ˇ ! · hands of anti-talk faction of Ulfa militants behind the incident. Assam Chief Minister...

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A ndhra Pradesh Chief Minister and TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu on Thursday discarded his party’s age-old anti-Congress stance and called on Congress presi- dent Rahul Gandhji as well sev- eral Opposition leaders in a bid to script a pre-poll Opposition alliance to take on the BJP. Naidu’s meeting with Rahul came after the TDP and the Congress joined hands for the upcoming Telangana Assembly elections. The Thursday development not only marks the beginning of a new chapter in the TDP- Congress relationship, but it could also pave the way for uniting the Opposition parties ahead of the next year’s poll. From 1990 onward, Naidu never contested any election with the Congress, be it State or Lok Sabha polls. Earlier in the day, Naidu met NCP chief Sharad Pawar and National Conference pres- ident Farooq Abdullah here. Naidu also met senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad at the Indira Gandhi International Airport here and briefly dis- cussed about the need to bring all non-BJP political parties together. The Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister also held talks with former JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav. Meanwhile, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav landed in the national Capital for alliance discussion. This is Naidu’s second visit to Delhi in less than a week. He has already held preliminary discussions with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, BSP chief Mayawati, Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy and the DMK leader. After the meeting, Rahul told the media that the focal point is defeating the BJP. “We have agreed that prin- ciple idea here is to defeat the BJP and to defend democracy and the institutions of this country,” Rahul said standing side by side with Naidu. “All other ideas will be discussed later,” he said deflecting a ques- tion of who would be the face of proposed Opposition alliance in the next elections. “It is very clear that cor- ruption is taking place. Institutions that can investigate are being attacked... A proper enquiry on what all happened, where the money went and who did corruption... That is what I am pushing very aggres- sively. Nation wants to know this,” the Congress president said. When asked about the past bitter and confrontational rela- tions between the Congress and the TDP, Rahul said, “We have a past. We have both agreed that we are not going to talk about our past and talk about our future”. Naidu, whose entry on the national scene as a facilitators to bring together all the major non-BJP parties has created a sensation and buzz in national politics, said that very soon the leaders of all the non-BJP parties were going to meet to chalk out the future course of action. “We have to save this nation and save democracy. That is our mission. I discussed with Rahulji. In principle we agreed,” he said refusing to go into the troubled past of the relations between the two parties. Backing Naidu’s effort to unite the Opposition, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar said non-BJP parties will come out with a common minimum pro- gramme to take on the Government, while express- ing concern over “assault” on the CBI and the RBI. “If we collectively work to save democracy, we can defi- nitely save the institutions. Chandrababu (Naidu) will talk to other State political leaders in this regard,” the NCP chief told reporters. Alleging that the situation in the country seems to be “deteriorating” day by day as there is “assault” on institutions like the CBI and the RBI, he said there is a need to work for the common cause of “saving the country and democracy”. A common minimum pro- gramme will be drafted once the non-BJP parties come on board to discuss the matter, Pawar said. Voicing concern over the “difficult” times the country is going through, Abdullah said, “Today, democracy is in dan- ger and people are in danger. That is why we all met and decided to work out a common minimum programme to save democracy, institutions and the nation.” T he CBI on Thursday justi- fied before the Delhi High Court the alleged bribery FIR against its Special Director Rakesh Asthana and claimed that “several incriminating doc- uments have been unearthed” during the ongoing probe against him. During hearing of a plea by Asthana and his deputy Devender Kumar Kumar for quashing of the FIR against them before the HC, the CBI said, “This court categorically held that when an FIR is chal- lenged by way of a writ petition, more particularly, in Prevention of Corruption Cases, allegations in the FIR are to be seen whether they dis- close the cognisable offence or not and the roving enquiry at this stage is impermissible.” “It is submitted that the FIR and the complaint clearly dis- closes the cognisable offences and accordingly the CBI has registered the FIR and pro- ceeded with the investigation,” the agency further contended. The agency told the High Court that there cannot be a roving enquiry now as the probe was at the nascent stage and several incriminating documents and role of other persons was under investiga- tion. “It is submitted that the investigation is at nascent stage. Being at this threshold, it may not be in the interest of the investigation to disclose various aspects or revelations or unearthed events,” the CBI said. Meanwhile, the High Court extended till November 14 its order directing the CBI to maintain status quo on pro- ceedings against Asthana, implying that the agency will not take any coercive steps against him. “The interim order to con- tinue till the next date of hear- ing, that is, November 14,” said Justice Najmi Waziri before whom the CBI opposed Asthana’s plea seeking quash- ing of the FIR, stating that there was incriminating material against the special director in the case, the investigation of which was at the nascent stage. A 30-year-old cab driver was arrested by the Delhi Police for allegedly raping a 16-year- old girl, a resident of Madhu Vihar area in East Delhi, whom he had been dropping to school for the past three months, police said Thursday. According to a complaint received by police, the alleged incident took place in September 2018 but the girl kept quiet as she was apparently threatened by the accused, a neighbour, to not to reveal the happening. “The incident came to light after the school teacher informed the girl’s parents that she missed the school on one occasion in September follow- ing which her parents con- fronted her. The girl cracked and narrated her ordeal,” a senior police official siad. “During our investigation it was revealed that the accused had befriended the girl and one day instead of dropping her to school, he took her to his house where he allegedly raped her,” said the senior police official. “A case has been regis- tered under the relevant sec- tions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act. Investigation is going on,” the senior police offi- cial said. F ive people were killed and two others injured in east- ern Assam’s Tinsukia district on Thursday evening after ter- rorists dressed in Army fatigues fired randomly at a group of people belonging to a particu- lar linguistic minority com- munity at Kheraibari area under Dhola, police said. Later, one more injured died in the hospital taking the death toll to five, said police, adding that it suspects the hands of anti-talk faction of Ulfa militants behind the incident. Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal strongly condemned the killing of inno- cent people near Dhola in Tinsukia district which borders Arunachal Pradesh and is located about 485 km east of Assam’s capital town Guwahati. The CM asked asked State Water Resources Minister Keshav Mahanta and Minister of State (Power) Topon Kumar Gogoi to rush to the incident site to take stock of the situation. T he “last round” of peace talks between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leadership and the rebel group in Punjab appears to be coming to naught. Even as AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday tried to play down the “con- flict” by describing the dispute as “party’s internal matter”, his assertion of initiating requisite action against the rebels indi- cated his intent to take a tough stand on the issue. Instead of resolving the prevailing crisis within the party’s state unit, Kejriwal’s visit has only deepened it fur- ther as he decided to maintain distance from the rebel group, led by its MLA Sukhpal Khaira. On the other hand, Khaira minced no words to say that the AAp leadership and Kejriwal has given enough indications that they did not want the party to be united and resolve the internal con- flict. “It is the party's internal matter. Whatever action needs to be taken will be taken at the appropriate time by the party,” said Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal, when asked about the infighting, and the action to be taken against Khaira. “AAP is like a family and in every family, there could be some differences. Whatever internal differences we have within Punjab unit, will be sorted out,” said Kejriwal, dur- ing a media interaction. Kejriwal, during his visit to Chandigarh primarily aimed at forthcoming Haryana assembly election, held a closed-door meeting with the Punjab leaders, including the state unit president and Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann, Leader of Opposition in Vidhan Sabha Harpal Singh Cheema, party MLA and chief spokesperson Prof Baljinder Kaur, Faridkot MP Prof Sadhu Singh. During the meeting, party’s candidates for Lok Sabha elections, whose names were recently announced, were also present. Besides Mann (Sangrur) and Prof Sadhu Singh (Faridkot) who will seek re-election from their respec- tive seats, Dr Ravjot Singh (Hoshiarpur), Narinder Singh Shergill (Sri Anandpur Sahib), and Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal (Amritsar) have been nomi- nated by AAP for 2019 polls. Khaira group, comprising eight dissident legislators who revolted against the party after he was unceremoniously removed from the post of the Leader of Opposition in July, was not invited for the meet- ing, that lasted for about an hour. “We were not aware about Kejriwal’s meeting,” said Khaira on Friday. Mann, after the meeting, told The Pioneer that only the issues concerning the state were the main point of dis- cussion, besides party’s nation- al convener Kejriwal wanted to meet the candidates the party has announced for parlia- mentary polls to wish them luck. “No discussion regarding rebels was held. Our main focus was on the issues that the party wanted to take up, like drugs, farmers, teachers and employees for the elections, rather than talking about them,” said Mann. However, it has been learnt that the talk on the pre- vailing crisis within the party was certainly held, and major- ity of leaders were unanimous for taking a tough stand against the rebels. Sources informed that the leaders, during the meeting, stressed that in place of holding peace talks with the rebels, the party should take a tough action against them to send across a strong message — to which Kejriwal reportedly agreed. Surprised over the announce- ment of candidates, Khaira had given AAP an ultimatum till November 7 to dissolve its current political affairs com- mittee (PAC), and if not, the rebels would come up with a “new front”. He even did not rule out the possibility of the rebels declaring their own list. Terming the decision as “unilateral”, Khaira had accused the leadership of pushing all the unity talks under the carpet, while at the same time maintaining that “doors are still open”. The development came at a time when the representa- tives of both the factions held a detailed meeting, and agreed to join forces for the ensuing parliamentary elections for the party’s interest. Days later, AAP’s state unit appoint 14 new office- bearers, including heads of three wings, three district presidents and eight con- stituency presidents — which Khaira dubbed as the “double standards and insincerity” of state leadership, while setting November 1 as deadline to scrap the appointments before holding the next round of talks. “We had earlier given them an ultimatum till November 1, which we are now extending till November 7. If the party does not agree to abide by the resolutions passed in Bathinda conven- tion, we will start setting up our own structure in villages and towns,” Khaira had said. Khaira, on Thursday, said that their group would still given the party leadership time till November 8. D elhi Chief Minister and AAP national con- vener Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday made it clear that he was not concerned about party’s rebel MLA Sukhpal Khaira. During a media interaction during his visit to Chandigarh, Kejriwal minced no words to say that any action, if required, would be initiated against the rebels. On repeated queries by reporters on inter- nal strife in AAP’s Punjab unit, Kejriwal was quick to reply, “My politics is not Sukhpal Khaira.” “My politics is towards the people of this country. My politics is for a corruption-free India. My politics is for providing good educa- tion, setting up hospitals,” he said. On being told that Khaira has been regu- larly challenging his leadership, Kejriwal said, “Let him do so. How does it matter?” Asked about Khaira’s reported statement in media that he did not want to take name of the Delhi Chief Minister, Kejriwal said: “I also want that he should not take my name.” However, later Khaira made it clear that he had never said that he did not want to take Kejriwal’s name, and he was being misquoted.

Transcript of ˇ ! · hands of anti-talk faction of Ulfa militants behind the incident. Assam Chief Minister...

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Andhra Pradesh ChiefMinister and TDP chief

Chandrababu Naidu onThursday discarded his party’sage-old anti-Congress stanceand called on Congress presi-dent Rahul Gandhji as well sev-eral Opposition leaders in a bidto script a pre-poll Oppositionalliance to take on the BJP.

Naidu’s meeting withRahul came after the TDP andthe Congress joined hands forthe upcoming TelanganaAssembly elections. TheThursday development notonly marks the beginning of anew chapter in the TDP-Congress relationship, but itcould also pave the way foruniting the Opposition partiesahead of the next year’s poll.

From 1990 onward, Naidunever contested any electionwith the Congress, be it State orLok Sabha polls.

Earlier in the day, Naidumet NCP chief Sharad Pawarand National Conference pres-ident Farooq Abdullah here.Naidu also met senior Congressleader Ghulam Nabi Azad atthe Indira Gandhi InternationalAirport here and briefly dis-

cussed about the need to bringall non-BJP political partiestogether. The Andhra PradeshChief Minister also held talkswith former JD(U) leaderSharad Yadav.

Meanwhile, SP chiefAkhilesh Yadav landed in the national Capital foralliance discussion.

This is Naidu’s second visitto Delhi in less than a week. Hehas already held preliminarydiscussions with Delhi Chief Minister ArvindKejriwal, BSP chief Mayawati,Bengal Chief Minister MamataBanerjee, Karnataka ChiefMinister HD Kumaraswamyand the DMK leader.

After the meeting, Rahultold the media that the focalpoint is defeating the BJP.

“We have agreed that prin-ciple idea here is to defeat theBJP and to defend democracyand the institutions of thiscountry,” Rahul said standingside by side with Naidu. “Allother ideas will be discussedlater,” he said deflecting a ques-tion of who would be the faceof proposed Oppositionalliance in the next elections.

“It is very clear that cor-ruption is taking place.Institutions that can investigateare being attacked... A properenquiry on what all happened,where the money went andwho did corruption... That iswhat I am pushing very aggres-sively. Nation wants to knowthis,” the Congress presidentsaid.

When asked about the past

bitter and confrontational rela-tions between the Congress andthe TDP, Rahul said, “We have a past. We have bothagreed that we are not going totalk about our past and talkabout our future”.

Naidu, whose entry on thenational scene as a facilitatorsto bring together all the majornon-BJP parties has created asensation and buzz in national politics, said that verysoon the leaders of all thenon-BJP parties were going tomeet to chalk out the futurecourse of action.

“We have to save thisnation and save democracy.That is our mission. I discussedwith Rahulji. In principle weagreed,” he said refusing to go into the troubled past ofthe relations between the two parties.

Backing Naidu’s effort tounite the Opposition, NCPsupremo Sharad Pawar saidnon-BJP parties will come outwith a common minimum pro-gramme to take on theGovernment, while express-

ing concern over “assault” onthe CBI and the RBI.

“If we collectively work tosave democracy, we can defi-nitely save the institutions.Chandrababu (Naidu) will talkto other State political leadersin this regard,” the NCP chieftold reporters.

Alleging that the situationin the country seems to be“deteriorating” day by day asthere is “assault” on institutionslike the CBI and the RBI, hesaid there is a need to work forthe common cause of “savingthe country and democracy”.

A common minimum pro-gramme will be drafted oncethe non-BJP parties come onboard to discuss the matter,Pawar said.

Voicing concern over the“difficult” times the country isgoing through, Abdullah said,“Today, democracy is in dan-ger and people are in danger.That is why we all met anddecided to work out a commonminimum programme to savedemocracy, institutions andthe nation.”

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The CBI on Thursday justi-fied before the Delhi High

Court the alleged bribery FIRagainst its Special DirectorRakesh Asthana and claimedthat “several incriminating doc-uments have been unearthed”during the ongoing probeagainst him.

During hearing of a plea byAsthana and his deputyDevender Kumar Kumar forquashing of the FIR againstthem before the HC, the CBIsaid, “This court categoricallyheld that when an FIR is chal-lenged by way of a writ petition,more particularly, inPrevention of CorruptionCases, allegations in the FIR areto be seen whether they dis-close the cognisable offence ornot and the roving enquiry atthis stage is impermissible.”

“It is submitted that the FIRand the complaint clearly dis-closes the cognisable offencesand accordingly the CBI hasregistered the FIR and pro-ceeded with the investigation,”the agency further contended.

The agency told the HighCourt that there cannot be aroving enquiry now as theprobe was at the nascent stageand several incriminatingdocuments and role of otherpersons was under investiga-tion.

“It is submitted that theinvestigation is at nascent stage.Being at this threshold, it maynot be in the interest of theinvestigation to disclose variousaspects or revelations orunearthed events,” the CBI said.

Meanwhile, the HighCourt extended till November14 its order directing the CBIto maintain status quo on pro-ceedings against Asthana,

implying that the agency willnot take any coercive stepsagainst him.

“The interim order to con-tinue till the next date of hear-ing, that is, November 14,”said Justice Najmi Waziribefore whom the CBI opposedAsthana’s plea seeking quash-ing of the FIR, stating that therewas incriminating materialagainst the special director inthe case, the investigation ofwhich was at the nascent stage.

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A30-year-old cab driver wasarrested by the Delhi Police

for allegedly raping a 16-year-old girl, a resident of MadhuVihar area in East Delhi, whomhe had been dropping to schoolfor the past three months,police said Thursday.

According to a complaintreceived by police, the allegedincident took place inSeptember 2018 but the girlkept quiet as she was apparentlythreatened by the accused, aneighbour, to not to reveal thehappening.

“The incident came to lightafter the school teacherinformed the girl’s parents thatshe missed the school on oneoccasion in September follow-ing which her parents con-fronted her. The girl crackedand narrated her ordeal,” asenior police official siad.

“During our investigationit was revealed that the accusedhad befriended the girl and one

day instead of dropping her toschool, he took her to hishouse where he allegedly rapedher,” said the senior policeofficial.

“A case has been regis-tered under the relevant sec-tions of the Indian Penal Code(IPC) and POCSO (Protectionof Children from SexualOffences) Act. Investigation isgoing on,” the senior police offi-cial said.

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Five people were killed andtwo others injured in east-

ern Assam’s Tinsukia districton Thursday evening after ter-rorists dressed in Army fatiguesfired randomly at a group ofpeople belonging to a particu-lar linguistic minority com-munity at Kheraibari areaunder Dhola, police said.

Later, one more injureddied in the hospital taking thedeath toll to five, said police,adding that it suspects thehands of anti-talk faction of Ulfamilitants behind the incident.

Assam Chief MinisterSarbananda Sonowal stronglycondemned the killing of inno-cent people near Dhola inTinsukia district which bordersArunachal Pradesh and is located about 485 km east of Assam’s capital townGuwahati.

The CM asked asked StateWater Resources MinisterKeshav Mahanta and Ministerof State (Power) Topon Kumar Gogoi to rush to theincident site to take stock of thesituation.

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The “last round” of peacetalks between the Aam

Aadmi Party (AAP) leadershipand the rebel group in Punjabappears to be coming tonaught. Even as AAP supremoArvind Kejriwal on Thursdaytried to play down the “con-flict” by describing the disputeas “party’s internal matter”, hisassertion of initiating requisiteaction against the rebels indi-cated his intent to take a toughstand on the issue.

Instead of resolving theprevailing crisis within theparty’s state unit, Kejriwal’svisit has only deepened it fur-ther as he decided to maintaindistance from the rebel group,led by its MLA SukhpalKhaira.

On the other hand, Khairaminced no words to say thatthe AAp leadership andKejriwal has given enoughindications that they did not

want the party to be unitedand resolve the internal con-flict.

“It is the party's internalmatter. Whatever action needsto be taken will be taken at theappropriate time by the party,”said Delhi Chief MinisterKejriwal, when asked aboutthe infighting, and the actionto be taken against Khaira.

“AAP is like a family andin every family, there could besome differences. Whateverinternal differences we havewithin Punjab unit, will besorted out,” said Kejriwal, dur-ing a media interaction.

Kejriwal, during his visit toChandigarh primarily aimedat forthcoming Haryanaassembly election, held aclosed-door meeting with thePunjab leaders, including thestate unit president andSangrur MP Bhagwant Mann,Leader of Opposition inVidhan Sabha Harpal SinghCheema, party MLA and chiefspokesperson Prof Baljinder

Kaur, Faridkot MP Prof SadhuSingh.

During the meeting,party’s candidates for LokSabha elections, whose nameswere recently announced, werealso present. Besides Mann(Sangrur) and Prof SadhuSingh (Faridkot) who will seekre-election from their respec-tive seats, Dr Ravjot Singh(Hoshiarpur), Narinder SinghShergill (Sri Anandpur Sahib),and Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal(Amritsar) have been nomi-nated by AAP for 2019 polls.

Khaira group, comprisingeight dissident legislators whorevolted against the party afterhe was unceremoniouslyremoved from the post of theLeader of Opposition in July,was not invited for the meet-ing, that lasted for about anhour.

“We were not aware aboutKejriwal’s meeting,” saidKhaira on Friday.

Mann, after the meeting,told The Pioneer that only the

issues concerning the statewere the main point of dis-cussion, besides party’s nation-al convener Kejriwal wanted tomeet the candidates the partyhas announced for parlia-mentary polls to wish them

luck.“No discussion regarding

rebels was held. Our mainfocus was on the issues that theparty wanted to take up, likedrugs, farmers, teachers andemployees for the elections,

rather than talking aboutthem,” said Mann.

However, it has beenlearnt that the talk on the pre-vailing crisis within the partywas certainly held, and major-ity of leaders were unanimous

for taking a tough standagainst the rebels. Sourcesinformed that the leaders,during the meeting, stressedthat in place of holding peacetalks with the rebels, the partyshould take a tough actionagainst them to send across astrong message — to whichKejriwal reportedly agreed.Surprised over the announce-ment of candidates, Khairahad given AAP an ultimatumtill November 7 to dissolve itscurrent political affairs com-mittee (PAC), and if not, therebels would come up with a“new front”. He even did notrule out the possibility of therebels declaring their own list.

Terming the decision as“unilateral”, Khaira hadaccused the leadership ofpushing all the unity talksunder the carpet, while at thesame time maintaining that“doors are still open”.

The development came ata time when the representa-tives of both the factions held

a detailed meeting, and agreedto join forces for the ensuingparliamentary elections forthe party’s interest.

Days later, AAP’s stateunit appoint 14 new office-bearers, including heads ofthree wings, three districtpresidents and eight con-stituency presidents — whichKhaira dubbed as the “doublestandards and insincerity” ofstate leadership, while settingNovember 1 as deadline toscrap the appointments beforeholding the next round oftalks. “We had earlier giventhem an ultimatum til lNovember 1, which we arenow extending till November7. If the party does not agreeto abide by the resolutionspassed in Bathinda conven-tion, we will start setting upour own structure in villagesand towns,” Khaira had said.

Khaira, on Thursday, saidthat their group would stillgiven the party leadershiptime till November 8.

Delhi Chief Minister and AAP national con-vener Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday made

it clear that he was not concerned about party’srebel MLA Sukhpal Khaira.

During a media interaction during his visitto Chandigarh, Kejriwal minced no words to saythat any action, if required, would be initiatedagainst the rebels.

On repeated queries by reporters on inter-nal strife in AAP’s Punjab unit, Kejriwal wasquick to reply, “My politics is not SukhpalKhaira.”

“My politics is towards the people of this

country. My politics is for a corruption-freeIndia. My politics is for providing good educa-tion, setting up hospitals,” he said.

On being told that Khaira has been regu-larly challenging his leadership, Kejriwal said,“Let him do so. How does it matter?”

Asked about Khaira’s reported statement inmedia that he did not want to take name of theDelhi Chief Minister, Kejriwal said: “I also wantthat he should not take my name.”

However, later Khaira made it clear that hehad never said that he did not want to takeKejriwal’s name, and he was being misquoted.

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Cracking down on the violence,arson and terror allegedly

unleashed by the Sikhs For Justice(SFJ) under the guise of Referendum2020, the Punjab Police on Thursdaybusted a Pakistan-sponsored ter-rorist module, Khalistan GadarForce, with the arrest of oneShabnamdeep Singh from Patiala.

The police claimed thatShabnamdeep Singh alias ManinderLahoria was asked by his Pakistan-based handlers to target police postsand crowded places during theupcoming festival season. Theyadded that a pistol, a hand grenade,a motorcycle and letter pads in thename of ‘Khalistan Gadar Force’, andother terrorist outfits were seizedfrom his possession.

The state DGP Suresh Arorasaid that Shabnamdeep’s arrest hasexposed the nexus betweenPakistan's Inter-Services Intelligencespy agency and Gurpatwant SinghPannu's fringe outfit Sikhs for Justice(SFJ) as one of his handlers had iden-tified himself as an SFJ operative.

Arora said that Shabnamdeephails from Daftari Wala Burar villagein Patiala district and was out on bail

in a case registered in Rajasthan.Shabnamdeep was operating a

Facebook account under a pseudo-nym ‘Lahoria Jatt Gill’, and theaccount had a profile picture ofJarnail Singh Bhindranwale, theDGP said. A preliminary investiga-tion has revealed that Shabnamdeepwas contacted by Javed Khan Wazir,a suspected Pakistani intelligenceofficer, in July 2018, and was intro-duced to a Pakistani Sikh, the DGPsaid, adding that Shabnamdeep wasthen introduced to Nihal Singh, whoidentified himself to him as an SFJoperative.

Nihal and Wazir communicat-ed regularly with Singh and used toincite him to indulge in arson, hesaid adding that they asked him torecord his acts of arson and sharewith them the videos with details ofnews reports about the incidents.

“Wazir shared the logo andname of ‘Khalistan Gadar Force’ withShabnamdeep and asked him to getletter pads printed to use them forissuing statements claiming acts ofarson,” the DGP said. He added thatShabnamdeep and his handlers cre-ated a Facebook page in the name of‘Khalistan Gadar Force’.

Arora said that Wazir asked

Shabnamdeep to carry out targetedkillings and also promised him Rs 10lakh for each act of violence. In thesecond week of October 2018,Shabnamdeep was asked by hishandlers to procure a new phoneand install a new messaging appli-cation for further communication,the DGP said, adding that aroundOctober 24, a pistol and grenadewere delivered to Shabnamdeepadvising him to use the same onsome Police Station or Police Postand crowded place during the ongo-ing festival session.

DONT FALL PREY: DGP TOPUNJAB YOUTH

The state top cop said that theorganisation is patently preying onthe poor, illiterate and devout Sikhyouth from the Punjab countrysideand radicalizing them.

“The youth are being exploitedby SFJ, which is using their povertyand credulity as cannon fodder tounleash violence and promote seces-sionist acts in the state,” said theDGP while appealing to Punjab’syouth not to fall into the trap of suchanti-national and secessionist forcesout to destroy their lives by pushingthem into violence and arson.

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To further tighten the noosearound the neck of offend-

ers who are bent on violatinganti-tobacco law, the PunjabGovernment on Thursdaylaunched a ‘Yellow LineCampaign,’ declaring 100-yardarea around educational insti-tutions as ‘tobacco-free zone’.

The ambitious ‘Yellow lineCampaign’ was launched by thestate Health and FamilyWelfare Minister BrahmMohindra while kick-startingstate specific ‘Punjab State NoTobacco Day’, organized atChandigarh’s Sukhna Lake.

This year, ‘Punjab State

No Tobacco Day’ is beingobserved on the theme of‘Tobacco Breaks Heart’. Besides,a booklet on Tobacco-NCDcontrol programme was alsoreleased in the functionauthored by State TobaccoControl Cell, in collaborationwith PGIMER’s School ofPublic Health.

“It is for the first time thatthe Health Department hasobserved the ‘Punjab State NoTobacco Day’ coinciding withthe Punjab Day to sensitize theyouth about the creation ofPunjab State and making ittotally drug free state,” saidMohindra..

Flagging various attributesof the flagship Yellow LineCampaign, Mohindra said thatit has been launched in all dis-tricts of Punjab under which ayellow line is marked to demar-

cate ‘tobacco free zone’ at 100yards from the schools and col-

leges.During this week-long

campaigns, state as well as dis-trict health officers wouldensure the strict implementa-tion of Cigarettes and otherTobacco Products Act, 2003,and would create awarenessamong the students of educa-tional institutes fromNovember 1 to 7.

The Minister said that theHealth Department has takenup tobacco control as a flagshipprogram, and as a result,Punjab has became the leadingState of the country to complytobacco control law.

“Acting against the viola-tors, about 25,139 challans hadbeen issued under COTPA-2003 during 2017-18. All the 22districts in the state have beendeclared as tobacco smokefree. Total 730 villages havebeen declared themselvesTobacco Free Villages by pass-

ing the resolution in 2017-18,” he said.

He added that the StateGovernment had established‘Tobacco Cessation centers’ inall the districts, besides pro-viding free counselling servicesand cessation medicines likeNicotine gums and patches inthese centers. Tobacco cessa-tion services are also being pro-vided by the dental surgeons inthe district hospitals.

“Punjab is a pioneer state tofocus on youth by timely banon e-cigarettes, hookah barsand by declaring hostels of col-leges and universities as tobac-co free,” he said adding that weare now diverting our energytowards youth of marginal-ized section of society likeslum population and ruralareas of Punjab by organisingregular oral screening.

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On the occasion of Haryana Day,Industries and Commerce

Minister Vipul Goel on Thursdaylaunched the state’s first onlineKhadi selling centre, an initiative ofthe Haryana Khadi and VillageIndustries Board in Panchkula.

The Minister also launchedbrand Har Khadi and its logo.

While extending greetings ofHaryana Day to the people, Goelsaid that Haryana Khadi and VillageIndustries Board would complete its50 years in February 2019. So far, noprevious governments had evertaken such initiative for the promo-tion of khadi as taken by the presentgovernment, he said.

The Board will also organiseKhadi Fashion Melas in 2019 tomake khadi products easily available

to people “Mahatma Gandhi'scharkha reminds about India’s free-dom struggle. Mahatma Gandhi hadpromoted khadi by adopting khadiin his life. On his vision, HaryanaGovernment is taking special stepsin the direction of promotion ofkhadi and cleanliness,” he added.

The Minister said that similar-ly, such Khadi selling stores wouldbe opened at the district level andalso outside the state.

Goel also assured chairperson ofHaryana Khadi and VillageIndustries Board, Gargi Kakkar onher demand to arrange an adequatebudget to promote Khadi produc-tion. He said that for the last manyyears, people were losing touchwith Khadi. Now under the presentgovernment, Khadi would reachthe common people through theBoards’ initiative of online Khadi

selling centres. Spinning cotton onCharkha has taken a bigger form andtoday wearing Khadi has becomefashion. It is a matter of pride for thepeople of the state, Goel said.

As the trend of online selling hastaken root throughout the country,in such time Haryana Khadi andVillage Industries Board has alsotaken such initiative for the sale ofits products which is an appreciativestep. The Board would not be laggedbehind in any field and meaningfulefforts would be made to establishthe identity of Khadi products ofHaryana Khadi and VillageIndustries Board in the country aswell as abroad, he added.

Chairperson of Haryana Khadiand Village Industries Board, GargiKakkar said that on the occasion ofHaryana Day, we have also launchedbrand- Har Khadi and its logo.

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Chandigarh: HaryanaCongress chief Ashok Tanwaron Thursday said that hisparty fully supports thedemand of people of Manethivillage in Rewari and AIIMSwill be set up in this villagewhen Congress comes topower.

Tanwar reached Manethivillage and joined the dharnathere on the demand of settingup of AIIMS.

He alleged that ChiefMinister Manohar Lal hadannounced on July 4, 2015 toset-up AIIMS at Manethi and220 acres of land was acquiredby the BJP Government forthis purpose.

This announcement of theChief Minister also provedmere a jumla like otherannouncements. PNS

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The 7th Chandigarh LiteratureFestival - CLF - started here on

Thursday with a panel discussion on"Me Too" controversy with panelistsNilanjana Roy, Annie Zaidi andGautam Kishanchandani.

Moderated by Akshaya Kumar,the panelists shared their own experi-ences with the MeToo movement, bothin the work environment as well as per-sonal environment. The session capti-vated the audience’s atten-tion and was followed by aninteresting interactive ses-sion.

Earlier, the theme wasintroduced by Mitul Dikshit, Chairman, AdabFoundation and then a fes-tival introduction was givenby Annie Zaidi, Festivaldirector.

This panel discussion

was followed by a tribute to the 'CityBeautiful'- Chandigarh. The book 'TheBig Small Town: How Life Looks FromChandigarh' was discussed by criticSakoon Singh with author AarishChhabra.

The inaugural day came to an endwith a performance - 'Blank Page' - AnInterpretation of contemporary Indianpoetry through theatre, music andmovement , which was conducted bymembers of Tamaasha Theatre Group,Mumbai.

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Following severe levels of airpollution in Delhi and the

National Capital Region (NCR)that has left people gasping,Delhi Chief Minister ArvindKejriwal on Thursday accusedthe Punjab Government offailing to control stubble burn-ing that has deteriorated the airquality after October 25.

“The national capital haswitnessed abnormal increase inpollution level after October 25and this happens every yeardue to stubble burning duringharvesting season. This is dueto Punjab Government’s failureto stop cases of stubble burn-ing,” said Kejriwal, AAP con-vener while talking to themediapersons here.

Kejriwal, while showingsatellite images of stubble burn-ing in Punjab and Haryana tojustify his claims said that theincidents of stubble burning aremore in Punjab this year thanin Haryana.

“The images show maxi-mum number of cases of stub-ble burning in Bathinda,Amritsar and other districts inPunjab while in Haryana, thisis limited to north Haryana inthe areas around Ambala dis-trict only,” he said amid thepolitical blame game over therising air pollution in thenational capital.

“The satellite image indi-cates stubble burning in sever-al parts of Punjab and therecannot be a more scientificproof than this,” he said whilelashing out at the PunjabGovernment for not providingits farmers enough assistance tostop cases of stubble burningthis year.

Criticizing the PunjabGovernment and PunjabPollution Control Board

(PPCB) for their claims regard-ing decline in stubble-burningcases this Kharif season, theDelhi Chief Minister said thatsatellite images show that stub-ble burning is mostly happen-ing in Punjab.

The quality of air in thenational capital deterioratesevery year after October 25,once the farmers begin burn-ing paddy stubble, he alleged

Continuing his tiradeagainst the neighboring gov-ernment, he said that everyyear this happens betweenOctober 25 and November 20and pollution levels go upsharply in the national capitaldue to stubble burning.

Before October 25, the Air

Quality Index (AQI) was below200 but it has suddenly touchedover 400 now. The AQIremained below 200 the entireyear in the national capital butwitness sharp increase duringthe harvesting season, he said.

We cannot blame the pol-lution due to vehicles andindustries in Delhi for the cur-rent situation.

This is due to stubble burn-ing only, he added.

Noting that not onlyDelhites but residents of thenational capital region includ-ing Gurugram, Noida,Ghaziabad and surroundingplaces are also suffering due tothe poor air quality, the AAPconvener said that everyone

will have to work responsiblyand collectively to address theissue.

Blaming the Centre for thesevere air pollution in Delhi,Kejriwal said that UnionMinister Harsh Vardhan hadassured him a few months agothat both Punjab and Haryanawould get financial assistanceto buy machines for managingstubble.

“The Union Minister hadassured me that there is noneed to worry as each village inPunjab and Haryana will begiven grant to purchase four tofive machines for managementof stubble.

But nothing has hap-pened… Why it did not hap-

pen, he has to answer?,” hesaid.

On his meeting withHaryana Chief MinisterManohar Lal Khattar on theissue of stubble burning lastyear, Kejriwal said thatManohar Lal had assured himto control cases of stubbleburning this year and the satel-lite images showed that suchcases have indeed declined inthe state this time.

Notably, large number offarmers in Punjab and Haryanacontinue to defy the ban onstubble burning, claiming thatthey are “compelled” to do soin the absence of any financialsupport from the governmentfor farm waste management.

According to a recentreport by the Centre-runSystem of Air QualityForecasting and Research(SAFAR), Punjab and Haryanacontributed to 32 per cent ofDelhi’s overall pollution onlast Saturday.

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Haryana Chief MinisterManohar Lal Khattar on

Thursday announced to endthe practice of Lal Dora in thevillages and said that now theproperty could be registeredbesides maintaining their rev-enue records.

Announcing bonanza ofincentives for the people of thestate on the occasion ofHaryana Day, the ChiefMinister said old age pension,widow pension and Divyangpension have been increased to�2,000 per month.

Addressing Jan VishwasRally in Panipat, the ChiefMinister said that now all for-mer Sarpanches, Presidents ofZila Parishad and Block Samitisin the state would get month-ly pension of �1,000 and max-imum pension of �2,000 ashonorarium for one tenure.Tenure of two-and-a-half yearsand above would be consideredcomplete tenure.

Manohar Lal alsoannounced to give pension ashonorarium of �2,500 to all for-mer Mayors of all MunicipalCorporations for every tenureand �2,000 each to formerSenior Deputy Mayor, formerDeputy Mayor and Head ofevery Municipal Council foreach tenure. Former Heads ofMunicipalities would get�1,000 per month for eachtenure. This pension would begiven for maximum of twotenures and till the age of 60years. Tenure of two-and-a-halfyears and above would be con-sidered complete tenure.

The Chief Ministerannounced to give an insurancecoverage of �10 lakh by thestate government for thoseemployees working on haz-ardous jobs like lineman, assis-tant lineman, fireman, sewer-man, fire driver and others inany of the government depart-ment, board, corporation andurban local bodies. In addition,the benefit of this schemewould also be given to all reg-istered sewer men.

He said that on November20,2017, the state governmenthad provided all Haryana gov-ernment employees the cash-less treatment facility for sixtypes of ailments. Now thefacility has been extended to alldiseases and its treatmentexpenses would be cashless. Hesaid that now the studentsstudying in ITIs, polytechnics,colleges and universities neednot make rounds of govern-ment offices for making drivinglicense.

All desiring students wouldget learning license for drivingfrom the Principals of theirrespective institutions and dri-ving tests for permanent dri-ving license would also betaken in their respective insti-tutions and the certificate ofpassing the driving test wouldalso be issued in their respec-tive institutions.

The Chief Minister saidthat in the last four years of thepresent government, 2,279 kmslong new roads have been con-structed and approval has been

given for the construction of1505 kms new roads. On whichwork is in progress.

Congratulating the peoplefor the completion of KMPexpressway, he said that PrimeMinister Narendra Modi wouldinaugurate the expressway onNovember 10. The ChiefMinister also announced 36development projects of �78crore for the villagers ofPanipat. Manohar Lal said thata lot of works could have beendone in 48 years in the state.Every government has donework be it less or more, but

there are some works whichhave only been done by the pre-sent government. Those workscould have been carried outearlier also, but either they hadno intention or they remainengrossed in corruption.

"We have brought changesin the system which is benefit-ting the people of the state.Through Antyodaya center,Atal Seva Kendras and GramSachivalayas, the people aregetting the benefit of 400schemes of different depart-ments online, under one roof,"he said.

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With the crucial Lok Sabhapolls just a few months

away, Punjab Congress is all setto witness a change of guardsoon.

Aimed at giving a freshstart to the party in some of thestates while ending infightingin others, the Congress highcommand has started theprocess of searching the newstate presidents in five states,including Punjab.

Besides Punjab, the partymay also appoint new PradeshCongress Committee presi-dents in the neighbouringstates of Delhi, Haryana,Himachal Pradesh along withMumbai.

Punjab Congress presidentSunil Jakhar, who is alsoMember of Parliament fromGurdaspur, is set to seek re-election in the ensuing 2019Lok Sabha polls. “After hiselection as MP fromGurdaspur, Jakhar has beenjuggling between two roles —that of the state party chief andan MP — which has, at least tosome extent, affected the partyin Punjab,” a senior Congressleader requesting anonymitytold The Pioneer, while con-firming that he may soon bereplaced. However, at the sametime, the leader maintainedthat Jakhar has been effective

in his role as state unit presi-dent, and has worked as abridge between the party andthe government. The leadersubmitted that for parliamen-tary polls, scheduled for thenext year, a full-time activestate president is what theparty need to lead from thefront, and if Jakhar wanted tore-contest from Gurdaspur LokSabha seat, he would not beable to devote much time to theorganisational affairs in thestate. Notably, the Congress isleaving no stone unturned toreturn to power, and the newparty presidents would betasked with immediate revivalof the organisation position inthese states ahead of 2019polls.

It has been learnt that theannouncement for the newPunjab Pradesh CongressCommittee (PPCC) presidentwould be made by Novemberonly. It may also be possiblethat the party may appoint aworking president.

For the coveted post, nameof party’s senior Dalit leaderand MLA Raj Kumar Verka isdoing the rounds. Despitebeing the Chief Minister CaptAmarinder Singh staunch loy-

alist, Verka failed to make it tothe State Cabinet, which mayeventually go in his favour forelevation as the party’s stateunit chief.

Verka, MLA fromAmritsar (West) constituency,has gone vocal after the ChiefMinister failed to give enoughrepresentation to the dalit lead-ers in his council of ministers.He was among the first leadersfrom Punjab to raise the issueof no or under representationof scheduled or backward classin the State Cabinet with theCongress national presidentRahul Gandhi, who had thenassured him of “suitablyaccommodating” him.

Besides Verka, the name ofCapt Amarinder’s bête noireand Rajya Sabha MP PartapSingh Bajwa is also under con-sideration. Gurdaspur’s formerMP, Bajwa has served as PPCCpresident for about two yearsfrom 2013 to 2015, before hisunceremonious removal by theparty high command underpressure from Capt Amarindercamp after the party’s poorshow in 2014 parliamentarypolls. What may work infavour of Bajwa is his previousperformance as state party

chief. Bajwa led the party fromthe front to take on the thenSAD-BJP government by hornsby initiating a strong agitationagainst drugs, targeting itsleader Bikram Singh Majithia,along with other scams inParkash Singh Badal govern-ment.

But, on the other hand,Capt Amarinder would ensurethat Bajwa would not get backthe state presidentship as manyparty leaders are already upsetwith their own Government onscores of issues.

Capt Amarinder, who isexpected to return from his trip

from Turkey on Friday, mayseek an appointment to meetthe party chief Rahul Gandhi todiscuss various issues, includ-ing the new state president orworking president, besides theallegations of sexual harass-ment against his CabinetMinister, among others.

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Eyeing 2019 Lok Sabha andAssembly polls in Haryana,

Delhi Chief Minister and AAPconvenor Arvind Kejriwal onThursday went on to chal-lenge his Haryana counterpartManohar Lal Khattar over thework done by their respectiveState Governments in the lastfour years.

“When I visited Haryanarecently, I witnessed poor infra-structure of schools, hospitals,roads and even electricity facil-ity. In Delhi, we have workedfor improving schools, hospi-tals and other facilites,” he saidwhile talking to the mediaper-sons here.

Promising to emulate the‘Mohalla Clinic model’ of Delhiin Haryana if the AAP is votedto power in the next assemblyelection, Kejriwal said, “Peopleshould decide whether to shunthe party that sought votes inthe name of temple andmosques and to support theone which worked for buildingschools and hospitals.”

Preparing for the Haryana

assembly elections with a mes-sage of building a “NewHaryana”, Kejriwal had visitedthe state for several times in thepast three months to reach outto the general public. He hasaddressed public meetings,held roadshows and visitedschools of Haryana.

The party has planned tocontest on all 10 Lok Sabhaseats from Haryana and also,on all 90 assembly seats, elec-tion for which are due laternext year

Eyeing a win in theHaryana Assembly polls nextyear, Kejriwal is hard selling hisAAP led Delhi Government’sachievements in the field ofeducation and health sectors tothe voters of Haryana.

With Haryana’s proximityto AAP ruled Delhi and thestate being Kejriwal’s homestate, the AAP leaders feel thatthe party can benefit from var-ious factors including a politi-cal vacuum in Haryana at pre-sent. Speaking here on thestate’s foundation day, beingcelebrated as ‘Haryana Diwas’,the AAP convener on

Thursday alleged that everysection of the society in thestate is unhappy with theCongress, the Indian NationalLok Dal (INLD) and the rulingBharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

These parties have ruledthe state for over 50 years now.While the Congress, INLDand the BJP regimes had failedto perform in Haryana, hisAAP government had broughtrevolutionary changes in thenational capital, Kejriwalclaimed.

52 years have passed sincethe formation of Haryana butstill the expectations of peopleof the state remain unfulfilled,he added. Accusing the politi-cal parties to play a politics ofcaste, the AAP convener saidthat they talk about Jats,Baniyas, Pandits …. All theseparties have been dividing thestate on caste lines by eitherwooing Jats or non Jats, healleged. “Till now, the INLDand Congress were seekingvotes from Jats and BJP fromnon Jats. Not even a singleparty had sought votes forproviding good education and

hospital services, better infra-structure and power,” Kejriwalsaid. The Delhi Chief Ministerfurther alleged that under theerstwhile INLD Government,the state's law and order wentfor a toss while Congressregime was no better andindulged in land grabbing andcorruption.

Both INLD and Congressare witnessing infighting todayand have nothing to offer to thepeople of Haryana, he said.

Slamming Manohar Lalfor calling Mohalla Clinics asHalla clinics, Kejriwal chal-lenged him to visit any five clin-ics in the national capital.

If he accepts my challenge,I will also accompany him tovisit Haryana's dispensaries onNovember 12. I will also bewriting a letter to the ChiefMinister in this regard, headded.

On the Sutlej-Yamuna Linkcanal issue, Kejriwal said hisparty will abide by what theSupreme Court decides as heslammed the BJP and theCongress of failing to resolvethe contentious issue.

Continuing his tiradeagainst the BJP led HaryanaGovernment, the Delhi CMSaid that farmers are unhappyas they are not getting com-pensation for their damagedcrops and remunerative pricesfor their crops, youths are dis-appointed and schools, hospi-tals are in dilapidated condi-tion.

Notably, the AAP hasplanned to quote the ‘DelhiModel’ and list the achieve-ments of the Kejriwal led DelhiGovernment to woo the votersin Haryana.

After tasting defeat at thehustings in the previous LokSabha polls from Haryana, theAAP had not contested theOctober 2014 assembly elec-tions in the state.

In the previous parlia-mentary polls held in 2014,AAP had lost on all 10 LokSabhaseats in Haryana andmost of its candidates had fin-ished at fourth or fifth position.

At present, the search is onfor party’s candidates for LokSabha polls 2019, likely to beheld in May-April.

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Punjab Government wouldorganize third round of Job

Fairs across the state underGhar Ghar Rozgar Yojana, stateTechnical Education &Employment GenerationMinister, Charanjit SinghChanni said on Thursday.

Presiding over a meeting toreview the arrangements for thethird round of Job Fairs, he saidPunjab Government wouldoffer 82000 job opportunities inthe privates sector to the Youthof Punjab during these fairs.

The Minister said that thisyear jobs fairs to be held fromNovember 12 to November 22at 40 places across the state.

He said that theDepartment of EmploymentGeneration and TechnicalEducation are jointly workingto facilitate youth for these fairs.During the meeting theMinister directed both the

departments to launch aware-ness campaign to bring skilledyouth to the Job Fairs and guidethem getting proper jobs as pertheir skill. He also asked theEmployment Generation andTraining department to launcha 24X7 job helpline for this pur-pose.

During the meeting theofficers briefed that nearly 2.25lakh youth have been alreadyregistered for availing suitablejob opportunities in govern-ment, public and private sectorson the job portal operated bythe Employment GenerationDepartment.

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Continuing their strike forthe 17th day against the

State Government’s decisionto hire 700 private buses,Haryana Roadways employ-ees on Thursday announced toextend the strike by anothertwo days and to hold a rally inJind district on November 4.

Defying EMSA enforce-ment, the roadways employeeshave been on strike sinceOctober 16 in the state.

The longest ever roadwaysstrike have hit the public trans-port services despite the StateGovernment making alternate

arrangements, includingappointing drivers and con-ductors and hiring buses.

The roadways, having afleet of 4,100 buses, cater toabout 12 lakh passengers daily.

The striking employees onThursday observed ‘Black day’on the occasion of Haryana’sfoundation day on November1.

“The Haryana RoadwaysEmployees CoordinationCommittee on Thursday decid-ed to extend the stir tillNovember 4. The protesterswill hold a 'save roadways pro-tect employment' state-levelrally at Jind on November 4,”

said committee leader DalbirKirmara.

Accusing the BJP ledHaryana Government of ignor-ing its employees, he said,“The present dispensation isleast bothered about employeesand people of the state and itsonly aim is to benefit the cho-sen ones.”

He added that the employ-ees will announce their nextcourse of action at the Jind rally.The employees have allegedthat the government's move toinduct 700 private buses is astep towards privatisation of thestate roadways.

The activists of the Sarv

Karmachari Sangh and theHaryana KaramchariMahasangh and gram pan-chayats and khap leaders havealso been invited to attend therally.

In the past few days,employees under SarvKarmachari Sangh and theHaryana KaramchariMahasangh and gram pan-chayats, khap leaders inHaryana have lent their supportto the roadways employees’strike.

Opposition Congress andthe Indian National Lok Dal(INLD) have already extendedtheir support to the protestingemployees. A day before, aCongress delegation had alsomet Governor SatyadeoNarain Arya urging him tointervene to put an end to theongoing strike.

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Haryana Day was celebrat-ed with enthusiasm and

zeal at Haryana Raj Bhavan,here.

The function was inaugu-rated by Satyadeo Narain Aryaand Chief Minister ManoharLal by lighting a traditionallamp. Punjab Governor, V.P.Badnore was also present onthe occasion.

Haryana Governor,Satyadeo Narain Arya said thestate has undertaken unprece-dented development in everyarea and it is among the devel-oped states of the country. Heappealed to the people of thestate to take a pledge to furthermaking Haryana the mostdeveloped state equipped withall the modern facilities.

The artists kept the audi-ence spellbound with theirperformances and theGovernor announced to giveRs five lakh to artists for theirperformance in the function.

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Aminor girl was allegedlykidnapped and raped by

three miscreants in the Balisahiarea of Ganjam district onWednesday night. The victimwas admitted to the MKCGMedical College Hospital herein a critical condition.

“Three persons barged intoour house with an intention ofrobbery. They looted goldornaments and cash. Beforefleeing the spot, they abductedmy daughter,” said the father ofthe girl.

The incident took placewhile the victim and her par-ents were asleep in their house.The robbers broke open thedoor of the house, stole thevaluables and kidnapped thegirl.

The trio took the girl to anearby farmland, where theyraped her, reports said.

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The Vedanta Limited,Jharsuguda’s flagship liveli-

hood and women empower-ment CSR project, SubhalaxmiCooperative, conducted its 9thannual general body meeting.

This year, the cooperativehas completed a decade ofoperation, working towardssocio-economic upliftment of

women in the rural margins ofJharsuguda.

Vedanta, Jharsuguda CEOAbhijit Pati, Head CSR SundarRaj, poet Padmashree HaldharNag, Subhalaxmi Cooperativepresident Puspanjali Seth andvice president Monabati Baggraced as dignitaries on theoccasion. More than 250 atten-dees including members andBoard of Directors of

Subhalaxmi , members ofVedanta senior managementand CSR Department werepresent.

Pati expressed his pride inthe cooperative and the manymilestones it has achieved sofar. He urged the members toevolve into the role of dynam-ic change-makers, championthe holistic development ofwomen in Jharsuguda.

Nag appreciated the effortsof everyone associated withSubhalaxmi and motivated themembers to continue theirwork with passion and zeal.

Subhalaxmi cooperativepresident Seth said the coop-erative has a corpus of Rs 2.50crore with a strong member-ship base of 3,729 women from302 Self Help Groups across 66villages Jharsuguda.

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The ‘Sampurna Kranti RathYatra’, taken out by the

Confederation of All IndiaTraders (CAIT) from Delhion September 15 in protestagainst the Walmart, Flipkartdeal and FDI in retail market,was welcomed here onWednesday.

Ganjam Chamber ofCommerce president VVRNRao and secretary SantoshKumar Sahu, OdishaByabasayee Mahasangh work-

ing president Ch Rabindranathand general secretary SudhakarPanda, CAIT vice-presidentBrij Mohan Agrawal welcomedthe Rath into Odisha, whichwas accompanied byChhatisgarh Chamber ofCommerce and Industry vice-president Virendra Singh.

The Rath, which is sched-uled to move for 90 days, willconclude at Jantarmatar inDelhi on December 19 whenmore than 25,000 traders fromall over the country wouldsubmit a memorandum to thePrime Minister.

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The Mahanadi CoalfieldsLimited (MCL) on

Thursday dedicated the 44thCoal India Day celebrations tothe miners engaged in 24x7production and despatch oper-ations of dry fuel for ensuringenergy security of the nation.MCL CMD RR Mishra metminers engaged in produc-tion and despatch in the IbValley coalfields in Jharsugudadistrict.

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����� 34-54&*/

Against the backdrop ofChina flexing its muscle in

South China Sea leading to ten-sion with other nations locat-ed on its rim, Army ChiefGeneral Bipin Rawat onThursday said the disputedsovereignty of maritime terri-tories is threatening interna-tional waters.

Making this point here, healso said India has no extra-ter-ritorial ambitions, but its aimis to ensure a conducive exter-nal and internal security envi-ronment for unhindered eco-nomic progress and socio-political development.

Speaking at a seminar on‘Evolving Geo-Politics of theIndo-Pacific Region-Challenges and Prospects,’Rawat said contested sover-eignty of maritime territoriespose a major challenge in EastAsia and the South China Seaand these disputed maritimeboundaries are threateninginternational waters.

Stressing that stability inthe Indo-Pacific region isessential for economic progress,he also said within the Indo-Pacific, the Indian OceanRegion remains India’s prima-ry area of interest adding Indiais committed to uphold andstrengthen the rules-basedorder in Indo-Pacific. He alsosaid “we have no extra-territo-rial ambitions and we have nodesire to transplant our ide-ologies on others.”

Humanitarian AndDisaster Relief (HADR) oper-ations, Search and Rescue(SAR) missions, protection ofvital Sea Lanes ofCommunication, and robustdefence of India’s island terri-tories are major aspects onwhich the Army is investing incapability development towards tri-services efforts,Rawat said.

Australia High

Commissioner to IndiaHarinder Sidhu, said in her address if invited,Australia is willing to join theMalabar Exercise.

“It makes sense forAustralia to exercise withwhom we work closely inIndian and Pacific Oceans,”Sidhu said.

Malabar is a trilateral exer-cise between India, the USand Japan, and Australia is keenon joining the naval drill. Shesaid with shared interest, itsstrategic location in the Indo-Pacific, Australia should also beconsidered in the top ranks ofIndia’s partnerships.

Referring to the maritimedisputes in the Indo-Pacific,Sidhu said Australia has beenconcerned by the pace andscale of China’s activities in theSouth China Sea, includingthe use of disputed beaches andartificial structures for militarypurpose.

Batting for a greater mili-tary cooperation with India,she said for the first time, in its2017 Foreign Policy White

paper, Australia placed India inthe front rank for internation-al partnership. While India hasalways been an important part-ner for Australia, she said thestrategic partnership betweenthe two nations is strongerthan it has ever been.

Highlighting Australia’sstrategic location in the Indo-Pacific, Sidhu said Australiashould also be considered in thetop ranks of India’s partnershipsand called for India andAustralia to agree on a MutualLogistics Support Agreementbetween the two militaries.

On Quad, a group com-prising India, Australia, the USand Japan formed to promoteshared interests in the Indo-Pacific, the envoy said she isoften asked whether it isachieving its objective.

“In my view, it is doingexactly what it was intended todo. The purpose of any dialogue is to build under-standing and deepen sharedinterest. The Quad is intendedto do no more and no less thanthat,” she said.

����� 34-54&*/

Ahead of the Lok Sabhapolls next year, the Election

Commission (EC) has receivedaround 22.3 lakh ballot unitsand 16.3 lakh control units ofthe latest version of electronicvoting machines, M-3.

It is estimated that as manyas 22.3 lakh ballot units, 16.3lakh control units and nearly17.3 lakh VVPATs or papertrail machines will be used forthe 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

The number of machinesincludes the buffer stock fortraining as well as replace-ments. These machines wouldbe deployed at the nearly 10.6lakh polling stations acrossIndia in the next parliamentaryelections. The new M3 typeEVM will be used in the com-ing assembly polls in five States.

The Bharat Electronics Ltdand the ElectronicsCorporation of India Ltd weremandated to deliver thesemachines to the poll panel bySeptember 30 “and now thedelivery has been completed,”the official said. The new ‘M3’-type EVM is “tamper-detect”and will stop functioning ifanyone tries to tinker with it.

Another feature of this new M3EVM is self-diagnosis. That is,it can automatically detect anyfault with the software or sys-tem and will show it in the dis-play. According to officials,the Control Unit and BallotUnit can communicate witheach other. If someone plantsa Ballot Unit or Control Unitfrom outside, the digital sig-nature will not match and thesystem would stop functioning.

The M2 or mark 2 typeEVMs (2006-10) can cater to a

maximum of 64 candidates,including NOTA. There is pro-vision for 16 candidates in aballoting unit. If the total num-ber of candidates exceeds 16,more balloting units can beattached up to a maximum of64 candidates by connectingfour balloting units.

However, in case of M3EVMs, which came after 2013,a maximum of 384 candidatesincluding NOTA can be catered to by connecting 24balloting units.

During simultaneous elec-tions, two separate sets ofEVMs are required, one for theparliamentary constituencyand the other for legislativeassembly constituency.

In case of an error with theVVPAT, the machine isreplaced with a reserve. But incase a ballot unit or control unitmalfunctions, the entire set ofballot unit, control unit andVVPAT is replaced.

Till date, EVMs have beenused in 113 Assembly electionsand three Lok Sabha electionssince 2000. Amid demands bysome opposition parties to goback to ballot papers, theCommission has maintainedthat use of EVMs has ended thedays of booth capturing and thedelays and errors in counting ofballot papers.

At a recent all-party meet-ing, several parties had ques-tioned the reliability of votingmachines, alleging that theycould be tampered with.Seventeen opposition partieshave come together to make afresh demand that voters in the2019 Lok Sabha elections exer-cise their franchise by stamp-ing the ballot paper, not press-ing the button on EVMs.

����� 34-54&*/

The Union Home Ministryon Thursday approved a

Safe City project for Lucknowat a total cost of Rs.194.44 croreunder the Nirbhaya FundScheme. The project would beimplemented as a CentrallySponsored Scheme with Centreand State sharing the fundingin 60:40 ratio.

Under this project,Lucknow will have integratedcontrol room, special unit forwomen protection and pinkout posts to tackle atrocitiesagainst women, special desksfor women in each police sta-tions in the city.

“This approval is a part ofMHA’s plans to implement SafeCity projects in eight selectedcities, namely, Mumbai, Delhi,Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru,Hyderabad, Ahmedabad andLucknow under Nirbhaya Fundwith the purpose of strength-ening safety and security ofwomen in public places. Theprojects are being implementedin consultation with Ministry ofWomen and Child

Development, Ministry ofUrban Development, Ministry of Electronic andInformation Technology,respective Municipal & PoliceCommissioners of the citiesand civil society organisations,”the Home Ministry said in astatement.

The Safe City proposal forLucknow, the Lok Sabha con-stituency of Home Minister

Rajnath Singh, will be imple-mented by Uttar PradeshPolice, assisted by theMunicipal bodies and citytransport authorities. The SafeCity project for Lucknow alsoenvisages gender sensitisationawareness campaigns andcapacity building in collabora-tion with community and civilsociety organisations, theHome Ministry said.

����� 34-54&*/

Against the backdrop ofdeteriorating air quality in

the national Capital due to pol-lution, the National BuildingsConstruction Corporation(NBCC) has come out withguidelines to curb pollutionfrom construction sites, includ-ing keeping the ground at con-struction sites wet and cover-ing vehicles that carry con-struction material.

NBCC CMD AnoopKumar Mittal on Thursdaydirected its contractors not touse open trucks and to trans-port building materials only insteel containers, as part ofefforts to reduce dust pollution.

According to reports,around 8 to 10 per cent of thetotal pollution in the city wasdue to construction sites.NBCC is engaged in the rede-velopment of Pragati Maidaninto a state-of-the-art integrat-

ed exhibition-cum-conventioncentre that cost Rs 2,254 croreand redevelopment of sevenGovernment colonies in Delhi.Besides it is also engaged inseveral projects here.

NBCC -- which has anorder book worth Rs 80,000crore -- has directed that trans-

portation of sand, grit, cementand other construction mate-rials would only be in perma-nently closed vehicles coveredby tarpaulin sheets.

“NBCC has made itmandatory to seek approvals ofthe environmental manage-ment plan, inclusive of dust

mitigation measures, beforethe implementation of anybuilding or infrastructure pro-ject requiring environmentalclearance,” Mittal said.

The transportation andstorage of cement and fly ashwould be in closed silos,besides absolute prohibition

of grinding and cutting ofbuilding materials, as per theguidelines.

Sprinkling of water, usingblack top for paving the roadsleading to construction site,washing of truck tyres in addi-tion to controlling the speedlimit of the vehicle and prop-er barricading at project site asper CPCB norms are amongthe other directions.

The guidelines also issuedfor removal of constructionwastages from the work siteimmediately after completion ofconcerned work(s) at site; sprin-kling of water; using black top forpaving the roads leading to con-struction site; washing of trucktyres in addition to controllingthe speed limit of the vehicle;proper barricading at site as perCPCB norms; and availability ofPollution check machines at allwork sites to monitor the pollu-tion level of diesel/petrol/CNGoperated vehicles.

����� 34-54&*/

Describing Congress mediahead Divya Spandana’s

derogatory comments againstPrime Minister Narendra Modias the “arrogance of dynasty”,the BJP on Wednesday sought to assert that instead ofthe bird’s droppings, “it is thevalues of the Congress that aredropping.”

The BJP lash out cameafter Congress’ social mediahead Divya Spandana tweeteda controversial comment alongwith a picture of PrimeMinister Narendra Modi stand-ing next to Sardar Patel’s 182meter tall ‘Statue of Unity’,with the comment: “Is that birddropping?”

“@BJP4India Ummm no, itis the values of the Congress

that are dropping. Historical disdain for SardarPatel + Pathological dislike for @narendramodi =Such language. Clearly,@RahulGandhi’s politics of‘love’! ,” said BJP’s officialTwitter handle.

Asked about the tweet, BJPspokesperson Sambit Patralashed out at the Oppositionparty saying that “this is the realculture” of the Congress.

They miss no opportunityto abuse the Prime Minister ofIndia, he said.

“It is the same party whichcalled the Prime Minister‘neech’. Shashi Tharoor calledhim a scorpion and now DivyaSpandana says that he is a bird’sdropping,” Patra said.

“This is nothing but lan-guage of arrogance from the

Congress for the normal Indianwho with his sheer hardworkbecomes the Prime Minister ofthe country,” he said, adding a normal Indianappears bird’s dropping tothem, while a dynast is powercentre for them.

“This is arrogance ofdynasty which is abusing thedemocracy of India,” he alleged.

Despite criticism from theruling party and Twitterati,Spandana remained defiant.

“When you’re done huffing& puffing take a breath & holda mirror to yourselves. Myviews are mine. I don’t give twohoots about yours. I’m notgoing to clarify what I meant and what I didn’t cosyou don’t deserve one,” shetweeted.

����� 34-54&*/

Citing the latest World Bankreport pushing up India’s

ranking in ‘Ease of DoingBusiness’ to 77th position, theBJP on Thursday maintainedthat this heralds the arrival of“achchhe din” in the country’seconomy.

India has jumped 65 posi-tions from 142 in 2014 to 77now, BJP spokesperson SambitPatra said, adding the countryhas travelled from the “fragilefive” emerging markets to a“fabulous few” in a short spanof time.

The World Bank’s ‘Ease ofDoing Business’ report wasreleased on Wednesday.

“We thank Prime MinisterNarendra Modi for the reform,perform, transform agendathat he has brought into thepolicy of India...Through thisjump in ease of doing business rankings, ‘achchhe din’ (good days) havearrived in the country’s econ-

omy,” Patra said at a Pressconference.

The BJP said this jump inthe ease of doing businessrankings has become possiblebecause of the ModiGovernment’s clear policiesand hard work.

Taking on the Congress,Patra said the party’s tenure wasmarked by “ease of doing cor-ruption” while the country iswitnessing an era of ease ofdoing business under Modi’sleadership.

“It is ease of doing businessverses ease of corruption,” hesaid, adding that India’s ease ofdoing business ranking plum-meted under Congress’ ‘econ-omist’ Prime MinisterManmohan Singh.

On one side were the poli-cies of the Modi Governmentthat were all about clarity andon the other was a confusedand defused Congress presi-dent Rahul, he said.

“This is clarity verses con-fusion,” Patra said.

������������ 34-54&*/

To address the impact of cli-mate change and variabil-

ity on crops, horticulture, live-stock, and fisheries, the IndianCouncil of AgriculturalResearch (ICAR) has taken upa flagship programme NationalInnovations on ClimateResilient Agriculture (NICRA).

According to UnionAgriculture and Farmers’Welfare Minister Radha MohanSingh, the programme is beingtaken up in 151 climatically-vulnerable districts across thecountry by taking one repre-sentative village in each district.The predominant climatic vul-nerabilities addressed aredrought, flood, cyclone, heat

wave, cold wave, frost and hailstorm.

Officials said the ICARhas conducted climate changeimpact analysis on crop yieldsthrough various centres in dif-ferent parts of the countryusing crop simulation models(INFO-CROP and HAD CM3)for 2020, 2050 and 2080. Theresults indicate variability intemperature and rainfall pat-tern with significant impacts oncrop yields. These studies pro-jected reduction in yields ofirrigated rice by about 4 percent in 2020, 7 per cent in 2050and 10 per cent in 2080.

Rainfed rice yields are like-ly to be reduced by 6 per centin 2020, but in 2050 and 2080they are projected to decrease

only marginally (<2.5 per cent).Climate change is projected toreduce timely-sown irrigatedwheat production by about 6per cent in 2020. In case of latesown wheat, however, the pro-jected reductions are to theextent of 18, 23 and 25 per centin 2020, 2050 and 2080 respec-tively. Yields of irrigated kharifmaize may decrease by about18 per cent in 2020 and 2050and about 23 per cent in 2080due to climate change. Rainfedsorghum yields are projected to

decline marginally (2.5 percent) in 2020 scenario and byabout 8 per cent in 2050.

Addressing the Inter-Session Meeting ofConsultative Committee of theMinistry of Agriculture &Farmers’ Welfare, Singh said itsaim is to develop adaptationand mitigation practices tominimise the losses and toenhance resilience of Indianagriculture.

The Minister also said sev-eral States have shown interestin replicating the climateresilient village models. Forexample, the Government ofMaharashtra through WorldBank funding formulated aproject by the name Project onClimate Resilient Agriculture (

PoCRA) with a budget outlayof Rs 4,500 crore being imple-mented in 5,000 villages in thedrought prone villages ofVidharbha and Marathwadaregions of Maharashtra. Severalother State Governments alsoinitiated similar projects of cli-mate resilient agriculture(Karnataka, Odisha andTelangana).

According to economicsurvey of India 2018, thechange in agricultural produc-tivity patterns as a result of cli-mate change could reduceannual agricultural incomesby between 15 per cent and 18per cent on average, andbetween 20 per cent and 25 percent particularly for unirrigat-ed areas.

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In a jolt to the saffron party, LChandrashekhar, the BJP candidate

contesting the by-election to theRamanagara Assembly constituency onThursday announced his decision to quitthe fray against Anita Kumaraswamy,wife of Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy.The election will be held on Saturday andthe sudden decision of Chandrashekharwho had joined the party a month agonow announced his support to AnitaKumaraswamy of the JD(S)-Congressnominee.

At a Press conference in Bengaluru,Chandrashekhar blamed the BJP leadersfor his decision and their non cooperation.He said, “He has decided to come back tohis mother party Congress and also extendhis support to Anita Kumaraswamy.” “BJPleaders had abandoned me and did notcome to campaign for me”, he added.

He said "After welcoming me to theBJP by giving party flag, Yeddyurappa(State BJP chief) or any other leaders didnot join me for campaigning. They neglect-

ed Ramanagara due to internal squabblebetween the leaders within the party."

With this, Anita Kumaraswamy willhave a smooth passage to the power of cor-ridor in the Saturday’s bypoll as there is nocontest against her. By-election toRamanagara was necessitated as it fellvacant after Kumaraswamy gave up theseat preferring Chennapatna, the other seathe had won in the May Assembly polls. By-polls for three Lok Sabha constituencies— Shivamogga, Ballari and Mandya andtwo assembly constituencies, Ramanagaraand Jamkhandi, will take place onNovember 3. The counting of votes wouldbe on November 6.

BJP State chief BS Yeddyurappa direct-ly blamed Minister DK Shivakumar and

his brother an MP DK Suresh and allegedthat the candidate was bought by them.

He said in Shivamogga “ Shivakumarand brother (D K Suresh) have brought(him) back, by giving money. I got theinformation just now. God bless them."

The BJP recently had poachedChandrashekhar, son of a senior Congressleader C M Lingappa, and the Congresshad decided to support the candidate ofits ruling coalition partner, JD(S). Withindays after joining the BJP, he wasannounced as the party's candidate. TheBJP workers who campaigned for himprotested against his decision. Ramangarais famous for production of silk and hasworld’s biggest cocoon market. The townis also known as Sholay nagara after thefilm Sholay was shot there.

The bypolls are a litmus test for thecoalition partners JD(S) and the Congress.The snap of Ramanagara candidate is verywell managed and orchestrated ploy by DKShivakumar and his brother DK Suresh. AtShivamogga bypoll for the Lok Sabha,Yeddyurappa’s son BY Raghavendra isfighting a crucial battle against combinedcandidate Madhu Bangarappa of theJD(S). At Ballari the mining dust hasclouded again and BJP’s J Shantha sister ofJ Sruramulu is fighting Ugrappa of the con-gress supported by the JD(S).

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Despite recent attacks onmigrant workers in the

different parts of the State fol-lowing alleged rape of a toddlerby a Bihari origin labourer inNorth Gujarat, Chief MinisterVijay Rupani on Thursdayclaimed that industrial peacewas prevailing in Gujarat andstill it was an ideal place formigrants.

Speaking at the Federationof Indian Chambers ofCommerce and Industry(FICCI) national executivemeet at Ahmadabad, the ChiefMinster said that there waszero-level unrest coupled withbusiness friendly environmentin the State. Insisting FICCIbusiness delegates to organiseconventions and conferences oftheir business establishmentsnear ‘Statue of Unity’, Rupanisaid that industries were thriv-ing in Gujarat due to positiveatmosphere and the StateGovernment’s business friend-ly policies.

It is worth mentioning thatahead of the Lok Sabha polls,

Gujarat Government is slatedto hold its flagship event oftrade and investment —Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit(VGGS) in January 2019 toattract investment in the state.Rupani wants to ensure thatdue to scattered incidences ofattacks on migrants, the imageof Gujarat as business friendlystate wouldn’t be tarnish.

On September 28, 2018 a14-month-old girl was alleged-ly raped by a labourer belong-ing to Bihar. Following theincident, provoked localsattacked on Hindi-speakinglabourers working in facto-ries. The attacks spread fear onmigrants workers and thou-sands of them fled to theirrespective States well ahead ofDiwali holidays.

Taking the incidences seri-ously Gujarat Government also

appointed two fast track judgesin order to quickly dispose caserelated to rape on infant as wellas attacks on innocent migrantlabourers. More than 60 casesof attacks on migrant workershave been registered with theGujarat police in different partsof the States.

Entire episode becamepolitical blame game as rulingBJP blamed on Congress MLAAlpesh Thakor for provokinglocals against migrant labour-ers and on the other sideCongress leaders claimed thatthe State Government failed tocontrol the situation and asresult of it thousands of migrantworkers forced to flee the State.

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Mumbai: The Shiv Sena saidon Thursday that the BJP isnow courting it as theDevendra Fadnavis-ledMaharashtra Government hasentered a "dangerous" fifthyear.

The Uddhav Thackeray-ledparty, which is a partner in theBJP-led alliance in the State andCentre, also asked Fadnavis toexplain in which areas, as perhis claim, the State has reachednumber one position.

An editorial in Senamouthpiece "Saamana" quotedFadnavis's recent statementthat a Sena-BJP alliance in thenext year's Lok Sabha and Stateelections was necessary forpreventing division ofHindutva votes.

"(Senior BJP leader andMinister) Chandrakant Patiland (State BJP chief) RaosahebDanve's new-found love for theSena stems from the fact that thefifth year is dangerous for theFadnavis Government," it said.

It further asked if the BJPwas so worried about divisionof Hindutva votes, why did itbreak up the alliance before the2014 Assembly elections. PTI

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All days will continue to passas black days if the BJP

continued to rule India by fan-ning communal and sectariantension in the country, MamataBanerjee has said while react-ing to Prime Minister NarendraModi’s unveiling of SardarVallabhbhai Patel’s statue inGujarat as the Statue of Unity.

Contrasting Patel’s ideolo-gy with the one preached by thesaffron outfit Banerjee told anaudience at Alipurduar thatunlike Patel, the BJP practicedcommunal and sectarian poli-tics which would only bringblack days and not AchchheDin or good days as promisedby the Prime Minister.

“Sardar Vallabhbhai Patelnever believed in politics ofcaste and religion. He neverdivided people. He was alwaysfor national unity which wasproved by his action. But theBJP is trying to divide thecountry on the basis of casteand religion. This can neverbring Achchhe Din and will

only bring black days,” Banerjeesaid adding all the days ruled bythe BJP were in fact black days.

Raising the NRC issue inAssam, where about 40 lakhpeople — of which majoritywere Bengalis — had allegedlybeen thrown out of the NationalRegister for Citizens, Banerjeesaid Patel used to tell all theleaders to treat the people of allcommunity, class, caste andlanguages equally “but herethe Govt of Assam is drivingaway the Bengalis and theGujarat Govt is driving awaythe Biharis from those States.”

She said on the birthday ofSardar Patel, “we hope the peo-ple of the country to remain unit-ed,” adding the BJP’s dirty tricksto divide the people of Bengal togarner votes will never be suc-cessful. “We will thwart theirattempts to divide the people ofBengal for political reasons andwe ask you to remain alert abouttheir political designs,” she said.

Meanwhile, the TrinamoolCongress and the BJP lockedhorns in an unrelated devel-opment with the Assam

Government proposing thepurchase the Kolkata house ofsinger Bhupen Hazarika whilethe Trinamool dismissing theproposal as a cheap method ofdoing regional politics.

“Where were they for thesemany years. Today they are ask-ing for the house of BhupenHazarika because they look athim as an Assamese. They areignoring the fact that Hazarikawas a great singer who sang forthe unity of the country, unityof Bengal and Assamese cul-tures. A majority of his songswere in Bengali,” State MinisterPartho Chatterjee said.

The Assam Governmenthas proposed to purchase thehouse of Hazarika at TollygungeGolf Club Road in order to con-vert it into a museum. The BJPreacted to Chatterjee’s statementwith senior leader Rahul Sinhasaying the “the TMCGovernment has done nothingto preserve the memories ofHazarika. The house is in a dilap-idated condition. And they arenot letting the AssamGovernment to preserve it.”

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BJP president Amit Shahmay contest from North

Kolkata, considered a safe seatin the next year’s Lok Sabhaelections, sources in the Bengalunit of the party said.

Replying to a pointed ques-tion Bengal BJP president DilipGhosh said that the State partyunit will be more than willingto host Shah as a candidate. “Ifhe contests from here he willmake it a sure sit to win,”adding “we will be privileged ifAmitji contests from NorthKolkata.”

The BJP had given animpressive performance in2014 from North Kolkata astrong saffron bastion and fin-ished second behind the rulingTrinamool Congress candidateSudip Bandopadhyay.

While the TMC candidategot 343,687 votes polling about36 percent votes — 17 per centless than what his party got in2009 — BJP’s Rahul Sinha got247, 461 votes polling about

25.88 per cent votes — 21.66per cent more from what theparty got in 2009. CPI(M)’sRupa Bagchi came third withabout 2 lakh votes polling20.50 per cent — 19.55 per centless than what the party got in2009. Congress’ Somen Mitrapolled 130,783 lakh votes —about 13.68 per cent of the totalvotes polled.

“The deficit of last time willbe easily covered this timeround if a heavyweight candi-date like Amitji who has all-India acceptance contests fromhere,” Ghosh said.

“My question is if Modijican contest and win fromVaranasi then why can’t he con-test from Puri? And by sameargument why can’t Amitjicontest from North Kolkata,”the State BJP leader said.

“Amitji’s presence in NorthKolkata will definitely turn thefocus on this constituency andalong with it will come a floodof development. Hence we willwant him to contest from here,”said another State leader.

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Five persons — comprisingthree cleaners and two fire

brigade personnel — drownedon Thursday afternoon, afterthey were trapped in accumu-lated sludge in a temple well atKalyan in the neighbouringThane district.

Three persons, who hadgone to clean the sticky sludgeinside the well located on theBhimashankar temple locatedat Netivali area in the easternpart of Kalyan, were stuckinside the well first. The twofire brigade personnel whohad gone to rescue the threetrapped persons also drowned.

The incident took place at2.30 pm. While one of thethree cleaners killed in themishap was identified asRahul Gosawi, the two otherworkers had not been identi-fied till evening. The policeidentified the two firemendrowned in the incident asAnant Shelar and PramodWaghchore.

The incident unfolded ataround 1.30 pm, when one per-son went inside a well to cleanit up and got trapped in thesticky sludge. Before long, twoother cleaners climbed downinto the well, only to be trappedin the sludge.

The fire brigade arrived on

the scene immediately after-noon. Two of the fire brigadepersonnel went into the well torescue the three cleaners. Thesetwo fire brigade personnel weresucked into the thick sludge.

Later in the evening, ateam of divers with safety belts,ropes, oxygen cylinders andmasks, went into the well andtook out the bodies from thewell.

Thane’s Deputy PolicePolice Commissioner (Zone-3)Sanjay Shinde said that the fivepersons might have been killedafter either consuming chemical-laden water or con-suming poisonous smell insidethe well.

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Security forces shot dead twoterrorists of proscribed

Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) out-fit in central Kashmir’s Budgamdistrict while a soldier wasinjured in the heavy exchangeof fire. The authorities snappedinternet services in severalcentral Kashmir pockets toprevent mobilisation of people.

Police sources said thattwo terrorists identified asMukhtar Ahmad Khan andMohammad Amin Mir, bothlocal residents were killed inthe encounter. The two bodies

along with arms and ammuni-tion were recovered from thegunfight site, police said,adding that both the slain ter-rorists were involved in a seriesof attacks on security estab-lishments in the area.

Police said a soldier wasinjured in the gunfight whowas evacuated to hospital formedical attention.

Reports said that clasheserupted between youth andsecurity forces in Namblabalarea of Pampore in southKashmir's Pulwama districtfollowing the killing of AminMir who belonged to the area.

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The Madras High Court onTuesday set the agenda for

retrieving prime property landsworth thousands of crores ofrupees belonging to templesadministered by the HinduReligious and CharitableEndowment (HR&CE)Department of the Tamil NaduGovernment.

Justice S M Subramaniamwhile disposing of a petitionfiled by a devotee in this con-nection also expressed his dis-pleasure and disappointmentover the functioning of theHR&CE Department, the cal-lousness of which led to massiveencroachment of the templelands situated in prime locationsin the State. The case is beingtermed by devotees as the GreatTemple Land Robbery.

“With all humility, this courtwith pain has to observe that theHR&CE Department remainedas a silent spectator for such largescale illegalities and corruptactivities. No one can believethat the higher officials of thedepartment are unaware of suchillegalities and corrupt activities,”said the justice in his order.

Justice R Mahadevan of thesame court had issued an orderon Fenruary 12, 2018 asking the

HR&CE Department to recov-er more than 50,000 acres oftemple land from illegal occu-pants. The HR&CE departmentwas yet to submit the details tothe land to the court per the ver-dict.

Justice Subramanian alsoasked the HR&CE Departmentbosses to furnish the details ofimmovable properties owned bymore than 36,000 templesacross the State which areadministered by the depart-ment.

The Department has beenasked to collate all details regard-ing the land owned by the tem-ple which have been usurped byencroachers over the years andupload the same in the websiteof the department.

T R Ramesh, president,Temple Worshipers Society, anorganisation working for restor-ing and regaining the landedproperties belonging to the tem-ples in Tamil Nadu, said thecourt order was just the tip of amulti-billion rupees scaminvolving politicians, bureaucratsand middle men.

‘Leaders of all political par-ties which have been rulingTamil Nadu are involved in therobbery. The temple lands areinstruments to generate funds tosustain the Hindu community inthe State by ensuring their

well— being by launching feed-ing centres, Veda Patasalas(schools to teach Vedas,Upanishats and religious sci-ence) including educationalinstitutions and hospitals. Butwhat has happened is that theatheist Dravidian leaders squan-dered the temple lands to suittheir convenience,” said Ramesh.

He pointed out how thethen Chief Minister MKarunanidhi (since deceased)illegally took away 295 acres ofprime land belonging toThiruvarur Lord Siva temple forconstruction of the CentralUniversity in his constituency.“Not a rupee was given as com-pensation for this land till Iissued a legal notice to theGovernment. Though the TmilNadu Government was forced togive compensation, it was total-ly inadequate,” said Ramesh.

The HR&CE officials are inthe eye of a storm following thearrest of some senior officials inconnection with the theft of idolsfrom the temples administeredby the department. “More than7,000 antique and ancient idolshave been missing from the tem-ples and the HRCE officials aresilent about the same,” saidRama Gopalan, leader, HinduFront, an umbrella organisationsof various Hindutwa outfits inTamil Nadu.

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The decommissioned aircraft carrier“Viraat” will finally be converted into

a majestic maritime museum and it willbe berthed at the Konkan coast inMaharashtra’s Sindhudurg district.

Announcing this after a weeklyCabinet meeting here, Maharashtra ChiefMinister Devendra Fadnavis said that the‘Viraat” maritime museum project wouldbe implemented at a cost of Rs 852 croreon a “public-private partnership” model.

“We intend to locate the ViraatMuseum on a concrete foundation builtin the sea 7 nautical miles off the NivatiRocks off the Malvan coast in Sindhudurgdistrict,” the chief minister said.

Nivati Rocks is in the vicinity of NivatiFort which Maratha warrior ChhatrapatiShivaji in the seventeenth century imme-diately after the nearby Sindhudurg fortwas built. The fort was used to look overthe Karli creek and the Vengurla port.

Fadnavis said that the Maharashtragovernment would appoint a high-levelcommittee under the chairmanship of theState chief secretary to decide on the pri-vate industrialists as investors for the pro-ject and also to decide on the terms andconditions for floating tenders for the pur-pose.

Apart housing a maritime museum,the Viraat complex will provide adventuresport facilities like sailing and skydiving.There will also marine training facility formerchant sailors.

By deciding to convert “Viraat” intoa maritime museum, Maharashtra haspipped the states of Goa and AndhraPradesh which were also in the raqce for

the Viraat maritime museum project.The British-made INS Viraat has

been docked in the Mumbai harbour eversince it was decommissioned on March 6,2017.

Viraat, an aircraft carrier, was com-missioned into the Indian Navy on May12. 1987. The ship held the GuinnessBooks of record for being the longest serv-ing warship of the world. The ship whichwas the centre piece of the Navy, housedthe fighters Sea Harriers of INAS 300 pop-ularly called “White Tigers”, AntiSubmarine aircraft Sea king Mk 42B, SeaKing Mk 42 C known as “Harpoons” andthe SAR helicopter Chetak as an integralflight.

The ingenious Air Light Helicopter`Dhruv’ and the Russian twin rotorKamov-31 also operated onboard the ship.The Sea Harriers fleet was decommis-sioned at Goa on May 11, 2016.

Under the Indian Flag, the ship hasclocked more than 22,622 flying hours byvarious aircraft in the past three decadesand has spent nearly 2252 days at sea sail-ing and 5,88,287 NM (10,94,215 KM).

In essence, INS Viraat spent seven

years at sea, covering the entire globe 27times. Since her inception she had a totalof 80,715 hours of boiler running. Sheplayed a major role in the OperationJupiter in 1989 in Sri Lankan PeaceKeeping operation, after which she wasaffiliated with Garhwal Riffles and Scoutsof the Indian Army in 1990.

Her major participation was seen dur-ing Op Parakram in 2001-2002 whereIndia and Pakistan were engaged in astand off post terrorist attack on theParliament. The ship was instrumental inhoning the art of flying operations froma carrier deck in the Navy, which alsoresulted in seamless induction of INSVikramaditya and its integration with thefleet.

The ship participated in various inter-national joint exercises like ExerciseMalabar (USA), exercise Varuna (French),Naseem-Al-Bahar (Oman Navy). Shewas also an integral element of all theannual theater level exercise (TROPEX).The last operational deployment of Viraatwas for participation in International FleetReview (IFR 2016) off Vishakhapatnam inFebruary 2016.

‘Mother’, as she was referred to in theWestern Navy, had been commanded by22 Captains since 1987. She has been theFlag Ship of the Navy since her inception.Around 40 Flag officers includingfiveChiefs of Naval Staff were raised andgroomed in her lap. Her legacy under theRoyal flag was no less. As HMS Hermes,she was commanded by 13 Captains of theRoyal Navy. Her role in operation Mercyin 1974 and Falklands in 1982 are now textbook references for victory, for futurenavies.

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Lucknow: The AllahabadHigh Court on Thursdayquashed the selection of over12,000 teachers by the UttarPradesh Government throughan exam advertised in 2016and directed the CBI to inves-tigate another recruitmentexercise begun earlier thisyear to fill 68,500 posts.

While the 12,460 assistantteachers were selected duringthe term of the AkhileshYadav Government, the sec-ond order asking the CBI tostep in is a major embarrass-ment for the Yogi AdityanathGovernment.

Allegations of corruptionhave already stalled the fillingof 68,500 posts in primaryschools through the AssistantTeachers RecruitmentExamination, 2018.

The exercise, which beganwith an advertisement onJanuary 23, 2018, was meantto be the first major recruit-ment by the state's basic edu-cation department after the

new Bharatiya Janata Partytook over.

The Lucknow bench ofthe court directed the CentralBureau of Investigation tocomplete the probe withinsix months and submit aprogress report to it onNovember 26.

The State 's AdvocateGeneral Raghvendra Singhhad earlier said the UPGovernment was not ready fora CBI inquiry, compelling thecourt to pass the order on itsown.

Issuing directions on abunch of writ petitions, JusticeIrshad Ali directed that theofficers who were part of the2018 selection process wouldcooperate in the investiga-tion and make available all thenecessary documents requiredby the CBI.

The petitioners had madeserious allegations related tothis year's exam, includingthe charge that answer bookswere switched. PTI

;��=����������������29-��������'��������,����������������!*�������!�� Kolkata: The kin of Subhas

Chandra Bose on Thursdaydemanded a statue of theleader at India Gate in thenational Capital and declara-tion of his birthday on January23 as "Liberation Day".

The demand comes a dayafter Prime Minister NarendraModi unveiled a 182-metre-tallstatue of Sardar VallabhbhaiPatel, considered to be thetallest in the world, in Gujarat.

The imposing monument— the Statue of Unity — isbuilt near the Sardar Sarovardam in Gujarat's Narmadadistrict.

"NDA Government underthe leadership of @naren-dramodi ji kept its commit-ment by unveiling#SardarVallabhaiPatel's statueon 31Oct 2018 & celebratingthe day as #UnityDay. Demandrising to unveil a statue of the#LiberatorofIndia-on 23 Jan'19at #IndiaGate Delhi & declarethe day as #LiberationDay(sic)," Netaji's grandnephewChandra Kumar Bose said ina tweet.

When contacted, Chandra

Kumar Bose, who is also avice-president of the BharatiyaJanata Party's (BJP) WestBengal unit, told PTI that thestatue near India Gate was ademand of several IndianNational Army (INA) andArmy veterans.

The Prime Minister had,on October 21, hoisted thenational flag at the Red Fortand unveiled a plaque to markthe 75th anniversary of theproclamation of the Azad HindGovernment by SubhasChandra Bose.

This was the first time thePrime Minister hoisted thenational flag at the ramparts ofthe historic Red Fort for thesecond time in a year.Traditionally, the prime min-ister unfurls the tricolour at theRed Fort on IndependenceDay.

Modi had also announceda national award in the nameof Subhas Chandra Bose, to begiven every year to those policepersonnel who do excellentwork in rescue-and-reliefoperations during any kind ofdisaster. PTI

Aurangabad (Maha): A dayafter the BJP-led MaharashtraGovernment declared droughtin 26 districts, the OppositionCongress on Thursdaydemanded a Central assistanceof �5000 crore while accusingthe ruling dispensation of fis-cal mismanagement.

Addressing a press confer-ence here, State unit Congresspresident Ashok Chavanaccused the BJP-ledGovernment of not making anyfiscal provisions to fight drought.

The State Government onWednesday declared droughtin 151 talukas in 26 of total 36districts in the State.

As per a Governmentorder, 112 talukas are facingsevere drought and 39 talukasa moderate drought.

"The BJP Government hasdeclared drought, but has madeno budgetary allocations.Maharashtra is reeling under adebt of almost �5 lakh crore.How will the Government pay

for drought relief? We demand�5,000 crore central assistancefor relief measures inMaharashtra," he said whileaddressing reporters.

Chavan said the ongoing"Jan Sangharsh" yatra of hisparty in the Marathwada regionhas been receiving hugeresponse from the people.

He claimed that AICC gen-eral secretary in charge ofMaharashtra MallikarjunKharge rang a symbolic "lastbell" to mark the end of theDevendra Fadnavis-ledGovernment in Maharashtra.

"As this Government onlybelieved in making falsepromises and issuing grandadvertisements, they have nochance of returning to powernext year," he said.

Chavan demanded theGovernment spell out specificmeasures for drought relief.

The Central Governmenthad released �3,050 crore fromthe National Disaster Response

Fund (NDRF) to tackledrought in 2015, when 20 dis-tricts in Marathwada andVidarbha were classified unerthat category.

"The State Governmenthad spent �16,000 crore ondrought relief measures then.Given the Government's mis-management of financialresources in the past four years,mobilising funds to tackle thecurrent drought seems diffi-cult," Chavan alleged.

He alleged that only privatecontractors from the BJP andthe Shiv Sena have benefittedfrom the Jalyukt Shivar schemeof the State Government.

He alleged the ChiefMinister was wasting publicmoney on issuing advertise-ments of his Government.

On the World Bank reporton improvement in India'sposition in the 'Ease of DoingBusiness Index', Chavan saidMaharashtra's rankings havefallen. PTI

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Asenior BJP leader and hisbrother were shot dead by

unidentified gunmen inKishtwar late Thursdayevening.

Following tension in thearea, curfew was imposed bythe district administration tocontrol unrest in the area.

Angry supporters and localresidents converged outsidedistrict hospital and police sta-tion where they pelted stonesand shouted provocative slo-gans.

The deceased BJP leaderwas identified as Anil Parihar,State secretary, and his broth-er Ajit Parihar.

The duo were returninghome on foot when they weretargeted by two gunmen froma very close range near theirhouse.

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Imphal: Manipur ChiefMinister N Biren Singh has saidit is time the imposition of theArmed Forces (Special Powers)

Act, or the AFSPA, in thenortheastern State is reviewedbut added security concernsover the State sharing borderswith foreign countries shouldalso be considered.

The Army said that thoughthe situation in the State wasnow under control, the AFSPAis a requirement to ensure

peace. "Manipur is a peacefulstate now, but the country'ssecurity must be a priority...The financial health and armssupply by foreign countriescannot be ruled out," Singh tolda group of visiting journalistshere on Wednesday.

Major General V K Mishra,the General OfficerCommanding (GOC) of 57Mountain Division of theArmy, which spearheadscounter-insurgency operationsin Manipur, said the AFSPA isa prerequisite for the Army tooperate for maintaining peace

in the militancy-affected state.Citing the example of

seizure of sophisticated armsfrom an insurgent camp, hesaid it takes two months ofefforts and lengthy operations— from intelligence gatheringto locating and search of sus-pects — to recover arms andammunition. Such operationscan be carried out only with theAFSPA in place.

"If we do not have AFSPA,how do we do this?... It is notjust an enabler, it is a prereq-uisite. AFSPA is a requirementfor the Army to function." PTI

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Gandhiji was always concernedabout how we humans treat-ed animals, because he felt thatthe life of an animal was noless valuable than that of a

human being. He said this in so manywords when he offered his view that, “Tomy mind, the life of a lamb is no less pre-cious than that of a human being.” Againstthe reality of rapid depletion of wildlifeacross the world we are also reminded ofGandhiji’s witty response to a question onwhat he thought of wildlife: “Wildlife isdecreasing in the jungles, but it is increas-ing in the towns.”

There are societies which are largeconsumers of meat, but quite paradoxical-ly a few of them show interest in preserv-ing wildlife. Factory farming, which char-acterises the global meat industry today,distances the consumer from the birth andlife of the animal which is consumed. SirPaul McCartney, a strict vegetarian him-self, said, “If slaughter houses had glasswalls, everyone would be a vegetarian.”This paradox was in evidence in the mid-1970s when beef prices went up and somepeople in the US started consuming horsemeat in certain locations. This led to wide-spread protests and expression of revul-sion, with bumper stickers appearing insome places saying, “horses should be inthe stable, not on the table”.

The motivation for protection ofwildlife in such societies arises out of anappreciation of the cosmetic appeal ofsome endangered species like tiger, chee-tah, polar bear and panda. Parents oftensay that they would not want their grand-children to see these animals only in pic-tures; hence, any efforts at conservation ofthe species is driven by aesthetic appealand the entertainment value of wildlife.

For much too long even in Indiakilling a tiger or leopard was seen almostlike the red badge of courage. How manyportraits have we seen of visitors ofimportance from Britain being treated toa tiger shikar with the ultimate picture ofthe dead animal, and the ‘brave’ shooterstanding with a gun in his hand and hisfoot on the head of the slain tiger?

Today, despite strong legislation andglobal agreements, the threat to wildlife,whose numbers have reached precariouslevels, comes from poaching and thegeneral encroachment of human activitieson the habitat of species in the wild. Insuch a situation when a hungry carnivorecannot find adequate food, it ventures toseek easy game in human habitation. In somany cases the affected community attacksthe predator to protect its livestock.

Today, the threat to animals andspecies in the wild has reached an unprece-dented level. The World Wide Fund(WWF) has done remarkable work inassessing the frightening expansion of

humanity’s footprint on theearth’s increasingly fragileecosystems. ‘The Living PlanetReport’ (LPR), a comprehen-sive and rigorous compilationof the state of the earth’s nat-ural resources and ecosys-tems, is produced every twoyears, and the WWF has justbrought out its 2018 edition,which provides chilling detailsof the damaging effects on theirreplaceable bounty of natureas a consequence of what wecall economic development.

The LPR 2018 estimatesand concludes that “on aver-age, we’ve seen an astonishing60 per cent decline in the sizeof populations of mammals,birds, fish, reptiles, andamphibians in just over 40years”. What is particularlyalarming is the trend that weare seeing in the direction ofover-exploitation of speciesacross the globe. The Presidentand CEO of WWF Carter SRoberts states, “Natural sys-tems essential to our survival— forests, oceans, and rivers —remain in decline. Wildlifearound the world continue todwindle. It reminds us that weneed to change the course. It’stime to balance our consump-tion with the needs of nature,and to protect the only planetthat is our home.”

The fundamental flaw inour pattern of growth anddevelopment lies in the fact

that nature provides us with awealth of ecosystem services,but the market values these aszero, and there is no system bywhich price of these servicescan be included in the costs ofgoods and services producedby the human society.

As a visionary economistsaid several decades ago:“Nature has no checkout coun-ters.” Hence, we treat the glob-al commons as a free good,leading to their precariouscondition today. Yet, as theLPR 2018 estimates, on a glob-al basis, nature provides ser-vices worth around $125 tril-lion a year, and more than that,nature ensures the supply offresh air, clean water, food,energy, medicines, and muchmore, all of which we devaluedheavily.

Overall, populations ofmammals, birds, fish, reptiles,and amphibians have, on aver-age, declined by 60 per centbetween 1970 and 2014, themost recent year with availabledata. The Earth is estimated tohave lost about half of its shal-low water corals in the past 30years; and a fifth of theAmazon has disappeared injust 50 years.

There is a very small win-dow of opportunity for us toact and prevent irreversibledisaster. In the case of climatechange, we are the first gener-ation to understand the science

and risks of climate changebut we may be the last gener-ation to be able to solve theproblem. Similarly, as the LPR2018 states: “We are the firstgeneration that has a clear pic-ture of the value of nature andour impact on it. We may bethe last that can take action toreverse this trend. From nowuntil 2020 will be a decisivemoment in history.”

The so-called “great accel-eration” has brought thehuman society unprecedentedbenefits in the areas of overallrise in our health, wealth,food and security, but thebenefits are very unequalacross society. And these ben-efits have come at a huge costin terms of the disappearanceof the wealth of biodiversityand nature. And, yet as theLPR states, nature under-pinned by biodiversity pro-vides a wealth of serviceswhich are the building blocksof modern society. But biodi-versity is being destroyedrapidly. Hence, the protectionof wildlife may have a certainromanticism behind the mea-gre efforts that we see aroundus, but unless we develop areverence and value for natureand biodiversity, these effortswould remain futile and inef-fective.

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Sir — There has been a steadyslide in India’s foreign policyever since this Government cameto power at the Centre. From theway the turmoil in the KashmirValley has been handled to thedeteriorating relationship withour neighbour Pakistan, whichhas led to frequent border attacksand the loss of lives of many ofour soldiers, to the snub from USPresident Donald Trump, thedecline is unprecedented. Thedevelopments in Sri Lanka alsopoint to the failure of intelligencegathering and our diplomacy.On Sri Lanka, India must treadcautiously.

Tharcius S Fernando Chennai

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Sir — This refers to the article,“Sardar Patel: A man for allcrises” (October 31) by SureshPrabhu. While welcoming thegood motive behind buildingthe statue of Sardar VallabhbhaiPatel, which was inaugurated byour Prime Minister in Gujarat,apprehensions are still not out of

everyone’s mind as why an enor-mous sum of money waspumped into the building of thisstatue.

It should not be forgottenthat there are still a lot of issuesthat remain unaddressed andunattended. The curse of pover-ty, too, is still raging the coun-try. It is, therefore, questionableid such a huge amount of moneymust be spent on the construc-

tion of a statue. However, the imposing the

182-metre statue is the world’stallest, even dwarfing the Statueof Liberty in the United States.Full credit goes to PrimeMinister Modi as it is believedthat he conceptualisded themonument when he was theChief Minister of Gujarat.

Undoubtedly, the world’stallest monument will serve as a

reminder about Sardar Patel’scourage to thwart conspiracy todisintegrate India.

Historically speaking, onintegration, Sardar VallabhbhaiPatel used force to annex prince-ly States, including Hyderabadand Junagadh; rulers of theseStates did not wish to merge withthe Indian Union.

TK Nandanan Chennai

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Sir — This refers to the editor-ial, “Reason for optimism”(October 30). The recent two-day summit between IndianPrime Minister Narendra Modiand Japanese Prime MinisterShinzo Abe in Tokyo is indica-tive of stronger and fruitful tiesbetween the two countries.Enhanced economic coopera-tion between India and Japanwould help foster and expandIndia’s economic growth.

There were a number ofagreements signed between bothcountries. Most important ofthem was the bilateral currencyswap agreement worth $75 dol-lar. This deal will make it pos-sible for India and Japan to payfor imports and exports in cur-rencies of the two countriesrather than the American dollar.Besides this, Japan also extend-ed loan worth 316 billion yen toIndia for seven infrastructureprojects in India.

Devendra KhuranaBhopal

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The ongoing multi-starrer soapopera concerning the goings onwithin the Central Bureau of

Investigation (CBI) is getting evermore curious. The organisation seemsto be imploding and skeletons are tum-bling out of the closet like confetti.Perplexingly, for the Government,those who were expected to quietly dis-appear into the woodwork have sud-denly found the courage to speak upand demand to be heard.

Not unexpectedly, the first casual-ty of all this was Union FinanceMinister Arun Jaitley’s talk of “main-taining institutional integrity”. Notthat his explanation was particularlycredible in the first place as theGovernment had already shot itself inthe foot by appointing a predominant-

ly controversial officer as the InterimDirector. Interestingly, the CentralVigilance Commissioner, KVChowdhary, who was entrusted withthe supervision of the CBI by theSupreme Court, also found himselfwoefully exposed in the spotlight withlittle to commend his actions in thisaffair. This is clearly borne out by thedirections of the apex court, despitestating that its “entrustment of super-vision of the on-going enquiry by theCVC to a former judge of this court isa one-time exception, which has beenfelt necessary by this Court in the pecu-liar facts of this case and should not beunderstood to be casting any reflectionon any authority of the Government ofIndia”. These words are reminiscent ofthat famous “But Brutus is an hon-ourable man” speech by Mark Anthonyat Julius Caesar’s funeral, whom Brutushelped kill. Chowdhary would do wellto recall where that speech got poorBrutus!

For those who have closely fol-lowed the manner in which the ArmedForces, arguably the last functionalinstitution within the country, have

been eviscerated over the past fouryears by this Government, the visibledysfunction within the CBI should notcome as much of a surprise. What, ofcourse, is a pleasant change is thatunlike the complete absence of any seri-ous objection, except from veterans,against all manner of indignities beingheaped on the military, there has beenvociferous opposition to what is aptlybeing referred to as a “midnight coup”at the CBI.

This is understandable given thatpoliticians, whatever their ideology, arealways looking for ways to subvert the

criminal justice system, of which theCBI is an important edifice, to accom-plish their own nefarious designs.Why else would the CBI have beenreferred to as a “caged parrot” a fewyears ago?

One can rest assured that as longas we continue to elect those facing seri-ous criminal charges, like rape andmurder, to Parliament, just and equi-table governance will remain apipedream. Given the CBI’s sinisterinfluence, it is no wonder then thatevery Government of the day looks toappoint a suitably malleable Director,

especially on the eve of elections, forobvious reasons.

Jaitley’s suggestion of the fiascowithin the CBI being the result of anego-driven vulgar public slugfestbetween the Director Alok Verma, andhis deputy Rakesh Asthana, does notcut much ice. While a clash of egos maywell have been the immediate provo-cation, there appears to be much moreat stake than what meets the eye. Fromdocuments that have appeared in themedia, Verma appears to have beenwell justified in opening a probeagainst Asthana. Clearly, given theemphasis Prime Minister NarendraModi publicly places on fighting cor-ruption, the Government should haveunequivocally supported the Director’saction, even more so because Asthanawas from the Gujarat Cadre and hadpreviously worked under Modi. Thatthe Government did not do so andinstead acted with haste to derail theongoing investigation by de factoreplacing the Director, and transferringthe Investigating Officer to theAndaman and Nicobar Islands, puts aquestion mark on its motives.

In the forthcoming elections, theneed to appoint a ‘suitable’ replace-ment for the outgoing Director is adire necessity in order to contain thefallout of the Rafale controversy. Thisis inextricably linked to its actions andthe reason why Verma finds himselffighting a lonely, uphill battle againstthe might of the Government.Whatever may be the outcome of thepresent imbroglio, Verma has shownus the true face of a deeply flawedorganisation.

It is fairly clear that we cannot leaveits revival to politicians if it is to live upto its motto ‘Industry, Impartiality andIntegrity’. It is time for the civil societyand all stakeholders to step up and forcethe political-bureaucratic establish-ment to truly transform the CBI intothe pre-eminent investigative agencywithin the country that we can all beproud of. If we are unwilling to do so,we should be prepared for the worst.

(The writer is a military veteran, aConsultant with the Observer ResearchFoundation and Visiting Senior Fellowwith The Peninsula Foundation,Chennai)

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Braj Kishore Verma, popularly known by hispen name, Manipadma, is indisputably oneof the most productive novelists of Maithililanguage. He is a prolific writer in the truesense of the term and has published more

than a dozen of novels based on a variety of issuesranging from folktales to slavery, from beggary tospying and so on. The prestigious Maithili magazine,Mithila-Mihir, which is indeed responsible for themaking of many successful creative writers inMaithili, published some parts of his first, incom-plete novel, Analpatha. It was, perhaps, never com-pletely written as nobody has any clue or access tothe entire novel.

Four years later, a historical novel titled,Vidyapati, was published. Vidyapati is the fountainhead of Maithili literature even though Manipadmawrote as many as 11 texts in Sanskrit before he turnedto Maithili language for his poetic endeavours. AndManipadma presents different dimensions ofVidyapati’s personality in an extremely persuasivemanner with a backdrop of the Oinwar dynasty,which he served particularly during the reign of kingShiva Singh. The novel traces the trajectory of thegenesis and the growth of the great poet and alsobrings to the fore some of the trials and tribulationsfaced by the queen, Lakhima Devi. Vidyapatiappears to be the first complete, notable novel whichgave Manipadma distinctive visibility in the domainof literature.

During the period of 1967 and 1968, his novel,Ardhanarishwar, was serialised in Mithila-Mihir. Itcame out in a book form much later in 1981. Theidea of Ardhanarishwar is invoked in this novel tosuggest that all human beings, regardless of their gen-der, have both masculine and feminine character-istics embedded in their disposition. The novel isspecifically important for its effective articulation ofthose ideas which were gathered from philosophi-cal traditions prevalent in the ancient Indian socialnetworks for the assertion of the fact that the com-mon folks share a deep solidarity and have tremen-dous respect for the country. Trying to establish aharmonious confluence amongst Saiva, Shakta andBuddhist philosophies, he does, in fact, make enor-mous contribution to the reawakening of ournationalist mindset.

With a certain degree of poise and poignance,Manipadma played a significant role in shaping andeven strengthening our national consciousness inalmost all of his novels, such as Raja Salhesh, LorikVijay, Kobragarl, Naika Banjara, Lavahari Kushahari,Rai Rampal, Phutpath, Bharatika Bilari, Dulara Dayaland Nagbhumi, sometimes quite explicitly and atother times implicitly. Raja Salhesh is centered aroundthe cultural narratives of a lower caste in Mithila.Salhesh is an extraordinary Dalit character capableof performing certain spectacularly heroic activitiesand, thus, defeating the nefarious designs ofChuharmalla, who has been portrayed as an arche-typal villain in this novel.

Similarly, Lorik-Vijay draws uopn the folkloreassociated with the Ahir community of our coun-try. Equipped with a remarkably strong body and animmensely sound mind, Lorik emerges as a popu-lar leader. He exhibits an indefatigable will andindomitable spirit which drive him to indulge in allkinds of romance and adventure. His indulgencemakes him to lose sight of the love and affection ofhis wife, Manjari. And he finds himself quiet unable

to resist the temptation of the glamour andcharm of Chanaina. Despite his indul-gence and susceptibility, he decisivelydefeats his rivals representing evil andfinally succeeds in attaining a kind of ulti-mate peace and happiness with the assis-tance of his beautiful and unbelievablyhelpful wife.

Naika Banjara, which brought theSahitya Academy Award for Manipadmafollowing the year of its publication,explores a Buddhist folktale in a creativeway. Its exploration in the novel ends uphighlighting the utmost importance of notjust knowledge, insight and wisdom, butalso economic health and military prowessfor the development of a nation. Weavingtogether different stories of Kanakmanjari,sea-trader Ratansen and the Buddhistmonk, Devapadma, with a view to fore-ground the significance of Banjara nar-ratives, Manipadma provides an effectiveframework of defining human relation-ships which value the fulfillment ofnational interest more than individualaccomplishments. It is very much evidentin the text that Buddhist way of lookingat human life and the growth of a nationis as fruitful and inseparable as any othermainstream philosophical traditions.

From their primary preoccupationwith the cultural narratives of supposed-ly lower and backward castes, these threenovels very categorically demolish the falseaccusation put forward by either ignorantor arrogant minds who prefer to associ-ate Maithili literature exclusively withupper castes and the representations oftheir socio-political and cultural accounts.

Manipadma also experimented withthe genre of detective fiction when hechose to write Kobragarl in which anextremely brave, young lady does notmind at all to put her own life at stake forthe sake of the nation. She willingly choos-es to perform the task of spying and goeson to expose the Chinese conspiracyagainst the new emergent nation state. Anardent desire to even sacrifice one’s ownlife at the alter of nationalist cause is so

succinctly expressed in this enormouslyexciting piece of literary work.

His Lavahari Kushhari, Rai Ranpaland Dulara Dayal revolve around thosefolktales which reflect the existence ofhighly moving ancient Indian cultural net-works. The first engages with the Sitaramkatha from the point of view of their chil-dren. Sita is seen as a valiant warrior fromMithila, who does not fall apart even whenabandoned by her husband while she ispregnant. She takes care of herself and rais-es her two sons like a strong and self-suf-ficient single parent. The novel tells us aninteresting story of Ram being defeatedby his own sons. Clearly, it has been writ-ten with a perspective to put Ram in placebefore Sita disappears, in fact motivatesherself to merge with the all encompass-ing mother Earth.

The second, Rai Ranpal gives us adetailed account of the historical deeds ofthe central protagonist who happens to bethe last king of the Pal dynasty. The hero-ic way Ranpal faces the challenges, whichcircumstances have thrown his way,draws lessons for us that we should con-front difficulties of our lives and never evertry to run away from the sorry state ofaffairs surrounding the world we live in.A group of folk dancers, who are knownas Pamariyas, prefer to sing the touchingtales of Ranpal, specifically to celebrate thebirth of a child in Mithila region of thenation. The third, Dulara Dayal deals withthe devotion of the hero towards the river,Kamla. His undying admiration for thegoddess indicates the relevance of the riverfor the well-being of the region and in turnthe nation. He is believed to possess thekind of divine skills that enable him todance in inimitable ways with an appar-ent objective to bring good fortune to thepeople of that region.

Most of the distinguished Maithiliwriters have not cared to write literaturefor children. But Manipadma proves to bedifferent. He wrote Bharatika Bilari whichis a an extremely entertaining story of anadventurous journey of a very funny child

along with a miraculous cat. This novelrepresents those imaginative tendencieswhich constitute the cosmos of children’sliterature. It basically fulfills the creativeresponsibilities of a sensitive author whothinks that the availability of quality lit-erature for children is indispensable forthe formation of healthy regional ornational ethos.

Manipadma’s consistent engagementwith the ideas and issues that underlinethe primacy given to the national inter-est is particularly praiseworthy in view ofthe fact that his last published novel,Nagabhumi, unequivocally promotesnational unity and its territorial integri-ty in the face of seemingly insurmount-able insurgency which erupted inNagaland. He considers the violent rebel-lion as an act of treason, highlights the roleof foreign vested interests in aggravatingthe turmoil and turbulence and finallyexhorts us all to show our unequivocal sol-idarity with the idea of India in order tofoil the attempts of the destabilisingforces hell-bent for the disintegration ofthe nation in one pretext or the other.

Borrowing a phrase from the histo-rian, Partha Chatterrjee, who has dis-cussed a great deal about of the idea ofnation and nationalism, I wish to state thatManipadma talks about the nation and itsfragments in the above-mentioned nov-els in a pretty complex and nuanced man-ner. His artistic preoccupation with thereinforcement of the national conscious-ness, citing numerous examples from folk-tales alongside those from contemporaryrealities entirely demolishes the claim thatthe sense of the nation began to developin our country with the colonial interven-tion. Exploding the myth of the genesisof our nation in colonial encounter,Manipadma establishes himself as anationalist writer who effortlessly drewupon the cultural reservoir so easily avail-able in ancient Indian social networks.

(The writer is Assistant professor ofEnglish at Rajdhani College, DelhiUniversity)

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The World Bank each year, inthe month of October,

announces its rankings on the'Ease of Doing Business' for thenext year. The performance ofeach nation is taken into con-sideration with the 1st of Maybeing the cut-off date. This is anindependent research by theWorld Bank based on objectivecriteria where grading are givenunder ten different heads as perthe criteria specified therein.There is no place for generalities.The improvement has to bespecific. India has now movedto position No.77 in a list of 190nations.

������������India, during the ten years of

the UPA, has witnessed highlevel of corruption, policy paral-ysis and abandonment of allreforms. UPA-II, for its five yeartenure, witnessed a global rank-ing 134, 132, 132, 134 and final-ly 142. This was UPA's miser-able track record. India was themost difficult to do businesswith. Investors were wary ofcoming to India. On the con-trary, there was a reverse flightof capital from India by theinvestors.

���������������The Prime Minister in 2014

itself announced that theGovernment's objective was toensure that India should beamongst the first fifty nations in

the 'Ease of Doing Business'. Hiscall seemed to be a tall promisesince India had to move up 92positions. Amongst the topnations, in each of the ten cate-gories, the competition isextremely tough and manycountries with specific changesmove ahead. Changes requireda legislation, regulation, policydecisions and administrativereforms. They involved techni-cal innovations. Moving up 92positions is a daunting task.Not many were optimistic. Theyregarded it as an unachievablegoal.

The Government startedworking on each of the criteriain 2014 itself. Announcement ofa change, a legislation or a poli-cy is not enough unless the effectof the same is felt on the ground.The World Bank doesn't regardannouncements as a worthyimprovement. There is always atimeline between the reformand the upgrade.

Having inherited the legacyof position No.142, we movedup, in the first two years, andretained position No.130. In thethird year, we have made amajor jump of 30 positions toreach position No.100 and in thefourth year, we have moved toposition No.77. This is a 65 pointimprovement in the first fouryears. We are still 27 positionsaway from the target. Theimpossible now looks plausible.

�����������

���������On the 'Starting of Business',

we have improved in four yearsby 21 points. In 'ConstructionActivity', four year improve-ment is a massive 132 points.The unified bylaws now involvean application for grant of con-struction permit online. Thepermits are to be received onlinewithin a specified time. If theyare not received within thattime, there is a deemed sanction.For 'Getting Electricity', we haveimproved a phenomenal 132positions. On registration ofproperties, we are still at positionNo.166. On ''Getting Credit', weare at position No.22. On'Protecting Minority Investors',we are at position No.7 - ourhighest position in any catego-ry. On 'Trading Across Borders',which involves customs, we haveimproved significantly to posi-tion No.80 from an all time highof 146. After the enactment andimplementation of the GST andthe Insolvency and BankruptcyCode, we have improved in'Payment of Taxes' by 37 posi-tions but are still at 121. In'Resolving Insolvency', we haveimproved 29 positions but arestill at 108. On 'Enforcement ofContracts', we have improved 23positions but are still at 163.

The road for next yearOn 'Payment of Taxes' and

'Resolving Insolvency', the GSTand the NCLT,mechanisms arein place. Early results seem to bequite encouraging and when

this full year's performance istaken into consideration, itwould be logical to assume thatwe will move up significantly inthese two categories. Similarly, on'Enforcement of Contracts', theSpecific Relief Act has beenamended to make the Actenforceable, leaving damages asonly exception. Commercialcourts have been set up in dif-ferent districts of the country.The Arbitration Act has beenamended to provide for expedi-tious arbitrations and the leastjudicial intervention.

The other area where Indiahas to make a special effort tofurther improve is in relation to'starting a business'. Current yearour ranking of 137 has improvedby 21 position in the last fouryears. It is still not a satisfacto-ry position. There are severalprocesses which are relevantboth at the level of the CentralGovernment and the StateGovernments. Much improve-ment is required in these areas.

In each of these criteria,there has to be an emphasis onreducing the time period for anybusiness activity, reducing thecost involved and cutting downthe number of procedures. Thisby itself is not formidable task.If we are able to keep the presentpace of reforms in the aboveareas, the targets set by thePrime Minister would start look-ing a modest one. Only afocussed and a purpose orient-ed Government could haveachieved this.

��� � 34-54&*/

Bar Code India Ltd (BCIL), the coun-try leader in the field of Identification

and Data Collection inaugurated itsCustomer Experience Centre, showcasingin-action real business use cases for vari-ous IoT technology collaborations.

The inauguration was done by Mr.Vijay Sethi – Group CIO Hero MotoCorpon 1st Nov at BCIL Campus in Gurgaonand attended by several distinguishedindustry leaders. At the launch,BCILshowcased intelligent solutions andadvanced technologies that help businesseswith complete visibility of assets andintelligence in supply chain resulting inhigher profits and customer delight. BCIL’sCEC is a uniqueshowcase of real-life

solutions providing insights from pro-duction to consumption, using operationtechnologies such as RFID, Barcoding,EnterpriseMobility and Vision System

seamlessly integrated to Cisco Kinetic IoTplatform and real-time accurate location-aware solutions using Cisco CMX. BCILalong with Cisco offers complete stack ofsuch IOT solutions for various industryverticals.

���� ������BCIL was incorporated over 20 years

ago with focus on Automated DataCollection and Identification technologies.As the technology horizon expanded,Data and Identification lead the founda-tion for Internet of Things and DigitalDisruption. The core of any Industrial IoTsolution is identification of man, machine,material and method data and stitchingthem together for meaningful and intelli-gent insights.

� � � '�'��/

The rupee rallied by 50 paiseto close at 73.45 against the

US dollar on Thursday, postingits biggest single-session spurtin three weeks on increasedselling of the greenback byexporters, softening crude oilprices and upbeat economicnumbers.

Easing of concerns over therift between the governmentand the Reserve Bank of India(RBI) also supported therupee's recovery, forex dealerssaid.

At the Interbank ForeignExchange (Forex) market, thedomestic unit opened higher at73.88, then gained furtherground and settled for the dayat 73.45, registering a jump of50 paise.

On Wednesday, the rupeehad plunged 27 paise to closeat a nearly three-week low of

73.95 as the dollar strengthenedagainst major global currenciesamid steady capital outflows.

The Finance MinistryWednesday said the govern-ment has "nurtured andrespected" autonomy of thecentral bank and has beenholding extensive consulta-tions with it on many issues.

On the economy front, theGoods and Services Tax (GST)collections for October crossedRs 1-lakh crore mark, whileIndia leapfrogged 23 places tothe 77th rank in World Bank'slatest Ease of Doing Businessrankings.

Manufacturing PMI alsostrengthened in October asfirms scaled up productionand employment amid strongrise in new business orderflows.

"Rupee reacted positivelywith a sharp appreciation of 50paise against the dollar. Today's

gain is the highest one day gainfor rupee against dollar sinceOctober 12, 2018," said V KSharma, Head PCG & CapitalMarkets Group, HDFCSecurities.

Crude oil prices moderat-ed amid increase in supply andgrowing concerns that demandmight weaken on the prospectof a global economic slow-down.

Brent crude, the interna-tional benchmark, was trading0.95 per cent lower at USD74.33 per barrel.

Meanwhile, foreign fundspulled out Rs 193.65 crorefrom the capital markets on anet basis Wednesday, whiledomestic institutional investorsbought shares worth Rs1,124.92 crore, provisional datashowed.

The BSE Sensex erased allgains in a highly volatile sessionThursday and finally settled10.08 points, or 0.03 per cent,lower at 34,431.97. The NSENifty, after shuttling between10,441.90 and 10,341.90, ended6.15 points, or 0.06 per centdown at 10,380.45.

The Financial BenchmarkIndia Private Ltd (FBIL) set thereference rate for therupee/dollar at 73.8295 and forrupee/euro at 83.7261.

�#����� �����'<����� ����"�������

Mumbai: The BSE Sensexerased all gains in a highlyvolatile session Thursday toend 10 points lower as losses inshares of software exportersand pharmaceutical companiesoffset gains in capital goods,banking and auto counters,amid unabatedforeign fund out-flows.

The bench-mark indicesswung betweengains and losses,with Sensex gyrat-ing over 376points both ways on alternatebouts of buying and selling.The 30-share index openedhigher at 34,650.63 points andadvanced to 34,679.93 pointsamid sustained buying bydomestic institutional investors(DIIs), better-than-expectedcorporate earnings and positiveglobal cues.

It, subsequently, slippedinto the negative zone to hit alow of 34,303.38 points as par-

ticipants began booking prof-its and finally settled 10.08points, or 0.03 per cent, lowerat 34,431.97.

The gauge had climbed550.92 points Wednesday.

Similarly, the NSE Niftyafter shuttling between

10,441.90 and 10,341.90,ended 6.15 points, or 0.06per cent down at10,380.45.

Market commencedthe session on a strongfooting on easing con-cerns around the riftbetween the government

and RBI. However, emergenceof profit-booking at every risereversed early gains.

Market was range bounddespite a fall in oil prices andstrengthening rupee asinvestors remain focused onquarter earnings, analysts said.

Selling was more pro-nounced in information tech-nology and pharmaceuticalsector stocks amid recovery inthe rupee. PTI

� � � 34-54&*/

Sebi Thursday said it willlaunch Unified Payments

Interface as an alternative pay-ment option for retail investors,buying shares in a public issue,in a phased manner fromJanuary 1 next year, which willcut listing time for an IPO tothree days from six at present.

The new mechanism willincrease the efficiency of theexisting system and curtail theneed for manual intervention.

UPI is an instant paymentsystem developed by theNational PaymentsCorporation of India (NPCI).It allows instant transfer ofmoney between any two per-son's bank accounts using apayment address whichuniquely identifies a person'sbank account.

As a part of the continuingefforts to further streamline theprocess, Sebi has decided, inconsultation with the stakeholders to introduce the use ofUPI as a payment mechanismwith Application Supported byBlock Amount (ASBA) forapplications in public issues byretail investors through inter-mediaries.

"The proposed process

would increase efficiency, elim-inate the need for manualintervention at various stages,and will reduce the time dura-tion from issue closure to list-ing by up to 3 working days,"the Securities and ExchangeBoard of India (Sebi) said in acircular.

Currently, retail investorseither invest in an IPO throughbank ASBA or through brokerASBA, where the broker doesthe bidding and hands over theapplication form to theinvestors bank.

Considering the timerequired for making necessarychanges to the systems and toensure complete and smoothtransition to UPI paymentmechanism, the regulator saidthat the new mechanism andconsequent reduction in time-lines will be introduced in aphased manner.

"From January 1, 2019, theUPI mechanism for retailinvestors through intermedi-aries will be made effectivealong with the existing processand existing timeline of T+6days. The same will continue,for a period of 3 months orfloating of 5 main board pub-lic issues, whichever is later," itadded.

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� ��� 34-54&*/

Suzuki Motorcycle India PvtLtd (SMIPL) on Thursday

reported 30.76 jump in sales inOctober at 65,689 units.

The company had sold

50,237 units October last year,SMPIL said in a statement.

"A strong performanceduring the festive season is crit-ical to our hope of fulfilling oursales target of 7.5 million salesin this financial year," SMIPLManaging Director SatoshiUchida said.

The company enjoyed itshighest-ever retail sales duringthe month and is geared up toend this season on a high, headded. PTI

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Singapore/New Delhi:Hundreds of employees atGoogle offices around the world,including in India, Thursdaystaged an unprecedented seriesof walkouts in protest at thecompany's treatment of womenand lenient treatment of topexecutives accused of sexualmisconduct.

The demonstrations,dubbed "Google Walkout," fol-low an outcry over a New YorkTimes investigation that detailedyears of sexual harassment alle-gations, multimillion-dollar sev-erance packages for accused

executives, and a lack of trans-parency over the cases.

The employees are demand-ing several key changes in howsexual misconduct allegationsare dealt with at the Internetgiant, including a call to endforced arbitration - a movewhich would make it possible forvictims to sue.

Forced arbitration, a com-mon contract clause for SiliconValley employees, demands anydisputes are dealt with internal-ly rather than through othermethods such as the courts.

Google chief executive

Sundar Pichai has told staff hesupports their right to protest.

"Yesterday, we let Googlersknow that we are aware of theactivities planned for Thursdayand that employees will have thesupport they need if they wishto participate," the Indian-American top executive said.

Demonstrations at the com-pany's offices around the worldbegan at 11:10am in Tokyo andtook place at the same time inother time zones.

A photo from the Singaporehub showed at least 100 staffprotesting. When contacted a

Google spokesperson confirmedto PTI that 150 employees par-ticipated in the walkout in India.The employees were fromHyderabad, Gurgaon andMumbai offices. Overall, Googlehas about 2,000 people acrossfour offices in India (Hyderabad,Gurgaon, Mumbai andBangalore).

A Google spokesman inSingapore said he could not pro-vide details on how many peo-ple took part in the walkouts atthose two offices, which eachhave more than 1,000 employ-ees. PTI

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GST collections inOctober crossed the ��1lakh crore mark, after a

gap of 5 months, on the backof festive demand, anti-evasionmeasures.

The Finance MinistryThursday said 67.45 lakh busi-nesses filed goods and servicestax (GST) returns in Octoberand deposited ��1,00,710 croreas taxes.

“GST collections forOctober 2018 have crossed ��1lakh crore. The success of GSTis lower rates, lesser evasion,higher compliance, only onetax and negligible interferenceby taxation authorities,”Finance Minister Arun Jaitleytweeted.

The states which achieved“extra-ordinary growth” in totaltaxes collected include Kerala(44 per cent), Jharkhand (20per cent), Rajasthan (14 percent), Uttarakhand (13 percent) and Maharashtra (11 percent), an official statementsaid.

GST revenue had firstcrossed the landmark figure inApril when the collections were�� 1,03,458 crore. Since thencollections have maintainedabove ��90,000 crore mark.

The collections stood at �

94,016 crore in May, ��95,610crore in June, ��96,483 crore inJuly, ��93,960 crore in Augustand �� 94,442 crore inSeptember.

Of the ��1 lakh crore totalgross GST revenue collected inOctober, central GST is �16,464 crore, state GST is �22,826 crore, IGST is ��53,419crore (including ��26,908 crorecollected on imports) and cessis ��8,000 crore.

The October revenue col-lections reflect the purchaseand sales activities conductedin the month of September.

The government has set-tled �� 17,490 crore to CGSTand �� 15,107 crore to SGSTfrom IGST as regular settle-ment.

Further, �� 30,000 crorehas been settled from the bal-ance IGST available with thecentre on provisional basis inthe ratio of 50:50 between cen-tre and states.

“The total revenue earnedby central government and thestate governments after regularand provisional settlement inthe month of October, 2018, is��48,954 crore for CGST and��52,934 crore for the SGST, thestatement added.

Deloitte India Partner MSMani said “it appears that GSTcollections have turned thetide and the increased collec-tions would be on account ofthe stabilisation of GSTprocesses and the anti-evasionmeasures taken. The fact thatSeptember heralds the festiveseason has also helped inimproving collections”.

EY Tax Partner AbhishekJain said that while a possiblereason for an upsurge inSeptember could be fiscal 2017-18 closing adjustments, thistrend could be expected to con-tinue with implementation ofanti-evasion measures likeTDS/TCS.”

-�������������&��&���(���B�C������� ��*������D� ��������C��&���&����� &�%���������E44�/��&� �F@�?���:�� �E ��/���&� �F@#������� �E)4�/���&� �F@������:�� ��E),�/���&� �F�� �5�����������E))�/���&� �F

+��� ����������� ����������)�����0���� � ��� 34-54&*/

Railways’ UTS mobile appfor buying unreserved ticketsonline is available nationwidefrom Thursday, the ministrysaid.

Buying unreserved ticketson all non-suburban sectionsacross all zonal railways hasbeen made available fromNovember 1, which will obvi-ate the need for passengers towait in queues, it said in a state-ment.

The process of availingtickets involves downloadingthe application and registration

by furnishing the requisitedetails. After successful regis-tration, the user is given a user-ID and password, which theperson can use to log-in andbook tickets.

The passenger has to bewithin a five-kilometre range ofthe source station to be able tobuy a ticket through the UTSapp. A passenger is allowed tobook four tickets at a time.

Via the app, a registereduser can also buy platformtickets and monthly passes.

A pilot project for buyingunreserved tickets throughmobile phone was commenced

in December, 2014 on selectstations on Central Railway toprovide customers the conve-nience of booking of unre-served tickets without having tostand in queues.

Gradually, unreservedmobile ticketing was extendedto all suburban sections inmetropolitan cities of Chennai,Delhi, Kolkata andSecunderabad between 2015and 2017 along with the facil-ity of paperless ticketing.

The facility to buy unre-served tickets, including seasontickets and platform tickets, isavailable through ‘UTSON-

MOBILE’ app on Android,iOS and Windows phones.

It was introduced on non-suburban sections in 2015, ini-tially on Delhi-Palwal sectionof Northern Railway and thenextended to other non-subur-ban sections of Northern,South Central, Southern, SouthWestern, East Coast, SouthEast Central and South EasternRailways.

While the app waslaunched four years ago, it isthis year that users warmed upto it.

In January 2018, 1.8 lakhpassengers used the app per

day, in September it rose to 4.4lakh passengers and in Octoberthe number of passengers usingthe app climbed to 4.75 lakhper day. The revenue generat-ed currently from the app isaround ��45 lakh per day.

“The number of passengersavailing tickets using the app isaround two per cent of the totaltickets booked. So there is ahuge scope of generating rev-enue through this,” saidMember Traffic, Girish Pillai,told reporters.

Railways sold 7,483 millionunreserved tickets across itsnetwork in 2017-2018.

'��������������� �����)����������7��� ��� 34-54&*/

The country’s manufacturingsector activity improved in

October, as firms scaled up pro-duction and employment levelsamid strong rise in new businessorder flows, a monthly surveysaid Thursday. The Nikkei IndiaManufacturing PurchasingManagers’ Index strengthenedfrom 52.2 in September to 53.1in October as new orders andproduction increased at thequickest rate in four months.

This is the 15th consecutivemonth that the manufacturingPMI remained above the 50-

point mark. New ordersincreased at a sharp rate duringOctober and panellists attributedthis rise to successful advertisingefforts, strengthening underlyingdemand and competitive price-setting. The rise in new orderflows was the fastest since June.

“A combination of domesticand foreign orders fuelled theupturn in overall activity,although export orders displayedthe slowest expansion since July,total new work rose at thesharpest pace since mid-year,”said Pollyanna De Lima,Principal Economist at IHSMarkit and author of the report.

;(A�?���������$�"�"$&�������� �?�������"�B8� ���� ��� 34-54&*/

The perceived level ofbribery and corruption in

emerging markets, includingIndia, has continued to bedouble that of developed mar-kets, a new global study onfraud, bribery and corruptiontrends claimed Thursday.

Over half of the executives— 52 per cent — surveyed inemerging markets said that“bribery and corruption con-tinues to be rampant in busi-ness”, while 40 per cent of therespondents in India believedso, according to the EY

Emerging markets - Integrity inthe spotlight 2018 report.

“In India, 40 per cent of theexecutives surveyed believedthat bribery and corrupt prac-tices occur widely in business.12 per cent said their compa-nies have experienced a signif-icant fraud over the last twoyears, while 20 per cent justi-fied cash payments to help abusiness survive,” the reportsaid. The study noted thatthere have been concertedefforts in India to enhancecorporate governance andtransparency through regula-tory reform such as the

Prevention of Corruption(Amendment) Act 2018(penalises bribe givers as wellas commercial organisations,including foreign companies),Companies Act 2017 andInsolvency and BankruptcyCode (Amendment) Bill 2017,as well as increased penaltiesfor non-compliance.

“However, fraud and cor-ruption are still a major obsta-cle to growth. In the media, themore frequent reporting oflarger cases of corruption posea greater reputational risk forcompanies doing business inthe region,” it said.

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China and America are“competitors but not adver-

saries,” US Sen LamarAlexander told ChinesePremier Li Keqiang onThursday, despite a spirallingtrade war and other tensionsthat have pushed relations totheir lowest point in years.

The upbeat message at theirmeeting in Beijing came amidconcerns that the US-Chinatrade dispute will drag on,hurting company profits andthe overall US economy.Tensions have also arisen overChina’s claims to Taiwan andthe South China Sea, allegationsof Chinese theft of commercialsecrets and accusations of med-dling in American politics.

Coming a week ahead ofthe US midterm elections, thevisit by Alexander at the headof a seven-member delegationof Republican senators andcongress members seemed allthe more extraordinary. Allare strong supporters of USPresident Donald Trump, whohas slapped tariffs on USD 250billion on Chinese productsand threatened much more.

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The first democratically elect-ed president of the Maldives

returned home Thursday aftermore than two years in exile toescape a long prison term.

The plane carryingMohamed Nasheed from SriLanka landed in Maldives’ cap-ital, Male, where he was wel-comed by his party membersand supporters.

He planned to address hissupporters later Thursday.

Nasheed was sentenced to13 years in jail in 2015 afterbeing convicted of terrorism forordering the arrest of a topjudge in 2012 while he waspresident.

His trial was criticisedinternationally for lack of dueprocess, along with those ofmany other political opponentsjailed by strongman PresidentYameen Abdul Gayoom’sadministration.

He was offered asylum inBritain when he travelled therefor medical treatment on leavefrom prison.

Nasheed’s return followsYameen’s defeat in theSeptember 23 presidential elec-tion by Ibrahim MohamedSolih, the candidate ofNasheed’s MaldivianDemocratic Party.

Since Yameen’s defeat,courts have freed or granted bailto some of the jailed officials.

���� �47�&9�7��*�7+4�:

South Korean PresidentMoon Jae-in said Thursday

that North Korean leader KimJong Un will “soon” visit Seoulas part of a series of high-pro-file diplomatic efforts aimed atridding North Korea of itsnuclear weapons.

Moon said in a speech toparliament that a second NorthKorea-US summit is also “nearat hand” and that ChinesePresident Xi Jinping is expect-ed to visit North Korea soon.

Moon also said he expectsKim to visit Russia soon andthat Kim may meet withJapanese Prime MinisterShinzo Abe.

Moon has previously saidthat Kim told him he wouldvisit Seoul within this yearwhen the leaders met inPyongyang, North Korea’s cap-ital, in September.

South Korea’s presidentialoffice said it had nothing to addto Moon’s speech about Kim’strip. His comments were in linewith previous statements, it said.

They suggest that Moon isdetermined to push ahead withdiplomacy to resolve thenuclear issue.

“Now, based on firm trustamong one another, South andNorth Korea and the United

States will achieve completedenuclearisation and lastingpeace on the KoreanPeninsula,” Moon said.

“This is an opportunitythat has come like a miracle. It’ssomething that we shouldnever miss.”

The prospects for a secondsummit between Kim and USPresident Donald Trumpimproved after Secretary ofState Mike Pompeo made hisfourth visit to North Korea ear-lier this month.

But no breakthrough hasfollowed. US officials haverecently said a second Trump-Kim summit will likely happenearly next year.

Some experts have raiseddoubts over whether Kim’sSeoul trip will occur byDecember.

Moon, a liberal who tookoffice last year, favours a nego-tiated resolution to thedecades-long internationalstandoff over North Korea’snuclear ambitions.

He has facilitated a series ofhigh-level US-North Koreaexchanges, including their firstsummit in Singapore in June.

But Moon has faced grow-ing outside skepticism overwhether his engagement poli-cy will eventually settle thenuclear standoff.

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Days before the crucial mid-term elections, US

President Donald Trump hasposted a divisive campaignadvertisement on his Twitteraccount which he hopes wouldboost the Republican party’scampaign.

The controversial video,now pinned to the top of hissocial media feed, blames theDemocrats for “letting in” LuisBracamontes - an undocu-mented immigrant fromMexico who killed two policeofficers in Sacramento in 2014.

Bracamontes, who had pre-viously been deported twice,was sentenced to death for themurders earlier this year.

The video -- produced forthe Trump campaign -- andposted by President Trumpshows Bracamontes grinning incourt and threatening to “killmore cops soon”.

The ad recalls the notori-ous “Willie Horton” campaignad financed by supporters ofthe George H.W. Bush cam-paign in the 1988 presidentialelection. Horton was a con-victed murderer who commit-ted rape while furloughedunder a programme inMassachusetts whereDemocratic nominee MichaelDukakis was governor.

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The US has warned of “swift”and “severe” retaliatory

action in case of any foreignmeddling in the crucial mid-term polls as the America’sintelligence communityWednesday expressed its con-cern over ongoing electioninterference campaign by for-eign actors, in particularRussia, China and Iran.

In the November 6 mid-term elections, Americanswould elect 435 members of theHouse of Representatives and35 of the 100 Senate seats inCongress.

The US has said that theforeign interference in the USelections is a threat to America’sdemocracy.

The intelligence commu-

nity is concerned about ongo-ing interference campaigns byRussia, China, and other foreignactors, including Iran, to under-mine confidence in the demo-cratic institutions and influencepublic sentiment and govern-ment policies, a senior intelli-gence official told reporters.And, as such, identifying andpreventing this interference isa top priority for the federalgovernment, the official said.

The US has said that it willtake severe action against thosetrying to interfere with the polls.

“If there is interference inthat, that fundamentally wrecksthe natural process that we haveestablished in this country,and really undermines what wewould be looking at. That hasto be met with swift and severeaction,” the official said.

Washington: President DonaldTrump has alleged that the “far-left media” in the US usestragedy to sow anger and divi-sion in the society, saying itspreads fake news which is theenemy of the people.

The President, who hasbeen at loggerheads with sev-eral mainstream media outletsincluding CNN, ABC News,The New York Times and TheWashington Post, has quiteoften described them as “fakemedia”.

Referring to his visit to thePittsburg synagogue where 11people were killed, Trump said:“Yesterday’s visit to Pittsburghwas about coming together asa nation to comfort and to heal.After this day of unity andtogetherness, I came home andsadly turned on the news andwatched as the far-left mediaonce again used tragedy to sowanger and division”.

Chants of “CNN sucks”broke out at Trump’s electionrally in Florida Wednesdaynight as Trump doubled downhis attack on what he said arethe “far-left media”. PTI

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Intensifying his pre-electionanti-immigration push,

President Trump has said hemay send 15,000 troops to theUS southern border to keep aslow-moving caravan of LatinAmerican migrants from enter-ing thecountry, butrejected alle-gation thathe was fear-mongeringon the issue.

Tr u mphas vowed not to let the cara-van of people from three LatinAmerican countries — ElSalvador, Guatemala andHonduras — enter the US.

“We have about 5,800(troops deployed on the bor-der). We’ll go up anywherebetween 10,000 and 15,000military personnel, on top ofBorder Patrol, Immigrationand Customs Enforcement,and everybody else at the bor-der,” Trump told reporters atthe White House.

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President Donald Trump hassaid that no constitutional

amendment was required to doaway with the birthright citi-zenship — the process bywhich babies born in the coun-try to the non-US nationalsautomatically become citizens— as this can be done with anexecutive order, bringing histough stance on immigrationahead of the crucial mid-termelections next Tuesday.

In his latest hardline immi-gration rhetoric, the USPresident had on Tuesdayexpressed his intention to takethe path of executive order todeny automatic citizenship tochildren born of non-American parents in the US,saying the birthright citizenship“has to end”.

“Birthright citizenship is avery, very important subject. Inmy opinion, it’s much lesscomplex than people think. Ithink it says it very loud andclear in the Constitution thatyou don’t have to go throughthe process of whatever they’retalking about,” Trump told

reporters at the White Houseon Wednesday.

“You don’t need aConstitutional amendment forbirthright citizenship. I believethat you can have a simple votein Congress or it’s even possible— in my opinion, this is aftermeeting with some very talent-ed legal scholars — that you cando it through an executiveorder,” said the US President.

At the same time, Trumpsaid his first preference wouldbe to make the changesthrough the Congress, whichwould be a permanent thing. “Iwould rather do it throughCongress because that’s per-manent. But I really believe wecan do it through executiveorder,” he said.

Trump said that the issuewould be ultimately decided bythe Supreme Court.

“Just so you understand, aperson comes in — was neverin our country before — has ababy, now all of a sudden thebaby’s a US citizen. Andthrough chain migration andother things, many other peo-ple come in through the baby,it’s ridiculous,” Trump said.

Los Angeles: A synagogue inCalifornia was defaced withanti-Jew graffiti, police said onWednesday, in an attack thattook place just days after 11people were gunned down at aPittsburg synagogue.

Allen Berezovsky, presi-dent of the board at Beth Jacobsynagogue in Irvine, south ofLos Angeles, said staff discov-ered the vandalism in earlymorning.

He told AFP the words“(expletive) Jews” and “Jews”were spray-painted on the whitefacade of the building.

Berezovsky said securityfootage showed an individualwearing a hoodie, sunglassesand a surgical facemask jump-ing over the fence of the syna-gogue around 1:18 am andthen leaving on a bicycle stolenat the premises.

“The Irvine PoliceDepartment and our own secu-rity have done a full sweep ofthe entire facility and nothingwas found other than the graf-fiti,” he said in a statement to hiscongregation.

“We are continuing to doeverything we can to makeour campus more secure, andwe will continue to promote themessage that we are strongerthan hate.” AFP

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President Donald Trumpsaid on Wednesday in a

presidential memorandum thathe had determined there wassufficient supply of petroleumand petroleum products forcountries to “significantly”reduce their purchase of crudeoil from Iran, which is goingface US sanctions fromNovember 5.

In May, Trump had pulledout of the 2015 landmarknuclear deal, the JointComprehensive Plan of Action(JCPOA) terming it as “disas-trous”. Under the Obama-eradeal, involving five permanentmembers of the United NationsSecurity Council and Germany,Iran had agreed to stop itsnuclear programme inexchange of relief from eco-nomic sanctions.

Moments after coming outthe deal Trump had signedfresh set of sanctions againstIran and warned countriesagainst any cooperation withTehran on its controversialnuclear weapons programme.

In his presidential deter-

mination, Trump said “there isa sufficient supply of petrole-um and petroleum productsfrom countries other than Iranto permit a significant reduc-tion in the volume of petrole-um and petroleum productspurchased from Iran by orthrough foreign financial insti-tutions.”

Trump’s presidential deter-mination, not an executiveorder but a kind of directiveissued by the White House tothe members of his admin-stration on some policy mat-ters, comes less than 100 hoursbefore the deadline set by himfor countries like India to bringits purchase of oil to zero fromIran by November 4.

India has expressed its dif-ficulties in doing so given thegalloping energy needs of its 1.3billion people. More than 80per cent of India’s energy needsare imported. But at the sametime, India has taken steps toreduce its oil purchase fromIran, which has alreadydeclined substantially.

Recently, senior US offi-cials were in India for talks inthis regard. However, US offi-

cials are tightlipped on theissue.

The White House also didnot immediately responded toquestion if India’s oil purchasereductions from Iran would beconsidered significant. Trumpsaid he will continue to moni-tor the situation.

Secretary of State MikePompeo on Wednesday said,on the Laura Ingraham Show,that on November 5, the USwill put back in place sanctionsthat will be very severe on theleadership of Iran. He hopedthat this will convince them tochange their ways.

Pompeo, on the anothershow, said that Iran was theworld’s largest state sponsor ofterror. “They were squanderingthe people’s money, the Iranianpeople’s money, on these sillymalign activities. And oureffort is to get them to changethat behaviour”.

State Department DeputySpokesperson Robert Paladinotold reporters that onNovember 5, at 12:01, sanctionsthat were lifted under the Irannuclear deal will come backinto full effect.

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Hodeida (Yemen): Over sevenmillion children face a seriousthreat of famine in Yemen andending the country’s war will notsave all of them, the UN chil-dren’s agency said.

“Today, 1.8 million chil-dren under the age of five arefacing acute malnutrition, and400,000 are affected by severeacute malnutrition,” said GeertCappelaere, regional directorof UNICEF.

“More than half” of the 14million people at serious risk offamine in the impoverishedcountry are children, Cappelaeretold AFP late on Wednesday.

“Ending the war is notenough,” he said, referring to amore than three year conflictthat pits the government sup-ported by a Saudi-led militarycoalition against Huthi rebels.

“What we need is to stop thewar and (to create) a govern-ment mechanism that puts at thecentre the people and children.

“The war is exacerbating thesituation that was already badbefore because of years ofunderdevelopment” in the Arabworld’s poorest nation,Cappelaere said.

He welcomed a call by theUN on Wednesday to relaunchpeace talks within a month.

He said efforts to come upwith a solution in the next 30days were “critical” to improvingaid distribution and saving lives.

Cappelaere said that over6,000 children have either beenkilled or sustained seriousinjuries since 2015. AFP

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The new HondaCR-V is a brilliant vehi-cle, but like its stablemate the

Honda Accord it does not make sensefor the amount of money you are askedfor.

When you see the new Honda CR-V for the first time you really like theway that the fifth-generation of Honda’sSports Utility Vehicle has turned out.It really looks good, but then you lookthrough the last window of the car andsee something strange — a third row.A third row whose headrests are bare-ly far enough from the second one. Andyou keep puzzling over why it exists.This puzzles you so much that youattempt to fit in there. You then realisethat the third row is not designed fora 5’11” 85-kg male and is more appro-priate for a much smaller humanbeing, preferably before the growthspurt which humans tend to havebetween ages 11-12.

Here is the thing, to be fair, thirdrows are on the whole a pretty bad thingin many vehicles. The Maruti Ertiga’sthird row is tighter than the CR-V’s andeven though it is more comfortable ina Ford Endeavour or Toyota Fortuner,these are not places you would want tospend extended periods of time in. TheCR-V’s third row reminded me a bitabout the third-row on the SkodaKodiaq. Frankly, I would rather take abus than sit in the third row of any non-purpose built vehicle, but if I reallyneeded a third-row to transport a lot ofchildren for example, I would prettymuch stick to a Toyota Innova. And thisis the piece of advice I hand out to a lotof people, if a third-row is really thatimportant to you in a vehicle, and youare spending �25 lakh, just buy aToyota Innova.

So the third-row in the CR-V is abit of gimmick and given the price ofthe new Honda CR-V, it is more likelythan not that if you bought one of these,you would already have a second andmaybe a third car in your garage. Yousee, in this and in most cars with athird-row, they are pretty useless whenyou go on longer drives because usingthe third-row means you have little lug-gage space, and they are as such onlymeant for the school run. Maybe you

could get a VolvoXC90 with a totally

usable third-row of seats butthat costs a lot, lot more.

And that is a pity really, because Ireally liked the new CR-V. The cockpitlayout, particularly the way informationis displayed is excellent, the overall fin-ish of the cabin is superb and it reallydoes feel plush. As I was driving thefour-wheel drive diesel, you really can-not tell that you are driving a huge carpowered by a 1.6-litre engine thanks toa wonderful nine-speed gearboxbecause it delivers all the grunt youneed for city driving. And that passen-ger side lane camera makes you forgetthat you are in a wide car. Sure, eventhe Honda Accord has that but in a caras large as the CR-V and especially sinceI had it for a longer period of time, Ithink it was a great feature whichshould come down the value chain intosmaller cars in future years.

But then again, this specification ofthe CR-V has an ex-showroom price of�38.3 lakh. Which is not chump changegiven that the top-specification ToyotaFortuner and Ford Endeavour costwithin a few tens of thousands of theCR-V. Both of them are bigger andmore powerful. And frankly, if youwanted a badge and four-wheel driveperformance, neither of these cars fitthe bill, because there is the Mercedes-Benz GLA220d 4MATIC, which Idrove for two weeks and had a blast,because it does not pretend to besomething it is not. Which you suspectthat the CR-V does pretend to be.Again, that costs more or less the sameand while it is smaller, at least you getGerman badge value for your money.Although and this is irritating morethan anything else, the Mercedes doesnot have a touchscreen, but after a weekor so you get used to the scroll-wheel.

And that is a pity. The CR-Vremains the original SUV in the Indianmarket, when the first generation andsecond-generation CR-V’s werelaunched, you loved them for their per-formance and combination of size andvalue. You can argue that the Creta’ssuccess today is because it is the samesize as the original CR-V, a size thateveryone loves. It is almost as if Hondadoes not want to sell the CR-V. That isa pity, because this is a nice car, but evenif it were five lakhs cheaper it wouldmake more sense. I really wish thatHonda did more than just the Amazeand City in the market.

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Afew months back who wouldhave thought that the revelationsin the Harry Weinstein case

would lead to a practical storm in India,where incidents of sexual harassment werebest brushed under the carpet? But withaccusations still tumbling out and show-ing no signs of abating, names like NanaPatekar, Sajid Khan, MJ Akbar, RajatKapoor, Gursimran Khamba, Vikas Bhal,Chetan Bhagat, Zain Khan Durrani,Chintan Ruparel making headlines andtaking up Twitter space, a discussion on#Metoo and the culture of impunity:Conversation across generations was cer-tainly called for.

However, how is revealing thesenames on social media helping women getjustice questioned author Ira Trivedi. Shesaid that even if we do have a system andlaw that makes such offences punishable,“The problem is in getting FIRs filed.” Sheadded, “In such a case, one thing aboutsocial media is that it is helpful, but onlyto some extent. For example, writerChetan Bhagat has 12.5 million followerseverywhere. Sohail Sen has eight millionfollowers. Combining the two wouldaccount for an approximate population ofAustralia.” Many women are trolled forgiving out these names which sometimesmakes it seem that they are pushing theirpersonal agendas by taking names todefame people.

“The only point is that now womenare rising to finally speak up against it,”said actress and former national secretaryof BJP, Vani Tripathi. She believed that itis absolutely “convenient” to rubbishthose who have the courage to come outagainst harassment as a “lynch mob. It’sbeen decades since this voice didn’t getattention. It is like a tsunami now, it willchurn things and is here to stay.”

Talking about harassment in the ageof social media, journalist and writer,Namita Bhandare pointed out it hasmade men more cautious. Men often alerttheir friends and tell them to be on theirbest behaviour around women friendsand colleagues and say, ‘Mat bol yaar,#MeToo hojayega varna. (Don’t say itbuddy, otherwise you will be outed under#MeToo.) She said, “It’s important to tellthem that this time they will be outed. Yes,#MeToo could happen to them as well.Think before you speak or act.”

While the talk of the evening wasabout the changing scenario with the

social tsunami, the panel also discussedthe movement’s local and internationalalternatives and the culture of impunitythat had led the earlier generations beingmore tolerant of flirtation at workplacethan their successors. It also highlightedthe disagreements, pushing of personalagendas, and about whether the move-ment has gone too far in trying to discour-age sexual misconduct at the workplaceand beyond.

Gokhale focussed on the point that itis important to put a full stop, rather thana backspace. She said giving an example,“When a person is trying to come nearyou and gets too close after a certain point,you will step back. But that is a mistakethat we, as women, often make — step-ping back. What should rather be doneis to just push them away. This will put astop to it then and there. The same appliesto every woman at the workplace, don’ttry to just step back by leaving the posi-tion, fight for it then and there.”

While talking about harassment atworkplace, the panelists also came across

a new issue, of not employing women asthey could be a threat to the existing cor-porate structure. Indian feminist andwriter Urvashi Butalia gave the exampleof actress Tanushree Dutta, who spokeabout the person who harassed her after10 long years. “When women finally comeout and find the courage to speak up, shemay not find work for a long time postthat, but this doesn’t mean that she is fin-ished. She will rise again, this time withthe destructive mode,” she said.

For instance, if one remembersMahabharatha, the Pandavas were initial-ly not up for a battle due to massive blood-shed and destruction, after Draupadi’sassault in a court of a 100 people. But itwas Draupadi, who eventually did con-vince them to fight against those whowronged her. She added that “This is alsoan example of how prevalent harassmenthas been since the ages.”

Moving on to examples about variousmen who have been outed, there was yetanother issue that was touched upon —gaslighting or the constant psychologicalharassment that leads a person to ques-tion their own sanity and actions.

While Chintan Ruparel, director andfounder of Terribly Tiny Tales, was outedin the movement, he was also accused ofgaslighting several women and makingthem question their own actions. Whilenot defending the harasser, one needs toquestion as to who is to blame in such acase? The one who is letting it happen,unknowingly, or the one who does itunknowingly?

Vani answered, “Gaslighting is allabout patriarchy, and asserting what hasbeen long established as a notion. It is notabout who is doing what, it is about theentitlement of patriarchal roles that are sodeeply engraved in the society that theydon’t even look like wrong to most men.”

They also highlighted that sexualharassment at workplace is “not aboutdesire, but about practicing power overa subordinate.”

Gokhale said, “#MeToo has been awatershed in how women perceive theirboundaries and autonomy and reclaimtheir dignity and equity at the workplaceand in their personal lives. The is a con-versation across generations. I would alsolike to voice my respect for the strengthand conviction of this new generation ofyoung women and their determinationand clarity in asserting their rights.”

The project for creation of amemorial for police personnel

killed in the line of duty, hangingfire for more than a decade wasfinally completed and unveiled bythe Prime Minister on October 12,the National PoliceCommemoration Day. Dedicatedto the nation, the National PoliceMemorial has been erected on6.12 acres of land at the northernend of Shantipath. With nicely laidout green spaces, a sombre centralstone epitaph, an undergroundmuseum and a poignant wall ofremembrance in latticed sand-stone, the memorial is a profoundaesthetic and political statement.What is also attracting immenseattention is a 30 feet tall, abstractmodern sculpture, made of a sin-gle piece of granite rock.

All truly great thoughts areconceived while walking, wroteNietzsche. Adwaita Gadanayak’svisionary concept of what neededto take shape at the memorialseems certainly the result of pen-sive walks at the National Galleryof Modern Art, an institution thathe heads. His ‘eureka moment’came about a year ago, soon afterhe was directed by the Ministry ofCulture to begin work on a sculp-ture symbolising the ennoblingideal of the supreme sacrifice.“Sculpting requires abstract andspatial thinking”, remarks

Gadanayak. “I knew our sculp-ture had to take the form of a

compelling and spiritually chargedincantation capable of measuringitself against the tranquil, medita-

tive setting of the memorial”. The stone was procured from

the Khammam district ofTelangana. In reply to what madehim think of a stone sculpture,Gadanayak says, “A stone knows itall. It is part of the most ancientphenomena in the universe, resultof the slow crystallization of magma

below the earth’s surface. Given thesignificance of the memorial, Iknew that the medium had to bestone. It was not easy finding thestone we needed. We looked atcoloured granite at several places inwestern Orissa, Tamil Nadu andAndhra before reachingKhammam. What immediately

drew our attention to this stone wasits allusive, mysterious, dark tonal-ity and a viscerality that was hardto define. At that point the stoneweighed 300 tons. Transporting itwithout causing cracks and fissureswas a major challenge. It wasloaded in a 120 feet lorry especial-ly created for the purpose. At

many places roads had to bewidened. When the stone finallyarrived at the memorial, It felt likea miracle”.

Ravelling and unravelling thepotential of the stone with a ham-mer and chisel, acclaimed artist andsculptor, Nivedita Mishra waspitched against daunting odds.“We had to finish what we weredoing within a month. Theimmutability of the stone wasintimidating. Would it take the geo-metrical shape that Adwaita hadconceptualised ? I and my team of40 artisans started dialoguing withthe stone. The level of engagementwas amazing. We ate together,lived together and dialogued withthe stone together. And look whathappened. An inert object acquireda spiritual quality embracing thepanchtatvas or the five elements:sky, air, water, fire and earth. We

managed to create a 60-feet longriver-like fluidity at the base of thesculpture with evocation of fire, aperfect antidote to the immutabil-ity of the stone”.

The sculpture that can be seenfrom all around the surroundingarea elicits powerful emotions,echoing the barrenness of absence.The radiating halo of a ball-likeobject nestling in the middle of thevertical stretch evokes the immor-tal soul. Equally evocative is the sil-houette of a soldier on the reverseside. Visitors find themselvesmoved to tears while facing it.“Most of the stone-work createdduring pre-history has survived”,says Gadanayak. “This sculpturetoo will survive the ravages of time.What could be a better tribute toour unsung heroes.”

(The author is a former civil ser-vant and an art columnist.)

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Sheep eyeball juice. Bull testicles.Maggot-infested cheese.

American root beer. These areamong the items considered palat-able or even regarded as delicaciesin some cultures that theDisgusting Food Museum inMalmo, Sweden is serving up.

The temporary museum,which opened Wednesday, clear-ly braced for revolted visitors togag at the foods on display, mostof which can be smelled or tasted.Tickets came in the form of vomitbags.

Curator Samuel West said theexhibition is meant to entertain,but also to convey a thought-pro-voking message: what is consid-ered appetizing or repulsive islearned and can change. He hopesvisitors will be encouraged to trymore sustainable food productsthat are being developed or mar-keted, like insects and lab-grownmeat.

“Disgust is one of the six fun-damental human emotions, andthe evolutionary function of dis-gust is to help us to avoid foodsthat might be dangerous, that arecontaminated, toxic, gone off,”West said. “Disgust is hardwiredas an emotion but what we finddisgusting is culturally learned.”

The idea of exploring grossfood came to him with awarenessthat the “single most impactfulway we can impact the environ-ment is by eating less meat,” hesaid. “It’s an exhibition that asksvisitors to challenge their notionsof what is disgusting and what isdelicious, and the aim is to getpeople to understand there is noobjective measure of disgust,”West said. “For some, the revela-tion might be that ‘maybe insectsaren’t as disgusting as I thought.’”

The 80 food items in themuseum’s exhibit include a bull’spenis, frog smoothies from Peru,a wine made of baby mice that isconsumed in China and Korea,and Sweden’s “surstromming,” aninfamously putrid fermented her-ring.

Visitors are also introduced to“balut,” partially developed duckfetuses that are boiled inside theegg and eaten straight from theshell in the Philippines, as well as“casu marzu,” a Sardinian pecori-no cheese infested by maggots.

Also included are items many

Western visitors might not con-sider disgusting at all. Swedish vis-itors are surprised to find saltylicorice, popular in Sweden butperceived as disgusting to manyothers. American foods on displayinclude Jell-O salad, made ofgelatin and typically fruit; cannedpork brains with milk gravy; androot beer, a sweet soft drink whichSwedes say tastes like toothpaste.“I think that by turning

the lens onto ourselves, onSwedish or American food culture,we are saying, ‘We treat everyonethe same,’” West said.

West said he has managedonly to sample about half of themore exotic collected consum-ables. Asked if he ever vomitedwhile preparing the exhibition, hesaid, “Every day.” Some of the del-icacies are so smelly they are keptin glass jars. At a museum previewlast week, people took tentativesniffs of the displays before recoil-ing with grimaces.

“Real food in the museum set-ting can be a problem,” saidAndreas Ahrens, museum direc-tor and curator. “You have tochange things pretty regularly.You have to make sure that it does-n’t start to rot.” Or as West put it:“You can’t leave bull testicles outfor too long.” West, a clinical psy-chologist and researcher fromCalifornia, was also the creator ofthe Museum of Failure, a suc-cessful showcase of products thatfailed with consumers. It alsoopened in Sweden and will beshown soon in Shanghai.

Hakan Jonsson, a LundUniversity ethnology professorsaid notions of what people finddelicious and disgusting arealready changing. “A lot of biggroups in (the) Western world areall of a sudden thinking ‘Meat hasbecome disgusting, somethingthat I could never put into mymouth,’” he said. “And that isquite new in the history, wheresomething considered as beingnormal, and prestigious, and all ofa sudden had become a matter ofdisgust for many.” The organiserssaid the museum shop offers aselection of “unusual” drinks andsnacks. � �

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When you juxtapose foodwith gender, it becomes atricky proposition because

gender in the kitchen is more cul-ture than science. If you can tastethat the food you are eating wasmade by a man or a woman, you arerevealing something about yourselfand not about the cook, believesBrazilian-born Marcello Tully, whois the head chef at Kinloch Lodge.The Brazilian chef who calls UKhome feels that gender is notimportant, especially in the kitchen.

“It doesn’t matter who thatperson is trained by, in whichcountry and what style of cuisineone makes. Of course, there are lesswomen in the kitchen, compared tomen, but this is changing rapidly.Even women are gradually movingtowards this profession,” said chefTully.

The chef was recently invited toIndia by Anand Kapoor, who runsa charitable organisation — CSSG(Creative Services Support Group)to hold a masterclass by MichelinStar chefs and Tully is one of them.

“I love doing masterclasses andworkshops as part of my role atKinloch Lodge so to be a part of amasterclass, that too in India, wasan amazing opportunity for me. Igot the chance to meet aspiringchefs and this also gave them anopportunity to meet chefs fromaround the world. The audience gotto experiment different flavours andstyles from each of the chef ’smenus. I was happy to learn dif-ferent techniques from the aspiringchefs and to teach them what I havelearned so far in my career. People

usually take the simple tasks andcooking skills performed in thekitchen for granted, but if thesearen’t done correctly, then the endproduct might not be the very best,”said Tully.

A variety of Indian cuisines fea-ture high up on Tully’s favourites.He said, “A lot of the ingredients aresimilar to those in Brazil, such as—exotic and citrus fruit, nuts, chill-ies and spices and coconut milk,”and added, “I love the heat and spiceas well as the mixed spicy flavours.I would say Indian cuisine is one ofthe UK’s favourites with manyrestaurants in cities and towns.Take-aways are hugely popularover there.”

Tully’s father worked in an air-line industry which enabled him totravel to many destinations aroundthe world. This gave him the oppor-tunity to try some mouth-wateringdelicacies along the way. This hasserved him in the long run in hisprofession as well as Tully is confi-dent while experimenting with dis-parate flavours and ingredients.He said, “It’s all because of my trav-elling experiences that has enabledme to treat my patrons with a widevariety of experience.”

For Tully the greatest cause of

failure of any dish is over-season-ing or not adding the properamount or correct seasoning. Hesaid, “Not getting the right balanceof ingredients and flavours is themajor reason of a failed dish.Balance is the key to everything. Istart with the finest core ingredientand then build up the dish withcomponents, not losing its texture.”

Tully also pointed out thatfood is not something that is stat-ic but keeps on evolving and chang-ing.

“There will be more solutionsto some of the big picture issues fac-ing the food and beverage industry.There will be continuous innova-tion to decrease the volume of ani-mal protein being consumed anddevelopment of products with func-tional benefits to enhance ourlifestyles and the continuance of thecritical link between diet and health.This will be coupled with the explo-ration of other natural sources toenhance the food chain,” he said andpointed out that there will be more‘flexitarians’ in the population whoare willing to make more challeng-ing transitions in their diet.

The future, when it comes tofood, continues to evolve andchange.

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Novak Djokovic celebrated hiselevation to world number oneby reaching a new personal

landmark to reach the Paris Mastersquarter-finals on Thursday.

The Serb won his last 16 tie withDamir Dzumhur after the Bosnian wasforced to retire trailing 6-1, 2-1 at Bercy.

For second seed Djokovic it meanthe extended his sequence of consecu-tive winning sets to 30, passing his pre-vious best mark of 29 from 2015.

The four-time Paris championfaces Marin Cilic in the last eight onFriday.

Djokovic takes over as world num-ber one in the latest ATP rankings pub-lished Monday from Rafael Nadal, whowithdrew injured from Paris onWednesday.

Cilic, the fifth seed, secured hisquarter-final ticket with a 7-6 (7/5), 6-4 defeat of Grigor Dimitrov.

Cilic fired 29 winners to advanceto the last eight in the French capital forthe third straight year.

The win improved the Croat'sprospects of making the ATP Finals inLondon starting on November 11.

"I am very close to London, tosecuring my spot mathematically," saidCilic, who is part of the Croatia teamfacing France in the Davis Cup final atthe end of this month.

"In the next match against Novakit will be another big challenge. (It willbe) great to play him again."

Cilic, who will guarantee makingthe cut for London if he downsDjokovic, was ending reigning ATPFinals champion Dimitrov's season.

Dimitrov has been coached by aformer coach of Djokovic, eight-timemajor winner Andre Agassi, in Paristhis week.

Djokovic and Cilic were laterjoined in the quarter-finals by KarenKhachanov who saved two matchpoints agaisnt John Isner on his way todefeating the eight-seeded American 6-4, 6-7 (9/11), 7-6 (10/8).

The Russian will next playAlexander Zverev after the Germanfourth seed beat Diego Schwartzman ofArgentina 6-4, 6-2.

Earlier on Wednesday, Rafael Nadalpulled out of the Paris Masters guar-

anteeing Novak Djokovic's return to theworld number one spot.

The Wimbledon and US Openchampion becomes the first player tostart the season outside the top 20 andend up top of the ATP rankings sinceMarat Safin in 2000.

For Nadal it means delaying hislong awaited comeback from injurywhich has kept him sidelined since theUS Open.

After Paris the ATP tour's eight top-ranked players congregate in Londonfrom November 11 for the season'sFinals.

The 32-year-old Nadal has enjoyeda successful year, clinching his 17thGrand Slam title by winning an 11thFrench Open in June, after triumphs inMonte Carlo, Barcelona and Rome.

But it is Djokovic who will be topdog when the latest ATP rankingsappear on Monday, irrespective of hisfate in the French capital this week.

Despite the blow the tournamentorganisers will be relieved to see RogerFederer making his first appearance atthe competition since 2015.

The Swiss great starts his quest forhis 100th ATP title in the last 16 onThursday after his Wednesday rivalMilos Raonic withdrew through anelbow injury.

World number three Federer willface Italy's Fabio Fognini, ranked 14,who made the next round whenHungary's Marton Fucsovics with-drew injured.

Elsewhere, German fourth seedAlexander Zverev, playing his 70thmatch of the season, defeated FrancesTiafoe of the United States 6-4, 6-4while defending champion Jack Sockput out Richard Gasquet 6-3, 6-3.

South African seventh seed KevinAnderson, the champion in Vienna atthe weekend, battled past NikolozBasilashvili of Georgia 6-3, 6-7 (3/7), 7-6 (7/3).

Anderson next faces Japan's 10thseed Kei Nishikori, who he defeated inthe Austria final. Nishikori made thelast-16 with a 7-5, 6-4 win over AdrianMannarino of France.

Bulgarian ninth seed GrigorDimitrov, who is working with US leg-end Andre Agassi in Paris, wentthrough with a 7-6 (12/10), 6-4 victo-ry over Spain's Roberto Bautista Agut.

����� &73573

American number threeMadison Keys said she

has no doubt Serena Williamscan equal the record of 24Grand Slam titles despite herstormy defeat in the US Openfinal.

Keys said Williams, whoargued furiously with theumpire during her shock lossto Naomi Osaka in New York,certainly had Margaret Court'sall-time mark as a target.

Williams, 37, returnedfrom giving birth to her firstchild in September last year toreach the Wimbledon and USOpen finals, but suffered upsetlosses in both to leave her stuckon 23 major wins.

"I definitely think she cando it, and I definitely think it'ssomething that she thinksabout," Keys said at the WTAElite Trophy atZhuhai in China.

"I think shewants it and Ithink whenSerena puts hermind to some-thing, it usual-ly happens,"she added.

Keys, 23,started playing ten-nis after watchingWilliams and her sis-ter Venus on televi-sion and has oftencited them as aninspiration.

"She cameback and sheplayed threeGrand Slams andmade two finals," theworld number 16said.

"No one is evergoing to be Serenaand I think she'sdone a ton for thesport and has helpedplayers like me a lot,"she added.

She said it will bea "big loss" whenWilliams finallyretires, but that she

would remain a major figure intennis.

"Obviously when shedecides to stop playing it'sgoing to be a big loss but Ithink she'll always be a part ofit, and she's always going tohold all these records and stillbe the greatest tennis playerever.

"So I think we'll alwayshave her in the sport eventhrough she's not playing."

Until Sloane Stephens wonlast year's US Open, the lastAmerican woman to lift amajor trophy, apart from theWilliams sisters, was JenniferCapriati in 2002.

But Keys said Americanwomen's tennis was in "prettygood" shape. Sixth-rankedStephens, the currentAmerican number one, wasrunner-up at last week's WTAFinals.

"Sloane has obviously donereally well this

year, I thinkI'm one ofthe USp l a y e r swho's had a

pretty good seasonthis year," Keys said.

"I think there'sa lot of really greatAmerican playersand I think the

younger ones have donea really great job this

year."Asked if anybody

on the current tourwill ever match

Williams's achieve-ments, Keys said:

"Everything's always pos-sible.

"But to do what shedid, especially as she start-ed at such a young age, andto keep continuing to be sogood, I think it would bevery difficult."

Keys beat top seed DariaKasatkina in her openingmatch in Zhuhai, which fol-lows the round-robin formatuntil Saturday's semi-finals.She will next play China'sWang Qiang.

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Chelsea dumped FrankLampard's Derby out of the

League Cup on Wednesday despitea valiant effort by the Championshipside to battle back from a defensiveHalloween horror show.

Maurizio Sarri's much-changedside eventually emerged 3-2 win-ners, with all five goals coming in ahelter-skelter first half, on a nightwhen there were also fourth-roundvictories for Arsenal, Tottenham andMiddlesbrough.

Two astonishing early defensiveerrors at Stamford Bridge fromFikayo Tomori -- on loan fromChelsea -- and Richard Keogh eitherside of a Jack Marriott equaliser gavethe home side a 2-1 lead.

Undaunted, Lampard's side lev-elled shortly before the half-hourthrough Martyn Waghorn beforeCesc Fabregas restored order forthe Premier League high-flyers.

Lampard, one of Chelsea'sgreatest-ever players, felt his sidedeserved a draw on chances cre-ated but said he was a "lucky man"to be able to enjoy such an occa-sion.

"The difference between thesides was they scored three... actu-ally we scored four didn't we? I jokebecause I'm proud," he told SkySports. "Talking to their staff, they'resaying we're playing well.

"I respect this club, I don't haveto talk about this club. I'm proud ofmy players."

The 40-year-old former Englandmidfielder received a rapturousreception on his first return toStamford Bridge as a manager,

soaking up the atmosphere beforekick-off.

Buoyed by his side'swin on penalties at OldTrafford against his formerChelsea boss JoseMourinho in the previousround, he was dismayed to

witness the errors from his side,which made their task all the hard-er.

Timori sliced into his own netin the fifth minute, miscuing a clear-ance when attempting to deal withan innocuous-looking DavideZappacosta cross.

Midway through the half, light-ning struck twice when Keoghfailed to deal with anotherZappacosta delivery, haplessly steer-ing the ball into his own net.

But the visitors played a full role

����� �4+&/3

Marco Reus's 120th-minutepenalty broke Union

Berlin hearts and sent BorussiaDortmund stumbling into thethird round of the German Cupwith an epic 3-2 win onWednesday.

Sebastian Polter had twicebrought Union back frombehind, but the second divisionside's spirited resistance wasended in the final minute ofextra time, as Marvin Friedrichbrought down Christian Pulisicand Reus smashed home thepenalty.

Pulisic prodded Dortmundahead five minutes before half-time, stabbing in the reboundafter goalkeeper RafalGikiewicz had clawed ShinjiKagawa's header off the line.

Union came out fighting inthe second half, and wererewarded for their spirit whensubstitute Polter poked in anequaliser on the counter-attackjust after the hour mark.

Maximilian Philippappeared to end the resistanceon 73 minutes, picking upPulisic's through ball and riflingthe ball past Gikiewicz.

Yet Polter sprung anothersurprise minutes from time,heading in Robert Zulj's crossto level the scores again.

Union fought on bravely inextra-time before Reus's penal-ty sent Dortmund into thethird round.

"Congratulations to UnionBerlin," said Dortmund coachLucien Favre. "It was very hardto break them down today."

Elsewhere, Schalke alsoedged into the third round,ending their three-game goaldrought in a 1-1 draw beforewinning 6-5 on penalties toscrape past Cologne.

Jhon Cordoba's deflectedshot gave Cologne the leadjust before half-time, butSchalke's salvation came in theform of an 89th-minute penal-ty, coolly converted by NabilBentaleb.

Mark Uth netted the win-ning spotkick in sudden deathto see Schalke through.

Bayer Leverkusen cruisedto a 5-0 victory over BorussiaMoenchengladbach, whileHoffenheim coach JulianNagelsmann's cup curse con-tinued against future employersRB Leipzig.

Nagelsmann's Hoffenheimlost 2-0 in Leipzig to crash outof the second round for a thirdseason in a row.

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Australia's Ashleigh Barty beat anout-of-sorts French number one

Caroline Garcia to keep her semi-final hopes alive at the WTA EliteTrophy on Thursday.

Ninth seed Barty broke Garciaonce in each set to win the round-robin tie 6-3, 6-4 in one hour and 16minutes in Zhuhai, southern China.

Barty, who lost to ArynaSabalenka on Tuesday, now has towait for the outcome of Garcia andSabalenka's match to see if she willprogress to the semi-finals onSaturday.

"It's out of my hands," Barty saidin her post-match press conference.

"I just have to sit back and watchtomorrow. But I'm certainly pleasedto have had the year we've had and

really nice to finish on a positive notetoday."

She said she was in a "win-winsituation", being able to "play withfreedom", but knowing that if she lostshe could still go home at the end ofthe season.

Garcia, 25, was crowned cham-pion in Tianjin in October, but she

was unable to bring that form intoher opening match at the HengqinInternational Tennis Center.

The world number 18, seededeighth, said she had some backpain coming into the tournament,and felt her legs weren't moving theway she wanted on court.

"It was a very difficult match forme today and I think she played greatbut I wasn't feeling very good anddidn't have the rhythm I wanted.

"It's a difficult start for me ofcourse, but I was happy to start onThursday because I had some backpain when I got back to France lastMonday so it was a very complicat-ed week for me.

"Today I think Ash played a greatmatch as well." The Elite Trophy fea-tures 12 players ranked roughlyfrom nine to 20.

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in a frantic first half, lookingsharp as they came forwardand were back on level termsbefore Fabregas scored whatturned out to be the decisivegoal.

�� ����$�������Keogh had a late chance to

make amends for his earlierhowler but Willy Caballerosaved at close range and DavidNugent hit the post in the 89thminute, leaving Lampard hold-ing his head in his hands in

frustration.As former Chelsea and

Leicester manager ClaudioRanieri looked on from thestands, there was a minute'sapplause before kick-off intribute to Leicester's late Thaiowner VichaiSrivaddhanaprabha, killed in ahelicopter crash on Saturday.

Ten-man Arsenal weremade to sweat by League OneBlackpool before eventuallyemerging 2-1 winners, withgoals from Stefan Lichtsteinerand Emile Smith-Rowe.

Two goals from SonHeung-min and a strike fromFernando Llorente gaveTottenham a 3-1 win againstWest Ham whileChampionship sideMiddlesbrough upset Premierleague outfit Crystal Palace 1-0.

On Tuesday, BurtonAlbion and Bournemouthbooked their places in thequarter-finals while PremierLeague leaders ManchesterCity play Fulham on Thursday.

The quarter-final draw pitsArsenal against Spurs, whileChelsea take on Bournemouthand Middlesbrough playBurton. Leicester orSouthampton will playManchester City or Fulham.

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Aruthless India completed a nine-wicket demolition of the WestIndies in the fifth and final ODI

here Thursday for their sixth succes-sive series win at home.

Left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadejatook four wickets to help India bun-dle out the West Indies for 104 in just31.5 overs. Pacers Khaleel Ahmedand Jasprit Bumrah chipped in withtwo wickets each.

The home team took just 14.5overs to reach the paltry target, cour-tesy an unbeaten 99-run stand betweenRohit Sharma (62 off 54) and captainVirat Kohli (33 off 29), followinganother low score from ShikharDhawan.

It was a complete surrender fromthe West Indies, who let themselvesdown after competing hard in the firstthree ODIs. The previous game atMumbai too was dominated by thehosts before they romped to a 3-1series win here.

India last lost a series at home in2015, when they went down 2-3against South Africa.

The hosts wasted in no time com-pleting the 105-run target after thebowlers laid the foundation of a mas-sive victory.

Rohit continued his fine form,notching up a half-century, in theprocess going past the 1,000-run markfor the calendar year 2018 and also hit-

ting his 200th six in ODIs.The India vice-captain had a lucky

escape when he was caught behind byShai Hope off Oshane Thomas' bowl-ing on 18. He made most of thatreprieve as he hit five boundaries andstruck four imperious sixes. Kohlitoo was solid at the other end and hisinnings comprised six fours.

Dhawan's soft dismissal wouldprobably be one of the lows for Indiaas he chopped on a delivery fromThomas, who worked up good pacebut was inconsistent with his line andlength.

Earlier, the West Indies were introuble right from the start after skip-per Jason Holder chose to bat. PacerBhuvneshwar Kumar had KieranPowell caught behind by M S Dhonifor a duck off the fourth ball, givingIndia their first wicket.

Shai Hope, who has been one ofthe best West Indies batsmen on touralongside Shimron Hetmyer, was cas-

tled by Bumrah off a beauty in the sec-ond over to leave the team at 2 for 2.

The experienced Marlon Samuels,from whom a lot was expected, led abrief revival, hitting some crisp bound-aries and the only six of the innings.

The Indian domination could begauged from the fact that the firstboundary came in the sixth overwhen Rovman Powell lofted one from

Bumrah over the infield.Samuels ' resistance

ended in the 12th overwhen he fell to a soft dis-missal of Jadeja for 24,

spooning a catch toskipper Virat Kohli.

As has oftenbeen the case inthe series, Holdershowed patienceand skill to resistthe rampantIndian bowlersbut his dismissal

hastened theend.

The lankyHolder was taken

by Kedar Jadhav, run-ning in from the deepwhen he tried to goariel against KhaleelAhmed. He was thetop-scorer with 25.

The spinnerstook over and pol-ished off the tail.

� ��� �*/+�D�3�3�*���+�'

Ambati Rayudu's batting at number four andyoung Khaleel Ahmed's emergence as the third

seamer were the two biggest gains from the ODIseries against the West Indies, feel India skipper ViratKohli and head coach Ravi Shastri.

"Two areas I can think of are for third seamer- Khaleel has been outstanding. God forbid anythinghappens to Bhuvi or Bumrah, good to have Khaleelwho can come in and take wickets. Rayudu has alsotaken responsibility at No 4. Those two areas we werelooking at (prior to the series). And those two havebeen addressed," Kohli said at the post-match pre-sentation cere-mony.

Shastri on hispart also seemedhappy with thekind of pressureR a y u d uabsorbed, havingmade a comebackin the Indianteam.

"I am prettyhappy withRayudu. It isnever easy tomake a comebackin the team aftercouple of years.Even though youhave to expressyourself, you hold back and that is understandablebecause couple of bad performances can lose youyour place. He has handled the pressure really welland batted really well in the last match," the headcoach said.

Shastri seemed impressed with left-arm seam-er Khaleel but wants him to add a few more clicks.

"The left-arm fast bowlers can be very handy.Khaleel is raw, he doesn't have the experience buthe has the variations and has the aggression too.Once he adds to his speed, he will be more thaneffective."

Shastri said the team is back on track after itssixth successive ODI series win at home.

"We are back on track. I thought we were belowpar in the field in the second and third ODI.Sometimes you need a wake-up call and we were atour best in the last two ODIs. This Windies teamis a promising unit. They have some exceptionalplayers who with exposure, I am sure will test someof the big sides," the coach felt.

Skipper Kohli too praised his bowlers for theirclinical show in the last two games.

"Because of our clinical performance, we wereable to finish the game in a few hours. Credit to thebowling unit for pitching it in the right areas. Wassurprised that West Indies chose to bat, we wantedto bowl first anyway."

� ��� 3�D/'�'��/

Virat Kohli sauntering towards Sachin Tendulkar's recordsthat once looked staggering and seemingly unsurpassable

has amazed the icon, who Thursday called the Indian captainone of the greatest but said he "never believed" in comparisons.

Recently Kohli surpassed Tendulkar to become the fastestplayer to score 10,000 One Day International runs. He is alsoinching towards Tendulkar's record for highest number of ODIhundreds (49), having notched his 38th ton in Pune in the thirdgame against West Indies.

"Coming to Virat's development as a player, I think he hasdeveloped immensely. And I always saw that spark in him. Ialways felt that he is going to be one of the leading players inthe world, not just of this generation, but one of the leadingplayers of all time," Tendulkar told reporters here.

"And then it isagain about opinions.But if one has to gointo comparisons,then I don't want toget into that. Therewere differentbowlers who playedin 60s, 70s, 80s, andpossibly in my timeand what they areplaying today. So Iwouldn't want to getinto that," he said.

Tendulkar cate-gorically stressed thathe did not believe incomparisons.

"I think first ofall, like how Virat hassaid and I have beensaying for 24 years that I have played. I have never believed incomparison. Each generation if you take from the time crick-et was played from day one to now, the change has been con-stant.

Tendulkar also praised teenage prodigy Prithvi Shaw,terming the right-handed batsman a fast-leaner.

"I think I can talk about Prithvi. He's progressed tremen-dously. I feel with the age he is only going to get better. So Prithviis someone who will continue to perform well. Yes Australiantrip is going to be a good exposure to him. And whatever I haveseen, he is fast-learner. So I see him ready for that.”

� ��� 3�D/'�'��/

India captain Virat Kohli on Thursdayreiterated that Mahendra Singh Dhoni

remains an integral part of the ODIteam and the veteran wicket-keeperbatsman decided not to play the upcom-ing T20s only to make way for the muchyounger Rishabh Pant.

"I think the selectors have alreadyaddressed this if I'm not wrong. Andhe's been spoken to, firstly... So, I don'tsee any reason why I should be sittinghere and explaining that. I think theselectors have come out and explainedexactly what happened," said Kohli atthe post-match press conference afterguiding India to another series win athome.

"I was not part of that conversationso... It is what the selectors explained.I think people are putting too muchvariables into the situation, which is notthe case I can assure you of that. He'sstill a very integral part of this team andhe just feels that in the T20 format,someone like Rishabh can get morechances."

Dhoni has been dropped for the

upcoming T20 series against the WestIndies and Australia and there is a pos-sibility that he never plays for Indiaagain in the shortest format.

"He anyway plays the ODIs for usregularly, so... From that point of view,he's only trying to help the youngsters;nothing that anything that other peo-ple are thinking and I as captain can cer-tainly assure you of that," Kohli said.

On the areas of concern for theteam in the run-up to the World Cupin England next year, the India skippersaid it was about putting in consistentefforts on the field.

"If we can be consistent as a field-ing side, it can give us more consisten-cy overall in our skills department aswell. In the field, we can still improvea lot. We have spoken to the people inthe practice sessions who need to do theextra effort to sharpen their fielding, andthey are putting in that extra effort.

"That is the only area we feel we canget better at. Obviously, batting andbowling are big variables. Fielding issomething that is controllable and youneed to get that from all the 11 playersin the field."

About the return of Ravindra Jadejaand if he was a frontrunner in the racefor the all-rounder slot, Kohli said theSaurashtra left-hander had done wellsince coming back in the Asia Cup.

"It depends. When Hardik (Pandya)is fit and fine to play, you have to seewhat is the combination you have totake in the World Cup. If Hardik is fit,Kedar becomes a spin option as well.Hardik becoming fit also gives you fourseaming options, along with Kedar andone more spinner. You might need onemore spin option. Jadeja becomes thekey there with the team balance.

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Former India captain Rahul Dravidwas Thursday inducted into the

ICC Hall of Fame at a brief functionhere ahead of the final ODI betweenIndia and the West Indies.

Dravid became only the fifthplayer from India to be named in theICC Cricket Hall of Fame.

Legendary opener SunilGavaskar presided over the formali-ties.

The ICC, on July 2, announcedhis induction into the Hall of Fame.

Dravid joins an elite list thatincludes Bishan Singh Bedi, KapilDev, Gavaskar and Anil Kumble.

Dravid aggregated 13,288 runs in164 Tests with 36 centuries and10,889 runs in 344 ODIs with 12 cen-turies, and was in 2004 named as theICC Cricketer of the Year as well asthe ICC Test Player of the Year.

Dravid, who played a solitaryTwenty20 International, was also a

brilliant slip fielder and finished hisTest career in 2012 with 210 catches,which is a world record.

"It is a matter of great honour tobe named by the ICC in the CricketHall of Fame. To find your name ina list of all-time greats across gener-ations is something one only dreamsof while setting out on a cricket careerand the kind of recognition thatwould delight any player," Dravid wasquoted as saying in an ICC mediarelease after the induction.

� ��� &73573

Former India wicketkeeper-batsmanFarokh Engineer has urged

Pakistan's captain-turned-PrimeMinister Imran Khan to use his polit-ical clout and restore bilateral Testcricket between the arch-rivals.

Since the 2008 Mumbai terrorattacks, bilateral cricket ties betweenIndia and Pakistan have been frozenamid political tensions and they onlyplay each other in multi-nation eventssuch as the World Cup.

The last time the neighbours metin a five-day international was inBangalore in 2007.

"Imran Khan, he is the prime min-ister now. Hopefully India and Pakistanwill start a dialogue," Engineer, a flam-boyant player of the 1960s and 70s saidduring the inaugural Ranji MemorialPublic Conversation in London thisweek.

"They should be playing Test crick-et against each other because it will doPakistan cricket, their economy, aworld of good. But you hear about bor-der skirmishes and this and that.They've got to have dialogue."

Engineer said, "As a cricketer, Iwould love India to play Pakistan orvice versa. But it is a question of con-vincing the political leaders."

"Basically we are the same people.Both countries have extremely talent-ed cricketers and I, for one, would loveto see that happen but unfortunately thebrakes are on," Engineer lamented.

Former Pakistan batsman MushtaqMohammad, who was on the samepanel, said, "We'd love India to cometo Pakistan, that would be a realboost. We'd love England to come,Australia. We play our 'home' seriesaway from home, which is a very sadepisode."

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Left-arm pace bowler Shaheen ShahAfridi defended 17 runs in the last

over as Pakistan defeated New Zealandby two runs in a thrilling finish to thefirst Twenty20 international here.

New Zealand needed six off thelast delivery to tie the match but expe-rienced batsman Ross Taylor managedjust a boundary as New Zealand — set149 to win — finished at 146-6 atSheikh Zayed Stadium Wednesday.

The victory gave world numberone ranked Pakistan their seventh con-secutive win since July and 15th in 17Twenty20 internationals this year.

Pakistan, who are on a roll afterwhitewashing Australia 3-0 in Dubaion Sunday, now have a 1-0 lead in thethree-match series with the last twomatches in Dubai on Friday andSunday.

Mohammad Hafeez top-scoredwith 45 in Pakistan's 148-6 after theywon the toss and batted.

Taylor finished with a 26-ball 42not out with three boundaries butcould not keep the run rate down asNew Zealand needed 53 in the last fiveovers.

That was in contrast from the firstfive overs of their innings, dominatedby opener Colin Munro's 42-ball 58

with three sixes and six boundaries.Pakistan's varied bowling, led by

Hasan Ali with 3-35, pulled them backsignificantly.

Pakistan captain Sarfraz Ahmedpraised his team's 'never-say-die'approach in bowling. "New Zealand area tough team, but we knew overs 6-12were crucial and we had to restrictthem there," said Sarfraz.

"I thought Shaheen and Hasanwere superb and we were once againled admirably by bowlers." Williamsonbelieved his team came close to victo-ry. "We weren't far away, I thought wewere quite good for large parts," saidWilliamson.

"Pakistan pulled back afterMunro's knock — they are world num-ber one for a reason."

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��& ���������!���.<����������������Senior Pakistan batsmanAzhar Ali on Thursday announcedhis retirement from limited overscricket in order to concentrate fullyon Test cricket.

Azhar, 33, said he had taken thedecision to focus only on Testcricket and also because he felt thetime was right.

"I have spoken to the chief selec-tor, captain and the chairman ofPCB before announcing my deci-sion. I took the decision after giv-ing it a lot of thought," he toldreporters in Lahore.

A prolific player in the longestformat, the 33-year-old played thelast of his 53 ODIs against NewZealand in January, earlier thisyear.

His orthodox batting style inODIs at an average of 36.90 andstrike-rate of 74.45 has often comeup for criticism.

"I just want to pay full attentionto Test cricket now and I think theyoung players now coming into theteam are performing very well inone-day internationals," fomerPakistani skipper added. PTI

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