...2020/10/16  · opening of 44 bridges in bor-der areas, including Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh,...

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O n a day when Chinese President Xi Jinping asked his troops to “prepare for war”, India on Thursday categorically rejected Beijing’s objection to opening of 44 bridges in bor- der areas, including Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh, saying China has no locus standi to comment on India’s internal matters. The strong assertion by the Ministry of External Affairs came here two days after Zhao Lijian, spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, in Beijing had called border infrastruc- ture development “the root cause for tension between the two sides” and said neither country should take action that might escalate tensions. India’s rebuttal also came against the backdrop of con- tinuing tension at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and Jinping asking his troops to “prepare for war” according to state news agency Xinhua. “Troops should “maintain a state of high alert... Put all (your) minds and energy into preparing for war,” China’s State news agency Xinhua quoted Xi Jinping as saying. Troops should be “absolutely loyal, absolutely pure, and absolutely reliable”, the Chinese President said dur- ing his visit to Marine corps of PLA in Chaozhou City. Sources said the President’s remarks were “not specifically directed at India,” even though it came amid the border dispute in Ladakh. MEA Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava also brushed aside China’s remark saying it does not recognise the Ladakh Union Territory. This claim by the Chinese spokesperson came a day after Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday inaugurated 44 permanent bridges, includ- ing eight in Ladakh and the same number in Arunachal Pradesh. These bridges will significantly bolster the logis- tical supplies to the troops deployed on the LAC facing China and the LoC with Pakistan. Countering Beijing’s con- tention, Srivastava made it amply clear here on Thursday that “the Union Territories of Ladakh, Jammu & Kashmir have been, are and will remain an integral part of India”. Maintaining that China has no locus standi to comment on internal matters of India, he also said, “Our position on Arunachal Pradesh has been made clear several times. Arunachal Pradesh is an inte- gral and inalienable part of India. This fact has also been clearly conveyed to the Chinese side on several occasions, including at the highest level.” Elaborating on India’s stand, the spokesperson also said New Delhi hopes that “countries will not comment on India’s internal matters, as much as they expect the same of others”. The Chinese spokesper- son had questioned the status of Ladakh and said, “First I want to make it clear that China does not recognise the Ladakh Union Territory ille- gally set up by the Indian side and Arunachal Pradesh. We stand against the devel- opment of infrastructure facil- ities aimed at military con- tention along the border area,” the Chinese spokesperson had said. T he mainstream politics in Jammu & Kashmir on Thursday witnessed a “tec- tonic” shift after top brass of the National Conference for the first time decided to forge an “alliance” with archrival Mehbooba Mufti, chief of Peoples Democratic Party, along with the leaders of four other regional parties under the banner of “People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration” to fight a “constitutional battle” demanding the Government of India to return to the people of the erstwhile State the rights they held before August 5, 2019. The decision to float this new alliance was taken at a crucial meeting convened by Farooq Abdullah at his resi- dence in Srinagar.The meeting was attended by all the leaders who are signatories of “Gupkar Declaration”, a resolution issued after an all-party meet- ing on August 4, 2019 at the Gupkar residence of Farooq Abdullah. JKPCC chief GA Mir was not present during the meeting.Addressing the media soon after the meeting, Abdullah, flanked by Mehbooba, Omar Abdullah, CPI(M) leader MY Tarigami, People’s Conference chief Sajjad Lone, JKPM leader Javaid Mustafa Mir and ANC leader Muzaffar Shah said that the resolution passed on August 4 last year by the main- stream political parties in the valley has been named as “Peoples’ Alliance for Gupkar Declaration”. He said, “Our motive is to fight for the restoration of last year’s August 4 position. Our battle is a constitutional battle and we are ready to fight”. U nderlining that early detec- tion is key to containing the spread of coronavirus, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday directed health authorities to scale up sero-sur- veys as well as testing. He said the facility to get tested regu- larly and speedily at a low cost must be available to all at the earliest. In the last six months since the Covid-19 expanded its ten- tacles, the ICMR has conduct- ed two sero-surveys nation- wide. The first countrywide sero survey (conducted between May 11 and June 4) showed overall infection preva- lence to be 0.73 per cent while the second one showed that one in every 15 individuals, or 6.6 per cent, of people above the age of 10 years in India, have been exposed to Sars- Cov2, the virus that causes coronavirus disease (Covid- 19), till August. Chairing a high-level meet- ing to review the country’s research and vaccine deploy- ment ecosystem against the Covid-19 pandemic, including testing technologies, contact tracing, drugs and therapeutics, the PM also called for contin- ued vigilance and a high state of preparedness against the coronavirus pandemic, the PMO said in a statement. I ndicating some slowdown in its spread, the doubling time of coronavirus in India has improved from 25.5 days in mid-August to nearly 70 days now. The doubling time for coronavirus is the number of days it takes for the cases count to double. “India’s doubling time has sharply increased to 70.4 days (it was 25.5 days in mid- August). This indicates a sub- stantial fall in the daily new cases and the consequent increase in time taken to dou- ble the total cases,” the Union Health Ministry said. Crediting the Central Government’s strategies and Covid-19 warriors with the improvement in India’s case doubling time, the Ministry further tweeted, “This is the result of the Centre-led strategies and the selfless dedication of doctors, paramedics, frontline workers and all other Covid-19 war- riors.” The country’s current case- load, the second-highest after that of the United States, stands at 7,239,389 as per data from the Health Ministry. However, 6,301,927 or 87.05 per cent of these are recovered cases, the highest number of recoveries globally. I n a significant move to bol- ster defence relations with countries in the neighbour- hood to counter Chinese influ- ence, India will lease out a sub- marine to Myanmar. The 3,000-ton INS Sindhuvir sub- marine powered by diesel engines is now undergoing final refit at a dockyard in India. India had a few months ago exported Shyena advanced light torpedoes to Myanmar as part of defence co-operation. The torpedoes were manufac- tured by public sector compa- ny Bharat Dynamics Limited. The submarine transfer in the next few months comes at a time when India and China are locked in a five-month long stand-off at the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Moreover, China in the past few years has ramped up its bid to enhance its influence in the countries bordering India by offering to provide military and economic aid. This long-term move is part of Beijing’s strategy of having a “string of pearls” around India. It means having strong military and economic ties with all the nations thereby posing a grave challenge to India’s national interests. Announcing India’s deci- sion about the submarine, Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said here on Thursday, “This will be the first submarine of Myanmar Navy... Cooperation in the maritime domain is a part of our diverse and enhanced engagement with Myanmar.” T erming it a “watershed moment” in the road his- tory of the Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh and of great impor- tance to the defence of the country in view of the “mas- sive military activities along our borders”, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday launched the construction work on Zojila tunnel. He exuded confidence that the strategic project, pro- viding all-year connectivity between Srinagar and Leh, will be completed ahead of schedule. “One of the most difficult stretches to drive and build, the geo-sensitive Zojila stretch is strategically important to the defence of our country in view of the fact that massive military activities along our borders in Ladakh, Gilgit and Baltistan regions are taking place. Zojila tunnel will not only provide all-weather con- nectivity between Srinagar, Drass, Kargil and Leh but it will also further strengthen the economic and social-cul- tural integration of both the Union Territories,” Gadkari said, addressing an event after the virtual launch of con- struction work of the 14.15- km tunnel project through the ceremonial first blast. C hief Secretary Asit Tripathy on Thursday directed the authorities to make the State Pollution Control Board (SPCB) more vibrant through ‘process reengineering’ without compromising the environ- mental concerns. The Chief Secretary gave the direction while presiding over SPCB meeting here. He tasked the board to come up with definite action plan for setting national bench- mark in ‘hassle free compliance’ through simplification of the processes and office automa- tion.Since the State is rich in mineral resources, capacity enhancement of the SPCB would help creation of more employment opportunities through facilitation of business environment, said the Chief Secretary. Tripathy set trans- formational goals for the Board to reduce the time line for ‘delivery of public services’ and reverse the increasing trend of air pollution by guiding the industries in adopting ‘pro- duction technology’ and ‘con- tainment measures’. Member Secretary Dr Murgesan said the automa- tion system should be linked to regional offices and central laboratory to reduce the time of getting reports from field offi- cers. Dr Murugesan’s proposal to set up Continuous Air Quality Monitoring Stations (CAAQMS) at 15 pollution- prone cities in Cuttack, Balasore, Keonjhar, Sundargarh, Mayurbhanj, Angul and Khurda districts was approved in the meeting. A total of 253 persons tested Covid-19 positive in Bhubaneswar on Thursday, pushing city’s total positive cases to 26,536, out of which 3,222 were active.Of new cases, 180 were local contacts and 73 quarantine cases, Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) said.The local contacts includ- ed 13 cases from Laxmisagar, 10 from Saheed Nagar, nine from Khandagiri, 7 each from Chandrasekharpur and Dumduma, six from IRC Village, five each from Kalinga Nagar, Pokhariput and Old Town,4 each from Niladri Vihar, Jharpada and Badagada. T he Covid-19 death toll con- tinued to surge in the State with 17 more fatalities report- ed on Thursday from nine dis- tricts. With this,total death toll mounted to 1,089. While four patients suc- cumbed in Khordha district, three each died in Cuttack and Sundargarh districts. The dis- ease claimed two lives in Ganjam district and one each in Baleswar, Boudh, Jajpur, Kalahandi and Nayagarh.The deceased in Khordha included a 49-year-old man, a 72-year- old man, a 42-year-old man and a 77-year-old woman.(all of Bhubaneswar). The deaths in Cuttack were of a 60-year- old woman, a 70-year-old man and a 28-year-old man. The deceased in Sundargarh were a 58-year-old man, a 36-year-old woman and a 69-year-old man.(Rourkela). The Ganjam casualties were a 60-year-old woman and a 50-year-old man. The other deceased were a 57-year-old woman of Nayagarh, an 85-year-old woman of Jajpur, a 55-year-old man of Baleswar, a 55-year-old man of Boudh and a 70-year- old man of Kalahandi Meanwhile, positive cases in State rose to 2,62,011 with 2,470 new ones recorded from all 30 districts and State pool on day.Of new cases, 1,462 were detected from quarantine and 1,008 were local contacts. Khordha recorded highest 368 cases followed by Cuttack 186, Angul 170, Sundargarh 161, Mayurbhanj 134, Baleswar 106, Balangir 91, Kendrapada and Puri 87, Nuapada 85, Jajpur 72, Boudh 70, Bargarh 69, Bhadrak 67, Jagatsinghpur 64, Nabarangpur 58, Kalahandi 55, Jharsuguda and Sambalpur 54 each, Subarnapur 53, Dhenkanal 50, Kandhamal and Keonjhar 42 each, Ganjam 36, Koraput 32, Rayagada 31, Malkangiri 30, Nayagarh 23, Deogarh 12 and Gajapati nine. Besides, 72 positive cases were detected from State pool.With 42,148 Covid tests done during period, State’s cumulative tests rose to 39,21,140.However, another 2,772 patients recovered on day, taking total recoveries to 2,38,535. A day after a section of media raised questions on Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s fly- ing time during an aerial sur- vey of flood-affected areas on August 31, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) on Thursday clarified that Patnaik flew for 19 minutes during the aerial survey. The AAI said Patnaik’s flight departed from the Bhubaneswar airport at 3:42 pm and landed back at 4:01 pm. “All the timings given with respect to flight movements are UTC only,” it said. The actual flying time excluded warm-up time, start- up time at apron and taxi time to runway and return to apron after landing, the AAI added. Some sections of media had questioned the authenticity of flood assessment done by the Chief Minister during the aer- ial survey. They cited an RTI “disclo- sure” provided by the Airport Director, Bhubaneswar on October 7 as the evidence alleging that the CM took an aerial survey for a short dura- tion and, moreover, the flood assessment was not proper.

Transcript of ...2020/10/16  · opening of 44 bridges in bor-der areas, including Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh,...

Page 1: ...2020/10/16  · opening of 44 bridges in bor-der areas, including Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh, saying China has no locus standi to comment on India’s internal …

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On a day when ChinesePresident Xi Jinping asked

his troops to “prepare for war”,India on Thursday categoricallyrejected Beijing’s objection toopening of 44 bridges in bor-der areas, including Ladakhand Arunachal Pradesh, sayingChina has no locus standi tocomment on India’s internalmatters.

The strong assertion bythe Ministry of External Affairscame here two days after ZhaoLijian, spokesman for China’sForeign Ministry, in Beijinghad called border infrastruc-ture development “the rootcause for tension between thetwo sides” and said neithercountry should take actionthat might escalate tensions.

India’s rebuttal also cameagainst the backdrop of con-tinuing tension at the Line ofActual Control (LAC) andJinping asking his troops to“prepare for war” according tostate news agency Xinhua.“Troops should “maintain astate of high alert... Put all(your) minds and energy intopreparing for war,” China’sState news agency Xinhuaquoted Xi Jinping as saying.

Troops should be“absolutely loyal, absolutelypure, and absolutely reliable”,the Chinese President said dur-ing his visit to Marine corps ofPLA in Chaozhou City. Sourcessaid the President’s remarks

were “not specifically directedat India,” even though it cameamid the border dispute inLadakh.

MEA SpokespersonAnurag Srivastava also brushedaside China’s remark saying itdoes not recognise the LadakhUnion Territory.

This claim by the Chinesespokesperson came a day afterDefence Minister RajnathSingh on Monday inaugurated44 permanent bridges, includ-ing eight in Ladakh and thesame number in ArunachalPradesh. These bridges willsignificantly bolster the logis-tical supplies to the troopsdeployed on the LAC facingChina and the LoC withPakistan.

Countering Beijing’s con-tention, Srivastava made itamply clear here on Thursdaythat “the Union Territories ofLadakh, Jammu & Kashmirhave been, are and will remainan integral part of India”.

Maintaining that Chinahas no locus standi to comment

on internal matters of India, healso said, “Our position onArunachal Pradesh has beenmade clear several times.Arunachal Pradesh is an inte-gral and inalienable part ofIndia. This fact has also beenclearly conveyed to the Chineseside on several occasions,including at the highest level.”

Elaborating on India’sstand, the spokesperson alsosaid New Delhi hopes that“countries will not comment onIndia’s internal matters, asmuch as they expect the sameof others”.

The Chinese spokesper-son had questioned the statusof Ladakh and said, “First Iwant to make it clear thatChina does not recognise theLadakh Union Territory ille-gally set up by the Indian sideand Arunachal Pradesh.

We stand against the devel-opment of infrastructure facil-ities aimed at military con-tention along the border area,”the Chinese spokesperson hadsaid.

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The mainstream politics inJammu & Kashmir on

Thursday witnessed a “tec-tonic” shift after top brass ofthe National Conference forthe first time decided to forgean “alliance” with archrivalMehbooba Mufti, chief ofPeoples Democratic Party,along with the leaders of fourother regional parties underthe banner of “People’s Alliancefor Gupkar Declaration” tofight a “constitutional battle”demanding the Government ofIndia to return to the people ofthe erstwhile State the rightsthey held before August 5,2019.

The decision to float thisnew alliance was taken at acrucial meeting convened byFarooq Abdullah at his resi-dence in Srinagar.The meetingwas attended by all the leaderswho are signatories of “GupkarDeclaration”, a resolutionissued after an all-party meet-

ing on August 4, 2019 at theGupkar residence of FarooqAbdullah. JKPCC chief GAMir was not present during themeeting.Addressing the mediasoon after the meeting,Abdullah, f lanked byMehbooba, Omar Abdullah,CPI(M) leader MY Tarigami,People’s Conference chiefSajjad Lone, JKPM leaderJavaid Mustafa Mir and ANC

leader Muzaffar Shah said thatthe resolution passed onAugust 4 last year by the main-stream political parties in thevalley has been named as“Peoples’ Alliance for GupkarDeclaration”.

He said, “Our motive is tofight for the restoration of lastyear’s August 4 position. Ourbattle is a constitutional battleand we are ready to fight”.

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Underlining that early detec-tion is key to containing

the spread of coronavirus,Prime Minister Narendra Modi

on Thursday directed healthauthorities to scale up sero-sur-veys as well as testing. He saidthe facility to get tested regu-larly and speedily at a low costmust be available to all at theearliest.

In the last six months sincethe Covid-19 expanded its ten-tacles, the ICMR has conduct-ed two sero-surveys nation-wide. The first countrywide sero survey (conducted

between May 11 and June 4)showed overall infection preva-lence to be 0.73 per cent whilethe second one showed thatone in every 15 individuals, or6.6 per cent, of people abovethe age of 10 years in India,have been exposed to Sars-Cov2, the virus that causescoronavirus disease (Covid-19), till August.

Chairing a high-level meet-ing to review the country’sresearch and vaccine deploy-ment ecosystem against theCovid-19 pandemic, includingtesting technologies, contacttracing, drugs and therapeutics,the PM also called for contin-ued vigilance and a high stateof preparedness against thecoronavirus pandemic, thePMO said in a statement.

���� 0.2�*.34+

Indicating some slowdown inits spread, the doubling time

of coronavirus in India hasimproved from 25.5 days inmid-August to nearly 70 daysnow. The doubling time forcoronavirus is the number ofdays it takes for the casescount to double.

“India’s doubling time hassharply increased to 70.4 days(it was 25.5 days in mid-August). This indicates a sub-stantial fall in the daily newcases and the consequentincrease in time taken to dou-ble the total cases,” the UnionHealth Ministry said.

Crediting the CentralGovernment’s strategies andCovid-19 warriors with theimprovement in India’s casedoubling time, the Ministryfurther tweeted,

“This is the result of theCentre-led strategies and theselfless dedication of doctors,paramedics, frontline workersand all other Covid-19 war-riors.”

The country’s current case-load, the second-highest afterthat of the United States, standsat 7,239,389 as per data fromthe Health Ministry.

However, 6,301,927 or87.05 per cent of these arerecovered cases, the highestnumber of recoveries globally.

���� 0.2�*.34+

In a significant move to bol-ster defence relations with

countries in the neighbour-hood to counter Chinese influ-ence, India will lease out a sub-marine to Myanmar. The3,000-ton INS Sindhuvir sub-marine powered by dieselengines is now undergoingfinal refit at a dockyard inIndia.

India had a few monthsago exported Shyena advancedlight torpedoes to Myanmar aspart of defence co-operation.The torpedoes were manufac-tured by public sector compa-ny Bharat Dynamics Limited.

The submarine transfer inthe next few months comes ata time when India and Chinaare locked in a five-monthlong stand-off at the Line ofActual Control (LAC).

Moreover, China in thepast few years has ramped upits bid to enhance its influencein the countries borderingIndia by offering to providemilitary and economic aid.

This long-term move ispart of Beijing’s strategy ofhaving a “string of pearls”around India.

It means having strongmilitary and economic tieswith all the nations therebyposing a grave challenge toIndia’s national interests.

Announcing India’s deci-sion about the submarine,Ministry of External AffairsSpokesperson AnuragSrivastava said here onThursday, “This will be the firstsubmarine of Myanmar Navy...Cooperation in the maritimedomain is a part of our diverseand enhanced engagementwith Myanmar.”

���� 0.2�*.34+

Terming it a “watershedmoment” in the road his-

tory of the Union Territoriesof Jammu & Kashmir andLadakh and of great impor-tance to the defence of thecountry in view of the “mas-sive military activities alongour borders”, Union MinisterNitin Gadkari on Thursdaylaunched the constructionwork on Zojila tunnel.

He exuded confidencethat the strategic project, pro-viding all-year connectivitybetween Srinagar and Leh,will be completed ahead ofschedule.

“One of the most difficult

stretches to drive and build,the geo-sensitive Zojila stretchis strategically important tothe defence of our country inview of the fact that massivemilitary activities along ourborders in Ladakh, Gilgit andBaltistan regions are takingplace. Zojila tunnel will notonly provide all-weather con-nectivity between Srinagar,Drass, Kargil and Leh but itwill also further strengthenthe economic and social-cul-tural integration of both theUnion Territories,” Gadkarisaid, addressing an event afterthe virtual launch of con-struction work of the 14.15-km tunnel project through theceremonial first blast.

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Chief Secretary Asit Tripathyon Thursday directed the

authorities to make the StatePollution Control Board(SPCB) more vibrant through‘process reengineering’ withoutcompromising the environ-mental concerns.

The Chief Secretary gavethe direction while presidingover SPCB meeting here.

He tasked the board tocome up with definite actionplan for setting national bench-mark in ‘hassle free compliance’through simplification of theprocesses and office automa-tion.Since the State is rich inmineral resources, capacityenhancement of the SPCBwould help creation of more

employment opportunitiesthrough facilitation of businessenvironment, said the ChiefSecretary. Tripathy set trans-formational goals for the Boardto reduce the time line for‘delivery of public services’ andreverse the increasing trend ofair pollution by guiding theindustries in adopting ‘pro-duction technology’ and ‘con-tainment measures’.

Member Secretary DrMurgesan said the automa-tion system should be linked toregional offices and centrallaboratory to reduce the time ofgetting reports from field offi-cers. Dr Murugesan’s proposalto set up Continuous AirQuality Monitoring Stations(CAAQMS) at 15 pollution-prone cities in Cuttack,Balasore, Keonjhar,Sundargarh, Mayurbhanj,Angul and Khurda districts wasapproved in the meeting.

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Atotal of 253 persons testedCovid-19 positive in

Bhubaneswar on Thursday,pushing city’s total positivecases to 26,536, out of which3,222 were active.Of new cases,180 were local contacts and 73quarantine cases, BhubaneswarMunicipal Corporation (BMC)said.The local contacts includ-ed 13 cases from Laxmisagar,10 from Saheed Nagar, ninefrom Khandagiri, 7 each fromChandrasekharpur andDumduma, six from IRCVillage, five each from KalingaNagar, Pokhariput and OldTown,4 each from NiladriVihar, Jharpada and Badagada.

���� 1461�0.�2�A

The Covid-19 death toll con-tinued to surge in the State

with 17 more fatalities report-ed on Thursday from nine dis-tricts. With this,total death tollmounted to 1,089.

While four patients suc-cumbed in Khordha district,three each died in Cuttack andSundargarh districts. The dis-ease claimed two lives inGanjam district and one eachin Baleswar, Boudh, Jajpur,Kalahandi and Nayagarh.Thedeceased in Khordha includeda 49-year-old man, a 72-year-old man, a 42-year-old man

and a 77-year-old woman.(allof Bhubaneswar). The deathsin Cuttack were of a 60-year-old woman, a 70-year-old manand a 28-year-old man. Thedeceased in Sundargarh were a58-year-old man, a 36-year-oldwoman and a 69-year-oldman.(Rourkela). The Ganjamcasualties were a 60-year-oldwoman and a 50-year-old man.

The other deceased were a57-year-old woman ofNayagarh, an 85-year-oldwoman of Jajpur, a 55-year-oldman of Baleswar, a 55-year-oldman of Boudh and a 70-year-old man of Kalahandi

Meanwhile, positive casesin State rose to 2,62,011 with2,470 new ones recorded fromall 30 districts and State pool onday.Of new cases, 1,462 weredetected from quarantine and1,008 were local contacts.

Khordha recorded highest 368cases followed by Cuttack 186,Angul 170, Sundargarh 161,Mayurbhanj 134, Baleswar 106,Balangir 91, Kendrapada andPuri 87, Nuapada 85, Jajpur 72,Boudh 70, Bargarh 69, Bhadrak67, Jagatsinghpur 64,Nabarangpur 58, Kalahandi55, Jharsuguda and Sambalpur54 each, Subarnapur 53,Dhenkanal 50, Kandhamal andKeonjhar 42 each, Ganjam 36,Koraput 32, Rayagada 31,Malkangiri 30, Nayagarh 23,Deogarh 12 and Gajapati nine.

Besides, 72 positive caseswere detected from Statepool.With 42,148 Covid testsdone during period, State’scumulative tests rose to39,21,140.However, another2,772 patients recovered onday, taking total recoveries to2,38,535.

���� 1461�0.�2�A

Aday after a section of mediaraised questions on Chief

Minister Naveen Patnaik’s fly-ing time during an aerial sur-vey of flood-affected areas onAugust 31, the AirportsAuthority of India (AAI) onThursday clarified that Patnaikflew for 19 minutes during theaerial survey.

The AAI said Patnaik’sflight departed from theBhubaneswar airport at 3:42pm and landed back at 4:01pm.

“All the timings given withrespect to flight movements areUTC only,” it said.

The actual flying timeexcluded warm-up time, start-up time at apron and taxi timeto runway and return to apronafter landing, the AAI added.

Some sections of media hadquestioned the authenticity offlood assessment done by theChief Minister during the aer-ial survey.

They cited an RTI “disclo-sure” provided by the AirportDirector, Bhubaneswar onOctober 7 as the evidencealleging that the CM took anaerial survey for a short dura-tion and, moreover, the floodassessment was not proper.

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After Dana Majhi, anAdivasi of Kalahandi who

travelled for 10 km with bodyof his wife on shoulder in 2016,this time it is Kabir Bhoi, alandless Dalit labourer ofSatyabadi block of Puri district,is in news for similar miserableplight. He carried his ailing

wife on a trolley for 90 kmfrom Sakhigopal to Cuttackbecause he had no money topay for auto rickshaw andalso, Government ambulancewas not available for him.

But in spite of his extremehardship, unfortunately he losthis wife Sukanti Bhoi undertreatment at the SCB MedicalCollege and Hospital, Cuttack.

His daring act to save hiswife against enormous socialapathy puts a question markon condition of civic life of thepoor and marginalized duringthe Covid 19 pandemic.Thewomen, children and elderly ofpoor populations are the worstsufferers in an insensiblehealth governance system of

the State that lacks equity inaccess to public opportunities.

In this context the issuesare manifold which includesaccess to the available treat-ment facilities at CHC andmedical college and hospital,and transport facilities forpatients such as ambulance,dedicated ambulance servicesof 102, and the unrestrainedfare of available private trans-port during pandemic.

Why the poor were notgetting vehicle for such emer-gencies? Why such distresscondition that forces poorpeople to take drastic steps?These are the questions tothink about. In spite of pop-ulist schemes by the

Government for the poor, SCsand STs, a vast majority ofthem continue to be in apitiable condition withoutbasic minimum for life.

Kabir Bhoi of Puri andDana Majhi of Kalahandi aresymbolic representatives ofour collective failure to trans-form our society into an egal-itarian social order. The scopeof access to available equalopportunities in public healthsector is still a day dream fora majority of masses in theState. The vertical and hori-zontal inequality in all spheresbased on regions and socialgroups continues unabated.There has been no effort tobuild sufficient public health

infrastructure to make it uni-versally accessible; rather pri-vatization policy has beeninjected in health sector tomake heathcare marketablefor profit without human con-cern.

In multiple forms ofunequal society like ours thepublic services provided by theGovernment are alsoinequitably available to itsmembers.

Especially in a backwardState such as Odisha withhuge poor population, theuniversal access to qualityhealth facilities can only beensured with State investmentbut unfortunately the Stateallocation has been minimal toaddress pressing heath issues.Health is not just about treat-

ment but also includes relatedlogistic facilities for patientsand above all, public account-ability of health system.

Coming to the status of thevictim, this writer has manytimes visited a number ofDalit hamlets in Satyabadiblock and witnessed their mis-erable condition specially theirvulnerability to access home-stead land and basic amenities.

Hundreds of Kabir Bhoisof Satyabadi live insidecoconuts groves without ahomestead land for a houseand continue to live withoutfacilities of basic amenitiesfor a dignified living. Practicesof untouchability and socialdiscrimination are rampantin these areas. Mostly many ofthe inhabitants are sharecrop-

pers and engaged as dailywage earners to meet their baredaily need. They have beenfacing the brunt of naturalcalamities routinely every year.They are the worst sufferersbut just meagre receiver ofrelief and rehabilitation pack-age of Government.

The lack of basic amenitiessuch as safe drinking water,toilet, electricity, housing andother sanitation facilities alongwith lack of adequate nutri-tious food are some of theprime reasons of their contin-ued underdevelopment andpoor health condition.

Poverty and social dis-crimination in rural villagespushed many of youths fromDalit communities towardsdistress migration as an option

in search of livelihood.Economic misery apart, anoth-er main issue of their inherentbackwardness is their castebased social identity which hasprevented them to all kinds ofsocial access to public privi-leges in society enjoyed by oth-ers.

The behavior of majorityof our Government doctors,medical staff, health workersand paramedical staff towardspoor is one of the worst, with-out human concern. They per-haps forget that they are paidout of peoples' fund to servethe public without discrimi-nation based on socio-eco-nomic conditions of thepatient.

([email protected])

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���� 1461�0.�2�A�

Chief Minister NaveenPatnaik will not celebrate

his birthday on Friday in viewof the prevailing Covid-19 pan-demic.

Announcing this onThursday, Patnaik said peopleof all walks of life are goingthrough a crisis caused by thedeadly coronavirus for the lasteight months.

He requested his well-wishers not to visit his resi-dence Naveen Nivas to wishhim on his birthday and helpthe needy instead. He alsorequested the people to donateblood and plasma on the day.

Patnaik added that he isalways indebted to the peopleof Odisha for their love and

affection towards him.Notably,last year too, Patnaik had notcelebrated his birthday forcyclone Fani that hit the Odishacoast on May 3. He had alsorefrained from birthday cele-brations in the previous yearsfor cyclones Phailin, Hudhudand Titli.

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���� 1461�0.�2�A

In order to make Mo SchoolAbhiyan more spread out, a

mobilisation campaign will betaken up to reach out to 25,000alumni by end of this FinancialYear.

Under directive of ChiefMinister Naveen Patnaik andSchool and Mass EducationMinister Sameer Ranjan Dashto make Mo School Abhiyanwidespread, Executive Councilhas decided to run a campaignto mobilise the alumni andextend reach of programme to25,000 by March 31 next.

With Chairperson SusmitaBagchi, Mo School Abhiyan islooking forward for involve-ment of more and more alum-ni and local communities inprogramme.Principal SecretarySchool and Mass EducationSatyabrata Sahu chaired the

17th Executive Council Meetheld on October 12 on a virtualmode. The Council hasapproved 236 school projectsamounting Rs 3,14,24,568 from15 districts, including Ganjam,Khordha, Cuttack,Kendrapada, Jajpur,Dhenkanal, Angul, Bhadrakh,Mayurbhanj, Balangir, Bargarh,Subarnapur, Nuapada,Kalahandi and Sundargarh.

The Council appreciatedefforts of alumni and schoolsfor such kind of financialmobilisation during Covid-19pandemic situation.

The Mo School Abhiyanwas launched by Chief MinisterNaveen Patnaik on November14, 2017 and has become oneof the largest alumni contribu-tion program in country withproject cost touching Rs 130crore mark in October, 2020,said Chief Operating Officer,

Mo School AbhiyanParichalana Sangathan AmarjitJena.The initiative of theOdisha Government is basedon philosophy of ‘giving back’to support schools for an exclu-sive process of growth, point-ed out Jena.

The Executive Councilmembers lauded the efforts ofdistricts like Bargarh,Kalahandi, Mayurbhanj,Cuttack and Jajpur for takingstrong initiatives in mobilisingalumni and leading pro-gramme on such a massivescale even during Covid-19pandemic.

The Council also discussedon the proposed collaborationwith Tata Trust, Round TableInternational, One School At ATime and decided to start pro-gram after formal approval ofState Government, saidsources.

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The Chauliaganj police onThursday nabbed another

accused in the alleged gang-rape case of a 15-year-old girlin Cuttack city. Earlier, thecops had detained a person inconnection with the incident.

The two accused, identi-fied as Santosh Behera andRakesh Rout, were arrestedwithin 24 hours of reportingthe incident,

Twin City Commissionerof Police Sudhansu Sarangiinformed through a tweetcongratulating the CuttackDCP for speedy action inconnection with the matter.

“Investigation will be

completed early for bothaccused to stand trial andjustice done,” added Sarangi.

A case has been registeredagainst the duo under Sections376 DA, 376(2)(n) of the IPCand Section 6 of the POCSOAct.

The police also raided achicken shop run by theaccused in the locality andseized liquor bottles, drugsand objectionable items.

Notably, the victim wasallegedly raped by two men ina house located at a secludedplace near Gatiroutpatnaunder the Chauliaganj PS herebefore the police rescued heron October 12 and handed herover to Child Line.

���� �6A+

For the Shree Setu project inPuri, a public hearing for

affected villages was held onWednesday by the administra-tion.In four separate places inthe city, the administration con-vened meetings of residents ofSamang, Matitota, DandimaliSahi and Markandswar Sahimauzas who are to be affectedby the project.

The hearing was basicallymade on various impacts suchas social, cultural, financial andenvironmental, besides rehabil-itation of residents of thoseareas.

The administration direct-ly talked to people and soughttheir opinions and suggestions.Puri ADM Subash ChandraNathsharma presided.Sourcessaid that for the Shree Sethu pro-ject, the administration is goingto acquire 37,987 acres of landof total existing 95,996 acres inthe areas in which 12,283 acresbelong to private people.

���� 1461�0.�2�A

Philatelist and writer AnilDhir has proposed the

Minister of Communicationsto issue postal stamps on theissue of Nirbhaya rape.

He urged this in the wakeof the National Philately Daybeing organised during thePostal Week.

In his letter to theMinister, Dhir has said phi-lately is a channel for theGovernment to educate thepopulace and affect socialawareness. Postage stampshave always been used ineducating citizens aboutsocial causes.

The effectiveness of phi-latelic materials for educatingthe population and raisingsocial awareness is estab-

lished. The rising number ofrapes in the nation hasbecome a matter of graveconcern. Repeated rape caseshave angered many Indians.New laws have been formu-lated with stringent punish-ments including the deathpenalty. But rapes still hap-pen, on a rising trend. Sadly,only two out of ten rapes arereported.

According to the latestdata collated by the NationalCrime Record Bureau, rape ismore common a crime thanmurder in India. The menaceof rape in India is not just alegal issue; we cannot ignoreits social aspect. Awarenessand education are the mosteffective and meaningful waysto prevent rape, he said.

He requested theMinister to include the topicof rape in the commemorativestamp issue programme thisyear. Since Independence,India Post has representedwomen and children on manyof its stamps. It is about time

that this national shame toois represented on Indianstamps. In fact, the India Postshould also undertake writingslogans on prevention of rapeon its Pass Books, stationeryand postal items and intro-duce slogan cancellations too.

Kashinath Sahoo, anoth-er eminent philatelist ofOdisha, too agrees to theproposal. He said that whileIndia Post issues commemo-

rative dtamps on trivial issuesand personalit ies, manyimportant social issues are notcovered.

Noted women rightsactivist Sukhvinder Kaur toois of the opinion that a mas-sive awareness campaign onrape laws, prevention, assis-tance to victims, speedy trials,police sensitisation etc. shouldbe undertaken by theGovernment.

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���� #6���#,

In a significant breakthrough,the Commissionerate police

on Wednesday busted a gun-running racket by arrestingfour illegal arms suppliers inCuttack city.

The cops seized five coun-try made pistols and a largenumber of live ammunitions.The four persons with criminalrecords were also arrested inconnection with the matter.

Sources said theChauliaganj police intercepteda Hyundai car coming fromJagatsinghpur side to the city

on suspicion. During search,five 9 mm country-made pis-tols and 50 bullets were recov-ered from the car. Also, thepolice seized the car and sevenmobile phones from the pos-session of the accused.

During questioning, theaccused accepted that theyused to procure illegal firearms from Munger district ofBiha and used to supply armsand ammunitions clandestine-

ly to criminals in Puri,Khordha, Cuttack,Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapada,Nayagarh, Jajpur andDhenkanal districts.Theaccused identified as SudhiraSwain from Jagatsinghpur,Sambit Nayak fromKendrapada, Muna ManojBehera and Prabhakar BeheraDilu Bani from the Delang areaof Puri district are all history-sheeters.

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���� 1461�0.�2�A

Ameeting by video linkwas held between the

Odisha DGP and his AndhraPradesh counterpart onThursday to discuss jointoperation and cooperation tocounter Leftwing insurgencyin the border areas of AndhraPradesh and Odisha.Cooperation in intelligence

sharing and joint operationswere discussed. A strategywas worked out for futureaction and further coopera-tion. BSF ADG, CRPF IG,MHA JS(LWE) MHA, DIGsand SPs of bordering districtsof Odisha and AndhraPradesh and other officials ofAndhra Pradesh Police andOdisha Police were, amongothers, present..

���� 1461�0.�2�A

The National HawkerFederation has warned to

gherao Chief Minister NaveenPatnaik’s residence NaveenNivas and the BhubaneswarMunicipal Corporation officehere if the illegal drive of shift-ing of street vendors is notstopped and shifted ones notresettled in the city soon.

“BMC CommissionerPrem Chandra Choudhury isforcibly evicting street ven-dors against the Supreme Courtand High Court orders.

The court has asked theBMC to hold discussion withthe street vendors to resettlethem at different places.However, the commissioner isevicting vendors from

Rajmahal Square to the SBIOffice area without holding anytalks with them,” said federa-tion State secretary PratapSahu.

Sahu said if theGovernment and the BMCdon’t resettle the evicted ven-dors as per court order, thou-sands of street vendors wouldgherao Naveen Nivas and theBMC soon.

���� #6���#,

The Orissa High Court onThursday issued notice to

the State Government on a PILfiled by BJP nationalspokesperson Sambit Patrachallenging the Government’sdecision to acquire a piece ofthe Bagala Dharmasala land inPuri and selling it to privateparties.

Adjourning the case toNovember 2, a Division Benchcomprising Chief JusticeMohammad Rafiq and JusticeBR Sarangi directed therespondents to file their coun-ters meanwhile.

Patra’s counsel PitambarAcharya told the court that theGovernment has transferredand sold the land, which wasthe property of Lord Jagannathin gross violation of the ofShree Jagannath Temple Act,1955. “The impugned action ofthe State authorities in chang-ing the status of the land andselling it is grossly illegal.

���� 1461�0.�2�A

Police on Thursday went toOTV’s Sarua office in

Khordha district to questionmedia organisation’s projectsite consultant Randhir Singhagainst whom complaintsregarding alleged casteist abus-es against two Dalits have beenlodged. However, Khordhapolice team led by SDPO SushilMishra returned empty-hand-ed without quizzing

him.Mishra said two criminalcases were registered underAtrocities Act with other sec-tions at Baghmari police stationagainst Singh based on com-plaints lodged by Dalits.

Despite fact that police hadintimated Singh earlier, he wasneither available nor respond-ed to repeated phone calls.“The police team later pasted anotice in front of Singh’s officeintimating him to questionhim on Friday,” he added.

���� 1461�0.�2�A

Odisha’s youngest scubadiver, Dubai-based 10-

year-old girl Tisya Panigrahidived 40 feet deep in the Gulfof Oman off the eastern coastof United Arab Emirates.

In her first dives afterobtaining her junior openwater scuba diver’s license,Tisya dived at two popular sitesof UAE - ‘Martini Rock’ and‘Hole in the Wall’, on October9. She dived along with herfather Priyadarshee Panigrahi,who is a certified open waterscuba diver.Tisya becameOdisha’s youngest scuba diveron August 22 when she quali-fied for the Junior Open WaterScuba Diver Licence.

���� ���1�3�6A

The Sambalpur districtadministration has launched

GAP INC’s PACE AdolescentGirls Life Skill TrainingProgramme, a globallyacclaimed scientifically devel-oped certified life skill trainingprogramme for adolescent girlsaged 11 to 17 years to addressthe age and gender specificchallenges that girls face duringadolescence period on theInternational Day of Girl Child-2020.

District Collector ShubhamSaxena said ‘PersonalAdvancement and CareerEnhancement’ (PACE) is anexclusive soft skill building train-ing programme of GAP Inc.designed to enhance skills ofgirls during the formative yearsto achieve their goals and makeinformed decision for improvedhealth and wellbeing. The train-ing will be delivered in com-munity settings as well as edu-

cational and training institutesof Sambalpur town, Sadar,Maneswar and Hirakud blocksand will impact 3,000 girls. TheFICCI FLO, Bhubaneswar, is theknowledge partner of the pro-gramme. FICCI FLO’s womenentrepreneurs and memberswill mentor the adolescent girls.

While launching the pro-gramme, the Collector,Sambalpur said, “Nearly 25 percent of the district populationare of adolescence groupsamong which nearly 50 percent are girls. Girls face multi-ple challenges by virtue of theirage and gender. To build the

capacities of the girls to handletheir problems and to act as‘change agents’, this life skilltraining will be an effectivetool."

He also added that the con-cerned departments will providenecessary support and reviewthe process of implementationperiodically to make the pro-gramme effective.

PD DRDA (Sambalpur),Sukant Tripathy said adoles-cence is a period when theintellectual, physical and all thecapabilities are very high, butwithout proper nurturing ado-lescents do not use their abilities.

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The Vigilance police onThursday arrested a Hindi

teacher on the charge of pos-sessing assets disproportionateto known sources of hisincome.

Bhubanananda Sahu of theJoshoda High School atJhadankuli under Rangeilundablock in Ganjam district wasarrested following simultane-ous raids at his houses at 10 dif-ferent locations in Brahmapur,Bhubaneswar and Puri town onWednesday.

During the raids, theVigilance officials detectedproperties worth about Rs 5crore, informed BrahmapurVigilance SP Anil Patra.Thesimultaneous searches wereconducted at the teacher’s res-

idential house atBaikunthanagar in Brahmapur,another house atBaikunthanagar, a four-storiedbuilding at Brahmanagar and ashop at Nimakhandi inBrahmapur, a house at KalpanaSquare in Bhubaneswar, a

3BHK flat at Sundarpada inBhubaneswar, a 1BHK flat atPuri town, his office at theJashoda High School, a houseat native place Chikiti inGanjam district and a privateschool run by his family mem-bers near Chikiti.

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There is widespread resent-ment among the farmers

here as crops of around 500acres land near the NalcoSmelter Plant have been dam-aged.

The farmers of Tulasipal,Gadarkhai, Languliabeda andBadibahal etc in a petition tothe Collector, Angul, com-plained that crops, vegetablesand other plants have beendamaged by toxic gas recentlyreleased by Nalco Smelter Plantnear their farm land.

The affected farmers peti-tioned that due to toxic gas pol-lution and subsequent damageof their crops, they have sus-tained heavy loss. They com-plained that the problem has

also been faced by the periph-eral villagers at regular interval.

They demanded immedi-ate payment of compensationfor the loss. Maheswar Dehury, village president of Gadarkhaieven urged the Government toshift their village from the pre-

sent place to get rid of Nalco'sregular pollution menace.

According to sources, dif-ferent agencies like the OdishaEnvironmental Society in 1995,the OUAT in 1995 , the StatePollution Control Board in1999 and 2002, the CRRI

,Cuttack in 2004 , the HouseCommittee, OLA in 2004 andthe EPTRI in 2006 have visit-ed Gadarkhai village and sub-mitted their reports statingthat pollution has affected theliving condition of the peopleof the periphery villages ofNalco in Angul district.

An affected farmer ShyamBiswal alleged that Nalco alu-minium smelter plant is emit-ting poisonous gas, which hasdamaged the villagers' paddycrops.

Their paddy crops hadturned from green to yellowand red. After the last rain theywere surprised to see thechange happening so quickly,overnight, and when theylooked around similar symp-toms were noticed in the trees,

hesaid. The factory has releasednoxious emission, mostly flu-oride wastes, when there was aheavy downpour. With therain water the fumes becametoxic rain and damaged thecrop, alleged Shyam.

However, this is not thefirst time such an incidenttook place. Several times localfarmers agitated against Nalcoholding it responsible for dam-age from pollution.

However, Nalco CMDShreedhar Patra refused to buythe story. "We have not emittedany toxic gas. Ours is the bestfluoride treatment plant," hetold. Meanwhile, after gettingthe complaint, the districtadministration has launched aprobe.

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Afamily of Banharpali villageunder the Balangir Sadar

police station has beenostracised by co-villagers afteran altercation between thefamily and its neigbour overdevouring of vegetable plantsby the latter’s cow.

The matter came to thefore after Jubak Kanda of vic-tim family lodged a complaintwith the police in this regardrecently. Kanda had cultivatedbeans on his farmland.

On October 9, a cow of hisneigbour Radhakanta Pradhandevoured some beans andplants. Soon, an altercationerupted between Kanda andPradhan.

Later, Kanda filed a policecomplaint against Pradhan.Angry at this, Pradhan alleged-ly instigated villagers not to talkwith Kanda’s family membersand cooperate with them in anyway. Even, the villagers didn’tpurchase ration from Kanda’sgrocery shop.

A village meeting held onOctober 11 decided that who-ever talks to Kanda’s familymembers would be penalisedof Rs 10,000.

“Nobody is coming to ourgrocery shop to buy ration.Nobody is talking to us. Myfamily members are not beingallowed to enter the villageplayground.

Fearing penalty, people arealso refusing to work on ourfarmland,” alleged Kanda in hisFIR.

He requested the police toconsider the matter and takestringent action against theerrant soon so that they canlead normal life in the village.

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A22-year-old youth wasarrested by police in

Kandhamal district onThursday for allegedly rapingand impregnating a 15-year-oldgirl.The accused was identifiedas Rohita Kahara (22) ofKelapada village under thePhiringia police station in thedistrict.

He has been booked underSections 376(3), 376(2)(n), 506of IPC and Section 6 of POCSOAct, and forwarded to court.Inanother, incident a 19-year-oldyouth was apprehended forallegedly kidnapping, confiningand raping a 15-year-old girl onpretext of marriage. Theaccused was identified as RituBhukta of Dangarpadar villageunder Phiringia police station.

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Aman was allegedly blud-geoned to death with

stones at Sisudihi village underthe Bonai police station inSundargarh district onWednesday night.

The deceased was identi-fied as Sudarshan Munda (41).According to reports, somemiscreant attacked Munda andcrushed him with a stone whilehe was sleeping at the verandahof his house.

Munda’s wife, who wassleeping near him, shouted forhelp following which neigh-bours rescued him and rushedhim to the Bonai Hospital,where he was declared dead.

The deceased’s wife onThursday lodged a complaintin this connection with Bonaipolice and alleged involvementof multiple persons in theattack.

Police have started investi-gation into the matter andtaken a minor relative ofMunda into custody for inter-rogation.It was suspected thatthe incident was fallout of pastenmity.

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Two young sisters went miss-ing after they jumped into

the Tel river under the Tushurapolice limits in Balangir districton Thursday. Locals said thatthe sister duo, residents ofGudbhela, jumped into river byholding each other’s hands.

A firefighting team andpolice personnel rushed siteand found a scooter and miss-ing sisters’ shoes on riverbridge. It was suspected that theduo came to place by their two-wheeler and took extreme stepto end their lives over‘unknown’ reason.

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Congress and BJD candi-dates Mamata Kundu and

Swarup Kumar Das, respec-tively, filed their nominationpapers for the November 3 by-election for the Baleswar SadarAssembly constituency onThursday.

For Kundu, Congress lead-ers Navjyoti Pattnayak,Sudarsan Das, Sanju Giri andPadmalochan Lenka, amongothers, were present on theoccasion.

For Das, BJD district pres-ident Rabindra Kumar Jena,party district observer MinisterPratap Jena, Ministers SamirRanjan Dash and Jyoti PrakashPanigrahi and senior MLA

Debi Prasad Mishra, amongmany others, were present.BJP candidate Manas KumarDutta, son of deceasedBaleswar Sadar MLA MadanMohan Dutta, had filed hisnomination on Wednesday.

The by-poll has beennecessitated due to MadanDutta’s demise. While theAssembly seat was won by theBJP in the last general elections,the BJD has now thrown its fullweight behind its candidate towin it in the by-poll. However,

the possibility of witnessing atriangular contest among theState’s three major parties is notruled out.Meanwhile, districtCollector K SudarshanChakravarthy on Thursdayflagged off SVEEP Rath togenerate awareness among thevoters regarding voting duringthe Covid period, EVM andVVPAT, etc.

As many as 32 such Rathsare to run to spread the aware-ness. Booth-level officers wouldbe monitoring the campaign.

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Gamblers seem to havebecome very active in parts

of Bargarh and Ganjam dis-tricts during the Covid pan-demic.

According to sources, morethan 20 owners of Sata areactive in the Bargarh town. TheSata gambling is called withnames like Nagmani, Bhutnath,Kurukhetra and Kalyana.

The gamblers have theirdens at Hatpada, Talipada,Bhatlichowk, Private Bus Stand,Railway Station, GandhiChowk, Ambapali and in theGovernment hospital area ofBargarh town. Now, the gam-blers are playing online. Theyare playing in mobiles andtaking wining money from in

solitary places. Police havefailed to find out such gam-blers. Those who play Sata arealso involved in loots, robberiesand other crimes for earningeasy money. Now, the game hasalso spread in rural areas.Locals have urged police to reinin the gamblers by adoptingnew methods.

In Brahmapur, heBadabazaar police arrested 14persons, including fourwomen, for gambling at LaxmiVihar 4th Lane on Thursday.The police seized Rs 2,15,100in cash, 11 mobile phones, amotorcycle and other incrim-inating materials from them.

It may be noted that arrestof gamblers has been reportedin Ganjam district several timesduring the ongoing period.

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Despite the Covid-19 pan-demic, Sundargarh

Sadar BJP MLA Kusum Tetehas started public grievancecampaign from October 12.She will go to 52 panchayatsof her constituency ti l lDecember 4, to listen thegrievance and difficulties ofthe people.

According to sources,MLA Tete on Monday went toMeghdega panchayat inTangerpalli block and visitedseven revenue villages.

She gave a patient hearingto them.On Tuesday, she wentto her own Tatladih panchay-at in Tangerpalli block andcovered three villages andfour slums. She went

Bhalubahal village which is ona hill where the villagers drewher attention to the need forconstruction of a road andprovision of other amenities.

On Wednesday, Tete wentto Raiboga panchayat ofLepripada block and coveredthree revenue villages andnine different slum areas.

MLA Tete went toNabhapada of Nuadih villagewhich is a remote area.

The vil lagers theredemanded improvement ofCommunity Health Centre,solar light in each lane,requirement of club house,construction of Jagannathtemple and High mast light inevery square of panchayat.MLA Tete has assured toresolve their difficulties.

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Three minor siblings diedand two others of their

family became critical due tofood poisoning at Kachelivillage in Malkangiri districton Wednesday night.Thedeceased were identified asSukanti Madi (12), SitaramMadi (7) and Anjali Madi (3).The critically-ill family mem-bers, identified as motherand elder sister of thedeceased, have been admittedto the District HeadquartersHospital.

Being informed by thevillage ANM, a team of doc-tors reached the village to takestock of the situation. Sourcessaid the four children andtheir mother complained ofuneasiness, vomiting andloose motions after havingbreakfast on Wednesdaymorning.

The ailing family mem-bers had consulted a quackbefore medical treatment,locals said.

As their health conditionstarted deteriorating, theywere shif ted to DHH.However, three of kids diedon Thursday morning whileundergoing treatment.

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With Union Minister Steeland Petroleum and

Natural Gas, DharmendraPradhan taking steps to sort outthe problems of the NeelachalIspat Nigam Limited (NINL),there is now hope for revival ofthe ailing public-sector steelplant.

Recently, Prdhan conveneda meeting with stakeholders toresolve the issues that havebeen hitting the NINL

NINL employees andworkers are facing acute crisisdue to nonpayment of salariesand wages for last eightmonths.

While huge amounts offinished goods are lying atNINL, selling these qualityproducts through the SteelAuthority of India Limited(SAIL) is an option as suggest-ed by Pradhan.

With disposal of the fin-ished goods and funds direct-ly credited to the NINLaccount, situation would some-how be saved, advised theMinister.

Though the UnionGovernment has decided dis-investment of the NINL on “As

is where is basis”, roping in theSAIL, the Rashtriya IspatNigam Limited (RINL) and theNational Mineral DevelopmentCorporation (NMDC) hasbeen favoured by NINLemployees and officers.

As the NMDC is a share-holder in the NINL, it wasdirected by Pradhan to send ateam of experts to the KoidaIron Ore Mines allotted to theNINL to explore various pos-sibilities.

Neelachal ExecutiveAssociation (NEA) general sec-retary Ajit Kumar Pradhan hassaid the NINL collective whole-heartedly supports such moves.

NINL employees and offi-cers have been drawing atten-tion of the Union Governmenttime and again in this regardand have requested it to explorethe possibilities of RINL, SAILand NMDC taking over theMMTC’s share in the NINL.

In this backdrop, the UnionGovernment has to take a finaldecision so that NINL, whichhas a potential to run a 10-mil-lion-tonne-per-annum plant,would be able to join the effortsof the Ministry of steel to pro-duce 300 million tonnes of steelby 2030-31, say officials.

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The Crime Branch SpecialTask Force (STF) on

Wednesday arrested an associ-ate of gangster Tito, identifiedas Sk Raja, in Bhadrak district.

STF officials seized a coun-try-made pistol, live bulletsand a motorcycle from hispossession.

The STF along with theBhadrak Rural police raided aplace near Charampa Bazaaand arrested Sk Raja, Raja, anative of Kendrapada, was stay-ing in Purunabazaar area andwas actively involved in crim-inal activities.

Raja has several casespending against him in differ-ent police stations. A caseunder Arms Act was registeredat Bhadrak rural police stationfor necessary legal action.

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Three candidates, includingthe Congress nominee Er

Himansu Bhusan Mallick, filedtheir nomination papers for theNovember 3 Tirtol Assemblyby-election before theReturning Officer on Thursday.

Two candidates RameshChandra Mallick and RabindraNath Sethy filed their papers asIndependent contestants.

Six candidates, those ofBJP, Congress and CPI andthree Independents have filednominations till Thursday,according to the DistrictElection Office.

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In a significant development,the Institute of Life Sciences

(ILS) reached the milestone oftesting 1,00,000 samples forCovid-19 through RT-PCR-based tests.

The testing at the ILS start-ed in April this year with 44samples and during the processthe testing facility was ramped upto test more than 1,000 samplesa day. The samples were provid-ed by the State Health andFamily Welfare Departmentfrom as many as 26 districts.

The entire testing was car-ried out in the newly commis-sioned biosafety level 3 labora-tory with advanced infrastruc-ture and equipment, followingbest of safety standards. Director,ILS Dr Ajay Parida mentionedthat the testing team of ILSincluded experienced facultiesand research students.

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Page 4: ...2020/10/16  · opening of 44 bridges in bor-der areas, including Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh, saying China has no locus standi to comment on India’s internal …

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BJP MP RajeevChandrasekhar on

Thursday dished out an eight-year-old report of theKarnataka MinorityCommission to allege a 29,000-acre Waqf land fraud inKarnataka allegedly involvingpolitical leaders likeMallikarjun Kharge and CMIbrahim.

Addressing a press confer-ence here, the MP who is alsoa national spokesperson of theBJP, said the land donated toWaqf Board is only to be usedfor poor Muslims and accord-ing to a Supreme Court ruling,the land can “never be sold,converted or used for otherpurposes”

Chandrasekhar alleged that29,000 acres in the State were putto commercial use and not forbuilding hospitals, educationalinstitutions or for other charita-ble works for the poor of theminority community.

Taking a dig at former PrimeMinister Manmohan Singh,whom he quoted as saying that‘minorities have the first right onthe country resouces’, the BJPMP wondered why Singh couldnot look at the exploitation ofWaqf land and the “long processof exploitation of poor Muslimsfor vote bank politics.”

It is also an economic andfinancial exploitation of poorMuslims, he said.

The BJP spokesman saidseveral political leaders includ-ing those from Congress likeKharge and Ibrahim werenamed in the report whichalleges “massive Waqf landfraud.”

The BJP leader demandedinvestigations into all waqfBoards including those ofKarnataka, Maharashtra and

Uttar Pradesh.The BJP Government in

Karnataka had on September 23this year tabled the 2012 reportin the Assembly on encroach-ment of Waqf properties acrossthe state.

This was at a time when theruling BJP government hadcome under attack fromCongress members in the stateAssembly over alleged corrup-tion charges in the procure-ment of COVID-19 related med-ical equipment and in manage-ment of the pandemic.

The state government appar-ently sought to turn the tables onthe opposition by tabling theeight-year-old report thatincriminated several seniorCongress leaders over the mis-use of Waqf properties.

The 7,500-page report,which was prepared by BJPspokesperson Anwar Manippadyfrom Mangaluru when he waschairman of the minorities com-mission during the party’s pre-vious regime, highlighted grossencroachment of Waqf proper-ties.

The report also named MLANA Haris, former ministersTanveer Sait and Roshan Baigand former Rajya Sabha mem-ber Rehman Khan.

Late Chief Minister DharamSingh and late former Unionminister C K Jaffer Sharief werealso said to have been named inthe report.

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The National InvestigationAgency (NIA) probing the

Kerala gold smuggling casehas told a special court inKochi that it suspected thelink of underworld donDawood Ibrahim’s gang in thesensational racket.

Arguing that the detentionof all the accused in judicialcustody up to 180 days wasabsolutely necessary to carryforward the investigation in thecase, the agency on Wednesdaysaid there were intelligenceinputs regarding probable useof proceeds from the goldsmuggling for anti-nationaland terrorism activities.

Through the additionalcounter of the nexus betweenthe gold smuggling caseaccused and Dawood at theSpecial NIA Court, Kochi the

agency strongly opposed thebail pleas of all the accusedarrested in connection with thecase. The case relates to smug-gling of gold through diplo-matic channel.

Ramees, fifth accused inthe case, during custodialinterrogation, has revealedthat he had attempted to starta diamond business inTanzania and that later hehad attempted to obtain agold mining licence inTanzania, the NIA said.

He had also stated abouthaving brought gold fromTanzania and sold the same inUAE, it said and quoting UNSecurity Council SanctionsCommittee’s narrative sum-mary on Dawood and factsheet published by the USDepartment of Treasuryspecifically mentioned abouthis gang’s activities in Africa.

“Recent news reports have

also specifically mentionedthe diamond business ofDawood Ibrahim in Tanzania,managed by his associate“Feroz”, considered a southIndian by intelligence agen-

cies”, the agency said in thereport, indicating the sus-pected link needed to beprobed.

NIA further said theCentral Economic Intelligence

Bureau (CEIB), the apex intel-ligence body for economicagencies in India, had sent areport to the Director Generalof NIA during October, 2019regarding the probable use of

proceeds from gold smug-gling in Kerala, for terrorismand other anti-national activ-ities.

The agency submitted theintelligence report to theCourt in a sealed envelope. “Itis submitted that the factsnow emerging during investi-gation, regarding the chargesunder Sections 17 and /or 18of the UAPA Act againstaccused with otherwise appar-ently minor roles, indicatethat the intelligence inputreceived from CEIB, leading toNIA investigation in thiscrime, is gaining credence.”

In the report, the NIAalso said the 12th accusedMohammed Ali was a memberof “fundamentalist organisa-tion Popular Front of India”and was charge-sheeted bypolice in the Kerala professorhand chopping case in 2010but acquitted as more than 90

prosecution witnesses hadturned hostile during trial. Itsaid the scrutiny of dataretrieved by C-DAC from theseized mobile phone of Ali hasrevealed that he had formattedhis phone on July 19 after hisrole in the smuggling case sur-faced. However, from the lim-ited data retrieved by C-DAC,pictures of paper slips depict-ing details of huge cash trans-actions amounting to severallakhs of rupees, including onetransaction of �15 lakhsspecifically attributed to one“Jalal”, have been retrieved,NIA said. His suspicious cashtransactions need to be ascer-tained further through custo-dial interrogation afteradvanced forensic analysis andextraction of more data fromhis formatted mobile phone,the agency added.

Leaders of the Oppositionparties in Kerala on Thursday

slammed Kerala ChiefMinister Pinarayi Vijayan afterthe NIA’s revelation of theDawood connection in thegold smuggling case.

Kerala’s BJP chief KSurendran accused the gov-ernment of shielding thesmugglers and demanded thatthe Chief Minister resign as hehas “lost moral rights to con-tinue.” “The relationship of theaccused in the GoldSmuggling Case with D-com-pany and ISIS has been estab-lished,” he said.

Reacting to the revela-tion, Congress leader RameshChennithala said, “It is veryshocking that the main culpritin the gold smuggling case hasconnections with DawoodIbrahim. It is one of the biggestcrimes that happened inKerala. Unfortunately, the stategovernment was supportingthe culprits.”

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Managing Covid-19 byallowing herd immunity to

develop in low-risk populationswhile protecting the most vul-nerable is “a dangerous fallacyunsupported by the scientificevidence,” an internationalgroup of 80 researchers havewarned.

In an open letter, publishedin The Lancet journal, theauthors noted that any pan-demic management strategyrelying upon the population todevelop immunity from natur-al infections for Covid-19 isflawed and currently there is noevidence for lasting protectiveimmunity to SARS-CoV-2 afternatural infection.

The statement from theresearchers from various fieldscomes days after the WorldHealth Organisation (WHO)also advised against any attemptsto achieve herd immunity or tohope that it will eventually saveus. “Herd immunity or naturalpopulation immunity is not anoption. Let’s put our energy,focus, workforce, actions intowhat works.” Maria VanKerkhove, Covid19 TechnicalLead, WHO had said.

They pointed out that nat-ural infection-based herdimmunity approaches riskimpacting the workforce as awhole and overwhelming theability of healthcare systems toprovide acute and routine care.

In the face of a secondwave of infection in severalparts of the world, the scien-tists including Devi Sridharfrom the University ofEdinburgh in the UK, saidthere is currently renewedinterest in herd immunityapproaches allowing a largeuncontrolled outbreak in low-risk populations while pro-tecting the vulnerable.

While some have arguedthis approach could lead to thedevelopment of infection-acquired immunity in the low-risk population, which will

eventually protect the vulner-able, the researchers explainedsuch uncontrolled transmis-sion in younger people riskssignificant ill-health and death.

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In India, only 2.40 million outof an estimated 2.64 million

cases of tuberculosis werereported to the Government,that is, 2,40,000 TB patientswent unreported in 2019,according to the recentlyreleased WHO GlobalTuberculosis Report 2020.

Following the imposition ofnational lockdown amid theCorona triggered lockdown,the weekly and monthly num-ber of TB case notifications inIndia fell by more than 50 percent between the end of Marchand late April, said the report.Compared with the first sixmonths of 2019, monthly noti-fications in the first six monthsof 2020 were approximately25–30 per cent lower in India,Indonesia and the Philippines

The reporting of TB cases,however, has significantlyincreased over the years inIndia: from 1.74 million in2015 to 2.40 million in 2019.Notifications of people newlydiagnosed with TB rose from 1.2million to 2.2 million between2013 and 2019 (+74%) while in2018, the country had an esti-mated 2.69 million TB patients.

The number of laboratory-confirmed multi-drug resistantTB cases has increased from

58,347 in 2018 to 66,255 in 2019,said the report.

“As a result, universal drugsusceptibility testing, the num-ber of bacteriologically con-firmed TB cases tested forrifampicin resistance hasincreased from 46% in 2018 to77% in 2019, This is a criticalimprovement that helps detectdrug resistance at the very out-set and before initiation of treat-ment,” said the report.

The incidence per 100,000population has decreased from199 in 2018 to 193 in 2019. Thetotal TB incidence rate in Indiahas decreased by almost 50,000patients over the past one year,it added.

On TB funding in India, thereport says findings say that thenational TB budget in 2019 was$497 million of which 85%came from domestic sourcesand 15% from external anddonor agencies. About 77% ofthe total budget of $583 millioncame from domestic resources.“This is a significant increase ascompared to 2016 numberswhen the national TB budgetwas US$ 280 million and only38% of it coming from domes-tic resources.” The Global TBreport has collated data fromover 200 countries that hasshown significant reductionsin TB case notifications.

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The CBI on Thursday yetagain clarified that it con-

tinues to investigate the deathof film star Sushant SinghRajput and rubbished mediareports claiming the agency hasreached a conclusion in itsprobe in the case.

“There are certain specu-lative reports in media that theCBI has reached a conclusion.It may be reiterated that thesereports are speculative anderroneous,” it said in a state-ment on Thursday. This is thethird clarification given by theCBI in nearly one and a halfmonths.

The clarification comesafter media reports onThursday claimed the agency’sprobe has veered around thesuicide theory as pointed out bythe AIIMS medical board andthe CBI will accordingly sub-mit the report before the con-cerned court soon. The “spec-ulative” reports also claimedthere was no foul play. Themedia report comes days afterthe AIIMS medical board ruledout murder theories and con-cluded that Sushant SinghRajput’s death was a result ofsuicide.

In its report submitted onSeptember 29, the Dr SudhirGupta-led AIIMS panel re-examined Rajput’s post-mortem and viscera reportsand concluded that it was a caseof suicide. The report ruled outthe possibility of any foul playor murder angle in the case.

“The Central Bureau ofInvestigation is conducting

professional investigation relat-ed to death of Shri SushantSingh Rajput in which allaspects are being looked at andno aspect has been ruled out asof date. Investigation is con-tinuing,” the CBI had said in astatement on September 28following similar mediareports.

On September 3, the CBIhad said, “The CBI is con-ducting investigation related todeath of Sh. Sushant SinghRajput in a systematic andprofessional way. Certainmedia reports attributed toCBI investigation are specula-tive and not based on facts. Itis reiterated that as a matter ofPolicy, CBI does not sharedetails of ongoing investigation.CBI spokesperson or any teammember has not shared anydetails of investigation withmedia. The details beingreported and attributed to CBIare not credible.”

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The Supreme CourtThursday sought the

Centre’s response on a PIL forregulating OTT platformssuch as Netflix and AmazonPrime by an autonomousbody.

A bench comprisingChief Justice S A Bobde andJustices A S Bopanna and VRamasubramanian issuednotices to the central gov-ernment, Ministr y ofInformation and Broadcastingand Internet and MobileAssociation of India.

“We will issue notice,” theapex court said while hearingthe plea filed by advocatesShashank Shekhar Jha andApurva Arhatia seeking aproper board/institution/association for the monitor-ing and management of con-tent on dif ferentOTT/Streaming and digitalmedia platforms.

“With cinemas theatresunlikely to open anytime soonin the countr y,OTT/Streaming and differentdigital media platforms havesurely given a way out for filmmakers and artists to releasetheir content without beingworried about gett ing clearance certificates for theirfilms and series from thecensor board,” the plea said.

At present, however, thereis no law or autonomousbody governing the digitalcontent to monitor and manage these digital contents and it is made avail-able to the public at largewithout any filter or screen-ing, it said.

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The burning of paddy crop residuecontinued in Punjab, Haryana and

Uttar Pradesh as satellite images detect-ed 711 incidents, the highest in a sin-gle day this year, on October 14.

The images showed 616 in Punjab,87 in Haryana and 08 in Uttar Pradesh.This year, 4015 incidents were detectedin three states between October 1 and 15as compared to the 2119 incidents in2019 and 2151 in 2018. The highest inci-dents have been reported in Punjab(3029), followed by Haryana (737) andUP (249). As per data, Haryana and UPhave recorded less incidents of farm firesas compared to the last year.

Flagging off 50 inspection teams ofthe Central Pollution Control Board(CPCB) for field visits to keep a watchon pollution hot spots, UnionEnvironment Minister PrakashJavadekar on Thursday said that only 4per cent pollution is due to stubble burn-ing and 96 percent of it is due to localfactors like biomass burning, garbagedumping, unpaved roads, dust, con-struction and demolition activities.

“I appeal to the Punjab governmentto swing into action and curb stubbleburning. I went to attend a programmein Ludhiana last year. On my way back,my throat choked due to the smoke fromstubble burning even when I was in anair-conditioned car,” the minister said.

The data showed that 247 incidentswere detected on October 13; 362 on

October 12; 333 on October 11; 238 onOctober 10; 310 on October 9 and 126on October 9. , The incidents of farmfires were recorded 856 in 2019; 774 in2018; 2731 in 2017 and 4339 in 2016during the same period (betweenOctober 1 and 14) in the State. Majorityof farm fires cases are reported inAmritsar, Tarn Taran and Patiala,Gurdaspur and Ferozepur districts.

With 779 farm fire incidents,Amritsar district ranks on the top,closely followed by Tarn Taran (743incidents), Patiala (322 incidents)and Gurdaspur (208 incidents),(Ferozpur 195) districts, as of October12, 2020.

The satellite images showed 737incidents in Haryana and majority ofthem from Kurukshetra, Karnal,Fatehabad, Yamunanagar, Sirsa,Sonipat, Hisar and Ambala regions.The farm fire incidents are less thisyear as compared to the last year of992 in 2019; 965 in 2018; 1647 in 2017and 2074 in 2016. With 164,Kurukshetra is top in the list, followedby Karnal (154 incidents), Ambala(110 incidents), Kaithal (99), Jind ( 43incidents) and Fatehabad (58 inci-dents) so far.

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Just like many human beings,cows also prefer a face-to-

face chat, a team of researcherssaid after they found that thefour-legged cattle were actual-ly more relaxed when spokento directly by a live human,rather than when listening to arecorded voice via a loud-speaker.

How did they find that thebovine animals were happy?The study published in journalFrontiers in Psychology said,“Heart rate variability washigher when cattle were spokento directly, indicating they wereenjoying themselves.

“After this treatment,heart rates were lower thanafter listening to a recordedvoice, showing that the ani-mals were more relaxed fol-lowing the live chat.”

“Cattle like stroking incombination with gentle talk-ing,” said Annika Lange of theUniversity of VeterinaryMedicine, Vienna, Austria.“In scientific contexts, arecording of a human voicespeaking gently could be usedto relax the animals, becauseit can be difficult to repeat thesame phrases in the same wayduring experiments.”

Using a recorded voicemeans conditions are as sim-ilar as possible in each trial,following a concept known as

“standardization” -- an impor-tant principle of scientificexperimentation.

The team worked with aherd of 28 cattle, comparingthe benefits of either strokingthe animals while playing arecording of an experimenter’svoice, or stroking while speak-ing to the animals directly.After monitoring the animals’responses during the experi-ments, they found live talkingwas the best mood enhancerfor their bovine friends.

How does a chilled cowbehave? “When relaxed andenjoying the interaction, theanimals will often stretch outtheir necks as they do whenthey groom each other,” saysLange. “Additionally, it isthought that ear positionsmay indicate mood: hangingears and low ear positionsappear to be linked to relax-ation.”

Lange calls for furtherresearch to see if results arealso valid for different herdsand situations, such as withcows that are more fearful ofhumans.

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Congress leader RahulGandhi on Thursday

morning asked twitterati aboutwhat is common betweencountries like Pakistan,Afghanistan and Vietnam, Iraq,Korea and Syria. Later in theday answering his own ques-tion, Rahul Gandhi said thatleaders of these countries divid-ed them internally, which madethese countries battlegroundbetween dominant powers.During the day it was taken asa veiled attack on the NarendraModi Government by drawingparallel with the leaders of theabove-mentioned countries.

The Gandhi scion onThursday morning tweeted,“Can anyone guess what’s com-mon between these countries:Pakistan, Iraq, Korea, Vietnam,Syria and Afghanistan”.Answering his own tweet laterin the evening, he said, “Theirleaders divided them internal-ly and let their countriesbecome battlegrounds betweenthe dominant powers of theirtime. Their people paid for theleaders’ actions with blood andtears.”

On Wednesday also, RahulGandhi took a dig at NarendraModi over the InternationalMonetary Fund’s (IMF) com-parison of the country’s percapita Gross Domestic Product(GDP) with that of neigh-bouring Bangladesh.

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Mumbai: Following the fakeTelevision Rating Points (TRP)scam, the Broadcast AudienceResearch Council (BARC) onThursday announced a tem-porary suspension of weeklyratings of news channels acrosslanguages.

The council intends toreview and augment the cur-rent standards of measure-ment to improve on “statisticalrobustness”, and the exercisewill result in a “pause” in the

weekly ratings for up to 12weeks, an official statementsaid.

At least five people havebeen arrested by the city policewhich busted the scam earlierthis month.

Those arrested includenews channel employees, whilethe police is also questioningexecutives of Arnab Goswami-led Republic TV with regard tothe case. Republic TV hasdenied any wrongdoing. PTI

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KOCHI: Akkitham AchuthanNamboodiri, the Maha Kavi(Great Poet) of Malayalam,breathed his last on Thursdaymorning. He was 94 and wasadmitted to a corporate hospi-tal in Thrissur on Monday fol-lowing urinary infection.

More than a poet,Akkitham, as he was known,was a social reformer whofought against social evils likeuntouchability, gender dis-crimination, and religious fun-damentalism.

He was awarded theJnanpith Prize, India’s greatestliterary honour, in the year2019. It may be a strange coin-cidence that the poet was pre-sented the award in the lastweek of September 2020.

For more than six decades,Akkitham remained as a bea-con of hope for Malayalam lit-erature which lost its waybecause of the invasion byultra-modern literature. “Hewas the eternal rebel.

He revolted against theage-old dogmas and tradition-al chauvinism. All his poemswere creative conflicts and hewas the Prophet of Love,” saidProf P G Haridas, long-timeassociate of the late poet.According to the veteran pro-fessor, Akkitham was the man-ifestation of Budhist teach-ings. “While Budha tried torevolutionise the societythrough stories and speeches,Akkitham represented itthrough poetry,” he said. PNS

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Acase has been filed in CJMcourt against Union Home

Minister Amit Shah. The Courthas appointed the date ofNovember 12 for a hearing onthis case.

In the suit filed by advocateKhurshidur Rehman, residentof Alam Bagh Bhamola of CivilLine area, it is stated that dur-ing the Parliamentary LokSabha election of 2014, the BJPsaid in its manifesto “Sabkasath, sabka vikaas”. In the ral-lies and meetings, theypromised 100 new cities, devel-oping backward districts, for-mulating comprehensivenational energy policy, build-ing gas grids, building a nation-al Wi-Fi network and wonvotes by such kind of promis-es.

When, after 5 years, theinformation related to the com-pletion of the announcementswas sought, it was found thatthe promises and works havenot been done.

Aligarh: In the beautificationconstruction work ofAnchaltal, RED (RuralEngineering Department) gotfined of �30.50 lakhs for neg-ligence in the payment of thecontractor. On the directions ofthe High Court, the CommerceCourt has recovered thisamount from the department.The High Court has giventhese instructions followingthe order of the ArbitrationCourt of Agra. However, thehearing appeal from thedepartment is still pending inthe High Court.

The district administra-tion sent a proposal to thetourism department for therenovation of four placesincluding Achleshwar. In 2007,the tourism departmentreleased about five crore rupeeson this proposal. PNS

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After the lockdown, finallyschools and colleges are

going to open from October 19.Precautionary classes are beingprepared to conduct classesfrom 9 to 12. In this regard, DMtook a meeting and instructedthe operators to ensure sanitiz-er, hand wash, thermal screen-ing and system of first aid in thecampus. Also, orders have beengiven to sanitize the entireschool premises. He also saidthat covid help desk should beestablished in every school andcollege.

DM ordered the operatorsto do sanitization before open-

ing the school.DM Chandra Bhushan

Singh said that if any studentteacher or other personnel havecough and cold, symptoms offever, then they should be senthome after first aid. At thetime of entry in the school andleaving, all need to ensure com-pliance of social distancing atthe main gate. He said the stu-dents should not to be dis-charged simultaneously at atime.

School buses, other trans-port vehicles should be sanitizeddaily and social distancing in theseating arrangement should beensured. It will be mandatoryfor the employees to wear mask.

Jammu: Lieutenant Governor, ManojSinha, who is also Chairman of ShriMata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board onThursday launched a Mobile App forthe devotees of Shri Mata VaishnoDevi Ji at the Civil Secretariat inSrinagar .

This new initiative has beentaken by the Shrine Board with a viewto maximise the use of availabletechnology and digitization for thelarger facilitation of the devotees ofShri Mata Vaishno Devi Ji. Themobile app would provide the oppor-tunity to the worshippers across theglobe to have an individual experienceof godliness and bliss. During theupcoming Navratras, live streamingof Shat Chandi Maha Yagya beingperformed at the Holy Cave Shrinewill also be available on this App.

In the first instance, the Mobile

App has been launched on GooglePlay Store only which will later alsobe available on IOS platform.

Speaking on the occasion, the LtGovernor said that the Mobile Appwill be of immense help to the devo-tees worldwide to have the live dar-shan of Maa Vaishno Devi, besidesavailing various other facilities madeavailable by the Shrine Board throughthis medium.

Referring to the recently launchedhome delivery of Pooja Prasad by theBoard, he said that it has been wide-ly appreciated by the devotees. He alsostressed that during the current situ-ation due to COVID-19, the adoptionof online services need to be pro-moted in a big way to maintain socialdistancing and other preventive mea-sures to control the spread of pan-demic. PNS

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The Jammu & KashmirGovernment on Thursday

signed a Memorandum ofUnderstanding (MoU) withone of the county’s prominentonline retailers, Flipkart toprovide an online platformfor showcasing and facilitatingthe local artisans/crafts-men/weavers to reach cus-tomers across the globe.

The MoU was signed in thepresence of Manoj Sinha,Lieutenant Governor, UT ofJ&K between Hashmat Ali,Managing Director, J&KHandloom and Handicrafts Corporation andRajneesh Kumar, ChiefCorporate Affairs Officer,Flipkart Group.

According to a spokesmanof the Jammu and Kashmirgovernment, “The special web-portal “Samarth” of e-com-merce giant Flipkart will nowcater to hitherto uncoveredproducts of Handicrafts andHandloom of J&K”.

The spokesman said, theendeavour is seen as a gamechanger for on-boarding, sale

and cataloguing of Handicraftsand Handloom products ofJ&K”.

The step by theGovernment at the time whenthe entire Country is reelingunder the pressures of COVID-19 Pandemic shall providemuch-needed succour to theartisans, craftsperson andweavers in J&K.

The move by theGovernment shall expose arti-sans, craftspersons and weaversto millions of customers shop-ping online thereby ensuringefficient marketing that toowhen virtual marketing hasovertaken the physical mar-keting of goods and servicesacross the globe, thespokesman added.

Speaking on the occasion,the Lt Governor appreciatedthe art of artisans and weaversof J&K. He emphasized that theinitiative by the Government ismore beneficial to the Flipkartthan to the artists of J&K giventhe kind of unmatched, unique,world-class and nowhere-elseto be seen artistry and dexter-ity of the artisans of J&K.

KOCHI: The CBI on Thursday approached theKerala High Court with a plea to reconsider thestay ordered by the court into the allegations ofcorruption and money laundering in the LIFEMission project of the Kerala Government.

The Court has stayed the CBI probe into theallegations against LIFE Mission Chief ExecutiveOfficer U V Jose even as it allowed the agencyto go ahead with the probe against Unitac, theproject implementing concern.

The CBI in its petition told the Court thatthe stay on the probe against Jose was affectingthe entire investigation process including the vio-lation of Foreign Currency Regulation Act(FCRA). The High Court is expected to take upthe case on Monday.

Meanwhile another bench of the court onThursday issued an order against the arrest of MSivsankar, the former Principal Secretary of ChiefMinister Pinarayi Vijayan by the EnforcementDirectorate till October 23 in connection with thegold smuggling case. Sivsankar was questionedby the ED in its Kochi office on Thursday. PNS

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CHENNAI: AMMK treasurerand former MLA P Vetrivel aclose confidante of partyfounder TTV Dhinakaran ,died in a private hospital inChennai on Thursday where hewas under treatment for Covid-19.

Vetrivel, who was elected tothe assembly from Peramburconstituency in the 2016 elec-tion as an AIADMK candidatewas disqualified by Speaker PDhanapal in 2017 when healong with 17 other MLAswithdrew support to ChiefMinister EdappadiPalaniswamy at the instance ofDhinakaran. PNS

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New Delhi: In the wake of thealleged case of gangrape inUttar Pradesh's Hathras, a par-liamentary panel has calledtop Union Home Ministry offi-cials to appear before it nextweek and brief the members on'Atrocities and Crime AgainstWomen', sources said onThursday.

They said the home secre-tary has been called to appearbefore the ParliamentaryStanding Committee on HomeAffairs and is expected to briefit on the issue of crimes againstwomen. Besides this, the recon-stituted panel will also discussissues related to the manage-ment of the COVID-19 pan-demic.

The ParliamentaryStanding Committee on HomeAffairs chaired by seniorCongress leader Anand Sharmawill be briefed by the officialsof the Home Ministry onOctober 22 on the subject of'Atrocities and Crime AgainstWomen', according to a notice

issued by Rajya SabhaSecretariat.

India recorded on an aver-age 87 rape cases daily in 2019and overall 4,05,861 cases ofcrime against women duringthe year, a rise of over 7 per centfrom 2018, according to the lat-est government data. The coun-try recorded 3,78,236 cases ofcrimes against women in 2018,the data compiled by theNational Crime RecordsBureau (NCRB) showed. Atotal of 32,033 cases of rapewere lodged in 2019, which was7.3 per cent of all crimes againstwomen during the year.

In 2018, as many as 33,356rapes were recorded across thecountry, up from 32,559 in2017, according to the datafrom corresponding years. TheNCRB, which functions underthe Union Home Ministry, istasked with collecting andanalysing crime data as definedby the Indian Penal Code andspecial and local laws in thecountry. PNS

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The Calcutta High Court on Thursdaydelivered a rap on the Trinamool

Congress Government’s knuckles askingwhy the State doled out �50,000 each tothe various committees organizing DurgaPuja and why in the first place theGovernment allowed organisation ofcommunity Pujas when the schools andcolleges remained shut in a pandemic sit-uation.

The Division Bench of Justices SanjibBanerjee and Arijit Banerjee was hearinga petition challenging the grant of dolesby the State Government to various Pujacommittees.

Wondering the Government doledout similar grants for the other festivalssuch as Eid, the Court asked whether therewere any guidelines for making suchexpenditure, that too amid various aus-

terity measures taken by all concernedduring the corona times.

When Advocate General KishoreDutta said that the grants were made tothe committees for raising public aware-ness and to purchase provisions likemasks, sanitisers to fight corona pandemica task which in any case was being under-taken by the State police as had earlierbeen claimed by the Government.

The Court wondered when the Policewere doing such jobs why then grants hadto be made to the clubs.

On the reasonability of allowingmass organization of Durga Pujas like anyother normal occasion attracting crowdsthe court also asked whether any blueprintfor crowd control during Durga Puja --which is barely a week away had been putin place by the government to prevent thespread of the virus that had already killedmore than 5,000 people in Bengal.

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At least 10 persons were killed, heavyinundation was reported from many

towns and villages and road and railtransport was affected in parts ofMaharashtra on Thursday, as heavy rainbattered several parts of the state aheadof the passage of cyclonic storm over thestate on Friday.

While six persons were killed whena wall crashed in the pilgrim town ofPandharpur in Solapur district in west-ern Maharashtra, three persons drownedin floods in Pune. In another incident,one person was killed after a car carry-ing three persons washed away inswollen waters of Solapur.

Following the release of excesswater from the Ujani and Veer dams,Pandhapur faced a major flood situation.The released dam water inundatedmany villages around Pandharpur, crip-pling normal life and paralysing traffic

in the area.Reports reaching the state head-

quarters said that as many as 8,400 liv-ing in the areas in and aroundPandharpur were shifted to safe areas bythe police.

Among the districts that were affect-ed by heavy rains and the consequentfloods were Solapur, Kolhpaur, Sangli,Pune and Satara in western Maharashtraand Latur, Osmanabad and Beed dis-tricts in Marathwada region.

Talking to media persons afterreviewing the flood situation in the state,Maharashtra chief minister UddhavThackeray said that the Army, Navy andAir Force had been kept on high alertto deal with the flood-affected areas inthe state. “The teams of NationalDisaster Response Force are currentlyengaged in rescue and relief operationsin Osmanabad, Solapur, Pandharpurand Baramati,” he said.

The chief minister said that he had

directed the revenue authorities in theflood affected areas to do panchnama ofthe destroyed crops and damaged prop-erty.

Many big and small rivers likeChandrabhaga (Solapur), Panchganga(Kolhapur), Terna (Latur & Osmanabad)and a few rivers in Pune have been inspate since Thursday morning.

Following heavy overnight nightrains and release of excess water fromUjani and Veer dams, vast tracts of agri-cultural land lay under thick sheets ofwater leading to extensive damage tostanding crops.

Meanwhile, the IndiaMeteorological Department (IMD) hassounded a ‘red alert’ for the next 48hours in the coastal Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg districts which are likely towitness heavy rain and thunderstorms,and fishermen on the entire coastalstretch have been advised against ven-turing into the Arabin Sea.

Jammu: Strongly reacting to theannouncement of PeoplesAlliance for Gupkar Declarationby the several Kashmir basedpolitical parties, State Presidentof Bharatiya Janta Party(BJP)Ravinder Raina said, “Thealliance framed by AbdullahPariwar and Mufti Pariwar inKashmir valley is not a People'sAlliance. It is an alliance ofpower seekers in Kashmir val-ley under the ambit of Gupkaragenda”.

Raina said, “Abdullah pari-war and Mufti pariwar are try-ing to instigate the commonkashmiri against India but thepeople in J&K knows the nefar-ious designs of these leaders”. Hesaid, “they are dancing and act-ing on the tunes of anti-nation-al forces. They don't want peaceand harmony in J&K. They justwant blood bath,terrorism, stonepleting. They are always doingpolitics over dead bodies inJammu&Kashmir”.

Raina said, “We will neverever allow the Abdullah pariwarand Mufti pariwar to carry for-ward their anti national agendain J&K”. PNS

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The MVA Government suf-fered a jolt on Thursday, as

a district court in Amravati ofeastern Maharashtra sentencedMaharashtra Minister forWomen and Child Welfare andCongress leader YashomatiThakur to three months’imprisonment and imposed afine of �15,000 by for alleged-ly assaulting a police constableeight years ago.

District and Sessions Judgeof Amravati Urmila Joshi alsoconvicted three others, com-prising her Tkakur’s driver andtwo of her party associates, inthe eight-year-old case andsentenced them to threemonths’ imprisonment andimposed a fine of �15,000 eachon them.

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The Advanced TowedArtillery Gun System(ATAGS) programmebegan in 2012, spear-headed by the Defence

Research and DevelopmentOrganisation (DRDO), with twostrategic partners — the BharatForge Limited (BFL) and TataPower Strategic EngineeringDivision (SED). The DefenceAcquisition Council (DAC) hadratified the procurement of 150ATAGS in August 2018. However,the process of developing themstarted way back in 2013 and con-cluded by 2017. The howitzer gunsystem was developed in a recordtime of 30 months and has gonethrough extensive trials over thelast four years and performedadmirably with remarkable con-sistency.

The ATAGS is one of the mostadvanced and perhaps the world’sfirst gun which is capable ofdelivering Bi-Modular ChargeSystem (BMCS) zone seven pro-pellants. With a firing range of 48km — a record of sorts in the 155millimetre/52 calibre family — theATAGS is an appendage to theindigenously developed 155 mil-limetre/45 calibre artillery gunDhanush.

Dhanush is a derivative of theFH-77B 155mm/39 calibre towedhowitzer, previously built by theSwedish defence contractorBofors. The Indian Army pro-cured a total of 414 Swedish how-itzers between 1987 and 1991.Dhanush howitzers have a maxi-mum effective range of 38 km insalvo mode as compared to the 48km of the ATAGS.

The India-made ATAGS con-sists of a duel power system wherehydraulics is used for mobility andgun in/out action whereas electri-cal power is used for the GunLaying and AmmunitionHandling System (AHS). The sys-tem is configured with an all-elec-tric drive that ensures mainte-nance-free and reliable and secureoperations over a long period oftime. The gun system has auto-matic setting up, laying with ahigh-end Inertial NavigationSystem (INS) and automatedAHS, which loads shell, chargeand primer simultaneously with amanual back-up for the laying sys-tem. The gun system’s hydraulicdrive provides effective manoeu-verability in different terrains —on roads, cross country, in the

desert and in high altitudeareas. The high powerAuxiliary Power Unit (made inIndia) also renders effectiveself-propelled speed, rapiddeployment and short responsetime.

The ATAGS has greater than95 per cent indigenous compo-nents. The complete supplychain, from raw materials toend product, lies within thecountry, making it a trueembodiment of a “Make inIndia” in defence system. TheATAGS gun system comprises7,463 components, of which4,977 are manufactured partsinvolving about 30,000 manu-facturing processes and morethan 2,00,000 inspection para-meters.

The project is now in theTechnology Readiness Level(TRL) stage 10 (as per theDRDO TRL stages), after beingput through mandatory trialsover the last five years. Earlierthis month, it entered into itslast stages of trial — viz thePreliminary Staff QualitativeRequirements (PSQR) trial,which is done prior to itsinduction into the arsenal sys-tem. The gun has already beenthrough a rigorous pre-PSQRtrial with the users and DRDOteams. In these trials, the BFL-developed gun system fired atotal of 130 plus rounds, most-ly in zone seven, and the feed-back was that the system haslived up to the parameters.

The gun fielded by TataAerospace and Defence

Limited succeeded in firing 99rounds. At the 100th round,which was fifth of the rapid-firepractice, the gun tube shearedoff, triggering the first unfor-tunate incident. The cause iscurrently being investigated.Some experts blame it onammunition, while the otherswant to zero in on the tube andthe immense pressure it hasbeen made to withstand. Itmust be noted that the guns,which have till now firedalmost 2,000 rounds betweenthem, can easily tolerate pres-sure levels up to 560 megapas-cals and are the only ones to firemunitions in zone seven. Aspart of the process, an investi-gation to identify and rectifythe causes behind the “shearand structural strain” is a must.It would be detrimental to thecause of Atmanirbhar Bharat todelay or disrupt the processes of development of theATAGS.

This is the first weapon plat-form which has been designedand developed from scratchand can boast of being trulyIndian. Developed by theDRDO and two major Indianindustry partners, nurturing awell-networked ecosystem ofIndian vendors and sub-ven-dors, the ATAGS symbolisesnational pride. We own thedesign, its IP and all the dataconcerning the overall weaponsystem. Foreign assistance iscostly and it will be foolhardynot to build on the successesthat we have already achieved

so far, notwithstanding minorsetbacks. Most of the gunscoming from the US, France,Germany, Israel and the CzechRepublic, have encounteredsimilar incidents at lower zonesof firing, involving lower pres-sure, during trials. Thus, blam-ing higher pressure in ATAGSis a bit far-fetched. It is worthmentioning that none of theseguns were fired in zone sevenand neither fired as manyrounds as the ATAGS.

It is a good opportunity toexamine the quality and effica-cy of the ammunition basketbeing produced in India as weare relatively new in makingartillery munitions, fuses andcharges (BMCS in this case).Given the extremely high pres-sure, every part of the muni-tion, be it the shell, drivingbands of the projectile or thefuse, which has to withstandextremely high angular veloc-ity, every component mustrespond in a zero error manner.All said and done, precisionand expertise come with real-time experience and trials. It isunlikely that a foreign vendorwill part with core technologiesor requisite data to make Indiaatmanirbhar. In the nation’sinterest and with the singularobjective of giving more teethto the Army, let us learn to takesuch incidents in our stride andresolve to forge ahead. India’sATAGS must succeed.

(The writer is former DeputyChief of Army Staff. Viewsexpressed are personal)

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��������� �����Sir — Maharashtra GovernorBhagat Singh Koshyari and ChiefMinister Uddhav Thackeray arein an open war of words aboutthe re-opening of temples in theState. Koshyari mockingly askedThackeray if he had turned “sec-ular”, provoking the latter toremind Koshyari that the word“secular” is in the Constitution hehad sworn to protect when hetook oath of the office in RajBhavan. Additionally, the CMsaid that he did not need hisHindutva credentials certified bya puppet. However, this isn’t thefirst time when a Governorappointed by the Centre has beenat odds with the StateGovernment. But what wasshocking in this case was theintemperate language used by theGovernor, who in an attempt todo his bit for the BJP, defied pro-tocols. The Governor is behav-ing like the agent of the CentralGovernment to harass the StateCM by playing dirty politics.

Bhagwan ThadaniMumbai

������������� ��Sir — It is surprising to see stu-dents scoring 100 per cent in sub-

jects like Hindi as some StateBoards have literally made amockery of the whole scoringsystem. A similar exam follow-ing the pattern of the NationalEligibility Cum Entrance Test(NEET), Joint EntranceExaminations (JEE) andCommon Aptitude Test (CAT)will be a good solution to selectthe right candidate rather thanjust banking on the senior sec-

ondary board examination sys-tem. And the National EducationPolicy 2020 (NEP) rightly pro-poses a single national school-leaving exam to resolve thisissue. Politics should be kept outfrom such crucial issues. Andhopefully, all States will come onboard and accept it for the larg-er interest of the students and theeducation sector. We cannothave these appalling cut-offs

year after year with students fromcertain Boards getting the ben-efit of entering top colleges inDelhi University.

Bal GovindNoida

��� �� ���� ��� Sir — Preparations for BiharAssembly elections are at a peakand they will be taking place in

unprecedented circumstancesover three phases, starting fromthe last week of October till thefirst week of November. It will bethe first State to conduct polls afterthe outbreak of the pandemic. ForChief Minister and Janata Dal(United) leader Nitish Kumar, itis a chance to convince his peo-ple that he is still good enough todeliver after having failed to han-dle the Corona outbreak and thereturnee migrants’ crisis. For theRashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chiefLalu Prasad, this is a chance toprove that his son has it in him tocontinue his political movementand more importantly, that he isstill a leader who matters inreshaping the political discourse.It will be interesting to see howLok Janshakti Party (LJP) leaderChirag Paswan performs in theelections, now when his mentorand father Ram Vilas Paswan haspassed away. Will Chirag upholdhis father’s legacy or will he endup squirming for seats with JD(U)and BJP? Overall, the Bihar elec-tions pose a serious challenge forall political parties and only timewill tell which one wins.

Mohd Najib Patna

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Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman recent-ly announced two special offers for CentralGovernment employees, which she hopes can

also be suitably modified and extended for StateGovernment staff and availed even by private sec-tor workers employed in the organised sector. Inshort, the Centre announced a fresh stimulus forthe ailing economy, focussing on demand. Thisincludes optional use of the Leave TravelConcession (LTC) facility for spending on con-sumer items, one-time restoration of festivaladvance and additional capital expenditure by theCentre and States. However, the alternative for LTCcould be a damp squib as the condition of higherspend may not find many takers.

As per the announcements, CentralGovernment employees can choose to get someready cash if they forego their LTC entitlement forthe block year of 2018-2021. In addition, everyCentral Government employee, irrespective of rank,will get a prepaid Rupay card loaded with �10,000.Swipe it for any expenditure by March 31, 2021 (nocash draw) and repay the advance in 10 monthlyinstalments. No interest, no tax on deemed bene-fit. Under the LTC scheme, Central Governmentemployees get reimbursement of the cost of somepersonal travel undertaken by them and their fam-ily members. For civilian staff, it is a trip to theirhometown once in two years and to anywhere with-in the country in the next block of two years. Fordefence personnel, it is the annual hometown visitand in the alternative year to anywhere in India inlieu of hometown travel. There are similar provi-sions of LTC benefits for the judicial and legisla-tive branch of the State with a different set of enti-tlements and rules.

The current LTC block year is 2018-2021.During this four calendar years’ period, a civilianCentral Government employee can avail reimburse-ment of fare for two trips from his place of duty,one in 2018-19 and another in 2020-21. Both tripscan be to his hometown or one to the hometownand the other to anywhere else in India.

The concession admissible for a particularblock of two years, which is not availed during thattime period, can be availed in the first year of thenext block. So, if someone hasn’t availed LTC dur-ing January 2018-December 2019, he can do so byDecember 2020. Likewise, the LTC due for 2020-21 can be availed by December 2022, subject to cer-tain conditions.

To promote tourism to remote areas, theGovernment has been allowing its staff to use theirhometown LTC to visit specified remote areas. Ithas been allowing air travel to these areas to eventhose employees who are not normally permittedto travel by air at Government cost. This has beena hugely popular move. This special scheme hasnow been extended up to September 25, 2022. Theconversion of hometown LTC is allowed for trav-el to the North-Eastern States, Sikkim, Jammu &Kashmir, Ladakh, Andman & Nicobar Islands. Airtravel to these destinations is permitted for all work-ers. Also, such trips in lieu of hometown LTC arepermitted even by private airlines as an exceptionbecause the rule is that a trip at Government costmust be by Air India only. (Those Government ser-vants whose hometown and place of posting arethe same are not allowed this conversion.)

Whenever a LTC journey is undertaken, theGovernment allows 10 days’ earned leave to beencashed. A total of 60 days’ earned leave encash-ment with LTC is allowed during the whole ser-vice. Employees get earned leave of 30 days everyyear and if not availed cannot be accumulated

beyond 300 days.The Finance Minister has announced

that an employee can choose not to trav-el on the LTC for block year 2018-21 andinstead get some tax-free cash in lieu.Category I/II/II employees entitled forbusiness class air travel/economy class airtravel/rail travel will get up to �36,000,�20,000 and �6,000, respectively foreach family member who forgoes oneLTC, subject to the following conditions.

The employee must produce proof ofhaving spent �1,08,000/�60,000/�18,000by March 31, 2021 through digital meanson buying Goods and Services Tax(GST)-invoiced goods/services with aminimum GST of 12 per cent.

The employee must also produceproof of having spent the entire amountof 10 days’ earned leave by March 31,2021 through digital means on buyingGST-invoiced goods/services with aminimum GST of 12 per cent. Spendingless means pro rata cut in the actual cashbenefit to be disbursed.

Most processed, packaged fooditems, healthcare, medicinal items, toi-letries, cosmetics and so on attract 12 percent GST. Telecom services bills, insur-ance premia, both life and general insur-ance, ULIPs and so on attract 18 per centGST. Then, of course, there are the “singoods” in the high GST bracket. So evenwithout buying any expensive whitegoods/gadgets/car, it should be possible— except for some very frugal souls —to produce eligible GST invoices formonthly average spending of less than�21,600/�12,000/�3,600 for CategoryI/II/III employees from now till March2021. The few who might struggle to getsufficient invoices may buy goods for oth-ers. Petty invoices don’t even carry thebuyer’s name and there are limits to howmany checks can be there to stop misuse.

There have been intermittent sugges-

tions in the past that the Governmentshould give some lump sum cash in lieuof LTC benefit and save itself the hassleof processing the LTC claims. Moreover,not all of them are genuine. Long ago,many employees in an office were foundto have submitted fake LTC claims forlong distance travel by road. The trip wasactually not undertaken as there was noentry of the quoted private bus havingcrossed various toll booths. Dozens weredismissed from service in a severe dis-ciplinary action. After that, theGovernment made a rule that road trav-el by private bus would not be eligible forLTC reimbursement.

Cases of LTC claims based on fakeair travel — even by some high publicfunctionaries — forced some offices tointroduce the provision for submissionof proof of the actual trip in case of airtravel, like some photographs and so on,all of which can also be manipulated inthis age of technology. Some private air-lines used to misuse the LTC to includeeven hotel stay and so on in the packagedfare because only the fare is reimbursed.All other costs of boarding and lodgingat the destination are expected to beborne by employees. To overcome thisfraud, the Government introduced stan-dard LTC fares and restricted travel to AirIndia only (except for the North-East andso on). Frauds by a few dishonest end upmaking life miserable for everyone, withthe Government being forced to comeout with stricter regulations. CheckingLTC fraud is an administrative hassle andsome argue that it is better to uncondi-tionally give cash in lieu of LTC. So far,this argument has not carried weight fortwo reasons.

First, the Government wants employ-ees to rejuvenate themselves throughtravel and promote domestic tourism.Second, LTC is not availed by everyone.

There are many who don’t find time andmany others who find that they cannotafford non-fare expenses during travel.If the Government decides to give cashin lieu of LTC, it would give it to every-one, even to those who would not haveavailed of LTC on their own. For them,the cash equivalent is a bonanza.

The Central Government hopes thatthe State Governments and the privatesector will take a cue and offer similarschemes, with the Centre promising notto tax the cash equivalent of the LTC.Many States limit their LTC scheme totravel within the State and so the finan-cial impact would also be limited. For pri-vate sector employees, tax concession onLTA can be a big incentive. All they haveto do is produce GST invoices for threetimes the LTA. Spending three times theLTA by March 2021 may not be burden-some for most. Typically, the LTA is equalto one month’s salary and so one is beingasked to spend three months’ salary byMarch to save income tax on LTA. Ofcourse, there is the option of buying forothers. In a country like ours, govern-ments put riders and creative mindsinvent workarounds.

Giving cash in lieu of LTC or givingtax concession on LTA subject to certainminimum spending of a certain type willcertainly boost short-term consumptiondemand. Some of it would be mere dis-placement of expenditure that wouldhave happened with or without the con-cession. This surrender of outbound LTCtravel till December 2022 would negative-ly impact the travel and tourism indus-try which is already floundering. It is ademand swap; the present with thefuture, FMCG with travel and tourism.It is like robbing Peter to pay Paul.

(The writer is a retired IAAS officer,and former Special Secretary, Ministry ofCommerce and Industry)

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The United Nations (UN)Sustainable Development Goal(SDG) 3 seeks to ensure health

and well-being for all as a social capi-tal. SDG 3, more specifically SDG 3.1,aims to reduce the global MaternalMortality Ratio (MMR) to less than 70per 1,00, 000 live births by 2030. As perthe World Health Organisation(WHO), maternal death is the demiseof a woman while pregnant or within42 days of termination of pregnancy,from any cause related to or aggravat-ed by the pregnancy or its management.As per the goal laid down in the

National Health Policy 2017, the targetfor MMR per 1,00,000 live births by2020 is 100.

Figures from a special bulletinreleased by the Office of the RegistrarGeneral’s Sample Registration System(SRS) in July this year show that MMRin India stood at 113 in 2016-18.Although it has seen a reduction from122 in 2015-17 and 130 in 2014-2016,the number is way behind the SDG tar-get. The most disturbing figure comesfrom Assam where MMR is at 215.However, if one compares it to the 2012-13 data of the State, it has been signif-icantly brought down from 301.Nevertheless, given India’s SDG com-mitment, immediate intervention isneeded to bring down the ratio further.

As recently as July, Prime MinisterNarendra Modi delivered the keynoteaddress virtually at the high-level seg-ment of the United Nations Economicand Social Council (ECOSOC) session,wherein he highlighted that India’sdevelopmental motto of “Sabka saath,sabka vikaas, sabka vishwas (Together,

for everyone’s growth, with everyone’strust)” resonates with the core SDGprinciple of leaving no one behind. Healso emphasised that India’s success inimproving the socio-economic indica-tors of its vast population has a signif-icant impact on global SDG targets.Hence, addressing individual healthindicators like MMR is certainly criti-cal in improving the country’s publichealth and meeting targets set by theSDG.

The role of individual States is alsocritical. For example, it is important fora State like Assam with a high MMR totackle the problem on a priority basis.According to an Epidemiological studyof maternal death in Assam, data showthat 21.3 per cent of the deaths weredue to haemorrhage, 17.3 per cent dueto pregnancy-induced hypertensionand 10 per cent due to sepsis. Bloodloss of 500 ml or more within 24 hoursafter birth is known as postpartumhaemorrhage. Such deaths can bebrought down significantly by develop-ing a robust blood transfusion system,which provides universal access tosafe and adequate blood. The annualblood collection in Assam in 2018-19was 2,34,488 units whereas the Stateneeded 2,42,000 units against the totalnumber of hospital beds in 2019. As pera State-wise ranking, which maps theannual requirement to actual collectionsof blood units, Assam comes at the bot-tom five. With 82 blood banks in theState, it is regrettable that shortage ofblood remains an area of concern.

Another crucial aspect is the qual-ity of the blood available. The NationalAIDS Control Organisation revealedthat around 1,342 people contractedHIV infection due to blood transfusionin 2018-19 pan India. This informationraised several questions on the existingblood transfusion system in the coun-try. An effective solution to ensure avail-ability of safe blood involves shifting to100 per cent voluntary help and doingaway with replacement donation.Recruitment of donors becomes one ofthe most crucial features of blood trans-fusion services and a system support-ed by healthy, responsive and motivat-ed voluntary blood donors can signif-icantly reduce the associated qualityissues. The percentage of voluntarydonation in Assam is 47.9 per cent,which is way below the national aver-age of 71.9.

Another problem that exists in adeveloping country like India is afragmented blood transfusion system.For effective operation of the 3,321blood banks in the country, it is imper-

ative that there is transparency andguaranteed quality systems. But ensur-ing surveillance of 3,321 blood banksfor effective operation is not practical-ly feasible. However, empirical datafrom developing countries show thatadopting a centralised hub and spokemodel can help in accessing safe bloodto a great extent.

Sadly, such a centralised bloodtransfusion system is currently non-existent in India, even though it pre-vents wastage of extra blood collected,particularly now that bulk transfersbetween banks have been permitted bythe National Blood TransfusionCouncil. It enhances access, too, asblood can be redirected from the hubsto wherever there is a shortage. In caseof emergencies, the collection of bloodbecomes simpler, too. A hub and spokemodel and a 100 per cent non-remu-nerative blood donation structure willhelp India and States like Assam toreduce the MMR burden.

(The writer is a public policy con-sultant, Chase India)

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Democratic presidentialcandidate Joe Biden has

vowed to provide citizenship to11 million illegal immigrants ifvoted to power in theNovember 3 presidential elec-tion. Biden identified this asone of his priorities in additionto beating the coronavirus pan-demic, rebuilding the economyand figuring out how to restoreAmerican leadership aroundthe world.

Responding to a questionat a virtual fundraiser onWednesday, Biden said there isa need to deal with what’sgoing on at the border. “We’regoing to have to deal with theimmigration crisis we have. I’mgoing to send the House andSenate an immigration billthat’s going to provide access tocitizenship to 11 million peo-ple,” he said.

President Donald Trumphas been repeatedly calling forthe quick deportation of illegalimmigrants who “invade” theUS and lamented that the cur-rent immigration system is“unfair” to those who camelegally to America.

Trump has been assertingthat building a wall along theMexico border is the only wayto check illegal immigration,and on various occasions saidthat every day the US border

patrol encounters roughly2,000 illegal immigrants tryingto enter the country.

According to Biden’s cam-paign, there were 37 attendeesand the event was hosted byJane Hartley, former USAmbassador to France andMonaco and currentChairman, Sesame Workshop;Blair Effron, Founder &Partner, Centerview Partners;Indian American DevenParekh, Managing Director,Insight Partners and RogerAltman, Founder & SeniorChairman, Evercore.

When asked how he wouldenvision his first 30 days in officein terms of both domestic andforeign policy, Biden said: “A lotmore can go wrong betweennow and January 21, and I’m notbeing facetious. Four more years,we’re not going to have thecountry we have now”.

“If the American peopleelect me, we’re going to have anenormous task in repairingthe damage he’s done,” Bidensaid, referring to the policies ofTrump, a Republican.

“We have to be beating thevirus, rebuilding the economyand figuring out how to restoreAmerican leadership aroundthe world,” Biden said. Bidensaid he would move to quick-ly implement his plan to dealwith the pandemic and reopensafely. The Democratic presi-dential candidate also made anote of the challenges facing“the so-called Z Generation,the very young.” “They’ve real-ly gotten screwed since they gotout of school,” Biden said.“The jobs aren’t there,” he said.

“But guess what? They’rethe most open, progressiveand the brightest generationwe’ve ever had,” he added.

“And we have to embracethem. They know the changewe need to make and how weneed to be much more, muchmore integrated in everythingwe do,” he said. Biden was crit-ical of the policies of PresidentDonald Trump.

“The rest of the world iswondering, what in the Lord’sname is happening? What we’reliving through today is not nor-mal,” he said. He reiterated hisattacks on Trump’s handling ofthe coronavirus pandemic,

nothing more than 215,000Americans have died, and crit-icised the president for backingaway from stimulus talks.

“He didn’t walk away. Henever was part of ‘em,” Bidensaid. “Three days later, after hesaid he was walking away, hesaid he’s coming back … Oneday, he’s tweeting that the reliefpackage is too big … next dayit’s too small. The longer he’spresident, the more reckless hegets,” he added.

The US is the worst-hitnation by the deadly coron-avirus, with the total number ofinfections standing at 7,916,100and deaths at 216,872, accordingto Johns Hopkins University.While talking more broadlyabout the stakes of the election,Biden noted he just got off thephone with top US investor andphilanthropist Warren Buffett.“We have to refuse to postponewhat America has to do, thework we have to do. There’snothing beyond our capacity forGod’s sake,” Biden said.

“Just got off the phonewith Warren Buffett and talkedabout how … we’re in a posi-tion, unlike we were 50, 70, 80years ago, to lead the wholedamn world in a way that noone else can. There’s no limit toAmerica’s future. The onlything that’s going to tearAmerica apart is Americaitself,” he said.

�����&�%������7�� ��!����++��������&�������&��� ��#����������8����Washington: Democraticvice-presidential candidateKamala Harris has said thatthe Trump administration hasbeen the “greatest failure” ofany presidential administra-tion in the US history as shecondemned President DonaldTrump for “failing” to handlethe coronavirus crisis.

Harris said millions andmillions of people are sufferingdue to Trump’s failure and theUS needs a new president “who

will embrace science, who willbe guided by fact and truth andspeak truth to the Americanpeople and have a plan.” Harris,in an interview to MSNBC onWednesday, said thatDemocratic presidential can-didate Joe Biden has a nation-al plan for testing and for treat-ment and for vaccines, whichwill be free.

“The president and thisadministration have been thegreatest failure of any presi-

dential administration in thehistory of our country. You justgo back to what they knew andwhen they knew it, and let’s startwith January 28 when the pres-ident, the vice president wereinformed that this thing wasdeadly, that it could hurt chil-dren, that it was five times moredeadly than the flu, that it wasairborne, and they covered upthat information. They didn’tshare it with the Americanpeople,” Harris alleged.

Over 7.9 million peoplehave tested positive forCOVID-19 in the US and2,17,000 people have died sofar. “And you put that in thecontext of the president’s fail-ure to tell the American peo-ple what was going on so theycould protect themselves andtheir families, much less so thatwe could have a president andleadership in our country whohad a plan to deal with it,” shesaid. PTI

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President Donald Trump onWednesday sought to shore

up support from constituen-cies that not so long ago hethought he had in the bag: bigbusiness and voters in the redstate of Iowa.

In a morning address tobusiness leaders, he expressedpuzzlement that they wouldeven consider supporting hisDemocratic challenger, JoeBiden, arguing that his ownleadership was a better bet fora strong economy. Later, thepresident held his third cam-

paign rally in three nights, thistime in Iowa, a state he wonhandily in 2016 but whereBiden is making a late push.

Trump claimed to be lead-ing in the most recent poll hesaw. “For me to only be up six,I’m a little bit concerned,” heasserted. Multiple polls haveshown a much closer race.

Biden, for his part, held avirtual fundraiser fromWilmington, Delaware, anddelivered pretaped remarks toAmerican Muslims.

He did not have any pub-lic campaign events, unusualfor just 20 days out from

Election Day. The Democratic nominee

used his appearance at thefundraiser to say that Trumpwas trying to rush throughAmy Coney Barrett, his nom-inee for the Supreme Court, tohelp his efforts to repeal theObama health care law, callingthat “an abuse of power.”

Biden was expected tospend much of the day prepar-ing for a town-hall-style TVappearance in battlegroundPennsylvania on Thursday,which was to have been thenight of the second presiden-tial debate.

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Thailand’s Governmentdeclared a strict new state

of emergency for the capital onThursday, a day after a student-led protest against the country’straditional establishment sawan extraordinary moment inwhich demonstrators heckled aroyal motorcade.

After the pre-dawn decla-ration, riot police moved in toclear out demonstrators whoafter a day of rallies and con-frontation had gathered outsidePrime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha’s office to push theirdemands, which include theformer general’s steppingdown, constitutional changesand reform of the monarchy.

Several top leaders of theprotest movement were takeninto custody, with one laterdeclaring on his Facebook pagethat he had been denied accessto a lawyer and was being

forced onto a helicopter andtaken to a city in the country’snorth. Police said they hadmade 22 arrests.

Despite a new ban againstlarge public gatherings, sever-al thousand people answeredcalls to rally again in anotherarea of the city later Thursday.

The text of the emergencydeclaration said it was neededbecause “certain groups of per-

petrators intended to instigatean untoward incident andmovement in the Bangkok areaby way of various methods andvia different channels, includ-ing causing obstruction to theroyal motorcade.”

The protest Wednesday inBangkok’s historic district, notfar from glittering temples androyal palaces, was the thirdmajor gathering by student-led

activists who have been push-ing the boundaries of what isconsidered acceptable — andlegal — language by publiclyquestioning the role ofThailand’s monarchy in thenation’s power structure.

Thailand’s royal family haslong been considered sacrosanctand a pillar of Thai identity. KingMaha Vajiralongkorn and otherkey member of the royal familyare protected by a lese majestelaw that has regularly been usedto silence critics who risk up to15 years in prison if deemed tohave insulted the institution.

The protest — held on theanniversary of a 1973 student-leduprising against a military dic-tatorship — was complicated bythe presence of royalist counterprotesters who had gatheredboth to show support for thegovernment and to greet theroyal family as they traveled toand from a religious ceremonyin the area.

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Renewed fighting betweenthe Taliban and Afghan

government forces in southernHelmand province has forcedmore than 5,600 families to fleetheir homes, officials saidThursday, the latest flareupthat could undermine USefforts to broker peace in thewar-torn country.

The fighting comes asAfghan government represen-tatives and the Taliban are hold-ing peace talks in Qatar, wherethe Taliban have for years main-tained a political office. Thenegotiations, envisaged under aUS deal signed with the insur-gents in February, are meant toend Afghanistan’s grueling 19-year war and are seen as thecountry’s best chance at peace.

The Trump administra-

tion has pledged to pull outAmerican forces fromAfghanistan but US officialshave stressed that the Talibanhave still not met requirementsto reduce violence against theAfghans, a key element of theUS withdrawal plan.

In Helmand, Omar Zwak,the provincial governor’sspokesman, said Afghan secu-rity forces were trying to regainareas lost to the Taliban overthe weekend, while local offi-cials were scrambling to pro-vide food and shelter to thegrowing number of civiliansfleeing from nearby districts tothe provincial capital, LashkarGah. Ajab Gul, 25, and his fam-ily have been in the city for fourdays. “The Taliban have takenover our village and both sidesin the battle are using light andheavy weapons, so how couldwe stay there?” he said.

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Washington: The CommunistParty of China (CPC) is in con-sistent violation of the mostbasic and fundamental humanrights for its own people, USSecretary of State MikePompeo said on Wednesday.

The violation of humanrights and curbing the freedomof its people are the core chal-lenges that the US has identi-fied from the CPC, he said.

“They are in consistentviolation of the most basicand fundamental human rightsfor their own people,” Pompeotold reporters at a news con-ference here.

“This is what Communistparties have a history of doing.It’s what President (Donald)Trump has directed us all towork to try and preserve; asmuch freedom, as much dig-nity, for every citizen of China

as we possibly can when theyare confronted with these mas-sive human rights violationsthat are being conducted by theChinese Communist Party,” he said.

That is true, whether it isXinjiang, what is taking placethere, whether it is Tibet; andthe inner Mongolians’ simpledesire to live in freedom andexercise their own under-standings of what freedom andhuman dignity look like, he said.

“In each of those places,and I’d add Hong Kong, in eachof those places, we simply aredemanding from the ChineseCommunist Party what we askof every nation, is to preservebasic freedom, human dignity,religious freedom for everyone of their citizens. AP

Moscow: Russia’s top diplomatvoiced doubt Wednesday thatMoscow and Washington couldnegotiate an extension of theirlast arms control pact still stand-ing, even as the United Statesoffered a more optimistic view.

Speaking in an interviewwith several Russian news out-lets, Foreign Minister SergeyLavrov said that Russia can’t

accept the conditions put for-ward by the United States for theextension of the New STARTtreaty. “I personally don’t see theprospect,” Lavrov snapped whenasked if the extension is possiblebefore the pact expires inFebruary. “We will never say thatwe will shut the door and cut allcontacts. But we explain that it’simpossible to talk on the basis of

an ultimatum they put forwardthat fully ignores the principleswhich were acknowledged as thebasis for all our agreements fordecades.” Lavrov’s pessimisticview contrasted with the state-ments from U.S. diplomats, whosaid that Moscow andWashington were close to a deal.

“We would welcome theopportunity to complete an

agreement based on under-standings that were achievedover the last couple weeks aboutwhat the range of possibilitieslook like for an extension of NewSTART and an outcome thatbenefits the entire world,increased stability of the mostdangerous weapons in theworld,” US Secretary of StateMike Pompeo said. AP

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Gurgaon:B N De Bhowmick,ED (TD) POWERGRID andExpert of IEC TechnicalCommittee 122, UHVACTransmission Systems has beenawarded the prestigious IEC1906 Award by theInternational ElectrotechnicalCommission. It recognises themajor inputs made in further-ing standardisation in the fieldof electrotechnology.

The InternationalElectrotechnical Commission(IEC) created the IEC 1906Award to commemorate thefounding of the Commissionand to honour those who havemade an exceptional recenttechnical contribution to thedevelopment of a specific IECwork project. This is now theseventeenth occasion on whichthis award has been made.

This international awardfrom IEC, was presented on theoccasion of WorldStandardisation Day 2020 atBIS in a ceremony attended bySmt. Leena Nandan, IAS,Secretary, Department ofConsumer Affairs, ShriPramod Kumar Tiwari, IAS,Director General, Bureau ofIndian Standards, Smt. NidhiKhare, IAS, AdditionalSecretary, Department ofConsumer Affairs (GoI), ShriN. K. Kansara, Deputy DirectorGeneral (Policy Research andTraining), BIS.

����� 0.2�*.34+

About 62.42 lakh tonne ofkharif paddy worth

�11,785 crore was purchased atthe minimum support price(MSP) from 5.33 lakh farmersin the last 19 days, the foodministry said on Thursday.

Paddy procurementcommenced in Punjab andHaryana from September 26due to early arrival of the crop,while in other states it beganfrom October 1. Morethan 80 per cent of the coun-try’s paddy crop is grown in thekharif season. The govern-ment through the FoodCorporation of India (FCI)and state agencies undertakesprocurement of paddy at MSP.“Paddy procurement in the2020-21 kharif marketing sea-son is going on smoothly in theprocuring states of Punjab,Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, TamilNadu, Kerala, and Chandigarhand J&K,” the food ministrysaid in a statement.

Till October 14, about62.42 lakh tonne of paddy wasprocured at MSP value of�11,785 crore, it said.

For the current year, the

Centre has fixed the MSP ofpaddy (common grade) at�1,868 per quintal, while thatof A grade variety has beenfixed at �1,888 per quintal.In case of cotton, state-ownedCotton Corporation of India(CCI) has procured 89,592bales at MSP value of �25,399lakh from 18,618 farmers tillOctober 14. Besides, thegovernment through nodalagencies is buying pulses andoilseeds at MSP under thePrice Support Scheme (PSS),which gets operationalisedwhen market rates fall belowthe support price. TillOctober 14, about 686.74.74tonne of moong and urad atMSP value of Rs 4.94 crore wasprocured from 639 farmers inHaryana, Tamil Nadu andMaharashtra. Similarly,5,089 tonne of copra at MSPvalue of Rs 52.40 crore wasprocured from 3,961 farmers inKarnataka and Tamil Nadu inthe said period. In respectof copra and urad, rates are rul-ing at or above MSP. Respectivestate governments are makingarrangements for commence-ment of procurement in respectof moong.

New Delhi: India’s exportsincreased 5.99 per cent year-on-year to USD 27.58 billion inSeptember, according to thegovernment data released onThursday.

Exports stood at USD26.02 billion in September2019.

The country’s importsdeclined 19.6 per cent to USD30.31 billion in September. Itwas USD 37.69 billion in thesame month last year. Thetrade deficit in September wasUSD 2.72 billion, compared toUSD 11.67 billion in the year-ago month. PTI

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The Indian rupee onThursday settled 5 paise

lower at 73.36 to the US dollaras weaker Asian peers andfund outflows from domesticmarkets weighed on investorsentiment.

Additionally, importers’mid-month dollar demand alsoput pressure on the local unit,analysts said. At the interbankforex market, the rupee openedon a steady note but was caughtin volatility as the trade pro-gressed.

During the session, it hitan intra-day high of 73.22 anda low of 73.41 against the USdollar. It finally closed at 73.36,lower by 5 paise over its previ-ous close of 73.31.

Foreign institutionalinvestors turned net sellers inthe capital market as theyoffloaded shares worth Rs604.07 crore on Thursday,exchange data showed.

Meanwhile, the dollarindex, which gauges the green-back’s strength against a basketof six currencies, rose 0.34 percent to 93.69.

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Snapping its 10-session win-ning run, equity benchmark

Sensex plunged 1,066.33 pointson Thursday as investorspressed the exit button amid amassive selloff in global mar-kets.

The 30-share BSE indexplummeted 1,066.33 points or2.61 per cent to end at39,728.41.

The broader NSE Niftycrashed 290.70 points or 2.43per cent to 11,680.35. Globalequities cratered as hopes fadedof a pre-election stimulus dealin the US, while multiple coun-tries in Europe braced for a sec-ond round of lockdowns tocurb rising COVID-19 cases,jeopardising the already shakyeconomic recovery.

Back home, market par-ticipants were also eager tobook profits after the recentrally amid already stretchedvaluations, traders said.

Barring Asian Paints,which inched up 0.32 per cent,all Sensex constituents closed inthe red.

Bajaj Finance was the toploser, tumbling 4.68 per cent,

followed by Tech Mahindra,IndusInd Bank, ICICI Bank,SBI, Reliance Industries, BhartiAirtel and HCL Tech.

Investors lost Rs 3.25 lakhcrore in Thursday’s session asthe total market capitalisationof BSE-listed companies fell toRs 157.31 lakh crore.

“The market had moved-up in expectation of a bigstimulus, but the desired fiscalpackage was not announced inIndia and a delay of it in USand Euro has changed thetrend. At the same time, thepace of economic recovery isunder stress because of a resur-gence of high rates of COVIDinfections...

“The margin of safety islow given premium prices andslowdown in economic recov-ery. The trend going forwardwill depend on the supportivemeasures announced in contextto stimulus and commentary ofQ2 results,” said Vinod Nair,Head of Research at GeojitFinancial Services. All sectoralindices closed lower, with BSEtelecom, bankex, energy,finance, teck and IT indicesplunging as much as 3.54 percent.

����� 0.2�*.34+

Mutual fund industry bodyAmfi on Thursday said it

has not sent any proposal toSebi for launching a newbenchmark index or cappingany stock in the index.

It further said the indus-try will continue to adhere toSebi’ guidance on the cappingof a single stock.

Referring to a speculativereport in a section of the mediaabout Amfi/AMCs proposingto Sebi to launch a new bench-mark index, the industry bodyin a statement clarified that “ithas not written to

Sebi proposing the launchof new index nor capping anystock in the index”.

Amfi said, whenever anymutual fund launches ascheme, the fund house choos-es an appropriate benchmarkindex which reflects the com-position of the scheme’s port-folio.

It further said undoubted-ly there are challenges in per-formance measurement asindices do not have a cap onstock, whereas mutual fundschemes have a cap of 10 percent on a stock.

����� 0.2�*.34+

India needs to strengthenquality control and step up

R&D efforts to realise its poten-tial of becoming a global man-ufacturing hub for PPE kits,said a report released onThursday.

“It will bring more con-sistency into the quality of thePPEs manufactured, reducethe testing and rejection over-heads post-delivery and allowlocal manufacturers to scale uptheir production to reach notonly domestic markets but alsoglobal markets,” said the reportby the Institute forCompetitiveness.

It points out that eventhough India achieved self-sufficiency in terms of localisedmanufacturers and productionof PPE body coveralls, PPE fab-ric and seam tapes, the coun-try still relied on imports forprocuring a critical componentlike seam sealing equipment.

India needs to indigenizethe production of criticalequipment and machineries.

����� 0.2�*.34+

The Indian Railways onThursday refuted reports

that it was going to discontin-ue the sleeper class on mail andexpress trains and said that theaim behind introducing three-tier coaches was to make jour-ney of passengers more afford-able and comfortable.

Addressing a virtual pressconference, Railway BoardChairman and CEO V.K. Yadavsaid: “We will continue withsleeper class coaches. There’sabsolutely no ambiguity relat-ed to it.”

Noting that the railwaysplans to increase the speed oftrains on its network and soon,trains on the New Delhi-Mumbai and New Delhi-Kolkata routes will run at 130kmph, while work to upgradetracks to enable trains run at160 kmph has also started, he,however, said that with theincreased speeds, passengers insleeper class coaches will facedifficulties and discomfort.

“So, we have decided tomake a new AC-3 tier coachwhich will be introduced nextyear. Our aim is to make ACtravel more affordable for thepassengers and fare will be

between that of AC-3 andsleeper class,” he said.

The Indian Railways onSunday said that it plans tointroduce AC-3 tier coaches inmail and express trains, givingrise to speculations that it hasplanned to do away with thesleeper class coaches.

The announcement led towidespread criticism.

The CEO also said that thefreight revenue up to October13 this year has witnessed ajump of 11 per cent as com-pared to the same period lastyear.

He also said that the auto-mobile loading has gainedmomentum and witnessed ajump of over 68 per cent as therailways has loaded 126 auto-mobile rakes.

He also said that thenational transporter is cur-rently operating 682 specialtrains and 20 clone trains.

“Apart from this, 416 festi-val special trains will also berun from October 20 toNovember 30,” he said.

He also said that a newtimetable will be implementedwhen regular train servicesresume but it is difficult to tella time period when it will comeinto effect.k

����� 0.2�*.34+

The Central government willborrow up to �1.1 lakh

crore on behalf of the states tobridge the shortfall in GST col-lections, the Finance Ministrysaid on Thursday.

A slowdown in the econo-my since last fiscal has result-ed in a drop in the Goods andServices Tax (GST) collections,upsetting the budgets of stateswhich had given up their rightto levy local taxes such as salestax or VAT when GST wasintroduced in July 2017.

To make up for the short-fall, borrowing from the mar-ket was proposed. In a state-ment, the Union FinanceMinistry said states wereoffered a special window toborrow �1.1 lakh crore overand above their existing limits,to bridge the shortfall.

“Under the SpecialWindow, the estimated short-fall of Rs 1.1 lakh crore (assum-ing all States join) will be bor-rowed by Government of Indiain appropriate tranches,” the

statement said. “The amount soborrowed will be passed on tothe States as a back-to-backloan in lieu of GSTCompensation Cess releases.”

The release, however, didnot say who will service theinterest and principal pay-ments. The Centre borrowingon behalf of states is likely toensure that a single rate of bor-rowing is charged and thiswould also be easy to admin-ister.The borrowing, the state-ment said, “will not have anyimpact on the fiscal deficit ofthe Government of India.”

“The amounts will bereflected as the capital receiptsof the State Governments andas part of the financing of itsrespective fiscal deficits,” itsaid. Borrowing of the short-fall by the Centre will avoid dif-ferential rates of interest thatindividual states may becharged and will be an admin-istratively easier arrangement,it added.

“It may also be clarifiedthat the General Government(States+Centre) borrowings

will not increase by this step,”it said. “The States that get thebenefit from the SpecialWindow are likely to borrow aconsiderably lesser amountfrom the additional borrowingfacility of 2 per cent of GSDP(from 3 per cent to 5 per cent)under the Aatma NirbharPackage.”

When the GST was intro-duced in July 2017, states werepromised a 14 per cent incre-mental revenue over their lasttax receipts in the first five yearsof the GST rollout.

This was to be donethrough a levy of a cess or sur-charge on luxury and singoods, but the collections onthis count have fallen shortwith the slowdown in the econ-omy since last fiscal.

To make up for this, theCentre suggested that the statescan borrow against future com-pensation receipts.

The Finance Ministry hadearlier this week stated that 21states have accepted one of thetwo borrowing options sug-gested by the Centre.

����� 2��4+0$� 0

Facing the twin task of fight-ing the coronavirus pan-

demic today and building abetter tomorrow, the world isexperiencing a new BrettonWoods moment, IMFManaging Director KristalinaGeorgieva said on Thursday.

Addressing the annualmeeting of the InternationalMonetary Fund’s Board ofGovernors, she said that whatwas true at Bretton Woods,when allies at the end of WorldWar II gathered for a confer-ence to create the institutionsthat would use economic coop-eration to prevent future con-flicts, remains true today.

“Today we face a newBretton Woods moment. Apandemic that has already costmore than a million lives. Aneconomic calamity that willmake the world economy 4.4per cent smaller this year andstrip an estimated USD 11 tril-lion of output by next year. Anduntold human desperation inthe face of huge disruption and

rising poverty for the first timein decades,” she said.

“Once again, we face twomassive tasks: to fight the cri-sis today and build a bettertomorrow,” she said.

Prudent macroeconomicpolicies and strong institutionsare critical for growth, jobs andimproved living standards, shesaid.

Strong medium-termframeworks for monetary, fis-cal and financial policies, aswell as reforms to boost trade,competitiveness and produc-tivity can help create confi-dence for policy action nowwhile building much-neededresilience for the future, sheadded. “We know what actionmust be taken right now. Adurable economic recovery isonly possible if we beat thepandemic. Health measuresmust remain a priority. I urgeyou to support production anddistribution of effective thera-pies and vaccines to ensure thatall countries have access,”Georgieva said.

She urged countries to con-

tinue support for workers andbusinesses until a durable exitfrom the health crisis.

“We have seen global fiscalactions of USD 12 trillion.Major central banks haveexpanded balance sheets byUSD 7.5 trillion. These syn-chronised measures have pre-vented the destructive macrofinancial feedback we saw inprevious crises,” she said.

“But almost all countriesare still hurting, especiallyemerging market and devel-oping economies. And whilethe global banking systementered the crisis with highcapital and liquidity buffers,there is a weak tail of banks inmany in emerging markets.We must take measures to pre-vent the build-up of financialrisks over the medium term,”she said.The IMF expects 2021debt levels to go up significantly– to around 125 per cent ofGDP in advanced economies,65 per cent of GDP in emerg-ing markets; and 50 per cent ofGDP in low-income countries,Georgieva further said.

����� �6�1�+

Irdai Chairman SubhashKhuntia has urged health

insurance providers to developdisease-specific products whichcould help policy holders inpreventing different ailments.

“I would urge insurers todevelop more disease-specificproducts like for diabetics orfor heart or kidney relatedissues,” Khuntia said at a healthinsurance summit organised byCII.

Under such focussedproducts, insurance compa-nies can bring together med-ical experts to make aware pol-icy holders on steps to betaken to prevent various dis-eases, he said.

The chairman said theinsurance sector, for too long,has concentrated on tertiarycare or hospitalisation and nowthere was a need to focus moreon primary and secondarycare, the outpatient care andmore on to have preventivecare.

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Jaipur: Housing commission-er Pavan Arora said that 230properties were sold in theregion. It generated revenue of�36 crores 69 lakh. This wassecond successful Wednesdayif the scheme.

Out of 230 properties sold,209 properties were soldthrough e-bid submission & 21were sold through e-auctions.It is to be noted that propertiesof area upto 27 square meterare sold by e-bid submissionand those properties with areaof more than 27 square meterare sold through e-auction. Arora said that people areshowing great enthusiasmtowards the scheme.

Under Wednesday auctionFestival housing scheme for allin instalments and under‘Apni Dukan Apna Vyavsayscheme’ 112 properties weresold in Jaipur I, II and IIIthrough which the circleearned �13 crore 70 thousandin revenues. Similarly JodhpurI,II & III sold 33 propertieswhich earned �1 crores 76lakh in revenue.In Bikaner circle 2 properties

were sold earning revenue of�29 lakh 74 thousand. In Udaipur circle 22 propertieswere sold ehich gives circle rev-enue of �2 crores 71 lakh.Alwar circle sold 34 propertiesearning revenue of �2 crores 86lakh. Scheme to generate Self-employment opportunitiesHousing commissioner saidthat this scheme was launchedby Chief Minister AshokGehlot on September 28, 2020to fulfil vision of self-employ-ment of Mahatma Gandhi inlight of the employment situa-tion caused due to COVIDpandemic.

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It is that time of the year whenmost of us would expect thefilm festivals to be buzzing

with stars flaunting designer’soutfits and latest trends. But we arequick to adapt to the digital ver-sions of the festivals as an alterna-tive to the physical ones, given thenovel Coronavirus and the restric-tions that followed.

There are various film festivalsthat have taken a fresh approachand have launched themselvesonline for people to enjoy theircouch-side versions. One such isthe Indus Valley InternationalFilm Festival.

After successfully executing itsfirst edition during the lockdown,the organisers were soon readywith the next. The second editionof the digital festival hosted ninedays of films, interaction withcelebrities, workshops on film-making, masterclasses, scriptwrit-ing, theatre acting and direction.It presented films from Sri Lanka,Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan andIndia. There were also films inInternational Panorama segment,comprising films from Italy, Spainetc.

It opened with R Balki’s filmPadMan and closed with VishalBhardwaj film Rangoon. ActorHimanshu Malik was the ‘Masterof Ceremony’, who alsoannounced the list of 25 awards invarious categories, selected byjury. The jury comprised of Supriti– a diversity & inclusion consul-tant, Vineet Chopra – a theatredirector and Harsh Narayan, afilmmaker. Organised bySAFACH (South Asia Forum forArt & Creative Heritage), thescreening at the festival broughtforward the rich diversity andlegacy of South Asian films.

Founder and CreativeDirector of the festival, HarshNarayan, shared about the newofferings this time, the challengesof holding a grand festival onlineand the way forward. Excerpts:

�What would you say aboutthe second digital edition of thefestival?

This edition gave us muchhigher visibility and reach. Whenwe do a physical film festival, itsreach is limited to the city its beingheld. But this time we had active

participants from various coun-tries and registrations from USA,Africa, Europe and all SouthAsian countries. People attendedour sessions and watched filmsonline through our digital filmportal. Until the last day wereceived online registrations,including from USA. The partic-ipants were enthusiastic as theywere able to watch recorded ses-sions and films through VoDafter the festival officially ended.

This gives us confidence thatdigital festival is not just a stop-gap during Corona times but it hasa standalone robust future. Wenow seek to continue with a dig-ital version of the festival, even inpost-COVID era, with a simulta-neous physical film festival.

�What new did the festival offerthis time?

We organised workshops andmasterclasses on filmmaking,scriptwriting and documentaryfilmmaking online through thefestival portal. We received regis-trations from students and cine-ma enthusiasts who attendedthem from their respective univer-sities or homes. Apart from thiswe also organised panel discus-sions on Filmmaking & CreativeCollaborations in South Asia andMusic Collaborations in SouthAsia. There were leading filmmak-ers and musicians from neigh-bouring countries such asPakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal andSri Lanka, attending the respectivesessions. These were engagingdiscussions where people agreedand emphasised on the need fora digital body which can facilitatecollaborations, co-productionsand joint ventures in the industry.

�What were the underlying chal-lenges of holding a grand festivallike this online?

The main challenge, initially,was to convince filmmakers, pro-ducers and studios to give theirfilms for this digital version. Rightlyso, all the digital rights of the filmsare sold, or preserved to be sold.Therefore, producers are usuallyapprehensive about giving theirfilms for the digital film festivalfearing piracy; although they holdfestival screening rights with them-selves.

To mitigate their concern, weestablished a secure and privateIVIFF digital festival portal, to beaccessed only by the registered par-ticipants. Also, with our past cred-ibility, we were able to convincefilmmakers and producers with ourplan. And finally some of top pro-duction houses and studios cameon board.

�Do you think conducting thefestival online helped more?

Yes. Since we had participantsfrom various countries, it wouldhave been a gruesome task tobring all of them together at oneplatform physically. The process ofprocuring visas and getting clear-ances is another hectic task whichcan be avoided online. Anotherthing was that the filmmakers andactors had the liberty to appear forthe festival from their homes orworkplaces only for the duration oftheir talks or sessions, giving thema lot of time in hand to continuetheir other stuffs. In a physical fes-tival, usually they have to travel tothe city, spend atleast a day/night,taking away a lot of their time.

�How do you think such festivalsfoster art and creativity amid thepandemic?

People have been distressed,sad and depressed for a while nowwith all the negative news around,be it related to the pandemic, war,

suicides, depression, drugs, socialunrest or political frictions. Wewanted to give public a creativesolace and a ray of hope to look atthe brighter sides of life, despite thechallenging times around. We mustremember that at the darkest oftimes, creativity kindles our heartswith light. Art and creativity healsthe wounds of the hearts and helpsrepair our souls. It also strengthensour faith in the power of love andcompassion, rejuvenating the soci-etal conscience.

�You mentioned that, “Ona regular basis, film screenings,talks, workshops or panel dis-cussions should be organisedunder Indus Valley...” Whatmore can be done on the samelines to retain the momentum?

We have planned to createIndus Valley as a permanentdigital platform to connectartistes, musicians and filmmak-ers from across South Asia andlater expand it to South-East Asiaas well. It will help them connect,collaborate and plan co-produc-tions. They will also be able toshowcase their creative worksand charge an amount for it. Theplatform will also give themaccess to a wider market and con-nect with best talent and techresources available around ourneighbouring countries.

We have also decided tobring leading and forthcomingtalented musicians from acrossSouth Asia to produce and pro-mote collaborative music produc-tions. A suggestion also camethat we create a South AsianCinema fund to facilitate devel-opment of promising film scriptsselected from all South Asiancountries, and take them to alevel where they could be pro-duced as a successful screencontent. A committee will beformed to deliberate upon andfacilitate these processes.

In the wake of LeBronJames winning his fourth

NBA title with the LosAngeles Lakers theinevitable comparisonsbetween him and MichaelJordan began again. After all,Jordan’s Chicago Bulls wonsix titles in the 1990s. Earlier,this year, when sports wasshut, Jordan reminded us ofhis and his team’s greatnesswith the Netflix documen-tary The Last Dance. It isoften disingenuous to com-pare people from two differ-ent generations because overthe years, the rules and stan-dards have changed. Yet,they are easy pegs for astory. Personally, as much asI love Jordan and the Bulls,LeBron has achieved hissuccess on different teamswith different coaches andsupporting players in today’shyper-competitive age wherehe has won against thedynasty of the Golden StateWarriors.

Basketball players andother athletes are one thing,but what about cars? Is it fairto compare cars from eventhe 1990s to cars in 2020?Keep in mind, we had com-pletely different notions ofsafety, technology and evenluxury back then comparedto today. But because carsfrom that era were so muchlighter, electric seats forexample didn’t exist and nordid the heavy-duty andweighty motors to run them.They were so much moreenjoyable to drive, light andsharp around the corners.Sure, advanced variablegeometry turbochargers did-n’t exist either and if you told

someone in 1995 that a two-litre diesel motor would pro-duce close to two hundredhorsepower, you’d be sent tothe funny house.

Cars, like athletes, arethe products of their eras. Asmuch fun as I have drivingold cars, I like having digi-tal displays, ventilated seatsand music on demand. Afterall, the average commutetakes longer today despitemore roads around and Iwant to be comfortable. Idon’t mind having a bit offun on weekends but honest-ly for most buyers they’d bequite happy to sacrifice funfor convenience and com-fort. But then, I recentlydrove the BMW 220d GranCoupe and you realise thatyou do not always have tomake that sacrifice. Yes, thisis the first front-wheel driveBMW sedan to go on saleglobally (the F52 1-seriessedan was a China-only

product) but the drivingdynamics and engine perfor-mance of this car is spectac-ular. I wanted to take this carout more and the 24-hoursI had with it were painfullyshort.

I’m not saying that otherBMW’s are not comfortableas well as sporty, but this220d had a great combina-tion of performance andcomfort. And much likeLeBron’s domination oftoday reminds people ofJordan, the F44, the modelcode for the 2-series GranCoupe reminded me of the1990s E36, the model codefor the 3-series of that era.That was a brilliant car todrive, but this one conformsto all the safety features andcreature comforts of ourage. Heck, the digital instru-ment cluster on this car is arevelation with BMW’s inte-gration with Apple CarPlaybeing the best of any car.

Yes, at �39.3 lakh if thereis any problem with this carother than the fact that thereis no petrol engine variant atlaunch, it is the price. In fact,the M Sport line variant Idrove with adaptive suspen-sion cost �41.4 lakh, far tooclose to entry-level variantsof the 3-series (in fact, BMWIndia has a fantastic offer onthe 3-series GT right now).Personally, the 2-series GranCoupe is more fun than the3-series even with the sameengine. BMW India is offer-ing some attractive financeand buy-back offers forthose who buy this car. Also,BMW is smartly loadingeven the ‘Sport’ line variantwith a lot of creature com-forts and even smartphoneintegration (the base ‘Sport’line variants on manyBMW’s do not have fullsmartphone integration).But my honest bottom-lineis that I loved this car.

Over at Audi, thingshave been a bit chal-

lenging over the past fewmonths. The company hasrefreshed their range ofperformance cars, the RS7and RSQ8 have made itonto Indian shores butpickings are slim for thetime being. The A3, A4, A5,Q3, Q5 and Q7 are current-ly not on sale as BS6 ver-sions of all those cars arepending. With Audi’s cor-porate parent Skoda AutoVolkswagen India PrivateLimited deciding to with-draw from diesels altogeth-er, Audi has been unable toaccess a large proportion ofthe luxury car market thatcontinues to swear bydiesels, albeit a numberthat is decreasing.

So it was a pleasant sur-prise when I discoveredthat Audi is bringing the Q2into the Indian market. NoQ3 meant that Audi wasmissing the critical entry-point product, this mighthelp the carmaker. Now,there are some top-of-mindissues with the Q2. First andforemost, the car beinglaunched in India is not anew model, it has been inthe market for four yearsglobally and as such is sim-ilar in size and overall kit tothe recently launchedSkoda Karoq andVolkswagen T-Roc. Unlikethose cars which have a 1.5litre 150PS turbochargedpetrol engine, the Q2 hasthe 190PS 2-litre petrolengine.

And that shows whenyou take the Q2 on theroad, it is fast and how!

While it is ostensibly anSUV, even with Audi’sQuattro all-wheel drive sys-tem, it handles very wellindeed. So it ticks the boxesfor lightness and agility,and it also has a decentamount of kit with the‘Virtual Cockpit’ display,which on the Q2 is a lotbetter than the T-Roc forexample, (I’m yet to drivethe Karoq), this is a fun carto drive. Of course, thequestion — whether it willbe worth the extra dosh youwill payout for the addition-al 40PS of power — is thepertinent one. Of course,there is the power of theAudi badge, which touch-ingly is colloquially knownas Char Choori in NorthIndia. The baby Q2 has

badge value that its siblingsdo not have. With Audithrowing in free serviceand maintenance for fiveyears, if you pre-book thecar, it becomes a bettervalue.

What is interestingthough is Audi’s strategy inIndia. So far in 2020,they’ve addressed the top ofthe market and now, the Q2addressing the entry intothe luxury market. Ofcourse, this has been madeeasier with the decision toallow limited volumeimports into India withoutthe need for homologa-tion. At the time of writingI didn’t know the price ofthe Q2, but it ought to be anattractive entry-point tobrand Audi.

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Cuisines act as an expressionof cultural identity as theyare passed on to other gen-

erations as tradition. With everygeographical shift, we come acrossnew people and with them, theircountries’ or native places’ food. Infact, cooking their traditional cui-sine at a different place becomes away for them to keep their culturealive as they migrate to newer loca-tions. Every platter has differentmethods of preparation andflavour preferences, which can bean intimation of the specific regionor from the people who make it.This knowledge can be used by thechef to tap into the subconsciousassociations that guests have abouttheir own cultures, such as comfortflavours.

For a very long time, the pro-motion of traditional food is oneof the main components of therelationship between food, cultureand tourism. Even though foodand culture are two separate worldsbut they go well together. Theworld treats culture as an embod-iment of people’s traditions andways of life as it is always illustrat-ed in their food, rituals, dances,festivals, sculptures, buildingdesigns, religion, clothing andother practices.

However, if we notice, thefusion of cultures is more commonnow than ever. Due to migrationbeing a popular trend, there is alsoa rise in fusion foods, which,though it might look like, do nottake away the origin of the societywhich they were originally born in.According to the area and differ-ent cultures, the types of food eatenby millions of people around theworld vary. This diversity did notstart like this but it graduallyevolved to balance our societyand the resources available.Therefore, we study how cultureinfluences food choices and viceversa, to understand or have adeeper understanding of variousfood cultures.

European & Indian influencesThere have been several

changes post the Renaissance infood in both India and Europe.With the origin of the innovativecooks in Italy, it brought the use ofwheat, barley, sesamum and bras-sica in India.

By that time, humans had alsolearnt to tame buffaloes, goatsand sheep as they started becom-ing useful for agriculture. Slowlyand steadily, the time marked theoverall development and led ustowards a civilised world, with amore scientif ically managedlifestyle. Food in ancient India ulti-mately depicted the cultural devel-opment from ancient history asearlier Indians ate food from read-ily available nature. The principalfood items of the nomadic dwellerswere fruits, wild berries, meat, fish,etc.

People settled down with theadvent of civilization and began tofarm, which led to food crops,pulses, etc, being discovered. Now,the food was grown around the fer-tile river valleys in India. Rice,lentils, vegetables and meat wereconsumed as staples. Thus, theIndian civilisation period and theRenaissance in Europe are power-ful examples of how culture influ-ences food preferences.

Modern culture’s influencePopular food rituals are erod-

ing and patterns of meal prepara-tion are shifting. People are most-ly eating alone and we don’t eatthree square meals a day anymore.Snacks are now almost equal to thenumber of meal opportunities, 49per cent versus 51 per cent. Today’ssigns of food quality have to befresh, real and less-refined becauseconsumers want to know andunderstand what all ingredients areincorporated in their food and thestory behind the particular dishbeing served. Consumers are seek-ing simplicity, hence, they wantminimally processed food.Nowadays, transparency is a newtrend driving change in the foodindustry. Digitalisation is alsoreaddressing our relationship withfood because people are now usingtheir smartphone to order food orto book or review restaurantsonline from anywhere in the worldand rely on good food pictures aswell. The rise in the millennial gen-eration and their behaviour patternhas shown us that they are moreconcerned about their health, com-munity, social issues and humanetreatment of animals more thantheir older counterparts. Also,there is another opportunity we see

as in the face of dining out, suchas breakfast, small bites, theabsence of additives/preservatives,organic casualisation (and itsexpansion into all stages of foodservice) as well as all-day snacking.

In this modern age, traditionsare taking a back seat and conve-nience is becoming the focus.With this mantra being the drivingforce, food is itself changing tokeep up with the fast-movinglifestyle. Asian cuisines have alwaysencouraged family meals and thus,have different ways of consump-tion. For example, China useschopsticks since having a familymeal means a widespread on thetable and chopsticks help to slowdown your eating pace and tricksyou into feeling full. Since familiesnow hardly have time for eachother. Hence, the meaning behindthese small cultural aspects are get-ting lost.

Languages and foodThe culture and customs

revolve around food and languagebecause among other slightly lessimportant factors, early humanswere more likely to develop theirsocieties to keep themselves fed.Language is also riddled withphrases and idioms linked to foodsince the invention of communi-cation was a survival strategy inlarge regions. Today, as we see foodand language continue to be animportant aspect of our lives andculture, there are tonnes of foodidioms in many languages thatreflect local cuisine because whywouldn’t they? In many restau-rants, while catering to interna-tional visitors, the role of includ-ing local language in the menus hasbeen adopted by the local lingualsfrom region-specific dishes tokeep up with the branding andmake them distinctive in terms oftheir menu offering.

For example, a famous idiomin Hindi — Thotha Chana BaajeGhana — is an indication towardshow a learned man is always hum-ble. There are many phrases thatshow us how food has beenobserved and incorporated intoour lives in a way that we don’teven notice.

Thus, aromas and visual sig-nals can jog people’s memoriesfrom their childhood relating totheir favourite food, without eventasting it. This depicts how foodcan remind you of your traditionseven if you’re overseas. It’s a wayof coming home and feeling atpeace. Most of the time chefs usethis tactic to make their patronsfeel more welcomed and homely.The best way to sell a house is bybaking a fresh batch of cookiesbecause the sweet and warm smellgives the house a homely vibe.

The differences among cul-tures’ significance are very muchthe differences we can see infood, which also affects the per-sonality of the people who livethere. Now it’s easier to accesscuisines from distinct cultures asthe world becomes more glob-alised. We all should accept ourheritage through the food of ourcountry but also try and exploreother regions’ food and becomemore educated about other cul-tures and traditions as well. It isimportant to note that in theculture, to which it belongs, eachdish has a special place and is evenmore special for those who pre-pare it. Food is, and it should beviewed as such, a gateway to cul-ture.

(The author is the head chef ofKrua Thai.)

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An explosive batting line-upand a lethal-at-death bowl-

ing attack will give defendingchampions Mumbai Indians adefinitive edge over KolkataKnight Riders when the twoteams clash in an IPL game hereon Friday.

The defending championsare on a roll having won their lastfour games, while there are prob-lems aplenty for KKR, who weredecimated by RCB by 82 runs intheir last game.

For KKR, questions remainas to whether their key spinnerSunil Narine, who has been oncereported for suspect bowlingaction, will play or not. He hadmissed the game against RCBeven as KKR hoped for an “earlyresolution” to the issues sur-rounding his controversialaction.

In the event of Narine miss-ing out again, Mumbai will fancytheir chances even more at theSheikh Zayed stadium, whereskipper Rohit Sharma has scoredboth his half-centuries this sea-

son.Sharma (216 runs),

on his day, can pummelany attack to submis-sion and particularlyenjoys playing againstKolkata. When the two teamsmet last, Mumbai rode on hisbelligerent 80 to register a 49-runwin.

Apart from Sharma, theMumbai top and middle-order is in good form — beit Quinton De Kock (191runs) or Sur yakumarYadav (233 runs), whowould like to continue inthe same vein.

Mumbai Indianscoach MahelaJayawardene wouldbe pleased with thelikes of HardikPandya and swash-buckling KieronPollard, who havebeen launchinginto the opposi-tion attack withtheir big-hit-ting prowessalong with

Krunal Pandya.Given the trio’s

abilities, they can ripapart the KKR attack,especially one sansNarine.

On the bowling front too,Mumbai looks a settled unitwith Trent Boult and JaspritBumrah providing early break-

throughs. They are comple-mented by Australian JamesPattinson and the trio hasaccounted for 31 wickets.

Spinners RahulChahar and Krunal will

be again looking tocontain the KKRbatters.

M e a n w h i l e ,the biggest draw-back for KKR isthe inconsistentperformance oftheir batsmen,p a r t i c u l a r l y

Andre Russell,who has justmanaged ameagre 71

runs fromseven games.

There was talk of Russellbeing promoted up the order, buthe continues to bat down andhasn’t done justice to his abilities.

Kolkata also possesses anumber of batsmen who can takeany attack to cleaners. It compris-es the young and elegantShubman Gill, England’s WorldCup-winning captain EoinMorgan, Nitish Rana and skipperDinesh Karthik, but they havenot got going barring the oddgame.

The management would behoping that come Friday, theyfire in unison to reduce pressureon young guns Rahul Tripathiand Tom Banton.

KKR bowlers did well tofashion narrow victories againstKings XI Punjab and ChennaiSuper Kings, but were profligateagainst RCB.

KKR may also look to playKuldeep Yadav, who wasdropped after playing just threegames, in place of a third pacer.

He can come in handy alongwith mystery spinner VarunChakravarthy, who was econom-ical in the game against RCB.

��(������: The pitches in theUAE are getting slower witheach passing day but MumbaiIndians head coach MahelaJayawardene is keen to persistwith their pace-heavy attack.

A lot of teams are relyingon their spinners now as theball has started to stop a bit afterpitching, forcing the batsmen tomuscle the ball around insteadof timing it.

“I cannot say that right nowbecause the fast bowlers stillhave a bigger role to play in thiscompetition — be it in thePowerplay, middle overs andthe backend,” Mahela said whenasked if they would re-thinktheir strategy against KKR.

“So, trying to keep that bal-ance as long as they are mak-ing contributions, penetratingthrough opponent batting line-up, it does not matter what kindof surfaces we play on,” he said.

The former Sri Lankanbatsman said the quality of theirfast bowling, led by JaspritBumrah, creates enough oppor-tunities for them.

“We have got very goodspinners, who are operatingright now within the playingeleven. There are a few guyswho are at the wings, who wemight look at giving certainpositions and match-ups. Ifthe conditions suit, we will lookinto that but right now, I amhappy with the combination wehave and the way they haveoperated,” said Mahela. PTI

������ �� Ace Indian shuttlerKidambi Srikanth stormed intothe Denmark Open quarterfi-nals with a straight-game winover Canada’s Jason AnthonyHo-Shue here on Thursday.

The fifth seeded Indiantook 33 minutes to get the bet-ter of his Canadian opponent21-15, 21-14 in the men’s singlessecond round of the $750,000Super 750 tournament.

“It was close until 11 in bothgames. I’m just happy that I

could continue that formthroughout the match. I had tobe alert to get back his shots,”Srikanth told BWF.

The 27-year-old will nextface world No 2 Chou TienChen of Chinese Taipei, whobeats Ireland’s Nhat Nguyen21-8, 21-16 later in the day.

Talking about Chou TienChen, Srikanth said: “He’s beenplaying well the last few years. It’sdefinitely a match where I canunderstand where I’m at. That’s

the whole idea of playing thistournament.

“He hits hard, he’s someonewho has an overall game, he hasa hard smash, he knows when toattack and when to defend. Hehas matured. It’s always goodwhen you play a top 4 player.”

The other Indian in thecompetition, Lakshya Sen, willbe up against local challengerHans-Kristian SolbergVittinghus in his second roundmatch later in the day. PTI

��� � 3 0* 0

England’s prospects of return-ing to the finals of the

Nations League suffered a big hitas Gareth Southgate’s side lost 1-0 at home to Denmark onWednesday, while KylianMbappe gave World Cup hold-ers France a 2-1 victory inCroatia and Portugal won with-out Cristiano Ronaldo.

Harry Maguire was sent offfor England in the first half atWembley for two clumsy yellowcards, and Christian Eriksenthen converted a 35th-minutepenalty on the occasion of his100th cap to put the Danesahead.

They held on to inflict a firsthome defeat on England in twoyears, with the hosts also havingyoung Chelsea full-back ReeceJames sent off for dissent afterthe final whistle.

“He is a top player, he is amassive part of what we do,”Southgate said in defence ofMaguire, who has struggled forMan United since his involve-ment in a brawl on the Greekisland of Mykonos in August.

“He is having a periodwhere is having a lot of stickthrown his way and he is bigenough to deal with that.”

England got to the four-team finals of the inaugural

Nations League last year buttheir chances of getting thereagain this time are very much inthe balance with Belgium twopoints ahead of Southgate’s teamand the Danes atop League A,Group 2.

Belgium won 2-1 in Icelandon Wednesday with RomeluLukaku scoring twice. Theyhost England in Brussels onNovember 15.

In Zagreb, PSG star Mbappemissed an open goal early on butgot the winner in the 79thminute as France beat Croatia 2-1 in their latest re-run of the2018 World Cup final.

Antoine Griezmann hadput France ahead with NikolaVlasic equalising in the secondhalf for Croatia before around7,000 fans.

Les Bleus have still never lostto Croatia and are level withPortugal on 10 points at the topof League A, Group 3.

DOUBLES FOR JOTA, LEWAPortugal, winners of the

inaugural Nations League,shrugged off the absence ofRonaldo because of a positiveCovid-19 test as they beatSweden 3-0 in Lisbon.

Liverpool’s Diogo Jota set upBernardo Silva for the openerthen scored two of his own, oneeither side of half-time.

Meanwhile, the prolificRobert Lewandowski scored abrace as Poland beat Bosnia andHerzegovina 3-0 in Warsaw.Karol Linetty got the other goaland Poland are top of Group A,a point above Italy.

����� *61�+�

Opener Shikhar Dhawansays his teammates at Delhi

Capitals know it will be a jobwell done whenever the ball ishanded to the lethal pace duo ofKagiso Rabada and AnrichNortje.

In the IPL on Wednesday,the Capitals registered a thrilling13-run victory over RajasthanRoyals on the back of an incred-ible death overs bowling by theirpace attack comprising Rabada,Nortje and rookie TusharDeshpande.

Nortje (2/33) was breath-takingly fast, bowling in the mid150 kmph. He gave away justfour runs and took a wicket inthe 18th over and Rabada (1/28)followed that up with a three-run over for a wicket.

“Nortje and Rabada aregreat bowlers, Rabada is a leg-end, and when they both bowlas a partnership, it is lethal,”

Dhawan, who took over thecaptaincy duties from an injuredShreyas Iyer, said at the post-match press conference.

“They have been takingearly wickets and when webring them back during thedeath overs or the middle overs,we know they will do the job.

“We are fortunate to havethis class of bowling. The spin-ners have also been doing theirjob. The way (Ravichandran)Ashwin has been performingafter the injury has been great.Everyone is performing andthat is a sign of a good team,” headded.

The Royals’ bowlers pro-vided their team with a brightstart, giving away just 32 runsin the last five overs. JofraArcher returned with the bestbowling figures as he finishedwith 3-19.

However, the batsmen onceagain failed to live up to thebilling, losing wickets at regularintervals and spin bowlingcoach Sairaj Bahutule rued thelack of substantial partnerships.

“Well, I think partnershipswere pretty important, the startwe got through Jos Buttler andBen Stokes, we did not need tolose these many wickets andespecially that run out of RiyanParag,” Bahutule said.

“The most important partwas the wicket of Stokes and therun-out was very crucial, wecould have probably avoidedthat and if Sanju stayed at thewicket, we could have taken thegame a bit deeper and got theseruns,” he added.

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MATCHES 25MUMBAI INDIANS 20KOLKATA KNIGHT RIDERS 06

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Kings XI Punjab finally put upa disciplined effort with thebowl to restrict Royal

Challengers Bangalore to 171 forsix in their must-win IPL matchhere on Thursday.

Skipper Virat Kohli top-scoredwith 48 off 39 balls in his 200thgame for RCB but it was ChrisMorris’ 25 off 8 in the death oversthat took the team to a competi-

tive score.The final over bowled by

Mohammad Shami went for 24runs and could well prove to be thedifference on a pitch which is notthe batting beauty it was at the startof the tournament.

Notwithstanding Shami’s way-ward 20th over, it was a muchimproved bowling effort from ateam that has been leaking runs inthe death overs game after game.

KXIP conceded only 25 runs

from over 16-19 before Morris andIsuru Udana hammered Shami forthree sixes.

After Kohli chose to bat, KXIPexperimented by opening thebowling with Glenn Maxwell (0/28in 4 overs). He was slog swept byhis Australian teammate and closefriend Aaron Finch on the finalball.

Other opener DevduttPadikkal (18) also went for hisshots with his best hit of the nightbeing the whip off Shami that wentfor a six over deep square leg.

However, both Padikkal andFinch could not build on theirstarts. Padikkal was foxed by aslower one from left-arm pacerArshdeep Singh to be caught atcover, while Finch missed a fast leg-break from M Ashwin, leavingRCB at 62 for two in the seventhover.

With Kohli looking good at theother end, AB de Villiers wasexpected to come in at his usualnumber four spot but with two leg-spinners in operation, left-handedbatsman Washington Sundar wassent ahead of the South African.

The move did not work as hestruggled to 13 off 14 balls.

KXIP, whose bowling has beenthe weakest link, did rather wellfrom 11-14 overs conceding just 20runs to put pressure on the oppo-sition.

RCB needed to move on andsouthpaw Shivam Dube providedthe timely strike, dispatching RaviBishnoi to consecutive sixes toamass 19 runs from the over.

Following Dube’s dismissal inthe 15th over, De Villiers finallyjoined Kohli for the late assault,which was eventually provided byMorris.

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