After Udaipur case, NIA to take up probe into Amravati killing

In 2019, Adam Harry shot tofame as the country’s fi�rsttransgender trainee pilot, setto receive support from theKerala Government to become a commercial pilot.Two years later, he is a delivery person for Zomato because the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA)says he is unfi�t to fl�y as longas he is on hormone therapy.

The 23yearold, a privatepilot licence (PPL) holderfrom South Africa, securedadmission to the Rajiv Gandhi Academy for AviationTechnology in Thiruvananthapuram in January 2020under the Kerala Govern

ment’s welfare fund fortransgender people. A PPLallows its holder to fl�y an aeroplane as a hobbyist, whereas a commercial pilot canmake a career in fl�ying.

Mr. Harry joined the institute and was soon requiredto undergo the Class 2 medical test to secure a studentpilot’s license. Mr. Harry wasassigned female at birth. He

identifi�ed himself as a transman before the offi�cials anddisplayed male physiologicalcharacteristics such as abeard and a male voice, yethe had no choice but to submit his application as a female because the DGCA’smedical examination formdoesn’t include options fornonbinary genders.

Following an extensiveevaluation, which included apsychometric test that’s notnormally required, theDGCA declared him “temporary unfi�t” on the groundsof gender dysphoria (uneasedue to mismatch between

sex assigned at birth and aperson’s gender identity),and because he is undergoing “cross sex hormone therapy”. He was advised tocomplete his treatment andundertake a medical review.The medical examinationwas far from pleasant.

“The offi�cials were transphobic and asked very personal questions about myphysicality and how would Imarry someone. They werebullying me to undress, evenwhen I asked for a female assistant,” Mr. Harry said.

Five months later, whenhe received a medical clearance, Mr. Harry says it wasgranted because he was“coerced” into stopping his

therapy as the DGCA saysthat as long as he is on medication, he will not be declared fi�t to fl�y. However,since his masculinising hormone therapy is a lifelongtreatment, the DGCA’s current stand forbids him fromever becoming a pilot inIndia.

“I have been advised bymy doctor not to break mytransition therapy. And Ican’t sacrifi�ce my identity formy profession. I want to beable to fl�y as who I am,” Mr.Harry told The Hindu.

“The DGCA is missing anymedical or scientifi�c link between being on testosteronelifelong and fl�ying an aeroplane. If they establish a con

gone a gender reassignmentsurgery or hormone replacement therapy subject to certain rules that have to be followed.

The FAA also allows a pilotto undergo a gender transition while still fl�ying withoutbeing grounded.

In India, the landmark Supreme Court judgment in National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) v Union of Indiarecognised that third genderpersons were entitled to fundamental rights under theConstitution.

It held that no third gender persons should be subjected to any medical examination which would invadetheir right to privacy.

nection, they should ban cismen from fl�ying since theyproduce the same chemicalendogenously,” transrightsactivist and Associate Professor of Biology at Ashoka University, Bittu Kaveri Rajaraman, said.

When the DGCA wasasked why hormone therapyis a ground for denying medical clearance, a senior offi�cial said that though the candidate was informed of thereasons, the details could notbe shared with the media “asper medical ethics”.

The United States aviationregulator, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA),allows a person with genderdysphoria who has under

Transgender status grounds Adam Harry’s dream to be a pilotPrivatepilot licence holder working as a delivery person; DGCA says cross sex hormone therapy renders him unfi�t to fl�y; activist says there is no scientifi�c basis for it

Clipped wings: Adam Harry says he is not willing to sacrifi�cehis identity for his profession. * SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Jagriti Chandra

NEW DELHI

SPECIAL

CMYK

A ND-NDE

july 3, 2022 Delhi

City Edition

Vol.12 O No.27

22 pages O ₹�15.00

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MAGAZINE A 8 PAGES

CLASSIFIEDS A PAGE 4

The Union Home Ministryon Saturday handed over theprobe into the June 21 killingof a pharmacist at Amravatiin Maharashtra to the National Investigation Agency(NIA), amid indications thathe was killed over a socialmedia post in support of suspended Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson NupurSharma.

The Ministry, in a tweet,said it had “handed over theinvestigation of the case relating to the barbaric killingof Shri Umesh Kolhe in Am

ravati in Maharashtra on 21stJune to NIA”. “The conspiracy behind the killing, involvement of organisations andinternational linkages wouldbe thoroughly investigated,”the Ministry added.

The local police have arrested seven persons, in

cluding alleged mastermindIrfan Khan, and seized CCTVfootage of the incident.

The other accused in thecase have been identifi�ed asMuddsir Ahamed, 22, Shahrukh Pathan, 25, AbdulThoufk, 24, Shoaib Khan, 22,Atib Rashid, 22, and Yousuf

Khan Bahadur, 44. Arti Singh, Commissioner

of Police, Amravati City, saidIrfan ran an ambulance service and an NGO for the underprivileged members ofthe Muslim community. Shesaid Kolhe was killed for forwarding a message in support of Ms. Sharma. “He forwarded the post in aWhatsApp group which hadone of the accused as a member. The accused forwardedthe message to [Irfan] Khanwho hatched the entire conspiracy to kill Kolhe toavenge the insult to the Prophet,” Ms. Singh said.

The offi�cer said the policewere never treating the caseas that of a robbery attempt.

After Udaipur case, NIA to takeup probe into Amravati killingPolice arrest sevenpersons, obtainCCTV footage

Special Correspondent

New Delhi

Under scanner: Two of those arrested in connection with thekilling in Amravati on Saturday. * SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

CONTINUED ON A PAGE 6

A Delhi court on Saturdaydenied bail to Alt News cofounder Mohammed Zubairand remanded the journalistin judicial custody for 14days, noting the probe wasin “the initial stage”, considering the “overall facts andcircumstances of the case”and given the “nature andgravity of off�ences”.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Snigdha Sarvaria of thePatiala House court herepronounced the orderaround 7 p.m., almost fi�vehours after the Special Cell(IFSO) DCP K.P.S. Malhotratold the media in a “broadcast” message that Mr. Zubair had been remanded in

judicial custody for 14 days.The statement from the

police had prompted Mr. Zubair’s counsel, advocate Soutik Banerjee, to lash out atthe police: “It speaks of thestatus of rule of law in ourcountry today… How KPSMalhotra knows what the or

der is, is beyond me.” Soonafter Mr. Banerjee’s statement, Mr. Malhotra said hehad “misheard the IO” and“inadvertently” sent themessage to the press.

Police update media about order before court ruling

Abhinay Lakshman

NEW DELHI

No respite: Mohammed Zubair being taken to jail from thePatiala House courts in New Delhi on Saturday. * PTI

Denied bail, Zubair sent tojudicial custody for 14 days

MORE REPORTS A PAGES 3 & 6


BJP president J.P. Nadda onSaturday set the tone for thetwoday national executivemeet of the party in Hyderabad by taking on the Opposition parties which, he said,had “for the purpose of opposing Prime Minister Narendra Modi begun oppos

ing the nation”. Mr. Naddasaid this on a day Chief Minister K. ChandrasekharRao skipped, for the thirdtime, receiving Mr. Modi atthe airport, which, the BJPsaid, was a violation of “constitutional propriety andfederal protocol”.

Nistula Hebbar

HYDERABAD


Opposition workingagainst nation, says BJP

Apologise for sharing a doctored video of Rahul Gandhior face legal action, Congressgeneral secretary in chargeof communications, JairamRamesh, said in a letter toBharatiya Janata Party (BJP)president J.P. Nadda on July 2and mentioned former Un

ion Minister and Lok Sabhamember Rajyavardhan Rathore as “someone who haspersisted with spreading thefake video”.

Twitter too fl�agged a videoshared by Mr. Rathore as“out of context”.

In the video, the BJP leader claimed that Mr. Gandhihad referred to the Udaipur

killers as “youngsters”.Hitting back, the Congress

accused that one of the Udaipur killers, Riyaz Attari, wasa BJP worker and questionedif a probe by NIA was ordered to suppress this aspect. The BJP, however, denied any links to the Udaipurkillers.

“I am appalled to note

that your party colleagueshave been sharing mischievous reportage that occurredon Zee News yesterday [ July1, 2022]. The original videowas Shri. Rahul Gandhi’scomment on the SFI violence on his Wayanad offi�ce,”Mr. Ramesh wrote to Nadda.

Jairam Ramesh alleges that Udaipur killer Riyaz Attari was a BJP worker


New Delhi


Apologise for ‘doctored’ video of Rahul: Cong.

National convener of theAam Aadmi Party (AAP) andDelhi Chief Minister ArvindKejriwal and other partyleaders have been claimingfor the past several monthsthat their government hasprovided 10 lakh jobs in theprivate sector to Delhiitesthrough its Rozgar Bazaarportal.

But only 12,588 peoplehad actually secured jobsthrough the portal till May 1,according to offi�cial data accessed by The Hindu. This fi�gure of 12,588 is also an estimate of the government’s asit’s based solely on phonecalls with people who posted the job openings, withoutcrosschecking with peoplewho actually got the jobs.

The Delhi governmentdoesn’t have names or anyother details of people whoactually got jobs, multiplesources privy to the information confi�rmed.

“The portal was not ahuge success and there wasno mechanism to actuallyfi�nd out how many peoplegot jobs, or their details. Itworked with a very smallteam,” a source told The

Hindu. Despite multiple attempts, the Delhi government refused to commenton this.

The AAP government’sclaims on the “10 lakh jobs”

have varied over the last 20months, depending on whomade the claim and where itwas made.

In an interview with The

Hindu in March, when askedabout it, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia reiteratedthat 10 lakh people actuallygot jobs through the portaland it was not that 10 lakhopenings were posted on theportal.

But as per the data, only76,646 candidates were“screened” by people whoposted the jobs and 12,588were the “candidates selected” from its inception in July2020 till May 1. The government has never made thisdetailed data public.

Santosh Kumar Mehrotra,former Professor and Chairof the Centre for Labour Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, said the actual number of people who got jobsthrough the portal could beeven lesser than 12,588.

AAP’s claims of creating 10 lakh jobs misleadingOnly 12,588 people got jobs via portal

Nikhil M. Babu

New Delhi

Arvind Kejriwal


The 18th edition of the Royal Enfi�eld Himalayan Odyssey being fl�agged off� from India Gate in New Delhi on Saturday. This year,70 riders, embarking on a journey to Umling La, the highest motorable pass in the world, will cover a distance of over 2,700kms in 18 days on their motorcycles. * R.V. MOORTHY

CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC


A Himalayan experience

A court here on Saturdaysent activist Teesta Setalvadand former DirectorGeneral of Police R.B. Sreekumar,arrested for alleged fabrication of evidence in the 2002Gujarat riots cases, to 14dayjudicial custody.

The two were producedbefore Metropolitan Magistrate S.P. Patel after theirpolice custody ended. Thepolice did not seek theirfurther remand, said specialpublic prosecutor Amit Patel. Ms. Setalvad and Mr.Sreekumar were arrestedover an FIR registered lastSaturday by the AhmedabadPolice Crime Branch.

“The investigation offi�cerdid not ask for further custody and they were sent in

judicial custody,” Mr. Patelsaid. Mr. Sreekumar was arrested last Saturday and Ms.Setalvad the next day afterbeing picked up by the Gujarat ATS from Mumbai.

Former IPS offi�cer SanjivBhatt, who is serving lifesentence in a custodialdeath case in a jail in Banaskantha district, is also an accused in the case. He will bebrought to Ahmedabad ontransfer warrant, policesources said.

The crime branch registered the FIR against them aday after the Supreme Courtdismissed a petition challenging the clean chit givenby a Special InvestigationTeam to then Chief MinisterNarendra Modi and othersin the 2002 postGodhrariots cases.

Teesta, Sreekumar sentto judicial custody ‘Police did not seek further remand’

Press Trust of India

Ahmedabad

J&K journalist stoppedfrom fl�ying abroadNEW DELHI

A Pultizerwinning

photojournalist from J&K,

Sanna Irshad Mattoo, was

stopped from fl�ying to Paris

at the Indira Gandhi Interna

tional airport on Saturday.

NEWS A PAGE 6

DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

IN BRIEF

2015 sacrilege cases: SITblames Dera Sacha SaudaCHANDIGARH

A Special Investigation Team

of the Punjab police, probing

the three sacrilege cases of

2015 in Bargari village in

Faridkot district, has indicted

the Sirsabased Dera Sacha

Sauda for the incidents.

STATES A PAGE 3

DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

CMYK

A ND-NDE

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DELHI THE HINDU

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CITY

The height of the landfi�lls inDelhi has not reduced evenby an inch, said the Aam Aadmi Party on Saturday whileattacking erstwhile North,South and East Delhi Municipal Corporations, governedby the BJP, for “spendingthousands of crores of rupeesin the name of clearing thegarbage mounds”.

AAP legislator DurgeshPathak appealed to LieutenantGovernor Vinai KumarSaxena to conduct the MCDelections immediately, claiming that only “AAP can bringfreedom from BJP’s garbagemountains”.

“The LG admitted that

right now the city is surrounded by piles of trash because of the BJP’s failures. Today, from whichever side youenter Delhi, you are welcomed by heaps of garbagethat are scattered all over thecity,” Mr. Pathak said.

Reacting to Mr. Pathak’sstatement, Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said, “It is shameful thatthe AAP legislator is playingdirty politics against the MCDin the name of garbagemounds when the Delhi government itself has made noeff�orts to fl�atten them.” Mr.Kapoor challenged Mr. Pathak to tell Delhi what fi�nancialor technical contribution theArvind Kejriwal governmentmade to the erstwhile municipal corporations for clearing of landfi�ll sites in the lastseven years.

He said it was due to theMCD’s eff�orts that the heightof the mounds did not increase even by an inch in the

last three years. In fact, theheight of the piles had reduced at both Bhalaswa andGhazipur sites, he added.

‘Some mounds reduced’

The MCD, meanwhile, said ithas managed to reduce theheight of the mounds at somelocations and is “committedto fl�atten the garbage piles atthe three landfi�ll sites in thenext two to three years”. Thecivic body said 25 lakh tonnesof legacy waste has been processed at the Bhalaswa landfi�ll, while 11 lakh tonnes ofwaste has been processed atGhazipur. At Okhla landfi�ll,the MCD said it has managedto reduce the height of somemounds by 15 to 30 metres.

‘Crores spent, no change to landfi�lls’ Heaps of garbage scattered all over, says AAP leader; it’s dirty politics, retorts BJP

A garbage mound at Ghazipurlandfi�ll site. * FILE PHOTO

Staff Reporter

New Delhi

Strict action will be takenagainst government offi�cialsif waterlogging recurs at locations prone to it, LieutenantGovernor Vinai KumarSaxena said on Saturday.

The LG’s commentscame while he was inspecting waterloggingprone sitesin the Capital, including theIndraprasthaWHO buildingstretch, the railway underpass at Pul Prahladpur andMinto Bridge.

Mr. Saxena reviewed longterm solutions adopted ateach of these sites to prevent

waterlogging and fl�ooding.Any negligence in this regard, the LG was quoted ashaving said, will be viewedseriously and action will betaken against erring offi�cials.

“While the LG appreciated the work done at Indraprastha and Pul Prahladpur,he expressed displeasure atthe water drainage system atMinto Bridge, the worst waterlogging sites in the Capital,” Raj Niwas said.

“Mr. Saxena fl�agged technical fl�aws in the drainagesystem developed at the siteand warned that the engineers concerned will be

held responsible in case ofwaterlogging at the site,” RajNiwas added.

The LG was informedthat a new underground pipeline had been installed todrain rainwater from MintoBridge to Bhavbhuti Marg towards New Delhi railwaystation.

The LG also expresseddispleasure over the garbage dumped in the sump atMinto Bridge and issued instructions to remove debrisand sludge at Minto Bridge,Indraprastha and Pul Prahladpur in three to four days,the statement added.

He expresses displeasure over poor drainage at Minto Bridge


New Delhi

Will take action against offi�cials ifwaterlogging recurs, warns LG

The BJP on Saturday accused the Aam Aadmi Partyled Delhi government oftrying to avoid discussingissues of public interest bycurtailing the Assemblysession.

The Assembly is scheduled to meet for a twoday session from Monday.

Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Ramvir Singh Bidhuri questioned the rationale behindconvening short sessionswhich, he alleged, was incontravention of procedural norms and “inadequate” to discuss issues.

BJP slams AAPfor twodayHouse session


New Delhi

When Dashrath Ram, 60, asecurity guard working at theSafdarjung Hospital for over22 years, was sacked on Friday. Mr. Ram, who earnedaround ₹�21,000 a month,said his savings were too littleto feed his family of 11 andrun the household even for amonth.

The 60yearold isn’t theonly one staring at this un

certainty. According to DelhiAspatal Theka KaramchariUnion (Hospital contractworkers’ union), around 400security guards working atthe hospital for several yearshave been sacked by the contract agency in the name of“contract renewal”.

A source at SafdarjungHospital said around 300400 security guards weresacked, but the hospital administration did not give any

offi�cial confi�rmation. No response was received from thecontract agency too on theunion’s allegation of “masstermination”.

‘Without notice’

In a letter to the Medical Superintendent of SafdarjungHospital and the Union Ministry of Health, the unionsaid all the contract workerswere paid minimum wagesirrespective of their con

tracts, according to Mr. Animesh Das, president, DelhiCommittee, Indian Federation of Trade Unions. Mr. Dassaid the guards were removed in an “arbitraryway and without any notice”.

However, Ramesh Singh,57, another security guard who lost his job, said he gota termination notice on June14. Mr. Singh, who had beenworking at the hospital for 12years, said he was worried

because the responsibilityof running his fi�vememberfamily had now fallen on hisworking son.

Another security guard,Inderjeet Paswan, 42, said hedid not receive any termination notice or phone call. Hesaid he earned around₹�22,000 and was the solebreadwinner of his family ofeight. Mr. Paswan said hecame to Delhi from Bihar with his family in 2011.

Samridhi Tewari

New Delhi

400 guards at Safdarjung Hospital sacked by contract agency

CMYK

A ND-NDE

During a protest rally of JamaateIslami Hind in solidarity with Teesta Setalvad and other human rights activists who havebeen arrested, in Kolkata on Saturday. * PTI



Standing up in support

Jai Prakash Jain, a Gurugrambased advocate, wason way to his hometown inNuh’s Ferozepur Jhirka inhis chauff�eurdriven SportsUtility Vehicle on June 26morning when a rashly driven dumper truck hit hisvehicle on the right.

Mr. Jain intercepted theoff�ending vehicle with thehelp of the Police ControlRoom vehicle after a briefchase. But to his surprise,the dumper truck did nothave a registration numberplate in the rear and thenumber in the front was deliberately erased.

The advocate alleged thata majority of the dumpertrucks plying on the National Highway 248A runningthrough Nuh either did nothave a registered numberplate or the registrationnumber was deliberatelypainted black to avoid iden

tifi�cation in case of any traffi�c violation and accident.

“The fact that these vehicles pass through variouspolice posts in Nuh hints atcollusion between them andthe police. Who will paycompensation to the victimsinjured or killed in an accident involving these truckswithout registration number plates?” asked Mr. Jain.

Though Mr. Jain and hisdriver Satish were lucky tohave escaped unhurt, AbdulGaff�ar, an accountant at Alafi�a Hospital in Nuh’s Mandikhera, sustained head andleg injuries in a similar accident on June 23.

Mr. Gaff�ar was on his wayto Badkali Chowk on a motorcycle when a dumpertruck hit him near the traffi�cpolice station and spedaway. “The police team carrying out routine vehiclecheck near the spot gave achase to the truck, but it escaped,” said the 32yearold.

Mr. Gaff�ar, a resident ofNuh’s Santhawari villagesaid dumper trucks plyingon National Highway NH248A without registrationnumber plates was a common sight.

And some of the truck

drivers had grease smearedon the number plate. Mostof these trucks were involved in transportation ofconstruction material, suchas stones, from the miningsites in Nuh and Rajasthan.

Mewat RTI Manch con

vener Rajuddin Meo said thetraffi�c volume on the roadhad gone up several times,but the road was not widened to accommodate itleading to accidents.

He said the overloaded,speeding dumper trucks

plying without registrationnumber plates had madethe things worse. “It seemsas if they have no fear oflaw,” said Mr. Meo.

Varun Singla, Superintendent of Police, Nuh, claimedthe local police had curbedthe menace of overloadeddumper trucks without registration number plates toa large extent over the pasteight months.

“Contrary to the generalperception, not all accidentsare caused by these dumpertrucks. But the police havecracked down on them heavily. We not just issue chal

lans to these trucks for violation of the Motor VehiclesAct, but also inform the Regional Transport Offi�ce andthe Mining department offi�cials for any legal action required on their part as well,”said Mr. Singla.

The Nuh police have issued 754 challans to vehicles without registrationnumber plates till June 30this year compared with 811challans last year.

Similarly, 2,388 vehicleshave been challaned for plying without High SecurityRegistration Number Platethis year so far comparedwith 3,752 last year.

“The number of vehicleschallaned for the two violations during the fi�rst sixmonths this year is almostat par with the fi�gures forthe entire last year. It showsthe strict enforcement ofthe law and crackdown onsuch vehicles,” said Mr. Singla.

Nuh trucks break rules, ply without registration number plates Accidents have increased in the area; police have issued 754 challans to vehicles without registration number plates till June 30 this year

Ghost rider: A dumper truck whose registration number has deliberately been painted blackto avoid identity and evade traffi�c violation cases. * SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Ashok Kumar

Gurugram <> The fact that these

vehicles pass

through various

police posts in Nuh

hints at collusion

between them and

the police

Jai Prakash Jain

Gurugrambased advocate

Ahead of the Kargil VijayDiwas, the Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation has approved renaming the roadconnecting NH9 andNH58 after Kargil martyrand Param Vir Chakra recipient Captain Manoj Kumar Pandey.

Ghaziabad Mayor AshaSharma said that the linkroad will now be calledShaheed Capt. Manoj Pandey Marg. Belonging to theGorkha Rifl�es, Capt. Pandey laid down his life onthe night of July 2/3 1999when his platoon came under heavy enemy fi�re inKhalubar (Kargil).

Road to berenamed afterKargil martyr

Staff Reporter

Ghaziabad


THE HINDU DELHI

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STATES

Published by N. Ravi at Kasturi Buildings, 859 & 860, Anna Salai, Chennai-600002 and Printed by S. Ramanujam at HT Media Ltd. Plot No. 8, Udyog Vihar, Greater Noida Distt. Gautam Budh Nagar, U.P. 201306, on behalf of THG PUBLISHING PVT LTD., Chennai-600002. Editor: Suresh Nambath (Responsible for selection of news under the PRB Act).

Regd. DL(ND)-11/6110/2006-07-08 ● RNI No. UPENG/1986/49939 ● ISSN 0971 - 751X

0DISCLAIMER: Readers are requested toverify and make appropriate enquiries tosatisfy themselves about the veracity ofan advertisement before responding toany published in this newspaper. THGPUBLISHING PVT LTD., the Publisher &Owner of this newspaper, does not vouchfor the authenticity of any advertisementor advertiser or for any of the advertiser’sproducts and/or services. In no event canthe Owner, Publisher, Printer, Editor, Director/s, Employees of this newspaper/company be held responsible/liable inany manner whatsoever for any claimsand/or damages for advertisements inthis newspaper.

Timings

DELHI

SUNDAY, JUL. 03

RISE 05:28 SET 19:24

RISE 08:55 SET 22:33

MONDAY, JUL. 04

RISE 05:29 SET 19:24

RISE 09:51 SET 23:04

TUESDAY, JUL. 05

RISE 05:29 SET 19:23

RISE 10:46 SET 23:35

A special CBI court herehas accepted a closure report fi�led by the Central Bureau of Investigation in acase of alleged fraudagainst Pushpak BullionsPrivate Limited and somebank offi�cials, even as theEnforcement Directorateopposed it.

The ED, probing a related case, had attached theproperties of a fi�rm controlled by Shridhar Patankar, brotherinlaw of former Maharashtra CM UddhavThackeray.

Court acceptsCBI’s report infraud case


Mumbai

The Special Investigation Team(SIT) of the Punjab police has indicted the Sirsabased Dera SachaSauda for the three incidents of desecration and sacrilege in 2015 inBargari village in Faridkot district.

Widespread protests had beenwitnessed in Punjab at that timeand since then it became a key political issue in the 2017 and 2022 Assembly elections.

Three casesIn the fi�rst case, some unknownpersons had stolen the holy ShriGuru Granth Sahib from the Gurdwara of Burj Jawahar Singh Wala,thereby outraging the religious sentiments of the Sikh community.Three months later, two posterscontaining derogatory languageagainst the Sikh religion, Sikhpreachers and Guru Granth Sahibwere found pasted at the Burj Jawahar Singh Wala village. In the thirdcase, unknown persons had strewnthe pages of Guru Granth Sahib outside the Bargari Gurdwara as wellas in the streets around the village.

State Chief Minister BhagwantMann on Saturday handed over the467page report of the SIT to Sikhleaders, including Chamkaur Singhand Major Singh Pandori here, saidoffi�cials.

The SIT pointed out that the motive behind these three cases is having direct link with Dera Sacha Sauda, Sirsa, and the accused personswho are involved in these cases arefollowers of the said Dera.

“It is evident from material evidence collected by the SIT of thePunjab police that the accused per

sons who were apprehended inthese cases were having direct nexus with the management of the Dera. The motive behind the incidentswas also having link with the movieMSG-2 and the accused personswere also connected with the release/nonrelease of the said movie.The closure report of the CBI alsocorroborates the fact that accusedMohinder Pal alias Bittu (later killedin Nabha jail by inmates) and hiscompanions were upset due to thenonrelease of the movie due towhich accused Mohinder Pal organised three days’ dharna (sitin) atMoga. Mohinder Pal along with other accused, namely SukhjinderSingh alias Sunny and Ranjit aliasBhola, remained active for the release of the movie. So, from theabovementioned facts, which werealso observed by the CBI in its closure report, are relevant and the incidents in these three cases also revolve around the abovementionedevent. So, it is clear that the accused persons were agitated andactively involved in the aff�airs of therelease and nonrelease of the movie,” said the report.

Punjab CM hands over the report to Sikh leaders

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

Chandigarh

A delegation of Sikh leaders aftersubmitting a memorandum to thePunjab Governor over sacrilegecases. * FILE PHOTO

2015 sacrilege cases: SITblames Dera Sacha Sauda

The commute time betweenGurugram and Delhi is expected to get shorter forlakhs of drivers, with theopening on Saturday of theBenito Juarez Marg underpass after missing eightdeadlines.

Built at a cost of ₹�143.78crore, the 1.2 km twolaneunderpass was inauguratedby Public Works Department Minister Manish Sisodia.

The underpass, Mr. Sisodia said, was an importantstep towards decongestingcity roads and tackling vehicular pollution and wouldpositively impact two tothree lakh commuters.

The government said it isthe fi�rst Yshaped underpassin Delhi, which will allowcommuters from both sides,adding that vehicular footfall at the Dhaula Kuan inter

section will reduce by 25%. “Dhaula Kuan, the road

leading to the airport andSardar Patel Marg witnessesheavy traffi�c during morningand evening peak hours andthis underpass project wasaimed at solving this problem. Lakhs of commutersmoving between Gurugramand Delhi will benefi�t fromthis everyday,” he added.

The government asid

commuters taking the routedaily are expected to registera reduction in fuel consumption in the range of ₹�1,000 to₹�5,000. The new underpassis replete with wall paintings, a road hump design toprevent water logging andLED lights. A 670metre skywalk connecting two sides ofthe underpass on San Martinroad and Benito Juarez routehas also come up.

It will decongest roads, curb vehicular pollution: SisodiaSpecial Correspondent

NewDelhi

The newly inaugurated Benito Juarez Underpass near MotiBagh in Delhi on Saturday. * R.V. MOORTHY

Benito Juarez underpassopened, will cut travel time

The Delhi police on Saturdaysaid Pravda Media Foundation,under which the factcheckingwebsite Alt News operates, received over ₹�2 lakh from varioustransactions in which either thephone numbers or the IP addresses belonged to foreigncountries.

Objectionable tweetThe police on Saturday had produced Mohammed Zubair, thecofounder of Alt News, before acourt here over a case related toan “objectionable” tweet thathe had posted in 2018. Mr. Zu

bair has been sent to 14day judicial custody and his bail pleahas been dismissed.

According to a statement bythe Delhi police, from the analysis of a response received frompayment gateway Razorpay, thetransactions received had eitheran international phone numberor the IP address belonged to foreign cities or countries, including Bangkok, Western Australia,Manama, North Holland, Singapore, Victoria, New York, England, Riyadh Region, Sharjah,Stockholm, Abu Dhabi, Washington, Kansas, New Jersey, Ontario, California, Texas, LowerSaxony, Bern, Dubai and

Scotland.The statement further said a

total of ₹�2,31,933 was receivedby Pravda Media Foundation.

It was also noticed that theTwitter handles that had supported Mr. Zubair after his arrest were mostly of users fromMiddle Eastern countries likethe UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait andPakistan, the police added.

No responseThe Hindu reached out to AltNews cofounder Pratik Sinharegarding the claims by the Delhi police but no response wasreceived till the time this reportwas published.

The Delhi police had arrestedMr. Zubair in the case on June27. New provisions have beenadded to the case — Section120B (criminal conspiracy) and201 (destruction of evidence) ofthe Indian Penal Code (IPC),along with Section 35 of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation)Act.

Initially, Mr. Zubair wasbooked under Sections 153A(promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, language etc.) and 295A (deliberateand malicious act intended tooutrage religious feelings) of theIndian Penal Code.

‘Alt News parent fi�rm got ₹�2 lakh from foreign nations’ Most of the Twitter users supporting Zubair were from Middle East countries: police

Staff Reporter

New Delhi

CMYK

A ND-NDE

DELHI THE HINDU


MUDALIAR 25, BE, MBA, 162, GoodLooking, well Settled Family SeeksAlliance Ct. 8778514465 /7200866346

HINDU VELLALAR Pillai / MudaliarBarani Mesham 34/162 Govt. DoctorMD (Paed) seeks Suitable groom upto38yrs Ct: 97912 16028

DOCTOR MD Chennai, Mudaliar, Octo-ber 1992 born ,157cm, moolam 4paatham, seeking MD Doctors/PG en-gineers/IIM/Business families, age29−35. 9444075410

SC AD 26/M.Tech.,IT (P.hd) Asso-ciate Manager (Global Pvt.Ltd.)79,000p.m. Seeks Bridegrooms.Ph:7397674481

VANNIAR PARENTS Near Tindivanam On-ly Daughter Slim Fair Tall 22/160working in TCS seeks suitableGroom preferably IT Employed/ Doc-tor/ Business, age 24 to 26 fromsame Community Call: 9080363451

37 YRS Iyer girl divorcee, nokids, seeks well educated workinggroom age gap upto 5 yrs, cleanhabits, same community, exceptkoundinya gotra, Chennai only! Ct9940332928

HINDU VANNIYAR Girl 25/155 M.Sc,B.Ed, Anusham, Viruchigam, Wheatishseeks Educated Groom. 9940678478HINDU AGAMUDAYAR, 28/148, B.E,M.S, Design Engr. Germany seekswell educated Groom working at Ger-many - same caste. Ct: 9442883070HINDU SC PR Kongu 1984 MBBSDCH Doctor, working in Govt Hospital,seeks suitable groom. Ct:9443680973

DOCTOR, PURSUING DM, AIIMS Delhi,28/160, Tamil, Hindu, Mudaliar,Makam, seeks suitable groom, Mas-ters/PhD in any field. Contact par-ents 9880016674, 9449821952.

Match Wanted for Working Daughter,Post Graduate . Age 35 Height 5'4".Parents Naidus well settled. Contact:9167617817

SMU PARENTS seeks Allopathic Doc-tor for daughter 30 yrs Slim,FairMBBS,M.S., Mob: 8056198771

TAMIL VISWAKARMA Govt DoctorBride MD (GM) 31/167 Fair VishagamSeeks Doctor / Engineer / Govt. OfficerBridegroom Ct : 94459 64285HINDU SC-PR, 26yrs/ 5.6', Poosam,Kadagam, MBBS, Govt. MedicalOfficer, Parents Govt seeks MBBS/MD/MS, ongoing PG Groom preferablyGovt. below 30 years. 94446 53587/97881 54437SAIVA CHETTIAR /MBBS/ 28/5ft7inch/ Makaram/ Uthiradam/ TN govtemployed/ undergoing PG seeksmatch pref. Doctor / Saiva pillai/mudaliyar/ chettiar contact:9443695053

DOCTOR Girl Wrking in Govt hospital5.1,born-July 1991, seeks groom from-medical field pref MD/MS, Mutharaiyaror BC/MBC caste.Ct:7401529319DOCTOR MD Chennai, Mudaliar, Octo-ber 1992 born ,157cm, moolam 4paatham, seeking MD Doctors/PG en-gineers/IIM/Business families, age29−35. 9444075410

DOCTOR GIRL MD Anesthesiology 32/165 from affluent elite family ofdoctors.Working in top hospitalChennai. Fair beautiful good man-nered and cultured. Father doctorKerala Nair. Engineer & Doctorgrooms with MDMS MCh DM from goodfamily background from Kerala andTamilNadu preferable. Ct:9840050381/ 9840985383

MUDALIAR Girl pursuing DM 1989born from well educated rich familyseeks doctor groom with DM/MCH/MD/MS or civil servants/IITIANS/NITIANS from good familybackground in Tamilnadu.7010429191

MANAGER BHARANI 32 168cm WIDOWseeks Dr banking businessman fromforward caste below 35 only8300541899

SC (INTERCASTE) 41/163, unmar-ried, fair, MBA Management professio-nal, working in Public sector organiza-tion @ Bangalore from a well of familyfrom Delhi, seeks suitable alliance.Caste & language no bar. Ct:[email protected]

SEEKING ALLIANCE for Hindu, Nairgirl (160/29/Ayillyam/Kerala/IRS(IT)Officer from Civil service/PG Doctor/CA/Group A officer. Ph: 8921582098

CALICUT BASED Thiyya girl, 26, Cor-porate Lawyer (Mumbai), LLB fromNational law school, parents Gazettedofficers, Caste no bar. 9633046765.

NAIR GIRL 28 /154 BE, Revathy,Chennai setld − employed (2−Dosham), seeks from Nair Family.9500012855

SUITABLE Alliance sought for a29years old Nair Girl working as Seni-or Associate in a MNC B‘lore earning17Lak PA. Horoscope compatibility notconsidered essential. Please send aWhatsApp message to 8870651177for more details.

Inviting proposals from suitable Boysbased in Australia for Nair Girl, 28 Yrs,Makairom, Height 165 cms, completedMBA from University of Melbourne andis now on Temporary Work Visa.Contact: 9995301609.

VANIKA VAISYA Girl 28/172 MTech,Civil service aspirant, well settled fami-ly in Trivandrum, both parents areGovt Officials, brother is in USA. CivilServants and Doctors are preferred9447525378

NAIR GIRL @ Chennai 26/147 BE Cha-dayam/ Chevva Dosam Seeks GroomsNair/Menon Family 9840944880/9447696424

TAMIL− AD 32Yrs NIT/MBA(B’School)Manager HR @ SBI 14LPA + Qtrs, Al-lownces,etc (CTC23lpa)settled inMumbai. seeks CNB − Hindu/Chris-tian professionals PSB/Fin/SW/Govt. WA 9444228582.

SEEKING− PROTESTANT Christian,well educated, kind and open−mind-ed groom settled either in Canadaor USA for my niece 29,165cms,studied and employed in Canada.She is from a reputed family inKanyakumari district. Contact:[email protected] and7736866119

SEEKING ALLIANCE from Canada / USfor Toronto based Naidu girl, 31,Product & Digital Strategy Manager.Caste no bar. E: [email protected] Whatsapp: +91 8148809055

WANTED USA Employed Groom for Van-niyakula Kshatriya Girl, Fair 26/Anusham, MS, INTEL, USA. FatherBusiness, Chennai. Contact:9884071390

CHRISTIAN NADAR/HINDU Nadar Groomonly for very affluent ChristianNadar PG girl, April [email protected]

SEEKING PROFESSIONAL Groomfor a God fearing CSI Christian NadarBride. SWE Bangalore, 35 yrs/165 cm,25 L P.A. Contact: 94438 83665

CSI CHRISTIAN Nadar Girl Fair,Good Looking, 03−04−1986 born /152cm / M.Sc M.Phil, working as As-sistant Professor in a Reputed Wom-en’s College, Mount Road, Chennai.Both Parents Doctors (Private),Suitable Alliance, Employed / Set-tled in Chennai / With CleanHabits from Same Community. Con-tact: 9841182514

PROPOSAL INVITED from well to doNadar Christian family for a girl,fair, beautiful, well to do, welleducated, God fearing aged 32 work-ing in a foreign Embassy as a Se-nior Manager in Chennai Contract:9840129090.

RC NADAR 29 B.E., SWE 14 LPA,seeks RC Nadar B.E Bride Groom withgood job Contact:7708469824

MUSLIM TAMIL 21 yrs fair studyingMBBS at Chennai /grooms below26yrs.SMS 94447 21694

BERICHETTIAR 27/163 slim fair BERemarriage Ch seeks educated HighProfile CNB Ct: Geetham 9884858014

CSI NADAR 30/179, M.Arch(Architect)Project Manager in Chennai seeksSuitable Groom. Ct: 9488522344.

CHRISTIAN (ECI) Age: 26 B.TECH. IT168 CM. Seeks well Settled FamilyCaste No Bar. Ct: 8610111543

HINDU PR 29/160 BE, MS in US, em-ployed in US H1B visa seeks suitablegroom from US/UK/Canada or willingto settle in US/UK/Canada. Ct:9945223333

SC, AD(KONGU) 30/151, BE (PSG−CBE)SBI, Hastham, upper middle class,own house, properties seeks suit-able groom, cast no bar−CT:9443702720

HINDU VELLALA Pillai 37 163Visakam Fair MBA Working in QatarWilling to Relocate to any Placeseeks well qualified ProfessionalGroom [email protected] Ct:81220 59734

PILLAI/MUDALIAR, 33, Good looking,MBBS, MD Final yr, Well Settled familyseeks Groom 33-35 years, Engineer/Business/ Doctor. Ct: 9345855735

PILLAI/ MUDALIAR, 26 B.E KettaiWorking in Leading MNC, ReputedBusiness Family Seeks Alliance forHis Daughter Call 98400 93322

HINDU SOZHIA Vellalar 28/157, Di-vorced Fair Girl/B.E short livedrequires educated Govt/Bank work-ing groom unmarried or divorced.CT: 63807 98748/84389 83733.

INTER CASTE Parents seek for daugh-ter 27/156 SWE employed Chennai,from suitable Hindu groom. 9003287101

HINDU NADAR Sister Girls, age 28 /23, Ht 167/167cms, M.E. Asst Prof /B.E (I.T), Upper middle class. SeeksUpper middle class, equally qualifiedbrother boys of age below 30 in job orbusiness. Marriage both at a stage.Contact: 96265 15511

HINDU/SC.AD, SIMMAM/MAGAM(26/5’2")MCA, ITA @TCS, 6.40L/p.a. SameCaste Groom from Chennai.9840365908

WIDOW 34YRS B.Tech, well settledgood looking with 6yr old child.Needs life partner who is progres-sive and broad minded. Age below40yrs caste no bar 80727 50829 /98846 95374

HINDU, VANIYA Chettiyar Widow (2Female Child Age 10& 6) 34yrs,5.1Feet, B.Com, Worked as Clerk in S.Rly, Chennai. Seeks any BC/MBCGroom from Chennai. 9444452870/9962997996

GAVARA, 30/159cm, M.E., Divorcewithout encumbrance, Parents-CentralGovt. seeks qualified Groom frommiddle/ affluent family.Ct: 9489352752

MUDALIAR AVITTAM 26 155 B.E. fairNon−IT Bangalore 6.6 Lacs p.a.seeks from Chennai/Bangalore9840143908

MUDALIAR: 26/160, Fair & Beauti-ful, B.E, MBA (USA), Data Analyst,MNC, USA, Elite Family, SeeksGroom Abroad/ India − 8925019776

VANIYA CHETTIYAR Aswini Mesam 28/163 MBBS, MD final year,Pulmonolo-gy,seeks Doctor/IPS/IAS. Sub castno bar.Ct: [email protected]

MUDALIAR 24 /170 Pooram BA PGDIBCh seeks Affluent Business Profilein Chennai Ct Geetham 9884858014

HINDU NADAR BE/MBA 30/170cm 100000Income Seeks Suitable Groom KA Ra-man Nadar 9380791999

ASST. PROF. Tuluva Vellal MudaliarGood looking Girl 34 Uthirattathy,Meenam, Ph.D(Physics), FamilySeeks Alliance from First and Un-married Bachelor Bridegroom Aged34−36 Yrs, Employed, Caste no bar.Contact: After 7 PM; 7550245659

HASTHAM 34/154 fair MCA Upper midlClas Seeks Mudaliar / pillai pro-fessionally Qualified Groom8220757159

VELLALA, Pooram 36yrs Ht:163cmWeight 62Kg, Scientist ( PhD) Workingin IISC Bangalore, Seeks Suitablegroom. Contact: 9442485544NADAR 29YRS, Uthradam, M.A.,B.Ed., Remarriage seeks suitableEmployed Groom preferably Hindu /Christian. Ct: 88256 51440

LOOKING FOR Bridegroom for thegirl studying MS in US aged 23.End time message believer. Ct:8939250457

27, FAIR, B.Tech, M. S. in US,working in Chennai, Affluent,seeks settledgroom CNB. 9489935653

MUDHALIYAR 25/M.B.B.S., Ownschools& Colleges Chennai, (Casteno Bar) Richfamily seeks Groom:7305491610

29 /F /RC/ Teacher/ Dusky/ SeeksWell Settled Groom Caste No Bar Ph9962524239

NAIDU, RICH 23−02−90 fair slim 165cm uthiradam 4 magaram MBBS Dr. TNGovt Chennai seeks Dr, Govt classA officer, Business Groom. AnyNaidu or any FC/BC (Tamil/Telugu)9841743266.

HINDU SC (AD) 33/156, ME , Thiru-vonam, Working in Public SectorBank in Chennai, Clerk 35K, SeeksSuitable Groom, Age 34 −37.Workingin Govt or IT. Ct.9677510647 ,9790191307

GYNECOLOGIST MOTHER invites PG Doc-tor (clinical)/Civil Services/CA/Gr−1 below 32, with good familystatus and Professional flair/atti-tude for doctor daughter (5’4"/1995/Ashwini/Mesham/Govt). CNB(Vanniyar/Pillai preferred)9940430865/8094345999.

SIMMAM MAHAM Fair SC Hindu Tamil23Yrs 153cm MBA HDFC 2.5L PAChennai.Seeks Educated Groom.Ct:9962359900

HINDU MARAVAR(DEVAR) Never Married09−01−86,165cm,60kg Working in USAIT Expt Seeks Below 39Yr,1stMariage Groom Work in USA IT/EqualProfesional,Same Caste,SubCast7845259152

HINDU Pillai 29/153 Pooram fairB.com MBA Coimbatore working MNCSeeks well eductd groom. 9843090433

Saiva Pillai Girl 24/170 Ayilyam Cbe,fair B.Tech SWE MNC B‘Lore, seeksGroom. [email protected], 37, B.Com /MBA, EmployedSmart seeks Employed / Businessgroom below 40 years. Ct:9940469633

24 MANAI Telugu Chetty BE.MBA 25/162/55 working in pvt bank chen-nai. 9790919406 [email protected]

YADAVA 28 B.Tech Girl Veg Chennaiseek well settled family groom.Whatsapp Horoscope & Photo:9791167005

Naidu Girl 30/158 with H1B Visa inUSA from Educated Family Seek Alli-ance from Naidu Boy (Balija/ Kapu/others) with PR/ H1B Visa Working inUSA. Contact +91 8985039128.

BALIJA NAIDU 23/B.Tech fa-mousKalyana Mahal (Chennai) StarHotelsElite family seeks groom.9087604894

NAIDU 25/161, Fair, Beautiful, CA,Analyst in MNC, 720000.PA, Afflu-ent Family ,CNB. 7299576644,7299576666

NAIDU 27/165, Very Beautiful,M.Tech, Father Industrialist,Elite Family, CNB. 7299576644,7299576666

YADAV MBBS GOVT MD AIIMS 29/168beautiful Chennai seek Same castequalified groom India/Abroad9444608708

BALIJA NAIDU – 24 yrs/154 cm B.E,Rohini / Rishabam, Fair, TCS,Chennai seeks Chennai groomCt. 94864 34470.

BORN AUGUST 1990 165cm Ph.DResearch scholar smart medium com-plexion seeks well educated and wellsettled groom in India from decentbackground born not earlier than 1987(Below 35years) contact:9790908109

SEEKING PRACTICING SMU withno Dargah practices, never-marriedbridegroom, 36 yrs or below / 170cmor above, BE / BTech / MCA, IT pro-fessional, working abroad or in TamilNadu / Bangalore for my employed,MCA, MPhil educated, never-married,pious, upright by nature, 1987 born /165cm good-looking daughter. Pleasewrite to : 90037 31213 [email protected]

NAIDU B.E., Fair 33/155cm Magaram,Uthradam,14L PA, Sub-Caste anyseeks suitable groom. Ct: 9840792739

SMU GIRL 27/165 B.Tech Team LeadMNC Chennai Seeks Suitable AllianceContact: 9442141520 /[email protected]

SMU PARENTS Seeks Alliance PG Doc-tor, CA Groom for Daughter 27,Slim, Fair MS, Ophthal Working9444024991

SMU, Practicing Muslim hijabi girl,25/168, Doctor working in UK, originAndhra Pradesh, born & brought up inSaudi seeks a professional bridegroomresiding or willing to relocate to UK,must be a practicing muslim.8500630745 (WhatsApp).

4

MBBS 25 / 175 / VFair / slim / religiousfamily seeks from Chennai MBBS &above below 28 yrs Mob: 9342928472.

MUSLIM Urudu, 27yrs BE, LLM seeksMaster degree, well Emplyd in TN, age28-31, Height 5.8 - 6ft. Ct:9940641555

TELUGU SC Mala groom, 29, 175 cm,handsome, B.Tech and Masters, fromwell to do educated family, work-ing in U.K. , seeks educated beau-tiful bride between the age 23−27.Caste or language no bar. Chris-tians can also apply. No brokers.Send bio, photo to [email protected].

KONGU VELLALAR Gounder 35yrsBE. MNC Bangalore, 13 LPA, UnMar-ried, seeks suitable Educated Bridefrom same caste - 9886572314

RC Anglo-Indian 35/160 B.Tech, SWEngr in reputed Multi-national compa-ny seeks suitable Bride. Caste & De-nomination no Bar. Ct: 9841462791

Middleclass widower 63yrs, needlife partner,without any encum-brance in Chennai.8105073838

BUSINESSMAN 50, 2nd Marriage,Seeks good family Unmarried or Di-vorcee bride. Contact: 94863 24471

37 YRS Fair Urdu Sunni Muslim MSMCh Ortho Surgeon Chennai DivorcedSeeking MD/MS Doctor Bride Ct:[email protected]

DOCTOR MD RADIOLOGY 28/173 FairTamil Udaiyar Rich Chennai seeksMD Doctor bride [email protected]

1985/175CM. IT. 30 Lakhs PA. Chen-nai. Father Doctor. Seeks well edu-cated bride. WhatsApp: 96290 12248

HINDU NAIR, 36/169, Uthradam,Handsome, Govt.job, Divorcee withoutissue seeks beautiful Bride from (Nair/Saiva Vellalar/ Vellalar) Poor/ MiddleClass Family. Ct : 8807525679

HINDU BOY (Ashwathi) 26 yrs/183 cmMBBS doctor, working at BCMCH.Seeks doctor girl from similar familystatus. Ph: 7356468217

BRAHAMIN Madhva, Doctor MD.,DM32/165cm, mutual divorcee, fair seeksdoctor, engr/any graduate.9444118686

✔ HINDU NADAR, IT prof, USA, Mar−1986 born, 6’1", Magaram,Uthradam, Teetotaler, Divorced Noencumbrance. Seeks bride from USAonly. Caste no bar. +91 8939481508/+1 651 356 9254

SEEKING ALLIANCE for Hindu boy, 31/6’3", Affluent, Supply chain manag-er. Caste no bar. Soon to be basedin Canada. Wh: 9597049074

CSI CHRISTIAN Nadar, TirunelveliDist well settled MS willing tolive in USA 25yrs seeks bride fromcommunity, any professional.9382266099

CSI CHRISTIAN NADAR GROUP 1,27yrs/ 175, fair well settled fami-ly kanyakumari dist, Ct: 9443792181

Christian Vellalar 31/183, Fair BE &BSc., Hotel Management, Asst.Mana-ger in Reputed Hotel. Seeks workingbride in any BC. Ph: 9444342703

PENSIONER 75, Expects Healthy Pi-ous Life Partner around 70 Brahmin/ Non Brahmin Woman Ct: 79048 21292

HINDU PILLAI 52/160cm Agriculture,Seeks Bride (CNB),CT:9788881674.

HINDU TAMIL, 1984 Born, Revathi,Groom From Rich Business family,Madurai, Seeks Good looking Bride,from South India. [email protected]

AGAMUDAYAR, 29/172, Pooradam,B.E, Fair, SWE, 20 L pa seeks suitableBride preferably SWE/ Doctor. Ct:85080 99103

58, DECENT, Well Settled SeekingIssueless Widow / Divorcee. Con-tact : 7401489892

5'8 Mudaliar Boy Born in Feb 90well settled working in Central GovtRural Bank (RRB) near Hyderabadsalary 8 lacs PA seeks Bride 5'2above contact no 9866229004

HINDU AGAMUDAYA Mudaliyar,AC.Raghavan,28/170cm, Fair,Viruchigam,Anusam, M.Tech, Pvt 50000/− Seekssame Cast Bride. Ct:9150727763,8778669911

SC AD DIVORCEE 31 BE Canara BankManager 90,000/month seeks suit-able bride. 9962310155/205

AGAMUDAIYAR MUDALIYAR, 44, Pooram,Simam, B.E., (E&C) 1 Lac PerMonth, First Marriage, Own House,Seeks Suitable Alliance. Caste NoBar. No Brokers. Ct: 9600011225

IYENGAR 44/170 vadoolam, punar-poosam, working in MNC 15k/PMSeeks suitable bride Iyer/Iyengar9940589443

HINDU DEVENDIRA kula vellalarM.E., 28/167 Asst. Engg. in PWDseeks suitable bride8248195168,8667380725

MUDALIAR: 29/178, Handsome, B.E,MS (USA), Process Eng, MNC, USA,100000$ PA, Affluent Family, SeeksBride Abroad / India − 7305810258

IYER BOY, Bharadwaja Gothram, starKettai, 32, 6.1 Ft, M.Tech, PuducherryGovt UDC, 9 lacs per annum, ownhouse, Flat, Preference Graduate girl,Employment not must, Subsect no bar,No expectations Ct: 9443887454,9789445577TAMIL, 56 yrs Healthy, well set-tled, officers, Coimbatore Seeksindependent well settled broad-maindedLady above 42. as soulmate& companion ct: [email protected]

YOUNG PROFESSIONAL, MS USA, 30Years 185 cm. Currently working inGermany as a Senior Logistics Man-ager. Employed prior in U.S.A forfour years and two years in Dubai.Well Settled Family. Star Hastham& Backward Community. Seeks wellEducated, Hindu Bride (Caste NoBar) for their only Son. Mobile9840041041

MUDALIYAR BOY Bharani 31yrs 175cmM.S Employed in Singapore SeeksQualified Bride 9884504829 /9500068279.

MUDALIAR,CHENNAI B.E Fair 1985Well Settled, Any Degree Emp / Un-Employ Decent Family. Ct:8610518808

CASTENOBAR, BC 37/170 Never Mar-ried Govt job in chennai lookingwell settled Marital status − anywhatsapp 8760996098

ARIYA VAISHYAR, Age 40/ 178cm,work MNC @ Chennai, Decent salary,CNB, No Expectation. Ct: 7567993556

HINDU NADAR, remarriage, 30, B.E,PGDM, 6.2’, wheatish brown, busi-ness man, chennai, expecting goodlooking girl with traditional fami-ly values within 29 years rich fam-ily, culture, same caste & reli-gion. 9444061899.

HINDU INTERCASTE, parents only sonhandsome 31/177 cm, M.Tech workingMNC bangalore income16 lpa seeksfair good looking employed bridefrom reputed educated family. Ct:8300762360, 9443210290

MUDALIAR HINDU Groom, First Mar-riage, age 44, HW Engineer, BE −ECE, B’lore, 9886493369/9740900969

DKV 36/160 BE SWE CTC 18 PooradamDhanush wellsettled seeks brideSWE/Engineering moves to Germanyin 2 months Caste Nobar Ct 9443366333

HINDU SOZHIYA Vellalar, Pillai,Fair, Good looking, 40yrs,Rishabam/ Rohini, MCA, Software En-gineer, Chennai. Ct: 9444126423

REDDY 36Y Veg B.Tech IT PVT Jobseeks good family Girl Caste No BarContact: 9629476232VANNIYAKULA KSHATRIYA 35/180M.S(UK)Design Engineer employed @Chengalpet seeks suitable Bride samecommunity.9486291986, 9442910057.

NADAR 32 PG Dental Chennai seeksPG Medicine WhatsApp 9884039215

VANNIYAR, 35/168CM, BE, 1.25L, Vis-agam 4th, seeks Suitable Alliancesame Caste Ct: 94434 01831

PILLAI 34 Swati/Thulam Govt offi-cer seeks bride CNB good charactercall 9786113003

DKV 31 BE SWE 170cm Divorcee No Is-sue, No Encumbrance Hindu/ Chris-tian Suitable Bride. Ct: 9444807156

PARTNER FOR myself, 35, 5ft11inch, B.E. (College Of Engineer-ing Guindy), IT professional inChennai. Interfaith parenting (Fa-ther is Hindu and Mother is Chris-tian). I have no religious be-liefs. Caste no bar. I write free-lance on movies as a hobby. My Con-tact 9003213197, Contact of Par-ents 9600174846

VELLALAR EGGETARIAN 29/175 Avit-tam, Maharam PhD canada working asPDF LundUniversity Sweden seeksBride abroad/ to settled abroad9444425506

HINDU SC AD 33/172 Ph.D Chemistry, CSIR RA seeks suitable Bride (28−31) empld. Ct:9994153134,9840490934

BALIJA NAIDU 46/170 BCom CA MBA Re-marriage Ch seeks Educated BrideCNB Chennai only Ct:geetham9884858014

Saiva Pillai 33 Moolam 170 MCAMNC Blore Good Family backgroundSub caste No bar 9443154173 Email :[email protected]

CASTE NO Bar. 36, Magaram Rasi,Avittam,MBA Working U.K DivorceeNo issue− Intercaste Parents− Hin-du Seeks well educated/ MedicalProfessional Bride from Tamilnadu.6380826640

HINDU NADAR (29) 175cm BE/MBA In-come 2,00,000/−Seeks SuitableBride. KA Raman Nadar 9380791999

CHETTIAR (CNB) 29/175cm M.TechMBA (UK) fair, seeks BE/Medical Pro-fessional Bride. CT: 63819-80158.

VANIYA CHETTIAR Only Sep93 Male BEMBA (LIBA) 12L P/A Assoc ManagerStandard Chartered Chen-nai:6369167441

MD (CLINICAL) Marathi Brahmin Boy1990 5’10" Chennai Based SeeksTamil Telugu Marathi Doctor GirlMD/MS(Clinical) & also State/ Cen-tral Govt Doctor’s.Ct:9968267797/9968287792

BRAHMIN IYER VADULAM Uthiram Nov1977 BSc (MCA) MNC, IT 24Lakh PASeeks unmarried Brahmin Girl9841071359

IYER Vadama Garga Ayilyam-21973 Sep 168cm S/w USA ,boy cmngJune, seeks bride.9444915698,email:[email protected]

4

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THE HINDU DELHI


Droupadi Murmu, the National Democratic Alliancecandidate in the Presidentialelection, on Saturday metleaders of the allies in TamilNadu and sought their support.

Amid the friction over theparty's leadership, AIADMKleaders Edappadi K. Palaniswami and O. Panneerselvammet her separately and extended their support.

When Mr. Palaniswamiand his supporters were present on the stage, Mr. Panneerselvam and his supporters stayed away.

Speaking at an event organised at a private hotel inChennai, Ms. Murmu expressed happiness in visitingTamil Nadu, which she saidhas historic signifi�cance. Sherequested the leaders to consider her as a sister and support her.

“The AIADMK welcomesyou to Tamil Nadu on yourelection campaign, and weare really proud to receiveyou as the Presidential candidate of the NDA,” said Mr.Palaniswami, the Leader ofthe Opposition in the Assembly.

On behalf of his party, hethanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for announcingMs. Murmu, hailing from theScheduled Tribe, as the Presidential candidate. He assured Ms. Murmu that all

AIADMK MPs and MLAswould wholeheartedly support her for her “Himalayanvictory”.

After Mr. Palaniswamileft, Mr. Panneerselvamcame to the stage and extended his support. “On behalf of the AIADMK, I, as thecoordinator of the party,welcome you to this illustrious State of Tamil Nadu,”he said.

“By electing you as thePresident of India, it will befor the fi�rst time that a woman from the ScheduledTribe would be getting achance to occupy the highestposition of India. It showsthe vision of Prime MinisterNarendra Modi towards theempowerment of womenand downtrodden,” he said,assuring her of theAIADMK’s support.

After his meeting with Ms.Murmu, PMK president Anbumani Ramadoss told reporters that leaving politicsaside, all parties should backher. Tamil Maanila Congresspresident G.K. Vasan, Premalatha Vijayakanth of theDMDK, K. Krishnasamy ofthe Puthiya Thamizhagam,and A.C. Shanmugam of theNew Justice Party, amongothers, participated at themeeting. Puducherry ChiefMinister N. Rangasamy onSaturday expressed happiness over the NDA selectingMs. Murmu as the Presidential candidate.


CHENNAI

Edappadi K. Palaniswami meeting Droupadi Murmu inChennai on Saturday * S.R. RAGHUNATHAN

EPS, OPS meet Murmuseparately in Chennai

CMYK

A ND-NDE

STATES

Telangana Rashtra Samithi(TRS) president and Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has appealedto the electors of the Presidential election, scheduledto be held on July 18, to voteas per their conscience afterweighing the two candidatesin the fray, and not based ontheir political affi�liation.

Referring to the comments of “a Union Ministerfrom Hyderabad”, Mr. Raosaid that the former had saidthat BJP could topple the government in Telangana asthey did it in Maharashtraearlier this week.

“We are waiting for it, sothat we can become free andtopple their (BJP) government in Delhi so that peopleare saved from the hate anddivisive rule,” Mr. Rao said.

The Chief Minister pointed out that the BJP had ‘toppled governments in nine

States in its eightyear rule’.“Prime Minister Narendra

Modi has failed on all countsand height of all is his decisions during the fi�rst wave ofCOVID19 pandemic whenmillions of people wereforced to walk back to theirnative places hundreds of kilometres away with the sudden imposition of lockdown.The credit of washing awayof hundreds of bodies of COVID19 victims will also go toMr. Modi,” the Chief Ministersaid.

“Whatever is happeningand what is being done in thecountry is wrong. There is agross misuse of constitutional bodies and enforcementagencies by the present Union government. The BJPledNDA government is killingdemocracy and federalstructures in the country,”said Mr. Rao.

Addressing a meeting ofTRS MPs, MLAs, MLCs, itsState executive committee

members and other seniorleaders of the party convened in support of Yashwant Sinha, the candidatefi�elded by the Opposition,here on Saturday, Mr. Raosaid Mr. Sinha’s candidatureoutweighs that of his rival’sas he was a towering personality.

“He (Mr. Sinha) is an hon

est politician and an able administrator who handled thekey portfolios of Finance andExternal Aff�airs in the UnionCabinet in the A.B. Vajpayeegovernment,” Mr. Rao said.

In an appeal to all Parliamentarians in the country,the TRS chief said that therewas a democratic practice inthe country of voting as per

conscience on some occasions and it was done duringthe Presidential election,when V.V. Giri contested itand there was such a needagain now.

He said Mr. Sinha victoryin the election would boostthe country’s image andchange the fortunes of thepoor.

‘Let BJP topple us, we will topple them’Telangana CM says bringing down the BJP government will save people from hate and divisive rule


HYDERABAD

Warm welcome: Telangana CM K. Chandrasekhar Rao greetingYashwant Sinha in Hyderabad on Saturday. * G. RAMAKRISHNA

The Kerala Police on Saturday arrested Kerala Janapaksham (Secular) leaderP.C. George on the charge ofbehaving in a sexually inappropriate manner towards awoman named as prime accused in the politically stormy solar investment fraudcase.

The police booked him onthe charge of outraging themodesty of the woman under Sections 354 and 354 (A)of the IPC. A magistratecourt released Mr. George onconditional bail.

High drama and alleged

vindictive politics markedMr. George’s arrest. He alleged the case was “false, fabricated and orchestrated byChief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.” He warned Mr. Vijayan to brace for a “decent”payback.

Mr. George said the complainant had been the Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s [CPI(M)] cat’s paw foryears. The party had usedher questionable statementto ensnare a galaxy of Congress leaders.

Mr. George said the woman had asked him to testifyin her favour. “I demurredand earned her ire,” he said.

The arrest occurred at theGovernment Guest House,Thycaud. While being escorted to the police vehicle,Mr. George allegedly identifi�ed the complainant, drawing questions from a womanjournalist about the “impropriety of the statement”. Mr.George reportedly retortedwhether he should name thewoman journalist instead.

Other journalists protested against the remark, resulting in a heated backandforth. The Kerala Union ofWorking journalists fi�led acomplaint against Mr. George. Several Ministers toocondemned Mr. George’sstatement.

P.C. George held in sexual assault case The former KeralaMLA was laterreleased on bail

Kerala Janapaksham (Secular) leader P.C. George beingarrested by the police on Saturday. * SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT


Thiruvananthapuram While the Karnataka government has agreed to carryout eight corrections inschool textbooks afterstrong criticism over revisions carried out as per therecommendations of the Rohith Chakrathirthaled committee, it has now emergedthat the students will not geta copy of the corrigendumbooklet.

Instead, one copy perschool will be given and it isup to the school authoritiesand teachers to ensure thateach student carries out thecorrections in his or her copy of the textbook.

Booklets with eight corrections in the Class I toClass X Kannada and SocialScience textbooks are beingprinted. The Karnataka TextBook Society (KTBS) is planning to distribute them to allgovernment, aided, andprivate State syllabusschools across the Statesoon.

The State governmenthad issued a notifi�cationmaking eight corrections onJune 24.

The notifi�cation was issued after objections wereraised by members of thepublic, people’s representatives, and seers of variouscommunities.

Textbook row: schools toget corrigendum copyKarnataka students will not get a copy

Jayanth R.

Bengaluru

Planter dies in elephantattack in Karnataka HASSAN

A planter was trampled to

death by an elephant in

Sakleshpur taluk of Hassan

district in Karnataka on

Saturday. Krishne Gowda, 67,

had been to his farm when he

encountered an elephant. The

incident occurred when the

Forest Department is

engaged in an operation to fix

radiocollars on elephants.

Good yield: Salt production in Tamil Nadu has increased due to continued dry weather. A worker seen at a salt pan nearDevipattinam in Ramanathapuram district on Saturday. * L. BALACHANDAR



Solar power

Water from the Harangi damnear Kushalnagar in Karnataka’s Kodagu was releasedinto the river through thefour crest gates on Saturdayfollowing an increase in theinfl�ow into the dam due toheavy rains in its catchmentarea.

About 1,200 cusecs wasdischarged into the river after opening all four gates ofthe dam. A fl�ood alert was issued on Friday after the infl�ow went up in view of heavy downpour in thecatchment area. The damengineers are expected to increase the outfl�ow based onthe extent of infl�ow and therefore the people living onthe banks of Cauvery havebeen asked to move to saferplaces as a precautionarymeasure.

Speaking to reporters,Madikeri MLA Appachu Ranjan said, “All precautionshave been taken so that surplus water discharged intothe river from the dam willnot cause any harm to thepeople.”

Mr. Ranjan said Kodaguhas been experiencing goodrains since last one week.

The MLA sought a special

package for Kodagu as itsroads, power supply network, bridges and other infrastructure facilities are getting damaged in rains almostevery year.

When reporters askedwhat steps have been takento prevent fl�oods in Kushalnagar, the MLA said all precautions are in place and theengineers are on alert.

People living on the banks asked to move to safer places


MYSURU

Gushing out: Water being discharged from the Harangi damnear Kushalnagar on Saturday. * SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Water discharged from Kodagu’sHarangi dam due to heavy rain

After a disappointing Junewhich witnessed a 48% dropin monthly rainfall in Kerala,the State appears to be staring at a bleak July as wellwith the monthly forecast issued by the India Meteorological Department (IMD)for July indicating belownormal rainfall in someparts of the southern peninsula.

A senior scientist attached to the IMD said on Saturday that, like in the previous year, the State is likelyto receive below normalrainfall in July. In the lastthree consecutive years, theState received defi�cient rainfall in the months of Juneand July.

The absence of rainbring

ing cyclonic systems such aslow pressure or depressionsin the Bay of Bengal and theArabian Sea is one of themain reasons for the lowprecipitation. Normally, anaverage of three cyclonic

systems used to form by thistime every year.

However, despite CycloneAsani, no major systemshave formed this year, bothin the Bay of Bengal and theArabian Sea.


THIRUVANANTHAPURAM

Time to rejoice: A fi�le photo of two children enjoying the rainat Kozhikode Beach. * K. RAGESH

After a dull June, Kerala towitness subdued rain in July too

The Shendurney WildlifeSanctuary derives its nameChenkurinji (Gluta travan-

corica), a species endemic tothe Agasthyamala BiosphereReserve. Belonging to theAnacardiaceae family, thetree was once abundant inthe hills on the southernparts of the Aryankavu Passin Kerala’s Kollam district,but its presence has beenfast receding from the areaover the years.

“Gluta travancorica is very susceptible to climatechange and the present condition of the species is quitebad with low regenerationperformance,” says P.A. Jose,Principal Scientist, Sustainable Forest Management Division, Kerala Forest Research

Institute (KFRI). Though there are seem

ingly enough number of thetree, most are not productive, generating a negativetrend in its population. “Themajority of the trees is oldwith poor fl�owering andfruiting rates. What we require now is an emergencyrestocking at the sanctuarysince the present populationis in a degrading state. Atpresent, we have a fewyoung generation trees, andif we plant some now, we willhave fl�owering trees withinthe next 25 years,” he says.

Though the fl�oweringusually happens in January,of late, the species has reported a tendency to extendthe process due to climatechange. “It’s an adaptationstrategy to increase the

chances of germination andmaintain a minimum viablepopulation,” says Dr. Jose.

Though the tree is also

seen inside the shola forestsnear Ponmudi, eff�ective pollination hardly takes place inthe habitat. “The populationin the habitat is facing inbreeding depression and wehad earlier collected albinoseedlings, an indication ofendangerment,” he adds.

Medicinal propertiesAccording to offi�cials, thetree was widely seen in places such as Pandimala, Vilakkumaram and Rosemala inthe past. “It’s reported tohave medicinal propertiesand is used to lower bloodpressure and treat arthritis.The heartwood is quite sturdy with deep red colour, andseveral trees were felled forwood during earlier days,”says an offi�cial.

Since the conservation

measures in the past werenot totally successful, the department is launching ‘SaveChenkurinji’, a campaign tobe implemented in variousareas coming under theAchencoil forest division.

As part of the campaign,the department looks toplant thousands of saplingsin the ghat sectors of Kollamand Pathanamthitta. The offi�cials have identifi�ed 75schools where Chenkurinjiwill be grown.

Apart from schools, saplings will be planted in public places, and the department has already cultivatedthousands of seedlings. “Thecampaign will be offi�ciallylaunched next week and weare expecting a visible diff�erence in the coming years,”says the offi�cial.

Saving Chenkurinji from climate change The tree was once abundant in the hills on the southern parts of the Aryankavu Pass in Kerala

A Chenkurinji tree at theShendurney WildlifeSanctuary in Kerala’s Kollamdistrict. * C. SURESHKUMAR

Navamy Sudhish

KOLLAM

Naidu bats for AlluriSitharama Raju’s statueVIJAYAWADA

TDP chief N. Chandrababu

Naidu asked the Centre to

install a statue of freedom

fighter Alluri Sitharama Raju

on Parliament premises. He

said it was a matter of pride

that the leader from Andhra

Pradesh was recognised as

part of the celebration of 75

years of Independence.

IN BRIEF

AIMIM extends support to Yashwant Sinha HYDERABAD

A delegation of the All India

MajliseIttehadul Muslimeen

(AIMIM) legislators on Saturday

met the Opposition’s

Presidential candidate

Yashwant Sinha and expressed

their support for him, ahead of

the election slated for July 18.

Four MLAs — Ahmed Balala,

Kausar Mohiuddin, Mumtaz

Khan and Moazzam Khan —

met Mr. Sinha. On June 27,

AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi

announced that his party

would support Mr. Sinha.

Endorsing the repeated allegation of Congress leaders in Kerala, Congressleader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday accused the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] of colludingwith the Bharatiya JanataParty (BJP).

Speaking at a publicmeeting at Wandoor in Malappuram district, Mr.Gandhi argued that the BJPgovernment at the Centre,which had the Enforcement Directorate, the Central Bureau of Investigationand other Central agenciesunder its control, was notquestioning Chief MinisterPinarayi Vijayan.

“This is because there isan understanding betweenthe BJP and the CPI(M).The BJP is happy with theCPI(M). It does not like theCongress and the UDF,” Mr.Gandhi said.

‘CPI(M) andBJP have anunderstanding’


KOZHIKODE

DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

The political ramifi�cations ofthe horrifi�c murder of tailorKanhaiya Lal in Udaipurhave posed a major challenge to Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot ahead ofthe 2023 Assembly election.The ruling Congress seemsto be in a predicament whiletrying to control the law andorder situation in the aftermath of the June 28 incident.

A sharp increase in religious polarisation, witnessed during the protestsagainst the killing in severaltowns across the State, is going to aff�ect political prospects of Congress. The Opposition BJP’s accusation ofthe Congress following an“appeasement policy” towards Muslims is likely togain wide currency despitethe party’s eff�orts to rebut it.

The diff�erences betweenthe National InvestigationAgency (NIA) and the State’sinvestigating agencies during the initial probe of thecrime may create more diffi�culties for the State government. While the State policewas quick to assert that thetwo accused, who slit thethroat of Kanhaiya Lal, hadlinks with Pakistan’s Dawat

eIslami, the NIA cautionedagainst drawing any hastyconclusions.

The NIA on Saturday obtained the custody of twomain accused, Riyaz Attariand Ghous Mohammed, aswell two other accused for10 days from a special courtin Jaipur. The two others,Asif Hussain and MohsinKhan, were arrested onThursday on charges of being involved in the plan tokill Kanhaiya Lal.

Communal polarisationWhile the BJP is expected tomake an attempt to get themaximum benefi�t from polarisation, which will lead toconsolidation of the votersof the majority community,

the Congress also faces thechallenge of increasing infl�uence of Bharatiya TribalParty (BTP) in the Mewar region. The districts such asPratapgarh, Dungarpur andBanswara, adjacent to Udaipur, have witnessed a sharprise in the BTP’s popularity.

In western Rajasthan’sMarwar region, Nagaur MPHanuman Beniwal’s Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) isexploiting the unrest amongthe youths against theCentre’s Agnipath schemefor strengthening its position in the Jat community.This will directly impact Mr.Gehlot, who has been contesting election from Jodhpur’s Sardarpuraconstituency.

The Udaipur episode hascome after a string of incidents of communal violencein the State in the pastmonths. Following an undercurrent of communaltension, riots took place inKarauli on April 2 and clashes broke out in Mr. Gehlot’shome turf of Jodhpur onMay 2. Communal tensionalso gripped Bhilwara twicein May. The police launcheda special drive for crackdown on the communalelements.

Udaipur murder may impact 2023 Assembly poll prospects


Jaipur

Ashok Gehlot with the familyof Kanhaiya Lal. * PTI

Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlotmay face new challenges

CMYK

A ND-NDE


DELHI THE HINDU


NEWS

FROM PAGE ONE

links so far. The Amravati case was re

ported a week before theUdaipur incident in whichKanhaiya Lal, a 40yearoldtailor, was beheaded by twopersons on June 28. The killers fi�lmed the act on a mobile phone and posted it onseveral WhatsApp groups.

Kanhaiya Lal had sharedposts in support of Ms. Sharma, who had made off�ensiveremarks against ProphetMuhammed during a television debate in May. The NIAis also probing the Udaipurcase.

Kolhe, a veterinary pharamacist, was stabbed in theneck while he was returningfrom work on his scooteraround 10.30 p.m. on June21.

Amravati MP Navneet Ranahad alleged that the policewere trying to suppress thecase by making it appear as arobbery attempt and that itswung into action only aftershe wrote a letter to UnionHome Minister Amit Shah.

However, Ms. Singh said,“The police never registeredsections of robbery. His family told us that he never received any threat, we analysed his phone, didn’t fi�ndany such message that hewas being threatened withlife.” The offi�cer said it wasIrfan who planned and motivated the other accused tocommit the crime.

The offi�cer said the casewas yet to be transferred tothe NIA but the police hadnot found any international

After Udaipur case, NIAtakes up Amravati probe

Police Special Cell had travelled all the way to Bengaluru to seize his devices butdid not take a technicianwith them, who could generate the hash value for thedevice.

On the criminal conspiracy section, Ms. Grover askedhow the police could allegeMr. Zubair conspired withhimself as he was the onlyaccused in the case.

As for deletions from hisphone, Ms. Grover submitted that the phone in question was not the one fromwhich the tweet was made.

Moreover, Ms. Grover submitted that the phone thatthe police were looking forhad been stolen in Bengaluru in March 2021 a fact argued by her at the last remand hearing as well.

Mr. Zubair moved a bail application in the case after theDelhi Police produced him incourt on Saturday upon theexpiry of their police custody. Senior Public ProsecutorAtul Srivastava, for the police, submitted they do notneed his custody for the timebeing and hence sought 14days judicial custody, sayingthey may need his police remand at a later stage.

This came a day after thepolice seized a laptop and ahard disk drive from Mr. Zubair’s Bengaluru home.

Signifi�cantly, AdvocateVrinda Grover, appearing forMr. Zubair, sought to put onrecord their “grave apprehension” that the devicesmay be tampered with bythe police. She submitted before the court that the Delhi

Denied bail, Zubair sentto judicial custody

destruction Opposition parties hope to thrust upon thepeople of our country. TheOpposition, mostly familyoriented, which emanatesfrom corrupt practices, hastime and again tried to ensure that policies and programmes of the Governmentof India that are dedicated tobuilding a resilient, resurgent India are met with destruction and disruption,” shequoted Mr. Nadda as saying.

Referring to Mr. Rao notreceiving Mr. Modi upon hisarrival in Hyderabad, Ms.Irani said, “KCRji has notonly disrupted what hasbeen constitutionally a federal protocol in our country,but has also broken marya-da [propriety], politically,culturally and socially.”

Union Minister Smriti Irani,briefi�ng the media on Mr.Nadda’s closeddoor addressto the party’s national executive, said he fl�agged the “obstruction and destruction”by the Opposition parties over every programme andpolicy of the governmentthat was aimed at reformsand the welfare of people.

“In a bid to keep opposingPrime Minister Modi theyhave started opposing thenation There are certain issues on which Oppositionparties should put the interest of the country fi�rst,” Ms.Irani said.

“Today when Naddajispoke of the constructivepolitics of the BJP under theleadership of the Prime Minister, he refl�ected on the

Opposition workingagainst nation: BJP

A Pultizerwinning photojournalist from Jammu andKashmir was stopped fromfl�ying to Paris at the IndiraGandhi International (IGI)airport here on Saturday.

Sanna Irshad Mattoo saidon Twitter that despite procuring a French visa, shewas stopped from fl�ying outof the country.

“I was scheduled to travelfrom Delhi to Paris today fora book launch and photography exhibition as one of10 award winners of the Serendipity Arles grant 2020.Despite procuring a Frenchvisa, I was stopped at the immigration desk at Delhi airport,” Ms. Mattoo said.

Ms. Mattoo from Srinagaris part of the Reuters team ofjournalists who won the Pultizer Prize for Feature Photography, 2022, for theircoverage of COVID19 pandemic in India.

The Jammu and Kashmirpolice did not comment onthe issue.

It was not known atwhose request Ms. Matoowas stopped from boardingan international fl�ight.

Passengers are stoppedby immigration authoritieson the basis of lookout circulars (LOC). A person willnot know if such a circular

exists against him or her tillthey have booked the ticketsand reached the airport.

According to the existingguidelines, LOCs are initiated by many agencies including the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI),Enforcement Directorate(ED), Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), Income Tax, State police andintelligence agencies amongothers, by an offi�cer not below the rank of a DistrictMagistrate or Superintendent of Police.

After the special status ofJammu and Kashmir underArticle 370 of the Constitution was revoked by Parliament in August 2019, LOCswere opened against severalpoliticians, human rights activists, journalists, and social activists to bar themfrom fl�ying out of the country.

J&K journalist stoppedfrom fl�ying abroadMystery over lookout circular


New Delhi

Sanna Irshad Mattoo

Over 100 concerned citizenshave demanded immediaterelease of Mohammed Zubair, the cofounder of AltNews, welcoming the DelhiHigh Court’s notice to the citypolice seeking a response ona petition challenging the legality and propriety of hisfourday police remand andthe seizure of his digitaldevices.

Through an open letter,they said as a part of AltNewsthat ran a factchecking website, it was Mr. Zubair’s job toverify news from across thepolitical spectrum on socialmedia.

Being targeted“We believe that Mr. Zubair isbeing targeted maliciouslyfor performing the rolewhich a media person is expected to perform, namelyscrupulous fact checking aswell as exposing fake newsand political disinformation.”

Among those who have endorsed the statement are writer and human rights activistAakar Patel, independentjournalist Ajit Sahi, ArjunSheoran of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, KavitaKrishnan of the All India Progressive Women’s Associa

tion, Natasha Bhadwar ofKarwaneMohabbat and Dalit women’s activist Priyanka.

They said his courageouswork as a journalist upheldthe highest standards of themedia and his work burnished India’s global image asa democracy in which truthcould be told to power.

They said Mr. Zubair’stweet, of a screenshot of a1983 fi�lm, was simply a pretext for the police to seize hisphone and laptop, which wasillegal as they were irrelevantto the case.

“Apart from violating hisfundamental right to privacy,his journalistic integrity andconfi�dentiality of information and sources, we apprehend that the police maytamper with the seized material and build a false conspiracy to implicate him andother members of civil society, as was done with some ofthe Bhima Koregaon accused

by planting material on theirlaptops,” they said.

“It is also suspicious thatthe account from which thecomplaint came was an anonymous Twitter handle @balajikijaiin by the name of Hanuman Bhakt. The accountcame into being on October2021, had only one follower,and this complaint was hisfi�rst tweet, although in courtduring Mr. Zubair’s remandhearing on Tuesday, the police had submitted that theperson running the Twitteraccount was ‘not anonymous’,” said the statement.

However, the signatoriessaid, according to news reports the Delhi Police hadwritten to Twitter in a bid totrace the complainant afterusing his tweet as materialfor a First Information Report(FIR) against Mr. Zubair.

“Apart from the above illegalities, after Mr. Zubair’s arrest, his lawyers were not gi

ven a copy of the FIR despiterepeated requests. They weregiven a copy only after thepolice remand order late intothe night of June 27. Mr. Zubair was taken around withpolicemen without nametags; these are all violationsof the D.K. Basu guidelines ofArrest and Detention issuedby the SC,” they said.

“Perplexed” that remandwas granted to the police fora “frivolous” case, the signatories said the Judicial Magistrate should have ensuredthat police offi�cers did not arrest the accused unnecessarily. All the charges against Mr.Zubair should be droppedand the Delhi Police Commissioner should take stern action against errant offi�cials.They raised the suspicionthat he might be tortured inpolice custody.

“It is ironical that on thesame day as Mr. Zubair’s arrest, India, along with G7countries, signed the ‘2022Resilient Democracies Statement’, wherein the Indian government committed to‘guarding the freedom, independence and diversity of civil society actors’ and ‘protecting the freedom ofexpression and opinion online and offl�ine’,” said thestatement.

Over 100 citizens demandimmediate release of Zubair ‘We apprehend that police may tamper with the seized material to implicate him’


NEW DELHI

In a bid to defuse the violentprotest that emanated afterthe Agnipath scheme wasannounced, the Ministry ofHome Aff�airs (MHA) said onJune 18 that 10% of all vacancies in the Central ArmedPolice Forces (CAPFs) or theparamilitary will be reserved for the recruits under the scheme.

However, the new reservation promise that willhave to fi�t horizontallyalongside the existing castebased quota and physicaleligibility requirements inthe CAPFs is proving to be achallenge for the Ministry.

While the minimumheight requirement acrossall armed forces under theAgnipath scheme is 152.5cm, the minimum height required for a general dutyconstable in a combat rolein all CAPFs is 165 cm.

The armed forces do notrecruit according to castebased formula but enrolment in the CAPFs is doneas per the existing reservation system and cannot exceed the 50% cap as fi�xed bythe Supreme Court.

If new battalions inCAPFs are not raised, the recruitment can be done onlyagainst the existing vacan

cies arising out of retirement, death or any miscellaneous reason. “If aScheduled Caste constablein CAPF has retired, the slotcan be only fi�lled by an SCAgniveer, else it might upsetthe overall quota,” said a senior government offi�cial.

Another teething problem the Ministry is examining is the diff�erent heightspecifi�cations in the armedforces.

While Army has notifi�ed aminimum requirement of170 cm height for general category Agniveers, the Navyand Air Force’s requirementis 157 cm and 152.5 cmrespectively.

The CAPFs have alsosought clarity from the MHAregarding the implementation of the 10% reservation.

10% quota for Agniveers

has to fi�t current rules Physical norms diff�er for Army, CAPFs

Vijaita Singh

New Delhi

CAPF personnel at a railwaystation during the previousLok Sabha polls. * FILE PHOTO

In India, a party in powerbelieves that every governmental action is entitled tojudicial endorsement andthe Opposition parties expect the judiciary to advance their political positions and causes, but the“judiciary is answerable tothe Constitution and Constitution alone,” Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramanasaid on Saturday.

He also expressed disappointment that even after75 years of Independencepeople have not understood the roles and responsibilities assigned by theConstitution to eachinstitution.

He added that thisfl�awed thinking of all huesfl�ourishes in the absence ofproper understandingamong people about theConstitution and the functioning of the democraticinstitutions.

Chief Justice Ramanasaid that to enforce checksand balances envisioned inthe Constitution, “We needto spread awareness aboutthe roles and responsibilities of individuals andinstitutions”.

CJI Ramana said both India and the U.S. are knownfor their diversity whichneeds to be honoured

‘Judiciaryanswerable to‘Constitution’


News Delhi

“But it was deliberately andmischievously doctored toappear as if it was a comment on the heinous murderof Kanhaiya Lal in Udaipur,”Mr. Ramesh wrote, addingthat no other channel hadshown this clip in the Udaipur context.

Mr. Ramesh mentionedother BJP leaders like MPSubrat Pathak and MLAKamlesh Saini as peoplewho shared the doctored video. But he accused Mr.Rathore of deliberately persisting with the fake news.

“Despite being cautionedby my party colleagues thatthe clip was maliciously falseand misleading, Shri Rathore persisted with amplifying the same, fi�rst deleting

and then reuploading thesame. This leaves no doubtthat his actions were deliberate and part of your party’sstrategy to defame the former INC president, to defamethe Congress party and tofurther polarise an alreadysensitive, communal situation,” Mr. Ramesh noted.

Mr. Gandhi didn’t directlyrefer to the doctored videobut his tweet was suggestive.“Propaganda and lies arethe foundation of BJPRSS.The whole nation knowsthat they seek to gain bystoking the fi�res of communal hatred. No matter howhard these traitors try tobreak the country, the Congress will work to unite India,” he tweeted.

Apologise for ‘doctored’video of Rahul: Cong.

Almost fi�ve years after thekilling of a Muslim labourerand nearly four years afterthe present Congress government assumed offi�ce in Rajasthan, the trial of ShambhuLal Regar, the accused, is stillat the stage of recording evidence.

Mohammed Afrazul, 48,hailing from West Bengal,was hacked with an axe andburnt alive without any provocation in Rajasthan’s Rajsamand town in 2017. The accused, Shambhu Lal Regar,had fi�lmed the act anduploaded the video on socialmedia.

The gruesome murder,which created a nationwideoutrage, has come to the limelight after fi�ve years following the similar killing oftailor Kanhaiya Lal in Udaipur earlier this week.

Chief Minister Ashok Geh

lot has expressed the hopethat investigation in theUdaipur case will be conducted at a fast pace after theNational Investigation Agency (NIA) takes over theprobe. The NIA has obtainedcustody of the accused onSaturday.

Meanwhile, the Congresshas dismissed the charge of“appeasement policy” beingfollowed towards Muslims bythe Rajasthan government,and pointed out that the people of a particular party hadat the time taken out a rallyin support of Mr. Regar of theRajsamand hate killing case,climbed atop a court complex and hoisted their fl�agthere after removing thetricolour.

Mr. Regar, 40, had fi�lmedthe act of killing Afrazul onDecember 6, 2017, with thehelp of his minor nephew.The video showed the labourer begging for his life.

Later, Mr. Regar circulatedtwo more videos with hatespeeches from the JodhpurCentral Jail asking Hindus tounite against Jihadis.

Slow progress in trialWhile Mr. Regar was lodgedin the highsecurity CentralJail in Jodhpur as an undertrial prisoner, the trialagainst him was in progressin the Sessions Court in Raj

samand. Jaidev Kachhawa,Public Prosecutor in Rajsamand district court, told TheHindu on Saturday that thetrial was at the stage of recording of evidence and examination of witnesses.

Mr. Regar, a resident ofRajnagar, was seen claimingin the video clip that he hadtaken revenge for “love jihad” [crosscommunity relationships] and warned that

es of evidence collected bythe police. The court also rejected bail application of theaccused.

The chargesheet claimedthe “love jihad” claim was acover used by Mr. Regar tohide his illicit relationshipwith a woman whom hecalled his “Hindu sister” inthe video. He was angry thatthe woman was still in contact with a labourer fromWest Bengal called BalluSheikh, with whom she hadreportedly eloped in 2010.

A Ram Navami processionin Jodhpur in 2018 included atableau, in which a manbearing striking resemblance to Mr. Regar was seated on a thronelike chairwith a pickaxe in his hand.He was dressed in clothes similar to those of Mr. Regarand an accompanying banner called upon the peopleto liberate the country from“love jihad”.

anyone challenging the Hindus would “meet the samefate”. He attacked the victim,while asking the minoritiesto leave the country, andpoured petrol over the semiconscious man and threw aburning matchstick on him.

The halfcharred bodywas identifi�ed as that of Afrazul, a native of Malda in WestBengal, who was working asan unskilled labourer in Rajsamand for the past 12 years.A father of three girls, he wasplanning to return home toarrange the wedding of hisyoungest daughter.

The then BJP governmenthad promised stringent action against the assailant after his arrest and set up aspecial investigation team toprobe the case, besides appointing a special public prosecutor. Mr. Kachhawa saidthe prosecution had fi�led a413page chargesheet incourt and appended 68 piec

Slow pace of justice in Rajsamand hate killing caseA gruesome hate killing has come to the limelight again after fi�ve years following a similar murder of tailor Kanhaiya Lal

Pursuit of justice: Civil rights activists during a protest inJaipur in December 2017. * FILE PHOTO


JAIPUR

“The employer could be lying or even have fi�red someone after hiring. This has tobe verifi�ed to get the actualdata,” he said. AAP has usedthe claim of providing “10lakh jobs” on multiple occasions, ranging from electionrallies to press conferences,

and the Budget speech to interviews, to project what theAAP terms as the “Kejriwalmodel of governance”. TheDelhi government used toconduct job fairs, and whenthe pandemic hit, it was notpossible to hold them, so itwas moved online.

AAP’s claim of creating10 lakh jobs misleading

CMYK

A ND-NDE


THE HINDU DELHI


NEWS

Shiv Sena MLA Rajan Salvion Saturday fi�led his nomination as the candidate ofthe threeparty Maha VikasAghadi (MVA) for the post ofMaharashtra Legislative Assembly Speaker.

The longpending election is slated for July 3.

On Friday, fi�rsttime Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator Rahul Narvekar fi�ledhis nomination for the post.

While Mr. Narvekar represents Mumbai’s ColabaAssembly constituency, Mr.Salvi is the MLA for the Rajapur constituency in Ratnagiri district.

He is one of a handful ofSena legislators still with theUddhav Thackerayled Senacamp after current Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s recent intraparty rebelliondetached 40 of the total 55Sena MLAs to form a sepa

rate faction. Following therevolt and the subsequentcollapse of the MVA government, Mr. Shinde, with support from the BJP, took oathas Chief Minister earlier thisweek, while BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis was swornin as Deputy Chief Minister.

The Shinde faction hasstaked claim to be the ‘realShiv Sena’ given that theynow have the majority

MLAs on their side and haveappointed MLA Bharat Gogawale as their whip. The rebel faction is likely to issue awhip asking the UddhavThackeray group to vote forMr. Narvekar, the BJP candidate. Similarly, the Thackeray group is likely to issue awhip to all rebel MLAs tovote for the MVA candidategiven that Uddhav Thackeray is still the party chief.

The Speaker’s post hasbeen lying vacant since February 2021 when Congressleader Nana Patole resignedto become the MaharashtraPradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) chief.

Asked why the Congresschose to nominate a Senacandidate in the election forthe Speaker’s post instead ofgiving one of their own, senior Congress leader Balasaheb Thorat said: “We [representatives of all threeparties] sat together and decided the post ought to begiven to a Sena candidate.We are fi�rmly with Mr.Thackeray in this hour ofcrisis.”

A special twoday Assembly session has beenconvened on July 3 and 4.While election for theSpeaker’s post will be heldon Sunday, Mr. Shinde andMr. Fadnavis are to face thefl�oor test on Monday.

Embattled MVA fi�elds Sena’sRajan Salvi as Speaker nominee The BJP has put forward fi�rsttime MLA Rahul Narvekar as its candidate

Special correspondent

Pune

In the spotlight: Shiv Sena MLA Rajan Salvi. * FILE PHOTO

The Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) had made rebel ShivSena leader Eknath Shindethe Chief Minister of Maharashtra merely to wrestMumbai from the Sena, Rajya Sabha member SanjayRaut said on Saturday.

He further claimed that asthe Sena MLAs, he too hadreceived an off�er to join theShinde camp in Guwahati,but had refused to side withthem. Mr. Raut said he chosenot to go to Assam as he is astaunch follower of Senaleader Balasaheb Thackeray’s ideals.

“BJP wants to destroy theShiv Sena in Mumbai andMaharashtra, but it will nothappen,” said the MP, who isbeing quizzed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) inan alleged scam pertainingto the redevelopment ofMumbai’s Patra Chawl.

Mr. Raut said that the

BJP’s gambit to install Mr.Shinde as CM was solely tosnare the BrihanmumbaiMunicipal Corporation(BMC) from the Sena’scontrol.

The cashrich BMC, saidto be the richest civic bodyin Asia, is the Shiv Sena’s lifeline and power base and theparty’s major resourcecentre in Maharashtra.

With the BJP under Devendra Fadnavis havingscored a major coup bywrecking former CM Udd

hav Thackeray’s party andtoppling the tripartite MVA,the saff�ron party is gunningfor victory in the criticalBMC election, which is duein a few months.

While the Sena has heldabsolute sway over theMumbai civic body for twodecades, the BJP, riding highon the ‘Narendra Modi wave’in 2017, had rattled its former ally in the 2017 civic bodypoll, when it snared 82 of thetotal 227 seats, second onlyto the Sena’s tally of 84 seats.

The Sena’s strength laterincreased to 97 with the support of some Independentsand the defection of somecorporators from the RajThackerayled MaharashtraNavnirman Sena (MNS).

This has made the upcoming BMC poll in the context of the dramatically altered political equations inthe State a matter of lifeanddeath for the Uddhav Thackeray group.

BJP’s ploy is to wrest MumbaiCorporation from Sena: Raut MP claims he scorned off�er by rebel camp to join them


Pune

Sanjay Raut

The Shiv Sena on Saturdaysaid former MaharashtraChief Minister DevendraFadnavis taking oath as Deputy Chief Minister was a“shocking climax” to thedrama of creating politicalinstability in the State, andquestioned the BJP why itdid not show a “big heart”by honouring the pact ofrotational CM in 2019.

The Sena, in an editorialin its mouthpiece Saama-na, said that Mr. Fadnavisbecoming Deputy Chief Minister instead of Chief Minister is now being defended as an instance of his“big heart” and “adherence to the party’s directives”. “With the motive ofcreating political instabilityin Maharashtra, a dramawas played out... The fastpaced developments haveleft even the Chanakayasand political punditsstunned as strokes andmasterstrokes are beingplayed,” it said.

BJP shouldhave keptpact: Sena


Mumbai

Following Shiv Sena leaderEknath Shinde’s massive intraparty rebellion whichsplit the Uddhav Thackerayled party right down themiddle, rumblings of futurerevolts within the party, particularly of Sena MPs, havereportedly prompted Mr.Thackeray’s camp to gettheir remaining fl�ock to signaffi�davits pledging loyalty.

While Sena MP Arvind Sawant and others loyal to Mr.Thackeray denied reports ofMLAs being made to signsuch affi�davits, the rebelcamp led by Chief MinisterShinde said the loyaltypledges were “an insult todemocracy”.

Mocking the affi�davits, rebel MLA Deepak Kesarkar,the spokesperson of theShinde faction on Saturdaysaid there was no law binding MPs or MLAs to pledgeloyalty a party.

He said that while theloyalty pledges taken on affi�davits on ₹�100 stamp paperwould generate a lot of revenue for Maharashtra, theywould have no legalstanding.

“There is no such law inIndia…This is a democracy,not a dictatorship. Anyonewho is a member of one political party is free to leave itand join another. You cannot tie someone down withan affi�davit. This is an insultto democracy. BalasahebThackeray [late Sena founder] had tied everyone together with his love andwith the Shiv-bandhan onour wrists – the thread ofloyalty and Hindutva thatties us together. No one cantake it off� my wrist,” said Mr.Kesarkar, speaking in Goa.

Chief Minister Shinde arrived at a hotel in Panaji early today morning and held a

meeting with the rebelMLAs. The rebel MLAs arrived in Mumbai late evening in order to be presentfor the twoday special session of the Legislative Assembly on July 3 and 4.

Meanwhile, commentingon Mr. Shinde’s expulsionfrom the party by Sena president Uddhav Thackeray,Mr. Kesarkar said that they(Shinde faction) would replyto Mr. Thackeray’s letter in alegal manner.

“We have already said wewill not directly answer anyquestions over statementsmade against us by Uddhavji. We still have the greatestrespect for him. The letterthat CM Shinde receivedyesterday has been writtenin the legal language andwill be replied to in a legalmanner,” Mr. Kesarkar said.

With Mr. Shinde sworn inas Maharashtra Chief Minister and having the majorityof the 55 Sena MLAs withhim, the refrain from theShinde camp is that theThackeray faction, withbarely 15 legislators, can nolonger claim “ownership” ofthe party.

Reports of affi�davits surface


Pune

Uddhav camp triesto secure loyalty

<> This is a democracy,

not a dictatorship.

Anyone who is a

member of one

political party is

free to leave it and

join another

Deepak Kesarkar

Maharashtra MLA

Almost ready: Construction work in full swing for the Central Vista redevelopment project near India Gate in New Delhi onSaturday. Central Vista Avenue is set to open in a few days. * R.V. MOORTHY



Corridor revamp

The government on Saturday took aim once again atthe U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) over comments expressing“concerns” over the treatment of minorities, humanrights advocates and media,which follow its report thisyear downgrading India’sratings on religious freedom.

“USCIRF continues to misrepresent facts time andagain in its statements andreports in pursuance of itsmotivated agenda. Such actions only serve to strengthen concerns about thecredibility and objectivity ofthe organization,” the Ministry of External Aff�airs spo

kesperson said, respondingto a series of tweets postedon the USCIRF handle thatcriticised the Modigovernment.

The tweets included acomment by USCIRF Commissioner David Curry, whoaccused the government of“continued repression ofcritical voices — especiallyreligious minorities andthose reporting on and advocating for them”, attaching amedia report about the arrest of Gujarat activists Teesta Setalvad, R.B. Sreekumarand Sanjeev Bhatt.

Another comment by USCIRF Commissioner StephenSchneck said that harassment of “human rights advocates, journalists, activists,and faith leaders in India is

not refl�ective of a countrywith a history of democracy”.

The tweet included a report on the arrest of factchecker and cofounder ofAlt News Mohammed Zubair, who was denied bailagain on Saturday in a casealleging that he had off�endedreligious sentiments in atweet he posted in 2018.

In its latest response, theMEA called the USCIRF comments “biased and inaccurate”. The comments refl�ected a severe lack ofunderstanding of India andits constitutional framework, its plurality and its democratic ethos, the MEAsaid.

The comments are the latest in a growing number of

critical comments in the U.S.over the issue. On July 1, theU.S. Ambassador for International Religious FreedomRashad Hussain said he wasworried about calls for “genocide” within India, andcriticised what he called Union Home Minister AmitShah’s “dehumanising” reference to Bangladeshi immigrants as “termites”. He, however, didn’t name Mr.Shah.

“India now has a citizenship law that’s on the books.We’ve had open calls for genocide in India. We’ve hadattacks on churches. Wehave had a ban on the hijab.We’ve had demolitions ofhomes,” Ambassador Hussain said at a conference inWashington DC.

U.S. body on religious freedom ‘biased’: MEA USCIRF had expressed ‘concerns’ over the treatment of minorities, activists

Suhasini Haidar

New Delhi

A book titled Gandhi and theChamparan Satyagraha: Se-lect Readings, which hasbeen edited by Jadavpur University ViceChancellor Suranjan Das, was released onSaturday.

At the virtual book launchevent, Prof. Das thanked theWest Bengal governmentand the Netaji Institute forAsian Studies for sponsoringthe research.

Speaking during a paneldiscussion, Faisal Devji, Professor of History in the University of Oxford, said thebook would immediately be

come an indispensable resource for those who wanted to look at MahatmaGandhi’s journey at its verybeginning in India with respect to the Champaransatyagraha.

Prof. Devji said during thesatyagraha, Mahatma Gandhi quite deliberately refusedto abide by the inheritedconventional standard categorisations of national politics that had existed till then.“I am, in particular, referring to the distinction between social reform on onehand and political freedomon the other, which alsomaps on to another distinc

tion between moderates onthe one hand and extremistson the other,” he said.

As the Congress party wassaid to have been dividedbetween moderates and extremists, “Gandhi beingGandhi, of course, refuses toabide by these tenets andthese terms of debate andyou already see this inChamparan. What he doesin Champaran, in my view, ishe explicitly refuses to engage in formal political manoeuvres and he achievespolitical ends as it werethrough their opposite, thesocial”, Prof. Devjiremarked.

New book explores Gandhi’srole in Champaran satyagraha The Mahatma refused to abide by convention, says scholar


New Delhi

The Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) national executive onSaturday lauded the changes made by the Modi government in military recruitment with the Agnipathscheme, and dismissed talkof a crisis in employment,countering that the government had made the highestever budgetary allocationfor public spending duringthe COVID19 pandemic.

A resolution on “gareebkalyan” or welfare of thepoor was passed at the BJP’snational executive, whichmet in Hyderabad on Saturday, with Defence MinisterRajnath Singh moving theresolution which was seconded by Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal andfurther supported by Harya

na Chief Minister M.L. Khattar.

Briefi�ng the press on theresolution, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhansaid that the Modi government had handled the economy well, keeping the welfare of the poor at the centreof its policies amid a globaleconomic crisis due to theCOVID19 pandemic.

“The governmentthrough the Garib KalyanYojana has distributed freegrains to 80 crore benefi�ciaries for 25 months, and hasalso, via gati shakti programme, made the highestannouncement of publicspending on infrastructure,which is part of job creationeff�orts,” he said. “If therewas an acute [ jobs] crisis,then social harmony wouldhave been hit,” he added.

Party cites govt.’s relief measures


Hyderabad

BJP passes resolution on welfare of the poor

Udaipur tailor Kanhaiya Lal,who was allegedly killed bytwo men avenging an insultto Islam, and Punjabi singerand Congress party leaderSidhu Moosewala, who wasshot dead recently, found amention in a condolencemessage passed at the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP)national executive meetinghere on Saturday, sourcessaid.

The condolence message,

moved as a resolution byBJP general secretary DilipSaikia, also mentioned several dignitaries and BJPleaders, and the Army personnel who died in a landslip in Manipur.

Days before his killing,Lal had told the local policethat he had received threatsover a social media postshared from his account,which apparently supported suspended BJP leaderNupur Sharma’s remarks onProphet Muhammed.

Condolences to kin ofKanhaiya, MoosewalaBJP national executive mourns them


hyderabad

CMYK

A ND-NDE


DELHI THE HINDU


NEWS

DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

Solution to yesterday’s Sudoku

SUDOKU

The death toll in the landslipat a railway construction sitein Noney district of Manipurclimbed to 29 on Saturdayafter eight bodies were recovered from under the debris, offi�cials said.

Thirtyfour people arestill missing after the massive landslip hit the Tupulyard railway constructioncamp on the night of June29. Inclement weather is affecting the search, offi�cialssaid.

Five of the eight bodies recovered during the day areof Territorial Army personnel and one of an employeeof a construction company.The two others are yet to beidentifi�ed.

The defence personnelwere there to provide security to the construction site.

“Eight bodies were foundon Thursday and 13 yesterday,” an offi�cial said. He saidthat altogether 34 people, including 14 employees of twoconstruction companies,fi�ve villagers and three of theRailways, are still missing.Eighteen people were rescued from the site on Thurs

day. The search started at 4a.m. and rescue teams havebeen advised to proceedwith caution. Rain since early Saturday morning hashampered the operations,the offi�cials said.

Over 470 personnel, including those of the nationaland State disaster responseforces, the State police, theAssam Rifl�es and local volunteers, have been deployed for the search.

Over 30 excavators arebeing used to clear the debris which blocked the Ijairiver, forming a damlikestorage and threatening tofl�ood the neighbourhood.

Earthmovers have beenbrought in to remove the de

bris, and create a channel toallow the fl�ow of water fromthere, offi�cials said.

A defence spokespersonin Guwahati said, “ThroughWall Radar is being successfully used. A searchandrescue dog is also being employed to assist.” Suchradars are used for the detection and location of staticand moving targets, especially human beings, behindwalls. The spokespersonsaid bodies of 14 defencepersonnel, including a junior commissioned offi�cer,were sent to their hometowns. Full military honourswere given to the deceasedat Imphal before sending thebodies to their hometowns.

8 more bodies found,Manipur toll hits 29 Five of the bodies recovered are of Army personnel


Imphal

Rescue operations under way for the third consecutive dayafter a massive landslip hit Noney district on Saturday. * PTI

Prolonged disruption of roadand rail transport across amajor part of Northeast India due to fl�oods and landslips has renewed the demand for fasttrackingprojects for connectivitywith the rest of the countrythrough Bangladesh.

The Barak Valley in southern Assam and the southernhalf of Manipur, Mizoramand Tripura are dependenton the arterial LumdingBadarpur railway line for transporting essentials from other parts of the country. TheNational Highway throughMeghalaya shares some ofthe passenger and cargoload, while another throughDima Hasao in Assam hasnot quite been serviceable.

The 185km railway lineconnecting Lumding in Hojai district of central Assamand Badarpur in Karimganjdistrict of southern Assam,much of it through the hilldistrict of Dima Hasao, hasbeen prone to landslipssince the metre gauge trackof 1899 vintage was realigned and converted tobroad gauge in 2015. Badarpur is the junction fromwhere the tracks branch outto Silchar (30 km away), Jiribam in Manipur, Bairabi in

Mizoram and Agartala inTripura. The two highwayshave a similar problem, particularly during the monsoon months of June toSeptember.

On May 14, raininducedlandslips and fl�ash fl�oodsdamaged the railway line inDima Hasao at 56 locations.The highways either caved inor were blocked in manyplaces, aff�ecting road transport for days. These cut off�Barak Valley, parts of Manipur, Mizoram and Tripurafor weeks. Subimal Bhattacharjee, a Delhibased cybersecurity expert from Silchar,said the landslipprone railway and highways made therevival of old Britisheraroutes through presentdayBangladesh important for atleast fi�ve northeastern

States, including Meghalaya. “The Maitri Bridge across

the Feni river connects Sabroom in Tripura and Ramgarh in Bangladesh, while efforts are on to take therailway line beyond Sabroom. Another railway lineconnecting Agartala and Akhaura in Bangladesh is in theworks,” he said.

“These will improve Tripura’s connectivity by leapsand bounds. But Mizoram,Manipur, Barak Valley, DimaHasao and Meghalaya will bebetter served by the old British line through Mahisasanon the AssamBangladeshborder with Badarpur becoming the communicationhub,” Mr. Bhattacharjee said.

Mahisasan in Karimganjdistrict of the Barak Valleyused to be connected to Chit

tagong, via Kulaura.“I am a strong proponent

of connectivity, especiallybetween Sylhet and ourlongseparated cousins inthe Barak Valley. The ChittagongBadarpurHafl�ong railway line is one of the oldestsetup by the British to carrygoods and traffi�c. We need toreconnect Kulaura with Mahisasan and beyond. Thiswould be a winwin situationfor both Assam and Bangladesh,” Ishfaq Ilahi, a retiredAir Commodore of Bangladesh Air Force specialising ininternational aff�airs, toldThe Hindu.

“I also visualise directtrain between Sylhet and Silchar, just like the one wehave between Kolkata andKhulna. I proposed the otherday in a meeting with IndianHigh Commissioner here(Dhaka) to build a friendshipbridge between Karimganjand Zakiganj (Bangladesh)across the Kushiara river,with immigration facilitieson either side,” he said.

Offi�cials at the NortheastFrontier Railway said a 2.7km line from Mahisasan toZero Point is expected to becommissioned by December2023. “Taking the trackbeyond into Bangladeshwould then be a matter oftime,” a spokesperson said.

Northeast needs international routesThe landlocked southern part will do well with connectivity via Bangladesh

Lifelines snapped: A road damaged in fl�oods in Karimganjdistrict on Friday. * PTI

Rahul Karmakar

Guwahati

Visitors to the Sun Temple inKonark, Odisha, will soon beable to see the newly carvedstones on the northern sideof the jagmohan, or the assembly hall, of the WorldHeritage Site. The restoration work is likely to be completed within a month, Archaeological Survey of India(ASI) offi�cials said this week.

The pilot project startedin 2019 with a study of thestones at the temple and ananalysis of the historic drawings and photos from the19th century onwards. Thework on the site began in2021, Arun Malik, ASI Superintending Archaeologist(Bhubaneswar Circle), said.Local artisans are busy making the mouldings for the

section being restored.Khondalite stones were procured from the ancient quarry at Tapang, Mr. Malik said.

Starting in 1901, the British government had placedplain stones across the siteand fi�lled the jagmohan withsand to preserve the struc

ture of the 13th century temple. The ASI carried out conservation works after the sitewas handed over to it in1936. Mr. Malik said the temple that visitors see today remains standing due to theconservation eff�orts over theyears. Over the years, till

1986, plain stones wereplaced in order to keep thetemple’s structure secure asthe conservation policy,which was drafted in 1915,only allowed for additions tobe made for structural reasons. In 2014, however, theASI brought out a new conservation policy that allowedfor restoration and recreation of destroyed elementsof monuments as long asthey were in keeping withthe history and authenticity.

Architectural value“Restoration may be undertaken on monuments withhigh architectural value andonly in parts of a monumentwherein there are missinggeometric or fl�oral patterns,or structural members of amonument which have been

damaged recently,” according to the National Conservation Policy (2014).

Mr. Malik said the motifsfor the pilot project were selected after researching oldglass negatives of photos andthe designs visible on thetemple. He said the scaff�olding around the northern sidewould be removed and theportion would be open tothe public for a closer lookwithin a month, though visitors have been able to seethe ongoing work.

ASI spokesperson VasantSwarnkar said the projectwould be assessed after completion before any decisionis taken for further restoration work at the temple.

He said independent experts would also be invitedto study it.

Restoring the Sun Temple’s exquisite carvingsThe work is likely to be completed within a month, said offi�cials of Archaeological Survey of India

Historical monument: A worker engaged in restoration workon the 13century temple. * SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Damini Nath

New Delhi

The Kolkata Police on Saturday issued a lookoutnotice against suspendedBJP spokesperson NupurSharma after she failed toturn up to the summons issued by at least two policestations in the city.

FIRs were registeredfi�rst at Narkeldanga policestation and then at Amherst Street Police stationfor her objectionable remarks on Prophet Muhammed.

The FIRs were registered on the basis of complaints fi�led by individuals.At least 10 complaints werefi�led against Ms. Sharmaunder diff�erent police stations in the jurisdiction ofKolkata Police.

Lookoutnotice againstNupur issued

Special correspondent

Kolkata

India added 540 species toits faunal database in 2021taking the total number ofanimal species to 1,03,258.The country also added 315taxa to the Indian fl�oraduring 2021, taking thenumber of fl�oral taxa in thecountry to 55,048.

Of the 540 faunal species,406 are new discoveries and134 new records to India.Thirteen new genera werealso discovered in 2021.Among the new speciesdiscovered is one speciesfrom mammal, 35 reptilesand 19 species of pisces.

The new mammal speciesdiscovered is Crociduranarcondamica, awhitetoothed shrew, fromNarcondam Island of theAndaman and Nicobargroup of islands.

Among the reptilesdiscovered in 2021, notableis Boiga whitakeri, orWhitaker’s cat snake, fromthe Western Ghats in TamilNadu.

The most number of newdiscoveries was from thefaunal group Hymenoptera,an order of insects,comprising the sawfl�ies,wasps, bees, and ants, inwhich 80 species, includingone new genus, werediscovered.

Dhriti Banerjee, Director,Zoological Survey of India((ZSI), which observed its107th foundation day on July1, said scientists from theZSI had contributed to 68%of the animal discoveries in

2021. She pointed out thatduring the COVID19pandemic, explorationswere greatly hampered, butthey have been renewedwith full vigour now.

With 1.03 lakh species offauna, India contributes to6.1% of faunal diversity inthe world.

The 315 taxa of fl�oraadded to India consist of298 species and 17intraspecifi�c taxa as new toIndian fl�ora. Of these, 204taxa are new to science and125 taxa are newdistributional records fromIndia. “Fortythree per centnovelties published invarious national andinternational journals are ofvascular plants; rest arenonvascular in nature. Thisvolume records 135angiosperms, fourpteridophytes, 9bryophytes, 28 lichens, 98

fungi, 29 algae and 12microbes,” a note from theBotanical Survey of India(BSI) said.

According to the BSI,regions such as the WesternGhats and the northeasternregions have contributed28% of the total discoveries.In Statewise analysis, themost number of discoverieswere made from Kerala with51 taxa followed byMaharashtra and ArunachalPradesh. In 2021, the fl�oraldiscoveries include wildrelatives of many potentialhorticultural, agricultural,medicinal, and ornamentalplants such as begonia,impatiens (Balsams),legumes, zingibers andorchids.

The details of newdiscoveries and new recordsof fauna and fl�ora werepublished by BhupendraYadav, Union Minister of

Environment, Forest andClimate Change, at theheadquarters of theZoological Survey of India (ZSI) in Kolkata on Friday.

Migration of speciesSpeaking on the occasion,Mr. Yadav said climatechange was no distantreality and science had beenvery categorical on theissue. The Minister pointedout that as a consequence ofclimate change, a change indistributional pattern ofvegetation, with species inhigh elevation ecosystemshifting to higher elevationhad already been observed.

“Range shift andmigration of animals is verymuch likely; the distributionof fauna needs to bemonitored and periodicallyanalysed as a priority study.Longterm studies on faunalelements of forests, aquatic,coastal and marineecosystem are essential,”Mr. Yadav said.

The Minister also pointedout that the geospatial dataof the ZSI would be of greatimportance in developingadaptive spatial planning ofconservation areas.

“Recent fi�ndings of ZSIwill be useful in forestmanagement and supportthe national action plan tocombat climate change inIndia,” Mr. Yadav said.

The Minister also pointedthat the signifi�cance oftaxonomists cannot beneglected but unfortunatelythe number of taxonomistswas declining alarmingly.

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India adds 540 species to faunal database

Shiv Sahay Singh

Kolkata

New species Crocidura narcondamica found in the Andaman and Nicobar islands

Union Ministers Bhupender Yadav and Ashwini KumarChoubey during an event in Kolkata. * DEBASISH BHADURI

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached theproperties of SaravanaStores (Gold Palace) Chennai and lottery scam accused Santiago Martin inseparate cases.

In the fi�rst case, it attached the properties worth₹�234.75 crore in a moneylaundering case fi�led for defrauding Indian Bank.

The ED initiated an investigation under the Prevention of Money LaunderingAct, 2002, based on an FIR(April 25, 2022) registeredby the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and theEconomic Off�ences Wing,Chennai. And the ED recorded the case in May 2022under the PMLA.

According to details provided by the ED, it is allegedthat late Pallakudurai, P. Sujatha and Y.P. Shiravan,partners of Saravana Stores(Gold Palace), with the criminal intention of cheatingIndian Bank, T. Nagarbranch, Chennai, had conspired with unknown publicservants and others.

Balance sheetInvestigation revealed thatSaravana Stores (Gold Palace) had applied for a loanand fabricated its balance

sheet and projected that thecompany was fi�nanciallyhealthy.

Details provided by theED highlighted that therewas a huge mismatch between the sales reported bythe fi�rm and the credit entries. Turnover projectionswere not provided accurately when the loan was taken.The fi�rm, in collision withthe property valuer, a fewbank offi�cials and some private persons, proposed topurchase assets at a pricewhich was higher than themarket value.

The investigation revealed that the accused persons overstated the inventory, transferred the assetswithout the knowledge ofthe bank, used the OCC limits to repay the term loan,misappropriated and diverted the funds for which itwas not sanctioned, andcommitted other irregularities. Thus, the accused persons and the fi�rm cheatedthe bank and caused it awrongful loss.

“The accused companyhas generated proceeds ofcrime amounting to ₹�240crore out of criminal activities,” the ED said. In the caseof Santiago Martin, the EDattached movable and immovable properties worth₹�173.48 crore.

It attaches assets in two diff�erent cases


CHENNAI

ED acts against SaravanaStores Gold Palace, Martin

The intelligence wing ofthe Rajasthan police has arrested three persons fromthe border districts oncharges of sending strategic and confi�dential information to their handlers inPakistan. They were allegedly involved in an espionage racket managed by theneighbouring country’s intelligence agencies.

DirectorGeneral of Police (Intelligence) UmeshMishra said here on Saturday that the trio were heldduring an ‘Operation Sarhad’, undertaken betweenJune 25 and 28, when 23suspects from Sriganganagar, Hanumangarh andChuru districts were detained and interrogated bythe CIDIntelligenceoffi�cers.

Of the suspects whowere questioned, the intelligence wing has arrestedAbdul Sattar of Hanumangarh, Nitin Yadav of Suratgarh and Ram Singh ofBarmer. All of them weregetting regular payment ofmoney for supplying information related to defenceestablishments to Pakistaniintelligence agencies.

Three spiesworking forPak. held inRajasthanSpecial Correspondent

JAIPUR

Unprecedented security restrictions imposed for theAmarnath yatra have allegedly dented the tourism sector and the movement offarm produce out of theKashmir Valley, triggeringprotests from stakeholderson Saturday.

The Anantnag administration’s decision to set acutoff� time of 2 p.m. for tourists to leave the mostfrequented tourist spot of Pahalgam, and 12 p.m. for thenearby Aru Valley, has resulted in the cancellation ofscheduled trekking groups.

“Around 2,000 trekkershave cancelled their plans inthe Aru Valley. We have onlymanaged to divert around1,000 trekkers to otherroutes. Security restrictionshave impacted adventuretourism in Pahalgam, whichis a trekkers’ paradise. I failto understand why the AruValley, which is not connected to the yatra route, hasbeen placed under restrictions,” Rauf Tramboo, adventure sports consultantwith travel service providerHighland Journeys, told TheHindu.

Kashmir is in the middleof a tourism boom for thefi�rst time since 2019, whenthe Centre ended Jammu &Kashmir’s special constitutional status. The stringentsecurity measures coupledwith cutoff� times for the entry of tourists and yatris intothe Valley, however, is cast

ing a shadow on leisure tourism too.

“Kashmiris have welcomed yatris and touristsalike since ages. This year,the security arrangementshave only compounded theproblems and caused immense loss to the leisureand other tourism segments,” Farooq Kuthoo,president, Travel Agents Association of Kashmir(TAAK), said.

Hundreds of picketserected across the Valleyhave also slowed down themovement of tourists towards their destinations, including Gulmarg.

Scores of tourists headingfor Srinagar from Kargilwere stopped in Sonamargfor touching the Valley afterthe cutoff� time on Friday.

“Many tourists missedtheir fl�ights due to suchhalts. Many spent the nightin their cars. Such bad memories for tourists will notgo well for the future of thetourism industry,” Mr. Kuthoo said.

The Travel Agents Association of Kashmir is mullingover not taking tourist bookings for the Valley for thenext 40 days, till the yatra isover on August 11.

“Travel agents outsideJ&K have stopped promoting Kashmir till midAugust.It has brought down the tourist infl�ux already. Preferential treatment to the Amarnath yatra is aff�ectingtourism in Jammu and Kashmir,” Mr. Khuthoo said.

Cutoff� times, pickets aff�ect tourism

Peerzada Ashiq

Srinagar

Amarnath yatracurbs rile traders

CMYK

A ND-NDE


THE HINDU DELHI


WORLD

Powerful explosions rockedthe Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv early on Saturday, theMayor said, a day after authorities said at least 21 peoplewere killed when Russianmissiles struck an apartmentbuilding near the Black Seaport of Odessa.

Air raid sirens soundedacross the Mykolaiv region,which borders the vital portof Odessa, before the blasts.

“There are powerful explosions in the city! Stay inshelters!” Mykolaiv MayorOleksandr Senkevich wroteon the Telegram messagingapp.

It was not immediatelyknown what caused the explosions. Reuters could notindependently verify thereport.

Explosions fl�attened partof an apartment buildingwhile residents slept on Friday, another in a series ofwhat Ukraine says are Russian missile attacks aimed at

civilians.In his nightly video ad

dress on Friday, UkrainianPresident Volodymyr Zelensky denounced the strikes as“conscious, deliberately targeted Russian terror and notsome sort of error or a coincidental missile strike.”

Kremlin denies attacks

Kyiv says Moscow has intensifi�ed its longrange missileattacks, hitting civilian tar

gets far from the frontline.Russia says it has been aiming at military sites. Kremlinspokesperson Dmitry Peskovcited President Vladimir Putin’s statements “that theRussian Armed Forces donot work with civiliantargets”.

A Russian missile earlierthis week struck a crowdedshopping mall in central Ukraine, killing at least 19people.

Thousands of civilianshave been killed since Russiainvaded Ukraine on February 24 in what Moscow callsa “special operation” to rootout nationalists. Ukraine andits Western allies say it is anunprovoked war ofaggression.

Residents in the resort village of Serhiivka near Odessahelped workers pick throughthe rubble of the ninestoreyapartment block, a sectionof which had been destroyedin Friday’s earlymorningstrike.

“We came here to the site,assessed the situation together with emergencyworkers and locals, and together helped those who survived. And those who unfortunately died. We helped tocarry them away,” said Oleksandr Abramov, who livesnearby and had rushed tothe scene when he heard theblast.

Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesman for the Odessa regionaladministration, said 21 peo

ple had been confi�rmedkilled, including a 12yearold boy.

The region will observe aday of mourning on Saturdayfor those killed during the attack, Bratchuk said.

The strike on Serhiivkatook place shortly after Russia pulled its troops off� SnakeIsland, a strategically important outcrop about 140 km(85 miles) southeast of Odessa that it seized on the war’sfi�rst day.

The chief of Ukraine’sGeneral Staff�, Valeriy Zaluzhny, accused Russia of failingto abide by its assertions thatit had left Snake Island as a“gesture of good will”. On hisTelegram messaging appchannel, Mr. Zaluzhny saidtwo Russian warplanes hadtaken off� from a base in Crimea and bombed targets onthe island on Friday evening.

He posted a video of whathe said was the attack. Reuters could not confi�rm theauthenticity of the video orthe Russian action depicted.

Explosions rock Ukraine’s Mykolaiv President Zelensky denounces Russian strikes as ‘conscious, deliberately targeted terror’

Reuters

SERHIIVKA

Sifting through rubble: Ukrainian rescue offi�cials clearingdebris at a damaged building in Serhiivka on Saturday. * AP

Protesters stormed Libya’sParliament in the eastern city of Tobruk on Friday andset parts of it ablaze, ventingtheir anger at deterioratingliving conditions andmonths of politicaldeadlock.

Black smoke billowed asmen burned tyres andtorched cars after one protester had smashed throughthe compound’s gate with abulldozer and others attacked the walls with construction tools, local mediareported.

The building was empty,as Friday falls on the weekend in Libya.

Libya’s House of Representatives has been based inTobruk, more than 1,000km east of capital Tripoli,since an eastwest schism in2014 that came three yearsafter a mass popular revolu

tion toppled dictator Muammar Gadhafi�.

A separate legislature, formally known as the HighCouncil of State, is based inTripoli as the oilrich NorthAfrican country remains divided between rival administrations vying for control.

Libya, sweltering in summer heat, has endured daysof power cuts — a situation

worsened by the blockade ofkey oil facilities amid the entrenched political rivalries.

“We want the lights towork,” chanted protesters,some of whom were brandishing the green fl�ags of theGadhafi� regime.

The Parliament condemned the “acts of vandalism and the burning” of itsheadquarters.

Public anger over prolonged power cuts, political deadlock

Agence France-Presse

Tripoli

Angry reaction: Protesters outside the Libyan Parliamentbuilding in Tobruk on Saturday. * REUTERS

Protesters storm LibyanParliament, set it ablaze

More than two dozen crewmembers are unaccountedfor after their ship broke intotwo during a typhoon in theSouth China Sea on Saturday, with rescuers scrambling to fi�nd them, offi�cialssay.

An engineering vessel thatwas 160 nautical miles southwest of Hong Kong “suff�eredsubstantial damage andbroke into two pieces” andthe 30member crew abandoned ship, according to theHong Kong Government Flying Service.

Three people had been

rescued as of 3 pm local time(0700 GMT) and were takento hospital for treatment,authorities said.

Dramatic footage provided by Hong Kong authoritiesshowed a person being airlifted onto a helicopter while

waves crashed over the deckof the semisubmerged shipbelow.

The three survivors saidother crew members mayhave been swept away bywaves before the fi�rst helicopter arrived, according toa government statement.

Typhoon Chaba earlierformed in the central part ofthe South China Sea and onSaturday afternoon madelandfall in Guangdong province in southern China.

Rescuers in Hong Kongfound the ship near Chaba’scentre, where harsh weatherconditions made the operation “more diffi�cult”.

Typhoon sinks ship off� Hong KongDozens of crew in danger after the vessel suff�ered damage and broke into two

Peril at sea: A view from a helicopter as it approaches asinking ship in the South China Sea on Saturday. * AP


Hong Kong

A senior Pakistani journalistand political analyst hasbeen assaulted by unidentifi�ed masked men, who alsotore his clothes, as he left hisoffi�ce here in the Punjabprovince, a day after hetermed Pakistan’s powerfulArmy Generals “propertydealers”.

Ayaz Amir, 73, was returning home late Friday after recording his television showfor Dunya News TV channel,where he works as a senior

analyst, when unknown persons stopped his car. The attackers then manhandledhim and also tortured hisdriver before fl�eeing fromthe scene.

With bruises on his face,Mr. Amir said that themasked men not only “hithim and tore his clothes,they also took away his cellphone and wallet. They leftwhen people started gathering on the busy road”.

In a tweet later, Mr. Amirsaid those who attacked himdid not care about his age.

“I have no personal enmity with anyone and I had noquarrel with anyone.Whoever attacked me didn’teven care about my age,” hesaid. “The only fault wasthat I speak the truth and Iwill continue to speak, Godwilling,” he added.

On Thursday, during aspeech at a seminar in Islamabad’, Mr. Amir targetedthe military establishmentfor its role in Pakistan’s politics. The seminar was also attended by former PM ImranKhan.

Pak. journalist assaulted after he

called Generals ‘property dealers’ Unknown persons stop car, attack him and fl�ee from scene


Lahore

At least fi�ve people werekilled by a magnitude 6.1earthquake in southernIran early on Saturday,state media reported, withthe area also hit by two later strong quakes of up to6.3 magnitude.

“Five people have diedin the earthquake ... and sofar 12 are hospitalised,”Mehrdad Hassanzadeh,head of emergency management in HormozganProvince, said. “Rescuework is under way and weare providing tents asemergency housing.”

Five killed inearthquake insouthern Iran

Reuters

Dubai

Thousands of Afghan clericspledged loyalty to the Taliban on Saturday, but endeda threeday meeting withoutrecommendations on howthe hardline Islamist groupshould govern the crisishitcountry.

The menonly gatheringwas called to rubberstampthe Taliban’s rule, and aheadof the meeting offi�cials saidcriticism would be toleratedand they could also discussthorny issues such as secondary school education forgirls.

Media barred

Media were barred from theevent, although speeches

were broadcast on state radio — including a rare appearance by the Taliban’s reclusive supreme leader,Hibatullah Akhundzada.

Taliban offi�cials presentedthe gathering as an opportunity for clerics to independently say how they wantedthe country to be governed,but the meeting’s fi�nal declaration was mostly a regurgitation of their own doctrine.

It called for allegiance toAkhundzada, loyalty to theTaliban, and the completeacceptance of sharia law asthe basic principle of rule.

“By the grace of God, theIslamic system has come torule in Afghanistan,” the declaration read.

“We not only strongly

support it, but will also defend it. We consider this tobe the national and religiousduty of the entire nation.”

Since returning to powerin August, the Taliban’sharsh interpretation of sharia law has imposed severerestrictions on Afghans —particularly women.

Secondary school girlshave been barred from education and women dismissed from government jobs,forbidden from travellingalone, and ordered to dressin clothing that covers everything but their faces.

The Taliban have also outlawed playing nonreligiousmusic, banned human fi�gures in advertising, orderedTV channels to stop showing

movies and soaps featuringuncovered women, and toldmen they should dress in traditional garb and grow theirbeards.

The fi�nal declarationmade no mention of girls’schooling, but called on thegovernment to pay “specialattention” to modern education, as well as justice andthe rights of minorities “inthe light of Islamic law”.

It said the new government had brought securityto the nation — despite an attack on the meeting Thursday by two gunmen that wasclaimed by the Islamic Stategroup, which has regularlycarried out bomb blasts andambushes since the Taliban’s return.

Afghan clerics vow loyalty to Taliban At meeting, the Islamist group makes no mention of the issue of girls’ schooling


Kabul

Google announced on Friday it would delete users’location history when theyvisit abortion clinics, domestic violence shelters andother places where privacyis sought.

“If our systems identifythat someone has visitedone of these places, we willdelete these entries fromLocation History soon afterthey visit,” Jen Fitzpatrick,a senior vicepresident atGoogle, wrote in a blogpost. “This change willtake eff�ect in the comingweeks.”

Other places from whichGoogle will not store location data include fertilitycentres, addiction treatment facilities, and weightloss clinics.

This came a week afterthe U.S. Supreme Courtoverturned the right toabortion, leading a dozenStates to ban or severelyrestrict the procedure.

Google todelete data onabortion visits


San Francisco

China’s top diplomat on Saturday arrived on his fi�rst visit to Myanmar since the military seized power last yearto attend a regional meetingthat the government saidwas a recognition of its legitimacy and opponents protested as a violation of peaceeff�orts.

Chinese Foreign MinisterWang Yi will join counterparts from Myanmar, Laos,Thailand, Cambodia, andVietnam in a meeting of theLancangMekong Cooperation group in the central cityof Bagan, a UNESCO WorldHeritage site.

The grouping is a Chineseled initiative that includes the countries of theMekong Delta, a potentialsource of regional tensionsdue to an increasing numberof hydroelectric projectsthat are altering the fl�ow and

raising concerns of ecological damage. China has built10 dams along the upperstretch of the Mekong, thepart it calls the Langcang.

Military government spokesman Major General ZawMin Tun told a news conference in the capital Naypyitaw on Friday that the attendance of the ForeignMinisters at the meeting wasa recognition of Myanmar’ssovereignty and itsgovernment.

He said the ministers willsign memorandums of understanding and contracts.He did not elaborate.

It’s unclear whether Mr.Wang would meet SeniorGen. Min Aung Hlaing, thehead of the military government.

Myanmar’s militaryseized power from the elected government of Aung SanSuu Kyi on February 1, 2021.It was quickly met by nonviolent nationwide demonstrations and triggeredarmed resistance that someUN experts now characterize as civil war.

The Foreign Minister ofMyanmar’s shadow government, which opposes theruling military council, protested the Bagan meeting,saying any such eff�orts inpartnership with junta violate the will of the peopleand undermine communitybuilding.

China’s Foreign Minister visitsMyanmar for talks on MekongRising number of hydro projects on the river raises concerns

Associated Press

Bangkok

Wang Yi

CMYK

A ND-NDE


DELHI THE HINDU


SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

What is the ancestry ofdogs?

An international group ofscientists, led by theFrancis Crick Institute,have found that theancestry of dogs can betraced to at least twopopulations of ancientwolves. Dogs are knownto have originated fromthe gray wolf, with thisdomestication occurringduring the Ice Age, atleast 15,000 years ago.

In a study (Nature),the researchers turned toancient wolf genomes tofurther understand fromwhere the fi�rst dogsevolved from wolves.They analysed 72 ancientwolf genomes, spanningthe last 1,00,000 years,from Europe, Siberia andNorth America.

The remains camefrom previouslyexcavated ancientwolves, witharchaeologists from 16diff�erent countries

contributing to the study.The remains included afull, perfectly preservedhead from a Siberianwolf that lived 32,000years ago. Nine diff�erentancient DNA labs thencollaborated ongenerating DNAsequence data from thewolves.

By analysing thegenomes, theresearchers found thatboth early and moderndogs are moregenetically similar toancient wolves in Asiathan those in Europe,suggesting adomesticationsomewhere in the east.

However, they alsofound evidence that twoseparate populations ofwolves contributed DNAto dogs. Early dogs fromnortheastern Europe,Siberia and the Americasappear to have a single,shared origin from theeastern source. But earlydogs from the MiddleEast, Africa andsouthern Europe appearto have some ancestryfrom another sourcerelated to wolves in theMiddle East, in additionto the eastern source,says a release.

Question Corner

Dogs’ ancestry

Readers may send theirquestions / answers [email protected]

Smell mattersPeople with similar body

odours are more likely to

instantly get along as friends.

Researchers used human

smellers and a smell-detecting

‘electronic nose’ to sniff the

scents of 20 pairs of same-sex,

non-romantic friends. Both

found that friends smell more

like each other than do

random pairs.

Gene activityResearchers are getting closer

to their goal of revealing

exactly where in a cell or

tissue each gene is expressed.

Spatial transcriptomics allows

them to study gene expression

in samples. The resulting

‘atlases’ of spatial information

can tell which cells make up

each tissue, how they are

organised and how they

communicate.

Researchers led by thosefrom the National Centre ofBiological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bengaluru (NCBSTIFR), have found a newpathway that regulates nitrate absorption in plants.

The gene MADS27, whichregulates nitrate absorption,root development and stresstolerance, is activated by themicroRNA, miR444, therefore off�ers a way to controlthese properties of the plant.

The researchers studiedthis mechanism in both rice(monocot) and tobacco (dicot) plants. The research ispublished in Journal of Expe-rimental Botany.

Nitrogen is one of themost important macronutrients needed for development of a plant. It is a part ofchlorophyll, amino acids andnucleic acids, among others.It is mostly sourced from thesoil where it is mainly absorbed in the form of nitratesand ammonium by the roots.Nitrates also play a role incontrolling genomewidegene expression that in turn

regulates root system architecture, fl�owering time, leafdevelopment, etc.

Thus, while a lot of actiontakes place in the roots to absorb and convert nitrogen into useful nitrates, the absorbed nitrates in turnregulate plant developmentapart from being useful as amacronutrient.

Nitrate overuseSo, the presence of nitrates isimportant for the plant development and also for grainproduction. However, theoveruse of nitrates in fertilizers, for instance, can lead tothe dumping of nitrates inthe soil which leads to accumulation of nitrates in water and soil. This accumulation adds to soil and waterpollution and increased contribution to greenhouse gases.

To avoid this, there shouldbe optimal use of nitrates. Also, since the whole processof nitrate absorption takesplace in the roots, a welldeveloped root system is needed for this to take placeoptimally.

At one level, it is known

that the hormone auxin isresponsible for welldeveloped roots across all plants.A number of genes areknown to help with auxinproduction, improved nitrate transport and assimilation in plants.

Regulatory switchesIn addition to this route, several gene regulatory switches

that regulate nitrate absorption and root development,such as the microRNA,miR444, are known in monocot plants, such as rice.

“The microRNA ‘miR444’is specifi�c to monocots.When this is not made, itstarget, MADS27, is producedin higher abundance, and itimproves biosynthesis andtransport of the hormone

nitrate absorption,” says Dr.Shivaprasad.

Dicot plantsWanting to test this in dicotplants as well, the researchers carried out the study ontobacco plants as well. “Werealised MADS27 works toimprove three factors — nitrate absorption, root development and stress tolerance— with the help of RNA analysis and after fi�nding to whichpart of the genome this transcription factor binds,” explains Dr. Shivaprasad.

According to the researchers, the gene MADS27 appears to be an excellent candidate to modify, in order todevelop nitrogen use effi�ciency, which is somethingthat helps the plant absorbmore nitrates, and to engineer abiotic stress tolerance.

“Tinkering MADS27 expression by genome editingis the next step, so that themodifi�ed plants are acceptable to use directly,” he adds.The larger goal of this studyis to understand how epigenetics plays a role in regulating expression of such important genes.

auxin, which is key for rootdevelopment and its branching,” says Dr. P.V. Shivaprasad, who led the researchersat National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Instituteof Fundamental Research,Bengaluru (NCBSTIFR).

This regulatory miR444switch is known to turn off� atleast fi�ve genes called MADSbox transcription factor

genes. The speciality of theMADS box transcription factors is that they function likeswitch boxes of their own.They bind to their favouritespecifi�c DNA sequences andthey switch the neighbouring genes “on.”

Threepronged eff�ectThe researchers have studied a target gene of miR444called MADS27, a transcription factor which hasn’t beenstudied well before.

They have found that thistranscription factor has athreepronged eff�ect on theplant.

First, it regulates nitrateabsorption by switching “on”proteins involved in this process. Second, it leads to better development of the rootsby regulating auxin hormoneproduction and transport.Finally, and somewhat surprisingly to the researchers,it helps in the abiotic stresstolerance by keeping themain stress player proteins“on.”

“This is a new fi�nding witha threepronged eff�ect and itprovides an alternate meansof regulating and optimising

New pathway to regulate nitrate absorption in plants The micro-RNA-switch controls a gene that regulates nitrate absorption, root development, stress tolerance

Shubashree Desikan

The pricelowering eff�ect ofcompetition and domesticmanufacturing of medicinescan transform how diseasesget treated in resourcepoorsettings. Decisions made byIndian patent offi�ces can negatively impact generic competition and supply worldwide, relying on theavailability of aff�ordablemedicines made in India.Monopolies granted by patent offi�ces on medical products keep prices high andblock local manufacturersfrom supplying lowcost generic drugs.

In 2005, lawmakers fromall political parties amendedIndian patent law to ensurethat the Indian patent offi�cedid not grant monopolies onold science or for compounds already in the publicdomain. The new law nowprevents drug corporationsfrom indulging in “evergreening”, a common abusive patenting practiceaimed at obtaining separatepatent monopolies relatingto the same medicine. And tobring this to the notice of thepatent examiners, theamended patent law allowedany person to fi�le a pregrantopposition ‘anytime’ before

the patent offi�ce decides togrant or reject a patentapplication.

This week the EconomicTimes[LM1] reports that theEconomic Advisory Council(EAC) to the Prime Ministerrecommended the periodwithin which patent applications are open to challengeby the public be restricted toa mere six months from thedate of its publication.

Since the Indian Patent Offi�ces receive an average of50,000 patent applications ayear, examiners often misscritical information aboutthe patent application underconsideration. A recent study on pharmaceutical patentgrants in India revealedthat 7 out of 10 patents aregranted in error by the Indian Patent Offi�ce. A robustpregrant opposition systemprovides an additional administrative layer of scrutinythat prevents the grant of frivolous patents through thirdparties’ participation in thereview process.

Evergreening monopolieson medical products is a lucrative game for pharmaceutical corporations allowing them to charge highprices. And the Organisationof Pharmaceutical Producersof India (OPPI) — Big Pharma’s association in India —

has made several attempts toundermine this safeguard inthe patent law and has renewed their eff�orts.

The commerce ministry,responsible for administering the patents act, is nowunder pressure to restrictpregrant patentoppositions.

Pregrant oppositions In 2005, the fi�rst challenge toa pending patent claim on amedicine was fi�led by CancerPatient Aid Association(CPAA) before the Indian patent offi�ce. CPAA highlightedthat the Swiss corporationNovartis’ patent applicationon Imatinib Mesylate (Gleevec), a lifesaving anticancerdrug, claims a salt form ofold medicine, a commonpractice within the pharmaceutical industry, and should

not be considered patentable. The patent offi�ce subsequently rejected the patent,which was later upheld bythe High Court and the Supreme Court. The pregrantopposition by CPAA on thecancer drug protected theprice reduction from over₹�14 lakh per patient per yearfrom Novartis to less than₹�40,000 per patient per yearfrom genericmanufacturers.

In the last 17 years, genericmanufacturers and peopleliving with HIV, DRTB, andviral hepatitis have also fi�ledseveral patent oppositions tosafeguard generic competition so that quality, aff�ordable generics can be procuredby health programmes. In2006, PLHIV networks fi�ledthe fi�rst such opposition to apatent application by Glaxo

Group Limited (GSK) forCombivir on a fi�xeddosecombination of two AIDSdrugs, zidovudine/lamivudine. GSK withdrew the patent application in India andseveral other countries afterthe patent opposition in India pointed out that the patentclaims did not cover a newinvention but simply thecombination of two existingdrugs.

Several such challengesbefore the patent offi�ce havesuccessfully ensured theavailability of aff�ordable HIVmedicines to millions livingacross the developing world.The 99% reduction in theprices of antiretrovirals following the generic competition, from $10,000 per person per year down to lessthan $100, has been a criticalfactor in the expansion of antiretroviral treatment to millions in low and middleincome countries.

Prescribing a timeline andcutting short the window period for pregrant oppositionmakes it diffi�cult to challengefrivolous patent applicationson drugs and vaccines. Theinformation in patent applications does not permit thepublic to rapidly identify theclaimed medical product.The identifi�cation and further analysis are timeconsum

ing as several applicationsare pending on the samemedicine, vaccine or technology. Reducing the opportunities for fi�ling challengesto pending patent claims willnot increase effi�ciency or reduce pendency. On the contrary, pregrant oppositionsprovide information to theexaminers that can helpspeed up the examinationprocess and deny invalidpatents.

The real challengeThe humanitarian medicalorganisation, Médecins SansFrontières (MSF), has supported hundreds of pregrant oppositions in India,working closely with patientgroups to safeguard genericcompetition to increase access to aff�ordable medicinesfrom India.

In our experience, tackling the overwhelming number of evergreening patentclaims on known drugs andtechnologies is the real challenge for the Indian patentoffi�ce. The attempt to dilutethe timeline on pregrant opposition diverts from the realproblem.

(Leena Menghaney andRoshan Joseph are lawyersand work for Access Cam-paign at Médecins SansFrontières.)

India’s patent law safeguards under fi�re The new recommendation reduces the period within which patent applications can be challenged to six months

Leena Menghaney

Roshan Joseph

Avarice: Evergreening monopolies on medical products is alucrative game for pharmaceutical corporations. * GETTY IMAGES

Child hepatitisThe United Kingdom is seeing

a rise in unexplained cases of

hepatitis in children.

Researchers have

hypothesised a link to the

coronavirus. Now, United

States data cast doubt on that

idea — the number of cases

there has remained flat. The

rise in U.K. cases may be

connected to infections with

adenoviruses.

SNAPSHOTS

To the MoonThe National Aeronautics and

Space Administration’s (NASA)

CAPSTONE spacecraft

launched from New Zealand

on June 28 should reach the

Moon by November 13.

CAPSTONE will study the lunar

orbit where NASA plans to

lodge a space station that will

orbit the Moon in a stable

path, making it easier for

astronauts to reach more parts

of the Moon.

Antimicrobial resistance(AMR) is a looming publichealth crisis impacting everycountry globally with a disproportionate impact onlives and livelihood in lowand middleincome countries. A recent report fromthe Global Research on AntiMicrobial resistance(GRAM) project found that in2019, an estimated 4.95 million people suff�ered from atleast one drugresistant infection and AMR directlycaused 1.27 million deaths.

AMR is one of India’s major public health problems,directly contributing toabout 30% of deaths due toneonatal sepsis across India.These are due to multidrugresistant (MDR) hospitalacquired infections in manycases. Over 30% of the COVID19 deaths in India couldbe attributed to our failure totreat the secondary bacterialinfections caused by MDRpathogens with the appropriate antibiotics.

Irrational antibiotic use bythe medical community, thegeneral public and the farmers generate drugresistantsuperbugs. Inadequate infec

tion control measures in thehospitals and the sanitationissues in the community result in the dissemination ofthese superbugs.

To tackle the AMR crisis,we need robust investmentin research and developmentof new antibiotics, rapid andaff�ordable diagnostics,strengthening infection control and prevention practices, formulating and implementing antibioticstewardship programmesacross the country and ensuring equitable access tolifesaving antibiotics. Onesuch immediate interventionis a welcome move by the Government of India to pass legislation banning the use ofstreptomycin and tetracycline in agriculture and thegrowth promotional use ofcolistin in poultry farming.

With India’s reputation asthe pharmacy of the globalSouth, with numerous globalcompliant manufacturingplants, it’s time to expandour focus and investment inearly R&D of lifesaving antibiotics. We have the intellectual fi�repower and critical talent pool. However, we needrobust investment from Government and private sectorin specialised training cou

pled with an investmentmindset that can fund andsustain drug discovery anddevelopment.

Dry antibiotic pipelineDuring the last decade, thesuccess rate from Phase 1 toFDA approval for new antibacterial drugs was found tobe 16.3% in comparison tothe overall industry averageof 7.9%. Despite this highersuccess rate, antibiotic development suff�ers from a lackof investment and quick market uptake of newly approved products. The exit ofbig pharma from antibioticdevelopment coupled with alack of investment from venture capitalists and the pauc

ity of enabling regulatoryand policy solutions to support the commercial viabilityof antibacterial agents haspushed AMR into a globalhealth crisis.

Why is the market for antibiotics broken and the drugpipeline ultra thin? Unlikemost new drugs, postapproval, new antibiotics are usedsparingly (antibiotic stewardship practices) and reservedmainly for cases in which older antibiotics are ineff�ective. In addition, the reimbursement mechanisms inseveral countries discouragehospitals from using an expensive novel broadspectrum antibacterial agentwhen a cheaper generic op

tion is available. These unique challenges in the current treatment guidelinesand archaic reimbursementmodels contribute to commercial failure and restrictedor lack of access for patientsin dire need of these livesaving agents.

Most major pharma companies have exited the AMRspace because of the low return on investment (ROI).Surprisingly, around 80% ofthe antibiotics currently inthe clinical pipeline are developed by small biotech companies. To reverse this trend,we need immediate solutionsand sustainable mechanismsin the long term.

The pushpull modelSmall companies are gettingearlystage funding from publicprivate partnershipslike CARBX (the CombatingAntibiotic Resistance Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator), which has providedmore than $360 million infunding for 92 antibacterialprojects over the past fi�veyears. This funding is an example of the push model thathas catalysed the creation ofa robust pipeline of projectsin early discovery.

The pull vector may come

from the “Pioneering Antimicrobial Subscriptions to EndUpsurging Resistance” (PASTEUR) Act, if and when theU.S. government passes it.Companies that develop critically needed antibiotics fordrugresistant infectionswould receive a federal government contract rangingfrom $750 million to $3 billion spread over ten years.

To incentivise the creationof new treatments, the U.S.Congress enacted the Generating Antibiotic IncentivesNow Act (GAIN Act) of 2012,which provides benefi�ts tomanufacturers of Qualifi�edInfectious Disease Products(QIDPs) including fi�ve yearsof additional nonpatent exclusivity.

In addition, the recentcreation of the AMR ActionFund with a mandate to invest more than $1 billion toaddress the current fundinggaps in the development ofnew antibiotics will give aboost to latestage moleculesin clinical development.

(Abdul Ghafur is Coordi-nator, Chennai Declarationon AMR and Consultant inInfectious Diseases, ApolloCancer Institute, Chennai.Anand Anandkumar is CEO,Bugworks, Bengaluru.)

Why India should support antibiotics development India needs an investment mindset that can fund and sustain drug discovery and development

Precarious: The market for antibiotics is broken and the drugpipeline is ultrathin. * GETTY IMAGES

Abdul Ghafur

Anand Anandkumar

Global emissions are expected to cause the planetto continue heating rapidlyover the next few decades,prompting the global average temperature to overshoot the Paris agreement’s target, which aimedto limit warming to between 1.5°C and 2°C.

For the fi�rst time, scientists studied the consequences of allowing Earth’stemperature to exceedthese precautionary limits,then fall below them again.

The results suggest thata temporary overshootwould cause waves of irreversible extinctions andlasting damage to tens ofthousands of species. Thisis what the world can expect if humanity fails tomake deep emission cutsthis decade.

Just a few years of globaltemperatures above 2°Ccould transform theworld’s most importantecosystems. The consequences of this exposurecould be irreversible andinclude the tropical forestturning into savanna. Theworld would lose a criticalglobal carbon sink, leavingmore planetwarming gases in the atmosphere.

2°C temp. risecan damageEarth’s speciesPress Trust of India

CMYK

A ND-NDE


THE HINDU DELHI


FAQ

The story so far: Recently a powerful earthquake ofmagnitude 5.9 on the Richter scale struck a remote townin Afghanistan, killing over a thousand and injuringmany more. According to the U.S. Federal EmergencyManagement Agency, a 5.9 on the Richter scale isroughly equivalent to 37 times the energy released by theatomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Experts are stilltrying to fi�gure out the best early warning system tomitigate the damage caused by earthquakes.

How do earthquakes happen?

■ According to the theory of plate tectonics, the Earth’scrust and upper mantle are made of large rigid platesthat can move relative to one another. Slip on faults nearthe plate boundaries can result in earthquakes. Thepoint inside the Earth where the earthquake rupturestarts is called the focus or hypocentre. The pointdirectly above it on the surface of the Earth is theepicentre.

What are seismic waves?

■ Any elastic material when subjected to stress,stretches in a proportional way, until the elastic limit isreached. When the elastic limit is crossed, it breaks.Similarly, the Earth also has an elastic limit and when thestress is higher than this limit, it breaks. Then there is ageneration of heat, and energy is released. Since thematerial is elastic, the energy is released in the form ofelastic waves. These propagate to a distance determinedby the extent of the impact. These are known as seismicwaves.

How are earthquakes measured?

■ Earthquakes are measured by seismographicnetworks, which are made of seismic stations, each ofwhich measures the shaking of the ground beneath it. InIndia, the National Seismological Network does this

work. It has a history ofabout 120 years and itssensors can now detect anearthquake within fi�ve toten minutes.

According to Shyam S.Rai who is a Raja RamannaFellow and ProfessorEmeritus at the IndianInstitute of ScienceEducation and Research,Pune, the waveparameters are measured,not the total energyreleased. He explains thatthere is a relationshipbetween the quantum ofenergy released and the

wave amplitude. The amplitude of the wave is a functionof the time period of the wave. It is possible to convertthe measured wave amplitude into the energy releasedfor that earthquake. This is what seismologists call themagnitude of the earthquake.

What is the Richter magnitude scale?

■ This is a measure of the magnitude of an earthquakeand was fi�rst defi�ned by Charles F. Richter of theCalifornia Institute of Technology, U.S., in 1935. Themagnitude of an earthquake is the logarithm of theamplitude of the waves measured by the seismographs.Richter scale magnitudes are expressed as a wholenumber and a decimal part, for example 6.3 or 5.2. Sinceit is a logarithmic scale, an increase of the whole numberby one unit signifi�es a tenfold increase in the amplitudeof the wave and a 31times increase of the energyreleased.

How are zones designated?

■ Based on seismicity, intensity of earthquakesexperienced, and geological and tectonic qualities of aregion, countries are divided into several zones. In India,for example, there are four zones, designated ZoneIIZone V. Among these, Zone V is the most hazardousand Zone II the least hazardous.

Can you build early warning systems for earthquakes?

■ Since parameters of the earthquake are unknown, it isnear impossible to predict an earthquake. The problemwith earthquakes is that they are heavily dependent onthe material property, which varies from place to place,says Professor Rai. If there are elastic waves propagatingthrough a material, there are two kinds of waves — theprimary wave which reaches fi�rst, and the second onecalled the secondary wave, which is more destructive.Suppose the primary wave is measured, and we haveeffi�cient computer systems, all the inputs and excellentdata collection, then it can be said that a possibleearthquake of this much magnitude and energy hasoccurred and this could lead to a ground amplitudewhich could be destructive. If it is known that theamount of energy released is extremely high, trains andpower grids can be shut down and the damageminimised. “This has worked in some locations, but noton a large commercial basis,” says Prof. Rai. “The mostsuccessful early warning systems are in Japan. They haveseveral hundreds of thousands recording devices.Responses are sent to a central point where theyestimate whether it is large enough to form a tsunami orsome other hazard, and precautionary steps are taken,”he points out.

Measuring quakes

What is at the heart of earthquakes?Can they be predicted? Is it possibleto set up early warning systems?

The most successfulearly warning systemsare in Japan, accordingto experts. They havethousands ofrecording devices,which determine whatsort of damage isexpected. Sometimes,a tsunami warning isgiven out as aprecautionary step

Shubashree Desikan

In ruins: A powerful earthquake of magnitude 5.9 on theRichter scale struck a remote town in Afghanistan * AP

The story so far: Leaders of the North Atlantic TreatyOrganization (NATO), a 30country regional securitycoalition that emerged from the crucible of Cold Warrivalry, met on June 2930 in Madrid, Spain, even asRussia’s war in Ukraine grinds on, with knockon eff�ectsacross the world in terms of supply chain disruptions,commodity price surges and broader infl�ationarypressures mounting fast. More than four months into theinvasion of Ukrainian territory, which Russian PresidentVladimir Putin has called a “special military operation,” atleast two nations in the region, Sweden and Finland, areseeking rapid integration into NATO.

How strong was NATO before the war?

■ NATO appeared to be weakened during theadministration of former U.S. President Donald Trump,who frequently threatened to exclude from the U.S.’sprotective umbrella any member states that did not payenough for that privilege. A further blow, and brickbatsfor botched management, came when U.S. President JoeBiden pulled his country’s troops out of Afghanistan, aNATO military mission, more or less unilaterally.Meanwhile, Russia had steadily been upping the anteagainst NATO publicly, since the late 2000s, railingagainst NATO expansion, and since its annexation ofCrimea in 2014, threatening further territorial expansioninto Ukrainian territory.

What are the recent developments that have

strengthened NATO?

■ Firstly, NATO allies other than the U.S. remained fi�rmlycommitted to fi�nancing the organisation’s military needs.Their combined defence investments have jumped by$130 billion from 201419, in part driven by Russia’sannexation of Crimea. Now, given the prolonged confl�ictin Ukraine, NATO has announced that it will increase itsforces at “high readiness” from 40,000 to over 3,00,000troops by mid2023, a step that NATO Secretary GeneralJens Stoltenberg described as “the biggest overhaul of ourcollective defence and deterrence since the Cold War.”

Second, after decades of maintaining a position ofneutrality, Finland and Sweden are set to join NATOpossibly within a year, in a large part driven by thestrategic insecurity they face as neighbours of Russia, andthe precedent that Mr. Putin has set with his invasion ofand alleged human rights violations and war crimes inUkraine. While most NATO members are keen for Finlandand Sweden to join the organisation, Turkey was the fi�nalholdout citing concerns over the two countries allegedlyproviding safe haven to a group that Istanbul considers aterrorist organisation. Nevertheless, after joint securitynegotiations in recent days, Turkey has also lent itssupport to Finland and Sweden joining NATO. The mainpoint of such an expansion would be to tap into themilitary support that the two countries would provide tothe alliance, the fact that Finland has a 1,340 km borderwith Russia and that both countries will, as required by

NATO, spend 2% of their GDP on defence.

How might NATO view a prolonged war in Ukraine?

■ Meeting with NATO leaders this past week, Mr. Bidensaid Americans ought to be ready to pay higher fuelprices for “as long as it takes, so Russia cannot in factdefeat Ukraine and move beyond Ukraine.”Notwithstanding this apparent fi�rmness of resolve to staythe course, NATO member states are presently hobbledby rising infl�ation, and high energy and food prices.Leaving aside the destabilising economic ripple eff�ects ofthe war in Ukraine, leaders of the bloc, as well asinternational multilateral aid agencies, are waking up tothe reality of having to meet the scorching demand forfi�nancing weaponry and critical supplies to Kyiv —Ukraine’s government is spending a staggering $56billion per month. It is now clear that they will have towork hard to sell their involvement in this confl�ict to theirrespective citizenries.

What happens next?

■ While NATO appears fortifi�ed and ready to face thestrategic gauntlet thrown down by Russia, there is a realrisk that the people of its membernations are gettingincreasingly frustrated. There's unending economic painand the leaders have pledged to meet the burgeoningdemand for weapons and other military support requiredby Ukraine to hold on to its territories in the east.

Is NATO stronger after Ukraine invasion? Has Russia’s war strengthened the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a security alliance formed after WWII?

Narayan Lakshman

The story so far: On June 26, the G7 grouping of theworld’s “most industrialised nations” — Canada, France,Germany, Italy, the U.K., Japan and the U.S. along withthe European Union (EU) — launched a U.S.led $600billion Partnership for Global Infrastructure andInvestment (PGII) at their summit in Germany’s SchlossElmau, where India was among fi�ve special invitees. Theinitiative was billed as a “valuesdriven, highimpact, andtransparent infrastructure partnership to meet theenormous infrastructure needs of low andmiddleincome countries and support the U.S. and itsallies’ economic and national security interests.” Offi�cialsalso made it clear that the PGII would off�er a counter toChina’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) for projectsworldwide that was formally launched fi�ve years ago.

What was India’s response?

■ A day after U.S. President Joseph Biden made his PGIIannouncement, Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said. “Ithink the [PGII]...is a separate G7 initiative and to myrecollection, unless there is some other input, I think it isnot a G7 outreach initiative,” adding, “We will have to seethe details of that for us to be able to speak specifi�cally onits elements.”

Why is the response signifi�cant?

■ To begin with, Mr. Kwatra’s response indicates thatIndia was not privy to PGII consultations, nor was theinfrastructure plan part of the documents that weresigned by India, Indonesia, South Africa, Senegal andArgentina, who were part of the “G7 outreach” inviteesto the summit. (The EU has participated in the G7 since1981 as a “nonenumerated” member).

The distinction is interesting because just a month ago,at the Quad Summit in Tokyo, Prime Minister NarendraModi had attended the launch of the U.S. led“IndoPacifi�c Economic Initiative” (IPEF) with similarlysudden plans, and India had joined as an “initial” orfounding partner country. It also came as a surprise thatIndia hadn’t endorsed the PGII plan given that the U.S.billed it as a rival to China’s BRI, with much moresensitivity to sustainable debt burdens andenvironmental concerns. India has actively opposed the

BRI because it had ignored these reasons and for its“violation of territorial integrity”.

Is there any specifi�c role for India?

■ According to U.S. offi�cials, the PGII will have four keypriorities on infrastructure: climate and energy security,digital connectivity, health and health security, andgender equality and equity, all of which are priorityareas for New Delhi as well. The PGII “factsheet”released by the White House also includes a specifi�c planfor investment in an Agritech and Climate sustainabilityfund that would “invest in companies that increase foodsecurity and promote both climate resilience and climateadaptation in India, as well as improve the profi�tabilityand agricultural productivity of smallholder farms.”According to the documents, the India fund would target$65 million by September 2022, and a targetcapitalisation of $130 million in 2023. The U.S.government’s International Development FinanceCorporation (DFC) would mobilise $30 million in privatecapital for the fund.

What could be some of the reasons for India’s reticence

on PGII?

■ The Ministry of External Aff�airs has not yet expandedon its initial response to the PGII, and it is quite possible,that once it has studied and verifi�ed its strategy, it willendorse it. One of the reasons for some scepticism inNew Delhi is that the PGII is one of a number of U.S.ledeconomic initiatives announced globally and in the

IndoPacifi�c, without much clarity on whether theywould overlap, or run concurrently with each other. Atthe Quad Summit, Mr. Biden committed to a $50 billion

infrastructure fund overfi�ve years.

The PGIIannouncement for $600billion over fi�ve years alsocomes a year after the U.S.led a G7 initiative tocounter China’s “strategiccompetition” and tonarrow the roughly $40trillion “infrastructuregap” in the developingworld.

Last year, the Bidenadministration also revived a Trump administrationproject for the “Blue Dot Network Initiative” to certifyinfrastructure projects but had stopped short of fundingthem. Another reason for the Indian reaction, sayanalysts, could be to show consistency, given India’searlier reaction to the BRI, when it was fi�rst announcedby Xi Jinping in 2013, years before the formal launch in2017. “When China fi�rst unveiled the BRI, India’s initialresponse was also that this was a plan with geopoliticalconsequences that India had not been consulted on.India said it would have to study before responding. It ispossible that the Modi government’s cautiousness on PGIIis about striking a similar balance,” said Sanjaya Baru,author, policy analyst and Distinguished Fellow at theUnited Services Institution of India (USI).

How will G-7’s development plan impact India? What is the agritech and climatesustainability fund? Will India getadequate funds for infrastructure?

Suhasini Haidar

New challenges: Leaders of the G7 and the European Union at the G7 Summit in Schloss Elmau, Germany on June 26. * AP

The PGII will have fourkey priorities oninfrastructure: climateand energy security,digital connectivity,health and healthsecurity, and genderequality and equity

The story so far: The Goods and Services Tax (GST)Council, chaired by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, met for the fi�rst time in 2022 for a marathon twoday meet this week, just ahead of GST’s fi�fth birthday onJuly 1. The Council has okayed three ministerial groups’ reports, one of which will lead to changes in the tax rates applicable on several items.

What are the goods and services whose rates have been

increased?

■ Based on recommendations made by a Group of Ministers (GoM) led by Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, the GST Council has scrapped exemptions on severalgoods and services, done away with concessional ratesgranted for a few products, and altered tax rates up ordown in other cases. Health care devices such as orthopaedic splints, intraocular lens, ostomy appliances, willnow be taxed at 5% instead of 12%. The use of invitro fertilisation (IVF) services have been exempted, truck rentalsfor goods will be taxed at 12% (down from 18%) and theGST on ropeways has been lowered from 18% to 5%. However, stem cell preservation services will no longer betaxfree. Hospital room rents over ₹�5,000 a day, excludingpatients in intensive care units or ICUs, shall now be taxedat 5%. Tetra Pak, used for an increasing number of goodsas an alternative to plastic packaging, will now be taxed at18%, from 12% — which could nudge up costs of severalconsumer goods. The same 18% rate will apply to tar of allvarieties so expect road building costs to rise as well. TheCouncil also hiked rates on over 17 goods and services,where the fi�nal products had a lower tax rate than their inputs and led to an anomaly referred to as inverted duty

structures. Of these, as many as 10 items’ GST rate hasbeen raised to 18% from 5% or 12% prevalent till now, suchas writing, drawing and printing ink, knives, forks, spoons,pencil sharpeners, machines for grading farm products aswell as eggs and dairy items, LED lamps, solar water heaters and works contracts for building roads, railways, metro projects, and crematoria. Last but not the least, theGST levied on cut and polished diamonds has been raisedfrom 0.25% to 1.5%.

Why does it matter?

■ The Reserve Bank of India expects India’s infl�ation rate,which hit an eightyear high of 7.8% in April and remainedover 7% in May, to average 6.7% in 202223. Ms. Sitharamansaid the Council members were conscious of infl�ation concerns while approving the rate changes. It is too early todiscern the possible impact of the new tax rates on the overall infl�ation experience and how much of it will be captured in the offi�cial data. With all these rate changes slated

to kick in from July 18, any impact can only be gaugedwhen August consumer infl�ation numbers are released inthe second week of September. Even then, with prices ofseveral commodities, including crude oil, remaining elevated, distilling the eff�ect of new GST rates on price risemay not be simple.

Moreover, the panel led by Mr. Bommai has been granted three more months to delve into its other mandate thatcould have a wider impact on consumers and businesses —rationalising the multiple GST rate slabs such as 5%, 12%,18% and 28% and raising levies to bolster revenues thathave fallen short of expectations. Part of the reason fordipping revenues, apart from a slowing economy in recentyears, was the repeated reduction in several items’ GSTrates ahead of critical elections. However, offi�cials concedethat infl�ation worries do not make this an opportune timefor carrying out broader rate hikes.

What lies ahead?

■ The Council will meet again in August to fi�nalise theGST rates for online gaming, horse racing and casinos — adecision it put off� this time for fresh stakeholder consultations. It may also kick off� the process to form an appellatetribunal for resolving GST disputes, envisaged since itslaunch in July 2017. With over a dozen States urging theCentre to continue the GST compensation paid to them forthe fi�rst fi�ve years of the GST regime as revenue fl�ows havebeen hit by the pandemic, it is hoped that clarity comesthrough on this issue by the August meeting. Any extension of assured revenues to States could, however, translate into further pain for consumers and industry, who already have to fork out the GST Compensation Cess leviedon products such as cars and soft drinks, till March 2026,instead of the June 2022 sunset promised earlier.

What are the next steps for the GST regime?Why have rates been hiked for some consumer items? When will the issue of compensation to States be decided?

Vikas Dhoot

Anniversary special: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharamanat the celebration of the 5th GST Day on July 1. * PTI

CMYK

A ND-NDE


DELHI THE HINDU


PROFILES

In the fall of 2012, an ailing Bal Thackeray, founder and patriarch ofMaharashtra’s then dominant rightwing party

— the Shiv Sena (Army of Shivaji) — had appealed to hisShiv Sainiks to stand by hisson Uddhav and grandsonAaditya Thackeray.

In what would be his fi�naladdress to his party workers,Bal Thackeray, in his prerecorded speech at the party’sannual Dussehra rally inMumbai’s Shivaji Park, calledupon the Marathi manoos(Marathispeaking sonsofthe soil) to remain unitedand smash the Congress. Thespeech, three weeks beforethe 86yearold Thackeray’sdeath in November that year,also had an implied appeal tohis estranged nephew, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena(MNS) chief Raj Thackeray, tojoin forces with the Shiv Sena.

A decade later, while theprospects of the Sena andthe MNS uniting have completely evaporated, a bleakerquestion facing Mr. Uddhavand his son today is whetherordinary Sainiks will standby them after the recent rebellion of 40 MLAs led by Eknath Shinde has rent the ShivSena asunder while topplingMr. Uddhav from the ChiefMinister’s post.

In many ways, Mr.Shinde’s revolt, which sawhim installed as MaharashtraChief Minister, aided andabetted by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is the culmination of a question that hashaunted the Sena leadershipsince 2012 — the existence oftheir party without its authoritarian embodiment, Bal

Thackeray. That Mr. Shinde,the dour, laconic, erstwhileautorickshaw driver fromThane and a dyedinthewool Shiv Sainik, would bethe linchpin of the BJP and itsState leader Devendra Fadnavis’s ‘master plan’ tocheckmate Mr. Uddhav andhis tripartite Maha VikasAghadi (MVA) governmentexposed the chinks in the latter’s armour.

One of the chief complaints of the rebel camp wasMr. Uddhav’s “deference” tothe NCP and the Congress.Yet, the Sena’s alliance withthe Congress in 2019 washardly novel, given its pastdalliance with the grand oldparty in the 1970s.

Strange alliancesIn fact, the vicissitudes of theSena — from Bal Thackeray’srise in the mid1960s to Mr.Uddhav’s acrimonious breakwith the BJP and fall frompower — follow decades ofmurky twists and strange alliances. Founded in June1966 with its avowed aim ofsafeguarding the welfare ofthe people of Maharashtra,the Shiv Sena tasted popularsuccess almost immediatelywith its ‘sons of the soil’agenda, with Bal Thackeraypersuasively highlighting theplight of unemployed Marathi youth through the party’s weekly Marmik.

Since the Sena’s inception,Bal Thackeray skilfullyblended the nativist appealof the Marathi Manoos withHindu nationalism, anchored in the persona ofChhatrapati Shivaji, the 17thcentury Maratha warriorking. But it also added astrong dose of social servicein the mix, enabling its appeal not only among the ur

ban sections but the slumareas as well.

With its iconic ‘Tiger’ logoand bow and arrow symbol,the Sena’s fi�rst meeting inDadar’s Shivaji Park on June19, 1966 became steeped inpolitical legend, attracting areported crowd of no lessthan 200,000 persons instead of the handfulexpected.

Soon, rioting againstSouth Indian establishmentsbecame a matter of course.But it was in its covert role asa ‘hatchetman outfi�t’ for theruling Congress to crackdown on the oncevibranttrade union movement inMumbai that shot the ShivSena to notoriety. The relentless onslaught of the Shiv Sena’s ‘storm troops’ againstthe Communists and socialists climaxed with the murder of Krishna Desai, a sittingMLA of the Communist Partyof India (CPI) from Parel, in1970. It marked the start ofthe Sena’s transformation ofthe city’s political landscape— from ‘Red Bombay’ to ‘Saffron Mumbai’.

Having destroyed thetrade unions, the party simultaneously began buildinga serious base among industrial workers through its ownoutfi�ts — the Bharatiya Kamgar Sena, the Shramik Sena,Municipal Workers’ Union,the BEST employees’ Union,

among others. From a nonpolitical out

fi�t, the party promptly transitioned to a political one, contesting the civic elections inMumbai and Thane. In 1971,it fi�elded three candidatesfor the Lok Sabha in an alliance with the Congress (O),but failed to win any. Despitehardly being proCongress intemper, its support for theparty for political gain continued in the form of approving Indira Gandhi’s Emergency while allying with theCongress (I) and fi�elding candidates in 1978 MaharashtraAssembly election, where itagain lost all seats.

It was only in the mid tolate 1980s when Bal Thackeray subtly shifted the party’sstance of ‘Marathi manoos’to ‘Hindutva’, that the Senacut its ties with the Congress.

Piggybacking on the BJP’sAyodhya agitation, the Sena’scredentials as a hammer of‘Hindutva’ were forged in thecrucible of the Bombay riotsof 199293, where the partywas said to have orchestratedmuch of the violence that followed the demolition of theBabri Mosque in Ayodhya onDecember 6, 1992.

While the BJP made gainsat the national level, in Maharashtra, Bal Thackeray’s ShivSena was still the elder ‘Hindutva’ brother to whom BJPleaders like Gopinath Munde

and Pramod Mahajan deferred to. When the Sena fi�rstformed the government inMaharashtra with the BJP in1995, Bal Thackeray preferred to remain the ‘remotecontrol’ behind the throne,pushing his partyman Manohar Joshi as the Chief Minister. Out of power by the endof 1999, the turn of the century saw a marked decline inthe Sena’s political fortunes,

despite Bal Thackeray’s ironhand still fi�rmly controllingMumbai city. While the party’s resource and fi�nancial lifeline remained the cashrichBrihanmumbai MunicipalCorporation (BMC), Mr.Thackeray’s autocratic style,growing nepotism and corruption within the partybrass saw a number of crackswithin the party organisation.

On the other hand, BalThackeray’s death in 2012

and the transfer of powerwithin the party to Mr. Uddhav coincided with the ascendancy of Narendra Modiand the BJP at the Centre in2014. The BJP’s projection ofDevendra Fadnavis in theState, a very diff�erent political operator than the Senadeferring BJP leaders likeMunde and Mahajan, was tobring momentous changes inrelationships between thesaff�ron allies.

Uneasy coalition The fi�rst serious split between the Sena and the BJPcame before the Assemblypolls, after Mr. Uddhav severed ties with the latter reportedly over seatsharingarrangements. However, the2014 election results — whichsaw the BJP win 122 seats inthe Maharashtra Assembly asopposed to the Sena’s 63 —validated the ‘Modi wave’sweeping the country.

Compulsions of powersaw a forced patchup between the BJP and the Senaunder Mr. Fadnavis’ ChiefMinistership, but the frictionstayed on. While the Senaand the BJP fought both general and Assembly electionsin 2019 together, the resentment between the two fi�nallycame to a head over the CM’spost, with Mr. Uddhav formally severing all ties withthe BJP to go into the arms of

Sharad Pawar’s NCP and theCongress. Mr. Pawar, the architect of the MVA, egged Mr.Uddhav to take the CM’spost, while the NCP helpeditself with prime portfolios.This stoked the ire of staunchShiv Sainiks like Mr. Shinde.

Mr. Uddhav’s projection ofAaditya as the face of the party and the forming of aThackeray coterie of confi�dantes increasingly alienatedSena MLAs on the ground.

It was following the BJP’sgains in the Rajya Sabha bypolls and Maharashtra Legislative Council elections lastmonth (which saw the partyhave the support of 133 MLAsin the 288member State Legislature) that the blow camewhen Mr. Shinde fi�nally revolted.

Following the ShindeFadnavis coup, Mr. Uddhav facesa serious legitimacy crisis ashe struggles to retain hishold over the party rank andfi�le. The Uddhav campclaims there can be no Senawithout the Thackerays. Butcold electoral results haveshown that Bal Thackeray’slegacy scarcely mattered inthe fi�rst Assembly electionafter his death (in 2014),when the Sena failed to secure a majority. With theMVA in tatters and Uddhavburning his bridges with theBJP, the question is, will thatlegacy matter now?

SHIV SENA

The Maratha tigerin its labyrinth With a revolt toppling his government, UddhavThackeray faces a legitimacy crisis as he strugglesto retain his hold over the party rank and fi�le

Shoumojit Banerjee

CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC

Since the Sena’sinception, BalThackeray skilfullyblended its nativistappeal with Hindunationalist sentiment,anchored in thepersona ofChhatrapati Shivaji

CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC

In Focus

B Founded inJune 1966with itsavowed aimofsafeguardingthe welfare ofthe people ofMaharashtra,the Shiv Senabuilt a socialbase on its‘sons of thesoil’ agenda

B The party,which initiallyfoughtelections inalliance withCongressfactions, cutall ties withthe party inthe 1980sand emergedas the mainHindutvaforce inMaharashtra

B Cracksstartedappearing inthe Sena-BJPalliancebefore the2014assemblyelections,eventuallyleading to asplit betweenthe partiesafter the2019 polls

“They cannot fi�le acomplaint againstme for writing a

story because we have factswith us in our stories,” Mohammed Zubair, the cofounder of factcheck website Alt News, said in an interview in October 2021.“They cannot attack us onthe story that we’ve written,so they are looking to attackme for any other unrelatedtweet.” A Twitter sensationwith over halfamillion followers, Mr. Zubair was bothloved and loathed on the social networks. While manyapplaud the eff�orts by AltNews, the website he cofounded with Pratik Sinha,to debunk disinformationand misinformation campaigns, his critics, mainlythose in the rightwing online ecosystem, have repeatedly targeted him.

On June 27, the 39yearold journalist was arrestedby the Delhi Police, basedon a complaint from an anonymous Twitter handle thatalleged that Mr. Zubair hurtreligious sentiments over atweet he sent out four yearsago and that he should beprosecuted for the same.The tweet was of an imagefrom a 40yearold fi�lm. TheFIR lodged by the Delhi Police, which works under theUnion Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), initially invoked Sections 153A (promoting enmity betweendiff�erent groups) and 295A(malicious acts, intended tooutrage religious feelings) ofthe Indian Penal Code. Sub

sequently, on July 2, additional charges, including criminal conspiracy anddestruction of evidence,along with Section 35 of theFCRA, or the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act,were applied.

Rise to prominenceA computer engineerturnedjournalist, Mr. Zubair, who had earlierworked with Nokia, joinedhands with Mr. Sinha, also aformer software engineer,to launch Alt News in 2017.

Within no time, the website rose to prominence forits diligent work, at a timewhen fake news was beingspread on digital platformslike wildfi�re. They havecompiled a list of more than40 fake news sources on various social media platforms, and repeatedlycalled out disinformationcampaigns and fake reports.Recently, Mr. Sinha and Mr.Zubair were named by thePeace Research Institute ofOslo in its yearly shortlist for

the Nobel Peace Prize. This is not the fi�rst time

Mr. Zubair is facing legal cases. In 2020, two FIRs werelodged against him — one inNew Delhi and the other inChhattisgarh — under theProtection of Children fromSexual Off�ences Act for alleged “online harassmentand torture” of a minor girl.

In June 2022, before hisarrest by the Delhi Police, hewas named in an FIR lodgedin Uttar Pradesh for allegedly hurting religious sentiments by calling Hindu religious fi�gures MahantBajrang Muni, Yati Narsinghanand and Swami AnandSwarup “hatemongers” onTwitter after their infl�ammatory speeches, openly calling for violence against Muslims. Angry with his work,rightwing elements have often called him an “Islamist”and a “jihadist”, while demanding legal action againsthim and Alt News. His arrestcame after he highlightedthe controversial commentsmade by Nupur Sharma,

now suspended from theBJP, that caused international embarrassment to the government.

After the Nupur Sharmacontroversy, Mr. Zubair hadtold media that the threatsagainst him and his familyhad increased and this timethe threats looked “seriousand real”. Hashtags such as#ArrestZubair” startedtrending on Twitter. A dayafter his arrest, Mr. Zubairgave a statement, saying hewas being targeted for his“name and his profession”.His lawyer Vrinda Grover,while arguing for his bail,submitted that “many hadtweeted the same; the onlydiff�erence between thosehandles and mine is myfaith, my name and my profession”.

The arrest has triggeredsharp responses from bothwithin and outside thecountry. Stephane Dujarric,a spokesman for the UN SecretaryGeneral, said, whileresponding to Mr. Zubair’sarrest, “it is very importantthat people be allowed to express themselves freely,journalists be allowed to express themselves freely andwithout the threat of any harassment.”

Mr. Zubair is still in jail.But Mr. Sinha says the arrestwould not have any impacton the journalism Alt Newsdoes. “We at @AltNews willcontinue to fi�ght misinformation, disinformation andhate speech, and keep holding people and organisations accountable, andnothing can stop that,” hetweeted on June 28.

MOHAMMED ZUBAIR

The man who chased facts The Alt News journalist was arrested over a tweet of an image from an old fi�lm

Mahesh Langa

ILLUSTRATION: SREEJITH R KUMAR

On June 29, 1788, imperial Russian troopslaid siege to Ozi, an

Ottoman fortress on thenorthern Black Sea coast.On the same day, a Russiannaval squadron, commanded by Admiral M.I. Voinovich, left Sevastopol in Crimea for Ozi. Their missionwas to prevent any Turkishattack on the Crimeanshores and also to off�er support to the Russian groundtroops at Ozi. But in theBlack Sea waters, the Russians were encountered by afar superior Turkish squadron. After days of manoeuvring in the open sea,on July 14, near a small island in the northwest of theBlack Sea, fi�ghting brokeout. After hourslong battle,the Russians infl�icted deadlydamage on the Turkish fl�eetand forced them to retreat.

The Battle of Fidonisi,named after the islandwhich was called Fidonisi bythe Greeks, was the fi�rst naval battle of the 17871792RussoTurkish War. Whilethe Russian victory in thewaters near Fidonisi did nothave an immediate impacton the war, the defeat of thesuperior Ottoman Navy wasa morale booster for theRussian troops. Five monthslater, Russian troopsstormed Ozi, captured thetown and renamed it asOchakov, which is nowhome to Ukraine Navy’s operational control centre.

Fidonisi is now called theSnake Island. On the fi�rstday of President Vladimir

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine,Russia’s Navy seized the island, which lies just 35 kmoff� Ukraine’s southwesterncoast. For over four months,the Russians held the islandunder their control, whilethey made battlefi�eld gainsin Ukraine’s eastern Donbasregion. But on Thursday,faced with relentless Ukrainian attacks, Russia announced that it was exitingthe island. For the Ukrainiantroops which suff�ered backtoback defeats in the Donbas and took heavy casualties in recent weeks, theouster of the invading forcesfrom the Snake Island (alsocalled Zmiinyi Island) is arare battlefi�eld victory.

Outsize role The island covering just 0.17square km (roughly the sizeof 20 football fi�elds) hasplayed an outsize role inmost of the wars Russiafought in the Black Sea sincethe Battle of Fidonisi. Itcame under the control ofRomania in 1877. In the First

World War, Russia, in an alliance with Romania, hadoperated a wireless stationon the island, which wasdestroyed by Ottoman warships. During the SecondWorld War, Romania, whichhad joined the Nazi invasionof the Soviet Union, allowedthe Axis powers to establisha radio station on the island.

The Nazis and the Romanians had mined the watersaround the island during thewar to stop the Soviet submarines and vessels fromgetting closer. But in 1944,as the momentum of thewar had clearly shifted in favour of the Soviet Union,Romanian troops wereforced to exit the island.Four years later, as part of afrontier delimitation protocol signed between Romania and the Soviet Union,the Snake Island came under the rule of Moscow. Itwould stay so until Ukrainebecame an independentcountry in 1991, along withseveral other republics, asthe Soviet Union collapsed.

There was a maritimeborder dispute between Ukraine and Romania in thewaters around the Snake Island, which was resolved in2009. At that time, Ukrainehad said the island washome to some 100 people,including military personnel, scientists, their familiesand keepers of the lighthouse, which was built in1842 by Russia’s Black SeaFleet and rebuilt severaltimes thereafter. The largelyrocky outcrop has only onevillage, Bile, which wasfounded in 2007. Ukrainewanted to build a settlementon the island, but it, onceagain, turned out to be thefocus of Russia’s battle tocontrol the Black Sea.

The capture of the islandon February 24 allowed Russia to tighten its naval blockade on Ukraine. But the defence of the island, whichwas in Ukraine’s artilleryrange, became increasinglydiffi�cult after Russia lost itsfl�agship Moskva on April 14.Ever since, Ukraine hasstepped up attacks not juston the Russian forces defending the island, but alsothe supply ships. When thedefence became increasingly costly, Russia fi�nally decided to make a pullback.

This doesn’t mean thatUkrainian troops can takedirect control of the island,because they might alsocome under fi�re from Russian warships. But Ukrainehas clearly pushed the enemy farther away from Odessa, its ‘pearl of the BlackSea’, and taken a tacticalvictory, for now.

SNAKE ISLAND

Battle for the Black Sea Ukrainian troops have pushed the enemy farther away from Odessa’s coast

Stanly Johny

ILLUSTRATION: R.RAJESH

CMYK

A ND-NDE

BUSINESSEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

THE HINDU DELHI



SPORTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

BENGALURU: Multifaceted, whohas been well prepared, is expected to score in the Chief Minister’sCup (1,200m), the feature event ofthe races to be held here onSunday ( July 3). False rails (widthabout 9.5m from 1,600m to thewinning post) will be in position.

1 BRAVE DANCER PLATE(1,400m), rated 00 to 25, 230

p.m.: 1. Baba Voss (1) Tousif K 61.5,2. Handsome Rocky (8) Angad61.5, 3. Luminary Star (7) KiranRai 61.5, 4. Super Kind (4) SalmanK 60, 5. War Eagle (6) Arvind K60, 6. Lightning Flame (3) A. Imran 58.5, 7. Osibisa (9) J.H. Arul58.5, 8. Southernaristocrat (2)Kirtish B 58.5 and 9. Jai Vikram (5)Nayak 53.1.OSIBISA, 2. LIGHTNING FLAME, 3. HANDSOME ROCKY

2 ROYAL TERN PLATE (DIV. II),(1,200m), rated 20 to 45, 4yo

& over, 300: 1. Ocean Dunes (1) K.Nazil 60, 2. Air Blast (3) P.S.Chouhan 58.5, 3. Gold Gray (5)Siddaraju 58.5, 4. Lady Supremos(8) Saddam H 56, 5. Lauterbrunnen (6) Angad 56, 6. Dark Vision (2) G. Vivek 55.5, 7. Favorito (4)Rayan 53, 8. Speed Seven (9)Likith 53, 9. Amazing Luck (10)Tousif K 52.5 and 10. MemorableTime (7) Vishal B 52.1. AIR BLAST, 2. GOLD GRAY, 3.

LAUTERBRUNNEN

3 PADDIWICK PLATE (1,400m),maiden 3yo only, (Terms), 3

30: 1. Bruce Almighty (1) T.S. Jodha56, 2. Rapidus (2) Akshay K 56, 3.Tignanello (7) Ashhad A 56, 4. Tycoonist (10) Suraj 56, 5. WorldlyWise (3) Ajinkya 56, 6. Angel Bliss(5) K. Nazil 54.5, 7. Daianne (4)Bhawani S 54.5, 8. Geographique(9) Zervan 54.5, 9. Indian Blues (6)S. Shareef 54.5, 10. Lady Godiva(8) N.S. Parmar 54.5 and 11. RoyalGlory (11) Sandesh 54.5.1. ROYAL GLORY, 2. RAPIDUS,

3. TYCOONIST

4 CHIEF MINISTER’S CUP(1,200m), 4yo & over,

(Terms), 400: 1. Multifaceted (1)Trevor 60, 2. Ashwa Bravo (3)Suraj 57, 3. Corfe Castle (5) C.S.Jodha 55.5, 4. Enigma (7) P.S.Chouhan 54, 5. Augustus Caesar(2) Zervan 53.5, 6. Golden Oaks (4)Sandesh 52.5 and 7. SmashingBlue (6) Akshay K 51.1. MULTIFACETED,

2. ASHWA BRAVO

5 FIRE HAVEN PLATE (1,200m),rated 40 to 65, 430: 1. Silver

Dew (6) Kiran Rai 62.5, 2. LordVader (2) Bhawani S 59.5, 3. General Patton (3) Akshay K 59, 4.Garamond (1) P.S. Chouhan 56, 5.Star Glory (7) Suraj 55, 6. Devils

Magic (4) J.H. Arul 54, 7. IndianPharaoh (5) Arvind K 54, 8. Bellagio (8) C.S. Jodha 52 and 9. DearLady (9) N.S. Parmar 50.1. STAR GLORY, 2. GENERAL PAT-TON, 3. LORD VADER

6 JULY PLATE (1,600m), rated 20to 45, 5yo & over, 500: 1.

Southern Power (—) (—) 62.5, 2.Queen Regnant (6) Trevor 61, 3.Acaster (1) Srinath 57.5, 4. Lycurgus (7) J.H. Arul 57, 5. Ombudsman(3) Darshan 57, 6. Embosom (4)P.S. Chouhan 55, 7. Johnny Bravo(2) Nikhil N 55 and 8. Marco Polo(5) L.A. Rozario 53.1. EMBOSOM, 2. QUEEN REGNANT

7 ROYAL TERN PLATE (DIV. I),(1,200m), rated 20 to 45, 4yo

& over, 530: 1. Millbrook (5) HasibA 62.5, 2. Divine Blessings (7) S.Saqlain 61, 3. Benediction (6) S.Shareef 60, 4. Chul Bul Rani (9)Salman K 60, 5. Aherne (4) T.S.Jodha 59, 6. Chisox (8) L.A. Rozario 58.5, 7. Extraordinary (3)Arvind K 58, 8. Armory (2) RajeshK 57 and 9. Queen Of Sands (1)Chethan K 57.1. AHERNE, 2. QUEEN OF SANDS, 3. EXTRAORDINARYDay’s best: MULTIFACETEDDouble: ROYAL GLORY — STAR GLORYJkt: 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7; Tr (i): 2, 3 and4; (ii): 5, 6 and 7.

Multifaceted primed to deliverRACING

India and the European Union (EU) concluded the fi�rstround of talks for the proposed free trade agreement(FTA) on Friday and the nextround of talks is scheduled atBrussels in September, theMinistry of Commerce andIndustry said on Saturday.

India and the 27nationbloc resumed negotiationson June 17, after a gap ofmore than eight years, onthe proposed agreements ontrade, investments and geographical indications (GI).The fi�rst round of talks,which began on June 27, concluded on July 1.

India’s FTA negotiationswere led by chief negotiatorNidhi Mani Tripathi, Joint Se

cretary in the Department ofCommerce and the EU wasrepresented by its chief negotiator Christophe Kiener,the Ministry said in astatement.

The weeklong negotiations were held in a hybrid

fashion – with some of theteams meeting in Delhi andthe majority of offi�cials joining virtually.

During the fi�rst round, 52technical sessions covering18 policy areas of FTA and seven sessions on investment

protection and GIs wereheld, it added.

India’s bilateral trade withthe EU amounted to $116.36billion in 202122.

Second-largest marketThe EU is India’s secondlargest trading partner, afterthe U.S., and the secondlargest destination for Indianexports, the Ministry said.

“The trade agreementwith the EU would help Indiafurther expand and diversifyits exports of goods and services, including securing thevalue chains,” the Ministrysaid. “Both sides are aimingfor the trade negotiations tobe broadbased, balanced,and comprehensive, basedon the principles of fairnessand reciprocity,” it added.

IndiaEU to hold next round ofFTA talks at Brussels in Sept. Negotiators concluded fi�rst round of parleys on trade, investment on July 1

Press Trust of IndiaNew Delhi

High stakes: The EU is a key trading partner, with bilateraltrade in fi�scal 202122 amounting to $116.36 billion. * PTI

U.S. manufacturing activityslowed more than expectedin June, with a measure ofnew orders contracting forthe fi�rst time in two years,signs that the economy wascooling amid aggressive monetary policy tightening bythe Federal Reserve.

The survey from the Institute for Supply Management(ISM) also showed a gauge offactory employment contracting for a second straightmonth, though an ‘overwhelming majority’ of fi�rmsindicated they were hiring.

The slowdown in manufacturing followed moderateconsumer spending growth

in May along with weakhousing starts and buildingpermits, which left someeconomists anticipating thatthe economy contractedagain in the second quarterfollowing a slump in grossdomestic product in the fi�rstthree months. Another decline in GDP would not necessarily indicate a recession

unless the economy suff�ersdeep job losses.

“This does not suggestthat a recession is on theway yet, but growth conditions continue to deceleratebroadly in response to Fedtightening and extendedcost pressures for consumers and businesses,” saidBen Ayers, a senior economist at Nationwide.

The ISM survey’s index ofnational factory activitydropped to 53.0 last month,the lowest reading sinceJune 2020, when the sectorwas rebounding from a COVID19 slump. That followeda reading of 56.1 in May. Theindex would need to declineto 43.1 to signal a recession.

U.S. factory activity slows to2year low as economy coolsJune ISM manufacturing index falls 3.1 points to 53.0

ReutersWASHINGTON

Swiss fi�rm Gurit Group hasset up an an advancedcompositesolutions plantat Oragadam at an investment of ₹�250 crore.

Gurit Wind Pvt. will provide direct employment to300 people, the fi�rm said.

“This facility will behome to all our Gurit windrelated activities likemould making, manufacturing solutions, extrusionof recycled PET, engineering and customising of corematerial kits as well as pultruded carbon profi�leswhich will then be converted to spar caps for windblades,” said CEO MitjaSchulz. “Soon, this will beGurit’s biggest manufacturing plant on the planet.”

Swiss groupGurit openscomposite unit

Special CorrespondentChennai

Pearson India, a unit of theU.K.based learning company Pearson plc, plans to focus on building a digital anddirecttoconsumer (DtC)portfolio to cater to learners, said Siddharth Banerjee, Managing Director, India & Asia.

“We are working with institutions and worldclassauthors to build rich, credible, and highquality content (such as the MarketingManagement 16e by Pearson) to provide learners with21st century education,knowledge, and global perspective,” he said.

The company was build

ing hybrid solutions in testpreparation to off�er qualityresources, coupled with innovative digital platforms foran enhanced learning experience, Mr. Banerjee added.

The fi�rm would also focuson English language learn

ing by delivering AIbasedassessments for enterprises,students and working professionals, he said.

Noting that the pandemichad proved to be transformational for the educationand learning sector, Mr. Banerjee said the company wasworking to become the preferred partner of choice forlearners, educators andgovernment.

“To do this, we need toaddress the challenges of affordable access, qualitylearning, and employabilityin the education ecosystemwhich is why we are focusing on strengthening ourproduct portfolio and DtCproposition,” he said.

Pearson keen to add digitallearning platform in IndiaCompany building hybrid solutions in test preparation: MD

Special CorrespondentMumbai

Siddharth Banerjee

JSW One Homes, the homeconstruction solutions armof JSW One Platforms,plans to strengthen its retail network in the Southand in Maharashtra by adding 25 ‘Homes Studio’ facilities by March, accordingto CEO Gaurav Sachdeva.

“Currently, we are present in Coimbatore, Bengaluru and Chennai, andhave two ‘Homes Studio’ inTamil Nadu. We will be entering six more cities before the end of this fi�scal,”Mr. Sachdeva said.

The Homes Studio willserve as a fullservice emporium for all homeconstruction needs for customers planning to buildtheir own houses, he said.

JSW One to setup 25 ‘Homes Studio’ units

N. AnandCHENNAI

BENGALURU: United Racing &Bloodstock Breeders Limited’sBallerina (Suraj up) won the Juvenile Sprinters’ Million, the chiefevent of the races held here onSaturday ( July 2). The winner is trained by PrasadRaju.1. SUPERVITE PLATE (Div. II),(1,200m), rated 00 to 25: OZARK(T.S. Jodha) 1, Beldona (Arvind K)2, The Omega Man (Saddam H) 3and Zehnaseeb (Darshan) 4. Notrun: Baroness. 41/4, Lnk and 4.1m, 15.56s. ₹�34 (w), 12, 11 and 54(p), SHP: 34, THP: 112, FP: 85, Q:26, Trinella: 1,675 and 814, Exacta: 6,060 and 3,376. Favourite:Beldona. Owner: Mr. SyedMuheeb. Trainer: Rajendra Singh.2. FANTABULOUS KING PLATE(1,200m), md. 3yo only (terms):INYOUWEBELIEVE (Trevor) 1,Tripitaka (P.S. Chouhan) 2, Stormwatch (Hindu S) 3 and StormyOcean (Ajinkya) 4. Lnk, 5 and 3/4.1m, 14.80s. ₹�17 (w), 11, 30 and 41(p), SHP: 64, THP: 99, FP: 106, Q:92, Trinella: 2,286 and 980, Exacta: 8,386 and 1,369. Favourite:Inyouwebelieve. Owners: Mr. Rajan Aggarwal & Mr. Gautam Aggarwal. Trainer: Prasanna Kumar.3. NAWAB M ARSHAD ALI KHAN

MEMORIAL CUP (1,600m), rated80 & above: TAIMUR (Bhawani S)1, Sea Of Cortez (P.P. Dhebe) 2,Automatic (P.S. Chouhan) 3 andTruly Epic (Sandesh) 4. 21/4, 1/2and 11/2. 1m, 40.13s. ₹�26 (w), 12and 65 (p), SHP: 115, THP: 41, FP:685, Q: 417, Trinella: 4,001 and536, Exacta: 4,858 and 1,487. Favourite: Taimur. Owner: Mr.M.A.M. Ramaswamy Chettiar OfChettinad Charitable Trust.Trainer: Karthik Ganapathy.4. JUVENILE SPRINTERS’ MILLION(1,200m), 3yo only (terms):BALLERINA (Suraj) 1, Artemis Ignacia (Akshay K) 2, O Hansini(Trevor) 3 and Amreli (Sandesh)4. Lnk, 21/4 and 31/4. 1m, 13.45s.₹�71 (w), 27 and 21 (p), SHP: 30,THP: 31, FP: 344, Q: 97, Trinella:1,318 and 410, Exacta: 1,229 and360. Favourite: Amreli. Owner:United Racing & BloodstockBreeders Ltd. Trainer: PrasadRaju.5. AKHAL-TEKE PLATE (2,000m),rated 40 to 65: SUCCESS (Hindu S)1, Siege Perilous (Akshay K) 2,Pissarro (Trevor) 3 and Peluche(T.S. Jodha) 4. 101/2, 2 and 3/4.2m 05.95s. ₹�21 (w), 12, 15 and 13(p), SHP: 33, THP: 44, FP: 66, Q:50, Trinella: 123 and 56, Exacta:

602 and 352. Favourite: Success.Owner: Dr. A.C. Muthiah. Trainer:Vijay Singh.

6. LADY GIBRALTAR PLATE(1,400m), rated 20 to 45: POL-ISHED GIRL (Suraj) 1, La Reina(Sandesh) 2, Nikolina (Akshay K) 3and Yukan (Srinath) 4. 4, 11/4 and71/2. 1m, 26.64s. ₹�17 (w), 10, 17and 13 (p), SHP: 45, THP: 41, FP:105, Q: 66, Trinella: 180 and 46,Exacta: 328 and 173. Favourite:Polished Girl. Owners: Mr. DaulatChhabria, Mr. K. Kaliyaperumal,Mr. M. Ravi and Mrs. R. Chellam.Trainer: Rajesh Narredu.

7. SUPERVITE PLATE (Div. I),(1,200m), rated 00 to 25: DEBON-AIR (Md. Aliyar) 1, Altair (ArvindK) 2, Port Of Beauty (S. Shareef ) 3and Red Lucifer (Salman K) 4. Notrun: Emeraldo. Nk, 61/4 and 1/2.1m, 6.94s. ₹�91 (w), 26, 14 and 14(p), SHP: 29, THP: 46, FP: 408, Q:144, Trinella: 1,550 and 664, Exacta: 3,002 and 1,342. Favourite:Altair. Owner: Mr. DayanandKachuwah. Trainer: FarazArshad.

Jackpot: ₹�5,217 (six tkts.); Runnerup: 543 (72 tkts.); Treble (i): 706(16 tkts.); (ii): 247 (82 tkts).

Ballerina takes the honours inJuvenile Sprinters’ Million

As taxpayers face issues inaccessing the efi�ling portal,the Income Tax departmenton Saturday said softwareprovider Infosys was taking‘proactive measures’ to dealwith the ‘irregular traffi�c’ onthe portal.

“It has been noticed thattaxpayers are facing issuesin accessing ITD efi�ling portal. As informed by @Infosys, they have observedsome irregular traffi�c on theportal for which proactivemeasures are being taken,”the IT department tweeted.

Bumpy startThe new efi�ling portalwww.incometax.gov.in, introduced on June 7, 2021,had a bumpy start with taxpayers and professionals reporting glitches and diffi�cul

ties in its functioning.Infosys was contracted in2019 to develop the portal.

More recently, the portalfaced snags on the fi�rst anniversary of its introductionand many users had complained that they were unable to log in into the portal,while some complained ofmalfunctioning of thesearch functionality.

The government had paid₹�164.5 crore to Infosys tobuild the new income tax efi�ling portal.

‘Taxpayers facing issuesaccessing efi�ling portal’ ‘Infosys dealing with irregular traffi�c’

PRESS TRUST OF INDIANEW DELHI

Sanctionshit Russia hasreduced its sunfl�ower oilexport tax sharply afterchanging the formula it uses for calculating it, to support shipments while itsrouble currency hoversnear multiyear highs, theAgriculture Ministry said.

The sunfl�ower oil export tax is set at 8,408.7roubles ($163.3 at the current rate) per tonne for July, the Ministry said.

The tax for July was previously set at $560.1 atonne. The sharp reduction happened after theRussian government setthe base price for the taxcalculation on Friday at82,500 roubles per tonneof sunfl�ower oil instead ofthe previous $1,000 a

tonne. The new July tax isbased on an indicativeprice of $1,800.2 a tonne,the Ministry said.

The rouble strengthened to sevenyear highsthis week, supported bycapital controls, but is expected to depreciate in thelonger term and lost almost 6% on Friday in Moscow trade. It closed at51.50 to the dollar on theinterbank market on Friday, stronger than the Moscow close of 54.50.

Russia slashes tax onsunoil to spur exportsLevy cut to $163.3/tonne from $560.1

Reuters

Saha gets NOC from CABKOLKATA

International cricketerWriddhiman Saha onSaturday got a ‘No ObjectionCertificate’ from the CricketAssociation of Bengal (CAB).This paved the way for theexperiencedwicketkeeperbatter torepresent some other stateassociation in theforthcoming domesticseason. Saha refused to playfor Bengal in the Ranji Trophyknockout stage after reportssuggested that he was upsetover some remarks made by aCAB official.

IN BRIEF

Abhay Singh wins hissecond PSA crownSEREMBAN (MALAYSIA)

Unseeed Abhay Singh baggedhis second PSA title,defeating second seed IvanYuen of Malaysia 1311, 611,115, 411, 1311 in the final ofthe Tuanku Muhriz Trophyinternational squashtournament, here onSaturday. Abhay had won hismaiden title in the ArchiFactory Open at Lorient(France) in May.

Top seeds Sriram Balajiand Jeevan Nedunchez

hiyan were beaten 64, 16,[106] in the semifi�nals byUSA’s Keegan Smith andEvan Zhu in the $53,120Challenger tennis tournament in Cali, Colombia.

Other results (semifi�nals): $45,730 Challenger, Mala

ga: Altug Celikbilek (Tur) &Dmitry Popko (Kaz) bt VictorVlad Cornea (Rou) & ArjunKadhe 67(2), 63, [108].

Daniel Cukierman (Isr) &Emilio Gomez (Ecu) bt YukiBhambri & Saketh Myneni64, 64.

$15,000 ITF, Monastir:Men: Doubles: Dong Bohua &Zhang Ze (Chn) bt Boris Butulija (Srb) & Niki Poonacha 62,62. Women: Manon Leonard(Fra) bt Jennifer Luikham 61,63.

BalajiJeevan

duo bows out

INDIANS ABROAD

Sports Bureau

Maldini signs new 2yeardeal with AC MilanMILAN

Paolo Maldini will stay on asAC Milan technical directorafter signing a new twoyearcontract on Friday. Maldiniand sporting director FredericMassara, who has also signeda twoyear extension, tookMilan from the doldrums tothe top of the Italian game.Maldini played over 900times for Milan. AFP

Sonal Patil defeated Tamanna Takoria 60, 61 inthe fi�nal of the ₹�1,00,000AITA women’s tennis tournament at the Joygaon Academy on Saturday.

Sonal, playing in her fi�rstwomen’s tournament, hadearlier in the day beaten Riya Sachdeva while Tamanna beat Medhavi Singh inthe semifi�nals.

Wet weather

Wet weather had washedout play on the clay courtson the earlier two days.

The results:

Final: Sonal Patil bt Tamanna Takoria 60, 61.

Semifi�nals: Sonal bt RiyaSachdeva 64, 60; Tamanna btMedhavi Singh 60, 62.

Sonal clinches the titleTENNIS

Sports BureauJHAJJAR

Victor and the vanquished: Sonal, the winner, and Tamanna,the runnerup. * SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Y. Sahaja was in explosiveform as she outplayed fourthseed Ekaterina Yashina 60,61 in the semifi�nals of the$25,000 ITF women’s tennistournament at the TennisProject, Baliawas, onSaturday.

The hopes of an allIndianfi�nal vanished as secondseed Ankita Raina was beaten 63, 64 by third seed Viktoria Morvayova of Slovakia.

Ankita fought back to be42 in the second set, but didnot have the energy to sustain her good game againstan opponent who played at ahigh intensity.

She did, however, win thedoubles title with PriskaMadelyn Nugroho of Indone

sia. The duo bounced backfrom a slow start to beat Japanese second seeds Momoko Kobori and Misaki Matsuda 36, 60, [106] in thefi�nal.

The results:

Semifi�nals: Y. Sahaja bt Ekaterina Yashina 60, 61; ViktoriaMorvayova (Svk) bt Ankita Raina 63, 64.

Doubles: Final: Ankita Raina& Priska Madelyn Nugroho (Ina)bt Mokoko Kobori & Misaki Matsuda 36, 60, [106].

Semifi�nals: Ankita & Priskabt Rutuja Bhosale & Diana Marcinkevica (Lat) 60, 64; Momoko & Misaki bt Ishwari Matere & Ikumi Yamazaki (Jpn)62, 62.

Quarterfi�nals: Ishwari & Ikumi bt Ekaterina Yashina (Rus) &Zeel Desai 46, 75, [108]; Momoko & Misaki bt VaidehiChaudhari & Mihika Yadav 63,61.

Sahaja outplays Yashina, enters fi�nalAnkita, partnering Nugroho, bounces back after a slow start to win doubles title

Celebration time: Ankita and Nugroho, the doubleschampions. * KAMESH SRINIVASAN

ITF WOMENKamesh SrinivasanGURUGRAM

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DELHI THE HINDU


Flamboyant wicketkeeperbatter Rishabh Pant said hisplan was to “disturb thebowlers mentally.”

“In English conditions, ifa bowler pitches it up, it’simportant to disturb hisrhythm,” said the 24yearold Pant.

“I don’t try to play unidimensional... I try out various shots — sometimes I

step out, or play on thebackfoot. I use the creasewell. It’s about disturbingthe bowler mentally. It’s notpreplanned, I just focus onwhat the bowler is trying todo.

“You can’t be defensiveor attacking with each ball. Iplay every ball on its merit.It’s a good sign to show respect to a good ball. I’m notfocusing much on defence,just focusing on my game.”


Birmingham

Tried to disturb bowlersmentally, says Pant

Leach on the thirdmanboundary. Jimmy Anderson,who bowled Jadeja for 104and had Siraj caught byBroad, fi�nished with fi�ve for60 in 21.5 overs.

Bumrah followed his 31not out by bowling openerAlex Lees and forcing Zak

India skipper Jasprit Bumrahstarred with both bat andball even as England’s StuartBroad sent down the mostexpensive over in Test history (35 runs) at Edgbaston onSaturday.

India was dismissed for416 in its fi�rst innings in thefi�fth and fi�nal Test of the series. Bumrah, who hit Broadfor 29 runs in an over that also featured fi�ve wides and anoball he struck for six, ledfrom the front in his primaryrole of strike bowler.

He took the fi�rst three

wickets to fall during an excellent spell of three for 35 in11 overs as England slumpedto 84 for fi�ve at stumps, still332 runs behind.

India, resuming at 338 forseven, added 78 in 11.5 overs.Ravindra Jadeja, unbeatenon 83, completed the thirdcentury of his 60Test careerand his fi�rst overseas. Hereached the landmark instyle, cutting Potts to theboundary. Jadeja’s 183ballhundred contained 13 fours.

Anderson’s fi�veforBroad became the sixth bowler to take 550 wickets whenhe had Shami caught by

Crawley to edge to Gill at slip.Ollie Pope departed in thesame fashion, taken byShreyas Iyer this time.

This was followed by along rain break and whenplay resumed in bright sunshine, the inform pair of JoeRoot and Jonny Bairstow

briefl�y kept the visitors atbay. But the stand was broken when Root was caughtbehind for 31 while trying tocut a Mohammed Siraj delivery that was too close to him.Root was given a torrid timeby Mohammed Shami, whobeat him repeatedly and was

unlucky not to get him out.Nightwatchman Jack

Leach was out for a fi�veballduck when he was caught behind off� Shami. At stumps,Bairstow, who also found thegoing tough, was unbeatenon 12 along with skipper BenStokes (0).

Allround Bumrah puts England on the back footThe skipper sets a world record before rattling the hosts’ toporder; Jadeja makes a majestic hundred as India posts 416


Birmingham

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B Bumrah’s 31 not out is thehighest by a debutantcaptain in Test history whilebatting at No. 10, betteringBishan Singh Bedi’s 30against New Zealand inChristchurch (1976)

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INDIA IN ENG

Standing tall: Jadeja, who revived the innings in the companyof Pant, completed his third Test century. * GETTY IMAGES

INDIA — 1ST INNINGS Shubman Gill c Crawley b Anderson 17 (24b, 4x4), Cheteshwar Pujara c Crawley b Anderson 13 (46b, 2x4), HanumaVihari lbw b Potts 20 (53b, 1x4),Virat Kohli b Potts 11 (19b, 2x4),Rishabh Pant c Crawley b Root146 (111b, 19x4, 4x6), ShreyasIyer c Billings b Anderson 15(11b, 3x4), Ravindra Jadeja bAnderson 104 (194b, 13x4),Shardul Thakur c Billings bStokes 1 (12b), MohammedShami c Leach b Broad 16 (31b,

3x4), Jasprit Bumrah (not out)31 (16b, 4x4, 2x6), MohammedSiraj c Broad b Anderson 2 (6b);Extras (b4, lb17, nb14, w5):40; Total (in 84.5 overs): 416.

FALL OF WICKETS127 (Gill, 6.2 overs), 246 (Pujara, 17.6), 364 (Vihari, 22.2),471 (Kohli, 24.2), 598(Shreyas, 27.5), 6320 (Pant,66.2), 7323 (Shardul, 67.6), 8371 (Shami, 79.4), 9375(Jadeja, 82.2).

ENGLAND BOWLING Anderson 21.54605, Broad183891, Potts 2011052,Leach 90710, Stokes 130471, Root 30231.

ENGLAND — 1ST INNINGSAlex Lees b Bumrah 6 (9b, 1x4),Zak Crawley c Gill b Bumrah 9(17b, 1x4), Ollie Pope c Shreyasb Bumrah 10 (18b, 2x4), JoeRoot c Pant b Siraj 31 (67b, 4x4),Jonny Bairstow (batting) 12(47b, 1x4), Jack Leach c Pant bShami 0 (5b), Ben Stokes (batting) 0 (4b); Extras (b8, lb3,nb5): 16; Total (for five wkts. in27 overs): 84.

FALL OF WICKETS116 (Lees, 2.6), 227 (Crawley,4.1), 344 (Pope, 10.6), 478(Root, 22.6), 583 (Leach, 25.3).

INDIA BOWLINGBumrah 111353, Shami 133331, Siraj 3251.

SCOREBOARD

Deepak Hooda hit a fi�nehalfcentury to help Indiabeat Derbyshire county byseven wickets in a T20warmup match here onFriday.

Hooda made 59 off� 37balls and shared 78 runs forthe third wicket with Suryakumar Yadav (36 notout) as India chased down151 with 20 balls to spare.Hooda’s knock containedfi�ve fours and two sixes,while Suryakumar struckfour boundaries and a six.

Earlier, Umran Malikand Arshdeep Singhgrabbed two wicketsapiece as India restrictedDerbyshire to 150 for eightafter opting to bowl.The scores: Derbyshire 150/8in 20 overs (Wayne Madsen28, Hilton Cartwright 27) lostto India 151/3 in 16.4 overs(Sanju Samson 38, DeepakHooda 59, Suryakumar Yadav36 n.o.).

India beatsDerby inwarmup


Derby

A rejuvenated India will seekrevenge against Great Britainwhen the two sides opentheir Pool B campaign in theWomen’s Hockey World Cuphere on Sunday.

India will look to settlescores against the side thatshattered its bronze medalhopes at the Tokyo Olympics. India came tantalisingly close to claiming a maidenOlympic medal in Tokyo, only to lose 34 to England,which is playing as Great Britain here.

Upwardly mobileThe Indians are high on confi�dence after fi�nishing a creditable third in their maidenFIH Pro League. India’s bestperformance in the WorldCup is a fourth place at the

inaugural edition in 1974.India achieved its bestev

er world ranking — sixth — inMay and then gave some topteams a run for their moneyin the Pro League. India fi�nished on the podium aheadof strong sides like Belgium,Australia and England.

Experienced goalkeeper

Savita Punia has been brilliant as captain having takenover from Rani Rampal, whohas been sidelined since theTokyo Games due to injury.

Savita has been in stellarform, while she will haveyoung and energetic backupin Bichu Devi Kharibam.

The backline will be un

der the watchful eyes of vicecaptain Deep Grace Ekka,Gurjit Kaur, Udita and NikkiPradhan, while the responsibility of building the attackswill be on the shoulders ofSushila Chanu, Neha Goyal,Navjot Kaur, Sonika, Jyoti,Nisha and Monika.

Salima Tete, who has beenin terrifi�c form, will need toplay the linking role.

The shooters

The responsibility of scoringgoals will be on experiencedVandana Katariya, Lalremsiami, Navneet Kaur andSharmila Devi.

India fi�nished eight at thelast edition in 2018. Britain’sbest result in the World Cupis a bronze in 2010. India’s schedule in Group B:

July 3: vs. Great Britain (8p.m.); July 5: vs. China (8 p.m.).

July 7: vs. New Zealand (11p.m.). (all times IST).

India eyes revenge against Great BritainThe two teams come to grips for fi�rst time since the Olympic bronze matchup


Amstelveen

WORLD CUP

Ready to roll: India will look to put its best foot forward whenit takes on Great Britain on Sunday. * TWITTER@THEHOCKEYINDIA

Former Indian women’scricket team captain MithaliRaj on Saturday said she wasoverwhelmed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s“thoughtfully worded acknowledgement” of her contribution to the sport.

The PM had in a letter extended his good wishes tothe Indian batter after sheannounced her retirementfrom international cricketlast month, saying theplayer has been an inspiration for manysportspersons.

“It’s a matter of singularhonour & pride when onereceives such warm encouragement from our Hon’blePM Shri @narendramodi ji,who is a role model & inspiration for millions includingme. I am overwhelmed bythis thoughtfully worded

acknowledgment of my contribution to cricket,” Mithalitweeted.

“I will treasure this forever. I feel inspired and encouraged for my next chapter and will strive hard tolive up to the expectationsof our Hon’ble PM in contributing towards the growthof Indian sports,” she wroteon her Twitter handle.

Mithali ‘overwhelmed’ by PM Modi’s letterPress Trust of India

NEW DELHI

Mithali.* FILE PHOTO: NAGARA GOPAL

Dutchman Fabio Jakobsenclaimed the second stageof the Tour de France, a202.2km fl�at ride fromRoskilde to Nyborg, in astunning sprint fi�nish afteredging out Wout van Aertand Mads Pedersen onSaturday.

Van Aert’s push at theend meant that the TeamJumboVisma rider tookthe yellow jersey from fellow Belgian Yves Lampaert, who was involved ina late crash but recoveredto remain second in thegeneral classifi�cation.

Twotimes defendingchampion Tadej Pogacarcrossed the line three minutes behind after suff�ering a puncture but managed to retain third place.

Jakobsen winsstage two

Reuters

Nyborg (Denmark)

Fabio Jakobsen. * AFP

Promising boxer S. Kalaivani gave a fi�ne perfor

mance to defeat Uzbekistan’s Farzona Fozilova 50and book a berth in the women’s 48kg fi�nal at theElorda Cup boxing tournament in NurSultan, Kazakhstan, on Saturday.

Former World youthchampion Jyoti Gulia(52kg) lost in the semifi�nalsto take the bronze medal.Important results (Indiansunless specifi�ed):Men: Quarterfi�nals: 48kg:Kuldeep Kumar bt Kairat Yernur (Kaz) 32; 71kg: Yashpallost to Aslanbek Shymbergenov (Kaz) 50.Women: Semifi�nals: 48kg: S.Kalaivani bt Farzona Fozilova(Uzb) 50; 52kg: Jyoti Gulialost to Feruza Kazaroka (Uzb)50; 63kg: Neema lost toAnar Tursynbek (Kaz) 50;81kg: Babita Bisht lost toZheng Lu (Chn) RSC.Quarterfi�nals: 50kg: Savitalost to Namiki Tsukimi (Jpn)50.

Kalaivanistorms intothe fi�nal

Sports Bureau

Formula 2: Silverstone GP,SS Select 2 (SD & HD) & Hotstar, 2.30 p.m.England vs India: 5th Test,day 3, Sony Six (SD & HD) &Sony LIV, 3 p.m.Wimbledon: SS Select 1 &Star Sports 1 (SD & HD) &Hotstar, 3.30 p.m. onwards;SS Select 2 (SD & HD) & Hotstar, 4 p.m. & 9.30 p.m.Formula 1: British GP, SS Select 2 (SD & HD) & Hotstar,7.30 p.m.Women’s Hockey WorldCup: India v England, StarSports 3 & Hotstar, 8 p.m.West Indies vsBangladesh: 2nd T20I, FanCode, 11 p.m.

LIVE TELECAST

Ferrari's Carlos Sainz tookthe fi�rst pole position of hisFormula One career in awet qualifying for the British Grand Prix on Saturday,with Red Bull’s championship leader Max Verstappen alongside him on thefront row with teammateCharles Leclerc qualifyingthird.

Lewis Hamilton willstart in fi�fth place for Mercedes on Sunday.

Sainz takes hisfi�rst F1 pole

Reuters

SILVERSTONE

Topranked Iga Swiatek’s 37match winning streak endedwith a straightset loss to Alize Cornet in the third roundat Wimbledon on Saturday.

Swiatek was coming off� atitle at the French Open buther game was fi�lled with errors in the 46, 26 defeatagainst the 37thranked Cornet of France.

Swiatek made 33 unforcederrors in the one hour 33 minute contest on the No. 1Court. Cornet, in contrast,made only seven unforcederrors.

Swiatek had been unbeaten since February and wonher preceding six tournaments in a row.

This is not the fi�rst surprising result Cornet has comeup with at the All EnglandClub. The only other time shereached the fourth round

was in 2014 when she eliminated Serena Williams.

Amanda Anisimova camefrom behind to beat 11th seedCoco Gauff� 67(4), 62, 61 inan allAmerican clash onCentre Court.

Former champion SimonaHalep advanced with a comfortable 64, 61 win over Po

land's Magdalena Frech.Cristian Garin of Chile

reached the fourth round forthe second straight year witha 62, 63, 16, 64 victory over29thseeded Jenson Brooksbyof the United States.

The 26yearold Garin willnext face 19thseeded Alex deMinaur for a place in the

quarterfi�nals.11thseeded Taylor Fritz of

the United States advanced tothe fourth round at Wimbledon for the fi�rst time after a64, 61, 76(3) victory overAlex Molcan.

Fritz will next face qualifi�er Jason Kubler of Australiafor a spot in the quarterfi�nals.

Swiatek’s stunning run comes to an end Loses to Cornet in straight sets; Garin upsets 29th seed Brooksby


London

Venus Williams made a winning return to Wimbledonon Friday when the 42yearold American teamed withBritain’s Jamie Murray inmixed doubles. Venus andMurray defeated MichaelVenus and Alicja Rosolska63, 67(3), 63 in the fi�rstround.

The pair said their decision to play was lastminutebut Venus revealed she hadwanted to partner the Briton for some time. “Heplayed hard to get,” she said.“I wanted to play with him

for ages but it was superlastminute.”

A fi�vetime singles champion at Wimbledon, Venuswas runnerup in the mixeddoubles at Wimbledon in2006 with Bob Bryan.

Murray is a fi�vetime Slamchampion in the event, winning Wimbledon in 2007and 2017 with Jelena Jankovic and Martina Hingis.

“I was supposed to playwith Venus last year but Ihurt my neck,” said the 36yearold. “I couldn’t say notwice. It was amazing to beon the court with such achampion.”

Jamie Murray playedhard to get, says VenusBrit calls the American a champion

Mix and match: Venus and Jamie Murray decided to combineforces at the last possible minute. * AFP


London

Third round: Men: Garin (Chi)bt 29Brooksby (USA) 62, 63,16, 64; 19De Minaur (Aus) btBroady (GBr) 63, 64, 75; 21van de Zandschulp (Ned) btGasquet (Fra) 75, 26, 76(7),61; 11Fritz (USA) bt Molcan(Svk) 64, 61, 76(3).Women: Cornet (Fra) bt 1Swiatek (Pol) 64, 62; Martic (Cro)bt 8Pegula (USA) 62, 76(5);4Badosa (Esp) bt 25Kvitova(Cze) 75, 76(4); Tomljanovic(Aus) bt 13Krejcikova (Cze)26, 64, 63; 20Anisimova(USA) bt 11Gauff� (USA) 67(4),62, 61; 16Halep (Rou) btFrech (Pol) 64, 61; 17Rybakina (Kaz) bt Zheng (Chn) 76(4),75.

IMPORTANT RESULTS

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Fallen seeds

B Men: 29Brooksby

B Women: 1Swiatek;8Pegula; 11Gauff�;13Krejcikova; 25Kvitova

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Giant slayer: Cornet reached the fourth round of Wimbledonfor only the second time, the fi�rst in 2014. * AFP

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NEWS IN FRAMES

At 6.56 a.m. on July 1,under skies overcastwith monsoon clouds,

the Jagannath temple inAhmedabad was packed tocapacity. Gujarat ChiefMinister Bhupendra Patel,along with the temple’s headpriest, swept the ground withgolden brooms and clearedthe path for Lord Jagannath’smain chariot. Traditionally,the king of the state wouldhave had the honour, but thattradition is now followed bythe Chief Minister. Thedevotees soon pulled thechariot to start the 18kmprocession in the Old City,through communally sensitiveareas such as Jamalpur,Kalupur, Shahpur andDariyapur before returning tothe temple — the fullfl�edgedevent is taking place after twoyears of a pandemicinducedbreak.

More than 25,000 police andother security personnel kept vigilduring the yatra. For the fi�rsttime, the police used a helicopterand one motorised paraglider foraerial surveillance.

“This year, we celebrated theyatra with pomp and show with

accompanying orchestra to give aglamorous touch to the function,”a citybased businessman RaufSheikh Bengali said. In tableaux,artists paid tributes to cricketlegend Shane Warne and COVIDcare centres and exhibited themesof contemporary relevance.

Temple run

Fervour of faith: Devotees having darshan at the Jamalpur temple ahead of the yatra.

First stop: Married women perform rituals near the Lord Jagannath Templeahead of the rath yatra in Ahmedabad.

On a roll: An artist gives fi�naltouches to the main chariot.

Safety fi�rst: Security personnel perform a rehearsal. Top view: A motorised paraglider takes off� for aerial surveillance.

Glimpses of the rath yatra at the Jagannath temple inAhmedabad, held after a two-year break

Text and images by Vijay Soneji

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NEWS IN FRAMES

Fragrance of unity: Muslims welcome with rose petals the yatra at the Jamalpur mosque.

Festival ofamity:Members ofthe Sufi�Islamic Boardand saintsgreet ShriDilipdasjiMaharaj, headpriest of theLordJagannathTemple.

A breather:Policewomentaking amoment off�from theirduty.

Vantagepoint: Peoplewatch theyatra from aterrace.

Wide vista:The charioton thetemplepremises.

After Udaipur case, NIA to take up probe into Amravati killing

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