CfaR_Z bfZed W`c µUj_R^ZT¶ 4> - Daily Pioneer

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A year before the high-stake State Assembly elections, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani resigned on Saturday to make way for a new face. The surprise decision is seen as the acknowledgment of the fact that Rupani’s political man- agement had left the State unit in disarray, the BJP was facing new challenges from the Aam Admi Party, a well-entrenched spirited Congress, and the demand of influential “patidar” community to have a dominant share in the State power. Rupani, hailing from the numerical smaller Jain com- munity, submitted his resigna- tion to Governor Acharya Devvrat in the afternoon and later said that he had “willing- ly” stepped down from the post after a decision in this regard was taken by the party in the “larger interest of Gujarat”. Rupani was sworn-in as State Chief Minister in December 2017. BJP’s legislature party meeting is to take place on Sunday morning when a new name for the Chief Minister could be announced, according to party sources. The probable names for the Chief Minister from the "pati- dar" community include Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, who was sworn in as the Union Health Minister in July, Deputy State Chief Minister Nitin Patel, BJP Rajya Sabha member Parshottam, former State Home Minister Gordhan Zadafia, BJP admin- istrator in Dadar Nagar Haveli Praful Khoda Patel, and State Minister RC Faldu. Patels, largely, dominate the Saurashtra region of Gujarat. Besides these names, a non-patidar State BJP president and Lok Sabha member CR Patil, under whom BJP scored well in local elections, is also a potential candidate. Mandaviya, who landed in Ahmedabad soon after Rupani’s resignation and inter- acted with State leaders, main- tained “he is not in the race”. However, it is understood that the BJP leadership in Delhi first decided on Rupani’s suc- cessor before directing him to put in his papers. “The media can do as much kite flying as it wants. The name must have been finalised,” said a senior leader. Rupani was found short of expectations during the peak of the Covid-19 second wave. His grip of the bureaucracy was also questionable as also his ability to check infighting in the State unit. “It has been a five-year journey for the development of Gujarat... under guidance of PM Modi. Now, to further develop the State, with new energy and power, I have decid- ed to resign as Chief Minister,” said Rupani. “It is well known that the BJP, as a party, keeps changing as per requirements... it is a spe- ciality of our party that every worker delivers to the fullest, and I too will continue to work for the party with the same energy,” he said. With 27 years ant-incum- bency staring in the face of the BJP, the party leadership has decided to do course correction well in time for the Assembly polls. The Congress wrested around 19 seats from the BJP in the last Assembly polls. The AAP is also making deter- mined forays in the State by winning 27 seats in Surat municipal Corporation polls. Under the situation, the BJP leadership has decided to hand over the command of the Prime Minister’s home State to a more “dynamic” leader who could carve-out a fresh strat- egy to win Assembly polls in December next year. “Many Ministers will make exit and new faces will find place in the Cabinet under a new CM”, sources said. Just before Rupani’s resig- nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday morning virtually inaugurated “Patidar” promoted Girl’s hos- tel in Ahmadabad as an indi- cation that the patels will be given more weight in the State. BJP has been in CM chang- ing spree as before Rupani, it has organised exit of Karnataka CM BS Yediyurappa and shift- ed two CMs in Uttarakhand — Tirath Singh Rawat and Trivendra Singh Rawat — to ensure that ant-incumbency doesn’t rise until the next Assembly polls. Uttarakhand is due for elections early next year while Karnataka in 2023. I ndia and Australia on Saturday stressed the need for fighting terrorism without compromise and said the situ- ation in Afghanistan is a mat- ter of “central concern” for both the countries. They also called for a free-open and inclusive Indo-Pacific region. These were the main focus of the first 2+2 dialogue between the foreign and Defence Ministers of India and Australia here. S Jaishankar and Rajnath Singh also held talks on the strategic and security archi- tecture between the two coun- tries with their respective counterparts Marise Payne and Peter Dutton. The leaders also reviewed their ongoing fight against the corona pan- demic. Sharing the outcome of the talks with the media after the talks, Rajnath said the part- nership between India and Australia was based on shared vision of free, open, inclusive and prosperous Indo-Pacific region. He said during the talks, a rules-based order was empha- sised upon. This came in the backdrop of China asserting itself in the Indo-Pacific region and repeat- edly opposing the Quad com- bine including India, Australia, Japan and the US. The Quad nations recent- ly held Malabar series of naval exercise in the Western Pacific. Last year, Malabar exercise of the Quad nations was held off the Indian coast. A fter the Haryana Government on Saturday ordered a judicial probe into last month’s clash between farmers and police and sent the IAS officer who is at the cen- tre of a row over his remark “break the heads of farmers” on leave, farmers called off their five-day long sit-in outside the Karnal district headquarters. Haryana Additional Chief Secretary Devender Singh said the probe will be conducted by a retired judge and will be com- pleted within a month. SDM Ayush Sinha will remain on leave during the time, he said. A joint Press conference by Haryana Government officials and farmer leader Gurnam Singh Chaduni was held in Karnal after both sides reached an agreement, leading to the ending of the stand-off. There was an indication of a possible ending of the impasse between the farmers and the Karnal administration on Friday evening itself as after a marathon meeting both sides had said that it was held in a cordial atmosphere. About 10 protesters were hurt in the clash with police in Karnal on August 28 when they tried to march towards the venue of a BJP meeting. Sinha, a 2018-batch IAS officer, was caught on video allegedly telling policemen to “break the heads” of farmers if they cross the line. Following the incident, farmers had been demanding the suspension of Sinha. On September 2, he was trans- ferred out of Karnal and post- ed as Additional Secretary of the Citizen Resources Information Department. I n a major breakthrough in the protracted impasse between the Uttarakhand Government and Teerth Purohits on the issue of Char Dham Devasthanam Management board and start of Char Dham Yatra, the Teerth Purohits have suspended their agitation till October 30 after meeting Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Saturday. A delegation of the Teerth Purohits, stakeholder Mahapanchayat Samiti met Dhami at his residence on Saturday morning. Talking to the delegation, the CM said that the Char Dhams are the centre of the faith and the Government is working in the direction of strengthening the infrastructure facilities in the temples. He assured them that the Government was trying to start the Char Dham Yatra. Dhami categorically said that the traditional rights of the stakeholders would not be allowed to be affected. He said that the high-level committee would submit its report to the Government after listening to the Teerth Purohits. Dhami said that two Purohits, each from all the four Dhams, would be included in the committee. He said that the State Government would take an appropriate decision after the committee submits its report. Later talking to the media, convener of the Mahapanchayat Suresh Semwal said that the CM has assured them that eight members of the Teerth Purohits would be included in the high-powered committee and the Government would take a deci- sion based on the report of this committee. Semwal said that the Mahapanchayat has decided to suspend its agitation till October 30. Semwal thanked the CM for taking up their matter seriously. Mahapanchayat Samiti member Umesh Sati said that interaction with the CM took place in a positive environ- ment. He said that everyone is hopeful the issue would be sorted out by the talks. Sati added that the agitation has been suspended till October 30 and a decision on the future of the agitation would be taken assessing the decision taken by the Government on the issue. The Cabinet Ministers Arvind Pandey and Ganesh Joshi, secretary Shailesh Bagauli, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Devasthanam Board, Ravi Nath Raman, secretary H C Semwal, and ACEO of Devasthanam Board, B D Singh, were also present on the occasion. A highly unusual rainfall in Delhi on Saturday, the highest in 46 years and almost double the precipitation recorded last year, threw traf- fic movement and daily life of Delhiites in complete disarray. Several roads across the national Capital remained waterlogged, railway tracks submerged and Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport flooded with knee-deep water. A bus with 40 passengers got trapped at a flooded under- pass of Palam flyover, towards airport road on Saturday morn- ing to be later rescued by the fire department. Another 18 passengers got trapped in a tempo and a truck and were rescued from the waterlogged area of outer Delhi’s Mundka. Netizens posted pictures and videos of waterlogged streets on social media. In a video on Twitter purportedly showing waterlogging in Madhu Vihar, some DTC clus- ter buses could be seen stand- ing in the water and other com- muters manoeuvring their vehicles through the inundat- ed road. Due to heavy rainfall, an old building in Delhi’s Narela area, which was declared a dangerous structure by civic authorities, also collapsed. However, no one was injured in the incident. As many as 262 waterlog- ging complaints were received by the Public Works Department (PWD) and civic agencies till evening. Some of the key areas that witnessed heavy waterlogging included Ring Road near WHO building, ITO, NH-48 (Airport road), Moti Bagh, RK Puram, Madhu Vihar, Hari Nagar, Rohtak Road, Badarpur, Som Vihar, Ring Road near IP Station, Vikas Marg, Sangam Vihar, Mehrauli-Badarpur Road, Pul Prahladpur Underpass, Mahipalpur, Munirka, Rajpur Khurd, Nangloi and Kirari. Waterlogging also resulted in heavy traffic jams at busy road stretches, including ITO, Ring Road, Mukarba Chowk, Azadpur, Pul Prahladpur and Rohtak Road. The authorities had to shut traffic movement on the Pul Prahladpur underpass due to waterlogging. Nearly 10 instances of trees falling were reported in the city. According to IMD, the city recorded 117.9 mm rainfall from 5:30 am to 2.30 pm. T he Taliban cancelled the inauguration ceremony of their new Afghanistan Government that was earlier scheduled for Saturday, the 20th anniversary of 9/11, after the group was pressurised by its allies against the plan. The 9/11 terror attacks had killed nearly 3,000 people in the US. A member of Afghanistan government's cultural com- mission, Inamullah Samangani on Twitter said, “The inaugu- ration ceremony of the new Afghan Government was can- celled a few days ago. In order not to confuse people further, the leadership of the Islamic Emirate announced the part of the Cabinet, and it has already started to work.” The Taliban had invited Russia, Iran, China, Qatar and Pakistan to the inaugural cer- emony. However, Moscow reportedly informed Qatar, the go-between for Western nations and the new Kabul gov- ernment, that it would not participate in the inauguration event if it's held on the anniver- sary of 9/11. The Taliban flag waved over the Afghan Presidential Palace the same day the US and the world marked the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. The milestone anniver- sary on Saturday takes place just weeks after the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the return to power of the Taliban, the faction that shel- tered the Muslim militant group founded by Osama bin Laden that carried out the attacks. The Taliban flag was raised on Friday and could be seen waving over the Presidential Palace in Kabul on Saturday. The militant group also paint- ed their white backdrop flag on the wall of the US Embassy building. Americans solemnly marked the 20th anniversary of 9/11 on Saturday, remembering the dead, invoking the heroes and taking stock of the after- math just weeks after the bloody end of the Afghanistan war that was launched in response to the terror attacks. The US is now concerned that al-Qaida, the terror net- work behind 9/11, may regroup in Afghanistan.

Transcript of CfaR_Z bfZed W`c µUj_R^ZT¶ 4> - Daily Pioneer

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Ayear before the high-stakeState Assembly elections,

Gujarat Chief Minister VijayRupani resigned on Saturday tomake way for a new face. Thesurprise decision is seen as theacknowledgment of the factthat Rupani’s political man-agement had left the State unitin disarray, the BJP was facingnew challenges from the AamAdmi Party, a well-entrenchedspirited Congress, and thedemand of influential “patidar”community to have a dominantshare in the State power.

Rupani, hailing from thenumerical smaller Jain com-munity, submitted his resigna-tion to Governor AcharyaDevvrat in the afternoon andlater said that he had “willing-ly” stepped down from the postafter a decision in this regardwas taken by the party in the“larger interest of Gujarat”.

Rupani was sworn-in asState Chief Minister inDecember 2017.

BJP’s legislature partymeeting is to take place onSunday morning when a newname for the Chief Ministercould be announced, accordingto party sources.

The probable names for theChief Minister from the "pati-dar" community include Union

Health Minister MansukhMandaviya, who was sworn inas the Union Health Ministerin July, Deputy State ChiefMinister Nitin Patel, BJP RajyaSabha member Parshottam,former State Home MinisterGordhan Zadafia, BJP admin-istrator in Dadar Nagar HaveliPraful Khoda Patel, and StateMinister RC Faldu. Patels,largely, dominate theSaurashtra region of Gujarat.

Besides these names, anon-patidar State BJP presidentand Lok Sabha member CRPatil, under whom BJP scoredwell in local elections, is also apotential candidate.

Mandaviya, who landed inAhmedabad soon afterRupani’s resignation and inter-acted with State leaders, main-tained “he is not in the race”.

However, it is understoodthat the BJP leadership in Delhifirst decided on Rupani’s suc-cessor before directing him toput in his papers. “The mediacan do as much kite flying as itwants. The name must havebeen finalised,” said a seniorleader.

Rupani was found short ofexpectations during the peak ofthe Covid-19 second wave. Hisgrip of the bureaucracy wasalso questionable as also hisability to check infighting in theState unit.

“It has been a five-yearjourney for the development ofGujarat... under guidance ofPM Modi. Now, to furtherdevelop the State, with newenergy and power, I have decid-ed to resign as Chief Minister,”said Rupani.

“It is well known that theBJP, as a party, keeps changingas per requirements... it is a spe-ciality of our party that everyworker delivers to the fullest,and I too will continue towork for the party with thesame energy,” he said.

With 27 years ant-incum-bency staring in the face of theBJP, the party leadership hasdecided to do course correction

well in time for the Assemblypolls. The Congress wrestedaround 19 seats from the BJPin the last Assembly polls. TheAAP is also making deter-mined forays in the State bywinning 27 seats in Suratmunicipal Corporation polls.

Under the situation, theBJP leadership has decided tohand over the command of thePrime Minister’s home State toa more “dynamic” leader whocould carve-out a fresh strat-egy to win Assembly polls inDecember next year.

“Many Ministers will makeexit and new faces will findplace in the Cabinet under anew CM”, sources said.

Just before Rupani’s resig-nation, Prime MinisterNarendra Modi on Saturdaymorning virtually inaugurated“Patidar” promoted Girl’s hos-tel in Ahmadabad as an indi-cation that the patels will begiven more weight in the State.

BJP has been in CM chang-ing spree as before Rupani, ithas organised exit of KarnatakaCM BS Yediyurappa and shift-ed two CMs in Uttarakhand —Tirath Singh Rawat andTrivendra Singh Rawat — toensure that ant-incumbencydoesn’t rise until the nextAssembly polls. Uttarakhand isdue for elections early next yearwhile Karnataka in 2023.

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India and Australia onSaturday stressed the need

for fighting terrorism withoutcompromise and said the situ-ation in Afghanistan is a mat-ter of “central concern” forboth the countries. They alsocalled for a free-open andinclusive Indo-Pacific region.

These were the main focusof the first 2+2 dialoguebetween the foreign andDefence Ministers of Indiaand Australia here.

S Jaishankar and RajnathSingh also held talks on thestrategic and security archi-tecture between the two coun-tries with their respectivecounterparts Marise Payne andPeter Dutton. The leadersalso reviewed their ongoingfight against the corona pan-demic.

Sharing the outcome of the

talks with the media after thetalks, Rajnath said the part-nership between India andAustralia was based on sharedvision of free, open, inclusiveand prosperous Indo-Pacificregion.

He said during the talks, arules-based order was empha-sised upon.

This came in the backdrop

of China asserting itself in theIndo-Pacific region and repeat-edly opposing the Quad com-bine including India, Australia,Japan and the US.

The Quad nations recent-ly held Malabar series of navalexercise in the Western Pacific.Last year, Malabar exercise ofthe Quad nations was held offthe Indian coast.

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After the HaryanaGovernment on Saturday

ordered a judicial probe intolast month’s clash betweenfarmers and police and sent theIAS officer who is at the cen-tre of a row over his remark“break the heads of farmers” onleave, farmers called off theirfive-day long sit-in outside theKarnal district headquarters.

Haryana Additional ChiefSecretary Devender Singh saidthe probe will be conducted bya retired judge and will be com-pleted within a month. SDMAyush Sinha will remain onleave during the time, he said.

A joint Press conference byHaryana Government officialsand farmer leader Gurnam

Singh Chaduni was held inKarnal after both sides reachedan agreement, leading to theending of the stand-off. Therewas an indication of a possibleending of the impasse betweenthe farmers and the Karnaladministration on Fridayevening itself as after amarathon meeting both sideshad said that it was held in acordial atmosphere.

About 10 protesters werehurt in the clash with police inKarnal on August 28 when theytried to march towards thevenue of a BJP meeting. Sinha,a 2018-batch IAS officer, wascaught on video allegedlytelling policemen to “breakthe heads” of farmers if theycross the line.

Following the incident,farmers had been demandingthe suspension of Sinha. OnSeptember 2, he was trans-ferred out of Karnal and post-ed as Additional Secretary ofthe Citizen ResourcesInformation Department.

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In a major breakthrough inthe protracted impasse

between the UttarakhandGovernment and TeerthPurohits on the issue of CharDham DevasthanamManagement board and start ofChar Dham Yatra, the TeerthPurohits have suspended theiragitation till October 30 aftermeeting Chief MinisterPushkar Singh Dhami onSaturday.

A delegation of the TeerthPurohits, stakeholderMahapanchayat Samiti metDhami at his residence onSaturday morning. Talking tothe delegation, the CM saidthat the Char Dhams are thecentre of the faith and theGovernment is working in thedirection of strengthening theinfrastructure facilities in thetemples. He assured them thatthe Government was trying tostart the Char Dham Yatra.

Dhami categorically saidthat the traditional rights of thestakeholders would not beallowed to be affected. He said

that the high-level committeewould submit its report to theGovernment after listening tothe Teerth Purohits. Dhamisaid that two Purohits, eachfrom all the four Dhams, wouldbe included in the committee.

He said that the StateGovernment would take anappropriate decision after thecommittee submits its report.

Later talking to the media,convener of theMahapanchayat Suresh Semwalsaid that the CM has assuredthem that eight members of theTeerth Purohits would beincluded in the high-poweredcommittee and theGovernment would take a deci-

sion based on the reportof this committee.

Semwal said that theMahapanchayat hasdecided to suspend itsagitation till October 30.Semwal thanked the CMfor taking up their matterseriously. MahapanchayatSamiti member UmeshSati said that interactionwith the CM took placein a positive environ-

ment. He said that everyone is

hopeful the issue would besorted out by the talks. Satiadded that the agitation hasbeen suspended till October 30and a decision on the future ofthe agitation would be takenassessing the decision taken bythe Government on the issue.

The Cabinet MinistersArvind Pandey and GaneshJoshi, secretary ShaileshBagauli, Chief ExecutiveOfficer (CEO) of theDevasthanam Board, Ravi NathRaman, secretary H C Semwal,and ACEO of DevasthanamBoard, B D Singh, were alsopresent on the occasion.

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Ahighly unusual rainfall inDelhi on Saturday, the

highest in 46 years and almostdouble the precipitationrecorded last year, threw traf-fic movement and daily life ofDelhiites in complete disarray.

Several roads across thenational Capital remainedwaterlogged, railway trackssubmerged and Indira GandhiInternational (IGI) Airportflooded with knee-deep water.

A bus with 40 passengersgot trapped at a flooded under-pass of Palam flyover, towardsairport road on Saturday morn-ing to be later rescued by thefire department. Another 18passengers got trapped in atempo and a truck and wererescued from the waterlogged

area of outer Delhi’s Mundka.Netizens posted pictures

and videos of waterloggedstreets on social media. In avideo on Twitter purportedlyshowing waterlogging inMadhu Vihar, some DTC clus-ter buses could be seen stand-ing in the water and other com-muters manoeuvring theirvehicles through the inundat-ed road.

Due to heavy rainfall, anold building in Delhi’s Narelaarea, which was declared adangerous structure by civicauthorities, also collapsed.However, no one was injured inthe incident.

As many as 262 waterlog-ging complaints were receivedby the Public WorksDepartment (PWD) and civicagencies till evening.

Some of the key areas thatwitnessed heavy waterloggingincluded Ring Road nearWHO building, ITO, NH-48(Airport road), Moti Bagh, RKPuram, Madhu Vihar, HariNagar, Rohtak Road, Badarpur,Som Vihar, Ring Road near IPStation, Vikas Marg, SangamVihar, Mehrauli-BadarpurRoad, Pul PrahladpurUnderpass, Mahipalpur,Munirka, Rajpur Khurd,Nangloi and Kirari.

Waterlogging also resultedin heavy traffic jams at busyroad stretches, including ITO,Ring Road, Mukarba Chowk,Azadpur, Pul Prahladpur andRohtak Road.

The authorities had to shuttraffic movement on the PulPrahladpur underpass due towaterlogging. Nearly 10instances of trees falling werereported in the city.

According to IMD, the cityrecorded 117.9 mm rainfallfrom 5:30 am to 2.30 pm.

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The Taliban cancelled theinauguration ceremony of

their new AfghanistanGovernment that was earlierscheduled for Saturday, the20th anniversary of 9/11, afterthe group was pressurised by itsallies against the plan.

The 9/11 terror attackshad killed nearly 3,000 peoplein the US.

A member of Afghanistangovernment's cultural com-mission, Inamullah Samanganion Twitter said, “The inaugu-ration ceremony of the newAfghan Government was can-celled a few days ago. In ordernot to confuse people further,the leadership of the IslamicEmirate announced the part ofthe Cabinet, and it has alreadystarted to work.”

The Taliban had invitedRussia, Iran, China, Qatar andPakistan to the inaugural cer-emony. However, Moscowreportedly informed Qatar, thego-between for Western

nations and the new Kabul gov-ernment, that it would notparticipate in the inaugurationevent if it's held on the anniver-sary of 9/11.

The Taliban flag wavedover the Afghan PresidentialPalace the same day the US andthe world marked the 20thanniversary of the September11 attacks.

The milestone anniver-sary on Saturday takes placejust weeks after the chaotic USwithdrawal from Afghanistanand the return to power of theTaliban, the faction that shel-tered the Muslim militantgroup founded by Osama binLaden that carried out theattacks.

The Taliban flag was raisedon Friday and could be seenwaving over the PresidentialPalace in Kabul on Saturday.The militant group also paint-ed their white backdrop flag onthe wall of the US Embassybuilding.

Americans solemnlymarked the 20th anniversary of9/11 on Saturday, rememberingthe dead, invoking the heroesand taking stock of the after-math just weeks after thebloody end of the Afghanistanwar that was launched inresponse to the terror attacks.

The US is now concernedthat al-Qaida, the terror net-work behind 9/11, may regroupin Afghanistan.

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� What is Shubh Laabhabout?The show has a very differentconcept, it is not a micro showor a normal daily soap. Peoplewould be able to relate to theshow so much as it is madekeeping in mind the dailyhustle of life. I am playing therole of Goddess Lakshmi andmy role will not just be to guidethe main character Savita(Geetanjali Tikekar) but ourIndian audience too. The showis full of messages for people.An example would be thatthrough this we will tell peoplethat God is not responsible forthe good and the bad in ourlives, it is our deeds. A lot ofpeople would be able toconnect themselves with thisshow, it might be for theirbetterment as people would beable to see things positively.

�What made you say yes to the role? It is a very positive role to play.There have been instances inmy life when things haveactually worked out in myfavour and I think it is onlybecause of my belief in Godwho listened to my prayers.And I have always been verygrateful for everything in life.So, I could relate to the showmyself. Being an actress, I have

played different characters onTV. This was the first time Iwas very excited to playsomething really different.Another reason is that I loveSAB TV shows, which I feel arevery light and have goodconcepts and I haven’t doneanything of that sort till now.So, I was pretty excited and ontop of that the producers arevery humble and positivepeople to work with. It isalways good to say yes tosomething different.

�How different is your rolefrom the previous serials?This one is quite challenging.Portraying a character on

screen whom you haven’t seenor met in real life is toughbecause we don’t know theirtrue self. We don’t know whattheir behaviour is or how theywalk or talk. So, I have to gothrough my script again andagain, I read it several times sothat I am able to get myself intothat state where I can feel it.

� You are a professionalsinger and have learntKathak. How did actinghappen? Once I performed in a realityshow and Sonali Bendresuggested to me that I shouldtry my hands at acting. But itwas quite a task to convince mydad for the same and on theother hand my mother hasalways supported me throughit. She is my pillar.

� In the trailer, you are seenwearing EarPods. Does thatmean you are a modern-dayGoddess?It is just an element we haveadded to the show becausesamay ke saath parivartanzaroori hai. You can say that wehave used it to denote that Godis listening to everything.Nowadays, people are wellequipped with technology andthis was one way we could alsorelate it to God.

�This is the second time thatyou will be acting as aGoddess for a serial. Howtough or easy was it for you toadapt to a role of a differentGoddess? I have played Parvati before inNamah, which was acompletely mythological show.Both the characters are equallydifficult and took the sameefforts and hardwork to portrayon screen. There are somecharacters for which you don’thave to practice very hardbecause you have seen them inreal life and have experiencedsomething or the other butplaying as someone you havenever seen becomes littlechallenging as you have to setyour mind in such a way thatyou can feel the character andact accordingly, which takes alot of time and practice.

�How different was it toshoot in a pandemic? Shooting in a pandemic isquite a task as things are notrunning as smoothly as theyused to. People have beenreduced in the unit due tosafety protocols. Before,shooting was much more thanjust shooting. Now, we do havefun but we don’t feel freebecause somewhere back inour minds we all fear the virus.

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After roping in the inde-pendent MLA from

Dhanaulti, Pritam SinghPanwar, the ruling BJP is nowall set to inflict damage on theCongress party by poaching itsMLAs and leaders. It is learntthat the MLA from Purola inUttarkashi district Rajkumar isall set to join the BJP. He hasbeen camping in Delhi fromlast few days and was to join thesaffron party in presence ofcentral leaders on Saturday.However the joining wasdeferred at the last moment asthe state unit of BJP wants tokeep the possible dissidence theentry Rajkumar could triggerunder check. It is worth men-tioning here that Rajkumarwas earlier in the BJP but shift-

ed his allegiance to theCongress party in the lastassembly election when he wasdenied the party ticket.According to reliable sourcesRajkumar has blocked allattempts of communication bythe Congress leaders includingthe Pradesh CongressCommittee (PCC) president.The Purola MLA is learnt to bevery angry at the Leader ofOpposition (LoP) Pritam Singhwho happens to represent

Chakrata which is adjacent toPurola.

In the political circles theinformation is making roundsthat some more Congress lead-ers including two MLAs arejoining the BJP. On Friday theLansdowne MLA Dilip Rawatclaimed that some prominentCongress leaders includingthree MLAs are in touch withBJP and they would join theparty soon.

When contacted by ThePioneer the PCC presidentGanesh Godiyal said that hehas no information aboutRajkumar. Godiyal howeveradded that no other MLA orCongress leader would joinBJP. On the question ofwhether some BJP leaders arejoining the Congress party,Godiyal said that he would dis-close things at an appropriatetime. “All I can say is that thisgame has been started by theBJP but it will be finished byus,’’ he said.

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Playing the Hindu cardahead of the assembly elec-

tions in Uttarakhand, the AamAadmi Party (AAP) has start-ed a campaign to makeUttarakhand the spiritual cap-ital of Hindus. The partylaunched a website www.spir-itualcapitaluttarakhand.com onSaturday in which people canregister and give their sugges-tions.

Talking to the media per-sons the senior leader of AAPand its Chief Ministerial can-didate, Colonel (Retd) AjayKothiyal said on Saturday thaton August 17, the nationalconvenor of AAP, ArvindKejriwal had pledged thatUttarakhand would be madethe spiritual capital and everyworker of the party is deter-mined to work on it. Launchingthe website designed for the

purpose he said that people canregister and submit their ideason the spiritual capital. Hesaid that the campaign would

be taken in all parts of the stateand appealed to people to reg-ister on the website to fulfil thedream of spiritual capital.

Kothiyal said that apartfrom Char Dhams the state ofUttarakhand has KumbhNagari Haridwar, Dhari Devi,

Patal Bhuvneshwari, GoluDevta, Tungnath, Rudranath,Narsinh temple, Gopinath,Mahasu Devta and many reli-gious spots. The state is the ori-gin place of holy Ganga andYamuna, has the capital ofYoga Rishikesh and birth placeof King Bharat. He said that theAAP wants to develop worldclass facilities for the pilgrimsin these places which wouldattract more and more follow-ers to the state. The AAPleader said that apart fromincreasing the fame of the stateit would increase the employ-ment opportunities. Taking adig at the ruling BJP for mak-ing a Char DhamDevasthanam ManagementBoard without taking theTeerth Purohits and stake-holders into confidence,Kothiyal demanded that theboard should be dissolved withimmediate effect.

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The state health departmentreported only 24 new cases

of the novel Coronavirus(Covid-19) and 23 recoveriesfrom the disease on Saturday.No death from the disease wasreported on the day in the state.The cumulative count of Covid-19 patients in the state is now at3,43,211 while a total of 3,29,438patients have recovered from thedisease so far. In the state, 7389people have lost their lives toCovid -19 till date. The recoverypercentage from the disease is at95.99 while the sample positiv-ity rate on Saturday was 0.13 percent.

The state health depart-ment reported eight new

patients of Covid -19 fromUttarkashi, six fromChampawat, five fromDehradun, four fromPithoragarh and one Bageshwaron Saturday. No new cases of thedisease were reported from theAlmora, Chamoli, Haridwar,Nainital, Pauri, Tehri,Rudraprayag and Udham SinghNagar districts on the day. Thestate now has 320 active cases ofCovid-19. Dehradun with 155cases is at the top of the table ofactive cases while Pauri has 28active cases. Tehri district hasonly one active case of the dis-ease. In the ongoing vaccinationdrive 68,661 people were vacci-nated in 1048 sessions in thestate held on Saturday. As per thedata of the state health depart-ment 69,88,728 people in thestate have received the first doseof vaccine while 23,40,826 havereceived both doses of the vac-cine.

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The experts at All IndiaInstitute of Medical

Sciences (AIIMS) Rishikeshhave warned about increasinginstances of cases of breastcancer in Uttarakhand. Theypoint out that in the OPD ofAIIMS Rishikesh; there hasbeen an increase of more than30 per cent in the number ofbreast cancer patients in thelast three years.

According to the WorldHealth Organization (WHO),breast cancer accounts formore than 21 per cent of allcancer deaths among womenin India.

The data of the AIIMSRishikesh show that in the year2019, a total of 1,233 patientswith breast cancer were regis-tered in the OPD of itsIntegrated Breast Care Centre(IBCC). In the year 2020, thisnumber increased to 1,600and till the first week ofSeptember this year more than2,000 patients have been reg-istered in the centre.

The Director AIIMS-Rishikesh Ravikant said thatwomen are often not aware ofthis disease and one in everyeight women on an averagesuffers from this disease.

The Assistant Professor,IBCC Dr Prateek Sharda said,“ A new Vacuum-AssistedBreast Biopsy machine hasbeen installed in the IBCC.This machine is especiallybeneficial in removing thelump in the breast. With thismachine with modern tech-nology, there is no need to takethe patient to the operationtheatre,’’ he said.

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Even as many areas in thestate are experiencing rainy

weather, the high altitudemountains in the Badrinathand Joshimath regions inChamoli district have alreadyreceived snow. The mountainpeaks near Joshimath wereblanketed by snow on Saturdaymorning. The residents of thetown have been experiencingcold conditions as a result ofthe snowfall. The snowfall inthe first fortnight of Septemberhas heralded cold conditions inJoshimath and other highermountainous regions in thestate even as rains continue invarious parts.

Meanwhile, the state mete-orological centre has issued ayellow warning (watch) regard-ing the possibility of heavy rainwith intense spells at isolatedplaces in Uttarkashi,Rudraprayag, Chamoli,Bageshwar and Pithoragarhdistricts on Sunday.Thunderstorms accompaniedby lightning are also likely tooccur at isolated places in themountainous regions ofUttarakhand while light tomoderate rain/thundershowersare likely to occur at mostplaces in districts of the state.

The provisional state cap-ital Dehradun is forecast toexperience a generally cloudysky. Few spells of light to mod-erate rain/thundershowers are

likely to occur while one or twospells may be intense in someareas.

The maximum and mini-mum temperatures likely to beabout 30 degrees Celsius and 23degrees Celsius respectively inDehradun on Sunday.

The maximum and mini-mum temperatures recorded indifferent parts of the state onSaturday were 28. 6 degreesCelsius and 23.7 degreesCelsius respectively inDehradun, 34.5 degrees Celsiusand 25.4 degrees Celsius inPantnagar, 22 degrees Celsiusand 14.2 degrees Celsius inMukteshwar and 22 degreesCelsius and 16.8 degreesCelsius respectively in NewTehri.

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Chief Minister PushkarSingh Dhami directed

WAPCOS to prepare a detailedproject report within threemonths to develop the Tehridam reservoir into a worldclass tourist destination. Heissued this direction whilevisiting the lake here duringhis visit to the Tehri district onSaturday.

He said that a project hasbeen sanctioned to create theinfrastructure and streamlinearrangements around the laketo boost tourism. This projectwill provide employment tomany local people. The chiefminister said that the govern-ment is making every effort todevelop the Tehri lake into aworld-class tourist destina-tion.

Agriculture ministerSubodh Uniyal, MLAs DhanSingh Negi, Vijay SinghPanwar, Shakti Lal Shah, dis-trict magistrate Eva AshishSrivastava, senior superinten-dent of police Tripti Bhattand others were also presenton the occasion.

Dhami also held a meetingwith officials and reviewedvarious works. He checkedthe status of Covid vaccina-tion, schemes related to thefood and civil supplies depart-ment, Jal Jeevan mission,Mukhyamantri SwarozgarYojana, CM helpline,

Mukhyamantri VatsalyaYojana and other schemes ofthe government with the dis-trict level officials.

Officials informed that407 beneficiaries had beenidentif ied for theMukhyamantri VatsalyaYojana while 640 out of the

740 kits received had been dis-tributed under theMukhyamantri Mahalakshmikit distribution scheme.Approval had been received inprinciple for 107 out of 201cases of forest land transferwhile 57 proposals wereapproved and four are pend-

ing at the level of the chief con-servator of forests. Dhami alsosought information aboutaction taken regarding ruralmotor roads blocked due torain and related reasons. Hephoned JCB operators fromthe meeting and asked abouttheir information and otherrelevant details. The chiefminister said that the govern-ment is working to resolvependency considering whichno cases should be left pend-ing from the state adminis-tration level down to the dis-trict level.

To ensure redressal of theissues of the general publicreaching government officesfrom distant villages, all offi-cials should compulsorilyremain present in their officesfrom 10 AM to 12 PM. Theofficials should fully utilise theopportunity they have receivedto serve the public, he added.Cabinet minister SubodhUniyal, MLAs Dhan SinghNegi, Pritam Singh Panwar,Vijay Singh Panwar, ShaktiLal Shah, Vinod Kandari,other public representativesand officials were also presentin the meeting.

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Amoderate earthquake mea-suring 4.6 on the Richter

Scale was felt in the Chamolidistrict of the state early onSaturday morning.

The quake took place atabout 6 AM. According to thestate government, no majordamage to property or loss of

life was reported following theseismic event.

According to the NationalCenter of Seismology (NCS),the quake took place at 5.58AM at a depth of about fivekilometres while the epicentreof the earthquake was locatedabout 31 kilometres westsouthwest of Joshimath inChamoli district.

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Former Tehri MLA and exPradesh Congress

Committee president KishoreUpadhyaya urged chief minis-ter Pushkar Singh Dhami torevoke the state government’searlier decision by approachingthe high court with writtenassurances of strictly adheringto Covid 19 protocols andrequest to open the Char DhamYatra. Welcoming the ChiefMinister on his first visit toTehri after assuming charge,the Congress leader andVanadhikar Andolan foundingpatron submitted a 19-pointmemorandum raising severalimportant issues.

Upadhyaya demandedrevocation of the orders of

Sridev Suman University ter-minating the services of itsemployees, requesting for theirreemployment with retrospec-tive effect.

He also demanded decla-ration of Uttarakhandis as for-est dwellers, facilitating mon-etary compensation of Rs 25lakh to the bereaved families ofthose killed by man eaters andwild animals with a govern-ment job to next of the kin.Upadhyaya further demandedwithdrawal of all the courtcases against the Tehri damevacuees compounded withre allotment of new shops tothe owners of Koti ColonyBazaar shops which are inextremely dilapidated condi-tion.

Communicating the prob-

lems being faced by the Tehridam evacuees and those ofUPNL employees, he request-ed allotment of housing facil-ities at the earliest.

He also sought immediateredressal of the grade pay issueof the Uttarakhand police per-sonnel. In the context of highrent/ fare imposed on the boatowners of Tehri lakeUpadhyaya requested the ChiefMinister to decrease it from thepresent rate to a lesser amountgiving relief to the boat own-ers. Elaborating on the griev-ance of the Tehri residents thememorandum stated that theland assessment of the Tehridam has not been done yet andpermission has been granted toenhance the level of Tehri dam,which is not justifiable.

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The 119th seven-day NandaDevi Mahotsav began cer-

emoniously in Nainital onSaturday. The fest was startedritually in the hall of the organ-ising body- Shri Ram SevakSabha. After this, a group fromthe organising body left forSariyatal village near Jyolikot toget the plantain stems used tocarve out the idols of the god-desses Naina and Sunanda.The chief guest on the occa-sion, police deputy inspectorgeneral of Kumaon region,Nilesh Anand Bharne and spe-

cial guests joint magistratePrateek Jain, former MLA NSJantwal and Sarita Arya sent offthe group with the flag.Speaking on the occasion,Bharne said that the NandaDevi Mahotsav is part ofNainital’s special identity.Organising such festivals isvery important for conserva-tion and enrichment of thenative culture while also moti-vating the younger generation.Various cultural and religiousprogrammes were also per-formed on the occasion. Folkdances and other presenta-tions added to the enthusiasm

and gaiety of the locals anddevotees. Twenty one saplingspresented by environmentalistYashpal Rawat, which will beplanted to compensate for theplantain to the chopped atSariyatal were also worshippedon the occasion. The Shri RamSevak Sabha head Manoj Sahand general secretary JagdishChandra Bwadi welcomed all

on the occasion and informedthem about the history and lat-est details of the fest.

Joint Magistrate PrateekJain informed that onSeptember 14 (Ashtami), theidols of the goddesses will bekept for the devotees to paytheir obeisance and at a time 30devotees will be allowed to doso one by one. He further

informed that adequate policeforce has been deployed at themain venue- Naina Devi tem-ple and in various parts ofNainital city for the seven dayfestival.

After sunset, the NainaDevi temple and Shri RamSevak Sabha building wereilluminated as part of the cel-ebrations.

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The National Forest MartyrsDay was observed at the

Forest Research Institute (FRI)on Saturday to honour thesacrifices of foresters who hadlaid down their lives to protectforests and wildlife. A two-minute silence was observed inthe honor of the forest martyrsbefore the start of the formalprogramme.

The director general ofIndian Council of ForestryResearch and Education(ICFRE) and FRI director ASRawat, Indira Gandhi NationalForest Academy directorBharat Jyoti, principal chiefconservator of forests and headof forest force Rajiv Bhartari,Forest Survey of India director

general Anoop Singh, WildlifeInstitute of India directorDhananjai Mohan and othersenior officers of the forestdepartment, different forestryorganisations and scientists ofICFRE and FRI paid floraltributes at the foresters memo-rial in FRI to honour andremember all men and womenwho have given the ultimatesacrifice for forests and wildlife.

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Lord Ganesh was worshippedwith fervour and gaiety at

the Motherhood University aspart of the Ganesh Chaturthicelebrations on Saturday. Theuniversity’s vice chancellorNarendra Sharma, director(administration) DeepakSharma and others carried theidol of the god to the sitewhere it was rituallyinstalled.The university willcelebrate the festival with spe-cial prayers to lord Ganesh for10 days on campus.

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As the Punjab Police depart-ment geared up for the

next stage of its mega recruit-ment drive, Chief MinisterCapt Amarinder Singh onSaturday directed the DGP tointensify the crackdown onleakage of exam papers, cheat-ing, copying etc., after six per-sons were reportedly arrestedfor their suspected involve-ment in cheating during theWritten Test held for Sub-Inspectors on August 22.

The directives come aheadof the commencement of writ-ten exams for Head Constables(Investigation cadre), to beconducted from September 12to 19 for 75,544 applicantswho have applied for 787vacancies, followed by examsfor Constables (District &Armed cadres), slated forSeptember 25-26, with 470,775candidates having applied forfilling up 4,358 vacancies.Following this, another recruit-ment drive will take place inOctober for appointing 2600uniformed specialists in thePunjab Police Department.

The Chief Minister askedDGP Dinkar Gupta to furtherintensify the security measuresat the examination centres inview of reported attempts byrecruitment fraudsters andscamsters to sabotage and sub-vert the examination process.

Jammers and other elec-tronic gadgets were beinginstalled in all examinationcentres to prevent internet orbluetooth connectivity, saidDinkar Gupta, in the wake ofthe arrest of six persons byKhanna Police in connectionwith cheating throughBluetooth connectivity duringthe Written Test for Sub-Inspectors held in Chandigarh

and various districts of Punjabfrom August 17 to 24. Morearrests are likely in the case, hesaid, adding that any person,whether candidate of a tout ora professional scamster, foundinvolved in any examinationrelated malpractices will beimmediately booked andarrested.

Warning candidatesappearing for the next roundsof the Punjab Police recruit-ment exams to beware of touts,fraudsters and scamsters tryingto lure, trick and cheat gullibleindividuals, the DGP made itclear that any promises of jobsthrough unfair means/incen-tives were totally false. Anyinformation about suchoffers/promises can be madeon DIAL 181 Helpline, whichis a 24x7 Punjab PoliceHelpline, he added

Giving details of the arrestsmade Khanna Police, the DGPidentified them as Ankit &Vikas r/o Khanouri (Sangrur),Ranbir Singh of district Hissar,Amit r/o Sonipat, RajinderSingh r/o Hissar and a Sub-Inspector aspirant, Navjot Kaurr/o Jind. Navjot, arrested fromher village in Jind (Haryana)this morning on the disclosuresof Vikas. Vikas Singh met herand her father in Sector-19,Chandigarh on 21st August,2021, and handed over a micro-earphone and an electronicbluetooth device for the pur-pose of communicating correctanswers during her examina-tion, said Gupta.

Gurpreet Kaur Deo,Chairperson of the CentralRecruitment Board forConstables, said that strict pro-tocols have been laid down forsecuring the areas outside theTest Centres as well as withinthe venues, and multiplerounds of physical frisking will

be carried out, apart from useof various types of electronic &digital gadgets, etc.

The Punjab Police megarecruitment drive is being con-ducted through 6 RecruitmentBoards, each constituted underan ADGP rank officer.

So far, written test for theposts of Sub-Inspectors(District, Armed, Intelligence &Investigation cadres) andConstables of the Intelligenceand Investigation cadre hadbeen conducted successfully,while the Written Tests forHead Constables ofInvestigation Cadre wouldbegin from tomorrow and willconclude on 19th September,2021. Among the 1,10,524 can-didates who had applied for the560 Sub-Inspector vacancies,around 7,589 candidates weregraduates in InformationTechnology, Computer Science,Software engineering, etc. and1,714 candidates were post-graduates. 80,826 male candi-dates and 29,698 female can-didates had applied for therecruitment to these posts.

The application forms forConstables (Intelligence &Investigation cadres) went Livefrom 26 July-28 August, 2021.A total of 53,632 candidatesapplied for the written testthat was held from 7-10September, 2021 for filling up1,156 vacancies. Among these,42,276 candidates are malewhile 11,356 candidates arefemale. Further, around 5,055candidates are graduates inInformation Technology,Computer Science, Softwareengineering, etc. and 1,853candidates are post-graduates.

The application forms forConstables (District & Armedcadres) were Live from 16 July-22 August, 2021.

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To express gratitude toHaryana Chief Minister

Manohar Lal Khattar forannouncing the highestMinimum Support Price(MSP) of sugarcane in thecountry and the decision of theCentre to enhance the MSP ofsix Rabi crops, hundreds offarmers reached Chandigarhon Saturday under the leader-ship of State BJP PresidentOm Prakash Dhankar.

The farmers honoured theChief Minister by presentingbouquets made from sugarcaneplants and millets and alsooffered sweets to the ChiefMinister and State BJPPresident.

Khattar said that the Statehad increased the price of sug-arcane earlier as well as thistime also and will increase itagain next year. He said he willensure that farmers do notface any loss.

Referring to the PunjabGovernment, the ChiefMinister said that the neigh-bouring State has increasedthe price of sugarcane after fouryears as the State electionswere approaching, whereas theHaryana Government has beenincreasing the price of sugar-cane continually and it is notbecause of any State Elections.Haryana is the first State in thecountry where the highest priceof sugarcane is being given, hepointed out. This year also, theHaryana Government hasincreased the price of sugar-cane by Rs. 12 per quintal, nowthe effective price has beenincreased from Rs. 350 to Rs362. This is not only the high-est MSP in the country, but itis also Rs 2 more than theneighbouring State of Punjab,

where elections are close.Expressing gratitude to

Prime Minister Narendra Modifor declaring MinimumSupport Price for Rabi cropsmuch before the sowing season,Khattar said that the PrimeMinister's vision is to doublethe income of farmers by theyear 2022. He added that dur-ing the tenure of previousCongress Governments theMinimum Support Price forcrops was usually announcedwhen crops were already soldby the farmers at very lowprices.

The Chief Minister saidthat at present both the Centraland State Government are tak-ing initiatives for betterment ofthe farmers due to which thefarmers are getting optimumprices for their crops. He saidthat when he got informationthat this time there will be lessrain during the monsoon sea-son, he immediately directedthe officers to provide elec-tricity to the farmers for at least10 hours in the agriculture sec-tor. He said that at present, 24hours electricity is being pro-vided in 5700 villages of theState.

The Chief Minister enu-merated the benefits accrued tothe farmers by transferring theprice of their crops directly totheir bank accounts andinformed that interest will begiven to the farmers if themoney is not transferred to theiraccounts within 72 hours postthe procurement of the crops.Giving information about theefforts being made by the StateGovernment to increase theincome of small farmers, he saidthat they are being given cred-it facilities in Agro-BasedIndustries and AnimalHusbandry Business.

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The Shiromani Akali Dalon Saturday decided to

observe September 17 as Blackday on completion of one yearof enactment of three farmlaws. Party workers alongsidefarmers will hold a protestmarch from GurdwaraRakabganj to Parliamentdemanding repeal of the threeagri laws.

A decision to this effectwas taken in a meeting ofparty MLA s, DistrictPresidents, Halqa Sewadarsand members of the core com-mittee was presided over byparty President Sukhbir SinghBadal, here.

In a statement issued here,party Senior Vice PresidentDaljit Singh Cheema said partyleaders and workers along withfarmers of Punjab will partic-ipate in this protest march andhe appealed to everyone to par-ticipate wholeheartedly in thesame.

He also disclosed thatbefore the beginning of ProtestMarch Ardaas will be per-formed for repeal of three farmlaws.

On this day HarsimratKaur Badal and Sukhbir SinghBadal had opposed passage ofthree farm laws in Parliamentand they were the only twoMPs who voted against thesebills. Akali Dal representativeHarsimrat Kaur Badal resignedfrom the ministry after whichthe SAD quit NDA and alsobroke its alliance with the BJP.

Cheema also said thatAkali Dal is the only politicalparty which had sacrificedMinistership and alliance forthe cause of farmers whereasothers only claimed to have res-ignation letters in their pock-ets which were never tendered.

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Punjab Government hasapproved proprietary rights

to six more slums in Ferozepur,Jalandhar, Mansa, Patiala andLudhiana districts under theflagship slum developmentprogramme ‘Basera'.

The approval was grantedat the fifth meeting of thesteering committee under theBasera scheme, chaired by theChief Secretary, Vini Mahajan,here.

With this, as many as8,141 households locatedacross 46 slum sites in differ-ent districts of the state havegot the proprietary rights oftheir dream homes so far.

Reviewing the progress ofthe scheme, the ChiefSecretary ordered a monthlyreview of the 'house-for-houseless' scheme to furtherexpedite the process of grant-ing proprietary rights to theslum dwellers and enable themto own their dream homes atthe earliest. She also directedall the Deputy Commissionersto work proactively for seam-less execution of this pro-people scheme.

Punjab was the first statein the country to launch ascheme for granting propri-etary rights to the slumdwellers occupying state gov-ernment’s land in the slums ofurban areas.

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Haryana has been adjudgedfirst in the country in

installation of off-grid solarpumps under Pradhan MantriKisan Urja Suraksha EvamUtthan Mahaabhiyaan(PMKUSUM) with installa-tion of 14,418 pumps against15,000 sanctioned pumps forthe year 2020-21.

This announcement wasmade by the Union Ministry ofNew and Renewable Energy inthe concluding session of theweeklong nation-wide “Azadika Amrit Mahotsav” celebra-tions held on August 27.

Lauding the farmers ofthe state for adopting solarpumps in such a big way,Chief Minister Manohar Lalsaid that it was one of the stepstaken by the government todouble their income by reduc-ing farm input costs.

Giving details about thescheme, Dr. Hanif Qureshi,Director General, New andRenewable EnergyDepartment and HAREDAsaid that the Ministry of Newand Renewable Energy hadlaunched the PMKUSUMscheme in 2019 with target toinstall 20 lakh standalone solarpumps for which Haryanawas given a target of 15,000pumps for the year 2020-21with a total cost of Rs 520crore.

Under the scheme, stand-alone solar pumps of 3 HP to10 HP capacity are beinginstalled in the state with 75percent subsidy. TheGovernment of India is pro-viding 30 percent centralfinancial assistance and theState Government is providing45 percent subsidy. The farmerhas to pay only 25 percent ofthe total pump cost. Thesepumps can be installed byfarmers, water user associa-tions, community, clusterbased irrigation systems etc.only for irrigation purposes.

He said that in the dark orblack zones only existing dieselpumps are allowed to be con-verted into solar pumps pro-vided they have used micro-irrigation techniques to save

water. Implementation ofPradhan Mantri Kisan UrjaSuraksha Evam UtthanMahabhiyan (PMKUSUM)has provided an opportunityto farmers to shift from dieselpumps to solar pumps.Analysis of data shows that thebeneficiaries of PMKUSUMare either marginal farmerswho didn’t have electricityconnection or those who wereusing diesel pumps, he said.

Dr Qureshi further saidthat these pumps wereinstalled with 5 year AMC andinsurance cover for naturalcalamities, theft and burglaryetc. without any additionalcost to the farmer.

He further said thatHaryana is an agrarian Stateand there are about 6.5 lakhelectric pumps and 3.0 lakhdiesel operated pumps. Thesesolar pumps are not only eco-friendly but will also reducethe cost of cultivation as therewill be no recurring cost onelectricity and diesel.

The modules of solarpumps have a life of 25 yearsand when compared to dieseloperated pumps will pay backtheir subsidized cost in about1.5 years. These pumps areoperated during daytime onlyand, therefore, farmers do nothave to go for irrigation dur-ing night time, he added.

He further said that the15,000 pumps installed in2020-21 have added solarcapacity of about 105 MW inthe state and have resulted inreducing the carbon footprintby about 76,000 tonnes annu-ally.

He also informed that theresponse of the farmers to thisscheme is overwhelming andagainst the target of 15,000pumps, the Departmentreceived more than 42,000online applications.

Seeing the response, theDepartment has fixed a targetof installing 22,000 pumps forthe current financial year witha total project cost of Rs 844crore for which applicationswill be invited shortly after thefinalization of rates and firmsby the Union Ministry, headded.

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ADelhi court has dischargedeight accused from the

charge of causing arson duringthe February 2020 riots, not-ing there is no CCTV footageand no complainant has iden-tified them or alleged thatthey committed the offence.

Additional Sessions JudgeVinod Yadav said the ingredi-ents of Section 436 of theIndian Penal Code (mischiefby fire or explosive substance),which was added in the chargesheet, are "not at all made out"from the material produced bythe investigating agency.

Eight people were arrest-ed based on 12 complaintsfiled by various shopkeeperswho alleged that their shopswere allegedly looted and van-dalised by the riotous mobduring the communal vio-lence in northeast Delhi.

The accused were arrestedbased on disclosure statementsgiven by them in other casesfiled against them and identi-fication by police constables,who were posted as beat offi-cers in that area.

Discharging eight accused,the judge said Section 436IPC cannot be invoked mere-ly on the basis of statements

given by police constables asthe 12 complainants had stat-ed nothing in this regard intheir written complaints.

"A fine-tooth-comb analy-sis of written complaints revealsthat none of the complainantshas identified the accused per-sons to be part of the riotousmob which had vandalised theirshops,” the sessions judge saidin an order dated September 10.He further said there are no alle-gations by the complainantsregarding the commission ofarson in their shops and as suchingredients of Section 436 IPCare not at all made out eitherfrom complaints or statements.

Even from the photographsfiled on record, no incident ofcommitting mischief by fire orexplosive substance is borneout, he said, adding that thereis no CCTV footage or videoclip of the incident on record.

Furthermore, ASJ Yadavsaid there is no connecting evi-dence on record in the form ofstatements of independent eye-witnesses who could have seenthe accused persons at thetime of the incident.

The judge said one com-plainant said the alleged crimetook place on February 25,while the others claimed that ithappened on February 24.

"Whether these com-plaints of different dates couldhave been clubbed by the inves-tigating agency in one FIR is aquestion which will be seenduring the course of the trial,”the judge said.

The police submitted thatthe distance between the vari-ous spots where looting andvandalisation took place is notmuch and the same unlawfulassembly was operating in thearea on February 24 and 25 andas such, they could be said tobe part of the same transactionand accordingly one single FIRserves the purpose in this case.

The other sections invokedin the charge sheet such as sec-tions 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting,armed with a deadly weapon),149 (unlawful assembly), 457(house-trespass), 380 (theft),411 (receiving stolen property)are "exclusively triable" by amagistrate, the judge said.

He ordered for the case tobe transferred before the chiefmetropolitan magistrate.

Communal clashes had bro-ken out in northeast Delhi inFebruary 2020, after violencebetween the Citizenship(Amendment) Act supportersand its protesters spiralled out ofcontrol leaving at least 53 peo-ple dead and over 700 injured.

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Marriages can be registeredin the virtual presence of

parties, the Delhi High Courthas ruled, saying that in thepresent times, citizens cannotbe prevented from exercisingtheir rights because of a rigidinterpretation of law whichcalls for "personal presence".

Hearing a plea by a US-based Indian couple seeking toregister their marriage herethrough video conferencing,Justice Rekha Palli opined thatnot treating physical presenceas a mandatory requirementwould also encourages partiesto easily get their marriagesregistered.

"I have no hesitation incoming to the conclusion thatthe term 'personal appearance'in Clause 4 of the RegistrationOrder has to be read to includepresence secured throughVideo Conferencing. Any otherinterpretation, would not onlyfrustrate the very purpose ofthis beneficial legislation, but,it would also undermine theuse of this important and eas-ily accessible tool of VideoConferencing," the judge saidin her order dated September9. She said the Delhi(Compulsory Registration ofMarriage) Order, 2014 is wel-fare legislation, promulgated atthe instance the Supreme Courtto encourage the registration ofmarriages.

"The insistence of physicalappearance even when theirpersonal appearance can beeasily secured through videoconferencing, will definitelymake it more cumbersome forparties to come forward for theregistration of marriages. Thiswill negate the very purpose ofenactment of the RegistrationOrder and cannot be permit-ted," the order further reads.

The court allowed the cou-ple to mark their "personalappearance" before theRegistering Authority throughvideo conferencing after sub-mitting their application for theregistration of marriage throughtheir counsel/Power of AttorneyHolder in physical form along-

with copies of all supporting doc-uments duly notarized, either bythe notary public in the UnitedStates of America or by a notarypublic here.

It directed that the two wit-nesses would appear physical-ly before the RegisteringAuthority with their original IDproofs on the date notified bythe Registering Authority.

The Authority will thenexpeditiously register the mar-riage and issue the MarriageRegistration Certificate within aperiod of two weeks' from thedate of receipt of the application,the court added.

In the present case, thecouple claimed that their mar-riage was solemnised in 2001 asper Hindu rituals, but they didnot get the same registered asthey moved abroad prior to theintroduction of the Delhi(Compulsory Registration ofMarriage) Order, 2014.

Considering that theirapplication for a green card wasnow not being processed in theUnited States for want of a mar-riage certificate, the coupleapproached the local authori-ty here for issuance of a mar-riage certificate, who main-tained that physical presence ofthe parties was a mandatoryrequirement. The couple, rep-resented through senior coun-sel Vibha Datta Makhija, movedthe high court after their rep-resentation to the authorityconcerned for virtual appear-ance remained unanswered.The court observed that whilethe "universe has undergone asea change" since the time whenthe Registration Order was noti-fied, the Registering Authoritywas "refusing to recognize thereality that with the technologyas is available today, web portalsand Video Conferencing havebecome almost the norm".

Acknowledging the accep-tance of video conferencingeven in the judicial system inthis country, the court said that"these aspects appear to havebeen simply overlooked by theRegistering Authority, who iscontinuing to insist on that theparties must remain presentphysically before him".

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���������������� -/0��/�'" The Delhi Prisons officials onSaturday said that a ‘Poshan

Mela’ will be celebratedthroughout the month ofSeptember for over 5,00 femaleinmates lodged in jails of Tiharand Mandoli in order to sensi-tise and create awarenessamong them about the impor-tance of having a nutritious diet.

According to prison offi-cials, 399 women presentlylodged in jail no 6 of Tihar and163 women presently lodged injail no 16 of Mandoli are partof the "Poshan Mela" initiativebeing celebrated by the DelhiPrisons.

The initiative was kick-started on Thursday at femalejail no 6 of Tihar in associationwith National Commission forWomen (NCW) where inmateswere made aware about thevalue of nutritious diet throughPower Point Presentation fol-lowed by speeches from mem-bers of the Commission,including Meeta Rajivlochan,

IAS, Member Secretary NCW,a senior jail official said.

Special diet and fruits werealso provided to the womeninmates, he said.

“At the 'Poshan Mela', dif-ferent stalls were arranged forchildren, lactating mothers,pregnant women and adults.They were explained about theimportance of taking a nutri-tious diet at various stages dur-ing their pregnancy, menopauseor in case they were anaemic,”said Sandeep Goel, the DirectorGeneral of Delhi Prisons.

As per rules, children belowsix years are permitted to staywith their mother in the jail andaccording to a data shared bythe Delhi Prisons, presentlythere are 17 such children whoare staying with their mothersinside the two jails meant forwomen.

Besides them, there arefour pregnant women lodged inthe two jails including one inMandoli Jail.

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The State Bharatiya JantaParty (BJP) president

Adesh Gupta Saturday saidthe party has launched theprogramme of free pilgrimagefor senior cit izens and women living in differentwards.

He said this pilgrimagewill continue for next threemonths in which senior citi-zens and women will be takento various religious placesincluding Haridwar,Vrindavan, Khatu Shyam,Shri Balaji and Ayodhyaamong others.

“During the COVID peri-od due to being confinedwithin four walls of theirhomes, women went througha lot of mental tension andproblems. It is to give themsome kind of relief that theparty has decided on thisprogramme,” Gupta said andthanked the local counci lor Anju Aman Kumar.

“Ten buses have been sentfrom here Saturday to differ-ent religious places,” he said,“Our idea is to send 100buses each for different reli-gious destinations from oneward each.”

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Admission process inSchools of Specialised

Excellence (SoE) will beginfrom Monday.

Results of SoE wereannounced on Saturday andstudents can check their resulton the SoSE website(http://edudel.nic.in/sose/).

The application processwas closed by August 19.Around 26,687 registrationswere made for the 4 types ofSoSEs (Science, Technology,Engineering and Mathematics(STEM), Humanities,Performing and Visual Artsand High-end 21st CenturySkills). Aptitude test for theadmission were organized fromAugust 27-31 across 67 testcentres. Around 14,245 stu-dents took their tests on thegiven dates. A total of 2,794 stu-dents have been selectedthrough the process and have

been offered admissions in theSTEM, Humanities and High-end 21st Century Skills schools.

Auditions for thePerforming and Visual Artsschools are going on and willfinish on September 13. Finalresults for Performing andVisual Arts schools will beannounced early next week.

Admission process for theselected 2,794 students willbegin from September 13 in therespective SoSEs where stu-dents had applied. In the STEMschools, admissions are beingoffered in Classes 9 and 11,while in the rest of the schools,students will be admitted inClass 9 only. A rigorous processwas followed to evaluate thetest papers and only the stu-dents above a cut-off havebeen selected. In the 8 STEMschools, 960 students havebeen offered admission in Class9 while 814 students have beenselected for Class 11.

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In what could be perceived asa “backdoor” entry for pri-

vate players in the IndianRailways, the Centre is con-sidering engaging private play-ers to run passenger trains,coined as theme-based trainsfor religious, tourism, hospi-tality and other activities.

According to a policy beingformulated by the Ministry ofRàilways, the national trans-

porter’s new regime led byAshwini Vaishnaw is now look-ing at professionals from thetourism sector to utilise its traincoaches for rail-based tourism.

The Railways wants tolease and even sell train coach-es to private players for lever-aging their expertise in tourismactivities, a top Rail Ministryofficial said.

The private players can runthese coaches as cultural, reli-gious or any other tourist circuittrain, the Ministry of Railwayssaid in a statement on Saturday.

“To tap the potential oftourism sector and to leveragethe core strengths of the pro-fessionals of tourism sector in

tourism activities like market-ing, hospitality, integration ofservices, reach with customerbase, expertise in developmentand identification of tourist cir-cuits, etc., Indian Railways isplanning to spread rail-basedtourism among masses throughleasing of coaching stock tointerested parties to run themas theme-based cultural, reli-gious and other tourist circuittrain,” the Ministry said in astatement.

An Executive Director-level committee has been con-stituted by the RailwayMinistry to formulate the pol-icy and terms and conditionsfor this project.

So far, the broad features ofthe proposed model have beenformulated. These include

coaches to be leased as perdesired configuration of inter-ested parties. They can also

take bare shells on lease or pur-chase coaches. Sources saidthat private players will have to

lease or buy a train with at least16 coaches.

Lessees and buyers will beallowed to make minor refur-bishment to coaches. The leasewill run for a minimum of fiveyears and can be extended tillthe codal life of coaches. Codallife refers to the maximumservice life of a coach, beyondwhich it has to be mandatori-ly replaced.

“The business model will bedecided and developed by theprivate player. This will includeroute, itinerary, tariff, etc,” asenior railway official said.

Sources said the RailwayMinistry has promised thatthe registration process for

interested parties will be simple, based on eligibilitycriteria.

Indian Railways will levyhaulage charges, nominal sta-bling charges and lease charges.No lease charges will be takenif the coaches are purchased.

Punctuality will be givenpriority. Also, coach refur-bishments and itineraries willbe promptly approved. Therewill be no haulage charge formaintenance runs.

Once leased or sold, third-party advertisements will beallowed inside the train coach-es. Branding of trains will alsobe allowed, added the Ministrystatement.

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AParliamentary panel has saidthe Government should iron

out the issues hindering the sign-ing of Free Trade Agreements(FTAs) with the US and the EUnations as domestic exporters areat a disadvantage due to theabsence of these agreements.

The Parliamentary StandingCommittee on Commerce chairedby YSR Congress leader VijaysaiReddy submitted the report toChairman of Rajya SabhaVenkaiah Naidu on virtual modeon Saturday.

The panel has expressed con-cern that India’s exports con-tracted from 2019-20, registeringa negative growth rate of (-)15.73 per cent in 2020.

In view of the crucial roleplayed by exports in the overalleconomic growth of a country, theCommittee in the report opinedthat “India needs to step up itseffort in export promotion,expand its export baskets and pen-etrate new export markets torecover from its current slump andincrease its share in global exports”.

The panel also underlinedthat the Indian exporters are at a“disadvantage” in the US and theEuropean markets while compet-ing with other exporting nationsdue to the absence of FTAs withthe US and the EU countries.

“The Committee recom-mends the Department ofCommerce to iron out the issuesthat hindered the signing of FTAswith our leading trade partnersand enter into trade agreementsthat are beneficial for our coun-try while balancing the interest of

the domestic market with that ofour exporters,” the report stated.

The panel also expressed con-cern that the share of rail freightvis-a-vis road is only 35 per centwhereas the trend is reversed indeveloped countries.

The Committee, therefore,recommends the Ministry ofRailways to undertake a detailedstudy on the reason for low shareof rail and take a concerted effortto increase the share of rail infreight traffic, the report said.

At the same time, the panelsaid, it is “disheartening to notethat the Ministry of Railways isunable to provide competitivefreight rate for movement ofexport consignment”.

The Committee feels that this

will adversely affect the compet-itiveness of India’s exports inglobal markets as freight costplays a crucial role in determin-ing the final price of the product,as per the report.

The panel undertook an in-depth examination of export-ori-ented measures and held sevenmeetings with all stakeholdersspanning over for nearly twentyhours, it said.

The panel led by Reddy, whois a noted chartered accountant,in the report recommended theGovernment to take appropriatemeasures, relook its export strate-gies and policies to achieve a pos-itive growth rate of exports andhigher share in global exports markets.

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The Aircraft AccidentInvestigation Bureau

(AAIB) on Saturday released itsprobe report into the planecrash at Kozhikode airport inAugust last year that killed atleast 20 people and injured sev-eral others, pointed out that thepilot’s non-adherence to thestandard operating procedureis the probable cause of the AirIndia Express plane crash butthe role of the systemic failuresas a contributory factor cannotbe overlooked.

According to the report,the investigation team is of theopinion that the role of sys-temic failures as a contributo-ry factor cannot be overlookedin this accident. “A large num-ber of similar accidents/ inci-dents that have continued totake place, more so in AIXL,reinforce existing systemic fail-ures within the aviation sector.

“These usually occur due toprevailing safety culture thatgive rise to errors, mistakes andviolation of routine tasks per-formed by people operatingwithin the system. Hence, thecontributory factors enumerat-ed below include both theimmediate causes and the deep-er or systemic causes,” it added.

The report, released a little

over a year after the deadlycrash of the Air India Expressplane, said the “probable causeof the accident was the nonadherence to SOP (StandardOperating Procedure) by thePF (Pilot Flying)”.

The PF continued anunstabilised approach andlanded beyond the touchdownzone, “half way down the run-way, in spite of ‘Go Around’ callby PM which warranted amandatory ‘Go Around’ andthe failure of the PM to takeover controls and execute a ‘GoAround’,” it noted.

The crash of Air IndiaExpress’s B737-800 aircrafthappened on August 7 at theKozhikode airport in Kerala.The plane coming from Dubaihad overshot the runway atKozhikode airport and laterbroke into pieces. There were190 people onboard the ill-fated aircraft and at least 20people, including the twopilots, were killed and severalothers were injured.

Union Civil AviationMinister Jyotiraditya Scindiasaid in response to a questionduring a press conference onThursday that the report hasbeen submitted to the Ministry.We will release it in the nextcouple of days into publicdomain.

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Moderna’s vaccine forCovid-19 is significantly

more effective against the Deltavariant of the SARS-CoV2virus than Pfizer or Johnson &Johnson, a new study has said.

Published in Morbidityand Mortality Weekly Report,the study said Moderna was 95per cent effective at preventinghospitalisation among adultsages 18 and older.

“These real-world datashow that vaccines remainhighly effective at reducingCovid-19 related hospitalisa-tion and emergency depart-ment visits, even in the pres-ence of the new Covid-19 vari-ant,” said researcher ShaunGrannis from Indiana

University in the US.“We strongly recommend

vaccinations for all who are eli-gible to reduce serious illnessand ease the burden on our healthcare system,”Grannis added.

The team also found thatPfizer was 80 per cent effectiveat preventing hospitalisationamong adults ages 18 andolder, while Johnson & Johnsonwas 60 per cent effective.

For the study, the team

analysed more than 32,000medical encounters from nineStates during June, July andAugust 2021, when the Deltavariant became the predomi-nant strain.

The results showed thatunvaccinated individuals withCovid-19 are 5-7 times morelikely to need emergencydepartment care or hospitali-sation, similar to the overalleffectiveness prior to the variant.

The study also found thatvaccine effectiveness is lowerfor people 75 years and older,which has not been shown inprevious research. This couldbe due to a range of factors,including the increased timesince vaccination, theresearchers noted.

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Recalling the terror strikes in theUS two decades ago, Prime

Minister Narendra Modi on Saturdaysaid that the world was today realis-ing that tragedies like 9/11 will have“a permanent solution, only throughIndian humanitarian values.”

Modi made these remarks whileperforming the Lokarpan of‘Sardardham Bhavan’ and ‘BhoomiPujan’ of ‘Sardardham Phase–II‘Kanya Chhatralaya’ (girls hostel) atAhmedabad, Gujarat.

The comments of the PrimeMinister about “Indian values” resolv-ing world problem, particularly ter-rorism, came against the backdrop ofthe withdrawal of the US troopswhich had landed in Afghanistan soonafter American cities were attacked byOsama-bin-Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorgroup on September 11, 2001.

The American intervention thenhad led to the ouster of the Talibanswhich are again back in the seat ofpower in Kabul after 20 years of theirpolitical exile.

Addressing the Gujarat event, Modirecalled the 9/11 terror-strikes saying,“Today, September 11th, is a date in thehistory of the world that is known tohave struck humanity. But this date alsotaught a lot to the whole world! A cen-tury ago it was on September 11, 1893,when the World Parliament of Religionswas held in Chicago.”

Modi reminded that on this day,Swami Vivekananda stood on thatglobal stage and introduced the worldto “the human values of India.”

“Today the world is realisingthat tragedies like 9/11 will have apermanent solution, only through

these humanitarian values,” he added.The PM’s address through video-

conferencing was attended by ChiefMinister and Deputy Chief Ministerof Gujarat.

The Prime Minister alsoannounced the establishment of achair in the name of Tamil poet‘Subramania Bharati in BanarasHindu University. The Prime Ministersaid September 11th is another bigoccasion — the 100th death anniver-sary of India’s great scholar, philosopher and freedom fighter‘Subramania Bharati.

Bharati gave a new direction tohis thoughts and new energy whileliving in Kashi, he said.The philoso-phy of ‘ Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat’envisioned by Sardar Saheb has beenshining with full divinity in the Tamilwritings of Mahakavi Bharati he said.

Modi said the hostel facility beinginaugurated at Ahmadabad will alsohelp so many girls to come forward.He said the state of the art building,girls hostel and modern library willempower the youth.

The EntrepreneurshipDevelopment Centre will enrich the

strong business identity of Gujaratand the Civil Service Centre will givenew direction to the youth interest-ed in careers in civil, defence and judi-cial services.

The PM said Sardar Dham willnot only become an establishment forbuilding the future of the country, butalso inspire the future generations tolive the ideals of Sardar Saheb.

He lauded all the members asso-ciated with Sardar Dham Trust fortheir dedication to the service ofhumanity. He admired their empha-sis on the empowerment of the youthof the Patidar society as well as thepoor and especially women.Sardardham Vishwa Patidar Kendra isestablished to spread awareness aboutthe strength of Sardar VallabhbhaiPatel’s persona among Patidar youth aswell as to strengthen the PatidarCommunity socially, financially,administratively and politically.

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The downpour wasn’t just inDelhi. Several States like

Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh,Telangana, Gujarat, Rajasthanand Madhya Pradesh also wit-nessed heavy and unusual rain-fall on Saturday.

The increase in the num-

ber of heavy rain events isdirectly linked to climatechange. This may impact theonion crops and paddy sowingduring the kharif season.

The India MeteorologicalDepartment’s (IMD) latest pre-dictions said these weatherconditions are likely to persistover the next 3-4 days in

Maharashtra, Goa, Telangana,Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh,Chhattisgarh, Odisha,Rajasthan, Madhya Pradeshand Gujarat.

According to the IMD,from Sunday onwards, therewill be a gradual reduction inthe rainfall in Punjab andHaryana. Delhi will receive

fresh spell of rain fromSeptember 17-18.

The IMD said a low-pres-sure area lies over EastRajasthan and the neighbour-hood with associated cycloniccirculation extending up tomiddle tropospheric levels.The low-pressure area and itsremnant are likely to persist

over the same area during 3-4days. Delhi has witnessedseven heavy rain events thismonsoon season so far, thehighest in a decade, and thesespells account for more than 60percent of the rainfall record-ed in the city.

Mahesh Palawat, vice pres-ident of Skymet Weather, a

private forecasting agency, saidglobal conditions such as ENSOneutral conditions, lower seasurface temperature in east andcentral-Pacific ocean, neutralIndian Ocean Dipole and theMadden-Julian oscillation pass-ing through the Indian Oceanwere favourable for good rain-fall in September.

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Three Presidents and theirwives stood somberly side

by side on Saturday at theNational September 11Memorial, sharing a momentof silence to mark the anniver-sary of the nation’s worst terrorattack with a display of unity.

Presidents Joe Biden,Barack Obama and Bill Clintonall gathered at the site wherethe World Trade Center towersfell two decades ago. Theyeach wore blue ribbons andheld their hands over theirhearts as a procession marcheda flag through the memorial,watched by hundreds ofAmericans gathered for theremembrance, some carryingphotos of loved ones lost in theattacks.

Before the event began, ajet flew overhead in an eerieecho of the attacks, drawing a

glance from Biden toward thesky. For much of the ceremo-ny he stood with his arms

crossed and head bowed, lis-tening while the names of thevictims were read. At one point,

the president wiped a tearfrom his eye.

Biden was a senator whenhijackers commandeered fourplanes and executed the attack.Now he marks the 9/11anniversary for the first time ascommander in chief.

The president was spend-ing Saturday paying his respectsat the trio of sites where theplanes crashed, but he left thespeech-making to others.

Vice President KamalaHarris spoke at the Flight 93National Memorial inShanksville, Pennsylvania,commemorating the heroeswho brought down a hijackedplane that was headed for theUS Capitol. Harris praisedtheir courage and the resilienceof the American people, andspoke about the unity thatAmericans experienced in the days following theattacks.

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The 9/11 anniversary com-memoration at ground zero

began Saturday with a tollingbell and a moment of silence,exactly 20 years after the startof the deadliest terror attack onUS soil.

President Joe Biden, for-mer presidents Barack Obamaand Bill Clinton joined a crowdof victims’ relatives and firstresponders at the Sept. 11memorial plaza in New York.The memorial stands where thethe World Trade Center’s twintowers were rammed and felledby hijacked planes.

Observances are alsoplanned at the the two othersites where the 9/11 conspira-tors crashed the jets: thePentagon and a field nearShanksville, Pennsylvania.Biden is scheduled to payrespects at all three places.

The anniversary comesunder the pall of a pandemic

and in the shadow of the USwithdrawal from Afghanistan,now ruled by the same mili-tants who gave safe haven tothe 9/11 plotters.

The attacks killed nearly3,000 people and marked thestart of a new era of fear, war,politics, patriotism and tragedy.

“It’s hard because you

hoped that this would just bea different time and a differentworld. But sometimes historystarts to repeat itself and not inthe best of ways,” said TheaTrinidad, who lost her father inthe attacks and has signed upto read victims’ names at theceremony at ground zero inNew York.

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The terrorists behind the9/11 attacks in the United

States failed to shake the beliefin freedom and democracy,British Prime Minister BorisJohnson said on Saturday, as theworld marked the 20th anniver-sary of the terror strikes.

In a message on Twitter,Johnson said that while the ter-ror threat may not have goneaway, people have refused tolive in “permanent fear”.

“Today we remember the2,977 people taken from us onSeptember 11th 2001,” said

Johnson in his message.“But while the terrorists

imposed their burden of griefand suffering, we can now saywith the perspective of 20 yearsthat they failed to shake ourbelief in freedom and democ-racy,” he said.

“That we are comingtogether today — in sorrow butalso in faith and resolve —demonstrates the failure of ter-rorism,” he said.

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth IIalso offered her sympathies tothe victims, survivors and fam-ilies affected by the attacks 20years ago.

Singapore: Singapore PrimeMinister Lee Hsien Loongwarned on Saturday that thefight against terrorism is “farfrom over” two decades afterthe 9/11 attack in the UnitedStates, and that terrorist groupsin faraway places were seriousthreats to Singapore.

“Terrorist groups in thesefaraway places were seriousthreats to Singapore,” he said ina commentary published onthe 20th anniversary of the Al-Qaeda attacks in the UnitedStates. PTI

Seoul: South Korean President Moon Jae-in hasexpressed his “deepest sympathies” to U.S.President Joe Biden and the American peoplemarking the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacksand says South Korea as a key ally will contin-ue to support U.S. Efforts to fight terrorism.

Moon in a message posted on Twitter andFacebook Saturday said the “shock of that daystill remains as deep wounds in the hearts of somany” and that “no violence can win againstpeace and inclusiveness.” AP

Kabul: The Taliban flag waved over theAfghan presidential palace the same daythe U.S. And the world marked the 20thanniversary of the September 11 attacks.

The milestone anniversary Saturdaytakes place just weeks after the chaot-ic U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistanand the return to power of the Taliban,the faction that sheltered the Muslimmilitant group founded by Osama binLaden that carried out the attacks.

The Taliban flag was raised Fridayand could be seen waving over the pres-idential palace in Kabul on Saturday.

The militant group also painted theirwhite backdrop flag on the wall of theUS Embassy building. AP

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Fifteen to 20 villagers, includ-ing several teenagers, have

been killed in some ofMyanmar’s deadliest fightingsince July betweenGovernment troops and resis-tance forces, a villager andreports by independent mediasaid on Friday.

The fighting near Gangawtownship in the northwesternMagway region started onThursday, two days after a callfor a nationwide uprising wasissued by the National UnityGovernment, a Oppositionorganisation that seeks to coor-dinate resistance to militaryrule.

The fighting broke outwhen more than 100 troopsarrived in four military vehiclesto secure the area in Myin Thar

and five other nearby villages,a resident told The AssociatedPress by phone.

Members of a lightlyarmed village self-defense mili-tia fired warning shots butcould not stop the soldiersfrom entering the area andclashes continued after that,said the resident, who spoke oncondition of anonymity to safe-guard his personal security.

The opposition movementthat rose against the army’sFebruary seizure of power fromthe elected Government ofAung San Suu Kyi was initial-ly peaceful, but gradually beganfighting back after securityforces used deadly force tobreak up nonviolent protests.

The National UnityGovernment’s call on Tuesdayfor a “people’s defensive war”has received an enthusiastic

response on social media, butits actual impact on the groundis hard to measure.

Media sympathetic to theopposition reported an out-burst of small-scale shootingsand sabotage by the resistance,particularly the toppling of cell phone transmission towers.

But similar activities havebeen happening for severalmonths and details are difficultto independently verify.

The villager who describedthe new fighting said at least 11members of the self-defensegroup were killed, according towhat others in his village toldhim. Photos of what weredescribed to be their bodies cir-culated widely Friday on theinternet, and were clear enoughto be identifiable to thosefamiliar with them.

United Nations: The Taliban’s victory inAfghanistan might embolden other groups indifferent parts of the world, Secretary-GeneralAntonio Guterres has warned, expressing hisworry over global terrorism while asserting thatdialogue with the militant group is “absolutelyessential” as the UN wants the country to playa “constructive role” in international relations.

“I must tell you, I am very worried with whatwe are witnessing in different parts of the world.And the fact that in Afghanistan, the Talibanwere able to win might embolden other groupsin different parts of the world independently ofthe fact that they are different from the Talibanand I am not seeing there is a similarity amongthem,” Guterres said during a Press conferenceon Friday at the UN Headquarters. PTI

Dubai: The US has removed its most advancedmissile defence system and Patriot batteries fromSaudi Arabia in recent weeks, even as the king-dom faced continued air attacks from Yemen’sHouthi rebels, satellite photos analysed by TheAssociated Press show.

The redeployment of the defenses fromPrince Sultan Air Base outside of Riyadh came asAmerica’s Gulf Arab allies nervously watched thechaotic withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan,including their last-minute evacuations fromKabul’s besieged international airport. While tensof thousands of American forces remain across theArabian Peninsula as a counterweight to Iran, GulfArab nations worry about the US’s future plans asits military perceives a growing threat in Asia thatrequires those missile defences. AP

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Atlanta’s zoo says at least 13western lowland gorillas

have tested positive for Covid-19, including 60-year-oldOzzie, the oldest male gorilla incaptivity.

Zoo Atlanta said on Fridaythat employees noticed thegorillas had been coughing,had runny noses and showedchanges in appetite.

A veterinary lab at theUniversity of Georgia returnedpositive tests for the respirato-ry illness. Zoo Atlanta says it’s

waiting on confirmation fromthe National VeterinaryServices Lab in Ames, Iowa.

The zoo says it is treatingthe gorillas at risk of develop-ing complications from SARS-

CoV-2 with monoclonal anti-bodies. The zoo is also testingall 20 of its gorillas, who live infour troops.

Zoo officials say theybelieve an asymptomaticemployee who cares for thegorillas passed on the virus.The employee had been fullyvaccinated and was wearingprotective equipment such as amask and gloves.

The zoo says there’s no evi-dence that the gorillas canpass the virus back to humansand says visitors are too faraway to be infected by gorillas.

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The Central Board of IndirectTaxes and Customs has direct-

ed its officers to expeditiously dis-pose the unclaimed, uncleared,and confiscated goods that areholding up containers, a moveaimed at easing availability ofcontainers for exporters.

In an instruction to its fieldofficers, the CBIC said that theyshould take proactive steps sothat containers housing importedcargo that are under enquiry areexpeditiously released.

"To continue the emphasis onenhancing the availability of con-tainers, the Board has decided thatthe field formations also....Disposeexpeditiously theunclaimed/uncleared/seized/con-fiscated goods including that areholding up containers followingthe timelines and procedures pre-scribed in a Board's circular," it said.

It added that field formationshad reported certain reasons suchas court cases, held by intelli-gence agencies for non-release ofcontainers.

Exporting community has time

and again raised the issue of short-age of containers as it affects exports.

Commenting on this,Ludhiana Hand Tools AssociationPresident S C Ralhan said that itis a good move by the government,but the big question is that wherecourt cases are there, it will not bepossible to lease those containers.

"But at the moment, it looks likethere will be a lot of containers avail-able for exporters," Ralhan said.

Federation of Indian ExportOrganisations (FIEO) DG AjaySahai said that about 20,000 con-tainers are still stuck up with custo-dian (Ports/ CONCOR/ CWC) asthese have been either detained byagencies or abandoned by theimporters. "The number is not verylarge but at this point of time whensupply is inadequate, this will help.The proactive action by Customs willhelp in releasing them and addingthem to supply. However, similartime bound action is needed by theCustodians as well," Sahai said.

Sharing similar views, FIEOVice-President Khalid Khan too saidthat "it is really a good move" asavailability of about 20,000 con-tainers will be a huge benefit to trade.

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In order to arrest price rise inedible oils, the Government

has slashed import duty onpalm, sunflower and soyabeanoil to bring relief to the com-mon man reeling under sky-rocketing cooking oils prices.The decision comes after edi-ble oil prices have seen a spikeup to 50 per cent in the last oneyear. The reduction in taxescould bring down prices of theedible oils in India and boostconsumption, effectivelyincreasing overseas buying bythe south Asian country. In thelast few months, the Centre hascut import duty on various edi-ble oils and asked states to takedetails of stock of edible oilsand oilseeds from wholesalers,millers, refiners and stockists.

"With effect from Saturday,the base import tax on crudepalm oil has been slashed to 2.5percent from 10 percent, whilethe tax on crude soyoil andcrude sunflower oil has beenreduced to 2.5 percent from 7.5

percent," the Ministry ofFinance said in a notification.

The import duty alongwith cesses on crude palm oil(CPO) will be 24.75 per centagainst 30.25 per cent. OnRBD (refined, bleached, anddeodorized) palm oil, it willcome down to 35.75 per centfrom 41.25 per cent. For crudedegummed soybean oil, thenew rate will be 24.75 per centagainst 30.25 per cent and onrefined soybean oil, the rate hasbeen lowered to 35.75 per centfrom 41.25 per cent. Duty hasalso been lowered in crude sun-flower oil to 24.75 per centfrom 30.25 per cent. After thecuts, crude palm oil, soyoil andsunflower oil imports will besubject to a 24.75 percent taxin total, including a 2.5 percentbase import duty and othertaxes, while refined grades ofpalm oil, soyoil and sunfloweroil would carry a 35.75 percenttax in total.

Earlier, the governmenthas also reduced import dutyon edible oils last month. In a

major step last month, thegovernment has reduced theprice of cooking oil. The Centrehas made 7.5 per cent reduc-tion in the import duty ofsoya oil and sunflower oil inAugust. While the move wasmeant to cool down domesticprices of edible oils, it failed todo so as international prices inIndonesia and Malaysia rosequickly to near record highsanticipating a renewed demandfrom Indian buyers.

India fulfils more thantwo-thirds of its edible oildemand through imports andhas been struggling to containa rally in local oil prices for thelast few months. The countryimports palm oil mainly fromtop producers Indonesia andMalaysia, while other oils, suchas soy and sunflower, comefrom Argentina, Brazil,Ukraine and Russia.

The Kharif soyabean cropof the 2021-22 crop year (July-June) is expected to be 5-10 percent higher than the sameperiod a year ago.

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Coal and Mines MinisterPralhad Joshi on Saturday

said the increase in number ofDistrict Mineral FoundationTrusts exempted from incometax payment will result inmore fund availability withthem, thus ensuring betterimplementation and out-come-oriented activities forwelfare of mining affected

people.District Mineral

Foundation (DMF) is a non-profit statutory 'Trust' forevery district affected by min-ing-related operations. It is aninitiative of the government toensure that funds are collect-ed under DMF and utilised forwelfare of those affected bym i n i n g - r e l a t e d operations. "Thank you PM@narendramodi ji & FM

@nsitharaman ji for exempt-ing 165 DMF trusts fromIncome Tax payment.This willresult in more fund availabil-ity with the Trust, thus ensur-ing better implementation andoutcome-oriented activitiesfor welfare of mining affectedpeople," Joshi said in a tweet. Collections under DMFas well as interest accruedwill be exempted from IT. AGazette notification has beenissued to this effect.

"I thank @FinMinIndiafor exempting 165 Trusts.Adding to earlier exemption of151, now a total of 316 Trustsstand exempted from IT," theminister tweeted.

DMF has been created ineach district under the pro-visions of Mines and Minerals(Development andRegulation) Amendment Act,2015 and falls under thepur view of Ministr y of Mines.

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The Heavy IndustriesMinistry has asked US-

based electric car major Tesla tofirst start manufacturing itsiconic electric vehicles in Indiabefore any tax concessions canbe considered, Governmentsources said.

They said that theGovernment is not giving suchconcessions to any auto firm andgiving duty benefits to Tesla willnot send a good signal to othercompanies that have investedbillions of dollars in India.

Tesla has demanded reduc-tion in import duties on elec-tric vehicles (EVs) in India.

At present, cars importedas completely built units(CBUs) attract customs dutyranging from 60 per cent to 100per cent, depending on enginesize and cost, insurance and

freight (CIF) value less orabove USD 40,000.

In a letter to the road min-istry, the US firm had statedthat the effective import tariffof 110 per cent on vehicles withcustoms value above USD40,000 is "prohibitive" to zero-emission vehicles.

It has requested the gov-ernment to standardize thetariff on electric cars to 40 percent irrespective of the customsvalue, and withdraw the socialwelfare surcharge of 10 per centon electric cars.

It has stated that thesechanges would boost the devel-opment of the Indian EVecosystem and the companywill make significant directinvestments in sales, service,and charging infrastructure;and significantly increase pro-curement from India for itsglobal operations.

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CNG and piped cookinggas prices in cities such as

Delhi and Mumbai may behiked by 10-11 per cent nextmonth as the Government-dictated gas price is set to riseby about 76 per cent, ICICISecurities said in a report.

The Government, usingrates prevalent in gas-surplusnations, fixes the price of nat-ural gas produced by firmssuch as state-owned Oil andNatural Gas Corp (ONGC)from fields given to them onnomination basis, every sixmonths. The next review isdue on October 1.

The price, referred to asAPM or administered rate,will rise to $ 3.15 per millionBritish thermal unit (mmBtu)for the period from October1, 2021 to March 31, 2022from the current USD 1.79,the brokerage said.

The rate for gas fromdeepwater fields such as KG-D6 of Reliance Industries Ltdand BP Plc would rise to $7.4

per mmBtu next month.Natural gas is the raw

material that is convertedinto compressed natural gas(CNG) for use in automobilesas fuel or piped to householdkitchens for cooking pur-poses.

"The expected surge inAPM gas prices would pre-sent a challenge to city gasdistribution (CGD) players asit would mean a rise in theirgas cost for CNG and resi-dential piped natural gas," itsaid. "APM gas price risewould mean hefty price hikeswould have to be made byIGL (that retails CNG innational capital and adjoiningcities) and MGL (which retailCNG in Mumbai) in the nextone year."

The city gas distributors(CGD) "would have to makeprice hikes of 10-11 per centin October," ICICI Securitiessaid in a report.

Going by the trend ininternational markets, theAPM gas price is likely to riseto USD 5.93 per mmBtu in

April 2022 to September2022 and to USD 7.65 duringOctober 2022 to March 2023.

This would mean anoth-er 22-23 per cent hike inCNG and piped natural gasprices in April 2022 and 11-12 per cent in October 2022,it said.

"Rise in APM gas pricefrom USD 1.79 per mmBtuin H1FY22 to USD 7.65 permmBtu in H2FY23E wouldmean MGL and IGL wouldhave to make price hikes of49-53 per cent duringOctober 2021 to October2022," it said. "CGD playersmay be able to make therequired hefty price hikesgiven sharply higher prices ofcompeting fuels, petrol anddiesel. However, some hit toprevailing lofty margins ofMGL and IGL cannot beruled out."

The rise in gas pricewould help boost margins ofONGC and Oil India Ltd aswell as private companiessuch as Reliance IndustriesLtd (RIL).

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The share of corporate insol-vency resolution processes

(CIRP) initiated by corporatedebtors themselves havedeclined over the years sincethe inception of the Insolvencyand Bankruptcy Code (IBC).

Data from the Insolvencyand Bankruptcy Board of India(IBBI) showed that as of March2017, out of the total CIRPs,seven were triggered by oper-ational creditors, eight byfinancial creditors and 22 bycorporate debtors.

As of March 2021, 2,250CIRPs were inititated by oper-ational creditors, 1,887 wereinitiated by financial creditorsand corporate debtors had trig-gered 277 CIRPs.

Further in June 2021, res-olution processes initiated byoperational creditors rose to2,313, those by financial cred-itors stood at 1,942 and cor-porate debtors had triggered285 CIRPs.

The IBBI data showed thatoperational creditors triggered50.93 per cent of the CIRPs, fol-lowed by about 42.77 per centby financial creditors andremaining by the corporatedebtors.

However, about 80 per centof CIRPs having an underlyingdefault of less than Rs 1 crore,were initiated on applicationsby operational creditors, whileabout 80 per cent of CIRPs,having an underlying default ofmore than Rs 10 crore, wereinitiated by financial creditors.

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New Delhi: Global aerospacegiant Boeing has maintainedthe momentum of sourcingfrom India by going in for deeplocalisation as well as growingsupplier base which caters to itsinternational supply chains.

Accordingly, despite chal-lenges posed by the pandemicand global economic upheavalthe aerospace giant has con-tinued to source around a bil-lion worth of components andservices from India. IANS

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New Delhi: South Asia's largest overseas education company Leapthat runs LeapFinance and LeapScholar has raised $55 millionin Series C funding led by Owl Ventures. Leap is building theinfrastructure to enable students to pursue international high-er education. “We have seen an unprecedented demand from stu-dents to move abroad this year as international borders open post-Covid,” said Leap co-founder Vaibhav Singh.

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Novak Djokovic will play Daniil Medvedevto try and complete the first men’s singlescalendar-year Grand Slam since 1969

after defeating Tokyo Olympic championAlexander Zverev in Friday’s US Open semi-finals.

Top-ranked Djokovic outlasted theGerman fourth seed 4-6, 6-2, 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 toreach Sunday’s championship match atArthur Ashe Stadium against Russian sec-ond seed Medvedev.

“I’m going to treat the next match like it’sthe last match of my career,” Djokovic said.

One more victory will give the 34-year-oldSerbian star the first calendar-year Slam sinceRod Laver accomplished it 52 years ago.

“There’s only one more match left. Allin. Let’s do it,” Djokovic said. “I’m goingto put my heart and my soul and mybody and my head into that one.”

Djokovic seeks hisfourth career US Opentitle and his 21st over-all Slam crown,which would lifthim one above theall-time record heshares with RafaelNadal and RogerFederer, both absentwith injuries.

“These are themoments we live for,”Djokovic said.“These are the kindof unique opportu-nities we dream ofwhen we are lookingfor motivation.”

Australian legendLaver, 83, was in thestands to watch asDjokovic took a mea-sure of revenge forZverev, 24, beating him inan Olympic semi-final, deny-ing Djokovic’s bid for a ‘GoldenSlam’ with a Tokyo Gold medal.

“I knew coming onto thecourt it was going to be a greatbattle,” Djokovic said.“Alexander is a big champi-on. He’s someone I admireon and off the court.”

Medvedev, the 2019US Open runner-up,

defeated Canadian12th seed Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-4, 7-5, 6-

2 toreach his third career Slamfinal.

“I don’t think I playedmy best today but I’mreally happy to be in thefinal,” Medvedev said.

Djokovic is the old-est US Open finalistsince Andre Agassi at 35in 2005 and could be theoldest US Open champi-

on since Ken Rosewall at 35in 1970. By beating Zverev,Djokovic matched Federer’s

all-time record of 31 men’sSlam final appearances.

Djokovic is 20-10in major

finals.

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Sunrisers Hyderabad openerJonny Bairstow, Punjab

Kings batsman Dawid Malanand Delhi Capitals all-rounderChris Woakes have pulled outof the upcoming Indian PremierLeague (IPL) due to personalreasons.

The England and Indiaplayers were supposed to flyinto UAE from Manchestertogether in a bubble tobubble transfer but Covid-19 cases in the visitors’camp forced IPL teams tomake their ownarrangements.

All players arriv-ing in Dubai nowhave to do a six-day quarantineand that could bethe reason behindBairstow and Malanpulling out.

A BCCI official said thatBairstow and Malan the play-ers won’t be part of the IPLresuming September 19. TheGuardian reported onWoakes’ unavailability.

“They won’t be boardingthe flight to UAE. One of thereasons for their pull out is thesix-day quarantine which theydidn’t need to do earlier,” saidthe official.

While Bairstow is a regularin the Sunrisers line-up, worldnumber one T20 batsmanMalan made his IPL debut withKings earlier this year. Aiden

Markram has been named hisreplacement.

“Malan will be takingsome time off to be with hisfamily ahead of the#T20WorldCup andAshes,” tweeted PunjabKings.

Bairstow had made248 runs at strike rate of141 plus in seven gamesearlier this season.

Bairstow, Woakes andMalan were part of

England’s Test squad inManchester.Bubble life has taken a toll

on players and with the T20World Cup to follow in UAE,not playing the IPL wouldallow more family time toBairstow, Woakes and Malan.

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Women could still beallowed to play cricket,

the chairman of Afghanistan’sCricket Board has claimed to anAustralian broadcaster in anapparent backflip on theTaliban’s hardline stance.

Azizullah Fazli said thegoverning body would outlinehow this would happen “verysoon”, adding that all 25 of thewomen’s team remained inAfghanistan and had chosennot to leave on evacuationflights.

“We will give you our clearposition on how we will allowwomen to play cricket,” he toldSBS Radio Pashto on Friday, thebroadcaster reported on itsEnglish-language website. “Verysoon, we will give you goodnews on how we will proceed.”

His comments appear tocontradict the deputy head of

the Taliban’s cultural commis-sion Ahmadullah Wasiq, whotold the same broadcaster onWednesday that it was “not nec-essary” for women to playsport.

Those remarks sawAustralia threaten to cancel ahistoric maiden men’s Testbetween the two countries, setto take place in Hobart inNovember.

Cricket Australia said inbrief comments on Saturdaythat it remained in regular dia-logue with the AfghanistanCricket Board and that “wemade our position very clear inthe statement”.

It was referring to a state-ment on Thursday in which itsupported “the game unequiv-ocally for women at every level”,adding that it would have “noalternative” but to cancel theHobart Test if the Talibanbanned women.

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Manchester: The legendarySunil Gavaskar has lauded theBCCI’s offer of reschedulingthe cancelled Old Trafford Test,saying India should never forgetEngland’s gesture of returningback to complete a tour, whichwas halted midway due to the26/11 Mumbai terror attacks in2008.

“Yes, I think that (resched-uling the cancelled Test) wouldbe the correct thing to do. Look,we, in India, should never for-get what the England team didin 2008 after the horrific attack,the 26/11. They came back,”Gavaskar told official broadcast-er of the series Sony Sports.

“They would have beenperfectly entitled to say ‘wedon’t feel safe. We are not com-ing back’.”

The visiting England teamwas playing an ODI againstIndia in Cuttack on November26 when terrorists attackedMumbai, leading to the cancel-lation of the last two ODIs of theseven-match series.

England headed homeimmediately, but later returnedfor the two Test series whichIndia won 1-0.

Gavaskar said that the thenskipper Kevin Pietersen wasinstrumental in England's deci-sion to return back for the Testmatches. “Never forget thatKevin Pietersen led the team,and he was the main man. If KPhad said, no I don’t want to go,that would have been the end ofthe matter.

Gavaskar termed BCCI’srescheduling offer as a “fantas-tic news” and said the cancelledTest can be held next year afterthe IPL.

“Don’t forget, the gesture ofthe ECB has to be remem-bered,” he said. “It’s absolutely aptthat the BCCI now says, rightnext year, we are still coming toEngland. I think there will be alittle lean period. I think the IPLwill finish in early June. So thereis enough time for them to go afew days early, depending onwhether we still have Covid andall the restrictions and maybeplay a Test match before or after,”Gavaskar said.

“This is fantastic newscoming that the BCCI willmake up for it. This is exactlywhat the relations betweenboards should be.” PTI

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Joe Salisbury has a chanceat the doubles double at the

US Open.Salisbury and Rajeev

Ram won their second GrandSlam men’s doubles titletogether with a 3-6, 6-2, 6-2victory over Jamie Murrayand Bruno Soares on Friday.

The women’s doublesfinal is Sunday, when CocoGauff and Caty McNally willtry to win their first majortitle.

Salisbury and Ram, whowon the 2020 AustralianOpen together, turned theirmatch around after the No 4seeds got off to a roughstart.

“We didn’t play a greatfirst set,” Salisbury said.

“We found it tough, theconditions. It was my firsttime playing on Ashe. It wasreally tough with the sun andthe shade. It was kind of onehalf of the court was in sun,one half in shade. We werestruggling to see the ballwell.”

He’ll be back out thereon Saturday in the mixeddoubles final. He and part-

ner Desirae Krawczyk, seed-ed second, beat the team ofAmericans Jessica Pegulaand Austin Krajicek 7-2 (2),6-4 later on Friday.

Salisbury is trying tobecome the first player towin the men’s and mixeddoubles titles at the US Opensince Bob Bryan in 2010.

The British player andKrawczyk won the FrenchOpen, before Krawczyk wonWimbledon with NealSkupski. The American canbecome the first to win three

Grand Slam mixed doublestitles in a year since MartinaHingis and Leander Paes in2015.

Gauff, 17, and McNally,19, advanced to the women’sfinal when Luisa Stefanilanded awkwardly near thenet during a f irst-settiebreaker, collapsed to theground and was unable tocontinue.

The No 11-seededAmericans will play the No14-seeded team of SamStosur and Zhang Shuai.

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One match fromfinishing the first

calendar-year men’ssingles Grand Slam in

52 years, NovakDjokovic isn’t getting

ahead of himself by talkingabout it.

“I know everybody wantsto talk about histor y,”Djokovic said. “I’m just tryingto look into what I knowworks for me.”

World number oneDjokovic will try to completethe first calendar Slam sinceRod Laver in 1969 and onlythe fourth ever after Laver in

1962 and Don Budge in 1938.Australian legend Laver, 83, was

in the stands to watch Djokovic con-tinue his quest for history.

But the task remains unfinished,so talking seems premature toDjokovic.

“Why should I be happy? Thejob is not done,” he said. “That’s kindof the attitude I have.”

Djokovic is keeping his usualroutine between matches.

“I’m focusing on recovery, cali-brating all the systems, getting thatvital energy,” he said.

Djokovic, who would be theoldest US Open champion since KenRosewall at 35 in 1970, also takespride in honing his game to perfec-tion.

“I know what my strengths are.I stick to them,” Djokovic said. “I’veworked over the years to perfect mygame so that my game can have lit-erally no flaws.

“Every player has some weak-nesses in his game. There’s alwayssomething you can improve. I wantto have as complete of an all-aroundgame as I possibly can so that whenI’m playing someone I can adjust onany surface.

“I can come up with differentstyles of play. I can tactically imple-ment the game that I need for thatparticular match in order to win.

“Over the years, working onperfecting the game has really helpedme just be very adaptable to any-body’s game and to any surface.”

New York: Daniil Medvedevis getting tired of losing GrandSlam finals after dropping apair and he’s hoping the thirdtime is charmed when heplays in Sunday’s US Openfinal.

The 25-year-old Russiandropped the 2019 US Openfinal to Rafael Nadal and lostFebruary’s Australian Openfinal to world number oneNovak Djokovic — the manhe’ll face on Sunday.

“The more you lose some-thing, the more you want towin it, the more you want togain it and take it,” Medvedevsaid.

“I lost two finals. I want to

win the third one. You neverknow what’s going to happen,but I’m going to try more thanI did the first two times.”

Medvedev has droppedonly one set in the FlushingMeadows fortnight, savinghim valuable energy for thegrind to come againstDjokovic, who is chasing thefirst calendar-year Grand Slamsince Rod Laver won all fourmajors in 1952.

“There were some tightmoments. There were sometight battles. It’s never easy, butI'm happy that I managed tosave a lot of physical abilities,physical power, and mentalpower.” AFP

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The New Zealand Cricketsquad arrived in Pakistan

on Saturday after 18 long yearsto play a bilateral ODI and T20series in Rawalpindi andLahore.

The visiting players werewhisked away from theIslamabad international air-port to their hotel amidst heavysecurity.

The Pakistan Cricket Board(PCB) has made arrangementsto have a bio-secure bubble forthe New Zealand players andofficials at their hotel.

New Zealand last touredPakistan in 2003 for a white-ballseries and since then haveavoided touring the countrybecause of security reasons.

Led by Tom Latham, theNew Zealand squad is missingits regular captain, KaneWilliamson and other key play-ers of their white ball formatswho are either set to competein the IPL or have taken breaks.

Regular coach, Gary Stead

has also not come with the vis-iting squad which will playthree ODIs in Rawalpindi andfive T20Is in Lahore.

The PCB and New ZealandCricket have mutually agreed tochange the status of next week’sODI series to a bilateral series

from the ICC Cricket WorldCup Super League fixtures dueto the non-availability ofDecision Review System (DRS),a requirement in the eventplaying conditions.

As New Zealand will returnto Pakistan in the 2022-23 sea-

son to play two Tests and threeODIs, the two boards haveagreed that these 50-overmatches will now counttowards the ICC Men’s CricketWorld Cup 2023 qualification.

Some key players will jointhe New Zealand squad bytomorrow as they were not partof the squad that recentlyplayed a T20 series inBangladesh.

Daryll Mitchell, Todd Astle,Ish Sodhi, Mark Chapman andMartin Guptill will be joiningthe T20 squad.

NEW ZEALAND SQUADSTom Latham (c) (wk), FinnAllen, Hamish Bennett, TomBlundell (wk), Doug Bracewell,Colin de Grandhomme, MattHenry, Ajaz Patel, BlairTickner,Will Young, Ish Sodhi,Martin Guptill, MarkChapman, Todd Astle, DarylMitchell; (Jacob Duffy, ScottKuggeleijn, Cole McConchie,Henry Nicholls, RachinRavindra only ODIs); Ben Sears(only T20I).

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Royal Challengers Bangalore(RCB) opener Devdutt

Padikkal said on Saturday thatthe break between the twohalves of the IPL 2021 wasn’thuge and therefore all the teamhas to do is continuing with themomentum it had gained in thefirst half.

“It’s almost felt like weare continuing the tourna-ment again. It doesn’t feel likethat we have had a longbreak because we have hadenough cricket in between aswell. It does not feel likea huge break. So, it’s justabout continuing withthe momentum we hadin the first phase of theseason,” said Padikkalin a video interviewposted by the fran-chise on their Twitteraccount.

Asked about theexpectations for

Bangalore to win the trophy thisseason, Padikkal sounded opti-mistic. “I would hope so. Everyyear, everyone comes with thesame hope to win the IPL.Hopefully, this is our year. Wehave a good squad and got somegood replacements coming in aswell. So, we look ready for thechallenge and continue with the

momentum that we have.”Padikkal concluded

by saying he got no indi-vidual goals for the sec-

ond half of IPL 2021 andwants to contribute to

the team’s success.“Nothing specific. Ijust want to contin-ue to contribute tothe side and helpthe team win at theend of the day.That’s what everyone of us wants. Nospecific individualgoals as such. Justwant to contribute tothe team.”

It’s about continuing momentumfrom first phase, says Padikkal

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The Indian cricketers, con-tracted to play the Indian

Premier League (IPL), left for theUAE in chartered and commer-cial flights after returning neg-ative RT-PCR tests for the sec-ond time in two days.

The travel arrangementswere made by players’ respectivefranchises.

“The good news is that allthe players and support staffmembers have now tested neg-ative for the RT-PCR for the sec-ond time. The reports arrivedlate on Friday evening and mostof them are already on their wayto Dubai for the IPL,” a seniorBCCI official said.

“Two non-IPL playersAbhimanyu Easwaran andArjan Nagwaswalla will be fly-ing out on Monday with the restof the support staff. They will beflying to their respective Indiancities via Dubai and will take acommercial flight,” the seniorofficial said.

The players started depart-ing in clusters — some in char-ter flight arranged by their fran-chises like Mumbai Indians andSunrisers Hyderbad whileChennai Super Kings cricketers

took commercial flight.“Mumbai Indians flew in

three of its Indian contingentmembers, captain Rohit Sharma,Jasprit Bumrah, andSuryakumar Yadav, to AbuDhabi on a private charter flight.The trio, along with their fam-ilies, arrived today morningand will now undergo six daysof hard quarantine, startingtoday as per the IPL’s guidelines,”MI issued a statement.

“All members had returnednegative RT PCR results beforedeparture. A new RT PCR testwas undertaken upon arrival atAbu Dhabi, which are negativeas well,” it also stated.

RCB captain Virat Kohliand pacer Mohammed Sirajalso took a charter flight fromManchester. “Keeping the safe-ty and security of our players asthe utmost priority, RoyalChallengers Bangalore havearranged a special charter flightfor captain Virat Kohli andMohammed Siraj to ensure theirsafe transit to the UAE.

“The players will be flyingout at 11.30 PM (UK time) onSaturday and will arrive inDubai early Sunday morning.Both, Virat and Siraj will under-go 6-day quarantine in Dubaibefore joining the team bio-secure bubble,” RCB said.

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0408The final is a rematch of

February’s Australian Openfinal won by Djokovicin straight sets.Medvedev trailsDjokovic 5-3 in theirall-time rivalry.

“If I can make this,I’ll probably be in thehistory books a little bitsomewhere like not letting himdo this,” Medvedev said. “ButI don’t really care about it. Ithink it’s more about him, thatit affects him.

“I’m just going to throw iteverything and I’m definitely

not going to be think-ing about Grand Slamor whatever.”

Djokovic has won27 consecutive Slammatches, three shy ofhis all-time recordstreak from 2015 and

2016 when he won all fourmajor titles in a row.

Zverev, last year’s US Openrunner-up, saw his 16-matchwin streak end.

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We have seen the world trans-form remarkably in the lastone and a half years. The post-Covid-19 world has taught usto cope up with our mental,

physical and emotional health as part of ourdaily routine.

One key trend that emerged was the grow-ing conscious awareness towards getting fit.From Generation X and Y to Generation Z andAlpha, everyone took to the ground and homearena to establish a regime to get healthy, whileencouraging others to follow suit. Social mediastreams and communities became the virtualground for people from different demograph-ics registering their journey of enrolling with aFittr coach to transform their lifestyles. Manycouples started their fitness journey by pro-moting body positivity and highlighting fitnessas a form of couple therapy, sharing#CoupleFitnessGoals and inspiring others tojoin their fitness expedition which the fitnesssector could attest!

The fitness community in India hasevolved rapidly with an advent of a buddingecosystem consisting of vigilant consumers, fit-ness service providers coupled by governmentinitiatives. However, the idea of a healthy mindin a healthy body is not new to Indians —yoga, akhadas, ayurveda, and meditation havealways been a part of our culture. With globali-sation and ease in the availability of informa-tion, traditional practices and exercises arebeing reinforced and supplemented by a mod-ern, dynamic, and rising fitness industry inIndia.

As per a report by Redseer Consulting, thecountry’s fitness industry, which includesequipment, sportswear, fitness services, andrecreational sports was valued at US$12 billionin 2018.

Recent industry reports from FICCI, E&Y,Redseer Consulting, Global Wellness Institute,and IHRSA & Fitternity on the fitness servicessegment estimate that there are six millionactive users spending on an average US$350 toUS$400 annually towards fitness services,amounting to a US$2.6 billion market size.

The overall fitness industry is expected togrow at an annual rate of 27 percent and touchthe US$32 billion mark by 2022, of which fit-ness services (like gyms, slimming services,and formats like zumba, aerobics, crossfit, etc.)will contribute around US$6.6 billion.

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As we continue to grapple with the effectsand after-effects of the pandemic, there isnow a new breed of fitness enthusiasts thathave come into the fold. According to a 2020report, 77% of Indians tried staying fit bycombining household chores with virtualclasses and DIY home workout routines.With gyms and fitness centers closed, limitedspace to exercise indoors and lack of gym-like-set up with little to no access to fitnessequipment, being innovative to stay fitbecame the need of the hour. With fitnessapps such as Fittr and others in play, finding

the right exercise, coach, diet as per one’sneed has become seamless.

From terraces and living rooms, any placewith good connectivity that allowed for liveonline coaching became everyone’s very ownprivate fitness centre! Fitness coaches becamecreative, curating routines with exercises thatwere adapted to these environments.

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With the threat of the virus still at largeand easy access to online training sessions,workouts-at-home have become the pandemicfitness trend, leading to a sharp boom for thevirtual fitness industry and diverse offeringsfor consumers. As per a survey conducted,84% of fitness enthusiasts tried live-streamingfitness classes at least thrice during the lock-down.

Along with online offerings, there’s alsobeen an increase in demand of fitness acces-sories and equipment such as yoga mats,dumbbells, among others. People have recog-nised need of inculcating quantified nutritionand physical exercises in their lifestyle and areincreasingly becoming more aware and con-scious about their health and are looking atvarious alternatives to integrate fitness intotheir lives.

With fitness industry seeing one of thebiggest leaps to online development andbecoming almost entirely digital, the need forfitness specialists and nutritionists haveincreased. Keeping in mind the prevailing sit-uations, fitness specialists have also equippedthemselves with the craft of world wide weband have quickly modified their offerings toonline. In no time, online fitness coaching hasbecome a lucrative business and an alternativecareer option with many applying to becomea certified trainer and even earn specializedfitness certificates by taking online fitnesscourses.

One of the major reasons for digital fitnessindustry booming is that people now under-stand the perks of working out at home in one’sown comfortable space. It’s almost like havingyour personal trainer with you at your homewith:

��Time not being an issueThe excuse that ‘I don’t get time to work

out because of a hectic work schedule’ is nolonger applicable. Previously, while going toand from the gym or a studio was time-con-suming, making it difficult to commit to adaily workout, is no longer an issue anymore!With virtual workouts, you have the leisure ofworking out at your own convenience andtherefore, find the time to insert a sweat ses-sion in your routine. So, no more excuses, allyou have to do is leave them behind, put onsome comfy clothes, set up your mat and turnon your fitness app.

��No more hassle to finding a perfect gymThe hassle to find a gym accommodating

your health goals, budgets and within proximi-ty is no longer a challenge. With virtual fitness

you have a gym right in the comfort of yourhome! All one needs to do is find a comfort-able spot, place your smartphone, laptop, ortablet, option and start working out. You canalso take your workout with you outside, onvacation, to a friend’s house or in your own liv-ing room.

��No peer pressureWhen you exercise amongst a bunch of fit-

ness fanatics at a studio or a gym, for begin-ners especially, it can be an intimidating expe-rience. By working out virtually, much of thatpressure dissipates since you’re only competingwith yourself!

��A community can help build disciplineEspecially for beginners finding discipline

is very important. Once you are disciplinedwith your routine and you start seeing results,motivation will follow. In the beginning per-suading oneself to lace up sneakers and get thebody moving can be challenging. That’s wherevirtual trainers and communities can help gen-erate discipline, passion, guidance, and sup-port, which will amplify your drive. Such fit-ness communities help in becoming moreinvested in your workout so that you are morelikely to show up for the next one. A studyfrom the University of Michigan discoveredthat individuals who worked out virtuallydemonstrated more motivation and performedbetter than those who worked out alone.

��Workouts are boring? Nah!Following the same routine and frequent

exercises can become monotonous and makeyou lose interest. Fitness historically has been amotivating light, bringing in discipline, focusand camaraderie in some cases. Overcoming astale workout routine can be simple. You canswitch up exercises, change exercise order, ormodify activity targeting that muscle you areworking on or your aim.

Moreover, online tools and platforms likeZoom, YouTube, Fittr and Instagram haveincreasingly united a wave of virtual fitnesscommunities in the last eighteen months.Lockdowns even forced people to adapt theirliving spaces to support home fitness routines,allowing people to create new groups, invitefamilies and loved ones for engaging fitnesssessions.

��Easy access to qualified instructorsProfessional guidance is very important to

help you chalk out your fitness regime. Withvirtual programs, exercises to nutrition intakehave been detailed out craft fully by your per-sonal coaches for you to get the most out ofyour workout.

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The emerging trend of online fitness class-es has also made us realise that a person does-n’t need to travel anywhere to stay fit. Anyonecan perform exercises anywhere in the worldand your favourite fitness regime is just a clickaway. But will the increase in live streaming ofworkout sessions and the ever-increasing risein the number of home workout and fitnessapps affect the future of people going to thegym?

Personally, I don’t see that happening. I seethe future as a blend of both digital and physi-cal. It is also the testament of how the generalthinking around fitness has expanded. Besidesworkout arenas and gyms are places wherepeople meet, socialise, and even form friend-ships. In a post-pandemic world, I see peoplewanting to meet — and the gym is a great wayto start. However, gym packages will be a com-bination of physically visiting the gym, onlineclasses, and a personal trainer coming home.

The writer is the author of Lose Fat, Get Fittrand Founder & CEO, Fittr

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Life and death are the two sides of the same coin. Theycomplement each other. They complement one anoth-er. It was this reality that Lord Krishna explained to

Arjun in the Gita when he says that one that is born is cer-tain to die at a predestined time. And one who dies is boundto be born again. All living beings of this world before theirbirths were unmanifest, that is, without the physical bod-ies. In death they again become unmanifest or without thephysical bodies. The physical body is merely an intermedi-ary stage. The soul is defined as unmanifest, beyond imag-ination and faultless. As a man discards old, worn out clothesand puts on new ones, similarly the soul leaves the old, agedbody and gets into a new one. It does not die when the bodyperishes. It is eternal, omnipresent, immortal and stable. Thiseternal lesson of Bhagwad Gita gives an answer to the biggestmystery of life and death. Swami Prabhupada opined thatlife is a question none can answer and death is an answernone can question. But still death is grieved by all. That isthe mystery of life. We don’t want our near and dear onesto depart from this world though we all know that death isa necessary end that will come when it will come. That isthe weakness of human nature. We know that death isinevitable. Yet, we do not like death. This is natural. The inde-structibility of soul is something that does not give any kindof solace to human beings as we know that one who hasdeparted will never come back. Yes, it is a hard fact, the mostdifficult reality of life. It is this reality that we have to facetime and again but coping with it even after knowing it isnot easy. It is this issue that is the most difficult to resolve.The sad news of the demise of a dear friend, Dr. ChandanMitra, was something that put me in a similar predicament.It was sudden and had a big impact. True, it would have givena similar impact to many people, and for a number of rea-sons, all equally genuine. But my case was different. A goodfriend, a noted journalist, and of course, a known person-ality who also was close to me were definitely there at theback of the mind as the reasons that caused pain. But therewas another very significant reason. He was the person behindthe idea of this Hidden Souls, the column that I have beenwriting religiously for around a decade. We had been dis-cussing about this idea of starting a column on spirituality,values and ethics on many occasions that we met. And thensuddenly, after a gap of some twenty days or so I received acall from him that we are going ahead. Had it not been forhim, Hidden Souls would have remained hidden from thereaders even today. It was an idea with a laudable objective.To sensitise readers on issues that stir the soul, make themlook inwards and bring about an awakening to create a bet-ter society. It was an attempt with a lofty objective and it didbring about some encouraging responses from not only dif-ferent parts of the country but many corners of the globe.Though Dr. Mitra is not present with his physical body, hispresence will be felt. The soul lives on.

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This article is in the Indian context,because of our widespread aware-ness about God, soul, etc. Then,

why aren’t so many spiritualistsamongst us? There are several reasons.The first and the most basic one is notrealising what one is missing.

We are born in material bodies, andfrom then on we identify ourselves asmaterial bodies only. Spiritualitychanges everything. Spirituality rein-forces the knowledge/reminds us thatwe are spirits or souls. One of the basicqualities of the soul is consciousness.A conscious entity will not be oblivi-ous of its own reality. Spiritualityworks as a mirror in the sense that itshows the true picture. Why don’t wewant to see the true picture? Becausethe identity of being a soul requires usto connect to the whole, who is God,and that requires ‘tapasya’. We wouldrather live in ignorance, because wedon’t wish to give up our unlimiteddesires for lustful enjoyments.

This is bad enough but worse is forthose who are engaged in sinful acts.They are not oblivious of the fact thatthese sinful acts will be punished as perthe ‘karmaphala’ principle. All acts arebeing duly recorded. A time of reckon-ing will come. But they will rather benot reminded of the harsh reality.Spirituality will shake them.

There are some other reasons aswell for shunning spirituality or specif-ically God. ‘Ahankar’ (ego) is a bigspoiler. Though ego is an intrinsic partof the human body, it is used in a wrongway. We need to have this feeling thatI must do what I have to, who else? Butwe go wrong when we begin to thinkthat we are better than other people orbegin to think and talk too much about

ourselves. In this mindset, where is aplace for God. Ravana, before dying,famously said that ahankar was thecause of his undoing. Bad company isanother reason. Because when weinteract with anyone, something of usrubs on that person and vice versa. Inbad company one justifies whatever oneis. Then, where is the chance of chang-ing, which is required for the progresson the spiritual path?

Some people don’t try, because spir-ituality is somewhat of an unknown ter-ritory, though as souls it shouldn’t be.Here again identifying self as a mate-rial body is a big hindrance. Don’t westruggle for quarter of our lives just tobe able to earn our living? Then, whyshould spirituality, which brings enor-mous rewards, be so easily attainable.Similarly, gains in spirituality are sub-tle, unlike material achievements,which are gross and visible to our sens-

es. But those who practice spiritualitycan sense that they are progressing,because God responds. He has to, oth-erwise how else will we make the nec-essary efforts, or more specifically do‘tapasya’. When we don’t embrace spir-ituality, we hurt ourselves badly, espe-cially in old age when we need God themost. The human life has been divid-ed in four parts and the last part ismeant specifically to pursue spiritual-ly. Shelter of God is absolutely essen-tial then, when the body begins toweaken or gets stricken with some dis-eases. God can help and does help.Spiritualists never suffer ‘durgati’ (endup badly). The Lord has given a spe-cific promise that His devotees neverperish. (9.31) But will we ignore themirror and go on living a life of delu-sion? ����������������������&�����������������������

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It is explained by KavirajGoswami and the previousacharyas that Krishna has threeprimary energies. His internalenergy, which is his spiritual

energy. His external energy or mater-ial energy and the marginal energywhich is the part and parcels spirit soulsthat are eternally sub-ordinate to oneof these two energies as tatatha shak-ti. The living entity must be a servantunder the subjugation of either theinternal energy or the external energy.

The internal energy is where theconstitutional nature of a jiva can befully expressed. The internal energy isthat which is eternal, full of knowledge,full of bliss. Where the bliss of lovingecstatic pastimes is all that takes placeforever. It is the land of unlimited hap-piness. The external energy is the landof exploitation. The land of envy andgreed.

And the Lord has explainedthrough his representatives that thisinternal energy has three principles:Sandini, Samvit and Hladini. TheSandini potency of the internal ener-gy of the Lord is that energy in whichthe Supreme Personality of Godhead

maintains all of existence. And theSamvit potency is that in which thesupreme Lord knows Himself andmakes Himself known to others. AndHladini potency is that potency whichgives the Lord unlimited eternal plea-sure and also gives all of His devoteesunlimited eternal pleasure. And it is forthe purpose of this Hladini shakti thatSandini and Samvit are manifested; areexisting. Because ultimately anandamayo abhyasat Krishna is anandamayi. That means he is the reservoirof all pleasure. And it is only for plea-sure that the Lord transcendentally per-forms his various functions and pas-times in the spiritual world.

Krishna is the supreme enjoyer. Hisenjoyment is the all and all of his exis-tence. And because Krishna is thesupreme enjoyer, the jivatma, which ispart and parcel of Krishna, our life andsoul is also to enjoy. We find the con-ditioned soul under the illusions of thisexternal energy. Every part of that soul’sexistence is simply to try to findenjoyment in one way or the other.Even when we make sacrifices and per-form great austerity it is ultimately forthe purpose of enjoyment. Even when

a man goes to the battlefield to die forhis country, it is so that he can enjoythe fact that his country would be freeand he has given his life for that pur-pose.

Factually, everything we do is forthe purpose of enjoyment. We havechildren for the purpose of enjoyment,we raise children for the purpose ofenjoyment. We go to work and sufferso many austerities for the purpose ofenjoyment. We even remain in thisbody and suffer birth, old age, diseaseand death just for the purpose of littleenjoyment. The whole existence of ourlife is to seek pleasure because we arepart of Krishna , because Krishna exis-tence is simply to taste pleasure, toenjoy pleasure.

But the illusion is we think we canenjoy apart from Krishna. But the nat-ural function of the pleasure seekingnature of the soul is to experienceunlimited pleasure in giving Krishnapleasure. When you water the root ofthe tree every part of the tree is satis-fied. Similarly, when we satisfy Krishnaautomatically our soul is satisfied, allthe Demi-Gods are satisfied, everyoneis satisfied. That if we surrender to

Mukunda we have no other responsi-bilities or duties to anyone because allobligations are fulfilled when we pleaseKrishna. Because He is the reservoir ofall pleasure which means that we canall derive unlimited pleasure fromKrishna just by pleasing him.

But where does Krishna get hispleasure from? This is the great ques-tion that Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswamiis herein explaining in such wonder-ful, wonderful shlokas. That thesupreme absolute truth is one. Thereis one God, there is not a second God.

Krishna says I am the source of allmaterial and spiritual existence.Everything emanates from me.

That Krishna is the supreme truth.There is no truth superior to Krishna.He is the supreme enjoyer. But wheredoes that one supreme truth andenjoyer get his enjoyment from?Obviously he gets it from himself.Because everything is contained with-in him, nothing exists separate fromHim.

Krishna has multifarious energies.We have described the principal three.And they have innumerable sub-divi-sions, but they are all Krishna , they areall within Krishna, they are all ofKrishna. So when Krishna wants toenjoy supreme bliss he is the supremeenjoyer, so in order for Him to enjoysupreme enjoyment He needs someonewho is supremely enjoyable. ThereforeKrishna expands Himself as His ownHladini shakti or pleasure potency. Andthe function of this pleasure potencyis to give Krishna unlimited pleasure.And in giving Krishna pleasure, thepleasure potency enjoys even greaterpleasure than Krishna. And in this rela-tionship of supreme pure spiritual plea-sure, Krishna becomes the reservoir ofall pleasure and then all living entities,all the jivatmas can derive unlimitedbliss from Krishna and he gets that blissfrom his eternal consort ShrimatiRadha Rani. She is the source of allpleasure. She is the source of all hap-piness. And just as Krishna expandsHimself in various avatars to enjoy var-ious rasas or pleasures at different timesand at different places and in differentmoods for all of eternity, similarlyShrimati Radha Rani, his pleasurepotency, expands alongwith Him.

When Krishna expands inVaikunta into Lord Narayan, ShriRadhika expands Herself as LaxmiDevi. Simply to give Narayan unlim-ited pleasure. Radha is the supremeenergy of Lord Krishna and accompa-nies Krishna in all his incarnations.This year on 14th Sept we celebrateRadhaAshtami the appearance day ofShrimati Radha Rani

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Many people dream ofowning an abode, butvery few are lucky

enough to make their dreamscome true. A house becomes ahome because of the memberswho live in it. However, yourarchitect plays a crucial role inthe happiness of your family.When the architect plans yourdream home, the small negli-gence of following Vaastu cancause profound joy or pain inyour life.

A Vaastu practice is mainlyfollowed to achieve overall well-being and prosperity. VaastuShastra architecture revolves

around the structure and designof a building. By having theright shape or shell, a home canchannel the right energy andprevent negativity from comingin. Vaastu principles are bestconducted using symmetrical orright-angled shapes, such as rec-tangles and squares. Houseswith these plot shapes are pros-perous and happy. Ancient sci-ence believes that irregular orcurved-shaped buildings (oval,circular, or semi-circular)restrict an individual’s growthand cause various health prob-lems, losses, and a general feel-ing of unhappiness in the indi-

vidual life. According to Vaastu

Shastra, spaces are organisedand shaped based on their func-tions and purposes within aroom, a structure, or a collectionof rooms. Vaastu Shastra hasbeen incorporated into thedesign of cities, towns, gardens,roads, and water systems, as wellas in cities, townships, play-rooms, offices, and prayerrooms.

Besides illustrating how tobuild a building, Vaastu offersguidelines for designing it. Anarchitect can play a vital role inyour happiness and prosperity

by following or not following theVaastu norms. As an Architect,you can look up to few factorswhile designing. In the contextof Vaastu Shastra, whichencourages positive energy flow,the setting of the house property— which identifies the locationand orientation of the livingspace — is crucial because itestablishes the flow of positiveenergy.

Vaastu Shastra says anydirection a home faces is good,whether it’s East, West, North, orSouth because every one ofthem has advantages but, anarchitect could look for some ofthe following instructions whiledesigning and planning:��Positioning the puja room inyour house affects prosperityand peace in the home.��A furniture arrangement caninfluence a room’s energy bal-ance, affecting health and men-tal wellbeing.��Health and happiness can beenhanced by placing mirrors inthe key locations in the home.��For healthy and hygienicenvironment water should beplaced correctly.��Choosing the right coloursfor every room in the house canalso affect the mood or feelingin the room and should be donewith care.

So, next time you look topurchase a property, ensure andcheck if your architect knowsthe basics of Vaastu and liveyour life with happiness.

The writer is an astrologer &Vaastu Consultant

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-����� ��� ����� ��)�-� ������� �(���������Grief has been with us in

one guise or another allalong. Off and on, it has visit-ed all of us. Understandinggrief is concerned with one ofthe most intrinsic activities ofhuman mind, namely mentalevents or experiences thatcause grief. Grief, essentiallyspeaking, is a phenomenalexperience: a phenomenonconnoting a sense mind direct-ly takes note of. The concept ofgrief goads us to know not onlyhow mental activities occur orget altered during grief but alsohow it affects our physical andpsychological being. Grief pro-vokes more investigation intothe relationship between griefand facts of life. Let us look atthe wood instead of the trees.Simplicity eludes us in explain-ing most simplistic situations inlife. The objective of this arti-cle is to cover limited aspectsof grief related situations.

A friend of mine, inemployment almost a thousandmiles from his home town, onhis visit to home town, met hiselder brother who was grippedby severe physical problems.Elder brother requested forsome financial help. Youngerone obliged and promised himsome help in future. Monthslater, younger one kept hispromise and sent him someamount as per his financialcapacity through money order.With no mobiles/landline inthe house, he got no confir-mation. Moreover communi-cation with members of hishouse had significantlydeclined with yawning timegap as he was employed far off.But younger brother had noworries. Money had gone; itwould reach. Internet facilitywas yet to come to shape.Movement tracking was notpossible on the postal depart-ment website.

About a month later, themoney order came back with acryptic message. “Theaddressee expired six monthsback. Hence money returned.”Shock came to younger one intwo forms: first why none inthe family thought of inform-ing him of his brother’s death,and second: Did he delay hisaction in sending money to hisbrother? Could he present acoherent face to his relativesand friends? The aftermath ofan incident causing griefassumes greater significancewhile life is seemingly stabilis-ing once one travels long dis-tances from the time of inci-dent. But is it so?

Such incidents do occur toall of us reminding us ofPakistani poet Muneer Niyazi’s

poem: HAMESHA DER KARDETA HOON MAIN. Whatsensitive lines from a sensitivepoet!

“Hamesha der kar deta hunmain har kaam karne men,

Zaruri baat kahni ho, koivaada nibhana ho,

Use avaz deni ho, use vapasbulana ho,

hamesha der kar deta hunmain,

Kisi ko maut se pahle kisigham se bachana ho,

Haqiqat aur thi kuchh, usko jake ye batana ho,

Hamesha der kar deta hunmain har kaam karne men”.

The eminent poet harpedon the essence of time. Time iscrucial in rendering help to any.A person in need may not beable to tell of his woes nextmoment. Then only the hazeremains. To be more precisegrief or its remains: the haze ofgrief. Had money reached intime, would something betterhave occurred to the elderbrother? Would he have liveda few more months or years?Perhaps not. Nevertheless, griefovertook the younger brother.He had answers to none. Butthis element of grief stayed withhim throughout. It might bethat in no way, the eldestbrother was a pillar of youngerbrother’s existence. He was acomplete self-made man. Griefstrikes self-made men andwomen too. This incident tookplace almost twenty years backbut traces of devastated per-sonality of my friend are stilleasily perceptible.

Grief distorts the equani-mous infrastructure of life,though it is possible from out-side, a man’s face reveals noth-ing or he does not display anyouter disturbances when con-fronted with grief-causingepisodes. Many times clearimages of grief are not easilydiscernable from a man’s facewhich may harbour amongmany elements, sadness; anx-iety; distorted thoughts; dis-oriented realties; fear, tiredness,remains of last night’s dreamsand above all a sense of regret.Gloomy faces, social with-drawal, irritability, obsession-al worrying are part of pictureof grief. Alternatively said,these are the general contoursof grief. Of late psychologistshave reached some consensuson severe complexity of natureof grief. Individualistic char-acter of grief has narrow inter-pretative values. Grief hasmany consequences. One suchis kicking in of “fight or flight”behaviour with stress hor-mones flooding the body.Researchers have shown grief

has strong effect on grief-stricken people. It disturbs thelimbic system of the brainwhich controls memory andemotions. Resultantly the pre-frontal cortex which plays acentral role in cognitive controlfunctions like attention, cog-nitive flexibility, decision mak-ing, etc, roll back to backwater.Excessive grief causes an indi-vidual to experience feelings ofprofound sadness and depres-sion slowly leading to loneli-ness. Emptiness becomesprominent in his joyless lifewith significant slowing downof thought processes. Oftentimes he is visited upon by guiltof “unpardonable sins” like theyounger brother above. If thehaze of grief continues forbeyond a reasonable time andin a disproportionately greaterproportion, depressive patternsand other mental aberrationsraise their heads.

Grief has many ramifica-tions. What if a person isbereft of capacity to feel sorrowand grief or is unable to expressthese publicly? World is repletewith strange creatures and bythe same corollary strangeactions and reactions. Theprincipal character in AlbertCamus’s classic novel TheOutsider got a telegram inform-ing him of his mother’s death.The rest of the novel handlescharacter’s rendezvous with

the grief his mother’s deathcaused and its aftermath whichled to his refusal to tell lies, hisconfession of truth, then histrial and then punishment.During trail a barrage ofunpleasant questions he had toaccount for such as weather he“had displayed a lack of emo-tion” on the day of his moth-er’s death; if he “had felt anygrief ” on the day of funeral; ifhe “believed in God”; if moth-er’s death was “a personal sac-rifice for” him; if he had criedseeing his dead mother, etc.What followed his mother’sdeath were sequences centringon “grief ” but leading to otherdirections away from the prin-cipal theme of death and grief.The character chose to die forthe sake of truth: he refused tolie. He did face the haze ofhaunting grief before he wentto suffer punishment. Griefdoes not end instantaneously,it lasts. At times it is a life-timepunishment.

Vladimir Nabokov’s bookINSOMANIC DREAMS toomerits consideration. Nabokovwas a die-hard insomniac usinghigh and strong doses of med-ication for sliding into dream-less and soothing sleep. So hehad dreams at dawn just beforewaking up from restlessness ofdisturbed sleep throughout thenight. Then he had an enlargedprostate gland causing him

repeated urge to rush to loo forurination. These facts are bareminimum to see the context.Staying in a grand Swiss hotelin Montreux, Nabokov toyedwith an experiment. DuringOctober 14, 1964, to January 31965, immediately after wakingup, he recorded the rescuedportions of his dreams. Thusthis book is a dreamer’s log.What for? Next few days hewould search for somethingthat happened and had any-thing to do with his dreams. Hewas keen to put a theory toscrutiny. The theory believesdreams: fragmented, jumbledand mis-labelled, may not onlyrelate to past events like deathof a beloved one or divorce butcould be precognitive. Let uslook at following lines:

‘Got up, lay down, got upagain.

Daybreak, like death, drewnearer, creeping.

If I’ll keep going on with-out sleeping,

I shall complain.’ A closer look at the analy-

sis of his dreams unquestion-ably convinces readers thatdreams may be ornamentalconvolution of past and futureevents but in no less importantway, they bring readers close toNabokov’s personal world ofgrief, anxiety, pain, intensedepression and woes. It’s ananxious world: violent and

surreal. Grief-stricken peoplevery often see different types offear arousing, tormentingdreams an analysis of contentof which gives a graphic pictureof the internal upheavals ofsuch people. Sleeplessnessenhances problems further.

What causes grief andresultant mental issues is aquestion which has beensought to be answered by psy-chologists. Way back in 1959,psychiatrist Silvano Arietiattributed severe depressivereactions to three causativefactors: First, death of a lovedone (like the younger brother’sbrother); second, failure in apersonal relationship; andthird, a setback in the work towhich an individual has devot-ed significant portion of his life.These still remain three broadcategories, though one can addmany more to the list. Theseconditions first create griefand then lead to conduciveenvironment for aberrations inbehaviour. How long does grieflast? From a few days to years?When grief lasts for long time,it becomes a disease known asprolonged grief disorder justlike anxiety disorders requiringpsychiatric treatment.

One way to rescue oneselffrom severe consequences ofcontinuing grief (deep depres-sion, melancholy and otherpsychic issues) is to draw a bal-ance between seeking plea-sures from life and avoidingpain and discomfort. One hasto learn to perceive and copewith real-life situations: joyousor inevitable hurts. Neededsocial, emotional, intellectual,moral competencies have got tobe learnt though problem-solving and decision makingprocesses in life. This inabnormal psychology is called“the process of maturation”. Inan experiment, Harlow &Harlow observed that if infantmonkeys were subjected topartial deprivation, (they couldsee but not interact with othermonkeys), it would lead topermanent inadequacies insocial behaviour. To handlegrief, one needs to haverequired adequacies at one’scommand. If that is not avail-able, a person will not be ableto tackle stressful situationsstemming from grief and it, inturn, will pave the way forher/his disorganisation. Fearhas serious links with grief.

It is during infancy andearly childhood that fears areacquired as at that stage manyindividuals are helpless andcannot cope with externalthreats. Therefore, individualswho unfortunately don’t learn

needed competencies and ade-quacies to handle external dan-ger become vulnerable later.These competencies enable aperson to come out of whatpsychologists Woodworth andSchlosberg call “blindingeffect” or “functional fixidity”.“Blinding effect” in brief con-notes a person’s inability to lookbeyond a few alternatives. Forsolving problems, say for exam-ple, arising out of grief situa-tions, a matured individualhas to initiate process of stim-ulating new ideas; they mightshow that there is more thanone way of looking at things.Life does not have only onefacet. There should be contin-ual attempt to embrace moreand more phenomena andoptions. One ought to forgetsingle-peaked nature of grief.He has to tease out psycholog-ical nuances of his own situa-tion and behaviour. Correctappreciation of grief, its natureand aftermath is instrumentalin understanding himself.

Considering that pro-longed grief disorders havemuch to do with lack of com-petencies and maintenance ofmaladaptive behaviour, a timehas dawned to reduce focus onindividual dynamics of suffer-ers and focus on social injus-tices and inequities that exac-erbate feelings of grief. Solutionto grief-related problems lies inhelping concerned individualsto become more spontaneousand authentic and try outnewer ways of experiencing,communicating and being.Isolated aspects of grief shouldnot be divorced from the context of the whole life andvice versa.

(The writer, a civil servantwho superannuated in July 2020as Additional DeputyComptroller & Auditor Generalin the rank of Special Secretaryto the Govt of India from theoffice of CAG. He is a poet,writer and columnist. Author ofthree volumes of poetry, hispoems have been translatedinto Hindi (Andhere Se NikliKavitayen — VANIPRAKASHAN (2017) and hisbook “Shadows of the Real” intoRussian by veteran Russianpoet Adolf Shvedchikov. Hisfourth book “Soliloquy of aSmall-Town Uncivil Servant”: aliterary non-fiction published inMarch 2019 by RupaPublications, New Delhi, hasreceived international acclaim inliterary field. His next book: acollection of Essays& Critiquesis expected shortly. Viewsexpressed here are his personalviews)

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seriously impact thehealth of human and theecosystem, with a rapidly grow-ing, resource-consuming pop-ulation. Less than 1 per cent ofworld’s freshwater is availablefor human consumption, andeveryday, over 2 million tonnesof sewage, industrial and agri-cultural wastes are releasedinto waters around the world.

Riverine pollution iscaused by numerous factors,but the biggest determiningfactor continues to be devel-opment in areas vulnerable torun-off. The anthropogenicactivity follows a template ofresource consumption, utilisa-tion, and wastage. Applied tothe context of freshwater fromrivers, we consume water fromour rivers, use it for our needsand dispose downstream foranother set of users.

Unplanned and uncon-trolled disposal of solid waste,not just wastewater, has exac-erbated the problem of passingon pollutants to other waterusers. The dependence of riverflow on regular freshwaterinputs from precipitation andsnowmelt underlines theintrinsic connection betweenthe atmosphere and the waterflowing in our rivers.

The nature of anthro-

pogenic activities heavily influ-ences the composition of theearth’s atmosphere, affectinghuman and ecosystem’s health.According to the WHO, over91 per cent of the world’s pop-ulation live in places where the

air quality has sunk beyond therecommended limits. Air pol-lution accounted for over 12per cent of all deaths in 2019.

To add to these issues, theoccurrence of both legacy andnew “emerging” organic pollu-

tants has become increasinglycommon. Chlorinated pesti-cides used for agriculture andvector control, brominatedplastic additives added as flameretardants for fire resistance,fluorinated surfactants used in

non-stick cookware, and manysuch chemicals are all examplesof persistent organic pollu-tants (POPs), which poseimmense risk to human healthowing to their ability to resistdegradation.

Other compounds, includ-ing pharmaceuticals and plas-ticisers, are deemed to be pseu-do-persistent because of theirconstant release into the envi-ronment. Some of these chem-icals are carcinogenic, cancause endocrine disruptionand mutagenicity. Despitebeing present at trace levels inthe environment, chronichuman exposure to these toxiccompounds can significantlyimpact health.

During the recent Covid-19 pandemic, day-to-day andregular commercial activitieswere crippled and pollutants inair like PM10, PM2.5, oxides ofsulphur and nitrogen saw amarked decline in their con-centrations. Some surface waterquality characteristics, like dis-solved oxygen levels and nutri-ent concentrations, showedslight improvements in theriverwater.

However, despite a slow-down in economic activities,the presence of POPs in theenvironment will continue tolinger for decades despitedecreased manufacturing anduse. Once released into theenvironment, POPs continue tooccur due to their persistence.POPs can also undergo long-range atmospheric transport(dubbed “grasshopper effect”)

and exhibit the tendency fortransboundary movement,affecting non-source regions.Thus, even if there was noemission of these pollutants ina particular region, these areascan still be affected by exposureto POPs transported from hun-dreds of kilometre away.

(Paromita Chakraborty isan Associate Professor, SRMResearch Institute SRM Instituteof Science & Technology,Kattankulathur, India. ProfDaniel Snow is LaboratoryDirector, Water SciencesLaboratory, University ofNebraska-Lincoln/NebraskaWater Center, USA. The WaterScience Laboratory, part of theNebraska Water Center andDaugherty Water for FoodGlobal at the University ofNebraska, is at the forefront ofemerging pollutants analysisincluding steroids, pharmaceu-ticals and other toxicants.Environmental Science &Technology Group at SRMResearch Institute, Departmentof Civil Engineering, Institute ofScience and Technology, hasdeveloped protocols especially forwastewater-based epidemiolog-ical surveillance and concur-rence of SARS-CoV-2 withchemical markers during thispandemic.)

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Human mind is driven by a sense ofduality. That makes you see thingsin relative terms. Two persons

exploring the same issue/object may per-ceive it differently. Even truths pertainingto the living mortal world becomes rela-tive. For, there remains thin dividing linebetween seeming reality and the underly-ing truth. Put almost equal amount ofmilk in two transparent glasses. Mix littlewater to one of them. To the onlookers, itwill be difficult to figure out which one isadulterated. But if you offer the adulterat-ed milk to a swan, it will consume puremilk and leave aside water content. Sucha fine sense of discriminatory ability isarrived at by what is termed in spiritualityas becoming a Paramhansa. This state isarrived at when one transgresses all limi-tations of mind.

The ones who could becomeParamhansa, were able to explore andcomprehend even subtle realities of life,operative at imperceptible level. AncientIndia’s rishis, Buddha, and realised mas-ters all across come under this category.They came out with profound philoso-phies. Those, who could overcome theirlimitations even partially, emerged asacclaimed scientists who created history

with their remarkable inventions. Evenmany social reformers who led peopleimprove their lot, come under this cate-gory. It is believed that Einstein could use10% of his mind-power against 5 to 7%ordinarily available with ordinary mor-tals.

That is why Swami Vivekanand usedto say: “The history of the world is thehistory of few men, who had faith inthemselves. Faith calls out divinity within;you can could do anything. You do notfail in life simply because destiny is soscripted. It is because you do not strivesufficiently to unfold immense powerwithin.”

What happens when you become aParamhansa? He/She has access to thefull landscape of mind, when wholesomepowers of mind spontaneously come intoplay. It then knows no limits. The irony,however, is that with limited mindpoweravailable, ordinary mortals get a narrowwindow frame to look at. Evidently, witha narrow vision, one fails to look at issuesin hand in the right perspective due, andwith obvious consequences. And becauseof one’s habit tendencies, we dissipate alarge part of our mindpower, towardsunproductive ends. One, thus, is hardly

left with enough to do justice to the call-ings of the targeted destination. This isnot to suggest that each one of us couldbecome a Paramhansa. Even if one couldoptimise what is already available, it willhelp successfully negotiate the callings ofusual life with relative ease. If one couldraise the mindpower little higher throughconscious efforts, he could make it big inlife.

The question now is: why is it that anordinary mortal is born with a limitedmind power? And how come they fail tooptimally use even what is available?Answer lies in our inherent ignorance,coming as it may as Karmic carryoverfrom the past. That holds the key to anindividual’s desire trends as well as habittendencies and attitudes. The habits andattitudes do not let you weigh your desiretrends objectively — whether they areachievable. They do not let you lookbeyond for better options suited to yourskill sets either. Nor do they allow you tocarry on the task in hand in a focusedway.

While I was explaining the aboveconcept to someone who has often failedto strike his targeted destination, cameout with a counter question: “Can destiny,

which is a sequel to our own doing andundoing in the past be changed?Applying the same logic, is it possible tochange the habits and attitudes identifiedwith a being?”

Yes, one could do it through sus-tained conscious efforts, I answered.Elaborating further, I explained that itwas with the intent to find answer to theabove question that learned masters suchas Buddha toiled day in and day. In theprocess, they explored the subtle as wellas living realities of life. Pursuing further,they not simply found the root causeunderlying human suffering, but alsoworked out ways and means to overcomethem. To make things further clear, twoaspects of life need attention. First, thepremise on which the theory of Karmastands. Second, the construct and chem-istry of mind, which remains the prime-mover of a being. For, all that happensout in open, begins in mind. First youvisualise and then articulate ways andmeans to successfully pursue the task inhand.

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