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I n an alarming development, hundreds of passengers who recently returned from the United Kingdom have not been traced across the country due to incorrect con- tact details furnished by them. The State administrations are finding it difficult to locate a number of these passengers as their contact numbers are either switched off or not trace- able. In many cases, their addresses are also proving to be incorrect. For instance 279 returnees in Talangana, 151 in Karnataka, 15 in Gurugram are untrace- able so far. Meanwhile, 22 more passengers (16 in Maharashtra, two in Delhi, two in Telangana and one each in MP and UP) who returned from the United Kingdom have been tested positive. According to director of Public Health G Srinivasa Rao, 1,216 people have arrived in Telangana from the United Kingdom since December 9 and a total of 937 have been identified and tested for Covid- 19 and 279 passengers are still untraceable. Of the total 279 flyers, 92 untraceable passen- gers are from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Kerala. The Karnataka Government is now on the lookout for the 151 untraceable United Kingdom returnees. All of them have returned to Bengaluru since December 7 but have gone missing. These 151 people are yet to be traced as their phone num- bers are either switched off or not traceable. In Gurugram at least 15 returnees from the United Kingdom, in the last two weeks, couldn’t be traced. Additionally, seven travellers have refused to get themselves tested for Covid-19. In Uttar Pradesh one pas- senger has gone missing after returning from the United Kingdom. As per the data, 1,822 trav- ellers to Punjab from the United Kingdom in the last one month landed at the Delhi interna- tional airport. As many as 1,604 travellers to Punjab and else- where landed at the Sri Guru Ram Das Jee International Airport after November 25. Of a total of 3,426 returnees, near- ly 2,500 are still believed to be in the State. As many as 16 returnees from the United Kingdom, where a new variant of coron- avirus was detected recently, have tested positive in RT PCR tests conducted on their arrival in Maharashtra. Two more passengers tested positive in Telangana after landing from the United Kingdom. One United Kingdom returnee has tested positive in Jalore in Madhya Pradesh. He had tested negative on December 7 after arriving in Delhi. He, along with two mem- bers of his family, has tested pos- itive now. A merchant navy captain, who returned from the United States and the United Kingdom recently in Bareilly, has tested positive for Covid-19. Meanwhile, two more per- sons who recently returned to Delhi from the United Kingdom were found to be Covid positive during a door- to-door contact-tracing and testing exercise. With this, the number of people testing pos- itive for the disease after return- ing from the United Kingdom has gone up to 21 in the nation- al capital. All of them returned from the United Kingdom after November. I ndia registered 18,732 fresh cases of Covid-19, the lowest in nearly six months, while 97,61,538 people have recu- perated so far from the disease pushing the national recovery rate to 95.82 per cent, accord- ing to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Sunday. The death toll climbed to 1,47,622 with the novel coro- navirus virus claiming 279 lives in a span of 24 hours in the country, the data updated at 8 am showed. A total of 18,732 daily new cases were recorded in the past 24 hours. The number of new daily cases last reported a dip on July 1 when 18,653 cases were regis- tered. The Covid-19 case fatality rate was registered at 1.44 per cent. There are 2,78,690 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country which compris- es 2.73 per cent of the total caseload, the data stated. According to the ICMR, a cumulative total of 16,81,02,657 samples have been tested up to December 26 with 9,43,368 samples being tested on Saturday. T he weather is set to turn murkier for the plains of northwest India next week as forecasts suggest the possibili- ty of severe cold gripping the region. Several places in north India, including Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, recorded their minimum temperature below the five degrees Celsius mark on Sunday. The India Meteorological Department has forecast severe cold wave in parts of the region later this week and warning of dense fog. The IMD on Sunday said the “cold wave” to “severe cold wave” conditions are also likely in Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi on December 28 and 29 and over North Rajasthan on December 29 and 30 and also in isolated pockets over Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh due to consequent strengthening of cold and dry northwesterly and northerly lower level winds. Delhi, whose minimum temperature has been hovering around 4 to 5 degrees Celsius this week, is likely to witness mercury levels fall below 3 degrees Celsius by the end of December. In Delhi, December temperatures have fallen to the lowest low of around 2.5 degrees Celsius in the past two years in the last week of December. From 2015 to 2017, the mercury levels never dropped below five-degree Celsius in December. This year, the prevailing strong La Niña conditions over the Pacific Ocean are said to be the major driver behind the ongoing colder-than-normal winter. For declaring the cold day or severe cold day, the IMD considers the wind chill factor — the effective minimum tem- perature due to wind flow. The cold wave conditions are associated with the fall of min- imum temperature much below normal and are usually less than 10 degrees Celsius and the maximum temperature is 4.5 degrees Celsius or 6.4 degrees Celsius below normal. Continued on Page 2 P rime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday addressed his 72nd and the last edition of monthly radio programme “Mann ki Baat” for 2020 saying the people have learnt “new lessons in each crisis” and developed “self-reliance” dur- ing coronavirus pandemic when supply-chain got dis- rupted world-over. In his year-end radio-talk, the PM remembered great sac- rifices of Sikh Gurus and their family members. “On this day, the sons of Guru Gobind Singh, sahibzade Zorawar Singh and Fateh Singh were immured; our sahibzade showed amazing courage and determination even at that ten- der age. It was on this day itself that Guru Gobind Singh’s mother — Mata Gujari attained martyrdom; about a week ago, it was the Martyrdom Day of Guru Tegh Bahadur ji too”, he said. The PM provided “inter- esting news” of increase in the population of lions, tigers and leopards in the country. Modi’s radio-talk came at a time when thousands of farm- ers are protesting on the out- skirts of Delhi against new farm laws. The PM greeted coron- avirus warriors saying people of the country applauded their work and learn new lessons in past several months and devel- oped spirit of self-reliance. “Every citizen has felt the changes triggered by the pan- demic. The supply chain was completely disrupted but peo- ple leant new lessons from challenges. We saw a new spir- it among the people, we saw the spirit of Atmanirbhar Bharat in 2020,” said Modi in his address. Modi said in the drive towards “self-reliance” quality should not be compromised. “I call upon our manufac- turers and industry leaders that when people have taken determined step forward & when the mantra of ‘Vocal for Local’ is resonating in every house, it is time to ensure that our products are world-class”, he said. Modi said in May this year, the Kashmiri saffron was given the Geographical Indication Tag or GI tag.” Through this, we want to make Kashmiri saf- fron a globally popular brand”, he said. The PM spoke about happy increase in the population of lions and tigers in the country from 2014 to 2018 and attrib- uted the success to the non- governmental efforts, among others, of the civil society and other organisations. “India has seen a rise in population of lions, tigers as well as a significant increase in forest cover. Main reason is that not only the Government but several other people, civil soci- eties and other organisations are contributing towards forest and wildlife conversation,” he said. Continued on Page 2 F armers camping along Delhi’s borders and protest- ing against the Central Government’s new agricul- tureal laws on Sunday were seen marching while striking utensils and chanting slogans during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s monthly “Mann Ki Baat” radio address. Earlier this week, several farmer leaders had appealed to people to join them in boy- cotting Modi’s radio pro- gramme on December 27 by beating “thaalis”, in the same way the PM had asked the country to bang utensils during the early days of the coron- avirus-induced lockdown. “The common people too are with farmers in their agi- tation against the farm laws,” said a protester in Amritsar as he beat a “thali” with a spoon and raised “Jai Kisan” slogan. He had also urged people to skip a meal in solidarity with the protesting farmers on Wednesday on the occasion of National Farmers’ Day. On Saturday, the protesting farmer unions decided to resume the dialogue with the Centre and proposed December 29 as the date for the next round of talks, farmer leader Rakesh Tikait said. So far, five rounds of talks have already taken place between farmers and the Government. Chandigarh: Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh’s appeal to protesting farmers to not damage telecom infra- structure seems to have failed to deter new attacks, with more than 176 signal transmitting sites being vandalised in the last 24 hours, sources said on Sunday. This has taken the total number of telecom tower sites damaged to 1,411, they said. T he Congress is in advance stage of updating the list of party delegates and preparing the schedule to elect its next chief in a digital AICC meeting via the electoral college process in January-February 2021. “CEA is drawing up a vot- ers’ list of around 1,500 AICC delegates and is planning to hold digital elections, marking a first — with the term of the presidency to be only for two years,” AICC sources said. The five-member CEA is headed by Madhusudan Mistry and its members are Rajesh Mishra, Krishna Byre Gowda, S Jothimani and Arvinder Singh Lovely. Lovely is one of the 23 signatories to a letter written to Sonia Gandhi in August this year seeking com- plete overhaul of the party and a full-time leadership to stem the steady decline of the 135- year-old organisation. The party is likely to announce the schedule for the internal polls in the first week of January. Sources in CEA said the panel was to announce the schedule by December-end but got delayed as efforts to build consensus on the presidential candidate are still on. A senior AICC functionary said the delay could be because of the former party chief Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Italy beginning Sunday for about a week. “We will meet in the first week of January and finalise the schedule,” said CEA sources, adding after that the party’s highest decision making body, Congress Working Committee (CWC), will meet to clear the name of the chief post. At a meeting convened by Sonia early this month with dissenters and other senior leaders there was a renewed call for Rahul to return as the party chief. While Rahul said it would not be appropriate to interfere in the ongoing inter- nal election process, the dis- senters are firm that they will not accept a “proxy” candidate and insisted that polls should be held at all levels, including the CWC. As per the Congress con- stitution, 12 of the 25 CWC members have to be elected by All India Congress Committee (AICC) delegates and the rest are appointed by the party president. The CWC has not witnessed any election in over two decades now. The last time there was an election to the CWC was in 1997 during the Kolkata plenary. Prior to that, the CWC polls took place in 1992 at the Tirupati session. Continued on Page 2 T he possibility of an AIADMK- BJP alliance suf- fered a major setback on Sunday as the former made it clear in unequivocal terms that there would be no coalition Government in Tamil Nadu in the aftermath of the upcoming assembly election. “It will be an AIADMK Government led by Edappadi Palaniswami and there is no place for our electoral allies in the Government,” declared KP Munusami, Rajya Sabha mem- ber and a senior leader of the party. He was addressing the meeting convened by the party leadership to launch AIADMK’s election campaign 2021. Interestingly, Munusami did not mention the name NDA part- ners even once in his speech which was heard in rapt attention by Chief Minister Palaniswami and his deputy O Paneerselvam. The AIADMK had taken note of BJP leader Murugan’s statement the other day that the name of the NDA’s Chief Ministerial candidate has to be endorsed by JP Nadda, BJP’s national president. Munusami also declared that AIADMK would not yield or compromise with its stance on Dravidianism. “There is no place for nationalist parties in our alliance” declared the AIADMK leader amidst thun- derous applause from the party delegates. The AIADMK had made it known in the month of August that Tamil Nadu would not have three-language policy and the State would shun Hindi. He hinted that the BJP should accept that AIADMK was the senior partner, endorse the candidature of Palaniswami or the saffron party may recon- sider its electoral options for the 2021 polls. Though Munusamy did not mention BJP by name directly, it was clear that the message was intended for the national party that led the Central Government. “Be it a national party or State party…..the Government will be led by the AIADMK. There is no necessity for a coalition Government. If any political party comes forward for an alliance arrangement with an idea of a coalition Government, let them please think about it,” he said. T he Centre on Sunday extended the validity of vehicular documents like dri- ving licences, registration cer- tificates, permits etc., till Mach 31, 2021 in the light of need to prevent spread of Covid -19. The Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has issued directives to the States and Union Territory administrations in the regard. “Taking into consideration the need to prevent the spread of Covid-19, it is further advised that the validity of all of the above referred docu- ments may be treated to be valid till March 31, 2021. This covers all documents whose validity has expired since February 1, 2020 or would expire by March 31, 2021.” It further added the enforcement authorities are advised to treat such docu- ments valid till March 31, 2021. “This will help out citizens in availing transport related ser- vices, while maintaining social distancing,” the statement said. MoRTH had earlier issued advisories regarding extension of validity of documents related to Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 and Central Motor Vehicle Rules, 1989. It was advised that the validity of fitness, permit (all types), license, registration or any other concerned document(s) may be treated to be valid till December 31, 2020. Two days earlier the Delhi High Court had suggested to the Delhi Government to give more time to people to obtain colour-coded fuel stickers and high-security registration plates (HSRP) before it starts fining them. Continued on Page 2 I n a development which may further increase the political heat in West Bengal where Assembly polls are slated early next year, the CBI in a con- tempt plea in the Saradha chit fund scam has informed the Supreme Court that the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund of West Bengal regularly paid for a period of 23 months, purport- edly towards the salaries of employees of Tara TV which was under investigation for being part of Saradha Group of companies. In an application, the CBI said the CM Relief fund has regularly paid the amounts — at the rate of Rs 27 lakh per month — for a period of 23 months from May 2013 to April 2015.” It is submitted that the said amounts were pur- portedly given towards salary payments of the employees of the said media company that was under investigation being part of group companies of Saradha Group of Companies,” said the application. A total of 6.21 crore was paid to the Tara TV Employees Welfare Association from the Chief Minister Relief Fund of West Bengal. The CBI said in order to further look into the gravely suspicious payments to a private media entity, a let- ter dated October 16, 2018 was written to the Chief Secretary, West Bengal to provide infor- mation about the constitution and functioning of the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund. Despite repeated efforts, the State Government has part- ed with incomplete and evasive replies, said the CBI. Continued on Page 2
Transcript of 4 !˙ ˘˚ ˘˝˙˙ & (˙ˇ˝˝ +(˝$5˜ ˘˚ ˘˝˙˙ ˘ ’ $+(˝$5˜ ˘˚ ˘˝˙˙ 5 ... ·...
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In an alarming development,hundreds of passengers
who recently returned from the United Kingdom have not been traced across thecountry due to incorrect con-tact details furnished by them.The State administrations arefinding it difficult to locate anumber of these passengers astheir contact numbers areeither switched off or not trace-able. In many cases, theiraddresses are also proving to beincorrect.
For instance 279 returneesin Talangana, 151 in Karnataka,15 in Gurugram are untrace-able so far. Meanwhile, 22more passengers (16 inMaharashtra, two in Delhi,two in Telangana and one eachin MP and UP) who returnedfrom the United Kingdom havebeen tested positive.
According to director ofPublic Health G Srinivasa Rao,1,216 people have arrived inTelangana from the UnitedKingdom since December 9and a total of 937 have beenidentified and tested for Covid-19 and 279 passengers are stilluntraceable. Of the total 279
flyers, 92 untraceable passen-gers are from Andhra Pradesh,Karnataka, and Kerala.
The KarnatakaGovernment is now on thelookout for the 151 untraceableUnited Kingdom returnees. Allof them have returned to
Bengaluru since December 7but have gone missing.
These 151 people are yet tobe traced as their phone num-bers are either switched off ornot traceable. In Gurugram atleast 15 returnees from theUnited Kingdom, in the last
two weeks, couldn’t be traced.Additionally, seven travellershave refused to get themselvestested for Covid-19.
In Uttar Pradesh one pas-senger has gone missing afterreturning from the UnitedKingdom.
As per the data, 1,822 trav-ellers to Punjab from the UnitedKingdom in the last one monthlanded at the Delhi interna-tional airport. As many as 1,604travellers to Punjab and else-where landed at the Sri GuruRam Das Jee InternationalAirport after November 25. Ofa total of 3,426 returnees, near-ly 2,500 are still believed to bein the State.
As many as 16 returneesfrom the United Kingdom,where a new variant of coron-avirus was detected recently,have tested positive in RT PCRtests conducted on their arrivalin Maharashtra. Two morepassengers tested positive inTelangana after landing fromthe United Kingdom.
One United Kingdomreturnee has tested positive inJalore in Madhya Pradesh. Hehad tested negative onDecember 7 after arriving inDelhi. He, along with two mem-bers of his family, has tested pos-itive now. A merchant navycaptain, who returned from theUnited States and the UnitedKingdom recently in Bareilly, hastested positive for Covid-19.
Meanwhile, two more per-sons who recently returned toDelhi from the UnitedKingdom were found to beCovid positive during a door-to-door contact-tracing andtesting exercise. With this, thenumber of people testing pos-itive for the disease after return-ing from the United Kingdomhas gone up to 21 in the nation-al capital. All of them returnedfrom the United Kingdom afterNovember.
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India registered 18,732 freshcases of Covid-19, the lowest
in nearly six months, while97,61,538 people have recu-perated so far from the diseasepushing the national recoveryrate to 95.82 per cent, accord-ing to the Union HealthMinistry data updated onSunday.
The death toll climbed to1,47,622 with the novel coro-navirus virus claiming 279lives in a span of 24 hours inthe country, the data updatedat 8 am showed. A total of18,732 daily new cases wererecorded in the past 24 hours.The number of new daily caseslast reported a dip on July 1when 18,653 cases were regis-tered.
The Covid-19 case fatalityrate was registered at 1.44 percent. There are 2,78,690 activecases of coronavirus infectionin the country which compris-es 2.73 per cent of the totalcaseload, the data stated.
According to the ICMR, acumulative total of 16,81,02,657samples have been tested up toDecember 26 with 9,43,368samples being tested onSaturday.
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The weather is set to turnmurkier for the plains of
northwest India next week asforecasts suggest the possibili-ty of severe cold gripping theregion.
Several places in northIndia, including Uttar Pradeshand Punjab, recorded theirminimum temperature belowthe five degrees Celsius markon Sunday. The IndiaMeteorological Departmenthas forecast severe cold wave inparts of the region later thisweek and warning of dense fog.
The IMD on Sunday saidthe “cold wave” to “severe coldwave” conditions are also likelyin Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarhand Delhi on December 28 and29 and over North Rajasthan onDecember 29 and 30 and also inisolated pockets overUttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh,Uttar Pradesh and MadhyaPradesh due to consequentstrengthening of cold and drynorthwesterly and northerlylower level winds.
Delhi, whose minimumtemperature has been hoveringaround 4 to 5 degrees Celsiusthis week, is likely to witnessmercury levels fall below 3degrees Celsius by the end ofDecember. In Delhi, Decembertemperatures have fallen tothe lowest low of around 2.5
degrees Celsius in the past twoyears in the last week ofDecember. From 2015 to 2017,the mercury levels neverdropped below five-degreeCelsius in December. This year,the prevailing strong La Niñaconditions over the PacificOcean are said to be the majordriver behind the ongoingcolder-than-normal winter.
For declaring the cold dayor severe cold day, the IMDconsiders the wind chill factor— the effective minimum tem-perature due to wind flow.The cold wave conditions areassociated with the fall of min-imum temperature muchbelow normal and are usuallyless than 10 degrees Celsius andthe maximum temperature is4.5 degrees Celsius or 6.4degrees Celsius below normal.
Continued on Page 2
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Prime Minister NarendraModi on Sunday addressed
his 72nd and the last edition ofmonthly radio programme“Mann ki Baat” for 2020 sayingthe people have learnt “newlessons in each crisis” anddeveloped “self-reliance” dur-ing coronavirus pandemicwhen supply-chain got dis-rupted world-over.
In his year-end radio-talk,the PM remembered great sac-rifices of Sikh Gurus and theirfamily members.
“On this day, the sons ofGuru Gobind Singh, sahibzadeZorawar Singh and Fateh Singhwere immured; our sahibzadeshowed amazing courage anddetermination even at that ten-der age. It was on this day itselfthat Guru Gobind Singh’smother — Mata Gujari attainedmartyrdom; about a week ago,it was the Martyrdom Day ofGuru Tegh Bahadur ji too”, hesaid.
The PM provided “inter-
esting news” of increase in thepopulation of lions, tigers andleopards in the country.
Modi’s radio-talk came at atime when thousands of farm-ers are protesting on the out-skirts of Delhi against new farmlaws. The PM greeted coron-avirus warriors saying people ofthe country applauded theirwork and learn new lessons inpast several months and devel-oped spirit of self-reliance.
“Every citizen has felt thechanges triggered by the pan-demic. The supply chain wascompletely disrupted but peo-ple leant new lessons fromchallenges. We saw a new spir-it among the people, we saw thespirit of Atmanirbhar Bharat in2020,” said Modi in his address.
Modi said in the drive towards“self-reliance” quality shouldnot be compromised.
“I call upon our manufac-turers and industry leadersthat when people have takendetermined step forward &when the mantra of ‘Vocal forLocal’ is resonating in everyhouse, it is time to ensure thatour products are world-class”,he said.
Modi said in May this year,the Kashmiri saffron was giventhe Geographical IndicationTag or GI tag.” Through this,we want to make Kashmiri saf-fron a globally popular brand”,he said.
The PM spoke about happyincrease in the population oflions and tigers in the countryfrom 2014 to 2018 and attrib-uted the success to the non-governmental efforts, amongothers, of the civil society andother organisations.
“India has seen a rise inpopulation of lions, tigers aswell as a significant increase inforest cover. Main reason is thatnot only the Government butseveral other people, civil soci-eties and other organisationsare contributing towards forestand wildlife conversation,”he said.
Continued on Page 2
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Farmers camping alongDelhi’s borders and protest-
ing against the CentralGovernment’s new agricul-tureal laws on Sunday wereseen marching while strikingutensils and chanting slogansduring Prime MinisterNarendra Modi’s monthly“Mann Ki Baat” radio address.
Earlier this week, severalfarmer leaders had appealed topeople to join them in boy-cotting Modi’s radio pro-gramme on December 27 bybeating “thaalis”, in the sameway the PM had asked thecountry to bang utensils duringthe early days of the coron-avirus-induced lockdown.
“The common people tooare with farmers in their agi-tation against the farm laws,”said a protester in Amritsar ashe beat a “thali” with a spoonand raised “Jai Kisan” slogan.
He had also urged peopleto skip a meal in solidarity withthe protesting farmers onWednesday on the occasion ofNational Farmers’ Day.
On Saturday, the protestingfarmer unions decided toresume the dialogue with theCentre and proposed
December 29 as the date for thenext round of talks, farmerleader Rakesh Tikait said. Sofar, five rounds of talks havealready taken place betweenfarmers and the Government.
Chandigarh: Punjab ChiefMinister Amarinder Singh’sappeal to protesting farmers tonot damage telecom infra-structure seems to have failedto deter new attacks, with morethan 176 signal transmittingsites being vandalised in the last24 hours, sources said onSunday.
This has taken the totalnumber of telecom tower sitesdamaged to 1,411, they said.
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The Congress is in advancestage of updating the list of
party delegates and preparingthe schedule to elect its nextchief in a digital AICC meetingvia the electoral college processin January-February 2021.
“CEA is drawing up a vot-ers’ list of around 1,500 AICCdelegates and is planning tohold digital elections, markinga first — with the term of thepresidency to be only for twoyears,” AICC sources said.
The five-member CEA isheaded by Madhusudan Mistryand its members are RajeshMishra, Krishna Byre Gowda,S Jothimani and ArvinderSingh Lovely. Lovely is one ofthe 23 signatories to a letterwritten to Sonia Gandhi inAugust this year seeking com-plete overhaul of the party anda full-time leadership to stemthe steady decline of the 135-year-old organisation.
The party is likely toannounce the schedule for theinternal polls in the first weekof January. Sources in CEA saidthe panel was to announce theschedule by December-end butgot delayed as efforts to buildconsensus on the presidentialcandidate are still on.
A senior AICC functionarysaid the delay could be becauseof the former party chief RahulGandhi’s visit to Italy beginningSunday for about a week.
“We will meet in the firstweek of January and finalise theschedule,” said CEA sources,adding after that the party’shighest decision making body,Congress Working Committee(CWC), will meet to clear thename of the chief post.
At a meeting convened bySonia early this month withdissenters and other seniorleaders there was a renewed callfor Rahul to return as theparty chief. While Rahul said itwould not be appropriate tointerfere in the ongoing inter-
nal election process, the dis-senters are firm that they willnot accept a “proxy” candidateand insisted that polls shouldbe held at all levels, includingthe CWC.
As per the Congress con-stitution, 12 of the 25 CWCmembers have to be elected byAll India Congress Committee(AICC) delegates and the restare appointed by the partypresident. The CWC has notwitnessed any election in overtwo decades now. The last timethere was an election to theCWC was in 1997 during theKolkata plenary. Prior to that,the CWC polls took place in1992 at the Tirupati session.
Continued on Page 2
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The possibility of anAIADMK- BJP alliance suf-
fered a major setback onSunday as the former made itclear in unequivocal terms thatthere would be no coalitionGovernment in Tamil Nadu inthe aftermath of the upcomingassembly election.
“It will be an AIADMKGovernment led by EdappadiPalaniswami and there is noplace for our electoral allies in theGovernment,” declared KPMunusami, Rajya Sabha mem-ber and a senior leader of theparty. He was addressing themeeting convened by the partyleadership to launch AIADMK’selection campaign 2021.Interestingly, Munusami did notmention the name NDA part-
ners even once in his speechwhich was heard in rapt attentionby Chief Minister Palaniswamiand his deputy O Paneerselvam.
The AIADMK had takennote of BJP leader Murugan’sstatement the other day that thename of the NDA’s ChiefMinisterial candidate has to beendorsed by JP Nadda, BJP’snational president.
Munusami also declaredthat AIADMK would not yieldor compromise with its stanceon Dravidianism. “There is noplace for nationalist parties inour alliance” declared theAIADMK leader amidst thun-derous applause from the partydelegates.
The AIADMK had made itknown in the month of Augustthat Tamil Nadu would nothave three-language policy and
the State would shun Hindi. He hinted that the BJP
should accept that AIADMKwas the senior partner, endorsethe candidature of Palaniswamior the saffron party may recon-sider its electoral options forthe 2021 polls. ThoughMunusamy did not mentionBJP by name directly, it wasclear that the message wasintended for the national partythat led the CentralGovernment.
“Be it a national party orState party…..the Governmentwill be led by the AIADMK.There is no necessity for acoalition Government. If anypolitical party comes forwardfor an alliance arrangementwith an idea of a coalitionGovernment, let them pleasethink about it,” he said.
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The Centre on Sundayextended the validity of
vehicular documents like dri-ving licences, registration cer-tificates, permits etc., till Mach31, 2021 in the light of need toprevent spread of Covid -19.
The Union Ministry ofRoad Transport and Highways(MoRTH) has issued directivesto the States and Union Territoryadministrations in the regard.
“Taking into considerationthe need to prevent the spreadof Covid-19, it is furtheradvised that the validity of allof the above referred docu-ments may be treated to bevalid till March 31, 2021. Thiscovers all documents whosevalidity has expired sinceFebruary 1, 2020 or wouldexpire by March 31, 2021.”
It further added the
enforcement authorities areadvised to treat such docu-ments valid till March 31, 2021.“This will help out citizens inavailing transport related ser-vices, while maintaining socialdistancing,” the statement said.
MoRTH had earlier issuedadvisories regarding extension ofvalidity of documents related toMotor Vehicles Act, 1988 andCentral Motor Vehicle Rules,1989. It was advised that thevalidity of fitness, permit (alltypes), license, registration or anyother concerned document(s)may be treated to be valid tillDecember 31, 2020. Two daysearlier the Delhi High Court hadsuggested to the DelhiGovernment to give more timeto people to obtain colour-codedfuel stickers and high-securityregistration plates (HSRP) beforeit starts fining them.
Continued on Page 2
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In a development which mayfurther increase the political
heat in West Bengal whereAssembly polls are slated earlynext year, the CBI in a con-tempt plea in the Saradha chitfund scam has informed theSupreme Court that the ChiefMinister’s Relief Fund of WestBengal regularly paid for aperiod of 23 months, purport-edly towards the salaries ofemployees of Tara TV whichwas under investigation forbeing part of Saradha Group ofcompanies.
In an application, the CBIsaid the CM Relief fund hasregularly paid the amounts —at the rate of Rs 27 lakh permonth — for a period of 23months from May 2013 toApril 2015.” It is submitted thatthe said amounts were pur-
portedly given towards salarypayments of the employees ofthe said media company thatwas under investigation beingpart of group companies ofSaradha Group of Companies,”said the application.
A total of � 6.21 crore waspaid to the Tara TV EmployeesWelfare Association from theChief Minister Relief Fund ofWest Bengal. The CBI said inorder to further look into thegravely suspicious paymentsto a private media entity, a let-ter dated October 16, 2018 waswritten to the Chief Secretary,West Bengal to provide infor-mation about the constitutionand functioning of the ChiefMinister’s Relief Fund.
Despite repeated efforts,the State Government has part-ed with incomplete and evasivereplies, said the CBI.
Continued on Page 2
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Close on the heels the agencyissuing summons to senior
NCP leader Eknath Khadse in aPujne land scam case, theEnforcement Directorate (ED)has summoned Shiv Sena MP andMP Sanjay Raut’s wife VarshaRaut to appear before it onDecember 29 in the PMC Bankmoney laundering case.
Informed sources in theagency said on Sunday that the lat-est was the third summons issuedto Varsha by the ED in the PMCBank money laundering case. She
had earlier been summoned by theED on December 11 and onemore occasion earlier. She hadskilled the ED’s two earlier twosummons.
There was no reaction fromRaut in this regard. Nor was thereany information available fromthe ED about the nature ofinvolvement of Varsha in thescam. The ED had earlier sum-moned Khadse to appear before iton December 30 in connectionwith an alleged MIDC land scamin Pune. Khadse had receivedsummons from the ED twomonths quit the BJP and joined
the NCP. Earlier, the agency hadsummoned the NCP’s senior MLAPratap Sarnaik in connection withanother money laundering probe.
The Sjhiv Sena and NCP areconstituents of the MVA govern-ment in Maharashtra. The sum-mons issued by the ED to Sarnaik,Khadse and Vasha Raut are beingseen as “acts of vindictiveness” bythe BJP-led Union government.
On his part, BJP leader andformer MP Kirit Somaiyademanded to know from Raut ifthe latter’s family was a beneficiaryin the scam.
“I heard about the ED notice
to Sanjay Raut Family. Will MrRaut tell us, is his family benefi-ciary? Whether earlier any inquiry,notices received? 10 lacsDepositors are sufferers. If EDwants any information PoliticalProtection is not a healthy idea. Allwants revival of PMC Bank,”Somaiya tweeted. He alsol releaseda video on social media.
It may be recalled that onSeptember 24 last year placedPunjab & MaharashtraCooperative (PMC) Bank Ltdunder regulatory restrictions, fol-lowing the detection of the scam.
The ED registered a case of
money laundering againstHousing DevelopmentInfrastructure Ltd (HDIL) pro-moter Rakesh Kumar Wadhawan,his son Sarang Wadhawan,Waryam Singh and Joy Thomas,the then Chairman and ManagingDirector of PMC Bank Ltd,respectively and others on thebasis of an FIR registered by theMumbai Police's EconomicOffences Wing in September lastyear. The FIR was registered forcausing wrongful loss to the tuneof Rs 4,355 crore to PMC Bankand corresponding gain to them-selves.
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Patna: Bureaucrat-turned politician RamChandra Prasad Singh, better known byhis initials RCP, owes his rise to becomethe president of the Janata Dal (United)to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
Singh, a close confidant of Kumar,was on Sunday chosen as the new presi-dent of the JD(U).
At the party's national executivemeeting, Kumar proposed the name ofSingh for the top post and it was thenapproved by other members.
The chief minister, who was re-elect-ed as the JD(U) president in 2019 for threeyears, gave up the post in favour of Singh,its leader in the Rajya Sabha.
The man who prefers to keep a lowprofile was so far the general secretary(organisation) of the regional party.
The 1984 batch IAS officer of UttarPradesh cadre has been with Kumarsince his stint as the Railway minister inthe government led by late Atal BihariVajpayee.
When Kumar returned to the Biharpolitics becoming chief minister inNovember 2005, Singh too came to hisnative state and became PrincipalSecretary to the CM.
Months before retirement from ser-vice, he quit the job and joined politics in2010. Kumar soon made him a memberof the Rajya Sabha and he continues to bepart of the Upper House of Parliament.
A man of a few words, Singh loves tostay in the shadow of his master (Kumar)with whom he shares not only the Kurmicaste affiliation but also close personalbondage.
With the JD(U) passing throughhard times losing its “elder brother” sta-tus to the BJP in the NDA in Bihar after
not faring well in the recently concludedassembly election, the task is cut out forthe 62-year-old Singh to strengthen theorganisation as well as deal astutely withthe saffron party.
The JD(U) could win only 43 seats inthe Bihar polls, down from 71 in the lastelections held in 2015. The BJP, on theother hand, bagged 74 seats to help theNDA retain power in the state.
The saffron party kept its promise ofmaking Kumar a chief minister irrespec-tive of numbers scored by the partner par-ties, but Kumar lost the sheen which heenjoyed in the ruling coalition since theVajpayee-LK Advani era. The exodus of sixof the seven JD(U) MLAs in ArunachalPradesh to the BJP and the upcoming pollsin neighbouring West Bengal are imme-diate challenges for the new JD(U) presi-dent. Polls in West Bengal, which is due inApril-May next year, also came up for dis-cussion at the national executive meeting.
Born on July 6, 1958, at Mustafapurin Nalanda district, Singh did his school-ing from a School at Hussainpur in thesame district.
He graduated with a Bachelor of Artsdegree in History from Patna College anddid Master of Arts from Jawaharlal NehruUniversity.
Singh married Girija Singh on 21 May1982, and they have two daughters. Oneof his daughters, Lipi Singh, is a 2016 batchIPS officer. She had hit thenational headlines when the police openedfire on a group of people going forimmersion of goddess Durga idol inMunger district in October. In the face ofraging protests over the event, she wasremoved as the district SP on the orderof the Election Commission. PTI
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In an increase in the number ofCovid-19 infections and fatalities,
Maharashtra recorded 3314 new infect-ed cases and 66 infections on Sunday.
A day after infections dipped to2854 and deaths in Maharashtra camedown to 60, there was marginal increasein the deaths and deaths on Sunday.
With 3314 fresh infections report-ed on Sunday, the total number of infec-tions in Maharashtra climbed from19,16,236 to 19,19,550. Similarly, with66 new deaths, the Covid-19 toll in thestate rose from 49189 to 49,255.
As 2124 patients were dischargedfrom the hospitals across the state afterfull recovery, the total number of peo-ple discharged from the hospitals sincethe second week of March this yearwent up to 18,09,948. The recovery ratein the state dropped marginally from94.34 per cent to 94.29 per cent.
With 8 new deaths, the total num-ber of deaths went up from 11,068 to
11,076, while the infected cases rose by578 to trigger a jump in the total infec-tions from 290336 to 2,90,914.
Meanwhile, the number of “activecases” total cases in the state rose from58,091 to 59,214. The fatality rate in thestate stood at 2.57 per cent.
Pune district, which continued tobe the worst-affected city-district inMaharashtra, saw the total number ofcases increase from 3,70,049 to3,70,635, while the total number ofdeaths in Pune remained static at7725.
Thane district remained in the thirdspot --after Pune and Mumbai – afterthe total number of infections rose from2,52, 629 to 2,53,012, while the totaldeaths climbed from 5547 to 5551.
Of the 1,25,02,554 samples sent tolaboratories, 19,19,550 have tested pos-itive (15.35 per cent) for COVID-19until Sunday.
Currently, 4,57,385 people are inhome quarantine while 3,323 people arein institutional quarantine.
+�+,-� ���������.���������Jammu: Recoveriesremained marginallyahead of new coron-avirus cases in J&K onSunday as the totalnumber of peopleinfected with Covid-19 crossed the 120,000mark in the UnionTerritory.
An official bul-letin said on Sunday,260 people testedpositive -- 141 in the
Jammu division and119 in the Kashmirdivision -- while 264patients were dis-charged from different hospitals after recov-ery within the last 24hours.
The total number of people infected withcoronavirus stood at 120,137 out of which
114,986 have recovered, while 1,869 have suc-cumbed so far, including two on Sunday.
The UT has 3,282 active cases, out ofwhich 1,667 are in the Jammu division and1,615 in the Kashmir division. IANS
From Page 1India has seen a 60 per cent
rise in the leopard populationbetween 2014-2018. In 2014,the leopard population in India
was around 7,900. This rose to12,852 in 2019. Their popula-tion has increased in mostparts of the country, especial-ly in Central India,” Modi said.
From Page 1A bench of Justices
Siddharth Mridul and TalwantSingh said the Delhi governmentshould not create panic amongthe citizens which would makesome people take advantage ofthe situation.
The court also said thatadvertising the requirement forstickers and HSRP by the Delhigovernment in August this year“was not the ideal time
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From Page 1A CEA member quoted explained the
panel is expected to wind up the organ-isational polls by February-end as per thedeadline to inform the ElectionCommission of the completion of theprocess. He said that in view of the Covid-19 pandemic, the CEA has decided torestrict the electoral college to AICCmembers only. “We will not include theco-opted members this time. So, the elec-toral college will have around 800 mem-bers only,” he added.
The CEA member said that the dig-ital IDs of the AICC members are almostready to enable the panel to hold a vir-tual session in case it is difficult to havethe physical presence for such a conven-tion due to Covid-19.
Moreover, according to sources, hec-tic parleys have begun for a possibletakeover of the UPA by NCP supremoSharad Pawar as chairperson in place ofSonia Gandhi. Shiv Sena which is part ofCongress NCP alliance Government inMaharashtra too has backed SharadPawar’s candidacy for UPA chairperson.
From Page 1A cold wave occurs in plains when the minimum temper-
ature is 10 degrees Celsius or below, and is 4.5 notches lesserthan the season’s normal for two consecutive days. In the win-ter season, the cold wave conditions prevail mainly along theIndo-Gangetic Plains.
“A western disturbance has approached North India thisweekend and is likely to continue causing widespread rain andsnowfall across Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh, and isolated partsof Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Haryana tillMonday. As the system moves on, cold and dry northwesterlywinds are likely to strengthen at lower levels across the plainsof northwest India from Tuesday onwards,” the IMD said.
The IMD has also forecasted that ‘Ground Frost’ conditionsare likely in isolated pockets over Uttarakhand, HimachalPradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, Rajasthan andWest Madhya Pradesh during December 29-31 whereas coldday conditions are likely over Punjab during next 24 hours.“Dense to very dense fog are likely to occur over Punjab,Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi in morning hours and densefog also likely over Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and UttarPradesh in morning hours during on December 29-31.
Biting cold conditions persisted in Haryana and Punjab withGurdaspur reeling at a minimum temperature of 2 degreesCelsius. Gurdaspur was the coldest place in Punjab, whileNarnaul, at a low of 3.3 degrees Celsius, was Haryana’s coldestplace. In Punjab, Pathankot, Halwara and Faridkot recorded alow of 3.7 degrees Celsius, 5.7 degrees Celsius and 4.6 degreesCelsius. Himachal Pradesh’s Keylong, Kalpa, Manali, Mandi,Solan, Sundernagar and Bhuntar shivered at sub-zero temper-atures. The cold wave intensified in Kashmir with the minimumtemperature dropping across the Valley to stay several notch-es below the freezing point on Sunday. The weather has remaineddry and cold across Kashmir since the snowfall on December12, with the night temperature staying several degrees belowthe freezing point. The MeT office has forecast light rain or snowin the Kashmir Valley over the next three days. The officials saidSrinagar - the summer capital of Jammu & Kashmir - record-ed a low of minus 5.2 degrees Celsius - down from the previ-ous night’s minus 3.7 degrees Celsius. Gulmarg in north Kashmirrecorded a low of minus 7.2 degrees Celsius - down from minus6.5 degrees Celsius the previous night. It was the coldest record-ed place in the Valley.
Churk in Sonbhadra district in UP, was the coldest placewith a minimum temperature of 2.6 degrees Celsius. Northernparts of Saurashtra and Kutch is also likely to experience coldwave conditions on December 28-29. Mount Abu, the only hillstation of Rajasthan, was recorded the coldest place in the Stateat 2 degrees Celsius even as several places saw an increase oftwo-three notches in night temperatures.
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From Page 1The CBI cited the High Court
order which ordered that the “salaryof the employees should be paid fromthe available funds” and it nowherestates that employees of a private TVchannel can be paid out of Statefunds collected in the name of ChiefMinister’s relief work.
“The Court order expressly statesthat the employees are to be paid outof the funds of the company. Thepayments from CM Relief Fund, ex-facie point towards a larger conspir-acy and nexus,” said the application.
Pointing the needle of suspicionat Chief Minister Mamata Banerjeein the scam, the CBI said:“Communication between the CBIand State Authorities will show thatthere has been a concerted effort toevade, avoid and to escape theprocess of law and a conscious efforton part of the authorities to scuttlethe investigation.”The CBI pointed atthe examination of former Rajya
Sabha MP Kunal Kumar Ghosh, oneof the accused in the case, byEnforcement Directorate duringOctober 2013 revealed that the ChiefMinister and promoter of SaradhaGroup - Sudipta Sen, had very goodrelationship.”It is submitted that thesame establishes that the ChiefMinister used to talk to Sudipta Senusing phone of Kunal Kumar Ghosh,”said the application.
The investigating agency said thecall detail record of two numbers ofSen spanning for one year revealsthat he and Ghosh had contacted 298times on one number and 9 times onanother number.Seeking custodialinterrogation of former KolkataPolice Commissioner Rajiv Kumar,the CBI said investigation has alsorevealed that evidence, which con-nected the ruling dispensation ofWest Bengal, financially and other-wise with Saradha group of compa-nies was concealed by theBidhannagar police under steward-ship of Kumar, in order to shield and
save everyone concerned.Ghosh’s examination as witness
by the Enforcement Directorate,during October 2013, revealed thatrespondent Kumar was in active con-tact with officers of ED during thecourse of examination of arrestedaccused persons, Sudipta Sen,Debjani Mukherjee or of witnessesGhosh and others carried out by theEnforcement Directorate duringSeptember to November 2013.
“It was ensured by the officialsthat grave facts narrated by theseaccused persons or witnesses mustnot be taken on record as part ofinvestigation with a purpose toshield the influential persons,” saidthe CBI.The CBI said more evidencehas emerged substantiating furtherthe active connivance of Kumar, thethen Commissioner of Police,Bidhannagar, in shielding and pro-tecting the influential co-accusedpersons who had promoted the ille-gal business activities of the group ofPonzi companies and benefited from
the illegally collected funds.The CBI also cited examination
of Safiqur Rehman, an employee ofSaradha group of companies.
“It is submitted that as per thesaid statement (by Rehman), whenthe Chief Minister, West Bengalcontested for MLA seat, Sudipta Senwas forced to sponsor all the Pujasof Bhawanipur, Kolkata. Rehman fur-ther stated that ‘Jangalmahal’ projectwas flagged off by Chief Minister,West Bengal in a ceremony held atWriters Building, Kolkata,” said theapplication.In 2013, during Kumar’stenure as the Bidhannagar policecommissioner, the scam wasunearthed. Kumar was part of theSIT set up by state government toprobe the scam, before the top courthanded over the investigation to CBIin 2014.The top court, in Novemberlast year, had sought the response ofthe IPS officer on the CBI’s appealagainst the anticipatory bail grantedto Kumar in the case by the CalcuttaHigh Court.
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Delhi reported 757 freshcases on Sunday and the
daily positivity rate reached to0.01 per cent.
The Covid-19 situation inthe national Capital hasimproved in the last severaldays. According to the latesthealth bulletin the death tollrose to 10,453 with 16 newfatalities.
The number of cases andthe single-day fatality countnow indicate a markedimprovement in the situationsince the third wave of the pan-demic had hit the city inNovember.
Delhi Chief MinisterArvind Kejriwal had said thatthe national capital has nowovercome the third wave ofCovid-19 infections.
The highest single-dayspike 8,593 cases till date wasreported on November 11.
Soon after the third wave of thepandemic hit the national cap-ital, daily cases had surgedand containment zones countalso kept mounting.
According to health bul-letin the number of contain-ment zones in Delhi has shownintermittent rise and fall in thelast several days, with the fig-ure standing at 4931 on Sunday.
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A55-year-old man diedwhile two other were
injured in a collision betweena tempo and a truck that tookplace in southeast Delhi'sNehru Place area on Sunday.
The deceased has beenidentified as Subedar, a residentof Neb Sarai in South Delhi.
According to R P Meena,the Deputy Commissioner ofPolice (DCP), Southeast dis-trict, police were informedabout the accident on Sundaymorning following which anEmergency Response Vehicle(ERV) was dispatched for thespot.
“Both the vehicles werefound crashed on the NehruPlace flyover towards Kalka Jitemple. Subedar was foundstuck in damaged cabin of thetempo. He was sent to AIIMSHospital where he was declaredbrought dead,” said the DCP.
Jaichand and Samsher, whowere also travelling in thetempo, were sent to hospital inan injured condition. Policesaid the truck driver hadparked his vehicle on the roadin a negligent way, causingdanger and obstruction in theline of navigation, resulting inthe collision.
A case under relevant sec-tions has been registered basedon the statement of an eyewit-ness, police said.
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Aman was shot dead whilesome others were injured
when two groups clashedwith each other after a shopemployee was beaten up.Police said that the incidenttook place on Saturday inEast Delhi’s Trilokpuri areaand several rounds were firedbetween the groups, who arealso neighbours.
The deceased has beenidentified as Shahid.According to Jasmeet Singh,the Deputy Commissioner ofPolice (DCP), East district,the clash took place at around10 PM on Saturday whenKasim and Shahid, belongingto one group, and the otherfaction led by Mannanclashed over the issue ofbeating up of a shop employ-ee.
“Bullets were fired byboth the groups and somepeople were injured in thefiring. They have been admit-ted to a hospital. Shahid suc-cumbed to his injuries dur-ing the treatment,” said theDeputy Commissioner ofPolice.
“A case under relevantsections of Indian PenalCode (IPC) has been regis-tered and there is no com-munal angle involved in theincident,” said the DeputyCommissioner of Police .
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In the alleged suicide case ofa 22-year-old woman Asha,
which took place on Saturdaymorning at Rajendra Park area,the Gurugram police late onSaturday night, registered acase of abetment of suicide andother relevant sections of theIndian Penal Code (IPC)against more than four police-men including a Sub-InspectorRajesh of Cyber Crime policestation Sector- 19 of theFaridabad police.
The station house officer(SHO) of Surender Singh ofRajendra Park police stationhas confirmed the develop-
ment. "An investigation in the
matter is underway. The cul-prits will be arrested after aninvestigation," he told ThePioneer.
Meanwhile, the body of thevictim has been handed over toher family after an autopsy onSunday.
Sandeep, the complainantin this case said, an FIR into thematter has been registeredagainst the policemen. We areseeking a stern action againstthe policemen".
"On Friday the police per-sonnel of the Faridabad policewere present at the victimshouse who had trashed andabused the entire family includ-
ing the deceased," Sandeepalleged.
On Saturday the 22-year-old woman had allegedly com-mitted suicide after she wasthrashed and abused by theFaridabad police at her housein Rajendra Park area.
In connection with theincident the victim’s familyhad filed a complaint againstthe Faridabad police alleging itthrashed and abused thedeceased and her family mem-bers.
"The cyber crime policestation team of the Faridabadpolice conducted a raid in ahouse located at Rajendra Parkarea in Gurugram on Fridaynight around 11.30 p.m. look-
ing for an accused identified asShankar who was involved in acheating case of Rs 6 lakh andhad also helped his accomplicein escaping from the custody ofthe Faridabad police inGurugram on Friday a separatecase was registered against himin this matter, " said SubeSingh, spokesperson of theFaridabad police.
He said if the Gurugrampolice have registered a caseagainst the Faridabad policepersonnel in connection withsuicide case.
"We will go through to theFIR registered in Gurugramand we will also check theinvolvement of the policemen,Singh said.
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Delhi Chief Minister ArvindKejriwal visited Singhu
border and joined the 'Safar-e-Shahadat' Kirtan Darbaar orga-nized by the Punjabi Academyof the Delhi government atGuru Tegh Bahadur Memorialin the memory of the martyr-dom of four Sahibzaade andMata Gujri Kaur Ji.
Addressing the farmersprotesting against the threefarm laws of the Central gov-ernment, Kejriwal said thatmore than 40 people have losttheir lives protesting against thecontentious farm laws of theCentre.
The chief minister saidthat these farmers are beingcalled terrorists and anti-nationals without thinking thatif these farmers are terrorists,who will feed the nation?
Kejriwal said that variousparties and leaders have onlybetrayed the farmers for the last70 years and now they want totake farming away from thefarmers and hand it over to bigcompanies.
"The farmers who are sit-ting on the borders today withtheir families are sitting here fortheir survival because if the bigcompanies take over farming,the farmers will be left withnothing," he said.
"Te Central governmentfielded all their big leaders,ministers and CMs but none ofthem could tell the benefit ofthe laws to the farmers, sincethese laws are for the benefit ofthe big companies and not thefarmers," he said.
Kejriwal challenged the
Centre to send their ministerswho are experts on these farmlaws and have a public debatewith the leaders of the farmerunions after which the wholenation will get to know howdangerous these farm laws are.
The chief minister alsoappealed to the Centre gov-ernment to not let any morefarmers sacrifice their livesand said that the Centre shouldrepeal these farm laws as soonas possible, guarantee MSPs inthe law, and end the struggle ofthe farmers.
Gurugram: Gurugram hasreported less than 100 newCovid-19 cases for the lastthree days in a row, health ofi-cials said on Sunday.
Joining many states acrossthe country who have beenstruggling hard to contain thespread of the coronavirus, thelocal administration inGurugram is also leaving nostone unturned to curb the dis-ease. The district on Sundayreported 71 Covid-19 cases,pushing the tally to 56,459,while the death toll has touched342. The figures of Covid activepatients stood at 1,059. Asmany as 146 patients havebeen discharged after recover-ies on Sunday.
As per the data of thehealth department the Covid-19 cases have decreased in thelast one week and only 3 peo-ple lost their lives due to theinfections during the week.
Meanwhile, in the last 24hours, 527 people have under-
gone Rapid Antigen Tests in thedistrict, the report of which isyet to come soon.
The district health offi-cials said the reason behinddecreasing in cases is that peo-ple have started following theCovid-19 guideline.
"Number of Covid caseshave been decreasing across thedistrict. Our teams are visitingeach and every household toscan health of every person. Iappealed to the residents to fol-low the rules and not to leavetheir houses unnecessarily.People must not come on thestreets unless it is very impor-tant and try to work fromhome. The people must beunder the seriousness of theCovid-19 disease," saidVirender Yadav, Chief MedicalOfficer (CMO), Gurugram.
The district administrationhas already deployed a specialtask force to monitor the Covidpatients and their respectivefamily members. IANS
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Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)councillors and hundreds of
its volunteers held a protest at theresidence of all three mayors ofthe BJP-ruled municipalCorporations on Sunday,demanding a CBI enquiry intothe alleged scam of Rs 2,400 crorein the BJP-ruled North DelhiMunicipal Corporation.
The AAP councilors andmembers under the leadership ofparty’s ‘Leaders of Opposition’(LoP) in north Corporation VikasGoel, Manoj Tyagi, LoP in EastDelhi Municipal Corporationand Prem Singh Chouhan, LoPin South Delhi MunicipalCorporation surrounded thehouses of the mayors of thethree MCDs and raised slogansagainst the BJP and the mayors,demanding a CBI inquiry into theRs 2500 crores scam in the BJP-ruled corporation.
Senior AAP leader andMCD in-charge DurgeshPathak said, "The BJP has beenin power in the MCD for thelast 15 years. In these 15 years,the BJP did not do anythingother than corruption. Thepeople of Delhi handed over theMCD to the BJP for the respon-sibility of cleaning Delhi whichis one of the most importantworks of the MCD, along withhundreds of other responsibil-ities that come under the ambitof the MCD but you can find
heaps of garbage everywhere.”“The drains are full of dirt.
The BJP councilors are extort-ing money from all residentialbuildings but they are not inter-ested in fulfilling their respon-sibility of ensuring cleanlinessthat has been entrusted to themby the people of Delhi. The cul-mination of corruption hasbecome so high that today theBJP is not able to pay the doc-tors, nurses, teachers, sanitationworkers, and all the otheremployees of the MCD,” he said.
The AAP leader said thatthe salaries of all the employeesof the MCD and their salariesfor the entire year could be paidin advance with Rs 2500 crores.“The BJP leaders as well as themayors of the three MCDs areequally responsible for Rs 2500crores scam. That is why theAAP today gheraoed the hous-es of the mayors, led by thethree LoPs,” he said.
“All AAP councilors andhundreds of volunteers protest-ed against the Rs 2500 croresscam and protested peacefullyoutside the houses of the mayorsand demanded a CBI inquiry intothe scam. The BJP should con-duct a CBI inquiry into the mat-ter and give stringent punishmentto whoever is responsible for thiscorruption. If the BJP does notconduct a CBI inquiry into thiscorruption, it will be assumedthat the BJP is also an equal part-ner in the scam," he added.
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Dense morning fog is likelyto engulf for the next three
days and temperature willplunge on the New Year’s Eve,as the Indian MeteorologicalDepartment ( IMD ) on
Sunday predicted minimumtemperature below four degreeCelsius on December 31.
The MeT has predicted
cold wave from December 29to January 1st.
However, on Sunday, theminimum temperature in theNational Capital rose slightlyunder the influence of aWestern Disturbance affectedthe upper Himalayas.
The SafdarjungObservatory, which providesrepresentative data for the city,recorded a minimum of 6degrees Celsius as against 4.6degrees Celsius on Saturday.
In weekly weather forecast,the minimum temperature willfluctuate between three degreeto five degree Celsius and max-imum temperature will remainat 21 degree Celsius. FromJanuary 2nd onwards, there willbe foggy days ahead and themaximum temperature will befluctuate between 20 to 22degree Celsius.
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Prime Minister NarendraModi will inaugurate India’s
first ever driverless train oper-ations on the Delhi Metro’sMagenta Line (Janakpuri West– Botanical Garden) andNational Common MobilityCard (NCMC) services on theAirport Express Line via videoconferencing on Monday.
These innovations aregoing to herald a new era oftravelling comfort andenhanced mobility for theNational Capital Region(NCR)’s residents. With thecommencement of driverlesstrains on the Delhi Metro’sMagenta Line, DMRC willenter the elite league of sevenpercent of world’s Metro net-works which can operate with-out drivers.
After starting driverless
services on the 37 kilometrelong Magenta Line (JanakpuriWest – Botanical Garden),another major corridor of theDelhi Metro, the 57 kilometrelong Pink Line (Majlis Park –Shiv Vihar) will also have dri-verless operations by the mid of2021, a senior DMRC official
said.After this, Delhi Metro
will have a driverless networklength of about 94 kilometres,which will be approximatelynine percent of the world’stotal driverless Metro network.
The driverless trains will befully automated which will
require minimum humanintervention and will eliminatethe possibilities of humanerrors. Delhi Metro has been apioneer in introducing tech-nology driven solutions forpassenger comfort and this isanother step in the same direc-tion.
“The National CommonMobility Card, which will befully operationalised on theAirport Express Line will alsobe a major milestone as anyonecarrying a RuPay -Debit Cardissued recently in the last 18months by 23 banks (all theseare NCMC compliant as perdirections of the Department ofFinancial Services,Government of India) from anypart of the country will be ableto travel on the Airport Expressline using that card. The samefacility will become available onthe entire Delhi Metro networkby 2022,” he said.
The Delhi Metro current-ly operates on a network ofabout 390 kilometres with 285stations spanning 11 corridors(including NOIDA – GreaterNOIDA). Pre Covid, about 60lakh journeys were being per-formed everyday on the Delhi
Metro network making it themass transportation backboneof the National Capital Region(NCR).
The Metro rail scenario inthe entire nation has under-gone a massive transformationin the last six years.
While in 2014, only 248kilometres of Metro lines wereoperational in five cities,presently 702 kilometres ofMetro lines are operational in18 cities in India.
In the days to come, overa thousand kilometres of newlines shall be added and about27 cities in the country willhave Metro connectivity. By2022, when the nation cele-brates its 75th IndependenceDay, India will have a com-bined Metro network of over athousand kilometres whichwill carry more than a crorepassengers every day.
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With focus to make Delhi‘Drug Free’, the Delhi
Police organised several oper-ations and arrested around 882people and they also recoveredmore than 5,000 kilogram (kg)of narcotics substance this year.Police said that several Nepaliand Nigerian drug suppliersactive in Delhi have also beenarrested in the National Capital.
The data shared by theDelhi Police showed that theyhave registered 726 cases andrecovered more than 5000 kgdrugs.
According to the data,police have recovered 23.6 kgcharas, 29.184 kg opium,4205.939 kg ganja, 84.932 kgheroin, 699.538 kg poppy headand 1.035 kg cocaine.
“Around 10.46 lakh tabletsof Tramadol and Nitrazapam,19560 bottles of Codeine basedsyrup bottles and 500 kilogramGanja trafficked from AndhraPradesh was seized by theNarcotics Cell of CrimeBranch. Two persons have beenarrested indulging in traffick-ing of ganja and charas fromthe USA through courier using“Dark-Web” by the crimebranch. Around 5 kg of charaswas also seized from twoNepali citizens by the nar-cotics cell of the crime branch,”said Anil Mittal, the AdditionalPublic Relation Officer(APRO) of Delhi Police.
“This year, Special Cellseized around 66 kg heroin and27 kg of Opium. Several Nepaliand Nigerian citizens active insupplying and selling drugs inthe city were also arrested bythe police this year. Besidethem, several notorious drugsuppliers including SharafatSheikh, Bishan alias Natiya,Rocky, Javed alias Sulemani,involved in drug traffickingpreviously were arrested thisyear,” said the APRO.
“In order to curb drugmenace, the police had beenworking on the twin objectiveof taking focused action againstthe drug suppliers and simul-taneously educating the generalpublic about drug abuse,” saidthe APRO.
“This year based on thepast experience, a comprehen-sive strategy was formulated totake maximum action againstthe drug traffickers active inDelhi by involving all the fieldand investigating units includ-ing Crime Branch, Special Cell,and District police,” said Mittal.
“The Narcotics Cell, Crimebeing nodal agency of DelhiPolice in all matters related todrugs started drive along withother police units with focus onbusting of interstate network ofdrug traffickers whereas, thedistrict police focused on thearrest of local drug peddlersand suppliers at police stationlevel,” said Mittal.
“The concerted action ofdifferent wings of Delhi Police
has led to busting of networksand arrest of drug suppliershaving links with drug suppli-ers of different states like UttarPradesh (UP), MadhyaPradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan,Odisha, Andhra Pradesh andManipur,” said Mittal.
“Even during the lock-down period, the police keptthe pressure mounted on drugsuppliers, developed informa-tion about drug traffickers andtook timely action. Mapping ofthe hotspots was done andteams constituted with specif-ic tasks to focus on those areasand to arrest the drug traffick-ers,” said Mittal.
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Amid the farmer agitationand impending organisa-
tional elections of the party, for-mer Congress chief RahulGandhi left for Milan onSunday. His absence from Indiacomes also at a critical juncturefor Congress and its CentralElection Authority (CEA)which is preparing for party'spresidential elections.
His departure Italy comesa day before Congress’ foun-dation Day.
Several senior Congressleaders have questioned the fre-quent vacations by RahulGandhi and his sister partygeneral secretary PriyankaGandhi Vadra and urged themto spare time and effort for therevival of the party.
RJD leader Shivanand
Tewari had slammed Rahulfor holidaying in Shimla dur-ing the Bihar election campaignand held him responsible e forthe Grand alliance narrowdefeat at the hands in NDA.
After facing criticismRahul had to cancel a two dayvacation in Jaisalmer.
Both Rahul and partyChief Sonia Gandhi had alsomissed the parliamentarydebate on the three farm lawsdue to Sonia Gandhi's ill-health- necessitating her visit to
the USA. Rahul had accompa-nied her.
Rahul had chosen to goabroad when Congress hadbeen exchanging barbs with theBJP over the farm laws. PunjabCongress leaders have beenproviding logistical support tothe protesting Punjab farmers.
Rahul Gandhi had recent-ly met President Ram NathKovind as part of two separateOpposition delegations,demanding the repeal of thethree controversial farm laws.
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The race for the CBI chiefpost hots up with the
names of Gujarat cadre IPSofficer Rakesh Asthana, Keralacadre IPS official LoknathBehera and Director General ofPolice of Uttar Pradesh HCAwasthi doing the rounds inbureaucratic circles.
The CBI Director RKShukla is scheduled to retire onFebruary 1 after completion ofthe fixed two-year tenure in theagency.
While Asthana, a 1984-batch IPS officer, was removedfrom the post of SpecialDirector in the CBI followingan ugly spat with the thenagency chief Alok Verma,Behera, a 1985-batch IPS offi-cer, was shunted out from theNational Investigation Agency
(NIA) over allegations of leak-ing information about thearrest of Indian Mujahideenoperative Yasin Bhatkal.
Asthana is currently theDirector General of the BorderSecurity Force (BSF) and alsoheads the Narcotics ControlBureau (NCB). Behera is cur-rently the police chief of Kerala.
While Asthana is consid-ered close to the top politicalexecutive at the Centre, Beherais a Kerala cadre Indian PoliceService (IPS) officer. NationalSecurity Advisor Ajit Doval isalso from the same cadre. BothAsthana and Behera have expe-rience of postings in the CBI.
The possibility of grantingan extension of service to theoutgoing CBI boss cannot beruled out given his handling ofthe agency in a non-contro-versial manner, especially after
the removal of the then CBIchief Alok Verma.
Uttar Pradesh police chiefAwasthi, an IPS officer of 1985batch, may emerge as a darkhorse for the top post in theCBI given his 12-years of expe-rience in the Central anti-cor-ruption agency. He also head-ed the vigilance departmentof the State police and alsoenjoys proximity to UP CM,the sources said.
The posting of the CBIchief is cleared by a three-member panel headed by thePrime Minister. The ChiefJustice of India and the Leaderof Opposition in the Lok Sabhabeing are two other members.
Once appointed, the officergets a fixed two-year tenure ofservice unless the governmentextends the service of an offi-cial.
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India reported its lowest dailyspike in Covid infections
since June at 18,732 new caseson Sunday. The Union healthministry termed this a “land-mark peak in country’s infec-tion trajectory”.
This is the second time inthe week that the daily casesnumber has dropped below20,000, said the HealthMinistry adding that of the 1.01crore cases, active infectionsstand at 2.78 lakh.
“This is the lowest after 170days. The total active cases were2,76,682 on 10th July, 2020. Thetoll has remained below 300level in the second consecutiveday while India’s Covid-19 tallyof cases climbed to 1,01,87,850on Sunday,”’ said the Ministry.
“Landmark peak in India’sCovid-19 trajectory as dailynew cases drop to 18,732 after6 months. India’s total activecaseload has fallen to 2.78 lakh(2,78,690) today. This is thelowest after 170 days, the min-
istry tweeted.It also said that India has
reported a trend of sustaineddecrease in the number ofactive cases. “India’s presentactive caseload consists of just2.74 per cent of India’s total
positive cases,” it said addingthat the total recovered casesstand at 97,61,538, with 21,430new discharges in the last 24hours, according to health min-istry tally.
The gap between recovered
and active cases, that is steadi-ly increasing, is nearing 95 lakhand presently stands at94,82,848, it said.
Maharashtra has 59,223active cases while Kerala has63,927 active Covid-19 cases.72.37% of the new recoveredcases were concentrated in tenStates/UTs with Kerala report-ing the maximum number ofsingle day recoveries at 3,782newly recovered cases. 1,861people recovered in WestBengal followed by 1,764 inChhattisgarh.
Meanwhile, a total of16,81,02,657 samples were test-ed for Covid-19 up toDecember 26. Of these,9,43,368 samples were testedyesterday, according to theIndian Council of MedicalResearch (ICMR)
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Those who used e-cigarettesor vaping in the past are 21
per cent more likely to devel-op a respiratory disease whilethose who currently use themhas a 43 per cent increased risk,a study has said.
It warned that because ofvaping, there might be anincrease in respiratory diseaseas youth and young adults ageinto midlife, including asthma,COPD, and other respiratoryconditions.
The new study is one of thefirst to look at vaping in a largenumber of otherwise healthypeople over time, examiningthe effects of e-cigarette useindependently from othertobacco product use. The find-ings have appeared in journal
JAMA Network Open.Because using e-cigarettes
or (“vaping”) has been mar-keted as a less harmful alter-native to smoking traditionalcigarettes, it has been difficultto tell whether the associationbetween vaping and disease isjust a matter of smokers switch-ing to vaping when they startexperiencing health issues,pointed out the researchers.
Further, because e-ciga-rettes are relatively new to thescene, until recently it hasn’tbeen possible for researchers toconduct long-term studiestracking how vaping impactshealth, they said.
“This provides some ofthe very first longitudinal evi-dence on the harms associatedwith e-cigarette products,” saidlead study author Andrew
Stokes, assistant professor ofglobal health at BostonUniversity’s School of PublicHealth.
Evidence of the healtheffects of vaping, from this andother studies, “highlights theimportance of standardizingdocumentation of e-cigaretteproduct use in electronic healthrecords,” said co-authorHasmeena Kathuria, aPulmonary Center facultymember.
For this study, researchersused data on 21,618 healthyadult participants from thefirst four waves (2013-2018) ofthe nationally representativePopulation Assessment ofTobacco and Health (PATH),the most comprehensivenational survey of tobacco ande-cigarette use to date.
To makesure theirf i n d i n g s
weren’t accounting for cigarettesmokers switching to e-ciga-rettes specifically because ofexisting health issues (ratherthan the vaping itself causingthese issues), the researchersonly included people in thestudy who reported having norespiratory issues when theyentered PATH, adjusting for acomprehensive set of healthconditions.The researchersfound, overall, that former e-cigarette use was associatedwith a 21% increase in the riskof respiratory disease, whilecurrent e-cigarette use wasassociated with a 43% increase.
More specifically, currente-cigarette use was associatedwith a 33% increase in chron-ic bronchitis risk, 69% increasein emphysema risk, 57%increase in chronic obstructivepulmonary disease (COPD)risk, and 31% increase in asth-ma risk.
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In keeping with the changed realityin Covid times, the National Skill
Development Corporation (NSDC)has joined hands with online educa-tional portal DigiVidyapeeth to for-mulate e-curriculum for skills upgradefor both professionals and students.
In this regard, the Media andEntertainment Skills Council (MSEC),a setup of the NSDC, has inked a pactwith DigiVidyapeeth, under whichthe portal will develop online courseskeeping with industry needs and theformer will accord recognition tothem.
The agreement was signed recent-ly by MSEC CEO Mohit Soni andDigiVidyapeeth MD Pradeep Khatrihere..
To begin with, DigiVidyapeethhas developed courses in the field ofdigital media marketing and mobilejournalism to enhance the skills of pro-fessionals and will train them in linewith latest technological advances.Later, new courses will be developedfor other sectors too. On the occasion,
Soni said that DigiVidyapeeth has thecapacity to give shape to the futurecareer of youth. The e-platformengaged in providing online profes-sional certificate courses, has developedsolutions to the new challenges whichwill be faced by students in the chang-ing post Covid scenarios, he said.Khatri added that the pact aims to givea boost to the Skill India Mission andDigital India Mission launched by theGovernment.
The Narendra Modi Governmenthas set up a target of skill developmentthrough MSEC to over 12 lakh peopletill 2022. However, due to the covid cri-sis, it is pushing its skill developmentprograms through digital mediums.
New Delhi: The IndianGovernment's initiative tocarry out development worksin Left Wing Extremism-affect-ed states face hurdles as roadconstruction in these areas is"abysymally slow".
The government has sanc-tioned construction of 9,338km of roads but of these only1,796 km length of roads arecomplete, a parliamentarypanel has said.
It has been observed thatthere is delay in construction ofroads in the most sensitiveLWE areas like Telangana andChhattisgarh and this is slow-ing down the inclusion anddevelopment processes of theseregions and negatively affectingthe capability of Central ArmedPolice Forces and state police intackling the menace.
The government is carry-ing out development works inLWE areas under SecurityRelated Expenditure (SRE) andSpecial Infrastructure Scheme.
It is being executed and mon-itored by the Ministry of HomeAffairs.
This state of affairs was dis-closed in a report of theParliamentary StandingCommittee on Home Affairs,headed by Congress DeputyLeader in Rajya Sabha, AnandSharma, on the Demands forGrants of Ministry of HomeAffairs placed in Parliament onDecember 21.
The committee noted thatof 9,338 km sanctioned roadsunder Road ConnectivityProject for LWE Affected Areas(RCPLWE), only 1,796 kmlength of roads have been com-pleted.
The panel has asked theMinistry of Home Affairs forthe reasons regarding "abysy-mally slow progress" in com-pletion of these roads especiallywith respect to Telanganawhere 147 km has been com-pleted out of 705 km andChhattisgarh where 319 km has
been completed out of 2,479km.
The government had saidthat it believes that through aholistic approach focussing ondevelopment and security-related interventions, the LWEproblem can be successfullytackled.
It has also stated that theextremists do not want rootcauses like underdevelopmentto be addressed in a meaning-ful manner since they resort totargeting school buildings,roads, railways, bridges, healthinfrastructure, communicationfacilities etc in a major way.
They wish to keep the pop-ulation in their areas of influ-ence marginalised to perpetu-ate their outdated and failedideology. Consequently, theprocess of development hasbeen set back by decades inmany parts of the countryunder Left Wing Extremists'influence, the governmentadded. IANS
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Amaravati: Six returnees from theUK to Andhra Pradesh and four oftheir contacts have so far tested pos-itive for Covid-19, health officialssaid on Sunday.
In all 1,216 people from the UKreturned to Andhra Pradesh and ofthem 1,187 were traced. Effortswere on to trace the remaining 29.
A total of 1,162 returnees were inquarantine. Six of the returnees foundinfected by coronavirus. They includetwo from Guntur district and oneeach from East Godavari, Krishna,Anantapur and Nellore districts.
Officials also traced 3,282 con-tacts of UK returnees and sent their
samples for testing. Four of the con-tacts have tested positive. Whilethree are from Guntur district, oneperson is from Nellore.
The samples of those testedpositive were sent to NationalInstitute of Virology, Pune andCentre for Cellular and MolecularBiology (CCMB) for genomesequencing to find out if they areinfected by the new strain of the virusfound in the UK. "We have not yetreceived the reports," said an official.
Meanwhile, Andhra Pradeshon Sunday reported 349 new Covidcases, pushing the state's tally to8,81,061.
One person succumbed to thevirus during the last 24 hours. Withthis, the death toll rose to 7,094.
According to state commandcontrol room, 422 people recoveredfrom the virus during the last 24hours ending 10 a.m. on Sunday.The cumulative recoveries mount-ed to 8,70,342.
The number of active casesdropped further to 3,625.
During the last 24 hours, 46,386tests were conducted. With this, thetotal number of tests conducted sofar rose to 1,16,20,503. Tests per mil-lion ratio in the state increased to2,17,612. IANS
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ArrayImphal:Prime MinisterNarendra Modi has kept thenortheast in his heart and thusshowered the region with ahuge amount of central funds,tamed the decades-old terror-ism and established peace,Union Home Minister AmitShah said on Sunday.
"Development of north-east region is the mantra(vision) of Modi ji, hence he(Prime Minister) and the gov-ernment led by him excelledall-round development of theregion -- connectivity to infra-structure and economic uplift-ment of all sections of people,"Shah said after laying the foun-dation stone of various devel-opment projects.
Addressing a gathering atthe Hapta Kangjeibung groundhere, he said: "Prime MinisterNarendra Modi has visited allthe states of the region around40 times so far. The BJP gov-ernment led by Modi ji hasgiven a fresh identity to theregion.
"After the BJP led NDAgovernment came to power, thenortheastern region has giventhe priority in development."
The Home Minister, whocame here from Guwahati onSunday on a day's visit, said that
previously, Manipur wasknown for terrorism, block-ades, shutdown, agitations, butat present, most terrorist out-fits have shun their violentactivities and joined the main-stream.
"Those extremistsremained off the track, theywould also do so followingefforts of the BJP government,"the Union Minister said.
Criticising the Congress,which ruled the northeasternstate until 2017, Shah said thatit failed to solve the numerousproblems of Manipur.
"During the past threeyears, under the BJP led gov-ernment under Chief MinisterN. Biren Singh, the state ismoving ahead on the path ofprogress.
Doing justice for Manipur,Prime Minister Narendra Modihad given the biggest gift to thepeople of the state by promul-gating the Inner Line Permitinto Manipur as the people ofthe state had been agitating forthe ILP for many years."
The ILP was enforced inthe entire state of Manipur onDecember 11, 2019 for theprotection of the indigenouspeople. IANS
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New Delhi: Days after theSpecial Cell of Delhi Policeraided the office of advo-cate Mehmood Pracha,one of the defence coun-sels in the northeast Delhiriots case, the Delhi HighCourt Women LawyersForum has written to thePresident of the DelhiHigh Court BarA s s o c i a t i o n(DHCBA).
In its letter written toDHCBA President MohitMathur, the womenlawyers expressed deepconcerns over the investi-
gating agency arraigninglawyers as accused incriminal cases.
"We write to you as agroup of lawyers who aredeeply concerned aboutthe recent instances wherethe investigating agencyhas been arraigninglawyers as accused incriminal cases," the letterread.
The letter further saidthat though the proceed-ings initiated against suchlawyers are ostensiblyindependent of the mat-ters being handled by
them, but the patternemerging from all suchinstances, where lawyersare being targeted, is hardto ignore.
"Raids in the office ofMr Mahmood Pracha,advocate is the latestexample of such intimi-dation by the Delhi Police.Mr Pracha is representingseveral accused persons inthe recent riot cases inDelhi.
The recent trend indi-cates that there are otherlawyers too who are beingintimidated and discour-
aged from representingtheir clients in these cases,"the letter said.
The letter also saidthat this is also a largerissue that goes beyondthe riots case, whereinlawyers who are vocalabout defending civil lib-erties are being systemat-ically targeted.
"This is clearly an actof vindictiveness on partof the investigating agen-cies whose actions arepreventing lawyers fromcarrying their out profes-sional duties," it said.IANS
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Muzaffarnagar: The son of alocal BJP leader inMuzaffarnagar in UttarPradesh has died due toCOVID-19, according to hisfamily. Thirty-two-year-oldVinit Tyagi, the son of formerBJP district president DevertTyagi, died at a Ghaziabadhospital Saturday evening. Hewas cremated here on Sunday.Union minister Sanjeev Balyan,Uttar Pradesh minister KapilDev Aggarwal and several BJPleaders expressed their condo-lences over Vinit Tyagi'sd e a t h . M e a n w h i l e ,Muzaffarnagar recorded 26more COVID-19 infections onSunday, taking the number ofactive cases in the district to369. According to DistrictMagistrate Selva Kumari J, fourinmates of the district jail wereamong those found infectedwith the virus on Sunday. PTI
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Chennai: On 26thDecember 2020 theA n n u a lC o n v o c a t i o nCeremony of VITChennai was con-ducted virtually toconfer degrees on2.039 graduandswho have success-fully completedtheir respectivecourses : Ph.D., MS(By Research),MBA, MCA, M.Tech. SoftwareEngineering (Integrated), M.SSoftware Engineering(Integrated), M.Tech., B.Tech.,B.A.,LL.B.(Hons.), andB.B.A.,LL.B.(Hons.).
The Chief Guest, Hon’bleJustice V Bhavani Subbaroyan,Judge, High Court of Madras,in her the ConvocationAddress congratulated thegraduands; applauded theachievements of VIT andappreciated the pioneeringefforts taken to complete thecourses in online mode with-out any disruption and con-ducting the convocation cere-mony virtually in all its
grandeurShe called upon the grad-
uands, “Realise your responsi-bility as the youth of this greatnation; keep upskilling, keepcontributing towards more pro-ductivity and efficiency; inno-vate and learn to relearn forsustenance; solve the contem-porary, real world complexproblems.” She recalled theclarion call of SwamiVivekananda, “Arise, awake,and stop not till the goal isreached.”
Dr. G. Viswanathan,Founder and Chancellor,Vellore Institute of Technology(Deemed to be University) in
his presidentialaddress requestedthe Central and StateGovernments tospend more onhigher educationand stated, “devel-opment of a coun-try depends onthe developmentof higher educa-tion and highereducation is not
for academic qualificationalone; it increases employmentopportunities, economic pro-ductivity and growth.”Scholarships have been offeredto more than 6000 students sofar by VIT through the Highereducation trust and
“Higher education can stopchild marriages”, he opined.Professor Rambabu Kodali,Vice Chancellor welcomed thegathering and briefed about theachievements of VIT atNational and Internationallevel. Vice PresidentsMr.Sankar Viswanathan,Dr.Sekar Viswanathan, Mr.G.V.Selvam and Asst.
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Ajoint team of securityforces on Sunday appre-
hended terrorists with explo-sive material near Galuthi areaof Mendhar in Poonch district.
Meanwhile, in Kashmirvalley a Special police officer(SPO) who had decamped withservice weapons was alsoapprehended along with threeother associates by the police.
According to policerecords, the SPO identified asAltaf Hussain had earlierdecamped with two AK 47rifles along with one Jahangirwho was later on arrested bythe security forces in a cordonand search operation.
This is the third incident ofweapon recovery in the last 48hours and has alerted Jammuand Kashmir police to uncov-er the nexus between the localconduits and terrorist han-dlers sitting across the border.
Earlier on Friday evening
two Kashmiri youth were alsoapprehended after a long chasein Narwal area of Jammu alongwith weapons and ammuni-tion.
Sharing details of the oper-ation launched in Mendhartehsil of Poonch, a Jammubased Defence PRO Lt-ColDevender Anand said, “Theterrorists apprehended possiblybelong to a terror outfit ‘Jammuand Kashmir Ghaznavi Force’”.He said, the apprehended ter-rorists were likely to carry outa blast in Rajouri district andwere probably attempting todisrupt the communal harmo-ny prevailing in the region.Defence PRO said, “with thearrest of these terrorists, thesecurity forces have uneartheda nexus involving local terror-ists which were involved in fer-rying war like stores and nar-cotics”. He said a thoroughsearch operation was stillgoing on to recover more armsor explosive material fromtheir hideouts.
Earlier, on December 13,two foreign terrorists possiblybelonging to Jammu andKashmir Ghaznavi Force werealso killed in an encounter atDogrian (Poonch) on oldMughal Road. He said, theirconnection to Pak handlers isalso being probed.
In Srinagar, a policespokesman said, in a jointoperation Budgam police alongwith 53RR and 181 Bn CRPFlaunched a CASO atHayatpora, Chadoora. During
search, one vehicle tried to fleefrom the cordon which wasstopped tactfully, the occu-pants tried to resist who wereoverpowered by the securityforces.
Out of them one was iden-tified as Deserter SPO turnedterrorist Altaf Hussain. Theother 3 have been identified asShabir Ahmad Bhat, JamsheedMagray, and Zahid Dar all res-idents of Pulwama. On theirsearch, arms & ammunitionand other incriminating mate-
rial were recovered.On further enquiry, it was
found that the group is associ-ated with banned terror orga-nization JEM and were oper-ating in the area with theintention to carry out somesubversive activities.
The two terrorist associatesapprehended in Jammu wereidentified as Raees AhmadDar, son of Ghulam HassanDar of Churath, Qazigund andSubzar Ahmad Sheikh, son ofGhulam Ahmad Sheikh ofAshmuji, Kulgam. One AKrifle, one pistol, two magazinesand some rounds have beenrecovered from their posses-sion.
According to policerecords, Raees Ahmad Darhad a previous history ofinvolvement in terror activitieshaving four cases registeredagainst him. Initial investiga-tion revealed that he is work-ing for terrorists. The role of hisassociate is also being ascer-tained.
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Asenior Army officer head-ing Srinagar based 15
corps headquarters on Sundaysaid in order to divert theattention of its people frominternal issues, Pakistan maytry to escalate tensions alongthe border by pushing in ter-rorists even during peak ofwinter or resorting to ceasefireviolations.
In both eventualities, weare ready and will give a befit-ting response to any such mis-adventure,” Lt-Gen BS Rajusaid in Srinagar.
Referring to the prevailingsecurity situation along theLoC in the region, Lt-GenRaju claimed there are morethan 200-250 terrorists waitingfor their turn across differentlaunch pads to infiltrate inside
the Indian territory.The fron-tier districts of Rajouri andPoonch this season havealready witnessed a spike in thenumber of ceasefire violationsand infiltration bids under thegarb of cover firing by the for-ward posts across the line ofcontrol.
Sharing his assessmentabout the recently concludedDDC polls in Jammu andKashmir the senior army com-mander said these polls wereheld peacefully and the peoplegot to vote to invigorate grass-
roots democracy in Jammuand Kashmir.
“It is now time for theelected representatives to workfor the people and for the peo-ple to seek delivery in terms ofdevelopment activity,” he said.
On winter posturing alongthe LoC wherein infiltration ismore likely through lowerheights, he said there are con-tinued reports of 200-250 ter-rorists in launch pads in PoKlooking for a chance to infil-trate.
“They will try to exploitbad weather to infiltrate, butthe security forces are focusingon both direct infiltration intoKashmir through the LoC andthose attempted through thesouth of Pir Panjal.
The deployment on theLoC is robust and supported bylayers of surveillance devices,”he added.
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Ahead of the New Year cele-brations fresh spells of snow-
fall in different parts of Jammuand Kashmir brought cheer onthe faces of those linked with thetourism and winter sports activ-ity as more tourists are expectedto arrive here to usher in the newyear 2021.
The cave shrine of MataVaishno Devi also witnessed theseason's first snowfall late Sundayevening. Pilgrims present at thecave shrine welcomed the snow-fall amid religious chants.
Chief Executive Officer, ShriMata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board,Ramesh Kumar also posted avideo clip saying pilgrims at thecave shrine enjoying snowfall.
Meanwhile, traffic on theJammu-Srinagar National high-
way remained disrupted follow-ing fresh landslides at severalplaces between Udhampur andRamban.
Several passenger vehiclesremained stranded at differentlocations due to suspension oftraffic.
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While the last Sunday of theyear saw BJP leader
Suvendu Adhikari andTrinamool Congress MPAbhishek Banerjee trading vol-leys of fire from two public ral-lies a silent development withsuspected political ramifica-tions took place at Raj Bhavanwhere BCCI president SouravGanguli met Governor JagdeepDhankhar for about two hoursbefore exiting as quietly as hecame.
Moments after the formerIndia southpaw’s exit theGovernor tweeted about hismeeting with “Dada” and BCCIpresident saying he “acceptedthe invitation” extended to himto visit Eden Gardens.
While the former Indiacaptain before entering theGovernor’s house said that hiswas a “courtesy call” theGovernor said that a lot ofissues were discussed with himadding it was a great experiencetalking to him.
But none would dwell onthe reasons behind an unusu-ally long discussion in a cour-tesy call limited to extendinginvitation to visit the EdenGardens. “Ever since he cameto Bengal last July he has not
yet visited the Eden Gardens…He once told me that… so Iwent to invite him for a visit tothe stadium,” Ganguli said say-ing “please do not spin storiesabout the visit.”
Dhankhar later tweeted“Had interaction with ‘Dada’@SGanguly99 President@BCCI at Raj Bhawan today at4.30 PM on varied issues.Accepted his offer for a visit toEden Gardens, oldest cricketground in the country estab-lished in 1864.”
Though the Raj Bhavansources too said that there wasnothing much to be read intothe discussion stories did therounds that the BJP wanted oneof India’s most successful cap-tains to begin a new innings inpolitics while the star cricketerhad not given his words regard-ing the issue.
Meanwhile, Adhikari a for-mer Bengal Minister and closeMamata Banerjee aide wholeft that party early this monthlaunched a scathing attack onthe TMC leadership, particu-larly Chief Minister MamataBanerjee’s nephew andDiamond Harbour MPAbhishek Banerjee saying everyleaf turned in the TMC at theinstance of the Bhaipo (read thenephew) and every step was
taken in his interest.“It is a party of extortion-
ists the led by the Bhaipo,” hesaid adding how the villageswere being ignored by the topTMC brass in the interest of ahandful people in SouthKolkata.
“Most ministries areenjoyed by a handful of peopleliving in South Kolkata and thedistricts and villages are madeto serve only … I hate thatparty in which I was there forthe past 21 years and sawthings taking shape personal-ly,” Adhikari said asking thepeople to “gift Bengal toNarendra Modi if you reallywant to save Bengal from thehands of “tolabaz” (extortion-ists).”
There was a dire need forthe State to be in the hands ofa party that rules the Centre.“Then only an all round devel-opment can come.. Continuousanti-Centre stance will lead usto nowhere,” he said telling amassive audience at Danton inWest Midnapore that “the Statemust be protected from thehands of extortionists.”
Reacting sharply to hisattacks Banerjee told an equal-ly big rally at DiamondHarbour that “some peoplehave sold their spines to the
BJP and joined that party tosave their skins … today theycall the Bhaipo an extortionistbut I want to remind you thatthis was the man whose nameappears in Narada, Sharada,Rose Valley and other scams …This was the man who wasseen collecting cash rapped intowel in Narada videos andnow they call me an extor-tionist… these people are thereal extortionists… I am notafraid of the CBI or ED becausethere is no proof of extortionagainst me.”
He said “If they can provethat I am corrupt then they willneed no CBI or ED … I will goto the gallows myself,” won-dering why Adhikari was ask-ing Bengal to be handed overto Modi.
“Is Bengal a commoditylike onion, potato or tomatothat it can be handed over …”he asked saying “till MamataBanerjee is there no one candefeat TMC.”
Asking the “traitors” toquit the TMC in bigger num-bers he said “Go out in as manynumbers as you want becauseMamata Banerjee is like SachinTendulkar … till the time sheis batting there is no tensioneven if the 9 wickets have fallen.”
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Aligarh: The State Governmenthas sought a Covid report oftravelers returning from the UKfrom all districts. In this, 3 trav-elers returned to Meerut fromthe UK have been found coro-na positive while, 2 passengersin Ghaziabad and 3 in GautamBudh Nagar have been foundcorona positive. The Covidreport of these travelers will besent to Delhi's Institute ofGenomics and IntegrativeBiology to investigate the newCovid strain.
Because of the new coronastrain, a Covid test is beingconducted for all the passen-gers coming from the UK toAligarh. Corona test of 22 peo-ple has been done and thereports of all came negative.Test of 2 more people has beendone and their report willcome. The Aligarh adminis-tration is alert to the newstrain of Corona. For this,sampling of 13 people whoreturned from the UK wasdone on Friday. The report alsocame negative in RTPCR.Before that also, the RTPCRreport of 9 people camenegative. PNS
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For the protection of thecow, CM Yogi Adityanath
had built gaushalas from thecities to the villages. Thesegaushalas are now facing theproblem of budget shortage.Most of the gaushalas in thedistrict have not received gov-ernment grants in the last fourmonths resulted in a shortageof fodder and straw.
Currently, the gaushalashave a debt of 3.98 crores. Inthis financial year, only 4.55crore has been paid while thedepartment sent a demand of11 crores to the government.
In 2017, CM YogiAdityanath has emphasizedcow protection and openedthe treasury of the budget for
building the gaushalas. Alongwith the urban bodies, a largenumber of gaushalas have beenbuilt in the cities and the vil-lages. So far 161 Gaushalas havebeen established by the AnimalHusbandry Department in thedistrict having about 19000cows.
The Animal HusbandryDepartment demands a budgetin the financial year. In April,11 crores were demanded forthe financial year 2020-21 butnow 9 months have beenpassed and only 4.55 croreshave been released.
This amount has been paidtill August-September. Sincethen no money has beenreceived for gaushalas.Gaushalas owe 3.98 crores tillDecember.
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Charging that the Maharashtra gov-ernment policies aimed at helping
real estate sector to mitigate Covid effectwere being “implemented selectively” toprovide “windfall gains”, former chiefminister and senior BJP leader DevendraFadnavis charged that the windfall gainsmade by a developer in just one big pre-mium land parcel amounted to Rs 1805crore.
In a letter written to Maharashtrachief minister Uddhav Thackeray,Fadnavis threatened that “in case no cor-rective action” was taken in the matter,he would be compelled to move theBombay High Court.
Alleging that the recommendationsmade by an expert committee appoint-ed under the chairmanship of co-founderof HDFC Ltd Deepak Parekh to seek stepsto revive the real estate selector whichis ailing because of Coronma pandem-ic were being “implemented selectively”, Fadnavis said: “It seems that certainvested interests have colluded for the pur-pose of extending benefits to a fewhandful parties at the expense of Stateexchequer”
“I must state here that the actions of
the State Government must be free fromthe vice of arbitrariness and must con-form to Article 14 of the Constitution ofIndia,” Fadnavis said.
Fadnavis said that he always sup-ported steps taken to boost the demandduring pandemic and decisions likerationalisation of stamp duty rates.“Ready reckoner rates and Premiums area necessary step. However, under the garbof reduction for rationalisation, windfall gains cannot be allowed to ahandful few.” “There seems to be a sys-tematic method devised to give windfallbenefit to said real estate developers byfragmented & prejudiced reduction ofready reckoner of some of their self-owned & interest plots to the extent of70% of the existing ready reckoners’ rates.The said reduction leads to reduction ofpayments to be made to the competentauthorities,” he said.
“Following the success of this Modusoperandi, it is now proposed using theDeepak Parekh committee report to fur-ther halve the statutory payments leviedby the Corporations & StateGovernment,” the former chief ministersaid.
“The same was proposed in the lastcabinet meeting of the Government of
Maharashtra and was kept in abeyance tillthe next cabinet meeting. It was broughtto my notice that when only a few pro-jects of selected five developers wereanalysed to capture its effect, it was foundout that this will lead to a windfall gainof more than 2000 crores,” he said.
Fadnavis went onto add: “TotalWindfall gain in one big premium landparcel is Rs 1185 crores + Rs 620 crores= Rs 1805 crores to one developer own-ing 2 lakh metres of land parcel in west-ern suburb. This is just one example andthere are many such cases which arebrought to my knowledge”.
“If the policy of 50% reductioncomes into effect the midsize developersof Mumbai who undertake standaloneredevelopment projects and SR Schemeswould lose the competitive edge. Slumrehabilitation schemes won’t be finan-cially viable. This would militate againstthe topmost priority of the governmentof Maharashtra which should ideally beto have a slum free Mumbai<’ he said.
“The cabinet proposal also says thatin lieu of the 50% rate cut, the develop-ers will have to bear the stamp duty onselling of an apartment. Looking at thewindfall gain any developer stands toreceive, he will happily do that, the for-
mer chief minister said.“Every cabinet agenda is to be kept
secret until a decision is taken but to mysurprise the entire cabinet agenda withnote and draft GR is in circulation andavailable with all developers and on socialmedia and if rumours are to be believedsome people are also doing some resourcecollection,” he said.
He urged the state to “take correc-tive action” and not to allow the stateresources to be exploited and squanderedfor private gains “especially when day inand day out the government expresses itsworry about its financial position”.
“ It is surprising that on one hand weare not able to help our farmers and ‘barabalutedars’ and on other hand we areallowing windfall gains to private people,”he said.
“I reiterate that I am not against therationalisation of govt charges to boostthe demand, but my worry and concernis about the blatant misuse of powerunder the garb of reforms. I am thereforepurposefully writing this letter to you inEnglish because in case no correctiveaction is taken by you despite being madeaware, I will be compelled to file a PILin the Bombay High court at Mumbai,”Fadnavis said.
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After the Jammu and Kashmir police onSaturday submitted a 1,400 page
chargesheet against the accused Army cap-tain and others in the Amshipora encounter,in which three labourers from Rajouri werekilled on July 18, 2020, in the local court inShopian, the Chief Judicial Magistrate hasissued a fresh order asking the Army author-ities under relevant sections of law to givetheir opinion whether the accused CaptainBhoopendra Singh @ Major Basheer Khanof 62 RR be tried by the Criminal Court ofordinary jurisdiction or by the CourtMartial.
According to a statement issued by thespokesman of the Jammu and Kashmirpolice late Sunday evening, “a 1400 pagechargesheet was presented before the CJM,Court Shopian against the accused CaptainBhoopendra Singh @ Major Basheer Khanof 62 RR and Tabish Nazir S/O NazirAhmed Malik R/O Chowgam, for commis-sion of offences u/s302,364,201,436,120B,182 IPC r/w 7/25 IAAct”.
During the investigation, a statement of49 witnesses was recorded under relevantsections of law and a total of 75 witnesseswere listed under the list of witnesses .
According to a police spokesman, “inves-tigations revealed a conspiracy was hatchedby accused Captain Bhoopendra Singh @Major Basheer Khan of 62 RR, TabishNazir S/oNazir Ahmed Malik R/o Chowgamand Bilal Ahmed Lone S/o Ghulam NabiLone R/o Arabal Nikas Pulwama to abduct
and staged the encounter”.“They deliberately and purposefully
chose not to follow SOPs, they planted ille-gally acquired weapons and material on theirdead bodies after stripping them of theiridentities and tagged them as hardcore ter-rorists in possession of war-like stores anddeliberately providing false information tocolleagues/senior”, police spokesman said.
As per SOPs Army informed the policefor registration of FIR. During investigationof above said FIR, sections 307 IPC, 7/27Arms Act, 16 ULA(P) Act against the slainyouth were dropped and the offences undersection 302, 364, 201, 436, 120-B, 182 IPCand section 7/25 IA Act against accusedCaptain Bhoopendra Singh @ Major BasheerKhan of 62 RR, accused Tabish Nazir S/ONazir Ahmed Malik R/O Chowgam and BilalAhmed Lone S/O Ghulam Nabi Lone R/OArabal Nikas Pulwama was established andtherefore incorporated in the instant Case.
During the course of investigation, thedisclosure of accused persons led the SIT torecreate all the scenes of crime whichincludes routes used after meeting the vic-tims and the place where the victims weremurdered. During further investigation allthe circumstantial evidence which includestwo Vehicles, service rifle of CaptainBhoopendra Singh of 62 RR etc. wereseized.
During investigation, accused BilalAhmed Lone S/o Ghulam Nabi Lone R/oArabal Nikas Pulwama has become approverunder relevant Section of law and his state-ment has been recorded before the Court ofCJM, Shopian.
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Thiruvananthapuram :Kerala registered 4,905 NewCovid-19 cases and 25 relat-ed deaths on Sunday, takingthe total number of thoseaffected in the state to 7.40lakh. Health Minister K KShailaja said out of the totalpositive cases, 4,307 were oflocal transmission and thecontact source of infectionfor 471 was not traceable.
"There are 44 healthcareworkers among those infect-ed. At the same time, 3,463patients have recovered fromthe disease. Of those diag-nosed with the disease, 83have travelled to the statefrom outside," the Ministersaid in a release.The Minister noted that46,116 samples were testedin the last 24 hours and the
test positivity rate was 10.64per cent. A total of 76.95 lakh sampleshave so far been sent for test-ing. The district-wise figuresfor those who tested positivetoday for coronavirus areErnakulam 605, Kozhikode579, Malappuram 517,Kottayam 509, Kollam 501,Thiruvananthapuram 322,Kannur 289. PTI
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There is a parable which ispopular in the corridorsof establishments wherepolice officers and other
security personnel are trained.The parable is of an old Bedouinwho owned many horses, chick-ens, cattle and other farm ani-mals. One night while theBedouin was asleep, a chickenwas stolen from his farm. Thenext morning, the Bedouin wokeup to find the chicken missingand turned the whole farmupside down. He instructed hisworkers to look for the birdeverywhere and asked fellowBedouins to trace and catch theman who had stolen the chicken.Since the chicken was among thehundreds that the Bedouin rearedon his farm, the workers wereshocked by the fervour withwhich he pursued the chickenthief. After all, he owned manyand this was hardly a loss. In lightof the minimal loss, the searchcrew made little effort to discov-er the identity of the thief andgave up the hunt soon.
Understandably, with the lackof serious efforts to trace thechicken thief, they never did findhim. Over the next few weeks,others who reared farm animalsfound that their cattle and hors-es were the target of repeated actsof theft. Perplexed, the youngerBedouins went to the seniorBedouin to seek counsel. The oldBedouin repeated what he hadsaid numerous times before —“Find the chicken thief.”
The moral of the story is fair-ly simple. It is a cautionary taleabout dealing with petty crimeswith seriousness because evensuch crimes have a habit ofdevolving into major ones. Theprinciple is translatable to mostwalks of life, too. With this con-text in mind, this week I want todiscuss the Supreme Court’srecent directives that were issuedwhile disposing a Special LeavePetition (SLP) raising issuesregarding audio-video record-ing of statements and the instal-lation of CCTV in police stations.In its directives and with the aimof preventing custodial torture,the Supreme Court, in anadmirable move, ordered theinstallation of CCTV cameras inthe offices of the Central Bureauof Investigation (CBI),Enforcement Directorate (ED),National Investigation Agency(NIA) and other similar agencies,in addition to police stationsacross the country.
As good as a move this is, the
Supreme Court had passed asimilar order in the past tooand actually extended theambit of an order passed by itin 2018, wherein it directedthat at least the first phase ofimplementation of crime scenevideography was required to beintroduced by July 15, 2018, inat least some places. There wassome flexibility allowed by theapex court when it said thatthis direction was subject toviability and priority as deter-mined by the CentralOversight Body.
Based on my experiencewith the police and with theCentral and StateGovernments, I am reasonablysure that to a large extent thisflexibility granted by theSupreme Court in 2018 hasbeen misused in so much thatthe directions of the highestcourt of the nation are not actu-ally followed. While you mayfeel that such a statement is pre-sumptuous, there is a richbody of evidence which wouldmake this merely a logicalinference. The most obviousexample that forms the basis ofthis view is the case of policereforms and the manner inwhich State Governments havetaken on board the SupremeCourt’s directions to date.
In 2006, the SupremeCourt — pursuant to a publicinterest litigation filed in 1996by two distinguished formerDirector Generals of Police,Prakash Singh and NK Singh— passed directions and laiddown seven directives based on
the various recommendationsmade by the National PoliceCommissions since 1979. Thedirectives are aimed at kick-starting the process of imple-menting police reforms thathave been pending since theBritish era and include consti-tuting a State SecurityCommission to ensure thatthe States do not exerciseunwarranted influence or pres-sure on the police, providing aminimum tenure of two yearsfor the DGPs, setting up aPolice Establishment Board todecide transfers, postings (asopposed to the StateGovernment) and a number ofother crucial steps to actuallymodernise the Indian policeforce which is in desperateneed to step out from under thethumb of its political mastersand step into its rightful posi-tion as a modern police force.
However, despite thesedirections from the apex court,as per a report by the interna-tional non-profitCommonwealth HumanRights Initiative, no IndianState is fully compliant with the14-year-old decision. In fact, asper this report, only two IndianStates — Andhra Pradesh andArunachal Pradesh — werepartially compliant with thebinding directives issued by theSupreme Court. This is espe-cially tragic because India is indesperate need of policereforms. Firstly, because of thesheer miniscule size of theexisting police force — as perIndiaSpend, India has 151
police personnel per 1,00,000population which is muchlower than the sanctioned 193per 1,00,000 persons. Secondly,and more importantly, suchreforms are the first step inmodernising India’s policeforce and sensitising its policeofficers. According to thereports available, one in fivepolice personnel is of the viewthat killing dangerous crimi-nals is better than a legal trial.That is a staggering number fora country that is meant to bea democracy.
However, despite theappalling state of affairs anddespite a directive from thehighest court of the land, wehave seen little to no movementfrom the side of the elected rep-resentatives. The lack of intentand inclination is easy tounderstand; by implementingthese police reforms, theGovernments will automatical-ly be forced to yield their sig-nificant control over the police,which is an important tool forabuse in the hands of politi-cians. Therefore, unless theSupreme Court decides to takeaction against theGovernments and bureaucratswho refuse to adhere to itsorders, any step forward —including the latest decision ofthe Supreme Court — willmerely be a pyrrhic victory forus to celebrate while the “chick-en thief ” is still at large.
(The author is a former IPSofficer and member of theCongress party. The viewsexpressed are personal.)�� �!���������)*( ��(���������������
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������������� ����Sir — This refers to the editori-al ‘Modi’s outreach’ (December26) wherein the newspaper right-ly suggests that the UnionGovernment should give a priceguarantee of sorts on all crops.Although the Modi Governmenthas transferred funds from theKisan Samman Nidhi to farmers’accounts, some organisationsare agitating on the borders of theNCR without knowing the tech-nical, legal and practical aspectsof the new agricultural laws.
It is ultimately the loss of thenation, society and the farmers.Prime Minister Narendra Modihas stated that the Governmentis not in favour of withdrawingthese laws. The farmer outfitsshould understand this and,instead of wasting their time,money and energy, pay dueattention to the development ofagriculture and family uplift,which will lead to their econom-ic growth. It would be better if thefarmers’ representatives interactwith the Government and man-age to get a more agriculture-friendly deal. The farmers shouldnow take the decision to concludethe current phase of protests.
Yugal Kishore SharmaFaridabad
����������������������Sir — Just a week before theBrexit transition period wasscheduled to end, Britain and theEuropean Union struck a historicfree trade deal that should averteconomic chaos and bring ameasure of certainty for business-es after years of Brexit turmoil.
The deal contains provisionson subjects ranging from civil
nuclear cooperation and energyinterconnections to fishing andaviation. It comes as a boost forBritish Prime Minister BorisJohnson, who was one of Brexit’soriginal champions and leader ofthe political movement that sawhim rise to his current position.
The deal is also welcomebecause of the fears over the newCorona strain that has seen the
number of cases surge and ledmany countries to close borderswith Britain. The news is impor-tant from an Indian perspective.The UK is looking for a trade dealwith India which could be worthup to £100 billion and which, ifit is done, would be one of thebiggest post-Brexit trade deals.
Gundu K ManiThane
����������� ���Sir — Jallikattu is a dangeroussport of bull-taming which ismostly performed in the villagesof Tamil Nadu as part of thePongal (harvest carnival) celebra-tions. Jallikattu or Manju Virattuis played generally on the secondand third days of the Pongal fair.
Injuries and deaths arecommon because, as you canwell imagine, one strong hit bya bull on the wrong part of thehuman body can be deadly. Thisis one of the oldest sports whichhas managed to survive in themodern era too. In Jallikattu, allthat the fighters have to do is tojump on a running bull, try togrip on to its bulge and movealong with the animal withoutfalling down or getting injured.
It needs quick reflexes anda fleet-foot to tame the recalci-trant bull which will try to shakeoff the fighter and, at times,stamp on or gore the fallen par-ticipants. The risks involved canbe gauged by the fact that evencapturing the photographs is atough task.
CK SubramaniamChennai
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The COVID-19 pandemic is a human tragedyof Biblical proportions which has caused anexplosion of infections and massive destruc-
tion of livelihoods. Tragically, the outbreak has alsorevealed that our societies and economies have beenoperating on a very thin margin. The edifice seemedso shiny; with jets stitching together gleaming cities,a world of soaring markets and industrial empires.But a couple of months into the contagion and it allbegan tottering. The jets were grounded, the citieswent silent and one industry after another headedfor bankruptcy. However successful our world mayhave seemed, it wasn’t very sturdy. Our systems andsociety seem to be very fragile, exploding the mythsof a robust and resilient order.
The greatest learning is that our current eco-nomic models do not benefit everyone equally. Thisis particularly true for rural societies. To combat thiswe will have to contend with the almost universalsuspicion of our grand political schemes. While wedo need plans and systems, we also need mutualaccountability. Before we have the entire apparatusin place — the economic plumbing — we mustunderstand more concretely what such a strategymeans to the people it is meant to serve, who knowbest their own problems and also have relevant andsustainable solutions for them.
Tackling the problems of the disprivilegedrequires a fundamentally-different approach: Onethat starts with the people themselves and encour-ages initiative, creativity and drive from below. Thisprinciple must be at the core of any strategy thathopes to transform their lives; only then it can belasting and meaningful.
Approaches to rural development that respectthe inherent capabilities of the people who live inrural areas and systematically build on their expe-rience, have a reasonable chance of improving theirlives. This can include enhancing their capacities tomobilise and manage resources effectively. If peo-ple can be given the support they need to build theirown democracies in their own ways, they can do therest themselves. In doing so, they will not only movetheir own communities, they will also take the worldwith them.
This is because local leadership is critical to dri-ving ownership of social programmes. We need tohire individuals with the entrepreneurialism anddrive to create change on the ground. You can’t solvethe problems of the “last mile” from the headquar-ters. It takes local entrepreneurs, empowered to adapteasily to the nuances of local cultures to succeed. Thisapproach has to be guided by local wisdom and mustshow a deep appreciation of ground realities.
We need to develop more inclusive policies toensure that rural development is made socially, eco-nomically and environmentally sustainable. Inclusiverural transformation can be promoted through peo-ple-centered development in which beneficiariesbecome agents of their own development, partici-pating in designing, decision-making and executionof the processes. Moreover, the strategies for inclu-sive transformation have to be context-specific,building on local solutions which best address localchallenges.
Such solutions may require adaptation over time.People will not actively and emotionally participatein an intervention unless it has relevance to their livesand their strengths. When communities take chargeof projects, they also contribute through their labourand commitment and engage actively with the sys-tem to ensure that projects are completed on time.
We need to invest in developing local leaderswho are typically under-acknowledged and under-supported so we are able to effectively engage withpopular movements, community-based organisa-tions and grassroots activist groups that are close to
locals. We have to constantly navigateexisting unjust, broken systems while atthe same time reimagining them
Since local entrepreneurs know thecommunity dynamics and power relation-ships, they are well-attuned to handlingthe actors in the local ecosystem. Theirpotential to drive change is tremendous,but they often lack opportunities for train-ing and education and are unable to accessnetworks and finance. Yet they are anessential part of society and often don’treceive the credit they deserve as policydrivers and implementers in India’s chal-lenging developmental space.
There has also been a failure of agri-cultural strategy which needs reappraisal.Food crops have gradually been aban-doned in favour of cash crops which aremore profitable but are also highly waterintensive. The high yielding variety (HYV)seeds which entered Indian fields duringthe Green Revolution were less resistantto droughts and floods and needed deli-cate management of water, insecticides,pesticides and chemical fertilisers.
These crops also attract more pests,forcing farmers to apply chemical pesti-cides to save them. So, every year thefarmer had to spend more to grow suchcrops. Typically the commercial seeds hadto be purchased year after year, and farm-ers could not reuse seeds from their crop,with seed manufacturing giants filing law-suits against small farmers who did so. Itbecame a perpetual treadmill. Familiesfaced crippling healthcare costs, crop fail-ures, loss of income and debt, all direct-ly related to pesticides. The overuse ofchemical fertilisers for augmenting yieldsin the short term led to physical and chem-ical degradation of the soil by altering thenatural microflora and increasing soilsalinity and alkalinity. Higher yields andprofits in the short-term have come at ahuge socio-ecological cost such as biodi-versity loss, environmental pollution,land degradation, increased damage from
climate change, infusion of toxic elementsinto the food chain from chemical residueapplied in the crop field leading to declinein human health and livelihood and theerosion of agricultural expertise.
Formerly, societies might have dependupon 200 to 300 crops for food and healthsecurity but gradually we have come to thestage of four or five important crops:wheat, corn, rice and soybean. Thishomogenisation increases profitabilityfor a handful of owners, to the detrimentof everyone else.
The cultivation of indigenous and her-itage crops has the potential to make agri-culture genetically diverse, sustainable andresilient to climate variability. Indigenouslandraces have evolved in the region overthousands of years of agrarian practice andhave relied on fungicides, organic fertilis-ers and pesticides prepared from locallyavailable materials. The Green Revolutionintroduced newer methods of cultivation;brought in new strains of seeds generat-ed through modern methods of plantbreeding which gave high yields; intensi-fied the use of fossil fuel fertilisers;increased acreage through double crop-ping; used pesticides and mechanicalequipment extensively and massively;and drilled into groundwater reservesthrough deep borewells.
Native heirloom seeds adapted to localdiets and conditions were replaced byexpensive corporate-produced hybrids,often dumped in India after having failedelsewhere. Although the new high-per-formance varieties guaranteed high yields,they degraded soil quality, harmed biodi-versity, polluted the environment and irre-versibly damaged human health.
The pandemic will hopefully helpfarmers to take conscious decisions andshift gradually to sustainable practices,rather than changing things hurriedly byfollowing the instruction given by seed orpesticide companies through extensionworkers, dealers, or the labels on the pack-
aging of crop inputs. They will use theirown experience or knowledge acquiredthrough experimentation rather thanrelying on hearsay or advertising, whenbuying inputs (for example seeds and fer-tiliseers).
The pandemic has already underlinedthe need for them to come up with con-text-specific solutions for ecologicallysustainable agriculture. We hope farmerswill apply their own knowledge of ecolo-gy, soil fertility management, seed preser-vation and pest management which theyused to rely on before the advent of con-ventional agriculture.
There are many lessons to be broughtto the table from field experience. We needto understand the existing human condi-tions rather than hastily proposing tem-plates that serve the interests of the own-ers. Experts need to combine their knowl-edge with grassroots action and a widercommunity of practice. The incrediblyevolving and complicated ecosystemrequires better collaboration and partner-ships for understanding, analysing, design-ing solutions and for undertaking impactstudies to contribute to the wider knowl-edge pool within. We have to usher a cul-ture where farmers can apply their ownknowledge and skills rather than beingexpected to follow what the external agen-cies are prescribing.
There is need for integration of anentire gamut of resources, ranging fromfinancial and human to markets and enti-tlements. When we address these issuesempathetically, we can move ahead witha more self-assured, robust and proactiveengagement towards inclusive growthand livelihood development. What weessentially need is a community-based,businesslike approach encompassinggrassroots action, policy advocacy andeverything in between.
(The writer is a well-known develop-ment professional of international repute.The views expressed are personal.)
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The Union Territory (UT) ofJammu and Kashmir (J&K) isset to chart the course of devel-
opment and social inclusion. TheValley is no longer the political fiefdomof the People’s Alliance for GupkarDeclaration (PAGD) or GupkarAlliance. Its members were expectingan absolute majority of the people tovote in their favour in the DistrictDevelopment Council (DDC) polls.However, a large number of the peo-ple of the Valley have put their faithin Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s
leadership. Plus, Independents turnedout to be key players during these elec-tions, registering their win on 50 seats.
In Kashmir, the BJP has won threeseats, contrary to the expectations ofthe Gupkar Alliance and has polled agood number of votes in all. The partycontested on 115 seats. In Jammuregion, it fought on 129 seats, won 72seats and lost 57. The BJP’s overall votepercentage is 24.64 per cent as com-pared to 22.92 per cent polled by thePAGD. Independent candidates polled28.36 per cent votes, while theCongress got around 14 per cent.
The performance of theIndependents and the BJP points tothe people’s disenchantment with theGupkar Alliance, which has just reg-istered the proverbial Pyrrhic victory.In the DDC elections the real winneris India, Indian ethos, values and thedecision of the Union Government tocompletely integrate J&K with thenation.
This was on hold due to thosewho had converted the region intotheir political fiefdom in their nefar-ious pursuit to exploit the innocentpeople and resources meant for the cit-izens.
Over the years, corrupt politicianslooted the Valley’s resources to fill theirown coffers and kept dancing to thetune of divisive forces. It was the dar-ing decision and vision of Modi,which ensured the complete integra-tion of the Valley into India.
Even though the Gupkar Alliancehas won, but the fact that the BJP hasemerged as the single-largest party, hasmade the people’s intent clear. They arestrongly aligned to the Constitution,democracy and India.
Had the Gupkar Alliance mem-bers fought the election individually,they would have been decimated.Instead of working hard to mitigate thewoes and hardships of the people ofthe Valley and taking the benefits of
welfare schemes to them, the corruptpoliticians misled the people andkept the citizens impoverished.
Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee, thefounder of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh,sacrificed his life spearheading anationwide non-violent agitationdemanding complete integration ofJ&K into the Indian Union. On May10,1953, he courted arrest chanting theslogan that there can’t be twoConstitutions, two Prime Ministersand two flags in one nation. He wastaken to Srinagar jail where he diedunder mysterious circumstances onJune 23, 1953.
By revoking Article 370 on August5, 2019, the Central Government hasenabled the people of the region toaccess all Central Government pro-grammes and laws including the rightto reservation for the disempowered,right to education and right to infor-mation, besides other facilities.
The UTs of J&K and Ladakh have
adopted an ambitious road map ofpeace and progress, ushering in a newera of inclusive development andtransparent governance in the entireregion. The Central Government hasadopted an integrated approach tobuild state-of-the-art infrastructureand unleashed a slew of fast tracksocial welfare and employment-gen-eration schemes and programmes.
This is especially true for Medium,Small and Micro Enterprises (MSMEs)including cottage, handicraft, hand-loom and horticulture enterprises asthe schemes are aimed at comprehen-sive growth and the socio-economicemancipation of the marginalisedand underprivileged sections of soci-ety in all three regions.
Good quality, all-weather roadsand national highways enhancing thehitherto lacking inter and intra-regionconnectivity have gone a long way inpromoting and creating fresh employ-ment opportunities in the post-bifur-
cation period. Tourism has alwaysbeen the lifeline of Kashmir’s econo-my and the enhanced infrastructureis proving to be a key to its success bypromoting exports from the Valley aswell.
The Road Transport andHighways Ministry, with its arms likethe National Highways Authority ofIndia and the National Highwaysand Infrastructure DevelopmentCorporation, in concert with theBorder Roads Organisation and theState Public Works Department arecurrently engaged in completing aseries of projects which will giveimpetus to growth and help entrepre-neurs establish producer companieswith focus on further development ofsericulture, cold water fisheries, wood-work, cricket bats, saffron, handicraftand horticulture produce.
Jammu, with a rapidly-growingrail and road connectivity, includingthe Jammu Ring Road, is witnessing
a huge economic boost with flourish-ing religious tourism and start-ups inbusinesses like wood grain work,mills, basmati rice trade, rice mills, car-pets, electronic items and electricgoods.
Similarly, Ladakh is witnessing anunprecedented boost to infrastructuredevelopment with all-weather roadsand highway networks coming up ina big way in difficult terrains and atstrategic locations. Domestic andinternational tourism promotion hasbeen given a big push in Ladakh.
The sky seems to be the limit, withcentral financial packages to Ladakhresulting in a phenomenal growth inits economy through enhanced agri-culture and livestock activities. TheCentre and the State administrationmust join hands and ensure all rounddevelopment of the region.
(The writer is deputy in-charge ofBJP for J&K. The views expressed arepersonal.)
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More than 37 people aredead and 18 others seri-
ously injured after a bus crashin Cameroon’s western villageof Nemale, officials said.
A 70-seater bus was on itsway to the capital, Yaounde,from the western town ofFoumban when it crashed intoa truck while trying to avoid acrowd of people on the roadaround 2 a.M. Sunday, saidAbsalom Monono Woloa, asenior government official inthe area.
“Most of the travelers wereeither going to spend NewYear’s Day with their families,returning from Christmas Dayfestivities or were businesspeople supplying gifts for NewYear’s feasts,” he said.
Village residents ran to theroad to help the more than 60commuters who were on thebus, he said.
The death toll will likelyrise as rescue workers digthrough the wreckage, he said.
Islamabad: At least sevenPakistani soldiers were killed ina terrorist attack in the country’srestive Balochistan province,the Army said on Sunday.
The militants fire-raided aFrontier Corps (FC) outpost inHarnai region of the provincelate last night, it said.
During the intenseexchange of fire, seven soldierswere killed, it said.
The area was cordoned off
and escape routes blocked toapprehend the fleeing militants,while a large-scale search andclearance operation was under-way.
“Such cowardly acts byinimical elements backed byanti-state forces will not beallowed to sabotage hard earnedpeace and prosperity inBalochistan,” the Army said.
Commenting on the attack,Prime Minister Imran Khan
said that he was “saddened” overthe loss of lives.
“My heartfelt condolences& prayers go to their families,”he said.
The attack followed thekilling of 10 terrorists by thesecurity forces five days ago inthe province.
The terrorists affiliated withthe Baloch nationalist outfitsregularly attack the securityforces in the province. PTI
Bangui: Voting has begun inCentral African Republics pres-idential and legislative electionsafter a campaign periodmarked by violence betweenrebels and government forces.
Despite calls from theopposition to delay the voteamid the insecurity, theConstitutional Court rejected apostponement.
President Faustin-Archange Touadera, seeking asecond term, has tried to reas-sure candidates and voters thatthe voting will be secure. Thisis the central African country’sfirst election since a peace dealwas signed between the gov-ernment and 14 rebel groups inFebruary 2019, although fight-
ing continues.Three peacekeepers from
Burundi were killed and twoothers wounded Friday byarmed combatants. The U.N.Secretary-General AntonioGuterres condemned theattacks in the Dekoua andBakouma areas ahead of theelections, calling for swift jus-tice and saying they may con-stitute war crimes.
The U.N. Retook the townof Bambari last week fromrebels. Rebel groups have alsoseized several towns near thecapital, Bangui.
Voters went to the polls inthe capital Sunday, though oth-ers had fled the violence overthe holiday weekend.
Many residents of the townof Bangassou in the nationssoutheast were fleeing becauseof the fighting, residents said.
“I am in the town ofBangassou but my wife andchildren crossed to the otherside of the bank towards Congobecause of the violence,” saidChristian Kombro a teacherfrom the town.
The government blamesthe unrest on former PresidentFrancois Bozize, who returnedfrom exile a year ago and hasbeen blocked from running inthe election. He has beenaccused of joining up witharmed groups to destabilize thecountry and launch a coup. Hehas denied it. AP
Niamey: Niger began votingSunday in presidential and leg-islative elections that could seethe West African country’s firstdemocratic transition of powersince independence amid agrowing threat from jihadists inthe region.
Polls opened with a goodturnout.
“Equipment was wellinstalled and the first voter wasable to vote,” just after 8 a.M.At the Diori school in Niamey,according to the head of thepolling station there, KhadijaHassan.
“Everything has been goingnormally.”
Other voting centers inthe capital reported successfulopenings as well, with COVID-19 restrictions in place.
Some 7.4 million Nigeriensare voting to elect legislatorsand the successor to PresidentMahamadou Issoufou.
Issoufou, who has servedtwo terms, is stepping down,paving the way for the firstpeaceful transfer of powerbetween two elected presidentssince Niger became indepen-dent from France in 1960.Niger has seen four coupssince then.
A peaceful transfer wouldbe significant not only in Nigerbut also in West Africa, whereleaders recently have held onfor disputed third terms inGuinea and Ivory Coast.
Niger’s next president willhave to deal with major prob-lems including extremism,poverty, displacement and cor-ruption. Attacks by Islamicextremists has affected localelections for weeks. In the mostrecent incident, the Nigeria-based Boko Haram fighterskilled more than 28 people inToumour in the Diffa region,the day before the vote. AP
Beirut: More than 300 Syrianrefugees were forced to flee aninformal camp in northernLebanon as a blaze ragedthrough and burnt tents to theground, UN and Lebaneseofficials said on Sunday.
The fire late Saturday ragedfor four hours as firefighterstried to put it out, the Lebanesecivil defense said.
The fire ensued followinga fight between a Lebanesefamily in al-Miniyeh in thecountrys north and Syriansliving in the camp, according toLebanese media reports.
A Lebanese official said thearmy is investigating the causeof the fire and conductingraids to round up those respon-sible for the altercation. Theofficial spoke on condition ofanonymity because an officialstatement has not yet beenreleased.
Khaled Kabbara, a UNRefugee Agency spokesman innorthern Lebanon, said some375 people lived in the infor-
mal settlement that was locat-ed on a plot of rented land. Hesaid the entire camp was burntto the ground.
Kabbara said four peoplewere injured in the fire andhospitalized with minorinjuries. He said some residentsof the camp returned Sunday tosee if anything could be sal-vaged from the fire.
Most of the refugees havesought refuge in other nearbyinformal settlements. Somefrom the local community havealso offered shelter, Kabbarasaid.
Kabbara said altercationsbetween residents and Syrianrefugees often “catastrophical-ly impact the community as awhole”. AP
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Ahigh-level Chinese delega-tion led by a vice minister
of the Chinese CommunistParty arrived in Kathmandu onSunday to “take stock” ofNepal’s political situation afterthe dissolution of Parliamentand subsequent split in the rul-ing Nepal Communist Party,according to a media report.
Although no specificdetails about the agenda of thevisit are available, the four-member delegation, led byVice Minister of theInternational Department ofthe Communist Party of China(CPC) Guo Yezhou, will holdhigh-level talks during its stayin Kathmandu, My Republicanewspaper reported, citingsenior NCP leaders.
Quoting a diplomaticsource, it said the visit is aimedat “taking stock of Nepal’sevolving political situation afterthe dissolution of the House ofRepresentatives and subse-quent split in the ruling NepalCommunist Party amidalready-deepened intra-partyrift”.
Nepal plunged into a polit-ical crisis last Sunday after
embattled Prime Minister K PSharma Oli, known for hispro-Beijing leanings, in a sur-prise move, recommended dis-solving the 275-memberHouse, amidst a tussle forpower with former prime min-ister Pushpa Kamal Dahal‘Prachanda’.
Acting on the prime min-ister’s recommendation,President Bidya Devi Bhandaridissolved the House the sameday and announced fresh elec-tions on April 30 and May 10,sparking protests from a largesection of the NCP led byPrachanda, also a co-chair ofthe ruling party.
Meanwhile, the Chineseembassy in Kathmandu and theMinistry of Foreign Affairs aretight-lipped about Guo’s visit,the report said.
Earlier this week, ChineseAmbassador to Nepal, HouYanqi, had communicatedabout the visit of Guo toKathmandu during her meet-ings with senior NCP leaders ofboth the Prachanda- and Oli-led factions.
Vice Minister Guo isscheduled to hold meetingswith the leaders of both thefactions.
Beijing: At least seven peoplewere killed in a knife attack inChina’s northeast Liaoningprovince, officials said onSunday.
The suspect has been arrest-ed by the police, state-runCGTN reported. The incident inKaiyuan city also left sevenpeople injured, including apolice officer who was involvedin the arrest of the suspect.
The officials confirmed thedeath of seven people in theattack. The injured have beentaken to hospital, but their con-dition was not immediatelyknown. Violent crimes are rarein China as compared to manyother countries, but there hasbeen a series of knife and axeattacks in recent years.
Knife attacks by disgruntledpeople have been reported fromdifferent parts of the country inthe past few years. PTI
Rome: European Unionnations kicked off a coordi-nated effort on Sunday to giveCovid-19 vaccinations to themost vulnerable among thebloc’s nearly 450 million peo-ple, marking a moment ofhope in the continent’s battleagainst the worst public healthcrisis in a century.
Health care workers, theelderly and leading politiciansgot some of the first shotsacross the 27-nation bloc toreassure the public that the vac-cinations are safe and representthe best chance to emerge fromthe pandemic.
“It didn’t hurt at all,” saidMihaela Anghel, a nurse at theMatei Bals Institute inBucharest who was the firstperson to get the vaccine inRomania. “Open your eyesand take the vaccine.”
In Rome, five doctors andnurses wearing white scrubs satin a semi-circle at theSpallanzani infectious diseaseshospital to receive their doses.
“The message is one ofhope, trust and an invitation toshare this choice,” said one ofthe recipients, Dr MariaRosaria Capobianchi, whoheads the virology laboratory at
Spallanzani and was part of theteam that isolated the virus inearly February. “There is noreason to be concerned.”
Italian virus czar DomenicoArcuri said it was significant thatItaly’s first vaccine doses wereadministered at Spallanzani,where a Chinese couple visitingfrom Wuhan tested positive inJanuary and became Italy’s firstconfirmed cases.
Only later would northernLombardy become the epicen-tre of the outbreak in Europe.Italy now has the continent’sworst confirmed virus deathtoll at nearly 72,000.
“Today is a beautiful, sym-bolic day: All the citizens ofEurope together are starting toget their vaccinations, the firstray of light after a long night,”Arcuri told reporters outside thehospital. But he cautioned: “Weall have to continue to be pru-dent, cautious and responsible.We still have a long road ahead,but finally we see a bit of light.”
The vaccines, developedby Germany’s BioNTech andAmerican drugmaker Pfizer,started arriving in super-coldcontainers at EU hospitals onFriday from a factory inBelgium. AP
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Unemployment benefits formillions of Americans strug-gling to make ends meet lapsedovernight as President DonaldTrump refused to signed anend-of-year Covid relief andspending bill that had beenconsidered a done deal beforehis sudden objections.
The fate of the bipartisanpackage remained in limboSunday as Trump continued todemand larger Covid reliefchecks and complained about“pork” spending. Without thewidespread funding providedby the massive measure, a gov-ernment shutdown wouldoccur when money runs out at12:01 a.M. Tuesday.
“It’s a chess game and weare pawns,” said LanetrisHaines, a self-employed singlemother of three in South Bend,Indiana, who stood to lose her$129 weekly jobless benefitunless Trump signed the pack-age into law or succeeded in hisimprobable quest for changes.
Washington has been reel-ing since Trump turned on thedeal after it had won sweepingapproval in both houses ofCongress and after the WhiteHouse had assured Republicanleaders that Trump would sup-port it. Instead, he assailed the
bill’s plan to provide $600Covid relief checks to mostAmericans — insisting itshould be $2,000. HouseRepublicans swiftly rejectedthat idea during a rareChristmas Eve session. ButTrump has not been swayed inspite of the nation being in thegrip of a pandemic.
“I simply want to get ourgreat people $2000, rather thanthe measly $600 that is now inthe bill,” Trump tweetedSaturday from Palm Beach,Florida, where he is spendingthe holiday. “Also, stop the bil-lions of dollars in ‘pork.’”President-elect Joe Biden calledon Trump to sign the billimmediately as the midnightSaturday deadline neared for
two federal programs provid-ing unemployment aid.
“It is the day afterChristmas, and millions of fam-ilies don’t know if they’ll be ableto make ends meet because ofPresident Donald Trump’srefusal to sign an economicrelief bill approved by Congresswith an overwhelming andbipartisan majority,” Biden saidin a statement. He accusedTrump of an “abdication ofresponsibility” that has “devas-tating consequences.” “I’ve beentalking to people who are scaredthey’re going to be kicked outfrom their homes, during theChristmas holidays, and stillmight be if we don’t sign thisbill,’’ said Rep. Debbie Dingell,a Michigan Democrat. AP
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Islamabad: Pakistan’s Sindhprovince Government hasdecided not to release British-born al-Qaeda leader AhmedOmar Saeed Sheikh and histhree aides, accused of kid-napping and murdering USjournalist Daniel Pearl, in viewof a Supreme Court order,according to a media report.
In a surprise move, a two-judge bench of the Sindh HighCourt on Thursday directedsecurity agencies not to keepSheikh and other accused under“any sort of detention” anddeclared all notifications of theSindh government related totheir detention “null and void”.The court observed that the fourmen’s detention was “illegal”.
The court, however, hadclarified that the accusedshould not be released if thereis a Supreme Court restrainingorder regarding their detention.
Citing its sources, theExpress Tribune newspapersaid that the provincial gov-ernment will not release thesemen in view of the SupremeCourt’s September 28 order.
The Pakistan People’sParty-led Sindh governmentbelieves that the apex court’sSeptember 28 order in the caseis still in the field, the sourcestold the daily.
A three-judge apex courtbench headed by JusticeMushir Alam on September 28noted that till the next date ofhearing, the accused shall notbe released.
A senior government offi-cial said the apex court order
has not been specificallyrecalled.
“The SHC in its December24 order also clarified thataccused should not be releasedif there is a Supreme Courtrestraining order regardingtheir detention,” he added. Thesources said the Sindh govern-ment will also challenge theSHC’s December 24 order inthe apex court on Monday.
In April, a two-judge SindhHigh Court bench commutedthe death sentence of 46-year-old Sheikh to seven years impris-onment. The court also acquit-ted his three aides who wereserving life terms in the case —almost two decades after theywere found guilty and jailed.
However, the Sindh gov-ernment refused to releasethem and kept them in deten-tion under the Maintenance ofPublic Order. Their continuousdetention was challenged in theSindh High Court, whichordered their release onThursday.
On Friday, the UnitedStates expressed “deep con-cern” over the order to releaseSheikh and his aides and saidit will continue to monitorany developments in the case.
“We are deeply concernedby the reports of the December24 ruling of Sindh High Courtto release multiple terroristsresponsible for the murder ofDaniel Pearl. We have beenassured that the accused havenot been released at this time,”the US State Department saidin a tweet. PTI
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As the deadline for filing ofIncome Tax Returns (ITR)
nears, around 41 per cent smallbusinesses think that it isimpossible to file their returnsby December 31 and want anextension to the deadline,according to a survey byLocalCircles.The surveyshowed that 30 per cent of therespondents already filed theirreturns while around 18 percent have not filed yet and willcomfortably do before thedeadline, while 11 per centbelieved that it will take sig-nificant effort doing it beforethe month end.
Among the individual tax-payers surveyed, 34 per cent ofthe respondents have not filedtheir returns yet, and 13 percent said that they want anextension of the deadline as itwould be impossible for themto file ITR by the end ofDecember.
Around 48 per cent of
individual taxpayers said thatthey have done it already ear-lier this year, and 18 per centsaid they have done it in the lastcouple of months, while 8 percent believed that it wouldtake significant effort doing itbefore the deadline.ALocalCircles statement notedthat small businesses have hada highly challenging 2020 dueto the Covid-19 pandemic andthe lockdowns.It was only afterSeptember when signs of pickup in business activity emergedand for many small business-es it has been about recoveringsome of the accumulated loss-es from March-August thisyear.It also said that for manysmall businesses, there isdependency on GST returnsand business returns are typi-cally more complicated thanindividual returns and many ofthem require several sittingsand information exchange withtheir accounting professionalswhich have become difficultdue to the pandemic.
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The All India RubberIndustries Association
(AIRIA) has called for ratio-nalisation of tax structure andsaid that the inverted dutystructure impacts the localindustry.
It also said that the gov-ernment should consider pro-viding adequate support andhandholding to the producersand should device ‘PhasedManufacturing Programme’for enhancing the localisa-tion in the rubber sector ofIndia.
The industry body notedthat import of raw materialssuch as natural rubber and latex
attract import duties of as highas 70 per cent, while that onfinished goods is much lower,which impacts the local rubbergoods producing industry, andstands as an obstacle towardsthe vision of ‘AtmanirbharBharat’.
“Some of the productswhich used to come fromChina are being routed throughThailand and Vietnam at eitherzero per cent duty or 5 per centduty.
India should correct thecustoms duty for the sector.The Indian rubber industryuses more than 70 raw materi-als and some of them alsoattract anti-dumping duty aswell,” AIRIA said.
New Delhi:The Government’sdecision on mandatory pay-ment of at least 1 per cent ofGST tax liability in cash willonly apply to establishmentshaving an annual turnover ofRs 6 crore and the new rule willnot apply to micro and smallbusinesses, and compositiondealers, finance ministrysources said on Sunday.
Based on the recommen-dations of the GST LawCommittee, the governmenthas notified new indirect taxrules that makes cash pay-ment of 1 per cent of GST taxliability mandatory for busi-nesses whose taxable supplyvalue exceeds Rs 50 lakh in amonth. This change will comeinto effect from January 1,2021.The new rules stokedfears that the mandatory cashpayment will adversely affectsmall businesses and willincrease their working capitalrequirement.
“Contrary to what is beingfed, the new rule will only helpto curb the menace of of fakeITC availment and impact onlyrisky and suspicious dealers orfly-by-night operators. It will inno way disturb honest taxpay-
ers,” said one of the sourcesquoted above.
Apart from turnover basedexemption, the cash paymentrule will also not apply in thecases the registered persondeposited more than Rs 1 lakhas Income Tax in each of thelast two years and where suchperson has received a refund ofmore than Rs 1 lakh in the pre-ceding financial year onaccount of export or invertedtax structure. Also, the cashrule is not applicable to gov-ernment department, PSU andlocal authority.
Explaining the reason forintroducing this rule, a highlyplaced Finance Ministry sourcesaid that a legitimate businessruns for profit and a minimumvalue addition is expected fromthem. It is only where a lot offake credit is used that no taxpayment in cash is made.Further, dummy companieswhich generate fake ITC or areused to be a layer in multi-layerfake credit flow pays no tax incash.
“This provision is a verysmart rule against fraudster andwould not affect any genuinebusiness entities or Ease of
Doing Business in any manner,”said Finance Ministrysources.With regard toturnover based exemption, thefinance ministry has clarifiedonly those businesses whichhave turnover more than Rs 6Crore and pay more than 99per cent of its tax through ITC(input tax credit) and yet payless than Rs 1 lakh income taxin a year - will fall in the riskycategory under this rule.Thenew rule is expected to controlfake invoices fraudsters whoavail and pass on ITC bydummy, fake and dormantentities which show highturnovers, but have no finan-cial credibility and flee afterissuing fake invoices and mis-using ITC.
The seriousness of thismenace to GST ecosystem mayeven be understood by thefact that in the recent nation-wide drive against GST fakeinvoice frauds that waslaunched in the second week ofNovember and still going on,has resulted in the arrest ofmore than 175 fraudsters andmore than 1,800 cases arebooked against 8,000 fake enti-ties in just 40/45 days. IANS
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As many as 442 infrastruc-ture projects have report-
ed a cost overrun of morethan Rs 4.34 lakh crore as ofDecember 1, according to thedata from the Ministry ofStatistics and ProgrammeImplementation.
A report by the Ministryshowed that 536 Central sectorprojects are delayed from theiroriginal schedules.
“Total original cost ofimplementation of the 1,671projects was 21,21,383.82 croreand their anticipated comple-tion cost is likely to be25,55,957.52 crore, whichreflects overall cost overruns of4,34,573.70 crore (20.49 percent of original cost),” said thereport.
The expenditure incurred
on these projects till November2020 is nearly Rs 11.94 lakhcrore, which is 46.71 per centof the anticipated cost of theprojects. It said that of the over-all 1,671 Central sector infra-structure projects costing Rs150 crore and above, nine pro-jects are ahead of the schedule,184 are on schedule, 536 aredelayed, 442 projects reportedcost overrun and 212 projectsreported both time and costoverrun with respect to theiroriginal project implementa-tion schedules. However, itsaid the number of delayedprojects decreases to 412 ifdelay is calculated on the basisof latest schedule of comple-tion.Further, for 942 projectsneither the year of commis-sioning nor the tentative ges-tation period has been report-ed.
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Air India Employees Unionhas asked for a meeting
with Civil Aviation MinisterHardeep Puri seeking exten-sion of the medical scheme,leave encashment and provi-dent fund benefits in the eventof privatisation of Air India.
In a letter to Puri, theAIEU said that the existingmedical scheme in Air Indiashould be continued as it is forthe serving and retired employ-ees.
On provident fund, theunion said that there are twoseparate Provident Fund trustsin erstwhile Air India and erst-while Indian Airlines which aregoverned by the 1925 PF TrustAct.
“We would like these truststo be continued as it is in thecase of privatisation/disinvest-
ment of Air India,” the unionsaid.
On leave encashment,AIEU said there is a practice ofavailing the benefit of leaveencashment at the time ofretirement.
“Several employees dependon this benefit to lead a decentretired life. We fear this bene-fit may be discontinued incase of privatisation of AirIndia and employees will suf-fer huge financial losses.Therefore, AIEU would like topropose that the employeesshould be paid leave encash-ment allowance till March 31,2021,” the letter said.
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Oil marketing companies(OMC) continued to hold
the pause button on petroland diesel prices across the fourmetros on Sunday.In thenational capital, petrol wassold for �83.71 per litre.Similarly, in the other key citiesof Mumbai, Chennai andKolkata, the fuel was priced atunchanged levels of �90.34,�86.51 and �85.19 respective-ly.The prices have been thesame since they were lastrevised on Dec 7.The OMCshave gone on a pause mode ata time when expectations ofvaccines to counter the pan-demic and that of a major pick-up in the demand have keptcrude oil on the boil with theprices breaching $50 a barrelmark.
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CII has suggested the gov-ernment to bring about
clarity in the taxation laws, sim-plification of procedures andreduction of litigation in theupcoming Union Budget.
It noted that the taxationlaws should facilitate businesstransitions and make doingbusiness easier for the industry.
In a statement, the indus-try body noted that Section80JJAA provides for deductionof 30 per cent on emolumentspaid to new employees, whichcan be claimed for three years.This is available up to an emol-ument of Rs 25,000 per month.
Stressing on the need togive a boost to employment athigher levels, CII has suggest-ed raising the cap to Rs 50,000per month to encourageemployment in higher skilledjobs as well.
It further said over the lastfew years, in order to enhancethe financial strength of banks,and for the stability of thefinancial sector, RBI has man-dated that banks should aug-ment their NPA provisioning.
CII has suggested that the limitprescribed under section36(1)(viia)(a) for provision forbad and doubtful debts for theIndian banks should beincreased from the existinglimit of 8.5 per cent to 15 percent.
It told the Finance Ministrythat banks operating in Indiafacilitate foreign investmentby Foreign PortfolioInvestments (FPI) by acting ascustodians (cash and securities)for the FPIs investing in India.
“Specific clarificationshould be provided so thatbanking and broking serviceproviders are not held as rep-resentative assessees of theirclients,” it said.
Over the years, RBI haslowered the limit for recogniz-ing an account as NPA from sixmonths to 90 days. Accordingto CII’s budget recommenda-tions, Rule 6EA should beamended to provide that incase of banks, the interest onNPA which has become over-due for more than 90 daysshould be excluded from thetotal income and be taxed onlyon receipt basis.
CII has suggested the lay-ing down of general principlesto guide the import tariff struc-ture along with a roadmap toencourage and calibratedomestic manufacturing inalignment with global tradetrends. It said that such a movewould strengthen India’s man-ufacturing capacities and boostits export competitiveness asper shifting global value chainsin the next three to five years.
It has also suggested agraded roadmap towards com-petitive import tariffs over thenext three years, with lowest or0-2.5 per cent for inputs or rawmaterials, highest slab of 5-7.5per cent for final products and2.5 to 5 per cent for interme-diates. This will help Indianindustry integrate into theglobal value chain whilebecoming competitive with itsgoods and services in the worldmarkets.
As per the industry bodythese initiatives would go a longway in bringing growth back tothe economy and moving onestep ahead towards a taxpayerfriendly regime.
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The Covid-19 virus not onlytriggered a worldwide pan-
demic, but also opened thefloodgates for investments inthe countrys equity market.
All in all, not only did theoverall capitalisation of India’sdomestic market increased, thecountry’s key indices emergedamong the best performingemerging markets (EMs).
Initially, the lockdowninduced crash led to attractivevaluations along with a globalflood of liquidity and nearzero interest rates in foreignmarkets. As a result, return oninvestment from several assetclasses except equities vapor-ised.
Investors jumped from oneassets class to the other, till thetime even the US dollar becameunviable due to the massivestimulus package. Accordingly,the funnelling of such fundsinto the emerging markets ledto a net investment of over $22billion into India’s market till
now in CY2020.Besides foreign funds, the
domestic lockdown, the biggestin the world, flooded the stockmarkets with over 60 lakh newretail investors.
Additionally, a consider-able number enrolled throughvarious schemes via the MFsegment. Market watchers con-tend that these newbieinvestors saw the value instocks beyond the pandemicinduced slowdown and becamethe real beneficiaries of the upmove.Till now in 2020, Indianmarkets witnessed FPI inflowsof $22,281 million, which is 55per cent higher than the flowsin the entire 2019 in USDterms.
However, the domestic MFhouses pulled out over Rs33,000 crore till November2020.
“Valuations are at 2SD(standard deviation) over the10 year average, hence there issome caution on this front.However as long as interestrates continue to be zero or
near zero across the globe, P/Eratios could keep expanding tolevels not seen in the past,” saidDeepak Jasani, Head of RetailResearch at HDFC Securities.
In terms of purchase, FPIsinitially preferred large capstocks till October. Later on,they enlarged their purchasesto include the mid and smallcap segments.
Sectorally, IT, pharma,banks, FMCG, metals, realtyand oil & gas stocks werebought the most by FPIs in thisyear.Apart from very high FPIinflows in 2020, large numberof new investor registrationsdue to the Covid-19 pandem-ic has also contributed to theuprun in the market.
“The huge stimulus rolledout by central banks across thedeveloped world to tackle thepandemic in 2020 has certain-ly led to abundant liquidity.While it was expected thatEMs would see strong FPIflows in 2020, the fact remainsthat only few emergingeconomies have seen such
flows and India is one suchcountry, especially given theslew of reforms undertaken in2020,” said LKP Securities’Head of Research, S.Ranganathan.
“Having said that, it cannotbe denied that lakhs of youngfirst time equity investors haveopened DEMAT accounts dur-ing 2020 and have invested intodirect equities which is also areflection of financialisationof savings,” Ranganathanadded.
According to Gaurav Garg,Head of Research at CapitalViaGlobal Research: “Moving for-ward, FPIs may continue toconcentrate in the Indian mar-ket for another 1-2 quarters.
“The factors like lowCovid-19 case count, expectedvaccine in the first half of2021, fear of valuations may goeven higher and economicreturn to the growth trajecto-ry are expected to potentiallyfuel more development in theemerging markets such asIndia.”
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With the government grad-ually Bringing small
businesses under Goods andServices Tax chain, it hasbecome a boon for serviceproviders, a tax startup hasclaimed.
The startup, GST Dost,estimates the total value ofGST and related services to beover Rs 12,000 crore.
“The introduction of e-invoicing for companies of Rs100 crore and above will opennew business opportunity forus. There are approximately13,500 businesses havingturnover of over Rs 100 crore
in India,” GST DOST presidentVikas Dhanania told PTI.
E-invoicing is currentlymandated for businesses withan annual turnover over Rs 500crore.The government has noti-fied the mandatory require-ment of e-invoicing for B2Btransactions for businesses witha turnover of over Rs 100 crorewith effect from January 1,2021.For the government itwill lead to reduction in fraudcases in tax evasion, he said.
“With the governmentexpanding the GST ambit tosmall businesses, we are aimingat a multi-fold rise in our rev-enue over the next 2-3 years,”he said.
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Third party logistics compa-ny FM Logistic plans to
double its warehousing space to1.2 crore sq ft in three to fouryears from 60 lakh sq ft at pre-sent as it expects demand forsuch facilities to increase in theaftermath of the pandemic, itsMD and CEO AlexandreAmine Soufiani said.
Soufiani expects sales toreturn to pre-COVID levels byMarch 2021 as 90 per cent ofthe business has already recov-ered by December.
With its plans to set up Agrade facilities in all metrocities and “dynamic economicareas”, especially multi-cus-tomer units, and focus onurban logistics, FM Logisticlooks to attain leadership posi-tion in the sector, Soufianisaid. Grade A warehouses arecategorised on the basis ofconstruction quality, availablespace, location, amenities andclients, among others
In March 2019, FMLogistic had outlined its plansto invest USD 150 million overthe next five years to set up newwarehouses in India, with focuson multi-client warehouses.
“When we acquired SpearLogistics in 2016, there wasonly 20 lakh sq ft space andfour warehousing units. Todaywe have 60 lakh sq ft in fouryears and we want to doublethis to take it to 1.20 crore sqft under our operations in thenext 3-4 years,” Soufiani toldPTI in an interaction.
The company has alreadyannounced its plans to add 40lakh sq ft warehousing space in
the next three years that willtake its total space to 1 crore sqft, he said, adding that it couldadd another 20 lakh sq ft.
He said the company hasadded a total of 10 lakh sq ftspace in the last six months, allfor multi-customers facilities,including omni channel, phar-ma, e-groceries, FMCG, food,industrial, among others.
FM Logistic plans to havemulti-customer facilities inBengaluru, Delhi, Kolkata,Hyderabad and Chennai inthe next 2-3 years.
According to Soufiani,the company is expected tosoon commence operations atits Bhiwandi facility inMaharashtra, which is spreadin 4 lakh sq ft space with a partof it dedicated for pharmaclients.The upcoming state-of-the art warehousing facility atJhajjar in Haryana will also beoperational in the second quar-ter of 2021, he said.
Earlier this month, FMLogistic had signed a strategicpartnership with WelspunLogistic Park to develop 9 lakhsq feet space in Bhiwandi in thenext 3 years. “We could realisea quarter of our 40 (lakh sq ft).There is another 10 lakh sq feetof space that we have alsosigned for which 4 lakh (sq ft)we are going to get this month,another 4 lakh sq ft we will begetting in April/May next year,”he said. The omni-channelstrategy has now become a cen-tral strategy for most of thecompanies which are into retail,FMCG, groceries and pharma,among others, and has given abig opportunity to third part-ly logistics providers.
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India registered a growth of3.5 per cent in crude steel
production at 9.245 milliontonne (MT) in November,according to World SteelAssociation.
The country had pro-duced 8.933 MT crude steelduring the same month lastyear, the global industry bodysaid in its latest report.“Crude steel production for the64 countries reporting to theWorld Steel Association(worldsteel) was 158.261 MT inNovember 2020, a 6.6 per centincrease compared to 148.417MT in November 2019.“Due to the ongoing difficultiespresented by the COVID-19pandemic, many of this
month’s figures are estimatesthat may be revised with nextmonth’s production update,”worldsteel said. According tothe worldsteel data, China reg-istered 8 per cent year-on-yeargrowth in steel output at 87.660MT during November 2020,compared to 81.191 MT in thesame period last year.
The US production stoodat 6.120 MT, down 13.7 percent from 7.088 MT.Japan’s output slipped 5.9 percent to 7.264 MT from 7.716MT a year ago. SouthKorea’s steel production fell 2.4per cent to 5.760 MT in themonth under review, as com-pared to 5.904 MT in the year-ago period.Germany’s crude steel outputrose 14.8 per cent to 3.376 MT
as against 2.941 MT.Italy’s crude steel productionwas 2.049 MT in November2020, up 3.2 per cent from1.986 MT a year ago.France produced 1.149 MT ofcrude steel last month , 3.7 percent lower from the year-agoperiod, while Spain’s steel pro-duction stood at 1.113 MT, a
rise of 11.2 per cent year-on-year. With membersin every major steel-producingcountry, Brussels-based world-steel represents steel producers,national and regional steelindustry associations, and steelresearch institutes. Its membersrepresent around 85 per cent ofglobal steel production.
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New Delhi:The Income TaxDepartment has said that over4.2 crore income tax returns(ITR) have been filed so far forthe assessment year (AY) 2020-21.A tweet by the ITDepartment said that as ofDecember 26, more than 4.15crore ITRs were filed, com-pared to over 4.14 crore as ofAugust 26, 2019 for the assess-ment year 2019-20.Anothertweet by the department said:“5,64,541 ITRs have been filedupto 1800 hrs today & 67,965ITRs filed in the last 1hr.”Thenumber of return filings hasbeen high in the current yeardespite the pandemic as thegovernment has extended thedeadline for return filing tillDecember 31. IANS
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grappling with the profound emotional fallout, isolatedfrom her partner and family by a chasm of grief. Itreleases on January 7 on Netflix.
�����Tandav is the coming together of different worlds under
the gamut of politics. It is a dramatic take of the powerplaybetween people at the highest level where they get over-thrown by others to secure their positions. Young and forth-coming student politicians are also featured and we get tosee where their future is headed in this dark abyss of pol-itics. It releases on January 15 on Amazon Prime.
9 � 0 0 � �
The year has overturned our lives inthe most unforeseen manner.There were numerous difficulties
to survive and tough lessons to belearned; we can at least find a bit of solacein the knowledge that these challengingtimes have led to personal growth.Below, a few fashion designers share theirbiggest takeaways from this unusual year.
Designer Asha Gautam says, “Thisyear will always be remembered in his-tory for various reasons. We can’t evertake the pain, suffering and losses thatpeople across the globe suffered due toCOVID-19 and at the same time it alsotaught us a lot of things. We started valu-ing life more, we spent more time withfamily, we valued environment more, weall became tech literate and valued theimportance of being a responsible con-sumer.”
“I can only say about myself and I didlearn the entire above very well and alsochanged a few things of how I look at mywork now. Being an ardent lover of craft,especially Indian handmade textiles, Iwas worried on what will happen to it asthe weddings and occasions were gettingconfined and due to social distancing thedemand was surely going to take a hit.We did speak to a few clients, especial-ly whose weddings were due in 2020 andtook feedbacks. The response was mixand lot of weddings that were scheduledfor April happened in July with restric-tions. The next dates were in Novemberand everyone was clueless as to howmany weddings will happen and ofwhat nature,” adds she.
Once the lockdown got over andclients started coming, Asha realised thatat least some weddings will happen. Onetakeaway came from the shopping pat-tern where many families preferred her-itage pieces than FAD’s and it was adelight to see the value heirloom piecesstill have on Indian consumers. “Thoughwe always believed in it but the responsewas reassuring. This is not only a take-away but a lesson for life that no matterwhat, our roots will always play an
important role in our life. Similarly ourIndian textiles (handmade) will alsomake an important role in wedding wearirrespective of what happens in theglobal fashion scene,” says she.
Asha says that though the demandwas picking up but it was nowhere nearand there was still a lot of sluggishness.
“Then we started to introspect as to whatall can be done. No inter-state travel washappening, no NRI clients coming, pluslimited gathering was making a hugeimpact. This made us go back to thedrawing board and think as to how toconnect with more clients. We alwayshad a reservation of luxury selling on e-
commerce but slowly we realised that theclients want to connect virtually. Theywere doing video calls, asking for imagesand sending queries on Instagram,which made us do something we neverthought i.e. starting an e-store. Westarted working on it in June and by Julyend, we completed it with all the old
images. Yes, the use of technology doeshelp and now we are able to bridge a gapbetween us and the consumer, irrespec-tive of the location,” shares she. Now, theyare able to get in touch with their oldclients who stopped coming due tolocation issues.
This step also made the designerslearn marketing better. They were ableto identify that there is a pattern, priceand product segmentation, which hap-pens when one is doing e-commerce.“‘Student for life’ is something I alwayslive by and is happening now in a bigway. We realised how there is a demar-cation of product and price with differ-ent age groups, how a millennial engageson social media and how a mother of thebride still prefers to wear the saree beforebuying. The phrase ‘quarantine wedding’has changed the pattern of ornamenta-tion and use of textiles as well. The magicof a NRI bride doing a video call, seeingthe entire collection, taking suggestionand also approving designs is reallyamazing. The digital integration alsohelped us in expanding our design port-folio as we introduced our prêt collec-tion of kurtas which was overdue,” Ashasays.
“The response has been phenome-nal and now we are adding more afford-able segments keeping intact our love forcrafts. Our vision is to make Indian craftsa significant part of global fashion andwith the e-store, we can see that happen-ing sooner or later. We also want to mar-ket our textiles digitally and make it reachto a larger audience. The time we got wasafter five years of no holiday and thismade us also realise the potential, the col-laborations and the relationships we havemade which we can leverage out. Theemergence of the new possible markethas also made us develop designs whichare not geographical bound and the cre-ative team is rejoicing more,” adds thedesigner.
“Past four months a lot has changedin terms of mindset, design developmenttechniques, positioning and undoubted-ly, these have been a big takeaway,” saysAsha.
For designer Leena Singh, pan-demic came as a teacher. “We havebegun to appreciate the smallest bless-ings. I feel like the biggest lesson I havegot is to live in the present and not worryabout the future. Today, everything is soterribly in the air and no one knowswhen will we find normalcy again.This year, I also came up with my newcollection Umme Rabab, which is a trib-ute to karigars who were struggling andtrying to cope with the changes this pan-demic has brought to all our lives. Ourbrand Ashima Leena tried to supportthem in every possible way and standsin solidarity and in gratitude towardsthem. As we face challenges, we are alsogiven an opportunity to re-invent, re-imagine new and improved ways ofworking. I feel whenever there will be achallenge or obstacle, we will find waysagain and again to face them and workaround them. It is imperative to supportone another in difficult times like these,”shares Leena.
Well, certainly, this year establisheditself as a teacher to the entire world.
With a microscopic organismupending life as we know it,
the realm of books was among thefew which held its own, operatingnear normally in this tumultuousyear. The flow of new titles, acrossall genres, continued unabated andprovided readers a safe haven for atroubled psyche. For avid readers,confined to homes and deprived ofopportunities of external sources ofleisure, it was a dream opportunityto work through pending piles andacquire fresh material.
But amid the host of autobiogra-phies and biographies, examinationsof political partisanship and theirsocial effects, new looks at historyand more as well as a wide array offiction for all tastes and moods, theworst health crisis the world facedin over a century found its ownniche.
While there is no shortage ofbooks on Coronavirus, some repre-sentative ones could include physi-cian and evolutionary biologistFrank Ryan’s Virusphere: Ebola,AIDS, Influenza and the HiddenWorld of the Virus, which explainswhy epidemics are inevitable andtheir benefits, science journalistSonia Shah’s Pandemic about theinterplay of history, politics and sci-ence in tackling the scourge of dis-ease, and John Barry’s The GreatInfluenza: The Story of the DeadliestPandemic in History, which notonly chronicles how the Spanish fluof 1918-20 devastated a worldalready laid low by years of war, rev-olutions and other upheavals, butalso shows how the political handlingis as important as the medical mea-sures.
A contemporary look at thisaspect can be found in legendaryjournalist Bob Woodward’s Rage, hissecond book on the maverick pres-idency of Donald Trump.
An Indian perspective is provid-ed by The Coronavirus: What youNeed to Know about the GlobalPandemic by Dr Swapneil Parikh andMaherra Desai, and Till We Win:India’s Fight Against The Covid-19Pandemic by Dr Chandrakant
Lahariya, Dr Gagandeep Kang, andAIIMS Director Dr RandeepGuleria.
But with the virus mutating intonew variations and universal vacci-nation still a long way off, the lastword on coronavirus is still to besaid. But some signposts can befound in Fareed Zakaria’s 10 Lessonsfor the Post-Pandemic World and theprolific Kiran Manral’s Raising Kidswith Hope and Wonder in Times ofa Pandemic and Climate Change.
The coveted Nobel Prize forLiterature was won by Americanpoet Louise Gluck, who draws onclassical mythology, family life andnature in her precise and spare ren-dition of certain traumatic facets ofthe human conditions such as painand loss — both personal and pub-lic — but also longing and self-real-isation, while the Booker went todebutant Scottish-American writerDouglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain, asemi-autobiographical story of ayoung boy maintaining a fraughtrelationship with his alcoholic moth-er.
The world of literature was alsoleft poorer with a galaxy of veteransbidding adieu including controver-sial English philosopher and writerRoger Scruton, 75, British academi-cian Christopher Tolkien, 95, the sonof the great fantasy novelist JRRTolkien and the one who drew themaps for The Lord of the Rings,
American Queen of Suspense MaryHiggins Clark, 92, Clive Cussler, 88,known for the Dirk Pitt series ofmarine adventures, Urdu poet RahatIndori, 70, Hindi poet MangleshDabral, 72, Soviet/Russian writer andsatirist Mikhail Zhvanetsky, 86,British spy novelist John le Carre, 89,and Urdu author and literary criticShamsur Rahman Faruqi, 85, knownfor his penetrating analysis of thepoetry of Mir Taqi Mir.
Some of the year’s notable offer-ings included former US PresidentBarack Obama’s A Promised Land, anaccount of his eventful first term, J.K.Rowling’s non-Harry Potter worldThe Ickabog, a cautionary fairy taleabout inept leadership and demon-isation of the ‘enemy’, Hari Kunzuru’sThe Red Pill and the irrepressibleMoni Mohsin’s The ImpeccableIntegrity of Ruby R, but there wasmuch more.
While it is virtually impossibleto make a list of books that couldeven approach a representative sec-tion let satisfy each palate, some sug-gestions/recommendations in vari-ous genres can be attempted.
In non-fiction, there is astro-physicist Janna Levin’s Black HoleSurvival Guide, which not onlyseeks to demystify one of most per-plexing celestial objects, but alsoshows the unflattering role ofhumans in the cosmos, TimHarford’s How to Make the World
Add Up: Ten Rules for ThinkingDifferently About Numbers, an engag-ing guide to avoid getting bamboo-zled by statistics, and MichikoKakutani’s Ex Libris, a personalisedintroduction to 100 key books, oldand new, for those without inclina-tion/opportunity to read the origi-nals in full.
On the humanities side, RichardEaton’s India in the Persianate Age:1000-1765 seeks to show how thecountry’s pre-colonial history wasnot a binary construct as long polit-ically propagated, AnneAppelbaum’s self-explanatory butdisturbing Twilight of Democracy:The Failure of Politics and theParting of Friends, and the very vitalBad News: Why We Fall for FakeNews by Rob Brotherton, who’searlier Suspicious Minds explainedwhy conspiracy theories have areceptive audience.
In fiction, consider CurtisSittenfeld’s Rodham: What if Hillaryhadn’t married Bill? exploring thistantalising premise, MiekoKawakami’s Breasts and Eggs, anaccount of the female life experience(and commodification thereof),and former ISI chief Lt Gen AsadDurrani’s Honour Among Spies,about the dangers of asking incon-venient questions about issues theestablishment would prefer to beforgotten.
For aficionados of whodun-nits, two authors take them toplaces which were long ripe for thegenre - Mark McCrum in TheFestival Murders (literary festivals)and Kiran Manral in The Kitty PartyMurder. For a rarely-invoked locale,there is Sujata C. Sabnis’ Blood on theSands, set in Kutch.
If Rick Riordan, whose finale toTrials of Apollo series came out oreven Roshani Chokshi’s Aru Shahseries (third out now) are not to yourtaste, Anuja Chandramouli, who hasa penchant for a lyrical but contem-porary refashioning of Indianmythology, had Mohini:TheEnchantress.
We can only hope that 2021 isas abundant.
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LESSONS OF
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Just like tiny saplings requireproper sunlight, good soil anda healthy environment in
order to grow into big, strongtrees, similarly, children needproper nutrition and nourish-ment for both, the body andmind to grow to become awholesome individual. Yoga withits ancient and traditional knowl-edge is a powerful tool to mouldthe child from a primitive stage.With the help of yoga, you canimpact a young mind positive-ly. It is a holistic tool through itsvarious practises of yoga asanas,pranayama, chanting, meditationetc. It enhances physical health;improves mental well-being andguides the child onto an upwardpath of goodness.
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The dynamic process of yogagives you innumerable physicalbenefits. Asanas or postures arepractised with awareness onbreath. This boosts immunity,builds concentration, while mak-ing the body strong and flexible.Postures stimulate the centralnervous system, endocrine sys-tem, circulatory system, respira-tory, cardiovascular and digestivesystem etc. Therefore, yoga playsa very strong role for the over-all physical development of thechild. Some of the flows that canbe practised for good physicalhealth include Surya Namaskar,Chandra Namaskar, VayuNamaskar, Jal Namaskar andPrithvi Namaskar etc.
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Meditation and pranayamatechniques have a calming effecton the child’s brain. When yogais performed regularly it caneliminate stress. This in turnimproves learning, and alsoincreases the ability to retainknowledge. Pranayama chan-nels energies towards positivitywhich increases a child’s acade-mic and behavioural perfor-mance. Bhastrika pranayama,
Anulom Vilom, Kapal Bhati,Brahmari pranayama are someof the breathing techniques thatcan be done.
Steps to do BrahmariPranayama:�Sit in any comfortable pose(such as Sukhasana,Ardhapadmasana orPadmasana). �Straighten your back and closeyour eyes.�Place your palms on yourknees facing up (in PrapthiMudra).�Place your thumbs on the‘Tragus’, the external flap outsideon your ear. �Place your index finger on yourforehead; your middle finger onthe Medial Canthus and ringfinger on the corner of your nos-tril. �Then inhale and fill your lungswith air.�As you exhale, slowly make abuzz sound like that of a bee.�Keep your mouth closed theentire time and feel the vibrationof the sound disseminatethroughout your body.
0��� ���������� ��Yoga leads to better class
participation and social skills.This is why it is used to manageand treat disabilities such asADHD/ADD, developmentaland cognitive delays, down syn-drome and specific learning dis-abilities such as dyslexia. It syn-chronises brain waves betweenthe different parts of the brainwhich induces relaxation. Thisaffects a child’s intelligence andcreativity as it stimulates think-ing capacity and mental energy.
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Mediation and even certainasanas can help children buildtheir focus. For example, Tratakmeditation done on a flame, sun,and moon or on a black dot canbe beneficial. It is recommend-ed that children practise specif-
Afew days back, the visuals ofteenage girls pulling the
ploughs, were all over the inter-net and media. Being a teenagermyself, the visuals still reverber-ate and haunt me.
The state of the children in acountry portrays the state of thesociety they live in. It is importantto address how national or inter-national issues affect the lives ofchildren and youth of a country.
The new farm laws havestirred up hotbeds of controver-sy, bringing up various issuesacross the country. Laws meant to‘improve’ farmers’ lives haveended up causing them to protest.Across the country, we see farm-ers marching to major cities toprotest.
What has forced them toresort to such extreme measures?Well, here are some reasons:�Many farmers fear that theremoval of the APMCs will forcethem to sell their crops to corpo-rates for prices far below.�Agitations of farmers over thepast few years, like rejected insur-ance claims, droughts, underval-uation of crops, and corruption,have piled up.�The nerfing of the MinimumSupport Price, so that the full MSPwill not be paid was the finalstraw.
It is important for us to lookat a farmer with the same digni-ty with which we see other pro-fession such as law, teaching, etc.To bring this about, we need toeducate our newer generations aswell as the existing farmers.
I would like to propose threepolicy ideas for the governmentto make farming a more attrac-tive, rewarding occupation.�Farming and agricultural stud-
ies should be added to the schoolcurriculum.�Farming should be a compulso-ry subject at a primitive level. Theyounger generations must learnabout agriculture properly sincethey are better equipped withtechnology. The combination ofnovel technology with older, moretraditional methods could beeffective.�Awards should be institutedfrom the national level to schoollevel.�Like the mandatory solar panelsystem, a terrace garden should bemade mandatory. If 10 square feetof ground is enough to producea meal for one family, one terracecan be used to produce meals fora family throughout the year. Thiswould inculcate a farming cultureand will also the enhance foodquality. In metropolitan citieslike Delhi, Mumbai and beyond,this could help reduce pollutionand the effect of soaring heat.
As Booker T. Washingtonsaid, “No race can prosper untilit learns there is as much dignityin tilling a field as in writing apoem.”
Finally, the book for the fort-night: It would be BarackObama’s A Promised Land.Altogether, an excellently wovenautobiography, detailing his lifeand trials in his journey as thePresident of America. It has avery friendly feel, as though he’sthere, talking to us in person, andinspiring the reader that anyonecould dream to become a globalleader.
(The writer is a teenageactivist and founder of Voice ofKids. He is also a winner of inter-national prizes in creative writingand English Olympiad.)
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ic asanas such as Bakasana,Chakrasana, Shirshasana,Dhanurasana etc.
Here are a few yoga postures thatare recommended to improve his/herconcentration.
��������Formation of the posture
�Begin with samasthithi.�Lean forward and place your palmsflat in front of your feet but slightly
away from them.�Your fingers should point forward,spread apart.�Bend your elbows slightly andplace your knees just below yourarmpits.�Lean forward in such a way that allyour body weight shifts to yourarms.�Find your balance and slowly liftboth your feet off the ground. Bringyour feet together.�Straighten your arms as much aspossible.�Focus at a point and hold this asanafor a while.
� �-����������Yoga asanas are influenced by
nature making them easy to remem-ber. Postures have names such as dog,cat, cow, crocodile, crane, crow,eagle, lion etc. There are also asanasto represent trees, lotus, warrior, sol-dier and many other interestingconcepts.
Follow these simple and fun
asanas and practise them at leastthrice a week for minimum 20-30minutes each.
������������Formation of the posture
�Lie on your stomach with yourpalms under your shoulders.�Inhale and lift up your body andkeep your knees straight.�Bring your knees, pelvis and spineinto one straight line.�Place your wrists below yourshoulders without bending yourarms.
���� �����Formation of the posture
�Begin in samasthithi.�Lift and place your right foot onyour lift inner thigh as close to yourgroin as possible.�Balance here.�Join your palms in Pranam Mudraat your heart chakra and slowly liftit up.�Repeat with the other leg.
���� ��� �����Formation of the posture
�Begin in samasthithi.�Exhale and gently drop your upperbody bending forward from thehips.�Keep your head, shoulders andneck relaxed.�Try to place the palms on eitherside of your feet.�You can bend your knees initiallyto make this possible.�With practise, slowly straightenyour knees.
Yoga can play an important rolein a child’s overall development as itbuilds a healthy and positive dynam-ic for the child. It lays a strong foun-dation for children to grow physical-ly, mentally and spiritually. Help yourchild start asanas, pranayama andmeditation from an early age as thisensures overall well-being.
(The writer Grand MasterAkshar is a yoga master, philan-thropist, spiritual guru and lifestylecoach.)
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CHAMPIONS OF ENGLANDThe 30-year wait is over. Liverpool is
champion of England again.Liverpool clinched its first league title
since 1990 on June 25, ending an agonizingtitle drought without the players even hav-ing to take the field.
Instead, the Premier League crown wassecured when Chelsea beat second-placeManchester City 2-1, a result that meant Citycould no longer catch Liverpool with sevengames remaining.
Overall Jurgen Klopp led Liverpool win32 matches from 38 fixtures, in a strange352-day long Premier League season.
For the city of Liverpool, this has beena party three decades in the making, andeven the restrictions caused by the coron-avirus failed to prevent fans from gatheringto celebrate outside Anfield.
After a dominant campaign that wasinterrupted by the coronavirus pandemic,Liverpool became England’s earliest-everchampion — and the latest. No team sincethe inception of the country’s league systemin 1888 has clinched the title with sevengames remaining. And no team has beencrowned Premier League champion in June.
The title itself had hardly been in doubtsince December, with Klopp’s team quick-ly building a massive lead with a rampantattacking style of play.
For a while, though, it seemed the coro-navirus could still prevent Liverpool fromending its drought.
The club was 25 points clear when the
league was abruptly halted in March as thecountry was forced into lockdown to con-tain the spread of Covid-19.
LEEDS BACK IN BIG TIME
Leeds United were promoted to thePremier League after winning the 2019-20Championship title and ended their 16-yearexile from the top-flight. Premier Leaguefootball returns to Elland Road in 2020-21season as Marcelo Bielsa’s side renew oldrivalries with Manchester United andChelsea.
BAYERN 5 TROPHIESBayern Munich participated in five
competitions in 2020-21 season —Bundesliga, DFB Pokal, UEFA Champions
League, UEFA Super League and DFL-Supercup and won all five. Polish strikerRobert Lewandowski was the star for TheBavarians during the entire duration andwon individual honours which includesUEFA and FIFA men’s player of the year.
CRISIS IN BARCELONA
For the first time since 2007-08 season,Barcelona failed to win any silverware in theentire season. After losing La Liga title toReal Madrid, Catalan club suffer embarrass-ing 2-8 defeat against Bayern Munich in one-legged Champions League quar-terfinal. They also sacked twocoaches — Ernesto Valverde andQuique Setién.
M E S SI SU R PAS SE SPELE’ FEAT
Lionel Messi beatPele’s record of goals fora single club when hescored his 644th forBarcelona in a 3-0 winover Valladolid in La Ligaclash on December 22.
E N D O F M E S S I ATBARCA?
Lionel Messi who is atBarcelona from his youthcareer days, openly wanted toleave Camp Nou in the sum-mer and was only stopped inthe end by the threat of pro-longed legal battle.
He has since then been linked topotential moves to Manchester City andParis Saint-Germain after end of his currentdeal in 2021 summer.
5 SUBSTITUTESFootball teams were allowed to use five
substitutes when play resumed after thecoronavirus pandemic. The InternationalFootball Association Board agreed to a pro-posal by FIFA for a temporary change tothe rules “to protect player welfare”.
KOLKATA DERBY IN ISLIndia’s two most decorated football
clubs Mohun Bagan and East Bengal moveto Indian Super League making India’s top
tier league 11 team competition. WhileMohun Bagan merged with three-timechampions ATK, East Bengal found newidentity with SC East Bengal.
NO BALLON D’ORFor the first time
since its creation in 1956,Ballon d’Or was can-celled in 2020 because ofthe coronavirus pan-demic’s impact. Theaward, presented byFrance Football, is givento the best player each year,counting club and international play.
EURO 2020 IN 2021 NOWThe European championship, due to be
played in June and July in 2020, was beenpostponed until 2021 because of the pan-demic. UEFA said the new proposed datesfor the tourney were June 11 to July 11 nextyear, but despite being postponed it will con-tinue to be called Euro 2020.
PRODIGAL SON RETURNSIn the summer transfer window of 2020-
21 season, Real Madrid’s Welsh wingerGareth Bale makes surprise loan move to hisformer Premier League side TottenhamHotspur, seven years after leaving them toplay for Spanish giants.
Other prominent summer movesinclude Timo Werner and Kavi Havertz leav-ing Bundesliga to shift base at StamfordBridge. David Silva’s decade old stay atEtihad comes to an end as he makes a moveback to Spain to play for Real Sociedad.
2014 World Cup Golden boot winnerJames Rodriguez makes permanent moveto Everton, BrunoFernandes & EdinsonCavani joinedManchester United,Luis Suarez, ArturoVidal and IvanRakitic exit Barcafor Atletico Madrid,Inter Milan andSevilla respectively.
F o r m e rBayern Munichwinger ArjenRobben makesreturn fromretirement to playfor FC Groningen.
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Ajinkya Rahane played acaptain’s knock, a work-manlike century that
steered India into a dominantposition and took the sting outof Australia’s potent bowlingattack in the second Test hereon Sunday.
Trailing 0-1 in the four-match series, India ended thesecond day at 277 for five for ahandy 82-run lead after bowl-ing out Australia for 195 at theMelbourne Cricket Ground.
At stumps, which wasbrought early owing to rain,Rahane was going strong on104 and giving him companywas Ravindra Jadeja on 40, thetwo having added what mightprove to be a game-changing104-run partnership for thesixth wicket.
This was Rahane’s 12thTest hundred and his second atthe iconic venue, after a fine 147during the 2014 tour.
A day after earning richpraise for his tactical acumenwhile marshalling the bowlers,Rahane shone bright with thebat and was spot on with hisreading of match situationsduring his stay in the middle.
He got a life when SteveSmith dropped him on 73 atsecond slip in Australia’s firstover with the second new ball,the unlucky bowler beingMitchell Starc, who was takenoff the attack after just two overswith the shining red cherry.
That particular phase wascrucial from both the team’spoint of view and by not losinga wicket to the second new ball,India ensured they finishedthe day ahead of Australia, interms of runs as well as psycho-logically.
Rahane got anotherreprieve when substitute field-er Travis Head put one downafter diving forward from gully,but that was after he had got tothe three-figure mark.
To start with, Rahane wasmore watchful that he had ever
been but as the day progressed,he went on to play some sump-tuous shots and one of hisday’s best was the classic off-drive against Pat Cummins.
Australian speedsterMitchell Starc rued the chanceshis team squandered.
“It (the knock by Rahane)was pretty good. He absorbedsome pressure there and sort ofsteadied the ship for them, at (atime) when they were stillbehind our score,” theAustralian pacer said.
“He (Rahane) has battedreally well there, he took hischances and we probably couldhave got him out three or fouror maybe five times before hegot a hundred, but he’s run hisluck there and scored a goodhundred. Well done to him.”
Earlier, Rishabh Pant (29)and Hanuma Vihari (21) frit-tered away promising startsafter doing all the hard work,but Jadeja was determined notto do anything of that sort.
Vihari fell to off-spinner
Nathan Lyon while trying tosweep him from outside off-stump after he had added 52runs for the fourth wicket withhis captain.
In came Pant and despitethe constant scrutiny aroundhim, the wicketkeeper-bats-man showed no nerves andconfidently went about playinghis strokes.
If Rahane managed to bluntthe opposition bowlers with hisdefensive approach beforeopening up, Pant’s aggressionforced Australia to change theirattacking tactic.
But just when Pant wasbeginning to pose a treat to thehosts, Starc forced an edge tobring the match back on evenkeel. It was Paine’s 150th dis-missal and wicket number 250for Starc.
The second session sawIndia score 99 runs after theymanaged just 54 in the first,during which they also lost twowickets in as many overs to therelentless Cummins.
Resuming on 36 for one,India started cautiously beforelosing both their overnightbatsmen — debutant ShubmanGill and the seasonedCheteshwar Pujara — in thespace of 11 balls to reach 90 forthree at lunch.
The 21-year-old Gillimpressed on his debut with afluent 45 and played some fineshots during his 65-ball knockat the Melbourne CricketGround. While Pujara made 17,having faced 70 deliveries.
The first to go was Gill,who perished when he edgedCummins for Paine to take aregulation catch behind thestumps.
Australia were soon cele-brating again as Cumminspicked up the big wicket ofPujara after straightening himup with a brilliant delivery thatangled in and moved justenough to induce an edge.
Paine complemented histop fast bowler by completinga fine diving catch.
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The legendary Mahendra Singh Dhoniwas on Sunday named captain of ICC’s
ODI and T20I teams of the decade whileVirat Kohli stamped his pre-eminence inworld cricket after being voted the skipperof the Test team.
Indians dominated the limited-overteams by having three and four players inthe ODI and T20I respectively whileEngland have maximum number of play-ers — four — in the Test side.
The 39-year-old Dhoni, who retiredfrom international cricket earlier this year,was one of the three Indians in the ODI teamof the decade, the others being RohitSharma and skipper Virat Kohli.
Dhoni has three other compatriots inthe T20I team — Rohit, Kohli and Jasprit
Bumrah.Besides being named captain of Test
team, Kohli is the only player in the worldto have been voted in the teams of the decadein all formats.
The teams of the decades wereannounced by the ICC ahead of the Awardsof the Decade ceremony, to be held in vir-tual mode on Monday.
The top awards, including ICC malecricketer as well as female cricketer of thedecade, men’s Test, ODI and T20I cricketersof the decade, women’s ODI and T20I crick-eters of the decade, will also be announcedon Monday.
Kohli is also in the running for fourawards in the men’s section.
Among women, Harmanpreet Kaur andPoonam Yadav made it to the T20I team ofthe decade while Mithali Raj and JhulanGoswami were picked for the ODI team.
The nominees for each of the categorieshave been determined by the AwardsNominations Committee according to on-field performances and overall achievementsfor at least five years during the period
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Kane Williamson’s tirelessquest for runs continued on
Sunday as he batted NewZealand into a commandingposition on the second day of thesecond Test against Pakistan.
Williamson made 129, his23rd test hundred, and sharedcentury partnerships with RossTaylor and Henry Nicholls asNew Zealand made 431 battingfirst after losing the toss.
At stumps Pakistan was 30-1 after 20 overs with Abid Ali 19not out and nightwatchmanMohammad Abbas 0.
Shan Masood was out for 10just before stumps, caught downthe leg side by wicketkeeper BJWatling from the bowling ofKyle Jamieson.
In his last 10 tests in NewZealand Williamson has madetwo double centuries, Sunday’scentury and three fifties. Hissolidity has been central to NewZealand’s recent rise to joinAustralia on 116 points atop theofficial world test rankings.
Williamson’s toughness, hisconcentration and technicalexcellence were evident again inhis performance on the first twodays of the current match in per-
haps the toughest conditionsNew Zealand has faced so farthis summer.
He came to the crease whenNew Zealand lost opener TomLatham to only the fourth ballof its innings. Williamson bat-ted for all of the rest of the firstday and was 94 not outovernight.
He took 13 balls to score hisfirst runs of the second day, thenwent to his century with a copy-book cover drive from the bowl-ing of Naseem Shah. When hefinally was out before lunch hehad batted 476 minutes oralmost eight hours and againhad been the firm anchor
around which New Zealandbuilt it’s innings.
Taylor’s 70 in his 10th cen-tury stand with Williamson andNicholls’ 56 in his third provid-ed the substance of the innings.But wicketkeeper Watling madea vital contribution with his 73late in the innings.
Watling’s 66-run partner-ship with Jamieson, who made32, took New Zealand withinsight of 400 and Neil Wagner’s19 took them past that mark.
For visitors, Shaheen Afridiput in a big shift, bowling 36overs and taking 4-109. Leg-spinner Yasir Shah took 3-113,including Williamson’s wicket.
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Melbourne: Star Australianopener David Warner is stillstruggling with his groin injury,coach Justin Langer said onSunday, rendering him doubtfulfor the third Test against Indiastarting January 7.
The 34-year-old had missedthe last ODI, three T20Is and thefirst two Tests against India dueto the injury.
“There’s no one more pro-fessional and he’s doing every-thing possible,” Langer toldRicky Ponting during an inter-view on Seven.
“We saw him bat the daybefore the game, he’s battingagain this afternoon at theMCG, so in terms of his battinghe’s flying, it’s just trying to ... He’sstill having some trouble with hisgroin and we know how dynam-ic he is.”
Langer said he is still hope-ful that Warner would comegood and make it to the thirdTest.
“His running between thewickets, his movements all thetime, so he’s getting closer andwe’re hopeful he will comegood.” PTI
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