RNI NO.: DELENG/2005/15351REGD. NO.: DL(S)-01/3420/2018-20

VOL.16, ISSUE 179 | Tuesday, 29 June, 2021 | New Delhi | Pages 12 | Rs 3.00PUBLISHED FROM DELHI | KOLKATA

MILLENNIUMPOST.IN

NEW DELHI: The T20 World Cup sched-uled to be held in India is being shifted to the UAE owing to the health safety concerns posed by COVID-19, BCCI President Sourav Ganguly said on Monday, ending weeks of speculation surrounding the mega-event in October-November.

"We have officially intimated the ICC that the T20 World Cup can be shifted to the United Arab Emirates. The details are being chalked out," Ganguly said.

"The decision was taken keeping health safety concerns of all stakeholders in mind," he added.

The BCCI will, however, remain the hosts of the showpiece.

Asked if October 17 has been finalised as the start date of the tournament, Ganguly said: "We will be able to finalise itinerary details in some days. October 17 start hasn't yet been finalised."

Even an ICC spokesperson confirmed that the global body is yet to zero in on a final schedule. See page 11

NEW DELHI: The central government has decided to extend the tenure of K K Venugopal as the Attorney General by one year, sources said on Monday.

Though the attorney general usually has a tenure of three years, when his first term as A-G was to end last year, Venugopal had requested the government to give him a one-year tenure keeping in mind his advanced age. He is 90.

Keeping in mind the high-profile cases he is handling in the Supreme Court and his experi-ence at the Bar, the government has decided to extend his tenure for one more year, the sources said. Venugopal's current tenure ends in the next couple of days.

Formal orders regarding his fresh extension would be issued soon, they said.

Venugopal took over as the Attorney Gen-eral on July 1, 2017. He succeeded Mukul Rohatgi as the top law officer of the Union gov-ernment. MPOST

TWENTY20 WORLD CUP TO BE SHIFTED FROM INDIA TO UAE

CENTRE DECIDES TO GIVE ONE-YEAR EXTENSION TO K K VENUGOPAL AS A-G

No Half Truths

Governor visited North Bengal to instigate violence: Mamata

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: For the first time describing him as a “corrupt man”, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has alleged that Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar’s recent visit to North Bengal is a matter of serious investigation.

She alleged that he had gone to North Bengal to “instigate violence” by prompt-ing BJP and separatist groups to undertake a movement demanding division of the region as a separate Union Territory. Rais-ing questions over the Centre’s decision to allow “a man like Dhankhar to become the Governor of a state”, Banerjee said his name had appeared in the Jain hawala case of 1996

involving a dairy that named politicians who had received kickbacks. He was charge-sheeted. Though he had later got relief, a petition was again filed that is still pending.

“Why all of a sudden did he visit North Bengal? I have received information that he directed some groups to initiate move-ment. Is it a game that is going on to divide North Bengal? I am sorry to say that I have never seen such a Governor before... He is a corrupt man. Why does the Centre allow someone like him to become the Gover-nor? If the Centre is unaware, I would like to inform them that Dhankhar’s name was in the charge-sheet of the Jain hawala case. Continued on P4

City: Pg 3Emergency room halted after fireat AIIMS hospital

Film: Pg 12‘My ethnicity has been a setback in getting me work’

India overtakes US in total number of Covid vaccine doses administered

Covid: Centre unveils new recovery package, expands credit relief

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain a plea raising issues of alleged overcharging for crema-tions, burials as also ambulance services during the COVID-19 pandemic and seeking a direc-tion to the Centre to consider formulating a policy to protect the rights of the dead.

The plea, which had referred to the reports about several bod-ies found floating in the river Ganga during the pandemic, came up for hearing before a bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and Hemant Gupta.

It is deeply depressing to see people putting bodies of their

beloved ones in rivers like Ganga due to lack of money, it said.

It is primarily due to exorbi-

tant amounts asked for crema-tion and ambulance services that scores of people decided to put

the bodies of their beloved in the river Ganga, it said. The bench said the petitioner, a Delhi-based NGO trust, has referred in the plea about recommendations of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on the issue. The apex court said that petitioner can approach the NHRC, which has already issued some directions in this regard.

"Go before the National Human Rights Commission. How many forums can you approach? It is a serious prob-lem... we know. Luckily the situa-tion is not that now. You referred to NHRC recommendations... go to NHRC," it said.

The plea, filed through advo-cate Jose Abraham, had said the

Centre should be directed to advise all the states and Union Territories to frame guidelines prescribing rates for cremation or burial of those who have died due to the virus and also for ambu-lance services along with penal actions for non-compliance at the earliest.

The plea had alleged that no cogent action has been taken by the authority to tackle the issue of undue profiteering by unscru-pulous caretakers at crematori-ums because of which many are unable to cremate or bury their beloved. It had referred to ear-lier verdicts of the apex court which had said that dignity of the dead must be maintained and respected.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Finance Min-ister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday announced Rs 1.5 lakh crore of additional credit for small and medium busi-nesses, more funds for the healthcare sector, loans to tour-ism agencies and guides, and waiver of visa fee for foreign tourists as part of a package to support the pandemic-hit economy.

Together with previously announced Rs 93,869 crore spending on providing free foodgrains to the poor till November and additional Rs 14,775 crore fertiliser subsidy, the stimulus package - mostly made up of government guar-antee to banks and microfi-nance institutions for loans they extend to Covid-hit sec-tors - totalled up to Rs 6.29 lakh crore.

Addressing a press con-ference, Sitharaman provided Rs 23,220 crore of additional funding for setting up children and paediatric care/paediat-ric beds at hospitals to prepare healthcare infrastructure to deal with any emergency aris-ing for Covid wave hitting children.

To incentivize job creation, the government committed to paying the employer and employee's share to provident fund (PF) for all new recruit-ments done till March 2022. Previously, the government paid Rs 902 crore for 21.42 lakh beneficiaries of 79,577 establishments. With the tour-ism sector being hit hard by the pandemic, she announced up to Rs 10 lakh loan to tour-ist agencies and Rs 1 lakh loan to tourist guides while waiver of visa fee for the first five lakh foreign tourists visiting India

after travel restrictions ease. Tourist visa fee waiver will cost the government Rs 100 crore.

Other announcements included an additional Rs 19,041 crore for providing broadband internet cover to all village panchayats, an exten-sion of tenure of production linked incentive (PLI) scheme for large scale electronics man-ufacturing by a year and Rs 88,000 crore of insurance cover for goods exporters. Continued on P4

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NAINITAL: The Uttarakhand High Court on Monday stayed the Chardham Yatra reversing a state cabinet's decision to open it partially for residents of three districts from July 1.

Expressing dissatisfaction with the state government's arrangements for pil-grims and tourists during the yatra amid the Covid pandemic, Chief Justice R S Chauhan and Justice Alok Kumar Verma stayed the decision to permit residents of Chamoli, Rudraprayag and Uttarkashi districts to visit Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri and Yamunotri.

The state cabinet had on June 25

decided to open the yatra for the resi-dents of these districts where the famous Himalayan temples are located.

On the state government's assertion that live streaming rituals performed at the temples was against the traditions, the court said it is being sympathetic towards the emotions of the priests.

The court made the observations while hearing a petition related to the risks involved in conducting the yatra amid the Covid pandemic. Rejecting the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) issued by the state government for the yatra, the court said they were just a copy of the guidelines issued during the Kumbh Mela. Continued on P4

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: India has over-taken the US in the total number of COVID-19 vaccine doses adminis-tered so far. While India launched the COVID-19 vaccination drive on January 16, and has administered over 32.85 crore doses till date, the US which started its inoculation drive on December 14, 2020 has given over 32.33 crore doses.

"India achieves another mile-stone in COVID-19 vaccination and overtakes USA in total number of COVID-19 vaccine doses adminis-tered," the Union Health Ministry said on Monday.

India's cumulative vaccination coverage exceeded 32.85 crores on Monday. A total of 32,85,54,011 vac-cine doses have been administered so far. Over 48.01 (48,01,465) lakh vaccine doses were administered on Monday, according to a provisional report compiled at 7 pm.

India logged 46,148 new Corona-virus infections taking the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 3,02,79,331,

while daily fatalities were recorded below 1000, taking the death toll to 3,96,730.

However, recoveries continue to outnumber daily new cases for the 46th consecutive day. The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 2,93,09,607,

while the case fatality rate stands at 1.31 per cent, the data released by the ministry stated.

The country registered 979 fresh fatalities due to COVID-19 in a day, the lowest in 76 days.

The active cases declined to 5,72,994 comprising 1.89 per cent

of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has improved to 96.80 per cent, the data updated at 8 am showed.

Also, 15,70,515 tests were con-ducted on Sunday taking the total cumulative tests conducted so far for detection of COVID-19 in the coun-try to 40,63,71,279.

The daily positivity rate was recorded at 2.94 per cent. It has been

less than five per cent for 21 consec-utive days, the ministry said, adding the weekly positivity rate has declined to 2.81 per cent.

Also on Monday, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said that a total of 40,845 cases of black fungus or mucormycosis have been reported in the country so far, of which 31,344 are rhinocerebral in nature, and the death toll from the infections stands at 3,129.

Vardhan, who chaired the 29th meeting of the high-level Group of Ministers (GoM) on COVID-19, apprised the members that of the total numbers, 34,940 patients had Covid (85.5 per cent), 26,187 (about 64.11 per cent) were co-morbid for diabe-tes, while 21,523 (52.69 per vent) of those infected were on steroids.

Amid fears of a third wave of Coronavirus and cases of its highly infectious 'Delta Plus' variant emerg-ing in Maharashtra, the state tight-ened restrictions with effect from Monday, with essential shops allowed to remain open only till 4 pm on all days.

COUNTRY ADDS 46,148 NEW CASES; 979 FRESH FATALITIES

Uttarakhand High Court stays Chardham Yatra

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court Monday refused to stay the Delhi High Court order allowing private unaided schools to collect annual and development charges from students for the period after the lockdown ended in the national capital last year.

A bench comprising Justices A M Khanwilkar, Dinesh Mahesh-wari and Aniruddha Bose did not agree with the submission of the Directorate of Education (DoE) of Delhi government that it has the power to regulate the levy of fees by private unaided schools and as an interim order, the high court judgement permitting such a levy of annual and development charges be stayed.

We have heard counsel for

the parties. Considering the fact that the special leave petition(s) are directed against an interlocu-tory order, we decline to interfere and more particularly because the Division Bench of the High

Court vide order dated 7.6.2021 had made it clear that the intra-court appeal may proceed for hearing before the Roster Bench on 12th July, 2021, the bench said in its order.

The bench, however, said although it was dismissing the appeal of the Delhi government, this would not come in the adju-dication of its plea by a division bench of the high court as noth-ing on merits have been recorded by it.

The special leave petitions are dismissed. All contentions available to the parties can be raised before the Division Bench of the High Court in the pend-ing appeal. The dismissal of the special leave petition(s) is not an expression of opinion on the cor-rectness of the view expressed by

the High Court or the contentions raised before us by the parties. All questions are left open. In view of the above all pending applications are disposed of, the order said.

During the hearing also the bench indicated its views by say-ing, We are not inclined to grant you (Delhi government) the stay.

Senior advocate Vikas Singh, appearing for Delhi government, vehemently sought the stay of the high court's judgement saying, lakhs and lakhs of parents will be affected. Please don't shut us out.

On May 31, a single-judge bench of the high court had quashed the office orders of April and August 2020 issued by DoE of the Delhi government forbid-ding and postponing collection of annual charges and develop-ment fees.

SC refuses to stay Delhi HC order allowing private schools to levy development, annual fees

A health worker inoculates a sex worker with a dose of Covishield in Mumbai PTI

CityGZB: FATHER, 2 SONS SHOT DEAD 2NationGOVT TO SPEND RS 93,869 CR 5edit A GRIM, NEW ERA 7internationalPOWERFUL EXPLOSION IN DHAKA KILLS 7 8

business‘PANDEMIC RELATED TRADE CURBS FALLING’ 10sportWIMBLEDON: DJOKOVIC WINS 11

In today’s paper

...

India to allow ethanol-based 'flex engines' in vehicles

Nitin Gadkari

SPECIAL LEAVE PETITIONS ALSO DISMISSED

SC REFUSES TO ENTERTAIN PLEA AGAINST OVERCHARGING FOR CREMATIONS, AMBULANCES

It is deeply depressing to see people putting bodies of their beloved ones in Ganga: SC

MPOST BUREAU

NEW DELHI: After draw-ing flak over displaying a distorted map of India that showed Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh as separate coun-try, Twitter has now removed the wrong map.

The glaring distortion, which appeared on the career section of Twitter website under the header 'Tweep Life', had triggered a heavy back-lash from netizens on Mon-day as they demanded strict action against the microblog-ging platform that has flouted various rules on multiple occa-sions in the past. #TwitterBan was trending on Twitter with almost 17,000 tweets.

This is not the first time that Twitter has misrepre-sented India's map. In October last year, Twitter came under heavy criticism and faced back-lash after its geotagging feature displayed "Jammu & Kashmir, People's Republic of China" in a live broadcast from Leh's Hall of Fame, a war memorial for fallen soldiers in the Union Territory of Ladakh.

India had issued a stern warning to Twitter that time, making it clear that any dis-respect of the country's sover-eignty and integrity is totally unacceptable. In November, Twitter again showed Leh as part of Jammu and Kashmir instead of the Union Territory of Ladakh. Continued on P4

Twitter removes wrong map displaying

J&K, Ladakh outside India

The package: » Rs 1.1 lakh cr loan guarantee scheme for Covid-hit sector

» Additional Rs 1.5 lakh cr for Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme

» New scheme to give up to Rs 1.25 lakh loan to 25 lakh small borrowers at lower interest rates

» Rs 10 lakh loan to travel agencies, Rs 1 lakh loan to tourist guides

» Govt to waive visa fee for first 5 lakh tourists visiting India once travel restrictions are eased

» Additional Rs 14,775 cr fertilizer subsidy

» Rs 23,220 cr to be provided for paediatric care/paediatric beds

» Rs 19,041 cr additional support to be provided for broadband connectivity to all village panchayats

Highlights: » Over 32.85 Cr Covid vaccine doses administered in country » 40,845 cases of black fungus and 3,129 deaths due to infection reported in India so far » Covid death toll rises to 3,96,730 » Active cases declined to 5,72,994 comprising 1.89 per cent of the total infections » Maha tightens curbs amid fear of 3rd COVID-19 wave

During the hearing the bench indicated its views by saying, We are not inclined to grant you (Delhi government) the stay

Nation : Pg 5HC refuses to stay new IT rules regulating digital news media

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The construc-tion of a group housing col-ony in Ashok Vihar area in northwest Delhi will require felling and trimming of 598 trees, according to the project proposal.

The Rs 2,340-crore project involves construction of eight residential towers. A total of 1,200 dwelling units and 622 economically Weaker Sections (EWS) dwelling units will be created as part of it.

The land where the project will come up belongs to the Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA).

A green belt has been devel-

oped along most of the periph-ery of the project area and roads. Area under plantation after expansion will be 19677.5 sqm (25 per cent of total plot area), the proposal read.

A total of 1,178 trees exist at the site, of which 580 trees will be retained or transplanted and 598 will be cut or trimmed, it said.

However, 984 trees will be planted at the site. A total of 20 trees will be planted for one tree felled as compensatory afforestation.

The Union Environment Ministry’s expert appraisal committee last month recom-mended the proposal for grant of terms of reference.

GOOD CAUSE

A recreation hall “Pankh 3” at Narela welfare centre being inaugurated by chief guest, PFWS president Pratima Shrivastava on Monday

Father and his two sons shot dead inside Ghaziabad home

POCSO accused’s challenge to restraining order denied

Accident may have been the cause of death for the leopard, officials said

ARNABJIT SUR

NEW DELHI: Calling it noth-ing but an “abuse of the process of law” and “not justified” on the part of the petitioner to repeat-edly approach courts in this regard, the Delhi High Court has dismissed a plea moved by a POCSO accused out on bail challenging an order refusing to extend his stay at his house claiming lack of other accom-modations due to Covid-19, after he moved courts several times to reduce the 25 km dis-tance set between him and the victim while granting him bail, on account of his illness.

A single-judge bench of Jus-tice Subramonium Prasad stated that there was nothing “per-verse” or “untenable in law” in the lower courts’ order refusing to extend his stay at his home and hence the bench cannot overturn the ruling. “...it cannot be said that the orders passed by the learned Trial Court is with-out considering the relevant factors,” the order said, adding: “The Court cannot brush aside the the statement by the Pros-ecutrix made under the Section

164 CrPC stating that the peti-tioner has threatened her and her family”.

The court also took note of the status reports filed by the SHO of Anand Parbat Police Sta-tion which stated that if the peti-tioner stays in his house, then the parties may again indulge in quarrel with each other.

The case dates back to last year when the victim lodged a complaint on October 18 stating that on the previous day in the evening, when she, her sister and her parents were repairing the door of her house, the accused, one Subhash, along with his wife, son and daughter-in-law misbehaved with her. He alleg-edly pulled the woman’s clothes and touched her stomach, and his son Rohit gave an elbow blow on her breast and pelted stones on her house.

Accordingly, an FIR was registered under the relevant sections of IPC and Section 10 (Punishment for aggravated sexual assault) and Section 12 (Punishable for sexual harras-ment) was registered, naming the accused. Meanwhile, a cross FIR was also registered against

seven persons, including the vic-tim and her parents under IPC Sections of voluntarily causing hurt and wrongful restraint, among others.

Consequently, while grant-ing bail to Subhash, the court imposed a condition that he has to stay at least 25 kms away from the victim till further orders. Thereafter, he filed a plea claim-ing that he had a heart attack and a stent was attached in his heart following which he was allowed to stay in his house, despite the victim stating that he had already violated the condi-tion and visited her place. This relaxation was extended by another month on account of his ill-health but when another application was filed seeking extension of his stay, the same was denied by court and a 9 km distance was set as the condition.

Justice Prasad’s order, while dismissing the plea, stated, “The petitioner is not justified in repeatedly approaching the courts in modifying the con-ditions...the repeated attempts on the part of the petitioner is nothing but an abuse of the pro-cess of law”.

MAN SHOT DEAD IN GOKALPURI NEW DELHI: A 32-year-old man was shot dead in northeast Delhi’s Gokalpuri area, police said on Monday. The PCR received a call around 6 pm on Saturday regarding a firing in which one person was injured in Gokalpuri, a senior officer said. Azeem, a resident of Bhagirathi Vihar, was sitting on pavement with his friends when two men came there, shot him in the chest and fled away, a senior police officer said. Azeem, who worked in a shoe factory, was taken to hospital where he was declared brought dead, police said. The accused have been identified, the officer said, adding that further details are awaited.

BAIL TO GYM TRAINER ACCUSED OF HARBOURING GANGSTER NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Monday granted bail to a gym trainer, arrested for allegedly harbouring gangster Kuldeep Fajja who was later killed in an en-counter after fleeing from police custody at the GTB hospital here in March this year. Additional Sessions Judge Sanjeev Kumar Malhotra admitted Yogender Dahiya to bail on furnishing of a personal bond of Rs 50,000 with two sureties of the like amount.

BONDING OVER PUBG, WOMAN & FRIEND ROB BROTHER-IN-LAW NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police on Monday said that it has arrested a 21-year-old woman and her friend, both unemployed, for allegedly robbing her brother-in-law at gunpoint after she and the co-accused developed friendship while playing PUBG where they had conspired the crime. According to police, on June 26 afternoon, they received a PCR call at Nihal Vihar Police Station that two boys robbed a lady at gunpoint in Meera Kunj Nilothi Extension.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: A key accused wanted in the Red Fort flag hoist-ing case was arrested from Punjab and sent to a three-day custody of Delhi Police by a court here on Monday. “Gurjot Singh was arrested from Amritsar in Punjab. A reward of Rs one lakh was declared for his arrest,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Sanjeev Kumar Yadav said.

Singh, who was evading arrest for five months, was nabbed on Sunday by the Special Cell of Delhi Police. He was produced before Metropolitan Magistrate Anurag Thakur who remanded him in police custody for three days and also allowed his coun-sel to meet him every day for half an hour.

On January 26, protest-ing farmers had clashed with police during a tractor rally against the three new central farm laws and stormed the Red Fort, hoisting religious flags on its domes and injuring scores of policemen.

The court had recently taken cognisance of the charge sheet in the case and summoned all the accused on June 29. Actor-activist Deep Sidhu, who is accused of being the key conspirator of the violence, is currently out on bail.

“After the incident, Singh spoke to the media where he

disclosed his role in the incident of flag hoisting at the historic monument. On that basis, he was wanted in the case and a reward of Rs one lakh was announced on his arrest,” the DCP said.

Thousands of farmers pro-testing against the Centre’s new agri laws had clashed with the police during a tractor parade on January 26.

One more held in Red Fort violence, sent to 3-day police custody

RAHUL SINGH

GHAZIABAD: Armed assail-ants barged into the house of a cloth trader in Loni area of Ghaziabad and opened fire on four members of family, killing three, including a father and his two sons. An elderly woman has also been critically injured in the incident that took place on the intervening night of Sunday and Monday.

As per police, the deceased have been identified as Riya-zuddin alias Riyaz (70) and his two sons — Azharuddin (30) and Imraan (28). Riyaz’s wife Fatima (65), was also shot by assailants and she has been get-ting treatment at a private hos-pital in Noida where doctors have stated her condition to be critical.

A senior police officer said that at the time of incident, a total of five members of the fam-ily were present but criminals

shot only four of them. Azha-ruddin’s wife Afsana, who is four months pregnant, was the one who was left unharmed by the assailants, the officer said.

Riyaz lived in Toli Mohalla in Loni along with his six sons and wife. While Azharuddin and Imraan used to live with him, his other four sons- Salimuddin, Alamuddin, Nizam and Riyat, live in the same locality and all are into cloth trading.

As per Alamuddin, second son of Riyaz, the incident took place around 2.50 am as he heard the sound of gunshot and he immediately rushed towards his father’s house. “As the main gate of house was locked from inside, I kept on shouting to open the door along with other brothers and neighbours. After 15-20 minutes past the inci-dent, Afsana had opened the gate and I saw that my father, mother and two younger broth-ers lying in the pool of blood.

Immediately, we checked the pulse of all people and found that my father and both broth-ers were dead while my mother was still alive. We rushed her to a nearby private hospital for medical attention and later she

was referred to Fortis hospital in Noida,” he said.

Riyaz sustained two bullets to his head while one bullet hit Fatima’s face. After listening to the sound of gunshot, Azha-ruddin and his wife along with Imran stepped down and the assailants shot at them as well. Azharuddin was shot near his heart and one bullet hit Imraan’s head.

The family said that they have found cash and gold items were missing. “We have given a complaint to police and demanded a tough action against those who are responsible for the incident,” said Alamuddin.

Following the incident, Praveen Kumar, IG Meerut, Amit Pathak, DIG and Dr. Iraj Raza, SP Rural along with senior officers reached the crime scene.

Omprakash Singh, SHO of Loni police station said that dur-ing questioning Afsana, she told police that one person came

through the terrace and opened fire at the family. “She said that the accused also tried to kill her but the pistol somehow got stuck and spring of the pistol came out. When accused tried to fix the pistol, the neighbours and other sons of Riyaz started knocking on the door and the accused fled from the spot through terrace,” Singh said.

“Interrogations revealed that the accused is a relative and also lived in the same locality. So far, we didn’t get any evidence of dacoity in the house and it looks like a personal enmity between two people” he added.

Amit Pathak, DIG and SSP of Ghaziabad police said that police teams had examined the crime scene along with a foren-sic team and dog squad. “Police are checking the CCTV footage of nearby areas to trace the cul-prits and four teams have been formed to nab the accused in the case” he added.

ONLY THE 4-MONTHS PREGNANT WIFE WAS SPARED BY THE ASSAILANTS

City Briefs

2 millenniumpostCitympTUESDAY, 29 JUNE, 2021 | NEW DELHI

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

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Gzb assault: Police to recommend NSA against SP workerOUR CORRESPONDENT

GHAZIABAD: The Ghaziabad police will be recommending detention of a local Sama-jwadi Party worker under the National Security Act (NSA) over a case related to the assault on an elderly Muslim man, offi-cials said on Monday.

The worker, Ummaid Pehelwan Idrisi, was arrested from Delhi on June 19 by the Ghaziabad police after an FIR was lodged against him at the Loni Border police station.

Once booked under the stringent NSA, an accused can be detained in jail for a period of one year, subject to review by a high court every three months.

“We are in the process of recommending (to the Uttar Pradesh government) the NSA against him. The formalities would be completed today,” Senior Superintendent of Police Amit Pathak told a newswire agency on Monday.

The FIR, filed on the com-plaint of a local policeman, alleged that Idrisi had “unnec-essarily” made the video — in which Abdul Samad Saifi claimed attack by some young

men who also chopped off his beard and forced him to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ — with an inten-tion to “create social dishar-mony” and shared it through his Facebook account.

Idrisi was booked under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sec-tions 153A (promoting enmity between groups on ground of religion, class etc), 295A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious belief), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), 505 (public mischief).

A separate FIR was lodged against him on June 17 in adjoining Bulandshahr dis-trict, the native place of Saifi, that charged him and around 100 others with violation of the COVID-19 norms by holding a public gathering in connection with the attack on Saifi on June 16, the officials said.

The police maintain that Saifi was attacked on June 5 over personal enmity and the episode was given a communal colour by some people. So far, around a dozen accused in the assault case have been arrested, the officials said.

DJB staffer killed, wife injured, son heldOUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: A 55-year-old Delhi Jal Board (DJB) employee was murdered and his wife was injured by their son in the Kalyanpuri area. Police have arrested the accused in the case.

Police said they received information at 6:33 am on Monday regarding a quarrel and likely death of the caller’s father.

The caller was later iden-tified as deceased’s elder son.

Police reached the spot and found that a man and woman

were lying in a pool of blood. “The man was found dead

and the lady was shifted to LBS hospital immediately, who was later shifted to Safdarjung hos-pital for further treatment,” the official said.

According to police, the investigation in the case revealed that both were stabbed by their son Vishal.

“Vishal was apprehended from the spot,” official said.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (East) Priyanka Kashyap said on further inquiry, it was found that Vishal has been unemployed in the last 7-8 months.

“Before that also, he was working on and off. There were regular episodes of quar-rel in the house as he kept on demanding money from par-ents,” the official said.

As per the official, when he was asked to do some work, he used to fight with his parents.

The deceased was identified as Devender, who worked in Delhi Jal Board (DJB) whereas his wife Manju (52) who was injured in the case is still receiv-ing treatment. A case has been registered and further investi-gation is going on.

The son was unemployed and kept asking for money from his

parents. He used to fight with his parents

when they asked him to do some

work

The family said that they have found

that cash and gold items were missing

Many green activists have raised concerns about shrinking of Aravallis and toxic

groundwater reserves in the forests that force such wild animals to venture outside

and in turn risk their safety

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: With the munic-ipal polls in Delhi coming up next year, the AAP has upped its ante against the ruling BJP, with senior party leader Saurabh Bhardwaj on Monday accusing councillor Inderjeet Sehrawat of allegedly building a hotel worth Rs 20 crore in Mahipalpur “ille-gally” and purportedly amassing an unusually high number of properties in the last two years.

At a press briefing here, Bhardwaj, the AAP MLA for Greater Kailash, said that doc-uments accessed through the Right to Information Act, had now purportedly shown that Sehrawat was the owner of the hotel by the name of “The Ori-ent” in Mahipalpur. Even though on paper the South MCD has claimed that the property was booked for violations and con-struction stopped, Bhardwaj said the hotel’s construction had been completed and it was ready.

Bhardwaj, who is also the party’s chief spokesperson, asked where Sehrawat had acquired the money to build this hotel, showing documents that iden-tified him as the owner of the property.

The senior AAP leader said that Sehrawat had declared three properties in his 2017 election affidavit but in fresh documents filed by him appraising his assets, Bhardwaj claimed, it showed him as the owner of seven properties.

He said, “If I show you the sta-tus of the construction today, the hotel has been fully constructed and is now ready. But according to MCD’s paperwork, this hotel has been booked and all the con-struction activities therein have been stopped. And according to the police report, this building has been demolished.”

He added that when the hotel began construction, the MCD Commissioner was informed of the unauthorised construc-tion and a writ was also filed in the high court, following which the court had asked the MCD to take action and submit a report.

AAP alleges BJP councillor ‘built hotel

illegally’

Group housing project will require felling and trimming of 598 trees

Leopard found dead in Fbd

OUR CORRESPONDENT

FARIDABAD: A leopard was found dead at Pali Chowk in Surajkund near Faridabad on Monday. While the real cause of leopard’s death is yet to be ascertained, it is estimated that the wild animal died after being hit by a vehicle while crossing the road on Sunday night. The corpse of the leopard has been sent for post-mortem for fur-ther details.

Meanwhile, the Farid-abad police is also viewing the CCTV cameras to get a lead of the real cause of death of the leopard.

“It is unfortunate that a leopard was found dead. We have sent the body for post-mortem and are waiting for results. Our initial investiga-tions however have revealed that accident may have been the cause of death for the leop-ard,” said a senior official from South Haryana Wildlife Department.

The death of a leopard has once again raised concerns on the safety of wild animals that are residing in Aravallis of

Gurugram and Faridabad. In the same area of Pali in 2019 a 10 -month-old leopard died after being hit by a car while crossing the road.

There have been a num-ber of incidents in the last few years where not only leopards but other wild animals like foxes, civet cats, nilgais have lost their lives due to accidents. Not only in Faridabad but such incidents are also seeing a rise in Gurugram.

With Aravallis in both Gurugram and Faridabad

shrinking due to rapid urban-isation a large number of these animals often try coming out in search of food and water. With busy routes that have heavy traffic passing through Ara-valli forests often these animals either die or receive injuries by vehicles passing on these routes.

For long, there have been demands to the wildlife depart-ment and Haryana Govern-ment to create a safe passage for animals to cross safely. Despite assurances however there has been no work done in this area.

A large number of green activists have raised concerns on shrinking of Aravallis and toxic groundwater reserves in the forests that force wild ani-mals to venture outside and in turn risk their safety.

IN OTHER NEWS

» A Delhi court has granted interim pro-tection from arrest to gangster-turned-ac-tivist Lakha Sidhana in connection with his alleged involvement in the violence at the Red Fort here on Republic Day. Addi-tional Sessions Judge Neelofer Abida Perveen posted the matter for July 3 and directed the police to not arrest him until then. This came after the police sought more time to make submissions on his pre-arrest bail plea

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OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: A minor blaze broke out on Monday morn-ing in a storeroom at the All India Institute of Medical Sci-ences Hospital’s Emergency Department building - the sec-ond fire in the AIIMS premises in around 10 days, however, this one was contained to one room but set off a scramble among hospital workers to shift patients.

Significantly, no casualties or injuries were reported and the fire was traced to a room adjacent to the Emergency ward of the building and was eventually doused.

Several patients were wheeled out of the Emergency room in a rush by fire officials and hospital attendants. For a while, they were cared for out-side the emergency ward before being shifted to the oppo-site building at the Trauma Centre.

According to the fire department, they received a call at 5.04 am about a blaze in the operation theatre of the Emergency Department and seven fire tenders were rushed to the hospital.

“A call at 5.04 am was received by DFS that fire in OT of the Emergency dept in AIIMS, 7 fire tenders rushed and fire brought under control very quickly, fire was in store-room adjacent to OT, No one injured,” tweeted Atul Garg, Director, DFS.

Officials also said that the blaze was brought under con-

trol very quickly.Delhi Police, in their press

statement, said they received a PCR call at Hauz Khas police station at around 5.15 am about the blaze and on reaching AIIMS, sparking and smoke were observed in a dummy room near the casualty area.

While the emergency room had been shut for most of Mon-day due to the firefighting and cooling operations, it was reopened for patients by late evening.

An official from the fire department told Millennium Post that non-maintenance of machines and continuously running machines might have gone above capacity — leading to the fire.

Meanwhile, another minor blaze was reported at Safdar-jung hospital. “Another fire call received @ 7.58 AM that fire in Near canteen, S J. Hos-

pital 3 fire tenders rushed to the SJ hosp. This Fire was also brought under control very quickly , No injuries,” tweeted Garg.

In fact, a little more than a week ago, a major blaze at the Convergence Block of the AIIMS hospital gutted the Covid lab housed there.

When asked about these fire events coming one after the other in a span of 10 days, offi-cials at the hospital said, “We are taking all measures so that something like this doesn’t take place. All buildings are being checked. We are also in touch with the Delhi Fire Department for further steps.”

Delhi Fire Services, since 2019, more than 100 calls of fire in institutional buildings including hospitals, dispensa-ries. As per data accessed by Millennium Post, in 2019, about 66 such fire calls in institutional buildings such as hospitals, nursing homes, dispensaries were received by DFS. Last year, 38 such calls were there whereas, in 2021, nearly half a dozen calls were received by the fire department.

PIYUSH OHRIE

GURUGRAM: As the vaccina-tion drive in Gurugram gath-ers steam the number of people waiting for their second dose of vaccinations is also increas-ing steadily.

To make sure that those peo-ple who want to get their sec-ond dose of COVID vaccine do not face inconvenience, the Gurugram district administra-tion has set up dedicated centres that will provide a second dose of vaccinations.

There are 41 government centres where COVID vaccines are being provided. In these 41, now 11 centres will only provide a second dose of vaccinations — five for Covaxin and six for Covishield.

Gurugram has administered more than one million doses of vaccines but the percentage of population covered remains low.

A large number of people are now opting for Covaxin to get fully vaccinated quickly because of the shorter interval between both doses.

With many now having taken

Covaxin for the first dose, the focus of Gurugram adminis-tration is to focus on saving the available doses of this shot for those due for their second dose.

According to officials, at pres-ent Gurugram has a total inven-tory of 30,000 doses of Covaxin, which the officials want to use for giving the second dose to citizens.

Plans are also underway to increase supply of Sput-nik-V vaccine, first doses of which have also begun to be given to citizens in Gurugram - but only at private vaccina-tion centres. Just like Covaxin, the second dose of Sputnik-V also has to be given within a month.

The district administration

is planning to supply doses of Sputnik-V vaccine to at least five government centres by July.

“There are a large number of people who are due to get their second dose of Covaxin. We are going to be focusing on these citizens for a few days till we get more doses. We are also planning to increase the supply of the Sputnik vaccine and soon not only in private hospitals but even in government centres there are plans to provide Sputnik vac-cines,” said a senior official from Gurugram health department.

At present there are over 12,000 vaccines that are being administered in Gurugram on an average. Plans are under-way to increase these figures to 30,000 per day.

ABHAY SINGH

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police has now given compassionate appointments of 155 family members of police personnel who died while on duty. As per official, all the compassionate appointments will get suitable assignments.

“Covid and stressful work-ing has taken toll on police-men’s health with 293 deaths in 2020 for various causes, Covid responsible for 79 in one year. As relief to next of kin, compas-sionate appointment given to 155 wards of deceased police personnel,” Commissioner SN Shrivastava tweeted.

Commissioner Shrivastava told Millennium Post that being the head of the Delhi Police fam-

ily, it was his duty to take care of all the police personnel and their families. “With that in mind, steps such as insurance, promo-tions, out of turn promotions, medical treatment, help during COVID-19 time, compassion-ate appointments, were taken by Delhi Police,” the top cop said.

He further added, “What-ever was required I have done and I am happy that the force has responded positively and the

morale of the force remained high and have positive impacts on policing standards.”

“While on one hand, my approach was professional work, it was also featuristic to improve the standard of policing and at the same time it was welfare orientated,” Shrivastava said.

Recently, the Delhi Police Commissioner had asked DCPs to depute one dedicated inspector, from every districts and units, to help nominees of police personnel, who died due to COVID-19, in the paperwork for getting financial assistance.

Last year as many as 7,612 police personnel got infected. Though the recovery rate was quite high as 7424 personnel recovered and resumed their duty, yet city police lost 32

police personnel due to the Corona pandemic. But in the second wave, over 4,000 more cops tested positive and the death toll in the force rose to over 70. Besides, Delhi Police also lost 231 of its person-nel due to natural deaths, 44 to accidental deaths and 14 to suicides.

Earlier this year, insurance cover for natural deaths was raised from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 28 lakh, while the cover for acci-dental deaths has been lifted to Rs 78 lakh from Rs 30 lakh. “Though no family wishes to be compensated in financial terms, yet in an unfortunate incident, a provision of Rs 10 lakh has been made to help the family in suicidal cases,” a press state-ment read.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Central Delhi has recorded just 8.5 mm rainfall this monsoon season so far and is the second-most rain-deficient district in the country, according to India Meteorological Depart-ment (IMD) data.

June 1 to September 30 is officially considered the mon-soon season in India.

Central Delhi has received only 8.5 mm rainfall against the normal of 53.3 mm since June 1 — a deficiency of 84 per cent.

The rain deficit in Kistwar district of Jammu and Kashmir is the largest in the country. It has recorded 5 mm precipita-tion against the normal of 68.4 mm — a shortfall of 93 per cent.

In the national capital, East Delhi has received 19.2mm rain-fall against the normal of 53.3mm a dearth of 64 per cent. Northeast Delhi has gauged 20.7mm rain-fall, which is 61 per cent below normal, and South Delhi got 22.2

mm 58 per cent less than normal.Southwest Delhi and New

Delhi have recorded 29.6 mm and 27.7 mm rainfall so far — 50 per cent below their respec-tive normal rainfall.

North Delhi has received 37.7 mm rainfall 33 per cent less than normal and Northwest Delhi 29.8 mm rainfall 22 per cent below the average precipitation. Only West Delhi has received normal rainfall so far 53.5mm against the average of 52.9mm.

The weather department on Monday said Delhi and nearby areas in northwest India will have to wait for another week for their first monsoonal showers.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: With the aim to provide public toilet facilities for transgender people in its area, the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) inaugurated a toilet block with a separate cubicle for the third gender on Monday.

NDMC said that this is the first time that a toilet block with this facility has been built in Delhi.

The toilet was inaugurated by trans women in the pres-ence of NDMC Chairperson

Dharmendra and NDMC Sec-retary Dr BM Mishra near the Press Club of India park-ing facility at Rajendra Prasad Road.

This facility is open to the public and has separate cubi-cles for women, men, physi-cally challenged/ especially abled people, and now trans people as well.

The facility is free of cost without any user charges and is open between 6.00 am to 10.00 pm. The toilet was con-structed under the Swachh Bharat Mission.

“We have more than 300 public toilets in the NDMC area, and this is one more addi-

tion to our fleet of public toilet utilities. In this, we have given a specific separate space for

trans people. Our (NDMC’s) PTU’s have separate spaces for men, women and physically challenged people. This is the first time that the NDMC has provided a separate toilet com-plex facility for trans people, perhaps even a first for Delhi,” NDMC Chief Civil Engineer Sanjay Gupta said.

The NDMC had also asked transwomen to attend the inauguration and cut the rib-bon at the ceremony on Mon-day. Gupta, who was also present at the event, said that they were happy about this

development. On being asked how many

trans people frequent the area (a VIP area) this facility is built in and were likely to use it, Gupta said that was not the point of building it.

“I don’t know how many trans people will frequent this facility, or for that matter, not a lot of physically challenged people use it either.

“However, the facility should be available if some-one visits and needs to use it, whether it is frequently or not,” he said.

3millenniumpost City mpNEW DELHI | TUESDAY, 29 JUNE, 2021

Emergency room halted after fire

at AIIMS hospital

2 deaths, 0.1% positivity; Covid beds de-escalatedOUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Amid a steady fall in daily COVID-19 cases in the national capital for the last few weeks, the number of beds dedicated for use of Coronavi-rus patients have been reduced at various hospitals in Delhi, according to an official order issued on Monday.

The number of beds, including ICU beds, have been reduced at LNJP Hospital, Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital, Burari Hospital and GTB Hospital, among other facilities.

According to the order issued by the city health depart-ment, the de-escalation is to

be carried out at 20 facilities, including hospitals and Covid care centres run by the Delhi government.

At LNJP Hospital, the num-ber of Covid beds after de-esca-lation stands at 700, while the reduced ICU beds count is 700, the order said.

At RGSSH, the number of Covid beds after de-escalation stands at 150, while the reduced ICU beds count is 150, it said.

RGSSH is a 650-bed facil-ity, and by mid-May about 500 beds were earmarked for treat-ing Covid patients.

Other facilities include, GTB Hospital, DDU Hospital, Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hos-pital, Yamuna Sports Complex

Covid care centre, Gurudwara Rakabganj Covid care centre, which will also see reduction

in beds.According to the order, de-

escalation of beds has been ordered at 20 facilities, and the total number of beds after de-escalation be 3,000 while the total number of ICU beds after de-escalation would stand at 1,620.

The national capital reported 59 cases of COVID-19, the lowest this year so far, and two deaths on Monday, according to data shared by the health department here. The case positivity rate has dipped to 0.10 per cent.

The total number of COVID-19 cases reported in Delhi since the beginning of the pandemic has reached

14,33,993. Of this, over 14.07 lakh patients have recovered so far and the death toll stands at 24,967.

Meanwhile, Covid vac-cinations in the city main-tained their pace of around 2 lakh doses per day, according to the CoWIN portal.

According to the Cen-tre’s CoWIN portal, 2.02 lakh vaccine doses were given on Monday, while 2.07 lakh ben-eficiaries were inoculated on Saturday.

Only 9,563 doses were administered in the national capital on Sunday as gov-ernment vaccination centres remained closed.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Gyms and yoga centres in the national capital reopened on Monday after a three-month closure due to coronavirus, but not many turned up on day one with owners hoping it would take at least a month before things become normal.

These centres were shut to check the spread of coro-navirus. The Delhi govern-ment Saturday allowed them to operate at 50 per cent capacity.

Gym-owners and instructors have devised plans including frequent sanitisation and slots allow-ing only up to 50 per cent of their establishment’s capac-ity in accordance with the Covid guidelines.

Sunil Kumar Taank of Black’s Gym said people were still apprehensive to come back, and added that it would take at least a month for the situation to get back to normal.

On Monday, his Jor Bagh facility had only had two vis-itors since morning, while the branches at Saket and Sangam Vihar witnessed not more than 15 people coming for a workout.

“A lot of them are appre-hensive about a third wave. It’s important to understand that staying fit improves immunity against the virus,” said Taank, who is also the president of the Indian Gym’s Welfare Association.

He has directed his staff to sanitise the gym and allow in visitors only after taking their temperature and oxy-gen level at the door.

“We are also ensuring face masks inside the gym.”

While gyms require physical presence, yoga centres have been working online during the lockdown period.

Even though the Delhi government has allowed them to return to their yoga mats, not many preferred to come to the studio.

Ritu Malhotra of Aaro-gyam Yoga and Meditation Studio said that it would take some time before peo-ple come back for physical classes.

Most of my students pre-fer online classes, but there are a few who want to come back. We haven’t opened the studio today, but in a day or two we will be ready to receive some students,” Mal-hotra said.

Apart from following the general Covid guidelines, Malhotra has asked her stu-dents to bring their own san-itised yoga mats.

Chirag Sethi, the vice president of Delhi Gym Association, said the fit-ness industry welcomed the opportunity to reopen while following the guidelines.

Sethi, also the owner of Anytime Fitness in Malviya Nagar, said they were allow-ing gym members to come in about 16 slots of 50-60 people from 6 am till 9 pm.

Along with segregating groups of gym-goers, Sethi has also vaccinated his staff and directed them to sanitise all the equipment frequently.

“We are also giving dis-count offers for members who have been vaccinated. We have placed a bottle of sanitiser and a cloth next to each equipment so anyone who uses it can clean it,” he said.

DU TO FELICITATE ITS 8 ALUMNI NEW DELHI: The Delhi University will felicitate eight of its alumni, including Union ministers Kiren Rijiju and Hardeep Singh Puri, for achieving distinction in their fields, a statement from the varsity said on Monday. Puri, who is the Union Housing and Urban Affairs minis-ter, studied at the Hindu College, while Rijiju, currently the Union Sports minister and also the Minister of State for Minority Affairs, is an alumnus of Hansraj College.

IGIA: HEROIN WORTH RS 126 CR SEIZED NEW DELHI: Delhi Airport Customs on Monday arrested two South African nationals with heroin worth Rs 126 crore. Both of them were intercepted upon their arrival from Johannesburg via Doha. “On detailed personal and baggage search of the pas-sengers, off-white colour powder/granules, found to be heroin, weighing 8 kg was recovered from one passenger and 10 kg was recovered from another,” said customs department.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Monday launched a certificate course for health assistants and said the government wants to equip the youth with all the basic skills and knowledge to fight any medical crisis.

Noting that the Delhi govern-ment plans to make it a long-term initiative, Sisodia said within four days, 1.5 lakh people have applied for this training programme.

The Delhi government has disbursed Rs 5 crore for this initiative. The course has been

initiated in partnership with the Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University. “We want to create a model youth force in Delhi which will be equipped with all the basic skills and knowledge to fight any medical crisis.

“Not only will our youth be prepared to fight any crisis, they will also be able to provide med-ical assistance to their family and people in their commu-nity,” Sisodia said after launch-ing the course.

Referring to the application of 1.5 lakh people for the pro-gramme, the deputy chief min-ister said, “This indicates that

people are enthusiastic to be a part of this course and learn. While in the first batch we have inducted 5,000 trainees, we plan on scaling this and making it a long-term and ongoing initia-tive,” he said.

Health Minister Satyendar Jain said the certificate course is extremely important to tackle any medical crisis of the future.

“This course will be able to provide individuals with employ-ment opportunities consider-ing there is an increasing need of health assistants in hospitals who will be able to assist nurses and doctors,” he said.

The two-week long course will include 500 trainees in the first batch, who will be equipped with the knowledge of life sup-port, heart functioning, Covid-care, blood testing, sampling, first aid, home care etc, an offi-cial statement from the govern-ment said. The trainees will be taught how to measure oxygen, blood pressure, and how to inject medicines as well, it added. The course is divided into two stages the first week will include didactic and demonstrative training, while in the second week, trainees will receive a practical experience.

Nine hospitals in Delhi have

been roped in for this course, including DDU, RML, RGSSH, Ambedkar and Hindu Rao hosps among others. The Delhi gov-ernment will provide training in batches of 500, with a total of 5,000 trainees, who will receive a certificate and medical kit upon completion of course. The medi-cal kit includes blood pressure monitoring device, thermom-eter and oximeter. Earlier this month, CM Arvind Kejriwal had announced that his government would train 5,000 youth to assist doctors and nurses as part of its preparations for a possible third wave of COVID-19.

SECOND BLAZE IN 10 DAYS

SWACHH BHARAT MISSION

Certificate course for health assistants launched

City Briefs

Gyms and yoga centres reopen to a slow start

ACTIVE CASES

1,553DEATH TOLL

24,967

DELHI COUNT

COVID-19

Ggm having to save Covaxin; 11 centres reserved for 2nd dose

Central Delhi 2nd-most rain-deficient district

in India, shows IMD data

155 family members of cops who died on duty to get compassionate appointments

NDMC inaugurates first toilet block with facilities for trans people

‘Can’t deny admission for citing 1 parent info’

NEW DELHI: No school in Delhi can deny admission to a child on the ground of declar-ing the name of just one par-ent, Deputy CM Manish Sisodia announced on Monday.

This assumes signifi-cance from the point of view of children who have lost one or both parents to Covid. MPOST

The emergency services resumed later in the day

PIC/PTI

PIC/PTI

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Ladakh tops in vaccination; Bihar, UP worst performers

Covid-19: Cong demands compensation of Rs 10L

DESPITE VACCINE SHORTAGE, ODISHA HAS INOCULATED 24.7% OF ITS POPULATION

4 millenniumpostNationmpTUESDAY, 29 JUNE, 2021 | NEW DELHI

NEW DELHI: COVID-19 cases with variants of concern rose from 10.31 per cent of total infections in May to 51 per cent till June 20, top gov-ernment officials told a par-liamentary panel on Monday and stressed that both Covaxin and Covishield work against these strains albeit with slightly reduced potency.

The panel was informed that the economic impact of the second wave of viral infection was "asynchronous in its onset and wider in its spread partic-ularly in rural hinterland", a source said.

About the availabil-ity of vaccine doses, officials informed the panel that 135 crore jabs will be made avail-able in the country during the August-December period this year. The doses would be of Covishield, Covaxin, Bio E Subunit vaccine, Zydus Cadi-la's DNA vaccine and Sputnik V, they said.

Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla, Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan, Additional Secretary in the Home Ministry Govind Mohan, Additional Secretary in the Finance Ministry K Raja Raman were among the offi-cials who deposed before the Parliamentary Standing Com-mittee on Home Affairs on 'Socio-economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic's second wave'.

The committee is chaired by senior Congress leader Anand

Sharma.Sharing details about var-

ious coronavirus variants of concern, officials told the panel that it includes the Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta variants.

These variants have been traced in 174 districts of 35 states and Union Territories, with the maximum reported from Maharashtra, Delhi, Pun-jab, Telangana, West Bengal and Gujarat, the parliamentary panel was informed.

According to the details shared by officials with the parliamentarians, coronavi-rus' variants of concern led to increased transmissibility, change in virulence and effect on diagnostics, drugs and vaccines.

"Officials told parliamen-tarians that the proportion of COVID-19 cases with vari-

ants of concern has risen from 10.31 per cent in May to 51 per cent in June 20," a source in the panel said.

A study by the Indian Coun-cil of Medical Research and the National Institute of Virol-ogy on the efficacy of Covaxin and Covishield against coro-navirus' variants of concerns found that "antibody potency is slightly reduced against these strains as compared to stan-dard strain. But the vaccine is effective in protection against severe forms of the disease," the source added.

The panel was informed that a similar study on evalu-ating the efficacy of both these vaccines against the latest vari-ant of concern –Delta plus –is being conducted and will be completed within the next two weeks. AGENCIES

TEZPUR: Eleven kids at a chil-dren’s home in Assam’s Sonit-pur district have tested positive for COVID- 19, an official said on Monday. Six staff members have also tested positive for the infection at the Tezpur facility.

All the 17 people have been shifted to Tezpur Medi-cal College Hospital (TMCH) where their condition is sta-ble, the official said. The home, belonging to the Missionaries of Charity, has been declared as a containment zone, he said.

Earlier, three children of the same facility had tested pos-itive for COVID-19, the dis-trict's Joint Director of Health J Ahmed said. As many 259 chil-dren of Sonitpur district have been infected with COVID-19, one of whom succumbed to the disease, during the sec-ond wave of the pandemic, Ahmed said. AGENCIES

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Monday demanded a com-pensation of Rs 10 lakh each to the families of all Covid victims in the country, saying the gov-ernment has no right to rule if it cannot provide that.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the government can compensate the Covid-affected families from the tax collected on petrol and diesel.

"The Covid-affected fami-lies can be compensated from a small part of the petrol-die-sel tax collection -- this is their need and right. The (Narendra) Modi government should not back out from this opportunity of providing assistance to the public in a disaster," he said in a tweet in Hindi.

Congress spokesperson Gourav Vallabh said the gov-ernment will have to pay Rs 40,000 crore as compensation to the Covid victims, which is only 10 per cent of of the Rs 4 lakh crore that it has earned from the excise duty on petrol and diesel in the last year alone.

He said so far, nearly four lakh people have lost their lives and more than three crore have been infected with the coro-navirus, but the government is not ready to part with even 10 per cent of the money it has

earned from taxes last year.Vallabh alleged that the

government is "distorting" the Disaster Management Act to deny compensation to the fam-ilies of Covid victims.

He said the government has failed the people and has no right to rule after it insulted the deceased and weakened the country's fight against Covid.

Vallabh said compensation must be paid to the victims as they died due to a lack of oxy-gen and the government's neg-ligence. "The Congress party demands that the government include COVID-19 in natural disasters and provide a com-pensation of Rs 10 lakh each to the families of those who died due to it," he said.

Noting that this will be the country's debt of gratitude to the families of the deceased, the Congress leader said not pro-viding this compensation is an insult to the frontline workers

who have laid down their lives fighting the pandemic from the forefront. "A government that cannot provide Rs 10 lakh to the families of the deceased has no right to be in power," he said. Vallabh said even though the government talks of saving lives and livelihood, it has done neither due to its mismanage-ment and inept handling of the pandemic.

India's middle class has shrunk by 3.2 crore and 7.5 crore people were pushed below the poverty line in 2020, he said, adding that according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), close to 97 per cent Indians became poorer during the last year, he said. "It is clear that both life and livelihood have suffered badly. But the big issue is that the BJP government has left the people alone in this fight and does not seem to be bothered at all," the Congress leader added.

In March 2020, the Minis-try of Home Affairs decided to treat COVID-19 as a "notified disaster" but when the demand for compensation was made, the government took a U-turn in the Supreme Court by saying that it cannot be called a disas-ter and is at best a pandemic, he said. MPOST

DHIRENDRA KUMAR

NEW DELHI: The densely populated states/UTs are far behind than the states/UTs with lesser population in terms of vaccination coverage as among all the states and UTs, Ladakh is at the top in vaccinating its residents, while despite all the tall claims, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are the worst performers in vaccination coverage as both the states have vaccinated just 12 per cent of their population till 7 am on Monday.

As per Union Health Min-istry’s latest vaccination cover-age data, Ladakh, which has an estimated population of 2.90 lakh, has vaccinated 74.7 per cent of its total popula-tion as the UT has vaccinated total 2,16,616 doses till 7 am on Monday. Another UT Lak-shadweep, which has an esti-mated population of 74,151, has administered total 53,856 doses of Covid-19 vaccine, which is 72.6 per cent of the total vaccination coverage in the UT.

Sikkim, which is the small-est among northeastern states in terms of population, has

administered the vaccine to 61.8 per cent of its population. The state’s estimated popula-tion is about 7 lakh, while Tri-pura, which has an estimated population of 42 lakh, has achieved 59 per cent vaccina-tion coverage as the BJP-ruled state has administered total 24,74,551 doses of the vaccine.

The country’s tourist desti-nation Goa has protected 54.5 per cent of its total population by administering total 8,71,473 doses of the vaccine, while the hilly state Himachal Pradesh, which is also tourist’s preferred destination, has vaccinated 46.6 per cent of its population and Mizoram has achieved 44 per cent vaccination coverage.

Among the top 10 densely populated states, Gujarat, which has an estimated popula-tion of 6.43 crore, has achieved 38.7 per cent vaccination cov-erage followed by Karnataka at 31.8 per cent, Rajasthan at 29.4 per cent, Andhra Pradesh at 27.3 per cent, Maharashtra at 25 per cent, Madhya Pradesh at 22.8 per cent, West Bengal, which has vaccinated 21 per cent of its total estimated pop-ulation of 10 crore.

Tamil Nadu has vaccina-tion coverage of 19 per cent fol-lowed by Uttar Pradesh (12.6 per cent), which is the coun-try’s most populated state and Bihar has vaccination coverage of 12.4 per cent, which is worst in the country. The estimated population of Uttar Pradesh is about 24 crore and Bihar’s esti-mated population is 12.70 core.

Mizoram (12.55 lakh) has achieved 43.9 per cent vaccina-tion, while 43 per cent of total residents of Chandigarh have

taken the Covid-19 vaccine.Despite all the challenges

of vaccine shortage that lead to the closure of several vac-cination centres, Delhi, which is led by chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, has vaccinated 38.6 per cent of its total estimated population of about 1.90 crore.

Kerala, which has reported the first Covid-19 case in Jan-uary 2020, has achieved 37.6 per cent vaccination coverage. Uttarakhand has administered total 42,14,691 doses of vac-

cine, which is 37 per cent of vaccination coverage.

Arunachal Pradesh, which has an estimated population of about 15.92 lakh, has vacci-nated 35 per cent of its popula-tion. Puducherry has achieved 33.6 per cent vaccination,

The Jammu & Kashmir has achieved 31.5 per cent vacci-nation coverage. The perfor-mance of Chhattisgarh is also much better than several other BJP-ruled states, as the state led by Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel has vaccinated 30 per cent of its estimated population of about 2.98 crore.

However, despite the short-age of vaccine, Odisha has vac-cinated 24.7 per cent of its total population, which is estimated at about 4.69 crore and Telan-gana has inoculated 26 per cent of its total population.

Jharkhand, which faced ‘acute shortage’ of Covid-19 vaccine has reported 17 per cent vaccination. The state has administered total 66,69,722 doses of the vaccine. In Megha-laya, 19.5 per cent people got the vaccine, while in Manipur 19 per cent of its people have been given the vaccine.

A beneficiary receives a dose of COVID-19 vaccine at Railway Hospital vaccination center, in Prayagraj, Monday

‘Govt has no right to rule if it cannot provide that’

Covid cases with variants of concern rose from 10% in May to

51% till June 20: Parl panel told

A medic collects swab sample from a person for COVID-19 testing in Bengaluru, on Monday

RAIGARH: Six persons - five women and a minor girl - were killed and at least 20 others injured when the pick-up vehicle in which they were returning from a wedding col-lided head-on with a truck in Chhattisgarh's Raigarh district on Monday, police said.

All the deceased, two of them elderly women, were from the same family, they said.

The accident occurred at around 3 pm near Sisringa village under Dharamjaigarh police station limits when the pick-up vehicle, with over 25 people onboard, was heading towards Chhal village, Raigarh Superintendent of Police San-tosh Singh said.

The victims, belonging to Maharajganj village under Chhal police station limits, were returning home after attending a wedding function at Rainuma village, he said.

The impact of the collision was so severe that four persons died on the spot, while two oth-ers succumbed to their injuries in the hospital, Singh said.

The deceased were iden-

tified as Mathura Bai Rathiya (45), Bilaso Bai Rathiya (60), Devla Bai Rathiya (50), Bal-mati Rathiya (65), Kesari Bai (40) and Sonam Rathiya (14), he said.

At least 20 others sustained injuries, four of them critically, and were admitted to a hospital in Dharamjaigarh, the SP said.

The pick-up vehicle's driver was among the injured, Singh said.

One of the seriously injured persons was referred to the Rai-garh district hospital for fur-ther treatment, he said.

A case has been registered and efforts were on to trace the truck driver and his helper, who escaped from the spot after the accident, the police officer said.

The Raigarh district admin-istration announced a compen-sation of Rs 25,000 each to the kin of the deceased, an official statement said.

Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel expressed grief over the accident and directed the dis-trict administration to ensure proper treatment to the injured persons, it said. MPOST

Chhattisgarh: 6 killed in road accident

11 kids test Covid +ve

at children’s home in Tezpur

Covid: Centre unveils new recovery package, expands...

Sitharaman said the Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme is being expanded to Rs 4.5 lakh crore from Rs 3 lakh crore. Under the scheme, a collateral-free loan is provided by banks to small businesses and the government stands guarantee for any default.

The ECLGS, launched last year, has helped cash-starved small businesses raise funds during the Covid-19 lockdown for working capital and to meet their orders. As much as Rs 2.73 lakh crore has been sanctioned under the three previous ECLGS programmes, of which Rs 2.10 lakh crore has already been disbursed.

Another Rs 1.1 lakh crore loan guarantee scheme for Covid-affected sectors was announced. This included Rs 50,000 crore for the health sector, with a three-year single loan of Rs 100 crore carry-ing an interest of 7.95 per cent. Loans to other sec-tors such as tourism and hospitality would come at 8.25 per cent per annum interest rate.

Also, micro-finance institutions will extend 25 lakh small borrowers loans of up to Rs 1.25 lakh at an interest rate that is 2 per cent lower than the benchmark lending rate, she said.

The government also extended the loan guar-antee programme to the tourism sector, after last month widening it to airlines and hospitals.

Financial Services Secretary Debasish Panda said the objective of credit guarantee is to encour-age banks to lend to enterprises so that they get credit at low cost. The measures announced Mon-day are “to ensure money comes into hands of small, medium and large enterprises,” he said.

The credit programme supplements sepa-rate measures announced by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) last month to boost credit for health care services and provide fresh lending to vaccine-makers. It provided an on-tap liquidity window for banks worth Rs 50,000 crore to extend credit to health services and vaccine manufacturers until March 2022.

The extension of free foodgrains to 80 crore poor till November will cost Rs 93,869 crore more, bringing the total cost of the programme to more than Rs 2.27 lakh crore, she said.

The government had last year announced the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) to provide free 5 kg per month of foodgrains to over 80 crore poor to help them tide over the impact of stringent lockdown imposed to curb the spread of coronavirus infections.

Stating that the wheat procurement has touched an all-time high of over 432 lakh tonnes in the Rabi marketing season of 2021-22, she said the government will provide an additional subsidy of Rs 14,775 crore to farmers directly for buying DAP and other complex fertilisers.

The additional amount will raise the fertiliser subsidy to Rs 42,275 crore.

Twitter removes wrong map displaying J&K

Following which the Centre issued a notice to the US-based company for disrespecting the ter-ritorial integrity of India by showing an incorrect map.

The global map, which grossly misrepresented India’s boundaries, was removed on late Monday evening by Twitter following social media outrage.

Sources said the government is seriously look-ing into the matter. In this case, since the wrong

depiction is on Twitter’s website, the case is not that of an ‘intermediary’ but of a publisher which is responsible for content.

When something is clearly wrong it has to be tackled, or consequential action will follow, they said.

Twitter — which has an estimated 1.75 crore users in India — has remained mum on the entire episode. Emails sent to the company did not elicit any response.

The US digital giant has been at loggerheads with the Indian government over the new social media rules. The government has confronted Twit-ter over deliberate defiance and failure to comply with the country’s new IT rules, despite repeated reminders.

Notably, the microblogging platform has lost its legal shield as an intermediary in India, becom-ing liable for users posting any unlawful content.

Governor visited North Bengal to instigate violence: Mamata

Even after getting relief, a PIL or writ petition was filed that is still pending,” Banerjee said, reit-erating that she wrote three letters to the Cen-tre seeking his removal from the post of Bengal’s Governor.

She further added that a separate team was sent again to North Bengal by the Governor after he came back to Kolkata.

Replying to a question in regards to the Gover-nor ensuring a special audit by CAG alleging “cor-ruption” in Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA), the Chief Minister questioned his cre-dential to order a probe. “There must be a probe against him. How many people accompanied him? What is the expense? What has taken place in the Governor’s House? Who all visited the place regu-larly to meet him? We must also find out why he went to Gurgaon before returning to Kolkata from Delhi. There must be probes to find answers to all these questions,” Banerjee said, adding that the state government has already carried out an inter-nal financial audit of the GTA.

Dhankhar, who was on a week-long visit to Darjeeling from June 21, made allegations of heavy corruption in the GTA along with lack of audit since 2017. BJP MPs and MLAs, including John Barla, Nisith Pramanik, Raju Bishta and Niraj Zimba, had also met him during his North Ben-gal visit.

Before departing for Kolkata on Tuesday, the Governor said: “During my stay, there were seri-ous complaints raised by people’s representa-tives and others regarding corruption in the GTA. Despite crores and crores of rupees coming to the GTA, there has been no matching develop-ment. Since 2017, no election has been held. Years together there hasn’t been any audit. I will ensure a full special audit by the CAG so that the Board of Administrators can be made duly accountable.”

Condemning the “acts of the Governor” as she accused him of “purposefully attempting to dis-turb the peace and harmony in North Bengal,” Banerjee said: “The list containing names of the people he met at Darjeeling Raj Bhavan and dur-ing his tour to North Bengal will only prove that he, who believes in divide and rule policy”, is insti-gating a quarter to create trouble. He met only BJP MPs and MLAs and the party’s presidents. Is it the task of a Governor to instigate someone to create an unstable situation?”

Taking a jab at the Governor for “behaving like a dictator following Centre’s direction”, the Chief Minister alleged that he is threatening officers and bureaucrats saying that “you are under scanner” and “a cruel letter is coming against your name”.

“Who is he to say all this? He is merely a Gov-ernor and nothing else,” Banerjee added.

She further said that she did not utter a single word against him (Dhankhar) till date. “But today, I am sorry as I am forced to bring all this to light as all limits are being crossed,” the Chief Minis-

ter said, assuring that she will continue to speak to him till he remains in the chair of the Governor as a courtesy.

In connection with the visit of a team of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to the state, Banerjee said: “Most of the people BJP took to the Commission were fake complainants. There was no such report of post-poll violence in the state after the elections. Our administra-tion took strong and immediate action even in case of one or two stray incidents. The complain-ants brought to the NHRC by BJP on Monday engaging mini-trucks and buses were mostly fake. Moreover, they were brought violating the Disaster Management Act.”

Assuring full support to the NHRC, she urged its top brass to work impartially without paying heed to the BJP.

She also criticised the Centre for “harassing a state government” despite it returning power with a landslide victory by sending in teams of different Central bodies and agencies. “Why is Bengal only obstructed, accused and abused? What is its fault? They (BJP) tried (to win the election), but failed. We all have witnessed how they had used every-thing, starting from cash to the Election Commis-sion, to win the polls. They (Centre) should now accept the people’s mandate and concentrate on their own work. It is their faulty decision for which people are suffering after taking Covaxin. Is it not a shame for the country before the entire world? I am really worried for my country,” Banerjee said.

Dhankhar, however, claimed that his name never got reflected in the Jain Hawala charge-sheet. He also tweeted: “Never expected a leader of stature @MamataOfficial to engage in sensation premised on misrepresentation & untruth. Still wondering what prompted her to engage in such an act! Am sure she will for sure reflect & gener-ate scenarios for working together for welfare of people”.

Former GTA chairman and GJM (Binoy) gen-eral secretary Anit Thapa too dubbed the Gover-nor’s visit to the Hills as politically motivated. “I have always welcomed audits. Internal audits have been held. The public knows the type of work we have done in our one-and-a-half, two years ten-ure,” Thapa said.

He further added: “When there is peace they always try to create unrest. We worked very hard to quell the unrest and establish peace in the Hills. Any attempt to disrupt it will not be tolerated. We request the public not to step into any provoca-tion. Our priority is peace, development and tour-ism. We have not gained anything through years of unrest.”

Uttarakhand High Court stays Chardham Yatra

The court has all along been asking the state government to suspend the yatra so that it does not become another “Covid super spreader” like the Kumbh.

However, considering the sentiments attached with the temples, the court asked the government to make arrangements for nationwide live stream-ing of the ongoing ceremonies.

On an objection raised by the state government that telecasting such events is not in tune with the traditions, the court said it is being sympathetic towards the emotions of the priests.

Yet, it must be kept in mind that when the shastras (scriptures) were written there was no technology like television for broadcasting impor-tant events, the court said.

The court further observed that it is more important to save everyone from the Delta Plus mutant of Coronavirus rather than being consid-erate towards the feelings of a few.

Interpreting the court’s order, the petitioner’s advocate Dushyant Mainali said no physical per-mission will now be granted to anyone for the yatra. Uttarakhand Chief Secretary Om Prakash and Tourism Secretary Dalip Jawalkar were also virtually present at the hearing.

From Page 1

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi

5millenniumpost Nation mpNEW DELHI | TUESDAY, 29 JUNE, 2021

40,845 cases of black fungus in India so far: Harsh Vardhan

Free foodgrains: Govt to spend Rs 93,869 cr this yr

TWO BROTHERS FROM HYD HELD FOR DARBHANGA RAILWAY STATION BLAST HYDERABAD: Two brothers from the city have been picked up by the Telangana Counter Intelligence cell and Bihar police in connection with the June 17 blast at the railway station in Bihar’s Darbhanga, police here said on Monday. On June 17, a blast took place inside the railway station premises at Darbhanga, though no one was injured. The incident took place when a bundle of clothes exploded while being car-ried from the parcel van of a train to the assigned place of storage.

ODISHA URGES CENTRE FOR 6 LAKH MORE COVISHIELD DOSES BHUBANESWAR: The Odisha government on Monday urged the Centre to allocate 6 lakh doses of Cov-ishield vaccine to the state to continue the inoculation drive smoothly till the end of this month. State Health Minister NK Das said he wrote a letter to Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan in this regard.

DEATH TOLL FROM THE INFECTIONS STANDS AT 3,129

Nation Briefs

LUCKNOW: BSP president Mayawati on Monday said her party will not contest the zila panchayat chairpersons' elections so that it can focus on next year's assembly polls, drawing accusations from the Congress that she is pulling out to help the ruling BJP. She said people wanted the Bahu-jan Samaj Party to form the government next year –and it will go to the polls with the slogan that UP must be saved.

Instead of contesting the zila parishad chairmen's elec-tions, the party has decided to channelize its efforts on strengthening the organisa-tion and expanding its base, Mayawati told reporters.

At the same time, she said her party would have fought the zila chairpersons' elec-tions if they were being held in a fair manner. Polling for the district panchayat chiefs in Uttar Pradesh will take place on July 3. Mayawati's decision prompted a sharp response from the Uttar Pradesh Con-gress. "The statement by May-awati that her party will not contest the zila panchayat chairmen's elections makes it clear that whenever she has to help the BJP, she pulls back from contesting the polls," UP Congress spokesperson Ashok Singh tweeted in Hindi.

But Mayawati claimed that once the BSP forms its govern-ment in the state, the majority of the zila panchayat chairmen will themselves join her party as they cannot function with-out power. AGENCIES

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Centre will spend Rs 93,869 crore this year to provide 5 kg of foodgrains per month free of cost to over 80 crore people during May-November for providing relief to poor amid the second wave of COVID-19, the finance min-ister said on Monday.

Last year, the Centre had launched the Pradhan Man-tri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) to provide free foodgrains to over 80 crore beneficiaries covered under the National Food Security Act (NFSA), as part of its effort to reduce the hardships of people during the pandemic.

The scheme was opera-tional during April-November period of 2020.

After the outbreak of the second wave in April 2021, the PMGKAY scheme was reintro-duced, initially for May-June and then extended till Novem-ber this year.

Addressing a press confer-ence to announce fresh stimu-lus measures for the economy, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the estimated financial implication for pro-viding free foodgrains is Rs 93,869 crore for this year.

The Centre spent Rs 1,33,972 crore last fiscal on this scheme.

The total financial implica-

tion is estimated at Rs 2,27,841 crore for PMGKAY, Sithara-man added.

The scheme has been rein-troduced to minimise the eco-nomic hardships being faced by the vulnerable PDS (Public Distribution System) beneficia-ries during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi while addressing the nation had announced that the Centre's free food programme PMG-KAY will be extended for five months till Diwali.

Five kgs of foodgrains per person per month is provided free of cost under the PMG-KAY to 81.35 crore beneficia-ries covered under the NFSA.

This is over and above the distribution of 5 kg foodgrains per person every month at highly subsidised rates of Rs 1-3 per kg via ration shops to NFSA beneficiaries.

Sitharaman also high-lighted that wheat procurement

has touched an all-time high of over 432 lakh tonnes in the rabi marketing season of 2021-22. Wheat farmers have been paid Rs 85,413 crore.

The finance minister also announced that the govern-ment has provided an addi-tional subsidy amount of Rs 14,775 crore for DAP and other complex fertilisers under the Nutrient Subsidy Scheme (NBS).

The NBS subsidy has been raised to Rs 42,275 crore this fiscal from Rs 27,500 crore in the previous year.

Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur said out of the total Rs 14,775 crore of addi-tional subsidy, Rs 9,125 crore is towards DAP (Di-ammo-nium phosphate) and Rs 5,650 crore for NPK based complex fertilisers.

Recently, the Union Cabi-net approved hike in subsidies for DAP and complex fertilis-ers by Rs 14,775 crore to keep the price of crop nutrients for farmers low despite the rising costs.

After urea, DAP is the most widely used fertiliser in the country.

Last month, the Centre decided to increase subsidy on DAP fertiliser by 140 per cent. The decision was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: ICAI told the Supreme Court on Monday that it is the most conducive time to hold CA exams as the COVID-19 spread is now at a substantially low level, offer-ing an opportune moment for chartered accountants to fur-ther their professional career.

The CA examinations which are conducted by the Institute of Chartered Accoun-tants of India (ICAI) in May, were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and are now scheduled to be held from

July 5-20.ICAI told the top court

that as on date, the numbers of COVID-19 cases are compara-tively low and thus it would be in the best interests of the can-didates if the examinations are held as per the schedule and not cancelled or postponed.

A bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Mahesh-wari and Aniruddha Bose said that since it has not received the ICAI note, it will hear the mat-ter on Tuesday.

The top court is hearing a batch of pleas seeking differ-ent reliefs including an opt-

out option for the candidates, postponement of the exam, and increase in number of centres this year.

At the outset, senior advo-cate Ramji Srinivasan, appear-ing for ICAI, said that they have circulated a note which if taken into consideration deals with some of the issues raised in the petitions.

Senior advocate Meen-akshi Arora, appearing for one of the petitioners, said that they are not seeking deferment but want more centres to be given as many of them have been uni-laterally closed by ICAI.

The bench said it will hear the matter on Tuesday and asked Srinivasan to take instruction on the contention

raised by Arora.In the note, ICAI has said

the chartered accountant exams are professional exam-inations and ought not to be equated with CBSE or other State Board Examinations for Class 10 or 12", and it is in the interest of the candidates to start their "professional lives and earn livelihoods".

It said the ICAI has no vested interest in holding the exams but to safeguard the interest of the aspiring CAs, ensuring that the exams are held at the most appropriate and conducive time.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: A total of 40,845 cases of black fungus or mucormycosis have been reported in the country so far, of which 31,344 are rhinocer-ebral in nature, and the death toll from the infections stands at 3,129, Union Health Min-ister Harsh Vardhan said on Monday.

Vardhan, who chaired the 29th meeting of the high-level Group of Ministers (GoM) on COVID-19, apprised the mem-bers that of the total numbers, 34,940 patients had Covid (85.5 per cent), 26,187 (about 64.11 per cent) were co-morbid for diabetes, while 21,523 (52.69 per vent) of those infected were on steroids.

A total of 13,083 patients were in the age group of 18-45 years (32 per cent), 17,464 were in the age group of 45-60 years (42 per cent), while 10,082 (24 per cent) patients were 60-plus years of age, a health ministry statement said.

Speaking on COVID-19 vaccination drive, Vard-han said, "India has achieved another milestone in COVID-19 vaccination and has over-

taken the US in total number of Covid vaccine doses admin-istered so far. The US started vaccinating against Covid from December 14, 2020, whereas the drive was launched in India on January 16."

Under the new policy of Covid vaccination, the Union government is procuring and supplying (free of cost) 75 per cent of the vaccines being pro-duced by the vaccine manu-facturers in the country to states and union territories, he was quoted as saying in the statement.

Till Monday morning (8 am), 32,36,63,297 vaccine doses have been administered in various categories.

Vardhan also presented a snapshot of India's efforts to contain COVID-19. In the last 24 hours, India had only 46,148 Covid cases, while the active cases significantly declined to 5,72,994, he said.

The recovery rate has been steadily increasing and stands at 96.80 per cent as on date and 58,578 recoveries were regis-tered in the last 24 hours.

Today is the 46th day in succession where our daily recoveries outnumbered new

cases. Our case fatality rate has been 1.30 per cent, daily positivity rate at 2.94 per cent and weekly positivity rate also stands at 2.94 per cent, which has been consistently below 5 per cent for 21 days now, Vard-han said.

The GoM strongly reiter-ated the importance of Covid-appropriate behaviour, the statement said.

Higher level of continued awareness building through sustained IEC campaigns was highlighted. NITI Aayog member (Health) Dr V K Paul emphasised on the benefits of mask wearing and hand hygiene. Dr Balram Bhargava, Secretary (Health Research)

and Director General (ICMR), also cautioned that the second wave of the COVID-19 pan-demic has still not subsided as 80 districts in the country still have high positivity, the state-ment said. He advised against any laxity at this stage and also explained that vaccines have been found effective against the alpha, beta, gamma and delta variants of COVID-19.

Dr Sujeet K Singh, Director (National Centre for Disease Control), presented a detailed report on the trajectory of Covid in states and UTs.

He presented a granular analysis based on epidemiolog-ical findings of the trajectory of the pandemic in each state

pointing out critical parameters like growth of cases, concen-tration of cases in particu-lar districts and other trends like fatality and the variants of COVID-19 driving the infec-tion in the affected states, the statement said.

Active Covid cases continue to be concentrated mainly in Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Odisha, which are reporting growth rate more than the national COVID-19 growth rate, it said.

While 19 states are report-ing fatality figures in single digit (less than 10), four states of Kerala, Karnataka, Maha-rashtra and Tamil Nadu are reporting more than 100 deaths daily.

Neerja Sekhar, Addi-tional Secretary, Information and Broadcasting, apprised the GoM on how issues like vaccine hesitancy are being addressed through different mediums, the statement said.

Vardhan was joined by Hardeep S Puri, Minister of Civil Aviation, Nityanand Rai, Minister of State, Ministry of Home Affairs and Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Minister of State, Health.

BALLIA (UP): A former UP BJP MLA and party office bearer on Monday accused his party of "outsourcing" its lead-ers while reiterating his charge against the Yogi Adityanath government of mishandling the Covid crisis.

Within days after claiming at least ten deaths in each vil-lage of Uttar Pradesh due to Covid during its second wave, BJP's state Working Commit-tee member Ram Iqbal Singh on Monday upped his claim, saying the Covid death toll in the state could be "over 10 lakh".

Singh made the assertion while talking to reporters at his residence in Mundera, near here.

Reacting to Ram Iqbal's statement, BJP's Gorakhpur region president Dharmen-dra Singh said the party has taken note of his continued anti-government statements

and the state leadership will take action against him.

Details of his controversial statements are being collected and being sent to the party leadership, he added.

Earlier on Saturday, for-mer MLA Ram Iqbal Singh had said at least ten people died due to corona infec-tion in every village and this number could be many times more in villages having larger populations.

A large number of peo-ple have died in cities too, he added on Monday.

Taking a dig at leaders join-ing the BJP from other parties, he said, "The BJP has changed with the times and the leaders outsourced by the party have become dominant.

The one who made objec-tionable statements about the Ram temple has become a Cabinet minister in the Yogi government, he added. AGENCIES

OUR CORRESPONDENT

CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government on Monday urged the Centre to revise the 75:25 allocation format of Covid vac-cines to government and pri-vate institutions and demanded that 90 per cent of the doses be given to the state-run facilities.

In a letter to Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Harsh Vardhan, Chief Minister M K Stalin said the "25 per cent allocation to private hospitals is grossly higher when compared to the actual vaccinations done by them."

"Under the new liberalised vaccination policy, the Union Government is buying 75 per cent of the vaccines and the rest are being provided to private hospitals, to allow them to vac-cinate better-off individuals on payment basis."

"While I agree that a part of the available vaccines has to be shared with the private institu-tions, I wish to bring to your notice the fact that this 25 per cent allocation to private hos-pitals is grossly higher when compared to the actual vacci-nations done by them," he told Vardhan.

Seeking increased alloca-tion of Covid-19 shots to the state, Stalin said in Tamil Nadu 1.43 crore jabs have been used so far, out of which private hos-pitals have "used only 6.5 lakh doses, which translates to just 4.5 per cent."

"Even in the current month, out of 43.5 lakh doses adminis-tered in the state, private insti-tutions have contributed only 4.5 lakh doses which is just 10 per cent."

"The above mismatch between demand and supply in government and private insti-tutions has resulted in a situa-tion where the private hospitals in Tamil Nadu have around 7-8 lakh doses available with them, which is equivalent to one month performance whereas government institutions are left with just two lakh doses which is lesser than their current sin-gle day usage," Stalin said.

This can be rectified only by a more rational and perfor-mance-based distribution of doses, he said.

Available resources have to be put to best use, he said, adding Centre should imme-diately "evaluate the vaccine doses allotted to various states so far, in terms of doses allot-ted per thousand population and ensure that necessary com-pensatory allocations are made to states who have been allot-ted lower number of doses per capita."

"Revise the inter-se alloca-tion between the government and private institutions to 90:10 as against the current alloca-tion of 75:25," the chief minis-ter urged Vardhan.

Allocate 90 % Covid vaccines to govt

institutions: TN CM NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court Monday refused to stay the new Information Technol-ogy rules which seek to regulate digital news media, saying it was not in agreement with the petitioners on passing such an order at this stage.

Foundation for Indepen-dent Journalism, The Wire, Quint Digital Media Ltd and Pravda Media Foundation, parent company of Alt News, sought a stay on the Informa-tion technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, on the ground that a fresh notice has been issued to them to comply with the rules or else coercive action will be taken.

A vacation bench of Justices C Hari Shankar and Subramo-nium Prasad said the notice has been issued to them only for implementation of notifica-tion on which there was no stay.

We are not in agreement with you. If you want we will pass a reasoned detailed order

or if you want we can renotify it before the roster bench. You take instructions and let us know, the bench said.

After taking instructions, senior advocate Nitya Ramak-rishnan, representing the news portals, urged the court to list the matter on reopening of courts after vacations.

The court listed the applica-tions for stay before the roster bench on July 7.

According to amended IT rules, social media and stream-ing companies will be required to take down contentious con-tent quicker, appoint grievance redressal officers and assist in investigations.

Meanwhile, the court issued notice to the Centre and sought its response on a fresh petition by Pravda Media Foundation challenging the vires or legal-ity of IT Rules.

The court asked the Min-istry of Electronics and Infor-mation Technology and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to file reply to the petition within four weeks and listed it for hearing on August 4, the date already fixed for hearing similar pleas by Foun-dation for Independent Jour-nalism, The Wire and Quint Digital Media Ltd.

The stay applications were filed in the pending main peti-tions challenging the vires of the IT Rules.

During the hearing on the stay applications, the bench said the matter came up for hearing three times before the roster bench and the peti-tioners could have moved the pleas for stay on the notifica-tion then. MPOST

HC refuses to stay new IT rules regulating digital news media

Conducive time to hold CA exams: ICAI to SC

BSP pulls out of UP district

panchayat chiefs’ poll

UP BJP office-bearer accuses party of

‘outsourcing’ leaders

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday reiterated that persons with disabili-ties (PwD) cannot be denied reservation in promotions in government jobs as it upheld a Kerala High Court order grant-ing the benefit to a woman last year. The top court said that identification of posts for the purpose of reservation had to take place immediately after the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protec-tion of Rights and Full Par-ticipation) Act, 1995 but a resistance to this is obvious from the "delaying tactics"

adopted by most of the gov-ernment authorities in truly implementing the intent.

It said that sometimes it is easier to bring a legislation into force but far more difficult to change the social mindset which would seek to defeat the intent of the law.

A bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and R Subhash Reddy upheld the Kerala High Court order of March 9, 2020, by which it had held reserva-tion in promotion to a woman with disability.

The SC bench said, "We are of the view that the course of

action followed by the High Court in the impugned order is salutary and does not call for any interference."

The top court said that what seems to emerge from the case is that Kerala has not imple-mented the SC judgments in the Rajeev Kumar Gupta and others versus the Union of India case (2016), and in the Siddaraju versus State of Kar-nataka case (2020), in which it was held that reservation to PwD would be applicable even in promotion in government jobs. The bench said, "Thus, we consider it appropriate to

issue directions to the State of Kerala to implement these judgments and provide for reservation in promotion in all posts after identifying said posts. This exercise should be completed within a period of three months".

It said, "We are making it time bound so that the man-date of the Act (The Persons with Disabilities (Equal Oppor-tunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995) is not again frustrated by making Section 32 as an excuse for not having identi-fied the post." The top court

noted that the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act of 2016 has now taken care of how to deal with the aspect of reser-vation in promotion.

It dealt with the question of whether reservation under provisions of the 1995 Act is dependent upon identification of posts as stipulated by the law.

The top court said that there can be little doubt that it was never the intention of the leg-islature that the provisions of the Act would be used as a tool to frustrate the benefits of res-ervation under the 1995 law.

"In fact, identification of

posts for purposes of reserva-tion had to take place imme-diately after the 1995 Act. A resistance to such reservation is obvious from the delaying tactics adopted by most of the government authorities in truly implementing the intent. It thus shows that sometimes it is easier to bring legislation into force but far more diffi-cult to change the social mind set which would endeavour to find ways and means to defeat the intent of the Act enacted and Section 32 was a clas-sic example of the same" the bench said. AGENCIES

Persons with disabilities cannot be denied reservation in promotions in govt jobs: SC

‘Sometimes it is easier to bring a legislation into force but far more difficult to change the social mindset which would seek to defeat the intent of the law’

Chief Minister M K Stalin

DRUG PEDDLER HELD WITH PISTOL, HEROIN IN JAMMU & KASHMIR JAMMU: An alleged drug peddler was arrested on Monday and a pistol and 20 grams of heroin were recovered from his possession here, police said. Ash-wani Kumar alias Bunty , a resident of Bahu Fort, was arrested during checking of vehicles at Bravo-3 on Jammu-Srinagar national highway amid heightened security arrangements, a police spokesman said. The security across Jammu and Kashmir was beefed up following dropping of two bombs on IAF Station and recovery of 5.5 kgs of IED from a terrorist in Jammu on Sunday. Kumar is a notorious drug peddler and he was arrested along with heroin and a pistol with five live rounds, the spokesman said, adding he was booked under the NDPS Act and the Arms Act.

UP: THREE YOUTHS COMMIT SUICIDE IN SEPARATE INCIDENTS MUZAFFARNAGAR (UP): Three youths ended their lives on Monday in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar district in separate incidents, police said. Deepak (26) hanged himself from the ceiling of his house in Kookda village here under New Mandi Police Station area, they added. In another incident in Gandhinagar local-ity, one Nikhil Kumar shot himself dead, police said. While in Alipur village, Sanjay (27) committed suicide by shooting himself and police said it recovered a country-made pistol from him. All the three bodies have been sent for post-mortem, police said.

SEXUAL ASSAULT CASE AGAINST TARUN TEJPALNation Briefs

6 millenniumpostNationmpTUESDAY, 29 JUNE, 2021 | NEW DELHI

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: India believes in resolving disputes with neigh-bours through dialogue but it will not tolerate if provoked or threatened, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Mon-day, in a clear message to China amid a stalemate in the disen-gagement process in remain-ing friction points in eastern Ladakh.

Addressing soldiers at an event in a forward location on the second day of his Ladakh visit, Singh said India is a peace-loving nation that never resorts to any kind of aggres-sion but its armed forces are always prepared to give a befit-ting reply to those who “show their eyes” to the country.

Asserting that the nation’s safety and security will not be compromised at any cost, Singh said the solution to any dispute can be found if there is a clear intent. The defence minister also paid glowing tributes to the 20 soldiers killed in the Gal-wan Valley clashes in June last year, and said the country will never forget their sacrifices.

“India is a peace-loving nation which does not believe

in aggression, however, if pro-voked, we will give a befitting reply,” he said.

Singh’s three-day visit to the region comes in the midst of the stalemate in resolving over a year-long standoff between Indian and Chinese troops in several friction points in east-ern Ladakh though they with-drew troops and weapons from Pangong lake areas in February.

“We had to face a big chal-lenge along the Northern bor-der last year. But our armed

forces displayed their courage and dedication to deal with it...Our Army has the capability to give a befitting reply to every challenge,” he said.

The defence minister assured the nation that the armed forces are fully prepared to deal with any situation.

“We have always worked for world peace. We never attack anyone. Our objective has never been to achieve victory against anyone. India has nei-ther attacked any country nor

occupied an inch. Our inten-tion is very clear,” he said.

“Our neighbours should think that we have been neigh-bours for ages, we will remain neighbours for ages. Can we not find permanent solutions to the disputed issues through talks. We were neighbours, we are neighbours and we will remain neighbours. I am talk-ing about all the neighbours. We can find solutions provided we have clear intent,” he said.

The defence minister made these comments in an address at an event in Kyungam as well as during an interaction with soldiers in Karu forward post. He later held a separate inter-action with air warriors at Leh.

“Our armed forces have proved that they have cour-age and might. Where there is a need for restraint, our army also shows restraint and where there is a need for bravery and might, the armed forces display them,” Singh said.

“I have full faith in the valour and bravery of the army and they have the ability to give a befitting reply to those who show their eyes,” he added.

In Karu, Singh lauded the resoluteness and high morale

of the armed forces while being deployed in the challenging high altitude terrain of Ladakh.

“It is because of your hero-ics that you have been adorned with the name of ‘Trishul’ divi-sion. Today you are protect-ing the northern borders of the country by being fierce like Lord Shankar’s ‘Trishul’ and I am sure that you are capable of facing any situation arising on the border,” he said.

The defence minister also assured all possible support to the armed forces, reaffirm-ing the vision of the govern-ment of a strong military that is capable of dealing with every eventuality.

India will never forget the sacrifice of soldiers who laid down their lives in Galwan Val-ley for the country, Singh said.

He lauded the exemplary courage displayed by the Indian Army during the incident and stated that the nation is proud of its armed forces.

Twenty Indian Army per-sonnel laid down their lives in clashes with Chinese troops in Galwan Valley on June 15 last year that marked the most seri-ous military conflicts between the two sides in decades.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

SRINAGAR: The gruesome killing of a Special Police Offi-cer and his family by terrorists of banned Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) has sent shock waves across Jammu and Kashmir with political parties terming it a "dastardly and cowardly" act and a blot on the security scenario in the valley.

Officials on Monday said Fayaz Ahmed, his wife, Raja Begum, and 22-year-old daughter, Rafia, were in their house in Hariparigam in Awa-ntipora area of South Kash-mir when terrorists barged inside at 11 pm on Sunday and indiscriminately opened fire on them. The village is located around 50 kms south of Sri-nagar city. Ahmad was declared brought dead at the hospital, while his wife passed away dur-ing the night and the daugh-ter succumbed on Monday morning.

The area has been cordoned off and a manhunt launched to track down the assailants but no arrests have been made so far, the officials said on Monday.

Inspector General of Police (Kashmir range) Vijay Kumar said that two JeM terrorists, including a foreigner, were involved in the killing.

The wife and daughter were injured in the incident when

they made a desperate bid to save Ahmad, he said.

"There is a movement of militants in this area. Two ter-rorists came last night, one of them from appearance seems to be an FT (foreign terrorist)," Kumar told reporters.

Kumar said the loss of the SPO along with his wife and daughter has "pained us a lot" and assured that the terrorists involved in the act will be neu-tralised soon.

"We will soon identify them (attackers) and neutral-ise them," he added.

Asked whether the mili-tant outfit behind the attack had been identified, Kumar said, "Obviously, there is a JeM movement in this area, so Jaish must be behind it."

Terrorists have intensified

attacks on police and secu-rity forces recently. While an inspector and a constable were killed in Nowgam and Eidgah areas of Srinagar last week, a civilian died in a grenade attack on security forces at Barbar-shah in the heart of the city.

The killing of the SPO and his family shook the valley with politicians across the board condemning the dastardly act.

"I unreservedly con-demn the dastardly and cow-ardly militant attack on the JK police SPO Fayaz Ahmed, his wife and his young daugh-ter at their home last night. I pray they receive their place in Jannat and their loved ones find strength during this ter-rible time," National Confer-ence (NC) vice president Omar Abdullah wrote on Twitter.

LUCKNOW: President Ram Nath Kovind, who arrived here from Kanpur on a two-day visit on Monday by the Presiden-tial Express Train, lauded the Indian Railways for provid-ing easy transportation across the length and breadth of the country. In a note he penned in the Indian Railways’ visi-tors’ book, the president also said he and his family were “extremely impressed” by the train journey.

Kovind, who is on a five-day visit to his home state Uttar Pradesh, arrived at the Charbagh railway station here around noon. He was received by Governor Anandiben Patel, Chief Minister Yogi Aditya-nath, state ministers and a large number of senior officials and public representatives.

After his journey, the presi-dent wrote in the visitors’ book of the Indian Railways, praising the national transporter, Chief PRO of North Central Railways Shivam Sharma told the news agency.

“My good wishes to the Indian Railways, which pro-vides easy and convenient transportation from the inac-cessible mountain ranges of the Himalayas to the sea coast of Kanyakumari and from the green land of northeast India to

the deserts in western Gujarat.“By undertaking a happy

and picturesque train journey after a long time from Delhi to Kanpur and then to Lucknow, I and my family are extremely impressed,” Kovind wrote in the visitors’ book.

“During this memora-ble journey, I had the pleas-ant experience of meeting my old friends and relatives in Rura and Jhijhak,” he said. “I am confident that the Indian Railways, as the preferred daily transport service for crores of Indians, will maintain its lead-ing position in rail services across the world. My thanks and good wishes to the entire team involved in serving the Indian Railways,” he said. MPOST

MORADABAD (UP): Three labours and a police consta-ble were killed and 18 others injured in an accident involving a van and a bus on the Delhi-Lucknow National Highway here on Monday, officials said.

The accident took place near Gannor Deya Mafi village around 7 am when a private bus rammed into the Pilibhit-bound van, police said.

Witnesses to the crash said the accident took place after the constable signalled the van to stop for checking on a bypass. However, the speeding bus crashed into the van, which in turn hit the constable.

Three of the labourers trav-elling in the van were killed while the constable died on the spot, police said, adding 18 oth-ers were injured in the accident.

The bodies were sent for post-mortem and the injured were admitted to DeenDaya-lUpadhyay government hospi-tal. Moradabad Chief Medical SuperitendentRajendra Singh said those who died in the acci-dent could not be immediately identified. AGENCIES

NEW DELHI: A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court challenging the preventive detention of a Manipur-based political activist under the National Security Act (NSA), alleging that it has been done solely to punish him for his criticism of BJP leaders pur-portedly advocating cow dung and cow urine as cures for COVID-19.

The plea, filed by father of political activist Leichombam Erendro, claimed that his son had on May 13 posted on Face-book that cure for coronavirus is not cow’s dung and urine.

The statement was made in the context of the death of the President of the Manipur BJP due to COVID-19, as a criti-cism of the unscientific posi-tion taken and misinformation being spread by several BJP politicians regarding cow urine and cow dung being effective in preventing/treating COVID-19, the plea said, adding that the post was deleted soon after being posted on May 13 itself.

The petition, filed through advocate Shadan Farasat, has alleged that for this criticism Erendro has spent some days in custody pursuant to criminal

cases initiated against him and thereafter in preventive deten-tion after grant of bail.

The present case is a shock-ing instance of misuse of pre-ventive detention law to stifle completely innocuous speech that is fully constitution-ally protected and was made in public interest - Erendro, a Manipuri political activist, has been preventively detained solely to punish him for his criticism of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders for advocat-ing cow dung and cow urine as cures for COVID-19, the plea has alleged. AGENCIES

JAMMU: A fresh attempt to attack a military installation with the help of drones was foiled by alert Army sentries at the Ratnuchak-Kaluchak sta-tion who fired at the unmanned aerial vehicles that flew away, an incident that came hours after an IAF station saw the first ter-ror attack using quadcopters.

The first drone was spotted at around 11.45 pm on Sunday followed by another at 2.40 am over the military station, which was witness to a terror attack in 2002 in which 31 people were killed, including 10 children.

Officials on Monday said that alert Army troops fired nearly two dozen rounds to bring down the drones hovering over its brigade headquarters. "...two separate drone activities were spotted over Ratnuchak-Kaluchak military area by alert troops," Jammu-based Army PRO Lt Col DevenderAnand said in a statement here. He said a high alert was sounded imme-diately and QRTs engaged the drones with firing.

"Both the drones flew away.

A major threat was thwarted by the alertness and proactive approach of troops," he said, adding the security forces are on high alert and the search operation is in progress.

The officials said the whole area outside the military station was cordoned off immediately and a massive search opera-tion was going on when the last reports were received. Nothing objectionable has been found on the ground so far, the officials said. MPOST

OUR CORRESPONDENT

BALASORE (ODISHA): India on Monday success-fully test-fired its new gen-eration nuclear-capable Agni Prime missile from a defence base off Odisha coast, an official statement by DRDO said.

The surface-to-surface ballistic missile has a range of 1000 to 2000 km, it said.

The sleek missile, an advanced variant in the Agni series, was test-fired from

a mobile launcher off the Abdul Kalam Island in Odi-sha at 10.55 am, said a DRDO source.

Its trajectory was moni-tored by sophisticated track-ing radars and telemetry along the coast line.

The nuclear-capable mis-sile, which met all mission objectives with high level of accuracy, has been designed and developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the statement added.

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday closed the case related to extension of time after noting that a trial court in Goa has completed the trial by rendering acquit-tal verdict in the sexual assault case against Tehelka magazine founder Tarun Tejpal.

On May 21, a trial court of Mapusa town of Goa acquitted Tejpal, the former editor-in-chief of the Tehelka magazine, in the case where he was accused of sexually assaulting his then woman colleague in a lift of a five-star hotel in Goa in November 2013 when they were attending an event. The state has also filed an appeal in the case.

The apex court, in Octo-ber last year, had extended till March 31, 2021 the time for completing trial in the sexual assault case at the request of the trial judge.

The Goa government had also earlier moved the top court seeking extension of time to

complete the trial."The trial is concluded,

Now, no order is required (on extension)," a bench of justices Ashok Bhushan, Vineet Saran and M R Shah said while clos-ing the case. MPOST

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOCHI: Residents of Lak-shadweep on Monday staged "coconut leaves and palm" pro-test across inhabited islands against the administration's order to levy a fine if coconut palm leaves, shells or trunks were found in and around their dwelling places.

Holding placards which read "introduce mulching" and "stop imposing fine", the islanders, under the banner of Save Lakshadweep Forum (SLF), stood in front of a pile of coconut leaves in the proper-ties urging the administration to withdraw the "anti-people" order.

In their one-hour long pro-test, the islanders urged the administration to withdraw the decision to impose fine on them and introduce tech-nology to convert the organic materials from the coconuts as compost --a mixture of ingredients used to fertilize and improve the soil.

"Our demand is that the

fine imposed on the people should be withdrawn and a proper waste management sys-tem should be implemented. Unless the waste manage-ment system is implemented there is no genuine right from the side of administra-tion to collect fine on falling of coconut leaves and other palms in their property," Lakshad-weep MP Mohammed Faizal P P told the news agency.

"Where do the people of islands are expected to do the scientific processing of leaves and palms," he asked.

The Lok Sabha mem-ber said an islander cannot afford to have his own sci-entific processing unit or incinerator and it is the prime duty of the Lakshadweep administration to provide such a facility.

"If such facilities are made available and people are not obeying this, then you can impose the fine. The primary responsibility of the admin-istration should be to ensure the installation of the scientific

processing units like incinera-tors in the island," Faizal said.

In the order issued on June 4 on management of cleanliness and hygiene in the islands in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic, the administration has said each family of individuals who stay in any premise shall main-tain cleanliness with certain standards and hygiene in and around their respective places at all times.

It said tender coconut shells, tree leaves, coconut husks, trunks etc in and around dwelling places/public places must be disposed off scientifi-cally by the landowners with-out affecting hygiene to the environment.

"No persons is allowed to throw or break or spread coconuts, fruits leftovers, vegetables waste on roads, footpaths, public areas, lagoon, sea and the beaches", it said, prohibiting the disposal by burning of any type of solid waste at roadsides, beaches and in open places.

‘We believe in resolution but will not tolerate if threatened’

Killing of SPO, his family: Pol parties condemn incident

Extremely impressed by train journey from Delhi to UP: Kovind

Plea in SC challenges detention of Manipur’s pol activist under NSA

India successfully test-fires Agni Prime missile

off Odisha coast

Alert soldiers thwart possible attack by drones on a military station in Jammu

UP: 2-vehicle crash leaves 3 labourers,

cop dead

Lakshadweep residents stage ‘coconut leaves & palm’ protest Top court closes plea

on trial, says court rendered verdict

Tarun Tejpal

Armed forces are fully prepared to deal with any situation: Rajnath

‘Our demand is that fine imposed on people should be with-drawn, a proper waste mgmt system should be implemented’

Army personnel on high alert after drones were noticed hovering over military station area on Sunday night in Jammu PIC/PTI

Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh addresses the gathering at the inauguration of 63 bridges, built by BRO, in six states and two Union Territories (UTs), in Ladakh on Sunday PIC/PTI

Villagers carry the coffin of daughter of a policeman who was killed along with her father and mother by suspected militants at Hariparigam area of Awantipora in Pulwama on Sunday PIC/PTI

SHIMLA: Ten people died and two others were injured as a vehicle fell into a deep gorge in Himachal Pradesh's Sirmaur district on Monday, an official said.

A pick-up van carrying members of a marriage party fell into the gorge near Pashog in Shillai sub-division, Shil-lai Sub Divisional Magistrate Suresh Singha said.

The spot is located on the border of Paonta Sahib and Shillai subdivisions. The Shil-lai SDM told from the spot that nine persons died on the spot while one injured died on his way to Paonta Sahib hos-pital. A total of 12 persons were in the vehicle, he added. The Paonta Sahib SDM Vivek Mahajan told he was pass-ing through the area when he came to know about the acci-dent after seeing ambulances. At this, he reached the Paonta Sahib hospital for ensuring bet-ter treatment of the injured and called senior doctors to the hospital for that.

One of the two injured, referred to Paonta Sahib hos-pital, however, succumbed to his injuries on his way, he added. One injured has been admitted to a Shillai hospital, he added. AGENCIES

HP: 10 dead, two hurt as vehicle falls into gorge

SC, in October last year, had extended till March 31, 2021 the time for completing trial in the sexual assault case at the request of the trial judge

UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath (R) and Governor Anandiben Patel (2R) welcome President Kovind (L), at Charbagh railway station in Lucknow on Sunday PIC/PTI

7millenniumpost Editorial mpNEW DELHI | TUESDAY, 29 JUNE, 2021

Log on to write letters to the editor or send them to letter2editor.mp@gmail.com. You can also send your comments to The Editor,

Millennium Post, Pratap Bhawan, 5 Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi 110 002

DearEditor

The consecutive drone explosions at the high security Jammu Air Force station by terrorists is unprecedented and bizarre. The perpetrators might have a sinister agenda to derail the recently established democratic process — seminal to reverting to statehood — through orchestrating mishap, turmoil and disturbance. So far, these terrorists/insurgents have been wreaking havoc on India through the land route or aerial attack from the bases of their own land. This drone attack is a paradigm shift from earlier incidents. When we are having thaw at LoC — backed by both Indian and Pakistani establishments — this drone attack will definitely be a spoilsport for the present amicable relationship. Most likely, the attack was carried out by terrorists themselves. But Pakistani Army’s connivance — considering the intricacy and finesse of the attack — with the terrorists can’t be ruled out straightaway. Afterall, the Pakistani Army remains at daggers drawn with India. This drone attack in the high security area is a matter of concern and apprehension. How it circumvented the existing security system at the sensitive border area along the LoC must be investigated. If need be, we should deploy a more sophisticated and advanced system so that any type of unwanted entry to our land or skyline can be detected at the earliest and subsequently be neutralised at the point of entry. This attack gives us a warning bell. Future security of our soil depends on whether we take it lightly or seriously.

— CHANCHAL NANDY, DURGAPURvia email

EDITORIALA grim, new era

Last weekend, India came face to face with the latest advance in the growing arsenal of terror groups and separatists across the world- weap-onised drones. A weaponised drone is not nec-

essarily a military drone. Indeed, any commercially available drone can be modified to carry explosives or other weapon systems. At the Indian Airforce Station Jammu, this is precisely what is suspected to have hap-pened as low flying drones were presumably used to drop two improvised explosive devices (IEDs) on the facil-ity. Confirming the blast, the IAF stated that the first blast caused ‘minor’ damage to the roof of one build-ing and the other exploded in an open area. There are no reported casualties. The reason why the use of drones has been suspected and not confirmed is that these drones were not detected on approach or when they were moving away from the compound. That said, there are plenty of reasons to consider the usage of drone sys-tems in such attacks. Chief among these reasons is that drones have seen use in and around the Indian bor-der for at least some time. Since 2018, Border Security Forces have noted many instances of drones being used to smuggle everything from guns to drugs across India’s border from the Pakistan side to Punjab and Jammu. Since 2018, experts have been expecting a switchover in tactics from drones being used as tools for smug-gling and such to weapons of terrorism. This is because the worldwide security implications for such technol-ogy have already become abundantly clear in recent years. Since 2014, the Islamic State has truly pioneered the usage of off the shelf drones for its military opera-tions across Syria and Iraq. The group’s use of drones has been so widespread and at times so successful that in 2019, there was real fear in Europe that many cities could suddenly find themselves a target of drone terror-ism. Though it has yet to be realised, the threat of drone terrorism is very real. The danger of such systems is that systems of law enforcement and military organisations are not necessarily designed to take on such threats. Even if these tiny, low-flying drones are detected by an anti-air weapon system, it is simply too cost-prohibitive to use traditional anti-air systems to intercept these commer-cially available, sometimes homemade drones. It is also much harder to track down and stop the operators of such attacks. While GPS guided drones can be tracked down to their operators to a certain extent, in most cases, their operators are within the territory the drone is being used in. And, even though commercial drones only have ranges of 5-10 km in most cases and require their opera-tors to be quite close to their targets, the advantage with such systems is that they can be launched from pretty much anywhere. This makes drones a significant security threat that cannot be ignored. The way to counter this threat is to not just develop technology to guard against it but also tightening regulations on its use and sale. Jam-ming systems and electronic warfare systems typically have greater success against drone-based threats than hard kill systems that are more traditional for anti-air roles. Countries like Israel which are increasingly facing the threat of such systems being used against them are developing directed-energy weapons (to simplify- laser weapons) to tackle such threats more effectively when electronic warfare systems are not enough. The DRDO is known to be developing such technology as well but it is unlikely that such weapon systems will be widely avail-able anytime soon. And this isn’t a problem that can be addressed by simply propping up a few of such advanced systems at the border. As noted above, drone systems can be used from practically anywhere and don’t require spe-cial launch facilities. This means that not only must the defence against such systems be pro-active but also wide-spread. From this year onwards, India has also had drone regulations which are now expected to get even tighter after this attack. To conclude, there is also something to be said for the positive uses of drones. While regulation on drones is absolutely necessary, it must not stifle all the valid uses of such a technology platform. Across the world, aside from being used by movie makers and jour-nalists, drones have also been used to deliver vital health care supplies to remote locations in ways that were just not possible previously. Like any revolutionary technol-ogy, drone technology can change human existence for the better while still posing a host of new threats if not properly managed.

millenniumpost.in

NEW THREAT

Not the panacea

Disproportionate burden

Merger and privatisation of banks are being perceived as all-round solutions to the woes of the banking industry but the approach has its own limitations

Patriarchal intra-household dynamics, worsened by the pandemic, has forced women to magnified socio-economic subjugation

As the process of merger continues unabated for the last few years, the num-

ber of public sector banks came down from 27 in March 2017 to 12 in April 2020. Though, the outcomes of the earlier mergers hadn’t been encour-aging. The merger of Global Trust Bank with Oriental Bank of Commerce in 2004 took a huge toll on the latter’s per-formance. According to ‘The Banker’, a prestigious interna-tional magazine, the ranking of State Bank of India was 54 at the time of the merger in the year 2017, which fell to 56 in 2018 and to 57 in 2019.

The merger of banks is not a new phenomenon. Punjab National Bank and New India Bank were merged in 1993-94. State Bank of India with its five subsidiary banks and one Mahila Bank was merged in the year 2018. Earlier, State Bank of Saurashtra and State Bank of Indore were merged with State Bank of India in 2008 and 2010 respectively. Further, Ori-ental Bank of Commerce and United Bank of India merged with Punjab National Bank, Syndicate Bank merged with Canara Bank, Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank merged with Bank of Baroda and Allahabad Bank merged with Indian Bank.

The government now wants to privatise two public sector banks — Bank of Maharash-tra and Indian Overseas Bank. However, the performance of these banks has improved significantly. The net profit of Bank of Maharashtra stood at Rs 550 crore in FY 2020-21, while it was Rs 389 crore in the

financial year 2019-20. Indian Overseas Bank has earned a net profit of Rs 831 crore in FY 2021 after six years.

Privatization is believed to result in job losses of employ-ees, which could negatively impact the government’s wel-fare image. Due to the insecure future, the employees will not be able to do their work dili-gently, which will affect their performance. The service charges of these banks could increase. Privatised banks will also refrain from serving in rural areas and will be reluc-tant to aid the implementation of government schemes.

After privatisation, these banks will avoid works related to non-remunerative services like Public Provident Fund (PPF), Atal Pension Yojana (APY), Sukanya Samridhi Yojana (SSY) etc. They will

instead offer more non-bank-ing services like mutual funds, insurance and other fee-based business in a bid to increase revenue. Privatisation could even lead to a reduction in the credibility level of customers towards these banks. Given the role of PSBs in shaping govern-ment schemes, privatization of the two banks can overburden the remaining PSBs.

The participation of pri-vate banks in the distribution of retail loans has doubled in the last eight years. Total credit disbursement of private banks increased from 17.8 per cent in March 2011 to 33.6 per cent as of March 31, 2019. Though private sector banks give loans to the retail sector, they avoid giving loans for long-duration projects. Their contribution to infrastructure development is less than public sector banks.

The government believes it is necessary to have big banks to make the economy strong. The government also says that banks need capital to clean the balance sheet, meet various parameters of Basel III, and strengthen banks’ infrastruc-ture. Mergers are also said to bring down the operating cost and other expenses, increase profits, reduce risks, improve employee’s performance etc.

The State Bank of India has come in the category of 60 larg-est banks of the world after its merger, but it is not possible for other big banks of India to achieve the same. The total capital of eight banks in Amer-ica is 60 per cent of its GDP; and the total capital of four banks in England and France is 300 per cent of its GDP. For India, it is just about a third of the country’s GDP. As per

“The Banker” comparison, the total assets of India’s larg-est bank, SBI stands at USD 680 bn against USD 4,009 bn of China’s ICBC. Mergers won’t allow the big banks of India to establish their identity at the international level.

PSBs will still be under pressure to lend for infra-structure where the percent-age of NPA is the highest today. NPAs under Mudra loans have increased in the past months and have reached around 10 per cent, but the government wants to expand its scope even more.

The situation of NPAs will worsen in the coming months due to the pandemic. Accord-ing to the Reserve Bank’s Financial Stability Report, 2020, the level of gross NPAs may increase to 14.7 per cent by September 2021 — the highest in the past 22 years.

The Indian economy has been devastated due to the pandemic. Credit growth has come down to 5-6 per cent and NPAs have increased. The gov-ernment is looking for a solu-tion to all the problems in a merger, but it will only increase the non-performance of banks. The government is also wrongly perceiving privatisa-tion as the panacea for all prob-lems of the banking industry. A few thousand crores can cer-tainly be obtained from the privatisation of PSBs, but how much the government will benefit from it also needs to be assessed. Further, there are also the questions of job losses and increased work pressure on the remaining PSBs.

Views expressed are personal

SATISH SINGH

NIKITA GARG

I am on a cooking spree since the COVID-19 outbreak. As everyone is working from home

and I am the only one for-mally unemployed, all house-hold responsibilities fall on my shoulder. Everyone talks about load sharing but that never happens in any real sense. To find a place in the job market, I need to give my hundred per cent. I can’t give excuses about the increased household bur-den to my clients or bosses”, says Nilshree, a 32-year-old woman from Pune who is a writer and is trying to re-enter the job market post-lockdown.

Anisha, a 46-year-old woman who runs a tuition centre in Delhi, experienced bouts of anxiety and depres-sion during the first lock-down as she had to shut down her business, and her income stalled. “I still get queries from students. But without domes-tic help, my household chores have increased, and catering to special needs of elderly in-laws amidst the pandemic has over-all prevented me from restart-ing classes.”Gender in adversity

While both men and women faced adverse effects under the pandemic, the intra-household gender dynamics have placed women at a greater and long-term risk. Women are concentrated in precari-ous informal jobs; they shoul-der the double burden of work and have less autonomy and bargaining power within the families due to lack of educa-tion, digital barriers, limited job options, economic vulner-ability and restrictive social norms.

State of Working India Report, 2021 revealed that women were seven times more likely than men to lose a job during the national lockdown and 11 times more likely to not return to their work post-lock-down. According to a study by Ashwini Deshpande, based on the CMIE Consumer Pyr-amids Household Survey, women employed in the pre-lockdown period were 20 per-centage points less likely than men to be employed in the

post-lockdown phase.A predominant reason

pushing women to the verge of permanently exiting the labour market flows from the actualities of the ‘household behaviour’. A household con-stitutes a dependency rela-tionship between a man and a woman where decisions regarding division of respon-sibilities and distribution of resources are made. Who gets a better deal in the bargain is often determined by the fac-tors like who is more pow-erful, who is earning more and who owns the property. Decades of gender inequal-ity and restrictive social prac-tices have made women weak bargainers. 60 per cent of the women in the productive age group in India are engaged in full-time unpaid housework whereas job markets and other income-earning activities con-tinue to be a realm of men. Even where women are work-ing, they hold less secure jobs than men. India has the most unequal division of house-work globally.Shifting intra-household dynamics

The pandemic has further aggravated these gaps by drag-

ging women inside homes and confining them to care roles. Who is more likely to reduce working hours, or leave their job due to increased house-hold responsibilities? Who looks after children as schools remain closed? Who takes care of self-isolating patients and the elderly? The choices and decision of couples during pan-demic speaks volume about gender inequalities emanat-ing from the intra-household dynamics. The pandemic-induced disruptions have crip-pled the autonomy of women besides pushing them to the financial brink. While during the initial days of the lockdown men pitched in to share some household responsibilities, this has declined post-lockdown. Evidence from past epidem-ics like H1N1 and Ebola also reveal that increased domestic responsibilities have differen-tial effects on men and women. Urvashi Bhutalia, a feminist writer, also discussed how it is difficult for women to create a sense of workplace at home. Simple workable requisites like table and chair, a quiet place to sit and work are also usually reserved for males, a woman working from home has to

move from place to place and use whatever is available – a bed, or a dining table.

In rural India too, migrant workers returning to their villages implied increased care work for women in terms of cooking, cleaning and other tasks. Due to the invisible nature of domes-tic work, women’s works remain undervalued despite an increase in ‘time use’. This reduces the time available for small income-earning activ-ities and downgrades wom-en’s bargaining power within the household. This, in turn, has implications for the wel-fare of children, especially the girl child. A CSO survey (2020) reported that 62 per cent of households with return migrants have reduced the number of items consumed per meal. In poor homes, where girls and women are expected to eat at the last, they tend to get fewer calories and proteins than boys and men. These intra-household nutri-tional inequalities stem from the social norms embedded within the household and have negative implications for the well-being of women.

In some situations,

reduced household income, financial strain and discon-nection from the social sup-port system have fostered gender-based violence. Many psychological studies find that stress and social isola-tion raises the risk of domes-tic violence and child abuse. In normal times too, spousal vio-lence is significantly higher in India if men are unemployed and women lack significant assets or income. The pan-demic exacerbated this effect. According to a research study by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), cases of domestic violence increased by 131 per cent, and those related to cybercrime against women jumped by 184 per cent in red-zone COVID-19 districts as compared to green-zone districts in India during the lockdown. For some women, the worst part is that while the lockdowns end, the confinement within the home drags on. The isola-tion due to the pandemic and social distancing measures has shattered support networks, making it far more difficult for the victim to escape. The lockdown measures have given way to a ‘shadow pan-demic’ which could exacerbate an already declining female labour force participation rate and further subjugate women.

Like any other global health emergency, the COVID-19 pandemic is widening gen-der inequalities by exposing and diminishing an already feeble fallback position of women, mainly by affecting the social arrangement of pro-duction within the household. Hence, it is not just the state’s response but also the house-hold’s response to the conflict of interest arising from the cri-sis that will determine women’s long-term welfare. Achieving fairer outcomes for women requires looking at the patriar-chal household arrangements and; recognising and address-ing specific contours of disad-vantage by investing in care infrastructure and policies for a gender-equitable COVID-19 recovery.

Views expressed are personal

Privatisation of PSBs may lead to job losses and increased pressure on remaining banks

The pandemic has affected the societal position of both urban and rural women

Though private sector banks give loans to the retail sector, they avoid giving loans for long-duration projects. Their contribution in infrastructure development is less than the public sector banks

The invisible nature of domestic work downgrades women’s bargaining power within the household, casting serious implications on the welfare of children, especially the girl child

8 millenniumpostWorldmpTUESDAY, 29 JUNE, 2021 | NEW DELHI

UN urges world to immediately dismantle systemic racism

GENEVA: The UN human rights chief, in a landmark report launched after the killing of George Floyd in the United States, is urging countries worldwide to do more to help end discrimination, violence and systemic racism against people of African descent and make amends to them includ-ing through reparations.

The report from Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. High Com-missioner for Human Rights, offers a sweeping look at the roots of centuries of mistreat-ment faced by Africans and people of African descent, notably from the transatlantic slave trade.

It seeks a transformative approach to address its con-tinued impact today.

The report, a year in the making, hopes to build on momentum around the recent, intensified scrutiny worldwide about the blight of racism and its impact on people of Afri-can descent as epitomized by the high-profile killings of unarmed Black people in the

United States and elsewhere.There is today a momen-

tous opportunity to achieve a turning point for racial equal-ity and justice, the report said.

The report aims to speed up action by countries to end

racial injustice; end impunity for rights violations by police; ensure that people of African descent and those who speak out against racism are heard; and face up to past wrongs through accountability and

redress.I am calling on all states

to stop denying -- and start dismantling -- racism; to end impunity and build trust; to listen to the voices of people of African descent; and to con-

front past legacies and deliver redress, Bachelet said in a video statement.

While broaching the issue of reparation in her most explicit way yet, Bachelet sug-gested monetary compensation alone is not enough and would be part of an array of measures to help rectify or make up for the injustices.

Reparations should not only be equated with finan-cial compensation, she wrote, adding that it should include restitution, rehabilitation, acknowledgement of injus-tices, apologies, memorializa-tion, educational reforms and guarantees that such injustices won't happen again.

The U.N.-backed Human Rights Council commissioned the report during a special ses-sion last year following the murder of Floyd, an African-American who was killed by a white police officer in Minne-apolis, Minnesota in May 2020. The officer, Derek Chauvin, was sentenced to 22-1/2 years in prison last week. AGENCIES

The report from Michelle Bachelet offers a sweeping look at the roots of centuries of mistreatment faced by Africans and people of African descent

Swedish PM asks Parliament Speaker to form new government

STOCKHOLM: Stefan Lofven, Sweden's Social Democratic prime minister since 2014, has asked the country's par-liament speaker to find a new government.

Lofven became the first Swedish leader ever to lose a confidence vote in parliament a week ago.

He didn't call for an early election as the Swedish Consti-tution allows him to. He is for-mally stepping down but will continue in a caretaker role until a new government can be formed.

Its speaker since 2018, Andreas Norlen, will ask party leaders who may be able to form a government. He he alone decides which of the party leaders can begin these talks.

It is expected that Lofven, who heads Sweden's largest party with 100 of Riksdagen's 349 seats, will start these talks.

His Cabinet, a Social Dem-ocratic-Green coalition, is a minority government that has relied on votes from the small Left Party to pass laws.

The no-confidence motion against Lofven was called by the nationalist Sweden Demo-crats party -- which has been criticizing the Social Demo-cratic Party for years -- but it

ultimately succeeded because the Left Party withdrew its sup-port from the government over proposed legislation to tackle a housing shortage. AGENCIES

Stefan Lofven

Lofven became the first Swedish leader ever to lose a confidence vote in parliament a week ago. He didn’t call for an early election as the Swedish Constitution allows him to

1 dead, 13 wounded in 2 shootings in Chicago

CHICAGO: Two separate shootings left one person dead and at least 13 others injured Sunday night in Chicago, police said.

A woman died, and four men and a teenager were wounded when an SUV drove by and shots were fired in the South Shore area just before 9 p.m., news outlets reported.

The group of six was stand-ing outside when the gunfire erupted.

The woman was shot six times and taken to a hospital where she was later pronounced dead, police said. The four men and a 15-year-old boy were taken to hospitals where their conditions were said to be stable.

About two hours later, a separate shooting in the Mar-quette Park area wounded eight people, Chicago fire officials said. AGENCIES

Powerful explosion in Dhaka kills 7, injures hundredsDHAKA: A powerful explo-sion that destroyed an old three-storey building in a crowded area here in Ban-gladesh's capital and killed at least seven people and injured around 400 others may have been caused by a faulty gas line or gas cylinders, authori-ties said on Monday.

Police have ruled out any foul play behind the horrific explosion in Moghbazar area

at around 7.30 PM on Sunday and said the initial investiga-tion of the site suggests that the explosion might have been caused by "gas accumulation".

Authorities suspect the building that collapsed was the epicentre of the explosion as it had a restaurant and a faulty gas line or gas cylinders used by it could be the reason behind the blast.

The blast was so powerful

that the shock wave smashed the glasses of nearly a dozen buildings around it.

Seven nearby buildings and two passenger buses were badly damaged in the blast that killed seven people and injured 400, some 50 of them critically, Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner Shafiqul Islam said late Sunday.

The severely injured were sent to Dhaka Medical College

Hospital and Sheikh Hasina National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery.

The Dhaka Community hospital treated almost 300 victims, AZM Rahmatul-lah Shabuj, outdoor in charge of the hospital, said, adding that they treated victims who mostly had cuts in their bod-ies or their heads.

Most of them had cuts from the glass shards. Many

had wounds in their heads, Sabuj said.

On the possibility of the explosion being deliberate, the Police Commissioner told bdnews, It doesn't look like that to me. If that was the case or had a bomb been exploded, people would've been ravaged by splinters." I've gathered from the fire service personnel that gas had accumulated here," he said. AGENCIES

China launches 2 units of

world's largest hydropower

stationBEIJING: China on Mon-day launched two units of a massive hydropower station in the country's southwest, said to be the world's larg-est, which is under construc-tion and costs about USD 34 billion.

The two units of the Bai-hetan hydropower station were launched ahead of the July 1 centenary celebrations of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC).

The hydropower station is located on the Jinsha River, the upper section of the Yang-tze River, and straddles the southwestern provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan.

China has already built the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River and approved plans to build another mas-sive dam on the Brahmapu-tra River in Tibet close to Arunachal Pradesh.

The dams cost about 220 billion yuan (USD 34 bil-lion), according to media reports. AGENCIES

9millenniumpost

CORPORATE KALEIDOSCOPE

Talcher Fertilizers Ltd. (TFL) has successfully concluded the financial closure of its mega coal gasification based urea project located at Talcher in Angul district of Odisha. Sachchidanand Yadav, Managing Director of TFL, said a consortium of lenders led by State Bank of India (SBI) will provide Rs 9,560 crore debt for the project. Other members in lenders’ consortium are Punjab National Bank, Union Bank of India, Indian Bank, Bank of Maharashtra, Indian Overseas Bank, EXIM Bank, Bank of India and Canara Bank. MPOST

Business mpNEW DELHI | TUESDAY, 29 JUNE, 2021

NEW DELHI: Finance Min-ister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said new streamlined approval process for PPP proj-ects and monetisation of core infra assets will be formulated, which will help fast-track asset monetisation by CPSEs.

Announcing a set of eco-nomic relief measures, she said the current process was long and required multiple approv-als for public private partner-ship (PPP) projects.

The new policy for appraisal

and approval of PPP propos-als and monetisation of core infrastructure assets, includ-ing through InvITs, is aimed at ensuring speedy clearance of projects to facilitate private sector’s efficiencies in financing construction and management of infrastructure.

“This will help to move ahead with the budget proposal of asset monetisation,” Sithara-man added.

Expenditure Secretary T V Somanathan said the details of

the policy would be announced by the Department of Eco-nomic Affairs.

In 2021-22 Budget speech, Sitharaman had announced that monetising operating pub-lic infrastructure assets is a very important financing option for new construction.

“A National Monetisation Pipeline of potential brown-field infrastructure assets will be launched,” she had said.

Some of the core infrastruc-ture assets that will be covered

under the asset monetisation programme are NHAI-oper-ated toll roads, transmission assets of PGCIL, oil and gas pipelines of GAIL, IOCL and HPCL, AAI airports in Tier II and III cities.

Others to be included in this programme are railway infrastructure assets, ware-housing assets of central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) such as Central Warehousing Cor-poration, NAFED and sports stadiums. PTI

OUR CORRESPONDENT

MUMBAI: India has decided to allow ethanol-based ‘flex engines’, which power vehicles using local farm produce and not fossil fuels, and will be roll-ing out a scheme on the same in the next three months, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said on Monday.

Gadkari said other coun-tries of the world like Brazil, the US and Canada have flex engines which are powered by farm produce and exhorted automakers like BMW, Mer-cedes and Toyota to develop vehicles running on the alter-native fuel.

A switch to locally-pro-duced ethanol will be helpful for a country like India which relies majorly on crude oil imports for powering the trans-port sector, he said, adding that it will also be less polluting and cost-saving.

A litre of ethanol comes at between Rs 60-62 per litre as against the over Rs 100 paid for petrol, the minister said, admit-ting that the calorific value of the ethanol is low.

In the US, Brazil and Can-ada, they have flex engines, so as the transport minister we are going to launch this flex engine facility to all the consumers in

the country, Gadkari said at an event organised by state-run lender Indian Bank.

We are going to launch this scheme now and within three months we are going to start, he added.

Gadkari said the govern-ment has already started giving permissions to establish 100 per cent ethanol petrol pumps

and added that Prime Minis-ter Narendra Modi has already inaugurated two such facilities in Pune, Maharashtra.

We can make ethanol from sugarcane juice molasses and now the government is giving permission to make ethanol from food grains that are from rice, corn and food grains, he said, asking states like Tamil

Nadu, Maharashtra, Karna-taka and Uttar Pradesh to take the lead.

At present, India allows for 20 per cent ethanol-blending in fuels. The country is saddled with excess stocks of rice and wheat as well, Gadkari said, after flagging hunger as one of the key challenges for the country.

He said Indian automak-ers including TVS and Bajaj have already developed two-wheelers to run exclusively on ethanol, asking their peers to develop their own models.

Speaking at the launch of a mentoring initiative developed by the bank for small busi-nesses in Maharashtra, Gadkari said bankers also need to take the lead in identifying disrup-tive technologies of the future and fund them at the appro-priate time.

Meanwhile, in order to increase credit supply to the all-important small businesses segment, Gadkari, who also holds the micro, small and medium enterprises port-folio, asked the industry to develop a robust rating sys-tem on which bankers can rely for lending.

Such a system, which will take inputs from a business’s balance sheet, GST payments, turnover etc, can help speed up credit for the deserving busi-nesses, Gadkari said.

He also asked banks to support lending to fishermen wanting to buy Cochin Ship-yard’s trawlers costing over Rs 1 crore, which will enable the boats to go deeper into the sea and increase the catch.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank of India on Monday directed cooperative banks not to out-source core management func-tions such as policy formulation, internal audit and compliance, compliance with KYC norms, credit sanction and manage-ment of investment portfolio.

Issuing guidelines for man-aging risk in outsourcing of financial services by coopera-tive banks, the central bank said the lenders can hire experts, including former employees, on a contractual basis subject to certain conditions.

Outsourcing’ is defined as use of a third-party to perform activities on a continuing basis that would normally be under-taken by a cooperative bank itself, now or in the future. ‘Con-tinuing basis’ would include agreements for a limited period.

Cooperative banks are increasingly using outsourcing as a means for reducing costs as well as for availing specialist expertise, where these are not available internally.

While it is entirely the banks’ prerogative to take a view on the desirability of outsourcing a permissible activity having regard to all relevant factors, including the commercial aspects of the decision, such outsourcing results in banks being exposed to various risks, the RBI said.

“Cooperative banks which choose to outsource financial services, however, shall not outsource core management functions including policy for-

mulation, internal audit and compliance, compliance with KYC norms, credit sanction and management of investment portfolio,” the guidelines said.

The guidelines, the RBI said, have been issued to enable the cooperative banks to put in place necessary safeguards for addressing the risks inherent in outsourcing of activities.

They have been asked to conduct a self-assessment of their existing outsourcing arrangements and bring the same in line with these guide-lines within a period of six months.

As per the guidelines, out-sourcing of any activity by a co-operative bank does not diminish its obligations and those of its Board and CEO

along with the management, who have the ultimate responsi-bility for the outsourced activity.

A cooperative bank intend-ing to outsource any of its finan-cial activities will have to put in place a comprehensive out-sourcing policy, approved by its Board, in line with the criteria indicated in the guidelines.

The indicative key risks in outsourcing that need to be evaluated by the co-operative banks, include, strategic risk, reputation risk, compliance risk, operational risk, legal risk, exit strategy risk, and country risk.

Also, the terms and condi-tions governing the contract between a cooperative bank and service provider should be carefully defined in writ-ten agreements and vetted by bank’s legal counsel on their legal effect and enforceability, the guidelines said.

Further, in order to miti-gate the risk of unexpected ter-mination of the outsourcing agreement or liquidation of the service provider, cooperative banks shall retain an appropri-ate level of control over their outsourcing and the right to intervene with appropriate mea-sures, to continue their business operations in such.

If a service provider’s con-tract is terminated prematurely prior to the completion of the contracted period of service, Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) would have to be informed with reasons for termination. IBA would be maintaining a caution list of such service providers for the entire banking industry for sharing among banks.

India to allow ethanol-based ‘flex engines’ in vehicles: Min

‘US, Brazil & Canada have flex engines, so as transport minister we are going to launch this flex engine facility to all consumers in the country’

Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari

Highlights » A switch to locally-produced ethanol will be helpful for a country like India which relies majorly on crude oil imports for powering the transport sector, he said » A litre of ethanol comes at between Rs 60-62 per litre as against the over Rs 100 paid for petrol, the minister said » Gadkari said the government has already started giving permissions to establish 100% ethanol petrol pumps and added that PM has already inaugurated two such facilities in Pune

He said Indian automakers including TVS and Bajaj have already developed two-wheelers to run exclusively on ethanol, asking their peers to develop their own models

RBI: Co-op banks shall not outsource core functions

‘While it is entirely the banks’ prerogative to take a view on the desirability of outsourcing a permissible activity having regard to all relevant factors’

Govt to formulate streamlined approval process for PPP projects, core infra asset monetisation

NEW DELHI: The govern-ment has procured 432.83 lakh tonnes of wheat, an all-time high, so far this market-ing year at minimum support price (MSP) for nearly Rs 85,500 crore.

Procurement of wheat in the ongoing rabi market-ing season (RMS) 2021-22 is continuing smoothly in the procuring states, an official statement said.

Till June 27, 432.83 lakh tonnes of wheat have been pro-cured as against 386.83 lakh

tonnes in the corresponding period of the previous year.

The procurement has exceeded the previous all-time high of 389.92 lakh tonnes achieved in RMS 2020-21.

Wheat procurement in Rajasthan has reached a life-time high of 23.19 lakh tonnes.

“About 49.07 Lakh farmers have already been benefitted from the ongoing RMS pro-curement operations with MSP value of Rs. 85,483.25 Crore,” the statement said. PTI

Govt buys 432.83L tonnes wheat at MSP for ̀ 85,500 cr

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGALCooch Behar Zilla Parishad Cooch Behar

Notice Inviting Tender (in Brief) Following E-Tender is hereby invited on behalf of Cooch Behar Zilla Pari-shad for Repairing of Road vide NIT No. WBZP/173/ DE-ET/COB/2020-21 (4th Call) for which last date of submission of Technical & Financial bid –13.07.2021 (up to 6.00 p.m) . For details the website https://wbtenders.gov.in may be accessed & for construction of Deep Tube well vide NIT No. WBZP/37/ DE-MT/COB/2021-22 for which the last date of Dropping of Technical & Financial bid –07.07.2021 (up to 3.00 p.m). Detailed Tender Notice and other relevant documents and further particular may be had from the office of Cooch Behar Zilla Parishad

Sd/- Additional Executive Officer Cooch Behar Zilla Parishad

Cooch Behar

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGALCooch Behar Zilla Parishad Cooch Behar

Notice Inviting Tender (in Brief) Following e-tender notice is hereby invited on behalf of Cooch Behar Zilla Parishad for supply work vides NIT No. WBZP/34/DE-ET/COB/21-22, For which the last date for submission of Technical & Financial Bid is 14.07.21 upto 6 pm. The details may be had from the website https://etender.wb.nic.in

Sd/- Additional Executive Officer Cooch Behar Zilla Parishad

Cooch Behar

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGALCooch Behar Zilla Parishad Cooch Behar

Notice Inviting Tender (in Brief) Following (E) Tenders are hereby invited on behalf of Cooch Behar Zilla Parishad for supply of Double Netted Mosquito Nets (4700no’s) with in Cooch Behar District, vide NIT number. WBZP/31/DE-ET/COB/2020-21), for which the last date of submission of Technical & Financial bid 06/07/2021 (up to 6.00 PM). For Further details the web-sit https://etender.wb.nic.in may be accessed. Sd/- Additional Executive Officer

Cooch Behar Zilla ParishadCooch Behar

ICA- T7458(3)/2021

ICA- T7462(4)/2021

Ref. NIT Nos.: WBSEDCL/Dist. Project-III/Tender/2021-22/UG/WB/12, 13 & 14 dated: 21.05.2021 (Tender IDs: 2021_WBSED_331600_1, 2021_WBSED_331603_1 & 2021_WBSED_331605_1) originally published in this newspaper on 21.05.2021. Schedule of bid activities are hereby extended as follows: (i) Last Date of Bid Submission: 09.07.2021 (up to 12:00 hrs.). (ii) Date of Opening of Bid (Techno-Commercial): 09.07.2021 (at 12:30 hrs.). All other terms & conditions will remain unaltered. Interested bidders can download the documents from https://wbtenders.gov.in & www.wbsedcl.in

EXTENSION OF TIME

ICA- T7465(3)/2021

ICA- T7470(3)/2021

ICA- T7474(4)/2021

ICA- T7478(3)/2021

ICA- T7484(3)/2021

ICA- T7491(2)/2021

ICA- T7496(3)/2021

ICA- T7499(3)/2021

ICA- T7502(3)/2021

ICA- T7504(2)/2021 ICA- T7506(3)/2021

ICA- T7510(3)/2021

ICA- T7512(2)/2021

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGAL Tender Notice of I & CA Deptt

Memo No. of NIT 1868-ICA(N) dt. 28/06/2021 and Tender ID 2021_ICAD_334680_1 e-Tender is hereby invited from intending bidders for the “Empanelment of Websites under the Information and Cultural Affairs Department Government of West Bengal”. Bid submission closing date: 21/07/2021 at 1:30 pm. Other details may be seen from the website: https:// wbtenders.gov.in and office notice board. Sd/- Director of Information, Information & Cultural Affairs Deptt., Govt. of West Bengal.

ICA- T7513(3)/2021

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGAL P.W.D (GOVT. OF W.B)

TENDER NOTICES.E., N.B.E.C., P.W. Directorate invite online e-tenders for the works of,

(1) Emergency power arrangement for proposed 2x1000 LPM capacity PSA Oxygen Generation Plant near Covid Block-II in the campus of North Bengal Medical College & Hospital - Installation of Feeder Pillar, Laying Cable and other necessary works. e-NIT No: WBPWD/SENB EC/NIT-01/2021- 2022. e-Tender ID No. 2021 _WBPWD_334659_1.

(2) -do-do-do - (Phase A) - S.I.T.C of 320KVA Diesel Generator with AMF. e-NIT No: WBPWD/SENBEC/NIT-02/2021- 2022. e-Tender ID No. 2021_ WBPWD_334670_1. Above noted all tenders Bid submission Start Date (online): 28.06.2021 at 6.45p.m. and Bid submission Closing Date (online): 03.07.2021 upto 02.00p.m.

Corrigendum if any will be published in website only. Details of NIT and tender documents may be downloaded from https ://wbtenders.gov.i n.

Sd/- S.E., N.B.E.C., P.W.D, GOVT. OF W.B.

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGALABRIDGENOTICE INVITING TENDER

N.I.T No. – 05 / EE (E)/NKDA of 2021 – 22.Notice Inviting Tender are invited by the Executive Engineer [E] New Town Kolkata Development Authority vide memo no 5726/EE (E)/NKDA/Elect dated 22/06/2021 for the works: - (a) Replacement of damage XLPE/PVC cable against fault on street no 2222 and other’s location at AA-I & II Newtown Kolkata under NKDA. (b) Providing the lighting arrangement and some allied work at Shapoorji Bus stand at Action Area – III Newtown, Kolkata under NKDA. (c) Providing 1.5 TR Air conditioner and freezer for Vaccine centre including electrical wiring and allied work at Utility Building at AA-II Newtown, Kolkata under NKDA. (d) Providing separate power supply to the all Air-Conditioner and yard light at NKDA office 01 & 03 MAR, Newtown Kolkata Under NKDA. (e) Providing power supply to the existing CCTV camera on 1st Rotary Narkel Bagan crossing opposite Eco-park at AA-I & II Newtown Kolkata under NKDA. (f) Supply and installation of flood lights for illuminate the park including other allied work at AA-IIB Newtown Kolkata under NKDA. (g) Replacement and commissioning with all accessories of feeder pilar box & lighting arrangement at back side of gallery at Football Ground and cable change at AA-I & II with other allied work Newtown under NKDA. (h) Providing of illumination work at Banquet Hall of Business Club green verge at Action Area – IA Newtown, Kolkata under NKDA. Having tender amount of Rs 4,81,117/-, 4,67,502/-, 4,62,106/-, 4,09,950/-, 4,38.442/-, 4,85,142, 4,27,211 & 4,68,760/- respectively. Last date of application 05.07.2021 up to 2.00 PM. For other details please visit our website at www.nkdamar.org and the office notice board 3.MAR.Newtown, Kolkata – 700156.. Executive Engineer (E)

Newtown Kolkata Development Authority

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGALWEST BENGAL HOUSING INFRASTRUCTURE

(A Govt. of West Bengal Undertaking) Abridged Notice for Expression of Interest (EOI)

No. M-669/HIDCO/ADMN-3887/2021Dated : 28.06.2021

WBHIDCO invites EoI to engage a professional Agency for Influencer Marketing, Online Reputation Management, Creating Awareness about brands.

For details, please visit https:// www.wbhidcoltd.com & wbtenders.gov.in

Contact no :- 2324-6035/6031/6032/6037/6038

10 millenniumpostBusinessmp TUESDAY, 29 JUNE, 2021 | NEW DELHI

MUMBAI: Equity benchmark Sensex reversed early gains to close 189 points lower on Monday, pressured by Reli-ance Industries and IT stocks, as investors gave a lukewarm response to the government’s fresh stimulus measures for COVID-hit sectors.

A lacklustre trend in global equities further weighed on sen-timent, though robust buying in pharma and metal counters capped the losses, traders said.

After touching a lifetime high of 53,126.73 in opening session, the 30-share BSE index ended 189.45 points or 0.36 per cent lower at 52,735.59.

Similarly, the broader NSE Nifty settled 45.65 points or 0.29 per cent down at 15,814.70. It touched an intra-day record of

15,915.65.Titan was the top loser in

the Sensex pack, shedding 1.56

per cent, followed by TCS, HCL Tech, Bajaj Finserv, Reliance Industries, UltraTech Cement

and Bharti Airtel.On the other hand, Dr Red-

dy’s topped the gainers’ chart with a leap of 1.75 per cent after the pharma major announced the commercial launch of its Covid treatment drug 2-DG. Tata Steel, Tech Mahindra, Sun Pharma, HUL and PowerGrid were among the other winners, climbing up to 1.64 per cent.

BSE energy, capital goods, teck, IT, telecom, power fell up to 0.80 per cent, while metal, healthcare and basic materials indices mustered solid gains. Broader BSE midcap and small-cap indices outperformed the benchmark, rising up to 0.46 per cent.

The rupee inched 1 paisa higher to settle at 74.19 against the US dollar. PTI

NEW DELHI: Franklin Tem-pleton Asset Management (India) on Monday said the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) has stayed Sebi’s order, whereby the regulator had barred the asset management firm from launching any new debt scheme for two years.

In addition, the regulator had asked Franklin Templeton to refund investment manage-ment and advisory fees to the tune of Rs 512 crore, including interest, collected with respect to its six debt schemes which are now shut.

“With reference to the order issued by Whole Time Member(WTM) of Sebi on June 7, 2021, Franklin Templeton Asset Management (India)

Pvt Ltd filed an appeal and an application for stay before the Hon’ble SAT. After hearing the parties, the Hon’ble SAT has stayed the operation of the order passed by the WTM,” a Franklin Templeton spokesperson said in a statement.

The matter has been listed on August 30, 2021 for further directions, he added. Sebi in its order found that Franklin Templeton Asset Management (India) “committed serious lapses/violations with regard to a scheme categorization (by replicating high risk strategy across several schemes) and calculation of Macaulay dura-tion (to push long term papers into short duration schemes).”

Also, it committed violations

in respect of non exercise of exit options in the face of emerging liquidity crisis, securities valua-tion practices, risk management practices and investment related due diligence, the regulator had noted. “As a result of the irreg-ularities in the running of the

debt schemes inspected, loss has been caused to the investors. The noticee (Franklin Temple-ton AMC) was under a statu-tory obligation to abide by the provisions of the Mutual Reg-ulations and Circulars issued thereunder, which it failed to do,” Sebi had said.

According to Sebi, serious lapses and violations appear to be a fallout of the Franklin Templeton AMC’s obsession to run high yield strategies without due regard from the concomi-tant risk dimensions, it added.

Franklin Templeton MF announced shutting its six debt mutual fund schemes on April 23, 2020 citing redemption pres-sures and lack of liquidity in the bond market.

The schemes — Franklin India Low Duration Fund, Franklin India Dynamic Accrual Fund, Franklin India Credit Risk Fund, Frank-lin India Short Term Income Plan, Franklin India Ultra Short Bond Fund, and Franklin India Income Opportunities Fund — together had an estimated Rs 25,000 crore as assets under management.

Subsequent to the decision to wind up the schemes, Sebi ordered a forensic audit and appointed Chokshi and Chok-shi LLP, Chartered Accountants to conduct a forensic audit of Franklin Templeton MF, Frank-lin Templeton AMC, and trust-ees, particularly in respect to the six debt schemes. PTI

NEW DELHI: Markets regula-tor Sebi has kept in abeyance the processing of Go Airlines’ draft papers for an initial public offer worth Rs 3,600 crore.

Go Airlines (India) Ltd, which has announced rebrand-ing itself as ‘Go First’, filed pre-liminary papers for an initial share sale worth Rs 3,600 crore in May. The proceeds will be mainly used to repay dues.

The “issuance of observa-tions kept in abeyance”, accord-

ing to Sebi’s latest update on processing status of Go Air-lines’ draft offer documents. The information was updated on June 25. In Sebi parlance, issuance of observations implies its go-ahead for the IPO. Under existing norms, the regulator is “obligated to keep issuance of observations in abeyance for a period of 30 days or 45 days or 90 days or more, as the case may be”.

On June 11, the regulator

had sought clarifications from the offer’s Lead Manager. The Coordinating Lead Manager (Pre-Issue) is ICICI Securi-ties Ltd. Specific details about the reasons for Sebi keeping

the issuance of observations in abeyance could not be immedi-ately ascertained. There was no immediate comments from a Go Airlines spokesperson.

The airline, which has been flying for more than 15 years ago, plans to raise Rs 3,600 crore through issuance of fresh equity shares. It also plans to raise up to Rs 1,500 crore by way of an pre-IPO placement.

From the net IPO proceeds, the airline plans to pay over Rs

2,015.81 crore towards prepay-ment or scheduled repayment of all or a portion of certain out-standing borrowings.

An amount of Rs 279.26 crore would be for “replacement of letter of credits, which are issued to certain aircraft lessors towards securing lease rental payments and future main-tenance of aircraft, with cash deposit”, as per the Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) filed with Sebi in May. PTI

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Prime Min-ister Narendra Modi said on Monday that a host of mea-sures announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will help stimulate economic activities, boost production and exports, and generate employment.

In a series of tweets, Modi said the decisions will enhance public health facilities, espe-cially in under-served areas, boost private investment in medical infrastructure and augment critical human resources.

Special focus is on strength-ening healthcare facilities for children, he noted, adding that importance has also been given to helping farmers with multi-ple initiatives that will reduce their costs, increase incomes and support greater resilience and sustainability of agricul-tural activities.

The prime minister said more support has been announced for small entrepre-neurs and self-employed per-sons to enable them to not only sustain their business activities but also expand them further.

Several initiatives, includ-ing financial assistance, are being taken to help those linked with tourism, he added.

“The measures will help to stimulate economic activities, boost production & exports and generate employment.

“Result linked Power Dis-tribution Scheme and stream-lined processes for PPP projects and Asset Monetisa-tion demonstrates our Govern-ment’s continuing commitment to reforms,” Modi said.

To provide relief to MSMEs hit by the second COVID-19 wave, Finance Minister Nir-mala Sitharaman on Mon-day raised the limit under the Emergency Credit Line Guar-antee Scheme (ECLGS) by 50 per cent to Rs 4.5 lakh crore to help small businesses get credit at concessional rate.

The existing limit for

ECLGS scheme, announced as part of Rs 20-lakh crore Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan package in May 2020, was Rs 3 lakh crore.

Sharing details of the scheme, the finance minister said that contact intensive sec-tors are already covered and shall be continued. Around Rs 4,000 crore has been given to these sectors through this win-dow so far and limit of admissi-ble guarantee and loan amount proposed to be increased above existing level of 20 per cent of outstanding on each loan.

So far, banks and financial institutions have sanctioned Rs 2.73 lakh crore and disbursed Rs 2.10 lakh crore under the scheme, Department of Finan-

cial Services Secretary Deba-sish Panda said.

To further support the Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector, the finance minister said over-all cap of admissible guarantee has been raised from Rs 3 lakh crore to Rs 4.5 lakh crore.

Guarantee will be pro-vided to Scheduled Commer-cial Banks for loans to new or existing NBFC-MFIs or Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs) for on lending up to Rs 1.25 lakh to approximately 25 lakh small borrowers, she added.

The scheme will have focus on new lending, not repayment of old loans and loans to bor-rowers would be in line with extant RBI guidelines such as number of lenders, borrower to be member of Joint Lending Group, ceiling on household income and debt, Sitharaman said.

All borrowers (including defaulters up to 89 days) will be eligible and guarantee cover for funding will be provided by MLIs to MFIs/NBFC-MFIs till March 31, 2022 or till guaran-tees for an amount of Rs 7,500 crore are issued, whichever is earlier.

Guarantee up to 75 per cent of default amount for up to three years through National Credit Guarantee Trustee

Company (NCGTC) will be given and no guarantee fee to be charged by NCGTC, she added.

Last month, the finance ministry expanded the scope of the Rs 3 lakh crore ECLGS by including concessional loans to hospitals for setting up on-site oxygen generation plants. Besides, the validity of the scheme was extended by three months to September 30 and or till guarantees for an amount of Rs 3 lakh crore were issued.

The last date of disburse-ment under the scheme has been extended to December 31.

Under the ECLGS 4.0, 100 per cent guarantee cover was given to loans up to Rs 2 crore to hospitals, nursing homes, clinics, medical colleges for set-ting up on-site oxygen genera-tion plants. The interest rate on these loans has been capped at 7.5 per cent, which means the banks can offer loans less than this ceiling.

Consortium of Indian Associations Convenor K E Raghunathan while welcoming the decision to raise the limit for ECLGS scheme demanded waiver of capital gain tax for small and micro enterprises, offering OTS for those who want to close their loans and restart fresh, and raising GST exemption limits.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

HYDERABAD: The target of mopping up Rs 1.75 lakh crore from disinvestments of some of the public sector companies, including LIC and BPCL dur-ing the current fiscal, is on track and groundwork is being pre-pared for the goal, Chief Eco-nomic Advisor Krishnamurthy Subramanian said on Monday.

On the COVID-19 pan-demic, Subramanian said the impact of the second wave is lesser than that of the first one.

In an interactive session, organised by Federation of Telangana Chambers of Com-merce and Industry, the CEA said robust GST collections, over Rs one lakh crore per month for eight months in a row shows that consumption is picking up indicating posi-tive signal for growth.

“There has to be a lot of work which is going on and this year there is actually a lot of empha-sis on achieving these targets.Remember that Rs 1.75 lakh crore, a good part of it will be from LIC’s IPO (Initial Pub-lic Offering).Second is Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) privatisation.And these two together itself can account for a large part of (disinvestment target),” he said.

The Centre budgeted Rs 1.75 lakh crore from stake sale in public sector companies and

financial institutions, includ-ing 2 PSU banks and one insur-ance company, in the current fiscal year.

The disinvestment plan includes strategic sale of IDBI Bank, BPCL, Shipping Corp, Container Corporation, Neelachal Ispat Nigam Ltd, among others, and also legis-lative amendments required for LIC IPO would be brought in 2021-22, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said in her budget speech.

“I think this year very likely will be the year of which will be remembered for privatisa-tion. We still have nine more months.I am quite confident that we will achieve the target (of Rs 1.75 lakh crore ),” the CEA said replying to a query.

Earlier in his speech, he said every rupee spent by gov-ernments on “freebees” would contribute only Rs 0.98 to the country’s economy against Rs 4.50 when used on capital expenditure.

`1.75L cr disinvestment target on track, says CEA

Chief Economic Advisor Krishnamurthy Subramanian

CEA said robust GST collections, over Rs one lakh crore per month for eight months in a row shows that consumption is picking up indicating positive signal for growth

NEW DELHI: The ‘little ambi-tious’ exports target of $400 billion for the current fiscal is achievable but it requires aggressive marketing strategy and venturing into new mar-kets, FIEO said on Monday.

Federation of Indian Exports Organisation (FIEO) President A Sakthivel also said that free trade agreements with countries including UK, Europe, Australia, and the US would help further push the country’s exports.

He said that push for mar-keting may come from these agreements and such pacts will also help in attracting foreign investments particularly those looking at both the Indian markets and exports. “One of the reasons for the success of Vietnam, in attracting invest-

ment and relocating units, is its effective FTAs (free trade agreement) with the rest of the world. It is extremely encour-aging that the government is moving simultaneously with many trade partners in this direction,” the new President told reporters.

He urged both the Industry and the government to increase their marketing budget.

Sakthivel suggested the government to look into enhancing Market Access Ini-tiative funds from the current

level of Rs 200 crore and for-mulation of a scheme for mar-keting aimed to take exports to $1 trillion in the next five years may be rolled in with a minimum corpus of Rs 1,000 crore annually.

“The government aims at the export of $400 billion in the current fiscal. This looks a little ambitious but certainly achiev-able... Such a target requires an aggressive marketing strat-egy and venturing into new markets. My priority will be export promotion. I will cre-ate an export promotion cell to identify new markets and new products,” he said.

FIEO also plans to create direct communication with all Missions and utilise its services to sell Indian products and ser-vices in the global markets. PTI

‘FY22 exports target of $400 bn requires aggressive marketing’

Sensex retreats from record peak after falling 189 points, Nifty ends below 15,850

Rupee inches 1 paisa higher to settle at 74.19 against the US dollar

COLOMBO: Two currency swap arrangements in the pipeline with India’s Reserve Bank are key components in the immediate work plan of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka to boost its reserves, bank’s chief WD Lakshman said here on Monday. The governor was responding to the speculation that Sri Lanka had faced a for-eign currency crisis in the midst of its debt service obligations.

“Inflows expected to the Central Bank include the SWAP facility of $250 million from the Bangladesh Bank expected in July 2021, the SAARC Finance SWAP facility from the Reserve Bank of India of $400 million expected in August 2021, and the special SWAP facility of $1,000 million being negoti-ated with the Indian counter-part,” he said. Lakshman said the bank’s current focus was on managing Sri Lanka’s debt ser-vice obligations with the island’s Gross Official Reserves remain-

ing at $4 billion, in addition to the standby SWAP agreement of approximately $1.5 billion with the People’s Bank of China.

Analysts say Sri Lanka’s debt service obligation would be in the region of $3.6 billion for 2021. Sri Lanka is expecting to receive around $800 million under the IMF special drawing rights allocation due in August 2021, the governor said.

He said that there may be short-term fluctuations in the level of foreign reserves in the period ahead due to the debt servicing of the government. Adequate financing strategies have been lined up to main-tain reserves at sufficient levels, through inflows to the country, the governor said. These include non-debt inflows expected within a short period of time to the government, particularly through its new investment arm, and other inflows to the gov-ernment from multilateral and bilateral sources. PTI

NEW DELHI: State-owned NTPC has floated a global ten-der to invite expression of inter-est (EoI) for setting up 1000 MWh of grid-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) at its power plants in India.

“Any Indian/Global Com-pany/ their Consortium/ Affili-ates/Representatives are invited to submit EoI for setting up 1000 MWh of Grid-scale BESS at NTPC Power Plants in India,” the tender floated on June 26, 2021, said. The tender notice said this expression of interest (EoI) is to assess commercial-ization prospects of setting up grid-scale BESS.

After identifying the appli-cants through EoI, Request for Proposals (RFP) for undertak-ing projects across multiple NTPC plants shall be invited separately for setting up the facilities and scalable model for further additional requirements.

Last date for submission of EoI is August 10, 2021. The EoI response will be opened the next day.

NTPC produces around 300 billion units of electricity annually through its cluster of gas, coal, hydro and renewable energy based power stations of more than 65 GW capacity spanning across the country.

NTPC plans target capacity of 130 GW including RE tar-get capacity of 60 GW by 2032.

NTPC’s conventional fleet will increasingly be required to operate flexibly to support the grid, as VRE (variable renew-able energy) penetration invari-ably increases in India’s power system under its policy driven initiative to increase its share of installed capacity from non-fos-sil fuel power sources by 2030 and beyond. PTI

GENEVA: G20 countries have repealed nearly half of the trade restrictions they introduced in response to the pandemic, a WTO report said on Monday.

“While the report’s findings indicate trade-restrictive mea-sures are coming down, G20 economies have more work to do to ensure the free flow of the medical inputs and sup-plies critical to saving lives,” said director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

Around 49 per cent of restrictive trade measures had been terminated by the middle of May, the report said. AGENCIES

SAT stays Sebi’s order on Franklin TempletonFranklin Templeton MF announced shutting its six debt mutual fund schemes on April 23, 2020 citing redemption pressures and lack of liquidity

‘RBI currency swaps to boost Sri Lanka’s reserves’

DUBAI: Dubai’s flag carrier Emirates may resume its flights from India to Dubai from July 7, over two months after the UAE suspended its operations owing to the surge in Corona-virus cases in India, according to a media report.

However, the airline is await-ing exact travel protocols and guidelines from the government regarding the resumption of the flight operations, the Khaleej Times reported on Sunday.

We’re expecting to resume our flights from India to Dubai from 7th of July 2021... We’re waiting for the exact travel protocols and relevant permits

from the government author-ities. We hope to have more details soon,” the report said, quoting the airline in response to a query from a passenger on its Twitter account.

The airline’s website shows seats are available for booking from July 7, the report said.

The airline’s social media handles have been buzzing ever since authorities announced a few days ago that flights from India to Dubai would resume from June 23.

But on Thursday, Emirates informed passengers that flights from India to Dubai remained suspended. PTI

NTPC invites EoI to set up 1GW BESS

Sebi keeps in ‘abeyance’ processing of Go Airlines’ draft papers of `3,600 crore IPO

In Sebi parlance, issuance of observations implies its go-ahead for the IPO

Emirates likely to resume India flights from July 7

‘Pandemic related trade curbs falling’

New steps will help stimulate economic activities: PM Modi

Sitharaman on Monday raised the limit under the ECLGS by 50% to Rs 4.5 lakh crore to help small businesses get credit at concessional rate

Prime Minister Narendra Modi

11millenniumpost Sport mpNEW DELHI | TUESDAY, 29 JUNE, 2021

T20 WC to be shifted from India to UAE, confirms BCCI prez Ganguly

NEW DELHI: The T20 World Cup scheduled to be held in India is being shifted to the UAE owing to the health safety concerns posed by COVID-19, BCCI President Sourav Gan-guly said on Monday, ending weeks of speculation sur-rounding the mega-event in October-November.

"We have officially inti-mated the ICC that the T20 World Cup can be shifted to the United Arab Emirates. The details are being chalked out," Ganguly said.

"The decision was taken keeping health safety concerns of all stakeholders in mind," he added.

The BCCI will, how-ever, remain the hosts of the showpiece.

Asked if October 17 has been finalised as the start date of the tournament, Ganguly said: "We will be able to final-ise itinerary details in some days. October 17 start hasn't yet been finalised."

Even an ICC spokesper-

son confirmed that the global body is yet to zero in on a final schedule.

The ICC, at the start of the month, had given BCCI a four-week window to decide and inform whether India could host the marquee event considering the COVID-19 situation in the country.

PTI was first to report on May 4 that the tournament was being shifted to the UAE.

This was after the pan-demic forced the postpone-ment of IPL, the second part of which is also being held in the UAE in September-October.

It was a foregone conclu-sion that India will find it dif-ficult to host a 16-country tournament across nine cities with so many layers of health security concerns being there.

In fact, the ICC had already started its preparations and logistics for the tournament which will be held in Dubai, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi.

The qualifying round could be held in Muscat, which will

give ideal time to the pitches in UAE to freshen up after 31 remaining games of IPL are held till October 15.

Once the IPL was shifted to the UAE, it was a foregone conclusion that the T20 World Cup will move too given the looming concerns about a pos-sible third wave of COVID-19 infection around that time.

India was ravaged by the

second wave in April-May with scarcity of essential medi-cal supplies adding to the hor-ror that unfolded with over 4 lakh daily cases at the peak of the crisis.

"If the BCCI is unable to host an eight-team IPL in September, how could it have hosted World T20 within a month? Also now we have a new variant (Delta 3) and

there is every possibility of a third wave in the country in October.

"The BCCI brass was always well aware that it won't be practically feasible," an ICC board member said on condi-tions of anonymity.

Also, India is on the 'Red List' of countries like England and Australia and travelling could be an issue if the rules are not relaxed by then.

It is also understood that most of the member nations were comfortable playing the IPL in the UAE after multiple cases of bubble breach hap-pened during the postponed edition in India.

Also the 2020 IPL in the UAE was a humongous suc-cess with a tight bio-bubble.

The BCCI was also mull-ing if Mumbai, Ahmed-abad and Pune could host a three-city event with the final at the Narendra Modi Sta-dium. But there were sev-eral complications on that front too. AGENCIES

The BCCI will, however, remain the hosts of the showpiece

Indian team arrives in Sri Lanka for limited

overs seriesCOLOMBO: The India white-ball team led by Shikhar Dha-wan, featuring as many as six uncapped players, arrived here from Mumbai for their four-week tour which will feature six limited overs games against Sri Lanka, starting July 13. Senior all-rounder Hardik Pandya shared an Instagra story cap-tioned: "Touchdown, Sri Lanka, Colombo." The Dhawan-led team will play three ODIs and three T20 Internationals in the island nation. With regular skip-per Virat Kohli and the red ball side, currently touring England, Dhawan will have pacer Bhu-vneshwar Kumar as his deputy.

The BCCI had named a 20-member squad for the Sri Lanka tour that has all-rounder Hardik Pandya and the spin duo of Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzven-dra Chahal from the senior lot.

Young guns like Devdutt Padikkal, Prithvi Shaw, Nitish Rana, Ruturaj Gaikwad and rookie pacer Chetan Sakariya expectedly feature in the side that also has two wicket-keeper batsmen in the young Ishan Kis-han and Sanju Samson.

A day prior to the depar-ture, Dhawan had said that this was "a nice blend of experience and youth." According to the Sri Lanka Cricket website, the Indian team will be in room quarantine from June 29 to July 1 and then there will be phased out training from July 2 to 4 and subsequently team train-ing from July 5. AGENCIES

Deepika reclaims world no.1 ranking after

hat-trick of gold medals PARIS: Star Indian archer Deepika Kumari on Mon-day regained the number one position in global rankings fol-lowing her hat-trick of gold medals at the World Cup Stage 3 here.

The 27-year-old from Ran-chi, who had achieved the top spot for the first time in 2012, on Sunday claimed gold med-als in three recurve events -- women's individual, team and mixed pair.

"This is going to take Deep-ika to the number one spot in the world rankings on Mon-day," World Archery had tweeted on its official handle after Deepika's gold rush.

Deepika first combined with Ankita Bhakat and Kom-alika Bari to notch up the women's recurve team gold with a comfortable win over Mexico. She then paired up with husband Atanu Das and the couple from a 0-2 defi-cit to down the Netherland's Sjef van den Berg and Gabri-

ela Schloesser 5-3 for the gold medal.

The Ranchi archer then blanked 17th ranked Russian Elena Osipova 6-0 to cap a perfect three out of three in the recurve women's section, her fourth individual World Cup gold medal.

Overall, she has nine gold, 12 silver and seven bronze medals in the World Cup.

"This is the first time I've won all three medals in a World Cup. I'm really happy but at the same time, I've to continue improving as we have some very, very impor-tant competitions lined up," Deepika had said after her triumphs. AGENCIES

Ecuador hold Brazil to 1-1 draw, advance at Copa America

SAO PAULO: Ecuador held a below-strength Brazil to a 1-1 draw to secure a spot in the Copa America quarterfinals.

Neymar, defender Thiago Silva and striker Gabriel Jesus didn't play against Ecuador at the Olimpico Stadium in Goiania.

The draw moved Ecua-dor to fourth spot in Group B, eliminating Venezuela and likely setting up a quarterfinal match against Argentina. Bra-zil had already secured top spot in the group before the match began, allowing coach Tite to continue testing his lineup with an eye on the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

The defending champions opened the scoring in the 37th minute with a header by der Milit o after a corner. Angel Mena equalized for Ecuador in the 53rd when he finished with an angled shot in front of goalkeeper Alisson. The draw ended a streak of 10 consecu-tive Brazil wins.

Brazil's next challenge will be either against Uruguay or Chile, the two teams which can finish fourth in Group A.

Ecuador coach Gustavo Alfaro feels certain his team will face Argentina in the next stage of the tournament, but adds the draw with Brazil gives him confidence.

"We know who we are and that we can have a good game like the ones we had against Colombia, Peru and Bra-zil. There's no reason why we couldn't do it against Argen-tina," said Alfaro, who is Argentinian.

"We respect the hierarchy of Colombia, Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina, but we don't fear. I want them to play like they have played so far."

Brazil defender Marquin-hos said the game against Ecua-dor was important for Brazil "so all players of the squad could have at least some time of play, so everyone can be ready when knockout begins."

"Also," he added, "players who were tired had some rest so they can go to the knockout and play their best."

Marquinhos also expressed

concern about the pitch at the Nilton Santos Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, where Brazil will play in the quarterfinals and, if it wins, in the semifinals of the tournament.

Peru beat Venezuela 1-0 with a goal by Andr Carillo from close range in the 48th minute. The Venezuelans needed a win to progress to the playoff stage. The Peru-vians started the tournament being hammered by Brazil 4-0, but recovered after a 2-1 win over Colombia. The 2-2 draw against Ecuador had already put the team close to securing its knockout stage place.

"Peru was overcoming itself as matches went on. We played against very intense teams and had little time to recover," coach Ricardo Gareca said. AGENCIES

McLaughlin breaks 400

hurdles mark on historic day at trials

EUGENE (US): Sydney McLaughlin looked to her left and saw the numbers "51.90." Her first thought: "Oh my gosh!" Now, at long last, the 400-meter hurdles world record belongs to her.

On Sunday night at U.S. Olympic track trials, McLaughlin finally outraced Dalilah Muhammad to earn the victory, and the record, that Muhammad kept grabbing whenever they met. McLaugh-lin's 51.90 was good enough to beat Muhammad by 0.52 seconds. It shattered Muham-mad's old world record by 0.26.

"It's one of those moments you think about and dream about and play in your head that you'll put it together," said McLaughlin, who not long ago aligned with coach Bobby Ker-see. Her record was the high-light of a day that included other kinds of history. Noah Lyles won the 200 meters to punch his Olympic ticket, then celebrated by kneeling on the track and clasping his hands together: "I just stopped stress-ing and let my body do what it does," he said after posting a world-leading time of 19.74 that came on the heels of some lackluster runs through the 100 and 200 rounds. AGENCIES

Shooting: Rahi grabs gold at World CupOSIJEK: Olympic-bound Rahi Sarnobat displayed sensational form to clinch the women's 25m pistol gold medal at the ISSF shooting World Cup here on Monday but teen sensation Manu Bhaker ended seventh in the same event.

Sarnobat's gold is India's first in the ongoing edition after the country secured one silver and two bronze medals earlier in the tournament.

The 30-year-old Sarnobat fired a final score of 39 after qualifying second with a total of 591. Her stupendous perfor-mance in the final included per-fect scores in the third, fourth, fifth and the sixth series.

"After I got assurance about the gold, it was more about tech-nicalities for me in the last few series as I wanted to try out a few things so I was doing that," she said about her stellar perfor-

mance. "This competition was absolutely not about perfor-mance or medal because I was trying out a few things which I am going to do in the Olym-pic Games and this is the final competition before that.

"It was more about trying out things and finalising every thing before the Olympics for the last time and that was just that," she added. Nonetheless, winning a gold here has given

Sarnobat the belief that her preparations are on the right track for the Tokyo Games. "...I have to keep working on this up to and after the Olympic Games as well," she said. The silver went to France's Mathilde Lamolle, who scored 31 in the final. Rio Olympics silver-medallist in the 10m air pistol, Russian Vitalina Batsarashkina, won bronze with 28 hits, bowing out after the ninth five-shot series. AGENCIES

Belgium edge Portugal, reach quarter-finals

at Euro 2020SEVILLE: Belgium stopped Cristiano Ronaldo on one end, and had just enough attacking power on the other.

The top-ranked Belgians held Ronaldo scoreless Sun-day and held onto a first-half lead to beat Portugal 1-0 and advance to the quarterfinals of the European Championship.

Ronaldo, who threw his captain's armband to the ground in despair after the final whistle, is still one goal shy of becoming the all-time men's top scorer in international soc-cer. He came into the match tied with former Iran striker Ali Daei at 109 goals.

Belgium, which has never

before won a major soccer title, will next face Italy on Friday in Munich.

Belgium's potent attack, led by Kevin De Bruyne, Eden Hazard and Romelu Lukaku, also struggled, but Thorgan Hazard scored the winning goal in the 42nd minute with a swerving shot from outside the area. Portugal goalkeeper Rui Patr cio was left wrong-footed and was late to swat the ball away. "In these kinds of games you have to grab your chances with both hands," Thorgan Hazard said.

"The goalkeeper expected me to choose the other corner, so the ball went in." AGENCIES

Wimbledon: Slam returns to rain; Djokovic wins

WIMBLEDON (England): Wimbledon returned on Mon-day after being called off in 2020 because of the pandemic, and so much felt rather famil-iar at the All England Club, from the rain that disrupted the schedule to the victory for Novak Djokovic.

Much like the delays to competition around the grounds it took about 4 1/2 hours to begin play on the outside courts; more than a dozen matches were post-poned entirely Djokovic got off to a slow start in his bid for a record-tying 20th Grand Slam title and sixth at Wimbledon.

The defending cham-pion dropped the opening set against Jack Draper, a 19-year-old wild-card entry from Eng-land who is ranked 253rd, before eventually showing his best tennis under the Centre

Court roof and winning 4-6 6-1 6-2 6-2 with the help of 25 aces.

Djokovic is halfway to a calendar-year Grand Slam, after trophies at the Austra-lian Open in February and the French Open two weeks ago. The man he came back to defeat in the final at Roland Garros after dropping the first two sets, No. 3 seed Stefanos Tsitsipas, quickly was bounced out of the All England Club, losing to 57th-ranked Frances

Tiafoe of the United States 6-4 6-4 6-3 in just over two hours at No. 1 Court.

Tiafoe had been 0-11 against opponents ranked in the Top 5.

"That guy is special. He's going to do a lot of great things. Win a ton of Grand Slams," Tiafoe said about Tsitsipas, then broke into a wide smile and added: "But not today."

In the first women's match completed, Aryna Sabalenka who is seeded No. 2 after defending champion Simona Halep and four-time major champ Naomi Osaka pulled out advanced with a 6-1 6-4 victory over qualifier Monica Niculescu.

Other winners included 2017 champion Garbi e Muguruza, No. 23 Madison Keys and No. 32 Ekaterina Alexandrova. AGENCIES

Sourav Ganguly

Novak Djokovic PTI

12 millenniumpostLeisure

Entertainmentmp

TUESDAY, 29 JUNE, 2021 | NEW DELHI

Kriti Kharbanda, known for her roles in films like ‘Shaadi Mein

Zaroor Aana’, ‘Housefull 4’ and ‘Raaz Reboot’, recently completed 12 years in the Bollywood industry. On this

occasion, the actor shared a heartfelt post on her ‘Insta-gram’ handle.

“12 years ago, on June 12, I began a journey. As a teen-ager, I took my first steps into this industry that has ultimately shaped me into the person I am today. In my time as an actor, I have met so many people for

who I’m grateful. I have learned lessons and so much about myself. I found my calling and it

became my identity. I have had the privi-

lege of working with some of the best people in the indus-try. So, to everybody

associated with my career- be it for a minute, a day or the last 12 years, I have nothing but gratitude for you,” she wrote.

“Today I watch a full gen-eration and more perform to my numbers, recreating things that I have done and the feel-ing is surreal. It can be hard to put into words how grate-ful I feel.”

“While the world looks exciting and glamorous, (which it is), it has also tedious and difficult. But then again, what is not? This is my 24/7! I love who I have become. The simple middle-class girl has become ambitious and self-confident,” she wrote further. AGENCIES

LONDON: Danish actor Mads Mik-kelsen said that he wished he could

have spoken to Johnny Depp about stepping into play the

dark wizard Gellert Grin-delwald following his

exit from the upcom-ing third film in the

fantasy film series ‘Fantastic Beasts’.

Mikkelsen was tapped in as Depp’s replace-ment after the

American actor lost a major libel suit

relating to abuse alle-gations by former wife and

actor Amber Heard against a UK newspaper in November 2020.Though he did not know if Depp

losing the role was fair, Mikkelsen said he knew the third film was still on track.

“I mean, they were going to do the film and he was not involved anymore,” the ‘Another Round’ star said on Depp.

He added, “But I did not have a dog in that fight. I do not know what happened (in his private life) and I do not know if it was fair of him losing the job, but I just knew that the show was going on and I would have loved to talk to him about it if I had the chance, but I just do not know him in that sense.”

The actor, known for Hol-lywood films ‘Casino Royale’ and

‘Doctor Strange’ and Danish movies ‘The Hunt’ and ‘Pusher’, was rumoured to be playing Grindelwald in the yet-to-be-titled ‘Fantastic Beasts 3’ late last year. ‘Warner Bros Pictures’ had confirmed his casting a week after the reports surfaced online.

Mikkelsen revealed, “They called me and told me that they were in a hurry and I loved the script and so said yes. I know it was controversial for many people, but that is just the way it plays out once in a while.”

The actor reiterated that he wanted to add his touch to the character of Grindelwald while retaining a few links with how Depp played the role.

“I did not want to copy what Johnny had done. I think he is a mas-terful actor, so copying him would have been creative suicide,” he said.

Mads further said, “I had to figure out something that was my own and

yet also act as a bridge to what he had done. My take is different

and the look is a little differ-ent, but we will have to wait

for the film’s release next year to find out.” PTI

Days after James Corden and his team came under heavy criticism

for the kind of food used in his talk show segment ‘Spill Your Guts’, the host revealed that they will be completely revamping it. To put things into context, a petition on change.org was started by a certain Kim Saira for James Corden to remove the segment from his show for being ‘cul-turally offensive’.

In the segment, celebri-ties have to either some really difficult questions or ‘eat dis-gusting foods’. This encourages the celebrity to instead answer. The petition has called for the segment to be completely revamped or removed because it is ‘culturally offensive’ to Asians. On several occasions, the petitioner claimed that James Corden has called the foods ‘disgusting’ and ‘hor-rific’. However, they are eaten by a certain section of Asian

people.In a recent interview

with Howard Stern, Corden addressed the petition and removal of the segment.

“We heard that story and the next time we do that bit, we absolutely would not involve or use any of those foods. As you said at the start, our show is a show about joy and light and love, we do not want to make a show to upset any-body,” said Corden. AGENCIES

MUMBAI: Hindi film industry’s ‘narrow vision’ for artists from the North East has resulted in fewer opportunities for actors like her, says ‘Axone’ star Lin Laishram, who believes it is about time Bollywood stopped stereotyping people from the region.

After appearing in ‘Mary Kom’, ‘Umrika’ and Vishal Bhardwaj’s ‘Rangoon’, the Manipur-born actor rose to fame with 2020’s comedy-drama ‘Axone’.

“My ethnicity has been my biggest struggle in the industry as it is a setback in getting me to work. I have so many friends who are established now with whom I studied acting and did theatre. They are doing way more work than I am doing right now. If I have two audi-tions in a month, they have 15-20. It is easier for them to get roles,” she revealed.

Lin added, “We have IAS offi-cers, sports personalities and writers. But when you come to Bol-lywood, their idea and vision of our people gets narrow and reflects in casting. It is annoying.”

“Bollywood, for us, was larger-than-life. It was

impossible to even dream of work-ing there and that was the level of disconnect we felt. We did not speak Hindi so fluently and did not look the same,” she mentioned.

Laishram stated, “The only per-son we kind of connected with was

Danny. He looked like us but he was so good with his Hindi, he sounded like any other actor of his time. We felt he was more like them than us because he did not have an accent.”

“Even then, people had prob-lems casting me in roles. I knew from the beginning that this would not be easy. Somebody needed to take that chance and put con-

fidence in me that I could pull

it off. Vishal Bhardwaj took that chance and cast me for ‘Rangoon’. The space he gave me was that of respect. I needed that,” she said.

Refusing work has not been easy for Laishram as with each cli-che role she turns down, she loses her time and money.

“You start questioning your own choices, even if you are doing the right thing. It confuses you and makes you self-doubt. A girl from Delhi would have a

Kareena Kapoor or Anushka Sharma to think about. That ‘this is how probably they made

it, so I will do the same’. But I did not see any North Eastern actor (on-screen) who would look like us. I had no other footsteps to fol-low. To learn that if you do smaller roles, it will lead to something big. I did not have that luxury,” she shared.

The actor hopes the least Bollywood can do is become democratic so that everyone gets an equal chance at success without their identities decid-ing their privilege.

“I just want a fair chance. I should get what I deserve,” she said. PTI

‘My ethnicity has been a setback in getting me work’Born in Manipur, Lin believes it’s about time B’wood stopped stereotyping people from the region

After appearing

in ‘Mary Kom’, ‘Umrika’ and Vishal

Bhardwaj’s ‘Rangoon’, she rose to fame with

2020’s comedy-drama ‘Axone’

‘Would have loved to talk to him about it’

Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen talks about taking over Grindelwald role from Johnny Depp

‘Bollywood has shaped me into the person I’m’

James to revise Spill Your Guts segment

The actor recently completed her 12 year-long journey in Bollywood

MUMBAI: Bollywood actor Shefali Shah shares that her recent script choices have helped directors see her in a different light. She believes the industry has now started trusting her with headlining projects, which was not the case earlier.

After a lull around the mid-2010s, Shah, a powerhouse performer whose

career in television and cinema spans almost two decades, saw a revival with filmmaker Neeraj Ghaywan’s short film ‘Juice’ (2017).

She followed it up with con-secutive acclaimed performances, starting with 2018 film ‘Once Again’, ‘International Emmy

Award’ winning ‘Netflix’ series ‘Delhi Crime’ (2019) and Kayoze Irani’s seg-

ment in the anthology film ‘Ajeeb Daastaans’ for the streamer

earlier this year.In an interview

with PTI, Shah said that

she can

sense a change in the way the industry, which had once slotted her in mother roles, is viewing her today.

“The industry has started looking at me in a new light. The OTT has taken it up to another level. ‘Juice’, ‘Once Again’ and ‘Delhi Crime’ are my turning points. With ‘Delhi Crime’, the industry suddenly realised that they can put me in the central character,” said the 48-year-old actor.

Citing the example of ‘Ajeeb Daastaans’, in which she played a woman who finds love outside her marriage, the ‘National Award’ winner said she was surprised the way actor-director Irani placed her - putting her in the

spotlight as the lead of a romantic drama.“Even Kayoze took that chance on me.

When we were talking about styling and make-up for the film, I told him, ‘Please, seriously’. He told me, ‘But you are a quint-essential ‘Dharma’ heroine and you have to look like that’ and I just went, ‘Are you kidding me?! I am the wrong person’,” she recalled.

Shah added, “If in my 40s, people can see me doing leads, carrying projects on my shoulders and being one of the primary characters, it is great.”

Though Shefali was always acknowl-edged as a fine actor right from her break-through role in Ram Gopal Varma’s ‘Satya’ and later in Mira Nair’s movie ‘Monsoon Wedding’, she went through a frustrating period when exciting work did not come her way. PTI

‘Industry now looks at me in a new light’

After a lull around the mid-2010s, Shefali Shah saw a revival with short film ‘Juice’

Shah said that she can sense a change in the way the industry, which had once slotted her in mother roles, is viewing her today

‘F9’ makes a mighty debut with $70 millionAfter many delays over

a year and a half, ‘F9’ opened to a mighty

70 million from 4,179 North American venues. That is by far the biggest start for a movie in the US box office since the onset of COVID-19.

The big-screen homage to hulking men, speedy cars and gravity-defying stunts is giving some much-needed momentum to the movie the-atre business, which has been struggling to rebound as audi-ences begin to feel comfort-able returning to their local multiplex. ‘F9’ is the latest blockbuster-hopeful to set a new box office benchmark for Coronavirus times. Before this weekend, Paramount’s ‘A Quiet Place Part II’ held the pandemic-era opening week-end with 48.3 million in inau-gural ticket sales.

‘F9’ was not expected to reach the opening weekend heights of its franchise predecessors because

attendance has not returned to pre-Coronavirus levels and the Canadian box office, which accounts for part of North American revenues, is still almost entirely shut down.

In terms of ‘Fast’ series launches, ‘F9’ has a slight edge on the 2019 spinoff ‘Hobbs and Shaw’, which generated 60 million and ended its theatri-cal run with 173 million in the US and 759 million globally.

David A Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm ‘Franchise Entertainment Research’, said the inaugural weekend of ‘F9’ is ‘an excellent opening in an extraordinary

series’.

“During the last month, movie-going has shown flashes of real strength, including this weekend and ‘A Quiet Place 2’, but it has also been tentative. ‘F9’ and ‘A Quiet Place 2’ are the clean-est reads of what the business can do now - both strong

series and pure theatrical releases/no streaming.”

Gross referred to Disney’s ‘Cruella’, ‘Raya and the Last

Dragon’ and the recent ‘Warner Bros’ titles like

‘The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do

It’ and ‘Godzilla v/s Kong’.

AGENCIES

That is by far the

biggest start for a movie in the US box office since

the onset of COVID-19