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T rouble gripped the ruling BJD and its Cuttack- Barabati MLA Debasis Samantray again as a fresh photograph showing Samantray sharing dais with dreaded criminal Sushil Dhalsamant reportedly at a party meeting come to the fore on Wednesday. Sushil had attended the preparatory meeting of the BJD called by Samantray in Cuttack on the eve of the party padayatra in October last year. Continued on Page 4 I n view of a Supreme Court judgement, a lower court here on Wednesday directed for pro- duction of arrested Dhalsamant brothers before it to elicit their consent for subjecting them to polygraph test as sought by the Commissionerate police. The Cuttack Sadar SDJM Court directed the police to pro- duce the arrested brothers before it on Thursday. Sushil Dhalsamant and his elder brother Sushant are now on police remand after they were arrested on January 29 in con- nection with an alleged abduc- tion and murder of two crimi- nals, who have gone missing since December 2012. The Chauliaganj police inspector Ajay Kumar Das had prayed the SDJM court seeking permission to conduct poly- graph test on the arrested duo for the purpose of investigation. “For sake of prosecution of the case, both the brothers were brought on police remand and during interrogation, they are lying and not disclosing the fact of the case,” Das had said in his prayer. Objecting to the police prayer, the advocate of the brothers Soura Chandra Mohapatra argued that the apex court in the case of Smt Selvi V/s. The government of Karnataka in 2010 has laid down the law regarding the pro- cedure for polygraph test in which the consent of the accused must be taken before allowing the prayer of the pros- ecution. He also argued that there is no provision in CrPC allowing the prosecution to conduct polygraph test on the accused. Mohapatra brought to the notice of the court about some media reports questioning as to Continued on Page 4 W hen natural or unnat- ural causes on an aver- age cut short 36 lives every 24 hours last year alone in Odisha, the ambitious scheme of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to bring every citizen under insurance umbrella — the Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Yojana (PMJJY) that insures an individual of 2 lakh for any type of death and Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Yojana (PMSY) that insures one of 2 lakh accidental insurance — is yet to attain the intended size and scale in the State. According to data avail- able with the State-level Bankers Committee (SLBC) here, over 5 million lives were insured under the schemes as on November 30, 2015 – the last date for reg- istration in the State. Though, the average enrolments every day during the first three months were over 39,000, the number has risen to over 47,000 per day during the last three months, revealed the data. However, the intra-day enrolment in the country hovered at over 99,000 last year. This is so, when Odisha with a rate of 2 deaths every day owing to drowning alone figured among the top-15 States with maximum number of deaths due to drowning in the coun- try. And, the affected house- holds have no option of any compensation. Interestingly, when the accounts opened under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana in the State till November 30, 2015 had crossed over 8 million; the enrolment under the insur- ance schemes was around 5 million only – which reveals the existing gap in the poten- tial and the actual enrolment attained in Odisha. What is significant here is, such eligible populace stood excluded from the benefit of such schemes in the State for the simple reason of being unaware of such insurance schemes, a SLBC report has revealed. Moreover, the report also indicated the lesser enrol- ment under the PMJJY, which provides insurance cover to even any death, to availabili- ty of lesser surplus amount at the hands of households in Odisha to pay the annual premium of 330 to maintain the policy. However, the scheme of ‘Suraksha Bandhan’ launched by the Government last year to take care of unaffordable didn’t receive the hand-hold- ing here, courtesy the obvious perception of one as an ‘NDA scheme’, quipped a senior SBI executive here. Interestingly, the scheme was tailored to overcome the hurdle by intro- ducing gift schemes of ‘Suraksha’ and ‘Jeevan Suraksha’ deposit offers, where individuals could deposit cheques/cash of 5,001 for PMJJY and 201 for PMSY in the name of a beneficiary, and banks were directed by the Union Finance Ministry to initiate neces- sary actions to popularise the scheme. “The lead district man- agers worked hard to bring the involvement of NGOs, SHGs, local MPs, MLAs and other public representatives like councillors or gram pan- chayat members to upscale the enrolment in the State, the response, however, especially from some SHGs and the local elected members was not enthusiastic as the schemes were being looked at through the ‘political’ prism,” observed the senior SBI executive. S tudents of different schools in Khordha, Angul, Subarnapur, Baleswar, Nabarangpur and Cuttack dis- tricts fell ill after taking de- worming tablets on the occa- sion of the National De-worm- ing Day on Wednesday. Over 40 students of the Brahmanabila Upper Primary School of Angul district were taken ill after consuming Albendazole tablet. More than 30 students of the Bandhahuda school in Narasinghpur of Cuttack district and 15 stu- dents of the Budhapada and Khududpur schools of Khordha district fell ill. Seven students of the Chepapalli Upper Primary School in Sonepur block of Subarnapur district were also taken ill. While some of them complained of stomach ache, some others vomited. They were admitted to hospital. Ten students of the Khairabani school in Nilagiri of Baleswar district and two students of a school in Nabarangpur district were also taken ill after taking the tablet. Deputy Director of Health Biswa Bhusan Padhi said, “The de-worming tablet has mini- mal side effects, which last for two to three hours. The side effects could be a little more in cases of those with worm dis- eases. Some students might have complained of feeling unwell after seeing their friends complaining of stom- ach ache. For this, the students should be told not to panic and kept at relatively cooler place. If possible, sufficient drinking water should be provided to them.” Health Secretary Arti Ahuja said, “The side effects of the de-worming tablet can be seen in persons suffering from any kind illness. There is no need to panic.” Notably, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) is implementing the National Deworming Day in schools and preschools (anganwadis) across the coun- try today with the goal to deworm preschool and school- age children between the age of 1-19 years at schools and anganwadi centres in order to improve their overall health, nutritional status, cognitive development and quality of life. T he agitating SC/ST and physically-handicapped teachers, who have been stag- ing demonstration in front of the State Assembly since February 4 demanding regu- larisation of jobs, on Wednesday adopted a novel way by tonsuring their heads as a mark of protest stating that they were performing the “last rites” of the Government as it is yet to fulfil their demands. “The Government fails to address our genuine demands. It is sitting idle on our demands. Today, we observed the 10th day of the death of the Government and tonsured our heads as per Hindu rituals,” said one of the protestors. Thousands of the teachers, under the aegis of the Odisha SC/ST Ganashikshak Mahasangha said they would continue their stir till their demands are met. “The Government in 2013 assured us to regularise our jobs after six years of service. It only regularised the jobs of those in Ganjam district, the home district of the Chief Minister. The teachers of the rest 29 districts are yet to be regularised,” said another protester. There are nearly 7,200 SC/ST and physically-handi- capped teachers working in the State. P olluted Ganga river may find its saviour in an unmanned water surface vehi- cle ‘Ro-Boat’ that is capable of detecting, collecting and elim- inating all kind of trash includ- ing chemical effluents and floating waste from the surface of water. The device which has been identified as possible techno- logical intervention for the mammoth task of cleaning the river under the Union Water and Resources Ministry’s Ganga Action Plan (GAP) has been developed by a Delhi-based tech company, Omnipresent Robot Tech Pvt Ltd. The Union Science and Technology Ministry which received a proposal in this regard from the firm last year, examined the prototype of the Ro-Boat and has now recom- mended it for the use, terming it as a potential technology for cleaning garbage or dirt from the river or water bodies. The proposal was exam- ined by the Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC), an autonomous body of Department of Science and Technology (DST). Now, the Small Industries Development Bank of India is studying the financial aspect for the project. Each device costs Rs 15 lakh. Depending on the length of the river, the devices will have to be deployed. Presently, trial runs are going on for the cleanliness of Yamuna river yielding good results. Akash Sinha, CEO and founder of the company, said that the machine has to be pro- grammed to collect all kind of pollutants and sludge through its ‘robotic arms’ and then offload the waste. Solar panels battery and twin propeller engine will help it to navigate while consuming less power. The device has a unique ability to completely submerge in the river to pull out the pollutants settled on the riverbed. “The key advantage with such unmanned devices is that they can work day and night continuously with little human intervention. There is also an option to go for a remote human operator to see the video data transmitted by the Ro-Boat, define and change the course of the machine,” Sinha added. The Ro-Boat is equipped with fog lights and a pan-tilt zoom camera, making it capa- ble of 24-hour operation. “Erring on the side of practi- cality, if we assume 12 hours of operation per day, the gadget can clean up 600 kg of waste a day, or nearly 200 tonnes of waste a year,” Sinha said. The company is already making several kinds of robots for several sectors. The Ro-Boat has been awarded among top 20 innovations by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Last year, the Government had sanctioned Rs 20,000 crore for rejuvenating the Ganga under the ‘Namami Gange Project’. Under the project, an amount of Rs 1,700 crore will be released for Allahabad, Rs 1,000 crore for Kanpur and Rs 450 crore for Varanasi. The money will be utilised for purification of the river and enhancement of the capacity of sewage treatment plants (STPs), Water Resources Minister Uma Bharati had said. L ance Naik Hanumanthappa Koppad’s grim battle for life after surviving a six-day ordeal buried under 35-feet of ice and snow in Siachen glaci- er has moved the entire nation, so much so that a housewife from Lakhimpur Kheri on Wednesday offered to donate a kidney while an ex- sailor of the Indian Navy based in Mumbai offered any organ to save the brave soldier. Koppad is still in a coma at the Army Research and Referral Hospital (R&R) here and the next 24 hours are crucial as the soldier’s kidneys and liver are dysfunctional which is further complicated by the fact that he is suffering from pneumonia. Meanwhile, the bodies of nine other soldiers of Madras Regiment who died in the avalanche could not be brought down to the Siachen base camp due to a raging blizzard that is hampering rescue efforts at the world’s highest battlefield. If the weather clears up, the Army is hopeful of bringing the bodies to the base camp locat- ed at a height of 11,000 feet on Thursday with the help of Army helicopters, officials said on Wednesday. Incidentally, the ill-fated post, which was buried under tons of snow on February 3, is positioned at more than 19,600 feet. With the Army describing Koppad’s condition as critical, a housewife from Lakhimpur Kheri in Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday offered to donate a kidney. “It was being broadcast in the news channels that his con- dition is extremely critical as his liver and kidneys are not func- tioning properly. So I want to donate a kidney for this brave man,” Nidhi Pandey, who lives in Padaria Tula Village, about 50 km away from Kheri, said. Pandey, contacted the helpline of a local news chan- nel and sought to know how she can contact the hospital and proceed with her wish to donate a kidney to Koppad, who is battling for his life. Apart from Pandey, an ex- sailor of the Indian Navy SS Raju has expressed his will- ingness to donate any organ of his body to save the life of “fel- low-brother” Koppad. “I request doctors at the R&R Hospital to contact me immediately and I can go to New Delhi... I am ready to donate any organ, including liver, kidney... We must save our fellow brother who is crit- ical,” said Raju, a resident of Bhayander in adjoining Thane district.

Transcript of ˝ # ,6ˆ7˛%,$849/: $˚%&%$& ’ ($)ˇ˙ *+ ˚$), *- ˜& ˚! #’ ! & #&0 ... – the last date for...

Page 1: ˝ # ,6ˆ7˛%,$849/: $˚%&%$& ’ ($)ˇ˙ *+ ˚$), *- ˜& ˚! #’ ! & #&0 ... – the last date for reg-istration in the State. Though, the average enrolments every day during the

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Trouble gripped the rulingBJD and its Cuttack-

Barabati MLA DebasisSamantray again as a freshphotograph showingSamantray sharing dais withdreaded criminal SushilDhalsamant reportedly at aparty meeting come to thefore on Wednesday.

Sushil had attended thepreparatory meeting of theBJD called by Samantray inCuttack on the eve of the partypadayatra in October last year.

Continued on Page 4

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In view of a Supreme Courtjudgement, a lower court here

on Wednesday directed for pro-duction of arrested Dhalsamantbrothers before it to elicit theirconsent for subjecting them topolygraph test as sought by theCommissionerate police.

The Cuttack Sadar SDJMCourt directed the police to pro-duce the arrested brothersbefore it on Thursday. SushilDhalsamant and his elderbrother Sushant are now onpolice remand after they werearrested on January 29 in con-nection with an alleged abduc-tion and murder of two crimi-nals, who have gone missingsince December 2012.

The Chauliaganj policeinspector Ajay Kumar Das hadprayed the SDJM court seekingpermission to conduct poly-graph test on the arrested duofor the purpose of investigation.“For sake of prosecution of thecase, both the brothers werebrought on police remand andduring interrogation, they arelying and not disclosing the factof the case,” Das had said in hisprayer.

Objecting to the policeprayer, the advocate of thebrothers Soura ChandraMohapatra argued that the apexcourt in the case of Smt SelviV/s. The government ofKarnataka in 2010 has laiddown the law regarding the pro-cedure for polygraph test inwhich the consent of theaccused must be taken beforeallowing the prayer of the pros-ecution. He also argued thatthere is no provision in CrPCallowing the prosecution toconduct polygraph test on theaccused.

Mohapatra brought to thenotice of the court about somemedia reports questioning as to

Continued on Page 4

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When natural or unnat-ural causes on an aver-

age cut short 36 lives every 24hours last year alone inOdisha, the ambitious schemeof Prime Minister NarendraModi to bring every citizenunder insurance umbrella —the Pradhan Mantri JeevanJyoti Yojana (PMJJY) thatinsures an individual of �2lakh for any type of death andPradhan Mantri SurakshaYojana (PMSY) that insuresone of �2 lakh accidentalinsurance — is yet to attainthe intended size and scale inthe State.

According to data avail-able with the State-levelBankers Committee (SLBC)here, over 5 million liveswere insured under theschemes as on November 30,2015 – the last date for reg-istration in the State.

Though, the averageenrolments every day duringthe first three months wereover 39,000, the number hasrisen to over 47,000 per dayduring the last three months,revealed the data. However,the intra-day enrolment in thecountry hovered at over99,000 last year. This is so,when Odisha with a rate of 2deaths every day owing todrowning alone f igured

among the top-15 States withmaximum number of deathsdue to drowning in the coun-try. And, the affected house-holds have no option of anycompensation.

Interestingly, when theaccounts opened under thePradhan Mantri Jan DhanYojana in the State t i l lNovember 30, 2015 hadcrossed over 8 million; theenrolment under the insur-ance schemes was around 5million only – which revealsthe existing gap in the poten-tial and the actual enrolmentattained in Odisha.

What is significant here is,such eligible populace stoodexcluded from the benefit ofsuch schemes in the State forthe simple reason of beingunaware of such insuranceschemes, a SLBC report has

revealed.Moreover, the report also

indicated the lesser enrol-ment under the PMJJY, whichprovides insurance cover toeven any death, to availabili-ty of lesser surplus amount atthe hands of households inOdisha to pay the annualpremium of �330 to maintainthe policy.

However, the scheme of‘Suraksha Bandhan’ launchedby the Government last yearto take care of unaffordabledidn’t receive the hand-hold-ing here, courtesy the obviousperception of one as an ‘NDAscheme’, quipped a senior SBIexecutive here. Interestingly,the scheme was tailored toovercome the hurdle by intro-ducing gif t schemes of‘Suraksha’ and ‘JeevanSuraksha’ deposit offers,

where individuals coulddeposit cheques/cash of�5,001 for PMJJY and �201for PMSY in the name of abeneficiary, and banks weredirected by the Union FinanceMinistry to initiate neces-sary actions to popularise thescheme.

“The lead district man-agers worked hard to bringthe involvement of NGOs,SHGs, local MPs, MLAs andother public representativeslike councillors or gram pan-chayat members to upscalethe enrolment in the State, theresponse, however, especiallyfrom some SHGs and thelocal elected members wasnot enthusiastic as theschemes were being looked atthrough the ‘political’ prism,”observed the senior SBI executive.

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Students of different schoolsin Khordha, Angul,

Subarnapur, Baleswar,Nabarangpur and Cuttack dis-tricts fell ill after taking de-worming tablets on the occa-sion of the National De-worm-ing Day on Wednesday.

Over 40 students of theBrahmanabila Upper PrimarySchool of Angul district weretaken ill after consumingAlbendazole tablet. More than30 students of the Bandhahudaschool in Narasinghpur ofCuttack district and 15 stu-dents of the Budhapada andKhududpur schools ofKhordha district fell ill.

Seven students of theChepapalli Upper PrimarySchool in Sonepur block ofSubarnapur district were alsotaken ill. While some of themcomplained of stomach ache,some others vomited. Theywere admitted to hospital.

Ten students of theKhairabani school in Nilagiriof Baleswar district and twostudents of a school inNabarangpur district were alsotaken ill after taking the tablet.

Deputy Director of HealthBiswa Bhusan Padhi said, “Thede-worming tablet has mini-mal side effects, which last fortwo to three hours. The sideeffects could be a little more incases of those with worm dis-eases. Some students mighthave complained of feeling

unwell after seeing theirfriends complaining of stom-ach ache. For this, the studentsshould be told not to panic andkept at relatively cooler place.If possible, sufficient drinkingwater should be provided tothem.”

Health Secretary ArtiAhuja said, “The side effects ofthe de-worming tablet can beseen in persons suffering fromany kind illness. There is noneed to panic.”

Notably, the Ministry ofHealth and Family Welfare(MoHFW) is implementingthe National Deworming Dayin schools and preschools(anganwadis) across the coun-try today with the goal todeworm preschool and school-age children between the age of1-19 years at schools andanganwadi centres in order toimprove their overall health,nutritional status, cognitivedevelopment and quality of life.

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The agitating SC/ST andphysically-handicapped

teachers, who have been stag-ing demonstration in front ofthe State Assembly sinceFebruary 4 demanding regu-larisation of jobs, onWednesday adopted a novelway by tonsuring their heads asa mark of protest stating thatthey were performing the “lastrites” of the Government as itis yet to fulfil their demands.

“The Government fails toaddress our genuine demands.It is sitting idle on ourdemands. Today, we observedthe 10th day of the death of theGovernment and tonsured ourheads as per Hindu rituals,”

said one of the protestors. Thousands of the teachers,

under the aegis of the OdishaSC/ST GanashikshakMahasangha said they wouldcontinue their stir till theirdemands are met.

“The Government in 2013assured us to regularise ourjobs after six years of service.It only regularised the jobs ofthose in Ganjam district, thehome district of the ChiefMinister. The teachers of the

rest 29 districts are yet to beregularised,” said another protester.

There are nearly 7,200SC/ST and physically-handi-capped teachers working in theState.

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Polluted Ganga river mayfind its saviour in an

unmanned water surface vehi-cle ‘Ro-Boat’ that is capable ofdetecting, collecting and elim-inating all kind of trash includ-ing chemical effluents andfloating waste from the surfaceof water.

The device which has beenidentified as possible techno-logical intervention for themammoth task of cleaning theriver under the Union Waterand Resources Ministry’s GangaAction Plan (GAP) has beendeveloped by a Delhi-basedtech company, OmnipresentRobot Tech Pvt Ltd.

The Union Science andTechnology Ministry whichreceived a proposal in thisregard from the firm last year,examined the prototype of theRo-Boat and has now recom-

mended it for the use, termingit as a potential technology forcleaning garbage or dirt fromthe river or water bodies.

The proposal was exam-ined by the TechnologyInformation, Forecasting andAssessment Council (TIFAC),an autonomous body ofDepartment of Science andTechnology (DST). Now, theSmall Industries DevelopmentBank of India is studying thefinancial aspect for the project.

Each device costs Rs 15lakh. Depending on the length

of the river, the devices willhave to be deployed.

Presently, trial runs aregoing on for the cleanliness ofYamuna river yielding goodresults. Akash Sinha, CEO andfounder of the company, saidthat the machine has to be pro-grammed to collect all kind ofpollutants and sludge throughits ‘robotic arms’ and thenoffload the waste.

Solar panels battery andtwin propeller engine will helpit to navigate while consumingless power. The device has a

unique ability to completelysubmerge in the river to pullout the pollutants settled on theriverbed.

“The key advantage with

such unmanned devices is thatthey can work day and nightcontinuously with little humanintervention. There is also anoption to go for a remote

human operator to see thevideo data transmitted by theRo-Boat, define and change thecourse of the machine,” Sinhaadded.

The Ro-Boat is equippedwith fog lights and a pan-tiltzoom camera, making it capa-ble of 24-hour operation.“Erring on the side of practi-

cality, if we assume 12 hours ofoperation per day, the gadgetcan clean up 600 kg of waste aday, or nearly 200 tonnes ofwaste a year,” Sinha said.

The company is alreadymaking several kinds of robotsfor several sectors. The Ro-Boathas been awarded among top20 innovations byMassachusetts Institute ofTechnology (MIT).

Last year, the Governmenthad sanctioned Rs 20,000 crorefor rejuvenating the Gangaunder the ‘Namami GangeProject’. Under the project, anamount of Rs 1,700 crore willbe released for Allahabad, Rs1,000 crore for Kanpur and Rs450 crore for Varanasi. Themoney will be utilised forpurification of the river andenhancement of the capacity ofsewage treatment plants (STPs),Water Resources Minister UmaBharati had said.

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Lance Naik HanumanthappaKoppad’s grim battle for

life after surviving a six-dayordeal buried under 35-feet ofice and snow in Siachen glaci-er has moved the entire nation,so much so that a housewifefrom Lakhimpur Kheri onWednesday offered to donate akidney while an ex- sailor of theIndian Navy based in Mumbaioffered any organ to save thebrave soldier.

Koppad is still in a coma atthe Army Research and ReferralHospital (R&R) here and thenext 24 hours are crucial as the

soldier’s kidneys and liver aredysfunctional which is furthercomplicated by the fact that heis suffering from pneumonia.

Meanwhile, the bodies ofnine other soldiers of MadrasRegiment who died in theavalanche could not be broughtdown to the Siachen base campdue to a raging blizzard that ishampering rescue efforts atthe world’s highest battlefield.

If the weather clears up, theArmy is hopeful of bringing thebodies to the base camp locat-ed at a height of 11,000 feet onThursday with the help ofArmy helicopters, officials saidon Wednesday.

Incidentally, the ill-fatedpost, which was buried under tons of snow onFebruary 3, is positioned atmore than 19,600 feet.

With the Army describingKoppad’s condition as critical,a housewife from LakhimpurKheri in Uttar Pradesh onWednesday offered to donate a kidney.

“It was being broadcast in

the news channels that his con-dition is extremely critical as hisliver and kidneys are not func-tioning properly. So I want todonate a kidney for this braveman,” Nidhi Pandey, who livesin Padaria Tula Village, about 50km away from Kheri, said.

Pandey, contacted thehelpline of a local news chan-nel and sought to know howshe can contact the hospital andproceed with her wish todonate a kidney to Koppad,who is battling for his life.

Apart from Pandey, an ex-sailor of the Indian Navy SSRaju has expressed his will-ingness to donate any organ ofhis body to save the life of “fel-low-brother” Koppad.

“I request doctors at theR&R Hospital to contact meimmediately and I can go toNew Delhi... I am ready todonate any organ, includingliver, kidney... We must saveour fellow brother who is crit-ical,” said Raju, a resident ofBhayander in adjoining Thanedistrict.

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

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The Syama Prasad MookerjiRurban Mission (SPMRM),

a Central scheme for develop-ment of rural and urban areas,would be implemented in theState soon.

A decision to this effect wastaken at the first State LevelEmpowered Committee (SLEC)meeting held under chairman-ship of Chief Secretary APPadhi at the State Secretariathere on Wednesday.

Padhi, who heads the SLEC,advised officials to prioritiseroad, pipe water supply, elec-tricity, street lightening, sanita-tion, health and housingschemes along with establish-ment of agro-processing units in

the rurban areas in the 1stphase.

Panchyati Raj Secretary DeoRanjan Kumar Singh said thebasic objective of the Mission isto stimulate economic develop-ment, enhance basic servicesand create well planned rurbanlocalities in the State. TheMission is aimed at bridgingrural-urban gap, reducingpoverty through enhancedincome generating activities,development of small and medi-um enterprises and attractinginvestments in rural areas.

It was decided that thescheme would be implementedthrough a three-tier structure,Cluster Development andManagement Unit (CDMU) atcluster level, District Project

Monitoring Unit (DPMU) to beheaded by district Collectors andState Project Monitoring Unit(SPMU) headed by the ChiefSecretary. NRLM DirectorPranab Jyoti Nath has beendeclared as State Mission Leaderfor monitoring and supervisionof SPMRM. IIT, Kharagpur hasbeen taken up as the StateTechnical Support Agency(STSA) to provide technicalsupport.

Secretary Panchayati RajSri Singh said a cluster will be aunit of geographically contigu-ous villages with a population ofabout 25,000 to 50,000 in plainand coastal areas. In tribal, hillyand desert areas the cluster willconsist of contiguous villageswith a population of 5,000 to15,000.

Nath said seven clusters,including five from non-tribaland two from tribal areas, willbe formed in the first phase.

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The beads of sweat in aworried BJD’s face are pal-

pable. So far defiant and self-assured, the BJD seems to besomewhat perturbed thesedays, especially after the posterwar it waged with the BJP forthe Paradip oil refinery.

The two parties crossedthe Laxmanrekha of ethicsand propriety when theyfought for taking credit for therefinery. The tearing andsmearing of dirt on posters andverbal and physical attacksamong the leaders and work-ers of the two parties were a

proof of it.May be for this reason

Prime Minster Narendra Modiwas not seen looking eye to eyewith Chief Minister NaveenPatnaik at the IOCL meet onFebruary 7 last, while BJDleaders, including local ParadipMLA and Excise MinsterDamodar Rout, were ignored.A cash-strapped State’s help-lessness was made public,when Chief Minister Patnaikrepeated the appeal for specialcategory status (SCS) at theIOCL refinery meeting thoughsuch issue should have beentaken up at more appropriateforums.

The Chief Minister did

this when the State’s demandhas been for long ignored bythe Centre. Latest when theNiti Ayog chief had been to theState, he had clarified that theSCS issue in respect of Odishawas irrelevant. But Patnaikinsisted on raising the issue ata public meeting and to his dis-may, Modi simply lent a deaf ear.

The BJP and the BJD havegone far beyond the poster warand are now geared up to con-front each other on specificissues. The idea or, rather say,politics is to get the upper handin disapproving of each other’sclaim for love for Odisha.

The BJD has now

announced to convene farmer’sconventions at Kalahandi andBalangir on February 18, threedays ahead of Modi’s addressto farmers at Bargarh onFebruary 21. Here, again thetwo parties will flex muscleover moulding the farmers.

Already the BJD andCongress have held farmersmeetings in Bargarh at a timewhen farm crisis has gonedeeper and farmer’s suicide hasbeen continuing unabated. Themeetings have failed to assuagethe pain suffered by the debt-ridden farmers, leave aloneconvincing them to refrainfrom killing self out of frus-tration.

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While the BJP and BJDloudmouths are squab-

bling over who should steal thecredit for the Paradip Refinery,it is public knowledge that theCongress-led Government hadfirst conceptualised a six-mil-lion-tonne project way backduring Narasimha Rao’sPremiership. Believably, thesuccessive NDA Governmentat the Centre and the BJD-BJPGovernment in Odisha didnot want the enviable project tocome up obviously for meanpolitical reasons. Captain SatishSharma was the PetroleumMinister then.

During Janaki BallabhPatnaik’s rule, the IOCL hadreleased funds for land acqui-

sition and the StateGovernment had readilyorganised acquisition of 3,345acres of land at Paradip.

What many Odias mayhave forgotten is that the Nalco,the biggest aluminum plant ofAsia, was conceptualised byvisionary Biju Patnaik when hewas Janata Party Minister inMorarji Desai’s Cabinetbetween 1977 and 1980. Hechose the best bauxite treat-ment technology fromPechiney of France, now calledRio Tinto-Alcan, because thatwould make aluminum at thelowest cost. Hence, the Nalcois today one of the highest prof-it-making companies in thepublic sector. Interestingly,when the Nalco was inaugu-rated in 1984 by the CongressGovernment with JB Patnaikleading Odisha, Bijubabu satcoolly without any fuss ortantrum about the being the‘hero’. The whole knowingworld did fathom the magna-nimity of Biju Patnaik, whonever once said he was thebrain behind the Nalco andthat he chose the best availabletechnology.

Prime Minister Atal BihariVajpayee laid the foundation-

stone in 2000, but in 2002Petroleum boss Ram Naik, inreply to a query by BJD MPBhartruhari Mahtab, had saidthat due to lack of economicviability, the Paradip RefineryProject was to be shelved. Soonlater, Vajpayee laid founda-tion-stone for a big refinery atBina in Madhya Pradesh.Fortunately again, during UPA-I in 2006, the Paradip projectwas accorded top priority anda Cabinet decision was taken toestablish a 15-MT refinery at acost of Rs 35,554 crore there.And we witness the biggestproject in place today.

The NISER project toowas decided by the UPAGovernment led byManmohan Singh. Modi isonly lucky to be the PM aroundthe time the project got ready.Odisha kid DharmendraPradhan representing Bihar ismadly basking in a false glorythat he as petroleum boss hadsleepless nights and foodlessdays preparing the dedicationof the huge plant to the nation.Dharmendra is a good guy butseems to be a bit immature inconducting himself publiclywhen it comes to credit shar-ing and being humble. He

must know too well that latePramod Mahajan of BJP talkedtoo much and posed too big byhaving all the BJP events insuper class 5-star hotels whileprofessing austerity and simpleliving only by the tongue. Heplanned the ‘India Shining’campaign on a highly wealthycorporate mode and the peo-ple lost faith in the party andconclusively dismissed it.Dharmendra did precious lit-tle in cautioning about thecounterproductive outcomesof his artificial-smile photodumped everywhere. It waspublicity overload and lookedlike roadside garbage. He mustkick out the campaign design-er for good. More important-ly, he ignored the local MLA bynever having him to speak aword in his own territory.Further, he simply did notbother to put the IOCLChairman D Ashok in frontand speak a few words. It wasmessed up as a party publicitycampaign rather than a stateevent, which is ethically wrong.

��The other big sensationnews is about the Dhalsamantbrothers who have mannedthe State crime door for longwithout being noticed as mafia-

linked criminals. SushantDhalsamant, 45, and Sushil, 42,are believed to have links withMumbai and Kolkata mafiaonly to expand their base inOdisha by using fear as key.The huge cache of arms seizedfrom their CDA house atSector-6 and the rented Vizaghouse indicates they havealways been into methodicallyplanned crime on big scale.Police have already seized adiary with names, addressesand telephone numbers ofinfluential politicians anddreaded criminals. Recently-taken photographs of politi-cians amid the gangsters at pri-vate events are already viral inboth general and social media.

Dharmendra Pradhan hadattended a blood donationcamp organised by the mafiabrothers. He says, “Until thegangster brothers are convict-ed by law courts, they cannotbe called criminal.” Congressleaders Bhakta Charan Dasand Lalatendu BidyadharMohapatra, BJD MLAs DebasisSamantray and RajashreeMullick and BJP leader and for-mer Minister Samir Dey arealso believed to be pally-pallywith the gangsters engaged intender fixing, extortion andillicit inter-State arms dealing.Four mousers with 127 live bul-

lets, a carbine, a double-bar-relled gun along with 22 bulletsand more than Rs 2.64 crore incash, apart from a cash-count-ing machine, have been recov-ered from their Cuttack houseat Sector-6 in Bidanasi, wheremany judges have set up homesby furnishing ‘homelessness’affidavits with the urbandepartment.

Police sources say theDhalsamant brothers operateda huge crime syndicate withassistance from deadly crimi-nals and mafias operatingacross the country. Theyreceived funds through thehawala racket for runningcrime syndicates across thecoastal belt of Odisha, mostlythrough tender-fixing andextortion activities. Two closeassociates of the gangsterbrothers, who are nowabsconding, operated the entirecrime syndicate.

The cops’ focus is now onascertaining the criminal linksof Sushant, the elder siblingwho was on the run for the past14 years, hopping from cities inAndhra Pradesh to Kolkataand Mumbai. Sushant trav-elled under the name of ManojPatnaik as revealed from thedriving licence used by him.Three murder cases are regis-tered against Sushant; another

eleven for tender-fixing andextortion, are lodged againstthe younger brother Sushil.The big wonder is how theynever came under specialpolice surveillance all theseyears despite a number of graveallegations against them.

Preliminary investigationreveals that Sushil was keen tobecome a popular politician toshed the gangster tag by settingup a company called MetaphorTrans Corporation Pvt Ltd anda media house two years ago,maybe to convert the big blackmoney into white. He had alsocunningly founded the CuttackNagar Yuvak Sangha to portraya messiah image by organisingsome stray welfare activitiesonce in a while but publicisingit massively to entice voter-greedy politicians from alalparties. Cuttack Barabati MLADebasis Samantaray denies anypersonal link with these allegedhistory-sheeters, like all otherpoliticians.

� The Odisha BJP com-munity is losing ground fast.The self-styled spokespersonstalk too much and mostlygarbage and crap. Instead ofconcentrating on party soli-darity, they keep harping onwhat the BJD is not doing.Basant Panda, the new Statepresident, a vastly unknown

man, screams that Naveen mustbe held responsible for thecrimes of the Dhalsamantbrothers, rather than holdingSamir Dey responsible fordegrading the party. In a TVinterview, Tathagata Satpathy,the BJD MP from Dhenkanal,kept expressing ignoranceabout any Central GovernmentMinister from his constituency.He kept saying emphaticallythat he knew Jual Oram as aUnion Minister from Odisha.When asked aboutDharmendra Pradhan, he saidsadly that Pradhan is fromBihar, not from Odisha.Satpathy seems to be right.Dharmendra is an MP on acompassionate Rajya Sabhaticket from Bihar. He does nothave a vote bank constituencyin Odisha. When some BJPsycophants keep singingPradhan’s praise to project himas the next Chief Minister ofOdisha, people look up in dis-trust. A ‘stranger’ State presi-dent and bad strategic moveshave done BJP considerabledamage. Dharmendra has toidentify a constituency firstand make it real robust beforedreaming of Chief Ministership.

(The writer is a core mem-ber of TransparencyInternational, Odisha)

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BJD State election officerPratap Keshari Deb on

Wednesday announced namesof presidents of 29 of its 32organising districts. These pres-idents were selected on con-sensus by the 3rd phase of theparty’s election process, Debinformed in a statement.

The elected district presi-dents are Rajanikant Singh(Angul), Anant Das (Baleswar),Bijay Ranjan Singh Bariha(Bargarh), Arjun Charan Singh(Bhadrak), Babuli MIshra(Bhubaneswar), Mahidhar Rana(Boudh), Pratap Jena (Cuttack),Sudhir Kumar Kapardar(Deogarh), Dr NrusinghCharan Sahoo (Dhenkanal),Pradeep Kumar Nayak(Gajapati), Bishnu Das

(Jagatsinghpur), Kishore KumarMohanty (Jharsuguda), NareshChandra Mohanty (Jajpur),Puspendra Singhdeo(Kalahandi), Druba Sahoo(Kendrapada), AshishChakrabarty (Keonjhar),Bibhuti Bhushan Balabantray(Khorda), Saroj Kumar Karna(Kandhamal), Jayaram Pangi(Koraput), Laxman Tudu(Mayurbhanj), Manas Madkami(Malkangiri), Rabi NarayanMohapatra (Nayagarh), RameshChandra Majhi (Nabarangpur),Prasanna Kumar Padhi(Nuapada), MaheshwarMohanty (Puri), AnandChandra Mohanty (Rourkela),Sudhir Das (Rayagada), SarojKampa (Subarnapur) andMangala Kissan (Sundargarh).

He further informed thatpresidents of the rest threeorganising district would beelected on consensus too forwhich concerned district elec-tion officers have sought moretime. The fourth phase of theState council election wouldbegin from Thursday, he said.

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The National Human RightsCommission (NHRC) has

recently directed the ChiefSecretary for an action-takenreport (ATR) over the allegedfarmers’ suicide cases in theState.

Acting on a petition filedby rights campaigner SubashMohapatra, the apex humanrights watchdog has directedthe Chief Secretary to submitan ATR within four weeks.

The petitioner alleged thatas many as 38 farmers inJharsuguda and other drought-hit districts in the State hadcommitted suicide in last threemonths due to crop loss andloan burden.

“The authorities havefailed badly to address theissue and prevention of farm-ers’ suicide. Thus, the Statemust pay the interim com-pensation to the next of kin ofthe deceased farmers, andaccountability of the publicauthorities should be fixed,”Mohapatra stated in the peti-tion.

“The rampant and contin-uous farmers’ suicide still per-sists in the State as the admin-istration failed to check illegalmoney lending in westernOdisha,” Mohapatra contend-ed.

Besides, Mohapatrademanded that the State con-duct a judicial probe into thematter.

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The BJP on Wednesdayslammed Chief Minister

Naveen Patnaik for sittingsilent when two of his partyMLAs, Dr Pramod Mallickand Debasis Samantaray, havebeen booked on criminalcharges and demanded strin-gent action against them.

“The silence of the ChiefMinister, who claims havingclean image in politics, overcriminal charges leveledagainst two BJD MLAs hasraised many eyebrows. WhileDebasis Samantaray has linkswith dreaded Dhalsamantbrothers, Niali MLA PromodMallick has been charged forransacking Tirtol police sta-tion. His callousness in takingaction has raised many ques-tions,” alleged BJP Statespokesperson Sajjan Sharma ina statement.

He demanded that actionbe taken against the two MLAssoon.

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With the State Governmenttaking no measures to

address their grievances, a largenumber of sarpanches under thebanner of the Odisha SarpanchMahasangha on Wednesdaygheraoed the residence ofPanchayati Raj Minister ArunSahoo here demanding fulfil-ment of their eight-point char-ter of demands.

In August last too, thesarpanches had staged a demon-stration in front of the StateAssembly pressing their

demands.The sarpanches have main-

ly been demanding abolition ofthe provisions of motion ofconfidence against them, hike intheir monthly incentive from�1,500 to �5,000 and a provisionof monthly pension of �1,000.

They also submitted amemorandum to the depart-ment Minister and the ChiefMinister seeking their inter-vention in the issues at the ear-liest.

They said the associationhad earlier submitted their

demands, but nothing tangiblehas happened as yet, forcingthem to resume their protest.

“If the Government fails toaddress our grievances at theearliest, we will be forced tointensify our agitation,” theythreatened.

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Chief Minister NaveenPatnaik on Wednesday

urged Prime Minister NarendraModi to set up CNG (com-pressed natural gas) stations inOdisha to reduce air pollution.

“As vehicular emission con-tributes to air pollution signifi-cantly, the Odisha Governmentis keen to set up CNG stationsto facilitate motorised vehiclesrun on CNG fuels so that pol-lution caused by such emissions

will be reduces,” Patnaik statedin a letter to the Prime Minister.

Pointing out that natural gasand pipeline infrastructure arepre-requisites for establishmentof CNG stations, the ChiefMinister mentioned that thoughthe Petroleum and Natural GasRegulatory Board has grantedauthorisation to the GAIL IndiaLtd for laying, building, operat-ing and expanding natural gaspipelines along the Surat-Paradip route under thePetroleum & Natural GasRegulations, 2008, no significantprogress has been made so far inthis regard.

On the other hand, H-Energy Pvt Ltd has submitted anexpression of interest (EoI) tothe PNG Ministry for laying,building and operating such a

pipeline on the Contai-Paradip-Dattapulia route, he added.

Patnaik said since morethan 27,000 auto-rickshaws areplying in the State capital aloneapart from other categories ofvehicles, vehicular pollution willbe reduced considerably if thesevehicles are retrofitted to run onCNG. The same can also beextended to town buses, he sug-gested.

He requested the PrimeMinister to look into the matterand direct the PNG Ministry totake suitable action to ensureavailability of natural gas,pipeline infrastructure andestablishment of CNG stationsin the State at the earliest. TheState Government would facil-itate setting up of such stations,he said.

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The VRS dues of 295 work-ers of Reliance Synthetic

Limited at Jhargadia herewill be settled within 15 days.

This was decided at ameeting held here on Tuesdayunder the chairmanship of theADM. The 3-hour long meet-ing was attended by RelianceSynthetics KhyatigrasthaShramik Sangh legal advisorDebashisha Hota.

It was decided to calcu-late the compensat ionamount in the next meetingon February 26 in the ADM’s

chamber. The dismantlingand machine movement ofthe company was banned tillthe matter is settled.

Among others ,Additional SP Anil Das,SDPO Suresh Naik , IICs ofTown and Sadar Pol iceStations, Odapada, TehsildarLopamudra Mohanty andALO Narendra Gaipaiattended the meeting.

Notably, the workers ofthe company are on a stir infront of its gate at Jhargadiafor last 61 days with a hopeto get their VRS paymentssettled.

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An automatic hydroponicfodder unit set up at the

Frozen Semen Bank, Khapuria,Cuttack, with assistance underthe Rastriya Krishi VikashYojana (RKVY) was madeoperational on Wednesday toensure continuous supply ofgreen fodder for the bulls main-tained in the farm.

Fisheries and AnimalResources Development(DoFARD) DepartmentSecretary Bishnupada Sethi hasbeen instrumental in introduc-ing the technology which is firstof its kind to be introduced inOdisha for fodder production

Hydroponic fodder is con-sidered as a feasible solutionand most advanced technologyavailable to solve the shortageof concentrates and fodder.

Hydroponic fodder pro-duction involves growing grainsof cereal or legume without soil.

Usually maize, oats and barleyseeds are used for growinginside hydroponic machine.Seeds are allowed to growunder controlled environmentsuch as humidity, temperature.Optimum Water and nutrientrich solutions are provided forgrowing of seed.

The grain responds to thesupply of moisture and nutri-ents by sprouting and thenproducing long vegetative greenshoot with interwoven rootsover a period of five to eightdays. A layer of succulent andfresh green forage is obtained,free of harmful organisms,

sweet and tasty with a highnutritional value and ready tobe used as animal feed.

Three hydroponic mats (10kg each mat) per day is suffi-cient to meet the nutritionalrequirement of a cow yielding15 Liters/day. Only 10 kg ofgreen fodder and 3 kg of dryfodder are required as supple-mentary feed.

Due to the high nutrientcontent of this fodder, maxi-mum milk production poten-tiality of the milch animalscan be ensured (up to 20 percentmore). Optimum use ofnatural resources like water is

made since one kg of hydro-ponic fodder productionrequires only two litres of water.There is no need of inputs likemanure, fertiliser, pesticides,etc., which reduces the cost offodder production.

The temperature andhumidity is controlled auto-matically and kept within arange. The seeds are grown intrays and the water is providedaccording to the requirement.

This unit would used forthe demonstration purpose toencourage prospective entre-preneurs to set up such units infuture, said an officer.

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The Ever Green Forumorganised an Odisha Youth

Conclave at the JayadevBhawan here on Tuesday.National Youth Project StateConvenor Madhusudan Dasinaugurated the event and saidthe importance of youth for thedevelopment of society.

A panel discussion wasalso held on theme ‘Youth andEmployment’. The contractualappointment systems in theState is one of the reasons ofunemployment here, said PCCvice-president Pradip Majhi.The youth should come for-ward and get benefit from the

skill development programmes,he added.

A total of 17 youth achiev-ers from different fields of theState were conferred with‘Odisha Youth Award’ and 33young talents got ‘SwamiVivekanand Prariva Puraskar’for their excellent performancein various cultural activities.

A souvenir Yuva wasreleased on the occasion.

Indian Red Cross SocietyState Branch Secretary DrChakradhar Panda and NSSRegional Director PradeepKumar Patnaik also spoke.Ever Green Forum presidentPrakash Chandra Jena presidedover the meeting.

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The ‘Make in India’ policy canonly be successful with the

development of MSMEs inIndia. More than half the coun-try’s MSMEs are either sick orsuffering from incipient sickness.Rehabilitating these units on pri-ority basis can generate millionsof jobs along with additional rev-enue for the State. The timetaken shall be far less thaninvesting on new projects andeven the investments shall beminimal.

Association Viewpoints:� �500 crore be deployed forrehabilitation of potentially viableNPA MSMEs in each State.

�The identification of such pro-jects to be assigned to the SFCs.

�SFCs will carry out the surveyand undertake the total reha-bilitation of these units till itsturnaround takes place.

� Working capital tie ups withbanks for the rehabilitated unitsmust be documented simulta-neously during the rehabilitationof MSMEs.

�Units with good track recordand units with export potentialmust be given priority.

�MOU to be drafted with oneor more banks to provide work-ing capital to these rehabilitatedunits.

� The Government/RBI mustencourage all commercial banksto liberally fund potentiallyviable NPA units which will notonly revive the units providingamazing benefits to the countrybut also will reduce the bad loanstoday which is of a great con-cern.

� Before initiating legal action,the banks must try to rehabili-tate the unit after it is classifiedas NPA, at least once with needbased induction of funds.

� Provided the performance ofthe unit still does not improve,cases to be filed against anyMSMEs whether in DRT orunder SARFAESI Act or underany other provisions only withthe approval of SLIIC (StateLevel Inter InstitutionalCommittee).

� Since SLIIC has been formu-lated by RBI and chaired by theSecretary Industries of the State,it is the most appropriate forumto resolve all banking issues ofMSME. Hence SLIIC must bevested with statutory powers andthe decision of SLIIC must bebinding on all agencies con-cerned. In the present scenario,

the SLIIC meeting must be heldonce every month for speedydisposal of banking issues withfocus on rehabilitation of poten-tially viable NPA units.

� Only those banks, willing toenter into MoU for rehabilitationof MSMEs as identified bySLIIC, must be rewardedthrough deposit of State funds.Only these banks must beauthorized for Government rev-enue deposits and transactions.Cooperative Banks must beencouraged to participate.

� Since OTS (One TimeSettlement) scheme is a legalmeans of exit, the rehabilitationof potentially viable MSMEs toinclude funding of OTS amountto banks or FIs from the pro-posed rehabilitation fund orfrom the Cooperative Banks.

� For the redressal of MSMEbanking issues of the State, theSecretary MSME of the State, theDirector of Industries, theAdditional Secretary Bankingand the Director MSME,Government of India must beempowered to adjudicate allbanking issues including com-mercial matters either directly orthrough the BankingOmbudsmen.� The Banking Ombudsmanmust cover all complaintsagainst a bank except for report-ed frauds within the jurisdictionof investigating agencies.Complaints concerning com-mercial decisions of the bankssuch as, need based funding,

periodical enhancement ofworking capital, rehabilitation ofsick units, assessing viability ofthe unit, delay in sanctioning ofthe loan etc. must also be cov-ered with in the ambit of theBanking Ombudsman.

� The Banking Ombudsmanmust dispose of cases under atime bound programme whichmust be binding on the banks.However the banks may appealagainst the order of theOmbudsman to the ChairmanSLIIC who may decide on caseto case basis either indepen-dently or jointly with theEmpowered Committee of RBI.

� Accountability should befixed on individual dealing offi-cers of the bank for adequate andtimely funding of MSMEs. Theprovision for penalizing thedefaulting bank official must beincorporated in the MSME Actalong with rewards for success-ful rehabilitation of sick units.

� The RBI must have workingcells to dispose of complaintsagainst banks on daily basis.Similarly, the Director ofIndustries and Department ofMSME in the State must beempowered to resolve bankingissues of borrowers on day to daybasis.

�The pecuniary jurisdiction ofBanking Ombudsman pre-scribed under clause 12(5) ofBanking Ombudsman scheme2006 must be amended to passaward directing payment

beyond �10 lakh which is thelimitation of the BankingOmbudsman as on date.

�The NPA classification normsfor all MSMEs to be extended to365days of default instead of 90days as prevailing today.

�Alternately the review, renew-al and enhancement of workingcapital to be taken up at quar-terly intervals to match the NPAnorm of 90 days default.

� RBI must allow free hand toall banks and FinancialInstitutions to take over NPAunits; fund and convert to stan-dard accounts as per their dis-cretion, if they find the propos-al viable.

�The CIR (Credit InformationReport) of CICs (CreditInformation Companies) espe-cially CIBIL may be used as aguideline but not a deciding fac-tor for funding an MSME.

� During the pendency of thecase, if the borrowers approachthe bank with an OTS or com-promise proposal, it must beconsidered by the banks withutmost sincerity and urgency forclosure of the case and forrevival of the unit.

� When the matter is sub-judice, until final decision of thecourt the name of the borrow-ers, guarantors, including theunit should not be published inthe CIR of any CIC as default-er and mention must be made

as, “matter sub judice”. Thisshould not draw any adversepoint in CIC until disposal of thecase.

�CIBIL or any other CICs mustbe equipped with a cell to screenthe authenticity of the reportsreceived from the bank beforepublication of the same in theirCIR. Since the decision of CICslike CIBIL are so importanttoday that it can make or breakany MSME, such decisions mustbe published with extreme cau-tion and they should not beallowed to act like merely postoffices as they claim to be.

�Fraudulent acts like diversionand siphoning of funds must benotified on occurrence since theaccounts are online and in anycase not beyond 7 days.

�Declaration of willful default-er especially on account ofdiversion of funds after monthsand years of occurrence is most-ly strategised for recovery of thedebt rather than being used inits genuineness. Such practicesmust be restricted by RBI.

�The e-banking system must begradually introduced to ensuresmall borrowers, like poor farm-ers, fishermen etc to continuewith the conventional bankingpractices. Sufficient bankinghours must be available forthem and wherever possible onSundays and holidays bankingmay be introduced.

� SME funding generally

extending to SIDBI (SmallIndustry Development Bank ofIndia) has proved to be failure,so far. SIDBI is more of an orna-mental institution. More pur-poseful institutions are SFC’s.Many of these corporationshave gone sick due to their assist-ed unit’s failure caused largely onaccount of working capital inad-equacy. Hence SME funding ifreleased through the SFC’s,besides the SFC’s being rehabil-itated, the MSME’s of the coun-try will benefit.

�PF (Provident Fund) and ESI(Employees State Insurance) actmust be amended to allowMSMEs, the liberty of providingthe social security and insurancecoverage for an employee fromany agencies either from the pri-vate or the public sector. TheGovt. may empanel such agen-cies offering an option for theMSMEs to select which willbuild competition.

The above points havegrown out of practical experi-ences of MSME borrowers inour country and are purely in theinterest of the nation.

Ours is a dynamic and pow-erful economy which we arewillfully holding back. If viewedin their right prospective onmerit, implementation of theabove points can turn aroundthe countries’ present econom-ic scenario.

(The writer is working chair-person, Entrepreneurs’ andFinance Customers’ Associationof India-EFCAI, Email: [email protected])

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Emphasising on timely com-pletion of 100-per cent rural

electrification in the State,Chief Minister Naveen Patnaikon Wednesday said he wouldreview the progress everymonth.

Patnaik, who chaired areview meeting on rural elec-trification, directed the con-cerned officials to complete theundergoing projects within thestipulated time.

Chief Secretary AdityaPrasad Padhi submitted adetailed report on hisKandhamal district visit to theChief Minister. The reportmainly focused on the status of

rural electrification, teachers’training, healthcare, ruraldrinking water, roads, ruralhousing, minor irrigation,National Food Security Actimplementation and bank facil-ity in the district.

Patnaik directed officials tospeed up installation of highpower transformers atBalliguda and G Udaygiri andasked the officials for massiveimmunisation to check mater-nal and infant mortality rates.He further directed the HealthDepartment to take measuresfor effective treatment of tha-lassemia, which is rampantamong women in Kandhamaldistrict.

It was revealed at the meet-ing that 130 out of 152 grampanchayats in Kandhamal dis-trict have no banks. The CMsaid he would draw the atten-tion of the Union FinanceMinister in this regard.

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Achunk of populationaround Baleswar town who

were facing residential identi-ty crisis finally got the recog-nition from the Baleswarmunicipality.

Sarkar Nagar nearAngargadia and Sovarampurwas neither coming under apanchayat area nor under theBaleswar municipality.

Owing to the confusion,they were facing a large num-ber of problems. Besides theywere deprived of the boon ofthe Government schemes.

After running from pillar topost, entangled in the crisis ofthe red tapism, the residentshad lost hope.

MP RK Jena had conveneda meeting on August 13 lastyear in the village which wasattended by MLA Sadar JPDash, the district Collector ,the Superintendent of Police,the sub collector , the tehsildar, the chairman, municipalityand the chairman Balasoreregional improvementtrust(BRIT) apart from otherofficials of the

Revenue Department andcivic body. The people of the

locality in chorus, besides nar-rating their plights had demand-ed that they should be broughtunder the municipality.

It was further found thatnot only Sarakar Nagar, the res-idents of another 10 patcheswere facing similar hurdlesowing to the administrativebottlenecks.

The patches touching andconnecting to Sahadevkhunta,Sovarampur, Angargadia ,Padhuanpada, Aktarpur,Malikashpur, Kadrabad, Man-sing Bazar, Purnabaleswar andPatrapada were facing similarproblems.

MP Jena took the issuewith the chairman of Remunablock, Sadar block, the MLASadar besides with the munic-ipality chairman and the districtadministration.

After Jena’s persuasion, themunicipality had passed a res-olution in the council meetingto include them under Baleswarmunicipality as desired by theinhabitants.

“The administrative hitch-es have been removed as perproper official procedure andthese village patches whichwere virtually no one’s babyfinally got tag of the munici-pality,” said Jena.

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After the deadline given bythe labourers to restart

manual loading in railway sid-ings in Joda lapsed, they helda demonstration at theBanspani siding where morethan one thousand labourersparticipated.

Champua Sub-Collector

SK Mishra held a meeting ofthe public representatives con-sisting of sarpanch and coun-cillers in Joda.

Tehsildar Arun KuMallick, Excutive Officer PKSahu, Rungta representativeBiswajit Padhi, Palasa sarpanchBasudev Naik, councillerTandra Saha, Ashok Naik,Berga Munda, RanjitBhanjdeo, Rajkumari Thappa,

vice chairman SN Jena andrepresentative MATOA andJATOA were present.

It was decided that the PRIrepresentatives will give a freshlist of the labourers those whoare eligible to work in the sid-ing, and wait for the nextmeeting to be held at theDistinct Magistrate level. Buton the other side, anothergroup led by AICTU leader

Manmohan Nayak and JodaMunicipality ChairmanManjula Patra and otherscomplained that even they hadgiven memorandum to theGovernment in this regard sixmonths back but they were notinvited to the meeting.

Danguaposi RailwayDivision ARM Prasad Kumartold that no untoward situationoccurred and loading of the

material is going on smoothly.

To maintain law and orderproblem at the railway sidingBambari IIC Banita Majhi,Bolani IIC MadhbanandaNayak and Joda IIC MadanMohan Naik were deployed.

Notably, Joda being a min-ing area, labourers are mainlydependent on mining relatedjobs. But after the introduction

of loading by machines in therailway siding, the labourerswho were working in the sid-ing are now thrown out of joband leading a very miserablelives.

In this regard a joint peti-tion by the labourers was givento the railway authority tostop loading by machine andonce again start manual load-ing to give job to the workers.

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Family members ofBSF jawan

Jyotiprakash Panda (25)of Jajpur district, whoreportedly committedsuicide with his own ser-vice revolver at theHemtabad camp inRaigunj in Siliguri ofWest Bengal on Sunday,accepted his body onWednesday after theJajpur Sub-Collectorassured them of a probe into hisdeath.

Demanding a judicial probeinto the death, the family mem-bers had earlier declined toaccept the body.

The family members haveraised doubts on the facts andcircumstances relating to Panda’sdeath. They claim to havereceived a call from his campinforming them that he died inbattle. However, when Panda’s

brother visited the camp, it wasrevealed that he had committedsuicide.

Panda’s body arrived at hisvillage on Wednesday. Hebelonged to Chandipur in thedistrict and was a member of theBSF 167th Battalion.

According to a report in theWest Bengal media, Panda shothimself in his neck with his ser-vice revolver after his duty anddied on the spot.

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Additional Sessions JudgeAshok Panda on

Wednesday sentenced to lifeimprisonment a man and hismother for killing his wife fordowry in August, 2013.

Convicted BijaykrushnaBagudai and his motherManjulata Bagudai were alsoslapped with �10,000 as penalty.

Others who were convict-ed are Suranjan Bagudai, thefather in-law of the deceased,also a retired police officer of aninspector rank and Tilottama,a domestic help working in the

house for aiding and abettingthe crime.

Suranjan and Tilotamawere sentenced for two years injail with �2,000 fine. Two oth-ers tried in the case were acquit-ted by the court in the want ofsufficient evidences.

The sensational incidenttook place at Harida villageunder Sadar police station ofBaleswar. Deceased PuspalataBagudai(Mahapatra) (22) wasmarried to Bijay KrushnaBagudia, following a love rela-tion in a temple. They had a sonthen of 4 year’s old.

The murder incident cameto light after stench smell came

out from the house of Bagudai.The villagers then suspectingsomething foul had alerted thefather of the deceased KailashMahapatra.

The accused family thenhad swindled the father of thedeceased that she had gonealong with her husband andchild elsewhere in a trip.

The body was exhumed bypolice in front of a magistratefrom the backyard of Bagudaihouse and salt bags were foundaround the body.

The farther of the deceased,on August 15, 2013, had lodgedan FIR alleging his daughterwas murdered for dowry.Bijaykrushna had abscondedafter the crime. He was laternabbed from Bhadrak.

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Mining and mineral trans-portation would be kept

under constant satellite sur-veillance in the State.

A decision to this effectwas taken at the State-levelTaskforce meeting held underchairmanship of ChiefSecretary AP Padhi at the StateSecretariat here on Wednesday.Steel and Mines Secretary RajKumar Sharma presented pro-posals for discussion.

Padhi directed to developDifferential Global PositioningSystem (DGPS) for regularsatellite checking of miningactivities at the ground leveland expedite the process forGPS tracking of mineral bear-ing vehicles.

He advised ORSAC ChiefExecutive Sandeep Tripathy tocarry forward satellite moni-toring of mining activities tothe department on regularbasis so that necessary actionscan be taken in case of viola-tions.

It was decided to have acomplete data base of all themineral transactions happen-ing in the State, including

import, export and inside con-sumption figures.

Concerned districtCollectors were asked to holdthe District Taskforce meetingsregularly in each month. Padhitoo asked them to strictly dealwith the trouble makers whoobstruct mineral transportactivities under pleas of so-called associati-on/strikes/bandhs.

While experts opined thatGoogle Earth map may placedtwo years back may not provideappropriate base for compari-son of DGPS data being col-lected by the ORSAC, it wasdecided that updated Earthmap would be procured fromthe National Remote SensingCenter.

ORSAC has been advisedto procure the same and carryon surveillance activities ineach six months. Similarly,ORSAC has also developed atechno-commercial proposalfor tracking of mineral bearingvehicles regularly from sourceto destination. The depart-ment has been advised to expe-dite the process for putting thesystem in place.

All the lessees, end userindustries and transport agen-cies have been asked to sign theservice provider agreementwith MSTC ltd, which hasdeveloped e-tendering systemfor transport agencies.

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The Parliamentary StandingCommittee on IT under the

chairmanship of Anurag SinghThakur visited the KalingaInstitute of Social Sciences(KISS) here on Wednesday.

The committee membersvisited various departments ofthe KISS and interacted with its25,000 tribal students.

Addressing the students,Thakur said the KISS is a won-

der of the country. Everybodydreams, but a few of themmake it reality. “KISS founderDr Achyuta Samanta is oneamong a few successful personswho make their dreams intoreality. We all should learnfrom him.”

“We the parliamentariantalk in House about develop-ment and upliftment of thedowntrodden, especiallySchedule Tribes. Many schemesand policies are implemented

for development of tribals, buttill today most of the tribal peo-ple are languishing in poverty,lack of education and health-care facility,” Thakur said.

He said education is thekey to your self-development aswell as development of society,State and nation. “I hope hun-dreds of Achyuta Samantaswill be groomed among you sothat our country will developmuch more,” he told the students.

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The suicide committed byPhD scholar Rohith Vemula

of the Hyderabad Universitydue to political interference onthe basis of caste discriminationis a matter of shame for theentire humankind in today’s civ-ilized society.

“Due to political interfer-ence by Ministers BandaruDattatreya and Smriti Irani, thenation lost a bright scholarlike Vemula,” said Odisha DalitAdhikar Manch (ODAM) pres-ident Manas Jena at a protestneeting organised by theODAM here on Wednesday. Healso pitched for stopping of allkind of inequality among students in educational insti-tutions.

Various political leaders,Dalit and Adivasi leaders from

various districts, rights activistsand intellectuals attended theseminar and paid deep condo-lence to Vemula’s death. Theycondemned the existinginequality in education sectorbeginning from Anganwadicentres in rural areas to uni-versities in urban areas. Theycalled upon educational insti-tutions to stop playing with thelives of students by being influ-enced by political heavyweights.They also stressed on the needfor widespread people’s move-ment for strengthening of thequota system in education sector.

CPM leader Santosh DAS,Samajwadi Party State chiefRabi Behera, CPI leaderRamakrushna Panda, activistPK Jena and ODAM coordi-nator Prasant Mallick spoke,among others.

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BALESWAR: Raids were car-ried out by Vigilance officialson Wednesday on variouspaddy procurement centresrun by cooperative societies.

The raids were carried outsimultaneously at seven centresof Baleswar, Bhadrak, Mayu-rbhanj and Keonjhar districts.

The centres which cameunder raid included those atBhograi, Remuna, Anantapur(Soro), Khaira of Baleswar,Tihidi of Bhadrak, Basipitha ofMayurbhanj and Ghasipura inKeonjhar district, informedSuperintendent of Police DNGohhayat here. PNS

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Nalco CMD Tapan KumarChand would receive

Honoris Causa DLitt from theUtkal University in recognitionof his “contributions towardsnation building” at the 47thConvocation of the universityon February 16. Incidentally, heis a gold medalist from this uni-versity.

Chand, who has over threedecades of rich experiences inthe mining and metal sectors,has made immense contribu-tions in the areas of produc-tivity, profitability and devel-opment of business models. Heunderwent training inAdvanced ManagementProgramme in InternationalCentre for Promotion ofEnterprises (ICPE) in WesternEurope and in the QueenslandUniversity of Technology,Australia.

In the areas of corporategovernance, Chand wasadjudged as an outstandingperformer by the SCOPE and

the Government of India’sDepartment of PublicEnterprises. Recently, he waselected to the post of NationalChairman of theASSOCHAM’s Mines &Minerals Council.

Within six months ofassuming office of Nalco CMD,Chand has played a stellar rolein the company’s imagemakeover and investmentplans.

Industry circle feels thatsuch accolade to an eminentindustry captain will go a longway in boosting Odisha’s busi-ness environment.

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In a first of its kind in thecountry, the Odisha

Government is going to set upa unique project on skill devel-opment with an investment ofRs 1,051 crore with AsianDevelopment Bank (ADB)chipping in the lion share offinancial support for it.

The Odisha SkillDevelopment Society (OSDS)in its Executive Committeemeeting held on February 5chaired by the DevelopmentCommissioner RBalakrishnanhas given the final shape of theambitious project on skilldevelopment.

The project will be imple-mented on “Hub and SpokeModel”, said sources, addingother States are keenly watchingthis development as Odisha hastaken an early lead in setting upof such an initiative.

Thanks to the move of SkillDevelopment and TechnicalEducation (SDTE) Principal

Secretary L N Gupta, the projectplanning is put on fast trackmode, said a senior official inSDTE department.

Gupta is meticulously plan-ning and executing the process,which has been speeded upduring last few months.

Out of a total investment ofRs1,051 crore, the ADB willextend support for Rs 662 croreand the State Government willbear the remaining Rs 389 crore,said sources in SDTE.

This project will help in set-ting up eight Advance SkillTraining Institutes (ASTIs),which will work as hubs and 30Industrial Training Institutes(ITIs) to serve the purpose ofspokes, sources said.

Locations of ASTIs arebeing finalized as these institu-tions will be serving to the ITIsestablished in and around it, sothat the ITI products will havethe benefit of a finishing school.

Initially, ASTIs will startoperating from temporary cam-puses and full-fledged campus-

es will be set up in various placesin the State subsequently.

While Koraput will have anASTI, Balangir, Jharsuguda,Rourkela and Bhubaneswar willhave one each. Other places willbe decided soon, said sources.

ADB authorities are intouch with senior officials ofSDTE to finalize the locations ofASTIs.

A full-time Chief Executive(CE) of OSDS will be appoint-ed to look after the ambitiousproject and for the time beingEmployment Mission Directorwill hold the CE post to expe-dite the process, said sources inGovernment.

Director EmploymentMission G Rajesh handling SkillDevelopment and Employmentaspects will be looking after theproject, said sources.

ADB has already preparedthe bid as well as the loan doc-uments, which will be reviewedby the OSDS and the StateGovernment soon, said an official.

From Page 1how the investigating police

officer is claiming that theaccused brothers are lying andnot disclosing the fact of the case,when senior police officers of theCommissionerate in media areclaiming that the accused havealready confessed of abductingand murdering the missing criminals.

Meanwhile, a rights activistmoved the High Court in a PILon Wednesday seeking a CBIenquiry into the whole episodeof arrest of the Dhalsamantbrothers and their political link.Stating that huge cache of armsand ammunition, which are usedby defence forces, are seizedfrom the arrested brothers, a CBIenquiry would reveal the involve-ment of influential personsbehind them, the petition said.

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From Page 1Many other BJD leaders

were also present on the dais.Armed with the fresh snap,

the BJP intensified its demandof arrest of Samantray for hav-ing relation with a criminal likeSushil.

Meanwhile, Excise MinisterDamodar Rout on Wednesdaycame down heavily onSamantray, Energy MinisterPranab Prakash Dash andJagatsinghpur district unit pres-ident Bishnu Das for campingin Paradip for the PrimeMinister Narendra Modi’s IOCLprogramme on February 11.

“Samantray does not belongto my constituency. Why he hadcome to Paradip? I am the MLAof Paradip. He along withPranab Prakash Das has dis-tributed BJD caps and shirts tomy rebels to attend the refinerydedication ceremony. Who hadasked them to camp in Paradipand involve my rebels havingcriminal antecedents in partyactivities,” charged Rout.

He informed that he willdraw the attention of partysupremo and Chief MinisterNaveen Patnaik about the incident.

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Aweek-long stone craftMela is underway at the

Olasuni Festival in a hillock atOlasuni village underBadachana block in Jajpurdistrict.

Many stone craft artistsfrom various places, includingPuri, Baleswar and Khordhagathered at the spot to selltheir products at the Melathat would end on February15. Around 55 stalls have beenput up at the fair.

The Mela was designed to

provide a working and learn-ing experience to craftsmenand a platform where a widerange of stone crafts of the vil-lages near Olasuni would bedisplayed, said districtCollector SK Mallick.

“Each year we sell ourproducts at the OlasunuiFestival as thousands of peo-ple come here to purchasestone-grinders, Chakis andother household articles. Thisyear, the authorities providedus stalls and we hope to earnmore this year”, saidRamachandra Moharabna, a

local artist.Rs 10 crore would be

spend to develop two stone-caring villages of Lalitgiri andSukhuapada as the villagesnear Olasuni are under theUnion Government’s craft vil-lage scheme, said Handicraftand Cottage Industry DirectorSanghamitra Kanungo onTuesday. Both the proposedcraft villages at Lalitagiri andSukhuapada are expected torevive the stone-carving craftsector and improve the finan-cial condition of skilled craft persons.

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The Nikhila OdishaHijra Mahasangha

worshipped BichheraMata and held a KalasYatra from Vani ViharHijra Basti to riverKuakhai here onWednesday wishing hap-piness and prosperity toall in the society.

Hundreds of hijrasfrom all over the Stateparticipated in the pro-cession.

Guruma Madhuri Kinnar, Collegebali Kinnar and their disci-ples Bharati Kinnar and Chitra Kinnar immersed Kalas of JalasaPuja procession in the river.

Gurus and their disciples of 30 districts of the State joined theprogramme.

TG Representative Committee chairman Pratap Kumar Sahu,Mamata Gharana Welfare Trust president Madhuri Kinnar coor-dinated the programme.

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Keeping aside the protocol,Prime Minister Narendra

Modi walked up to Abu Dhabi’sCrown Prince General SheikhMohamed bin Zayed AlNahyan and held him in awarm embrace as he alightedfrom his aircraft at New Delhi’sPalam Technical Area onWednesday.

The Crown Prince is inIndia to hold talks with PMModi on issues ranging fromterrorism to investment onThursday. Agreements per-taining to civil nuclear anddefence cooperation are alsoexpected to be signed duringhis three-day visit to India.

Boosting trade ties andramping up United ArabEmirates’ investment in Indiawill also be on priority. For thisAl Nahyan will attend a meet-ing of business heads fromboth countries in Mumbai onFriday. In fact, about 100 UAEbusiness heads are travelling toIndia for the event.

“This is SheikhMohammed’s 1st State visit toIndia & am glad he is visitingwith his family,” PM Modi tweet-ed in a welcome message. TheCrown Prince, who is also theDeputy Supreme Commanderof the UAE Armed Forces, isaccompanied by a high-level del-egation comprising CabinetMinisters, senior officials andbusiness leaders.

In the wake of rising threatof ISIS and radicalisation ofyouth, India wants to strength-en existing cooperation in

information sharing andcounter-terrorism from AbuDhabi. UAE has deportedabout a dozen Indians with sus-pected links to ISIS group.“The security cooperationbetween the two countries hasbeen exemplary. There is con-crete meeting of minds on theissue,” said Anil Wadhwa,Secretary (East) in the Ministryof External Affairs (MEA).Besides, India has also soughtassistance in freezing of funds

and attaching properties ofwanted terrorists like DawoodIbrahim in UAE.

In defence sector, India islooking at joint production ofdefence equipments under theMake in India initiative whereUAE may make investmentfor manufacturing of militaryequipments and get the prod-ucts’ supply.

In trade and economy field,UAE being one of the leadingproducers of oil, is expected to

announce significant invest-ment in India’s energy andinfrastructure sectors from itssovereign wealth fund. Indiahas been eying the fund, beingmanaged by the Abu DhabiInvestment Authority, for itsinfrastructure sector includingfor railways, ports and roads.

On Wednesday ExternalAffairs Sushma Swaraj calledon Al Nahyan. On ThursdayPresident Pranab Mukherjeewill host a private lunch forhim, in a reflection of impor-tance the government hasaccorded to his visit. TheCrown Prince will later have aworking dinner with Modi. AlNahyan will travel to Mumbaion Friday where he will visitBombay Stock Exchange andinteract with industry leaders.

After visit of Emir of QatarSheikh Tamim bin Hamad AlThani in March last year, AlNahyan is another importantleader to visit India from Gulfregion, which is home to near-ly 7 million Indians who are amajor source of remittances. Italso fulfills 60 per cent ofIndia’s energy needs.

“The visit takes place afterwe have decided to elevate ourrelationship to comprehensivestrategic partnership duringour Prime Minister’s visit toUAE in August last year andthis will provide an opportunityto have detailed discussions toconsolidate the domains ofexisting partnership,” saidWadhwa. He added the issuesrelated to diaspora and Indianworkers will also be taken upduring the meeting.

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New Delhi: Deposing beforethe Privileges Committee onthe Rajya Sabha on Wednesday,noted lawyer Prashant Bhushanargued on Wednesday that dis-semination of CAG reports orits contents did not amount tobreach of privilege.

According to sources,Bhushan argued that MPs can-not muzzle the right of people toknow truth by issuing notices.He said public disclosure of theCAG report on “loot byReliance” was essential in thepublic interest and breach ofprivilege notice was miscon-ceived in law. Bhushan wassummoned by the Committeeheaded by Rajya Sabha DeputyChairperson PJ Kurien on theallegations of leaking the CAGReport on certain violationsmade by by Mukesh Ambaniled Reliance Industries Limited.The panel was acting on thecomplaint filed by Janata dal(United) MP KC Tyagi.

Countering the questionsposed by MPs of the panel,Bhushan said motion of par-liamentary privileges has acolonial origin from Britishparliament which was regard-ed as sovereign and in India.According to sources, Bhushandeposition questioned thenotice of privilege and said thismove is against the spirit ofpeople’s right to information.

The noted lawyer alsopointed out the “loot of ” nat-ural gas by Reliance in KGbasin and citied severalSupreme Court judgments andCentral InformationCommission rulings favouringpeople’s right to know and dis-seminate information. PNS

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In an attempt to project Modi-Government’s “good work”

in an effective manner, CentralMinisters and BJP spokesper-sons have begun regular inter-action with each other . Two ofthe Ministers and ‘Niti Ayog’members have already helddetailed discussions at the partyheadquarters on a range ofdevelopmental issues withmore Ministers lined up to dothe same in the coming weeks.

Railway Minister SureshPrabhu and Defence MinisterManohar Parrikar recently gavepresentations on various“achievements” of theirMinistries before all thespokespersons and answeredtheir queries and doubts on thecomplex issues.

The latest interaction of thespokespersons on Wednesdaywas with ‘NIti Ayog’ where

economist and planning com-mission member Bibek Debroywas also understood to be pre-sent during the discussions.

According to BJP’sNational Secretary and deputy-in-charge of West BengalSidharth Nath Singh, the meet-ings with Ministers are beingorganised by the ‘GoodGovernance Department’ ofthe party and “it would be ona regular basis”. Singh said noofficial would be present in themeeting and details are beinggiven by the ministers who alsohappen to be BJP leaders.

In the run up to the GeneralBudget on February 29, thefocus would now be on the eco-nomic issues which need to bearticulated accurately and effec-tively, he said. The implantationof the infrastructure projectsand development on the groundwould be taken up in comingweeks, said BJP leader.

Road Transport Highwaysand Shipping Minister NitinGadkari, Power, Coal and New& Renewable Energy PiyushGoel and Minister for com-merce and industry NirmalaSitharaman would be visitingheadquarters in coming daysfor discussion with partyspokespersons.

PM Narendra Modi hasimpressed his CabinetMinisters and party leaders tocontinuously communicate allthe development projects, poli-cies and planning of hisGovernment to the people andsought each of them to spendsome time in at least two con-stituencies to keep in touchwith the people.

Sources in the party dis-missed reports that that partyspokespersons were pulled up forbeing ‘ineffective’. “There is nograin of truth.. the matter nevercame up”, they said.

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The CBI has questioned twoMicrosoft executives in con-

nection with its ongoing probeinto the corruption case relatingto Delhi Chief Minister ArvindKejriwal's Principal SecretaryRajendra Kumar.

The agency questionedMicrosoft executives SaurabhMalhotra and Karan Bajwa onMonday and Tuesday. Thequestioning of the duo lastedover eight hours on both days,agency sources said.

The sources said theagency is likely to grill some

executives of Ernst and Youngsoon.

The questioning comesafter the agency scanned thecall detail record of Kumarwhich reflected calls to theexecutives of these two firms.The two firms have awardedcertain contracts to EndeavourSystems Pvt Ltd, a firm accusedin the case along with Kumar.

The agency is seeking togather evidence if Kumar hadabused his official position toget contracts awarded toEndeavour Systems. Duringthe questioning the sleuths arelearnt to have asked questions

on the kind of relationship theyshared with Kumar.

Kumar is accused of abusinghis official position to get con-

tracts awarded to ICSIL throughpublic sector undertakingIntelligent CommunicationSystems India Ltd.

Meanwhile, the agency gota big boost on Wednesdaywith the Delhi High Courtquashed a trial court orderdirecting CBI to return docu-ments seized during raids atKumar’s office on December15, 2015, saying it containedself-contradictory reasons.

A bench of Justice P S Teji,while allowing the appeal ofCBI, said that the trial courtexceeded in its jurisdictionand the order had self-contra-

dictory reasons.“The appeal is allowed.

The trial court order standsquashed,” the bench said.

The CBI had challenged thetrial court order directing it tosubmit the seized documents tothe Delhi Government.

CBI had raided office ofKumar on December 15, lastyear after registering a corrup-tion case against him and oth-ers alleging that he had abusedhis official position by “favour-ing a particular firm in the lastfew years in getting tendersfrom a Delhi Governmentdepartment”.

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The National Green Tribunalhas questioned the

Government agencies for notsubmitting their views on phas-ing out over a decade old dieselvehicles in their departmentsdespite its specific directionstwo months ago.

The green panel had lastyear directed the Central andState Governments to take adecision on not buying anydiesel vehicle for their depart-ments and asked them to pre-pare an action plan for dispos-ing of diesel vehicles whichwere more than 10 years old.

According to NGTChairperson Justice SwatanterKumar, an action plan wascalled for phasing out of dieselvehicles particularly the trucks.“You have not given commentsas to why we should not ban

old Government departmentdiesel vehicles,” he said.

The observation came dur-ing a hearing based on plea putup by South Delhi MunicipalCorporation seeking directionsto the Delhi Government toregister new diesel vehicles,conforming to BS-IV norms,which it plans to buy forgarbage disposal.

The plea moved by SDMCcontended that the green panellast year had banned registrationof new diesel vehicles as well asre-registration after 10 years.

Later, the apex court alsobanned registration of diesel-run SUVs and cars havingengine capacity beyond 2000 ccin Delhi and National Capital

Region till March 31.Due to this, the transport

department was not registeringthe newly procured vehicleswhich conform to BS-IV normsand not re-registering the oldvehicles, the bench said.

Non-registration of vehi-cles by the transport depart-ment is leading to non-imple-mentation of the projects ofgarbage disposal. As a result theexisting concessionaire is askedto continue with prevalent sys-tem which is not environmentfriendly, it said.

According to SDMC , therewas a requirement of 48 three-wheeler e-rickshaw, 308 CNGbased auto tippers, 43 com-pactors on diesel based heavycommercial vehicles (HCV)for MSW, 18 auto tipper for siltremoval, 8 Tata 1109 closedbody dumpers for street wasteon diesel based HCV.

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New Delhi: With enough indi-cations of a possible alliance ofthe DMK and Congress for theTamil Nadu Assembly polls,senior Congress leader GhulamNabi Azad and Mukul Wasnikwill be visiting Tamil Nadu thisweekend to hold discussion withDMK chief M Karunanidhi.

“The two leaders will be inChennai on February 13 andwill be meeting M Karunanidhi,”said a Congress leader, whodeclined to be identified.

Last year in December,Karunanidhi had said thatCongress would be invited tojoin the alliance led by his partyfor coming Assembly electionsin Tamil Nadu. “We will notleave Congress when we inviteparties as part of DMKalliance,” he had said.Karunanidhi’s statement hadcome nearly three years aftersnapping ties with Congress.

Congress is out of power inTamil Nadu for nearly fivedecades and has generally beenaligning with either of the

Dravidian parties - DMK orAIADMK. Sometimes, it hadcontested alone too but with-out much success.

AICC has given signals thatthe decision on the issue ofalliances would be taken keep-ing in mind the aim of checkingruling BJP in 2019 Lok Sabhaelections and the view of the stateunits on tie-ups in their areas.

Incidentally, with 18 MPs,the DMK was the secondlargest tally of Congress in theUPA II after TrinamoolCongress which had 19 MPs.The DMK-Congress allianceswept all the 40 Lok Sabha seatsincluding the lone Puducherryseat in the 2004 elections andwon 28 seats in the 2009 gen-eral elections. The combinealso won the 2006 Assemblyelections, though DMK couldnot get a majority on its own.In 2011 Assembly howeverDMK and Congress was outwith J Jayalalitha’s AIADMKromping home with a thump-ing majority. PNS

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The Supreme Court onWednesday asked

Arunachal Pradesh Governorto explain how he could dictatethe agenda for the StateAssembly which was essen-tially a legislative function.

While hearing a bunch ofpetitions challenging theorders passed by the Governorthat finally led to imposition ofPresident’s Rule in the State,the Court told the counselappearing for Governor thatsince the Governor drawspower from the Constitution,the propriety of his decisionshad to be tested on constitu-tional principles and not on“apprehensions” fearing a con-stitutional crisis.

The observations weremade by a Constitution bench

headed byJustice JSKhehar inresponse to thea r g u m e n t smade by senioradvocate TRAndhyarujina.Appearing forGovernor JPR a j k h o w a ,Andhyarujinasaid that the December 9,2015 decision to advance theAssembly and a further direc-tion issued the same day ask-ing the House to first decide onthe resolution to dismiss theSpeaker was based on appre-hensions that the Speaker willside with the “minority”Government headed by thenChief Minister Nabam Tuki toallow them to remain in power.

Defending his power to

advance thesession of theAssembly fromJanuary 14 toDecember 16,Andhyarujinaalso cited the“sensitive bor-der” shared bythe State withChina followedby the “ chaot-

ic” situation created by thenCM Nabam Tuki and his MLAswho “assaulted” the Governor.It was for these reasons,Governor’s counsel argued thatit became imminent to seekSpeaker’s removal for which theAssembly session had to beconvened at the earliest.

The bench, also compris-ing Justices Dipak Misra,Madan B Lokur, PC Ghose andNV Ramana said that the

Governor may advanceAssembly session but the sub-sequent order asking theHouse to take up the resolutionto remove the Speaker clearlyrested within the domain of the“discretion of the House”.

“How can you (Governor)ask them to deal with it as thefirst agenda?... Who is he to saythis? By saying so, he hastaken away discretion of theHouse.” Reminding the scopeof power available to theGovernor under theConstitution, the bench said,“The Governor cannot act onmere apprehension. It isdemocracy that is paramount.It is the duty of a constitutionalbody to see that democracyremains in place. TheGovernor’s duty is to keep thedemocracy running and not tomake a dent on it.”

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The acquittal of actor SalmanKhan in the hit-and-run

case involving his SUV in 2002was challenged in the SupremeCourt by the victim’s family onWednesday. Their appeal willbe listed along with the appealalready filed by the Maharash-tra Government, which had lastweek described the actor’sacquittal as travesty of justice.

Moving a petition chal-lenging the HC decision ofDecember 10, the son andwidow of the victim ShaikhNoorulla Shafique even soughtcompensation from the 50-yearold actor for the tragic death.

The petitioners alleged thatthe high court made a “seriouserror” by reversing the well-rea-

soned order of the trial court sen-tencing the Bollywood star to fiveyears in jail. The petition said thatthe trial court ignored Sections357 and 357A of the CrPCwhich provides for compensa-tion to victims of crime. Shafiquewas sleeping on the pavementwhen the SUV allegedly drivenby Khan mowed him down.

The HC had claimed thatthe prosecution failed to prove“beyond reasonable doubt” thatthe actor was driving the vehi-cle at the time of the accidentand that he was drunk.

The incident occurred onOctober 28, 2002 when fivepersons sleeping on a pavementoutside a laundry in suburbanBandra were run over by aToyota Land Cruiser, killing oneand injuring four others.

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Against the backdrop of a row overactions of Arunachal Pradesh

Governor, Prime Minister Narendra Modiand President Pranab Mukherjee hadsome words of advice for the Governorson Wednesday.

While the PM said the Governorsshould work as catalytic agents in thestates, President Pranab Mukherjee yetagain asked Governors to act within theframework of the Constitution and “theymust not only be fair but also be seen tobe fair”.

Both were addressing the concludingsession of 47th Governors’ Conference inRashtrapati Bhawan.

Pitching for extending the spirit of‘cooperative federalism’ to ‘competitive fed-eralism’ to l involve healthy competitionamong states and between the states andthe Centre, the PM said Governors occu-py a unique high position, owing to theirvast experience, and the prestigious natureof their post, a PMO statement said.

“They can hence work as catalyticagents in the states, speeding up andimproving processes without themselvesbecoming a part of them,” he added,according to the statement.

Modi urged all Governors to thinkabout some form of legacy which theywould leave behind at the end of their terms,as their contribution to the States. Modistressed on the importance of cooperativefederalism, which he said must be imple-mented in letter and spirit, the PMO said.

He said the Centre and States mustwork together as ‘Team India’ and that the

spirit of cooperative federalism must alsoextend to cooperative, competitive feder-alism, with healthy competition for devel-opment among States.

The Prime Minister said India is theonly major economy across the world,which is moving ahead strongly despite theglobal economic crisis. With the world tak-ing note of India, India is not a mute spec-tator to global developments, and hasplayed a key role in recent global fora suchas CoP-21, and WTO, he said.

On the other hand, In his concludingremarks in his President PranabMukherjee said that they have beencharged with an onerous responsibility topreserve, protect and defend theConstitution.

“It is, therefore, imperative that all theiractions are within the framework of theConstitution and conform to the highestideals enshrined in this living document,”Mukherjee said. He said as holders of highoffices they must not only be fair but alsobe seen to be fair.

Vice President Hamid Ansari alsoaddressed the concluding session of theconference which was attended by 23Governors and two Lt Governors. HomeMinister Rajnath Singh, External AffairsMinister Sushma Swaraj, Finance MinisterArun Jaitley, Defence Minister ManoharParrikar, national Security Adviser AjitDoval, among others also addressed thegathering.

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New Delhi: The BJP onWednesday lashed out at theSamajwadi Party’s Governmentfor “utter lawlessness” in UP anddescribed as “callous” theresponse of the ruling party tothe killing of a child in the Statelast week allegedly during “cel-ebratory firing “ by “SP Gondas”at Shamli. The party demandedCBNI probe into the incident.

BJP national secretarySidharth Nath Singh saidpolice remained mute to thekilling of innocent child by “SPgoondas” and there was nopolice action even after fourdays and instead the SPGovernment was trying coverup the incident at Shamli.

Questioning ChiefMinister Akhilesh Yadav, theBJP leader asked “whetherkilling an innocent child dur-ing celebration amounts tosocialism ?”. PNS

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Page 6: ˝ # ,6ˆ7˛%,$849/: $˚%&%$& ’ ($)ˇ˙ *+ ˚$), *- ˜& ˚! #’ ! & #&0 ... – the last date for reg-istration in the State. Though, the average enrolments every day during the

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Accusing the rulingCongress in Assam of

encouraging illegal infiltrationfor vote bank politics, BJPnational president Amit Shahon Wednesday appealed to thepeople of Assam to vote for theBJP in the forthcoming polls sothat the eastern borders of thecountry can be secured.

Amit Shah addressed twopublic rallies on Wednesday-oneeach at Kokrajhar and Nagaonand said that the Congress badefarewell to Assam andNortheastern States during theChinese aggression in 1962 andthat it was due to the brave sol-diers of the Indian Army thatAssam is a part of India now.

On his arrival, Shah head-ed to Kokrajhar first to addressthe rally organised by the BJP’spoll partner Bodoland Peoples’Front (BPF) and said thatCongress has always encour-aged illegal infiltration intoAssam for its vote bank politics.

“The illegal infiltrators, whohad entered Assam and otherNortheastern States, during theCongress rule, have spreadacross the State now. They haveinfringed upon the rights oflocal people, be it the youthfrom tea gardens or Hindispeaking community, Assamese

or the youths of Bodoland. If theBJP and BPF-led Governmentcomes to power in Assam weare going to ensure that there isno infiltration in Assam,” saidShah while addressing the rally.

He also hailed the alliancebetween the BJP and BPF as ahistoric one, which will go along way towards developmentof Bodoland Territorial AreasDistricts (BTAD) and Assam asa whole. “We have decided tocontest the forthcoming AssamAssembly election together withthe BPF. This is not a politicaldecision, but a decision for thedevelopment of Bodoland.Based on this, there will be

development in Bodoland inthe years to come,” Shah said.

Referring to the statementof Jawaharlal Nehru duringthe 1962 Chinese aggression,the BJP president said, “Duringthe 1962 war, the then PrimeMinister Jawaharlal Nehru hadbade goodbye to the people ofAssam and northeast. It isbecause of the brave soldiers ofIndia that Assam is today a partof India,” he said.

Later, Shah went to Nagaonin Central Assam and saidthat he has come to Assam witha message from Prime MinisterNarendra Modi-if we want tomake a Congress free India,

Assam has to be made free ofCongress too.

“The people of Assam havebeen facing injustice since thedays of independence of thecountry. If Gandhiji was notthere, Assam would not havebeen a part of India today. Evenas Independence also, the peo-ple are suffering as theCongress has opened the bor-ders with neighbouringBangladesh for their vote bankpolitics,” said Shah.

“If we want to make Assamfree of these illegal Bangladeshiinfiltrators, there has to be aabsolute majority governmentby the BJP, who only can securethe international borders ofthe state of Assam and saveAssam from the illegal infiltra-tion,” Shah said.

“The infiltration does notonly snatch the employmentopportunities of the youth ofAssam and infringe upon therights of the locals it alsothreatens the integrity and sov-ereignty of the country. It isonly after the BJP formed thegovernment at the Centre, ini-tiative has been taken to stopthe infiltration and a total of7,000 infiltrators had beenidentified,” Shah said whileappealing the people to vote theBJP to power in the forthcom-ing Assam assembly elections.

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The increasing man-animalconflicts seem to be mak-

ing evident the fact that the cityis fast losing its forest cover tothe unmindfulness of urbani-sation. The recent incident ofan adult leopard straying intoa school and attacking fivepeople before it was tran-quilised and caught on Sundaywas a reminder. But the scareof leopards has made authori-ties in the Whitefield area onthe outskirts of Bengaluruclose the school on Wednesday.

The news of sighting of twomore leopards in the samearea in and around Whitefieldin east Bengaluru has sentpanic wave around the thicklypopulated area. However, for-est officials said leopard sight-ings were just a speculation.

According to Chief WildlifeWarden Ravi Ralph it was onlya speculative fear. He said, “Noleopard was seen or traced inand around the school by ourforest staff after a night-long

search operation. However, theschool remains shut as part ofprecautionary measure.”

The Karnataka forest depart-ment has now taken social mediato educate the masses on leop-ard. “We are launching an onlineplatform to spread awareness onleopards and other animals whomay enter villages, towns orcities stealthily but do not harmthem as they are not man-eaterslike tigers,” Ralph said.

“With forest fringes, lakesand other water bodies disap-

pearing, wild animals are find-ing it difficult to hunt prey andget water to sustain,” Ralph said

As rumours of another leop-ard sighting spread causingpanic, the Vibgyor InternationalSchool declared a holiday for itsover 1,000 students and facultymembers to ensure their safety.

“We decided to shut theschool for the day(Wednesday). Those whoturned up with their wardswere advised to return home,”school official told reporters.

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In an apparent bid to utilisethe Narendra Modi wave in

the upcoming Bengal Assemblyelections and tone up themorale of the party cadres theBJP is planning to organise atleast 10 rallies in the State to beaddressed by the PrimeMinister, sources said.

State leaders, including BJPCentral observer for BengalKailash Bijavargiya, is in touchwith party president AmitShah, sources said, adding thatthe Prime Minister’s rallieswould begin from sometime inthe next month after the boardexaminations are over.

The State elections arelikely to be held in the monthof April-May and the dateswould be announced after thegeneral Budget.

The party has divided theState into seven zones and thePrime Minister’s rallies wouldbe organised in each zone insuch a way that maximumarea comes under his electoralmeeting. Apart from this someother central leaders who havea good understanding andacceptance in Bengal politicswill also be roped in for elec-tion campaigns, sources said.

With Modi wave at itspeak the BJP had garneredmore than 16 per cent vote in2014 General elections leavingthe Congress behind as the

third largest party in the State.It won two Lok Sabha seats andequaled the Left Front’s tally.

However, things have notbeen that impressive for thesaffron outfit post 2014 even asit lost about 7 per cent voteshare which drastically camedown to 10 per cent in theStatewide civic elections. It isanother matter however thatthe BJP leadership attributedthe loss of votes to unprece-dented violence and booth-capturing by the rulingTrinamool Congress whicheven polled more than 100 percent votes in many booths.

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Demanding President’s Rulein Bihar in view of what he

said the ‘total lawlessness’ in theState, LJP Parliamentary Boardchairman Chirag Paswan onWednesday said Chief MinisterNitish Kumar has lost moralright to remain in power fol-lowing spiraling heinous crime.This is the first time any partydemanded Central Rule in Bihar.

The Jamui MP said his partyis forced to speak out in wake ofthe unabated murders of politi-cal activists, engineers andtraders. “The law and order sit-uation is at its nadir and the gov-

ernment seems unconcerned.Being Bihari we feel ashamedwhen asked about the happen-ings in Bihar and not in a posi-tion to defend the State govern-ment,” said Paswan. He won-dered how Nitish, who served forten years and to great extent con-trolled crime and put Bihar ondevelopment path, was now sohelpless and weak.

He particularly mentionedthe broad daylight murder of hisparty leader Brijnathi Singh ofRaghopur a week back and said,“His crime was that he and hisfamily had been contesting elec-tion against the family membersof RJD chief Lalu Prasad. This isa political murder but neitheranybody from the governmentside nor any leader of the rulingparties ever visited the bereavedfamily.” Raghopur is the constit-uency of Deputy CM Tejashwi

Prasad Yadav against whomBrijnathi’s son had contested onSamajwadi Party ticket.

“We waited for two monthsin the hope that the governmentwould act strongly to curb crime.But it appears that the criminalshave political connection and thepolice not in a position to lay itshands on them,” said Paswan.Brijhnathi’s son Rakesh Roshansaid from AK47, 27 bullets hadbeen fired which piercedthrough his father’s head andback. Both Paswan and Roshandemanded CBI probe into thesensational murder saying theyhad no faith in Bihar police.

Reacting to criticism ofDeputy CM Tejashwi, the LJPleader said he has right to raisefinger of accusation on others butfirst he should prove that therewas really good law and order sit-uation and government was

really working to curb crime.Bihar LJP chief Pashupati

Kumar Paras said his party hadwritten to the Union Home Mi-nister Rajnath Singh detailing thesituation in Bihar and for the CBIinquiry. “We will meet President,Prime Minister and Governorwith our demand for Presidentrule,” said Paswan. He allegedNitish was unable to performdue to undue pressure of “SuperCM” Lalu Prasad. It had beenapprehended that jungle raj willreturn to Bihar due to Lalu, healleged and added that the situ-ation became worse soon afterthe formation of the government.

A day earlier LJP chief RamVilas Paswan had also attackedNitish government and demand-ed his resignation. “If he is not ableto provide safety to the people hehas no right to remain in power,”he said.

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Siliguri: An elephant which hadstrayed from nearby Baikunthapurforest to Siliguri town went on therampage here for around sevenhours on Wednesday damagingover 40 houses and some vehiclesbefore it was tranquilised. The ele-phant was first spotted at Dabgramand Fulbari area of the North Bengaltown in the early hours.

Seeing the elephant, panic-stricken people started running hel-ter skelter and Forest personnelrushed to the spot to drive away thepachyderm to the forest.

The Forest personnel fired tran-quiliser dart at the jumbo, but itfailed to have any effect on the ele-phant and instead it went berserkand turned its wrath on the housesdamaging walls and pillars.

Police had to use water cannonto keep away curious onlookers as

the elephant flattened some vehiclesat a car garage after razing theboundary wall, a district officer said.

The all important Sevoke Roadhad to be closed for traffic as themob took over the street on trail ofthe jumbo, the officer said adding anunspecified number of people suf-fered bruises in the melee but were

discharged after first aid.The elephant was finally tamed

after seven hours when it was hit bytranquiliser dart for the secondtime as it headed towards a shoppingmall. As it got drowsy the jumbo wasput on a large 12-wheel truck withthe help of two cranes and taken toSukhna forest for release PTI

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Tamil Nadu-based VVMineral (VVM) has refuted

allegations leveled in an article —“Rich N-fuel at TN mafia’smercy” — published in ThePioneer on January 1.

In a rejoinder, the companyhas said that it was in no wayinvolved in reported smugglingThorium, a nuclear fuel crucialfor the energy security, sandmafia with the active support ofthe company insiders. “Theauthor has resorted to suggestiveand indirect references to ourcompany to corroborate thepurported smuggling or robbingof Thorium, thereby makingserious allegations on us direct-ly,” the rejoinder said.

The company said that arti-

cle did not substantiate any factsrelating to the title but resortsonly to listing of complaintslike

The rejoinder said that arti-cle relied on conjecture patron-ising one Mr Ramakrishnan ofIREL, Manavalakurichi, whothrives in defaming the VVM.“One such claim is about ex-employees of IREL joining VVMleading to loss of markets andsensitive information. We don’tcompete with Indian Rare EarthsLimited (IREL) as alleged in thearticle, as we cater to differentmarket segments,” it said.Thorium is derived from Mon-azite sands. Monazite mining iscontrolled by AERB and has re-mained off-limits to private enti-ties. Only IREL, a PSU, has be-en permitted to process it, it said.

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Aspecial court on Wednesday adj-ourned the deposition of incarcerat-

ed LeT operative and conspirator-turned-approver David Headley in the ongoingtrial of 26/11 attacks for Thursday fol-lowing a technical glitch in the video con-ferencing at the end of the United States.

Headley, who was tocontinue his depositionthrough video-confer-encing from an undis-closed location in theUnited States, could notprovide any testimonyduring the day, as a tech-nical problem arose at 7am when the hearing wasscheduled to begin in thecourt of AdditionalSessions Judge GA Sanap.The video-link could notbe established betweenUnited States and theSpecial Court in Mumbai.

After unsuccessfullytrying to rectify the problem, the USofficials requested Judge Sanap to deferHeadley’s deposition to Thursday. Theyassured the judge that Headley wouldtake an hour or two additionally onThursday in order to make up for thetime lost on Wednesday.

Having initially adjourned the hear-ing for some time at 7.30 am, the judgeadjourned Headley’s deposition for the

day at 10.15 am, after reviewing the sit-uation and accepting the US officials’request to that effect. The Judge saidthat the court would sit between 7 amto 2 pm on Thursday.

Talking to media persons after theadjourned hearing, Special PublicProsecutor Ujjwal Nikam said: “Headley’shearing could not take place owing to a

technical glitch at theUnited States’ end. Afterthey failed to establishvideo-link, the US offi-cials requested the judge topostpone the hearing tilltomorrow. The request wasaccepted by the judge. Thejudge also agreed to hearHeadley for one to one andhalf hours more than thescheduled time between 7am to 12.30 pm”.

During the course ofthe day, the MumbaiCrime Branch and NIAofficials were in touchwith an FBI official, who

was in turn talking to the US attorneysto see if some deposition could take placeon Wednesday. “We had two telephonelines ready, both were working. However,while the US attroneys could speak to usover telephone, they could not connectwith us through the video link. TheDepartment of Justice of the UnitedStates regretted that David Headleycould not be produced,” Nikam said.

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The BJP has set a two-week deadlinefor PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti to

take a final call on the future of the allianceGovernment in Jammu & Kashmir. StateBJP leaders from Jammu on Wednesdaymet top RSS leaders in New Delhi in thepresence of State BJP in-charge AvinashRai Khanna, National general secretaryRam Madhav, and RSS leaders to finetuneits future strategy.

During the meeting the party lead-ers discussed the current political situa-tion and also reviewed performance of thenine month old alliance govt in the state.The State RSS leaders shared their ownassessment with the top brass during themeeting and cautioned too much con-cessions should not be given to the PDPChief at this crucial juncture.

State BJP leaders who attended the

meeting in New Delhi said, “Beforeholding fresh parleys with the PDP chiefin Srinagar, the BJP wanted to review itsstand over certain contentious issues.”

The BJP has once again tried to openchannels of communication with the PDPleadership to convey a straight messageto take a final call over Government for-mation before the beginning of the cru-cial Budget Session beginning February23. The Central BJP leadership has triedto convey the message to the alliance part-ner as they do not want any internal feudto flare up during the Parliament Session.

Sources say Mehbooba was looking

for resumption of internal dialogueprocess with the separatists, commitmentover partial withdrawl of AFSPA, Vacationof civilian properties under Army’s con-trol, handing over of NHPC-run twohydel power projects, liberal funding forflood relief rehabilitation work, etc. TheState unit of BJP once again expected toseek some more time in the wake of directinvolvement of the Central party leadersto break the impasse.

Meanwhile, the PDP is finding itselfin the tight spot as it has failed to extractcommitments from the Centre to redrawthe contours of the agenda of alliance.

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Giving indications that a broad-based alliance between the Left

and the Congress was crystalising inthe grassroots, a band of Congresssupporters on Wednesday withstoodthe Trinamool violence and thwartedan attempt by the Bengal ruling partyto wrest a panchayat body from theMarxist control. In the melee threeCPI(M) supporters sustained bulletinjuries and two Congress men wereinjured by bomb splinters.

The incident an apparent rerun ofwhat had happened on Tuesday in theneighbouring Birbhum district saw theTrinamool men trying to muscle itsway in to the panchayat body electionsat Humaypur in Hariharpara block of

Murshidabad district.In a 16-member House the Left

has 9 seats while the Trinamool andthe Congress has five and two each. OnWednesday morning the membershad assembled to elect the newPradhan (chairman) when hundredsof Trinamool supporters raided thePanchayat building in a bid to hijackLeft members and stop them fromelecting a Pradhan.

Immediately the Congress sup-porters came to the rescue of theCPI(M) members and finally theboard was won by the Left, but notbefore the Trinamool goons injuredthe CPI(M) and Congress men.

In a similar incident the Left hadon Tuesday managed to retain a pan-chayat board in Birbhum with

Congress help after the Trinamooltried to forcefully take the body.

Incidentally, such incidents haverecently been witnessed in Nadia andMalda also where CPI(M) cadresthwarted bids by armed Trinamoolmen who tried to take control of thelocal clubs controlled by the Congress.In Bengal clubs play a major role inorganizational politics insofar as “area-domination” is concerned.

Meanwhile Bengal OppositionLeader Suryakanto Mishra onWednesday reiterated the need of analliance saying “only talks at the high-est level will not suffice there has to bean alliance at the grassroots level wherethe Left, Congress and other like-minded parties should come togeth-er and resist the Trinamool goons.”

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Restrictions were imposed in severalparts of Srinagar on Thursday to

thwart separatists’ plans to hold protestsand seminars to commemorate deathanniversaries of Muhammad MaqboolBhat and Afzal Guru who were execut-ed in Delhi’s Tihar jail in the month ofFebruary in 1984 and 2013 respectively.

Both have been secretly buried in thejail premises and have become icons forseparatists after their execution. The sep-aratists call for shutdown, protests andseminars on their anniversaries onFebruary 9 and 11.

Though there was no call for shut-down on Wednesday, a day after life cameto a grinding halt on Guru’s thirdanniversary on Tuesday, the authoritiessealed off several quarters in the civil lines

area of capital Srinagar to thwart sepa-ratists’ plans to hold protests in favour ofthe demand for return of mortal remainsof the two hanged Kashmiri separatists.

All roads leading to Clock Tower areain central Lal Chowk were sealed off withbarbed wire and shopkeepers were notallowed to start their businesses.

The JKLF had planned to hold a sit-in in the area. The police have alreadydetained JJLF chief Yasin Malik andremanded him to a week’s custody.

Even journalists who have offices inthe adjacent Press Enclave on ResidencyRoad were not allowed to proceed untila senior police officer intervened.

The unannounced curfew-likerestrictions in the nerve-center createdlarge scale chaos in the city. A large num-ber of police personnel and traffic offi-cials were seen.

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Thiruvananthapuram: Sharpening his attack onPrime Minister Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhion Wednesday accused him of being “superficial”and also of undertaking a “poisonous” campaignalong with RSS with the main aim of “dividing”Hindus and Muslims during polls. The CongressVice-President also alleged that Modi “lacksunderstanding of things” and that he makes “bigmedia celebrations” around “his ideas”.

Addressing the Kerala Pradesh CongressCommittee Executive meeting here, he said Modidoes not want to go into details and likes to dohis politics based on events.

Citing an example, he said Modi had calledup Congress President Sonia Gandhi andinformed her about the signing of the Naga accord,when none of the Chief Ministers of Manipur,Arunachal Pradesh and Assam knew about it.“None of the Chief Ministers--Manipur,Arunachal Pradesh and Assam--knew about it.His Home Minister does not know and soon wefind out that there was no such accord and thatthe Prime Minister was actually not aware of whatis going on.” PTI

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Lucknow: Planning to tilt the Dalit vote bank in favour ofthe BJP in the 2017 Assembly polls, PM Narendra Modi andparty chief Amit Shah are set to pay homage to dalit iconsRavidas and Raja Suheldev on February 22 and 24.

On February 24, Shah will visit Bahraich — a political-ly sensitive district, to pay homage to Raja Suheldev, the 11thcentury Pasi king. On his part, the PM will visit Ravidas Ghatin Varanasi on February 22. Ravi Das and Raja Suheldev arerevered dalit icons. While Sant Ravidas was a respected gurufrom the Jatav caste, Raja Suhaldev, was a Pasi king who van-quished Muslim warrior Salar Masood Ghazi. Electorallyspeaking, Pasis are a dominant Dalit sub-caste and mattermost after the Jatavs. “Please do not link the visits of Modiand Shah with dalit politics. The BJP never believes in castepolitics. Our leaders are honouring them because they areicons,” said a senior BJP leader.

Although the Assembly polls are expected in early 2017,the party leaders’ early forays signify the importance the BJPattaches to the state. Activities in the party have intensifiedafter the BJP roped in former BSP leader Jugal Kishore – adalit face in UP. Jugal Kishore was instrumental in taking Modito Ambedkar Mahasabha during his visit to Luknow onJanuary 22 last. After his visit, the Mahasabha officials issuedstatements saying that Modi can be the next Kanshi Ram ifhe takes pro-dalit decisions. They were hinting at reserva-tion in private sector. PNS

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),%��:1����������������������������3�;����Lucknow: While a recentLokayukta probe failed to indictanyone for illegal mining, aquery under Right toInformation (RTI) Act pointedtowards the growing malaise inBijnore. On the intervention ofthe State InformationCommissioner (SIC), a finewas also realised from theaccused and a legal proceedingwas initiated. Now the ADM(Administration) at Bijnore hasbeen asked to probe the matterthreadbare and take action.On Wednesday, SIC HafizUsman said that a resident ofBhraira hamlet of Bijnore

alleged illegal mining andclaimed to have filed a RTI withAdditional Revenue Magistrate.He asked as to how many areawas allocated for mining andthe quantity of mineral. He alsoasked about the royalty thustaken from mining contractoras well as fine charged if it wasbeing done illegally.

However, the local officialsrefused to give informationafter which the complainantappealed at the SIC court. TheSIC taking cognizance orderedMining Inspector at Bijnore toappear with all the informationsought. PNS

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The Solapur police onWednesday arrested the ne-

phew of Maharashtra’s formerDeputy Chief Minister and cur-rent NCP MP Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil for allegedly assaulting apolice officer and constables.

Satyasheel (32), who is theson of Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil’selder brother Rajsinh Mohite-Patil, and nine of his associateswere arrested after they alleged-ly beat up Assistant PoliceInspector Parshuram Korke andsome police personnel at Aklujin Solapur district in westernMaharashtra late on Tuesday,while the latter were doing night

patrol. Satyasheel and his asso-ciates, who were returning home,had a run-in with API Korke andother police personnel whenthe vehicle in which they weretravelling, scratched against apolice vehicle that was moving inthe same direction.

After a verbal altercation,Satytasheel and the police per-sonnel present. Satyasheelassaulted a few police personnelpresent. Learning about the inci-dent, API Korke and two policeconstables rushed to the scene“Satyasheel and his associatesalso assaulted API Korke andtwo other constables who hadaccompanied him to the spot,”the police said.

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Page 8: ˝ # ,6ˆ7˛%,$849/: $˚%&%$& ’ ($)ˇ˙ *+ ˚$), *- ˜& ˚! #’ ! & #&0 ... – the last date for reg-istration in the State. Though, the average enrolments every day during the

Was it a coinci-dence that, asChina preparedto celebrate itsSpring Festival,

the Foreign Ministry in Beijingannounced that China’s first over-seas naval logistics support out-post, is going to be constructed inDjibouti, in the Horn of Africa? Afew days earlier, Djibouti’s ForeignMinister, Mahamoud Ali Youssouftold Reuters, “We understand thatsome Western countries haveworries about China’s willingnessto have military outposts outsideof China”, and added that theyshould not be too concerned.

Beijing asserted that the outpostwas “essential to implement high-ly efficient logistical support”, asChina needs to regularly sendescort fleets to the Gulf of Aden andSomalia. In December, the Ministryof National Defence had alreadyannounced that China and Djiboutihad reached a general agreement.

Every two years or so, the StateCouncil (the Chinese Cabinet)publishes a White Paper ondefence; each new WP has distinc-tive characteristics. In May 2015,Xinhua released its Ninth WhitePaper on National Defence, thetheme being ‘active defence’. ChinaMilitary Online, a website affiliat-ed to the PLA, then explained: “TheWP systematically expounded onthe Chinese military’s missionsand strategic tasks in the new era,and pointed out that the basic pointis in making preparation for military struggle.” Is Djibouti navalbase linked to this military concept?

At that time, Defence Ministryspokesperson Yang Yujun deniedthat China had any intention tobuild military bases overseas, asChina “seeks no hegemony or military expansion”.

However, China had alreadystarted negotiating for a militarybase in Djibouti. Mr Ismail OmarGuelleh, the President of Djibouti,has openly admitted that discus-sions were ongoing. “The Japanesewant to protect themselves frompiracy, and now the Chinese alsowant to protect their interests, andthey are welcome”, he said.

Beijing’s move should be seenin the context of the recently-announced reforms of the Chinesedefence forces. On February 2, acommentary in The PLA Dailynoted: “China’s move to establishfive new theatre commands is abreakthrough and a historic stepin setting up a joint battle com-mand system for the military.”

On the previous day, the sevenmilitary area commands weremerged into five new battle zones,

the People’s Liberation Armywanting “a more efficient com-mand chain for battles”.

Opening a naval base, or a‘logistics support outpost’ inDjibouti, should be seen in theperspective of the general PLAreorganisation and diversification— for example, the creation oftwo new units, a Rocket Forceand a Strategic Support Force.While the PLA Rocket Forcewill provide a reliable nucleardeterrence and nuclear counter-attack capabilities, the PLAStrategic Support Force will dealwith hi-tech warfare in space andcyberwar, the ‘war of tomorrow’.

It was further announced thatthe four old PLA departments hadnow been divided into 15 newunits; ‘diversify and rule’ seems tobe President Xi Jinping’s newmotto. The Djibouti Naval Baseappears to be part of these ‘reforms’.

A year ago, Chinese Defencespokesperson Geng Yansheng,while defending a Chinese subma-rine’s docking at Colombo port,called “utterly groundless” thereports that China was setting up18 naval bases in Sri Lanka,Pakistan, Myanmar and severalother nations in the western andsouthern Indian Ocean; he wasthen replying to the publication of

an article in a Namibian newspa-per announcing the setting up ofthese bases. A year later, the infor-mation has proved not so ground-less. Further, it has now become‘legal’ for China to carry out such operations abroad.

On December 27, Xinhuareported about a new counter-ter-rorism law which permits thePLA to get involved in anti-terroroperations abroad: “According tothe law approved by China’s toplegislature, the PLA and China’sarmed police forces could carry outcounter-terror missions overseaswith the approval of the CentralMilitary Commission.”

Another development showsthis new trend of foreign interven-tion: On February 5, China MilitaryOnline reported that after complet-ing “tough winter training in theGobi Desert of Xinjiang UygurAutonomous Region, the PLANavy’s Marine Corps and a specialoperation regiment began toembark on the journey returning totheir stationed areas.”

Thousands of marines belong-ing to the PLA Navy carried out “across-region long distance maneu-ver covering over 5,900 km fromsouthern province of Guangdong tonorthwest China's Xinjiang”.According to the military website,

“The marines engaged in indepen-dent confrontational exercises,round-the-clock confrontationalexercises lasting 72 hours.”

Why should marines belongingto the PLA Navy get training in thedesert (and arctic) conditions in theGobi Desert? The answer is thatChina has decided to extend its ten-tacles abroad and Djibouti is amongthe first spots selected. Last year, TheChina Daily explained: “Djibouti isa pivotal country in the Horn ofAfrica standing between the RedSea and Gulf of Aden. It is a keytransfer stop for internationalhumanitarian missions, includingthose of the United Nations.” Theformer French colony’s peacefulenvironment makes it an idealplace for a naval ‘outpost’.

A few months ago, the visit ofGeneral Fang Fenghui, the head ofthe Joint General Staff Department,to a Chinese warship in Djibouti,had already prompted fears ofChinese military expansionism.The Global Times defended themove saying that it was normal fora senior military official to visit PLAsoldiers; when it urged the Westernmedia “not to politicise or over-interpret the visit”, few believed it.

According to Duowei News, amedia outlet run by overseasChinese in the US, Djibouti wouldhave ordered US troops to leaveCamp Obock, their secondary mil-itary base in the country; the placewould be given to China. CampLemonnier, the main US base host-ing 4,000 US soldiers, is a majordrone base in the region and is usedby the US for gathering intelligencefor its operations against the IslamicState and al-Qaida.

Today, not only is China con-structing a three-billion-dollarrailroad from Addis Ababa, theEthiopian capital, to Djibouti,but it has also invested $400 mil-lion to modernise a port. The USseems unable to follow thisrhythm. This has raised seriousconcerns in Washington, “giventhe prospect that 10,000 Chinesetroops will occupy a base neigh-boring the main US base inAfrica”, noted Duowei News.

The London-based DailyTelegraph remarked that the movemay prompt the US “to relocate sen-sitive intelligence-gathering opera-tions to more secure locations”.

India needs to carefully watchthe developments and decide on therole it wants to play in the region,and act fast accordingly.

(The accompanying visual isof Djibouti President Ismail OmarGuelleh greeting Chinese PresidentXi Jinping in Johannesburg onDecember 3, 2015. Xinhua photo)�

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Sir — This refers to the editorial,“Retaining advantage” (February10). It is quite unfortunate that nineIndian soldiers were killed in anavalanche at the Siachen glacier. Therisk that our soldiers encounterwhile guarding the borders cannotbe described in words.

Hundreds of soldiers, fromboth India and Pakistan, have losttheir lives while safeguarding theborders. There is no doubt thatPakistan is eager to occupy theSiachen glacier, China too insti-gates the former on this score. Inlight of this, demilitarising Siachenis risky and must not be done untilIndia-Pakistan relations normalise.

Sravana RamachandranChennai

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Sir — This refers to the report,“Disabled JNU student wins nation-al acclaim for mastering difficultasanas” (February 9). It is veryinspiring that a disabled student haswon laurels for his family andcountry through yoga.

Yoga has definitely emergedas the best health practice and isknown for its benefit in myriadways. Many schools and other

educational institutes have start-ed promoting yoga. Investing afew hours for physical and men-tal well-being will definitely helpus live a happy and satisfied life.

Charvi KathuriaVia email

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Sir — This refers to the editor-ial, “Pakistan nailed again”(February 9). David Headleyhas sung like a canary. What isdamning is his disclosure aboutthe role played by three Inter-Services Intelligence officerswho collaborated with Lashkar-e-Tayyeba in the Mumbai terrorattack. Headley’s revelations arenot new, but at this juncture, hisconfessions will help dentPakistan’s diplomacy and exertpressure on Islamabad to extra-dite Hafiz Saeed.

Headley’s testimony will sowfresh doubts about Islamabad’swillingness to address NewDelhi’s concerns, given thePakistan regime’s culpability ingenerating terror. What is disturb-ing is that the Nawaz SharifGovernment is unable to rein inSaeed’s anti-India rhetoric, letalone prosecute him for crimes.

JS Acharya Hyderabad

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Sir — This refers to an unusual inci-dent of the arrest of a goat alongwith its owner for criminal trespassin Chhattisgarh. While this incidentis shameful, what is all the moresurprising is that the goat alongwith the owner was granted bail.The Chhattisgarh Governmentmust take note of this incident,which has resulted in a mockery ofthe police administration. Strictaction must be taken against thoseinvolved in the arrest of the goat.

Madhu Agrawal Delhi

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Sir — The reinstatement of RKPachauri at The Energy ResearchInstitute is indeed shocking. It istime that the Government inter-venes to act swiftly not only totake back the Padma Vibhushanthat was awarded to him in 2008,but also to utilise its influence atTERI against the re-instatementtill he gets a final clearance fromthe courts at different levels.

SC AgrawalDelhi

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Page 9: ˝ # ,6ˆ7˛%,$849/: $˚%&%$& ’ ($)ˇ˙ *+ ˚$), *- ˜& ˚! #’ ! & #&0 ... – the last date for reg-istration in the State. Though, the average enrolments every day during the

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The Delhi Government’sinitiative of allowing oddand even numbered

vehicles to ply on alternate daysmay make a comeback in Aprilthis year. The car rationingscheme was launched inJanuary and elicited a mixedresponse from the people, whowithstood the inconvenience ofinadequate public transportsystem and yet got no respitefrom air pollution.

While vehicular congestionwent down, air pollution levelsin the form of exposure to par-ticulate matter less than2.5mm, rose by 17 per centduring the 15-day period.Increased levels of pollution,coupled with a shortfall inpublic transport, is indicative ofthe fact that any policy changemust account for subsequentimplications and ensure thepresence of supportive infra-structure. In this case, an eco-friendly and sustainable public

transport system is vital tomake the new policy a success.

According to a study con-ducted by the Indian Instituteof Technology-Kanpur, four-wheeled vehicles account forno more than 10 per cent ofDelhi’s overall vehicular pollu-tion. Therefore, the other majorsources of pollution need to beidentified and curbed.

The success of the secondstint of the odd-even plan willhinge on how the DelhiGovernment manages thepaucity of buses, since nearly1,300 private bus operatorsare planning to take their vehi-cles off the road to protestagainst cluster scheme regula-tions. In view of these chal-lenges, the Delhi Governmenthas timed the second round ofthe odd-even plan in Aprilwhen schools will be shut andbuses that ferry students can bedrafted into service as well.

Though of the determina-

tion of the State Governmentto control pollution is praise-worthy, the entire process issuggestive of piecemeal plan-ning and makeshift arrange-ments. And herein lies theproblem as the Government iscontinuing to implement aprogramme without a coherentstrategy. If the initiative failstwice, it will not only set anadverse example for the rest ofthe country but also result in anegative image for an other-wise excellent initiative.

Delhi Government mustrealise that the odd-evenscheme must be preceded bysufficient preparations thatenable the programme to runfor a longer duration. The pos-itive impact, especially on low-ering pollution levels, will onlybe apparent in longer periodsof implementation.

Cities of the developingworld are witnessing growth atan unprecedented rate. Nearly

1.4 million people are beingadded to urban areas eachweek, and it is estimated that,by 2030, around 60 per cent ofthe global population will livein cities.

India, through Smart Citiesinitiative, is at the forefront ofdeveloping world-class urbaninfrastructure. As living stan-dards improve in cities andemployment opportunitiesmultiply, an increase in popu-lation migration from rural tourban areas will be triggered,thereby, exerting additionalpressure on urban resourcesand infrastructure, especiallyurban transport. Unless a newand eco-friendly transport sys-tem is put in place to handlethe population surge of thefuture, pollution levels canreach dangerous proportions.

Delhi’s first move towardsadopting extraordinary mea-sures to curb vehicular pollu-tion must not only evolve but

also spread to other urbanparts of the country. The cur-rent shape of urban develop-ment in India contributes tothe growth and use of privatemotorised transport, whereaspublic transport is relegated topoor services provided throughinefficient and polluting vehi-cles, making the transport sec-tor a major source of air pol-lutants such as black carbonand nitrogen oxide.

India needs to proactivelyre-imagine the future of cities byincorporating advanced andeco-friendly, inter-city and intra-city transport systems in theurban development strategy. Inaddition, strengthening strate-gic planning at the city, region-al and national levels, with afocus on improved land useand integrated multi-modaltransport infrastructure, willalso help mitigate the threatfrom vehicular pollution.

Further, reforming fuel

subsidies and introducing newpricing mechanisms such asroad-user charges, can reduceand eventually eliminate incen-tives to fossil-fuelled vehiclesand their use. The UnionGovernment can also considercharges on urban land conver-sion and dispersed develop-ment and other related mea-sures that place a higher priceon land than on buildings suchas land and development taxes.

These reforms can gener-ate revenue to invest in publictransport and transit-orienteddevelopment. The Governmentcan also introduce new mech-anisms to finance upfrontinvestments in smarter urbaninfrastructure and new tech-nology. These may include thecreation of dedicated national,regional or city-level invest-ment platforms to prepare andpackage investments to attractprivate-sector capital into thetransport sector.

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China, under President XiJinping, has undertaken far-reaching military reforms ofits Higher DefenceManagement with the twin

purpose of adjusting the People’sLiberation Army to the changed natureof warfare and its new roles and missions.Credibility of a nation’s military powerresides in its HDM which, being respon-sible for the political directions and warcampaign planning, decides the outcomeof war. These have useful lessons for India.

Unlike the Cold War, in the presentglobalised world integrated with com-merce and trade, traditional wars betweenpowers with nuclear weapons are passé.Instead of war-fighting, military power isnecessary for coercive diplomacy whichChina has demonstrated against India inthe Himalayas and the United States in theSouth China Sea. India downplays thePLA’s regular intrusions across the disput-ed border, and the US, while showcasingits naval might through frequent Freedomof Navigation patrols within 12 nauticalmiles of China’s reclaimed land in theSouth China Sea, has desisted fromdestroying Chinese infrastructure on thedisputed islands. Overtime, China willshift the Line of Actual Control to India’spolitical-military-psychological disad-vantage. And, it will continue to slowlybuild military capabilities on reclaimedland in South China Sea.

Moreover, the PLA, traditionallyresponsible for continental defence, nowhas new roles and missions in support ofMr Xi’s Belt and Road project to protectChinese assets and interests abroad onland and sea. While the B&R was unveiledin 2013, its conceptualisation began in2008, when China decided to abandon thesupreme leader, Deng Xiaoping’s dictumof keeping a low profile.

Against this backdrop, Mr Xi, onassuming power as the head of fifth gen-eration leadership in November 2012,brought in numerous reforms in theHDM. In a first, he took over as theChairman, Central Military Commission(the highest security policy-makingforum) as well as the President of Chinaand Chairman of the Communist PartyPolitburo at the same time. Unlike his pre-decessors, he launched a massive cam-paign against corruption in the PLA, withas many as 30 Generals coming under thescanner in 2015. He regularly exhorted thePLA to obey the party’s policies.

Being a triple-hatter, the ChairmanCMC interacts directly with the PLA andthe Politburo at the same time. Thus viewsof the military are known to the Politburoand the latter’s policies are acceptable tothe military. The reforms are meant toensure that once the PLA embarks in sup-port of the B&R, it projects a clean andhonest image of China abroad.

Once the overarching ethos seepedin, Mr Xi, in four steps, brought in HDMreforms. On September 3, 2015, heannounced that the PLA’s strengthwould be reduced by 3,00,000 (threelakh) troops over five years. In step two,on January 1, 2016, he declared the cre-ation of an Army headquarters similarto the Air Force and Navy headquarters.Hitherto, the General Staff headquarters,always headed by an Army officer, wasseen as both Army and Joint Command

headquarters. A new Strategic SupportForce, which brings all space, cyber andelectromagnetic assets, which are criti-cal for information warfare, under oneroof, was formed. These will supportcombat operations both for continentaldefence and expeditionary forces in sup-port of B&R.

This is not all. The People’s LiberationSecond Artillery, responsible for nuclearweapons, was renamed as the RocketForce. This could have been done for tworeasons. China’s nuclear weapons’ assetswhich were earlier seen as an extensionof the artillery now have been delinkedfrom that reference, suggesting a moreprofessional title for strategic assets whichare under modernisation for providingcredible deterrence. The new name alsosuggests that Rocket Force will only havenuclear assets under it. The PLA’s medi-um and short range missiles which useconventional warheads will now be underthe exclusive command of concerned con-ventional military commanders.

The third step in HDM reforms weredeclared by Mr Xi on January 11. The fourdepartments, namely, General Staff head-quarters, General Political Department,General Logistics Department andGeneral Armament Department, werereplaced by 15 agencies. These are: JointStaff Department (JSD), Political WorkDepartment, Logistics SupportDepartment, Equipment DevelopmentDepartment, Training and AdministrationDepartment, National DefenceMobilisation Department, General Office,Agency for Offices Administration, Officefor Reforms and Organisational Structure,

Office for International MilitaryCooperation, Office for StrategicPlanning, Audit Office, DisciplineInspection Commission, Politics andLaw Commission, and Science andTechnology Commission.

And, finally, on February 1, theseven Military Area Commands inShenyang, Beijing, Lanzhou, Jinan,Nanjing, Guangzhou and Chengdu werereduced to five, namely, Northern TheatreCommand, Western Theatre Command,Eastern Theatre Command, CentralTheatre Command, and Southern TheatreCommand. Against India, the earlierLanzhou (facing Ladakh) and Chengdu(facing Arunachal Pradesh) MACs werebrought under the single Western TheatreCommand based in Chengdu.

Overall, the HDM reforms suggest atleast four things. One, the PLA has decid-ed to give due importance to tri-Servicecombined operations, a must for crediblemilitary power. The JSD as the successorof the GSHQ will have equal representa-tion from all three Services, both for theplanning of nuclear and conventionaloperations, and in the seamless integra-tion of their plans. Earlier, the Army haddisproportionate representation in com-bined operations planning at GSHQ.

Better tri-Service cooperation undera single commander is also evident in thenew Theatre Commands. Earlier, in theMACs, while there was unity of commandunder a single commander, the Air Forceand the Army did two types of training.In peacetime, they honed their Service’score competencies as well as did combinedoperations. Now, they will devote their

total time to combined operations so thatthe Army and Air Force understand eachother’s core competencies.

Two, the break-down of four depart-ments into 15 agencies reporting direct-ly to the CMC has been done to stream-line functioning with focussed results andmonitoring. For example, the AuditOffice agency, which was not there ear-lier, will ensure zero corruption within thePLA. Officers of this agency will report-edly visit command headquarters and fieldformations to audit disciplinary cases, andsubmit the report-card regularly to theCMC. This will ensure a corruption freeimage of the PLA abroad.

Three, the renaming of the PLASAinto Rocket Force is in line with China’sno-first-use nuclear policy. Earlier thePLASA was responsible for both nuclearand conventional ballistic and cruise mis-siles. This is no longer so. The nuclearassets will exclusively be with the RocketForce while the conventional ones will bewith the Theatre Commands.

Most importantly, there will be moresynchronisation between the PLA and theparty. Unique to China, the PLA is sup-posed to be loyal to the party and not thenation, since the party and nation are con-sidered one. Thus, the PLA is not apolit-ical. Mr Xi’s regular calls to the PLA toobey the party do not mean he foreseesdissent. It means that in the exceptionalconcept where political officers, who arePLA officers doing party work and notparty functionaries in uniform inside thePLA, should uphold party directives.

(The writer is the editor of FORCEnews magazine)

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Sensex slumped by 262 pointsto hit a 21-month low

despite firm global cues asdomestic lenders came underheavy selling pressure afterposting disappointing quar-terly numbers. The NSE Niftyalso fell to its lowest level in 21months.

Country's largest lenderSBI fell by 4.82 per cent to�158.95 ahead of its financialresults, while banks-basedindex on BSE slipped by morethan 2 per cent.

Meanwhile, FinanceMinistry on Wednesday attrib-uted the fall in domestic equi-ties to turmoil in global econ-omy and said the Governmentis taking measures to addressthe challenges.

"The continuous surge inyen and gold is keepinginvestors on the toes, while asurprise uptick in the Europeanmarket has provided someintermediate deviation fromthe low," said Vinod Nair,Head-Fundamental Research atGeojit BNP Paribas.

Weak Asian cues, howev-er, continued to spoil themood.

The BSE Sensex resumed

lower at 23,938.32 and fell fur-ther to 23,636.72 before con-cluding at almost 21-monthlow of 23,758.90, showing a lossof 262.08 points or 1.09 percent. The index had ended at23,551.00 on May 12, 2014.

The NSE Nifty also

dropped by 82.50 points or 1.13per cent to close at nearly 21-month low of 7,215.70. It hadclosed at 7,203 on May 16,2014.

Hit by mounting bad loans,three public sector banks,Central Bank of India,

Allahabad Bank and DenaBank on Tuesday reported loss-es while Punjab National Bankposted a sharp decline in prof-it for the third quarter of 2015-16.

PNB slumped by 9 percent, Central Bank sank 12.37per cent, Allahabad Bank shed9.61 per cent while was down5.20 per cent.

"The road ahead looks jit-tery with the upcoming Budgetand the deepening slowdown inthe rest of the world," Nairadded.

Overseas, Asian marketsended weak as concerns mountover global recession. Japan'sNikkei ended with losses of 2.31per cent adding to the 5.41 percent plunge on Tuesday.Singapore Straight Times alsofinished lower by 1.57 per cent.

European equities werehigher after dropping for sevenstraight sessions. Key indiceslike France, Germany and theUK rose by 0.93 pct to 2.11 percent.

The US index futures werehigher ahead of the start ofFederal Reserve Chair JanetYellen's testimony beforeCongress Wednesday.Backhome, 23 scrips out of the 30-share Sensex pack endedlower.

Major losers were TataMotors (6.04 pc), SBI (4.82 pc),Adani Ports (3.57 pc), HDFC(3.24 pc), Cipla (3.17 pc), BHEL(2.55 pc), Dr Reddy's (2.46pc), Lupin (2.16 pc), ONGC(2.01 pc), Axis Bank (1.80 pc),Hero MotoCorp (1.25 pc), ITC(1.22 pc), HDFC Bank (1.18 pc)and Asian Paints (1.03 pc).

However, Coal India roseby 1.57 per cent followed byL&T 0.73 per cent, Maruti 0.72per cent and RIL 0.61 per cent.Among the BSE sectorial andindustrials indices, realty fellby (3.46 pc), finance (2.16 pc),banking (2.04 pc), industrials(1.92 pc), healthcare (1.55pc), FMCG (1.37 pc), auto(1.18 pc), telecom (0.98 pc),oil&gas (0.75 pc), power (0.67pc) and capital goods (0.65pc).

In broader markets, mid-cap and small-cap indicesended 0.95 per cent and 1.42per cent lower, respectively.

The market breadthremained negative as 1,995shares ended lower, 653advanced, while 105 ruledsteady of the total 2,753 stockstraded.

The total turnover rose to�2,925.40 crore from�2,199.32 crore yesterday.

*��%�����������81���������$��&���� ���For the first time infive years, the Government islikely to meet �14.49-lakh crorebudgetary tax collection targetfor 2015-16 with robust indi-rect tax mop up making up forthe shortfall in direct levies.

"We are likely to exceed thecollection in indirect tax byabout �40,000 crore in thecurrent year. On the whole, weare very optimistic aboutachieving annual tax revenuetarget for the year," RevenueSecretary Hasmukh Adhia saidon Thursday.

The Government invari-ably falls short of tax collectiontarget and had last time exceed-ed the budgeted target in 2011fiscal.

Of the �14.49 lakh croretax revenue target set for 2015-16, � 7.97 lakh crore was esti-mated to come from directtaxes (corporate and incometax) and another �6.47 lakhcrore from indirect taxes (cus-toms, excise and service tax).

In the 10 months of thecurrent fiscal, indirect tax mopup of �5.44 lakh crore was 88per cent of the full year target.Besides, direct tax collection of�5.22 lakh crore was 65 per

cent of target for 2015-16."Looking at the trend, it

appears that as far as indirecttax collections are concerned,the Government may get morethan �40,000 crore over andabove the BE (budget esti-mate) target for indirect taxesfor 2015-16 while there mightbe an equal amount of shortfallin direct tax collections.

"However, both direct andindirect tax collections puttogether, we expect to meet theannual BE target of Revenuecollections for

the current year withoutany shortfall," Adhia said in astatement. The April-Januarytax collection data shows anincreaseof 33 per cent in indi-rect tax and 10.9 per centjump in direct tax collection,Adhia said.

"The tax revenue trendsactually supports the latest fig-ures of GDP growth rate," hesaid.

The CSO has projectedIndian economy to grow by 7.6per cent in current fiscal, thefastest pace in five years.

In 2014-15, theGovernment had targeted�13.64 lakh crore in tax rev-

enue but at the end of the yearit was revised downwards to�12.51 lakh crore. In 2013-14,tax collection targets wererevised downwards to �11.58lakh crore from budgeted over�12.35 lakh crore.

In 2012-13, budget esti-mates for tax revenue was over�10.77 lakh crore, but it wasscaled down to �10.38 lakhcrore in revised estimates.

While in 2011-12 fiscal,gross tax revenues were bud-geted at 9.32 lakh crore, but inrevised estimates it came in as�9.01 lakh crore.

In 2010-11, budgeted grosstax revenue of over �7.46 lakhcrore was exceeded in revisedestimates which came in at�7.86 lakh crore.

In April-January of currentfiscal, the growth in customsduty revenue on electricalmachinery was 34.4 per centand in other machinery it was27.8 per cent.

"These are indicators ofnew investment taking place inprivate sector. New invest-ments are taking place in thecountry for which thesemachineries are imported,"Adhia said. ����

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���'����Over 300 jewellery trader associationsacross the country on Thursday went on a day-long strike to protest against the Government'smove that makes PAN card mandatory fortransactions worth �2 lakh and above.

"This is a crisis situation for the entire indus-try to survive as jewellers are losing customersmainly in small towns and rural areas, where amajority of population doesn't have PAN cards.Our members and many of the jewellery associ-ations have suffered losses in the last one month.Continuance of such situation will lead to job loss-es for workers, artisans and employees," All IndiaGems and Jewellery Federation (GJF) DirectorAshok Minawala told reporters here.

This restriction on jewellery buyers hasalready dented business volumes and affected jobsituation for workers, artisans and small tradersin the jewellery sector across India, he said addingtheir business turnover dropped over 30 per centsince the imposition of restriction about a monthago.

GJF has given a presentation to FinanceMinister Arun Jaitley and met the FinanceSecretary in this regard, he said.

"We have urged the Government to make thePAN card mandatory on jewellery purchase ofover �10 lakh instead of the present �2 lakh. We

will wait for the Government to take action in thisregard till the Budget this year. If no action is takenby that time, then the industry will take stern stepsand we may go for an indefinite strike," he added.

Minawala said as an apex body, GJF is underpressure from its associations across the countryto address the issue and discuss it with the author-ities.

"With just 22.3 crore PAN cards issued inIndia, how can the industry survive with suchrestrictions?" he asked.

From January 1, 2016, PAN card has beenmade mandatory for all transactions above �2 lakhin cash or through card in entire gems and jew-ellery sector.

GJF is a national trade federation establishedfor the promotion and growth of gems and jew-ellery trade across India. It represents over 6 lakhplayers comprising manufacturers, wholesalers,retailers, distributors, laboratories, gemologists,designers and allied services to the domestic gemsand jewellery industry. However, India Bullion andJewellers Association (IBJA) did not join the strike.

"We are not in favour of the strike call. Thisstrike has been called by some other association,which is against the government's policy ofmandatory PAN requirement for transactionsexceeding �2 lakh," IBJA said in a statement.����

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India and Australia onWednesday agreed on

enhancing cooperation inclean coal technology,renewable power and LNGin a bid to meet the bur-geoning demand for cheapand environment-friendlyenergy in one of the fastestgrowing emergingeconomies.

Power, Coal andRenewable Energy MinisterPiyush Goyal onWednesday met Ministerfor Resource, Energy andNorthern Australia JoshFrydenberg on the last dayof the India-AustraliaEnergy Dialogue.

The Dialogue seeks tobuild a strong relationshipas well as strengthen insti-tutional frameworkbetween the countriesacross all segments of theenergy value chain.

Speaking to reporters,Goyal said the energy dia-logue has concluded onWednesday withFrydenberg resolving tofurther the ties betweenthe countries in energy,renewable energy, technol-ogy & innovation and skilldevelopment.

"Today's meeting wasvery productive, very con-structive and held in a veryfriendly manner... One ofthe initiatives that weagreed in today's meeting isto make an annual dia-logue and that it wouldrotate between our twocountries. So, I look for-ward to visiting India tocontinue these discussions

next year," Frydenberg saidin a joint press conferenceheld at the AustralianParliament here.

The two countries alsotalked about Free TradeArea (FTA), Adani Group'sinvestment in Australia andthe ties that the countriesshare at various levels, headded.

Appreciating Australia'sefforts in expanding theenergy dialogue to covermore issues, Goyal said:"We have also been able tofocus the dialogue to out-comes".

He said that he pushedfor more active engage-ment in the area of skilldevelopment and bringingAustralian expertise onmine safety and efficiencyin mining to India.

"The (Australian)Minister was the mostcooperative and support-ive," Goyal said.

" A u s t r a l i a nGovernment's commitmentis truly exciting as I can seeenergy becoming probablythe most important anddefining part of our engage-ment with Australia in theyears to come, particularlywhen they have some won-derful work on expandingLNG production in the lastfew years.

"They are also probablythe first country to focus onrenewable energy. About40 years back the Universityof New South Wales start-ed research in photo volta-ic cells. So, clearly Australiahas a leadership position inthe energy space and acrossthe entire value chain from

fuels to generating capaci-ty to improving capacityand grid management,"Goyal said. Several deci-sions have been made dur-ing the course ofthis dia-logue, one of which is toinstitutionalise this as anannual dialogue, Goyal said.

"We have broadlyagreed to have five workinggroups to take humongouschallenge that scaling upthis engagement entails.The officials will sit up andwork out the miner details,"he added.

These five workinggroups will broadly focuson coal mining, efficientcoal mining, clean coaltechnologies, etc. Thenthere is the issue of petro-leum products like LNG,efficiency of re-gasificationplants and associated equip-ment related to petroleumand natural gas, Goyal said.

"Number three isrenewable energy, it's newscientific developments andlarge scale roll out. Then weare looking at coal gas, coalgasification, coal bedmethane (CBM), all formsof providing more gas out ofcoal," he added.

India is also looking atcarbon capture and seques-tration, carbon capture andstorage so that coal is usedmore efficiently, either inthe form of gas or by remov-ing the carbon out of thatand making it clean, theminister said.

Finally the fifth groupwill consider smart grids,grid integration, all issuesrelated to technology in theenergy sector, he added.

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��&� ��� ���Weeks after the top-level rejig at Flipkart, its head ofcommerce and advertising businessMukesh Bansal has put in hispapers.

Flipkart's Chief BusinessOfficer Ankit Nagori has also quitthe firm to start an entrepreneur-ial venture in the sports domain.Interestingly, Flipkart co-foundersSachin and Binny Bansal are thefirst investors in his new company.

Bansal, who joined Flipkartwhen the online marketplaceacquired fashion etailer Myntra in2014, will continue to be an advi-sor to the company.

"Mukesh Bansal, Head ofCommerce Platform, Flipkart ismoving out of his active role to bean advisor to the company. Mukeshhas played a huge role in makingMyntra the number one fashiondestination and helped build astrong platform at Flipkart," a

Flipkart spokesperson said in anemailed statement.

Mukesh Bansal plans to take abreak from work for the next 3-6months to spend time with fami-ly.

A computer science graduatefrom IIT-Kanpur, Bansal foundedMyntra in 2007. He sold Myntra toFlipkart in one of the largest M&Adeals in the Indian e-commercespace. While neither companieshad disclosed the deal size, it wasestimated to be worth about �2,000crore.

Mukesh Bansal's departure isone of the most high-profile exitsyet for Flipkart, which is compet-ing head-on with Amazon andSnapdeal for a larger share of thebooming Indian online retailindustry.

Binny Bansal will now direct-ly oversee the commerce andadvertising platforms. ����

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Britannia Industries is gearingup for a full-fledged play in

the estimated �85,000 croreIndian dairy market as part of itsoverall strategy to be a total foodcompany. The company willseek board approval within a cou-ple of months for its expansionin dairy segment, which couldentail a minimum investment of�300 crore in the initial phase.

“We want to be a total foodcompany and to be a total foodcompany, we can't ignore thelarge dairy segment. The dairysegment in India is almost�85,000 crore,” BritanniaIndustries Managing DirectorVarun Berry told PTI.

Elaborating on why it madesense to be a full-fledged playerin the dairy segment, he said: “Wesell sell dairy products worth�400 crore and for our bakerybusiness we buy dairy productsworth �300 crore. Overall, theconsumption and sales is almost�700 crore, which is a fairly large

number.” When asked how thecompany is preparing to enter thesegment, Berry said: “We havereached a very interesting stagewhere we have got a fairly goodgrip on what we need to do tomake the plunge in dairy. We justwant to make sure that we get allthe details together before takethis proposal to the board, whichwill be in the next couple ofmonths.”

The company has also ropedin dairy expert, Sarad Garodia,who has joined the company asBusiness Head Dairy Operations.He had earlier worked for 16years with Schreiber Dynamix,

one of the leading dairy productsmanufacturers in India.

“He is helping us validate allthe assumptions. In the next cou-ple of months we should defi-nitely be ready with the plan. I ampretty bullish on it but it has topass a few tests because it is goingto be a fairly large investment,”Berry said.

When asked about invest-ments, he said: “The first phasewill be about �300 crore. In thenext two or three months we willbe able to take a decision on it.”Commenting on the company'sdairy strategy, Berry said: “Ourfirst step will be establishing the

back end, making sure that wehave a fully integrated dairy busi-ness, right from collection ofmilk to processing.”

“First stop up will be to bringpart of what we sell in-house andthen once we have done that wewill look at how to innovate andenter into new categories.” In thephase one Britannia Industries willfocus on value added dairy prod-ucts that it already sells.

“Cheese will be a big catego-ry,” Berry said. Besides cheese, thecompany already sells freshpacked milk, dahi, flavouredyoghurt and accompanimentssuch as ghee. When asked aboutplans for flavoured milk, whereCoca Cola has also entered withits Vio brand, Berry said it will ‘cer-tainly be a part that we would liketo get into but not in the phase one’.

Britannia Industries isaiming to be a �20,000 crorecompany in the next 5-6 yearsas a total food company. Thecompany had posted consoli-dated net sales of �7,775.09crore in the last fiscal.

CANBERRA: Australia on Wednesday said thelong-drawn negotiations for the proposed freetrade agreement (FTA) with India to boost two-way commerce are expected to conclude by thefirst half of this year. The talks for a compre-hensive economic cooperation agreement(CECA) also known as FTA between India andAustralia were started in 2011 to provide fillipto both trade and investments between the twocountries.

Australia Minister for Trade and InvestmentAndrew Robb said that he and IndianCommerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tookstock of the progress of talks in Nairobi inDecember last year.

“We sat down in Nairobi, we had a long ses-sion with their officials and the minister and wetook stock at where we were and how muchlonger we could expect and we both agreed that

and the officials concurred that in the first halfof the year (2016) we can finish this,” Robb toldPTI. “So that's the objective and I don't thinkanything has happened since. In fact we got ourwork done in January and now in February they(officials) are meeting again on some veryimportant issues,” he added.

Both the sides were expecting to concludethe negotiations last year only but there were dif-ferences on areas like duty cut in dairy and wines.Several rounds of negotiations have been com-pleted for liberalising trade and services regimebesides removing non-tariff barriers and encour-aging investments.

Australia is pushing for tariff reduction indairy, fresh fruit, pharma, meats and wines. Onthe other hand, India wants zero duty on autoparts, textiles, and fresh fruits, including man-goes and greater access in services sector. PTI

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NEW YORK: Facebook board member MarcAndreessen on Wednesday set off a controver-sy by terming India's decision to bar discrimi-natory Internet tariff as an ‘anti-colonialist’ ideaand said the country would have been better offif it remained under British rule. Andreessen,one of Silicon Valley's foremost venture capi-talists, and his partner Benedict Evans took toTwitter to vent out their frustration about tele-com regulator TRAI banning Facebook's FreeBasics and other such plans that charge dif-ferent rates for Internet access based oncontent.

The move was hailed as a victoryfor net neutrality, the principle that allInternet websites should be equallyaccessible. Andreessen, or @pmarca ashe's known on Twitter, wrote: “Anti-colo-nialism has been economically catastroph-ic for the Indian people for decades. Why stopnow?” “Another in a long line of economicallysuicidal decisions made by the IndianGovernment against its own citizens,” he tweet-ed. “Denying world's poorest free partial Internetconnectivity when today they have none, for ide-ological reasons, strikes me as morally wrong.”

His partner at the venture capital firmAndreessen Horowitz, Evans, who uses the han-dle @BenedictEvans, chimed in: "It's a terrible

thing to offer people with no money the choiceof something free." The comments drew sharpcriticism from netizens with some callingFacebook's Free Basics plan as Internet colo-nialism. Sayeed Anjum responded to the tweetsaying the subtext of Andreessen's tweet is that"colonialism would any day be better econom-ically. Natives should learn to take help."

Another response read: "Now @facebookBoard Director @pmarca suggests being colo-

nized was good for India & we should've letFb do so:)." Netizen Gayatri Jayaraman

tweeted: "yup @pmarca and @facebookclearly see themselves as the new EastIndia Co colonial saviours to poorbrown India."

Facing flak, Andreessen removedthe tweet. Later, he attempted to walk

away from the discussion he fired up say-ing "I hereby withdraw from all future discus-sions of Indian economics or politics. Carry on."Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had alsoexpressed disappointment, saying the decisionrestricts programmes of his and other organi-sations that provide free access to data. FreeBasics, being run by the world's largest social net-working company, drew major criticism fromexperts who alleged that it curbed one's freedomto access the Internet of their choice. PTI

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Under flak for withdrawingcustoms duty exemption

for 76 life saving drugs includ-ing for cancer, Government onWednesday justified the deci-sion, saying it was to protectdomestic manufacturers andthere will only be marginalincrease in the prices of theseimported drugs.

After its notification issuedby Central Board of Excise andCustoms last week withdraw-ing the customs duty exemp-

tion received severe flak frompublic and activists, the HealthMinistry reviewed the impactof its decision and concludedthat most of the drugs fromdomestic manufacturers arealready available at cheaperrates.

“It is to promote indige-nous medicines. The Indiandrug companies are perfectlycapable of manufacturing thesedrugs for our domestic market.We are not only meeting thedomestic demand but are alsoexporting them to 200 coun-

tries and economies. Most ofthem are available at cheaperrates,” said a senior HealthMinistry official, who is alsooverseeing the functioning ofDrug Controller General ofIndia.

Asserting that there will bemarginal increase in the pricesof these imported drugs, hesaid, “In case of 95 per cent ofthese drugs, the custom duty isonly 2.5 per cent. So if there isan increase, it would be mar-ginal as per our assessmentafter the review.”

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NEW DELHI: The Prime Minister's Officehas taken a review of the Department ofPosts with special focus on the implemen-tation of proposals submitted by a Task Forceon leveraging the DoP's post office network.The PMO held a meeting with senior offi-cials last week and discussed the action takenby DoP so far regarding setting up of thePayments Bank, e-commerce initiatives andmodernisation of its IT infrastructure.

According to sources, the PMO is monitor-ing the progress made by DoP to improve itsfunctioning and utilising the vast network of post

offices across the country for financial inclusion.Regarding the Payment Bank, the DoP in itsaction taken report to PMO said the PublicInvestment Board (PIB) in its meeting held onJanuary 19 discussed the �800-crore proposal andis awaiting PIB's response.

“The recommendations of PIB shall there-after be placed before the Cabinet for finalapproval. Meanwhile, the Department is in theprocess of engaging a consultant for assisting itin setting up the India Post Payments Bank; threebids were received by January 8, 2016 and are cur-rently being evaluated,” DoP said. PNS

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India continues to report over7 per cent GDP growth, but its

momentum has weakened andthe country's growth is well‘below trend’, says a DeutscheBank report.

According to the globalfinancial services major, India'sGDP and gross value added(GVA) grew by 7.3 per cent and7.1 per cent, respectively inOctober-December 2015,reflecting a slowing growthmomentum from the first halfof this fiscal. “India's growth iswell below trend, irrespective ofthe over 7 per cent growthreported as per the nationalaccounts data,” Deutsche Banksaid in a research note.

According to data of theCentral Statistics Office (CSO),the economy is expected togrow at a 5-year high of 7.6 per

cent in the current fiscal. TheCSO data showed that the econ-omy grew at 7.6 per cent in thefirst quarter, 7.7 per cent in sec-ond and 7.3 per cent in third.“We find it difficult to makesense of the current GDP data,with ground reality and high fre-quency indicators such as IP,PMI, CMIE capex, business andemployment surveys indicatinga much weaker cycle,” the reportadded.

It noted that though growthmomentum has slowed in thesecond half of this fiscal year andthat investment recoveryremains anemic, support togrowth is mainly coming fromprivate consumption and this islikely to be the growth drivergoing forward as well. “Wemaintain our GVA growth fore-cast for FY16 at 7.3 per cent,while raising the GDP forecast to7.5 per cent...,” the report said,

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NEW DELHI: Online searchrelated to changing passwordshas grown by 20 per cent, whilethose related to two step verifi-cation jumped 97 per cent overthe last year as an increasingnumber of Indians are becomingcautious about online securityand protection of their data,technology giant Google onWednesday said.

Google India, which hasrolled out new features andresources to protect users online,said India is adding five millionnew users every month and isexpected to have a userbase of'connected' Indians at 500 mil-

lions online by 2018-2019. “Withan increase in the number of userscoming online and rise in thepenetration of smartphone usersin India, we at Google are com-mitted to offering users a safeInternet experience,” Google IndiaDirector Trust and Safety SunitaMohanty said in a statement.

Google will be drivingmultiple initiatives to driveawareness about online safetyamong Indian internet users,including allowing them totake quick security check-upand allow review and manage-ment of Google Account'ssecurity settings, it said. PNS

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HOWRAH(WB): Diversifiedconglomerate ITC onWednesday unveiled threeprojects in West Bengalinvolving an investment of�3,000 crore. Chief MinisterMamata Banerjee laid thefoundation stone of an inte-grated consumer goods man-ufacturing unit at Panchla inHowrah district and an ITPark at Rajarhat near Kolkata.

Banerjee also pre-com-missioned another consumer

goods manufacturing facilityat Uluberia, also at Howrah.

The f irst plant wasexpected to be commis-sioned by January 2017,while the other pre-com-missioned one by May thisyear. The IT Park would becommissioned in phases start-ing 2018. ITC Chairman YCDeveshwar said that this wasbeginning of a fresh chapter inthe long history of the compa-ny in West Bengal. PTI

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NEW DELHI: Government isconsidering to put in place auniversal social security plat-form through which allGovernment transfers wouldbe made and premium forsocial securities schemes col-lected, Minister of State forFinance Jayant Sinha said.

“If our companies flourish,if innovation, competition flour-ish and you people flourish. Weare going to generate resourcesand opportunities to be a pro-poor Government,” he said at theIndia Digital Summit here.

“So we are a pro-poor gov-ernment and we are a pro-mar-ket Government and with thatphilosophy and that mindset weare working on very very trans-formational undertaking forIndia and Indian citizen and thatis the social security platformthat we are building,” he said.

The minister said that thesocial security platform requiresone true database of Indian cit-izens. The government needs tohave unique ID for citizensthrough Aadhaar and have cer-tain demographic information todecide whether an individual iseligible for certain Governmentprogrammes or not. PNS

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Despite the periodic hiccupsin relations with Pakistan,

the Obama administration hasproposed yet another big aidpackage of $860 million to thatcountry as part of PresidentBarack Obama’s last budget.

The proposed allocation,however, is subject to approval bythe Republican-controlled USCongress. Hours after Obamasent his overall $4.1 trillion bud-get proposals to the Congress,the State Department outlinedthe foreign aid component,including Overseas ContingencyOperations (OCO) in a detailedfact-sheet.

On the proposed Pakistanpackage, the State Departmentsaid the Budget“provides $859.8million towards sustaining

cooperative relationships withPakistan and making progressto disrupt, dismantle and defeatal-Qaida and its extremist allies”.

“The requested funding willsupport the country’s counter-insurgency missions, and bolsterstability, energy access, eco-nomic growth, and socialreform,” Secretary of State JohnKerry said in a letter accompa-nying the proposals.

Making the case for continued assistance to Pakistan

under OCO, the StateDepartment said: “Pakistan liesat the heart of the US counter-terrorism strategy, the peaceprocess in Afghanistan, nuclearnon-proliferation efforts, andeconomic integration in Southand Central Asia.”

It said the OCO resourceswill support critical US activi-ties such as ensuring the safe-ty of Pakistani nuclear instal-lations, working with Pakistanto facilitate the peace process inAfghanistan, and promotingimproved relations with India.

It also speaks of a robustdiplomatic presence and criticalassistance programmes toadvance cooperation andreforms in energy, economicgrowth, and agriculture, educa-tion, health, and stabilisation ofareas vulnerable to violentextremism.

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Leaders of the ISIS are deter-mined to strike targets in

the United States this year,senior US intelligence officialshave said, telling lawmakersthat a small group of violentextremists will attempt to over-come the logistical challengesof mounting such an attack.

In testimony before con-gressional committees,Director of NationalIntelligence James Clapper andother officials described theISIS as the "pre-eminent ter-rorist threat." The militantgroup can "direct and inspireattacks against a wide range oftargets around the world,"Clapper said on Tuesday.

Marine Lt Gen VincentStewart, director of the DefenseIntelligence Agency, said theISIS will probably conductadditional attacks in Europeand then attempt the same inthe US. He said US intelligence

agencies believe ISIS leaders willbe "increasingly involved indirecting attacks rather than justencouraging lone attackers."

Clapper also said al-Qaida,from which the ISIS spun off,remains an enemy and the USwill continue to see cyberthreats from China, Russia andN Korea, which also is ramp-ing up its nuclear program.

N Korea has expanded auranium enrichment facilityand restarted a plutoniumreactor that could begin recov-ering material for nuclearweapons in weeks or months,Clapper said in delivering theannual assessment by intelli-gence agencies of the top dan-gers facing the country.

Clapper said thatPyongyang announced in 2013its intention to refurbish andrestart nuclear facilities, toinclude the uranium enrichmentfacility at Yongbyon and its plu-tonium production reactor,which was shut down in 2007.

SYDNEY: A 93-year-old WorldWar II veteran from the UnitedStates embraced his wartimegirlfriend in Australia in theirreunion on Wednesday aftermore than 70 years apart.

Norwood Thomas and 88-year-old Joyce Morris laughedas they wrapped their armsaround each other afterThomas flew from Virginia tothe southern Australian city ofAdelaide to reconnect with hislong-lost love.

"This is about the mostwonderful thing that couldhave happened to me," Thomassaid, in a reunion broadcast onChannel 10's "The Project."

"Good," Morris repliedwith a laugh. "We're going tohave a wonderful fortnight."

Morris was a 17-year-oldBritish girl and Thomas was a21-year-old paratrooper whenthey first met in London short-ly before D-Day. After the war,he returned to the US. The pairwrote letters to each other,and Thomas asked Morris tocome to the US to marry him.But somehow Morris misun-derstood and thought he'dfound someone else, so shestopped writing.

The two eventually mar-ried other people. Thomas'wife died in 2001, Morrisdivorced her husband after 30years. AP

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More than 500 people,including dozens of civil-

ians, have been killed since amajor Russian-backed regimeoffensive in Syria's Aleppoprovince began this month, amonitor said on Wednesday.

The Syrian Observatory forHuman Rights, which relies ona network of sources for its fig-ures, said the toll of 506 includ-ed 23 children killed in Russianair strikes on Aleppo city and itssurroundings since the operationwas launched on February 1.

"At least 143 pro-regimefighters, 274 rebels and foreignjihadists, and 89 civilians werekilled from February 1 untilTuesday night," Observatorydirector Rami Abdel Rahman

told AFP.He said that 14 Iranian

troops and at least three fight-ers from Lebanon's Hezbollahmovement had died fightingalongside the forces of SyrianPresident Bashar al-Assad.

Abdel Rahman added thatmore than 100 foreign jihadists,including members of Syria'sAl-Qaeda affiliate, had diedsince the offensive began.

Fighting on Wednesdayraged around Tamura, north ofAleppo city, with intense Russianair raids on several nearby vil-lages, the Observatory said.

'�� �����The risk of Iraq'slargest dam collapsing andunleashing a huge wave ontoMosul is affecting plans toretake the city from jihadists,an adviser to the PM's officesaid.

The Iraqi army is deploy-ing thousands of soldiers to anorthern base in preparationfor operations to recapture thenorthern city, the largest urbancentre in the ISIS group's self-proclaimed caliphate.

Concern has grown that afailure of the unstable dam,which stands about 40 kilome-tres northwest of the city, couldwipe out most of Mosul andflood large parts of Baghdad.

The Americans "fre-quently refer to Katrina" andsay a collapse of the MosulDam would be "a thousandtimes worse. AFP

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Japan announced onWednesday that it

will impose new sanc-tions on North Koreato protest a rocketlaunch seen as a test ofmissile technology.

The sanctions willinclude expandedrestrictions on travelbetween the twocountries and a com-plete ban on visits byNorth Korean shipsto Japanese ports,Chief CabinetSecretary YoshihideSuga said at a newsconference.

"Despite ourrepeated requests tostop nuclear tests andmissile development,(North Korea) pushedahead with the launch.It has a direct impact onJapan and we need toshow our strong deter-

mination," Suga said.He said, however,

that Japan will keep adoor open for dialogueto resolve the still-out-standing issue ofJapanese citizens whowere abducted by

N Korea decades ago.Suga said the

sanctions would beapproved by theCabinet later, andwould also require legislative changes in parliament.

Japan in 2014 easedsome earlier sanctionson N Korea in exchangefor its pledge to rein-vestigate the fate of theJapanese abductees.

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An unexpected lift-ing of the nearly six

month-long borderblockade with India andback-to- back high-levelvisits by Indian andNepalese officials havecleared the decks for themuch-awaited visit ofNepalese PrimeMinister K P SharmaOli to India beginningFebruary 19.

The two neigh-bours, ties betweenwhom had witnessedan all-time low follow-ing violent protests ledby Madhesis, largelyof Indian-origin, havewarmed up to eachother since the begin-ning of this month.

A surpriseannouncement onMonday by the agitat-

ing Madhesis over lift-ing the blockade of keyborder trade pointswith India fulfilled Oli'scondition of embarkingon his first trip overseasafter assuming chargesome four months ago.

The thaw in tieswas evident whenExternal AffairsMinister Sushma Swarajtravelled to Nepal for aone-day visit to payrespects to formerprime minister SushilKoirala, who passedaway on Tuesday.

Foreign ministryspokesperson DeepakPrasad Adhikary con-firmed that Oli will leaveKathmandu for Delhion February 19 to payan official visit to India,but did not give anydetails saying they areyet to be worked out.

United Nations: UN SecretaryGeneral Ban Ki-moon haswarned of the danger of theISIS terror group spreading itstentacles to South Asia throughorganisations like the Tehreek-e-Khilafat in Pakistan.

"The recent expansion ofthe ISIL sphere of influenceacross West and North Africa,the Middle East and Southand South-East Asia demon-strates the speed and scale atwhich the gravity of the threathas evolved in just 18months," Ban said.

In Afghanistan andPakistan, ISIL continues todevelop a network of contactsand sympathisers who carryout attacks in its name, Bansaid in his report which wassubmitted to the SecurityCouncil by Jeffrey Feltman,the Under-Secretary- Generalfor Political Affairs. PTI

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Republican Donald Trumpand Democrat Bernie

Sanders swept the NewHampshire primaries onTuesday, with the former puttinga host of mainline Republicanson notice and the latter inflict-ing an embarrassing defeat onDemocratic front-runner HillaryClinton.

For Trump, the New Yorkbillionaire who has dominatedthe political space for monthswith his brash ways and explo-sive rhetoric, it was the first vic-tory in the long road to theWhite House after losing theIowa caucuses last week.

For Sanders, the“Democratic Socialist” fromVermont, it was jubilation unlim-ited as he virtually crushed thepowerful Clinton in a one-on-one clash, capturing 60 per centof the votes against her 38.3 per

cent with about 9 per cent ofvotes still to be counted.

In the crowded Republicanfield, Trump won handily with35.2 per cent votes, followed byOhio Governor Jon Kasich (15.8per cent), Senator Ted Cruz(11.7 per cent), former FloridaGovernor Jeb Bush (11.1 percent), Senator Marco Rubio(10.5 per cent) and New JerseyGovernor Chris Christie (7.5 percent). Eight per cent of votes stillremained to be counted.

Both Sanders and Trumphave in their own separate waysbeen trying to tap into the angerof middle class voters, with theformer promising a politicaland economic revolution and thelatter pledging to “make Americagreat again”.

“What began last week inIowa, what voters confirmedhere tonight, is nothing shortof the beginning of a politicalrevolution,” Sanders told hisjubilant supporters

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There are a few things you can thinkof in life which can whet and sateyour appetite in equal proportions,

epitomising sophistication and delecta-tion at the same time. Out of which isthe espousal of whisky and cigars. Sowhat is it with the enticing union of thesetwo? They both stand for their age,

refinement, elegance and discernmentinducing a sense of certain enviable luxu-ry. And the same could be seen at therecently concluded whisky and cigar fes-tival, ‘Indulge’ at Dramz. The one of its kindfest was apparently India’s first. Speakingon the idea behind the same, SunilAggarwal, owner of Dramz said, “I alwayswanted to have something like this. I was

only looking for an opportune time togo about it. I got the inspiration for the

fest from my visits to Whisky Lives atSingapore, New York and I felt that I want-ed to do something on the similar lineswhich would bring people related with pro-duction and consumption of high endwhiskies together.”

On clubbing together whisky withcigar he elaborated, “They make for a goodlifestyle combination.” The contemplationof partnering with The Smoke Companytranspired on one of his meetings withAshish Bhasin where he shared the idea of‘Indulge’ and that’s how they embarked onthe project.

With 46 labels of whiskies from eightdistilleries, the patrons and the cubs rel-ished and reveled alike at the event whichwill be turned into an annual affair soon.“I’m already planning for the next episodeof ‘Indulge’. I would want to take the fes-tival in other cities in the country as wellmaking it not just experiential but educa-tional as well,” said Aggarwal.

From the likes of Glenfiddich toGlenlivet, Chivas Regal, Old Pulteney,Cardhu, Tomatin there was no dearth oftastings and samplings. The cigars whichwere paired along with the various labelsof whiskies, were Padron, Campessino,Gurkha, Palmar Arriba to name a few.

Elaborating on his shared passion withAggarwal to unravel something novel forwhisky and cigar lovers in the country,Bhasin shared how they were keen to bringin the best malts and complimenting themwith exceptional cigars from the worldover. He also stressed on the fact that Indiais not much of a cigar country and how it’simportant to make people aware about thesame. “Indians love their whisky but whatthey don’t know is that cigars go really wellwith it and I want to promote the same.Besides in India, there’s some sort of fix-ation with Cuban cigars as majority of peo-ple do not know that there’s a world of pre-mium cigars from other countries as well.This festival was an opportunity where Igot to showcase the cigars I’ve been col-lecting over the years from around theworld. This is just a precursor to somethingbig that we plan to do in future.” said AshishBhasin, CEO, The Smoke Company.

Talking about his interest in cigars hesaid, “I got intrigued by cigars almost 14years back when I smoked my first at a con-ference in Singapore. Cigar smoking is likeseduction and one cannot but succumb toit. When I moved to India a few years back,I wanted to source my smokes but could

not find a placewhere I could

get what I

wanted; so on my travels I started collect-ing cigars from duty free, shamelessly askedfriends travelling overseas to buy me cig-ars and from that stemmed an idea to setupa company that would soon start import-ing cigars and be a full time venture.”

There are individual preferences whenit comes to pairing up cigars with whiskyranging from powerful blend with a mixof intense spice and smoke to a mild com-

bination that brings out the smoothnessand age.

Explaining the nuances of smoking acigar from a cigarette Bhasin said, “Beautyof cigar smoking lies in one’s willingnessto shift loyalty from a brand. You have tobe ready to experience more brands andcontinue to train your palate. I have beena non conformist when it comes to cigarsand usually try cigars from all over theworld other than Cuba especially fromDominican Republic, Honduras,Nicaragua, Italy, Costa Rica, Germany,Mexico which are an ace up to theCubans.”

“Whisky and cigar festival is an effortto build a template of indulgence to thefiner things when it comes to your tippleand smokes; we are collaborating with thebest brands in the world to explore Indiaas a market and give an optimum lifestylequotient to the discerning malt and cigarlovers in the country,” said Bhasin.

The affair not only included some ofthe best malts and blends with cigars butalso had an insipid spread which could bedisregarded only because of the quaintQutub Minar keeping the hedonistsindulged in their respective debauchery.

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As we entered in the room, bothYami Gautam and Pulkit Samrat

greeted us with smiling faces.During the conversation, they toldus that they will be seen togetheragain in a T- Series film Junooniyat.They also shared their journey fromTV to the film industry. Excerptsfrom the interaction:

�Tell us something about thefilm and your role and how it isgoing to be different from yourprevious films...

Pulkit Samrat- This is a lovestory, truly soulful and intense love.It tells the journey of Akash andShruti. People are going to relatethemselves with the journey ofAkash and Shruti because it’s thepurest emotion depicted in verybeautiful manner. It talks about theconcept that we usually discuss —to find our soulmates. But, is it easyto find your soulmate or is it destiny,the biggest factor which plays animportant role? So, this is what thefilm is all about.

Yami Gautam- In the movie,we belong to a small town calledTanakpur. And Shruti is a smalltown girl with really big dreams inher eyes. She is someone whobelieves that no matter what hap-pens, nothing can snatch yoursmile and happiness. But as thestory unfolds, she realises thatthere is much more depth to hercharacter, emotion and her vulner-ability.

�Both of you startedyour career with televi-sion and then you havemade it to the big screen.So, did you find it diffi-cult to make the shift?

PS: It just happenedorganically. It is yourwork and most impor-tantly, it is your audi-ence. It depends on solely on theaudience where they want to see us.Suppose, tomorrow, if they want tosee me on the small screen, I willdefinitely work there. My mainmotive is to entertain, mediumdoesn’t matter. I am very thankfulto my audience that they like me andI will never disappoint them.

YG : For me, I think I took a lit-tle time in the transition. Of course,I have a lot of respect for TVbecause I learnt everything fromthere because I never went to anyacting institution. I just came toMumbai from Chandigarh and Ilearnt acting while doing television.But one thing I was very sure of,that I am never going to do compro-mise with anything or never do any-thing which I don’t believe in just toearn money. I left television at apoint where I thought that I am notsatisfied with my roles and charac-ters. I took a break. I was not in theposition at that time where I couldjust sit at home and choose what Iwanted to do but, I still chose myroles. I even started to do commer-

cials. As it is shown inmovies that people goto small banners andgive auditions, I didthat too. Then I gotadvertisements andduring that course, Igave audition for VickyDonor and got selectedfor that.

�Is there any difference thatyou find between the industries?

PS: I think there is certainsword that is hanging when youwork on television because the tele-cast has to go. The level of detailinggoes little down. But you have apressure and you tackle that pressureto deliver the best you can becauseyou have less time and that teachesyou a lot. And when you come tofilms, there is a lot of detailing thatgoes and of course, there is a dead-line because you have to finish it ona certain release date but still youhave some time as compared to TV.I think whatever I have learnt fromtelevision has helped me a lot.

�Yami, your next film is withHrithik Roshan...

I am very excited and I think, toget this opportunity at this stage isan advantage for me . I am reallylooking forward to shoot with him.I think it is going to be a very spe-cial film for me and I will work real-ly hard for this.

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The Living Legend Series of 18thBharat Rang Mahotsav had the

honour to host legendary veteranfilmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan.Born in the era of British India,Adoor Gopalakrishnan is an eminentdirector and story writer. An awardwinning artist in the field of filmmaking, Gopalakrishnan has giventhe audience amazing artworks likeSwayamvaram and Randaanum. Hehas also been associated with theroots of theatre in the long run.

Discussing about his beginningin the field of theatre, he said, “Thepower of stage is so great thatnobody can control it when itattracts you. When it attracted me,I realised that theatre is my area andI devoted my life to it. There is noother feeling like theatre and this isits beauty.”

When the audience asked abouthis genre of films and the ideabehind the themes, he said, “Theprotagonist of my film is a charac-ter who has been left behind by pas-sage of time. It revolves around cri-sis of misfits.”

As the impact of natural beautyof Kerala has dominated the space inhis films, Gopalakrishnan explained,“I prefer to involve all the five majorelements of earth in my films.”

Focussing on the trend of today’scinema, Gopalakrishnan mentioned,“The popular cinema of today is theconfined cinema. It is in limit towhat the audience wants to see.Audience does not want to thinkwhen they watch cinema.”

We have all marvelled at PerniaQureshi deliver perfect Kathak

mudras in her debut movie Jaanisaar. Suchis her passion for the classical performingarts that she specially trained in the par-ticular face form for the Muzaffar Ali film.

It is for the first time that the fashion-ista will be showing her dancing skills onthe stage with a show called ChandniRaatein. To be staged at the SteinAuditorium of the India Habitat Centre onFebruary 13, the dance recital would bebased in the subject of love. “There will be

a dramatic setting with moonlight to addto the overall atmosphere,” she said. Therecital, she pointed out would be abenjoyable experience and would appeal tothe eyes. “We want the show to be as realand enjoyable as possible. That is why therewill be live musicians and singers. It willalso be a short performance and will con-clude within an hour,” she added.

She will also be joined byKuchipudi exponent Raja RadhaReddy for a brief while on the stage.And the excitement was evident inher voice, “To share the stage with

him was an honour. Through ourrehearsals and routines I have come tolearn so much from him,” she praised.

Qureshi considers it a blessing to haveKumudini Lakhiya as part of the show. Notmany would know that Lakhiya had alsotrained Rekha when she was shooting forUmrao Jaan. “It was kind enough on herpart to take me under her wings and trainme,” Qureshi beamed.

The actress was three-years-old whenshe took he first dance lessons. “I starteddancing even before I went to school,” shelaughed. Her first lessons were in Kathakunder her guru late pandit Tirath Rama.Then when she attended college, she tookinterest in Kuchipudi and learnt it, too. “Ihave dedicated 10 years of my life toKuchipudi. But last year I moved back toKathak because of Jaanisaar,” she said.

Chandni Raatien is her attempt to pop-ularise and propagate classical dance. “Itjust needs to reach more people and we allneed to popularise it. The reason why theyouth is ignorant of all this is because wedo not know much about it,” she said.

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Tata Power Delhi Distributioninaugurated electric charging

stations for electric two-wheelers inNorth and North West Delhi. Thisenvironment friendly initiative isexpected to benefit over 10,000 elec-tric two wheelers owners in the TataPower Delhi-DDL area.

The first station has been inau-gurated at Pitampura and the secondone has been set up near MauriceNagar Police Station, Hudson Lines,Kingsway Camp. At the stations, peo-ple can charge their two wheelers forfree of cost.

Commenting upon the envi-ronment friendly initiative, PraveerSinha, CEO and MD, Tata PowerDelhi-DDL said, “As a responsiblecorporate, we are constantly rollingout environment friendly initiativesfor the benefit of the people and thebetterment of Delhi. Setting up of freee-charging stations for electric twowheelers is a step in that directiononly. I am sure the move will not onlycontribute towards reduction ofvehicular pollution in Delhi but willalso encourage people to opt for pol-lution free modes of commutation.”

Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited (TPDDL) opened aVocational Training Center at N-Block, Mangolpuri area

in association with Viklang Sahara Samiti, Delhi. The center wasinaugurated by Praveer Sinha, CEO and MD, Tata Power-DDLin the presence of NGO partners and beneficiaries and studentsfrom its other VocationalTraining and Women Literacycenters. The center aims to ben-efit various underprivilegedyouth residing in the area.

The center will impart voca-tional trainings like electriciancourses to the youth allowingthem to learn and generateemployment for themselves.

Currently, the company is running 13 vocational train-ing–cum–tutorial centers in its area of operation, wherein it teach-es courses like advanced computers, beautician course, officeassistant, electrician training, and retail chain courses towomen and children promoting skill development and educa-tion.

Punjab National Bank closed thethird quarter of FY’16 with Global

Business touching �9.41 lakh crore;thereby registering double digit YoYgrowth of 11.20 per cent. WhileGlobal Deposits grew by 13.30 percent to reach �5.48 lakh crore, NetAdvances of the bank inched up by8.4 per cent to reach a level of �3.92lakh crore. On the liability side, theshare of CASA deposits of the bankto domestic deposits increased to40.38 per cent as on December 31,2015 as compared to 39.44 per centin the corresponding period lastyear. This shows that CASA share ofthe bank is one of the highestamongst nationalised banks.

On the asset side, the bank isfocussing on small ticket advances —retail, MSME and agriculture cred-it. As a result of this, the share ofsmall ticket advances in domestic nonfood credit increased from 57.07 percent in December 2014 to 60.29 per

cent in December 2015. Retail loanportfolio of the bank has shown aYoY growth of 17.6 per cent as onDecember 31, 2015. In terms of bot-tom-line parameters, the OperatingProfit of the Bank stood at �8,988

crore in 9M FY 2016 and �2,918 crorein Q3 FY 2016. The Bank recordedNet Profit of �1,393 crore in 9M FY2016 and �51 crore in Q3 FY 2016.The bank’s domestic net interestmargin stood above three per cent at3.13 per cent during Q3 FY 2016.

The bank has shown reduction inthe share of restructured standardadvances to gross advances from9.76 per cent as on March 31, 2015to 8.64 per cent as on December 31,2015. The bank is taking variousmeasures to improve the asset qual-ity besides meticulously followingthe RBI’s guidelines on asset qual-ification. The bank is well capi-talised with the capital to riskweighted assets ratio (CRAR) at11.25 per cent and Tier I capital at8.52 per cent as per Basel III.

With a view to create awarenessamong employees about the

core values of the organisation, thecore value actualisation programmeis being organised every month atNational Capital Power Station,Dadri.

As part of closing ceremony ofactualisation of the core value,“Enterprising”, Padma VibhushanBindeshwar Pathak, founder, SulabhInternational Social ServiceOrganisation was invited as guestspeaker to deliver lecture. Pathakshared with the audience his jour-ney towards success story of SulabhInternational. He also inauguratedthe exhibition of working modelsprepared by the school children andappreciated the creative ideasdepicted by the school childrenthrough working models.

As part up of the actualisationprogramme for the core value “Enterprising” was also taken up to be publicisedduring January. Various programmes such as success stories of entrepreneurs ofdifferent sectors of industry were shared with all employees through mail, essayand slogan competition for employees and spouses, quiz for employees, visual quizfor HODs, on-the-spot painting competition and working model exhibition andcompetition for children of the township were organised. Pathak also gave awayprizes to the winners of various competitions held during the core value actuali-sation programme.

PK Singh, chairman, Steel Authorityof India Ltd is visiting all steel plants

of the company in a planned manner tointeract with the entire collective andenergise the employees during thesechallenging times. His initiative is aimedat clearly communicating the company’spriorities to each and every employee ata time when the industry is facing inter-nal and external challenges.

Singh visited Bhilai Steel Plantrecently where he reviewed the progressof the ongoing modernisation andexpansion plan. He inspected the pro-ject sites of Blast Furnace-8, Steel MeltingShop-III, Bar & Rod Mill, Power andBlowing Station-II, Universal Rail Milland Rail Welding Line.

The visit was followed by discussionson production related and other issueswith a cross section of employees. Heexhorted the collective for timely com-pletion of the projects and gear up forramping up of production from the newfacilities. During this visit as well as inother plants, the main thrust of

Chairman’s interaction has been to alignevery employee towards the company’spriorities including cost reduction,increasing production of value addedhigh NSR products, keeping abreast withthe changing market dynamics andnewer avenues of revenue generation/reduction in expenditure.

Reiterating faith in the SAIL collec-tive and their ability to stand through thechallenges, Singh said, “Next few monthsare going to be very critical in terms oframping up production from new millsand attaining operational excellence. Thechanging times make it incumbentupon us to reinvent ourselves by ensur-ing enhanced engagement at all levels inthe Company besides collaborating withour valued stakeholders.”

He stressed on need to be flexibleand agile in order to adapt to thechanging market scenario and utilisingevery minute to the fullest with speedand urgency. These visits have infusedconfidence and invigorated the employ-ees for facing the present challenges.

Pune-based artist MadhuriBhaduri has been anacclaimed artist for the past

four decades. Her work has beenexhibited in solo and group exhi-bitions in India and abroad, andforms the part of art collections ofdiscerning patrons.

Bhaduri’s inherent athleticismand artistic pursuits may be tracedto her genes. Her father ShivramPhalnikar played national levelbadminton and her mother DurgaPhalnikar was an acclaimed Indianclassical vocalist. Yet, to her crediteven as she inherited talents shewent on to hone her skills and hascreated a distinct body of work atdifferent periods of her life. In herearliest works, like those of theImpressionist masters she soadmires, Bhaduri sought to capturethe mood of a moment and thetransient effects of light and colourof natural vistas she so loved usingunmixed primary colours and hun-dreds of minute strokes. The paint-ings were always about bringinghome a vignette of natural beautyrather than attempting to prophe-sise or convey a social message.

Yet, within the body of works

she created, there would invariablybe one or a few rendered in anabstract style, where the form anddetails would be pared down to sug-gest rather that recreate the actualsubject; a facet that would years latercome to blossom and encompass allher work.

Extending her formal study ofhuman figures during her mastersin art and painting from SNDT,Pune (completed in 1988), Bhaduripainted nudes and figurativethrough the 1990s. She also workedon a series of clown paintings —poignant works of painted facesconcealing pain — that conveyedthe exigency of at times presentinga cheerful demeanour to the worldin the most testing of times.

Discovering abstraction ismuch deeper than a play ofcolour or lines, in the past decadeBhaduri returned to her firstlove of landscapes and created abody of abstract landscapes andseascapes. “Abstracts are about theperson you are. They help youunderstand and work out thecomplexity of your own emotions.As I explored the expression Icame to love the process of paint-

ing abstracts,” shesays.

There was nolooking back as shestarted paintingabstract seascapes.Travels to port townsacross the worldbrought Bhaduri intouch with the beau-ty of the sea, its open-ness and vastness, themajesty of spectacularsunsets across sky andwater, and views offishing boats at sea or tied at theshore. As the artist recalled thoseseascapes, she created spectacularvignettes of sky, water and boats, inrich colours and tones, creating aspectrum of moods.

Reflecting on the worksBhaduri says as form dissolves inabstracts, colour takes on a fun-damental importance. And shewields colour magically, she bringsearth, water and sky alive in alltheir glory, breathes life into sun-sets and captures the essence ofsuggested forms.

Through colour and brushstrokes, she touches a chord in the

viewer, stirringmemories and emo-tions, bringing thebeauty and intensityof the sea, land andsky, of old monu-ments, forgotten orliving, into the innerspace of the viewer.

Each colour inthe abstracts has abeauty, significanceand resonance — redis symbolic of lifeblood, green of reju-

venation, blue of peace and divin-ity, yellow the radiance of the sun,orange of deep insight and blackembodying an infinite, unfath-omable void that sometimes over-takes our lives.

“Art is an expression of whatyou are and my abstracts are whatI am. Much of my work isinspired by travel. From museumslike the Paul Klee Museum inBern and the many beautifulplaces I have visited in Banaras,the Konkan Coast, Ladakh,Croatia, Petra, Guilin in Chinaand Istanbul, among others. Ibring back memories, the

romance, visual impressions andimages of colour of a place, andrecreate them on canvas,” sheexplains.

Her recent body of work recallsimages of places visited in abstractforms, a rich colour palette and inhaunting open vistas. “I have cre-ated a story on each canvas, start-ing by visualising a place, recallinga memory, and allowed the flow totake me forward and be part of thesequential forms and layering thatgo on to emerge. I find myself usingmultiple colours on some canvas-es, with one colour being predom-inant. I also find beauty in colourpalettes like black and gold thatrecall the mystery and splendour ofthe sea by night,” Bhaduri adds.

In these stunning works all theunessential forms and details havebeen pared away, and just theessence of a place has been broughtto life most effortlessly. “As the frillsof life decrease so do the frills of artdiminish. I can feel that I havereached where I needed to reach. Itis just me, canvas, paint and theessence of my emotion. Painting isnow like meditation. I feel closestto God when I paint,” she says.

The four day nationalArogya Fair at

Dehradun in Uttarakhandconcluded successfullyrecently. The Arogya Fairwas organised by theMinistry of Ayurveda,Yoga and Naturopathy,Unani, Siddha, Sowa Rigpaand Homeopathy(AYUSH) in collaborationwith the State governmentof Uttarakhand and theConfederation of IndianIndustry (CII). Thousandsof visitors benefited fromthe information gatheredabout AYUSH Systems infour days. The fair was

inaugurated by theMinister of State forAYUSH (independentcharge) and Health andFamily Welfare, ShripadYesso Naik. The fairattracted immense partic-ipation from all stake-holders, residents, practi-tioners, academicians, cor-porates, institutes, univer-

sity heads and students.The eight free governmentclinics by the ministryserved more than 1,000patients in four days. Freemedicines were also pro-vided to the patients.Various experts sharedvaluable information dur-ing 17 learning sessionsorganised for the generalpublic. The themes werebased on immune system,homeopathy in women’sdisorders, treatment inayurveda, yog se arogyaand non-communicablediseases management insiddha system et al.

Mahesh Sharma, theMinister of State (I/C)

for Tourism & Cultureand Minister of State forCivil Aviation launchedthe “24x7 Toll Free TouristInfoline in 12International Languagesincluding Hindi andEnglish” available on theexisting Toll Free Number1800111363 or on a shortcode 1363 recently. Thisproject is being imple-mented by the Ministry ofTourism, Government ofIndia through M/s. TATABSS who have been asso-ciated with the work afteropen bidding process.

The languages han-dled by the contact centersinclude ten Internationallanguages besides Englishand Hindi, namely,Arabic, French, German,Italian, Japanese, Korean,Chinese, Portuguese,Russian and Spanish. A

“Live Demo” of thisMultilingual InfolineService in Japanese,Chinese, Russian andItalian languages was alsopresented on the occa-sion. The Minister alsoannounced that very soonhis Ministry will launch an“Incredible India MobileApp.” to facilitate touristsin a better way.

Interaction of senior officers withjawans is a regular curriculum in

CISF to counsel and motivate the forcepersonnel in achieving the goals andliving lives in a better and improvedmanner. Later, it was decided at apexlevel to invite successful dignitaries andcelebrities who can impact the think-ing and attitude of personnel to attaincheerful expressions, manners, eti-quettes and positive attitude.

In this line, a motivational talk wasorganized at Kalina Camp of CISFUnit Chatrapati Shivaji InternationalAirport, Mumbai.

Bollywood star Akshay Kumarwas kind enough to spare his time tointeract with the CISF personnel. Heshared that his father was also in army

and whenever he comes across withsomeone in uniform, he gets inspiredand driven to do something for thenation. He shared that physical fitnessis very important and crucial aspect ofthe life of any soldier and one muststrive to be physically fit at any cost.He added that one should spendquality time with family and payrespect to elders. Spending quality timewith family is the biggest stress busterand keeps one healthy.

The government recently askedbanks and micro-finance institu-

tions to come forward in a big way forcredit-disbursal to achieve the goal ofSwachh Bharat Mission of makingIndia Open Defecation Free by 2019.Addressing a conference on InnovativeFinancing for Clean India, the UnionMinister of Rural Development andDrinking Water and SanitationBirender Singh said that there is incen-tive of �12,000 for toilet constructionfor BPL families, but to achieve the uni-versal coverage, there is need for easyfinancing by banks and other financialinstitutions. He said that FinanceMinistry has included water and san-itation as new sectors for priority sec-tor lending by commercial banks, butthis monumental policy change must

translate from intent to action. Asserting that sanitation is close-

ly linked with poor health, low edu-cation status, malnutrition and pover-ty, the minister informed that since thelaunch of the Swachh Bharat Mission,more than 14.7 million toilets wereconstructed in the rural areas, but stillclose to 50 per cent of our rural pop-ulation still does not have access to atoilet. He said that the solid and liquidwaste management component of theSwachh Bharat Mission, SBM, providesscope for small and medium privatesector institutions to engage in wastemanagement and improvisation ofvillage environmental managementinfrastructure.

BSNL has recently releasedpolicy document for

Machine- to-Machine (M2M)services which is available inBSNL Corporate website.M2M is considered an integralpart of the Internet of Things(IOT) and brings several ben-efits to various industry andbusiness by connecting themachines with each other andhumans.

M2M communication andservices forms the backbone ofintelligent and efficient infra-structure required to providecitizen centric utility servicesin smart cities. “BSNL isuniquely positioned to partnerand provide these solutions aswe are the only operator withvast physical presence in everynook and corner of the coun-try. We invite partnership fromleading M2M solutionproviders to realize this dream”,said RK Mittal, director (con-sumer mobility), BSNL.

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India skipper Mahendra SinghDhoni remained positive andsaid the surprise defeat to Sri

Lanka in the first T20 has giventhem the chance to assess theteam’s batting frailty ahead of thebig-ticket World T20.

“The good thing is this is thetype of pitch on which we have notplayed for a long time. Therewere a lot of positives. It was oneday everyone got a chance to bat.At the same time there was pres-sure on all batsmen. Yes, the resultdid not go our way, but there werea lot of positives to take away fromthis game,” said Dhoni.

“It’s rare that in a twenty overgame all wickets fall. I don’t thinkit’s a bad idea to test everyone.Because it will give us an ideaabout how deep is our batting. Ifthe top order keeps performingfrom now on itself, the lower orderwill not get an exposure and thechance to bat and get tested beforethe T20 World Cup,” he said.

Put into bat on a lively track,which had fair amount of bounceand seam movement, India wereskittled out for a paltry 101 in 18.5overs with the rookie pace trio ofKasun Rajitha (3/29), DashunShanaka (3/16) and Chameera(2/14) doing bulk of the damage.

Dhoni said, “This is a differ-ent format. Accordingly we willhave to adjust. We should not belooking into the 50-over format. Inthis format if someone gets 10 off2 balls we say well played. What isimportant is we have to see howthe wicket behaves. If you chase140 there is no point in trying towin in 12 or 13 overs. Better to aimfor 16th or 17th over. All thesethings will be a factor (going for-ward),” he added.

Dhoni said if India had made140, it would have been a defend-able total on a track that assistedseam bowlers, but at the same timepraised the Lankans for bowling inone area.

“If you see, close to 140 wasdefinitely a good score and wouldhave been slightly difficult tochase. But we can’t say whether itwas the par score or not, but it wasdefinitely not a 160-170 score

wicket. There was definitely a lotfor the fast bowlers, a bit of vari-able bounce, a bit of sponge-likebounce which made it difficult toconsistently play the big shots.

“There was definitely some-

thing for the fast bowlers if youcould keep hitting one area. Itdepended on how consistentlyyou can keep hitting the rightareas. They did not give width andthey did bowl well. We also kept

losing wickets that added pressureon the new batsmen coming in,”explained Dhoni.

Dhoni conceded that his bats-men were perhaps thinking that allIndian tracks would behave in thesame manner, especially on the back

of their run-glut in Australia in theT20 series which they won 3-0.

“A partnership was important.We tried a big shot when partner-ships were building. Coming froma series where we had made lot ofruns, at times it looks that whatev-er the wicket it is an Indian wick-et. But the important thing is wehave not used the last two batsmenearlier. It’s a way to look forward.”

He, however, did not criticisethe track and said whatever the con-ditions they would accept them andplay. “It’s not our fault what kind ofwicket we get. We are not botheredabout the types of wickets we get.”

2�>����������� ������ ��!The wicket prepared for first

T20 against India here remindedSenanayake of ones normally seenin Australia and he said his team wassurprised that a seaming track waslaid out instead of a spinning one.

“Yes, it was like Australia. Wealways expect a turning wicket, butit was seaming and bouncingwicket,” Senanayake said.

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BCCI secretary AnuragThakur on Wednesday said

“no country should feel inse-cure” about playing in Indiaamid reports that Pakistanhas proposed to play its match-es in the upcoming WorldT20 at a neutral venue citingsecurity concerns.

“BCCI will organise theWorld Cup in the nicest possi-ble way and will provide everyteam with highest protection.Earlier also we have hostedmany World Cups and interna-tional matches and I don’tthink any country should feelinsecure here,” Thakur said.

Pakistan’s cricket chief

Shaharyar Khan had earlierstated that a proposal was sentto play their WT20 matches onneutral venues next month inthe event Islamabad does notallow the team to tour India.

Thakur said that it wasentirely up to Pakistan todecide whether they wanted toplay the WT20 in India or not.

“Bilateral series is totally adifferent topic but in the WorldCup teams from across theworld will come and participate.

Pakistan is one among those 16teams and the Indian govern-ment will provide completesecurity to all the teams. I thinkall the qualifying teams shouldcome and participate in WC.India is ready and if any coun-try has some issues then theyneed to decide about it,” he said.

The PCB had initially hint-ed that its side might withdrawfrom the upcoming event if thePakistan government did notpermit them to tour India.

Shaharyar later added thatthey had also made a proposalduring the recent ICC Boardmeeting in Dubai that Pakistanbe allowed to play their match-es at neutral venues in casegovt’s decision is not favourable.

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��&���� ��Ashish Nehra has hada career plagued with injuries andnow he has come to a stage wherehe doesn’t leave anything tochance, so much so that he staysfrom the customary game offootball while team is training.

“I would love to play footballwith the team, but I have had somany injuries in the past, so I tryto keep football away from myschedule,” said Nehra, who madehis international comeback afterfour years, with the T20s inAustralia and is now looking for-ward to Asia Cup and WT20.

Nehra is loving it being in theIndian dressing room after a long

gap and doesn’t mind performingthe role assigned to him, that is tobowl in the first six overs and com-plete his spell in the death overs.“Whoever plays domestic cricket,their goal is to play for India. Forme, playing for India after a gapof four years is an amazing feeling,”Nehra told bcci.tv. ��$

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The Indian men and women players coveredthemselves with golden glory by beating Pakistan

in both the team finals at the South Asian Gameshere on Wednesday.

With this, the squash competition ended and forall the melancholy that engulfed the Indian campafter the individual competitions where the men hadfinished with just two bronze, medals vanished asthings turned around for an historic finish. For thefirst time in the SAG, India was able to win the hon-ours in both the men's and women's sections. In all,India finished with three gold medals overall out ofthe four at stake.

The man in focus on Wednesday was undoubt-edly Saurav Ghosal, who had to do the star act andthe highly rated player showed his ability in nouncertain terms in sweeping aside Nasir Iqbal's chal-lenge in three straight games. After the fall in theindividual event, Saurav was doubly careful that arepeat should not come about. Playing with greatcontrol over his drives and volleys, the Indian hadthe Pakistan opponent in knots before long. Number

three players were the next to come out as per theday's order of play. Ravi Dixit thus faced DanishAtlas Khan and even though he did well to take onegame, he could not sustain the pressure long. ThePakistan player overwhelmed him to level the match.

With one match all and a deciding third nextcame Kush Kumar on view to face Farhan Zaman.It was not an easy equation for India but Kush roseto the occasion splendidly. Only in the third gamedid he struggle a bit, even trailed 7-9 but a fighterthat he is, Kush clawed back and playing in the frontcourt mostly put it across much to the jubilation ofthe Indian camp.

In the women's section, again in an Indian-Pakistan affair, Joshna Chinappa came on to tameMaria Toorpaki in four games. After the eventfulcombat that the two had in the individual final ear-lier, Joshna appeared ready for the occasion.Though she suffered a momentary loss of touch, theIndian never let go the grip to make it 1-0. Sixteenyear old Sunayna Kuruvilla's big moment came next.Against an experienced campaigner Sammer Anjumit was not easy. Nerves told as Sunayna seemed tolose way early but one thing this junior knows abun-dantly was to fight. She did just that, got her drivesand cross court shots to make dents and the tusslewent five games before Sunayna came up trumps andgave India the winning margin. Her famed cousinDipika Pallikal thus did not need to enter the court.

The results: Men: India bt Pakistan 2-1 ( SauravGhosal bt Nasir Iqbal 11-7, 11-8, 11-7 ; Ravi Dixit lostto Danish Atlast Khan 3-11, 8-11, 11-6, 6-11; KushKumar bt Farhan Zaman 11-3, 11-8, 12-10).

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India's remarkable domination wentuncontested for the fifth successiveday as shooters, wushu players and

track-and-field athletes annihilatedcompetition to sweep most of the goldup for grabs on the fifth day of the 12thSouth Asian Games here on Wednesday.

With a whopping 194 medals, includ-ing 117 gold, 61 silver and 16 bronzemedals, in the kitty, India sat pretty at thetop of the table. Following the hosts in thesecond place were Sri Lanka with an over-all count of 133 (24 gold, 46 silver and 63bronze medals).

The blue-riband event of athleticswas expected to trigger gold rush forIndia and it went pretty much that waywith athletes contributing 7 gold medalsto the tally on Wednesday.

Neeraj Chopra (men's javelinthrow), Arokya Rajiv (men's 400m),Arjun (discus throw), J Surendhar(men's 110m hurdles), Gayathry(women's 100m hurdles), Ankit Sharma(men's long jump) and Sahana Kumari(women's high jump) were the ones toclinch top honours.

Seasoned swimmer VeerdhawalKhade clinched his first gold of theGames by winning the men's 50m but-terfly event. Other gold winners for Indiawere Shraddha Sudhir (200m medley forwomen), Jyotsna Pansare (50m butter-fly for women) and both the men's andwomen's 4x100 medley relay teams.

In total, India won five gold, threesilver and one bronze on the final dayof the swimming event.

Khade clinched the gold in 50mbutterfly for men in a Games record of24.54 seconds. The Indian men's4x100m medley team also set a newGames record of 3:49.78 while winningthe gold.

Sri Lanka was initially declared thewinner of the women's 4x100m med-ley relay event while India took the sil-ver. However, the Lankan team was dis-qualified after one of their swimmersmade a false start during the change oflegs, leading to the upgradation India's

silver into gold.In Shillong, India clinched an over-

whelming eight gold, one silver and twobronze medals on the final day of thewushu competition.

India finished their campaign inwushu with 11 gold, two silver and three

bronze.M Gyandash Singh with

18.53 points edged out his Nepaleseand Bangladeshi rivals inTaijiquan and Taijijian men'ssection to open India'sgold rush on the con-cluding day of wushu.

L Sanatombi Chanutopped Taijiquan andTaijijian womensection with 18.62points ahead ofNepal andPakistan for asecond gold.

In men'sSanshou, India annexed threegold with Uchit Sharma (52kg),

Ravi Panchal (56kg), Surya BhanuPratap Singh (60kg) emerging win-ners in their respective weight

categories.In 70kg, Mukesh

Choudhry had to set-tle for silver finish-ing behindPakistan's Maz

Khan, while ArunNagar (65kg)

and PradeepKumar (75kg)had to becontent withb r o n z e

medals.However, Indian

women ruled in

Sanshou bagging all the three goldmedals up for grabs with Y SanathoiDevi (52kg), Anupama Devi (60kg),Puja Kadian (70kg) emerging champi-ons.

The story was no different on thetennis courts in Guwahati with theIndians picking up all the gold medalson offer on the fourth day of the event.

The local favourites won gold inwomen's singles, men's doubles andmixed doubles to completely dominatethe event at the All Assam TennisAssociation Grounds here.

In the men's doubles, RamkumarRamanathan and Vijay Prasanth defeat-ed Divij Sharan and Sanam Singh 6-36-4 to give the country the first gold andsilver of the day.

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Rio Olympics bound ApurviChandela led the charge as

Indians grabbed six medals,including three gold, on theopening day of shooting compe-titions in the 12th South AsianGames here on Wednesday.

Chandela easily shot downthe gold in her pet event ofwomen's 10m air rifle with atotal score of 209.00 points,while compatriots ElizabethSusan Koshy and Pooja Ghatkarwon the silver and bronze asIndian markswomen swept themedals at the KahiliparaShooting Range here.

In men's 50m pistol event,however, Indians failed to winthe gold with Om Prakash --who shot 187.3 points -- bagginga silver and Olympic-boundPrakash Nanjappa finishing out-

side podium at fourth. The goldwas won by Bangladesh's SakilAhmed, who shot 187.6 points.

Prakash later told that hetook part in the event despitehaving problems in his left eye,which did not allow to give hisbest on Wednesday.

"I took part despite notbeing well. I have been feeling aburning sensation on my left eyefor the last two days and I amhaving antibiotics. So, I could notfocus my eyes for long," he said.

India also pocketed a goldeach in men's 50m pistol teamevent and women's 10m air rifleteam event.

India's Men's 50m Pistolteam comprised Omkar Singh,Prakash Nanjappa and OmPrakash who shot a combinedtotal of 1622.

Wanted to compete in SAGas part of Oly preparation:

ChandelaBy Philem Dipak SinghGuwahati, Feb 10 (PTI) The

absence of top-notch competi-tion in the South Asian Gamesdoes not affect Olympics -boundIndian shooter Apurvi Chandela,

who says the strength of the fieldis none of her concern as long asshe is winning gold medals.

The 23-year-old clinched a10m air rifle gold with a totalscore of 209.00 ahead of Indianteam-mates Elizabeth Susan

Koshy and Pooja Ghatkar at theKahilipara Shooting Range hereon Wednesday.

"A gold is a gold and I wonthe gold for my country. That isthe satisfaction and the motiva-tion. I wanted to be in as manyevents as possible ahead of theRio Olympics," she told PTIhere.

Chandela was one of the firstIndian shooters to qualify for RioGames, grabbing her berth lastyear. Chandela says she hasstarted her training in rightearnest for the Games in August.

"I want to do well in theOlympics and I want to maintainmy confidence. So, I took parthere and I am happy that I didwell and won a gold," she said.

Asked about the tournamentsshe is competing in the run- upto the Olympics, she said, "I amgoing to take part in all the four

World Cup legs to be held beforethe Olympics. That will give meenough of top level competitionsbefore the Olympics."

She said she especially look-ing forward to the second ISSFWorld Cup to be held in Rio deJaniero, the venue of theOlympics, in April to acclimatisewith the conditions there beforethe biggest event -- the Games -- in August .

"I am especially looking for-ward to the second World Cupleg in Rio and there I hope thatI would be able to get the chanceto acclimatise to the conditionsas it will be the venue of theOlympic Games," said Chandela,who won a gold in the 2014Commonwealth Games.

She also won a silver in theISSF World Cup at Changwonand a silver in the ISSF World CupFinals in Munich last year also.

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Uttar Pradesh Wizards finallyrecorded their first win in their last

game on home turf defeating JaypeePunjab Warriors 4-1 in a Hockey IndiaLeague (HIL) match, here onWednesday.

With this win, Wizards now areplaced third in the league table with 23points to their kitty, keeping theirhopes alive for a place in the semi-finalsto be played in Ranchi on February 20.

The first quarter began with JaypeePunjab Warriors pressing hard to takean upper hand in the match, but thehosts were well prepared to handle thepressure, not allowing the visitors anychances to score.

Uttar Pradesh Wizards, who haveso far lost all their home games wereplaying carefully, but the visitors keptpressing hard and their efforts werefinally rewarded through a penalty cor-ner in the 10th minute.

Mark Gleghorne from the JaypeePunjab Warriors made no mistakes inconverting the penalty corner giving thevisitors an early lead of 1-0 in the match.

The rest of the quarter saw UttarPradesh Wizards trying to equalise butJaypee Punjab Warriors held on to theirlead successfully. The second quartersaw Uttar Pradesh Wizards entering thefield charged up and making a few goodmoves.

Their efforts finally saw results asArgentine Gonazlo Peillat scored theequaliser through a penalty corner inthe 19th minute. The second quarterthereafter was majorly played on themidfield, and came to an end with one

goal to both the sides.The second half began with Uttar

Pradesh Wizard entering the fieldcharged up and that was visible throughtheir attacking play.

The hosts made some good movesand moved into the opponents circleand were awarded with another penal-ty corner within two minutes of play inthe third quarter.

Gonazlo Peillat made no mistakesin converting the penalty corner givingthe hosts a much needed lead of 2-1 inthe game. Uttar Pradesh Wizardsseemed hungry for more and kept onpressing hard breaking through Jaypee

Punjab Warriors defence line veryoften.

After a series of unsuccessfulattempts to score Uttar Pradesh Wizardsfinally scored again in the 43rd minutethrough a field goal from AgustinMazilli, taking a comfortable lead of 4-1 in the game.

The final quarter of the matchbegan with the energised Uttar PradeshWizards attacking to score. Most of thegame now was taking place around theJaypee Punjab Warriors circle but somemissed traps and some good saves fromClemons Tristan ensured the hosts didnot add on to their lead.

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Top-seeded Venus Williamshad a 6-3, 6-2 win over

Taiwanese wildcard Lee Pei-chiin her opening match at theTaiwan Open on Wednesday.

"It was exciting to com-pete against a local player - thecrowd were super involvedand made things exciting,"Williams said. "The firstround is never easy so I'mreal ly happy to now beadvancing and hopefully playbetter and better with everygame."

Williams broke her oppo-nent's serve three times in thematch that lasted just 57 min-utes. The seven-time majorwinner, a surprise first-roundloser at the Australian Openlast month, next faces UrszulaRadwanska of Poland.

"It'll be a little bit differentfrom today - she plays with alittle bit more top spin - so I'mgoing to need to have a differ-ent strategy," Williams said.

In second-round matches,Elizaveta Kulichkova of Russiadefeated fourth-seeded ZarinaDiyas of Kazakhstan 7-5, 0-6,6-4 to advance to the quarter-finals. Third-seeded YuliaPutintseva advanced with a 6-4, 5-7, 6-0 win over Japanesequalifier Miyu Kato.

Elsewhere, Second-seed-ed Marin Cilic of Croatia

reached the World TennisTournament quarterfinals onWednesday with a 7-6 (2), 7-6(7) second-round win againstGilles Muller of Luxembourg.

Neither player faced abreak-point in the first set, butMuller saved five in the second.

Cilic had two match pointsat 6-4 in the tiebreak, but thensaved a set point at 7-6 downas Muller fought back strong-ly.

The 2014 U.S. Open cham-pion next plays PhilippKohlschreiber, who won 6-4, 6-2 against qualifier Ivan Dodigof Croatia.

The German proved clin-ical on Dodig's serve, convert-ing four of five break-pointchances, and solid on his own- winning 75 percent of pointson second serve.

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