Singh said that estimates aremade with “sound engineeringpractices” by competent techni-cal professionals and shouldnot require further scrutiny.

The CPWD is also the prin-cipal construction agency ofMHA for creation of all types ofbuilt assets of Central ParaMilitary Forces and for borderinfrastructure, he said.

“Often curtailments in esti-mates are done which cause mis-perception in the mind of fieldunits as they are unable tounderstand the nature, quantumand reason of curtailments,” theCPWD DG said in his two-pageletter.

He said such curtailmentsare also a major reason fordelay in the execution and com-pletion of the project. TheCPWD also examines the esti-mates prepared by other depart-

ments and organisations, hesaid.

“Therefore in the interest ofthe work, there is no need forchecking of CPWD estimates asit entails duplication,” Singhsaid.

He said some of theCAPMFs are also insisting ondetailed estimates instead ofpreliminary estimates.

“Detailed estimates requiredetailed planning such as soiltesting, detailed survey, struc-tural design, architectural detail-ing etc, which is a time intensiveexercise and causes substantialdelay,” Singh also said.

“I, therefore, request yourgood self to kindly look into theabove issues and advise theconcern organisations underyour administrative control forappropriate needful,” the direc-tor general said in the letter.

The CPWD is the centralGovernment’s largest construc-tion agency and it carries outseveral development and borderprojects.

The agency also carries outprojects in foreign countrieswhich have friendship pro-grammes with India.

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Aday after the ElectionCommission (EC)

announced bypolls in the seatsrepresented by the rebel law-makers who were disqualifiedby speaker KR Ramesh Kumarunder the tenth schedule,Karnataka Chief Minister BSYediyurappa rushed to Delhion Sunday and met UnionHome Minister Amit Shah andsought �2,000 crore as urgentrelief for the flood-affectedState.

Speaking to reporters, hesaid the Centre has assured thata decision on providing assis-tance from the NationalDisaster Relief Fund (NDRF)will be taken after a centralteam, which is assessing theextent of damage in the state,submits its report in the nexttwo-three days.

“We have demanded�2,000 crore central assistancefor flood relief. We haveresource constraint. Despiteall, the state government hasreleased about �1,000 crore sofar. Release of central funds willease the burden on us,”Yediyurappa told reporters.

Most likely a decision onthis matter will be taken afterthe prime minister returns toIndia, he added. Shah hasassured that flood relief andother emergency works will notbe affected in the state as theyhave been exempted from thepurview of the poll code,

according to Yediyurappa.Bypolls in the state will be heldon October 21.

Karnataka deputy chiefministers Ashwath Narayanand Laxman Savadi and homeminister Basavaraj Bommaiwere also present in the meet-ing.

The 2019 f loods inKarnataka are touted to havecaused losses to the tune of�38451 crore and around 103taluks in 22 districts have beenbadly hit with over 6.9 lakhhectares of crop loss. Around75,317 houses have been dam-aged due to the rains. Lastmonth, Union Home MinisterAmit Shah along withYediyurappa had undertakenan aerial survey of flood-affect-ed areas. The Chief Ministerhad briefed Shah about the res-cue and relief operations thatwere underway in the state.

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Amid criticism by theOpposition Congress for

not conducting polls for all thevacant seats, the ElectionCommission (EC) on Sundayannounced two more Assemblybypolls —Radhanpur andBayad seats in Gujarat takingthe total number of seats goingfor by-election across India to66. The bypolls to Radhanpurand Bayad Assembly seats,announced on Sunday, werenecessitated after siting MLAsAlpesh Thakor and DhavalsinhZala of Congress resigned andjoined the ruling BJP.

According to the EC,bypolls to Radhanpur andBayad assembly seats in Gujaratand the Samastipur Lok Sabhaseat in Bihar will be held onOctober 21. Bypolls to fourassembly seats — Amraiwadi,Tharad, Lunawada, andKheralu seats, which fell vacantafter sitting MLAs successful-ly contested Lok Sabha polls inApril-May this year, wereannounced on Saturday.

Assembly elections inMaharashtra and Haryana willalso be held on the same day.The counting will be held onOctober 24. The EC is yet toannounce schedule for MorvaHadaf Assembly constituency,reserved for the ScheduledTribe (ST) category in Gujarat.Morva Hadaf seat fell vacantafter Independent MLABhupendrasinh Khant was dis-

qualified following invalidationof his caste certificate.

The main oppositionCongress on Saturday criti-cised the EC for announcingby-elections to only fourAssembly seats in Gujarat andleaving out three other vacantseats. “The commission wasacting under the BJP’s pressure”,it alleged.

Meanwhile, Thakor andZala have staked claims fortheir respective constituencies,Radhanpur and Bayad. Boththe leaders belonged to theThakor community.

“My decision to join theBJP was for the sake of theThakor community and farm-ers of Bayad constituency. Aformer MLA has also demand-ed ticket from the seat. But peo-ple know me. I have helpedresolve even small, personalproblems of people in my area.If given ticket, I will help the

party win,” said Zala.Thakor said (abrogation

of provisions of) Article 370will remain the main issue inpolls. “Prime MinisterNarendra Modi has provided acapable leadership to the coun-try. The way the Congresscampaigned against Article370 has disillusioned people,”he said. Thakor added that peo-ple are also appreciating thework of the state government.

“The decision on likely can-didate from Radhanpur will bedecided by the parliamentaryboard of the BJP. However,senior BJP leaders have indi-cated that I will contest. I amvery much interested...” headded. The EC has announcedon Saturday that bypolls to 64assembly seats and one LokSabha constituency, spreadacross 18 states, will be held onOctober 21, and the counting ofvotes will be on October 24.

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Road Transport andHighways Minister Nitin

Gadkari has advocated thedeployment of broad gaugeMetro as an affordable, efficientand time-saving option forinter-city travel which willreduce stress on large cities likeDelhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.

Speaking at the curtainraiser event of the IndiaManufacturing Show (IMS)2020 in the national Capital lastweek, Gadkari said: “We aredeploying broad gauge metro inmy constituency Nagpur. Itwill connect Nagpur withWardha, Bhandara Road,Ramtek and Narkhed. Runningmetro on the broad gaugeshould be considered as itmakes travel between citiesand its satellite towns affordable.For instance, people can stay inMeerut or Panipat and easilytravel to Delhi for work everyday. So, it’s a win-win for thecity as well as the commuter.”

Cabinet Minister forParliamentary Affairs, Coal &Mines Prahlad Joshi and UnionMinister of State for Railways

Surest Angadi were also presenton the occasion. Gadkari saidcurrent metro rail constructioncosts around �320 crore per km,while the broad gauge metrocosts around Rs three crore.Stressing on the need to devel-op indigenous technologiesfocused on urban infrastructure,Gadkari said it will help gener-ate jobs besides ensuring betterorganizational efficiencies.

Gadkari also said he hascleared for the consideration ofthe Union Cabinet the policyfor the scrapping of old cars,buses, and two-wheelers.Finance Ministry has alreadycleared the proposal and theGovernment will very soonclear it. Scrapping policy for oldvehicles will help reduce vehic-ular congestion in cities likeDelhi and Mumbai, which havea large number of vehicles thatare older than 10-15 years.

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Senior Congress leaderGhulam Nabi Azad, who is

on a three-day visit to Kashmirfollowing Supreme Courtorders, on Sunday visitedAnantnag district in southKashmir where he met peoplein a Government housingcolony.

Azad, who was scheduledto meet people at DakBungalow which has beendeclared a jail, had to changethe venue after authoritiesrefused him permission. Partysources said that Azad was atthe housing colony from 11 amto 3 pm and several people vis-ited the former Chief Ministerof the State.

This is Azad’s first visit tothe State after being denied per-mission to deboard the planewhen he was part of an all-partydelegation led by Congressleader Rahul Gandhi lastmonth. He was accompanied bynine senior political leadersfrom different parties includingLeft, Trinamool, DMK, RJD.

Rahul and other werebarred from leaving the airporton August 24 where localauthorities had warned thattheir visit could stoke height-ened tension in the region.When their plane arrived inSrinagar, the politicians werenot allowed to leave the airportand were sent back within a fewhours.

A senior Congress leaderalleged while the leader ofopposition in Rajya Sabha wasstrictly following the SupremeCourt order with respect to hisvisit to the valley, authoritieswere creating hurdles. He men-tioned that during Azad’s stayin Srinagar on Friday, the secu-rity personnel did not allowpeople to meet him.

Azad reached at Srinagaron Friday on his maiden visitfollowing the abrogation ofJammu and Kashmir’s specialstatus and after three failedattempts in which he wasturned back from the airport.

On Saturday, Azad visitedLalla Ded maternity hospitaland inquired about the welfareof patients. He also visited theTourist Reception Centre hereand interacted with the mem-bers of Kashmir HouseboatOwners Association. He isscheduled to visit Baramulla innorth Kashmir on Monday.

Azad’s visit became possi-ble after a nod from theSupreme Court, which allowed

the Congress general secretaryto visit the state. A bench, head-ed by Chief Justice of IndiaRanjan Gogoi, had on Mondayallowed the former Jammuand Kashmir chief minister tovisit four districts — Srinagar,Jammu, Baramulla, Anantnag— to meet people.

The bench was told bysenior advocate A M Singhvi,who was appearing for Azad,that the Congress leader wantsto meet the people and inquireabout their welfare. In his peti-tion filed in “personal capaci-ty”, Azad had told the SupremeCourt that he had tried to visitthe state thrice, but was turnedback from the airport.

Upon the insistence of thepolitical leaders to visit the val-ley post abrogation of Article370, Jammu & Kashmir gov-ernment, currently headed byGovernor Sat Pal Malik, hasremarked that political leadershad been asked not to visitSrinagar as the administrationworks to restore order.

A row emerged hen Malikoffered to arrange an aircraftfor Rahul Gandhi to visit theValley to which the formerCongress chief said he willtake up his invitation butrequested the “freedom to trav-el and meet the people, main-stream leaders and our soldiersstationed there.” Sooner theGovernor accused Rahul ofpoliticizing the invitation byputting conditions for visit.

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Even as the Centre has beenadvocating and granting

more funds through variousschemes towards strengtheningand encouraging of researchprogrammes in academics, theAll India Survey of HigherEducation (AISHE) conductedby HRD Ministry has reflect-ed that only 2.5 per cent col-leges in the country run PhDprogrammes and maximumstudents opt for PhD in sciencestream. A total of 1,69,170 stu-dents are enrolled in PhD pro-grammes that is less than 0.5per cent of the total studentenrolment.

For the annual survey, thehigher education institutionsare categorized in three broadcategories-university, collegeand stand-alone institutions. Atotal of 962 universities; 38,179colleges and 9190 stand aloneinstitutions participated in thesurvey for the year 2018-19.

“Only 2.5 per cent collegesrun PhD programme and 34.9per cent colleges run post grad-uate level programmes. At PhDlevel, maximum numbers ofstudents out-turn is in sciencestream followed by engineeringand technology. On the otherhand at PG level maximumstudents out-turn is observed in social science andmanagement stream comes atnumber two,” according to thesurvey report.

The share of PhD.Studentis highest in State PublicUniversity (34.3 pc) followedby Institute of NationalImportance (21.6 pc), Deemed University-Private(21.6 pc) and State PrivateUniversity (13.4 pc).

The ASHE report pointedout that about 79.8 pc of stu-dents are enrolled in under-

graduate level programme.“Maximum numbers of

students are enrolled in B.A.Programme followed by B.Sc.and B.Com. Programmes. AtUndergraduate level the high-est number (35.9 pc) of stu-dents are enrolled in arts,humanities or social sciences courses followed byscience (16.5pc), engineeringand technology (13.5 pc) andcommerce (14.1 pc),” the reportsaid.

There are 34.8 per centcolleges, which run only sin-gle programme, out of which83.1 per cent are privatelymanaged. “Among these pri-vately managed colleges, 38.1per cent colleges run B.Edcourses only. 77.8 per cent col-leges are privately managed,64.3 pc private-unaided and13.5 pc private-aided. Andhra Pradesh and UttarPradesh have about 88 percent private-unaided collegesand Tamil Nadu has 87 percent private-unaided colleges, whereas, Assam has16 per cent .”

“Around 16.3 per cent ofcolleges are having enrolmentless than 100 and only 4 percent colleges have enrolment more than 3,000,”the report said.

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New Delhi: Security agencieshave discovered that Pakistan-based operatives are attemptingto use the popularity of theAmitabh Bachchan-anchoredshow Kaun Banega Crorepati(KBC) to trap individuals and propagate misinformationthrough fake social media handles.

“It has been reported bycyber cell, Ministry of Defencethat adversaries are taking

advantage of the popularity ofTV show “Kaun BanegaCrorepati” by making individuals join WhatsAppgroups and sending fake KBC messages to trap individuals,” a security adviso-ry issued by the DefenceMinistry said.

The advisory listed twoPakistan-based numbers foundto be the administrators ofWhatsApp groups, which were

trying to trap individuals. TheDefence Ministry’s cyber celladvised people who are part ofthese groups to “immediatelyexit such groups if one hasalready been added.

“The cyber cell also advisedpeople to configure theirWhatsApp settings in a mannerthat only a person whose con-tacts details are saved in yourphone can add you without aninvitation.After the abrogation ofarticle 370, Pakistani spy agen-cies have become very aggressivein spreading misinformationabout India and have been tar-geting the defence forces in a bigway in the virtual world.The

security agencies had detectedthat over 200 fake handles ofmilitary officers including bothserving and retired officers hadcome up on social media whowere tweeting and spreadingmessages as per the Pakistaninarrative on the Kashmir issue.

After the agencies con-cerned approached Twitter, alarge number of such handleswere suspended for being fake.The Indian Army has now

again asked its personnel toavoid putting up their service orposting details on social mediaas it can be used by the adver-saries to spread misinformation.

Also, there have been casesof virtual honey traps whereserving officers and jawanshave been trapped and forcedto leak military classified infor-mation to enemy operativeswho generally pose as girls onsocial media. Agencies

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�� New Delhi: The judiciary is aninstitution founded on honestyand integrity, the Supreme Courthas said, reasserting that it is nec-essary judicial officers possessthe “sterling quality of integrity”to be able to serve the public.

It made the observationwhile refusing to show anyleniency to a Maharashtra-based judicial magistrate, whohad challenged his 2004 dis-missal from service followingallegation he passed orders infavour of the clients of awoman lawyer he had a “prox-imate relationship”.

Impeccable integrity shouldbe reflected both in the publicand personal life of a judge, thetop court said, and added judi-cial officers must alwaysremember they hold high officeand serve the public.

A bench of justices DeepakGupta and Aniruddha Bosesaid the petitioner did not liveup to the “expectations ofintegrity, behaviour and probity”and no leniency can be shownto him.”Hence, we find no meritin the appeal, which is accord-ingly dismissed,” it said.

The petitioner wasappointed as a judicial magis-

trate in March 1985.InFebruary 2001, he was putunder suspension and dis-missed in January 2004.

He challenged his dismissalin the Bombay High Court buthis plea was rejected.He thenmoved the apex court, whichissued a notice on his plea lim-ited to the question of thequantum of punishment.

“In this case, the officerdecided the cases because of hisproximate relationship with alady lawyer and not because thelaw required him to do so. Thisis also gratification - of a dif-ferent kind,” the bench said,explaining that gratificationcan be of various types.”It canbe gratification of money, grat-ification of power, gratificationof lust etc,” it said.

The bench said the first andforemost quality required in ajudge is integrity. Being a pub-lic servant, judicial officersshould always remember theyare there to serve the public.“The need for integrity in thejudiciary is much higher than inother institutions. It is, therefore,necessary that judicial officersshould possess the sterling qual-ity of integrity,” it said. PTI

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Muzaffarnagar: Two newborngirls were drowned in a pondby their parents in an UttarPradesh village, with the fatherclaiming that they killed the 20-day-old twins as they could notbear their expenses.

Waseem, a daily wager,and his wife Nazma werearrested on Sunday for killingAfrin and Afiya at Bhikki vil-lage here, Station House Officer(SHO) Ajay Kumar said.

“Our financial condition isvery weak. We could not haveborne the expenses for our twodaughters,” Waseem, who hasa seven-year-old son, toldpolice.

The couple had an argu-ment on Saturday night fol-lowing which the newbornswere thrown by them in thepond near their house, theSHO said, adding that thetwins drowned.

The father lodged a miss-

ing complaint on Sundaymorning, but during investi-gation it was found that thetwins had been killed, Kumarsaid.

Waseem, in the complaint,said when he woke up thismorning, he found his daugh-ters missing, the officer said.

The parents have beenbooked under Indian PenalCode sections 302 (murder)and 201 (causing disappearanceof evidence of offence, or giv-ing false information to screenoffender), Kumar said.

The bodies were recov-ered and sent for postmortem,he said.

“The parents have con-fessed to killing their daugh-ters,” Kumar said.

Residents of the villagesaid Waseem was angry overthe birth of two girls and fre-quently fought with his wifeover it. PTI

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Shahjahanpur: The studentwho levelled rape chargesagainst BJP leader SwamiChinmayanand has left forAllahabad, where she will beappearing before the HighCourt on Monday, sourcessaid.

The special investigationteam (SIT), which will submita status report in the court, toohas left for Allahabad, theysaid.

Meanwhile, on Sunday,former MLC and BJP leaderJayesh Prasad metChinmayanand in the jail andexpressed concern over thehealth of the 72-year-old for-mer Union Minister.

“The health ofChinmayanand is continuous-ly deteriorating. He should beshifted to the KGMU inLucknow or any other promi-nent hospital for treatment,” hesaid, adding that though herespected the legal process,the woman was “yet to bearrested” in the cases registeredby the leader against her andother accused.

The student and her threefriends were booked for extor-tion by the SIT.

Sources said the SIT alsobooked the woman on chargesof causing disappearance ofevidence.

Jail Superintendent RakeshKumar told PTI on Sundaythat on September 20, theadvocate of SwamiChinmayanand, Om Singh,had submitted an application

to the CJM court, urging it toallow the “shifting of the leaderto the KGMU, Lucknow, fortreatment”.

Kumar said they hadreceived directions from thecourt and the jail doctor waslooking after the leader.

“A team of doctors fromthe Shahjahanpur MedicalCollege came yesterday to seehim and he is being given themedicines from time to time asprescribed by the doctors,” hesaid.

The former UnionMinister was arrested by theSIT on Friday and sent to 14days' judicial custody.

According to Om Singh,the counsel for Chinmayanad,they could not approach thecourt for bail on Saturday aslocal advocates were on strikedemanding that Shahjahanpurbe attached with the Lucknowbench of the Allahabad HighCourt.

The sources said that theSIT had on Friday registered a

case against the woman's threefriends -- Sanjay Singh, SachinSengar and Vikram -- and anunnamed person (Ms A).

They said the unnamedperson was also a student butthey did not disclosed heridentity in view of the SupremeCourt guidelines.

SIT chief Naveen Arorahad on Friday said the threefriends, when questioned inview of a video clip in whichthey were purportedly dis-cussing extortion, had accept-ed their involvement in thecase.

They have been bookedunder Indian Penal CodeSections 35 (criminal act donewith a criminal knowledge orintention), 385 (extortion),506 (criminal intimidation),201(disappearance of evi-dences) and Section 67 of theInformation Technology Act.

The three men were arrest-ed by the SIT.

On her name beingincluded in the extortion case,the woman had said, “I do notknow if the people who helpedme escape fromChinmayanand were using me.I have nothing to do with theextortion case. I think all thisdrama is being done to dilutemy charges of rape.”

The girl said, “TheSupreme Court has taken cog-nisance of the entire matterand I am confident that I willget justice on September 23,which is the date of hearing inAllahabad High Court.” PTI

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Kolkata: The Arts FacultyStudents Union (AFSU) ofJadavpur University has filed apolice complaint against UnionMinister Babul Supriyo, accus-ing him of misconduct duringthe ruckus at the varsity onThursday.

The Left-leaning AFSUalso lodged a complaint againstfive members of the AkhilBharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad(ABVP) for assaulting stu-dents, including women, andvandalising university prop-erty.

“Various incidents hadtaken place after the UnionMinister of State forEnviornment, Forest andClimate Change (BabulSupriyo) came to the JU cam-pus in an event organised byABVP, prompted by ABVPmembers,” the AFSU said in itscomplaint on Saturday.

The complaint namedSupriyo as the “prime accused”and also identified five otherABVP members.

An officer of JadavpurPolice station confirmed thereceipt of the complaint.

Alleging that the ministerand his bodyguards had mis-behaved with students onThursday, it read, “A file ofloaded magazine was found onthe site of the event, which cre-ated unnecessary panic amongthe students, disrupting thecampus life.”

Surpriyo could not bereached for comments despiterepeated attempts.

The AFSU complaint alsosaid that ABVP members “cre-ated a ruckus, burnt and

destroyed campus property,threw acid bulbs, burnt tyresand pelted stones at the stu-dents and beat them up withsticks”.

The student union wasreferring to the incident whenagitated ABVP supportersassembled outside one of themain gates of the varsity onThursday evening, afterSupriyo was confined in thecampus for over five hours.

The ABVP members thenbarged into the campus andallegedly went on a rampage inthe union room and arts build-ing. “Babul Supriyo being theprime accused, some otherABVP members recognised byus until now are...” the com-plaint said.

Asked to comment on the

action of AFSU, BJP leaderMukul Roy told PTI, “This isthe present scenario in WestBengal, where a union minis-ter, who has been assaulted bystudents of a university forattending a function at theinstitute, is named in a policecomplaint by those who hadattacked him without anyprovocation.”

He alleged that the policewas not taking any actionagainst those involved in the“attack on Supriyo,” and insteadaccepting their complaint.

“We will take appropriatelegal action,” Roy said.

BJP leader Agnimitra Paulon Friday had filed a complaintat Jadavpur police stationagainst some students, but didnot name anyone. PTI

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Kolkata: West BengalGovernor Jagdeep Dhankharon Sunday said he was left with no other option butto rush to JadavpurUniversity for rescuing UnionMinister Babul Supriyo, whowas heckled and held up bya section of students at thevarsity.

After being held up at theuniversity campus by protes-tors from leftist studentsunions for nearly five hours,Supriyo was taken out by theGovernor late on Thursdayevening.

Dhankar, who is also the

chancellor of the university,said there was nothing wrongin his decision to visit itscampus to understand theprevailing situation at thattime. “I am happy that afterI went there, I got the coop-eration and support of stu-dents and professors,” he said.

“If I don't connect withthe agitating students andunderstand their situation,who will connect with them?I have to connect, have a dia-logue with them... Only then,we can go ahead,” theGovernor said at an eventhere. PTI

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Pune: Senior Congress leaderShashi Tharoor, who is a strongcritic of the Modi-led govern-ment, on Sunday said the primeminister deserves respect whenhe visits foreign countries asIndia's representative, but whenhe is in the country, peoplehave the right to question him.

On the row over a com-mon language for India, theLok Sabha MP from Keralasaid he was in favour of a three-language formula (promotingmultilingual communicativeabilities).

He was speaking at a ses-sion organised by the All IndiaProfessional Congress in Punedistrict of Maharashtra.

“The prime ministerdeserves respect in foreigncountries as (there) he is a rep-resentative of our nation. Butwhen he is in India, we have theright to ask him questions,”Tharoor said.

On the issue of one com-mon language in the country,he said the BJP's ideology ofpromoting Hindi, Hinduismand Hindustan is “dangerous”for our country.

“We need to carry on thethree-language formula,” hesaid.

Amid a heated debate overhis remark that Hindi shouldbe a common language, UnionHome Minister Amit Shah on

Wednesday said he has neverasked for imposition of Hindiover native languages in thecountry but advocated its useas the second language,

He criticised the ruling BJPover incidents of mob lynching,saying they are an “insult toHinduism and Lord Ram”.

“There is no differenceamong people (of differentcommunities) living in Kerala.Then why it is happening inMaharashtra,” he said.

Even Maratha warrior kingShivaji Maharaj had peoplefrom different communitiesunder his rule. But he instruct-ed everyone to respect eachother, he said. PTI

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Ara: Police in Bihar's Bhojpurdistrict on Sunday attachedthe properties of RJD MLAArun Yadav, who is abscondingin connection with a case ofsexual abuse of a minor girl, asenior police officer said.

The process of attachingthe Sandes RJD MLA's prop-erty at his native village Lasarhibegan this morning amid tightsecurity, the officer said.

“The properties belongedto MLA Arun Yadav located athis native village Lasarhi wereattached today,” AdditionalSuperintendent of Police(Operations) Nitin Kumar said.

The move comes days afterDistrict and Sessions Judge RK Singh, who holds the chargeof special POCSO court, issuedthe NBW against Yadav fol-lowing an application filed bythe district police.

The POCSO court had onSeptember 13 issued a non-bailable warrant against thesitting RJD MLA in the sexualabuse case. The ASP said thatthe MLA has been abscondingever since an NBW was issuedagainst him in the case besidesa notice for attachment of prop-erties was pasted on his houseon the court's directive. PTI

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Ahmedabad: A depressionformed over east-central andnorth-east Arabian Sea wasnow around 170 kilometreswest-southwest off Veraval inGujarat, the IndiaMeteorological Departmentsaid on Sunday.

It is likely to intensify intoa deep depression and subse-quently convert into a cyclonicstorm in 24 hours and movewest-northwest towards Omancoast over the next 72 hours,the IMD added.

The cyclonic storm willcause light to moderate rains inseveral places in the Saurashtra-Kutch region of Gujarat, andheavy rainfall in isolated placesin the coastal districts during

the next 24 hours, the IMDinformed.

Fishermen have beenadvised not to venture into theeast-central and adjoiningnorth-east Arabian Sea alongand off Gujarat coast duringnext 48 hours as the conditionof the sea would be very roughwith winds with speeds of 45-55 kmph to 65 kmph, the IMDinformed.

The depression over east-central and adjoining north-east Arabian sea off Gujaratcoast moved west-northwestwith a speed of 15 kilometresper hour and lay centred, at11:30 am on Sunday, around170 km west-southwest ofVeraval in Gujarat, 570 kmsouth-southeast of Karachi inPakistan, and 1170 km east-southeast of Muscat in Oman,the IMD said.

“It is very likely to intensi-fy further into a deep depressionduring next 12 hours and intoa cyclonic storm during subse-quent 24 hours. It is very likelyto move west- northwestwardstowards Oman coast duringnext 72 hours,” it said. PTI

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Multiple rows of emptychairs on Sunday greeted

top BJP leaders includingnational vice-president ShyamJaju, Union Minister of StatePMO Dr Jitendra Singh andUnion Minister of State forFinance Anurag Thakur asthey arrived here to pay tributesand address public rally on theeve of 125th birth anniversaryof Maharaja Hari Singh.

Thin attendance inside thepandal, raised outsideMaharaja Hari Singh Park, alsoforced the organisers to delaythe programme.

Interestingly, central BJPleaders waited for the green sig-nal from the organisers toreach the venue as empty chairsinside the pandal, decked up

with king size images ofMaharaja Hari Singh, kept star-ing at the organisers till the pro-gram culminated.

The public rally was organ-ised by the Jan-Jagran Abhiyaancommittee of BJP along withJammu Bar Association andCivil Societies, Jammu.

Majority of people, whoattended the rally, were ferriedfrom peripheral areas of ruralJammu to fill the seats. To dis-courage use of plastic, duringsuch public events, the organ-isers served packaged juice inpaper cups instead of PETwater bottles.

On their arrival, the centralBJP leaders offered floral trib-utes to the statue of MaharajaHari Singh and later addresseda public rally.

Addressing the public rally,Minister of State for Financeand Corporate Affairs AnuragThakur said the Government iscommitted to the developmentof Jammu & Kashmir.

He said the Governmenthad taken a “historic” decision toabrogate Article 370, which heclaims will result in massivedevelopment in the entire region.

“Our Government has takena historic decision to abrogateArticle 370. Now, J&K will wit-ness massive development,”

Thakur also slammedPakistan for spreading “fakepropaganda” and went on tosay that PoK is a part of India.

Reaching out to the busi-ness community of Jammu,the MoS Finance said severalmeasures have been imple-mented for the revival of theeconomy, citing recent cuts incorporate tax and GST for cer-tain categories.

Praising Prime MinisterNarendra Modi, Thakur saidthe entire world is standingwith India today due to theefforts of Prime Minister.

Shyam Jaju, in his address,said the whole Nation is thank-ful to Maharaja Hari Singh forhis contributions to the societyand for acceding to the Unionof India.

Dr Jitendra Singh, in hisaddress, said the decision toabrogate Articles 370 & 35(a)has nothing to do with Hindu-Muslim but it is for betterment

of common masses. He saidthat Home Minister Amit Shahis very liberal towards housearrested leaders in J&K pro-viding them Hollywoodmovies, gym facilities & brownbreads to eat, as we rememberalso the times when our lead-ers were thrown way to far offplaces & abused and added thatthese are the “House Guests &not House Arrests”. He said thatthese valley politicians haveexploited public machineryafter getting only 10% votes. Heaired his voice for the com-mitment to make status ofPoJK in the state as it was whenthe Maharaja handed it over tothe Union of India.

MP Jugal Kishore Sharma,Th. Narayan Singh and Adv.Abhinav Sharma alsoaddressed the rally.

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�+�,��+�� !�� Mangaluru: “Cyanide” Mohan,a serial killer who has murderedseveral women using the dead-ly chemical after befriending andraping them, has been convict-ed of killing another woman —a music teacher — in Karnataka,taking the total number of hisconvictions to 16.

Mohan, who has previous-ly been convicted of killingwomen in public toilets by giv-ing them cyanide capsules, mur-dered the 33-year-old womanafter raping her at a lodge inBengaluru in May 2007, theprosecution told the Mangalurudistrict and sessions court.

The woman hailed fromUppala in Kasaragod district ofKerala.

The serial killer had intro-duced himself to her asSudhakar Acharya, an employ-ee of the forest department. He

gave her a poisonous capsule,telling her it was a contraceptive.

He has used the samemodus operandi in all the 20cases against him, the prosecu-tion submitted to the court.

Judge Sayeedunnisa pro-nounced Mohan guilty onFriday under various sections ofthe Indian Penal Code relatingto murder, robbery and pun-ishment for cheating and others,after examining 38 witnessesand 49 exhibits.

The quantum of punish-ment would be pronounced onSeptember 25.

This was the 16th case inwhich Mohan has been con-victed. He had been accused ofkilling a number of womenbetween 2003 and 2009 and hadbeen sentenced to death in threecases and to life imprisonmentin others. PTI

Ara: Police on Sunday seized 450cartons of India Made ForeignLiquor (IMFL) worth in Bihar'sBhojpur district, a senior policeofficer said. Acting on a tip-off,police stopped a truck nearRamdihra pul in Barja villageunder Bihiyan police stationand recovered 450 cartons ofliquor during the search of thetruck, Additional Superintendentof Police (Operations) NitinKumar said adding that smug-glers fled from the spot. Theliquor consignment was broughtto Bihiyan from ArunachalPradesh, the ASP said. Sale,consumption, manufacturing,transportation, storage of liquorhad been completely banned inBihar by the Nitish KumarGovernment in April 2016. PTI

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Thiruvananthapuram: KeralaChief Minister Pinarayi Vijayanwill meet his Tamil Nadu coun-terpart K Palaniswami here onSeptember 25 to discuss variousinter-State water issues, includ-ing the Parambikulam-AliyarProject (PAP).

Palaniswami will lead adelegation on a day's visit toKerala and during it both thestates would discuss variouscurrent and proposed riverwater sharing agreementsbetween the two neighbouringstates, Water ResourcesMinister K Krishnankutty toldPTI here on Sunday.

“The discussion willinclude Parambikulam project,Anamalai, Pandiyar-Punnapuzha, PambaAchankovil diversion and many

more. We will discuss thewater-sharing agreementsbetween the states,”Krishnankutty said.

This would be first meetingbetween the chief ministers ofthe two states in 15 years, hesaid.

In 2004, the then ChiefMinisters Jayalalithaa andOommen Chandy had met inChennai.

“This is one major meetinghappening in the state. A fewministers and officials are alsoaccompanying the Tamil NaduChief Minister,” the KeralaMinister said.

The Tamil Nadu delegationincludes Minister for Power PThangamani, RuralDevelopment Minister S PVe l u m a n i , E nv i r o n m e n tMinister K C Karuppannan,

assembly Deputy Speaker VJayaraman, Chief Secretary KShanmugam, secretaries andchief engineers.

Kerala has been expressingconcern over Tamil Nadu'sapproach to the river-watersharing agreement, signed bythe two states in 1970, with ret-rospective effect from 1958.

The state has also beendemanding Tamil Nadu to hon-our the provisions of the PAP,and its rightful share of water.

Tamil Nadu might take upits demand for the diversion ofAnamalaiyar river water, whichis linked to the Idamalayarproject.

Krishnankutty has recent-ly held discussions with seniorofficers of his department hereas part of the preparations.

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Lucknow: A special CBI courthere has issued summons toformer Uttar Pradesh chiefminister and BJP leader KalyanSingh, directing him to appearbefore it on September 27 inconnection with the BabriMasjid demolition case.

The court is conducting thetrial of accused persons, includ-ing BJP leaders L K Advani, MM Joshi, Uma Bharti and oth-ers for allegedly conspiring todemolish the mosque at the dis-puted Ram Janmbhoomi-BabriMasjid site in Ayodhya.

Taking note of the infor-mation given by the membersof the Bar association thatSingh's term as Rajasthan gov-ernor expired in the first weekof this month, special judge SK Yadav on Saturday passed theorder on a pending applicationthat the CBI had moved onSeptember 9.

After serving a full five-yearterm as governor, the 87-year-old leader, who was the UttarPradesh chief minister whenthe Babri Masjid was demol-ished in 1992, rejoined the BJPon September 9.

The court had taken up theapplication and asked the CBIto produce papers that the

term of Singh as the governorhas expired. The CentralBureau of Investigation (CBI)had then sought time to pro-duce the papers, saying it didnot receive any documentsfrom its headquarters.

On the information givenby the members of bar associ-ation, the court issued the sum-mons to Singh for appearingbefore it on Friday.

Moving the application,the CBI pleaded that Singh waschargesheeted in 1993. It fur-ther pleaded that the Supreme

Court had in April 2017 saidSingh could not be brought inas an accused to face trial dueto the constitutional immuni-ty granted to governors underArticle 361 of the Constitution.

The top court had, howev-er, allowed the CBI to move forsummoning of Singh as anaccused as soon as he ceased tobe the governor.

All the accused are on bailin the case, the trial of which isbeing conducted on a day-to-day basis, on the directions ofthe apex court. PTI

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Guwahati: The Gorkhas, whosenames have been exluded fromthe National Register ofCitizens (NRC) in Assam, willnot visit Foreigners' Tribunalsto prove their Indian citizen-ship, a community body said onSunday.

Addressing a press confer-ence here, Bharatiya GorkhaParisangha (BGP) nationalpresident Sukhman Moktansaid that Gorkhas being tried inthe Foreigners' Tribunals (FT)will be an "insult to us for beingIndians," he said.

"We can file defamation suitagainst the system for chal-lenging the citizenship ofGorkhas and Nepali speakingpopulation being taken to FT",Moktan, who heads the onlyregistered national organisa-tion, representing 10.5 millionIndian Gorkhas in 22 stateunits and five zones, said.

The BGP had organised aweek-long tour across Assam tomeet the victims of the Gorkhacommunity who were notincluded in the NRC anddirected to appeal against it atForeigners' Tribunals.

During the visit to 18 dis-tricts that ended on Sunday,Moktan said they found thatnames of many Gorkhas hadbeen left out from the finalNRC list.

"We met NRC victims andarbitrarily marked D Votersand their descendents whosecitizenship is challenged and arebeing directed to go to FT as perNRC guidelines while a recentMinistry of Home Affairs(MHA) notification exemptsthe Gorkhas.

"This is an attempt of a fewvested interests within the sys-tem to disrespect Indian

Gorkhas who are actually orig-inal inhabitants as is proved byour historically and mytholog-ically recorded presence sincecenturies," Moktan said.

Nirmal Kumar Pun, BGPsecretary general said, "NoIndian Gorkhas should be leftout of the NRC. As a vigilantcivil society organisation, theBGP will play a vital role as itis a judiciary monitoredprocess".

On being asked whetherthe BGP is planning to take thestate government to High Courtfor the delay in filing fresh writpetition to uphold the MHAnotification, NityanandaUpadhyay, president, AssamState Bharatiya GorkhaParisangha (BGP) said, "BGP isa party to the NRC case in theSupreme Court of India.

"If the Government ofAssam does not do its duty asdirected by the Union ofIndia, the BGP will take a pol-icy decision to take the mat-ter to the Supreme Court andmake the State Governmentparty to it and contest the caseto ensure that Gorkhas are nottaken to Foreigners 'Tribunals."

On Saturday a BGP dele-gation had urged ChiefSecretary Alok Kumar to imple-ment the MHA notification.

The chief secretary wasurged to form an EmpoweredCommittee to address the woesof the Gorkha communityregarding exclusion of many oftheir names from the NRC,BGP national secretary NandaKirati Dewan had said. Morethan 19 lakh of the 3.29 croreapplicants have been excludedfrom the final NRC, released inAssam last month. PTI

Kolkata: The spectre of NRCimplementation is fast turningBengal into a political battle-ground, with the TMC appear-ing to have an advantage overthe BJP after the omission of alarge number of HinduBengalis from the register insaffron party-ruled Assam.

The demand for the NRCexercise to weed out infiltra-tors has been gaining momen-tum since last year in thestate, which shares over 2000-km-long border withBangladesh.

However, the publicationof the final NRC list in Assam,which left out over 19.6 lakhpeople - of which around 12lakh are Hindus and BengaliHindus - has changed thepolitical narrative in the stateto a great extent.

The ruling TrinamoolCongress (TMC) has been onthe offensive by milking theissue of updating the NationalRegister of Citizens (NRC) asan "anti-Bengali" move on thepart of the saffron party.

"What does the omissionof 12 lakh Bengalis and Hindusfrom Assam NRC show? Itshows that it is a tool to targetBengalis. The BJP which claimsto be the champion of Hindusand its rights should firstanswer how come Hindus andBengalis were omitted from thelist.

"The figures prove thattheir main target was Bengalis,"TMC secretary general ParthaChatterjee said.

BJP national president

Amit Shah, who had repeatedlysaid that the exercise would beconducted across India, isexpected to address a seminaron the issue here on October 1.

Chief Minister MamataBanerjee, who met the Unionhome minister in Delhi overthe matter early this week, hasbeen building strong publicopinion against the exercise.The TMC supremo had led arally against NRC onSeptember 12 here.

Last month, the WestBengal Assembly had passed aresolution against NRC, withBanerjee vowing not to allowits implementation in Bengal.

TMC MP SudipBandyopadhyay said the regis-ter has not just divided themasses, but also made peoplerefugees in their own country.

"The BJP has said if itcomes to power, it will imple-ment NRC in Bengal. So thepeople of Bengal are consciousenough to decide what is goodand bad for them. The partyshould first explain whyBengalis and Hindus have beenexcluded from the list,"Bandopadhyay said.

The ripple effect of NRC inAssam has already been felt inBengal, especially in districtsbordering the neighbouringstate, with panicked peoplelining up at government officesto get documents in place.

Two recent deaths in thestate have been attributed to thepanic swirling around the cit-izenship register.

The TMC leadership has

blamed the BJP for creatinganxiety over NRC in Bengal.

Banerjee, however, iteratedthat the exercise will not beallowed in the state and the BJPwould have to get past her ifthey tried to touch anyone.

The promise of NRCimplementation, which hasbeen a major poll plank of theBJP in the last Lok Sabha polls,is considered by its leaders asa plausible factor that led to therise of the party in Bengal, hav-ing bagged 18 parliamentaryseats earlier this year.

Nevertheless, the exclu-sion of around 12 lakh Hindusfrom the final NRC list inAssam has put the saffronparty in a precarious situation.

The party has now saidthat the Citizenship(Amendment) Bill would beimplemented first, whichwould provide Hindu refugeesIndian nationality, and then theprocess to oust "Muslim infil-trators" would be carried out.

"The illegal BangladeshiMuslims pose security threat tothe inhabitants of the stateand the country," state BJPchief Dilip Ghosh told PTI.

During the 1971 LiberationWar in Bangladesh, millions ofpeople had fled the countryand moved to India, particu-larly in Bengal and the north-east region.

"In Bengal, we would firstimplement citizenship bill andthen the NRC. The TMC is justtrying to create a panic toreap political dividends,"Ghosh added. PTI

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Shillong: Following the pub-lication of NRC in Assam,Meghalaya government is con-templating to add more teethto a law, enacted in 2016, tocheck illegal immigration intothe state, Deputy ChiefMinister Prestone Tynsongsaid on Sunday.

The state government willsoon hold a consultative meet-ing with all political parties inthe state to discuss on the pro-posed amendment of theMeghalaya Residents Safetyand Security (MRSS) Act 2016and once agreed, the same may

be passed in the form of anordinance, he said.

"We will soon hold con-sultations with all politicalparties as well as legislators fortheir views and suggestions inthis regard," the deputy chiefminister told PTI.

Once the consultationprocess is completed, Prestonesaid the Government wouldplace the proposed amend-ments before the state cabinetfor its approval. He alsoinformed that the proposedamendment may be passed inthe form of an ordinance. PTI

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Kota (Raj): A 40-year-old Dalitman was beaten to death forallegedly stealing a water pumpin Rajasthan's Jhalawar district,police said on Sunday.

The incident took place inGhatoli area on Saturday morn-ing, when a 60-year-old man, histwo sons, and some otherunidentified people thrashedDhulichand Meena ofMewakheda village, allegingthat he stole a water pumpfrom their fields, Station HouseOfficer (SHO) Nainuram Meenasaid. When Dhulichand was onhis way to a nearby village,Purilal Tanwar, his sons, DeviSingh (23) and Mohan (20)and the other men confrontedhim, the SHO said.

He said a heated exchangebetween Dhulichand and thegroup of men over the stolen

hand pump soon turned violentand he was beaten up badly.

Dhulichand's father reachedthe spot and took his injured sonhome. Later, Dhulichand's con-dition deteriorated and he wasrushed to a hospital, where doc-tors declared him brought dead,the SHO said.

He said preliminary inves-tigation revealed that Tanwarand his sons had on Fridaycomplained about the theft toDhulichand's father, who repri-manded his son and askedTanwar to lodge a police com-plaint against him.

A case under Section 302(murder) of the Indian PenalCode and the SC/ST (Preventionof Atrocities) Act has been reg-istered against Tanwar, his sonsand seven unidentified men, theSHO said. PTI

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Kochi: Four people including awoman were arrested forallegedly honey trapping a Gulf-based NRI businessman toextort money from him, policesaid on Sunday.

While three of the accusedhail from Kannur district, thewoman belongs to Kochi.

An investigation waslaunched based on a complaintthat the Qatar-based business-man was lured into the trapallegedly by the woman, whowas in that country, by estab-lishing friendship throughFacebook, they said.

The businessman was invit-ed to her room in Qatar by thewoman. One of the accused, inconnivance with the woman,had allegedly set up a secretcamera inside the room andtook their naked photos. PTI

Patna: Article 370 was like a"canker" that bled Jammu andKashmir, Defence MinisterRajnath Singh said on Sunday,asserting that more than three-fourths population of the erst-while state supported its abro-gation.

Addressing a "Jan JagranSabha" (public awareness meet)organized by the BJP here,where leaders spoke on theNarendra Modi government'smove to strip J&K of the spe-cial status, Singh said the partyhas lived up to its promises.

"As a nationalist party, theBJP never softened its stand onthe issue. Article 370 was likea canker (nasoor) which leftJ&K bleeding. We have nowdemonstrated that we are anhonest and credible partywhich fulfills its promises,"Singh said evoking applausefrom the crowd.

He blamed Article 370,and Article 35A which aroseout of it, for the state being inthe throes of terrorism.

"J&K will now be trans-formed within five years. Infact, more than three-fourths ofits population wanted this pro-vision to go. Our intentionswere good and it is no surprisethat our move was supportedwholeheartedly by our alliancepartners," Singh said.

Cautioning the neigh-bouring country against pro-moting cross-border terror-ism, in the wake of the recentdevelopments in Kashmir, hesaid, "Talks with Pakistan willhenceforth resume only after itstops promoting terrorism.And it must also keep in mind

that J&K is an integral part ofIndia. All discussions will onlytake place about Pak-occupiedKashmir."

Notably, the abolition ofArticle 370 has been one of thekey promises made by the BJPin its election manifestos. It wasaccomplished earlier this yearby a presidential order and theruling party at the Centre man-aged to secure a parliamentarynod for bifurcation of the stateinto Union territories with thehelp of its coalition partners.

Bihar Chief Minister NitishKumar's JD(U), however,emerged as the lone dissentingvoice from within the allianceas it staged a walkout in boththe Houses of the Parliamentafter expressing his disapprovalover the Narendra Modi gov-ernment's move.

The defence minister alsowarned Pakistan against"repeating mistakes of 1965 and1971", referring to the twowars fought and won againstthe neighbouring country, and

claimed that it ran the risk ofgetting "dismantled" onaccount of flagrant violation ofhuman rights.

"We do not need to do any-thing against Pakistan. It willget dismantled because of thevery path it has chosen. Thecountry will be devoured byflagrant violation of humanrights and flourishing terrorismon its soil," Singh remarkedgrimly, without elaboratingfurther.

He rubbished the "oneman's terrorist is another man'sfreedom fighter" theory oftenused by the neighbouringcountry to justify militancy inthe northern state.

"Let us see how many ter-rorists they can send (toIndia). None of them will goback," he added. Among oth-ers who addressed the gather-ing here were Union MinistersRavi Shankar Prasad andNityanand Rai and BiharDeputy Chief Minister SushilKumar Modi. PTI

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Lucknow: After losing six leg-islators to the Congress inRajasthan, the Bahujan SamajParty is now likely to losethree members of the UPLegislative Council to the BJPin Uttar Pradesh.

According to sources,three BSP MLCs have heldmeetings with state BJP lead-ers and are waiting for a meet-ing with the party high com-mand before they resign fromthe BSP.

One Rajya Sabha MP fromthe BSP is also said to beknocking at the BJP's doors.

The BSP, at present, hasfour members in the RajyaSabha and eight members inthe Vidhan Parishad.

The BJP, on the otherhand, lacks a majority in the100-member UP Legislative

Council where the BJP hasonly 21 members while theSamajwadi Party has 55 mem-bers and BSP 8 members.

A senior BJP leader, whilespeaking on condition ofanonymity, said: "The BSP hasalways been prone to splits.History proves this and we arenot forcing anyone to quit theparty.

"If the leaders are unhap-py with the leadership, it is theleadership that is to be blamed.If anyone comes to us with aclean slate, we will welcomethem with open arms."

The leader, however,refused to disclose when exact-ly the BSP MLCs would quit tojoin the BJP.

However, he said, "In thecase of SP MPs and MLCs wehave kept our word and re-

nominated them to theirrespective houses. The BSPleaders should know this."

The Bahujan Samaj Party,incidentally, has been prone tosplits ever since Mayawati tookover the reins of the party.

The first split that the BSPsuffered was in 1995 when theinfamous state guest houseincident took place inLucknow and the then stateBSP president Raj Bahadurcrossed over to the SamajwadiParty along with some otherlegislators. The BSP had won67 seats in the 1993 electionsand some legislators were upsetat the hard bargain thatMayawati was then trying todrive with the then ChiefMinister Mulayam SinghYadav.

Kanshi Ram, who was in

hospital at the time of the inci-dent, could not intervene andMayawati's leadership, appar-ently, was not acceptable to asection of the BSP MLAs.

The BSP (which again won67 seats) suffered its biggestsplit in 1997 when Mayawatipulled out of the coalitionwith BJP. About 20 BSP MLAs

broke away to form theJantantrik Bahujan Samaj Partyand extended support to thethen Kalyan Singh govern-ment. All of them were made

ministers.Again in 2003, when

Mayawati severed her alliancewith the BJP and recom-mended dissolution of thestate assembly, about 18 BSPMLAs crossed over to theSamajwadi Party and MulayamSingh formed the government.

According to a formerBSP leader who is now in BJP,it is Mayawati's style of func-tioning that has made theparty susceptible to recurrentsplits.

"Kanshi Ram reached outto party cadres at the lowestlevel and established an emo-tional connect with them.Mayawati never meets herMLAs and MPs on a one-to-one basis. Moreover, ever sinceshe has started chargingmoney for tickets, the dedi-

cated party workers are left outand those with monetaryinterests end up getting tick-ets. Such persons have no loy-alty to ideology and can leavethe party for further gains," hesaid.

Political analyst PradeepKapoor, meanwhile, said thatthe BSP was becoming proneto splits because of the ficklenature of its leadership.

"Making and breakingalliances without a valid rea-son has become a habit withMayawati. She has forged andthen broken alliances with SP,Congress and BJP on severaloccasions. This naturally dis-turbs leaders who contest elec-tions in her party. Moreover,she never takes her people intoconfidence before announcingdecisions," he said. IANS

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They say the story of India isfound in its people, its complex-ity unravelling in everyday life.And so it is that I chanced uponAnkit, who is an owner-driver of

a Hyundai Xcent with taxi aggregator Uberand makes anything about �40,000-50,000a month. That’s not new or surprising. ButAnkit was a verification officer at Barclay’sbank, who found himself jobless at a timewhen he was expecting his first child and hisfamily deep in a financial trough for otherreasons. Maternity meant his wife, too, washived off from her firm that justified job cutsin the name of smart-sizing. Another jobwith his qualifications was difficult to comeby and the offers that came guaranteed himnothing more than �35,000 a month. Withmounting debts, he invested his severancepackage in a car and drove around the city,17 hours on normal days, 22 hours over theweekend, so that he could earn the highpoints and incentives that Uber guarantees.Despite the inhumanity of sleep deprivationthat such trips entail, Ankit’s biodata on thecompany’s app flashes the only thing that hasbecome his calling card; that he is healthyand ever-ready to run. Now a father of a one-and-a-half month daughter, a fan of Adelewhose songs motivate him on each ride, hehas invested in a second car which he usesfor inter-city tours. Some day, he hopes togrow his tourist car business, may be evenset up his own agency. But a job he is notgoing back to, even if it means devaluing hiseducation or explaining to neighbours in theGhaziabad condominium he lives in why hescours the city at night. “Whatever gives memoney, there is no shame. My education isn’tworking anymore.”

Many like Ankit, young graduates andwith middling incomes that are on freeze ina sputtering economy, are signing up with taxiaggregators to make ends meet across thecountry. A very infrequent user, over the lastcouple of months I have chanced upon at leastsix graduates who believe in dignity of labourprovided it ensures the right price. There wasSandeep, who was a junior sales executive ata company and a people’s person but onceretrenched, chose the graveyard shift to rushpeople to their destinations. There wasVikas, who junked a job of �25,000 simplybecause it involved gruellingly long hours andhe realised he could make more money inthe same time period. “Now I can pace outmy work on my own terms, be my boss andtake home everything,” he had told me.“What social embarrassment, I am my owncompany and I can vary my workflowdepending on my needs. Which job will giveme this flexibility? This is my choice.” Therewas a young woman too, Suman, who isfunding her vocational course by drivingaround women professionals in a WagonRowned by the family. “I drive select hours, amon GPS, so safety isn’t an issue. This is goodsupplementary income for me.”

The fact that I found all these drivers in

Noida’s one-time booming SEZarea also presents a sordid tale ofa slowdown and shutdown that’sforcing our young people to findtheir own means of survival.With taxi aggregators like Uberand Ola finding the third largestride-sharing market in Indiaafter the US and China, a drivingpartnership has now become aviable self-entrepreneurialoption. Yet others are signing upwith food and other serviceaggregators. Some are evenrelooking at their passions andacquired skills as there is a shopfor every kind of service, utilitar-ian and entertainment, online.

If a report released by theAzim Premji University’s Centrefor Sustainable Employment isto be believed, then people witha graduate degree are morethan twice as likely to be unem-ployed than the national average.The same study also found thatwomen are more likely to fall bythe wayside. Not only that. Evenif graduates decide to take uplow-skill work, they have to faceintense competition from thosewho apply to such categoriesnormally. This trend was echoedby a Kotak Institutional Equitiesreport too, which cited data fromthe Government’s periodiclabour force survey (PLFS). Theunemployment rate among malejob seekers with secondary-

level education far exceeds job-lessness among illiterates inboth rural and urban areas:“The unemployment rate ishighest among youth with edu-cation until diploma (37 percent), graduate (36 per cent) andpost-graduate and above (36 percent), suggesting the lack ofopportunities for a higher skilledworkforce.” The crisis was foundto be more acute in urban areas(7.8 per cent) than in rural (5.3per cent). A report by theCentre for Monitoring IndianEconomy (CMIE) had alsofound that qualified youth —those with bachelor’s degreesand above — faced the highestunemployment.

There have been alarmingnews reports about how gradu-ates and post-graduates areapplying for Class IV services inMaharashtra and how nearly athird of the 93,000 applicants for62 police courier jobs in UttarPradesh had doctorates. Withmore people moving away fromagriculture sector jobs to ser-vices, the pool of applicants isnow an ocean of missed oppor-tunities. There’s a big rush forany kind of Government jobs asthey provide what has becomeelusive today — job security,salaries that are routinely revisedand a relatively good beginners’package. The minimum

Government salary is now�18,000 per month, higher thanwhat 70 per cent employed peo-ple make in this country in des-olate times. No data encapsulatesthis better than the Hindi filmDream Girl, where AyushmannKhurrana plays an educatedyoung man from Mathura, whohas pursued the conventionalpath of BA, MA and MPhil butfinds himself without a job.Out of sheer desperation, hesigns up for a phone-sex callcentre simply because it promis-es an income that his degreescannot give him.

Undoubtedly, this trend issetting off a socio-economictransformation. At one level, it isoffering recourse to studentswho are not academically bril-liant and won’t make the cut inhigher institutions, just plainregulars who, however, make upthe bulk of our educated work-force. At another level, it alsomeans we are dilluting their corecompetence, productivity andbelief that education and knowl-edge are tools for an elevated life.We are teaching them the art ofcompromise, building valuesnumerically than holistically. Infact, if basic skills like driving andcooking can earn people themoolah, then our young may justgive up the idea of “becoming agraduate,” still an aspiration that

parents sacrifice their earningsfor across the vast hinterland ofIndia. If that benchmark is seenas a redundancy, then it is anoth-er challenge in a country whereliteracy is often mistaken to begood enough as an education,compromising the overarchingprocess of evolution of the mind.Let’s not forget the last AnnualStatus of Education Report(ASER) which found that oneout of every four Class VII stu-dents in rural India is unable toread even a Class II text and overone in two Class VIII studentscannot solve a problem thatinvolves basic division.

In the end, there is thesocio-psychological impact oflevelling out to a bare median, ofa graduate and a class VIIIdropout being forced into thesame bloodstream. Is a compro-mise ever happy when you aretold that excellence should beyour only pursuit? Besidescrushed expectations can haveramifications in the form ofincreased manifestation of dis-turbing and deviant behaviouramong the youth.

How then can we customisehigher education for a seg-mented job market rather thandumping a one-size-fits-all for-mula on sectors that can hire butneed specific domain knowl-edge? How can we make ourgraduates job-ready? As a recentskill research has shown,employers found 80 per cent ofIndian engineering graduatesfailing to meet minimumrequirements for a hire. Manysuch firms say prospective can-didates lack sufficient industryexperience because our cours-es are too theoretical and notapplication-oriented. Theremust be an industry-aided skillrequirement map so that theproblem of over-qualification, asevidenced by the latest job rushqueues in Maharashtra, does notdash hopes. Besides, there mustbe a provision for career-longskill upgradation given that theeconomic paradigm can changedue to technological break-throughs and fluidity of theeconomy. There should beenough start-up incentives forengineers to set up small unitsthat are viable. Yes, use ofArtificial Intelligence (AI) maykill some traditional jobs but asseen with the IT revolution, theyalso encourage an allied layer ofhuman services and talent. Thatspinoff is often overlooked inumbrella decisions. The jobs cri-sis is severely threatening ourdemographic dividend, giventhat half our population isbelow the age of 25. But apotential asset could becomeour biggest liability if we don’tlook at the bigger picture now.

(The writer is AssociateEditor, The Pioneer)

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Sir — The world’s largest oil facil-ities in Saudi Arabia have facedmassive damages in the recentdrone attacks. Various conspira-cy theories have been doing therounds regarding the culpritsand the US President, DonaldTrump, has as usual pointed a fin-ger at Iran. But it must be remem-bered that Saudi Arabia has forlong been threatened by internalconflicts by fringe elements andother radical groups. Further,the dependence of the world onSaudi Arabia for fuel makes itcrucial for any strife there to besolved at once. This incidentgoes on to show how such attackscan impact world economics andpolitics.

P SenthilVia email

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Sir — This refers to the report,“Corporate tax slashed to 25% torev up economy” (September21). In a bold move to revive theeconomy, Finance MinisterNirmala Sitharaman announcedan eight percentage points cut in

the corporate tax rate. This meansthat the effective tax rate for firmswho do not avail exemptionswill fall from 34.94 per centpresently to 25.17 per cent.However, for new domestic man-ufacturing companies, incorpo-rated after October 1, the tax rate

will be as low as 15 per cent. Due to high corporate tax

rates, investments had remainedat the lowest ebb. The presentmove will encourage privateinvestment. It may also give aboost to foreign investmentsgiven that global value chains

stand disrupted due to the tariffwar between China and the US.While the present rate cut bodeswell for the overall economy,largely, the corporate sector mustnot falter now.

Srishti Mathur Ujjain

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Sir — This refers to the editori-al, “Missing woods for trees”(September 20). With more than100 million adult smokers, Indiahas a huge market for both elec-tronic and conventional ciga-rettes. Although few Indians vapeat present, the Indian ban cuts offa vast potential market of 1.3 bil-lion consumers for makers of e-cigarettes. In particular, the e-cig-arette market is acquiring ‘epi-demic’ proportions among theyouth and children. Given theirattractive appearances and theavailability in a number of fla-vors, teenagers are likely to bemore prone to such devices.

In this backdrop, theGovernment’s comprehensiveban on these battery-operateddevices is welcome. The percep-tion that e-cigarettes are a less-harmful alternative to cigarettesis entirely wrong. In fact, young-sters who use ENDS are morelikely to start smoking conven-tional cigarettes.

Bal GovindNoida

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At the just-concluded Conference of Parties(COP) 14 hosted by India under the aegisof the United Nations Convention to

Combat Desertification (UNCCD), 196 partici-pating countries and the European Union adopt-ed the ‘New Delhi Declaration’ wherein theyagreed that land degradation is a major econom-ic, social and environmental problem, and wel-comed strengthening of the adoption of volun-tary “land degradation neutrality” targets thatinclude restoration of degraded land by 2030.

The UNCCD, one of the three environmen-tal conventions running after the Rio de JaneiroEarth Summit in 1992, (the other two being TheUnited Framework Convention Climate Changeand Convention on Biological Diversity) wasestablished in 1994 as a legally-binding interna-tional agreement within the parameters of the UNand connects the environment and developmentwith sustainable land management. The conven-tions deal with most vulnerable ecosystems in arid,semi-arid and dry lands areas. The basic aim ofthe convention is to work for improving the liveli-hoods of the people in these ecosystems throughrestoration of soil and land and combat draughtconditions.

Under the UNCCD, the developed countriesare supposed to transfer technologies to the devel-oping countries for sustainable land development.The UNCCD had adopted a strategic frameworkfor the period 2018-2030, which among otherthings, primarily focusses on improving the con-dition of affected ecosystems, combat desertifi-cation, land degradation, promote sustainable landmanagement and contribute to land degradationneutrality. It also aims to mitigate, adapt to andmanage the effects of drought in order toenhance resilience of vulnerable populations andecosystems; mobilise resources for implementa-tion of the convention and improve the living con-ditions of the people residing in dry land ecosys-tems. By far this is the most important conven-tion and the success of two other conventions’objectives depends upon the success of theUNCCD. The secretariat of the convention hadtaken lot of programmes to achieve its mandateand some excellent work has already beenachieved by India though almost one-third ofcountry’s landmass remains degraded and proneto desertification.

China, which became the president of the con-vention in 2017, passed on the baton to India atthe programme held in Greater Noida, UttarPradesh. Environment, Forest and ClimateChange Minister Prakash Javadekar, now has themammoth task of steering the mandate of the con-vention for the next two years. The four issues dis-cussed during COP14 were land and draught; landand human security; land and climate change andland and sustainable development goals.

Signatories to the New Delhi Declarationendorsed 35 decisions, including commitmentsto combat land degradation, desertification anddrought. In the resolutions, the conference agreedto make the Sustainable Development Goal tar-get of achieving “land degradation neutrality”(LDN), a national target for action. Besides theLDN agreement, whereby countries have pledgedto halt the degradation of land to the point whereecosystems and land use can no longer be sup-ported, there was a landmark decision to boost

global efforts to mitigate and manage the risks ofcrippling drought.

Countries will now be expected to addressinsecurity of land tenure, including genderinequality; promote land restoration to reduce car-bon emissions and mobilise innovative sources offinance from public and private sources to sup-port the implementation of these decisions at anational level.

All countries recognised that desertificationundermines health, development and prosperi-ty in all regions and were deeply concerned thatthe impacts would be felt most keenly by vulner-able people. They were also convinced that par-ticipation from civil society organisations, localgovernments and the private sector would be cru-cial to achieving the objectives of UNCCD.

The document laid special emphasis on com-munity-driven transformative projects that aregender-sensitive at local, national and regional lev-els to drive implementation.

While the declaration is a statement of con-sensus, the 35 decisions are legally binding on eachof the 197 signatories. Activities carried out overthe next two years would be monitored by India.

The resolutions adopted in the New DelhiDeclaration are vital for India and the world, whichis grappling with the ever-increasing effects of cli-mate change and faces a major desertificationthreat.

Around 30 per cent of the world’s populationslive in dry areas, which cover more than 40 percent of Earth’s land surface. Countries likeEthiopia, Sudan, Eritrea, Afghanistan, China andPakistan are prone to repeated draught and in fact,40 per cent of the world is now facing draught-like conditions due to climatic vagaries.

In India, around 20 per cent (63.8 millionhectares) of the land is categorised as waste landsand most of this is in dry areas. Latest statisticsshows that 42 per cent of the Indian land massfaces draughts where more than 600 million peo-ple live.

In the light of these findings, the COP14 isvital for the entire world and its recommendationsneed to be implemented in all seriousness. Thepeople and the institutions of governance mustfocus on physical structure of land and quality ofsoil; improve the availability of water; control land-slides, floods and movement of soil and conserve

the bio-diversity and use of land for sustainabledevelopment of the people living in these areas.

India must gear up its diplomatic channels toensure creation of fund and technology for tack-ling the threat by all countries. As for India, anaction plan must be prepared to deal with defor-estation, water conservation and land degradationfor forest and non-forest lands. The degradedforests below 40 per cent crown density haveincreased from 24 million hectares in 1985 to 30million hectares in 2017 and regeneration of nat-ural forests needs to be backed up.

The recent proposal of the Ministry ofEnvironment, Forest and Climate Change to bringprivate investments in forest areas of less than 10per cent crown density should be started on pilotbasis after taking the local people into confidence.If it succeeds, it will give a big fillip to forest con-servation and enhancement of land productivi-ty. The land vested with tribals under Forest RightAct should also be taken up for investment for pro-ductive use and livelihoods.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whoaddressed the ministerial segment of the conven-tion, outlined the success achieved by India inimplementation of the objectives of the conven-tion in checking desertification and land degra-dation as well as help in saving the livelihoods ofthe people residing in dry areas. Modi assertedthat India was looking forward to making an effec-tive contribution at the global level as it took overthe chairmanship for the next two years.

He called for concerted attempts as two-thirdof the countries are affected by desertification andare in the grip of severe water crisis. He exhort-ed the delegates to create a Global Water ActionAgenda and offered Indian expertise to othercountries in land degradation and raised the tar-get of its land restoration from 21 millionhectares to 26 million hectares by 2030.

Pointing out that India was on course toachieve its Paris climate change targets, Modiannounced setting up of a Centre of Excellenceat the Indian Council of Forestry Research andEducation to facilitate scientific and technologi-cal collaboration between South-SouthCooperation and with those who wish to accessknowledge and training of manpower so that landdegradation is addressed effectively.

(The writer is a retired civil servant)

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In 2005, an independent filmmak-er, Dylan Avery, made a docu-mentary called Loose Change.

The film explores the many conspir-acy theories which began to emergeafter the 9/11 attacks in New York.

The documentary does not dis-cuss the theories as much as it actu-ally promulgates them in a ratherdramatic manner. The film claimsthat it has enough evidence to provethe conspiratorial notion that the9/11 attacks were an “inside job,”meaning they were organised by theUS Government.

In 2006, Avery and the film’s pro-ducers released a second edition ofthe film, claiming that this oneincluded some new evidence. But,

actually, this one left out certainclaims made in the first edition of thefilm after they were debunked.

A year later in 2007, a third ver-sion of the documentary emergedcalled Loose Change: Final Cut. Thisedition almost entirely edited out themany speculative claims of the pre-vious editions. This left the film look-ing more like a compilation ofreports on the attacks because, bythen, Loose Change had been system-atically debunked through a series ofarticles in various newspapers in theUS and the UK.

Ironically, the American businesstycoon, Mark Cuban, who hadbought the rights to distribute the lastedition of the film — which, unlikethe first two editions, was notreleased online for free — was quot-ed as saying that he entirely disagreedwith the contents of the film. One ofthe film’s producers, Mathew Brown,echoed the sentiment but added thathe had financed the film because hebelieved in freedom of speech.

The first edition was a sloppy andamateur attempt to cynically drawtraction from online fans of conspir-

acy theories. However, it became ahuge online hit, encouraging themakers of the film to turn it into alucrative franchise of sorts.

The first edition cost just $2,000,the second $6,000 and the third$200,000, after the rights of the filmwere sold to a major DVD distribu-tion company. Translated versions ofthe film were also screened on TVchannels in various countries, includ-ing Pakistan.

Geo TV ran it with an Urdu com-mentary, even though, by then, thefilm had been significantly discred-ited. Influenced by the successfulmanner in which it had managed todraw a large audience, another localTV channel, Indus TV, began to runa series of translated documentariesfunded by the wealthy Turkish‘Islamic creationist’ and cult figureHarun Yahya. These films explainedDarwinism, secularism, democracy,‘Western modernity,’ and so on, as thecore reasons behind the misery in theMuslim world and on Earth in gen-eral.

In 2009, ARY News jumped onthe bandwagon by adapting anoth-

er Yahya-funded documentary Endof Time. Commentary in the Urduversion was provided by a talk-show host, who faithfully replicatedthe film’s sombre tone, pointing outthe ‘signs’ foretold by the holy scrip-tures of the coming apocalypse.

As I mentioned in a previous col-umn two in-depth studies, conduct-ed in 2018 and published in theJournal of Individual Differences,identified ‘schizotypy’ as a prominentreason behind the growth in theacceptance of fantastical claims andconspiracy theories in recent years.People with schizotypy have an ele-vated need to feel unique, but at thesame time take refuge in a commu-nity of like-minded individuals. Suchan individual or community aremore likely to judge nonsensicalstatements as profound.

They often believe in things forwhich there is no empirical evidence.The higher this schizotypy is in a per-son, the more likely he or she is tobelieve in conspiracy theories.

There is also the fact that thecomplex political, economic, cli-matic and demographic shifts and

changes occurring in the post-9/11world and the mushrooming ofsocial media sites, have all con-tributed in making fantastical expla-nations — that were once relegatedto the lunatic fringe — migrate to themainstream.

Confusion and polarisation inthis context allows people to latch onto theoretical concoctions connect-ing disparate dots to complete an(often diabolic) explanatory whole.Nothing new about this, as such. In1902 a tome appeared in Russia titledThe Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

The book reports how a groupof powerful Jews got together to plana sinister takeover of the world’s eco-nomic, political and media institu-tions. The book is also a hotchpotchof segments plagiarised from certain19th-century anti-Semitic literature.Russian scholar and professor CesareG. De Michelis writes in his book TheNon-Existent Manuscript that TheProtocols was an anti-Semitic satireon a seminar organised by RussianZionists. Anti-Semitism was peakingin Russia at the time, and this is whythis satire was then published more

widely, but this time as fact, accord-ing to Michelis.

After doing the rounds in Russia,The Protocols reached the US in 1917.In 1921, US car manufacturer HenryFord financed the publishing of50,000 copies of the tome. He alsopublished a series of articles inspiredby the book in a newspaper that heowned. The articles all appearedunder the title The International Jew.Everything from the communistrevolution in Russia to the creationof trade unions and inter-racial mar-riages in the West was blamed on theJews. In 1922, the book and the arti-cles were translated into German andbecame popular in Germany. Itwould go on to influence the ideol-ogy of Nazism in that country. It did-n’t matter that the British daily TheTimes had already thoroughlyexposed the book as a hoax and aforgery. At the end of World War II,when facts about the Holocaustbegan to emerge, the book lostmainstream traction and reader-ship in Europe and the US, and wasrelegated to the Right-wing fringe.

But it rebounded by finding a

brand new audience in the Arabworld after the creation of Israel in1948. Its first Arabic translationappeared in 1951 in Egypt. It soonmade its way into the non-ArabMuslim world as well.

I am not sure when it appearedin Pakistan as an Urdu translation,but I once found a 1968 Urdu edi-tion of it in a second-hand book storein Islamabad in 2005. In 1987, whenthe Palestinian Islamist outfit Hamaswas formed, its first charter (pub-lished in 1988) heavily referencedThe Protocols. But by then the bookhad already begun to lose purchasein the Muslim world as well, until itreturned with a bang a decade or solatter due to the internet explosion.

Uploaded by Neo-Nazi andwhite supremacist groups and by var-ious Islamist outfits, The Protocolsonce again managed to migratefrom the fringes to the mainstream.

Its readers again outnumberthose who are more interested inreading the many exposés that com-pletely debunked the book as avicious fraud.

(Courtesy, The Dawn)

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Finance Minister NirmalaSitharaman on Sunday said

there are no plans to revise thefiscal deficit target for the cur-rent fiscal at the moment anda decision in this regard will betaken before the annual Budget.

Experts are of the view thatIndia's fiscal deficit will widenas a result of the corporate taxreduction by the government.

When asked if the govern-ment will consider revisingthe fiscal deficit target,Sitharaman said these are "deci-sions taken near the Budget".

In the biggest reduction in28 years, the Government onFriday slashed corporate tax byalmost 10 percentage points asit looked to pull the economyout of a six-year low growthand a 45-year high unemploy-ment rate by reviving privateinvestments with a �1.45-lakhcrore tax break.

Base corporate tax forexisting companies wasreduced to 22 per cent from thecurrent 30 per cent; and fornew manufacturing firms,incorporated after October 1,

2019 and starting operationsbefore March 31, 2023, to 15per cent from the current 25per cent.

On raising the borrowingtarget for the second half of thecurrent fiscal, the FinanceMinister said, it will be decid-ed in the next few days.

"Not touching any of thegiven targets now. When themeeting for revised estimatestakes place, we will look at it,"Sitharaman said.

According to global rating

agency Moody's, the reductionin corporate income tax rev-enue — even when balancedagainst the windfall from therecent transfer of central banksurplus reserves, equivalent toaround 0.3 per cent of GDP inthe current fiscal year — fur-ther narrows fiscal room formanoeuvre.

However, it described therate reduction as credit positivefor companies because it willenable them to generate high-er post-tax incomes.

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India has become a highlycompetitive investment des-

tination post corporate taxreduction as the rates are nowlower than that in China andmost Southeast Asian coun-tries, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said onSunday.

India was earlier at disad-vantage because of a couple offactors and on top of it was thehigh corporate tax rate, shesaid, adding that the reductionhas made it attractive for for-eign investors, includingiPhone maker Apple, to set upunits in the country.

"The top consideration onwhich India was rejected asinvestment destination is nowbetter than everybody else...For some one who is comingup with new investment, nocountry is offering 15 per cent(tax rate). We are giving 15 percent with no MAT (minimum alternate tax) andsimpler taxation structure," shesaid.

Quoting experts, she said

India is now much better thanChina in terms of rate, trans-parency, and tax administrationso companies can now look atIndia for setting up new units.

"Apple and its entireecosystem's moving will have agreater impact. Everyone whocomes now will straightawayget 15 per cent tax benefit.Component manufacturers ofApple in China will find Indiamore attractive to have units at15 per cent in India than 25 percent there," she said.

Apple or any foreign com-pany can come and set up busi-ness and enjoy the competitiverate of 15 per cent, she said, adding that the stip-ulated timeline for the productroll-out from the new unit is onor before March 31, 2023.

In the biggest reduction in28 years, the government onFriday slashed corporate tax byalmost 10 percentage points asit looked to pull the economyout of a six-year low growthand a 45-year high unemploy-ment rate by reviving privateinvestments with a Rs 1.45-lakhcrore tax break.

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Industry leaders from diversesectors such as manufactur-

ing and services expect thereduction in corporate tax ratesto create a positive impact onthe economy, leading to aspeedier turnaround.

Last Friday, the govern-ment announced a massive10-12 percentage points reduc-tion in taxes for corporates,bringing down the effectivecorporate tax to 25.17 per centinclusive of all cess and sur-charges for domestic compa-nies. The new tax rate will beapplicable from April 1, involv-ing a revenue loss of Rs 1.45lakh crore this fiscal.

Welcoming the step,Godrej Group Chairman AdiGodrej said, "This greatannouncement will totallychange the economic progress.I would say the only otherannouncement which is ofgreater importance was in July1991. This tax cuts will havetremendous positive effect. Wewill soon see a turnaround."

Addressing the IndiaToday Conclave here over theweekend, he said there is nowa need to focus on improvingdemand.

RC Bhargava, chairman ofMaruti Suzuki, said manufac-turing's growth rate or share inGDP is nowhere near therequired level. Manufacturing

is barely limping at around 5per cent and we need to lift itto 15 per cent, he said, addingthat the tax cuts will be a bigstep in that direction.

The need is now to addressthe demand side issues,Bhargava also opined.

Niranjan Hiranandani ofrealty major HiranandaniGroup said the tax cuts addressonly the supply-side econom-ics but we also need "to addressthe demand side."

Piramal Group's AjayPiramal said the tax cut sendsout a clear message that thegovernment is listening to theissues. It is a brave step butmore needs to be done to spurdemand, he added.

Niti Aayog CEO AmitabhKant said the government hasbrought corporate tax on parwith the East Asian neigh-bours and on par with the besttax regimes across the world.

"The government has putliquidity into the bottom line ofthe companies. Roughly, closeto Rs 75,000 to Rs 80,000 crorewill be flowing because of thetax cuts into the bottom line ofcompanies," he said.

The onus is on these com-panies now as the governmenthas done its bit, Kant said,adding that it is time for all theMarutis, Mahindras

and Godrejs to act by cut-ting their prices and offeringmore sops to consumers.

��

Shaktikanta Das has playeddown many jokes and

spoofs about his history back-ground soon after his surpriseappointment as the 25th gov-ernor of the Reserve Bank ofIndia last December after the'protest' resignation of UrjitPatel.

Academic qualification ofthe head of the central bank isnot relevant, but what mattersis his/her grip on the economy,general awareness about theissues facing the economy andprofessional experience, is howDas has deflected the questionfrom an audience who soughtto know whether his non-eco-nomic academic backgroundhas weighed him down as thegovernor.

Das pulled out fromretirement and dashed to theMint Road within two days ofPatel's calling it quits onDecember 10, 2018, after manya run-in with the government.

Both Patel and his prede-cessor Raghuram Rajan haveillustrious academic records.While Rajan is an internation-ally acclaimed economist,writer and sociopoliticalthinker, Patel is known for hispapers on monetary econom-ics from among the world'suniversities.

Rajan is also known forexactly predicting the 2008global financial meltdownmore than a year before itreally engulfed the world at the

annual Jackson Hole retreat ofthe US Federal Reserve witheconomists.

As against this, Das hasdone history from St Stephen's,New Delhi, who, after this,joined the civil service andretired in May 2017 as the eco-nomic affairs secretary. At thetime of joining the RBI, he wasa member of the 15th FinanceCommission.

Das' role in the note banand how he managed thechanging narratives for thegovernment in its aftermathhas got him the moniker of abeing an insider who will toethe government line as thepast two governors hardly wereon the same page with NewDelhi on most matters.

"The chief of US Fed(Jerome Powell) has a politicalscience background, theincoming chief of the EuropeanCentral Bank and former IMFpresident Christine Lagardehas a legal background and thechief of the Bank of Japan(Haruhiko Kuroda) has a civilservice background," Das hassaid at the India TodayConclave over the weekendhere. Das was responding to aquestion from the audiencewhether his academic qualifi-cation has weighed him downas the governor.

Stating that policymakinginvolves a lot of complex real-ities, which is less academicsand more of experience, Dasargued, "when it comes to pol-icymaking, whether you did a

particular course 35 or 40 yearsago, I think it is not relevant asit would appear.

"I think what matters moreis your awareness, your grip onwhat is happening in the realeconomy, the kind of experi-ence you have had in yourentire professional life," Dassmiles.

The governor then goes onto pointing out that the RBI hasan "excellent research team"and there is "no dearth oftechnical inputs from them"and it is not necessary for thegovernor to go into each equa-tion and take a policy decision.

"It is necessary for the RBIgovernor to understand what isthe role of monetary policy, andthe importance of financialstability, it also important forthe governor to understand thenuances of the real economyand have the ability to take intoaccount all the incoming dataand take the appropriate deci-sion," he explained offering apeak into how he conducts hisaffairs from the 19th floor cor-ner office.

However, the 62-year-oldDas who hails fromBhubaneswar, is in all praise ofhis predecessors Patel andRajan.

"Both of my immediatepredecessor and the one beforethat have made their contribu-tions to the RBI. The RBI andthe nation are fortunate tohave had a number of out-standing governors over theyears," he smiled.

��

CRISIL Research on Sundaysaid top 1,000 listed com-

panies could see tax savings of�37,000 crore on account of thecorporate tax cut.

"Over the past few days, aslew of measures have beenintroduced to address the slow-down in the Indian economy.Friday's announcement, how-ever, is the most material...Ouranalysis indicates these 1,000companies could see tax sav-ings of �37,000 crore, or near-ly a fourth of the total savingsanticipated by the govern-ment," it said in a statement.

The drop in tax rate wouldnow bring India at par withmost Asian economies, itadded.

"CRISIL Research's analy-sis of nearly 1,000 companies— spread across 80+ sectorssuch that they cover more than70 per cent of NSE's marketcapitalisation — indicates thateffective tax rates had risenover the past 5 years," it said.

These companies, includ-ing oil & gas and financial ser-vices, account for nearly athird of the tax paid by IndiaInc.

��

In the midst of disruption inglobal oil supply following

the biggest-ever attacks on itsoil installations, Saudi Arabiahas said it is committed to meetIndia's energy security needsand will work constructivelywith other oil producers tomaintain market stability.

Saudi Ambassador Dr.Saud bin Mohammed Al Sati,in an exclusive interview toPTI, also said his country willinvite the United Nations andinternational experts to viewthe situation on the ground andto participate in the investiga-tion into the attacks.

He said Saudi Arabia hasthe capability and resolve todefend itself and to forcefullyrespond to "these aggressions",and appreciated India's supportand solidarity to Riyadh fol-lowing the strikes which, heasserted, were "against theinternational community as awhole".

A series of drone and mis-sile attacks on oil facilities ofSaudi Aramco, the country'snational petroleum company,in Abqaiq and Khurais onSeptember 14 knocked out halfof its daily oil production,severely impacting the globaloil market and triggering freshtension between Saudi Arabiaand Iran.

Saudi Arabia is a key pillarof India's energy security, beinga source of 17 per cent or moreof crude oil and 32 per cent ofLPG requirements of India.The attacks on Aramco'sAbqaiq and Khurais facilitiesresulted in up to 15 per centincrease in global oil prices lastweek due to disruption in sup-ply by the top oil exporter.

Al Sati said the "unprece-dented act of aggression andsabotage" on Saudi petroleumfacilities, which were vital for

global energy supplies, result-ed in the suspension of approx-imately 50 per cent of SaudiAramco's production.

"As the investigations areongoing, the Kingdom will

invite UN and internationalexperts to view the situation onground and to participate in theinvestigations," the ambassadorsaid.

"The Kingdom will takeappropriate measures to ensureits security and stability. TheKingdom affirms that it has thecapability and resolve to defendits land and people, and toforcefully respond to theseaggressions," he said.

Yemen's Houthi terrorgroup has taken responsibilityfor the biggest-ever attacks on

Saudi oil facilities which severe-ly impacted global oil supply.Saudi Arabia and its ally, theUS, have blamed Iran for theattacks but Tehran has strong-ly denied the allegations.

"The recent attack againstSaudi Aramco was not onlyagainst the Kingdom, butagainst the international com-munity as a whole, and was adeliberate attempt to disruptthe global economy. Therefore,the perpetrators should be heldaccountable," the envoy said.

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Petrol prices have soared byRs 1.59 a litre and diesel by

Rs 1.31 in the last six days -- themost since daily price revisionwas introduced in 2017, as amassive strike at Saudi Arabianoil facilities jolted oil markets.

Petrol price was on Sundayhiked by 27 paise to Rs 73.62 alitre in the Delhi market -- thebenchmark for national rates,according to a price notification by state-owned oilfirms.

Price of diesel wasincreased by 18 paise to Rs66.74 per litre in Delhi.

This is the sixth straightdaily increase and has taken thecumulative price hike sinceSeptember 17 to Rs 1.59 perlitre in case of petrol and Rs1.31 for diesel.

Global oil prices shot upthe most since the Gulf war inthe immediate aftermath ofthe unprecedented drone mis-sile strikes on key oil facilitiesin Saudi Arabia that disabled 5

per cent of the global supply.Oil prices have cooled

since the spike on September16 but remain on the edge.

Attackers using low-flyingdrones and cruise missilesknocked out 5.7 million barrelsof production, or about 60 percent of what Saudi Arabia cur-rently produces. It was thelargest supply disruption inhistory. On Monday, Brent oilfutures soared 15 per cent.

Analysts have warned thatthe style of the attacks onSaudi Aramco's Abqaiq andKhurais oil facilities may add apermanent risk premium to oiland gasoline prices.

While Saudi Arabia is say-ing it can quickly bring supplyback online, experts say theshock to the global oil marketwill be felt for years.

India depends on SaudiArabia for a fifth of its oilimports and has been in con-stant touch with Kingdom offi-cials on securing its supplies.

Oil Minister DharmendraPradhan on Thursday spoke to

Saudi Arabia's new oil minis-ter Prince Abdulaziz binSalman to discuss the supplyplan. Saudi Arabia, accordingto Pradhan, has assured Indiaof meeting all its committed oilsupplies.

Saudi Arabia, which isIndia's second-largest oil sup-plier, sells close to 2 milliontonnes of crude every month.Of this, 1.2-1.3 million tonnesof supplies for September havealready been taken and the resttoo has been assured.

However, Saudi has soughtdeferment of some LPG sup-plies, but they have assured tomake up for all the quantities,Indian Oil Corp (IOC)Chairman Sanjiv Singh said,adding any shortfall can bebought from Qatar.

Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd(BPCL) has already tenderedfor import of LPG in October,possibly to make up for theshortfall from Saudi Arabia.

India buys around 2,00,000tonnes of LPG every monthfrom Saudi Arabia.

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The Government on Sundaysaid it is working on vari-

ous fronts to make the Indiansteel sector vibrant, efficient,investor-friendly and globallycompetitive.

In this regard, the steelministry is organising 'ChintanShivir', in the presence of SteelMinister Dharmendra Pradhanon Monday, with the theme to"make the sector vibrant, effi-cient and globally competitive",the steel ministry said in astatement. Despite short-termchallenges and the current slow-down, it is believed that India'slong-term growth story remainsintact, the ministry added.

This growth must bebacked by the steel sector bymaking the industry principallyand fundamentally stronger, itfurther said. Steel is the basicinput material for a host ofdevelopment activities. From asmall capacity of 22 milliontonne (MT) in the financialyear 1991-92.

��

India's largest LNG importerPetronet will invest $2.5 bil-

lion for nearly 20 per cent equi-ty stake in US energy majorTellurian Inc's Driftwood pro-ject to negotiate the purchaseof 5 million tons of gas perannum. The Houston-basedTellurian and Petronet LNGLtd (PLL) signed an MOU onSaturday under which theIndian company and its affili-ates will import 5 million tonsof LNG from America over a40-year period.

The agreement alsoincludes PLL making invest-ment in the equity of $28 bil-lion Driftwood project inLouisiana to secure the LNG.

"On the sidelines, an MoUwas signed between Tellurian,a Houston based energy majorand Petronet LNG. Petronetwill invest $2.5 billion inTellurian's proposed DriftwoodLNG export terminal, inexchange for the rights to 5 mil-lion metric tons of LNG peryear over 40 years," Ministry ofExternal Affairs said in a state-ment.

The Petronet deal, thelargest by an Indian companyin US LNG, came after PrimeMinister Narendra Modi had ameeting with the CEOs of topUS-based oil companies.

��

HDFC Bank on Sunday saidit plans to organise 1,000

grameen loan melas over thenext six months in a bid toexpand its retail portfolio.

These grameen loan melas(or village loan fairs) will beheld across more than 300 dis-tricts and cover around 6,000villages across India, HDFCBank said in a statement.

Just like a traditional villagefair, the grameen loan mela willbe a one-stop shop for peoplefrom the surrounding five orsix villages to access the entirerange of the bank's products, itsaid. Customers can avail oftractor, auto, two-wheeler andagri loans or open current orsavings accounts, it said.

Besides, self help groups(SHGs) can avail of financethrough the bank's SustainableLivelihood Initiative. The loanmelas will also serve as a plat-form to educate the local pop-ulace about banking services.

��

The US has sought estab-lishment of a dispute panel

by the World TradeOrganisation's (WTO) in acase against India's importduties on certain ICT products,including mobile phones.

The US sought consulta-tions in July under the WTO'sdispute settlement mechanismover imposition of importduties by India on certaininformation and communica-tion (ICT) products, alleging breach of global tradenorms.

As both the countries failedto resolve the dispute throughthe consultation process, theUS has sought setting up of thedispute panel.

Bilateral consultation is thefirst step towards resolution ofa trade dispute under the WTOnorms.

"The US held consulta-tions with India on August 1,2019. Unfortunately, these con-

sultations did not resolve thedispute," according to a com-munication of the US to theWTO.

Several countries includingthe European Union,Singapore, Canada, China,Taiwan and Thailand havesought to join in the dispute asthey have claimed significanttrade interest in the ICT prod-ucts over which India hasimposed import duties.

The EU has challengedintroduction of import dutieson a wide range of ICT prod-ucts, for instance, mobilephones and components, basestations, integrated circuits andoptical instruments.

Seeking consultation is thefirst step of dispute settlementprocess as per the WTO rules.If the consultations requestedwith the complainant do notresult in a satisfactory solution,they can request that the WTOsets up a panel in the case to give ruling on the issueraised.

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President Hassan Rouhanion Sunday denounced the

presence of foreign forces in theGulf and said Iran will offer apeace plan, after arch-foe theUnited States ordered rein-forcements to the tinderboxregion.

“Foreign forces can causeproblems and insecurity for ourpeople and for our region,”Rouhani said in a televisedspeech at an annual militaryparade.

Rouhani also said Iranwould present a peace plan tothe United Nations in the com-ing days.

“In this sensitive andimportant historical moment,we announce to our neigh-bours that we extend the handof friendship and brotherhoodto them,” he said.

Tensions between Iran andthe US and its allies havethreatened to boil over sinceMay last year when PresidentDonald Trump unilaterallywithdrew from a 2015 nucleardeal and later began reimpos-ing sanctions in a campaign of“maximum pressure”.

The tensions escalated inthe wake of devastatingSeptember 14 attacks on Saudioil installations thatWashington and Riyadh have,to varying degrees, blamed onTehran. Following the attacks,which caused global oil pricesto spike, Trump initially raised

the possibility of military retal-iation, tweeting that the UnitedStates was “locked and loaded”.

The United States laterexpanded its long list of sanc-tions against Iran by furthertargeting its central bank, asTrump indicated he did notplan a military response. USDefence Secretary Mark Esperannounced on Friday that theUS was sending reinforcementsto Saudi Arabia at “the king-dom’s request”, while noting the

forces would be “defensive innature” and focused on airand missile defence.

In his speech deliveredbefore a massive militaryparade on Sunday, Rouhanicalled on the foreign powers inthe Gulf region to “stay away”.

“If they’re sincere, thenthey should not make ourregion the site of an armsrace,” he said.

“Your presence has alwaysbrought pain and misery for

the region. The farther youkeep yourselves from ourregion and our nations, themore security there will be forour region.”

“We are even ready toignore their past mistakes...Since today the situation is suchthat the enemies of Islam andthe region, meaning Americaand Zionism, want to abuse therift between us.

“Our logic is the logic of aPersian Gulf whose security

comes from within,” said theIranian president.

Following his speech, theIranian armed forces paradedtheir latest equipment, includ-ing tanks, missiles andarmoured vehicles as Rouhaniand top military commanderssaluted them.

Rouhani is expected totravel to New York on Monday,a day before general debatekicks off at the United NationsGeneral Assembly.

Foreign MinisterMohammad Javad Zarif, who issubject to US sanctions, hasalready arrived in New Yorkahead of the annual gathering.

Tensions have flared in theGulf since May, when Iranbegan reducing its commit-ments to the nuclear deal andthe US said it was sendingforces to waters near theIslamic republic in response to“indications of a crediblethreat” from its forces.

The US deployed an air-craft carrier strike group and abomber task force to the sen-sitive waterways, before send-ing B-52 bombers, an amphibi-ous assault ship and Patriotmissile battery.

Following the deploy-ments, commercial ships weremysteriously attacked, dronesdowned and oil tankers seizedin Gulf waters. Trump in Juneauthorised a military strikeafter Iran shot down a USdrone, only to call off the retal-iation at the last moment.

�� :��

Joe Biden accusedDonald Trump

Saturday of “an over-whelming abuse ofpower” and called for aninvestigation into accu-sations the US leaderpressured his Ukrainiancounterpart to investigate thepresidential candidate’s son.

Biden’s allegations prompt-ed a swift rebuke from Trump,who himself accuses theDemocratic frontrunner ofwrongdoing in Ukraine duringhis time as vice president underformer president BarackObama.

The back-and-forthrecriminations stem from aWashington Post report statinga whistleblower complaint hadbeen filed over Trump’s com-munications with UkrainianPresident Volodymyr Zelensky,and a “promise” allegedly madeby the US leader.

Trump allegedly pressuredZelensky to investigate possiblecorruption involving Bidenand his son Hunter, who hadworked with a Ukrainian nat-ural gas company while hisfather was vice president.

Trump has urged media to“look into” Biden’s commentsin early 2016 when the then USvice president said the Obamaadministration would freeze$1 billion in US loan guaran-tees unless Kiev fire its topprosecutor, who was lookinginto the gas company.

“This appears to be anoverwhelming abuse of power,to get on the phone with a for-

eign leader who is looking forhelp from the United States andask about me,” Biden toldreporters on the campaign trailin the state of Iowa.

“I know what I’m upagainst, a serial abuser. That’swhat this guy is,” Biden con-tinued. “If he sees any threat tohis staying in power, he’ll dowhatever he has to do. But thiscrosses the line.”

Biden had on Fridaydemanded Trump immediate-ly release the transcript of a July25 call with Zelensky while say-ing reports that the presidentsought to coerce his Ukrainiancounterpart, if true, amountedto “clear-cut corruption.”

Trump slammed the alle-gations as “ridiculous,” and onSaturday accused Biden onTwitter of having demanded,during his time as vice presi-dent, “that the UkrainianGovernment fire a prosecutorwho was investigating his son.”

He also accused news out-lets of fabricating “a story aboutme and a perfectly fine androutine conversation I hadwith the new President of theUkraine. Nothing was said thatwas in any way wrong, butBiden’s demand, on the otherhand, was a complete and totaldisaster.”

�� A��:

The US is likely to ramp uppressure on China by rais-

ing existing tariffs if a trade dealis not reached soon betweenthe two countries, a key WhiteHouse adviser has said.

The world’s two largesteconomies have been locked ina bruising trade war sinceTrump in March last yearimposed tariff hikes of up to 25per cent on USD 250 billion ofChinese goods.

In response, China, theworld’s second largest economyafter the US, imposed tit-for-tattariffs on USD 110 billion ofAmerican goods.

Michael Pillsbury, adviserto the White House on Chinapolicy, said that Trump wouldlikely escalate the trade war byraising existing tariffs, if no dealis reached.

In an interview in HongKong on Thursday, Pillsburysaid that Trump had been“remarkably restrained in thepressure he has brought tobear on China in the tradefield”.

Both sides so far have held12 rounds of talks but failed towork out a deal as China con-tinued to resist Trump’sdemand for intrusive verifica-tion mechanism to superviseBeijing’s promise to protect

intellectual property rights(IPR) technology transfer andmore access to American goodsto Chinese markets.

Trump delayed a plannedtariff hike on USD 250 billionof Chinese goods as a “gestureof good will” ahead of China’s70th year of National Day cel-ebrations on October 1.

The two countries arepreparing for the next round oftrade talks in Washington inOctober.

“Does the president haveoptions to escalate the tradewar? Yes, the tariffs can beraised higher. These are lowlevel tariffs that could go to 50per cent or 100 per cent,”Pillsbury was quoted as sayingby the Hong Kong-based SouthChina Morning Post onSunday.

Trump’s critics were wrongto assume the President was“just bluffing” when he threat-ened an all-out trade war, hesaid.

“There are other optionsinvolving the financial markets,Wall Street, you know, thepresident has a whole range ofoptions,” he said.

Pillsbury said Trump wasnot seeking to cripple US-China trade, instead positingthat he wanted to “increase thelevel of trade to rectify thedeficit”

�� ;��

Egyptian security forcesclashed with hundreds of

anti-government protesters inthe port city of Suez onSaturday, firing tear gas and liverounds, said several residentswho participated in thedemonstrations.

A heavy security presencewas also maintained in Cairo’sTahrir Square, the epicentre ofEgypt’s 2011 revolution, afterprotests in several cities called forthe removal of general-turned-president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Such demonstrations arerare after Egypt effectivelybanned protests under a lawpassed following the 2013 mil-itary ouster of Islamist ex-president Mohamed Morsi.

But discontent over risingprices has been swelling inEgypt, where Sisi’s govern-ment has imposed strict aus-terity measures since 2016 aspart of a $12-billion loanpackage from theInternational Monetary Fund.Nearly one in three Egyptianslives below the poverty line onless than $1.40 a day, accord-ing to official figures releasedin July.

On Saturday, protestersheaded to downtown Suez forthe second night in a row,where they were met by secu-rity forces barricading thestreets and armoured vehicles.

“There were about 200 orso people. They (security

forces) fired tear gas, rubberand live bullets and there wereinjuries”, a man who took partin the demonstration butdeclined to be named told AFP.

Another resident, who alsopreferred to remain anony-mous, said the tear gas was sothick it had reached her apart-ment block a few kilometresaway from the turbulent down-town area.

“My nose started burningup. The smell was seepingthrough the balcony. I also sawsome youth run and hide inour street,” the woman said.

On late Friday, hundreds ofEgyptians poured through thestreets of Cairo, chanting slo-gans including “Leave, Sisi!”and demanding the “fall of theregime”.

At least 74 people werearrested after clashes betweenthe crowds and police in thecapital, a security source toldAFP. The protests came afterMohamed Aly, an exiled busi-nessman and opponent of Sisiposted calls online for demon-strations against Sisi.

He upped the pressure onSaturday in an expletive-filledvideo, imploring Egyptians tojoin a “million-man march”next Friday and to fill all“major squares” of the country.

“This is a people’s revolu-tion... We have to link uptogether as one... And organisegoing down to the majorsquares,” he said in a Facebookappeal to his followers.

�� "��

Abus rammed into amountain on Sunday

after the driver lost controlwhile taking a turn on a hillyroad in Pakistan’s northwest,killing at least 26 people,including children, and injur-ing 13 others, police said.

The accident happened inthe Babusar Top area, bor-dering Khyber Pakhtunkhwaprovince with Gilgit-Baltistan(GB).

The bus was goingtowards Rawalpindi fromSkardu city and there were 40passengers, including 16Pakistan Army personnel,the Express Tribune reported.

R asheed Arshad, aspokesman for the Gilgit-Baltistan chief minister, con-firmed that 26 bodies, amongthem women and children,have been retrieved from thewreckage.

He said 13 passengerswere admitted to the districtheadquarters hospital in

Chilas and some of themwere in critical condition.

The passenger bus,belonging to a private com-pany, departed from Skarduon Saturday for Rawalpindi.On Sunday morning, the dri-ver lost control of the buswhile taking a turn and it col-lided against a mountain. It isnot clear yet how the driverlost control of the vehicle,according to Diamer policespokesperson MohammadWakeel.

Police said that rescueand police teams had beendispatched to the site of theaccident. Additionally, ahelicopter has been request-ed from the GB governmentso as to transport the bodiesto Skardu following identi-fication, Dawn News report-ed.

The Babusar Pass road,frequently used by tourists,remains open from the end ofJune to October every year. Itis then closed following heavysnowfall at Babusar Top.

�� :��

Anumber of public aware-ness events, including a

Gandhi March for non-vio-lence, will be held next week inthe Netherlands to mark the150th birth anniversary ofMahatma Gandhi.

The events — which alsoincludes a cycling rally, an exhi-bition on the life of MahatmaGandhi, a commemorationmeeting, events surroundingthe four Gandhi statues in thecountry and a school outreachprogramme — are being organ-ised by the Indian Embassy herein cooperation with the GandhiNon-Violence Foundation andother groups.

The celebrations will com-mence with the cycling rally onSeptember 29 to spread aware-ness about the Gandhian phi-losophy of simplicity and sus-tainability, India’s Embassy heresaid in a statement..

The rally in the city of TheHague will begin at theEmbassy of India and passthrough the iconic PeacePalace, the Parliament(Binnenhof), and the mostpopular seaside resortScheveningen and return to theEmbassy of India.

From October 1 to October4, an exhibition on the “Life

and Message of Gandhi” will bedisplayed in the Atrium of theCity Hall of The Hague.

The exhibition in Dutchwill show the viewers theimportant phases of MahatmaGandhi’s life.

From September 24 toOctober 3, volunteers will fanout to schools and universitiesof the Netherlands in a “Followthe Mahatma” campaign andtalk about Gandhi’s message ofnon-violence and its relevancein today’s world.

This school project aspiresto reach over 25 schools andover 1,600 children.

The aim of the programmeis to bring together volunteerswho in turn can reach out toseveral thousand studentsaimed at disseminating themessage of non-violence.

The International Day of

Non-Violence on October 2will be marked by a “GandhiMarch for Non-Violence”through the city of The Hagueto highlight the importance ofthe message of non-violence.

Around 300 school chil-dren and 150 adults will takepart in the march which willbegin from the Gandhi statueat Hobbemaplein and con-clude at the iconic Peace Palace.

The rally will be addressedby India’s Ambassador VenuRajamony and other digni-taries in the courtyard of thePeace Palace.

This will be followed byplanting of a tree in the PeacePalace. A plaque with a mes-sage of Mahatma Gandhi willbe placed by the tree.

Other celebrations onOctober 2 include garlandingof Gandhi statues in The

H a g u e ,A m s t e r d a m ,Utrecht andZoetermeer, withthe public payingtributes by plac-ing flowers at thefeet of the statuesas a mark ofrespect amidstspeeches, singingof favourite songsof Gandhi, cul-tural programmes

and a memorial meeting byStichting Standbeeld MahatmaGandhi in the Peace Palace.

A social media campaignwill also be conducted invitingpeople to post messages reit-erating their commitment tothe principle of non-violence.

This year marks the 150thanniversary of MahatmaGandhi, the Father of theNation. He led India to inde-pendence from the British rulethrough peaceful and non-vio-lent resistance. In 2007, theUnited Nations declared hisbirthday October 2 as theInternational Day of Non-Violence and called uponcountries and people across theworld to celebrate and observethis day by disseminating themessage of non-violence,including through educationand public awareness.

��

The water from meltingAntarctic glaciers, flow-

ing through the ice andbeneath them, is rapidly accel-erating further thawing of thecontinent’s ice sheets towardsthe sea, according to a study.

The study, published inthe journal NatureCommunications, is the firsttime researchers have foundthat melting on the surfaceimpacts the flow of glaciers inAntarctica.

Researchers, includingthose from the University ofSheffield in the Uk, usedimagery and data from satel-lites along with regional cli-mate modelling and foundthat meltwater is causing someglaciers to move 100 per centfaster than average — by up to400 metres per year.

According to theresearchers, gravity causesglaciers to move downhill withthe internal deformation of ice,and by sliding over the groundbeneath them — a processlubricated by liquid watercalled basal sliding.

The study shows that themovement of glaciers in the

Antarctic peninsula coincideswith spikes in snowmelt.

The researchers add thatthis is due to the surface melt-water penetrating into the icebed, and lubricating the slid-ing of glaciers.

As temperatures continueto rise in the Antarctic, surfacemelting could occur more fre-quently, and across a widerarea, the researchers said.

According to the study, theAntarctic temperature is animportant factor in determin-ing the speed at which glaci-ers move towards the sea.

Ultimately, the researcherssaid that glaciers on theAntarctic Peninsula wouldbehave like those in present-day Greenland and Alaska,where meltwater controls thesize and timing of variations inglacier flow across seasonsand years.

“Our research shows forthe first time that surfacemeltwater is getting beneathglaciers in the AntarcticPeninsula – causing shortbursts of sliding towards thesea 100 per cent faster thannormal,” said co-authorJeremy Ely of the University ofSheffield.

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US President Donald Trumpwill stand before the

United Nations on Tuesday todeclare his country top of theworld. But with diplomatictroubles building, his annualboast may ring hollow.

Trump’s political brand isas well known inside theUnited Nations as his busi-nessman version is to the restof New York: brash,unabashedly self-promoting,and all about claiming the win.

At this year’s UN GeneralAssembly, the former real estatetycoon won’t disappoint.

“We’ll say the United Statesis the greatest country in theworld. It’s never been strongerand it’s never been better,” hesaid in a mini-review of hisspeech.

Oh -- and that Americans“certainly have one of the greatpresidents in our history.”

Trump’s declaration lastyear that he had “accomplishedmore than almost any admin-istration in the history of ourcountry” triggered laughter inthe cavernous UN hall.

Headlines like “The WholeWorld Laughed at Trump” fol-lowed, to which Trump insist-ed that diplomats were chuck-ling with, not at him.

A year later, with Trumpbeset by setbacks from NorthKorea to Iran and Venezuela toChina, will his Big Apple brag-gadocio get a better reception?

A senior administrationofficial told reporters ahead ofthe assembly that Trump wouldwork to “affirm America’s lead-ership role in the rules-basedinternational system.”

But the US presidentprefers to go it alone, preferringbilateral deals to coalitions,negotiating with enemies andclashing with friends.

On Monday, he’ll skip a bigclimate change summit organ-ised by the UN secretary gen-eral. Trump, who promotesfossil fuels and derides theneed for renewable energy,also missed climate changetalks at the recent G7 summitin France.

While at the UN, he’ll meetseparately with around a dozenleaders.

But of them, the onlyEuropean representative cur-rently on the list is BorisJohnson, the prime ministerrunning the chaotic Brexitprocess of trying to pull Britainout of the EU.

There will be intensescrutiny of a meeting onWednesday with Ukraine’sPresident Volodymyr Zelensky.

Trump is alleged to haveattempted to persuade theUkrainian to investigate one ofhis 2020 presidential chal-lengers, Joe Biden.

A larger-than-life figure,Trump believes that his per-sonality enables him to succeedwhere conventional diplomacyfails.

��

The United Nations envoy forYemen welcomed Saturday

an offer from the country’s Huthirebels to halt all attacks on SaudiArabia, saying it could bring anend to years of bloody conflict.

Implementation of the ini-tiative by the Huthis “in goodfaith could send a powerfulmessage of the will to end thewar”, Special Envoy for YemenMartin Griffiths said.

The Iran-backed Huthis,which control the capital Sanaaand other parts of Yemen, havebeen fighting against a Saudi-ledcoalition which supports thecountry’s internationally recog-nised government in a devastat-ing five-year war.

Griffiths hailed “the desirefor a political solution to end theconflict” in a statement issuedfrom the UN headquarters inNew York. On Friday, the Huthisproposed halting attacks onSaudi Arabia as part of a peaceinitiative. Saudi Arabia gave acautious response, with minis-ter of state for foreign affairsAdel al-Jubeir saying onSaturday, “We judge other par-ties by their deeds, actions andnot by their words, so we will see(whether) they actually do thisor not.”

Griffiths stressed “theimportance of taking advantageof this opportunity and movingforward with all necessary stepsto reduce violence, military esca-lation and unhelpful rhetoric”.

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��4�� The unexpected death of an old friend leads BillyMcBride to take a case in the drought-strickenCentral Valley where he comes face-to-face with anew Goliath: a billionaire farmer and his sister andtheir scheme to steal California’s most valuableresource — water. As Billy and his team pursue truth,old enemies and personal demons resurface forcinghim to confront his own mortality.

Starring Billy Bob Thorton, Dennis Quaid, thedrama releases on October 4 on Amazon PrimeVideo.

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No 5G phone? No problem.You probably don’t want

one anyway. For most people, it’ssmart to stick with a smartphonethat isn’t compatible with speed-ier 5G wireless networks, whichare just starting to roll out.That’s the case even if you thinkyou’ll be hanging on to your nextphone for a few years. Not onlyare the first-generation 5Gphones expensive, their antennasand modems typically workonly with particular 5G networksowned by specific mobile carri-ers. That could limit youroptions if you’re trying to get thefaster speeds while roamingoverseas or if you switchproviders later.

Experts say second-genera-tion phones will address thoseand other shortcomings.

��Samsung, Motorola, LG and

OnePlus already make 5Gphones that use Google’sAndroid system. Huaweiannounced though it’s missingpopular Google apps because ofa US ban on tech exports to theChinese company. IHS Markitsaid phone makers haven’t beenable to keep up with surprising-ly strong demand, especially in

South Korea. Samsung has soldtwo million 5G phones world-wide since April and expects todouble that by the end of theyear. Motorola has seen “tremen-dous engagement and excite-ment” from customers. ButMotorola said such first-gener-ation products primarily suitearly adopters who need to befirst on the block. New iPhones

won’t support 5G.

��EThe speedy wireless technol-

ogy can add a few hundred dol-lars to phone price tags. Forinstance, Samsung’s standardGalaxy S10 phone costs $900; the5G model costs $1,300, thoughSamsung said it also showcasesthe company’s best features,

including a larger screen and abetter camera. For Motorola, 5Gcomes as a $350 option for theexisting Moto Z series phones.

“This territory is reservedfor the leading-edge type ofconsumer, those willing to sac-rifice money to be first,” saidWayne Lam, an analyst at IHSMarkit. The price gap is expect-ed to narrow and eventually dis-appear as 5G becomes a standardfeature, Geoff Blaber of CCSInsight said.

��5G coverage is limited to

certain neighbourhoods in ahandful of cities. While 5Gphones can still connect overexisting 4G LTE networks, “areyou willing to spend extra forsomething you might not seeconsistently until 2021?” IHSMarkit analyst Josh Builta asks.

Wireless networks have ahistory of Balkanisation,although it tends to sort itself out.Verizon and Sprint have beenusing a wireless technologycalled CDMA, while AT&T andT-Mobile use an incompatibleversion called GSM. Early on,phone makers produced separateCDMA and GSM models. But astechnology advanced, they were

able to pack all the necessarycomponents into phones.

Similar all-in-one 5Gphones should be fairly commonby next year, experts say. In fact,T-Mobile CEO John Legere sug-gested the company is holdingback on 5G network expansionsuntil compatible phones comeout later this year. T-Mobile’s cur-rent 5G phones only work withparts of its planned 5G network.Sprint, which T-Mobile is in theprocess of acquiring, said first-generation phones are intendedto show off 5G benefits to thosewho live or spend a lot of timein the company’s nine 5G mar-kets.

Verizon didn’t return mes-sages. AT&T isn’t offering 5G toconsumers yet, although it hasrebranded some existing 4Gservice as “5G E.”

��If you can squeeze another

year or two out of your currentphone, there will be plenty of 5Gphones to choose from by thetime you’re ready to upgrade. Butit’s ok to buy a new, pre-5Gphone now if you can’t wait. Youcan always trade that in for a 5Gmodel later.

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What do films like Gone WithThe Wind, Fault in Our Stars,Harry Potter series or Kai Po

Che and 3 Idiots have in common? Yes,all of them have been inspired by booksand were discovered by a content cre-ator who then crafted them into films.

Now imagine another scenario.What if Yash Raj Films or SanjayLeela Bhansali decide their next film byinteracting with the authors and pub-lishing houses directly? The mindboggles at the exchange of ideas and thegreat content that films would haveaccess to. The audience would also getto know about books which might beembedded with a great idea but haveended up in the back shelves of thepublishing houses.

Therefore, it is very important tohave a platform where the literaryworld engages directly with contentcreators for film, television and digital.This word to screen market givesfilmmakers an opportunity to discov-er the untapped reservoir of Indian lit-erature that can become the next hitstory of Indian cinema.

It is this idea that Jio MAMIMumbai Film Festival has decided toput it into practice. In the fourth edi-tion of the ‘Word to Screen Market’ ittakes a big format leap that will enablethe authors and content creators tohave more face time with each other.

Focussing on what is different inthis edition, Smriti Kiran, artisticdirector, MAMI says, “In the earliereditions we would ask authors and pub-lishers to pitch their work to us. And

then we curated some of their worksand created a list. But we have upgrad-ed our system this year because it isimportant to consistently learn fromwhat is happening in the market andadapt to it.”

This year the festival has asked thepublishers to bring forth the backlogof books that people are not awareabout and pitch it directly to the con-tent creators. This will showcase thehidden gems that have been lyingneglected with publishers and open upavenues for both the directors and thewriters.

The platform will witness 550titles ranging across 30 genres —thrillers, romance, spy drama, paranor-mal, biographies, historical fiction,mythological fiction, sports drama, sci-fi, corporate drama, politics, socialsatires and several non-fiction best-sellers on subjects ranging from histo-ry, society, culture and politics toenvironment and spirituality.

Some of the renowned publisherssuch as — Harper Collins, PenguinRandom House, Juggernaut Books,

DC Books, Westland Publications andRajkamal Prakashan will take part inthe festival. There will also be 40 buy-ers and 24 authors including New York-based award-winning author ManreetSodhi Someshwa of The Taj Conspiracyfame, Amazon bestseller SundariVenkatraman, Jagran-Nielsen best-selling authors, Satya Vyas, NikhilSacchan, Nilotpal Mrinal, DivyaPrakash Dubey and ShashankBharatiya. as well as several other newvoices from the literary world.

The stories will be presented to 40content creation companies — JioStudio, Netf lix, Aamir KhanProductions (AKP), Disney India,Amazon Prime Video, DharmaProductions, Yash Raj Films (YRF),Sony Pictures Entertainment and manyothers.

Swati adds that this will help theauthors, publishing houses and contentcurators to interact closely and buildrelationships and explore the storieswhich can be portrayed on the silverscreen.

However, the transformation of a

book to a film is not easy. The direc-tor has to plot deviations, condense plotpoints and jot down set pieces that couldbe showcased on screen. It is almost likeretelling the story, this time visually.

Such festivals play a vital role in thisscenario especially because the avenuesfor storytelling have gone up. The webspace has paved way for more people toshowcase their talent and bring morecontent forward. Anu Singh Choudhary,consultant and an expert in the publish-ing industry says, “This is the best timefor a storyteller. There is an unquench-able thirst for riveting stories acrossmediums and we are constantly goingback to our bookshelves and bookshopsin search of magic that narrativesdeeply rooted in Indian sensibilitieshold.”

Swati adds that the people who willbe benefitting from this shared spacewill be the end target consumer — read-ers, viewers and audience. A rise in suchplatforms is important because theypush the boundaries of Indian contentby celebrating literature as a potentmuse.

Famously, Arya Stark always preferred hersword Needle to needlework. Still, even she

would be impressed with the giant tapestrynow on show in France that recounts the plotof Game of Thrones in glorious and, ofcourse, gory and salacious detail.

With the award-winning saga aboutpower struggles in mythical Westeros poisedfor more success at the Emmy Awards onSunday, the tapestry’s unveiling this month inthe Normandy town of Bayeux could hardlybe better-timed. The show’s 32 nominationsbroke a single-year record.

Fans who have flocked in their thousandsto see the embroidered artwork are giving ita thumbs-up.

“It’s fantastic. You can see kind of the story,how it all lays out,” Amanda Zides, visitingfrom a suburb of Boston, said as she poredover the tapestry this week. “They did a nicejob — great colour, great detail.”

At 87 meters (285 feet), the tapestry islonger than the width of a soccer pitch andlonger than the famous 11th-century BayeuxTapestry that recounts the Norman invasionof England in 1066. That tapestry served asan inspiration for the Game of Thrones looka-like.

The work was commissioned by thetourism office of Northern Ireland, whereHBO filmed many of the scenes. Irish officialshope the Bayeux exhibit will boost tourism toNorthern Ireland. Its Game of Thrones sites arealready a big draw, attracting 350,000 visitorsin 2018 alone.

“We consider the Bayeux Tapestry as thegrandmother of our Game of Thrones tapes-try,” said Séverine Lecart, director of market-ing in France for Tourism Ireland.

Obvious parallels between the two tapes-tries include the embroidery styles, colours andstructures. Both are divided into three seg-ments, with their central storylines runningthrough the middle bordered by smallerpanels displaying motifs like winged beasts orweaponry. The two works evoke similarthemes of violent conquest and feudal loyal-ties.

The Bayeux Tapestry is thought to havebeen commissioned by William theConqueror’s brother. It tells the story ofWilliam’s conquest of England with vividscenes of battle and palace intrigue. It attractsnearly 400,000 visitors annually and Bayeuxofficials hope the Game of Thrones exhibit will

grow that number.The tapestry begins with fictional King

Robert Baratheon visiting the Stark family inWinterfell and ends with the final scenes fromthe eighth and last season. It took a 30-strongteam of volunteer embroiderers in NorthernIreland nearly four months to stitch the tapes-try in 2017, adding final scenes after Gamesof Thrones last aired in May.

Like the often-racy show, the tapestryincludes several sex scenes. But among visi-tors on Wednesday, scenes depicting DaenerysTargaryen with her dragons and JaimeLannister getting his hand chopped off provedparticularly popular.

“Amazingly-well presented,” said GeoffreyVasse, visiting from the Normandy city ofCaen. “I’m a fan of the series of Game ofThrones and if there is a tapestry just nearby,I wanted to come and see it.”

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The comedy film releases on September 30 on Netflix.

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Social work has often beenlooked at as a synonym ofwelfare. However, the term

has a very loose meaning andmay imply as different things indifferent jurisdictions of theworld. Individuals and institu-tions which help the poor, thehandicapped, and those affect-ed by a calamity are usuallylooked upon as doing greatsocial service. However, if suchinstitutions charge money for thework, it isn’t regarded as socialservice. However, one feels trulyamazed when one finds thatsuch other individuals and insti-tutions as are sincerely and hon-estly devoted to the great task offinal eradication of poverty, dis-ease and crime from the societybut whose mode of work doesnot require the distribution ofmoney or materials are notregarded as institutions of socialservice.

This is because those, whoreact to such institutions withapathy and a lack of apprecia-tion, fail to realise that the reliefmeasures taken to provide themnecessary materials, howeverimportant, touch only the tip ofthe iceberg or deal with only thesurface problems. These mea-sures do not actually rid the soci-ety of poverty or disease or the

tendency to commitcrimes nor do theyattempt to prevent thesuffering at its source.In other words, thesepeople lack a properperspective. They takeonly a short-term, sur-face-view of things.Second, not manyknow that most of thediseases are caused by anxiety,trauma, mental depression, badeating habits, smoking anddrinking. It is also because peo-ple don’t practice meditation andyoga, which could be as effectivein treating or managing suchproblems as medicines.Likewise, it is not known tomany that most of the crimestake place due to mental or crim-inal tendencies in a person.Even poverty is a result of an

economic exploitationof the deprived by therich, apathy of the soci-ety for the less-privi-leged and sloth of thepoor. All this can beeradicated by a socio-spiritual education sys-tem, which strikes at theroots of these prob-lems.

If facts and figures had beenpublished to give people theawareness that the ancient tech-nique of yoga gives hundred-and-one benefits simultaneous-ly and is better and cheaper thanany other mode of service,importance of social work doneby institutions teaching medita-tion would never be under-rated. On the other hand, theirwork will be considered as socialservice par excellence.

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Nineteen-year-old, Pooja Pasi alongwith other children in the neigh-

bourhood began a programme run byCommitted Communities DevelopmentTrust (CCDT), a non-governmentalorganisation. She is a member of ChildProtection Committee.

Her knowledge about civic con-cerns and challenges that the residentsof the slum face are beyond her age.Being a girl, she is passionate about therights of women. “There is only oneplayground in our area. Earlier onlyboys played there. They would drinkand smoke and even the lighting waspoor. Parents did not allow their daugh-ters to go near the ground as they wereconcerned about their safety. The girlsthemselves did not wish to go there asthey did not feel safe,” the teenager says.

To Pooja, a youngfierce advocate of girls’rights, it was incompre-hensible that only boysshould have the accessto the only playgroundin the vicinity of thearea. She tried to resolveand address the issue.And as a member of theChild ProtectionCommittee, she took itas her responsibility towrite to the municipalcorporation requestingfor installation of lightsso that at least the ground would bewell-lit. “We also met the police andrequested them to patrol the area.They understood our problems and

now there is a police vanstationed near theground every day,” shesays.

Hema Pasi, Pooja’smother, was initiallyapprehensive of herdaughter’s involvementwith the activities con-cerning girls’ rights. Butthen, Pooja’s actionsbegan to bear fruit. Now,Hema is a staunch sup-porter of her daughter.

“Initially, my moth-er was opposed to the

initiatives but when I explained to herthat girls too have the right to accesspublic spaces just like the boys, sheunderstood the cause for which I was

fighting. I convinced her to help me.In turn, she convinced other parentsto encourage their daughters to par-ticipate,” Pooja says.

Gradually, the other girls startedto notice the positive changes that weretaking place in and around the local-ity, especially with regard to the play-ground. The girls were finally able touse the ground. “I achieved my realvictory when I helped in organising akho-kho tournament for girls at theground,” she says beaming with pride.

The tournament was a success.Many girls took part in it. When theboys from the locality wanted to par-ticipate in the tournament, Pooja andother members of the committeeorganised a separate one for them.

“I feel very proud because it wasthrough my agency that girls can nowplay at the playground, which was ear-lier occupied exclusively by boys,”Pooja says with a grin on her face.

As a member of two committeesunder the Child Protection pro-gramme, Pooja takes part in variouscommunity activities. “I assist in chil-dren’s school admissions, Aadhaarcard registration while mobilising thewomen of the community wheneverwe need to raise or respond to anyissue or put forth requests or demandsto the municipality,” she says.

Concerned with children’s rights,especially those of girls’, she is criticaland questions, “Boys are always bet-ter treated than girls, which is why itseems that the two have differentrights. But in reality, they have thesame ones. Then, why should girls notbe treated at par with boys?”

She has her future charted out. “Iwant to be in a position of responsi-bility and help people to the best of myability. I want to be a bank manager”says Pooja who is a Bachelor ofCommerce student.

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Exhuming the legacy of someone asextraordinary as Gauri Mishra is noteasy. Her demise on August 17 has

been entirely overlooked. It is not easy toexplain this amnesia or indifference.One of the best-known figures inMadhubani, Bihar, she had a fearless andan indomitable approach towards sup-porting impoverished women. She tookupon herself to question orthodoxies ofevery kind and was the go-to person forevery woman battered by violence.

One of the strongest voices againstregressive gender politics of the ‘80s andthe ‘90s, she was part of an upswell ofactivism against gender violence and sex-ism. Her freedom of thought and invin-cible spirit was infectious. Posted inBihar during that time as the head ofwomen’s empowerment programme,Development of Women and Children inRural Areas (DWCRA), I found myselfvisiting her karmabhoomi, Madhubani,repeatedly for a quick dose of inspiration.

Born in 1933, Gauri married DrBhavanath Mishra of the DarbhangaMedical Hospital when she was a teenag-er and studied for a few years in England.She started her work life as an academicinterested in gender issues. In 1974, theCommittee on Status of Women present-ed its watershed report Towards Equality,that confirmed the worst fear of sceptics.The report combined with nationwideprotests on the custodial Mathura rapecase and an avalanche of dowry deaths,resulted in the emergence of severaltightly-knit women’s organisations.

Gauri’s direct involvement in women’sissues started in the ‘70s, when shebegan assisting German anthropologistand folklorist Erika Moser and AmericanFulbright Scholar Raymond Lee Owensin their research on the Mithila art. Shebegan working on the historiography ofthe art, exploring its social dimensionsand tracing the antiquity of some of theartforms to the Brahma Purana.

By 1977, women artists from the areabecame her prime focus. She founded theMaster Craftsmen’s Association of Mithila

in partnership with Owens to put an endto the exploitation of impoverished,struggling artists by middle-men. Theassociation provided a platform to emi-nent women artists like Jagdamba Devi,Sita Devi, Ganga Devi, Maha SundariDevi, Bauwa Devi, Yamuna Devi, Shanti

Devi, Chano Devi, Lalita Devi, ShashikalaDevi, Leela Devi, sikki artist BindeshwariDevi, paper-mache artist ChandrakalaDevi and sujani artist Karpoori Devi. Itencouraged them to combat the patriar-chal gaze with their artwork. Youngartists like Rani Jha were encouraged to

introduce avant garde feminist themes intheir pictorial vocabulary.

By the ‘80s, she teamed up withactivist Viji Srinivasan to give a new vis-ibility, potency and legitimacy to women’sstruggle. Patterned on Ela Bhatt’s SEWA,the SEWA Mithila was launched in 1983.

Gauri also founded the Nirbhaya Ashram,a shelter for widows and homelesswomen. She helped them to deal withtheir heartbreaks by involving them in hercrusade for social justice and change, acrusade that was much bigger than theirown personal stories. She was deeply

influenced by the Bodhgaya land strug-gle, where women’s quest for independentrights in land had received traction. Vijiwas with the Ford Foundation from1980-86, and then with Oxfam Americabefore founding her own organisation inBihar. She supported Gauri in setting upeconomically viable craft and animal hus-bandry projects. The NGOisation ofwomen’s issues may have resulted in cer-tain serious concerns, but no one coulddoubt that Viji and Gauri were leadinggenuine movements for gender rights andjustice in Bihar.

Our work with grassroots womenbrought us together. We fought forwomen’s right to livelihood and theirindependent rights in land and waterassets. We created radical new templatesand toolboxes. Giving up hope was notan option. I joined their protest march-es and listened to their fiery oratoryagainst dowry and female foeticide at theSaurath Sabha (where Maithil Brahminstraditionally assembled to negotiate mar-riage) and other forums. I can’t but benostalgic about our collective joy whena government owned pond was leased toa woman’s group in Raiyyam. I amequally nostalgic about our schmaltzymoments together, when at the end ofa day spent travelling through villages, wewould eat our rice and fish meal in themoonlight on a charpoy, surrounded byradiant women from Gauri’s ashram, ournight sound tracked by romantic songsof the celebrated Vaishnava poetVidyapati. I began to see myself less as acivil servant and more as an activist.

Viji’s death in 2005 affected GauriMishra deeply. For some time, she leanedon her son Samarendra who joinedSEWA as a project coordinator. Hisdeath in 2011 devasted her completely.She failed to take charge of her life, aban-doned whatever was left of her work andretreated to her family home inDarbhanga. Her work needs to be recog-nised, especially at a time when India hasone of the lowest female labour force par-ticipation rate in the world and is near-ly at the bottom of the GenderDevelopment Index and GenderInequality Index.

(The writer is a former civil servantand an art columnist.)

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Barcelona threw on their starsof the present and the future

but neither Lionel Messi norAnsu Fati could save them froma dismal 2-0 defeat away atGranada.

Messi was still not deemedfit enough to start at LosCarmenes while Fati, the 16-year-old who has lit up La Ligain recent weeks, also began thegame on the bench on Saturday.

But while both came on athalf-time with Barca trailing toRamon Azeez’s opener, it wasGranada that scored again,Alvaro Vadillo converting apenalty after Arturo Vidal wasfound guilty of a handball.

Barcelona have now wononly two of their opening fiveleague games and none awayfrom Camp Nou, this their sec-ond loss already, just one fewerthan the three they suffered dur-ing the entirety of last season.

With seven points on theboard, this is their worst start toa season since 1994.

“Obviously I am worried,”said coach Ernesto Valverde.

“Because we are not gettinggood results and when thathappens in two or three games,it means we are not playing well.”

Instead, Granada go top ofthe table after capitalising onAtletico Madrid’s goalless drawat home to Celta Vigo a fewhours before.

They will stay there untilSunday, when Sevilla, RealMadrid or Athletic Bilbao couldovertake them.

Barcelona are sixth, grasp-ing onto the consolation ofMessi’s second substitute appear-ance in five days that now sug-

gests he has finally recoveredfrom the niggling calf injury sus-tained at the start of August.

Their problems though areunlikely to be solved simply bytheir captain’s return. JuniorFirpo’s error two minutes intohis first start for the club giftedGranada their opening goal andset the tone for a chaotic nightin defence.

And up front, AntoineGriezmann was quiet again,

with little in any of the combi-nations to suggest ErnestoValverde has yet worked outwho will form his best attackingtrio and in what positions.

“In the end, the coach isresponsible and I feel responsi-ble,” Valverde said.

“I always think you canwin or lose but at least you haveto deserve to win when you lose,and today it hasn't been like that.

��With Firpo on the floor,

Gerard Pique scrambled acrossbut Puertas’ shot only looped upoff the defender to the back postwhere Azeez headed in.

Granada seemed hungrierthan Barca and their domi-nance persuaded Valverde tomake two changes at half-time,Messi and Fati replacing CarlesPerez and Firpo.

Messi won a free-kick 30yards out but hit it straight at thewall while Marc-Andre terStegen fumbled a cross and hadto react quickly to claw it backoff his own line.

Any hopes of a Barca come-back were dashed in the 66thminute as Vidal handballed atthe end of a scramble in the boxand Vadillo made no mistakewith the spot-kick.

��

Romelu Lukaku fired InterMilan back top of Serie A

with the second goal of a 2-0 derbywin that extended their perfectstart to the season at the expenseof city rivals AC Milan.

Belgium striker Lukaku andMarcelo Brozovic’s second halfstrikes gave Inter their fourth winin as many games, putting themtwo points ahead of Juventus afterthe champions’ came back from agoal down beat Verona 2-1 thanksto Aaron Ramsey’s first Serie Agoal and a Cristiano Ronaldopenalty.

Antonio Conte’s Inter werelooking for a boost after their dis-mal 1-1 draw in their ChampionsLeague draw against Czech out-siders Slavia Prague.

And they hit back in a fieryMilan derby with Belgian strikerLukaku heading in his third goalin four games with 12 minutesremaining after Brozovic’s 49th-minute opener.

“At 26 years old, I needed andwanted a coach like this, one whomotivates me every day,” saidLukaku of Conte.

“My relationship with Conte isvery strong, he’s a really goodcoach because he’s someone whohelps players to develop a lot.

“I’m really happy to be hereand to be wearing this shirt.”

Milan could thank GianluigiDonnarumma for keeping thematch goalless in the first half after

he denied Lautaro Martinez,Lukaku and Danilo D’Ambrosio.Lautaro had a goal ruled out after35 minutes for being marginallyoffside.

But the breakthrough camefour minutes after the break whenStefano Sensi set up Brozovic,whose def lected shot beatDonnarumma and was confirmedafter consultation with VAR.

Lukaku sealed the win and aperfect 12 points from four gameswhen he guided Nicolo Barella’scross home with a glancing head-er, as AC Milan slip to ninth placewith six points.

“We came from a performancein the Champions League thatleft us with a bitter taste, but gaveus more impetus to face the derbyin the best way,” said Conte.

“It is a deserved victory, I amhappy for our fans, because thederby is always the derby."

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Wrestling was just a route which Deepak Puniahoped would find him a good job to help sustain

his family.He wanted a job and was even offered the post of

a sepoy in the Indian Army back in 2016.But he was told to dream big and not settle for lit-

tle things in life by none other than Sushil Kumar.“Keep wrestling as your priority, jobs will chase you

later,” Sushil, India’s most successful wrestler with twoOlympic medals and a world title, had told him, besidesarranging for a sponsorship.

He became a World Cadet champion in 2016 andonly last month won the junior World title, only thefourth Indian ever to do so and first in 18 years.

Within one month of that feat in Estonia, he foundhimself face-to-face with his idol and Iranian great HasanYazdani for a clash, the winner of which would becrowned the senior world champion.

It is a pity that the bout did not happen because ofthe ankle injury he sustained during the semifinal againstSwitzerland’s Stefan Reichmuth and he settled for a sil-ver.

He missed out on a great opportunity to wrestle withone of the best the sport has seen in its history.

But the last three years in Deepak Punia’s life stillsounds like a dream.

So, what is it that makes Deepak India’s best inheavyweight category in recent times. The results havecome thick and fast.

“It’s a combination of a lot of things. Everything hasto come together,” said India’s former foreign coachVladimir Mestvirishvili, who has played a key role inDeepak’s progress as a world-class grappler.

“You need four things — brain, power, luck and flex-ibility on the mat. Deepak has all. He is a disciplinedwrestler and that he gets from his father.

“Boys usually get bored with the repetition processwhen they are told to learn a new technique but Deepakwould do it for two, three, four days unless he gets it.It comes from family.”

It’s true.His father Subash has been coming to his training

centre every morning to deliver milk and fruits to himsince 2015 despite the fact their Chhara village in Jhajjardistrict in Haryana is at a distance of 60km.

That Deepak has immense appetite for milk wasknown from his childhood when he was a four-year-old kid and even it has a role in him getting the moniker'Ketli pehalwan'.

The Sarpanch of his village once offered him milkwhich was kept in a 'ketli' (kettle). He drank that in onegulp. He was offered a second, a third and a fourth andhe finished all.

From then onwards, people started calling him 'ketlipehalwan'. Deepak said staying disciplined has been abig reason for his success.

"I like hanging out with friends, going to malls anddoing some shopping. But we are not allowed to go outof the training centre. I like buying shoes, shirts and jeans,though I don't get to wear them because I am alwaysin a tracksuit," he said.

"Whenever I get a chance, like after the tournaments,I go out and eat even junk food. But once the break isover, I don't think about anything else. Wrestling andtraining is life then."

The sponsorship he got from OGQ took away a bitof worry and he began to concentrate on honing hisskills.

�� +��J>R>��K

Rahul Aware won the biggest medalof his career by bagging a Bronzewhile an injured Deepak Punia

settled for a Silver after pulling out ofthe final as India celebrated its best-everperformance at the World WrestlingChampionship here on Sunday.

Aware outclassed Tyler Lee Graff,the 2017 Pan- America champion, 11-4 in the 61kg bronze play-off to takeIndia’s tally to five medals.

Deepak, the reigning junior worldchampion did not take mat againstIranian great Hasan Yazdani due to anankle injury, sustained during the semi-final.

The other medal winners in this edi-tion are Bajrang Punia, Ravi Dahiya andVinesh Phogat.

India’s previous best show was at the2013 edition, when the country had wonthree medals through Amit Dahiya(Silver), Bajrang Punia (Bronze ) andSandeep Tulsi Yadav (Bronze inGreco-Roman)

Winning Gold medal at the 2018Commonwealth Games was 27-year-oldAware’s best performance before.

“I could have won a Gold. It waswithin my reach. I could have won thatsemi-final (against Beka Lomtadze). Ibotched it up in the first period,” Awaretold PTI.

Aware had shown early promisewhen he won Bronze medals at theAsian Championships in 2009 and2011 but suddenly vanished from thescene after that.

“The injuries pegged me back. I wasready in 2014 but then there were no tri-als for the CWG or the Asian Games. So

I did not get a chance to prove myworth,” he argued.

“I feared for losing this chance. Aftera long time, something good was wait-ing for me and I was really scared to loseit. I am glad I pulled it off,” Aware heaveda sigh of relief.

Westling of late has been a sportdominated by grapplers from Haryanaand Aware is first from Maharashtra towin a senior World medal.

“But Maratha sports history willremember me for winning this medal.I am first from that region to do this,"he said adding that he would dedicatehis medal to his first coach, lateHarichander Brajdar.

For the record, the greatest everMaharashtrian wrestler undoubtedly islate KD Jadhav, who won independentIndia’s first individual medal, a bronzein the 1952 Helsinki Olympics.

Aware, who now trains under KakaPawar in Pune, said he was under a lotof self-imposed pressure going into thebout. The American surprised Awarewith a double leg attack, the moment thebout started and earned two points witha takedown.

However, he became alert and twice

wriggled out of Graff ’s right leg attacks.He also scored consecutive takedownpoints to lead 4-2 at the break.

In the second period too, Graff gothold of Aware’s right leg but the Indiangot himself out of trouble in an impres-sive manner.

He then pulled the bout away fromthe American with a flurry of moves -the takedowns and expose -taking acommanding 10-2 lead. It consolidatedfurther when the American lost a chal-lenge. Eventually he won 11-4.

The morning of the final day of thechampionships brought with it thenews that Deepak will not be able tocompete in Sunday’s final.

“The left foot is not taking the load.It’s difficult to fight in this condition andcould have aggravated the injury. I knowit was a big chance to fight againstYazdani but I can't help it,” Deepak toldPTI.

Deepak had come out of the matlimping and a swollen right eye after hissemifinal against Switzerland’s StefanReichmuth.

It was a good draw for Deepak andhe exploited it to get the biggest medalof his career.

In a dream run, Deepak reached thefinal with wins over Reichmuth,Colombia’s Carlos Arturo Mendez andKazakhstan’s Adilet Davlumbayev. Hebecame only the fifth Indian ever toreach the World Championship finalafter Bishamber Singh (1967) SushilKumar (2010), Amit Dahiya (2013) andBajrang Punia (2018). Only last year hehad won the junior world championship.

Sushil Kumar remains India’s onlyWorld Champion. He had won a Goldin 2010 in Moscow

�� :��@

Jack Sock and Nick Kyrgiospaired up to defeat Rafael Nadal

and Stefanos Tsitsipas as TeamWorld cut Europe’s lead to 7-5heading into the final day of theLaver Cup in Geneva.

Sock and Kyrgios wonSaturday’s doubles 6-4, 3-6, 10-6after Nadal defeated Milos Raonicin his first match since his USOpen triumph in the singles.

“There was a lot on the linethere,” said Sock. “We obviouslywanted to keep the overall week-end close. Being down 9-3 is dif-ferent than 7-5.

“We’ve had so many chancesthis weekend, it’s been crazy, so Ithink the score could be the otherway round.

“I thought it was a high qual-ity match and we’re definitelyhappy to get the win.”

Nadal, who won his 19thGrand Slam title in New York, hadearlier overcome Canada’s Raonic6-3, 7-6 (7/1) after defendingeight break points in the first set.

“I feel very lucky,” said Nadal.“I think he deserved that first

set for sure. Later in the match Ithink I started to play a little bitbetter.”

Roger Federer, who won his

first match alongside AlexanderZverev in Friday's doubles tie,beat Australian Kyrgios 6-7 (5/7),7-5, 10-7 to the delight of his17,000-strong home crowd.

“The crowd could feel it, Icould feel it. I needed to get someenergy going but you can’t do thatif you don’t play any good shotsand Nick was playing very well,”said Federer, the 20-time GrandSlam champion.

“I was just trying to stayfocused. If you can turn themomentum, the crowd gets backinto it and I need some earplugsnext time, it was just phenomenal."

Bjorn Borg's holders had seen

Team World draw level with JohnIsner's victory over Zverev.

Isner fought back from a setdown to beat Zverev 6-7 (2/7), 6-4, 10-1 and haul Team World levelat 3-3 after Europe led by twopoints after the opening day.

The scoring system sees onepoint awarded for each win on thefirst day, two points given for eachvictory on the second day, andthree points on offer in eachmatch on Sunday's final day.

This year is the first time thetournament has been played sincebeing added to the ATP Tour.Europe won the 2018 edition 13-8 in Chicago.

��

Venus Williams' first visit to Asia since 2017was cut short as she crashed out of the

Wuhan Open first round on Sunday 7-5, 7-6 (7/5) to fellow American Danielle Collins.

The 39-year-old Williams, a 2015 Wuhanchampion now 59th in the world rankings,squandered a lead in the first set before even-tually losing to Collins, who recorded just thesecond match win of her career on Chinesesoil.

The 35th-ranked Collins rallied backfrom 3-5 down in the opening set, winninga whopping nine games in a row to go up 7-5, 5-0.

Williams, a wildcard at Wuhan this year,finally stopped the bleeding, holding the serveto interrupt her opponent's momentum.

It was the start of a surprising five-game

run from Williams, who saved two matchpoints along the way as she drew level at 5-5. In the decider, Williams got the first mini-break but it was Collins who eventually cre-ated a 6-4 gap, converting with an ace on herfourth match point to move into the secondround.

It was Collins' second triumph overWilliams, who had also stumbled against the25-year-old during the Miami Open last year.

"This is my first tournament here in Asia,I was just happy to come out with a win, saidCollins, who next takes on defending cham-pion and ninth seed Aryna Sabalenka, a 6-1,6-2 winner over Aliaksandra Sasnovich.

Former US Open champion SloaneStephens battled past home favourite ZhangShuai 7-5, 6-4 to take just her second win atWuhan from four starts.

Stephens had lost her last two matchesagainst Zhang, and was relieved to getthrough unscathed.

The American had won just one of herlast seven matches on tour but said she was-n't concerned about her performance this year.

"I don't really dwell on things, just moveon," the 14th-ranked Stephens said.

"The season is not fully behind me, I'mstill playing, but when I'm done, it'll definite-ly be behind me. I'm just going to get in thebest shape I can, have a great off-season, andget ready for next year."

��Meanwhile, 2017 Wuhan runner-up

Ashleigh Barty is making sure she hasenough left in the tank for a busy closingstretch of the season, including her singles

debut at the WTA Finals in Shenzhen anda highly-anticipated Fed Cup final betweenAustralia and France in Perth.

Barty is top seed at Wuhan and facesa stiff challenge in the fight for the year-end number one ranking from the likes ofKarolina Pliskova, Simona Halep, BiancaAndreescu and Naomi Osaka. The 23-year-old Australian is first-ranked thisweek and would like to finish the year ontop, but admitted that she has other pri-orities.

"I think it's a target without being a tar-get," Barty told reporters.

"We've put ourselves in a positionwhere it's a possibility. I plan my sched-ule, the last six months of this year, wellin advance. I think I'm not going to changeit to try and chase it," she added.

��

West Ham inflicted more away-daypain on a poor Manchester

United side on Sunday, lifting them-selves to fourth in the Premier Leaguewith a comfortable 2-0 win at theLondon Stadium.

Andriy Yarmolenko's goal shortlybefore half-time and a wonderful lateAaron Cresswell free-kick extendedUnited's barren run on the road.

United, who started the season bythumping Chelsea 4-0, have lost twicealready in their opening six leaguegames and lie seventh, without anaway win in any competition sinceMarch.

Injury-hit United were withoutmidfielder Paul Pogba and forwardAnthony Martial and huffed and puffedbut failed to break down their doggedopponents.

West Ham are riding high underManuel Pellegrini, unbeaten since a 5-0 drubbing in the first match of the sea-son and this victory followed a homewin last season against United at theLondon Stadium.

But it was a chastening day for OleGunnar Solskjaer's men, just a day afterchampions Manchester City came closeto matching United's Premier Leaguerecord for margin of victory -- 9-0against Ipswich in 1995.

Solskjaer played the same side thattriumphed against Leicester last weekwhile Pablo Fornals came in for theinjured Manuel Lanzini for the homeside. Both sides were cagey at the startof the match, with neither side able tocreate clear-cut chances.

West Ham looked the more inven-tive team when they broke forward

while United looked ponderous inattack and lacking in ideas, with MarcusRashford isolated up front.

The match was drifting towards theinterval before Felipe Anderson andYarmolenko combined to sap United'sconfidence with a goal in the 44thminute.

United went close to an equaliserearly in the second half as the rain camedown in London, with Juan Mata miss-ing from close range after an AndreasPereira cross.

Already short of options up frontand missing creators in midfield, theylost Rashford just before the hourmark, replaced by the out-of-formJesse Lingard. West Ham went close todoubling their lead shortly afterwardsbut David de Gea got down low to keepout an Anderson shot from a tight angle.

United upped the pressure and WestHam had goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianskito thank for keeping out a HarryMaguire strike from close range.

But West Ham continued to lookmore dangerous on the break andmade United pay when Ashley Youngbrought down Mark Noble on theedge of the penalty area.

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India captain Virat Kohli's boldmove to bat first boomerangedon his team as Quinton de

Kock (79) spearheaded SouthAfrica's chase for a series-levellingnine-wicket win in the third T20International here on Sunday.

To everyone's surprise, Kohliopted to bat after the coin landedin his favour on one of the small-est grounds, always known tofavour teams chasing in the short-est format.

Initially though, the decisionseemed to have worked as Indiaraced to 54 for one in six overs atthe M Chinnaswamy Stadium.

The departure of ShikharDhawan gave the South Africans anopening, and they grabbed it withboth hands, snuffing out eightIndian wickets for 71 runs.

In their chase, South Africancaptain de Kock looked in completecontrol and struck six fours and fivesixes in his unbeaten 52-ballunbeaten 79.

He added 76 runs for the firstwicket with Reeza Hendricks in 10overs and then put on another 64with Temba Bavuma. After movingto 19 in four overs, De Kock cutloose by hitting Navdeep Saini fortwo sixes, and there was no look-

ing back.Earlier, India were stopped at

134 for nine by a disciplined SouthAfrican attack.

Top-scorer Dhawan blazed

away to a 25-ball 36 and got Indiaoff to a brisk start that yielded them54 runs in the first six overs.

Kagiso Rabada was expensivebut picked up three wickets, while

there were two apiece for BjornFortuin (2/19 in 3 overs) andBeuran Hendricks (2/14).

Playing in his first game of theseries, Beuran Hendricks was the

team's best bowler without a doubtas he choked run-flow in the mid-dle overs along with left-arm spin-ner Fortuin.

Rohit Sharma got out early but

he did put pace spearhead KagisoRabada under pressure straight-away, striking him for two bound-aries in his first over - one overcover and the other through extra

cover.That brought crowd favourite

Kohli in the middle but Dhawan,who began the innings with aboundary, was in charge and wel-comed leg-spinner Tabraiz Shamsiwith back-to-back sixes.

The first six was smashed overlong-on and the for the secondmaximum, Dhawan sashayed downthe ground, played against theturn, before striking the balltowards long-off.

Going for one too many,Dhawan mistimed Shamsi, who hadhis revenge after Temba Bavumacompleted a neat catch. Kohli, too,followed suit as AndilePhehlukwayo pulled off a fine run-ning catch in the deep, much toRabada, the bowler on the occasion,and his team's relief.

Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant,who improvised to scoop DwainePretorius over the fine leg bound-ary, threw away their wickets with-in two balls, leaving India in trou-ble at 92 for five in the 13th over.

After Pant fell prey to Fortuin'ssmart piece of bowling, Iyer steppedout out only to be stumped off awide ball.

It was yet another failure forPant and once again to a left-armspinner. After Santner accountedhim in the World Cup, Fortuin hasnow got him twice in two games.

At the toss, Kohli's contentionwas that he doesn't want the teamto slip into a comfort zone. Battingfirst or second, he wants his teamto be a master of all situations withlittle more than a year left for theT20 World Cup.

However, it did not prove to bea successful move as South Africastaged a strong comeback to levelthe three-match series 1-1 after thefirst game was washed out.

�� :"��

Ferrari's Sebastian Vettelended his year-long drought

without a win at the SingaporeGrand Prix on Sunday, master-ing a hazy circuit to claim arecord fifth triumph in thecity-state.

The German was chasedhome by teammate CharlesLeclerc, who started on pole butlost the lead to the four-timeworld champion after makinghis pit stop, and Red Bull's MaxVerstappen, who finished third.

"It was a very late call on thepit stop and I just gave it every-thing on the out lap. I was sur-prised to come out ahead andit was difficult to manage thetyres but we controlled it to theend," Vettel told reporters.

Championship leaderLewis Hamilton finished fourthbut extended his advantageover fellow Mercedes driverValtteri Bottas to 65 points, withsix races remaining, after theFinn finished in fifth.

The race got off to a cleanstart with the top six retaining

their grid positions despiteVettel putting immense pressureon second-placed Hamilton inthe opening lap.

While a few drivers wereshifting position further downthe field, the frontrunners weremaintaining a one-second gapbetween each other as Leclercset a slow pace to make his softtyres last as long as possible.

Ferrari and Red Bull were

the first of the big teams to bringtheir cars in for pit stops asVettel and Verstappen were fit-ted with the more durable hardtyres on lap 20, with Leclerc fol-lowing suit on the next lap.

Leclerc, however, was dis-mayed to leave the pits behindVettel. Hamilton stayed out ontrack in the lead to set aboutforging a big enough gap toretain the lead when it was his

turn to come in.But Vettel, Leclerc and

Verstappen were lapping muchquicker than Hamilton andwhen the Briton finally stoppedseven laps after his rivals, heemerged in a distant fourthplace.

Hamilton's only hope ofvictory was to capitalise on hisrivals' degraded tyres late in therace.

But three safety car periods— when both George Russelland Sergio Perez stopped onthe track, and when DaniilKvyat collided with KimiRaikkonen -- allowed the frontthree plenty of time to cooltheir rubber.

Ferrari will be delighted tohave recorded a one-two finishat a circuit they were not expect-ed to muster a podium finish.

But Leclerc was unhappywith the pit strategy that dashedhis hopes of a hat-trick afterwins in Belgium and Italy.

��

India's fastest woman Dutee Chandhas set herself a target of reaching

the finals of the women's 100m dashin the World Championships start-ing in Doha on September 27 witha personal best timing.

Dutee, who these days has beentraining at night similar to hercompetition schedule in Doha, saidshe is determined to make amendsof her disappointing performance inthe last edition of the event in 2017London.

"I hope to run my best in Doha,that is my target. I could not reachthe semifinals last time but I amhoping to reach the finals this time.It will not be easy but I will be real-ly happy if I do that," Dutee told PTI.

In the 2017 London WorldChampionships, Dutee ran a disap-pointing 12.07 second in the heatsand failed to reach the semifinals.

Dutee could not touch the DohaWorld Championships qualifica-tion mark of 11.24 seconds but herpersonal best effort of 11.26 seconds,which is also the national record,during the Asian Championships inDoha in April, ensured that she wasamong the maximum target num-ber of competitors for the event.

"I am training at night thesedays around 7pm to 8pm to adjustto my race timings in Doha and mypreparations are going well. Let ussee what happens in Doha," saidthe 23-year-old Odisha athlete,who became the first top Indianathlete to have confessed to samesex relationship.

Dutee, who became the firstIndian to win a 100m gold in aglobal event during the World

University Games in July, has beentraining with her coach N Rameshat the Kalinga Stadium inBhubaneswar.

In Doha, she will run in thewomen's 100m heats on September28 at 4:30pm local time and 7pmIndian time.

She, however, is not hoping toqualify for the Tokyo Olympicsfrom the World Championships -- for which the qualification stan-dard is a tough 11.15 seconds.

"It is the end of the season andI have run a lot of races this year.So, I have to see how far I can pushmy body to run faster. It will be dif-ficult to run that mark (11.15). It

is not only for me but for other ath-letes also," Dutee said.

"I am not running any morecompetitive race and I have to trynext year for Olympics qualifica-tion," said Dutee, who has run 15competitive races this season (3Indian Prix, 3 in Fed Cup, 3 inNational Inter-State, 3 in WorldUniversiade and 3 in AsianChampionships).

The biennial WorldChampionships are normally heldnot later than August but in viewof the heat in Doha, the showpieceevent is being pushed to Septemberend to early October. The late sea-son fixture and the heat, which willbe still high, may impact the tim-ings of the athletes.

Under normal circumstances,athletics season ends in Septemberand top athletes all over the worldhave tweaked their training andcompetition schedule to able topeak during the WorldChampionships in Doha.

Dutee, who is leaving for Dohaon September 25, said her coach NRamesh will accompany her andshe will bear all his expenses as heis not a member of the officialIndian contingent.

"All the expenses for accom-modation and flight will be borneby me. I have requested the AFI toarrange for a pass for him to beable to be at the stadium when Irun my race. The AFI has said yes,"she said.

She also rued that she couldnot travel to Europe to run a cou-ple of races in the first half of lastmonth due to visa issues and laterbecause of some technical prob-lems.

��

Mahendra Singh Dhoni will not be availablefor selection until November this year,

according to the Mumbai Mirror.The former India captain had previously

missed the West Indies tour after taking a breakof two months which also meant that he missedthe ongoing home series against South Africa.The extension of the break means that he willmiss out on the Vijay Hazare Trophy and thehome T20I series against Bangladesh as well.

This means that Dhoni would be availableto play for India only in December when theWest Indies tour the country for three T20Is andas many ODIs. The series is scheduled to starton December 6.

Dhoni had last played for India on July 10when the Men in Blue lost to New Zealand inthe semifinal of the ODI World Cup in England.His break would effectively be nearly sixmonths long.

This comes at a time when there has beenspeculation over the 37-year-old's future in theteam, especially with the team managementgrooming 21-year-old Rishabh Pant as hisreplacement behind the stumps ahead of nextyear's World T20.

Recently, rumours about Dhoni announc-ing his retirement were doing the rounds aftercaptain Virat Kohli tweeted a pic of him andDhoni during a match with the caption: "A gameI can never forget. Special night. This man, mademe run like in a fitness test."

When Kohli was asked about it in a pressconference ahead of India's first T20I againstSouth Africa in Dharamsala, the skipper saidthat he had nothing on his mind when he post-ed the tweet.

"I was sitting at home and I normally putout a photograph and it became a news item. Ithink it was a lesson for me, that the way I think,the whole world does not think that way. Therewas nothing in the farthest stretch of my imag-ination (that it could be taken as retirement trib-ute) while putting that picture out on socialmedia," he said.

�� A�"��

UMumba produced an all-round show to beat

Gujarat Fortunegiants 31-25 ina VIVO Pro Kabaddi Leaguematch at the Sawai MansinghStadium here on Sunday.

Abhishek Singh secured aSuper 10 (11 raid points) for UMumba, who were also miser-ly in their defence, withSurinder Singh and HarendraKumar picking up vital points.

The victory meant theMumbai side jumped to thefourth place in the points tableto consolidate their chances ofmaking to the play-off stages.

The match was a closely-fought affair with two of thebest defences in the leaguegoing head to head.

But Abhishek's raidingbacked up by some incredibledefence by Sandeep Narwaland Surinder Singh opened up

a lead for U Mumba as theyinflicted an all-out on Gujaratto move to a five points leadwith eight minutes still left forhalf time.

Rohit Gulia found chinksin the U Mumbai armour afterthe all-out and his eight-pointhalf helped the Gujarat teamclaw their way back with anall-out with under two minutesto play. The first half endedwith both the sides locked at16-16.

The second half continued

to be the same with bothdefences trading blows.

Unfortunately forGujarat, Sunil Kumar pickedup an injury which disruptedthe team's structure.

With Arjun Deshwal outfor U Mumba with an injury,the raiding responsibilities forthe Mumbai side were solelyon the shoulders of Abhishek.

The raider produced atwo-point raid in the 13thminute after which theMumbai defence successfullytackled Gujarat's Sachin togive U Mumbai a three-pointlead after a long time.

The raider picked his gameup and helped U Mumbasecure an all-out with less thanthree minutes left in the matchto move to a six-point lead.

The defence held firm inthe final minutes to clinch animportant victory for theMumbai side

��

South Africa women started their India tour ona positive note as they defeated Board

President's XI (BPXI) by 83 runs in the secondT20 warm-up match here on Sunday.

The first warm-up game was abandoned dueto inclement weather.

South Africa women first posted a descent 174for 5 after opting to bat and later bundled out thehosts for paltry 91 to kick off their campaign ona high.

Luus, a leg-break bowler, returned with bestfigures of 3-17 for South Africa women as she ranthrough the BPXI’s middle-order.

Wicket-keeper Lizelle Lee stoked her way to65 off just 48 balls for South Africa women,Tazmin Brits made 20 off 19 as they duo shared61 runs for the opening stand to lay the founda-

tion for the score.Lee was in her elements as he took on the

opposition bowlers, hammering 10 fours and a six.BPXI bowlers then removed Brits and one-

down Laura Wolvaardt (7) in quick succession,but that did not deter Lee from playing her nat-ural game.

For the visitors, a late onslaught by Mignondu Preez (40 off 18 balls) coupled with Nandinede Klerk’s 29 helped them go past the 170-runmark. Preez stuck six boundaries and cleared thefence once during her entertaining knock.

For the hosts, off-break bowler TarannumPathan grabbed two wickets conceding 23 runs,while pacers Pooja Vastarakar, part of the mainsquad, had forgettable figures of 1 for 32.

Chasing the target, BPXI were tottering at 4for 6 after their first four batters walked back tothe pavilion in no time.

�� :��

Triple world champion CarolinaMarin retained her China Open title

on Sunday, eight months after sufferinga career-threatening injury.

The Spaniard recovered from agame down to defeat Taiwan's second-seeded Tai Tzu-ying 14-21, 21-17, 21-18 in Changzhou.

A tearful Marin collapsed to thecourt floor and buried her head in herhands after powering to victory in 65minutes.

"It's unbelievable," said the 26-year-old, who injured her anterior cru-ciate ligament in her right knee inJanuary.

"I couldn't imagine during myrehabilitation that I could win in mysecond tournament back.

"But I did and I feel so happy withmyself," added the reigning Olympicchampion.

Japan's world champion Kento

Momota cemented his place as the topmen's player with a 19-21, 21-17, 21-19win over Indonesia's seventh seedAnthony Sinisuka Ginting in theirfinal.

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