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PUBLISHED FROM DELHI & KOLKATA VOL. 3, ISSUE 273 | Tuesday, 10 October 2017 | Kolkata | Pages 16 | Rs 3.00 NO HALF TRUTHS

RNI NO.: WBENG/2015/65962

In today’s paper

...

Anti-India forces want to weaken its economy

RAJNATH SINGH

CITY

FIRECRACKERS GODOWN SEALED 4

NATION

CONVICTED COS TO BE DISQUALIFIED 7

EDIT

CONCERNING SLOW GROWTH 8

INTERNATIONAL

AT LEAST 10 KILLED IN NIGERIA 11

BUSINESS

CHINESE GOODS’ SALE MAY DIP 45% 12

SPORT

INDIA EYE T-20 SERIES WIN 15

HOPEFUL INDIANS LOSE SECOND GAME 2-1 AGAINST COLOMBIA PG14

WBPE RELEASES TET NOTIFICATION FOR PRIMARY TEACHERS’ RECRUITMENT PG4

PLEAS OF DERA CHIEF, RAPE VICTIMS ADMITTED BY HC PG6

GODHRA TRAIN CARNAGE

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Heavy rain along with gusty winds lashed Kolkata and nearby areas since late on Sunday night with the MeT department forecasting more downpour till Tuesday.

Incessant rain and squally wind affected normal life in the metropolis on the first working day of the week. Waterlogging and uprooted trees were reported in areas like MG Road, parts of Central Avenue, Rashbehari Ave-nue, Patipukur and Dum Dum Under-pass, New Alipore, Narkeldanga, Beck Bagan, Gariahat and Jadavpur. Slow traffic movements were reported from some parts of the city including the EM Bypass, NSC Bose Road and Com-missariat Road.

The regional Meteorological department at Alipore has predicted heavy to very heavy rainfall in some parts of South Bengal in the next 24 hours.

Flight operations at the Kolkata airport and suburban train services from Howrah and Sealdah have been also been affected due to heavy rain-fall caused by deep depression over Gangetic West Bengal. As many as 23 domestic flights have been diverted from the Kolkata airport on Monday.

Chief Minister Mamata Baner-jee took stock of the overall situation and issued necessary directives in this regard. Chief Secretary Malay De held a high-level meeting with the senior

officials of the 21 departments issu-ing necessary instructions to them at the state Secretariat Nabanna. Coastal areas have also been alerted. The disas-ter management units and the police have been asked to be on their toes so that prompt action can be taken if there is any emergency. All the civic bodies have been asked to put in place

a proper mechanism to fight the situa-tion. Fishermen have been alerted not to voyage into the sea in the next 24 hours. An emergency control room has been thrown open at Nabanna — 1070.

Some areas have reportedly been under knee-deep to ankle-deep water due to the downpour. Traffic police

personnel had a hard time managing the traffic in the city on Monday as around 84 trees were uprooted.

Bad weather also hit the Kol-kata airport with several in-bound flights being diverted and delays in out-bound flights. Several passengers were stuck at the airport for hours. Students were inconvenienced due to

heavy rain in the city and adjoining districts. Many schools reopened on Monday after the Durga Puja vacation. Some schools declared a holiday owing to the inclement weather.

Bad weather caused track cir-cuit and signal failures at Belghoria, Titagarh, Kolkata, Baruipur and Seal-dah stations for which some EMU locals were delayed. Tree branches also fell on Up line between Bhadre-swar and Mankundu station on How-rah-Bardhaman Main line section at 3.50 pm, at Boinchigram on Down line at 5 pm. Inclined bamboo trees touched overhead wire of Up line between Seoraphuli and Diara stations of Tarakeswar section at around 4.30 pm. Overhead power supply was also interrupted between Cheragram and Belmuri in Howrah Bardhaman Chord line at 4 pm due to heavy showers.

Five pairs of EMU locals of Seal-dah Division and nine pairs of local trains of Howrah Division had to be cancelled.

Waterlogging has been reported in some of the platforms at Sealdah station. Indian MeT department said wind of 45-55 kmph would prevail along and off North Odisha and Ben-gal coasts during the next 24 hours.

According to the MeT department, a deep depression has formed over Gangetic West Bengal and adjoining North of Bay of Bengal and lay cen-tred about 50 km southeast of Kolkata at 5.30 am on Monday.

Heavy rains batter cityChief Minister keeping a close watch on situation | Train, flight schedules go awry

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HC spares the noose for 11 convicts

MPOST BUREAU

AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat High Court on Monday com-muted the death sentence of 11 convicts to rigorous life impris-onment while upholding the life sentence of another 20 in the 2002 Godhra train burn-ing case.

The high court observed that the state government and railways had failed to main-tain law and order, and directed them to pay compensation to the kin of victims.

Coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express was torched on Febru-ary 27, 2002, near the Godhra station, resulting in the death of 59 people, most of them ‘karse-vaks’ returning from Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh.

The incident triggered communal riots in Gujarat, in which around 1,200 people, mostly Muslims, were killed.

A division bench of Justices Anant S Dave and G R Udh-wani said in Monday’s verdict that it was upholding the con-viction of the 11 persons whom the trial court had sentenced to death, but commuting their punishment to “rigorous life imprisonment”.

The court also upheld the life sentence awarded by the special SIT court to 20 other convicts.

While ordering the state and the railways to pay a com-

pensation of Rs 10 lakh to the kin of those killed in the Godhra incident, the high court observed that “the state has failed to maintain law and order, so has the railways”.

Those injured in the inci-dent should be given compen-sation as per the disabilities they suffered, the court said.

The division bench also said that it regrets the delay in the pronouncement of the judge-ment, as hearing on appeals had concluded much earlier.

The high court relied on the testimonies of injured wit-nesses, passengers, railway employees, Railway Protection Force personnel, two police-men from Godhra, the Guja-rat railway police, experts from forensic laboratories and also the confessional statements.

The court rejected the appeals filed by the spe-cial investigation team (SIT) against the acquittal of 63 peo-ple, and also its appeals seeking enhancement of sentences. The court also rejected the appeals against conviction.

WAS INSTRUMENTAL IN ARRANGING RECRUITS FOR JeM

No sale of firecrackers in Delhi-NCR this DiwaliOUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Delhi denizens can now heave a collective sigh of relief, as the Supreme Court on Monday said its order of last November banning the sale of firecrackers in Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR) will con-tinue till October 31.

A bench headed by Justice

A K Sikri said the apex court’s September 12 order tempo-rarily lifting the stay and per-mitting the sale of firecrackers would be effective from November 1.

Diwali is on October 19 and the order effectively means that no firecrackers will be available for purchase before the festival.

The top court said it has

not changed the September 12 order but its November 11, 2016, order banning the sale of firecrackers “should be given a chance”.

The top court, through the 2016 order, had suspended all licences which “permit the sale of fireworks, wholesale and retail within the territory of NCR”.

‘NOT WORKING TO OUTSHINE ANYONE’ PG16

DHIRENDRA KUMAR

NEW DELHI: In a move aimed at giving a huge push to the digital movement as a whole and digital payment, in particular, the gov-ernment has decided to make it mandatory for mobile manufac-turing companies to provide at least two local languages in all cell phones. Following the decision, all mobile phones would have to have two local regional languages in it from April 1 next year.

According to government sources, the decision in this regard has been taken after the success of panic button feature in mobile phones. Interestingly, the

decision to add a panic button in all phones were taken by Ravi Shankar Prasad, when he was the Telecom Minister and decision to mandate mobile companies to include two local languages has also been initiated by him in his capacity as the Minister of Elec-tronics and IT.

“The decision would help in encouraging people living in rural, semi-and urban areas in availing the benefits of different government schemes. It’s been noticed that people living in rural areas do have smartphones, but they don’t use it much as most of the phones have English and Hindi as the operating language,

which is a major constraint in the success of Digital India drive,” the source said.

All the mobile manufactur-

ing companies, including Apple, have been directed to launch phones that support at least two local languages from April 1 next

year, the sources said, adding that they (companies) have also agreed to follow the new norm.

“Given the upcoming gen-eral election in 2019, the gov-ernment is working to roll out several people-centric and poor-friendly welfare schemes among the masses, which can be done through Digital India campaign,” the source said.

When the subscriber base of the country has the crossed 1 billion user mark, the move would help people knowing only a regional language to use the phone as per their convenience and avail different government schemes.

It will be mandatory for mobile phones to have two local languages from April 1

TO BRIDGE DIGITAL DIVIDERichard Thaler wins Nobel for work in behavioural economics

STOCKHOLM: The Nobel economics prize has been awarded to Richard Thaler of the University of Chicago for his contributions to behavioural economics.

The 9-million-kro-nor (USD 1.1-million) prize was awarded to the academic for his “under-standing the psychology of economics,” Swedish Academy of Sciences secretary Goeran Hans-son said on Monday.

The Nobel committee said Thaler’s work shows how human traits affect individual decisions as well as market outcomes.

Thaler, 72, “is a pioneer in behav-ioural economics, a research field in which insights from psychological research are applied to economic decision making,” a background paper from the academy said.

That “incorporates more realistic analy-sis of how people think and behave when mak-ing economic decisions,” it said.

The economics prize is something of an out-lier, Alfred Nobel’s will didn’t call for its estab-lishment and it honours a science that many doubt is a science at all.

The Sveriges Riks-bank (Swedish National Bank) Prize in Economic

Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was first awarded in 1969, nearly seven decades after the series of prestigious prizes that Nobel called for. Despite its provenance and carefully laborious name, it is broadly considered an equal to the other Nobel and the winner attends the famed presentation banquet. AGENCIES

Ready to maintain peace at frontiers with India: China

BEIJING: China on Monday expressed readiness to jointly main-tain peace along the border areas with India and said Nathu La, the frontier post visited by Defence Minister Nir-mala Sitharaman was the “best wit-ness” to the UK- China treaty of 1890.

Sitharaman had a brief conver-sation with Chinese soldiers during her maiden visit to the Nathu La bor-der post in the northeastern Indian state of Sikkim on Sunday and was even seen teaching them how to say ‘Namaste’.

“The Sikkim sector of the China-India boundary has been delimited by the historical treaty of 1890, and the Nathula pass has been the best witness testifying to this fact”, Chi-nese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a media briefing while reacting to a question on Sith-araman’s visit.

“The Chinese side is willing to jointly uphold peace and tranquillity in the border areas with the Indian side on the basis of observing histor-ical treaties and the relevant agree-ments and accords between the two sides”, Hua said.

Beijing often referred to the 1890 Britain-China treaty during the Dokalam standoff stating that it has defined the Sikkim section of the boundary with Tibet, therefore the border in that area has been settled.

Sitharaman’s interaction with the People’s Liberation Army troops at Nathu La with Namaste diplomacy also appears to have struck a chord as Chinese commentators said it sent a “goodwill signal” to mend the bilateral ties following the Dokalam standoff.

State-run English news channel CGTN carried snippets of her video with a caption “Indian defence min-ister greets Chinese border soldiers”.

The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post headlined its story saying that “India’s defence minister builds bridges with Chinese troops”.

“The minister experienced an unexpected wave of goodwill from Chinese soldiers when she vis-ited troops stationed on the fron-tier between the countries”, the Post report said. Her interaction with the troops of the PLA also sparked pos-itive response among the Chinese netizens on popular social media websites. MPOST

MPOST BUREAU

NEW DELHI: All NGOs, which receive foreign dona-tions, have been directed by the home ministry to regis-ter themselves with a platform offered by the Niti Aayog to ensure better transparency, efficiency and accountability.

In a notification, the min-istry said that existing NGOs, which were registered under the Foreign Contribution Reg-ulation Act, and those which are seeking registration or prior permission or accepting for-eign contributions are required to register with the DARPAN portal of the Niti Aayog.

The portal enables NGOs to enroll centrally and thus facilitates creation of a repos-itory of information about NGOs sector-wise. It facili-tates NGOs to obtain a sys-tem generated unique ID as when signed.

The NGOs were directed to register with the DARPAN with necessary information such as organisation PAN, email, mobile number and name of chief functionary as mandated in the portal to gen-erate a unique identification number.

Govt directs NGOs to register with Niti Aayog

platform DARPAN

AFTER SITHARAMAN’S VISIT TO NATHU LA

Top Jaish commander Khalid killed in encounter

MPOST BUREAU

SRINAGAR: In a break-through, a joint team of secu-rity forces on Monday killed top Jaish-e-Mohammed mili-tant commander Umer Khalid in Ladoora area of North Kash-mir, police said.

Director General of Jammu and Kashmir Police S P Vaid said it was a major break-through for the security forces as the militant was involved in many attacks on security camps in North Kashmir as well as tar-geting policemen in particular.

“He was killed in a joint operation by the Jammu and Kashmir Police’s Special Oper-ation Group, local police, the CRPF and the Army,” he said.

Khalid, who is a Pakistani

national, had been operational in the area for last two to three years and was also instrumen-tal in arranging recruits for the terror outfit, police said.

He had recently carried out an attack on a Special Police Officer and his seven-year-old son at Handwara, they said and added that Khalid was an A++ category top-ranking terrorist and carried a cash reward of nearly Rs 7 lakh.

Giving details of the encounter, the police said

security forces launched a cor-don and search operation in Ladoora area following infor-mation about the presence of militants in the area.

The search operation turned into a gun battle when the militants opened fire on the search party, the police said, adding more troops were rushed to the area to prevent the militants from escaping.

The Jaish commander was killed in the encounter, they said.

The police are also prob-ing his role in the recent attack carried out by the Jaish-e-Mohammed on BSF battalion headquarters near high-secu-rity Srinagar airport and attack on the District Police Lines at Pulwama.

A hand pulled rickshaw ferries a commuter in Kolkata on Monday PTI

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MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Tuesday, 10 October, 20172 mp town

DAYINDAYOUT What’s on Around Town

DINING WITH THE MAHARAJASCelebrate and indulge in the gloriously grand and royal cuisine of Mahmood-abad at The Leela Ambience Conven-tion Hotel, Delhi. Also, experience the royal treatment of the ‘Qila’ while enjoying songs by live in-house Ghazal musicians. The refreshingly imperial menu offers a lavish spread of signa-ture Kababs, and Desserts. Gorge on specialties such as Murgh Mussallam, , Laab-i-Mashooq and much more. WHEN: Till October 15 WHERE: The Leela Ambience Conven-tion Hotel, Delhi TIMING: 7:30 pm –11:30 pm

GLOW AHEAD WITH CHIIt’s time for celebratory endings and eventful beginnings. Before the festive and wedding madness kicks in, here’s a chance to ‘Glow Ahead with Chi.’ The spa and salon treatment package is specially curated to leave your body glowing and your mind de-stressed. After making its mark in more than 44 countries, CHI, The Spa, the award winning and signature spa brand from Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts will take you on a serene journey leaving your mind and body refreshed and radiant.WHEN: Till October 31 WHERE: Shangri-La’s - Eros Hotel TIMING: Salon: 8 am – 8 pm Spa: 8:00 – Midnight

AAB-E-SAFAR FOOD FESTIVALExplore the journey of Jhelum river that flows across boundar-ies. The chefs have researched the undiscov-ered cuisine through the course of the river such as Aab Gosht from Baltistan, Sikandari Raan from Khyber Pakh-tunkhwa, Murgh Choley from Multan, Alamgir ka Chargha, Khumbh Khichda from Jhang, Dal Dera Ismail Khan, Katlamba from Bahawalpur and much more.WHEN: Till October 22 WHERE: Singh Sahib, Eros HotelTIMING: 7:30 pm – 11:45 pm

BEST IN THE WORLD BANDCatch the best in the whole world (band) with stand-up comedians Abish Mathew and Kenny Sebastian as they attempt to piece a two-piece band (plus a surprise guest). They sing about relationships, daily struggles, and songs they still haven’t written down. An hour of comedy, music and every-thing in between sure to leave you & your friends in splits! WHEN: October 8 WHERE: Lord of the Drinks, Barrel House, GurugramTIMING: 7 pm onwards

SYEDA EBA

Well, Virginia Woolf rightly said, “One can-not think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.”

Besides taking you to a royal expedition so as to explore the authentic flavours from the royal kitchen of Mahmudabad, amidst the majestic grandeur, The Leela Ambience Con-vention Hotel is offering a lot to live up to.

The very thought of India and its royal pal-aces gives an unprecedented glimpse of the splendid atmosphere. You would actually get quite a similar vibe from the place as the inte-riors make sure to avail you with a perspicu-

ously regal learning experience the moment you step in. Nothing could be better than a

butler service-well dressed in typical royal style- welcoming you with a jasmine gar-

land and a welcome drink to freshen up your mood. Ushered by the staff

member, I walked around the place just to level up my amazement.

The beautiful table chandeliers, intricate, etched silver crock-

ery, huge silver platters, and every bit of beauti-

ful decoration contrib-uted to impart a royal feel. Since the ambi-ence was quite allur-

ing and irresistible, I couldn’t wait more to get

my hands on the royal dinner. But of course it’s better to familiar

with what you are going to be served. Helping in settling down my inquisitions, Chef De Cui-sine Ashwani Kumar Singh gave me a mini tour

of the place while enlightening me about the fabulously diverse range of dishes served in the royal household. The chef who has replicated the royal flavours for the ongoing festival, paid a visit to the city and the Qila of Mahmudabad, to bring out the best of everything. Mahmudabad, one of the oldest estates in Awadh, is known for its distinctive cuisine. Generations-old rec-ipes, which has been preserved and expanded time and again, still hold the originality in its flavours. Well, talking about ‘History’ could be interesting sometimes, provided you are amidst a spellbinding atmosphere with dim lightning

and in-house Ghazal musicians, singing to please your ears.

While the interiors could be a bit of a refresh, the highlight of the festival was, of course, the authenticity of the food. To trig-ger my appetite, I was taken to the live counter to have a crisp aloo tikki. As I spoon it into my mouth, the creamy curd and the tangy chutney, served along, played an amazing medley of fla-vours. Next in the line was Kharche ka anda, which is traditionally served along with Khade masale ka keema. For the taste, I would call is impeccable but what fascinated me more was

the way it was cooked; crisp on the outside but amazingly fluffy on the inside. Though I am a hard-core non-vegetarian, I won’t hesitate to give a nod of approval to the veg section as well.

Next serving on the ‘Dastarkhan’ were two platters stuffed with distinctive starters. The vegetarian plate, on one hand, had Subz kakori, lauki ki tikiya, goolar kebab etc. However, the shammi kebab, gole kebab and murg aaftabi kebab were on non-veg starter platter. The best of all was the fish fry. The bite that feels crunchy initially melts in your mouth within a fraction of second.

Moving on to the main course, I was offered few signature dishes which include Tale aloo ka salan, Murgh zafrani, murgh mirch dumpukh, dum aloo lucknowi and paneer hazrat mahal. Though there were quite a num-ber of differently cooked dishes; but I continued to have more of Gosht makhana Qorma, subtly flavoured gravy cooked with fox nuts. For the flavours, it was like nothing I have had before; rich and aromatic, spicy yet

savoury. Prawns served in thick creamy gravy were good enough but didn’t quite stand out for me. As for the breads, I settled for Nawabi Paratha, made out of the dough prepared with milk and Anannas ke parathe; which was quite sweet for my taste. Of course there was much more on the menu, but I can’t eat all of it as much I’d like to. So, to have a sweet ending to my meal I picked up Shaahi Tukda- a kind of bread pudding served with reduced milk, and almonds, became my highlight.

The 16-day long festival will last until Octo-ber 15.

Children who are bilingual can be better and faster at learn-ing additional languages later in life than their peers who are

monolinguals from their early childhood, researchers say.

The findings showed significant differ-ence in language learners’ brain patterns.

When learning a new language, bilin-guals rely more than monolinguals on the brain processes that people naturally use for their native language, the research-ers said.

“We also find that bilinguals appear to learn the new language more quickly than monolinguals,” said lead author Sarah Grey, assistant professor at the Fordham University in New York City.

For the study, published in the journal Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, the team enrolled college students who grew up in the US with Mandarin-speak-ing parents, and learned both English and Mandarin at an early age.

They were matched with mono-lingual college students, who spoke only English.

The researchers studied Mandarin-English bilinguals because both of these languages differ structurally from the new language being learned.

Both groups learnt to both speak and understand an artificial version of a Romance language, Brocanto.

The researchers found clear bilingual or monolingual differences. By the end of the first day of training, the bilingual brains, but not the monolingual brains, showed a specific brain-wave pattern, termed the P600 -- commonly found

when native speakers process their language.

In contrast, the monolinguals only began to exhibit P600 effects much later during learning -- by the last day of training.

Moreover, on the last day, the mono-linguals showed an additional brain-wave

pattern not usually found in native speak-ers of languages.

“There has been a lot of debate about the value of early bilingual language education.”

“ Now, we have novel brain-based data that points towards a distinct language-learning benefit for people who grow

up bilingual,” added Michael T. Ullman, professor at the Georgetown University in the US.

Another study shows that Bilingual people tend to produce fewer words of any given semantic category than people who only speak one language fluently. In other words, their individual vocabular-

ies in each language tend to be smaller than that of people who only speak one of those languages.

Though Bilingual people tend to have weaker verbal skills but the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. Some of the major advantages of being a bilingual includes:

The bilingual brain is used to han-dling two languages at the same time. This develops skills for functions such as inhibition (a cognitive mechanism that discards irrelevant stimuli), switching attention, and working memory. Because bilingual people are used to switching between their two languages, they are also better at switching between tasks, even if these tasks are nothing to do with language.

As already found by the aforemen-tioned research, People who speak two languages have also been shown to have more efficient monitoring systems. Also, they outperform monolingual people in spatial working memory tasks.

Taking part in stimulating phys-ical or mental activity can help main-tain cognitive function, and delay the onset of symptoms in people suffering from dementia. The onset of dementia symptoms is significantly delayed - by as much as five years - in patients who are bilingual.

Our brains change and adapt as a result of experience.

Studies have shown that people who are multilingual have higher density of grey matter, and that older people who are bilingual tend to have better-maintained white matter in their brains. AGENCIES

Bilingual kids may learn NEW LANGUAGE FASTER

According to a recently conducted study, bilingual brains, used to switching between two languages, are also good at managing multiple tasks at a time

PICKING CLOTHES for this festive season? Keep your body shape in mind to get the perfect outfit for a fashion-able statement, say experts.

Few experts have decoded fashion for different body shapes and here are tips for you to follow. 4APPLE SHAPE: Draw focus on arms and legs with outfits that are loose on waist. A-line kurta, deep neckline works best for you. Choose slim, cigarette pants and keep dupatta on side.4PEAR SHAPE: You should go for an Anarkali top paired up with solid coloured patialas. Clingy outfits and tight bottoms should be avoided.4HOURGLASS SHAPE: You have the curves, and you should flaunt them with Anarka-lis, peplum top paired with fitted pants, or flared tops with fit bottom. Avoid ill fitted clothing.4INVERTED TRIANGLE SHAPE: Straight cut tops,

wrap tops, split tops with flared or fuller pants and skirts are best for you. Also, below is the list of some accessories one can add to complete the look. 4MAANGTIKA: Kundan maangtikas are in rage. The tear droplet gives a very ele-gant look and you can opt for droplet that matches with your dress. Also in vogue are the Rajasthani Mang-tikas with a single circular ornament.4BIG NOSE RING: Big nose rings have become a common favourite among women. Don’t want to get nose piercing done? Well, you try many options from the clip on category. IANS A ROYAL

EXPEDITION

Decoding fashion FOR DIFFERENT

BODY SHAPESFROM NOT ASKING for bed-sheets and toiletries unnecessarily to making good use of door cards, there are many ways one can make a vacation eco-friendly while hav-ing fun, say experts.

HERE ARE FEW TIPS TO MAKE A VACATION ECO-FRIENDLY.

Don’ts4Ask for fresh bedsheets and

towels if not really necessary: A lot of water gets wasted in order to wash the bedsheets and towels. Being conscious about what you request for will lead to a more eco-friendlier space and help reduc-ing carbon-footprints that today stand as a cause of destruction of our planet.

4Ask for more toiletries: Almost all of us at some point of time have taken that shampoo we liked so much and kept it in our bags. A lot of hotels actually prefer to refill the bottles with shampoos and save the cost of buying another

plastic bottle, you can do your bit to save that extra plastic bottle.4Leave the power connection

turned on: Leaving your room without turning off the lights or taking that key card out of the power socket. Take the responsi-

bility and don’t waste that energy for no use.

Dos4Make use of door cards:

We often ignore doors cards and directly call up the housekeeping to get cleaning done. Door cards can be really useful when you don’t want the housekeeping to clean your unsoiled bedsheets or towels by putting the ‘Do not disturb’ card at the knob. 4Make use of the water from

the restaurant or hotel: The essence of not purchasing that bottled water and going for the tap water instead lies in saving your own carbon foot-print. Plastic is also absolutely non-perishable and hence it really helps to use that water jug. IANS

Ways to have eco-friendly holiday

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mp city 3MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata |Tuesday, 10 October, 2017

84 trees fall in rain, two old buildings collapse

Footballs distributed among educational institutes, clubs

Famous sweetmeat shops come up with delicious ‘sandesh’ on World Cup themes

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Heavy rain-fall that lashed the city since Sunday night led to the cav-ing in of a portion of two old buildings one of which was declared as “dangerous” by the Kolkata Municipal Corpora-tion. As many as 84 trees were uprooted in different parts of the city with wind blowing at an average speed of around 50 km/ hour thorough out the day.

The first report of the col-

lapse came in from Christopher Road in Tangra when the rain water pipe of the 5th floor of an under-construction build-ing went loose and accidentally fell upon a lady and her two daughters who were passing through the place. The three, identified as Asha Paul (47) and her two daughters Peu and Riya of Christopher Road. The three received minor injuries and were rushed to National Medical College and Hospi-tal where they were provided

treatment and later discharged.The second incident of col-

lapse was reported from Gopal Nagar Road under Alipore police station area. Portion of a roof top and and bound-ary wall of an old two storeyed dilapidated building declared dangerous by the KMC caved in at around 2 pm. No one was injured and the residents of the building were safely evacuated by the police and disaster man-agement team.

In both the cases, team from the KMC rushed to the spot for necessary action.

Phone calls of trees uproot-ing flooded the control room of the civic body all thorough the day. Short Street, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road, Sarat Bose Road, Jodhpur Park, Southern Ave-nue, Becharam Chatterjee Street contributed to the list.

“Our officials who were on duty immediately rushed to the spot to remove the trees. However, in some cases, the CESC electricity cables got entangled with the trees in a precarious way. The trees could be removed only after CESC snapped the power connec-tion. This resulted in delay in some cases,” Member Mayor in Council (Parks and Gardens) Debasish Kumar said.

There were no reports of any human injury. However, some vehicles were damaged after the trees came down.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Youth Services and Sports department and Kolkata Police distributed foot-balls among educational insti-tutions and clubs in Kolkata to promote the FIFA Under-17 Football World Cup on Monday.

Representatives of around 2,277 schools, colleges, high madrasas, colleges, universi-ties and local clubs were pres-ent at Nazrul Manch where 10,455 footballs were distrib-uted among them.

Each university got 15 foot-balls while the rest received five footballs each.

Aroop Biswas, the state Youth Services and Sports min-ister, Rajeev Kumar, Commis-sioner of Kolkata Police and many former footballers were present in the programme.

It may be mentioned that before Durga Puja, the state government had decided to distribute footballs among educational insititutions and local clubs, who have received the grant.

“Joyee” footballs are being manufactured by Refugee

Handicrafts under the Micro Small and Medium Enterprises and Textiles have been distrib-uted and there is logo of the FIFA Under-17 Football World Cup on them too.

According to an official of the state Youth Services and Sports department, there are around 12,000 such clubs in the state that received grants to promote sports and cultural activities. So, total 60,000 foot-balls are getting distributed on the eve of the Under-17 World Cup all across the state among clubs, educational institutions and police lines.

Biswas said: “The proj-ect to distribute footballs has

been inspired by Chief Min-ister Mamata Banerjee. It will encourage children to play the game and our endeavour is to bring up more children from different parts of the state who can participate in international events like the ongoing World Cup.”

Stating the steps to distribute footballs as a unique one, Kumar said that children should take more and more interest in games like football.

Former footballers have also lauded the move of the state government terming it as a “historic step” to bring back Bengal’s football in its old form.

U-17 FIFA WORLD CUP

Departure of flights from Kolkata airport halted due to strong crosswinds

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Flight operations at the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International (NSCBI) Airport were disrupted fol-lowing heavy rains coupled with gusty winds caused due to deep depression over Gangetic West Bengal.

Several Kolkata-bound flights were unable to land at the airport due to bad weather on Monday morning. Flight operations did not normalise till reports last came in. According to a senior official of the NSCBI Airport, many flights were diverted to Bhu-baneswar, Guwahati and other airports in the region.

Flights were not able to land or take off since 9 am on Mon-day. Some of the city-bound flights were diverted to Ranchi,

Patna, Agartala. It was learnt that one flight was diverted to Bangladesh due to the inclem-ent weather.

Several domestic flights to Mumbai, Delhi, Guwahati, Bhubaneswar, Imphal and Port Blair were delayed. Some of the Kolkata-bound flights were cancelled due to bad weather.

Suburban train services in Sealdah South & Main sec-tions and Howrah — Bardha-man chord line section were slightly affected on MOnday due to heavy rain and storm, as tree branches fell on railway tracks at several places.

Track Maintenance Crews and Tower Van Crews acted on war footing to remove tree branches from the rail-way tracks and overhead wires and maintain train move-ment. In Sealdah Division,

tree branches had fallen on Up line track between Sonar-pur-Narendrapur stations of Sealdah South section at 10.45 am and was removed at around 11.05 am on Monday. Tree branches also had fallen on Up line and touched the overhead wire between Can-ning and Taldi stations at 9 am which were cleared by 9.45 am. Tree branches fell on the Down main line overhead wire between Belgharia and Dum Dum Junction stations. Train services in Barasat-Hansnabad Section was also disrupted as tree branches fell on railway tracks between Hansnabad and Madhyampur stations at around 8:30 am.

Five pairs of EMU locals of Sealdah Division and nine pairs of local trains of Howrah Division had to be cancelled.

5 juvenile inmates who fled Home found

India Post introduces cross border shipping solutions

OUR CORRESPONDENT

DARJEELING: Five inmates of the Anubhav Juvenile Home of Jalpaiguri who had allegedly run away, were all found from in and around the town.

On Sunday evening, the five had escaped from the home located on Club Road in Jalpaiguri.

The matter came to light at around 6 pm when the routine roll call was being done before evening prayers and it was dis-covered that five inmates were missing. “We informed the police immediately. In the past 13 years that we have been run-ning this home, there has not been any such incident. We feel that the five had gone over the boundary wall and escaped,” stated Deepashree Rai, in-charge of the home. The police had put up surprise checks on all major thoroughfares of the town including the entry and exit points. One of the inmates was recovered on Sunday night from the banks of Korola river. She was then questioned regarding the others.

It has been learnt that out of the five, four are from Jal-paiguri district and one from Hoogly. The police had also

alerted the Railway Childline so that the inmates could be traced if they tried to escape by rail. The remaining four inmates were recovered on Monday. “They were recovered from different localities from in and around the town. The five had been brought to the Home recently. As the courts were closed for the Puja vacation, we could not send them back to their families after completion of legal procedures. Now that the courts are open, the Child Welfare Committee members will complete the necessary legal procedures so that they can be sent back home to their families,” stated Rachna Bhagat, District Magistrate, Jalpaiguri.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: The Postal Depart-ment on Monday launched International Tracked Packet Service (ITPS) through which the department will be able to track parcels, packets and other postal documents dis-patched to as many as 12 coun-tries of the Asia Pacific region. Chief Post Master General (West Bengal circle) Arund-hati Ghosh unveiled the service to commemorate the occasion of World Post Day.

“Till date there was no tracking facility of interna-tional parcels. This service has been specially designed to cater to the needs of e-commerce market for cross-border trans-actions. Individuals will also be able to use this service. We are hopeful that this will soon emerge as the most econom-ical service with visibility to send shipments to Asia Pacific region, especially for countries that do not exchange tracking information to registered let-ters,” Ghosh said.

The countries for which the service will be available are Australia, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malay-sia, New Zealand, Phillipines, Singapore, South Korea, Thai-land and Vietnam. The depart-ment has plans to extend the service in the days to come.

“The post office will offer

volume discounts for custom-ers who sends in bulk. The discount can be availed by any customer who signs a contract with us. There will be free pick up facility for our valued cus-tomers,” a senior official said.

The West Bengal Circle will also organise a number of programmes from Monday to October 14 to mark the occa-sion of National Postal Week.

Camps will be organised in some schools to sensitise the school children about sav-ings on Tuesday. Focus will be given on getting new Postal Life Insurance/Rural Postal Life Insurance business on Wednes-day while Thursday will be observed as Philately Day to create awareness about stamps.

On October 13 (Business Development Day), interac-tive sessions with the current and potential customers will be held while on Friday, school children will be taken to Auto-mated Mail Processing Centre.

“Our aim is to generate a broad awareness of the role and activities of India Post among the public and media,” Ghosh said.

CM on Jhargram tour; to take stock of ongoing projects

KOLKATA: With the FIFA U-17 World Cup underway, prominent sweetmeat shops of Bengal are preparing popular Bengali sweets designed on World Cup replica and the logo.

‘Felu Modak’ of Hooghly district has introduced ‘Logo Sandesh’ which has a design of U-17 World Cup logo embossed on the sweets, having layers of chocolate and tinged with saffron.

“We have also presented ‘Football Sandesh’ to our customers. As the game will proceed to the final rounds, there will be ‘Memento Sandesh’ which will be on the World Cup replica,” Amitava Dey said on behalf of the popular sweet-meat shop on G T Road.

While the ‘Football Sandesh’ and ‘Logo Sandesh’ will be smaller in size, the ‘Memento Sandesh’ will be over 1

kg in weight and meant for a group, Dey said. Sudip Mallick said on behalf of Balaram Mullick and Radharaman Mullick, “We are rolling out Trophy Sandesh and Logo Sandesh in the com-ing days.”

“As the football fever will reach a

crescendo, we will gradually display the sweets in our outlets to commemo-rate hosting of the prestigious event by India,” he said.

A representative of ‘Sen Mahasay’ said: “We also have plans to commem-orate the enthusiasm of Bengalis with

the game of football and the historic significance of Kolkata hosting World Cup matches along with some other cities. You will know as the tournament moves on to the final stage.” AGENCIES

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee went to Jhargram on Monday with a set of programmes including the administrative review meeting that she will be holding on Tuesday.

Banerjee went to Nabanna on MOnday morning from where she left for Jhargram in the evening.

According to a state government official, Banerjee will be holding the administrative review meeting in the afternoon on Tuesday in which she will be taking stock of all the ongo-ing projects and social schemes in

the newly formed district.It may be recalled that in April

the Chief Minister had announced a development package for Jhargram worth Rs 200 crore after it was bifur-cated from West Midnapore. Sources said that the Chief Minister will be taking stock of the development projects and she would discuss the issues relevant to further develop-ment of the area.

On Tuesday evening, the Chief Minister will be attending the pro-gramme of Bijaya Sammelani at Jhar-gram Stadium. Senior administrative officials and police officers will also be present in the programme.

On Wednesday, Banerjee will be addressing a gathering in a pro-gramme at Raj College Ground from where she will also be dis-tributing different articles among beneficiaries.

According to sources, the Chief Minister will lay foundation stone of a total of 256 projects that will be undertaken at a cost of Rs 296 crore. From the same programme, Baner-jee will inaugurate 203 projects that have been developed at a cost of Rs 116 crore.

In her two–day tour, the Chief Minister will also be laying founda-tion stone for the proposed project of

the Ram Krishna Mission Ashram.Sources said during her tour, she

will also be inaugurating the Zoolog-ical Park at Jhargram. A day before her visit to the place, a couple of leopards have been brought to the zoological park which is develop-ing as another centre of attraction in Jhargram.

According to sources, the leop-ards have been brought to Jhargram from Khayerbari Tiger Reserve Cen-tre in Dooars and both have been released in the enclosure that has been specially set up for the two 10-year-old new guests.

Security has been tightened in

Jhargram to avoid any untoward incident during the stay of the Chief Minister.

A large contingent of police was posted at strategic locations so that the place remains trouble free.

Senior police officers including eight Additional Superintendents of Police and 28 Deputy Superin-tendents of Police are in-charge to look after the security arrangements in Jhargram.

Officers of both bomb and dog squads have carried out frisking operations at regular intervals at all the venues where the Chief Minister will be visiting in the next two days.

‘Felu Modak’ of Hooghly district has introduced ‘Logo Sandesh’ which has a design of U-17 World Cup logo embossed on the sweets, having layers of chocolate and tinged with saffron

Phone calls of trees uprooting flooded the control room of the civic body all thorough the day. Short Street, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road, Sarat Bose Road, Jodhpur Park, Southern Avenue, Becharam Chatterjee Street contributed to the list

The matter came to light at around 6 pm when the routine roll call was being done before evening prayers and it was discovered that five inmates were missing

Aircraft seen on the tarmac amidst heavy rain in Kolkata on Monday PTI

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Soon, exclusive library on organic farming in cityOUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: For the first time in the city, a library exclusively on organic farming is going to come up soon.

The initiative has been taken up by Bidhan Sishu Udyan authorities to set up the library in a premise at Ultadanga where weekly market to sell organic vegetables in every week-end has become immensely popu-lar among citizens in the past few months. In April, the state Agricul-ture department had also organised a three-day-long Jaibo Krishi Mela at the same place.

The detailed project report to bring

up the library has been prepared and the work will start soon after Diwali. The arena where the library will come up has already been identified. There will also be an adjacent reading room.

Initially, the library will start func-tioning with around 2,000 books all based on organic farming and grad-ually the number of books will be increased to 4,000.

Gautam Talukdar, a member of Bishan Sishu Udyan, said: “There will be further discussions on cer-tain issues like membership, etc. Peo-ple from all walks of life can take membership in the library that will remain open from 11 am every day.

The library will be helpful in creating awareness on organic farming among people of the city.”

He further said that they will be approaching the state government for necessary support to set up the library and they are also having plans to set up centres to provide short term trainings on organic farming.

It may be recalled that the state Agriculture department had provided expertise to Bidhan Sishu Udyan to initiate organic farming on around 3 bighas of the vacant land at Ultadanga after the place was found suitable to promote organic farming within the city itself. In the weekly market, farm-

ers from different parts of the adjacent districts mainly South 24 Parganas

come to Bidhan Sishu Udyan to sell their organic produce.

WBPE releases TET notification for primary teachers’ recruitment

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: The West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBPE) on Mon-day released the notification regarding the Teacher’s Eligi-bility Test (TET) for recruiting primary teachers.

The notification of WBPE made it clear that only can-didates with two years teach-ers’ training will be eligible to appear for the examina-tion. However, the date for the examination was not declared on Monday.

“The notification has been brought out strictly following the rules framed by National Council of Teacher’s Education (NCTE). A candidate apply-ing online for the post of pri-mary teacher needs to secure at least 50 percent marks in the Higher Secondary Examina-

tions and has to complete two years teachers’ training. Cer-tificate of the two years train-ing is mandatory and no short cut training will be accepted,” Manik Bhattacharjee, chairman of WBPE said.

For SC/ ST and other back-ward class students, 45 percent in Higher Secondary exami-nation is mandatory. “Online applications would be accepted from Tuesday, October 10 to October 29,” Bhattacharjee said.

General students will have to secure 60 percent marks in the TET examination while SC/ST students will have to secure 55 percent to be eligible for teaching.

A senior official of the department said that if a teacher accidentally dies while on duty his immediate heir will get the chance for recruit-

ment. However, the candidate in this case needs to sit for TET examination and get 55 per-cent marks. Two year’s teacher’s training is also mandatory for

such candidates,” he said.The WBPE, however,

did not announce the num-ber of vacancies. In 2015, the total vacancies were 44,992

and 44,000 were recruited. Every year there is a vacancy of around 15,000. Consider-ing this, the vacancy will be more than 30,000. All district

inspectors have been directed to send a list of the vacancies in the schools of their respective districts. Once we get the list, the total number of vacancies will be announced,” a Board official said.

This is for the third time that TET examination is being conducted under the rule of the Trinamool Congress gov-ernment in Bengal. There were only 15 government teach-ers’ training colleges across the state before 2011 but now there is as many as 631 such institutes.

There has been a number of legal hurdles in the path of TET examinations in the last few years, however, the state government has been able to ensure the quality of educa-tion in the primary level so the dropout rate has gone down considerably.

Restaurant firing: Third accused held

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Police on Mon-day arrested one more person in connection with the inci-dent of attempt to murder near Karunamoyee Junction in South Kolkata on the day of Dashami.

This was the third arrest in this connection.

Acting on a tip-off, police conducted a raid and arrested the 32-year-old man Pradip Seth from Natun Pally at Purba Putiary at Regent Park.

The police have come to know about his involvement in the incident from the two other accused who were arrested earlier. The police had ear-lier arrested Nakul Sapui and Dipankar Naskar on October 1.

They were booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) on charges of attempt to murder (307 IPC), acts done by several persons in furtherance of common inten-tion (34 IPC) and 25 (1B)(a)/27 of Arms Act. Police had also

recovered two firearms and two cartridges from the accused.

It may be recalled that on September 30, a youth Surajit Halder and his friends went to a restaurant at Banerjee Para near Karunamoyee Junction to have some food while pandal-hopping. Surajit is a resident of SN Roy Road at Behala.

A tension broke out after the youth had complained to a restaurant owner about the poor quality of the food that was served to them. The situ-ation had turned worse when the three accused attacked Sur-ajit and his friends. All three of them were in an inebriated state and all of them suddenly open fired.

The accused had fled from the spot finding some local people approaching them. Police later identified them and initially managed to arrest two of them. The police were in a search for the third accused for the past few days and finally he was arrested on Monday morning.

Soon, homeopathy clinics at correctional homes run by inmates

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: In a unique initia-tive, the state correctional home administration is planning to introduce homeopathy clinic at some of its correctional homes.

These clinics will be man-aged by the inmates of these correctional homes. Accord-ing to the sources, the initia-tives would be taken up in a pilot basis at Alipore Cor-rectional Home, Dum Dum Central Correctional Home and Presidency Correctional Home. Later, the model would be introduced in other correc-tional homes as well. It was a

joint initiative by the state Cor-rectional Home department and the state Health depart-ment. The main purpose of the project is to provide homeo-pathic treatment among the inmates.

The inmates of these correc-tional homes where the clinics would be introduced will be given training on how to man-age the clinics. According to sources, a homeopathic clinic may be made operational at the Dum Dum Central Correc-tional home from this month. All steps have been taken to make it operation from the cur-rent month, the official added.

An organisation has been engaged to carry out survey on this. According to a senior offi-cial of the Correctional Home department, the inmates will ne imparted knowledge on how to treat normal ailments through homeopathic medicines. The state Health department will also provide them help in this regard. The inmates suffer-ing from some ailments will be treated at the clinics. There will be doctors who will impart knowledge among the inmates. The project will be gradually replicated in the other cor-rectional homes, an official maintained.

Illegal firecrackers godown sealed, one arrested

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Cooch Behar district police have sealed an unauthorised firecrackers go-down from the district and seized 1,500 kg prohibited firecrackers. One person has been arrested in this connec-tion so far.

The district police have started a raid to nab the other culprits involved in the inci-dent. It may be mentioned that all the districts have been asked to crackdown on the illegal firecrackers factories in their respective areas.

The West Bengal Pollution Control Board (WBPCB) had directed the police to carry out vigilance to check the selling of banned firecrackers before Kali Puja.

The pollution level in the city goes up during Kali Puja and Diwali every year. In many places it has been found that the people burst banned fire-crackers despite the time to time raids by the police.

Patients suffering from var-

ious ailments have a terrible time during this part of the year because of the indiscrim-inate bursting of high sounding crackers. This time around, the police and the local administra-tion have started raids at the illegal firecrackers factories in various places.

According to an official of the WBPCB, police admin-istrations have been asked to take adequate measures so that bursting of noisy firecrackers can be checked. Like every year, the WBPCB asked the district administration to curb the use

of banned firecrackers. Police have been asked to identify the source areas.

The monitoring teams of the WBPCB will also maintain a strict vigil and patrolling will continue.

According to a senior police officer it had also been decided to maintain surveil-lance in firecracker markets by installing closed-circuit tele-vision cameras and deploy-ing police personnel in civil clothes. This can check buying and selling of illegal firecrack-ers, the officer said.

CBI visits Suvendu’s officeKOLKATA: A team of CBI officers went to the East Midnapore office of Suvendu Adhikari in connec-tion with the Narada sting operation case on Mon-day. They took photographs and video recordings of the office. Meanwhile, Madan Mitra, the former state Transport minister went to the office of ED on Monday in this connection.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

Food festival by inmates of correctional home on Friday

SOUMITRA NANDI

KOLKATA: In a unique move, the state Correctional Admin-istration department is pro-viding the opportunity for common people to savour dishes cooked by the inmates of Alipore Central Correctional Home (ACCH). The premises of ACCH will be the host to a day-long festival as part of Diwali celebration of four cor-rectional homes in the city on Friday.

Apart from food, various products made by the inmates of Alipore, Presidency Correc-tional Home, Dum Dum Cen-tral Correctional Home and Alipore Women Correctional Home will also be displayed and sold on the day. The fair titled Dipawali Mela that will be held from 11 am to 7 pm will be open for all. State Correc-tional Administration minis-ter Ujjal Biswas will inaugurate the fair.

“Ten inmates of ACCH have formed a self help group and have been running a can-teen here for more than a year. They had received training in cooking from chefs of a leading five star hotel in the city. The Biriyani, Pav Bhaji, snacks like Veg/Chicken Chop, Chicken

Pakora that they are cooking on a regular basis have been appre-ciated by the inmates as well as the staff of the correctional home. Now, common people will also get the opportunity to satiate their taste buds with their cooked food,” a senior official of the department said.

“Our aim is to showcase the enormous talent that the cor-rectional home inmates have and make their handmade products reach the common

people,” Biswas said.The department in associa-

tion with a number of NGOs has been organising exhibitions of handmade articles from jute and various other materials to create a market for the various products made by inmates. The department is holding talks with some petrol pump own-ers on the state and national highways for setting up stores for selling the products made by them.

Kolkata Press Club, CII launch programme on business journalism

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Kolkata Press Club in collaboration with Confederation of Indian Indus-try (CII) organised a four-day-long orientation programme on business journalism that started on Monday.

Snehashis Sur, president of the Press Club, Umesh Chow-dhary, Chairman of CII East-ern Region, Suparna Pathak, renowned journalist and the chief course coordinator, Jawahar Sircar, former CEO of Prasar Bharati and Nita Kar-makar, Regional Director of CII Eastern Region, were pres-ent in the inaugural ceremony.

Followed by the inaugural ceremony, there was a brain-storming session on “Busi-ness Journalism in a Digitized

World”. In the inaugural cer-emony, Sur stressed upon the need of such orientation pro-grammes for better under-standing of the subject.

Chowdhary said that CII is considering to launch a course on business journalism in the East through its Centre for Excellence in Kolkata.

Karmakar said training programmes on topics related to business and industries can be an area of collaboration with the Press Club, Kolkata.

Sircar called upon journal-ists to be more analytical than speculative in dealing with news related to business, eco-nomics, trade and commerce and to enlighten themselves to be able to interpret objectively the impacts of various eco-nomic decisions and activities.

Vineet Kumar is new KOPT bossKOLKATA: Vinit Kumar, an Indian Railway Service of Electrical Engi-neers (IRSEE). officer of 1993 batch took over charge as Chairman, Kol-kata Port Trust on Monday. Imme-diately after taking over the charge of KOPT, Kumar held a meeting with the Deputy Chairman and Heads of Departments of Kolkata Dock System and Haldia Dock Complex at KoPT headquarters. He urged all the employees of the port to accept the challenges and opportunities of the port and shipping world and to share all development initiatives and efforts of Kolkata Port. “He believes in collective responsibility and invites co-operation from the port users, employees and trade and commerce at large to further strength-en the overall performance of it and to make it more vibrant,” a senior KOPT official said. MPOST

PRADIP SETH

Apart from food, various products made by the inmates of Alipore, Presidency Correctional Home, Dum Dum Central Correctional Home and Alipore Women Correctional Home will also be displayed

REPRESENTATIVE IMAGE

5MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata| Tuesday, 10 October, 2017

mp nationRahul hits out at BJP brass over report on Shah’s son’s company

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KAMLA: Congress vice presi-dent Rahul Gandhi on Monday targeted Prime Minister Nar-endra Modi over his “silence” on a media report claiming that a company owned by BJP chief Amit Shah’s son Jay Shah saw a huge rise in its turnover after his party came to power in 2014. Gandhi raised the issue as he began the second leg of his campaign tour in the poll-bound state from central Gujarat.

Gandhi, who landed at Ahmedabad airport this morn-ing, travelled to the Hatijan area of the city from where he started his tour in a specially designed bus.

Referring to newspaper reports quoting a news web-site ‘The Wire’, Gandhi said the company owned by Shah’s son grew 16,000 times in a short span. “This is a strange world. In 2014, the company was nothing. Modi ji came (to power in 2014) and launched ‘start up India’, ‘make in India’, then introduced demonetisa-tion and GST. This destroyed small businessmen and farm-ers,” Gandhi told a gathering at Kamla village in Kheda district.

But from this fire, one com-pany comes up. It was nothing in 2014 but in a few months it

became so big that this compa-ny’s worth of Rs 50,000 rose to Rs 80 crore. Referring to entre-preneurship in Gujarat, Gan-dhi asked whether Gujaratis, who are adept at running busi-nesses, can do it.

Recalling Modi’s assertion that he would neither engage in

corruption nor allow it to hap-pen, the Congress leader said, “Now when Amit Shah’s son’s company has grown 16,000 times, Modi ji has gone silent,” Gandhi said.

“Modi ji had also said another thing (before the elec-tions) that he does not want

to become prime minister and be the ‘chowkidar’ (watch-man) of the country’s wealth. Now, where has the chowkidar gone?” Rahul asked.

The Congress vice president also hit out at the NDA govern-ment over the state of economy, and demanded that the rates

under the Goods and Services Tax not exceed 18 per cent.

“In spite of our request to the Centre, they are charging rates of over 18 per cent under the GST....They should revert to the 18 per cent tax slab,” Gan-dhi said, adding high taxes have ruined many businesses.

Demonetization resulted in the loss of business of many small traders, he said.

The famed Gujarat model of development had failed, the Congress leader said.

“Prime minister Narendra Modi and the people of Gujarat know that the so-called Gujarat model has failed. If we come to power, we will propagate the old Gujarat model under which cooperative societies like Amul developed,” he said.

Gandhi also attacked the government over its failure to create jobs.

India, he said, is competing with China these days. China creates 50,000 jobs every day, but the country under the Modi government is able to generate just 450 jobs per day, he said.

“This is because their focus is on development of 100 big industries. When the Congress comes to power, it will develop small and medium scale indus-tries which can create many more jobs,” Gandhi said.

Want to go for daughter’s admission to UK: Karti

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Karti Chidam-baram, son of former Union Minister P Chidambaram, on Monday told the Supreme Court he wants to visit the United Kingdom to get her daughter admitted at the Cam-bridge University and was will-ing to undertake that he would not visit any bank there.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said it would hear the plea tomorrow as Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who represents the CBI, was unavailable due to some personal reasons.

“He wants to go to the Cambridge to get his daugh-ter admitted. He is willing to give an undertaking that he will not visit any bank there,” senior lawyer Kapil Sibal, appearing for Karti, told the bench that also comprised Jus-tices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud.

The apex court has stayed the Madras High Court order, which had stayed the opera-tion of the look out circulars (LOCs) issued against Karti and others in the case.

The CBI FIR, lodged on May 15, had alleged irregu-larities in Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clear-ance to INX Media for receiv-ing overseas funds to the tune

of Rs 305 crore in 2007 when Karti’s father was the Finance Minister.

In response to CBI’s alle-gation that Karti had mul-tiple bank accounts abroad, Sibal said Karti has one bank account in the UK.

On October 4, the CBI had alleged in the apex court that Karti had “tampered” with evidence relating to an alleged graft case against him during his visits abroad in the months of May, June and July this year.

The agency had said that there was a need to issue a

LoC against Karti as he had the “potential” to tamper with the evidence and he had done this during his visits abroad.

CBI had last month told the apex court that Karti was pre-vented from travelling abroad as he was allegedly closing several of his foreign bank accounts. The CBI’s conten-tion was strongly refuted by Karti’s counsel. The top court is hearing CBI’s appeal challeng-ing Madras High Court order staying the government’s LOC against Karti in the alleged graft case.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

ARAKKONAM: Home Min-ister Rajnath Singh on Monday said anti-India forces which were unable to stomach its growing economy, wanted to inflict damage to weaken the country’s economic and stra-tegic position.

The Union minister said India was emerging as the fastest growing economy and it was counted among the top 10 economies on Monday.

The world has started “real-ising” that India would be among the top three econo-mies by 2030 when the size of the country’s economy would touch USD 5 trillion as against the present USD 2 trillion, he said at a passing out parade of the Central Industrial Secu-rity Force here. “But there are anti-India forces which gener-ally don’t like this...And they want to strike at those sensitive areas from where its economic and strategic position could be weakened,” he said.

The minister said ter-rorism was a major threat in many countries on Monday but Prime Minister Narendra Modi had taken up the topic on the world stage and “suc-ceeded” in bringing most coun-tries on board the issue, he said. “Terrorism is a major issue and many terror organisations have set their sight on India also...They wait for an opportunity to inflict damage on India,” he said.

The 9/11 attacks in the US and 26/11 strikes in Mumbai had shown that impact of ter-ror attacks could be felt for a long time, he said.

He urged the CISF to hold regular security audits to ensure there were no terror attacks on the country’s strate-gic installations.

He also asked the force to develop a special wing to deal with cyber terrorism, saying it was an emerging issue.

Anti-India forces want to weaken its economy:

Rajnath Singh

The world has started realising that India would be among the top three economies by 2030 when the size of the country’s economy would touch $5 trillion as against the present $2 trillion, he said

I will struggle for you, Satyarthi

tells children in Kashmir

SRINAGAR: Kailash Satyarthi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 for waging a peaceful struggle to protect children from being exploited as labour, assured them on Monday that he would make all efforts to ensure their safety. He urged the children in Jammu and Kashmir to stay away from vio-lence, and said “together, we will win this battle”.

Without naming separat-ists and militants active in the Valley, he asked them not use children to achieve their goals.

“Children...can achieve everything with education. They are your children and our children too,” he said.

Satyarthi is on a Bharat Yatra to spread awareness about crimes against children. Last week, he held several pro-grammes in Uttar Pradesh. He had begun his Yatra from Kanyakumari.

In Srinagar, he addressed students drawn from various schools. “I will knock the doors of governments in Delhi and in Srinagar. Tell them to allow children to study and rise as high as they can,” he said at the gathering. “I will make appeals and prayers for you and need be, I will struggle too, provided you stay away from violence.”

Satyarthi was born in Vidi-sha district of Madhya Pradesh.

In 1980, he left teaching and founded Bachpan Bachao Andolan, which has freed thousands of children from slave-like conditions.

CBI registers case in Kisan credit card fraud case

OUR CORRESPONDENT

New Delhi: The CBI has registered a case into alleged collusion of officials of the Bank of Baroda and Madhya Pradesh government in dis-tributing credit worth Rs 5.30 crore to 139 farmers through Kisan credit cards in Neemuch in which only Rs 4 lakh could be recovered.

The Neemuch district col-lector informed the bank on November 8 last year about sanctioning of loans on the basis of forged documents and sought details of it follow-ing which the bank started an investigation.

The investigation by the bank showed that security records were forged, discrepan-cies in giving inspection reports and forgery in documents.

The CBI has now acted on a complaint from the Bank of Baroda which has alleged that between 2013 and 2015, 139 farmers having 198 Baroda Kisan Credit Card accounts were disbursed loans worth 5.30 crore by the bank’s Neemuch branch without fol-

lowing procedures and the RBI guidelines.

It has registered case against nine persons including four officials of the bank, panel advocate, three private persons and unidentified officials of the state revenue department.

“The present outstanding in these accounts is Rs 5.26 crore. The procedure to be adopted towards grant of credit facilities in case of Baroda Kisan Credit Card was not adhered to...,” the complaint said.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate to expedite probe in the coal allocation scam cases, saying they should devise some method to deal with them.

A three-judge bench headed by Justice Madan B Lokur expressed displeasure over the delay by the agencies in not completing inves-tigations in the coal block allocation scam cases in a time-bound manner. “You need to expedite the investigation in these cases.

Some method has to be devised. You need to apply some out-of- the-box thinking. We understand that some delay is inevitable.

But the probe cannot go on for so many years,” the bench, also comprising Justices Kurian Joseph and A K Sikri, said.

The apex court fixed the matter for further consideration in the first week of December.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for NGO Common Cause, had earlier told the court that CBI has not expedited investigation in several coal cases despite direction from the apex court.

The apex court had on January 23 consti-tuted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the allegations of “abuse of authority” prima facie committed by former CBI Director Ranjit Sinha to scuttle investigation and enqui-ries in coal block allocation cases.

Expedite probe in coal allocation scam cases: SC

Rlys changes deodoriser after Goyal complains

of ‘peculiar’ odour NEW DELHI: Railway offices and trains will now smell like pine and lemon grass as Minis-ter Piyush Goyal’s objection to the “unpleasant peculiar smell” there has prompted the railway board to change the deodor-iser-cum- disinfectant used by the national carrier.

In a circular dated Octo-ber 5, the railway board has said that the need to use better odour-cum-disinfectant fluids in railway offices and trains was stressed by the railway minister.

“The need for use of bet-ter odour-cum-disinfectant fluid, in place of phenolic type disinfectant fluid currently being used in railway offices and trains, to avoid unpleas-ant peculiar smell was stressed by Minister of Railways during meetings held on September 11 and October 3, 2017”, it said.

The circular also suggested that an alternative material deodorizing-cum-disinfectant fluid having some pure strained “absolute essential oil like pine,

lemon grass or any other essen-tial oil having pleasant odour”, which was being used in some sections of the railways, should be considered.

In the circular, the board said that it has decided that all fresh procurement of disinfec-tant should be of the alternative kind for all railway locations requiring such disinfectants.

So, railway offices, hospi-tals, stations, coaching depots and trains are likely to soon smell of pine and lemon grass.

The circular also stated that the procurement of the “pecu-liar” smelling disinfectant fluid should be discontinued. MPOST

Foreign funds: Centre asked to

look into accounts of parties

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Monday granted six-months time to the Centre to look into accounts of political parties, including the Congress and the BJP, for traces of for-eign funds.

A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar gave the “last opportunity” to the Ministry of Home Affairs for compli-ance of its 2014 judgement, in which the high court had found both parties flouting the norms of the FCRA by accept-ing donations from Indian sub-sidiaries of UK-based Vedanta Resources.

Section 4 of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA) prohibits a polit-ical party or legislature from accepting foreign contributors.

On March 28, 2014, the high court had ordered the Election Commission and the Ministry of Home Affairs to look into the accounts of polit-ical parties and take action within six months. MPOST

ICA-2082(9)/2017

The Executive Engineer, Siliguri Division, Housing Directorate has invited open quotation against NIQ No. 03 of 2017-2018 for Hiring 01 (one) vehicle for office use of the Executive Engineer, Siliguri Division, Housing Dte. The last date and time of applications 16.10.2017 up to 14:00 hrs (IST)Details may be seen from the office Notice Board on any working day within office hour.

Executive Engineer Siliguri Division,

Housing Directorate

ORDERNo. 14/RPT dated 22/09/2017

Whereas, mass petitions have been received by this office from students and scholars of several educational institutions housed in and around College Street area, requesting for not allowing any rallies, processions, meetings, demonstrations therein as the use of loudspeakers and sloganeering causes major disturbance to the ongoing classes and other academic activities;

And whereas, I, Rajeev Kumar, Commissioner of Police, Kolkata being an Exec-utive Magistrate for the Metropolitan area of Kolkata, have been specially empow-ered by the State Govt. under Notification Nos. 758- P.S. Cell/HR/O/3P-13/05 dated 23.05.2016 read with Govt. Notification no. 756/ P.S. Cell/HR/0/3P-13/05 dated 23.05.2016 and 759-P.S.Cell/H.R./0/3P-13/05 dated 23.05.2016 read with Govt. noti-fication no. 757.P.S.Cell/H.R./0/3P-13/05 dated 23.05.2016 to act under the section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (Act 2 of 1974); And whereas, in my opinion, there is sufficient ground for proceeding under the said Section for not allow-ing any rallies/ meetings/processions/demonstrations originating from/ terminating in and around College Square in the academic interest of large number of students within the said areas as mentioned in the following schedule in the town of Kolkata, so as to ensure immediate prevention and speedy remedy;

Now, therefore, in exercise of the power conferred by Sub-Section(1) of Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure,1973 (Act 2 of 1974) read with the Sub-Sec-tion(3) of the said Section, I, Rajcev Kumar, Commissioner of Police, Kolkata and Executive Magistrate for the Metropolitan area of Kolkata, do hereby prohibit for a period of 60(Sixty) days from the 3rd October, 2017 to 1st -December, 2017 except Sundays until further orders, any assembly of five or more persons or processions or rallies or meetings or demonstrations or the carrying of any lathi or other danger-ous weapons or the doing of any act which is likely to cause disturbances of the pub-lic tranquillity and breach of the peace within the said area in the town of Kolkata.

As the notice cannot be served individually on all concerned, the order is hereby passed exparte under sub section 2 of section 144 of Cr.P.C, 1973. It shall be pub-lished for the information of public through Press, the Kolkata Police Gazette and by affixing copies on the Notice Boards of the offices of All Divisional Deputy Commis-sioners of Police, all Police Stations concerned and the offices of the Kolkata Munici-pal Corporation.

SCHEDULE The area within the jurisdiction of Amherst Street PS, Muchipara PS and Jorasanko

PS in the town of Kolkata bounded — (1) On the North by M.G. Road from College Street Crossing to Shyamacharan Dey

Street Crossing. (2) On the South by Surya Sen Street from Colootola Street Crossing (Surya Sen

Street and College Street Crossing) to Bankim Chatterjee Street Crossing.

(3) On the East by Entire Bankim Chattejee Street, Shyamacharan Dey Street from Bankim Chatterjee Street Crossing to M.G Road Crossing.

(4) On the West by College Street from M.G. Road crossing upto Mediea College A,. Hospital (College St. and Surya Sen Street Crossing.).

EXPLANATION : In this order, the TOWN of KOLKATA means the town of Kolkata as defined in Section 3 of the Kolkata Police Act 1866 (Bengal Act IV of 1866).Given under my hand and seal this day, the 22/09/2017

(RAJEE KUMAR) Commissioner of Police, Kolkata

& Executive Magistrate for the

ICA/2083(5)2017 Metropolitan area of Kolkata.

6MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Tuesday, 10 October, 2017

mp nation

HASSAN PRAISES KERALA CM FOR NON-BRAHMIN PRIESTS’ APPOINTMENT THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Leading actor Kamal Hassan on Monday heaped praises on Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan for his government’s decision to appoint 36 non-Brahmin priests in temples man-aged by the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB). The Kerala Devaswom Recruitment Board had recently recommended 36 non-Brahmins, including 6 Dalits, for appointment as priests in temples in the state. “Bravo Travancore Devaswom board.. Salute to Kerala CM Mr. Pinarayi Vijayan for appointing 36 non-Brahmin priests... Periyar’s dream realised!,” the acclaimed actor said in a Facebook post. This is for the first time six persons from the scheduled caste community have been recommended for appointment as priests. TDB manages at least 1,248 shrines, including the famous Lord Ayyappa temple at Sabarimala.

STRIKE DISRUPTS NORMAL LIFE IN KASHMIRSRINAGAR: A separatist-sponsored strike to protest rising number of braid chopping incidents in Kashmir on Monday affected normal life in the Valley. Authori-ties imposed restrictions in parts of the city as a pre-cautionary measure to maintain law and order. Shops, schools and business establishments remained closed due to the strike called by the separatists against the rising number of braid chopping incidents in Kashmir, officials said. They said public transport was off the roads in most parts while some private vehicles were seen plying. An official spokesman said restrictions un-der Section 144 of CrPC were imposed in areas fall-ing under the jurisdictions of police stations Nowhatta, Khanyar, Rainawari, Kralkhud, Maisuma, M R Gunj and Safakadal in the city as a precautionary measure to avoid any untoward incident.

CRPF PERSONNEL GIVEN STANDING OVATION AT JAMMU AIRPORTJAMMU: In a heart-warming incident, a CRPF party flying to Srinagar from Jammu airport was given a hero’s welcome by civilians who greeted them with a thunderous applause and a standing ovation.CRPF spokesman Ashish Kumar Jha said the party was welcomed warmly at the terminal building yesterday and the applause continued till the last man left for the aircraft. “As the CRPF personnel entered the terminal building of Jammu airport to board the chartered aircraft bound for Srinagar, the public present there gave them a thunderous applause and the building resonated with the sound of applause,” Jha said. “It was a very warm gesture by the public towards the uniform which encourages the force personnel to serve the motherland with utmost zeal and devotion. The CRPF reiterates its commitment towards the service of the country and countrymen,” he said.

NATION BRIEFS

Pleas of Dera chief, rape victims admitted by HC

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Monday hit out at the RSS-BJP, saying the Left party was capa-ble of giving a suitable answer if the saffron outfits did not stop political violence.

The CPI(M) on Mon-day held a march till the BJP headquarters here to protest against the alleged saffron ter-ror in Kerala and to counter the ongoing protest marches of the BJP against the alleged violence by the Left.

“We will not keep quite. We warn the BJP that if they do not stop violence then we will answer back. We will not bow down,” Yechury said.

The march was led by Yechury who was joined by former party general secretary Prakash Karat and other polit-buro members.

Addressing party cadres in front of the BJP headquarters, Yechury alleged that while the BJP was campaigning in Delhi against the “Left violence” in Kerala, it were continuing vio-

lence against the Left cadres.Yechury referred to yester-

day’s incident in which RSS workers allegedly threw bombs at Left cadres in Kannur.

Addressing the gathering, CPI(M) politburo member Brinda Karat targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah over the violence.

She alleged that Shah was trying to instigate terror against the Left cadres in Kerala, but the people of the state would not bow down in front of the RSS or the BJP.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Monday issued a notice to the CBI while admitting separate pleas filed by the Dera Sacha Sauda chief challenging his 20 -year sentence in rape case and that of the two victims seeking life imprisonment for Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh.

As the case came up for hearing on Monday, a divi-sion bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice Sudhir Mit-tal also directed Ram Rahim’s counsel to deposit Rs 30 lakh as fine, which was imposed by the special CBI court on Ram Rahim, with a bank within two months.

“The revision petition filed by rape victims for enhancing the sentence to life imprison-ment for Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh has been admitted,” vic-tims’ counsel Navkiran Singh here on Monday.

The counsel for Dera sect chief S K Garg Narwana also said, “the court has also admit-

ted our appeal (challenging the conviction).”

Both the pleas will now be

heard together.Narwana said, “The high

court has also directed us to

deposit fine with a bank in the shape of FDR through the court within two months. If our appeal is finalised in our favour, then we will get back money with interest.”

The jailed Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh had moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court on September 25, chal-lenging the order of the special CBI Court of Panchkula which had sentenced him to 20-year-imprisonment for raping two disciples. The order was chal-lenged on several grounds including delay of more than six years in recording the statements of the victims by the CBI. Two rape victims had also moved the High court on October 4, seeking life impris-onment for the Dera Sacha Sauda chief.

“In this case, the Dera sect chief was considered as ‘Pita Ji’ (father) by his follow-ers. Victims were under emo-tional and physical custody of Dera chief and he broke their trust and misused his position

as a religious and spiritual leader. Therefore, we sought life imprisonment instead of 20-year-sentence,” counsel Navkiran Singh said.

Ram Rahim was convicted by the special CBI court on August 25, following which violence and arson had erupted in Panchkula and Sirsa districts which left 41 people dead and left scores injured.

Ram Rahim is currently lodged in Sunaria jail in Rohtak district.

In April 2002, an anony-mous letter was written to the then Chief justice of Pun-jab and Haryana High Court, complaining about alleged sex-ual exploitation of woman fol-lowers at Dera Sacha Sauda in Sirsa.

Then in May 2002, the High Court directed Sirsa district and sessions judge to probe the allegations in the letter. In Sep-tember 2002, the high court had handed over the matter to the CBI after the district court indicated possibility of sexual exploitation.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

PUDUCHERRY: The Smart City project being imple-mented in Puducherry with the French government aims at transforming the city into a global tourism destination by leveraging its heritage, cul-tural, spiritual and educational advantages, Chief Minister V Narayanasamy said here on Monday.

Speaking after inaugurat-ing a one-day conference on ‘implementation of Puduch-erry Smart City Project` organ-ised by Puducherry Smart City Development Limited, which is executing it, he said France had been consistently supporting the union territory in various developmental projects.

He said France based Development Agency (Agence Francais pour Development) had signed an agreement with the Puducherry government in January 2016 to provide tech-nical support in sustainable urban development through this project. At the conference on Monday, an agreement was signed between Puducherry government and French Devel-opment Agency to augment drinking water supply at an outlay of Rs 534 crore.

While the Agency would provide Rs 455 crore as loan, the balance of Rs 79 crore will be provided by the Puducherry government to ensure water supply in all the four regions.

Chief Secretary Manoja Parida and Nicolas Fornage,Director of the French Development Agency, signed the agreement.

The Chief Minister said that

Puducherry (a former French colony), had been described as ‘a window on French culture’ by former Prime Minister, the late Jawharlal Nehru.

He thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for including Puducherry as one of the cities under the Smart city mission.

The Chief Minister also recalled the encouragement Vice President M Venkiah Naidu had given for Puduch-erry when he was Urban Development Minister by accommodating the UT in the third round of allocation of projects to various cities.

Local Administration Min-ister A Namassivayam said the Project involved a total outlay of Rs 1,828 crore. While the Centre and Puducherry gov-ernment each contributed Rs 500 crore crore, the balance was mobilised through open mar-ket borrowing and public pri-vate partnership. The project will go on stream in the next four years. French Ambassador to India Alexandre Ziegler said Puducherry had come out with an impressive draft plan for implementation of the project.

He said France had always stood beside Puducherry and

would cooperate in devel-opmental programmes and implementing the project.

He said participation of delegates of 23 French firms in deliberations on various proj-ects of Smart Cities club at the conference spoke volumes of his government’s commitment to support Puducherry.

Chief Secretary Manoj Parida and Chief Executive Officer of the Smart City Proj-ect Limited P Jawahar were among those who spoke.

French Consul General in Puducherry Catherine Suard, Minister Counsellor and Head of the Regional Economic Department for South Asia (French Embassy) Jean Marc Fenet and Ministers of Puduch-erry were among those present.

An MoU for beach restora-tion project was inked between PSCDL and National Institute of Ocean Technology on the occasion.

Opposition AIADMK legislators A Anbalagan and Vayyapuri Manikandan staged a walkout within minutes of commencement of the con-ference to protest against ‘improper’ seating arrange-ments by the organisers.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

ITANAGAR: The Arunachal Pradesh government on Mon-day said any policy decision on the Tibetan refugees settled here would be taken keeping the interest of the local people in mind. The government has sought the cooperation of the people in the matter, an official release said.

The announcement comes in the wake of protests by var-ious organisations here that claimed the move to imple-ment the Tibetan Rehabilita-tion Policy 2014 of the Centre would be detrimental to the interest of local people here.

The Tibetan Rehabilita-tion Policy was amended by the Centre in 2014 to pro-vide a uniform guideline on the facilities to be provided to the Tibetan refugees living under the jurisdiction of state governments.

Arunachal Pradesh has three Tibetan settlement areas.

Last month, the central policy came up for discussion at the state cabinet meeting, where the members decided to implement the amendments partly, taking into account the interest of the state’s indigenous population after holding con-sultations with the commu-nity-based organisations and stakeholders, the release said.

CM Pema Khandu had also stated in a recent meeting at Tawang that no decision would be taken which would ham-per the interest of the state, the release added.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

JAIPUR: Rajasthan Congress chief Sachin Pilot on Monday demanded that the Vasund-hara Raje-led BJP government in the state immediately waive the loans of farmers on the lines of relief provided to them in Uttar Pradesh and Maha-rashtra. Farmers in Rajasthan have been protesting, seek-ing loan waivers and on other issues troubling them. They had blocked roads in Sikar last month demanding the imple-mentation of the recommen-dations of the Swaminathan Committee, which suggested steps to provide relief to farm-ers across India.

Earlier this month, more than 50 farmers buried them-selves neck-deep in the ground against Jaipur Development Authority’s move to acquire their land for a housing project.

Pilot alleged on Monday that Raje was waiting for the state assembly election due next year to announce the loan waiver. “Chief Minister Raje will have to waive loans

of farmers in the state. CM is waiting for the proposed state assembly election to announce the waiver,” he said.

“Farmers of the state will not be able to wait for 12 months. She should waive off loans of farmers without wast-ing any time,” he told reporters at a joint press conference with Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala.

The BJP government in Uttar Pradesh and Maharash-tra have announced schemes to waive loans of farmers in those states. Pilot also accused Raje of dividing the society by meeting representatives of dif-ferent castes separately during her tour of the state. “It leaves a negative impact in the society.”

Hitting out against the infa-mous mining scam in Rajas-than, Pilot said that the Raje government had to cancel the lease of 600 mines because of the pressure mounted by the Congress party. But, he added, it was unfortunate that the government was making back-door attempts to renew the leases.

Raj govt will have to waive loans of farmers: Pilot

‘Smart city project aims at transforming Puducherry into global tourism destination’

OUR CORRESPONDENT

PATNA: Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) on Monday said a national council meeting held by rebel party leader Sharad Yadav was “illegal” as he did not have the right to convene it in view of a recent Election Commission decision. Party leader in Rajya Sabha and national general sec-retary R C P Singh said he had come to know about the meet-ing in Delhi yesterday through newspapers.

“Sharad Yadav cannot con-vene or hold a meeting of the party’s national council as the Election Commission has dis-missed twice his plea for the allotment of party name and symbol to his faction,” Singh told reporters here.

The poll panel had recently refused to consider his plea on the grounds that it lacked sup-porting documents such as affi-davits, he added.

The party also questioned Yadav’s claim that 500 mem-bers of the national council had attended the meeting.

“Sharad Yadav has claimed that 500 members of the national council participated in

yesterday’s meeting but the fact remains otherwise,” Singh said.

The list of the members of the national council which Yadav was referring to was a fake one, Singh said.

“The list ... expired in 2015 with the election of a new pres-ident. Besides, Yadav does not have any support in the party’s legislative wing,” he said.

The term of the previous national council had expired in 2015 with the election of Nit-ish Kumar as the new president at the party’s Rajgir session in November 2016, he said.

Stating that the EC had

rejected Yadav’s plea for allot-ment of the party name and symbol to his faction twice on September 12 and Septem-ber 27, 2017, the senior JD(U) leader asked how Yadav could claim to have the support of 500 members of the national council, when its current strength was 194.

Giving the break-up of the 194 members of the coun-cil, Singh said 103 members were from Bihar, followed by 35 from Kerala, 31 from Jharkhand, 23 from Jammu and Kashmir and 2 from Dadar and Nagar Haveli.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

AMETHI: Three days after Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi’s visit, the Amethi constituency is gearing up for another high-profile event as BJP chief Amit Shah and Union minister Smriti Irani will unveil a slew of projects in this Congress bastion on Monday. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will also be pres-ent, officials said. Irani arrived here this afternoon while the BJP chief will arrive tomorrow, they said.

Schemes and projects are likely to be announced dur-ing Shah and Irani’s visit, besides, beneficiaries of vari-ous schemes will be handed over certificates, the officials said. Among other key events, Information and Broadcast-ing minister Irani will attend the launch of a FM station at Gauriganj and an initiative to save Gomti river near Pipri village.

She will also attend the inauguration of a tuberculo-sis unit at the district hospital and a primary health centre at Odari Tiloi.

Amethi has traditionally been a Congress bastion but witnessed a high-pitched elec-toral battle between Rahul Gandhi and Irani in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Though she lost, Irani managed to reduce the Congress leader’s victory margin from around 3.70 lakh votes in 2009 to 1.07 lakh in 2014.

In the 2017 UP Assembly elections, the BJP won six of the 10 Assembly seats falling under the Amethi and Rae Bareli parliamentary constit-uencies. Four of these were in Amethi. Party sources said the visit of the senior BJP leaders was aimed at sending a clear message that the current dis-pensation believed in all-round development and was not meting out “step-motherly treatment” to any area.

Three days after Rahul’s visit, Shah to reach Amethi today

Policy on Tibetan refugees won’t affect locals:

Arunachal govt

Sharad Yadav’’s national council meeting illegal: JD(U)

CPI-M capable of giving suitable answer to BJP-RSS: Yechury

OUR CORRESPONDENT

PATNA: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday said those inviting him for marriage would have to speak out that no dowry has been taken.

“No affidavit will be asked but those inviting me for mar-riage needs to speak out that no dowry demand has been made,” he said.

On October 2, Kumar had launched a campaign against dowry and child marriage and had appealed to people to keep away from attending a mar-riage where dowry has played a role in fixing the match.

He had also said a human chain would be formed in sup-port of the campaign on Janu-ary 21, 2018.

In reply to a question about his own marriage, Kumar thanked the reporter for reminding about his own marriage in 1973 in which no dowry was taken and guests coming for the ceremony were given a speech by him and other socialist leaders against dowry which was described as “cancer for the society.”

To invite me for marriage, say no dowry has been

taken: Nitish

Amarinder confident of Cong’s win in

Gurdaspur bypollPATHANKOT: Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Monday expressed confidence of winning the Gurdaspur Lok Sabha by-election by a big mar-gin, saying his government has brought the state’s economy back on track.

During a road show in Pathankot for the upcoming Gurdaspur bypoll on October 11, he said, “We will win this seat with a margin of over two lakh votes”.

The Punjab chief minis-ter was accompanied by par-ty’s candidate for the bypoll, Sunil Jakhar, All India Con-gress Committee general secre-taries Asha Kumari and Harish Chaudhry, and Rajya Sabha member Pratap Singh Bajwa, among others.

He claimed that his gov-ernment had not only imple-mented many of its poll promises but had also set the ball rolling by bringing the beleaguered state economy back on track.

“Be it enhancement of pensions under social wel-fare schemes or our promise of providing jobs, every elec-tion promise that we made is in the process of implementation,” he said. MPOST

General Manager, Northern Railway conducted a safety-focused inspection of Dehradun railway station. He was accompanied by Divisional Railway Manager, Moradabad A K Singhal & Senior Divisional Officers

7MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Tuesday, 10 October, 2017

mp nationCentre indulging in political

vendetta: ChidambaramOUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Former Union Finance Minister P Chidam-baram on Monday told the Supreme Court that the BJP-led government has been carry-ing on a “politically-motivated vendetta” against him and his son. The apex court was hear-ing CBI’s appeal challenging a Madras High Court order stay-ing the Centre’s look out circu-lar (LOCs) against Karti and others in an alleged graft case over irregularities in Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to INX Media for receiving overseas funds to the tune of Rs 305 crore in 2007.

Chidambaram and his son Karti, facing the criminal probe, have filed separate affi-davits in the apex court alleg-ing vendetta.

“Since the NDA govern-ment came to power, the cen-tral government has been carrying on a politically moti-vated vendetta against my fam-

ily and especially my son. The agencies of the central gov-ernment have not spared the friends of the first respon-dent (Karti) or even persons remotely connected with him,” Chidambaram said.

He also said the FIPB that dealt with the proposal of INX Media Ltd was chaired by D Subba Rao, who later became RBI Governor, and was suc-ceeded by Ashok Chawla who later became Chairman of Competition Commission of

India. “The other members of FIPB, at the relevant time, were equally distinguished civil ser-vants,” he said.

“The FIR in the INX Media case is a politically motivated FIR intended to embarrass and humiliate me and the members of my family,” Chidambaram added.

On the other hand, Karti Chidambaram on Monday sought permission to travel to the United Kingdom to admit his daughter for higher studies

in the Cambridge.Karti, in his affidavit,

responded to CBI’s allegation that he has multiple accounts and assets abroad, saying his family owns only one asset abroad which was acquired by transfer of funds through nationalised banks under the RBI’s liberalised remittance scheme.

Karti also added that he has got only one account in UK’s Metro Bank which was opened in 2016 and has not received any remittance from anyone except him, his wife and daughter.

He also stated that the banks in UK have strict laws for opening bank accounts for ‘Politically Exposed Persons’ and, because of his father’s political clout, they were sub-jected to rigorous scrutiny by the international banks.

The CBI FIR, lodged on May 15, had alleged irregu-larities in FIPB clearance to INX Media for receiving over-seas funds to the tune of Rs

305 crore in 2007 when Kar-ti’s father was the Finance Minister.

On October 4, the CBI had alleged in the apex court that Karti had “tampered” with evidence relating to an alleged graft case against him during his visits abroad in the months of May, June and July this year.

The agency had said that there was a need to issue a LoC against Karti as he had the “potential” to tamper with the evidence and he had done this during his visits abroad.

CBI had last month told the apex court that Karti was pre-vented from travelling abroad as he was allegedly closing several of his foreign bank accounts.

The CBI’s contention was strongly refuted by Karti’s counsel.

The top court is hear-ing CBI’s appeal challeng-ing Madras High Court order staying the government’s LOC against Karti in the alleged graft case.

Convicted cos to be disqualified from PSU privatisation drive

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The govern-ment will disqualify any com-pany convicted for fraud and serious corporate offences from participating in the privatisa-tion of state-owned enterprises, according to new disinvest-ment guidelines.

Any firm facing a con-viction by a court of law or indictment/adverse order by a regulatory authority or has faced market regulator Sebi orders relating to fraud will be disqualified, said the guidelines.

While selecting bidders ear-lier, the government used to look into the criteria like net worth and experience. It has now decided to look into these additional criteria for qualifica-tion or disqualification of par-ties seeking to acquire stakes in CPSEs.

“The government has examined the issue of fram-ing comprehensive and trans-parent guidelines defining the criteria for bidders interested in CPSE disinvestment so that the parties selected through

competitive bidding could inspire public confidence,” the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) said in a recent office memorandum.

Any conviction by a Court of law or indictment or adverse order by a regulatory authority that casts a doubt on the abil-ity of the bidder to manage the PSU when it is disinvested or which relates to a ‘grave offence’ would constitute disqualifica-tion, it added. ‘Grave offence’ for this purpose would include orders passed by market regu-lator Sebi which directly relate to ‘fraud’ as defined in Sebi Act or regulations.

Also those orders of Sebi that cast a doubt on the abil-ity of the bidder to manage the

PSU and any conviction by a Court of law would be consid-ered as ‘grave offence’.

“In cases where Sebi passes a prosecution order, disquali-fication of the bidder should arise only on conviction by the Court of law,” said the latest DIPAM guidelines.

A bidder disqualified from participating in the disinvest-ment process would not be allowed to remain associated with it or get associated merely because it has preferred an appeal against the order, based on which it has been disquali-fied, DIPAM said.

The government has set a target of Rs 15,000 crore to be raised from strategic disinvest-ment of PSUs in the current fiscal.

Any firm facing a conviction by a court of law or indictment/adverse order by a regulatory authority or order from market regulator Sebi relating to fraud will be disqualified, say the new disinvestment guidelines

NHRC notices to Centre, Maha govt over farmers’ deaths due to infection caused by spraying pesticide on cotton crops

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: After 18 farm-ers’ death was reported in media, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) took suo motu cognizance on that issue on Monday. The Commission asked for detailed report within four weeks from the both Chief Secretary of the Government of Maharashtra and the Secretary of the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare.

The Chief Secretary of the State Government has also been directed to ensure that the best treatment is being provided for free of cost to the farmers- who are either admit-

ted to the hospitals or under medications as an out-patient.

The State also asked to inform about the steps taken to stop recurrence of such inci-dents and the action against the guilty officers. “The Commis-sion expects the details of the ex-gratia relief paid to the vic-tims and rehabilitation of the aggrieved families along with the policy perspective on the issue,” an official statement of NHRC mentioned.

The farmers in Yavatmal district of Maharashtra had to be hospitalized, during the last three months, due to an infec-tion, caused by spraying of a pesticide on the cotton crops. Reportedly, many have died,

even as others are serious.Meanwhile, the Maharash-

tra government announced an inquiry and the State Agricul-ture Ministry decided to dis-tribute free of cost masks to the farmers as it claimed that they

have not been following the directions for wearing gloves and protective clothing. The Maharashtra government also announced compensation of Rs. 12 lakh for the families of the victims.

NHRC also observed that most of the farmers in the country are not adequately literate and are relying on the government agencies for the safe use of the agricultural products and the ancillary techniques.

The victim farmers have fall prey to the callous and negli-gent attitude of the government departments, the Commission claimed. “It appears that due to the lack of proper awareness about such a complicated tech-nology for spraying pesticides on cotton crops, the farmers’ Rights to Life and Livelihood have been grossly violated,” the official statement added further.

SENIOR CITIZENS AWARDS 2017

President Ram Nath Kovind conferred National Award 2017 for Senior Citizen in the presence of Minister of social Justice & Empowerment Thaawarchand Gehlot, Minister of State for Social Justice & Empowerment Krishan Pal Gurjar and Minister of State for Social Justice & Empowerment Ramdas Athawale

ICA - 2086(8)/2017

mp editorial

The Nobel peace prize to the International Campaign to Abol-ish Nuclear Weap-

ons (ICAN) is a recognition of its untiring contribution towards negotiating the Treaty Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons adopted by the UN General Assembly in July, this year. The treaty prohibits development, testing, production, manufac-ture, and acquisition, posses-sion or stockpiling of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, transfer and receiving of nuclear explosive devices directly or indirectly, use or threat of using nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. It also pro-hibits allowing stationing, installation or deployment of any nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices in its territory or at any place under its jurisdiction or control.

The ICAN pleaded for a humanitarian initiative to con-vince the UN and the govern-ments in different countries. The catastrophic, persistent effects of nuclear weapons on our health, societies and the environment have been at the centre of all public and dip-lomatic discussions about nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

ICAN is a broad, inclusive campaign, informed by the need, urgency and feasibility of abolishing nuclear weapons, which focuses on mobilising civil society around the spe-cific objective of negotiating

a global nuclear weapon ban treaty. It is a partnership of 468 organisations across one hun-dred countries. It was officially launched in Vienna, Austria in April 2007, during the Non-Proliferation Treaty prepara-tory committee meeting. It was inspired by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which had played a pivotal role in the negotiation of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Conven-tion, also known as the Ottawa treaty.

The prime body of the phy-sicians, the International Phy-sicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), recipi-ent of Nobel Peace Prize 1985, played a vital role in high-lighting the human costs of a nuclear fallout. Several civil

society meetings on Human-itarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons were held; in Oslo (Norway) 2013, Nayarit (Mex-ico) 2014 and Vienna (Austria) 2014. These meetings dwelt at length on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons and were able to convince govern-ments about the catastrophic effects of nuclear weapons, based on the evidence of the extreme devastation caused by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The radiations which followed the blast caused havoc, not only during the immediate period, in the form of acute radiation sickness, cancers in the ensu-ing period, but also affected generations through gene mutations.

A recent study by Dr Ira Helfand on the climatic conse-quences of nuclear war stated that even a limited nuclear war using 100 Hiroshima-size nuclear bombs would lead to a nuclear winter and a com-plete global failure of crops. This would put two billion people at a risk of starvation and death. The poor countries will be affected more and poor people in these countries will be the worst sufferers.

The world is passing through crucial times, with the increasing tension between the US and North Korea and repeated threats of wiping out North Korea by the US Presi-dent. South Asia is an equally dangerous spot with continu-ous rhetoric between India and

Pakistan. On October 5, 2017, Indian Air Force (IAF) Chief BS Dhanoa had said that “if the need arises,” the IAF had the capability to disarm Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal by conduct-ing what he called a “full-spectrum” operation. This triggered an angry reaction from Pakistani Foreign Minis-ter Khwaja Asif, who in Wash-ington on Friday warned that if India launched surgical strikes against Pakistan or targeted its nuclear installations, “nobody should expect restraint from Islamabad.” Such a situation must be averted.

People of both countries urge for lasting peace and diversion of wasteful expen-diture from the arms race towards the avenues of health and education. It is in this connection that the Indian Doctors for Peace and Devel-opment (IDPD) and Pakistan Doctors for Peace and Devel-opment (PDPD), who have been partners in the ICAN, have issued a joint appeal through a letter to the Prime Ministers of India and Paki-stan to sign the treaty and take initiative to convince the other nuclear weapons states to join. It has become all the more rel-evant in the wake of the Nobel Peace Prize to the anti-nuclear movement. IPA

(Dr. Arun Mitra is co-president of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), an

affiliate of ICAN. The views are strictly personal.)

8MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Tuesday, 10 October, 2017

In its fourth year in the government, the top brass in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party may be find-

ing it quite embarrassing, as more and more senior party members are becoming criti-cal about the country’s sudden economic slowdown, espe-cially since November 2016. The big dip in the 2017-18 first quarter (April-June) GDP growth figure to 5.7 per cent has provoked an intense debate on the state of the economy, from both the opposition and some of BJP’s own senior party members and economists. The latest to publicly express his concern over the economic slowdown is no other than RSS chief Mohan Madhukar Bhagwat himself. The Sarsang-hchalak of the Hindu nation-alist organisation, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), is recognised as the most pow-erful external influencer of the BJP. The Sangh chief is never known to criticise the party in public. Bhagwat expressed his concern over the current economic slowdown during his annual Dussehra lecture. Interestingly, BJP veteran Lal Krishna Advani was a special invitee at the meeting, for the first time.

The country’s economic growth reached its peak of 7.9 per cent in the January-March quarter, last year, to consolidate India's position as the fastest-growing major economy with a five-year-high growth rate of 7.6 per cent, for 2015-16. It overtook even China. India’s GDP grew by 7.2 per cent in the previous fiscal. The govern-ment said the growth rate can go up to 8 per cent in 2017-18, on the back of a good mon-soon. However, the country’s economic growth nosedived to barely 5.7 per cent in the first quarter of the current fis-cal, the slowest pace in three years. It may have under-lined the disruption caused by the uncertainty related to the rollout of the goods and services tax (GST), at a time

when the economy is strug-gling to recover from a shock demonetisation. Almost all sectors of the economy have been impacted. Economists may bicker about whether the first quarter economic slow-down is just a blip or cyclical or structural, but consum-ers are getting gloomier with every passing quarter. That is the message from the Reserve Bank of India’s Consumer Confidence Survey for Sep-tember 2017, released last week.

Things seem to be drift-ing out of the government’s control. Else, the economic downtrend and gloomy con-sumer confidence could not have continued for this long. Worse still, the government does not seem to be managing its expenditure well. Going by official statements, the govern-ment’s both direct and indirect tax revenues are maintaining an uptrend. But, so far, expen-diture is far outstripping the income. The additional expen-diture is hardly funding new large projects that would have automatically generated new

jobs, new income and new demand. On the contrary, the ministries are busy in promot-ing social sector schemes. The prime minister’s most talked about ‘Make in India’ pro-gramme seems to have taken a back seat. Both the core and manufacturing sectors are underperforming.

The telecommunications ministry may claim that there has been an arrival or there is the possibility of the arrival of several dozens of foreign units to manufacture cell phones, yet, the consumption of this is booming mostly through imports from China and Korea. But, the truth is, there is no government initiative to manufacture core inputs such as microchips and batteries to support the domestic produc-tion of cell phones. The gov-ernment has pondered over the domestic microchip produc-tion for the last three decades without any evident result. The increasingly uncontrolled and surreptitious imports of a host of manufactured and farm products, mostly from China, are posing the big-

gest challenge to the country’s SMEs and the ‘Make in India’ programme. Official reports say, the number of new inter-net and technology start-ups launched in January-Septem-ber, this year, has slumped to 800 from more than 6000, last year.

The government’s unplanned drive against black money, too, has slowed down local investment, especially in the construction and hous-ing sectors. The black money hoarders seem to be instead investing big in gold. Amidst the growth gloom, gold import, this year, has surpassed all previous records. Inter-national estimates say, gold imports are likely to jump by a third or more in 2017. The Switzerland-based World Gold Council (WGC) is very happy. During the last April-June quarter, when India’s GDP growth showed the sharpest dip, its gold demand showed the biggest surge. The coun-try’s gold demand in the three months rose by 37 per cent to 167.4 tonnes, said WGC. In the first seven months of

2017, the imports more than doubled to 550 tonnes, from the same period a year earlier. India’s Mumbai-based bullion merchants were innovative to use routes such as South Korea and Indonesia to import gold by taking full advantage of the country’s new trade agree-ments. Going by industry esti-mates, this year’s gold import may cross 900 tonnes against the average import of 709 tonnes, in the past five years, and the import bill is expected to cross $40 billion (over Rs 2.6 trillion).

The government appears to be more busy with fringe issues, such as the mandatory Aadhar linkage with cellphone numbers, bank accounts, dig-ital economy, mobile bank-ing and cheaply selling the painfully-built national assets under the public sector enter-prises (PSEs), to meet the budget expenditure. The gov-ernment is banking a lot on the economic impact of its half-hearted multi-level GST, which has upset a large sec-tion of industry, trade and the opposition-ruled states. Last week, the RBI lowered the GDP growth forecast to 6.7 per cent from 7.3 per cent for 2017-18.

Surprisingly, the govern-ment is yet to come out with a clear policy statement as to how it proposes to tackle the on-going economic slowdown, create quality jobs that are per-manent in nature and increase the additional demand for goods, leading to higher pro-duction and growth. With less than two years to go for the next Lok Sabha election, the ruling BJP may face more internal and external criti-cisms, at least until the econ-omy looks up. However, the prime minister is confident that the economy will soon overcome the first quarter gloom and has promised fur-ther reforms to reverse the trend. IPA

(The views expressed are strictly personal.)

Concerning slow growthEDITORIAL

The ruling party is visibly fluxed as senior leaders become critical of the economic deceleration

ICAN is a broad, inclusive campaign, informed by the need, urgency and feasibility of abolishing nuclear weapons, which focuses on mobilising civil society around the specific objective of negotiating a global nuclear weapon ban treaty. It is a partnership of 468 organisations in one hundred countries

With less than two years to go for the next Lok Sabha election, the ruling BJP may face more internal and external criticisms, at least until the economy looks up. However, the Prime Minister is confident that the economy will soon overcome the first quarter gloom and has promised further reforms to reverse the trend

Even before recovering from some strong and scathing comments on the loopholes of the much-publicised Goods and Services Tax (GST), the Centre seems to be playing out another political game on the ‘distinct’

simultaneous polls to the Lok Sabha and the State Legislative Assemblies. Responding to the Centre’s specific question on the preparedness for the ‘synchronised’ polls, the Chief Elec-tion Commissioner said that the Commission would be logis-tically equipped to hold simultaneous polls by the middle of next year, precisely in September 2018. The simultaneous elections, however, can never take place merely by the gov-ernment’s decision, in this connection. Instead, after clearing the legal obstacles on the way – it needs a consensus among all political parties. Imagine if the Chief Ministers of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Goa – where Assembly elections took place this year – had asked for dissolving their state assem-blies and prefer to seek out fresh mandate? Similarly, what would happen to Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh – heading for Assembly elections this year? The EC’s response has not only led to speculation of synchronised polls but also of early Parliamentary polls, whose term will expire in May 2019. Even though there are no signs of the government planning on tak-ing the risk of going to the people months ahead of complet-ing its term in office and seeking a fresh mandate in the early Lok Sabha polls; the opposition parties are not going to sup-port it under any circumstance. Interestingly, while the ruling party prefers to maintain its silence as their popularity is on a receding trend right now, the Opposition parties are advo-

cating the legal feasibility of the simultaneous polls. For the Opposition, Lok Sabha and State Assembly polls together are neither feasi-ble nor democratic. They claim that it would require a constitutional amendment to the provisions of Article 356 – which allows the Cen-tre to dismiss that State gov-

ernment – only if there is a collapse of law and order in a particular State. The opposition has also sought an all-party meeting on the issue before it is taken forward. Simultane-ous polls, however, appear to be good for governance, as it would provide the government and the administration a clear window of five years to deliver, without the threat of a period of a code of conduct that would restrain the government’s policy-making and announcements. However, the reasons cited in favour of the proposal are not very compelling and convincing. But, it can never be ruled out that the expendi-ture on frequent elections is very high and a poor country like India cannot afford it. Too many elections taking place in different parts of the country are claimed to be disruptive, negatively affecting governance. On the other hand, as fed-eralism is the key of the Indian Constitution, it envisions free and independent political development of the Centre and the states, and the imposition of a uniform electoral pattern on the entire country could violate that idea. Governments are also denied the freedom to go to the people for a fresh man-date on important issues. The million-dollar question is that in case the central government loses its majority in the Par-liament, can it compel all the state governments to go for a fresh mandate? Notably, there is no provision of President’s rule at the Centre. Though it would subsequently bleak the prospects for smaller and regional parties as it would mess up the national and regional issues, it can also go the other way i.e. the unpopular Centre may face dire consequences in the states too. Though the high cost of electioneering in India has always been an issue of concern, yet, for cutting the cost, the fundamental foundations of a democracy cannot be sac-rificed. Increasing election expenditure, problems of politi-cal funding and the constraints imposed by the model code of conduct are significant problems. But holding synchro-nised elections is no solution for a susceptible lot of voters. In a democracy like India, the people’s unencumbered right to elect a government is of paramount importance. It appears that the debate on simultaneous polls could give some sort of relief to the Centre as the Modi government has been pushing for joint parliamentary and assembly polls, on the grounds that it would save time and money, and free political parties from the cycle of frequent elections that distract the practice of governance. But, is the government really ready to take any chance with this ‘one nation, one poll’ agenda, especially real-ising the fate its ‘one nation, one tax’ slogan met?

As President Rodrigo Duterte has vowed to make the Philippines, a federal democratic republic, its Constitution needs to be overhauled. As an amend-ment or revision of the Constitution encompasses

a broader political reform effort, it needs to be designed with positive intentions – debilitating to the political system it pur-ports to govern. As a part of his effort to fulfill the promise, Duterte had also issued an executive order to organise the Consultative Committee on constitutional reform with the mandate to study, conduct consultations, and review the pro-visions of the 1987 Constitution, including but not limited to the provisions on the structure and powers of the government, local governance, and economic policies. However, this advi-sory committee is still just a plan on paper as the president has yet to formally announce its members and the constitu-tional reform project is yet to be kicked off. The lack of any prominent personality in leading the discussion, in this con-nection, had virtually put the whole country in an unwanted uncertainty. Not only that, the lack of definitive directive from the president had also virtually hampered a clear and coherent approach towards complete constitutional reform. The dearth of consensus amongst political elites on how to go about the process of revision had made the opacity even made more precarious. However, there are two possible ways to proceed with constitutional reform – either by the Congress acting as a constituent assembly or by a duly elected constitutional convention. In both these cases, any revision to the national charter would be valid, only after the approval by the elector-ate in a plebiscite. For Duterte and his party, the constituent assembly mode was the practical choice. On the other hand, the critics, including academics and civil society personalities, think otherwise. With memories of the 14-years’ dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos still haunting their minds, they believe that such a body would be less beholden to Duterte, as the cur-rent Congress seems to be. Much on expected lines, Duterte and his allies in the legislature oppose this option, highlighting the need to complete the revision process by 2019. It may be noted that as the new Constitution must be more reflective of the times and responsive to the citizens’ needs, any attempt at a constitutional revision without proper public discourse may be rejected by the Filipinos.

One nation, one poll

Philippines needs constitutional reform

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EDITOR

It has taken two ghastly incidents for people to wake up to the very crucial and tender matter of keeping children safe. The murder of a seven-year-old boy and the rape of a girl in private schools has not only shocked the country but raised serious legal questions regarding the safety of children in school. Taken over the management of schools in controversy does not fix any problem because these are hardly any substantial moves. How is it guaranteed that things will be anywhere close to ideal? There is so much more to do.

Two billion people will be at risk due to a nuclear strike fallout

Staving off nuclear weaponsARUN GUPTA Via email

At the end of the day, the goals are simple: safety and security

Quote martial

JODI RELL

The consequences of the devastating Hiroshima attack are suffered to this day (Representational Image)

Mohan Bhagwat’s recent Dussehra speech shot out against the current economic slowdown

NANTOO BANERJEE

ARUN MITRA

Holding synchronised elections is no solution for a susceptible lot of voters

9mp in focusMILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Tuesday, 10 October, 2017

VIJETA RATTANI

DEEPAK RAZDAN

The 14th EU-India Summit con-cluded in New Delhi today (on October 6). The main agenda of the summit was strengthen-

ing trade and investment ties. While the EU was represented by Donald Tusk, President of the European Council and Jean Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, India was rep-resented by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Three pacts were signed: one between European Investment bank and International Solar Alliance; second on Bangalore metro rail project, and third on mobility of Indian and Euro-pean researchers. Discussions on migra-tion, refugees and stepping up maritime security were held among other issues. They called for a free trade agreement between India and the EU.

The EU-India strategic partnership was launched in 2004 and the joint action plan (JAP) was developed in 2005. With the initiation of negotia-tions on Broad-based Trade and Invest-ment Agreement (BTIA), the nature of this bilateral relation seems to have moved towards being trade-based. Other issues, including foreign policy, security, environment, and terrorism also formed part of the JAP and dis-cussions under the bilateral EU-India Summit were held every year from then on until 2013 when the process was dis-rupted due to the deadlock on BTIA. The EU’s other strategic partners are China, Mexico, and Brazil. The latest EU-Russia strategic partnership was signed in 2011 but failed on account of annexation of Crimea and host of Rus-sian activities viewed as disruptive and unstrategic by the Europeans.

The EU-India relations have strug-gled from 2009 onwards. The Eurozone debt crisis, policy incoherence in the EU as a result of its expansion, policy paralysis in India under UPA II and disruption in negotiations on BTIA are the key reasons cited by experts for the same. During the same phase, the EU’s role in areas of global governance such as climate change also decreased sig-nificantly. Its diplomacy failed during the 2009 Copenhagen Summit, which was meant to adopt another deal to replace Kyoto Protocol. Its role in the Paris Summit, 2015 was also largely

defined by French leadership. How-ever, things have been improving since then. The EU has emerged as a stron-ger economic entity and India has new leadership under PM Modi, focusing on development and good governance. EU and India renewed their relations dur-ing the 13th EU-India Summit held in Brussels in 2016, which saw resump-tion of BTIA talks and adoption of an Agenda for Action 2020 to jointly guide and strengthen the India-EU Strategic Partnership in the next five years.

The Agenda identifies key areas of cooperation, including foreign policy, security, clean energy, climate change, clean coal, migration and refugees. The ambit of cooperation extends to India’s flagship initiatives, including Make in India, Clean Ganga, Clean India, Smart Cities and biotechnology, sustainable energy and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Cooperation on climate changeThe Agenda for Action 2020 has

a separate section on climate change under which both EU and India seek to work on enforcing intended nation-ally determined contributions (INDCs)

which the countries submitted lead-ing up to the Paris Agreement. Coop-eration on other components of Paris Agreement such as transparency and accountability framework, adaptation and disaster preparedness also forms part of the vision document. Regard-ing energy, the cooperation is focused on energy efficiency in buildings, devel-opment of renewable resources, includ-ing solar and offshore wind, smart grids, energy research, and innovation.

The economic partnership seems to have been mutually beneficial. The EU is India’s largest trading partner with India receiving around US$ 83 bn FDI flows from Europe during 2000-17, account-ing for 24 per cent of the total foreign investments. But now, the nature of partnership must be revisited and made more dynamic by including other press-ing issues and confronting us today. Cli-mate change is one of them.

After the US pullout, the EU is well positioned to lead the climate agenda despite deadlock over Brexit. The EU has been a leader on clean technologies. Research points out that globally, 40 per cent of the high-value technologies started in EU. In the field of renewable,

EU has proved its mettle. At 276 GW, EU has the highest renewable energy capacity in the world. It has also set a target for all new buildings to be nearly zero-energy by 2020. The odds are in the EU’s favour to claim its resurgence in climate change issue.

Domestically, while the focus should be on building consensus among mem-ber states to adopt a common EU stance and policies, the already existing strate-gic partnership with countries, includ-ing India and other emerging powers, can provide necessary forums to insti-tutionalise its leadership role globally.

While the EU has been reaching out to China in terms of renewable technology and policy coherence, the engagement with other players has been restrictive and limited to commerce and trade largely. Both India and EU are nat-ural partners and both share common concern over issues of global gover-nance like climate change. Opportuni-ties must be explored and harnessed in climate and clean energy by both the partners. DOWN TO EARTH

(Vijeta Rattani is a senior researcher at Centre for Science and Environment. Views are personal.)

The Code will enable the concerned Government to determine the factors by which the minimum wages shall be fixed for different categories of employees. The factors shall be determined taking into account the skills required, the arduousness of the work assigned, geographical location of the workplace, and other aspects which the Government considers necessary

The Agenda for Action 2020 has a separate section on climate change under which both EU and India seek to work on enforcing intended nationally determined contributions which the countries submitted leading up to the Paris Agreement

Simplified labour lawsThe provisions of the Code on Wages, 2017 will ensure justice to all stakeholders

India-EU partnership for climate change?

The Government took a decisive step towards sim-plifying and amalgamat-ing the vast mass of labour

laws when it presented before the nation The Code on Wages, 2017, a Bill which combines features and provisions of four existing labour laws pertaining to wages. The Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha dur-ing the Monsoon Session of Parlia-ment in August 2017. Intended to bring relief to both employers and employees, the Code amalgamates, simplifies and rationalises the rel-evant provisions of the four Central labour enactments, namely the Pay-ment of Wages Act, 1936; the Mini-mum Wages Act, 1948; the Payment of Bonus Act, 1965; and the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976. The four Acts will stand repealed with the pas-sage of the Bill. Facilitating easier compliance of the law, the Code will ultimately create conditions for set-ting up of more enterprises and fresh employment opportunities.

The Statement of Objects of the Bill said the amalgamation of the laws would facilitate their implemen-tation and remove the multiplicity of definitions and authorities, without compromising on the basic concepts of welfare and benefits to workers. The proposed legislation would bring the use of technology in its enforce-ment and thereby bring transpar-ency and accountability for effective enforcement of the law. Widening the scope of minimum wages to all work-ers would be a big step for equity.

The Bill provides for all essen-tial elements relating to wages -- equal remuneration, its payment, and bonus. The provisions relating to wages shall be applicable to all employments covering both organ-ised as well as un-organised sectors and the power to fix minimum wages continues to be vested in the Central as well as State Governments, in their respective spheres. There are clear definitions of employer, employee, worker, minimum wage and wages.

The Code will enable the appro-priate Government to determine the factors by which the minimum wages shall be fixed for different catego-ries of employees. The factors shall be determined taking into account the skills required, the arduousness of the work assigned, geographical location of the workplace and other aspects which the appropriate Gov-ernment considers necessary.

Provisions relating to timely payment of wages and authorised

deductions from wages, which are at present applicable only in respect of employees drawing wages up to Rs 18,000 per month, shall be made applicable to all employees irrespec-tive of wage ceiling. The appropriate Government may extend the cover-age of such provisions to Govern-ment establishments also.

Ensuring that there is no discrim-ination on the basis of gender in the payment of wages, the Bill incorpo-rates in its first chapter itself provi-sions for “Equal Remuneration” in Section 3, which says “There shall be no discrimination among employ-ees on the ground of gender in mat-ters relating to wages by the same employer, in respect of the same work or work of similar nature done by any employee.”

No employer shall pay to any employee wages less than the min-imum rate of wages notified by the appropriate Government for the area, establishment or work as may be specified in a notification. While fixing minimum wages in respect of any employment for the first time under the Code, the appropriate Government, which can be Central or State Government, will appoint a

committee comprising representa-tives of employers, employees and independent members, to go into all issues and make recommenda-tions. This would ensure justice to all stakeholders. “The appropriate Government shall review or revise minimum rates of wages at an inter-val of five years,” says the chapter on minimum wages.

Under the Bill, the Central Gov-ernment will have the power to fix a national minimum wage, with a provision that there can be different national minimum wage rates for dif-ferent States or geographical areas. State Governments will not fix any rate lower than the national rate. If any State Government earlier fixed a rate higher than the national rate, it will not reduce its wage rate. The Central Government before fixing a national minimum wage rate will take the advice of a Central Advisory Board. There is provision for pay-ment of overtime work done.

Under its payment of wages pro-visions, the Code says “all wages shall be paid in current coin or currency notes or by cheque or through digi-tal or electronic mode or by credit-ing the wages in the bank account of

the employee.” Wage payments can be made daily, weekly, fortnightly or monthly and the Bill has fixed time-limits for the payments.

The provisions on payment of bonus say that the bonus has to be paid even to employees who have put in only one month of service. Section 26 says this payment will be “an annual minimum bonus calcu-lated at the rate of eight and one third per cent of the wages earned by the employee or one hundred rupees, whichever is higher, whether or not the employer has any allocable sur-plus during the previous account-ing year.” The bonus payment will increase proportionately if the allo-cable surplus in any accounting year is higher, subject to a maximum of 20 per cent of the wages, the Section says. The available surplus for any accounting year will be gross profits for the year, after permissible deduc-tions including direct tax on income, profits and gains for the year. The allocable surplus will be 60 per cent of the available surplus for banks and 67 per cent for other establishments.

As per Section 39, all amounts payable to an employee by way of bonus under this Code shall be paid

by crediting it in the bank account of the employees by his employer within eight months from the close of the accounting year. An employer can get extension of time, but this shall not exceed, “in any case,” two years.

Doing away with inspector-raj, the Code provides for Facilitators who will help employers and employ-ees in the proper execution of the law. The Facilitators can be appointed by the Central or State Governments and given powers throughout the States or such geographical areas assigned to them.

Section 51 of the Code says the Facilitator may within the limits of his jurisdiction, (a) supply informa-tion and advice to employers and workers concerning the most effec-tive means of complying with the provisions of this Code; (b) inspect the establishment based on an inspection scheme. The inspection scheme, given by the Government, will provide for generation of a web-based inspection schedule.

The Facilitators can examine workers, “search, seize and take cop-ies of such register, record of wages or notices or portions thereof as the

Facilitator may consider relevant in respect of an offence under this Code and which the Facilitator has reason to believe has been committed by the employer,” Section 51 says. The Facil-itators will be empowered under IPC and CrPC for their work.

Complaints about offences under the Code can be made by the Facili-tator, employees, registered Trade Unions, or the Government. The Code has spelt out elaborate penalties for the offences. If an employer pays to his employee less than the amount due to him under the Code, he shall be punishable with fine which can go up to Rs 50,000. A repeat offence within five years can mean imprison-ment extending up to three months, and fine up to Rs 1 lakh, or both.

Contravention of the Code or a rule made thereunder can mean a fine up to Rs 20,000, and a repeat offence within five years can mean imprisonment up to one month, or fine up to Rs 40,000, or both. A Facil-itator can give time and opportu-nity to employer to comply with the Code, and may not initiate prosecu-tion if there is compliance.

Clause 55 of the Bill provides for the composition of offences. Only the offences for which there is no pun-ishment with imprisonment shall be compounded. The compounding money shall be a sum of fifty per cent of the maximum fine. There is no compounding for a similar offence compounded earlier or for the com-mission of which conviction was made, committed for the second time or thereafter within a period of five years.

Under various other Sections, the interests of employees are protected by the Code. The burden of proof that the due payment has been made, and without any unjustified deduc-tions, will lie with the employer.

The Code on Wages, 2017 is the first of the four Codes proposed by the Government to give a further boost to ease of doing business. The three other Codes will cover Indus-trial Relations; Social Security & Welfare; and Safety and Working Conditions. While they will bring about a long-awaited clarity in labour legislation, and minimize its multi-plicity, their ultimate benefit will help working class know its rights and responsibilities, and look forward to larger employment opportunities. PIB

(Deepak Razdan is a senior journalist and currently Editorial Consultant, The Statesman, New

Delhi. Views are strictly personal.)

Trade and security were the focus of the recently concluded India-EU summit, but the two entities need to move beyond that

tweetRETWEET

I’m not a fan of fireworks but what happens to the sellers who’d have placed orders & stocked up for the festival season? Ban w/out warning.

OMAR ABDULLAH @OmarAbdullah

Attended the CISF PoP & Investiture ceremony at Arakkonam. Happy to see CISF playing an important role in today’s challenging environment.

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I am touched by the smile, innocence and dreams of my Kashmiri daughters and sons. They must be protected at any cost. #MakeIndiaSafe

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FYI: A Cow can jump over the Moon if she aims where the Moon will be in three days, then leaps at about 25,000 miles per hour

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON @neiltyson

Labourers carrying sacks of wheat at a grain market (Representational Image)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President of the European Council Donald Franciszek Tusk witness signing of an agreement between India and EU at Hyderabad House in New Delhi (Photo: PTI)

mp world10MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata |Tuesday, 10 October, 2017

NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD: Pakistan may immediately dis-continue talks with US officials visiting there this month if they insist it “do more against ter-ror”, reported a Pakistani news-paper, citing a “well placed source”. What’s more, Pakistan “won’t accept” any pressure to compromise on the China-Pakistan Economic Corri-dor (CPEC) either, the source said to The Express Tribune newspaper.

US secretary of state Rex Tillerson and acting assistant secretary of state Alice Wells are expected to visit Islamabad this month for talks on the US’s new Afghan policy, which has been met with extreme disfavour by Pakistan. Unveiling the new Afghan policy in August, US President Donald Trump sav-aged Pakistan for its terror safe havens and threatened to pun-ish it if it didn’t take decisive action against terror elements. “If the US foreign secretary demands for more action from Islamabad then there will be only one answer from the gov-ernment: ‘No more do more’,” the source told The Express Tri-bune newspaper.

The US is aware that Paki-

stan may discontinue talks, the Tribune said in its report, add-ing that Pakistan’s foreign min-ister recently conveyed to the US that its new Afghan policy is “not acceptable” to Pakistan.

“During the visit, Pakistan will judge as to whether the US is serious to expand its relations with Pakistan. If the US foreign secretary gave any assurance of adopting a strategy to remove Pakistan’s reservations on new Afghan policy, the federation will start next phase of talks with Trump authorities,” the source reportedly said.

Islamabad will make its stance clear to the US and will let it know that “Pakistan has already offered countless sac-rifices for elimination of ter-rorism”, the report said.

Another touchy subject, that of CPEC, might also fea-ture in these talks. The US has expressed its reservations about the project because it goes through disputed territory.

“Work on the CPEC project will continue come what may. Pakistan’s priority is not the US but China because Pakistan’s economic future is associated with the CPEC,” the source said to the Tribune. AGENCIES

‘Soon, Pak to discontinue talks with US if asked to do more to combat terror’

14 Rohingya migrants killed in Bangladesh boat capsize

DHAKA: At least 14 Rohingya migrants were killed after a boat carrying them capsized off the coast of Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district, police said on Monday.

“The bodies of 10 children, one man and one woman have been recovered,” Xinhua news agency quoted a senior police official as saying.

He said the accident took place late Sunday night.

Law enforcement officials recovered the bodies which were floating in the Bay of Ben-gal near Shah Porir Island of the district which is now home to nearly 1 million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, the official added.

Eleven migrants were res-cued and the official said the toll might increase as many were reported missing.

A search operation is underway.

The bodies of 132 Rohing-yas and a Bangladeshi boat man were recovered from the Naf River since August 29 in at least 25 boat accidents.

Over half a million Rohingya people have fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar’s Rakhine state amid a fresh wave of violence in the region since August 25. AGENCIES

New surge of Rohingyas flee citing violence, hunger

COX‘S BAZAR: Thousands of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar sought refuge in Bangladesh on Monday, in a new surge in an unrelenting flow of people driven by vio-lence the United Nations has denounced as ethnic cleansing and increasingly by hunger too.

Reuters reporters on the Bangladeshi side of the border, in Palong Khali district, saw several thousand people cross-ing from Myanmar’s Rakhine State, filing along embank-ments between flooded fields and scrubby forest.

“Half of my village was burned down. I saw them do it,” said Sayed Azin, 46, who said he had walked for eight days with his 80-year-old mother in a basket strung on a bamboo pole between him and his son.

Soldiers and Buddhist mobs had torched his village, he said.

“I left everything,” he said, sobbing. “I can’t find my rel-atives ... I can’t take this any more.”

Some new arrivals spoke

of bloody attacks by Bud-dhist mobs on people trekking towards the border.

About 519,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar since Aug. 25, when attacks by Rohingya militants on security posts in Rakhine State sparked a fero-cious military response.

Refugees and rights groups say the army and Buddhist vigilantes have engaged in a

campaign of killing and arson aimed at driving the Rohingya out of Myanmar.

Myanmar rejects accusa-tions of ethnic cleansing and has labelled the militants from the Arakan Rohingya Salva-tion Army who launched the initial attacks as terrorists who have killed civilians and burnt villages.

Among those fleeing were

up to 35 people on a boat that capsized off the Bangladesh coast on Sunday. At least 12 of them drowned while 13 were rescued, Bangladeshi police said.

“We faced so many diffi-culties, for food and survival,” survivor Sayed Hossein, 30, told Reuters, adding that his wife, three children, mother and father in law had drowned.

“We came here to save our lives.”

The Myanmar government has said its “clearance opera-tions” against the militants ended in early September and people had no reason to flee. But in recent days the govern-ment has reported large num-bers of Muslims preparing to leave, with more than 17,000 people in one area alone.

The government cited wor-ries about food and security as their reasons.

Some villagers in Rakhine State said food was running out because rice in the fields was not ready for harvest and the state government had closed village markets and restricted the transport of food, appar-ently to cut supplies to the militants.

“The situation’s getting worse, we have no food and no guarantee of security,” said a Rohingya resident of Hsin Hnin Pyar village on the south of the state’s Buthidaung district. AGENCIES

Sharif to be indicted on Oct 13; daughter, son-in-law get bail

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif failed to appear on Mon-day before an anti-graft court which set October 13 as the date of his indictment even as the daughter and son-in-law of the embattled premier were granted bail in the Panama Papers case.

Maryam Nawaz, 43, along with her spouse, former army captain Muhammad Safdar,

returned to Islamabad late last night from London to appear in the Accountability Court.

Safdar was arrested on his arrival as the the court had issued non-bailable arrest war-rant against the former Paki-stan Army Captain.

Both appeared separately in the accountability court of Judge Muhammad Bashir here.

Sharif and his two sons were absent during the hear-

ing as they are in London to attend his wife Kulsoom who is battling throat cancer.

Sharif had attended the pre-vious two hearings but flew to London last week to see his ailing wife, who underwent a third surgery.

The court accepted the bail applications of Maryam and Safdar and postponed the hear-ing till October 13, according to court officials.Sharif ’s lawyer

Khawaja Harris asked the court to adjourn hearing for 15 days with commitment that Sharif would also appear. The court rejected the plea announced that it will indict the accused during the next hearing.

The court also ordered to start the process of declaring Sharif ’s sons — Husain and Hasan — proclaimed offender as they have failed to appear before it so far. AGENCIES

5 Shia Hazara community members gunned down in PakKARACHI: Unidentified gunmen on Monday opened fire on a vehicle, killing at least five members of a minority Shia Hazara family, in Pakistan’s Balochistan province, the latest bout of sectarian violence in the restive region. The militants attacked the vehicle on Kasi road in Quetta, capital of the Balochistan province. It was a targeted killing incident against the Hazaras who are frequently attacked in the area by Taliban-linked militants, police said. “Five persons were killed and one was injured,” they said. The attack-ers were on motorbikes and fled after the incident, police said. AGENCIES

Brexit negotiations are not a ball game: EU tells May

BRUSSELS: The European Commission has hit back at Theresa May’s comments on Brexit negotiations, admon-ishing the Prime Minister and warning Britain it still has more work to do before a deal can be struck.

In a statement released to the media the night before the start of the fifth round of nego-tiations Ms May had argued that her Florence speech meant EU had to give ground and that “the ball’s in their court”.

But speaking to reporters in Brussels on Monday the EU seemed unimpressed by the Prime Minister’s approach and comments.

“This is not exactly a ball game,” Margaritis Schinas, the

Commission’s chief spokesper-son told reporters in Brussels.

“We do not provide com-ment on comments. What I can remind you of is that there is a clear sequencing to these talks.

“There has been, so far, no solution found on step one,

which is the divorce proceed-ings, so the ball is entirely in the UK’s court for the rest to happen.”

The spokesperson said this sentiment been clearly express “by most if not all politi-cal groups” in the European Parliament.

British officials confirmed on Monday that David Davis would not be travelling to Brus-sels today for the start of the talks, as he has done for the previous four rounds.

As a result the custom-ary joint press conference with Brtish and EU officials — sometimes used in the past to snipe at the other side —has also not been scheduled this time. AGENCIES

US, Turkey mutually suspend visa services in escalating rowISTANBUL: The United States and Turkey have scaled back visa issuing services in each other’s countries in a deepening diplomatic row sparked by the arrest of a Turkish staffer at the American mission in Istanbul.

The American embassy in Ankara said on Sunday that “recent events” forced the US government to reassess Tur-key’s “commitment” to the security of US mission services and personnel in the country.

In order to minimise the number of visitors while the assessment is carried out, “effective immediately we have suspended all non-immigrant visa services at all US diplo-matic facilities in Turkey,” it said. Non-immigrant visas are issued to all those travelling to the United States for tour-ism, medical treatment, busi-

ness, temporary work or study. Immigrant visa services are only for those seeking to live in the US permanently. Tur-key responded by suspending “all visa services” for Ameri-cans in the US, saying the mea-sures also apply to visas issued online and at the border. In an apparent attempt to mock the

US announcement, the Turk-ish embassy in Washington issued two statements that were almost word-for-word copies of that from the American embassy in Ankara.

The statements said con-cerns over US commitment to the security of Turkish diplo-matic facilities and personnel

necessitated the restrictions, but the fact that they only apply to Americans and also include visas issued at the bor-der and online indicate the move is punitive rather than security-based.

The first statement from the Turkish embassy said the restrictions apply to “visas in passports” while the second replaced that wording with “sticker visas”. It was unclear if that meant that visas already stamped in passports would not be accepted. Beyond its

mention of “recent events”, the American embassy state-ment made no explicit mention of the arrest by Turkish authorities of a local Turkish staffer working at the US consulate in Istanbul. The employee was remanded in custody by an Istanbul court late Wednesday on accusa-tions of links to the group of US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen, blamed by Ankara for last year’s failed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdo-gan. AGENCIES

Almost 150 go on trial over Turkey coup

bridge massacreSILIVRI: Almost 150 former Turkish military personnel went on trial today over clashes on an Istanbul bridge dur-ing last year’s failed coup that claimed dozens of lives, includ-ing a key aide of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The bridge across the Bosphorus strait in Istan-bul was the scene of bloody fighting between Erdogan’s supporters and ren-egade soldiers seeking to oust the elected government on the night of July 15, 2016.

It was later renamed by the government as July 15 Mar-tyrs’ Bridge.

The dead included Erdo-gan’s campaign manager Erol Olcok and his 16-year-old son Abdullah Tayyip, who were killed when soldiers opened fire on protesters on the bridge which connects Asia and Europe.

Erol Olcok had named his son after Erdogan and his pre-decessor as president, Abdul-lah Gul.

A total of 143 suspects, including 30 officers, appeared in court. All the suspects bar-ring eight are being held under arrest. AGENCIES

Germany: Merkel agrees to 200,000 refugees cap in bid to build coalition

BERLIN: Angela Merkel has agreed to cap the number of refugees Germany accepts at 200,000 annually in a conces-sion to her conservative Bavar-ian allies that has overcome the first hurdle to coalition talks with other parties.

The Christian Social Union (CSU), sister party to the Ger-man chancellor’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), has long pushed for a ceiling on the number of refugees but Merkel had resisted such a position.

In an apparent face-saving measure after 10 hours of talks in Berlin, both parties agreed to not refer to the policy as an “upper limit” or obergrenze, as the CSU had wished, but opted for a softer formulation, stat-ing that “the total number of

the intake based on humanitar-ian reasons … shall not exceed 200,000 a year”.

The parties also agreed the figure could be altered, in line with Merkel’s insistence that Germany must be able to react to international developments. In the case of a new refugee crisis, the government and the

Bundestag could revise the fig-ure upwards or reduce it.

The deal between the two conservative parties could allow Merkel to pursue a so-called Jamaica coalition between the CDU/CSU, the Greens and pro-business lib-erals in the FDP.

Merkel won a fourth term in office in elections last month, but the CDU and CSU secured just 33% between them and lost millions of voters to the far right Alternative für Deutsch-land (AfD).

The refugee cap deal is widely being interpreted as mainstream conservatives yielding to the demands of vot-ers it has lost to the AfD, largely over Merkel’s open door policy which saw Germany receive

almost 1 million refugees and migrants in 2015.

The Green party head, Sim-one Peters, criticised the deal. “The figure is completely arbi-trary, fixed purely ideologically. As far as we’re concerned the fundamental right to asylum applies.”

She said the agreement was “far from the result of explor-atory talks for a coalition with the FDP and Greens”.

Experts said they thought the 200,000 target was not an unrealistic one. The numbers arriving in Germany last year fell to about 280,000 and the figure is expected to drop fur-ther this year.

The CDU and CSU also agreed to work on creating an immigration law. AGENCIES

Kim Jong-un’s sister now one of the secretive state’s top policy makers

SEOUL: The promotion of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s 28-year-old sister to the country’s top decision-making body is a sign he is strengthen-ing his position by drawing his most important people closer to the centre of power, experts and officials say.

Kim Yo Jong was named as an alternate member of the politburo within the rul-ing Workers’ Party of Korea - the opaque, all-powerful party organ where top state affairs are decided, the North’s official media said on Sunday.

It makes her only the sec-ond woman in patriarchal North Korea to join the exclu-sive club after Kim Kyong Hui, who held powerful roles when her brother Kim Jong Il ruled the country.

“Since she is a female, Kim Jong Un likely does not see her as a threat and a chal-lenge to his leadership,” said Moon Hong-sik, research fel-low at the Institute for National Security Strategy. “As the say-ing goes ‘blood is thicker than water,’ Kim Jong Un thinks Kim Yo Jong can be trusted.”

Unlike her aunt, who was promoted to the politburo in

2012 after serving more than three decades in the party, Kim Yo Jong has risen to power at an unprecedented pace.

Kim Kyong Hui has not been seen since her hus-band, Jang Song Thaek, once regarded as the No.2 leader in Pyongyang, was executed in 2013. South Korea’s spy agency believes she is now in a secluded place near Pyongyang undergoing a treatment for an unidentified disease, according to an August briefing to parlia-ment. Jang and his wife are not the only relatives to fall from Kim Jong Un’s favour.

Kim Jong Un’s estranged half-brother, Kim Jong Nam, was killed with a toxic nerve agent at a Malaysian airport in February. AGENCIES

Fight to drive IS from Syria bastion Raqa

nears endKOBANE: US-backed fight-ers say they are nearing the “final week” of their assault to drive the Islamic State group from their one-time Syrian bas-tion Raqa, as the jihadists’ self-described caliphate crumbles.

Losing Raqa would be only the latest in a series of crush-ing defeats for the extremist group, which once controlled large swathes of territory span-ning the border between Syria and Iraq.

Captured by IS in 2014, the northern city was the de facto Syrian capital of the jihadists’ self-styled “caliphate” until the US-backed assault by the Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters. The militia has cap-tured around 90 per cent of Raqa since entering the city in June, after months of fighting to encircle it.

They are now advancing on IS-held districts from two fronts in the city’s north and east, said commander Rojda Felat, who heads the “Wrath of the Euphrates” campaign.

“If the two fronts meet, we can say we have entered the final week of our campaign to liberate Raqa,” Felat said. AGENCIES

RED CROSS TO REDUCE AFGHANISTAN PRESENCE AFTER DEADLY ATTACKSKABUL: The International Committee of the Red Cross will “drastically” reduce operations in war-torn Afghanistan after seven of its employees were killed in attacks this year, the aid organisation said on Monday. The decision by the charity, which has been working in Afghanistan for over three decades, underlines the growing dangers for aid workers, who have increasingly become casualties of a surge in militant violence in recent years. “We have no choice but to drastically reduce our presence and activities in Afghanistan,” Monica Zanarelli, the ICRC head in Afghanistan, told reporters. “Exposure to risk has become our greater challenge in Afghanistan, and we know that zero risk doesn’t exist and we are not aiming at that, but our security has to be guaranteed by every party,” she said. The humanitarian group will close its facilities in the northern city of Maimana, the capital of Faryab province, and in Kunduz province, also in the north and a hotbed of Taliban activity. Operations in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif will be scaled back. The group has suffered a series of deadly attacks in northern Afghanistan. AGENCIES

Thousands of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar sought refuge in Bangladesh, in a new surge in an unrelenting flow of people driven by violence and increasingly by hunger too

Pakistan is no longer dependent on the United States to meet its military and other requirements, Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has said

Kim Yo Jong

Turkey urged the United States to review its suspension of visa services after the arrest of a US consulate employee sharply escalated tensions between the two NATO allies

mp world 11MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata |Tuesday, 10 October, 2017

RUSSIAN MEDDLING Catalan leader under pressure to drop independence

BARCELONA: Catalonia’s secessionist leader came under intense pressure on Monday to abandon plans to declare independence from Spain after hundreds of thousands of unionists took to the streets at the weekend to protest against the region breaking away.

Spain fears the Catalan parliament will vote for inde-pendence on Tuesday, when Catalan leader Carles Puig-demont is due to address the assembly in the wake of a banned Oct. 1 referendum in which Catalan officials say peo-ple voted overwhelmingly for secession.

Under Catalonia’s refer-endum law, deemed uncon-stitutional by Madrid, a vote for independence on Tues-day would start a six-month process that would envisage divorce talks with Spain before regional elections and a final act of separation.

But the Spanish govern-ment, buoyed by Sunday’s pro-tests in Barcelona, the Catalan capital, made it clear on Mon-day it would respond immedi-ately to any such vote.

“I‘m calling on the sensible people in the Catalan govern-ment...don’t jump off the edge because you’ll take the peo-ple with you,” Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaría said in an inter-

view with COPE radio station.“If there is a unilateral

declaration of independence there will be decisions made to restore law and democracy.”

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has not ruled out removing Catalonia’s gov-ernment and calling new regional elections if it claims independence. The stakes are high for Spain as it faces its biggest political crisis since

it became a democracy four decades ago.

Losing Catalonia, which has its own language and cul-ture, would deprive Spain of a fifth of its economic output and more than a quarter of exports.

A stream of Catalonia-based firms and banks have moved their legal bases out-side the region.

The crisis has also reopened old divisions in a nation where

fascism is a living memory eas-ily revived by strong displays of nationalism.

Among many moder-ate Spaniards, though, there is widespread opposition to a breakaway, including in Cat-alonia. Most of the region’s unionists boycotted the Oct. 1

referendum, which was banned by Madrid and marred by a vio-lent police crackdown.

The European Union has also shown no inter-est in an independent Catalonia, despite an appeal by Puigdemont for Brussels to mediate in the crisis. AGENCIES

Russia tried to influence US election using adverts: Report

NEW YORK: While keeping mum on H1-B visas, US Presi-dent Donald Trump has asked Congress to introduce a merit-based immigration system that could benefit Indians but would also deny green cards to some relatives of immigrants.

Trump’s 70-point enforce-ment plan calling for stiff immigration reforms unveiled by the White house on Sunday night would continue to allow the spouses and children of immigrants to get green cards or permanent resident status but not their brothers, sisters and parents.

The goal of the merit-based system that awards green cards based on factors like education,

employability and English lan-guage proficiency is “to pro-mote assimilation and financial success”, the White House said.

A merit-based system is likely to benefit India if the national quotas limiting green cards to about 20,000 per coun-try per year are also done away

with and they are awarded purely on merit. Because of the large number of highly qualified Indians, most of the professionals from the coun-try face an 11-year wait to get green cards and a merit-based system could cut down the delay. Professionals from all countries except India and three others do not have to wait for their green cards. Trump’s wide-ranging reform package proposes the stiffest immigra-tion reforms ever offered by an administration and seeks to make good on his election promise of getting tough on immigration.

But it faces strong oppo-sition in the Congress from

Democrats and some Republi-cans making it unlikely to pass in the near future. The request to Congress for legislation formalises the immigration reform plan he announced in August. The proposals sent on Sunday deal only with perma-nent immigration and with ille-gal immigration, and not with the temporary H1-B visas given to professionals and advanced degree-holders from US uni-versities. India has expressed concern over the future of H1-B visas because Trump had said during his election campaign that he would limit them because he asserted they affected the employment pros-pects of Americans.

When External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj met US Secretary of State Rex Til-lerson last month, she raised the H1-B visas. So far the H1-B system has been functioning without any changes and the immigration service is process-ing applications at the same lev-els as before. One of the items in the proposal that concerns Indians is the future of those brought in illegally by their parents as children and have grown up here. It is estimated that there about 7,500 Indi-ans in this category referred to as “Dreamers”. Former Pres-ident Barack Obama issued a presidential order allowing the “Dreamers” to remain in

the US and to work. Trump is rescinding the order and ask-ing Congress to pass a law not to allow them to stay on.

Yet another issue that concerns India is that of ille-gal immigrants and criminals whom the US wants to deport, but New Delhi has refused to accept some of them because of what it says are inadequate proof of their identity and Indian citizenship. Three other major requests from Trump include funding the building of a wall along the Mexican bor-der to keep out illegal immi-grants, tightening standards for admitting asylum-seekers, and enabling the “prompt” deporta-tion. AGENCIES

Quick action prevented a

thousand deaths in Las Vegas

NEW YORK: A handful of quick-thinking Las Vegas police officers may have pre-vented a thousand deaths after they stormed a hotel and killed the lone shooter, the Sheriff of America’s gambling hub, who had visited Mumbai to study the 2008 terror attack, has said.

Stephen Paddock, 64-year-old wealthy former accountant and high-stakes gambler has been identified by police as the man behind the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history when he opened fire from the Mandalay By Hotel and Casino on October 1, killing 58 people and wounding nearly 500 oth-ers, before turning the gun on himself as police closed in.

Recalling the dread-ful night, Joseph Lombardo, Sheriff of the Las Vegas Met-ropolitan Police Department said Paddock was firing into a crowd of 22,000 concert-goers using powerful guns.

Lombardo said a small team of Las Vegas police offi-cers — two K-9 officers, a detective and a SWAT team member — converged on the Mandalay Bay Hotel and min-utes later, they breached the gunman’s hotel room door on the 32nd floor. It was special-ised training that allowed them to act so quickly, Lombardo told CBS’ 60 Minutes. Lom-bardo had traveled to Mumbai after the November 2008 ter-rorist attacks on hotels. AGENCIES

Catalonia independence declaration would not be recognised: FranceMADRID: France has said it will not recognise Catalonia if the regional government presses ahead with a unilateral declaration of indepen-dence from Spain, and urged both sides to negoti-ate their way out of the crisis triggered by last week’s referendum. “If there were to be a declara-tion of independence, it would be unilateral, and it would not be recognised,” France’s European affairs minister, Nathalie Loiseau, said.“Catalonia cannot be defined by the vote organised by the independence movement just over a week ago,” she told CNews television. “This crisis needs to be resolved through dialogue at all levels of Spanish politics.” Loiseau also repeated the Euro-pean commission’s warning that an independent Catalonia would find itself outside the European Union and obliged to reapply for membership.“If independence were to be recognised - which is not something that’s being discussed — the most immediate consequence would be that [Catalonia] automatically left the European Union. AGENCIES

Trump’s new immigration proposal favours young, high-skilled Indians

SAN FRANCISCO: Google for the first time has uncov-ered evidence that Russian operatives exploited the com-pany’s platforms in an attempt to interfere in the 2016 elec-tion, according to people familiar with the company’s investigation.

The Silicon Valley giant has found that tens of thou-sands of dollars were spent on ads by Russian agents who aimed to spread disinformation across Google’s many products, which include YouTube, as well as advertising associated with Google search, Gmail, and the company’s DoubleClick ad net-work, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss matters that have not been made public. Google runs the world’s largest online adver-tising business, and YouTube is the world’s largest online video site.

The discovery by Google is also significant because the ads do not appear to be from the same Kremlin-affiliated troll farm that bought ads on Face-book — a sign that the Russian effort to spread disinformation online may be a much broader problem than Silicon Valley companies have unearthed so far. Google previously down-played the problem of Russian meddling on its platforms. Last month, Google spokeswoman Andrea Faville told The Wash-ington Post that the company is “always monitoring for abuse or violations of our policies and

we’ve seen no evidence this type of ad campaign was run on our platforms.”

Nevertheless, Google launched an investigation into the matter, as Congress pressed technology compa-nies to determine how Russian operatives used social media, online advertising, and other digital tools to influence the 2016 presidential contest and foment discord in U.S. society.

Google declined to provide a comment for this story. The people familiar with its investi-gation said that the company is looking at a set of ads that cost less than $100,000 and that it is still sorting out whether all of the ads came from trolls or whether some originated from legitimate Russian accounts.

To date, Google has mostly avoided the scrutiny that has fallen on its rival Facebook. The social network recently shared about 3,000 Russian-bought ads with Congressional inves-tigators that were purchased by operatives associated with the Internet Research Agency, a Russian-government affili-ated troll farm, the company has said.

Some of the ads, which cost a total of about $100,000, touted Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and the Green party candidate Jill Stein during the campaign, people famil-iar with those ads said. Other ads appear to have been aimed at fostering division in United States. AGENCIES

‘Negative consequences’ if Trump quits Iran

deal: KremlinMOSCOW: Moscow warned on Sunday there would be “negative consequences” if US President Donald Trump fails to uphold the landmark Iran nuclear deal negotiated by his predecessor.

Trump is a fierce critic of the 2015 accord, which he has called “the worst deal ever”, and US officials say he intends to tell Congress next week that Tehran is not honouring its side of the bargain.

“Obviously if one country leaves the deal, especially such a key country as the US, then that will have negative conse-quences,” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said.

“We can only try to pre-dict the nature of these con-sequences, which we are doing now,” Dmitry Peskov told journalists.

Putin has repeatedly hailed the importance of the existing deal, he added.

Trump is expected to announce that he is “decer-tifying” Iran’s compliance with the agreement it signed to limit its nuclear pro-gramme in exchange for sanctions relief.

US officials insist this will not sink the deal itself but open the way for Congress to possi-bly develop new measures to punish other aspects of Iran’s behaviour.

Resumed sanctions could derail the accord negotiated with Tehran by former presi-dent Barack Obama and other major world powers.

Congress requires the pres-ident to certify Iranian com-pliance with the deal every 90 days. The next certification date is October 15.

Under the law, Con-gress would then have 60 days to decide whether to reimpose sanctions lifted by the deal. AGENCIES

‘Marseille attacker probably radicalised by brother’

ROME: The brother of the man who killed two women with a knife outside Marseille train station last week was probably a foreign fighter in Syria and Iraq, Italian investi-gators said on Monday.

Italian police arrested 25-year-old Tunisian Anis Hannachi in Northern Italy on Saturday evening. He had been in Italy since Oct. 4 or earlier, police said.

His older brother, the 29-year-old Ahmed, was shot dead by a French soldier after killing the two women on Oct. 1.

Ahmed lived south of Rome with his Italian wife from 2008 to 2014, and was known to police only for “petty crimes”, Italy’s chief anti-ter-rorism prosecutor Franco Roberti told reporters.

“Ahmed never showed any signs of radicalization in Italy,” Roberti said. “The investiga-tive hypothesis we’re working on is that the younger brother

radicalized the older one.”The militant Islamic State

group claimed responsibility for the Marseille attack, but did not name Ahmed as the assailant.

Anis has refused to talk to Italian investigators, Roberti said. He was arrested on an international arrest warrant issued by the French, who are investigating the Marseille attack as a “probable” terror-ist action.

It is likely that Anis will be extradited to France in a mat-ter of days, Roberti added.

“Anis was flagged as a dan-

gerous individual who proba-bly had been a foreign fighter” in Iraq and Syria, Claudio Gal-zerano, director of an Italian anti-terrorism police squad, told reporters.

Anis was arrested on suspi-cion of complicity in his broth-er’s attack and membership of a terrorist group.

He had been fingerprinted and photographed by police in 2014, when he reached Italy by boat and was immediately sent back home.

However, that previous identification meant police were sure they had arrested the right man when they tracked him down on Saturday eve-ning riding a bicycle in the center of Ferrara, in North-ern Italy.

He had no identification on him, gave police a false name, and told them he was Algerian, Galzerano said.

Police are now investigat-ing Anis’s possible contacts in Italy. AGENCIES

UN aviation regulator removes

Thailand from red-flag nations

BANGKOK: The United Nations’ aviation reg-ulator has removed Thailand from its list of countries red-flagged for safety concerns, more than two years after it was first put on the list.In June 2014, the UN’s International Civil Avia-tion Organization issued a red flag to Thailand and added it to a list of 12 other nations found deficient in managing their airlines.

An ICAO spokesman said at the time that its main concern was Thailand’s ability to conduct air opera-tor certifications. AGENCIES

17 CRIMINALS ARRESTED IN ITALY, GERMANYROME: Police in Italy and Germany on Monday held 17 suspected members of a criminal gang that alleg-edly carried out armed robberies of armoured vehicles transporting cash to and from banks. Two other suspects were required to report regularly to police. The Italian arrests were made in provinces of Salerno and Naples in southern Italy’s Campania region, in the province of Fog-gia in Italy’s southern Puglia region and in the province of Verona in the northeast Veneto region, police said. In Germany, suspects were arrested in the southwest state of Rhineland-Palatinate, according to police. AGENCIES

At least 10 killed in Nigeria shooting

PORT HARCOURT: Gun-men stormed a market in the Nigerian city of Port Harcourt on Monday, with claims that at least 10 people were killed, in the latest violence to hit the southern oil hub.

The incident happened at about 4:00 AM (0830 IST) at a meat market in the Mgbosimiri area of the city. Most of the vic-tims were market women, said one trader, Agnes Tarila.

Local resident Arutere Utuama said: “As soon as I heard of the incident I ran to the market where I counted at least 10 bodies, including a husband and wife.

“Many others sustained various degrees of injuries.”

Police in Rivers state, of

which Port Harcourt is the cap-ital, confirmed the shooting but declined to comment on the number of dead and injured.

“The motive for the kill-ings is not clear yet as some of those killed may not have been the target of the gunmen,” said force spokesman Nnamdi Omoni.

Rivers state and Port Har-court have been hit by high lev-els of violent crime, including clashes between rival armed gangs and kidnapping for ransom.

The state has also long been a hotbed for politically linked violence, with Rivers a key prize to control because of its links to the lucrative oil indus-try. AGENCIES

mp business12MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Tuesday, 10 October, 2017

NEW DELHI: Passenger vehi-cle sales in India grew by 11.32 per cent in September, riding on good growth in utility vehi-cles segment and festive season purchases.

According to data released by the Society of Indian Auto-mobile Manufacturers (SIAM) on Monday, domestic passenger vehicle sales were at 3,09,955 units in September, as against 2,78,428 in the same month last year.

"Automobile industry at the moment is looking at improve-ment in all segments from last year," SIAM President Abhay Firodia told reporters here.

Overall vehicle sales across categories registered 10 per cent growth to 24,90,034 units, from 22,63,620 in September 2016.

Although the auto industry has faced difficulties in the wake of demonetisation, transition from BS-III to BS-IV norms and uncertainty of GST imple-mentation, it has recovered from those tough times, Firodia said.

"Now it is on the mending

path. We hope that this momen-tum will be maintained," he said.

Car sales last month went up by 6.86 per cent to 2,08,656 units as against 1,95,259 units in September last year, while utility vehicle sales were up 26.21 per cent to 84,374 units as against

66,851 units. The increase in PV sales in September was driven by festive season purchases, with SUV models like Maruti Suzuki's Brezza, Hyundai Creta, Mahindra Scorpio, Ford Eco-sport and Honda W-RV wit-nessing good traction, said

SIAM officials. Market leader Maruti Suzuki India's PV sales were up 9.65 per cent at 1,50,521 units last moth, while that of rival Hyundai Motors India was at 50,028 units, up 17.42 per cent.

Mahindra & Mahindra saw its PV sales grow by 23.32 per cent to 25,327 units while home-grown competitor Tata Motors clocked 19,334 units, up 18.24 per cent from September 2016.

As per SIAM data, two-wheeler sales in September grew 9.05 per cent to 20,41,024 units compared to 18,71,621 in the year-ago month.

Motorcycle sales last month were up 6.98 per cent to 12,69,612 units compared to 11,86,759 units in Septem-ber 2016. Market leader Hero MotoCorp posted bike sales of 6,14,949 units last month, up 7.77 per cent from the same month last year. Baja Auto's motorcycle sales during the month were at 2,47,418 units, up 7.34 per cent from Septem-ber last year. Honda Motorcy-

cle and Scooter India (HMSI) saw its motorcycle sales drop marginally to 1,83,366 units from 1,83,785 units in Septem-ber 2016.

"Pick up in motorcycle sales is an indication of rebound in the rural market on the back of good monsoon," SIAM Deputy Director General Sugato Sen said. In the scooters segment, total sales in September this year were at 6,86,478 units as against 6,06,457 units a yeara go, up 13.19 per cent.

Market leader HSMI posted a growth of 8.65 per cent in scooter sales last month at 3,86,456 units. Chennai-based TVS Motor Co clocked 1,18,174 units, a jump of 50.47 per cent from the year-ago month.

Hero MotoCorp's scooter sales were at 88,524 units, up 5.4 per cent. Sales of commercial vehicles rose by 25.27 per cent to 77,195 units in September, SIAM said. This was the high-est growth rate achieved since November 2011 when CV sales had grown by 34.17 per cent. PTI

NEW DELHI: Sale of Chinese goods like lights, gift items, lamps and wall hangings may decline by 40-45 per cent this Diwali as compared to last year as Indians are likely to prefer domestic products like earthen diyas (lamps), according to a report.

Chinese products had recorded a 30 per cent decline in sales last year on Diwali, the festival of lights which coincides with the Hindu New Year.

A survey by Assocham-Social Development Foundation mapped responses of wholesal-ers, retailers, traders in cities of Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Bho-pal, Chennai, Dehradun, Delhi,

Hyderabad, Jaipur, Lucknow and Mumbai to estimate the demand for Chinese products across India. "There seems to be a decline of about 40-45 per cent in consumption of Chi-

nese products on this Diwali in comparison to last year. Chinese items that are most sought fancy lights, lampshades, Ganesha and Laxmi idols, rangolis and crack-ers etc. As per the findings, this

Diwali, people are preferring Indian products over Chinese goods," Assocham said.

According to the survey, the demand of electronic items like LCDs, mobile phones and other items made in China has also declined by 15-20 per cent.

Shopkeepers who took part in the survey said most of the customers are demanding Indian lights or earthen diyas.

According to an estimate, the value of Chinese goods sold in 2016 during Diwali was around Rs 6,500 crore, out of which Rs 4,000 crore was for products such as toys, fancy lights, gift items, plastic ware, decorative goods etc. PTI

NEW DELHI: Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL) has sold its oxygen plant assets of Rai-garh and Angul units to SREI Equipment Finance for Rs 1,121 crore.

"JSPL has consummated sale of oxygen plant assets at Rs 1,121 crore with SREI Equip-ment Finance Ltd," the com-pany said in a BSE filing on Monday.

Under the transaction, JSPL has divested its oxygen plant assets at its integrated steel plants in Raigarh in Chhat-tisgarh and Angul in Odisha and received a total consider-ation of Rs 1,121 crore, it said. It further said the company has entered into a leaseback agree-ment with SREI Equipment Finance for continued opera-tions of manufacturing steel at respective plants.

Under the agreement, "the owner (of oxygen plant assets) will be SREI Equipment Finance Ltd, but we will be tak-

ing care of the operations and we will pay them the lease", a company official said.

However, he did not dis-close the amount at which the oxygen plant assets have been leased out.

"The divestment of oxy-gen plant assets is a significant development to make JSPL an asset-light company so as to further enhance the inherent cost efficiencies," said Naushad N Ansari, CEO - Steel Busi-ness, JSPL.

JSPL will continue to man-age these oxygen plant capaci-ties for its 9.6-mtpa domestic steel plants under the lease-back agreement it has entered with SREI Equipment Finance, he added.

Naveen Jindal-owned JSPL is into steel, power gen-eration and infrastructure segments and caters to a large part of India's domes-tic energy and infrastructure requirements. PTI

NEW DELHI: Following a strong showing in the first half of this year, global merger and acquisition activity suffered in the third quarter with deals worth just $674 billion, says a report.

According to global deal tracking firm Mergermarket, the third quarter of 2017 has seen just $674 billion, the low-est quarterly value since the first quarter of 2016 when 4,349 deals worth $623.4 billion took place.

Following the poor show-ing in the third quarter, the deal tally for the first nine months of this year stood at $2.2 tril-lion, down 1.7 per cent over the corresponding period last year when transactions worth $2.25 trillion were announced.

"As firms attempt to adapt to ever-changing political and technological circumstances, global M&A has stuttered over the summer following a strong

showing in the first half of the year," Mergermarket said the report.

The largest deal of the quarter (July-September) saw the tie-up of aerospace firms United Technologies and Rock-well Collins for $29.9 billion.

This became the second largest deal in the US in 2017, only behind the mammoth $60.6 billion BAT/Reynolds announcement in January, and forms the largest US domestic deal so far this year, the report said.

The report further noted that the US M&A accounted for 40.9 per cent of global M&A in the July-September quarter by value.

Meanwhile, Europe has faltered in the July-September period with its lowest quar-terly value since the October- December quarter of 2012 at $158 billion.

"This left Europe with a 29.8 per cent share of the global M&A value the lowest quar-terly share of 2017 so far...," the report added. PTI

NEW DELHI: Auto industry body SIAM President Abhay Firodia on Monday said hybrid technology is not a must for moving towards electric mobility and supported gov-ernment's current incentives for the hybrids.

At present, hybrids attract GST of 28 per cent plus 15 per cent cess. Companies like Toy-ota, Honda and Maruti Suzuki have demanded better incen-tives for hybrids saying it was necessary for transition to full electric vehicles.

"What we are saying is that the government has consid-ered an incentive at a reduced level for hybrids. There is higher incentive for electric vehicles. It indicates govern-ment's approach where they see hybrids at best as a passing phase," Firodia said.

With battery cost com-ing down in the future, elec-tric mobility will automatically replace fossil fuels, he added.

"Hybrid technology is not a necessary step for electric mobility," Firodia noted.

SIAM as an organisation has different kind of members who make commercial vehicles and two-wheelers as well, so it cannot "back only one view".

He added that the govern-ment has been consistent with its policies for the auto sector.

"There could be issues related to rates of taxes. It is something which has to be resolved by having dialogue with the government and it is going on. I do not think there is policy flip flop on part of the government," Firodia said.

SIAM is in dialogue with the government to moderate

certain rates on some catego-ries of vehicles which are in need of correction, he added.

There are issues related to mini buses, ambulances which require correction, Firodia said.

On electric mobility he said there is a need to bring all the stakeholders together includ-ing government, industry and academia.

"No matter who says what, electric mobility is not coming tomorrow, it will take years..it will take years doesn't mean we have so many years. We need to start at the earliest and for that reason a dialogue has been established," Firodia said.

SIAM will be presenting a white paper to the government listing its views which will be the basis for the dialogue, he added. PTI

Festive season buys drive up passenger vehicle sales by 11%Hybrids are not must to move towards electric mobility: SIAM

Source: SIAM

Auto Salesin India

Sep 2016: 22,63,620

Sep 2017: 24,90,034

Total number of vehicles sold

10.00%

PassengerCars

TwoWheelers

ThreeWheelers

TotalPassengerVehicles

TotalCommercial

Vehicles

KBK Infographics

11.32% 25.27%6.86% 9.05% 19.08%

2,0

8,6

56

20,4

1,0

24

61,8

60

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9,9

55

77,1

95

1,9

5,2

59

18,7

1,6

21

51,9

50

2,7

8,4

28

61,6

21

NEW DELHI: Prime Minis-ter Narendra Modi on Mon-day brainstormed with CEOs of top global and Indian com-panies, including BP of the UK, Russia's Rosneft, Saudi Aramco and Reliance Indus-tries, on ways to revive invest-ment in oil and gas exploration and production.

Modi met BP Plc Chief Executive Bob Dudley, Ros-neft CEO Igor Sechin, Royal Dutch Shell's Project and Tech-nology Director Harry Brekel-mens, Saudi Aramco CEO Amin H Naseer, Exxon Mobil President for Gas and Power Rob Franklin, RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani and Vedanta Resources head Anil Agarwal for over two hours to discuss the global oil and gas scenario.

The main theme of the meeting, sources said, was to seek investment in exploration and production, processing, transportation and distribu-tion network in oil and gas.

The Niti Aayog made a short presentation on the status, the likely scenario of demand and supply by 2030 and current government policies.

This is the second meet-ing Prime Minister had with CEOs of oil majors. His first meeting was in January 2016 where suggestions for reform-ing natural gas prices were made. More than a year later, the government allowed higher

natural gas price for yet-to-be-produced fields in difficult areas like deep sea.

The government is looking at private investment to raise domestic oil and gas produc-tion, which has stagnated for the last few years while fuel demand has been rising by 5-6 per cent annually.

India is dependent on imports to meet its 80 per cent of the demand and more than half of its natural gas require-ments. The prime minister in 2015 had set a target of reduc-ing India's oil dependence by 10 per cent to 67 per cent

(based on import dependence of 77 per cent in 2014-15) by 2022. Import dependence has only increased since then and the government is now look-ing for ways to raise domes-tic output.

OPEC Secretary General Mohammed Barkindo and Oil Minister Dharmendra Prad-han also attended the meeting. Former oil secretaries Vivek Rae and Vijay Kelkar were also invited for the meeting.

Pradhan told the gather-ing that the liberalised India offers around $300 billion investment opportunity in the

next 10 years in the oil and gas sector.

"We want investors, both domestic and global, who can bring in the best technology and capital," he said.

The government is devising policies to increase share of gas in the energy basket to 15 per cent from 7 per cent.

"We are planning a gas trading exchange and making sure there is open access to the gas grid. Global experience in this area would be useful," he stated. According to Pradhan, in the last 40 months, the gov-ernment has taken several

policy initiatives in the energy sector in line with the prime minister's vision of energy access, efficiency, sustainabil-ity and security.

Also present at the meet-ing were ONGC Chairman and Managing Director Shashi Shanker, Indian Oil Corpo-ration (IOC) Chairman San-jiv Singh, GAIL India head B C Tripathi, Hindustan Petro-leum Corp Ltd (HPCL) Chair-man Mukesh Kumar Suran, Oil India Chairman Utpal Bora and Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) Chairman D Raj-kumar. PTI

PM meets global oil captains, invites capital

NEW DELHI: Oil minis-ter Dharmendra Pradhan on Monday said revival of 25 GW stranded gas-based capacity can push consumption of the fuel and transform the nation into a gas-based economy.

"We taking country towards a gas-based economy. Power industry is one of the impor-tant industry. If we revive 25,000 MW stranded gas-based capac-ity and bring them under com-petitive price mechanism then our gas consumption will defi-nitely increase," Pradhan told reporters on the sidelines of the India Energy Forum by CER-AWeek here.

The minister said, "In world, the gas constitutes 24 per of energy basket. In Gujarat it is 26 per cent. We want to repli-cate this success story (in other states). Power industry is pri-mary growth and driving point (for gas-based economy)."

The government had brought in a Rs 7,500-crore Power System Development Fund scheme for revival of dis-tressed gas- based capacities of over 24 GW for two years till March 31, 2017. The scheme was not continued further.

The minister also lauded the efforts of the Goods and Ser-vices Tax Council which gave some tax relief to oil exploration and production sector.

"Constant reforms in mar-kets is the only strategy. We have done a lot of reforms in the country which attracted many big energy players in the country after three years of con-tinuous efforts."

About Saudi Aramaco, which opened its India office, the minister said that there is joint venture of three companies with Saudi Aramaco and they will work more closely in future.

Pradhan also said that Saudi Aramco has "categorically spec-ified" that their investment would increase in India.

"They has assured the (oil) procurement will increase due to oil manufacturing industry which would create more jobs and improve standards."

Talking about Prime Min-ister Narendra Modi's delib-eration with energy sector stakeholders, he said, "The prime minister started a prac-tice since last year. Domestic as well as firms from outside countries which have stake in

India are called for discussion to apprise them about our coun-try and listen to their view on energy business in India."

"The prime minister has taken our relationship from a buyer seller to strategic ties. He has said that beside verti-cal growth, India is also doing horizontal growth. More capac-ity and technology is welcomed. But energy should reach com-moners home."

Earlier addressing the con-ference, the oil minister said that India will remain one of the fastest growing energy mar-kets in the world in the coming two decades.

"Both on account of increas-ing access and better life styles, there will be growth in per cap-ita energy consumption.

We will be an influential buyer in the global energy market." The minister said the India wants to know about what is happening to the OPEC cut agreements, trends in produc-tion from big non-OPEC pro-ducers such as Russia, shale gas output in the US etc as these situations would have impact on oil prices and subsequently on fiscal deficit and economy. PTI

Gas-based power plants’ revival to energise consumption: Pradhan

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Petroleum & Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan with the world’s leading oil and gas company CEOs and experts in New Delhi on Monday PIC/ PTI

Chinese goods’ sale may burn 45% this Diwali

July-Sept global M&As crash to 7-quarter low of $674 bn

NEW DELHI: The govern-ment on Monday asked busi-nesses to file final GST returns for the month of July by Tues-day as it ruled out any exten-sion to the due date.

"An extension of two months has already been given. There will be no further exten-sion given to taxpayers for fil-ing their GSTR-1 return for July.

"Taxpayers who have not yet filed their GSTR-1 for July are advised to do so immedi-ately," the finance ministry said in a statement.

Once a taxpayer files GSTR-1 by October 10, the cor-responding entries in GSTR-2A of his buyer shall get auto populated.

The buyer shall finalise his GSTR-2 after making modifi-cations, if required, in GSTR-2A and avail the Input Tax Credit (ITC).

"If a taxpayer does not file GSTR-1 by October 10, then his buyer may face difficulty in availing ITC of the tax paid on his supplies," it said.

The ministry said all suppli-ers of goods or services, espe-

cially B2B suppliers, furnish their outward supply details in GSTR-1 by the due date so that no difficulty is faced by their buyers in availing ITC.

As per the latest figure, about 53 lakh taxpayer had filed GSTR-3B return for the month of July 2017. An equal number of taxpayers needs to file GSTR-1 by October 10, 2017.

The government has already collected over Rs 95,000 crore as GST in July, the first month of roll out of the Goods and Services Tax. PTI

No extension: Final July GST returns must be filed by today

JSPL sells oxygen plant assets to SREI arm for ̀ 1,121 crore

NEW DELHI: Government headhunter PESB has invited applications for the post of chairman of the country’s largest steelmaker SAIL.

“The Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) is seeking qualified candi-dates for the post of chair-man, Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL),” the government headhunter said.

The incumbent, P K Singh, is retiring in June next year, a company official said.

“It is requested that names of all candidates seniority- wise for the said post along with their appli-cations... may kindly be for-warded so as to reach the PESB by... December 7,” it said.

Singh had taken charge as SAIL Chairman on Decem-ber 10, 2015. Prior to this assignment, Singh was the Chief Executive Officer of SAIL’s Durgapur Steel Plant.

An alumnus of IIT Roor-kee in metallurgical engi-neering, Singh started his career at Bokaro Steel Plant in 1980.

During his stint at Steel Authority of India, he brought about significant improvements within a short span at various plants. He rose to the position of CEO, Durgapur Steel Plant, in May 2012.

Steel Authority of India had till December 2016 spent a total of Rs 64,562 crore on modernisation and expansion programmes, the government had said in an earlier report. PTI

PESB invites applications

for SAIL chief’s post

NEW DELHI: Reliance Indus-tries and SBI promoted pay-ments bank is in the process of finishing regulatory require-ments and have not fixed any timeline for starting operations, an official said on Monday.

"We have not really yet final-ised (the launch date). It is not question of time, there are reg-ulatory requirements, we will have to complete that. When that is over, we will start," a bank official said on the con-dition of anonymity.

The proposed payments bank is a joint venture between petroleum-to-telecom con-glomerate RIL and coun-try's largest lender State Bank of India. The official further said the RBI is in the process of looking after the regulatory requirements and any timeline for launch of services cannot be fixed.

"There is a regulatory pro-cess. So, we have to complete

that process. Permits of certain things are required and then the RBI will give approval," the offi-cial added.

Reliance Industries was among the 11 entities that was granted an in-principle approval by the Reserve Bank in August 2015 to set the pay-ments bank in association with SBI.

Following this, RIL and SBI entered into a joint venture agreement (70:30) in July 2016 to set up the payments bank.

"The Subscription and Shareholders' Agreement was signed by RIL as promoter with a 70 per cent equity contribu-tion and SBI as joint venture with a 30 per cent equity con-tribution on June 30, 2016," RIL had said in 2016.

The proposed payments bank is expected to bring together the nation's largest banking network and pan-India telecom and retail setup. PTI

RIL-SBI payments bank yet to meet regulatory norms

mp business 13MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Tuesday, 10 October, 2017

SAN FRANCISCO: After struggling to sell Windows smartphones for quite some time as Google's Android and Apple iOS Operating Systems (OS) surged ahead, Microsoft has finally admitted that the software giant will no longer develop new features or hard-ware for Windows 10 mobiles.

In a series of tweets, Joe Belfiore, Corporate Vice Presi-dent in the Operating Systems Group at Microsoft, revealed late on Sunday that the Win-dows operating system will only help with bug fixes and security updates for existing users.

"Of course we'll continue to support the platform.. bug fixes, security updates. But building new features/hw [hardware] aren't the focus," Belfiore tweeted.

The devices that use Win-dows OS are HP Elite x3, Micro-soft Lumia 950 XL, Microsoft Lumia 950 and Nokia Lumia 930, among others.

Bill Gates has already stopped using Windows phone.

HP Inc is also halting pro-duction of its flagship Win-dows handset. HP Inc recently admitted it won't add any new handset to its existing "Elite" Windows smartphone lineup.

Belfiore also admitted that Microsoft will still support Windows 10 customers who want to use Android and iOS on their phones.

"We have tried very hard to incent app devs. Paid money.. wrote apps 4 them.. but vol-ume of users is too low for most companies to invest," Belfiore posted.

According to market research firm Kantar, Win-dows phones account for just 1.3 per cent of the market -- from from 2.4 per cent last year -- in the US.

Even though Microsoft has reported a fall in Surface PC

line and Windows phones rev-enues, the Redmond-based tech giant is reportedly aiming for new devices called "Surface Phones" and has made its pat-ent public.

According to media reports, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has confirmed that Microsoft will "make more phones, but they will not look like phones that are there today."

Microsoft is set to roll out the "Fall Creators" update for Windows 10 on October 17 which will include Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR) support sans the mobile experience. IANS

NEW DELHI: ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas arm of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), on Monday said it hasn't heard from Iran on the $11 billion 'best offer' it gave for developing the Farzad-B gas field.

"We are ready to invest pro-vided we get reasonable returns," OVL Managing Director Naren-dra K Verma told reporters here.

OVL has offered to invest about $5.8 billion in develop-ing the Farzad-B gas field and another $5 billion to build a liq-uefied natural gas export facility, he said. Iran wants a high price of the natural gas, making the investment practically unviable.

"We will get the project the day we accept their condi-tions. But for me to go ahead and make such investments, it has to bring reasonable returns and making economic sense," he said without elaborating.

Iran had earlier this year signed initial pact with Rus-sia's Gazprom for developing the OVL-discovered gas field of Farzad B but has kept the

door open for awarding it to the Indian firm.

"We have given them our best offer. Now, it is up to them to agree or not agree," Verma said. With Tehran delaying the award of rights to develop the 12.5 trillion cubic feet gas field to its discoverer ONGC Videsh Ltd India decided to cut oil imports from Iran by a fifth in 2017-18. Iran retaliated by first cutting by one-third the time it gave to Indian refiners to pay for oil they buy from it as also rais-ing ship freight rates, and then by signing a memorandum of

understanding (MoU) with Rus-sian gas monopoly Gazprom.

Farzad B was discovered by OVL in the Farsi block about 10 years ago. The project has so far cost the OVL-led consortium, which also includes Oil India Ltd and Indian Oil Corp (IOC), over $80 million.

The field in the Farsi block has an in-place gas reserve of 21.7 tcf, of which 12.5 tcf are recoverable. New Delhi is keen that the gas from the field comes to India to feed the vast energy needs. Sources said Indian refin-ers have cut oil imports from

Iran by a fifth to 190,000 bar-rels per day (bpd) in 2017-18 from 240,000 bpd in the pre-vious fiscal.

Iran, India's third biggest oil supplier, used to give a 90-day credit period to refiners like Indian Oil Corp (IOC) and Mangalore Refinery and Petro-chemicals Ltd (MRPL) to pay for the oil they would buy from it.

Now, Tehran has reduced this to 60 days, essentially mean-ing that IOC and MRPL would have to pay for the oil they buy from Iran in 60 days instead of previous liberal term of 90 days, sources said.

Iran oil sale terms were the most attractive for Indian refiners. Besides, a liberal credit period, it also shipped the oil to India for a nominal 20 per cent of normal ocean freight.

Other Middle-East sellers offer not more than 15-day credit period. Sources said National Iranian Oil Co (NIOC) has also decided to cut the dis-count it offers to Indian buyers on freight from 80 per cent to about 60 per cent. PTI

NEW DELHI: State-owned ONGC is likely to sell some of its stake in IOC to institutional investors like LIC to part-fund its over Rs 34,000-crore acqui-sition of refiner Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Lim-ited (HPCL).

Oil and Natural Gas Cor-poration (ONGC) holds 13.77 per cent stake in India's biggest refiner Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), which at today's market price is worth over Rs 27,800 crore. It has another 4.87 per cent stake in GAIL India Ltd worth of Rs 1,600 crore.

"The acquisition of 51.11 per cent government stake in HPCL will be funded through a combination of market bor-rowing and selling some stake in IOC and GAIL," a source privy to the development said.

Selling stake in the open market may create volatility and so, ONGC is consider-ing selling less than 2 per cent

stake in IOC to institutional investors like LIC in block deal, he added. ONGC has already secured shareholder nod to raise up to Rs 25,000 crore debt, he said, adding that the com-pany had about Rs 10,000 crore of cash in hand.

"It will be a combination of stake sale and borrowing

to fund the acquisition," the source said.

The deal, he said, is likely to conclude by December.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) had on July 19 granted 'in-principle' approval to the strategic sale of the government's existing 51.11 per cent stake in HPCL to

ONGC "along with the transfer of management control, which will result in HPCL becom-ing a subsidiary company of ONGC".

But since the offer meant a transfer of management con-trol from the government to ONGC, there was apprehen-sion that it would trigger Sebi's takeover code and compel ONGC to make an open offer to acquire an additional 26 per cent stake from minority share-holders, he said.

So, the terms of sale have been amended to state that "HPCL will continue to be a government company in terms of section 2(45) of the Compa-nies Act, 2013, and will con-tinue to be controlled by the Government of India through ONGC under the administra-tive control of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas".

This helped avoid making an open offer. PTI

KOLKATA: New affordable housing units grew 27 per cent, whereas the overall new resi-dential launches declined by 33 per cent during the January-September 2017 period com-pared to the same period last year, a study has found.

"Affordable housing sec-tor has recorded a surge of 27 per cent in new units launched (y-o-y). However, overall resi-dential unit launches recorded a decline of 33 per cent, and was at approximately 60,000 units in the first three quarters of 2017 (January September)," a research report by realty con-sultant Cushman & Wakefield, covering the top eight cities of

India, said in a statement.All the cities, except Mum-

bai, saw a decline in new launches, mostly due to the introduction of Real Estate Reg-ulatory Act (RERA) and GST implementation, the stufy said.

"Affordable housing is an attractive proposition both for

developers and consumers as the demand is huge and largely unmet. The high focus of the central government has resulted in the availability of more fund-ing options for the develop-ers such as ECB, FDI and debt financing from national finan-cial institutions at highly com-

petitive rates."However, there are chal-

lenges for affordable housing projects in tier-I cities, where land costs and availability within established locations are very difficult," Cushman & Wakefield India managing director, Anshul Jain said.

Hyderabad saw a jump of 813 per cent in new affordable launches during the period under review, followed by Mumbai with 331 per cent. Kol-kata witnessed marginal rise of five per cent.

Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi-NCR and Pune witnessed a decline in new launches in the segment. PTI

NEW DELHI: The government will not be able to extend tax and duty related concessions to iPhone maker Apple under the new indirect tax regime as the effort is to promote Make in India and not imports, an official source said.

"We have already hiked cus-toms duty on smartphone and imports of its parts. So, it is clear that we do not want to encour-age imports and rather encour-age Make in India.

"With the Goods and Ser-vices Tax (GST) in place, giving separate exemptions to anyone is not possible," the government source said. Cupertino-based iPhone and iPad manufacturer Apple has sought certain con-cessions for setting up manufac-turing unit in India. Under the GST, which was rolled out from July 1, exemptions have been done away with and there is an uniform four-tier tax on goods and services across the country. It has also unified over a dozen local taxes, including excise, ser-vice tax and VAT.

The company had sought concessions, including duty exemption on manufacturing and repair units, components, capital equipment and consum-ables for smartphone manufac-turing and service/repair for a period of 15 years.

The technology major had also asked for relaxation in the mandated 30 per cent local sourcing of components besides reduction in customs duties on completely-knocked-down and semi-knocked-down units of devices that are to be assembled in the country.

Apple is eyeing India as it is the fastest growing smart-phone market in the world. The company is looking to set up a local manufacturing unit in India to cut costs. Apple, however, does not manufac-ture devices on its own but gets the job done through contract manufacturers. It sells its prod-ucts through company-owned retail stores in countries like China, Germany, and France, among others. PTI

NEW DELHI: Chartered accountants' apex body ICAI on Monday said it has sought post graduation degree status for CA qualification.

Besides, the CA-interme-diate programme should be accorded the graduation degree status, the grouping said in a release on Monday.

In this regard, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has recently writ-ten a letter to the corporate affairs ministry.

The institute has sought the ministry's "intervention in des-ignating chartered accountancy qualification as equivalent to post graduation and CA-inter-mediate to be treated equiva-lent to graduate degree in the university education system," the release said.

According to the release,

the Association of Indian Uni-versities (AIU), back in 1984, had recognised chartered accountancy along with grad-uation to be equivalent to a post graduate degree in com-merce or allied disciplines for the purpose of registration to PhD programme.

"101 Indian universities, 6 IIMs and 2 IITs have recog-nised chartered accountancy qualification for the specific purpose of registration to PhD programme," it added.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India was established under the Char-tered Accountants Act, 1949 passed by the Parliament of India with the objective of reg-ulating accountancy profession in India. ICAI is the second largest professional account-ing body in the world. AGENCIES

‘Yes, Windows phone is dead,’ admits America’s Microsoft

Not possible to extend sops to US Apple under GST, says Govt

ICAI seeks post-graduation status for CA qualification

New residential launches collapse by 33% in January-September

Iran yet to reply to $11 bn ‘best offer’ for Farzad-B gas field: OVLONGC may sell IndianOil stake to LIC

NEW DELHI: Coffee exports from India, Asia s third-larg-est producer and exporter of coffee, rose by 9.36 per cent to 3,76,873 tonne in the market-ing year that ended September 2017, buoyed by higher global prices, according to state-run Coffee Board.

The country's coffee ship-ments stood at 3,44,613 tonne in the 2015-16 marketing year.

"Two factors contributed for higher shipments in 2016-17.

Firstly, there was enough domestic supply to meet the export demand as the domestic output was record in 2015-16. Also, global prices were bet-ter," a senior Board official said.

As a result, coffee exports

remained robust both in terms of volume and value in 2016-17, he said. According to the

Board data, the export value realisation rose 7.31 per cent to Rs 1,64,284 per tonne of coffee in 2016 -17 from Rs 1,53,089 tonnne in the year-ago period.

Total coffee exports in value terms rose to Rs 6,191.43 crore from Rs 5,275 crore in the said period, it added.

The domestic supply was adequate as the output was record 3.48 lakh tonne in the 2015-16 crop year.

Normally, robusta variety comprises 70 per cent of the total coffee exports, while the rest is arabica coffee.

Major export destinations are Italy, Germany, Turkey, Rus-sian Federation and Belgium, among others. PTI

Coffee exports brew 9.36% in 2016-17 marketing yearMUMBAI: Gold on Monday

surged by Rs 300 to Rs 29,660 per 10 grams at the bullion mar-ket here on fresh buying by jewellers and retailers after the government revoked an order that mandated PAN and Aad-haar cards for purchases above Rs 50,000. Silver also rose by Rs 670 per kg on good speculative offtake and industrial demand.

Standard gold (99.5 purity) moved up by Rs 300 per 10 grams to end at Rs 29,660 com-pared to Friday's closing level of Rs 29,360. Pure gold (99.9 purity) also rose by a similar margin to settle at Rs 29,810 per 10 grams against Rs 29,510 earlier. Silver (.999 fineness) climbed by Rs 670 to end at Rs 39,520 per kg as against Rs 38,850 previously. PTI

NEW DELHI: State-owned CIL on Monday said that sup-ply of coal to power utilities increased by 20.6 per cent to 35.1 million tonnes (MT) in September.

The coal supply to power plants was at 29 MT in the same month of 2016, Coal India (CIL) said in a statement.

Asserting that the growth in coal supply to power plants has been "impressive at 21 per cent" in September, the world's largest coal miner said that in the last month the rake load-ing per day for the power plants increased by 19 per cent.

CIL loaded 192.7 rakes per day in comparison to 162 rakes per day during September last year. The synergy between CIL and railways amounted to sig-nificant rise in rake loading per

day by 30.6 rakes."Though there was a growth

of about 21 per cent in the sup-ply of coal to power plants, it is noted that the growth in coal-based power generation is 6.6 per cent. One of the reasons could be the decline in coal imports," the statement said.

In the recent years, there has been a regular drop in coal imports, it said adding that in August there was a decline of 24 per cent, amounting in huge savings of forex. Coal import in August 2017 stood at 14.97 MT, against 19.75 MT in the same month of previous year. PTI

LONDON: Personal care brand Dove has apologised for an advert that showed a black woman removing a top to reveal a white woman under-neath, following accusations of racism.

The three-second video clip appeared in the United States on the social networking site Facebook.

Dove said on Twitter that it had "missed the mark in rep-resenting women of colour thoughtfully" and deeply regretted any offence caused.

The body wash ad showed a black woman removing her top, revealing a white woman underneath. She then took off her t- shirt, showing a third woman underneath.

"Ready for a Dove shower? Sulfate free with 100 percent gentle cleansers, our body wash gets top marks from dermatol-ogists," the advert said.

The Dove brand, owned by Rotterdam-based food and consumer products giant Uni-lever, which is listed on the London and Amsterdam stock exchanges, apologised after several people on social media deemed the advert racist.

"As a part of a campaign for Dove body wash, a three- sec-ond video clip was posted to the US Facebook page," a state-ment said.

"This did not represent the diversity of real beauty which is something Dove is passion-ate about and is core to our beliefs, and it should not have happened.

"We have removed the post and have not published any other related content. We apol-ogise deeply and sincerely for the offence that it has caused."

Unilever was slightly

down in a stable market at the opening of the London stock exchange on Monday, as the hashtag #boycottdove circu-lated on social media.

The Dove page on Uni-lever's website begins: "Dove believes that beauty is not one dimensional; it is not defined by your age, the shape or size of your body, the colour of your skin or your hair." PTI

Dove ad bares British-Dutch MNC Unilever’s rabid racism

POWERING ELECTRICITY OUTPUT

K K Sharma, Director (Operations), NTPC, visited Ramagundam on Monday. Upon his arrival, Shri D K Dubey, ED-Ramagundam along with other senior officials welcomed him. Also accompanied with the Chief Guest was Regional Executive Director (Southern Region), K R C Murty. During his visit, Sharma visited prominent locations of Telangana Project and Safety centre and enquired about the progress

CIL energises September fuel supply to power plants by 21%

Allahabad Bank announces

All Bank UtsavKOLKATA: Allahabad Bank will be charging zero process-ing fees on home loan and car loans from October 1 to 31 under its campaign All Bank Utsav.

As the MCLR for one year tenor has already been slashed to 8.45 per cent, the Home, Car and other Retail loans have got cheaper this festival season.

The women customers, cov-ered under All Bank Shakti– a women centric scheme, would additionally get lower margin on home and car loans besides concessional interest rates on Home loans. Allahabad bank has always tried to offer to its customers various products at attractive rates, adding in pro-cess, more than five million new customers during the last one year. MPOST

Gold, silver feast as Govt eases rules

mp sport14MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata |Tuesday, 10 October, 2017

TIANJIN OPEN: CAROLINE GARCIA WITHDRAWS BECAUSE OF INJURYTIANJIN: World number nine Caroline Garcia has withdrawn from this week’s Tianjin Open because of injury. The 23-year-old from France beat new world number one Simona Halep to win the China Open on Sunday. That took her ahead of Briton Jo-hanna Konta in the Race to Singapore — the top eight players in which compete at the season-ending WTA Finals.

INDIAN NATIONAL CHAMP CHINAPPA DOWNS PALLIKAL AT US OPEN SQUASH PHILADELPHIA: India’s national champion Joshna Chi-nappa defeated compatriot and doubles partner Dipika Pallikal Karthik in the first round of the US Open Squash Championship. The 13th seeded Chinappa won 7-11 11-8 11-8 11-9 in 45 minutes yesterday for her second con-secutive entry into the second round of the championship.

CANCER VICTIM GIVES AUSTRALIA’S TENNIS STAR KYRGIOS ‘HIGHER PURPOSE’SYDNEY: Troubled Australian tennis star Nick Kyrgios says he has finally found a purpose in life and will build a facility for disadvan-taged kids after being struck by the death of a young boy from cancer. The 22-year-old, who had another meltdown in the China Open final to Rafael Nadal, has long struggled with his demons, repeatedly losing focus and arguing with umpires and fans.

Vega strikes twice as Paraguay beat NZ 4-2

NAVI MUMBAI: Anibal Vega scored a brace as Paraguay snatched a 4-2 win over New Zealand in Group B game of the FIFA U-17 World Cup.

Despite Paraguay skipper Alexis Duarte conceded two own goals, Vega ensured full three points for his side by finding the net in the 75th and 78th minutes.

New Zealand were leading 2-1 at the half-way mark, cour-tesy two own goals by Duarte, but Paraguay bounced back in the style to record their sec-ond win of the tournament and qualify for the knock-out

rounds. With this win Paraguay have six points in the kitty and are on the top of the table.

Paraguay took the lead in the second minute when Alan Rodriguez successfully con-verted a free kick. Rodriguez curled the ball from his magi-cal left foot, which dipped into the top left corner of the goal, leaving the Kiwi goalie Jacob Clarke completely foxed.

In the 11th minute, Para-guay could have extended the lead, but Leonardo Sanchez’s shot was brilliantly saved by the Kiwi goalie.

New Zealand, who drew 1-1

with Turkey, were playing with-out their regular skipper Max Mata, who missed this match because of two yellow cards he received in their tourna-ment opener. In the 20th min-ute, Paraguay conceded an own goal, courtesy an untimely deflection by skipper Duarte to help New Zealand level the scores.

It was harrowing day for Duarte, who scored another own goal in the 34th minute to hand New Zealand a 2-1 lead. In the early stages of the second half, Paraguay became desperate to equalise but New Zea-land were brilliant in their defence.

New Zea-land could have made it 3-1 in the 64th min-ute but a header from Charles Spragg went over the bar. Paraguay were finally rewarded in the 75th min-ute when the equaliser came through Vega. AGENCIES

Indian women to play ICC C’ship opener against SA in February

NEW DELHI: The second edi-tion of the ICC Women’s ODI World Championship will be held from 2017-2020, with India scheduled to play three matches in South Africa from Februaary 5-10 in Round 1 of the competition.

The ICC launched the Wom-en’s Championship on Monday in the presence of India captain Mithali Raj and former skipper Anjum Chopra.

India, who have not played since losing the World Cup final to hosts England in July, will play two games against South Africa in Kimberly on February 5 and 7 before travelling to Potchefstrom on February 10 for the final game as part of the Championship.

The Women’s Championship will be played in the same format as the inaugural edition, which was held from 2014-16, with all the eight sides Australia, Eng-land, India, New Zealand, Paki-stan, South Africa, Sri Lanka and the West Indies taking on each other in series of three ODIs on a home or away basis.

World Cup 2021 hosts New Zealand and the three top teams from the event will gain qualifica-tion for the event while the remain-ing four sides will get a second chance through the ICC Women’s World Cup Qualifier event in which they will be joined by six teams from four regions Africa, Asia, East Asia Pacific and Europe. AGENCIES

Mali score three against Turkey to register first win

NAVI MUMBAI: African champions Mali bounced back after their opening match defeat by thrash-ing Turkey 3-0 in a Group B game of the FIFA U-17 World Cup at the D Y Patil Stadium on Monday.

Having lost their lung opener 2-3 to Paraguay on October 6, last edition’s losing finalists Mali needed nothing less than a victory today and they achieved it with elan by scoring once in the first half and twice in the second.

The Turks were outclassed and were lucky not to have conceded more goals.

After missing a spate of chances, Mali took the lead through their midfielder Djemoussa Traore in the 38th minute. They made it 2-0 when their misfiring for-ward Lassana N’Diaye found the target in the 68th minute before defender Fode Konate rounded off the tally in the 86th minute by sidestepping two defenders.

It was the first win in two games for the Africans who meet New Zealand on Octo-ber 12 to complete their group engagements while Turkey, who drew with New Zealand on October 6, are up against Paraguay on Thursday.

Turkey were simply out-classed by the passing skills exhibited by Mali in match

that was played under a per-sistent drizzle initially before the rains increased in inten-sity later.

The Africans also con-stantly switched the ball across the field to get things moving. Mali, runners-up to fellow Africans Nigeria two years ago, took the lead through midfielder Djemoussa Traore late in the first half.

Traore ran forward with-out being challenged off a long diagonal pass by Abdou-laye Diaby and his left-footed angular shot beat Turkey goal-keeper Berke Ozer to find the far corner of the net in the 38th minute.

Prior to this strike, three gilt-edged chances were missed by striker N’Diaye who was fed on a platter by the midfielders but could not put the ball in.

His first shot went off tar-get after striking the rival custodian Ozer who had his hands full in thwarting the constant attack on his citadel by the African team.

On two other occasions, N’Diaye fluffed after being fed first by Hadji Drame with a fine through ball and then a cross from the right by Konate.

Two more long-range attempts by captain Moham-mad Camara sailed over the cross bar. AGENCIES

Hopeful Indians lose second game 2-1 against Colombia

NEW DELHI: Host nation India were defeated 1-2 by Colombia in their second Group A game of the 2017

FIFA U17 World Cup at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi on Monday.

Juan Penaloza’s (49’ 83’) brace sand-wiched whats was India’s first ever goal

in a FIFA tournament by Jeakson Singh Thou-naojam (82’).

Luis Norton de Matos made four changes to the starting line-up that played against USA in the opening encoun-

ter. Namit Deshpande replaced Jiten-dra Singh in

central defense while Boris Thangjam returned from his suspension to line up as the right-back. Komal Thatal was dropped in favour as Rahul Kannoly started on the left flank, while Jeakson Singh paired up with captain Amar-jit Singh Kiyam in central mid-field. The sturdy Rahim Ali was given the nod ahead of Aniket Yadav upfront as the colts lined up in a 4-4-1-1 fomation.

Colombia, on the other hand, were ready to attack from the word go as they changed their usual 4-2-3-1 to a 3-2-4-1, trying to bag full three points after losing their first match. The initial few minutes saw both sides scramble to hold onto the ball even as the trav-ellers tried a few long-rangers, which sailed well above the bar.

The first real chance of the game was created by the home side on the 16th minute as Abhijit Sarkar played a neat

one-two with Ninthoinganba Meetei and dribbled past a cou-ple of half-hearted challenges into the box. He, however, had made the angle too acute with his face away from the goal, as the resultant shot was blocked by Kevin Mier.

At the other end, Yadir Meneses, who marshalled the midfield, tested Dheeraj Singh from a free-kick outside the box, but the Manipur lad was alert enough to parry it diving to his left. Leandro Campaz, the prolific left-winger of the side was then fed with a cross from the right, but the Indian defense managed to clear it after a bit of scrambling.

Campaz was at the thick of things again in the 37th minute,

when he tested the opponent custodian with a close range header, but Dheeraj pulled off the best save of the first half to thwart the danger. The result-ing corner came off the cross-bar as India finally cleared the ball. The best move of the half, however, came in the added time when an unmarked Rahul Kannoly received a lobbed pass from Boris.

The Kerala boy unleashed a superb left-footer, but was unfortunate enough to see his effort hit the post and come out. The crowd gave a stand-ing ovation to the boys in Blue as they walked down the tunnel after a much-improved display, even after enjoying only 30% possession.

The joy though, was short-lived after the breather, as a momentary lapse of concen-tration from the hosts allowed Colombia to draw the first blood in the 48th minute. A cross-diagonal pass from the left found Juan Penaloza on the right edge of the box, who under no real pressure from Sanjeev Stalin, unleashed a sublime left-footed curler that went into the net past a stretched Dheeraj.

While India were the sec-ond best side on aerial battles, Norton threw Aniket Jadav into the mix to put more pres-sure on the Colombian defense. But Orlando Restrepo’s troop looked very composed after getting the lead, and tried to

keep the ball on the turf to see off their lead.

India had a golden chance to restore parity on the 76th minute, when Aniket Jadav held the ball well in Colombian territory and played it to Nong-damba Naorem deep inside the box. The Minerva Punjab mid-fielder was in a great position to hit the net but hit straight at the goalkeeper instead.

On the 82nd minute, Jeak-son Singh made amends for his Minerva teammate as he connected a Sanjeev Stalin header perfectly to send it into the target, becoming the first Indian ever to score a goal in a FIFA tournament. The ecstasy, though, turned into agony within two minutes. AGENCIES

USA beat Ghana 1-0, through to Round of 16

NEW DELHI: The United States of America secured their passage into the round of 16 riding on substitute Ayo Akinola’s 75-min-ute strike for a 1-0 victory over Ghana in an enthralling Group A game of the FIFA U-17 World Cup on Monday.

Coach John Hackworth’s 63rd minute substitution proved to be a masterstroke as the 17-year-old forward found the back of the net off a Chris-topher Goslin pass to put his team in front at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.

Up against a dangerous side that has won the tournament twice, the Americans then sat

deep to counter Ghana’s quick counter attacks.

Ghana tried to find the equaliser, but USA’s dogged defence could not be breached as they become the first team to make it to the knock-out stage.

Some credit must be reserved for Hackworth, who, realising that Tim Weah, one of his better players, was hav-ing an off day, decided to make the change.

And the move paid divi-dends 12 minutes later.

The Detroit-born Akinola, who was also eligible to play for Canada and Nigeria, could have had another goal to his

name, but his shot went over.Till Akinola got the better

of Danlad Ibrahim, it appeared that the two teams would share the spoils after a slew of attempts failed to materialise in a goal.

Up until that point, the Ghana goalkeeper was doing his job like a dependable cus-todian would normally do. His counterpart at the other end of the field, Justin Graces, was also impressive.

In a battle for the top spot in the group, both Ghana and USA showed enterprise and even though the Amer-icans dominated possession,

the Africans looked danger-ous with their speed and had eight attempts on target to their opponents’ six in the first half.

Throughout, Ghana have had more attempts than the Americans.

USA relied on keeping possession to counter Gha-na’s speed and in this contest between the two physically strong sides, midfielder Chris Goslin was shown a yellow card for a harsh tackle on Isaac Gyamfi. Eventually, it was the midfielder whose assist turned out to be the decisive one.

First up though was Aminu Mohammed, who found him-self inside the box in the early minutes of the game, but could not get the better of three USA defenders surrounding him.

Sadiq Ibrahim’s cross from the right hit the bar and went out. Ghana captain Eric Ayiah was then put through a one-on- one situation with Garces. He beat the USA goalkeeper but fell before he could finish.

Sadiq fired one from a close range but his shot was bril-liantly saved by Garces.

Meanwhile, USA captain Josh Sargent was denied from a very close range by Danlad’s brilliant work under the bar.

There was also another opportunity when USA could have taken the lead up but Blaine Ferri’s attempt off a Sar-gent pass went wide. AGENCIES

Neymar, Marcelo, Modric nominated for

Ballon d’Or

PARIS: Real Madrid defender Marcelo, midfielder Luka Modric and Paris Saint-Ger-main football club forward Neymar Jr were among the first five nominees for the Ballon d’Or announced on Monday.

The annual Ballon d’Or is awarded by French magazine France Football to the world’s best soccer player.

“The first 5 nominees for the 2017 Ballon d’Or France Football: Neymar, Luka Modric, Paulo Dybala, Marcelo, N’Golo Kante,” the French magazine tweeted.

France Football is set to unveil the remaining 25 nom-inees throughout the day.

Real Madrid’s forward Cristiano Ronaldo, who has won the award on four pre-vious occasions and is the current holder of the prize, is favourite again this year after retaining the Champions League with his club. AGENCIES

‘Sambas’ seek early knock-out berth, Spain look to bounce back with win against Niger

KOCHI: An opening mar-quee match in their bag, hot favourites Brazil would seek to seal an early knock-out berth by beating unfancied North Korea in their second FIFA U-17 World Cup group game on Tuesday.

There is no doubt Brazil will start as clear favourites against North Korea whose morale must be down after losing to debutants Niger by a solitary goal in their open-

ing match.North Korea, who are

never known to play an attack-

ing brand of football, will most likely adopt a defensive game plan tomorrow also. It remains

to be seen how they stop Brazil, known for their attacking flare, from scoring goals.

Meanwhile, Spain would look to bounce back from their opening match defeat and notch up a win against debu-tants Niger in the group match on Tuesday.

They will now have to shrug off their first defeat and beat Niger at the Jawaharlal Nehru International Stadium to assert their title ambitions. AGENCIES

Germany and Iran eye knock-out berth, Costa Rica up against GuineaMARGAO:, Germany and Iran will look to book a berth in the knock-out stage when they clash in a Group C league match of the FIFA U-17 World Cup at Nehru Stadium on Tuesday. Both the teams have won their respective opening matches with Germany getting past Costa Rica 2-1 and Iran beating Guinea 3-1 last Saturday. Nicolas Kuehn, Noah Awuku and John Ye-boah will lead the attack from the middle for Germany and Jann- Fiete Arp will look to continue his run against Iran, who has a compact defence. Iran will be looking to repeat the same against Germany who look strong in their attack. Meanwhile, Costa Rica would look to put the opening loss behind and hope for a positive result when they meet Guinea here. AGENCIES

mp sport 15MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata |Tuesday, 10 October, 2017

Rampaging India eye series win against struggling Australia

There’s no question of replacing Ashwin, Jadeja, says Kuldeep

GUWAHATI: He may have become India’s latest spin sen-sation but chinaman bowler Kuldeep Yadav says he is not thinking about being seen as Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja’s replacement.

India’s ploy of playing two wrist spinners has worked well in the limited overs series against Australia, as Yadav along with Yuzvendra Chahal have been instrumental in the team’s 4-1 ODI series win, and a 1-0 advantage in the ongoing three-match T20I series.

“I don’t think of that far. Both Ash and Jaddu bhai have been consistent performers for India in all the three formats.There’s no question of thinking about replacing them,” Yadav said on the eve of the second T20I.

“We are very young, and there’s a lot of cricket left in us. It has never cross my mind,” the 22-year-old added.

The Aussies have struggled to pick Yadav time and again but the chinaman spinner said he was not a mystery bowler.

“I’m not a mystery bowler

who will bowl from different hands. Obviously after two-three years they will pick you and it becomes easy for them. For me, if your basics like align-ment and accuracy are right, it becomes easy for you.

“For me it does not matter if someone tries to pick you from video analysis. If you bowl in right areas, have good varia-tions, landing on the spot and beating the batsmen in air, no matter how many times you see the video it won’t matter,” Yadav, who credited Aussie duo of Brad Hogg and Shane Warne for his transformation, said.

Underlining the need to do the basics right, he said: “In T20s you can get wickets anytime as batsmen always try to hit you out of the park. Your basics need to be right without thinking much about the batsmen. If you focus on your strengths, you become more successful.”

Yadav said he has learnt a lot by playing with Aussie chinaman Hogg at KKR, while he is also in regular touch with his idol Warne. AGENCIES

GUWAHATI: Overwhelmingly dom-inant so far, India would be aiming to wrap up another series win when they take on a faltering Australia in the second Twenty20 International on Tuesday.

The ACA-Barsapara Stadium will be making its international debut with Tuesday’s match, adding to the grow-ing list of cricket venues in the country.

The India-Australia limited-overs series so far has been a one-sided a contest as Virat Kohli and Co. effort-lessly grabbed the ODI rubber 4-1.

Extending the domination in the three-match T20I series, India routed Australia by nine wickets in the rain-hit opening match two days back in Ranchi to take a 1-0 lead.

Their T20I rivalry is lopsided as India have won 10 and lost four out of the 14 matches played. The hosts have won seven matches in a row, and they have not lost to Australia in T20Is since September 28, 2012.

The visitors will have to play out of their skins to arrest the slide and level the series ahead of the last T20I in Hyderabad on October 13.

For that to happen, Australia will have to unravel the mystery of India’s latest wrist spin duo of Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal who have shared 16 wickets between them in four ODIs and one T20I.

The duo has been the big differ-ence between the two sides as Austra-lia have failed to read their variations and looked inept in exploiting the conditions.

It’s surprising given that most of the Australian batsmen are familiar with the conditions here having played in the Indian Premier League.

On the other hand, the Indian team members are complementing each other well, be it in batting or bowling.

It was evident in Ranchi when Hardik Pandya and Jasprit Bumrah’s

giving of easy runs was easily arrested by Yadav and Chahal.

The Australian batting has mostly revolved around the top three of War-ner, Finch and Steve Smith, and with the skipper ruled out of the series with a shoulder injury, it would be a chal-lenge to counter the Indian spin chal-lenge and bounce back in the series.

Australia would hope that the big-hitting Glenn Maxwell returns to form after a pathetic run of 39, 14, 5 in the ODIs and 17 in the opening T20I.

That all his dismissals have come against Chahal underlines the all-rounder’s inability to tackle leg-spin

and he would be desperate to come out of his disastrous run.

Thankfully his team is backing him fully.

“We’ve seen him be so dominant, so destructive of attacks in these con-ditions before. I don’t think he’s far away at all. He’s hitting the ball in the nets, he’s up and about in the field,” Finch said in full support of Maxwell.

It would also be interesting to see how Finch tackles Yadav this time. In Ranchi, he chose to play more sweep shots before being cleaned up by Yadav with a fuller delivery.

Nathan Coulter-Nile, who with 10

wickets was the highest wicket-taker in the ODI series, has been the silver-lining for Australia while left-arm pacer Jason Behrendorff also showed some promise in his debut in Ranchi.

Australia would hope that the pace duo rock the Indian batting line-up, which had little match practice in a six-over contest in Ranchi.

Indian opener Shikhar Dhawan returned to the team in Ranchi after opting out of the ODI series and it was pleasing to see him pick up the length early and play the pull shot.

His easy comeback also means that the in-form Ajinkya Rahane’s absence

would not be missed.Dhawan and skipper Virat Kohli

steered the small chase in the first T20I and Australia would look to rock the top-order, including Rohit Sharma, who was the top run-getter in the ODI series.

There may be some surprise ele-ment from the pitch which will be hosting its first international match.

The ACA-Barsapara Stadium made headlines in the last Ranji season when Hyderabad bowled out Himachal Pradesh for 36, the fourth-lowest total in the Ranji Trophy since 2000. AGENCIES

We have to play our brand of cricket, says stand-in-skipper David Warner

GUWAHATI: Staring at yet another series defeat, Austra-lia’s stand-in-skipper David Warner on Monday said that they are not demoralised and insisted on playing “Aussie brand of cricket” to bounce back in the three-match T20I series against India.

Having suffered a 1-4 defeat in the five-ODI series, Austra-lia are 0-1 down after losing the opening T20 International in the three-match series.

“We have just got to keep going out there and keep back-ing ourselves 100 per cent. We have just got to keep playing

the game that we know and that’s the brand of cricket that we bring to the table,” Warner told reporters on the eve of their second T20I.

Australia lost the first game in Ranchi after a familiar bat-ting woes but Warner said they would not sit and worry about a collapse.

“I don’t look too much into it. At the end of the day even if you get out early then there’s a collapse in the middle after a partnership, everyone becomes frustrated. No one wants to get out. Yeah there’s always reasons why it happens. People talk about pressure, people talk about hav-ing two batsmen in and then having two batsmen get out. It’s important no matter what the circumstance, we try and win every game possible. Just getting a victory over here is always chal-lenging, it’s going to be tough, you have to play to the best of your ability,” he said. AGENCIES

Barsapara’s maiden T20 encounter will offer batting pitch, says WarnerGUWAHATI: The newly-constructed Assam Cricket Association (ACA) Stadium in Barsapara looked like a batting belter, Australia’s stand-in captain David Warner said ahead of the second T20 International. “The wicket looks fantastic. The first game being played here it’s going to be a special one for both teams. Hopefully, we can get across the line and get that first victory here,” Warner said. Local curator Mukut Kalita too said it would be a typical T20 wicket, full of runs. “Our best effort is to make the match memorable by making a wicket full of runs. We have seen this wicket favour spinners in the domestic cricket but for today, I hope it would produce a lot of runs.” Himachal Pradesh were all out in a Ranji game for only 36 last year but Kalita blamed it on the lack of application by the Himachal batsmen. AGENCIES

Poland head to World Cup, perfection for Germany

Moment of truth as Argentina seek World Cup berth

MONTEVIDEO: The once unfathomable prospect of a World Cup without Lionel Messi and Argentina could become reality on Tuesday as South America’s thrilling 2018 quali-fication battle reaches its climax.

Two years after Argentina kicked off their troubled cam-paign with a 2-0 defeat at home to Ecuador, Jorge Sampaoli’s side travel to Quito to face La Tri once more with their hopes hanging precariously.

The two-time World Cup-winners head into the final round of games in sixth place overall, outside the top four positions which grant auto-matic qualification and trail-ing fifth-placed Peru, who occupy the playoff spot, on goal difference.

Yet with only two points separating third-placed Chile (26 points) with seventh-placed Paraguay (24), any number of permutations are possible.

Argentina can simplify the equation for their fans, how-ever, if they manage to take all

three points.A victory would guaran-

tee they finish no worse than fifth place, putting them into a two-legged play-off against New Zealand they would be expected to win.

But achieving victory in the thin air of Quito, which is 2,850 metres (9,350 feet) above sea level, may be easier said than done.

The Argentinians have an abysmal record in away games against Ecuador, with their last victory in Quito coming in 2001.

Since then in World Cup qualifying games, they have been beaten twice, in 2005 and 2009, before scraping a 1-1 draw in 2013.

Moreover, Argentina face their moment of truth after a series of uninspiring perfor-mances that has left the rest of the footballing world scratch-ing its head at how a squad bristling with so much attack-ing talent has found scoring so difficult. AGENCIES

PARIS: Robert Lewandowski scored a European qualify-ing record 16th goal as Poland defeated Montenegro 4-2 to reach next year’s World Cup, while reigning champions Ger-many secured a tenth succes-sive win.

Bayern Munich striker Lewandowski struck again in what has been a remarkable qualifying campaign as Poland recovered from throwing away a two-goal lead in Warsaw to secure a first trip to the World Cup finals since 2006.

“I was angry. We were lead-ing 2-0 at home and then let them equalise for 2-all. We had to score that third goal to calm things down,” said Lewan-dowski, who moved back ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo’s 15-goal tally. Krzysztof Maczynski and Kamil Grosicki struck early as Poland made a dream start, but Montenegro hit back through

goals from Stefan Mugosa and Zarko Tomasevic to pull level with just seven minutes left.

Lewandowski restored Poland’s advantage on 85 minutes before a late own goal from Filip Stojkovic sealed victory, although Denmark’s 1-1 draw at home to

Romania ultimately rendered the outcome irrelevant. “Congratula-tions to all the players who were able to hold on until the end,” said Poland coach Adam Nawalka. “The players have proved them-selves in difficult moments, hence our qualification and it’s

in very good style.” The Danes needed to win

in Copenhagen while hoping that Montenegro could upset Poland to finish top of Group E, but Ciprian Deac’s late equal-iser cancelled out a 60th-minute penalty from Christian Eriksen.

However, Denmark are at least assured of a place in next month’s play-offs as one of the eight best runners-up from the nine qualifying groups.

Germany made it 10 wins from 10 in Group C after rout-ing Azerbaijan 5-1 in Kaiser-slautern to join Spain as the only nations in history to finish a European World Cup quali-fying campaign with a perfect record. Leon Goretzka’s open-ing goal was negated by Ramil Sheydaev on 34 minutes, but Sandro Wagner and Antonio Ruediger scored after half-time before Goretzka notched his second and Emre Can com-pleted the victory.

Germany scored a Euro-pean qualifying record 43 goals on the road to Russia, emulat-ing Spain who achieved per-fection in qualifying ahead of their triumph at the 2010 tour-nament in South Africa. AGENCIES

Nadal remains on top, Halep snatches top spot in WTA

MADRID: Spanish tennis player Rafael Nadal remained in the number one spot on the men’s Association of Ten-nis Professionals world singles rankings released on Monday, while Belgian David Goffin entered the Top 10 list.

Nadal, 16-time Grand Slam champion, maintained the top spot after claiming the China Open title for the second time in his career on Sunday, reports Efe news agency.

Switzerland’s Roger Federer came in second, ahead of the United Kingdom’s Andy Mur-ray and German Alexander Zverev, respectively.

Swiss Stan Wawrinka jumped to the eighth spot, while Bulgarian Grigor Dimi-trov dropped to the ninth.

Goffin went up one posi-tion to complete the Top 10 list after he claimed the Japan Open title, while Pablo Car-reño Busta left the list.

Meanwhile, Simona Halep snatched first place in the Women’s Tennis Association rankings released on Monday after she qualified for the China Open final.

The 26-year-old Romanian player reached the top spot for the first time in her career, put-ting an end to the four-week reign of Spain’s Garbiñe Mugu-ruza, who dropped to second place, reports Efe news agency.

Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic jumped to third, while Ukrainian Elina Svitolina dropped to fourth.

US’ Venus Williams came fifth, followed by Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki. AGENCIES

CAIRO: Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah converted a stoppage-time penalty to give Egypt a dramatic 2-1 win over Congo Brazzaville and a place at the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

Salah put Egypt ahead dur-ing the second half in Alexan-dria only for Arnold Bouka Moutou to equalise two min-utes from the end of regular time on Sunday.

Victory gave Egypt an uncatchable four-point lead over Uganda in Group E with one round of fixtures remaining.

Uganda were held 0-0 by Ghana in Kampala on Saturday.

A defensive blunder allowed constant menace Salah to fire past goalkeeper Barel Mouko on 63 minutes at the 85,000- capacity Borg El Arab Stadium.

But Congo threatened to turn party-poopers as substi-tute Moutou, a France-based defender, beat 44-year-old goalkeeper Essam El Hadary from inside the box.

A draw would not have been enough for Egypt to seal qualification and they sought a winning goal, which came when Salah sent Mouko the wrong way with his spot-kick.

Egypt last qualified for the World Cup in 1990 with the

record seven-time African champions suffering numerous heart- breaking failures since.

The desperation to qual-ify was so great ahead of the Congo match that Argen-tina-born Egypt coach Hector Cuper admitted he was tak-ing medication for high blood pressure.

“I am taking hypertension medicine due to the stress I suf-fer from continuing criticism,” he told reporters without speci-fying who his critics were.

“Life is full of stress, but the challenge of reaching the World Cup is the toughest stress I have faced.”

Egypt also beat Congo

away and Ghana and Uganda at home to accumulate 12 points, with the only loss away to Uganda.

Nigeria became the first Afri-can qualifiers Saturday with a 1-0 Group B win over Zambia in Uyo thanks to a goal from another English Premier League player, Alex Iwobi of Arsenal. Tunisia or the Democratic Republic of Congo will qualify from Group A and Morocco or the Ivory Coast from Group C.

All four Group D teams — Senegal, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde and South Africa — are in contention to finish first with the final matchday scheduled for November. AGENCIES

Salah sends Egypt to World Cup 2018, first time since 1990

PIC/PTI

mp Entertainment16MILLENNIUM POST | Kolkata | Tuesday, 10 October, 2017

‘Not working to

OUTSHINE ANYONE’Varun, who has always entertained audiences by his

performances, does not wish to be in the rat race

MUMBAI: Varun Dhawan is happy that his latest release Judwaa 2 has done significantly well at the box office but the actor said he is not part any rat race and his only aim is to entertain people.

The 30-year-old actor, who has had a great run at the ticket window since his first film Student of the Year, said he is not working to out-shine anyone else in the film industry.

“After Judwaa 2, trade feels your are a bit ahead in the race right now... There is no race. There is Race 3 which Remo D’Souza is directing with Salman Khan while will be very cool but there is no race between any of us. If there is a race, then what is the finish line? How is there ever a finish line?

“As artistes, we are just working towards entertaining people and making good films and hopefully, we will get to make a career. I feel amazing about being able to do that and provide for my family and my loved ones. But I am not working so I can be better than someone,” Varun wrote on Twitter.

The actor will next be seen in YRF’s Sui Dhaaga: Made In India, which also features Anushka Sharma, and October directed by Shoojit Sir-car. PTI

NEW DELHI: Actor Jacqueline Fernandez says it’s just speculation that she will be seen as a police offi-cer in Race 3.

“I do not play a cop in Race 3. That was

just a speculation. My character and role...I don’t think can be revealed till we see the

film as Race 3 is that kind of a film

where everything is a suspense.

“But yeah, one thing is for sure – there will

definitely be a lot more action for me to do in this

film which I am very happy about,” Jacqueline told.

The Dishoom actor had earlier said that she is really

excited to play the character because “it’s actually a role that sees me in very different light”.

Race 3, the third instalment of the hit franchise Race, will be directed by Remo D’souza with Salman Khan as the male lead.

Meanwhile, her latest film Jud-waa 2 crossed the Rs 100 crore mark in less than 10 days since its release on September 29.

“I was very confident about Judwaa 2 being a success when I first signed the film. Of course this year has seen a lot of surpris-ing box office results so, there was a little bit of doubt. That slowly kind of went away when we saw positiv-ity coming our way throughout the promotions of Judwaa 2,” she said.

The film, helmed by David Dhawan, is a reboot of the 1997 Salman-starrer Judwaa. IANS

I don’t play a cop in RACE 3: JACQUELINE

MUMBAI: Zubair Khan, ousted from reality televi-sion show ‘Bigg Boss 11’, has filed a written complaint against the show’s host and superstar Salman Khan.

The Mumbai Police recently, however, said it has refused to enter-tain the complaint and has directed the com-plainant to the con-cerned police station in Lonavala.

In his complaint, among other things, Zubair has accused Salman of allegedly threatening him in the Saturday night episode of the ‘Bigg Boss’ elimi-nation show.

Salman Khan reportedly blasted Zubair for allegedly misbehaving with some housemates, to which the latter hit back claiming he had all knowledge of the super-star’s “connections and liaisons”.

An official of Antop Hill Police Station said that Zubair had submitted a written complaint against Salman.

“However, we have lodged a noncognisable com-plaint and transferred it to the concerned police sta-tion in Lonavala, Pune district, which has jurisdiction to investigate it,” the official said, requesting that he not be identified. IANS

BIGG BOSS’ evicted contestant complains against Salman Khan

Harvey Weinstein fired over sexual harassment claims

LOS ANGELES: Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was fired from the film com-pany he co-founded after a New York Times investigation detailed numerous incidents of alleged sexual harassment by the media mogul, the media reported.

The remaining board of directors at The Weinstein Com-pany said recently that the deci-sion was made “in light of new information about misconduct by Harvey Weinstein that has emerged in the past few days”, reports CNN.

Weinstein’s brother Robert was one of the board members who made the decision.

“The directors of The Weinstein Company – Robert Weinstein, Lance Maerov, Richard Koenigsberg and Tarak Ben Ammar – have deter-mined, and have informed Harvey Weinstein, that his employment with The Weinstein Company is termi-nated, effective immediately,” a state-ment from the company said.

The board used to have more than four members. According to the New York Times, three other board direc-tors resigned as the Weinstein scandal became international news.

Over the weekend, the scandal deepened and became an even more serious threat to the future of the

company, CNN reported.Some clients of the Weinstein Co.

said they might stop working with the company if Harvey Weinstein was still associated with it.

According to the Times expose, the powerful film producer had faced many accusations of sexual harass-ment spanning decades.

He reached at least eight settle-ments with women between 1990 and 2015.

Actor Ashley Judd was among the accusers who spoke to the Times for the story.

When the story came out on Sep-tember 5, Weinstein denied some of the allegations, but also admitted that he had behaved improperly at times during his career. He apologised for causing pain. IANS

LOS ANGELES: Singer Lady Gaga has filmed an inspiring video after learning her friend’s daughter is being bullied.

The pop star took to Instagram and posted a video talking directly to the children at the girl’s school and encouraging them to “be kinder” and be brave enough to stand up

to the popular kids who are pick-ing on her.

“Hi everybody at El Marino Elementary.”

“This is Lady Gaga. I’m friends with Venice, and I work with Ven-ice’s mommy, Julie. I’m really, really sad to hear that Venice is being bul-lied at school.

“... I encourage you all to be kind to one another and to search within your community for bravery.”

“Sometimes, it’s hard to stand up to the popular kids and hang out with someone who’s being bullied. Be kinder. Be braver. Go and sit with Venice and have lunch. Be a rebel,” Gaga said. PTI

Lady Gaga films an inspiringANTI-BULLYING VIDEO

Los Angeles, Oct 8 (IANS) A mass shooting scene in ‘American Horror Story: Cult’ was edited after Las Vegas tragedy, says the show’s producer Ryan Murphy.

During the New Yorker Fest panel recently, he confirmed that a scene containing a deadly mass shooting on an episode of ‘American Horror Story: Cult’ has been edited to be less graphic, reports eonline.com.

The decision was made following last week’s deadly Las Vegas shooting in which at least 59 people were killed and over 500 more were injured.

The scene in Murphy’s horror anthology was filmed prior to the Las Vegas shooting and has been edited.

“I just made the decision that I’m going to have all of that violence be shown for the most part off camera,” Murphy revealed at the festival.”

The producer admitted that he was unsure of how to handle the “locked” episode in the wake of the tragedy.

“Should you air it? Should you not air it? How do you be sensitive? My point of view was I believe I have

the right to air it, but I also believe in victims’ rights, and I believe that now is probably not the week to have some-thing explosive or incendiary in the culture because someone who was affected might watch that and it could trigger something or make them feel upset.

“So our decision was to re-edit it and I felt that that was the right move,” he explained.

He also said: “Nobody ever talks about victims’ rights. That’s sort of a weird emotional discussion that’s never bridged.”

“I felt great sympathy for people who were affected, certainly, and family members and loved ones and peo-ple who are upset about the way the world is.” IANS

Mass shooting scene edited in ‘Cult’