VOL. 13, ISSUE 99 | Tuesday, 10 April 2018 | New Delhi | Pages 16 | Rs 3.00

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PUBLISHED FROM DELHI & KOLKATA

In today’s paper

...

Political leaders, media should not ‘demoralise’ security forces

VICE PRESIDENT VENKAIAH NAIDU

CITY

GIRL JUMPS TO DEATH 4

NATION

JAITLEY BACK HOME AFTER DIALYSIS 5

EDIT

PERILS OF OPPOSITION DIN 8

INTERNATIONAL

100 HURT IN B’DESH 10

BUSINESS

INDIA, B’DESH SIGN HISTORIC OIL DEAL 12

SPORT

JITU SHOOTS GOLD 14

‘CHEMICAL ATTACK’: RUSSIA WARNS AGAINST SNAP JUDGMENTS PG10

DON’T MAKE SEALING A POLITICAL ISSUE: SC TO CENTRE, DELHI GOVT PG3

DON’T ‘HYPE UP’ BORDER ISSUE: CHINA TO INDIA PG5

PM SHARES SUCCESS MANTRA FOR PRIVATE, PUBLIC SECTOR

MPOST BUREAU

NEW DELHI: Prime Minis-ter Narendra Modi on Monday gave a 100-day deadline to the heads of central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) to come out with a roadmap with “measur-able targets” for strengthening state-owned companies and pro-moting development activities.

Addressing a CPSE con-clave here, Modi also suggested that their CSR spend should be focused mainly on one specific theme each year.

In this context, he appre-ciated the success that was achieved when this CSR spend was utilised for toilet construc-tion in schools.

He said one good theme could be the development of 115 aspirational districts identi-fied by Niti Aayog for particular focus. He said CPSEs could also take up skill development pro-grammes, as part of CSR.

Thematic presentations were made to the Prime Minister on subjects such as corporate gover-nance, human resource manage-ment, financial re-engineering, innovations and technology, and Vision 2022 for New India.

Appreciating the presenta-tions, Modi said that the gov-ernment had given operational

freedom to the CPSEs so that they can improve their performance. He said they had contributed significantly to nation-building, and in the national economy since independence.

“I need to learn a lot from you. If I spend more time with you, I shall emulate what I learn from you in the government. I hope that exactly after 100 days, whatever you have said today, you will come to me with a fool-proof roadmap and after fixing responsibility,” Modi said.

He asked the CPSEs to come with implementation roadmaps along with “measurable targets”.

Expressing concern over lit-tle procurement by CPSEs from

micro, small and medium enter-prises (MSMEs), Modi prodded them to buy more from the small units and also ensure timely payments.

In 2016, the procurement by CPSEs was only Rs 25,000 crore from MSMEs of the total Rs 1.30 lakh crore.

He said enterprise and inno-vation should be the guiding principles in the 21st century. He said incentives, imagination and institution building would be the three keys to success.

Elaborating, he mentioned improving operational and financial performance; trans-parency and accountability in processes; procurement through

the GeM platform and from MSMEs; and preparation for technological disruptions such as Artificial Intelligence, Quan-tum Computing and Robotics.

Identifying five challenges for CPSEs, Modi said they should focus on maximising their geo-strategic reach, mini-mising import bill, integrating innovation and research, opti-mal utilisation of CSR Fund and coming up with a new develop-ment model by 2022.

The Prime Minister also asked the CPSEs managements to hold their meetings at lesser known tourist destinations.

This, he added, will help pro-mote tourism.

Modi sets 100-day deadline for PSUs to come up with roadmap

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Rahul calls PM ‘casteist’; BJP dubs Cong fast a ‘farce’

ANUP VERMA

NEW DELHI: The Congress’ ‘fast for harmony’ led to fresh acrimony on Monday with party president Rahul Gandhi accusing Prime Min-ister Narendra Modi of being anti-Dalit and the ruling BJP mocking him for staging a “farce” while its leaders ate “chhola bhaturas”.

Gandhi led his party’s nation-wide daylong fast outside Rajghat against caste-based violence, com-munalism and non-functioning of Parliament, for which it blamed the ruling BJP, and to promote peace and harmony in the country.

The 1984 anti-Sikh riots cast a shadow over the ‘Sadhbhavna Upvas’ (fast for harmony) with Congress leaders Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler, listed as accused of their alleged role in the riots, being asked to stay away from the stage where Gandhi and the other lead-ers were sitting.

While Kumar left the venue soon after that, Tytler sat in the audience along with party workers.

It gave the BJP the ammuni-tion it was looking for, with party spokesperson Sambit Patra mock-ing Gandhi’s fast as a “farce” and describing the party’s decision to keep Kumar and Tytler away from the main dais as its “admission of guilt”.

BJP’s official Twitter handle also showed a photograph of local Delhi Congress leaders eating ‘chhola bhaturas’, which they claimed was ahead of the fast.

Gandhi, who was joined by senior leaders, including Kamal Nath, Mallikarjun Kharge, Sheila Dikshit, Ashok Gehlot, Delhi Con-gress chief Ajay Maken and the party’s communications in-charge Randeep Surjewala, arrived at the fast venue at 1 pm while the fast started at 10.30 am.

The fast was replicated across the country by Congress workers in all state and district headquarters.

“This is a fight for the ideology and values which India represents. We won’t allow the politics of hatred and division aimed at garnering votes to succeed,”Surjewala told reporters.

Asked about the row over Kumar and Tytler, he said, “Some conspirators in the BJP try to find meaning in everything small or the big thing.”

BEIJING: China on Mon-day said that Hong Kong can accede to India’s request to arrest fugitive Indian dia-mond merchant Nirav Modi based on local laws and mutual judicial assistance agreements.

Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh told parliament last week that “the ministry has sought the provisional arrest of Nirav Deepak Modi by the govern-ment of the Hong Kong Spe-cial Administrative Region (HKSAR), the People’s Republic of China.”

Asked about India’s request, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a media brief-ing here that “according to the one country two systems and basic law of the HKSAR, under the assistance and authorisation of the central government, the HKSAR can make proper arrangement on mutual judicial assistance with other countries,” he said.

“If India makes a relevant request to the HKSAR, we believe the HKSAR will follow the basic law and relevant laws and under relevant judicial agreements with India with the relevant issue,” he said.

Hong Kong can decide on Nirav Modi’s arrest: China

SC refuses to interfere with Bengal Panchayat polls

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday refused to interfere with the Pan-chayat elections in Ben-gal, rejecting a BJP plea for rescheduling them so that its candidates could file their nomina-tion papers and deploy-ment of Central paramilitary forces.

A Bench of Justice R K Agrawal and Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre, however, granted liberty to the aggrieved politi-cal parties and their candidates as well as independents to approach the State Elec-tion Commission for the redressal of their grievance.

Saying, “We are not inclined to inter-fere” with the ongoing Panchayat elec-tions, Justice Agrawal, pronouncing the order, held that the top court by its earlier judgment had ruled that “once the election process has been set in motion, the Court

ought not to interfere ...”The process for Pan-

chayat election, sched-uled to be held on May 1, 3, and 5, had com-menced on April 2.

Disposing of the petition by the Bharatiya Janata Party, the top court granted

liberty to “all political parties, their can-didates, including any independent candidate/s proposing to contest the elec-tion in question, to approach the State Election Commissioner with their any individual or/and collective grievance.”

The court said this as it referred to the provisions of the West Bengal Panchayat Elections Act, 2003 which empowers the State Election Commission to entertain any grievance raised by a political party which has fielded candidates, or its individual candidate or even Independent candidates.

AGENCIES

VARUN WAS NOT ON SHOOJIT’S CASTING LIST PG16

OWNER ARRESTED FOR NEGLIGENCE

Four charred to death at Sultanpuri shoe factory

ABHAY SINGH

NEW DELHI: Four workers, including two minors, were killed in a fire at a shoe-manu-facturing unit in Delhi’s Sultanpuri in the wee hours on Monday.

Police, during its initial investigation, have found that a short-circuit may have caused the fire, but are looking at other angles. The police have also arrested factory owner who has been accused of running the factory without a proper licence.

Atul Garg, Chief Fire Officer, Delhi Fire Services (DFS) stated that they received a call around 6.35 am from A-block, Raja Park in Sul-tanpuri regarding a fire incident. More than five fire tenders were rushed to the spot. “The blaze took place in a four storey building. Fire teams started their rescue work and doused the fire around 10:10 am,” said Garg.

Over two-dozen workers were sleeping in the first and second floors of the three-storey building when the blaze started. All, but four escaped, an officer said.Police took the injured ones to a hospital where they were declared dead.

The deceased have been identified as Razi Mohammad (20), Shan Mohammad(17), Ayub (17) and Mehboob (18). They all belonged to Asmada village in Uttar Pradesh Hardoi dis-trict. Ayub and Mehboob were siblings, a police official said.

The unit was run by a person named Brijesh Gupta, who lived in the same locality. The building was used for manufacturing shoes and housed around 25-30 workers, he said.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Outer) MN Tiwari stated that they had registered a case under sections 285 (Negligent conduct

concerning a fire or combustible matter) and 304A (Causing death by negligence) of IPC at Sultanpuri police station.

Meanwhile, another fire was reported around 12.55 pm Monday at Kucha Mahajani in Chandni Chowk, where a 22-year-old man was killed, the police said. Monday’s deaths take the toll in fire incidents in Delhi over the past 72 hours to seven.

Two persons had died in a fire at a foot-wear-manufacturing unit in Narela on Satur-day, while a 62-year-old shopkeeper died in a pre-dawn blaze at his shop in Sarita Vihar area on Sunday. See P4

IDENTIFYING five challenges for CPSEs, Modi said they should focus on maximising their geo-strategic reach, minimising import bill, integrating innovation and research, optimal utilisation of CSR Fund and coming up with a new development model by 2022

NO HALF TRUTHS

Firefighters taking out a body from the factory Mpost

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Father of UP girl who accused BJP MLA of rape dies in custody

Six policemen suspendedMPOST BUREAU

LUCKNOW: The father of a girl, who had alleged rape and attempted sui-cide along with her family outside Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s home on Sunday, died on Monday morning at a hospital in Unnao. Pappu Singh, 50, was in judicial custody after his daughter’s alleged rapists filed a complaint. He was reportedly beaten up by goons last week.

UP Chief Minister Yogi Adity-anath, who the girl claims to have approached for justice, said, “This is an unfortunate incident. I have spo-ken to top police officers in Lucknow. Those found guilty will not be spared, and the government will not show any leniency,” he said.

An inquiry has been ordered, police said. Two police officers and four constables have also been sus-pended, while four persons accused of beating the girl’s father have been arrested.

The 16-year-old girl had alleged she was raped by Kuldeep Singh Sen-gar, the BJP MLA from Unnao, and his brother last year, and even after a year since the incident, the police refused to take any action. She also claimed that her family was threat-ened after they tried to file an FIR or First Information Report.

Last Tuesday, her father was alleg-edly assaulted by Sengar, his brother and their associates, but an FIR was

filed against the girl’s father, and he was arrested. On Sunday, when the man complained of abdominal pain, he was taken to the district hospital where he died today.

“The incident happened while the man was in judicial custody. A mag-isterial inquiry will be conducted. If there have been lapses by the police, action will be taken,” Deputy Inspec-tor General of Police Pravin Kumar said.

Sengar, who has been a leader with the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party earlier, has denied the allegations.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi tweeted: “Beti Bachao, Khud Maare Jaao (save our daughters, get killed).”

In another tweet, former UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav criticised the “encounterwali” government for failing to ensure women’s safety in the state.

MPOST BUREAU

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Imagine a city, which offers an exclusive stretch for women, dotted with seating facilities, CCTV cameras, she-toilets, napkin vend-ing machines and walls bearing paintings of success stories of women.

If everything goes as planned, the state capital will soon have such a model stretch where ladies can enjoy the ‘safety’ and ‘women-friendliness’ to the maximum.

The City Corporation is preparing to set up a “She-Corridor” with all women-friendly features between the Government Women’s College junction and the state-run Cottonhill Girls Higher Secondary School in Vazhuthacaud here.

The Women’s College and Cotton-hill School are two prestigious girls-only institutions located in the heart of the city.

Besides offering exclusive facilities for women, the objective of the initiative is also to highlight the safety and security

of ladies in public places.Deputy Mayor, Rakhi Ravikumar said

the initiative is aimed at inculcating the feeling of safety in the minds of women-dwellers here.

“The objective of the project is to turn the state capital a model women-friendly

city, giving priority to their safety. Women should feel free and safe in our city,” Rakhi said.

The corridor would have seating facili-ties for women on both sides of roads where they would be safe to spend any time as the entire stretch would be under

the surveillance of CCTV cameras.FM radio, she-toilet and napkin vend-

ing machines would be some of the other features to be included, she said.

Terming the ‘she-corridor’ as a ‘women-empowerment’ initiative, the deputy mayor said a total of Rs two crore had been earmarked for the project.

The tender process for the work of the Corridor project was completed and the construction would soon begin, she said adding that it was expected to be over this year itself.

An architect was entrusted with the task of designing the model corridor, she said.

Rakhi said the stretch would also be a tribute to the valuable contributions made by eminent women in various fields including politics, arts, cinema, social movement and so on.

The contributions and success saga of iconic women would be displayed as paintings on the walls along the stretch.

Soon, ‘She-Corridor’ for women in Kerala EXCLUSIVE STRETCH FOR WOMEN, DOTTED WITH SEATING FACILITIES, CCTV CAMERAS

MPOST BUREAU

SHIMLA/NURPUR: Twenty seven children were among 30 killed when a school bus ferrying them back home fell into a deep gorge near vil-lage Gurchal on the Nurpur-Chamba highway, about 100 km from the district headquarters at Dharamsala. The children were students of Ram Singh Pathania Memorial School, police said.

Thirty persons, including 27 children, have lost their life, Himachal Pradesh Transport Min-ister Govind Singh Thakur said.

The driver, 67-year-old Madan Lal, and two women teachers also died in the accident which occurred when the bus was on its way back from school, Kangra SP Santosh Patial said.

Local BJP MLA, Rakesh Pathania, who was on the spot, said 27 bodies were recovered while two more had been spotted.

At least 13 severely injured persons were rushed to a hospital in Pathankot where one of them succumbed to injuries, an official said. The condition of other injured persons was also criti-cal, he said. The bus was carrying 40-45 people, and most of those killed were students of ele-mentary classes, aged below ten.

Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur announced an immediate relief of Rs 5 lakh to the next of kin of each deceased.

Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu and PM Narendra Modi condoled the loss of lives.

30, including 27 kids, killed as school bus plunges into gorge

2 MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 10 April, 2018mp around town

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Printed & Published by Jaiyendra Kumar Sharma on behalf of Front Row Media Pvt. Ltd. and printed at The Indian Express Pvt. Ltd., A-8, Sector-7, Noida-201 301 (U.P.) and published from First Floor, Pratap Bhawan, 5 Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi 110 002. Editor: Durbar Ganguly, Executive Editor: Arya Rudra. Email: durbarganguly@gmail.com, Tel. No. 011-47777500

IN SEARCH, A JOURNEY OF RUHANIYATAamad Dance Center is organising “In Search – a Journey of Ruhuniyat” by Rani Khanam. The audience will witness the Journey of Ruhaniyat through the rich amalgamation of Kathak, Music & Poetry (Sufi/Bhakti Verses) of Kabir, Bulle Shah, Amir Khusrau, Meera Bai, etc. Event will see performances by Shri. Rani Khanam (Kathak), Shakeel Ahmed, Shuheb Hasan, Zohaib Hasan, Leena Sargam and Nasir Khan. WHEN: April 10 TIMING: 7 pm onwards WHERE: India Habitat Center

FREAKY SHAKESYou’ll never look at a milkshake the same way again. The monstrous mashup of a drink and dessert with lashings of cream, chocolate, caramel sauces and indulgent delicacies such as chunks of brownie, nuts, pretzels, biscuits and even whole slices of pie are in the house. Available in five varieties, these overindulgent freaky shakes will surely win your heart this summer! WHEN: Till April 30 WHERE: Tea Lounge, Eros Hotel Nehru Place TIMING: 8 am – 8 pm

AAINAKHANA – A POETRY EVEAn evening to celebrate poetry and shayaris, DLF5 along with Delhi Shayari Club is organizing ‘Aainakhana’. The event provides a rightful platform to both acclaimed and budding poets alike and delves into the magic of poetry. Prominent names in the Urdu Poetry scene like Farhat Ehsas, Vipul Kumar, Tarkash Pradeep, Abbas Qamar, Shahbaz Rizvi to grace the evening. WHEN: April14 WHERE: The Grand Ballroom, DLF Club5TIMING: 6:30 pm – 10 pm

KAMALADEVI CHATTOPADHYAY The exhibition highlights key events in Kamaladevi’s life and her invaluable contribution to the world of craft. Known for her role in the revival of Indian handicrafts in the post-independence era, Kamaladevi has also been recognised by modern historians for her important contribution in shaping the freedom struggle. Her deep commitment to the revival of many crafts and textiles of the country have been highlighted in this exhibition with displays of samples of kalamkari, kasuti, blue pottery etc.WHEN: Till April 15 WHERE: IIC TIMING: 11 am – 7 pm

DAYINDAYOUT What’s on Around Town

OUR CORRESPONDENT

After a glorious run of 51 days across 17 cities of India, the 8th Theatre Olympics, which happened in India for the first

time, drew to a colourful close. The fes-tival had its grand closing ceremony in Mumbai and also staged two final pro-ductions in Delhi on March 8 i.e., the culmination day.

While Chief Minister of Maha-rashtra Devendra Fadnavis was present as the Chief Guest at the clos-ing cer-

emony, Minister of State (I/C), Ministry of Culture, Dr Mahesh Sharma, eminent film personality Nana Patekar came as the Guests of Honour.

The closing ceremony was honoured by the presence of Artistic Director, 8th Theatre Olympics, Ratan Thiyam and presided over by Acting Chairman, National School of Drama Society, Dr Arjun Deo Charan. Theodoros Terzo-poulos – Chairman of the International Committee of Theatre Olympics, M L Srivastava – Joint Secretary, Ministry of

Culture, and popular theatre and film personality Nawazuddin Siddiqui

were special guests at the event. Director of National School of Drama (NSD), Prof. Waman Kendre, was also present on the occasion.

“We get many chances to show our strength and potentials,

but 8th Theatre Olympics has given us unprecedented opportunity to show

the power of our culture,” said Prof. Waman Kendre, Director, NSD.

“8th Theatre Olym-pics could not have been possible with-out the inspirational support of Dr Mahesh

Sharma, our beloved and visionary Cul-ture Minister, Government of India. NSD is proud to have organised an event that has shown the cultural might of India, a vision shown by our Prime Minister Nar-endra Modi,” he further added.

While the closing ceremony was being held in Mumbai, the Capital held its last ‘Meet The Director’ session where emi-nent theatre critics, Diwan Singh Bajeli and Renu Arora joined the panel with directors of the plays staged on Saturday.

One of the closing plays in the city was ‘Derailed’. This Hindi play, directed by Devendra Ahirwar pivots around Sav-itri, a middle-aged woman, who is dis-satisfied with her circumstances. She has an unemployed son, a promiscuous teen daughter and a husband, who has failed to provide her emotional and financial security. ‘The Brink! Or A Ritual Of Bad Sounds’ was the concluding play. This English play, directed by Thom Pasculli is based on the popular story of Shakun-tala and brings about a subtle analysis of socio-political aspects of the period along with a poetic depiction of the love tale of Dushyanta and Shakuntala.

“I wish the Indian theatre, with the support of Indian government should dominate the world. The 9th Theatre Olympics will be jointly organised by Russia and Japan,” informed Chairman of the International Committee of The-atre Olympics, Theodoros Terzopoulos.

This edition of Theatre Olympics brought together approximately 25,000 artists under the theme “Flag of Friend-ship”. The event witnessed 450 shows

from more than 30 countries performed across 17 cities such as Agartala, Ahmed-abad, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Guwahati, Imphal, Jaipur, Jammu, Kolkata, Mumbai, New Delhi, Patna, Thiruvananthapuram, and Varanasi during the festival.

“I am really happy that Prof. Waman Kendre has taken theatre on another level. I appreciate your work and thank you, for you have kept theatre alive. Thanks for being associated with theatre for so long in all possible manner,” said Nana Patekar.

“Our rich heritage and culture is the reason that India stands united today despite the diversity. Life is like theatre. Like life, it goes on; it is only time, settings and people that change. It is true for this city Mumbai, which goes on in all situa-tions. The entire nation should be woven into the cultural fabric to create a united India. Through Theatre Olympics, we have commenced our journey to reach that goal,” said Minister of Culture, Dr Mahesh Sharma.

Chief Minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis, in his speech, said, “I thank Dr Mahesh Sharma and NSD to have selected Mumbai to organise the final phase of Theatre Olympics. Maha-rashtra is known as the birthplace of cin-ema, but actually, Maharashtra has been

the centre for theatrical activities. Our theatre will flourish from generation to generation. Without even the technical aspects of movies, theatre is able to cre-ate the effect through acting, and hence, our theatre will never die.”

“Theatre is a place where we can reflect all emotions and sentiments of society. Politics also has a bit of theatre in this. If we do our role well, people give us support and when we fail to play our role, they reject us. This I see a par-allel between the theatre and politics,” he further added.

‘Rang Shikhar’, a vibrant collage of tribal, folk and theatre performances, fol-lowed the closing ceremony. Renowned actors Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Manoj Joshi, Himani Shivpuri, Sachin Khe-dekar, along with well-known ventrilo-quist and puppeteer Ramdas Padhye, famous Bharatnatyam dancer Sandhya Purecha and famed Lavani dancer Vaish-ali Jadhav, performed at the presentation.

The 51-day long 8th Theatre Olym-pics staged more than 400 plays and hosted 78 allied events including 34 liv-ing legend series, 29 master classes, 7 interfaces, 6 national and international seminars and 2 workshops across 17 cit-ies. Besides, about 600 ambience perfor-mances and 250 youth forum shows took place during the nationwide event.

8TH THEATRE OLYMPICSculminates in Mumbai

After 51 days and 17 cities, the biggest international theatre festival – which came to India for the first time – came to an end. The 9th Theatre Olympics will be jointly organised by Russia and Japan

The scorching heat takes a toll not only on humans but on ani-mals as well. If you own a dog or you can care for a street dog,

save them from the heat by keeping them hydrated and don’t serve them day old food in the summer season, suggest experts.Rashi Narang, Founder at Heads Up For Tails, and Akshay Kanitkar, Director- Oper-ations at PetSutra, have listed ways for you to keep your paw-friends happy:

4Keep them indoors during the day: Do not take your pets for a walk during the scorching day hours. Ensure walks are restricted to only early mornings and post sunset during the summer months. Dogs are extremely sensitive to heat and apart from falling ill, they may also develop cracks on their paws due to walking on the hot concrete during the days.4Be sure to look at your dog’s paws

to check for discoloration, cuts, and bruises. Apply dog paw cream regularly and make them wear dog socks to prevent the paws from burning.4Travelling: Avoid going for long

drives with your pet, as the heat is too strong for him/her to handle. Also, do not leave your dog in your car during

summers.4Grooming and spa: Take your dog

out for regular grooming sessions includ-ing a bath and trimming of coat only if necessary. Contrary to popular belief, it is not advisable to shave off your dog’s coat in summers as their coats are protective layers that safeguard them from sunburns and heat strokes.4Sponge with wipes: Since it is nei-

ther possible nor advisable to bathe your dog multiple times in a week, occasional wet wipe sponging followed by thorough drying and brushing of coat can also be a good way to remove dirt, allowing their skin to breathe better and cool off.4Brush well everyday: It helps man-

age circulation of blood better and aids in temperature control. It also helps them shed dead hair making the dog feel lighter and more active.4Include liquids in diet or moisten

the food: To ensure the dogs are well hydrated during summer, it is advisable to moisten their food and also serve them healthy liquids like coconut water and homemade chhaach in small proportions, every now and then.

Change the water in their bowl every hour and keep an extra bowl of water,

before going to bed.If your dog can’t get the refreshment

from you, then they might go looking elsewhere and that can mean a poten-tially dangerous situation. Higher tem-peratures can accelerate the growth of bacteria in standing water and thirsty pets can also drink hazardous liquids if they are parched.4Take them for cool dip on the

weekends: If your dog is comfortable with and exposed to swimming, nothing beats a good swim session and some

fun splashing around in a pool. There are many pet exclusive pools that have hygienic pools for your dogs to dip in.

Ensure that post-swimming the dog is rinsed well in normal water and thor-oughly dried.4Uneaten food: Just like human

food, bacterial growth accelerates in dog food also, during summers. Avoid serv-ing uneaten food to your pet if they tend to have it outdoors. Pets that eat their food inside can still have leftover food of last 4 to 5 hours; yet overnight left food is

a big no. IANS

UMA NAIR

SAHMAT, THE SAFDAR Hashmi Memorial Trust, marks the 30th National Street Theatre Day on April 12, at the Sahmat office, 29 Ferozeshah Road, New Delhi. The National Street Theatre Day was initiated after the mur-der of Safdar Hashmi in 1989 and falls on his birthday, April 12. Every year, Sahmat would issue a poster to send to street theatre groups across India. The beauty of these posters is its intrinsic sense of history both in terms of artistic prac-tice as well as the visual kinetics of translating a silent protest to intolerance and prejudice towards humans.

The power of these posters lies in the balance of graphics and text-in drawing attention to the atrocities against man-kind from all walks of life. The term RESIST stands out in bold letters but it is the aftermath of violence, the scars which remain that hide between the

alphabets and the potent messages in the posters.

A space was left on the poster for local groups to list their performance information on the poster as a way to link the performances across India through the poster. Many of the post-ers would be themed on current issues

of the moment - free-dom of expression, communalism and collective resistance.

They were designed by Rajinder Arora, Parthiv Shah and Ram Rahman. Many are now in the design collection of the Museum of Mod-ern Art in New York.

“This year’s poster is on the farmer’s crisis and the protests across India,” says Ram Rahman.

“It also presents earlier cultural responses to farmers crisis – the Ben-gal famine through drawings by Chit-taprosad and photographs by Sunil Janah, the films ‘Dharti Ke Lal’ by IPTA, ‘Do Bigha Zameen’ by Bimal Roy and recent graphics by Orijit Sen.

Dog care tips to beat the heat

These street posters live in the moment

Still from ‘Derailed’

Still from ‘The Brink...’

mp city 3MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 10 April, 2018

SAYANTAN GHOSH

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Centre, Delhi government and other authorities concerned not to make unauthorised con-struction and sealing of illegal structures in the national Capi-tal “political” issues.

A bench comprising Jus-tices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta said this after Additional Solicitor General ANS Nadkarni, appearing for the Centre, informed the court that they had held meet-ings with all the agencies con-cerned and they had proposed to constitute a special task force for monitoring all the issues arising out of unauthorised constructions.

“There are a few points and you please take these into account. This is not a political issue,” the bench said.

The apex court also asked the authorities to look into the aspects of fire safety, espe-cially in schools, and the mas-sive depletion of groundwater while proceeding in the matter.

The bench also made it clear to the authorities that the health of the citizens of Delhi was much more important

than profit and they would have to deal with the issue in a holis-tic manner.

The bench has now posted the matter for further hearing on April 18.

The apex court had, on April 4, lashed out at the Cen-tre, Delhi government and civic agencies for their failure to stop

unauthorised constructions in the Capital, saying that ‘lungs’ of the citizens, especially chil-dren, were “damaged” due to the inaction of the authorities.

The top court was critical of the continuous inaction by the authorities and said that the people of Delhi were suf-fering from problems such as pollution, parking and lack of green areas due to the issues arising out of unauthorised constructions.

Earlier, the bench had said that businesses being run by the rich would not be spared and asked the Centre not to treat Delhi residents like “cat-tle” by depriving them of basic amenities as every person has the right to live with dignity.

While admitting that Delhi faces a severe crisis due to ille-gal and unauthorised construc-tions, Nadkarni, however, had said the Centre could not be

blamed for it entirely and that the Delhi government, Delehi Development Authority and municipal bodies are equally responsible for the prevailing situation.

The top court is hearing arguments on the validity of the Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Act, 2006 and subsequent leg-islation which protects unau-thorised construction from being sealed.

The apex court had ear-lier ordered restoration of its 2006 Monitoring Committee to identify and seal such offend-ing structures.

The Committee, compris-ing K J Rao, former advisor to the Election Commissioner, Bhure Lal, chairman of Envi-ronment Pollution (Preven-tion and Control) Authority, and Major General (Retd) Som Jhingan, was set up on March 24, 2006. WITH AGENCY INPUTS

Don’t make sealing a political issue: SC to Centre, Delhi govtHealth of citizens of Delhi much more important than profit, states apex court

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Assembly on Monday formed a five-member committee to suggest solutions for tackling the problem of encroachment on roads of the Public Works Department (PWD).

The panel will work in coor-dination with the Assembly’s Standing Committee on Public Utilities and Civic Amenities.

Aam Aadmi Party MLAs Madan Lal, Saurabh Bharad-waj, Naresh, Jagdish Pradhan and Om Prakash Sharma have been named as the members of the committee, which will suggest solutions to tackle

encroachment on PWD’s roads and study laws of other states to remove the same.

Delhi PWD Minister Saty-endar Jain told the House that the Department does not have power to remove encroach-ments even on its roads.

Municipal Corporations have the power to remove encroachments on city’s roads.

Jain said around 35 legisla-tors have handed over a written complaint to him on encroach-ment on roads in their respec-tive constituencies.

He also said that the encroachments often stop fire tenders and ambulances from reaching places on time.

PIYUSH OHRIE

GURUGRAM: While the debate over whether the business sentiment in the real estate sector in Gurugram has improved or not rages on, the Haryana government seems to be in no mood to miss out on this major revenue generator.

On Monday, for the second time this year, the state government increased the collector rates in the city.

In February, after a gap of four years, the government had revised the circle rates by 10 per cent, which remained in force till March 31.

With the new circle rates, property prices in Gurugram are set to increase between 15 to 20 per cent.

Now, in DLF-1 and Sushant Lok-1, the resi-dential circle rate has increased from Rs 65,000 per square yard to Rs 70,000 per square yard. In DLF-2, DLF-4 and South City-1, the residential circle rate is up from Rs 65,000 per square yard to Rs 72,000 per square yard.

“Real estate sector in Gurugram has been facing a lot of pressure for the last four to five years. The only silver lining was the sale of com-mercial properties. Since Gurugram is the pio-neer of realty revolution in the National Capital Region, the state government and builders must collaborate to sell properties in the city at reason-able rates,” said Rahul Suri, a Gurugram realtor.

Circle rates are the minimum price at which the property is registered with the district rev-

enue department when being transferred. The stamp duty levied on such properties is the major revenue source for the government.

There was a drastic drop in the collections of revenue through registration from the Guru-gram circle.

Of the Rs 3,900 crore of total revenue col-lected by the government through registration of properties, Gurugram contributed about Rs 1,464 crore last year. This amount was less than the revenue collected in 2013-14, which was over Rs 1,900 crore. There has also been a marked slowdown in the sale of housing units.

While 2013-14 saw 55,220 units being sold, in 2016 -17, the sale transactions were down to 52,476 units. The presence of larger inventories, however, ensured that Rs 26,073 crore collected through sales of these units was higher than Rs 19, 500 crore collected in 2013-14.

Second time this year, circle rates raised in Gurugram

Property prices in Gurugram are set to increase between 15 to 20 per cent REPRESENTATIVE IMAGE

SAYANTAN GHOSH

NEW DELHI: The education department of Delhi government is likely to come up with new plans to check frauds in school admissions in the economically weaker sections (EWS) category.

The government has already made the entire procedure of applying for EWS admissions online, to rein in frauds.

The issue arose after a Delhi businessman, arrested for allegedly impersonating as a slum dweller to secure his son’s admission in Sanskriti school under the EWS quota, told police he had lived in a slum for 10 days to use the address as residential proof.

“The target of the government would be to control fraud cases. We started the initiative by making the full system online. We believe that through use of proper

technology, these elements can be controlled,” said a source in the government.

She added that though it is very difficult to understand how fraudulent elements work in this system, it may be resovled be using a more transparent system.

“The government is very concerned about the issue and we will reform the system, so that children from poor families are not neglected,” she said.

Earlier, the Delhi government had warned all private schools in the Capital against asking for Aadhaar number of children, while admitting them in entry-level classes under the EWS or the disadvantaged group (DG) categories and refusing admission to such students on grounds of their distance from home.

“Private unaided recognised

schools are directed to ensure and facilitate admission of the selected candidates of EWS/DG category in the respective class, without creating any hindrance,” the Directorate of Education (DoE) had said in a letter to the schools.

“The schools should not ask for Aadhaar number of the children and income certificate from those EWS category parents who submit a copy of BPL/Food Security Card issued by Food and Civil Supply Department,” it stated.

Several complaints of “multiple entries” in the list of selected candidates seeking admissions in entry-level classes under the EWS/DG categories have surfaced this year.

The development comes a day after the DoE began the process of EWS admisions in around 1,700 private schools across Delhi.

Edu dept to crack down on frauds in EWS admissions

ROUSHAN ALI

NEW DELHI: The Assembly on Monday set up a committee to look into the issue of adulter-ation in food products and sug-gest changes in the related laws.

Aam Aadmi Party MLA Rajesh Rishi from Jankapuri claimed that synthetic milk is being supplied in the city, which is allegedly “damaging kidneys and liver” of people.

MLAs of both the rul-ing AAP and the Opposition BJP supported the issue and sought strict action against those involved in adulteration.

Subsequently, Delhi Health

Minister Satyendar Jain told the House, “I am issuing an order today to my department to conduct inspections of milk products on a daily basis and submit reports to my office.”

Speaker Ram Niwas Goel announced the formation of a seven-member committee, comprising AAP MLAs Adarsh Shastri, Alka Lamba, Anil Bajpai, Nitin Tyagi, SK Bagga and Madan Lal, and BJP MLA Manjinder Singh Sirsa.

Goel said the committee will work in coordination with the Assembly panel on health and suggest amendments to existing laws to ensure stern

action against the culprits.Jain told the House there

was a need of procedural sug-gestions. “There aren’t any problems in the law per se. There is a huge problem in the implementation,” he stated, adding that there was no fear among those committing adul-teration because “actions are not being taken against the majority of them”.

Jain added that the commit-tee’s suggestions could later be sent to the Centre for approval, adding that the government will table a draft bill in the House and send the same to the Centre for its nod.

Committee formed to resolve encroachment of PWD roads

House sets up panel to suggest changes in adulteration laws

House passes resolution on selection of

legal expertsOUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Assembly on Monday passed a resolution regarding selec-tion and terms and conditions of legal experts, including the fixing as well payment of pro-fession fee and remuneration, for engagement of legal profes-sionals and consultants to pro-cure necessary services for the Legislative Assembly be taken by the Speaker.

AAP legislator Madan Lal moved the resolution in the house, in pursuance of deci-sions taken by the Assembly’s General Purpose Committee in its meeting were held on November 17, 2017 and April 9, 2018.

Madan Lal said that when-ever bureaucrats have been called by the Assembly panels, they file petitions in the Delhi High Court through advocates hired by the Lieutenant Gov-ernor, on the expenses of the elected government.

The resolution stated that the Speaker is “free to adopt the procedure that he deems to be in the best interest of safe-guarding the independence of the legislature for arriving at such decision in this regard.”

“The Secretariat of the Leg-islative Assembly shall meet all the expenses to be incurred on this count from its budget with due approval from the Speaker alone. Any attempt in any quar-ter to do anything in violation of this resolve of the Assembly shall be treated as contempt of the House and Breach of Privi-lege of the House and all those responsible for any such con-temptuous conduct shall be proceeded against as decided by the Speaker and as per the Rules and procedures of the House,” the resolution stated.

DELHI ASSEMBLY FORMS TWO NEW COMMITTEES

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assem-bly Vijender Gupta was on Monday marshalled out of the House, while three other Bharatiya Janata Party MLA staged a walkout to register their protest after their request for a discussion on “water cri-ses” in the city was turned down by the Speaker.

As the House proceedings began on Monday, members of the BJP-led Opposition bran-dished bottles of contaminated water inside the house, alleg-edly being supplied in various areas of Delhi.

Gupta, along with two other

BJP MLAs, O P Sharma and Jagdish Pradhan, trooped into the Well of the House, demand-ing discussion on alleged water crises in the city.

Gupta, the BJP MLA from Rohini Assembly constituency, and Sharma reached near the chair of Speaker Ram Niwas Goel, showing him bottles of contaminated water.

As Gupta turned the mike, Goel got angry and ordered him to be marshalled out of the House.

The Speaker also suspended Gupta for the day from the House proceedings.

To register their protest, the three other BJP MLAs also walked out of the House.

Vijender Gupta marshalled out of Delhi Assembly

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: In bid to pro-vide accurate information to the public, the Vallabhbhai Patel Chest Institute (VPCI) at Delhi University has installed two display boards in its prem-ises to disseminate information on pollen count, after moni-toring levels of airborne grass pollens.

The machines procured by the institute are among the first-of-its-kind in the country.

A recent study found that 30 per cent of the population of Delhi-NCR suffers from some form of allergic ailment and a majority of the residents are unaware of what exactly flares up their condition and how to avoid it.

Having a pollen count sta-tion can be instrumental, espe-cially for people with asthma and other respiratory ailments, as they can check the forecast and take preventive measures, such as taking anti-histamines or staying indoors and mini-mize health risk, officials at the institure said.

Experts believe that for patients with respiratory issues, the pollen count would be an indispensable resource to help manage their symptoms and protect their lungs.

Dr Raj Kumar, Head of Department of Pulmonary Medicine and National Center of Allergy Asthma and Immu-nology, VPCI, told reporters, “The digital display board at the institute will help create awareness about pollen being a common, in fact, one of the major reasons for repeated attacks in asthma patients. It

will also enable people with chronic allergies to be better prepared for a dusty/pollen day on the road.

“Especially in the spring, when things get dustier and dry, the number of pollen induced allergy cases are on a steady increase,” Kumar, who also serves as Acting Director of the Institute, said.

He added that having a pol-len count station can be crucial for such patients as they can check pollen count status in the vicinity and take necessary steps to avoid exposure.

Pollen count monitors come up at Patel Chest Institute

Two boards in the VPCI premises will display information on pollen count, after monitoring levels of airborne grass pollens PIC/MPOST

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: South Delhi Municipal Commissioner (SDMC) PK Goel on Monday issued an advisory on the pre-vention and control of vector-born diseases in Delhi.

He has called for preven-tion of mosquito breeding at source and made it clear that the reduction is the only effec-tive tool for prevention and control of these diseases.

The prevention and con-trol has become essential as there is no specific treatment against Dengue and Chikun-gunya. Vector mosquito breed mainly on artificial collection of clean water in desert coolers, uncovered storage containers and old tyres.

During rainy season the possibilities of accumulation of water become more.

Goel said that data relating to previous year reveals that there was a surge of Chikun-gunya cases.

SDMC issues advisory on vector-born

diseases

The court has now posted the matter for further hearing on April 18

AKASHVANI : ALTRUISTIC BY CONVICTION

LISTEN TO

from 9th April, 2018(Monday)

NOW

FOOD POISONING CASE

mp city4MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 10 April, 2018

Factories sans safety measures risk several lives

PCR STAFF SAVE WOMAN FROM DROWNING IN LAKE NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police PCR unit saved a 35-year-old woman from drowning after she had fallen in Lake at Village Tajpur near Narela. The PCR team acted after it received a call that a woman has accidently fallen in the lake. The call was immediately transmitted to the nearby PCR van after which the PCR team immediately swung into action and reached the spot. The PCR staff spotted a woman, aged about 35 years, drowning in the lake. In-Charge of the PCR van, ASI Bijender Singh, along with Gunman Constable Praveen Kumar, without caring for their lives jumped into the lake and rescued the woman. They immedi-ately provided her first aid and got her admitted in a hospital in Narela, where she was saved. The brave PCR Staff is being suitably rewarded by Delhi police.

CITY BRIEFS

Public agencies to now focus on maintenance

Attack on journalist: Scribes protest outside SSP, DM office

RAHUL SINGH

GHAZIABAD: Scores of jour-nalists on Monday staged a sit-in protest outside the offices of Senior Superintendent of Police and District Magistrate in Gha-ziabad. They condemned the attack on a senior TV journalist in Kavinagar area of Ghaziabad on Sunday evening. At around 2 pm, over a hundred journal-ists from various TV chan-nels and newspapers gathered outside Ghaziabad SSP office and raised slogans against the administration and the police.

The protesters demanded immediate suspension of the Kavinagar's Station House offi-cer Samarjit Singh. The agi-tating journalists held Singh responsible for not taking any action against some persons who were named in a written complaint given by Chaudhary a month ago, after he feared a threat to his life from them.

"We demand senior police

officials to suspend the inspec-tor for being imprudent in the case. If he had taken necessary actions at the right time, our colleague would not have been battling for his life at the hospi-tal," a journalist present in the protest said.

The journalists also warned the police of a much intensi-fied protest if strict and imme-diate actions are not taken in the case. Meanwhile, journalist Anuj Chaudhary’s condition is

stated to be critical.“Next five to six days will

be crucial for Chaudhary as the risk of infection spreading in the body is high during this period. He has been kept on ventilator in the Intensive Care Unit at Yashoda Hospital. He is under the supervision of a team of specialized doctors,” said a senior doctor at Yashoda Hos-pital in Ghaziabad.

However police is still clue-less and no arrest has been

made, so far. Anuj's family members have named nine persons in the police compli-ant including a former coun-sillor Shekhar Tyagi.

Meanwhile, Ghaziabad MP and Union minister of state for external affairs General V K Singh reached Yashoda hospital in Ghaziabad on Monday and enquired about Chaudhary’s condition.

Anuj Chaudhary, who works with the Sahara Samay Hindi news channel, was on his way to home, when four-five unidentified persons in a car and a two-wheeler opened fire on him near the entrance of his house.

Chaudhary suffered three bullet injuries in the incident out of which one bullet hit him in the abdomen and two hit him in the right arm. He was immediately rushed to the Yas-hoda Hospital and has been kept in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

PIYUSH OHRIE

GURUGRAM: One of the major highlights of ML Khat-tar-led Haryana government is the development projects at the major routes of Gurugram where work at NH-8 is most visible. A route where lakhs of vehicles were held up for more than 16 hours due to few milli-metres of rain in July 2016 have now given way to underpasses and flyovers. Public agencies in Gurugram, however, faced immense criticism after the roof of underpasses at Rajiv Chowk and Signature towers collapsed during dust storm on Friday.

The repercussions of it have resulted in public agencies not only prolonging the deadline to inaugurate underpass at Hero Chowk but also to ensure that

there is more due diligence on the maintenance part of the projects that have already been set up.

The decision comes at a time when the report has been sought from the contractors by the National Highways. At the cost of Rs 1,000 crore, the proj-ect was completed within the time frame of 13 months than the record time of 30 months. Earlier, there was also criti-cism over lack of coordination between the authorities as no lights fixed at the underpasses jeopardised the safety of the commuters.

“The roof collapse inci-dent was an unfortunate inci-dent and due process is being followed to rectify the inci-dent. Needless to say one bad incident should not be used to undermine the great work done

by the engineers and labourers in completing the quality work in record time,” said a senior official from NHAI.

Not only National High-

way-8 but citizens have also expressed their dissatisfaction over planning and quality of construction in Golf Course road. Despite being made a sig-

nal fee road, there were com-plaints of water logging and traffic jam at the major road. There seems to be no planning by the officials who build the road. It is well known fact that how poor drainage systems are resulting in the flooding of our cities. Yet, the engineers want to compromise quality by sav-ing costs on building the drain-age as a result of which most of the roads even after crores of investment are getting spoilt,” said Rajan Bhargava, a city resident.

“If you want to illustrate the example of poor and haphaz-ard planning, you must cite the example of Gurugram. Corrup-tion and lack of proper plan-ning are resulting in even areas of New Gurugram flounder-ing,” said Vinita Yadav, a city resident.

Roof of underpasses at Rajiv Chowk and Signature Towers in Gurugram collapsed during dust storm

UNDER FIRE OVER UNDERPASS ROOF COLLAPSE

NEW DELHI: A fire broke out in a building in Old Del-hi’s Chandni Chowk area on Monday. The Delhi Fire Ser-vices (DFS) informed that no casualties were reported from the spot. But the police claimed that one person died in the fire.

Police further alleged that the deceased was identified as Rohit, a native of Muzaffar-pur in Bihar. He was declared brought dead at the hospital.

“He was working as a office boy at the shop. Initial inves-tigation suggests he died due to suffocation,” said a police officer.

The blaze had, however, gutted 10-12 shops in the local-ity and one person was taken to the hospital after he fainted. DFS chief fire officer Atul Garg informed that the fire had bro-ken out in the Kuch Magane area and the fire call was made at 12:55 pm. “It was a medium fire,” Garg said. MPOST

One dead in Chandni Chowk fire

Delhi Police Shahdara DCP Nupur Prasad rewarding two girls, who foiled snatching attempt and got the robbers arrested, in two separate incidents

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NOIDA: Following the food poi-soning incident in which around 25 students of Step by Step school in Noida’s sector 132 fell ill after consuming toxic mid-day meal, the school administration has written a letter to the district administration and apologised for not providing access inside the premises for inves-tigations on the day of the incident.

As per the letter, the school has now assured full co-operation in the investigations and submit-ted to them the report of the inci-dent which included the sequence of actions. The school in its letter stated that the district administra-tion officials were denied access into the premises due to the pro-tocol followed for security reasons. “The school has a protocol which people have to follow to enter the

school premises. After it came to their notice that senior officials were denied access, we provided them with everything they wanted and even food samples were col-lected,” the letter reads.

The letter further stated that on April 5, when the students com-plained of nuasea, vomiting and stomachache, the school authorities immediately called a team of doc-tors from Max hospital for treat-ment and informed the parents about the incident. Accordingly, the school suspended the services of Sodexo, the canteen contrac-tor, after it came to light that the student have fallen ill due to food poisoning.

Meanwhile, the school before reopening on Monday wrote an e-mail to the parents and advised them to send tiffin along with their children till the situation comes

becomes normal. “The canteen operator was suspended after the incident. Unless the issue is resolved, the students are advised to bring their tiffins from their homes,” the school informed the parents through the email.

The Gautam Budh Nagar Police has issued a letter to the school authorities asking them to name the people involved in different committees.

“We are waiting for the results of the samples and are recording the statements of the parents. The school authorities have been asked to issue the names of the people involved in several committees under CrPc 91. Once the sam-ple results are out, action will be taken against the person found at fault,” said Ajay Pal Sharma, Senior Superintendent of Police, Gautam Budh Nagar.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: A TV reporter was arrested by the Crime Branch of Delhi police for run-ning an extortion racket along with his gang where they used to lure innocent men and vid-eograph them with a female accomplice in compromising positions. The gang members then posing as policemen and journalists threaten the vic-tim that their video will be made public. Then, they extort money from the victims who never approached the police for the fear of ruining their per-sonal life.

During interrogation, the accused Md Sameer Siddiqui disclosed that he knew that sel-dom does the victim of such a case come to the police. All the male members of this gang

were his own trusted members. During the fake sting operation, Arif used to hold the camera and record the video. Sameer held the TV mike. Sanjay alias Sahil always used to pose as a police official and would thrash the victim. Finally, they would extort money from the victims for giving relief from criminal cases. Suraj, a member of this gang, drove the car carrying the gang members to the destina-tion. In case, the victim was in possession of a Credit or Debit card, they withdrew money from the accounts of the vic-tims after forcibly obtaining the PIN number of the Credit or Debit card.

The incident came to light when a complainant told the police that he received a What-sApp message from a mobile number and the messenger

informed him her name and that she was facing some prob-lems with her computer soft-ware and on that pretext he was called at her place in Keshav Puram, Delhi.

“She guided him to a room and asked him to wait for a while and after 2-3 minutes, she came in a seducing man-ner and closed the door. Before he could realize anything, all of sudden four persons entered the room from the adjacent room and they attacked him, beat him up mercilessly and forcibly undressed him,” said Alok Kumar, Joint CP Crime.

“They also made his video recording with that lady in a compromising position and they threatened to circulate the video on news channels. All five have been arrested,” Alok Kumar said.

Journalist develops extortion gang, honeytraps victims

ABHAY SINGH

NEW DELHI: The alertness of a 32-year-old blind woman saved the lives of nearly a dozen fire victims who were trapped inside a Sultan-puri factory where fire broke out.

With the help of a staircase, the affected persons were res-cued through the small win-dow. The brave woman Meena, who cannot see with her eyes,

heard noises coming from the adjacent building. “My wife told me that she heard someone cry-ing in the nearby building. It was around 6 am and we were sleeping. I went to the roof and saw smoke inside the building,” said Dharmender, Meena's husband. Without wasting much time, the blind woman alerted everyone who lived on different floors of the house.

Dharmender further added that he saw labourers on the third floor of the building shouting for help through a window. An elderly woman Jyoti joined the rescue efforts and both of them took out a wooden staircase and attached it to the building's window. “The laborers with the help of staircase came out of the window and

crawled down the staircase,” said Dharmender. Some of them were hanging from the building. They were pulled inside other houses.

Another rescuer Jyoti stated that it was tough for them to breathe as the smoke had entered the house. “It was the first time we witnessed such an incident. Around 15-20 labourers were res-cued by us,” said Jyoti.

The residents claimed that they did not have much knowledge about the building and the labourers used to remain inside the building. They had hardly seen them standing near the window. “During fire, the window of the build-ing was broken and for the first time we saw some part of building,” said the residents.

Blind woman, her husband rescue a dozen victims

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police provided the green corridor for the heart transplant in which the heart was flown from Jaipur, Rajasthan, to AIIMS in Delhi. The Organ Retrieval Banking Organisation ( ORBO) requested Delhi Police to provide the same so that the heart is transferred to the needy patient at the earliest.

The heart has to be transplanted within 4 hours after retrieving it, while expressing need to keep everything ready including transportation facilities so that crucial time is not wasted.

“The heart was flown to Delhi from Jaipuir and the flight landed at IGI at around 11:50 am on Mon-day. The heart was taken through green corridor which took just 18 minutes from IGI to AIIMS,” said a senior police officer.

The operation turned out to be successful. It was due to the meticulous work of the doctors and also the Delhi Traffic police which made the routes clear and provided swift passage through green cor-ridor,” said Balram, Transplant coordinator ORBO.

Earlier, The Delhi Police provided a green cor-ridor on April 5 after a patient’s relative tweeted to Delhi Police requesting green corridor to take the sick child from Dwarka to a hospital in Saket.

Green corridor provided for heart transplant

OUR CORRESPONDENT

GHAZIABAD: A 15-year old class nine girl student allegedly committed suicide by jump-ing from her balcony located at the 12th floor apartment of a high rise residential society in Govindpururam area of Ghazi-abad on the intervening night of Sunday and Monday.

According to the police, the deceased has been identi-fied as Shalini Dagar, a student of Green Field Public School. The incident was reported from Gaur homes society and occurred at around 2 am on Monday when Shalini died after jumping from the balcony of the flat when everyone were asleep. Police suspect it a case of suicide, however they are also not ruling out any possibility of foul play. The police have sent the body for postmortem.

"Upon hearing the falling sound, the guards of the society raised an alarm and informed

the police and she was rushed to the hospital where she was declared brought dead,” said a senior police officer. The fam-ily members of the deceased were informed by the police. Police said that Shalini was watching TV till 12 am with the family members after which she went to her room to sleep.

"Her elder sister and her younger brother were asleep when the incident took place.

Her father Rakesh Dagar had died an year ago, since then Shalini was mentally dis-turbed,” said a senior police officer. Sources claimed that Shalini had also tried to com-mit suicide by cutting her veins around 5 months back and was undergoing treatment at a psy-chiatrist for depression. "The family has given in written that they do no want any investi-gation in the case. The post-mortem reports have revealed internal injuries to brain as the case of death,” officer added.

15-year old girl jumps to death from

12th floor balcony

ABHAY SINGH

NEW DELHI: Nothing was learnt from the Bawana factory fire which killed 17 people. Fac-tories are still running in resi-dential areas without proper fire safety arrangements and escape routes, which risks the lives of labourers as well as those of other residents.

During the investigation of the building where a fire incident was reported, it was found that it did not have NOC related to fire safety. “It was running in an unauthorized building in a residential area. So, no NOC was given to the building,” said a senior fire offi-cial. According to the residents of Raja Park where the building was located, it had more than 1,000 people living there.

At the spot, it was found that the gate of the building was broken. It is being investigated whether the door was closed during the fire which resulted in the deaths. Atul Garg, Chief Fire Officer, Delhi Fire Services (DFS) stated that the building had fewer escape routes due to which the labourers were trapped in the fire. Reports were also coming that the fire

started from the electronic meter which is being verified by the police.

An MCD official stated that they have been conduct-ing raids on such type of units to stop illegal activities. “No license was given to the factory as it was situated in a residen-tial area,” said the official, add-ing that they only give license to factories in industrial areas.

“Bawana and Okhla are the industrial areas for factories,” said the official.

At the spot, SDM Rohini Nagendra Tripathi was taking note of the situation. He stated that the building was situated in an unauthorised colony. When asked why there was a factory running in the residen-tial area, the official claimed that it was an apathy which

Delhi is facing. The area where the incident was reported was very congested. Adding to the worry were several gas cylin-ders inside and the residents feared that they might explode but after cooling, the situation turned normal.

The data accessed by the Millennium Post stated that in 2017, DFS had received approx-imately 23,417 calls (until October 23) which included incident related to fire, sewer, road, drowning and building collapse. In 2016, the number of calls were around 31,304. The data further stated that in April and May, the highest number of calls were received by DFS which were 3,395 and 2,994 respectively.

In 2016, 3,300, 3,560 and 3,645 calls were received in April, May and June respec-tively. In July 2017, a less number of calls have been received compared to the rest nine months which was 1,931 whereas in 2016 during the same month, 2,255 calls were received.

Meena with her husband Dharmender

RAIN RELIEF

A woman buying fruits as she holds an umbrella during the rain in New Delhi on Monday PIC/NAVEEN SHARMA

Police officers, people gather at the spot in Sultanpuri where the fire broke out in a shoe factory

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: A 25-year-old man was shot dead in West Delhi area. Police claimed that accused was known to the vic-tim. The deceased was identi-fied as Kamrool Hassan who lived in Tanki wali JJ colony.

Police said that the inci-dent was reported on Monday evening when they received a PCR call about the incident. The police team reached the spot and found that Hassan was shot by one known boy of the same age at an empty plot near Guru Govind Singh hos-pital around 6:15pm. “He along with accused and two more persons were sitting in the plot and arguing on some issues. One and two kids are found as eyewitness. We have iden-tified the accused. And appre-hended some of his known to trace him,” said the DCP (West) Vijay Kumar.

Man shot dead

Noida school apologises to district administration for denying access

NO LESSONS LEARNT

mp nation 5MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 10 April, 2018

KJM VARMA

BEIJING: China on Monday asked India to respect the Line of Actual Control and refrain from "hyping up" the boundary issue and work with it to jointly maintain peace and tranquillity in the border areas.

The Chinese Foreign Minis-try's remarks came in response to a report that China has lodged a strong protest with New Delhi, alleging "trans-gression" by the Indian troops in the strategically sensitive Asaphila area along Arunachal Pradesh. The Indian side has dismissed Beijing's complaint.

Foreign Ministry spokes-man Geng Shuang skirted a direct response to the report and said, " I do not understand the specific state of affairs that you mentioned that happened recently on the Sino-Indian border".

"Prior to the resolution of the border issue, it is hoped that the Indian side abide by the agreement protocol, respect and obey the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and refrain from hyping up the issue and work with China to jointly maintain peace and tranquillity in the border areas," Geng said.

He, however, reiterated Chi-na's repeated stand that Beijing never recognised Arunachal Pradesh, which it claims as part

of southern Tibet."China's position on the

Sino-Indian boundary issue is consistent and clear. The Chinese government has never acknowledged the so-called Arunachal Pradesh," he said.

"Both China and India are negotiating to resolve the boundary issue between the two countries and seek a fair and reasonable solution accept-able to both sides," he said.

Both the countries have Special Representative talks mechanism to resolve the boundary issue.

The two countries so far have held 20 rounds of talks to resolve the boundary dis-pute and worked out dif-ferent mechanisms to keep peace along the 3,488 km-long LAC.

Asked about the recent visit of Chinese Vice For-eign Minister Kong Xuanyou

to New Delhi on April 6 and reports of several Indian top ministers visiting China this month, Geng said, "China and India have sound momentum of exchanges and close coop-eration. It is not strange to have such kind of cooperation."

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to due to visit China in June to take part in the Shang-hai Cooperation Organisation summit to be held in the Chi-nese city of Qingdao. PTI

Don't 'hype up' border issue: China to India

A file picture shows Indian army personnel carry out drills at Kibithu close to the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Anjaw district of Arunachal Pradesh on Thursday PTI

ITANAGAR: Cutting across party lines, political leaders in Arunachal Pradesh on Mon-day strongly opposed China for its charge of "transgression" against the Indian Army in the state's strategically sensitive Asaphila region.

From the ruling BJP to the opposition Congress and the PPA, the leaders spoke out against China, stressing that the area belonged to India.

The Asaphila region is in Arunachal Pradesh and belongs to India and such patrolling is a regular practice there, Arunachal Pradesh Con-gress Committee (APCC) pres-ident Takam Sanjoy said.

China's protest at a border personnel meeting (BPM) on March 15 ... is shocking and surprising, Sanjoy, a former MP, said, adding that the charge was baseless.

The Chinese military had on Sunday protested against the Indian Army's "transgres-sion" into the Asaphila area along the disputed border in Arunachal Pradesh, a charge that was roundly rejected by the Indian side.

Taking strong exception

to repeated allegations made by China, state BJP vice presi-dent Dominic Tadar said Bei-jing needed to shed its negative attitude.

State Civil Supplies Min-ister Kamlung Mossang, who represents the sensitive Miao Assembly constituency of Changlang district, said no nation should interfere in

India's internal matters.What it (India) does and

where, are up to India's law-makers, planners and executors and nobody else's affair, he said.

While Sanjoy took a dig at the BJP-led NDA government for its "weak diplomatic policy" which he said had led to the current situation, senior Peo-ple's Party Leader (PPA) Takam Pario slammed Bejing, saying such charges had no ground -- political or geographical.

Beijing should not under-mine democratically elected governments ruling India as well as Arunachal Pradesh. India is the largest democ-racy in the world and always toes democratic principles in its every action, Pario said and advised China to rise above its narrow diplomatic attitude.

PPA president Kahfa Begin charged China with forcibly occupying large areas of India following the 1962 war.

Citing the example of Duya village where indigenous Nah and Tagin tribes of Arunachal Pradesh still live, he said China should return India's land instead of claiming Indian ter-ritory as its own. MPOST

Arunachal leaders rubbish China's 'transgression' charge

A file picture shows student presenting a cultural programme at the Valedictory function of the 40 years of Vivekananda Kendra in Itanagar, AP on Sunday PTI

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Defence Min-ister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said there is a growing interest among various coun-tries in the Indian missiles and the government wants to sell them to the friendly nations.

"The interest in Indian mis-siles is definitely growing and we are addressing it," Sithara-man said.

She added India wants to sell them to the "friendly nations."

Citing negotiations over aspects like cost, the defence minister said arriving at a deci-sion on a deal is at times "frus-trating," but the interest in the Indian missiles is "sustained."

Sitharaman was speaking at an event organised by the Con-federation of Indian Industry.

Several countries have shown interest in the Indian missiles. Countries like Viet-nam are keen on buying super-sonic Bramhos missile from India.

The defence minister said she will address the defence attaches posted in Indian mis-sions abroad to encourage them to market the capabili-ties of the Indian manufactur-ing experts.

The missions and embassies of all nations have a defence attache, usually a senior armed forces official, who takes care of the country's defence needs with the particularly nation he is posted in. Similar is the case with India.

"I am not asking them to be marketing experts but they should be able to talk a lot on what India's defence manufac-turers are doing to enhance the capacity of the country's armed forces." This will cre-ate an interest among various countries about the abilities of Indian defence equipment manufacturers and "in a way sell India without being mar-keting experts," she said.

"Defence attaches should not only identify those defence procurement for us to buy but (they should) also be able to speak about what we are pro-ducing so that the nations outside can look at India as a producer's' market also, rather than a buyer's market," she said.

Indian missiles evince interest, says Def Min

OUR CORRESPONDENT

BENGALURU: Karnataka PCC working president Dinesh Gundu Rao on Monday said he was confident about Congress returning to power in the May 12 state assembly polls.

Incumbent Siddaramaiah will be the "front-runner" for the Chief Minister's post, he said.

Asserting that there was no anti-incumbency against the Siddaramaiah govern-ment, he took a dig at BJP, say-ing its president Amith Shah is becoming a "star campaigner" for the ruling party.

He also raised questions about Prime Minister Nar-endera Modi's "absence from campaigning." "Congress is going for election under the leadership of Chief Minister, it has been stated. It is under his leadership entire campaign is being run...he is the face of the election, he is the captain of our team," Rao told PTI.

"CM will be decided after the election, if we win, CLP will meet and decide, but he (Sid-

daramaiah) is the captain of our team, so obviously if we win again, he will be the front-runner," he said.

Rao, however, did not wish to respond whether Congress' decision not to announce chief ministerial candidate was to avoid any divisions or conflict within the party, with KPCC president G Parameshwara also seen as a serious contender for the top job. Though the party has not announced any chief ministerial candidate, it has named Siddaramaiah as its face. Rao said he was confident about the Congress performing

better than it did during the 2013 assembly polls, when it won 122 out of 224 seats.

"I think we will do better than last time, because last time was election based upon anti or negative BJP (wave)...this time in the election people are not only unhappy with BJP, but they are happy with the Con-gress in Karnataka."

Rao also claimed that there was no anti-incum-bency, adding, instead, "there is pro-incumbency."

"We will improve than last time, but we will have to get the ticket distribution every thing

done correctly.""We should see to it that

deserving people get the ticket, if we do that correctly, then I think definitely there will be no other problem," he said.

When it was pointed out that after 1985 no party in the state has been able to retain power consecutively, he observed that they were unable to come back due to reasons like division or dissidents within the party.

However, there was nothing of that sort this time, he said.

"We have given a very sta-ble, good government, and have delivered on our promises which has reached the people.

This is a pro-incumbency government, people are pre-ferring us to other parties," he said. Ruling out "Modi wave", Rao said the "Modi factor or phenomenon is going down, because people are not seeing tangible results."

He pointed out that Modi has not come to Karnataka for the last one-and-half months and has been cancelling his programmes.

'Siddaramaiah front-runner for CM's post'KARNATAKA ASSEMBLY POLLS

LUCKNOW: Having taken a serious note of BJP’s shock-ing defeat in byelections and the recent resentment shown by four Dalit MPs against the state leadership, Prime Minis-ter Narendra Modi is learnt to have expressed his concern to chief minister Yogi Adityanath over the state of affairs in Uttar Pradesh.

During his Delhi visit on Saturday, Yogi also met BJP national president Amit Shah, who also expressed his res-ervations over the failure of the state leadership in certain areas. Shah will now visit Luc-know on April 11 to have a first-hand assessment of the ground situation. An expla-nation sought by the Prime Minister and the party presi-dent from the UP chief min-ister assumes significance in the wake of a three-day visit by two top RSS functionaries to the state. Krishna Gopal and Dattatreya Hosabale collected

feedback after interacting with the two deputy chief ministers, ministers, party office-bearers, RSS leaders, grassroots-level volunteers and the public dur-ing their visit to UP.

Officially, Yogi’s meeting with Modi and Shah is being described as a courtesy call and routine discussion. However, party insiders revealed that its impact could be visible very soon it would not be surprising to see some drastic changes in the BJP-led state government and in the organization in the days to come, Times of India reported.

Already, RSS inputs have

alerted the BJP leadership about the consolidation of the SP and the BSP in the state and the swift mobilization of Mus-lims and Dalits against the BJP. A rattled Modi, had called Yogi to Delhi late on Saturday eve-ning. During the meeting, he reportedly told him to resolve issues as soon as possible.

In an unusual development, four MPs from the SC com-munity — Savitri Bai Phule, Chhote Lal, Yashwant Singh and Ashok Dohre — have expressed their anguish before the state and central leader-ships over atrocities against dalits. Yogi, who has already suffered a blow after losing his bastion Gorakhpur to Sama-jwadi Party, is facing the heat once again less than a month after it.

In view of the escalating tensions in the rank and file of the BJP, crucial changes in the government and organisation are on the cards. AGENCIES

Modi asks CM Yogi why all isn’t well in UP

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The UIDAI has brought in secure dig-itally-signed QR Code on e-Aadhaar that will now con-tain photograph of the Aad-haar holder too, in addition to demographic details, to facili-tate better offline verification of an individual.

"The UIDAI (Unique Iden-tification Authority of India) has recently replaced existing QR code on e-Aadhaar having resident's demographic details now with a secured digitally-signed QR Code which con-tains demographics along with photograph of the Aadhaar holder," a UIDAI source said.

A QR code is a form of barcode label which contains machine-readable informa-tion, while e-Aadhaar is the electronic version of Aadhaar that can be downloaded from UIDAI website.

The new feature, the dig-itally-signed QR code, will contain photo of the Aadhaar holder in addition to existing facility of demographic details, in turn allowing various user agencies like banks to verify authenticity of Aadhaar card offline.

When contacted UIDAI CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey said, This is a simple offline mechanism to quickly verify the genuineness of the Aad-haar card."

However, to ensure that a person is a bona fide owner of the Aadhaar card, there has to be a manual check of photo with the individual's face or though use of agency specific authentication scheme, he noted.

The UIDAI's e-Aadhaar QR Code reader software has been made available on the nodal body's website from 27 March 2018.

Offline verification facility would add yet another option to the exception-handling mechanism at the ground level for ensuring that no denials on Aadhaar-based services take place, the source added.

"In simple words, it is a very useful and secure facility on eAadhaar where anyone, whether an Aadhaar holder or a user or service agencies like banks can do offline verifica-tion of the data in e-Aadhaar along with the photograph," the source added.

So now, in an eAadhaar, there will a small QR code on front side of cutaway portion, with demographic data only, and large ones on top portion of front side and the back (con-taining demographic data and the photo). Further, to make this information more secured and tamper-proof, it will be signed with UIDAI digital sig-nature, the source added.

UIDAI brings digitally-signed QR code with photo for eAadhaar

OUR CORRESPONDENT

PATNA: Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan on Mon-day favoured inclusion of the SC/ST Act and reservations for Dalits in Ninth Schedule of the Constitution so that they can-not be challenged in a court of law.

Laws under the Ninth Schedule are beyond the pur-view of judicial review. The Supreme Court, however, in 2007 had ruled that any law placed in the Ninth Schedule after April 24, 1973, would be subject to scrutiny of courts if they violated fundamental rights. "I would also urge the government to consider inclu-sion of the SC/ST Act and the reservations in the Ninth Schedule so that there remains no possibility of anybody chal-lenging them in a court of law," Paswan told reporters.

Paswan, also the Lok Jan-shakti Party chief, charged the

opposition parties such as the Congress, the RJD and the BSP with trying to derive political mileage out of the anxieties of Dalits following dilution of the SC/ST Act by the Supreme Court. "I fully understand what the Dalits must be feeling in the wake of the Supreme Court order. But I would request them to rest assured that the matter will be dealt with," he said.

The Supreme Court had on March 20 "diluted" the provi-sions of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Pre-vention of Atrocities) Act, rul-ing that government servants should not be arrested without prior sanction and private citi-zens too, can be arrested only after an inquiry.

"I have no objection to Dalit youths taking part in agitations but they must not indulge in violence. But, I have serious problem with opposition politi-cal parties... out of the issue," he said.

'Include SC/ST Act, Dalit quotas in ninth Schedule'

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: In a bid to foil the attempts of Opposition leaders over special status to Bihar, the Janata Dal –United (JD-U) has decided to remind Prime Minister Narendra Modi of his promise to grant special status to the state during Modi’s visit to Bihar on Tuesday.

Talking to Millennium Post over phone, JD-U general sec-retary Shayam Rajak said, “We want that PM should announce granting special status to Bihar during his visit to the state to take part in the concluding cer-emony of Champaran Satya-graha centenary celebrations in Motihari.”

In reply to a question as why this issue has been raised at a sudden, the senior JD-U leader said, “There is nothing to relate it with present tim-ings. It was the JD-U that had demanded granting of spe-cial status to Bihar and again

we want to make it clear that the party has not given up its demand.”

“We want status to Bihar and will keep demanding from the government at the Centre till our demands are not met,” Rajak said.

Notably, last month, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had said that he had not given up the demand for special status to Bihar “for even one second” since he first raised it in 2005.

Hitting out JD-U for dilut-ing its special status demand, Leader of Opposition Tejashvi Yadav had said that Kumar should directly demand spe-cial category status for Bihar from Modi as the later is a strong leader.

Suggesting Kumar to follow TDP chief and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandra Babu Naidu, Tejashvi had said that Kumar should had walked out of the NDA for not grant-ing special status to his state.

JD-U to remind Modi of his special status to Bihar oath

NEW DELHI: Finance Min-ister Arun Jaitley, who was admitted to the hospital on Friday with a kidney condi-tion, was discharged on Mon-day after a dialysis procedure.

Jaitley, 65, who was admit-ted to Delhi's premier All India Institute of Medical Sciences or AIIMS on Friday evening, did not undergo any transplant and has been advised by doc-tors that he may get better with dialysis and medicines, sources close to his family said.

The doctors, who had kept him under observation for two days before taking him for dial-

ysis, have decided to wait for some time to see if a kidney transplant surgery is essential.

Due to the high risk of con-tracting infection, the minister would be kept in a controlled

environment with barely any visitor being allowed to see him.

It is not yet clear as to when Jaitley will resume office. He has not been attending office since last Monday. He was unable to take oath of office after being re-elected to the Rajya Sabha.

AIIMS sources, however, said that he is under observa-tion and is likely to undergo renal transplant soon.

A series of medical tests were conducted on Jaitley, who is a diabetic, in the last few days. MPOST

Jaitley back home after dialysis, surgery put on hold for now OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Ahead of the impending Assembly elections in Chhattisgarh, Prime Minis-ter Narendra Modi will sound the poll bugle by his visit to the third worst Naxal-infested Bijapur district on Ambedkar Jayanti (14 April). This will be PM's second visit to the red zone.

During his visit PM will inaugurate two upgraded healthcare centers under much talked about health scheme by the incumbent government, Ayushman Bharat Yojana.

Last month, the govern-ment had announced 22 day-

long special programmes on the occasion of birth anni-versary of Dalit icon and the 'Father of the Constitution' Bhim Rao Ambedkar. Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar informed that PM will hold programmes in the dis-trict which has transformed earliest among 115 backward districts that the government identified.

The flagship scheme has been aimed at making path breaking interventions to address health holistically, in primary, secondary and ter-tiary care systems, covering both prevention and health promotion. Under this scheme,

1.5 lakh Health and Wellness Centers will bring health care system closer to the homes of people. These centers will provide comprehensive health care, including for non-com-municable diseases and mater-nal and child health services. These centers will also provide free essential drugs and diag-nostic services.

A 'Sankalp Sthal' will also be built in memory of mar-tyrs who laid down their lives fighting Left Wing Extremism. The Prime Minister will hando-ver the keys of houses built under Prime Minister Hous-ing Scheme to 100 beneficiaries and will distribute residential

lease-deeds to 100 beneficia-ries. Another scheme will be unveilled— 'Van Dhan Yojana'. The scheme has been targeted towards empowering the trib-als by training them in col-lecting and processing minor forest produce. The ministry of tribal affairs would also pro-vide support for training trib-als in adding value to products. The first training centre would be unveiled by Modi in Bijapur.

The political corridors see PM Modi's visit to this tribal zone as significant. Even the date has been chosen carefully, they feel. The poll bound state has 12.82 per cent SC popu-lation and 30.6 per cent are

tribes. On Monday, Prime Min-

ister Narendra Modi will lay the foundation stones of four sewerage projects, worth Rs 1,111.56 crore and aimed at creating a sewage-treatment capacity of 60 million litres daily (MLD) for Patna, at Moti-hari town of Bihar.

He is also scheduled to take part in an event to mark the conclusion of the centenary cel-ebrations of the "Champaran Satyagrah" in Bihar. The proj-ects in Patna include the laying of a 376.12-km sewer network in Saidpur and the Pahari sew-erage zones, an official state-ment issued here said.

PM to visit Naxal-infested Bijapur on Ambedkar Jayanti

SRINAGAR: IAS officer Tina Dabi, who topped the UPSC's civil services examination in 2015 has tied the knot to her Kashmiri batch-mate Amir Athar Amirul Shafi Khan, who secured the second rank in the prestigious examination the same year.

The two young IAS officers got married at a ceremony in the picturesque Pahalgam town yesterday.

The cupid had struck the two officers reportedly during training at Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy for Admin-istration in Mussoorie.

The proximity between the two came to light when they posted a picture on social media a year ago.

The duo again posted their wedding pictures on social media which circulated widely.

Even the pictures of their wedding invitation card were widely shared on social media. MPOST

IAS topper Tina marries Kashmiri batchmate Khan

MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 10 April, 2018

J&K CM MEHBOOBA APPRISES MODISRINAGAR: J&K Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Monday called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi and apprised him of the overall situation in the state, stressing on the need to end the cycle of violence by addressing alienation among the youth. Mehbooba's meeting with the prime minister comes three days after she appealed to the country's leader-ship to listen to the voices of pain from the state. "Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi today and apprised him about the overall situation in Jammu & Kashmir," an official spokesman said.

18 TRAFFICKED CHILDREN RESCUEDBAHRAICH (UP): SSB personnel have rescued 18 chil-dren from Rupaideeha area along Indo-Nepal border while they were being taken to Shimla and Mumbai from Nepal by a gang involved in human trafficking. Four members of the gang - Kamal Gautam, Surat Singh, Sant Bahadur and Ahmad Hussain - were ar-rested last evening and 18 children aged between 12 and 14 years were rescued, SSB Deputy Commandant Jai Prakash said. The gang was taking 12 of the chil-dren to Shimla, and six to Mumbai, the officer said.A detailed probe is underway in the matter, the SSB officer said.

3 OF FAMILY KILLED IN ROAD MISHAPJAUNPUR (UP): Three members of a family were on Monday killed when the bike they were travelling on was hit by a truck in Machli Shahar area here, police said. Ramdhari Pal (65) was going on his bike with wson Narendra Pal (42) and grandson Shashi Kant (20) when a truck coming from opposite direction hit them, killing the trio on the spot, they said. A cyclist, Rajkumar Pal (40), who was near the spot when the incident took place also suffered injuries.

FOUR INJURED IN MANIPUR BLASTIMPHAL: Four persons were injured in a bomb blast near a power station at Thoubal Khunou in Thoubal district of Manipur, the police said on Monday. The IED blast, occurred at about 8.30 pm on Sunday night, near the gate of a mega power sub-station was suspected to have triggered by unknown people and could be related to monetary demands, they said. The injured were rushed to Thoubal district hospital where their conditions are said to be stable, the police said.

DIGVIJAY CONCLUDES NARMADA YATRANARSINGHPUR (MP): Congress leader Digvijay Singh on Monday concluded his over six-month-long 'Narmada Yatra' along the banks of the holy river in Madhya Pradesh's Narsinghpur district. Singh, 70, his wife Amrita, and former MPs Rameshwar Neekhra and Narayan Singh Amlabe, along with their several supporters, reached the Barman ghat of the river this morning after covering a distance of nearly 3,300 km on foot.

4 BOOKED FOR DEROGATORY FB POSTBALLIA (UP): An FIR has been registered against four people for allegedly making derogatory remarks against BR Ambedkar on social media and assaulting a Dalit youth in Reoti area here, police said on Mon-day. The FIR has been lodged against Durgesh Pandey, Ankesh Pandey, Ritesh and Tej Narain for derogatory Facebook posts, Superintendent of Police (SP) Sriparna Gongulee said. The FIR was lodged under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, IT Act and relevant provisions of the IPC on Sunday on a complaint of Shiv Prakash Paswan, who was assaulted by the four.

FOUR KILLED IN CAR-TRUCK COLLISIONVADODARA: At least four people, including an infant, were killed and two others injured when a car collided with a truck here on Monday morning, the police said. The car, carrying six people, was on its way to Mumbai from Bhavnagar when it collided with the truck coming from the opposite direction around 5.30 am at Kural village, about 20 km from the district headquarters, an official at the Vadu police station said. The truck driver fled the spot after the mishap, he said. A woman and a one-year-old child were among the four car occu-pants killed in the mishap, the official said.

NATION BRIEFS

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BHARAT BANDH TODAY

Highlights » The court said the authorities are required to ensure peace till it peruses the draft scheme » The court had also asked the Centre to ensure compliance of its 465-page judgement on the decades-old dispute » It had modified the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal award of 2007 » The court made it clear that it will not be extending time for this on any ground

File draft Cauvery scheme by May 3, SC tells Centre

Tamil Nadu Law Minister C Ve Shanmugam talks to media after Supreme Court's hearing on Cauvery River Water case in New Delhi on Monday PTI

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Centre to formulate and file the draft Cauvery manage-ment scheme before it by May 3 and directed the authorities of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and other stakeholders to ensure peace in the meantime.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said it had considered the award of Cau-very Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT) while deciding the water share of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Puduch-erry in its judgement.

The bench, also comprising Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud, said that its judgment has to be complied with all the stakeholders.

The court said the author-ities are required to ensure peace till it peruses the draft scheme and finalises it for proper distribution of Cauv-ery water.

The apex court, in its ver-dict, had asked the Cen-

tre to formulate a scheme to ensure compliance of its 465-page judgement on the decades-old Cauvery dispute. It had modified the Cauv-ery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT) award of 2007 and made it clear that it will not be extending time for this on any ground.

The top court had on Feb-ruary 16 raised the 270 tmcft

share of Cauvery water for Karnataka by 14.75 tmcft and reduced Tamil Nadu's share, while compensating it by allowing extraction of 10 tmcft groundwater from the river basin, saying the issue of drinking water has to be placed on a "higher pedestal".

With the apex court's ver-dict, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Union Territory of

Puducherry would be annually entitled to 404.25 tmcft, 284.75 tmcft, 30 tmcft and 7 tmcft of Cauvery water respectively out of the total of 740 tmcft.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

CHENNAI: Opposition to IPL matches to be held here inten-sified today with a pro-Tamil outfit agitating over Cauvery issue threatened to hold pro-tests outside the game venue on Tuesday.

A host of cinema personali-ties also wanted the matches to be postponed but an official of IPL franchisee Chennai Super Kings (CSK) said the matches will go on as per schedule.

Tamil Nadu has been wit-nessing protests for the past one week urging the Centre to constitute the Cauvery Man-agement Board (CMB) in com-pliance with the February 16 order of the Supreme Court on the water sharing dispute with Karnataka.

Political parties and outfits have demanded that Indian Premier League (IPL) matches not be held at a time when the state was witnessing wide-spread agitations on the vexed issue.

Pro-Tamil outfit Tamizhaga Vazhvurimai Katchi (TVK) on Monday warned of picketing the MA Chidambaram sta-

dium here on Tuesday if the IPL stuck to its Chennai calen-dar, with the city all set to wit-ness its first contest on Tuesday.

MS Dhoni-led CSK and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), captained by Dinesh Karthik, will lock horns in the first game here on Tuesday at 8 pm.

"If the match is held despite our plea, we will coordinate all democratic forces to stop it by organising a massive pick-eting protest. Many leaders, organisations will participate,"

TVK chief T Velmurugan told reporters here.

"Cricketers knowing Tamil, please understand our senti-ments," he said.

Later, Velmurugan said that his party or outfits that have joined hands with it were not against the players.

A 'massive' protest has been planned outside the Neyveli Lignite Coproration (NLC) in Cuddalore district on Tuesday against the Centre on the issue, he added.

Cauvery issue: Tamil outfit warns of protests against IPL matches

Members of Tamil Nadu Farmers' Association being detained by a police personnel following their protest demanding the formation of Cauvery Management Board in front of Shastri Bhavan in Chennai on Monday PTI

HYDERABAD: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh will inaugurate the regional hub complex of the elite anti-terror force National Security Guard (NSG) at Ibrahimpatnam near here on Tuesday. The construction of the state-of-the-art regional hub com-plex by the Central Public Works Department com-menced in 2013 and the total project cost was Rs 157.84 crore.

The 200-acre complex will have residential and office accommodation and modern training facilities such as Baffle firing range, indoor shooting range, 26 obstacles, swimming pool, sports complex, and arti-ficial rock craft wall, a senior NSG official said.

It will house about 600 trained commandos.

"Our endeavour has been to develop this complex as a green campus," he added. The 28 Spe-cial Composite Group (SCG) Complex of NSG is among the four regional hubs in the coun-try and it has been set up to reduce the response time. MPOST

Rajnath Singh to open new

NSG complex in Hyd today

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Centre to file a comprehensive status report on basic ameni-ties provided in three Rohingya camps in Delhi and Haryana.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra asked the central government to file the status report on the three camps, located at Mewat, Faridabad and Delhi, within four weeks.

The bench which also com-prised justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud posted the matter for further hear-ing on May 9. The Rohingya refugees in India had alleged that basic amenities like toilets, drinking water and others were not provided for them which in turn caused diarrhoea among the children and the elderly in the camps.

The apex court had on March 19 refused to grant any

interim relief to Rohingya ref-ugees and favoured the Cen-tre's submission that it would grab 'media headlines' and have repercussions on India's diplo-matic ties with Myanmar and Bangladesh.

The top court had said it will not pass any interim order with regard to ensuring health and educational facilities for Rohingya refugee camps in the country unless materials con-tradicting the Centre's claims are brought before it.

The apex court was hearing a plea of refugees Mohammad Salimullah and Mohammad Shaqir seeking education and healthcare on the lines of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees, who were given such facilities in Tamil Nadu.

The Rohingyas, who fled to India after violence in the West-ern Rakhine state of Myanmar, are settled in Jammu, Hyder-abad, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi-NCR and Rajasthan.

File comprehensive report on amenities to Rohingya refugees, top court to Govt OUR CORRESPONDENT

RAIPUR: Naxals targeted a bus ferrying nearly 30 jawans with an improvised explosive device (IED) in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur, leaving two of them dead and five injured, the sec-ond attack on Monday ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the district on Saturday.

Earlier this morning, Nax-als had triggered twin IED blasts and opened fire on a patrolling team of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) on Bijapur-Bhopalpatnam road in the district that led to a gun-battle.

However, no casualty was reported on either side in that incident.

The explosion targeting the bus occurred near Godma vil-lage, around 450 kms from the state capital, when the jawans were out on an anti-Maoist operation, police said.

"Two jawans belonging to the District Reserve Guard

(DRG) were killed and five others sustained injuries in the explosion," a senior police offi-cial said.

The IED blast damaged the front portion of the bus, which was carrying a squad of at least 30 jawans.

The personnel sitting in the front side bore the brunt of the explosion, he said.

Additional personnel were rushed to the spot soon after the incident and the injured jawans were taken to a hospi-tal in Bijapur, he said.

Further details are awaited.Notably, the security forces

have intensified search opera-tions in the forest in view of the prime minister's visit to Bijapur scheduled on April 14.

C'garh: 2 jawans killed, 5 hurt as Naxals target bus with IED

The IED blast damaged the front portion of the bus, which was carrying a squad of at least 30 jawans REPRESENTATIVE IMAGE

OUR CORRESPONDENT

ERODE/DINDIGUL (TN): Six persons were killed and 12 others injured in separate acci-dents in Erode and Dindigul districts on Monday, police said.

Four persons, including three members of a family, were killed when the car in which they were travelling collided with a bus near a bus-stand in Dindigul, they said.

The driver and three others, including two women, died on the spot, police said.

Two car passengers, who were seriously injured, have been admitted to hospital.

In Erode, two persons were killed and ten others injured when a van collided with a lorry, police said.

The driver and his assistant died on the spot while seven others in the van were injured, they said.

Three persons travelling in the lorry, including its driver, were also injured.

Six killed, 12 hurt in separate mishaps in TN

GAUTAM LAHIRI

NEW DELHI: Bangladesh and India have signed six memo-randum of understanding (MoU) during a bilateral meet-ing between the foreign sec-retaries of the two countries at State Guesthouse Padma in Dhaka on Monday.

Indian High Commis-sioner in Dhaka Harsh Vard-han Shringla and officials of different ministries concerned of Bangladesh have signed the MoUs on behalf of their respec-tive sides.

A total of six documents were added to a growing list of meaningful agreements signed during the recent visits of Prime Minister Modi to Ban-gladesh and PM Sheikh Hasina to India.

“These include the imple-mentation MoU on the friendship pipeline between Numaligarh and Parbatipur, an MoU on cooperation between Prasar Bharati and Bangladesh BETAR, an MoU for setting up

an ICCR Urdu Chair in Dhaka University and an Addendum to the GCNEP-BAEC Inter-agency Agreement,” Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Kes-hav Gokhale said on Monday after signing the MoUs.

“We have also signed 2 more MoUs for grant projects whereby we will set up lan-guage labs in 500 schools in Bangladesh and upgrade dif-ferent roads in Rangpur city. This is part of our endeav-our to undertake projects in Bangladesh in various socio-economic sectors, including education, culture, health, community welfare, road infrastructure etc. for which we are providing 1600 crore taka under grant financing,” the foreign secretary added.

Expressing his pleasure in visiting Bangladesh for the first time, the Indian Foreign Sec-retary Vijay Keshav Gokhale congratulated Bangladesh on achieving a very significant milestone in meeting the crite-ria for graduating from LDC to

Developing Country recently.The foreign secretary also

said, “Bangladesh’s humanitar-ian gesture in supporting lakhs of displaced persons from the Rakhine state of Myanmar is admirable,” according to a press release.

The Indian foreign secre-tary further announced the second phase of humanitarian assistance for the relief camps in Cox’s Bazar.

“Under this, medical field hospitals specially focused on women and child care with all necessary medical equipments and support systems are envis-aged. Relief supplies includ-ing milk powder, baby food, dried fish, cooking stoves and cooking fuel, raincoats and gumboots are also planned,” he said.

After the meeting, Bangla-desh Foreign Secretary Sha-hidul Haque said, “We had a very good and fruitful meet-ing today.”

All issues including the Rohingya crisis were discussed in the meeting, the secretary said adding, “We are happy as India wants a peaceful solu-tion to Rohingya crisis and also wants to cooperate in this regard.”

During a discussion on Teesta water sharing issues, India reiterated its commit-ment to sign the water-treat agreement as soon as possibl, he added.

Later in the day, the Indian foreign secretary will attend a bilateral conclave on India-Bangladesh relations: “Deep-ening Cooperation and the way ahead” at Sonargaon Hotel.

Gokhale, who came to Dhaka yesterday afternoon for a two-day visit, will call on For-eign Minister AH Mahmood Ali and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the afternoon.

India extends more financial aid to election-bound B'desh

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Centre on Monday advised all states to beef up security and prevent violence during the Bharat Bandh called by some groups on Tuesday reportedly against caste-based reservations in jobs and education, an official said.

The Ministry of Home Affairs also said the districts magistrates and SPs will be personally held responsible for any violence in their area of jurisdiction.

The missive came a week after a similar protest saw mas-sive violence in different parts of the country leading to the death of about a dozen people.

An official of the MHA said the ministry has issued an advi-sory to all states to take neces-sary precautionary measures in view of the calls on social media for Bharat Bandh on April 10 by some groups.

"The MHA has advised the

states to beef up security and make appropriate arrange-ments to prevent any untow-ard incident, including issue of prohibitory orders, if neces-sary," the official said.

The states have been asked to intensify patrolling in all sensitive locations so as to pre-vent any loss of life or damage to property.

"The advisory stressed that district magistrates and superintendents of police be made personally responsible for ensuring that law and order situation remains firmly under control in the areas of their jurisdiction," the official said.

While the April 2 Bharat Bandh was called by groups opposing the alleged dilution of SC/ST (prevention of of atrocities) Act by a Supreme Court order, tomorrows pro-test is being reportedly called by people opposed to caste-based reservations in jobs and education.

Centre advises states to beef up security

OUR CORRESPONDENT

VADODARA: A group of farmers on Monday protested against the consultation meet organised here for acqui-sition of land for the Ahmedabad-Mumbai high speed rail project, alleging that it was called at a "very short notice".

The National High Speed Rail Corporation (NHSRC), the special purpose vehicle exe-cuting the bullet train project, had informed affected farmers regarding today's meeting by publishing a notice in newspa-pers yesterday. The notice stated

that a "second stakeholder con-sultation" meeting would be held to facilitate the process of land acquisition, but farm-ers objected to it, claiming that

there was, infact, no first stake-holder meeting itself.

Protesting farmers, who arrived at the venue of the con-sultation meeting at Mahatma Gandhi Nagar Gruh, a town hall here, demanded that NHSRC officials share with them details of the first round of the meeting.

"The agenda and purpose of the meeting, which officials are calling the second round,

is not clear. It was called at a very short notice and nobody knows when the first meeting was held," said Krishna Kant, a farmers' representative.

Calling it a rushed affair, he said that since

notice for the meeting was published a day earlier, it was difficult for a large section of aggrieved farmers to reach the venue. A memorandum submitted to the district col-lectors of Vadodara and Bha-ruch by protesting farmers said the intent of the notice was to "merely dispense with a for-mality" rather than informing affected farmers.

Farmers protest against land acquisition

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Defence Ministry on Monday signed a contract with a defence firm for procurement of 1.86 lakh bullet proof jackets for the Army at a cost of Rs 639 crore.

In a statement, the ministry said the contract was finalised after "successful" field evalua-tion trials.

The contract has been bagged by indigenous defence manufacturer SMPP Pvt Ltd.

"A major contract through

capital procurement route, for procurement of 1,86,138 Bullet Proof Jackets (BPJs) has been signed," it said.

It said the new BPJs will provide "360 degree protec-tion" to the soldier in com-bat, including from hard "steel core" bullets. "These bulletproof jackets will have 'boron carbide ceramic' which is the lightest material for ballistic protec-tion. This makes SMPP BPJs the best of the class and will be able to provide ballistic pro-tection at the lowest possible

weight," Chairman and Man-aging Director of SMPP S C Kansal said.

The company said the size of the contract is Rs 639 crore.

The Defence Ministry said the new BPJs will boost the confidence of soldiers.

It said the indigenously developed BPJs will give new impetus to the 'Make in India' initiative of the government and provide confidence that Indian industry is capable of fulfilling the requirements of the armed forces.

Govt inks ̀ 639 crore deal for 1.86 lakh new bullet-proof jackets

FOR BULLET-TRAIN

mp nation 7MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 10 April, 2018

FUND EMBEZZLEMENT CASE

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: A large num-ber of complaints of corruption were received against the rail-ways and government-owned banks, according to the latest report of anti-corruption body CVC.

However, there has been an over 52-per cent decline in the number of corruption plaints received by the Central Vigi-lance Commission (CVC) last year as against 2016.

In its annual report for 2017 tabled in Parliament recently, the watchdog said it received a total of 23,609 complaints last year -- the lowest since 2011 -- as against 49,847 in 2016.

"In majority of complaints the allegations were found to be either vague or unverifiable. The Commission received a considerable number of com-plaints against public servants working in the state govern-ments and other organisations who do not come under the jurisdiction of the Commission or which are of administrative nature," it said.

The number of complaints received by the CVC in 2015

were 29,838.It had got 62,362, 31,432

and 37,039 complaints of alleged corruption during 2014, 2013 and 2012 respec-tively, the report said.

As many as 16,929 corrup-tion complaints were received by the CVC in 2011.

Besides the complaints directly made to the CVC, there were over 57,000 complaints sent to Chief Vigilance Officers of various departments.

Giving details, the CVC said the highest of 12,089 such complaints were against rail-way employees. Of these, 9,575 were disposed of and 2,514 were pending. Further, a total of 1,037 complaints against railway employees were pend-

ing for more than six months.A total of 8,243 corrup-

tion complaints were received against various local bodies such as Delhi Jal Board (DJB), North, East and South Delhi civic bodies and New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), the CVC report said.

As many as 8,018 com-plaints were against officials of various banks.

There has been an increase in the number of corrup-tion complaints received against employees of the Delhi government.

A total of 6,819 graft com-plaints were received against employees of the Government of National Capital Territory in 2017 as against 969 in 2016.

As many as 2,730 com-plaints of alleged corruption were received against employ-ees of Central Board of Direct taxes (CBDT), followed by 2,713 against those in the petroleum ministry and 1,194 against those working with Central Board of Excise and Customs (now Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs or CBIC).

A total of 1,662 corrup-tion complaints were received against Food and Con-sumer Affairs Ministry, 1,317 against those in insurance, 1,313 against labour depart-ment officials and 856 against those with department of telecommunications.

There were 932 complaints of corruption against coal min-istry employees, 780 related to employees of the health and family welfare department, 682 against those in defence ministry, 605 against informa-tion and broadcasting minis-try staff, 436 against officials of shipping ministry and 228 against those in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), among other government organisations.

Maximum graft plaints against rlys, banks: CVC OUR CORRESPONDENT

MUMBAI: Flight services at the Mumbai airport were hit badly on Monday with two major carriers -- Jet Airways and Air India -- together can-celling over 100 flights and rescheduling about 70 services due to the closure of the main runway for six hours for pre-monsoon maintenance work.

The Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL), which runs the city airport, had earlier in the day announced the closure of the main runway (O9/27) between 11 am and 5 pm for on Monday and Tues-day to facilitate the work.

The city airport is the main base of Jet Airways and a bulk of its operations, both domestic and international, are carried out from here.

While Jet Airways cancelled a total of 70 flights, including 54 domestic services, Air India decided not to operate about 34 flights in view of the run-way closure.

Additionally, Jet Airways also rescheduled another 70 flights, including 17 interna-tional ones. Air India diverted four flights.

"Due to the pre-planned maintenance activities before

the monsoon season, the run-way at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport will be closed on April 9-10 from 1100 hours to 1700 hours. Guests planning their travel dur-ing this period are requested to allow for sufficient time, in case of delays, while making their bookings," Jet Airways had informed its passengers through its website ahead of the runway closure.

When contacted, an Air India spokesperson also said that the cancellation of its flights due to the runway main-tenance work at the Mumbai airport was intimated to the passengers much in advance.

"The main runway of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Interna-tional Airport (CSIA), handled by GVK MIAL, will be non-operational on April 9 and 10,

between 1100 hrs and 1700 hrs on account of pre-monsoon maintenance activities," the Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) said in a state-ment earlier in the day.

Passengers are requested to connect with their respective airlines, said MIAL, the private airport operator.

The Mumbai airport, which is the second busiest in the country, has two crossing run-ways -- 09/27 (the main) and 14/32 (the secondary runway).

While the primary runway can handle up to 48 arrivals and departures per hour, the secondary runway has a capac-ity of 35 flight movements per hour.

On an average, there are 970 flight arrivals and depar-tures at the Mumbai airport every day.

Mumbai airport's main runway shut for six hours; services hit

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI/AHMED-ABAD: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday conducted multiple searches in connection with a money laun-dering case against a Vadodara-based company for allegedly cheating various banks to the tune of Rs 2,654 crore.

Officials said the raids were being carried out at seven places in Vadodara district and the premises of the firm -- Dia-mond Power Infrastructure Ltd (DPIL).

The corporate office of the company in Gorwa area of the city, factories in Vadadala and Ranoli and residential premises of its executives in Nizampura and New Alkapuri were being raided, they said.

The agency carried out the searches after it filed a criminal complaint under the Preven-tion of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against the company,

based on a recent CBI FIR.The CBI had conducted

raids in the case last week.The ED is probing if the

alleged defaulted loans were laundered to create illegal assets and black money by the accused.

The CBI had alleged that DPIL, which manufactures electric cables and equipment, is promoted by S N Bhatnagar and his sons Amit Bhatnagar and Sumit Bhatnagar, who were also the executives of the firm.

It is alleged that DPIL, through its management, had fraudulently availed credit facilities from a consortium of 11 banks (both public and private) since 2008, leaving behind an outstanding debit of Rs 2,654.40 crore as on June 29, 2016, the CBI said.

The loan amount of Rs 2,654 crore, it said, was declared a non-performing asset in 2016-17.

The company and its direc-

tors managed to get the term loans and credit facilities, in spite of the fact that they were named in the Reserve Bank's defaulters list and ECGC (Export Credit Guarantee Cor-poration) caution list at the time of the initial sanction of credit limits by the consortium, the agency had alleged.

At the time of formation of consortium in 2008, Axis Bank was the lead bank for the term loan and Bank of India was the lead bank for cash credit lim-its. It is alleged that the firm, with active connivance of offi-cials from various banks, man-aged to get enhanced credit facilities.

According to the CBI, the company had been allegedly submitting false stock state-ments to the lead bank by treat-ing receivables more than 180 days (non-current asset) as less than 180 days (current asset) to get more drawing power in their cash credit accounts.

ED raids Vadodara firm, directors in ̀ 2,600-crore bank loan fraud

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday said it will decide whether the PIL seeking a court-monitored probe into the over Rs 11,000 crore Pun-jab National Bank fraud case is maintainable or not.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chand-rachud was told by the Centre that agencies like the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Enforcement Directorate (ED), the Income Tax department and the Serious Fraud Investi-gation Office (SFIO) are inde-pendently probing the PNB scam.

Attorney General KK Venugopal sought dismissal of the PIL seeking a court-mon-itored probe into the alleged scam saying multiple agencies are already probing the matter.

The AG was opposing a plea filed by lawyer Vineet Dhanda, who has sought an indepen-dent probe in the PNB case and

a direction to the government to get diamond merchant Nirav Modi deported.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has already registered two FIRs -- one on January 31 and another in February -- against billionaire Nirav Modi, his relative Mehul Choksi of Gitanjali Gems and others for allegedly defrauding the bank of about Rs 11,400 crore.

The PIL has made PNB, the Reserve Bank of India and the ministries of finance and law and justice parties. It has sought a direction for initia-tion of deportation proceed-ings against Nirav Modi and others allegedly involved in the banking fraud, preferably within two months.

It has also asked for a spe-cial investigation team (SIT) to probe the case, allegedly involv-ing Nirav Modi and Choksi, and a probe into the role of the top management of PNB.

SC to decide maintainability of plea for court-monitored

investigation into PNB scamNEW DELHI: The Enforce-ment Directorate (ED) on Mon-day opposed the bail application of a former Andhra Bank direc-tor, arrested in an alleged Rs 5,000 crore bank fraud case involving a Gujarat-based pharma firm, saying he may hamper the ongoing probe. The agency opposed the application moved by Anup Prakash Garg before the court of Additional Sessions Judge Sidharth Sharma in a written reply.

ED's special public prosecu-tor Nitesh Rana told the court that the allegations against Garg were serious as about Rs 300 crore worth of loans were passed at his behest.

"If granted bail, he may hamper the ongoing investiga-tion, influence the witnesses in the case and there is also likeli-hood that he may flee from jus-tice," Rana told the court.

The court posted the matter for further hearing on April 28.

Garg (59) was arrested by

the probe agency on January 12 and is currently in judicial cus-tody. The ED had on February 9 filed a charge sheet against Garg under the sections of Pre-vention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

He was one of the three persons arrested in the case. The agency had earlier arrested Delhi-based businessman Gagan Dhawan and Rajb-hushan Omprakash Dixit, one of the directors of the pharma firm, who are currently out on bail. All the three were arrested under the PMLA.

The ED had lodged the money laundering case after taking cognisance of an earlier FIR registered by the CBI.

The agency had claimed that during the probe, it had come across "certain entries" in a diary seized by the Income Tax department in 2011, which showed several cash payments amounting to Rs 1.52 crore made to one "Mr Garg, Direc-tor, Andhra Bank" by the Sand-esara brothers between 2008 and 2009.

"Various cash payments were made to Garg, as reflected in the said entries, on the instructions of the Sandesara brothers, by withdrawing cash from the bank accounts of sev-eral benami companies owned by them," it had alleged.

The ED had claimed that Garg had infused several crores of his unaccounted money in various firms through sev-eral Kolkata-based bogus shell companies, with the help of cash or cheque entry operators in Kolkata, in order to launder the proceeds of crime obtained by him from the Sandesaras.

Loan fraud case: ED opposes bail plea of ex-Andhra Bank director

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Activist Teesta Setalvad on Monday got temporary relief in a case of fund embezzlement with the Supreme Court extending the interim protection from arrest and transit anticipatory bail from May 2 to May 31, granted to her and her husband by the Bombay High Court.

The apex court, which granted them relief on the con-dition that they would have to move the competent court in Gujarat for anticipatory bail, was clear that the Bombay High Court had no jurisdiction to entertain their plea as the FIR was registered by the Gujarat police.

"Since the FIR is in Guja-rat, the competent court will be in Gujarat," a bench compris-ing Justices Kurian Joseph, M M Shantanagoudar and Navin

Sinha said.The bench said Setalvad

and her husband Javed Anand will not be arrested till May 31 but before that they would have to approach for the competent court in Gujarat which will decide the matter on merits.

"We direct the respondents (Setalvad and Javed Anand) to seek appropriate remedy from the competent court in Guja-rat before May 31. The interim bail granted by Bombay High Court shall extend till May 31," the bench said.

The bench made it clear that it was confining the issue in the case only for dealing with the transit anticipatory bail granted by the Bombay High Court and all other aspects of the order has to be vacated, as "the Bom-bay High Court has no jurisdic-tion on it".

The Ahmedabad police had moved the apex court against

the April 5 order of the Bom-bay High Court by which the couple were protected from arrest till May 2 in an FIR registered on March 31 for allegedly securing central gov-ernment funds worth Rs 1.4 crore "fraudulently" for her NGO Sabrang between 2010 and 2013.

Senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani and Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for Gujarat, said the Bombay High Court had passed a blatantly illegal order and transit anticipa-tory bail should not have been granted.

Senior advocate CU Singh, appearing for Teesta and her husband, said the high court was right in granting transit bail as the alleged offence per-tains to an educational proj-ect in Maharashtra. He said in this case, the HC had the juris-diction to issue the transitory bail.

However, the bench observed it was a settled law that the jurisdiction lies with the concerned court of the state where the FIR is lodged and "the transit bail is granted for making a person to appear before the competent court".

Temporary relief to Teesta Setalvad from SC

OUR CORRESPONDENT

BHAGALPUR: A Bhagalpur court on Monday granted con-ditional bail to Arijit Shashwat, son of Union minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey, and seven others in connection with a case relating to recent com-munal clashes here.

Shashwat and eight others were named in a case related to the communal clashes in Bhagalpur on March 17.

Acting District Judge Kumud Ranjan Singh granted regular bail to Arijit Shashwat and seven others, while one accused person could not get bail as he did not turn up in the court.

While enlarging Shashwat

on bail, the court put a con-dition that he would not par-ticipate in any kind of dharna, procession, protest and agita-tion for the next 30 days.

The court passed the order on a bail petition filed by Arijit Shashwat and others.

Arijit Shashwat was arrested by Patna police from near the Hanuman temple in the intervening night of March 31-April-1 after his anticipa-tory bail plea was rejected on March 31.

Following his arrest, Shash-wat was remanded in judicial custody for 14 days by a local court. Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM) court had issued arrest warrant against him on March 24.

Bhaglpur clashes: Arijit Shashwat granted bail

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The National Skill Development Corpora-tion (NSDC), an arm of the Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (MSDE), has undertaken a project to skill train 13 girls, who were rescued from red light area of Delhi. The NSDC on Monday announced successful comple-tion of skill training of these girls in unarmed security guard job role.

Commenting on the spe-cial project, Rajesh Agrawal, Joint Secretary and CVO, MSDE said, “Exploitation of marginalised sex workers is a pitiable situation. The work-ers experience discrimination because of their criminalised status and stigma of their work. MSDE, through this project under PMKVY, endeavours to

end the stigma through skill training of girls and empower them towards better livelihood opportunities.”

Agrawal further said, “The vision of Skill India can be har-nessed when the entire work-force be utilised effectively for its development. Our collab-orative effort with Delhi Police aims to protect the trafficked girls at a young age and chan-nelize their efficiencies by engaging them in productive vocations.”

On the successful imple-mentation of the project, Jayant Krishna, ED & COO, NSDC said, “The NSDC is commit-ted to extend its support to law enforcement bodies like Delhi Police and NGOs for imple-menting economic empower-ment strategies for these sex trade survivors through skill development.”

Skill Ministry transforms lives of 13 marginalised sex workers

OUR CORRESPONDENT

GUWAHATI: In a case of 'moral policing', a woman was assaulted by a group of men when she was going with a male friend to a medical centre in Goalpara district of Assam and the police has arrested 12 people for the incident, a senior officer said on Monday.

"This is a case of moral policing. What we have come to know is that the woman's marriage has been fixed. She was going somewhere with her male friend yesterday, when some youths attacked them. The youths mainly targeted the woman," Goalpara SP Amitava Sinha said.

The 22-year-old woman was beaten up by local peo-ple after she was spotted with her friend at Aolguri area which comes under the juris-diction of Krishnai police sta-tion, he said.

Police have registered an FIR in the case and nabbed six people on Sunday and six more on Monday, Sinha said and added that the woman and her friend were appar-ently going to a medical centre when the beating incident took place.

Woman assaulted in Assam 'moral policing' case; twelve arrested

MUMBAI: The CBI contin-ued questioning Rajiv Koch-har, brother-in-law of ICICI Bank MD and CEO Chanda Kochhar, for the fifth consec-utive day on Monday along with NuPower Renewables Pvt Ltd director Mahesh Chandra Punglia in connection with a case relating to Rs 3,250 crore loan to the Videocon Group in 2012.

Punglia, a close aide of Vid-eocon Group chief Venugopal Dhoot, was examined for the third consecutive day in con-nection with the case. He was previously an employee of Vid-eocon Group and then used to offer consultancy services to it.

He is also a Director in NuPower Renewables Private Limited, the company formed by Chanda Kochhar’s husband Deepak Kochhar and Dhoot in December 2008. Rajiv Koch-har and Punglia were ques-

tioned at the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) Ban-dra office.

The agency on Sunday also questioned another NuPower director Umanath Vainkut Nayak in connection with the case. Punglia was examined about the role of Rajiv Koch-har’s Singapore-based com-pany Avista Advisory in the restructuring of loan.

The NuPower director was also asked about the help he extended to Videocon in securing the loan from the ICICI Bank, which was part of a Rs 40,000 crore credit given by a consortium of 20 banks, led by the State Bank of India, to the Video-con Group. Rajiv Kochhar was on Thursday stopped at Mumbai airport by immigra-tion authorities around 11 am when he was about to leave for Singapore. AGENCIES

CBI questions Rajiv Kochhar, NuPower director Chandra

NEW DELHI: The CBSE is yet to announce new dates for the Class 10 and Class 12 exami-nations that were postponed in Punjab in view of the ‘Bharat Bandh’ on April 2, leaving the students and parents anxious.

At the request of the state government in view of ‘Bharat Bandh’ called by several Dalit organisations against the alleged “dilution” of the SCs/STs (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, the Central Board of Sec-ondary Education (CBSE) had postponed the exams sched-uled on April 2.

“It has been a week and I was completely prepared for the exam and now we don’t even know that when the exam will be held,” Jaspreet Mehra, a Class 10 student from Bhat-

inda said.Supriya Bhatia, an IT pro-

fessional said, “It’s depressing for students to aimlessly pre-pare for exam without know-ing an exact date. It should have been announced that day only”.

The board officials, how-ever, said, that the dates will be announced soon.

“The dates will be announced soon, students and parents should not panic,” a senior CBSE official said.

While Class 12 students were supposed to appear for the Hindi exam, language exams of French, Sanskrit and Urdu were scheduled for Class 10 on that day.

CBSE yet to announce postponed Classes 10, 12 exam dates in Punjab

OUR CORRESPONDENT

JAMMU: The Congress on Monday alleged that the PDP-BJP government in Jammu & Kashmir had become a "non-performing liability", and said the administration must come out of deep slum-ber to infuse responsiveness and accountability in order to mitigate the sufferings of the people.

"The PDP-BJP govern-ment has collapsed. It is non-performing liability in J&K," Congress leader and former minister Sham Lal Sharma told reporters at a function in Chowki Choura area in Jammu.

PDP-BJP govt has become a

'non-performing liability': Cong

ICA/T 2577(5)/2018

mp editorial8MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 10 April, 2018

NANTOO BANERJEE

ASAD RAHMANI

It is a matter of great concern that the country’s apex legislature, Parliament of India, is finding it increasingly difficult to legislate, if

one goes by the outcome of the second part of the less-than-five- week-long budget session, 2018-19, that ended within minutes of its last business day on April 6. The valedictory reference by Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan mentioned that ‘due to interruptions and forced adjournments the business of the lower house was disrupted for 127 hours and 45 minutes’ and the house had to work overtime for nine hours and 47 minutes to transact very urgent government businesses. In total, Lok Sabha, where the ruling party com-bination has an overwhelming majority, sat only for a little over 34 hours. Rajya Sabha managed to sit for 44 hours. Sev-eral pending bills could not be intro-duced for legislation by the respective departmental ministers. The most important of them in terms of social consequence was the anti-trafficking bill. The latter is hanging fire since 2016. The others included the ban on unreg-ulated deposit schemes to protect the interest of depositors. There were sev-eral amendment bills to existing laws. The senior Union Ministers waiting to introduce these bills included Maneka Gandhi, Arun Jaitley, Suresh Prabhu, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Giriraj Singh. There were several other bills pending for consideration and passing, includ-ing the one by health minister Jagat Prakash Nadda concerning the medical education system. But, they all had to be held back, thanks to din of protests by opposition MPs.

The saddest part is that the long-pending legislative initiative by Women and Child Welfare Minister Maneka Gandhi — The Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection and Rehabili-tation) bill, 2018 — could not be intro-duced at all. The bill seeks “to prevent trafficking of persons, especially women and children, and to provide care, pro-tection and rehabilitation to the victims of trafficking, to prosecute offenders and to create a legal, economic and social environment for the victims.” On Feb-ruary 28, the Union Cabinet approved the bill. It was supposed to be introduced in the second half of the budget session that started on March 5. In fact, the bill was drafted two years ago. It proposed several ‘survivor-centric’ approaches,

including the creation of a rehabilita-tion fund, holding time-bound trials and protecting the survivors at the ear-liest. It also proposed imprisonment of 10 years and a fine of Rs 1 lakh for the guilty. It is a common knowledge that India is a major source, destination and transit country for men women and children subjected to forced labour and human trafficking.

There are around 46 million people enslaved worldwide. Over 18 million live in India, according to the Global Slav-ery Index, 2016, estimates. The Index was compiled by the Walk Free Foun-dation, a global organisation seeking to end modern slavery. Almost 20,000 women and children were reportedly victims of human trafficking in India in 2016, a rise of nearly 25 per cent from the previous year. Although India sits on top of the slavery index, it is yet to have a comprehensive anti-trafficking law to tackle the problem. The existing law — The Immoral Trafficking and Preven-tion Act (ITPA) — deals mostly with commercial sex trafficking or prostitu-tion. Various rights groups have been clamouring for a new law. The present law was promulgated about 59 years ago. According to a UN report, roughly 15,000 people from Nepal are trafficked into India every year and sold for forced labour or prostitution and even smug-

gling. Other sources of trafficking into India include Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Ukraine. Lately, some 80,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar were said to have been trafficked into the country. India is a major supplier of trafficked human beings to West Asian countries and also other parts of the world, includ-ing the UK. Globally, human trafficking is a big business. The high-risk trade offers lucrative financial returns.

Among the other important pend-ing bills is the one Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was to introduce. It’s called The Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes Bill, 2018. The bill seeks to pro-vide for a comprehensive mechanism to ban the unregulated deposits schemes and protect the interest of depositors. The Union Cabinet has just given its approval for introducing the two bills in Parliament that seek to protect the interests of investors. They are: The Ban-ning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes Bill, 2018 and Chit Funds (Amendment) Bill, 2018. The two bills may look to have come quick on the heels of the PNB fraud. But actually, they were consid-ered at least two years ago. The finance minister had talked about a comprehen-sive legislation to deal with the problem of illicit deposit-taking schemes in his 2016-17 budget speech. Reportedly,

regulatory gaps were misused by certain companies to cheat people of their hard-earned savings. The new bill seeks to put a complete end to such activities by ban-ning all unregulated deposit schemes. The bill provides for complete prohi-bition of unregulated deposit taking activity. It seeks to empower state gov-ernments to have a ‘competent author-ity’ to ensure repayment of deposits in the event of default by a deposit taking establishment. The competent author-ity will have the power to attach assets of a defaulting establishment. It also provides for designation of courts to oversee repayment of depositors and to try offences under the act and list-ing of regulated deposit schemes. The bill seeks to provide deterrent punish-ment for promoting and operating an unregulated deposit-taking scheme and for fraudulent default in repayment to depositors. Further, the bill includes categorisation of offences, severe pun-ishment for deterrence, creation of an online central database for deposits-related information, among many oth-ers. Now the fate of these important bills will now depend on the monsoon session in July provided that Parliament is allowed to function normally by its aggrieved members. IPA

(The views expressed are strictly personal)

Perils of Opposition dinEDITORIAL

Anti-Trafficking bill has been the worst victim of Lok Sabha logjam

The long-pending legislative initiative by Women and Child Welfare Minister Maneka Gandhi — The Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection and Rehabilitation) bill, 2018 — could not be introduced at all. It was supposed to be introduced in the second half of the budget session that started on March 5. In fact, the bill was drafted two years ago

The Bharat bandh on April 2 organised by Dalit outfits had a nationwide effect, with most places reporting incidents of arson and disruption of road and rail traffic. The massive response that

the strike generated from the Dalit communities across the country has made the opposition leaders recalibrate their strategy. With nearly 30 crore people belonging to scheduled caste and scheduled tribe communities in the country, the Dalit votes are significant. But if the number of Dalit votes is added to the number of Other Backward Caste (OBC) votes, it has the potential to defeat a BJP can-didate. Based on this logic, Congress president Rahul Gan-dhi on Sunday said in a public meeting that in 2019 general election, Narendra Modi can be defeated from Varanasi.

In Uttar Pradesh, the two main opposition leaders Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati have understood this well. They have reached an understanding that if they join hands, they have a good chance to stage a comeback in the gen-eral election in 2019. Congress has already fought the last Assembly elections in the state in alliance with the Sama-jwadi Party. So, it is the SP-BSP-Congress combined that the BJP candidates will have to face in UP. In Bihar, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader and former Deputy Chief Minis-ter Tejashwi Yadav marched with the Dalit protesters on April 2. And in a recent public meeting, he blamed that the Centre is hatching a conspiracy to abolish reservations for the SC/ST communities. Tejashwi is not alone in trying to discover the Dalit might and woo it as a vote bank. He has the support of the Congress and former Chief Min-ister Jitan Ram Manjhi’s ‎Hindustani Awam Morcha. All these leaders are making a strong pitch for the continua-tion of the reservations in education and jobs. They also term BJP and NDA anti-Dalit who are out to abolish the reservation. Though BJP leaders have tried to counter the allegation, the opposition is livid with the Supreme Court ruling that has ruled against the automatic filing of FIR and arrest of the accused in case of a violence under SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. The Centre has already filed a review petition in the Supreme Court but the opposition parties are not satisfied with this. Reacting to this sudden clamour for the Dalit cause, the BJP has tried to allay the fear of the SC/ST communities. Deputy chief minister of Bihar Sushil Modi has reacted to Tejashwai’s charges. He said that RJD is trying to divert the attention from the cor-ruption that the party has propagated over the years. He once again said that the BJP is not planning to abolish the reservations in education and jobs. Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has said that the BJP government is, in fact, trying to strengthen the SC/ST Act and that there is no plan to abolish the SC/ST reservations. Union Food Minister and Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan has said that it was his party who first filed a review peti-tion in the Supreme Court against the court’s order that effectively diluted the provisions of SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

More than 10 people have died in the violence unleashed by the protesters during their all-India strike. The maxi-mum damage to life and property was reported from BJP ruled states such as Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. This indicates that the Dalits in BJP-ruled states were more agitated towards the government. This sudden expression of anger by Dalit organisations has given new ammunition to the opposition camp. The opposition parties are already on a drive to unify themselves and put up a united fight against BJP in the next general election in 2019. Now, they have an agenda too. Atrocities against Dalits, Supreme Court order diluting the provisions of SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, and the BJP-led NDA government may abolish reservations are the kind of talks that is taking place in the opposition camps. The spontaneous and all-India response that the strike on April 2 generated underlines the fact that the Dalit politics can longer be kept on the margins and it is going to take the centre stage. Besides a united opposition, BJP will have to counter the Dalit vote bank politics in the coming elections. From Rahul Gandhi to Tejashwai and Akhilesh Yadav, the OBC and mainstream leaders are no longer shying away from championing the Dalit cause. Rather, Dalit is politically more acceptable now than ever before.

Even as the British are, reportedly, trying hard to ensure a safe and secure hideout for the Skripals in the US, Russia’s Ambassador to the UK has

requested a meeting with the UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson. This is unfolding even amid mounting tensions over the investigation into a nerve agent attack on the for-mer Russian double agent in Salisbury. Relations between London and Moscow have steadily worsened since the UK government pointed the finger at Russia over last month’s poisoning of Sergei Skripal. Moscow, naturally, continues to deny all involvement. The Russians believe that it is high time to arrange a meeting between Ambassador Alexan-der Yakovenko and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson in order to discuss the whole range of bilateral issues, as well as the investigation of the Salisbury incident. Yakovenko has already sent a personal note to Johnson. The UK For-eign Office responded by stating it would “consider their request and respond in due course”. But, interestingly, the British Foreign Office suggested that the Russian move was a diversionary tactic. “It’s over three weeks since we asked Russia to engage constructively and answer a num-ber of questions relating to the attempted assassinations of Skripal and his daughter.” The Russians, predictably, have repeatedly criticised the UK government and John-son since Britain accused Russia of attempting to murder the Skripals using the nerve agent Novichok. Yakovenko repeated Russian allegations that Britain has denied its requests for information on the Skripals and the investi-gation into the attack. Both Sergei and Yulia Skripal still remain hospitalised but are recovering. Skripal, 66, is no longer in a critical state and is understood to be respond-ing well to treatment. While the National Health Service would not comment specifically on his case, sources have it that being out of a critical condition generally means that a patient can speak. Yulia, 33, released her first pub-lic statement on Thursday after regaining consciousness last week. She thanked those who had treated her and her father and all those who had sent “messages of goodwill”. Johnson welcomed the news of Sergei Skripal’s improved condition and wished both patients a “quick return to full health”. The UK Foreign Office said that Yulia Skripal has so far declined the Russian Embassy’s offer of consular assistance following the attack. The Russian Embassy has repeatedly said it requested consular access to Yulia and Sergei Skripal, but that it had been “denied”. In the wake of the poisoning, the UK and its allies expelled scores of Russian diplomats triggering retaliatory expulsions by Russia. Indeed, the mystery Salisbury attack has now had international ramifications. And, in the present circum-stances, no one can be too careful.

Dalit politics at centre stage

Russian fiasco

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EDITOR

It is very laudable that our respected CM Mamata Banerjee is pondering over forming a legislation which will restrict on school authorities in private schools regarding arbitrary fee hike. Over the past few years, private schools have increased session charges on a regular basis that really put a heavy burden on the shoulders of miserable parents. Education should always be imparted to the students at the lowest possible cost which every parent could afford easily. If the pre-planned proposal is implemented in a short while by our state government, it will be very convenient for all the middle-class parents in terms of letting their children receive a quality education. IFTEKHAR AHMED Via email

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest

Quote martial

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Africa is considered as the centre of radia-tion of antelopes and gazelles, where

nearly 100 species are found but India has perhaps the most graceful antelope, the Black-buck (Antilope cervicapra). Blackbuck is found only in the Indian subcontinent, mainly in three countries: India; where nearly 95 per cent of the popu-lation is present; Nepal, where a small population survives in the arid part of the Nepal plains or Terai; and Pakistan, where it is extinct as a free-ranging animal but an intro-duced population is found in the Lal Suhanra National Park in Bahawalpur, Southern Pun-jab province.

Blackbuck is the finest rep-resentative of arid and semi-arid short grass plains that were once abundant in undivided Punjab, Haryana, parts of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and down south up to Tamil Nadu. It is a denizen of open countryside, avoiding forest and hilly areas. When the Asiatic Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus) was found in India—the last was seen in 1951—Blackbuck was its main prey, along with Indian Gazelle (“Chinkara”) in some areas. There are numer-ous Mughal and Rajput paint-ings showing Cheetah chasing a herd of Blackbuck. Emperor Jahangir, while traveling from Delhi to Agra, noted that Black-bucks were so numerous, they were never out of sight during his journey.

Sadly, Blackbuck is now a rare species, surviving in small scattered herds in about 13 states of India. Possibly only 1 per cent of the former numbers survive now although distribu-

tion has not shrunk so much. It is still found from Punjab and Haryana in the north to Tamil Nadu in the south, and Rajast-han-Gujarat in the west to Odi-sha in the east, but nowhere in vast herds. The best numbers are seen in the Velavadar Black-buck National Park, Bhavnagar, Gujarat where a tiny 34 sq. km protected grassland is zealously protected by the Forest Depart-ment. Another notable area is Tal Chhapar Blackbuck Sanctu-ary, Churu district, Rajasthan. This 7 sq km sanctuary may have about a thousand animals. Point Calimere Sanctuary in Tamil Nadu is another place to see these graceful animals. In Rajasthan, however, there are many areas such as Guda

Vishnoiyan, Dhawa Doli, and Kankania (where actor Salman Khan allegedly hunted them in 1998) that are protected by the Bishnoi community who consider Blackbuck sacred. Similar is the case in Haryana and Punjab where a few thou-sand Blackbuck are surviving in Bishnoi-dominated areas.

Blackbuck is also found on the Deccan Plateau where, thanks to good protection, their numbers have increased in recent years. They generally live in agriculture-dominated landscapes, finding refuge in grassland plots created to stop soil erosion. There is only one Blackbuck Sanctuary in the Deccan where they were once found in millions, providing

abundant food for the Deccani Cheetah, famous for its hunt-ing skills, to the delight of local Maharajahs (The most famous Cheetah-khana was maintained by the Maharajah of Kolha-pur). The sanctuary is the small Rehekuri Blackbuck Sanctuary in Ahmadnagar, Maharashtra.

Blackbuck and Cheetah shared their grassland habitat with the Great Indian Bustard (GIB)—a species that has dis-appeared with most parts of its range. If we map the distribu-tion of Blackbuck and Great Indian Bustard, both will be found more or less in the same areas, except in Western Rajast-han (Thar desert) where Black-buck is not found. Blackbuck has to drink every day so wher-

ever surface water is not avail-able throughout the year as in the Thar Desert, it is absent. While the GIB is a facultative drinker—drinks water if avail-able, otherwise, it can live with-out water for many days or even months.

Poaching, habitat destruc-tion, habitat fragmentation, urbanisation and neglect are the major causes for the dis-appearance of Blackbuck. A new menace has appeared in the form of free-ranging vil-lage dogs which now roam all over India, killing Blackbuck, Chinkara, Nilgai and eating eggs of the Sarus Crane, Black-necked Crane (in Ladakh) and many ground-nesting birds. There is an urgent need to con-trol their numbers before they exterminate some species.

In order to save species like Blackbuck and Great Indian Bustard, we have to give more attention to grasslands. Unfor-tunately, grasslands are still considered as “wastelands”, to be converted into other land use or given to corporates in the name of vikas. In the new draft National Forest Policy, even the term “grassland” has been removed, clearly indicating the intention of the government. Salman Khan had reportedly killed two Blackbuck, but we are killing thousands of Black-buck by taking away their orig-inal land. In The Merchant of Venice, Shylock says: “You take my life when you do take the means whereby I live” (Act 4, Scene 1, Page 16) DOWN TO EARTH

(The author is former Director, Bombay Natural

History Society and Scientific Adviser, The Corbett Founda-tion, and Hem Chand Mahin-

dra Foundation. The views expressed are strictly personal)

Blackbuck is found only in the Indian subcontinent in three countries: India, with nearly 95 per cent of its population; Nepal, where a small population survives in the arid part of the Nepal plains or Terai; and Pakistan, where it is extinct as a free-ranging animal

In order to save species like Blackbuck, we must give more attention to grasslands

Blackbuck: The epitome of grace

Blackbuck dwells in open countryside, avoiding forest and hilly areas

According to estimates of Global Slavery Index, 2016, over 18 million enslaved people live in India (Representational Image)

VEDANTA DHAMIJA

DIPANKAR DEY

India’s growth trajectory has been both fascinating and diverse. The meta-morphosis from a newly

Independent nation with a plethora of challenges, strug-gling with the ‘Hindu rate of growth’ to one of the fastest growing emerging economies has caught global attention. While several aspects of India’s economic performance merit intricate examination, this arti-cle will look at the performance of the ‘actual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth’ vis-à-vis the ‘potential GDP growth’ from a long-term perspective, or the difference between the two – termed as ‘output gap’.

Policymakers are concerned about smoothening the impact of the ups and downs (called business cycles) by under-standing how close the current output is to the economy’s long-term potential output. Output gaps are no crystal balls, but they can reveal a lot about the future course of various mac-roeconomic variables. Output gap may be positive or negative. It is positive when actual out-put exceeds the potential, and this reflects that factories are operating above capacity and hire more workers to meet the demand, and is the harbinger of mounting price pressures. A negative output gap is indica-tive of slack in the economy due to weaker demand and gaps in capacity utilisation. Given this, it would not be difficult to appreciate that the output gap is an instantaneous indicator of the relative demand and sup-ply components of economic activity. There are several tech-niques to estimate the potential growth; this article relies on a simple statistical method which identifies potential through the deviation of the actual output from its trend, and minimises it while adjusting for the sensi-tivity of the trend to short-term

fluctuations.The comparison of growth

with its potential is shown in the adjoining figure. The figure suggests that the potential GDP growth of India since the early 1990s has consistently demon-strated an upward trend, peak-ing in 2006 to 2009. It briefly treads down following the global financial crisis of 2008, but has unswervingly remained close to 7 per cent. With GDP growth performing below the potential at the advent of the 1990s, the onset of the reforms leads to a sharp positive output gap as the economy expanded on the back of liberalisation and improved international linkages. Except for one brief descent, India’s growth contin-ued to outperform its potential in the 1990s, only to be inter-rupted by the impact of the East Asian Crisis which dried up capital flows to the emerging economies towards the turn of the century. Starting 2003, global recovery began and world trade picked up, which had been dormant since the cri-sis, leading to growth in India’s

export earnings. Loose mon-etary policy exercised by the US and Japan allowed inves-tors to take advantage of the interest rate arbitrage and direct liquidity to emerging econo-mies. Being at the receiving end of this global liquidity surge from 2003 to 2008, the output gap turned sharply positive in India as the GDP grew at the rate 9 per cent per annum in this period, second only to Chi-na’s growth rate. This streak of ‘India’s dream run’ faltered, albeit marginally, at the out-break of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. Initially, India seemed to be insulated from the crisis, as growth exceeded its potential again after a tem-porary fall and remained high thereafter. This ‘decoupling’ was on account of factors such as limited capital account con-vertibility, nearly no sub-prime assets and linkages to the failed institutions, among others. But, as the global economy con-tinued to grapple with reces-sionary pressures, the output gap became negative in India as well in the period between

2011 and 2014. The output gap turned positive since 2014 as India registered close to 8 per cent rate of growth and foreign inflows poured in due to the sound macroeconomic funda-mentals and a renewed faith in the Indian story. But, the oscil-lation resumed as GDP growth fell below potential after 2016 and has remained so up to December 2017 (latest avail-able data).

This analysis of output gaps over the last 25 years reveals two keys insights. One, due to an increasingly globalised economy, the domestic out-put gap is very sensitive to the international policy space. This is reflected through the emer-gence of a negative output gap in response to the East Asian Crisis and the Global Finan-cial Crisis, owing partly to the reliance on foreign inflows as well the pro-cyclical nature of Indian exports. It is also evi-dent through output exceeding the potential after the globali-sation of the economy in the early 1990s and loose monetary policy abroad after 2002. Two,

the recent negative output gap is narrower than ever since the last two and a half decades. The recent past saw disruptions in GDP growth following the twin policy shocks of demonetisa-tion and the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax. Growth did falter, but as struc-tural adjustments gather pace, the indirect tax reform will go a long way in enhancing the long-term potential and clos-ing the output gap. These poli-cies are aiding formalisation of the economy and the bene-fits are already evident through improvements in tax collection.

The current international macroeconomic landscape is favourable for domestic growth as synchronised global recovery continues in earnest and India is well equipped to deal with monetary policy normalisa-tion. With commodity prices and inflationary pressures in check, the speedy resolution of stressed loans along with recap-italisation and cleaning of bank balance sheets and the domes-tic macroeconomic milieu is also considerably conducive to higher growth accelerat-ing further. The government is doing well to monetise the out-put gap through considerable infrastructure and social sec-tor expenditure to boost out-put and employment. Lower than expected borrowings by the government in the first-half of the fiscal year leading to softening of bond yields, com-plemented with status quo by the RBI on the repo rate will ensure low borrowing costs and spur investment. In Toto, these observations hint that the out-put gap is poised to close as the Indian economy heads closer towards its potential growth.

(The author works as Young Professional, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. The views expressed

are strictly personal)

The economic data of this dynamic grouping is impressive. The combined GDP of the Commonwealth countries was estimated at US$10.4 trillion in 2017 and is, additionally, predicted to reach US$13 trillion by 2020. The bilateral costs for trading partners in the Commonwealth countries are on an average 19 per cent less than those in non-member countries

Policymakers are concerned about smoothening the impact of business cycles by understanding how close the current output is to the economy’s long-term potential output. Output gaps can reveal a lot about the future course of various macroeconomic variables

Rebuilding the CommonwealthThere are several possibilities that could be explored for an energy

specific FTA among Commonwealth nations

Revisiting India’s growth

Possibly, the Commonwealth of Nations is the earliest multilateral body of coun-tries bound together by a

shared colonial culture, adminis-trative language, common values, human rights, unified legal sys-tem, democracy, and stable gover-nance. Its formation dates back to the Statute of Westminster, an Act of the British Parliament passed on December 11, 1931. The Stat-ute established the independence of the Dominions (semi-independent polities under the British Crown), creating a group of equal mem-bers where, previously, there was only one supreme — the United Kingdom. The solitary condition of membership of that embryonic Commonwealth was that a mem-ber state must be a ‘Dominion’. Thus, the Independence of Paki-stan (1947), India (1947), and Sri Lanka (1948) saw the three countries join the Commonwealth as indepen-dent Dominions. On the other hand, Burma (1948) and Israel (1948) did not join the Commonwealth, as they chose to become republics.

With India was on the verge of promulgating a republican Consti-tution, the Commonwealth Prime Ministers Conference in 1949 was dominated by the impending departure of over half of the Com-monwealth’s population. To avoid such a fate, it was proposed that the republics be allowed to remain in the Commonwealth, provided they recognised King George VI as the ‘Head of the Commonwealth’. Accordingly, eight governments, Australia, Canada, Sri Lanka (for-merly Ceylon), India, New Zea-land, Pakistan, South Africa and the United Kingdom, came together to form the new Commonwealth in 1949. That arrangement (London declaration) established the only formalised rule that the Common-wealth members must recognise the King or the Queen as the Head of the Commonwealth. Thus, the mem-bers had declared themselves, to be “united as free and equal members”, co-operating together in the pursuit of peace, liberty, and progress.

Almost seven decades later, the Commonwealth membership has grown to fifty-three countries. It operates through the intergovern-mental consensus of the member

states, organised by the Common-wealth, the Secretariat and the non-governmental organisation—the Commonwealth Foundation.

The demographic and economic fact sheet of the Commonwealth nations is very impressive. The com-bined population of the Common-wealth nations is 2.4 billion, (which is nearly one-third of the global population) of which more than 60 per cent of the populace is aged 29 years or under. The Common-wealth is spread across the globe and includes both advanced economies and developing countries. It encom-passes Africa (19 countries), Asia (seven countries), the Caribbean and Americas (13 countries), Europe (three countries), and the Pacific (11 countries). The Commonwealth’s strength lies in its shared values and diversity. Thirty-one members are small states, usually with a popula-tion of well fewer than 1.5 million,

and 24 members are small island developing states. The Pacific nation of Nauru is the smallest Common-wealth member country with a pop-ulation of about 10,000. The most populous member country is India with over 1.2 billion people.

The economic data of this dynamic grouping is equally impres-sive. The combined gross domes-tic product of the Commonwealth countries was estimated at US$10.4 trillion in 2017 and is, additionally, predicted to reach US$13 trillion by 2020. The bilateral costs for trad-ing partners in the Commonwealth countries are on an average 19 per cent less than those in non-mem-ber countries. And 10 of the top 20 global emerging cities are in the Commonwealth: New Delhi, Mum-bai, Nairobi, Kuala Lumpur, Banga-lore, Johannesburg, Kolkata, Cape Town, Chennai and Dhaka (of these, five are Indian cities).

Surprisingly, all these common-alities have not culminated to result in any formal economic agree-ment among the member states of the Commonwealth. The activities have remained confined, predom-inantly, to cultural pursuits, aca-demic engagements, and sporting activities.

India enjoys a significant posi-tion in the Commonwealth because of its population (almost half of the total Commonwealth population) and a vast economy (its GDP is nearly one -third of the total Com-monwealth GDP). Moreover, being a strategically important nation in Southeast Asia, India can act as the most crucial nation connecting the Caribbean and African states on one side and the Pacific nations on the other. Moreover, after Britain’s exit from the EU in 2019, she may find Commonwealth as an estab-lished platform to boost her battered

economy.Indian policymakers are in a

total state of confusion over how to react to China’s OBOR (One Belt One Road) and Sea Silk Route initia-tives. Apprehending Chinese domi-nance, the government of India has stopped financing the Institute of Chinese Studies, New Delhi. Alter-native trade blocs like the Regional Comprehensive Economic Part-nership (RCEP) –a proposed free trade agreement (FTA) between the ten member states of the Associ-ation of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN: Brunei, Cambodia, Indo-nesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam) and the six states with which the ASEAN has existing free trade agreements (Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand), the Asia Africa Growth Corridor (AAGC) and the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-sectoral,

Technical and Economic Coopera-tion (BIMSTEC: India; Bangladesh; Myanmar; Bhutan, Nepal; Sri Lanka; Thailand; Japan), among others, are being explored.

Nonetheless, policymakers have not yet seriously considered the Commonwealth as a viable Free Trade bloc. Pre-existing colonial baggage and the high-handedness of the previous master might have acted as a severe mental block. For a win-win situation, the UK will have to initiate major reforms in the monarchical structure of the Com-monwealth to exploit the trade and economic potential of this oldest political bloc.

Instead of a multi-sectoral FTA, to begin with, we have suggested for an energy specific FTA in the Commonwealth region for two reasons. First, for all the member nations, large or small, energy is still a vital economic input and most of the Commonwealth nations are not self-sufficient in energy. Second, like in the previous century, in the 21st century also, due to impending con-cerns of Climate Change, energy, especially the new and emerging variant green sources of energy, will be the major game changer. As a huge potential of energy trade (both product and services) exists among the Commonwealth Nations, it is expected that the members will wel-come an energy FTA among them.

It may be noted that the Com-monwealth initiative was taken much earlier than the initiatives that led to the formation of the Euro-pean Union. It was only in 1951 that the concept of a ‘European trade area’ was first established. The Euro-pean Coal and Steel Community had six founding members: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. That small initiative ultimately led to a strong European trade bloc of 28 countries.

If Britain learns from its EU experience and takes initiatives to make the Commonwealth a truly democratic institution then it may emerge as the main competitor to the European Union and many other regional blocs in future.

(The author is Senior Consultant, Center for Studies

in International Relations & Development. The views

expressed are strictly personal)

India’s economic story has been a derivative of the play between the actual GDP and the potential GDP growth

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To attack children with weapons of war is a cowardly act of brutality. No matter our political beliefs this callous disregard for human lives, especially lives of innocent children, is cruel beyond measure and the international community must act soon.

Heartiest Congratulations team India-Saina Nehwal, Ashwini Ponnappa, N. Sikki Reddy, Srikanth Kidambi, Satwik Rankireddy, Chirag Chandrashekhar Shetty for winning GOLD in the Badminton Mixed Team event at #GC2018 ! #GC2018Badminton Thank you for making us so proud!

This day is a day of commemoration, a day of recollection of past glory and a day of reaffirmation of our firm commitment to national security. @crpfindia #ValourDay #CRPF

Tears of gratitude . To all my loved ones who are with me and never lost hope . Thank you for being there with all the love and support . God Bless .

The Commonwealth nations must capitalise on bolstering their energy ties

Graphic representation of actual and potential GDP growth

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9mp in focusMILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 10 April, 2018

mp world10MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 10 April, 2018

Syria ‘chemical attack’: Russia warns against snap judgmentsMOSCOW: The Kremlin on Monday warned against jump-ing to conclusions over a sus-pected poison gas attack on the Syrian rebel-held town of Douma, after Moscow said its experts had found no traces of chemical weapons.

"It's necessary to examine very carefully what happened in Douma. And it goes without saying that without this infor-mation, making any deductions is wrong and dangerous," Krem-lin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists.

He said that it was too early to judge because "no one has exhaustive information" and no investigation has been car-ried out, although Russia has already sent military experts to the scene.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said earlier on Monday that Russian specialists had found no trace of a chemi-cal attack on Douma, after alle-gations from the international community.

"Our military specialists have visited this place... and they did not find any trace of

chlorine or any other chemical substance used against civil-ians," he said.

Peskov suggested that the attack could have been staged by rebels to pin the blame on Damascus, something that Rus-sia has recently warned could happen.

"Both the president and the defence ministry, citing intel-ligence sources, have spoken

about such a provocation being prepared," Peskov said.

"What's meant is a provoca-tion using chemical weapons by terrorists who might possess these substances" or the spread-ing of stories of such an attack, Peskov said.

Lavrov also said that a strike on a Syrian airbase, that Damas-cus and Moscow have blamed on Israel, was a "very dangerous

development"."I hope at least that the US

military and those countries participating in the coalition led by the United States under-stand that," Lavrov told a press conference.

The Russian army had ear-lier accused Israel of carry-ing out deadly missile strikes on a Syrian military airbase from Lebanon before dawn on Monday.

At least 14 fighters, including Iranians, were killed in the strike on the T-4 airbase, according to the monitoring organisation the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Forces from regime allies Russia and Iran, as well as fight-ers from the Lebanese Hezbol-lah militia, are known to have a presence at the base, accord-ing to the observatory. Wash-ington and Paris denied any involvement. Meanwhile US President Donald Trump and French counterpart Emmanuel Macron have vowed a strong response to the suspected poi-son gas attack in the rebel out-post of Douma. AGENCIES

Kremlin slams ‘outrageous’ new US curbs Moscow: The Kremlin on Monday slammed the latest US sanc-tions targeting Presi-dent Vladimir Putin's oligarch allies and their companies as well as senior officials as illegal. "This is an outrageous busi-ness from the point of view of illegality, from the point of view of flouting all the norms, and of course careful analysis is needed here," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journal-ists. AGENCIES

Scientists devise new way to fix cells deep inside ear

NEW YORK: Scientists have found a new way to fix cells deep inside the ear, which could help millions of people who suffer from hearing loss.

The study by researchers at University of Southern Califor-nia (USC) in the US demon-strates a novel way for a drug to zero in on damaged nerves and cells inside the ear.

It is a potential remedy for a problem that afflicts two-thirds of people over 70 years and 17 per cent of all adults in the US, researchers said.

"What is new here is we fig-ured out how to deliver a drug into the inner ear so it actually stays put and does what it is sup-posed to do, and that is novel," said Charles E McKenna, a pro-fessor at USC.

"Inside this part of the ear, there is fluid constantly flow-ing that would sweep dis-solved drugs away, but our new approach addresses that prob-lem," said McKenna, lead author of the study published in the journal Bioconjugate Chemistry.

"This is a first for hearing loss and the ear. It is also impor-tant because it may be adapt-

able for other drugs that need to be applied within the inner ear," he said.

The research was conducted on animal tissues in a petri dish. It has not yet been tested in liv-ing animals or humans.

Yet, the researchers are hopeful given the similarities of cells and mechanisms involved.

McKenna said since the technique works in the labo-ratory, the findings provide "strong preliminary evidence" it could work in living creatures.

They are already planning the next phase involving ani-

mals and hearing loss. The study breaks new ground because researchers developed a novel drug-delivery method.

Specifically, it targets the cochlea, a snail-like structure in the inner ear where sensitive cells convey sound to the brain.

Hearing loss occurs due to ageing, working with noisy machines and too many loud concerts. Over time, hair-like sensory cells and bundles of neurons that transmit their vibrations break down, as do ribbon-like synapses, which connect the cells. AGENCIES

This technique may help millions of people who suffer from hearing loss

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov

Topless protester charges at Bill Cosby during sex assault retrial

NORRISTOWN (US): A top-less protester with "Women's Lives Matter" written on her body in red ink charged at Bill Cosby as he walked into a sub-urban Philadelphia courthouse on Monday for the start of his sexual assault retrial.

The woman jumped over a barricade and launched toward Cosby but was intercepted by sheriff 's deputies. She was taken into custody and led away in handcuffs.

Cosby seemed startled by the commotion as protesters chanted at him, but was not touched and is uninjured.

The unidentified woman was among about a half dozen peo-ple chanting in support of Cos-by's accuser. She had "Women's Lives Matters" written in red ink on her chest and stomach along with other phrases in black and red all over her body.

Opening arguments are scheduled to begin Monday morning and prosecutors have lined up a parade of accusers to make the case that the man revered as "America's Dad" lived a double life as one of Holly-wood's biggest predators.

Cosby's retrial likely won't be anything like his first one.

He's fighting back with a new, high-profile lawyer and an aggressive strategy: attack-ing Andrea Constand as a greedy liar and casting the other women testifying as bandwagon accusers looking for a share of

the spotlight. "You've seen pre-views and coming attractions, but things have changed," said professor Laurie Levenson of Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. Cosby's first trial last spring ended in a cliffhanger, with jurors unable to reach a unanimous verdict after five days of tense deliberations on charges that the man who made millions of viewers laugh as wise and understanding Dr Cliff Huxtable on "The Cosby Show" drugged and molested Constand at his suburban Phila-delphia home in 2004.

The 80-year-old comedian, who has said the sexual con-tact was consensual, faces three counts of aggravated indecent assault, each punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Opening statements are scheduled to begin on Mon-day in a suburban Philadelphia courtroom. His retrial is tak-ing place in a radically changed

and potentially more hostile environment.

The #MeToo movement caught fire four months after the first trial, raising awareness of sexual misconduct as it top-pled Harvey Weinstein, Sen Al Franken, Matt Lauer and other powerful men. Nearly every potential juror questioned for the case this time knew about #MeToo. Kristen Houser of the National Sexual Violence Resource Center said that could help prosecutors overcome the skepticism some jurors had last time about Constand's yearlong wait to report her allegations to the police.

"The #MeToo movement is amplifying what experts have been saying for decades: People are ashamed, they're confused, they can't believe somebody they trust would hurt them, and then they worry that oth-ers won't believe them," Houser said. AGENCIES

Orban wins Hungary polls... creates headache for EU

BRUSSELS: The leading political group in the Euro-pean Parliament congratulated Hungary's Viktor Orban on his reelection on Monday, but the anti-immigration populists vic-tory looks set to prolong the fractious relationship between Brussels and Budapest.

The European Union has clashed repeatedly with Orban's government during his first two terms as premier over a number of issues includ-ing Hungarys crackdown on foreign-funded universities and NGOs, its hardline stance on migrants and alleged mis-use of funding from the bloc.

Orban has been defiant in the face of EU criticism, and some observers say the fact his Fidesz party is part of the Euro-pean Peoples Party (EPP), the dominant force in the Euro-pean Parliament, has given him cover in Brussels.

"Congratulations to Vik-tor #Orban and #Fideszmpsz on their clear victory in the #HungaryElections.

“I look forward to con-tinuing working with you towards common solutions to our European challenges," Manfred Weber, the head of the EPP bloc in the parlia-ment, wrote on Twitter on on Monday. AGENCIES

Armenia becomes parliamentary republic as new president sworn in

YEREVAN: Armenia's new President Armen Sarkisian was sworn in on Monday but power is expected to remain with his predecessor, who will likely become premier as the ex-Soviet republic shifts to a parliamentary form of government.

The former ambassador to the United Kingdom took the oath of office as president at an extraordinary parliamentary session, placing his right hand on a 7th-century manuscript of the New Testament, and the Armenian Constitution.

The 64-year-old then received blessings from the head of the Armenian Church, Catholicos Garegin II. "We

must consistently fight against corruption and social injus-tice," he told lawmakers. "We will succeed if we rally round this goal and work together -- instead of drawing dividing lines."

Sarkisian's inauguration allows controversial 2015 con-stitutional amendments to

come into force, turning the country into a parliamentary republic with a strong prime minister.

The political shift was ini-tiated by the outgoing presi-dent Serzh Sarkisian -- who is no relation to the new leader -- and was approved in a ref-erendum with 63 percent of the voters backing the changes.

Critics of pro-Moscow Serzh Sarkisian, 63, say the reforms have been designed to increase his power in a new capacity as premier. He has already served as premier in 2007-2008 and so far has not explicitly confirmed that he will seek to become prime minister again. AGENCIES

Armen Sarkisian

100 hurt in B’desh student protests

DHAKA: Thousands of stu-dents across Bangladesh staged protests and sit-ins on Monday after clashes at the country's top university left at least 100 peo-ple injured.

Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at Dhaka Univer-sity students fighting what they consider "discriminatory" gov-ernment job quotas in favour of special groups.

It was one of the biggest protests faced by Prime Minis-ter Sheikh Hasina in her decade in power.

A minister was due to meet protest leaders in Dhaka on Monday. But students at state-run universities in Chit-tagong, Khulna, Rajshahi, Bari-sal, Rangpur, Sylhet and Savar boycotted classes and staged sit-ins, police and media said.

"More than 1,000 students joined the demonstrations at Jahangirnagar University," said Ataur Rahman, a protester in Savar where the university is located.

The clashes, which began last night and went into the early hours of Monday, turned Dhaka University into a battleground.

Copycat protests soon started in other major cities as thousands of students boycot-ted classes and staged sit-ins.

Organisers in Dhaka said they were holding peaceful protests when police started firing tear gas and rubber bul-

lets. They used batons and water cannon to clear a cen-tral square.

As violence spread across the campus, thousands of male and female students launched into pitched battles with police.

"More than 100 people were injured," police inspector Bac-chu Mia said, adding they were treated in hospital but their condition was not serious.

Protesters threw rocks, vandalised the home of the Dhaka University vice-chan-cellor, torched two cars and ransacked the fine arts insti-tute, said senior police officer Azimul Haque.

Fifteen people were detained, police said.

The students are angry at the governments decision to set aside 56 percent of civil service jobs for the families of veterans from the 1971 war of indepen-dence and for disadvantaged minorities.

That leaves most university graduates to fight for only 44 per cent of the jobs. AGENCIES

UK cracks down on drugs to tackle rising street violence

LONDON: The UK govern-ment on Monday unveiled a tough anti-violence strategy as part of its wider crackdown on illegal drugs to tackle cases of rising street violence in the country.

Commissioned by the UK Home Secretary and backed with 40 million pounds of Home Office funding, the 'Serious Vio-lence Strategy' claims to mark a major shift in the government's response to knife and gun crime.

It involves a new Serious Violence Taskforce, which will bring together the volun-tary sector, local government, police and other key sectors to ensure the strategy is delivered effectively.

"The evidence is we're see-ing a different approach to drug dealing, a different approach to using children in the most dis-graceful way as drug dealers," said UK home secretary Amber Rudd. "A crucial part of our approach will be focusing on and investing more in preven-tion and early intervention. We need to engage with our young people early and to provide the incentives and credible alter-natives that will prevent them from being drawn into crime in the first place. This in my view is the best long-term solution," she said. AGENCIES

5 hurt in Japan earthquake

TOKYO: A 5.6-magnitude quake hit western Japan early on Monday, injuring five peo-ple and damaging buildings and roads, as officials warned stron-ger tremors could come in the days ahead.

The shallow tremor was gauged as magnitude 5.6 by the US Geological Survey and 6.1 by Japans meteorological agency on the Richter scale. It rocked the west of the main island of Honshu, 96 kilometres north of Hiroshima, at 1:32 AM (2200 IST on Sunday). The Japanese agency urged residents to stay vigilant. "We want the areas that experienced strong tremors to be on guard in the coming week or so against quakes that could be as powerful as the upper five," agency official Toshiyuki Mat-sumori told a news conference, referring to a Japanese seismic scale with a maximum intensity of seven. AGENCIES

CENTRAL PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENTNOTICE INVITING e-TENDERS

The Executive Engineer, Dehradun Central Division No I., CPWD, Dehradun on behalf of the President of India online Percentage Rate tender for Serial No.1 and Item Rate tender for Serial.No.2 from approved and eligible contractors of CPWD.-1.NIT No.225/EE/DCD-1/2017-18 Name of work:- C/o Hard Standing and Storage shelter at salvage SEC, ORD, DET Kalsi. Estt. Cost Rs 19,52,325/- Earnest money Rs.39,047/- Time: 03 (Three Month).2.NIT No.06/EE/DCD-1/2018-19 Name of work - A/R & M/O Residential Building of IGNFA, Dehradun. during 2018-19. (SH: Providing Services of Computer Operator, Sewerman, Plumber etc.) Estt. Cost Rs.8,48,568/-Earnest money Rs.16,971/- Time:12 (Twelve Months).The last date & time for Submission-of is 16.04.2018 at 3.30 pm. Security clearance certificate issued by SFF Authority Chakrata must be uploaded and produced. www.tenderwizard.com/cpwd www.cpwd.gov.in, www.eprocure.gov.in

My client Anuj Sharma & Ms. Tanu Sharma are availing housing loan from LICHFL Asaf Ali Road New Delhi to Purchase the Lease-hold Residential Flat No. SRA-144C on Second Floor having its area 80 sq. mtr. situated at Shipra Riviera Gyan Khand-III in Indrapuram Ghaziabad. U.P from Mr. Satish Kumar who is the owner of said property by virtue of Lease Deed regd. on 12.05.1999 as per document no. 6025/6024 in his favour. LICHHL have lost and misplaced the original Lease Deed regd. on 12.05.1999 and regard-ing which police complaint has also been lodged on 05.04.2018. If any body finds the misplaced Original document, the same may be returned to the LIC Housing Finance Ltd Kaushambi Gha-ziabad, if anybody misuses the same, the same shall be at his/their own risk. If any body has any claim, right, interest in the said flat shall also inform within 7 days to the undersigned on Telephone No:- 0120-4164364, 9891119162 & 9891119161. as applicant is mortgaging the above prop-erty to LIC Housing Finance Ltd.

Sd/- S.C. VARSHNEY (LICHFL PANEL ADV.) R-14/178, Raj Nagar Ghaziabad-201002

PUBLIC NOTICE

mp world 11MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 10 April, 2018

US will regret it if it violates nuke deal: Iran Prez Rouhani

TEHRAN: Iranian Presi-dent Hassan Rouhani said on Monday that the United States would regret withdrawing from the nuclear deal, and that Iran would respond in "less than a week" if that happened.

"We will not be the first to violate the accord but they should definitely know that they will regret it if they vio-late it," Rouhani told a confer-ence to mark National Nuclear Technology Day in Tehran.

"We are much more pre-pared than they think, and they will see that if they violate this accord, within a week, less than a week, they will see the result."

US President Donald Trump has threatened to walk away from the nuclear deal and reimpose sanctions by May 12 unless tough new restrictions

are imposed on Iran's nuclear and missile programmes.

Rouhani dismissed the

threat, saying: "It's been 15 months since this gentleman who came to power in Amer-

ica has been making claims and there have been many ups and downs in his remarks and his behaviour.

"(But) the foundations of the JCPOA (nuclear deal) have been so strong that during these 15 months of pressure... the structure has remained solid."

The other partners to the agreement -- Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia and the EU -- all agree that Iran has stuck by its commitments, as does the International Atomic Energy Association which is tasked with inspecting Iran's compliance.

"Even if one day (the US) can harm the JCPOA, we will be the winner in the public opinion of the world as the nation that stuck by its com-

mitments," Rouhani said."If they withdraw, it would

mean that they are not commit-ted to their words."

Rouhani said the country's military and diplomatic powers were not aimed at intimidating its neighbours -- an apparent riposte to claims by Saudi Ara-bia that it is seeking to domi-nate the Middle East.

"Our path is clear. We are not thinking of threatening anyone. Our powers, even our military power is not for aggression against any country. Our relations with our neigh-bours will be friendly rela-tions," Rouhani said.

He also took aim at his hardline opponents on the domestic front, who have crit-icised his efforts to reach out to the West. AGENCIES

World statesman Rouhani, who refuses to bow to US bullying, said that Iran will respond in ‘less than a week’

Posing as ‘humanitarian’ NGO man, Canadian preyed on Nepal children

KATHMANDU: A 60-year-old Canadian national running an NGO in Nepal has been arrested for allegedly sexually abusing children on the pretext of pro-viding them humanitarian assis-tance, police said on Monday.

Peter John Dalglish, who had served as the country rep-resentative of the UN Habitat Afghanistan, was arrested in Kavre District, about 60 km North-East from Kathmandu, on Saturday by a team of Nepal Police Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) on paedophilia charges.

Two children, aged 12 and 14, who were allegedly abused by Dalglish were also rescued from his room in Mandan Deu-pur Municipality.

The CIB suspects that there could be other victims.

Dalglish had been run-ning an NGO called Himala-yan Community Foundation in Nepal since 2015.

"Under the guise of commu-nity worker, claiming to educate poor kids and provide necessary support, he had been sexually exploiting these children, said CIB chief and Deputy Inspector General of Police Pushkar Karki.

Police had started further investigation against the Cana-dian national after taking him into police custody.

An organisation outside the country had tipped the CIB about Dalglish, according to

local media reports. "We had been following Dalglish's activi-ties for the last two weeks after we were tipped about his activi-ties, the CIB chief said.

Authorities have arrested seven persons on paedophilia charges since 2016.

Police have intensified their surveillance to nab paedophiles after Canadian national Ernest Fenwick MacIntosh was arrested from Lalitpur district near Kath-mandu in 2014. AGENCIES

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle urge guests to donate to Mumbai-based charity as wedding gift

LONDON: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have asked their wedding guests to donate money to seven charities, including Myna Mahila Foun-dation which supports women in Mumbai's urban slums, instead of traditional wedding gifts.

Myna deals with the issue of menstrual hygiene man-agement at its roots. Work-ing within Mumbai's Govandi slum dwellers communities, Myna is helping to raise aware-ness around menstruation and in bringing affordable sanitary products directly to the women in need.

"Prince Harry and Ms Meghan Markle are incredi-

bly grateful for the goodwill they have received since their engagement, & have asked that anyone who might wish to mark the occasion of their wedding considers giving to

charity, instead of sending a gift," a post shared on Kens-ington Palace's verified Twitter account read.

The couple, who will marry on May 19 at St George's Cha-

pel in Windsor, have person-ally chosen the seven charities which support areas they are passionate about.

The Palace said that Harry and Markle do not have any formal relationships with the charities chosen, but they are keen to "amplify and shine a light on their work".

"Myna Mahila Foundation is honoured to be one of seven charities chosen to benefit from donations marking the wed-ding of Prince Harry and Ms. Meghan Markle," the founda-tion posted on its official web-site. The seven charities also include CHIVA (Children's HIV Association), the home-lessness charity Crisis, Scot-

ty's Little Soldiers which helps bereaved Armed Forces chil-dren, StreetGames which uses sport to change lives, marine conservation charity Surfers against Sewage and The Wil-derness Foundation UK, which promotes the enjoyment of wild nature.

Markle, who visited India in 2017, had met the founder of Myna Mahila Foundation, Suhani Jalota. The two had discussed about empowering and employing poor women in Mumbai.

Markle had also listed Suhani, alongside Toni Morri-son and Julia Roberts, among the ten women who changed her life. AGENCIES

As Kate awaits baby, Britons suffer restrictions at hospital

LONDON: The countdown to Britain's Prince William and his wife Kate's third child began on Monday as barriers and parking restrictions sprung up at the London hospital where the royal baby is to be born.

Kensington Palace has not revealed the baby's due date but it was expected that notices would go up around St Mary's Hospital in Paddington a week before the birth, planned at the Lindo Wing where Kate gave birth to Prince George and Princess Charlotte.

The yellow notices put up outside the Lindo Wing refer to an event which will suspend parking on the street from on Monday until April 30.

Some reports have been speculating on the due date being April 23 but Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, has gone beyond her due date for both her previous pregnan-cies George in 2013 and Char-lotte in 2015 leading to what

was dubbed as the Great Kate Wait as journalists, photogra-phers and fans from around the world gathered outside the hospital. The new child will be fifth-in-line to the British throne, behind big sister Char-lotte and pushing uncle Prince Harry one place down the line of succession to sixth.

A change in the law after William, 35, and Kate, 36, were married in April 2011 gave female heirs the same rights of accession to the throne in the UK as men. Kate suffered from hyperemesis gravidarum,

or severe levels of nausea and vomiting, during the early stages of her pregnancy dur-ing all three births. Now, the first announcement to come out of Kensington Palace will be to reveal when she has been admitted to hospital for the birth. A formal signed bul-letin will be placed outside Buckingham Palace announc-ing the news of the newborn after William has informed his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, and other members of the royal family once the baby is born. AGENCIES

Queen Elizabeth a descendant of Prophet Muhammed?

LONDON: Britain's Queen Elizabeth is a descendant of Prophet Muhammed, a Moroc-can newspaper has claimed, attributing the bizarre finding to a study.

According to the Daily Mail, the findings were first published in 1986 by Burke's Peerage, a British authority on royal pedigrees. The Morro-can newspaper has claimed that 43 generations of Queen Eliza-beth's family have been traced to produce the research finding that the Queen is a distant rela-tive of the Prophet.

The study claims Elizabeth II's bloodline runs through the Earl of Cambridge in the 14th century, across medieval Muslim Spain, to Fatima, the Prophet's daughter.

The claim is disputed by some historians, but the gene-alogical records of early-medi-eval Spain support it. According to reports, Ali Gomaa, the for-mer grand mufti of Egypt, also endorsed it.

“It is little known by the British people that the blood of Mohammed flows in the veins of the queen. However, all Mos-lem religious leaders are proud of this fact,” wrote Burke’s pub-

lishing director, in a letter to then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1986.

The study by Burke’s Peer-age suggested that the Queen descended from a Muslim princess called Zaida, who fled her hometown Seville in the 11th century before converting to Christianity.

Zaida was the fourth wife of King Al-Mu’tamid ibn Abbad

of Seville. She bore him a son, Sancho,

whose descendant later mar-ried the Earl of Cambridge in the 11th century.

However, historians are divided over Zaida’s origins. Some believe she was the daughter of a wine-drinking caliph descended from the Prophet, while others say she married into his family. AGENCIES

Philippines’ Duterte urges fast-track

sacking of top judge MANILA: Philippine Presi-dent Rodrigo Duterte said on Monday lawmakers must "fast-track" the impeachment of the nations top judge, further stack-ing the odds against her staying in office.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno is one of several high-profile critics who have found themselves in legal trouble after battling with Duterte over his deadly anti-drug crackdown.

"Im putting you (Sereno) on notice that I am now your enemy and you have to be out of the Supreme Court," Duterte told reporters before flying to China for an economic forum.

"I held my temper before because shes a woman. This time Im asking the congressmen and the Speaker: Do it now. Cut out the drama, or else I will do it for you," he added.

A committee in the leg-islatures lower chamber the House of Representatives last month found "probable cause" to impeach Sereno, in a move which critics allege is part of wider efforts by Duterte to destroy foes and usher in one-man rule. If lawmakers in the full House support the finding, Sereno would face a US-style impeachment trial in the Sen-ate or upper house. Congress is currently in recess and is due to reconvene May 14.

The Supreme Court is set

Tuesday to hear a separate peti-tion to unseat Sereno from the country's highest tribunal.

She has been accused of fail-ing to pay about two million pesos (USD 40,000) in taxes as well as falsifying and tampering with court resolutions.

She is also alleged to have spent excessively on "opulent" hotels and a luxury official vehi-cle, as well as flying business or first class.

Until on Monday Duterte had repeatedly denied having anything to do with the moves to sack Sereno. He called on House Speaker and key ally Pantaleon Alvarez to "kindly fast-track the impeachment" of Sereno.

"If it calls for your forced removal I will do it," Duterte said, referring to Sereno.

Duterte and Sereno first clashed in 2016 when she crit-icised his order that judges whom he linked to the illegal drugs trade turn themselves in as part of his crackdown. AGENCIES

Elizabeth II's bloodline runs through the Earl of Cambridge in the 14th century, across medieval Muslim Spain, to Fatima, the Prophet's daughter, according to a new study

Dancing can help people age better

China's PLA using new equipment for all-weather

border monitoring

Another former South Korean

leader charged with corruption SEOUL: South Korean prose-cutors say they've indicted for-mer President Lee Myung-bak on bribery, embezzlement and other charges.

Lees indictment Monday came three days after his suc-cessor Park Geun-hye was sen-tenced to 24 years in prison for a separate corruption scandal.

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office said on Monday it charged Lee with taking a total of 11 billion won (USD 10 million) in bribes from the country's spy agency, Samsung and others.

Lee has also been charged with embezzling about 35 bil-lion won (USD 33 million) of official funds from a private company he owned and evad-ing corporate taxes totaling 3 billion won (USD 281,270).

Lee was a Hyundai execu-tive and a Seoul mayor before serving as president from 2008-2013. CWG's first transgender competitor withdraws in tears after injury (453 Words)

Gold Coast, Apr 9 (PTI) After warming some hearts and causing resentment to others, New Zealand weight-lifter Laurel Hubbard - the first transgender to compete at the Commonwealth Games - was left in tears when she had to withdraw from wom-en's +90kg weightlifting com-petition owing to a dislocated shoulder. AGENCIES

Wind topples giant statue of China’s first emperor Beijing: A strong gale-force wind has toppled a giant statue of China's first emperor Qin Shi Huang and flattened its face at a popular tourist site in eastern Shandong province. The 19-metre bronze replica of the monarch -- who was the first to unify warring factions in China and established the Qin dynasty (221-206 BC) -- was blown out of its pedestal on Friday. Cranes were immediately called in to pick up the statue, which weighs about six tonnes, according to the state-run Peoples' Daily newspaper. Photographs showed the structure was hollow, with metal bars inside. The monument was built in 2005 to attract visitors to a local tourist resort. AGENCIES

MELBOURNE: Taking dance classes can boost energy levels, flexibility and happiness in older adults and help them age better, a study has found.

Researchers from Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Austra-lia examined the health and wellbeing benefits of dancing.

Over a three-month proj-ect, researchers found that par-ticipants experienced higher energy levels, greater flexibil-ity, improved posture, and an enhanced sense of achievement.

They also felt happier and enjoyed a sense of community and friendship.

"The project critically inves-tigated older adults' motiva-tions to participate in ballet, the health and wellbeing outcomes for active older adults, and the examination of the teaching practices involved in this deliv-ery," said Felicity Mandile from QUT. "We weren't surprised by

the research findings strongly indicating that ballet participa-tion is considered to be a highly pleasurable activity for active older adults, we were pleasantly surprised by the flow on effects of that," said Mandile.

"It found that ballet partici-pation may contribute to posi-tive outcomes across various health and wellbeing categories and promotes a general feeling of wellbeing," she said.

Performance psychologist and former professional ballet dancer Professor Gene Moyle from QUT said movement, be it dance or other forms of exercise, was a critical factor in better ageing. "The physical benefits of movement and dance on ageing bodies is well documented and our project really re-enforces these findings, however addi-tionally highlights the joy and benefits social connections in dance can bring to people's lives," said Moyle. AGENCIES

BEIJING: China's military is bolstering the management of its border defence by develop-ing new types of equipment including a satellite early warn-ing system that can be used to monitor the border areas in all environments, according to official media reports.

A satellite early-warning monitoring system is planned in some border areas that are in dispute or are difficult to enter and patrol, state-run Beijing Evening News reported on Sunday. A surveillance camera network has also been built in border zones and the density of coverage is set to increase to cover blind spots, the report said but did not mention which, or if all, of China's bor-der regions are covered.

The Line of Actual Con-trol (LAC) between India and China covered 3,488 kms which included Arunachal Pradesh, claimed by China as part of southern Tibet.

The informatization and mechanisation of equipment, vehicles and monitoring meth-ods of People's Liberation

Army (PLA) border defence will give an early-warning of any risks to security as well as overcoming previous blind spots, Song Zhongping, a mili-tary expert was quoted as say-ing by the Global Times.

The PLA has to increase the level of automation of its equip-ment, Song noted. This will include using drones and track-ing vehicles to conduct patrols and setting up unmanned monitoring systems, which means border regions will come under continuous mon-itoring and control.

To cater to various geo-graphic environments along China's long borders, the PLA has developed equipment that can be used in water, in the air or on land, Song said.

While reporting about the new border monitoring system, the Global Times mentioned Pangong Lake in Ladakh, where skirmishes took place between Indian and Chinese troops after border guards foiled an attempt by Chinese soldiers to enter Indian terri-tory in August last year. AGENCIES

HARYANA PWD (B&R) Notice Inviting E-tenders

Full details including tender documents can be obtained only from http://haryanaeprocurement.gov.in For and on Behalf of Governor of Haryana.

Executive Engineer, PRDH-Advt. No:-1081/11/4799/1819/63747 Provincial Division, PWD B&R Br., Jhajjar

mp business12MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 10 April, 2018

DHAKA: Bangladesh and India signed an agreement here on Monday on their proposed 129.5 km oil pipeline aimed at pumping Indian oil to Bangla-desh with a capacity of 1 mil-lion tonnes per annum.

The deal was part of the six memorandum of understand-ings (MoUs) which Dhaka and New Delhi signed during a meeting between their For-eign Secretaries at State Guest-house Padma in the capital, Xinhua news agency reported.

Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Keshav Gokhale arrived here on Sunday to hold talks with senior Bangladeshi offi-cials on a host of bilateral and regional issues.

"Today, we add another six documents to our large and growing list of meaning-ful agreements signed during the recent visits of Prime Min-ister Narendra Modi to Ban-gladesh and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to India," said Gokhale after the signing of the documents.

The documents included the implementation MoU on

the friendship pipeline between Numaligarh and Parbatipur, an MoU on cooperation between Prasar Bharati and Bangladesh Betar, an MoU for setting up an ICCR Urdu Chair in Dhaka University and an Addendum to the GCNEP-BAEC Inter-agency Agreement, bdnews24.com reported.

Both sides also signed two more MoUs for projects whereby they will set up lan-

guage labs in 500 schools in Bangladesh and upgrade dif-ferent roads in Rangpur city.

"This is part of our endeav-our to undertake projects in Bangladesh in various socio-economic sectors including education, culture, health, community welfare, road infra-structure for which we are pro-viding Tk 1,600 crore," said the Indian Foreign Secretary.

He said India remained a

"committed development part-ner" of Bangladesh and had extended lines of credit of over $8 billion to Bangladesh in the last seven years. This is the larg-est amount of credit India has ever committed to any single country, he said.

From 2008-09, the bilateral trade almost tripled from $2.75 billion to $7.52 billion in 2016-17. Gokhale called Bangladesh "India's biggest trade partner in

South Asia". Talking about the energy

and power sector, Gokhale said India was currently supplying 660 MW of power to Bangla-desh and they were on course to add at least 500 MW more by June.

Gokhale also announced the second phase of humanitar-ian assistance for the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangla-desh's Cox's Bazar. His Ban-gladeshi counterpart Shahdiul Haque said they were "happy" over India's position on the Rohingya refugee issue and its progress on the pending Teesta water sharing deal.

Haque said the two dis-cussed all aspects of the rela-tions between the two nations, including the pending Teesta water sharing issue, and was "delighted" regarding the outcome.

Gokhale is expected to meet the Bangladeshi leader-ship including Prime Minis-ter Sheikh Hasina and Foreign Minister A.H. Mahmood Ali on April 10 before returning home. IANS

NEW DELHI: Chinese hand-set maker Xiaomi said on Mon-day that it has set up three new smartphone manufactur-ing units in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh as also a facility for printed circuit board (PCB).

The expansion in capac-ity will help Xiaomi produce more devices locally to meet the demand and consolidate its position in the hyper-competi-tive Indian smartphone market.

"We had two facilities for smartphone manufacturing earlier. Now, we have added three more in Sri City, Andhra Pradesh and Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu. These are in part-nership with Foxconn," Xiaomi VP and India Managing Direc-tor Manu Jain told reporters here. Besides, a small number of phones are also being made in Noida with another partner - Hipad, he added.

While he didn't disclose the investment details, Jain said this will double Xiaomi's manufac-turing capacity in India to two phones per second during oper-ational hours. These facilities employ over 10,000 people and

95 per cent are women, Jain added. Xiaomi is also setting up a new PCB assembly unit in Sriperumbudur in partner-ship with Foxconn.

"We are committed to manu-facturing in India. PCB is 50 per cent of the value of a phone... By Q3, all Xiaomi phones made in India will have PCBs that are locally assembled," he said.

The announcement comes within a fortnight after the

Indian government levied 10 per cent import duty on some key smartphone components, including populated PCBs.

Currently, Samsung is the only player in the country with such a facility. Players like Vivo and Oppo are also believed to have started working on bringing PCB manufactur-ing to India though no official announcement has been made yet. According to Counterpoint

Research Associate Director Tarun Pathak, the move can help in sourcing and ironing out supply chain issues that are very critical in product plan-ning, especially for companies like Xiaomi that work on a razor thin margins. "Xiaomi's PCB assembly announcement should make it the second largest brand in terms of value addition in India after Samsung. This would increase their (Xiaomi's) value addition from single digit to close to 15 per cent," he added.

The government has been taking a number of steps to pro-mote electronics manufactur-ing in the country, including mobile phones. While assembly of mobile phones has been gain-ing traction, the focus is now on component manufacturing as a significant chunk of these are still imported from countries like China.

Xiaomi, which is among the top three smartphone players in the country, is also hosting over 50 of its global suppliers in India. These companies will be visiting Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh to explore invest-

ment opportunities to set up local manufacturing base.

"If these companies choose to invest here, there is an invest-ment opportunity of over Rs 15,000 crore and can generate employment for over 50,000 people," Jain said.

Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant, who was present at the event, assured the companies of support in setting up base in India, with facilities like single-window clearance.

India is one of the fastest growing mobile phone markets globally. According to research firm IDC, about 288 million mobile phones were shipped in India in 2017, which translates into an annual growth of close to 16 per cent. Smartphones grew 14 per cent in the said period.

Samsung led the market with 24.7 per cent share in smartphone category and 20.5 per cent share in feature phone category for 2017. Xiaomi fol-lowed Samsung with 20.9 per cent share, Vivo 9.4 per cent, Lenovo 7.8 per cent and Oppo 7.5 per cent share in smartphone segment in the year. PTI

China’s Xiaomi sets up 3 new smartphone manufacturing units in India

NEW DELHI: Handset maker Xiaomi on Monday hosted more than 50 of its global com-ponent suppliers here to show-case opportunities in India, a move that it believes can bring as much as Rs 15,000 crore (about $2.5 billion) in invest-ment and create up to 50,000 jobs in the country.

The Chinese firm has six smartphone manufacturing plants in India in partnership with Foxconn and Hipad.

It said it sees a lot of opportunities in India as it is among the largest smartphone markets.

"If these companies (suppli-ers) choose to invest here, there is an investment opportunity of over Rs 15,000 crore and can generate employment for over 50,000 people," Xiaomi VP and India Managing Director Manu Jain told reporters here.

He added that if all the sup-pliers set up base in India, this would lead to one of the big-gest ever single investment in the electronic manufacturing industry.

The suppliers' summit which kicked off on Monday will continue till April 11. The component suppliers will visit Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh to explore and learn about investment opportuni-ties in India, including incen-tives offered by the Centre and state governments, FDI policy, industrial policy and various state sector specific policies.

"The objective of the sum-mit is to educate Xiaomi's global component suppli-ers about India's smartphone industry and encourage them to establish local bases in the country," Jain said.

Xiaomi, which is among the top smartphone players in India, started assembly of smartphones in India in 2015 and had two manufactur-ing units in partnership with Foxconn.

The company has now set up three new smartphone man-ufacturing units in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, along with a facility for printed cir-cuit board (PCB) manufactur-ing in India.

While the company didn't disclose investment details, it said the move will double its manufacturing capacity in India. PTI

Xiaomi calls on global phone parts makers to invest in India

HYDERABAD: Pesticide manufacturers on Monday demanded the centre not to allow foreign players to import Pesticides Formulations (PF) without registering technical details or information about the active ingredients with Indian authorities.

The Confederation of All India Small and Medium Pes-ticides Manufacturers Associa-tion (CAPMA) also demanded that the proposed Pesticides Management Bill-2017 should provide a level playing field for Indian companies, so that Indian farmer get benefitted.

"In the interest of Indian farmers and Indian industries, the registration authorities should immediately stop allow-ing registrations for imports of Pesticide Formulations without registering its Technical Grade products in India," CAPMA president Raja Mahender Reddy told reporters here

"It is very relevant to note that FAO/WHO and other major agricultural nations such as USA, Europe, Austra-lia, Brazil and China also man-date registration of Technical Grade Pesticides before grant-ing registrations for formula-tions," he said.

He alleged that the proposed legislation on pesticides was silent on the need for compul-sory registration of Technicals or Active Ingredients which may create "monopoly" for for-mulation importers.

Reddy further alleged that there is no clarity on definitions and registration procedures for pesticides formulations and technical details which may lead to "harassment" of manufactur-ers and traders, by authorities.

"Over regulation of exports

of pesticides in the PMB can adversely affect exports," he added.

The draft of the proposed Pesticides Management Bill-2017 was recently released by the Department of Agriculture seeking comments from the stakeholders.

According to him, India imports Rs 16,000 crore worth of pesticides every year while the domestic demand was pegged at up to Rs 25,000 crore. PTI

‘New pesticides bill must give Indian cos level playing field’

India, B’desh sign historic 129.5-km oil pipeline deal

India imports `16,000 cr worth of pesticides every year while domestic demand is pegged at up to `25,000 cr

NEW DELHI: Investors pumped in over Rs 1.7 lakh crore in equity-oriented mutual fund (MF) schemes in 2017-18, making it the fourth successive year of net inflows, according to data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi).

Strong inflows have pushed the asset base of equity MFs by 38 per cent to Rs 7.5 lakh crore during the period under review, the data showed.

The impressive inflow can be attributed to investor aware-ness campaign by the industry, role played by MF distribution platforms, demonetisation effect and strong retail partic-ipation from retail investors, especially from smaller towns, Harsh Jain COO at Groww, an online MF investment plat-form, said.

"Besides, investors are now shifting from traditional asset classes such as real estate and gold to financial asset class," he added.

Moreover, a sharp rise in systematic investment plans (SIPs) promoted more sustain-able growth for the industry as more people moved away from the concept of large lump sum investments, said Jain.

According to Amfi data, equity funds, which also

include equity-linked sav-ing schemes (ELSS), saw net inflows of Rs 1,71,069 crore in 2017-18, much higher than Rs 70,3674 crore infusion in the preceding fiscal.

These funds had seen net inflows of Rs 74,024 crore and Rs 71,029 crore in 2015-16 and 2014-15, respectively. Prior to that, they had witnessed a with-drawal of Rs 9,269 crore.

The assets under manage-ment (AUM) of equity MFs scaled a record high of Rs 7.5 lakh crore at the end of March 2018 from Rs 5.43 lakh crore at March 2017-end.

The industry has seen an overall addition of 32 lakh new investors over the last one year, while the total number of folios grew by 1.05 crore or 26 per cent during the period. PTI

Equity mutual funds log `1.7 lakh cr inflows in FY18

NEW DELHI: Tata Motors-owned Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) on Monday reported 1.7 per cent increase in its retail sales at 6,14,309 units for the fiscal year ended March 2018.

The increase was driven by new models including the Range Rover Velar and the new Land Rover Discovery, the company said in a statement.

Retail sales for March were at 83,732 units and 1,72,709 units for the fourth quarter, down 7.8 per cent and 3.8 per cent, respectively, primarily due to weak sales in UK and Europe.

Sales for the financial year were up year-on-year in China (19.9 per cent), North America (4.7 per cent) and in overseas markets (3.4 per cent).

However, retail sales in the UK and Europe were down by 12.8 per cent and 5.3 per cent, respectively, primarily driven by continuing uncertainty over diesel, JLR said.

"Weaker market conditions in the UK and Europe, driven by lack of consumer confidence and lower demand for diesels, are impacting our growth," JLR Chief Commercial Officer Felix Brautigam said.

He further said, even against this backdrop, the com-pany closed the financial year with record retail sales.

While Jaguar retail sales were up 1 per cent to 1,74,560 units in the financial year, Land Rover retailed 4,39,749 units, up 2 per cent compared to the last financial year. PTI

JLR FY18 retail sales up 1.7%

to 6,14,309 unitsNEW DELHI: India can bene-fit from the ongoing challenges in global trade provided it plays its cards well, Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu on Monday said.

He said that some countries are taking steps which are test-ing the entire global trading system.

"We are passing through a challenging but an opportune time. If we play our cards prop-erly, and that is what we are trying to do... we can actually benefit from it by creating an opportunity around the issues that are happening globally. We have no choice but to respond in a positive manner," he said.

The minister was speaking at the CII annual general meet-ing here.

The decision of the US to impose duties on certain steel and aluminium products besides hiking tariffs against

Chinese goods has triggered a global trade war, with China retaliating to the move.

Trade experts worldwide have raised concerns over these measures.

"In this context, we must be ready to not only to face the challenge but also make that into an opportunity," he added.

The minister said that the government is taking steps to boost exports, industrial growth and manufacturing activities.

Indian economy would reach $5 trillion in the coming years; and despite the global sit-uation, it is growing at a faster pace, he said.

We are looking at a strategy to work multi-laterally as well as bilaterally to get greater mar-ket access of domestic products and services and boost India's exports, Prabhu said.

He said that India has proposed a mutually ben-eficial free-trade agreement with Africa and is working to resume a similar pact with European Union.

He also stated that assis-tant US Trade Representative is visiting India to deliberate on trade-related issues.

Prabhu, who also holds the aviation portfolio, said that the sector sector is facing lot of issues and the ministry is work-ing on them.

He said that thousands of airplanes would be required in the coming years and "if you manufacture them along with drones, then it will create huge opportunities". PTI

India can benefit from global trade challenges: Prabhu

NEW DELHI: Larsen & Toubro Ltd (L&T), which is an opera-tional creditor to Bhushan Steel Ltd, on Monday termed the res-olution plan of debt-ridden firm as “discriminatory” and “arbi-trary” saying its Rs 900 crore outstanding has not been given due priority by the Committee of Creditors (CoC).

L&T, through its counsel claimed it to be an “operational secured creditor” of Bhushan Steel as it has also contributed into the company by providing plants and machinery, like the other secured creditors of the debt-ridden firm and sought a higher preference in repayment of dues before NCLT.

Meanwhile, another firm Bhushan Energy Ltd (BEL) on

Monday moved the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) over termination of its power purchase agreement (PPA) with Bhushan Steel Ltd.

According to senior advo-cate Mukul Rohatgi, appear-ing for the engineering and construction firm L&T, only Rs 1,200 crore has been allot-ted for the operational credi-tors under the resolution plan.

“Rs 200 crore is for pro rata distribution to all operational creditors and balance Rs 1,000 crore would depend on their discretion,” Rohatgi said, add-ing “according to me, this type of treatment is discriminatory and arbitrary”. He further said: “Our case is different... We have contributed to their plant with

goods and machinery which are embedded in the earth and are immovable property... We are a secured creditor.”

Rohatgi contended that L&T can not be treated like other operational creditors of Bhushan Steel and it should be given “priority” over them.

Under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC), the CoC consists mainly of secured financial creditors and they have a priority in the repay-ment of debt.

While resolution profes-sionals of BEL, which is also going through insolvency pro-ceedings, contended before the NCLT that termination of PPA with Bhushan Steel and avoid-ance of any payment by the suc-

cessful bidder would be against the contract.

“It did not provide for unilateral termination of the contract,” said the counsel appearing for BEL adding that it was like a capital power plant of Bhushan Steel which used to purchase its 100 per cent power generation.

NCLT would continue its argument tomorrow and CoC and Tata Steel, the successful bidder, are expected to argue.

Meanwhile, the employees of the Bhushan Steel Ltd on Monday concluded their argu-ments, where they have con-tended that Tata Steel was not entitled to bid for the company under Section 29 A of the IBC Code. PTI

Bhushan’s resolution plan biased against operational creditors: L&T

MOSCOW: Shares in Rus-sian aluminium giant Rusal collapsed on Monday after Washington targeted it with sanctions, putting the metals major at risk of defaulting on part of its debt.

On the Hong Kong stock market, one of the exchanges where Rusal's stock is listed, it closed 50 per cent down at HK dollar 2.34. The fall wiped more than $4.3 billion off the market capitalisation of the company which is headed by billionaire Oleg Deripaska and accounts for some seven per cent of the worlds aluminium production.

In Moscow, the other exchange where its shares trade, they were down 23 per cent in midsession business. The meltdown came after US President Donald Trump on

Friday announced sanctions against Russian oligarchs close to Vladimir Putin following the diplomatic crisis sparked by the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal.

Washington has accused Deripaska of operating for the Russian government. Other magnates hit by sanctions include the director of state-owned energy giant Gazprom, Alexei Miller. Moscow on Mon-day said it would support Rus-sian companies affected by the sanctions. PTI

Russian aluminium giant’s scrip collapses on US curbs

Xiaomi Global Vice-President Zhang Feng, Minister Counsellor in the Chinese Embassy Li Bijian, Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant and Xiaomi India Managing Director Manu Kumar Jain during the Supplier Investment Summit in New Delhi on Monday PIC/PTI

PARIS: The head of French railway operator SNCF on Monday said that rolling strikes that began last week have cost the company around 100 million euros ( $123 mil-lion) as staff carried out further stoppages.

Monday marked the fourth day of the strikes, which unions have vowed to continue until at least June 28 unless the gov-ernment backs down on its reform plan for the debt-laden operator.

The action has so far caused losses of around 20 million euros per strike day.

Rail workers began their strikes on two out of every five working days last week to pro-test the governments planned overhaul of the operator. PTI

French rail strike bleeds firm by

100 million euros

mp business 13MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 10 April, 2018

NTPC-Rihand Group General Manager AK Mukherjee took charge on Saturday as the new Project Chief of Super Thermal Power Project

ICSI-EIRC Vice-Chairman & Secretary Gautam Dugar, NCLT Kolkata Bench Member (Judicial) K R Jinan, ICSI Past President Mamta Binani, and ICSI-EIRC ChairmanAshok Purohit at inaugural ceremony of Moot Court at ICSI EIRC House on April 7, 2018

CORPORATE KALEIDOSCOPE

NEW DELHI: The finance min-istry is considering writing to markets regulator Sebi seek-ing relaxation for certain state-owned firms from meeting the minimum 25 per cent public shareholding norm.

There are over a dozen pub-lic sector units (PSUs), includ-ing those up for strategic sale, which are yet to meet the min-imum public holding norm -- the deadline for which ends in August.

"The ministry is mulling writing to Sebi outlining those PSUs which need relaxation since they are candidate for stra-tegic sale or are being consid-ered for merger with similarly

placed PSUs," an official said.Listed PSUs have already

been provided one year exten-sion, till August 21, to comply with the norms. Currently, sev-eral methods are available to listed companies to comply with the requirements. These include issuance of shares to public; offer for sale; sale of shares held by promoters through second-ary market institutional place-ment programme; rights issue to public shareholders; and bonus shares to public shareholders.

Also Qualified Institutional Placement (QIP) and sale of shares up to 2 per cent held by promoters or promoter groups in the open market through

block and bulk deal can be done to achieve the minimum 25 per cent public float. While Govern-ment holds 78.55 per cent in Coal India, in MRPL it holds 88.58 per cent and 76.05 per cent in Hindustan Copper.

It holds 89.93 per cent in

MMTC, 90 per cent in STC, 89.73 per cent in SJVNL and 84.04 per cent in NLC India.

In Andrew Yule & Co gov-ernment holds 89.25 per cent, in Scooters India (93.74 pc), KIOCL Ltd (99 pc), ITDC (87.03 pc), Madras Fertilisers

Ltd (85.27 pc). In Hindustan Photo Films and Fertilisers & Chemicals Travancore Ltd the Centre holds 90 per cent each.

With regard to ITI Ltd, in which the government holds 92.63 per cent, the Cabinet last month cleared a follow on public offer (FPO) to help the telecom PSU meet the public sharehold-ing norm.

Centrum Broking Senior VP and Head of Research (Wealth) Jagannadham Thunuguntla said "of the list, Coal India disinvest-ment can be quite important to watch in terms of both strategic importance and quantum of dis-investment proceeds involved".

To promote a wider inves-

tor base in listed state-run com-panies and provide a boost to the government plan to raise funds from disinvestment pro-gramme, the Sebi board had in June 2014 asked listed compa-nies to offer at least 25 per cent of their equity to non-promoter shareholders.

Accordingly, the rules were notified for PSUs to achieve the minimum 25 per cent public shareholding by August 21, 2017, later extended by a year.

In the current fiscal the gov-ernment aims to mop up Rs 80,000 crore through PSU dis-investment, against Rs 1 lakh crore collected last fiscal which ended on March 31. PTI

FinMin may ask Sebi to relax PSUs’ minimum public float norms

MUMBAI: In an unusual move, Axis Bank Manag-ing Director and CEO Shi-kha Sharma wanted her new term to be reduced to seven months from three-year ten-ure that has been approved by the bank's board.

The Axis Bank board has accepted her request for a shorter seven-month term (from June 1 to December 31, 2018), subject to the approval of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the bank said in a regu-latory filing.

Sharma would be complet-ing her third term as MD and CEO of Axis Bank on May 31.

In a regulatory filing, the Axis Bank said on Decem-ber 8 last year, the board had decided to reappoint Sharma as the Managing Director and CEO, for a period of three years with effect from June 1, 2018, subject to receipt of req-uisite approvals.

The re-appointment, however, was yet to get the approval of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

"In this connection kindly note that Smt Shikha Sharma, Managing Director & CEO of the Bank has requested the Board to reconsider the period of her re-appointment as the Managing Director and CEO of the Bank to be revised from June 1, 2018 up to December 31, 2018," the bank said.

The filing did not elabo-rate why Sharma wanted her

fourth term to be curtailed to seven months from three years.

The Board, the filing said, has "accepted" her said request, subject to the approval of the RBI.

The private sector lender's NPAs jumped by over five-fold in recent financial years. The gross NPAs worth Rs4,110 crore at the end of March 2015 surged to Rs 21,280 crore at the end of March 2017. Dur-ing the same period, the lend-er's net profit halved from Rs7,357.8 crore to Rs3,679.2 crore. PTI

Axis Bank CEO Shikha Sharma ‘wants new

term cut to 7 months’

NEW DELHI: The government on Monday said it will still want to see if IndiGo bids for Air India, even as the budget car-rier had last week announced its decision not to bid for the national carrier.

Civil Aviation Secretary R N Chaubey said the government intended to make the divest-ment process "faster", but made it clear to a poser that Air India's operations would not be split in the bidding process.

"Let us see whether finally they (IndiGo) bid or don't bid. We will wait for them," Chaubey told reporters on the sidelines of a CII event. His comments and

assertion against splitting Air India's operations came against the backdrop of IndiGo presi-dent Aditya Ghosh announc-ing on April 5 that his company was opting out from the bidding process as its primary interest in acquiring Air India's inter-national operations was not available under the disinvest-ment plan.

Asked if his ministry was open to the idea of selling Air India separately — domestic and international as expressed by IndiGo, Chaubey said, "pres-ently, we are not looking at the option of splitting Air India's operations". PTI

The Axis Bank board has accepted her request for a shorter 7-month term (from June 1 to December 31, 2018), subject to the RBI’s approval

NEW DELHI: Authorities at European Patent Office (EPO) have communicated their deci-sion to grant patent to Oil India Limited (OIL) for an invention titled "A method for preventing wax deposition in oil wells with packers".

Securing this first-ever pat-ent grant signifies a major mile-stone for OIL and especially its Research & Development (R&D) Unit, which actively develops innovative solutions to oilfield exploration and pro-duction problems and has filed few other patent applications in recent years.

The patent grant amounts to

recognition of the uniqueness of the solution provided by OIL to the problem of heavy wax depo-sition in flowing oil wells com-pleted with packers. Scientists at OIL have studied the problem and attributed it to phenome-non related to severe wellbore cooling caused by evaporation and condensation of liquid in the annulus, also known as 'wellbore refluxing'.

The solution described in the patent application consists of removing the liquid from the well annulus using a ven-turi/ ejector device. Such a solu-tion is simple, involves one-time operation and does not interfere

with well production.Patent application for the

invention was first filed in the Indian Patent Office in Febru-ary 2014, based on which an international application was filed as per provisions of Pat-ent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). Subsequently, national phase

applications were filed in EPO, USA, Russia and China. The EPO grant comes ahead of other offices.

The grant has lot of signifi-cance for in-house R&D units of public sector undertakings such as OIL. Apart from showcasing the quality of publicly-funded R&D endeavours, patents offer opportunities for multiple rev-enue sources through sale or licensing of patented technolo-gies. More importantly, devel-oping innovative solutions in the form of patentable inven-tions is likely to provide eas-ier and cost-effective access to hydrocarbons. MPOST

WASHINGTON DC: Mark Zuckerberg will appear before US lawmakers this week as a firestorm rocks Facebook over its data privacy scandal, with pressure mounting for new regulations on social media platforms.

The 33-year-old chief execu-tive is expected to face a grilling before a Senate panel Tuesday, and follow up with an appear-ance in the House of Represen-tatives the following day.

It comes amid a raft of inqui-ries on both sides of the Atlan-tic following disclosures that data on 87 million users was hijacked and improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica, a British political consultancy working for Donald Trumps presidential campaign.

On Sunday, Facebook said it had suspended another data analysis firm, US-based Cube-you, after CNBC reported it used Facebook user information -- harvested from psychologi-cal testing apps, as in the case of Cambridge Analytica -- for commercial purposes.

"These are serious claims and we have suspended Cube-You from Facebook while we investigate them," a Facebook spokesperson told AFP in an email.

"If they refuse or fail our

audit, their apps will be banned from Facebook."

Lawmakers, meanwhile, have signaled they intend to get tough on Facebook and other online services over privacy.

"A day of reckoning is com-ing for websites like @facebook," Democratic Senator Ed Markey wrote on Twitter Friday.

"We need a privacy bill of rights that all Americans can rely upon."

Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, agreed that legislation is needed "to protect Americans' dignity and privacy from bad faith actors like Cambridge Analytica, who use social media data to manip-ulate people."

Khanna tweeted that "self-regulation will not work. Con-

gress must act in the public interest to protect consumers and citizens."

Several lawmakers and activists believe the United States should follow the lead of Europe's data protection law set to be implemented in May, which has strict terms for noti-fication and sharing of personal data online.

Zuckerberg told report-ers Facebook would follow the European rules world-wide, although cautioned that its implementation may not be "exactly the same format" for various countries and regions.

Facebook meanwhile announced Friday it will require political ads on its platform to state who is paying for the mes-sage and would verify the iden-tity of the payer, in a bid to curb outside election interference. PTI

In eye of FB fire storm, Zuckerberg gears to face US lawmakers

OIL gets its first patent from EPO

NEW YORK: Under fire globally for allowing the data breach, social media giant Facebook will start alerting the 87 million users, includ-ing 562,455 in India, whose data may have been compro-mised as the UK-based Cam-bridge Analytica pilfered them through an app.

The US-based company will send a detailed message at the top of users' news feed, offering information on apps they use and the information they have shared with those apps.

It will also tell people if their information may have been improperly shared with

Cambridge Analytica, the data mining firm accused of har-vesting personal information of millions of Facebook users illegally to influence polls in several countries.

"As part of this process we will also tell people if their information may have been improperly shared with Cam-bridge Analytica," the company said last week.

Facebook users will also have the opportunity to use the link to delete apps and prevent them from collecting more information, CNN reported.

Also, all 2.2 billion Face-book users will receive a link to see what apps they use and what information they have shared with those apps.

Facebook says most of the affected users (more than 70 million) are in the US, though there are over a million each in the Philippines, Indonesia and the UK. It said the total num-ber of potentially impacted users in India (562,455 peo-ple) is 0.6 per cent of the global number of potentially affected people. PTI

FRANKFURT AM MAIN (Germany): German airline giant Lufthansa said it will can-cel "more than 800" flights on Monday as public-sector work-ers walk out on strike for more pay, hobbling major airports like Frankfurt.

"Lufthansa must cancel more than 800 of its planned 1,600 flights on Tuesday, including 58 long-distance services, because of the strike," the group said, adding that around 90,000 pas-sengers would be affected. PTI

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak shuts FB accountSAN FRANCISCO: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is shutting down his Facebook account as the social media giant struggles to cope with the worst privacy crisis in its history. In an email, Wozniak says Facebook makes a lot of money from personal details provided by users. PTI

NEW DELHI: German auto maker Volkswagen (VW) on Monday said it has initiated a programme in India under which it plans to target profes-sionals from IT, banking and other industries, to push sales in the country.

Under the Volkswagen cor-porate sales program, the com-pany plans to target individuals from across sectors like infor-mation technology (IT), consul-tancy and banking, Volkswagen India said in a statement.

The automaker is also eye-ing doctors, lawyers, architects, chartered accountants, teachers and government employees, with benefits that will extend to immediate family members as well, it added.

The program offers benefits on purchase, servicing of the vehicle, accessories as well as loyalty benefits, the company said. The initiative covers the entire model range from Volk-swagen India, including pre-mium products like Tiguan and Passat.

"Through such initiatives, we continue to heighten the accessi-bility of our globally-acclaimed products, while extending the reach of our comprehensive suite of sales and after sales services to the country's dis-tinctive car buyer," Volkswagen Passenger Cars Director Steffen Knapp said.

The German automaker, which has been struggling to make its presence felt in India, has now set an aim to almost double its market share in the country to 3 per cent over the next five years.

As part of this ambition, the company has introduced various initiatives, with the Volkswagen Corporate Sales Program being the first step in that direction. PTI

NEW DELHI: The finance ministry has constituted a 13-member Steering Commit-tee to consider the proposals of different ministries and depart-ments for rasing Extra Budget-ary Resources (EBR) to fund infrastructure and social sec-tor schemes.

Headed by Economic Affairs Secretary, the commit-tee has secretaries from dif-ferent ministries as members, besides Chairman of NAB-ARD and Managing Director of IIFCL.

Joint Secretary (Budget) in the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) is member sec-retary of the committee which will consider the proposals for raising EBR to meet the "resource gap for funding infra-structure, health, education and other social sector projects," the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) said in an office memorandum. The commit-tee will examine all aspects of proposals received from min-istries/departments for raising EBRs, it said. PTI

PANAJI: The Goa government has decided to launch its own app-based taxi service to some key tourist destinations in the coastal state. The state-run Goa Tourism Development Cor-poration (GTDC) on Monday invited the taxi operators to reg-ister with the new mobile appli-cation-based transport service.

Currently, the tourist taxi operators run their businesses individually in Goa. They had earlier opposed attempts made by online cab aggregators like

Ola to start services in the state, saying that such a move will affect their business. GTDC's MD Nikhil Desai on Monday said the taxi operators, who hold licence to run cabs in Goa, were eligible to register for the new transport service which will be launched shortly. PTI

MUMBAI: India Inc's revenue growth will slow down to 9 per cent in the January to March period on base effects, while the profit margins will shrink to a 12-quarter low of 18.6 per cent, a report said on Monday.

The pre-tax profit margins will contract by up to 0.70 per cent, but the pace of contraction is now reducing, the research wing of rating agency Crisil said in a report.

The revenue growth for the fourth quarter of the just con-cluded fiscal year, 2017-18, will be "slightly slow" at 9 per cent as compared to last year, where waning impact of the demon-etisation had helped the con-sumption sector deliver a faster growth.

The 9 per cent revenue growth will be driven by con-sumption sector itself, exclud-ing telecom which is witnessing the aggressive play by Reliance Jio, it said. "Second half of fiscal

2018 will end at a double digit mark, mainly led by consump-tion and commodity linked sec-tors," its senior director Prasad Koparkar said.

He said while margin pres-sure continues with higher commodity prices, operating leverage benefits would help cushion the impact to some extent.

The study focuses on research of 400 companies across multiple sectors, exclud-ing banking, finance, insurance and oil companies. Starting this week, companies will be report-ing their financial performance for the March quarter. The pre-tax margin will contract for the

fourth straight quarter by 0.50-0.70 per cent to 18.6 per cent, which will be the lowest in 12 quarters, it said. However, the pace of contraction will slow down from the 1-2.5 per cent witnessed in earlier quarters.

Higher commodity and raw material prices will hurt the power, steel and consumer companies, while the appreci-ation in the rupee is bound to dent the exporters including those in information technol-ogy and pharma sectors.

The report said the profit-ability of the telecom sector will "drop alarmingly", by 4.50 per cent on competitive pressures despite higher data traffic.

"The competitive intensity in telecom industry further inten-sified since January 2018 after the new entrant started passing on the benefits of cut in inter-connect usage charges to cus-tomers through lower tariffs," it said. PTI

CMD Utpal Bora

Still waiting to see if IndiGo bids for Air India: Govt

FinMin sets up panel to consider

EBRs for infra, social schemes

Germany’s VW eyes IT, banking talent

in India to drive sales

‘Cos to see dip in revenue growth, low margins in Q4’

Goa govt to drive own app-based taxi service

German airport strike: Lufthansa cancels 800 flights

Facebook to alert users whose data was stolen

2018 COMMONWEALTH GAMESmp sport14 MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 10 April, 2018

I am reaping the rewards of all the hard work from training

JITU RAI

TT: India Men beat Nigeria to bag gold

GOLD COAST:India swept the table tennis team events of the Commonwealth Games as the men matched the women to seal a memorable gold with an emphatic 3-0 win over Nigeria in the final on Monday.

It is the first time since the racket sport’s induction into the Commonwealth Games pro-gram that India has topped both categories.

After Manika Batra fired India to a historic triumph over Singapore yesterday, the Sharath Kamal led men’s outfit too beat the team from the city state 3-2 in the semifinals, played earlier on Monday.

With individual and doubles medals still on offer, India’s per-formance is already a marked improvement from its disap-pointing showing in Glasgow four years ago when it just man-aged just a silver in men’s dou-bles. It was none other than Nigeria who beat India for bronze in the previous edition.

Kamal, arguably India’s fin-est ever player, was also part of the men’s team which won the gold in the 2006 Melbourne edition.

India’s unprecedented effort at the Gold Coast Games is also a fair reflection of the sport’s fast improving standard. PTI

CWG BRIEFSSURIYA RUNS PERSONAL BEST BUT FINISHES 13THGOLD COAST: Suriya Loganathan ran her personal best but that was good enough for a 13th place finish in 10,000m race while shot putter Tejinder Pal Singh Toor took the eighth spot with a below-par show on the second day of athletics competition in the Commonwealth Games here on Monday. Suriya fractionally ran better than her earlier personal best of 32:23.96 as she clocked 32 minute and 23.56 seconds to finish 13th..

Jitu shoots gold, young Mehuli claims silver

GOLD COAST: Jitu Rai underlined his status as one of India’s premier shooters by winning the 10m air pis-tol gold medal before Mehuli Ghosh settled for the women’s 10m air rifle silver by forcing a shoot-off with a perfect final shot of 10.9 in the Com-monwealth Games on Monday.

The World Championship silver medallist Rai shattered the Games record in the finals with a score of shot 235.1 to comfortably finish on top with compatriot Om Prakash Mitharval giving him company on the podium with a bronze medal.

Defending champion Apurvi Chandela added a bronze to India’s tally after finishing third in the women’s air rifle finals with 225.3.

The air rifle finals witnessed an exciting a climax as Ghosh, at 17 years of age, ensured a shoot-off with Singapore’s Martina Lindsay

Veloso, the eventual gold medallist and one who displayed imperious form all along, and so was Ghosh.

Both Veloso and Ghosh shot a Games record 247.2 before the Sin-gaporean had the last laugh with a 10.3 in the shoot-off as her Indian rival managed 9.9 at the Belmont Shooting Centre.

Ghosh thought she had won the gold when she fired the only perfect

shot of the final with the last shot in the gold-medal round, only to be told she had equalled Veloso to force a shoot-off.

The Indian shooter had already disarmed her rifle and waved jubi-lantly to the crowd.

Chandela had earlier smashed her own Commonwealth Games qualifying record from four years back by scoring 423.2, while Mithar-val too had established a new quali-

fication record with 584.He eventually finished with the

bronze after aggregating 214.3 in the eight-man finals.

Australia’s Kerry Bell secured the silver medal with 233.5, having managed to topple Mitharval from the second position.

In the men’s skeet finals, Smit Singh finished a disappointing sixth after managing to shoot 15 out of the first 20 shots.

In the air pistol finals, Jitu started on a strong note and led with 100.4 at the end of stage 1, while Mithar-val was third with 98.1.

In stage 2 elimination, Rai started with 10.3 and 10.3 to lead the pecking order, even as his com-patriot moved up and displaced Bell at second place with two 10.1.

Rai continued to surge ahead with a 10.2. PTI

Shooter Rai bags gold; India’s medal tally surge to 19

GOLD COAST: The legendary but on the wane Lee Chong Wei was one of the casualties as a rampaging Indian mixed badminton team claimed its maiden Commonwealth Games gold medal, thrashing three-time defend-ing champions Malaysia in the final here on Monday.

The pair of Satwik Rankireddy and Ash-wini Ponnappa claimed the mixed doubles match against Peng Soon Chan and Liu Yong Goh 21-14, 15-21, 21-15, before Kidambi Srikanth stunned three-time Olympic silver medallist Lee 21-17, 21-14 in straight games, his first victory over the Malaysian giant.

“Perhaps Lee was not at his best but then you can never be too sure against a player like him. You always have to be on your guard, which I was. And I also gave my best. I was not expecting it to be this easy,” Srikanth told PTI after one of the biggest wins of his career.

“Pressure was there on him but Srikanth enjoys pressure and that got him the result,” added chief national coach Pullela Gopichand.

The Games debutant men’s doubles pair of Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty lost narrowly to Goh and Wee Kiong Tan 15-21, 20-22, keep-ing Malaysia afloat for a while. PTI

India Shuttlers stun Malaysia to win gold medal

Indian Medal

Major events

SHOOTINGMen’s 50m Rifle Prone QualificationGagan Narang (4:30 IST)Chain SinghWomen’s 25m Pistol Qualification PrecisionAnnu Singh (4:30 IST)Heena Sidhu

HOCKEYMen Pool BIndia vs Malaysia(5:00 IST)Women Pool AIndia vs South Africa (15:00 IST)

BOXINGMen’s 46-49kg Quarterfinal 4Amit vs Scotland’s Aqeel Ahmed (9:17 IST)Men’s 91kg Quarterfinal 1Naman Tanwar vs Samoa’s Frank Masoe (10:32 IST)Men’s 56kg Quarterfinal 4Hussamuddin vs E Mulenga (14:47)

JITU RAIMen’s 10m air pistol category

TABLE TENNISMen’s team event

NATARAJ CRASHES OUT OF MEN’S 200M BACKSTROKEGOLD COAST: Indian swimmer Srihari Nataraj crashed out of the men’s 200 metre backstroke event of the Com-monwealth Games after finishing sixth in heat 2 here on Monday.Srihari clocked 2 minutes and 4.75 seconds to finish a disappointing sixth out of the seven competitors in his heat. He finished a good 6.83 seconds be-hind South Africa’s Martin Binedell who clocked 1:57.92 to win the heat.

CWG’S FIRST TRANSGENDER COMPETITOR INJUREDGOLD COAST: After warming some hearts and causing resentment to others, New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard - the first transgen-der to compete at the Commonwealth Games - was left in tears when she had to withdraw from women’s +90kg weightlifting competition owing to a dislocated shoulder. Samoan weightift-ing team head coach Jerry Wallwork insisted that Hubbard being allowed to compete in the Games is unfair on the other women competitors as she still has the strength of a male, that she once was. “I haven’t really read or followed commentary regarding my competing at the Commonwealth Games,” she said. AGENCIES

I had unflinching belief in my ability to fight back: Jitu Rai

GOLD COAST: Jitu Rai says he believed unflinchingly, unquestionably in his ability to stage a comeback and win the men’s 10m air pistol gold after a rather average qualifying out-ing in the 21st Commonwealth Games here on Monday.

“Frankly speaking, my qualification score was not very good, but I had 100 per-cent faith in my ability that I can do it, because I have done well in the finals and won many medals in the past. My belief was unflinching,” the unassuming Rai said.

The World Champion-ship silver medallist broke the CWG record (235.1) to claim the top prize by some distance in the finals after being placed fourth in the qualification phase with 570.

“Two-three low scores pulled me down but then my belief helped me. That makes me really happy. So, I was confident of covering it in the finals and I never back off. So again, I am reaping the rewards of all the hard word work I have put in during training.”

Rai’s less fancied compa-

triot Om Prakash Mitharval shattered the qualification record with a 584 but could not match the senior pro in the decisive stage.

Young Mehuli Ghosh set-tled for a silver medal after forcing a shoot-off in the wom-en’s 10m air rifle event with a perfect final shot of 10.9 while defending champion Apurvi Chandela secured bronze.

Asked about what looked like a premature celebration by her when she thought she had won a gold following that 10.9, Ghosh said, “It was my mistake. I was so focused on

the game I didn’t notice it was only a shoot-off.”

The 17-year-old, who trains at Olympian Joydeep Karmak-ar’s academy in Kolkata, added, “It was my first Common-wealth Games. I’m happy but definitely not satisfied.”

On her plans for future competitions, she said, “I will try harder next time. I know I can do more and will try my best.”

The air rifle finals witnessed an exciting a climax as Ghosh, at 17 years of age, ensured a shoot-off with Singapore’s Martina Lindsay Veloso, the eventual gold medallist and one who displayed imperi-ous form all along, and so was Ghosh.

Both Veloso and Ghosh shot a Games record 247.2 before the Singaporean had the last laugh with a 10.3 in the shoot-off as her Indian rival managed 9.9 at the Belmont Shooting Centre.

Chandela had earlier smashed her own Common-wealth Games qualifying record from four years back by scoring 423.2. PTI

From left: Australia’s Kerry Bell (with silver medal),Jitu Rai (with gold) & Om Mitharval in Gold Coast on Monday

BADMINTON Mixed team event

Indian shuttlers celebrates after winning gold

GOLD COAST: The debutant duo of Gaurav Solanki (52kg) and Manish Kaushik (60kg) advanced to the quarterfinals, continuing Indian boxers' fine preliminary run at the Common-wealth Games here on Monday.

While Solanki eased past Ghana's Akimos Annang Ampiah 5-0, Kaushik staved off some early resistance from Trinidad and Tobago's Michael Alexander to win 4-0.

Solanki was the first to take the ring and was quite a dominant force against a rather timid opponent.

However, the Indian was modest in victory and lauded his opponent. He will next face Papua new Guinea's Charles Keama in the last-eight stage on April 11.

"He was a bit of a challenge as he was very fast," Solanki said after his bout.

Also advancing to the quarters was Kaushik, who was a shade rusty to start with but got into his groove quickly enough for a comfortable win in the end.

Kaushik has a tough one lined up in the quar-terfinals as he will be squaring off against Eng-land's Calum French. PTI

Solanki, Kaushik in boxing quarters

GOLD COAST: Indian weightlifter Pardeep Singh (105kg) came agonisingly close to a gold but even-tually settled for a silver after a close contest with Samoa’s Sanele Mao in the Commonwelth Games here on Monday.

Singh, the reigning Commonwealth Cham-pionships gold-medallist, lifted a total of 352kg (152kg+200kg) to claim the second spot after an exciting showdown with Mao, which had the packed arena on its feet.

The 23-year-old went for 211kg lift, which would have been a new Commonwealth and Games record in clean and jerk, but could not pull it off in his final attempt.

“I have lifted a personal best of 215kg in the past but may be it wasn’t my day,” said the Games debutant, who was happy with a podium finish but a shade disappointed with the colour of his medal.

Mao also dropped his final attempt of 211kg but had managed to lift 206kg in his second chance. He finished with a total of 360kg (154kg+206kg). The bronze went to England Owen Boxall (351kg (152kg+199kg).

“Whatever happens is god’s wish. It was meant to be a silver for me, so I ended up with that,” he added.

His second attempt at 209kg was declared invalid by the jury despite getting the judges’ nod. The jury felt his elbow had pressed out, making it a no lift. “I don’t know why it was declared invalid. As I said, perhaps it was meant to be a silver for me. Whatever happens, happens for a reason,” with a hint of disappointment in his tone. PTI

Lifter Pardeep claims silver

‘Want to win Super Cup for East Bengal fans’

ADITYA K HALDER

NEW DELHI: Determined to go all the way after defeat-ing Aizawl FC in Hero Super Cup quarters in Bhubaneswar on Sunday, East Bengal attacker Ansumane Kromah said he wants to win the inaugural sil-verware for the club fans.

“After not winning the I-Ieague, fans are angry that we didn’t win it. And I agree with them. They come from far to watch us play and when we don’t match their expectations. Fans have every right to be angry. So we want to win this title (Super Cup) for them. I know it won’t be same as ileague but we want to make them happy,” he said on Monday.

Kromah played a direct role in Red & Gold’s victory on Sun-

day when running free in the box, he was taken down by Aizawl goal-keeper Lalawmpuia. The contact resulted in Kro-

mah being stretched out of the field as he took no further part in the mtach.

Fortunately, his teammate Laldanmawia Ralte converted the penalty succesfully. The 26-year-old Liberian striker confirmed it’s just a nagging

injury as he will be back for the semi-final match.

“It was a minor injury as suggested by our team doctor, I am fully fit and fine to play the next match. It was a very impor-tant win for us which came very late. Nevertheless, we are focus-ing on the semifinal now,” the former Bagan player said.

Since his move to East Ben-gal from arch-rivals Mohun Bagan, Kromah now got new teammates in Dudu Omagbemi, Mahmoud Al Amnah and Yusa Katsumi. The forward feels hav-ing such quality players make them potent attacking threat.

“We have a very strong attacking line in Katsumi, Amnah and Dudu. So we feel very confident about our attack-ing strength. I am fortunate to have such quality players as my teammates,” he explained.

BENGALURU: Bengaluru FC would look to consolidate their position at the top of the points table when they host New Radiant of Maldives in a AFC Cup Group E clash here on Tuesday.

Both Bengaluru and New Radiant have six points from two games each.

Bengaluru had recorded their second win of the tour-nament by bouncing back from a goal down to sink Aizawl FC 3-1, riding high on

goals from Daniel Lucas Sego-via, Rahul Bheke and Daniel Lalhlimpuia.

Earlier the hosts had trounced Abahani Dhaka FC 1-0 through a second half strike from Lalhlimpuia in their opening match group stage match.

Although, they had begun their preliminary round with a goalless draw against Trans-port United in Bhutan Benga-luru overcome them 3-0 in the home leg. PTI

Bengaluru take on New Radiant in AFC

mp sport 15MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 10 April, 2018

SPORTS BRIEFTENNIS: ANKITA RAINA BREAKS TOP-200 BARRIER

NEW DELHI: Ankita Raina on Monday became only the third Indian woman tennis player to breach the top-200 rankings in singles as she jumped 15 places to reach a career-best 197 in the WTA chart. The 25-year-old Ankita, who trains with Hemant Bendrey when she is in the country, is the first player to achieve the feat since Sania Mirza put India on the singles map with her remarkable achievements over the years. Ankita is the only third player after Sania and Nirupama Vaidyanathan to made it to top-200. While Sania, winner of six Grand Slam titles in doubles, touched a career-high of 27 in singles in 2007, Nirupama’s best rank was 134 in 1997. “I have done so much hard work and has remained patient to get this point. I was between 200 and 250 bracket for some time and it takes time to break the barrier. It’s tough out there,” Ankita told PTI from Japan, where she is competing on ITF circuit. “I went up and down in my career but my coach and my parents kept belief in me. My brother has also supported me in a big way, giving me and my needs priority many times. So without their support it was not possible. I want to thank my coach for having faith in me,” she added, getting emotional. The better rank will help Ankita enter the main draws of the WTA 125k series tournaments.

PARDEEP NARWAL RETAINED BY PATNA PIRATES

MUMBAI: Raider Pardeep Narwal has been retained by three-time champions Patna Pirates for season six of the Pro Kabaddi League, set to commence on October 19. Twenty-one players from the fifth season have been retained by their respective franchises for the upcoming season, a media release said on Monday. Apart from Narwal, Patna Pirates have retained some others like Jaideep, Jawahar Dagar and Manish Kumar.

Player of the Day

SIDDARTH KAULGave away just 17 runs in his four over; took two crucial wickets, including RR skipper Ajinkya Rahane

Sunrisers restrict Royals to 125/9

HYDERABAD: Sunrisers Hyder-abad produced a disciplined bowl-ing display to restrict Rajasthan Royals to a paltry 125 for 9 in their opening match of the eleventh edi-tion Indian Premier League here on Monday.

The home side bowlers justified captain Kane Williamson's decision to put the opposition in after win-ning the toss as the Royals struggled to score runs on a pitch which got the turn as the match wore on.

The Royals could not build part-nerships and they crumbled under the pressure of a disciplined bowling attack of the Sunrisers.

Sanju Samson top-scored with a 42-ball 49 and his 46-run stand with captain Ajinkya Rahane (13) for the second wicket was the high-est partnership for the Royals. One-down Samson looked like he would anchor the innings after Rahane was

out early but he also got dismissed in the 14th over when he was just one run short of a half century.

For the Sunrisers, which have one of the best bowling units in this IPL, Shakib Al Hasan and Siddhart Kaul grabbed two wickets apiece while Afghan leg-spinner Rashid Khan, Australian pacer Billy Stan-lake and Bhuvneshwar got one wicket each.

The Sunrisers got immediate success after the start of the match as the Royals' opening batsman D’Arcy Short was caught short of his crease with Williamson's rocket throw from the mid-off rattled the wickets in the final ball of Bhuvnesh-war Kumar's opening over.

Rahane, who was captaining the Royals after disgraced former Australia skipper Steve Smith was barred by the BCCI from taking part in the IPL, got out in a wrong time

as he was caught by Rashid at deep off the bowling of Kaul.

A miserly over from Rashid was followed by Ben Stokes' (5) dismissal off Stanlake as the Royals were 71 for 3 at the halfway mark.

Samson, meanwhile, was going steady for some time but wickets fell at the other end. Rahul Tripathi (17) gave him some company but did not last long as he became Shakib's first victim.

Samson himself followed suit three balls later, giving Shakib his second wicket of the night and at that stage the Royals innings was in tatters.

Krishnappa Gowtham could not open his account from the two balls he faced and fell victim of Kaul. Eng-lishman Jos Butler was left to add some runs to the Royals kitty but he too could score just six from nine balls. PTI

Sunrisers Hyderabad’s bowler Siddharth Kaul celebrates after taking wicket of Rajasthan Royals’ batsman K Gowtham during an IPL 2018 cricket match at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on Monday PIC/PTI

CHENNAI: Chennai Super Kings will aim to dominate Kolkata Knight Riders in the pres-ence of die-hard fans when they play their first IPL home game in two years here on Tuesday.

Back with a bang with a thrilling win over Mumbai Indians in the tournament opener, Chennai Super Kings will look to improve further.

For the legion of CSK fans, it will be a home-coming like no other as the 'Men in Yellow' will play at M A Chidambaram Stadium for the first time since May 2015. Their loyal supporters also turned up in huge numbers to watch them train.

Away from the field, there has been opposi-tion by political groups to conduct IPL games in the city as they demand formation of Cauv-ery Management Board and threaten to disrupt proceedings.

CSK CEO K S Viswanathan, however, said the team's home matches will go on as per sched-ule. The city police has been informed about the schedule and will handle the situation accord-ingly, he added.

Pitted against defending champions MI, CSK looked down and out before Dwayne Bravo's heroics helped CSK pull off a stunning heist. Barring Kedar Jadhav and Ambati Rayudu, the rest of the batting faltered and skipper MS Dhoni will hope for a quick turnaround. PTI

CSK seek perfect homecoming at

Chepauk stadium

CSK’s MS Dhoni during practice session in Chennai

CAPE TOWN: Arriving and departing to boos from the crowd, Australia’s cricketers endured further humiliation on Sunday after being bowled out for 107 and losing to South Africa by 322 runs in the third test, after admitting to cheating a day earlier.

Australia was removed in less than 40 overs in its second innings on Day 4 at New-lands in Cape Town, failing to offer pride-restoring resistance and way off the winning target of 430.

With captain Steve Smith and vice-cap-tain David Warner stepping down from their leadership roles while their involvement in a ball-tampering scandal is fully investigated, Australia looked like a team with its morale shattered.

Smith and Warner played on Sunday but wicketkeeper Tim Paine took over as stand-in captain.

Warner top-scored for the Aussies with 32 and fellow opener Cameron Bancroft, also involved in the tampering plan, made 26 with an opening partnership of 57. They were both booed as they arrived and then trudged off the field, as was Smith, who made just 7.

Away from the reputational damage suf-fered by Australia from its ball tampering on Day 3, Australia now trails 2-1 in the series with one test to go. Smith is banned for that last test because of his leading role in hatch-ing a plan to cheat in the Cape Town game on Saturday. AP

‘Du Plessis not yet ready to play’

WHEN: April 10AT: 8pmWHERE: Star Sports 1 HD

KOLKATA: Sunil Narine's blis-tering half-century made all the difference and paved the way for Kolkata Knight Riders' win-ning start in the Indian Premier League here, Royal Challengers Bangalore batsman Mandeep Singh said.

Narine, who had scored IPL's fastest fifty last season against the same opposition, smashed a whirlwind 50 from 19 balls to make light of the 177-run target last night.

Narine completed the mile-stone in 17 balls to become the fourth joint fastest IPL fifty scorer.

Mandeep said they scored a decent total but Narine was the turning point.= "Definitely, the turning point was Narine's innings. If you get a good start like this in the first six overs, 50 per cent of the game is over. There was not much left for others to do for the rest of the batsmen," Mandeep said at the post-match conference.

Part-time off-spinner Nit-ish Rana (2/11) picked up the big wickets of AB de Villiers and skipper Virat Kohli in successive deliveries to reduce the visitors to 127/4 in 14.3 overs before Man-deep's 18-ball 37 cameo propped

up the total."It was a crucial moment of

the match to lose two big play-ers off successive deliveries, may be we fell short by 10-15 runs. But honestly, we thought of keep-ing our target in 175-180," Man-deep said. "The more would have been a bonus for us. I think it was a decent and fighting total. But had we scored 15-20 more, it would have been tougher for the opposition."

Mandeep disagreed that their bowling resources fell short and reiterated that Narine made all the difference. PTI

Narine's innings was turning point: Mandeep

ICC meet: PCB officials get visasKARACHI: Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Najam Sethi and Chief Operating Officer Subhan Ahmad have been issued visas to attend the International Cricket Council meetings in Kolkata from April 22.

Although they were apprehensions that the PCB officials might face difficulties in getting the Indian visas for the ICC meet, apparently behind the doors contacts between the ICC and BCCI have resulted in the visas being issued by the Islamabad based Indian High Commission. “Sethi and Subhan will be flying to Kolkata on April 21st for the meetings at which Pakistan’s security arrangements,” a source in the PCB said. PTI

Second ODI: India women lose to Eng by eight wickets

NAGPUR: The Indian women’s team produced a listless performance with the bat to suffer a crushing eight-wicket defeat against England in the second ODI in the three-match series here on Monday.

English bowling duo of Danielle Hazell (4/32) and Sophie Ecclestone (4/14) returned with four wickets each to dismiss India for a paltry 113 in 37.2 overs after the hosts won the toss and elected to bat. Smriti Mandhana (42) and Deepti Sharma (26) were the top scorers for India as five batswomen scored in single digits while two of them were out for naught.

Chasing 114 for a win, England never looked like in trouble as Danielle Wyatt (47) and Tammy Beaumont (39) shared a 73-run opening stand to take the game away from India.

Wyatt scored five boundaries and two sixes in her 43-ball innings, while Beaumont hit three fours during her patient knock. After left-arm spin-ner Ekta Bisht dismissed Wyatt and first-down Amy Jones (0), Heather Knight then took the team home with an unbeaten 26 off 42 balls. PTI

I should have finished. Next time I will keep it in my mind

MANDEEP SINGH

millenniumpost NO H ALF TR U THS

millenniumpost.in

I, Gule Rana W/o Mohd. Din R/o H.No.2994,3rd

Floor Kucha Neel Kanth, Kaziwada Darya Ganj New Delhi-110002 have changed my Name from Gul Rana to Gule Rana for all purposes.

CHANGE OF NAME

PANAJI: Actor Nawazuddin Sid-diqui, who is portraying the role of Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray in a biopic, said that it was necessary to master the ease and speed with which the leader delivered speeches.

Siddiqui, who was at the ‘Goa Fest 2018’ here, said the film is one his most challenging projects.

“One of the important aspects of Balasaheb’s character was the ease and the speed of his public speeches. It is important for me to get this ease and speed,” Siddiqui said.

The actor, who is originally from Hindi speaking belt, said he is taking tuition to get his Marathi accent right.

“The upcoming film is being shot in Hindi and Marathi. Till a month ago, I could not speak Marathi

but I have started tak-ing tuition. The film’s shooting is expected to be wrapped up by June,” he mentioned.

The proj-ect is pro-duced by Sanjay Raut, Sena Rajya Sabha mem-ber and edi-tor of the party maga-zine Saa-mana. PTI

16MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 10 April, 2018

mp Entertainment

LONDON: Actor Amanda Abbington has opened up about

her break-up with longtime partner and ‘Sherlock’ co-star, saying she had

never thought they would ever part ways.The former couple, who separated two

years ago after 16 years of togetherness, said coming to terms with the split would often make her “feel sick”.

“I had thought Martin was the love of my life. This wasn’t meant to happen to us. I would wake every morning with a sudden lurch. ‘Why do I feel sick?’ I’d ask myself, in the darkness

of the bedroom I no longer shared with my partner.”

“And then, a split-second later, I’d remember what had happened. ‘Oh,’ I thought, as the tears

started to fall. ‘That’s why’,” Abbington told Red magazine.

The 44-year-old actor, who played Mary Morstan to Freeman’s Dr John Watson on the BBC series, said she had to “keep things together” for their children.

They have daughter Grace and son Joe together.“It was one of the darkest moments of my life

but, although I didn’t know it then, it was also to mark the beginning of an extraordinary journey of self-discovery.

“It’s still hard. I still have massive wobbles but that’s understandable I think. I’m human. Nobody’s perfect. Nobody,” she added.

Abbington said she shared a healthy relationship with Freeman, 46, and they “still love each other”.

“ – Even if we’re not in love with each other – and neither of us sees our relationship as a fail-ure. We had 16 great years together and have two fantastic kids. We still talk and we still give each other advice,” she said. PTI

Varun was not on Shoojit’s

CASTING LISTMUMBAI: Filmmaker Shoojit Sircar, who teamed up with actor Varun Dhawan for the first time in his forthcoming film October, revealed that he was not on his cast-ing list at all.

Present at a promotional event for his forthcoming romantic drama film, he said that he was looking for a fresh cast. “We needed someone young and fresh, like 20 years old, so Varun Dhawan was not on my casting list at all. Also I had not seen his films.”

“But one day he was in office and I saw him, I was aware of his image, his commercial world image, but somewhere I felt he is not like that, he is different,” said Shoojit.

Shoojit found the actor perfect for his character ‘Dan’, because: “he has something different in his eyes... honesty and innocence. There is something very nice and vulnerable about him. He just doesn’t only dance and jump, there is some sensibility in him too. He is perfect as Dan, the character”.

The Vicky Donor director also said it was very brave of Varun to act in an unconventional and unusual movie.

“Good thing about Varun Dhawan, despite his success with films, for him to do this kind of film, an unusual and unconven-tional story, that is really brave,” he said. 

Banita Sandhu, the debutante from Wales, is roped opposite Varun in the film and Shoojit also shared his reasons to cast a newbie. 

“I wanted to cast absolutely fresh for this film. So when I met Banita, I saw some-one who was very intelligent, her eyes were really expres-sive. She did very little and it expressed a lot and that I

would call acting. I felt in my gut and instinct that she was right.

There is maturity in her in terms of thinking, and I thought she is right for the role.” IANS

We needed someone young and fresh, like

20 years old, so Varun was not

on my list at all,” says Shoojit

‘Important to get THACKERAY’S SPEECH delivery right’

LOS ANGELES: British actor Elizabeth Hurley faced flak from social media users for a revealing dress she wore in a post to mark her 16-year-old son Damians birthday.

In the photograph, 52-year-old Hurley is seen wearing an embellished dress with a deep plunging neckline, while her son wears a floral-print blazer.

“Happy Birthday to my little prince Damian Hurley. The light of my life for the last 16 years,” she wrote. Her fans and followers began debating whether her outfit was appropriate or not, with some blasting it was “embarrassing” and writing that she shouldn’t “showcase her assets”, reported Fox News.

“Creepy showing off at your son’s birth-day. Cover up you’re a mum,” said one social media user. However, there were other fans who defended her.

“You look amazing. A lot of people are jeal-ous,” said one user, adding: “You and your son, please enjoy yourselves and live your lives. Don’t worry about the naysayers. Best wishes.”

Another said: “Damn haters! LOL! She worked hard for her physique, let her wear anything she wants. All you haters, go work on yourself, focus on yourself and no others! Such a shame how there are always haters.”

While Hurley’s cricket star ex Shane Warne wrote: “Happy birthday D man, hope EH is spoiling you ! 

Damian is also an actor and model. He is Hurley and American businessman Steve Bing’s son. IANS

Liz Hurley slammed for wearing cleavage-baring dress with sonSoon after Elizabeth posted the photo, her followers began debating whether her outfit was appropriate or not, with some blasting that it was ‘embarrassing’

This wasn’t meant to happen to us:

Abbington on split

‘The Bell Jar’ an IMPORTANT

story to tell: DakotaLOS ANGELES: Actor Dakota Fanning says The Bell Jar is an impor-tant story to tell. She is confident the movie will surprise people.

Fanning, 24, will essay Esther Greenwood and her battle with depression in Kirsten Dunst’s upcoming adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s classic novel, reports thetimes.co.uk.

“It’s such an important story, and really different from what people think it is. People think it’s depressing, or a biography of Sylvia Plath, but it’s not and there’s so much humour in it,” she said.

“You follow a young woman during a formative time in her life, and see how overwhelming the expectations of what women feel they are supposed to be like can be. We all feel that to some extent,” she added.

Fanning says she is looking for similar roles in the future.“I like playing characters where everyone thinks they’re one thing

but they know they’re not. That interests me, because I feel like, in my life, I’m trying to work that out,” said Fanning. IANS