VOL.17, ISSUE 45 | Monday, 14 February, 2022 | New Delhi | Pages 12 | Rs 3.00PUBLISHED FROM DELHI | KOLKATA

MILLENNIUMPOST.IN

MPOST BUREAU

SRINAGAR/NEW DELHI: The security cover of four former Jammu and Kashmir chief ministers has been scaled down further with the Union Territory administration’s decision to stop deployment of jam-mers and ambulances during their movement within Srinagar district, according to officials.

On Saturday, veteran politician and Lok Sabha member Farooq Abdullah, was seen offering prayers at the famous Hazratbal shrine and Dasgeer Saab in downtown Srinagar but there was neither an ambulance nor were there jammers, which, among other things, also blocks signals in cases where terrorists have planted an improvised explo-sive device that can be triggered by remote control.

The ambulance is provided to attend to medical emergencies dur-ing travel. Turn to P4

No jammer, ambulance for

former J&K CMs in Srinagar

GLACIERS IN KARAKORAM REGION STABLE, OTHERS MELTING FASTER: GOVT

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Glaciers in the Karakoram region are in a stable condition, but those feeding the Ganga and the Brahmaputra river basins are melting at a faster rate, the Earth Sciences Min-istry has said.

In reply to a written question in the Lok Sabha, the ministry said the mean retreat rate of the Hindukush Himalayan glaciers was 14.9-15.1 metres per annum, which varied from 12.7-13.2 metres per annum in the Indus, 15.5-14.4 metres per annum in the Ganga and 20.2-19.7 metres per annum in the Brahmaputra river basins.

“However, glaciers in the Karakoram region have shown comparatively minor length change (-1.37 22.8 m/a), indicating the stable condition,” the ministry said, citing studies carried out by various institutions associated with the ministry.

The ministry, through its autonomous institute National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR), has been monitoring six glaciers in the Chandra basin (2,437 square kilometre area) in western Himalaya since 2013.

The Geological Survey of India has taken up a project on melting of glaciers in the Beas Basin, South Chenab basin and the Chandra Basin in Himachal Pradesh, and the Shyok and Nubra basin in Ladakh during Field Season 2021-22. Turn to P4

COUNTDOWN BEGINS

Indian Space Research Organisation’s PSLV C5-2 carrying orbit earth observation satellite EOS-04 and two other small satellites is scheduled for lauch from the First Launch Pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, on Monday PTI

No Half Truths

City: Pg 3Schools to focus on well-being as they prep to welcome younger kids

RNI NO.: DELENG/2005/15351REGD. NO.: DL(S)-01/3420/2018-20

MPOST BUREAU

BENGALURU: Punjab Kings decided to break the bank to sign England’s T20 specialist Liam Livingstone, paying a stagger-ing Rs 11.50 crore for him while Mumbai Indians, purely based on leap of faith, paid a whopping Rs 8 crore for an injured Jofra Archer despite his unavailability for the 2022 edition of the IPL.

The teams went going big on current India players and largely based their decision on the form players from overseas with more focus on fast bowlers, not caring about reputations as the likes of Steve Smith, Aaron Finch, Suresh Raina, Ishant Sharma found out.

The two-day IPL auction ended on Sunday with Sunris-ers Hyderabad and Punjab Kings predictably making the hefty pay-outs with bigger purses in store while Mumbai Indians

and Delhi Capitals now look formidable on batting front but slightly short in bowling arsenal.

Having roped in Livingstone, Punjab Kings also used its deep pockets to pick up West Indies all-rounder Odean Smith for Rs 6.5 crore. He was impressive in the recently concluded ODI series against India.

Sunrisers weren’t going to be left behind in bidding frenzy,

roping in CPL sensation from the West Indies Romario Shep-herd for Rs 7.75 crore based on his all-round skills.

Delhi’s bowling attack where Anrich Nortje will be partnered by Shardul Thakur, Khaleel Ahmed, Chetan Sakariya and Kuldeep Yadav doesn’t inspire highest confidence.

Having lost Kagiso Rabada on the first day to a rampaging

Punjab Kings, Delhi invested 5.25 crore on Khaleel Ahmed, who is known to leak runs in slog overs and Rs 4.20 crore on left-armer Sakariya who pace is limited to 130s. The duo cumu-latively cost them Rs 9.45 crore which is more than what Punjab paid for Rabada.

Similarly for Mumbai Indi-ans, Tymal Mills despite his T20 exploits, has been a big flop in Indian conditions as he gets ready to partner Jasprit Bum-rah and Daniel Sims in absence of Archer for the year.

“So happy to have got him (Archer). So happy to have Jof and Boom making a lethal bowl-ing attack although next year,” MI owner Akash Ambani con-firmed that Archer indeed won’t play this edition.

MI is looking at Archer being one of their legends in the space vacated by Lasith Malinga and stay on for the next five to six

years and are ready to sacrifice one year.

But Mumbai Indians’ x-fac-tor player certainly was Singa-pore international of Australian origin, Tim David who was bought for Rs 8 crore.

David, who has played for RCB, is an all-rounder but known more for his big-hitting abilities. He produced 19 sixes in seven games for Multan Sultans in Pakistan Super League.

“Tim David is going to part-ner Kieron Pollard at number 5 and 6. Fortunately, he got a spell at RCB last year. so he has got experience of IPL.”

Lucknow Supergiants have prepared a good first eleven with likes KL Rahul, Quinton de Kock, Marcus Stonis, Man-ish Pandey, Krunal Pandya, Jason Holder, Mark Wood and Avesh Khan but look short on back-up in terms of batting reserves. Turn to P4

Teams spend big on Livingstone, ArcherOn final day of IPL mega auction, Punjab Kings pay a staggering Rs 11.50 crore for Liam

Livingstone while Mumbai Indians pay a whopping Rs 8 crore for an injured Jofra Archer

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI/KOLKATA: A conven-tion of the chief ministers of opposi-tion parties will soon take place in Delhi to discuss the “brazen misuse of power by the Governors of non-BJP ruled states”. This was announced, on Sunday, by M K Stalin, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu after a discussion with his West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee.

Earlier in the day, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had called up Sta-lin and expressed her concern over

the Constitutional overstepping of the Governor. They had a telephonic

conversation and both agreed to hold a meeting of the opposition chief min-isters in Delhi. The venue has not been decided yet.

Stalin tweeted: “Beloved Didi tele-phoned me to share her concern and anguish on the Constitutional over-stepping and brazen misuse of power by the Governor of non-BJP states.

She suggested a meeting of the opposition chief ministers. I assured her of DMK’s commitment to uphold state autonomy. Convention of oppo-sition CMs will soon happen out of Delhi.” Turn to P4

Mamata calls Stalin, proposes meet of CMs of non-BJP ruled states

CityPOSITIVITY COMES DOWN TO 1.5% 3

Nation7 LABOURERS RESCUED 6

edit BIDDING FOR THE BEST 7

internationalGERMAN PRESIDENT RE-ELECTED 8

businessMFS GARNER NEARLY `1 LAKH CR 10

sportMUMBAI CITY DEMOLISH ODISHA FC 11

In today’s paper

...

Amarinder replaced as his govt was being run by

BJP from DelhiPriyanka Gandhi

Jofra Archer FILE PHOTO Liam Livingstone FILE PHOTO

MISUSE OF POWER BY GUVs

OUR CORRESPONDENT

PANAJI/DEHRADUN/LUCKNOW: Vot-ing will be held on Monday in all Assembly seats in Goa and Uttarakhand, besides 55 constituencies in Uttar Pradesh in the sec-ond phase of the state polls, with chief min-isters Pramod Sawant and Pushkar Singh Dhami, former CM Harish Rawat and jailed Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan among the prominent candidates in the fray.

It is a high-stakes election for the ruling BJP and a litmus test for the Modi govern-ment’s policies that have been targeted by the Congress, AAP and other opposition parties during their campaign.

The coastal state of Goa, with over 11 lakh voters, has 301 candidates contesting from 40 Assembly seats, while in Uttara-khand, which has an electorate of 81 lakh, 632 candidates, including 152 indepen-dents, are fighting from 70 seats.

Tight security arrangements were in place in the politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh where 586 candidates are contest-ing in this phase from 55 seats spread across the districts of Saharanpur, Bijnor, Morad-abad, Sambhal, Rampur, Amroha, Budaun, Bareilly and Shahjahanpur.

Over 60,000 police personnel and nearly 800 companies (around 100 security per-sonnel each) of paramilitary forces will be on duty on the election day, officials said, adding 4,917 polling booths out of 12,538 are considered “critical”.

Eight Assembly constituencies of Nag-ina, Dhampur, Bijnor, Asmoli, Sambhal, Deoband, Rampur Maniharan and Gangoh have been placed in the ‘sensitive’ category, the UP police said in a statement.

Traditionally Goa and Uttarakhand have seen bipolar politics, but they are wit-nessing a multi-cornered contest this time

with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) throw-ing its hat in the ring.

The Trinamool Congress (TMC) and other smaller parties are also vying to make a mark on Goa’s electoral scene.

Campaigning was affected by COVID-19 restrictions which were gradually relaxed by the Election Commission in the last cou-ple of weeks.

Election officials said all arrangements have been made to conduct polling while following COVID-19 protocols.

Over 100 all-women polling booths called ‘Sakhi’ or pink booths have been set up in each state this time to encourage the participation of women in the polling pro-cess, according to officials.

Also, some booths will be manned by differently-abled persons.

Voting will begin at 8 AM and conclude at 6 PM in Uttarakhand where there will be 11,697 polling booths. It will be the fifth Assembly election to be held in the hill state after its creation in 2000. Turn to P4

Voting in Goa, Uttarakhand & 55 seats in UP in second

phase of Assembly polls today

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The govern-ment on Sunday filed draft papers with capital market reg-ulator Sebi for selling 5 per cent stake in insurance behemoth LIC through an initial public offering which is likely to hit D-street in March.

“The DRHP of LIC IPO has been filed today with the SEBI. For filing valuation about 31.6 crore shares are on offer rep-resenting 5 per cent equity,” Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey tweeted.

As per the draft red her-ring prospectus, LIC’s embed-ded value has been pegged at about Rs 5.4 lakh crore as of September 30, 2021, by inter-national actuarial firm Milli-man Advisors.

Under the embedded value method, insurance companies’ present value of future profit is also included in its present net

asset value (NAV).The IPO is 100 per cent

offer for sale (OFS) by the Gov-ernment of India and no fresh issue of shares by Life Insur-ance Corporation (LIC).

“LIC has 66 per cent market share in new business premi-ums with 283 million policies and 1.35 million agents as of March 31, 2021,” Pandey added.

The government, however, did not disclose in the DRHP the market valuation of LIC or the discount which will be given to policyholders or LIC employees in the public

offering.The IPO of LIC is expected

by March and the proceeds would be crucial to meet the revised disinvestment target of Rs 78,000 crore for the cur-rent fiscal. So far, the govern-ment has raised Rs 12,030 crore through CPSE disinvestment and Air India strategic sale this fiscal.

The government has appointed 10 merchant bank-ers, including Kotak Mahin-dra Capital, Goldman Sachs (India) Securities Pvt Ltd, Citi-group Global Markets India Pvt Ltd and Nomura Finan-

cial Advisory and Securities (India) Pvt Ltd, to manage the mega IPO of the country’s larg-est insurer.

The government is also mulling allowing foreign inves-tors to pick up stake in LIC. As per Sebi rules, foreign portfolio investors (FPI) are permitted to buy shares in a public offer.

FDI policy would have to be tweaked for FII/FPI investment in this IPO, as LIC is a corpora-tion and not an insurance com-pany. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs had in July last year cleared the pro-posal for LIC’s IPO.

Centre to sell 5% in LIC via IPO, files draft papers with SEBI

Embedded value of LIC is nearly Rs 5.4 lakh cr as of September 30, 2021

Daily new Covid cases dip below 50,000 after 40 days

India logs 44,877 new infections, 684 fresh fatalitiesOUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Daily new COVID-19 cases in the coun-try dipped below 50,000 after around 40 days, taking the country’s virus tally to 4,26,31,421, while the active cases declined to 5,37,045, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Sunday.

India logged 44,877 infec-tions, while the death toll climbed to 5,08,665 with 684 fresh fatalities, the data updated at 8 am stated.

A total of 37,379 people had tested positive for the infection in a day on January 4.

The daily COVID-19 cases were recorded less than one lakh for seven consecutive days

The active cases com-prise 1.26 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has further improved to 97.55 per cent, the ministry said.

A reduction of 73,398 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours. The daily positiv-ity rate was recorded at 3.17 per cent and the weekly positiv-ity rate settled at 4.46 per cent,

according to the ministry.The number of people who

have recuperated from the disease surged to 4,15,85,711, while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.19 per cent.

The cumulative doses

administered in the country so far under the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive has exceeded 172.81 crore.

Meanwhile, Union Health Minister Mansukh Manda-viya said on Sunday that over 70 per cent of India’s adoles-cents in the 15-18 age group have received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine so far.

He also appealed to all those in this age group who are eligible for vaccination to get inoculated at the earliest.

“Young India further strengthening the world’s larg-est vaccination drive. Over 70% of our youngsters between 15-18 age group have received their 1st dose of COVID19 vac-cine,” Mandaviya said.

“I appeal to all eligible young friends to get vaccinated at the earliest,” he added.

Health ministry data showed over 1.47 crore benefi-ciaries in the 15 to 18 age group are fully vaccinated.

A healthcare worker collects a swab sample from a man to test for Covid-19, in Jammu MPOST

Film: Pg 12‘Was more invested in the humanisation of Pamela’

Nation: Pg 5Congress accuses Modi govt of complicity and collusion

Highlights » The IPO of LIC is expected by March » Government has appointed 10 merchant bankers to man-age the mega IPO » Government is also mulling allowing foreign investors to pick up stake in LIC » LIC has 66 per cent market share in new business premi-ums with 283 million policies and 1.35 million agents as of March 31, 2021

Source: Election Commission of India

Total seats 403

Seats polling in phase-II 55

Total candidates

Women candidates

Total voters

586

69

2.02 crore

Seats 40

Total candidates

Women candidates

Total voters

301

26

11.57 lakh

Goa

Seats 70

Total candidates

Women candidates

Total voters

632

63

82.67 lakh

Uttarakhand

Uttar Pradesh

KBK graphicsPoll

Assembly

February 14

Polls 2022Phase-II

Mamata Banerjee FILE PHOTO

PETTY

Indian Youth Congress stage a protest against Assam Chief Minister Hemant Biswa Sharma over his remark on party leader Rahul Gandhi, outside Shastri Bhawan in on Sunday PTI

Ggm: Differently-abled woman denied entry to posh restaurant

Lack of accessibility for persons with disabilities once again comes to fore OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Even as 22-year-old Shrishti Pandey on Sunday highlighted how she has been denied access to public spaces simply owing to the fact that she uses a wheelchair, the incident where she was denied entry at a posh Gurugram restaurant once again brought to the fore how cit-ies, even in the NCR, continue to deny access to public spaces for the differently-abled.

Speaking to mediapersons on Sunday, Pandey said, “This is not the first time. I have been denied access to schools & educational institutions in general, several other places & now it’s eatery as well. It’s like no one wants me anywhere at all.”

And while cities like Guru-gram, Delhi and Noida completely lack supportive infrastructure for those differently-abled to access public services, little is done by authorities to expedite the process.

In fact, this was highlighted last year when the Delhi High Court ordered the Delhi govern-ment to conduct a full-fledged social disability audit of public infrastructures like footpaths, buses and bus stops to see if they are accessible for the differently-abled person.

Moreover, the High Court had asked district officials to test infrastructure like footpaths by themselves using a wheelchair and seeing how easy it is to use them. It had also mentioned that the Delhi government must be responsible for designing public spaces in a way that differently-abled persons are independently able to use them with ease.

While the Delhi government has planned to introduce wheel-chair-accessible buses in its fleet, activists have said that most of the buses do not have this fea-ture working. Reports from 2018 and 2019 show that most buses in Delhi remain inaccessible for

wheelchair-using passengers with activists saying most public trans-portation is out of bounds for the differently-abled and this stems largely from poor planning.

For instance, while the Metro infrastructure is largely accessi-ble for differently-abled persons, there is no friendly infrastructure that helps them reach the Metro stations in the first place. The most last-mile connectivity transport is e-rickshaws which are yet to be made wheelchair-accessible and of course the problem is heightened when persons with disabilities are not even able to use footpaths simply due to the lack of ramps.

Activists have also highlighted that a major problem that has contributed to cities being devel-oped in such a manner is the lack of representation of differently-abled persons in the city planning teams, which allows administra-tions to ignore the needs of these residents.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: An ambulance driver was shot dead by two bike-borne men outside a clinic in Delhi’s Rohini area, police said on Sunday.

The victim has been identi-fied as Brij Mohan, 29, who lived in the Vijay Vihar area with his wife and a son, they said.

Preliminary investigation sug-gested that the ambulance driver was shot dead over a dispute over parking space for hospital ambu-lances, a senior police officer said.

The police said the assailants fired at Mohan on Friday after-noon when he was waiting out-side a clinic in Vijay Vihar and suffered bullet injuries in his chest.

The matter was reported to police around 2 pm by Mohan’s wife, who said she was at a clinic when two assailants fired at her husband and fled, police said.

Mohan was rushed to a hos-pital but succumbed to his inju-ries, they said.

“We have registered a case over the incident and a probe is underway. Prima facie, the issue seems to be a dispute over the parking of hospital ambu-lances. The accused have been identified and efforts are being made to nab them, said Pranav Tayal, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Rohini).

Investigation so far has revealed that the accused also work with hospitals and are known to the victim, police said.

They would often fight over parking spaces at hospitals, police said, adding they are investigat-ing the matter as the deceased was also involved in criminal cases.

The body has been handed over to the family after post-mortem, they said.

CCTV cameras installed at and around the scene of the crime has been scanned and analysed further to ascertain the exact sequence of event and the routes taken by the accused men after the crime, police added.

FIRE BREAKS OUT AT ADJACENT SWEET SHOPS IN UTTAM NAGAR; 3 RESCUED NEW DELHI: Three people were rescued after a fire broke out at two sweet shops located next to each other in the Uttam Nagar area of southwest Delhi on Sunday, fire service officials said. The flames have been doused by fire-fighters, they said, adding that there were no casualties. Atul Garg, Director General, Delhi Fire Service, said a call regarding the fire was received around 10.45 am and five fire tenders were pressed into service. “The fire was in two sweet shops. Three people who got trapped inside were rescued by our team. No causality has been reported, and the fire was doused by 11.45 am,” he said.

POLICE ARREST THREE TRANSWOMEN FOR ROBBERY NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police arrested three trans-women involved in a robbery case at Kisangarh police station, police said on Sunday. The arrest was made within 48 hours. On February 11, a PCR call was received at the Kishangarh police station regarding a robbery. The complainant Manoj Kumar Singh alleged alleged that when he was returning to his house, three transwomen obstructed him and forcefully took him to a dark place and robbed him. The arrested persons have been identified as Shreya (35), Kavina (26) and Chandani (24). All of them are residents of Lal Kothi Hauz Rani near Max Hospital, Saket. A case of rob-bery was registered against them.

MAN KILLS 72-YR-OLD WOMAN TO STEAL CASH, ARRESTED: POLICE NEW DELHI: A 72-year-old woman was allegedly killed by a man who broke into her tent to commit theft, police said on Sunday. The accused, Rajender Chauhan (40), has been arrested. He lived with his wife and a friend near the victim’s place, they said. The incident took place on Friday under the RTR flyover in the South Campus area of southwest Delhi, police said. The woman, along with her family, lived in a tent under the flyover, they said. The accused sus-pected that the woman was hiding cash and decided to rob her of it. When he entered the tent, the woman caught hold of him and started shouting. The man killed her and ran away with the cash, a senior police official said.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: A Delhi Court on Friday allowed an application moved on behalf of the prosecu-tion seeking permission to take voice sample of Meeran Haider, accused in connection with the Delhi riots larger conspiracy case.

Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat noted that the aspect of taking voice sample of an accused is an aspect of inves-tigation which does not make the accused witness against himself, as per lehal news website Live Law.

However, in order to protect the rights of the accused and considering the issues raised on his behalf, the Court issued the following directions: The Inves-tigating Officer shall coordinate with CFSL and fix a time and date for obtaining voice samples of the accused Meeran Haider and inform the Court about the same so that production warrants of the said accused can be issued

for CFSL, CBI, Lodhi Colony, New Delhi for the said purpose.

Second, the concerned Jail Superintendent shall ensure pro-duction of the accused on the time and date informed by the I.O as well as in accordance with the production warrants issued by this Court for the purposes of obtaining voice samples of the accused at CFSL.

Third, the Jail Superintendent as also the Director, CFSL, CBI shall ensure due compliance of Covid-protocol while ensuring the completion of process of voice sample. Fourth, The Director CFSL shall get prepared a pro-

posed transcript of the text to be read by the accused under his supervision or through a voice sample expert available at the CFSL or as he deems fit on the basis of the material supplied by the I.O of the present case, for the purposes of investigation and obtaining voice samples keeping in view the guidelines laid down by the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in the case of Sudhir Chaudhary (supra).

Fifth, the Director CFSL /IO shall file a copy of proposed transcript once it is prepared by the Director CFSL, CBI, Lodhi Colony, New Delhi or under his supervision, in terms of the above directions, in a sealed envelope before this Court.

Sixth, Alok Saxena, Ld. Coun-sel for the accused shall be duly inti mated in advance about the date and time of production of accused at CFSL for the purposes of obtaining voice samples of the accused.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

GURUGRAM: After the roof col-lapse at Gurugram’s posh Chin-tels Paradiso complex killed two residents, the other residents of the society, fearing for the safety, have now written to Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar, asking that the builder, Chintels India Ltd’s licence be revoked and all projects, whether announced or under construction be stopped with immediate effect.

The incident which took place on Friday evening has sparked widespread outrage among res-idents of the housing complex, some of whom cornered Deputy CM Dushyant Chautala on Sun-day when he was in the area to take stock of the situation.

Residents again highlighted that if corrupt nexus among pub-lic officials and developers would

be encouraged now, it will lead to one more incident soon where more lives could be lost. They also noted that despite repeated com-plaints to the authorities, officials in the state government refuse to strictly review builder licences.

Residents of Chintels Parad-iso, in their letter to the CM, said that the lives of 35 families had been uprooted since the roof col-lapse and sought strict and swift action against the builder for the same. “This action must be com-pleted within a week… There is a significant risk to the lives of over 450 families currently residing in the society as there are several construction quality issues that have been raised over the past four years,” the residents said in their letter, adding that they wanted a separate FIR to be reg-istered against the builder under sections 304, 120 B and 34 IPC.

‘Taking voice sample of accused does not make him witness against himself’

Ggm: Residents seek revocation of Chintels’

licence, write to CM

Ambulance driver shot dead: Police

OUR CORRESPONDENT

GURUGRAM: There was a mas-sive outrage after a 22-year-old differently abled woman identi-fied as Srishti Pandey reported on her social media page that she was denied entry to a posh restaurant due to her condition.

A fine dining restaurant, Raasta in the Cyber Hub area. The incident reportedly occurred on Friday evening when Srishti along with her friends and her family went to dine in there.

According to Srishti, the staff did not allow her and her friend’s family citing that as Srishti was wheelchair-bound, it would cause inconvenience and disturbances to other customers sitting inside the restaurant. After a lot of argu-ment, the staff provided seating to Srishti and her friend’s fam-ily outside.

“I went to my @raastagurg- aon with my best friend and her

fam last night. This was one of my first outings in so long and I wanted to have fun. Bhaiya (my friend’s elder brother) asked for a table for four. The staff at the desk ignored him twice,” Pan-dey said in a series of tweets on Saturday.

“The third time he asked, the staff replied with ‘wheelchair andar nahi jaygi’ (the wheelchair can’t go inside).We thought it was an accessibility issue, but it wasn’t. We told him that we’d manage, just book us a table. What he said next left all of shocked for a while,” she added.

“He told us pointing towards me that ‘andar customers disturb hojaynge’ (the customers will get disturbed) and denied us entry, with so much of ease. This came from the staff of a freaking fancy place. After a lot of arguing, he told them to get a table outside. The outside seating was ridic-

ulous. It was getting cold. And I can’t sit out in cold for long because my body gets spastic,” she said in another tweet.

However, it was chilly out-side and the staff was once again requested to arrange a table inside which was once again refused and they were report-edly told to leave.

As soon as the tweet surfaced on social media, people started reacting with anger and the res-taurant management apologised for the incident and said that they are looking into it.

Goumtesh Singh, the owner of Raasta also issued an apology to Srishti and her friend’s family. He later also issued an official statement on the entire issue.

“We are deeply regretful of the episode that took place at Raasta, Gurgaon on Friday eve-ning. We stand for inclusivity and would never want anyone

to feel singled out for a reason. We are also taking steps inter-nally to heighten sensitivity and empathy among our staff so that this never happens again,” were some excerpts from the statement.

The Gurugram Police has also responded to her tweet seeking her contact details for further action. With no formal complaint registered till Sunday evening the Gurugram Police has not registered an FIR in this case.

Actor-filmmaker Pooja Bhatt also reacted to her tweet, and wrote, “Am terribly saddened that this happened to you. We suffer from an absolute lack of grace as a society. Wheelchair accessibility is one thing but refusing to see a human being who is confined to one as an equal and deserving of dignity is quite another.”

OWNER ISSUES APOLOGY, SAYS PERSONALLY LOOKING INTO MATTER

City Briefs

Meeran Haider

2 millenniumpostCitympMONDAY, 14 FEBRUARY, 2022 | NEW DELHI

Although every possible care and caution has been taken to avoid errors or omissions, this publication is being sold on the condition and understanding that information given in this publication is merely for reference and must not be taken as having authority of or binding in any way on the writers, editors, publishers, and printers and sellers who do not owe any responsibility for any damage or loss to any person, a purchaser of this publication or not for the result of any action taken on the basis of this work. All disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of competent court and forums in Delhi/New Delhi only

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The restaurant staff told her

that her presence would disturb other

customers

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: A Delhi court has now framed charges against three men for allegedly setting fire to the Janati Mosque in North-East Delhi’s Gokulpuri area during the February 2020 riots there, holding that the delay in public witnesses coming forward can be attributed to the atmosphere of terror and trauma that prevailed among the residents at the time.

The court of Additional Ses-sions Judge Virender Bhat framed charges against the three men - Deepak, Prince and Shiv under Sections 147, 148, 380, 427, 436 read with sec. 149 of the Indian Penal Code, in the case, where according to witnesses, two juve-niles were also allegedly involved in setting fire to the mosque.

While the defence tried to argue that the delay in witnesses coming forward meant that they were “planted”, the court held that

it would be unjustified to disbe-lieve their account at this stage in the case - without first testing it during cross-examination dur-ing trial proceedings.

The court went on to say, “It needs to be kept in mind that on account of atmosphere of terror and trauma due to unprecedented riots that had taken in North East District of Delhi from 24.02.2020 to 27.02.2020, the public had got immensely traumatized to the extent that nobody was willing to come forward and make state-

ment to the police with regards to the incidents of violence which they had witnessed. It is for this reason that the delay in record-ing the statements of above two witnesses in this case can not be held fatal to the prosecution case at this stage when charges are to be decided against the accused.”

According to case records, the police registered a case in relation to the vandalism and arson of the mosque after it received informa-tion of the same on February 24. Following this, the police visited

the spot with the fire brigade and saw a mob of 400-500 peo-ple with wooden sticks and iron rods, vandalising the mosque and setting fire to it.

While there was no CCTV footage available in the nearby area, a secret informer handed over video footage of the rioting and vandalism, based on which the police identified the above-mentioned accused along with two other juveniles.

The video footage was exam-ined forensically and it was found that it had not been tampered with in any manner, the court noted while framing charges. In addition to this, two public witnesses came forward weeks later to identify the adult accused arrested in the case and three more complaints were filed in the case, which were clubbed together by the police. One of the complaints was by the Imam of the mosque in question.

NEW DELHI: From making memes out of Bollywood movies clips and hold-ing ‘AMA’ sessions on Twitter to beef-ing up its presence on Instagram and tapping into Reels — the Delhi Police Special Branch’s under-35 Social Media Centre is now focusing on creating cit-izen-centric content in a bid to deepen its connect with residents in the Capital and spread awareness about cyber and financial crimes.

Top officials said that the Special Branch Unit’s Social Media Centre, which is spearheading these efforts, is composed entirely of people under 35 years of age, who come from creative and technical backgrounds.

The team keeps track of social media trends, watches the latest Bollywood movies and follows the news to be able to create engaging content. It also analy-ses the public feedback to its work, they said. The idea, the officials said, is to connect better with the public so that they do not hesitate to approach the police for help and convey things in a language they will easily understand.

But while Delhi Police’s Twitter han-dle has 6,83,000 followers, its Instagram handle has only 4,011 followers — with the Social Media Centre working to beef up its presence on the visual social media platform.

Officials said that there are now

plans to create more content specifi-cally suited for Instagram, including making Reels, a popular short-video content, which is increasingly becom-ing one of the most used features on the platform now.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Branch) Suman Nalwa said, “We invite people to come forward and use it (social media) to know more about us and the services provided by us. We encourage people to participate and make full use of this opportunity through our AMA (Ask Me Anything) sessions, infographics and messages.”

“Social media is not only the future but the present of information flow. For

us, it is a way to take policing to the last mile and give citizens 24x7 accessibil-ity to us,” Delhi Police Commissioner Rakesh Asthana told.

In the coming months, the focus will be on generating awareness about cybercrimes and the safety of women and children, among other important issues of public interest, the Delhi Police said, adding that another key feature of the social media team has now become to check rumour-mongering and the spread of fake news.

To tackle fake news, another officer said, the first step is to identify it, issue a rebuttal, share the correct information and appeal to the public to prevent anti-

social elements from disturbing peace and harmony.

Information related to important events and sensitive crimes is now promptly posted on its Twitter handle with district officers sharing updates to prevent rumours or fake news from spreading.

“In the new age, it would be a missed opportunity if we do not adapt to social media. The Delhi Police has a mod-ern, forward-looking and progressive approach and it also has more responsi-bilities being responsible for the national capital and handling different challenges on a daily basis,” a senior police officer said. AGENCIES

Delhi riots: Charges framed against three men for setting fire to Janati Mosque in N-E Delhi

THE FOCUS WILL BE ON GENERATING AWARENESS ABOUT CYBERCRIMES, THE SAFETY OF WOMEN & CHILDREN

The young team behind plans to beef up Delhi Police’s Insta presence to connect with citizens

3millenniumpost

RESCUE OP

SDRF personnel carry out a rescue operation after a portion of a building of Chintels Paradiso housing society collapsed, in Gurugram, on Sunday PTI

City mpNEW DELHI | MONDAY, 14 FEBRUARY, 2022

DELHI POLICE ‘PINK BOOTH’ EARNS PRAISE FROM WOMEN SHOPPERS AND HAWKERSNEW DELHI: The new Delhi Police ‘pink booth’ at the popular Janpath market, staffed by female person-nel to help women in distress, has earned praise from shoppers and hawkers alike and the demand is now growing for similar kiosks in other shopping centres. In less than a week of its establishment, the ‘pink booth’ has instilled a sense of security in women shoppers and hawkers.

DU TO CONDUCT WORKSHOP FOR ITS OFFICIALS ON MANAGING STRESSNEW DELHI: Delhi University will conduct a four-week training programme for its officials on man-aging stress, developing motivation and acquiring leadership skills, according to a senior official. Assistant registrars and administrative officials of the university and its affiliated colleges can take part in the programme beginning February 21. Besides stress management, the officials will be trained on handling financial matters such as budgets and audits, ranking and administrative subjects related to promotions and pension, etc.

WATER SUPPLY TO BE AFFECTED TODAYNEW DELHI: The DJB on Sunday said that due to the installation of flow meter at the outlet line of the Ujwa underground reservoir, water supply will not be available in some of the area on Monday from 9 am to 6 pm. The areas affected will include Ujwa, Samaspur, Daiyapur, Malikpur, Jhuljhuli, Khera Dabar, Ramta More, Dabar Enclave, Dhansa, Issapur, Kazipur, Bakkargarh, Mundhela Khurd, Munthela Kalan and adjoining areas. The DJB advised the public to store sufficient quantity of water in advance as per their requirement and water tankers will be available on request from water emergencies control room. “Incon-venience caused to the public is regretted,” it said.

CONCERNS OF LACK OF TRANSPORT, KIDS’ ABILITY TO FOLLOW CAB

‘HAS POSITIVELY IMPACTED OVER 2K STUDENTS FROM OVER 100 SCHOOLS’

City Briefs

Schools to focus on well-being as they prep to welcome younger kids

AAISHA SABIR

NEW DELHI: With physical classes restarting for primary school children and younger kids from today (Monday) after a long break, teachers and school heads are focusing on making sure the kids are wel-comed back to an environment where they are first made to feel comfortable being back in school campuses.

In addition to the primary focus being on counselling stu-dents and providing emotional support so that they readjust to a new normal within their classrooms, many schools are planning to start with soft-skills activities such as interactive ses-sions and meet-and-greet activ-ities that focus on the child’s well-being.

Following the continuous decline in Covid cases, the Delhi Disaster Management Authority has allowed physical classes for nursery to Class VIII to restart from today. While the younger

classes had restarted briefly last year, they were quickly shut down due to pollution and then remained shut owing to the third wave.

The schools have reopened after a long gap and several chil-dren may have lost touch with their school surroundings, HoS Rajkiya Sarvodaya Bal Vidyalaya in West Vinod Nagar Dr L.K Dubey said, adding, “Our pri-mary focus is to make the child familiar with the classroom and

hold an interactive session with them in the first few days.”

Several schools are not call-ing students for the entire day and instead Nursery till class V is being called for around 3 hours while class VI onwards are being called for the full day — even though most of the focus will be on re-acclimatis-ing them to the new normals in their classrooms.

“We want the child to first get into the habit of coming to

school as they have lost touch and have become used to stay-ing indoors,” a teacher in Gov-ernment Girls Secondary school Bharti said.

In the New Delhi Municipal Council-run schools, teachers and school heads have been asked to hold playtime activities, Yoga, prayers and introduction-based discussions (Bal Sabhas), in addition to making sure that children feel at home from day one. Teachers have also been briefed to engage the children in a friendly manner in a bid to make them mentally free from anxiety and stress.

Moreover, all teachers have been asked to regularly brief parents about the safety mea-sures being taken at schools to keep their children safe from possible infection.

However, despite the her-culean measures being adopted by the schools, many parents are apprehensive about send-ing their younger children to schools starting today.

A mother to a 10-year-old, Shweta has been worrying about the safety of her child, saying, “Children often don’t pay heed to washing hands properly and take off their masks and play with their friends. The teacher also cannot chase each child and no matter how many times you tell them they will not listen.”

Several other problems are concerning parents, especially the office-going parents, who cannot do the pick-up drop duty for their children. “If school buses don’t come I am not sending my child. School heads need to look into that,” a mother to a 12-year-old daugh-ter, Anjali said.

Anil Bhati, parent of a 7-year-old said, “I would want to send my child but schools have not started transporta-tion yet and I am scrambling to make other logistic arrange-ments. When schools reopen, the government should also order resumption of transpor-tation services.” WITH PTI INPUTS

804 Covid cases & 12 deaths; positivity comes down to 1.5%

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Delhi on Sunday reported 804 fresh COVID-19 cases and 12 deaths due to the viral disease, while the positivity rate declined further to 1.50 per cent, according to data shared by the city health department.

With this, the national cap-ital’s coronavirus case count increased to 18,51,320 and the death toll climbed to 26,072, the latest bulletin showed.

A total of 53,719 COVID-19 tests were conducted in the city the previous day, it said. Delhi on Saturday reported 920 COVID-19 cases with a positiv-ity rate of 1.68 per cent and 13 deaths. It recorded 977 cases with a positivity rate of 1.73 per cent and 12 deaths on Friday.

On Thursday, the city logged 1,104 cases with a positivity rate of 2.09 per cent and 12 deaths.

The number of daily cases in Delhi has been on the decline after touching the record high of 28,867 on January 13. The city had recorded a positivity rate of 30.6 per cent on Janu-ary 14, the highest during the latest wave of the pandemic. It took just 10 days for daily cases

to drop below the 10,000-mark.The surge in Covid cases in

Delhi during the third wave of the pandemic was largely due to the Omicron variant of the virus which is highly transmissible.

Several families in a large number of neighbourhoods

had tested positive, but medi-cal experts have said that since the infection had happened at the same time, the recovery too has been quicker for the com-munity as a whole.

And there has been less chance of more spread of infec-tion as people have been largely home isolated with a very little number of patients needing hos-pitalisation this time, they said.

There are 15,357 beds for Covid patients in Delhi hospi-tals and 528 (3.44 per cent) of them were occupied. Out of 589 Covid patients in hospitals, 172 are on oxygen support, includ-ing 45 on ventilator. The number of people under home isolation stood at 2,590 on Sunday, down from 2,805 on Saturday and the number of containment zones in the city stood at 16,997, down from 18,393 the previous day, it said. The number of active cases stands at 3,926.

Meanwhile, the Delhi Disas-ter Management Authority has directed health officials and district magistrates to ensure the Centre’s revised COVID-19 guidelines for international arrivals are followed at the IGI Airport from Monday.

ACTIVE CASES

3,926DEATH TOLL

26,072

DELHI COUNT

COVID-19

Facing losses, Delhi traders seek further relaxations in curbs

NEW DELHI: Expressing con-cern over the impact of con-tinued Covid curbs on local businesses, traders in the national capital are seeking further relaxation of restric-tions, including allowing shops to remain open till 9.30 pm.

Traders’ associations of vari-ous markets said they are fac-ing increasing losses due to the restrictions. They also ques-tioned the logic behind con-tinuing with the curbs when the pandemic situation has improved in Delhi.

The New Delhi Traders Association (NDTA), which represents the Connaught Place market in central Delhi, has written to Lieutenant Gover-nor Anil Baijal seeking relief for local traders.

“We have been receiving many representations from shop owners/shopkeepers that they should be allowed to open shops till 9.30 pm instead of 8 pm. Closing of shops at 8 pm means beginning the closing procedure at 7 pm, losing the prime busi-ness timing,” the NDTA said in its letter to the LG.

“Given the hundreds of rep-resentations on the captioned subject received from shopkeep-

ers, we would request you to please extend the timings of shops till 9.30 pm,” it said.

These views were echoed by other trade associations in Delhi.

Sanjeev Mehra, president of the Khan Market Trade Associa-tion, said it must be the choice of shop owners whether they want to keep the shops open or not.

“As everything has been nor-malised, the timing (for closing shops) should also be nor-malised. It must be the choice of the shop owners whether they want to keep the shops open or not. We want the restrictions to go,” he said.

“We are saying that strict guidelines like wearing masks should also be relaxed in some way,” he added.

Sarojini Nagar Traders’ Association president Ashok Randhawa expressed frustra-tion over the increased losses for shopkeepers.

“We are saying for a long time that the timings should be extended. We have been facing losses because of these rules. The timing (for closing) of shops is 8 (pm) and we have to start the closing process by 7 (pm),” Randhawa said. AGENCIES

Delhi govt’s pilgrimage scheme for senior citizens set to resume today

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Delhi gov-ernment’s pilgrimage scheme for the elderly, which was halted in the first week of January in view of rising COVID-19 cases, will resume on Monday with a train carrying pilgrims to Dwarkadhish in Gujarat.

The train for Dwarkadhish carrying 1000 elderly pilgrims from Delhi will be flagged off from the Safdarjung railway station at 7 PM on Monday. Another train for Ramesh-waram will leave on February 18, said Kamal Bansal, chair-man of the Delhi government’s Tirth Yatra Vikas Samiti.

The Mukhya Mantri Tirth Yatra Yojna was halted in Janu-

ary amid rise in cases of Covid. As a result of the disruption, a train of pilgrims scheduled to Basilica of Our Lady of Health in Tamil Nadu’s Vailankanni on January 7 was cancelled.

“We are likely to announce trains for other pilgrimage places as the Railway is likely to inform us about the avail-ability of trains,” Bansal said.

He said maximum demand from the senior citizens was for Rameshwaram and Dwarkad-hish. Around 15,000 applica-tions for Rameshwaram and 7000 for Dwarkadhish were pending.

“We are ready to arrange as many trips as possible due to popular demand from our elderly but it depends upon

the availability of trains,” Bansal said. Under the scheme for free pilgrimages to the elderly from Delhi, 11 train trips for differ-ent pilgrim sites were planned in January that could not mate-rialise due to the third wave of Covid, he said.

The trains of pilgrims including one for Kartarpur Sahib route as well as Amritsar and Ayodhya in January also got cancelled, he said.

“Now, we will have to again work out schedules for trains as there are already thousands of pending applications due to cancelled trips,” Bansal said.

Under the scheme, peo-ple aged 60 years and above are sent on pilgrimage to 15 routes on trips fully sponsored

by the Delhi government. The government pays for travel, accommodation and other expenses of each pilgrim who can also take along an attendant with them.

The scheme halted due to the second Covid wave last year was resumed with a train of pilgrims leaving for Ayod-hya on December 3, 2020. Pilgrims also went to Ramesh-waram and Dwarka before the pandemic applied brake on the scheme.

Under the scheme, the Delhi government sanctioned Rs 81.45 crore of which Rs 66.92 crore was spent in 2020-21.

Nearly 38,000 senior citi-zens have benefitted from the scheme so far, officials said.

NEW DELHI: Delhi expe-rienced a pleasant day on Sunday with the maximum temperature settling at 26.4 degrees Celsius, three not-ches above the season’s aver-age. According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the national capi-tal witnessed clear skies on Sunday morning and the minimum temperature was recorded at seven degrees Celsius, three notches below the season’s average. The rel-ative humidity was 38 per cent at 5.30 pm, it said.

The weather office has predicted mainly clear skies during the day and must in the morning on Monday. The maximum and mini-mum temperatures would be around 26 and 9 degrees Celsius respectively.

On Saturday, Delhi recorded a minimum tem-perature of eight degrees Celsius, two notches below the season’s average and a maximum temperature of 23.4 degrees Celsius. The city’s air quality was recorded in the ‘poor’ category on Sunday. The air quality index (AQI) read 258 at 8 pm.

The air quality in neigh-bouring Faridabad (282), Gurugram (217), Ghaziabad (259), Greater Noida (200) and Noida (240) was also in the ‘poor’ category.

An AQI between zero and 50 is considered ‘good’, 51 and 100 ‘satisfactory’, 101 and 200 ‘moderate’, 201 and 300 ‘poor’, 301 and 400 ‘very poor’, and 401 and 500 ‘severe’. MPOST

Anti Bullying Squad: 13-year-old school girl’s app lands Rs 50 lakh funding offer

GURUGRAM: The sight of a fellow student being mocked during a school function five years ago is etched deep in Anoushka Jolly’s memories. But for this 13-year-old, that incident became the push to start a social initiative to stop bullying and provide a platform for students as wells as parents to report anonymously.

The ‘Anti Bullying Squad (ABS)’, with help from edu-cational institutions, social organisations and experts, has positively impacted over 2,000 students from over 100 schools and universities, said Jolly as she spoke about the dig-ital platform, she formed three years ago.

The Class 8 student has also come up with a mobile appli-cation called ‘Kavach’ and it allows students and parents to report incidents of bullying anonymously, giving opportu-nity to schools and counsel-lors to tactfully intervene and take action.

The incident of the girl being bullied “got registered in my memory and I still cannot forget her face”, she was terri-fied and felt helpless, said Jolly, who was nine years old then.

“I was attending the school annual day when my friends decided to bully the six-year-old girl who they found annoy-ing. They walked up to her and started calling her names and

laughed at her,” she said.“Soon, I realised how com-

mon the problem is and saw many other children of my age being victims of bullying and losing confidence,” said Jolly whose social initiative not only made her the youngest contestant to pitch her entre-preneurial idea on TV reality show Shark Tank India but also landed her a funding offer of Rs 50 lakh.

The Pathways School, Gurugram, student wants to build a strong network of anti-bullying ambassadors, who will track the progress of those impacted directly or indirectly through the platform and application.

“I have been running the ABS digital platform for over three years with an aim of spreading awareness about bullying which leaves many scarred and desolated. The platform acts as a community where specialists come together to organise one-on-one ses-sions in schools against bully-ing,” Jolly said.

The platform also allows people to better understand bullying and its consequences, along with taking a pledge to prevent the menace, she said, adding that it also sells anti-bullying merchandise.

“However, during the process, I realised that most of these incidents do not get

reported and hence, do not get resolved. So, I came up with an idea of creating a bullying reporting mobile app ‘Kavach’ to anonymously report inci-dents,” Jolly said.

“The idea was well received by judges of (Shark Tank), two of whom even stepped forward to invest in my app at Rs 50 lakh in valuation to help me widen its scale and reach,” she said.

Shark Tank India is the indigenous version of Shark Tank, a global entrepreneur-ial reality show. In India, the show is currently running its first season and has selected 198 candidates out of 50,000 applications. AGENCIES

BJP-led South MCD betraying DBCs with false promises: AAP

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Aam Aadmi Party on Sunday lashed out at the BJP-run South Delhi Munic-ipal Corporation for allegedly leading on Domestic Breeding Checkers — the people on the frontlines of the war against vector-borne diseases — by just promising to regularise their position but not follow-ing through.

Senior party leader and MLA Somnath Bharti on Sun-day held a press conference with SDMC Leader of Opposition Prem Chauhan, both of whom alleged that despite serving the city for 22 years, the South MCD has offered them only empty promises of regularisation.

AAP leader Chauhan said, “All they have done is issued a statement in haste that you will regularise MTS (multitasking staff)/DBC positions, where it should be MTS/Health. So overall, the BJP-ruled MCD has issued this order to mislead the people of Delhi and its workers.”

Meanwhile, Bharti said, “The fact that there is no such position as Domestic Breeding Checker is the clearest indica-

tion of their mismanagement... They now claim that they will adjust their nomenclature and hire multitasking employ-ees. This is also a joke and a method of deception. They seek to change the nomenclature because their post has not been officiated.”

The AAP said that around 3,500 DBC workers have been serving the city for 22 years now, during which they were first mistreated by the Congress administration and then the BJP administration. The party said that the recent statement by SDMC leader Inderjeet Seh-rawat promising the regularisa-tion of 1,155 such workers is also to allegedly mislead the workers.

NEW DELHI: The New Delhi Municipal Council is now planning to ease guidelines for admissions to its working wom-en’s hostels in prime locations in the Capital — in a bid to enable women from outer Delhi regions to also live there — which, till now, is not an option.

Currently, the rules man-date that only women from out-side the National Capital can get admission in these hostels, which provide accommodation to working women in prime

locations at costs ranging from Rs 6,000 to Rs 10,000.

Officials have said that sev-eral Delhi residents have been seeking a way to reside in these hostels and so they have decided to ease the guidelines, The Indian Express reported. In addition, the NDMC is also adding a block to its Indira Nik-etan hostel in Laxmibai Nagar, to house 200 more women. The other two hostels run by the NDMC are at Mandir Marg and MandiHouse areas. MPOST

NDMC hostels may soon allow women from Delhi

Follow Centre’s revised Covid

guidelines for int’l arrivals at Delhi airport: DDMA

REPRESENTATIVE IMAGE

Max temp 26.4 deg C;

AQI in ‘poor’ category

‘Around 3,500 DBC workers have been serving the city for

22 years now, during which they were first mistreated by the Cong admin and

then the BJP admin’

No more weeklong quarantine for people arriving from abroad

Industrialist Rahul Bajaj cremated with full state honours in Pune

NEW COVID GUIDELINES COME INTO FORCE

4 millenniumpostNationmpMONDAY, 14 FEBRUARY, 2022 | NEW DELHI

THIRUVANANTHA-PURAM: The daily COVID-19 cases in Kerala continued to drop on Sunday. There were 11,136 fresh infections and 146 deaths which took the tally till date to 64,07,383 and 62,199 respectively.

Of the fatalities, 11 were reported in the last 24 hours, 58 occurred in the last few days but were not recorded owing to late receipt of documents and 77 were designated as COVID-19 deaths after receiv-ing appeals based on the new guidelines of the Centre and the directions of the Supreme Court, an official press release said.

With 32,004 more people recovering from the virus since Saturday, the total recoveries reached 61,84,080.

As the number of recoveries were more than the new cases, the active cases went down to 1,60,330, the release said.

As many as 60,414 samples were tested in the last 24 hours.

Among the 14 districts, Ernakulam recorded the high-est with 1,509 cases followed by Thiruvananthapuram (1,477) and Kollam (1,061), the release said. AGENCIES

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: International passengers arriving at the IGI Airport here will not require to undergo mandatory weeklong quarantine as new COVID-19 guidelines of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare come into force from Monday.

The Delhi Disaster Man-agement Authority (DDMA) has directed health officials and district magistrates to ensure the Centre's revised COVID-19 guidelines for international arrivals are followed at the IGI Airport from Monday.

The Ministry of Health & Family Welfare on February 10 released detailed guide-lines for international arrivals at airports and seaports in the country, doing away with the quarantine provision.

According to the guide-lines, all the passengers will show self-declaration form on arrival at the airport. The pas-sengers found to be symptom-atic during screening will be immediately isolated and taken to medical facility under health

protocol.If tested positive, their

contacts will be identified and managed as per laid down protocol.

The protocol post arrival mandates that two per cent of

the total passengers in a flight will undergo random testing at the airport. Such travellers in each flight will be identified by the airlines concerned, prefer-ably from different countries.

They will submit the sam-

ples and will be allowed to leave the airport. If such trav-ellers test positive, their sam-ples would be sent for genomic sequencing.

All travellers will self-moni-tor their health for next 14 days

of arrival. Earlier, such travel-lers were required to undergo weeklong home quarantine.

The guidelines state if travellers under self-health monitoring develop signs and symptoms suggestive of COVID-19, they will immedi-ately self-isolate and report to their nearest health facility or call national helpline number (1075)/ state helpline number.

This Standard Operating Procedure will be valid from midnight of February 14 till further orders.

Based on the risk assess-ment, this document shall be reviewed from time to time.

The guidelines further stipulate all travellers should submit complete and factual information in self-declaration form on the online air portal Suvidha before the scheduled travel, including last 14 days' travel details.

They will also upload a negative COVID-19 RT-PCR report not earlier than 72 hrs prior to undertaking the travel or certificate of completing full primary vaccination schedule.

PUNE: The last rites of for-mer Bajaj Group chairman, Rahul Bajaj, were performed in Pune on Sunday with full state honours in the presence of representatives of India Inc, politicians and workers of Bajaj group who bid a final adieu to the veteran industrialist.

The last rites were per-formed by Rahul Bajaj's sons Rajiv and Sanjiv at the elec-tric crematorium at Vaikunth Smashanbhoomi in Pune city.

Bajaj, the Chairman Emeri-tus of the Bajaj Group, breathed his last in a private hospital here on Saturday due to illness. He was 83.

Earlier in the day, Bajaj's mortal remains were kept at his residence in Akurdi near Pune for the last 'darshan'.

NCP chief Sharad Pawar, Maharashtra cabinet minister Aaditya Thackeray and others paid homage to the industrial tycoon.

Bajaj's mortal remains were then taken in an ambulance to the crematorium, located around 20 km from Akurdi. Yoga guru Baba Ramdev, Maha-rashtra home minister Dilip Walse Patil, NCP MP Supriya Sule and other political lead-ers attended the last rites at the crematorium. AGENCIES

Police personnel drape the national flag over deceased industrialist Rahul Bajaj during a ceremony to pay him tribute, at Bajaj Auto's manufacturing facility at Akurdi, on the outskirts of Pune, on Sunday

11,136 fresh Covid cases, 146 deaths in Kerala

A healthcare worker conducts COVID-19 testing in Jammu, on Sunday

Mamata calls Stalin The communication between Stalin and

Banerjee took place after Tamil Nadu CM, earlier on Sunday, condemned West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar’s decision to prorogue, with immediate effect, the ongoing session of the east-ern state’s legislative Assembly.

Stalin had tweeted: “The act of #WestBengal Governor to prorogue the WB Assembly Ses-sion is without any propriety expected from the exalted post and goes against the established norms and conventions.” He further stated: “The ‘symbolic’ head of the state should be the role model to uphold the constitution. Beauty of democracy lies in extending mutual respect to each other.”

Replying to Stalin, Dhankhar on his official Twitter handle stated: “Find it unusually expe-dient to respectfully invite indulgent attention of TN CM @mkstalin that his extremely harsh hurtful observations are not in the least in con-formity with facts- attached order. Assembly was prorogued at express request @MamataOf-ficial @rajbhavan_tn.” Dhankar also posted an official communication in this regard. Gover-nor Dhankhar had prorogued the Assembly from Saturday based on the state government’s recommendation.

Trinamool Congress spokesperson Kunal Ghosh had earlier said: “The governor did not take the decision on his own initiative. He has prorogued the Assembly following the rec-ommendation of the Cabinet. There is no confusion.”

Trinamool Congress (TMC) Rajya Sabha chief whip Sukhendu Sekhar Ray has already approached the Upper House secretariat demanding a discussion on the role of the Gov-ernor who is trying to intervene in the day to day functioning of the state government. Earlier Saugata Roy, Lok Sabha MP had requested Prime Minister to remove the Governor of Bengal. Tri-namool Rajya Sabha MPs had staged a walkout along with DMK demanding the removal of the Governors of different non-BJP states for their highhandedness.

Trinamool has decided to table a motion demanding removal of the Governor in the West Bengal Assembly. Chief Minister has blocked the Governor on Twitter.

In Tamil Nadu, the Governor is sitting on a file sent by the state government where it pro-posed to introduce vernacular in answering the questions of medical examinations.

Reportedly, the row comes after Members of Parliament from several opposition parties and some retired bureaucrats on Thursday sent a joint memorandum to Prime Minister Nar-endra Modi on the “attack on federalism” over the interference by Governors in non-BJP-ruled

states and change in All India Service Cadre rules.

The action of the central government mili-tates against democracy and federal governance, they alleged, saying “they are grossly unconstitu-tional” and can lead to undesirable crises.

The joint memorandum stated: “These amendments are designed to subjugate states and we collectively oppose the Centre’s move to arro-gate unto itself total control over the IAS through Central postings and transfers.”

The MPs and former civil servants stated: “We caution the Centre against any unilateral move and make it clear that the States shall not agree to this unconstitutional usurpation of pow-ers, even if it is pushed through, despite valid opposition from CMs and states.” Incidentally, few states, especially those ruled by the non-BJP parties, have been strongly opposing the change in the IAS rules and several chief ministers have already written to the prime minister in this regard.

Meanwhile, political experts said though the role of the Governors in the non-BJP states is the immediate issue, the main purpose is to bring all the opposition parties under one umbrella against the BJP before the 2024 Lok Sabha elec-tions. Mamata Banerjee is trying hard to ink an alliance of the opposition parties to oust BJP in the Lok Sabha elections.

Glaciers in It said the Wadia Institute of Himalayan

Geology (WIHG) was monitoring a few glaciers in Uttarakhand which reveal that the Dokriani Glacier in the Bhagirathi basin was retreating at 15-20 metre/annum (mpa) since 1995, whereas Chorabari Glacier in the Mandakini basin was retreating at 9-11 mpa during 2003-2017.

WIHG was also monitoring Durung-Drung and Pensilungpa glaciers in Suru basin, Ladakh, which are retreating at 12 mpa and approxi-mately 5.6 mpa, respectively, the ministry said.

Melting glaciers have a significant impact on water resources of Himalayan rivers due to change in glacier basin hydrology, downstream water budget, impact on hydropower plants due to variation in discharge, flash flood and sedi-mentation, it said.

They also increase the risk related to glacier hazards due to enhanced number and volume of glacier lakes, accelerated flash flood and Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs), impact on agro practices in high Himalayan region, the minis-try said.

Teams spend big Manan Vohra isn’t simply good enough hav-

ing failed in IPL for ages now. But if their first XI clicks, they are the team to watch out for. It is understood that Gautam Gambhir will speak to sworn enemies Krunal Pandya and Deepak

Hooda to ensure harmony in the teams.Hooda had left his first-class team Baroda,

alleging that Pandya senior had bullied him and threatened to destroy his career.

Rajasthan Royals in terms of bowling talent has the best resources with Ravichandran Ash-win and Yuzvendra Chahal as spinners along with Prasidh Krishna and Trent Boult as their first choice pacers.

With Navdeep saini as back-up, the bowling attack looks good and so does the batting where Jos Buttler, Sanju Samson, Shimron Hetmyer and Devdutt Padikkal pack quite a punch. The only weak link is lack of a genuine all-rounder.

CSK spent heavily (around 4 crore) on big-hitting batting all-rounder Shivam Dube but got New Zealander Devon Conway for a steal amount of Rs 1 crore base price and little known Sri Lankan spinner Mahesh Theeksana.

They have their core in place and Dhoni will perhaps depend on Adam Milne to do the job alongside Deepak Chahar, Dwayne Bravo and Ravindra Jadeja.

It would be interesting to note if Dhoni invests his time on young U-19 pacer Rajvard-han Hangargekar and builds him as one for the future.

While Venkatesh Iyer is a sure-shot opener in IPL, Ajinkya Rahane doesn’t inspire the highest confidence and only Shreyas Iyer and Andre Russell look like game-changers in the middle-order.

While Nitish Rana cost them a fortune, his struggles against quality pace bowling and short-pitched stuff is well documented even if he is slotted to open like last year.

Also Sheldon Jackson, a dedicated domestic performer doesn’t have a lot of experience and KKR lost a bidding frenzy to Sunrisers Hyder-abad, going for Nicholas Pooran (10.75 crore).

Finally, late in the day, they got Sam Billings for Rs 2 crore and the controversial but very tal-ented Alex Hales for Rs 1.5 crore.

But both beng foreign recruits, the choice of four overseas players becomes a tricky one in the absence of a good Indian glovesman.

However with Pat Cummins, Sunil Narine, Varun Chakravarthy and Shivam Mavi they make a good bowling attack and if Russell is fit to bowl, it just adds to the sting.

The team that impressed least at the auction was Gujarat Titans and their planning for the auction, prepared by Director of Cricket Vikram Solanki, was not clear.

Till last hour of two-day auction, Titans didn’t have a keeper in its rolls and finally grabbed Wriddhiman Saha for Rs 1.90 crore, beating Chennai Super Kings. They also bid for Matthew Wade for Rs 2.40 crore.

In their batting department, they have Shub-man Gill, Jason Roy as only specialist batters with skipper Hardik Pandya as the most experi-enced IPL player.

The only other player was Abhinav Mano-har before they understood their desperation and went for David Miller, who fetched a cool Rs 3 crore after going unsold on first day.

It was therefore understandable that if Miller

was so sought after, then why didn’t he get picked in first place.

In all it was an IPL auction where most of the marquee buys showed a prudent approach from the franchises while some like every year defied logic. Livingstone after a flop IPL is one such buy.

No jammerHowever, the officials, said during the inter-

district movement of former chief ministers Farooq Abdullah, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti jammers and ambulances will continue to be deployed.

This comes in the wake of the recent decision to downsize the Special Security Group (SSG), which had been created under a law enacted by the assembly of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir for protection of chief ministers and former chief ministers.

Subsequently, the SSG cover for the four for-mer chief ministers was withdrawn and their protection entrusted to the security wing of the Jammu and Kashmir Police, which will be backed by central armed paramilitary forces.

Queries to the Jammu and Kashmir Police on the subject elicited no formal response.

The move comes at a time when Srinagar city has been witnessing terrorist-related violence since last year.

Voting in GoaImportant candidates whose fate is to be

decided in these polls include Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, his Cabinet colleagues Satpal Maharaj, Subodh Uniyal, Arvind Pandey, Dhan Singh Rawat and Rekha Arya besides state BJP president Madan Kaushik.

Prominent candidates from the Congress include former chief minister Harish Rawat, for-mer minister Yashpal Arya, state Congress presi-dent Ganesh Godiyal and Leader of Opposition in the fourth Assembly Pritam Singh.

Seeking a second consecutive term for the BJP, its stalwarts have warned voters against the Congress’ “policy of appeasement” and have highlighted the road, rail and air connectivity projects underway in the state and the ones in the pipeline besides the reconstruction of Kedar-nath over the past five years.

They have sought votes in the name of a dou-ble-engine government for the state’s uninter-rupted development while the Congress, which is trying to gain lost ground after its rout in 2017 Assembly polls, has raised the issues of inflation, unemployment and change of chief ministers in quick succession.

The BJP had won 57 out of the 70 seats in Uttarakhand in the last Assembly polls limit-ing Congress to just 11. Two seats had gone to Independents.

The AAP, which is contesting all 70 Assem-bly constituencies, has offered a slew of freebies

including free electricity up to 300 units to every household, Rs 1,000 per month to every woman above 18 years, jobs to every household and an unemployment allowance of Rs 5,000 per month to them until they get the job.

The prominent candidates in Goa include Chief Minister Pramod Sawant (BJP), Leader of the Opposition Digambar Kamat (Congress), former CMs Churchill Alemao (TMC), Ravi Naik (BJP), Laxmikant Parsekar (independent), former deputy CMs Vijai Sardesai (GFP) and Sudin Dhavalikar (MGP), late CM Manohar Par-rikar’s son Utpal Parrikar and AAP’s CM face Amit Paleker.

The Congress and the Goa Forward Party (GFP) are fighting the election in alliance, while the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC has joined hands with the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP).

The Shiv Sena and the NCP had also announced their pre-poll alliance, while the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP is contesting on its own.

The Revolutionary Goans, Goencho Swabhi-maan Party, Jai Mahabharat Party and Sambhaji Brigade are also in the poll fray, besides 68 inde-pendent candidates.

The state had recorded an 82.56 percent turn-out during the 2017 elections. The Congress had at that time won 17 seats, while the BJP bagged 13.

The BJP had then quickly stitched up an alli-ance with some regional outfits and indepen-dents to form government in the state.

In Uttar Pradesh, polling will be held from 7 AM to 6 PM.

Of the 55 seats going to polls in this phase, the BJP had won 38 in 2017, while the Sama-jwadi Party had bagged 15 and the Congress two. The SP and the Congress had contested the last Assembly election in an alliance.

The areas going to the polls in this phase have a sizeable Muslim population influenced by reli-gious leaders of the Barelvi and Deoband sects and are considered to be the strongholds of the Samajwadi Party.

The prominent faces in the fray in this phase include Dharam Singh Saini, a BJP state minister who had switched to the SP.

SP’s Azam Khan has been fielded from his stronghold Rampur seat, while Saini is trying his luck from the Nakud Assembly segment. Khan is a member of Lok Sabha from Rampur.

Khan’s son Abdullah Azam has been fielded from the Swar seat. He has been pitted against Haider Ali Khan, the heir of another political family, the Nawabs of Rampur, who is trying his luck on the ticket of Apna Dal (Sonelal), a BJP ally.

Outgoing Minister of State for Jal Shakti Baldev Singh Aulakh is the candidate from Bilas-pur, Minister of State for Urban Development Mahesh Chandra Gupta from Badaun, and Min-ister of State for Secondary Education Gulab Devi from Chandausi.

The first round of the seven-phase Uttar Pradesh polls was held on February 10.

The counting of votes will be on March 10.

From Page 1

Better environment for industry, trade, business has been created in Chhattisgarh: Baghel RAIPUR: At the 26th epi-sode of monthly radio pro-gramme ‘Lokvaani’ on Sunday, Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel addressed the people of the state on the topic “Sugam Udyog, Vyapar-Unnat Karobaar”, elab-orating over the ease of doing business created in the state. The episode of ‘Lokvaani’ was aired from 10.30 am to 11 am from all the AIR centers, FM radio and regional news chan-nels in Chhattisgarh.

Baghel said that Chhattis-garh has a favourable environ-ment for industry, trade and commerce. He invited investors from across the country and the world to visit Chhattisgarh, and see how the vision of ‘Nava

Chhattisgarh’ is being realized in this state full of possibilities, with its industry-friendly, busi-ness-friendly, trade-friendly, consumer-friendly, pro-tour-ism and pro-employment policies. Baghel said that the State Government has always encouraged the works which promote economic activities that create better employment opportunities.

In the Sunday’s episode of Lokvaani, the CM said that our forefathers have envisioned Chhattisgarh state without any problem of unemployment. To realize this vision, our govern-ment has taken a number of ini-tiatives to ensure livelihood and employment opportunities for

everyone in the state. Baghel further said that as

a result of our decisions and initiatives, rural economy is strengthening and flourish-ing in the state while industry and commerce sector is also getting benefitted. He added that as Chief Minister, he had announced the industrial policy 2019-2024, in which food, eth-anol, electronic, defence, med-icine and solar energy based new industries have been given preference. We aim to promote the service sector and tour-ism sector in Chhattisgarh as well. Provision has been made to provide industrial invest-ment incentive for the 16 ser-vices, under MSME Service

Category, including electronic vehicle charging station, Service center, BPO, 3D printing, seed grading and others.

The Chief Minister said that during the COVID crisis, we have observed that many medical equipments can be manufactured on a local level, hence investment incentives have been provisioned for

these industries as well. Land lease rate in industrial areas has been reduced by 33%. Rules have been made to convert the land allotted in industrial areas and the land allotted out-side the industrial areas (upto 10 acres) from lease-hold to freehold, and notification has been issued in the context. As a result of these efforts, 1715 new industries have been estab-

lished in Chhattisgarh in three years, wherein Rs 19,500 crores have been invested and as many as 33,000 people have been pro-vided employment. Moreover, 149 MoU have been signed, under which Rs 74,000 crores will be invested and 90,000 people will get employment. We have signed MoU with 18 investors for investment of Rs 3300 crore, which will create

employment for more than 2,000 people.

We have also asked Cen-tral Government for permis-sion to produce ethanol from paddy, if we get the permission, we would be able to utilize the bumper production of paddy in a proper way to produce ethanol on a large scale. This would generate employment for a large number of people and would also help in pro-viding better value of crops to the paddy producing farmers, thereby improving their finan-cial condition, said the Chief Minister.

State Government has identified the land plots in 110 development blocks for the

establishment of food parks. Special packages for sched-uled castes, scheduled tribes, women, agricultural producer groups, third-gender peo-ple have been included in the industrial policy. Earlier, the policy had no provisions for Other Backward Classes but now 10 percent plots are being reserved for OBC category, which will be made available at 10 percent rate of the land premium rate and 1 percent land rent. Chief Minister has requested people of all the sec-tions of society to take advan-tage of the new opportunities of employment, self-employ-ment and entrepreneurship in the state. MPOST

Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel

‘1715 new industries have been established in Chhattisgarh in three years, wherein Rs 19,500 crores have been invested and as many as 33,000 people have been provided employment’

5millenniumpost Nation mpNEW DELHI | MONDAY, 14 FEBRUARY, 2022

Congress accuses Modi govt of complicity and collusion

Akhilesh: In major scams people from particular place found involved

‘INDIA’S BIGGEST BANK FRAUD’ OF RS 22,842 CRORE BY GUJARAT-BASED ABG SHIPYARD

OUR CORRESPONDENT

HATHRAS (UP): Whenever major scams are unearthed in India "people from a particu-lar place are found involved", claimed Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday while referring to the Rs 22,842 crore bank fraud by the Guja-rat-based ABG Shipyard.

Addressing an election meeting at Sikandararau here, he claimed a poor person has to mortgage his land to avail a bank loan while big business-men fly abroad after getting a huge loan.

On February 7, the CBI booked ABG Shipyard Lim-ited (ABGSL), its former chair-man and managing director Rishi Kamlesh Agarwal and others for allegedly cheating a consortium of banks led by the State Bank of India of over Rs 22,842 crore.

The ABGSL being a major player in the Indian shipbuild-ing industry operates from shipyards located at Dahej and Surat in Gujarat.

"Those who have read the newspapers would be know-ing that a major bank scam has taken place. Whenever these major scams take place, peo-ple from a particular place are

involved. In the scams, which had taken place earlier, a num-ber of people were from that place," the Samajwadi Party chief said.

"The money in the bank is of the poor. When a poor per-son wants to avail a loan, he has to mortgage his land. But these big businessmen take a big loan from the banks, arrange an air ticket and go to a foreign coun-try," he said. Taking on the BJP, Yadav claimed the ruling party had promised that people wearing 'hawai chappal' (slip-pers) would travel on aircraft.

"But, with diesel and pet-rol becoming costlier, the poor are unable to ride a motorcycle. Farmers are facing hardships due to price rise. Hence, the Samajwadi Party has decided that, if needed, we will give free petrol," he said.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

CHANDIGARH: The Con-gress on Sunday accused those sitting in the highest echelons of power in the Narendra Modi government of complicity, col-lusion and connivance in what it described as “India’s big-gest bank fraud” of Rs 22,842 crore by Gujarat-based ABG Shipyard.

The opposition party ques-tioned why the government took five years after the liqui-dation proceedings of ABG Shipyard to lodge an FIR in connection with the alleged duping of 28 banks.

On February 7, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) booked ABG Shipyard Limited, its former chairman and man-aging director Rishi Kamlesh Agarwal and others for alleg-edly cheating a consortium of two dozen lenders led by the ICICI Bank.

Congress general secretary and chief spokesperson Ran-deep Surjewala alleged that the Modi government is running a “loot-and-escape” scheme for bank fraudsters, while nam-ing Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi, Lalit Modi, Vijay Mallya, Jatin

Mehta, Chetan and Nitin Sand-esara, and many others who fled the country after duping Indian banks. He said the latest entrants to the list are Agarwal and others, whom he described as the “new gems”.

“Complicity, collusion and connivance of those sitting in the highest echelons of power in the Modi government is writ large in India’s biggest bank fraud involving ABG Shipyard and its promoters,” Surjewala told a press conference here.

He said even though the process of liquidation of ABG Shipyard was started on August 1, 2017 by the National Com-pany Law Tribunal (NCLT), the Congress had warned about the alleged scam on February 15, 2018 and the State Bank of India (SBI) had filed a com-plaint against the company and its promoters on November 8, 2019 and again on August 20, 2020. “Why did it take five years after the liquidation pro-ceedings of ABG Shipyard to lodge even an FIR for duping 28 banks of Rs 22,842 crore?” Surjewala asked.

“Why did the Modi gov-ernment refuse to take note of the allegations made on Febru-

ary 15, 2018 by the Congress, warning of a scam in ABG Shipyard, and why no FIR was lodged and criminal action taken despite their accounts having been declared as fraud on June 19, 2019?” he asked.

The SBI on Sunday said it has been diligently following the ABG Shipyard case with the CBI after the forensic audit report.

In a statement, it said a fraud is declared on the basis of the forensic audit report findings that are discussed thoroughly in joint lenders meetings and when a fraud is declared, an initial complaint is preferred with the CBI and based on itS enquiries, further information is gathered.

“In a few cases, when sub-

stantial additional information is gathered, a second complaint incorporating full and com-plete details is filed, which forms the basis for the FIR. At no point in time, there was any effort to delay the process. The lenders forum diligently fol-lows through with CBI in all such cases,” it said.

Although the ICICI Bank was the lead lender in the con-sortium and IDBI was the sec-ond lead, it was preferred that being the largest public sector bank, SBI lodges the complaint with CBI, it said. Surjewala said the SBI wrote to the CBI in November 2018, “saying there was a fraud committed by ABG Shipyard and seeking the regis-tration of an FIR and criminal action. Despite this, nothing happened and the CBI pushed the files back to the SBI. Public money keeps getting swindled, but no FIR is lodged”.

The SBI said the loan turned NPA on November 30, 2013.

Several efforts were made to revive the company operations, it said, adding that the account was restructured under the CDR mechanism in March 2014 by all lenders but it could not be recused.

On August 25, 2020, the SBI filed a second complaint with the CBI, saying “please regis-ter an FIR as this is a case of cheating and fraud. But the CBI still does not act. It waits for another year and a half. Finally, now, after five years, this FIR has been registered”, Surjew-ala said.

Surjewala alleged that “these indelible facts reflect the gross mismanagement of the banking system, holding the banking system captive to fraudsters and the initiation of the loot-and-escape flagship scheme for bank fraudsters”.

NEW DELHI: The BJP on Sunday hit back at the Con-gress over private firm ABG Shipyard allegedly cheating banks of over Rs 22,842 crore, saying that these loans were sanctioned when the UPA was in power whereas the Modi government has gone after the promoters behind such frauds.

BJP spokesperson and Rajya Sabha member Syed Zafar Islam said that for the Congress to attack the govern-ment over the case is like a thief blaming cops for the crime.

Islam said all these loans were given prior to 2014 when the BJP came to power

Due process was followed all these years and the BJP government has identified the fraud, he said. "That is why we have taken this action," he added, referring to the CBI case in the matter. "The Congress is brazening it out. It is its gov-ernment which ran the 'phone banking' scam with its senior functionaries forcing banks to sanction loans after accepting commissions from these pro-moters. They are fully respon-sible for the fraud as they were hand in glove with all pro-moters. Our government has detected these frauds," the BJP leader said. AGENCIES

BJP: Loans given during

UPA rule

Akhilesh Yadav

Randeep Surjewala

The opposition party questioned why the government took five years after the liquidation proceedings of ABG Shipyard to lodge an FIR in connection with the alleged duping of 28 banks

SUSHIL MANAV

CHANDIGARH: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday said that only the BJP-led NDA government could secure Punjab and uproot the problem of drugs from the state.

Addressing elections ral-lies in Patiala and Ludhiana in Punjab, Shah said that the biggest issue for Punjab was that of security because the state shared its borders with Pakistan.

“People of Punjab want a government that works in coordination with the Centre to ensure peace, security and harmony here,” the home min-ister said.

Praising Captain Ama-rinder Singh who shared dais with him, Shah said that the former CM always rose above partisan issues when it came to matters of national importance.

“When I first became the Home Minister of the coun-

try, I was worried about secu-rity along the borders of Punjab, but once I spoke to Captain Amarinder Singh, I was completely relaxed,” said Amit Shah.

Urging people in Patiala to teach Congress a lesson for treating Captain Amarinder Singh shabbily, Shah said the Congress should not get a sin-gle seat from Patiala in the

upcoming elections.Referring to the problem of

drugs in Punjab, Shah said that people should give Prime Min-ister Narendra Modi a chance and then see how drugs were wiped out from the state.

“Once voted to power, the BJP-led NDA government will open branches of Narcotic Control Bureau at all the major cities of Punjab and see to it

that the state become free from of drugs within a year,” he said.

Taking a dig at Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, Shah said that today he was coming to Punjab to seek votes, but in his own state he had done nothing for Sikhs.

Sikhs have contributed a lot in the development of Delhi, but Kejriwal had done nothing to acknowledge their contribution.

Shah said that Modi had taken a number of steps that show his love for Sikhs.

He said the PM took ini-tiative to open Kartarpur cor-ridor and took special interest in getting culprits of Delhi riots punished.

Captain Amarinder Singh praised Shah and the BJP gov-ernment at the Centre and said he got all cooperation from the Centre when he was CM.

He also mentioned that he received support from the Cen-tre when the state fell short of Covid-19 vaccines.

Shah: Only BJP-led govt can ensure security, free Punjab from drugs

Union Home Minister Amit Shah during an election campaing rally for Punjab polls, in Patiala, on Sunday

OUR CORRESPONDENT

AMRITSAR: AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday claimed that Punjab Chief Min-ister Charanjit Singh Channi is losing from both constitu-encies-- Chamkaur Sahib and Bhadaur in the February 20 assembly polls. We have con-ducted surveys thrice. In all the three surveys, the Aam Aadmi Party was ahead in both the seats, he said while addressing the media here.

Channi, who is Congress's chief ministerial candidate, is contesting the polls from his home turf Chamkaur Sahib in Rupnagar and Bhadaur in Barnala.

According to the survey, in Chamkaur Sahib, Channi is liked by 35 per cent people and 52 per cent people chose the AAP, claimed Kejriwal, who is the AAP's national convener and chief minister of Delhi.

On the other hand, in Bha-daur, the second constituency from where Channi is contest-ing, 48 per cent people liked the AAP candidate while Channi was liked by only 30 per cent people, he said.

Kejriwal said Channi will remain only the chief min-isterial face of the Congress because when he loses from both seats and is not an MLA how will he become the chief minister.

Punjab is facing repercus-sions of constant tussle for power amongst Congressmen and that is why people will not trust them, he said.

We (AAP) are making plans for the next five years for the development of Punjab with our leaders, workers and peo-ple of Punjab. The Congress has become a circus. The people of Punjab are not going to vote for the one who runs the circus, Kejriwal said.

AAP Punjab's chief min-isterial candidate Bhagwant Mann attacked the Congress and said that the leaders of the party who cannot contest elections together, what good future will they give to Punjab.

Mann claimed that there was a tussle between several Congress leaders.

Congress candidate Ama-rinder Singh Raja Warring has accused Finance Minister Man-preet Badal of trying to defeat him, he claimed.

Former chief minister Amarinder Singh's wife Pre-neet Kaur, who is currently a Congress MP, is campaigning against the Congress candidate for her husband from Patiala

seat, Mann said.Similarly, Chief Minister

Channi's brother is contest-ing against the Congress can-didate from Bassi Pathana, he claimed.

The son of Congress gov-ernment minister Rana Gurjit Singh is contesting elections as an Independent candidate from Sultanpur Lodhi assembly constituency and for that Rana Gurjit is campaigning against the Congress candidate there.

Mann said in fact, Congress leaders do not care about the public and their issues.

Their only aim is to keep themselves and their family in power by any means possible. Congress cannot give a stable government to Punjab. Even after coming to power, they will continue to fight amongst themselves like this. Voting for the Congress means compro-mising the future of Punjab, he alleged. Mann said Pun-jab needs a stable and strong government.

Channi is losing from both constituencies, claims Kejriwal

AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal and Punjab AAP president Bhagwant Maan, during a road show, in Amritsar, on Sunday

NOIDA: Unaccounted cash, precious metals like gold and silver, illicit liquor and drugs totalling over Rs 11 crore have been seized since January in the nine districts of Uttar Pradesh where polls are scheduled for Monday, according to the police. Over 2,000 illegal firearms and 165 kg of explosives have also been recovered while preven-tive action taken against 4.40 lakh people who are likely to disrupt peace during the polls, the Uttar Pradesh Police said.

These seizures and action under the Criminal Procedure Code have come since the model code of conduct for the polls came into force in January till the second week of Febru-ary, the police said.

As per instructions of the Election Commission, a total of Rs 3.49 crore unaccounted cash, precious metals worth Rs 2.88 crore have been seized during checking till Sunday, the police said. Illegal liquor worth Rs 4.62 crore, drugs worth Rs 4.03 crore have also been recovered since the model code came into effect, they added.

A total of 128 cognizable offenses and 24 non-cogniza-ble offenses cases have been registered in the second phase districts so far for violating the code of conduct, while 79 cases have been registered regarding violation of the election-related guidelines, it said. AGENCIES

‘Cash, gold, drugs worth

Rs 11 cr seized in run up to UP phase 2 polls’

MPOST BUREAU

CHANDIGARH: Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Sunday said that the party had to replace Captain Amarinder Singh as CM because his government was being run by the BJP at the Centre.

Addressing an election rally

in in Punjab, Priyanka said that the Congress was forced to replace Captain Amarinder Singh with Charanjit Singh Channi because the party wanted the state government to run from Punjab and not from Delhi.

Coming down on Aam Aadmi Party too in the same breath, the Congress leader

said that AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal too wanted to run the Punjab government from Delhi.

“AAP has failed in Delhi. That party was happy with the central farm laws and could not take a stand against PM Narendra Modi. When the farmers were sitting at Delhi border against the central farm

laws, no one from AAP came to support them,” she said at Kapurthala.

“I am married in a Punjabi family and I can feel Panjabiat from my heart. Punjabis never compromise on principles, and this has been proved by a year-long protest by Punjabi farmers for their rights on Delhi bor-ders,” Priyanka added.

Had to replace Amarinder because his govt was being run by BJP in Delhi: Priyanka Gandhi

SYMBOL OF LOVE

A couple pose for photographs in front of the historic Taj Mahal on the eve of Valentine’s Day in Agra on Sunday PIC/PTI

MAHA: 2 BOOKED FOR DUPING WOMAN OF RS 50 LAKH, MOLESTING HER PUNE: Two people have been booked for allegedly duping a woman to the tune of Rs 50 lakh and also molesting her on the pretext of using black magic to cure a knee ailment of the victim’s mother, a Pune police official said on Sunday. The 35-year-old woman had got in touch with self-styled tantrik Rajen-dra Kanna (45) through his associate Manish Shinde (42), he said. “On the pretext of curing the woman’s mother’s knee pain, the two duped her of Rs 50 lakh by claiming to perform various rituals in 2018 and 2019. Shinde promised the woman that he would get the money back and molested her,” he said.

TUITION TEACHER ALLEGEDLY KILLS TEENAGE GIRL STUDENT IN RAJASTHAN KOTA: A private tuition teacher on Sunday alleg-edly strangulated a 15-year-old student to death at his house here, police said. Gaurav Jain (28), the accused, is absconding. He has been booked for mur-der, they said. Jain had been teaching the girl, who was currently in Class 9, for three years. They were neighbours and were living in Rampura police station area, police said, adding the accused taught the girl and other students at his house. The girl used to return home from tuition classes by 11.30 am. As she did not get back home on Sunday, her parents called up Jain, who informed them that she would leave by 1 pm. But as they did not receive her even until late in the noon, they rushed to Jain’s house and broke open the door only to see her gasping for breath, police said.

MADHYA PRADESH

HARYANA

AMID HIJAB ROW IN THE STATE

BANK LOAN FRAUD

Nation Briefs

6 millenniumpostNationmpMONDAY, 14 FEBRUARY, 2022 | NEW DELHI

MPOST BUREAU

CHANDIGARH: Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said that the water flowing by way of springs in the Aravalli and Shivalik Hills in the State is being conserved by constructing a dam. He elabo-rated that this is being done so as to utilize this rainwater for drinking water and irriga-tion purposes post rainy season throughout the year.

The Chief Minister said this at Bhoomi Pujan of Jal Surak-sha Sunishchitikaran Bandh Pariyojana in village Pathkhori of Firozpur Jhirka subdivision of Nuh district, which has been selected under the Aspirational

District Transformation Pro-gramme on Sunday. He appre-ciated the efforts of the NGO Tarun Bharat Sangh for taking concrete steps towards water conservation by building a dam and also announced Rs 50 lakh for this project from his volun-tary fund.

The Chief Minister said that public participation is neces-sary for completing projects

like Water Resources Dam in village Pathkhori. This is such a work that requires a collab-orative effort and everyone will benefit from it.

The Chief Minister said that the water level in this area is very low and has become saline as well. Thus, the Ran-ney Well Scheme of Rs. 263 crore has been started here to overcome the water shortage in this area. The Government has been working to provide suffi-cient water to Southern Hary-ana. In this episode, Mewat Canal is being constructed with a capacity of 200 cusecs, wherein water will be taken from Yamuna River along with KMP Expressway.

Project to utilise rainwater to meet drinking water demands launched

`26,275 cr scheme for continuation of police modernisation okayed

‘Records related to human rights violations in J&K locked up in room since SHRC wound up’

Stage set for joint session of Karnataka legislature

As high schools reopen today, Bommai confident about peace

Under-construction tunnel caves in; 7 labourers rescued

Countdown for ISRO’s 1st launch mission of 2022 commences

Hyderabad-based jewellery firm promoter arrested

OUR CORRESPONDENT

BENGALURU: The joint ses-sion of the Karnataka Legis-lature that will begin from Monday is likely to be rocked by the ongoing Hijab row and related law and order situation in the state, allegations of kick-backs by contractors association and Mekedatu project imple-mentation issue, among others.

The 10-day session that will go on till February 25, will begin with Karnataka Governor Thaawar Chand Gehlot address-ing the joint sitting of members of both Legislative Assembly and the Council on the first day.

This will be Gehlot's first address to the joint session, after taking over as the Governor in July, last year. Speaker Vishwesh-war Hegde Kageri on Saturday said that after several years, the Governor will take the grand steps of the Vidhana Soudha

to enter the legislative assem-bly chamber, the venue of the joint session.

The session is expected to be stormy as the principal opposition party, the Con-gress is likely to corner the government on several issues,

including the hijab contro-versy, and the related law and order situation, with protests in this regard turning violent in some parts.

Meanwhile, a day ahead of high schools across the state up to class 10 that were shut in the

wake of the Hijab row, reopen-ing, Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Sunday expressed confidence that peace and normalcy will prevail. He also said that a decision regard-ing reopening of Pre-Univer-sity and Degree colleges will be taken after assessing the situation.

“High schools up to class 10 will reopen tomorrow, already Deputy Commissioner, Super-

intendent of police and Deputy Director of Public Instruction of all districts have been asked to hold peace assessment a meeting will be held and a deci-sion will be taken.

The government on Fri-day had said that holiday announced to universities belonging to the department of Higher Education and col-leges under the Department of Collegiate and Technical

Education (DCTE), in the wake of the Hijab row, has been extended till February 16. Regarding reports about involvement of certain organ-isations and foreign hands behind the hijab row, the Chief Minister in response to a question said, “such reports in the media and social media are being taken note by our investigating officials, who are also gathering information on their end.”

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Modi gov-ernment has approved the continuation of a mega police modernisation scheme for five years up to 2025-26 with a financial outlay of Rs 26,275 crore. The Union Home Min-istry said the scheme includes security-related expenditure in Jammu and Kashmir, north-eastern states and Maoists-affected areas, for raising new battalions, developing high-tech forensic laboratories and other investigation tools.

The government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved the continua-tion of the umbrella scheme of Modernisation of Police Forces (MPF), an official statement said.

The approval for the period from 2021-22 to 2025-26 moves forward the initia-tive of Union Home Minister Amit Shah to modernise and improve the functioning of the police forces of states and union territories, it said.

This scheme comprises all relevant sub-schemes that contribute to the modernisa-tion and improvement with a

total central financial outlay of Rs 26,275 crore, the state-ment said. It said provision has been made under the scheme for internal security, law and order and adoption of modern technology by police.

Assistance will be given to states for narcotics control and strengthening the crimi-nal justice system by develop-ing a robust forensic set-up in the country.

A central outlay of Rs 18,839 crore has been ear-marked for security-related expenditure in Jammu and Kashmir, insurgency affected northeastern states and Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected areas.

According to the state-ment, Rs 4,846 will be given

by the central government for the modernisation of state police forces.

To develop operation-ally independent high-quality forensic sciences facilities in states and union territories for aiding scien-tific and timely investiga-tion, Rs 2,080.50 crore will be given. With the implementa-tion of the ‘National Policy and Action Plan’ for com-bating Maoists or LWE, the LWE violence incidents have come down drastically, the statement said.

To further pursue this accomplishment, six LWE-related schemes with a central outlay of Rs 8,689 crore have been approved. These schemes include Special Central Assis-tance (SCA) to most LWE-affected districts and districts of concern to consolidate the gains, it said.

For the raising of India Reserve Battalions or Special-ised India Reserve Battalions, a central outlay of Rs 350 crore has been approved. The state-ment said Rs 50 crore has been approved under the central sector scheme of Assistance to States and Union Territories for narcotics control.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Records related to alleged human rights vio-lations in Jammu and Kash-mir, which were being handled by the erstwhile State Human Rights Commission, are locked up in a room since the panel was wound up after the state was downgraded to a Union Ter-ritory in August 2019, accord-ing to n Right to Information (RTI) reply.

An application under the RTI Act was filed by activist Venkatesh Nayak, who had sought to know the number of complaints pending before

the commission as on October 31, 2019, when the Jammu and Kashmir Re-Organisation Act, 2019 came into force.

The reorganisation bifur-cated the erstwhile state into two Union territories, which resulted in the winding up of autonomous bodies such as the State Human Rights Commis-sion and the State Information Commission as Central laws took over.

Responding to Nayak’s appli-cation, the Jammu and Kashmir administration has said it has no information related to the records of the erstwhile panel.

In response to his first appeal, the Jammu and Kash-mir administration said after the reorganisation of the erst-while state into two UTs, the

Jammu and Kashmir Protection of Human Rights Act, 1997 (the State Act) was repealed.

“With the repeal of the Act, the general administra-tion department wound up the Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission, “it said.

“All the records of the com-mission were locked in a desig-nated room at the office premises of the erstwhile Human Rights Commission, Old Assem-bly Complex, Srinagar. The employees of the erstwhile commission were deputed and adjusted in different other departments.”

BHOPAL: Nine labour-ers were trapped after an under-construction tun-nel of the Bargi canal proj-ect caved in at Sleemanabad in Katni district of Madhya Pradesh. Relief operations are on and seven of the nine labourers have been rescued, officials said.

Locals officials, along with the State Disaster Emergency Response Force (SDERF) team, are trying to safely res-cue to remaining labourers.

The SDERF team arrived from Jabalpur, said Katni col-lector Priyank Mishra. The incident took place late on Sat-urday evening.

Madhya Pradesh Addi-tional Chief Secretary (Home) Rajesh Rajora is monitoring the rescue operation from the state secretariat.

"The SDERF team with the necessary equipment is trying to reach the labourers by dig-ging a shaft. The district collec-tor and the SP are camping at the site to supervise the rescue

operation," Mr Rajora told the news agency.

The trapped labourers were responding to calls from res-cue personnel, Sleemanabad Sub-Divisional Magistrate Sangh Mitra Gautam said.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has also taken cognizance of the incident in Sleemanabad. In a phone con-versation with the Katni col-lector, he sought information about the incident. He has also instructed officials to ensure that those injured get proper treatment. AGENCIES

OUR CORRESPONDENT

BENGALURU: The 25-hour countdown for Indian Space Research Organisation’s first launch mission of 2022, to orbit earth observation satellite EOS-04 onboard PSLV-C52, began early on Sunday, the space agency said. The launch of the Polar Satel-lite Launch Vehicle, which will also carry two small co-passenger satellites, is sched-uled at 05:59 hours on Monday, from the First Launch Pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. “PSLV-C52/EOS-04 Mission: The count-down process of 25 hours and 30 minutes leading to the launch has commenced at 04:29 hours today,” the city-headquartered ISRO said in a tweet.

The launch vehicle is designed to orbit an earth observation satellite EOS-04, weigh-ing 1,710 kg into a sun synchronous polar orbit of 529 km.

EOS-04 is a Radar Imaging Satellite designed to provide high quality images under all weather conditions for applica-tions such as Agriculture, Forestry and Plantations, Soil Moisture and Hydrology and Flood mapping. The mission will also carry two small satellites as co-passengers, including a student satellite (INSPIREsat-1) from Indian Institute of Space Science and

Technology (IIST) in association with Lab-oratory of Atmospheric and Space Physics at University of Colorado, Boulder. It is also

contributed by NTU, Singapore and NCU, Taiwan. Two scientific payloads in this satellite is to improve the understanding of ionosphere dynamics and sun’s coronal heating processes.

The other is a technology demonstrator satellite (INS-2TD) from ISRO, which is a precursor to the India-Bhutan Joint Satel-lite (INS-2B). Having a thermal imaging camera as its payload, the satellite benefits the assessment of land surface temperature, water surface temperature of wetland or lakes, delineation of vegetation (crops and forest) and thermal inertia (day and night).

This will be the 54th flight of PSLV and 23rd Mission using PSLV-XL configura-tion with 6 PSOM-XLs (strap-on motors).

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Enforce-ment Directorate (ED) on Sunday said it has arrested a managing partner of a Hyder-abad-based gems and jewellery firm in a money laundering case linked to an alleged bank loan fraud of Rs 67 crore.

Sanjay Agarwal was pro-duced before a special Preven-tion of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Hyderabad on February 11 and the court remanded him to 15 days of judicial custody.

Agarwal is a managing part-ner in Ghanshyamdas gems and jewels, Hyderabad which is engaged is wholesale trad-ing of gold.

He was already lodged in a Kolkata jail after the ED had arrested him in an another money laundering case linked to alleged diversion of duty-free export bound gold in the domestic market. The latest case, the agency said in a statement, is related to a “loan fraud case in which the State Bank of India (SBI), Hyderabad, suffered a loss of Rs 67 crore.”

10-day session that will go on till Feb 25, will begin with K’taka Governor Gehlot addressing the joint sitting of members of both Legislative Assembly and the Council on first day

The government under the leadership of PM Modi has approved the continuation of the umbrella scheme of Modernisation of Police Forces (MPF)

Locals officials, along with the State Disaster Emergency Response Force (SDERF) team, are trying to safely rescue to remaining labourers

Responding to Nayak’s application, the Jammu and Kashmir administration has said it has no information related to the records of the erstwhile panel

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The govern-ment is working to tighten the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guaran-tee Act (MGNREGA) scheme as "tremendous leakages" have been noticed in the flagship rural jobs programme for the past two years, a top official said.

The Centre has allocated Rs 73,000 crore for 2022-23, which is 25 per cent lower than the Rs 98,000 crore provided in the revised estimate (RE) for the current fiscal. The allocation for the next fiscal is same as was budget estimate (BE) for the current fiscal, which will end in March 2022.

The official said in the last two years, the RE has been higher than the BE significantly and it has been noticed that tre-mendous leakages are going on and middlemen are taking money for enrolling names of beneficiaries under the scheme.

"Direct Benefit Transfer has succeeded in reaching money directly to the person, but still there are human systems... . There are middlemen who are telling the people that I will put your name in the MGNREGA master roll, but you will have to withdraw cash and give me after you get the DBT transfer. It is happening in a big way, the official said.

"It is a recent phenomenon in the last two years. So much money has flown that there is now a temptation to grab the money deceitfully. The Minis-try of Rural Development will

tighten it," he added.Explaining the modus ope-

randi, the official further said that the arrangement between the beneficiary and the mid-dlemen is that since the ben-eficiary is giving some share to the middleman he would not even go for work and hence no work is taking place. "The gov-ernment has been very liberal in allocating MNREGA funds in the last two years. We put in Rs 1.11 lakh crore in 2020-21. It used to be Rs 35,000 crore in 2014-15, the official said.

During the first COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, when the scheme was ramped up and given its highest-ever budget of Rs 1.11 lakh crore, higher than the budget estimate of Rs 61,500 crore. For the next finan-cial year, the budget allocation is Rs 73,000 crore, while the revised estimates for the cur-rent fiscal pegs the expenditure at Rs 98,000 crore.

MGNREGA is aimed at enhancing livelihood security of households in rural areas of the country by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.

Govt to tighten MGNREGA scheme to plug

'tremendous leakages'Allocation for the next fiscal is same as was Budget estimate for the current fiscal, which will end in March 2022

The launch vehicle is designed to orbit an earth observation satellite EOS-04, weighing 1,710 kg into a sun synchronous polar orbit of 529 km

CM Manohal Lal Khattar

Women hold placards as they stage a protest in support of female Muslim students of Karnataka over 'hijab' issue in Thane on Sunday PIC/PTI

Indian Space Research Organisation’s PSLV C5-2 carrying orbit earth observation satellite EOS-04 and two other small satellites is scheduled for lauch from the First Launch Pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh today PIC/PTI

EOS-04 is a Radar Imaging Satellite designed to provide high quality images under all weather conditions for applications such as Agriculture, Forestry and Plantations, Soil Moisture and Hydrology and Flood mapping

7millenniumpost EditorialNEW DELHI | MONDAY, 14 FEBRUARY, 2022

Back of my mind

Facing a crucible

In the deep recesses hidden well inside me, I now see heart-rending stories of what is happening to people around me. This real problem is getting worse

Ongoing assembly elections are a litmus test for Adityanath as he’s broken multiple myths that are known to have cost his predecessors the top chair

I saw this coming quite a while back and went to the extreme extent of warning people – that it

just would happen, the death of the Indian family system that people of my age grew up with and cherished. I wrote about it, but all but no one paid heed; some even scoffed. The one biggest reason for the worsening family system in our country is greed, self-apa-thy and Coronavirus, with the last being the most compel-ling, cutting the roots out from under us. I know many who have borne the brunt of this blooming virus, a scythe that has cut through our psyche, mettle and our very fabric.

As always, you want proof-points, right? Halle-lujah, here we go. A Delhi-based lady (name not to be shared) faced a veritable trav-esty when her husband drank everyday and roughed her up. He even threatened to throw their baby from the balcony or down the stairs. The poor dear endured this for months, till the threat of COVID-19 con-fronted them, as it did all of us. Locked inside the house for months, them and them alone, the husband apparently got more vicious and took his frustration out on the wife’s colleagues and bosses, vilify-ing her to an extent that she lost her job. The Government-enforced lockdown forced them to stay indoors, bicker and fight. Game over. They are now divorced.

This is a very normal story in our new India, where even those from traditional families are moving apart because of reasons told and untold. But we are certainly being frac-tured and metamorphosing, with the true ground-level issues being as variegated as they are malignant and telling.What is happening?

Well, an economic and psy-chological mayhem is headed our way. I see it coming. We don’t want to admit it, but an unexpected and unrequited tumult abuts us. How so, you dare to ask yet again? In my answer, let’s take a step back and look at numbers offi-cial, announced in our very own Parliament. In the Upper

House a few years back, our then Minister of Home for State announced that between 2018 and 2020, 16,000 Indi-ans committed suicide because they were bankrupt or in seri-ous debt. In addition, another 9,140 Indians bit the sil-ver bullet as they were sud-denly and soullessly rendered unemployed.

Let’s move to Baghpat, where one person recently posted a live video of end-ing his own life, and that of his 38-year-old wife. The wife repeatedly tried to stop him and managed to save him, but she perished in the process. Ironically, the wife who helped the husband died, while he sur-vived. Game over.

In Bengaluru, a 35-year-old mother of two faced something similar. In her case, she had already been talking about sep-aration from her husband and the in-laws and the duplicitous pandemic struck. The lock-down accelerated and farmed the distance. “My husband had no sense of personal space. He would get drunk, especially so after he lost his job and repeat-edly lost control. My job and the lockdown gave me cour-age to push him back and walk

out. Our marriage was over and done with.”

The blacklist is long. It is only growing. We are fast turn-ing into a country of haves and have-nots; those who have the leverage, courage, mettle and fettle to carry on and those who don’t. Romance is history – we are breaking down.What do we do?

That’s a real temerity, and I am no psychologist or psep-hologist. I have no clue what is going to happen tomorrow, in my land or in any others. What I do know is that what we are witnessing is historic, for all the wrong reasons. In the 1940s, we saw Adolf Hitler, who tried to achieve the impossible and ended rather insensitively and went to his abode. Today, we witness vestiges of him, idi-otic duplicates enamoured of him, again adorning the high-est office and behaving in an offish way. Does it matter that our leaders of today think that they shall thrive? Nope. This too shall pass. The only differ-ence is that in this case, nir-vana shall take a longer while to happen. But it will.

And that’s because India’s lockdowns have been extremely hiccuppy, ill-timed

and harsh, resulting in a vastly increased incidences of domestic violence, physi-cal and emotional, with the country recording the high-est abuse figures in a decade. Even the National Commis-sion for Women reported more complaints in just the first 70 days of the lockdown than in the previous decade, all told. Truth be told, the same Com-mission reportedly received 24,000 complaints just in 2020, the highest single-year figure in six years. Whoa.

As a society, we are clearly regressing. The crisis affect-ing relationships isn’t about abuse, because the once-holy institution called marriage is itself being questioned. The last two years have seen jobs being lost, salaries being squawked and housework increasing – over time, all this has shown its wrath. The average Indian man is a slob, relegating house-hold-work to the spouse and hired help. Today, himself con-fined to home-ground, most of India’s macho men stand exposed for their lack of home-work virility and capability. Add to this the too much in-your-face time and presence, as also lack of personal space,

the work-from-home scenario has blurred and stigmatized boundaries and relationships.Ending the debacle

Peremptorily and frankly, I don’t know the answer to this debacle. What I can share is that I too have been thrown asunder into a seemingly end-less togetherness-cauldron with my missus, and it does get tacky at times. But what we do to thwart one-another’s angst is spend this forced togetherness by doing small things, together.

“Chal jaaneman, gaadi-yaan dhote hain (come, let’s wash the cars).” Yes, I do, in my dwindling times, speak like this. When she looks at me and smiles, my goods are made. We also cook, compare the end-result and berate. We listen to music and dance all the time. Please remember that I may be fragile in years but she’s a spanking chump (many, many years back, I chose wisely). We also always, always watch the telly together, mouthing and spouting our pathetic vitriol at the drivel being forced down our innards, all for the celebra-tion of ‘news’.

Then she reminds me of my own columns in this very newspaper and all the truth that has been shared, making me feel like a big shot. I have no option but to reciprocate, tell-ing her that last night’s chhole, gobhi ki sabzi and paranthas were divine. We look at each other, coo and ooh for a bit, feel happy, smile and sleep. I am now too old for serious romance and related activities.

But the fire still burns, as much within my ageing phalan-ges as it does within my country. From Uttar Pradesh to Assam and New Delhi, our leaders are engaging in disgusting political histrionics, with a shameless few now even questioning the genetics of opposing forces. This is certainly not what I signed up for, Sir. I grew up clean and ripe. I would like to go the same way. The vistas and visions that I see of my country’s today’s reality are not something that I am very pleased about.

Et tu Brutus?The writer is a clinical analyst

and a communications specialist. Views expressed are personal.

narayanrajeev2006@gmail.com

SANJAY SINGHYogi Adityanath, a

five-term mem-ber of Parliament from Gorakhpur,

has relentlessly and tirelessly served Uttar Pradesh and its 25-crore people like a Karmay-ogi, protecting their interest as chief minister since 2017. A postgraduate in mathematics from Garhwal University, and Peethadheeshwar (chief priest) of the Goraksha Peeth, Gora-khpur — he is not a person with stereotype, rather he sets new records and covers new milestones. He is also challeng-ing several decade-old myths prevailing in the state. The UP CM is a person who has managed to strike a balance between politics and religion to live up to the expectations of people.

Hundreds of the gov-ernment schemes — from employment generation to development — were imple-mented by his government. The aim has not only been to provide the best road infra-structure but also to lay down a wide network of roads in the state. There is almost 24-hour electricity supply in the urban as well as rural areas. Govern-ment jobs are provided to the people of the state in a trans-parent manner. Free ration is being made available to the poor since the time the pan-demic had hit the country. Students are being given free Android phones and laptops. Over two dozen new medi-cal colleges and hospitals have been inaugurated. Lucknow and Kanpur metro rails have become operational, and now, expansion of metro rail is

being planned in half a dozen other cities.

Yogi Adityanath is the first chief minister of the state who visited sites of development projects for physical supervi-sion in all the 75 districts of the state. He toured every nook and cranny of the state and vis-ited every district at least four to five times during his pres-ent tenure. There are around a dozen districts where the CM visited an equal number of times. Anyone will appreci-ate his commitment, as even during Corona infection, he did not stop his routine office work. When he recovered from the infection, he was seen serving victims in all possible ways like a brave warrior by visiting the worst-affected dis-tricts without any distraction.

There was a prevailing myth that a CM of the state loses his/her job on their visit

to Noida, therefore, several CMs used to avoid visiting Noida — whether it was fol-lower of Buddhist tradition, Mayawati or foreign-educated Akhilesh Yadav (who got his higher education from Aus-tralia). No one could mus-ter enough courage to break this myth. But Yogi, belong-ing to Nath Sampraday, chal-lenged this myth not once or twice but visited Noida around half a dozen times. Agra guest house is tagged as a bad omen for any chief minister staying there. Rajnath Singh was the last chief minister who stayed there and lost his chair. It was Yogi Adityanath who chal-lenged such superstitions and stayed there in the night. So, this Assembly election has become a litmus test for Yogi Adityanath as there are several other such myths and supersti-tions to be broken.

If we talk about the political legacy of Gorakshapeeth Mutt, it is very rich and powerful. The resolve of Mahant Digvi-jay Nath, who entered the Lok Sabha in 1967, to serve people by joining politics as Peethad-heeshwar under the banner of Hindu Mahasabha was taken forward by Mahant Avaidya-nath who got elected to UP Assembly for five times and to Parliament for four times. He was one of the top-rung leaders of the Ram Janmab-hoomi movement and when he retired from active politics, he handed over the Banton to his successor Yogi Aditya-nath who is taking the journey further as an invincible war-rior for the past 23 years. His political voyage that started in 1998 as a Lok Sabha mem-ber from Gorakhpur is con-tinuing unabated. After getting elected five times from Gora-khpur, he became CM of the state in 2017. If the BJP man-ages to retain power in the state this time around, then he will be the first CM of the state to complete the term and get re-elected at the same time. His-tory will be created when any CM takes oath of the office for the second consecutive term in UP. Narayan Dutt Tiwari was the chief minister under whose leadership the Congress won the assembly elections in the undivided UP in 1985 and he became chief minister for the second time in 1988. On both occasions, he became the CM for a short term.

So far, the BJP has given four CMs to the state, includ-ing Kalyan Singh, Ram Prakash Gupta, Rajnath Singh

and Yogi Adityanath but the incumbent Chief Minister is the only among them who has completed his tenure. Also, he is only the third CM in the state to complete the term. The two other chief ministers, May-awati and Akhilesh Yadav, have completed their tenure from 2007 to 2012 and 2012 to 2017, respectively. Around 21 CMs have taken oath of the office in the state so far but none of them were able to complete their tenure — except these three — for reasons like they were changed, the government fell due to short of majority or certain other reasons.

Meanwhile, the process of electioneering in UP has already started. The election campaign in Uttar Pradesh for the BJP is being led by the Chief Minister who is contest-ing the assembly election for the first time. Yogi Adityanath is in the fray from his home constituency Gorakhpur Sadar seat from where the BJP has won every election since 1989. Gorakhpur and the surround-ing areas are known to be the stronghold of the Mutt. The strength can be assessed from the fact that when the Mutt did not like the BJP candidate for the Assembly election in 2002, it fielded Dr Radha Mohan Das as the Hindu Mahasabha can-didate who had won. How-ever, he later on joined the BJP. Radha Mohan Das had been getting elected from the seat since then till the last 2017 elections. Now, Yogi Aditya-nath himself is contesting from the seat as BJP’s chief ministe-rial nominee.

Views expressed are personal

Increasing joblessness, curtailed salaries and overload of housework have further intensified the crisis in familial relationships

The last two years have been terrible, taking a dramatic toll and leaving India flagellating, hitting us where it hurts the most – within our own four walls. No one talks about this, but India is scampering, with our fathers, mothers and brothers falling apart

Yogi Adityanath is only the third CM in UP — after Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati — to have completed his term

RAJEEV NARAYAN

Talking Shop

EDITORIALBidding for the best

IPL is a fascinating league not just in terms of sport but also in terms of commerce — both carrying their own set of intrigue. With mega auctions proceed-ing for the coming season, the interplay between the

sporting and commercial aspects of the game has come out in its full vigour. Marquee players will stand a chance to justify their worth as the IPL season is set to begin in April 2022 but, before that, the team managers of different franchises are up with their skills to amass the best pool of talent with the limited purse they have. One of the posi-tive sides of the IPL auctions is that players, irrespective of their nationality or stage of their career, get rewarded purely on the basis of their talent and utility in the short format game. Managers also do figure in their resilience and ability to fight back in difficult situations. The ability, rather than just the name, appears to be rewarded here. The franchises faltering from this course are likely to suf-fer in any given season. This is evident in the final bidding price of players like Ishan Kishan, Deepak Chahar, Avesh Khan etc. They are being rewarded way above many top-ranked established cricketers. Since it’s all about results in terms of money and prestige, franchises have a keen eye on emerging talents across the world — providing them a ready platform to showcase their prowess on a global stage. South Africa’s Dewald Brevis is an example in case. The U19 cricketer — called by many as Baby AB de Vil-liers — is sold to Mumbai Indians for a whopping sum of three crore. In fact, he was the first player after Jasprit Bumrah, Kieron Pollard, Suryakumar Yadav and Ishan Kishan to be locked for the team. Mumbai initially tread very cautiously with its purse — seeking out potential players at affordable prices. Tilak Verma, Jaydev Unad-kat, Mayank Markande, Basil Thampi etc. were the initial gains for the franchise on the second day of the auctions. Several of these ‘low-ticket’ names were unheard of until now, yet, they were keenly watched for. Perhaps Mumbai was also saving for the dangerous Jofra Archer. The duo of Bumrah and Archer could literally spell a dread for any batter in the world. However, there is some uncertainty over his participation in the current season. Interestingly, Mumbai Indians also bought Singapore’s Tim David for a big sum of Rs 8.25 crores. He has played just a single match in IPL for RCB in 2021 season but has an excellent record in other premier leagues across the world. Where on the first day Ishan Kishan ruled the roost, second day’s top bid was allrounder Liam Livingstone who was sold to Kings XI Punjab for Rs 11.5 crore — way above his base price of one crore. Punjab also spent lavishly for Odean Smith, buying him for Rs 6 crore above the base price of Rs 50 lakh. In fact, franchises have decided to spend big on all-rounders in general. While Gujrat Titans bought four all-rounders — Dominic Drakes (1.10 crore), Jayant Yadav (1.70 crore), Vijay Shankar (1.40 crore) and Dar-shan Nalkande (20 lakh) — Delhi Capitals and Punjab Kings too bought three allrounders each. The all-round-ers — including Yash Dhull — bought by Delhi Capitals were all below the eight-figure mark but Punjab spent in crores for each of them — the least being Raj Angad Bawa at Rs 2 crore. Mumbai Indians, Kolkata Knight Rid-ers, Lucknow SuperGiants and Chennai Super Kings also bought at least one all-rounder on the second day. Bowl-ers too fared well on the second day. The top bids among bowlers (after Jofra Archer) included Khaleel Ahmed (Rs 5.25 crore by Delhi Capitals), Chetan Sakariya (Rs 4.20 crore by Delhi Capitals) Navdeep Saini (2.60 crore by Raj-asthan Royals) and Dushmanta Chameera (Rs 2 crore by Lucknow SuperGiants). Things didn’t appear very good for the batters on the second day of the auction. The best that a batter could get was Rs 2.80 crore (Rovman Pow-ell for Delhi Capitals) after Tim David. Of course, all the franchises bagged their batsmen on the first day of the auction — with many among them being wicket-keeper batsmen. But still it can be said that the current year auc-tion is very much inclined towards all-rounders and bowlers as well. The romance of IPL is no more just about batsmen banging sixes after sixes. It has evolved a great deal where the sharp deliveries of bowlers are as much admired as anything else. There is a lot more for them in the league tournament than just their bowls being sent beyond the boundary lines by mighty batsmen. Moreover, going by the nature of cricket that varied formats demand today, franchises are looking for cricketers who can prove handy in all aspects of the game. The line of specialisa-tion is reserved for only the best of bowlers and batsmen. With due acknowledgement to domestic cricket, IPL also needs to be praised for a lot of good it is doing to cricket. It represents altogether a different nature of cricket that has evolved in the present age. Let the franchises bring the best set of players for their respective teams by following different strategies. Players — old and new, Indians and foreigners — will certainly prove their mettle in April this year. It is indeed an interesting time for cricket as a whole.

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DearEditor

French virologist Luc Montagnier, recipient of 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology for discovering the virus that causes AIDS, has died. He was one of the rarest scientists who earned the dubious distinction of dabbling in maverick experiments that challenged the basic tenets of science. Montagnier, in 1983, identified the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) which causes AIDS, leading him to share the 2008 Nobel Prize in medicine with colleague Francis Barrie Sinoussi. He won many awards, including the Legion of Honour. He helped solve the riddle of HIV virus and its misconceptions. He remained marred in controversy with the American virologist Robert Gallo over who had discovered HIV — only to be resolved by the intervention of the US and French Presidents. He will be remembered as a virologist who took enormous pains in unravelling the AIDS virus and saving millions. This life-saving innovation accords him a significant place in the galaxy of medicines, notwithstanding his controversial remarks causing many scientific peers to shun his findings.

— VIJAY SINGH ADHIKARI, UTTARAKHAND via email

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DEMISE OF A GENIUS

The myth that a CM of UP loses his/her job after their visit to Noida was broken by Yogi Adityanath

8 millenniumpostWorldmpMONDAY, 14 FEBRUARY, 2022 | NEW DELHI

4 shot outside LA party held after Justin

Bieber's concertLOS ANGELES: Four people were shot and wounded early Saturday after a fight broke out outside a Los Angeles restau-rant hosting a party that fol-lowed a Justin Bieber concert, police said.

The gunfire erupted outside The Nice Guy restaurant, strik-ing and injuring four men ages 60, 22, 20 and 19, LAPD Offi-cer Lizeth Lomeli said. Their names were not released.

Officers who responded to the scene found two victims. Paramedics took them to the hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries, police said in an updated statement Saturday afternoon.

Two additional victims went to hospitals on their own, according to the statement. All

four victims were listed in sta-ble condition.

Detectives asked witnesses to come forward to help them identify the gunman.

Videos posted on TMZ.com and on social media show rapper Kodak Black posing for photos with a group of people outside the restaurant when the brawl broke out. Black is among several people involved in the brawl when shots rang out, sending everyone at the scene running for cover.

Law enforcement sources told NBC News that Black, whose legal name is Bill Kapri, was among the people shot and injured.

A message to his publicist at Atlantic Records has not been returned. AGENCIES

US, Japan, S Korea meet in HawaiiTO DISCUSS NORTH KOREA

HONOLULU (US): US Secre-tary of State Antony Blinken met his Japanese and South Korean counterparts Saturday in Hawaii to discuss the threat posed by nuclear-armed North Korea after Pyongyang began the year with a series of missile tests.

Blinken said at a news con-ference after the meeting that North Korea was in a phase of provocation and the three coun-tries condemned the recent mis-sile launches.

We are absolutely united in our approach, in our determina-

tion, Blinken said after his talks with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong. He said the countries were very closely consulting on further steps they may take in response to North Korea. AGENCIES

Nepal's Chief Justice faces

impeachment motion

KATHMANDU: Nepal's rul-ing coalition lawmakers on Sunday filed an impeachment motion against Chief Justice Cholendra Shamsher JB Rana over allegations of corruption.

Spokesperson of the Parlia-ment Secretariat Rajnath Pan-dey said that the impeachment was registered at 11 a.m.

Rana has been suspended from his post following the registration of impeachment motion against him at the House of Representatives.

A total of 98 lawmakers from ruling alliance including Law and Justice Minister Dilen-dra Prasad Badu, Nepali Con-gress Whip Pushpa Bhushal, CPN-Maoist Centre Whip Dev Gurung and CPN-Uni-fied Socialist lawmaker Jee-van Ram Bhandari have signed the proposal to impeach the chief justice. AGENCIES

Flights to Ukraine halted, redirected as crisis brews

MOSCOW: Some airlines have cancelled or diverted flights to Ukraine amid heightened fears that an invasion by Rus-sia is imminent despite inten-sive weekend talks between the Kremlin and the West.

In an hourlong Saturday call with Russian President Vladi-mir Putin, President Joe Biden said invading Ukraine would cause widespread human suf-fering and that the West was committed to diplomacy to end the crisis but equally prepared for other scenarios, the White House said. It offered no sug-gestion that the call diminished the threat of an imminent war in Europe.

The two presidents spoke a day after Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, warned that US intelligence shows a Russian invasion could begin within days.

Russia denies it intends to invade but has massed well over 100,000 troops near the Ukrai-nian border and has sent troops to exercises in neighbouring Belarus. US officials say Rus-sia's buildup of firepower has reached the point where it could invade on short notice.

Dutch airline KLM has can-celled flights to Ukraine until further notice, the company said Saturday.

Dutch sensitivity to poten-tial danger in Ukrainian air-space is high in the wake of the 2014 shooting down of a Malaysian airliner over an area of eastern Ukraine held by Rus-sia-backed rebels. All 298 peo-ple aboard died, including 198 Dutch citizens.

The Ukrainian charter air-line SkyUp said Sunday that its flight from Madeira, Portugal, to Kyiv was diverted to the Mol-dovan capital Chisinau after the plane's Irish lessor said it was banning flights in Ukrainian airspace.

Ukrainian presidential spokesman Serhii Nykyforov

told The Associated Press that Ukraine has not closed its air-space. A statement from the Infrastructure Ministry said: Some carriers are experienc-ing difficulties associated with fluctuations in the insurance markets.

The Putin-Biden call, after a call between Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron earlier in the day, came at a critical moment for what has become the biggest security cri-sis between Russia and the West since the Cold War. US officials believe they have mere days to prevent an invasion and enor-mous bloodshed in Ukraine.

While the US and its NATO allies have no plans to send troops to Ukraine to fight Rus-sia, an invasion and resulting punishing sanctions could reverberate far beyond the for-mer Soviet republic, affecting energy supplies, global mar-kets and the power balance in Europe.

President Biden was clear with President Putin that while the United States remains pre-pared to engage in diplomacy, in full coordination with our Allies

and partners, we are equally prepared for other scenarios, the White House statement said.

Yuri Ushakov, Putin's top foreign policy aide, said that while tensions have been esca-lating for months, in recent days the situation has simply been brought to the point of absurdity .

He said Biden mentioned the possible sanctions that could be imposed on Russia, but this issue was not the focus during a fairly long conversation with the Russian leader .

In a sign that American officials are getting ready for a worst-case scenario, the United States announced plans to evac-uate most of its staff from the embassy in the Ukrainian capi-tal and urged all American cit-izens in Ukraine to leave the country immediately. Britain joined other European nations in telling its citizens to leave Ukraine. Canada has shuttered its embassy in Kyiv and relo-cated its diplomatic staff to a temporary office in Lviv, located in the western part of the coun-try, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly said Saturday. Lviv

is home to a Ukrainian military base that has served as the main hub for Canada's 200-soldier training mission in the former Soviet country.

Ukrainian President Volody-myr Zelenskyy has downplayed concerns about an invasion, urging the country to remain calm.

I believe that today in the information space there is a lot of information, he said Saturday.

The timing of any possible Russian military action remains a key question.

The US picked up intelli-gence that Russia is looking at Wednesday as a target date, according to a US official famil-iar with the findings. The offi-cial, who was not authorised to speak publicly and did so only on condition of anonym-ity, would not say how definitive the intelligence was. Further US-Russia tensions arose on Satur-day when the Defence Ministry summoned the US Embassy's military attache after it said the navy detected an Amer-ican submarine in Russian waters near the Kuril Islands in the Pacific. AGENCIES

Russia denies it intends to invade but has massed well over 100,000 troops near the Ukrainian border

Blockades on Canada-US border continue as protests swell

WINDSOR (Canada): Pro-testers opposed to COVID-19 vaccine mandates and other restrictions withdrew their vehicles from a key US-Canadian border bridge Sat-urday though access remained blocked while other demon-strations ramped up in cit-ies across Canada, including the capital, where police said they were awaiting more officers before ending what they described as an illegal occupation.

The tense standoff at the Ambassador Bridge linking Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, eased somewhat early in the day when Canadian police per-suaded demonstrators to move the trucks they had used to bar-ricade the entrance to the busy international crossing.

Meanwhile, police moved in to clear and arrest the remaining protesters opposed to COVID-19 vaccine man-dates and other restrictions near a key US-Canadian bor-der bridge early Sunday.

Television images showed police arresting the few pro-testers who remained just after dawn near the Ambassador Bridge linking Detroit and Windsor, Ontario the busiest border crossing to the US.

In Ottawa, the ranks of pro-testers swelled to what police said was 4,000 demonstrators.

The city has seen that on past weekends, and loud music played as people milled about downtown where anti-vac-cine demonstrators have been encamped since late January.

Early Saturday evening, crews lined concrete traffic bar-ricades between behind a line

of police officers that stretched across the main highway lead-ing to the foot of the Ambassa-dor Bridge in Windsor.

Officers later with-drew behind the barricades which separated them from protesters.

Barricades also were placed along some side streets. Police vehicles had been parked at those streets, preventing motor vehicles from entering the highway.

The protests at the bridge, in Ottawa and elsewhere have reverberated outside the coun-try, with similarly inspired con-voys in France, New Zealand and the Netherlands, and the US Department of Homeland Security warned that truck convoys may be in the works in the United States.

An ex-Cabinet minister in Canadian Prime Minister Jus-tin Trudeau’s government took the unusual step of calling out her former federal colleagues as well as the province and city for not putting an end to the

protests.Amazingly, this isn’t just

Ottawa. It’s the nation’s capital, Catherine McKenna tweeted.

But no one not the city, the province or the federal gov-ernment can seem to get their act together to end this illegal occupation. It’s appalling. ... Just get your act together. Now.

Trudeau has so far rejected calls to use the military.

The Prime Minister stressed that border crossings cannot, and will not, remain closed, and that all options are on the table, Trudeau’s office said in a statement late Saturday after he met with senior officials.

Trudeau has called the pro-testers a fringe of Canadian society, and both federal and provincial leaders say they can’t order police what to do.

Safety concerns aris-ing from aggressive, illegal behaviour by many demon-strators limited police enforce-ment capabilities, Ottawa police said in a statement late Saturday. AGENCIES

German president re-elected for another termBERLIN: German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier was re-elected for a second term of five years by a special parlia-mentary assembly on Sunday.

Steinmeier had been endorsed by most mainstream political parties ahead of the election for the largely ceremo-nial head of state.

The president was elected

with a big majority by a spe-cial assembly made up of the members of parliament's lower house and representatives of Germany's 16 states.

"My responsibility is for all the people who live in our country. Non-partisan, yes - but I am not neutral when it comes to the cause of democ-racy. Whoever fights for

democracy will have me on his side. Whoever attacks it will have me as an opponent," Steinmeier said in a speech to the special assembly after accepting his election.

Before first becoming pres-ident in 2017, Steinmeier, 66, served two stints as Chancel-lor Angela Merkel's foreign minister and earlier was chief

of staff to Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Germany's presi-dent has little executive power but is considered an important moral authority.

After a messy parliamen-tary election result in 2017, Steinmeier helped prod poli-ticians to form a new coalition government rather than hold-ing out for a new vote. AGENCIES

In this photo provided by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Sunday, Russian soldiers take part in a military drills in Siberia, Russia PTI

Truck drivers and others protest COVID-19 pandemic restrictions in Ottawa, Ontario PTI

S’pore Health Minister says

15K-20K Covid cases within expectation

SINGAPORE: Singapore's Health Minister has said that 15,000-20,000 infections per day is something within expectations in the city-state and the recent rise in COVID-19 cases was not unexpected given that the Omicron variant is highly transmissible.

On Saturday, Singapore reported 10,505 new COVID-19 cases, the fourth time this week that daily infections have exceeded the 10,000 mark. It also reported eight deaths linked to the virus.

"Omicron is highly trans-missible so reaching 15,000-20,000 or more is something within our expectations. So far, it's been that. It's been stay-ing around 10,000 for some days, which gives us some comfort," Channel News Asia quoted Health Minister Ong Ye Kung as saying on Saturday.

Despite the increase in cases, Ong noted that the city state's healthcare system is still holding up.

"But as we have mentioned many times, the top line is much less important. The top line is important in the sense that we know where we are on the epidemic curve, that is still important information. But what's more important is the impact on the healthcare capacity," said Ong.

"The percentage of people requiring oxygen has remained the same. So the numbers have not changed," the Health Minister said. AGENCIES

9millenniumpost Business mpNEW DELHI | MONDAY, 14 FEBRUARY, 2022

NEW DELHI: Industry asso-ciations have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on deteriorating coal supply to the non-power sector, stating that curtailment in fuel supply by rail as well as road and road cum rail (RcR) modes over the last few weeks has pushed the sector towards a “catastrophic” situation.

Moreover, fertiliser being part of the regulated sector is also suffering immensely due to supply crunch from the indig-enous sources, they said in a joint representation.

The associations include the Aluminium Association of India, Coal Consumers’ Asso-ciation of India, Confedera-tion of Indian Textile Industry, Indian Captive Power Produc-ers Association, Sponge Iron Manufacturers Association, and Fertiliser Association of India.

“While regular supply of coal rakes to the utilities have helped the stock of dry fuel at the country’s power plants to

rise, we beg to state that despite several representations by vari-ous industry players as well as the associations, the coal sup-ply scenario to the non-power sector has deteriorated even more.

Further curtailment in sup-ply by rail as well as road and road cum rail (RcR) modes since the last few weeks has caused the plight of NRS con-sumers to descend towards catastrophic conditions,” they said.

The industries like alumi-num, cement, steel, sponge-iron, paper, fertiliser, chemical, rayon and and their captive power plants (CPPs) are mostly

dependent on domestic coal as fuel as well as a direct feed in the process of manufacturing.

This adverse supply sit-uation that started around August/September last year became further arduous as coal stock at many plants plunged below critical level. The demand-supply ratio had shown signs of improvement during November. However, the supply to the NRS con-sumers, including CPPs, has plummeted once again despite October-March being the high-est production months for Coal India Ltd.

“Industries plan for their fuel requirement well in advance. Therefore, any sud-den changes in supply com-mitment from the indigenous sources create huge impact in plant operations,” the associa-tions explained.

Energy-intensive and con-tinuous process plants along with their captive power plants are highly dependent on coal as a primary source of fuel. There-

fore, interruption in the fuel supply chain is forcing many plants to run at a lower capac-ity and adversely affecting their cost of production. Higher cost of production will ultimately affect every section of the soci-ety, they said.

“It is our humble submis-sion that the standard policy of the Ministry of Coal (CCEA approved) may be strongly implemented to ensure a jus-tified ratio of coal allocation between power sector and industries so that the consum-ers are not deprived of their legitimate entitlement and could continue their produc-tion economically for delivery of goods at affordable price to the common people,” they said.

Coal India on Saturday said it is currently supplying around 3.4 lakh tonnes of coal per day to non-power sector which is the company’s average supply to this segment and stressed that it has sufficient buffer stock to increase supply to the sector. PTI

MUMBAI: Air India has asked its cabin crew to wear mini-mal jewellery to avoid delays at security checks and not to visit duty-free shops after com-pleting the immigration pro-cess as part of the Tatas-owned airline’s efforts to improve on-time performance.

Since it took over loss-making Air India on January 27, Tatas has been working on ways to improve the overall performance of the carrier.

The cabin crew must also adhere to the uniform regula-tions and wear minimum jew-ellery to avoid any delays at customs and security checks, Air India officiating executive director for Inflight Services, Vasudha Chandna said in a communication to cabin crew on Sunday.

Once on board, the cabin crew should only wear the items of PPE kit which are required to be worn as per the

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The long-awaited 5G spectrum auction is expected to be held in May this year if the Telecom Regu-latory Authority of India (Trai) submits by March its recom-mendations on the rules regard-ing the sale process, according to a senior official of the telecom department.

Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw earlier this month said the Trai has informed that it will submit its recommen-dations for the 5G auction by March and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is simultaneously firming up other processes to hold the auction at the earliest.

“Trai has indicated that they will send it (recommen-dations) by March. Thereaf-ter, it will take us a month to make a decision around it,” Telecom Secretary K Rajaraman said. Earlier, the government has taken time of 60-120 days to start the bidding rounds in

the auction after receiving rec-ommendations from Trai on spectrum auction.

Rajaraman said it will take the DoT two months to start the auction from the day it gets rec-ommendations from the Trai.

According to the DoT, 5G

is expected to deliver down-load speed 10 times faster than 4G services.

As per the process, DoT seeks reference from the Trai on spectrum price, method for allo-cating it, block size of spectrum, payments terms and conditions,

among others. The Trai holds consultation with the industry and other stakeholders and then submits recommendations to the DoT.

As per the current prac-tice, the apex decision making body at the DoT, the Digital Communications Commission (formerly the Telecom Com-mission) takes the decision on Trai recommendations and then approaches the Cabinet for the final approval.

Rajaraman said that the DoT has already selected MSTC as the auctioneer for the upcom-ing auction.

Trai has given participants in 5G spectrum consultation to submit their additional com-ments by February 15 after which it will review and come up with recommendations.

Telecom operators have demanded up to 95 per cent cut in the spectrum frequency band price. Both telecom and satellite players are at logger-heads with each other on rules for the 5G spectrum auction.

DUBAI: Saudi Arabia said Sunday it will transfer 4 per cent of the stock in the state-run oil giant Aramco to a sov-ereign wealth fund, an infusion valued at nearly $80 billion as the kingdom tries to overhaul its energy-dependent economy.

The announcement on the state-run Saudi Press Agency comes as the oil firm is valued at just under $2 trillion and as oil trades above $90 a barrel its highest level since 2014.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the assertive son of King Salman, made the decision to trans-fer the stock, the state media report said. It will go to the Public Investment Fund, the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, which has been Prince Mohammed’s vehicle to invest in everything from Uber to British soccer team Newcastle United. The fund also is part of the prince’s Neom project along the Red Sea coast.

His Highness added that the transfer of these shares is part of the kingdom’s long-term strat-egy aimed at supporting the restructuring of the national economy, the report said. That will include creating private-sector jobs in the kingdom, it added.

Saudi Arabia has reaped the benefits of a spike in oil

prices after the Coronavirus pandemic crashed prices at one point into negative terri-tory, but it also sees the grow-ing worldwide concern over climate change being fuelled by burning fossil fuels. Prince Mohammed’s plans hope to see that oil wealth pay to create jobs for the kingdom’s youth to pivot away from oil over time.

The Public Investment Fund also has invested in the electric car manufacturer Lucid Motors Inc of Newark, California.

The fund did not imme-diately acknowledge what its plans for the stock would be and did not immediately respond to a request for com-ment. Ratings agency Moody’s Investors Service last week said the fund’s assets had grown to $ 412 billion in 2020, up from $ 152 billion in 2015.

The kingdom remains the largest shareholder in the firm with some 94 per cent of the company. The Saudi Arabian Oil Co. long has served as both

the main economic engine in the kingdom and the main source of funds for its ruling Al Saud royal family.

Saudi Arabia offered a sliver of shares of the oil firm on Riyadh’s Tadawul stock market in 2019. That list-ing made Aramco one of the world’s most-valued com-panies alongside Apple and Microsoft. Aramco stock closed slightly down Sunday to 37.05 Saudi riyals, or 9.87, a share. AGENCIES

Auction of 5G spectrum expected in May: Official

DoT will take two months to start auction from the day it gets Trai’s recommendations: Telecom Secy K Rajaraman

As per the process, DoT seeks reference from the Trai on spectrum price, method for allocating it, block size of spectrum, payments terms & conditions, etc

Saudi Arabia gives Aramco’s 4% stock worth $80 billion to sovereign fund

It will go to the Public Investment Fund, the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, which has been Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s investm vehicle to in everything from Uber to British soccer team Newcastle United

Highlights » The Public Investment Fund (PIF) also has invested in the electric car manufacturer Lucid Motors Inc of Newark, California » Moody’s last week said the fund’s assets had grown to $412 billion in 2020, up from $152 billion in 2015 » The Saudi Arabian Oil Co. (Aramco) long has served as both the main economic engine in the kingdom & main source of funds for its ruling Al Saud royal family

NEW DELHI: The govern-ment will start working on selling the ground-handling arm of erstwhile national car-rier Air India and the Expres-sion of Interest (EoI) is expected in the next fiscal, an official said.

“We already have the Cabi-net approval for selling the sub-sidiaries of Air India. So we will come out with an EoI inviting bids for one of the ground-han-dling arms in the next fiscal,” an official said.

Currently, four Air India subsidiaries — Air India Air Transport Services Ltd (AIATSL), Airline Allied Ser-vices Ltd (AASL) or Alliance Air, Air India Engineering Services Ltd (AIESL) and Hotel Corporation of India Ltd (HCI) are with Air India Assets Holding Ltd (AIAHL), which is a special purpose vehicle set up in 2019 for hold-ing non-core assets and debt of Air India.

The government had last month transferred the owner-

ship of Air India to Tata Group, after the later emerged as the winning bidder for buying the loss-making carrier.

The official further said that it is also to be decided whether the Air India Specific Alter-native Mechanism (AISAM) for Air India privatisation or the Alternative Mechanism for CPSE disinvestment would be the decision-making ministe-rial panel for privatising these subsidiaries.

The AISAM is headed by the Home Minister and com-prises the Finance Minis-

ter, Commerce and Industry Minister and Civil Aviation Minister.

The Alternative Mecha-nism of CPSE disinvestment comprises Road Transport and Highways Minister, Finance Minister and Commerce and Industry Minister.

Separately, AIAHL also has over Rs 14,700 crore worth non-core assets like land and building of Air India which also has to be monetised. These assets were transferred to AIAHL before the airline’s privatisation. PTI

TEHRAN: Iran raised fore-casts for revenue from oil exports by almost a third in the draft budget for the next Iranian year, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.

Oil exports for the 12 months ending March 2023 are now projected to reach approx-imately 4.84 quadrillion rials, according to figures reported by Tasnim on Sunday. That’s about $115 billion based on the fixed government exchange rate and $17.2 billion based on the unregulated exchange rate.

The previous figure for pro-jected oil exports in the draft budget, which still needs to be finalized and approved by par-liament, was 3.81 quadrillion rials, according to Tasnim.

Iran’s oil exports are heav-ily sanctioned by the U.S. Big-power talks are under-way in Vienna to try to bro-ker a revived nuclear deal that would ease the penalties and allow more Iranian crude onto global markets in exchange for limits on the Islamic Republic’s atomic activities. AGENCIES

Iran raises projected oil exports in

draft Budget

Coal supply crunch has led non-power sector to ‘catastrophic conditions’: Industry associations

EoI for sale of ground-handling arm of erstwhile national carrier AI next fiscal

NEW DELHI: Domestic equity markets are likely to see volatil-ity in a range-bound trade this week amid geopolitical wor-ries and growing expectations of a sharp hike in interest rates, analysts said.

Global trends, inflation data and the last batch of quarterly earnings will drive the markets this week, they said. Besides, the rupee movement, FII invest-ment pattern and Brent crude trends would also be watched by investors.

“World markets are trying to adjust with expectations of a sharp rise in interest rates in the US after record inflation but the elevating geopolitical ten-sion is trying to make things

worsen,” said Santosh Meena, Head of Research, Swastika Investmart Ltd.

On the domestic front, infla-tion data will be released this week while the tail-end of earn-ing session will have an impact on some individual stocks.

“On the political front, developments in the assembly polls of Uttar Pradesh, Uttara-khand, Goa, Punjab and Mani-

pur will be closely watched,” Meena said.

The behaviour of FIIs will also be an important factor because they are selling relent-lessly, he added.

Breaking their selling spree, FIIs were net investors in stocks on Friday, putting in Rs 108.53 croe on net basis in equities. FIIs have pulled out over Rs 14,930 crore on net basis from capital markets this month. Barring two sessions, they have remained net sellers in capital markets in Feb-ruary. Last week, the 30-share BSE benchmark declined by 491.90 points or 0.83 per cent.

Adani Enterprises, Coal India, Eicher Motors, Ambuja Cements, Nestle India, Spicejet

and Jet Airways are among the companies that will announce their financial results this week.

“After the reaction to US’s inflation, investors globally will be focused on gaining a clearer understanding of the Fed’s action, as the minutes of the most recent FOMC meeting are set to be released.

“Another significant metric to watch will be China’s infla-tion data. D-Street investors will be keeping a close eye on the domestic inflation rate to predict its future path. Given these events, markets are largely expected to remain volatile and range-bound,” said Yesha Shah, Head of Equity Research, Samco Securities. PTI

latest circular in the shortest possible time and complete the mandatory checks before/well within the prescribed timings, it said.

Asking the cabin crew staff not to delay the manda-

tory preflight check clearance, which may be attributed to the cabin crew, it has advised cabin supervisor to give clearance for boarding to the ground staff before or well within the pre-scribed timings. PTI

Wear minimal jewellery to avoid delays at security checks: AI tells cabin crew

Global trends, inflation data, last batch of earnings to drive markets this week: Analysts

NEW DELHI: Tata Motors is expecting CNG cars contribu-tion to grow up to 20 per cent gradually in its total sales over the next 3 to 5 years as it antic-ipates more entry-level petrol and diesel customers to opt for such models, a top company official has said.

The Mumbai-based auto major is also bullish on the electric vehicle segment with sales expected to account for about 20 per cent of its over-all dispatches over the next few years.

“I think CNG is a seg-ment which is going to grow in the coming years. This will be a subset of, I would say, the petrol, because this is being more triggered with the ris-ing cost of petrol. It uses a petrol engine...and therefore, it will mostly cannibalise pet-rol and to a great extent, also diesel, replacing diesel in the entry segment,” Tata Motors President Passenger Vehicle and Electric Vehicles Shailesh Chandra said.

Therefore, the company

sees a strong future of this, given that there is a deeper penetration and expansion of the CNG outlets which is taking place in the country, he added.

Shailesh Chandra noted that currently diesel car sales across its portfolio stand at around 15 per cent, while pet-rol and CNG sales account for roughly about 66 per cent and 12 per cent, respectively.

Electric Vehicles (EVs) account for the rest of the dispatches.

“In the next three to five years, petrol will possibly come down to about 50 per cent level, CNG will go up to 20 per cent..diesel would come down further to about 10 per cent and I would say (for) EV..., we have already declared our target of going more towards 20 per cent,” Shailesh Chandra stated.

Elaborating further, he said the company is focusing on hatchback and compact sedan segments for expansion of CNG model range. PTI

Tata Motors expects sales contribution of CNG & EV to go up in next three-five years

‘Currently diesel car sales across its portfolio stand at around 15%, while petrol and CNG sales account for roughly about 66% and 12%, respectively’

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10 millenniumpostBusinessmpMONDAY, 14 FEBRUARY, 2022 | NEW DELHI

NEW DELHI: IL&FS group would resolve debt of Rs 55,000 crore by March 2022, the board of the crisis-hit company has stated in its affidavit filed before the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT).

While updating the prog-ress of the resolution progress, the IL&FS board, led by Uday Kotak, said Rs 55,000 crore debt would be resolved through asset monetisation, restructur-ing and insolvency proceeding initiatives.

Some of this has already been completed while the rest is at different stages of resolu-tion, it said in a brief snapshot on the progress made in the ongoing resolution process till December 7, 2021, and sug-gested estimates of progress to be made by March 2022.

The IL&FS had a total out-standing debt of Rs 99,355 crore as of October 8, 2018, of which

Rs 45,500 crore debt is handled through debt resolution initia-tives by March 2022.

Of this, debt of Rs 20,500 crore has already been resolved through monetisation, Rs 4,000 crore by way of debt discharged and Rs 21,350 crore in cash available across companies and Invit unit (Infrastructure Investment Trust) due to be issued.

In addition, the board also expects to resolve Rs 5,300 crore through various “transactions approved by the relevant court/tribunal and pending transac-

tion closure” and Rs 4,200 crore from resolution applications filed with courts and pending approvals.

“As of January 4, 2021, the total number of entities in Respondent No 1 (IL&FS) group has reduced to 111 from 302,” the affidavit said.

In this, IL&FS’s domestic entities have been reduced to 95 from 169, while the offshore entities have been reduced to 16 from 133.

The Board had informed to resolve 29 of 60 entities through entity monetization process; 12 road assets under Invit; 3 assets where concession were termi-nated and 30 entities where it initiated closure or insolvency proceedings.

“A critical focus of the New Board has been on maintain-ing the going concern status of the Respondent No. 1 Group. Respondent No. I Group has

also been focused on multiple resolution initiatives including expediting recoveries of loans and investments provided/ made by the Respondent No I Group, which amounts will be utilised towards discharging claims of the creditors of the rel-evant Respondent No I Group entities in accordance with the Revised Distribution Frame-work approved by this tribu-nal (NCLAT) vide the March 12, 2020 judgement,” the affi-davit said.

This has also resulted into an accumulated cash balance of Rs 16,742 crore as of Decem-ber 7, 2021.

The NCLAT had on March 12, 2020, approved a distri-bution framework based on “pro-rata distribution” among creditors of debt-ridden IL&FS group from the proceeds of the sale, as suggested by the government. PTI

NEW DELHI: EPFO’s apex decision-making body Cen-tral Board of Trustee will take a call on interest rate on employ-ees’ provident fund deposits for 2021-22 in its meeting next month.

“The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) CBT meeting will be held in Guwa-hati in March where proposal for interest rate for 2021-22 would be listed as it is end of the fiscal year,” Union Labour Minister Bhupender Yadav said.

Asked whether EPFO would maintain the 8.5 per cent inter-est rate for 2021-22 as decided for 2020-21, Yadav, who also heads the CBT, said the deci-sion would be taken on the basis

of income projection for the financial year.

The 8.5 per cent interest rate on EPF deposits for 2020-21 was decided by the Central Board of Trustees (CBT) in March 2021.

It was ratified by the finance ministry in October 2021 and thereafter, EPFO issued direc-tions to field offices to credit the interest income at 8.5 per cent for 2020-21 into the subscribers’ account. Once CBT decides an interest rate on EPF deposits for

a fiscal year, it is sent to Minis-try of Finance for concurrence.

EPFO provides the rate of interest only after it is ratified by the government through the finance ministry. In March 2020, EPFO had lowered interest rate on provident fund deposits to a seven-year low of 8.5 per cent for 2019-20, from 8.65 per cent provided for 2018-19.

The EPF interest rate pro-vided for 2019-20 was the low-est since 2012-13, when it was brought down to 8.5 per cent.

EPFO had provided 8.65 per cent interest rate to its subscrib-ers in 2016-17 and 8.55 per cent in 2017-18. The rate of interest was slightly higher at 8.8 per cent in 2015-16. PTI

NEW DELHI: India needs to adopt a multidimensional approach to take the country’s merchandise exports to $1 tril-lion by 2030, a report by indus-try body CII has suggested.

The report recommends finalising free trade agreements with large markets, extending RoDTEP to all exports, attract-ing global firms and addressing domestic manufacturing issues to achieve the target.

“With a holistic and aggres-sive approach, the aim to achieve $1 trillion in merchan-dise exports by 2030 is indeed achievable if India undertakes a strategic mission,” CII President T V Narendran said.

In its report ‘Achieving $1 trillion in merchandise exports: A Roadmap’, released on Sun-day, the CII has outlined prod-ucts and destination markets that India should focus on and highlights a range of policy actions towards meeting the target.

The need of the hour is for India to integrate closely with global value chains and to attract FDI inflows in its key sectors, according to the CII.

Based on the potential to gain global share, 14 products have been identified in the CII report as those which can con-tribute the most to the increase in exports.

These include vehicles, tex-tiles, electrical machinery and equipment, machinery, apparel, chemical products, plastics, pharmaceuticals, etc.

The report also identifies 41 countries that offer opportuni-ties to expand exports which must be given special attention.

“Currently, more than 20 trade deals are under negotia-tion including those with the UK, Canada, European Union (EU), Australia, United Arab Emirates, and the GCC coun-tries which must be expedited”.

Further, non-tariff bar-riers in existing trade agree-ments need to be resolved to open market access, says the

CII report.It also highlights the need

for investment agreements to be well linked to trade arrangements.

As investment-led exports are a key feature of export capa-bilities, multinational compa-nies must be encouraged to set up production base in India to enhance the country’s pres-ence in global value chains, says the report.

The rates under the scheme of Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products (RoDTEP) need to be extended to all sectors and aligned to taxes and additional costs that are present in the manufactur-

ing ecosystem, according to the report.

Exports of SEZs and EOUs should be included in the scheme, it added.

It outlines numerous rec-ommendations to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Advance Pricing Agreement program and resolving transfer pricing issues, reducing litiga-tion and providing tax certainty for MNCs

Creating a special win-dow ‘Accelerated APA’ similar to Vivad se Vishwas scheme would help address pending cases, said CII.

The report also recommends that India should set up a dedi-

cated internationally recognised marketing agency for export promotion in key markets.

The agency should have offices in key markets and help with connecting buyers with Indian enterprises, especially small and medium enterprises (MSME).

In January-December 2021, India’s merchandise exports crossed $292 billion, a growth rate of 43 per cent over the pre-vious year. The top products adding to export growth include iron and steel, mineral fuels, cotton, aluminium, vehicles, textiles, electrical machinery and equipment and cereals, amongst others. PTI

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Mutual fund houses launched 140 new fund offerings (NFOs), which col-lected about Rs 1 lakh crore in 2021 on a sharp rally in the markets and an exceptional increase in the retail investors’ interest.

However, the current vola-tility in the stock market might prompt asset management companies (AMCs) to limit the launch of NFOs this year, said MyWealthGrowth.com co-founder Harshad Chetanwala.

Ankit Yadav, wealth man-ager (USA) and director of Market Maestro, also believes that NFOs are going to decrease in 2022 and little will come in 2023 when rates start changing.

According to data com-piled by Morningstar India, there were 140 new fund offers (including closed-end funds and ETFs) in 2021. These man-aged to garner a respectable Rs 99,704 crores during their inception stage.

This was way higher than 81 NFOs floated in 2020 and cumulatively, these funds were able to garner Rs 53,703 crore.

“Given the sharp rally in the markets along with the need to fill product gap created post-

recategorisation and giving investors new themes to invest in, asset-management compa-nies launched a plethora of new schemes across the year (2021),” Morningstar noted.

Usually, NFOs come during a surging market when inves-tor sentiments are high and optimistic. The stock market along with the positive inves-tor sentiments kept surging post-March 2020. It is from

this point in time the launch of NFOs started, Chetanwala said.

The NFOs were floated to capitalise on the mood of inves-tors and attract their investment as they were willing to invest at that time, he added.

“The main fact as a wealth manager I see in low rate sce-nario is that the borrow-ing becomes easy with easy money fluctuating around businesses tend to bring their

IPOs and AMC (assets manage-ment company) businesses are inclined NFOs,” Market Mae-stro’s Ankit Yadav said.

In 2020, the central banks throughout the globes cut the rates and made rates hit all-time lows in the 100-year his-tory. Rates remain unchanged in 2021. That’s why to utilise low rates, AMC businesses bring NFOs, he added.

The maximum number of funds (25) were launched in the index fund segment, which amassed Rs 4,082 crore, fol-lowed by other ETFs (24), which collected Rs 7,482 crore and fixed-term plans (23), which mobilised Rs 5,057 crore.

In addition, investors were attracted to international funds and sectoral or thematic funds. The AMCs launched 12 sectoral or thematic funds, which raised Rs 13,237 crore and floated 12 overseas funds of funds, which mopped up Rs 6,351 crore.

Experts believe that the dominance of index funds and ETFs (exchange-traded funds) within NFOs is not surprising, owing to a couple of factors.

Existing AMCs have no restrictions in the number of passive products they can manufacture, whereas there are limits on other types of funds,

Vasanth Kamath, founder and CEO at Smallcase, said.

“Also, as investors (across retail, HNIs, institutional) are broadening and diversifying their portfolios, they’re prefer-ring to take an index approach to new exposures and asset types, making it both efficient and simple versus having to build their own frameworks and strategies on these uni-verses,” he said.

In addition, the staggering growth of new demat accounts requires fund houses to offer a larger, diverse line-up of ETFs that were missing in the exchange-traded form factor, he added.

Another factor for higher NFOs in the index category could be strong performance as the index delivered over 20 per cent last year.

Further, the penetration of Indian investors towards index or ETF is low. So, AMCs try to capture their market share, Market Maestro’s Yadav said.

Similarly, international stock markets had given good returns in the past few years and even the interest of inves-tors to diversify across geogra-phy increased, which resulted in many AMCs coming up with international funds.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

MUMBAI: Given the record government borrowing plan of Rs 14.3 lakh crore for FY23, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which already holds as much as 17 per cent of the Rs 80.8 lakh crore outstanding government bonds, will have to find buyers for at least Rs 2 lakh crore, as banks typically opt for short-term debt of under 10-years, according to a report.

The Budget 2023 has pegged the Centre’s gross borrowing at a record Rs 14.3 lakh crore. Together with the states, the gross borrowing will be Rs 23.3 lakh crore and the net will be Rs 17.8 lakh crore for the next financial year. The Budget seeks to pay back Rs 3.1 lakh crore next fiscal, up from Rs 2.7 lakh crore this fiscal.

With Rs 80.8 lakh crore out-standing government bonds, the RBI is the second-largest holder of them after financial institutions.

According to a report by SBI Research, the government securities maturing by 2061 are worth Rs 80.8 lakh crore as of the end of January. Of this, 37.8 per cent are held by banks, 24.2 per cent by insurers, which means 62 per cent of them are held by them, and the monetary authority holds as much as 17 per cent.

As against this, the foreign ownership of G-secs are a paltry 1.9 per cent. This is the lowest among its peers as in Brazil, it is a high 44.5 per cent, 41.1 per cent in Mexico, 35 per cent in

South Africa and 10.5 per cent in China, said the report. It also pointed out that had the govern-ment allowed the G-Secs inclu-sion into international bond indices, as widely expected, this will have seen at least Rs 1.5 lakh crore/ $15-20 billion of addi-tional ownership by foreign-ers, helping the RBI manage the borrowing programme easily.

The outstanding dated gov-ernment securities stood at Rs 80.76 lakh crore as of the end of January 2022, which are due for redemption till 2061.

However, the overall share of banks has dwindled by 10 percentage points since March 2010 when they held 47.25 per cent as banks lean more towards shorter tenor, preferably for 10 years or below offerings, leaving the higher tenors for insurance

companies and others with anal-ogous appetite, said the report pencilled by SBI Chief Eco-nomic Advisor Soumya Kanti Ghosh.

Ghosh also said the large size of the FY23 market borrowings at Rs 14.3 lakh crore and with no progress on the inclusion of G-secs in the global bond indices yet begs the question of whether the RBI might have to delay the liquidity normalisa-tion in an effort to support the large borrowings programme.

The larger question is the blurring of debt management and liquidity management oper-ations of the RBI, which again raises the question of whether debt management functions need to be separated from mon-etary management of the mon-etary authority.

Based on the ownership pat-tern of G-secs as of September 2021 and given the total net bor-rowings at Rs 11.2 lakh crore, the report said the demand for securities from banks will be around Rs 4.2 lakh crore, con-sidering NDTL (net demand and time liabilities) increase 10 per cent and SLR (statutory liquidity ratio) at 27 per cent, it said.

The report said insurers could subscribe to Rs 2.7 lakh crore. This implies that the RBI would have to still ensure the demand of at least Rs 2 lakh crore through OMOs (open market operations) and the rest will be purchased by PDs, MFs, FPIs and others. But, this leaves the question of liquid-ity normalisation complicated.

MFs garner nearly `1 lakh cr via new fund offerings in 2021‘The NFOs were floated to capitalise on the mood of investors and attract their investment as they were willing to invest at that time’

Usually, NFOs come during a surging market when investor sentiments are high and optimistic. The stock market along with the positive investor sentiments kept surging post-March 2020

RBI’s G-Secs holding may go up by `2 lakh cr next fiscal: SBI

With Rs 80.8 lakh crore outstanding government bonds, the RBI is the second-largest holder of them after financial institutions

NEW DELHI: Country’s larg-est lender State Bank of India (SBI) is expecting to recover around Rs 8,000 crore from written-off accounts, includ-ing from NCLT resolved cases, in the current fiscal year to be ending on March 31, 2022.

During the third quar-ter ended December 2021, SBI recovered Rs 1,500 crore from written-off accounts and for the nine months during April-December FY22, the recovery amount stands at Rs 5,600 crore, SBI said in a post Q3 FY22 earnings call with analysts.

Bank’s net profit during the quarter surged by 62.27 per cent to Rs 8,432 crore.

“But overall, the bank is expecting recovery of about Rs 8,000 crore in this whole

financial year,” the lender said during the call.

This includes the amount recovered from tribunal resolved cases, as the bank said it will “not be differenti-ating between NCLT” resolved cases in terms of recovery from written-off accounts.

The public sector lender also brought down its bad loans proportion, with the gross non-performing assets (NPAs) falling down to 4.5 per cent at end of December 2021 from 4.9 per cent in the preced-ing quarter, September 2021.

The net NPAs also fell quar-ter-on-quarter to 1.34 per cent from 1.52 per cent.

Chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara said the financial results during Q3FY22 validates that the performance of the bank

is improving steadily.“Our slippage ratio for nine

months of the financial year FY22 is at 1.16 per cent, while our slippage ratio in quarter three FY22 is 0.37 per cent. This is largely an outcome of the critical changes that have been made in our underwrit-ing processes through the large cycles.

“The CET1 (common equity tier 1--measure of a bank’s core equity capital) ratio of the bank is at 9.38 per cent at the end of December 2021. And if we include the profit earned during the year, the ratio stands at 10.32 per cent. We believe that the internal accruals are adequate to sup-port the credit growth through the financial year FY23,” Khara told the analysts. PTI

SBI expects to recover `8,000 cr from written-off accounts in FY22

IL&FS group to resolve `55,000 cr debt by March

NEW DELHI: Foreign portfo-lio investors (FPIs) have with-drawn a net Rs 14,935 crore from the Indian market in the first half of February.

FPIs have been net sell-ers for the fourth consecutive month.

The total net outflow dur-ing February 1-11 stood at Rs 14,935 crore.

As per data from deposito-ries, FPIs took out Rs 10,080 crore from equities, Rs 4,830 crore from the debt segment and Rs 24 crore from hybrid instruments.

“FPIs sharply increased the pace of selling after the US Fed-eral Reserve indicated an end of the ultra-loose monetary pol-icy regime. Besides, globally, the bond yields have surged in recent times on expectation of a hike in interest rates by the US Fed,” Himanshu Srivas-tava, associate director (man-ager research) of Morningstar India, said.

With US inflation hitting a 40-year high, the stage has been set for rather aggressive rate hikes by the US Fed in coming months which could trigger further foreign out-flows from Indian equities, he added.

Flows in emerging markets were mixed in the month of February 2022 till date, said Shrikant Chouhan, head of equity research (retail) at Kotak Securities.

Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea and the Philippines reported positive flows to the tune of $1,155 million, $580 million, $477 million and $133 million, respectively.

On the other hand, Tai-wan reported negative flows to the tune of $410 million, he added. PTI

FPIs net sellers at ̀ 14,935 cr in H1 of February

EPFO to take call on interest rate for 2021-22 deposits in March

AGARTALA: The Centre has sanctioned over Rs 24 crore for dredging in Gomati, a trans-boundary river between India and Bangladesh, and setting up 10 jetties for a waterway project, an official said here on Sunday.

Of the total 93-km pro-posed waterway from Sonamura in Tripura’s Sepa-hijala district to Daudkandi in the neighbouring country, around 15.5-km stretch needs dredging to operationalise the route, he said.

The Ministry of Shipping has sanctioned Rs 24.53 crore to undertake dredging works in Gomati and construction of 10 floating jetties from Udaipur in

Gomati district to Sonamura,” state transport department principal secretary L Darlong said.

Only 1.5-km stretch in India and 14-km in the neigh-bouring country are proposed to be dredged to improve nav-

igability in the transboundary river, Darlong said.

The state government has already requested the Inland Waterways Authority of India to help the local administration for the strategic project.

“The Centre will take up the dredging issue with the Ban-gladesh government to com-mence such work on its part,” he said.

A permanent jetty would come up near Srimanta-pur Land Customs Sation in Sonamura with an estimated cost of Rs 5.04 crore, the offi-cial said.

We came to know that IWAI has already floated ten-der for construction of a per-

manent jetty at Srimantapur. The authorities were asked

to finalise the process of awarding the contract soon to expedite the project,” he said.

The Centre has set a goal to bring vessels with a carry-ing capacity of 200-300 tonnes from Daudkandi to Sonamura by the end of May.

Union Minister of Ports and Shipping Sarbananda Sonowal is scheduled to visit the state on February 15 to review progress of the project, he added.

A trial run on the water-way from Bangladesh to Tripura was carried out in Sep-tember 2020. PTI

‘Centre sanctions `24cr for dredging in Gomati river to boost Indo-Bangla waterway project’

‘Only 1.5-km stretch in India and 14-km in the neighbouring country are proposed to be dredged to improve navigability in the transboundary river’

Multidimensional approach key to achieve $1 tn exports by 2030: CII‘Need of the hour is for India to integrate closely with global value chains & to attract FDI inflows in its key sectors’

NEW DELHI: Nine of the 10 most valued companies together lost Rs 1,03,532.08 crore in market valuation last week, with Tata Consultancy Services emerging as the worst loser.

The 30-share BSE bench-mark last week declined 491.90 points or 0.83 per cent.

Reliance Industries Limited, the most valued firm by market valuation, emerged as the only gainer from the top-10 pack. Its valuation rose by Rs 30,474.79 crore to Rs 16,07,857.69 crore.

The market valuation of Tata Consultancy Services tumbled Rs 44,037.2 crore to reach Rs 13,67,021.43 crore.

HDFC’s market capitalisa-

tion (mcap) tanked Rs 13,772.72 crore to Rs 4,39,459.25 crore.

The valuation of Hindu-stan Unilever Limited eroded by Rs 11,818.45 crore to Rs 5,30,443.72 crore and that of ICICI Bank declined by Rs 9,574.95 crore to Rs 5,49,434.46 crore.

The market capitalisa-tion of Bajaj Finance plunged Rs 8,987.52 crore to reach Rs 4,22,938.56 crore and that of Infosys by Rs 8,386.79 crore to Rs 7,23,790.27 crore.

Bharti Airtel’s market capitalisation declined by Rs 3,157.91 crore to Rs 3,92,377.89 crore and that of HDFC Bank dipped Rs 2,993.33 crore to Rs 8,41,929.20 crore. PTI

Mcap of 9 of top-10 cos erodes by over ̀ 1 lakh cr

11millenniumpost Sport mpNEW DELHI | MONDAY, 14 FEBRUARY, 2022

ISL: Mumbai City FC demolish Odisha FC to move to fourth

MARGAO: Mumbai City FC produced a dominating dis-play to beat Odisha FC 4-1 in an Indian Super League match here on Sunday.

A brace each from Igor Angulo (41st, 70th minute) and Bipin Singh (47th, 73rd) was enough to cancel Jonathas' (90+1) goal and secure three points that lifted Mumbai to the fourth spot on the table.

On the other hand, the Kalinga Warriors were left licking their wounds as they remained in seventh place.

Mumbai were denied two shouts for a penalty early in the match as they pushed for the opening goal. Both teams exchanged blows back and forth until the half-hour mark, looking for the opening goal.

Jerry Mawihmingthanga came extremely close to open-ing the scoring but Mandar Dessai denied him with a last-ditch clearance right after the drinks break.

However, it was the Island-

ers that broke the deadlock through Igor Angulo. The Spaniard was left unmarked inside the box by the Odisha defenders, who met Rahul Bheke's cross and slotted his

header past the goalkeeper with ease.

Victor Mongil came close to scoring the equaliser but his header from a corner went off-target. Despite Odisha's best

efforts, Mumbai maintained their advantage heading into the half time break.

The second half began on a terrible note for Odisha as they conceded the second goal, this

time through Bipin Singh.The winger was fed by

Ahmed Jahouh and managed to find the back of the net from an extremely tight angle. Bipin and Igor combined again at the stroke of the 70th minute to add a third goal.

Angulo weaved past a cou-ple of defenders and calmly put his left-footed shot in the bot-tom right corner.

Then, Bipin Singh scored his second from close range barely two minutes later follow-ing brilliant work from Cassio Gabriel on the left flank who served the ball on a platter.

The Islanders were denied the clean sheet by Jonathas, who found the back of the net with a fine curling effort from long range four minutes before the final whistle. Odisha face a struggling Chennaiyin FC in their next fixture in Vasco on Wednesday while Mumbai City clash with fellow top-four contenders Jamshedpur FC in Bambolim on Thursday. AGENCIES

A brace each from Igor and Bipin was enough to cancel Jonathas' (90+1) goal and secure three points that lifted Mumbai to the fourth spot on the table

Kerala take on lowly SC East Bengal with top-4 spot in mind

VASCO: Kerala Blasters would look to bounce back from their last match defeat and earn all the three points against lowly SC East Bengal in their Indian Super League game here on Monday.

For SC East Bengal, it will be about salvaging some pride after being mathematically ruled out of the playoffs race following a loss to Odisha FC in their previous engagement.

While SC East Bengal will look to play party poopers, for Kerala, this game should be the one to pick up three points as they take on ATK Mohun Bagan and Hyderabad FC, two teams above them in the league table, in the next two games after Monday.

For head coach Ivan Vuko-manovic, his team's set-piece woes would be a cause for con-cern given SC East Bengal do score a lot from them.

Kerala Blasters may be without Ruivah Hormipam, Harmanjot Khabra and Marko Leskovic for the next game, all of whom are either injured, sus-pended or not fully fit.

"We have enough players in our squad. That's why we have a large squad. Some other players will take the positions. I am not worried. I am confident that

these boys can do the job. We will see tomorrow. I am glad these boys will get some game time," said Vukomanovic.

"We are confident for tomorrow's game. Every game is important now. We have to fully concentrated and ready to fight for all duels," he added.

Sitting 10th in the points table with just 10 points to show for from 16 games, SC

East Bengal will have nothing to lose. They have just man-aged to win one game so far and head coach Mario Rivera will be eager to change that statistic.

"I'm sure the top teams will not be happy to play SC East Bengal now because they know we'll be a very difficult team to beat. We are focused on winning the next match," he said. AGENCIES

Oz beat Lanka in Super OverSYDNEY: Josh Hazlewood conceded just five runs in the Super Over as Twenty20 World Cup champion Australia edged Sri Lanka on Sunday after the second game of their series fin-ished in a tie.

Australia was sent in to bat in Sydney in Game 2 and posted 164 for 6, with Josh Ing-lis scoring 48 from 32 balls to lead the scoring. Dushmantha Chameera took 2-30, includ-ing wickets with consecutive balls in the 19th over to remove Steve Smith (14) and Marcus Stoinis (19), and Wanindu Hasaranga returned 2-33.

Sri Lanka was always behind in the run chase after losing wickets in the first, third and fifth overs to slip to 25-3, but opener Pathum Nissanka's 73 from 53 deliveries kept the visitors in contention.

Sri Lanka needed 46 from the last 18 balls for victory and, when Hasaranga was run out for 34 on the last ball of the 19th over, still needed 19 off the last over from Stoinis to win the match and level the series.

They scored 18, with Maheesh Teekshana hitting the second ball he faced for six and Chameera hitting a four down

the ground on the last ball to level the scores.

With the Super Over in play Hazlewood, who returned 3-22 in his four overs in regulation, bowled two dot balls and a bye, which resulted in Dinesh Chandimal being run out by a direct hit from Glenn Maxwell as Sri Lanka slipped to 1-1. The Sri Lankans managed to get to 5-1 after six balls.

Maxwell took a single off Hasaranga from the first ball of Australia's Super Over and Sto-inis did the rest, driving down the ground for consecutive boundaries to secure the vic-tory with three balls to spare.

"It was a thriller," Sri Lanka

captain Dasun Shanaka said."The boys showed charac-

ter. When the youngsters go to the middle, they take the game on."

Australia captain Aaron Finch praised veteran pace bowler Hazlewood and said it was good to the get the win, but lamented some poor fielding.

"We might have got away with one there," he said.

Australia won the series opener by 20 runs last Friday in its first T20 match since winning the World Cup in the short format last November.

The next game in the five-match series will be played in Canberra on Tuesday. AGENCIES

Leão’s early strike moves AC Milan top of Serie A

MILAN, ITALY: AC Milan surged to the top of Serie A with a 1-0 victory over Samp-doria on Sunday.

After beating its city rival 2-1 in the previous round of games last weekend, Milan was third in the table, trailing by two points leader Inter Milan, which was held to a 1-1 draw at sec-ond-place Napoli on Saturday.

AC Milan goalkeeper Mike Maignan set up the winning goal for Rafael Leão in the eighth minute. The France inter-national sent a long kick from outside his penalty area to feed Leão who controlled the ball on the left flank before moving past defender Bartosz Bereszyński to beat Sampdoria goalkeeper Wladimiro Facone.

It was the 10th goal of the season for the Portugal forward in his 100th appearance for the Rossoneri,

Striker Olivier Giroud, who scored both goals in the game against Inter, had his second-half header from close range fingertipped over by Facone.

AC Milan tops the table with 55 points, one clear of Inter in second with Napoli another point back. Inter still has a game in hand.

Milan’s three wins in a week, including a 4-0 trashing of Lazio in the Coppa Italia, pleased coach Stefano Pioli.

“It has been the perfect week. There were very difficult and delicate games coming up a week ago, so winning all three is certainly a great sign,” Pioli told Sky Sport Italia. “We know there’s a long path ahead of us, but we want to keep it going.”

Fabio Depaoli, Antonin

Barak, Gianluca Caprari and Adrien Tameze all scored to lead Verona to a 4-0 rout of Udinese and cement its mid-table ninth position.

Substitute Leonardo Pavo-letti scored late to salvage an away draw for Cagliari at Emp-oli. It was another unexpected result away from home for the 18th-placed Cagliari team, which stunned Atalanta 2-1 in Bergamo a week ago.

In a match between the two bottom clubs, Genoa and Saler-nitana drew 1-1. Later on Sun-day, fifth-place Atalanta hosts fourth-place Juventus while Roma in seventh needs points from its game against Sassuolo to stay in contention for a European spot. AGENCIES

Tsitsipas rallies past qualifier

to reach Rotterdam

finalROTTERDAM: Top-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas rallied past a qualifier at the Rotterdam hard-court indoor tournament to reach his first final since the French Open last June.

Tsitsipas ended Czech quali-fier Jiri Lehecka's run by 4-6, 6-4, 6-2. He will face Felix Auger-Aliassime in Sunday's final after the third seed came back from one set down to beat defending champion Andrey Rublev.

Tsitsipas was made to work for nearly two hours by the 137th-ranked Lehecka, who previously upset Denis Shapovalov. Tsitsipas said he did not expect such an aggres-sive display from Lehecka.

"He was really pushing me," Tsitsipas said. "I did not know what to expect, so I was trying to figure out his patterns and his game. He was playing incred-ibly well after the first serve, pressing and attacking like I had never seen before. I had to stay in the match and I managed to survive." AGENCIES

Madrid held at Villarreal before PSG; Bale makes rare start

BARCELONA: The only posi-tive that Real Madrid could take away from its scoreless draw with Villarreal on Sat-urday was Gareth Bale, whose good form belied his return to the pitch after more than five months on the sidelines.

The stalemate left Madrid four points clear of second-placed Sevilla as the Span-ish league leader continues to struggle without injured striker Karim Benzema, and with their Champions League clash against Paris Saint-Ger-main just three days away.

While Madrid stumbled, an 89th-minute goal by Mario Hermoso snatched 10-man Atlético Madrid a 4-3 victory over Getafe in a wild capital derby that featured a red card, three penalties, and six first-half goals.

Bale had not played for Real Madrid since three appearances in August. Then injuries and a COVID-19 infection ensured he fell out of Carlo Ancelotti’s rotation in favor of younger players

such as Vinícius Júnior and Marco Asensio. During that period, however, he did play three World Cup qualifiers for Wales, twice in September and once in November.

With Benzema recover-ing from a left hamstring pull, Ancelotti gave Bale the nod to play as his striker. Bale needed almost the entire first half to finally get involved against Villarreal, but once he did, he showed the same ability he always had to produce scor-ing chances.

“(Bale) had his opportunity and he made the most of it. He could have scored, he gave us a threat up front, he did all we asked of him,” Ancelotti said about the former star who returned to Madrid last sum-mer after his loan to Totten-ham. Only the goalkeeping of Gerónimo Rulli stopped Bale on three occasions, including one shot he pushed onto his bar in the 56th minute. Late substitute Luka Jovic almost grabbed a stoppage-time win-ner on the break when he sent

his chipped shot onto the bar.Villarreal, which remained

in sixth place, was also with-out its top striker as Gerard Moreno nursed a right leg injury.

Villarreal, however, got the better of Madrid in an intense, and sometimes testy, first half.

Besides his surprise choice of Bale, Ancelotti also started the sparingly used Marcelo

on the left side of his defense. Marcelo, whose contract is up in June, was slow to keep up with winger Samuel Chuk-wueze, while new arrival Giovani Lo Celso cued Villar-real’s passing attack.

“Each side had their half. We did enough to have led the first half, but then they had their chances in the second and we struggled. I think split-

ting the points is a fair result,” Villarreal defender Raul Albiol said.

Madrid faces a trip to PSG on Tuesday with only one win in its last four games and doubts if Benzema will be ready.

SHOOTOUT AT THE WANDA

Even though Luis Suárez had an early penalty saved by Getafe’s David Soria, Atlético looked ready to roll after Ángel Correa and Matheus Cunha gave it a 2-0 lead at their Wanda Metropolitano Sta-dium. But Getafe roared ahead in less than 15 minutes, helped by two careless touches by the host and the same defensive errors that have undermined its title defense.

Borja Mayoral sparked the fightback by knocking in an errant shot by a teammate. Enes Unal then put his side ahead after converting penal-ties in the 37th and 42nd fol-lowing handballs by Cunha and Thomas Lemar.

Lemar helped make up for

his mistake with a cross that Correa headed home for his second goal to make it 3-3 just before halftime.

Atlético’s Felipe Mon-teiro was sent off in the 58th for sticking his studs into the upper arm of Mauro Aram-barri during a high speed clash. That came shortly after Unal left the pitch following a knock with Felipe.

Atletico was on the verge of an embarrassing setback on the heels of its 4-2 loss to Bar-celona in the last round when Hermoso scrambled in his own miss after fellow substi-tute João Félix headed down a free kick in the six-yard box.

The hard-earned vic-tory lifted Atlético back into fourth place ahead of Barce-lona before its derby at Espa-nyol on Sunday.

ELSEWHERECádiz goalie Jeremías

Ledesma saved a late pen-alty by Celta Vigo’s Santi Mina to ensure a 0-0 draw, while Osasuna won 3-0 at Rayo Vallecano. AGENCIES

The stalemate left Madrid four points clear of 2nd-placed Sevilla as the Spanish league leader continues to struggle without injured striker Karim Benzema, and with their Champions League clash against PSG just 3 days away

Defending champ Lille snap 2-game losing

streak, Lyon win

PARIS: Defending champion Lille snapped a two-game losing streak with a scrappy 1-0 win at Montpellier in the French league on Saturday to move back into the race for the European spots.

Lille struggled throughout against a spirited home side led by playmaker Teji Savanier, one of the league's best players. Lille goalkeeper Leo Jardim kept his team afloat with four decisive saves in the first half.

Jardim replaced usual starter Ivo Grbic following his disastrous display in the 5-1 loss to PSG last weekend. He did not disappoint and was decisive again near the hour-mark to deny a Savanier effort.

Lille took the lead against the run of the play with 14 minutes left when Portuguese midfielder Xeka snatched the winner from the rebound after a thwarted effort from team-mate Benjamin Andre.

There was an amusing

moment in the match when Jonathan Bamba and Xeka did rock, paper, scissors to deter-mine who would take a free kick. Bamba won and his free kick from about 25 meters went directly toward Montpellier goalkeeper Jonas Omlin.

Lille leapfrogged Mont-pellier to seventh place in the standings, three points behind fourth-placed Strasbourg.

LYON STOP NICEBack from the African Cup

of Nations, Cameroon striker Karl Toko Ekambi helped Lyon beat third-placed Nice 2-0.

Toko Ekambi's second-half goal sealed Nice's second con-secutive league loss. Moussa Dembele gave Lyon the lead from the penalty spot in the seventh minute with his 40th career league goal. New Lyon players Tanguy Ndombele and Romain Faivre were given starts and did not disappoint as they combined well to cre-ate Ekambi's goal. AGENCIES

U-19 World Cup winners Ostwal, Tambe

in Maha Ranji squadPUNE: Two members of India's U-19 World Cup win-ning squad, left-arm spinner Vicky Ostwal and all-rounder Kaushal Tambe have made it to the Maharashtra Ranji Tro-phy squad.

The Maharashtra senior selection committee reposed its faith on Ostwal, one of the most successful bowlers in the U-19 tournament held in the Caribbean and Kaushal Tambe, an off-spinner and an aggressive batter, known to finish matches.

Ostwal hails from the pic-turesque hill-station of Lonavala and then settled on the outskirts of Pune, while Tambe, a son of a senior police officer, hails from Pune itself.

Maharashtra are placed in Elite Group G for the coveted domestic tournament and will play their league matches in Haryana from February 17.

The team will be led by seasoned campaigner Ankeet Bawane, while attacking top-order batter Rahul Tripathi will be his deputy.

The Maharashtra Cricket Association (MACA) said

since Ruturaj Gaikwad has been selected for the T20 series against West Indies he won't be available for the league phase of Ranji Trophy.

"Rajvardhan Hangargekar was also selected but due to ill-ness of his mother, he won't be participating in the league phase," MCA said in a statement.

Squad: Ankeet Bawane (Captain), Rahul Tripathi (Vice Captain), Yash Nahar, Pavan Shah, Naushad Shaikh, Azim Kazi, Vishant More (wicket-keeper), Satyajeet Bachhav, Avdhoot Dandekar (wicket-keeper), Taranjits-ingh Dhillon, Mukesh Choud-hary, Ashay Palkar, Pradeep Dadhe, Divyang Hinganekar, Yash Kshirsagar, Vishal Gite, Nikit Dhumal, Siddhesh Veer, Manoj Ingale, Vicky Ostwal and Kaushal Tambe. AGENCIES

WI hit nets at Eden ahead of T20I seriesKOLKATA: Their minds very understandably was on IPL auctions where some of them hit the jackpot but West Indies players in earnest went through the paces under the watchful eyes of their coach Phil Simmons.

West Indies players enjoyed a great auction with vice-cap-tain Nicholas Pooran fetched Rs10.75 crore while Romario Shepherd went home richer by Rs 7.75 crore from SRH while Odean Smith got Rs 6.5 crore from Punjab Kings.

The Kieron Pollard-led side, who arrived along with Team India on Saturday, spent more than two hours with drills, net sessions with Simmons kept it intense.

Their batting came a crop-per as India made it a 3-0

clean sweep in the preced-ing three-match ODI series in Ahmedabad.

But the Windies, who boast of some T20 utility players, would look to make amends and fight back in the upcoming series. AGENCIES

Cassio Gabriel (2L) of Mumbai City FC takes a header, during match 90 of season 8 of Indian Super League football tournament between Mumbai City FC and Odisha FC, at the Fatorda Stadium, in Goa, Sunday PTI

AC Milan goalkeeper Mike Maignan set up the winning goal for Rafael Leão in the eighth minute

The team will be led by seasoned campaigner Ankeet Bawane

LEAD T20 SERIES 2-0

12 millenniumpostLeisure

Entertainmentmp

MONDAY, 14 FEBRUARY, 2022 | NEW DELHI

Alia Bhatt and Ranbir Kapoorcannot take their eyes off each other in a still from their upcoming film ‘Brahmastra’

Bollywood actor Rhea Chakraborty said that she was back to work after two years, which she dubbed as the

‘toughest times’ of her life.Chakraborty, who was working

as an actor since 2012, was in the middle of a storm after her actor boyfriend Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead in 2020.

The 29-year-old’s life was turned upside down, as she was accused of

abetting the late actor’s suicide and mis-appropriating his wealth by his family.

Chakraborty became the subject of intense trolling and media scrutiny, which many felt was a ‘witch-hunt’ and had to eventually take a break from work after Rajput’s sudden death.

The actor, who was last seen in the 2021 thriller ‘Chehre’ featuring megastar Amitabh Bachchan, took to ‘Insta-gram’ and posted a reel, where she was seen at a radio station.

“Yesterday, I went to work after two years. A big thank you to all the people who stood by me through my toughest times. No matter what, the sun always shines. Never give up,” she wrote.

After a case of alleged abetment of suicide was regis-tered against Chakraborty by

Rajput’s kin, a parallel probe into alleged drug procurement by her also began based on her ‘WhatsApp’ chats.

Starting with Mumbai Police, Enforce-ment Directorate (ED), Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) were brought in to investigate various angles in the

actor’s death.In 2020, Chakraborty,

known for films like ‘Mere Dad Ki Maruti’ and ‘Jalebi’, had spent 28 days in jail here in the drugs case related to Rajput’s death. The actor, who was sub-jected to an intense media trial, is currently out on bail. PTI

Robert Pattinson, who will be seen as the popular titular DC superhero in Matt Reeves’s ‘The Batman’ next month, said

that he has discussed with Reeves the idea of a trilogy of Bat-movies.

While speaking to ‘Fandango All Access’, Pattinson was asked how long he wishes to play the role if it were up to him.

“Yeah! It was fun doing it, I’m down to do this as many times as people want to see it. I have got to get this one out, first!” he said.

He added, “But yeah, like I mean I have talked to Matt Reeves about the idea of doing a trilogy. I know it would be wonderful. I enjoyed the process. It is such a fun character to play. Yeah, that would be lovely.”

“There is so much room for this Batman to grow,” said Paul Dano, who essays the role of Riddler in the film.

If it happens, this will be the second Bat-man trilogy after Christopher Nolan-directed Christian Bale’s ‘Dark Knight Trilogy’.

Written by Reeves and Peter Craig, ‘The Batman’ features a rookie Caped Crusader who is still struggling to master his rage. He is targeted by villains like the Riddler and the Penguin. Promos and promos suggest that he will team up with Catwoman.

The film takes a grittier approach to the Batman mythos. So, a clownish, flamboyant villain like Riddler from comics becomes a sinister man inspired by Zodiac Killer. People also know Reeves wanted ‘The Bat-man’ to explore the superhero’s detective abilities. He is not called the world’s greatest detective for nothing and most live-action adaptations, beyond a few nods, have not delved into that.

Jeffrey Wright, Andy Serkis, Colin Farrell, and John Turturro play Commissioner Gor-don, Alfred, Penguin and Carmine Falcone, respectively, in ‘The Batman’.

‘The Batman’ releases on March 4. AGENCIES

An unidentified woman has filed a civil lawsuit that accuses American

rapper, Snoop Dogg of sexual assault and battery, after she attended one of his concerts in 2013, allegations the musician’s spokesperson called a meritless ‘shakedown’. The lawsuit was filed on February 9, days before Snoop Dogg is set to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show with other hip-hop artists near Los Angeles.

The woman was identified as Jane Doe and described as a dancer, model, host and actor who had worked with Snoop Dogg, though his spokesper-son said she never worked for the artist.

In the lawsuit filed in the Central District of Califor-nia against Calvin Broadus also known as Snoop Dogg, the woman said Snoop Dogg entered a bathroom she was using, forced her to perform oral sex and masturbated in front of her.

“Plaintiff found herself thinking about her job secu-rity if she displeased Defendant Snoop Dogg,” the complaint said.

It added, “Plaintiff felt pres-sured by defendant Snoop Dogg due to his dominance and his position of power over her, including his ability to hire and fire her and ensure that she would never be hired in his industry again.”

A spokesperson for Snoop

Dogg said the musician ‘has never had any sexual encounter’ with the woman and the allegations were ‘simply meritless’.

“They appear to be part of a self-enrichment shakedown scheme to extort Snoop Dogg right before he performs dur-ing this Sunday’s Super Bowl halftime show,” the spokesper-son said.

Similar allegations were made by a woman in Decem-ber 2021, using her full name,

through the California Department of Fair Employ-ment and Housing, the spokesperson said.

“What is clear is that this shakedown scheme is disgraceful. This attempt to use the courts to advance this scheme is shameful too and does a disservice to real victims who deserve to be believed,” the spokesperson added.

The woman said in the lawsuit she was also sex-ually assaulted earlier in the evening by a Snoop Dogg employee who is also named as a defendant. The par-ties tried to resolve the matter through mediation, the com-plaint said.

On ‘Instagram’ on February 9, Snoop Dogg wrote that ‘Gold digger season is here be careful. Keep your guards up. And. Keep your circle small’. AGENCIES

Gunshots fired outside Justin’s concert afterparty‘Thanks to those

who stood by me in toughest times’

Rhea Chakraborty resumes work after two years

The 29-year-old’s life was turned upside down, as she was accused of abetting the late actor’s suicide and misappropriating his wealth by his family

The woman was identified as Jane Doe and described as a dancer, model, host and actor who had worked with Snoop Dogg

Robert wants to star in a Batman trilogyIf it happens, this will be the second Batman trilogy

after Christian Bale’s ‘Dark Knight Trilogy’

Snoop Dogg accused of sexual assault and battery

On the night of February 11, three individuals were shot outside a celebrity-packed party given by

Justin Bieber in Los Angeles after the pop star’s performance. According to a police statement acquired by ‘HollywoodLife’, many bullets were fired as a brawl broke out outside the restaurant ‘The Nice Guy’.

Rapper Kodak Black, real name Bill Kapri and two other people were hospi-talised after suffering injuries. The three individuals were hit by many shots. The Los Angeles Fire

Department evacuated two of the victims from the restaurant to a nearby hospital, while the third was subsequently brought to a hospital after leaving the crime site. All the survivors are now in stable shape. There is presently no information about the suspects in the event and the inquiry is underway.

Following his previous pre-Super Bowl performance at the Pacific Design Center, Bieber hosted the star-studded Revolve afterparty at the Los Angeles hotspot.

According to ‘TMZ’, Drake, Leo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Kendall Jen-ner and Khloe Kardashian attended the afterparty. According to the source, Kodak

Black, Gunna, and Lil Baby were stand-ing outside ‘The Nice Guy’ at 2:45 am. when the fight broke.

A big crowd is gathered on the street in a video acquired by ‘TMZ’ when several individuals suddenly climb over a vehicle and start a fight. Seconds after-ward, gunshots are heard as the crowd starts to panic and disperse.

During the night’s events, Bieber played a 30-minute performance to an audience of roughly 1,500 people, nota-bly with Shawn Mendes, Anthony Ramos, Logan Paul, Niall Horan and Scooter Braun. The show ended about midnight. AGENCIES

There is presently no information about the sus-pects in the event and the inquiry is underway

The Los Angeles Fire Department evacuated two of the victims from the restaurant to a nearby hospital

LAKE BELL ON MAKING ‘PAM AND TOMMY’

Actor-director Lake Bell said she felt ‘protec-

tive’ of Pamela Ander-son and her story during the making of the series ‘Pam and Tommy’ and insists that the show has not exploited the former ‘Baywatch’ star’s infa-mous 1990s sex-tape scandal.

Set in the Wild West early days of the Internet, the show depicts the true story of Ander-son (Lily James) and Tommy Lee (Sebas-tian Stan) and how their sex tape was stolen from the cou-ple’s home by a dis-gruntled contractor (Seth Rogen).

The video went from underground

bootleg-VHS curios-ity to full-blown global sensation when it hit the

web in 1997.Bell, known for featuring in

films such as ‘What Happens in Vegas’, ‘It’s Complicated’, ‘No Strings Attached’ and ‘Million Dollar Arm’, has directed two episodes of the limited series, which has been created by Rob-ert Siegel.

The 47-year-old actor-film-maker said after hearing the

story of ‘Pam and Tommy’, she intended to humanise the real-life traumatic incident.

“I have been a wife, I have my mother, I’m a daughter, a sister and I am a victim of the property being stolen from my computer in the form of an image. So, coming at it from that perspective, I had a much big-ger bone to pick as it were. I was more invested in the humanisa-tion of these people, particularly Pam. I felt quite protective over the Pam story,” said Bell.

Bell, who previously helmed two light-hearted films ‘In a World’ and ‘I Do Until I Don’t’, said she dealt with the subject with the utmost sensitivity.

“I felt sensitivity and respon-sibilities in my chapters of this story and we all worked together to make sure that it was a

harmonious creative path that we were going just cohesively,” she said.

She added, “Additionally, making sure that no way we were going to depict Pam in a way that was dehumanising because we needed to get to give her voice rather than what she had been served in the reality of this situation when it happened in real-time.”

What moved her about ‘Pam and Tommy’ was how the creators of the show were committed to inspiring the con-versation around how society portrays women in the media and exploits them, she added.

“We wanted to allow the story to write itself in allowing for society at large to be culpa-ble and to be responsible for that kind of abuse and misuse of private property. I also think that society has made it harder for women to express anger and rage,” she stated.

The first three episodes of ‘Pam and Tommy’ premiered on ‘Hulu’ on February 2 with the rest of the episodes debut-ing weekly.

The series has garnered posi-tive reviews from critics.

“I have directed more light-hearted things. As we grow there comes an interest and a hun-ger to grow in our careers. This was a beautiful and welcome departure from what I have been doing,” she said. PTI

‘Was more invested in the humanisation of Pamela’