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RNI No. TELENG/2018/76469

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MONEY 8JULY MANUFACTURING

OUTPUT ZOOMS

ANALYSIS 7POWER REFORMS — A DIS-

TANT DREAM

SPORTS 12HISTORYMAKERS

}NUMBER GAMEMATTERS TOADIVI SESH

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HYDERABAD, TUESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2021, 2021; PAGES 12 `3

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AALLMMAANNAACC

TTOODDAAYY

Month & Paksham:

Ashadha & Krishna Paksha

Panchangam

Tithi : Dashami 12:59

Nakshatram : Rohini 25:44

Time to Avoid : Time to Avoid (Bad

time to start any important work)

Rahukalam : 3:33 pm - 5:09 pm

Yamagandam : 9:10 am - 10:46 am

Varjyam : 4:43 pm - 6:31 pm

Gulika : 12:22 pm - 1:57 pm

Good Time : (to start any important work)

Amritakalam : 10:08 pm - 11:56 pm

Abhijit Muhurtham : 11:56 am - 12:47 pm

ML MELLY MAITREYI n HYDERABAD

Chief Minister K ChandrasekharRao on Monday made it clear that theTRS government will continue totread on the development path andimplement all the programmes it hasenvisioned for the State notwith-standing the desperate efforts ofopposition parties to make light of itsachievements and programmes.

“We are getting the support andblessings of the people and we willcontinue our welfare and develop-ment agenda, including the latestDalit Bandhu,” asserted KCR at Haliain Nagarjuna Sagar constituency ofNalgonda district on Monday.

He said that political leaders whohad not done any good work wereridiculing ‘Dalit Bandhu’ as it wouldtransform the lives of about 17 lakhDalit families in the State. The ChiefMinister added that about 12 lakhDalit families, comprising 70 to 80percent of the community, would getRs 10 lakh financial assistance direct-ly from government. “Those partieswho have no intention of doing goodto people either ridicule or pick holesin the government's far-reachingprogrammes,” KCR said.

He announced that this year, Rs1,200 crore would be spent towardsDalit Bandhu scheme on 100 fam-ilies in each constituency and fromnext year, large scale funds wouldbe allotted for the scheme. “No onehas ever taken up such a pro-gramme and hence some were get-ting palpitations with the thoughtthat if TRS government imple-mented the scheme, they wouldremain losers forever,” KCR said.

Hence I thought a lot and decided on ‘DalitBandhu’ and this government will spend Rs 1lakh-crore. No one demanded this scheme. Iwill supervise the implementation of thescheme personally and I will make a point toeveryone by implementing this scheme

— K CHANDRASEKHAR RAO, Chief Minister of Telangana

Chief Minister K ChandrasekharRao on Monday came down

heavily on Union government,accusing it of adopting an ‘anti-Telangana stance’ and also AndhraPradesh’s ‘dadagiri’ over sharing ofKrishna River waters. Speaking atHali in Nagarjuna Sagarconstituency, KCR said, "Be it theCentre's anti-Telangana behaviouror Andhra's Dadagiri, everybody isseeing the way they are buildingillegal projects on Krishna. We willface problems related to Krishnawater in the coming days.”KCR added: “From Paleru reservoirto Peddadevullapalli, a survey isbeing conducted to bring Godavari

waters. If that is complete,Nagarjuna Sagar ayacut willalso be saved. We will takemeasures accordingly andensure that the problem issolved forever." The Chief Minister also for thefirst time reacted to the JalShakti Ministry issuing a gaz-ette notification bringing 107irrigation projects under the juris-diction of Krishna and GodavariRiver Management Boards. Heassured the people that the TRSgovernment will take all measuresto ensure that farmers do not faceany troubles due to lack of KrishnaRiver waters in future.

CM sanctions Rs 150 crore forNagarjuna Sagar constituency

PNS n NEW DELHI

The Supreme Court on Mondaysuggested mediation to AndhraPradesh and Telangana for set-tling their dispute over sharingof Krishna river water, saying itdid not want to interfere unnec-essarily.

A bench headed by ChiefJustice NV Ramana was hearingthe plea of Andhra Pradesh whichhas alleged that Telangana hasdeprived it of its legitimate shareof drinking and irrigation water.

"I don't want to hear this mat-ter legally. I belong to both thestates. If the matter can be settledin mediation, please do that. Wecan help with that. Otherwise Iwill transfer this to anotherbench," the CJI, who hails fromAndhra Pradesh, observed duringthe hearing.

"I wish that both of you

(lawyers representing the twostates) convince your govern-ments and settle the matter. We donot want to interfere unnecessar-ily," said the CJI who was headingthe bench also comprising JusticeSurya Kant.

Senior advocate DushyantDave, appearing for Andhra

Pradesh along with lawyerMahfooz Ahsan Nazki, soughttime for seeking instruction.

The bench then kept the pleafor further consideration onWednesday and senior advocateCS Vaidyanathan, appearing forTelangana, agreed to this.

12L families to get Rs 10L eachthrough Dalit Bandhu: KCR

Facing problems due to Centre’santi-TS stance, AP’s Dadagiri: CM

Covaxin effective againstDelta Plus: ICMR studyPNS n HYDERABAD

Bharat Biotech's Covid-19 vaccineCovaxin (BBV152) is effectiveagainst Delta Plus (AY.1) variant ofthe coronavirus, according to astudy published in bioRxiv by theIndian Council of Medical andResearch (ICMR).

The study is a pre-print and hasnot been peer-reviewed.

"Here, we have evaluated the IgGantibody titer and neutralisingpotential of sera of Covid-19 naive

individuals full doses of BBV152vaccine, Covid-19 recovered caseswith full dose vaccines and break-through cases post-immunizationBBV152 vaccines against Delta,Delta AY.1 and B.1.617.3.," thestudy said.

The recent emergence of theSARS-CoV-2 Variant B.1.617.2(Delta) variant with its hightransmissibility has led to the sec-ond wave in India.

Child labour increased in TS during pandemicNAVEENA GHANATE n HYDERABAD

The apprehensions of child rightsactivists and concerned membersof the society that there would bean upsurge in child labour due tothe Covid-induced pandemicappear to have proven true, goingby the number of children rescuedfrom Telangana.

As many as 300 minors, includ-ing girls, were rescued from childlabour in 2020-2021, rehabilitatedand mainstreamed under NationalChild Labour Project (NCLP).

The number of children rescued

had been witnessing a downwardtrend since 2018 but saw an uptickin 2021. While in 2018-19, as manyas 2,137 children from Telanganawere rescued, in 2019-20 the num-

ber had dropped to 935 and in 2019-20, it fell to 214 children.

Across the country, 54,894 chil-dren were rescued in 2019-20while in Financial Year 2020, thisnumber had climbed to 58,289.

As per the data tabled inParliament, the number of childrenrescued from AP saw a dip.

Minister of State for Labourand Employment Rameswar Telitold the Lok Sabha on Monday thatthe Covid-19 pandemic hasimpacted all sections of the socie-ty, including children.

Centre releases Rs 628.6 crunder SDRF to TelanganaPNS n HYDERABAD

The Union government has so farreleased Rs 628.6crore under SDRFfor Covid relief measures toTelangana.

During FinancialYear 2020-21, anamount of Rs 449crore was releasedto Telanganaunder the Centralshare of SDRF. Inaddition, for thefinancial year 2021-22, first instalment ofCentral share of SDRFRs 179.60 crore was releasedin advance to Telangana on April29, 2021.

Normally, the first instalment ofSDRF is released in June. However,considering the immediate need ofStates due to Covid-19 secondwave, the Union government

released the SDRF amounts with-out waiting for the utilisation cer-tificate. Keeping in view the spreadof Covid-19, the Union govern-ment allowed States to utilise up to

50 percent of their annualallocation of SDRF for

Covid-19 containmentmeasures.

The Centre alsoadvised the States touse the funds tomeet the cost of oxy-gen generation and

storage plants in hos-pitals, procurement of

ventilators, strengtheningambulance services as well as

Covid-19 hospitals and Covid-19care centres purchasing consum-ables, thermal scanners, personalprotective equipment, testing lab-oratories, and testing kits.

On copious inflows, gates of Sagar, Pulichintala liftedPNS n HYDERABAD

With continuous inflows into theprojects in Krishna basin,Nagarjuna Sagar project is almostfull with water level reaching587.3 feet as against the FullReservoir Level of 590 ft.

With inflows at 3.13 lakhcusecs, water was being releaseddownstream at the same rate bylifting 22 crest gates up to 10 feet.As against the full storage level of312 tmc ft, the present storage isat 305.68 tmc ft.

Pulichintala downstreamNagarjuna Sagar is getting inflowsat 3.2 lakh cusecs and the outflowwas at 3.54 lakh cusecs. The waterlevel reached 172 ft as against FRLlevel of 175 and present storage isat 41.24 tmc ft as against full stor-age capacity of 45.77 tmc ft.

The authorities opened 17 gatesof the project on the Guntur-Suryapet border. As much as8,000 cusecs is allotted for powergeneration. Before the gates were

lifted, people living downstreamwere alerted about rising waterlevels. The water level at Prakasambarrage also increased as the gatesof Pulichintala were lifted.

Copious inflows continue tocome into upstream projects ofJurala and Srisailam.

Eatala undergoes kneesurgery; wife mayresume padayatraPNS n HYDERABAD

Former health minister EatalaRajender underwent knee sur-gery on Monday at a corporatehospital in Hyderabad, where hewould be recuperating for atleast one week.

Due to the surgery, there arequestion marks whether the BJPleader would ever resume thepadayatra.

However, the Telangana BJP ishoping that Eatala’s wife JamunaReddy may step into his shoesand complete the remaining legof the padayatra.

According to sources ,Jamuna Reddy may announceher decision on Tuesday, afterspeaking to the doctors whoperformed surgery on her hus-baand’s knee.

Centre rusheshigh-level teamto Maharashtra

ZIKA VIRUS

PNS n NEW DELHI

The Union Health Ministry hasrushed a multidisciplinary teamto Maharashtra to monitor theZika virus situation and supportthe state government in the man-agement of cases. A case of Zikavirus has been reported in Punedistrict recently, the health min-istry said in a statement.

The three-member centralteam consists of a public healthexpert from the office of RegionalDirector, Pune; a gynecologistfrom Lady Hardinge MedicalCollege, New Delhi; and an ento-mologist from National Instituteof Malaria Research (NIMR),ICMR, New Delhi.

States responsible for cases underscrapped Section 66A of IT Act

CENTRE TO SUPREME COURT

PNS n NEW DELHI

As 'police' and 'public order' arestate subjects under theConstitution, the primary respon-sibility for implementing the 2015judgement which scrappedSection 66A of the IT Act lay withthem and their law enforcementagencies, the Centre has told theSupreme Court.

The Centre has stated this in anaffidavit to the apex court inresponse to a plea of an NGO,'People's Union for Civil Liberties'(PUCL), alleging that the stepstaken by the Central govern-ment for ensuring effective imple-mentation of the verdict “farfrom adequate”.

Under the scrapped Section aperson posting offensive messagescould be imprisoned for up tothree years as also fined.

In the affidavit filed before abench headed by Justice R FNariman, the Centre said thatstate law enforcement agencies

are responsible for taking actionagainst offenders related tocyber crime.

Rainfall in Aug, Septto be on higher sidePNS n NEW DELHI

Rainfall during August andSeptember, the second half of thefour-month rainfall season, islikely to be on the higher side ofnormal, the India MeteorologicalDepartment (IMD) said onMonday.

In another forecast for August,IMD Director General MrutunjayMohapatra said monsoon is alsolikely to be normal in the month.

Noting that Nagarjuna Sagar did not develop to the extent needed, KCR said allsteps would be taken to develop the segment on par with other constituencies

Statecan use 50%

of the amount forCovid containment

measures

SC advises mediation over Krishna water dispute

‘I belong to both thestates. If the mattercan be settled inmediation, please dothat. We can helpwith that. OtherwiseI will transfer this toanother bench," saidCJI NV Ramana

In the affidavit filedbefore a bench headedby Justice R F Nariman,

the Centre said thatstate law

enforcementagencies are

responsiblefor taking

actionagainst

offendersrelated

to cybercrime

E-RUPI A FUTURISTIC REFORM: MODILAUNCHES NEW PAYMENT SYSTEM

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today launched e-RUPI --the government's digital payment solution meant toensure delivery of welfare services, which, for now,

will be used to push vaccination efforts. The platform willgo live for the first time at a Covid vaccination centre inMumbai. Developed by National Payments Corporation ofIndia, e-RUPI is a cashless and contact-less instrumentthat's based on QR code or SMS-based e-Voucher, whichis delivered to the cellphones of beneficiaries. This can beredeemed directly with the service provider.

BABUL SUPRIYO TWEAKS PLAN AFTERNADDA MEET, SAYS HE WILL ‘STAY MP’

Aday after he announced his decision to quit politics --and his Parliamentary seat -- former Union MinisterBabul Supriyo has rescinded on the second. The

Bollywood-singer-turned-politician today said he will"continue to discharge his constitutional responsibility"without being politically active. Supriyo's re-calibratedposition emerged following his meeting with BJP chief JPNadda on Monday. On Saturday in a Facebook postannounced he has decided to quit politics. He howeverclarified that he would not be joining any other party.

SHIV SENA WORKERS VANDALISE ADANIAIRPORT SIGNBOARD IN MUMBAI

Agroup of Shiv Sena workers allegedly ransacked aneon signboard with ''Adani Airport'' written on it nearthe statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj close to the

airport in Mumbai on Monday afternoon, a police officialsaid. They shouted slogans against the signboard when theairport is named after Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. Someof the workers later came on to the Western ExpressHighway located nearby due to which traffic movement onthe city's arterial north-south road was disrupted for sometime, the official said.

POWER EMPLOYEES TO HOLD PROTESTOVER ELECTRICITY AMENDMENT BILL

Power sector employees and engineers will be holding afour-day 'Satyagrah' at Jantar Mantar in New Delhifrom Tuesday against the Electricity (Amendment) Bill

2021. On the call of National Coordination Committee ofElectricity Employees & Engineers (NCCOEEE), poweremployees will hold the 'Satyagrah' against the unilateralannouncement of central government to pass the Electricity(Amendment) Bill, in current monsoon session ofParliament, All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF)Chairman Shailendra Dubey said here.

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hyderabad 02HYDERABAD | TUESDAY | AUGUST 3, 2021

EGG

RATES

HYDERABAD 426

VIJAYAWADA 524

VISAKHAPATNAM 557

RREETTAAIILL PPRRIICCEE `̀44..2266

`̀//110000

CHICKEN

RATES

Dressed/With Skin `230

Without Skin `250

Broiler at Farm `126

`̀//KKGG

(IN HYDERABAD)

On July 26, PrimeMinister NarendraModi, in a meeting

with Education MinisterDharmendra Pradhan andHealth Minister MansukhMandaviya and Health, Law,Social Welfare and EducationSecretaries, asked them toreview the quota for theOBCs and economicallybackward classes in medicaleducation on an all-Indiabasis.

After three days, on July 29,the Centre announced a 27percent quota for OBCs and10 percent for EBCs in the AllIndia Quota Scheme forMedical Education. The AllIndia Quota consists of 15percent of total availableundergraduate seats and 50percent of the total availablepost-graduate seats in govern-ment medical colleges.

In 2007, the Supreme Courtintroduced a 15 percent quotafor the SCs and 7.5 percentquota for the STs in the AIQscheme.

But no government till thepresent dispensation paidattention to the quota for

OBCs in medical education.The decision paved the wayfor making available 4,000seats for the OBCs in medicalcourses.

The Congress has no regardfor the OBCs. Ever sinceModi, who hails from OBCcategory, came to power at theCentre, the Congress, whichrepresented the interests ofthe upper castes, has madepublic its jealousy umpteentimes.

During the 2014 electioncampaign, Congress leaderPriyanka Vadra accused Modiof practising politics ofdebasement.

Responding to it, Modisaid: “Yes, I hail from a lowercaste. But I dream of buildinga united India. That is why thepolitics that I practise for thebenefit of BCs constitutebackward class politics.”

“Perhaps many are notaware of the fact that the self-

less sacrifices made by thedowntrodden sections play acrucial role in the countryattaining dizzying heights,”Modi said.

In 2017 elections to GujaratAssembly, senior Congressleader Mani Shankar Iyerlikened Modi with an insectthat we find in a ditch.

Those who went throughbiographic work on Modi arewell aware that the PM hailsfrom a OBC community andwas one of eight children. His

father sold tea at a small rail-way station called Vad Nagarand lived in a small house thathad no windows and tap con-nection.

How can the OBCs supportthe Congress which insulteda person like Modi?

The people of Gujaratrejected the insulting remarksagainst Modi and voted theBJP to power. OBC leader inGujarat Alpesh Thakor, priorto joining the BJP in 2019,resigned from all posts in

Congress. Thakor set up ‘EktaManch’ to unite OBCs, SCsand STs. He criticised theCongress for insulting himand accused it of backstabbinghim.

What does the Congressoffer OBCs, who constitutemore than 50 percent of thecountry’s population, exceptinsults?

Currently, a majority ofthe CMs of BJP-ruledstates belong tothe OBC cate-gory as also amajority ofMPs and MLAsof the BJP. In fact,113 OBCs have beenelected to the LokSabha on behalf of the BJP.

That was why the PMinducted 27 OBCs into hisCabinet in the recent reshuf-fle. The BJP started encourag-ing Kurmis, Kushavaha,Lodhi, Koyiri communities –small non-Yadav BC commu-nities in addition to the OBCsenjoying the fruits of welfareand development schemes insociety.

To enable these sub-castesto get more benefits, the Modigovernment amended Article340 of the Constitution andappointed a commission too.

Moreover, the National

Commission on BackwardClasses was given

Constitutional status.The Commissionhas all the powers ofa civil court and is

empowered to takeaction against those

who cause damage to theinterests of the BCs. It canmake suitable recommenda-tions for development of BCsstudying their living condi-tions.

Of the 18 crore who joinedthe biggest political outfit inthe country – the BJP – 50percent hail from the OBCcategory. Moreover, in elec-tions held to State Assemblies,the BJP allots the highestnumber of seats to BCs andother downtrodden sections.

Schemes being implement-ed by the Modi governmentgive priority to OBCs andother downtrodden sectionsof society.

Soon after coming topower, Modi reviewed imple-mentation of many welfareschemes and improved thefunctioning of organisationslike BC Development.

He ensured that OBCs getloans, scholarships, hostelamenities etc., and moreimproved basic amenities areavailable for them. He gavepriority to skill developmentamong the OBCs.

The people are aware of thepriority OBCs, Dalits andother downtrodden sectionsare given by the Modi govern-ment.

It is a wonder that theOpposition parties did notrealise that it is not easy toface Modi who works for thewelfare and development ofthe poor, BCs and downtrod-den sections.

During its rule, theCongress protected the inter-ests of the upper classes, land-lords and investors loyal to it.The same Congress regardsthe BJP as a party that protectsthe interests of the uppercastes because it is not onlyblind but also deaf.

Y SATYA KUMAR

BJP National Secretary

TRULY

SPEAKING

Of the 18 crore who joined the biggestpolitical outfit in the country – the BJP – 50percent hail from the OBC category.Moreover, in elections to State Assemblies,the BJP allots the highest number of seatsto BCs and other downtrodden sections.Schemes being implemented by the Modigov t give priority to OBCs.

BJP– A ray of hope for the OBCs

CM sanctions Rs 150 crore forNagarjuna Sagar constituencyML MELLY MAITREYI

n HYDERABAD

Keeping his promise of visit-ing Nagarjuna Sagar con-stituency for a follow-up onthe assurances given duringthe by-election, Chief MinisterK Chandrasekhar Rao onMonday announced a pletho-ra of projects for the seg-ment, including Rs 150 crorefor the development of Haliaand Nandikonda municipali-ties.

Addressing the reviewmeeting of development worksin the Nagarjuna Sagar con-stituency at Halia on Monday,KCR thanked the people forelecting TRS candidateNomula Bhagath.

Admitting that his promisedvisit to the constituency wasdelayed due to Covid-19 pan-

demic and his own indisposi-tion due to the coronavirus,the Chief Minister said theTRS MLA gave him a long listof things to be done for theconstituency.

Noting that NagarjunaSagar did not develop to theextent needed, KCR said allsteps would be taken to devel-op the segment on par withother constituencies. “We willshow you what is developmentin Nagarjuna Sagar con-stituency,” he said, promisingto visit again and sanctionmore required works. He alsosanctioned Rs 15 crore each toHalia and Nandikonda munic-ipalities for developmentworks including drains, roads,culverts and causeways.

The Chief Minister alsosanctioned one more liftscheme for the constituency at

Gurrampadu village as perthe request of MLA to bring10,000 acres under cultivation.He said that over all, 15 liftschemes were sanctioned forthe district in Devarakonda,Nakrekal and Huzurnagar. Allthe LI schemes would be com-pleted in one-and-a-half years.

Referring to ‘anti-Telangana’ attitude of theCentre and highhandedbehaviour of AP governmentwith regard to Krishna waters,KCR said everyone was wit-ness to construction of illegalprojects on the River Krishnaand it could create problemsto Telangana in the comingdays. “Thus as a precaution,there was a need to linkPeddadevulapally tank withGodavari water of Palerureservoir. Steps would betaken for this and a survey

was going on and once com-pleted, Nagarjuna Sagar aya-cut would be safe,” he said.

The other decisions were toupgrade all the primaryhealthcare centres inNagarjuna Sagar constituencyalong with the government'sdecision to set up medical col-leges in 33 district headquar-ters in the coming days alongwith 500-bed hospitals inevery college.

After the pandemic struck,the lack of adequate healthinfrastructure came into focus.The government has nowmade available 18,000 oxygenbeds in all state-run hospitalseven as seven more medicalcolleges were sanctioned.

Even in Hyderabad fourmore super specialty hospitalswould be established, the ChiefMinister said.

He said a committee led bydistrict Collector would regu-larise those living in quartersbelonging to Irrigation depart-ment in Nandikonda and alsothose who constructed hous-es in land belonging toIrrigation department and pat-tas will be given.

Recalling that he hadpromised to sanction a degreecollege in Nagarjuna Sagarconstituency, KCR said hewould sanction funds for thebuilding and staff.

A mini-stadium would alsobe sanctioned for Halia, theChief Minister said.

On Podu lands issue, he saidas per the old Central Act, theissues of all those who werecultivating podu lands till thecut off date in the Act wouldbe resolved and the actionwould be initiated soon.

SC advises mediationover Krishna water...Continued from page 1

In July, Andhra Pradesh gov-ernment had moved the topcourt claiming that theTelangana governmentrefused to follow the decisionstaken by the Apex Councilconstituted under the AndhraPradesh Reorganization Act,2014, the directions ofKrishna River ManagementBoard (KRMB) formed underthis Act, and the Centre'sdirectives.

The petition said the funda-mental rights including rightto life of the people living inAndhra Pradesh was "serious-ly impaired and infringed"upon as they were beingdeprived of their "legitimateshare of water" due to "uncon-stitutional, illegal and unjust"acts of the Telangana govern-ment and its officials.

"The present petition isbeing moved because the stateof Telangana is refusing to fol-low decisions taken in theApex Council constituted

under the Andhra PradeshReorganization Act, 2014,directions of KRMB, anddirections of government ofIndia," it said.

"This has caused immensehardship for people of AndhraPradesh as availability of waterhas been seriously prejudicedby depletion in the SrisailamDam project as well as otherprojects such as the NagarjunaSagar Project and thePulichintala Project," it added.

The petition urged the topcourt to direct the Centre totake control of the commonreservoirs of Srisailam,Nagarjunasagar and alsoPulichintala reservoirs alongwith all their outlets and oper-ate them as per the rules invogue as per the bindingaward.

If necessary, with the helpof police protection, operateboth the common reservoirsof Srisailam, Nagarjunasagarand also Pulichintala reservoirwithout causing prejudice toAndhra Pradesh, it urged.

Continued from page 1

He said, “Ministry of Labourand Employment also decid-ed to relax the norms inrespect of functioning of theSpecial Training Centres, andthe financial grants underNational Child LabourProject from April 2020 toSeptember 2020 werereleased with relaxed normsin view of the Covid-19 pan-demic.”

He added that under theNCLP Scheme, children inthe age group of 9-14 yearsare rescued / withdrawn fromwork and enrolled in theNCLP Special TrainingCentres to provide bridgeeducation, vocational train-ing, midday meals, stipend,healthcare, etc. before beingmainstreamed into the for-mal education system.

Children in the age groupof 5-8 years are directly linkedto the formal education sys-tem through a close coordi-nation with the SamagraShiksha Abhiyan.

Child labourincreased...

12L families to get Rs 10L each through...Continued from page 1

Speaking at the Pragathi reviewmeeting at Halia on the assur-ances given to electorate duringthe by-election to NagarjunaSagar constituency with people’srepresentatives from sarpanchto MPs, KCR said that Dalitsremained backward even after70 years of Independence.

“Hence I thought a lot anddecided on ‘Dalit Bandhu’ andthis government will spend Rs1 lakh-crore. No one demand-ed this scheme. I will supervisethe implementation of thescheme personally and I willmake a point to everyone byimplementing this scheme,” hesaid.

Referring to scepticism

expressed by some about DalitBandhu, KCR recalled that noone ever believed TelanganaState would be achieved. “TheseCongress leaders had notresigned and sat at home whileTRS leaders and workers alongwith me believed in the move-ment and brought pressure onthe political leadership at theCentre and achievedTelangana,” he said.

The Chief Minister said thatCongress leaders had mort-gaged the interests ofTelangana region under thecombined State and gave mis-leading accounts to the people.“The TRS government on theother hand implementedMission Bhagiratha drinkingwater scheme, irrigation pro-

jects, gave 24x7 quality powerand became a model for theentire country. The TRS gov-ernment is giving pensionsand ration cards, and hasreduced pension eligibility to57 years,” he reminded.

The same leaders who couldnot digest progress achieved bythe Telangana State are mak-ing irrelevant comments, butpeople knew better, he said.

“That is why you elected TRScandidate Nomula Bhagath inthe Nagarjuna Sagar by-elec-tion. We will continue to strivefor welfare of the poor andfarmers with schemes likeRythu Bandhu, Rythu Bima” theChief Minister said.

Citing the progress ofTelangana State in the last seven

years, KCR said that the State,which was once ridiculed as anagriculturally backward regionwas today producing 3 croretonnes of paddy and hasbecome the rice granary for thecountry. “The region whichfaced power crisis in the undi-vided State today is the leadingState in per capita power con-sumption at 2,070 units,” hesaid.

KCR recalled that Jana Reddyhad once in the Assembly chal-lenged that if the TRS govern-ment gave 24x7 quality powersupply, he would also campaignfor the party. “Of course he wentback on his word and contest-ed on behalf of Congress andpeople gave him a fitting reply,”KCR quipped.

Continued from page 1

Covaxin, a whole-virioninactivated SARS-CoV-2vaccine used for mass immu-nization in the country,showed a 65.2 per cent pro-tection against the Deltavariant in a double-blind,randomised, multicentre,phase 3 clinical trial.

Covaxineffective...

Continued from page 1

“Police and public order orderare State Subjects as perConstitution of India and pre-vention, detection, investiga-tion and prosecution of crimes,and capacity building of policepersonnel is primary responsi-bility of States.

“The law enforcement agen-cies take legal action as per pro-visions of law against the cybercrime offenders and according-ly the law enforcement agenciesshare equal responsibility tocomply with the said judge-ment,” the Centre said.

The government also told thetop court that it has directed the

Chief Secretaries andAdministrators of all states andUTs to direct all police stationsnot to register cases underSection 66A to ensure compli-ance with the top court's judge-ment in the Shreya Singhalcase.

The Centre said it has alsorequested them for submissionof reports to the IT ministry onthe number of cases bookedunder Section 66A of the IT Act,and directing them to withdrawany prosecution invoking 66A.

Responding to the Centre'saffidavit PUCL told the apexcourt that the steps taken by theCentre for ensuring effectiveimplementation of the historic

2015 judgement, scrappingSection 66A of the InformationTechnology Act, which has stillbeen used for arresting personsfor offensive social media posts,are “far from adequate”.

The bench, which scrappedthe controversial provision fromstatute book by its verdict in theShreya Singhal case, had on July5 expressed shock after PUCLfiled an application allegingmisuse of the scrapped provi-sion by authorities across thenation.

“Don't you think this is amaz-ing and shocking? ShreyaSinghal judgement is of 2015. It'sreally shocking. What is goingon is terrible,” the bench, also

comprising K M Joseph and BR Gava, had said while issuingnotice to the Centre on theNGO's plea.

The NGO, in its rejoinderaffidavit filed through NationalGeneral Secretary V Suresh,dealt with the steps taken by theCentre to implement the verdictand gave a slew of suggestionsfor its effective implementa-tion.

“The steps taken by theMinistry of Electronics andInformation Technology (MeitY) towards ensuring effectiveimplementation of this Court'sJudgment in Shreya Singhal v.Union of India... are far fromadequate,” the affidavit said.

States responsible for cases under...

Centre releases Rs 628.6 cr...Continued from page 1

It may be mentioned herethat several states likeMaharashtra, Odisha andPunjab requested PrimeMinister Narendra Modi torelease SDRF funds so thatthey could take measures toaddress the challenges posedby the second wave of the pan-demic.

Minister of State for FinancePankaj Chaudhary said in LokSabha on Monday that“During Financial Year 2020-21, an amount of Rs 22,262.43crore was released to the Statesunder the central share ofSDRF. In addition, for thefinancial year 2021-22, firstinstalment of Central share ofSDRF amounting to Rs8,873.60 crore has been

released in advance to allStates on April 29, 2021.”

Centre decided to treatCovid-19 as a notified disas-ter for the purpose of provid-ing assistance under SDRFtowards containment mea-sures in the States.

It may be mentioned herethat the Union Governmentprovides funds for meeting theexpenditure on relief provid-ed to the affected people underthe (SDRF) to the States for thenotified disasters, in accor-dance with the approved itemsand norms.

The Centre contributes 75percent of SDRF allocation forgeneral category of states and90 percent for special catego-ry states including the North-eastern States, Uttarakhand,Himachal Pradesh and J&K.

Eatala undergoes knee surgery;wife may resume padayatraContinued from page 1

Eatala launched his 300-pluskm padayatra on July 19 fromBathinivani palle in Kamalapurmandal in Huzurabad con-stituency. He has already com-pleted a 222 km, touching 70villages in 12 days. However,on reaching Kondapaka villagein Veenavanka village on June30, he developed high fever,forcing a halt to the padayatra.

The doctors stated that hewas dehydrated, his blood glu-cose levels shot up to 265 andBP dipped to 90/60. Following

the advice of local doctors,Eatala was admitted to ApolloHospital the next day wheretests revealed that he neededknee surgery.

Meanwhile, BJP MLA RajaSingh announced after meet-ing Eatala at the hospital thatthe former minister would bedischarged on Monday andwould resume his padayatra“very soon, after making a fullrecovery”.

This was in marked contrastto the opinion of the doctorswho performed the kneesurgery, who said that Eatala

would have to stay in the hos-pital under their observationfor at least one week.

According to sources, Eatalawould have to rest his leg fora few months.

Due to the unexpecteddevelopment, Jamuna Reddymay complete the remainingleg of the padayatra. She inci-dentally had stated that eitherEatala or she herself wouldcontest the Huzurabad by-poll. If she does take up thepadayatra, Jamuna Reddy maybe able to meet the people inthe remaining villages.

Rainfall in Aug, Sept to be on higher sideContinued from page 1

West Madhya Pradesh andadjoining Rajasthan, someparts of interior Maharashtra,Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh,some parts of Punjab and

Himachal Pradesh are likely toreceive below normal rainfall inAugust, Mohapatra said.

Karnataka, Tamil Nadu,Telangana, Rayalaseema regionof Andhra Pradesh, Konkanand Goa, central Maharashtra,

south Gujarat, northeasternstates, Bihar are likely to receiveabove-normal rainfall duringthe month, he added.

"The 2021 August toSeptember rainfall averagedover the country as a whole is

most likely to be normal (95 to105 per cent of Long PeriodAverage or LPA) with a tenden-cy to be on the positive side ofthe normal," Mohapatra said atan online briefing.

The LPA of the August to

September period rainfall overthe country as a whole for theyears 1961-2010 is 428.3 mm.

Every year, the IMD issuesforecast for the second half ofthe Southwest Monsoon, forAugust and September.

Centre rushes...Continued from page 1

The team shall work closelywith the state health depart-ment, take stock of the situationon the ground and assesswhether the Union Health

Ministry's action plan for Zikamanagement is being imple-mented. It will also recommendnecessary public health inter-ventions for the management ofZika virus cases in the state, thestatement said.

On copious inflows, gatesof Sagar, Pulichintala liftedContinued from page 1

The authorities have opened36 gates to release waterwith inflows at 2.9 lakhcusecs and outflow at 2.63lakh with present storage isat 7.13 tmc ft as against fullstorage capacity of 9.66 tmcft. The water level is at1,040.75 ft as against FRL of1,045 ft.

Srisailam project too is upto its brim with water levelalmost reaching the FRL levelof 885 ft and at present it isat 883.61 ft with presentcapacity at 207.85 tmc ft asagainst full storage capacity of215.81 ft ft. The inflows intothe project are 3.1 lakh cusecs

and outflow at 4.36 lakhcusecs.

The authorities lifted 10gates to let water out down-stream and power generationis on from both right and leftbank power houses.

The projects on Godavaribasin – Singur, Nizamsagar,Sriram Sagar, Mid Manair,Lower Manair, Kaddam andYellamapally have had goodinflows and most of the pro-jects are almost full. Theinf lows however havereduced with Yellampally get-ting maximum inflows at8,178 cusecs and outflow atthe same rate as the waterlevel reached 483.46 ft asagainst FRL of 485.56 ft.

HYDERABAD | TUESDAY | AUGUST 3, 2021hyderabad 03

PNS n HYDERABAD

The Old City on Mondaysported a festive look with sev-eral processions that weretaken out by temple commit-tees.

The procession taken out byAkkanna Madanna temple atHari Bowli was one of thebiggest held on Monday. Towitness the event, several peo-ple thronged the bylanes ofHari Bowli.

Ghatam is a copper pot, dec-orated in the form of theMother Goddess. The Ghatamis carried by a priest, whowears a traditional Dhoti, andwhose body is smeared withturmeric. The Ghatam is takeninto procession from the firstday of the festival until the lastday when it is immersed inwater. The Ghatam is usuallyaccompanied by beating ofdrums.

The festival concludes withimmersion of the Ghatam.The Ghatam of Haribowli'sAkkanna Madanna Templeleads the procession, placedatop an elephant and accom-

panied by mounted horsesand models depictingAkkanna and Madanna. Itends in the evening with a glit-tering procession and displayof much pomp and show fol-lowed by immersion ofGhatams at Nayapul.

Gajalakshmi Menaka, the34-year-old elephant, whichshot to fame after featuring in'Baahubali' movie, was a majorattraction on Monday.

The idol of the Goddess was

placed on the elephant whichheaded to SimhavahiniMahankali temple at LalDarwaza from AkkannaMadanna temple.

"People who did not visit thetemple can get a glimpse of theGoddess during the proces-sion," said a person taking careof the procession arrange-ments. The procession washeld among heavy police ban-dobast and para militaryforces.

Old City sports festive look

BRINGING BACKTHE GLORY

Over 400 floral medallionswere restored at the

Muhammad Qutb Shah's mausoleum based on in-situevidence found on removal of

inappropriate 20th centurycement. This mausoleum is

being conserved by Aga KhanTrust for Culture in

partnership with Telanganagovernment.

PNS n HYDERABAD

Two MBA graduates, bothfriends, were arrested inWarangal district on Sundayfor allegedly indulging insnatching chains to meettheir expenses, a senior policeofficial said.

Three gold chains and twobikes were seized from them.While one ran a paan shop,the other was a medical rep-resentative, Warangal PoliceCommissioner Tarun Joshisaid.

The men, both aged 32 andalcohol addicts, used to spendtheir income lavishly andhatched a plan to earn quickmoney through chain snatch-ing as they were unable tomeet their expenses, policesaid. Going around on bikes,they targeted women walkingalone in rural areas andsnatched their chains.

Police nabbed the duo onsuspicion when they tried toescape after noticing vehiclechecks were being conducted.

2 MBA graduates held for indulging in chain-snatching

PNS n HYDERABAD

On Monday, Vice PresidentVenkaiah Naidu, TelanganaChief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao, Governor TamilisaiSoundararajan and other lead-ers paid homage to valorousfreedom fighter and designerof National flag, PingaliVenkayya on his birthanniversary.

Born in 1876, the Indianfreedom fighter had also beenthe architect behind the designof the Indian national flag.With today marking 145 yearssince his birth, countless neti-zens have taken to socialmedia platforms to honour hiscontributions.

In 1916, the Gandhi ideol-ogist had published a bookwith thirty possible designsthat could be made into theIndian flag. For several years,he had repeatedly brought upand pushed the idea of a sep-arate Indian flag before theCongress. Eventually in 1921,his design is believed to havebeen approved by MahatmaGandhi.

Naidu said believing thatthe National flag alone has thepower to unite the nation

and the youth should howabout his efforts for theNational flag and should studyit. "My humble tributes to thedesigner of the Indian flag andgreat freedom fighter, ShriPingali Venkayya, on his birthanniversary today. He was atrue Gandhian and a zealouspatriot. The nation will alwaysbe grateful to him for givingus the national flag. #PingaliVenkayya," tweeted the Vice-President sharing a photo.

As a soldier, freedom fight-er, multilingualism, agro-min-eral researcher, I aspire to be

a part of the construction ofNavbharat by bringing to theforefront the youthful ideals ofVenkayya's patriotic, proac-tive, creative ideas and mod-est life, he said.

Born on August 2, 1876, atBhatlapenumarru nearMachilipatnam in AndhraPradesh, Pingali Venkayyawas also known as 'JhandaVenkaiah' and he was astaunch follower of MahatmaGandhi.

He had studied the flags of30 countries before makingthe Indian Tricolour flag.

PNS n HYDERABAD

A 25-year-old BDS student ofArmy College of DentalSciences here allegedly diedby suicide, police said.

The woman, a fourth-yearBDS student, was foundhanging from the ceiling fanin her hostel room on the col-lege campus on July 31, herfather told police in a com-plaint.

The complainant, whoresides in Haryana, wasinformed about the death bythe college staff.

He suspected his daughtermight have been depressedand resorted to the extremestep.

She had secured admissionin BDS in 2016-17 and wassuffering from depression asshe could not get admissionto the MBBS course. Later shewas treated by a psychiatristand was doing well, he said.

Last week the woman'smother had spoken to herabout a marriage proposaland the woman had alsospoken over video call withher family members and shelooked fine, her father said.

A case was registered withJawaharnagar police station.

25-year-old BDS student kills self over depression

Tributes pour in for designerof Tricolour Pingali Venkayya

PNS n HYDERABAD

The police are scratching theirheads with complaints in dif-ferent police stations pertain-ing to the same case that arebeing lodged. While one caseis directly lodged at the policestation, the other case is lodgedwith another police station atthe behest of the court.

One person figured as thecomplainant in a case lodgedwith one police station beingfigured as the accused in thecase lodged with another policestation.

Moreover, the civil cases arebeing converted into criminalcases. The conduct of the com-plainants is giving head ache tothe police, who have to facemany problems during thecourse of the investigation.

The general practice is com-plaining about incidents ofcrime with the police and thepolice registering the com-plaint after going through it.Depending on the seriousnessof the issue, the police transferthe case to the central crime

station. Sometimes, they trans-fer it to CID.

The police investigate thecase and submit evidence to thecourt. In each case, while per-son figures as an accused theother person figures as defen-dant. Sometimes, both the par-ties complain against eachother in the same police stationleading to the police register-ing two separate cases.

Apart from this, a new trendhas begun in the city withregard to registering of the

cases. According to it, twocases are registered about thesame case in two police sta-tions. One goes to the policestation directly and lodgescomplaint whereas anotherperson lodge another com-plaint about the same case inanother police station.

Both the groups are wellaware of where to lodge thecomplaint, but hiding factsthey are registering two cases.In some instances, if the policefail to register a complaint,

some of the persons are mov-ing court to force the police toregister a case.

In a recent development, acase was registered with theBanjara Hills police station,while another was lodged withthe CCS.

Police officials say that boththe accused and defendantshould register the case only atone police station giving all thefacts. If the complainant fur-nishes false information, actionwould be taken against him orher. Lodging two complaints isadding to the woes of thepolice. The police authoritiessay that the wrong doers, inspite of playing gimmicks, willhave to face the legal action.

In a land dispute case, oneNajib Ahmed on July 28 lodgedcomplaint against M Pavani,Vikramdev Reddy, MASRayudu, G Jaganmohan, MVenkata Sivaram Reddy,Prasad, Venkata Lakshmi,Manoj Kumar Naidu, Prasanti,Venugopal Naidu and others inBanjara Hills PS at the behestof the court.

In the same case, anothercomplaint was lodged withCCS on July 14 in connectionwith a land dispute in Shaikpetby Sri Sai Constructions MDVikramdev Reddy. He com-plained against Najib Ahmed,Sudhakar Reddy, KrishnaReddy and some others.

It was registered by the CCSpolice giving it the crime num-ber 0110/2021.

The police point out thatsome of the persons lodgingcomplaint with the police sta-tions in West zone, the com-plainants have been registeringa civil case into a criminal case.

In Banjara Hills division,such complaints surfaced lead-ing to the SP ordering CIDprobe into such cases.

There are allegations againstthe police that they are helpingthe complainants to lodge twoseparate cases. The policewere reported to have regis-tered a complaint after twodays when a Tahsildar lodgeda complaint. However, thepolice are responding quicklyin private complaints.

Multiple complaints in same case add to troubles of cops

PNS n HYDERABAD

Friendship day ended in atragedy for four friends whenthe car they were traveling inwent out of control andcrashed into the boulders onthe roadside at Madinagudakilling Ashritha, an engineer-ing student studying inCanada, here on Sunday mid-night. Police suspect drunkdriving led to the mishap.

According to the police,Abhishek, a third year studentfrom a business school inShankarpally and a resident ofMadinaguda, along with hisfriends Satyaprakash, Tharuniand Ashritha, all former col-lege mates at a business school,had met for dinner. WhileSatyaprakash and Tharuni

were working in private firms,Ashritha, from Tellapur, waspursuing MTech in Canada.

Abhishek picked the othersfrom Tellapur and went to apub in Kondapur in the night.They are suspected to havepartied, where Abhishek isbelieved to have consumedalcohol. After having dinner,they left the place around11:30 pm.

Police said while returning,Abhishek who was drivingthe car in an inebriated con-dition towards Kondapur, lostcontrol of the steering wheeland went on to crash into theboulders on the right side ofthe road.

"After crashing, the carrolled multiple times beforefalling on the roadside.

Abhishek and Satyaprakash,who were seated in the frontescaped with minor injuries asthe airbags in the car got acti-vated. Ashritha, who was seat-ed on the backseat on the rightside fell on the road as thedoor opened," said an official.

She suffered grievous bleed-ing injuries on the head andother parts of the body andwas immediately shifted to aprivate hospital, where shewas declared brought dead.Tharuni, who suffered griev-ous injuries is in critical con-dition. The Gachibowli policebooked a case for negligencecausing death and injuriesagainst Abhishek, who is yet tobe arrested.

The body was shifted to thehospital for autopsy.

PNS n HYDERABAD

Due to non-interlocking fordoubling works betweenUmdanagar-Timmapur-Shadnagar on August 2, theauthorities at South CentralRailway have decided to can-cel four DEMU trains run-ning on the route.

To ensure the safety of thepassengers, train number07790 (Mahbubnagar to Kac-heguda), 07791 (Kanchegudato Nadikudi), 07792(Nadikudi to Kacheguda)and 07789 (Kacheguda toMahbubnagar) scheduled onAugust 2 has been cancelled.

SCR cancels4 DEMU trains

FRIENDSHIP DAY ENDS IN TRAGEDY

Drunk driving: 1 killed, threeinjured as car hits boulders

PNS n HYDERABAD

WNS Cares Foundation(WCF) on Mondayannounced that Delhi PublicSchool (DPS), Nacharam andMahendra Hills fromHyderabad, entered the AsiaBook of Records as 7,201 stu-dents accessed the cyber safe-ty module on WCF'sCyberSmart portal and gotcertified within the span oftwo hours.

WCF CyberSmart is India'sfirst gamified, free-for-allcyber safety education portal,supported by NASSCOM.Through the portal, studentsfrom both schools were famil-iarized on the perils of thedark web and equipped withknowledge on practicingcybersafe behavior. Each stu-dent accessed an age-appropri-ate module on the portalwhich uses a combination ofvideos and other interactiveformats to educate children. At

the end of the module, stu-dents completed a quiz thatchecks for assimilation fol-lowed by a certificate to thosewho successfully completed it.

"Our mission, throughCyberSmart portal, is toensure that every single childin the country is empoweredwith the wherewithal to fightcyberbullying and other dan-gers lurking on the internet. Itis heartening to see that theplatform is being used widelyacross the country to meet thisambitious goal," said Keshav R.Murugesh, Group CEO, WNS.

“CyberSmart uses a uniqueblend of online and offlinemethodologies to drive homethe message of cybersafety.Our vision to make every childin India cybersmart hinges onthe enthusiastic participation ofschools such as DPS Nacharamand Mahendra Hills. I hope tosee more such records createdin the future," said ShaminiMurugesh, Chief Mentor, WCF.

PNS n HYDERABAD

Narayan Seva Sansthan organ-ised a free measurement ofartificial limbs, aids and appli-ance camp on Monday for dif-ferently-abled and needy atEsamia Bazar, Koti, in which26 people underwent a mea-surement to receive prosthet-ic limbs.

“Prior to the Covid, NSSconducted 4,24,050 correctivesurgeries, 698 artificial limbcamps and has distributed2,73,553 Wheel Chairs," pres-ident, Narayan Seva Sansthan,Prashant Agarwal.

Overall, around 3,58,197people underwent surgeries toreceive prosthetic limbs fromvarious States in the country.The Sansthan has been work-ing towards the upliftment ofthose who have been hit by the

pandemic with assistance pro-vided through free artificiallimb camps and ration kitdistribution camps acrossIndia.

The NSS has lined-up aseries of programmes, whichwill be held in many States inthe coming months. TheSansthan will organise its 36thmass wedding campaign inUdaipur for 21 differentlyabled and underprivilegedcouples. The mass weddingceremony will be conductedstrictly following social dis-tancing protocols amidst theCovid pandemic.

During the Covid pandem-ic and lockdowns, theSansthan conducted severalinitiatives like delivery of freecorona medicine kits, food dis-tribution and free of costration kits across India.

PNS n HYDERABAD

On account of Covid, countrychicken has become scarcer.People who wished to havechicken on their dining tablefor Bonalu festival lunch ordinner were left disappointedbecause of lack of supply or atthe exorbitant price.

As it was customary to havechicken during Bonalu festi-val, people have come forwardto buy chicken, especiallycountry chicken, even if thecost burns a hole in theirpockets.

Most of the chicken centresin Hyderabad sell countrychicken along with broilersand layers. But during the pastone month, the chicken cen-tres that sell country chickencomplain of lack of supplyfrom villages.

Even in villages, countrychicken is being sold at Rs 350to 400 per kg. Their prices willgo up when they hit marketsin Hyderabad.

Country chicken is loadedwith more nutrients. Thedemand for country chickenhas gone up in the limits of

Greater Hyderabad MunicipalCorporation (GHMC).

Moreover, the people aredevouring chicken to boost

their immunity and to savethemselves from Coronavirus.As a result, the demand forcountry chicken has gone upand a kilogram of it sells at Rs600, said a chicken trader inHyderabad Gafoor.

The outskirts of GHMC,Karimnagar, Medak,Nalgonda, Rayalaseema dis-tricts constitute the supplyline of the country chicken tothe city. But people aredevouring more on countrychicken in villages, towns anddistricts, paralysing the supplyto the city.

PNS n HYDERABAD

As part of the Doubling andElectrification Project under-taken by the South CentralRailway, the doubling of a sec-tion between Umdanagar-Shadnagar for a distance of 29.7km was completed and com-missioned on August 2. Thiswill enhance the rail connectiv-ity between Hyderabad andcities such as Mahabubnagar,Kurnool, Anantapur, Bengalu-ru, Kadapa, Tirupati, etc., towa-rds the south. The project isbeing executed by the RailwayPSU, Rail Vikas Nigam Limited.

The project was sanctionedfor a distance of 85 km in2015-16 at an estimated cost ofRs 774 crores. The sectionbetween Secunderabad andUmdanagar for a distance of28 km is excluded in theabove project and is undertak-en as part of MMTS Phase Iand II which has already beencompleted.

The work in Umdanagar -Mahabubnagar section is pro-gressing at a fast pace - out ofwhich the section betweenShadnagar and Gollapalli fora distance of 29 km is com-pleted.

2 schools in city enterAsia Book of Records 7K certified on cyber safety in two hours

Chicken lovers couldn't go ‘desi' for Bonalu Exorbitant prices, limited supply keep country chicken away from Hyderabad

SCR completes doubling of Umdanagar-Shadnagar line

26 give measurement toreceive prosthetic limb

hyderabad 04HYDERABAD | TUESDAY | AUGUST 3, 2021

A CHANDRASHEKHAR RAO

n SANGAREDDY

As all the major water bodiesreached to its brim level, theTelangana government is plan-ning to develop fisheries toprovide a livelihood to thefishermen and other caste-based crafts. With the launchof Mission Kakatiya, almost allthe village tanks have regainedtheir last glory and ponds andcheck-dams received heavyinflows with torrential rainslashed for the past fortnight.

The projects like Ranganayaka Sagar, Konda Pochammareservoir have reached theirbrim level with Godavariwaters. The officials of theFisheries Department are mak-ing preparations for releasingfish seeds in the tanks andreservoirs. The combinedMedak district has 3,794 tanksand 737 fishermen societieswith 45,051 members. The offi-cials have taken steps to release13 crores of fish seeds this year.

The Telangana governmentis striving to achieve a blue rev-olution by developing the fish-

eries sector in all the districtsby supplying fish seeds as allthe tanks and ponds are full ofwater following heavy rainsbattered in the season. All thereservoirs in the Kaleswaramproject also received a heavyflow of floodwaters.

The government aims toprovide a livelihood to fisher-men, Mudiraj and the fishrearing families in Siddipetdistrict and convert it into aideal district in the state.Minister T Harish Rao hasissued directives to the fisheriesofficials to release fish seedsmin all the ponds and villagetanks. The process of tendershas already commenced releas-

ing fish seeds in the district. A total of 3.72 crore fish

seeds had been dropped inRanganayaka Sagar, KondaPochamma, Tapaspalli andThotapalli reservoirs acrossthe district last year and thedistrict has yielded 17,745tonnes of fish products.

Plans are afoot to drop 4.13crore fish seeds in Sanigarammid-level irrigation projectapart from 1,472 tanks andreservoirs in the district thisyear. Siddipet has about 278fishermen cooperative soci-eties with 20,351 fishermenmembers. The officials believethat they would get a year-longlivelihood.

In Medak district, there are1,636 tanks which are managedby 270 fishermen societieshaving 15,700 members. Thefisheries officials are makingarrangements to release 5.33crore fish seeds in 1,636 tanksas against last year's 4.23 crorefish seeds in 1,211 tanks. Thetanks and check-dams areoverflowing in the district andapart from it, Pocharam and

Vanadurga projects are full totheir brim.

In Sangareddy district, thenumber of tanks and ponds areless compared to Siddipet andMedak. The district has 686tanks and about 189 fishermensocieties are active with 9,000fishermen as members.

The projects Narinja,Singuru and Kalpaguru andcheck-dams have receivedwaters to their full level. Theofficials made ready 3.45 crorefish seeds to release in the pro-jects. The fish seeds will bereleased in a week in the com-bined Medak district. Thedevelopment of the fisheriessector is amazingly movingforward across the erstwhileMedak district.

Details of district-wise fishseeds to be released in ponds,tanks below.

Rains help aquaculture thrive in Telangana

TADURU KARUNAKAR

n HUZURABAD

Minister for Finance TanneeruHarish Rao has challengedthat no one can stop TRS fromwinning the Huzurabad by-elections and the party is goingto come with flying colourswith a thumping majority of50,000 votes.

Addressing a meeting of theimportant cadre and in-chargesof Huzurabad rural and townat the TRS party office here onMonday, he said the contestwill only be between TRS andBJP and called upon the partyworkers to make TRS win thepoll and gift it to Chief MinisterKCR. Stating that the welfareschemes being given by theTelangana government aregoing to every household,Harisha Rao appealed to theworkers to take these schemesto the people by knocking ontheir doors. The fruits ofKaleswaram have reached firstto Huzurabad and water hadflowed for nine months duringthe last summer throughKakatiya canals and the cred-it goes to KCR. The party

workers must sensitize thegovernment's welfare schemessuch as 24/7 power, RythuBandhu, Rythu Beema,Kalyana Lakshmi, Asara pen-sion, pension for people above57 years, Dalit Bandhu andMission Bhagiratha.

Harish Rao said ignoring thedevelopment, Eatala Rajenderhad benefited from the TRS inthe last 17 years. He had builthis houses at Kamalapur,Shamirpet, Musaipet and

Huzurabad, he said and askedwhy he did not build 4,000houses for the poor thoughthey were sanctioned.

The BJP government hasfailed in all spheres as theypromised but failed to provide2 crore jobs per year anddeposit Rs 15 lakh into thebank accounts of every poorperson. Shall we vote for BJPfor increasing gas, petrol anddiesel prices, he asked. He saidthe Telangana government has

so far given 1.32 lakh jobs anda notification will be issuedsoon for another 70,000 jobs.

The Minister said about15,000 new industries havecome up in Telangana till nowand the state Cabinet hasapproved recently to providejobs and educational opportu-nities even to people who havean annual income of Rs 8 lakhthrough EWS. Efforts would bemade to bring Huzurabad andJammikunta towns into the

growth path and an urbandevelopment committee will beinstituted, he added.

Minister GangulaKamalakar, Husnabad MLAVoditala Sateesh Kumar, YSunil Rao, SC Corporationchairman banda Srinivas,TRSV student wing presidentGellu Srinivas Yadav, BCCommission former memberVakulabharanam Krishnamohan Rao and others werepresent.

Harish Rao says none can stopTRS victory in Huzurabad by-poll

PNS n MAHABUBNAGAR

All is set for construction of asuper-speciality hospital inMahabubnagar as Ministerfor Sports, Excise, Cultural andTourism Srinivas Gowd onMonday handed over the siteof the old collector office to theMedical and Health depart-ment.

Speaking on the occasion,Minister Srinivas Gowd saidMahabubnagar will be devel-oped as a medical hub. ChiefMinister K ChandrasekharRao has taken steps to build anintegrated building complex inevery district to house all theoffices in one place. As part ofit, a new Collector office iscoming up in Mahabubnagartown. Proposals have beenprepared at a cost of Rs 1 croreto set up a children's hospitalin the old Collector officewhen Ronald rose was the dis-trict Collector.

He said later, he spoke to theChief Minister to build asuper-speciality hospital at Rs300 crore by dismantling the

old collector office buildingand he agreed. He thanked theChief Minister for sanction thehospital.

He said there is already onegovernment hospital inMahabubnagar and the peopleof the combined district will bebenefited from the new super-speciality hospital. A lift facil-ity will be arranged for thepatients directly entering thehospital from the bus station.Earlier, people used to rush toOsmania and NIMS hospitalin Hyderabad from the districtand there are instances wherethe patients died during thejourney with the breakdown ofambulances, he said.

Srinivas Gowd said founda-tion stone will be laid for thehospital by calling tenderssoon. District Collector SVenkat Rao, district SP RVenkateswarlu, GGH superin-tendent Dr Ramkishan,DM&HO, municipal chair-man KC Narsimhulu, vice-chairman Ganesh, TahasildarParthasaradhi and others werepresent.

Decks cleared forRs 300-cr hospital

DISTRICT TANKS FISH SEEDS (Cr)Siddipet 1,472 4.13Medak 1,636 5.33Sangareddy 686 3.45TOTAL 3,794 12.91

DISTRICT-WISE TANKS & FISH SEEDS

SRINIVAS KARENGALA

n JAYASHANKAR BHUPALA PALLY

The rice meant for PublicDistribution System (PDS) isbecoming a major source ofincome for middlemen and thevigilance officials, who have tocheck the clandestine opera-tions, are becoming a part ofthe trade. As a result, theunauthorised transportationof PDS rice is goingunchecked. Though the offi-cials claimed seizure of PDSrice at one or two points, it isjust a drop in the ocean. Theaccused is allowed to go scot-free even after they werecaught with just a meagre fine.The charge is that there is nospecific mechanism to stop theillegal trade.

The Telangana governmentis providing subsidized rice forjust Re 1 to 90.50 lakh familiesand 2.88 crore people as partof the food security. It is spend-ing about Rs 2,766 crore peryear on the scheme. Thescheme has been diluting withgreedy middlemen and cor-rupt officials, a local socialworker Rajababu Gowd said.

It is alleged that the PDS riceis crossing the state bordersand a owner of the rice mill set

up near the Sironcha taluq inMaharashtra another side ofthe Godavari river is the mas-termind in the illegal trans-portation of rice. Tens of vehi-cles and autos are transportingPDs rice from Telangana toMaharastra. But, even the offi-cials have no clue about theillegal trade as they don't takeany steps to curb the trans-portation.

According to the eye-wit-nesses account, the PDS rice istransported to Maharashtrain the wee hours from 5 to 20every month. The scamstershave an agent network in everyvillage in Karimnagar,Peddapalli, Manchiryal,Jayashankar Bhupalapally

Mulug, Warangal rural andMahabubabad districts. Theyare approaching the beneficia-ries to buy directly from themby paying Rs 7-9 per kg asagainst its actual price of Re 1.The PDs rice collected in thevillages is being transportedclandestinely with autos andDCM vehicles. An agent on thecondition of anonymity saidthe agents in Maharashtra arepaying Rs 16 per kg as they aregaining double the profit in theillegal trade. The local peopleare turning into PDS agents tomake money. So, the illegaltrade is flourishing everywherein Telangana. The responsefrom the police to curb the ille-gal trade is minimal.

Illegal transportation of PDSrice goes on unchecked in TS

PNS n RANGAREDDY

Telangana has surpassedPunjab in paddy cultivationand the state has created arecord by producing threecrore tonnes of paddy with theeffective measures taken byChief Minister KChandrasekhar Rao in thestate, Minister for EducationSabitha Indra Reddy said onMonday.

She inaugurated RythuVedika buildings at Begumpetand Gummadavelli villagepanchayats at Rs 22 lakh inKandukuru mandal ofMaheswaram Assembly con-stituency on Monday alongwith MLC Surabhi Vanideviand district rythu Bandhuconvenor Vangeti LakshmaReddy. She also laid the foun-dation stone for a CC Roadand underground drainageworks to be taken up at Rs 12lakh at Gummadavelli Thanda.

Speaking on the occasion,Sabitha Indra Reddy said TheTelangana government isdepositing Rs 686 crore into

the bank accounts of farmersunder the Rythu Bandhuscheme in the district and Rs15,000 crore in the state. About2536 farmers received Rs 126crore towards Rythu Beema inthe district and about 10,940farmers have been benefited sofar under the loan waiver in thedistrict, she said adding thatChief Minister KCR took adecision to waive loans up toRs 50,000 from August 15onwards. About 20,000 farm-ers may get benefits in the dis-

trict. The Education Ministersaid Chief Minister KCR isstriving to complete Palamuru-Rangareddy project likeKaleswaram to provide irriga-tion water.

The Chief Minister's com-mitment was to provide irriga-tion water to every acre of landin the Telangana state. About19,165 acres will get irrigationwater in the Maheswaram con-stituency if the Palamuru-Rangareddy project is complet-ed, she added.

TS tops in paddy cultivationsurpassing Punjab: Sabitha

PNS n PATANCHERU

Joy and religious fervourmarked the celebrations ofBonalu in Patancheruvu onMonday as the devotees tookout a procession with vehiclescarrying food to be offered tothe Goddess. GMR Yuvasenaled the procession fromMahankali temple which wasflagged off by legislative coun-cil chairman Bhupal Reddyand local MLA GudemMahipal Reddy on Monday.

MLA GMR surprised thedevotees by dancing with

Teenmar steps. Special prayersare offered to the Goddess onthe occasion. Speaking on the

occasion, MLA Mahipal Reddysaid Chief Minister KCR hasdeclared the Bonalu festival as

an official affair after theTelangana state is formed. TheBonalu festival is being cele-brated across the world and itis a symbol of the Telanganaculture and tradition.

Later, the MLA participatedin the Bonalu at Edu GullaPochamma temple andYadavas Bonalu. CorporatorMettu Kumar Yadav, CIVenugopal Reddy, formerCorporator Sankar Yadav, TRSsenior leaders Adarsh Reddyand Yadagiri Yadav, Marketcommittee director Ashok andothers were present.

Bonalu is symbol of TS culture: MLA

Raja Singh offersto quit if specialpackage declaredfor GoshamahalPNS n HYDERABAD

BJP MLA from GoshamahalT Raja Singh has said that heis ready to tender resigna-tion to his MLA position ifChief Minister KChandrasekhar Raoannounces a package to hisAssembly constituency.

He said that the ChiefMinister will remember SC,ST, BC and minorities onlyahead of by-elections.

He announced specialpackages to win theHuzurabad by-poll.

The people are demand-ing their respective MLAs insocial media to tender res-ignations for the sake ofpackages, he said, requestingthe Chief Minister toannounce the package toSC, ST, BC and minorities ofGoshamahal constituency."I am ready to tender resig-nation if the Chief Ministerannounces a package forthe constituency", he said.

PNS n NARSAPUR

A woman who belonged to theMala community of ScheduledCaste lodged a complaint withthe Narsapur police against thevillage elders for ostracizingher from the caste. MucherlaAnuradha of Narsapur filed acomplaint with the police thatsome persons have boycottedher from the caste.

She told reporters onMonday that some villageelders of her caste have pres-surized to take back the civilcase filed by her in a dispute.She said she does not know thereason either for not taking thecase back or not obeying theirorders, they declared that shehas been ostracized from thecaste. If anyone talked to her,they will be levied Rs 25,000fine and 25 slaps with chap-pals. She said they prepared anagreement to this effect andshe was forced to sign on theagreement papers. They havealso taken signatures fromsome other people of the samecaste. Apart from ordering

the social boycott, they are alsoresorting to physical attacks onher, she alleged.

In her complaint, Anuradhasaid how far it is fair to imposecaste ostracizing and shefeared that there is a threat toher life from her caste people.When asked SI Gangarajusaid they have registered a caseas per the complaint given byAnuradha. Action will betaken after a thorough inves-tigation into the case, the SIadded.

Sanjay padayatra postponedPNS n HYDERABAD

The Telangana BJP Chief andKarimnagar MP Bandi SanjayKumar's padayatra has beenpostponed to August 24 fromearlier announced August 9.

BJP state general secretaryGujjula Premender Reddy saidthe party earlier decided thatBandi Sanjay Padayatra will befrom Charminar BhagyalaxmiAmmavari Temple from August9 onwards. Padayatra wasplanned for 55 days for 750 kmand ends on October 2 with apublic meeting in Huzurabad

where the by-poll is due. However, the party postponed

the Padayatra to August 24 due tothe ongoing Parliament monsoonsession and in view of importantbills to be passed in theParliament, he said. Sanjay post-poned his padayatra because theparty issued a whip to their MPsstating that the MPs have toattend ongoing monsoonParliamentary sessions withoutfail. Speaking to the media at thestate BJP office on Monday,Premender Reddy has describedG Kishan Reddy's elevation asCabinet Minister as an honour

to the Telugu people. He alsostated that there would be UnionTourism Minister G KishanReddy's 'Ashirvada Yatra' afterthe Parliament session. As partof Ashirvada Yatra, KishanReddy would visit two Telugustates. The party high com-mand has directed the UnionMinisters to visit other than theirown Lok Sabha constituenciesfirst. Following the directions ofthe party high command,Kishan Reddy will tour Tirupati,Vijayawada, and Bhadrachalamdirectly going there from Delhiafter the Parliament session.

PNS n HYDERABAD

Hyderabad City CongressCommittee (HCCC)Minorities DepartmentChairman Sameer Waliullahon Monday informed that afresh strategy was beingchalked out to re-connectthe party with the minoritycommunities in Hyderabad.

The problems of Muslims,Christians and other minor-ity communities in Telanganahave multiplied under theTRS regime, he said.

Hyd Congress plans

strategy for Muslims

K VENKATESHWARLU

n HYDERABAD

The Telangana Congress hasbeen making serious efforts tomake the Indravelli publicmeeting a big success. Theparty leaders are striving atground level. Leaders likeMulugu MLA Seethakka andformer MLC Premsagar Raoand others have shoulderedresponsibility in this regard.

However, the party has beenfacing troubles since theannouncement of theIndravelli public meeting pro-posed to be held on August 9from inside and outside theparty. The AICC programmeimplementation committeechairman A Maheshwar Reddyhas been opposing the venuefrom the beginning of itsannouncement. He allegedthat the party didn't consulthim before announcing thevenue as it appears that he wasnot happy with the TPCC

chief A Revanth Reddy in thisregard. He had a heated argu-ment with Revanth in themeeting held on July 31.

On the other hand, theTelangana party is also facingproblems from the tribals,who made it clear that they willobstruct the Congress' pro-posed Indravelli public meet-ing. Rumours are agog that theparty leaders have been pro-voking the tribal organiza-tions like Adivasi HakkulaPorata Samithi (AHPS) as itsleaders already stated that theywill obstruct the meeting.

On Monday, Seethakka,

who went to Indravelli toexamine the arrangements ofthe public meeting, facedobjections from the AdivasiHakkula Porata Samithi.However, Seethakka made itclear that the party will con-duct the meeting in August atany cost. She said that the partyadmitted that the firing atIndravelli during the Congressregime was a mistake. But theparty will go ahead acceptingits mistakes and then only itwill do good things for thepeople. The Indravelli meetingis for the sake of tribals andDalits only, Seethakka said.

Indravelli Congress meet facingrough weather amid AHPS threat

SC woman allegesosrtracisation

nation 05HYDERABAD | TUESDAY | AUGUST 3, 2021

Need to work on permanent solution to flood crisis in Maha: Thackeray

With heavy rains last month causing deluge in parts of Maharashtra, Chief MinisterUddhav Thackeray on Monday said there is a need to devise a "permanent solution" to

the frequent flood crisis in the state and take some stringent steps towards it. The chiefminister reached the flood-hit Sangli district in western Maharashtra where he visitedBhilwadi, Ankalkhop, Kasbe-Digraj and various other areas to take stock of the situation, andreviewed steps taken by the administration towards flood management. "We have to work

on two fronts - providing immediate relief topeople affected by floods, and that work is goingon. The administration acted in advance andevacuated people to safety," he said. "Besidesproviding immediate relief, we will have to workon a permanent solution to the frequent crisis offloods in the region and for that, we will have totake some stringent steps," the CM said.Thackeray said if some constructions are causingobstacles to the natural flow of water, they needto be removed.

Spurious pesticide manufacturing unit busted in Delhi, two held

The Delhi Police have busted a spurious pesticide manufacturing plant in the national capital'sMundka area and arrested two men, officials said on Monday. The arrested accused, Mohan

Lal and Aman, had rented two godowns at Hiran Kudna village two months ago formanufacturing the fake pesticides. They had made an initial investment of Rs 9 lakh, they said.A complaint was received from the representative of a pesticide manufacturing companyalleging that someone was infringing the firm's trademark by producing spurious products inits name, the police said. A raid was conducted on July 30 and a large quantity of spuriousmaterial bearing the names of several companies was found stacked at the manufacturing plantin Mundka, they said. Deputy Commissioner of Police (Outer) Parvinder Singh said Mohan Lal,

Aman, Vijay and Rajender were engaged inmanufacturing and selling spurious pesticides andfungicides with the branding of different companies.They also used to sell seeds of different cropstreated with these fake pesticides. Fake raw materialfound at the plant and machinery used formanufacturing these spurious products was seized,he said.

Maha rains: Over 18,700 familiesaffected in Mahad, Poladpur in Raigad

Atotal of 18,751 families in Mahad and Poladpur talukas in Raigad district wereaffected by flooding and other rain-related incidents on July 22 and 23, a district

official said on Monday. As per the survey done by the state revenue department,18,000 families belong to Mahad and 751 to Poladpur, while 562 farmers have alsoincurred losses due to flooding, he said. "While 30 houses in Mahad and eight houses in

Poladpur are fully damaged, the number of partiallydamaged homes stands at 8,121 in Mahad and 552 inPoladpur. A total of 28 cattle shelters were destroyed.So far, 3,082 families have received relief from the stategovernment by way of rice, wheat and kerosene" theofficial said. He informed that the number of surveyteams of the revenue department in Mahad stood at 48,with 30 of them stationed in the non-town areas of thetaluka. A release from the Maharashtra State ElectricityBoard said 1,078 transformers in 345 villages weredamaged during the heavy rains that the area witnessedrecently, of which 261 had been repaired.

INDIA

CORNER

PNS n THIRUVANANTHAPURAM

Researchers from the Universityof Delhi have named a newly dis-covered frog species from WesternGhats region after the former ViceChancellor and renowned IndianPlant Geneticist Prof DeepakPental.

University of Delhi researchersProfessor S D Biju and Dr SonaliGarg on Monday said they havejust discovered a new species offrog belonging to the familyDicroglossidae from the globallyrecognised Western Ghats biodi-versity hotspot and it has beennamed as "Minervarya Pentali."

The discovery was made dur-ing a comprehensive study on aconsiderably large, common, yet

a confusing group of Indian frogsgenus Minervarya (commonname: Minervaryan frogs), carriedout over a period of nearly 10years, they said in a release.

The new species was identifiedbased on multiple criteria, such asexternal morphology, DNA andcalling pattern.

The study has also resolved theidentity and taxonomic status ofall known members of the genusfrom Peninsular India, in additionto clarifying the geographicalranges of species and providingnumerous new distributionrecords based on morphological-ly and genetically identified sam-ples from a vast region.

The findings are published ina scientific article titled 'DNA

Barcoding and Systematic Reviewof Minervaryan Frogs(Dicroglossidae: Minervarya) ofPeninsular India: Resolution of ataxonomic conundrum withdescription of a new species' in the

international journal AsianHerpetological Research.

"It is a great privilege to namea frog species after Prof DeepakPental, the former Vice Chancellorof University of Delhi, in appre-

ciation of his tremendous supportand encouragement for setting-upof the Systematics Lab atUniversity of Delhi whereresearch leading to the discoveryand description of nearly one-fourth of all known Indianamphibians has been carried out,"says Prof Biju, under whose lead-ership the current study was pub-lished.

Biju established the SystematicsLab in 2006, and is the Head of theDepartment of EnvironmentalStudies and former Dean of theFaculty of Science at University ofDelhi. The new species, namedMinervarya Pentali, is endemic tothe southern Western Ghats, therelease said.

"We discovered it from wayside

vegetation at multiple localities inKerala and Tamil Nadu, while sur-veying amphibians during themonsoon season. This species isalso among the smallest knownMinervaryan frogs, which is prob-ably one of the reasons it was over-looked until now," says Dr Garg,the lead author of the study anda postdoctoral researcher atUniversity of Delhi.

This study and the authors werefunded by University of Delhi;Department of Science andTechnology, Government of India;Council for Scientific andIndustrial Research, Governmentof India; Critical Ecosystem part-nership Fund, USA and GlobalWildlife Conservation, USA, therelease said.

Newly discovered frog species named after plant geneticist

PNS n NEW DELHI

Amid tensions between Assamand Mizoram over the recentborder clash, MizoramGovernor K Haribabu metPrime Minister Narendra Modion Monday and said the Centreis trying to find a solution to theissue.

Meanwhile, BJP MPs fromAssam, including UnionMinister Sarbananda Sonowal,are also meeting the primeminister in the afternoon.

Babu is scheduled to meetHome Minister Amit Shah laterin the afternoon. Talking toreporters in Parliament aftermeeting the prime minister,Babu said the incident was"very unfortunate".

"The home minister is tryingto defuse the tension and he istrying to find the solution. Bothchief ministers (of Assam andMizoram) have committed thatpeace will be restored," he said.

At least six Assam Police per-sonnel and one civilian were

killed and more than 50 peopleinjured, including the policechief of the district of Cachar, ina fire-fight between the police ofthe two states on a disputedstretch of their boundary, nearDholai in Cachar district onJuly 25.

Tension along the borderwith Mizoram in Cachar andHailakandi districts of Assamhave been escalating sinceOctober 2020 with frequentincidents of burning of housesand encroachment of land.

PNS n NEW DELHI

Lok Sabha proceedings wereadjourned for the day asopposition members contin-ued their protest over thePegasus spyware controversyand other issues on Monday.

Before Ram Devi, who wasin the Chair, adjourned theproceedings till Tuesdaymorning, the House passedthe General InsuranceBusiness (Nationalisation)Amendment Bill with voice-vote. When the House re-assembled at 3.30 PM, theopposition members contin-ued their protest as FinanceMinister Nirmala Sitharamansaid she wanted to respond tothe concerns raised by theLeader of the Congress party,Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.

As the din continued, theminister sought passage ofthe bill, and the Houseapproved it by a voice vote.

The proceedings of theHouse were first adjournedtill noon, then till 2 PM andagain till 3.30 PM as an unre-lenting opposition refusedto end its protests.

Continued Opposition protests overPegasus force adjournment of LS

PNS n NEW DELHI

Rajya Sabha proceedings wereadjourned for the day asOpposition MPs continued theirprotest over the Pegasussnooping row and other matters.

When Rajya Sabha reassembledat 3.36 pm, the governmentmoved two Bills forconsideration, but Oppositionmembers, some of them carryingplacards, kept raising slogans inthe Well of the House.

Bhubaneswar Kalita, who was inthe Chair, tried to pacify theprotesting members, but in vain.As sloganeering continued, he

adjourned the proceedings forthe day. The House willreconvene at 11 AM on Tuesday.

RS proceedings adjourned till Tuesday morning

PNS n NEW DELHI

Amid the ongoing stalemate inParliament, Congress leaderRahul Gandhi has invited leadersof opposition parties to abreakfast meeting at theConstitution Club on Tuesday tochalk out a joint strategy on thePegasus snooping issue.Sources said the meeting isbeing held to forge unity amongthe opposition ranks on theissue. All opposition MPs andfloor leaders of various partieshave been invited for themeeting. The opposition hasbeen demanding a discussion inParliament on the Pegasus rowand its leaders have been givingadjournment notices everyday.The government has been sayingthat the opposition is creating a"non-issue" and the IT ministerhas already given a reply in bothHouses of Parliament.

Rahul calls forOppn meetingover Pegasus row

HM trying to find solution to tensions: Guv Haribabu

Jaishankar likely to attendswearing-in ofIranian PrezPNS n NEW DELHI

External Affairs Minister SJaishankar is likely to repre-sent India at the swearing-inceremony of newly electedIranian President EbrahimRaisi in Tehran on August 5,people familiar with thedevelopment said onMonday.

Raisi, a hardliner andknown to be close to Iran'sSupreme Leader AyatollahAli Khamenei, won the pres-idential election in June by alandslide.

India has already acceptedan invitation by Iran for theevent, which is likely to beattended by leaders and rep-resentatives of a number ofcountries.

Last month, the externalaffairs minister called onPresident-elect Raisi during astopover at the Iranian capi-tal on his way to Russia.

Jaishankar also held exten-sive talks with his Iraniancounterpart Javad Zarif inTehran covering a range ofkey issues including the fast-evolving situation inAfghanistan.

His visit to Iran coincidedwith Iran's hosting of anintra-Afghan dialogue in thecountry.

PNS n NEW DELHI

The Delhi High Court Mondaysaid it is expected that street ven-dors will take proactive steps toget vaccinated so that the thirdwave of COVID-19 could beavoided and the national capitalis not faced with a surge as wit-nessed recently.

The high court also askedDelhi government to consider ina right perspective the issue ofallowing more weekly markets tooperate as there is a strata of soci-ety which only purchases thingsfrom these markets since they

cannot afford other shops.Presently, due to COVID-19

restrictions, the Delhi governmenthas allowed weekly markets toopen but only with 50 percent of vendors and onemarket in each munic-ipal zone.

“It is expected thatDDMA will considerthis aspect in its rightperspective. It is also expect-ed that street vendors will alsotake pro-active steps to get vacci-nated so that we can avoid thethird wave and the NCT of Delhiis not faced with a surge as faced

recently,” Justice Rekha Palli said.The court made it clear that it

was not asking the Delhi govern-ment to allow all weekly markets

to operate and the authoritiesshall consider the issueand then take a decision.

It also observed thatthe government can put

conditions so that there isno crowding at these mar-

kets.The court issued notice to the

Delhi government and asked it tofile reply to the petition bySaptahik Patri Bazar Associationwhich has challenged the author-

ities' decision to open malls andmarkets but not weekly markets.

Advocate Rajat Wadhwa, rep-resenting the association, saidrestrictions on other activitieswere relaxed on June 13 and thesevendors who belong to the poor-est of poor class are suffering.

When the court said openingof these markets would lead toincrease in crowd, the counsel saidif only one weekly market isallowed to be open in a munici-pal zone, there will be morecrowd because there are peoplewho buy goods only from thesemarkets.

HC expects street vendors to getvaccinated to avoid Covid 3rd wave

PNS n NEW DELHI

The National Commission forMinorities (NCM) has told theSupreme Court that minoritieshave to be treated as the “weak-er sections” in the country, wheremajority community is so “pre-dominant.

The NCM said despite thesafeguards provided in theConstitution and the laws in forcethere persist amongst the minori-ties a feeling of inequality and dis-crimination.

“In a country like India wherethe majority community is pre-dominant, the minorities have tobe treated as the weaker sectionswithin the meaning of Article 46,”the NCM said inan affidavit.

In 40-page affi-davit, it stated that“n u m e r i c a l l ysmaller or weakerclasses are boundto be suppressedand overpoweredby the dominantmajority groups”if special provi-sions andschemes were not framed by thegovernment.

The submission was made inan affidavit filed in response to apetition which said welfareschemes cannot be based on reli-gion.

Article 46 states that "TheState shall promote with specialcare the educational and eco-nomic interests of the weaker sec-tions of the people, and, in par-ticular, of the Scheduled Castesand the Scheduled Tribes, andshall protect them from socialinjustice and all forms of exploita-tion."

The NCM also contendedthat it was founded with objec-tive to integrate minority in themain stream to improve theirsocial and economic status.

It also clarified that it does notadminister any scheme nor pro-vides grant to any communityand in fact it is the governmentwhich runs schemes for them.

Earlier, the Centre had told thetop court that welfare schemes forreligious minority communitiesare “legally valid” which aims toreduce the inequalities and does

not violate the rights of membersof Hindus or other communities.

"It is submitted that theschemes being implemented bythe Ministry are to reduce theinequalities among the minoritycommunities and to improvethe level of education, participa-tion in employment, skill andentrepreneurship development,reducing deficiencies in civicamenities or infrastructure.

"The schemes are not in con-tradiction to the principles ofequality as enshrined in theConstitution. These schemes arelegally valid as they are onlyenabling provisions so as toachieve inclusiveness and do notsuffer from any infirmity. The

support given todisadvantaged/underprivilegedchildren/candi-dates of minori-ties communi-ties throughthese schemescannot, there-fore, be faultedwith," the affi-davit had stated.

The Centrehad said the welfare schemes aremeant only for the economical-ly weaker sections/underprivi-leged, children / candidates /women of the minority commu-nities and not for everyonebelonging to a minority commu-nity.

In addition, the scholarshipscheme, coaching schemes etchave academic merit, as well asearmarking for girl students, itadded.

The petition, filed by NeerajShankar Saxena and five others,had said the petitioners are beingunconstitutionally deprived ofbenefits available to similarlysituated members of religiousminorities in violation of theirfundamental right.

“The petitioners and othermembers of Hindu communityare suffering because they havebeen born in majority commu-nity. The State cannot promote orgive any benefit to any religiouscommunity whether minorityor majority keeping in view thesecular ethos embedded in theConstitution of India,” the peti-tion said.

‘Minorities have to be treated asweaker sections’

PNS n NEW DELHI

The Supreme Court Mondaydismissed the plea of a rape sur-vivor from Kottiyoor, Kerala,who moved the Supreme Courtseeking permission to marry herassaulter - a defrocked priestwho is now undergoing 20years imprisonment.

The top court also dismisseda separate plea of the defrockedpriest seeking bail on the groundthat he wanted to marry the sur-vivor, who was a minor at thetime of rape had given birth toa child.

A bench of Justices VineetSaran and Dinesh Maheshwaritold the former priest, “The highcourt has taken a decision con-sciously and we would not liketo interfere with its finding”.

It told the victim that she mayknock on the door of trial courtwith her plea to marry the for-mer priest.

Advocate Amit George,appearing for the formerpriest, said the high court hadpassed sweeping directions inthe case with regard to themarriage, which is a funda-mental right.

The bench asked Georgewhat is the age of the victim andthe former priest to which hereplied that he is 49, while therape survivor is around 25.

SC dismissesplea of rapesurvivor tomarry assaulter

PNS n BARIPADA

A 60-year-old woman was tram-pled to death by a wild elephantat a forest in Odisha'sMayurbhanj district on Monday,police said. The incident hap-pened at the Tiakati forest inBadampahad range of theRairangpur forest division, theysaid. Sukhi Baskey went to theforest to collect mushroomswhen the tusker attacked her,Range Officer Ramakanta Majhisaid. The woman died on thespot, he said.

PNS n NEW DELHI

The Rajya Sabha on Mondaycongratulated badminton aceP V Sindhu for winning abronze medal at the TokyoOlympics, saying that she hasscripted history by becomingthe country's first woman towin two individual Olympicsmedals.

When the House met for theday, Chairman M VenkaiahNaidu congratulated Sindhufor her gritty performance onbehalf of the House and himself.

The members responded bythumping tables when refer-ences were made to Sindhuand her family.

"With her spectacular per-formance, Sindhu has scriptedhistory by becoming the firstIndian women to win twoOlympic Medals and that tooin successive editions," Naidusaid. "This feat of Sindhu high-lights the consistency at inter-national levels that are expect-ed of our sportspersons in theinternational arenas."

Born in a family of

sportspersons, Sindhu took tobadminton when she was just12. She along with her fatherused to travel 120-km daily fortraining, he said.

"Personally known to me, Ihave been witness to her hardwork, perseverance and sheerdedication towards her pas-sion," Naidu said. "It is appro-priate to take note of the roleof Sindhu's parents and fami-ly in her spectacular rise andachievements in badmintonthat brought her laurels for ourcountry," he added.

RS lauds Sindhu’s bronze

6 held in Gujarat for tonsuringwidow, man over alleged affairPNS n AHMEDABAD

Four men and two women werearrested in Gujarat's Sabarkanthadistrict for allegedly tonsuring a 30-year-old widow after accusing herof being in a relationship with a mar-ried man, police said on Monday.

The incident took place inSancheri village nearHimmatnagar town, some 116kilometres from here, on July 30and the six accused were held onAugust 1, a day after an FIR was

registered, Sub Inspector PP Janiof Gambhoi police station said.

"Vadansinh Chauhan, RajujiChauhan, Kalusinh Chauhan,Rakeshsinh Chauhan, SurekhaChauhan and Sonal Chauhanwere arrested for assaulting awoman with an intent to outrageher modesty, criminal intimida-tion and rioting. They hadaccused the victim of having anaffair with a married man whohas four children," Jani said.

The victim, in her complaint,

said a man who she knew and wasmarried to the sister of the one ofthe accused, had offered her a lifton his motorcycle when she wasreturning after some bank relat-ed work on July 30.

Four of the accused stoppedthem near Raigadh village andbeat them up, and later took theduo to Sancheri where all sixaccused hit them and tonsuredthe widow as well as the man whohad offered her a lift, police saidquoting the complaint.

Woman trampledto death bytusker in Odisha

strength of character.He then initiated action to

ensure that the military was notdragged into the political sphere,despite Trump having appoint-ed his own lackeys to key posi-tions within the Pentagon. If theauthors are to be believed, hewent so far as to compareTrump to Hitler and refer to theJanuary 6 insurrection as the“Reichstag Moment” for theUS. On Trump’s attempts tocling to power through force, hereportedly told his colleagues inthe Joint Chiefs: “They may try,but they’re not going tof@@###g succeed…You can’t dothis without the military. Youcan’t do this without the CIAand the FBI. We’re the ones withthe guns.”

His actions have lessons thatour military leadership woulddo well to imbibe. It is incon-ceivable that our senior militaryhierarchy can, or ever will,adopt such a confrontationalattitude towards the leadershipof a democratically electedGovernment, whatever be theprovocation, or however uncon-stitutional be their actions. Thealoofness displayed by the mil-itary during the 1977Emergency is a case in point.True, there have been the likesof General Thimmayya, Field

Marshal Manekshaw and a fewmore of that vintage who havedisplayed spine and opposedGovernment directions, butthese have been few and farbetween, and restricted only toprofessional matters within theirpurview. Moreover, till recent-ly, the military’s senior leader-ship has been quite circumspectin ensuring that its actions werecompletely unbiased, apoliti-cal, secular and within constitu-tional parameters. In fact, it wastheir adherence to such behav-iour that made the military themost popular and respectedinstitution within the country.

Unfortunately, while thebulk of our military remainsapolitical and secular, theactions and public statementsof the Chief of Defence Staff,General Bipin Rawat, havecreated perceptions that themilitary’s senior leadershiphas become excessively politi-cised. Then there is the factthat some very senior officershave taken the plunge intoactive politics immediately onshedding their uniform.

While some within theruling elite may see this turnof events as advantageous totheir ideological cause, and infact encourage this shift with-in the military hierarchy

through the process of “deepselection”, as some allege, theymay well be biting off morethan they can chew. If there isanything to learn from histo-ry, it is that once the militarygets sucked into politics, it willnot be satisfied acting as amere handmaiden of those inpower. As General Milley soeloquently put it, they are theones with the guns! We justneed to look closely at our ownneighbourhood for examples.

It would be in the interestof the political establishmentto desist from politicising themilitary. Creating an uncon-trollable monster, that will goon to bite the hand that feedsit, is nothing but sheer stupid-ity. The Government and thelegislative would do well to putrules in place that preventmembers of the military andeven the Civil Services fromjoining politics without anappropriate cooling- off peri-od. That would go a long wayin insulating them, especiallythe military, from politics.

(The writer is a militaryveteran, who is a Visiting Fellowwith the Observer ResearchFoundation and Senior VisitingFellow with The PeninsulaFoundation, Chennai. Theviews expressed are personal.)

HAS DELHI LOST ITS WARMTH AND DIL?Sir — Nowadays, we often hear about thenortheastern people being harassed inthe national Capital. These unfortunateincidents pain me somewhere because Ihave always regarded Delhi as my sec-ond home. I was there for the most partof my early childhood, from 1994 to1999. Since my father used to travel fre-quently, my mother and I were in a quar-ter which we can term “Mini India” asthere were people from various States.

We used to exchange our local foodwith their delicacies. The aunties would‘kidnap’ me to take me along on theirevening walks and sometimes tomandirs, gurudwaras and mosques. Mymother, who would go to the bazaarsalone, never faced any untoward inci-dent; in fact she was helped by peoplewith her bags. What has happened to theCapital now? Has it been hijacked byhooligans? Delhi earned the title of“Dilwalo ki Dilli” for a reason but suchincidents are bringing shame to it and tothe real ‘Dilwalas’ of Delhi. I urge theGovernment to be more strict on thisfront so that our northeastern peoplekeep feeling safe and loved, like my fam-ily did in the national Capital.

Noopur Baruah | Tezpur

BEWARE OF THE THIRD COVID-19 WAVESir — India will witness another alarm-ing rise in COVID-19 cases in the mid-dle of August with the third wave peak-ing, and nearly 1,50,000 infections a dayis the worst scenario. A study by a groupof researchers led by MathukumalliVidyasagar and Manindra Agrawal at theIndian Institute of Technology (IIT) inHyderabad and Kanpur predicts that ifthe third wave occurs, it will hit us some-time around the middle or end ofAugust and continue increasing tillOctober.

This peak can be of two types. If thevariant is more infectious, the peak canbe more like the first wave. If it is not thatinfectious, the cases will not be that high.India reported 40,134 new cases ofCOVID-19 and 422 deaths in the last 24

hours, as per the Government onMonday. The total number of cases cur-rently stands at 3,16,95,958 and the deathtoll at 4,24,773. The number of activecases in the country is 4,13,718. Less than50,000 daily new cases have been report-ed in 36 days, which is the result of sus-tained and collaborative efforts by theCentre, the States and UTs.

Bhagwan Thadani | Mumbai

CAST IN HAPPY BRONZESir — After missing the glorious chanceof bagging the gold, Pusarla VenkataSindhu settled for the bronze medal witha clinical performance at TokyoOlympics 2020. PV Sindhu fixed her hair,shuffled her feet thrice, leaned forwardand muttered “come on” as she took upthe challenge and settled for a bronze.She took a deep breath before letting theshuttle sail over the net. The point endedwith a thunderous cross-court smash,and she let out a scream.

She had scaled the mountain ofexpectations, beating China’s He Bingjiao21-13, 21-15 to clinch the Olympicbronze medal. She is now the firstIndian woman to clinch back-to-backmedals at the Olympics. Sindhu had herChinese opponent scrambling aroundthe court and a couple of authoritativeshots put the Indian 11-8 ahead and shenever looked back.

In the end, Sindhu’s power andguile proved just too much. Bingjiaobegan to engage Sindhu in longer ralliesin the second game to control thetempo of the game, but the Indian wasprepared. She finished points early andderived great success from her ferociousforehand cross-court smashes. Thus,Sindhu cast her name in bronze in afierce battle for supremacy.

CK Subramaniam | Navi Mumbai

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It would be in the interest of the political establishment to desist frompoliticising the military, lest it creates an uncontrollable monster

IT IS INCONCEIVABLETHAT OUR

SENIOR MILITARYHIERARCHY CAN,

OR EVER WILL,ADOPT SUCH A

CONFRONTATIONALATTITUDE TOWARDSTHE LEADERSHIP OFA DEMOCRATICALLY

ELECTEDGOVERNMENT,WHATEVER BE

THE PROVOCATION,OR HOWEVER

UNCONSTITUTIONALBE THEIR ACTIONS

LETTERS TO TTHE EDITOR

DEEPAK SINHA

The State of Kerala continues to detect over20,000 COVID-19 cases daily throughmore than 1.5 lakh tests. There seems to

be no let-up in the furious spread of the Deltavariant of the virus in the State. Yet, the cam-paign against the State Government’s COVIDmanagement using the pretext of the latestsurge needed to be contested. Though Kerala’soverall tally of 34.11 lakh cases accounts for10.76 per cent of the total cases reported inthe country, the death toll of 16,837 is 3.96per cent of the total number. Against the coun-try’s fatality rate of 1.34 per cent, Kerala’s is

0.49 per cent, indicative of its success in sav-ing lives. The State has succeeded in keepingthe fatalities low through early detection, time-ly hospital admission and better medical care.Lives do matter more in God’s Own Country.

A new study conducted by the researchersin India, Canada and the United States has putIndia’s real death count between 31 and 34lakh. The studies have also found that the actu-al death toll in Kerala is 1.4 times the officialfigure. Computed on the estimate of theuncounted deaths, the national fatality ratewould be 9.78 per cent of the total cases report-ed and Kerala’s would come to 0.69 per cent.The shortage of oxygen or non-availability ofa hospital bed or ventilator, or shortage of alife-saving drug has never been the cause forany death in the State until now. Pampa, theholy river, has been flowing serenely; it neverhad to bear the sorrow of carrying bloated,abandoned dead bodies. The Kerala model ofCOVID-19 management has been successfulin saving countless lives.

Haridasan Rajan | Kozhikode

Kerala must not be vilified

Politics and themilitary don’t gel

The former President of theUnited States, DonaldTrump, has always had thereputation of being a man

of questionable moral and ethicalintegrity with close connections tothe radical right. Yet, there werethose who voted for him in 2016because they genuinely believedthat he was the lesser of the twoevils, and strongly felt that only an“outsider” like him was capable ofdraining the “Washington Swamp”,a phrase alluding to the seeming-ly all-pervasive corruption sur-rounding the Washington powerelite. They would certainly havebeen disappointed by his insipidperformance as President, especial-ly the extent of his chicanery andselfishness. These have been laidbare in a recent book by twoPulitzer Prize-winning WashingtonPost journalists, investigative staffwriter Carol Leonnig and formerWhite House Bureau Chief PhilipRucker, on Trump’s final year inpower, titled “I Alone Can Fix It”.A fitting sequel, and as perceptiveand illuminating, is “A Very Stable Genius”.

One of the most fascinatingaspects of their latest book pertainsto the manner in which theChairman of the Joint Chiefs ofStaff, General Mark Milley,responded to President Trump’sbrazen attempts to overturn theelection results by peddling his “BigLie” that the elections had been“stolen” by the Democrats resort-ing to widespread fraud. Despite hislegal challenges being summarilydismissed, he continues to peddlethese allegations to this day. Therecan be little doubt that his incite-ment of his supporters culminat-ed in a violent but abortive attempton January 6 to disrupt proceed-ings at Capitol Hill to formalise theelection results.

Prior to this, one may recall,General Milley had been excoriat-ed by military veterans, politiciansand the media for having unwit-tingly dragged the military into pol-itics by being present, in uniform,at Trump’s infamous “Bible photoop” at the St John’s Church, imme-diately after peaceful protestors hadbeen forcefully evicted whiledemonstrating for racial equality.Indeed, that he then went on to ten-der a public apology for his errorof judgement speaks volumes of hisforthrightness, integrity and

SOUNDBITEI have directed the Assam Police to withdraw the FIR against KVanlalvena, Hon’bleMP, Rajya Sabha, from Mizoram.

Assam Chief Minister— Himanta Biswa Sarma

What is their(Taliban militants’)change? They have become more cruel, moreoppressive, more

non-Muslim.

Afghanistan President

— Ashraf Ghani

When it comes totrolling, it is attimes scary how anameless, facelessindividual could sayanything about anybody without getting caught!

Actor— Tiger Shroff

The BJP’s end isnear and those whocast an evil eye onthe party headquar-ters, will be foundfloating in the Worli gutters.

Shiv Sena president— Uddhav Thackeray

I showed the team amovie about stayingin the moment and Ithink that made abig difference in this

match against Australia.

Indian women’s hockey coach— Sjoerd Marijne

Kerala wakes up every morning to an eerie silence. The State was the first todeclare itself free of COVID-19 on the 100th day of diagnosing the first pan-demic case in the country. But the last week saw Kerala diagnosing 20,000

new cases per day with an average Test Positivity Rate of 13. The death toll is surg-ing at an unprecedented rate. When Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan declared on May

8, 2020, that the State was COVID-free, Keralarejoiced and sang paeans to former (and then) HealthMinister KK Shailaja. But it did not take long for thefaçade of the success of the “Kerala model” to col-lapse. “Kerala was known for its good healthcare sys-tem at low cost. The colonial masters and the RoyalFamily of Travancore, who were the rulers till 1947,have to be feted for this. The State’s good climateand availability of pure water and air had laid a strongfoundation for an excellent public health infrastruc-ture,” says Dr SS Lal, an internationally renownedexpert on contagious diseases. He has been alert-

ing the authorities about the danger which they were going to face. But the doctorsays that the policymakers had become prisoners of their own image.

The Government failed to co-opt the services of private hospitals, where 80 per centof the State’s doctors are employed. The Kerala Government Medical Officers Association’splea to appoint 1,000 doctors on a war footing fell on deaf ears. The unscientific lock-down rules and the failure to operationalise the existing infrastructure worsened the sit-uation. The RTI probes have revealed that the authorities suppressed details about 7,000COVID-19 related deaths. There were instances of COVID patients committing suicidein these hospitals because of the failure of the authorities to attend to them. An inter-esting point is the fewer number of cases being reported from Idukki and Wayanad, thedistricts atop the Western Ghats, apparently because of the hardworking lifestyle of thepeople there. Vijayan’s decision to bring in personalities like filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnanand a bishop as members of a committee to advise the Government on how to tacklethe COVID menace evoked laughter. No wonder, the State is adding 50 per cent of thenew patients to the daily national tally. It once again underlines the fact that we shouldhave the right people for the right job even during the pandemic.

In what India claims is a violation of its natural right over Pakistan-occupied Gilgit-Baltistan,the Imran Khan Government gives shape to a law to award the region the status of a‘provisional’ province. Khan had made that promise last November. This is an attempt

by Islamabad to legitimise its illegal occupation by applying the provisions of Pakistanilaw and the election commission to the region. India has lodged a strong protest overthe decision, asserting once again that Gilgit-Baltistan, along with the entire Jammu andKashmir and Ladakh, is an integral part of India by virtue of its legal accession. The region,or the provisional province which it may soon be, is of immense strategic importanceto India, Pakistan and China. It is Pakistan’s only territorial frontier with China. It meetsChina’s Xinjiang autonomous region at that point. It is also a land route between the twoprovinces. The China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) passes through it. Its neigh-

bours also give Gilgit-Baltistan a vantage location:Afghanistan is to its west, Pakistan-occupied Kashmirto its south, and Jammu and Kashmir to the east. Tilla decade ago, it was a nameless region — merely calledNorthern Areas — and administered from Islamabad,unlike Pakistan-occupied Kashmir with its ownConstitution and Assembly. That changed with the Gilgit-Baltistan (Empowerment and Self-Governance) Orderof 2009 that introduced the legislative Assembly in theregion in place of the Northern Areas Legislative Council.

The reason why Pakistan never annexed the regionis because it did not want to weaken its internation-

al case for a plebiscite in Kashmir by annexing Gilgit-Baltistan or, for that matter, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. It hopes that if ever a plebiscite is held, the votes in Gilgit-Baltistanwould become vital to influencing the result. This explains why the region’s provin-cial status is ‘provisional’. India has begun to assert afresh its right over the regionsince Prime Minister Narendra Modi referred to it in his Independence Day speech in2016. Previously, Indian Parliament passed a resolution in 1994 re-affirming its rightover the region. In 2017, the British Parliament also asserted that Gilgit-Baltistan, underPakistan’s control, belongs to India. Gilgit is crucial to China’s expansion of its landtrade routes across the Himalayas. Without the control of Gilgit, the Gwadar port thatestablishes a direct access to the Indian Ocean via the CPEC is of little value to China.The whole idea of China’s $46 billion CPEC is to have surface transport and pipelineconnectivity between Gwadar and Xinjiang via Gilgit, extending China’s sphere of influ-ence to Gilgit-Baltistan and right up to Hormuz Strait. Even as Pakistan makes theregion a province, it cannot deny that it ceded control over the region to China andthe Chinese Army. The latest development poses a challenge to India’s claim to thewhole of Jammu and Kashmir and brings closer home the threat of China’s presencein Gilgit. Pakistan has made its move and the ball is in India’s court now.

Power play

The Kerala crisisAfter the distinction of being the first COVID-free

State, Kerala is now caught deep in the quagmire

PICTALK

People bathe at Prabhatpuri Ka Khola waterfall after monsoon rains in Jaipur PTI

Ignoring Indian protests, Pakistan is trying tolegitimise its occupation of Gilgit-Baltistan

Power reforms — adistant dream

THESE PEOPLE (CONGRESS) WERE THE JAMES BOND

OF SPYING (WHEN IN POWER). THEY SPIN A

WEB OF SPYING WHEN IN GOVERNMENT.

— UNION MINISTER

MUKHTAR ABBAS NAQVI

NO GOVERNMENT ALLOWS OTHERS TO SNOOP ONITS PEOPLE, BUT THIS WAS ALLOWED TO AN ISRAELICOMPANY. IS SECURITY OF THE COUNTRY SAFE?— CONGRESS LEADERMALLIKARJUN KHARGE

Since last year, there have been sev-eral announcements regarding thereformation of power distributioncompanies (discoms). They include

the Electricity (Amendment) Act,2020,Reforms-Linked, Result-BasedScheme for Distribution (RLRBSD), and aspecial loan of `90,000 crore(subsequent-ly raised to `130,000 crore)to discomsin2020, and the new draft National ElectricityPolicy, 2021.

The key reform measures included (i)developing an efficient market for electric-ity distribution; (ii) de-license the distrib-ution business, bring in competition, andgive the consumer power to choose sup-plier (or “open access”); (iii) direct bene-fit transfer (DBT) of subsidy; (iv) puttinga cap on the hike in power tariff; (v) link-ing payments by discoms to letter of cred-it (LoC); (vi) denying grants or loan to loss-making discoms, etc.

An overwhelming share of powergenerated by PSUs such as the NationalThermal Power Corporation (NTPC),etc., independent power producers (IPPs),besides generating stations of State electric-ity boards (SEBs) is procured by discoms(these are mostly owned and controlled byState governments) under power pur-chase agreements (PPA). Most of thesePPAs are long-term contracts up to 25years. A mere five per cent of the electric-ity is traded.

The State governments order discomsto sell electricity to some preferred con-sumers, viz., poor households and farmers,either at a fraction of the cost of purchase,transmission, and distribution, or even free.On the units sold to these groups, theyincur colossal under-recovery. This isaggravated by aggregate technical andcommercial (AT&C) losses - most of it isplain theft. In flated tariff allowed toIPPs/PSUs under a cost-plus formula(under the PPAs) adds to the revenue short-fall.

A deadly cocktail of these three factorscontributes to persistent and increasinglosses of discoms. In 2015-16 it was`52,000 crore, Ts. 17,000 in2017-18 (thisreduction has to do with a massive bail-outgiven in November 2015 under UjwalDiscom Assurance Yojana), ̀ 30,000 crorein 2019-20, and `58,000 crore in 2020-21.

In this backdrop, let us analyze thereform measures: (i) A pre-requisite for thedevelopment of an efficient market for elec-tricity distribution is that a major chunk ofpower should be available for sale in theopen market. But, with 95 per cent of elec-tricity tied to PPAs, that too long-term, thisis unthinkable.

About (ii), considering that the entiredistribution network — transmission lines,feeder lines, transformers (that caters tohouseholds), industries, etc. — is ownedand controlled by discoms, any talk of let-ting in private entities is a misnomer.

As for ‘open access’, a provision wasmade even under the amended ElectricityAct (2003). Under this policy, to be imple-

Unshackling of discoms will take away the leverage parties enjoy to servetheir populist goal of giving cheap/free power to people at election time

BY FIXING THESURCHARGE AT AHIGH LEVEL ANDNOT BOTHERING

TO REDUCE IT (AS MANDATED

UNDER THE ACT),THE STATE

GOVERNMENTSENSURED THATPOST-SWITCH,THE EFFECTIVE

COST OF POWERTO THE

CONSUMER —TARIFF CHARGED

BY THE NEWSUPPLIER PLUS

OAC — IS HIGHERTHAN WHAT THEY

PAY TO SEBS.THAT RENDERED

THE SWITCHUNECONOMICAL

There is a calamity in the making in the field of education, espe-cially school education, in the time of the COVID-19 pandem-ic. The pandemic has affected every stake holder, be it the par-

ents, teachers, students, and school administrators. Innovative waysand technical tools are being developed to make students come closeto get the feel of classroom teaching. According to Azim PremjiFoundation, more than 60 per cent of children cannot access onlineeducation and around 90 per cent of students with disabilities areunable to participate in online classes. Delhi-based NGO, Child FundIndia, says as many as 64 per cent of children in rural India are fac-ing the prospect of being dropped out of school. For students, thebiggest challenge is the absence of physical interaction with peersand teachers. Primary school students cannot even comprehend whatis happening to them. Not only are learning standards affected, phys-iological pressure on senior students is becoming immense. There

is little physical activity because local parks and school playgroundsare also shut. Students in X, XI and XII are irritated about the newmethodology of exam evaluation. For parents, it is challenging to teachdifferent concepts and methods to their children every day. Parentsare juggling between house chores, office work, and handling theeducation needs of their children. One parent of my school said: “Ifthis year it is online classes, I am shifting back to my village as Iam here in the city only for my children’s studies.” Parents who havesuffered financially due to COVID-19 are taking extreme steps to cutdown on education expenses. Unfortunately, it is also their firstresponse, resulting in a heavy blow to the child’s future. For teach-ers, the biggest challenge is teaching by using technology and under-standing students’ body language. Old and experienced teachers faceissues related to online teaching. Teachers are dissatisfied with learn-ing outcomes after putting in extra effort.

I see a calamity coming: Many students have left any formalform of studying in 2020-21. Something needs to be done to recti-fy the situation. For instance, when we return to work after a gap of10 days, we feel we have to start work from scratch even thoughwe have been doing the same work for the past several years. Imaginehow will a child in the 5-10 age group cope with a break of over 18months and still attain previous academic levels? Even though wehave the infrastructure to teach children, what we lack is continuity.It might become difficult for students to remember the past conceptsand relate them to the new ones. It is a challenging task to bring thestudents back to their previous academic levels. There is already afear of many small schools closing down because of the spiralingrunning costs. The administrators are bogged down by unpaid feesin spite of the Supreme Court’s verdict. The current learning gap,reduced social skills, and poor handling by educators can lead to awidening knowledge gap of students when offline classes commenceagain. This can create an educated but unskilled and incapable work-force in the future. We are also looking at an education divide betweenthe rich and the poor and urban and rural. We require the govern-ment’s intervention to come up with a plan to allow students to visittheir schools once or twice a week while continuing their online class-es. A hybrid model to clear doubts and reduce the physiological pres-sure of the students will be most welcomed by schools.

(The writer is the owner of a private school in Morena,Madhya Pradesh. The views expressed are personal.)

Thirty years and India isstill waiting for thedream to become real.

The liberalization of the econ-omy in 1991 is erroneouslytaken as being limited todivesting government assetsand holdings in industry.

Liberalisation was not avoluntary decision but wasnudged by major lenders, theIMF and World Bank, whothreatened to stop lendingwithout a firm commitment to“reforms”. The country wentthrough a foreign exchange cri-sis in the late 1980s and 1990sand family jewels were pawnedbecause forex reserves plungedto unexpected lows. In July1991, the RBI pledged 46.91tonnes of gold with the Bankof England and Bank of Japanto raise $400 million to meet itsinternational obligations. The

reforms that meant losing gov-ernment assets to the privatesector started with a “bang” butdid not bring the private sec-tor to par with the government.The reforms initiated by thethen finance minister,Manmohan Singh, were not aroaring success but a piece ofconfusing policy that hasdumped subsequent govern-ments into a policy quagmire.

While liberalizing the soci-ety from licence-permit rajwas welcomed, the process ofdoing so gradually becamecomplicated. Changes weremade in industrial policy,monopolies law was annulled,import licensing was abol-ished, India joined WTO andTRIPS, quantitative restric-tions on import of manufac-tured goods and farm productswere removed, and current

account convertibility wasintroduced, business process-es were eased, and the GST wasintroduced.

But disinvestment of pub-lic assets caught all attention.Every government took pridein selling assets or being seendoing that. Still, the private sec-tor is suspect in the eyes of thebureaucracy.

It is still a mystery why apartial opening up was consid-ered revolutionary. India isstill not free of its socialist

mindset and a preference forgovernment control on thepretext of “concern for people’swelfare”.

The “reforms” worked abit. But the pandemic impov-erished 80 crore people.Growing joblessness duringthe lockdown pushed themiddle class to the edge ofpoverty. This is reflected inthe slow growth of the GDP.In 2020-21, India’s economicgrowth slowed and contract-ed by 7.3 per cent, theNCAER says.

Liberalisation in 1991 wasfollowed by a series of ̀ 7 lakhcore scams - Harshad Mehtato Ketan Parekh, UTI, LIC(about `2 lakh crore), and aseries of banks, leading to aJPC probe. The top scams arecoal allocation (`1.86 tril-lion), 2G spectrum (`1.76

lakh crore), Waqf Board land(`1.5 lakh crore),Commonwealth Games(`70,000 crore), Telgi stamp(`20,000 crore), Satyam(`14,000 crore), and Hawalascandal (`100 crore).

Scams of such magnitudehad never happened sinceIndependence. Every divest-ment deal was also ques-tioned. While the large privatehouses acquired these assetswith loans from public sectorbanks, it also opened up an eraof high bank losses (NPAs)particularly after the Lehmanmeltdown in 2007-08. TheRBI Financial Stability Report(FSR) says despite banks writ-ing off `23,786 crore loans in2019-20, enabling the PSUbanks to show lower NPAs,banks could go into severestress as it fears the NPAs may

escalate to 16.2 per cent bySeptember 2021 as borrowersare saddled with unpaid dues.

Repeated reorganizationand mergers of banks have notboosted confidence. The lat-est move to sell four majorbanks and LIC is not beingseen as a happy event. Manybuyers could be from the listof 50 major defaulters.

Since 1991, governmentassets worth `3.63 lakh crorewere divested. During 2014-19, `2.79 lakh crore worthasserts were disinvested. Thetarget set for 2020-21 is `2.1lakh crore. The moneyreceived is adjusted in bud-getary expenditure and is notknown to have been used forbuilding assets.

In 2016, demonetizationshook the economy. The cashflow was severely hit, affecting

sales of goods and commodi-ties. People’s purchasing powercollapsed, delaying the post-pandemic industrial, real estate,and market recovery. It mightlead to years of moderate toslow post-pandemic growthand that means a severeresource crunch. Thirty yearssince the reforms, the powersector is in a mess again andagriculture remains the main-stay of the economy.

Have we made progress?Prime Minister Narendra Modisays his government is workingfor a targeted $5-trillion econ-omy. But former PMManmohan Singh says thatthe future economic path istougher than in 1991. Eitherway, the country must bite thereforms bullet and recast itspolicies keeping in mindgrowth in the next 30 years.

Liberalisation was not voluntary but was egged on by global lenders who would not lend without a firm Indian commitment on ‘reforms’

HYDERABAD | TUESDAY | AUGUST 3, 2021

07

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FIRSTCOLUMNEDUCATION IS NEXT

CALAMITY IN MAKING

POINTCOUNTERPOINT

(The writer is a policyanalyst. The views

expressed are personal.)

Thirty years later, ‘reform' yet to happen

SHIVAJI SARKAR

(The writer is a senior journalist. The views

expressed are personal.)

SHUBHANG RATHI

mented within five years of itsenactment, i.e., by 2008, the choicewas given to the bulk consumers(having consumption more than 1megawatt) to choose their supplier.But another provision in the Actrequired such customers to pay an‘open access surcharge (OAC)’ to theconcerned SEB they wanted toleave.

State governments used thislacuna to the hiltto shield the SEBswho are prone to charging exorbi-tant tariffs from industries. By fix-ing the surcharge at a high level andnot bothering to reduce it (as man-dated under the Act), they ensuredthat post-switch, the effective costof power to the consumer — tariffcharged by the new supplier plusOAC — is higher than what theypay to SEBs. That rendered theswitch uneconomical.

They have not even spared theRailways which spends over ̀ 12,000crore annually on the purchase ofelectricity. Under the Railways Act,it is allowed to distribute and sup-ply power and is a “deemed” licenseeas it is buying electricity for its con-sumption and is exempt from pay-ment of the surcharge. Yet, it has topay OAC as States will not give’NOC’ - a requirement for availingexemption.

Coming to (iii), under DBT, theState Government gives subsidiesdirectly to the target beneficiaries,even as discoms fix tariff in a man-ner as to fully recover their cost ofpurchase, wheeling, and distribu-tion, thereby avoiding any under-recovery on such sale. They alsoneed not charge more from indus-triesand businesses which they have

to do under the present regime tocross-subsidize supplies to pre-ferred users. With direct cash trans-fer, discoms can be freed from statecontrol which will help them reducecosts including by reining in theft.Under this regime, it will also be eas-ier to implement “open access”.

Despite these positive spin-offs, the Union Government has notshown the gumption to imple-ment the DBT. In fact, followingstrong protests from farmers’ lead-ers on its inclusion under theElectricity (Amendment) Act, 2020,it has even promised that the sta-tus quo will continue. If the exist-ing system of supplies at heavilysubsidized tariff or even withoutcharge to farmers has to continue,then, logically, the same shouldapply on supplies to householdsasyou cannot have two differentmethods of delivering subsidy todifferent sections of the society. So,there is no hope of the DBT everseeing light of the day.

As for (iv), discoms can recov-er only up to 15 per cent of under-recovered power supply cost fromother consumers. Simply put, if theirunder-recovery from supplies tofarmers/households is say, ‘X’, thenthey will be allowed to recover only0.15X by hiking tariff on supplies toindustries and businesses.This willend up further bloating the lossesof discoms (though industries willface a modest hike in tariff vis-à-visthe existing scenario of no cap). Butthis will not prompt them to settheir house in order all the morewhen they know that eventually, theGovernment will bail them out.

As for (v), under the LC

arrangement, the banks guaranteethat a buyer’s payment to a seller willbe received on time and for the cor-rect amount. If the buyer is unableto pay, the bank will be required tocover the full or remaining amount,which, in turn, it will recover fromthe buyer using all available legalmeans. Here, the buyer being thediscom - owned by the State -it willbe a daunting challenge for thebank.As for (vi), denial of loan toloss-making discoms will not makethem feel the heatas experienceshows that help reaches them byhook or crook.

To conclude, measures such asthose mentioned under (iv), (v), and(vi) are merely cosmetic while thepolitical brass does not have thegumption to act on other measures—as discussed under (i), (ii), and(iii) — which are real reforms. Thisis because it will requirethe unshack-ling of discoms and that will takeaway the leverage that all partiescurrently enjoy to serve their pop-ulist goal of giving cheap/free elec-tricity to the people who matter atelection time. No wonder that wehear proclamations about reformsonly to justify mammoth capitalinfusion whenever discoms needsalvaging.

Under UDAY (2015), discomswere givena package worth`400,000 crore but are still saddledwith under-recovery of `0.42 onevery unit of electricity sold and adebt of about `450,000 crore as onMarch 31, 2021.Under RLRBSD, thegovernment will be spendinganotherRs 300,000 crore but with nohope of trimming under-recovery.The vicious cycle will continue.

UTTAM GUPTA

The current learning gap and reduced socialskills can lead to a widening knowledge gap

HYDERABAD | TUESDAY | AUGUST 3, 2021 Money 08

MONEY MATTERS

Drug firm Bliss GVSPharma on Monday saidit has received good

manufacturing practice (GMP)certificate from the Ministry ofIndustry & Trade of theRussian Federation for itsfacility in Palghar inMaharashtra. The RussianGMP certificate is for thecompany's manufacturing unit in Palghar in compliance with therequirements of the rules of Good Manufacturing Practice, Bliss GVSPharma said in a regulatory filing. "Russia being a key member ofEurasian Economic Union, this GMP approval opens the access forBliss GVS to Russian Pharmaceutical market along with othermember CIS countries," Bliss GVS Pharma Managing Director HarshSharma said. The company intends to launch products inGynaecology, Urology, and Anti-Haemorrhoidal segments acrossthese markets, he added. Shares of Bliss GVS Pharma closed at Rs126.80 per scrip on BSE, up 17.84 per cent from its previous close.

Hinduja Group flagship firmAshok Leyland on Mondayreported 81 per cent

increase in total vehicle sales at8,650 units in July. Thecompany had sold 4,776 unitsin July 2020. Total domesticvehicle sales stood at 8,129units last month as against4,283 units in the year-agoperiod, registering an increaseof 90 per cent, Ashok Leyland said in a statement.Medium and heavy commercial vehicles (M&HCV) sales in the

domestic market were at 3,473 units last month as compared to1,500 units in July 2020, it added. Light commercial vehicle sales inthe domestic market last month stood at 4,656 units as against2,783 units in the same month last year, the company said.

Ashok Leyland sales up 81pc at 8,650 units in July

TVS Motor Companyregistered a growth of10% with sales of 278,855

units in July 2021 as againstsales of 252,744 units in themonth of July 2020.Two-Wheeler Total two-wheelers registered a growthof 8% with sales of 262,728units in July 2021 as againstsales of 243,788 units in July2020. Domestic two-wheeler registered sales of 175,169 units inJuly 2021 as against sales of 189,647 units in July 2020.Motorcycle registered sales of 138,772 units in July 2021 asagainst sales of 106,062 units in July 2020. Scooter sales of theCompany registered 74,351 units in July 2021 as against sales of78,603 units in July 2020. The Company's total exports registered agrowth of 65% with sales of 103,133 units in the month of July2021 as against 62,389 units in July 2020. Two-wheeler exportsregistered a growth of 62% with sales of 87,559 units in July 2021as against sales of 54,141 units in July 2020. The demand in theexport market continues to be robust, and container availability isimproving.

TVS registers 10 pc growthwith sales of 278,855 units

PB Fintech, whichoperates onlineinsurance platform

Policybazaar and creditcomparison portalPaisabazaar, has filedpreliminary papers withmarket regulator Sebi to raise Rs 6,017.50 crore through an initialpublic offer (IPO). The IPO comprises a fresh issue of Rs 3,750crore worth of equity shares and an offer for sale (OFS) of Rs2,267.50 crore by existing shareholders, according to draft redherring prospectus (DRHP). As part of the OFS, SVF Python II(Cayman) will sell shares worth Rs 1,875 crore, Yashish Dahiya willshares worth Rs 250 crore and some other selling shareholders willalso offer shares. The firm may consider raising around Rs 750crore by way of a private placement of equity shares ahead of theIPO. Proceeds of the fresh issue will be used towards enhancingvisibility and awareness of the company's brands to look for newopportunities to expand growth initiatives to increase the consumerbase including offline presence.

Policybazaar files Rs 6,017.5crore IPO papers with Sebi

Bliss GVS Pharma gets GMPcertificate for Palghar facility

PNS n NEW DELHI

India's manufacturing sectoractivities witnessed thestrongest rate of growth inthree months in July amidimproved demand conditionsand easing of some localCOVID-19 restrictions, amonthly survey said onMonday.

The seasonally adjusted IHSMarkit India ManufacturingPurchasing Managers' Index(PMI) rose from 48.1 in Juneto 55.3 in July, pointing to thestrongest rate of growth inthree months.

In PMI parlance, a printabove 50 means expansionwhile a score below 50 denotescontraction.

"It's encouraging to see theIndian manufacturing industryrecover from the blip seen inJune. Output rose at a robustpace, with over one-third ofcompanies noting a monthlyexpansion in production, amida rebound in new business andthe easing of some localCOVID-19 restrictions," saidPollyanna De Lima, EconomicsAssociate Director at IHSMarkit.

Lima further noted that"should the pandemic contin-ue to recede, we expect a 9.7per cent annual increase inindustrial production for cal-endar year 2021."

On the recruitment front,there was a marginal increasein employment in July thatended a 15-month sequence ofjob shedding.

"Although marginal, the risein employment was the firstsince the onset of COVID-19.With firms' cost burdens con-tinuing to rise, however, andsigns of spare capacity still evi-dent, it's too early to say thatsuch a trend will be sustainedin coming months," Lima said.

On the inflation front, therewas a softer but still sharp

increase in input costs. Outputcharges rose only slightly, how-ever, as several companiesabsorbed additional cost bur-dens amid efforts to boostsales. "Policymakers will wel-come evidence that inflation-ary pressures are starting toabate. Firms signalled the slow-est increases in input costs andoutput charges for seven

months. "Hence, we expectthe RBI to keep interest ratesunchanged in its August meet-ing as it continues to supportgrowth," Lima said.

The RBI is scheduled toannounce its bi-monthly mon-etary policy review on August6 at the end of the three-daymeeting -- August 4-6 -- of itsMonetary Policy Committee(MPC).

Experts believe, amid fears ofa third wave of coronaviruspandemic and hardening ofretail inflation, the ReserveBank is likely to maintain sta-tus quo on interest rate andwatch the developing macro-economic situation for somemore time before taking anydecisive action on monetarypolicy. The survey furthernoted that, Indian firms fore-see output growth in the yearahead, with the end of the pan-demic and rising sales expect-ed to support the upturn.

"The overall level of positivesentiment rose from June's 11-month low, but remained his-torically subdued as some com-panies were concerned aboutthe path of the pandemic," thesurvey said.

July manufacturing output zooms

PNS n NEW DELHI

The government on Mondaysaid there is no proposal underconsideration to waive loans offarmers, including ScheduledCaste and Scheduled Tribefarmers. In a written reply tothe Lok Sabha, Minister ofState for Finance BhagwatKarad said the Centre has notimplemented any farm loanwaiver scheme since'Agriculture Debt Waiver and

Debt Relief Scheme (ADW-DRS), 2008'.

"There is no proposal underconsideration of theGovernment of India to waiveoff the loans of farmers includ-ing Scheduled Caste andScheduled Tribes farmers inthe country," the minister said.

Karad also listed major ini-tiatives taken by the govern-ment and the Reserve Bank ofIndia to reduce the debt bur-den of farmers and for welfare

of the people engaged in agri-culture, including thosebelonging to Scheduled Castesand Scheduled Tribes.

He cited schemes like inter-est subvention for short-termcrop loans of up to Rs 3 lakh,RBI's decision to raise thelimit for collateral-free agricul-ture loan from Rs 1 lakh to Rs1.6 lakh, and direct incomesupport of Rs 6,000 per year tofarmers under PradhanMantri Kisan Samman Nidhi.

No proposal under considerationto waive farmer loans, says Govt

PNS n MUMBAI

Equity benchmarks opened theweek with robust gains onMonday as strong corporateresults, supportive macroeco-nomic data and a bullish trendoverseas turbocharged senti-ment. Auto stocks were pro-pelled by recovery in July salesnumbers, while IT counters alsosaw brisk buying.

The 30-share BSE Sensex ral-lied 363.79 points or 0.69 percent to finish at 52,950.63, whilethe broader NSE Nifty surged122.10 points or 0.77 per cent to15,885.15.

Titan was the top gainer in theSensex pack, spurting 3.25 percent, followed by M&M,Reliance Industries, Axis Bank,

TCS, Maruti and Infosys.HDFC gained 0.88 per cent

after the country's largest mort-gage lender reported a 31 percent jump in its consolidated netprofit at Rs 5,311 crore for theJune quarter.

On the other hand, Tata Steel,Bajaj Finserv, Bajaj Finance,NTPC, Dr Reddy's and HDFCBank were among the laggards,shedding up to 1.66 per cent.Domestic equities recoveredsharply as positive cuesfrom global equities andstrong rebound in autosupported bench-marks, said Binod

Modi, Head-Strategy at Relia-nce Securities.

Further, modest recovery infinancials, IT and pharma alsosupported market, he said,adding that realty stocks were infocus after sharp improvementin property registrations inMumbai for July, while decentimprovement inmonthly autosales vol-u m e

aided original equipment man-ufacturers (OEMs). He notedthat most key sectoral indicestraded in green, while volatilityindex broadly stood flat.

On the macroeconomic front,India's manufacturingsector activities witnessedthe strongest rate ofgrowth in three monthsin July amid improved

demand conditions andeasing of some local

Covid restrictions, amonthly survey said on

Mond-ay. The seasonallyadjusted IHS Markit India

Manufacturing PurchasingManagers' Index (PMI) rose

from 48.1 in June to 55.3 inJuly -- the strongest rate of

growth in three months."Tracking global senti-

ments, vibrant domestic sectorslike realty, auto, IT and chem-icals provided an edge toIndian equities. Recovery isseen in July auto sales and animproved outlook for realestate due to a surge in prop-erty registrations helped thesesectors to trade higher. "USD1 trillion infrastructure spend-ing package in the US provid-ed better prospects to the coreeconomy, aiding global mar-kets to start the month on astrong footing," said VinodNair.

Markets march higher on global cues

PNS n NEW DELHI

High cost of acquisition due toa variety of reasons, includinghigher GST than all othermajor countries, is slowingdown car demand in the coun-try and unless the Centre andstates take steps to reduce it, theindustry is unlikely to experi-ence reasonable growth,according to Maruti SuzukiIndia Chairman R C Bhargava.

Addressing shareholders inthe company's Annual Reportfor 2020-21, he said after thedevastating second wave ofthe coronavirus pandemic hit-ting the first quarter of FY22,the performance in the nextthree quarters will largelydepend on how effectively peo-ple get vaccinated and observesafety protocols.

"In March 2021, we werequite optimistic about the out-look for FY2021-22. The sud-denness and ferocity of the sec-ond wave of the pandemicwas a surprise to all, and led to

lockdowns and restrictions inmost parts of the country," hewrote.

Production and sales againdropped and the recovery thathad started in the previousquarter suffered a set-back.Q1 sales were limited at3,53,600 units, Bhargava added.

Emphasising that the futureoutlook hinges on how thevirus is contained, he said,"The performance in the nextthree quarters largely dependson how effectively all our citi-zens follow the government'sadvice to get vaccinated andobserve safety protocols."

Bhargava further said, "If wecan avert the third wave, orsubstantially reduce its effect,and there are no further waves,economic activities and sale ofcars can improve significantlyover what was achieved lastyear." He also attributed theslowing down in the demand of

cars to "largely because the costof acquisition by consumershas increased due to variousreasons like regulatory changes,depreciation of the rupee,increase in cost of raw materi-als and taxes imposed by Stategovernments".

"The GST on cars, based onthe past rates of excise duty, ismuch higher than the GST (orequivalent) in all other majorcountries of the world. It isunlikely that the car industrywill experience reasonable ratesof growth unless the centraland state governments consid-er how to reduce the initialacquisition cost of car,"Bhargava asserted.

Yet, Maruti Suzuki IndiaManaging Director and CEOKenichi Ayukawa said in thesecond half of 2020-21 therewas growth after a big contrac-tion in Q1 due to COVID-19as "the demand for cars also fol-lowed the path of economicrecovery". "The demand forcars was driven by pent-up

demand, increasing customerpreference towards personalmobility and a good demandfrom non-urban markets,"Ayukawa wrote in his address.

On the road ahead, he said,"Although the country is nav-igating through tough times, itseconomic prospects appear tobe promising over the mediumterm. With support from SMCin terms of relevant productsand technologies, the compa-ny will continue to work on allthe enablers to cash-in on theopportunities."

Moreover, SMC, in its recentmid-term plan, indicated tooffer relevant products such asUtility Vehicles (UV) tostrengthen MSI's product line-up, promote the penetration ofhybrids and introduce EVs,Ayukawa added.

"The partnership betweenSuzuki Motor Corporation andToyota Motor Corporation willhelp the Company in gainingaccess to hybrid technology," hesaid.

High GST, acquisition cost slowing down car demand

PNS n MUMBAI

Construction of over six lakhhomes valued at over Rs 5 lakhcrore is either fully stuck ordelayed across seven Indiancities as of mid-2021, as per areport by a realty consultantreleased on Monday. Theseunits are in projects in sevencities, which were launched onor before 2014, the report byAnarock Property Consultantssaid.

The report classified 1.74lakh homes valued at Rs 1.40lakh crore as “totally stuck” andadded that two-thirds of theseunits are priced below Rs 80lakh. It said the government's

SWAMIH fund has come tothe rescue of several projectsbut did not specify the exacthelp tendered by the scheme.

Delhi-National CapitalRegion leads the chart with

1.13 lakh units in totally stalledprojects having a value of Rs86,463 crore, followed byMumbai Metropolitan Regionwith 41,730 units worth Rs42,417 crore, the report said.

PNS n NEW DELHI

Aditya Birla group ChairmanKumar Mangalam Birla hasoffered to hand over his stakein debt-laden Vodafone IdeaLtd (VIL) to the governmentor any other entity that thegovernment may considerworthy to keep the companyoperational.

The billionaire business-man made the offer in June ina letter to Cabinet SecretaryRajiv Gauba.

According to official data,VIL had an adjusted gross rev-enue (AGR) liability of Rs58,254 crore out of which thecompany has paid Rs 7,854.37crore and Rs 50,399.63 crore isoutstanding.

VIL alongwith Bharti Airtelhad approached the SupremeCourt for correction in thegovernment calculations buttheir plea was rejected.

In the letter, Birla, whoholds around 27 per cent stakein VIL, said investors are notwilling to invest in the compa-ny in the absence of clarity onAGR liability, adequate mora-torium on spectrum paymentsand most importantly floorpricing regime above the costof service.

Without immediate activesupport from the governmenton the three issues by July, thefinancial situation of VIL willcome to an "irretrievable pointof collapse," Birla said in theletter dated June 7.

PNS n NEW DELHI

The total borrowing ofNational Highways Authorityof India (NHAI) increased toRs 3,06,704 crore in March2021 from Rs 74,742 crore inMarch 2017, Parliament wasinformed on Monday.

Replying to a question inthe Rajya Sabha, RoadTransport and HighwaysMinister Nitin Gadkari saidSince 2017, NHAI has availedexternal borrowing to thetune of Rs 3,000 crore.

The minister informed thatthe amount of interest paid byNHAI in 2020-21 was Rs18,840 crore.

He also said that as of

date, there are 140 arbitrationcases pending before variousarbitral tribunals, whereinan amount of Rs 91,875.70crore of the contractors/ con-cessionaires claims and Rs44,600 crore of NHAI's coun-terclaims is involved for adju-dication.

PNS n MUMBAI

The rupee gained 8 paise toclose at 74.34 (provisional)against the US dollar onMonday, supported by a firmtrend in domestic equitiesand a weak American curren-cy. Forex traders said therupee is trading in a narrowrange as investors are awaitingthe RBI's monetary policymeeting outcome for furthercues.

At the interbank forex mar-ket, the local unit opened at74.38 against the greenbackand witnessed an intra-dayhigh of 74.30 and a low of74.43.

Rupee gains 8paise to close at74.34 against $

Construction of 6L housing unitsvalued at Rs 5 L-cr facing delay

Birla offers to hand over VI stake to government

NHAI’s borrowing risesto Rs 3.06 L-cr in March

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TuesdayAugust 3, 2021

OTT TRUMPING TV?SHIKHA DUGGAL

TT platforms in Indiaare growing rapidly interms of subscribersmainly due to digitalmedia; the youth,especially, have led to

the increase in OTT viewership.In fact, the drop in prices ofsmart phones has also enabled alarge chunk of the population togain more access to online plat-forms. However, all of this had asubstantial impact on the televi-sion industry.

On one hand, there was thepandemic delaying the produc-tion of television programs whileon the other hand, there was theboom of OTT content that luredevery consumer to actuallyswitch to key OTT players forunsullied content! From negativeimpact on revenues to employ-ment issues, both — strugglingactors as well as the establishedones — had to face evils at thatpoint in time. With digital revo-lution on our heads, will televi-sion take an exit from the back-door? Telugu television actorSyed Anwar, know for his rolesin serials like Mr Mallanna,shares, “Every medium has itsown spectators; it has taken yearsto build that. TRPs are key evi-dence here, that our audienceshaven’t gone down. Currently,many shows, at the moment, aregaining immensely high TRP, itshows viewers are definitelyhooked onto television masala,despite the arrival of OTT. Otherthan Aha Video, I don’t thinkthere is another medium thatour telugu audiences will shift to,in terms of sitcoms. Telugu tele-vision serials or reality showsrun purely on the number game,OTT may have a dissimilarapproach, but we’re inclinedtowards the indispensable formof content. Absolutely, societalchanges are happening but thatcan be adjusted online. Forexample, the star group has bothits satellite channel and OTTplatform. Every subject alsodraws some cons with it. OTThas probably turned out to be aboon for many of us. Now, wehave the alternative of a newmedium to explore our actingabilities. Another instance Iwould like to highlight is thepetty politics that occur amidlocal television industries. I don’tthink that will be the case withonline streaming platforms, withcommitment to only one channelbecause you’re the lead therewhen it comes to TV! It’s a for-tune, if my show runs for morethan five years straight, will I beable to discover more characterson television at the same time?I’ll have to think about it.”

The audience is hungry, theyconstantly want entertainment

fitting around their increasinglyhectic lives. Now, the concept oftelevision may havebecome an old prac-tice for many, butpopular televi-sion artistKaushik ofAadadheyAadharam fameresolutelybelieves thateven today, peo-ple in SouthIndia wait tillFriday for theepisodes tofinishand

then are very curious to knowwhat's going to happen in theepisode that airs on Monday

episode! “Are the rural audiencesused to something likeAmazon Prime Video?

Nope. ETV andGemini are the chan-nels they can easilyaccess and relate to!

OTT could be damag-ing the business of the

movieindus-

try a bit, but for home-makers,watching television is a still

must activity, while goingabout their chores.

What the televisionindustry can do istake a diverse con-tent route becausemany a time,today’s population

gets sick of the simi-lar ‘saas-bahu’ saga. We're seeingtelevision channels up north,trying out new concepts, wemust too! That’s more relevantthese days; we should take abreak from showing women as‘damsels in distress’ or the vampsthat we see. That doesn’t happenin real life! Television will always

hold a place in everyone’shearts.”

Even though, inthis digital world,where we have theflexibility of con-suming contentanywhere and

anytime, the rela-tionship with televi-

sion will always remainunchanged. It’s not totally

proven that digital content willsupersede television content andthat we’ll lose our good oldfriend in the form of televisiondaily soaps. Mostly, the actors wespoke to, feel that TV cannotfade away! However, we did seethe dominant medium come to ahalt when the pandemic tried to

destroy the lives of televisionstars.

Actress Meghana Raami ofKalachakram fame informed,“One more lockdown, trust me,we would have been on theroads. According to me, ourdaily soap actors are also dailywage workers and we couldn’thave survived another lockdown.I’m only preparing to be extracautious on the sets and outside,too. I got my parents and myselfvaccinated, focussing on havinghealthy food and being responsi-ble when I’m heading out towork. I blame the sheer negli-gence and stupidity of people forthe surge in the cases earlier.Honestly, we were serious andcautious for only a few days afterthe lockdown. We were givenCovid-19 insurances, sanitisers,masks and what not! But throw-ing the masks all around,neglecting sanitisers and othersafety protocols, being overconfi-dent and then blaming the gov-ernment will not help.”

It may appear that the audi-ence is moving away from televi-sion, however people in the busi-ness believe that’s not the case. Infact, according to a recent report,there has been a massive televi-sion audience base while thelockdown was on.

Therefore, one may switchbetween apps but chances arethey'll return to their televisionsets.

O

YAMINIKRISHNABANDLAMUDI

ith the increasingconcern of globalwarming andenvironmentaldestruction, thecitizens of

Vijayawada, especiallywomen, are enjoyingembracing greener lives andare rushing to nurseries tobring their favourite plantshome. They prefer to growgardens on their rooftopsthat resist heat, bring shade,and even provide food, med-icinal benefits, and if notanything, beauty for sure.

According to experts,growing plants on the ter-race will control about 5 to 8degrees celsius heat.“Growing plants is just likebringing up kids. Neglectingthe plants even for a fewdays doesn’t fetch. Especiallyterrace gardening demandsutmost care and a systematicway of growing plants. Twomajor reasons for the pre-sent generation to opt for aterrace garden are, to save

space and grow organicfood. People’s outlooktowards this has drasticallychanged. Earlier, peoplewould fear water sinkinginto the roofs but now, onecan repurpose flower boxes,sand, and planter boxes. Youcan hang these on an exist-ing railing or just set themon the floor. It’s better to notuse ordinary garden soil inthese planter boxes, useeither quality potting mix orcompost-rich soil. Fertilisingis the major factor to

improve productivity but itvaries according to plants:peppers and tomatoes areheavy feeders, whereas greenleafy vegetables do not needmuch fertiliser. A terracevegetable garden will takecare of your family’s need forveggies like Tomatoes,Cucumbers, Radishes,Beans, Potatoes, Onions,Carrots, Beetroot, Lettuce,Garlic, Chillies, Peppers, andMelons,” informs AdiLakshmi, plant-lover, andprofessor at Velagapudi

Sidhhartha EngineeringCollege, in Vijayawada.

Gardening is a good exer-cise for both physical andmental health. The beautifullook your terrace will have isjust an added bonus. Thebenefit of cooling makeseverything better. Plants andthe clay in the soil absorbheat from the sun whichincreases the heat inside,expanding its rays on theterrace of your home, or theother commercial buildings.Various kinds of arrange-

ments help block heat andoffer shade — shade net,shell designs, wall emboss-ing, a pond, lawn, toy house,rock shell work as heat resis-tants. “It was I that intro-duced Vijayawada toHeliconia, a rare plant that Igot all the way from Kolkatatwenty years ago. Initially, Istarted growing it in a pot.As that didn’t work, I plant-ed it beside the compoundwall and it did well. It growsup to 12 feet. It attractedquite a few viewers. I'm also

growing 100 bonsai plants inmy garden. I used to main-tain a huge terrace gardenbefore my retirement. I’vebeen a member of ‘HaritaPriya’ and ‘UdyanavanaPremikulu’ associations ofVijayawada. Gardening hasalways served as a stressbuster for me,” says retiredOphthalmologist, DrKrishna Rao, a passionatelover of plants.

Usually, people buy rec-tangular or square-shapedframes filled with mudwhich helps plants grow bet-ter on the terrace. One canalso use old shelves, andracks to keep pots, or buypot holders, and put themaround the corners of yourhome. In the vertical spaces,you can grow herbs toenhance the taste of saladsand cuisines. You can also

grow a lot of flowers toappease ornamental views.They add such peace andcalm to people in the homeand those who visit too.Without personal care andinterest, nobody can tend aroof garden well. To developthe roof garden, one willhave to shell out anywhereclose to 1 or 5 lakhs,depending upon the kinds ofplants and interests one has.However, start with plantingin simple containers — bigand small, build raised beds,or cover your terrace withproper soil beds like tradi-tional gardens. If you chooseto build a fully planted greenroof then you need to ensureyour rooftop will not causeany potential damage to thebuilding,” shares KandulaSarada Vani, a landscapedesigner based inVijayawada. If you are look-ing for a stylish way of grow-ing a terrace garden, raisedbeds are a great option tostart with. The raised bed onthe terrace does not differfundamentally from thoseyou see in a regular garden.If you fill the raised bed withsoil, consider preventingvoles and pests from enter-ing the bed. To make fertilesoil, mix quality garden soil,ripe compost, and manure.Probably the most signifi-cant advantage of a raisedbed is the height and widthon the terrace.

GREENER ROOFTOPS TO KEEPTHE COOL QUOTIENT HIGH

e’ve always knownthrough experience thatgood parenting andopinion-shaping canensure children grow tobe responsible adults,

and keep away from harmfulhabits. A recent study has con-firmed something very similar.Children who set goals for theirfuture and those with strongparental support are less likely touse e-cigarettes and other tobaccoproducts, revealed a study byUPMC Children’s Hospital ofPittsburgh and the University ofPittsburgh School of Medicinephysician-scientists.

The research suggested thatstrategies to prevent youth vapingmay be different from what worksto dissuade youth from smokingcigarettes. “The use of e-cigarettesby young people is at epidemicproportions, with 27 percent ofyouth surveyed saying they’dvaped in the last 30 days,” saidlead author Nicholas Szoko, MD, afellow in the Division ofAdolescent and Young AdultMedicine at UPMC Children’s.

“And a lot of the traditionalmethods we think of for coun-selling youth on the dangers oftobacco and drug use may notapply to vaping. Paediatriciansand parents need a better under-standing of what motivates adoles-cents to eschew e-cigarettes,”added Szoko.

Szoko and his colleaguesanalysed anonymous question-naires administered in partnershipwith the Allegheny County HealthDepartment and completed by2,487 high school students inPittsburgh Public Schools. Thesurveys asked questions to ascer-tain if and how often the studentsused e-cigarettes or other tobaccoproducts, and to determine if anyof four “protective factors” validat-ed by previous research were asso-ciated with a lower likelihood ofvaping or smoking.

In the study, positive future ori-entation and high levels ofparental monitoring were bothlinked with a 10 percent to 25 per-cent lower prevalence of recentlyor ever vaping, compared to peerswith lower scores on those protec-

tive factors. There was no linkbetween social support or schoolconnectedness and the use of e-cigarettes. All four protective fac-tors were associated with a lowerprevalence of smoking or use ofother tobacco products, but nonewere linked to intent to quit usingtobacco products. This suggeststhat once young people begin touse tobacco, quitting may be moredifficult to promote. Theresearchers note that these find-ings should be explored to devel-op improved youth tobacco pre-vention efforts, but that it isn'tsurprising that the results for vap-ing weren’t exactly the same as forsmoking.

“E-cigarettes are positionedand marketed differently thantobacco cigarettes. They’ve beenpopularised as tools for smokingcessation, and previous researchhas found the various flavors andtrendy ads for vaping are attractiveto youth,” said Szoko. “We alsoknow that vaping primes adoles-cents to transition to smoking cig-arettes and other substance use.So, it stands to reason that we mayneed different approaches to keepkids from vaping, than we use tostop them from smoking,” addedSzoko. Senior author AlisonCulyba, M.D., PhD, M.P.H., assis-tant professor of paediatrics, pub-lic health, and clinical and transla-tional science at Pitt, noted thatframeworks already exist to helpclinicians use future orientationand encourage parental monitor-ing when providing health care toyoung people, which bodes wellfor developing e-cigarette inter-vention programs to strengthenthese protective factors. “And wecan help parents to navigate theirroles as their children becomepre-teens and teens and helpencourage open conversationswith their kids about what they’reencountering,” concluded Culyba.

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Good parenting canput smoking at bay

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Syed Anwar

Meghna Raami

Kaushik

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what’s brewing?

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Hyderabad Tuesday August 3, 2021

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l Bhavana

Aconcept dining restaurant thatexperiments with many cuisines,Flechazo, is now open for those

seeking new tastes at Road no 2, BanjaraHills! The grand launch of the restaurantwas hosted by many who were all praisefor the beautiful interiors and impressivefood.

FOODIES' PPARADISE

Rules

ARCHIE

GARFIELD

SUDOKU

REALITY CHECK CROSSWORD

GINGER MEGGS

NANCY

l Each row and column cancontain each number (1 to 9)exactly once.

l The sum of all numbers inany row or column mustequal 45.

Yesterday’s solution

CALVIN AND HOBBES

SPEED BUMP

FUN

l Hepsiba

l Meghana

l Jayakannanl P Himajal Nabha Natesh

l Gowthami l Meenal

l Dharma

Another of the novelty experience-based restaurants in the city is herefor foodies to enjoy! Gismat Mandi,

a favourite chain of many, launched thesecond jail-themed restaurant earlier thisweek in Ameerpet! Tollywood actressNabha Natesh lit up the place with herpresence as visitors enjoyed theexperience.

JAIL BBREAK

11

Hyderabad Tuesday August 3, 2021 tollywood

ctor Adivi Sesh,known for givinghits likeKshanam, Evaru,and Goodachari,is currently gear-

ing for the final touches ofhis upcoming bilingualfilm Major. The actor, whohas so far had a string ofcommercial successes, feelsmoney matters of any filmare important to a certainextent.

Major is a biographicaldrama based on the life of26/11 martyr SandeepUnnikrishnan. Reportshave suggested that thefilm’s international rightsand satellite rights havebeen sold at a whoppingamount already.

“For me, numbers matteras much as it reflects onhow you keep your produc-ers safe. Today, I am anactor because some pro-ducer chose to bet on me. Ithink a film begins withthe producer and ends withthe audience. For the audi-ence to see that end prod-uct, it takes a producer to

bet on you,” Sesh shares.Reacting to Major’s

money game, Sesh adds,“Major is made on largescale and a much biggerbudget than my previousfilms.

I am happy that the saleson which the film is doingare on par, if not better,and are safeguarding theemotional and financialinvestment. Beyond that,the number game doesn’tinterest me.”

Once he finishes shoot-ing for this bilingual film,he will dive straight intothe shooting of Hit 2, postwhich the much-awaitedsequel to Goodacharishould get rolling.

The 2018 action thrillerGoodachari had madeSesh’s game stronger.

Ever since, movie buffshave been eager for thesequel to release, withsome even guessing whereM. Gopi (Sesh)’s missiongoes next.

While the internet isafloat fan theories, Sesh,who is also the writer for

the film and itsupcoming sequel,does not feel anypressure of writ-ing the story inany kind ofhurry. Do thesetheories aboutGoodachari 2affect how heshapes up thestory? Heanswers,“The Indianaudiencelargely tendsto call filmseither commer-cial or noncom-mercial. I don’tknow if Goodachari,in any way, is a mys-tery film. If you lookat Kshanam or Evaru, Ilook at those more asmystery and suspense.Goodachari for me is likea spy franchise. It’s sort oflike a fun action film. So, Idon’t feel any sort of pres-sure for Goodachari 2.”Major is being made inTelugu and Hindi and willbe dubbed in Malayalam.

ellamkonda Sreenivas and Ramesh Varma’sRakshasudu was released in 2019 and mintedhuge money at the box office. Nearly twoyears after its release, producer KoneruSatyanarayana announced Rakshasudu 2 withthe same director.

On Monday, the producer revealed thatRakshasudu 2 will be made at a mammoth budgetof Rs 100 crore. “The idea of Rakshasudu 2 is asgood as the first one. It will have many more com-mercial elements than the first one and also bemore thrilling. Rakshasudu 2 will be on parHollywood films. We are going to make it on apan-India level and will be casting a very big heroin the second part,” Producer KoneruSatyanarayana said.

“We are going to make it with a budget of 100Crore and will entirely be shot in London. Thefilm will have many action elements,” KoneruSatyanarayana added.

The producer is currently making Khiladi withMass Maharaja Ravi Teja which is again directedby Ramesh Varma.

Koneru Satyanarayana was supposed to remakeRakshasudu in Bollywood but Covid-19 played aspoilsport. “Akshay Kumar has approached us togive the rights to Pooja Films and we readily gaveaway the rights as we felt he would be perfect forthe role. Since we could not do the film, we gaveaway the rights. Ramesh Varma will be making hisBollywood debut with the movie,” he told.

Rakshasudu 2to be madewith Rs 100 cr

ollywood music icon Devi SriPrasad turned 42 on Monday.The composer is currentlybusy rendering tunes for hisdear friend Allu Arjun’s pan-India film Pushpa, directed

by Sukumar. The director-composerduo has struck gold 7 times in the past.

On Monday, the birthday boy DSPannounced the release of the first singleof Pushpa and details of the song. Thefirst song will be released on August 13.As the film follows the life of a smug-gler from tribal people, the glimpse ofthe song sounds much like a primitivetribal music-based song.

“5 Languages, 5 singers & OneRocking Tune by @ThisIsDSP

Icon Staar @alluarjun’s

#PushpaFirstSingle on AUG 13th, (sic)”tweeted the makers. Pushpa is set torelease in five languages.

Following RRR’s Dosti, this songOdu Odu Aadu from Pushpa will alsofeature the vocals of five differentsingers in the five languages. BennyDayal, Shivam, Vishal Dadlani, VijayPrakash, and Rahul Nambiar willcroon the song in Tamil, Telugu, Hindi,Kannada, and Malayalam respectively.

This song will be aired in all five lan-guages on August 13. Last month, thePushpa star Allu Arjun has surprisedDSP with a lovely name board of neonlights. The stylish star might have gift-ed him after hearing the Pushpasoundtrack. Fans are eagerly waiting tolend ears to the first single.

Pushpa's first song to be out on Aug 13

kkineni Naga Chaitanyaand Sai Pallavi starrer, LoveStory, directed by SekharKammula, has postponedits release in theatres mul-tiple times and it was made

clear that the film will release only onthe big screens. After Thimmarusuand Ishq’s positive response, the latestwe hear is that the makers of LoveStory have locked the release date.As

the theatres have reopened across thestate, the makers of Love Story areplanning to release the film onSeptember 10. An official confirma-tion regarding the same is yet to bemade. Love Story is produced byAmigos Creations in association withSree Venkateswara Cinemas. The teas-er of Sekhar Kammula’s directorialventure Love Story was released onJanuary 10, and it has received an

overwhelming response from movielovers. Saranga Dariya, a Telanganafolk song from the film has achieved aunique feat. The peppy fold num-ber has crossed 100 millionviews on YouTube. LoveStory also stars PosaniKrishna Murali, RaoRamesh, RajeevKanakala,Devayani, EaswariRao, SatyamRajesh, andThagubothuRamesh inimportantroles.

S Rajamouli hasnearly wrapped upthe shooting of hisperiod drama RRR,except for one song.A few days ago, the

production house DVVEntertainments shared anupdate about the movie’s film-ing. The makers alsoannounced that lead actorsRam Charan and Jr NTR havecompleted their dubbing por-tions in two languages.According to the latest report,the team of RRR left for EastEurope on Monday to shootthe final song.

RRR is a pan-Indian film

that is being made on anextravagant budget. ProducerDVV Danayya is said to havespent Rs 300 crore on thefilm. RRR also stars AliaBhatt, Ajay Devgn, Samuthirakani, Olivia Morris, AlisonDoody, and Ray Stevenson.The upcoming much-hypedmovie is a fictional story setin the 1920s pre-independentera and it is based on the livesof two celebrated freedomfighters — Alluri SitaramaRaju and Komaram Bheem.The first song Dosti releasedon Sunday clocked 20 millionviews in just a few hours of itsrelease.

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ijay Sethupathi and Sundeep Kishan have teamed up for an excitingproject, to be directed by Ranjith Jeyakodi. The two are comingtogether for a big-ticket pan-India film and amidst the excitement,

Sundeep Kishan shared a few photos with Vijay Sethupathi that have takensocial media by storm. One can see Sundeep Kishan giving Vijay a tinyadorable peck on the cheek and we cannot get enough of their picture.Sharing the photos, Sundeep tweeted, “The Big Brother Love...The one and one“Makkal Selvan" @VijaySethuOffl Loading Soon…" The film will reportedly bepresented by The Family Man makers Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK, andproduced by Bharath Chowdary.

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RRR team flies to Europe

NUMBER GAME

MATTERS TOADIVI SESH

sport 12HYDERABAD | TUESDAY | AUGUST 3, 2021

TOKYO TIMELINE

MONDAY HIGHLIGHTS

lHockey : India beatAustralia 1-0 in women’squarterfinal.lAthletics: Dutee Chand7th and last in women’s200m Heat 4; fails to qual-ify for semifinals.Kamalpreet Kaur sixth inwomen’s discus final witha best throw of 63.70m.lShooting: AishwaryPratap Singh Tomar 21stand Sanjeev Rajput 32ndin men’s 50m rifle 3 posi-tions qualification; fail toqualify for final. lEquestrian: FouaadMirza 25th in eventingjumping individual quali-fier; 23rd in final.

IN ACTION TODAY

lAthletics: Annu Rani inwomen’s javelin throwQualification Group A.(5:50am)Tajinderpal Singh Toor inmen’s shot putQualification Group A.(3:45am)lHockey : India vsBelgium in men’s semifi-nal. (7:00am)lWrestling: Sonam Malikvs Bolortuya Khurelkhuu(Mongolia) in women’s62kg. (8:30am onwards)

Live on SONY TEN &SIX Network

Nottingham: India’s openingbatsman Mayank Agarwal wason Monday ruled out of the firstTest against England after beingconcussed by a short ball fromteammate Mohammed Sirajduring a training session here.

While facing Siraj, Agarwalsaw the ball thudding into hishelmet when he took his eyes offa short delivery.

The first Test starts here onWednesday.

“Opening batsman MayankAgarwal was hit on the helmetwhile batting during India’s netssession at Trent Bridge inNottingham on Monday,” BCCIsecretary Jay Shah was quoted assaying in a media release.

“The BCCI Medical Teamassessed him, and a concussiontest was conducted. He hasshown signs of concussion andis ruled out of the opening Testagainst England. The 30-year-old is stable and will remainunder close medical observa-tion,” Shah further stated.

When vice-captain Ajinkya

Rahane was asked about the fit-ness of all players, he did say thatAgarwal sustained a head injury.

“Mayank Agarwal got hit onthe head. The medical team islooking after him. All others arefit,” Rahane told mediapersons.

After being hit by Siraj’sdelivery, Agarwal was seen insome discomfort as he removedthe helmet and sat on theground with physio Nitin Patelattending to him. He was thenseen pressing the back of hishead while leaving the nets,escorted by Patel. PTI

Concussed Mayankout of 1st Eng TestTokyo: Reigning world champion P V Sindhu

on Monday said she was completely blank afterwinning a second successive Olympic medal andit took her a while to realise the enormity of herhistoric achievement in the ongoing Games.

The 26-year-old Indian on Sunday etchedher name among the all-time greats after win-ning badminton’s women’s singles Bronzemedal to add to the Silver she won at Rio deJaneiro five years back.

“...I was blank, my coach was literally intears, it was a big moment. I hugged him andsaid ‘Thank you’. I didn’t know what to do for5-6 seconds, I shouted, so all emotions cametogether at that moment,” she said during a vir-tual press conference.

In the third-place play-off, Sindhu beatChina’s He Bing Jiao. The win came after apainful loss in the semifinals to world No 1 TaiTzu Ying.

Sindhu said coach Park Tae-sang’s encour-agement helped her to recover from the semi-final loss and claim the Bronze for the coun-try.

“After semis, I was really sad, I was in tearsbut my coach said it is not over yet. There weremixed emotions, if I should be sad or happy butPark told one thing. He said ‘there is a lot of dif-ference between a fourth position and a Bronze’and that really hit me,” she said.

“I went with the mindset that I have to givemy 100 percent and get that medal.”

A lot of questions were raised when Sindhu

decided to move out of the Pullela GopichandAcademy and train at the Gachibowli indoorstadium which had bigger halls similar to the

venue in Tokyo.Sindhu said it was one of the best decisions,

especially since drift played a role during theGames at the Musashino Forest Plaza.

“Yeah, from the beginning there was nocontroversy, I mean, we had this opportunityto play in conditions similar to Olympics, sofrom February we have been playing there, ithas really helped us because drift played a bigrole and I learnt a lot in Gachibowli, I learnt tocontrol the shuttle better.

“It had international standard courts withair conditioners, which was important. So I feelit was the best decision...”

GOPI SIR CONGRATULATED, SAINA ‘NO’P V Sindhu said she received congratu-

latory message from chief national bad-minton coach Pullela Gopichand but she hasnot got any such gesture yet from senior shut-tler Saina Nehwal.

Asked if she received any communicationfrom Gopichand and Saina after her win,Sindhu said: “Of course, Gopi sir wished mecongrats. That’s all. I haven’t seen the socialmedal. I am slowly replying to everybody.

When further probed, Sindhu said: “Gopisir messaged me, Saina no. We don’t talkmuch, so....”

I was blank, my coach was in tears: Sindhu after win

Tokyo: Indian shootersAishwary Pratap Singh Tomarand Sanjeev Rajput failed toqualify for the finals of themen’s 50m rifle 3 positionsevent at the Tokyo Olympicshere on Monday.

Tomar finished 21st in thequalification while Rajput wasplaced in 32nd position at theAsaka Shooting Range as theIndian shooting team returnedwithout a medal for the secondstraight time at the Olympics.

Only the top 8 athletesqualify for the final.

Tomar shot a total of 1167with 63 inner 10s in the qual-ification over the stages ofkneeling, prone and standing,while Rajput, appearing in histhird Olympics, aggregated1157 with 55 inner 10s.

The cut was made at 1176.With this, Indian shooters

failed to win a medal for a sec-ond successive Olympics. PTI

Shooters finishwithout medal

Tokyo: Discus throwerKamalpreet Kaur finished acreditable sixth in her firstOlympics in a rain-interruptedfinal while sprinter DuteeChand ended her campaign ona disappointing note by failingto qualify for the 200m semifi-nals here on Monday.

The 25-year-old Kaur, whohas qualified for the final as sec-ond best on Saturday, was neverin the running for a medal inthe eight rounds of competitionwhich was interrupted by rainfor more than an hour.

Her best throw of 63.70min the third round saw her fin-ished at sixth and equal 2010Commonwealth Games Goldmedallist Krishna Poonia’s per-formance in the 2012 LondonOlympics.

Throughout the competi-tion, Kaur looked nervous andshort of confidence as shelacked international exposure.She has taken part in WorldUniversity Games in2017, her lone interna-tional competition.

It was a toughcompetition for all theparticipants as rainstarted pouring downtowards the endof the secondround and afew throwerstaking theirattemptsin spiteof slip-p e r ycircle.

R a i nstopped after anhour but thehumidity seemedto have affected thethrowers’ perfor-mance and theyhave to be cautiousas the approach areato the circle was wet.

With her rightshoulder heavily

strapped, Kaur began with a61.62m effort before fouling hernext attempt. That put herunder pressure and on theverge of being eliminated as shewas ninth just before her thirdthrow.

But she gave her best andcame up with a 63.70m, thatsaved her and put her in thesixth position as the bottomfour out of the 12 finalists wereeliminated after three rounds.

Not much changed in theposition of the throwers in thefinal three rounds. Kaur fouledthe fourth throw and then hada 61.37m in her penultimateattempt before sending the dis-cus out of sector in the finalone.

American Valarie Allmantook the Gold with a firstround throw of 68.98m whileKristin Pudenz (66.86m) ofGermany and reigning worldchampion Yaime Perez(65.72m) of Cuba won theSilver and Bronze respectively.

In the morning session,sprinter Dutee ran her sea-son’s best in 200m but thatwas not enough for a semi-finals berth as she made a

disappointing exitfrom the

Olympics afterfinishing lastin her heatrace. The2 5 - y e a r-o l dclocked2 3 . 8 5secondsto fin-i s hs e v -e n t ha n dlast inHeat 4

a n d3 8 t ho v e r a l l

out of 41competitors.

Kamalpreet finishes6th in discus final

Tokyo: Young Indian wrestlerSonam Malik was on Mondayplaced in the challenging bottomhalf of the women’s 62kg draw,where she will open herOlympics campaign againstAsian Silver medallist BolortuyaKhurelkhuu from Mongolia.

The 19-year-old will be thesole Indian wrestler in action onTuesday. Relatively new to thebig stage, every single bout willbe a test of character for Sonam,who qualified for the TokyoGames by making the final at theAsian Qualifier in April inAlmaty.

Khurelkhuu is more experi-enced than Sonam and hasstood on the podium on boththe occasions she took the matthis season but the Indian is notintimidated.

Sonam came into Olympicsafter recovering from a rightknee injury that did not let herfly to Russia for training inbuild-up to the Games.

“I am fine. There is no painin my knee. It’s neither tough noreasy draw for me,” Sonam, whoearned a name for herself bydefeating Rio Bronze-medallistSakshi Malik four times, saidafter the draw ceremony.

If Sonam manges to crossthe first hurdle, she will mostlikely find 2018 world champi-on Taybe Mustafa Yusein fromBulgaria in the quarterfinals.

The draw is such that therepechage route may open upfor Sonam if she does not godeep on her own. PTI

Sonam to begin India'swrestling campaign

Tokyo: Equestrian FouaadMirza on Monday finished acreditable 23rd in eventing afterhe became the first Indian toreach the final of the event hereon Monday.

Mirza and his equineSeigneur Medicott sneaked intothe top-25 in the morning tomake the jumping finals andbecome the first Indian to do so.

In the final, Mirza incurred

12.40 penalty points for an over-all 59.60 that included the pointsfrom the three rounds of qual-ifying events — dressage, crosscountry and jumping.

It was a creditable perfor-mance for the 29-year-oldBengaluru rider Mirza, whowas the first equestrian to qual-ify for the Olympics since ImtiazAnees in Sydney 2000.

Mirza started off the three

qualifying eventing rounds witha spectacular dressage round bytaking the ninth place onSaturday.

On Sunday, Mirza picked up11.20 penalty points in the chal-lenging Sea Forest CrossCountry Course to be placed22nd.

Mirza and Seigneur fin-ished the cross country run injust over eight minutes afterstarting a bit late owing to a tech-nical issue.

In the final qualifying event,Mirza knocked two fences in thejumping round to incur eightpenalty points en route to finish-ing 25th with an overall 47.2penalty points.

The final was once again ajumping round where the top 25competed.

Germany’s Julia Krajewskiwon the Gold in the event,making her the first femaleOlympic champion in eventing’shistory. PTI

Tokyo: Handling the immenseburden of expectations wouldperhaps be the key when theIndian men’s hockey team takeson world champion Belgium,aiming to secure a place in theOlympic finals and with it, amedal for the first time in 41years here on Tuesday.

With 11 Olympic medals,eight of them Gold, in its kitty,India has a rich history in theGames and the ManpreetSingh-led side seems on courseto resurrect that glorious past.

The Indians achieved thesemifinal slot by beating GreatBritain 3-1 in the quarterfinalson Sunday, and are now intouching distance of a medal.

The Graham Reid-coachedcurrent side knows very wellthat another good outingagainst Belgium on Tuesdaywould etch its name in the his-tory books in golden words nomatter the colour of the medal.

The Indians are on a four-match winning streak after the1-7 drubbing against Australia

in their second pool match andcome Tuesday, Manpreet andhis teammates would look tocontinue the momentum.

But it would be easier saidthan done as in Belgium, Indiaface a tough opponent, whichhas improved leaps and boundsin the last few years.

Besides being currentworld champions and worldNo 2 side, Belgium are also thereigning European champi-ons.

Going by rankings, how-ever, there is hardly anythingto separate between the twosides as India are currently

ranked third in the world.The recent head-to-head

record also favours India.India and the Red Lions

played each other three timesin 2019 during their tour ofthe European nation and theAsian side came out victoriousin all the matches. India

defeated Belgium 2-0, 3-1 and5-1 in the three games duringthat tour.

In the most recent outingin March this year, India beat

Belgium 3-2 during theirEurope tour. In fact, in theirlast five matches againstBelgium, the Indians haveregistered four wins.

However, the last time boththe sides met each other in theOlympics, Belgium came out 3-1 winners in Rio. PTI

Belgium stand b/w India & final

Mirza 23rd in individual eventing

Tokyo: His phone hasn’tstopped buzzing ever since PV Sindhu claimed the Bronzemedal at Tokyo Olympics butIndia’s foreign badmintoncoach Park Tae-sang says hedid feel ‘little pressure’ afterbeing suddenly asked to trainthe star shuttler for theGames.

The 42-year-old fromSouth Korea was initially

hired to train the men’s singlesplayers but started workingwith Sindhu after the abruptdeparture of Kim Ji Hyun, fol-lowing the WorldChampionship in 2019.

“I’m really happy becausethis is the first time my play-er has got a medal in mycoaching career,” Park, whocompeted at the 2004 AthensOlympics before taking up

coaching the national Koreanteam, said during a virtualpress conference.

“When I first startedteaching Sindhu, she wasalready a big Olympic star. Ifelt little pressure but I tried.My Korean players also didn’tget an Olympic medal, so Ithought I can try to get her aGold. We failed but Bronze isalso a very big medal. PTI

Park felt pressure after beingassigned to train Sindhu

PTI n TOKYO

Abrave and determinedIndian women’s hockeyteam etched its name in

the history books by entering theOlympic Games semifinals forthe first time, stunning three-time champions and world No2 Australia 1-0 in an intense last-eight tie here on Monday.

A day after the Indian men’steam entered the Olympic semi-finals following a 49-year gap,the world No 9 women’s sidealso produced a phenomenallygritty performance to make itway into the last four.

Drag-flicker Gurjit Kaurrose to the occasion when itmattered and converted India’slone penalty corner in the 22ndminute to surprise theAustralians.

“We are so happy, it is theresult of hard work that we putin for several, several days. In1980, we qualified for the Gamesbut this time, we made thesemifinals. It is a proud momentfor us,” Gurjit said after thematch.

“This team is like a family,we have supported each otherand found support from thecountry as well. We are veryhappy,” she added.

But the Indians, determinedto prove a point, produced astrong and brave performance toeke out the narrow win over theHockeyroos.

How much it meant for theteam and Indian hockey in gen-eral could be gauged from the

emotions that were on displayafter the final hooter went off.

The players screamed,hugged each other, and got intoa huddle with their Dutch coachSjoerd Marijne with tears of joyrolling down their faces.

India’s best performance inthe Olympics came way back in

the 1980 Moscow Games wherethey finished fourth out of sixteams. In that edition, women’shockey made its debut in theOlympics and the sport wasplayed in a round-robin format.

The Rani Rampal-led sidewill play Argentina in the semi-final on Wednesday.

Tokyo: India men’s hockeyteam chief coach Graham Reidhas told his players to keeptheir emotions in check andavoid cards against a strongopponent like Belgium insemifinals.

While Reid expressed thathe was happy with the 3-1 vic-tory against Great Britain inthe quarterfinal on Sunday, hehighlighted that getting twogreen cards and one yellowcard in the game is somethingthey must avoid against

Belgium.“The things we can learn

from last night (Sunday) is thatthere is a difference betweenpassion and emotion.Sometimes, we let our emo-tions take over.

“We need to keep 11 play-ers on the pitch. The problemis that we played a lot of ourgame against Great Britainwith 10 men on the pitch. Wecan’t do that against Belgiumand think that we can be vic-torious,” asserted Reid. PTI

Keep emotions in check, avoidcards: Reid tells his team

PV Sindhu hugs her coach Park Tae-sang after winningwomen's singles badminton Bronze medal match PTI

Mayank Agarwal leaves the field afterhe gets injured during nets @BCCI

HISTORYMAKERSIn a first, Indian women’s hockey team enter Olympicsemifinals with a stunning 1-0 win over Hockeyroos

Indian players celebrate after Gurjit Kaur (jersey No 2) scores India’s only goal against Australia during women’s hockey quarterfinal match @Tokyo2020hi

A movie on self-belief & stayingin the moment did trick: MarijneTokyo: Watching a movie onself belief after three consec-utive losses rebuilt the Indianwomen’s hockey team’s shat-tered morale and helped it to‘aim for the clouds’, the side’sDutch coach Sjoerd Marijnerevealed on Monday afterRani Rampal and Co enteredtheir maiden Olympic semifi-nals here.

The Indian team bouncedback tremendously in thetournament after successivelosses and Marijne said themovie helped psychologicallyahead of the must-win poolgame against Ireland but didnot reveal its name.

“The difference is believ-ing in ourselves and believingin their dreams and then it’sabout going back to realityfocussing on your past. I thinkthat is the main thing andthat’s what we did,” Marijnesaid after upsetting Australiain the quarterfinals.

“If you lose you don’t stop

believing and that’s what I toldthe girls. The most importantthing is to stay in the moment.I showed them a movie andthat movie is about being inthe moment and I think thatwas really helpful. AgainstIreland we kept on referring tothat movie,” he said.

He said all he asked theteam to do was to aim for thehighest.

“In India you must thinkbig and that’s what I said to thegirls. If you aim for the high-est, for the clouds, you will fallon the highest mountain. Ifyou aim for the mountain youwill fall on the ground,” heexplained.

“We went for the cloudsand I said whatever happensafter it doesn’t matter, butthat’s where we have to aimfor.”

India captain RaniRampal too credited themovie for the turnaround offortunes. PTI