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Karnataka RuralDevelopment and

Panchayat Raj Minister KSEshwarappa, accused of abet-ment to suicide of civil con-tractor Santosh K Patil over 40per cent commission to clearhis bills, on Thursdayannounced his resignationfrom the State Cabinet.

Addressing a press meet atShivamogga in centralKarnataka, Eshwarappa said, “Ihave served as the RuralDevelopment and PanchayatRaj Minister in the KarnatakaGovernment. I have taken adecision today to resign frommy ministerial position.”

Eshwarappa would sendhis resignation letter to ChiefMinister Basavaraj Bommaion Friday.

The Minister was named asthe first accused by the policeon Wednesday in the case ofthe suicide of Patil, who was

found dead in a hotel in Udupi.“I decided to resign

because I don’t want to put inan uncomfortable situationthose who helped me rise tothis position, such as seniors inthe party, Chief MinisterBommai and our national lead-ers,” Eshwarappa added.

A day ago, Eshwarappahad said there was no questionof his resignation as he hasdone nothing wrong and evenreferred to a defamation caseagainst the contractor filed byhim.

Karnataka Lokayukta hadraided Eshwarappa in 2012and discovered a currencycounting machine at his resi-dence. Eshwarappa admittedowning it saying there wasnothing wrong in possessing itas he was a businessman.

After the Congressdemanded his arrest and dis-missal from the KarnatakaCabinet, the BJP central lead-ership was anxious to resolvethe rising controversy buildingaround the case at the “earliest”,sources said.

Though a meeting betweenthe Chief Minister andEshwarappa could not takeplace (Eshwarappa refused tocome to Bangalore) he wasgiven the message that he

should put in his paper in theparty’s interest, sources said.

The BJP State executive isto meet at Hospet, Vijaynagardistrict, on April 16-17. Party’snational president JP Naddawill also be present at themeeting.

Karnataka CM and Naddaare set to discuss cabinetreshuffle during the latter’svisit to Hospet and work outways to better governance inthe State which is to go toAssembly polls next year.

The State Cabinet haspresently 30 Ministers, includ-ing the Chief Minister, againstthe sanctioned strength of 34.With the resignation ofEshwarappa, a rejig in thecouncil of Ministers hasbecome more urgent.

The “commission” charges

against the BJP Minister hadgiven the Congress momentumto attack the ModiGovernment’s anti-corruptionplank.

No sooner did the contro-versy break out, the Congressstepped-up pressure on theBJP at the Centre and theState. Sit-in-protests were heldbefore the residence of UnionMinister Amit Shah here.

Former Chief MinisterSiddaramaiah and Congressgeneral secretary RandeepSingh Surjewala along withmany top Congress leaderscourted arrest on Thursdaywhile marching to lay siege tothe Bommai’s residencedemanding Eshwarappa’s arrestand his dismissal from theState Cabinet.

Continued on Page 9

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Prime Minister NarendraModi on Thursday inaugu-

rated PradhanmantriSangrahalaya here anddescribed the museum as a “liv-ing reflection of the shared her-itage of each Government”.Modi also purchased the firstticket to the museum before itsinauguration.

“Every Governmentformed in independent Indiahas contributed to taking thecountry to the height it is attoday I have repeated this thingmany times from Red Fortalso,” said the Prime Minister.

A spinning wheel that for-mer Prime Minister LalBahadur Shastri got as “dowry”,Chaudhary Charan Singh’sdiaries and PV NarasimhaRao’s spectacles are among thearticles that their families haveoffered for display at the

Pradhanmantri Sangrahalaya.Members of the Nehru-

Gandhi family, which gave thecountry three Prime Ministerschose to skip the event, whilekin of former premiersChaudhary Charan Singh, P VNarasimha Rao, HD DeveGowda, Atal Bihari Vajpayee,Morarji Desai and Lal BahadurShastri attended it.

Modi said the museumhas also become a “livingreflection of the shared heritageof each Government”.Underlining that every PrimeMinister of the country hascontributed immenselytowards achieving the goals ofconstitutional democracy, thePrime Minister said, “Toremember them is to know thejourney of Independent India.People coming here will befamiliar with the contributionof the former Prime Ministersof the country, their back-ground, their struggles, andcreations.”

Modi expressed pride inthe fact that many of the PrimeMinisters came from ordinaryfamilies. The fact of such lead-ers coming from extremelypoor, farmer families reaching

the position of the PrimeMinister strengthens the faithin Indian democracy and itstraditions, he said.

“It also gives confidence tothe youth of the country thateven a person born in an ordi-nary family can reach the high-est positions in the democrat-ic system of India,” said Modi.

The Prime Minister hopedthat the museum will expandthe experience of the younggeneration. The more ouryouth knows about key occa-sions of Independent India, themore relevant will be theirdecisions, he said.

Noting India’s status as themother of democracy, thePrime Minister said, “The greatfeature of India’s democracy isthat it has been continuouslychanging with the passage oftime. In every era, in every gen-eration, there has been a con-tinuous effort to make democ-racy more modern andempowered.”

The Prime Minister saidbarring a couple of exceptions,India has a proud tradition ofstrengthening democracy in ademocratic way.

“That’s why we also have

an obligation to keep strength-ening democracy with ourefforts”, he added. Highlightingthe inclusive and accommoda-tive elements of Indian culture,Modi said “our democracyinspires us to accept moderni-ty and new thoughts.”

Recalling the rich history

and prosperous era of India, thePrime Minister laid stress onspreading awareness about thecorrect picture of India’s her-itage and present.

He said the Government’sefforts to bring back the stolenheritage from abroad, cele-brating places of the glorious

heritage, preserving memoriesof the freedom fighters inplaces like JallianwalaMemorial, Panch Teerth com-memorating Babasaheb,Freedom Fighter Museum, andtribal history museum are stepsin that direction.

Continued on Page 9

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Ajoint team of the securityforces on Thursday elimi-

nated four Lashkar-e-Tayyeba(LeT) terrorists responsible fortargeting non-local labourers inthe Badigarm area of Zainaporain Shopian.

At the same time, threesoldiers of the Indian Armywere killed and five otherswere injured after the vehiclethey were traveling in over-turned on way to the encountersite near Kanipora village inShopian district.

So far security forces haveeliminated 53 terrorists in anti-terrorist operations across theKashmir valley since January 1,2022.

According to a policespokesman, all the killed ter-rorists were part of groups

involved in several terror crimecases, including attacks onpolice/security forces and civilians.

“They were active inShopian and adjacent areas ofPulwama. They were involvedin 6 terror crimes, includingattacks on outside labourers,”the police spokesman said in awritten statement.

The slain terrorists havebeen identified as AaqibFarooq Thoker, son of FarooqAhmed Thoker; WaseemAhmed Thoker, son of AbdulGhani Thoker, both residentsof Heffkhuri, Zainapora;Farooq Ahmad Bhat, son ofAbdul Salam Bhat, andShoqeen Ahmad Mir, son ofMohd Abdulla Mir, both resi-dents of Sugan.

As per police recordsAaqib Farooq Thoker wasinvolved in snatching a 12bore rifle from JK guardMurran TP branch in whichbank guard Abdul Hamid Waniof Tahab got injured.

Continued on Page 9

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Elon Musk is offering to buyTwitter, just days after the

Tesla CEO said he would nolonger be joining the socialmedia company’s board ofdirectors.

Twitter Inc said in a regu-latory filing on Thursday thatMusk, who currently ownsslightly more than 9 per cent ofits stock and is the company’sbiggest shareholder, provided aletter to the company onWednesday that contained aproposal to buy the remainingshares of Twitter that he does-n’t already own.

Musk offered $54.20 pershare of Twitter’s stock. Hecalled that price his best andfinal offer.

“I invested in Twitter as Ibelieve in its potential to be theplatform for free speech aroundthe globe, and I believe freespeech is a societal imperativefor a functioning democracy,”Musk says in the filing.

“However, since makingmy investment I now realise thecompany will neither thrive nor

serve this societal imperative inits current form. Twitter needsto be transformed as a privatecompany.”

The buyout offer fromMusk is just the latest devel-opment in his relationship withTwitter. The billionaire revealedin regulatory filings over recentweeks that he’d been buyingshares in almost daily batchesstarting Janurary 31.

Only Vanguard Group’ssuite of mutual funds and ETFscontrols more Twitter shares.

At that point Twitter quick-ly gave Musk a seat on its boardon the condition that he notown more than 14.9 per cent ofthe company’s outstandingstock, according to a filing. ButMusk backed out of the deal.

Continued on Page 9

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Chief Justice of India NVRamana visited the Attari-

Wagah border, becoming thefirst Chief Justice of India tovisit this India-Pakistan inter-national border near Amritsar.

CJI Ramana, along with hisfamily, watched the famousbeating the retreat ceremony atthe Attari-Wagah border andwas seen cheering for India.The CJI had also visited theBorder Security Force museumand Zero-point.

On Thursday, the CJIRamana made an appeal foreternal vigilance against divi-siveness and for unity after vis-

iting the Partition Museum atAmritsar.

“This museum reminds usof our tragic past and warns usagainst divisions of all kinds. Itportrays vividly the losses suf-fered by mankind on anunprecedented scale due tothe divide and rule policy ofcolonial powers. This darkchapter in our history shouldserve as a lesson to mankind.We must remain ever vigilantagainst divisiveness. Onlythrough unity can we achievepeace and progress,” the CJIwrote in the visitor’s book afterwalking through the museumon Thursday.

Continued on Page 9

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The Zika virus could be asingle mutation away from

exploding into a worldwideoutbreak, new research hasfound. The infectious virus,responsible for a global healthemergency in 2016, needs asingle change in its genetic codeto create a contagious newvariant that could cause dev-astating birth defects whichaffected many infants duringthe previous outbreak.

Results of the research,conducted in mice byresearchers from the La JollaInstitute for Immunology inCalifornia, were published inthe Cell Reports journal.

The World HealthOrganisation (WHO) too lastweek warned that the nextpandemic could be triggered byinsect-borne pathogens,including Zika and dengue.

Emerging viruses, espe-cially those that pose healthrisks to humans, are monitoredand experimented with con-stantly to identify potentialthreats and treatments. Expertsworking with coronaviruseshave now proposed theoreticalchanges to the virus genomethat could potentially alter its

transmissibility. Other viruses,such as Zika, are no different.

Zika spreads mainlythrough mosquitoes and hasrelatively mild symptoms.However, pregnant womeninfected with the virus thenpass it on to their unborn chil-dren, resulting in microcephalythat causes infants to have tinyheads and underdevelopedbrains. The Zika epidemic thatstarted in Brazil and affectedthe USAs in 2015 and 2016caused more than 3,500 cases

of infant microcephaly. TheWorld Health Organizationsaid it represented a significant,long-term problem.

The new study has identi-fied a possible evolution of Zikathat could enable it to increasetransmissibility, even in coun-tries immune from previousoutbreaks. The researchersused a mouse model and mos-quitoes to simulate the transferof the virus between the vectorand the human hosts and dis-covered small genetic muta-tions, which increased thevirus’ infectious characteristics.It created a variant capable ofevading immunity providedby past infection of dengue ora similar pathogen, suggestingthe mutation would enableZika to return to countries pre-viously affected.

The study’s lead authorProfessor Sujan Shresta said theZika variant had evolved to theextent where the cross-protec-tive immunity afforded by pre-vious dengue infection was nolonger effective in mice.

If this variant becomesprevalent, the same issueswould have to be dealt with inreal life, the researcher added.

According to the WHO,dengue fever infects 390 mil-lion people in 130 countriesannually where it is endemic,while the Zika virus was detect-ed in at least 89 countries dur-ing the 2016 outbreak.

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In view of the uptick inCovid-19 cases in the nation-

al Capital, the Delhi DisasterManagement Authority(DDMA) will hold a meetingon April 20 to discuss measuresto prevent the spread of coro-navirus in the city, officials saidon Thursday.

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Samajwadi Party (SP)founder Mulayam Singh

Yadav visited his Lok Sabhaconstituency, Mainpuri, withhis son Akhilesh Yadav onThursday and praised the partyworkers for working hard, irre-spective of “victory or defeat”in the recently-concluded UttarPradesh Assembly polls.

Interacting with the partyworkers, the SP patriarch said,“You all are working with ded-ication. Victory or defeat hap-pens.”

The BJP-led NDA retainedpower in the Uttar Pradeshpolls, winning 273 seats in the403-member Assembly.

Addressing a press confer-ence, Akhilesh Yadav said afterthe booth-wise data is madeavailable by the ElectionCommission (EC), he willreview his party’s poll perfor-mance.

“We got votes from all sec-tions of the society and our votepercentage has increased,” theSP chief added.

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PUBLIC NOTICEThis is to inform general publicthat my client Smt. VandanaPandey w/o Shri Atulya PriyaAwasthi D/o Arun Kumar PandeyR/o Bahadurpur Haidergarh Distt.Barabanki have lost original saledeed dated 19.10.2015 BahiNo1, Jild 13303 Page No. 61/80,S.No. 15381, House, KhasraNo. 179 min, area 300 sqft(27.88 Mtr) at Naubasta Khurd,Faizullaganj Lucknow (in favourof Amit Kumar Shukla S/o RajKumar 66 Ambarpur Teh.Sidhauli, Distt. Sitapur) Presentlyowned by Smt Vandana Pandey,if any have any kind of right, title,claim, share etc. Then pleasecommunicate the same within 7days to C.K. Legal Associates orICICI HFC LTD Lucknow or0522-4077776, otherwise thesame will be considered void.

"NOTICE is hereby given that JyotiBhatla hereinafter referred to as the saidMortgagors/Borrowers have agreed tocreate mortgage in respect of thehouse No 361 N2 Road HarjendraNagar Kanpur According to the saidMortgagors Mrs Jyoti Bhatla have lostthe original sale deed dated 31/01/2006serial No-939, Original Sale deed dated30/06/2003 serial No 3366, OriginalSale deed dated 15/05/1991 serial No16182, Original Sale deed dated18/11/2005 serial No11951, OriginalSale deed dated 27/08/2004 serial No8528,, Original Sale deed dated15/05/1991 serial no 16184 ,,OriginalPOA dated 10/05/1990 serial No 6397,Original Sale deed dated 12/12/1975serial No 596 respect of propertydescribed herein.All person is havingany claim against or in respect of thesaid property more particularlydescribed in the schedule hereunder orany part thereof by way of sale,exchange mortgage (equitable/regis-tered or otherwise),gift trust, inheritancefamily arrangement, maintenance,bequest, partnership, possession, lease,sub-lease , tenancy, licence, lien,charge, pledge, easement ir otherwise.

Shivakant Dixit, AdvocateOffice-chamber No 112 first floor

kan chamber 14/113, Civil line Kanpur nagar Mob -9336631546

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Agirl was brutally hacked todeath by her family members

in Moradabad, allegedly for thesake of family honour, while in asimilar incident in Baghpat, ayouth killed his minor sister as shehad left home in the night with-out informing the family mem-bers.

Reports from Moradabad saidthat one Neelam (18) of Bhojpurarea was having an affair with ayouth belonging to the same areaeven when her family was againstthe affair and had warned her ofdire consequences.

On Wednesday night, whenNeelam’s father, Subhash Kashyap,reached home, he learnt that hisdaughter was missing since morn-ing. He along with his elder son,Mohit Kashyap, left the house andwithin a few minutes they returnedhome with their hands and clothessoaked in blood.

Subhash told his wife, Kusum,that for the sake of family honour,he had hacked Neelam to deathwith an axe and her body was lyingin her lover's house.

Without any feeling of guilt,Subhash told his wife not to shedtears for the girl who had defamedthe entire family. Both Subhashand Mohit later went to wash theirhands and take bath.

Reports said that on receivinginformation about the murder, the

circle officer of Thakurdwarareached Subhash's house andgrilled him regarding the killing ofNeelam. Later both father and sonduo confessed that they killed thegirl with an axe. They were takeninto custody by the police and sentto jail.

Surprisingly, the police plead-ed with the other family membersthroughout the night to takeNeelam's body from the mortuaryfor the last rites but they refused.Finally, the cops handed the bodyto the local gram pradhan and gotthe formalities of the last ritescompleted on Thursday.

In a similar incident inBaghpat, a class 9 student waskilled by her brother onWednesday night for leaving thehouse without informing him.

The victim lived with hergrandmother, her brother andtwo uncles in Baghpat. Her broth-er slit her throat and fled home.On arriving at the scene, policefound the girl’s body lying on thefloor along with the knife.

Superintendent of Police ofBaghpat, Niraj Kumar Jadon, saidon Thursday, “Last evening,around 7:30 pm, we got informa-tion from Tilpani village that thedead body of a girl was found. Weimmediately rushed to the spotand sent the body for post-mortem. Her brother, Monish,has been arrested for the crime. Hesaid that he killed the girl because

she had left the house in the nightwithout informing him. Legalaction is being taken against him.”

Meanwhile in Mahoba, a manreportedly killed his wife's loverwith an axe after he caught themin a compromising position. Theincident took place in Maudahaarea of Mahoba district.

The assailant was arrested onWednesday night, police said.

Reports said that onWednesday evening, the cops atMaudaha police station learntthat the body of one Santosh, a res-ident of the same area, was lyingin his neighbour's house.

The cops rushed to the spotand found that the victim was bru-tally hacked with some sharp-edged weapon. The cops sent thebody for autopsy and grilled thehouse owner. During interroga-tion, the man broke down andconfessed to killing Santosh withan axe after finding him in a com-promising position with his wifein the wee hours of Wednesday.

The victim often used to visithis house in his absence, theaccused said, claiming that he hadwarned both but they went onwith their affair. He claimed thatafter nabbing them red-handed, helost his cool and in a fit of rage, heattacked Santosh with an axe andkilled him.

Police registered a case of cul-pable homicide not amounting tomurder against the accused.

Lucknow (PNS): Former Union minister BhanwarJitendra Singh will visit Uttar Pradesh on Friday to review thereasons for the defeat of the Congress in the recent assemblyelections. Sources said that after discussions with party's stateoffice-bearers and candidates, Singh will submit his report tothe top leadership of the Congress.

After the electoral defeat, Congress president Sonia Gandhihad entrusted Bhanwar Jitendra Singh last month to assessthe situation arising within the party in the state and to sug-gest changes in the organisation after holding discussions withthe party candidates and senior leaders who contested the elec-tion. Singh was also the chairman of the screening commit-tee set up by the Congress for the UP assembly elections. Singhwill hold the review meetings on April 15 and 16 at the UPCongress Committee office in Lucknow. On April 17, he willhold a review meeting at the District Congress Committee

office in Varanasi and on April 19 in Jhansi. After this, on April20 and 21, he will hold a meeting at the Congress office atGurdwara Rakabganj in New Delhi. To participate in the reviewmeetings, a letter has been sent to the party's office-bearerson behalf of Congress state general secretary (organisation)Dinesh Singh. It may be mentioned that soon after the party'sworst-ever defeat in the history of elections in UP, Sonia hadremoved Uttar Pradesh Congress president Ajay Kumar Lallu.However, party general secretary and incharge of UP,Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has yet not submitted her resignationor take responsibility for the defeat. Many senior leaders alsotargeted Priyanka's personal secretary Sandeep Singh, hold-ing him entirely responsible for the defeat of the party andclaiming that Priyanka made all wrong decisions at her sec-retary's behest and never discussed the party matters with anyother senior leader.

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Bahujan Samaj Party chiefMayawati, on Thursday,

targeted both Bharatiya JanataParty and Congress, allegingthat the casteist parties whichneglected Babasaheb BhimraoAmbedkar were now compet-ing to pay tributes to the Daliticon just for political gains.

Taking a jibe at the pro-grammes organised by variouspolitical parties to pay tributeto Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar,Mayawati said that the ultra-caste parties and forces hadalways neglected and despisedBabasaheb's era-changing,humanistic thinking and strug-gles but today the same peoplewere competing to pay tributesto him for the sake of politicalinterest.

“If it’s not their dual gait,character, face what else? Theyshould first clear their inten-tions towards the marginalisedsections and give them theirrights and stop injustice andatrocities,” Mayawati assertedwhile remembering DrBhimrao Ambedkar on hisbirth anniversary here onThursday morning.

Mayawati said that it hadalways been clear in the poli-tics of the country that casteistparties, especially the Congressand the BJP, may make anyDalit an MP, MLA, minister,

deputy chief minister and pres-ident but even then that personwould remain neglected. Shesaid even if that person madesome effort for this as anexception, then these partiesexpel him from their party andgovernment. Mayawati saidthat in such a situation, Dalitshad to live only as their slaves.She said with this mindset,society could not be saved andprogressed at all.

Mayawati further said thatevery kind of struggle forrights, justice and political par-ticipation for these oppressedclasses was a veil of BSP. “Thisstruggle will continue, no mat-ter how many tactics the oppo-sition parties and their govern-ments adopt against it,” sheadded.

The BSP chief said con-trary to the thinking and strug-gle of Dr. Ambedkar, alongwith the inaction on reserva-tion by selling governmentproperties in private hands, aswell as being confined in thevaults of a handful of big cap-italists and wealthy people inthe country, poverty and eco-nomic problems in the countrycontinued. She said inequalitycontinued to grow alarmingly,for which the Congress and theBJP governments were toblame.

Mayawati said that the rivalparties and their governmentssuffering from casteist mental-ity were ignoring the strugglesand messages of Dr Ambedkar,as a result of which exploita-tion, injustice, atrocities andmalice towards Dalits contin-ued and only the BSP wasfighting for their self-respectand this movement was notgoing to stop.

She said, the country couldnever forget the architect of theConstitution, Dr BhimraoAmbedkar and his historicalcontribution towards the upliftof crores of weak and neglect-ed people.

The BSP supremo alsohighlighted the developmentworks done in Uttar Pradeshduring her regime. She alsomentioned the parks and mon-uments developed in Lucknow.

��� �9,1�;6

On the occasion of the birth anniversary ofBabasaheb Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar,

Bharatiya Janata Party organised a seminar onsocial harmony in which party's state presidentand Jal Shakti Minister Swatantra Dev Singh saidthe government was working to help the per-son on the last rung of society.

"It was Babasaheb who ensured prideamong the Dalits. He has helped in binding allsections of society. He drafted the Constitutionto ensure that the deprived section of society getsthe due respect they deserve," Singh said in afunction organised in Visvesvaraya hall.

He said the Bharatiya Janata Party hadrealised the mantra of Sarvajan Hitay, SarvajanSukhay. He said it was Prime Minister NarendraModi who recognised the work of Babasaheband announced the celebration of ConstitutionDay on November 26 every year and even sug-gested that the birth anniversary of Babasahebshould be celebrated in the United Nationsbecause of the work done by Dr Ambedkar forthe uplift of society.

Bharatiya Janata Party media inchargePraveen Garg said that on the occasion ofAmbedkar Jayanti, floral tributes were paid atdifferent functions organised at the boothlevel.

He said meritorious students were honoredand a cleanliness campaign was carried outacross the state while health and vaccinationcamps were organised in various districts.

Meanwhile, the Aam Aadmi Party celebrat-ed Dr BR Ambedkar's birth anniversary as SaveConstitution Day, and organised various func-tions at party offices across Uttar Pradesh.

In Lucknow, AAP workers and leadersassembled at the party office in Gomtinagarwhere former state president Sabhajeet Singhgarlanded a portrait of Dr Ambedkar.

Singh said the AAP leaders and workerstook an oath to follow the principles set by DrAmbedkar.

"Dr Ambedkar dreamt of imparting goodeducation to the children to make them inde-pendent and Delhi Chief Minister ArvindKejriwal's government is doing the same. TheDelhi government is dedicatedly ensuring edu-cation to children of the poorest families," hesaid. Singh said the government-run schools inNew Delhi were far better than private schoolsand more people were sending their children togovernment schools for education.

The programme was attended by seniorAAP leaders including Nadeem Asraf Jaisi andBraj Kumar Singh.

The Communist Party of India (Marxists)also celebrated Ambedkar Jayanti at the partyoffice in Lucknow on Thursday.

Speaking on this occasion, CPIM leader RaviMishra said Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar alwaysworked for ending untouchability from society,education and equal rights for every citizen ofthe country.

"Without following the principles he laid, wecannot pay him tribute in true sense," he said.

��� �9,1�;6

Farmers have deployed lathi-wield-ing guards to protect lemon from

thieves as the sky-rocketing price of thiscitrus fruit has made it as precious asgold or diamond.

Reports from Kanpur say thatunidentified thieves have stolen 15,000lemons weighing approximately 750 kgfrom an orchard in Bithoor in the lastfour days. In the neighbouring Etawah,theft of 60 kg of lemon was reportedfrom an orchard in Shyamnagar village.

Abhishek Nishad, owner of a 3-bigha orchard in village Shivdin Purvain Bithoor, has lodged a complaint withthe police saying that over 15,000lemons have been stolen from hisorchard in the last four days.

“We did not have security and itwas never required because this area isconducive for citrus cultivation andalmost every household has an orchard.

But, now we need guards,” Nishad toldthis reporter.

Amarnath Vishwakarma, a policeofficer, claimed that he has received twocomplaints of theft of lemons fromorchards. “We are looking into the mat-ter. The investigation is going on,” hesaid. With police paying lip service, thevillagers have now deployed lathi-wielding guards around the orchard24x7 to protect their produce. Theseguards charge �450 per day (�150 pershift of eight hours).

Nishad said this was the first timethat lemon orchards were being guard-ed. “Earlier, no one stole lemon. In fact,we never cared about it. But now thesituation is different,” he said.

Lemons have become a preciouscommodity as they are selling at the rateof �10 per piece or �300 per kg where-as in normal times their price was any-thing between �60 to �80 per kg. Withthe early onset of summer, the demand

for lemon has increased which in turnhas jacked up its price.

Lemons are grown in about 2,000bighas of orchards in Chaubepur,Bithoor, Katri, Mandhana and Pariyarregions around Bithoor in Kanpurdistrict. Hundreds of families aredependent on this citrus fruit for theirlivelihood. This is not the first time thattheft of lemons has been reported sinceits prices have gone up. Earlier, cases oflemon theft were reported fromShahjahanpur and Bareilly. Thievesstole 50 kg of lemons on Sunday nightfrom Delapir Mandi in Bareilly. At thesame time, 60 kg of lemons werestolen from the Bajaria vegetable mar-ket in Shahjahanpur. Along with this,the thieves had also taken 40 kg ofonion and 38 kg of garlic from the mar-ket in Shahjahanpur.

FIRs have been registered in bothcases under Section 380 of the IndianPenal Code.

Lucknow (PNS): To avert firemishaps during summers, UttarPradesh started a state-wide Fire SafetyWeek from Thursday with specialemphasis on the dictum that ‘preven-tion is better than cure’, so that the losscaused by fire is the least.

To mark the launch of the FireSafety Week from April 14 to April 20,the officials of the Fire Service depart-ment also affixed a flag pin to ChiefMinister Yogi Adityanath at his officialresidence.

The objective of the Fire SafetyWeek is not only to protect the state,particularly rural areas, farm barns andkutcha houses from fire hazards but alsoto create and raise caution and aware-ness among the public.

The major emphasis during the FireSafety Week will be on propagating thetheme of ‘prevention is better than cure’and to generate fire safety awarenessamong the people through a series ofdemonstrations and messages through

various digital and social media chan-nels like YouTube. Offices, markets,schools and commercial institutions atprominent places have been specifical-

ly selected for the demonstrations.For quick control of fire accidents,

while instructions have been given tothe Fire Service to maintain prepared-

ness, wide publicity has also beenstarted for effective prevention of fireaccidents in places such as hospitals,nursing homes, multi-storey buildings,schools. The staff concerned is beingtrained by conducting mock drills insuch places.

The Fire Safety Week is focusing onthe basic mantra of 'Learn Fire Safety,Increase Productivity' in industrial andcommercial establishments.

In the ongoing campaign, peoplewill be made aware of the main causesof fire accidents such as electricalshort-circuit, electrical overloading,careless use of gas cylinders, smokingetc., through digital means.

In multi-storeyed buildings, the res-idents will be trained to safely exit inemergency situations by evacuationdrills, and mock drills. This exercise willnot only give a substantial boost to theFire and Rescue Service forces in thestate but will also bring down such inci-dents amid the rising summer heat.

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Uttar Pradesh recorded a slight increase in novelcoronavirus positive cases on Thursday as 90

fresh cases were reported in the last 24 hours.While 44 new cases were detected in Gautam

Buddha Nagar, Ghaziabad reported 18 andLucknow six new cases of novel coronavirus infec-tion. Additional Chief Secretary (Medical andHealth) Amit Mohan Prasad said 1,11,314 sampleswere tested in which 90 new cases of coronavirusinfection were detected.

“In the last 24 hours, 35 people have been curedof COVID-19. Now there are 362 active cases inthe state,” he said.

Prasad said that Covid vaccination was contin-uing vigorously in the state and 4,88,999 doses ofCovid vaccines had been administered onWednesday. He said till Wednesday, 15,28,22,405people had been given the first dose of the vaccineand the second dose was administered to12,64,91,427 people above 18 years of age in thestate. He said that till Wednesday, 1,31,64,547 firstdoses and 83,26,330 second doses of Covid vaccinehad been given to the age group of 15-17 years and28,31,907 first doses were given to the age groupof 12-14 years.

��� �9,1�;6

Deputy Chief MinisterKeshav Prasad Maurya,

on Thursday, said that develop-ment plans were being pre-pared at every level for the all-round development of the state.

He asked the officials toprepare the development planup to the grassroots level andintimate the government aboutthe 100-day developmentaction plan in time and alsoinform it about the priorities indevelopment of Bareilly.

The deputy chief ministersaid that a list should be madeof villages which were leftbehind in the stream of devel-opment. He said the targets andschemes for these villagesshould be clearly mentioned.

He said that a list of such vil-lages should also be preparedand presented which had comeunder the category of 'saturat-ed'. He said that preparingsuch a list would facilitateimplementation of public wel-fare schemes and developmentworks. The deputy chief min-ister was reviewing depart-mental development works atVikas Bhawan auditorium inBareilly on Thursday.

The deputy chief ministersaid that development work invillages was the top priority ofthe government. He said that inthe villages where for some rea-son proper development workhad not been done, the detailsof what were the difficulties inthose villages should also belisted. He said that all possible

efforts should be made toimprove the condition of cowshelters in the district. He saidthat arrangements should bemade so that at least one gausevak was available in everygaushala.

He also directed officials tomake special arrangements formarketing the product of self-help groups working in Bareillyand said that such proposalsshould be made available to thegovernment and from time totime these works and budgetexpenditure should bereviewed and the governmentapprised of it.

Maurya said that there wasa need for improvement atevery level in the working ofthe departments implementingthe development works in rural

areas and it was everyone'sresponsibility to make effortsfor the benefits of developmentworks to reach the real benefi-ciaries. Member of ParliamentSantosh Kumar Gangwar, MPDharmendra Kashyap, MayorUmesh Gautam, district pan-chayat chairperson RashmiPatel, MLC Kunwar MaharajSingh, MLA from Faridpur DrShyam Bihari Lal, MLA fromBithri Chainpur DrRaghavendra Sharma, MLAfrom Cantonment SanjeevAgarwal, MLA fromNawabganj Dr MP Arya, ChiefDevelopment Officer ChandraMohan Garg and other officersconcerned were present.

On this occasion, LordBuddha's statue was presentedto the deputy chief minister

and he also released the book-let Leading towards develop-ment of Bareilly.

Earlier, on the occasion ofAmbedkar Jayanti, the deputychief minister attended a sem-inar on ‘Social SamarsataDiwas’ organised at IMA Hall.On this occasion, the deputychief minister paid floralhomage to Babasaheb DrBhimrao Ambedkar. He saidthe dreams of Babasaheb DrBhimrao Ambedkar were beingrealised by both theGovernment of India and thestate government with themantra of 'Sabka Saath, SabkaVikas'. He said the Centraland state governments wererunning various schemes for allsections of society for their all-round development.

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Asserting that it is importantto contribute towards a

new India and new UttarPradesh and to connect withthe government schemes forscheduled castes, ChiefMinister Yogi Adityanath saidcollective efforts should bemade to realise the dreams ofBabasaheb BhimraoAmbedkar.

Yogi was speaking on theoccasion of Ambedkar Jayantiand Foundation Day celebra-tions of Babasaheb BhimraoAmbedkar University onThursday. Also present on theoccasion were BBAUChancellor Prakash Bratuniaand Deputy CM BrajeshPathak.

The chief minister saidwhen the 25 crore people of thestate of Uttar Pradesh willspeak in one voice, it will havepower and it was whatBabasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkarhad dreamt of — using thepower to create a society wherethere is no discrimination, noinjustice and no exploitation.

“It is a very auspiciousoccasion because there arescores of celebrations takingplace, including the FoundationDay of BBAU, Baisakhi,Ambedkar Jayanti, the day ofthe establishment of GuruGobind Singh’s Khalsa Pant,and Mahavir Jayanti. Weshould all get inspiration fromthe lives of all these great menand do something for the soci-ety and the nation,” Yogi said.

The CM said that the ben-efit of all the schemes shouldreach the last person in thesociety. He said universitiesshould not be the medium ofgiving degrees alone but stu-dents should connect with thesociety to bring about a change.

Yogi said Ambedkar isknown as the architect of theIndian Constitution for whichhe is recognised across theworld. “Whenever the worldtalks of the underprivileged,Babasaheb will always be

remembered,” he said.The CM said one must

recall and recognise that thejourney of Babasaheb mustnot have been easy.

“Recall those times andthe discrimination which musthave been meted out to DrAmbedkar went to school,when he interacted with hisclassmates and while eating.Had he been a common man,he would have broken down,but Dr BR Ambedkar wasextraordinary and hence heturned challenges into oppor-tunities and gave India theconstitution that nowherereflected the pain which hemust have faced during thecourse of his journey,” the CMsaid.

“What Babasaheb gave usis the thought that a personshines only when he makes hispassage out of struggles andchallenges at the time when hefaces adverse conditions. LordBuddha also said that youmake your own passage and beyour own guiding light,” Yogisaid.

The CM said there wereonly two great people whobecame the voice of the under-privileged in the past — DrAmbedkar and Jogendra NathMandal. “Both wanted to takeup the fight of the underpriv-ileged and took the path ofstruggle. Ambedkar workedfor the under privileged but noone remembers Jogendra Nathwho became the law ministerin Pakistan and had to migratein the fourth year itself fromPakistan to India and lead ananonymous life here,” Yogisaid.

He said there is no place inIndia where there are no build-ings, monuments, events, orscholarships in the name of DrAmbedkar. “We are grateful toPrime Minister Narendra Modiwho gave Dr Ambedkar thedue recognition and estab-lished the ‘Panch Teerth’. Lastyear we decided to establish aculture centre in the name ofDr Ambedkar in Lucknow. Itwill be a research centrethrough which scholarshipswill be given in keeping with

the New Education Policy,”Yogi said.

“God gives opportunity toeveryone and it is up to peopleto convert it into their advan-tage. This is an opportunitygiven to us and we have to takeforward all the Central and thestate government schemesrelated to Dr Ambedkar. Thereare several schemes for thescheduled castes. However,when we came to power in2017, the scholarships for thescheduled castes had beenstopped. We increased thereach of the schemes with a lotof programmes. We have toconnect with these schemes inorder to give wings to DrAmbedkar’s dream,” the CMsaid.

“Emphasising that 50,000people died between 1977 and2017 because of JapaneseEncephalitis that includedmostly the scheduled castes andscheduled tribes. When I waselected the MP fromGorakhpur, I started a fightagainst this disease,” herecalled.

��� �9,1�;6

Baisakhi brings in newenthusiasm because it her-

alds the new year while alsobringing the new crop, ChiefMinister Yogi Adityanath saidwhile speaking at the historicGurudwara at Yahiyaganj onthe occasion of Baisakhi onThursday. He was accompa-nied by senior ministers andMayor Sanyukta Bhatia.

Yogi said that in IndiaBaisakhi plays an importantrole in the protection of reli-gion because Guru GobindSingh had established theKhalsa Pant and made anarmy in those ancient times.

“It is because of theseefforts that we are celebratingBaisakhi together, not only inLucknow but across the coun-try. We all know that in theabsence of the Sikh history, themedieval history would beincomplete,” he said.

He added that the SikhGurus have established a tra-dition of sacrifice and valourand it is for the same reasonthat the country and religionare secure and it is importantto participate in these pro-grammes to pay tributes toancestors and it also providesan opportunity to the young-sters to pay tributes to thegreat Gurus.

The CM said when theKhalsa Pant was established,Guru Teg Bahadur Singh andGuru Gobind Singh spent afew days of their life in thishistoric Gurudwara for theprotection of religion andbecame a source of great inspi-ration.

“They established theKhalsa Pant that strengthenedthe society and came as newguidance. It was all about howto empower oneself withweapons and divine books andthen fight to protect the coun-

try which left a lot of light forthe future generations,” hesaid.

Yogi said that he visitedthe gurudwara for payingobeisance five years back.“Five years later, I have againgot the opportunity to comehere and want to express mygratitude,” he said. He addedthat the programmes of SikhGurus have been celebrated atthe CM’s residence.

“Prime Minister NarendraModi has said that celebrationsin the memory of GuruGobind Singh should be heldon December 26 and weshould celebrate it at a grandscale,” he said. He added thatthis historic gurudwara is aheritage site and if it submitsthe working strategy for itsrenovation after a meetingwith Deputy CM BrajeshPathak and Mayor SanyuktaBhatia, the state governmentwould extend full support.

Lucknow (PNS): The Christiancommunity is preparing to cel-ebrate the greatest feasts of sal-vation — Good Friday andEaster. Christians in Lucknowbegan the Holy Week on April10 with Palm Sunday. Theyplan to celebrate the feastswith full enthusiasm and faiththis year after a gap of two yearsdue to the Covid pandemic.

Spokesperson, St JosephCathedral, Donald D’Souzasaid that Bishop GeraldMathias would be the main cel-ebrant at all the sacred services.He said Maundy Thursday, thetraditional washing of the feetof 12 people, resumed thisyear after a gap of two years.

“On April 15, Good Fridaydivine service will start with thestations of the cross in thechurch compound. There willthen be the veneration of thecross in the church. Afterunveiling the cross, the cele-brant will venerate the crossand then hold it aloft for all thefaithful to venerate it,” he said.

On April 16, the HolySaturday, the Easter Vigil willstart in the morning in the

church compound, followedby the holy mass. On EasterSunday, there will be one holymass in the morning and thetraditional all-church Easterprocession in the evening.

Meanwhile, Uttar PradeshMasihi Association organisedits planning committee meet-ing for Easter Milan pro-gramme on Thursday. Themeeting was chaired by BishopAugustus Anthony.

Secretary RK Chattree saidthat Easter Milan would be cel-ebrated at Christ ChurchCollege on April 19. The guestspeaker for the event, PastorSharad Simon from New Delhi,is a renowned Gospel singer.This is an annual event ofUPMA Association which hasdecided to honour the doctorsand hospital administrator whoworked for the safety of thesociety in this event.

Lucknow (PNS): Social organ-isation Bahujan Bharat organ-ised a seminar on the occasionof the birth anniversary of DrBhimrao Ambedkar, the archi-tect of the Constitution of India,at its headquarters on Thursday.President of the organisationKunwar Fateh Bahadur saidthat giving rights to Dalits,backwards and minorities asenshrined in the IndianConstitution would be a tributeto Babasaheb in true sense.

He said that following theideals of Babasaheb, BSPfounder Kanshi Ram united 85per cent of the exploited anddeprived Dalits, backward class-es and minorities, making thema unified force.

“The political parties arenow using Babasaheb’s name forpolitical gains. Keeping in mindthe Lok Sabha elections to beheld after two years in thecountry, Babasaheb’s name isbeing used a lot. But it is for usto see whether the rights ofDalits, backwards and minori-ties as espoused by Babasahebare being given by the Centraland state governments,” FatehBahadur said.

General secretary of theorganisation Chintamani saidthat Babasaheb has given all therights to the deprived sectionsof the society but these rightsshould not be confined only tothe Indian Constitution andshould be implemented.

0$1���� ������������� ���&���� ���2Lucknow (PNS): ‘No objectioncertificates’ (NOCs) are issuedonly after scrutinising the fire-fighting system at commercialestablishments and if it is work-ing to full capacity and efficien-cy, Lucknow DevelopmentAuthority chief engineer ISSingh here on Thursday.

Fire broke out in severalhotels and commercial establish-ments in the city despite claimsby their managements they hadefficient firefighting system inplace. The chief engineer insist-ed that LDA carries out at estab-lishments from time to time.The fire broke out in the base-ment of a hotel in Gomtinagarfour days ago. There were 130people in the hotel when the firebroke. The firefighters man-aged to rescue 30 of them whilethe rest escaped on their own.

Similarly, a big fire broke outin a shopping complex inAminabad last month. The fireoffice, in its report, stated thecause as a short-circuit. Large-scale illegal power connectionswere also said to be a majorcause of the fire outbreak.

��� �9,1�;6

The Traffic department hasasked 12 schools which lie

close to jam-infested areas tosubmit their traffic plans tothe department in a bid toease congestion. DeputyCommissioner of Police(Traffic) Saurabh Chandrasaid they have specially askedthose schools which have noopen areas, no parkings andare directly on roads. He saidthey have l isted al l theschools where this problemexists.

“We have asked theschools for plans so that vehi-cles can move easi ly, and we will post our trafficpersonnel at these schoolstoo,” he said.

He said the city has sev-eral big schools which facethe problem of traffic jamswhen the time the schoolsgive over. “We have askedparents of the wards to be

briefed about this sinceeverybody is in a hurry andit causes traffic snarls,” hesaid. He added that they haveasked the schools to see thatparents pause for some timeform proper lines of vehiclesto pick up their wards.

The DCP said they areholding meetings but talkingto people. “We want the traf-fic plan to include directionsfor parents and also driverswho bring in the buses forferrying children,” he added.

When told that theseissues have been taken upbefore but nothing materi-alised, he said these issueshave to be looked intobecause they take place on apermanent basis. “These peo-ple do not listen to anything.People need to park theirvehicles at the multilevelparking which they do not.Hence, we will get these vehi-cles picked up through cranesand announcements will be

made continuously,” he said.He further pointed out

that the traffic personnel,including one sub-inspector,two constables and twohomeguards are alreadydeployed at prominent pointsalong with the civil police toregulate traffic. “In the after-noon, the traffic snarls whichtake place are due to parentscoming to pick up their wardsand in the evening it’s theparking in front of the eater-ies which causes traff icsnarls,” he said.

Regarding the scene oftraffic jams in the market areaof Hazratganj, he said it isimportant to removeencroachments in the area.

“Our staff is posted thereand is issuing challans tovehicles for no parking andwrong-side dr iving.Hazratganj crossing willalways be kept clear, especial-ly at school timings,” headded.

��� ����� �������9,1�;6

Sanjay Gandhi Post-GraduateInstitute of Medical Sciences

will be training policemen from27 districts of Uttar Pradesh tohelp expedite the process oforgan transplantation in thestate. Nodal official for StateOrgan and TissueTransplantation Organisation(SOTTO) Dr R Harshvardhanfrom SGPGI said they willorganise statewide training ofpolice officers with the DGPand AGP on April 23.

“We will be training all thepolice staff and officers from 27districts of UP which have hos-pitals where transplants arehappening. The district policewherever these hospitals arepresent will participate,” he said.“In case of a road traffic accidentand despite the best of attemptsand efforts, it may happen thatthe patient cannot be saved. Ifthe patient happens to be brain-dead, police clearance such as

panchnama and post-mortemcan be carried out swiftly,” hesaid. He further said that theyare going to sensitise police per-sonnel of the districts wherethese critical hospitals fall andtrain them on 4-5 segments. “Inthe first part, we will tell themthat they are the first respondersmost of the time when a mishapoccurs,” he said.

The senior doctor said it isimportant to tell the policementhat out of the 100-odd roadtraffic accidents which occur, itis important if they can converteven five per cent of these acci-dents into an organ transplant.

“They have to be told thattheir roles become very crucialfor hastening what is requiredout of law. They have to be toldthat if there is a potential case fororgan transplant, time becomespremium and they shouldensure that there is no delay inthis regard and all those thingswhich happen from the policeperspective happen very swift-ly,” he said. He added that they

have also sent a proposal in thisregard. Dr Harshvardhan said hehas requested a central numberalso for coordination betweendifferent departments from theUP’s Home department.

“Suppose some hospital getsa braindead patient and relativesgive their consent for the trans-plant, there are certain formal-ities which have to be done bythe police department. Nowthe concerned hospital wherethe potential braindead patientis, has to approach the localpolice. Now this takes time andwe have seen it for ourself andhence we have sent a proposal

to the UP government that ifthere could be a centralisednumber so that any hospitalwhich has a potential braindeadpatient. Then these police peo-ple will call the nearest policestation to contact the hospitalconcerned. So instead of thecoordination being delayedbecause of the work pressure,this number will help,” heexplained.

He said when the call comeson the centralised number, itwill flash in red and will betaken on priority basis. He saidhe would be meeting senior offi-cials of the police department onTuesday on the connection ofthis centralised number withDial 112. The training will becarried out by officials of sub-inspector and above rank. Headded that they have alreadyrequested that this should beincluded in the training moduleof the foundation course of thepolice training course giving therole of the police in the trans-plantation process.

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453�� ���&2�������� ������� �3��Lucknow (PNS): An explosioninside a dilapidated one-roomhouse in Sushant Golf City areatriggered panic among localseven as a calf grazing nearbywas injured. Police were yet toconclude if it was a firecrack-er explosion or some crudebomb blast. No casualty wasreported in the incident. Policeteams reached there for a probeand combed the area aroundthe crime scene.

In an e-byte, DCP (South)Gopal Chaudhary said thatmembers of the bomb dispos-al and detection squad collect-ed samples from the scene.However, he said that it was alow-intensity explosion.

As per reports, the house isowned by Chedalal ofHabibpur village in the area. Hehad stored dung in the roomand used to make dung cakes.On Thursday morning, theexplosion took place in theroom, triggering panic amonglocals who left their houses andreturned only after police teamsreached the scene. The policesuspected that someone mighthave thrown some firecrackerinto the house in mischief.

���� ����� ��A case was registered against

a youth for insulting the nation-al flag and abusing a person whoobjected to his act in Aliganj.The accused was identified asZakir of Aliganj. The com-plainant, Prince Dixit of Khadrain Hasanganj, said he had goneto get his car washed behind thepetrol station in Purania(Aliganj) on April 8. “I found aman, Zakir, who was workingthere and using the national flagto clean the car. When I object-ed, Zakir abused and thrashedme. However, I took the flag inmy possession,” Dixit said.

Meanwhile, a team ofpolice arrested four persons forbetting on IPL matches fromAliganj on Thursday. Theaccused were identified as RaviRajput, Prashant, Pawan Verma(all of Aliganj) and ShivShanker of Hasanganj. Thepolice recovered a laptop, ninemobile phones, an SUV andover Rs 4,000 in cash.

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Aman and his aides rammedtheir cars into a group of

guests attending a ‘Tilak’ func-tion over an old enmity withthe bridegroom’s friend inGosainganj police station area,killing one of them and injur-ing seven others. Police regis-tered a case in this connectionand launched a manhunt forthe accused.

The police obtained a videofootage in which the group ofyouths was seen indulging in aheated argument with theguests and then leaving thevenue, only to come back andmow down the group of unsus-pecting guests.

The deceased was identi-fied as Sooraj Yadav ofKabirpur village in Gosainganjwhile the injured as HauslaSingh, his brother MahendraYadav, Raj Kumar, Satish andhis brother Monu, Udham andDeepika (all of Kabirpur villagein the locality). They were

admitted to a hospital andlater discharged.

As per reports, the ‘Tilak’of Mahendra Yadav was organ-ised at Swayamvar Lawn inKabirpur village on Wednesdaynight. Around 10:30 pm,Ashish Yadav of Sushant GolfCity area, along with two aides,reached the scene and pickedup a fight with Ashish-II, a res-ident of Katra Bakkas locality,who is also friends withMahendra, on an enmity withhim.

The guests intervened inthe matter and brokered peaceby counselling Ashish Yadav,who is said to be a hot-headedperson. Around midnight,Ashish reached the scene againwith over a dozen aides by carsand a Royal Enfield motorcy-cle. All of them were armedwith sticks, iron rods, axesand revolvers. They stormedthe ‘Tilak’ venue and startedbeating the participants andabusing them.

Hearing the commotion,

villagers flocked to the sceneand it further irked AshishYadav and his henchmen, whoploughed their cars into thegroup of people standing there.

The villagers rushed Soorajto Saraswati Hospital fromwhere he was referred toMedanta Hospital. However, hedied during treatment.

During preliminary probe,the police succeeded in identi-fying some of the accused asVinit Tiwari, Raj Kumar akaBhole, Manish and AbhayYadav aka Lalla Swapnil akaRadhe of Sushant Golf City andGomtinagar areas. The policeregistered a case of murder,murderous assault, riotingwhile armed with deadlyweapons, threatening, abusingand thrashing the victims.

The police said the brawlerupted over an old enmity asper the inputs received so far.The police said they were intalks with the families of thevictims to get to the bottom ofthe case.

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In order to enhance India’s exportsand to explore possibilities of bilat-

eral trade concerning leather andleather products segment with theCommonwealth of Independent States(CIS) countries, the Council forLeather Exports organised a visit ofUzbekistan delegation to India main-ly Agra and Kanpur. The meeting wasorganised at the Council of LeatherExports, Banther along with its mem-bers. Vice-Chairman of CLE, RKJalan welcomed all member delegatesfrom Uzbekistan and distinguishedindustry members and the partici-pants. He extended special thanks toBoboev Fakhriddin Atoevich,Chairman of UzcharmsanoatAssociation, Uzbekistan for prioritis-ing Kanpur region as part of their clus-ter visit to India. He added that it wasindeed a privilege for the entireleather fraternity to have such tradedelegation for enhancing trade part-nership.

He briefed about the region’sstrength and apprised that the topleading exporters of the country werebasically from Kanpur region andtherefore the possibilities of jointventuring with Uzbek counterpartsbecame more for investing inUzbekistan. He added that this regionwas manufacturing all kinds of leatherand leather products and was one of

the leading production center andexport hub in India.

He said this region was one of thelargest and single centre for manufac-turing and exports of saddlery andharness goods in India. He said theGovernment of India had grantedGeographical Indications (GI) to sad-dlery and harness segment andadded that visit of this delegation willplay a pivotal role in strengthening theleather industry and enhancing bilat-eral trade between the two countries.

Ex-Chairman CLE, MukhtarulAmin welcomed all distinguishedmembers delegates and industry par-ticipants. He appreciated the efforts ofthe Uzcharmsanoat Association forvisiting Kanpur region to explore the

possibilities of bilateral trade. Healso appreciated the existing leatherindustry in Uzbekistan and theGovernment support extended to theforeign investors. He further suggest-ed for an Indian delegation visit toUzbekistan for a detailed discussionand formulation of further action planto explore business opportunities.

He said considering the exporttarget of leather industry as set byGovernment of India and currentinternational business scenario, India-Uzbekistan trade relations were indeedneed of the hour. He said the objec-tive of Uzbek delegation was to inviteIndian companies to Uzbekistan andset up manufacturing units of leather,footwear’s and leather goods. He said

their aim was to fulfil demand ofleather shoe and shoe uppers for thewhole Russian and CIS regions. Hesaid companies in Uzbekistan canavail themselves of the duty exemp-tion benefits in CIS and Russia, if itcompared with imports from Indiaand China. He said the delegationhad also expressed their trade willing-ness to explore importing leathersfrom India.

Dr Sarvanan, Chief Scientist,CLRI, Chennai, addressing the sessionsaid six companies had shown inter-est in exploring joint ventures possi-bilities and they had one to oneinteraction with the delegation. Laterthe delegation visited the leathercluster and also attended the seminar

to explore the possibilities to train themanpower in Uzbekistan and work-ing on skill upgradation and techni-cal knowhow.

During the meeting a detailedpower point presentation was given byone of member delegates wherein theyhad apprised about the new opportu-nities in leather and footwear indus-try. It was also informed that theGovernment of Uzbekistan wasextending several trade promotionmeasures to the foreign investors,including Customs duties and taxexemption, promotion of export relat-ed trade credit and pre-export finance,compensation for the cost of sendingsamples abroad, support for partici-pation in fairs, subsidies for air andtransportation cost, specialised train-ing policies, logistic support, availabil-ity of quality raw materials etc.

Boboev Fakhriddin Atoevich,Chairman of UzcharmsanoatAssociation, Uzbekistan, along withthree more members from their asso-ciation, Mitesh Verma, IndiaMediator, Javed Iqbal, RegionalChairman – Central, CLE, AshrafRizwan, Member, Committee ofAdministration (CoA), CLE, TajAlam, convener – Saddlery & HarnessPanel, CLE, and Dr AbhinandanKumar, scientist in- charge, CLRI,Kanpur and about 15 manufacturer-exporters attended the meeting.

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District Magistrate, City,Neha Sharma, while pay-

ing rich tribute to Father ofIndian Constitution, Dr BRAmbedkar, on his 131st birthanniversary on Thursdayoffered floral tributes at theportrait of the great leader andthen took part in a seminarorganised at the Collectorate.

She said true tribute to thenoble soul will be to emulateand tread the path shown byhim. She said it was the dutyof every individual to under-stand one’s responsibilities andwork with dedication and hon-esty. She said the objective ofDr Ambedkar drafting theIndian Constitution was aimedat equality and social justice.She said today one had tounderstand that each one is anIndian and as an Indian onehad to work with full dedica-tion and unitedly and remainalways in the mainstream ofthe society. She said DrAmbedkar was not only a

Dalit leader but was surelyabove such categorisations ashe had demonstrated com-mendable leadership on press-ing working class issues. Shesaid his vision of democracywas closely related to his idealof a ‘good society’ and was ofthe firm belief that a good soci-ety was ideal.

DM said Dr Ambedkarcontinued to build civic notionof rights to challenge bothreligious democratisation anda colonial order rooted in cus-tom and identity.

She said one aspect was theimportance of constitutionalmorality that was of abiding bythe spirit of the Constitutionand not just its legal provisions.

She said going beyond thisDr Ambedkar felt that moral-ity in the sense of social ethicswas indispensable for the real-isation of liberty and equality.Among those present wereADM (City), Atul Kumar,ADM (Fin/Rev) DayanandSagar, ACM and several othersof the Collectorate.

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Allahabad University (AU)will conduct an entrance test

for admissions in postgraduatecourses in the varsity and itsconstituent colleges. Besides,the AU will also conduct the

Combined Research EntranceTest (CRET) and entrance testsfor professional courses andLLB for the upcoming academ-ic session 2022-23. This wasdecided at a meeting chaired byAU vice-chancellor and attend-

ed by the members of theAdmission Committee.Admission to undergraduatecourses in universities and col-leges will be done throughCommon University EntranceTest (CUET) only. The process

of application for this test hasalso been started.

According to the chair-man,undergraduate admissiontest, Prof JK Pati of the depart-ment of Earth and PlanetarySciences, for admissions in post-

graduate courses and PhD pro-grammes, AU would conductthe entrance examination at itsown level. The university willalso give admission in coursesrun by Institute of ProfessionalStudies (IPS) and LLB through

the admission test conducted bythe AU authorities.

This would be besidesCUET, which is being conduct-ed by the Centre through someagency and would pave the wayfor admissions.

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Noted cancer surgeon, DrPK Agarwal, while partic-

ipating in Oral CancerAwareness Programme atKulwanti Hospital onThursday said eating or chew-ing tobacco was the maincause behind the increasingnumber of oral cancers in thecity and its nearby areas. He

said use of tobacco in any ofits form was responsible for 95per cent cases of oral cancer.He said it appeared as agrowth or sore in the mouththat did not go away. He saidoral cancer affected lips andfront parts of tongue, mouthroof and floor. He said it wasthe broad term for cancerthat affected the inside ofone’s mouth. He said oral

cancer can look like a com-mon problem with lips or inmouth like white patches orsores that bleed. He saidapproximately 63 per cent ofpeople with oral cavity cancerwere alive just five years afterdiagnosis.

Dr Agarwal said around11 people in 1,00,000 willdevelop oral cancer duringtheir lifetime. He said men

were more likely than womento develop oral cancer. Hesaid oral cancer can affectmouth and oropharynx whichincluded parts of tongue andthe roof of mouth and mid-dle part of the throat that wasvisible when mouth was wideopen. Normal squamous cellsbecome cancerous when theirDNA changes and cells begingrowing and multiplying.

Over time these cancerouscells can spread to other areasinside the mouth and then toother areas of head and neckor other areas of body. He saidspecific activities can increaserisk of developing oral cancer.

He said oral cancer hadseveral signs and symptomsthat may be mistaken forcommon problems or changesin mouth.

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Deputy Chief Minister,Brajesh Pathak, was

given a guard of honour atPolice Lines on Thursday.He was welcomed by KanpurDivisional Commissioner,Dr Raj Shekhar, DistrictMagistrate, Neha Sharmaand Police Commissioner,Vijay Meena. \

He had come to take partin the Babasaheb Bhim RaoAmbedkar birth anniversarycelebrations at Saket Nagar.

Talking to presspersonsat Police Lines, he said hewas representing the ChiefMinister, Bharatiya JanataParty (BJP) and as an indi-vidual to pay tributes to thegreat leader and the Fatherof the Indian Constitution.

He said his ideologywas also being promoted bythe BJP and that was toensure equality and keepthe nation strong and unit-ed.

When asked to g ivesome message to the youth,he said they need to emu-late the great visionary anda great partriot.

IIT FUNCTION: Ritviz,one of India’s foremost pro-ducers, and a Mumbai basedelectronic duo Madboy/Minkfeaturing Imaad Shah andSaba Azad will perform liveat IIT Kanpur on Saturdayevening with Red Bull OffThe Roof, playing to thou-

sands fans. A one-of-its-kindconcert series, Red Bull OffThe Roof features India’smost cutting-edge artistes atvenues across the country onIndia’s only tour bus andmobile gig venue.Classicallytrained musician-turnedbedroom producer, Ritviz

shot to fame with his run-away hit Udd Gaye.Subsequent releases such asSage, Liggi and Jeet provedthat Ritviz was no one-hit-wonder, and cemented hisstatus as one of India’s mostsought-after producers andfestival headliners.

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ICAR-Indian Institute ofVegetable Research (IIVR)

signed a Memorandum ofUnderstanding (MoU) withtwo horticultural universitiesfor mutual cooperation in thefields of research and educa-tion. The agreements weresigned at the NationalAcademy of AgriculturalSciences (NAAS), New Delhirecently. IIVR is a leadinginstitute in the country doingresearch in vegetables and thestudents studying in the insti-tute would get the benefitwith these agreements. Thefirst MoU was signed by DrYSR Horticulture University,West Godavari (AndhraPradesh), which was signed byDr Janaki Ram, Vice-Chancellor of the university,while the second contract wassigned with Sri Konda LaxmanTelangana State HorticultureUniversity, Telangana whichwas signed by its V-C Dr B

Neerja Prabhakar. Both theagreements were signed bythe Director Dr TK Behera onbehalf of the IIVR. IIVRDirector said that the stu-dents of both the universitieswould be able to come to thisinstitute to do their researchwork and in this direction,they would also be cooperat-

ed by the local scholars. Besides, he said that they

would get a chance to getacquainted with modern tech-nology. Dr Behera said thatefforts would be made to enterinto agreement with otheragricultural universities of thecountry for mutual coopera-tion in research and education.

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President of Federation ofIndian Exports

Organisation (FIEO), Dr ASakthivel on Thursday issuedan official statement statingthat duty free import of rawcotton will certainly pushexports of value-added cottontextile. He thanked that Financeand Textile ministers for reduc-ing the customs duty on rawcotton from 10 per cent to zero.

FIEO chief said cotton tex-tile exports will get furtherboost as high prices of cottonwere blunting the competitiveedge. He added that India hadincreased its market share inapparel exports in the US andmany countries recently andthe signing of ComprehensiveEconomic PartnershipAgreement (CEPA) with UAEand Australia will further accelerate it.

He said similar arrange-ments were being worked outwith the UK, Canada, EU,GCC and SACU.

Lucknow (PNS): NationalBotanical Research Institutewill be signing an MoU(Memorandum ofUnderstanding) with SGPGI.NBRI director SK Barik saidthey have already been collab-orating with KGMU and nowthey will extend collaborationwith SGPGI too.

He said they would notonly carry out clinical trials ofplant-based drugs but doctorsof the institutes also collaboratein the research being carriedout on plants.

“We are planning to dosome collaborative research onthe cardiac side and also in theliver since SGPGI director DrRK Dhiman is involved in theresearch on liver,” he said.

He said that extensive testsare carried out even on plant-based drugs which include cellline testing and an extensivemechanism of testing beforethey go in for any clinical tri-als with hospitals.

“When we discover a drug,there is a complete A to Zprocess which is followed. As

per the herbs which people takeon their own, there is Ayurvedawhich guides it and we also val-idate it,” he added.

Highlighting the historyof plant medicine, Dr Dhimancalled upon the scientists of theinstitute to further enhance theresearch on major active ingre-dients found in major medici-nal plants. A two-dayBougainvillea Festival, alongwith Summer Plant ScienceFestival, also kicked off.

Chief scientist and coordi-nator of the BougainvilleaFestival Dr SK Tiwari said thattwo f lower exhibitions(chrysanthemum and coleus,rose and gladiolus) were organ-ised earlier by the institute, butbougainvillea, a major summerplant was still away from theexhibition. “This is the firsteffort of the institute in thisdirection to explore the possi-bilities of opening this exhibi-tion for the participation ofgeneral public in future. Thebougainvillea varieties devel-oped by the institute have beenexhibited in the festival.

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Special health fairs will beorganised in all the eight

development blocks of the dis-trict from April 18 to 23 tocommemorate the Azadi KaAmrit Mahotsav. There will bevarious health related activitiesin these fairs and in this regard,National Health Mission(NHM) Director ArpanaUpadhyay has sent a letter to allthe District Magistrates (DMs)and Chief Medical Officers(CDOs) of the state.

After receiving the letter,the DM Kaushal Raj Sharmadirected the Health depart-ment to act as the nodal depart-ment as per the intention of thegovernment in coordinationwith other departments such asFood Security, YouthProgramme and Sports,AYUSH, Education,

Information andExtension,Women and ChildDevelopment, Rural and UrbanDevelopment and AyushmanBharat. By making the relatedservices available in the healthfairs, the public should beinformed about the schemes,the DM instructed.

According to him, for suc-cessful organisation and mon-itoring of health fairs at theblock level, committees shouldbe formed under the chairman-ship of block panchayats. TheBlock Development Officers(BDOs) / Medical Officer-in-Charges should work as coor-dinators in the said committeesand other officers of the con-cerned departments shouldalso cooperate as members.The DM directed the con-cerned officers to ensure thatthe health fairs are organisedsuccessfully.

CMO Dr SandeepChaudhary said that during thehealth fairs, awareness will beraised about the schemes andprogrammes being run by theHealth and Family Welfaredepartment. Facilities for gen-eral medicine, maternal health,child health, vaccination, fam-ily planning counselling,cataract screening, eye, ear,nose and throat examinationwill be available in these fairs.Apart from this, dental andskin examinations, counselingfor nutrition, AIDS control,leprosy, tuberculosis (TB),malaria and eye examinationwill be available. Other treat-ment and counselling serviceswill also be available, includingscreening of ill effects of smok-ing and tobacco consumption,cancer control awareness,Ayurveda, Unani,Homeopathy.

The CMO informed thatthe fair is being organised withthe aim of making peopleaware about the governmentschemes like Ayushman Bharat,Health and Wellness Centres,Pradhan Mantri Jan ArogyaYojana and Maternal ChildHealth Programme, preven-tion of communicable andnon-communicable diseasesetc.

Dr Chaudhary informedthat the health fairs will be heldat Cholapur CHC on April 18,Chiraigaon PHC on April 19,Kashi Vidyapeeth PHC onApril 20, Pindra PHC on April21, Harahua PHC and ArajilineCHC on April 22 and atBaragaon PHC and PHC ofAdarsh block Sewapuri onApril 23.

Stalls of various participat-ing departments will also be setup during the fairs.

VARANASI (PNS): For furtherimproving the health facili-ties, five new urban primaryhealth centres (UPHCs) willstart operation in the city areassoon and all these new UPHCswill also provide free generaland primary check-up, treat-ment, consultation and treat-ment to the people of respec-tive areas, informed ChiefMedical Officer (CMO) DrSandeep Chaudhary here onThursday.

The CMO said that 24PHCs are already being suc-cessfully operated in the urbanareas of the district. In thissequence, five new PHCs arebeing added. These five newUPHCs are to be started atRamnagar, Ledhupur,Susuwahi, Lohta and MunshiPremchand's village Lamahisoon, he added, informing thatall the complete preparationsfor the operation of thesehealth centres have been com-

pleted, he added.Nodal Officer and ACMO

Dr AK Maurya said thataccording to the intention ofthe government, health facili-ties are being continuouslyexpanded in the urban areasand at present 24 PHCs run-ning in urban areas are cover-ing about 38 urban per centpopulation of the district. ‘It isbelieved that one PHC coversa population of at least 50,000.In such a situation, five new

urban PHCs will cover about2.5 lakh population. With this,42 per cent of the population ofthe district will be coveredthrough 29 UPHCs. With this,the regional people will get thebenefit of health facilities neartheir homes’, he added.

Dr Maurya informed thatall the health facilities would beavailable to the people at thesefive new UPHCs which arebeing provided at the alreadyoperating UPHCs.

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Divisional CommissionerYogeshwar Ram Mishra

while holding the divisionalmeeting for reviewing law andorder, revenue collection andpriority schemes of the govern-ment on Wednesday directedto activate anti-Romeo squadsand deploy them around girls’colleges. Regarding revenuecollection he stressed on work-ing as per the monthly strate-gy and increasing the collec-tion. He directed the officials

concerned to chalk out 100 daywork plan and take actionagainst the mafia and othercriminals. He said the deprivedclass should not be harassed.He said that there were sever-al complaints about encroach-ments on forest land inMirzapur and Sonbhadra andon government land inBhadohi so all matters shouldbe dealt with an iron hand.

Emphasising on construc-tion of houses under differentgovernment schemes DCdirected expedite the work and

hand them over to the benefi-ciaries without delay. TheElectricity department wasdirected to intensify collec-tion of dues and CMOs toensure availability of medi-cines and medical staff at allhealth centres. DMs, SPs,CDOs, divisional and otherofficials concerned were pre-sent during the meetingwhich was conducted byJoint DevelopmentCommissioner (JDC) SureshChandra Mishra.

GRATITUDE: Veteran

BJP leader and one of themain organisers of RamJanmotsav Samiti ManojSrivastava while addressing themedia on Wednesdayexpressed gratitude to people ofthe district who had made theshobha yatra as one of the top10 of the country. He praisedthe spirit of nationalism amongthe people of Mirzapur whomade the event historical. Hewas accompanied by Ravi Sahu,Mahesh Tiwari, ManojDamkal, Nitin Awasthi andthe others.

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Union Minister for Womenand Child Development

Smriti Irani strongly criticisedthe Congress for misusing thename of Baba Saheb Dr BhimRao Ambedkar. Addressingthe Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)workers at party’s regionaloffice on occasion ofAmbedkar Jayanti here onThursday, she also flayed theparties for playing class-specif-ic politics.

Launching a scathingattack on the Congress, shesaid Congress gave the honourby awarding Padma Shri to theperson who had defeated BabaSaheb. ‘Congress has done thework of pouring salt on thewounds of Baba Saheb,’ shesaid, adding that on the otherhand Prime Minister NarendraModi has given the berths to amaximum number ofScheduled Caste representa-tives in his cabinet.

‘Kashi elected PMNarendra Modi as an MP andgave such a Sevak (servant) tothe nation who is continuous-ly fulfilling the dreams of BabaSaheb,’ she said, adding that theconcept of a strong India in thecountry would only be realisedwhen all the poor would getthe benefits of the govern-ment's schemes. She also high-lighted the schemes of govern-ment being run for the welfaresof the poor.

She said that the BJP hasended the goonda raj estab-lished in the state during theregime of Samajwadi Party(SP). ‘The SP had taunted

about the bulldozers during theassembly elections but thepeople climbed the bulldozersand pressed the lotus button,giving an answer to the SP,’ shesaid. Earlier, when she landedat Lal Bahadur ShastriInternational Airport, she waswarmly welcomed by the partyleaders.

While addressing the func-tion, regional BJP presidentMahesh Chand Srivastava saidthat the name of Dr Ambedkarwas misused by all the partiesbut the work of following hisprinciples and ideals was doneonly by the BJP and PMNarendra Modi by followingthe path laid down byBabasaheb. Among those who

were also present were citypresident Vidyasagar Rai, dis-trict chief HansrajVishwakarma, Naveen Kapoorand regional spokesmanNavratan Rathi.

Meanwhile, under the jointaegis of Regional PublicRelations Bureau, Ministry ofInformation and Broadcasting,Government of India, Varanasiand Nehru Yuva KendraVaranasi, various programmesincluding seminar, group dis-cussion and padyatra wereorganised at Dindaspur villagein Jansa area on the occasionof Ambedkar Jayanti.Addressing the programme,Regional Publicity Officer DrLalji said that Dr Ambedkar

gave important contributionsnot only in independencemovement but also in buildingIndia as a strong democraticnation by drafting theConstitution. Gram pradhanRambabu said that it is theresponsibility of the new gen-eration to carry forward themission of Baba Saheb andeducate the children by follow-ing the path shown by him.Rajesh Vishwakarma of NehruYuva Kendra while discussingthe contribution of Ambedkarappealed to save the water.Former BDC membersGunnu, Brajesh, ShubhamRakesh etc also addressed theprogramme. Later, a padyatrawas taken out.

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In a tragic incident, four per-sons were burnt to death in

Ashfaq Nagar (Kamachha)area, under the Bhelupur policestation here on Thursday.According to information, afire broke out in a saree facto-ry while some workers werecooking, whereas as per otherversions, the room caught firedue to a short circuit. However,as per initial investigation thefire broke out from the cylin-der. As the incident was major,top administration and policeofficers rushed there to studythe situation. DistrictMagistrate (DM) Kaushal RajSharma also reached there tosee the tragic scene at the spot.

In the incident, a 45-year-old man from Madanpur areaArif Jamal and his 22-year-oldson Mohammad Shabaanapart from two saree workersengaged in finishing work ofthe sarees, Ejaz (18) andMunrashir (17) were alsokilled. They hailed from Arariadistrict in Bihar. According tothe police administration, after

the post-mortem of all ofthem, the bodies would behanded over to the concernedfamilies. Meanwhile, accord-ing to district administration,Chief Minister YogiAdityanath has condoled theloss of life due to a gas cylin-der accident in Bhelupur area.The CM has also announced

to give compensation of Rs 4lakh to the dependants ofeach victim.

According to the local res-idents, they immediatelyrushed there after gettinginformation about the fireand tried to extinguish the fireby pouring water in the facto-ry room located on a narrow

street. They also took out thecylinder safely out of thebuilding after getting controlover the fire. As in the 12 x 10ft room of Saree Finishingfirm, a lot of finished andunfinished materials of sareeswere kept, it caused spreadingof the fire soon after the samewas broken out there.

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The Special Task Force (STF)has also laid a trap for the

arrest of Ali Ahmed, theyounger son of Mafia AtiqueAhmed, who is lodged inSabarmati Jail in Gujarat. Ali,long wanted in the case regis-tered at Kareli police station,has now got a reward of Rs50,000 on his head.

As soon as the rewardamount increases, two teams ofSTF have been deployed, whichwill try to nab Ali while gath-ering information. However,the location of Ali and his asso-ciates is being traced. Thewhereabouts of his hiding arealso being ascertained throughinformers. Ali's elder brotherMohammad Umar also has areward of Rs 2 lakh on his headand is being searched by the

CBI team.Property dealer Zeeshan, a

relative of Atique, a resident ofKareli, had accused Ali and hisassociates of attacking him anddemanding an extortion of Rs5 crore. It was told to thepolice that Ali had got hisfather in jail to talk to him onmobile. But the police have notbeen able to find out its truth.However, on the basis ofZeeshan's written complaint, inDecember 2021, a named FIRwas filed against nine peopleincluding Ali. The police arrest-ed two accused involved in theincident and sent them to jail,but the rest could not becaught. In such a situation, areward of Rs 25-25 thousandrupees each was earlierannounced on all the accused.Now IG Range has increasedthe reward amount on Ali to Rs

50,000. However, CO STFNavendu Kumar said thatteams have been set up toarrest the absconding Ali.

PDA CRACKS DOWNON ILLEGAL PLOTTING:Unauthorised plotting by prop-erty dealers was bulldozed bythe Prayagraj DevelopmentAuthority in Ganga Kachhararea near Draupadi Ghat onWednesday.

Colony developers hadbeen selling plots in theKachhar area. When the PDAofficials came to know aboutthese unauthorised colonies,they reached the spot withJCB machines and dug out thefoundations and boundarywalls there.

The land sharks had soldacres of land illegally, and theprocess was still in progressnear the CDA Pension office,

Draupadi Ghat worth crores ofrupees.

These lands are used most-ly for growing vegetables in theGanga Kachhar where floodwater wash away the areaalmost every year in the mon-soon season. Allurement ofcheaper rates attracts the buy-ers and the land mafia sellsplots without any authority.

The High Court has alsoissued an order in this regardthat no construction shouldtake place in flood prone areasnear the Ganga and theYamuna in the city.

The PDA had gatheredinformation regarding suchunauthorised plotting, butowing to Assembly andCouncil elections the bulldoz-ers had been sent in silentmode. Now Baba Ka Bulldozerhas come into action again.

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Taking major action underOperation Mafia, the block

pramukh of Kaudihar MohdMuzaffar's immovable proper-ty worth Rs 5 crores has beenattached and now preparationsare on to take action against histwo criminal brothers. SPleader Muzaffar is a history-sheeter of Puramufti andNawabganj police stations andis currently lodged in Naini jail.

Police said that theaccused had made propertyworth crores in BamrauliUparhar in the name of him-self and his wife ShahibaBegum through cow smug-gling. This includes houses,shops and plots, which have

now been attached underSection 14(1) of the GangsterAct.

In November 2018, aDCM banned meat wascaught in Chafri inNawabganj, on the basis ofwhich a case was registeredagainst Muzaffar and othersunder the Prevention of CowSlaughter Act. In the investi-gation, it was revealed that healong with some of his accom-plices commits cow smug-gling by forming an orga-nized gang. 30 cases of crim-inal and cow slaughter act areregistered against him inPrayagraj, Kaushambi,Fatehpur, Bhadohi, Chandauliand Varanasi districts. Due tohis criminal history, his histo-

ry sheet was first opened andthen a gangster case was insti-tuted against Muzaffar and his14 accomplices at Puramuftipolice station.

In this case, a report wassent to the District Magistrateregarding the attachment ofhis illegally acquired proper-ty.

On the order of attach-ment from there, SSP AjayKumar, SP City Dinesh KumarSingh, CO Santosh Singh,ADM, Inspector Anoop Singhand SHO Upendra PratapSingh reached BamrauliUphar with Police Force, PACon Wednesday afternoon.

After attaching the iden-tified properties, governmentlock was imposed and notice

was pasted. This action of thepolice created panic amongthe block pramukh and hisclose ones. The family had tobecome homeless after havingfive houses.

The SSP said that the realbrothers of notorious cowsmuggler and mafia MuzaffarMohammad Ashraf andMohammad Aslam are alsohistory-sheeters of Puramuftipolice station.

Their illegally acquiredmovable and immovableproperties are also beingtraced. Action will be takensoon.

Along with this, legalaction will also be initiatedagainst other people associat-ed with its gang.

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The Uttar Pradesh PublicService Commission

(UPPSC) has released theschedule of the main examina-tions of Review Officer/Assistant Review Officer(RO/ARO)-2021.

As per the controller ofexamination of UPPSC, ArvindKumar Mishra, the exam willbe held on April 24, 25 and 26at nine centres located in threecities — Prayagraj, Lucknowand Ghaziabad — of the state.Among these, four centreswould be set up in Prayagraj,three in Lucknow and two inGhaziabad, added the official.

He further informed thatthe detailed examinationschedule has been made avail-

able on the official website ofthe commission —https://uppsc.up.nic.in/ for thebenefit of the candidates.

Mishra added that a total of5,59,155 candidates had appliedfor recruitment against 354posts of RO/ARO and out ofthese 2,74,702 had appeared inthe preliminary examination.

The preliminary examina-tion was held on December 5,2021 in two sessions from9.30am to 11.30am and from2.30pm to 3.30pm at variousexamination centres in 22 dis-tricts of the state, includingAgra, Basti, Etawah, Ghazipur,Prayagraj, Azamgarh, Bareilly,Gorakhpur, Ayodhya,Ghaziabad, Jaunpur, Jhansi,Kanpur Nagar, Lucknow,Barabanki, Meerut,

Moradabad, Rae Bareli,Varanasi, Sitapur, Mirzapurand Mathura.

In the preliminary exami-nation, a total of 4,830 candi-dates were declared successfulto appear in the main examina-tion by UPPSC on January 30.Separate applications wereinvited from these eligible can-didates for the main examina-tion and now 3,960 candidateswho have performed well willappear in the main examina-tion, officials said.

According to the commis-sion’s examination controllerArvind Kumar Mishra, therewill be a paper of general stud-ies (like preliminary examina-tion) on April 24 from 9.30 amto 11.30 am.

In the second session on

the same day, under section-Ithere will be a conventionaltype test of general Hindiand drafting from 2pm to4.30 pm and objective type testof general word knowledgeand grammar from 4.30pm to5pm.

On April 25, Hindi Essayexam will be held in the firstshift from 9.30 am to 12.30 pmfollowed by translation testthat will be held for the candi-dates of Review Officer (Hindi)only in the second shift from2pm to 5pm.

At the same time, transla-tion tests will be conducted onthe last day, i.e., April 26from 9.30 am to 12.30 pmonly for the candidates vyingfor the post of Review Officer(Urdu).

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On a contempt petition, theAllahabad high court has

issued notice to the chief exec-utive officer (CEO) of YamunaExpressway IndustrialDevelopment Authority(YEIDA) Arun Veer Singh andfive other officials, directingthem to appear before the highcourt and explain why con-tempt proceedings not be ini-tiated against them for allegedviolation of its orders. In hiscontempt petition, the petition-er, Rishi Goel, has alleged thatthese authorities had demol-ished his construction despitethe orders passed by the writcourts of high court on July 14and December 8, 2021 bywhich the demolition noticeissued by the appellate author-

ity was quashed.The petition-er alleged that these authoritiesignored the orders of the writcourt and demolished the con-struction of the petitioner onMarch 29, 2022 at Jhajjar.Observing that ‘prima facie acase of contempt is made out’,Justice Saral Srivastava direct-ed to list this case on August 16,2022 for the next hearing.However, in its order datedApril 8, the court made it clearthat in case orders of the writcourt is complied with by thenext date fixed, the oppositeparties may not appear in per-son and may file an affidavit ofcompliance through counsel.

HEALTH CLUB INAU-GURATED: A health club inRasulabad was inaugurated byRita Jaiswal, senior coach andhead of the health club on

Wednesday evening by cuttingthe ribbon. During this, RitaJaiswal said that obesity is aserious disease which is themother of many diseases. Inlifestyle, a person himself wantsto look healthy, beautiful andattractive, but wrong eatinghabits, untimely sleep and dis-orderly routine make thehuman body unformed, but wehelp to keep the human bodyhealthy, beautiful and attractiveby giving proper advice. Cluboperators BN Yadav, DevendraYadav (Advocate), KalpanaYadav, Kanchan Pal, PradeepPal, Vikas Jaiswal are amongthose present on the occasion.

BENGALI NEW YEAR'SDAY TO BE CELEBRATEDTODAY: Bengali Social andCultural Association willorganise Bengali New Year's

Day (Bangabd 1429) onFriday April 15, 2022, at theOpen Air Auditorium ofPrayag Sangeet Samiti markingthe closing function of its 50thYear (Golden Jubilee)Celebrations. The 50th Yearevent of the Association washeld on April 15, 2019. TheAssociation could not organisethis function for the last twoyears due to pandemic acrossthe whole world and of Covid19 restrictions. Bengali Socialand Cultural Association willfelicitate persons for their Lifetime achievement, scholarshipsare to be given to meritoriousstudents and thereafterCultural Programmes will beorganised wherein famous ver-satile artiste of Kolkata RaghabChatterjee with his troupe willperform live.

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the disappearing trick themoment they smell an oppor-tunity to further their ownpolitical interests. In the eventof such circumstances, thecadres would be satisfiedwith even a subtle change ofleadership. As my grand-mother used to say, a daugh-ter is as good as a son.

The loyal echelons of themother party appear to beunaware of the enormity ofthe brand equity bequeathedto their party. There can arisesituations in the life of apolitical party, causing muchdespondency, but there neverneed be undue defeatism.Downs are often followed byups, and back again. One hasto remember that the rulingparty of today had managedto obtain only two seats in the1984 Lok Sabha elections.Earlier, in 1977, the Congresshad failed to win a single seatfrom Amritsar to Calcutta, inthe elections that were heldafter the Emergency.

Politics is not a game ofintelligence, but one of pop-ularity. Rajiv Gandhi knew lit-tle important beyond gadgetsand computers. IndiraGandhi had a political gutand the sense to seek expertadvice. She saw no reason tostrain her own mind. Her

father Jawaharlal Nehru, onthe morrow of Independence,told General Lockhart, theinterim commander-in-chiefof Indian Army, to makepreparations to disband theIndian Army; India’s credowas peace and police weresufficient to take care of thesafety of its people, he said.

Moreover, it should berealised that ideologies help tohold parties together, but donot necessarily attract voters.The reason is that the coun-try is large and diverse in somany ways that ideologiesand manifestos are seldomread and, therefore, have lit-tle effect. People vote for oragainst a personality whom itis easier to identify with.

The Congress in its hey-day certainly reflected thistruth and even today, despitehaving lost its primacy in thecountry’s politics and becom-ing a pale shadow of its for-mer self, operates on thisprinciple. The Nehru-Gandhidynasty is the be-all and end-all of its politics. There isabsolutely no scope for anyoutsider to become its leader.Many, from the days ofJawaharlal, Indira, Rajiv andthe Italian-born Sonia havetried to, only to splinter fromthe mother party and fade out

before long. Some splintershave ended up as regionalparties, but these two havesurvived only around oneleader and his family, or aparticular caste, whateverhigh-sounding ideologicallabels they might sport.

The BJP thankfully haseschewed the trap of dynasticfeudalism, but nonethelessremains the mother partybecause of its basis in nation-alism rooted in the country’scivilisational ethos. Its brandequity flows from its parentorganisation, the RSS. Thecore of the BJP’s brand equi-ty, as that of its parent, is theunequivocal commitment tocultural nationalism. Theparty has waxed and waned indirect proportion to its adher-ence and willingness to act onthis ideological commitment.There have been occasionswhen ambitious politicianshave attempted to split fromthe mother party to try theirown luck, only to disappearinto nothingness. India’s vot-ers respond to personas, par-ties and a core ethos, not tocontrived alliances.

(The writer is a well-known columnist, an authorand a former member of theRajya Sabha. The viewsexpressed are personal.)

���������������� �������Sir — Hardly ever in the history of Britain,no Prime Minister, except for BorisJohnson, has apologised to the country somany times in the last few months. Yes,Johnson has broken all records in thisdepartment. Because, to date, whileremaining on the post, not a singleBritish Prime Minister was ever foundguilty in any criminal case. But onTuesday, the London Metropolitan Policeimposed monetary penalties on two of thatcountry’s top leaders, Boris Johnson andhis Finance Minister (Chancellor of theexchequer) Rishi Sunak. It is clear thatthose whose responsibility it was toimplement the COVID-induced lock-down smoothly, they themselves hadbeen flouting rules and making a mock-ery of the law.

There is no moral ground left for thesetwo to stay even for a moment longer intheir residences at 10 and 11 DowningStreet, respectively. People in theConservative Party should also thinkthat Johnson is becoming a burden for theparty. So it would be better to get rid ofhim. By the way, Rishi Sunak, who is ofIndian origin, has also been embroiled inmany controversies, be it his wife’s incometax issue or his own blot on being a USgreen card holder. He is finally going tobe dealt with a heavy hand in public life.

Jang Bahadur Singh | Jamshedpur

���������������� ������ ��Sir — There is no reason for people to con-tinue losing jobs in the name of theCOVID pandemic as the situation hascome back to normal. However, pay cutsand exclusion penalties did make a vastdifference and have had an adverse effecton citizens. Thus, men suffered partiallyand women were forced to quit jobs dueto lack of flexibility. A research reveals that72 per cent of working women are reject-ing job roles that don’t allow them to workflexibly, while 70 per cent have already quitor considered quitting jobs because theywere not offered suitable flexible terms. Itis assumed that flexible working is thenumber one priority today for all profes-

sionals, especially for working women.Even before COVID, women employ-

ees were enjoying flexible facilities at theirworkplaces due to the soft nature ofadministrative officers and, moreover, theauthorities feared facing stern action if theypunished women workers in the name of“job tension”. The research finds that pooremployer sentiment towards flexibleworking and career breaks is holdingwomen back from asking for greater flex-ibility and re-entering the workforce.Even companies managed by womenentrepreneurs are not ready to be lenienttowards their women employees and, inthis scenario, expecting such a gesturefrom the companies managed by men istoo much for asking.

MR Jayanthi | Chennai

������������������Sir —Winning is a habit and coming upon the top in international tournamentsgives rise to confidence among the sportsfraternity. In the Indian sports field, we payimportance to those hitting headlines and

garnering praise and hype, hysteria andhoopla created by the media. But the endresults are not showing after gettingMokka to perform at the highest level. LikeIndian cricket, Indian hockey is also notan exception to this rule. This time, theclash for the third place went up to theshootout stage and it was disappointing tolose 0-3 and we came out empty-handed.In the early league stage when we werewinning games, the press created a hue andcry about the team’s performance, whichonly went down in the end.

We lost out the semifinal race andcould not come up trumps in the penal-ty shootout. The Indian team cut a sorryfigure as superstars failed to score and lostout without putting up much of a fight.Thus, we missed out on the chance of win-ning the bronze medal as well. Hype,hoopla and hysteria are over for all of us,for now at least.

CK Subramaniam | Mumbai

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Neither the NationalDemocratic Alliance(NDA) nor the UnitedProgressive Alliance

(UPA) can keep any politicalparty together. One of the rea-sons Atal Bihari Vajpayee lostthe 2004 general elections wasthe projection of more of theNDA and less of his own party,the BJP. The party cadres, whohave been trained all their work-ing lives that their mission is theattainment of a Hindu rashtra,were not impressed. The party’sname itself had undergone achange thrice; from theBharatiya Jana Sangh to theJanata Party and then finally itscurrent avatar, the BharatiyaJanata Party (BJP).

So long as Hindu rashtraremains the mission, the cadreand workers know what to do.When they were made to listento the symphony of the NDA, or“India Shining” and “FeelGood”, confusion set in, takingVajpayee to his political obliv-ion. His ego took refuge in thesupposed cause of riots havingtaken place in one of the coun-try’s States. In actual fact,Vajpayee’s successors rode topower twice in subsequentyears. In the hour of the 2004electoral defeat, it was rumouredthat the symphony of the NDAhad been orchestrated byVajpayee and his minions; moreso the latter, in order to distancethemselves from the RSS andmove towards becoming a cen-trist party. The Sangh, for itspart, had serious reservationsabout the proclivities of this group.

What was true of the NDAis also true of the UPA, albeit ina different way. In Indian poli-tics, the name of the centralparty, which we may refer to asthe mother party, enjoys brandequity of a high degree. If a cen-tral party has to enter intopolitical alliances, every alliancepartner reduces the goodwilland does not add to the moth-er party’s prospects, or evenimage. The combination of twoor more political parties conveysthe impression the main partyis weak and is therefore seekingthe help of smaller constituents,some of whom are wont to do

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been to build two foundationsfor the arch, which requiredmassive specialised soil /rockstrengthening work in the youngHimalayan region.

Apart from being the highestrail bridge in the world, it hasmany firsts to its credit.Thebridge can withstand wind speedsof over 266 kmph, an unprece-dented feat. The bridge fallsunder seismic zone IV, butdesigned for earthquake forcescorresponding to zone V. Thiswork involved approximately30,000 MT high quality steelfabrication and sophisticatedlaunching scheme. The entirefabrication of steel work is beingdone at a special fabricationworkshop established at site. Thelaunching of the arch segmentswas done with the help of a spe-cially-designed wire rope craneand after fixing every piece ofarch and the cantilever arch wastied with wire ropes to holdthem in position, till the last cen-tral piece was inserted in position.

The bridge is designed for aservice life of more than a centu-ry with trains to ply on it at 100kmph. At this speed, a trainwould take less than a minute topass over the entire bridge; thosewho would travel on a trainnegotiating this bridge wouldhave this much time to wonder ata spectacle; it might have takenmore than decade to build but

they would certainly marvel atthis bridge bearing mute testimo-ny to the significance of moderntechnology coupled with humanendeavour in improving humanexistence.

While the numerous proroga-tions in completion of the projectcan be criticized but not alldelays were avoidable, rooted inany inefficiency or procrastina-tion. Many of them were beyondthe control of project engineersandcontractors, like various PILsregarding alignment of the pro-ject, ban on sand mining inJammu and Kashmir andadverse situations due to Covid-19 pandemic.

There will be many dauntingchallenges in future as well forIR’s Bridge engineers and man-agement, once the bridge isopened for rail traffic. Some ofthe challenges foreseen afteropening of the bridge are:Inspection and health monitoringof bridge due to its inaccessibil-ity, particularly in high windand possible seismic activities,periodic painting of the bridgeduring its life, avoidance of anytrain derailment/ accident overthe bridge as any restorationwork at that height would be anear-impossible task and protec-tion against natural disasters. Inaddition, this would be a big tar-get for terrorists and this wouldrequire very close coordination

with local administration. It ishoped that appropriate equipmentandtechnology for its regularinspection and condition-monitor-ing,maintenance,and contingentplans, would be in place beforecommissioning of the project.

As of now the Chenab bridgeand other missing links of theproject are in advance stages ofcompletion. Besides improvingthe lives of populations living onthe either side of the river in theKashmir valley, it will help toopen new vistas of developmentof the region. The rail link, in anycase, is going to have its ownstrategic importance.

It will also be worthwhile topreserve and consolidate thelessons learnt and the expertisegained in the project and as thesame would be of immense use infuture projects as our countrymarches on the path of develop-ment. The confidence that IRengineers in particular, and engi-neers in general, gain form thisproject would undoubtedly pro-pel them to excel themselves incoming days.

The celebrations and felicita-tions should be withheld till thecompletion of the project, oncethe project is completed therewould be ample opportunitiesfor IR to pat itself on its back, andrightfully so. Till then, we mustwait with proud but restrainedoptimism.

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(Gupta is a retiredMember (Engineering),

Indian Railways andMani is a retired

General Manager,Indian Railways. Bothare independent rail

consultants. The viewsexpressed are personal.)

The feel-good factor maybe impacted as RBI esti-mates the growth to

lower, inflation to remain high,and crude prices to be around$100 a barrel.

RBI Monetary PolicyCommittee’s (MPC) revisedassumption of the crude oilprice for making inflation andgrowth forecasts is sharplyhigher than the previous one.The growth estimates to lowerto 7.2 per cent from 7.8 per centeven as it keeps repo rateunchanged at 4 percent andreverse repo at 3.35 per Bcent,meaning interest rates willremain low.

Retail Inflation averaging6.3 per cent in the first quarter(April-June 2022), 5 percent inthe second quarter, 5.4 per centin the third quarter, and 5.1 percent in the fourth quarter

(January-March 2023) will bea concern. Wholesale rateremain at 13 per cent.

Inflation projections havebeen primarily revised upwardsdue to war-induced factors,according to RBI GovernorShaktikanta Das. It may entaildifficult times as governmentfinances may be impacted inmeeting the inflationary pres-sures.

The Centre for MonitoringIndian Economy (CMIE) findsthe rate of recovery slowingdown after the second pan-demic wave can reduce con-sumer sentiments and byMarch 2023 it could be 15 percent lower.

On the other hand, with 83unicorns valued at $277 billionwould be able to create 11 lakhjobs, Nasscom-Zinnov says.The net non-farm employ-

ment growth has to sustainablyrise till 2030 at 1.5 per cent ayear so that there are at least 9crore jobs. This may getdelayed as lower consumersentiments to hit manufactur-ing and other activities.

The challenges are many.India ‘s forex reserves came

down by $14 billion thoughthey are still comfortable at$619 billion.

Proposals for foreigninvestment in infrastructureare fraught with risk. There aresuggestions from former RBIgovernor Bimal Jalan that infradevelopment should be done inrupees. This would hedge therupee and the economy. HigherFDI would also have higheroutgo in repatriation. Jalansuggests tax cuts and says ris-ing petrol prices, supposedlyhighest in the world, are con-cerns.

No action is off the tablewhen the need is to safeguardthe Indian economy, Das says.Some more belt-tightening ispossible though the Centremay like to adhere to the pos-sible extent to its budgetaryprogrammes.

CMIE says that the slowerrecovery does not bode well.Various international impedi-ments add to risks. Such con-sumer sentiments can impactspending and therefore, growthin private final consumptionexpenditure that accounts forabout 55 percent of the coun-try’s GDP.

The consumer sentimentexpanded by 5 per cent inJanuary but in March itdeclined to 3.7 per cent. Itwould take three years to recov-er to the pre-Covid level pro-vided there is no other jerk tothe economy. The RBI appar-ently took a note of it.

The Ukraine war relatedsanctions imposed by the USaffects India’s exports to anextent as well.

The government has takento various international tie-ups

to tide over the crisis. The lat-est free trade pact withAustralia is a move to counterChina. It opens up avenues forcoal and other raw materialimports as well as export of gar-ments, pharmaceuticals, steeland other products. It alsoallows Australian liquor andother companies to set up theirunits in India.

Another decision to inviteGulf country companies toinvest in Kashmir is being seenas a major gain. These compa-nies in their meeting with thegovernor say they have spotted4226 sites for hotels, tourismcentres and factories underthe FTA with UAE.

Meanwhile, phasing outimports of 101 more defenceitems will give a push to self-reliance and save forex. Theplan is to make the country a

global hub for defence manu-facturing. It could be a big forexearner as well as create an aurafor the country.

It is hoped that these wouldgradually tide over the balanceof trade issue. At present,despite $400 billion of exportsthere remains trade deficit of $192 billion as imports in valueterms have become expensive.It also adds to forex loss despitehigher earnings. It is not easyto tide this over as rupee con-tinues to slide beyond Rs 75. Inthe present global scenarioboosting the rupee is a task.

Amid these problems FDIhas increased to over $560million. It shows the confi-dence of the investor in thecountry’s policies. The countryis through a difficult phase butit has to get over for a brightfuture.

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(The writer is a senior journalist. The views

expressed are personal.)

�/�01����(�

� -�.����)�'�*�� The rail bridge under construc-tion by Indian Railways (IR)between Bakkal and Kauri inthe Reasi district of Jammu

and Kashmir on the river Chenab,known as the Chenab bridge, hasbecome part of engineering folklore ofthe country. This magnificent archbridge has become a symbol of a resur-gent India, not merely because it is iden-tified as the mainstay for seamless rail-way connectivity to the Kashmir valley.Its magnificent arch, which is far high-er than the tip of the Eiffel Tower, andthe fact that it would be the tallest railbridge in the world, has come to proud-ly embody the skill and proficiency ofIndian engineers.

Hailed repeatedly as an ‘infrastruc-ture marvel in making’ by a series of rail-way ministers and government/IR func-tionaries, the bridge has a chequered his-tory. We have been hearing about thisbridge for nearly two decades. It wasoriginally intended to be completed in2009 but the project was halted in 2008as its stability came into question. Afterre-examination of the issue, construc-tion was restarted and since then thedate of completion has been regressing,from the initial 2015 to 2021 till last yearitself. As all these targets were miscar-ried, and yet IR continued to extoll theenormity of the project in the media, afeeling of cynical and sneaky déjà vuamong public at large had startedbecoming palpable. A signature projectwas in the danger of becoming a victimof its overhyped narrative.

The light at the end of the tunnel isnow visible. The imposing steel arch ofthe bridge across the river Chenab hasfinally been completed. Not with stand-ing various delays in the way, this eventin itself is a big achievement and a firmstep forward to achieve the dream oflinking Kashmir valley with the rest ofthe country.

There is not an iota of doubt that thisproject task required great engineeringskills right from design to fabrication toerection etc. The task of construction ofthe bridge has also been in the sameleague. The bridge is the most challeng-ing and fascinating structure ofUdhampur- Srinagar- Baramulla raillink project. The steel arch bridge,amidst Hills of mighty Himalayasengorging the serpentine Chenab riveris indeed a symbol of technical excel-lence of Indian Engineers. It is 1315metre long with, with an arch span of467 meter and stands 359 metre highabove the river. At both end of the arch,there is viaduct portion and the com-plete configuration of the bridge is acompound and complex structure. Overthe central arch, there are eleven steelpiers supporting 10 spans of 48 m. Thesteel pier at Katra end foundation of architself is about 120 metre tall. Besides thearch, the other most challenging task has

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Former Punjab ChiefMinister Charanjit Singh

Channi has been questionedfor over six hours by theEnforcement Directorate (ED)in a money laundering inves-tigation linked to a sand min-ing case in the State.

The ED recorded Channi’sstatement at its zonal office inJalandhar on Wednesday underthe Prevention of MoneyLaundering Act (PMLA).

The 59-year-old Congressleader said in a tweet that hewas "summoned by the ED yes-terday regarding the miningcase".

"I attended and replied tothe queries put by them to thebest of my knowledge. A chal-lan in this case has already beenpresented by ED in the Hon'blecourt. The authorities have notasked me to come again," hesaid in his post on the socialmedia platform.

Channi's nephewBhupinder Singh alias Honeywas arrested in this case by theagency days before theFebruary 20 Punjab Assemblypolls.

A charge sheet was alsofiled against him and othersbefore a special PMLA court inJalandhar on March 31. Honey,currently undergoing judicial

custody, has recently appliedfor bail.

The agency questionedChanni, who had earlierskipped a few summons, abouthis links with Honey and oth-ers and about certain visits hisnephew made to the ChiefMinister's Office, sources said.

The former CM was alsoquestioned about the allega-tions of certain transfer andposting of officials in the Stateas part of the illegal sand min-ing operations, they said.

Channi resigned as thePunjab CM after the countingof votes on March 10 as theAam Aadmi Party (AAP)swept the recently concludedpolls in the State.

Channi lost the election

from both the Assembly con-stituencies he contested --Chamkaur Sahib and Bhadaur.

The ED action in the casebegan on January 18 after itconducted raids against Honeyand others and seized about Rs7.9 crore cash from his premis-es and about Rs 2 crore cashfrom a person linked to him,identified as Sandeep Kumar.

Earlier, the ED had saidthat it recorded statements ofKudratdeep Singh, Honey, hisfather Santokh Singh andSandeep Kumar during thesearches and it was "estab-lished" that the seized Rs 10crore "belonged to BhupinderSingh".

"Further, Bhupinder Singhaccepted that he received the

seized cash in lieu of facilitationin sand mining operations andtransfer/postings of officials,"the ED had said in a statement.

The accused in the caseHoney, Kudratdeep Singh andSandeep Kumar are directors ofa company Providers OverseasConsultants Pvt Ltd which wasraided by the ED in January.

The money launderingcase was filed by the ED inNovember last year after takingcognisance of a Punjab Police(Rahon police station, ShaheedBhagat Singh Nagar) FIR of2018 under various sections ofthe Indian Penal Code (IPC)and the Mines and Minerals(Regulation and Development)Act, 1957 to probe allegationsof illegal sand mining.

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The country is witnessing a gradual risein active Covid-19 caseload for the first

time in 80 days. There is an uptick in newcases and test positivity rates in at leastthree States — Delhi, Gujarat and Haryana.

Active cases increased from 10,870 to11,058 in the last 24-hours. Also, there are27 districts in the country which haveweekly test positivity rates of over 5 percent and these include 23 districts in Keralaalone.

This has sparked concerns over thespread of the virus again with experts urg-ing people not to lower their guards andcontinue with their Covid appropriatebehaviour.

Many hospitals and doctors in thesestates also confirmed that there has beena rise in patients visiting OPDs with Covid-19 symptoms. However, they also say thatthe majority of the patients are mildlysymptomatic with fever, cold and coughand do not need hospitalisation.

Overall, the country reported 1,007daily new coronavirus cases on Thursday,the second day in a row that fresh infec-tions in a 24-hour period were above 1,000.The fresh tally of Covid-19 cases takes thetotal confirmed infections to 4,30,39,023.

As many as 18 states and UTs in Indiahave reported a rise in active cases in the24-hour period. Daily test positivity rates

were registered at 10.47 per cent forMizoram, 3.05 per cent at Haryana, 2.63per cent at Nagaland and 2.49 per cent forDelhi.

Many countries across the world -including France, Germany, Italy in Europeand China - have been registering a sharprise in Covid patients since March. Amidworries over new variants, including theBA.2 subvariant of Omicron, and XE vari-ant (a recombinant variant of BA.1 andBA.2), experts have suggested that peoplein India should not lower their guards.

On Wednesday, India's national cap-ital added 299 fresh cases, a 48 per centjump over the 202 infections the previousday. The city had recently eased theCovid curbs, dropping the mask mandateamong other steps. So did Mumbai as theMaharashtra government relaxed Covidrestrictions ahead of the festival of GudiPadwa.

The country's overall coronavirus tallystands at 4,30,39,025, and the active case-load currently stands at 11,058, account-ing for 0.03 percent of the total caseload,

according to the Union health ministrydata. The recovery rate currently stands at98.76 percent. According to the healthministry data, the daily positivity ratestands at 0.23 percent, while the weeklypositivity rate stands at 0.25 percent.

At least two cases of the highly trans-missible XE variant have been recorded inMumbai and Gujarat by the local govern-ment officials.

The rising trajectory of the coron-avirus is being noticed though there is noconfirmation yet, either from the UnionHealth Ministry or INSACOG- theGovernment’s Covid-19 genomic surveil-lance programme- on any new SARS CoV2 variant that may be causing the highernumber of infections,” said the sources inthe Ministry.

Meanwhile, according to the figuresshared by the ministry, only one new deathwas reported in the 24 hours, which is thelowest in 747 days since March 28, 2020.Overall, 5,21,737 people have succumbedto the infectious disease in India as per offi-cial numbers.

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Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar,who was involved in a

series of terror attacks inJammu & Kashmir and was oneof the released terrorists in thehijacking of Indian Airlinesflight IC-814 in 1999, has beendesignated as a terrorist byMinistry of Home Affairs(MHA). Zargar is the fourthindividual to have been desig-nated as a terrorist by theCentre in the last one week.

In a notification, the MHAsaid, Zargar alias Latram (52),belongs to Nowhatta inSrinagar and is the founder andchief commander of terrorgroup Al-Umar-Mujahideenand had been affiliated withJammu-Kashmir LiberationFront. Zargar is currently basedin Pakistan. He had gone toPakistan to obtain illegal armstraining and was one of the ter-

rorists released in exchange forthe hostages during the 1999hijacking of Indian Airlinesflight IC-814.

The Union Home Ministrysaid Zargar has been runningan incessant campaign fromPakistan to fuel terrorism inJammu and Kashmir. He hasbeen involved in various terrorcrimes including murder,attempt to murder, kidnap-ping, planning and execution ofterrorist attacks and terror

funding, said the MHA notifi-cation. The Home Ministrysaid Zargar is a threat to peace,not only to India but across theworld, with his contacts andproximity to radical terroristgroups like the Al-Qaeda andJaish-e-Mohammed and thecentral government believesthat Zargar alias Latram isinvolved in terrorism and he isto be notified as a terroristunder the Unlawful Activities(Prevention) Act, 1967.

He is the 35th individual tohave been declared a designat-ed terrorist by the government.On April 8, the government haddesignated Hafiz Talha Saeed,a key leader of Lashkar-e-Taiba(LeT) and the son of 26/11Mumbai terror attacks master-mind Hafiz Saeed, a terrorist.Three days later, on April 11,Pakistani national MohiuddinAurangzeb Alamgir, who wasinvolved in the terror attack ona CRPF bus in Pulwama inJammu and Kashmir in 2019,was designated as a terrorist.

On April 12, Ali Kashif Jan,the Pakistani handler of the2016 terror attack on Pathankotairbase, has been designated asa terrorist by the Union HomeMinistry. The Act empowersthe Central Government tonotify the name of an individ-ual in its Fourth Schedule if itbelieves that he is involved interrorism.

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India and the US reaffirmedtheir commitment to work-

ing together for a free, openand inclusive Indo-Pacific andbeyond, Defence MinisterRajnath Singh said in Hawaii.Visiting the US Indo-PacificCommand (INDOPACOM)there, he also said the two sidesheld wide ranging talks in a bidto further advance India-USdefense collaboration acrossall domains.

Expressing satisfaction atthe significant progress in thedefence and strategic, he saidon Wednesday "the Military toMilitary relationship betweenIndia and the United States hasbeen strengthened in recentyears," the defence ministrysaid here on Thursday.

The Indo-PacificCommand is a combined com-batant command of the UnitedStates Armed Forces responsi-

ble for the key Indo-Pacificregion. The USINDOPACOMand Indian military have wide-ranging engagements, includ-ing a number of military exer-cises, training events andexchanges.

Rajnath visited theINDOPACOM headquartersin Honolulu on Wednesdayafter holding 2+2 dialoguewith the US in Washington onMonday. He also held separatebilateral meeting with his UScounterpart Lloyd Austin at thePentagon.

Admiral John Aquilino,

Commander USINDOPA-COM, received Rajnath at theCommand's headquarters inHawaii, theDefence Ministrytweeted on Thursday.

Earlier, he visited varioustraining sites of the US Army,Pacific (the Army ServiceComponent Command toINDOPACOM) locatedaround the island of Oahu. Healso laid a wreath at theNational Memorial Cemeteryof the Pacific in Hawaii.

During his brief visit to theHawaiian capital, the defenceminister also paid tribute toMahatma Gandhi at his statuethere.

India, the US and severalother world powers have beentalking about the need toensure a free, open and thriv-ing Indo-Pacific in the back-drop of China's rising militarymanoeuvring in the strategi-cally important region.

China claims nearly all of

the disputed South China Sea,though Taiwan, the Philippines,Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnamall claim parts of it. Beijing hasbuilt artificial islands and mil-itary installations in the SouthChina Sea.

In Washington, Rajnathalong with External AffairsMinister S Jaishankar attendedthe '2+2' Ministerial Dialogue.It was the first under the Bidenadministration. The US sidewas represented by USSecretary of State AntonyBlinken and US Secretary ofDefence Lloyd Austin at thedialogue.

In the bilateral meetingwith Austin, the two ministersreviewed the entire gamut ofIndo-US defence ties andagreed to step up military-to-military relations. Rajnathand Jaishankar also attended avirtual meeting between USPresident Joe Biden and PrimeMinister Narendra Modi.

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Ameeting of the CongressWorking Committee

(CWC) is being worked out forearly next week ahead of the`Chintan Shivir` to chalk outthe party`s future strategy.

Several meetings havealready been held for the prepa-ration of the conclave withsenior leaders Ambika Soni,Jairam Ramesh, Mukul Wasnikand party general secretaryorganization KC Venugopaldeliberating on the prepara-tions of the Chintan Shivir, like-ly to be held at Jaipur inRajasthan which is a Congressruled state, sources said.

A senior functionary, how-ever, said a section of partyleaders has advised the leader-ship to consider a venue of theconclave in any poll-boundstates like Gujarat or HimachalPradesh where elections are tobe held at the end of the year.

"We are in the process of

finalizing the dates and venueand the matters to be taken intoaccount in the ̀ Chintan Shivir`of the party. Within two-threedays the final proposal of the`Chintan Shivir` will beworked out and a final nod willbe given at the CWC meet tobe chaired by party chief SoniaGandhi,” a AICC functionarysaid.

The Chintan Shivir hasbeen necessitated since thedissidents have been raisingvoices against the present func-tioning of the party. The G-23is up against Rahul Gandhi andhis team, even as the party'sinterim chief Sonia Gandhihas been holding meetingswith the dissidents to cullinternal rift.In the last CWCmeeting held two days after theparty’s dismal performance inassembly elections in five states, it was decided by the party tocall a `Chintan Shivir` to for-mulate a strategy for the coursecorrection to reverse the trend

of electoral defeats. The partyis now in power in only twostates of Rajasthan andChhattisgarh and is part of theruling coalition in Maharashtraand Jharkhand.

In the meantime, Soniahas held deliberations withparty leaders including those ofthe G23 who had been criticalof the leadership and havedemanded organisational over-haul and they themselves con-ducted a series of meetings inbetween prompting Sonia aswell as Rahul Gandhi to engagewith them including top lead-ers like Ghulam Nabi Azad,Bhupinder Singh Hooda andAnand Sharma.

Sonia in her address to theparliamentary party had saidthat the revival of the party wasessential for democracy and theresults of the elections were"shocking" and "painful" andhence to ponder over issues theparty needs to hold a conclaveat the earliest.

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Accusing the Congress ofbelittling B R Ambedkar

and limiting his identity to justa Dalit leader, the BJP onThursday asserted that it wasthe Prime Minister NarendraModi-led Government thatrecognised Ambedkar's role inshaping modern India, andrestored to him the credit ofbeing a founding father of theindependent nation.

On the occasion ofAmbdekar's birth anniversary,the ruling BJP said the architectof the Constitution was giventhe country's highest honourBharat Ratna by a governmentwhich had support of the BJPin 1989.

It said a life-size portrait ofAmbedkar was placed in thecentral hall of the parliamentdue to the efforts of the party'sveteran leaders A B Vajpayeeand L K Advani.

Addressing a press confer-ence as part of the 'SamajikNyay Pakhwada', beingobserved by the BJP to mark its42nd foundation day, BJP gen-eral secretary DushyantGautam and Union MinisterVirendra Kumar cited variousinitiatives taken by Modi gov-ernment acknowledging thecontribution of Ambedkar.

Gautam said, "Every effortwas made by the Congressgovernment to ignore andbelittle the contribution ofBhim Rao Ambedkar.Congress governments alwaystried to restrict him in a limit-ed circle by calling him a Dalitleader.""His contributions weretruly acknowledged by the BJPgovernment and Panch-tirths(five holy places) associatedwith Baba Saheb were devel-oped by the government.

“These places are the cen-tres of inspiration for social jus-tice and unwavering nationalloyalty," he said.

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The National HealthAuthority (NHA), the

implementing agency for theAyushman Bharat DigitalMission, has invited expres-sions of interest (EoI) in devel-oping innovative solutions thatwill help build a national dig-ital health ecosystem.

This collaborativeapproach will not just helpspeed up the development butalso help in making digitalpublic goods available to pub-lic and/or private entities, theNHA said in a statement onThursday.

Interested parties shall pro-vide these solutions as a serviceat no cost to public and privateentities, it said.

The Ayushman BharatDigital Mission (ABDM) aimsto create a seamless onlineplatform that will enable inter-operability within the digitalhealthcare ecosystem. The mis-sion has been conceptualized asa set of 'digital building blocks'.

Each building block is seen asa 'digital public good' that canbe used by any entity in the dig-ital health ecosystem and pro-vides key capabilities thatenable the ABDM vision, thestatement said.

On the invitation forexpressions of interest (EoI),NHA CEO R S Sharma said,"The ABDM endeavours togive impetus to open and inter-operable standards in the dig-ital health ecosystem. Such anundertaking will not only expe-dite universal health coveragegoals in India, but also have rip-ple effects on the global healthecosystem.

"However, such an ambi-tion requires all hands on deck.In this regard, the NationalHealth Authority is giving anopen call inviting all interest-ed parties to contribute to theUnified Health Interface(UHI), Health Claims Protocol(HCP), and various otheropen-source digital publicgoods being created to expandthe digital health ecosystem."

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In a blow to the GujaratCongress, its former MLA

Indranil Rajguru on Thursdayjoined the Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) in Rajkot, citing that theparty has emerged as the bestoption to serve the people anduproot the ruling BJP in thestate.

Rajguru showered praiseson AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal,claiming that the Delhi chiefminister fights for the people,not for his party.

"This attitude impressedme a lot. I was in the Congressfrom the beginning because I

wanted to serve the people. The BJP has acquired

power by fooling people, whilethe Congress has lost its abili-ty to become an alternative.

My only problem with theCongress is that it lacks the willto defeat the BJP," he said.

Rajguru won as CongressMLA from Rajkot-East seat in2012. In 2017, he decided toquit his safe seat to fight theAssembly polls against the thenChief Minister Vijay Rupanifrom Rajkot-West seat.

But he eventually lost toRupani. Rajguru was the rich-est candidate in that election,having declared assets worth Rs122 crore.

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For the fourth consecutiveyear, India is likely to wit-

ness normal rainfall duringthe southwest monsoon sea-son with favourable La Ninaconditions predicted to con-tinue during the June-September period.

The country had receivednormal rainfall during thefour-month southwest mon-soon season in 2019, 2020 and2021.

The rainfall during thesouthwest monsoon seasonin 2022 will be 96 per cent to104 per cent of the Long

Period Average (LPA) of 87cm of the 1971-2020 period,the India MeteorologicalDepartment said on Thursday.

Earlier, the IMD used toconsider the LPA of 88 cm ofthe 1961-2010 period.

Quantitatively, the Juneto September monsoonal rain-fall is likely to be 99 per centof the LPA with a margin errorof 5 per cent, it said.

The Met office predictedthat there is a 40 per centprobability

of 'normal' rainfall, 15 percent probability of 'above nor-mal' (104 per cent to 110 percent of LPA) and 5 per cent

probability of 'excess' rainfall(more than 110 per cent ofLPA).

There is a 26 per centprobability of 'below-normal'rainfall (90 per cent to 96 percent of LPA) and a 14 per centchance of 'deficient' rainfall(less than 90 per cent of LPA).

Normal to above-normalrainfall is most likely overmany areas in the northernpart of peninsular India, cen-tral India, along the foothillsof the Himalayas and someparts of northwest India.

Below-normal rainfall islikely over many parts of thenortheast, some parts of

northwest India and southernparts of the peninsula, it said.

The IMD will issue anupdated forecast for the mon-soon season towards the endof May.

It said La Nina condi-tions over the equatorialPacific region are likely tocontinue during the mon-soon season.

Also, neutral IndianOcean Dipole (IOD) condi-tions prevailing over theIndian Ocean are predicted tocontinue till the beginning ofthe southwest monsoon sea-son. Thereafter, an enhancedprobability

of negative IOD condi-tions is predicted.

The El Nino-SouthernOscillation is an irregularcycle of change in wind andsea surface temperatures overthe tropical eastern PacificOcean, affecting the climateof much of the tropics andsubtropics.

The warming phase ofthe sea temperature is knownas El Nino and the coolingphase as La Nina.

El Nino is generallyknown to suppress monsoonrainfall in India while La Ninaincreases it.

Indian Ocean Dipole, also

known as Indian Nino, is anirregular oscillation of sea-surface temperature in whichthe western Indian Oceanbecomes alternately warmerand then colder than the east-ern part of the ocean.

IOD has three phases --neutral, negative and positive.

The positive IOD phase isbeneficial for the monsoonand negative IOD obstructsthe progression of the mon-soon over India.

However, the relationshipof the Indian monsoon withIOD is not as strong as com-pared to the relationship withEl Nino.

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The “Love Jihad” involvingIslamic youth Shijin and a

Christian girl took a new turnon Thursday as the lovers post-ed their pictures on the socialmedia and swearing their affec-tion for each other even as thegirl’s father went on recorddeclaring that his daughter hasbeen cheated by a group ofextremists.

“We have no faith in theinvestigation being carried outby the Kerala Police. The probeshould be entrusted to a cen-tral agency. Though weapproached the police with acomplaint that our daughterhas gone missing, they did notbother to order an investigationand even tried to divert theattention of the people,” Joseph,father of Jyothsna told media atKozhikode on Thursday.

He said the indifferencebeing shown by the policecame out in the open as Shijinand Jyothsna were posting

their pictures in the socialmedia. “It is easy to find out theexact locations from these post-ings. But the police is notshowing any interest to tracethem,” alleged Joseph.

Joseph has filed a habeuscorpus petition with the KeralaHigh Court which the court islikely to take up on Monday.Meanwhile, the ChristianAlliance for Social Action(CASA) joined issue with theCPI(M) and the Police lam-basting the tardy progress thelatter has made in the probe.“Instead of taking actionagainst Shijin who took the girlby force, the police is filingcases against those who areprotesting against Love Jihad.The situation in Kerala is trag-ic as most of the time the truthis hidden from the public. IfJoseph is anxious about thesafety of his daughter, it is forthe police to attend to the caseand trace the youngsters,” saidKevin Peter, general secretary,CASA.

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It turned out to be a dreamcome true for people in

Meenja Panchayath inKasaragod district of Kerala.Despite their efforts for the lastfour decades, the people’s rep-resentatives and administrationhave failed to lay a road link-ing Meenja with Uppala, thenearest town.

Politicians like ShaliniShetty who was a member ofthe Meenja Grama Panchaythblame it on the cumbersomeland acquiring process. “Lifehas become extremely difficultfor us because of the delay inconstructing a road linking uswith Uppala. Now we have totravel 13 km through a rockyterrain to reach Uppala. Taxisor ambulance vans are reluctantto undertake trips to this pan-chayath because of this issue,”said Harsha, administrator, SriNithyananda Yogashrama,Kondevooru, Kasaragod.

According to Jagadish VShetty, national general secre-tary, Virat Hindustan Sangam,the initiative to build the roadgot a momentum with thekeen interest shown bySubramanian Swamy, RajyaSabha Member and BJP leader.

The village has a consider-able population of Harijans.Though there are two matric-

ulation schools in the pan-chayath, residents were depen-dent on government colleges inUppala for their education.“When the local populationassisted by Virat HindustanSangam approached the districtadministration , the staff mem-bers came with open hands totake up the mission. Dr Swamyparted with Rs 2.40 crore fromhis MP’s Local AreaDevelopment Fund as the ini-tial expenses. The day turnedout to be a festival in this vil-lage spread across the Kerala -Karnataka border,” saidSundari Shetty, president,Meenja Grama Panchayath.

Swamy’s gesture hasinspired other representatives.AKM Ashraf, ManjeshwaramMLA declared in the public

meeting that he would dowhatever he could to make thedream of the people a reality.“Once this road becomes oper-ational, people from Meenjaneed to travel only 2 km toreach Uppala, This will help theoppressed classes a lot becausethey could send their childrenfor higher education toUppala,” said Swamy.

This is a new benchmark inrural development,” saidYogananda Saraswathi, head ofNithyananda Yogashrama,Meenja. Hundreds of peopleturned up for the foundationstone laying ceremony onThursday.

Later in the say Swamyinaugurated the first everSamrat Ashok Birth anniver-sary at Mulki near Mangalore.

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Aday after he called ChiefMinister to Raj Bhavan to

discuss the “alarming” law andorder situation in the State,Bengal Governor JagdeepDhankhar on Thursdayslammed the State Governmentfor letting the law order slip outof control and also questionedthe increasing cases of corrup-tion in the governmental trans-actions.

Expressing concern aboutthe number of CBI investiga-tions ordered by the HighCourt in a matter of a couple

of weeks the Governor said thatBengal had become a gaschamber for democracy.

His comments came daysafter the Court ordered CBIinvestigation into theRampurhat carnage andHanshkhali gang-rape case.

“West Bengal has become agas chamber for democracy.First the people are burnt aliveand the victims of the familymembers are offered jobs. Whyare there so many questions onthe Central Bureau ofInvestigation probe?” he saidruing how the State Governmentwould not forward any report tothe Governor when demandedto do so.

“The crime against womenis on the rise. No action wastaken even after so many inci-dents of post-poll violence inthe state. I wonder whethersome consider themselves to beabove the law … and whenreports are sought the StateGovernment does not forward

any report to the Governor.” theGovernor said apparentlyignoring Assembly SpeakerBiman Banerjee’s request toavoid such issues.

Referring to the scuffleamong lawyers over boycottingthe court of Justice AvijitGangopadhyay — (by pro-TMC advocates) — who hadordered CBI investigations intoSchool Service Commissionrecruitment scams theGovernor said, “What hap-pened at Calcutta High Courton Wednesday was most unfor-tunate. The temple of justicewas shamed. The people of thestate are living with constantfear.”

The Judge had ordered theCBI to go to the extent ofgrilling former EducationMinister, and senior TMCleader Partho Chatterjee(presently the state commerce& industries minister) for hisalleged role in SSC scam.

Subsequently holding the

Governor guilty was “crossinghis limits” the Speaker said “theGovernor says a lot of things,many of which are not true. Weoperate as per provisions of theIndia constitution.”

Senior Minister and TMCleader Firhad Hakim tooattacked the Governor for “act-ing like a BJP man,” adding theState Government was notbound always to give reportsabout everything to theGovernor. “The governor canseek report or give sugges-tions to the state government.But the state cabinet runs theadministration as per consti-tutional provisions. If the gov-ernor desires extra constitu-tional power, that is never pos-sible,” he said.

Meanwhile in a relateddevelopment the CBI onThursday took charge of theHanskhali gang-rape case seiz-ing a number of forensic mate-rials from the crime scenesources said.

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Aspinning wheel which for-mer prime minister Lal

Bahadur Shastri got as "dowry",Chaudhary Charan Singh'sdiaries and P V NarasimhaRao's spectacles are among thearticles that their families haveoffered for display at thePradhanmantri Sangrahalaya,which was inaugurated by PrimeM i n i s t e rNarendra Modi on Thursday.

Members of the Nehru-Gandhi family, which gave thecountry three prime ministers,chose to skip the event, while kinof former premiers ChaudharyCharan Singh, P V NarasimhaRao, H D Deve Gowda, AtalBihari Vajpayee, Morarji Desaiand Lal Bahadur Shastri attend-ed it with enthusiasm.

Located at the Teen MurtiComplex in New Delhi and builtat a cost of Rs 271 crore, themuseum will shed light on thelives and contributions of all the14 formers prime ministers ofthe country.

The erstwhile NehruMuseum building, designated asBlock I, now has a completelyupdated, technologicallyadvanced display on the life andcontributions of JawaharlalNehru. A number of giftsreceived by him from all over theworld but not exhibited so farhave been put on display in ther e n o v a t e dBlock I.

Many of the family mem-bers said that they were emo-tional and were awestruck at theexpanse of the museum and thespace accorded to each primeminister.

"We gave them anecdotes,books, photographs for themuseum. A spinning wheelwhich was given to my father asdowry has also been given to themuseum. When my father hadrefused dowry, he was given the'charkha'. These are very per-sonal things and we gave themwith a heavy heart. A bad-minton racket he used and avase he got as a present duringhis last visit to Tashkent are alsopart of the collection," said.

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India has to grow big and itsrise is incumbent upon therise of ‘dharma’, RSS chief

Mohan Bhagwat has said, inremarks interpreted by somerivals of the BJP as a pitch for‘Akhand Bharat’.

Likening India’s progress tothat of a vehicle that only hasaccelerator and no brakes, theRSS chief said those trying tostop it will either step aside orbe eliminated. Bhagwat madethe comments at a gathering ofsaints and seers in Haridwar onWednesday.

“Bharat ko ab bada hona hihai.... Dharma ka utthan hiBharat ka utthan hai... Bharatjo apne utthan ki patri pe chalpada hai usko paaye bina abrukna nahin hai. Isko roknewale ya toh hat jayengae ya mitjayengae....yeh nahin ruknewala. Yeh aisi gadi hai iskaaccelerator hai break nahinhai,” Bhagwat said amid chantsof ‘Jai Shri Ram’.

(India has to now grow big.The rise of ‘Dharma’ is the riseof India. There’s no stoppingIndia, which has launched itselfon the track of rise and uplift-ment. Those who try to stop itwill either step aside of be elim-inated. This is a vehicle whichhas an accelerator but no

brakes).According to the excerpts

of his speech shared by the RSS,Bhagwat said RashtriyaSwayamsevak Sangh founderKB Hegdewar had assigned itsworkers the role of the“chowkidar” (watchman) forprotecting the religion.

The Shiv Sena, a BJP allyuntil a few years ago, wel-comed Bhagwat’s comments,but said before realising thegoal of ‘Akhand Bharat’, the BJPmust take control of Pakistanand rehabilitate KashmiriPandits in the Valley.

Sena spokesperson and MPSanjay Raut also demandedBharat Ratna for freedom fight-er VD Savarkar, a highly polar-ising pro-Hindutva figure, whohas been revered anddemonised in equal measure.

“First take PakistanOccupied Kashmir (PoK)under control, then take con-trol of Pakistan, form anAkhand Hindustan, then takeAfghanistan...(or) territorieswhich you think were part ofIndia. No one has stoppedyou. This is the desire of thecountry.”

“But before that give BharatRatna to Veer Savarkar. Yousurely work on AkhandHindustan, but before thatensure ghar-wapsi of Kashmiri

Pandits. Let that happen withdignity,” he said.

A section of the HinduRight believes in the concept ofAkhand Bharat, while referringto pre-partition India whichstreched to the present-dayPakistan, Bangladesh and evenMyanmar.

Raut said Bhagwat is arevered figure for the Senaand his thought of ‘AkhandBharat’ is commendable.

AIMIM presidentAsaduddin Owaisi wonderedwho stopped the RSS fromfrom making ‘Akhand Bharat’a reality during the past eightyears of the BJP rule.

“Who stopped you fromcreating an Akhand Bharat ineight years? And what willhappen in the next 15 years?What is Akhand Bharat? Doeshe (Bhagwat) realise that itincludes Afghanistan, SriLanka, Bangladesh, PakistanOccupied Kashmir and Chinaoccupied territory?” Owaisitold reporters in Ahmedabad.

In a swipe at Bhagwat,Owaisi said instead of talkingabout Akhand Bharat, the RSSleader should raise the issue ofIndian territory currently occu-pied by China.

“I want to tell BhagwatSahab to talk about areas whichare occupied by China. Our

Army cannot even dopatrolling in those areas.Instead of talking about that,you are talking about AkhandBharat. You should have donethat in eight years” said Owaisi.

Maharashtra HomeMinister Dilip Walse Patil ofthe NCP said India is unitedeven now and no attemptshould be made to disintegrateit.

India is a country wherepeople belonging to differentcastes and religious faiths livetogether. India is integratedeven today and will remain so.Nobody should try to disinte-grate it, Walse Patil said,responding to Bhagwat'sremarks.

In his speech, Bhagwatsaid India of the dreams ofVivekananda and MaharishiAurobindo is nearing realisa-tion. “People say it may take 20-25 years, but from my experi-ence I feel it will be realised innext 8-10 years. For this, theentire society has to worktogether.

“We will talk about non-violence but we will carry astick in our hand. We have noenmity in our mind but worldheeds to power. Therefore, weshould have power which is vis-ible,” Bhagwat told the gather-ing.

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The Opposition party had also decid-ed to stage an indefinite sit-in demon-stration near Vidhana Soudha till thedemands are met.

The deceased contractor, 40, hadmade serious charges against Eshwarappasaying the Minister had been harassinghim for as high as 40 per cent commissionsto clear the bills for contracts he had imple-mented for the Government over a yearago. It is understood that while the con-tractor completed the projects on the“promise of payment” without passing offi-cial tenders, but his money was notreleased as he was asked to pay commis-sions first. Patil, according to sources, hadtaken huge loans and was unable to repaythem.

He had also held a Press conference inDelhi on the issue and wrote a letter toPrime Minister Narendra Modi. The con-tractor, also a BJP member, had also saidEshwarappa should be held responsible ifsomething happens to him.

The Udupi police booked Eshwarappaand his aides under Section 306 (abetmentto suicide) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).Two of the Minister’s aides were also men-tioned in the First Information Report. TheChief Minister has also ordered an inquiryinto the charges against the Minister.

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He was also involved in Case FIRs25/2022 & 26/2022 of PS Litter pertainingto the attack on driver namely DheerajDutt resident of Pathankot and cleanersnamely Surinder Singh and Sonu Sharma,both residents of Pathankot at Nowporaand Yadar respectively in which they gotinjured.

In Srinagar, Defence PRO in a state-ment said, “Owing to the wet road con-ditions, the driver seemingly lost controlover the vehicle and it skidded off the road.The eight injured soldiers were shifted tothe district hospital Shopian, where two

among them were declared dead. One sol-dier had received minor injuries and wasdischarged from the district hospital.

The five other injured soldiers wereevacuated to 92 Base Hospital, Srinagar,where the third soldier also succumbed tohis injuries. Four soldiers are presently atthe 92 Base Hospital and are being treat-ed.

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The Prime Minister also paid tributesto Babasaheb Ambedkar and said “theConstitution of which Babasaheb was themain architect, that constitution gave usthe basis of the Parliamentary system.

“The main responsibility of thisParliamentary system has been on theoffice of the Prime Minister of the coun-try. It is my good fortune that today I havegot the opportunity to dedicate the PrimeMinister’s Museum to the nation.”

He also acknowledged and greeted thefamilies of the past Prime Ministers pre-sent on the occasion. Commenting on thelogo of the museum which has many handsholding the chakra, the Prime Minister saidthat the Chakra is the symbol of 24-hourcontinuity and resolve for prosperity andhard work.

The museum deals with the life andtimes of all 14 Prime Ministers, some ofwhose political careers run parallel to thefreedom struggle of the country.

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Musk’s 81 million Twitter followersmake him one of the most popular figureson the platform, rivalling pop stars likeAriana Grande and Lady Gaga. But hisprolific tweeting has sometimes gotten himinto trouble with the SEC and others.

Musk and Tesla in 2018 agreed to pay$40 million in civil fines and for Musk tohave his tweets approved by a corporatelawyer after he tweeted about having the

money to take Tesla private at $420 pershare. That didn’t happen but the tweetcaused Tesla’s stock price to jump. Musk’slatest trouble with the SEC could be hisdelay in notifying regulators of his grow-ing stake in Twitter.

Musk has described himself as a “freespeech absolutist” and has said he doesn’tthink Twitter is living up to free speechprinciples - an opinion shared by follow-ers of Donald Trump and a number ofother right-wing political figures who’vehad their accounts suspended for violat-ing Twitter content rules.

Shares of Twitter jumped 11% beforethe market open. (AP

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He had also visited the JallianwalaBagh on the occasion of the 103rd anniver-sary of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre onWednesday, and paid homage to the mar-tyrs. In the visitor’s book, he wrote,“Jallianwala reflects the strength andresilience of the people of this country. Thisserene garden is symbolic of the great sac-rifice made in the face of tyranny. It servesas a reminder of the heavy price paid forfreedom, which we must always cherishand protect.”

Justice Ramana was on Punjab visitwith his family. On his arrival, he wasreceived by Punjab Chief MinisterBhagwant Mann on Wednesday with abouquet during his maiden visit to theState. On Wednesday evening, the CJI vis-ited the Golden Temple on the occasionof Baisakhi — marking the beginning ofthe Sikh New Year and commemorates theformation of Khalsa Panth of warriorsunder Guru Gobind Singh.

Justice Ramana was offered Saropa atthe Golden Temple. He greeted the peo-ple on the occasion of Baisakhi andwished the people of Punjab peace andprosperity. “My good wishes for Baisakhi.I am very happy today, my lifetime dreamcame true today as my family membersand I could reach the Golden Temple. Iwould like to thank the managing com-mittee,” he said.

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The Government onThursday said it has

approved 61 applications ofcompanies, including GinniFilaments, Kimberly ClarkIndia Pvt ltd, and Arvind Ltd,with an investment potential ofover �19,000 crore under theproduction linked incentive(PLI) scheme for textiles.Textile Secretary U P Singh saidthat a total of 67 proposals werereceived under the PLI schemefor the textiles sector."In theapproved 61 applications theproposed total investmentexpected from the applicants is�19,077 crore and a projectedturnover is �184,917 crore witha proposed employment of

240,134 people," Singh toldreporters here.

The government hadapproved the PLI scheme forTextiles products like MMFapparel, MMF fabrics andproducts of technical textilesfor enhancing manufacturingcapabilities and boostingexports with an approvedfinancial outlay of �10,683crore over a five-year period.Out of 67 applications, 15 werereceived under Part-1 and 52under Part-2, the official said.

In Part 1, the minimuminvestment requirement is�300 crore and the minimumturnover required to beachieved for incentive is �600crore, and in Part-2, the min-imum investment should of

�100 crore and the minimumturnover is �200 crore.

The companies whoseproposals have been approvedinclude Avgol India Pvt Ltd;Goa Glass Fibre Ltd; H PCotton Texti le Mil ls ;Kimberly Clark India Pvt Ltd(subject to formation of a newcompany for investment andproduction under thescheme); Madura IndustrialTextiles; MCPI Pvt Ltd;Prat ibha Syntex; ShahiExports; Trident Ltd; DonearIndustries; Gokaldas Exports;and Arvind Ltd. Singh saidthat the scheme would helpincrease India's share in theglobal man-made fibre andtechnical textiles sector. "Weare targeting to increase

exports of technical textilesfrom $2 billion to about $8-10 billion," he added.

Talking about the MegaInvestment Textiles Parks(MITRA) scheme, the secre-tary said they have received17 proposals from 13 states,including Madhya Pradesh(4) and Karnataka (2).

The Textiles Ministry willfollow a "challenge method"to select states for the scheme,under which seven parks willbe set up in the country."Weare evaluating these propos-als as under the scheme, onlyseven parks will be approvedin the first phase..We are alsosending teams to these statesto know about the groundreality," he said.

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Bank of India has moved theNational Company Law

Tribunal (NCLT), filing a peti-tion to initiate insolvency pro-ceedings against debt-riddenFuture Retail Ltd.

Earlier this month, FutureRetail Ltd (FRL) had reporteda default of �5,322.32 crore toits lenders on account of the

ongoing litigations with e-com-merce major Amazon andother related issues. "Bank ofIndia (BoI) has served anadvance intimation of filing anapplication under Section 7 ofthe Insolvency and BankruptcyCode, 2016 against the com-pany for default on non-pay-ment of monies due in terms ofthe Framework Agreemententered into between the com-

pany and Bank of India," FRLsaid in a regulatory filing. TheFuture group firm said it hasreceived a copy of the petitionand is in the "process of takinglegal advice".

BoI, the lead banker ofthe consortium of lenders ofFRL, had last month througha public notice in newspapersclaimed its charge over theassets of FRL and warned the

public against dealing withassets of the Kishore Biyani-led Future group f irm.Several Future Group com-panies, including FRL, hadentered into agreements withtheir respective lenders interms of the RBI circulardated August 6, 2020, inwhich a resolution frame-work for COVID-relatedstress was announced.

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Keen on improving thegaushala (cow shelter)

economy, government think-tank Niti Aayog is workingon a roadmap to enable com-mercial use of cow dung formult iple purposes , andresolve various issues con-nected with stray cows whichoften become liability forfarmers, its member RameshChand has said.

The Aayog has also askedeconomic think tank NCAERto prepare a report on the eco-nomics of gaushalas to ensureits commercial viability.

"We are just looking atwhat are the possibilities toimprove the gaushala econo-my...We are looking at the pos-sibility that can we have somevalue created or value additionfor the by-products, which iscow dung," he told PTI.

A team of government offi-cials under Chand has visit-ed big gaushalas in Vrindavan(Uttar Pradesh), Rajasthan andother parts of India to assesstheir conditions.

He pointed out that maybe10 per cent or 15 per cent ofcows give a small quantity ofmilk but that is not enough tocover labour, fodder and treat-ment costs.

"Cow dung can be used tomake Bio-CNG...So we arelooking at those kinds of pos-sibilities," Chand, who overseesfarm policies at the governmentthink tank said.Menace of straycattle, abandoned by their own-ers, had become a major talk-ing point in the Uttar Pradeshelections.

The NITI Aayog memberhighlighted the advantage ofproducing bio-CNG from cowdung."So rather than it (gas)damaging the environment,we will use it as energy whichwill give returns also," heargued.

The eminent agricultureeconomist observed that leav-ing unwanted cattle in theopen is also harmful for crops."That's why we are working onthe gaushala economy," heasserted.

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Ukraine said on Thursday itsforces sank the flagship of

Russia's Black Sea fleet in a mis-sile attack, but Moscow said thevessel was merely damaged,making no mention of anassault.

The loss of the ship wouldbe a major military and sym-bolic defeat for Russia as itstroops regroup for a renewedoffensive in eastern Ukraineafter retreating from much ofthe north, including the capi-tal.

Russia said a fire aboardthe Moskva, a warship thatwould typically have 500 sailorson board, forced the entirecrew to evacuate the vessel.

It later said the fire hadbeen contained and that theship would be towed to portwith its guided missile launch-ers intact.

The ship carries 16 mis-siles, according to a militaryanalyst, and its removal fromcombat would greatly reduceRussia's firepower in the BlackSea.

Regardless of the extent ofthe damage, any attack wouldrepresent a major blow to

Russian prestige seven weeksinto a war that is already wide-ly seen as a historic blunder.

It was not immediatelypossible to reconcile the vast-ly different accounts, and cloudcover made it impossible tolocate the ship or determine itscondition based on satellitephotos.

The news of damage to theship came hours after some ofUkraine's allies sought to rallynew support for the embattledcountry.

On a visit with leadersfrom three other EU countrieson Russia's doorstep who fearthey could next be in Moscow'ssights, Lithuanian PresidentGitanas Nauseda declared that"the fight for Europe's future ishappening here."

Meanwhile, U.S. PresidentJoe Biden, who called Russia'sactions in Ukraine "a genocide"this week, approved $800 mil-lion in new military assistanceto Kyiv.

He said weapons from theWest have sustained Ukraine'sfight so far and "we cannot restnow."

The news of the flagship'sdamage overshadowed Russianclaims of advances in the

southern port city of Mariupol,where they have been battlingthe Ukrainians since the earlydays of the invasion in some ofthe heaviest fighting of thewar - at a horrific cost to civil-ians.

Russian Defense Ministryspokesman Maj. Gen. IgorKonashenkov said Wednesdaythat 1,026 troops from theUkrainian 36th Marine Brigadesurrendered at a metals facto-

ry in the city. But Vadym Denysenko,

adviser to Ukraine's interiorminister, rejected the claim,telling Current Time TV that"the battle over the seaport isstill ongoing today."

It was unclear when or overwhat time period a surrendermay have occurred or howmany forces were still defend-ing Mariupol.

Russian state television

broadcast footage that it saidwas from Mariupol showingdozens of men in camouflagewalking with their hands upand carrying others on stretch-ers. One man held a white flag.

Mariupol's capture is crit-ical for Russia because it wouldput a swath of territory in itscontrol that would allow itsforces in the south, who cameup through the annexedCrimean Peninsula, to link up

with troops in the easternDonbas region, Ukraine'sindustrial heartland and thetarget of the coming offensive.

Moscow-backed separatistshave been battling Ukraine inthe Donbas since 2014, thesame year Russia seizedCrimea.

Russia has recognised theindependence of the rebelregions in the Donbas.

But the loss of the Moskva,named for the Russian capital,could set those efforts back.

Satellite photos from PlanetLabs PBC show the Moskvasteaming out of the port ofSevastopol on the CrimeanPeninsula on Sunday.

Maksym Marchenko, thegovernor of the Odesa region,across the Black Sea to thenorthwest of Sevastopol, saidthe Ukrainians struck the shipwith two Neptune missiles andcaused "serious damage."

Oleksiy Arestovych, anadviser to Ukraine's president,then said the ship sank, callingit an event of "colossal signifi-cance."

Russia's Defense Ministrysaid ammunition on boarddetonated as a result of a fire,without saying what caused the

blaze. It later said the ship was

afloat and would be taken in forrepairs. It said its "main missileweapons" were not damaged.

The Neptune is an anti-ship missile that was recentlydeveloped by Ukraine andbased on an earlier Sovietdesign.

The launchers are mount-ed on trucks stationed near thecoast, and, according to theWashington-based Centre forStrategic and InternationalStudies, the missiles can hittargets up to 280 kilometersaway.The U.S. Was not able toconfirm Ukraine's claims ofstriking the warship, U.S.National security adviser JakeSullivan said Thursday.

"We don't have the capac-ity at this point to indepen-dently verify that," he told theEconomic Club ofWashington. Still, he called it"a big blow to Russia."

"They've had to kind ofchoose between two stories:One story is that it was justincompetence, and the otherwas that they came underattack, and neither is a partic-ular the good outcome forthem," Sullivan said.

Oleg Zhdanov, aUkrainian military analyst,said the ship's loss, if con-firmed, would reduce thenumber of Russian cruise mis-siles in the Black Sea to 56.

"The loss of 16 cruise mis-siles at once will force theRussians to preserve theirstrength and change their tac-tics on the water," he said.

Hours after the damage tothe ship was reported,Ukrainian authorities said onthe Telegram messaging ser-vice that explosions had struckOdesa, Ukraine's largest port.

They urged residents toremain calm and said there isno danger to civilians.

Russia invaded on Feb. 24with the goal, according toWestern officials, of rapidlyseizing Kyiv, toppling the gov-ernment and installing aMoscow-friendly replacement.

But the ground advancestalled in the face of strongUkrainian resistance with thehelp of Western arms, andRussia has lost potentiallythousands of fighters. Theconflict has killed untold num-bers of Ukrainian civiliansand forced millions more toflee.

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Aformer police officer whodiscussed Russia's inva-

sion on the phone. A priestwho preached to his congre-gation about the suffering ofUkrainians. A student whoheld up a banner with nowords - just asterisks.

Hundreds of Russians arefacing charges for speakingout against the war in Ukrainesince a repressive law waspassed last month that outlawsthe spread of "false informa-tion" about the invasion anddisparaging the military.

Human rights groups saythe crackdown has led to crim-inal prosecutions and possibleprison sentences for at least 23people on the "false informa-tion" charge, with over 500 oth-ers facing misdemeanourcharges of disparaging the mil-itary that have either led tohefty fines or are expected toresult in them.

"This is a large amount, anunprecedentedly large amount"of cases, said DamirGainutdinov, head of the NetFreedoms legal aid groupfocusing on free speech cases,in an interview with TheAssociated Press.

The Kremlin has sought tocontrol the narrative of the warfrom the moment its troopsrolled into Ukraine. It dubbedthe attack a "special military

operation" and increased thepressure on independentRussian media that called it a"war" or an "invasion," block-ing access to many news siteswhose coverage deviated fromthe official line.

Sweeping arrests stifledantiwar protests, turning themfrom a daily event in large citieslike Moscow and St Petersburginto rare occurrences barelyattracting any attention.

Still, reports of policedetaining single picketers indifferent Russian cities come inalmost daily.

Even seemingly benignactions have led to arrests.

A man was detained inMoscow after standing next toa World War II monument thatsays "Kyiv" for the city's hero-ic stand against Nazi Germanyand holding a copy of Tolstoy's"War and Peace". Another wasreportedly detained for holdingup a package of sliced hamfrom the meat producerMiratorg, with the second halfof the name crossed off so itread: "Mir" - "peace" in Russian.

A law against spreading"fake news" about the war ordisparaging the military waspassed by parliament in oneday and took force immedi-ately, effectively exposing any-one critical of the conflict tofines and prison sentences.

The first publicly knowncriminal cases over "fakes" tar-

geted public figures likeVeronika Belotserkovskaya, aRussian-language cookbookauthor and popular blogger liv-ing abroad, and AlexanderNevzorov, a TV journalist, filmdirector and former lawmaker.

Both were accused of post-ing "false information" aboutRussian attacks on civilianinfrastructure in Ukraine ontheir widely followed socialmedia pages -- somethingMoscow has vehementlydenied, insisting that Russianforces only hit target militarytargets.

But then the scope of thecrackdown expanded, withpolice seemingly grabbing any-

one.Former police officer

Sergei Klokov was detained andput in pretrial detention afterdiscussing the war with hisfriends on the phone.

His wife told the Meduzanews site that in casual con-versation at home, Klokov,who was born in Irpin nearKyiv and whose father stilllived in Ukraine when Russiantroops rolled in, condemnedthe invasion.

Klokov was charged withspreading false informationabout the Russian armed forcesand faces up to 10 years inprison.

St Petersburg artist Sasha

Skolichenko also faces up to 10years in prison on the samecharge: She replaced price tagsin a grocery store with antiwarflyers. On Wednesday, a courtordered Skolichenko to pretri-al detention for 1 1/2 months.

The Rev Ioann Burdin, aRussian Orthodox priest in avillage about 300 kilometers(about 185 miles) northeast ofMoscow, was fined 35,000rubles ($432) for "discreditingthe Russian armed forces" afterposting an antiwar statementon his church's website andtalking to a dozen congregantsduring a service about the painhe felt over people in Ukrainedying.

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China on Thursday said itwould reject "any pressure

or coercion" over its relation-ship with Russia, in response toa call from U.S. TreasurySecretary Janet Yellen forBeijing to use its "special rela-tionship with Russia" to per-suade Moscow to end the warin Ukraine.

Foreign Ministryspokesperson Zhao Lijiandefended China's position onthe war, saying it had "madeconsiderable efforts to de-escalate the situation, defusethe crisis and rebuild peace."

"China is playing a con-structive role in the Ukraineissue," Zhao told reporters at adaily briefing.

China has refused to con-demn the invasion of Ukraineby strategic partner Russia, oreven refer to the conflict as awar in deference to Moscow,which uses the term "specialmilitary operation."

"We oppose unfoundedaccusations and suspicionsagainst China, nor will weaccept any pressure or coer-cion," Zhao said. "Time will tellthat China's claims are on theright side of history."

China has also amplifiedRussian propaganda about thewar, including unsupportedclaims that the U.S. AndUkraine have been developingbiological weapons.

It has staunchly opposedeconomic sanctions againstRussia and has abstained orsided with Moscow in U.N.Votes following the beginningof the war on Feb. 24, justweeks after Russian leaderVladimir Putin met withChina's Xi Jinping in Beijing.

In a speech Wednesday,Yellen said Beijing "cannotexpect the global communityto respect its appeals to theprinciples of sovereignty andterritorial integrity in thefuture if it does not respectthese principles now."

"The world's attitudetowards China and its willing-ness to embrace further eco-nomic integration may well beaffected by China's reaction toour call for resolute action onRussia," she said.

Yellen's speech at theAtlantic Council, a nonpartisanthink tank, came a week beforethe world's finance ministersand central bank governorsconvene in Washington forthe International MonetaryFund-World Bank GroupSpring Meetings. Her directappeal to China underscoresan increasing frustration thatthe United States and its allieshave with a country that hasonly deepened its ties withRussia since the invasion ofUkraine.

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Sri Lankan protestors,including some celebri-ties, welcomed the tradi-

tional Sinhala and Tamil NewYear outside the presidentialsecretariat by boiling milkand distributing traditionalsweets on Thursday, the sixthday of their anti-governmentstir demanding resignation ofPresident Gotabaya Rajapaksaand his powerful family formishandling the country’sworst economic crisis.

Protesters are occupyingthe entrance and surroundingsof President Gotabaya’s office,holding him responsible forthe economic situation.

The protesters onWednesday rejected PrimeMinister Mahinda Rajapksa’soffer for talks and demandedthe resignation of PresidentGotabaya and all members ofhis family from the govern-ment.

The protestors hailed thedawning of the new year at8.41 am and then boiled milkat the auspicious time of 9.07am. The spill of milk at the aus-picious time is the indicationof well being in the New Year.At 10.17 am, the time for thefirst meal in the new year, theydistributed the traditionalsweets outside the president’soffice where they have beencamping since Saturday.

Social media posts fromthe participants said they wereunwilling to have any talksunless the Rajapaksas quit

from all positions in the gov-ernment.

The protest is being carriedout round-the-clock by youthsdemanding a total transfor-mation of the “corrupt politi-cal culture”, which they claimhas been prevailing in theisland nation since it gainedIndependence from Britain in1948.

Several celebrities, musi-cians, artists and writers havejoined the protests. OnThursday, veteran musicianVictor Ratnayake joined theprotesters at the site. RoshanMahanama, the celebritycricketer who was a memberof the 1996 World Cup win-ning team, also participated inthe protest.

Faced with critically lowforex reserves, the govern-

ment announced on April 12that it is suspending repay-ments of foreign debt, includ-ing bonds and government-to-government borrowing, pend-ing a bailout package from theInternational Monetary Fund.Sri Lanka had to meet USD 7billion of debt payments thisyear.

Meanwhile, internationalrating agency Fitch onThursday downgraded theisland’s sovereign rating to ‘C’from ‘CCC’. Sri Lanka onApril 18 has to pay a bond val-ued USD 1250 million. Fitchwill be issuing a restricteddefault rating RD after theApril 18 payment is not paid.

The president and hisolder brother, Prime MinisterMahinda Rajapaksa, continueto hold power, despite their

politically powerful familybeing the focus of public ire.The Rajapaksas have refusedto resign but the crisis andongoing protests have prompt-ed many Cabinet members toquit. Four ministers weresworn in as caretakers, butmany key government portfo-lios are vacant.

The government remainsunable to appoint its newCabinet after the Oppositionparties declined to join the callto form a unity Cabinet.

President Gotabaya hasdefended his government’sactions, saying the foreignexchange crisis was not hismaking and the economicdownturn was largely pan-demic driven by the islandnation’s tourism revenue andinward remittances waning.

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The Pakistan Army, appar-ently ruffled by a vicious

social media campaign againstit, said on Thursday that it has“nothing to do with politics”and it will remain “apolitical”.

Inter-Services PublicRelations (ISPR) - the mediawing of the Army- DirectorGeneral Major General BabarIftikhar also asserted that Armychief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwawas not seeking an extensionand will neither accept one.

Maj Gen Iftikhar said thatPakistan’s survival lies solely ondemocracy and its strengthlies in the institutions, be itParliament, Supreme Court orthe Armed forces.

The Pakistan Army has“nothing to do with politics”and the institution has decid-ed to remain apolitical in thefuture as well, he said whileaddressing a press conference,three days after Oppositionleader Shehbaz Sharif wassworn-in as the new PrimeMinister after prolonged polit-ical turmoil.

He clarified that Gen Bajwawas “unwell” on the day Shariftook office and had to skip theoath taking ceremony.

He said that instead ofsaying that the Army had beenneutral, it was more appropri-ate to say that “it is apolitical asper the constitutional require-ment and demands made byvarious political parties” over

the years.“We have many security

challenges and we cannot beinvolved in any other thing. Ifwe can only handle the securi-ty challenges properly, it will befine,” he said. He also made anannouncement that Gen Bajwa“is neither seeking an extensionnor will he accept an exten-sion.” “No matter what, he willbe retiring on the 29th ofNovember 2022,” thespokesman said.

He also rubbished therumors about the threat of amartial law at the height of therecent political turmoil. “Therewill never be martial law inPakistan.” To a question aboutopening of courts in the mid-dle of night when the battle for

the no-confidence vote wasgoing on, he said that it was adecision by the courts and thearmy had nothing to do with it.

He also vehemently reject-ed the media reports about thevisit of the army chief and theISI chief to the PM Houseahead of his decision to leavethe official residence. “Totallyuntrue…Nobody wentthere…In the entire process,there was no interference by thearmy. Let me put this thing torest,” he stated.

Maj Gen Iftikhar said thatthere is no truth about thearmy chief having meetingswith the opposition leaders inPakistan or outside Pakistan inthe days leading up to the no-confidence vote.

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The presidents of four coun-tries on Russia's doorstep

toured war-ravaged areas nearthe Ukrainian capital anddemanded accountability forwhat they called war crimes, asKyiv and Moscow gave con-flicting accounts of what hap-pened to a badly damagedmissile cruiser that is the flag-ship vessel of Russia's fleet inthe Black Sea.

Wednesday's visit by theleaders of Poland, Lithuania,Latvia and Estonia was a strongshow of solidarity from thecountries on NATO's easternflank, three of them like

Ukraine once part of the SovietUnion. They travelled by trainto the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv,to meet with their counterpart,Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and vis-ited Borodyanka, one of thenearby towns where evidenceof atrocities was found afterRussian troops withdrew tofocus on the country's east.

"The fight for Europe'sfuture is happening here,"Lithuanian President GitanasNauseda said, calling fortougher sanctions, includingagainst Russian oil and gasshipments and all the country'sbanks. Elsewhere, in one of themost crucial battles of the war,Russia said more than 1,000

Ukrainian troops had surren-dered in the besieged southernport city of Mariupol, whereUkrainian forces have beenholding out in pockets of thecity. A Ukrainian officialdenied the claim, which couldnot be independently verified.

And in the Odesa region,Governor Maksym Marchenkosaid Ukrainian forces struck theguided-missile cruiser Moskva- the flagship of Russia's BlackSea Fleet - with two missilesand caused "serious damage".

Russia's Defence Ministryconfirmed the ship was dam-aged but not that it was hit byUkraine - it said ammunitionon board detonated as a result

of a fire of as-yet undeterminedcauses. The entire crew wasevacuated, it added; the cruis-er typically has about 500 onboard. Russia invaded on Feb24 with the goal, according toWestern officials, of takingKyiv, toppling the governmentand installing a Moscow-friendly one. But the groundadvance slowly stalled andRussia lost potentially thou-sands of fighters. The conflicthas killed untold numbers ofUkrainian civilians and forcedmillions more to flee. It also hasrattled the world economy,threatened global food suppliesand shattered Europe's post-Cold War balance.

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Carlos Alcaraz insists that hisshock exit at the Monte Carlo

Masters was not a consequence ofhis sudden rise to fame which hasseen him earmarked as a futureGrand Slam champion and worldnumber one.

The 18-year-old Spaniard,seeded eight, was stunned 7-6(7/2), 6-7 (5/7), 6-3 by AmericanSebastian Korda in their secondround clash on Wednesday.

Alcaraz had arrived on theback of winning the prestigiousMiami Masters title.

However, the world number11 was outgunned by Korda in athrilling clay court battle lastingjust over three hours.

"I'm a bit disappointed withmyself. I had a lot of chances to beup in the match and close to win-ning, but these losses are some-times good to live. You have toplay matches," Alcaraz said.

"But I didn't think about the

expectations that the people havefor me. I just focused on me andwhat I have to do. But as I said, youhave to play more matches on claycourts." Alcaraz is the second bigname to exit the tournament fol-lowing world number one NovakDjokovic who also lost his open-er on Tuesday. Alcaraz committed36 unforced errors in Wednesday'sdefeat.

"It's not easy to get your bear-ings on clay," he added.

"It was a difficult match, but

I feel mentally ready to play thesetypes of matches, long and tight.

"I am ready to return to train-ing and focus on the next tourna-ments." Korda -- ranked 42 in theworld and like Alcaraz competingat Monte Carlo for the first time-- will play fellow American andIndian Wells champion TaylorFritz in the next round.

Fritz defeated Marin Cilic 6-3, 4-6, 6-4.

Russia's fifth seed AndreyRublev, the runner-up in 2021,came back to defeat Alex deMinaur of Australia 2-6, 6-1, 6-4.German Alexander Zverev, thesecond seed, saw off FedericoDelbonis of Argentina, 6-1, 7-5.

Sixth seed Felix Auger-Aliassime was also a loser onWednesday, falling to 83rd-rankedItalian Lorenzo Musetti 6-2, 7-6(7/2).

British seventh seed CameronNorrie was defeated by Spain'sAlbert Ramos-Vinolas 6-4, 2-6, 6-4.

� � �; �8�*5�5

US track and field greatAllyson Felix on

Wednesday confirmed thatshe will retire this year, bring-ing the curtain down on acareer that spanned threedecades and included arecord-setting 11 Olympicmedals.

The 36-year-old said in anInstagram post she planned toembark on her farewell seasonas a gesture of gratitude to thesport.

"I have given everything Ihave to running and for thefirst time I'm not sure if I haveanything left to give," Felixsaid.

"I want to say goodbyeand thank you to the sport andpeople who have helped shapeme the only way I know how- with one last run," she added.

"This season isn't about

the time on the clock, it's sim-ply about joy.

"If you see me on thetrack this year I hope to sharea moment, a memory and myappreciation with you."

Felix did not give detailsof her competitive schedule,but it is likely she is targetingthis year's WorldChampionships, which will beheld in Eugene, Oregon inJuly.

Felix is the most decorat-ed woman in the history ofOlympic track and field, win-ning the first of her 11 medalsat the 2004 Olympics inAthens and the last at lastyear's Tokyo Games, a Gold inthe 4x400m relay.

She is also the most dec-orated athlete - male or female-- in the history of the WorldChampionships with 18medals, seven from individualevents and 11 from relays.

� � ��250.;;�

Liverpool booked aChampions League semi-final showdown against

Villarreal as the quadruplechasers survived a late collapsein Wednesday's 3-3 draw againstBenfica.

Jurgen Klopp's side alreadyhad one foot in the last four afterwinning 3-1 in the quarter-final first leg in Lisbon.

They were on cruise controlfor long spells in the second legat Anfield, but had to hold theirnerve before advancing 6-4 onaggregate after an uncharacter-istic meltdown in the closingstages.

Ibrahima Konate putLiverpool ahead before Goncalo

Ramos equalised late in thefirst half.

When Roberto Firmino net-ted twice after the interval, thetie looked all but over.

However, RomanYaremchuk and Darwin Nunezstruck for Benfica to brieflygive the visitors hope of anastonishing escape act, beforeLiverpool finally restored order.

The Reds will face Spanishside Villarreal in the semi-finalsas they look to reach their 10thChampions League final andclaim a seventh title in thecompetition.

Despite Villarreal's impres-sive wins over Bayern Munichand Juventus in the last tworounds, Liverpool will be firmfavourites to make a third

Champions League final in thelast five seasons.

That would put them a stepcloser to an incredible clean-sweep of all four major trophiesin one campaign.

Significantly, Klopp was ableto keep Mohamed Salah, SadioMane and Virgil Van Dijk freshas he started with his stars on thebench.

Klopp made seven changesfrom Sunday's 2-2 draw withPremier League leadersManchester City as he opted tokeep his stars fresh for Saturday'sFA Cup semi-final against PepGuardiola's side at Wembley.

0� ������ �Konate had headed the

opener in the first leg at Benfica

and Liverpool's towering centre-back tormented the Portugueseside with his aerial prowessagain in the 21st minute.

Kostas Tsimikas whipped anoutswinging corner towardsKonate and he climbed abovethree Benfica players to headinto the far corner from 10yards.

Benfica snatched theirequaliser against the run ofplay in the 32nd minute.

Diogo Goncalves' passclipped off James Milner and ranthrough to the unmarkedRamos, who smacked a fine fin-ish past Alisson from just insidethe area.

Any hopes of a stunningBenfica fightback seemed overwhen the visitors shot them-selves in the foot in farcical fash-ion in the 55th minute.

Goalkeeper OdysseasVlachodimos was the instigatorof Benfica's meltdown as hefumbled what should have beenan easy interception of NabyKeita's over-hit pass.

Jan Vertonghen's panickedattempt to clear the danger was-n't much better and Jota crossedback into the six-yard box,where Firmino had the simpletask of tapping into the emptynet.

Firmino followed his firsthome Champions League goalfor two years with another 10minutes later.

Tsimikas curled a superbfree-kick to the pass andFirmino eluded Benfica's slop-py marking to volley homefrom close-range.

With Klopp's men takingtheir foot off the gas, Yaremchukstruck in the 73rd minute,rounding Alisson to slot homeafter beating Liverpool's off-side trap.

There was a sharp intake ofbreath around Anfield whenNunez scored with a predatoryfinish in the 82nd minute.

Moments later, Nunez's lowstrike tested Alisson, butLiverpool held on to keep thequadruple dream alive.

� �3870�7

Manchester City held off a late surge byAtletico Madrid on Wednesday as a

bad-tempered stalemate at the WandaMetropolitano saw Pep Guardiola's side safe-ly through to the Champions League semi-finals.

Kevin De Bruyne's first-leg strike lastweek at the Etihad Stadium proved enoughfor City to claim a 1-0 victory on aggregatein Madrid, although the Belgian had to gooff with an injury which, if serious, wouldbe a hammer blow to their hopes of win-ning the treble.

Kyle Walker also hobbled off in the sec-ond half.

City will now face Real Madrid, withLiverpool up against Villarreal in the othersemi to complete an all Spanish-English line-up in the last four.

A prickly contest boiled over in the finalminutes when Atletico's Felipe was sent offfor a wild swipe at Phil Foden, the City mid-fielder already with his head in a bandagefrom an earlier Felipe challenge.

The exchange sparked a mass brawl inthe corner, which only checked Atletico'smomentum as the hosts finally put an oth-erwise dominant City under pressure in thelast 10 minutes.

Diego Simeone was widely criticised forAtletico's negative tactics in the first leg andthere was only a minor shift here, with theplan still to keep the game tight ahead of afinal push.

Atletico, though, could not find the goalthey needed and instead City advance to thesemis for a second consecutive year, in sightagain of their first Champions League tri-umph.

After a rousing ceremony before kick-off, Atletico made a stirring start, harryingCity high up the pitch and snapping at theirheels in midfield.

Foden was clattered by Felipe, StefanSavic bulldozed Ilkay Gundogan over andWalker poked a ball out of play, under stressfrom the Atletico press.

But City survived the early, physicalonslaught and established control, even ifAtletico looked a threat on the break, fail-ing only with their final pass.

With 25 minutes left, De Bruyne wasreplaced by Raheem Sterling and soon afterSimeone decided it was time to attack, AngelCorrea, Yannick Carrasco and Rodrigo dePaul all coming on.

Simeone rolled the dice, Luis Suarez andMatheus Cunha thrown on for the last eightminutes.

In the 86th minute, Correa chesteddown for Cunha but his finish was blockedby the left leg of John Stones. From the cor-ner, Ederson failed to clear and the goal wasgaping but Savic was unable to steer in.

A feisty contest erupted at the end whenFoden was taken out again by Felipe, whoswung his leg at the City midfielder on hisway down. A swarm of players, substitutesand staff rushed in and it was only a fewminutes later that Felipe was sent off.

�� �56�75�-�

Two-time CommonwealthGames Gold medallist

Saina Nehwal on Thursdayquestioned the timing of selec-tion trials and slammed theBadminton Association of Indiafor "putting" her out the twomega sporting events later thisyear.

The governing body hadcalled for selection trials onApril 2 to pick the Indian teamfor big-ticket events includingthe Commonwealth Games inBirmingham, the Asian Gamesin Hangzhou and Thomas Cupand Uber Cup in Bangkokfrom May 8 to 15.

Saina, a former world No 1,said she had informed BAIabout her decision to skip thetrials which begins at the IGstadium on Friday but it did notmean that she was not eager toparticipate at the major eventsincluding the CommonwealthGames and Asiad.

"Surprised to see all thearticles stating that I don't wantto defend my CWG title andmy Asiad medal. I'm just notparticipating in the trialsbecause I just got back from 3weeks of Europe events andaccording to the schedulethere's Asian Championships,"Saina tweeted.

"In 2 weeks time, as a

senior player to participate inback to back events nonstop isimpossible and it's riskinginjuries, such short notice is notpossible. I've conveyed this toBAI but there has been noresponse from them. It seemslike they're happy to put me outof CWG n Asiad."

BAI has exempted players

inside the top 15 in the BWFrankings from the trials but saidshuttlers ranked between 16 to50 in the latest world rankings,released on March 29, willhave to participate in the trialsto be selected for the team.

Saina, 32, however, ques-tioned the logic of having tri-als at this juncture.

"I wish we had betterunderstanding about how tomanage a schedule and notannounce events with 10 daysnotice. I'm world no.23 current-ly and I almost beat the worldno.1 Akane in All England. Oneloss at India open and BAI triesto pull me down. Shocking."

Saina has been battlinginjuries and poor form for thepast couple of years, whichsaw see her ranking slip to 23rdbut she did show signs ofreturning to form when sheplayed a three-game matchagainst Akane Yamaguchi atthis year's All EnglandChampionships.

Among the current crop ofwomen's singles players,Malvika Bansod, AakarshiKashyap, Ashmita Chaliha andAnupama Upadhyaya havebeen in good form but none ofthem have beaten top interna-tional stars in the world stage.

Saina had returned to thecircuit after recovering from agroin and knee injury this yearbut she didn't have the desiredresults as her India Open cam-paign ended in the secondround.

After a gap of few weeks,she played three events lastmonth — German Open, AllEngland and Swiss Open —where she failed to cross thesecond round.

��35�@;90�5

Australian men's team assistant coach JeffVaughan has stepped down from his role

to take up coaching duties at state sideTasmania.

The development comes close on the heelsof Andrew McDonald's appointment asAustralia's head coach.

"I feel very fortunate with how everythinghas worked out," Vaughan said in a statement.

"I have been connected to the programthroughout and am confident that I have con-tinued to develop my coaching and leadershipskillset to assist the development of the Tigers'program holistically and for the players as indi-viduals."

He thanked Cricket Australia for theopportunities he received while he was part ofthe national squad.

"I'm incredibly grateful toCricket Australia for theopportunity, and to CricketTasmania for being so open-minded about my return, soI really can't wait to just getstuck in and am looking for-ward to maintaining thedirection of the pro-gram for an extend-ed period of time."

Va u g h a nwas appointedA u s t r a l i a ' sassistant coachin July 2021a l o n g s i d eMichael DiVenuto.

�� 89,1�8�7

New Zealand pacer Tim Southee onThursday won the Sir Richard

Hadlee Medal, an honour bestowed onthe country's performer in a calendaryear.

On the final day of the three-dayawards ceremony, Southee sharedthe podium with Bert SutcliffeMedal recipient Penny Kinsella; theTest Player of the Year, DevonConway, and the women's andmen's Domestic Players of theYear -- Nensi Patel, and joint malewinners Tom Bruce and RobbieO'Donnell.

The 33-year-old Southee, whois representing KolkataKnight Riders in theongoing IPL-15, wonthe award after astellar 2021 sea-son, both at homeand abroad, andin red as well aswhite-ball crick-et.

In the year,he has captured36 Test wicketsat 23.88,including bestfigures of sixfor 43 againstEngland atLord's and fivewickets againstIndia in the vic-torious ICC

World Test Championship final atSouthampton.

In all, Southee has taken 338 Testwickets, which is just 23 fewer than DanielVettori and 93 short of the record-hold-er the award is named after, Hadlee.

"It's a huge honour to win sucha prestigious award," Southee

said, speaking from KKR'sbase in Mumbai, according towww.Stuff.Co.Nz

He added, "Like mostcricketers growing up Iknew all about the exploitsof Sir Richard and it's cer-

tainly pretty humbling to winhis award this year.

"While the accolades arenice, I think it really just

reflects the way wehave worked togeth-er as a group andplayed our cricketfor a long periodof time.

"It 's beengreat to be a partof this periodand being ableto win gamesfor our countrywhich is some-thing that 'svery special,"he said onthe occa-sion."

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Paarth Academy defeated Sandeep Academy by 36runs to enter the semi-finals of the 17th BBD ‘C’ DivisionCricket League at NDBG ground on Thursday. Battingfirst, Paarth Academy were bowled out for 94 runs in 25.2overs. Mohit Vishwakarma claimed five wickets. In reply,Sandeep Academy were bundled out for mere 58 runs in19.1 overs.

In the ‘C’ division league, The Creators Cricket Clubdefeated Annapurna Cricket Club while Gear Cricket Clubcrushed Hindustan Fire Cricket Club in a ‘D’ divisionleague match.BRIEF SCORES:PCA: 94 (PAwan 20, Anshuman 13, Atul 13; Mohit 19/5,Ratnesh 29/2)SCA: 58 (Salman 19, Yash 15; Paurash 17/4, Atul 32/3)

ACC: 91 (Sanket 26, Ritesh 17; Aman 18/3, Shivansh 11/2,Satish 23/2, Shyambabu 24/2)TCCC: 93 (Ashutosh 46, Lalit 26; Pritam 13/1, Hritik 28/1)

HFCC: 177 (Akash 80, Naman 32; Yash 30/4, Raman 51/3)GCC: 180 (Aman 100, Raj 44; Saurabh 21/1, Bhav 42/1)

��� ���������0 ��� ��)DLucknow District Athletics Association is organising

District Athletics Championship at KD Singh ‘Babu’Stadium on April 17. Interested may reach the venue at7 AM or contact BR Varun on 9415027942.

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��393@8�

Back to winning ways,a resurgent Sunrisers

Hyderabad will be forced to tinkertheir successful combination fol-lowing Washington Sundar's injuryas they face Kolkata Knight Riders inthe IPL here on Friday.

After a subdued start to the tour-nament, SRH turned things aroundwith back-to-back wins over ChennaiSuper Kings and Gujarat Titans, andKane Williamson's team is noweying a hat-trick of victories.

However Washington, a vital cogin the SRH wheels, will be missingin action after he sustained a splitwebbing on his bowling hand whilefielding against GT.

Washington plays the duel roleof restricting the batters with his spinbowling and chipping in with someruns as a floater. He has taken fourwickets and scored a half-century sofar in the season.

But coach Tom Moody hasmade it clear that he won't beavailable for at least twomatches and it will beinteresting to see whoreplaces the all-rounder in the XI.

Hyderabad havethe option ofShreyas Gopal andJagadeesha Suchithin the spin depart-ment or they mightgive another chanceto Abdul Samad,who looked ordinaryin the first two match-es.

For Sunrisers,it was the bat-ting failurewhichwas

hurting them as they fal-tered in their first twochases, but the teamaddressed the problem

with openers Abhishek Sharma andWilliamson producing the goods inthe last two outings. If Sharmashone with match-winning knocks of75 and 42, Williamson scored 32 and57 to set up the chase in the last twogames.

Rahul Tripathi was looking goodagainst GT before he retired hurt fol-lowing what seemed like a cramp,and his availability will be crucial forSRH.

In Tripathi's absence, NicholasPooran and Aiden Markram com-pleted the job against GT and theteam will expect them to show con-sistency and take the responsibilityin the middle-order.

In bowling, Marco Jansen havetaken a wicket each in the last twogames, while his pace colleagues TNatarajan and Bhuvneshwar Kumarhave contributed with crucial wick-

ets. KKR are heading into thematch after a loss against

Delhi Capitals but itremains a formidableside and would lookto bounce back from

the reversal. TheKnight Riders areplaced in the sec-ond spot with six

points fromfive out-

ings.

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Mumbai Indians coach Mahela Jayawardenesays it's just a "matter of time" before skip-

per Rohit Sharma plays a big knock, somethingwhich his team desperately needs to arrest its slidein IPL-15.

The MI captain has failed to capitalise on thestarts, managing just 108 runs at an average of21.60 this season.

"If you look at the way he starts, the way hehits the ball, it's brilliant. He's timing it, he's get-ting some really, really good starts. Yes he's dis-appointed as well, that he's not being able to con-vert them," Jayawardene said.

"We've seen Rohit batting deep, batting for 14-15 overs and getting those big scores. It's just a mat-ter of time. He's a quality player and I am not con-cerned about the form as such."

MI on Wednesday suffered a 12-run loss atthe hands of Punjab Kings — their fifth succes-sive defeat — to inch closer to elimination.

"Today (Wednesday) was to try and take thegame deep, because we were playing with six bat-ters. And there's no better person than Surya tofinish a game off," Jayawardene said.

"In the powerplay, they would swing the balla bit and all that. So I didn't want Surya to go intothat situation and not be able to play his naturalgame also. It was just a tactical thing."

The 44-year-old said the idea was to give theyoungsters more freedom in the middle asSuryakumar and Kieron Pollard play the role offinishers. "The two young guys, we know whatthey are capable of. So given them a bit of free-dom to go and control that situation, so that Polly

and Surya are able to chase that. That was the ini-tial thinking.

"It's a call that we will take depending on howwe've set up tactically against certain opposition."

Jayawardene admitted that injured JofraArcher's absence is hurting the team as the bowl-ing unit has not been able to sustain the pressure.

"...Obviously, one of the best bowlers that we'vebought in the auction is Jof (Jofra Archer) — Jofis not here. So it is tough when you are in that kindof situation, but we are trying to see how best wecan manage.

"In terms of the last four-five games, we've had

some really good spells, we controlled things fora while. But we cannot hold that pressure goingon, because in certain times, it's either two or threeovers that we go big and that has hurt us.

"So that's something that we really have to naildown and make sure that our execution is betterin those situations."

������������������)22E������West Indies all-rounder Odean Smith (4/30)

redeemed himself after his horror outing (he washit for sixes in last two balls) against Gujarat Titansas he got three wickets in the final over to helpPunjab defend 198 total against MI.

Smith attributed his success to the backing that

he received from skipper Mayank Agarwal, thecoach and the team management.

"They have been very motivating. They havehelped me mentally to be able to come into thisgame and put in the performance today. They havebeen a major help for me. I would like to thankthe coach."

"Captain Mayank has been amazing. He hasalways come to me and told me that he is back-ing me a 100 percent, no matter what happens.It's just for me to believe that I can do it becauseI have the belief of the entire team behind me."

Defending 22 in the last over, Smith was hitfor a six in the first ball but came back stronglyto take three wickets to seal it for Punjab.

�� .9�5

Mumbai Indians skipperRohit Sharma and oth-

ers members of the playing XIwere fined for maintaining aslow over rate during theirIPL game against PunjabKings here. Punjab Kingswon the match by 12 runs onWednesday night.

"The Mumbai Indians

have been fined after theymaintained a slow over rateduring their IPL matchagainst Punjab Kings at theMCA Stadium, Pune on April13," the IPL stated in a mediastatement.

"This was the team's sec-ond offence of the seasonunder the IPL's Code ofConduct relating to mini-mum over rate offences.

"Mumbai Indians captainRohit Sharma was fined �24lakhs and the rest of themembers in the playingeleven were fined �6 lakhs or25 percent of their matchfee, whichever is lower," itadded. Earlier, Rohit wasfined �12 lakh for his teammaintaining a slow over ratein its game against DelhiCapitals.

�� �56�75�-�

Former Australia all-rounderShane Watson has picked

Virat Kohli as the best batteramong the 'big five' in Testcricket, preferring to not readmuch into the Indian maestro'sfailure to score a hundred sinceNovember 2019.

As per Watson's list, the for-mer India captain has pipped thelikes of Steve Smith, KaneWilliamson, Joe Root and BabarAzam. "In Test match cricket, Iam always going to say ViratKohli," Watson said when askedby Isa Guha who he thought isthe best Test batter in the world,in his latest episode of the ICCReview.

"It's nearly superhuman,what he is able to do because hehas such high intensity everytime he goes out to play," Watsonadded. While Kohli has slippedto 10th on the ICC rankings, theIndian great continues to hold aremarkable Test batting record.He has scored 27 Test centuriesand 28 half-centuries and cur-rently has a Test batting averageof just under 50.

The world's current No.1Test batter MarnusLabuschagne, who has played 26Test matches and averages 54.31,would have increased the 'big'five' to a 'big six', but was left outof the debate for this topic dueto a 40-Test minimum criteria,the ICC said in a report on itsofficial website.

Regarding Pakistan skip-per Babar, who he has kept atnumber two, Watson noted,"Babar Azam is playing incred-ibly well. "(It's great) to be ableto see how he has adapted hisgame to really move his game to

Test cricket as well."Babar Azam would proba-

bly be No 2 at the moment."Babar is currently ranked

the fifth best batter in the worldand appears to be on the rise ifhis recent performances againstAustralia are anything to go by.He stroked a superb 196 duringthe second Test in Karachi andfinished the series with a total of390 runs.

About Watson's third bestbatter Smith, he said theAustralian star "has just startedto come off a little bit."

"It looks like Smith has real-ly started to play for time a lit-tle bit more and is not putting asmuch pressure on the bowlers ashe did when was at his absolutebest. For me, Steve has droppeddown that list a little bit."

Smith is second on the ICCrankings, with only Australianteam-mate Labuschagne rankedahead of him.

About Williamson, whoWatson considers the world'sfourth best at the moment, theAustralian said, "Kane knows hisgame inside out and knowshow to put pressure on bowlersin any conditions."

While Williamson hasplayed just two Test matches inthe last 12 months, he remainsranked as the third best batter.The Kiwi veteran has 24 Testcenturies to his name and maystill have plenty of cricket left inhim if he can overcome hisinjury issues.

Coming to his fifth best bat-ter Root, Watson said, "Joe Rootrecently scored a hundred but hehas had a bit of time along thelines of Smith where he hasn'tbeen able to nail the big scoreslike he has done in the past."

������� England pacer AnyShrubsole, a two-time Women'sWorld Cup winner, on Thursdayannounced her retirement frominternational cricket after a 14-year-old career.

The 30-year-old, known forher sharp inswingers, playedeights Tests, 86 ODIs and 79T20s taking 19, 106 and 102wickets respectively.

Shrubsole had famouslytaken six for 46, which remainsher career best figures, againstIndia in the World Cup finalagainst India five years ago.

"I feel immensely privilegedto have been able to representmy country for the past 14years. To have been involved inwomen's cricket at a time of suchgrowth has been an honour butit has become clear to me that itis moving forward faster than Ican keep up with, so it is time forme to step away," she said. PTI

�� 393@8�

Kolkata Knight Riders' mys-tery spinner Varun

Chakravarthy is not worriedabout a rather quiet start to thisIPL season and is banking ona new variation to become animproved bowler.

The 30-year-old leg-spin-ner was the highest wickettaker for KKR last season with18 wickets from 17 matchesand this season, he has got justfour wickets from five games.

"It is bound to happen,people will have plans againstme. Last year in the Indian leg,I had six to seven wickets inseven matches. Later on, Ipicked up more wickets, so youcannot predict how many wick-ets you are going to get,"Chakravarthy said.

"I am working on a newvariation which I am lookingforward to bowl more. If itstarts clicking well it will defi-nitely add a new dimension tomy game," he said ahead of

KKR's match against SunrisersHyderabad on Friday.

Asked further about thenew variation, he said, "I amworking on a leg-spin. I havebeen working for it in the lasttwo years. I have bowled in fewmatches and I have got a wick-et out of that also.

"I need to be a little more

confident (bowling the newvariation) and start bowling itmore." An injury-proneChakravarthy returned to com-petitive cricket in the IPL afterfeaturing in the T20 World Cuplast year when he failed to picka wicket before being sidelineddue to a calf injury.

"I was at the NCA for the

treatment of my injury. Now itis resolved very well. I couldtake the field without any painkiller. So, I am feeling fitter andthat has helped me to bowl a lotbetter."

Asked what kind of adjust-ments he used to make onwickets which favour batsmen,he said, "Stick to your basicplan, stick to your strengthrather then focussing on thebatsmen. So, to change themental set-up."

He considers Afghanistanstar and Gujarat Titans playerRashid Khan as the best spin-ner currently in world cricket.

"In cricket, you are boundto be hit. The best spinner rightnow is Rashid (Khan) andeven he has gone for runs (insome matches) but he is still thebest.

"It happens in a few match-es, you will have a bad day andyou just need to bounce back."

He also said that he sharesa special relationship with hisfellow spinner in KKR team,

Sunil Narine of West Indies."Sunil is like a big brother

to me. If I go through a leanpatch he will come to me andtalk to me. He has also sharedto me personal things of whichhe is vulnerable.

"It is great of such a legendto talk to me about such things,to let me know he is vulnera-ble and he also goes thoughlean patches and tough times.So, talking to him gives youconfidence and reinforces selfbelief."

He also said that the cur-rent competition among Indianleg-spinners does not put anypressure on him as far asnational team spot is con-cerned.

"I see it as healthy compe-tition. I messaged Yuzi also, theway he bowled, he is in amaz-ing form right now, RaviBishnoi is bowling brilliantly,Kuldeep is doing very well forhis team, Rahul Chahar is bril-liant. I just feel nice when a legspinner does well."

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Skipper Hardik Pandya enhanced his rep-utation as a number four batter with an

unbeaten 87 off 52 balls as Gujarat Titanstrounced Rajasthan Royals by 37 runs in theIndian Premier League here on Thursday.

Hardik, whose strike rate and approachhas been questioned at his new position,played responsibly when it was neededbefore displaying the power he is known forto lead Titans to 192 for four after being sentinto bat.

The in form Jos Buttler (54 off 24) pro-vided another flying start to Royals but therest of the batting unit did not deliver as theinnings ended at 155 for nine in 20 overs.

Young left-arm pacer Yash Dayal (3/40)impressed on IPL debut while LockieFerguson (3/23)) got the important wicketof Buttler, who was deceived by the NewZealander's slow yorker after a series ofquick deliveries.

Ferguson also dismissed RavichandranAshwin in the same over after the seniorIndia spinner was promoted to bat at

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number three. The other notable contribution to Royals'

innings came from Shimron Hetmyer (29 off17). From 56 for one, Royals slipped to 90 forfive and could not recover from there on.

Hardik, who has been bowling regularlythis season, also picked up a wicket but he tookhimself off the attack in the 18th over after feel-ing a little discomfort in the groin area.

With their fourth win in five games, Titansdisplaced Royals from the top of the pointstable. It was Royals' second loss in five games.

Earlier, Hardik found an able ally inAbhinav Manohar (43 off 28) before heexploded in the company of David Miller (31not out off 14) to power the IPL debutants totheir highest score of the tournament.

Hardik and Manohar shared an 86-runstand for the fourth wicket before the skipperand Miller blasted 53 off 25 balls to end the

innings in style. After being put in to bat,Gujarat found themselves reeling at 53 forthree. While Hardik's 52-ball knock wasstudded with eight fours and four sixes,Manohar struck four fours and two maxi-mums. Miller, who overall hit five boundariesand a six, fetched 21 runs in the penultimateover off Kuldeep Sen (1/51).

To start with, Hardik was aggressive onpacer Kuldeep as he hammered him for threesuccessive boundaries in the fifth over.

He then fetched his first maximum in theseventh over, when he clobbered Riyan Paragover his head.

The duo upped the ante when Manoharlaunched into inform Yuzvendra Chahal,hammering him for a four and maximum, alofted inside-out drive over cover.

The two then took on Kuldeep, hammer-ing him for three boundaries in the 14th over,

where Hardik also notched up his fifty, witha cut towards backward point fence.

And in the next over, Hardik clobberedtwo successive maximums off seasoned spin-ner Ashwin, who leaked 16 runs in the over.

With Titans reaching 130 for three in 15overs, the stage was set for a big total.

After Manohar departed, Miller ably sup-ported the skipper.

Titans lost opener Matthew Wade (12)cheaply, courtesy a direct hit by Rassie Van DerDussen from cover.

Titans slipped to 15/2, as Vijay Shakar (2)also perished cheaply and then a rusty look-ing Shubman Gill (13) became Parag's first vic-tim, after he was caught by Shimron Hetymyerat the long-on fence.

Royals missed the services of lead pacerTrent Boult who was ruled out of the game dueto a niggle.