:_UZR FD e` d`]gV ecRUV UZdafeVd - Daily Pioneer

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P rime Minister Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump on Friday “aired” their concerns over the bilateral trade disputes and agreed for an early meeting of their Commerce Ministers to sort out the issues, a day after the US leader demanded with- drawal of the “very high” tar- iffs levied by India on American goods. Though trade is an impor- tant part of the booming bilat- eral relationship, a row over market access and tariffs has escalated in recent months, leading to fears of a protract- ed dispute. On Thursday, President Trump said that India’s “very high” tariffs on US goods are “unacceptable” and must be withdrawn. “I look forward to speaking with Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi about the fact that India, for years having put very high tariffs against the United States, just recently increased the tariffs even fur- ther. This is unacceptable and the tariffs must be withdrawn!” Trump said in a tweet on his way to Osaka, to participate in the G20 Summit. “The talks with @POTUS were wide ranging. We dis- cussed ways to leverage the power of technology, improve defence and security ties as well as issues relating to trade,” Prime Minister Modi tweeted after his meeting with President Trump. “India stands committed to further deepen economic and cultural relations with USA,” he said. Briefing reporters on the Modi-Trump meeting, Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale said the issue of trade was dis- cussed by the two leaders. “There was a discussion on trade, both sides aired their concerns, both sides spoke about the interest of the other side and what was agreed was that the trade Ministers of both countries would meet at an early date and would try and sort out these issues,” he said. “The Prime Minister did mention in particular that we had taken some action after the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) was revoked, that was now something that already had happened and now we should now look forward and we should see how we can resolve some of these issues,” Gokhale said. President Trump wel- comed this idea, he said, not- ing that both US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and the Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin were in the room when the two top leaders met. “So what we expect now (is) an early meeting and the level is still be decided whether it will be at the level of Commerce & Industry Minister and USTR or we will first have technical discussions, that is an issue to be decided,” the Foreign Secretary said. “But essentially it was a very productive discussion, it was very open discussion and we will take things forward,” he added. The foreign secretary also asserted that “no one issue is going to impact on the larger strategic relationship between India and United States. “This is a relationship which is deep, which is broad, we have some issues, we will work through them but no one issue is going to, in any way, have any impact,” he said. The Modi-Trump meet- ing assumes significance in the wake of the strain that has popped up in the bilateral rela- tionship on a host of trade and economic issues. On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who was in New Delhi said that “great friends are bound to have dis- agreements”. “We’ll keep working to resolve any economic disputes — not only those that we have at this moment, but those that with any significant trading relationship inevitably arise,” Pompeo said. U nion Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday blamed country’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for the Kashmir problem. He claimed that terrorism is in its last stage and his Government will ensure that J&K is freed from the grip of “three dynastic families”. He also asserted that Article 370, which gave special status to J&K, is a “temporary provision.” Replying to a statutory res- olution seeking Lok Sabha’s consent to extend President’s Rule in Jammu & Kashmir and extend reservation in the Government jobs in the villages of International Border besides Line of Actual Control in the State, he said the Government has spent 2,307 crore to upgrade security apparatus and completed all the demands of the armaments and equip- ments by the CRPF in the State. The Lok Sabha on Friday gave its nod to extend President’s Rule in J&K for another six months beginning July 3, with Shah asserting that Assembly elections in the State will be held in a democ- ratic, free and fair manner as soon as the Election Commission announces the dates. The Lok Sabha also cleared the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation (Amendment) Bill, 2019, to replace an Ordinance issued by the previous Government. The Home Minister said all the elections in the border State were “farjee” (fake) and remote- controlled by few fam- ilies which caused a distrust and gap between the people of J&K and the Government. The situation, he said, has changed now with 40000 “panchs” and “sarpanchs” invested with true power in the recently held polls. “We gave power to the people which was thus far lim- ited to three families,” Shah said apparently alluding to families of Abdullahs, Muftis and Gandhis. He said people in the State have “opportunity” to free themselves from the stran- glehold of these families. Shah said terrorism in the State will be eradicated soon as the elements who were pro- vided security for “speaking against India” have been put behind the bars, unauthorised Pakistani channels airing anti-India propaganda are banned, and morale of armed forces is high after the IAF strike at Balakot in Pakistan. T he New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) will start experimenting the plan to restrict entry of cars in the inner circle of Connaught Place (CP) for Sunday and Monday at pilot basis. While the council has claimed that before launching the experiment, traders have been taken into confidence and a fresh plan was also dis- cussed however traders alleged that civic body is adopting a different plan than what traders had agreed upon. CP traders had told the council that the plan will impact their business. “A meeting was held between council officials and Traffic commissioner for smooth operations during the experiment launch of the plan,” said NDMC official. The mock drill will start from 7:30 am on Saturday in CP — the iconic market which is a hub of pubs, eateries, restaurants and shops where people go out to spend good time especially in weekends. . “Seven radials are opened and six wardens will be deployed to facilitate visitors. These wardens will be there to update visitors to reach at parking destinations,” council official said. Apart from this, direction signage and parking destinations are also available for the visitors,” said the official. While the plan is prepared by three agencies comprising employees of enforcement agency, local police and traffic police, personnel of these agen- cies will be deployed at all seven radials. Pick and drop facilities are also available for senior cit- izens and disabled persons at Haldi Ram, State Entry Raod and Palika Bazar and single land parking in the middle cir- cle is closed. Traders had raised objec- tion to the plan following which the NDMC had tweaked its ear- lier plan, which was to make the inner circle completely car- free, to focus on pedestrianis- ing the blocks but giving access to all parking lots in the inner and outer circles to car users. “They are now adopting a different plan than what was agreed upon in the previous meeting. M ore than 120 Congress office-bearers holding dif- ferent positions within the Central and State units stepped down on Friday owning responsibility for the Lok Sabha debacles and to oppose the res- ignation of Rahul Gandhi as party chief. The spate of resignations came a day after, in a meeting with party leaders, Rahul expressed unhappiness that none of the leaders excluding himself had taken responsibil- ity for the disastrous perfor- mance in the general elections. Those who submitted their resignation during the last 24 hours include Vivek Tankha, a Rajya Sabha member, Delhi Congress Working president Rajesh Lilothia, office bearers from Telangana, Haryana, Rajasthan, etc. Many of them said they would not withdraw their res- ignation until Rahul promised to stay on as the Congress chief. “Many AICC office bearers have come forward to take responsibility for the poll deba- cle and resign from their respective posts, responsibility does not end with Congress president Rahul alone,” said a senior Congress leader. Besides Tankha and Lilothia, Haryana Women Congress chief Sumitra Chouhan, general secretary Netta P Sangma of Meghalaya, Secretary Virender Rathore, Chhattisgarh secretary Anil Chaudhary, Madhya Pradesh secretary Sudhir Chaudhary and Haryana secretary Satyavir Yadav also gave up their posts. Notably, in a meeting with Haryana Congress leaders on Thursday, Rahul had stated he quit “taking full responsibility” for the party’s defeat. “I cannot ask others to resign too. It is up to them if they want to take responsibility,” he told senior party leaders such as Ghulam Nabi Azad, Kumari Selja and Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Soon after this, Tankha resigned as the chairman of the party’s legal and human rights cell and asked others to follow his example. “We all should submit our resignations from party posi- tions and give Rahul-ji a free hand to choose his team. I wel- come Kamal Nath’’s (Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister) state- ment to that effect. I unequiv- ocally submit my resignation as AICC Dept chairman Law, RTI and HR. Party cannot afford a stalemate for too long,” Tankha announced on twitter. As part of his exercise to meet leaders of poll bound States, Rahul on Friday met senior leaders of Delhi unit, including its president Sheila Dikshit, and advised them to put up a united face before the opposition in the upcoming Assembly elections next year. He also asked the Delhi Congress leaders to avoid giv- ing statements to the media that could hurt the interests of the party. Besides Sheila, All India Congress Committee (AICC) incharge of Delhi Congress, PC Chacko and the party candi- dates who contested the recent- ly concluded Lok Sabha polls in the Capital were present in the meeting. O ne worker died while two are feared dead while cleaning a 30-feet deep drain in West Delhi’s Keshopur canal water treatment plant, police said on Friday. The labourers were washed away and one of them drowned when the Delhi Jal Board (DJB), which had stopped the water flow for cleaning, sud- denly started the supply, offi- cials said. The deceased has been identified as Shahrukh (25), a resident of Bulandshahr in Uttar Pradesh while the miss- ing are Ankit (19), a resident of Hardoi UP and Devinder Sharma(25) a resident of Etha in UP. According to Monika Bhardwaj, the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), West District, a Police Control Room (PCR) call was received at about 1.00 pm on Friday regarding a drowning of workers in Keshopur canal. “Acting on the call, the local police and fire brigade reached at the spot. The fire brigade was able to remove one worker Shahrukh. He was rushed to Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) Hospital where he was declared brought dead,” said the DCP. I n an attempt to make quick money, 19 mis- creants took a leaf from Akshay Kumar-star- rer Bollywood movie “Special 26” and “raided” a sugar mill but they ran out of luck and land- ed in jail. The sensational incident was reported from Sambhal district where a case of impersonation has been registered against the accused and most of them have been sent to jail. Efforts are on to nab the three impersonators who managed to flee. According to reports, 19 people reached DCM Sugar Mill in Asmoli area of Dhampur in Sambhal district on SUVs on Thursday. They entered the mill, claiming to be officers of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The ‘team’ went to the distillery area where ethanol was loaded and claimed that there were certain dis- crepancies in adhering to pollution control norms besides some other lacunae and demand- ed 15-20 lakh from the mill management. As the “sleuths” started taking photograph, they ran out of luck as Assistant Excise Commissioner was present there in his temporary office inside the mill. The excise officer called the “team members” and enquired about them, why they were taking photographs and who authorised them to make a raid. As the “team members” failed to give convincing reply, the excise officer asked the staff to detain them. The miscreants then tried to flee but the staff managed to nab 16 of them while three managed to escape. Later, the local police were called and the impostors were handed over to them. During interrogation, they revealed that to make quick money, they tried to turn Akshay starrer “Special 26” into reality. “Special 26”, is a 2013 Indian heist film directed by Neeraj Pandey starring Akshay Kumar in the lead role. The film is inspired by the 1987 Opera House heist where a group posing as Central Bureau of Investigation officers executed an income tax raid on a jeweller in Mumbai.

Transcript of :_UZR FD e` d`]gV ecRUV UZdafeVd - Daily Pioneer

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Prime Minister NarendraModi and President Donald

Trump on Friday “aired” theirconcerns over the bilateraltrade disputes and agreed foran early meeting of theirCommerce Ministers to sortout the issues, a day after theUS leader demanded with-drawal of the “very high” tar-iffs levied by India onAmerican goods.

Though trade is an impor-tant part of the booming bilat-eral relationship, a row overmarket access and tariffs hasescalated in recent months,leading to fears of a protract-ed dispute.

On Thursday, PresidentTrump said that India’s “veryhigh” tariffs on US goods are“unacceptable” and must bewithdrawn.

“I look forward to speakingwith Prime Minister(Narendra) Modi about thefact that India, for years havingput very high tariffs against theUnited States, just recentlyincreased the tariffs even fur-ther. This is unacceptable andthe tariffs must be withdrawn!”Trump said in a tweet on hisway to Osaka, to participate inthe G20 Summit.

“The talks with @POTUSwere wide ranging. We dis-cussed ways to leverage thepower of technology, improvedefence and security ties as wellas issues relating to trade,”Prime Minister Modi tweetedafter his meeting with PresidentTrump.

“India stands committed tofurther deepen economic andcultural relations with USA,” hesaid. Briefing reporters on theModi-Trump meeting, ForeignSecretary Vijay Gokhale saidthe issue of trade was dis-cussed by the two leaders.

“There was a discussion ontrade, both sides aired theirconcerns, both sides spokeabout the interest of the otherside and what was agreed wasthat the trade Ministers ofboth countries would meet atan early date and would try andsort out these issues,” he said.

“The Prime Minister did

mention in particular that wehad taken some action after theGeneralized System ofPreferences (GSP) was revoked,that was now something thatalready had happened and nowwe should now look forwardand we should see how we canresolve some of these issues,”Gokhale said.

President Trump wel-comed this idea, he said, not-ing that both US TradeRepresentative RobertLighthizer and the TreasurySecretary Steven Mnuchin werein the room when the two topleaders met.

“So what we expect now(is) an early meeting and thelevel is still be decided whetherit will be at the level ofCommerce & Industry Ministerand USTR or we will first havetechnical discussions, that is anissue to be decided,” the ForeignSecretary said.

“But essentially it was avery productive discussion, itwas very open discussion andwe will take things forward,” headded.

The foreign secretary alsoasserted that “no one issue isgoing to impact on the largerstrategic relationship between

India and United States.“This is a relationship

which is deep, which is broad,we have some issues, we willwork through them but no one issue is going to, inany way, have any impact,” hesaid.

The Modi-Trump meet-ing assumes significance inthe wake of the strain that haspopped up in the bilateral rela-tionship on a host of trade andeconomic issues. OnWednesday, US Secretary ofState Mike Pompeo, who was inNew Delhi said that “greatfriends are bound to have dis-agreements”.

“We’ll keep working toresolve any economic disputes— not only those that we haveat this moment, but those thatwith any significant tradingrelationship inevitably arise,”Pompeo said.

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Union Home Minister AmitShah on Friday blamed

country’s first Prime MinisterJawaharlal Nehru for theKashmir problem. He claimedthat terrorism is in its laststage and his Government willensure that J&K is freed fromthe grip of “three dynasticfamilies”. He also asserted thatArticle 370, which gave specialstatus to J&K, is a “temporaryprovision.”

Replying to a statutory res-olution seeking Lok Sabha’sconsent to extend President’sRule in Jammu & Kashmirand extend reservation in theGovernment jobs in the villagesof International Border besidesLine of Actual Control in theState, he said the Governmenthas spent �2,307 crore toupgrade security apparatus andcompleted all the demands ofthe armaments and equip-ments by the CRPF in theState.

The Lok Sabha on Fridaygave its nod to extendPresident’s Rule in J&K foranother six months beginningJuly 3, with Shah assertingthat Assembly elections in theState will be held in a democ-ratic, free and fair manner as

soon as the ElectionCommission announces thedates.

The Lok Sabha also clearedthe Jammu and KashmirReservation (Amendment) Bill,2019, to replace an Ordinanceissued by the previousGovernment.

The Home Minister said allthe elections in the borderState were “farjee” (fake) andremote- controlled by few fam-ilies which caused a distrustand gap between the people ofJ&K and the Government. Thesituation, he said, has changednow with 40000 “panchs” and“sarpanchs” invested with truepower in the recently heldpolls.

“We gave power to thepeople which was thus far lim-ited to three families,” Shah saidapparently alluding to familiesof Abdullahs, Muftis andGandhis. He said people in theState have “opportunity” tofree themselves from the stran-glehold of these families.

Shah said terrorism in theState will be eradicated soon asthe elements who were pro-vided security for “speakingagainst India” have been putbehind the bars, unauthorisedPakistani channels airing anti-India propagandaare banned, and morale ofarmed forces is high after theIAF strike at Balakot inPakistan.

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The New Delhi MunicipalCouncil (NDMC) will start

experimenting the plan torestrict entry of cars in theinner circle of ConnaughtPlace (CP) for Sunday andMonday at pilot basis.

While the council hasclaimed that before launchingthe experiment, traders havebeen taken into confidenceand a fresh plan was also dis-cussed however traders allegedthat civic body is adopting adifferent plan than what tradershad agreed upon.

CP traders had told thecouncil that the plan will impacttheir business. “A meeting washeld between council officialsand Traffic commissioner forsmooth operations during theexperiment launch of the plan,”said NDMC official.

The mock drill will startfrom 7:30 am on Saturday inCP — the iconic market whichis a hub of pubs, eateries,

restaurants and shops wherepeople go out to spend goodtime especially in weekends. .

“Seven radials are openedand six wardens will bedeployed to facilitate visitors.These wardens will be there toupdate visitors to reach atparking destinations,” councilofficial said. Apart from this,direction signage and parkingdestinations are also availablefor the visitors,” said the official.While the plan is prepared bythree agencies comprisingemployees of enforcementagency, local police and trafficpolice, personnel of these agen-cies will be deployed at all sevenradials. Pick and drop facilities

are also available for senior cit-izens and disabled persons atHaldi Ram, State Entry Raodand Palika Bazar and singleland parking in the middle cir-cle is closed.

Traders had raised objec-tion to the plan following whichthe NDMC had tweaked its ear-lier plan, which was to make theinner circle completely car-free, to focus on pedestrianis-ing the blocks but giving accessto all parking lots in the innerand outer circles to car users.

“They are now adopting adifferent plan than what wasagreed upon in the previousmeeting.

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More than 120 Congressoffice-bearers holding dif-

ferent positions within theCentral and State units steppeddown on Friday owningresponsibility for the Lok Sabhadebacles and to oppose the res-ignation of Rahul Gandhi asparty chief.

The spate of resignationscame a day after, in a meetingwith party leaders, Rahulexpressed unhappiness thatnone of the leaders excludinghimself had taken responsibil-ity for the disastrous perfor-mance in the general elections.

Those who submitted theirresignation during the last 24hours include Vivek Tankha, aRajya Sabha member, DelhiCongress Working presidentRajesh Lilothia, office bearersfrom Telangana, Haryana,Rajasthan, etc.

Many of them said theywould not withdraw their res-ignation until Rahul promisedto stay on as the Congress chief.

“Many AICC office bearershave come forward to takeresponsibility for the poll deba-cle and resign from theirrespective posts, responsibilitydoes not end with Congresspresident Rahul alone,” said asenior Congress leader.

Besides Tankha andLilothia, Haryana Women

Congress chief SumitraChouhan, general secretaryNetta P Sangma of Meghalaya,Secretary Virender Rathore,Chhattisgarh secretary AnilChaudhary, Madhya Pradeshsecretary Sudhir Chaudharyand Haryana secretary SatyavirYadav also gave up their posts.

Notably, in a meeting withHaryana Congress leaders onThursday, Rahul had stated hequit “taking full responsibility”for the party’s defeat. “I cannotask others to resign too. It is upto them if they want to takeresponsibility,” he told seniorparty leaders such as GhulamNabi Azad, Kumari Selja andBhupinder Singh Hooda.

Soon after this, Tankharesigned as the chairman of theparty’s legal and human rightscell and asked others to followhis example.

“We all should submit ourresignations from party posi-tions and give Rahul-ji a freehand to choose his team. I wel-come Kamal Nath’’s (MadhyaPradesh Chief Minister) state-ment to that effect. I unequiv-ocally submit my resignation asAICC Dept chairman Law,RTI and HR. Party cannotafford a stalemate for too long,”Tankha announced on twitter.

As part of his exercise tomeet leaders of poll bound

States, Rahul on Friday metsenior leaders of Delhi unit,including its president SheilaDikshit, and advised them toput up a united face before theopposition in the upcomingAssembly elections next year.He also asked the DelhiCongress leaders to avoid giv-ing statements to the mediathat could hurt the interests ofthe party.

Besides Sheila, All IndiaCongress Committee (AICC)incharge of Delhi Congress, PCChacko and the party candi-dates who contested the recent-ly concluded Lok Sabha polls inthe Capital were present in themeeting.

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One worker died while twoare feared dead while

cleaning a 30-feet deep drain inWest Delhi’s Keshopur canalwater treatment plant, policesaid on Friday.

The labourers were washedaway and one of them drownedwhen the Delhi Jal Board(DJB), which had stopped thewater flow for cleaning, sud-denly started the supply, offi-cials said.

The deceased has beenidentified as Shahrukh (25), aresident of Bulandshahr inUttar Pradesh while the miss-ing are Ankit (19), a resident of

Hardoi UP and DevinderSharma(25) a resident of Ethain UP. According to MonikaBhardwaj, the DeputyCommissioner of Police(DCP), West District, a PoliceControl Room (PCR) call wasreceived at about 1.00 pm on Friday regarding adrowning of workers inKeshopur canal.

“Acting on the call, thelocal police and fire brigadereached at the spot. The firebrigade was able to remove oneworker Shahrukh. He wasrushed to Deen DayalUpadhyay (DDU) Hospitalwhere he was declared broughtdead,” said the DCP.

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In an attempt to make quick money, 19 mis-creants took a leaf from Akshay Kumar-star-

rer Bollywood movie “Special 26” and “raided”a sugar mill but they ran out of luck and land-ed in jail.

The sensational incident was reported fromSambhal district where a case of impersonationhas been registered against the accused and mostof them have been sent to jail. Efforts are on tonab the three impersonators who managed toflee.

According to reports, 19 people reachedDCM Sugar Mill in Asmoli area of Dhampur inSambhal district on SUVs on Thursday. Theyentered the mill, claiming to be officers of theCentral Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The ‘team’went to the distillery area where ethanol wasloaded and claimed that there were certain dis-crepancies in adhering to pollution controlnorms besides some other lacunae and demand-ed �15-20 lakh from the mill management.

As the “sleuths” started taking photograph,they ran out of luck as Assistant Excise

Commissioner was present there in histemporary office inside the mill.

The excise officer called the “teammembers” and enquired about them, whythey were taking photographs and whoauthorised them to make a raid.

As the “team members” failed to giveconvincing reply, the excise officer askedthe staff to detain them. The miscreantsthen tried to flee but the staff managed tonab 16 of them while three managed toescape.

Later, the local police were called andthe impostors were handed over to them.

During interrogation, they revealedthat to make quick money, they tried toturn Akshay starrer “Special 26” into reality.

“Special 26”, is a 2013 Indian heist filmdirected by Neeraj Pandey starring AkshayKumar in the lead role. The film isinspired by the 1987 Opera House heistwhere a group posing as Central Bureauof Investigation officers executed anincome tax raid on a jeweller in Mumbai.

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Himachal Chief Minister JaiRam Thakur on Friday

said that the state has madevery significant strides in var-ious sectors and this makes itan ideal destination for invest-ments.The Chief Minister wasaddressing the entrepreneursand representatives of indus-trial houses during a ‘RoadShow’ at Mumbai. He invitedthe participants to be a part ofHimachal Pradesh's growthstory.

He emphasized that thestate has lowest crime rate inthe country, pristine environs,congenial industrial relations,surplus power, skilled man-power, etc. The state has every-thing that is required for sus-

tainable investments, he added.Thakur said that state

offers attractive incentivesunder the industrial policy toboost investment in the state inall sectors. The government hascome up with some moreinvestor friendly policies insectors like tourism, wellnesscentres, educational and tech-nical institutes, logistics, aroma,Ayush, housing and real estate,IT& electronics, electric vehi-cles, MSME, he said.

The Chief Minister furthersaid that state is putting earnesteffort in improving ease ofdoing business which is visiblein the improved rankings doneby the Government of India.We were now ranked topamong fast movers category inease of doing reforms, he

added.Thakur also said that to

ensure efficiency, transparency,timeliness and accountability inallotting clearances to variousindustrial projects, the StateGovernment has evolved singlewindow mechanism inHimachal which reflects strongcommitment of the govern-ment to make HimachalPradesh industrial hub of thecountry.

He informed that govern-ment is organizing its maidenGlobal Investors’ Meet inNovember at Dharamshala. Healso appealed to the entrepre-neurs to participate in themeet as they can play a vitalrole in success of the meet withtheir new ideas for develop-ment of the state.

He presented the prioritysectors of the state like tourism,food processing, pharmaceuti-cals, IT, etc and requested theparticipants to explore invest-ment opportunities in thesesectors and the governmentwill extend all support andfacilitation.Industry MinisterBikram Singh also addressedthe gathering of potentialinvestors and stressed upon thecongenial investment atmos-phere that has been created inHimachal Pradesh.

Meanwhile, the StateGovernment has signed a MoUworth Rs 300 crore with M/sMahindra Resorts for invest-ment in Mahindra Resorts atKandaghat (Solan district),Janjheli and Koldam (Mandidistrict) and Dharamshala.Chairman, Mahindra Holidaysand Resorts Arun Nanda wasalso present on the occasion.

The Chief Minister alsocalled on chairman of RelianceIndustries Mukesh Ambani atMumbai as part of outreachactivity for attracting invest-ments to the state.

He invited the Reliance

Group to participate in theInvestors’ Meet at Dharmashala.

Thakur said that StateGovernment is providing allbasic facilities to the potentialentrepreneurs like availabilityof land, uninterrupted elec-tricity supply and responsiveadministration.

During the meeting,Mukesh Ambani showed inter-est in strengthening Jio net-work particularly in rural areasof the state by laying new opti-cal fibre line. He also showedinterest in post harvest man-agement of fruit and vegetablebesides setting up of mobilephone assembly unit in Baddi,Barotiwala and Nalagarh areafor which he assured that ateam of the company wouldvisit the state to finalize itsactivities.

He also expressed desire toset up a resort in the state par-ticularly in Dharamshala area.Apart from Mukesh Ambani,the Chief Minister also hadBusiness 2 Government (B2G)meetings with heads and rep-resentative of industrial hous-es at Mumbai.He met chairman

RPG enterprises Harsh Goenkaand discussed about invest-ment in IT park at Waknaghatin Solan district. Goenka saidthat the company is looking atplantation as it was the largestcompany in tea and rubberplantation. The governmentsuggested that contract farmingis suitable for plantation inHimachal Pradesh.

Thakur also had a meetingwith representatives of DPWorld that showed interest ininvestment in logistics sectorand dry port at Baddi. The StateGovernment suggested DPWorld to submit proposal for thesame so that possibility of logis-tic park could be explored inBaddi area.

The Chief Minister alsohad one to one meeting withChief Counsel India andAMEA, Mondeleze India, SreePatel, COO UnitedPhosphorous Limited SagarKaushik. The firm is into horti-culture and procures apples andoranges for distribution to retailstores. They shared a small pre-sentation with Chief Ministerabout the firm, its products andexpansion plans in India.

The company also submit-ted proposal for expansion ofexisting facility in Himachal byfive times in procurement ofapples.

Another meeting was heldwith chairman, Foods andInns Limited BhupendraDalal. The company is intoexports of mango pulp and islooking at investment in foodprocessing sector.

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Haryana Chief MinisterManohar Lal on Friday

said that non-occurrence ofnatural disasters is better, butnature can be very unpre-dictable and difficult to under-stand.

“Earthquakes are naturaloccurrence that can triggerlarge scale disaster. On onehand, there is loss of life andproperty, whereas on the otherhand, there is also damage toinfrastructure such as rail-ways, roads or other. Therefore,people should stay alert andGovernment machineryshould be ready and preparedto face any eventuality,” theChief Minister said during amock exercise in Faridabad.

The Chief Minister wasobserving the mock exerciseorganized by the NationalDisaster Management

Authority under the aegis ofearthquake disaster manage-ment in Faridabad, Gurugram,Jhajjar and Sonepat districts ofHaryana, which falls in theNational Capital Region'searthquake potential zone.

He said that the basic pur-pose of the mock exercise fordisaster management is thatnot only the administrativemechanisms should be alert todeal with all kinds of situationsat the time of disaster, but alsothe people should also beaware of this.

He said that all represen-tatives from different depart-ments also get more skill in therescue work done during thedisaster through the mockexercise.

The Chief Minister alsodiscussed various technologi-cal aspects related to rescuefrom disaster on the spot.Apart from this, he expressed

hope that the purpose forwhich the mock exercise hasbeen organized in differentparts of the state will beachieved and the rescue worksduring any disaster would becompleted efficiently.

He clarified that the pre-sent government is seriousabout all round developmentof the state as well as issues likemanagement of disaster andproviding relief. The only goalof the State Government is thelarger interest of the people, headded.

The Chief Minister appre-ciated the role of the employ-ees who participated in theMock exercise . During themock exercise in Faridabad,the Fire Service officials res-cued the stranded people at the6th floor of the Secretariat,provided first aid and tookthem to hospital. Notably,Haryana falls in high seismic

zone and therefore, the regionis highly vulnerable to earth-quakes.

“The mock exercise simu-lated an earthquake measuring7 on the Richter Scale withMSK intensity 8 having its epi-centre at West of Gurugramalong the Jaipur Ridge and theSohna Fault line. Critical ser-vices, like electricity, waterand telecommunication gotdamaged. Mock exerciseswere conducted in 21 locationsacross four districts of thestate,” an official spokesmaninformed.

To start with, all occupantsof designated buildings con-ducted the Duck, Cover andHold activity. Thereafter, theState Emergency OperationCentre and all the concernedDistrict Emergency OperationCentres were activated, hesaid.

The spokesman said that at

the State Emergency OperationCentre, the Chief Secretary DSDhesi alongwith other seniorofficers were present to mon-itor the mock exercise. Afterinitial damage assessment, res-cue and relief operations werelaunched. Manpower andmachinery Resources of thedistrict gathered at the ‘StagingAreas’ in all the districts whichwere further deployed to theincident sites. Rescue teamswere formed under guidanceof Incident Commanders anddispatched to concerned sites,he said.

He further said that peopleburied under the rubble wererescued and sent to hospitalsafter administrating prelimi-nary first aid. Total number ofcausalities identified in thismulti state mock exercise was34, severely injured 148 andminor injured 178 persons.Telecom services, electricityand water supply were gradu-ally restored by Public HealthEngineering and TelecomOperators, he said.

Jhajjar and Faridabad useddrones to assess damage to ini-tiate effective response.

Three teams from Army,three teams from NDRF andone team from ITBP weredeployed in the districts forassisting in response during theexercise.

Around 36 teams weredeployed in the districts forresponse consisted of districtmachinery and central agen-cies, the spokesman said.

After the drill, a post-exercise briefing analysis wascarried out, in which all con-cerned officials took part.Independent observers fromArmy shared their feedbackand suggested ways to furtherstreamline response mecha-nisms, he added.

�� � �52�.'02�5

Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)has formed a six-member

action group to help the partyworkers, being oppressed byCongress party leaders.

Besides, it has decided tohold three ‘dharnas’ to forcethe government to releaseadequate power to farmersand immediate release ofpost-matric scholarship duesto dalit students.

“The decision was takenat a meeting of the party corecommittee held recently. Theaction group has been giventhe mandate to rush to aidparty workers wheneverneeded,” said the SAD seniorvice-president Daljit SinghCheema.

He said that besides him-self, the other members of theaction group were BalwinderSingh Bhundur, Prof PremSingh Chandumajra, BibiJagir Kaur, Gulzar SinghRanike and Baldev SinghMann. “The group would notonly organize support forparty workers if false caseswere registered against them,but would also provide allneeded legal aid to them,” headded.

Cheema said that it wasalso decided to hold three‘dharnas’ at Moga on July 11,Gurdaspur on July 17, andPatiala on July 24, to demandadequate supply of power tofarmers during the paddyseason.He said that the farm-

ers were not getting uninter-rupted eight-hour power sup-ply, and the “fluctuations involtage are also damagingtubewell motors”.

“SAD would also high-l ight and demand theGovernment to review allwrong inflated power billssent to poor consumers,” hesaid.

The dharnas will alsodemand immediate release ofSC scholarship to all dalit stu-dents immediately besidesasking the Government toensure that no SC student wasprevented from attending col-lege or sitting for examina-tions because of the State’sfailure to release scholarshipsto colleges, he said.

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Himachal Pradesh author-ities have issued a direc-

tive to all teachers in govern-ment schools to avoid wearingfashionable clothes while onduty to “check incidents ofsexual abuse”.

Going a step ahead, thegovernment is also contem-plating invoking a dress codein higher secondary schoolsfor the teachers.

Education MinisterSuresh Bhardwaj said teachersof a government higher sec-ondary school in Solan have adress code. “There is no harmif other schools also followthis practice. Before imple-menting the dress code, wewill hold talks with teacherssoon.”

Officials say the purposeof the dress code is to avoidwearing “short and tightclothes”. This will help tocheck incidents of sexualabuse involving teachers ineducational institutions, theysaid. Higher EducationDirector Amarjeet Sharmasaid a teacher is a role modelfor the students.

���� �52�.'02�5

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Fridaysubmitted a memorandum to

Punjab Governor VP Singh Badnore onthe issue of “all-time high power tariff ”in the State.

As a part of the party’s ongoing ‘BijliAndolan’, a delegation of AAP leaders,led by the Leader of Opposition inVidhan Sabha Harpal Singh Cheemaand Sunam MLA Aman Arora, soughtGovernor’s intervention to check theincreasing power tariff besides scrap-ping the power purchase agreements(PPAs) signed between the previousBadal government and the privatepower plants enabling the people toheave a sigh of relief.

AAP leaders maintained that theunprecedented hike in electricity tarifftouching a new high had come as ashocker for the people of the State.

Arora, who is also coordinator ofthe ongoing ‘Bijli andolan’, said that elec-

tricity was costlier in Punjab when com-pared to what consumers in certainother states of the country were paying.

He said that Capt Amarinder SinghGovernment should initiate steps tocurb the recurring rise in the power tar-iff, thereby enabling the people tocome out of the scare looming large onthem by making electricity within thecommon man’s reach.

Citing the Delhi model, Arora saidthat the Arvind Kejriwal-led DelhiGovernment said that the dispensationhad taken hard steps to tame the

mighty power mafia during its four-yearregime, providing cheaper electricity toconsumer there even as it procures elec-tricity from private power plants.

Arora said that if the DelhiGovernment could provide cheaperelectricity in the national capital, whywas the Captain Government runningaway from replicating the model in thestate by way of scrapping the PPAssigned between the then Badal gov-ernment and three private power play-ers.

He said that affordable electricity

could be made available to the peopleprovided the State Government mulledover cancellation of the anti-state powerpurchase agreements (PPAs) signedbetween the previous BadalGovernment and the private thermalplants in Punjab, leading to an unprece-dented rise in the power tariff.

Arora added that the agreementswere set to cost the government Rs 2,800crores per year, ending up with a totalloss of Rs 70,000 crores in the coming25 years.

Slamming both Chief MinisterCapt Amarinder Singh and PowerMinister Navjot Singh Sidhu, for beinginsensitive to the cause of the people,Arora said that both were busy flexingtheir muscles at the cost of the peopleof the State which had left them sufferin silence.

Arora said that the Governor hadassured the delegation of taking up theissue with the State Government forredressal.

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Aday after a prisoner diedand several others were

injured in clashes at LudhianaCentral Jail, a jail inmate hasgone missing. Besides, thePunjab Police on Fridaybooked 22 jail inmates forallegedly attacking cops anddamaging jail property.

As per available informa-tion, an undertrail prisonerAman Kumar alias Deepakhas been missing since theviolence — a developmentalso confirmed by the JailsMinister Sukhjinder SinghRandhawa.

The Police sources main-tained that they suspect thatthe undertrial prisoner couldhave used the confusion thatfollowed the violence toescape.

The police has registereda case against prisoner-accused — Gagandeep,Ghanaiya, Ranbir, Bhupinder,Boota Khan, Babu, Gaggu,

Vishal, Pankaj, Suni, Ajit,Sarwan, Ranjit, Gurjant,Romish, Karanjot, Jatta,Rakesh, Queem Khan,Karamjeet and others — at theDivision Number 7 policestation, under various sec-tions of the Indian PenalCode, including 307 (attemptto murder).

Meanwhile, LudhianaDeputy CommissionerPradeep Aggarwal, who isalso Ludhiana district magis-trate, has started an inquiryinto violence at the jail.

Ludhiana Central JailSuperintendent ShamsherSingh said that the two groupsof gangsters had entered intoa scuffle, and when the copstried to pacify them, theinmates attacked the jail staffwith bricks and stones.

Singh claimed that theinmates put on fire the gascylinders, the record room, atractor and another vehicle inthe jail, forcing the cops toopen firing in the air to con-trol the situation.

In the melee, an inmateidentified as Ajit Baba waskilled after being hit by a bul-let and 11 people — includingfive inmates and six policepersonnel — were injured.

Punjab Jails MinisterSukhjinder Singh Randhawa,who visited the central jail totake stock of the situation,faced protests from the relativesand friends of those injured inthe clash, who raised slogansagainst the State Governmentand the Minister.

The mother of undertrialAvtar Baba, who fell to the bul-lets of police on Thursday,said that they would not let thepost-mortem be done till a caseof murder is registered againstthe persons responsible for thekilling of her son. She claimedthat her son was innocent.

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Jails Minister SukhjinderSingh Randhawa, who visitedLudhiana Central Jail accom-panied by the senior officers

of the Department as well asthe District Administrationsaid that ‘Prison Action Force’would be set up in the stateprisons, on the lines of theRapid Action Force, to avoidrecurrence of such incidentsin jails.

Randhawa inspected thehigh security zone, all bar-racks, and all those placeswhich were damaged by theinmates.

Apprising the Minister ofthe background of the vio-lence, DGP Jails Rohit

Chaudhary said that somegangsters plotted the entireviolence spree who were irkedwith the jail administration fornot letting them out of thehigh security zone besidesnot letting prohibited itemsinside the premises.

Randhawa also met thosejail officers who had bravelytried to bring the rowdy jailinmates gone berserk undercontrol. The Ministerannounced the award of Rs5,000 each for these officers oremployees besides the award-ing of commendation certifi-cates and promotion.

He praised those inmateswho cooperated with the jailauthorities in bringing thesituation under control andsaid that special concessionswould be given to suchinmates.

The Minister, during thecourse of visit, felt that the teargas played an important rolein controlling the mob.

Randhawa talked with theDGP on the spot and direct-ed him to provide tear gasshells and rubber bullets to theJail Department so as to bebetter prepared to tackle sucha situation in future.

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Shiromani Akali Dal(SAD) president Sukhbir Badalhas demanded registration of amurder case against PunjabJails Minister Sukhjinder SinghRandhawa who was directlyresponsible for the killing of ajail inmate during police firingin Ludhiana Central Jail, a daybefore.

“Besides the Jails Minister,the role of other senior policeoff icers and the Jai lSuperintendent should alsobe examined to fix responsi-bility for the death of inmateAjit Baba in the police firingbesides gun-shot injuries tofour others,” he demanded.

Sukhbir said that in casethe Congress Government didnot order a probe into the caseby a central agency or a sittingjudge of the Punjab andHaryana High Court, the SADwould order a high level probeinto the incident once itreturned to power in the State.

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Giving a relief to the Micro,Small and Medium

Enterprises (MSME) units ofIndustrial Area Faridabad,Haryana Chief MinisterManohar Lal on Friday madeseveral announcements includ-ing regularisation of MSMEunits developed in more than70 per cent geographical areaof non-conforming area.

The Chief Minister wasaddressing the entrepreneurspresent in Haryana MahaUdyog Sangam-2019 organizedby Haryana Chapter with thecoordination of All IndiaManufacturers’ Organisationin Faridabad.

The Chief Ministerannounced for getting theHaryana Industrial Survey –2019 conducted.

The Chief Minister saidthat the government has sepa-rate proposal to provide reliefto units in less than 70 per centarea under which the livelihoodof people living in such areaswill be improved. For this, thegovernment will provide landto such entrepreneurs at otherplace under PPP mode and thatarea will be declared a com-mercial area, the revenuereceived from such commercialarea will be shared by theHaryana Government andentrepreneurs in the ratio of50-50 per cent and the entre-preneurs can buy land fromtheir share of 50 per cent andestablish their units. This willalso lead to development ofanother area, he added.

He further said that underthe new Enterprises PromotionPolicy-2015 of the

Government, several conces-sions have been given in theGroup-C and D blocks to thebackward industrial sectors,in which the rate of electricityfor units up to 20 kilowatts hasbeen Rs 4.75 per unit.

Apart from this, for thepurpose of providing jobs tothe people of Haryana in thenewly established industries,the government will give Rs3,000 per month for threeyears, that is, Rs.1.88 lakh tothose entrepreneurs, he said.

The Chief Minister furthersaid that he has an old associ-ation with Faridabad. The wayindustrial development couldhave been carried out inFaridabad, was not done by theprevious governments. Thepresent State Governmentwould like this industrial townto recapture its old identity.

In old Faridabad, eachhousehold has small units. Inthe Haryana assembly, the billwas passed to provide relief tothese units, but for the neces-sary amendment in the CentralLabour Law, I had written ademi-official letter to theCentral Government in whichapproval was sought to imple-ment the Factory Act on unitswith electricity for increasingthe number of laborers from 10to 20 and from 20 to 40 onunits without electricity, hesaid.

Manohar Lal also said thaton behalf of the government,there would be no objectiontowards providing such CLUsto the units. The Chief Ministeralso gave assurance to solve theproblems related to pollution,labour and industries depart-ment. Also, facilities such as

roads, water and sewerage willalso be completed there, headded.He said there is no short-age of electricity in the state.

He also announced thesetting up of a sub-station of 66KV capacity on six acres of thevillage of Nikpur in Faridabadwhich will be completed byMarch - 2020. Sub-station of220 KV capacity in Sector-58,whose work is expected to becompleted in one year wasalso annouced.

The Chief Minister saidthat unprecedented improve-ment has been made in thepower sector in the last fouryears and for the first time inthe history of the state, the fourpower corporations are in prof-it.

Today, 24 hours powersupply is being provided torural areas of seven districts

and Faridabad is among thosedistricts, he claimed.

The Chief Ministerappealed to the entrepreneursto establish maximum employ-ment oriented ventures.

The State Government hasestablished Vishwakarma SkillUniversity in Dudhola villageof district Palwal. This univer-sity has signed 90 MoUs withentrepreneurs, under whichfaculty facilities will be pro-vided by the university andinfrastructure by the entrepre-neurs and can take skilledworkforce from the Universityas per their requirement, hesaid.

He added that more than60,000 youth have been giventhe benefit of apprenticeship,who have been given Rs 3,000monthly stipend during 6month apprenticeship.

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The Centre has assuredPunjab Chief Minister Capt

Amarinder Singh to initiatework on the infrastructuredevelopment of SultanpurLodhi as proposed by thePunjab Government at the ear-liest.

The assurance was given bythe Union Minister of State forCivil Aviation withIndependent Charge HardeepSingh Puri to press for earlyapproval for Rs 321 crore infra-structure development pro-jects proposed by the StateGovernment for SultanpurLodhi town which holds his-torical significance due to itsassociation with Guru NanakDev, whose 550th birthanniversary is being celebratedthis year.

Puri said that he hadalready instructed theDepartment to immediate vetthe proposals and secure thenecessary approvals to startwork on priority.

To the Chief Minister’srequest for inclusion of thethree Municipal Corporationtowns of Patiala, Bathinda andSAS Nagar in Smart CitiesProject being assisted by theCentral Government on shar-ing basis, Puri assured to con-sider the same, as and when theproject is expanded to covernew cities.

The Union Minister saidthat he was committed to help-ing Punjab in any way he couldand would look into thedemands of the State. “I wouldensure maximum flights fromPunjab to cater to the demand

for global travel,” said Puriwhile talking with the medialater.

The Chief Minister said, inresponse to media queries afterthe meeting, that the UnionMinister had promised to lookinto the state’s demands relat-ed to urban development andaviation.

Earlier, during the meeting,Capt Amarinder said thatPatiala, besides being an oldheritage city and capital of theerstwhile PEPSU, had also beendeclared as Counter-MagnetTown to NCR by the NCRPlanning Board. Strengtheninginfrastructure in all theCounter-Magnet towns wouldalso help in reducing migrationto Delhi, he pointed out.

To strengthen the state’sglobal connectivity, the ChiefMinister sought inclusion ofChandigarh under the OpenSkies Policy for ASEAN coun-tries, while asking for urgentreview of the current policy ofbilateral spots to facilitate moreinternational flights out ofChandigarh, especially to Gulfcountries and Turkey, therebyenabling greater connectivitywith the rest of the world.

He also urged the Ministerto liberalise bilateral rights toenable the civil aviation sectorto grow.

The Chief Minister alsoasked the Union Minister toconsider the proposal to nameAdampur Airport as JalandharAirport for easy booking offlights by tourists and NRIs.The Union Minister immedi-ately instructed departmentofficials to explore ways ofmaking the change.

���� �52�.'02�5

Aday after Haryana Congressspokesman Vikas Chaudhary

was shot dead in Faridabad, theChief Minister Manohar Lal Khattaron Friday said that the deceased had13 FIRs against him and anythingcould be possible with such a per-son.

The Chief Minister while talk-ing to the mediapersons inFaridabad said, “The murder isunfortunate but we would also haveto look at the person's character.

There were 13 FIRs registeredagainst the murdered person andsome of those cases are underSection 120 (B) and 307 of the IPC.It (the murder) could also have beenbecause of some personal enmity butwe are still engaged in conductingthe investigation fairly.”

“The incident is horrible andmurder should never be supportedbut the victim's character shouldalso be kept in mind who has beendeclared as a bad character. Thisperson who had been a spokesper-son of a party (Congress), should

have been identified by the party,” headded.

Vikas was shot dead byunknown assailants at the car park-ing of a gym in Faridabad onThursday. The incident took placearound 9 am, when Vikas (42) wasparking his car outside the gym.

The whole incident was caughton CCTV camera. Upon hearing thenoise, people had rushed to the siteand Chaudhary was rushed to ahospital where he was declaredbrought dead.

While no culprit has been arrest-

ed in the case till the evening,Manohar Lal said that several policeteams had been constituted to inves-tigate the case and the guilty will bepunished. He also drew comparisonsto previous Congress governmentswhich he claimed had protectedsuch culprits.

Earlier in the day, the Congressworkers condemned VikasChaudhary's murder and demand-ed justice. They also protested overthe delay in the handing over ofVikas’ body by the hospital.

Haryana Congress chief Ashok

Tanwar on Friday said that theBJP Government has failed to deal

with the law and order situation and crime graph is high inthe state.

A day before, CongressPresident Rahul Gandhi, formerChief Minister Bhupinder SinghHooda, Randeep Surjewala amongother party leaders had criticized theState Government for deteriorating law and order situationin Har yana and had demanded immediate action arrestof culprits.

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Taking suo motu cogni-sance of Ludhiana

Central Jail clash, the PunjabState Human RightsCommission (PSHRC) hasset a month’s deadline for thestate Home and JusticeDepartment’s secretary tosubmit a report by July 29.

The Commission, com-prising of its chairpersonJustice Iqbal Ahmed Ansari,along with membersAshutosh Mohunta and

Avinash Kaur, has fixed July29 as the next date for hear-ing in the matter, asking theGovernment to submitreport in the incident.

Notably, a prisoner waskilled while five policemenand an equal number ofinmates were injured in theclash. The prisoners wereprotesting the death of aninmate and the mob turnedviolent when the jail stafftried to prevent them fromheading towards the maingate.

“Keeping in view the facts and circumstances,while taking serious view of the matter, thisCommission takes suo motocognizance in the matter,”read the order.

The Commission statedthat a detailed report regard-ing the entire incident isrequisitioned from the stateof Punjab, through theSecretary, Home and JusticeDepartment, Punjab, on orbefore the next date of hear-ing, that is July 29.

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Haryana Agriculture andFarmers’ Welfare Minister,

Om Prakash Dhankar onFriday launched Krishi Kioskat Panchkula near here to startDigital Kisan Suvidha for facil-itating the farmers.

Through this Kiosk, thefarmers will not only be able toget information about theschemes of the Department,but the formalities related toclaims to Pradhan MantriFasal Bima Yojana can also becompleted, Dhankar said.

He said that this Kiosk hasbeen connected with theDeputy Commissioners' officesin all the 22 districts of the stateand a telephone facility has alsobeen made available in Kioskso that the farmers could giveinformation through telephoneto the State Headquarters.TheAgriculture Minister alsoflagged off the ‘Suchana Rath’facility.

He said that through thisSuchana Rath, farmers will beencouraged not to burn thecrop residues rather sow it inthe field through scientificmethod.

He called upon the farm-ers’ to clean the environmentby not burning crop residue

and adopt agricultural equip-ment being provided by thegovernment at 50 per centsubsidy.

Dhankar said that the gov-ernment has created the KisanHaryana App to benefit thefarmers under the Digital Plan.Farmers can get information ofall schemes through this app.On this occasion, he alsoreleased book entitled AgriScope.

He said that the studentscan play a role of the mosteffective messenger, so it hasbeen decided to include stu-dents in this campaign. Forthis, painting competition willbe organised for class levelfrom class V to VIII and paint-ing, slogan, poetry writingand speech competition forstudents from Class VIII to tenplus two. Students baggingfirst place will be given Rs 500and Seed Pencil will be givento other children to encouragethem in preserving the envi-ronment.

He said that theDepartment has put tulsi seedin this seed pencil.

The Minister furthersaid that for publicity pur-poses, 22 vehicles will berun in all districts of thestate from July onwards.

Apart from this, oneSuchana Rath each wouldbe flagged off at the clusterlevel in Sirsa, Gurugram andPanchkula, through whichfarmers will be made awareabout the schemes. These vehi-cles will move around the statethroughout the year and willprovide information aboutcrop residual managementalong with information relat-ed to the Pradhan Mantri FasalBima Yojana, BhawantarBharpayee Yojana, Jal JeevanYojna and other schemes of theDepartment.

The AgricultureMinister also said that dueto air pollution, we have toface double challenges. Onone hand, most of the wildanimals are dying with poi-sonous gas whereas on theother hand, farmers arealso reducing the fertility ofthe land by burning cropresidue in fields.

He added that at pre-sent, social media is also aneffective medium of pub-licity and through Facebookand Instagram, the infor-mation of the schemes andthe challenges of the agri-culture sector will be avail-able to the people of theregion.

������52�.'02�5

Union Food ProcessingIndustr ies Minister

Harsimrat Kaur Badal onFriday asked Punjab ChiefMinister Capt AmarinderSingh to personally interveneand direct Punjab AgroIndustr ies Corporat ion(PAIC) to operationalizeLadhowal mega food park bythe end of next month failingwhich the Food ProcessingMinistry would be “con-strained to terminate the pro-ject”.

Harsimrat, in a letter tothe Chief Minister, said thatthe Ladhowal food park wastaken up for implementationby PAIC after a grant of Rs 50crore from the FoodProcessing Ministr y, and the Park was approved inNovember 2015 and

slated to be completed inMay 2018.

“Despite the fact that shehad been consistently review-ing the progress of the work,there is a complete lack of ini-tiative from PAIC to stick tomandated schedules which is

harming progressive farmersas well as youth who are slat-ed to get employment at thefacility,” she said.

The Union Ministerreminded the Chief Ministerthat she had taken up theissue of timely inaugurationand operationalisation of thePark with him on numerousoccasions but no progresswas being made to completeremaining works.

“The completion of thePark is being delayed for onereason for another,” she saidwhile urging the ChiefMinister to once again expe-dite completion of the Park ontop priority.

She said that if this wasnot done, “the Ministry wouldbe constrained to terminatethe project which woulddeprive the State of significantjob opportunities because ofits own apathy”.

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Punjab Government has pre-pared a special policy for

strengthening the private aswell as the government drugde-addiction centres underwhich the top quality treatmentfacilities would be provided tothe victims of drug addiction.

The state Health andFamily Welfare Minister BalbirSingh Sidhu announced thedecision during the first meet-ing of psychiatrists doing pri-vate practice as well as those ingovernment service.

Sidhu said that the purposeof the meeting is to furtherstrengthen the campaign start-ed by the Chief Minister CaptAmarinder Singh aimed at theeradication of drugs of whichthe strengthening of drug de-addiction is an important part.

“The main aim of themeeting is to provide top qual-ity treatment facilities to thedrug victims in the shortesttime possible,” he said addingthat it is mandatory that newdrug de-addiction centres andOOAT clinics be established inthe State and it would be done

by the State Government soon.Responding the problems

raised by psychiatrists in themeeting, the Minister said thata committee would be consti-tuted for the doctors and thedrug de-addiction centresengaged in private practiceand the recommendationsmade by the committee wouldform the base of the strategy tobe chalked out with regard tothe drug de-addiction pro-gramme.

He assured the doctorsand management of privatecentres that the Punjab

Government is fully committedto implement the anti-drugstrategy and a meeting everymonth would be held to sortout their problems.

The Minister also directedthe Civil Surgeons to run week-ly programmes to exhort the

students of Classes IX and XIIto stay away from drugs.

He also assured the man-agement of private de-addic-tion centres and private prac-titioners that their problemswill be resolved in phase man-ner. “Soon instructions will be

issued to authorities to expeditethe procedure as well as renewthe licence of private centreswithin a month after theinspection at district level,” hesaid adding that it was alsodecided to close compulsoryurine screening.

Special Task Force (STF)chief Gurpreet Deo said that allstakeholders need to come ona common platform to combatdrugs as it is a global problem.She called for total coordina-tion among all the depart-ments to ensure the success of‘anti drug campaign’ of the State

Government.At the same time, she

assured the doctors and man-agement of the centres whowere present that no investiga-tion would be carried out dur-ing the treatment of victims ofdrugs and their identity wouldalso be kept a secret.

The state Additional ChiefSecretary (Health) SatishChandra said that all efforts arebeing made to improve the per-formance of OOAT clinics andcentres by the DrugAdministration as per theguidelines set under the drug

de-addiction programmes.Calling for the stoppage of

illegal sale of the habit formingmedicines, Chandra said that inorder to keep vigilance on sell-ing of habit making drugs, it isimportant that only a fewselected chemists be allowed tosell these medicines and theGovernment is consideringthis aspect.

He also assured providingtop notch services and treat-ment facilities in the drug de-addiction centres as long as thetreatment continues at thesecentres.

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Three persons, including aCRPF officer and a civil-

ian girl, were killed and twoothers injured in a gun battlebetween the Maoists and theparamilitary force in Bijapurdistrict of the state on Friday,police said.

Two girls were caught inthe crossfire, police said,adding one of them diedwhile the other sustainedinjuries.

The gun-battle took placeat around 11 am close to aculvert near Keshkutul villageunder the Bhairamgarh policestation area when a team ofthe CRPF's 199th battalion was out on an areadomination operation onmotorcycles , BijapurSuperintendent of PoliceDivyang Patel said.

The bike-patrolling teamof the paramilitary force washeading towards Bhairamgarhfrom its camp in Keshkutul.When it was advancingthrough Keshkutul, locatedaround 450 km away from thecapital Raipur, the CRPF teamwas ambushed by a group ofarmed rebels and a gunfightensued, he said.

"Two CRPF personnel --an assistant sub-inspectorMadhu Patil and head con-stable Taju Oti – belonging toforce’s 199th battalion werekilled. Another assistant sub-inspector Madan Pal of thesame unit was injured in thegunfight," Patel said.

Two minor girls travellingin a goods carrier were caughtin the crossfire when theirvehicle was passing through the encounter spot.One of them died, while theother was injured, the SPsaid.

Reinforcement wasrushed to the spot soon afterbeing alerted about the inci-dent and the injured wereadmitted at Bhairamgarh hos-pital, he said.

Later, during search of theencounter spot, two pressureimprovised explosive devices (IEDs) were recovered from the spot, theSP added.

According to anotherpolice official, Naxals alsolooted one AK-47 rifle, itsfour magazines, one BulletProof jacket, one wireless setfrom the CRPF team duringthe encounter.

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Rajya Sabha Chairman MVenkaiah Naidu on Friday

urged the Government andthe Opposition parties to holdregular interaction, both formaland informal, to arrive at someconsensus on issues on clearingpending bills. He also suggest-ed that once a Bill undergoesscrutiny by parliamentarystanding committee, it shouldgo through unless there issomething very urgent thatrequires further deliberations.

As many as 22 Bills, pend-ing in the Rajya Sabha, hadlapsed with the dissolution ofthe 16th Lok Sabha last monthand another 33 Bills have beenpending consideration in theUpper House for years includ-ing three of them for more than20 years.

While appreciating mem-bers for good debates on waterscarcity and environment ear-lier this week, Naidu, duringthe Zero Hour, said MPs par-ticipated in the discussionsand raised important pointscutting across political affilia-tions. The Chairman saidpeople have praised the func-tioning of the House duringthis week.

On the issue of Bills pend-ing in the House, Naidu saidthe issues could be resolvedthrough formal and informaldiscussions. The Governmentand other members shouldinteract and the former shouldtake initiative to clear pendinglegislative business, he added.Naidu said efforts should bemade to find out where theproblem is, is it with the gov-ernment, Opposition, the

House or the system. “At theend of the day, I want to see myHouse, our House get appreci-ation,” he added.

Naidu suggested that oncea bill is cleared by aParliamentary Committee,comprising members fromboth Lok Sabha and RajyaSabha, it should go throughuntil and unless there is some-thing very urgent that requiresfurther deliberations. TheChairman also told the mem-bers that he was looking intotheir suggestions regarding“parliament scrutiny” of bills.

The Chairman also askedLeader of the House ThawarChand Gehlot and Minister ofState for Parliamentary AffairsV Muraleedharan to ensurethat ministers reply to all ZeroHour and special mentionsraised by members.

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The CBI has booked NabamHari, brother of former

Arunachal Pradesh ChiefMinister Nabam Tuki, his wifeand some PWD officers foralleged corruption inGovernment contracts.

The case relates to con-tracts handed by Tuki as thePWD Minister in the State tohis relatives for “selfish gainswithout inviting tenders”,according to the FIR.

The CBI had earlier regis-tered a Preliminary Enquiry, atthe instance of the GauhatiHigh Court, into one suchwork related to construction ofa Kendriya Vidyalaya buildingin Umroi cantonment, Shillongworth �1.23 crore.

Several contracts wereallegedly given to MaryAssociate, a firm owned byTuki’s sister-in-law, NabamMary, which was maintaininga current account in the UnitedBank of India in which her hus-band Hari is one of the nomi-

nees.The contracts under CBI

probe were given between 2005and 2007.

The High Court onNovember 16, 2017 hadordered the CBI to carry outpreliminary enquiry into 11contracts followed by regularcases where prima facie evi-dence of corruption is detect-ed.

The work in the KendriyaVidyalaya building construc-tion was done in two phaseswith contract for first phase wasgiven to the company in 2005.

During the PE, the CBIfound that the work wasawarded to the company

through 25 work orders eachbelow �3 lakh totalling to�63.92 lakh. In addition, anoth-er six orders worth �5.15 lakhwere also given.

“It was found thatArunachal Pradesh PWD fol-lowed CPWD manual and doesnot have its own manual whichsays that in urgent mattersworks can be awarded withoutcall of tender if the value ofwork is below three lakh,” theCBI said.

If its above �1 lakh thework can be sanctioned bysuperintending engineer whilebelow it can be sanctioned byexecutive engineer. The PWDofficials broke a big order into

several smaller orders to avoidcall for tender, the FIR alleged.

The firm of Tuki’s sister-in-law was not registered as a civilcontractor with PWD,Arunachal Pradesh and did nothave requisite licence. It wasgiven trading licence to runbusiness of electrical goods,hardware, motor parts, lubri-cants and agri-equipment.

After successful comple-tion of the first phase, thecompany sought second phaseof tender worth �90.46 lakh forthe construction of 12 staffquarters. This work was award-ed to them in the form of 27separate orders worth �73.53lakh keeping the tab of �3 lakhto avoid tendering process.

Apart from MaryAssociate, which was a majorbeneficiary, some works werealso given to other companies,they said.

The agency also found thatMary is the owner of the com-pany and nominee of compa-ny’s current account is herhusband.

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The Enforcement Directorate(ED ) on Friday said it has

attached assets worth �209 crore,including 20 immovable prop-erties and bank deposits, in itsmoney laundering probe intothe alleged IMA group Ponziscam of Karnataka. In the ponzischeme the promoters of IMAgroup of companies dupedover 40,000 gullible Musliminvestors of an estimated �4,000crore.

The ED has provisionallyattached immovable propertiesworth �197 crore, �98 lakhfrom 51 bank accounts and �11crore from HDFC Bank held inthe Pradhan Mantri GaribKalyan Deposit Scheme underPrevention of MoneyLaundering Act, 2002 (PMLA)in a ponzi scheme case, theagency said in a statement.

Based on the FIR regis-tered June 9 under variousSections of IPC by BengaluruPolice against IMA Group ofCompanies and its ManagingDirector Mohammed MansoorKhan, the ED initiated investi-gations under PMLA.

The FIR had revealed thatthe accused entities had cheat-ed more than 40,000 middleclass and lower middle classpeople through Ponzi Schemes.It is also suspected that Khan isabsconding since the registrationof FIR.

“Investigations underPMLA revealed that the accusedcompanies and its directorshave indulged in the offence ofMoney-Laundering by cheatingcommon people through PonziSchemes and generated the pro-ceeds of crime in the form ofmovable and immovable prop-erties,” the ED said, adding adedicated team was constitutedto investigate the case.

The ED probe revealed thatKhan had promised return oninvestment ranging from 2.5 to

3 per cent per month to all theinvestors. Investigations furtherrevealed that the IMA Groupwas not doing any business topay the promised monthlyreturn on the investments madeby public and that Khan wasrunning a ponzi scheme andthey were all working on hisinstructions.

So far, 20 immovable prop-erties held in the name ofMohammed Mansoor Khanand his entities have been iden-tified as proceeds of crime. Thevaluation of the 20 immovableproperties is about �197 crore asevaluated by the approvedGovernment valuers.

On analysis of 105 bankaccounts with various privatebanks and Co-operativeSocieties of IMA Group of com-

panies, it is revealed that Khanhad received about �4,000 croreas investments.

“The accused and his asso-ciates have diverted the amountin various accounts and acquiredvarious immovable and movableproperties in his name, in thename of the other Directors andassociates. Investigation done sofar has identified 20 immovableproperties and 105 bankaccounts. Balance available inthese bank accounts is around�12 crore,” the agency said.

The ED probe has alsorevealed that Khan had deposit-ed cash of about �44 crore invarious bank accounts duringthe demonetization period. Asa result of action of the IncomeTax Department, IMA Grouphad paid tax of �22 crore. Theremaining amount of �11 crorewas lying in a bank which hasbeen identified during the inves-tigation.

ED is in the process of issu-ing Red Corner Notice (RCN)against absconding accusedMohammad Mansoor Khanand is also examining possibil-ity of invoking FugitiveOffenders Act.

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Rising number of naxalrelated incidents in various

States, plight of ad-hoc teach-ers in universities, menacecaused by stray cattle andhuman trafficking in someborder States were some of theissues flagged by the membersin the Rajya Sabha on Friday.

Drawing the attention ofthe house during the zerohour to naxal problem, RamVichar etam(BJP)claimed thatin the past few months violentincidents engineered by theNaxals had increased in somestates like Chattisgarh andJharkhand. Terming the trendas serious, he urged theGovernment to take note itadding the worst suffererswere poor tribal people. As pera report of the home ministry,only 10 districts were affectedfrom Naxal activities inChattisgarh, but now in thelast six month it has spread toalmost all districts, he said.

Roopa Ganguly(nomini-ated) sought to draw the atten-tion of the Upper House towhat she called rising numberof cases of human traffickingand illegal activities in border

states and urged the con-cerned state governments intandem with the centre toaddress them at the earliest.

The Samajwadi Party(SP)demanded compensation forpeople killed by stray cattleand insurance cover for cropsdamage caused by them.Raising the issue, party mem-ber Ravi Prakash Verma (SP)said stray cattle has become amenace in Uttar Pradesh andother northern states becauseof lack of an appropriate pol-icy. He said stray cattle wasclogging highways, damagingstanding crops and in manycases also killing/injuring peo-ple.

Prakash demanded thatfamilies of people killed by

stray cattle should be givencompensation of �5 lakh likethat given for those killed bywild animals. Further, cropdamage caused by animalsshould be covered under thePradhan Mantri Fasal BimaYojana.

Manoj Kumar Jha(RJD)highlighted the plight of ad-hoc teachers in universitiesacross the country. He ruedthat hundreds of ad-hoc teach-ers continue to teach for yearson paltry salaries. Jha saidteachers in private universitiesare made to sign on a higheramount but they get only�15,000-�16,000 monthly asremuneration.

In her mention, ShantaChhetri (TMC) said about 8.5

per cent of the country’s pop-ulation constitutes senior cit-izens. She suggested that theirexperience and knowledgeshould be used for the bene-fit of the country.

Another SP memberSurendra Singh Nagar high-lighted the incident ofBulandsahar in UP whereintwo Dalit women wereallegedly run over by a carafter they protested a molesta-tion attempt recently. Besidethe two women, another per-son, who was injured in theincident, died in the hospital,he said, and alleged that policewas giving protection to theaccused, a powerful person.

Sanjay Sinh(Congress)raised the issue of Kargil warveteran MohammadSanaullah, who was declared a“foreigner”, arrested and sentto detention camp in Assam.He said authorities did not actpromptly on documents pro-vided by Sanaullah regardinghis citizenship.

Stating that a fake case hasbeen registered againstSanaullah, who has also beenhonoured with the President’sMedal, Singh demanded thatresponsibility be fixed.

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The Advertising StandardsCouncil of India (ASCI)

has observed that formerIndian cricket captainMahendra Singh Dhoni’sendorsement of a prominentbrand of ‘Mastercard’ as a pay-ment gateway was misleading.

Another advertisement inwhich a well known brand’s ofrefrigerator claim of keepingvegetables fresh for up to 30days was also found mislead-ing. ASCI also observedPaisabazaar’s claim loanapproval in two minutes withthe key operative word provi-sional missing in the voiceover as misleading by ambi-guity and implication. TheASCI has investigated 206comlaints and found 114 aremisleading includingKingfisher Radler, Indulekhashampoo, Dove shampoo,Mohini Knitwears, Nestle’sbreakfast cereal NesPlusMultigrain Kokos’s.

In its order on theMastercard where Dhoni was

endorsing the brand, ASCIobserved that while the adver-tiser took a stance that theirMastercard is a payment gate-way, the visual in the TVCommercial shows a physicalcard. “It was observed thatthere was no evidence showingDhoni had done due diligenceprior to the endorsement.There was a violation of guide-lines for celebrities in adver-tising”, it added.

ASCI also observed thatthe advertisement’s onPaisabazar claim, “2 minutemein loan approval” (“LoanApproval* in 2 minutes”)regardless of the disclaimer,“…..*Provisional LoanApproval in 2 minutes”, is mis-leading as the key operativeword “provisional” is missingin the voice over itself. Theclaim, “Loan Approval in 2Minutes “with the protagonistcategorically stating “fatafatpaisa aapke account mein”,implies that the money wouldbe available in the person’saccount as quick as in twominutes, whereas the actual

fact is that the transfer ofmoney could take up to 10days. “Any normal Customer isbound to believe that the Loanwill be approved in two min-utes and amount will be cred-ited almost immediately. Theadvertisement is misleadingby ambiguity and implication,”the ASCI said.

ASCI also evaluated 157advertisements, of which 59belonged to the education sec-tor, 35 belonged to the health-care sector, five to personalcare, two to the food and bev-

erages sector and 13 were fromthe others category.

ASCI also found Nestle’sbreakfast cereal NesPlusMultigrain Kokos’s advertise-ment misleading by omissionand ambiguity as its claimthat the product remains crispyin warm milk did not mentionthe period of upto four min-utes.

ASCI also pulled upHindustan Unilever’sIndulekha and Dove Shampooadvertisements and foundthem to be misleading.“Indulekha Bringha HairCleanser is not directly bene-ficial for hair growth likeIndulekha Bringha oil. Theadvertisement called out ben-efits of Indulekha Oil and pre-sented Indulekha HairCleanser as additional product.The hair cleanser productdepicting mnemonic of hairroot identical to that shown onthe oil product pack and claim-ing ‘prevents hair fall’ wastherefore considered to bemisleading,” it said. It addedthat the disclaimer in fine

print at the back of the pack-age stating ‘hair fall due tobreakage’, was in violation ofASCI guidelines for dis-claimers.

The Dove intense repairshampoo and conditioneradvertisement claim ‘new’ wasnot substantiated for the prod-uct formulation. “The adver-tiser did not submit anyauthentic and verifiable evi-dence comparing the compo-sition of the old formulation ofDove intense repair and the re-launched version. Advertiserdid not submit physical sam-ple of the old products as well.It was concluded that the claim‘new’ was not substantiated forthe product formulation andwas misleading by implication”,it said.

ASCI noted that onlinepharmacy PharmEasy’s adver-tisement claim, ‘100 per centGenuine Medicines’ was notsubstantiated with any verifi-able supporting data such as alist of registered FDA approvedpharmacies who have tie-upswith the advertiser and how

the advertiser ensures that allmedicines supplied are 100per cent genuine.

It also noted that theadvertisement claim by AnandiAtta Chakki Pvt Ltd that onlyAtta Chakki Giving 100 percent Result in Bajri” was notsubstantiated with any marketsurvey data or with compara-tive data of the advertiser’sproduct and other Atta Chakkiproducts, to prove theirgrinder’s performance and effi-ciency in giving 100 per centresult in Bajri and how it isunique to their Atta Chakkialone. The claim is misleadingby exaggeration.

ASCI also found that theadvertisement’s claim by IASHotspot that Kerala’s biggestresidential hub for civil servicepreparation” was not substan-tiated with data to conclusive-ly prove that the residentialservices provided by the adver-tiser’s institute are the biggestin Kerala as compared to otherinstitutes offering similar facil-ities, or through an indepen-dent third-party validation.

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The Ministry of Fisheries,Animal Husbandry and

Dairying on Friday said thatthere is no proposal to fixminimum support price (MSP)for milk in the country as it isa highly perishable product.

In a reply to the RajyaSabha, Union Minister of Statefor Fisheries, AnimalHusbandry and DairyingSanjeev Kumar Balyan saidthis Department does not reg-ulate the prices of milk in thecountry. “Prices are decided bythe cooperative and privatedairies based on cost of pro-duction,” Balyan said.

Since milk is a highly per-ishable production, there is no“proposal to fix MSP for milkin the country,” he said.

The milk production in thecountry has been rising everyyear. The output stood at Rs176.35 million tonnes during2017-18 fiscal, the Minister

added.With regard to camel milk,

the Minister, in a separatereply, said the Union govern-ment has not received a pro-posal from the StateGovernments and state dairycooperatives for setting up of adairy for camel’s milk.

However, GujaratCooperative Milk MarketingFederation (GCMMF) —which owns Amul brand — hasreceived �2.65 crore during2014-15 to 2017-18 for pur-chase of machinery and equip-ments for camel milk collec-tion, chilling and processingunder the central schemeRashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana,he said.

In another reply, theMinister said that no survey hasbeen conducted by Food Safetyand Standards Authority ofIndia (FSSAI) on purchase ofdairy products from farmers asfarmers are exempt from theprovisions of FSS Act, 2006.

New Delhi: Within a fort-night of convening of the 17thLok Sabha, the business of theHouse on Friday collapseddue to lack of quorum minutesbefore it was scheduled toend.

The issue of quorum wasraised by AAP memberBhagwant Mann during a dis-cussion on a private memberresolution regarding waterscarcity and Ken-Betwa river-linking project.

Mann raised the issue ofquorum around 5:45 pm whenJagdambika Pal (BJP) wasspeaking on the resolution.

Raising the quorum issue,Mann said he was also object-ing to absence of oppositionmembers in the House and

lesser numbers on the treasurybenches.

The presence of at least 10per cent of the total strength ofHouse or about 55 membersconstitutes the quorum.

Rajendra Agrawal, whowas in the Chair, halted theproceedings of the House andordered ringing of the quorumbell.

Following this, some MPscame to the House but not inenough numbers to completethe quorum compelling theChair to adjourn the Housearound 5 minutes ahead of thescheduled time of 6 pm.

The discussion on the res-olution moved by PushpendraSingh Chandel will continuenext week.

Earlier participating in thediscussion, Bhanu PratapSingh Verma (BJP) said farm-ers of Bundelkhand are forcedto leave farming and migrate tocities for work due to shortageof water.

Due to lack of irrigationfacility, farmers are unable todo farming despite havingtheir own land.

The Government shouldalso initiate steps for replen-ishing dams to overcome theproblems of water scarcity andpractise of ‘Anna Pratha’ in theregion, he said.

‘Anna Pratha’ refers to thepractice of farmers freeing theircows to graze in open fields intimes of scarcity of water andfodder, he said. PTI

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The Ministry of Housingand Urban Affairs on

Friday sanctioned over 2.5 lakhmore affordable houses in 10States under the PradhanMantri Awas Yojana (Urban).

According to the MoHUA,the total number of housesbeing funded under the PMAY(U) is close to 84 lakh acrossthe country so far.

The approval was given ina meeting of the central sanc-tioning and monitoring com-mittee (CSMC) chaired byMoHUA secretary DurgaShanker Mishra.

“The flagship urban mis-sions, particularly PM AwasYojana-Urban, are#TransformingUrbanLandscape at an unprecedented pace. In

the CSMC Meeting held todaywe sanctioned over 2.5 lakhmore houses in 10 States (sic),”Mishra tweeted.

According to him, out of 84lakh houses sanctioned so far,Uttar Pradesh is the biggestbeneficiary state in the countrywith 13 lakh houses, followedby Andhra Pradesh with over12 lakh houses.

“Total number of housessanctioned now under thisvisionary Mission of Hon’blePM stands at nearly 84 lakhs.

“Out of these, UP with 13lakhs houses is the biggestbeneficiary State followed byAndhra Pradesh at 12+ lakhshouses sanctioned,” the secre-tary added in his tweet.

Earlier this week, UnionHousing and Urban AffairsMinister Hardeep Singh Pur

had said that the target of con-structing one crore housesunder the Pradhan MantriAwas Yojana (Urban) can beachieved by 2020-end, twoyears before the deadline.

The NDA government hasspent 554 per cent more in fiveyears than the UPA govern-ment had in 10 years on urbandevelopment projects, thehousing and urban affairs min-ister had also said. The PMAY(U), launched by PrimeMinister Narendra Modi inJune 2015, aims at ensuringhousing for all by 2022 by pro-viding financial assistance tobeneficiaries.

The Government has set atarget of one crore houses inurban areas across the countryover a period of seven yearsfrom 2015 to 2022.

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New Delhi: During the Kargilconflict, the then PrimeMinister Atal Bihari Vajpayeewas reluctant to use the AirForce and refused to give itpermission to cross the Line ofControl (LoC), former Air ChiefAnil Tipnis said on Friday.

Speaking at the launch of abook titled ‘A Prime Ministerto remember— Memories of amilitary chief ’, penned by for-mer Navy chief Sushil Kumar,Tipnis recalled a meeting heand the then army chief VedMalik had with Vajpayee dur-ing the 1999 Kargil fighting.

Tipnis said Vajpayee want-ed to know from General Malikif the ground forces could dowithout the use of Air Force.

“Even before Ved Malikcould respond, I chipped in

saying the Army needs it andwe are ready. The PrimeMinister was pensive for a fewmoments and then said ‘kalsubah shuruwat kariyega(begin tomorrow morning),”Tipnis said.

He also spoke about askingfor Vajpayee’s permission tocross the LoC.

“In a voice firmer than Ihad ever heard... (Vajpayeesaid) ‘No, we will not cross theLine of Control’,” Tipnis said.

He said the Indian AirForce was ready to join theArmy in the operation at ashort notice of six hours.

Admiral (Retd.) SushilKumar, who was navy chief atthe time of Kargil conflict, saidVajpayee turned a “strategicloss” to a massive victory. PTI

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New Delhi: Prime MinisterNarendra Modi will returnwith his monthly radio broad-cast ‘Mann ki Baat’ from June30.

On February 24, daysbefore the Lok Sabha electionswere announced, he had sus-pended his monthly broadcastfor March and April.

Confident of his return,Modi had said he will be backwith the programme on thelast Sunday of May.

The BJP-led NDAreturned to power with a mas-sive mandate and Modi wassworn in as the prime minis-ter on May 30.

In his first term, Modihad addressed the nation on 53occasions through his month-ly broadcast after coming topower in 2014. While discon-tinuing the programme, Modihad said he was doing so keep-ing in mind healthy democra-tic traditions. PTI

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Avery serious legal and environ-mental hazard is looming largeover India. It is the illegal andhazardous planting of HerbicideTolerance (HT) Bt Cotton in the

fields of Akola, Maharashtra. An alarmedCentral Government, the GeneticEngineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC)and the State Government issued severalnotifications and inquiries. Meanwhile, awell-funded Non-GovernmentalOrganisation (NGO) has been using thefarmers as scapegoat to push an unapprovedGenetically Modified (GM) variety of cot-ton on India’s farms and biodiversity.

The NGO has unabashedly called thisplanting as “civil disobedience or satyagra-ha” against the Government. Its satyagrahais a euphemism for illegality and irre-versible toxic contamination that threatensto undermine thousands of years of farm-ers’ hard work. Like a tyrant, it believes itknows what is right for the farmers. Not onlyis the NGO infringing upon a number ofrules but is also threatening the sovereign-ty of the Government besides sabotaging thelivelihoods of thousands of farmers involvedin the Indian cotton seed sector.

BT HT mystery history: The HT Btstory dates back to 2008 when trait devel-oper, Monsanto (now Bayer), through itsIndian subsidy, Mahyco, imported GM-Bollgard II cotton seeds with HT trait(known as event MON 88913) calledRoundup Ready Flex (RRF). Roundup isa glyphosate-based herbicide (glyphosate+ formulants) and is also known as a car-cinogenic. The World Health Organisation(WHO), along with independent scientistsand courts, confirmed its toxicity alongwith the presence of banned heavy metalssuch as arsenic among others. The RRFvarieties are tolerant to Round-upHerbicide, which means once Round-up issprayed in the field, all other plants will dieexcept the RRF varieties.

The GEAC gave Mahyco approvals toconduct large-scale field trials in Punjab,Haryana, Maharashtra, Karnataka andTamil Nadu. Within three months of theapprovals, GEAC confirmed that HT traithad escaped into the environment. Reportsof illegal HT cotton seeds being sold underthe trade name of Weed Card in Gujaratwere also confirmed.

The United States Department ofAgriculture (USDA) lays down specificinstructions for the prevention of contam-ination, but these limits were discarded byMahyco and seed breeders around its seedproduction area.

Once the trait escaped, it began conta-minating seeds in the cotton belts. HT traitshave not been approved for cultivation byour country. Once enough time had passedon July 5, 2016, Mahyco withdrew its appli-cation from the GEAC of the ongoing HT-BG2 cotton bio-safety trails after eightyears of open field cultivation. In September,

2017, we heard that HT cottonwas being planted illegally andabout five to 10 per cent of thecotton was of illegal variety.The National Seed Associationof India (NSAI) wrote to theGovernment, alerting it of thesituation and various commit-tees were formed on the instruc-tion of the Prime Minister’sOffice. This is not only an issueof the field but also of our foodsystem as with growingdemands for cottonseed oil inIndia, this toxin is entering thecountry’s bloodstream. TheGovernment was quick to actand it conducted raids to preventthis illegal bio-hazard to under-mine our laws. But perhapsthey missed a few corners.

What next? This illegalintroduction will also contam-inate the breeding material andparent lines of the seed compa-nies and will result in completedisruption of the cotton seedeconomy. All Indian companies,who are selling GEAC approvedBG2 cotton seeds, are the firstvictims and under the Seed Actwill be penalised for trait cont-amination. Instead of the pol-luter, the polluted have to pay. By2019, the Andhra PradeshGovernment had suspended thelicence of 13 seed companies inthe alleged presence of HT geneand Maharashtra Governmentissued show-cause notices, too.In both these States, FIRs werelodged and actions are being

taken against licensed seed com-panies. It is important to knowthat only one or two lots, out ofthe several lots tested, werefound contaminated with HTgene. While illegal HT seedbreeders continue to contami-nate and sell HT Bt cotton,licensed Indian companies aremade scapegoats and harassed.They were victims, not culprits.

A report by the FieldInspection and ScientificEvaluation Committee (FISEC)found that, “the 14 illegal hybridscollected can be grouped intotwo major groups, indicatingvery narrow genetic basesreflecting organised base activ-ity by a couple of companies.”Further, it stated that studieshave also ruled out the involve-ment of smuggling of seeds…asgenotypes found were native inIndia.” This proves the inno-cence of the Indian seed sectorand clearly points towards the“couple of companies” involvedin this.

It is the responsibility of theapplicant Mahyco, trait develop-er Monsanto/Bayer and GEACto prevent any escape of HTgene into the environment and,hence, cases against Indian seedcompanies for HT contamina-tion should be redirectedtowards the real culprits, whostand to profit from this.

In fact, any deliberate plantbreeding activities with unap-proved HT trait by fly-by-night

operators and unscrupulousplayers need to be investigatedand strict penal action should betaken. There should be a strictinquiry on how this trait wasleaked into India.

To take this further, thesampling procedures, testingprotocols and tolerance limits forinterpretation of test resultsneed to be published by GEACand other departments of theGovernment to prevent anywrong test results, and if thereare any false results, they shouldbe dealt sternly.

The Government shouldamend the laws to ensure rightsof contaminated seed companiesare protected and they get fairtreatment. While on the otherhand, a strict task force of seedsinspectors and experts shouldtake the help of farmers to iden-tify polluters and hoarders of thisbio-hazardous HT Bt seed.

This grave environmentalthreat needs to be jointlyaddressed by all stakeholdersand illegal cultivation of HT cot-ton should be immediatelystopped. There ought to becomplete ban on Round-Upand all glyphosate-based herbi-cides. The motivation to useRRF-BG2 cotton is for killingweeds in cotton crops byRoundup (a Monsanto/Bayerpatent product) as RRF-BG2trait will produce herbicide tol-erant plants. This directlyincreases profits of

Monsanto/Bayer while toxicresidues from the herbicide willmake Indian cotton belts a toxicwasteland, plagued by deformedIndian children and cancer.

When it comes to the issueof illegal planting of RRF BG2cotton, it is in violation of theIndian law and not about tech-nology. Laws should be upheldand all legal processes should berespected by even behemothagricultural MNCs. There arestrict scientific procedures,which no NGO (and their mas-ters included), should overridebecause of their opinion.

The timing of this transgres-sion is pre-meditated and doneto challenge the Government. Ihope Prime Minister NarendraModi will give a befitting replyto the people who don’t respectIndian laws and put corporateprofits before the country. Thisis New India and ifMonsanto/Bayer can respect thelaws of the US, France andBritain, why not here? We standwith the farmers of Akola, theIndian Government and fortechnology, not for illegalityand crime that expose millionsof Indians for the profit of a few.India has to be very carefulbefore its mega cotton seed sec-tor crumbles because of pro-GMvigilantism of a few bad apples.

(The writer is programmedirector for policy and outreach,National Seed Association ofIndia)

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Sir — This refers to the editori-al, “Anatomy of hate crime” (June28) by Ajoy Kumar. It is disheart-ening that lynching incidents, likethe one happened in Jharkhandrecently, have become the newnormal. Each time such incidentsoccur, they threaten to become ablot on our country and cast usin low light in the eyes of theworld community.

The Prime Minister did wellto express his pain in theParliament but the fact remainsthat mere verbal expression maynot be enough to alter the situa-tion for the better. It is distress-ing that the Government hasfailed to take measures even afterthe Supreme Court pulled it upand asked it to put specific pre-ventive, punitive and remedialmeasures. The top court alsomooted a special law to deal withlynching and the appointment ofa nodal officer in each district tocombat the threat. Now that withevery passing day the issue isassuming alarming proportions,the onus is on the political lead-ership to act.

Khushi JainGwalior

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Sir — It is distressing to read newsreports nowadays. AkashVijayvargiya, a first-time MLAwhose father is the Bengal BJPminder and a national general sec-

retary of the party, was caught oncamera attacking the Indore civicofficial, who was part of a demo-lition drive, with a cricket bat andhitting him twice on the leg.

The attack happened in fullpublic view and in front of the

police. While Akash was finallyarrested and denied bail, theincident clearly exposes the exis-tence of VIP culture in the coun-try where politicians feel they canget away with anything.

Unfortunately, VIP arrogance

isn’t confined to a single party. Assoon as they are elected, manypoliticians and their childrenallow power to go to their heads.

All of this needs to change andpoliticians must be held to accountif they break the law. As of today,Akash has been booked. But theparty will not take any actionagainst his father. After all, he is oneof the brains behind BJP’s Bengalgains. The party is not in a moodto topple the applecart ahead of2021. Even if the fruit may rot.

P ArihantSecunderabad

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Sir — It is disheartening that UttarPradesh as well as Bihar have beenunable to improve their position onthe health index. Perhaps, the sys-tem is filled with too many loop-holes. Expecting change to comequickly will be foolhardy. Instead,States can deploy their manpowerin hospitals and ensure that thereare a higher number of well-trained doctors and researchers.

Anubha AroraNew Delhi

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has restoredthe primacy of the eastern axis of power align-ments by endorsing a trilateral meeting

organised at India’s initiative on the sidelines of theG-20 summit. Said he, “The joint work in the Russia-India-China format is obviously beneficial both interms of developing and strengthening relations direct-ly between our countries and in terms of the contri-bution our three countries make to resolving acuteinternational and regional problems. The trilateralforeign policy coordination has been growing. InFebruary our foreign ministers had another, now the16th round of consultations. The dialogue of our secu-rity councils, financial intelligence agencies and othersectoral institutions has been developing concurrent-ly. Representatives of the scientific, academic andyoung people’s communities are interacting closely.In this context, I note that Russia will host a festi-val of young diplomats from the RIC countries thisautumn. It is important that Russia’s, India’s andChina’s positions are close or coincide on most issuesof the world economic and political agenda. Ourcountries stand for the preservation of the system ofinternational relations with the UN Charter andinternational law at its core. We assert such funda-mental principles of international ties as respect forsovereignty and non-interference in countries’ inter-nal affairs. Russia, India and China are jointly work-ing for stronger global stability, combatting the ter-rorist threat, extremism, drug trafficking and cyber-crime, and thus are laying the foundation for equaland indivisible security architecture in Eurasia. I thinkour countries, for example, could jointly advocategreater authority of the World Trade Organisationand the preservation of its role as a universal enti-ty regulating international trade. Joint support of theefforts to reform the International Monetary Fundis another important task.”

Earlier, the Kremlin official site also released atranscript of Putin’s interview with The FinancialTimes Editor Lionel Barber and Moscow BureauChief Henry Foy, where he talked of Russia’s role inthe Asia-Pacific, every nation’s commitment tostrengthen international trade and China. Excerpts:

Do you believe that the world now hasbecome more fragmented?

During the Cold War, the bad thing was theCold War. But there were at least some rules thatall participants in international communicationmore or less adhered to or tried to follow. Now, itseems there are no rules. In this sense, the worldhas become more fragmented and less predictable.This is the most important and regrettable thing.

Tell us what you want to achieve in Osaka,in terms of your relationships with other parties?What are your main goals for the summit?

The G20, in my opinion, is a key internation-al economic development forum today. So Iwould like all the G20 members to reaffirm theirintention — at least an intention — to work outsome general rules that everyone would follow andshow their commitment and dedication to strength-ening international financial and trade institutions.Everything else is details. We certainly supportJapan’s presidency. As for the development of mod-ern technology, the information world, the infor-mation economy, as well as our Japanese colleagues’attention to matters such as longevity and the envi-ronment — all this is extremely important and wewill certainly support it. Even though it is hard toexpect any breakthroughs or landmark decisionsin the current conditions; we can hardly count onit today. But in any case, there is hope at least thatduring these general discussions and bilateral meet-ings, we will be able to smooth out the existing dis-agreements and lay a foundation, a basis for pos-itive movement forward.

You have observed four American presidentsat close quarters and have had direct experience.So, how is Mr Trump different?

On the whole, I maintained good-natured andstable relations with all the leaders of the US. Thefirst US President I came into contact with was BillClinton. Generally, I viewed this as a positive expe-

rience. We established sufficiently stable and busi-ness-like ties for a short period of time because histenure was already coming to an end. I recall howhe established partner-like relations with me. Therehave been different times and we had to addressvarious problems with all other colleagues.Unfortunately, this often involved debates and ouropinions did not coincide on some matters that,in my opinion, can be called key aspects for Russia,the US and the entire world. For example, thisincludes the unilateral US withdrawal from theAnti-Ballistic Missile Treaty that, as we have alwaysbelieved, and as I am still convinced, was the cor-nerstone of international security system.

We debated this matter for a long time, arguedand suggested various solutions. In any event, Imade very energetic attempts to convince our USpartners not to withdraw from the Treaty. And ifthe US side still wanted to withdraw from the Treaty,it should have done so in such a way as to guar-antee international security for a long historical peri-od. I did this because I consider this matter to beimportant. I suggested working jointly on missile-defence projects that should have involved the US,Russia and Europe. They stipulated specific para-meters of this cooperation, determined dangerousmissile approaches and envisioned technologyexchanges, the elaboration of decision-makingmechanisms, etc. Those were absolutely specificproposals. I am convinced that the world wouldbe a different place today, had our US partnersaccepted this proposal. We can see that the situa-tion is developing in another direction; newweapons and cutting-edge military technology arecoming to the fore. Well, this is not our choice. Buttoday, we should at least do everything so as to notaggravate the situation.

With Mr Trump, we have seen somethingnew, something much more transactional. He isvery critical of alliances and allies in Europe. Isthis something that is to Russia’s advantage?

It would be better to ask what would be toAmerica’s advantage in this case. Mr Trump is nota career politician. He has a distinct world outlookand vision of US national interests. I do not acceptmany of his methods when it comes to address-ing problems. But do you know what I think? Ithink that he is a talented person. He knows verywell what his voters expect from him. Russia hasbeen accused, and strange as it may seem, it is stillbeing accused, despite the Mueller report of

mythical interference in the US election. What hap-pened in reality? Mr Trump looked into his oppo-nents’ attitude to him and saw changes in Americansociety and he took advantage of this. You and Iare talking ahead of the G20 meeting. It is an eco-nomic forum and it will undoubtedly have discus-sions on globalisation, global trade and internation-al finance. Has anyone ever given a thought to whoactually benefited and what benefits were gainedfrom globalisation, the development of which wehave been observing and participating in over thepast 25 years, since the 1990s?

China has made use of globalisation, in par-ticular, to pull millions of Chinese out of poverty.What happened in the US and how did it happen?In the US, leading companies made use of thesebenefits. The middle class hardly benefitted fromglobalisation; it was left out when this pie was divid-ed up. The Trump team sensed this keenly andclearly and used this in the election campaign. Itis where you should look for reasons behindTrump’s victory. He believes that the distributionof resources and benefits of globalisation in the pastdecade was unfair to the US. I am not going to dis-cuss whether it was fair or not, and I will not sayif what he is doing is right or wrong. I would liketo understand his motives. Maybe this could explainhis unusual behaviour.

Here you are, the President of Russia,defending globalisation along with President Xiwhereas Mr Trump is attacking globalisation andtalking about America First. How do youexplain this paradox?

I don’t think that his desire to make Americafirst is a paradox. I want Russia to be first and thatis not perceived as a paradox; there is nothingunusual there. As for the fact that he is attackingsome manifestations of globalisation, I made thatpoint earlier. He seems to believe that the resultsof globalisation could have been much better forthe US than they are. These globalisation resultsare not producing the desired effect for the US andhe is beginning this campaign against certain ele-ments of globalisation. This concerns everyone, pri-marily major participants in the system of inter-national economic collaboration, including allies.

Mr President, you have had many meetingswith President Xi and Russia and China have def-initely come closer. Are you putting too many eggsin the China basket?

First of all, we have enough eggs, but there are

not that many baskets where they can be placed.This is the first point. Second, we always assess risks.Third, our relations with China are not motivat-ed by time-serving political any other considera-tions. Let me point out that the Friendship Treatywith China was signed in 2001, long before the cur-rent situation and long before the current econom-ic disagreements, to put it mildly, between the USand China. We do not have to join anything, andwe do not have to direct our policy against any-one. We are just consistently implementing ourplans for expanding cooperation. We have not doneanything that transcends the framework of theseaccords.

The G20 has accomplished many usefulthings for stabilising the global financial system,for developing global trade and ensuring its stabil-isation. I am talking about the tax aspect of the glob-al agenda, the fight against corruption, and so on.Both China and Russia adhere to this concept. TheG20 has accomplished a lot by advocating quotachanges at the IMF and the World Bank. BothRussia and China share this approach.

Do you think that there is a risk of a mili-tary conflict in your time between you, Americaand China?

You know, the entire history of mankind hasalways been full of military conflicts, but since theappearance of nuclear weapons, the risk of globalconflicts has decreased due to the potential glob-al tragic consequences for the entire population ofthe planet. I hope it will not come to this.However, of course, we have to admit that it is notonly about China’s industrial subsidies on the onehand or the tariff policy of the US on the other. Firstof all, we are talking about different developmentplatforms, so to speak, in China and in the US. Theyare different. They have different philosophies inboth foreign and domestic policies, probably. ButI would like to share some personal observationswith you. China is showing loyalty and flexibilityto both its partners and opponents. Maybe this isrelated to historical features of Chinese philosophy,their approach to building relations. Therefore, Ido not think that there would be some such threatsfrom China. I cannot imagine that, really. But it ishard to say whether the US would have enoughpatience not to make any rash decisions, but torespect its partners even if there are disagreements.But I hope, there would not be any military con-frontation.

You have seen what the Chinese are doing interms of their buildup of their Navy and theirmaritime strength. How do you deal with thosepotential security problems, territorial disputesin the Pacific?

You mentioned the build-up of naval forces inChina. China’s total defence spending is $117 bil-lion, if memory serves. The US defence spendingis over $700 billion. And you are trying to scare theworld with the build-up of China’s military might?It does not work with this scale of military spend-ing. No, it does not. As for Russia, we will contin-ue to develop our Pacific Fleet as planned. Of course,we also respond to global developments and to whathappens in relations between other countries. Wecan see all of this, but it does not affect our defencedevelopment plans, including those in the RussianFar East. We are self-sufficient, and we are confi-dent. We are also primed for cooperation in theAsia- Pacific region.

What has the return been like on the risktaken in Syria?

I believe that it has been good and positive. Firstof all, many militants planning to return to Russiawere eliminated. This implies several thousand peo-ple. Second, we have managed to stabilise the sit-uation in a nearby region. We have established suf-ficiently good business-like relations with allregional countries, and our positions in theMiddle East region have become more stable. Wehave managed to preserve Syrian statehood, no mat-ter what, and we have prevented Libya-stylechaos there. (Courtesy: en.kremlin.ru)

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Post-modernism was a broadmovement that developed inthe late 20th century and almost

immediately began to dominate theintellectual, academic and artisticscenes, especially in Europe and theUS. As a philosophy and a scholarlyand artistic method, post-modernismwas highly critical of “meta narra-tives” or methods of reaching holis-tic truths through science, empiricalinquiry and readings of historymainly developed during the Age ofEnlightenment and/or the Age ofReason in the 18th and 19th cen-turies. Post-modernism is seen as anattack on modernism.

The emphasis on reason, science,democracy and the capitalist system

during the era of Enlightenment isoften seen as the main catalyst whichpropelled the Western world towardsmodernism, which is often explainedas a mindset, attitude and a move-ment. Modernism looked at modify-ing and re-adjusting traditionalmodes of political, social, economicand theological beliefs in accor-dance with modern ideas of progress.

In this context, modernism dom-inated Western politics and the artsacross the 19th and much of the 20thcentury. It created powerful narrativesto explain economic, social, militaryand political progress as the result ofscientific advancements, free enter-prise, individualism, secularism, anda linear reading of history in whichhumans continuously evolved andmodified their need to innovate andinvent and, thus, dominate the plan-et and its resources.

Interestingly, both capitalism aswell as socialism/communism wereproducts of modernism and so werethe thriving Western democracies aswell as modernist authoritarianregimes.

Historians see “post-modernism”

as initially being a project of Leftistintellectuals, who presented it as a cri-tique against modernism in the1960s. In their essay for the 1996anthology, Counternarratives:Cultural Studies and CriticalPedagogies in Postmodern Spaces,Colin Lankshear and Michael Peterssuggest that postmodernism began asa cultural movement during the rad-ical youth and student movements ofthe late 1960s, in which the protest-ing youth described economic, polit-ical and social progress guided bymodernism as tyrannical.

After the collapse of the studentmovements, former Leftist intellec-tuals and artists rebounded in the late1970s to denounce modernism in amore articulate manner. The mostinfluential were Jean Baudrillard,Jean-François Lyotard, JacquesDerrida and Michel Foucault. Theytook to task modernism’s idea of his-tory, art, politics and even languageto demonstrate that they were inher-ently biased towards truths whichwere manufactured to keep the polit-ical, economic and intellectual statusquo in power. The post-modernists

believed that there were no univer-sal truths but that every culture hadits own understanding of truth, sci-entific or historical.

Post-modernism began as anattempt to free Leftism from the bag-gage of Marxist meta narratives butaccording to the American literarycritic, Fredric Jameson, it eventuallybecame the “cultural logic of late cap-italism.” Its emphasis on scepticismand scathing critique of enlighten-ment and modernism marked thedestruction of modernist meta nar-ratives (which were also denouncedas being “colonial”).

But as critics such as Jamesonpoint out, in its attempt to destroy thewhole idea of meta narratives andreplace it with regional and culturalmicro-narratives, post-modernismended up creating its own meta nar-rative and colonising tendencies.

In her March 2017 essay for Areomagazine, journalist and authorHelen Pluckrose writes that post-modernists drew inspiration fromcontroversial philosophers such as the19th century German thinkerFriedrich Nietzsche, who romanti-

cised “unreason” and irrationalism.In his book, The Seduction ofUnreason, Richard Wolin writes thatthe early fascination with Nietzschegave birth to Nazism in the early 20thcentury, even though Nietzsche wasapparently not a racist.

Wolin writes that Nietzsche’sattack on the idea of holistic truths,both theological and scientific, excit-ed the late 20th century post-mod-ernists who critiqued modernistideas in such a manner that theyopened up the scene for what is nowbeing termed as the “post-truth”age. US President Donald Trump cannow tweet whatever he wants to andcall it the truth because to his sup-porters, that is the truth, whichaccording to post-modernist doc-trine, cannot be questioned accord-ing to the perception of the truth ofhis critics.

On the other hand, quite like the“alt-right,” the so-called liberal-Left,too, is not that far behind as they nowseem to spend every waking hour‘discovering’ sexism and racism in the“subtext” of a text that might havenothing like that in it at all. This, too,

is post-modernism. The post-modernist critique of

modernism also excited non-Westerners who, for example, beganto reject science as a “Judaeo-Christian construct.” Since, suppos-edly, every culture has its own truth,various Muslim ‘scientists’ and IndianHindus began to construct “Islamicscience” or “Hindu science.” IfMuslims want to derive energy fromjinns or Hindus believed they cancure cancer with cow dung, so be it.This is their truth and can’t be ques-tioned — or else you have a colonialmindset.

No wonder then, in the lastdecade or so, post-modernism hasincreasingly come under scathingcriticism. It is denounced as being anaive intellectual fetish which spi-ralled out of control, romanticisingsuspicion, sensationalism and irra-tionalism. And in its passion for plu-ralism, it has curtailed universalismand integration and encouraged theghettoisation of cultures with theirown set of truths, no matter how irra-tional they may be.

(The Dawn)

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Equity benchmarks nursedlosses on Friday as investors

remained cautious ahead of thecrucial US-China trade talks onthe sidelines of the G-20 meet.

Domestic trading senti-ment was also at a low ebb fol-lowing tightening of mutualfund norms by regulator Sebi,and the RBI recommendingextra vigil regarding non-bank-ing finance companies(NBFCs), traders said.

After a choppy session,the 30-share BSE Sensex settled191.77 points, or 0.48 per cent,lower at 39,394.64, dragged byindex heavyweights RIL,HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and TCS.

The broader NSE Nifty fell52.70 points, or 0.45 per cent,to end at 11,788.85.

However, the key indicesposted gains for the week. The Sensex rose 200.15 pointsor 0.51 per cent, while Niftygained 64.75 points or 0.55 percent during the week.

Asian markets ended loweras G-20 leaders sat down tochart a way forward for theglobal economy hit by risingtrade tensions. However, USPresident Donald Trump tem-pered expectations of an easybreakthrough, saying he hadnot promised his Chinesecounterpart Xi Jinping anyreprieve on imposing new tariffs.

Back home, top losers in

the Sensex pack included YesBank, IndusInd Bank, TataMotors, RIL, ONGC, BajajAuto, Vedanta, Tata Steel,TCS, HDFC Bank and ICICIBank, which fell up to 3.29per cent.

On the other hand, BajajFinance, Axis Bank, NTPC,Maruti, HUL and TechMahindra rose up to 1.05 percent.

Regulator Sebi Thursdaymade it mandatory for MFsselling liquid schemes to holdat least 20 per cent in liquidassets like cash and G-secs, andalso banned them from enter-ing into standstill agreementswith firms whose debt theyhave exposure to.

Meanwhile, in its bi-annu-al Financial Stability Report,the Reserve Bank said thecountry’s “financial systemremains stable despite somedislocation of late”, but rec-ommended extra vigil onNBFCs.

“Indian markets had a lessthan productive session, asconcerns on IT demandimpacted IT majors, whichwere a drag on the headlineindex, alongside weakness inmetals and commodities.

“Prime Minister NarendraModi held bilateral talks withUS President Donald Trumpahead of the formal inaugura-tion of the G-20 Summit inOsaka. Investors are hoping fora positive outcome from theupcoming G-20 summit.

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India, Japan and the US onFriday held extensive dis-

cussions on the Indo-Pacificregion and how they can worktogether in improving the con-nectivity, infrastructure devel-opment and ensuring peace inthe strategic region whereChina has been trying tospread its influence.

The Indo-Pacific regionwas the main topic of discussionduring the Japan-India-America(JAI) Trilateral Meeting ofPrime Minister Narendra Modi,US President Donald Trumpand Japanese Prime MinisterShinzo Abe on the sidelines ofthe G20 Summit.

The US has been pushingfor a broader role by India inthe strategically importantIndo-Pacific region that con-tributes two-thirds of globalgrowth in gross domestic prod-uct (GDP) and accounts for 60per cent of the global GDP.

India, the US and severalother world powers have beentalking about the need toensure a free, open and thriv-ing Indo-Pacific in the back-drop of China’s rising militarymaneuvering in the region.

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The Indian Rupee on Fridaynotched a marginal 4 paise

gain at 69.03 as forex marketkeenly awaited further cues fromthe high-stakes G20 summit. Ona weekly basis, the Indian cur-rency has gained 55 paise.

At the interbank foreignexchange, the domestic unitopened at 69.00 and swungbetween the day’s high of 68.88and low of 69.11 to the US dol-lar. It finally settled at 69.03 a dol-lar, registering a rise of 4 paise.

The American currency’sweakness against its key rivalsalso boosted sentiment indomestic forex market.

The dollar index, whichgauges the greenback’s strengthagainst a basket of six curren-cies, fell marginally by 0.04 percent to 96.15.

Meanwhile, brent crudefutures, the global oil bench-mark, rose 0.18 per cent totrade at $66.67 per barrel.

“Traders have been takingcautious approach ahead ofthe G20 Summit, which is tak-ing place amidst ongoing US-China trade tiff and rising ten-sions in the Middle East,” saidV K Sharma, Head PCG &Capital Markets Strategy,HDFC Securities.

Sharma further said thatthe meeting between USPresident Donald Trump andChinese President Xi Jinping

this weekend could lead to aneasing of trade tensions.

Analysts believe thatmacro-economic data and liq-uidity situation in the NBFCsector will also have an impacton the rupee and financialmarket sentiments.

As per the data released bythe Controller General ofAccounts (CGA), the govern-ment’s fiscal deficit touched 52per cent of the budget estimatefor the full-year in the first twomonths of 2019-20.

In absolute terms, the fis-cal deficit or gap betweenexpenditure and revenue, was�3,66,157 crore.

The Reserve BankThursday underlined the needfor “greater surveillance” onlarge non-banking finance com-panies (NBFCs) and housingfinance players (HFCs), sayingthe failure of the biggest amongthem can have the same impactas a big bank going down.

Foreign investors soldshares worth 513.91 crore on anet basis Friday, provisionaldata showed.

Meanwhile, the 10-yeargovernment bond yield was at6.88 per cent on Friday.

After a choppy session,the 30-share BSE Sensex settled191.77 points, or 0.48 per cent,lower at 39,394.64. The broad-er NSE Nifty fell 52.70 points,or 0.45 per cent, to end at11,788.85.

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Former Nissan ChairmanCarlos Ghosn cancelled his

news conference planned forFriday within hours of itsannouncement, citing opposi-tion from his family and mediaadviser. It would have been hisfirst such appearance since hewas arrested in November onfinancial misconduct allega-tions, and timed with the Groupof 20 summit of world leadersbeing held in Osaka, Japan.

The reason for the cancel-lation was not given, but Ghosnhad been rearrested afterscheduling a news conferencein April during a previousrelease from detention.

At the time, his lawyersreleased a video statement inwhich Ghosn asserted his inno-cence and accused some exec-utives at the Japanese automak-er of a “conspiracy” that led tohis arrest.

Ghosn is out on bail and isawaiting trial on charges of fal-sifying financial documentson retirement compensationand charges of breach of trustby diverting Nissan Motor Co.Money for personal gain. Hehas spent 130 days in detentionover the two arrests.

The Foreign CorrespondentsClub in Tokyo had invitedreporters to the news conference.But Ghosn’s family and mediaadviser met with him after theannouncement, the club said ina statement.

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India has received $1.81 bil-lion (around �12,474 crore)

foreign direct investment fromChina during April 2014 toMarch 2019, Parliament wasinformed on Friday.

The sectors which receivedmaximum inflows from Chinaduring the period include auto-mobile industry ($876.73 mil-lion), electrical equipment($152.5 million) and servicessector ($127 million).

The information was pro-vided by Commerce andIndustry Minister Piyush Goyalin a written reply to the Rajya

Sabha.He also said the trade

deficit (difference betweenimports and exports) declinedto US 53.57 billion in 2018-19from $63 billion in 2017-18with China.

Moreover, India receivedFDI worth $13.62 billion dur-ing the period from the US.

The sectors which receivedmaximum inflows from the USinclude computer software andhardware, automobile industryand services sector.

New Delhi: Cheaper imports ofCaustic Soda and Soda Ash aretaking over the rising demandfor these inorganic productswhile domestic manufacturersare facing low capacity utilization.

Alkali industry has askedfor an increase in customsduties on imports of CausticSoda and Soda Ash from theexisting level of 7.5% to 12.5%for both products. PNS

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The Reserve Bank Friday set an average base rate of 9.18 percent for non-banking financial companies and micro finance

institutions to be charged from their customers for the quarterbeginning July 1.

“The applicable average base rate to be charged by non-bank-ing financial companies and micro finance institutions (NBFC-MFIs) to their borrowers for the quarter beginning July 1, 2019will be 9.18 per cent,” RBI said in a release.

The central bank in a circular in 2014 had communicatedto NBFCs and MFIs regarding pricing of credit on the last work-ing day of every quarter.

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OPEC is on red alert overescalating US-Iran ten-

sions that have fuelled strongoil-price gains — but the car-tel and other crude-producingnations are unlikely to endoutput cuts at a meeting onTuesday, traders say.

The Organisation of thePetroleum ExportingCountries, a cartel of 14 coun-tries pumping one third of theworld’s oil, is acutely aware thata faltering global economy issapping growth in crudedemand, helping to offset fearsof potential supply disrup-tions in the Middle East.

Ministers from OPEC’smember-nations meet inVienna on Monday, beforegathering a day later for theOPEC+, a group of 24 oil-pro-ducing countries that includesmajor crude supplier Russia.

Russian PresidentVladimir Putin, speaking onthe sidelines of the G20 sum-mit in Japan, insisted that oil

producers would seek inVienna to safeguard output“stability”.

“We believe that our pro-duction stabilisation agree-ments... Have had a positiveeffect,” Putin told the FinancialTimes in remarks publishedFriday.

The cartel and its oil-pro-ducer nation allies opted inDecember to trim daily crudeoutput by 1.2 million barrelsowing to abundant world supplies.

The reduction howevercontributed to oil prices soar-ing by almost one-third in thefirst quarter of 2019, withEuropean benchmark contractBrent crude currently tradingat about $66 per barrel, upseven percent since the lastmeeting.

Oil futures have jumped inrecent weeks also on the US-China trade war — but main-ly owing to supply fears linkedto the fast-developing crisisbetween Tehran andWashington.

New Delhi: Markets regula-tor Sebi has levied a total fineof �64.40 lakh on eight enti-ties for indulging in unfairtrade practices in the illiquidstock options segment on theBSE.

GKS Technology Park PvtLtd, Femina StockManagement, SagarConstructions, SPFL SecuritiesLtd, Leelaben SureshchandraKachadiaunder, Laxmi Rolling& Strips Pvt Ltd,Mahakaleshwar Mines &Metals Pvt Ltd and South DelhiPromotors Ltd are the entitiesfacing penalty.

Sebi had initiated adjudi-cation proceedings betweenApril 2014 and September 2015after observing large scalereversal of trades by variousentities in the stock optionssegment of the BSE.

Investigation revealed thatthe eight entities were amongthe various entities involved inreversal of buy and sell posi-tions by the clients and coun-terparties in a contract. PTI

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Chennai: A host of measuressuch as rainwater harvestingand increasing the number oftrips by tankers have been takento mitigate the water crisis in thecity, Tamil Nadu Minister SPVelumani said on Friday.

From around 9,000 trips,the number has gone upto11,360 trips every day, therural and municipal adminis-tration minister said, adding "itwas never done before."

"We have noticed a largenumber of people queuing upnear water tankers to fetchwater for nearly four hours.

We have ordered increas-

ing the number of pipes (out-lets) from tankers from one ortwo to five," Velumani toldreporters.

Similarly, steps have beentaken to hastenthe process offilling water tankers at the fill-ing stations.

On bringing water fromJolarpettai from neighbouringVellore district, the ministersaid it would happen in anoth-er two weeks.

The Minister also said ateam of officials has beendeployed to strengthen rainwater harvesting in parts of thecity. PTI

Chennai: Spiking speculationsthat former Prime MinisterManmohan Singh might befielded from Tamil Nadu to theRajya Sabha, sources in theDMK and Congress on Fridaysaid such a proposal was notbeing pursued.

Neither the Congress haspersuaded DMK nor was itpossible for the regional ally toallot a seat now in view of itscommitments, the sources said.

Leaders from both theDMK and Congress sought todub as 'media creation' reportsthat Congress was pressing forthe Rajya Sabha seat for Singh,whose term in the Upper Houseof Parliament ended recently.

Beinnial elections to sixRajya Sabha seats from TamilNadu are to be held on July 18and going by the respectivestrength of parties, the rulingAIADMK and DMK can winthree each.

As per the prepoll arrange-ment firmed up by the DMK forthe recent Lok Sabha elections,one Rajya Sabha seat from itskitty will go to the MDMK. TheDMK would field its candidatesin the other two, sources in theM K Stalin-led party told PTI.

MDMK is likely to field its

chief Vaiko for the seat."It is a media creation," a

DMK leader said on reportsthat was Congress pressing fora Rajya Sabha seat for Singhand this view found resonancewith leaders of state Congress.

The DMK leader said theparty would like to see itsnumbers go up in Rajya Sabhato fight for Tamil Nadu's rightsand field its own nominees,adding a decision on candi-dates will be taken by Stalin.

A Congress senior saidconsidering aspects like DMK'sline on state autonomy, theDravidian party may wish toback a candidate from TamilNadu and anyway his party hasnot pressed on Singh's name.

In over three decades, hesaid he could not remembereven a single name belonging to

other states getting elected to theRajya Sabha from Tamil Nadu.

The term of office of DMK'sKanimozhi who was elected tothe Lok Sabha from Tuticorin,AIADMK's V Maitreyan, K RArjunan, T Rathinavel, RLakshmanan and CPI's D Rajawill expire on July 24 and theElection Commission earlilerthis week announced the sched-ule of poll to fill the vacancies.

Among the names doingthe rounds in the DMK for theRajya Sabha openings are thatof Dravidian outfit's tradeunion wing Labour ProgressiveFront leader P Shanmugamand former additional solicitorgeneral P Wilson.

AIADMK and DMK havethe requisite numbers to electthree members each in the234-member Assembly withtwo vacancies.

If the two parties nameonly three nominees each,there will be no contest.

The AIADMK has 123MLAs including the Speaker,the DMK 100, its allies theCongress seven, the IUMLone and Amma MakkalMunnetra Kazhagam leaderT T V Dhinakaran is an inde-pendent. PTI

Jammu: Rocked by militantattacks in the recent past,Jammu & Kashmir's Kishtwardistrict is updating the list ofultras whose whereabouts arenot known and those who arepresently in Pakistan orPakistan-occupied Kashmir(PoK), police said on Friday.

The decision in this regardwas taken at a crime reviewmeeting of police sub divisionsof Kishtwar and Atholi,chaired by SeniorSuperintendent of Police,Kishtwar, Shakti K Pathak,they said.

It said the meeting held athreadbare discussion on thepolice station wise list of mil-itants whose whereabouts arenot known and those who arepresently in Pakistan orPakistan-occupied Kashmir(PoK).

"During the meeting, vari-ation was found in the list ofsuch militants maintained bythe District Police Office(DPO), Kishtwar, and policestations of the district. Inorder to update the list of suchmilitants, various instructionsand directions were imparted

among the Sub-DivisionalPolice Officers and StationHouse Officers concerned fornecessary action," the policesaid.

The district, which falls inJammu region, was rattled bythe killing of state secretary ofBJP Anil Parihar and hisbrother Ajeet Parihar onNovember 1 last year, fol-lowed by assassination ofsenior RSS leaderChanderkant Sharma and hissecurity guard inside a healthcentre on April 9.

Besides the kill ings,

Militants also snatched theservice rifle of a policeman inthe district on March 8, daysbefore police circulated pic-tures of seven wanted terror-ists and announced a cashreward and a job for anyoneproviding information lead-ing to their arrest or killing.

Inspector General ofPolice, Jammu, MK Sinharecently said at least 10 localmilitants — eight belonging toHizbul Mujahideen and twoaffiliated with Lashker-e-Toiba(LeT) — were active in the dis-trict, which also witnessed

two encounters between mili-tants and search parties inMarwah area on May 31 andKeshwan forest on June 21.

While two special policeofficers were injured in thebrief Marwah gunfight, themilitants managed their escapeafter another brief encountersin Keshwan forest, thoughone of them was believed tohave got injured.

According to police

sources, about three dozenlocal militants have crossed theLoC and are presently living inPakistan or Pakistan-occu-pied Kashmir.

The police said the meet-ing discussed all sensitive andsensational cases with SSPpersonally checking the casefiles of such cases and direct-ed the Investigation Officersconcerned for speedy dispos-al of these cases. PTI

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In yet another setback to theAMMK, Thanga Tamilselvan

who recently fell out with TTVDhinakaran joined the DMK onFriday. Tamilselvan, the propa-ganda secretary of the AMMKhad contested from Theni in therecent Lok Sabha election butwas finished third behindCongress-leader EVKSElangovan, the runner up.

Tamilselvan told reportersthat he was drawn to the DMKbecause of the leadership qual-ity of M K Stalin, the party chief.“The AIADMK is controlled bythe BJP and I would not join thatparty at the expense of my self-respect. A party controlled by asingle leader alone could take itformward and provide effectiveleadership. After the death ofJayalalithaa, the AIADMK hasfallen into the hands of multipleleaders and no one is in a posi-tion to take any firm decision,”said Tamilselvan.

Till Thursday, there werereports that Tamilselvan may

join the AIADMK. But theAIADMK district unit of Theni,his hometown, unanimouslypassed a resolution asking theparty leadership not to re-admithim into the party. It is said thatthe resolution was passed at theinstance of deputy chief minis-ter O Panneerselvan with whomTamilselvan was having a run-ning feud dating back to 2016.Had Tamilselvan rejoined theAIADMK, it would have helpedchief minister Palaniswamy tocheckmate Panneerselvam inTheni. MK Stalin, president,DMK, welcomed Tamilselvan tothe DMK and gave him the pri-mary membership in the party.The entry of Tamilselvan intothe DMK is seen as a majorboost to the party which is yetto make any inroads in Thenidistrict since the exit of MGRfrom the DMK in 1972.Tamilselvan also disclosed thatmore cadre would follow himinto the DMK. He is the secondleader to join the DMK afterSenthil Balaji who too hadditched Dhinakaran and joinedthe DMK.

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Srinagar: A Pakistan-basedJaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) mil-itant was on Friday killed in anencounter with security forcesin Jammu & Kashmir'sBudgam district, police said.

On a credible input, a cor-don and search operation waslaunched by security forces inKralpora Checkpora area ofcentral Kashmir's Budgam dis-trict on Friday morning, apolice spokesperson said.

He said during the searchoperation, the militants, whowere hiding, fired on the searchparty of the forces.

The security personnelretaliated, leading to anencounter in which one mili-tant was killed, the spokesper-son said, adding the body wasretrieved from the site.

From the incriminatingmaterial recovered from the siteof the gunfight, the slain mili-tant was identified as aPakistani named Zarar whowas affiliated with proscribedoutfit JeM.

Arms and ammunitionwere also recovered from thesite of the encounter, he added.

The spokesperson saidwith efforts of police and secu-rity forces, it was a clean oper-ation and no collateral damagetook place during the exchangeof fire. PTI

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Four persons, including aneight year-old boy, were

killed and three others injuredin rain-related incidents, asMumbaikars and the people inthe neighbouring Thane dis-trict bore the brunt of monsoonthat arrived with a bang inun-dating low-lying areas and dis-rupting road, rail and air traf-fic in the metropolis and sub-urbs.

Of the killed, three persons— Rajendra Yadav (60), SanjayYadav (24) and KashimaYudiyar (60) were electrocutedin Mumbai, while a boy iden-tified as Mahender Badga (8)from Teranpada village nearVikramgad in Thane districtdied after he was struck bylightning.

In all, there were nine inci-dent short-circuits across themetropolis till the evening.Four members of a familyincluding a minor girl suf-fered electrocution at Goregaonin north Mumbai, after theycame in contact live wires inthe vicinity of their home. Ofthem, two died while theywere treated at a local hospital,two others are undergoingtreatment at the same hospital.

Three persons wereinjured, when a wall collapsedat Dadar (East) in north-cen-tral Mumbai. The injured wereadmitted to KMC Hospital. A

female school student and hermother fell into a swollen gut-ter at Thane. However, somealert citizens rescued the moth-er and daughter from beingswept away in the flood waters.

The monsoon — whicharrived in the metropolis andneighbouring areas 20 daysbehind the schedule — madeits presence felt, as heavy rainslashed incessantly since thesmall hours of Friday.

Mumbai received 53 mm of

rains between 8 am and 1 pm,while the eastern and westernsuburbs recorded 92 mm and77 mm rainfall respectively.

Several low-lying areas ofDadar, Sion, Andheri (Eastand West), Bhandup, Kurla(west), Mazgaon, Sewree,Chembur, Khar, Kanjurmarg,Tardeo, Barve Nagar,Ghatkopkar (west), and placeslike Milan and Andheri sub-ways, Andheri metro station,Bhandup village road and

Nalasopara lay under thicksheets of water.

The lifelines of the city —the Central Railway, WesternRailway main and harbourline, Eastern and WesternExpress highways – were affect-ed due to intense water-loggingat several places.

Owing to inundation ofrailway tracks at several places,suburban trains on both the CRand WR ran 15 to 45 minutesbehind the schedule, throwing

haywire the schedules of themillions of office goers.

Lakhs of vehicles crawledon roads across the metropo-lis due to huge traffic snarlstriggered by inundation.Andheri and Milan subwaysremained shut because offlooding. Some vehicles werestranded inside. Traffic con-gestion was reported from bothEastern and Western ExpressHighways.

Tree falls were reported

from at least half a dozen placesin the city. The BMC-run BESTbuses run on route nos 1, 4, 5,6, 7, 8, 11, 21 were divertedthrough Hindmata Bridge dueto water-logging at Hindmatacinema in Dadar, while Sewree-bound were diverted throughSharda talkies. Similarly, buseswith route nos 25, 22, 302, 305and 213 were diverted throughmain road due to water-loggingat Sion road no 24.

There were 15 to 20 min-utes in the arrivals and depar-tures of flights at the city air-ports because of the poor vis-ibility. However, flight opera-tions remained largely unaf-fected

Meanwhile, RegionalMeteorological Centre, Mumbai,has forecast heavy to very heavyrains in the city and heavy rainsat isolated places in the suburbsfor the next 24 hours.

Skymet Weather has pre-dicted heavy rains inMaharashtra in the next 24hours. “Heavy to very heavyrains are likely along theMaharashtra Coast includingMumbai, Thane, Ratnagiri andadjoining areas in the next 24 to36 hours,” a Skymet Weatherforecast said.

Mumnaikars heaved a sighof relief as the temperaturescame down to a comfortableminimum of 24 degree C anda bearable maximum of 30degree C since the morning.

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Huma Qureshi sashays in wear-ing a beautiful red gown andwhat follows is unexpected tosay the least. In the video putout by Netflix, within four days

of a release of a film that has done really wellat the box office and is almost a users’ man-ual for toxic masculinity, the actor in a funway tries to put a stop to mansplaining.Using a pacifier called Shush, that is clear-ly a throwback to her character of ShaliniRizwan Choudhary, who is searching for herdaughter Leila in the eponymously-namedshow, she displays how easily it can shutpatriarchy. “It is easy to use plug-in technol-ogy and allows users to silence theirsilencers,” Huma says in the video. While theentire sequence is entertaining, the last bitis what makes the message hit home.When the director tells her, “This is too intel-ligent, you need to look sexy,” Humapromptly stuffs Shush in his mouth.

Talking about the campaign, Huma,fresh from her outing in Leila, says, “I lovedthe way that this entire video has come out.The OTT platform is known for its discern-ing content and so what is heartening to seeand experience is the way that they choseto market it. Rather than doing two to threeinterviews, one press conference and one ortwo dances at malls, they pitched it in a man-ner that was in consonance with the con-tent.” Huma points out that though the ideawas inspired from a video made by MarionCotillard where she said that men shouldlook women in the eye and not the chest,Netflix took it up and made it their own.

While its purported aim is to promoteLeila, Huma does agree that the variousOTT platforms are at the forefront of por-traying women taking charge of their lives,be it Shefali Shah in Delhi Crime, RadhikaApte in Ghoul, Dia Mirza in Kaafir and ofcourse she herself in Leila. “It was a long timein the coming and this is just the startingpoint as it will go further. It is nice, refresh-ing and rather liberating to see women beingthe prime movers rather than being rescuedby men and I am glad to be a part of theprocess. It is a beginning point where a lotof actors, actresses and stories would follow.It is a great and healthy trend and I hope itstays that way,” says Huma, her character-

istically deep voice flavoured by excite-ment that is evident even on a slight-ly patchy phone line.

She points out that while Shalini isa lot like her, “the character was liberatingin a lot of different ways. I feel that whiledoing some of those difficult scenes, wheredespite everything she kept her dignity,maintained her resolve to find her daugh-ter, I also internalised some of her strength.”

Huma was sold on the story from theword go. “When I got that call from OpenAir Films and met Deepa Mehta (whodirected the first two episodes of the sixpart series), I knew I had to do it. I wasreally hoping that they do not meetother actresses or go to anyone else.I would have been heartbroken. Forme, it wasn’t just a role or a film. Itwas much more than that. I want-ed to be a part of this journey as itwas trying to put across a very dif-ferent story,” says Huma, whowith her very first outing in Gangsof Wasseypur had grabbed eyeballs,describing why she decided to takeup the project.

While she has never been a wall-flower in any of the roles that she hasplayed, be it the bisexual Muniya in DedhIshqiya or Pushpa Pandey in Jolly LLB2, it is in Leila where she has come intoher own. Rather than how she looks, theemphasis was on what her character waslike. In the entire series that runs for aboutsix hours, Huma is mostly seen wearing thesame set of clothes, her hair in disarray, facesometimes covered with grease or mud.“Deepa had a vision and as an actor, you arewaiting to be pushed when you have thatright material and the right character whereyou can really give it your all. Somewherenot all opportunities are equal and not allroles are as demanding. I felt that Leila wasthe right moment for me. I am grateful thatI have been given that space to play a char-acter like Shalini with all her strengths, weak-nesses, vulnerabilities and everything,” saysshe.

To play a character minus the gloss thatis the norm in the Hindi film industry, herapproach was different. “I read PrayaagAkbar’s book (on which the series is based)

and the script. I was involved in every pos-sible draft. But as for a physical referencepoint, like a film that I had seen or a char-acter that someone had played, there wasnone,” she says and goes on to add as to howMehta kept on egging her to push herboundaries.

Huma points out that often when theprotagonist is a strong woman, the referencesare usually very alpha. Deepa, however,wanted her to attempt something which wasa little offbeat. “We wanted to find a very dif-ferent kind of feminine energy which couldbe vulnerable, a woman who could cry andfeel for the child and at the same time be alittle cunning and be a survivor despiteeverything and keep her dignity,” she says.In pursuit of that goal, the director askedHuma to play it a little differently. “Shekept telling me, let’s do something newand not something that you or I havedone before. Let us find a new expres-sion of a woman who is strong yetvulnerable. Her constant reminderwas not to bring my bag of tricksand be predictable and not to give

the obvious emotion. When adirector believes in you and

keeps telling you that youcan do it, that is very com-forting and liberating as itmeans that I could just be

myself and not worryabout how I am look-

ing on screen. Myendeavour was to

look convinc-ing and getinto theskin of thecharacter

rather thanw o r r y i n ga b o u twhere the

light hadbeen placed,”

she says and laughs. In a show that had

some really disturbing scenes,including one where drugged women

roll over leftover food as part of a penance,there is one which Huma found the mostdifficult to execute. In Episode 1, whereSapna, the maid is washing her face, Shalinishoos her away and then sanitises the faucet.“It was a difficult scene to do as I felt thatShalini is a horrible person. I had to firstgrapple with my own personal emotion asto how I could play someone so evil. It wasso wrong and how can I treat someone likethat was the question that came to my mind.

But I realised that I have to do it as itwas important to show Shalini as

someone who is grey andprivileged who takes thesethings for granted. It was

important to make peoplerealise what we end up doing inday-to-day interactions,” she says.Moreover, when the tables areturned, one realises that there is no

difference between a Shalini and aSapna. The only difference is that of

circumstances.

Besides Deepa, the series had twomore directors, Shanker Raman and PawanKumar. As an actor, does it enrich the jour-ney or does it result in continuity-relatedissues? Says Huma, “Each director bringshis/her own energy and point of view to thesame material. The script was constant butin a state of an evolutionary process. Wewanted to portray Shalini as someone at thestarting point and show a general growth inher character as the show progressed. It issuch a character-dependent show that herjourney, her search and her coming of ageform the main thrust of the story. So I hadto work very closely with all my directorsto make sure that the journey was possible,”she says.

The show depicts a totalitarian regimewhich controls how its citizenry acts, reads,speaks, dresses, eats and marries. Talking ofhistory and the world in general, which finda reflection in art, Huma points out,“Whenever a totalitarian regime takes over,the first thing they try to do is control lit-erature, arts and culture. There have beeninstances like the burning of the library inAlexandria or the bombing of the statues inBamiyan. These are just attempts to rewritehistory as it is usually written by the victors.It is always easy to rewrite and re-define yourpast based on what your understanding ofthe present is. For me, that was very specialbecause there have been so many instancesin history where people have come, takenover a country and tried to rewrite historyfrom their point of view.”

So would she say that the show is areflection of contemporary times especial-ly since many people on social media calledit anti-Hindu or Hindu-phobic and starteda movement to unsubscribe to the web plat-form? “That is a question for Netflix toanswer,” she guffaws and says, “It was notHindu-phobic and that was never theintention. The show is set in a land that issimilar to India, which is called Aryavarta.If the show was to be set in China or Portugalor wherever, we would set it in those timesand take references from there. Moreover,people who actually saw the show did notthink of it as such.”

Of course, Deepa did modify the scriptdepending upon what is happening in theworld. There is a scene where they hadplanned to show young child labourers beingchained to their workplace. Just at that point,

migration of children was happening fromMexico to the United States. They were keptin shelters, which were like cages and Deepainsisted on getting the structures designedlike them. “When you read about what ishappening in America, where DonaldTrump is trying to keep babies away fromfamilies of immigrants, we do feel helpless.During the shoot, we did read a lot of arti-cles about what was happening in manycountries. Of course, as viewers, you will finda lot of parallels around the world. In thatsense you are free to draw as many paral-lels as come to your mind depending onyour aptitude or level of understanding orreading. But the idea was not to talk aboutany specific community in any way,” assertsHuma.

Having been a part of the industry since2012, the actor’s learning curve has beenpretty sharp. She says, “I like the way you’vedecided that I have evolved. I am still evolv-ing. I am the ugly duckling waiting tobecome a swan,” she says and gives outanother uninhibited laugh that has pepperedthe conversation. But that is not surprisinggiven the fact that Huma is unabashedly aDelhi girl.

She admits to liking everything aboutthe city. “There is nothing that I don’t like.I grew up in South Delhi so my entire lifewas within a five-kilometre radius. GargiCollege, GK M Block market, SouthExtension and Connaught Place are placesthat I visited so very often,” says the Delhigirl whose father Saleem Qureshi is arestaurateur who runs Saleem’s, a chain ofrestaurants in the city.

But what about the way the capital treatsits women, given the fact that Huma picksup content that has headstrong women.“Why just Delhi, the entire world treats itswomen in a way that is problematic. Thefact that when a crime against a woman iscommitted, the family tells the woman tosit at home because the society and thetimes are bad. That disturbs me a lot. Delhiis notorious for its crime against womenand there is a massive need to have a rev-olution for better safety for women and alsofor a better space for women in terms ofbeing negotiators within our homes orinstitutions,” she asserts and starts to talkabout Shush again. However, time has runout but Huma surely has much more to talkabout at another time.

Tell us a little about the film, Truth orDare, and the roles that you both haveplayed.Lucy Hale: I play the character ofOlivia. The film is about a group of

friends who travel to Mexico andbecome possessed by an evilgame of truth or dare and itbecomes a life or death situ-ation where they must pro-tect themselves and theirfriends.Tyler Posey: I play Lucas,

who is caught in a love trian-gle. He seems to have it allfigured out and planned. Healso becomes very vulnerableand scared because he and hisfriends are caught up in thatsituation where lies are beingtested by a demon that haspossessed a game of truth ordare and they have to figure

out how to defeat it withoutdying. It’s “protect themfriends.”

In the film, the two of you arebest friends and have knowneach other for some time.There are secrets and lies.There is drama and melo-

drama of sorts. And then,there is death. How did it feellike to be together as a littleunit, since you haven’t knowneach other before the film.You came together asstrangers but needed to havea bonding in the film?Tyler: It was seamless.Lucy: Yes, the foundation of the

film is friendship between thesecharacters and we, of course, wanted that tobe authentic and make it seem believable. I

knew Tyler a bit before we shot this film. Butthey actually sent us on a trip to Mexico tobond and so we got along really well and gotto know each other. We were lucky that weall vibed well with each other from the startand even had a similar sense of humour. So,the chemistry you see on camera felt verynatural for all of us.

While you were bonding and playingtruth or dare, what were the best questionsthat were asked? And were there any majorrevelations at the end of it?Tyler: Sophia (Taylor Ali) was dared to danceon the table which she got very excited for.I think she may have dared herself to do that(laughs). Rest, I can’t remember. I don’t thinkthe game went on for too long. It was latein the night. I was dared to jump in a pool,which was too cold but it was Mexico. Lucy: Pretty standard truth or dare!Tyler: And it wasn’t that intense. No majorrevelations were involved.

How was Jeff Wadlow as a director? Tyler: I had a great time working with him.He’s really cool.Lucy: What’s great with working with himis that he has a kind of energy that keeps uswanting to be on his level. He was well pre-pared and had a proper planning. He had avision for the film and an endpoint where

he knew what he needed to achieve. I haveso much respect for him because of what wecaptured within our short filming period. Ican’t believe that the quality of the filmturned out to be as great as it did despitebeing on a time crunch. Tyler: Yes. He is the man. He was alwayslooking out for us, having fun. We were likea big family and it was really fun to shootwith each other. He was super enthusiasticwhenever he was directing. For example, he

would shout ‘cut’ like CUUUUTTTT!Lucy: We knew when he liked something.It is because he has a kind of growl in histhroat. If you notice, in the film, there is acreepy grin. When Jeff smiles, he looks likethat. So, I think that was inspired by Jeff, thecreepy face and I mean that in the best waypossible.

You both have been a part of intense TVshows with thrills, twists and turns. Does

appearing in a brave show like this help youface anything in your real life now?Lucy: Absolutely not. I wish I was half as coolas Aria Montgomery (in Pretty Little Liars).Tyler: I think you’re pretty tough.Lucy: I fake it very well but I don’t think Icould handle half the stuff that my charac-ters have handled. No chance.Tyler: Absolutely not. We’ve battled likedemons and monsters. I would try to at leaststand up for myself but I probably would-n’t get very far. I get winded pretty easily. Ican’t walk up the hill without feeling like Iam going to vomit.

Was there a particularly memorablemoment while filming this one? Forexample, the roof scene and the finale.Tyler: The finale was pretty memorable.Lucy: It was memorable for me because wehad built that set in a warehouse inDowntown Los Angeles. It was covered indirt and I just remember everyone hack-ing up dirt and blowing their nose. Therewas just dirt coming out of us because wewere in that room for around 15 hoursevery day for a week. I just remember itbeing really hot. It felt as if it were 110degrees there.Tyler: I loved that whole sequence. It was somuch fun. It was choreographed and therewere stunts, which I am down for becauseTeen Wolf had a bunch of them. I got to betackled. I got to throw somebody. There wasa lot going on in that segment. That wasprobably the most memorable time.

If you could describe the film in threewords each, what would you say?Lucy: Morbid, silly and exhilarating. Theseare just great words for it. Or cool? Also,Really. Messed. Up.Tyler: Nice! There you go, cool.(The film premieres on June 30 at 1 pm and9 pm on Sony PIX.)

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Veteran actor Anita Raajand model Nimrit Kaurare tapping into their

inner fiery Sikh spirit to helmChoti Sardaarni to challenge theregressive and misogynisticstereotypes of women on primetime TV. While this may be easyto achieve on the digital plane,in a first, the storyline revolvesaround sisterhood, women whopull each other up and stand bythrough thick and thin ratherthan the manipulativeMachiavellis that we have seenin other Indian TV shows.

Or so believes Anita. “Theshow and its theme are com-pletely different from the usual.The character that I am playingis of a bold woman, who is, morethan authoritative, respectfuland supporting. In the process,she smothers her daughter, set-ting off a talk point about thepolitics of domination,” says theZameen Aasman actress.

Set in Amritsar, the showrevolves around Mehar (playedby Nimrit), a righteous womanwho stands for justice, who is inlove with a man (played HiteshAhluwalia), and her mother(played by Anita), who is sup-portive, but against her daugh-ter’s love interest. Anita’s charac-ter wants to further her owncareer by marrying off herdaughter into a political family.Clearly, there is more of a world-ly practicality to the characterwho knows what buttons topush in pursuit of her aims.

Anita believes that her char-acter appears to be strict but itisn’t. She says, “She has some

ethics as she is a self-madewoman. She has raised fourkids alone. At the same time,she’s also an authoritativeSarpanch and an ambitiouswoman who wants to become anMLA and a CM. She wants herdaughter to get married to abudding politician.”

When it comes to talkingabout the relevance of the show,the actress says, “It is because ofthe strong characters that havebeen put up. I feel that a lot ofpeople can relate to that. We arenot standing against each otheras women, rather showing thateven we can take our own standpublicly. She is aware that herdaughter is in love but she isbeing protective as a mother.”

Nimrit, a model, a lawyerand now an actress, says that she

is fortunate that her debut roleis so powerful. “Mehar is a verybeautifully written and layeredcharacter. The role has broughtme closer to my emotions andbeing a sardarni, I could close-ly relate to it. She is unapologeticabout who she is. And in today’stime, I feel every woman shouldbe like her. She is independentand fierce. And this specific partis very relatable as I am a lawyertoo. She is righteous and not agrey character. She has a clearidea about what is right andwrong, which is the beauty ofher,” she says.

During a time when webseries are taking over people’sroutines and minds, hasn’t TVbeen left far behind? Nimrit dis-agrees and says, “It’s that timewhen a show which actually has

a bright message will work irre-spective of the medium. Also,TV hasn’t been forgotten. As amedium, it reaches out to max-imum people in our country,especially the remote areas,where there is dearth of educa-tion and facilities. People are notso technologically savvy in thoseplaces. A right message willreflect positively. I remember ashow like Balika Vadhu whichbecame a rage. There was somuch that all of us learnt fromit. So content is the king.”

There have been strongadvisories from theBroadcasting ContentComplaints Council (BCCI)against the showcase of blackmagic and exorcism on IndianTV shows, where women havebeen shown as vish kanyas, naa-gins, daayans (witches) andpractitioners of black magic.Nimrit refuses to comment onthe same as she feels, “It mightbe relatable to different people.It is highly subjective.”

However, Anita feels thatpeople love watching such con-tent for a reason. “If you tell mea story that includes mysticalcharacters, ghosts, then I wouldbe intrigued and hooked to thestory until it gets over,” she saysand talks about her own expe-rience, “When we recently wentto the Golden Temple for theshoot, a priest started narratingan old, mythological story andwe were engrossed in the tale.Now, if we telecast such storieson television then it becomesmore interesting because thevisual effects takes the story toa whole new level and addanother dimension,” says she.

The actress, who has alsobeen a part of TV show 24,alongside Anil Kapoor, hasbeen going back and forthfrom films to TV. Says she, “Isn’tit wonderful that I am doingfilms as well as TV? I am tech-nically enjoying both the sides.The journey has been wonder-ful, I have seen how we used tomake movies during the oldtime when there were less tech-nological equipment and noweven social media is being usedfor promotions.”

(The show airs from July 1at 7.30 pm on Colors.)

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While he hase s t a b l i s h e dhimself as theiconic goofballin the Golmaal

series and has rescued his act-ing career with comedy, he isnow challenging himself withthe next level, that of dabblingin horror comedy. Nobody hasquite cracked this particularsub-genre, dating back to BhoolBhulaiyaa or Go Goa Gone butTusshar is being adventuristenough in his home stable,becoming the protagonist inALTBalaji’s multi-starer horrorcomedy Booo... Sabki Phategi.He has already touched uponthe genre before in GolmaalAgain. Dressed in a brown suitwith zipped pockets, the actor isin town to promote his debut onthe web platform and says,“This is why I am doing this. Iwould love to do any genre butbecause I have done so manycomedy films plus a horrorcomedy, I have a certain confi-dence and comfort zone in thisone. Having said that, blendingthe two is not just about main-taining tricky balance but aboutswitching between two modesof performance withoutdescending into silliness.”

Since the show will bestreamed on the web channel,owned by his sister Ekta Kapoorand mother Shobha Kapoor, didit mean that he called the shots?The actor points out that con-trary to popular belief, he endedup being taken for grantedrather than being given a specialtreatment. “I am like a ghar kimurgi, so I am taken for grant-ed. It is not that I can come inlate for the shoot. Infact, I amgiven the call after the otheractors,” says Tusshar, who isspooked by Mallika Sherawat,who plays a ghost in the series.

Explaining the conceptbehind the name, Tusshar pointsout, “Boo is a word used to scaresomeone, while phategi meansyou are scared. So it’s a combi-nation of being scared and scar-ing others. It all starts at a resort,where I am the owner and myfriends gate crash to have a

reunion party. But things take aturn for the worse whenHaseena (played by Mallika)comes into the picture.”

But naturally, we are curiousabout the genre of horror com-edy where this web series hasbeen slotted. “I think it makesthe genre much wider andappealing. People love horror

but don’t watch it sometimesbecause they are scared. Sowhen you mix comedy, itbecomes a family entertainer. Itwon’t scare you much but satis-fy you with enough shockers.”

Tusshar gives the credit ofthe right balance between thetwo to Farhad Samji, the direc-tor. He says that Farhad bhaiknows when the audience needsto laugh and when they need tobe scared. “He uses horror ele-ments in the right amount whilekeeping it subtly comic simul-taneously,” Tusshar judges it as

a viewer and says, “It has got theperfect balance of both.”

Since this is his first outingon an OTT platform, he pointsout that the craft doesn’t changewhether you work on digital orcinema. “The timelines and thepressure are different but thecraft is pretty much the same. Tomake a good content you haveto be as focussed on your craftas you are in films or as in the-atre. The same amount of pas-sion has to be there. There is anewer audience coming up andevery piece of content has itsown audience. Despite that peo-ple still watch theatre and films.There is more freedom in theweb platforms but you need toapply your own individual cen-sorship and act responsibly.You can’t show anything andeverything. We are responsiblecitizens, even in a democracy wehave to exercise certain amountof restraint. We can’t just put upanything online because there isno censorship. So that respon-sibility has to be ensured,” hesays.

He does accept that whatworks in the favour of these plat-forms is not just artistic free-dom. “Logistically, it becomesmuch wider. It’s like a galaxy initself. There is no restriction ofgeography, language or physicalspace. You can watch it any-where, anytime and even aftera month of its release,” he elab-orates. And since we meet himup, close for the first time afterhis busy days of parenthood, wecannot but let that subject go.And Tusshar clearly loves talk-ing about it, normalising the

single father dynamic. Havingbeen the first celebrity tobecome a single father via IVFand surrogacy, he has a clearperception that it is not neces-sary to have multiple peopleonboard for a kid’s upbringing.“Society has made a hetero-nor-mative marriage partnershipand child-rearing a norm.Patriarchy had shoved a fatherin a corner even when it cameto bringing up his own child. Afather would not spoil his childso much so that s/he becomesa menace to the society,” he says.

Parenthood is usuallylinked with marriage in thiscountry and being a single par-ent irrespective of the fact thatyou are a man or a woman, isstill a sort of taboo in the soci-ety. How has he dealt with this?Tusshar says, “I don’t thinkthere’s a taboo. Undoubtedly,people in this country arebroad-minded and very liber-al. When I announced that I ama single parent, peopleembraced it. The support whichI got from them was immense.As long as you understand theresponsibility of being a goodparent, you are good to go.”

He feels that single parent-hood system, even though it isdifferent from the usual one, isvery acceptable. He apprises usthat even married couplessometimes separate. He says,“Among married couples,sometimes a father is notinvolved in bringing up thechild. So it’s just unfair to saythat both of them are there tosupport the child. And a sin-gle parent won’t be able to dojustice. It’s just a mindset andwhich is not very true. Even asingle parent can make itwork if he does full justice.”Infact, Tusshar believes that asingle parent can do morethan what a normal family cando together. “It depends onhow much love you give thechild. How you bring up thekid is what matters,” he says.

He didn’t find the real-liferole challenging. “I did it at theright age. Maybe if I wasyounger, I probably wouldhave been immature,” says he.

We see shades of the moremature actor and humanbeing than was evident in thepast.

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Most star kids might assume that actingis something that they are meant to doby virtue of their genes. But Sharmin

Segal, daughter of singer Baba Sehgal andSanjay Leela Bhansali’s niece, saw it as a rea-son for not wanting to be fat and keepingfit. “I wanted to be someone else and notSharmin Segal. I was not comfortable inmy own skin. Everybody told me thatI have to get thin and fit if I want to bean actor else I would be stereotypedand typecast. I’ll be pressured forbeing fat,” says the actor who makesher debut with Malaal oppositeMeezaan Jaffery, actor Jaaved Jaffery’sson.

The film is a remake of the2004 Tamil film 7G RainbowColony and follows the con-temporary love story ofAstha and Shiva, who arefrom contrasting back-grounds and live in a Mumbaichawl.

She agrees that stereotypingexists in the industry, whichbelieves that an actress shouldbe thin, beautiful and fit but itis true outside as well. She says,“This is called body shaming.You are telling me that there’s nostereotyping of a fat best friend.It happens often.”

She points out that whileactors like Vidya Balan andHuma Qureshi are comfortablewith their body shape, “I did-n’t have the mental ability todeal with it because of theimmense amount of bodyshaming. I admire the twoactresses for being happy intheir own skin. But I want toexperience everything thatacting has to offer by fittinginto multiple characters ofdiffering shape, size andcolour. People do stereo-type in our industry forbeing fat, one cannot denyit. If you want to get past it,people need to start writingbetter scripts.”

Of course, examples inthe industry abound wherestar kids ranging from Sonam Kapoor,

Arjun Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Shraddha Kapoor andSarah Ali Khan lost weight in order to be a part

of the industry but Sharmin quotes onefrom outside, “Tell me? Did Bhumi

(Pednekar) not lose weight? Did shecontinue to be fat even after theblockbuster film, Dum Laga KeHaisha? No, right? She did lose herweight. Why did she do it? She could

have stayed fat,” she says. However, it was not just to do

with being a part of the indus-try, it was also to do with herown sense of self-worth. “I feltthat a boy would never kissme or love me. I am moreconfident now. People arenot laughing at me for beingfat. But to tell you the truth,sometimes in my mind I amstill fat. I am still uncomfort-able when people look at meand laugh. Sometimes I look inthe mirror and I think I am fat,”she says.

Coming to the film, thereason why Sharmin and we aremeeting, she says that while act-ing, “I had to rely on Sanjay sirto give me references. I used toask him that this is what I have,can you tell me in one sen-tence what’ll make it better.And he was always therewhenever I needed him.Because Mangesh (director)sir was very much involvedin Shiva (Meezan’s charac-ter),” she says. For her role,she didn’t take any refer-ences for the heroinesthat have peopledBhansali’s films. “Astha(her character) is notas complex as any ofSanjay’s sir charac-ters which usuallyhave a lot moreback story. Mycharacter is verysubtle and sim-ple,” she says.

(The filmreleases on

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Osaka: British Prime Minister Theresa May told RussianPresident Vladimir Putin on Friday that normal relations willnot be restored until Moscow ends its “irresponsible and desta-bilising” activity, a Downing Street spokesperson said.

The comments came as May met Putin on the sidelines ofthe G20 summit in Japan’s Osaka, their first formal face-to-facesince the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal last year.

“She told the president that there cannot be a normalisationof our bilateral relationship until Russia stops the irresponsibleand destabilising activity that threatens the UK and its allies --including hostile interventions in other countries, disinforma-tion and cyber attacks,” the spokesperson said.

May also told Putin that Britain “has irrefutable evidence thatRussia was behind the attack” on the former spy. AFP

����� 1/2-2

World leaders attending aGroup of 20 summit in

Japan are clashing over the val-ues that have served fordecades as the foundation oftheir cooperation.

European Union PresidentDonald Tusk on Friday blast-ed Russian President VladimirPutin for suggesting in aninterview with the newspaperFinancial Times that liberalismwas “obsolete.”

In a statement to reporters,Tusk said, “We are here as

Europeans also to firmly andunequivocally defend and pro-mote liberal democracy.”

He said, “What I find real-ly obsolete are: authoritarian-ism, personality cults, the ruleof oligarchs. Even if some-times they may seem effective.”

As US President DonaldTrump, Chinese President XiJinping, Putin and other leadersmet on the sidelines of the sum-mit, Tusk told reporters that suchcomments suggest a belief that“freedoms are obsolete, that therule of law is obsolete and thathuman rights are obsolete.”

���� �205.2.

Protesters stormed theBahraini Embassy com-

pound in Baghdad onThursday night, removing theflag from above the buildingand replacing it with aPalestinian banner in protestagainst a conference held in thegulf nation to promote peacebetween Arabs and Israelis.

No one was hurt in thestandoff that lasted more thanan hour and later in the nightIraqi security forces were incontrol of the area.

An Iraqi security officialsaid the protesters forced theirway in by breaking through themain gate but stayed in the gar-den without storming theoffices inside the compound.

The official, who spoke oncondition of anonymity in linewith regulations, said securityforces opened fire in the air todisperse the protesters and

reinforcements were sent toBaghdad’s western neighbour-hood of Mansour where theembassy is.

More than an hour later,the nearly 200 protesters, wav-ing Iraqi and Palestinian flags,dispersed.

The Bahraini diplomatswere evacuated earlier from thecompound into the heavilyfortified Green Zone after themission received threats, theofficial said.

The two-day workshop inBahrain that ended Wednesdaywas to promote the Trumpadministration’s USD 50 billioneconomic support plan for thePalestinians ahead of a WestAsia peace plan, widely knownas the Deal of the Century, tobe announced later.

Several Arab countriesboycotted the Bahrain confer-ence including Lebanon andIraq as well as the Palestinianauthority.

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Iran’s Foreign Minister onThursday warned US

President Donald Trump hewas mistaken to think a warbetween their countries wouldbe short, as Washington soughtNATO’s help to build an anti-Tehran coalition.

The latest developmentsin the Iran-US standoff came asa diplomatic source in Viennasaid Tehran would not exceeda uranium stockpile limitagreed with world powers,contrary to what it had saidearlier this month.

Iran had set Thursday as adeadline to surpass the agreed300-kilogram reserve ofenriched uranium because it nolonger felt bound by certain lim-its contained in the 2015 deal,which the United States unilat-erally pulled out of in May 2018.

“They won’t exceed ittoday,” the diplomatic source,speaking on condition ofanonymity, told AFP in Viennaon the eve of a meeting by acommission that oversees thenuclear deal.

The source suggested theremight be a “political reason” for

this, given intensified efforts byEuropean governments inrecent days to de-escalate ten-sions in the Gulf region.

The tensions, sparked byTrump’s withdrawal from thenuclear deal, were exacerbatedearlier this month when Iranshot down a US spy drone overthe strategic Gulf after a seriesof tanker attacks thatWashington blamed Tehranfor despite its denials.

Since then the arch-foeshave been locked in a war ofwords, which escalated thisweek when Trump announcednew sanctions against Iran’sSupreme Leader Sayyid AliKhamenei and top diplomatMohammad Javad Zarif.

“‘Short war’ with Iran is anillusion,” Zarif wrote on Twittera day after Trump said he doesnot want a war with Iran butwarned that if fighting didbreak out, it “wouldn’t lastvery long”.

The Iranian foreign minis-ter added: “Whoever beginswar will not be the one endingit.” On Wednesday, Trumphinted that any conflict wouldbe waged with air strikes, say-ing there would be no US

boots on the ground.In an interview on Fox

Business Network, Trump wasasked if America was going togo to war with Iran.

“Well, I hope we don’t butwe’re in a very strong positionif something should happen.We’re in a very strong position,”Trump said.

“It wouldn’t last very long,I can tell you that. And I’m nottalking boots on the ground.”His remarks came after IranianPresident Hassan Rouhani triedto rein in the crisis between thetwo sides, saying that Tehran“never seeks war” withWashington.

But as the tensionsremained high, the acting USdefence chief on Thursdaypressed NATO allies to joinWashington’s efforts to squeezeIran and ensure the safety ofships in the Gulf after thetanker attacks.

Mark Esper urged allies to“consider public statementscondemning Iran’s bad behav-iour and making the pointthat we need to have freedomof navigation in the Strait ofHormuz”.

He also sought to “inter-

nationalise” the Iran issue, at ameeting of NATO defenceministers in Brussels devoted todiscussing the Iran-US crisis.

Many European countrieshave been alarmed at theTrump administration’s hawk-ish approach to Iran, fearingthe US policy of “maximumpressure” is counterproductiveand could lead to war.

Any NATO involvement inthe Gulf would need unani-mous support from all 29member states, and givenEuropean unease this would beextremely difficult to achieve.

“We would like to see morecalm from the two actors but wereally don’t want this to becomea NATO issue,” said a diplomatfrom the alliance in Brussels.

Under the landmark dealwith world powers in 2015,Iran pledged to reduce itsnuclear capacities for severalyears and to allow inspectorsinto the country to monitor itsactivities in return for relieffrom international sanctions.

The deal set a limit on thenumber of uranium-enrich-ing centrifuges, and restrictedIran’s right to enrich uraniumto no higher than 3.67 percent,

well below weapons-grade lev-els of about 90 percent.

But after being hit by waves

of crippling UN sanctions, theIslamic republic said in May itwould gradually step away

from its commitments.Tehran has also threatened

to start enriching uranium

above the agreed purificationlevel of 3.67 percent startingfrom July 7.

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Senior officials from Iran and theremaining signatories to its 2015

nuclear deal with world powers are gath-ering on Friday as tensions in the PersianGulf simmer and Tehran is poised to sur-pass a uranium stockpile threshold, pos-ing a threat to the accord.

At the heart of the meeting in Viennais Iran’s desire for European countries todeliver on promises of financial relief fromU.S. Sanctions. Iran is insisting that itwants to save the agreement and has urgedthe Europeans to start buying Iranian oilor give Iran a credit line to keep the accordalive.

The regular quarterly meeting of theaccord’s so-called joint commission, whichbrings together senior officials from Iran,France, Germany, Britain, Russia, Chinaand the European Union, is meant to dis-cuss implementation of the deal.

The 2015 agreement aimed at curb-ing Iran’s nuclear ambitions in exchangefor relief from economic sanctions. TheUnited States withdrew from the accordlast year and has imposed new sanctionson Iran to cripple its economy, in hopesof forcing Tehran into negotiating awider-ranging deal.

President Donald Trump said on thesidelines of the Group of 20 summit inJapan that “there’s no rush” to ease the ten-sions with Iran.

“There’s absolutely no time pres-sure,” he added. “I think that in the end,hopefully, it’s going to work out. If it does,great. And if doesn’t, you’ll be hearingabout it.”

Iran recently quadrupled its produc-tion of low-enriched uranium. It previ-ously said it would surpass a 300-kilogramstockpile limit set by the accord byThursday, but an Iranian official said thatit was 2.8 kilograms below that limit

Wednesday and there would be no newassessment until “after the weekend.”

It is currently a holiday weekend inIran.

European countries are pressing forIran to comply in full with the accord,though they have not specified what theconsequences would be of failing to do so.But Iranian officials maintain that even ifit surpasses the limit, it would not bebreaching the deal, and say such a movecould be reversed quickly.

The Europeans also face a July 7 dead-line set by Tehran to offer long-promisedrelief from U.S. Sanctions, or Iran says itwill also begin enriching its uranium clos-er to weapons-grade levels.

On Thursday, Iranian state televisionreported that Foreign MinisterMohammad Javad Zarif sent a letterurging European signatories to the accordto implement their commitments, sayingIran’s next steps depend on that.

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Osaka: With a smirk and a fin-ger point, President DonaldTrump dryly told Russia’sVladimir Putin “Don’t meddlein the election” in their firstmeeting since the special coun-sel concluded that Moscowextensively interfered with the2016 campaign.

The tone of the president’scomment did little to silencequestions about Trump’s rela-tionship with Russia in theaftermath of special counselRobert Mueller’s conclusionthat he could not establish acriminal conspiracy betweenTrump’s campaign and Russia.

The moment at the Groupof 20 summit in Osaka echoedone of the most definingmoments of Trump’s presiden-cy in Helsinki, Finland.

There, he pointedly did notadmonish Putin about electioninterference and did not sidewith US intelligence agencies

over his Russian counterpart.Trump and Putin traded

brief remarks Friday, the firsttime they sat together sinceHelsinki, about issues theyplanned to discuss when areporter asked Trump if hewould warn Putin not to med-dle in the 2020 election.

“Of course,” the presidentreplied.

Then he turned to Putinand facetiously said, “Don’tmeddle in the election.”

He playfully repeated therequest while pointing at Putin,who laughed.

Trump said he enjoyed a“very, very good relationship”with Putin and said “many pos-itive things are going to comeout of the relationship.”

The Kremlin says Putin hasinvited Trump to visit Russianext year to mark the 75thanniversary of the allied victo-ry in World War II. AP

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London: Footage of BritishPrime Ministerial hopefulBoris Johnson calling theFrench “turds” over their Brexitstance was cut from a BBC doc-umentary following a requestfrom the Foreign Office, theDaily Mail reported on Friday.

The comments werereportedly made duringJohnson’s time as foreign min-ister, and were cut out of thefly-on-the-wall documentary“Inside the Foreign Office”.

A Whitehall memo seen bythe paper said the departmentasked for the footage to be cut,saying it would make Anglo-French relations “awkward”and make Brexit negotiationsmore difficult.

Johnson resigned asForeign Secretary in protest atTheresa May’s Brexit plan, andis now the overwhelmingfavourite to replace her asConservative Party leader andprime minister. AFP

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What more can we sayabout Virat Kohli at this

point? He continues to breaknew ground for India. But it ismore than that, this is a man re-writing the record books in thehistory of our great game.

To reach 20,000 runsquicker than any man beforehim is a fantastic achievementbut his true greatness lies in hisadaptability.

The captain can play everyrole for his team, across everyformat.

He can drop anchor and lethis partner shine if that iswhat the team needs, then hecan shift through the gears ifthe situation demands andkeep pushing the run rate.

This is his true mastery, hecan manoeuvre and control agame and pace himself beauti-fully.

The only concern for Indiais that the batting at themoment is slightly the ViratKohli show.

Admittedly, it was the part-nership of MS Dhoni andHardik Pandya that won thelast game against the WestIndies.

But at the top of the order,Rohit Sharma has not fired thelast couple of times, and thatmeans KL Rahul needs to domore.

He has made some fantas-tic starts but then got himselfout — he will know better than

anyone that he must convertthose starts into big scores.Everyone knows he is capableof doing it, he has done it beforeand will need to correct hiscourse.

In the middle order VijayShankar and Kedar Jadhav haveyet to really convince. I think it’sfair to say that their approachneeds some fine-tuning.

If I was involved with theteam management, I think I

would consider putting a guylike Rishabh Pant in at No.4.

They have brought himover here now, he is ready to goand, most importantly, he hasplayed in England before sounderstands the conditions.

We saw him impress in theTest series here last summerwhen he came into the side andwith England up next, maybenow is a good time to get himin there against a familiar oppo-

nent.Of course the batting con-

cerns have been papered over inthe last couple of games by thebowlers so it hasn’t matteredquite as much as it could have.

India’s bowling has beenfantastic all tournament.

Mohammed Shami hascome in and been a real wick-et taker — the same guy whowas so impressive at the lastICC Men’s Cricket World Cup

four years ago.And the best news of all is

that the wrist spinners are com-ing to the party.

As this tournament reach-es the business end, they aregoing to be more and moreimportant and Kohli will be sopleased with how they are per-forming.

Next up is England, who justmaybe have a slight weaknessagainst wrist spin, and it will befascinating to see how the gameunfolds at Edgbaston.

India against England, onSunday, in Birmingham, I thinkit's the biggest game of the tour-nament so far. Momentum iseverything in a World Cup, andright now India have it.

They come into the gameunbeaten and will be desperateto keep it that way while Englandare in ‘must-win’ territory now.

India can afford to lose, butthey won’t want to — carryingthat positive mindset into thesemi-finals is absolutely crucial.

Look at Australia, they havewrestled back momentum,Pakistan are peaking at just theright time, it is now or never forEngland.

I think the toss is going tobe absolutely vital — the captainthat calls correctly, bats first andputs a score on the board will bethe winning one when all is saidand done.������'��L�)��� ������������� ����

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KL Rahul is “disappointed” atnot being able to convert hisstarts but not at all “worried”

as he believes that he is doing a lotof things right.

Rahul had scores of 26, 11 notout, 57, 30 and 48 in five complet-ed games and barring the oneagainst Australia where he came inat the fag end of the innings, he hasgot out after getting set.

“It’s a bit disappointing,” the tal-ented Karnataka batsman said,accepting that he should have goneon to score a few more runs.

“I am doing the hard work ingetting through the first 10 or 15overs, or as an opening batsmen,scoring the first 25, 30 runs, whichis the hardest. (But then getting out)when the time comes to accelerateand may be take the game deeper,so a bit disappointed that I have notbeen able to do that,” Rahul lament-ed.

He will certainly assess and dothe course correction but he does notwant to brood over what has hasalready done.

“But again I can sit, I will sit andassess, but it won’t worry me thatmuch because there are a lot ofthings I’m doing right, and I knowthat the mistakes I’ve made I canlearn from them and get better,”Rahul said at the post-match pressconference after India beat theWest Indies by 125 runs onThursday.

He got out playing a reversesweep to off-spinner MohammedNabi against Afganistan and versusWest Indies, it was a pitched updelivery from Jason Holder thatbrought about his downfall.

“Against Afghanistan, I wouldnot say it (reverse sweep) was a badshot. It was a shot I play all the time.And more often than not I hit it forfour, so I get it away. But unfortu-nately, I did not execute it,” Rahulsaid.

“But the planning and the tim-ing of that shot may be was question-able because I needed to stitch up apartnership with Virat,” he admitted.

“And today (vs WI), as a bats-man, it disappoints you but thenagain you know bowlers are allowedto bowl good balls. And you domake mistakes. And I can’t sit backand break my head about it. I just goon and try to start fresh inBirmingham and try to get a bigone.”

He was always “ready” to jug-gle up and down the order, andShikhar Dhawan’s untimely injurydid not change much for him.

“I know that Shikhar gettinginjured was unfortunate. And Ihad to go to the top of the order. Butnot that I never prepared for open-ing the batting. In my head, the lastone or two years I have been prepar-ing for whatever might be my role,”

the 27-year-old right-handed bats-man said.

In fact, he is more comfortableopening the batting as that has beenhis natural slot in all forms ofcricket.

“I had to prepare hard for num-ber four because that’s not where Ibatted all my life. I did that. Andnow to come back to opening thebatting again, it’s just a bit morecomfortable and easier for mebecause I’ve batted it all my life,”Rahul said. On India’s not so impres-sive batting show in the past twogames, Rahul said that both wick-ets weren’t easy for scoring runs.

In fact, he revealed that when heand Rohit were batting, they hadsent a message to the dressing

room that the wicket was two pacedand 260 was a par-score.

Ask about Virat Kohli onceagain looking like a different play-er compared to all others whostruggled, Rahul said it’s his specialability to get runs irrespective of theconditions.

“I don’t think he’s doing any-thing different. He has been doingthe same thing for how long I canremember since the time he start-ed playing cricket, this is what he hasbeen doing, performing consistent-ly,” he observed.

“And no matter what condition,what wicket condition, who thebowlers are, he always finds a wayto get runs, always finds a way to putthe bowlers under pressure.”

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India pacer Mohammed Shami says only he deservesall the credit for his remarkable turnaround as it was

“me and only me” who suffered for 18 months.“Credit? Who else but me. I give full credit to

myself,” said Shami after India’s 125-run victory overWest Indies.

Shami has been to hell and back in the last oneand half years, fighting accusations of domestic vio-lence. As a result, he was dropped from the BCCI’scentral contract list pending inquiry, and also sat outa Test match on fitness ground.

But he is now back to his best, asking probingquestions to the best in the business with his pace andswing. “... Because I had to endure all that I was madeto go through. What I went through in the past 18months, it’s me and only me who had to suffer. So cred-it goes to me,” Shami said without getting into thedetails about the nightmare that he had endured.

“Yes, I thank the Almighty for giving me thestrength to fight everything — from family issues tofitness. I am now only focussed on doing well for mycountry,” said the pacer, who has now taken eight wick-ets in two games, including a hat-trick.

After two mindblowing performances againstAfghanistan and West Indies, Shami said that work-ing on his fitness has been the turning point. He hasshed those extra kilos, and more importantly, it hasput him in a good head space.

“It wasn’t only about failing YoYo test. There aretimes when your rhythm goes for a toss. I failed that’sa separate thing but then I have worked hard andimproved my fitness. I feel I am in a good zone nowas I have lost weight, got rhythm and everything isworking for me.

“I now try to maintain my diet, training regimeconsistently. Because I am feeling stronger, not get-ting tired easily, my speed has also increased. And asfar as skill is concerned, I always knew I can performwell on any track,” he said, the confidence could eas-ily be mistaken as arrogance.

While many thought that it would be the fitBhuvneshwar Kumar, with his ability to take the ballaway from left-handers, but it was Shami whobounced out ‘Universe Boss’ Chris Gayle.

“Since we played IPL together, I have a bit of anidea about him when you play together for some time.I knew that if I don’t allow him to chance his arms,he will get out in desperation trying to hit me,” he said,the explanation sounding much simpler than his on-field execution.

How did he feel when he wasn’t getting chancein the first four games? “Look, 15 people have cometo represent the country. You must have had some-thing special that you are in that 15, isn’t it? It’s aboutremaining patient and positive. And, yes, have a clevermind."

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����� 41�.1�

Australia coach Justin Langerwants his fringe players to

ensure they are ready to perform,but those hoping to replaceMitchell Starc and Pat Cumminswill need to be content with ridingthe pine.

Australia secured their ticket tothe semi-finals with an emphaticvictory over England on Tuesday,giving them some breathing roomfor their final two group gamesagainst third-placed New Zealandon Saturday at Lord's and thenunderperformers South Africa inManchester next week.

But Langer stressed the reign-ing 50-over champions won'ttake their foot off the gas andwill likely follow the wish-es of their star quicks bykeeping them on the parkfor their final two groupgames.

"I don't think theywould want to," thecoach said when askedif the pair would rest.

"It is going to beone of the challengesfor us. It is really niceto know we are in thesemi-final. It's a real-ly nervous time lead-ing out to it becauseyou can't win the finalunless you are in the semi-final."But I would be surprised ifeither of those guys rest up.

"The challenge is going tobe that we have long layoffsnow, a bit of a layoff here, then

five or six days in Manchester, wehave to manage that really well. SoI don't think they will want to rest."

There had been concern overhow their bowlers would pull upafter playing four games and trav-elling nearly 700 kilometres in agruelling nine-day stretch earlier inthe tournament.

But, in the midst of a morespread-out finish to the group-stagein which they play their final threegames in 15 days, Starc andCummins both appear in goodphysical nick.

Australia are understandablywary of overcooking them giventhe duo have a key role to play inthe five-Test Ashes series to fol-low.

The recalled JasonBehrendorff made a strongcase to be the third seamer forthe business end of the WorldCup after a career-best inter-national five-wicket haul toflatten England.

Off-spinner NathanLyon, in his first game of thetournament, was also com-mended for his frugal return

even if he didn't claim a wicket.But despite only losing one

game all tournament, Australiahave consistently mixed andmatched their team and Langerurged the four players who missed

out against England - AdamZampa, Kane Richardson, NathanCoulter-Nile and Shaun Marsh - tobe prepared to play the Kiwis.

"Will Smith used to say 'alwaysstay ready so I don't have to getready'," Langer said. "And I'vethought that for 10 years and that'sbeen a big motto for us.

"You always stay ready andthat's the same for Zampa andCoulter-Nile and Kane Richardsonand for Shaun Marsh who didn'tplay the last game and for every oneof our players."

Langer took particular pride inthe performance of Behrendroff,having mentored the left-arm quickduring his time as WesternAustralia and Perth Scorcherscoach before taking the nationaljob.

"To come to England and bowlon the big stage as well as he did,it will be a great confidence boostfor him. I think it's also a big con-fidence boost for the team," saidLanger "I've seen it for a long timeand we've seen him do it intermit-tently playing and not playing forAustralia. We know he can do it, heis a very good athlete and he's anincredible professional so he will doeverything possible to play.

"And he's a really nice person.So we see those sort of people geta reward is really pleasing."

����� 41�.1�

Peaking at the right time, Australiawill resume their Trans-Tasmanrivalry at the World Cup stage

when they take on a New Zealand sidelow on confidence after its first defeatof the tournament today.

Barring the defeatagainst India,defending champi-ons Australia havedone nothing wrongin this tournament,becoming the first teamto qualify for the semis.

The Aaron Finch-ledside is in roaring form andwould look to continue thewinning momentum at thehallowed Lord’s.

New Zealand go into thematch after suffering a defeatagainst Pakistan, which snappedtheir unbeaten streak in the tourna-ment.

The Black Caps — who haveamazingly retained the sameside for all their sevenmatches — have secured11 points and need atleast a win from theirremaining two out-ings — againstAustralia andEngland (July 3) —to be assured of afourth straightWorld Cup semifi-nals berth.

They met in the2015 final at theMCG and withmemories of thatgame st i l l fresh,Saturday’s match mayturn out to be a crack-er.

The Trans-Tasmanrivalry is heavily skewedagainst New Zealandwith Australia havingwon all but one of the 20ODIs played outside the

two countries. The only win for theBlack Caps in a neutral venue havecome in the 1999 World Cup match at

Sophia Gardens.That win in 1999 has also been the

lone victory for New Zealand in sevenWorld Cup matches between the twosides.

Not only history but current formof the players also point to five-timechampions Australia beginning as thefavourites.

Australia swept past hosts andworld number one England by 64 runsin their last match and currently look

like one of the two sides most likelyto lift the trophy, the other being

India.Finch and David Warner

have been the dominant open-ing duo of this tournament

and are on track tobecome the greatestever pair at the top in

a World Cup.They rank first

and second in therun-scoring lists,and have put on a

record-equal l ingthree century stands

with two league games stillto go.

Fast bowler Mitchell Starc is top-ping the bowling charts with 19 wick-ets at 18.26. He’s caused New Zealandbatsmen headaches before with his

bounce, swing and pace.Jason Behrendorff also came good

with the new Kookaburra ball in thewin over England as the left-armer took5/44.

New Zealand will again rely heav-ily on captain Kane Williamson who hasscored 414 runs at 138 in five innings.His lone century against Australia

came when they last met, at theChampions Trophy in 2017, a contestthat was washed out.

His overall record against Australia(416 runs at 41.6 in 12 ODIs) is,though, not as great as his overall careeraverage of 48.12.

�H����Australia: Aaron Finch (capt), JasonBehrendorff, Alex Carey, NathanCoulter-Nile, Pat Cummins, UsmanKhawaja, Nathan Lyon, Shaun Marsh,Glenn Maxwell, Kane Richardson, SteveSmith, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis,David Warner, Adam Zampa.New Zealand: Kane Williamson (capt),Martin Guptill, Matt Henry, TomLatham, Colin Munro, Jimmy Neesham,Henry Nicholls, Mitchell Santner, IshSodhi, Trent Boult , Colin deGrandhomme, Lockie Ferguson, TimSouthee, Ross Taylor, Tom Blundell.

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�Have you officially got a team?We will have a team, but I can’t name

it just yet because we just turned up to train-ing for the afternoon session and wehaven't quite been able to look at the wick-et yet. Obviously a used surface, so we’llhave to take that into account when wechoose our side.�Is there a need for a change to the side?

Every time we've turned up, we've hadto try and adapt in terms of on the park, butalso how we've looked to pick our side. Wewill have to see the surface and try and pickthe best side suitable.�How much consideration do you give toSodhi?

We'll just need to look at the surface,try and determine whether we think it willspin. Over in England, it can at times, as wesaw in the last game, which surprised every-one a little with the amount of spin. We allneed to have a look at the surface and pickour side accordingly.�Is there a trend in the way captains areusing strike bowlers in the middle overs?

I don't know if it's a change in trend asmuch as you're trying to read the game asbest you can. For example, bringing backwhat you might think are your strikebowlers to make breakthroughs at impor-tant times. There's that subtle difference thatwe are here at a tournament where perhapsteams adopt slightly different plans.�Who do you see as the key wickets in thisAussie batting lineup?

They have got a very strong top order.They have been playing really well, as well.Naturally you're targeting anyone that's atthe crease, basically, and that's what we'll belooking to do.�In terms of lineup, what is more impor-tant for you — stability and continuity orthe right team?

There’s always a fine balance, especial-ly when it comes to tournament sport wherethings are changing so quickly in terms ofopposition, conditions, which I think everycaptain spoke about so much, whereas afive-match series in very similar conditions,mind-sets can change in respect to that.�How much of a disadvantage is it to youthat Australia have played on the pitchand you haven't had experience on thepitch.

It's kind of hard to say. The conditionswill be a little bit different to perhaps whatthey experienced the other day. It's also oneof those things you can't control. So notworrying about it is more important. �Have you got any sort of extra stress?

It kind of is what it is, really. You cometo tournaments and sides beat each otherand they climb the ladder, and that's whateverybody sort of desires to do, and whoremains is kind of the ones that go through.But at the end the day, you're trying to playthe best cricket that you can.�What are your memories of time spentWarner?

He's a world-class player. He's able toadjust to conditions and continued toimprove his game. We've seen that through-out this tournament. He's been instrumen-tal on the Australian side; that he's adapt-ed his game and been able to help put hisside in a position of strength.�What advice have you given Munrowho’s struggling a bit?

Everyone is wanting more. Then youcome into a tournament where conditionsvary so much, and someone like Munro haslooked really nice for the most part, alongwith a number of other guys, and then kindof had some good balls or some lack of for-tune, and that's led to downfalls.

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����� 41�.1�

Captain Aaron Finch hasbacked Pat Cummins to find

top gear in their match againstNew Zealand, as Australia mulltheir best bowling combinationson what shapes as the driest pitchthey’ve played on at the WorldCup.Cummins has taken none for106 from 18 overs in wins overBangladesh and England, butFinch suggested the numbers aremisleading and labelled him a keypart of their attack.

“With the ball I think he’sbeen excellent,” Finch said ofCummins, who took 11 wickets inAustralia’s first five games.

“There’s nothing to suggestotherwise. Yes, he hasn’t got thewickets in the last two games, buthe’s still been a huge part of ourside.

“He’s someone who’s so reli-able that you go to when youeither need a wicket or you needsome control in a game. He pro-vides so much for the side.”

Having expressed his sur-prise that pace had prospered overspin in the early stages of the tour-nament, Finch says Australiaremain open to playing two spin-ners with the mercury tipped tohit 32 degrees for Saturday’s clashwith the Kiwis.

The Lord’s pitch used for theAustralia-New Zealand game will

be the same one that hostedAustralia and England earlier inthe week and will have beenexposed to 72 hours of hot anddry weather come the weekend.

Finding room for bothNathan Lyon and Adam Zampa intheir XI will be difficult givencoach Justin Langer has said nei-ther Cummins nor Mitchell Starcare likely to be rested, while JasonBehrendorff is fresh off a career-best 5-44 after being recalled toplay England.

Lyon got the nod over Zampafor his first game of the tourna-ment on Tuesday, but Finch saidit’s difficult to split the two andsuggested match-ups with indi-vidual New Zealand batters woulddictate selection, as they didagainst England.

“They’re both neck and neck,”said Finch. “The way Nathanbowled the other day is probablymore of a defensive option, a bitmore control.

“But leg-spin is an incrediblyhard craft. For Zamps, the num-bers were against Zamps (for)England, Nathan had a distinctiveadvantage.

“That’s just the way we’relooking at it. There’s nothingmore or nothing less to it. Thereis no science. Just looking a bitdeeper into tournaments.”

Asked if they could playtogether, Finch said: “Absolutely.”

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Jason Roy will hand England amuch-needed boost if he's passed

fit to face India as the hosts look tosteady the nerves after successivedefeats, according to vice-captainJos Buttler.

Roy, who smashed 153 from121 balls against Bangladesh ear-lier in the tournament, has not fea-tured since pulling a hamstringagainst the West Indies two weeksago.

The opener missed the winagainst Afghanistan and defeats toSri Lanka and Australia, withJames Vince taking his place, buthe was back practising on Fridaymorning at Edgbaston.

"He looks pretty good. I thinkhe has been progressing nicely soit is nice to see him back in the nets,back in the group and taking part,"said Buttler.

"I'm sure the medical team willknow more than I do but he lookspretty good. He has been a veryimportant player for us a long time.

"We know we can perform bet-ter as a group and Jason is a fan-tastic player to have available. Itwould be a boost to have him play."

Sunday's match is crucial toEngland's campaign, with back-to-back defeats knocking them downto fourth in the table, just one pointahead of Bangladesh and Pakistan.

However, a win for India wouldsee them secure a semi-final placeand they are full of confidence after

usurping England as the world's topranked ODI side.

Lose here and the pressure willincrease ahead of England's finalgroup game against New Zealandbut Buttler is keeping a cool head.

"Expectation is somethingEngland sides have not alwayshad. I have played in England sideswhere the expectations were verylow," he said.

"The mood in the camp is stillvery good. Naturally, there is someexternal pressure and it would benaïve to say we have got our blink-ers on.

"We just have to accept thosethings. We know they are going to

happen. We know the positionwe are in, nothing has changed.When we play our best cricket,we are in a position to win.

"We have the opportunity toput things right and everyone hasturned up with a smile on theirface.

"Everyone here wants us to dowell and, being such a good side,when we don't perform at our best,it is frustrating. But there has beenlots of goodwill so there are goodsigns for me."

Edgbaston is expected to be asea of colour and a cauldron ofnoise on Sunday, with as manyIndian fans as English ones expect-ed to pack into the stands.

And Buttler has promised bothteams will live up to expectations.

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Enigmatic Pakistan will hope to con-tinue their resurgent run while keep-ing complacency at bay when they

play Afghanistan in the ICC World Cuphere on Saturday.

Staring at a possible league stageelimination after three defeats and awashout, Pakistan staged a remarkablecomeback with wins over South Africa andNew Zealand to keep their hopes alive.

A couple of losses for hosts Englandonly brightened the 1992 winners'prospects of a semifinal berth.

There were quite a few positives fromthe six-wicket victory over New Zealand,with Babar Azam's century and ShaheenAfridi's five-wicket haul being the mostprominent ones.

The worry now is that after beatingSouth Africa and then the unbeaten NewZealand, a feeling of complacency maycreep in, but Pakistan cannot allow that tohappen.

The current team will also hope thatit is able to make the similarities with thecountry's 1992 campaign even more strik-ing. Given the way the tournament has sofar panned out for the green shirts, it isimpossible to ignore the parallels withImran Khan's team, which also effected astunning turnaround on way to winningthe title. Pakistan's rally and England'sreverses have opened up the tournamentbut the players will do well to not worryabout other results.

If Pakistan beat Afghanistan andBangladesh, chances of reaching the lastfour could increase.

The inclusion of Harris Sohail at theexpense of the miserably out-of-formShoaib Malik has lent both stability andflair to Pakistan's batting.

While left-arm pacer Afridi has addedfirepower to their bowling that is led byMohammad Amir.

Afghanistan, who came close to caus-ing the tournament's biggest upset againstIndia, have won hearts with their spiritedshowings, but they would have wanted todo better. A win over a big cricketing nationlike Pakistan would be a nice way to exitthe big stage, and the likes of Rashid Khanand Gulbadin Naib are aware of that.

�H����Pakistan: Sarfaraz Ahmed (captain),Fakhar Zaman, Imam ul Haq, BabarAzam, Haris Sohail, Hasan Ali, ShahdabKhan, Mohammed Hafeez, MohammedHasnain, Shaheen Shah Afridi, WahabRiaz, Mohammed Aamir, Shoaib Malik,Imad Wasim, Asif Ali.Afghanistan: Gulbadin Naib (captain),Sayed Ahmad Shirzad, Hazratullah Zazai,Asghar Afghan, Rashid Khan, MohammedNabi, Mujeeb ur Rahman, Dawlat Zadran,Najibullah Zadran, Hamid Hassan,Hashmatullah Shahidi, SamiullahShinwari, Rahmat Shah, Noor Ali Zadran,Ikram Alikhil.

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�How are you feeling fortoday’s game?

Every game is exciting, the boys are excit-ed. Unfortunately, we yet to win a single game.So we go for 100 per cent in today's game.World Cup, every game is important for us.So really excited for today’s game.�How has Mujeeb been in this tourna-ment?

He has something — like his bowling thelast couple of games was missed. So then inthis World Cup, and he's back on his formand back with — if you look at his last three,four games he bowled well but lost momen-tum, especially his bowling grip. Now the lastfour games he did well for the team. So hope-fully today he will be giving 100 percent.�What happened to Aftab?

Some discipline issues. We have alreadygiven the press release. And also we have adiscipline committee. So the issue is in thediscipline committee.�What went wrong with your World Cupcampaign?

We’re excited to qualify for the WorldCup. It’s a dream from Afghanistan perspec-tive and the 2019 World Cup. So it's a dreamcome true, because it's a big event. So everyteam is like not like a associate country team.We're excited. Hoping a lot for Afghanistan.But to be here, if you start to — also hopethe journey will go well. But like if you startnot so well, so a lot of things were goingwrong in the campaign or the journey. So wedidn't give it as best — we didn’t — but if youlook the last three, four games we played well,but at the start we didn't give our 100 per cent,like the first four games. So everything is total-ly different, like you can see especially thepitch is totally different. So we didn't expectit. So we did something wrong there. Buthopefully we have the next two games, wehave to finish this campaign on a good note.�Can Pakistan offer a challenge?

It’s cricket. No team is easy. We beatPakistan in a World Cup warm-up game. Ifyou look at similar conditions, certainly inour favour, it’s good for our spinners. Thenafter we played four games, it’s totally differ-ent. Like the pitch is totally different. We arepracticing different wickets and the match iswith different wickets. We’re not expectingit. But Pakistan, I'm not saying — Pakistanis a good side. They played a good last three,four games. They gave it 100 per cent. Butit’s cricket. So today is a day for also Pakistantrying to continue the momentum to a goodcampaign. And we are trying to finish ourcricket World Cup campaign on a good note. �Pakistan batsmen are playing well againstthe spinners…

Haris Sohail played well the last twogames and also Babar Azam. But Rashid isa different spinner, is a different bowler, likeother spinners. So it’s really difficult to pickhim. And in this World Cup I didn't seeRashid at his best — but he's trying to giveit his best in this tournament. But tomorrowI think his day, so it’s really difficult for any-one, not just a Pakistan batsmen. Pakistanbatsmen doing well last three, four games, butRashid is trying to give his 100 per cent andtrying his best for — this is the World Cup.Everyone just wants to give his best perfor-mance. So hoping for this. And so if Rashidis there it’s difficult for everyone, not only thePakistan team.�Which Pakistani players are on target?

No one especially. But everyone just isgiving their 100 per cent. Every player, everyteam just trying to do as best but we are nottrying to target anyone. We hope we finishour World Cup campaign on a good note.Pakistan doing really well the last two, threegames. We’re just trying to finish this cam-paign on a good note.

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West Indies head coachFloyd Reifer urged his

players to play for pride asthey start to rebuild for thefuture.

Jason Holder’s team cameinto the World Cup as manyexperts pick to spring a sur-prise, especially after scoring421 in a warm-up victory overNew Zealand.

But an opening win overPakistan at Trent Bridge hasproved the highlight and Indiawere the latest team to lowertheir colours, with a 125-runwin at Old Trafford.

Reifer and Holder held animpromptu team meeting for90 minutes after this defeat

and the head coach, whoreplaced Richard Pybus onthe eve of the World Cup,wants to see a responseagainst Sri Lanka andAfghanistan in their conclud-ing matches.

“We had some frank dis-cussions about the WorldCup that we’ve had and we’lltry to finish the tournamentas a strong unit now,” he said.

“We are still playing forpride, we know that 67 mil-lion people back home in theCaribbean are backing us andwe are representing themhere.

“This is about our jour-ney, there is cricket after thisWorld Cup and we need tofind that winning formula and

culture again.“We’ve not done too well

in the World Cup, we can seeimprovements but we need toput together a complete game.

“The guys bowled wellagainst India and the fieldingwas much improved but it’sabout getting all three depart-ments working together towin cricket games.”

Reifer also made specialmention of the contributionof Chris Gayle, who is expect-ed to conclude his colourfulODI career with the WestIndies next week.

He added: “Chris said alot of good things in themeeting and made a lot ofgood points and it’s alwaysgood to have him in the

dressing room. He’s a cham-pion.” West Indies restrictedIndia to 268/7, Kemar Roachthe pick of the bowlers withfigures of 3/36. But key bats-men Gayle and Shai Hopewent early as the Windiesfound themselves facing abattle on 16/2.

And newcomer SunilAmbris, opening alongsideGayle, admitted it was amissed opportunity.

“It was a very disappoint-ing game for us, we should

have got that score if we’d bat-ted properly,” he said, aftertopping the Windies battingfigures with 31.

“We were happy with theway we bowled, we’d havetaken their total at the begin-ning of their innings.

“It was rough losing Chrisso early because we know howimportant he is for our team.Shai is the guy in form toowhich made it very difficult.”

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Veteran West Indies pacer Kemar Roach believes thata bright future awaits the current batch of players

despite a poor show in the World Cup.Since beating Pakistan in their opener, West Indies lost

five of their next six matches to join Afghanistan as thethird team to crash out of the tournament.

Asked what went wrong, Roach defended the youngteam after their 125-run demolition at the hands of titlecontenders India.

"It's tough to say. I think, obviously after the firstinnings against Pakistan, the guys were confident goingforward into the World Cup. I think (we lost) a couple ofclose games against Australia and New Zealand," Roachsaid.

"But I think the guys, you know, should be keepingour heads up. We're out now, but obviously there's a futurefor us. I think we're still learning, couple of young guysin the team, have got a great future ahead of them. Andit's all about being positive and looking forward," the 31-year-old said.

Roach feels that with some able guidance, the juniorsin the squad like Shimron Hetmyer and Oshane Thomascan do wonders for West Indies cricket.

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Gabriel Jesus scoredthe winning spot-

kick in a tense penaltyshoot-out as Brazil exorcizedtheir demons to beat Paraguayand reach the CopaAmerica semi-finals.

Twice before in2011 and 2015Paraguay had beat-en Brazil at thissame stage onpenalties at the South Americanextravaganza.

Willian came closest to scor-ing in normal time for Brazilwhen he hit the post asParaguay held out for a 0-0draw for more than 40 min-utes following the dismissalof Fabian Balbuena for aprofessional foul onRoberto Firmino onThursday.

Brazilian media had beenalmost in a state of paranoia beforethe match recalling the painfulmemories from Argentina in 2011and Chile four years later whenParaguay produced stubborn defen-sive displays before snatching vic-tory in the spot-kick lottery.

But it wasn’t to be this time asBrazil goalkeeper Alisson savedGustavo Gomez’s opening spot-kickat the Gremio Arena in PortoAlegre.

Although Firmino dragged hiseffort wide, Derlis Gonzalez alsofired past the post allowing Jesus,who missed a penalty in Brazil’s lastmatch, to be the match-winner.

The tournament hosts will faceeither perennial rivals Argentina orVenezuela in Tuesday’s semi-finalin Belo Horizonte.

Brazil started brightly and pro-duced a beautiful passing move inthe fourth minute as local favoriteEverton drove in off the left wingand found Dani Alves on the edgeof the area, with the full-back slip-ping the ball on to Firmino, whoseweak shot was straight at goalkeep-er Roberto Fernandez.

The best chance of the firstquarter fell to Paraguay as HernanPerez found Gonzalez unmarked atback post but Alisson saved his nearpost shot. It was turgid fare on offerto the Porto Alegre crowd, whostarted a slow clap just after the halfhour.

���K���)�������Predictably, Brazil were booed

off at half-time, for the third timein four matches. Tite wasted notime in making a change, but it

was a curious one swapping left-back Felipe Luis for Alex Sandro.

Neat interplay saw Firmino teeup Coutinho just outside the boxbut his precise finish was easilysaved again. Brazil had changedtactic and were driving more

purposefully at the heart of thedefence, with Arthur flashing

a shot over the bar.It paid dividends on 54

minutes when Firminowon a free-kick on theedge of the penalty area —

overturned from the origi-nal decision of a penalty by

VAR — and Balbuena wasshown a red card for a profes-sional foul.

Dani Alves’s fierce low free-kick was def lected wide,though. Brazil started to pullParaguay’s over workeddefenders out of position andArthur forced Fernandez intoa diving save before Jesusdragged an effort wide.

With Paraguay unable topose any threat Tite withdrewhis defensive midfielder Allanand threw on winger Willian,

with Jesus pushed into themiddle alongside Firmino.

Almost immediately, Jesusmissed a gilt-edged chance fromeight yards out before Firmino

headed a Marquinhos crosswide.

Tite went for broke,bringing on attacking mid-fielder Lucas Paqueta forfull-back Alves and italmost worked but Williansaw his low left foot shotcannon back off the post

sending the match into atense penalty shoot-out.

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Former champions Sri Lanka are all butout of the ongoing World Cup aftersuffering a nine-wicket drubbing

against a clinical South Africa, here Friday.Sent in to bat, Sri Lanka produced a

dismal batting show to manage a modest203, a target which the Proteas overhauledwith 76 balls in hand.

With just six points from seven games,Sri Lanka still have a mathematical chanceto be in the semifinals.

First, they need to win their last twogames against already-eliminated WestIndies (on July 1) and India (July 6) andthen depend on favourable results fromother remaining league stage games.

The win, however, came as a welcomerelief for South Africa, who have endureda nightmarish World Cup campaign.

The Proteas are already out of the tour-nament after registering just two wins outof their eight games.

Chasing the modest target, SouthAfrica lost Quinton de Kock (15) at thescore of 31 in the fifth over but thereafterHashim Amla and skipper Faf du Plessisheld the fort and stitched an unbeaten 175-run stand to guide the Proteas home com-fortably.

While Du Plessis remained unbeatenon 96 off 103 balls, hitting 10 boundariesand one six, Amla finished on 80 not outoff 105 balls with the help of five fours.

Lasith Malinga (1/47) was the only suc-cessful bowler for Sri Lanka.

Earlier, the Proteas picked up wicketsat regular intervals after the first 10 overs,never allowing the Sri Lankan middle-ordersettle down.

Drafted into the playing eleven in placeof Lungi Ngidi, pacer Dwaine Pretarius

(3/25) justified his selection with a three-wicket haul.

Chris Morris (3/46) and Kagiso Rabada(2/36) shared five wickets between them.

Sri Lanka had a horrible start as theylost skipper Dimuth Karunaratne in thefirst ball of the match, caught by his coun-terpart Du Plessis at the second slip offRabada.

Thereafter, Kusal Perera (30 off 34) andAvishka Fernando (30 off 29) took thecounter-attacking approach and playedfearlessly to stitch a 67-run stand off 58 ballsbefore the duo perished in quick succes-sion.

Right-arm pacer Pretorius sent boththe batsmen packing in consecutive oversas Sri Lanka slumped to 72 for three in 11.3overs.

New man Angelo Mathews looked inno hurry and took 29 balls to score his 11runs before he played on a Morris deliv-ery in the 22nd over.

Kusal Mendis (23 off 51) had to dugdeep for his runs before he becamePretorius' third victim, spooning one toMorris at extra cover.

Dhananjaya de Silva (24) , JeevaMendis (18) and Thisara Perera (21) all gotstarts but threw away their wickets whenSri Lanka needed them to carry on.

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Rafael Nadal breathed a sigh ofrelief Friday after he was slated to

meet eight-time champion RogerFederer in the Wimbledon semi-finals.

Nadal's fears that he would bedrawn in top-seeded favourite anddefending champion NovakDjokovic's half of the draw — andface him in the semis — provedunfounded despite Wimbledon pro-moting Federer above him in theseedings.

The Spaniard, seeded thirdbehind Federer, had complained ear-lier this week that Wimbledon'sunique formula for seeding thatcombines ranking points with formin grass-court competitions was dis-respectful.

World number one Djokovicwill in theory face South African

fourth seed and last year's beatenfinalist Kevin Anderson — who waspromoted from eighth in the world— in the last four.

Nadal, who comes in onthe back of his 18th GrandSlam singles title after winninghis 12th French Open whichincluded beating Federer in thesemi-finals, will do well to reachthe last four as he has a tough look-ing draw.

He should have little troublewith his first round opponent, YuichiSugita of Japan, but after that thingsbecome more perilous.

Moody but talented AustralianNick Kyrgios — who beat Nadal inthe last 16 at Wimbledon in 2014 —is a potential second round opponentand highly-rated Canadian youngsterDenis Shapovalov could await in thethird round.

If he emerges from those tussles

he could face Croatia's 2017Wimbledon singles finalistMarin Cilic in the last 16.

His great rivals Djokovicand Federer begin their cam-

paigns against 35-year-oldGerman Philipp Kohlschreiber andLloyd Harris of South Africa respec-tively.

Kohlschreiber beat Djokovic ear-lier this year in the third round atIndian Wells.

The women's draw seesAustralia's new world number oneand French Open champion AshleighBarty open against China's ZhengSaisai with a potentially tricky datewith Spain's 2017 champion GarbineMuguruza in the third round.

The most intriguing match-up

could come in the fourth round witha rematch of last year's final betweendefending champion AngeliqueKerber of Germany and Americanlegend Serena Williams.

There is a first round match ofthe old and the very new asWilliams's 39-year-old sister Venuswill play compatriot Cori Gauff, whoon Thursday at 15years of agebecame the youngest woman toqualify for the tournament in theOpen era.

Japan's Naomi Osaka — whomBarty replaced as world number onewhen she won the Birminghamtournament last Sunday — beginsher bid to add Wimbledon to her USand Australian Open titles againstKazakh Yulia Putintseva.

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Riyad Mahrez and Algeriafired a warning to the

rest of their Africa Cup ofNations title rivals with adeserved 1-0 win over SadioMane's heavily-fanciedSenegal in Cairo onThursday.

Mane struggled toimpress on his return fromsuspension as Youcef Belailicrashed home the winner on49 minutes to guaranteeAlgeria a berth in the last 16.

It is almost a decadesince Algeria last made animpact at the competition byreaching the 2010 semi-finals, and this was a perfor-

mance of great promise fromthe north African side infront of a large crowd at a

blustery 30 June Stadium.However Senegal, on the

hunt for a first continental

title, will still be expected tojoin Algeria in the knockoutrounds as they wrap up thegroup phase against Kenyaon July 1.

Mane was one of threechanges to the Senegal teamthat brushed Tanzania aside2-0 in their opening game,with Cheikhou Kouyate fill-ing in for the injured Salifsane in central defence.Algeria coach DjamelBelamdi stuck with the teamthat rolled Kenya over by thesame scoreline.

Having absorbed

Senegal's advances with rel-ative comfort, Algeria grewmore assertive and BaghdadBounedjah had EdouardMendy scrambling acrosshis goal when his a deflect-ed effort that bounced nar-rowly wide.

Bounedjah, who hit 39goals in just 21 starts forQatar's Al Sadd last season,looked odds on to score forthe second game running inEgypt when he lifted the ballover Mendy only for aretreating Kalidou Koulibalyto clear.

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