GDP growth pegged at 7.1%, belying demonetisation drag

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No CBI probe into paperleak case: NitishPATNA

Breaking his silence over thepaper leak scam, Bihar ChiefMinister Nitish Kumar onTuesday brushed aside demandfor a CBI inquiry, saying henever practised politics of“framing anyone.”

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Printed at . Chennai . Coimbatore . Bengaluru . Hyderabad . Madurai . Noida . Visakhapatnam . Thiruvananthapuram . Kochi . Vijayawada . Mangaluru . Tiruchirapalli . Kolkata . Hubballi . Mohali . Allahabad . Malappuram . Mumbai

Six copper axes and somepieces of pottery discoveredin Sakatpur of Saharanpurdistrict in Uttar Pradeshcould point to a separateculture that straddled theGanga and Yamuna,coinciding with the IndusValley Civilisation, sayarchaeologists.

The ArchaeologicalSurvey of India is excavatingthe site at RampurManiharan, hoping todiscover more artefacts.

In fertile plainsWhen the Indus Valleycivilisation flourished inwhat is today Punjab,

Haryana and parts ofPakistan, a parallel culture isthought to have co-existed inthe fertile plains betweenthe Ganga and the Yamuna

in western Uttar Pradesh.The copper axes and

pottery sherds found lastweek may be related to theOchre Coloured Pottery(OCP) culture in the doab(plains) of the two rivers inthe late Harappan period,around 2000 BC.

The SuperintendingArchaeologist, ASI (Agracircle) Bhuvan Vikrama, toldThe Hindu that going bywhat had been found, itcould well be related to theOCP culture. OCP markedthe last stage of the NorthIndian Copper Age.

Found by chanceWorkers of a brick kiln in

Sakatpur found the axes

when they were digging tocollect soil. The ASI thensent a team to excavate.

The people who usedochre pottery and theirculture are specific to thedoab region.

The first remnants of OCPculture were found inHastinapur, in Meerutdistrict, in 1951 and later inAtranjikhera in Eta district.

Direct evidence“We are excited because thisis the first time we havediscovered remnants of theOCP culture directly,” Mr.Vikrama said.

“We have done three daysof excavation and found onlypottery. Since excavation is a

slow process we expect tofind more remains likehabitat dispositions in thedepth of the soil. We are notyet calling it a propercivilisation and terming itonly as a culture, becauseunlike the Harappancivilisation, we still do notknowmuch about OCPculture. But this time we arehopeful that we will unearthinteresting details,” headded.

Scholars differ in theirinterpretation of the natureof OCP culture. Those likeV.N. Misra see it as “only afinal and impoverished stageof the late-Harappan,” whileothers view it as completelyunrelated to Harappa.

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Copper axes point to an ancient culture storyArchaeologists excited, as discovery may shine light on a 4,000-year-old Ganga-Yamuna culture

Mohammad Ali

Meerut

Ancient tools: The copperaxes, thought to belong to2000 BC, from Sakatpur.

Protest by unions

hits bank operations

across the country

page 7

SC agrees to hear Gopal

Ansal’s plea for jail term

exemption on March 3

page 7

ICC match referee

Chris Broad terms

the Pune pitch poor

page 15

Donald Trump, Xi

Jinping could meet

as early as May

page 12

OPPORTUNITIES � DELHI METRO

PAGES 4 & 5

The Central Statistics Office(CSO) has kept its January es-timate for growth in grossdomestic product (GDP) in2016-17 unchanged at 7.1%,signalling that independenteconomic forecasters mayhave overstated the drag onthe economy from theNovember withdrawal ofhigh-value currency notes.

The CSO, which releasedits second advance estimatesof economic growth onTuesday, also provided GDPand Gross Value Added(GVA) figures for the thirdquarter, which showed GDPgrowth slowing to 7%, from7.3% in the second quarter ofthe financial year.

‘A pleasant surprise’“The GDP numbers are def-initely a surprise, but apleasant surprise,” saidMadan Sabnavis, Chief Eco-nomist at Care Ratings.“Since the CSO has not re-vised downward the annualestimate, we can expect that

there should not be furtherchanges on account of de-monetisation. The numbersare vindication that demon-etisation didn’t have a majorimpact on the economy.They have looked at all thenumbers at their disposaland have come out withtheir estimate.”

The official figures pegGVA growth for the full yearat 6.7% as against the 7% pro-jected in the first advance es-

timates. For Q3, the GVAgrowth rate is estimated at6.6%, down from the 7.1% re-ported in Q2. The CSO alsorevised downward the GVAgrowth rates for the first twoquarters to 6.9% in Q1 and6.7% in Q2, from the 7.3%and 7.1% reported earlier.

“The reason why GDP hasmaintained is because thereduction in GVA has beencompensated for by an im-proved estimate in net indir-

ect taxes,” Chief Statisticianof India TCA Anant said at apress conference.

The Election Commissionhad barred CSO from releas-ing State-specific data oneconomic growth projec-tions, in view of the ongoingAssembly elections.

The Commission gave aclearance to the release ofonly national level data.

GDP growth pegged at 7.1%,belying demonetisation dragImproved estimate in net indirect taxes helped maintain GDP, says CSO

Special Correspondent

New Delhi

Prepare for a scorching sum-mer as the India Meteorolo-gical Department has fore-cast “above normal”temperatures across most ofthe country. Himachal Pra-desh, Uttarakhand, Jammuand Kashmir — or hill-stationStates popular among tour-ists wanting to escape theheat — are expected to beparticularly hot with pre-dicted temperatures, on av-erage, likely to be well above1 degree C above their nor-mal summer temperatures.

Punjab, Delhi, Haryana,Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh,Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh,Chhattisgarh, Bihar,Jharkhand, West Bengal,Odisha and Telangana areother States in the “coreheat zone” that are likely tosee significantly warmertemperatures. The IMDweather model, used to pre-pare the forecast, shows a47% probability of summertemperatures being abovenormal.

The summer forecast is inline with a generally warm

trend over previous months.2016 was the warmest yearin a century, according tothe IMD, with the country0.91 C warmer than the 1961-1990 average. The summermonths of March-May lastyear were 1.36 C higher thanhistorical average, making itthe second-warmest since1901.

“We expect most of thewarming to be in the north-west,” said K.J. Ramesh, Dir-ector-General IMD in a

phone conversation. “I thinkthe summer may be slightlymilder than last year.” Lastyear’s elevated temperaturewas mainly due to a particu-larly warm winter that wasthe warmest since 1901.

The weather agencyblames global warming.“Studies indicate increasingtrends in the frequency andduration of heat waves overthe country.”

Even hill stations will behotter this year, warns IMD‘Above normal’ temperatures forecast across the country

Jacob Koshy

New Delhi

Bone-dry: The prevalent conditions seem to be a grimwarningof a water crisis this summer. A scene in Khammam. G.N.RAO

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Days after Prime MinisterNarendra Modi told an elec-tion rally in Uttar Pradeshthat the Kanpur train acci-dent, which killed over 140people last year, was a “con-spiracy planned by peoplesitting across the border,”the chief of Uttar Pradeshrailway police told a videoconference organised byRailway Minister SureshPrabhu that there was nosabotage.

On Monday, Mr. Prabhuaddressed the railway policechiefs of all the Statesthrough video conference todiscuss the “railway safetymeasures” in the wake of re-cent train accidents.

‘No bomb traces’Gopal Gupta, DG, Railways,Uttar Pradesh Police told theparticipants that the cause

of derailment of 14 coachesof the Indore–Patna Expressnear Kanpur was not an actof sabotage but “fatigue ofrailway tracks” and they hadfound no traces of explos-ives at the accident site.

A source said Mr. Prabhuwas not present in the con-ference when Mr. Guptamade the submissions butsenior railway officials whowere there could not contra-dict Mr. Gupta.

Mr. Gupta confirmed thathe was present in the meet-ing but refused to share the

details. “We only did thepreliminary investigations.The National InvestigationAgency (NIA) is conductingthe final probe,” Mr. Guptatold The Hindu.

In his address to officials,Mr. Prabhu hinted at pos-sible acts of sabotage in re-cent train accidents and saidthe NIA was probing threesuch cases.

On Friday, when Mr. Modihinted at Pakistan’s role inthe Kanpur accident, theNIA questioned ShamshulHoda, a Nepalese business-man arrested in Kathmandu.

Prime suspectHoda, wanted by Nepal po-lice in a double murder caseis alleged to be a prime sus-pect in mobilising people inIndia to plant explosives atrailway tracks allegedly atthe behest of Pakistan’s ISI.

No sabotage, Director-General tells videoconference

Vijaita Singh

New Delhi

Suresh Prabhu

CONTINUED ON � PAGE 10

Oicial contradicts PMModion Kanpur train accident

The Organisation for Eco-nomic Cooperation andDevelopment (OECD) onTuesday cut its growth pro-jection for India in 2016-17to 7%, from an earlier pro-jection of 7.4%, citing the“transitory and short-termcosts” from demonetisa-tion. It forecast growth for2017-18 at 7.3%, rising to7.7% in 2018-19. � PAGE 13

OECD putsgrowth at 7%

CONTINUED ON � PAGE 10DELHI METRO � 6 PAGES

Minister of State for HomeKiren Rijiju said on Tuesdaythat Delhi University studentGurmehar Kaur who facedabuse and rape threats onsocial media for speaking outagainst Akhil Bhartiya Vidy-arthi Parishad (ABVP) mem-bers, left Delhi “by choice”.

Mr. Rijiju said that he sus-pected a fake account wasused to send threat messagesto Ms. Kaur and action wouldbe taken.

After the strong com-ments made by Mr. Rijiju andBJP MP Pratap Simha againtMs. Kaur, Home Minister Ra-jnath Singh and LawMinisterRavi Shankar Prasad cameout in support of Ms. Kaur.

‘Deal with caution’A source said Mr. Singh hadasked Delhi Police Commis-sioner Amulya Patnaik todeal with the students cau-tiously and not create unne-cessary tension on the col-lege campus.

“Gurmehar Kaur is a mar-tyr’s daughter and we shouldrespect this fact. Those whoare politicising the matter, Iwant to ask a question fromthem as to what they have tosay about her father who waskilled by terrorists?” said Mr.Prasad. Mr. Singh told NDTV,“koi bhi beti, kisi bhi vichard-haara ki ho, iss desh ki beti

hai. Uski raksha karna

hamari naitik zimmedari hai.(Any daughter of any polit-ical ideology, belongs to thiscountry. It is our moral re-

sponsibility to protect her.”)

Online campaignMs. Kaur, a first-year studentof Lady Shri Ram College forWomen who started an on-line campaign “I am againstABVP,” post-violence at Ram-jas College last week,tweeted on Tuesday that shewas withdrawing from thecampaign and left the city.The Delhi Police have re-gistered a case on the basis

of Ms. Kaur’s complaint tothe Delhi Commission forWomen (DCW). In a string oftweets on Monday, Mr. Rijijuhad sought to know who hadpolluted the young girl’smind.

Mr. Rijiju told The Hindu

on Tuesday that he stood byhis earlier tweets on Ms.Kaur. He blamed the Con-gress, the Aam Aadmi Partyand the Left for trying to usethe young girl for political

gains.

Freedom to speak“She has the freedom tospeak whatever she wants to,but the Congress is an oldpolitical party, which is try-ing to use a young girl. Lether heart be free, she has thefreedom to speak her ownmind, don’t disturb her. I amtalking about the Leftists andalso the Aam Aadmi Party. Istand by my tweets,” said Mr.

Rijiju. Asked whethersomeone from the establish-ment should speak to Ms.Kaur and persuade her to re-turn to Delhi, Mr. Rijiju said,“Delhi is safe, don’t makesuch stories. It’s her choice[that she left]. She should beprotected. India is a freecountry. I cannot force herto stay here, she is a freegirl.”

Senior Ministers come out in support of KaurAny daughter of any political ideology, belongs to this country, says Rajnath SinghVijaita Singh

New Delhi

United against violence: Students taking out a ‘Save DU’ march on the North Campus of Delhi University on Tuesday in protestagainst the violence at Ramjas College last week. SANDEEP SAXENA

SEE ALSO DELHI METRO

� PAGES 1 & 2

NEARBY

MoEF seeks ive-yearban on BBC crewKOLKATA

TheMinistry of Environmentand Forests and ClimateChange has urged theMinistry of External Afairs torevoke the visas of BBC’sSouth Asia correspondentJustin Rowlatt and his crew.

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NOIDA/DELHI THE HINDU

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EAST

DELHI Timings

Wednesday, March 01

RISE 06:46 SET 18:21

RISE 08:34 SET 21:14

Thursday, March 02

RISE 06:45 SET 18:22

RISE 09:16 SET 22:16

Friday, March 03

RISE 06:44 SET 18:22

RISE 09:59 SET 23:20

Olive ridleys lay eggsat new placeBERHAMPUR

The olive ridley turtlesseemed to have changedtheir nesting site and laideggs at a place in NewPodampeta, near theirtraditional rookery in theRushikulya river mouth.The mass nesting of the oliveridley turtles ended in therookery recently. - PTI

IN BRIEF

4 killed, 30 injured astanker overturnsGOLAGHAT

Four persons were charred todeath and more than 30injured when an oil tankerturned turtle and explodedon NH-37 in Assam’s Golaghatdistrict late on Monday night,the police said. The deadincludes an elderly coupleand a nine-year-old girl, thepolice officer said. - PTI

In a major embarrassment tothe Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP), the names of its Cent-ral and State leaders -- na-tional general secretaryKailash Vijayvargiya and wo-men’s wing president RoopaGanguly -- has been men-tioned by a key accused in arecent child trafficking casein North Bengal.

The accused, ChandanaChakraborty, who ran achild care home in northBengal, alleged on Tuesdaythat Juhi Chowdhury, a gen-eral secretary of State BJP’swomen’s wing, perhapsspoke to Mr. Vijayvargiyaand Ms. Ganguly to “resolvesome issues” about the childcare home.

BJP denies allegationThe BJP leadership, how-ever, denied the allegation.

“I have not spoken to any-one (Central BJP leaders).Juhi spoke to them and per-haps to Roopa Ganguly andKailash Vijayvargiya. I wassitting in another room

when she spoke to them,”Ms. Chakraborty told journ-alists in Siliguri before beingproduced at a local court.She also said that she ap-proached Ms. Chowdhuryfor “some help” and she as-sured her of “resolving allthe problems” about run-ning the child care home.

Denying the allegation Mr.Vijayvargiya accused theKolkata Police of “being con-trolled by Trinammol Con-gress” and said that “they(Kolkata Police) keep con-spiring against us.

“They have already tar-geted our party leadersJoyprakash Majumdar andSishir Bajoria. Now they areconspiring against me,” Mr.Vijayvargiya said

Home owner heldThe child trafficking racketwas busted by the State’sCriminal Investigation De-partment last week whenthey arrested the child carehome owner ChandanaChakraborty and one of herassociates. Within a few daysone more person was arres-

ted in connection with thecase. The State BJP was in aspot when the name of itswomen’s wing general sec-retary Juhi Chowdhurycropped during theinvestigation.

Accused abscondingMs. Chowdhury, who is cur-rently absconding, has beenat the centre of a contro-versy within the State BJP, asa section of party leadershave contradicted the Statepresident Dilip Ghose’sstand in this regard.

While Mr. Ghosh has re-peatedly said that Ms. Chow-dhry is a “victim of TMC’spolitical vendetta”, UnionMinister Babul Supriyo re-cently questioned the reasonbehind her going into hiding.A visibly annoyed DilipGhosh made it clear that hisstand in this regard is final.

Recently Roopa Gangulyembarrassed State leader-ship when she postedthat itwas the State president who“advised” her to make JuhiChowdhury the general sec-retary of the women’s wing.

Child traicking accusednames Vijayvargiya, RoopaRevelation in the recently busted scam comes as a major embarrassment for BJP

Kailash Vijayvargiya

Staff Reporter

Kolkata

Roopa Ganguly

A letter by a principal of aprimary school to the par-ents of students hastriggered a controversy withthe Army claiming that itwas an “attempt to malignthe institution”.

Land disputeThe matter involves a landdispute between the Armyand Modern School at Bar-rackpore adjoining thenorthern fringes of the city.

In a letter to the parents,school principal Amrita Is-sac Roy stated: “On FridayFebruary 17, approximately15 solders in full combat geararmed with weaponsentered the school. Theywalked freely and inspected

the entire premises.”The principal has alleged

threats on the part of theArmy and urged the parentsto stand with the school ad-ministration so as to “thwart any possible disrup-tion of the school and educa-tion of their children”.

A member of the schoolgoverning body told TheHindu that there was apending litigation before theCalcutta High Court on theissue.

The school is being ad-ministered by the Church ofNorth India, BarrackporeDioceses.

Army allegationThe Army has alleged thatthe school was doing illegalconstruction, which the

school administration hasdenied. “We have donewhite washing of the cam-pus,” she said.

“Diverting attention”“The news about soldiers incombat gear moving aboutin the school, threateningthe staff and asking them toevict premises is absolutelyfalse and baseless. Thisnever happened. This is anattempt to deviate attentionfrom the real issue of flout-ing of the rules of the Can-tonment Board by theschool by taking recourse tomaligning the image of theArmy, A spokesperson of theEastern Command said.

The school runs onlyprimary section and hasabout 130 students.

School principal’s lettertriggers controversy“Armed soldiers entered the school, inspected premises”


Kolkata

Schoolchildren in Ganjamdistrict of Odisha are beinglured into the reading andwriting habit in an entertain-ing manner through aunique project named ‘DropEverything and Read’(DEAR).

DEAR, an innovative in-teractive library movementproject, was initiated in thedistrict around three yearsago. It has already earnednational recognition. In2015, the project was selec-ted for a national award forinnovation in educationaladministration. The projectwas started in Ganjam dis-trict in December 2014 inaround 1,000 schools. Atpresent, the project is suc-cessfully continuing in over4,000 government managedor aided schools of Ganjam

district.“This project targeted the

alarming issue of decliningreading habit among schoolstudents, which was also af-fecting their writing skills.Students were found to beconcerned only about theirtextbooks and we wanted tomake the children feel that

reading is linked to studiesand examination only. It canalso be entertaining andactivity of pleasure,” saidDistrict Education Officer(DEO) of Ganjam, SanatanPanda.

Dearth of booksBut dearth of adequate num-ber of books in schools, es-pecially the rural ones, was amajor obstacle in the path ofenhancing the reading habitamong students. In addition,books in school libraries alsoremained locked inalmirahs, out of reach of thestudents. As an initial step,all schools in Ganjam districtwere advised to display mostbooks in their libraries be-fore students. Books inschool libraries were also se-gregated as per their suitab-ility for children of differentage groups.

DEAR is an innovative interactive library movementSib Kumar Das

BERHAMPUR

Hooked to books: Studentsbrowse through books at a‘hanging library’.

LINGARAJ PANDA

Encouraging children to read

The Board of SecondaryEducation (BSE) that con-ducts the matriculation ex-amination in Odisha is de-termined to completely curbthe menace of malpracticesadopted by students whiletaking the exam.

“Putting foolproof meas-ures in place, we have pre-vented mass copying acrossthe State to a great extent.

However, stray cases of mal-practice reported in somecentres are checked by ouralert squads deployed at theexamination centres,” saidBSE Examination ControllerN. R. Mohanty.

Decreasing numbersOn the first day of the ma-triculation examination onTuesday, only 94 studentswere booked for malprac-tice. The number is decreas-

ing every year, a BSE officialsaid, adding that at least 300students were booked formalpractice on the first dayof the 2015 examination,which had come down to 150in 2016.

Apart from the invigilatorsat the centre, the BSE is de-ploying a three-tier squad toprevent students from ad-opting unfair means duringthe examination.

The squads are formed at

the zonal, district and circlelevels to put an end to mal-practices, the BSE sourcesaid.

6 lakh appear for examA little over six lakh studentsare appearing for this year’sexamination at over 3,000centres spread across the 30districts of the State.

The fortnight-long exam-ination will continue up toMarch 13.

Odisha board takes steps to check copying

Only 94 students booked for cheating on the irst day of the matriculation exam

Correspondent

CUTTACK

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CMYK

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NORTH

U.P. BJP expels threeparty officialsLUCKNOW

U.P. BJP chief Keshav PrasadMaurya on Tuesday expelledthree party officials for sixyears, allegedly for anti-partyactivities and contestingelections against the party’sofficial candidates. Theseinclude Kisan Morcha leaderSujit Singh Tika (VaranasiNorth), executive committeemember Vibhuti Narayan Rai(Sevapuri, Varanasi) andmandal (zonal) chief RajeshSingh Ballia district. PTI

IN BRIEF

Youth missing whilebathing in GangaKANPUR

A youth is feared drowned inGanga river here while takingbath, the police said onTuesday. Five youths Pintu,Mantu, Anup, Bheem andRahul went to Parmat ghathere to take bath in the riverlate last evening, said thepolice. As they began todrown, people rushed andsaved four of them but 24-year-old Anup is sill missing,the police said. PTI

Two drown in Bhadbhadadam near BhopalBHOPAL

Two children drowned in theBhadbhada dam on theoutskirts of the city onTuesday while another onewas rescued by police. “NikhilGaur (13) and Umesh Gaur (11)drowned in the dam.However, the police wereable to rescue Vikash Yadav(10),” Ratibad police stationin-charge Kanchan SinghRajput said. PTI

Ex-MLA found guilty overjournalist suicideAMBALA

Former chief parliamentarysecretary and ex-CongressMLA Ram Kishan Gujjar andtwo others were on Tuesdayheld guilty by a local court forthe suicide of journalistPankaj Khanna in 2009.Thequantum of sentence will beannounced on March 2. PTI

Amid reports that heart pa-tients were not getting thebenefits of reduction in theprices of life-saving coron-ary stents, senior Congressleader and former Ra-jasthan Chief MinisterAshok Gehlot on Tuesdaysaid the BJP governmenthad failed to check privatehospitals from charging ex-orbitant rates for thesurgery.

Stent prices slashedMr. Gehlot said though theslash in the prices of coron-ary stents was up to 85%and capping them at fixedamounts was expected toreduce expenses on treat-ment of heart patients by50%, there were reportsthat patients were still beingforced to pay high amountsunder different heads.

“No one can deny the sig-nificance of the private sec-tor in health care, but theseinstitutions should enter thefield with the spirit of publicservice rather than pursuingthe sole target of earning

money,” said Mr. Gehlot.The former Chief Minis-

ter pointed out that the pre-vious Congress regime hadlaunched the free medicinesand diagnostic tests schemeat government hospitals,which was praised at the na-tional and internationallevels. The BJP governmenthad weakened the schemewithout considering its pos-itive impact, he said.

Health scheme failedMr. Gehlot said the Stategovernment’s much-publi-cised Bhamashah health in-surance scheme had failedto produce the desired res-ults because of corruption.He suggested immediateaudit of the scheme.

BJP behind woes ofheart patients: GehlotGovt failed to check high surgery rates

Mohammed Iqbal

JAIPUR

Ashok Gehlot

The ruling Janata Dal(United) on Tuesday re-moved Satish Kumar asState vice-president for“anti-party activities”.Earlier, Satish Kumar hadmade scathing attack onsome senior party leadersfor convincing Nitish Kumarto withdraw from the UP As-sembly polls.

“Satish Kumar has beenremoved from the post of JD(U) State vice-president,”said party chief spokesmanand MLC Sanjay Singh.

Another casualtyHe added that another partyleader Sanjay Mandal hasbeen removed from the postof State organisational sec-retary for the same reason.

Satish Kumar, a formerMLA from Nalanda, hadearlier been very close toChief Minister Nitish Kumarand was credited for organ-

ising the biggest-ever Kurmicaste chetna rally in theState in 1994.

It was only after that rallythat Nitish Kumar was pro-jected as a Kurmi leader andhe had parted ways withLalu Prasad Yadav.

U.P. in-chargeRecently, Satish Kumar wasgiven charge of UP State As-sembly as the party had de-cided to contest the elec-

tions there with an eye onKurmi and Kushwaha votebank predominant inPoorvanchal areas of theState. Party president andChief Minister Nitish Kumarhad even addressed overhalf-a-dozen public meet-ings in U.P. but all of a sud-den the party decided towithdraw from the polls.

Sudden decision“The party took the de-cision all of a sudden onlyon the advice of some seniorparty leaders like R.C.P.Singh and K. C. Tyagi,” al-leged Satish Kumar whileaddressing journalists inPatna on February 2.

He also accused Mr NitishKumar for keeping “syco-phant advisors”.

Later, State party presid-ent Basistha Narain Singhsaid the party has takennote of Satish Kumar’s state-ments and would take suit-able action against him.

Heads roll in JD(U)over U.P. decisionState vice-president removed for anti-party activities

Nitish Kumar

Amarnath Tewary

Patna

A Dalit woman from Hath-riya village was allegedlygang-raped by three personsin Morena. She accompan-ied them after they hadpromised to get a BPL cardmade for her family mem-bers, the police said onTuesday.

Woman gang-rapedCong says accused “government persons”, no arrests yet

Press Trust of India

Morena/Bhopal

Former Madhya PradeshChief Minister Babulal Gauron Tuesday complained inthe Assembly that bureau-crats don’t answer hisphone calls when he tries tospeak to them aboutpeople’s problems.

Mr Gaur, also a formerHome Minister, noted thisreflects poorly on the State’sbureaucracy.

Question HourThe veteran BJP MLA madethe observation during theQuestion Hour when Minis-ter for Urban Administra-tion Maya Singh was reply-ing to his question regardingpollution caused by thegarbage dumping yard atBhanpur here.

The BJP leader said hecalled a top bureaucrat ofthe Urban AdministrationDepartment to discuss some

issue, but he did not answerhis phone. “The govern-ment has given partial in-formation. I called VivekAgrawal (Commissioner-cum-Secretary Urban Ad-ministration Department)on several occasions, but hedidn’t pick up my calls,” MrGaur said.

Leader of the OppositionAjay Singh supported MrGaur and said when officialsdon’t pay heed to formerCM, one can imagine whathappens to others.

Oicials don’t answermy phone calls: Gaur

‘This relects poorly on bureaucracy’


Bhopal

Babulal Gaur

A six-year-old girl was al-legedly kidnapped andraped by a man on Tuesdayin Rajasthan’s Bhilwara dis-trict, the police said.

The incident took placethis morning when the girlwas feeding cattle in her vil-lage. The absconding ac-cused has been booked forkidnap and rape, they said.

The victim was foundscreaming in pain by somevillagers, who admitted her

to a community healthcentre. The girl was later re-ferred to a hospital in Bhil-wara as her condition wasstated critical, Mandal DSPChanchal Mishra said.

A case has been re-gistered at the Mandal po-lice station. The victim is un-dergoing treatment andmedical examination hasbeen done, the DSP said.

Another girl kidnapped,raped in BhilwaraPress Trust of India

Jaipur

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WEST

After securing a victory inthe Pune civic polls, theBharatiya Janata Party (BJP)now faces some toughchoices to select a suitableMayoral candidate in thePune Municipal Corporation(PMC).

This time, the post hasbeen reserved for a womancandidate elected from theopen category.

The BJP bagged an unpre-cedented 98 of 162 seats inthe PMC election, and sup-planted the NCP in its strong-hold Pimpri-Chinchwad Mu-nicipal Corporation with alandslide victory, winning 77out of 128 seats.

The saffron party’sshrewd, high-risk strategy ofawarding tickets to ‘imports’

from other parties, espe-cially heavyweight defectorsfrom the opposition NCP, haspaid-off handsomely, even atthe cost of incurring dissentof loyalists.

As many as 38 of these de-fectors, from the NCP, Maha-

rashtra Navnirman Sena, andthe Congress, won the dayfor the BJP in the Pune andthe Pimpri-Chinchwad muni-cipal corporations.

Fight for the top jobThe BJP is in a quandary

about whom to award thetop job in Pune city: loyalistor renegade?

Among the frontrunnersare Mukta Tilak (a descend-ant of Lokmanya Tilak), anold party hand who was re-elected to the civic body forthe fourth consecutive time.Ms. Tilak has her power basein the Old Pune Peth area.She has been a BJP leader inthe PMC since 2009.

Another loyalist whosename is being floated is thatof Ranjana Tilekar, mother ofthe BJP MLA from Hadapsar,Yogesh Tilekar.

On the other hand, ex-NCP corporator ReshmaBhosale, who joined the BJPat the eleventh hour after be-ing denied a ticket by herformer party, is believed tobe nurturing ambitions for

the top post as well.Ms. Bhosale, wife of NCP

legislator Anil Bhosale, is anotable corporator from thecity’s Shivajinagar area.

Ms. Bhosale’s defection tothe BJP helped attenuate theNCP’s supposed invincibilityin the area. Moreover, she isa close relative of BJP RajyaSabha MP Sanjay Kakde, whoplayed a significant role inmanoeuvring the BJP topower in the PMC.

Former Congress leaderSheetal Sawant, who won forthe second time, is anotherstrong contender among theprize ‘defectors’.

Like Ms. Bhosale, Ms.Sawant has an impressivepolitical pedigree, being thedaughter-in-law of formerPune Mayor and Congressleader Bharat Sawant.

PMCMayor selection to be a tough jobDefectors from NCP, Congress in the race for Pune’s top job along with BJP candidates

Mukta Tilak

Shoumojit Banerjee

Pune

Reshma Bhosale

City-based ‘Progressive Stu-dents’ Youth Agitation Com-mittee’ has demanded actionagainst the Akhil BharatiyaVidyarthi Parishad (ABVP)for the alleged physical as-sault it carried out againstthe activists of the Students’Federation of India (SFI).

The committee also pro-tested against the terror tac-tics deployed by the right-wing student outfit to sup-press contrarian voices atuniversity campuses acrossthe country.

The committee is an um-brella body constituted ofdisparate left-leaning andsecular youth outfits at-tached to political parties. Itdraws support from diversestrands, such as journalismstudents from the SavitribaiPhule Pune University.

Santosh Shinde, a mem-

ber of the committee, said,“During the last couple ofyears, ABVP activists have in-creasingly resorted violenceto suppress students profess-ing progressive, liberal andleft-leaning ideologies. Usingcoercion and pressure tac-tics. The ABVP has dubbedsuch students as ‘treason-ous’ and ‘seditious’.”

To condemn the ABVP’smethods, the outfit will alsoorganize a talk on March 7titled ‘Terror-free Educa-tion’, to be delivered byMarathi educationist Dr. Nag-nath Kotapalle.

Complaints galoreThe recent agitationbetween right-wing and left-wing outfits at Delhi Uni-versity’s Ramjas Collegespilled over to the SavitribaiPhule Pune University lastweek with a clash betweenSFI and ABVP activists,

which led to the arrest ofnine students.

Members of both organ-isations lodged complaintsagainst each other. The po-lice arrested five ABVP mem-bers and four SFI activists.They were booked for violat-ing prohibitory orders, caus-ing breach of peace and in-flicting hurt and injuries.

City-based ABVP activistshad allegedly burnt an effigyof Mr. Khalid, who wasslapped with seditioncharges last year. SFI activ-ists retaliated by putting upposters condemning Maha-rashtra Education MinisterVinod Tawde for ‘threaten-ing’ their colleagues at a Sol-apur polytechnic colle-ge. This, in turn, roused theire of ABVP activists.

Sanjay Dabhade, a mem-ber of the committee, said,“5 SFI activists were badly in-jured after beaten up by

ABVP thugs. Even securitypersonnel were assaulted inthe melee.”

Earlier this week, the SFIaccused the police of deny-ing permission to take out aprotest rally on the SPPUpremises, while alleging thatthe police had given ‘prefer-ential treatment’ to the ABVPby allowing it to stage a rally.

Police refuted this accusa-tion, stating that they wereanxious to prevent a similarscuffle.

The ABVP on Monday hadstaged a large rally at fromShaniwarwada Fort to theCouncil Hall area and hadsubmitted a memorandumto the District Collector re-garding issues in many citycolleges. The SFI, despite be-ing denied permission for arally, had staged a sit-in onthe same day, condemningthe ABVP’s attack on stu-dents at Ramjas College.

Student’s outit demands action against ABVPLast week, SFI activists were allegedly assaulted by ABVP members in Pune

Shoumojit Banerjee

Pune

Clear the way: School students on way to appear for the Higher Secondary Certiicate exams(12th board exams) showing their hall tickets to get through a traic jam on Ajni Railway Over-Bridge in Nagpur on Tuesday. Many students were delayed due to the jam. S. SUDARSHAN

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Test of time

In an unprecedented two-minute address to the mem-bers of an outgoing Legislat-ive Assembly, Goa GovernorMridula Sinha congratulatedGoan voters for enthusiastic-ally participating in the Feb-ruary 4 Assembly polls,leading to a record turnoutof about 83%.

The brief session washeld to complete formalityof meeting before the com-pletion of six months sincethe last Assembly session.The session began with Ms.Sinha’s short speech andwas adjourned sine die bySpeaker Anant Shet after-wards, before the Opposi-tion attempted to speak.

Ms. Sinha said, “I wish toinform you that the sessionhas been summoned tocomply with the constitu-

tional mandate under Art-icle 174 (1), which providesthat six months shall not in-tervene between two con-secutive sessions of the As-sembly of a State.”

Only 27 members, includ-ing the Speaker, attendedthe House of 31 of the 40-

member State Assembly. Re-maining members haveresigned, either as Inde-pendents or party MLAs, tofight elections, changingtheir political parties.

Meanwhile, the Congressaccused Mr. Shet and theBJP-led coalition of trying tosuppress the voice of theOpposition.

Aleixo Reginaldo, a Con-gress MLA, said, “The na-tional anthem was playedjust as the OppositionLeader was standing tospeak in the House.”

Leader of Opposition Pra-tapsingh Rane alleged,“They want to be in powerby any means. That is whythey called the session.They want to indulge inhorse-trading when the[election] results are out [onMarch 11] using Statemachinery.”

Short speech completes formalityGoa House adjourned before Opposition attempts to speakPrakash Kamat

Panaji

Goa Governor Mridula SinhaATISH POMBURFEKAR

The Goa State Women’sCommission on Mondaydirected the State-ownedKadamaba Transport Cor-poration (KTC) to removecondom advertisementsfeaturing actress Sunny Le-one from its buses.

The directive comes fol-lowing a protest petitionsubmitted by right-wingHindu women’s outfitRanaragini to the commis-sion. The petition deman-ded removal of pictures ofwomen in contraceptiveadvertisements, on busesand other public places, to“save women from embar-rassment and protect theirdignity.” The commission’schairperson Vidya ShetTanavade said notices havebeen issued to the allparties concerned.

‘Removecondom adsfrom buses’Prakash Kamat

Panaji

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SOUTH

Kerala to buy ricefromWest BengalTHIRUVANANTHAPURAM

The Kerala State CooperativeConsumers Federation(Consumerfed) will buy ricefrom West Bengal and sell itthrough its outlets in theState at affordable rates fromMarch 10 to check the risingprices of rice. MinisterKadakampally Surendran saidofficials of Consumerfedwere already in West Bengalto work out the agreement.

IN BRIEF

MiG-29 makesemergency landingMANGALURU

A MiG-29 K of the IndianNavy, on a routine sortie,made an emergency landingat the MangaluruInternational Airport at 5 p.m.on Tuesday following ahydraulic failure. Though thetwo rear tyres burst, the pilotwas not injured.

‘Expedite clearance forKaleshwaram project’HYDERABAD

The Telangana governmenthas moved the Central WaterCommission, requesting it toexpedite the process of givingclearance to the Kaleshwaramirrigation project. Officialsrushed to Delhi and met theCWC officials, who havesought more informationregarding the design andother technical aspects ofthe project.

Teen killing: 3 juvenilesdetained in BengaluruBENGALURU

The police have detainedthree juveniles for allegedlystabbing to death 14-year-oldHarsharaj outside his schoolon Monday. The class 10student was attacked duringthe annual day function in hisschool, where he wasawarded a prize forexcellence in football.

Eleven passengers werekilled and more than 25 in-jured in a ghastly road acci-dent on the National High-way at the Penuganchiprolumandal in the early hours ofTuesday.

The accident occurredwhen a private bus belong-ing to Diwakar Travels, pro-ceeding to Hyderabad fromBhubaneswar, fell into a cul-vert around 5.40 a.m. at theMullapadu village. The cul-vert was constructed acrossMangala Vaagu.

Driver fell asleep?The police suspect that thebus was travelling at a speedof over 120 kmph when theaccident occurred.

Eight persons died on thespot and the rest succumbedto their injuries in differentgovernment and private hos-pitals at Nandigama and Vi-jayawada.

The bus driver might have

dozed off behind the wheelleading to the accident, offi-cials suspect.

A passenger, Karthik, whoescaped unhurt, said the bus

was travelling at a high speedwhen it fell into the canal.Karthik, a software engineer,was going from Visakhapat-nam to Hyderabad.

Forty-three passengerswere travelling in the bus.The bus left fromBhubaneswar at 4 p.m. onMonday, said Deputy Trans-

port Commissioner (DTC) E.Meera Prasad.

The bodies were crushedas the front portion of thebus was severely damaged.

Flung in the airThe police and fire person-nel had a tough time retriev-ing the bodies from thevehicle.

It took about six hours forthe police to retrieve the busfrom the 20-foot-deepculvert.

An eyewitness, Venkatesh-wara Rao, said the busclimbed on the median. Itwas flung into the air beforeit fell into the culvertbetween the two roads.

Director-General of PoliceN. Sambasiva Rao, TransportCommissioner N. Balasub-ramanyam, Superintendentof Police G. Vijay Kumar andother officials visited thespot.

A case has been registeredagainst Diwakar Travels andinvestigation is on, they said.

11 killed as bus falls into culvert in A.P.

Police suspect the bus was travelling at a speed of 120 kmph; case registered against Diwakar Travels

Tragedy on road: The private bus that fell into a culvert in Krishna district on Tuesday. V. RAJU

Rajulapudi Srinivas

NANDIGAMA (KRISHNA District)

The Kerala police have ar-rested a local parish vicar atKottiyoor here on thecharge of raping a minor girllast year.

The arrested has beenidentified as RobinVadakkancheril, aliasMathew Vadakkancheril, 48.

Police said the vicar wasarrested from Chalakudy inThrissur district on Mondayevening. He had confessedto the crime. He was sus-

pended from the post withimmediate effect by theBishop of Mananthavady.

Booked under POCSOA case has been registeredunder Section 376 of the IPCand the Protection of Chil-dren from Sexual OffencesAct against the vicar. Thepolice said Fr.Vadakkancheril had abusedthe minor girl in the church.

The victim, a Plus Onestudent, gave birth to a childthree weeks ago.

Priest held on rape charge

‘Parish vicar abused a minor in church’


KANNUR

Crimemost foul:Mathew Vadakkancheril was arrested fromChalakudy in Thrissur district. SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Untouchability has raised itsugly head yet again inKarnataka. This time, Dalitsare being denied a haircut inthe Manchanabale village ofChickballapur district, 60km from Bengaluru. The vil-lage is barely 2 km from theDeputy Commissioner’s of-fice.

The irony is that the inhu-man practice continues evenas the Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Jn-anadarshan Abhiyan is beingobserved this year to markthe 125th birth anniversaryof the architect of theConstitution.

Manchanabale has about

150 Dalit households, ac-counting for nearly 40% ofthe houses in the village. TheDalits, about 500 in number,have been visiting the dis-

trict headquarters for a hair-cut. The village has threesalons but all of them havebeen closed for nearly a yearafter the denial to offer hair-

cuts to Dalits snowballed intoa controversy. According toDalits, the barbers visit thehouses of only the “upper”caste.

Vested interestsProgressive organisations, in-cluding the Dalit SangharshaSamiti, have accused the dis-trict administration of failureto initiate appropriate action.“The negligence and failureon the part of the district ad-ministration, the Superin-tendent of Police and the So-cial Welfare Officer, hasresulted in perpetuating un-touchability that is againstthe Constitution,” says DSSleader K.C. Rajakanth.

Barbers visit the houses of only the ‘upper’ castes, say Dalits of Manchanabale

VISHWA KUNDAPURA

KOLAR

Inhuman practice: The three salons of Manchanabale villagehave remained closed for almost a year. SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

No haircut for Dalits in this Karnataka village

This year, Karnataka will cel-ebrate the Kannada CinemaDay — observed annually onMarch 3 to mark the releaseof the first Kannada film in1934 — with the screening ofa Tamil hit dubbed inKannada.

This is significant becausethe Kannada film industryhad so far refused to allowdubbing of other languagefilms. The industry lost aprolonged legal battle in2014 at the CompetitionCommission of India and

had to relent and allow thescreening of dubbed films.

Tamil star Ajith Kumar’s2015 box office hit YennaiArindhaal will become thefirst big-budget commercialsuccess from another lan-guage to be dubbed in Kan-nada and released. The film,the dubbed version of whichis titled Satyadev IPS, alsostars Anushka Shetty andTrisha Krishnan.

Good response to trailer“Considering the responseto the trailer, we are plan-ning to release the film in a

minimum of 60 screensacross the State, includingBengaluru. Over 1.87 lakhviewers watched the trailer.Songs likeMale Hani Mattali,Chali Chali Chittali arealready popular,” said G.Krishnamurthy, producer ofdubbed version and generalsecretary of Kannada FilmChamber of Commerce(KAFCC).

The opening of doors todubbed films could meanthat other big hits, fromsouth Indian States and Bol-lywood, could floodKarnataka theatres soon.

Yennai Arindhaal’s dubbed version to hit cinemas on Friday

Muralidhara Khajane

Bengaluru

Karnataka to celebrateCinema Day with Tamil hit

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Bhatkal opposes solitaryconfinement in jailNEW DELHI

Indian Mujahideen terroristYasin Bhatkal on Tuesdayapproached a Delhi courtseeking direction to the TiharJail Superintendent to notkeep him in solitaryconfinement. Bhatkal wasrecently awarded deathpenalty in the 2013Hyderabad blast case. Thecourt has put up the matterfor hearing on March 7. PTI

IN BRIEF

Deficiencies in schemeimplementation: CAGCHANDIGARH

The CAG on Tuesday slammedthe Haryana government for“failing” to implement thescheme meant to provideshelter, food, clothing toyoung widows and destitutewomen in the State.The government auditor saidthe deficiencies were evidentfrom non-repair of buildings,poor occupancy of rooms inhomes for the women, andthe lack of training andeducation to make themself-reliant. The CAG checkedthree homes — one in Karnal,one in Rohtak and one inFaridabad. PTI

Excavations soon atHarappa site in HaryanaCHANDIGARH

The Haryana Archaeology andMuseums Department(HAMD) and the IndianArchaeological Society andNational Museums willundertake excavations atKunal in Fatehabad district,the earliest Harappan site inthe State.An MoU to this effect wassigned between HAMD andthe New Delhi-based societyin the presence of HaryanaArchaeology and MuseumsMinister Ram Bilas Sharmahere on Tuesday.Kunal is located in Tehsil Raitaof Fatehabad. PTI

The Haryana Assembly willtake up for discussion theongoing Jat reservation stiron Wednesday after the op-position Congress and theINLD moved an adjourn-ment motion in this regard.

Zero hourSpeaker Kanwar Pal statedthat all things barring thepart which is sub-judice willbe discussed in the House.

During zero hour, theleader of the Opposition andsenior INLD leader AbhaySingh Chautala sought toknow the government’sreply on the ongoing stir bythe Jats, which has been go-ing on for a month now.

Referring to last year’s stirin which 30 persons werekilled, Mr Chautala said thegovernment had promisedto accept the demands ofthose agitating, which in-

cluded giving Rs 10 lakh andgovernment jobs to the nextof kin of those who died inthe agitation in February2016, withdrawal of casesslapped last year and the re-lease of those jailed after thestir turned violent.

‘Forced to sit in protest’He alleged that the state BJPgovernment had gone backon its promises made to theJats and they had beenforced to sit in protest.

“Again this year they havebeen forced to sit in protestand dharnas have been go-

ing on for a month now. It isnot only the Jats who are sit-ting on dharnas, but they arebeing supported from allsections of society,” he said.

The Speaker told him thatsince the Jat reservation is-sue was sub-judice, hewould look into what part ofthe adjournment motionthat has been moved can beadmitted and discussed inthe House.

At this, former Chief Min-ister and senior Congressleader Bhupinder SinghHooda said that only the re-servation part was sub-ju-dice and there was no bar todiscuss the rest of the thingspertaining to the agitation.

“Thousands of people aresitting on dharna across thestate for a month now. Re-servation is not their onlydemand, there are so manyissues that are involved andshould be discussed here inthe House,” Mr Hooda said.

Haryana Assembly todebate Jat quota stir today‘Barring sub-judice matter everything will be discussed’


Chandigarh

Abhay Singh Chautala

The State Human RightsCommission (SHRC) has dis-missed the applicationmoved by Ashraf Mattoo,whose son Tufail Mattoodied in a widely-reported po-lice firing in Srinagar in2010, where he sought acopy of the Koulcommission.

‘Application dismissed’SHRC chairman Justice BilalNazki, in response to the ap-plication move by Mr. Mat-too, said, “This request isoutside the jurisdiction ofthis commission (SHRC). Theapplication is dismissed.”

Mr Mattoo’s 17-year-oldson died in police firing onJune 11 in 2010, sparking afive-month-long cycle ofviolence.

On June 19, 2014, the gov-

ernment appointed a one-man judicial commissionheaded by Justice M.L Koulto probe the 2010 killing.

Quoting Mr. Nazki’s recentstatement where he askedpeople “to approach theCommission even in case a

patwari refuses to issue anyrevenue paper,” Mr. Mattoosaid “Mr. Nazki saw humanrights violation in case a pat-wari refuses a document.But what is holding back theSHRC from issuing a direc-tion to seek a copy of report

of the Commission. It is myrightful plea to have thecopy of the Commission re-port before which I deposedand cooperation with thehope to get justice.”

Mr. Mattoo said the Stateand its institutions seem “outto kill the idea of justice bysuch acts.”

Earlier in January, theCommission refused to shareits findings with Mr. Mattoo.The officials at the tribunalin Srinagar denied him ac-cess to the retired report, inwhich 60 civilian killingswere re-investigated.

“I filed an application forthe report in the first week ofJanuary. I am told that I willget access only to a smallportion of the report. Isn’t itmy right to get a copy of thereport of which I have been apart since its formation in2014,” Mr. Mattoo said.

Justice eludes man whoseson’s death sparked protestsHuman rights panel refuses to give judicial commission’s report to the father

Anger on streets: Students protesting against the death ofTufail Mattoo in Srinagar in 2010. FILE PHOTO

Peerzada Ashiq

Srinagar

A hurt elephant, with a tyreentangled in its front leftfoot, has kept the OdishaForest Departmentpersonnel on their toes forover the past one month.

The elephant has beenspotted limping in jungles onthe fringe areas of theCapital. It continues to be inpain even as attempts totranquillise the animal andremove the tyre have failedso far. At least five forestpersonnel were hurt whenthe elephant attacked themin Athagarh in January.

The incident has broughtthe spotlight back on thehuman-elephant conflict inthe State, which has seen 423elephant deaths since 2011-12, while 421 humans havebeen trampled by the jumbosduring the same period.

Trend observedOver 203 persons have beeninjured in elephant attacksand standing crop onthousands of acres has beendamaged by raidingelephants, a trend that hasnow been observed in 27 of30 districts of Odisha.

Athagarh in Cuttack

district witnesses regularface-off between maraudingelephants and villagers.While the elephants look foropportunities to raid crops,the villagers get united torepel the herds.

Recently, wildlife activistslaunched a campaign insocial media using hashtag#GiantRefugees and urgedChief Minister NaveenPatnaik to act and find along-term solution to theproblem.

Lack of fodder and waterfor elephants and increase incropping areas near forestsare being cited as the prime

reasons behind elephantsfrequently straying intohuman habitations.

Indiscriminate miningWildlife activists sayindiscriminate mining andgrowing industrial activitieshave been permitted withoutconsidering the impact onlocal elephant population.

Odisha Chief WildlifeWarden Sidhant Das said thedepartment was doingeverything possible toprotect elephants and reduceanimal-man conflict.

The Odisha governmentfeels two more elephant

reserves — Brahmani-Baitarani and South Odishaelephant reserves – will helpin restricting elephantmovement within forestedareas. After the declaration,the area under elephantreserves will be about 25% ofOdisha’s total forest area andabout 90% of elephants willbe within these reserves.

Biswajit Mohanty ofWildlife Society of Odisha,however, claimed theproposals for the creation ofelephant reserves have notbeen notified by the Stateunder pressure of powerfulmining lobby.

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Odisha grapples with a problem of elephantine proportionsLack of fodder, water and increase in cropping areas near forests being cited as prime reasons behind elephants straying into human habitations

Jumbo issue: Recently somewildlife activists launched acampaign in social media using hashtag #GiantRefugees andurged Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to act and ind a long-termsolution to the problem. SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Satyasundar Barik

Bhubaneswar

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NATION

Glasgow award forLipstick Under My BurkhaNEW DELHI

Lipstick Under My Burkha,which was denied a releasecertificate by the censorboard, has won the audienceaward at the Glasgow FilmFestival. Directed byAlankrita Shrivastava,the film stars Ratna PathakShah and Konkona Sensharmain key roles.

IN BRIEF

Paper leak scam: 3 Armypersonnel under scannerMUMBAI

Three Army personnel havecome under the scanner ofthe Thane police afterinquiries indicated theirinvolvement in the Armyquestion paper leak scam,oicials said on Tuesday. OnSunday, the crime arrested 18people selling copies of thequestion papers to aspirantsin Pune, Nagpur and Goa.

Cattle smuggling gangkingpin arrestedGURGAON

The crime branch of GurgaonPolice has arrested thekingpin of a cattle smugglinggang, who had recentlyevaded arrest in Manesar,police said on Tuesday. “Theaccused, identiied as Saraju,was arrested onMondaynight fromMewat,” ACP(PRO) of Gurgaon PoliceManish Sehgal said. PTI

Taking suo motu cognis-ance of a report publishedin The Hindu on February26, the National HumanRights Commission (NHRC)on Tuesday issued noticesto the Karnataka and Ma-harashtra governmentsover an unusually largenumber of hysterectomiesbeing conducted on wo-men without medicaljustifications.

As per the report, therewere several incidents ofdoctors performing hyster-ectomies on women in theKalaburagi, Yadgir, Hassanand Raichur districts ofKarnataka as well as in theOsmanabad district of Ma-harashtra for allegedlycommercial reasons. Thewomen would go to theirgynaecologists complain-ing of bleeding, abdominalpain or urinary tract infec-tions, and would return

with their uterus removed.The victims’ lives were en-dangered as they sufferedcomplications after the sur-geries. Despite the inter-vention of the KarnatakaState Commission for Wo-men and civil society, the“menace” has continued,said the NHRC.

Referring to the report,the NHRC said there was a“serious issue of violationof human rights of thepoor patients, mostly illit-erate and coming fromrural background.” Statingthat Right to Health was abasic human right, theNHRC issued notices to theChief Secretaries of theKarnataka and Maha-rashtra, asking for detailedreports in four weeks.

As per the report in The

Hindu, in most of thecases, the procedures wereperformed on the womenwithout medical examina-tion, except sonography.

NHRC notice to Stateson hysterectomiesAction follows report in The Hindu

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI

Breaking his silence over theBihar Staff Selection Com-mission (BSSC) paper leakscam and the protest of StateIAS officers’ association overthe arrest of the BSSC chair-man, Chief Minister NitishKumar on Tuesday brushedaside their demand for a CBIinquiry, emphatically sayingthat he never practised polit-ics of “framing or protectinganyone.”

Mr. Kumar also dared Op-position leaders to come outwith the names of Ministersand MLAs whom they al-leged to be involved in thepaper leak.

“I never practised politicsof framing or protecting any-one, nor ever believed invendetta or mudslinging…the government will act onthe basis of the report of theSIT probing the BSSC paperleak. Investigation is in po-

lice domain and the courtwill decide on the evidencespresented before it,” he said.

‘No representation’On the arrest of BSSC

chairman and senior IAS of-ficer of the State Sudhir Ku-

mar, the Chief Minister saidhe was yet to receive anyformal memorandum by theState IAS officers’ associationin this regard.

“No formal representationhas come to me yet. Once I’llget their memorandum I will

review it and take a decisionthat will prove to be a mile-stone,” said Mr. Kumar.

Protesters meet GovernorEarlier, protesting againstthe manner in which Mr.Sudhir Kumar and some ofhis family members were ar-rested in the paper leakscam, the IAS officers’ asso-ciation met Governor RamNath Kovind and the StateAssembly Speaker VijayChaudhary, seeking their in-tervention and demanding aCBI probe into the case.

The fuming IAS officerseven had declared that theywould not take any oral or-ders even from the ChiefMinister.

They called their col-league Mr. Sudhir Kumar as“honest and upright”. Theygot support from RJD chiefLalu Prasad Yadav, who toosaid that Mr. Sudhir Kumarwas an honest officer.

‘No CBI probe into paper leak’Nitish dares Opposition to name Ministers, MLAs allegedly involved in case

Facing the heat: A ile photo of police personnel clashingwith All India Students Federation activists in Patna. PTI

Amarnath Tewary

Patna

The Supreme Court onTuesday agreed to hear Go-pal Ansal’s request to betreated on par with his elderbrother, Sushil, who was al-lowed to skip prison termciting advanced age and ill-health in the 1997 Uphaarfire tragedy case

On February 9, a three-judge Bench of the SupremeCourt, on a 2:1 majority ver-dict, allowed 76-year-oldSushil to walk free while Go-pal was ordered to sur-render in four weeks.

Criminal negligenceBoth had been found guiltyof criminal negligence, res-ulting in the death of 59people, many women andchildren, trapped inside thecinema hall when a firebroke out during the screen-ing of a movie in theirtheatre here.

Making an urgent men-tion before a Bench led byChief Justice of India J.S.Khehar, senior advocateRam Jethmalani asked for aweek more for Gopal tosurrender.

The Chief Justice told Mr.Jethmalani that his clientwould have to wait tillMarch 3.

“We can put it up for Fri-day if there is no objection,”the Chief Justice said.

Mr. Jethamalani submit-

ted that Gopal also sufferedfrom the same age-relatedailments like his elderbrother and should not tobe sent to prison. Besides,he had also paid ₹30 crorein fine.

‘No review’Senior advocate K.T.S Tulsi,appearing for the Associ-ation for Victims of UphaarTragedy (AVUT) led byNeelam Krishnamoorthy,opposed the plea, saying thereview pleas of the CBI andthe association had alreadybeen decided and “therecannot be a review of the re-view judgment.”

Aparajita Singh, appear-ing for the CBI, said the rem-edy available to the convictwas to file a curative pleaand no fresh applicationcould be filed in a decidedreview petition.

SC agrees to hearGopal Ansal on Friday

Uphaar convict seeks term exemption

Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI

Gopal Ansal

The Supreme Court onTuesday refused a wo-man’s request for permis-sion to abort her 26-week-old foetus detected withDown’s Syndrome, a ge-netic disorder.

The woman had soughtan exemption under theMedical Termination ofPregnancy Act of 1971,which bars abortion if thefoetus has crossed the 20-week mark. An exceptionto the law is made if a re-gistered medical practi-tioner certifies to a courtthat the continued preg-nancy is life-threateningfor either the mother orthe baby.

A Bench of Justices S.A.Bobde and L. NageswaraRao, however, declined thewoman’s plea sayingDown’s Syndrome does notqualify as a life-threateningfactor. There is no physicalrisk to the mother from thepregnancy.

“They [persons withDown’s Syndrome] are finepeople,” the Benchremarked.

Empathising with thewoman as her child maysuffer developmentaldelays and physical handi-caps, the Bench staunchlyrefused permission forabortion, saying “we havea life in our hands.”

SC ‘no’ to pleato abortfoetus withdisorderLegal Correspondent

NEW DELHI

Branches of public banks re-mained either closed or non-operational on Tuesday asstaffers and officers wentahead with their day-longstrike pressing for variousdemands, including account-ability of top executives inthe wake of mounting badloans.

Services such as cash de-posits and withdrawal frombranches and cheque clear-ances have been hit hard bythe strike, called under theaegis of the United Forum ofBank Unions (UFBU).

“The strike has beenforced on us because of theadamant and insensitive atti-tude of the bank manage-ment and the Indian Banks’Association,” All India BankEmployees’ Association (AI-BEA) general secretary C.H.Venkatachalam said.

Strike hits bank services hardStafers, oicers go ahead with their day-long strike pressing for various demands

Room to roam: An empty corridor of a bank in Mumbai following the call for a strike by theUnited Forum of Bank Unions. ARUNANGSU ROY CHOWDHURY

PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

New Delhi

An ATM of the Punjab Na-tional Bank last week al-legedly dispensed a note of₹2000 which belonged to“Children Bank of India.” Ithad several zeros instead ofa legal serial number anddid not have the RBI Gov-ernor’s signature.

ATM givesfake noteStaff Reporter

Meerut

Delhi slipped two places torank ninth whileThiruvananthapuram re-tained its number one posi-tion in the annual city gov-ernance ranking, accordingto a survey released on Tues-

day. It evaluated 21 major cit-ies in 18 States.

The Annual Survey of In-dia’s City-System (ASICS) wasundertaken by not-for-profitinstitution JanaagrahaCentre for Citizenship andDemocracy ( JCCD).

The better a city scored in

the survey, the more likely itwould be able to deliver abetter quality of life to cit-izens over the medium andlong-term.

In the survey, Pune wasranked second, up two ranksfrom 2015, while Kolkata re-tained its third slot. The

biggest gainer in the 2016survey was Bhubaneswar,climbing eight places from2015 to land at the 10th spot.Bengaluru dropped fourplaces to rank 16, while Lud-hiana, Jaipur and Chand-igarh retained their 19th,20th and 21st spots.

Thiruvananthapuram retains top billingPune gets second spot in governance among 21 cities surveyed


New Delhi

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EDITORIAL

Recent discussions between Indian and Chinese

oicials on the way forward in Afghanistan are a

welcome sign that both countries are attempting

to put a very bad year in bilateral ties behind them, and

seek common ground where possible. In Afghanistan,

where both China and India see potential for invest-

ment and share concernsover the riseof radicalismand

terrorism, there aremanyavenues for cooperation.The

fact that Beijing initiated the special talks by inviting In-

dianoicialswhodealwithAfghanistanandproposeda

“joint development project” encourages the conclu-

sion that China is unwilling to have its options cramped

by Pakistan’s reservations about India’s role in Afgh-

anistan. The Ministry of External Afairs says there was

broad agreement on trade and economic ties, with

Chinese oicials reportedly praising India’s measures

to welcome investment and facilitate visas for closer

business ties. On the issues that dominated the India-

China narrative in 2016, particularly India’s bid for Nuc-

lear Suppliers Group membership and to have Masood

Azhar designated a global terrorist at the UN, there was

little movement. But a new conversation has started,

and could yield results by themid-year deadline. There

is a lowering of rhetoric as well. While China is no

longer trotting out its old line on opposing India’s NSG

membership as anon-signatory to theNuclearNon-Pro-

liferationTreaty, Indiahas stopped referring toChinaas

the “one country” that is thwarting its ambitions.

New Delhi must prepare for the larger challenge this

year that will inevitably come from China’s Belt and

Road Initiative (B&RI, or One Belt, One Road). Through

the mega infrastructure and trade project, China has

plans in place to reach out to each one of India’s land

and maritime neighbours, most of whom have signed

up for it. In May, a conference hosted by President Xi

Jinping will bring all of India’s neighbourhood to

Beijing, with the exception of India. India has decided

to not join the B&RI and will not attend even as an ob-

server as the $51-billion China Pakistan Economic Cor-

ridor, now an integral part of the B&RI initiative, runs

through areas of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. This con-

cerns India’s territorial integrity, and New Delhi needs

to ind ways to make China more sensitive to its con-

cerns. Bothmust build on their discussion on the global

scenario, which included the need to ‘play down their

diferences’ in order to manage the global instability

created by President Donald Trump’s possible revision

of ties with Europe, Russia, and of alliances in the Pa-

ciic. His threat of abandoning the “One China” policy,

andbackingdownon it after talkswithMr.Xi, should in-

dicate the dangers of depending on a consistent U.S.

policy on other issues in the region for India as well.

Back on track?India-China cooperation on Afghanistan could

help bring bilateral ties out of the 2016 freeze

Consolidation in India’s overcrowded telecommu-

nications industry was perhaps inevitable. What

is interesting though is that the current wave of

mergers and acquisitions, which started in November

2015 with Reliance Communications’ agreement to ac-

quire Sistema’s Indian wireless business, has gained

considerable momentum over the last 15 months with

several more announcements — of deals struck or con-

irmationofongoingmergernegotiations—havingbeen

made. That the commercial start of services from the

latest entrant, Reliance Jio, has been coterminous with

this latest round of consolidation is not a simple coin-

cidence. Given what some of its competitors have re-

ferred to as Jio’s “predatory” approach to pricing, the

industry has found itself bufeted on the one hand by a

sharp decline in earnings, and on the other by the high

cost of servicing the debt that had helped incumbent

operators bid for and acquire the much-needed wire-

less spectrum at the government’s auction of airwaves.

It is this inancial bind that the industry inds itself in

that Sunil Mittal, Bharti Airtel founder and chairman,

alluded to at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona

this week when he said that the return on capital de-

ployed had dipped to low single-digit levels, making in-

vestment in the business unviable. Investors, he is re-

ported to have quipped, would be better of putting

their money in a bank and playing golf.

This is a far cry from the situation a little more than

ive years agowhen asmany as 12 private players jostled

cheek by jowl with the two state-run telephone operat-

ors, BSNL and MTNL, as they vied for a share of the

country’s 893.8 million wireless subscribers as of

December 2011. Andwhile themarket had expanded to

almost 1.13 billion subscribers as of December 2016, the

number of non-state mobile services providers had

shrunk to 10, inclusive of Reliance Jio.With seven of the

nine either in the process of being acquired ormerged,

or in talks to negotiate a deal, the industry is nowinally

poised to coalesce into four largeprivate sector entities,

a welcome development both from the industry and

government perspective. Still, size alone may not guar-

antee the enlarged companies good health, especially

given the ongoing ierce battle for market share. That

the seriousness of the situation has not been lost on the

Telecom Commission is best underscored by the fact

that it has asked the Telecom Regulatory Authority of

India to ensure orderly growth in the sector. After all, a

bruising and protracted pricewar, while certainly good

for the consumers, is bound to extract a heavy price on

the service providers’ inancials, notwithstanding the

deep pockets that the merged entities may command.

That in turn risks further eroding the revenue the

Centre earns from licence fees and spectrum usage

charges, a fact cited by the Telecom Commission in its

latestmissive to TRAI. It is in no one’s interest to kill the

goose that lays the golden eggs.

Game of tonesThe merger of mobile services companies

would be a welcome development

The Economic Survey 2016-17tabled in Parliament lastmonth has proposed introdu-

cing a universal basic income in In-dia, and has devoted an entirechapter to this new idea. A univer-sal and unconditional incometransfer to all citizens in order toaddress the twin problems ofpoverty and unemployment is un-doubtedly a proposal that meritsserious consideration. The Eco-nomic Survey, however, gets it allwrong. It gets it wrong in terms ofthe alternative welfare measuresavailable to a government, in termsof the purpose of such a measure,and in terms of the redistributiveintent of such a measure (and cor-respondingly, of the role oftaxation).

The experiment in EuropeIn recent years, the strongest pro-ponent of the idea of basic incomehas been the left-liberal politicalphilosopher Philippe Van Parijs. Inhis book, Real Freedom for All, Mr.Parijs argues that the basis for uni-versal basic income is the “fair dis-tribution of real freedom to pursuethe realization of one’s conceptionof the good life”. Themain featuresof universal basic incomeare that itis provided by the state to all cit-izens on an individual basis,without ameans test andwithout awork requirement.

An example of universal basicincome is the Finnish proposal toprovide unemployed citizensbetween the ages of 25 and 58 amonthly incomeof €560. In the ex-periment currently under way, themonthly income is being providedto 2,000 randomly selected unem-ployed persons irrespective ofother income and whether thatfalls below a certain minimum(that is, the “means test”) and irre-spective of whether they are seek-ingwork, in job-related training, oreven ind part-time employment

(that is, the “work requirement”).In other words, universal basic

income, as proposed and dis-cussed inEurope, is a substitute formeans-tested income beneits,with certain work requirements(such as undergoing job training).Existing guaranteed incomesschemes are usually targeted ormeans-tested, that is, dependenton level of income and only avail-able to those below a thresholdlevel of income. It is often linked toemployment status. The core ofthe concept of basic income is the“absence of themeans test and theabsence of thework test”, that is, itseparates the income beneit fromeligibility based on current levelsof income and from employmentstatus.

The most commonly discussedalternative to universal basic in-come is a negative income tax. Thisis a scheme in which, for individu-als below a certain incomethreshold, not only is the incomeof a household not taxed, but thehousehold receives a tax creditthat is the diference between thebasic income or guaranteed in-come and tax liability. Mr. Parijsand other scholars suggest thatuniversal basic income may becheaper to operate than a negativeincome tax. The negative incometax, of course, assumes a countrywhere all citizens ile tax returns.

Distortions in Indian proposalThe irst wrong committed by theEconomic Survey is that its pro-posal constitutes an attack on wel-fare schemes. Witness the state-ment that “a number ofimplementation challenges lieahead, especially the risk that uni-versal basic incomewould becomean add-on to, rather than a replace-

ment of, current anti-poverty andsocial programmes (Chapter 9).” Inother words, the Economic Surveywants universal basic income notto supplement, but to replace, allexisting anti-poverty and socialwelfare programmes.

As I have explained, in its ori-ginal conception, universal basicincome was meant to replace onlyincomeguaranteeprogrammes. “Abasic income is provided in cash”,and as Mr. Parijs notes, “it supple-ments, rather than substitutes, ex-isting in-kind transfers such as freeeducation or basic health insur-ance (“Basic Income: A simple andpowerful idea for the twenty-irstcentury”, in B. Ackerman, A. Al-stott and P. Van Parijs (eds.), Re-designing Distribution, The RealUtopias Project, vol V, 2005).” Inthe Indian context, one would ob-viously add in-kind food transfers.Mr. Parijs writes, “ighting… to-wards greater income securityshouldof coursenotmakeoneneg-lect the prior importance ofproviding every child with qualitybasic education and every personwith quality basic health care (Par-ijs, 2005).”

It is thus technically and ethic-ally wrong to compare the costsand beneits of universal basic in-come with those from a range ofsubsidies relating to food and nu-trition (public distribution, schoolmeals, Integrated Child Develop-ment Services), education, andsanitation, as is done in the Eco-nomic Survey. The secondwrong isthus the argument that the univer-sal basic income should replace allcurrent in-kind and cash transfers.

The third wrong, and one thatgoes against the core philosophy ofuniversal basic income, is the Eco-nomic Survey’s assertion that “uni-

versal basic income is not framedas a transfer payment from the richto the poor.”

Abasic incomeneeds resources.As Mr. Parijs shows, if a basic in-come is added to existing tax-bene-it schemes, “the comparativelyrich would need to pay both fortheir own basic income and formuch of the basic income of thecomparatively poor (Parijs,2005).” The literature discussesdiferent ways that funds for theuniversal basic income could beraised, such as through progress-ive taxation or a speciic ear-marked tax, or even a consump-tion tax. The bottom line,whichever way, is that the richhave to pay for this universalprovision.

In terms of the level of basic in-come, the higher it is, the “higherthe average rate of income tax,and, therefore the greater the re-distribution from the comparat-ively rich to the comparativelypoor (Parijs, 2005).” While the ba-sic income is given to all, the man-ner in which the basic income isfunded has to ensure that societytransfers resources from the rich tothe poor.

The philosophy behind univer-sal basic income is clearly oneof re-distribution. It is not one of takingexisting beneits, whether in theform of in-kind (such as food sub-sidies) or in cash transfers (such asmaternity beneit), and dividing itup among all individuals as cash.

No resource roadmapThe Economic Survey, however,does not propose any new re-source mobilisation or taxation tomeet the goal of universal basic in-come. On the contrary, it talks ofuniversal basic income replacingother schemes at various places. Italso — ominously — states that “anygovernment will have to decide onwhat programmes/expenditure toprioritize in order to inance a uni-versal basic income”. In short, ex-isting programmes will have to becut to fund the universal basic in-come.There isno intentionofmak-ing the rich pay for the basic in-come.

To sum up, the main features ofuniversal basic income are that it

should be universal and not tar-geted, it should be unconditionaland not tied to work or employ-ment, and it should be in cash. Uni-versal basic income has been pro-posed internationally in lieu ofemployment or income guaranteeschemes. It is envisaged as amethod of redistribution of re-sources from the rich to thepoor. Itis envisaged as providing all per-sons (the poor, in particular) withan income to lead a digniied life,after basic needs such as educa-tion, health, and basic food con-sumption are taken care of. Theuniversal basic income proposedin the Economic Survey is hostile toeach of these objectives.

Let me end with an illustrationof what a genuine universal basicincome would entail. As a roughapproximation, let us assume theuniversal basic incomeprovides anincome equivalent to 100 days ofMGNREGA employment. Assum-ing a dailywage rate of ₹170, a basicincome would comprise ₹17,000per household. With a simple as-sumption of four members perhousehold, universal coverage re-quires the basic income to beprovided to 300 million house-holds. In other words, universalbasic income equivalent to the ex-pected income transfer underMGNREGA would cost ₹510,000crore. This is more than 10 timesthe allocation in the currentBudget for MGNREGA (₹48,000crore).

Resource mobilisation has to in-crease ten-fold for India to afordthe universal basic incomewithoutcutting back on other social wel-fare programmes. India has one ofthe lowest tax-to-GDP ratios in theworld. Unless the government seri-ously increases tax resources, theproposal for a universal basic in-come is at best adiversion fromourcurrent economic and social prob-lems and at worst a means of redu-cing and ending funding for a hostof welfare programmes. The cur-rent proposal needs to be rejectedin toto.

Madhura Swaminathan is Professor at theEconomic Analysis Unit, Indian StatisticalInstitute, Bengaluru

Getting the basics wrongUnlike the ‘Economic Survey’ proposal, the idea behind a universal basic income is one of redistribution

Madhura Swaminathan

GETTYIM

AGES/ISTOCKPHOTO

Manipur is to vote in twophases, on March 4 and 8,to elect the 60 members of

the Legislative Assembly. The termof the current Legislative Assemblyends on March 18. In the last elec-tion, in 2012, the Congress won 42seats and the incumbent Chief Min-isterOkram Ibobi Singhwas re-elec-ted. Two years later, ive membersof theManipur State Congress Partyjoined the Congress, forming astable government.

BJP’s bidIn a bid to dethrone the Congressgovernment which has been inpower for the past 15 years, PrimeMinister Narendra Modi visited theState on February 25 to campaignfor the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP),

which did not win a single seat inthe 2012 election. In his speech, heaccused the Congress governmentof rampant corruption. The BJP haspromised that if elected, it wouldensure that there is no economicblockade in the State.

In response, Mr. Ibobi allegedthat the Prime Minister’s speechwas a clear indication of a closenexus between the Prime Minister,the United Naga Council (UNC),which is spearheading the ongoingeconomic blockade, and the Na-tional Socialist Council of Nagalim(Isak-Muivah) or NSCN-(IM), thearmed organisation standing be-hind the UNC blockade.

Factors thatmatterIn spite of all these accusations andcounter-accusations, there arethree major factors that are criticalto Manipur’s electoral politics.

The irst and perhaps most im-portant factor is the territorial in-tegrity of the State. The majority ofManipur’s population, especiallythose in the valley, are worriedabout the contents of the Frame-

work Agreement signed betweenthe BJP government at the Centreand the NSCN-(IM) in August 2015.

In his election campaign speech,Mr. Modi categorically stated thatthe agreement would not infringeupon the integrity of Manipur andits territorial boundary. He said theagreement does not contain a singleword which would have any implic-ations on the territorial integrity ofManipur. However, since the BJPgovernment is refusing to releasethe details of the agreement, manyvoters, particularly the majorityMeiteis, are not convinced by thisverbal assurance. Capitalising ontheBJP’s reluctance, theCongress ismaking the issue a major campaignpoint, and promising to protect andpreserve the territorial integrity ofthe State. Though the party deniesit, many observers are of the viewthat the creation of seven new dis-tricts inDecember last yearwas a ju-dicious plan by the Congress gov-ernment to prevent or oppose theconcept of greater or southernNagaland frommaterialising.

The economic blockade imposed

by the UNC since November 1 lastyear is also seen by many as a moveto strengthen the argument for aseparate administration for the Na-gas of Manipur. The UNC’s main de-mand for ending the blockade is arollback of the new districts, whichthe Congress government thus farrejects.

By creating new districts such asKangpokpi and Jiribam, the peoplehere would now oppose any moveof being made part of a greater orsouthern Nagaland. In other words,the Congress government has suc-cessfully involved the people of thenew districts in protecting theState’s territorial integrity.

The second factor is moneypower. Since many voters, espe-cially in the hill or rural areas, are inneedof inancial assistance for theirdaily necessities, such as food,clothing and educational expenses,these issues will inluence howvotes are cast.

Inluence of armed groupsThe third factor is the role of armedgroups. There are more than two

dozen armed groups operating inthe State, with varying degrees ofinluence in certain areas. Thoughsome of them have signed a cease-ire or suspension of operationswith the government, there aregroups that have ongoing conlictswith both the State and Centralforces.

Though necessary security ar-rangements have beenmade for thepolls, there is still a possibility thatthe armed groups could use difer-ent forms of intimidatory tactics toinluence the vote.

Given the volatile situation, it isdiicult to predict the precise post-election scenario. But analysing thesocio-political context of the Stateand its people, it is likely that thesefactors — territorial integrity,money power and armed groups —will be key in deciding the outcomeof the Assembly election.

Nehginpao Kipgen is Assistant Professorand Executive Director of the Centre forSoutheast Asian Studies, Jindal School ofInternational Afairs, O.P. Jindal GlobalUniversity

Gauging the breeze in ManipurThe 2015 Framework Agreement on the Naga issue is a key concern in these Assembly elections

Nehginpao Kipgen

Paper leakIt was shocking to readabout an organised paperleak for Army recruitment(“‘Racket was active for atleast 2 years’,” Feb.28 and“Army exam leak: 18 held”,Feb.27). It is a nationalshame and appears to bethe norm inmostrecruitment processes forgovernment jobs, morespeciically to the publicservice commissions/stafselection commissions andrailway recruitment. It ishigh time a Central body isappointed tomonitor allrecruitment processes togovernment jobs. Ifunchecked, corruption willcascade to othergovernment departments.Reforms in the educationsystem and recruitmentprocess are needed.K. Vinaya Kumar,

Secunderabad

Tweets and a slugfestThe online trolling of ayoung college student needsto be condemned (“DU girl’santi-ABVP tweets triggerpolitical slugfest”, Feb.28).

Makingmatters worse is theHomeMinister’s comment.The student-teachercommunity should discussthe issue in a calmmannerand ind a solution. Thisappears to be anotherepisode of right wing versussecular forces in the nameof patriotism. The threat ofrapemust be condemned.Civil society too needs to bevigilant.B. Prabha,

Varkala, Kerala

■ It is unfortunate thatreputed academiccampuses in the country arefast becoming places for anideological war betweennationalist versus liberalforces.There is no need forpolitical leaders andcelebrities to jump into thefray and vitiatematters.Setting aside the issue ofwho is patriotic or not, thecrux of thematter is that auniversity student has beenissued rape threats inreaction to her right tofreedom of expression.Academic centres should be

places that are calm.K. Jayanthi,

Chennai

None of the aboveThe increasing acceptanceof NOTA shows that peopleare aware of the value oftheir franchise (“NOTA andthe Indian voter”, Feb.28).Democracy is also based onthe efective redress ofpeoples’ grievances andNOTA has empoweredpeople to express theirresentment if there is afailure to resolve theirissues. However, NOTAneeds to be strengthened soas to push the political classto work for the welfare ofsociety. They can no longerremain oblivious to pressingissues concerningmasses.There should also be aprovision where if NOTAconstitutes three-fourths ofthe votes polled, it shouldresult in a re-election.Gagan Pratap Singh,

Noida, Uttar Pradesh

■ I feel that we need to takethis a step further. Changesshould bemade in the

procedure to address theviewpoints of those whoexercised the NOTA option,rather than consideringthose votes as kind of void.Instead, measures such asreconducting elections,placing suitable candidatesby parties and addressingfestering issuesmay helpthe public regain trust in thedemocratic system.Roshin James,

Pala, Kerala

Oscar feverI have nothing against theOscars or a host of otherinternational awards ortheir presentationceremonies but I am painedat the way themedia tries toportray itself as the bestpromoters and dispensersof the speciics and nitty-gritty of the extravaganza. Ihave seen a few of theseOscar-winning ilms andind that our regional ilmsare superior in storytelling,screenplay and direction. Itis also strange that some ofour actors and directorsdeem an Oscar nominationto be the goal of their lives. I

wish some in ourmedia andmotion pictures fraternitywatch a few of our low-budget vernacular ilms thathave a sterling portrayal of

native subjects.Sivamani Vasudevan,

Chennai

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Letters emailed to [email protected] must carry the full postal address and the full name or the name with initials.

corrections & clarifications:

In an article in the Editorial page, “NOTA and the Indian voter”(Feb. 28, 2017), there was a reference to the former Union Territory,Delhi. It should have beenUnion Territory, Delhi.

The irst entry in the “From The Hindu Archives” section (Feb. 28,2017) — “Fundamental rights can’t be abridged” — had inadvertentlymisspelled the name of the then Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Subba Rao.

The text of the story headlined “A 17th century tale of love and be-trayal” (some editions, Feb.27, 2017) was rewritten and the recast ver-sion appears under the headline “A tale of jinxed love from the Coro-mandel” in the web edition.

“Railwaysmulls newperformance index”—a front-page (Section2)“In Brief” story (Feb. 26, 2017), had erroneously referred to a ive-yearlow operating ratio. It should have been a ive-year high operating ra-tio, as rightly given in the detailed story inside.

In the ‘Open Page’ article, “On books and bookshelves” (Feb. 26,2017), Khalid Hosseini had been wrongly listed among Pakistani au-thors. He is actually an American of Afghan origin.

Editing error: The table “Dubious credentials” that accompaniedthe Ground Zero page story, “Betraying the oath” (Feb. 25, 2017), hadwrongly listedDr. D.Y. PatilMedical College, Pune, among the collegesthat had been debarred by the Medical Council of India. Actually, itwasDr.D.Y. PatilMedical College,NaviMumbai that hadbeendebarredand not the institution in Pune.

It is the policy of The Hindu to correct signiicant errors as soon as possible. Please

specify the edition (place of publication), date and page. The Readers’ Editor’s office

can be contacted by Telephone: +91-44-28418297/28576300 (11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday

to Friday); Fax: +91-44-28552963; E-mail:[email protected]; Mail: Readers’

Editor, The Hindu, Kasturi Buildings, 859 & 860 Anna Salai, Chennai 600 002, India.

All communication must carry the full postal address and telephone number. No

personal visits. The Terms of Reference for the Readers’ Editor are on

www.thehindu.com

more letters online:

www.hindu.com/opinion/letters/

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DATA POINT

My 60-year-old father hasa smartphone but he usesit like a feature phone —only to make and receivecalls. He neverwarmed upto the 5.5 inch touch-screen device, with all itsimpressive features,which was gifted to him.He inds it unwieldy,among other things. Hesays he misses his older

phone, which was “simpler to use andmaintain”. So when heheard that Nokia 3310 was being relaunched, he was relieved.“Mere liye phone aa gaya (the phone has come back for me),”he said happily.The Nokia phone reminds my father of simpler times when

phoneswere sturdier, less cluttered, andwith basic functions.“I won’t have to worry about the screen breaking, aboutpocket-dialling someone, and won’t have to charge it for aweek at least. It will last me a good 4-5 years,” he says. Ofcourse, his love for Nokia, like most Indians, also comes fromthe fact that it was his irst phone. And like many college stu-dents who got their irst phones from their parents, the Nokiawas my hand-me-down too, a prized possession that Iwrapped with a Spiderman cover. Spiderman’s eyes on theback panel lit up every time I received a call or an SMS.

RelaunchNokia 3310wasirst launched in 2000 (it trendedon socialme-dia then) and ruled the cell-phone market for years. In thetechnology world, where there is something new and excitingalmost everyday, 17 years is almost like an era. So for HMDGlobal, the company which is now relaunching the phone, alot is at stake. It is betting on nostalgia, the strong brand recallfor Nokia, and the renewed demand for feature phones inemergingmarkets like India.

In this age of modernity, relics called feature phones stillform 59% of the mobile handset shipment market in India.They “can’t be wiped of any time soon,” states a Cyber MediaResearch report. It estimated that mobile handset shipmentsin 2016 will touch 265 million this year, of which 116 millionwould be smartphones.

“There is a mismatch between the technology road mapand the user priorities,” says Faisal Kawoosa, principal analystfor telecoms at CMR. “While the ecosystem isworking tomakedata services more afordable, accessible and meaningful forthe subscribers, themajority is still looking for a reliable voicecommunication.”

Smartphones may still be creating a buzz, but featurephones, the old rulers, are back to stake their claim for a placein the market. A lot of excitement is expected in this turf waramong various companies such as Samsung, Micromax andLava. For wistful people like my dad, it is heartening thatdevices exemplifying simpler, quieter times are making acomeback.

Back to a simpler timeSmartphones may have made some liveseasier, but others long for the sturdier,uncluttered basic phone


SINGLE FILE

Yuthika Bhargava

AFP

The Parliamentary Board of the Jan Sangh to-day [February28, New Delhi] decided to send a directive to all the Stateunits not to form an alliance with the Congress in forming co-alition Governments anywhere. On the other hand, the partywould support every effort made by the Opposition to formGovernments, wherever the Congress was not in a position todo so. Mr. Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, General Secretary of theJan Sangh, explaining the decision, said the party would notmind joining hands with the Communists wherever it was ne-cessary to form a Government. He hoped that at least in fourStates – Bihar, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh – the Op-position would be in a position to form the Government.

FIFTY YEARS AGO MARCH 1, 1967

Jan Sangh to back only non-Congress Govts.


FROM ARCHIVES

The two American ladies among the victims of the “Laconia”were among the seven who died from exposure out of thetwenty-one occupants of a waterlogged boat (London, Febru-ary 28). A priest on board said the boat hit the “Laconia’s”stern when being lowered and the planks burst open. Theboat drifted without oars or rudder with water up to the gun-wale from ten at night till three in the afternoon. Everybodywas crowded in the bows and stern with the waves washingoverboard. The others (...) who died were thrown into thesea, as the weight of the bodies would have endangered thewaterlogged boat.

A HUNDRED YEARS AGO MARCH 1, 1917

Sinking of “Laconia”

Pointillism/ArtPointillism is an art form inwhich images are con-structed using individualdots rather than brushstrokes. The movementdeveloped in the 19th cen-tury as a successor to im-pressionism. Rather thanmixing colours on apalette, pointillism relieson the optical effect pro-duced by numerous tinydots of unmixed colourplaced next to each otherin order to create light ef-fects. An early work thatexemplifies this techniqueis ‘A Sunday Afternoon onthe Island of La GrandeJatte’ by French artistGeorges Seurat, who isconsidered the founder ofthis style.

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THE WEBthehindu.com/opinion

“I can take you to the MilleCollines if you want,” avoice said softly as I en-quired in the Indian journ-alists’ media room inKigali, Rwanda, about vis-iting the iconic hotel thathad sheltered more than athousand people at theheight of the Tutsi geno-cide in 1994. I turned tosee a tall young man whohad helped me with Inter-net connectivity the previ-ous day.

Severn is a Tutsi, thecommunity that was tar-geted during the genocide.It was with great reluct-ance that he volunteeredto take me, making it wasapparent that he did notwish to take the line ofquestioning further. Heand his father had fled toUganda in the north, whilehis mother and sister tookshelter in Congo just a fewmonths before the three-month bloodbath left

800,000 people dead. Hewas an information tech-nology professional whenwe met and his companywas providing IT servicesfor the hotel where wewere staying.

“We were the luckyones,” he told me. “We leftRwanda before April 1994.(Rwandan) President PaulKagame had told us it istime we thought of thecountry and not just whathappened. Unless pressed,we don’t volunteer to re-veal who we are, Hutus orTutsis. It is thinking onthese lines that brought usto this state.”

Moving onBut is suppression of iden-tity really the answer, Iasked. “You have been tothe genocide memorial,we know what happenedto us. But if we keep revis-iting it, how will we moveforward?” he replied.

I asked him whether lifewas good now. His answer,

that he wished to join acompany that would offerhim stock options, madeus both burst out inlaughter.

He listened carefully as Ispoke to the sales managerof the Mille Collines, PaulKato, for my story. As weleft, he turned to me andsaid: “You said that thestaff of this hotel werebrave. I think the staff ofthe Mumbai hotels (Tajand Oberoi Trident) thatwere attacked by terrorists(in 2008) were also verybrave. At least that’s whatwe read.”

And then he said: “Askthem if they want to thinkonly of that time.” I grewquiet.

When much of theworld has been capturedin cartographic lines anddots, Africa continues tospring surprises, if not byits stunning topographythen by its soul, surpris-ingly redemptive and al-ways elemental.

Being a Tutsi in Rwanda

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NOTEBOOK

Choosing not to reveal their identities is how somecarry on with their lives after the 1994 genocide

Nistula Hebbar

Former Chief Justice of India Rajendra Mal Lodha speaks at length about the issues hehas been preoccupied with lately — cleaning up cricket administration and the medicaleducation mess — and on the judiciary, its relations with the executive, and recent judi-cial pronouncements. He defends what he calls the institutional effort of the judiciaryto ring-fence itself from executive overreach, but expresses dismay at the national an-them controversy, hinting that the court might revisit its judgment. Excerpts:

You have been critical of the NationalJudicial Appointments Commission(NJAC), which sought to givepoliticians and civil society a say inthe appointment of judges to thehighest courts. Justice T.S. Thakurhad blamed the executive fordragging its feet on judicialappointments. In October 2015, aBench led by the current Chief JusticeJ.S. Khehar struck down the NJAC. Allof you seem to be on thewarpathwith the executive.

■ I don’t think the use of the wordwarpath is appropriate. Look, my efforthad been to ensure that independenceof the judiciary is not affected in anymanner. That was very important be-cause when I took oath of office as ChiefJustice of India, the UPA (United Pro-gressive Alliance) was in power andthen after a few months, the NDA (Na-tional Democratic Alliance) came topower with one party having absolutemajority. With the change of govern-ment, well, I had to ensure that the in-dependence of judiciary [was] not af-fected, particularly because somecontroversy had erupted on the ap-pointment of one of my recom-mendees. So far as Justice Thakur andJustice Khehar are concerned, the effortof every CJI is that all the three organs ofthe state act within their sphere, andthe judiciary remains insulated from ex-ecutive interference. So, I think that hasbeen an institutional approach and notan individual approach.

What do youmeanwhen you say thatyou had to take care to ensureindependence of the judiciary? Areyou saying the governmentwastrying to hobble the judiciarywiththe NJAC?

●The system of appointment of judgesto superior judiciary has always been abone of contention between the execut-ive and the judiciary. Right from FirstJudges Case, which is 35 years now, thecollegium has the authority to virtuallyfinalise the names for superior judi-ciary. The executive has its role but thatis limited. Obviously, with the change ingovernment in 2014, they might havethought that it was high time that

changes were made in appointments,and the NJAC was brought in. But unfor-tunately, that was not in accord withconstitutional norms, and ultimatelywhen it was tested by the SupremeCourt, it was struck down. One thing isgood, that the government has acceptedthe verdict and the collegium systemcontinues.

Isn’t the Supreme Courtoverreaching? Frommaking theplaying of the national anthemmandatory in theatres aswell asstanding up for the anthem, toregulating the BCCI, to theMedicalCouncil of India?

■ If you are talking about the nationalanthem matter, this was avoidable be-cause this is not something that thecourt should be doing. This is only aninterim order and the court will take afinal call. I wouldn’t have touched onthe subject at all. I always believed thaton matters such as these, unless an im-portant constitutional issue is involved,the SC should not deal with that. If animportant constitutional issue is in-volved, then it should be consideredthreadbare and constitutional proposi-tions must be expounded and based onthat, verdict given. If you look at the or-der which appointed our committee (oncricket), it was tasked to give punish-ment to the delinquents, Rajasthan Roy-als and Chennai Super Kings, and [to ef-fect] structural reforms in the cricketadministration. Most of the times, whenyou want a quality report or considera-tion, judges are actually invited tospend their time, use their skill andcome out with a product which is bene-ficial. This is how committees are con-stituted. As far as the BCCI is con-cerned, cricket is a passion in thecountry.

You have spoken about conducting

thematters of judiciary in atransparentmanner, and in thecontext of the BCCI you have alsosaid it is desirable that the bodyshould come under the Right toInformation Act (RTI). Has the timecome for the Supreme Court to comeunder the ambit of the RTI?

■ As far as transparency is considered, Iam of the view that the lack of transpar-ency would not continue for long. It isfor this reason, if you recall, the Consti-tution Bench which decided the NJACcase, they themselves directed refram-ing the memorandum of procedurewith transparency as one of the ele-ments. Obviously transparency has tobe brought in the working of superiorjudiciary, particularly in the appoint-ments. It is high time that the memor-andum of procedure is now framed bythe collegium as directed in the judg-ment and further appointments pro-ceed accordingly.

There are multiple ways in whichtransparency can be achieved. One is,in the names considered for judges tothe SC, if reasons are recorded for ac-cepting or rejecting them, that would bea step forward in making things trans-parent. There are multiple ways the col-legium could usher in transparency,and this is one of them. It is very im-

portant that transparency is brought.People from within and those outsidewill have more faith in the system.There is a grievance that candidateswho are in the zone of consideration,not selected, did not know why theywere not chosen when there was noproblem with their candidature.

Howdo you explain the lack ofwomen in higher judiciary? Aremenkeeping thewomen out?

■ I always believed that gender diversitymust find place in the superior judi-ciary. Of the appointments I made in theSC, I got Justice [R.] Banumathi. But theproblem is the sufficient pool is notavailable from which the women can bebrought in. This problem is in manycountries. In England I met Lord ChiefJustice [David] Neuberger who said theywere trying. If you want 30% women inthe Supreme Court and High Courts,that will take years. But the way inwhich women are entering the lower ju-

dicial services, it will be 15 years or sowhen you will have large number of wo-men judges in HCs and the SC. They aredoing very well. In a good number ofStates, every year 40% of the selectedcandidates in the judicial services arewomen. Even in Jammu and Kashmir,they were 30%. It is only a matter oftime.

You seem to beworking 365 days ayear and it was also one of your petdreams to see the Supreme Courtwork round the year. Yet yourproposal did not find takers.

■ I wanted the SC to work 365 days ayear and this was one of my pet pro-jects. I thought with the number ofcases piling up in courts all over, work-ing round-the-clock was one way of ad-dressing the issue of backlog. I foundthat there are many essential serviceslike water, hospital, electricity thatwork round-the-clock.

This can be achieved. It was also feltthat by working 365 days a year, manyyoung lawyers would be able to getgood work when seniors go on vacation.The time has gone for a six-week vaca-tion. We have all the facilities now. Thiscan be done.

It could have been planned. But un-fortunately, despite my best efforts, theleaders of the Bar Association shot itdown.

Regarding BCCI, a four-memberpanel has been appointed by theSupreme Court to run the sportsbody, butwasn’t thematter settledby the court that BCCI is not a publicbody?

■ It is very clear that the SC has heldthat BCCI, though a society registeredunder the Societies Registration Act,discharges public functions. It selectsthe national team. It does everythingconcerning cricket in the country. Onceit discharges a public function, it isamenable to judicial supervision. That’show the court viewed the matter andpassed the order.

Have you left the BCCI morevulnerable to state interventionnow?With greater role for thestate with one State, one vote…■ [This is] only a misconception createdby a few interested individuals who losttheir position in the cricket administra-tion. India is a vast country. Cricket is apassion of the country and integratesthe people. You cannot have manyStates remaining unrepresented in a

body which selects a national teamwhich is the national representative ofcricket. That’s why the system of oneState, one vote was articulated by us.Similarly, one man holding several posi-tions… that’s why we got one person,one post. These are broad featureswhich make people accountable anddemolish monopoly. We have 29 Statesand about 10 States have no votes. Canone-third of the States remain unrepres-ented in the BCCI? Maharashtra hasthree, Gujarat has three, then there isthe Cricket Club of India, then there’sServices; 10 of these are actually oc-cupying major chunks in the body.

You have attempted to break thepolitician-bureaucrat nexus. Youhave keptministers and bureaucratsout, but politicians are in. Howdoyou explain that?

■ Politicians by class just cannot be ex-cluded [if ] they do not occupy positionsin the government. There are two reas-ons for that. In government, whetheryou are a bureaucrat or a minister, [it]requires full-time attention. BCCI alsorequires a large amount of your time. Iread it somewhere in one of the materi-als given to us — N.K.P. Salve, a ministerin [Indira] Gandhi’s Cabinet, was alsopresident of the BCCI. It was brought tothe notice of the Prime Minister that Mr.Salve was not able to give sufficient timeto the Ministry. She asked him whetherthis was the case. He said any day Iwould like to work with BCCI. The timehas come for ministers and bureaucratsto handle their own work and not poketheir nose. Politicians are not a classyou cannot identify. Therefore the ideaof cooling-off period for three years.

Howdo you deal with criticism aboutwhat do judges know about cricketand its administration?

■ I love watching cricket; I have been,you know. I have seen quite a fewmatches. In my student days, my uncleused to live in Calcutta. That was in1972-73, England’s India tour. I distinctlyremember Salim Durani hitting sixes ondemand. I have been chosen as the per-son of the year by Wisden 2017. On theBCCI, we did our best. That is for peopleto decide. We have put forward a struc-ture which I believe would be a tem-plate for other sports bodies. These arewell-known principles of good gov-ernance. Transparency, accountability,no nepotism, no fiefdom.

Full interview available on www.thehindu.com

‘Time has come for ministers to not poke their nose in cricket’The former Chief Justice of India talks about cricket, the collegium system, and the constant need for the judiciary to protect itself from executive overreachAnuradha Raman

<> On the BCCI, we did our best.

That is for people to decide.

We have put forward a

structure which I believe

would be a template for other

sports bodies.

THE WEDNESDAY INTERVIEW: JUSTICE R.M. LODHA

<> The national anthemmatter

was avoidable because this is

not something that the court

should be doing… I wouldn’t

have touched on the subject

at all.

R.V.MOORTHY

Visual World

Image

Visual World

Image

CMYK

ND-ND




NEWS

FROM PAGE ONE

Indian and U.S. officials areengaging on the issue ofsafety of Indians in America,the External Affairs Ministrysaid ahead of a visit by For-eign Secretary S. Jaishankarto Washington on Tuesday. Itsaid there was no need forIndia to issue a “demarche”to the U.S. over the suspec-ted racially motivated killingof an Indian engineer.

“The Government of theUnited States and senior au-thorities in Kansas have pro-actively responded to the un-fortunate death of SrinivasKuchibhotla,” said officialspokesperson Gopal Baglay,listing the statements madeby the U.S. Embassy in India,as well as “senior officials” inKansas condemning theshooting, that left anotherIndian injured.

“These developments ob-viated the need for a de-marche by the Governmenton this matter. It is import-ant to note that the U.S. au-thorities are engaged with us

on the larger concern re-garding safety of Indians inthe U.S., a matter which con-tinues to receive the Govern-ment’s top priority,” Mr.Baglay added.

The statement came amid

rising criticism in the U.S.and Indian media over thelack of a response from U.S.President Donald Trump onthe killing, although WhiteHouse spokesperson SeanSpicer did call details of the

incident “disturbing”.Meanwhile, hailing the

talks between Mr. Jaishankarand Chinese Executive Vice-Minister for Foreign AffairsZhang Yesui in Beijing lastweek as “positive and con-

structive”, the Ministry saidthat they had “addressed thefull complexity of India-China relations”. It was re-sponding to a “number ofpress commentaries” thathad called the talks unpro-ductive as there had been nomovement on the issuesraised by Mr. Jaishankar, in-cluding on the Nuclear Sup-pliers Group and U.N. desig-nation of Masood Azhar as aterrorist, both of whichChina had blocked last year.

Meeting positive“Our assessment is that therecent meeting was positiveand constructive. We bothagreed that at the time whenthe global situation is in flux,a more stable, substantiveand forward-looking India-China relationship was goodfor the international system,”Mr. Baglay said.

The official also said that“common ground” had beenfound during specific ex-changes on Afghanistan,U.N., counter-terrorism andnuclear issues.

India not to issue demarche to U.S.Trump silent on Kansas killing, but authorities are engaged with the larger concern of safety of Indians

Father of Srinivas Kuchibhotla performs his son’s last rites in Hyderabad on Tuesday. PTI


New Delhi The Gujarat ATS on Tues-day recorded the state-ments of the family mem-bers of two suspected ISISoperatives, WaseemRamodiya and his brotherNaeem, who were arrestedon Sunday.

“We interrogatedWaseem’s wife Shajin andhis parents and recordedtheir statements,” ATS DYSPRamesh Faldu said. How-ever, he did not reveal thecontents of the statements.

The ATS had taken theRamodiya brothers to a reli-gious place in Chotila, nearRajkot, which was allegedlyon their radar for carryingout blasts, officials said.

The ATS also took theduo to various places, in-cluding a cracker shop fromwhere they had boughtgunpowder and a bangleshop which they had triedto set ablaze in the past,they added. “We have iden-tified the shop from wherethe duo had bought gun-powder,” Mr. Faldu said.

ATS probesIS operatives’familyPress Trust of India

Rajkot

The Enforcement Director-ate (ED) has attached ₹80crore in the Antrix-DevasMultimedia money-launder-ing case.

The ED searched thepremises of the Bengaluru-based Devas Multimedia onJanuary 23 and then recor-ded the statements of com-pany director (finance) Ran-ganathan Mohan, founderdirector Desaraju Venugopaland former director D. Nata-raj. “The said directorsagreed to have committedthe offence. The two otherdirectors involved in thecrime are RamachandranViswanathan and M.Chandrasekhar, who are inthe U.S.,” an ED official said.

The sum of ₹79.76 crore,attached under the Preven-tion of Money LaunderingAct, was with the ISRO asthe upfront capacity reser-vation fee and in mutualfunds and bank deposits.

The money launderingcase is based on the FIR filedby the Central Bureau of In-vestigation against DevasMultimedia and others. TheCBI has also filed a chargesheet against the accused,alleging that the companyhad illegally entered into anagreement with the ISRO’scommercial arm, AntrixCorporation Ltd. After theagreement was finalised, thecompany received invest-ment from abroad, allegedly

as part of a criminal conspir-acy. “Devas Multimedia wasincorporated on December17, 2004. On January 28,2005, it falsely claimed tohave the intellectual prop-erty rights to use the techno-logy for delivering the multi-media services in Indiaunder the agreement withISRO-Antrix,” the officialsaid.

Conspiracy case

The ED says some staff ofthe ISRO and Antrix Corpor-ation also conspired withDevas Multimedia for enter-ing into the agreement. “Onthe strength of the agree-ment, Devas Multimediaraised ₹579.07 crore in for-eign investment. Devas alsoincorporated its subsidiarycompany in the UnitedStates in the name of DevasMultimedia America Inc.,and from the overseasfunds, ₹76.19 crore wastransferred to it as invest-ment,” the official said.

An additional ₹180.77crore was transferred to thesubsidiary company underthe pretext of providingbusiness support servicesand another ₹230.11 crorewas spent as legal fee, and amajor portion of the fundswas transferred to the U.S.as legal fee payment, the EDsays. The CBI and the ED al-lege that the deal was illegalas Devas Multimedia did nothave any technology or IPRto deliver the services.

Case is based on an FIR iled by CBI

Devesh K. Pandey

NEW DELHI

₹80 cr. attached inAntrix-Devas case

Refusing Sahara’s plea for sixmonths’ time to sell some ofits properties to raise theamount it owes investors,the Supreme Court on Tues-day directed the company tosell 13 of its properties anddeposit ₹5,092.64 crore inthe SEBI-Sahara refund ac-count by April 13.

On a plea by the ReserveBank of India, the court,however, barred Saharafrom selling any property be-longing to Sahara India Fin-ancial Corporation Ltd. Thecentral bank informed thecourt that there was a wind-ing-up petition pendingagainst the corporation.

Giving a narrow windowto Sahara to redeem itself, aBench of Justices DipakMisra, Ranjan Gogoi andA.K. Sikri said the court

“may think of extending thetime” further for Sahara toraise the rest of the money ifit happened to succeed indepositing the “substantialamount” of ₹5,092.64 croreon or before April 13. “... oth-erwise appropriate directionshall be issued,” the ordersaid.

Various propertiesThe properties allowed to besold include Sahara Hospital,Lucknow; Sahara IndiaSadan Shakespeare Sarani,Kolkata; land at Sohna Road,Gurgaon; land at Najafgarh,Delhi; Sahara City Homes atIndore; Sahara City Homesat Lucknow; Sahara CityHomes at Coimbatore;Sahara States, Bhopal;Sahara City Homes at Guna;Sahara City Homes/land atKatni, M.P.; Sahara CityHomes/land at Haridwar, Ut-

taranchal; Sahara CityHomes/land at Pune, Maha-rashtra; and land and build-ing at Whitefield, Bengaluru.

Foolproof measureOn February 6, the court at-tached the group’s prized as-set in Maharashtra — AambyValley property — as a fool-proof measure to ensure therecovery of money.

The court had alsoordered Sahara to place onrecord a list of unen-cumbered properties to beput up for public auction torecover over ₹14,000 crorethe group owed as principalsum towards its debt. SEBIhas submitted that the totalliability of Sahara is ₹36,326crore.

Referring to the list, Saha-ra’s counsel Kapil Sibal sub-mitted that a snap auctionwould see the properties

sold at undervalued rates.SEBI counsel Arvind Datar

submitted that previous twoattempts to e-auction someof these properties throughSBI Capses, a subsidiary ofthe State Bank of India, andHDFC Bank — both agenciesappointed by the SupremeCourt — were unsuccessful.

Mr. Datar submitted that itwas difficult to conduct anauction and fetch moneyand, therefore, Sahara itselfshould be directed to sell theproperties and deposit themoney with SEBI.

“A property worth ₹156crore was sold at ₹47 crore ...open land is very difficult tosell considering the presentmarket scenario ... Give usmore time to sell the proper-ties and raise the money onour own. Please believe inour bonafide,” Mr. Sibalpleaded with the court.

Sell 13 properties, Sahara toldSC Bench asks the company to deposit ₹5,092.64 crore in account by April 13Krishnadas Rajagopal

NEW DELHI

The CBI is conducting apreliminary enquiry intosuspected irregularities inthe selection of badmintonplayers for a goodwill tourto Japan in 2014.

According to the CBI, ithas been alleged that in-eligible wards of the Bad-minton Association of In-dia president andoffice-bearers of its Delhiunit were part of thedelegation.

The team comprising 23players and two officialshad visited Tokyo. The ex-penses were borne by theJapan government. Theagency has found that sev-eral team members wereallegedly not eligible asthey had not participatedin regional or State-leveltournaments, as required.

Probe into‘selection’of playersSpecial Correspondent

NEW DELHI

Commenting on the latestdata, Economic Affairs Sec-retary Shaktikanta Das saidthe GDP numbers negatedthe “negative speculation ondemonetisation.” “Therewas an overestimationabout the impact of demon-etisation by some,” he said.

“The revised estimates ofsubsidies are now availableand they show a muchtighter compression thanwas provided for in theBudget Estimates,” Mr.Anant said. “Subsidies showa negative growth and indir-ect tax collections showedpositive growth, so GDPgrowth has remained thesame.”

Sectoral growthThe second advance es-

timates show the agriculturesector faring better than es-timated in January withgrowth at 4.4%, comparedwith the first advance estim-ates which had predicted agrowth of 4.1% for the sec-

tor. Similarly, mining andquarrying is now expectedto expand at 1.3% in 2016-17,instead of the January pre-diction of a contraction of1.8%.

The second advance es-timates peg manufacturinggrowth for the full year at7.7% compared with 7.4%predicted by the first ad-vance estimates.

“The advance estimatesof agricultural growth nowshow a higher growth thanthey had shown earlier,” Mr.Anant said.

“They are projecting a9.9% growth for kharif cropsas against 8.9%. In miningand quarrying, IIP for April-December was 0.9% as op-posed to a contraction of0.2% in April-October,which was used in the firstadvance estimates. Manu-facturing grew 0.5% inApril-December as opposedto a contraction of 0.1% inApril-October.”

CSO projection beliesdemonetisation drag

Hoda reportedly told an NIAteam that he was asked by aPakistani man identified asShafi Sheikh to plant explos-ives at railway tracks inGhorasan and Nakardehi,both in Bihar, but did notadmit planting explosives atKanpur and at Kuneru inAndhra Pradesh.

As many as 41 personswere killed in a train acci-dent at Kuneru on January21. While an IED, packed ina pressure cooker, whichwas planted at Ghorasan inMotihari, Bihar on October 1was defused, a low intensityexplosion at Nakardehi didnot inflict any damage.

The NIA is yet to com-plete its investigations in therail accidents at Ghorasan,Kanpur and Kuneru.

Mr. Modi had said duringthe rally, “The Kanpur railaccident in which hundredswere killed was a conspiracyand conspirators carried itout sitting across the border-...Gonda is adjoining

Nepal...if the cross-borderfoes want to carry out theirwork, is it not necessarythat more vigil is maintainedin Gonda? Gonda needs toelect only those who are fullof patriotism, only then wecan do anything good forGonda.”

The probe was handedover to NIA after the RailwayMinister shot off a letter toHome Minister RajnathSingh alleging sabotage in atleast six train accidents.

The Nepal police had toldThe Hindu earlier that theywere not sure of the Indianagencies’ claims that Hodawas working on ISI’s behalfbut they confirmed that theaccused regularly met ShafiSheikh, in Dubai.

Earlier this year, theNepal police arrested threemen, Braj Kishore Giri, Mo-jahir Ansari and Shambhualias Laddu, after an en-counter for their allegedrole in a double murdercase.

Oicial contradictsPM on rail accident

“[This] can be attributed toincreasing trends in thegreenhouse gases and thewarming of the sea surfacetemperatures over theequatorial Indian and Pa-cific oceans.”

Though still early days,global weather models havegiven feelers that an El Nino— an anomalous warming ofwaters in the equatorial Pa-cific and frequently toxic tothe Indian monsoon — maybe taking shape during themiddle of the year. Were itto couple with errant condi-

tions in the Indian Ocean,things could look bad forthe monsoon. “So far wedon’t see a possible El Ninothreat to the monsoon sys-tem,” Mr. Ramesh added.The agency is expected togive its first forecast of theJune-September monsoonin April. The IMD will alsoupdate its summer forecastsevery 5 days using the dy-namical model, primarilydesigned to forecast themonsoon, but has since lastyear been also used to gaugesummer temperatures.

Even hill stations willbe hotter this year

The Union Law Ministry hassought an opinion from At-torney-General Mukul Ro-hatgi and Solicitor-GeneralRanjit Kumar on the long-standing proposal for an all-India judicial service for thelower judiciary.

The decision was taken ata meeting chaired by UnionLaw Minister Ravi ShankarPrasad on January 16. Vari-ous issues related to the pro-posal for a separate cadrefor the lower judiciary werediscussed.

However, several Stategovernments and courtshold various views on the is-sue. While in several stateslocal languages are cur-rently used for official works

in the lower courts, candid-ates selected from one statemight face difficulty in an-other state -- this is one ofthe unresolved problems.

It has also been arguedthat such an arrangementmight lead to problems inthe career progression ofstate judicial service offi-cials. The Law Commissionhas endorsed the idea ofhaving a national-level judi-cial service on the lines ofAll-India Civil Services. A de-partment-related Parlia-mentary Standing Commit-tee on Personnel, PublicGrievances, Law andJustice, in its 15th report,has also recommended sucha judicial service for the ap-pointment of district-leveljudges.


NEW DELHI

Opinion sought on new

cadre for lower judiciary

A delegation of lawyers andactivists accompanied Dang-wimsai Pul, the widow offormer Arunachal PradeshChief Minister Kalikho Pul,on Tuesday to hand-delivera letter to Vice-PresidentHamid Ansari for an inde-pendent probe into corrup-tion allegations raised in herhusband’s suicide noteagainst sitting SupremeCourt judges and politicians.

Ms. Pul, accompanied byadvocate Prashant Bhushan,Harsh Mander, Yogendra Ya-dav among others, soughtsetting up of a Special Invest-igation Team (SIT) to cred-ibly investigate the allega-tions raised in the suicidenote.

The letter said she was ap-proaching the Vice-Presid-ent as the note contained al-legations against thePresident of India too.

The letter asked the Vice-President to “consult otherjudges in terms of Veeraswa-mi’s judgment and permitfiling of an FIR against theChief Justice of India and

Justice Dipak Misra.” “Ifthese allegations are notcredibly investigated, a seri-ous cloud of suspicion willcontinue to remain over thepoliticians and judges whosenames are mentioned in thesuicide note. This would bemost unfortunate for ourdemocracy as well as for thejudiciary. A credible investig-ation in this matter can onlybe done by an SIT consti-tuted by 3/5 judges next inseniority to the judgesnamed in the note,” the let-ter said.

On February 23, Ms. Pulwithdrew from the SC, ob-jecting to how her letter toCJI Khehar was convertedinto a criminal writ petitionand placed for judicial hear-ing before a Bench.

Pul’s wife meets Ansari,seeks SIT investigationSuicide note had allegations against SC judges, politiciansLegal Correspondent

NEW DELHI

Hamid Ansari

The issue of the overstayingof “certain individuals”wanted by India was raisedover the past two days, in-cluding with British PrimeMinister Theresa May, dur-ing meetings held betweenFinance Minister Arun Jaitleyand senior Cabinet membersin the U.K. While discussionsdid not name individuals, itwas a clear reference to In-dia’s bid to push for the ex-tradition of Vijay Mallya.

Mr. Jaitley was not sched-uled to meet Mrs. May, whodropped in on his meetingon Wednesday afternoonwith Chancellor of the Ex-chequer Philip Hammond.

Other issues discussedwith Mr. Hammond and thePrime Minister include fol-

low-up of Ms. May’s visit toIndia last November, includ-ing plans to establish an In-dia-U.K. Sub Fund under theNational Investment and In-frastructure Fund, whichwill leverage private sectorinvestment in London to

fund infrastructure projectsin India, as well as the eco-nomic and financial dialoguedue to take place later thisyear.

The Prime Minister waseager to stress that inde-pendently of Brexit, India-

U.K. relations were on an up-ward path. The previous dayMr. Jaitley met Foreign Sec-retary Boris Johnson, duringwhich meeting the extradi-tion issue was also raised.

Mr. Jaitley has been on afive-day visit to the U.K.which has combined thelaunch of the India-U.K. yearof culture — and a grand re-ception at BuckinghamPalace hosted by QueenElizabeth.

In public remarks, Mr.Jaitley has contrasted India’sopening up with the protec-tionist direction of much ofthe rest of the world, thoughinsisting that Brexit was notpart of this protectionistdrive, and that Britain waseager to strengthen trade re-lations with India andbeyond.

India pushes for Mallya’s extraditionTheresa May meets Jaitley, stresses India-U.K. relations on an upward pathVidya Ram

LONDON

Diplomatic talks: British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson,left, and International Trade Secretary Liam Fox, with FinanceMinister Arun Jaitley at the Foreign Oice in London. AFP

The Ministry of Environ-ment and Forests and Cli-mate Change (MoEF&CC)has urged the Ministry of Ex-ternal Affairs to revoke thevisas of BBC’s South Asiacorrespondent Justin Row-latt and his crew, and pre-vent “their further entryinto India, for a period [of ]not less than five years.”

An office memorandumissued by Vaibhav C. Ma-thur, Assistant Inspector-General of Forest, NationalTiger Conservation Author-ity (NTCA), on February 27also advised the wildlifewing of the Ministry to “dis-allow filming permission tothe BBC in any protectedareas of the country for aperiod of five years.”

Despite attempts to con-tact the international broad-caster, no reaction from theBBC could be obtained.

The move came in thewake of Mr. Rowlatt’s docu-mentary, “One World:Killing for Conservation”,which explored the anti-

poaching strategy adoptedby the guards of the Kazir-anga Tiger Reserve (KTR) inAssam while protecting theone-horned Indian Rhino.

The documentary amongother things referred to“dark secrets” of conserva-tion at KTR and said theforest guards had beengiven powers “to shoot andkill” poachers. It also statedthat more people werekilled by guards than rhinosby poachers at the reserve.

The NTCA, in its memor-andum, a copy of which iswith The Hindu, alleged thatthe violations by the journ-alist involved “filming aftersunset,” dishonouring theundertaking provided alongwith “deviating from the ori-ginal synopsis submitted toMEA and its authority.”

“Not screening the docu-mentary before a committeeof the (MoEF&CC) whichwould have ensured thatGovt policies vis-à-vis wild-life conservation are notprojected in a distortedmanner,” was listed amongthe violations.

MoEF seeks ive-yearban on BBC crew

Move in the wake of docu on rhino

Shiv Sahay Singh

Kolkata

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NEWS

Make Naga Accordpublic, demands RahulIMPHAL

Congress vice-presidentRahul Gandhi on Tuesdaydemanded that the contentsof the Naga Accord, signedby Prime Minister NarendraModi, should be made public.He asked “Why are theManipuri people being kept inthe dark on its contents?” PTI

IN BRIEF

‘Farmers in Rajasthan notforced to repay loans’JAIPUR

No farmer has been forced torepay agricultural loans, and₹1,992 crore in loans weredisbursed during the rabiseason in Rajasthan,Cooperative Minister AjaySingh Kilak said on Tuesday.The loan disbursement wouldbe on till March 31, he added.

Hurl shoes at PM’s photo,says Bihar MinisterPATNA

A Bihar Minister has kicked upa controversy by asking acrowd at a programme toprotest against demonet-isation by hitting thephotograph of Prime MinisterNarendra Modi with shoes.The BJP wants the Ministersacked. PTI

Akhilesh has undoneMulayam’s work: RajnathBALLIA

Uttar Pradesh Chief MinisterAkhilesh Yadav has undonethe work of his father and SPpatriarch Mulayam SinghYadav by joining hands withthe Congress in the UttarPradesh polls, Union HomeMinister Rajnath Singh said onTuesday. PTI

The most politically surpris-ing act during the Uttar Pra-desh Assembly elections hasbeen the coming together ofthe Samajwadi Party and itserstwhile rival, the Congress,in an alliance that is as mucha work in progress as anymarriage of convenience canbe.

But in Varanasi, PrimeMinister Narendra Modi’sLok Sabha constituency, theSP and the Congress havetried to forge an almost defi-ant sense of unity in the faceof a common adversary, un-like the case elsewhere in theState.

‘Centre to blame’In Pindra, one of the six As-sembly segments making upthe Lok Sabha constituency,Ajay Rai, the Congress can-didate, is at pains to explainthat it is the Centre, and notthe State government, that is

to blame for his arrest underthe National Security Acttwo years ago.

Following the controversyover a ban on the immersionof Ganesha idols in theGanga in Varanasi in 2015,

Mr. Rai was jailed by theState government. The Alla-habad High Court laterquashed the imposition ofthe dreaded NSA on him. “Ican say it with utmost con-fidence that it was the

Centre, especially HomeMinister Rajnath Singh, whocompelled the State govern-ment to arrest me,” he says.

Despite assertions that theCentre has very little to dowith law and order in aState, Mr. Rai sticks to hisstand. His chances of win-ning are bright as he is nothemmed in by party affili-ations (he had been an MLAfrom the SP, had been withthe BJP briefly and laterjoined the Congress).“Bhaiyya doesn’t need aparty; he won as an Inde-pendent too,” an aide says toquestions about the alli-ance’s durability.

The case of Samad Ansari,SP MLA-turned-Congresscandidate from Varanasi(North), an urban seat, iseven more curious. Whenthe seat was tipped to go tothe Congress, Mr. Ansari wasmade to join the party andhe filed nominations on itssymbol.

At his home in Varanasi,flags of both parties flutter inthe light breeze and the can-didate’s sales pitch factors inhis party switch. “This is acandidacy of the alliance,and you people know who Iam,” he says plainly to acrowd of waiting supporters.

Fostering solidarityRashtriya Janata Dal chiefLalu Yadav is campaigningfor these two candidates, anattempt to foster a Bihar-likesolidarity among unlikelypartners. For the alliance,the situation on the groundis hardly as confusing as itwas for the seats in Amethiand Rae Bareli, where therewere “friendly” fightsbetween the partners.

The immediacy of thechallenge posed by PrimeMinister Narendra Modi onhis home turf has fostered asolidarity among the SP andthe Congress, historynotwithstanding.

SP, Cong. ind synergy in VaranasiIt’s almost a deiant stand by the alliance partners, unlike the case in other parts of the State

Ajay Rai. NISTULA HEBBAR

Nistula Hebbar

VARANASI

The BJP on Tuesday soughtan inquiry by the ElectionCommission, alleging unau-thorised deletion of namesfrom the electoral rollsahead of the Assembly elec-tions in Uttar Pradesh.

A delegation led by UnionMinister of State for Parlia-mentary Affairs Mukhtar Ab-bas Naqvi submitted amemorandum to the Com-mission, and requested thatall voters with verifiedelector photo identity cardsbe allowed to exercise theirfranchise in the final twophases.

BJP leaders SudhanshuTrivedi, Sambit Patra, BalbirPunj and Om Pathak were inthe delegation.

The memorandum said:

“The BJP has received com-plaints from almost everyAssembly constituency thatholders of valid voter iden-tity cards were turned awayas their names were deletedwithout following the dueprocess laid down by rulesprescribed by theCommission.”

The BJP leaders requestedthe Commission to fix re-sponsibility for the lapsesand prosecute officials.

Probe deletion ofvoter names: BJPParty wants EC to hold an inquiry


NEW DELHI

Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi

On amission: Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad is garlanded during an electionmeeting of the SP-Congress alliance atGabhiran village in Jaunpur on Tuesday. PTI

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Lalu barnstorms

UNC to oppose Congressin Manipur Assembly pollIMPHAL

The United Naga Council(UNC), which has beenspearheading a blockadealong two national highwaysin Manipur since November 1,has said it would opposeCongress in the Assemblyelection to be held on March4 and 8. PTI

The armies of India andOman are scheduled to con-duct their second bilateralexercise, Al Nagah-II 2017, inMarch with a focus oncounter-terrorism.

India has, of late, beendeepening its defence co-operation with the region.The Chief of the Naval Staff,Admiral Sunil Lanba, is on atour of Oman and the UAE to“explore new avenues fornaval cooperation”.

Hill rangesThe Army said in a statementthat the exercise would beheld in the DhauladharRanges at Bakloh in Hi-machal Pradesh from March6 to 19.

Sixty troops from the twosides will participate.

“The aim of the exercise is

to build and promote bilat-eral Army-to-Army relationsand enhance interoperabil-ity while exchanging skillsand experiences betweenthe Indian Army and theRoyal Army of Oman,” thestatement said.

Various modulesAn added aim, the statementsaid, is to enhance know-ledge of each other’s militaryprocedures qualitatively,thus increasing the scope for“interoperability and betterresponsiveness to a commonthreat”.

The 14-day exercise will beconducted in modules.

The Army said the vast ex-perience and expertisegained by the Indian troopsthrough counter-insurgencyoperations held “special im-portance to the OmanArmy”.

In preparation for the ex-ercise, the Indian team hasundergone extensive train-ing in rock climbing andslithering and counter-ter-rorism or low-intensity con-flict operations, in additionto tactical drills of close cor-don and house interventiondrills.

India and Oman alreadyhave extensive cooperationin the maritime domain.

The navies of the twocountries have been holdingthe bilateral maritime exer-cises called ‘Naseem Al Bahr’since 1993.

In addition, the IndianNavy has been cooperatingwith its UAE and Omancounterparts in training, op-erational interactions and ex-change of “white shippinginformation” with the helpof a joint cooperationcommittee.

Plan to enhance interoperability and exchange skills


NEW DELHI

India, Oman to hold

counter-terror exercisesSipah’s bright mustard fieldsappear completely in syncwith the political mood ofthe village. Cutting past itsdusty roads, the colour yel-low becomes even more ap-parent — vivid yellowscarves, banners, flags andposters indicate the pres-ence of the Suheldev Bhar-atiya Samaj Party (SBSP).

The village, nestled in theZahoorabad constituency inGhazipur, less than 20 kmfrom the banks of the Ganga,is in the heart of the Yadav-Muslim-Bhumihar belt ofeastern Uttar Pradesh. How-ever, the talking point here isnot any social alliance butthe political significance ofthe Rajbhars. The com-munity is one of the 17 mostbackward castes that havebeen for long demanding in-clusion in the ScheduledCaste category.

At a crossing in Sipah,around a dozen Rajbharshave gathered, some of themtired after the day’s cam-paigning. There is no doubtabout their political andelectoral inclination — theyare strongly behind OmPrakash Rajbhar, presidentof the SBSP, which draws itsstrength from the Rajbhars.

It’s about pride“Om Prakash Rajbhar ismaking our presence felt.We are also getting the hon-our due to him. Before hismovement, no party wasteda second on us,” says youngRajesh Rajbhar, a small-timefarmer, like many otherpeople of his caste in Sipah.If Rajbhars lavish praise onOm Prakash Rajbhar for el-evating the asmita (pride) ofthe community and popular-ising their icon Suheldev,they are also thankful to theNarendra Modi governmentfor its outreach.

After coming to power,the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) government has takenconcerted steps to popular-ise Suheldev. If BJP chief

Amit Shah unveiled a statueof Suheldev in Bahraich, theparty installed his frame inits gallery at its headquartersin Lucknow. Last year, theBJP went against conventionand started a new superfasttrain — the Suhaildev Ex-press — named after the me-dieval warrior-king, a legendamong Rajbhars.

The triweekly service cov-ers the breadth of India’smost populous State — fromGhazipur in Purvanchal toAnand Vihar in Delhi. TheBJP-Rashtriya SwayamsevakSangh (RSS) have, over theyears, aggressively tried toportray Suheldev as aHindutva warrior whostopped the march of theMuslim invader Ghazi Mian,a nephew of MahmudGhaznavi, in Bahraich, andhalted Islamisation of the re-gion. In this village, too,Suheldev is hailed as a “na-tional hero” who kept out in-vaders. Several respondentsspoke with a communalundertone.

Affinity for BJPThe affinity of the Rajbharstowards the BJP also stemsfrom that fact that the partyis fighting the elections in analliance with the SBSP. It isexpected to further push theBJP’s outreach among non-Yadav backwardcommunities.

As part of its deal with theBJP, the SBSP is fighting eightseats spread across easternU.P. — Mau, Bansdih,Chaudauli, Zakania,Shahganj, Mehnagar,Ramkola and Zahoorabad inGhazipur, where OmPrakash Rajbhar is himselfcontesting. However, the BJPhopes to gain across the beltas an understanding withthe SBSP has earned it acommanding presenceamong the Rajbhars.

Om Prakash Rajbhar ishimself travelling across thebelt with Amit Shah to drawin his community’s people.Though estimated to bearound 2% of the State’spopulation, the Rajbhars areconcentrated is some dis-tricts of east U.P., having thepotential to impact results.While Om Prakash has in thepast claimed that his com-munity is effective in no lessthan 70 seats, his aide Pat-tiram Rajbhar, says the Ra-jbhar vote is spread across147 constituencies. “In everyconstituency, there are10,000 to 80,000 Rajbhars,”says Pattiram, adding thatthe vote was being “trans-ferred” to the BJP in fullstrength.

In Zahoorabad, OmPrakash is battling againstthe Bahujan Samaj Party’s(BSP) Kalicharan Rajbhar,former MLA and runner-up

last time, and the SamajwadiParty’s (SP) MahendraChauhan, a candidate fromthe Noniya backward caste.In Sipah, Om Prakash is theclear favourite among mem-bers of his community.

Whereas Sipah stronglybacks its community leader,while travelling across Ballia,Azamgarh, Mau andGhazipur districts, substan-tial conversion of the Ra-jbhar vote towards the BJPcould be found. In someareas, however, they ap-peared split between the SPand the BSP as well, espe-cially if they fielded candid-ates from the community.

Credibility questionMoti Chand Rajbhar, an ally-turned-foe of Om Prakash,however, says the latter haslost credibility in his com-munity due to his flip-flopsand would not be able to en-sure the “full Rajbhar vote”to the BJP.

“No intelligent Rajbharlikes him,” says Moti Chand,who now works for the SP inBallia’s Rasra seat. “OmPrakash Rajbhar struck adeal with the BJP for his owngreed. He has sold the com-munity’s future for a fewbucks. ” He had merged hisoutfit, the Jai SuheldevParty, with Om Prakash’sBSP to form the SBSP, butthe two soon parted waysover differences.

In 2002, after leaving theBahujan Samaj Party, OmPrakash Rajbhar, who has inthe past claimed to be a des-cendant of Suheldev, formedthe SBSP. In 2012, it con-tested 52 seats and securedover 4.7 lakh total votes[5.06% votes in the seats itfought] but failed to open itsscore. Mr. Rajbhar himselfstood third from Zahoora-bad, despite winning a de-cent 48,865 votes.

Another issue that stirsthe Rajbhar is the talk ofDalit status. The communityis financially, socially andeducationally among themost backward.

Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party is waving its lag for the BJP in eastern U.P.

Omar Rashid

GHAZPUR/BALLIA/MAU

Political play:Members of the Rajbhar community at Sipah inthe Zahoorabad constituency of Ghazipur. RAJEEV BHATT

Yellow is the new safron here

He fell in love with an In-dian girl through the socialmedia, came to India tomarry her, had a child withher and now he is about tobe deported back to hiscountry Pakistan.

Akbar Durani, 31, hailingfrom Okhri in the Hydera-bad province of Pakistan,has been brought herefrom Madhya Pradesh fordeportation to his homecountry for overstaying inIndia in violation of visanorms.

“I never thought that Iwould be forced to separ-ate from my family aftersettling down in India. It isa tsunami in my life,” hesaid.

Pakistaniman facesdeportationPress Trust of India

Attari (Punjab)

In a bid to regulate thou-sands of private colleges of-fering degrees in educa-tion, the government isscrutinising signed affi-davits of 8,500 such col-leges with details about thecourses offered by them.

The affidavits have beensubmitted in response tothe Ministry of Human Re-source Development’s de-mand for details to assessthe quality on offer inthese institutions.

Details sought includeinformation on the staffstrength, qualifications offaculty members, numberof students, details of de-grees awarded and feestructure, etc., a top Min-istry source said. There areanother 2,500-odd col-leges that have not yet re-sponded to the Ministry’sdemand for such affidavits.

“Notices are being sentto all these institutions tosend the details or face ac-tion,” said a highly placedsource in the Ministry.

The step has come afterlarge-scale complaints thatsub-standard, privateteacher-training collegeshad come up to offer B.Edand M.Ed courses. Therewere also allegations thatthe degrees were some-times literally sold formoney. Since such coursesprovide an army of teach-ers for schools across thecountry, the quality ofschool education dependsto a great extent on thequality of teachers.

“There are governmentinstitutions that are doing afine job. But we need to en-sure that private collegesdo a decent job. Poor qual-ity of teachers would meanit would become im-possible to lift educationquality in schools acrossIndia,” an official said.

As per NGO Pratham’sAnnual Status of EducationReport, 2015, the propor-tion of Class 8 studentswho could solve a three-di-git by one-digit divisionproblem was 43.3% in2016.

Private B.Ed.collegesunder lensVikas Pathak

NEW DELHI

The Madras High CourtBench here on Tuesday sub-jected actor Dhanush tophysical examination by agovernment doctor to verifywhether he had certain vis-ible identification marks onhis body, as mentioned byan elderly couple who hadinitiated legal proceedings,claiming that he was theirbiological son.

After the actor appearedbefore Justice G. Chock-alingam, the judge directedthe Registrar ( Judicial) ofthe High Court Bench, G. Il-angovan, to make arrange-ments for verification of theidentification marks by agovernment doctor not be-low the rank of Senior CivilSurgeon.

The doctor was directedto verify whether the actorhad a mole on his left collarbone and a scar on his leftforearm, as mentioned in

the school transfer certific-ate of K. Kalaichelvan, theson of Melur-based coupleR. Kathiresan (65) and K.Meenakshi (53), who hadfiled a maintenance caseagainst the actor at a lowercourt in November last.

The physician was alsoordered to issue a certificatestating “whether it is pos-sible to erase the aboveidentification marks fromthe body of the above saidperson and if possible,whether any traces are avail-able for the removal of theidentification marks fromthe body of the petitioner.”

Dhanush to undergophysical examination

An elderly couple claim he is their son

Mohamed Imranullah S.

MADURAI

Dhanush

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WORLD

‘New Syria sanctionswould hamper talks’BISHKEK

Russian President VladimirPutin on Tuesday saidMoscow opposed any newsanctions against the Syrianleadership as they wouldundermine peace efforts toend the civil war. Moscow ispreparing to veto a draftresolution that would imposesanctions on Damascus. AFP

ELSEWHERE

Civilians flee fighting,privation in west MosulMOSUL

Hundreds of civilians fledthrough the desert onTuesday to escape fightingand privation in Mosul,joining thousands of otherswho left their homes asconditions worsen in the city'swest. Iraqi forces launched amajor push on February 19 torecapture the west of the cityfrom the Islamic State jihadistgroup, retaking the airportand then advancing north. AFP

160 killed in Myanmarclashes over 3 monthsNAYPYIDAW

At least 160 people have diedin three months of clashesbetween the military andethnic armed groups inMyanmar’s Shan State, theArmy said on Tuesday amidefforts to revive flaggingpeace talks. More than20,000 people have beendisplaced. The unrest has alsospilled over into neighbouringKachin State. AFP

Israel begins evacuatingnine settler homesWEST BANK

Israeli forces beganevacuating nine homes in theWest Bank settlement of Ofraon Tuesday, following aSupreme Court decision thatruled they were built onprivate Palestinian land.Dozens of settlers and theirsupporters were protestingon the rooftops as militaryand police forces handed theevacuation orders to settlerleaders and asked them tocooperate. AP

Five Islamist militants weresentenced to death on Tues-day by a special court inBangladesh for murdering aJapanese citizen in 2015.

The convicts are the mem-bers of the banned outfitJama’atul MujahideenBangladesh ( JMB), which or-chestrated a string of explo-sions in 63 Bangladesh dis-tricts in 2005. The JMB waslater outlawed.

The Islamic State (IS) hadclaimed responsibility forKunio Hoshi’s murder in Oc-tober 2015, but the govern-ment has repeatedly said theWest Asia-based terroristgroup has no presence inBangladesh.

Masked assailants ridingmotorcycles shot Hoshi sev-eral times when he washeading to his farm in anorthern district. The 66year-old had been living inBangladesh for a year in arented house in Rangpurtown, and was engaged infarming.

The killing, which madeinternational news head-lines, was similar to that ofthe murder of an Italian aidworker, Cesare Tavella, 50,in Dhaka’s Gulshan diplo-matic area barely a week be-fore Hoshi was killed. The IShad claimed responsibilityfor Tavella’s murder as well.The case is still in court.

Later, on July 1, 2016, Is-lamist militants killed nineItalians, seven Japanese, one

Indian and three Banglade-shis at the Holey ArtisanBakery in Dhaka’s Gulshanarea.

While announcing the ver-dict, the judge of the specialcourt in Rangpur observedthat Hoshi’s murder was“aimed at destabilising thecountry and hurting the eco-nomy”. “It was a premedit-ated murder,” the judge said.

He acquitted an accusedas charges brought against

him were not proved. All thefive convicts are in custody.Two other accused in thecase died in “gunfights” withlaw enforcers.

Among those sentencedwas Masud Rana, the JMB’s24-year-old area chief. Pro-secutors say he fired the fatalshot at Hoshi.

Plan to appealA defence lawyer said thefive convicts were disappoin-ted with the verdict andwould appeal to a highercourt.

Hoshi first visitedBangladesh in 2011. Later hedecided to live permanentlyin Rangpur. Since foreign cit-izens cannot remain inBangladesh for more thanthree months at a stretchwithout a work permit, heleft and re-entered the coun-try to renew his visa status,visiting China and, most re-cently, India.

Many locals said Hoshihad converted to Islam. Hewas later buried in a Muslimgraveyard in the town.

Bangladesh Islamists to hangFive members of the banned JMB found guilty of killing Japanese Kunio Hoshi

To the gallows?:One of the convicted Islamist militants at thecourt in Rangpur, Bangladesh, on Tuesday. AFP

Haroon Habib

Dhaka

Terming the murder of In-dian engineer SrinivasKuchibhotla “disturbing”,White House Press SecretarySean Spicer said on Mondaythat President DonaldTrump is dedicated to pre-serving the right to religiousfreedom of all Americans.

The safety of Indians inAmerica will also feature inForeign Secretary SJaishankar’s discussionswith several U.S inter-locutors he would be meet-ing here over the next threedays. Mr. Jaishankar willmeet several White Houseand State Department offi-cials, and will explore theoptions of a possible visit byPrime Minister NarendraModi to the U.S in the com-ing months, according to In-dian diplomatic sources.

A State Department offi-cial told The Hindu that heexpected Mr. Jaishankar to

propose news steps in bilat-eral relations, accounting forMr. Trump’s priorities. Theofficial said the visit wouldbe significant in terms of set-ting the contours of India’sengagement with Americaunder Mr. Trump. Mr.

Trump has not yet ap-pointed deputy and assist-ant secretaries of State whodrive policy. Immigration,H-1B visas and safety of Indi-ans have been pushed to theforeground due to recent de-velopments, but Mr.Jaishankar’s discussions

with U.S officials are also ex-pected to cover India’s rolein Afghanistan and the ex-tent of India-U.S cooperationin the Pacific, among otherissues.

Mr. Spicer made a passingmention of the attack inKansas that killed Kuchib-hotla and injured his friendAlok Madasani while dis-cussing the recurring incid-ents of vandalism targetingthe Jewish community. “Iwanted to note the Presid-ent continues to be deeplydisappointed and concernedby the reports of furthervandalism at Jewish com-munity,” he said, noting thatsuch incidents had been re-ported from around thecountry. “The Presidentcontinues to condemn theseand any other form of anti-Semitic and hateful acts inthe strongest terms... earlyreports out of Kansas areequally disturbing,” Mr.Spicer added.

Trump will strive to protect religious freedom of all: Oicial

Varghese K. George

Washington

Sean Spicer

Kuchibhotla’s murder hasWhite House disturbed

Sri Lankan Foreign MinisterMangala Samaraweera onTuesday attributed to “ex-tremist forces” the perceiveddelay on the part of the SriLankan government in mov-ing ahead with reconciliat-ory efforts. The extremists,he addded, were creatingroadblocks for narrow polit-ical gains.

Speaking at the 34th ses-sion of the United NationsHuman Rights Council inGeneva, the Minister said:“While stubbornly refusingto acknowledge any of thefar-reaching gains we havemade in the last two years,they argue that we haveeither done too much or toolittle.”

Rights abusesSri Lanka made several com-mitments to the UN body inSeptember 2015, when it co-sponsored a consensus resol-ution calling for a crediblejudicial process to probe al-leged rights abuses.

However, sections of SriLankan society, particularlythose living in the north andeast, have been dissatisfiedwith the pace of governmentinitiatives.

Outlining the steps takenby the government on truth,reconciliation, accountabil-ity and non-recurrence — the“four-pillar approach” that

Sri Lanka has committed to— Mr. Samaraweera told theCouncil that the draft legisla-tion on the Truth-SeekingCommission would bepresented to the Cabinet ofMinisters within the nexttwo months.

International standardsHe noted that the govern-ment was progressing withthe formulation of the legalframework of the proposedCounter Terrorism Act.

Following criticism overthe draft legislation, the gov-ernment is said to be fine-tuning it to meet interna-tional standards.

Pointing to work done ondrafting the new Constitu-

tion, the Foreign Ministersaid six sub-committeestasked with deliberating sub-jects such as fundamentalrights, judiciary, law and or-der, public finance, publicservice, and centre-peri-phery relations had handedover their reports to the Con-stitutional Assembly.

Tripartite talksDespite that, the reports areyet to be taken up for parlia-mentary debate, promptingPresident Maithripala Siris-ena to initiate tripartite talkswith Prime Minister RanilWickremesinghe and Leaderof Opposition R.Sampanthan, and expeditethe Constitution-making pro-cess. Mr. Samaraweera hadearlier said the governmentwould ask for more time totake its efforts forward.

Sri Lanka is expected topush for a “technicalrollover” of the 2015 resolu-tion in order to buy moretime to fulfil its promises toits people, seven years afterthe country’s bloody civilwar ended.

The Foreign Minister’s re-marks in Geneva come evenas hundreds of people in theisland nation’s north andeast are protesting for theirland to be released by theArmy, and for a convincingresponse from the govern-ment on thousands of disap-peared persons.

Extremist forces delayingreconciliation: Sri LankaMinister says govt. has made far-reaching gains in two years

Meera Srinivasan

Colombo

ForeignMinister MangalaSamaraweera spoke at asession of the UNHRCin Geneva. FILE PHOTO

Two women arrested forthe nerve agent assassina-tion of Kim Jong-nam are tobe charged with hismurder, Malaysia said onTuesday, as North Koreasent a senior diplomat toseek the return of thebody.

The spectacular killingof Kim Jong-un’s half-brother with VX, a fast-act-ing poison developed forwarfare, sparked an inter-national probe and luridstories of Pyongyang’s ColdWar-style tradecraft.

South Korea says its isol-ated neighbour was behindthe assassination andclaims the North’s agentsengaged two outsiders tocarry out the murder.“They will be charged incourt under Section 302[murder] of the penalcode,” Attorney GeneralMohamed Apandi Ali toldAFP, referring to the twosuspects. The women,from Indonesia and Viet-nam, will appear in courton Wednesday.

If convicted, they couldface death by hanging.

Kim, a well-travelledpolyglot who fell out of fa-vour at home after abotched 2001 attempt toget into Japan on a falsepassport, died less than 20minutes after he was setupon at the Kuala LumpurInternational Airport onFebruary 13.

Kim death:2 women tobe chargedAgence France-Presse

Kuala Lumpur

Drawing ire: This photo of U.S. President Donald Trump’s adviser Kellyanne Conway (left),clicked at the Oval Oice onMonday, has sparked an online debate about decorum in theWhiteHouse. Many have accusedMs. Conway of lacking respect for the oice of the President. AFP


Taking it easy

A meeting between U.S.President Donald Trumpand his Chinese counterpartXi Jinping could be held asearly as May.

The hopes for the summitwere raised following high-level talks between China’stop diplomat Yang Jiechiand a string of senior offi-cials from the Trump ad-ministration. Mr. Yang alsocalled on Mr. Trump onMonday.

China is hosting a summitin May on its Belt and RoadInitiative (BRI), but it was

not yet clear whether theproposed presidential sum-mit would be linked withthis mega-event.

“This time, State Coun-cilor Yang’s trip to theUnited States was directedtowards a meeting betweenPresident Xi and PresidentTrump, maybe even beforeMay. Of course, if Trumpjoins the May summit [onthe Belt and Road], hewould be very welcome,”Wang Yiwei, Professor at theSchool of International Rela-tions at Renmin University,told The Hindu.

The Hong Kong-based

daily South China MorningPost has quoted Wu Xinbo,director of the Centre forAmerican Studies at FudanUniversity, as saying that thesummit between Mr. Xi andMr. Trump could take place“no later than May”.

A Xinhua report pub-lished on Tuesday said Mr.Yang called on Mr. Trump.U.S. Vice-President MikePence and Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner werealso at the meeting.

The Chinese official’sWashington visit follows atelephonic conversationbetween President Xi and

President Trump earlier thismonth, triggering a string ofhigh-level contacts. ChineseForeign Minister Wang Yimet U.S. Secretary of StateRex Tillerson at the G20talks in Bonn, Germany. Mr.Yang also spoke to Mr.Tillerson last week.

The deterioration of thesecurity situation on theKorean Peninsula also ap-pears to have acquired toppriority in Sino-U.S. ties.

“The North Korean issuewas another important partof Councillor Yang’s visit,”said Prof. Wang of RenminUniversity.

Trump, Xi Jinping could meet as early as MayAtul Aneja

Beijing

A wheelbarrow saved hislife.

Sprawled across it,Babagana felt every bump,moaning in pain from fourbullet wounds. Covered inhis blood, his pregnant wifehelped roll him across theNigerian countryside to ahospital.

Somehow, Babagana sur-vived the makeshift ambu-lance ride. More than 80men from his village hadbeen shot to death, he said,all of them forced to strip tothe waist and lie face down.The gunmen then burnedtheir small farming villagebefore speeding away.

The attack fit the patternof rampages by Boko Haramterrorist group. ButBabagana and multiple wit-nesses to the attack in June,as well as another one daysbefore in a neighbouring vil-lage, say the massacres werecarried out by the Nigerianmilitary.

In recent months, the Ni-gerian military has madegreat headway in its waragainst Boko Haram.

But reports of civilianmassacres have emerged inrecent weeks as residents

from areas previously sealedoff by Boko Haram start tostream out.

The Nigerian army has along record of human rightsabuses. In 2013, soldiersburned homes and openedfire in the village of Baga,killing as many as 200people, survivors said.

“We are guided by rulesand guided by our transpar-ency of operations,” saidBrig. Gen. Rabe Abubakar,the director of defence in-formation for the Nigerianmilitary. He denied that themilitary was responsible forthe massacres.

The military has detained

children and infants forweeks at a time after theirfamilies have escaped orbeen freed from BokoHaram territory. Huge de-tention centres have beenset up to hold families untilcivilians with perceived sym-pathies for Boko Haram canbe weeded out. Last month,the Nigerian military mis-takenly bombed a displacedpersons camp, killing at least90 civilians.

Humanitarian workers forthe UN said they had heardrepeated complaints from ci-vilians that the military hadbeen evacuating villages andburning them. NYT

Nigerian army accusedof slaughtering civiliansClaims made by residents of former Boko Haram territories

Dionne Searcey

Maiduguri

Not always a liberator: A ile photo of a soldier in the town ofGwoza. The Nigerian army has a history of rights abuses. AP

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NIFTY 50

PRICE CHANGE

ACC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1411.50. . . . . . . -6.00

Adani Ports . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301.75. . . . . . . . . 5.10

Ambuja Cements . . . . 229.35. . . . . . . -0.55

Asian Paints . . . . . . . . . . . . 1024.20. . . . . . .22.25

Aurobindo Pharma . 677.20. . . . . . . -2.15

Axis Bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506.65. . . . . . . -2.30

Bajaj Auto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2755.90. . . . . -39.15

Bank of Baroda . . . . . . . 165.30. . . . . . . . . 0.90

Bharti Airtel . . . . . . . . . . . 365.15. . . . . . . . . 9.45

BHEL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162.45. . . . . . . . . 9.65

Bosch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21583.25. . . . . -62.50

BPCL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 670.05. . . . . -37.65

Cipla. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583.70. . . . . . . -1.55

Coal India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321.90. . . . . . . -8.05

Dr Reddys Lab . . . . . . . . 2849.95. . . . . . . -7.05

Eicher Motors . . . . . . . . . 24130.10. . . -207.25

GAIL (India) . . . . . . . . . . . . 516.90. . . . . . . . . 1.60

Grasim Ind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 990.20. . . . . -28.15

HCL Tech. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 840.10. . . . . . . . . 0.15

HDFC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1370.05. . . . . . . -5.65

HDFC Bank. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1390.10. . . . . . . -3.50

Hero MotoCorp. . . . . . . 3138.10. . . . . -37.80

Hindalco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184.35. . . . . . . . . 3.60

Hind Unilever . . . . . . . . . 865.90. . . . . . . -0.55

ICICI Bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276.35. . . . . . . -2.50

Idea Cellular . . . . . . . . . . . 115.85. . . . . . . . . 1.30

IndusInd Bank . . . . . . . . 1312.60. . . . . . . -6.70

Bharti Infratel . . . . . . . . 284.25. . . . . . . -3.90

Infosys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1012.40. . . . . . . . . 0.00

ITC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262.20. . . . . . . -2.40

Kotak Bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . 802.10. . . . . . . . . 1.60

L&T . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1469.20. . . . . . . . . 3.35

Lupin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1474.10. . . . . . .10.00

M&M . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1312.15. . . . . . .18.30

Maurti Suzuki . . . . . . . . . 5922.50. . . . . -29.00

NTPC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162.95. . . . . . . -2.45

ONGC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193.55. . . . . . . -1.15

PowerGrid Corp . . . . . . 192.15. . . . . . . -0.60

Reliance Ind. . . . . . . . . . . . 1238.05. . . . . . . -0.85

State Bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269.20. . . . . . . . . 0.95

Sun Pharma . . . . . . . . . . . . 679.00. . . . . . . . . 4.55

Tata Motors . . . . . . . . . . . . 456.75. . . . . . . -1.05

Tata Motors DVR . . . . 276.00. . . . . . . -1.15

Tata Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82.60. . . . . . . -0.10

Tata Steel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482.70. . . . . . . . . 2.10

TCS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2466.25. . . . . -23.60

Tech Mahindra . . . . . . . . 499.40. . . . . . . -0.40

UltraTech Cement . . 3774.55. . . . . . .37.35

Wipro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488.80. . . . . . . -0.95

YES Bank. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1452.70. . . . . . .30.80

Zee Entertainment . 509.45. . . . . . . . . 5.65

EXCHANGE RATESIndicative direct rates in rupees a unit except yen at4 p.m. on February 28

CURRENCY TT BUY TT SELL

US Dollar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . 66.49. . . . . . . 66.81

Euro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . 70.46. . . . . . . 70.80

British Pound. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . 82.66. . . . . . . 83.06

Japanese Yen (100) . . .. . 59.23. . . . . . . 59.52

Chinese Yuan . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . .9.68. . . . . . . . . 9.73

Swiss Franc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . 66.14. . . . . . . 66.47

Singapore Dollar . . . . . . . .. . 47.50. . . . . . . 47.75

Canadian Dollar . . . . . . . . . .. . 50.46. . . . . . . 50.70

Malaysian Ringitt . . . . . . .. . 14.96. . . . . . . 15.05

Source:Indian Bank

BULLION RATES CHENNAI

February 28 rates in rupees with previous rates inparentheses

Bar Silver (1 kg) .. . . . . . . . 44,085. . (44,140)

Retail (1 g) . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . 47.10. . . . (47.20)

24 ct gold (10 g). . . . . . . . 30,010. . (30,010)

22 ct gold (1 g) . .. . . . . . . . . . 2,851. . . . (2,851)

Tata Sons has formally an-nounced that it has reachedreached an agreement withNTT DoCoMo of Japan, itsjoint venture partner in TataTeleservices Ltd., for an out-of-court settlement of theirdispute.

“In the larger national in-terest of preserving a fair in-vestment environment in In-dia, we have reached anagreement with NTTDoCoMo on a joint approachto enable enforcement of theJune 22, 2016, London Courtof International Arbitration(LCIA) award,” a releasesaid.

“As a gesture of good faithand in accordance with theTata group’s long-standingrecord of adherence to con-tractual commitments that ithas always enjoyed both inIndia and abroad, the boardof Tata Sons has decided towithdraw its objections tothe enforcement of theaward in India,” the releaseadded.

The two parties havejointly applied to the DelhiHigh Court, requesting thatit accept their agreed termsof settlement, subject tosuch further orders as theCourt sees fit.

The settlement terms, ifapproved by the Delhi HighCourt, would clear the wayfor the $1.18 billion alreadydeposited by Tata Sons withthe Delhi High Court to bepaid to NTT DoCoMo, the re-lease said. It would also al-low DoCoMo to transfer itsshares in Tata TeleservicesLimited.

“As part of this joint ap-plication, and in anticipationof the matter being finallyresolved in India, DoCoMohas agreed to suspend its re-lated enforcement proceed-

ings in the United Kingdomand the United States for aperiod of time,” the releasesaid.

The move for an amicableresolution of the issue hasbeen hailed by C. Sivasank-aran, of the Sterling Group,who had also invested in theshares of Tata Teleservices.

“I welcome the settle-ment,” Mr. Sivasankaransaid. “I am happy. And, I amlooking forward that this willpave the way for Tata Sonsto have a similar agreementwith other shareholderswho have pledged theirshares with banks. Thismove will do a lot of good,”he said.

Exit optionIn 2009, DoCoMo acquired26.5% stake in Tata Teleser-vices. The two also agreedon a clause at that time thatallowed the Japanese firm to

exit the venture at a pre-de-termined minimum price.The Reserve Bank of India,however, felt that such anexit could happen only atfair market value in tunewith an amended rule in2013.

Since then, the disputebetween the two has be-come a legal war. TheDoCoMo dispute and the al-leged favours shown to Mr.Sivasankaran have all be-come a subject matter of ahigh-voltage spat betweenthe former chairman of TataSons Cyrus Mistry and RatanTata.

Eventually, it culminatedin the ouster of Mr. Mistry asthe chairman of Tata Sons.Much water has flowed sincethen, and the latest accordwith DoCoMo comes withindays of N. Chandrasekarantaking over as the new chair-man of Tata Sons.

Tata, DoCoMo reachout-of-court pactAgreement could result in $1.18 bn. being paid to DoCoMo

K.T. Jagannathan

CHENNAI

In good faith: The two parties have jointly applied to the DelhiHC to accept their agreed terms of settlement. REUTERS

market watch

28-02-2017 %

CHANGE

Sensex dddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd 28,743 dd -0.24

US Dollar dddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd66.69 dddd0.03

Goldddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd 30,150 dddd0.08

Brent oil ddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd55.44 dd -1.35

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)on Tuesday cut its growth projectionfor India in 2016-17 to 7% from the 7.4%it had projected last year.

The OECD, in its Economic Surveyof India 2017 report, forecast a growthrate of 7.3% for 2017-18 and 7.7% for2018-19.

“We all recognise that India hasbeen a star performer in gloomy timesfor the world economy,” Angel Gurría,Secretary-General, OECD said duringthe release of the report. “We launchabout 25 OECD Economic Surveysevery year, and it is not often that I getto announce growth figures of 7%.This is more than double the currentglobal growth figure, and four timesthe OECD average. At the same time,inflation, the current account deficit,and the central government deficithave all been brought down in the pastfew years.”

Mr. Gurria, however, said that thiswas not the time to “rest on one’slaurels” and that the reform mo-mentum must continue to makegrowth more inclusive.

“Progress is needed on manyfronts, including making labour lawsmore flexible, bank recapitalisation,pricing of water and energy, easingstringent product market regulationsand continuing to improve access toeducation, to mention just a few,” hesaid.

Also speaking at the launch of the

report, Economic Affairs SecretaryShaktikanta Das reiterated that one ofthe most major tax reforms in India,the Goods and Services Tax, wouldroll out from July 1.

The report raised some issues thatcould alter the performance of the In-dian economy, including the bank NPAissue and geopolitical risks.

“Highly-leveraged companies andpublic banks with large non-perform-ing loans are exposed to major shocksemanating from domestic and foreignfinancial markets,” the report said.“Investment would suffer and recapit-alisation needs would increase, with anegative impact on economic growthand the fiscal deficit,” according to thereport.

However, the report added thatwhile banks’ stressed assets have in-creased in recent years, reaching12.3% of GDP in September 2016, “theincrease in NPLs (non-performingloans) largely reflects greater recogni-tion of them, rather than a further de-terioration of underlyingfundamentals”.

Within tax reform, the survey re-port highlighted some key measuresthat were needed to increase revenueand align the system to internationalstandards.

The OECD recommended imple-menting the reduction of the corpor-ate tax rate from 30% to 25%, providecertainty regarding tax rules and theirimplementation, and increase thenumber and training of staff employedin the tax administration.

OECD cuts 2016-17 GDPgrowth forecast to 7%

Urges reforms in labour law, energy, education


NEW DELHI

P5 Asia Investments Mauri-tius, an arm of privateequity firm ProvidenceEquity Partners, sold its re-maining 3.33% stake, or 12crore shares, in Idea Cellu-lar Ltd. for about ₹1,287.84crore in an open markettransaction on Tuesday.

According to the bulkdeals data on the BSE, thePE firm had sold the sharesat ₹107.32 per share. Gold-man Sachs India Fund Ltd.had picked up 2.25 croreshares in the sale, whilethe remaining buyers werenot immediately known.

The development comesclose to a month afterVodafone Group Plc con-firmed that it is in talks tomerge its India unit withIdea Cellular, signalling anintensification of the con-solidation wave in the In-dian telecom sector.

Providenceexits Idea byselling stake


CHENNAI

Defence will emerge as the largestbusiness for the Reliance Group,said Anil Ambani, chairman of Reli-ance Group in a presentation toanalysts on Monday as Reliance De-fence gears to tap defence oppor-tunities worth ₹1 lakh crore annu-ally in the Indian defence market.

“There is a huge opportunity forprivate sector in the defence busi-ness as currently India imports70% of its defence requirement invalue terms and accounts for 14% ofthe global defence imports in2016,” said Anil Ambani addressinga gathering of 80 analysts in Mum-bai on Monday. “Overall, India Off-set opportunities are in excess of₹77,000 crore with peak obligationof ₹10,000 crore in 2018. This is abig playing field for the Indianprivate sector,” he said.

Reliance Defence has submittedbids for ₹30,000 crore of defence

orders comprising landing plat-form dock and anti submarine war-fare and shallow water craft.

Reliance Defence is planning tobid for the construction of two in-digenous aircraft carriers worth₹90,000 crore and 12 submarinesworth ₹1.2 lakh crore. The com-pany is also planning to submitbids worth another ₹30,000 for

building next-generation missilevessels and a next-generation cor-vette this year. “Reliance Group’sentry into the defence sector isdriven by the new policy of Make inIndia and Skill India which makesavailable the large opportunity forthe group. Contrary to general per-ception, defence is [a] low-capitalbusiness with high turnover,” saidMr. Ambani adding that his visionwas to be the leading manufacturerand supplier of ‘state-of -the-art’advanced weapon platforms,equipment, systems and hardware“to meet the domestic require-ments of the Indian Armed Forcesand to mark our presence acrossthe world.”

In aerospace, Reliance Defencehas set up a 51: 49 JV, Dassault Reli-ance Aerospace Ltd., which plansto be a key player in the offset op-portunity for the Rafael 36 con-tract. The annual budget for Indiandefence is about ₹2.6 lakh crore.

Defence to be largest businessof Reliance Group: Anil AmbaniGroup eyes ofset opportunity as India’s defence imports stand at 70%

Piyush Pandey

MUMBAI

Anil Ambani

The first manufacturing line underthe Britannia-Chipita joint venture isset to begin production in TamilNadu from early next year, the com-pany said. This would entail an in-vestment of about ₹90 crore.

“The new line of products that willemerge from the JV will not be an ex-tension of the existing brand portfo-lio, but will be branded separately,”Britannia managing director VarunBerry said.

“The manufacturing facility will belocated within our existing plants sothat the logistics costs are rational-ised,” Mr. Berry said. “We are hope-ful that this partnership, in the adja-cent bakery segment will take us tonew paths of growth.” Britannia willhave a majority stake in the JV. Thelocation currently being evaluated isPerundurai, a company-owned unit.

Britannia said in a regulatory filinglast week that it had signed a non-binding MoU with Chipita, a Greekcompany, for exploring certain busi-ness opportunities. “The company isin advanced stages of discussion with

Chipita to finalise definitive agree-ments including a JV agreement,” thecompany had said.

In an email interview with The

Hindu, Mr. Berry said that there wouldbe substantial gains for BIL throughthe proposed JV. “We are in the bakeryspace and with this JV, we have got apartner par excellence in this segmentacross many countries. Within bakery,it is a wholly new segment”, he said.Mr. Berry had said earlier that BIL wasworking on opportunities in the bis-cuit business adjacent to the macro-snacking space.

“We are in the process of finalisingthe brand names,” Mr. Berry said,adding “it gives us a strong runway foraggressive growth in a completely newcategory of croissants. The offeringswould be a completely new format ofcentre-filled croissants in a range offruity and non-fruity (chocolate andvanilla) fillings and will be at an afford-able price.” Britannia has positionedthe product as a bridge categorybetween biscuits, chocolates and freshbakery and will offer ‘on-the-go-break-fast’ to millennials, who comprise alarge part of India’s population.

Britannia-Chipita JV to startproduction in Tamil Nadu

New brand to deine fresh category of croissants

Indrani Dutta

KOLKATA

Internationally influentialthink-tank, Organisation forEconomic Co-operation andDevelopment (OECD) onTuesday threw its weight be-hind India saying the coun-try is worthy of a credit rat-ing upgrade, but cautionedIndian policy makers againsttaking measures only withan aim to get a better rating.

The OECD also said the In-dian government needed todo “much more”, in terms ofpromoting India throughroad shows. The governmentneeds to be a “good sales-man” — by informing globalinvestors and rating agenciesabout the reforms it hadalready undertaken (and willdo so in the future) “in thebest interest of the country”as well as their positive im-pact on the economy, ac-cording to Angel Gurría, Sec-retary-General, OECD.

India’s (sovereign) creditrating has remained un-changed for the past several

years at ‘BBB (-)’ — or thelowest investment grade,which is only a grade above“junk” status for govern-ment/sovereign bonds. Lead-ing international credit rat-ing firms such as Standard &Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitchrate government/sovereignbonds on the basis of lend-ing risks — or, in otherwords, their estimation ofthe borrower’s ability to re-pay its debt and the likeli-

hood of them defaulting. Ac-cording to the Indiangovernment’s Economic Sur-vey 2016-17, “India’s ratingshave remained stuck at themuch lower level of BBB-,despite the country’s dra-matic improvement ingrowth and macro-economicstability since 2014.”

Mr. Gurría told The Hindu

on the sidelines of a Confed-eration of Indian Industry-event that though India de-

served a higher rating, “Youdon’t take policy measuresto satisfy rating agencies... toget a better rating.” He ad-ded, “You take policy meas-ures because they are in thebest interest of the country...and the consequence may bethat the rating agencies willrecognise them.” The ratingagencies have become “ul-tra-cautious” after the debtof the firms they granted thehighest (AAA) ratings, wentwrong — leading to the 2007-08 American sub-primemortgage crisis and then the2008-09 Great Recession.

Mr. Gurría said: “Todayyou need to do much moreto convince them that youdeserve a better rating.”However, he added, “You(Indian government) havegot to be a good salesman…go and do road shows.You’ve got to tell everybodyyou are going to do a bondissue, and that is good op-portunity to tell everybody,the rating agencies and in-vestors, what you are doing.”

India worthy of rating upgrade: OECDGovernment needs to do much more to promote India, says OECD’s Gurria

Arun S

NEW DELHI

Trade trick: The government needs to be a “good salesman” byinforming rating agencies of its reforms, says Mr. Gurria. PTI

Mercedes-Benz India has in-troduced the all new E-Classluxury sedan in the Indianmarket at a starting price of₹56.15 lakh for the E200 pet-rol version and ₹69.47 lakhfor the E 350d diesel versionex-showroomMumbai.

“This luxury sedan isMade in India and for In-

dia,” said Roland Folger,managing director and chiefexecutive officer, Mercedes-Benz India.

It took almost 48 monthsfor the company to developthis 10th generation E-Classsedan from scratch. This isfor the first time that a righthand drive long wheelbaseversion of the sedan hasbeen introduced in India.

Mercedes unveilsnew E-Class sedan


MUMBAI

Hot wheels: Roland Folger, MD & CEO, Mercedes-Benz India,unveils the newMercedes-Benz E-Class sedan in Mumbai.

The growth of eight core sectorsslowed down to a five-month low of3.4% in January mainly due to con-traction in output of refineryproducts, fertiliser and cement. Thegrowth rate of eight infrastructuresectors of coal, crude oil, natural gas,refinery products, fertilisers, steel, ce-ment and electricity was 5.7% in Janu-ary 2016.

Infrastructure sectors’ expansion in

January this year is the lowest sinceAugust 2016, when the segments hadrecorded a growth of 3.2%. It is alsolower than that of 5.6% seen inDecember 2016.

The core sectors, which contribute38% to the total industrial production,expanded 4.8% in April - January thisfiscal compared with 2.9% growth inthe same period in the previous finan-cial year, according to the data re-leased by the commerce and industryministry on Tuesday.

Core sector growth slowsPress Trust of India

NEW DELHI

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IN BRIEF

Nissan Motor clocksexport of 7 lakh carsCHENNAI

Nissan Motor India Pvt. Ltd.has exported seven lakh‘Made in India’ Nissan andDatsun cars, the companysaid. Nissan Motor achievedthe milestone in sevenyears. “With our plans tolaunch eight new productsfor the Indian market by2021 as announced earlier,the future is bright andexciting for Nissan in India,”said Guillaume Sicard,President, Nissan IndiaOperations.

L&T arm signs ive-yearpact with Shell GlobalCHENNAI

L&T HydrocarbonEngineering (LTHE) hassigned a ive-yearEnterprise FrameworkAgreement with ShellGlobal SolutionsInternational B.V., forproviding engineering,procurement andconstruction managementservices for Shell projects inMiddle East, South-EastAsia and India. LTHE’s oicein India will be Shell’s HighValue Engineering Centre.

The government will holdfresh spectrum auctionsbetween July and Decemberthis year and the exercisewill be an annual affair fromnow, Telecom Secretary JSDeepak said here on Tues-day. The Centre is also work-ing to ensure that India em-braces 5G telecom networksin tandem with the rest ofthe world, unlike 3G and 4Gtechnologies whose rolloutwas far slower, he said.

“We are looking to do aspectrum auction every yearso that telcos can plan theirneeds, whether they need totrade it, buy it fromsomeone else or come to theauction. This ensures com-plete certainty and policystability,” Mr. Deepak said,on the sidelines of the Mo-bile World Congress.

This year’s auctions arelikely to be held betweenJuly and December and thedepartment of telecom issoon going to send a requestto telecom regulator TRAIfor its recommendations onthe spectrum to be sold, theprice and newer spectrumbands that could be offered.Before July, the departmentwill frame a policy for theuse of various spectrumbands, including high fre-quency bands.

When asked if industrywould be interested in pick-ing up spectrum as playerslike Bharti have said there isnow a spectrum surplus ontheir hands, Mr. Deepaksaid, “Industry is not amonolith. One operator youspoke to may not need spec-trum, but there are possibil-ities of other players whomay want it.”

“We are putting up newbands that can be used forother applications including5G. Someone may now want500 Mhz as well. And if they

don’t want it, it’s okay, wewill keep it,” he said.

While limited spectrumwas offered in auctions till2015, since last year, the gov-ernment has started puttingall the available spectrum onsale in line with a SupremeCourt judgement, the secret-ary said.

“Indian telecom is nowlike a spectrum supermar-ket. If a supermarket doesn’tsell all its goods in one day, itdoesn’t get a heart attack orhigh blood pressure. It willsell the next day, next week,next month,” he pointedout. “Even if I may believethat not even 1 Mhz will sell,I will put it on sale year afteryear,” he added.

Early moverWhile South Korea is expec-ted to be the first country torollout 5G network servicesin time for the 2018 WinterOlympics, Mr. Deepak saidIndia is keen to be an earlymover.

“We were late in 3G and4G and we are very keenthat India should not be de-prived of 5G. It is not only acommunication issue, it is aproductivity issue for in-dustry. It has wider applica-tions in smart cities andgrids and all kinds of

things,” he said.“We are very keen to be

with the world and havedone a lot of preparation.We came out with M2M (ma-chine-to-machine)guidelines in 2015 and haveissued draft service pro-viders’ guidelines on whichwe have got comments.”

The department is alsoframing a policy on the useof higher frequency spec-trum for different purposes,including 5G services and isexpected to unveil it in thenext three months.

Reacting to Bharti Airtelchairman Sunil Mittal’s com-ments that governmentsaround the world tax tele-com firms with a heavyhand, Mr. Deepak said it’sdifficult to ask for lowertaxes as the finance ministryalso needs revenue to spendon health, education, wel-fare and infrastructure.

“There can always be anissue of what is less andmore. I mean, none of us ishappy with the income taxrate that we pay. Yes, com-panies need to get spectrumand need to make money ontheir operations so they in-vest, but apart from servicetax, licence fee and spec-trum charges add up to lessthan 12%,” he pointed out.

Telecom Secretary says India is now gearing up for 5G

Vikas Dhoot

BARCELONA

Spectrummart:Mr. Deepak says telecom is like a supermarketthat can sell goods over time. GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO

Spectrum auctions to beheld annually: Deepak

India could do with just three private telecom operators and thetelecom regulator needs to have a longer term vision for the sec-tor rather than just react ‘in fits and starts’ to market develop-ments, opines Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Mittal. Edited ex-cerpts from an interaction at the Mobile World Congress.

You said the telecomindustry’s globalreputation is just slightlybetter than that oftobacco…

■ Yes, it’s terrible. We did asurvey. It has improved by 1%last year. But that’s nothing.People remember us onlywhen there are call drops or adata session is going slow. Ifyou have no problems, youare not going to rememberme. Of the four-five issues wepicked up, the biggest one isinternational roaming and wehave woken up to that. I havetaken the lead as the GSMAchairman to launch a war onroaming bill shocks. Somemurmuring was there be-cause the roaming revenuepool is about $50 billion. Ifthis pool drops, local tariffsmay go up. My view is if thelocal tariff goes up by a fewpaise, it’s alright. Don’t havethose roaming shocks thatkeep on coming across theglobe.

Like we have a fair usagepolicy, we will create a fairroaming policy. In this oneyear, my personal delivery tothis industry is that this inter-national roaming should goaway and bring 5% to 7% upour reputation index.

TRAI has come outwith apaper on predatorypricing. Is it too little, toolate?

■ You said it. I am not going tosay it. My view is the regulatorneeds to have a long-term vis-ion for the sector. You cannotbe doing things in fits andstarts. I think too much ofactivity is happening in a re-

active manner. I am glad thatTRAI has called upon a groupof experts to look at the long-term roadmap that will talk ofinterconnect, issues of tariffs,predatory pricing or closeduser networks. I think it’s theresponsibility of the regulatorto ensure an amicable co-ex-istence of operators. TRAI iscoming alive to some of these(long pending) issues. I onlyhope when these recom-mendations come from TRAI,they don’t land us in furtherlitigation but are futuristic,visionary and takes care of allstakeholders.

You have hintedconsolidation couldreduce the number ofplayers to four…

■ When we went from 2 to 4or 5 players, it was okay. Butgoing to 12 operators has ledto $20-$25 billion being writ-ten off. You could have builtroads, bridges and god knowswhat all with that money. Ifyou take BSNL out, it is fouroperators – which is clearlyus, Vodafone-Idea combinedand Jio with one more whichcould be RCOM, Aircel, Tatas.If all three of them come to-gether, then there may be acase for a fourth operator. Butjust between the two of them,they are sub-10% marketshare and declining very fastbecause you need serious in-vestments not only to coverup 3G networks, you nowneed a rollout of 4G net-works. So my view is thatthere is a question markwhether that entity will comeinto some shape or form withthree of them comingtogether.

Will that allowcompetition?

The competition now lies inthe space which is increas-ingly outside our control.People are using us just as ajourney to get to the destina-tion whether it is Facebookor Whatsapp. So most of thebattle is being fought there.With 1 GB a day offers at ₹303plus eight or nine rupees amonth for the next 12months, the paradigm hasshifted. If it carries on ateven half of this level afterthe promotional offer, it’svery inexpensive comparedto the world.

Would you like to seeanother auction this year?

■ It won’t happen. There isenough spectrum that hasbeen tanked up by us, atleast. Vodafone–Idea mergerwill yield a lot of spectrumfor them. I would say Jio haspicked up the spectrum theyhave wanted. They may wanta little bit here and there...So who is the buyer? Wehave moved to a spectrum-surplus situation for now. Myprediction is that there can’tbe an auction in 2017–18.

Jio has said they are goingto charge for servicesfromApril 1.When do yousee the situation easing?

■ It will ease once Relianceprobably gets some scale.Their whole need is to getscale, customers, revenues.The good news is they haveannounced they are going tocharge from April. But, wethink it is unsustainable forthe industry to give 1GB a dayfor that price.

Will it hurt revenues andprofits?

■ It’s better than zero. Wehave been living with zerofor the last six months. Even-tually, this industry needs tohave return on capital or elseinvestments in future net-works will slow down.

Jio has 100millionsubscribers butincumbents like youhaven’t lost asmanyusers. Could Jio losenumbers once it starts tocharge?

■ That’s simple. It’s dualSIM. Almost anybody with aReliance SIM has anotherSIM. So, you are right. Wehave not lost customers. Wehave gained customers. Butthey also have 100million, sothe math doesn’t add up.The answer is double SIM.The usage will come down.Subscribers, I don’t think so.

TRAI is now alive to some issuesIt’s the regulator’s responsibility to ensure an amicable co-existence of operators

Vikas Dhoot

BARCELONA

<> Like we have a fair

usage policy, we will

create a fair roaming

policy

Sunil Mittal,

Chairman, GSMA

INTERVIEW|SUNIL MITTAL

Hiring tech start-upBelong raises $10mn.BENGALURU

Belong, a start-up thathelps companies hire talentusing technology, said itraised $10 million inseries-B funding led byventure capital irm SequoiaCapital India. Existinginvestor Matrix PartnersIndia also participated.Itwould use the funds toaccelerate productdevelopment, expand salesand support operations.Belong said it enabledcustomers like Cisco andAmazon hire talent.

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SPORT

Mitchell Starc may have gotVirat Kohli out for a duck inthe first innings of the PuneTest, but the Australian fastbowler insists the battle hasjust begun.

“We know (Kohli) is goingto be another key wicket forthe rest of the series. There’ssix more times we’ve got toget him out to really cementthis series,” Starc told report-ers. “We know he’ll comeback bigger and stronger.”

The Australian is wellaware of how dangerous theIndian skipper can be oncehe gets his eye in. “He’s aclass player, we all knowthat,” Starc said. “We’re go-ing to have to be wary of thatVirat comeback.”

“We are really happy thatit happened that way for us,but we know that one Test isnot going to win us theseries. It’s three importantTest matches to go.”

‘We’ll need to get him sixmore times to seal the series’Starc says Kohli’s will be the key wicket in the three remaining TestsAgence France-Presse

New Delhi

Well begun:Mitchell Starc, who claimed the wickets of Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli in theirst innings of the opening Test at Pune, feels the battle has just begun AFP

Dzumhur stuns Wawrinkaat Dubai OpenDUBAI

Holder Stan Wawrinka wassensationally dumped out ofthe Dubai tennischampionships on Tuesday,beaten 7-6(4), 6-3 in the firstround by Damir Dzumhur.Rohan Bopanna and MarcinMatkowski beat second seedsIvan Dodig and MarcelGranollers 5-7, 6-3, [11-9] inthe first round of thedoubles.Important results: Firstround: AndyMurray btMalekJaziri 6-4, 6-1; DamirDzumhur bt StanWawrinka7-6(4), 6-3; FernandoVerdasco bt Andreas Seppi6-2, 7-5; Tomas Berdych btLukas Rosol 6-3, 2-1 retd.;Lucas Pouille bt AdamPavlasek 6-2, 6-2; EvgenyDonskoy btMikhail Youzhny6-4, 6-4; Daniel Evans btDustin Brown 6-2, 6-3; DanillMedvedev bt Omar Alawadhi6-2, 7-5.Doubles: RohanBopanna &MarcinMatkowskibt Ivan Dodig &MarcelGranollers 5-7, 6-3, [11-9].AFP

Over the length of a series, cricketteams often surprise themselves by

hitting rock bottom occasionally. Theydrop catches, they don’t get the DRSright, they struggle on wickets pre-pared for them, their much-toutedstrengths — batting or bowling — desertthem, the captain’s judgement some-times lets him down personally orwhere the team is concerned.

These mistakes spread out over awhole series of 20 or 25 days, often donot matter. They may even go un-noticed, uncommented on.

Somehow, India managed to work allthose cock-ups into a single concen-trated period of just three days in Pune.To pack so much inefficiency into sucha short period is nothing short of epic.

To watch a captain who has scored adouble century in his last four series leta ball go and watch it crash onto hisstumps was surreal.

To watch a team which had not lostin 19 previous Tests rush to its doomwith such inevitability was even moreso.

Recent examples of India strugglingat home on turning tracks might havemade it seem a contemporary problem.But even decades ago, when wicketswere prepared for the famed spin quar-tet, opposition spinners accepted thegift gratefully.

Australia won 3-1 in 1969-70, off spin-ner Ashley Mallett taking more wicketsthan any Indian spinner. Lance Gibbs,Derek Underwood, Iqbal Qasim have allwon matches for their countries on

pitches designed for Indian spinners.Post-Pune, there has been a meas-

ure of chest-beating among cricketfans in India who swing between emo-tional highs. On the one hand, theyexpect India to win every match theyplay; on the other hand, they expectIndia to lose every time.

If India have a bad day at the office– like they did in the first Test – fans

have an even worse day in theirs, seeingghosts everywhere and reading non-ex-istent meanings into everything. Per-haps this is what keeps the sport alive inthe country, this deep involvement andremarkable ability to swing from emo-tional highs to lows without any con-scious effort.

All of us are entitled to a bad day atthe office. But when you have such abad day that you accidentally shootyour colleagues, set fire to the fur-niture, swallow the computer and leaveall the taps running, then it requiresrare maturity to leave things as theyare, and fall back on what made yousuccessful in the first place.

In India’s case, these elements in-clude skill, self-belief, and a level of fit-ness unattained by teams of the past.

What should India do now? The an-swer is simple: Nothing. Both skipperVirat Kohli and coach Anil Kumbleknow that what made the team success-ful will not drain away with one defeat.

Perhaps there was an element ofcomplacency, perhaps there was a lackof respect for the opposition, perhapsthe team bought into the 4-0 hype, per-haps the wins against England came tooeasily, perhaps there was an illogicalfaith in what many call ‘momentum’,an overused and ultimately meaning-less word in competitive sport.

India have to believe that the Punedefeat was an aberration. Any other in-terpretation would only make it moredifficult for them as the series pro-gresses. They cannot see demons in thetracks, unplayable deliveries in thehands of O’Keefe and Lyon, an overall

loss of form or motivation among them-selves.

When he was captain, Kumble wasfond of telling his players that theyshould focus on what they can control— their own game, attitude and ap-proach — and not fret over what theycannot, like the weather or toss or play-ing conditions.

Judicious use of DRS

You can control your DRS calls, for ex-ample, and not use up the quota in thefirst six overs.

Wicket-keepers and non-strikershave important roles to play here.Bowlers always believe every appealought to be upheld. It is the nature oftheir job.

Some referrals seemed to indicatethat there was a lack of understandingabout the LBW law. Perhaps the teamneeds a classroom session with anumpire.

There is a lesson for India in StevenSmith’s gritty second-innings century. Itwent against the Indian aesthetic. It wasnot pretty, there were no ooh-makingor aah-inspiring strokes.

From an early age, Indian batsmenwant to appear visually pleasing, andwould rather play a perfect cover drivefor no score than nudge the ball to theboundary. Smith averages over 60 inTests. Australian efficiency over Indianflair.

Any one of the mistakes India madein Pune could have led to a defeat. Ifyou are going to make them, it is best toget them out of the way by making all ofthem in one match. The Bengaluru Testwill answer the crucial questions: willAustralia carry their new-found confid-ence through the series? Will India seePune as an aberration and find therhythm that made them the No. 1 team?

No immediate surgery is required.Suddenly from the expected washout,we have a challenging series on ourhands. Can’t really ask for more.

Kohli’s men have to believe the Pune defeat was an aberration

There’s no need to panic;India knows the formula

SURESH MENON

The pitch used for the firstTest between India and Aus-tralia at Pune has come un-der fire from the ICC.

Match Referee ChrisBroad has given the Maha-rashtra Cricket AssociationStadium surface a ‘poor’ rat-ing on ‘the balance betweenbat and ball scale’.

Australia captain SteveSmith had described thepitch as “incredibly dry” inthe pre-match press confer-ence.

Two days before thegame, fast bowler JoshHazlewood and spinnerNathan Lyon had a heartylaugh when told that localcurator Pandurang Sal-gaonkar had predicted theball would fly and the Testwould go the distance.

This is the second time ina little over 18 months thatthe ICC has rated a pitch“poor”. In November 2015,the pitch at Nagpur wasgiven a “poor” rating by

Match Referee Jeff Crowe.

“Broad, in accordancewith Clause 3 of the ICCPitch and Outfield Monitor-ing Process ... expressedconcern over the quality ofthe pitch. The report hasbeen forwarded to the BCCI ,which now has 14 days to re-spond,” the ICC said in a re-lease.

“The BCCI’s response willbe reviewed by ICC’s generalmanager (cricket), Geoff Al-lardice, and RanjanMadugalle from the EmiratesElite Panel of ICC Match Ref-erees. The matter will be de-cided in accordance withclause 4 of the process.”

SanctionsUnder the ICC’s pitch monit-oring process ‘Sanctions forSubstandard Pitches and/orOutfields’, the penalty for apitch earning a ‘poor’ ratingfor the first time is “a warn-ing and/or a fine not exceed-ing $15,000 given togetherwith a directive for appropri-ate corrective action.”

Three curators, Sal-

gaonkar, Dhiraj Parsana(West Zone member, BCCIGround and Pitch Commit-tee) and Daljit Singh (Chair-man, BCCI Ground and PitchCommittee), were involvedin the pitch and ground pre-paration.

Pune pitch rated ‘poor’BCCI has 14 days to respond to Match Referee’s reportG. Viswanath

Mumbai

Mohun Bagan thumped ClubValencia of Maldives 4-1 inthe return leg of their AFCCup play-off at the RabindraSarobar Stadium here onTuesday.

Jeje Lalpekhlua wasdenied a hat-trick as hissecond strike was penciledin as an own-goal by Valen-cia defender Hussain Nihan,who seemed to have the fi-nal touch in the incident inquestion.

Sony Norde struck the fi-nal goal to complete thescoring process and helpedBagan join Bengaluru FC,Maldivian Maziya and Aba-hani Krirachakra of Dhaka inthe group league.

Bagan went into the leadin the second minute of theaction when the Valencialeft-back Hisam Salem washauled up for handling theball inside his own box whiletrying to stop an attemptfrom Jeje, who converted theresultant penalty.

Mohun Bagan doubledthe lead in the last minute ofthe first half when Jeje went

for a nice cross from Bal-want in the Valencia box.The Bagan forward seemedto find a touch on the ballbut referee Vo Minh Tri ofVietnam decided that the fi-nal touch on the goal-boundball came from Nihan.

The second half sawValencia put up a much im-proved performance andthat helped it pull one backthrough its Nigerian strikerGodfrey Omodu, in the 52ndminute.

A 2-2 draw would havehelped Valencia pip Mohun

Bagan on the away-goal rulebut before the visitor couldplot another strike, the hostintroduced Japanese play-maker Katsumi Yusa in themiddle.

This quickly turned thingsin the hosts favour as Yusafashioned two brilliantmoves that saw Bagan scor-ing twice in quick succes-sion.The result:

Mohun Bagan 4 (JejeLalpekhlua 2-pen, 82, HussainNihan 45-og, Sony Norde 87) btClub Valencia 1 (GodfreyOmodu 52).

Bagan bests ValenciaJoins Bengaluru FC in the group league

Amitabha Das Sharma

Kolkata

Following Mohun Bagan’swin, the club is through toGroup E of the AFC Cupmain draw where it hasbeen clubbed withBengaluru FC.

As a consequence, BFCand Bagan will face eachother thrice in a 20-day

window starting with theI-League fixture inBengaluru on March 11.

Three days later thetwo will meet in the AFCCup again in Bengaluru.

After the internationalbreak, Bagan will hostBFC on April 1 in the re-verse fixture in the I-League.


Bengaluru

BFC, Bagan to clash

The Australian squad heads to the team hotel after landing in Bengaluru on Tuesday. G.P. SAMPATH KUMAR

CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC

Touching down

IN BRIEF

Olga Korbut auctions offOlympic medalsLONDON

Olga Korbut, the gymnasticsdarling of the 1972 MunichOlympics who has apparentlyfallen on hard times, has soldoff her Games medals andother trophies through a U.S.auction house. Thirty-twolots, including two golds anda silver from the MunichOlympics, fetched $333,500in a weekend online sale forthe former Soviet gymnastwho now lives in the USA.REUTERS

Herath to lead Lankaagainst BangladeshCOLOMBO

Left-arm spinner RanganaHerath will lead the Sri LankaTest squad in the two-matchhome series againstBangladesh beginning March7 in Galle. Herath led the SriLankan team to victory inNovember last year, with aclean 2-0 sweep againstZimbabwe in his first series ascaptain. ANI

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SPORT

SUDOKU

S T A R D O M C A P S T A N

L L I A A I I U

U N M E T N A U S E A T E D

I A T O S C H I

C A N T O N E S E E L E C T

E D U M Y

W I L L V A L L E T T A

N O R I A H

T E A C H E S T L O O T

D K I R H

E P O C H V I G I L A N T E

C S O I A O I A

A S C E R T A I N S T E E R

M A N N T E S T

P E R U S E D S C R A T C H

Solution to puzzle 11942 Solution to yesterday’s Sudoku

DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

Vaduga Nambi, disciple of Ramanujacharya, praised theAcharya as ubhaya vibhuti nayaka. This is a name used forLord Narayana because He is the Lord and master of leelavibhuti — this world, and also of Sri Vaikuntha. But how isthe name justified in the case of Ramanuja? Lord Rangan-atha left it to Ramanuja to decide who should enter SriVaikuntha, elaborated Aravindalochanan, in a discourse.

Until then it was the Lord Himself who had decided that.But now He gives Ramanuja that right of decision.Ramanuja, having been granted the Lord’s right, can berightly addressed by a name that belongs to the Lord!

Ramanuja served his teacher Tirvaranga Perumal Araiyar,by serving him milk and also grinding sandal paste for him,and this earned for him the name of Vararangaanu kampi,from Vaduga Nambi. Vaduga Nambi also referred toRamanuja as Dravidaamnaaya Saagara. Namamzhvar’sTiruvaimozhi is referred to as Dravida Veda, andTiruvaimozhi resides in Ramanuja, and hence this name.Another name Vaduga Nambi praises Ramanuja with, refersto his stint under Maalakaara, who taught himTiruvaimozhi. Ramanuja gave meanings which did not agreewith those given by his teacher. Unhappy with the contra-dictory explanations from his pupil, Maalakaara stoppedclasses. But Tirukkoshtiyur Nambi told Maalakaara thatRamanuja was already knowledgeable, and he took to study-ing under Maalakaara, only to set an example to others,showing them that they had to study under a qualifiedteacher.

Vaduga Nambi makes a reference to the 74 devout SriVaishnavas whom Ramanuja appointed to spread the Vis-ishtadvaita philosophy. ‘Panchacharya padashraya,’ saysVaduga Nambi, indicating that Ramanuja had five Acharyas,each of whom taught him different subjects.

FAITH

Incidents in Ramanuja’s lifesymbol initially (7)

5 Substitutes Saint with vice

(6,2)

6 Cast is confused — state "Part

of drama is over" (4,2)

7 Land surrounded by water is

held by the French (4)

14 At irst Bangalore rule is

broken ... is more sad (5)

16 Longs, giving up some

nourishment, for long periods

(5)

18 Men mount awkwardly on

memorial (8)

20 Violently angry before Chinese

youth begins rule by women

(8)

21 Harbour wave battered Tunis

around morning (7)

23 Iosif Dzhugashvili's Latin's in

a bad shape (6)

25 Paneer, for example, is what

someone might say just

before being snapped (6)

27 Trial match in Trieste stadium

(4)

29 Plug Irish city (4)

12 Nun despatches irst letter,

after a little time, to senior

politician (8)

13 Servile old beast's wandering

around carrying setter and

neighbour initially (8)

15 Yes, pesos are thrown around

by Indian soldiers (6)

17 Mistakenly presume it's

paramount (7)

19 A gran'ma's resort, for

example, may indicate this (7)

22 Stir cooler porridge can in

America (6)

24 Sis's neck is crooked — it's an

ailment (8)

26 Spineless person, like a

scarecrow? (8)

28 Hire NC transport and make

more attractive (6)

30 CIA's rebuilt cells (4)

31 Nominates Vietnam escapee to

some extent (5)

32 That man has Indian money —

it's belonging to that lady (4)

■ DOWN

1 The Raven's author's verses

lack mirth in the beginning (4)

2 Stuff has energy that is initially

recoverable — it's more thick

and milky (8)

3 Eastern Czech master has a bit

of epidermal dermatitis (6)

4 Delivers underwater vessel

with German

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

8 9 10

11 12

13 14 15 16

17 18 19 20

21

22 23 24 25

26 27 28 29

30 31 32

(set by Incognito)

■ ACROSS

8 — halve this to get frequency of

getting an extra day (in 16)

(4)

9 Woo captain of university

rugby team, for starters (5)

10 Sheath for action in 9 (4)

11 Flee from Spanish promontory

(6)

THE HINDU CROSSWORD 11943

At Chennai:MadhyaPradesh214 in45.1 overs(Ankit Dane 46, Harpreet SinghBhatia 26, Shubham Sharma 25,Sohraab Dhaliwal 51, ShardulThakur three for 27) bt Mumbai134 in 38.4 overs (ChandrakantSakure five for 25, Saransh Jainthree for 30).Madhya Pradesh4 (8); Mumbai 0 (8).At Kolkata:Karnataka 201 in 47.1 overs (May-ank Agarwal 89, Stuart Binny 31,KushangPatel four for 36, ChiragJani three for 40) bt Saurashtra128 in 36.2 overs (Jaydev Shah38, Shaurya Sanadia 31, ChiragJani 25, Ronit More four for 20);Karnataka 4 (12), Saurashtra 0(0).Chhattisgarh 235 for nine in 50overs (A. Khare 57, AbhimanyuChauhan 90, Ashutosh Singh 31,M. Mudasir six for 33) bt Jammu& Kashmir 231 in 48.2 overs(Parvez Rasool 51, P. Bisht 68,Pankaj Rao four for 35). Chhat-tisgarh4 (4), Jammu&Kashmir0 (0).At Cuttack:Himachal Pradesh 216 in 49.5overs (Ankit Kaushik 62, RobinBist 57, Pankaj Jaiswal 30, AswinCrist five for 31) lost to TamilNadu 217 for two in 42.1 overs(Kaushik Gandhi 107 n.o., B. Apa-rajith 52, Dinesh Karthik 45 n.o.).Tamil Nadu 4 (12), HimachalPradesh 0 (4).At Delhi: Assam 207 in 48.2overs (K. Saikia 29, Arun Karthik56, SyedMohammad53, A. Sinha26n.o., B.Mohanty five for 26,D.Behera three for 47) lost toOdisha 213 for one in 35.3 overs(A. Sarangi 104 n.o., G. Poddar100n.o.).Odisha4 (4), Assam0(4).Baroda 249 in 48.3 overs (A.Waghmode 54, K. Pandya 78, Ir-fan Pathan 37, S. Kaul three for57, Baltej Singh four for 47) btPunjab 174 in 40.4 overs(Mandeep Singh 43, GurkeeratMann 62, Hardik Pandya threefor 26, Soaeb Tai three for 36).Baroda 4 (8), Punjab 0 (4).Railways 199 in 41.1 overs (AsadPathan 46, Manjeet Singh 54. A.Karnewar three for 32) lost toVidarbha 200 for two in 45.2overs (Faiz Fazal 53, JiteshSharma 84, Ganesh Satish 36n.o.). Vidarbha 4 (8), Railways0 (4).At Kalyani: Services 276 for ninein 50 overs (G. Kochar 50, N.Verma 48, A. Salvi 31, ShamsherYadav 54 n.o., Rahul Singh 40,Shahbaz Nadeem three for 52)lost to Jharkhand279 for three in46.2 overs (Ishan Kishan 33,Saurabh Tiwary 102 n.o, IshankJaggi 116 n.o.). Jharkhand 4 (8),Services 0 (4).At Bhubaneswar: Uttar Pradesh197 in 41.2 overs (Sarfaraz Khan100, Kuldeep Yadav 25, AbhijitSarkar three for 14, Ajoy Sarkarfour for 47) lost to Tripura 198for eight in 43.2 overs (UdiyanBose 45, Smit Patel 53, GurinderSingh 64 not out, Piyush Chawlathree for 37). Tripura 4 (8), Ut-tar Pradesh 0 (0).

HAZARE SCORES

Proudwinners::UnionMinister for Sports and Youth Afairs Vijay Goel presenting the trophyto Amarjeet Singh Narula and Umesh Kapoor, owners of Big Orange which won theLala Bansidhar Gupta and Brijmohan GuptaMemorial Million in NewDelhi on Tuesday.

PHOTO: SHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKAR


Riding to glory

Delhi cricket continued toplummet as the teamsuffered its third loss in asmanymatches.

Maharashtra, propelled bysome superb formof its bats-man, found a century-makerin Kedar Jadhav andwon theVijay Hazare cricket tourna-ment match at the DRIEMSground here on Tuesday by195 runs.

ForMaharashtra, this wasthe third successivewinwiththe stars of the day beingJadhav (113 off 64 balls) andleft-arm spinner Jagdish Zope(five for 19).

Delhi erred in fielding first.The surface was a beauty tobat on and Maharashtracrossed the 300-mark againdespite losing in-form Ru-turaj Gaikwad (9) in the sev-enthover of the innings.

Ashish Nehra claimedGaikwad but suffered a groinstrain in his seventh over andhis absence had an impact onDelhi’s overall performance.

After Vijay Zol fell at thescore of 79 Maharashtrastrengthened its positionthrough a third-wicket part-nership of 107 runs betweenNaushad Shaikh (52 off 64balls with eight 4s) andJadhav (11 fours andeight 6s).

Jadhav timed the ball flaw-lessly and found the gaps atwill as Delhi lacked thewill tofight.

The bowling had been anarea of grave concern andskipper Rishabh Pant could

only watch helplessly as theordinary Delhi attack stoodexposed against the innovat-ing Jadhav at the crease.

Nikhil Naik and Jadhavcontributed 60 runs for thefourth wicket to put Maha-rashtra in a strong positioneven as Delhi employedsevenbowlers.

Once again left-armseamer Kulwant Khejroliyawas the pick of the bowlerswith a spell of 10-0-35-2. Left-arm spinner Pawan Negi,clearly short of confidence,proved the most expensivewith a spell of 8-0-91-1.

Delhi coach K.P. Bhaskarhad beenworried in the runup to the tournament aboutthe bowling acumen of histeam and his fears provedright.

Seamer Navdeep Saini(two for 76) and left-armspinner Manan Sharma(none for 70) camea cropperas Delhi struggled to stay inthe reckoning.

A target of 368was alwaysgoing to be tough for Delhiunless veterans Gautam

Gambhir and ShikharDhawan laid the platform forthe chase.

They beganwith a flourishbut Dhawan (24) getting runout at 64 and the promisingDhruv Shorey (1) fallingwithin a run proved a hugedampener forDelhi.

Gambhir managed tocome upwith a 57-ball 53 butthe cheap dismissals of Pantand Nitish Rana completed

Delhi’swoes.

Milind Kumar helped him-self to a few runs in the latterhalf but Delhi was outclassedby a far superior and organ-isedopponent.

The scores:Maharashtra 367 foreight in 50 overs (Kedar Jadhav113, Nikhil Naik 63, NaushadShaikh 52, Vijay Zol 35) bt Delhi172 in 33.4 overs (GautamGambhir 53, Milind Kumar 38,JagdishZope five for 19).

Delhi’s plummet continuesKedar Jadhav and Jagdish Zope script Maharashtra’s massive victory

Kedar Jadhav. FILE PHOTO

Vijay Lokapally

CUTTACK

Manoj Tiwary led from thefrontwith anunbeaten 116offjust 94balls asBengal cruisedpast Goawith an eight-wicketwinhere onTuesday.

Chasing a modest total of214, Tiwary and opener Abhi-manyu Easwaran came to-gether for an unbeaten thirdwicket partnership of 169 injust 152 balls as Bengalrompedhomewith 14.1 oversto spare.

After opener ShreevatsGoswami was dismissedcheaply, Abhimanyu gavethe initial momentum to thechase with stylish shots —identical shots off his pads tofine leg boundary off pacer

Felix Alemao off consecutivedeliveries in theeighthover—before he played secondfiddle tohis skipper.

Tiwarywhowalked out inthe 11th over wasted no timein getting into the groove ashe freely played his shotsagainst theGoa spinners.TheBengal skipper started outhitting left-arm spinner Am-ulya Pandrekar for a bound-ary and a six off consecutivedeliveries to get going.

The 31-year old Tiwary tar-geted the cover boundaryregularly in his knock whichincluded 13 fours and threesixes. He rushed through the90s with two consecutiveboundaries off Alemao to getto 98quickly.

Earlier Goa, just like in theSyed Mushtaq Ali trophy,squandered a good start as itslumped from 114 for one to213 for nine in 50overs.

Electing to bat, Goa star-ted cautiously scoring fourruns per over throughout theinnings. However the teamfailed to capitalise on a solidfoundation losing wickets ina heap between the 33rd and43rdover.

Opener Swapnil Asnodkarstarted off with a few bound-aries before he was dis-missed caught at short mid-wicket off left-arm pacerKanishk Seth.

Number three batsmanAmogh Desai then built onthe platform with two solid

partnerships, first withopener Sumiran Amonkarand then with Snehal Kau-thankar.

The scores: Goa 213 for nine in50 overs (Sumiran Amonkar 30,Amogh Desai 49, Suyash Prab-hudessai 27, Saurabh Bandekar32, Kanishk Seth three for 50)lost to Bengal 214 for two in35.5 overs (Abhimanyu Eswaran68 n.o., Manoj Tiwary 116 n.o.)Points: Bengal 4 (8); Goa0 (0).

Team Rajasthan 183 in 47overs (Arjit Gupta 69, KamleshNagarkoti 56 n.o.) bt Gujarat169 in 43.1 overs (Samit Gohil28, Rujul Bhatt 49, BhargavMerai 51, Pankaj Singh three for23, KamleshNagarkoti three for30 (hat-trick)). TeamRajasthan4 (4);Gujarat0 (4).

Tiwary slams ton in Bengal’s big winChasing a modest total of 214, Bengal romps home with 14.1 overs to spareS. Dipak Ragav

Chennai

Opening batsman UnmuktChand and left-arm seamerPawan Suyal will join theDelhi team as replacementsfor Nitish Rana and PawanNegi, who have failed tomake an impression in theongoing Vijay Hazare crickettournament here.

A move to draft all-rounder Sumit Narwal intothe team was prevented onMonday with the teammanagement here insistingon Subodh Bhati.

Delhi has had a miserablerun thus far with lossesagainst Tamil Nadu, Hi-machal Pradesh andMaharashtra.

Unmukt and Pawanon as replacementsSpecial Correspondent

BHUBANESWAR

Justice Vikramajit Sen, ap-pointed Administrator tocleanse the Delhi and Dis-trict Cricket Association(DDCA), has a big task athand.

The first step in his effortto organise the electoral col-lege requires a scrutiny ofthe members of the associ-ation. Here, observed a vet-eran official, lies thechallenge.

“It is a brilliant idea to callfor submission of declara-tion forms for members. Buthow to decide the authenti-city of the membership,”asked a top functionary ofthe DDCA. The official washinting at the process thatwas followed in offeringmembership in the firstplace.

Justice Sen has under-

taken this exercise as thefirst step towards commen-cing the process of alterationof the Article of Associationof the DDCA. The last datefor submission of the formshas now been extended toMarch 13.

The Lodha Committeehad recommended a uni-form constitution for theBoard of Control for Cricketin India (BCCI) and its affili-ated units and Justice Sen isreportedly concentrating onthis issue on a priority basis.

“Members have to pro-duce affidavits of identityproof and other relatedfactors but it would be im-perative to find out why andhow were they made mem-bers in the first place.

“As far as I am concernedthere is no record availablein the DDCA to throw lighton the membership issue,”

claimed the official.

Proxy system problemFor years, critics have de-manded the abolition of theproxy system which was ex-ploited by some officials tostick to their position in theDDCA. “The best thingwould obviously be to re-move the proxy system ofvoting and we are grateful tothe judiciary for this. Buthow to check the authenti-city of the member,” thesenior official asked.

The official expectedJustice Sen to dig deep anddemand the minutes of themeetings at which thesememberships were offered.“There has to be a process ofmaking members and I amsure no established policywas followed by some self-promoting officials. TheDDCA had functioned at the

whims and fancy of these of-ficials for more than threedecades. We expect JusticeSen to check the criteria ofmaking someone a memberof the DDCA,” the officialstressed.

The DDCA has a member-ship list of 4300 and JusticeSen’s exercise would put adefinite number to the list.

“We will soon know howmany family members andrelatives of these officialshave been made members ofthe DDCA. It is a gigantic taskbut we have our faith in thejudiciary. The screening ofthe membership list wouldgo a long way in the cleaningprocess of the DDCA. I hopefamily members of the offi-cials who go into the coolingoff process are preventedfrom contesting elections,”the senior DDCA functionaryconcluded.

Revamping DDCA: Challenge inidentifying authenticity of membershipVijay Lokapally

CUTTACK

Hockey India on Tuesdayofficially confirmed Dutch-man Marijne Sjoerd as thenew women’s coach, suc-ceeding Neil Hawgood inthe role for a period of fouryears. The appointmentwas first reported by The

Hindu in January.

Analytical coachBrought in with the 2020Olympics as target, Sjoerdwould be accompanied bycompatriot Eric Wonink asthe analytical coach.

The duo has alreadyjoined the ongoing wo-men’s camp in Bhopal un-der High Performance Dir-ector David John.

Sjoerd tocoachwomen’steamSpecial Correspondent

NEW DELHI

Jamie Vardy scored twiceas Leicester City started lifewithout sacked managerClaudio Ranieri by sinkingLiverpool 3-1 on Mondayand spark its Premier

League revival.The results:

Premier League: Leicester 3(Vardy 28, 60, Drinkwater 39)bt Liverpool 1 (Coutinho 68).

Serie A: Fiorentina 2 (Sapon-ara 8, Kalinic 38) drew withTorino 2 (Belotti 65, 85).

Vardy stars for FoxesAGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

LEICESTER

MUMBAI: The-three-year old coltMygrator, who is in good shape asevidenced by his track perform-ances, may win the Hong KongJockey Club Trophy, the featureevent of the races to be held hereon Wednesday evening.False rails will be placed 4 metreswide from 1400m to 1200m andthereafter 12 metres from 800mupto the winning post.

1 PRICELESS PLATE (2,000m),Cl. III, rated 40 to 66, 4-45 pm:

1. Caesars Star (5) Parbat 62, 2.Uncle Scrooge (1) Neeraj 60, 3.Sabiq (7) Sandesh 57, 4. ElegantBeauty (6) J.Chinoy 55, 5. GloriousOpinion (3) Santosh 53.5, 6. June(8) S.Amit 53, 7. Eiger’s Tiger (4)Dashrath 50.5 and 8. RelentlessPursuit (2) C.S.Jodha 49.1. SABIQ, 2. UNCLE SCROOGE, 3. EI-

GER’S TIGER

2 HONG KONG JOCKEY CLUB

TROPHY (1,400m), Maiden, 3-y-o only, 5-10: 1. Collegium (3)Dashrath 55, 2. Gandalf (4) Mer-chant 55, 3. Mygrator (8) Sandesh55, 4. Pardon My Dust (2) J.Chinoy55, 5. Pathan (7) Roushan 55, 6.Manifold (6) Neeraj 53.5, 7. Poetry-inmotion (5) C.S.Jodha 53.5 and 8.Powerhaus (1) Bhawani 53.5.1. MYGRATOR, 2. MANIFOLD, 3.

COLLEGIUM

3 F.K.VAKIL TROPHY DIV. II(1,400m), Cl. IV, rated 20 to

46, 5-35: 1. Centaurus (3) Ayyar 59,2. Aeolus Maximus (7) Dashrath58, 3. New England (8) C.S.Jodha58, 4. Logic (1) J.Chinoy 57, 5. BayOf Love (6) Nadeem 56, 6. RainDance (4) Parbat 56, 7. Trombone(10) Sandesh 56, 8. Allegria (9)Bhawani 55.5, 9. Carnival (5) Ak-shay 55.5 and 10. Ridgewood Star(2) Vishal 55.5.1. LOGIC, 2. TROMBONE, 3. AEOLUS

MAXIMUS

4 NARAYANDAS J DAVE PLATE

(1,600m), Cl. V, rated 01 to 26,6-00: 1. Astara (7) S.Amit 61, 2.Torrezzo (12) A.Gaikwad 61, 3.Firenze (2) Santosh 60.5, 4. Brazos(4) J.Chinoy 60, 5. The Other Song(13) Bhawani 59.5, 6. Sheer Belief(10) Nazil 59, 7. Master Sergeant(9) Merchant 58.5, 8. Frosted (5)Raghuveer 57, 9. Sir Song (8)Neeraj 56, 10. Black Jaguar (1)Kuldeep 55.5, 11. Secret Flame (3)Dashrath 54.5, 12. Star Ace (11)S.J.Sunil 53.5 and 13. Silver Edge(6) G.Amit 53.1. TORREZZO, 2. FIRENZE, 3.

BRAZOS

5 HAUNTING MEMORIES PLATE

(1,000m), Cl. III, rated 40 to66, 6-25: 1. Victorio (3) Raghuveer61, 2. Free Speech (7) G.Amit 59.5,3. Mt Tianmen (8) S.Amit 57, 4.Wind Craft (2) A.Gaikwad 56, 5.Hirohama (5) C.S.Jodha 54.5, 6.Phoenix Knight (4) S.J.Sunil 54, 7.Wonder Story (1) Santosh 52.5 and8. Dancing Prince (6) Neeraj 52.1. VICTORIO, 2. FREE SPEECH, 3.

MT TIANMEN

6 F.K.VAKIL TROPHY DIV. I(1,400m), Cl. IV, rated 20 to

46, 6-50: 1. Alien (1) Nadeem 60, 2.Arak (6) C.S.Jodha 60, 3. Classicus(10) Dashrath 59.5, 4. Sensex (3)Sandesh 59.5, 5. Pollyana (8)A.Gaikwad 58.5, 6. Furious N Fast(2) Merchant 57, 7. Royal Classic(9) S.Amit 55, 8. Wild Jack (5)J.Chinoy 55, 9. Jetaway (4) Neeraj54, 10. Diwali Lights (7) Bhawani52.5 and 11. Gloriana (11) Santosh52.5.1. SENSEX, 2. CLASSICUS, 3.

GLORIANA

7 K.J.K.IRANI PLATE (1,200m),Cl. V, rated 01 to 26, 7-15: 1.

Beyond Forces (7) Parbat 59, 2.What A Nice Girl (10) Sandesh58.5, 3. Asahi (8) Shahrukh 58, 4.Pass The Glory (9) Pereira 57.5, 5.Super Bolt (11) S.Amit 57.5, 6. Blav-atsky (3) Merchant 57, 7. Gold-smith (5) J.Chinoy 57, 8. Tennessee(6) S.J.Sunil 56, 9. Rare Silver (4)C.S.Jodha 55, 10. Alfonso (14)Dashrath 54, 11. Strides Ahead (2)S.Sunil 54, 12. Winning Girl (13)Nazil 54, 13. Whitesox (12)Bhawani 51 and 14. Targetmaster(1) Mosin 50.1. WHAT A NICE GIRL, 2. RARE SIL-

VER, 3. GOLDSMITH

8 M. M. T. PANDOLE PLATE

(1,000m), Cl. IV, rated 20 to46, 7-45: 1. Motherland (5)Sandesh 59.5, 2. Locarno (10)Nazil 57, 3. Bidstone Hill (3)A.Gaikwad 56.5, 4. Zabisco (2)Merchant 56, 5. Orla (4) C.S.Jodha55, 6. Travieso (11) S.J.Sunil 55, 7.Royal Sapphire (6) Dashrath 54.5,8. Ame (9) Joseph 52.5, 9. PoetsSong (1) Neeraj 52, 10. My Bless-ings (7) S.Amit 51.5, 11. EternalLove (8) Vishal 50.5 and 12. QueenRia (12) Nadeem 50.5.1. MOTHERLAND, 2. LOCARNO, 3.

ORLA

Day’s best: LOGICDouble: SABIQ – MOTHERLAND

Jackpot: 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8. Treble: (i) 5,6 & 7. (ii) 6, 7 & 8. Tanala: Allraces. Super Jackpot: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 &8.

Mygrator forfeature event

Ravi Rathore scored ninegoals to help 61st Cavalryscore a 10-9 victory over Ra-jnigandha Achievers in aleague match of the RadhaMohan Rajinder Mohan GoldVase 8-goal polo tournamenton Tuesday.

The results:

61st Cavalry 10 (Ravi Rathore 9,Akhil Sirohi) bt RajnigandhaAchievers 9 (Matthew Perry 6,Padmanabh Singh 3).

RathoresizzlesSpecial Correspondent

New Delhi

Visual World

Image

Visual World

Image

CMYK

ND-ND




SPORT

Padmakar Shivalkar, 76, andRajinder Goel, 74, have beenbusy reconstructing their hal-cyon days on the cricketfield.

Their phones have notstopped ringing since the an-nouncement of the Col. C. K.Nayudu Award being con-ferred on them by the BCCIas they revisit some chaptersall but forgotten from timeswhen they commanded re-spect from the best ofbatsmen.

“Now I can understandhow tough it must be for thecelebrated cricketers. Beingbombarded with non-stopphone calls,” laughs Goelsaab. His illustrious partnerfrom Mumbai echoes the sen-timents. Goel ‘saab’ lastplayed a First Class game at43 and Paddy Sir, as Shivalkaris fondly called, at 47 after be-ing forced to come out of re-tirement by Bombay skipperDilip Vengsarkar.

In that comeback match atthe Wankhede Stadium, Shiv-alkar, producing a 46-overspell, foxed the great G.R.Viswanath into a drive thatended in the hands of thefielder at cover. Some featconsidering Viswanath’s mas-tery at the crease when deal-ing with spinners!

The current generation,brought up on a diet of lim-ited overs cricket, could learnso much from the profoundpraise that Bishan Singh Bediheaped on the two.

Humble“I’m very happy for them.They had what makes a goodspinner —technique and tem-perament. I really used torevere them for these twoqualities. They had amazingpatience too. They had inabundance the humility thatmarks a great sportsman. Tome, they have been twobeautiful but unsung artists.They never had any rivalry,no bitterness. I think it was amatter of getting a break. Iwas fortunate to get one.Today’s cricketers just can’t

fathom their selfless serviceto the game. Their First Classcareer is an example for all tofollow. Paddy and Goel saabdeserve more than anyone,”said Bedi.

Goel finished with 750first-class wickets from 39781balls. He and Shivalkar, alsoBedi, were picked by SunilGavaskar for his book Idols.

On Goel, Bedi added, “Irate him very high. He was anoutstanding professional,very committed. He neverhad to bowl with 400 on theboard which Paddy had be-cause of the strong Bombaybatting line-up. Goel startedbefore me and finished afterme. This is what I call selflesscommitment. I remember henever asked for a field.Chandra (B.S.

Chandrasekhar) never did.Goel was a captain’s dream.”

Role models

Bedi described Shivalkar as aperfect role model. “Paddywas very accurate, veryhumble, lovely human being.His humility stretched bey-ond the boundary. Where aresuch players now?”

“I was not destined tobowl for India. I have no re-grets really. In any case, atmy age does it matter if Iplayed Test cricket or not? Iplayed cricket and that iswhat matters,” Shivalkaraverred. He keeps himselfbusy with coaching now.

Fated not to play

The closest Goel came toplaying for India was whenhe was summoned toBengaluru for the openingTest against the West Indiesin 1974-75. Bedi had beendropped for the Test. But theTest cap still eluded him. “Ifelt sad when they decided toplay two off-spinners(Prasanna and Venkatar-aghavan) and I lost out to des-tiny,” rued Goel.

Did Bedi block his entryearlier? “Not at all! He was avery big player, much betterthan me.” This humility bindsShivalkar, Goel and Bedi.

Bedi lavish in his praise forGoel and Shivalkar‘They had what makes a good spinner — technique and temperament’

Rajinder Goel.THE HINDU PHOTO ARCHIVES

Padmakar Shivalkar.THE HINDU PHOTO ARCHIVES

Vijay Lokapally

CUTTACK

One is happy despite the laterecognition, while the othercouldn’t care less — thisyear’s C.K. Nayudu LifetimeAchievement award winnersRajinder Goel and PadmakarShivalkar held contrastingviews on the covetedhonour.

“Better late than never.Der aaye durust aaye. I am

grateful to BCCI for bestow-ing me this honour. My con-tribution in Indian crickethas been acknowledged,”said a happy Goel.

When Shivalkar was askedthe same question, he said:“Hope you have listened tothe S.D. Burman (sic: Jaidev)composition ‘Main Zindagika saath...It has a line Jo MilaUsiko Muqaddar samajh liya(Whatever you get is des-

tiny). “For me, I have crossedthat stage of life: these thingshave become trivial.”

Both are raconteurs andhad stories to tell. Their firstmatch fee was ₹5 back in late1960s and early 70s.

“It used to be three-dayRanji Trophy matches then.So we would get ₹15 for 3days in which we would alsohave to manage three din-ners. I had a job with State

Bank of India that saved me,”recollected Goel.

When Shivalkar was askedabout his playing days and torecollect a few matches, heblandly replied: “I am notthe nostalgic type. What’sthere to recollect?

“Yes a five-for in a matchbetween Rest of World andCricket Club of India at Bra-bourne. I don’t rememberthe year.

Better late than never, says GoelPress Trust of India

NEW DELHI

Fifth seed Vijay SundarPrashanth got past quali-fier Kunal Anand 6-2, 5-7,6-1 in the first round of the$15,000 ITF men’s Futurestennis tournament here onTuesday.

The results: First round: Sri-ram Balaji bt Jayes Pungliya6-1, 6-3; Shane Vinsant (US)bt Ansu Bhuyan 6-2, 6-4; Ab-hinav Sanjeev Shanmugam btParikshit Somani 6-3, 6-1;Jose Fco. Vidal Azorin (Esp) btMohit Mayur 4-6, 6-4, 6-3;Sami Reinwein (Ger) bt Vas-isht Cheruku 6-2, 6-1; SanamSingh bt Jui-Chen Hung (Tpe)6-4, 6-1; Vijay Sundar Prash-anth bt Kunal Anand 6-2, 5-7,6-1; S.D. Prajwal Dev bt AlexisCanter (GBR) 6-4, 6-2; VishnuVardhan bt Jatin Dahiya 6-3,7-6(3).

Doubles (pre-quarterfinals):Sriram Balaji & Vishnu Vard-han bt Alexis Canter (GBR) &V.M. Ranjeet 6-1, 6-4; KunalAnand & Anvit Bendre bt Jui-Chen Hung (Tpe) & KarunudaySingh 7-6(4), 6-7(3), 12-10;Timur Khabibulin (Kaz) & SasiKumar Mukund bt AbhinansuBorthakur & Jagmeet Singh6-1, 6-3; Paramveer Singh Ba-jwa & Parikshit Somani btHaadin Bava & Mohit Mayur2-6, 6-2, [13-11].

Vijay SundarsurvivesscareSpecial Correspondent

GUWAHATI

La Liga: Sony Six & Sony SixHD, 12 a.m. & 2 a.m.(Thursday)NBA: Sony Six & Sony Six HD,6.30 a.m. (Thursday)

TV PICKS

Cavs outlastBucksLOS ANGELES

LeBron James shrugged offhis recent illness to post 24points as Cleveland Cavaliersoutlasted the MilwaukeeBucks 102-95 in the NBA onMonday.The results: MinnesotaTimberwolves 102 btSacramento Kings 88;Indiana Pacers 117 btHouston Rockets 108; DallasMavericks 96 bt Miami Heat89; Toronto 92 bt New YorkKnicks 91; Golden StateWarriors 119 btPhiladelphia76ers 108. AFP

IN BRIEF

Punjab has Andhraon the matPATIALA

Andhra, after bundling outPunjab for 144 in 47.2 overs,was 91 for eight in 46 oversat stumps on the first day ofthe final of the Col. C.K.Nayudu Trophy here onTuesday.The scores: Punjab 144 in47.2 overs (Amolpreet Singh42, Shivluv Sabharwal 38,Sneha Kishore four for 50,Bheema Rao four for 55) vs.Andhra 91 for eight in 46overs (Karan Kaila four for 19,Vinay Choudary three for six).

New F1 cars let down by‘sharkfins’, says HornerBARCELONA

Formula One has putaerodynamics beforeaesthetics, with the new-look 2017 cars let down by“shark fins” resulting from achange in the rules,according to Red Bull teamprincipal Christian Horner.Apart from being wider,lower and on fatter front andrear tyres, the newgeneration of cars stands outfor having prominent finsemanating from the airboxbehind the driver’s head.REUTERS

Prarthana Thombare andAbbie Myers of Australiamoved into the doublesquarterfinals of a $25,000ITF women’s event here.Karman Kaur Thandi ad-vanced with a three-set winover Andrea Ka of Cambodiain Spain.

The results: $15,000 ITF men,Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt:Doubles (pre-quarterfinals):

Chandril Sood & Lakshit Soodbt Francis Casey Alcantara (Phi)& Ti Chen 6-4, 6-3.

$25,000 ITF women, Clare,Australia: Doubles (pre-quarterfinals): Abbie Myers(Aus) & Prarthana Thombare btAlize LIm & Sherazad Reix (Fra)3-6, 6-3, [10-6].

$15,000 ITF women, Sharm ElSheikh, Egypt: Qualifyingsingles (second round): SalmaDuoubri (Fra) bt Kanika Vaidya5-7, 6-4, 6-2.

Doubles (pre-quarterfinals):Estelle Cascino (Fra) & KyraShroff bt

Yuliya Hatouka & KatyarinaPaulenka (Blr) 1-6, 6-2, [10-4].

$15,000 ITF women, Palman-ova, Spain: Singles (firstround): Karman Kaur Thandi btAndrea Ka (Cam) 6-2, 1-6, 6-1.

Doubles (pre-quarterfinals):Irene Burillo Escorihuela (Esp)& Ksenia Sharipova (Rus) btYukina Saigo (Jpn) & SnehadeviReddy 6-4, 4-6, [10-5].

Prarthana-Myers in last eightSports Bureau

Clare (Australia)

Jitu Rai gave a glimpse of hismagical touch as he rosefrom the eighth place toclinch the bronze medal inair pistol in the shootingWorld Cup at the Dr. KarniSingh Range, Tughlakabad,on Tuesday.

Jitu delighted the largegathering before losing therace for a better medal tothe reigning Olympic cham-pion Xuan Vinh Hoang of Vi-etnam by 0.6 point.

Jitu, who climbed pastthree Chinese including theformer Asian Games cham-pion Pu Qifeng, undid hisdream run with an 8.6 lastshot, after he had taken a 0.1lead over the Rio Gameschampion, who sealed thefight with a 9.3.

Two-time World cham-pion Tomoyuki Matsuda ofJapanwon his seventh WorldCup gold by recording a 3.5point victory over the Viet-

namese. After qualifying forthe final in the seventhplace despite a last shot of 9,for a modest total of 577, Jitustruggled to get his timingand rhythm in the 24-shot fi-nal.

Initial shots of 9.1 and 8.8rattled the expectant fans,but Jitu stayed calm andcomposed throughout des-pite high and low shots.The results:Men: 10m air pistol: 1. Tomoy-uki Matsuda (Jpn) 240.1 (WR)578; 2. Xuan Vinh Hoang (Vie)23.6 (581); 3. Jitu Rai 216.7(577); 14. Omkar Singh 574; 19.Amanpreet Singh 572. MQS:Prakash Nanjappa 582;Maninder Singh 567.50m rifle prone: 1. ToshikazuYamashita (Jpn) 249.8 (WR)619.3; 2. Lu Yukun (Chn) 249.3(WRJ) 624.5; 3. Daniel Ro-manczyk (Pol) 226.6 (619.1); 7.Chain Singh 141.9 (618.0); 12.Sushil Ghalay 617.9; 15. GaganNarang 617.0. MQS: SanjeevRajput 619.2; Rahul Poonia610.6.

Jitu Rai wins airpistol bronzeKamesh Srinivasan

NEW DELHI

Crack shots: Air pistol bronze winner Jitu Rai (right) poseswith gold medallist Tomoyuki Matsuda (centre) and Xuan VinhHoang. KAMESH SRINIVASAN

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Legendary New Yorkhotel closes for faceliftNEW YORK

Waldorf Astoria: one of theworld’s most luxurious hotelsis closing for renovation. Thelegendary establishmentopened in Manhattan in 1931with more than 1,400 rooms.The hotel’s owner, AnbangInsurance Group, says it willclose the hotel for majorrenovations startingWednesday. The work is dueto last three years. AFP

IN BRIEF

WHO wants new drugsagainst 12 super-germsPARIS

The World HealthOrganisation has urgedgovernments, scientists andpharmaceutical companies tocreate new drugs to tackle 12antibiotics-resistant super-germs threatening anexplosion of disease. Left tomarket forces alone, theantibiotics may not be readyin time, it said. The germscause ailments includinglung, blood, brain, andurinary tract infections, foodpoisoning from salmonellaand gonorrhoea. AFP

SpaceX has said that twoprivate citizens have paidmoney to be sent around themoon.

The U.S. has not sent as-tronauts to the moon sinceNASA’s Apollo missions ofthe 1960s and 1970s.

“We are excited to an-nounce that SpaceX hasbeen approached to fly twoprivate citizens on a triparound the moon late nextyear,” said a statement by

CEO Elon Musk. “Thispresents an opportunity forhumans to return to deepspace for the first time in 45years and they will travelfaster and further into thesolar system than any beforethem.”

Testing for fitnessThe tourists, who were notnamed, “have already paid asignificant deposit,” Mr.Musk’s statement added.

Health tests and trainingare to begin this year.

“Other flight teams havealso expressed strong in-terest and we expect moreto follow. Additional inform-ation will be released aboutthe flight teams, contingentupon their approval andconfirmation of the healthand fitness test results,” Mr.Musk said.

The tourists will rideaboard the California-basedcompany’s Crew Dragoncapsule, which is scheduledfor its first unmanned testflight later this year.

It is based on the designcurrently used to send cargoto the International SpaceStation, with upgrades to al-low for human transport.

Powerful rocketThe capsule will launch atopSpaceX’s Falcon Heavyrocket, which is scheduledfor its first test flight thissummer.

The rocket “will be themost powerful vehicle toreach orbit after the SaturnV moon rocket,” Mr. Musk

said. “At five million poundsof lift-off thrust, FalconHeavy is two-thirds thethrust of Saturn V and morethan double the thrust of thenext largest launch vehiclecurrently flying.”

Mr. Musk posted the com-pany’s announcement onTwitter by stating: “Fly meto the moon ... Ok.”

Last September, he un-veiled ambitious plans to es-tablish a colony on Mars bysending 100 humans at atime — starting in 2024.

A holiday around themoon, honey?Two tourists have paid a big deposit to SpaceX to take them to deep space in 2018

Agence France-Presse

Miami

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth IIhad an impromptu lesson inIndian dance mudras, orhand gestures, when the 90-year-old monarch met celeb-rated dancer and choreo-grapher Arunima Kumar atBuckingham Palace here.

The Queen had hosted aspecial reception on Mondayto mark the launch of theU.K.-India Year of Culture2017. Ms. Kumar had choreo-graphed a dance sequencefor the event.

“I met the Queen and sheliterally made the mudraswith me. She asked me how I

do all those moves becausethey are quite complex. And,I showed her some hand ges-

tures and she copied me andthat moment I will remem-ber for the rest of my life,”

Ms. Kumar said. “She is justso amazing. She knowseverything abouteverything,” said the U.K.-based dancer.

Ms. Kumar, the daughterof former Delhi Police com-missioner Neeraj Kumar, per-formed a kuchipudi dancenumber besides the choreo-graphed sequence showcas-ing the various dance formsof India.

“It is sense of achievementand honour that togetherwith all my dancers webrought Indian art into Buck-ingham Palace. It is a mo-ment we will remember forever. We have created his-

tory, not just for ourselvesbut also for India,” Ms. Ku-mar said.

The reception brought to-gether high profile guestsfrom various fields across In-dia and the U.K. The Indiangovernment was representedby Finance Minister ArunJaitley.

Mr. Jaitley was joined bymany Indian celebrities in-cluding cricket legend KapilDev, actors Kamal Hassanand Suresh Gopi, singer Gur-das Maan, fashion designersManish Arora and ManishMalhotra, choreographerShiamak Davar and industri-alist Ratan Tata.

When Queen Elizabeth tried dance mudrasBuckingham Palace played host to a special event to mark the launch of the U.K.–India Year of Culture


London

Fit for a royal:Danseuse Arunima Kumar and her troupeperformed a sequence in Buckingham Palace in London onMonday. PTI

Two friends on a treasurehunt have unearthed jew-ellery which experts saycould be the oldest Iron Agegold discovered in Britain.

Mark Hambleton, whowent back to metal detectingafter advice from his latefather, made the find withJoe Kania on StaffordshireMoorlands farmland.

The three necklaces andbracelet, named the Leek-frith Iron Age Torcs, are be-lieved to be about 2,500years old.

Experts believe they wereprobably made in Europe,possibly Germany orFrance.

Julia Farley of the BritishMuseum said: “This uniquefind is of international im-portance.”

Ms. Farley, the museum’scurator of British andEuropean Iron Age collec-tions, said: “It dates toaround 400 – 250 BC and isprobably the earliest IronAge gold work ever dis-covered in Britain.

“The torcs were probablyworn by wealthy and power-ful women, perhaps peoplefrom the Continent who hadmarried into the localcommunity.

Valuable insight“Piecing together how theseobjects came to be carefullyburied in a Staffordshirefield will give us an invalu-able insight into life in IronAge Britain,” she was quotedas saying by the BBC.

The four torcs were foundseparately, about 1 metreapart, buried near the sur-

face in Leekfrith last Decem-ber. Mr. Hambleton said: “Iwas just about to give up forthe day when Joe said hethought he had found some-thing. “We both looked at itand were speechless.”

He said he had previouslyonly found the “odd Vic-torian coin”. He kept thenew find next to his bed thatnight “to make sure it wassafe” before handing it to ex-perts next day.

The jewellery has beenhanded to the Portable An-tiquities Scheme, which ispart of Birmingham Mu-seums. An inquest will de-cide whether the pieces aretreasure and they will thenbe provisionally valued. Thefriends said they wouldshare any proceeds with thefamily living where the findswere made.


London

Amateur treasure huntersind Iron Age gold jewellery

Sheep are herded across a wooden bridge on the Dal Lake in Srinagar on Tuesday. NISSAR AHMAD


Fading winter

Better known for lookingafter Britain’s stately homes,the National Trust is organ-ising a series of walkingtours on Soho’s gay historyto celebrate 50 years sincehomosexuality was decrim-inalised in the country.

The tours bring to life thehidden stories of a once-seedy and now increasinglygentrified part of Londonthat served as a refuge forgay people in an era when akiss could send you toprison.

The visits last around 90minutes and take visitors tosix spots tracing the history

of the area between WorldWar I and 1967, when homo-sexuality was partially de-criminalised in England andWales.

The area was filled withgay bars at the time.

Along with gay revellers,the central London area wasalso filled with police — bothin the streets and in theclubs — many looking foreasy prosecutions then.

The tour includes a stopat the partial reconstructionof the Caravan Club, whichwas shut down in 1934 andwas described at the time asa meeting place for “sexualperverts, lesbians andsodomites”.

Agence France-Presse

London

London’s gay historyexplored in new tour

Renowned geneticist Mary-Claire King, whose researchhas revealed that breast can-cer results from a particulargene, BRCA1, and can be aheritable disease, emphas-ised on genetic testing of wo-men having breast andovarian cancer in India.

She was addressing thegathering at the Kolkata legof the Seventh Annual CellPress-TNQ India Distin-guished Lectureship Serieson Tuesday.

“My proposition for Indiais that every breast andovarian cancer patientshould be sequenced(tested) for mutations ofBRCA1 and BRCA 2 (genes

which cause breast cancer).“Keeping in mind the cur-

rent context of limited re-sources here, I am not sayingall women above the age of30 be screened; just startwith the patients,” said Pro-fessor King.

She also said, “Genetic se-

quencing of existing breastcancer patients is needed toensure that none of her relat-ives (sisters and daughters)get breast cancer later on.”

Elaborating on the needfor genetic testing to identifywhether one has the relatedmutations of BRCA1 andBRCA2 genes, which in-crease the risk of breast andovarian cancer, she said thatthrough such testing, wo-men will be able to decidewhether to go through ne-cessary surgery to reducethe risk.

Informed choiceProf. King also said that theresults of the genetic testingwill enlighten the patient’ssisters and daughters on

whether they are at the riskof getting breast cancer intheir late 30s and 40s. Shesaid that the cost of genetictesting has come down con-siderably in U.S. in the lastcouple of years. “The cost ofsequencing (genetic testing)has come down from $4,000(about ₹2.7 lakh) to $250(about ₹16,672) in the U.S.

In India, scientists are in-credibly good at improvingtechnology while simultan-eously making it cost-effect-ive,” she said.

Prof. King also suggestedthat “close cooperation”between genome scientistsand medical professionals isnecessary for the exchangeof information and stream-lining research.

Protecting women from breast cancerMary-Claire King says genetic testing will enable women to seek help if needed

Soumya Das

Kolkata

Mary-Claire King

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GDP growth pegged at 7.1%, belying demonetisation drag

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