PUBLISHED FROM DELHI & KOLKATA VOL. 12, ISSUE 349 | Tuesday, 19 December 2017 | New Delhi | Pages 16 | Rs 3.00

millenniumpost.in RNI NO.: DELENG/2005/15351REGD. NO.: DL(S)-01/3420/2015-17

NO HALF TRUTHS

Shock BJP defeat in Modi’s home UnjhaVADNAGAR: The Unjha constituency, under which Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s hometown Vadnagar falls, on Monday slipped out of the BJP’s hands, with the Congress winning the north Gujarat seat. Congress’ Ashaben Patel wrested the seat, falling in the Pati-dar-dominated Mehsana district, from BJP’s five-term MLA Narayanbhai Patel. Mehsana was the epicentre of the Pati-dar agitation, which flared up in 2015.

The BJP was trying to contain the damage in Unjha by playing up the fact that its local candidate heads the Umiya Dham Temple, which is revered by the Patel community, but it clearly came a cropper. Ashaben defeated Narayanbhai by a margin of 19,529 votes. She bagged

81,797 votes as against the BJP candi-date’s 62,268 votes.

The 79-year-old BJP veteran had defeated Ashaben, 40, in the 2012 assem-bly election, winning the seat by a mar-gin of over 24,000 votes. Out of the total 2.12 lakh voters of Unjha, over 77,000 are Patidars, while around 50,000 belong to the Thakor community.

Both Modi and Congress president Rahul Gandhi had held poll rallies in Vadnagar. Overall, in the Mehsana dis-trict, BJP won five of the seven seats, with two going to the Congress. Apart from Unjha, Congress bagged the Becharaji constituency while the Mahesana city, Kheralu, Visnagar, Kadi and Vijapur seats went to the BJP.

In today’s paper...

CITY

MOSER BAER EMPLOYEES BLOCK ROAD 4

NATION

12 CHARRED TO DEATH IN MUMBAI SHOP FIRE 7

EDIT

POLITICAL PRICE FOR ECONOMICS 8

INTERNATIONAL

40 ROHINGYA VILLAGES BURNT IN MYANMAR 10

BUSINESS

ADANI’S $2.6 BN OZ PROJECT CANCELLED 12

SPORT

AUSTRALIA EARN ASHES ‘URN’ 14

OUR CORRESPONDENT

AHMEDABAD/ NEW DELHI: The BJP fought off a strong challenge from the Rahul Gandhi-led Congress to win the Gujarat Assem-bly polls for the sixth straight time on Monday. However, the euphoria in the BJP camp was tempered by the lower than expected margin of vic-tory— it took 99 seats in the 182-member assembly, down from the 115 it won in 2012, and far lower than the 150-plus seats it had hoped for. However, the party’s vote share rose by a little over 1 percentage point to 49.1 per cent compared to the 2012 Assembly polls.

The Congress won 77 seats, up by 16, at the end of count-ing of votes in the Gujarat polls on Monday night, which was marked by acrimonious exchanges and rhetoric dur-ing the high octane campaign. The Congress also improved its vote share, which touched 41.4 per cent, a 2 percentage point increase. The Congress was also helped by young Pati-dar and Dalit leaders Har-dik Patel, Alpesh Thakor and Jignesh Mewani in its campaign against the BJP.

Chief Minister Vijay Rupani retained his Rajkot West seat, defeating Indranil Rajyaguru of Congress. Deputy Chief Minis-ter Nitin Patel won the Mehsana seat against Congress candidate Jivabhai Patel. Mehsana was the

epicentre of the Patidar reserva-tion agitation.

As the victory became clear, party workers gathered in the streets and headquarters, dis-tributing sweets and bursting firecrackers. The BJP’s dip this time was touted by the Con-gress as a reflection of Gandhi’s efforts during the campaign, when he appeared to have improved his reputation as a politician.

The BJP said what matters is the victory. “Jo jeeta wohi Sikandar (whoever wins is the king),” said Union minis-ter Smriti Irani, when asked if the Congress gave her party a tough fight.

The December 9 and 14 elections took place in the backdrop of GST and demon-etisation, which the opposi-tion had claimed would inflict a huge dent in Modi’s popular-ity. The BJP has won every elec-tion in Gujarat since 1995.

Gujarat is a prestigious trophy for the BJP, given that both Modi and BJP President Amit Shah hail from the state. The two leaders personally led a high-pitched campaign to counter Gandhi, who grew in influence with well chosen homilies, one- liners and clever barbs to target the BJP on issues such as GST, corruption and development.

The elections became a vir-tual trailer for the next Lok Sabha elections, which should be held before May 2019.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Prime Minis-ter Narendra Modi on Mon-day accused the Congress of trying to sow the seeds of cas-teism in Gujarat in its “hun-ger for power”, asserting that the BJP’s win in the Assembly elections had underlined the people’s acceptance of his gov-ernment’s reforms. Address-ing BJP workers at the party headquarters here, he was unsparing in his attack on the Congress and critics who, he said, could not accept his party’s victory in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.

He returned to his plank of development and pitched for social harmony in his home state, which had seen several caste agitations in the run up to the Assembly polls, saying that the people should forget the past and embrace each other. An atmosphere for develop-ment had been created after the BJP took power at the Cen-tre in May 2014, he said, add-ing that nobody should derail it as his “decisive” government was working overtime to strengthen cooperative feder-alism and had clean intentions.

With the BJP — which recorded its sixth straight vic-tory in Assembly elections in Gujarat — drawing its low-est tally this year, Modi said

that the victory this time was not ‘samanya’ (normal) but ‘asamanya’ (especial). Modi, who was the chief minister of Gujarat from 2001 before he became the prime minister in May, 2014, said attempts were made to “demoralise” the state BJP leadership after he moved to the Centre.

He said the state govern-ment was attacked from all sides and there was a “storm of disinformation”. “The Con-gress might be visible on the ground but there were many forces at work beside it. ‘Bring down the BJP once’.

All sorts of conspiracies were hatched,” Modi said. There could be anger over the issue of development but some were making fun of it, he said, apparently targeting the Con-gress and Patidar leader Hardik Patel, who had run a campaign with the meme “development has gone mad” to attack the BJP.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Displaying a rare flash of visible emotion, the usually reserved BJP pres-ident Amit Shah on Monday described his party’s victo-ries in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh as the triumph of performance and develop-ment over a “negative cam-paign” based on “casteism, nepotism and appeasement politics” run by the rival Con-gress. He summarily rejected suggestions that the fight with the Congress in his home state of Gujarat had been “close”.

Addressing a Press confer-ence at the party headquar-ters here on Monday, Shah also asserted that the poll out-come in favour of the BJP was a victory of performance and development against political dynasty. Asked if it had been a close fight with the Con-gress in Gujarat, he said that having a 8 per cent victory margin over the rival cannot be taken as ‘kante ki takkar’ (close fight).

Shah also attributed the party’s victory in Gujarat to

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity and the public welfare works carried out by the Centre and the state government. The vic-tory of the BJP in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat assem-bly polls is a win for Modi’s development agenda against the politics of dynasty, cas-teism and appeasement, he said.

The BJP chief also con-gratulated and complimented the party’s state leaders in both states for the victory. He thanked BJP workers and the people of Gujarat and Him-achal Pradesh, and expressed satisfaction with the fact that there was a gap of 8 per cent between the BJP and the Con-gress in vote share.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Displaying grace and humility in his par-ty’s twin defeats in the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh Assem-bly elections, the Congress party’s newly elected President Rahul Gandhi said on Monday that accepts the people’s verdict and thanked his party work-ers for handling the extremely tough, bitter and often acrimo-nious poll campaign by “fight-ing anger with dignity”.

Gandhi also thanked the people of the two states for the love they showered on him. “The Congress party accepts the verdict of the people and congratulates the new governments in both states. I thank the people of Gujarat and Himachal with all my heart for the love they showed me,” he tweeted.

“My Congress brothers and sisters, you have made me very proud. You are different than those you fought because you fought anger with dignity. You have demonstrated to every-one that the Congress’ greatest strength is its decency and courage,” he added.

Reacting to the election results, senior Congress leader and former finance minister P Chidambaram said that the Congress has given a morale boosting performance in Gujarat under Rahul Gandhi and the battle will now be for five states in 2018.

“The battle is now joined for five states in 2018,” he said.

BJP wins after fierce Cong fightStar-studded campaign led personally by PM Modi catapults BJP to 6th straight win in Gujarat

BJP to start new HP innings... but loses CM face’s wicket

PM Modi cheers vote for ‘our politics of good governance & development’

Politics of dynasty, caste have been defeated: Shah

Rahul hails Congmen for ‘fighting anger with dignity’

Hardik stays unmoved, dubs EVMs villain

In the end, BJP’s formidable organisational machinery sealed Cong fate

OUR CORRESPONDENT

SHIMLA/ DHARAMSALA: The BJP wrested power from the Congress in Himachal Pradesh with a close to two-thirds majority on Monday. The victory in the Himalayan state tightened the BJP’s grip over the country’s politics with the Congress losing one more state with general elections only 18 months away.

Amid the victories, there was some disappointment for the BJP — Prem Kumar Dhumal, the party’s chief ministerial candidate in the hill state, lost to Congress’ Rajinder Rana in Sujanpur, after he changed his tradi-tional constituency of Hamir-pur. He was made the CM face only nine days before the polling.

Regaining power in Him-achal Pradesh, the BJP bagged 44 seats, falling short of a two-thirds majority by two seats in the 68-member house. The BJP, which had won 26 seats in 2012, recorded a 10 per cent jump in vote share that touched 48.7 per cent.

The Congress bagged 20 seats and was leading in one. The ruling party had 36 seats earlier, and its vote share declined by 1 percentage point to 41.8 per cent. The CPI-M and an independent bagged one each. An independent was also leading in one seat.

Congress veteran and six-

time Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh won the Arki constitu-ency with a margin of 6,024 votes against the BJP’s Rattan Singh Pal. Virbhadra’s son, Vikramaditya Singh, also won in his maiden attempt from the Shimla rural constituency, which was earlier represented by the outgoing chief minister. The BJP’s Inder Singh Gan-dhi defeated Congress cabinet minister Prakash Chaudhary in the Balh constituency.

Seniormost minister Kaul Singh of the Congress lost the polls from Drang and his daughter Champa Thakur suffered defeat at the hands of the BJP’s Anil Sharma in Mandi. State BJP chief Satpal Singh Satti lost to Satpal Singh Raizada of the Congress from the Una constituency seat.

In Dharmshala constit-uency, Urban Development Minister Sudhir Sharma was defeated by ex-BJP minister Kishan Kapoor with a margin of 2,820 votes.

In Bharmour constituency, Forest Minister Thakur Singh Bharmouri lost to Jia Lal of the BJP by 6,873 votes.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

AHMEDABAD: Patidar Ana-mant Andolan Samiti (PAAS) Convener Hardik Patel, who scripted a poll alliance with the Congress, alleged on Monday that the BJP played an “unfair game” by “tamper-ing” with EVMs and using “money power”. The Congress

would have won had the BJP not “indulged in cheating”, alleged the 24-year-old fire-brand leader.

“I congratulate the BJP which has won by tampering with the EVMs. Though the people of Gujarat had taken a decision (of uprooting the BJP), the ruling party won though money power and by

tampering with EVMs,” Patel told reporters. He insisted that EVMs can also be “hacked” like ATMs. “There were instances

wherein WiFi networks were detected during polling,” he claimed. Patel also alleged that seals of EVMs were found bro-ken before the counting started today at many places.

“I urge all opposition par-ties to start a movement against the use of EVMs and demand that the next elections be held through ballots papers only.”

SIMONTINI BHATTACHARJEE

AHMEDABAD: Despite the Con-gress bagging 80 of 182 seats in the Gujarat Assembly elections, the elec-tions exposed gaping holes in the party’s organisational apparatus and showed that it is still no match for the cadre-based BJP, which has strong booth-level coordination com-plemented by the formidable RSS machinery. After the results were out on Monday the Congress leadership asserted that they expected a good mandate in many regions but failed to gain the trust of voters.

The Congress leadership also avouched that the party is disap-pointed at losing southern Gujarat, especially Surat, where former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held a group discussion with local trad-

ers. All the 12 seats (Olpad, Man-grol, Mandvi, Kamrej, Surat East, Surat North, Varachha Road, Karanj, Limbayat, Udhna, Majura, Katar-gam, Surat West, Choryasi, Bardoli, Mahuva) of Surat were returned to the BJP, which shows the trade com-munity has welcomed GST.

“We expected around 100 seats… but our weak organisational struc-ture is the main reason for our defeat,” admitted a senior Congress leader from Gujarat. He added that lack of funds was also a major factor for the sloppy campaign.

However, in a major gain the party managed to capitalise on the Patidar’s trust in both Saurashtra region and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home district of Vadnagar. On the other side, in the Saurashtra region the BJP won 23 of 54 Assem-

bly seats, Congress 30 seat and oth-ers 1.

The BJP seemed to gain a positive mandate in north, central and South Gujarat. Of the north region 32 seats, the BJP won 16, Congress 16 and others drew a blank. In the central region which has 68seats, the BJP bagged 36, Congress 23 and others 2. In the south region with 35 seats, the BJP won 25 and Congress 10.

Meanwhile, of the six Congress rebel MLAs who joined the BJP dur-ing contentious Rajya Sabha elec-tions in August, only two won and four were defeated. Mansinh Chau-han (Balasinor), Ramsinh Parmar (Thasra), Tejashreeben (Viramgam) and Raghavji Patel (Jamnagar, rural) were defeated and only Jadeja Dhar-mendra Singh (Jamnagar city) and C K Raolji (Godhra) won.

MODI-SHAH POLL JUGGERNAUT CONTINUES TO ROLL

GUJARAT

99 80

3

182182

Majority Mark: 92

6868

HIMACHAL

Majority Mark: 35

44 21

3

pNIFTY 10,388.75 (+138.71) pSENSEX 33,601.68 (+55.50) pDOW JONES 24,868.72 (+216.98) pNASDAQ 6,984.18 (+47.60) qRUPEE/DOLLAR 64.24 (-0.20) qRUPEE/EURO 75.83 (-0.39) qGOLD/10GM 29,525 (-155.00) nSILVER/K 38,100 (000.00)

BJP

Cong

Others

KBK graphicsPoll

Gujarat Assembly Elections2017 Outcome 2012 Outcome

9977

6

BJP Cong Others

BJP

Cong Others

Seats Won

BJP

49.10%

Cong

41.40%

Others

9.50%

Seats Won Vote Share

Swing Factor: 2017 2012 Assembly Pollsvs

Vote Share

Seat Swing

-16

+160

Total seats: 182

Source: ECI

115

61

6

BJP Cong Others

Cong

38.93%

BJP

47.85%

Others

13.22%

Vote Swing

0-1-2

-3-4

-5

12

34

5

0-1-2

-3-4

-5

12

34

5

0-1-2

-3-4

-5

12

34

5

BJP

+1.25%

Congress

+2.47%

Others

-3.72%

Pic/ Naveen Sharma

OUT: Prem Kumar Dhumal

Although every possible care and caution has been taken to avoid errors or omissions, this publication is being sold on the condition and understanding that infromation given in this publication is merely for reference and must not be taken as having authority of or binding in any way on the writers, editors, publishers, and printers and sellers who do not owe any responsibility for any damage or loss to any person, a purchaser of this publication or not for the result of any action taken on the basis of this work. All disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of competent court and forums in Delhi/New Delhi only

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

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DIAMOND JUBILEE CELEBRATIONS

Bengal Association initiated their Diamond Jubilee celebrations on Saturday evening at Muktadhara, New Delhi. The evening saw the presence of Kathak exponent, Shovana Narayan, soaking in the melodious music of singer lndra Mukherjee, Dr Kamala Shankar and vocal recital by Pt Vidyadhar Vyas. PICS/NAVEEN SHARMA

NEW YEAR’S EVE BASHBid adieu to 2017 with a spectacular farewell and step into the New Year with unlimited and delectable gourmet meals, mouth-watering concoctions and groovy foot tapping music. Let your hair loose and dance the night away to cap-tivating and energetic Punjabi and Bol-lywood beats played live by the Funky Boys and the tunes of talented Sonali Ajay Bahuguna on one of the largest dance floor in the city. EMCEE Priyanka Bhalla will enthral you with her elegant and graceful performance, making it one of the most memorable evenings!WHEN: December 31WHERE: The Leela Ambience Convention Hotel TIMINGS: 8 pm onwardsTHE GLOBAL GATEDLF CyberHub is hosting a cultural exchange festival The Global Gate in association with One World Foundation. The five-day long handloom exhibition presents an amalgamation of ethnic Indian and Afghani fashion with a core focus on the handloom, textiles and

handicraft heritage. One can shop for Afghanistan Carpets, dry fruits, Saffron, Jewellery, Asafoetida, Onyx as well as Bhagalpuri Silk, Punjabi Jutti, Leather Bags Rajasthan all under one roof.WHEN: Till December 20 WHERE: DLF Cyber Hub TIMING: 11 am – 10 pm

KASHMIR ON A PLATTERFrom time imme-morial Kashmir, the crown jewel of India, has been called ‘heaven on earth’. But it isn’t just the scenic beauty of Kashmir that mesmerizes you; it is also the scents and flavors of Kash-miri cuisine that truly give the region a pride of place in India’s cultural lexicon. This winter, ‘Elan’, at The Lodhi, takes diners on a mouth-watering culinary journey through Kashmir. The menu includes the region’s famous chicken yakhni, gushtaba, koftas and a wide spread of other traditional delicacies.WHEN: Till December 24 WHERE: Elan, The Lodhi TIMING: 12 noon – 3:30 pm|Dinner: 7 pm to midnight

DAYINDAYOUT What’s on Around Town

Mustard oil has been used for centuries as a food additive and remains a staple in a majority of

Indian homes. Incorporating mustard oil into your daily diet is known to protect against heart disease. The oil is rich in monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats, both of which help lower bad cholesterol and raise good HDL cholesterol hence main-taining one’s cholesterol balance, which in turn leads to healthy car-diac functioning.

“Mustard oil also works well as an antibacterial, antiviral and antifun-gal agent and can help fight bacterial infections in the digestive system,” said Executive Chef Arun Sundararaj.

“From the taste point of view, mus-tard oil is an acquired taste for most people. Although pungent in character, mustard oil brings tremendous flavours to any dish. I believe that there is no ingredient that comes close to it – mustard oil has a unique texture to it. At the Taj Mahal Hotel, New Delhi, we use mustard oil in dishes such as Mustard Prawns and Bhatti Murgh,” he said.

At the same time, Sundararaj adds, “It is recommended that one does not use mustard oil as the sole medium for cooking and instead uses a com-bination of different oils depending on the dish you are cooking. Mustard oil has a high smoking point and as a result, is ideal for deep frying.”

Executive Chef Sonu Koithara had a similar take on the benefits from the health and palate point of view of cooking in mustard oil.

Noting that mustard oil has culi-nary as well as therapeutic uses, Koithara said, “It has an edge over other oils due to the optimum ratio of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids and its low content of saturated fats. It contains about 60 per cent mono-unsaturated fats (MUFA), as well as polyunsaturated fats (PUFA), and saturated fats. These fatty acids are considered ‘good fats’.”

He also pointed to research which suggests that mustard oil has strong cancer-fighting properties and that it contains ample amounts of linolenic acid, which when converted to omega-3 fatty acid, helps prevent cancers.

“Mus-tard oil

also benefits the heart as it contains rich amounts of MUFA and PUFA as well as omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. These good fats lower the risk of developing heart diseases and is also a very powerful natural stimulant and improves digestion and appe-tite by stimulat-ing digestive juices,”

Koithara explained.Umesh Verma, DGM at Puri Oil

Mills Ltd said, “Mustard oil is the preferred choice of generations of chefs across traditional Indian cui-sine spanning Kashmir, Punjab and West Bengal as it bring alive the fla-vour of food.”

“Indians like to carry the taste of India to whichever country they move to – and find ingenious ways to track down their favourite brands in those countries. We keep hearing of our mustard oil being available in the US and in various European cities. It’s a great feeling.”

Are there any foods that particu-larly lend themselves to being cooked in mustard oil?

The oil is one of the best-suited for Indian homes because of its versatil-ity, Sundararaj said, adding it comple-ments Indian spices and beautifully brings out the flavours of our food.

“While mustard oil complements both vegetarian and non-vegetarian ingredients, dishes such as pickles of all kinds taste best when made in mustard oil. In addition, mustard oil can be used as a salad dressing along with lemon and honey.

“Also there are many Bengali fish preparations like sarson bata maach,

paturi fish and other dishes like mangsho (mutton), murgir jhol (chicken) are best enjoyed when cooked in mustard oil,” he said.

For, Koithara, the use of mustard oil in Ben-

gali food “is immense and it absolutely complements the Bengali palate. Foods like

Shorshe bata ilish and Chingri bhapa are delicacies that can-not do without the generous use of mustard oil”.

Any other thoughts they’d like to share on the subject?

“There are some ingre-

dients that can never be replaced in the

Indian kitchen and mustard oil is one such essential because of its unique and pungent flavour,” Sun-dararaj said.

Pointing to mustard oil’s immense health benefits, Koithara said it is very good during winter as it produces body heat and protects the body from cold.

“For this reason, people in Rajas-than use mustard oil on their bodies during winter to keep the skin supple and themselves healthy. Addition-ally, mustard oil has been used exten-sively as a cure for cold and cough for decades,” he added. IANS

Indian chefs go ga-ga over MUSTARD OIL

Apart from bringing tremendous flavours to any dish, mustard oil has an edge over other oils due to the

optimum ratio of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids

LAHARI BASU

With an array of sea-sonal vegetables and festive flavoured cui-sine, Sorrento – Shan-

gri-La Eros Hotel’s fine dining Italian restaurant is all set to enthrall foodies this winter. Winter Brunch and Bub-bly at the restaurant has loads to offer to satiate your tummy over a leisurely brunch with your friends and family. The massive buffet spread would win anybody’s heart with the colourful display of all the salad ingredients, different cheeses and marinated olives, the mains laid out in large cooking pots, the fluffy sandwiches and inviting pizzas laid out on the station, and the unmistakable sweet aromatic dessert area.

Choose from the wide range of tropical cheese and marinated olives, while you also pile up your plate with lip smacking shrimp salad, Caesar salad, goat cheese stuffed zucchini rolls, and Bruschettas – the winner of the range. As the goat cheese in the zucchini rolls melts in your mouth and you decide to grab some more, it

is advisable to try out the bruschettas with your choice of topping. If you are looking for a variety of Italian delights, stick to the plan of trying every dish without binging onto any specific one.

A favourite for chicken lovers would be the Chicken cacciatore, hot from the cooking pot. As you cut through the large and juicy chicken breast, you can inhale the olive oil, tomatoes, garlic and basil leaves which have

been enriching the braised chicken, and the accompa-

nied peppers. If grilled meat defines your idea

of a perfect brunch, their medium grilled lamb chops and salmon steaks with potatoes, broccoli and baby carrots will win your heart right away. Hovering over to the main course, it is wise to stuff your face with their homemade pasta, pizzas and

sandwiches, fresh off the oven. Lin-guine with baby spinach, chili, garlic and prawns can lighten up the mood of any prawn lover, as you swoop in the pasta and much on to the al-dente prawns enjoying the sea-salty flavoured combination.

Unlike several food festivals and seasonal menus which lack options for vegetarians, Sorrento presents a healthy variety of options for their vegetarian

patrons. The Eggplant parmigiana is one such vegetarian masterpiece. It is a unique Italian baked dish which provides a well-blended taste of egg-plant, cheese and tomatoes. The swell of cheese on the baked eggplant and the thickened tomato sauce produces an overwhelming aroma igniting all your olfactory nerves.

What happens to be a befuddling decision is to stand over the desserts table wondering how you can gorge on all the delicious looking pastries. With over 10 different types of des-serts, sweet-tooths will have a tough time picking their favourite mouthfulls. The winter menu has the classic Tira-misu, strawberry panna cotta, Choco-late decadence, Cannoli. But the stars of the afters would be strawberries and rich Belgian chocolate, used gener-ously in the cakes, puddings and tarts. The menu is balanced with an excit-ing selection of in-house beverages like Ti Amo Prosecco, Grappa’s sig-nature negronis, red/white wine pop-sicles, and Aperol spritzers. Celebrate this winter with the finest bubbly and widest brunch spread over some qual-ity conversation with your loved ones.

For a warm and bubbly winter brunch

When Kathak and Sufi maestros came together

OUR CORRESPONDENT

AN EVENING of Kathak and Sufi music, organ-ised by Sindhi Academy on a Saturday evening enthralled the Delhi audience with its unique grace and presentation. The cultural evening – ‘Sajan Saan Rooh Rihaniyoon’- at Kamani Auditorium saw the presence of Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia gracing the occasion as the Chief Guest.

‘Sajan Saan Rooh Rihaniyoon’, which means two lover’s souls are talking to each other, fea-tured an amalgamation of the graceful dance form of Kathak and the soulful rendition of Sufi music. Six Kathak choreographic presen-tations – Leela Chanesar, Shu- mar, Naale Alakh, Raqs, Kiyan Rijhaya, Tarana in Raag Darbari – were show- cased at the event.

“Sindhi art and culture is a valuable part of Delhi’s cul-ture. Programmes like these are a great way of bringing forth the best of Sindhi tra-dition to a new audi-ence. With a talented new Sindhi Academy committee in place, the Delhi Gov-

ernment hopes to present and develop quality Sindhi programmes,” said the Deputy Chief Minister.

Sindhu Bhagia Mishra, Secretary, Sindhi Academy Delhi said, “Sufism is the strength of Sindhi Poetry and Shah Abdul Latif ’s poetry is rated to be of the highest level when com-pared with world Sufi literature, which has been the basic guiding principle for the Sindhi Community.”

With a total of six breath taking perfor-mances, ‘Samskritiki Shreyaskar’, performed by the senior disciples of Padmashree and Sangeet Natak Akademi awardee, Rani Karnaa started off the evening’s programme. A rendition of ‘Leela Chanesar’ followed the performance by ‘Samskritiki Shreyaskar’.

The third performance was based on ‘Shu-maar’; three abstract elements, magical num-bers, and musical notes come together with the mystic ‘Aum’ in this composition performed by Debashree, Sohini, and Shamila. Next per-

formance by Debashree, Sohini, Shamila, and Somdatta was RAQS – the concluding piece ushered with a quintessential presentation of the multiplicity of Kathak as a dance form.

In the Fifth performance, ‘Kiyarijhaya’, the devotee

implores to have one glimpse of

his Supreme Beloved. The sixth and final

performance was of Tarana, presented by Debashree,

Sohini, Shamila, Som-datta, Tultul, and

Surangama.

3mp cityMILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 19 December, 2017

Kalkaji Mandir–Botanical Garden section to be flagged off on Dec 25

Prime Minister Narendra Modi to inaugurate operations at 12.64 km-long section of Magenta LineYOGESH KANT

NEW DELHI: With the chiming of Christmas bells on December 25, the Delhi Metro network will add another feather to its cap, as the Kalkaji Mandir to Botanical Garden section of Magenta Line will be flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) stated on Monday.

The 12.64 km long section, having nine stations, was granted safety approval by the Commissioner for Metro Rail Safety (CMRS) last month. Apart from Kalkaji Mandir, all other stations will be elevated.

In 2002, Delhi Metro’s first ever corridor, from Dilshad Garden to Rithala, was also inaugurated on December 25,

which also happens to be the foundation day of DMRC.

Delhi Metro’s Magenta Line – between Botanical Garden –Janak Puri West – will have trains equipped with the latest

technology.A DMRC official said

that the new generation of Metro trains on this line will have driverless trains, where an advanced communication

based train control (CBTC) signalling technology will facilitate movement of trains, with a frequency of 90 to 100 seconds.

However, for a starting period of two-three years, these trains will be driven by the metro operators.

Currently, to reach south Delhi, commuters from Noida have to change trains – from Blue Line to Violet Line – at Mandi House Metro Station.

After the Magenta Line section is opened, commuters will be able to travel directly to Kalkaji Mandir Metro station, located on the Violet Line, reducing travel time by about 45 minutes.

Botanical Garden is being developed as Metro’s first-ever inter-change station outside

the boundaries of Delhi, while Kalkaji Mandir will be an interchange station between Magenta and Violet Line.

Meanwhile, once the other section of Magenta Line between Kalkaji Mandir and Janak Puri West becomes operational, travel time between Noida and Gurugram will come down to around 50 minutes, with another interchange at Hauz Khas Metro station.

Presently, the journey from HUDA City Centre in Gurugram to Botanical Garden in Noida takes about 90 minutes, with an interchange at the busy Rajiv Chowk Metro station.

The DMRC official said that Noida, for the first time, will directly be connected with the

domestic terminals of Indira Gandhi International Airport, and the journey from Botanical Garden station to the airport will take about 40 minutes.

Meanwhile, travel time between Noida Sector-18 station and NHPC Faridabad, which takes around 58 minutes, will come down to 36 minutes – if one changes at Kalkaji Mandir from Magenta to Violet Line.

The official added that the new station building has been connected with the help of a slab about 100 meters long.

“There is platform to platform and concourse to concourse connectivity. Therefore, there is both paid area and unpaid area connectivity,” the official highlighted.

The Magenta Line, between Botanical Garden and Janak Puri West, will have will have driverless trains PIC/MPOST

NEW DELHI: The National Green Tribunal on Mon-day directed the Delhi gov-ernment to consider shutting schools whenever air quality touches emergency levels to save the children from inhal-ing pollutants.

A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar asked the Aam Aadmi Party-led Delhi government to look into this aspect and incor-porate it in its action plan to deal with the problem of air pollution.

“Why don’t you close schools whenever the particu-late matter levels are found to be beyond 900 microgram per cubic metre? Ask the schools to run on Saturday and Sunday if required,” the bench observed.

Advocate Tarunvir Singh Khehar, appearing for the Delhi government, said that this was difficult to implement because the children will have to suffer academically.

He said that air quality is bad in winter season for three months and if schools are closed during this period it would be difficult to complete their syllabus and examinations will have to be postponed.

The bench, however, expressed dissatisfaction and said, “You don’t do your duty and now you are giving rea-sons. You are spoiling the lives of children. Infants are tak-ing antibiotics in Delhi. Why should they suffer?

“In the last 12 years, the Delhi government has not taken a single step to bring down the ambient air quality within permissible limits. If the lungs of children are affected today, imagine the disease they will have after 20 years,” it said while directing it to consider the suggestion.

The NGT also rapped the AAP government for not installing air purifier in govern-ment schools as per its earlier direction.

During the proceedings, the Delhi government submitted its action plan for the period when air quality touches emer-gency levels which it divided in three categories dealing with different levels of pollution.

The NGT said that it would pass detailed order on ways to handle air pollution after perusing the action plans sub-mitted by the Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh governments.

The tribunal had on Decem-ber 6 slammed the AAP gov-ernment and the neighbouring states over their action plan on ways to deal with severe air pol-lution in the city and directed them to file a detailed docu-ment to tackle the problem.

It had observed that air pol-lution was never at “normal level” in the national Capital and directed the neighbouring states of Punjab, Haryana, UP and Rajasthan to file the action plan afresh.

‘Close schools if air quality hits

emergency mark’

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal on Monday directed the Principal Secretary (Urban Devel-opment) and commissioners of the three municipal commissioners to rework their action plan, keeping in mind 100 per cent management of day-to-day generation of solid waste – including biodegradable compo-nents, as well as construction and demolition (C&D) waste.

Baijal chaired a meeting at Raj Niwas to review the detailed action plan of agencies/stakeholders on measures to combat air pollution in Delhi.

Other attendees at the meeting included Delhi Environment minis-ter Imran Hussain, Chief Secretary, Environment Secretary, Transport Commissioner etc.

Baijal said the plan should cover a time-frame not exceeding 16 months and should indicate the exact requirement of funds. Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash was asked to coordinate and finalise the plan.

The LG also directed all three MCDs to ensure that no methane fires break out at the three landfill sites and to take help of experts of the Ministry of Science and Technology and IIT-Delhi.

He also asked them to procure adequate number of mechanical sweepers, litter pickers, water sprin-klers, within a stipulated time.

Delhi Environment Secretary apprised Baijal of the progress on the constructive plan and regula-tory plan, focusing on the Trans-port department, industries, diesel gensets, solid waste management, road dust and fugitive emissions to combat air pollution.

A detailed presentation was made by the Principal Secretary (Urban Development), and Transport Com-missioner in this regard.

Finally, Baijal stressed that agen-cies/stakeholders concerned must prepare intensive campaigns to spread awareness on issues, such as fire crackers, plantation, anti-pollut-ing vehicles, old vehicles, lane driving and active participation of eco-clubs.

NEW DELHI: The National Green Tri-bunal on Monday directed the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) to submit a complete action plan with regard to the drains in the second phase of the Yamuna clean-ing project and ensure that no effluent or waste enters the river.

A bench headed by NGT Chairper-son Justice Swatanter Kumar directed DJB to submit the plan with regard to the six drains to the principal commit-tee, formed by NGT, within two weeks.

The green panel directed the prin-cipal committee to hold a meeting to examine the action plan and submit a final plan to the tribunal within two months from Monday.

The six drains are – Kalkaji, Teh-khand, Maharani Bagh, Qudsia Bagh and Mori gate, Barapulla and Shah-dara drain.

The meeting scheduled to be held on

January 8, 2018 would be attended by senior officials of the National Mission for Clean Ganga, Delhi government, DJB and Delhi Development Authority.

It also directed the principal com-mittee, headed by secretary of Ministry of Water Resources, to submit a time-bound plan for laying of sewer networks and installation of sewage treatment plants in the national Capital.

The matter will now be heard on February 12. The tribunal had earlier noted that work on the Phase-I of the cleaning, christened as ‘Maily Se Nir-mal Yamuna’ Revitalisation Project, was already in progress and it would now monitor the work of the next stage.

The Phase-I of the clean Yamuna project aims to lower the pollution levels in the Najafgarh and Delhi Gate drains, while Phase-II deals with Shahdara, Barapullah and other drains. AGENCIES

LG tells agencies to rework detailed action plan to combat air pollution

Yamuna: NGT tells DJB to submit plan on drains in 14 days

LG Anil Baijal (right) at the review meeting on Monday PIC/MPOST

DCW brings unscrupulous

contractor, engg to bookOUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Attempts by the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) to bring unscrupulous elements to the book received a fillip, after the Delhi Trans-port department directed the Delhi Transport Infrastruc-ture Development Corpora-tion (DTIDC) to blacklist a contractor managing toilets at Anand Vihar bus station and take action against a junior engineer in Anand Vihar for extorting people.

DCW chairperson Swati Maliwal had recently visited toilets at Anand Vihar bus sta-tion at night and discovered an extortion racket.

It was found that the con-tractor running the toilet was charging huge sums of money from users running toilets. On one occasion, the fee for using the toilets was as high as Rs 50.

Moreover, a caretaker was found lying near the ladies toi-let in an inebriated state, while two other caretakers were found sleeping next to the ladies toilet. The toilets were also found to be filthy.

Maliwal then issued a notice to DTIDC, seeking a report on the action taken against the concerned persons. DTIDC transferred the same to the Transport department.

Special Commissioner (Transport) expressed shock at DCW’s findings and directed DTIDC to issue a show-cause notice to the sanitation con-tractor and blacklisting him.

RAHUL SINGH

GREATER NOIDA: In a bid to expedite construction of the much awaited international air-port at Jewar in Greater Noida, the Yamuna Expressway Indus-trial Development Authority (YEIDA) on Monday held a meeting with six companies who came forward for the financial bid of the Techno-Economic Feasibility report (TEFR), officials of the Author-ity said.

According to YEIDA

officials, the six companies include Engineers India Ltd, KPMG Advisory Services Pvt Ltd, Jones Lang LaSalle Prop-erty Consultancy, Pricewater-houseCoopers Pvt Ltd, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India Ltd and CBRE South Asia Pvt Ltd.

“Six companies have expressed their desire to pre-pare the TEFR for Jewar air-port. We are going to check the eligibility.

“A technical presentation will be given by the eligible companies on December 27,

following which the Financial Bid will be open on Decem-ber 29” said Shailendra Bhatia, officer on special duty (OSD), YEIDA.

The OSD further said that the process for completing pro-ceedings under Section 11 (for-merly Section 4) of the Land Acquisition Act has been com-pleted and a report of the same has been sent to the district administration.

“The farmers will be paid compensation as per the Act and will also be rehabilitated

as per the norms,” Bhatia said.For the first phase of the

3,000-hectare four-phase proj-ect, YEIDA has to acquire 1,387 hectare of land across eight villages.

The meeting was chaired by the OSD and attended by Gen-eral Manager (Planning), Gen-eral Manager (Project), General Manager (Finance), General Manager (Engineering).

Key infrastructure devel-opment group from Airports Authority of India participated in the bid committee meeting.

JEWAR AIRPORT: Six firms meet YEIDA to make financial bid for feasibility report

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Delhi Health minister Satyendar Jain on Monday conducted a surprise inspection at Sushrut Trauma Hospital here, and checked the availability of medicines, equipment and performance of doctors.

According to sources, the Health minister had received several complaints against the hospital, based on which he conducted the visit.

In his half-hour long inspection, Jain talked to

patients as well as doctors.The minister inquired the

patients about their levels of satisfaction with treatment at the hospital.

The minister further directed the hospital authori-ties to keep stock of all medi-cines up to date and run the emergency section with more attention.

In 2012, five patients lost their lives at the hospital reportedly due to a shortage of oxygen supply.

Following the incident, the Delhi Medical Council (DMC)

had ruled administrative fail-ure and asked the Delhi gov-ernment to fix accountability at the earliest for the death of the patients.

In its earlier decision, the DMC had said that there was no medical negligence on the part of doctors.

The Council had claimed that lack of oxygen supply caused the deaths, and asked the Delhi government to fix accountability and initiate cor-rective measures to prevent such incidents from occurring in the future.

Jain inspects Sushrut Trauma Centre

OUR CORRESPONDENT

GURUGRAM: Already under-going a crisis of credibility in light of recent occurrences of medical negligence, findings of a RTI query has further dented the image of most of the pri-vate medical institutions in the National Capital Region.

The RTI plea, filed by Guru-gram-based activist Mohit Khatana, revealed that over 80

small and big private hospitals avoided paying commercial tax and dues of more than Rs one crore are pending on them.

After action was initiated by Haryana government against Gurugram Fortis Hospital, people who have been victims of negligence and malpractice at the hands of other private hospitals in the city now want action against the management of such hospitals.

The hospital was alleged of medical negligence and of overcharging the parents of seven-year-old Adya Singh, who died last month after being admitted for dengue.

In addition to Fortis, there have been numerous private hospitals where shocking inci-dents of negligence and apathy recently took place.

On November 22, 12-year-old Prateek – who was admit-

ted to Park Hospital on account of a stomach infec-tion– died under mysterious circumstances.

The boy’s family alleged that he died due to negligence on the part of the doctors. Cur-rently, the Chief Medical Offi-cer is investigating the matter.

Another horrific incident was reported at Shiva Hospi-tal, where two staff members molested a minor girl who was

admitted to the ICU of the hospital.

With the culprits having been arrested, the family is now holding protests demanding closure of the hospital.

“Private hospitals must realise that their rogue atti-tude will not be tolerated. If there are any instances of lack of responsibility, the govern-ment will take action,” said Anil Vij, Haryana Health minister.

Negligence notwithstanding, many Ggn pvt hospitals did not pay commercial tax

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: A man was injured after the BMW car he was driving crashed into the iron grill of a road divider in West Delhi area early Monday morning. Police said they have registered a case in this regard.

According to police, the incident came to light on Mon-day after they received a PCR call around 3.00 am at Rajouri Garden police station.

A police team reached the spot of the accident on Ring Road near ESI Hospital and found that the car was mangled after crashing into an iron grill installed at a road divider.

DCP (West) Vijay Kumar said the lone victim was identi-fied as Rishi, a resident of West Punjabi Bagh

Driver rams car into road divider

in west DelhiOUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Monday hit back at the Delhi unit of Bharatiya Janata Party, after the Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta blamed the Delhi government for not conducting the primary recruitment test (PRT) prop-erly and called for cancellation of the entire examination.

Gupta had said that the Delhi Police Crime Branch had recommended cancellation of the entire PRT process for the post of primary teachers, on account of massive bungling.

This, the BJP leader said, “exposes inefficiency and cor-ruption of the DSSSB (Delhi Subordinate Service Selection Board).”

Earlier, Gupta had said that he will meet Lieutenant Gover-nor Anil Baijal over the issue.

Commenting on the issue, AAP MLA from Greater Kai-lash Saurabh Bharadwaj said, “Tell me, what was the BJP appointed LG doing,” adding that despite Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s request to halt the PRT, the LG has not cleared the file.

After the incident, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had sought Baijal’s nod on the Delhi government’s decision of can-cellation of DSSSB examina-tion, question papers of which were allegedly leaked.

“Almost 70,000 youth affected. We also need to put in place a system to stop such incidents in future,” the CM had said.

On this matter, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Siso-dia had said that it was a seri-ous case of corruption in the teacher’s recruitment process and there have been numer-ous complaints of exam papers being leaked.

There have also been com-plaints of question papers being set from a particular guidebook and servers not functioning properly at the time when doc-uments have to be uploaded, the Deputy Chief Minister had claimed.

Sisodia had said that all these issues were already being referred to the LG, even as Gupta met the LG and demanded a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the alleged DSSSB exami-nation paper leak case.

DSSSB question paper leak: BJP takes on govt, AAP hits back

The NGT’s direction to the Delhi government comes keeping in mind the health of school children

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The season for vector-borne diseases has come to an end, with a munic-ipal report on Monday saying that only 45 dengue cases were reported last week, taking the total number of people affected by the disease this year in the national Capital to 9,214.

The numbers of malaria and chikungunya cases recorded this year, till December 16, stood at 1,140 and 933 respec-tively, the report said.

The total number of peo-ple affected by dengue in Delhi this year, till December 9, was 9,169.

Of the 9,214 dengue cases this year, 4,704 patients were from Delhi, while 4,510 had come to the city from other states for treatment, the report said.

Cases of vector-borne dis-eases are usually reported between mid-July and Novem-ber-end but this period may stretch up to mid-December.

This year, however, the dis-ease had spread much earlier.

The mosquito-borne tropi-cal disease had claimed its first victim in the city this year on August 1, when a 12-year-old boy died of dengue shock syn-dromes at the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital (SGRH).

Three more deaths were reported in October by the South Delhi Municipal Cor-poration (SDMC), which tabu-lates the data for the entire city.

The civic body, however, is yet to acknowledge two fatali-

ties due to dengue at the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan (LNJP) Hospital and the death of a boy at the Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital due to the vector-borne disease.

According to the RML Hospital authorities, Shaurya Pratap Singh (7) had died on November 22, two days after he was admitted to the hospi-tal, the latest dengue death to be reported from the national Capital.

The number of dengue cases recorded in the city stood at 2,022 in October, while 816 cases were reported last month.

Fifty-nine cases were reported this month, till December 16, the report said.

Dengue and chikungunya are caused by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which breeds in clean water. The female anoph-eles mosquito, which causes malaria, breeds in both clean and muddy water.

According to the SDMC, mosquito breeding was reported from 2,11,435 Delhi households till December 16.

Dengue season ends with over 9,000 cases recorded in Capital

Of the 9,214 dengue cases, 4,704 patients were from Delhi, while 4,510 had come to the city from other states for treatment, an SDMC report said

NEW DELHI: Vintage car afi-cionados in the national capi-tal have a reason to rejoice. In a breather to several classic car lovers, the National Green Tri-bunal on Monday allowed the vintage cars to ply on roads “for exhibitions, rallies and main-tenance” and exempted them from the ambit of the ban on 15-year-old vehicles.

At the same time, it observed that the applicant association of vintage car owners should contribute to environment conservation by planting trees and providing dust bins.

A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar said that vintage cars which satisfy prescribed norms under the Motor Vehicles Act would be allowed to run.

The tribunal in a Novem-ber 26, 2014 order had banned from Delhi roads cars which were over 15 years old, thus dis-qualifying vintage cars from participating in any rally.

While granting the relief to the vintage cars, the green panel referred to Rule 92 (2)(c) of the Central Motor Vehi-cles Rules, 1989 and Section 59 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, which grants exemption to “antique/vintage” vehicles.

“We direct that antique cars which satisfy prescribed norms under the Motor Vehicles Act would be allowed to ply on the road for exhibitions, rallies and maintenance and will not be allowed otherwise,” the bench said. AGENCIES

Vintage cars can ply on road

for rallies, exhibitions: NGT

mp city4MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 19 December, 2017

Moser Baer employees block road to press their demands

Fake notes having face value of Rs 5.50 lakh seized

In past three years, nearly 8,500 unidentified bodies found in Delhi

Killers of Ggn executive did shopping after murder

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: A team of Spe-cial Cell (Southern Range) has busted an international syndi-cate indulged in circulation of Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN) into various parts of India including Delhi and have recovered consignment of FICN having face value of Rs 5.50 lakh in the denomination of Rs 2000 notes. The police has arrested three persons in this regard.

FICN is being suspected to have been routed through Malda in West Bengal and being pumped in Delhi, UP, Bihar and West Bengal. The arrested men are identified as Zulfikar Alam a resident dis-trict Motihari (Bihar) Age-45 years, Deepak Kumar Mandal and Uttam Mandal, both resi-dents of Malda district in West Bengal .

Special Cell received infor-mation regarding attempts of reviving circulation of FICN by the members of an inter-national syndicate. Officers

were deputed to develop the information about members of syndicate. Secret sources were deployed to gather more information in this regard. Sur-veillance was mounted on the movements of members of this syndicate and requisite intelli-gence was collected.

“The systematic and pains-taking efforts of team resulted into revealing of information that FICN is being pumped in India from Bangladesh through porous border in Malda, West Bengal and also from Nepal. It was also revealed that FICN was being pumped by these

FICN racketeers in various parts of the country including Delhi” said DCP Special cell PS Kushwah.

First Zulfikaar was nabbed from Thomson road near New Delhi railway station on December 17 and later Deepak and Uttam Mandol were arrested on his instance. Deepak Kumar Mandal pro-cures FICN at a rate of Rs 300 per thousand from the border of Bangladesh and then fur-ther supplies it at the rate of Rs 450 per thousand Zulfikar was selling FICN at rate of 500 per thousand in Delhi.

ABHAY SINGH

NEW DELHI: In past three years, the national Capital have seen more than 8,000 uniden-tified dead bodies in the differ-ent areas. Police claimed that they did everything to iden-tify the bodies and also tried to search the family members of the deceased.

The police data accessed by Millennium Post stated that in last three years (2015 to 2017), 8,486 dead bodies were recov-ered from different parts of national Capital. The year 2015 witnessed 3,063 dead bodies whereas in the year 2016 more than three thousand dead bod-ies were recovered. The current year saw 2,415 dead bodies till November.

The dead bodies were recovered from railway tracks, street, parks, and many other

places. The investigation has been a tough ask for the police. In some cases, the police team had to check CCTV footages of the spot where the body was found in real time to know from where the person came. ''In some cases more than two police personnel continuously checked the footage’s for sev-eral hours in real time if one takes break another came to the seat like that it happened,” said

a senior police official.In September a man com-

mitted suicide from a building in GTB Nagar area a suicide note was recovered from the possession. Handwriting and the grammar usage in the sui-cide note were checked. Police sources claimed that dialect used in the suicide note indi-cates that the man can be either from Uttar Pradesh or from Bihar.

The bodies which are been found in railway track police contact other states in order to check whether any person went missing from there.

In Zonal Integrated Police Network (zip net.in) police put the information on the dead bodies and also advertisement is also given in the newspaper to identify the bodies. After the effort police were able to iden-tify the dead bodies and con-tact their parents. If the bodies are not identified last rites been done by police and now NGOs are also coming for-ward for conducting the last rites. In some cases, police have the unidentified body through tattoo in the body and in some cases the type of clothes what the deceased is wearing help them in the identification of age and also some clues about the person.

PIYUSH OHRIE

GURUGRAM: Shocking details have emerged about the activities carried out by Sunil’s killers after murdering him brutally. After committing the crime, the dreaded culprits rather than finding a hideout went to one of the prominent retail chains in the city and did shopping of Rs 8,000 which they had stolen from the ATM card of the deceased. Making sure that they were not tracked, the criminals very shrewdly shifted their places and from Gurugram they moved to Delhi and Noida.

Meanwhile, the Gurugram police in their investigation have begun to issue notice to various banks and retail chain so that the movement of the

criminals can be tracked.According to sources, this

horrendous crime has been committed by organised group of criminals who had a planned modus operandi for commit-ting the crimes.

27-year-old Sunil who was to attend a family ceremony in Haridwar was left with no choice but to avail the services of a cab that is shuttling at the heart of city centre. The car which he took had two people. After a while, he becames sus-picious and texted the detail of the cab to his wife. An hour later he became untraceable. On Friday, his severed body was found in the jungles of Southwest Delhi and the rob-bers drew more than Rs 60,000 from his account. While the case has again raised the issues

about security of commoners in Delhi –NCR, this trend is not unfamiliar especially in Gurugram.

In May this year, a Delhi based executive was abducted on Sohna road and taken to Rajasthan where on the way he was forced to make various transactions using the ATMs. His abductors who were later held did it so that he can get some money as they had lost the amount in betting. Even after arrests, the brazenness of these crimes did not cease and in October this year, a businessman along with his friend were kidnapped from Manesar. According to police, gangs from Mewat, Alwar, and Delhi carry out such acts in Gurugram so that they can get enough money.

ZAFAR ABBAS

NEW DELHI: “I tried to save madam, when she started screaming, I looked back and saw two bike-borne men trying to snatch her purse. She held it tight but as I tried to intervene and get down, they took out a pistol and pointed at madam, she left the bag after that. They also threatened to shoot me if I resisted,” said Pappu, a bat-tery rickshaw driver in Jasola, Sarita Vihar.

Ritika, 40, a school teacher, was on Friday morning going to her school on battery rick-shaw when she experienced the nightmare. Two men on bikes intercepted her and tried to snatch her purse which she held tightly. She resisted and screamed for help. The battery rickshaw driver Pappu tried to intervene and save her from the

two men in helmets. Now, the two men took out a pistol and held it towards the lady. Ritika, again shouted for help though her grip loosened.

“As I tried to get down and challenge them, they pointed the pistol towards me. I could not get down else they would have either shot me or madam. They snatched her purse and

kept pointing the gun at me till they vanished on the bike,” recalled Pappu, whose brave efforts were just not enough to save the woman from snatch-ing. Later, Southeast Delhi Police registered a case under 392/34 of IPC in the incident.

The incident is of grave concern as the armed rob-bery happened in broad day-light. Snatching incidents are on the rise on stretch from Jasola Apollo Metro station to Jasola pocket 11 as the long road at night is poorly guarded by policemen. Several cases of snatching have been reported on the dark stretch as the criminals find easy prey and target passengers on the bat-tery rickshaw. Few days back, another girl became the vic-tim of snatchers as her mobile phone was snatched on the same stretch.

E-rickshaw driver looked on helplessly as armed men snatch woman’s purse

Pappu, a battery rickshaw driver, witnessed the incident

RAHUL SINGH

GREATER NOIDA: Over a thousand of enraged Moser Baer employees from the company’s plant located in Sura-jpur area of Greater Noida staged a massive protest by blocking Greater Noida-Surajpur main road on Mon-day morning.

The workers sat on road and blocked the traffic for nearly an hour to press their demands, creating a mas-sive traffic snarl. The employees alleged that the company management has suspended a large number of workers without giving any prior notice and even their dues have not been cleared.

“We have not been paid any wages for the last six months. Two months back, the company suspended hun-dreds of employees, citing financial crisis. We have been raising our voice since then but our words fell on deaf years. This time, we have decided to intensify the protest as the company’s decision has brought us on roads and we are struggling hard to earn for our

survival,” said one of the protestors.The employees have been staging

protests outside gates of Moser Baer Company for past few months and alleged that there has been no attempt to find a solution to their grievance.

“We are running from pillar to post to make our words heard. The senior officials from company’s management

are just giving us dates instead of find-ing a solution for the problem. Some of our colleague workers have died of heart attack following the suspension while some are forced to do odd jobs to earn for their two-time meal,” said another protestor.

“We have always maintained very cordial and familiar relations with our

associates. We are currently in discus-sion with them and looking at their concerns. We hope to find the solutions to their problem at the earliest,” compa-ny’s spokesperson said in a statement.

A large number of police person-nel immediately reached the spot and managed to clear the road blockage. However, the agitation of the employ-ees continued for around an hour cre-ating a huge traffic snarl from Pari Chowk to Surajpur.

The employees allege that the company management has suspended a large number of workers without giving any prior notice and even their dues have not been cleared

NEW DELHI: An unidenti-fied body of a man was found in the drain in Welcome area of North East Delhi area. Police claimed that they have registered a murder case and started their investigation.

According to police, the

incident was reported on Monday morning after they received a PCR call regard-ing the body. The police team reached the spot and found that the body was inside a plastic bag and was thrown in the drain.

Man’s body found in drain

ABHAY SINGH

NEW DELHI: Defunct high mast lights, lack of security guards and broken boundary walls are the features of the park in North West Delhi's Shalimar Bagh area where the 16-year-old girl was raped by three persons. Police claimed that they have questioned sev-eral youth in this regard but no arrests have been made.

The park, which is just close to the police station, is widely spread connecting the slums of Haiderpur area. “The park in the night becomes the hub of thieves as many of the lights which were put there was stolen,” the residents of slum stated.

One of the residents, Suraj stated that many people play gambling over here and it becomes unsafe, so instead of going to park in the night, they opt to stay indoor.

The women residents stated that they have heard that the girl was sexually

assaulted in the park. ''I was standing at my house when I heard people talking about the incident,” said a woman.

In the park, one can eas-ily see the broken streetlights many of children were playing cricket. Somewhere enjoying the time in swings which were inside the park.

The other side of the park was totally forested and have

less light or no light. People who were working

there stated that they came to know about the incident in the morning as the there shift was over before the incident. There were two guards at the spot who stated that they close the park on 8 PM every day and in the morning they open it at 5 am.

“A body was found here few years back, after which such things never happened. It is the first time, we have wit-nessed such type of incident. They themselves face a lot of problems due to unscrupu-lous elements in the park,” said the guard.

Deputy Commissioner of Police, (north-west) Aslam Khan stated that no arrest has been made in the case.

Police are now trying to make sketches of the accused involved in the rape. She claimed that the police have zeroed down few suspects. “For the case, we have formed 15 teams,” said the DCP.

Forested park with defunct lights make it safe haven for criminals

The park where the 16-year-old girl was gangraped

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Involved in five cases of murder and attempt to murder, a 46-year-old gang-ster was nabbed by Outer Delhi Police. The accused identified as Shiv Taj, a native of Sonepat, Haryana, was arrested with one loaded Mouser with 08 live car-tridges of 7.62 bore and car.

Additional Deputy Com-missioner of Police (Outer) Amit Sharma stated that in the night of December 15, a PCR Call regarding the acci-dent on flyover next to Bhairon Enclave Gole Chakkar towards Janakpuri was received at Pas-chim Vihar police station and it was learned that a car had banged at the back of another car. “The PCR van reached the spot and from Paschim Vihar, Emergency Officer and ERV staff also reached the spot. In the meantime, the driver of the offending vehicle started run-ning and finally jumped down from the flyover but with the help of PCR team the accused was apprehended,” said the DCP.

PIYUSH OHRIE

GURUGRAM: The last rank-ings obtained by Gurugram in the cleanliness survey organ-ised by Union government’s urban development ministry among various cities in the country was something the officials were not very proud of. Out of 434 participating cities, Gurugram had got the 112th rank. Though, the pub-lic officials can take consola-tion from the fact that the city has performed better than cer-tain areas of NCR, the rank-ing is still way below the mark.

With the cleanliness survey now expected to kick off in the first week of 2018, chal-lenges that were there earlier still remains. Amid all this, the sceptical residents have started questioning that will city’s ranking improve or slide further. On their part, the offi-cials from Municipal Corpo-ration of Gurugram (MCG) says that proactive steps have been taken to improve the city’s cleanliness.

The Gurugram civic body in cooperation with a Chinese company has begun the process of effective recycling of waste

which in turn will also reduce the mounting garbage at Band-hwari site. Initial challenges in the project have resulted in var-ious roadblocks in this initia-tive. While MCG has sounded optimistic that steps are being taken to ensure citizens effec-tively segregate waste generated in their homes not many seems to be impressed by the claims of the MCG.

Most of the environmen-tal activists and members of resident welfare associations have claimed of the slow prog-ress by MCG towards improv-ing the situation at Bandhwari

landfill site.Further there have also

been complaints that how vacant areas around the colo-nies are being used by the MCG officials to dump the garbage. There have also been protests in the past by the residents of Sec-tor 17 and Sector 56 over the large disposal of garbage in the vacant areas. There have been various complaints also sent to the Prime Minister Office (PMO) who highlighted their grievances of how a vacant site near a school was converted into a waste dump by the MCG officials.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: With the arrest of two persons, Delhi Police have solved a robbery of a Naval officer’s son at Amar Colony. On December 17 at around 1:30 am, complainant, aged 19 years, who is a Naval Commander’s son, along with his cousin sister was returning to their residence at East of Kai-lash, after attending a function held at Varuna Naval officers mess. The father of complain-ant is presently posted at Vizag while the complainant and his cousin sister are pursuing undergraduate professional course in Delhi.

“They left their cab near Sapna park at East of Kailash and took a short cut through the park. Inside the park, two men stopped and pushed them and robbed them of their

mobile phones– one from the complainant and one from his cousin sister– and fled. The complainant came out of the park shaken and saw a patrol-ling Emergency Response Vehicle (ERV) of Amar Colony police station nearby,” police said.

“Upon being informed, the staff of ERV comprising ASI Ashok and Head Constable Mahender immediately rushed to Sapna park and caught one of the fleeing robbers namely Mohan on the spot by chasing him and recovered one robbed mobile phone from him. The second one Sumit was arrested from his house,” police said.

“Accused Mohan disclosed that he works as cook in a bun-galow at Defence Colony. He also works as a cook in parties and functions,” said Chinmoy Biswal, DCP South East.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

GURUGRAM: The Gurugram police on Sunday busted a sex racket that was functional in a guest house in Sector -39. Six-teen people including 12 girls and four boys were arrested by the law enforcement officials. This is not the first time when such acts have been exposed in the city.

On December 10, the dis-trict police uncovered an ille-gal sex racket that was being run in a spa of a renowned mall in Sector-53. The law enforce-ment officials have arrested six women, including two foreign-ers, and a man for operating a sex racket from a spa here.

After a tip off, the police on Saturday night raided the Auwa Thai spa centre in the Central Plaza Mall on Golf Course Road in Sector 53. "The accused, including a woman from Thailand and another from Kenya, were booked under the Immoral Traffic Pre-vention Act and sent to judi-cial custody for 14 days," said Inspector Ravinder Singh, spokesperson of Gurugram police. On June 29, the police busted sex rackets in shopping malls and arrested 10 women aged between 20 and 25 and a man. In January, 14 women and four men were arrested on sim-ilar charges from DLF 2 area and another shopping mall.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

GURUGRAM: If there was a feeling that after abduction and murder of Sunil Bhatt, situation will change, there was another bad news in store. Just two days after the horrific chain of event that started from Gurugram, a resident of Bengal was held hostage in a shared auto beaten and was looted Rs 1.75 lakh which he was carrying. The brazenness of the criminals can be gauged from the fact that the crime was carried out not only in the posh area of the city but also in the morning. The com-plaint has been filed and the district police have begun their investigations.

The murder of 27-year-old MNC executive Sunil Kumar Bhatt has again highlighted the dangers of unregistered cabs in the city. Reportedly, the deceased took one of the cabs from Gurugram bus stand as he was unable to get a bus to Haridwar. The investigations later revealed that the regis-tration number HR29SB5524 was a fake number. While crimes range from robberies to attempt of rape and now a gruesome murder, their popu-larity remains due to shortage of public transportation system in the city.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

GURUGRAM: Once bitten, twice shy was not the case in one of the houses at Bad-shahpur area in Gurugram. Released after serving term for a theft, the servant identi-fied as Pawan again re-entered the house where he worked in some time back. According to the family members their former domestic help entered their house at around 11:00 pm Saturday night when the family members were about to retire for the day. Pawan was however caught but managed to escape. Shockingly though, before escaping he fired two rounds from the country made pistil he was carrying.

In most of the residen-tial colonies like Palam Vihar, Ardee city, Sushant Lok and Sector -56, residents have complained that burglars not only are targeting but are even successful in their rob-bery attempts in the daylight. The dangers of daylight rob-bery was witnessed earlier this year when a group of robbers entered a house in Sector-28 and beat up the elderly woman who was alone in the city.

“Robberies have been a major law and order problem in the city. However the biggest concern is most of these crimi-nals are targeting houses even in the day light and are also suc-cessful in their attempt. Ironi-cally, not only are these people targeting wealthy houses but even the middle classes are not secure,” said Ranjit Dhawan, a city resident. “As the pop-ulation of the city increases, crimes like robbery also will be reported on a large scale. We have taken cognisance of it and are taking actions. In most cases we have been able to attain success,” said a senior Gurugram police official.

MCG hopes to improve swachhta ranking in 2018

Two held for robbing naval officer’s son

and daughter

Another person abducted in

Ggn, robbed of Rs 1.75 lakh

Gurugram police busts sex racket

Gangster involved in five criminal cases nabbed

Released after serving term,

help again tries to rob house

5mp nationMILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 19 December, 2017

SC ON SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: A bill seeking to extend the facility of ‘proxy voting’ to overseas Indians, on the lines of service voters, was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday. The draft law also seeks to make the election law gender neutral by replacing the term ‘wife’ with ‘spouse’ to ben-efit service voters.

According to the provisions of ‘Representation of the People Act (Amendment) Bill, 2017’ introduced by Union Law Min-ister Ravi Shankar Prasad in the Lower House, overseas Indi-ans, who are entitled to vote in India, can now appoint a proxy voter to cast their votes.

As of now, overseas Indians were free to cast their votes in the constituencies where they were registered. But, according to the draft bill, they would now be allowed to use the option of proxy, which till now was only available to service personnel.

An expert committee of the Election Commission working

on the issue had in 2015 for-warded the legal framework to the law ministry to amend the electoral laws to allow overseas Indians use proxy voting.

Unofficial data with EC shows that only 10,000 to 12,000 overseas voters have exercised their franchise because they do not want to spend foreign currency to come to India and vote.

The bill said the necessary provision of coming to India to cast ballot caused “hardship”

to overseas electors. Another provision in the amendment bill relates to spouses of ser-vice voters. As of now, an army-man’s wife is entitled to be enrolled as a service voter, but a woman army officer’s hus-band is not, according to the provisions in the electoral law.

But the draft bill proposes to replace the term ‘wife’ with ‘spouse’, thus making the provi-sion gender neutral.

Members of the armed forces, central armed police

forces, personnel of state police forces posted outside their state and employees of the Centre posted outside India are eligible to be enrolled as service voters.

The wife of a service voter, if she is residing with him, is also entitled to be enrolled as a ser-vice voter in the constituency specified by that person.

But children and other rel-atives residing with a service voter cannot be enrolled as service voters, according to EC website.

Bill to extend proxy voting to overseas Indians in Lok Sabha

Over 12,000 cases of stubble burning

in Haryana in 2017: Govt

NEW DELHI: Over 12,000 cases of stubble burning have been reported during the Kharif season in Haryana in 2017 while satellite data has revealed that more than 42,000 such cases were reported in Punjab in the same period, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Monday.

The written reply by min-ister of state for environment Mahesh Sharma in the Rajya Sabha came at a time when the entire northern region of India is facing a severe crisis of air pollution.

“As informed by Cen-tral Pollution Control Board (CPCB), total number of stub-ble burning cases reported in Haryana during Kharif season in 2017 is 12,606 out of which 236 FIR have been lodged and Rs 39,85,000 collected as fines for 1,493 cases.

“As per satellite data received from Punjab Remote Sensing Centre, total num-ber of stubble burning cases reported during Kharif season in Punjab in 2017 is 42,337,” he said. He said steps taken by the central government, the CPCB and the state boards include banning of stubble burning, mass awareness programmes, constitution of a task force to suggest remedial measures for crop residue burning, including options such as use of innovative farm implements like ‘Happy Seeder’ among others. MPOST

Parrikar announces 2018 as ‘anti-drug’ & ‘anti-accident’ year

OUR CORRESPONDENT

PANAJI: Admitting that the cases of sale of narotic drugs in the state have more than dou-bled in Goa this year, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar announced on Monday that 2018 would be observed as an “anti-drug” and “anti-accident” year.

Parrikar, while addressing the state Legislative Assem-bly here, also announced that a detention centre would be launched in Mapusa town from next month to keep those for-eign nationals, who are found overstaying in the state.

He made the announce-ments while responding to a calling attention motion moved by Congress legislator Prata-psinh Rane during the ongo-ing state legislative assembly session, in which he expressed apprehensions about the sale of drugs in the coastal state.

“Let us consider 2018 as anti-drug and anti-accident mission for Goa. We will make sure that we will deport those foreigners, who are overstaying in the state,” he said.

Responding to the sugges-tions made by the Congress legislators, Parrikar said the total number of cases of sale of narcotics booked this year has increased by 2.6 times as com-pared to the annual average.

To avoid the number of foreigners who overstay, the chief minister said from Janu-ary onwards, a detention centre would be started in Mapusa.

“The construction of the centre is completed. We will put the foreigners involved in such activity in the detenion centre and later deported,” he added.

He claimed that many for-eigners come down to Goa and burn their travel documents.

“We cannot keep them in jail and hence will keep them in a detention centre,” he said.

The chief minister also said that the state government will take on board experts with the knowledge about drugs, so that the state police know about the new kind of narcotics intro-duced in the market, which needs to be tracked.

He also said that the state government is planning to launch an online portal, where people can file complaints about drugs and their name would be kept confidential.

“The state government is

also trying to set up or make active de-addiction centres,” he said. Parrikar said the number of officers in Anti Narcotic Cell (ANC) of Goa Police should be increased as currently the num-ber os small.

“We need to strengthen the ANC. The current strength of the cell is 30, which needs to be increased to 100,” he said.

Responding to the state-ments made by the Congress legislators during the discus-sion on Monday, Parrikar said, “while I appreciate why mem-bers have said that the impact of it is not as deep as you think.”

The chief minister said that supply of drugs in the educa-tional institutes is not a new thing. “The supply of drugs is not new to institutions, where there is high student per-centage. I have seen drugs in 1973 in my college days at IIT,” he said.

Govt spent Rs 970 crore on ads in 2016-17 Sporting potential of tribals extraordinary: PatnaikOUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The govern-ment has spent around Rs 970 crore on advertising through the Department of Audio Visual Publicity (DAVP) in 2016-17, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Monday.

An amount of about Rs 468 crore was spent for publicity through print media (news-papers and periodicals), while around Rs 315 crore for adver-tisements via television chan-nels and Rs 182 crore through radio, Union Minister of State

for Information and Broad-casting Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore said in a written reply.

Besides, over Rs 5 crore was also spent for multi-media cre-ative works, he said.

In 2015-16, the expendi-ture on advertisements was over Rs 906 crore, including Rs 508 crore for print, Rs 281 crore for TV channels and Rs 111 crore for radio, the min-ister said.

The expenditure for adver-tisements on social media in the 2015-16 fiscal through the DAVP was over Rs 21 lakh. For 2016 -17, no expenditure was incurred on advertisements through social media.

In 2015-16, over Rs 4 crore was spent for multi-media cre-ative works.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

BHUBANESWAR: Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Pat-naik today hailed the “extraor-dinary” sporting potential of tribal youths and hoped they would bring laurels to the state and the country.

Inaugurating the first Tribal Sports Meet in the state, Pat-naik said the objective of the event is to bring out the hidden potential among tribal youths.

“Their (tribal youths) sports potentials are extraor-dinary. They have been per-

forming well in the sports like hockey, archery and athletics,” the chief minister said, inaugu-rating the meet through video conferencing.

He pointed out that many from Odisha have become part of the Indian Hockey team and even become captains. “I hope that our tribals will bring pride for the state as well as for the country,” Patnaik, who also unveiled the logo for the event, said.

There are 62 tribes in Odi-sha and all of them inherit sports qualities through their

traditional culture, said SC/ST Development Minister Ramesh Chandra Majhi.

The sports meet is being

organised across 119 tribal-dominated blocks along with the 30 districts of the state. The upper age limit for participants in the event is 35 years, he said.

Besides individual games like archery and athletics, teams can also participate in football, hockey, kabaddi, khoko and volley ball.

The prize money of Rs 3,61,200 will be distributed among the winners in each dis-trict, he said, adding, a total of Rs 1,08,36,000 cash prize will be given to winners in all the 30 districts.

HC dismisses plea for martyr

status to Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev &

RajguruNEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Monday dismissed a petition seeking that freedom fighters Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru be given the status of martyr, saying it cannot issue such a direction.

“The plea is dismissed. We cannot issue such a direction,” a bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar said.

The petitioner failed to reply to the court’s query on whether there is any law under which the court has the power to issue any such direction.

The plea filed by advocate Birender Sangwan sought grant of ‘shaheed’ (martyr) status to Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru who were hanged by the Britishers in 1931.

“The grant of shaheed sta-tus is very much essential for a martyr and it is the legal right of a martyr to have such a status declared to them, thus it is an expression of gratitude towards them,” the plea said.

Bhagat Singh and Rajguru had in 1928 fatally shot a Brit-ish junior police officer, John Saunders at Lahore in present day Pakistan, mistaking him for a British police superintendent.

A special tribunal was con-stituted by Lord Irwin, the then Viceroy of India, which had sentenced the duo along with Sukhdev to death by hanging at Lahore Jail. MPOST

No funds shortage but lack of willingness on part of statesOUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Terming solid waste management as a “huge problem” for the country, the Supreme Court has said that there was no shortage of funds under ‘Swachh Bharat Mission’ but there was “lack” of willing-ness on the part of states to take positive steps in this regard .

The apex court noted the submissions of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF) that there was a total outlay of Rs 36,829 crore under the mission out of which Rs 7,424 crore was made available by the Centre.

A bench of justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta said that the issue pertaining to solid waste management was needed to be looked into with all due concern and seriousness by the state governments, par-ticularly in context of ‘Swachh Bharat Mission’.

The ‘Swachh Bharat Mis-sion’ is a cleanliness campaign launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“It is stated in the affida-vit of the MoEF that the Gov-ernment of India has launched a Swachh Bharat Mission for which there is a total outlay of Rs 36,829 crore out of which Rs 7,424 crores have been made available by the central govern-ment,” the bench said.

“Therefore, it is quite clear that there is absolutely no

shortage of funds, but there is only absence of any initiative or lack of any willingness to take any positive steps for solid waste management,” it said.

Additional Solicitor Gen-eral A N S Nadkarni, appearing for MoEF, referred to the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016 and said that one of its provision required setting up of a state level advisory body (SLAB).

When the court was informed that some of the states have not had even one meeting of the SLAB, the bench said, “It is quite clear from the above that there is no seri-ousness attached to the man-agement of solid waste to the extent that even the SLAB has not been set up and in some cases where the body has been set up it has not even met once in six months”.

The court asked the MoEF to issue a communication to all the states requiring infor-mation from them about set-ting up of the SLAB, names of

its members, number of meet-ings held, the decisions taken and steps taken for implemen-tation of the 2016 rules.

The bench made it clear to the state governments that in case they do not provide full, correct and accurate details to the MOEF, they would likely to be burdened with “very heavy costs”.

“The state governments should keep in mind the fact that availability of funds is not a problem under Swachh Bharat Mission and also keep in mind that solid waste management is a huge problem being faced by the country at this stage,” it said in a recent order and fixed the matter for hearing on Feb-ruary 6 next year.

The court had earlier expressed grave concern over deaths due to vector-borne diseases like dengue and chikungunya and said that lack of waste management was the cause for several lives being lost across the country from such diseases.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Both the Houses of Parliament were adjourned for the day on Monday following uproarious scenes by opposition Congress members, who demanded an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his remarks against former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Earlier, the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha witnessed brief adjournments on the same issue. The issue was raised for the second day in the Rajya Sabha. The agitating members in both the Houses trooped into the well of the houses forc-ing their adjournment.

In the Lok Sabha, the

issue was raised by Mallikar-jun Kharge during the Ques-tion Hour. In the Rajya Sabha, Anand Sharma of the Congress raised it as soon as the House met for the day.

Members from the Con-gress and the Left, who also souwght to raise certain issues, trooped into the Well dur-ing the Zero Hour. Amid the uproar by the Opposition, five Bills were introduced after the papers listed for the day were laid. Various standing commit-tee reports and statements by ministers were also tabled.

Finance minister Arun Jait-ley tabled the Supplementary Demand for Grants—Second Batch for 2017-18.

Congress members raised

slogans against the Prime Min-ister and demanded an apology for his remarks against Singh. Left mwembers were trying to

raise certain issues which could not be heard in the din. As the protests continued, speaker Sumitra Mahajan adjourned

the proceedings for the day.The five Bills which were

introduced are the National Council for Teacher Educa-tion (Amendment) Bill, the Payment of Gratuity (Amend-ment) Bill, the Dentists (Amendment) Bill, the Indian Forest (Amendment) Bill and the Representation of the Peo-ple (Amendment) Bill.

Earlier, soon after the House assembled for the day, the pro-ceedings were adjourned till noon following noisy scenes amid sloganeering from both sides of the House. While BJP members raised slogans hail-ing the Prime Minister and the party, the opposition raked up the remarks made by him against Singh.

Some other opposition members raised the issue of floods in Odisha. As soon as the House met, Mahajan referred to the deat`h of people in a boat accident in Andhra Pradesh, the devastation caused by the Ockhi cyclone, earthquakes in Mexico and Iran-Iraq border and terror attacks in various parts of the world, including the US, the UK, Afghanistan and Egypt. The Speaker also congratulated Indian men’s and women’s hockey teams, boxer Mary Kom and weightlifter Mirabai Chanu for their “out-standing achievements” as well as wished them success. When the House met for the day, it stood in silence in the memory of the departed souls.

Day2: House adjourned after uproarPM’S ALLEGATION AGAINST FORMER PM MANMOHAN SINGH

DHIRENDRA KUMAR

NEW DELHI: Cracking a whip on private hospitals and syringe manufacturers, the government has decided to cap the prices of consumables items --- syringes. The move has been initiated after it came to light that Fortis Hospital charged over 1,700 per cent more for consumables that were used on a dengue patient.

According to sources, the National Pharmaceuti-cal Pricing Authority (NPPA) has asked all stakeholders, including syringe manufac-turers, importers, to provide the ‘actual cost’ of syringes and profit margin on a single unit.“The decision in this regard was taken during a recently held meeting with all stake-holders, including NPPA offi-cials. The meeting was called to discuss pricing formula of syringes after NPPA found that the private hospitals are ram-pantly violating drug pricing laws and inflating treatment bills,” the sources said.

“At the meeting, syringe manufacturers ‘supported’ NPPA’s move of fixing the syringe prices, while import-

ers opposed the initiative. Man-ufacturers were in the view that government must ‘consider a workable margin’ prior to final-ising the price of consumable items,” the sources said, add-ing final decision in this regard would be taken after a few more meetings.

“The government is com-mitted to provide affordable healthcare to all and such prac-tices need to be stopped at ear-liest. As NPPA has already fixed the prices of coronary stents, cost of syringes would also be controlled to avoid For-tis like incidents in future,” a senior official in the gov-ernment said. Notably, the National Pharmaceutical Pric-

ing Authority (NPPA) in its report stated that the hospi-tal charged Rs 200 for some brands of disposable syringes, which were procured by the hospital for just Rs 15.29, which is a blatant violation of the pric-ing law. The report had further highlighted that the family was charged around Rs 350 for bed bath towels and wipes, which was procured at Rs 33.60 by the hospital. The hospital had made a 942 per cent mark-up on consumable items, the NPPA report had stated.

As per the DPCO 2013, the retailers are ‘permitted’ to 16 per cent mark-ups for scheduled drugs, which was violated by the hospital.

Govt moves to fix prices of syringes

Speaker Sumitra Mahajan conducts the proceedings of the Lok Sabha during the Parliament's winter session in New Delhi on Monday PIC/PTI

Dengue epidemiology study initiated: Minister

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: A multi-cen-tric cross-sectional study span-ning five different geographical regions, has been initiated by the Centre to estimate the seroprev-alence of dengue virus infection in the country, the government said.

Union Health Minister J P Nadda in a reply to the Lok Sabha has said that the study is being coordinated by the Indian Council of Medical Research-National Institute of Epidemi-ology, Chennai.

“A multi-centric study has been initiated to estimate the seroprevalence of dengue virus infection in India with the main objective to establish age-spe-cific seroprevalence of dengue

virus infection in different geo-graphic regions of states.

“This in turn, will enable the government to take a pol-icy decision on introduction of dengue vaccine into the coun-try,” Nadda said. Three states would be selected in each region by simple random sampling, in three different age groups: 5-8 years, 9- 17 years, and 18-45 years. “A total of 10,000 sam-ples will be collected from all age groups and will be tested for dengue IgG antibodies,” Nadda said. The five partici-pating regions are: Maharash-tra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan; Punjab, Delhi, Uttar Pradsh; Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Karna-taka; Bihar, West Bengal, Odi-sha; and, Assam, Meghalaya and Dibrugarh.

‘No adverse impact of GST on

foreign tourist arrivals’

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: There was no adverse impact of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) roll-out on foreign tourist arriv-als (FTAs) in the country, Union Tourism Minister K J Alphons informed Parlia-ment on Monday. In a writ-ten reply in the Lok Sabha, he said FTAs grew by 13.9 per cent in the July-Novem-ber period this year, as against the corresponding period last year.

The GST was rolled out by the Centre on July 1, 2017.

“The number of FTAs in India, during July-Novem-ber, was 41.16 lakh in 2017, as compared to the 36.14 lakh during July- November 2016, registering a double-digit growth of 13.9 per cent. As such, no adverse impact of the implementation GST was seen in tourist arrivals,” the minister said.

6MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 19 December, 2017

mp nationNo longer a cakewalk for BJP

in 2019 LS poll: TRS leaderOUR CORRESPONDENT

HYDERABAD: The lower-than-expected poll perfor-mance of the BJP in Gujarat suggests that the 2019 general elections are not going to be a cakewalk to the NDA lead party, a senior TRS leader said on Monday.

“The key takeaway (of Guja-rat Assembly elections) is it’s not (going to be) a cakewalk for the BJP any more in 2019 elec-tion,” Telangana Rashtra Samiti Floor Leader in Lok Sabha, A P Jithender Reddy said.

“They (BJP) have to basi-cally again check their admin-istration,” he said. Though the BJP is set to return to power in the western state, Reddy saw the electoral verdict as being a setback to the party.

“Definitely (it’s a setback). 103 seats (the projected BJP tally this afternoon) is not com-ing back to power (it should have been bigger number of seats),” he said.

On the Gujarat Assembly election results, Reddy said,

“This is what I think is the demonetisation and GST effect.

People have not really liked what has been done by the BJP government, and this is a ballot result they have given.”

He claimed that business-men have been “suffering” due to the introduction of GST, and said the trading community in the state has seen “very bad times in the last three months”.

“So this is a reflection of that, and also anti-incum-bency,” Reddy added.

Meanwhile, Telangana Minister for IT and Indus-tries K T Rama Rao congratu-lated Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his party’s “victory” in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.

He also appreciated the Congress party for putting up a strong fight in Gujarat Assem-bly elections.

“Congrats to BJP & @nar-endramodi Ji on retaining Gujarat & being victorious in Himachal Pradesh. Congrats INC on putting up a spirited fight. Democracy needs both a

stable Government & a vibrant opposition. Let’s hope Good Governance takes centre stage & politics the backseat,” Rao tweeted.

The BJP workers in the state celebrated the victory of the BJP in both the states by dis-tributing sweets.

Telangana BJP chief K Lax-man said the victory in both the states is a result of faith that the people have reposed in Modi. “People of Gujarat did not believe in the nega-tive campaign undertook by the Congress on GST and demonetisation.

People there did not forget the development that the state witnessed in BJP and Modi’s rule,” Laxman said.

He exuded confidence that BJP will win in Telangana in future.

KCR CONGRATULATES MODI FOR BJP WINNING OF GUJARAT, HP POLLSHYDERABAD: Telangana Chief Minister K Chan-drasekhar Rao on Monday congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi for BJP’s victory in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections. In a state-ment, KCR said he is congratulating Modi on behalf of the people of Telangana and his party the Telangana Rashtra Samiti. The BJP fought off a strong challenge from Rahul Gandhi-led Congress to win the Gujarat assembly polls for the sixth straight time on Monday, and also wrested power from the Congress in Himach-al Pradesh in a sweeping victory. Meanwhile, Telan-gana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president N Uttam Kumar Reddy said the outcome of Gujarat Assembly elections was a clear indication that Con-gress was on its way back to power across the country. Speaking to media persons at AICC Headquarters in the national capital, Reddy said despite being out of power for 22 years, the performance of Congress in Gujarat elections has been tremendous.

BJP’S WIN REPOSES PEOPLE’S FAITH IN DEVELOPMENT: JAITLEYNEW DELHI: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday said the BJP’s victory in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh reaffirms people’s trust in the development agenda and policies of the Modi-government. The BJP retained power in Gujarat and snatched Himachal Pradesh from the Congress. Results of the elections were an-nounced on Monday. “This victory reiterates pan India trust of people in the development agenda & poli-cies of our government led by PM @narendramodi ji,” Jaitley said in a tweet. In another tweet, he said election results show trust of the people in national development agenda of the BJP.

KHATTAR HAILS BJP’S WIN IN GUJARAT, HIMACHALW AS ‘PEOPLE’S VICTORY’CHANDIGARH: Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Monday congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah after the party’s win in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh Assem-bly polls, hailing it as a “victory of people”. “After 2012, the BJP has emerged victorious in most of the elections which have been held and now the party is ruling in 19 states. In 2014, the BJP formed govern-ment in Haryana with full mandate. Since then, it has been running successfully under the guidance of the prime minister and Amit Shah,” Khattar said here. When reminded that the BJP was expected to do bet-ter than what it had fared in the Gujarat polls, Khattar replied, “Nothing succeeds like success, a win is a win after all. Now, whether the vote percentage is less or more, what factors were at work...there are local and other issues, but in the end, we got majority”. The in-creasing mandate of BJP is taking the country closer to the prime minister’s vision of “Congress-mukt Bharat”, Khattar told reporters. On anti-incumbency, Khattar said it had always been there against Congress gov-ernments, “but so far, there is no such factor against the Centre or in states which are ruled by the BJP”.

GUJ BJP CHIEF JITU VAGHANI RETAINS BHAVNAGAR (WEST) SEATAHMEDABAD: Gujarat BJP president Jitu Vaghani retained the Bhavnagar (west) assembly seat, defeat-ing Congress candidate Dilipsinh Gohil by a margin of 27,185 votes. Vaghani, a prominent Patidar community leader, was appointed the state BJP chief in August 2016. His appointment came after Vijay Rupani, who held the post then, was made the chief minister. Vaghani had cut his teeth in politics as a leader of ABVP and Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM). He made his maiden entry into the Assembly in 2012 elec-tions from the same seat after unsuccessfully contesting from Bhavnagar (south) in 2007.

NATION BRIEFS

‘Guj poll outcome will not have any bearing on K’taka election’

OUR CORRESPONDENT

BENGALURU: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday said the results of the Gujarat Assembly polls would not have any impact on the Assembly election in the state, which is due early next year.

“The election results of one state will not have an effect on the election of another state. The issues will be differ-ent. Whatever may the Guja-rat poll results be, it will have no impact on Karnataka,” he told reporters at Yadgir in the northern parts of the state.

The Congress leader also claimed that by ensuring the party’s victory in the Assembly polls, Karnataka would give the “first gift” to newly-appointed Congress president Rahul Gan-dhi for his leadership.

Claiming that there was no anti-incumbency against his government, Siddaramaiah said if it was there, the Con-gress would have got to know about it in the Nanjangud and Gundlupet bypolls, which the party won by big margins.

“I am sure that in 2018, we will come back to power hun-dred per cent,” he added.

The Congress has already announced that Siddaramaiah will be its face in the Karnataka Assembly polls.

Expressing doubts about

the BJP’s performance in Guja-rat, despite anti-incumbency and a strong undercurrent against it, the chief minister said the poll results lent cre-dence to the doubts regarding the electronic voting machines (EVMs). Raising apprehen-sions that the EVMs could be tampered with, Siddaramaiah had recently demanded the use of ballot papers in the next Assembly polls in the state.

Suggesting that in Him-achal Pradesh, the BJP was expected to win because of the anti-incumbency factor against the Congress, he pointed out that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah were from Gujarat and claimed that the duo had taken the Gujarat election as a “pres-tige issue”.

He also acknowledged that the strategy of Modi and Shah of using the “Gujarati pride” card had effectively worked in

the saffron party’s favour.Though there was an

undercurrent and a strong anti- incumbency factor against the Gujarat government, Modi had asked for votes pointing out that he was from the state, Sid-daramaiah said, adding, “Most probably, this worked.”

Noting that the trends of the results showed an improved performance of the Congress, the chief minister gave the credit for that to Rahul Gandhi.

“I feel, in Gujarat, we have won despite losing. The peo-ple have shown their support to Rahul Gandhi’s leadership,” he said.

Pointing at Modi and Shah’s Gujarati origin and the fact that the BJP was in power both in Gujarat and at the Centre as factors behind the saffron par-ty’s performance, the Congress leader accused it of polarising the voters by systematically playing the communal card.

Tamil CM, DMK congratulate BJP for poll victoriesCHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami and opposition leader M K Stalin on Monday congratulated the BJP as it headed for victory in the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections.Palaniswami called Prime Min-ister Narendra Modi up to felicitate him for the BJP’s show in the two states, an official release said. DMK working President M K Stalin said, “I congratulate the BJP for winning the polls in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.” The poll results indicated that all secular parties should come together to “protect secularism and democ-racy”, he told reporters outside the DMK office. The BJP on Monday headed for its sixth victory in Gujarat and is all set to evict the Congress in Himachal Pradesh. MPOST

Great success for Congress in Gujarat: Sharad Yadav

congratulates Rahul GandhiNEW DELHI: Rebel JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav on Mon-day congratulated Congress president Rahul Gandhi on the improved show of his party in the Gujarat polls, dubbing it a “great success”.

The JD(U) faction, led by Yadav, had contested four seats in Gujarat in alliance with the Congress and won two. The rebel JD(U) leader said in a statement the BJP had barely managed to hold on to power in the state and claimed that the people of Gujarat would soon be very unhappy.

“It is a matter of satisfaction that the Congress has achieved a great success in improving its tally in the Gujarat elec-tion. I would congratulate Rahul Gandhi for his untir-ing efforts,” Yadav said. Stating that he respected the mandate, the JD(U) leader said he was sure that the people of Gujarat would soon feel like the rest of the people in the country, who

were “depressed”. “The youth does not have jobs, women are suffering from inflation, farm-ers are completely under pres-sure and quitting agriculture,” he said. MPOST

The JD(U) faction, led by Yadav, had contested four seats in Gujarat in alliance with the Congress and won two

Modi may become more dictatorial now, says CPI on poll outcome

OUR CORRESPONDENT

HYDERABAD: With the BJP looking set to win Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi may become “more dictatorial”, CPI general secretary S Sud-hakar Reddy said on Monday.

The Left leader said he now expected the BJP to pursue the “Hindutva policies” more vigorously.

“Narendra Modi may become more dictatorial. It is not a positive sign for Indian democracy,” Reddy said.

The CPI leader said although the Congress improved its tally in Gujarat, the ruling party (BJP) could

overcome “anti-incumbency”, and that it was a pity that “secu-lar forces” could not defeat the saffron party.

“Anti-BJP forces should come together to fight against communal forces,” he said, adding that an electoral under-standing between the Left and such parties may not be easy to forge at the national level.

“But wherever it (electoral alliance between anti-BJP forces and Left parties) is pos-sible, it should be thought of.

We have to discuss and come to conclusions. Right now, we cannot come to con-clusions in haste. There is a necessity for secular forces to fight more strongly and unit-

edly,” Reddy asserted.The veteran communist

leader also had a word of praise for newly-appointed Congress president Rahul Gandhi, saying he did a good campaign and could clearly carry the “mes-sage of anti-communal forces” during campaigning.

When asked if he expects Gandhi to emerge as a “good leader”, Reddy said it depended on how he was going to imple-ment reforms inside the party.

“The policies of the Con-gress also have to be changed,” he said. The Left leader said the Congress should come “closer to poorer sections of people” and get rid of the “brand of being pro-corporate”.

Bihar’s Nitish congratulates Modi, Shah on Guj, HP victoryOUR CORRESPONDENT

PATNA: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday con-gratulated Prime Minister Nar-endra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah for winning the Assembly polls in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.

The Janata Dal (United) president also took a dig at the Congress, saying that while the party was aiming to defeat the BJP in Gujarat, it “ended up los-ing even in Himachal Pradesh”, where it was in power.

“Congratulations to hon-ourable Prime Minister Nar-endra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party for the victory in the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections. The Congress, which had claimed it would wrest power from the BJP in Gujarat, has ended up losing even Him-achal Pradesh,” Kumar tweeted in Hindi.

An official release issued here said the chief minister spoke to Modi and BJP presi-dent Amit Shah in the morn-ing over phone and extended his greetings on the poll vic-tory to them.

Once considered a potential political rival of Modi, Kumar now maintains a cordial rela-tionship with the prime minis-ter, following the formation of a JD(U)-BJP coalition govern-ment in Bihar in July.

The Grand Alliance, com-prising the RJD, JD(U) and Congress, had come to power in Bihar after the 2015 Assem-bly polls. The anti-BJP coalition had, however, collapsed over corruption charges surfaced against the then deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav, the son of RJD chief Lalu Prasad.

The reunion of the JD(U) and the BJP came four years after Kumar had severed ties with the saffron party in June, 2013 over the elevation of Modi as the NDA’s prime ministe-rial candidate in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

UP House adopts resolution congratulating BJP on Guj, HP win

OUR CORRESPONDENT

LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh Assembly on Monday adopted a resolution congrat-ulating the BJP for its victory in the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh assembly elections amid a walk out by the Oppo-sition Samajwadi Party and the BSP, and a protest by the Con-gress in the Well of the House.

As Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath rose to move the resolution for the “historic victory of the BJP and for set-ting clean democratic tradi-tions”, Congress leader Ajay Kumar Lallu barged into the Well to press for debate on law and order situation which had earlier figured in the House through an adjournment notice.

BSP legislature party leader Lalji Verma stressed that since the resolution had been moved, there should be a discussion on it. But as Speaker Hriday Narain Dixit did not allow it, he and his party members staged a

walk out. Leader of the Oppo-sition Ram Govind Chaud-hary also joined him and led SP members out stressing that he would not be party to any new tradition. All Congress mem-bers, meanwhile, joined their leader in the Well and raised anti-government slogans.

Earlier speaking on the BJP victory, the chief minis-ter said Gujarat results showed there was a need to rise above negative politics and it would be better to move ahead with a positive attitude toward development.

He congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi, say-ing the win reflected that steps taken by him were appreci-ated by the people. “There is no alternative to victory...if they learn to shun negativity, they would benefit themselves as well as the country,” he said.

Referring to an issue raised in the House earlier in the day, the chief minister said what had been stated by the SP and the BSP leaders would have

pained Ram Manohar Lohia and Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar.

“As to what they said about Rashtrapati Bhawan and Raj Bhawan being made during the British regime, they should not forget that it was not made by the money of the Britishers...

it was the sweat and grit of the nation’s labourers and it should not be rejected,” he said.

Adityanath had earlier said the BJP’s performance in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh assembly polls was a lesson to those who forgot political cour-tesy and indulged in unparlia-mentary language.

He said the party’s perfor-mance was a victory of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s poli-cies. “Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh results are a lesson to those who forget political courtesy and indulge in unpar-liamentary language. Those raising question mark on the prime minister will now have to accept his leadership,” he told reporters in the Vidhan Bhawan complex here.

Guj mandate for BJP’s politics of vishwas & vikas: Maha CM

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NAGPUR: As the BJP is set to retain power in Gujarat for the record sixth time, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fad-navis said on Monday that the mandate is for the party’s poli-tics of “vishwas” and “vikas”.

“The BJP came up with the politics of vishwas (trust) and vikas (development) for Guja-rat and people responded to it positively. The Opposition tried to spread wrong mes-sages against us, but we pre-vailed because of the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra

Modi and national president Amit Shah,” he said.

Fadnavis was speaking to reporters outside the state assembly.

“It was the common man’s trust that Modi can bring peace and prosperity. It is very impor-tant that even after 22 years, a party gets almost 50 per cent votes of the people and retains power...It is very significant,” he said.

According to Fadnavis, with Himachal Pradesh, the BJP has won the 19th state in the country.

“The results are a stamp

on the leadership of Modi and Shah in the party and in the national politics,” he said.

When asked about the BJP winning less number of seats

in Gujarat as compared to the 2012 assembly polls, Fadnavis said, “The BJP has won 49.9 per cent votes so far. It is a very significant win for the party.”

Notice Inviting e-Tender No. 14 of 2017-18 (2nd Call)EE/TD/PWD, Purba Medinipure invites e-tender for the work “Conservation and restoration of Rangibasan Palace at Mahishadal in the District of Purba Medinipur (2nd Call)” Estt. Amt.: Rs. 36,24,854.00 Tender ID-2017_WBPWD_143859_1.Bid Submission End Date is 02.01.2018 at 16.00 Hours. For details visit the website http://wbtenders.gov.in Sd/-

Executive Engineer, PWD,Tamluk Division

ABRIDGED -e-NIT NIT ref. no.

Name of work Estimated Amount

Last date of bid submission

43(2nd

Call) (EL/SE) 2017 - 18

Renovation, Modernization and Up gradation work of Black box Museum of Nattya Academy of Balurghat, in the district of Dakshin Dinajpur.(Electri-cal works)

1,95,09,522.00 09/01/2018 upto 12.00 hours

Sd/- Superintending Engineer

North Bengal Development Department

Details can be seen in the Official Website www.wbnorthbengaldev.gov.in For all details and online tender submission visit https://wbtenders.gov.in

Government of West Bengal North Bengal Development Department

Branch Secretariat Uttarkanya, Fulbari, Jalpaiguri

ABRIDGED -e-NIT NIT ref. no.

Name of work Estimated Amount

Last date of Bid submission

NIT-121 OF 2017-18

Construction of 09 Nos. Dwelling Houses Named ‘Adiwasi Niwas’ for beneficiaries at Meteli, Jalpaiguri Sadar and Dhupguri Block in the District of Jalpaiguri.

3104698.00 02/01/2018 upto 12.00 hours

NIT-122 OF 2017-18

Construction of 10 Nos. Dwelling Houses Named ‘Adiwasi Niwas’ for beneficia-ries at Malbazar Block in the District of Jalpaiguri

3451756.00 02/01/2018 upto 12.00 hours

NIT-123 OF 2017-18

Renovation of Roll Call Ground and inside connecting paths of Police Lines, in the District of Coochbehar

2289908.00 02/01/2018 upto 12.00 hours

Sd/- Executive Engineer

North Bengal Development Department

Details can be seen in the Official Website www.wbnorthbengaldev.gov.in

Government of West Bengal North Bengal Development Department

Branch Secretariat Uttarkanya, Fulbari, Jalpaiguri

West Bengal Government Tender Abridged Notice to NIT NO. — 02 of 2017-18

Sealed quotation is invited by the Executive Engineer (A-I) Kalyani (Agri-lrrign) Division, Bidhan Bhavan, Central Park, Kalyani, Nadia for Engagement of Security Guard at Kalyani (A-I) Division & at different (A-I) Sub-Divisions under Kalyani (A-I) Division during 2017-18. Last Date & time for submission of quotation - 27.12.2017 (up to 2-00 P.M). Further details will be available from, the office of the undersigned at Bidhan Bhaban, Central Park, Kalyani, Nadia on any working day between 11 A.M. to 3 P.M. Sd/-

P. Goswami Executive Engineer (A-I)

Kalyani (Agri-Irrign) Division Kalyani, Nadia.

7mp nationMILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 19 December, 2017

We got better pricing for Rafale jets: Defence MinisterOUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The govern-ment said on Monday that there cannot be any compari-son between the cost of the 36 Rafale fighter jets it inked with France and the price negotiated by the previous UPA regime for the original 126- fighter aircraft deal as the deliverables were different.

Replying to a question on the issue in the Rajya Sabha, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said a better price was ensured while finalising the deal for 36 Rafale jets and that there was no increase in its cost. She, however, did not give the rates at which govern-ment is procuring the combat jets from France.

“The cost of the 36 Rafale aircraft cannot be directly com-pared to the cost of the original MMRCA (Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft) proposal as the deliverables are signifi-cantly different,” she said.

The minister said better pricing, better maintenance terms and better delivery schedules were ensured in the

agreement India had signed with France last year for the jets.

India had inked an inter-governmental agreement with France in September last year for the procurement of 36

Rafale fighter jets at a cost of around Rs 58,000 crore, nearly one- and-half years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the proposal dur-ing a visit to Paris. The delivery of the jets is scheduled to begin

from September, 2019.The Congress recently

raised several questions about the deal, including the rates, and accused the government of compromising national interest and security while promoting

“crony capitalism” and causing a loss to the public exchequer.

The party had claimed that the UPA was negotiating a price of Rs 526 crore for each fighter jet under the MMRCA deal. As per the negotiation during the UPA tenure, 108 aircraft were to be manufac-tured in India after transfer of technology (ToT) and 18 jets were to be supplied in direct fly-away condition.

Under the deal inked by the NDA government, each of the 36 Rafale jet will come at a price of around Rs 1,610 crore which includes a lethal weap-ons package.

“In the present procure-ment, 36 Rafale aircraft are being procured in direct fly-away condition to meet the operational necessity of the Indian Air Force. There is no increase in the cost. Instead, a better price has been ensured,” Sitharaman said.

To a separate question, Minister of State for Defence Subhash Bhamre said 19 con-tracts amounting to Rs 11,739 crore were finalised by the Army to procure ammunition.

100% match in random vote count on EVMs and paper trail slips: EC official OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: There was a “100 per cent match” in the random vote count on EVMs and paper trail slips carried out by the Election Commission in 182 Gujarat polling stations today, a senior official said.

The EC had said it would conduct random vote counts on EVMs and VVPAT slips in one polling station in each of the 182 Assembly constituencies.

“There was a 100 per cent match in the results of the EVM and the slips produced by the paper trail machines,” the official of the election machin-

ery said.The polling stations were

decided through a draw of lots in which the candidates or their agents were also present.

The EC had decided to match the tally in select poll-ing stations amid allegations that the EVMs were compro-mised to help the BJP.

In Gujarat, Chief Electoral Officer B B Swain also said that the vote count through the EVMs matched with the VVPAT in all the constituen-cies where the paper trail slips were counted.

Officials did not find any mismatch in the EVM vote count and VVPAT slip count as

the counting concluded today evening, Swain said.

“This was basically a con-fidence-building exercise. We did this at one polling booth each in all the 182 seats after the counting ended today. At all these booths, vote count of a randomly selected EVM matched with the slips of the connected VVPAT. There was no mismatch at any of the booths,” he said.

Besides, as announced ear-lier, VVPAT slips were taken into consideration during today’s counting at 10 booths across seven constituencies as the presiding officers of these booths had failed to wipe out

the votes from the EVMs dur-ing the mock poll ahead of the voting on December 9 and 14.

In addition, four such new cases had emerged dur-ing today’s counting at Vagra, Dwarka, Ankleshwar and Bhavnagar- Rural seats, Swain said.

“There was a mismatch of some votes on one booth each of these four seats. This occurred because the Return-ing Officer must have made the same mistake but it could not be detected earlier. So we took into account VVPAT slips for these booths during the count-ing and resolved the issue,” he said.

Exit polls failed to project victory margin for BJP in Gujarat

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Almost all the exit polls were spot on in pre-dicting BJP’s victory in Gujarat but a majority of them were off the mark when it came to fore-casting the victory margin for the saffron party.

Most of the exit polls had predicted over 110 seats for the party but it could only man-age 99 seats in the 182-mem-ber Assembly in Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah.

In Himachal too, pre-dictions by some exit polls that BJP will get in excess of

50 seats in the 68-member Assembly were not accurate.

According to the final results by the Election Com-mission (EC), the BJP won 99 seats, securing a majority in the 182- member Gujarat Assembly. The Congress won 77 seats.

Almost all exit polls by var-ious media houses had pre-dicted over 110 seats for the BJP in Gujarat where the party has been ensconced in power for close to two decades now.

In the 2012 Assembly polls, the BJP had won 115 seats, the Congress 61 and others six.

An exit poll by Today’s Chanakya had given BJP 135

seats in Gujarat and predicted a measly 47 for the Con-gress, 14 less than the opposi-tion party had in the current Assembly.

However, the exit poll was correct in predicting a votes-hare of 49 per cent for the BJP as according to the EC, the BJP’s voteshare stood at 49.1 per cent.

The Times Now-VMR Exit poll predicted 113 seats for the BJP and 66 for the Congress, with the remaining going to others. The ABP-CSDS exit survey by ABP News predicted a BJP victory in 117 seats as against the Congress’s 64.

The NDTV said the BJP

was likely to clinch 112 seats and the Congress 70.

A survey by India Today’s ‘Aaj Tak’ news channel had predicted that the BJP will win anywhere between 99 and 113 seats. Aaj Tak was the lone channel which said the BJP’s tally could slip under 100. It projected 62 to 82 seats for the Congress.

The News X Exit polls gave 110-120 seats to the BJP and 65 to 75 seats to the Congress, leaving 2-4 seats for others, while the News Nation exit poll gave the BJP as many as 124- 128 seats and the Con-gress between 52 to 56 seats and 1-3 for others.

EC to set up panel to suggest amendments in

election lawNEW DELHI: The Election Commission (EC) on Sun-day decided to set up a panel to suggest amendments to a provision in the election law barring campaigning 48 hours ahead of polling, following complaints that it has failed to keep pace with information technology.

In an order issued tonight, it said the proposed commit-tee will have members from the poll panel, the information and broadcasting, law and IT ministries, in addition to those from the National Broadcasters Associations (NBA) and Press Council of India (PCI).

They will “examine these provisions in the prevail-ing context of communica-tion technologies and suggest required changes”, it said.

The order comes in the wake of controversies over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s FICCI meeting, Rahul Gandhi’s TV interviews and the release of BJP manifesto -- all after campaigning had ended in Gujarat.

The poll panel accepted that Section 126 of the Representa-tion of the People Act does not take into account the revolu-tion in communication tech-nologies. MPOST

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman flashes victory sign after BJP’s success in Himachal and Gujarat assembly elections, during the winter session of Parliament, in New Delhi on Monday PTI

No construction activity within 50m from Ganga edge in hills: NGT

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Construction activities will be be prohib-ited within 50 metres from the edge of river Ganga in hilly areas as it would now be treated as ‘No-Development Zone’, the National Green Tri-bunal said on Monday, modi-fying its earlier order.

“No-development zones” are areas where no construc-tion including commercial or residential buildings can come up.

A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatan-ter Kumar said that keeping in view the topography of mountainous regions, there was a necessity of revisiting its direction.

In a detailed judgement, the tribunal had said in July that “till the demarcation of floodplains and identi-fication of permissible and non-permissible activities by the state government of this judgement, we direct that 100 meters from the edge of the river would be treated as no development/construction zone between Haridwar to Unnao in UP.”

However, the bench on Monday said the area falling between 50-100 metre would be considered as “regulatory” zone and there would be ban on construction activity in this area till the state comes with a specific policy.Govt for ‘new museum’ on all PMs at Teen Murti Estate: Minister

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The govern-ment is considering a proposal for the construction and set-ting up of a new museum on all the Prime Ministers of India on the premises of the Teen Murti Estate here, Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma informed Parliament on Monday. Sharma told the Lok Sabha that the museum will reflect the life and times of all Indian prime ministers and highlight their contribu-tions to the nation.

“The proposed museum on the Prime Ministers of

India will showcase the life and works and significant contribution of all the Prime Ministers of India to nation building. The idea behind the concept is to have a dedicated museum highlighting the contribution of all the PMs of India”, said Sharma.

The written statement from the minister is significant as it comes amidst opposition from certain sections over whether the Nehru Memo-rial Museum and Library (NMML) at Teen Murti Bha-van should remain the pre-serve of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru,

or if room should be made for other prime ministers.

Sharma’s statement in Par-

liament indicates that there will be no changes in the pres-ent structure, but the “con-

struction” of a “new museum” in the premises, virtually resolves the issue.

“We reiterate that an area falling within 50 metre from the edge of Ganga would be considered as ‘No-develop-ment zone’ in hilly areas and no construction or any other activity will be allowed in that area,” the bench, also compris-ing Justice U D Salvi, said.

With regard to industries located in Haridwar, the NGT said that all units would be connected to common efflu-ent treatment plants and in case of failure they would be shut down.

The tribunal had earlier prohibited dumping of waste within 500 metres from the

river, ordering that every offender would be liable to pay a penalty of Rs 50,000 per default.

The NGT had directed reg-ulation of activities on banks of the Ganga and its tribu-taries and ordered UP and Uttarakhand governments to formulate guidelines for reli-gious activities on the ghats during festivals.

On the issue of maintain-ing the flow of the river, the tribunal had directed that the minimum environment flow should not fall “below 20 per cent of the average monthly lean season flow.”

LUCKNOW: Of the total sanctioned posts of specialist doctors in Uttar Pradesh gov-ernment hospitals, 60 per cent are lying vacant, Health Minis-ter Siddharth Nath Singh said in the state Assembly today.

He was answering a ques-tion raised by SP’s Nitin Agar-wal and Independent MLA Amanmani Tripathi.

“In Uttar Pradesh, 7,300 specialist doctors are needed against which there are 2,970 doctors posted at present,” he said.

Agarwal said only 40 per cent specialist doctors available in Uttar Pradesh and termed it a matter of concern.

Replying to another mem-ber, the minister said the state government was recruiting doctors and was making seri-ous effots to meet the shortage.

“We have raised the retire-ment age of doctors from 60 to 62 years. Online recuitment has been started and doctors are applying and walk-in interview are also being held to meet the shortage. Besides 2,800 doc-tors will be posted in PHCs,” he said. “1,816 doctors have been recruited through the UPPSC and they will be posted soon. In over eight months, we have engaged 5,500 doctors and the process is underway,” Singh added.

60% posts of specialist doctors lying vacant in UP

NEW DELHI: The government today introduced a bill in the Lok Sabha that will allow it to notify the period of maternity leave and gratuity that can be availed by employees under a central law.

The Payment of Gratuity (Amendment) Bill, 2017 was introduced by Labour Minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar in the House, amid continued slogan-eering by opposition members and counter-slogans by those of the BJP.

The Payment of Gratuity Act 1972 was enacted to pro-vide for gratuity payment to employees engaged in facto-ries, mines, oilfields, planta-tions, ports, railway companies, shops or other establishments. It is applicable to employees who have completed at least five years of continuous service in an establishment that has ten or more persons.

According to the Statement of Objects and Reasons of the bill, the amendment would allow the central government to notify the maternity leave period for "female employees as deemed to be in continu-ous service in place of existing twelve weeks".

The proposal comes against the backdrop of the Maternity Benefit Act (Amendment) Act,

2017 enhancing the maximum maternity leave period to 26 weeks.

"It is therefore proposed to empower the central govern-ment to enhance the period of existing twelve weeks to such period as may be notified by it," the Statement said.

With respect to gratuity, the amount is calculated on the basis of a formula which is 15 days of wages for each year of completed services, subject to the ceiling of Rs 10 lakh. This limit was fixed in 2010.

After implementation of the 7th Central Pay Commis-sion, the ceiling of gratuity amount for central government employees has been increased from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 20 lakh.

Generally, the ceiling under the Act follows that of the Central Pay Commission recommendations.

"Therefore, considering the inflation and wage increase even in case of employees engaged in private and public sector, the entitlement of gratu-ity is also required to be revised for employees who are covered under the Act.

"It has also been proposed to empower the central govern-ment to notify the ceiling pro-posed, instead of amending the said Act, so that the limit can be revised from time to time keeping in view the increase in wage and inflation, and future Pay Commissions," the State-ment said. PTI

Bill to amend Payment of Gratuity Act provisions

MUMBAI: At least 12 work-ers were killed and one injured when a massive fire broke out at a snack shop in Sakinaka-Kurla area in the early hours today, police said.

The blaze erupted in the ‘Bhanu’ farsan (snack) shop in Makaria Compound on the Khairani Road at around 4.25 am following which the struc-ture collapsed, a senior police official said.

As per the official, it is sus-pected that a short circuit, fol-lowed by LPG cylinder bylast triggered the fire. At least 21 persons were inside the shop when the blaze erupted, he said, adding nine of them managed to escape, whereas 12 persons got trapped on the loft inside due to intense heat and smoke, he said.

The fire spread quickly due to the presence of electric wir-ing and electrical goods, huge stock of eatables and furniture inside the shop, the official said.

All the 12 workers were pulled out of the debris by fire brigade personnel and taken to the civic-run Rajawadi Hos-pital in suburban Ghatkopar where they were declared dead before admission, a civic offi-cial said. Meanwhile, Deputy

Commissioner of Police (Zone-10) Navinchandra Reddy told PTI that prime facie the fire started from the electrical switch board and it spread in the shop following which there was a LPG gas cylinder blast.

Police have called forensic science experts to ascertain the exact cause of the fire.

“We are also waiting for fire brigade report in this case. However, the procedure of reg-istering an offence has been ini-tiated. After enquiry we will register an offence against those who are responsible for the tragedy,” another police official said. Of the 12 deceased, iden-tify of 10 has been ascertained so far, the officer said, adding the injured has been admitted to the Rajawadi hospital.

12 workers charred to death in Mumbai shop fire

OUR CORRESPONDENT

MUMBAI: A visually impaired woman ended up saving a few lives when she alerted her son in the nick of time as a major fire broke out at a farsan shop in suburban Saki Naka-Kurla area in the wee hours of Monday.

Twelve others, mostly workers sleeping in the shop located at Makaria Compound on the Khairani road, died in the blaze.

“We live in a room in the front side of the building (which also houses the far-san shop-cum-factory). My mother, who cannot see, heard loud noise between 3 and 4 am. She woke me up, thinking that some thieves have broken into the building,” said Tushar Pawar (27).

“We then rushed out and heard loud explosions.

Realising that there was a fire, we raised alarm, and five or six people who live in the front side came out,” he said.

Visually-impaired woman raises

alarm

The proposal comes against the backdrop of the Maternity Benefit Act (Amendment) Act, 2017 enhancing the maximum maternity leave to 26 weeks

Abridged NITNotice Inviting e-Quotation No. - WBPWD/SE/SWEC/

NIQ28/2017-18Tender ID: 2017_WBPWD_143846_1 Name of Work: Supply, Installation, Testing and Commissioning of fire detection and alarming system and public address system at Jhargram district hospital, Paschim MidnapurWork Site : Jhargram District HospitalLast date of submission of bid :-02/01/2018 up to 14:00 Hrs. Further details can be seen in the above mentioned office during working hours or in Official Website www.pwdwb.gov.in For all details and online tender submission visit https://wbtenders.gov.in

Government of West Bengal O/O The Superintending Engineer PWD South Western Electrical Circle

Sahid Mangal Pandey Sarani, Midnapur-721101

mp editorial8MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 19 December, 2017

ANJAN ROY

Penguin has published my book, Conflicts of Interest, which I am hoping will provoke

responses. The book is a jour-ney, one I would never have undertaken, because in our work looking back is a privi-lege. Every day there is a new challenge that forces us to learn more and to push more. In fact, in the kind of work we do, which is mostly frustrat-ing and often deeply disturb-ing the only way to stay ahead is to keep a tunnel view—focus on where we need to go—with single-minded obsession. Or desperation. That is what keeps my adrenaline going. And frankly, it’s the only way not to let the sense of helplessness—the immensity of the task and often the sheer futility—make you go under.

There are many lessons—or let me say inter-connected strands in our work’s tale that I find.

First, there is the issue of the issue itself. Often we are so lost in the problem, that we have lost our ability to propose what should be done. This push for answers is what I believe has been our most important con-tribution. But it is even more difficult to stay the course to push for implementation. There are a billion plus Indians; we are borne with ideas—no solution is perfect—and of course, we are well-oiled critics. So, what is really difficult is not to fight that contested reality; but to fight so that you do not lose focus.

Then, of course, there is the

problem of the problem itself. In India, there are so many things that need to be done and all to be done yesterday. How do you choose your priority?

This, when you know that each problem is a world in itself. Our work of over 30 years shows that each issue is contested, and it takes time to get results. Take air pollu-tion. We started work in mid-1990s, got some victories by early 2000s but are now back in the fray. The circle is round and it requires you to persist and persist.

And this is when we have an institution, the Centre for Sci-

ence and Environment (CSE) to back us. The fact that Anil Agarwal in 1980, returned from his job at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in Lon-don to set up CSE, is our most important asset. After him our challenge—my colleagues and mine—has been to ensure that the institution continues to be driven by passion and not by the tasks that should be done.

This is then the third thread. The fact is that every issue is contested because of the con-flicts of interest. It is contested because it is the contest of ideas and the contest of realities.

To engage in this contest requires research and an abil-ity to stand against the stated truth—or what I have called the established fact. This is where we have faced our biggest ene-mies. Not because of the con-flict of interests but because of the conflict of ideas, which is driven by interests.

Read any chapter of my book and you will see what I am talking about. We had to fight the “established” science of diesel in our fight for cleaning air; the established science of pesticides in our work on tox-ins and food safety; the estab-lished science of conservation

in our work to bring a new way to manage wildlife so that peo-ple also benefit. The list is long. But the war is about the mind.

And as I write this, I am conscious, that this war for a space of the mind, is only going to become more difficult in the years to come. I explain this in the book. The fact is we may believe that the world has become smaller; and we have become more connected and media has become “social” but this is far from the truth. In reality, we are living in our indi-vidual bubbles, reading who we “like” and “unfollowing” views we don’t.

For people like us, who have to push the envelope of status quo, this means that going will be tough. But we cannot give up; we cannot say let the inter-ests prevail. The conflict is real and it must be contested.

This is the real nub. The fact is that there are two distinct versions of environmental-ism—of the rich and the poor. There is a technic view of the future, where machines and automation will smoothen our blips. Then there is the view that unless we can develop in ways that are more humane and more inclusive we will not be able to build better futures. This is the politics of environment. It cannot be neutered.

DOWN TO EARTH(The author is Director

General of Centre for Science and Environment and the Editor of Down To Earth

magazine. The views expressed are strictly personal.)

If ever an election was fought and decided on the undertones of eco-nomic issues, Gujarat

one was.The astute politician that

Narendra Modi is, he had realised this and even stated it upfront. He was prepared to pay a political price for his economic policy decisions. The Gujarat election results vin-dicate that assessment. How?

BJP should have turned out a far better result in the state than it did. Here was a Guja-rati Prime Minister leading the country, with confidence, scor-ing several domestic and inter-national wins. He had met the global leaders and dealt with global affairs successfully. Paki-stan, after all, was somewhat cornered and the US, even if for its own reasons, was bearing down on it much to our rejoice.

The economy had gained global acceptance and money was flowing in. Stock markets were somewhat dizzy and giv-ing good returns. Prices were stable and continued growth was taken for a given. Money matters, and in Gujarat it does more intensely.

And yet, BJP has just man-aged to retain its government in the state. It has lost margin-ally here and there, but by and large kept its hold. The pow-erful Gujarati Prime Minister had campaigned indefatiga-bly, along with his formidable political strategist to lay out the ground plan for the elec-tion battle. These are weighty plus points to have swung the voters and create favourable atmospherics for achieving at least a Congress-free Gujarat.

And yet, it is the Congress, under its callow leader, that has resurged in the state. It is as if, despite the party’s lackadaisical record from similar leaders, the proverbial phoenix has come back into life from ashes. Was it due to the metamorphosis of Rahul Gandhi as a politi-cal leader under some unseen hands, mostly suspected resid-ing abroad, that carved out this new image, out of the plastic

clay that the in-house prince of the first family was.

All these factors might have contributed their mighty lit-tle. But it is the enormous eco-nomic policy decisions of last one year that appear to have done the trick.

Demonetisation, immedi-ately followed up with intro-duction of the so-called “Good and Simple Tax”, as Modi once described it, would have subtly changed the Gujarati mindset to their leaders.

The indications had come quite early. In October, I was travelling in Uttarakhand and trying to assess the impact of the Mudra loans in creating either jobs or giving a boost to small businesses. While pass-ing by Haridwar, I happened to come across a couple of young Gujarati young men. Hoping that talking to them would offer some clue to the newer kinds of micro-loans which the gov-ernment was claiming to have worked wonders, I struck up a conversation.

It was a kind of mild sur-prise that the Gujaratis were indignant about their supreme

leader Narendra Modi and regretted that the government policies of demonetisation and, worse GST, had ruined their small businesses. “If our business was going full steam ahead, do you think we would have had the time to spend two weeks here and get to see some places”, he put a counter question.

But then, what was so wrong with such a right policy – that is, a nation-wide regime of a single tax framework replac-ing a plethora of taxes of vary-ing rates across states and even within states? The young busi-nessmen read out their litany of problems with the GST regime, which was making their busi-ness a hugely onerous task. It was not the policy of a uniform tax throughout the country, but the paraphernalia of compli-ance that was doing the wreck-ing, he explained.

Indeed, the over-burden of compliance had for one created a fear of government interfer-ence in the day-to-day life of businesses and of business-men and women. It was con-stant tracking of their activities

through a myriad of instru-ments from multiple GST returns every month to the requirement of stating PAN and still lately Aadhaar num-bers of buyers and sellers. The end result of all these tracking, people feared, would complete data transfer about every busi-ness and trade to the hands of the government.

Mind you, sharing infor-mation is the bugbear in this country. Every sample sur-vey data collectors at villages and towns had encountered this problem. While collect-ing consumer expenditure data or even employment data or other economic surveys, the numerators had invariably found reluctance on the part of the people being surveyed to even part with information on family income and sources of income. They invariably hedged and hawed.

Secondly, GST is a piece of impeccable public finance wis-dom. But bringing into the tax net in one stroke when they were used to paying none, generates inescapable resent-ment. The GST regime had,

in fact, anticipated this and had allowed exemptions. But then, the system put compli-ance burden to those who were exempted by requiring reverse charges and what not. These have since been partially rec-tified, true. But then, the ini-tial damage has been done and suspicion raised.

Thirdly, the company entrusted with formulating the IT backbone for the GST system had done — to say the least — sloppy work and the huge initial system bugs had spoilt the new mechanism, to begin with. The systems faults have now been openly recog-nised and are hopefully being addressed.

And then, trying to take credit for introducing what was a simple tax makeover with a historic mid-night session of Parliament and doing the entire pageantry about a so-called culmination of a Second Freedom for India was a crass miscalculation.

Going by the account of Saki Mustaad Khan in his Maasir-i-Alamgiri (History of the Court of Aurangzeb Alam-gir), the subject is reported to have said; “Life changes in a moment”, this could be life-changing moment for national politics just now.

We were riding on the crest of a wave. BJP was unconquer-able. Its march has not been checked. But somewhat slowed down at least for the present. If this is the verdict in Gujarat, then getting an absolute major-ity in 2019 could look askance. That will mean an era of drift as coalition in the Centre could result in fuzzy times as we had in the times of second UPA. At least for the next couple of decades, we would continue to have a strong Centre, which should at least not give rise to the umpteen numbers of scams.

If there is just one single score in this innings of BJP, it is this: so far, we seem to have avoided the multi-crore scams. IPA

(The views expressed are strictly personal.)

Political price for economicsEDITORIAL

The burden of compliance creates suspicion in the minds of people

We had to fight the “established” science of diesel in our fight for cleaning air; the established science of pesticides in our work on toxins and food safety; the established science of conservation in our work to bring a new way to manage wildlife so that people also benefit

It is an era of drift as coalition in the Centre could result in fuzzy times as we had in the times of second UPA. At least for the next couple of decades, we would continue to have a strong Centre, which should at least not give rise to the umpteen numbers of scams

After a long time has a result day been as gripping as December 18. Enthusiasts were at the edge of their seats through the morning as the results kept flip-ping their sides. In the end, though, the wave went

in BJP’s favour. However, beating all expectations, the winds weren’t as smooth as BJP would have desired. A victory is a victory, yes; but the margin of victory is an essential aspect that cannot be discounted, especially when battling out in the bas-tion state of the ruling party—Gujarat. All eyes have been glued for the last few months, tracing the trajectory of the Gujarat elections that have witnessed key leaders taking centre stage to woo votes in their favour. Rahul Gandhi surfaced with renewed vigour and Congress, for once, were touted to positively capi-talise on the strong sentiment of anti-incumbency bustling in the Western state of our country. BJP is coming back for a comfortable sixth term in Gujarat, yet, today hasn’t been as easy as probably February was, when they sailed through Uttar Pradesh without a single barrier cropping up in its way. Dis-concerting BJP in Gujarat is an onerous task. It has been their bastion and their pride, the whistle they blew to victory at the Centre in 2014. The Congress was in for a tough task to even unnerve the giants in their hometown. Beating all odds, the Congress, despite not securing a victory, did come very close to shattering the dreams of the BJP. The Congress has shown a rejuvenated spirit and a strong perseverance that is essential to continue the endless battle in the game of politics today. The Gujarat elections have shown that the people still har-ness a strong faith towards the Prime Minister; yet, their faith towards the lotus party is dwindling. Saurashtra, the traditional stronghold of the party and a region dominated by the Patels and the farmers, voted contrary to its trends—tilting favour-ably towards the Congress. The Gujarat verdict has exhibited a clear regional split in voting as urban Gujarat continued to sway in favour of the BJP, with big centres like Ahmedabad and Surat expressing their support for the lotus party, whereas, rural Gujarat has displayed some hesitation towards the erstwhile government, gradually shifting in favour of Congress. The pri-mary concerns that had governed this election were the failed implementations of demonetisation and GST, and prevailing rural distress. There is a growing sense, especially among the rural population that the government is tilted to favour the urban elite, turning a blind eye towards the problems of rural India. This sentiment has worked in favour of the Congress. To make further inroads and continue with the momentum gained in this election, the Congress must make unhindered inroads into rural India, where the population continues to remain severely aggrieved by the policies of the government. For BJP, the victory in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh is a major propeller that has further cemented its position in the Centre, and it can now be said, that BJP is almost set to assume office in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The results in Himachal have tilted entirely in the BJP’s favour, unsurprising, since the hill-state has had alternate governments in power across alternate elections, since 1977. Anti-incumbency is the strongest senti-ment that has ruled across the northern state. Coming in for a sixth term in governance in Gujarat, BJP will now surely attend to the loopholes that have surfaced in this election, allowing the Congress to make some inroads in the state. The Congress was never going to win Gujarat, it has a long way to go before that victory is secured. Nevertheless, its performance has been commendable and is sure to send BJP into a drawn process of introspection. The coalition with Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakore, and Jignesh Mevani, bore its fruits for the INC that saw vic-tories among the Patels, the OBCs, and Dalits. The Congress must take this defeat in its stride and move ahead to continue to challenge the BJP at the Centre. After three long years, since the Narendra Modi government has assumed power at the Cen-tre, we witnessed an election that was gripping, turning tables and switching in favour of either side by the minute. This is the spirit that complements the idea of India’s vivacious democ-racy. The Congress must restlessly resume its performance in the coming year, as three key states—Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka—go on to fight for their assemblies. An undeterred BJP is detrimental for the country and for the party alike. An opposition plays a crucial role in strengthening the Centre and rejuvenating the spirit of democratic battle. The Congress can pat its back for a commendable performance in Gujarat, it could not have done much better. Yet, the night is young and 2019 is just within sight.

In a propelling step to improve the underlying conditions of healthcare in the country, the Centre has proposed a move to legalise passive euthanasia, providing relief to patients who are stuck in a condition of irreversible coma-

tose, reliant entirely on the functioning of artificial life support systems. The haunting case of Aruna Shaunbag had shed light on this problematic, when she spent 42-years in coma after a brutal incident of sexual assault had shut down her biological system. Keeping in mind the escalating expenses of maintaining life support and the trauma that families undergo living with a half-dead relative, the Centre has accelerated a move to allow only for passive euthanasia, to discontinue artificial life support systems for individuals who are stuck in a permanent comatose condition, displaying no signs of reversal or coming back to life. This is distinct from active euthanasia, which in fact means to propel death by consuming drugs or medicine that would shorten the life-span. The Centre also said the misuse of this provision would lead to ten years of imprisonment and a fine of up to Rs one crore. This move comes as a relief for many, yet, there must be strict supervision of hospitals to ensure that they do not mould this move to suit their own conveniences. For instance, there must be a check that correct information is met out to patient families. To continue to accrue income, hospitals may not disclose that a patient is in an irreversible coma, con-tinuing treatment by instilling the false belief that an adequate end may be met. Further, the opposite could also be possible. As a quick fix to shed responsibility off their hands, negligent doctors may refuse to undergo the process of thorough inves-tigation and treatment for patients who are in a critical and dif-ficult condition but may be rescued with the correct delivery of medical treatment. Given the abysmal state of healthcare in our country today, either stands as a strong possibility. While this move is indeed diligent, in the best interest of patients and their families—supervision in its functioning must be practised to ensure that the policy sees the light of the day. The escalat-ing costs of healthcare and the pitiful aspect of forcing life into an almost dead body do not bode well for the patient or the immediate caregivers. Having a loved one in a coma is a most traumatising aspect for families to live with. Passive euthana-sia, in this aspect, is a bright step. Yet, hospitals that are now mushrooming across our country are not the most respected spaces. There is rampant corruption and underhand dealing, with illegality taking place on a daily basis. It is shameful how the corruption of both the body and dignity have become a proliferating business. After declaring this policy, the Centre must appoint boards that will severely scrutinise hospitals and maintain a check on their activities. Our lives are traumatic enough; we must at least be able to die with dignity.

Result-day revelry

Death with dignity

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I feel astonished to see the newspaper vendors at Howrah station are reluctant to display conspicuously Millennium Post, a beautiful and smart newspaper being published simul-taneously from Delhi and Kolkata. Get-up, news presentation, and views published here are incomparable and seem familiar with the culture of the people of West Bengal for a long time. As I am a monthly subscriber of this newspaper I don’t feel inconvenienced to get the copy but my friends who have been interested in reading MP cannot get the copy from Howrah station inside.

In India, there are so many things that need to be done and all to be done yesterday. How do you choose your priority?

Rare privilege of reflectionSAMIR CHAKRABORTY Via email

The window to the world can be covered by a newspaper

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STANISLAW JERZY LEC

SUNITA NARAIN

BJP has consistently steered clear of multi-crore scams and this has counted in its favour yet again PIC/NAVEEN SHARMA

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9mp in focusMILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 19 December, 2017

K. SRINIVASA RAOWith the thrust

on application of Information, communication

and technology (ICT) in com-mercial space and internet of things (IOT) transcending the lifestyle of every section of the community, the size of digi-tal economy is well poised to reach US $ 1 Trillion by 2025. Policy initiatives have been well calibrated to accelerate digitisa-tion under ‘Digital India’ policy campaign across geographies. The baseline digital infrastruc-ture is made up of over a billion mobiles and around 450 mil-lion internet connections. In terms of average internet speed, India is ranked 89th in global ranking with an average speed of 6.5 mbps. Such penetration of connectivity catapults digiti-sation to a new height. Already 83 per cent of rural population access web through mobiles and it is expected that mobiles could hit the mark of 1.2 billion by 2017 end.

With a policy of net neutral-ity permeating the economy, digital access and online con-nectivity will be within com-mon reach. The mass usage of digital accessories has changed the way business is con-ducted where seamless elec-tronic transmission of money and financial intermediation assumes greater significance. The end state of every com-mercial/personal transaction begins and ends with transfer of funds. Hence, infrastructure for settlement of transactions through digital mode can ramp up digital capability.Digital payment system

Digital banking is revolu-tionising even rural markets with wider acceptability of debit/credit/prepaid cards by even small/micro-merchant establishments. Reach of dig-ital banking picked up new pace after demonetisation due to cash crunch. The cultural shift towards digital payments

may slow down after re-mon-etisation but is expected to sus-tain in long term as a matter of convenience and habit. The noncash transactions through electronic mode has become the new normal with neighbor-hood shops readily accepting cards. Merchant Establish-ments (MEs) are provided electronic swipe machines by acquiring banks. Such enlisted MEs have to pay a fee to the banks for the incremental busi-ness that they get from card holders. It is only in July 2012 that Merchant Discount Rates (MDR) has been reduced for debit card to 0.75 per cent for transactions of up to Rs.2000 and at one per cent for over Rs.2000.

But in a strategic move, government has decided to compensate banks towards MDR for electronic transac-tions of up to Rs.2000 from Jan-uary 1, 2018 for next two years. This will make card payments of up to Rs.2000 free to enable micro member establishments to readily accept electronic pay-ment mode in a big way. This initiative is intended for digi-

tal push in payment space in hinterland.Rising Digital infrastructure

There has been substantial growth in electronic payment infrastructure, more so after demonetisation. The data of October 2017 indicates that the number of ATMs have reached 206793 while the num-ber of bank branches stands at 136000. The Point of Sale (POS) terminals have scaled up to 3 million that reach far and wide in commercial estab-lishments to enable acceptance of card payments. Contact-less cards based on Near Field Communication (NFC) has also entered the payment space. It also stretched to hinterland with banking correspondents working as rural touch points as part of financial inclusion. The number of credit cards are 34 million and debit cards work out to 826 million. The Rupay cards are increasingly issued by banks supported by National Payment Corpora-tion of India (NPCI) that are becoming more popular while Visa international and Mas-tercard continue to rule the

payment system. The expo-nential growth in payment network has transformed the digital payment space. Freeing the transactions up to Rs.2000 which will cover most of the retail payments will further add to the density of usage.Safety of payment system

While banks have devel-oped robust protection to elec-tronic payment system with spill-proof fire walls and dual authentication, yet providing safety is a collaborative func-tion. The customers, vendors, merchant establishments and banks have to work together to keep fraudsters at bay. The cyberspace is always vulner-able but unless the identity system is compromised, the chances of breach are rare. The customers using the payment network at shops and online payment systems have to be sensitive towards likely risks. The look alike websites tech-nically known as spoofing has to be cautiously avoided and telephonic enquiries on login id and password should never be responded. The SMS ser-vices of banks should be sub-

scribed even if it is priced. RBI has made it clear that genuine customers will be protected against loss of funds on account of cyber frauds if the incident is reported within three days. Customers should always check their transactions and remain alert towards SMS mes-sages originating from banks. They need to be an aggressive partner in quickly identifying any lapse in cyber security.The way forward

With enhanced thrust on digitisation, banks, and other financial intermediaries have to constantly work towards providing safe payment infra-structure and impart digital literacy to customers. When the economy is driven towards more digitisation, the various stake holders in the payment space have to better collabo-rate and protect cyber space by roping in social network and NGOs. The policy initia-tives are specifically designed to expand formal economy through digital integration. It is up to intermediaries to ensure that payment gateways are kept protected and users are made aware of intricacies of using electronic mode. With better internet connectivity and speed, electronic payment mechanism will be a better experience provided the users proactively guard themselves. If all stakeholders in cyber space work in cohesion, the aspira-tion of moving towards a more robust digital economy can be realised. Looking at the pros-pects, the year 2018 can witness substantial synergy in digital space for the policy initiatives embedded in the economy. In this league, doing away with MDR can prove to be a game changer and a winning streak in furthering digitisation.

(The author is Director, National Institute of Banking

studies and Corporate Management. The views

expressed are strictly personal)

FBI is a national security organisation. It means the US has a clear-cut approach of delineating national security issues from law and order issues unlike in India where everything related to internal security is still in the domain of the states. the Central government needs to amend laws to define categorically that internal security is an integral part of national security

When the economy is driven towards more digitisation, the various stakeholders in the payment space have to collaborate better and protect cyberspace by roping in social network and NGOs. If all stakeholders in cyberspace work in cohesion, the aspiration of moving towards a more robust digital economy can be realised

How India can emulate FBI modelIndia needs an integrated approach to counter the increasing threat from terrorism, writes Pathikrit Payne

Towards a more robust digital economy

Last Wednesday (December 13) marked the 16th anniversary of the horrific attack on Indian Parliament by terrorists from Pakistan-based

Laskhar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad in 2001. It was a terror attack aimed at the very foundation of Indian democracy. Since then, much has been done to fortify the Parliament. However, the vulnerability of the nation to such kind of terror attacks remains profound.

Over the last three years, India has wit-nessed a considerable number of terror cells and modules being neutralised in addition to foiling many terror attacks through pre-emptive actions. One cannot deny that the incumbent National Security Advisor Ajit Doval with his vast ground level experience as a career intelligence officer has made a distinct difference, albeit with unconditional support from the Prime Minister so far as internal security scenario is concerned. Yet certain pertinent issues remain to be taken care of.

Changing landscape of terrorismThe fundamental dimensions of terrorism

have been undergoing a profound metamor-phosis and thus the counter-terror archi-tecture needs reform as well. Today, when lone-wolf attacks have become more of a norm than an exception, the biggest chal-lenge is to identify a terrorist who may not have had any history of anti-social work or legacy of being in contact with any radical group. Incidents of recent terror attacks in Europe and US increasingly show the man-ner in which even a bus or a car could be used to crush people on the road or pave-ment and wreak havoc. This is not to say that organised terrorism is on the slide but it may well also be possible for perpetrators to just get radicalised through the internet and use very routine stuff available in the market to make cocktails of explosives.

On most occasions, the time in hand to react is so little that there remains no luxury of hold-up between the moment an intelligence input is availed by a central agency on ground and action is initiated by the concerned state-level law enforcement agency after inputs are passed through official channels. In other words, time has come to authorise the cen-tral agencies themselves to neutralise threats without going through the tumultuous ordeal of passing inputs to others and wait for them to act.

Recent media reports indicate that the Central government may have initiated some deliberations to revive the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) which was first mooted by UPA. In this respect, it would be interesting to understand why there is a need for such an integrated approach and what kind of architecture countries with a sound history of countering terrorism have in place.

Need to change archaic Indian counter-terror rules

Unfortunately, in spite of being one of the biggest victims of terrorism, India continues with the archaic system of defining law & order as a state subject with Central agencies having little or no authority to move in and act voluntarily unless proper sanction is given to them. Even though NIA has been created as a Central counter-terror investigation agency, it also needs sanction from the Central gov-ernment before it can initiate investigations on a particular case, which often results in avoidable delay and destruction of evidence. This has to change.

Learning from the FBI modelThe website of FBI states that ‘FBI is

an intelligence-driven and threat-focussed national security organisation with both intelligence and law enforcement respon-sibilities’. It further states that its personnel ‘work around the clock and across the globe to protect the US from terrorism, espionage, cyber attacks, and major criminal threats’.

There are three important lessons to draw from the US FBI model. In the first place, FBI is a national security organisation. It means the US has a clear-cut approach of delineating national security issues from law and order issues unlike in India where everything related to internal security is still legally in the domain of the states and rarely with the Centre.

What should India do? Define terrorism as a national security issue

Therefore, to make the case for a com-prehensive, integrated and pre-emptive approach in the fight against terrorism, the Central government needs to amend laws to define categorically that internal security is an integral part of national security and that issues related to national security are strictly outside the ambit of conventional law and order issues, which are state subjects. This key reform is necessary if India has to defeat the deadly combination of organised crime and terrorism.

Why Integration of NIA, NSG, IB & NTRO are important

Secondly, FBI is a classic case of an inte-grated approach toward fighting terrorism. It is at the same time an intelligence agency as well as a law enforcement and prosecution agency. FBI has its own intelligence branch, divisions for dealing with terror investigation, counterintelligence, cyber crimes, transna-tional organised crimes, public corruption as well as weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Its Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) is USA’s prime counterterrorism tactical team for special operations.

Contrast this with the India scenario where there are numerous separate organ-isations doing what ideally an integrated organisation should do. What stand as mere

separate divisions of FBI, in India’s case, are different organisations for each often under different ministries. There is NIA for post-incident investigation of terror cases and that too only if sanction is given. There is National Security Guard (NSG) for special counter-ter-ror operations. There is CBI for investigation of white collar and violent crimes but that too only if sanctions are given. Further there is a separate Intelligence Bureau with no legal power or mandate to arrest and prosecute. This apart, among several other agencies, there is National Technical Research Organ-isation (NTRO) for collection of technical intelligence. Different organisations headed by separate hierarchy only mean needless gaps in coordination which, even in the best circumstances are difficult to avoid.

Therefore, India has to emulate the Ameri-can model of counter-terror architecture for more effective outcome. To the least, it needs to integrate NIA, NSG, IB, and NTRO into a singular entity preferably working directly under PMO and of course with legislation backed pan-India mandate for suo motu action in case of a terror or terror related incident, including transnational organised crimes.

How different is this from UPA’s NCTC model?

One can argue about how different this approach is from that of NCTC that was

mooted during UPA era. The answer to this lies in the fact that UPA was proposing to put NCTC, with pre-emptive strike capabil-ity and police powers, under the purview of IB which is beyond the scrutiny of the Parlia-ment. That kind of approach inherently has some flaws. Even FBI is accountable to US Congress. Therefore it is always better to have such a powerful integrated agency to operate under some kind of a Parliamentary oversight subject to certain confidentiality clauses. Both NSG and NIA have been created under acts of Parliament. IB can be merged into them to create NCTC with law enforcement powers.

The integrated entity should have a pan-India presence

Not only is there a need for an integrated approach, but also for the physical presence of such an integrated counter-terror organ-isation with pre-emptive special operations capability across the length and breadth of the country. Delhi headquartered NIA, in spite of being India’s premier counter-terror investi-gation agency, has its presence limited only to eight branch offices and around fourteen camp offices. NSG, too, is restricted to some regional hubs. This has to change. Creation of an integrated entity would empower it to com-bine and leverage the presence and strength of each other and create a potent entity with a presence in every major city and district.

Integrate states into the idea of Joint Ter-rorism Task Force

It is important to keep in mind that creat-ing an integrated central agency like NCTC should not mean that state-level entities get marginalised. In fact, the ideal architecture would be where the Centre continues to finance and push state agencies for strength-ening their ATS, SWAT, CID, and intelligence units. Here, too, the US model in the realm of creation of the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) by FBI may come handy for India to not only make the whole concept of NCTC more acceptable to states but also more effec-tive. FBI defines the JTTF as ‘front line on ter-rorism: small cells of highly trained, locally based, passionately committed investigators, analysts, linguists, SWAT experts, and other specialists from dozens of U.S. law enforce-ment and intelligence agencies’. Spread across 104 cities, JTTF consists of around 4000 per-sonnel ‘hailing from over 500 state and local agencies and 55 federal agencies’ as per the FBI website.

Passing through the scrutiny of Parlia-ment would not be easy for this kind of struc-tural reform in internal security. However, the Modi Government has shown enough conviction to push through major economic reforms. NCTC’s need is indisputable. Only time will tell how soon this would become a reality.

(The views expressed are strictly personal.)

The mass usage of digital accessories has changed the way business is conducted. Seamless electronic transmission of money and financial intermediation assume greater significance

tweetRETWEET

NARENDRA MODI@narendramodi

OFFICE OF RG@OfficeOfRG

OMAR ABDULLAH@OmarAbdullah

SYED ATA HASNAIN@atahasnain53

Election results in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh indicate a strong support for politics of good governance and development. I salute the hardworking BJP Karyakartas in these states for their hard work which has led to these impressive victories.

The Congress party accepts the verdict of the people and congratulates the new governments in both states. I thank the people of Gujarat and Himachal with all my heart for the love they showed me.

Anyway you look at it after 41 rallies by the PM in Gujarat anything less than a sweeping victory will be a cause for much concern for the BJP.

Just remember the Jihad industry wants war. But we will always keep escalation under our control. If war is the only option, after deep consideration, then so be it.

There is a need for reform within India’s counter-terror architecture (Representational Image)

The exponential growth in payment network has transformed the digital payment space (Representational Image)

mp world10MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi |Tuesday, 19 December, 2017

40 more Rohingya villages burnt in

Myanmar: Report

NAY PYI TAW: The Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Mon-day reported the burning of 40 additional Rohingya villages in Myanmar in a military cam-paign, which has led more than 655,000 people of this Muslim minority community to flee to Bangladesh.

The HRW used satellite images to identify the new inci-dents, recorded between Octo-ber and November, raising the total number of villages com-pletely or partially razed to 354 since the beginning of the mil-itary offensive on August 25, reports Efe news.

In a statement, the rights group said that some of the cases detected occurred the same week that the govern-ments of Bangladesh and Myanmar signed a memoran-dum on November 23, to begin the repatriation of the hun-dreds of thousands of refugees who have crossed the border.

HRW Asia director, Brad Adams, said the continued destruction of Rohingya vil-lages shows that the commit-ment signed to ensure the safe return of refugees is merely a public relations stunt.

“The satellite imagery shows what the Myanmar Army denies: that Rohingya villages continue to be destroyed. The Myanmar government pledges to ensure the safety of return-ing Rohingya cannot be taken seriously,” said Adams.

The organisation accused the Myanmar Army of com-

mitting murders and rapes, among other abuses, during the military operation that began after several armed assaults by a poorly armed Rohingya insurgent group against secu-rity forces, which left 11 Myan-mar security personnel dead.

The Myanmar Army denied all allegations of abuse despite the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights calling it a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.

The non-profit Doctors Without Borders reported last week that at least 6,700 Rohingya have died since August as a result of the violence.

Speaking to BBC’s Pan-orama, which is due to air on Monday night, the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights said it would not sur-prise him if genocide charges were one day brought before the country’s leaders.

He said: ‘The elements sug-gest you cannot rule out the possibility that acts of genocide have been committed.

‘It’s very hard to establish because the thresholds are high but it wouldn’t surprise me in the future if the court were to make such a finding on the basis of what we see.’

If the country’s leaders are aware of the violence - which has seen dozens of people raped, killed and maimed and received vast media coverage - they could be ‘culpable’, Al Hus-sein said. AGENCIES

Myanmar wields colonial-era law against Reuters journalists

NAYPYIDAW: Myanmar has accused Reuters reporters Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, of breaching the country’s Official Secrets Act, a little-used hangover from colonial rule. Sam Zarifi, secretary general of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), said the law can ensnare working journalists “at any time”.

The two reporters were arrested on Tuesday evening after they were invited to meet police officers for dinner in the north of Yangon.

The Ministry of Informa-tion said they had “illegally acquired information with the intention to share it with for-eign media”, and published a photo of the pair in handcuffs standing behind a table with documents laid on it.

The law dates back to 1923, when Myanmar, then known as Burma, was a province of British India. At the time Brit-ish administrators worried that rival powers could seek to

exploit anti-colonial unrest in its South Asian empire.

The act, which amended earlier anti-spying legislation, was controversial in India even at the time, according to a his-tory published in 2009 by the United Service Institution of India, a New Delhi-based think tank.

British military officers pushed for the stronger law over concerns about an “increase in Bolshevik activity”, along with geopolitical threats including “the possibility of racial war between Japan and the USA affecting India”, the history said.

The Official Secrets Act covers trespassing in prohib-ited areas, handling documents deemed secret and communi-cating with “foreign agents”. It carries a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.

Zarifi of the Geneva-based ICJ – a human rights group made up of 60 senior interna-tional judges, lawyers and legal academics – said the definition

of an official secret in the act is “incredibly broad”.

“Just about anyone in pos-session of unpublished gov-ernment documents could find themselves facing prosecution and the harsh penalties a con-viction may carry,” Zarifi said. “Under this law many good journalists could be prosecuted at any time.”

In India, where the same law also remains on the statute book, courts have ruled that it even applies to parliamentary papers such as budget propos-als if they are leaked before they are presented in the legislature.

Legal experts say prosecu-tions under the act have been rare in Myanmar in recent decades. The military junta that ruled until 2011 frequently used other laws or the Penal Code – also inherited from the colonial era – to lock up its crit-ics alongside common crimi-nals. The sprawling code was drafted in 1860, and gives mag-istrates more than 500 sections

under which to charge alleged offenders.

In 1990, a military court sentenced two leaders of the then opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) to 10 years in prison under the Official Secrets Act after they passed an official letter to foreign embassies. The pros-ecution was part of a broad crackdown following an elec-tion won by the NLD that the junta ignored.

They were freed in 1992, in an amnesty, according to a New York Times report at the time. Reports of at least two other cases brought under the act are recorded in the online archives of the Asian Human Rights Commission in 2009 and 2010.

The first case involved a man jailed for trespassing on military land and recording video footage to allegedly send abroad. He had been helping a farmer file a land grab com-plaint against the military. The second concerned a former

army officer who was jailed in 2010 for allegedly having secret information on his lap-top that he passed to foreign news agencies.

The most well-documented recent case involving the Offi-cial Secrets Act came in January of 2014, when the Yangon-based weekly, Unity Journal, published a front page article it said exposed a secret chemi-cal weapons factory run by the military in central Myanmar.

Police arrested the newspa-per’s CEO and four journalists involved in publishing the story, raided its offices, and attempted to seize all copies of the edition from newsstands.

A civilian court in Pakkoku, near the alleged factory, sen-tenced them in July 2014 to 10 years in prison with hard labour – later reduced to seven years. The case was widely seen by the domestic media as a warning that military affairs remained off-limits even though direct military rule had ended. AGENCIES

Suspect arrested over death of

British diplomat in Beirut

ISTANBUL: A suspect has been arrested over the death of a British diplomat in Bei-rut, a judicial source has told the Guardian.

The body of Rebecca Dykes was reportedly found on the side of a motorway in the early hours of Saturday morning. The circumstances surrounding her death were unclear, but local police offi-cials suggested she had been strangled.

Her body was found with-out any identity papers on the Metn highway, which leads out of the Lebanese capital to the north-east suburbs. A forensic examination sug-gested she had died at about 4am on Saturday.

A Lebanese judicial source told the Guardian that Dykes, who was believed to be 30 years old, had spent the evening with friends at a cafe in Gemmayze, a dis-trict of Beirut known for its bars and restaurants. She is thought to have left on her own at around midnight.

The suspect arrested on Monday morning has been named as Tariq H, a taxi driver. Lebanese officials have said they believe the killing was not politically motivated.

The British ambassador to Lebanon, Hugo Shorter, tweeted about Dykes’ death: “The whole embassy is deeply shocked, saddened by this news. My thoughts are with Becky’s family, friends and colleagues for their tragic loss. “We’re providing con-sular support to her family and working very closely with Lebanese authori-ties who are conducting the police investigation.”A fam-ily spokesman said: “We are devastated by the loss of our beloved Rebecca. We are doing all we can to understand what happened. We request that the media respect our privacy as we come together as a family at this very difficult time.”

Dykes worked as a programme and policy manager with the Depart-ment for International Development. AGENCIES

Protests in Vienna as far-right ministers enter Austria’s governmentVIENNA: Austria’s president has sworn in a new govern-ment amid protests against the far right’s prominent role in the cabinet.

At the weekend, the new chancellor, Sebastian Kurz of the Austrian People’s party, struck a deal with the Free-dom party, a nationalist group founded after the second world war by former members of the Nazi party, now headed by Heinz-Christian Strache.

The coalition deal makes Austria the only western Euro-pean country with a far-right presence in government. At 31, Kurz is the youngest head of government in Europe.

Kurz’s People’s party won 32% of the vote in October’s elections, securing 62 seats in the 183-seat national council. The Freedom party came third with 26% of the vote and 51 seats. About 5,000 people were expected to attend protests in Vienna on Monday – a far

lower number than the tens of thousands who turned out the last time the Freedom party entered government, in 2000. A heavy police presence of about 1,500 officers, helicop-ters and water cannon trucks blocked off the area around Hofburg Palace in the run-up to the swearing-in ceremony by the Austrian president, Alexander Van der Bellen. As marches by leftwing and anti-fascist groups converged at the central Heldenplatz Square, people brandished placards

that read “Refugees welcome”, “Nazis out” and “No Nazi pigs”.

Police fired a smoke grenade when some pro-testers tried to break through a barricade, an Agence France-Presse photog-rapher said.

The coalition treaty agreed by the two parties vows to restrict illegal immigration and speed up deportation of refused asylum seekers, but also emphasises the state’s commitment to the European Union. AGENCIES

Twitter to begin penalising hateful, abusive accounts: Report

SAN FRANCISCO: Aimed at reducing hateful content on its platform, Twitter will start penalising accounts from Monday that include “hateful imagery and display names”, or those who “use username, display name, or profile bio to engage in abusive behaviour”, the media reported.

According to a report in ReCode late on Sunday, “for Twitter, the two new restric-tions are attempts to com-bat rampant harassment and abuse on the site”.

Twitter announced new guidelines covering abuse, hateful conduct, vio-lence and physical harm in November.

Facing criticism over the years for its poor handling of “abuse”, Twitter “updated” its rules in October and Novem-ber, clarifying its policies on graphic violence, spam and

self-harm, among others.The changes are part of

revamp to Twitter’s policies surrounding online abuse.

The biggest updates on the platform include abu-sive behaviour, self-harm, spam and related behaviours, graphic violence and adult content.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has also announced plans to act more aggressively on vio-lence and sexual abuse.

In an internal email which was obtained by Wired.com, Twitter’s head of safety pol-icy in October emailed members of its Trust and Safety Council on new rules

to promote free speech and curb violence and sexual harassment.

“We hope our approach and upcoming changes, as well as our collaboration with the Trust and Safety Council, show how seri-ously we are rethinking our rules and how quickly we’re moving to update our poli-cies and how we enforce them,” Twitter said.

“We will immediately and permanently suspend any account we identify as the original poster/source of non-consensual nudity and/or if a user makes it clear they are intentionally posting said content to harass their target,” the email read.

“If the account appears to be dedicated to posting non-consensual nudity then we will suspend the entire account immediately,” it added. AGENCIES

10 KILLED IN BANGLADESH STAMPEDE DHAKA: At least 10 persons were crushed to death and over 50 injured on Monday in a stampede during a funeral rite of a political leader in Bangladesh’s Chittagong city. The procession was that of former Mayor Mohiud-din Chowdhury who was also a leader of Prime Minister Sheikh Ha-sina’s ruling Bangladesh Awami League party . The stampede occurred in Chittagong’s Rima Community Centre, one of the 14 venues where the funeral ritual food was arranged. AGENCIES

RUSSIAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN LAUNCHEDMOSCOW: The Russian Presidential campaign was officially launched on Monday.The Russian Central Election Commission will approve the plan of the upcoming election campaign later on Monday, reports Xinhua. A total of 23 candidates have declared their intention to run for President, including Vladimir Putin, CEC chairperson Ella Pamfilova said. To be registered as an independent Presidential nominee in Rus-sia, a candidate has to collect at least 300,000 voters’ signatures. AGENCIES

Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo

mp world 11MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi |Tuesday, 19 December, 2017

Theresa May to pitch status quo Brexit transition to Parliament

LONDON: British Prime Min-ister Theresa May will pitch her plan for a Brexit transition period with unchanged access to European Union markets when she briefs lawmakers on Monday about her latest nego-tiating trip to Brussels.

May secured an agreement last week to move previously-deadlocked talks forward onto the topic of interim and long-term trading arrangements. On Monday she will report back to parliament on those talks, setting out the frame-work of a time-limited imple-mentation period designed to smooth Britain’s EU exit and provide clarity for businesses and citizens.

“This will help give cer-tainty to employers and fami-lies that we are going to deliver a smooth Brexit,” May will say, adding that the guide-lines agreed last week point to a shared desire with the EU to make “rapid progress” on a deal. The outline of the transi-tion period that May will pres-ent is consistent with plans she has previously set out, and remains subject to negotiation in Brussels.

“During this strictly time-limited implementation period which we will now begin to negotiate, we would not be in the Single Market or the Cus-toms Union, as we will have

left the European Union,” May will say according to advance extracts of her statement.

“But we would propose that our access to one another’s mar-kets would continue as now, while we prepare and imple-ment the new processes and

new systems that will underpin our future partnership.”

But the plan is not guaran-teed to be universally accepted by lawmakers in May’s Con-servative Party, which is still deeply divided over the best route out of the bloc, and for

some even the principle of leav-ing the EU.

May is reliant on the back-ing of all members of her party to put her Brexit plans into action, having lost her par-liamentary majority in an ill-judged snap election earlier this

year which left her needing the support of a small Northern Irish party.

On Saturday, some Conser-vatives who want to see Britain make a more radical break with the bloc baulked at a sugges-tion by Finance Minister Philip Hammond that the implemen-tation phase would amount to recreating the status quo with the EU.

May will say that during the interim period, Britain wants to begin registering EU citi-zens’ arrival in the country in preparation for a new immigra-tion system, and would hope to agree, and possibly even sign, post-Brexit trade deals with non-EU states.

As well as briefing parlia-ment, May is expected to meet key ministers on Monday to discuss the even thornier issue of what the country’s long-term relationship with the EU should be – the first time since the June 2016 vote to leave that she has broached the topic with senior cabinet members.

A full cabinet discussion on the so-called “end state” of the Brexit talks is then due on Tuesday. One of the key pro-Brexit voices in the cabinet, for-eign minister Boris Johnson, on Sunday set out his own long-term view, warning May that Britain must avoid becoming subordinate to the EU. AGENCIES

Russia kills five Islamist militants in Caucasus

MOSCOW: Five militants who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group have been killed in Russia’s volatile Northern Caucasus region, the national anti-terrorism com-mittee said on Monday.

Armed militants were killed in a shootout with Rus-sia’s FSB security service and other law enforcement agen-cies in the Karachay-Cherkes-sia region, the committee said in a statement.

Automatic rifles, ammuni-tion and improvised explosive devices were recovered from the scene, authorities said, adding that a senior militant was thought to be among the casualties. “It is known that members of this band have pledged allegiance to the ISIS international terrorist organ-isation and planned to com-mit terror-related crimes in crowded places,” the com-mittee said. ISIS is another widely used name for IS. The announcement came after the CIA helped Russia thwart a ter-ror attack on the Kazan Cathe-dral, one of the most famous landmarks in Saint Peters-burg. President Vladimir Putin praised the “exemplary cooperation” between the US and Russian security services and in a phone call Sunday thanked his US counterpart Donald Trump. AGENCIES

Trump not considering firing Special Counsel

Robert Mueller WASHINGTON: US Presi-dent Donald Trump has said he is not planning to fire Spe-cial Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating possible Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Returning to the White House from Camp David, Trump was asked on Sun-day whether he intended to fire Mueller. “No, I’m not,” he told journalists, insisting that there was “no collusion what-soever” between his campaign and Russia.

The President’s comments came a day after a lawyer repre-senting Trump’s transition team accused Mueller of wrongfully obtaining thousands of emails sent and received by Trump officials before the start of his administration, the Washing-ton Post reported.

Trump criticised Muel-ler for gaining access to those emails, telling reporters the sit-uation was “not looking good”.

“It’s quite sad to see that,” Trump said. “My people were very upset about it.”

Mueller’s spokesman denied wrongdoing and some legal experts questioned the claim that the emails were improperly obtained.

The Special Counsel’s Office, which is investigat-ing allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign

and Russia, has faced increased scrutiny in recent weeks, with reports about potential political bias within Mueller’s team and reports of potential conflicts of interest within the Department of Justice.

Several Democratic law-makers had expressed concern, and on Friday the top Demo-crat on the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, said he feared Republican members wanted to shut the probe down.

However, the President’s advisers insisted that he is not directing his ire over the collu-sion probe at Mueller.

“As the White House has repeatedly and emphatically said for months, there is no consideration about firing or replacing the Special Counsel with whom the White House has fully cooperated in order to permit a fully vetted yet prompt conclusion,” said Ty Cobb, a White House lawyer oversee-ing the Russia matter. AGENCIES

Oppn MPs in Albania throw smoke bombs in Parliament

TIRANA: Albanian lawmakers from the rightwing opposition on Monday threw smoke bombs into a hall of par-liament to protest the election by the ruling socialists of a new attorney gen-eral. Before the vote, rightwing opposi-tion leader Lulzim Basha had criticised socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama for wanting to appoint a “puppet” to fol-low his commands.

The accusation comes amid an investigation into Saimir Tahiri, a close ally of Rama’s and until March Alba-nia’s interior minister, who is accused of having links to international canna-bis trafficking. Opposition MPs tried in vain Monday to stop the proceed-ings, but Arta Marku was eventually sworn in as interim attorney general as smoke still filled the room. Marku’s appointment “is a constitutional vio-lation and can lead to a destabilisation of the country,” Basha had said Sunday night. He said the job of naming a new

attorney general should fall to the pros-ecutor’s office high council, as a plan to reform the current law, which has not yet been voted on, has laid out.

Rama “is asking us to violate the constitution because he wants an attor-ney general under his thumb,” Basha added.Marku is due to fill the role for the next two to three months, or until a new prosecution high council has been created. Several thousand activists also protested outside parliament, chanting: “Rama, go away!” Some demonstrators tried to enter the cordoned-off build-ing, which led to stampedes. AGENCIES

Trump in strategy document to cite China, Russia as

competitorsWASHINGTON: President Donald Trump will declare that China and Russia are competi-tors seeking to challenge U.S. power and erode its security and prosperity, in a national security strategy he will lay out in a speech on Monday.

“They are determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militar-ies, and to control information and data to repress their soci-eties and expand their influ-ence,” according to excerpts of Trump’s strategy released by the White House.

The strategy, a product of months of deliberations by the president and his top advisers, does not repeat former Pres-ident Barack Obama’s 2016 description of climate change as a U.S. national security threat, aides said.

Trump has vowed to with-draw the United States from the Paris climate accord unless changes are made to it. “The United States will continue to advance an approach that balances energy security, eco-nomic development, and envi-ronmental protection,” the document will say.

Trump’s national security posture reflects his “America First” priorities of protecting the U.S. homeland and borders, rebuilding the U.S. military, projecting strength abroad and pursuing trade policies more favorable to the United States.

The singling out of China and Russia as “revision-ist powers” in the document reflects the Trump adminis-tration’s wariness of them despite Trump’s own attempts to build strong relations with Chinese President Xi Jin-ping and Russian President Vladimir Putin. AGENCIES

Possibility of nuclear war in South Asia cannot be ruled out: Pak NSA

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s security czar on Monday said that the stability of the South Asian region hangs in a deli-cate balance and the possibil-ity of a nuclear war cannot be ruled out.

National Security Advisor Lt Gen (retd.) Nasser Khan Janjua also accused the US of conspiring against the multi- billion China-Pakistan Eco-nomic Corridor (CPEC) with India, The Express Tribune reported.

Addressing a seminar on issues of national security here, Janjua claimed that India has been stockpiling a range of dangerous weapons and it threatens Pakistan continu-ously of conventional warfare.

“The stability of the South Asian region hangs in a deli-cate balance, and the possibil-ity of nuclear war cannot be ruled out,” he claimed.

The NSA stressed that sup-porting US forces in the region had given birth to the rise of terrorism inside the country.

“As the Taliban grow stron-ger in Afghanistan, America has started to shift the blame for its failures in the country

onto Pakistan,” he said.He also alleged that as part

of its policy to counter Chi-nese influence in South Asia, the US is conspiring against the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor along with India.

“The US has given India role in Afghanistan’s political process, giving New Delhi pri-ority over Islamabad, and has opposed the CPEC,” he said.

The nearly $50 bil-lion CPEC, a flagship proj-ect of China’s prestigious One Belt One Road (OBOR), passes through Pakistan-occu-pied Kashmir (PoK).

The CPEC links Chi-

na’s restive Xinjiang region with Pakistan’s Balochistan province.

“The US-India alliance has an identical stance on the Kashmir issue, and America frequently gives India pref-erence over Pakistan,” Janjua said.

He said Pakistan encoun-tered the menace of terrorism only after it started supporting the operations of US-led forces in Afghanistan.

“Pakistan has been bat-tling with security problems for the past forty years. Peace in Afghanistan remains our top priority,” he said. AGENCIES

Tense vote count as S Africa’s ANC elects new leaderJOHANNESBURG: Vote counting began on Mon-day after thousands of del-egates from South Africa’s ruling ANC party cast ballots to choose their next leader, in an election seen as a deci-sive moment in the country’s post-apartheid history. There are only two candidates in the hotly-contested race: Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, a wealthy businessman, and former minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who is Presi-dent Jacob Zuma’s ex-wife.

Whoever wins will be well-placed to be South Africa’s next president in the 2019 general election. Voting started soon after midnight on Sunday and continued for nearly 12 hours after repeated delays due to disputes over which delegates were qualified to vote. Hun-dreds of attendees were banned from the poll creating the risk of legal disputes.

The 4,776 delegates cast secret ballots for the six senior positions in the party, with the result expected later Monday.

Allegations swirled of del-egates being targeted with bribes, but ANC spokesman Khusela Sangoni told reporters that the process had proceeded “smoothly”.

On Sunday, rival sup-porters sang and chanted in the conference hall outside Johannesburg as the vote was repeatedly postponed as argu-ments raged over delegates’ credentials.

“I have not slept for the past 24 hours, but I don’t care,” said Patience Nomodi, 62, a party member for 40 years, wearing an ANC blanket on her shoul-ders and supported by a yellow walking stick.

“I want a woman to be pres-ident before I die.”

In the early hours of Mon-day, fatigued delegates wear-ing the ANC’s official colours of yellow and green napped around the conference centre, while others prayed exuber-antly for their chosen candi-dates. Ramaphosa-supporting delegate Siya Kolase told AFP after voting early Monday that he was confident his candidate would emerge victorious.

“He will address the issue of corruption. He is going to stabilise our economy,” Kolase said.The ANC, which has ruled since 1994 when Nelson Man-dela won the first multi-racial vote, could struggle to retain its grip on power in the 2019 election due to falling public support. AGENCIES

8 killed in Indonesia’s central Java landslideJAKARTA: Eight workers of a sand pit in Indonesia’s Central Java regency of Magelang were killed in landslide on Monday, while eight others were rescued, Indonesia’s disaster mitiga-tion agency BNPB said. The agency’s spokesperson Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said further search for other workers possibly buried in the landslide was underway involving a task force of fire fighters, military, police, volunteers and Magelang disaster mitigation agency’s personnel, Xinhua news agency re-

ported. “There was no rain when the landslide took place. They were exca-vating the sand when it suddenly oc-curred, burying the workers. We don’t know the exact number of workers in the location at that time,” Sutopo said, adding that the landslide occurred at around 10:00 a.m. local time. Deadly landslides in sand pits around the location have occurred several times previously. The almost-vertical high sand walls in the pit were apparently dangerous for the workers. AGENCIES

ABU DHABI HOLDS SUMMIT ON WOMEN, PEACE & SECURITYABU DHABI: A conference on women empowerment to promote international peace and security was held in the United Arab Emirates’ capital on Monday. The conference was titled “Women, Security and Peace Summit: The Gen-der Dimensions of International Peace and Security: Keys to Prosperity and Peace” AGENCIES

May is reliant on the backing of all members of her party to put her Brexit plans into action, having lost her parliamentary majority in an ill-judged snap election earlier this year

General Nasser Khan Janjua

Several thousand activists also protested outside parliament, chanting: “Rama, go away!”

mp business12MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 19 December, 2017

MUMBAI: The stock market rallied 139 points on Monday on prospects that the BJP is set to keep power in Gujarat and topple the Congress in Him-achal Pradesh, but not before it got a big scare from count-ing of votes early on during the session.

The start was ominous as the benchmark Sensex crashed 867 points to go below the psycho-logical 33,000 while the NSE Nifty plunged 258 points within one hour of counting of votes that showed both the parties were locked in a tight race.

But then, the tide turned as the BJP started to take lead in a majority of seats. According to Election Commission tally at 5 p.m., the BJP had won 70 seats and was leading in 29 for a pos-sible total of 99 in the 182-mem-ber Gujarat assembly.

In Himachal Pradesh, the BJP won 17 seats and was ahead in 27 seats while the ruling Con-gress won 10 and was ahead in 11 in the 68-member house. A majority will come with 35 seats.

The 30-share BSE index hit a

high of 33,801.90 and settled up 138.71 points, or 0.41 per cent, at 33,601.68, its highest closing since November 29 when it had closed at 33,602.76.

The gauge gained 409.93 points in the previous two ses-sions after exit polls had pre-dicted BJP win in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh assem-bly polls. The 50-share Nifty reclaimed the key 10,300-mark to close higher by 55.50 points, or 0.54 per cent, at 10,388.75, its highest closing since November 27. It moved between 10,074.80 and 10,443.55 intra-day.

It was an extremely vola-tile session, borne out by the Sensex swinging over 1,200 points through the day and the Nifty 369 points.

“While market sentiment ebbed and flowed, as elec-tion results trickled in, PSU bank stocks marched ahead in anticipation of bank recapitali-sation updates from the Parlia-ment’s ongoing winter session. Investors will now also focus on developments on the GST front, including implementa-tion of e-way bill mechanism,” said Anand James, Chief Mar-

ket Strategist, Geojit Financial Services.

The rupee, which had earlier crashed, making up much of its losses against the dollar came as a big source of support.

M&M hit it big in the Sensex team, soaring 2.71 per cent, while Sun Pharma and SBI gained up to 2.06 per cent.

In contrast, Yes Bank, Coal India, Infosys, ITC, Kotak Bank, HDFC and NTPC succumbed to rush for taking profit, which narrowed the gains.

The metal index advanced 1.83 per cent, followed by auto consumer durables and health-care. However, realty finished in the negative zone.

Given the improvement in sentiment, the broader markets played along, with the mid-cap index rising 0.76 per cent and small-cap 0.45 per cent. Domes-tic institutional investors (DIIs) offloaded equities to the tune of Rs 635.44 crore while foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) net sold shares worth Rs 921.03 crore last Friday, provisional figures showed. PTI

MELBOURNE: Beleaguered Adani Australia on Monday said it has cancelled a 2.6 bil-lion dollar contract with an Aus-tralian mining services firm to cut costs, days after the Indian energy giant failed to get a con-cessional loan for its contro-versy-hit Carmichael coal mine project in Queensland.

The split with Downer comes after the Australian firm was the target of a nationwide activist campaign pressuring it to quit the 16.5 billion dollar Carmichael project in central Queensland, claiming it will harm the iconic Great Barrier Reef.

In a setback to Adani, the newly-elected Queensland government led by Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk last week vetoed a plan to give a 900-mil-lion dollar concessional loan for the construction of a rail line for the Carmichael coal mine project.

She vetoed the loan to Adani Australia, fulfilling a major poll promise she had made during the election campaign to put a stop to the NAIF loan on her first day.

The Adani group had applied for the Northern Aus-tralia Infrastructure Facility

(NAIF) loan worth 900 million dollars for building the 388-km rail line to connect the major coal mine to the sea port.

The 16.5 billion dollar Car-michael coal mine project when completed would be one of the world's largest.

The move to cancel the contract raises further ques-tions about the fate of the mas-sive project, with Downer one of only two mine contractors along with Thiess considered capable of handling an opera-tion producing up to 60 million tonnes of coal a year, the Aus-tralian Broadcasting Coropra-tion reported.

Adani said in a statement that it is committed to the proj-

ect and the split with Downer was "simply a change in man-agement structure".

"Following on from the NAIF veto last week, and in line with its vision to achieve the lowest quartile cost of pro-duction by ensuring flexibility and efficiencies in the supply chain, Adani has decided to develop and operate the mine on an owner operator basis," the

statement said."Adani and Downer have

mutually agreed to cancel all Letter of Awards and Downer will provide transitional assis-tance until March 31, 2018.

Adani remains committed to develop the Carmichael proj-ect and will ensure the highest level of standards and gover-nance," the statement said.

Adani said both parties had

cancelled a conditional 2.6 bil-lion dollar contract as part of its cost-cutting drive spurred on by the Queensland Government's veto of its 1 billion dollar Com-monwealth loan bid, the ABC report said.

Earlier this month, China's two major state-run banks said they have no plans to finance the Carmichael coal mine project.

The Carmichael project, expected to create hundreds of jobs in Australia, has been facing opposition from envi-ronmentalists and indigenous groups.

The Adani Group has for over five years battled the oppo-sition to any expansion of the Abbot Point port, saying it will cut into the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.

The Adani group entered Australia in 2010 with the pur-chase of the greenfield Carmi-chael coal mine in the Galilee Basin in central Queensland, and the Abbot Point port near Bowen in the north. Adani Aus-tralia currently employs over 800 people and has invested over 3.3 billion dollars in Queensland, which is the big-gest investments by an Indian company in Australia, the com-pany said on its website. PTI

Adani’s $2.6 bn Australian mining contract cancelled

In a setback to Adani, the Queensland government last week vetoed a plan to give a $900 million concessional loan for the construction of a rail line for the Carmichael coal mine project

MUMBAI: In line with local equities, the rupee too recouped its massive initial losses but ended still lower by 20 paise to 64.24 a dollar after the trends showed the BJP will form governments in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.

Scripting its biggest single-day fall in the recent past, the rupee nosedived by a whop-ping 70 paise to 64.74 in early trade after a sense of panic and disbelief rippled through currency trading after initial trends suggested that the rul-ing BJP was lagging behind in Gujarat election results.

Though, the domestic cur-rency managed to recover a major chunk of the lost ground against the dollar, the overall weak sentiment kept the rupee under continued pressure throughout the day. The rupee had gained 30 paise to close at

a fresh three- month high on Friday. Encouraging domestic macro data along with robust capital inflows and bearish dollar undertone predomi-nantly helped the domestic currency. PTI

Markets breathe easy after BJP noses ahead in Gujarat, HP

Open:10,263.10

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1614 159 12 1310 11 14

Intra-day on December 18, 2017 Intra-day on December 18, 2017

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NEW DELHI: Goods and Ser-vices Tax Network (GSTN), the IT backbone of the new tax regime, on Monday said it has put a new function on its portal to allow taxpayers choose the frequency of filing GSTR 1 form on quarterly or monthly basis.

Taxpayers with annual aggregate turnover up to Rs 1.5 crore in the previous finan-cial year or anticipated in the current financial year can avail the option of filing quarterly returns. Form GSTR 1 sum-marises all the sales of a tax-payer. This has been done as per decision taken in the 23rd GST Council Meeting. After giving their option, taxpayers can file GSTR 1 for the relevant return periods, the GST Networks said.

It further said that taxpayers who opt for quarterly filing will have to select the last month of the quarter from the drop down menu. Further, all taxpayers who opt for monthly filing can now file GSTR 1 from August onwards till November. Filing of return of previous month is mandatory.

GSTN has been set up to provide IT infrastructure and services to the central as well as state governments, taxpay-ers and other stakeholders for implementation of the GST, which came into force on July 1 this year. PTI

GST Network brings in option for monthly, quarterly filing of forms

NEW DELHI: The government has said that it is too early to comment on GST collections, which slipped about 10 per cent in November - over the previous month - to Rs 85,931 crore. As per the information provided by the finance ministry to the Lok Sabha on Friday, as many as 33.2 lakh new taxpayers have registered themselves under GST till December 11 from the day of roll out on July 1. “It is too early to comment on the changes in the tax collection as a result of changes in the tax base because of factors like overlap of tax-payers pre and post introduction of GST, variation in exemption limits between Centre and States and among States and mechanism of apportion-ment of fund under IGST,” Minister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla said. PTI

Too early to comment on GST collections, House informed

Bitcoins: I-T to issue notices to 4-5L HNIs

NEW DELHI: Widening its probe into bitcoin investments and trade, the Income Tax (IT) department is set to issue notices to 4 to 5 lakh high net-worth individuals (HNI) across the country who were trading on the exchanges of this unreg-ulated virtual currency.

The taxman had conducted surveys at nine such exchanges last week to check instances of tax evasion.

The department, official sources said, found that out of the estimated 20 lakh entities registered on these exchanges, about 4 to 5 lakh were "opera-tional" and indulging in trans-actions and investments.

Sources said that the Beng-aluru investigation wing of the tax department, which super-vised last week's operations, has now dispatched the informa-tion of the individuals and enti-ties found on these databases to eight other such wings across the country for a detailed probe.

"Those individuals and enti-ties whose records were recov-ered by the department are now being probed under tax evasion charges. Notices are being issued and they will have to pay capital gains tax on the bitcoin invest-ments and trade," a senior offi-cial privy to the operation said.

About 4-5 lakh HNIs and their businesses are being issued notices which will first seek their relevant financial details and subsequently establish the tax demand, if any, he said.

As the bitcoins or the virtual currencies (VCs) are illegal and unregulated in the country as of now, the IT department has taken action as per the existing provisions, they said.

The survey operations con-ducted last week, under section 133 A of the Income Tax Act, were undertaken for "gather-ing evidence for establishing the identity of investors and trad-ers, the transaction undertaken

by them, identity of counter-parties, related bank accounts used, among others," they said.

A survey action under the IT law pertains to the tax officials making a surprise visit to the business premises of the party under action but not their resi-dential ones.

The trigger for the action is understood to be the huge spike being registered in the value of bitcoins and other virtual cur-rencies in the recent past.

Suspected black money being converted into white, post demonetisation, through the use of bitcoins was also under the department's scanner, offi-cials said.

Earlier this month, there was a spurt in the value of a bitcoin. It rose from under $10,000 at the start of the year to close to $20,000, before a sharp 20 per cent plunge within hours.

Bitcoin, a virtual currency, is not regulated in the country and its circulation has been a cause for concern among cen-tral bankers the world over for quite a while now.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has also cautioned users, holders and traders of virtual currencies. The government has also said that it does not recognise 'crypto-currency' as legal tender in India.

In March, the Union finance ministry constituted an Inter-Disciplinary Committee to take stock of the present status of vir-tual currencies both in India and globally and suggest measures for dealing with them.

The committee has submit-ted its report which is being examined. PTI

MUMBAI: The farm debt waivers announced by the five large states together will widen the combined fiscal deficit of the states by Rs 1,07,700 crore or 0.65 per cent of GDP this financial year, warns a report.

The combined fiscal defi-cit of the states for FY18 has been budgeted at 2.7 per cent of GDP or Rs 4.48 trillion.

Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Karnataka have announced farm loan waivers this year after a string of farmer suicides in these states.

Nine states have budgeted an increase in their fiscal defi-cits/gross state domestic prod-uct (GSDP) ratios this year compared to 19 states in FY17.

"With several states announcing farm loan waiv-

ers, there is a fear that the com-bined fiscal deficits of the states could be much worse than the budgeted figure," India Ratings said in a report on Monday.

The report estimates that the combined fiscal deficit of the states in FY18 at 3 per cent of GDP or Rs 4.99 trillion. This is higher than the budgeted fig-ure but considerably lower than FY17. The report is based on

the analysis of 29 state budgets, the impact of the farm debt waivers announced outside the budgets and implementation of GST from July 2017.

While the farm debt waiv-ers announced by UP and Pun-jab are part of their respective FY18 budgets, the waivers announced by Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Karnataka are outside their budgets.

"These states will have to either generate additional resources to fund farm debt waivers or cut their budgeted expenditure," the report said.

If such announcements are funded through expenditure compression, the axe usually falls first on the budgeted cap-ital expenditure, followed by social expenditure, the report said.

"Both cuts do not augur well from the point of view of the medium to long term growth prospects of these states," the report said.

Andhra Pradesh and Telan-gana, which announced a farm debt waivers of Rs 43,000 crore and Rs 17,000 crore, respec-tively, in 2014, however have adopted a staggered payment mechanism. PTI

Farm loan waivers to raise state deficits by `1.08 trillion: Report

NEW DELHI: National drug pricing regulator NPPA on Monday said it has notified prices of 65 essential formula-tions, including those used for the treatment of diabetes, infec-tions, pain and high blood pres-sure. "NPPA has fixed/revised ceiling prices/Retail Prices of 65 scheduled formulations under Drugs (Prices Control) Order, 2013," it said. NPPA fixes ceil-ing price of essential medicines of Schedule I under the Drugs (Prices Control) Order (DPCO) 2013.

In respect of medicines that are not under price con-trol, manufacturers are allowed to increase the maximum retail

price by 10 per cent annually.The calculation for essential

drugs is based on the simple average of all medicines in a par-ticular therapeutic segment with sales of more than 1 per cent.

Since 1997, NPPA has been entrusted with the task of fixation/revision of prices of pharma products, enforce-ment of DPCO and monitor-ing of prices of controlled and decontrolled drugs. PTI

NPPA notifies prices of 65 essential formulations

NEW DELHI: More than 3 lakh persons have been disqualified for holding the post of director at registered companies for fail-ing to comply with regulatory requirements, the government said on Monday.

Under the Companies Act, directors of companies that fail to file financial statements or annual returns among others for three consecutive financial years are disqualified.

"On account of operation of Section 164 read with the sec-tion 167 of the Companies Act, 2013 a total of 3,09,619 directors have been identified as disquali-fied directors up to November 30, 2017," Minister of State for Corporate Affairs P P Chaud-hary said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

Further, nearly 2.25 lakh companies have been struck-

off for remaining inactive for a period of two years or more.

"Registrars of Companies (RoCs) have removed 2,24,733 companies...up to November 30, 2017 after following the due process under Section 248 of the Companies Act," Chaud-

hary added.Section 248 provides powers

to RoCs to remove the name of a company from the register on various grounds, including that the entity was not carrying out any business for two preceding financial years. PTI

Over 3 lakh directors disqualified; 2.25 lakh companies struck off

NEW DELHI: The Income-Tax Department has unearthed undisclosed income of Rs 7,961 crore post demoneti-sation, from November last year to March, Parliament was informed on Monday.

Minister of State for Finance Pon Radhakrishnan said the department, during this period, conducted searches on around 900 groups, wherein assets worth over Rs 900 crore were seized and undisclosed income of Rs 7,961 crore was admitted.

The minister further said that as per the data available to National Crime Record Bureau, after cancellation of Legal Character of Speci-fied Bank Notes, an amount of Rs 18.70 crore FICN (Fake Indian Currency Note have been seized by State Police till November 30, 2017. PTI

I-T dept unearths undisclosed income

of 7,961 crore

NEW DELHI: Gross Non-per-forming Assets (NPAs) of banks crossed Rs 8.50 lakh crore at the end of September 2017, Min-ister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla informed the Lok Sabha.

"Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has informed that the growth in provisions for NPAs of Public Sector Banks (PSBs) in the first half of the current financial year (as on September 30, 2017 over March 31, 2017) was 9.5 per cent," he said in a written reply to the house.

RBI has issued directions to certain banks for referring 12 accounts, with fund and non-

fund based outstanding amount greater than Rs 5,000 crore and with 60 per cent or more clas-sified as non-performing as of March 31, 2016, to initiate insolvency process under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, the minister said.

These 12 accounts consti-tuted about 25 per cent of the gross NPAs of the banking sys-tem, he said in another reply.

In addition to these accounts, Shukla said, RBI has also issued directions to resolve certain other accounts within six months, failing which insol-vency proceedings under the Code will need to be initiated.

Replying to another ques-tion, the minister said there is no proposal under consid-eration of the government to withdraw bank cheque book facility.

"While the government is committed to transform India into a less cash economy and promote digital and electronic transactions through multi-pronged initiatives, cheques are an integral part of the payments landscape and form the back-bone of trade and commerce, by being negotiable instruments, which often serve as the secu-rity for underlying trade trans-actions," he said. PTI

Gross NPAs of banks cross `8.50 lakh cr in 1st half: MoS

NEW DELHI: Telecom regu-lator Trai on Monday started consultation process to bring down mobile number porta-bility charges from to Rs 4 from Rs 19 levied at present.

The Trai in a statement said that considering the upsurge in the volume of porting requests with effect from July 3, 2015, and the financial results of both the mobile number portability service providers (MNPSPs), the present ceiling of Rs 19 is quite high as compared to cost and volumes of transaction involved. It has sought pub-lic comments on the matter by December 29, 2017. PTI

Trai mulls reduction of 80% MNP cost to 4

mp business 13MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 19 December, 2017

NEW DELHI: Within days of getting a rap on its knuckles, Airtel on Monday offered to return Rs 190 crore subsidy that had flown into the ‘unsolicited’ Payments Bank accounts of its 31 lakh mobile phone subscrib-ers, sources said on Monday.

Airtel wrote to National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) on Monday promising to return Rs 190 crore (along with interest) to the consum-ers’ original bank accounts that were linked to the Direct Ben-efit Transfer (DBT), the sources familiar with the development said.

NPCI is an umbrella organ-isation for all retail payments in India.

Both Airtel and Airtel Pay-ments bank came under fire after Airtel allegedly opened accounts of its mobile phone subscribers without seeking their “informed consent”, and LPG subsidy worth crores was deposited to these accounts.

The government acted swiftly in the matter and the Unique Identification Author-ity of India (UIDAI), in a stern move late last week, temporar-ily barred the company from conducting Aadhaar-based SIM verification of mobile customers using eKYC pro-cess and e-KYC of payments bank clients.

Suspending the ‘e-KYC licence key’, the Aadhaar issu-

ing body UIDAI also ordered PricewaterhouseCoopers to conduct an audit of Bharti Air-tel and Airtel Payments Bank to ascertain if their systems and processes are in compliance with the Aadhaar Act.

“The government has taken a stern view of the entire issue and Airtel has been forced to return the amount to original bank account of these custom-ers,” said a government source who did not wish to be named.

The mechanism of the DBT benefits floating into the accounts is also being tightened, to bring in greater accountability, he noted.

Mounting pressure on Air-

tel, the state-run oil companies had begun writing to the bil-lionaire Sunil Mittal-led firm asking it to transfer back the LPG subsidy that got credited to its payment bank accounts.

The subsidy that the gov-ernment pays to households for buying cooking gas LPG has got credited to these pay-ments bank accounts, lead-ing to inconvenience to users many of whom did not know that their entitlement was not coming to their regular bank account but going an account which they had not applied for.

Taking a lead, Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) wrote to Airtel asking it to

revert the subsidy to the cus-tomers’ earlier bank account or transfer them same to the oil companies.

In a statement earlier in the day, HPCL said oil marketing companies and the oil ministry has been getting a large number of complaints from LPG con-sumers on not receiving LPG subsidy amounts into their ear-lier bank accounts for the past few weeks.

“In many cases across the three oil marketing compa-nies (Indian Oil Corp, Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd and HPCL) where the Aadhaar linking of LPG consumers has got changed in the NPCI map-

per to Airtel Payments Bank and hence the LPG subsidy is getting sent to the new bank account in the Airtel Payments Bank,” it had said.

In order to check diver-sions, the government pays subsidy equivalent to buying 12 LPG cylinders of 14.2-kg each in a year, directly into the bank accounts of beneficiaries.

Unlike in the past, LPG now is only available at market price. Beneficiaries get subsidy for one cylinder in advance and are replenished the moment they use it up to buying LPG refill.

Airtel declined to comment when asked about its offer to return Rs 190 crore subsidy to original bank accounts of its 31 lakh customers.

Responding to the state-ment issued by HPCL, Airtel Payments Bank spokesperson said, “as per government rules, DBT subsidy goes to latest Aad-haar linked bank account. Cus-tomers can withdraw this at any of our designated outlets. No charges for such withdrawals are levied”.

However, “given that some customers have experienced inconvenience of not being aware of which Bank account the DBT has gone to, we are fully committed to resolving this immediately”, it added.

The company said it is “in the process” of taking appro-priate steps in this regard. PTI

NEW DELHI: State-run SAIL, the only supplier of rails to the Indian Railways, sup-plied 6.20 lakh tonnes of rails to the national transporter, Parliament was informed on Monday.

This supply was about 40 per cent less against the demand of 10.05 lakh tonnes made dur-ing 2016-17, Parliament was informed on Monday.

To a question whether SAIL is "lagging behind to meet the demand for new rails of the Indian Railways for track renewal and capacity aug-mentation," Minister of State for Steel Vishnu Deo Sai said in 2014-15, railways ordered 5.81 lakh tonnes of rails and received 5.84 lakh tonnes.

In 2015-16, the PSU steel major supplied 6.46 lakh tonnes of rails as against the order of 8.12 lakh tonnes. In the following fiscal, the PSU supplied 6.20 lakh tonnes to the public sector transporter as

against the order of 10.05 lakh tonnes, the minister informed the Lok Sabha through a writ-ten reply.

SAIL has taken steps to aug-ment its capacity by setting up a rail mill at its Bhilai Steel Plant in Chhattisgarh, the minister said.

"During April-November 2017, SAIL supplied 5.55 lakh tonnes to the railways, which is an increase of 43 per cent over corresponding period last year, when it was 3.89 lakh tonnes," Sai said.

Until now, as per an MoU, state-run Steel Authority of India (SAIL) is the only com-pany supplying rails to the railways. SAIL manufactures 260-metre long rails at its Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP) in Chhattis-garh. The Ministry of Railways recently floated a global tender to procure 7 lakh tonnes of rails worth Rs 3,500 crore. This is the first time that the railways has come up with such a tender. PTI

Will return 190 crore subsidy to original A/Cs: Airtel to NPCI NEW DELHI: The govern-

ment has informed the Lok Sabha that about Rs 5,000 crore was spent on printing of new Rs 500 currency notes post demonetisation.

As per the information pro-vided by Minister of State for Finance P Radhakrishnan in a written reply, as many as 1,695.7 crore pieces of Rs 500 denomi-nation note were printed till December 8.

The amount spent on pro-duction of Rs 500 notes was Rs 4,968.84 crore, he said.

The minister also informed that the RBI printed 365.4 crore pieces of Rs 2,000 notes. The cost incurred is about Rs 1,293.6 crore.

Similarly, Rs 522.83 crore have been spent on printing of 178 crore pieces of Rs 200 notes.

"New design notes in the denomination of Rs 50, 200, 500 and 2,000 have been intro-duced after demonetisation," the minister said. In another reply, he said the surplus transfered

from the RBI to the government has declined by Rs 35,217 crore in 2016 -17 mainly on account of increase in expenditure on printing of currency notes.

The RBI had transfered Rs 65,876 crore as surplus to the government in 2015-16. The amount reduced to Rs 30,659 crore in 2016-17.

The government on Novem-ber 8, 2016 announced to demonetise old Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes, which together accounted for about 86 per cent of the currency in circula-

tion. About 99 per cent of the scrapped currency was returned to the RBI.

"Subject to future correc-tions, based on verification process, the estimated value of Specified Bank Notes (scrapped currency) received as on June 30, 2017 is Rs 15.28 lakh crore," the minister said in reply to another question.

As part of its remonetisation exercise, the Reserve Bank came out new notes of Rs 500 and Rs 50. It also introduced notes of Rs 2,000 and Rs 200. PTI

About 5,000 cr spent on printing of new 500 notes

Taking a lead earlier on Monday, Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd wrote to Airtel asking it to revert the subsidy to the customers’ bank account or to the oil companies

NEW DELHI: As part of Cor-porate Social Responsibility, AAI has taken several steps to sustain and empower under-privileged communities near its airports and provide necessary help in socio-economic devel-opment of the region.

AAI is working in health, sanitation, paper recycling, towards encouraging rural sports and education & skill development.

AAI has allocated Rs. 1.38 crore for three years and has recently given responsibility to Kalyanmayee-AAIWWA, an extended arm of Airports Authority of India committed to

carry out various social welfare activities, for organising a series of Cervical Screening Camps for underprivileged women in 12 cities in next three years.

Kalyanmayee will be organ-ising screening camps at Delhi, Lucknow, Varanasi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Kol-kata, Bhubaneswar, Chen-nai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Coimbatore in northern, western, eastern and southern regions, respectively. Approxi-mately 7,200 women from the underprivileged section of the society are expected to benefit from such camps over a period of next three years. MPOST

NEW DELHI: The country is expected to achieve the coal production of 1.5 billion tonne by 2022, Coal Secretary Susheel Kumar said on Monday.

Of the 1.5 billion tonne, 1 billion tonne would be con-tributed by Coal India and the rest by private producers and Singareni Collieries, the offi-cial said.

Earlier, the government had announced to achieve a coal output of 1.5 billion tonne by 2019-20.

The coal ministry had set the target of 1 billion tonne by 2019-20 for state-run miner Coal India to cut imports and increase availability of the dry

fuel to bolster growth."We hope that by 2022

the domestic coal production should be around 1.5 billion tonnes of which about a bil-lion tonne will be (produced by) Coal India (CIL), 0.4 billion tonnes would be (produced by) private producers...and a small portion will be done by Sin-

gareni Collieries," the secre-tary said.

The world's largest coal miner Coal India accounts for over 80 per cent of the domes-tic coal production.

"This may further increase till 2030 to about close to 2 bil-lion tonnes if we have some faith is CCU (carbon capture and utilisation) technology," he said.

India being a country which believes in international trade, not all imports can be stopped, he said, adding that but the government's endeavour is to reduce the import of thermal coal specially for inland power plants. PTI

NEW DELHI: The govern-ment has extended the deadline for public comments on white paper pertaining to data pro-tection framework by a month to January 31, 2018.

"The last date for submis-sion of response to the white paper is extended up to January 31, 2018," The Ministry of Elec-tronics and IT said in a note.

The data protection frame-work will have an impact on privacy of people in the country.

The Supreme Court in a judgement on August 24, 2017 declared right to privacy a fun-damental right, a far-reaching verdict that could impact a range of life choices of Indi-ans, including food habits and sexual orientation. PTI

UCO’S NEW BRANCH INAUGURATED

UCO Bank MD R K Takkar inaugurated a new Branch with ATM at Rajouri Garden in New Delhi. Director Anil Sharma, General Manager & Circle Head V K Shrivastava and DGM & Zonal Head T N Sharma attended the inauguration ceremony. Takkar handed over the sanction letters of Mudra Loan to five beneficiaries recognised by the branch. Deputy Circle Head D K Chhabra and Deputy Zonal Head Rajeev Sharma, AGM Alok Kumar and Dinesh Kumar and other executives from Circle and Zonal Offices were also present at the occasion

Xiaomi launches Redmi 5A starting at 4,999KOLKATA: India’s No. 1 smart-phone brand, Xiaomi, on Mon-day launched Redmi 5A in Kolkata, starting at Rs 4,999. The Redmi 5A comes with a metallic matte finish and fea-tures a dedicated microSD card slot for storage expansion.

Xiaomi’s latest launch offers a great all-round experience for users looking for their first smartphone. Redmi 5A is powered by the Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 425 quad-core processor and a dedicated microSD card slot that is expandable upto 128GB, a fea-ture specially customized for the Indian consumer. The 2GB RAM with 16GB storage vari-ant is priced at Rs 5,999 and the 3GB RAM with 32GB storage

variant is priced at Rs 6,999. To celebrate the contribu-

tion of Mi fans that has helped the brand emerge as Number 1, Xiaomi is offering the 2GB RAM with 16GB storage vari-

ant for Rs 4,999 for the first five million units. Redmi 5A will be available from 12 pm on December 7, 2017, across Flipkart, Mi.com, and Mi Home stores, followed by offline retail-

ers including Mi Preferred Part-ners in the subsequent weeks.

In addition to this latest launch, Xiaomi also recently announced that it has become the number one smartphone vendor in India, as per IDC’s latest Quarterly Smartphone Tracker, Q3 2017.

With a market share of 23.5% and having shipped 9.2 million smartphones in the quarter, the company has become the fast-est growing smartphone brand in India with a growth rate of nearly 300% percent year-on-year. A new report from Interna-tional Data Corporation (IDC) also states that Xiaomi is the leading smartphone vendor in the top 50 Indian cities in Q3 2017. MPOST

AAI allocates 1.38 cr for cervical cancer screening

Mahindra Powerol launches all new range of Diesel GeneratorsKOLKATA: Mahindra Pow-erol, a business unit of the $19 billion Mahindra Group, on Monday announced its entry into the higher kVA diesel generators (DG) segment with the launch of its all new range of250/320kVA DGs in Kolkata.

These diesel generators are powered by the Mahin-dra mPower series of engines.Designed at Mahindra Research Valley, its R&D hub in Chen-nai and manufactured at its Chakan plant near Pune, this new 9.3 litre engine range is the latest addition to Mahin-dra Powerol’smPOWER series and comes equipped with the technologically advanced CRD engine.

The CRD engines are powered with superior and advanced Common Rail Die-sel Engine (CRDe) technol-ogy. This technology is future ready and best known for heavy duty performance and fuel effi-ciency. It significantly reduces pollution by going beyond the standard emission norms. The same advanced technology is now being used for the newly

launched 250kVA and 320kVA DG Sets.

The 250kVA diesel genera-tor is priced at Rs 12.5 lakhs excluding GST (ex-works) & 320kVA diesel generator is priced at Rs. 16 lakhs exclud-ing GST (ex-works)

According to Hemant Sikka, President – Chief Purchase Offi-cer, Powerol & Spares Busi-ness, Mahindra & Mahindra said,“This launch marks our foray into the higher kVA Die-sel Generator segment, with our own engines, which in turn will define a new segment and con-

sumer group for us. At Mahin-dra, it is our constant endeavour to offer advanced and accessible technologies to our consum-ers and our all new range of 250/320kVA DGs with CRDe technology bears testimony to this philosophy. This future ready CRDe technology is set to deliver lesser emissions and higher performance at a lower operating cost, thereby raising the bar in customer centricity. We will continue to innovate andthus offer the best-in-class products and services from the Mahindra Powerol stable”. MPOST

NEW DELHI: State-run power giant NTPC revised its installed and commercial capacities downward to 51,383 MW and 50,583 MW respectively after the Central Electricity Author-ity (CEA) deleted its 325 MW capacity of Patratu plant.

In last May, the company had informed BSE about addi-tion of 325 MW of Patratu Ther-mal Power Station of Patratu Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Ltd (PVUNL) to NTPC's Group capacity. "Based on the deci-sion of the Board of Directors of PVUNL, CEA has deleted capacity of PVUNL units from the database of All India Installed Capacity," NTPC said.

Accordingly, NTPC Group's installed capacity is revised from 51,708 MW to 51,383 MW and commercial capacity now stands at 50,583 MW from 50,908 MW.

PVUNL was incorporated in October, 2015 as a subsidiary of NTPC with 74 per cent stake in the company and 26 per cent held by Jharkhand Bijli Vitran Nigam Ltd. PTI

NEW DELHI: A committee has been set up for revival of loss-making steel PSUs such as Steel Authority of India Ltd and Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd, Parliament was informed on Monday.

The committee consists of members from the Minis-try of Steel, PSUs and techni-cal experts, Minister of State for Steel Vishnu Deo Sai said in the Lok Sabha. "A commit-tee... has been set up for revival of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL) and Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL). Experts have submitted reports covering sev-eral functional aspects of SAIL and RINL like improvement in techno parameters, marketing and branding, equipment main-

tenance, product mix, raw mate-rial handling etc for improving performance," he said. The min-ister put the losses in the two PSUs down to adverse market conditions and lower net sales realisation of steel products. Increase in imported and indig-enous coal prices and down-turn in the global steel industry, among others, are also at work, the minister added.

Both the companies, he said, have taken various steps to bring down cost of produc-tion, namely slashing consump-tion of BF coke in blast furnaces (BF), increasing production from new facilities, product mix enrichment, reduction in specific power and water con-sumption and the like. PTI

‘Committee set up for revival of SAIL, RINL’

SAIL supplied 6.20 lakh tonnes rails to railways in 2016-17

NTPC's capacities dwindle after CEA deletes 325 MW

Patratu plant

Govt expects to achieve 1.5 bn tonne of coal output by 2022

NEW DELHI: Iraq has over-taken Saudi Arabia for the first time to become India's top crude oil supplier in the cur-rent fiscal, helped by sales of discounted heavy crude, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Monday.

Saudi Arabia traditionally has been India's top oil source but in the April-October period of 2017-18, Iraq dethroned it, supplying 25.8 million tonnes (MT) of oil.

In a written reply to a ques-tion in the Lok Sabha, Pradhan said Saudi Arabia supplied 21.9 MT of crude oil in the first seven months of 2017-18.

For the second year in a row, Iran continues to be the third largest supplier to India by selling 12.5 MT oil during the period. Iran was India's sec-

ond biggest supplier of crude oil after Saudi Arabia till 2010-11 but western sanctions over its suspected nuclear programme relegated it to the 7th spot in the subsequent years. In 2013-14 and 2014-15, India bought 11 MT and 10.95 MT respec-tively from it. Sourcing from Iran increased to 12.7 MT in 2015-16, giving it the sixth spot. In the following year, the Ira-

nian supplies jumped to 27.2 MT to catapult it to the third spot, Pradhan said.

Venezuela is India's fourth largest supplier with 11.5 MT during the period, followed by Nigerial with 10.6 MT, Prad-han said. India is 80 per cent dependent on imports to meet its oil needs. Easing of western sanctions in 2015 has led to the Indian refiners raising their pur-

chase from Iran. Kuwait, which was the third largest supplier in 2013-14 has steadily slipped, supplying just 6.4 MT in the first seven months of the cur-rent fiscal. It had in 2014-15 supplied 17.9 MT crude, which came down to 9.8 MT in 2016-17, Pradhan said.

He said India imported 125.8 MT of crude oil in the April -October period for 45.1 billion. In 2016-17, crude oil imports stood at 213.9 MT, cost-ing $70.2 billion.

In 2015-16, India imported 202.9 MT crude oil at $64 bil-lion. Pradhan said India's dependence on the Middle East for its crude oil needs has increased from 58 per cent in 2014-15 to 63.5 per cent in the April-October period of this fiscal. PTI

Iraq overtakes Saudi as main oil supplier to India: Pradhan

Govt extends timeline for public comments on data privacy till Jan 31

mp sport14MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi |Tuesday, 19 December, 2017

ENGLAND SKIPPER ROOT DEFENDS VETERANS — COOK AND BROAD AFTER ASHES LOSS PERTH: England captain Joe Root defended his senior players after his team handed back the Ashes to Australia. Former Eng-land batsman Kevin Pietersen said one of the opening bowlers needed to be dropped. Ian Bell also suggested it was time for Alastair Cook to retire, having scored just 83 runs at 13.83 in this series so far.

MOHUN BAGAN ROPE IN AUSTRALIAN MIDFIELDER CAMERON WATSONKOLKATA: City football giants Mohun Bagan on Monday announced the signing of former Bengaluru FC’s Scottish-Australian defensive midfielder Cameron Watson for the rest of the I-League season. Watson, 30, replaced Diogo Ferreira who was roped in at the start of the season but did not play a single match for them.

POLICE PROBE MANCHESTER CITY’S STERLING RACIAL ABUSE CASEMANCHESTER: Greater Manchester Police on Monday started their investigation into the alleged racial abuse of Manchester City midfielder Raheem Sterling which occurred before their EPL clash with Tottenham. The 23-year-old was kicked and racially abused as he arrived at City’s training ground on Saturday ahead of their game against Tottenham later that day.

Tlang’s strike sinks defending champs in derby

KOLKATA: Meghalaya-based outfit Shillong Lajong defeated Aizawl FC 1-0 in the season’s first North Eastern derby of I-League at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium on Monday afternoon. Redeem Tlang registered the winning goal in the 60th minute.

The hosts lined up in a 4-4-2 shape with Lalbiak Thanga replacing the injured David Lalrinmuana in the midfield. As for the visitors, Bobby Non-get made two changes from the side which shared spoils with Mohun Bagan in their last fix-ture as Alen Deory was demoted to the bench with Kynsailang Khongsit replacing him in the starting XI. Also, Samuel Lal-muanpuia was ruled out due to injury which meant Shaibor-

lang Kharpan secured his berth in the attack.

The home side enjoyed the lion’s share of possession as they had control of the proceedings from the start. In the 9th minute, Lalmuankima beautifully set up the ball for Yugo Kobayashi but the Japanese striker’s shot lacked power. Three minutes later, Lalram Hmunmawia, from inside the box, released a left-footed long-ranger which flew over the bar.

The second-half changed the nature of the game as The Reds outclassed the home side., The ball reached Redeem Tlang on the rebound who swung it towards the right-side of the net, beyond the reach of cus-todian Avilash Paul. AGENCIES

Australia earn Ashes ‘Urn’, retain title after innings winPERTH: Steve Smith praised his “exceptional” team as Aus-tralia reclaimed the Ashes with an innings win over England in the third Test in Perth on Monday, and set his sights on a series whitewash.

Australia dismissed Eng-land for 218 in their second innings after rain delays and a pitch controversy on the final day in Perth to win back the urn in the last Ashes Test to be played at the WACA Ground.

That gave the home side an innings-and-41-run win and an unbeatable 3-0 lead in the five-match series, having won the opening two Tests in Bris-bane and Adelaide.

“It’s been an amazing cou-ple of weeks,” said Smith.

“What the boys have deliv-ered has been exceptional. Eng-land have had their foot in the door in a couple of games and we’ve been able to claw our way back to get back in the game, and then keep the foot on the throat.”

Having confirmed his sta-tus as the world’s best batsman with a match-winning double century, Smith added victori-ous Ashes captain to his ever-expanding resume.

That CV also includes a role in the 5-0 whitewash of Eng-land on their last tour to Aus-tralia, and Smith said his team would now seek to repeat that achievement.

“It’d be fantastic to do that and we’ll talk about Melbourne when we get there.”

“Right now, I’m just really satisfied with what we’ve achieved in these first three Test matches.”

“I’d love to do that again, but we will just take it one step at a time.”

While it was a comfort-able win for the home side in the end, there was high drama on the final day cour-tesy of yet another WACA pitch controversy.

Victory seemed assured for Australia when they had Eng-

land 132 for four at the conclu-sion of the fourth day, still 127 runs behind, but a rain-dam-aged pitch threatened to foil the home side.

Showers had caused play to be abandoned early on the fourth day and they continued

through to Monday morning, with Australia needing just six more wickets to win.

Complicating matters fur-ther was a damp spot on the pitch, just outside the popping crease at the southern end of the ground.

WACA staff worked furi-ously with leaf blowers to try to dry the patch out as more showers passed through.

Umpires Chris Gaffaney and Marais Erasmus would not allow play to resume until they believed the pitch had been returned to the same condition as at the end of day four, which ended up being after lunch.

“It was a shame that was some water was able to get through the covers in the first place at an international venue,” Smith commented.

“The umpires made the right call to get us back on to play the game.”

“Credit to the umpires for making the right call on the start of play, they gave it time to dry out as when we got to the ground it wasn’t fit to play on,” Root said.

Wickets tumbled quickly for England upon the delayed resumption, with Jonny Bair-stow bowled for 14 by the first delivery he faced for the day from Hazlewood, which kept low.

Hazlewood also removed England’s last hope Dawid Malan — who backed up his first innings century with a fighting 54 before being caught behind — to finish with figures of 5-48.

Malan’s first day heroics, which helped England a dom-inant position at 368-4 from which an innings defeat would have appeared almost impos-sible, seemed a distant memory as he trudged from the field. Only seven sides in Test history have been beaten by an innings after scoring 400 in their first innings, and it has happened to England three times in the last 12 matches. AGENCIES

Churchill eyeing first victory

over Chennai City FC today

VASCO: Former champions Churchill Brothers would look to snap their four-match los-ing streak and post their first win when they face Chennai City FC in their opening home match of the I-League here on Tuesday.

Churchill had a disastrous start this season, having lost all their four matches they have played so far and they desper-ately need a win when they take the field at Tilak Maidan.

They were unlucky not to collect a point in their previous match as Willis Plaza’s stoppage time goal saw East Bengal col-lect full points.

Earlier, Churchill failed to collect a point against defend-ing champions Aizawl FC. They are now lying at the bot-tom without a point from four matches. Chennai City FC are one point above Churchill.

Churchill coach Alfred Fer-nandes, who is looking after the team in the absence of sacked Mykola Shevchenko, said his team can bounce back in the league with a win tomorrow.

“It’s frustrating to see the team lose in the stoppage time twice. We did well against East Bengal and deserved a point which would have boosted our confidence,” he said. AGENCIES

Gambhir, Chandela seize control vs BengalPUNE: Gautam Gambhir was patience personified while unheralded Kunal Chandela showed maturity beyond years as their twin tons took Delhi to a commanding 271 for three against Bengal on the second day of the Ranji Trophy semi-final, here on Monday.

With Bengal scoring a below par 286 in their first essay, they are sure to concede first innings lead. The only positive aspect for Bengal was final session where Delhi scored only 51 runs los-ing three wickets including Gambhir (127 off 216 balls) off Mohammed Shami. Gambhir was an epitome of calmness dur-ing his 42nd first-class hundred in company of Chandela (113 off 192 balls), who is playing

only his third first-class match. The manner in which Gamb-

hir-Chandela duo humiliated a Bengal attack comprising Shami (23.2-3-83-1) and Ashok Dinda (18-2-86-1) looked pedestrian.

The best part about Gambhir

this season has been his attitude. He has remain attached with a goal of guiding Delhi with cru-cial runs yet remained unin-volved like an isolated island. A pull in front of the square fol-lowed by a square cut played on

the rise off Shami set the tone. There was no stopping Gamb-hir as the sparse crowd egged him on. “Gambhir bhai, make Manoj Tiwary chase all the way to the boundary,” shouted one.

When Dinda intentionally threw a ball towards Gamb-hir on follow through — all in very bad taste, he simply swayed away from the line and didn’t react. He hit two back to back boundaries off Amir Gani to reach his hundred. Identical cover drives — one that raced through the ground and another lofted to reach the milestone in 122 balls. When he raised his bat, the Delhi players sprinted down the stairs from dressing room to give him a standing ovation. AGENCIES

Ton-up Nair ensures first innings lead for KarnatakaKOLKATA: Vice-captain Karun Nair struck an unbeaten century to put former champi-ons Karnataka in a strong posi-tion on the second day of their Ranji Trophy semifinal against Vidarbha at the Eden Gardens, here on Monday.

Nair’s unbeaten 148 ensured Karnataka take a vital 109- run first innings lead over Vidarbha. Resuming at the overnight score of 36 for three, Nair hit 20 fours and one six in his stellar knock and batted all the three sessions.

Nair thwarted an onslaught from young Vidarbha pacer Rajneesh Gurbani, who returned with his third succes-sive five-wicket haul (5/90).

The second Indian to score a triple century in Tests, Nair, found a fine ally in his skip-per R Vinay Kumar (20 not out) as the duo batted sensibly amid the ruins in an unbro-ken 69-run ninth wicket part-nership that took Karnataka’s lead past 100. At close, Kar-nataka were 294/8 when bad light stopped play at 93 overs with three days left in play. Bowling with a short run-up,

pacer Umesh Yadav (2/71) gave Vidarbha their first break-through at the stroke of lunch

ending Nair’s overnight part-nership with CM Gautam (73 off 139 balls). AGENCIES

Don’t think Rahane’s form is a concern: GangulyPUNE: Ajinkya Rahane’s wretched form will not be a big concern for the South Africa-bound Indian team, feels for-mer captain Sourav Ganguly.

Rahane has scored only 17 runs in five innings against Sri Lanka at home but his record outside sub continent makes him a vital cog in the wheel.

“ No, I don’t think Ajinkya Rahane’s form is a concern as he is a quality player. Virat Kohli, Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara and Murali Vijay have all been to South Africa. The best thing is that they are going back to South Africa as better players,” Ganguly said during an interaction on the sidelines of Ranji Trophy semi-final between Bengal and Delhi.

The former captain is impressed with current bowl-ing attack but wants to wait till he watches them in action.

“We will find out if this is

the best bowling attack or not. They have got pace for sure. Umesh has pace, Bhuvneshwar is in good form, so let’s wait,” he said.

While conditions will determine the playing XI in Cape Town on January 5, Gan-guly is not averse to trying out

Hardik Pandya at No 6, some-thing a lot of experts are scepti-cal considering his technique in bouncy conditions is not well documented.

“You will not realise till you give Hardik a chance. Depends on how you want to go about it,” said one of India’s shrewd-

est captain.“Rohit Sharma did well in

the two chances that he got. If it’s a flat track, may be we should have that extra fast bowler in the XI but if it’s a green top, we should definitely have an extra batsman,” he opined.

Ganguly, who is the presi-dent of the Cricket Associa-tion of Bengal (CAB), picked Shikhar Dhawan as his choice as opening partner of Murali Vijay.

“Shikhar Dhawan has been in such great form and Murali Vijay has also played well against Sri Lanka,” he said.

While India have talent to do well, winning a series will be easier said than done.

“India are a good team but it won’t be easy that much I can tell you. If the batsmen put up runs on the board, this attack can get wickets,” he said. PTI

Rohit moves up two places to 5th in ICC batsmen rankingsDUBAI: Indian opener Rohit Sharma’s third career double hun-dred in the just-concluded series against Sri Lanka has pushed him up two spots to fifth in the latest ICC ODI Player Rankings among

batsmen. It’s the first time that Rohit has crossed the 800-point mark as he ended the three-match ODI series which India won 2 -1 with 816 points. Though he has enjoyed a career-high rank-

ing of third in February 2016, he reached a personal high of 825 points after the second match in Mohali when he struck an un-beaten 208, his third ODI double-century. AGENCIES

SMITH PRAISES BOLD SELECTORS AFTER ASHES VICTORYPERTH: Steve Smith has paid tribute to some bold selections after his team regained the Ashes in Perth on Monday. Smith said the comprehensive result, which has Australia on track for its third Ashes whitewash in four home series, was vindication for the na-tional selectors for making some imaginative selections. Wicketkeeper Tim Paine was not even keeping for his state side Tasmania when he was named for the first Test at the Gabba, while the recall of 34-year-old Shaun Marsh raised plenty of eyebrows. “I thought they were really good selections,” Smith said. AGENCIES

Injury-laden Mohun Bagan aim for win against Neroca

KOLKATA: Grappling with injuries, Mohun Bagan will be desperate to return to winning ways when they face debutants Neroca FC in an I-League foot-ball fixture at the Saltlake Sta-dium on Tuesday.

Star Haitian forward Sony Norde and Ansumana Kro-mah, who sat out in their 1-1 draw against Shillong Lajong FC, are still carrying niggles and remain doubtful starters, while Arijit Bagui and Azha-ruddin Mallick have been ruled out. Defender Kingsley Eze Obumneme is serving a suspension after his red card against Shillong Lajong and coach Sanjoy Sen will have task cut out against the debutants who are fresh from two succes-sive wins against Chennai City and Gokulam FC. However, Sen did not want the injuries to be an excuse, especially to that of Yuta Kinowaki who has been ruled out for at least five weeks.

“It is a part and parcel of the modern game.

Unfortunately this season the injuries are a bit more but we have to make results from what we have,” Sen said at the

news conference. “We are missing Yuta of

course but it does not mean the team was wholly reliant on him. He played the lone match and he was good and every-one termed him as the man to look out for. We might never know if he would have been that important for us until and unless he plays more games. So it is unfortunate but there is no point crying over split milk,” he said. Sen urged his side to buck up after dropping points in two games out of four.

“We have to learn from our past mistakes. It is not that we haven’t scored goals in the game against Minerva and Lajong

— the two games we dropped points in. We conceded after scoring the first goal and it is imperative that we don’t drop points in our home games.”

Sen, however, said the fight for the championship is still not a lost cause. “For the last three years I have been harping over the lack of consistency and sel-dom has it been that Mohun Bagan have won three games back-to-back,” he said. “If you look at it, right now we are kind of in a similar position in terms of points compared to out title-winning season,” he reasoned. The former United SC man only had words of praise for the visitors. AGENCIES

Gyeltshen’s goal helps

Punjab defeat Arrows 1-0

PUNJAB: Chencho Gyelt-shen struck in the 80th min-ute to hand his side a 1-0 win over Indian Arrows in their I-League match held at Guru Nanak Stadium in Punjab on Monday. Arrows were on the receiving end of a 0-2 defeat when these two sides met a few weeks ago in Goa.

Khogen Singh made three changes from their 2-1 win over Chennai City FC. Rak-shit Dagar made his way into the lineup for Arshdeep Saini in goal. Sukhdev Singh and Amandeep Singh came in as Lago Bei was relegated to the bench. Souvik Das was not even in the 18-man squad.

After a break of thirteen days from their last game, which incidentally was the 2-0 defeat at home against the same opponents, Luis Norton de Matos made two alterations of his own.

Abhijit Sarkar and Aniket Anil Jadhav were relegated to the bench. West Bengal duo Rahim Ali and Abhishek Hal-der were ushered into the first eleven.

The Portuguese chose to go with four men at the back. Goalkeeper Dheeraj Singh Moirangthem had a backline of Boris Singh Thangjam, Deepak Tangri, Jitendra Singh and San-jeev Stalin lining up in front of him.

Suresh Singh Wangjam, Amarjit Singh Kiyam and Hal-der played in a tight-knit three-man midfield. On-loan from Bengaluru FC, striker Edmund Lalrindika was deployed cen-trally and he had Rahul Kan-noly Praveen and Rahim Ali offering him support from the flanks. AGENCIES

PIC/PTI

Australian skipper Steve Smith celebrates with head coach Darren Lehmann

GAUTAM GAMBHIR

15MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 19 December, 2017

mp Entertainment

NEW DELHI: Actor-filmmaker-singer Far-han Akhtar hopes that actresses backing films as producers is not just a passing trend as he believes that women’s influence, irrespective of the field, is good for everyone.

Over the years, actors like Dia Mirza, Pri-yanka Chopra, Anushka Sharma, Chitrangda Singh and Richa Chadha have shown interest in contributing to filmmaking as producers.

Asked what he thought about the trend, Akhtar said, “That’s how it should be. Not just actors, there are also a lot of female produc-ers and women who are working in different companies and handling the creative aspect of those companies.”

“It is amazing to see that. The more influ-ence that we have of women in any field, why just films... it can be sports or politics also, it’s good for everyone because they have a differ-ent perspective on things because they have experienced life in different ways from what we (men) have; so, it makes a difference,” added the brother of director Zoya Akhtar.

Farhan’s latest co-production, Fukrey Returns, registered an opening day collec-tion of Rs 8.10 crore on December 8. Are box office collections more important when he produces a film?

“The reason you do a film is because you want to share it with the world and when a lot of people see your film, the most tangible recognition of it is the box office collection, because you can aggregate a number through it,” he said.

But for him, success of a film also means “conceptually what is done to get people to think about things”.

“There are many films that were released in their time and not considered box office hits, but what that film meant, the kind of story-telling, the work that went into that film have sustained and at times (they are) considered as landmark films and way ahead of their times.

So, success of a film can be gauged on many fronts; but is box office important?

“Of course it is, because people are put-ting money in a film. You don’t want anyone

to lose money,” said the co-founder of Excel Entertainment that has produced blockbust-ers like Rock On!! and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara.

The first look of his next co-production 3 Storeys, starring Pulkit Samrat, Sharman Joshi, Richa Chadha and Renuka Shahane, was unveiled recently.

So, is a multi-starrer the formula for a hit film?

“I don’t think so. Eventually, a good story should be the formula for success... whether it is about one person in a room or 21 people in a colony like in ‘3 Storeys’. Our emphasis is on trying to tell good stories.

“Arjun Mukerjee, who is the director and writer of this film, has truly put together something that we consider very special. Now we are excited to share it with others,” he said.

Farhan is also passionate about fitness, among other things. The actor, who has fronted ads of vitamins and dietary sup-plements brand, is now endorsing Apollo Munich Health Insurance.

Is he deliberately focussing on health-related brands?

“It is not deliberate. I do feel good about doing it when it does happen. I don’t go around looking for it, but I guess the lifestyle that I lead, the kind of work that I do, information on my life and focus on health and fitness, encourage peo-ple to come and speak to me about it,” said the 43-year-old.When did he start taking fitness seriously?

“I got serious about it in 2003-2004. I was shooting for ‘Lakshya’ in Ladakh. We were there for five months and I felt incredibly fit by the time I came back from there.

“When I returned to Mumbai, my energy levels were really high... it was a feeling that I didn’t want to lose.

That’s when I started training with Sam (Samir Jaura), who is my trainer,” said the Bhaag Milkha Bhaag actor.

He believes fitness is not about “going to a gym and getting big biceps. It’s much more than that”. IANS

‘Influence of women in any

FIELD IS GOOD’Farhan Akhtar talks about the influence of women in the

industry, box office numbers, and his idea of fitness...

MUMBAI: Deepika Padukone is still awaiting the release of Padmavati but veteran actor Hema Malini has revealed she once played Rani Pad-mini, a character now mired in controversy.

Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s period drama is yet to receive a certificate from the CBFC. Sev-eral Rajput outfits and political leaders are accusing the direc-tor of “distorting historical facts” in the movie.

Historians are divided over whether Padmini actu-ally existed.

Malini had played a num-ber historical characters on the TV series “Tera Panhey”, which

depicted 13 chapters from the history. Rani Padmini was one

of the characters she played in the series, which aired in 1986 on Doordarshan.

The 69-year-old actor was speaking at a panel discussion, “Seventy is the New Seventy – Who the Hell Wants to be Thirty?” along with author-columnist Shobhaa De and Ram Kamal Mukherjee, who penned Malini’s biography “Hema Malini: Beyond the Dream Girl”.

When asked if people have become a little too sensitive about issues, especially in the case of Padmavati, Malini said, “I feel very happy that I’ve done

Padmavati’s role, that is Rani Padmini in ‘Tera Panhey’.”

She then quipped, “Mine already got a release.”

When asked where she sees herself in the next five years in politics, she said she does not harbour “big political” ambi-tions and wants to serve people.

“I was offered to be in Rajya Sabha, but because I was com-ing from another background, it was tough. But I really enjoy it. Being a politician, I get so much love from the people. I don’t have any great ambition to be a minister or anything. I just want to serve people.” PTI

When Hema Malini played Rani Padmini

LOS ANGELES: Rapper Nicki Minaj has hit back at the crit-ics who slammed her for say-ing that it’s a “great time to be a white rapper in America”.

A number of social media users slammed Minaj when she posted the comment, call-ing her a “racist”.

But Minaj hit back say-ing that she is blocking all “you sensitive d**k riders”, reports aceshowbiz.com.

“It is a great time to be a white rapper in Amer-ica! I want to sign one for my new labels. You know anyone? I speak my mothaf***in mind and if you don’t like it get off my page d**k riders.”

Minaj made the white rapper comment on her Ins-tagram account on iTunes’ hip-hop/rap songs chart on Sunday.

She wrote: “It’s a great time to be a white rapper in Amer-ica, huh? These are the top 10 rap songs on US iTunes... Congratu-lations to Em (Eminem) on his new album.”

The post immediately sparked a debate with many fans support-ing Minaj’s decision to call atten-tion to the white rappers, but others criticised her for singling out white rappers.

In response, Minaj followed up her hit back by posting a now-deleted clip of hip-hop artiste J. Cole commenting on white musi-cians who infiltrate various music genres.

Nicki captioned the clip: “Be mad at this too. I work in the music business. Therefore, I post on new developments in the music industry. Whenever a black women speaks on anything she is labelled as ‘mad’, ‘angry’, and ‘bitter’.” IANS

Minaj responds to ‘white rapper’ COMMENT

MCU to include ‘X-Men’, ‘Deadpool’ POST DISNEY-FOX MERGERLOS ANGELES: Disney CEO Bob Iger announced the Mar-vel Cinematic Universe will incorporate franchises such as X-Men, Fantastic Four and Deadpool after the acquisition of 21st Century Fox is compete in the historic merger.

Disney is set to buy 21st Century Fox assets for USD 52.4 billion in the Hollywood deal.

AceShowbiz quoted Iger saying, “We’re also looking for-ward to expanding the Marvel Cinematic Universe to include ‘X-Men’, ‘Fantastic Four’ and ‘Deadpool’.”

The announced deal is a massive turnaround for Mar-vel as the company can finally reclaim many of its lost char-acters after it licensed them out to prevent bankruptcy in the 1990s.

Iger also addressed the potential of Deadpool, the R- rated Marvel franchise at Fox.

“It (‘Deadpool’) clearly has been and will be Marvel branded. But we think there might be an opportunity for a Marvel-R brand for something like ‘Deadpool’. As long as we let the audiences know what’s

coming, we think we can manage that fine,” he said.

The MCU has already taken up The Avengers with Guardians of the Galaxy, Doctor Strange and Spider-Man (now being played by Tom Holland).

Disney also announced its ambitious plan to launch two stream-ing services by 2019. PTI

LOS ANGELES: Singer Lionel Richies daughter Sofia Richie won’t be a part of the popular TV

show “Keeping up with the Kardashians” even though she is dating reality TV personal-

ity Scott Disick.Sofia is not interested in join-ing the show because she is yet

to create a bond with Dis-ick’s three children, who he has with reality TV star Kourtney Kardashian, reports tmz.com.

“There are absolutely zero plans for ‘Keeping up

with the Kardashians’ to cast Sofia. While she has been with Disick a lot, she is not with him when he is around his children – Mason, Reign and

Penelope,” a source said.Scott, 34, and Sofia, 19, spend

a ton of time together, but he’s usually in front of the reality-show cameras when he’s around his cute kiddos: Mason, 8, Penelope, 5, and Reign, 3. Apparently, the lovebirds just aren’t at that hang-with-kids point in their relationship yet.

On top of that, Sofia simply doesn’t really know the rest of the huge family, including sisters Kim Kardashian West and Khloe Kardashian.

It is also reported that Kourtney “didn’t influence producers to keep Sofia off camera” as the Kardashian sisters don’t personally know her. The show features the Kar-dashian and Jenner families. Dis-ick is also a part of the show. It centers around the day-to-day life of the whole family. IANS

Sofia Richie not joining KARDASHIANS’ SHOW

16 MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 19 December, 2017

DelhiGovernmenthaslaunchedthe'FeeAssistanceScheme'foreconomicallyweakerstudentsenrolledinundergraduatecoursesinDelhiGovernmenteducational

institutes,collegesanduniversities

Studentsenrolledintheaboveinstitutionscanavailthebeneitofthe'FeeAssistanceScheme'onthebasisofincome/economicandacademicperformanceunderthefollowingcategories:

Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi

Ambedkar University Delhi

Delhi Technological University, Delhi

Eligibility(Annual Family Income from all sources)

Qualifying Marks (All subjects)

Fee Assistance

Category 1 - Ration card holders under National Food Security 60% 100%

Category 2 - Annual Income Up to Rs 2.5 L 60% 50%

Category 3 - Annual Income Between Rs 2.5 L to Rs 6 L60% 25%

Apply Online

https://edistrict.delhigovt.nic.in/

Last date to apply: 31 December 2017

Manish SisodiaDy.Chief Minister and Education Minister, Delhi

Highfeesnolongeranobstacleinreachingyourdreams!

DirectorateofHigherEducation,GovernmentofNCTofDelhi

Helpline No.:

011-23930517

Indira Gandhi Delhi Technological University For Women, Delhi

Note: Relaxation of 5% in Qualifying marks for SC/ST Students

DELHIGOVERNMENTLAUNCHESHISTORICSCHEMEFORSTUDENTS

FEEASSISTANCESCHEME

StudentsofDelhiwhoarerecipientsofthe'NationalBraveryAward'andarepursuing

highereducationinIndiaareeligiblefor100%FeesReimbursementandotherinancial

assistance.Formoreinformation,contact:DirectorateofHigherEducation,5ShamNath

Marg,Delhi

National Law University, , Delhi Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi

Delhi Pharmaceutical Sciences & Research University, Delhi

st

Dip/Shabdarth/D

/0142/17-18