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MONEY 8GOVERNMENT TO SOON CHANGEDEFINITION OF MSMES: GADKARI

ANALYSIS 7FINDING THE PATH

TO HAPPINESS

SPORTS 12ONE PLUS ONE

EQUALS 11

HYDERABAD, WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 23, 2019; PAGES 12 `3

}DEEPIKA, PV SINDHUTURN ‘BHARAT KI

LAXMI' FORNARENDRA MODI

Page 9www.dailypioneer.com

{

RNI No. TELENG/2018/76469

Established 1864Published From

HYDERABAD DELHI LUCKNOWBHOPAL RAIPUR CHANDIGARH

BHUBANESWAR RANCHI DEHRADUNVIJAYAWADA

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HYDERABADWEATHER

Current Weather ConditionsUpdated October 22, 2019 5:00 PM

ALMANACMonth & Paksham:Ashwin & Krishna PakshaTithi : Dashami: 01:08 amNakshatram: Ashlesha: 03:13 pm Time to Avoid: (Bad time to start

any important work)Rahukalam: 12:00 pm – 01:26 pmYamagandam: 07:41 am – 09:07 amVarjyam: 02:16 am – 03:44 amGulika: 10:33 am - 12:00 pmGood Time: (to start any

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TODAY

Ind, Pak tosign pact onKartarpurtomorrowNEW DELHI: India andPakistan are scheduled to signthe agreement on Kartarpurcorridor on October 24(Thursday). Earlier onMonday, the External AffairsMinistry (EAM) had said in astatement that India wouldsign the Kartarpur SahibCorridor agreement withPakistan on October 23despite Islamabad's reluctanceto withdraw the service fee ofUSD 20 (around Rs 1,500) oneach pilgrim. The EAM hadalso said that Prime MinisterNarendra Modi-led govern-ment at the Centre wants tofinalise the agreement onOctober 23 in order to oper-ationalise the Kartarpur cor-ridor before November 12 inview of the demand of pil-grims to have visa-free accessto Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahibin Pakistan.

NCRB to record crime by ‘Anti-nationals’NEW DELHI: For the firsttime since the publication ofcrime data in the country, theNational Crime RecordsBureau (NCRB) has intro-duced a chapter titled - CrimeCommitted by Anti NationalElements. A total of 783 caseshave been registered under'incidents of violence by AntiNational elements', account-ing for 132 deaths.

The chapter includes -Crime Cases reported byNorth-East Insurgents(State/UT-wise), Crime Casesreported by Naxalites /LWEs(State/UT-wise), Crime Casesreported by Terrorists(Including Jihadi Terrorists)and Incidents of Violence byAnti National Elements andArms Taken Away fromPolice/CAPFs by AntiNational Elements.

Saudi effects6-fold hike invisa feeNEW DELHI: Saudi Arabiahas effected a nearly six-foldincrease in visa fee, an orderwhich can make Haj pil-grimage very costly, accord-ing to a media report, whichsaid many Muslim countrieswere angry over this move.

The report said that a sin-gle entry visa will now cost$533, up from $93, a multi-ple entry, 6-month visa wouldcost $800 and a one-yearvisa would cost $1,333.

The revised visa fees affectall tourists, religious or busi-ness visitors, but exemptsthose travelling for the firsttime to perform the annualHajj pilgrimage or the lesser,non-mandatory pilgrimageknown as the Umrah, said thereport in Quartz Africa.

PNS n NEW DELHI

Prime Minister NarendraModi on Tuesday met AbhijitBanerjee, the Indian-American who was one of thethree winners of the NobelPrize for Economics this year,and took to Twitter to state,"India is proud of his accom-plishments."

"Excellent meeting with

Nobel laureate AbhijitBanerjee. His passion towardshuman empowerment is clear-ly visible. We had a healthyand extensive interaction onvarious subjects. India is proudof his accomplishments.Wishing him the very best forhis future endeavours," Moditweeted posting a photographof himself and Banerjee onTwitter.

Telangana implementingModi's Act, says KCR

PRIVATISATION IN RTC

PNS n HYDERABAD

Chief Minister KChandrasekhar Rao on Tuesdayreasoned that the TelanganaState government was onlyimplementing the Act broughtby Prime Minister NarendraModi in encouraging privati-sation of RTC, while reiteratingthat all the demands of the RTCunions would be examined,barring the demand for merg-er of TSRTC with the state gov-ernment.

KCR claimed that the RTCworkers' unions had voluntar-ily withdrawn their demand formerger of RTC with the Stategovernment while submittingtheir arguments in the HighCourt.

To examine the demands ofRTC unions, the TransportCommissioner (officiating as

RTC MD), has appointed acommittee with the RTCExecutive Directors. The gov-ernment would submit a reportto the High Court based on thereport to be given by the com-mittee.

"The arguments put forth byBJP and Congress are surpris-ing. The Narendra Modi gov-ernment has passed an Act giv-ing full powers to the State to

privatize the Road TransportCorporation and bus routes.The BJP leaders here are talk-ing against it. In MadhyaPradesh state, when Sri DigvijaySingh was the CM under theCongress regime, they haveclosed down the RTC there. Butthese parties have taken a dif-ferent and strange stand here,"the Chief Minister said.

Continued on Page 2

PNS n RAJAHMUNDRY

At last, after most people hadlost hopes, the DharmadiSatyam team on Tuesday sal-vaged the ill-fated RoyalVasishta that went down theGodavari River on September15 with over 60 tourists onboard. Within the boat, eightmore bodies were recovered.Thus, three more tourists'bodies are yet to be recovered.

The week-long efforts, inthe second leg of salvage oper-ations, bore fruit, though theboat appears to be beyondrepair.

On Monday, the teamrecovered a portion of the dri-ver's cabin. On Tuesday, thedivers, with reinforcements,went deeper several times andtied ropes to the bottom of the

boat amid rains. Finally, theybrought the boat to the sur-face. Initially, the team madeunsuccessful attempts to sal-vage the boat and had to sus-pend efforts when the riverwas in spate.

Last week, the team madeadditional attempts for two orthree days. Subsequently, theservices of CaptainAdinarayana of Kakinada Port

were requisitioned and scubadivers from Visakahapatnamwere engaged. Attempts attying ropes to the boat and sal-vage it had failed initially.

On Tuesday, the teamhauled the boat successfullywith the reinforcements. Theteam tried to salvage spareparts of the boat from theriverbed, though it was reek-ing of the stench of highly-

decomposed bodies. In theboat tragedy that occurredon Sep 15 at Kachchaluru inEast Godavari district, 39 werekilled. Twenty six passengerssurvived the incident. In all,12 persons were missing then.

One torso was found onMonday and eight more bod-ies retrieved on Tuesday.Three persons still remaineduntraced.

Andhra boat with trapped bodies retrieved

INKESHAF AHMEDn HYDERABAD

Bringing much-needed relief tothe Telangana government, adivision bench of the state highcourt on Tuesday dismissedPIL petitions filed alleging irreg-ularities in the pre-poll exercisefor the delimitation of munici-pal wards, making reservationsamong them for various cate-gories of people, and praying forthe a grant of a stay on theissuance of formal notificationto conduct elections to all themunicipalities and municipalcorporations of the state.

The High Court said that thenotification, dated July 3, 2019,issued by the government forpreparation of photo electoralrolls had not been implement-ed in toto so far, although theElection Commission hadample time to finalize the elec-toral rolls. It also said that itcould not interfere in the issueof the conduct of the electionsonce the pre-election process isinitiated by the state govern-ment. The Court made theseremarks while delivering itsjudgment and dismissing the

two petitions. On October 1, the HC

reserved its orders in the batchof Public Interest Litigation(PIL) petitions filed against theissuance of notification to con-duct municipal elections in thestate. A division bench of theHC has, however, given a go-ahead to the state governmentto carry out the entire pre-pollprocess pertaining to conductthe elections while reserving itsorders. It also said that the stayon the conduct of the electionswould continue till the pro-nouncement of the final ordersof the court then.

The petitioners in the casecomplained of large-scale irreg-ularities in the pre-poll exercisecarried out by the state govern-ment to conduct the municipalelections and urged the HC to

direct the state government tore-conduct the entire pre-pollprocess as per the TelanganaMunicipalities Act and rules andas per the order of the HC andto conduct the identification ofSC, ST, BC and women voters,along with the representatives ofthe recognised political parties,and to issue the draft notifica-tion as per rule 12 of TheTelangana MunicipalitiesReservation of Seats inMunicipal Councils and NagarPanchyats Rules 1995, besidesenabling the voters to give theirviews on the reservations.

While one PIL was filed byone K. Anju Kumar Reddy, anative of Nirmal district, theother PIL was filed by Dr. S.Malla Reddy, a native ofDundigal mandal of MedchalMalkajgiri district.

High Court clears municipal polls Banking opspartially hit inTS due to strikePNS n HYDERABAD

Banking operations were par-tially hit on Tuesday inTelangana as two employee-unions observed a strike inresponse to a nationwide call,protesting the merger ofbanks and fall in depositrates.

Some services like cashdeposit and withdrawals andcheque clearances werenimpacted due to the strike bybanking staff, AIBEAnational secretary B SRambabu said.

"As SBI employees did notparticipate in the strike, cashtransactions in that bank didnot have any impact.

However, in Andhra Bank,they were completely paral-ysed," Rambabau told PTI.

He also claimed thatAIBEA has over five lakhmembers, out of which onelakh are from Cooperativeand Grameen Banks, whichwere exempted for the strikecall.

Metro touches5.15 lakhpassengersPNS n HYDERABAD

Ameerpet and Hi-TEC CityMetro stations are neck andneck when it comes to foot-falls. On Monday, while thelargest interchange --Ameerpet station witnessed26,000 commuters; HI-TECCity was close enough with25,000 passengers.

Since its opening, HI-TECCity has been the most wide-ly used Metro station, followedby LB-Nagar Metro station.On Miyapur to LB NagarLine, 1.5 lakh passengers trav-elled on Monday. While onNagole to H-TEC City line, asmany as 2.3 lakh passengerscommuted.

It may be mentioned herethat the gherao called byCongress and the TSRTCstrike added to the numbers ofthe Metro. Despite shutdownfor four hours, the BegumpetMetro station witnessed about6,500 passengers, as per datashared by HMRL authorities.

Continued on Page 2Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in NewDelhi on Tuesday

‘India proud of him’: PMModi after meeting Abhijit

PNS n HYDERABAD

Income Tax sleuths carriedout searches of the premises ofAsian Cinema & MultiplexesPrivate Limited and SkillPromoters Infra PrivateLimited on Tuesday.

Officials from the anti-taxevasion wing of the depart-ment began the searches earlyon Tuesday morning at the res-idence and corporate offices ofthe two companies based inHyderabad.

The promoter of AsianCinemas & Multiplexes, SunilNarang, owns a chain of the-atres in the twin cities. Themultiplexes are located acrossKukatpally, Uppal and Kapra.The unlisted private company

was incorporated in 2008.Asian Cinemas is headed byfour directors - NarayandasKishandas, Narang Bharat andtwo others. The taxmensearched the residence of SunilNarang as well as their corpo-rate offices. IT sleuths alsosearched the properties of SkillPromoters Infra. Incorporatedin 2014, the company is clas-sified as a private limited and

has four directors - BoppanaSarat Gopal, Boppana TaraChand and others. IT officersraided their corporate office aswell.

It has built the biggest mul-tiplex mall - AMB Mall inassociation with popular heroMahesh Babu at Kothaguda inHyderabad. It is planning toconstruct another multiplex inassociation with another top

hero Allu Arjun. At present,Asian Cinema is producing afilm being directed by SekharKammula with Naga Chaitanyaas the hero. The firm is also intolarge- scale distribution of bigfilms and is running several the-atres. It may be mentioned herethat Income Tax authoritiesrecently conducted a series ofraids over four days on a majorinfrastructure company andseized unaccounted assets,apart from finding evidence ofillegal payments throughhawala channels. Besides, ITauthorities raided the ashramand offices of 'Kalki Bhagawan'in Chittoor district andunearthed huge piles of unac-counted cash and illegal prop-erties.

UoH among Top-10 varsities in IndiaEighth place in QS India University Rankings PNS n HYDERABAD

The University of Hyderabad(UoH) ranks among the TopTen varsities in India for the sec-ond consecutive year, accordingto the QS India UniversityRankings 2020 released onTuesday. UoH has been rankedeighth. The IIT-Bombay is atnumber one, the Indian Instituteof Science (IISc), Bengaluru, isat number two and the IIT-Delhi at number three. UoH isat number 8 among 100 insti-tutions ranked in India for theyear 2020. Staff with PhD is theBest Scored indicator of theinstitution in the 2020s.

The Vice Chancellor ProfAppa Rao Podile said this rankreinforced the university'sstature as a premier institution.The university had been justifi-ably awarded the 'Institution of

Eminence' status. "It entailsintensive work ahead to not onlyretain but improve our ranking,with a climb across all parame-ters. This will help us to betterserve the nation's public throughhigh quality education andresearch," he remarked.

This is the second edition ofQS rankings exclusively forIndian institutions. QS is aglobal company focused on

higher education that brings outthe QS World UniversityRankings, the world's mostwidely-consulted list of its kind.

Among the non-IITs, andIIScs; Delhi University occupiesthe first spot - at number seven- followed by University ofHyderabad, IIT-Roorkee andIIT-Guwahati.

According to a press releaseissued by the QS, the method-

ology used eight indicators todetermine the institutions' rank-ings: Academic reputation (30per cent), employer reputation(20 per cent), faculty-studentratio (20 per cent), the propor-tion of staff with a PhD (10 percent), papers per faculty fromScopus database (10 per cent),citations per paper from Scopusdatabase (5 per cent), the pro-portion of international stu-dents (2.5 per cent) and the pro-portion of international faculty(2.5 per cent).

SC upholds HC order in favour of TS govt190 acres of evacuee land in RR districtPNS n HYDERABAD

In what could be considered amajor victory to the Telanganagovernment, the SupremeCourt on Tuesday passed anorder in its favour with regardto 190 acres of evacuee landlocated in Puppalaguda inRangareddy district. The cur-rent market value of the landis Rs 4,000 crore.

The Chief Commissionerof Land Administration(CCLA) allotted the land in2003 in favour of the legal heirs

of an evacuee from the Sindharea in Pakistan ParsramRamchand Malani. However,the State government can-celled the CCLA's allotmentand registered criminal casesagainst those who had falsely

claimed the land and againstsome realtors who colludedwith them.

The matter was broughtbefore the High Court of thestate. The High Court alsosupported the State govern-ment's decision. This hasprompted the heirs of theevacuees to approach theSupreme Court. The apexcourt of the country tooupheld the HC's verdict in theissue eventually leading to thevictory of the State govern-ment.

The Vice ChancellorProf Appa Rao Podilesaid this rankreinforced theuniversity's stature asa premier institution

n Decides toexamine all thedemands of RTCunions barring'merger' with Govt

n Claims unionsthemselveswithdrew demandon 'merger' in HC

PNS n HYDERABAD

The tail of the monsoon, whosewithdrawal has been delayedthis season, seems to havepacked its punch in a partingshot, with Met authorities fore-casting heavy rain for the nextfour days at various places inTelangana because of a lowpressure area in the Bay ofBengal. According to a weath-er report, light to moderate rainor thundershowers very likely tooccur at most places overTelangana. The Met officeissued a heavy rain warning fornext five days.

Accordingly, on Wednesday,heavy to very heavy rain is verylikely to occur at isolated placesover Telangana and thunder-storms accompanied with light-ning are very likely to occur at

isolated places over the State.On Thursday, heavy to very

heavy rain is likely to occur atisolated places over Telangana.Thunderstorms accompaniedwith lightning are very likely tooccur at isolated places over theState.

On Friday, heavy rain verylikely to occur at isolated placesover Telangana.

On Saturday, heavy rain isvery likely to occur at isolatedplaces over Telangana.

The chief amounts of rainfallrecorded in the last 24 hours are:Kagaznagar (Komaram Bheem)6 cm, Dharpally (Nizamabad) 3cm, Yedapalli (Nizamabad) 3cm, Mustabad (Rajanna Sircilla)2 cm, Kodangal (Vikarabad) 2cm, Bazarhathnoor (Adilabad)2 cm, Dubbak (Siddipet) 2 cm,Chevella (Rangareddy) 2 cm,Jukkal (Kamareddy) 2 cm,Kusumanchi (Khammam) 2cm and Devarakonda(Nalgonda) 2 cm.

8 more bodies found Operation Royal Vasishta ends after 38 days

Heavy rainfall warningissued for next four days

On Wednesday, heavyto very heavy rain isvery likely to occurover Telangana

The remains of the ill-fated boat Royal Vashishta that was brought to the surface on Tuesday

I-T raids on Asian Cinemas

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PNS n HYDERABAD

Telangana's startup ecosystemcatalyst T-Hub on Tuesdayannounced the launch of‘Trestle’. The programme pro-vides growth-stage startupswith opportunities to assessproduct fitment and readinessto new markets across theglobe. It is designed to aidIndian startups with the rightresources and connections toforay into the global marketand offers international star-tups a platform to enter theIndian market.

In the first edition of theTrestle programme, T-Huband FalconX Inc. will curatefive startups from T-Hub forthe programme. The selectedstartups will participate in anintensive five-month pro-gramme that will provide theseorganisations with an access tothe US market.

The startups will qualify

based on technological solu-tions, product/solution readi-ness, revenue models andgrowth potential. The startupsat the growth stage, working inthe DeepTech, FinTech andCleanTech sectors will have ahigher chance of being a partof the programme.

Ravi Narayan, CEO, T-Hub,said, "Trestle programme is

designed for startups that arelooking for Go-To-Market(GTM) support, for scaling andtuning their business model forexpansion in the US markets.Our collaboration withFalconX Inc. is a first step inthis direction to provide inter-national market-access to thedisruptive and most deservingstartups."

Murali Chirala, CEO,FalconX Inc., said, "Our plan towork with premier acceleratorsand incubators around theworld starts with T-Hub's Trestleprogramme." During the finalstretch of this program, startupswill visit FalconX Inc. in SiliconValley, California, for an immer-sive experience consisting ofmentor sessions.

PNS n HYDERABAD

Governor TamilisaiSoundararajan has reviewedthe Tribal Welfare Schemes inRajbhavan here on Tuesday.Speaking on the occasion, theGovernor said, she would pur-sue with the Centre, about theproposed Tribal University atMulugu district which needsUnion Cabinet's clearance.

The Governor has askedthe officials to encourage anddevelop the entrepreneurshipamong tribal youth particular-ly on abundantly availableherbal medicines in tribalareas. She advised the officialsto document the medicinalvalues in the herbs, roots thatare known only to the localtribal community.

She added, she would like tovisit some of the tribal areas andmeet directly with the tribalfolk. "I want to make a visit toa tribal village and stay backthere for night halt to under-stand the cultural divide andtheir native problems," she said

and added that as a medical stu-dent, she has visited remotetribal areas of Andaman Islandsalong with her friends to ren-der voluntary services.

Secretary Tribal WelfareDepartment BMD Ekka hasinformed various govern-ments' initiatives taken up bythe government for socio, eco-nomic and educational devel-opment of Tribal communityin the state. He said, over 2.25lakh students are studying invarious educational institu-

tions exclusively meant fortribal community.

He said, several studentsare also being encouraged tostudy in various premier edu-cational institutions like IIT,NIT and other central univer-sities. A few have appearingfor Civil services and two can-didates have cleared their civilexams held recently. Earlier,the Governor has played withthe Koya and Lambada cul-tural troupes of Bhadrachalamand Nagarkurnool districts.

Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan performs along with the Koya and Lambadacultural troupes of Bhadrachalam and Nagarkurnool districts, at Raj Bhavan

T-Hub's ‘Trestle' to helpstartups go global

Will take up Tribal varsityissue with Centre: Guv

The programme isdesigned to aidstartups withright resources to foray into the global market and offersinternationalstartups aplatform to crackthe Indian market

Is it appro-priate tocelebrate

November 1 ast h eFormation

Day of AndhraPradesh as it stands

now? Post bifurcation,how can it continue to be thebirthday of the residuary Stateof Andhra Pradesh, fromwhich an element of proximalsimilarity can hardly bedrawn? These and other cog-nate questions besiege themind if one considers the factpresent Andhra Pradesh, inconsultation with the UnionHome Ministry, has decided tohereafter observe November1st as the Formation Day.

A lot depends on the origi-nal sentiments of Andhra peo-ple. The moot question is:Are the sentiments of the peo-ple of the residuary State ofAndhra Pradesh post June 2,2014 same vis-à-vis those ofTelugu people belonging to

erstwhile undivided State ofAndhra Pradesh, which wasformed on November 1, 1956and which had existed for 58years? There is another viewthat October 1st may be amore appropriate date, consid-ering that the contours of theresiduary state are exactlysame as those of the Telugu-speaking region that wascarved from the compositestate of Madras on October 1,1953.

Did the Government ofAndhra Pradesh take these keypoints into considerationbefore initiating consultationswith the Union HomeMinistry? It is ridiculous onthe part of the Union HomeMinistry to say that as a par-ent state it can celebrateNovember 1st as FormationDay!

The irony is that the regionof Telangana has sinceobserved November 1 as'betrayal day' to protest the'highhandedness' of Andhra

region on all fronts. As prin-cipal political players ofAndhra Pradesh played a 'hideand seek' game with the issueof AP's integration, the firstlinguistic state AndhraPradesh formed in indepen-dent India has been divided.Should people of Andhra cel-ebrate a date as their state'sFormation Fay, though their'estranged brothers' observethe same day as 'betrayal day'for what had happened in theyears prior to 2014?

Actually the emotionalbonds of Telugu people to

have a separate state for them-selves took shape in the com-posite state of Madras duringthe British rule way back in1913 when the Andhra MahaSabha held its conclave inBapatla, Guntur district. Thus,seeds of statehood were sownin the minds of people in thefirst quarter of 20th Century.After having endured muchhardship, the Telugu people,who then had no 'identity' inthe Tamils-dominated com-posite state of Madras, finallygot their own state with thesupreme sacrifice of the

beloved son of this soil PottiSreeramulu, who ended hisprecious life on December 15,1952 in nearly two-month-long fast unto death in Madras.Widespread destruction ofgovernment properties werewitnessed in the entire stretchof Andhra region (present stateof Andhra Pradesh) of thecomposite Madras state, fol-lowing the death ofSreeramulu. Sensing the sever-

ity of those developments, thethen Prime Minister PanditNehru announced the forma-tion of new state of Andhra forTelugu people. The new statewas carved out of the compos-ite Madras state. The resultantnew State of Andhra came intoexistence, comprising allTelugu-speaking districts ofMadras, with Kurnool as thecapital.

Legendary leader of Telugupeople Tanguturi Prakasam,who had served earlier asChief Minister of compositeMadras state, was sworn in asChief Minister of the newstate of Andhra at Kurnool. Itis a different matter that thenChief Minister of Madras C.Rajagopalachary, popularlyknown as Rajaji, thwartedthe attempts of Telugu peopleto also obtain parts of Madrascity.

Telugu people later wishedto have a unified state includ-ing the Telugu region ofTelangana. Within three years,

the dream of having a unifiedstate of Andhra Pradesh,including Telugu-speakingregion of Telangana (whichwas part of Hyderabad Statethen) came true.

This was followed by thedisintegration of the erst-while state of Hyderabad,which was then part of thePrincely State of Nizam,whose existence, as leaders off irst generation inIndependent India stronglybelieved, would be detrimen-tal to the interests of thedemocratic country. For, thelatter made futile efforts to getHyderabad merged withPakistan.

Sensing danger, the Uniongovernment swung intoaction and got Hyderabadmerged with India by'Operation Polo' designed atthe behest of Home MinisterSardar Patel on 17 September,1948. The Indian governmentdid not allow HyderabadState, though it had existed for

four years with a democrati-cally elected governmentheaded by multi-facetedpolitician Dr .BurgulaRamakrishna Rao, to contin-ue as it existed on October 31,1956!

After smooth sailing ofnearly six decades, the unifiedState of Andhra Pradesh(Vishalandhra) faced divisiondue to games played by twomajor political parties --Congress and TDP in AP.Eventually the state was splitinto two and the residuarystate of Andhra Pradesh, afterTelangana parted ways, isexactly same as the State ofAndhra that was carved out ofMadras 66 years ago.

November 1st was theFormation Day of the unifiedstate of AP. June 2nd is theFormation Day of Telangana.In terms of sentiments,November 1st now cannothave the same significancethat June 2nd has forTelangana, period.

M D RATNA KUMAR Senior Journalist

A lot depends on the original sentiments ofAndhra people. The moot question is: Arethe sentiments of the people of theresiduary State of Andhra Pradesh postJune 2, 2014 same vis-à-vis those of Telugupeople belonging to erstwhile undividedState of Andhra Pradesh, which wasformed on November 1, 1956 and whichhad existed for 58 years?

PINPOINT

Formation Day bereft of original sentiments!

Teacher ends life dueto work pressurePNS n NUTANAKAL

On the day of reopening ofschools across the state, a 32-year-old social studies teachercommitted suicide onMonday evening at his housein Algunuru village ofSuryapet district allegedlydue to the work pressure.

He was identif ied asVidyasagar, 32, social stud-ies teacher with the TSWRSSchool at Tipparti. A suicidenote, purported to be leftbehind by him, reads, "Ihave got a good job. Iaspired to lead a comfortablelife. But, ever since I joinedthe job, I have lost happi-ness. We are saddled withother useless responsibilitiesand not allowing teachers todo their job in the name ofresults. This has been sub-jecting me to tension.Forgive me mother."

According to locals, PattetiVidyasagar of Alganuru ofNutanakal mandal recentlygot job as a social studiesteacher. He was posted atsocial welfare residentialschool at Tipparti.

PNS n SURYAPET

Minister for Power G JagadishReddy on Tuesday welcomedGodavari water from SRSPproject at Mokya Thanda nearthe GAIL pipeline in Penahadmandal of the district. TheGodavari water reached herethrough Kaleswaram project.

The earlier regimes dugcanal up to Mokya thanda andabandoned the project as ahuge boulder obstructed thecanal works. Under the leader-ship of Chief Minister KChandrasekhar Rao, theMinister worked hard and pro-cured equipment from over-seas and a tunnel was buildthrough the boulder bringingwater to Penpahad mandal toirrigate at least 17,000 acres.

The CM gave word to thepeople of Penpahad mandal to

bring Godavari water to irrigatetheir lands at the time of lastDiwali and managed to fulfillit by Diwali this year, theMinister said adding that theTRS government would keepits promises to the people at anycost. The funds were sanc-

tioned immediately when theissue was taken to the notice ofthe CM and tunnel was boredwith the approval of the GAIL.The objective to bring Godavariwaters to fulfill farmers dreamscould be realised now. Thedemand of the people here is to

fill the Raavi tank withGodavari waters. Besides thistank, all tanks in the mandalwill get Godavari water, he said.All lands, barring those beingirrigated by Nagarjunasagarcanal, will be irrigated throughGodavari waters, he said.

Godavari water reaches Penpahad

Minister Jagadish Reddy performs puja as the Godavari water reaches Mokya Thanda in Penahad, on Tuesday

PNS n SIDDIPET

Finance Minister T HarishRao and Siddipet DistrictCollector Venkat Ram Reddyon Tuesday reviewed thesteps undertaken by theauthorities to implement tocomprehensive developmentprogramme inChinthamadaka village of thedistrict.

The village, native place ofthe Chief Minister KChandrashekhar Rao, waslisted among the prominentplaces to get the schemedevelopment process .Speaking at the review meet-ing, the Minister emphasisedthe need to make the villageas the model village of thestate.

He further said that the

three villages - Seetharam-palli, Chinthamadaka andMachapur were given thrustin the programme.

The Minister also reviewedvarious schemes and plan-ning options chalked out bythe village development com-mittees in the process andadvised the villagers to takeup the development schemescomprehensively.

Similarly he called uponthe officials to take up themodel development processby adopting a uniformdesigns.

Several development pro-grammes were highlightedin the review meeting by theofficials and the Ministersuggested to them to take upthe process of developmentwith a concerted approach.

‘Chinthamadaka willbe a model village’ Continued from Page1

"In 1950, when PanditJawaharlal Nehru was the PM,Motor Vehicle's Act was broughtin. It was based on this Act thatthe RTCs were formed in theStates. In this Act, it was stipu-lated that no private buses shouldbe given permit in the routeswhere the RTC was operating.Bringing an amendment to theClause 3 of this Act, NarendraModi government in

2019 Budget Session, a Bill wasintroduced and was passed.Under the Motor Vehicles(Amendment) Act 2019, it wasdecided to give an opportunityto the private sector in the RTC.In this Act, it was stated that theState government should takemeasures to encourage healthycompetition. The Centre had alsopointed out that for offering bet-ter services to the people at lowerticket prices, competition is nec-

essary. The Centre announcedthat by allowing the private sec-tor in air travel and mobilephone sectors, facilities wereimproved and rates have comedown drastically. In the Centre'sBudget itself, the

Union government had madeit clear that it plans to accruefunds by disinvesting in thePublic Sector Undertakings. Ifthe facts are such, BJP leaders inthe State are making some funnyallegations and charges on theRTC," the CM said.

In the review, the matter per-taining to writing letters to thePrime Minister, Union SurfaceTransport Minister about theruckus the state BJP leaders aremaking on the RTC also came upfor discussion.

In the backdrop of the HighCourt's directives on the RTCstrike, Chief Minister KChandrashekhar Rao held areview meeting with the officials

at Pragati Bhavan here onTuesday. Minister Puvvada AjayKumar, Principal SecretariesSunil Sharma, S Narsing Rao,Government Chief Advisor RajivSharma, Anurag SharmaTransport CommissionerSandeep Sultania and RTC EDsparticipated. "The Trade Unionleaders initially announced thatthey would come for talks if onlythe State government announcedmerger of the RTC with the gov-ernment. They said merger wastheir first priority. But during thehearing on the RTC strike inHigh Court, they said they wouldnot insist on the merger of theRTC with the Government.

D Prakash Reddy, counsel forthe RTC trade unions told thecourt they never stated that they(unions) would come for thetalks only when the demand ofRTC merger with the govern-ment is met. This is mentionedby the Honourable Chief Justice

in his orders. With this, it is tan-tamount that the demand for themerger of RTC with the govern-ment had been forsaken. TheCourt wanted the government toexamine 21 demands as raised bythe workers. In tune with theCourt orders, examine thosedemands and for this study thedemands," the CM instructed theofficials.

Based on the instructionsgiven by the CM, TransportCommissioner Sunil Sharma,who is also acting as the RTCMD, had constituted aCommittee with six members.ED T Venkateswara Rao isChairman and EDs APurushottam, C Vinod Kumar, EYadagiri, V Venkateswarlu,Financial Advisor N Ramesh asthe members. The Committeewill examine the 21 issues asdirected by the High Court andsubmit a report to the RTC MDin a day or two.

TS implementing Modi's Act, says KCR

Paddy purchasecentreinauguratedPNS n KARIMNAGAR

Civil Supplies Minister GangulaKamalakar inaugurated thepaddy purchase centre inKarimnagar town here onTuesday. Speaking on the occa-sion, the Minister advised thefarmers to bring the paddy tothe purchase centres in completeshape. The purchase centre ofthe Karimnagar was inaugurat-ed at the Market yard and tunePACS and Civil supplies wingboth are part of the unit.

The Minister said the min-imum supportive price for theGrade A quality paddy wasfixed at Rs 1,835, while the gen-eral quality grain was fixed atRs 1,815 per quintal. JointCollector Shyam Prasad Laland others also took part.

Metro touches 5.15 lakh passengers

Continued from Page1

In total, 4.17 lakh passengerstook the Metro on Monday.HMRL MD N V S Reddy said,"While the final figure ofMonday's footfalls was 4.17 lakh,

with 3.98 lakh being passengers.If we calculate based on passen-ger trips -- which is Governmentof India's new method of calcu-lating passengers on the lines ofbus passengers -- we saw 5.15lakh footfalls."

PNS n HYDERABAD

Excise Minister Srinivas Goudon Tuesday written to UnionMinister Kiran Rijuju andSports Authority of IndiaDirector General recommend-ing boxer Nikhat Zareen fromTelangana to be sent to representthe country in Tokyo Olympicsunder 51 kg category.

In the letter, the Ministerpraised Nikhat Zareen for hav-ing won many gold medals in

boxing right from childhoodtaking part in several tourna-ments and did Telangana proud.

Describing him as a sureshot winner of one of the medalsat the Tokyo Olympics, theMinister told the boxer's fatherJameel Ahmed that he wouldtake the issue to the notice ofChief Minister KChandrashekhar Rao. SportsAuthority of Telangana chair-man Allipuram VenkateshwarReddy was also present.

Send Zareen to TokyoOlympics: Minister to Centre

PNS n HYDERABAD

Officials of the LegalMetrology Department reg-istered three cases againstWater Front restaurant locat-ed on Necklace Road for vio-lation of the provisions oflegal metrology Act and rules.

Based on the complaintby a consumer rights activist,District Legal MetrologyOff icer conductedinspections at therestaurant on October15 and booked threecases against it.

The complainanthad alleged that therestaurant was sellingenergy drinks such asRed Bull for more thanthe MRP. The WaterFront restaurant collected Rs195 from the complainant fora Red Bull worth Rs 99.According to Section 18(2) ofLegal Metrology (packagedCommodities) Rules 2011,"No retail dealer or otherpeople including the manu-facturer, packer, importerand wholesale dealer shallmake any sale of any com-modity in the packed form at

a price exceeding the retailsale price."

Srikhande Umesh Kumar,founder of 'Know YourRights' consumer platform,said, "Customers shouldnever pay more than MRP onpre-packaged commodities.No GST is applicable on theMRP. Hence, GST shouldnot be paid over MRP. It is aviolation of GST rules aswell. Ignorance of these rules

is costing consumers.Besides charging

above the MRP,the establish-ment alsoc o l l e c t e dGST whichis already

included in theprice mentioned."

He further added thatbecause of the violations, theLegal Metrology could bookthe institution under theirrules, apart from the variousviolations found during theinspection. "I request theLegal Metrology Departmentto take immediate stringentaction against The WaterFront restaurant and shouldimpose hefty fines."

PNS n HYDERABAD

Hotels and restaurants, includ-ing big names like Paradiseand Blue Fox, have allegedlybeen serving re-cooked refrig-erated stale food to customersunder attractive names on themenu card. Besides in-housecustomers, food delivery ser-vices are also handed out suchfood for online customers.

According to Gazetted FoodInspector Sudarsan Reddy,"Food inspectors of GHMCvisited two renowned hotels inMusheerabad andSecunderabad following com-plaints against them. We did notreveal our identity. WhenSwiggy and Zomato deliveryboys reached the hotel counters,the hotel management orderedstaff to pack biryani for them."

Some restaurants make lakhsin profits on any single day andcan afford to a pay a fine of a fewthousand rupees, wash off theirhands off and get back at themalpractice again. Inspectionshave revealed unhygienic con-ditions in kitchens, uncleanutensils and staff members

unconcerned about hygiene. The GHMC often throws its

hands up in helplessness onaccount of not having adequatenumber of food inspectors for acity which has a population ofover one crore. There are alle-gations that civic body officialsconduct raids once in a year onhotels and restaurants and thengo slow thereafter. Periodicinspections and more transpar-ent system are not put in placewith regard to levying and col-lection of fines, leave alonechecking drainage and wastemanagement aspects. GHMC

receives at least 15-20 com-plaints every day, but enforce-ment officials can't act on them.

Unhygienic conditions pre-vail at Hotel Paradise too, overwhich officials recently fined itRs 1 lakh. GHMC medical offi-cer and Gazette Food inspectorSudarsan Reddy identified thatculinary items like 'Chicken 65'and others were laced withchemicals for taste and colour.

Gem Gem restaurant atParadise circle was asked to payRs 15,000 as fine and instruct-ed to improve sanitation on itspremises. Besides, Super Star

Hotel on MG Road was askedto pay Rs 5,000 towards fine,while Café Bahar in Saroornagarwas fined Rs 1 lakh.

When officials revealed theiridentity and questioned thehotel managements, they saidthey had separate cuisine foronline orders. Since online cus-tomers get food at a cheaperprice, the food served to themcontains left over biryani, burntchicken pieces, insipid dishesand so on!

On average, GHMC receivesthree-five complaints a dayagainst Swiggy and Zomato.

HYDERABAD | WEDNESDAY | OCTOBER 23, 2019 hyderabad 03

RIMEORNERC

Ukranian dies onQatar Airways flight

Two die in accidenton city outskirts

Ramji gang of TNdetained under PD ActHYDERABAD: Four members ofthe Ramji gang from TamilNadu, who were earlier arrestedfor peddling ganja, weredetained by the RachakondaCommissioner of Police underthe preventive detention Act onTuesday. The detained personshave been identified as PartivanDeepak (31), ThangarajSathyaraj (31), Yogaraj (23) andSuresh (36). The police saidthat the main accused PartivanDeepak (Deepu) was jailed in2011 for a murder inRamjinagar. But after beingbehind bars for a month, hewas released on bail. In 2014,he along with his friend Laxmanstole a bag from a car in Delhi,for which the Delhi policearrested him and sent him toTihar jail. He was later releasedon bail. Deepak then joined theRamji gang where he metThangaraj, Sathyaraj, Yogaraj,Suresh, Mukesh, Sharvanandu,Thamodharan, Vadivelu,Armugam, Kumar, Kumaran,Raju, Gokul and Aditya.

HYDERABAD: Two personswere killed in a road accident atShamirpet on Tuesday morning. According to the police, PremDas and Mukesh, bothresidents of Saroornagar, wereheading to KomuravelliMallikarjuna Swamy Templewhen the accident took place atTurkapally village in Shamirpet.Both died after the motorcycleskidded on the road. The policeshifted the bodies to GandhiHospital mortuary.

HYDERABAD: A 69 year-oldUkranian suffered a cardiacarrest on board a Doha-Bangkok flight, prompting thecrew to divert the aircraft to theRajiv Gandhi internationalairport is Shamshabad, wheredoctors declared him broughtdead,airport sources said in thecity on Tuesday. GalynaKonkina, who had a history ofheart ailment, was found'unresponsive andunconscious' in the flight at1.30 am,following which theQatar Airways flight landed atRGI Airport about two hourslater.

PNS n HYDERABAD

Principal Secretary MA&UDArvind Kumar on Tuesday vis-ited the dumping yard atJawaharnagar to access the mea-sures initiated by the contractorsto control the bad odour ema-nating from it that spreads in thevicinity.

Arvind Kumar said that whilethe intensity of the odour hadreduced owing to the regularcapping works undertaken, thepiling up of garbage and thedelay in its processing remainsa concern. He asked the con-tractor to fix a timeframe for thecommissioning of the waste-to-energy plant.

He directed the contractors or

concessionaires to cover thegarbage with tarpaulin sheets atleast by the end of rainy seasonin order to eliminate the stench.He advised them to build up

vertical walls and roof on thegarbage dump.

The Principal Secretary alsoasked the GHMC commission-er to look into the slaughter

house issue at Chengicherla,besides suggesting to officials toidentify alternate sites for pro-cessing and disposal of garbageto supplement the Jawaharnagardumping yard, which is thesingle processing and disposalfacility for the entire city.

The concessionaires RamkyEnviro Engineers Limitedexplained about the conditionsleading to increased odour inci-dence with a power-point pre-sentation. They said that unex-pectedly heavy rainfall, lowtemperatures, relatively higherelevation of the dump yard,unsegregated waste with highwater content, higher volumes ofwaste receipts, including slaugh-ter house waste, were some of

the reasons for the increasedodour.

The measures being taken upto address this issue includeshort-term, medium-term andlong-term measures. In theshort-term, measures such asaggressive spraying of maskingagents and soil cover over par-tially filled landfill units arebeing taken up.

The medium-term measuresinclude expediting the setting upof waste-to-energy plants, con-struction of sheds for compost-ing areas and enhancing theodour monitoring protocol,while the long-term measuresinclude developing alternateprocessing and disposal sites atother locations.

Odour-control measures at dump inspectedl Principal Secy visits Jawaharnagar yard, asks contractor to eliminate stench by end of rain season

Arvind Kumar with officials at the Jawaharnagar dump yard on Tuesday

l Kitchens are unkempt at allplaces where raids wereconductedl At all these places, chicken,mutton and curries stored inrefrigerators were stalel Replete with cockroachesand walls were unclean l The cooks were notbothering about cleanliness

The lacunae founf at placeswhere raids were conducted

Man arrested forloan, cyber fraudl Accused has 20 cases pendingagainst him in TS, APPNS n HYDERABAD

The Commissioner's TaskForce on Tuesday apprehend-ed a man who is cheated peo-ple by claiming to provideloans and then extractingmoney from them.Police seized Rs 11lakh in cash, 12mobile phonesamong other items.

Accused MaretiSrinivasa Rao (27), aresident of Amberpet,has 20 cases registeredagainst him in both the Telugustates.

Srinivasa Rao is a native ofThuni, East Godavari districtin Andhra Pradesh and aBTech graduate. In 2016, hecheated several people byputting up a fake matrimoni-al consultancy. A case was reg-istered at Kakinada in this

regard following which hewas arrested and later releasedon bail. Srinivasa came toHyderabad in 2017 and tooka room on rent in Amberpet.He procured different SIMcards and gave advertisements

in Telugu newspapersclaiming to provide

jobs, loans and visas. Police said he intro-

duced himself withfalse names to people

who approached himfor jobs or loans. He

claimed to be running afinance company that provid-ed loans on low interest rates.He would then collects thecopies of bank passbooks, ATMcards and PIN numbers fromcallers via WhatsApp, andmakes them believe that loanapplication is approved, saidAnjani Kumar, Commissionerof Police, Hyderabad.

PNS n HYDERABAD

Owner of Shine Hospital,Sunil Kumar Reddy, was takeninto police custody on Tuesdayfollowing a major fire in thehospital premises a day agothat charred an infant.

Police arrested Sunil fol-lowing a complaint filed byNaresh, a police constablewho lost his child in the fireaccident on Monday. TheDirectorate of Enforcement,Vigilance and DisasterManagement (EV&DM)under the GHMC also issueda notice to the hospital to sub-mit copies of the building'ssanction plan, building occu-pancy certificate, trade license,No Objection Certificate(NOC) from the fire depart-ment, and the receipt of theproperty tax paid within threedays. The hospital allegedlydidn't have proper fire safetymeasures and was floutingbuilding norms of the GHMC.

Other infants, who sufferedinjuries in the fire, are beingtreated at various private hos-pitals in the city.

Shine hospitalowner held indeath bynegligence casel Sunil Reddy askedto submit fire NOC,building plan etc

Inmate hitsprison warden,bookedPNS n HYDERABAD

A prisoner was booked afterhe allegedly assaulted awarder at Central PrisonHyderabad at Chanchalgudaon Monday.

Goli Rajesh, who wasrecently shifted to the prisonfrom Warangal jail andlodged in the high securitycell of Central Prison atChanchalguda, picked up anargument with the wardenSatya over delay in allowinghim to make a phone call.

During the argument,Rajesh hit Satya on his face,said N Satyanarayana, SHOof Dabeerpura. Rajesh wasarrested by Warangal policein connection with a theftcase and a local court hadconvicted him for three yearsin the case. Following theconviction, the Warangal jailauthorities shifted him tothe prison in Hyderabad.Prisoners are allowed to calla family member from thelandline phone in the jail.

PNS n HYDERABAD

For the first time in its histo-ry, South Central Railway car-ried 11.5 lakh unreserved pas-sengers on a single day onOctober 21, which includes 2.2lakh passengers on HyderabadMultiModal Transport System(MMTS) services. On SCR, onan average around 9.2 lakhpassengers travels in unre-served segment each day,including around 1.6 lakh pas-sengers on MMTS. Due to the TSRTC strike in theState followed by reopening ofeducational institutions onOctober 21, passengersthronged railway stations totravel by intercity expresstrains and MMTS trains.Previously, the highest number

of passengers on MMTS sub-urban services operating intwin cities on a single day wastwo lakh, which was surpassedon Monday, a press releasesaid.

In addition, the regularintercity express trains wereaugmented with 14 addition-al general coaches on October21 including the Secunderabad

- Guntur, Golconda Express(three general coaches) andSecunderabad - Ballarshah,Bhagyanagar Express (threegeneral coaches).

Anticipating the additionalrush of passengers, the zone

has taken up measures likeoperating four specialJansadharan trains betweenKacheguda - Nizamabad andKacheguda - Kurnool Cityand augmentation of generalcoaches.

After Metro, MMTS now sees passenger surgel Commuters are taking alternative transport in view of the bus strike

Top eateries may be serving youstale food from shabby kitchens!l Inspections reveal food items kept in fridges is stale l Food delivered athome can be even more suspect l GHMC lacks staff to regulate restaurants

Water Frontrestaurant bookedfor overcharging

MRP IGNORED

City Police Commissioner Anjani Kumar on Tuesday warned ofstringent criminal action against those obstructing public transport

or private buses plying on the city roads. The Commissioner saidcases would be booked for assaulting drivers working for the TSRTCand that trial of such cases would be conducted in fast-track courts.Any obstruction of drivers would be booked as case of obstructinggovernment servants from discharging their duty. The warning camein the wake of striking TSRTC employees obstructing private driverswho are driving corporation buses in the city.

Police issue warning againstobstructing public transport

HC bench says no to earlyhearing on RTC plea

IHCI event at IIIT-H in Nov PNS n HYDERABAD

International Institute ofInformation Technology (IIIT-H) in partnership with ISB ishosting the India Human-Computer Interaction confer-ence in Hyderabad from Nov 1to 3. The conference will focusand examine the interplay ofhuman and machine agency inan increasingly complex worldresulting from AI.

India HCI 2019 will featurerenowned scholars from

around the world as well asinclude workshops, paper pre-sentations and start-up show-cases. It will look at the prob-lems and challenges specific toIndia where social contexts ofcomputing are different andmore complex than those of thedeveloped nations.

Over the last decade, IndiaHCI has focused on diverseareas and has successfully strivedto invite and publish high-qual-ity research papers to discussHCI in the Indian context.

PNS n HYDERABAD

A two-judge bench ofTelangana High Court com-prising Chief JusticeRaghavendra Singh Chauhanand Justice A Abhishek Reddyon Tuesday refused to permitany early hearing of a freshplea on the question of pay-ment of wages to the employ-ees of the RTC. The bench

pointed out that a single judgewas already hearing a similarmatter and therefore there wasno reason to move a PIL.

The petitioner's advocatePE Krishnaiah sought an out-of-turn hearing, but the benchrejected it saying there cannotbe duplication of list, and inlight of the pending pleabefore the single judge a PILmay not be maintainable.

HYDERABAD | WEDNESDAY | OCTOBER 23, 2019 hyderabad 04

PNS n HYDERABAD

The striking employees ofstate-owned Telangana StateRoad Transport Corporation(TSRTC) adopted a novel wayto protest on Tuesday as theirindefinite strike entered the18th day. The striking employ-ees presented flowers to thetemporary employees torequest them not to operate thebuses. The protestors wereseen meeting temporary dri-vers and conductors and pre-senting them roses with arequest to cooperate with themby not attending the duties.

The temporary employeeswere told that the Joint ActionCommittee (JAC) of the strik-ing employees is also fightingfor filling up the vacancies inthe transport utility and, hencethey will also gain from theongoing strike. More than48,000 employees of TSRTChave been on strike sinceOctober 5 to press for theirdemands, which includes themerger of the TSRTC with thegovernment so that they aretreated at par with the govern-ment employees.

Taking a tough stand againstthe employees, the state gov-ernment called the strike ille-gal and rejected all theirdemands. Chief Minister KChandrashekhar Rao not onlyruled out talks, but alsodeclared that except 1,200 allothers who failed to join duty

before the expiry of deadlinecease to be TSRTC employees.He made it clear that there isno question of taking back theemployees.

While employees continuedtheir protest with the support ofthe opposition parties, varioustrade unions, student bodiesand people's organisations, theTSRTC have been operating busservices with the help of work-ers recruited on a temporarybasis. TSRTC claims to be oper-ating a majority of the 10,500buses with police protection atdepots and bus stations.

Though Telangana HighCourt has twice suggested toboth the parties to resolve theissue through talks, no initiativewas taken by either side tobreak the impasse. JAC convenorAshwathama Reddy said theywere ready for talks if the gov-ernment or TSRTC invites them.He said the strike will continueeven if the talks are held.

Last week, two employeescommitted suicide due todepression over losing jobsand not receiving salaries forSeptember. A statewide shut-down was also observed on acall by the JAC and supportedby opposition parties, but thegovernment has not budgedfrom its stand. The High Courtis scheduled to resume hearingon Public Interest Litigations(PILs) on October 28 when thegovernment is expected tobrief the division bench on the

steps taken to resolve the issue.A High Court judge is also

separately hearing a petitionfiled by the National MazdoorUnion (NMU), seeking direc-tion to the TSRTC to pay thesalaries for September. TheTSRTC conveyed to the courton Monday that it is not in aposition to pay salaries to theemployees. TSRTC in chargeManaging Director SunilSharma informed the court

that TSRTC requires Rs.239crore to pay the salaries, but ithas only Rs 7.49 crore in itsaccount.Jithender joins strikeFormer MP Jithender Reddyon Tuesday participated inRTC JAC protest at Jubilee BusStation, Secunderabad withJAC Convenor AshwathamaReddy. The TSRTC JointAction Committee met with

the temporary drivers anddiscussed their demands.Reddy explained to the tem-porary drivers that ChiefMinister K ChandrashekharRao is only using their servicesduring crisis now and oncenormalcy returns, he will for-get their hard work just like hehas forgotten the hard workand sacrifices of RTC employ-ees during Telangana agitationmovement.

TSRTC STRIKE: DAY 18

Fate of RTC hangs in balanceEMPLOYEES TO INTENSIFY STIR; ASK TEMPORARY STAFF TO DESIST FROM OPERATING BUSES

NO RRELIEF: TSRTC employees at a protest at Jubliee Bus Stand in Secunderabad on Tuesday

Miscreants peltstones at bus PNS n CHEVELLA

Windowpanes of RTCbus were completelydamaged when miscre-ants pelted stones at thebus here on Tuesday. Thebus was heading towardsVikarabad fromHyderabad. The bus pas-sengers had a miraculousescape in the incident.Vikarabad RTC depotofficials have lodged acomplaint with thepolice.

In Karimnagar, RTCdriver Jampanna made abid to immolate himself.He was rushed to thepolice station. InMahabubnagar, theworkers wore Ambedkarmasks and protested dis-

playing "Save RTC" slo-gans. Sporting hand-cuffs they protested infront of Ambedkar statue.

At Jeedimetla RTCdepot, woman workersplayed Kabaddi as part oftheir ongoing protest pro-grammes, They appealedthe government to fulfilltheir just demands. InKomuram BhimAsifabad district head-quarters, Asifabad, theRTC workers picketed infront of the RTC buses,presented flowers to adhoc drivers and conduc-tors, and asked them notto report for work fromWednesday onwards.The RTC workers soughttheir support to their agi-tation.

JAC holds ‘Vanta Varpu' at JBSPNS n HYDERABAD

TSRTC employees held 'VantaVarpu' programme at JubileeBus Station, Secunderabad asthe strike reached the eigh-teenth day. TSRTC JAC con-venor Ashwathama Reddy,Congress senior leader VHanumantha Rao, CPI leaderChada Venkat Reddy and oth-ers took part in the pro-gramme on Tuesday.

"Vanta Varpu programme isbeing held at all depots and busstations across the state aspart of our peaceful agitation.

The last time RTC employeesheld 'Vanta Varpu' was duringthe Telangana movement. Nowonce again RTC employeeshave organised 'Vanta Varpu'to fulfill their demands. RTCstrike has reached 18th day andRTC employees' families arefacing severe troubles. Evensalaries have not been paid forthe employees. Instead of act-ing adamantly, governmentshould initiate talks withemployees and put an end tothe stalemate," saidAshwathama Reddy.

He also expressed concern

on the occasion saying, insteadof taking steps to end thestrike, the government is goingahead with measures whichwill further weaken theTSRTC. He found fault withRTC officials calling for tenderfor hire buses. TSRTC JACconvenor also appealed totemporary drivers and con-ductors to support their agita-tion, as they are protesting fornot just their salaries but toprotect TSRTC, the primepublic transportation systemon which crores of Telanganapeople are depending.

Trainee bus driverrams depotmanager's carPNS n NALGONDA

A trainee driver, appointed ontemporary basis rammed the businto a car here at the Nalgondabus depot. According to officials,the car belongs to the depotmanager. The trainee driver,identified as Srinivas was under-going trial run in the depotpremise. During the process, helost control over the wheel andrammed the car parked near thedepot premises.

Angered over this, the depotmanager, instructed the con-cerned officials to take meticu-lous look at the drivers and theircredentials before appointingthem for the temporary basis.Following the incident, the strik-ing RTC employees alleged thatthe incident shows the truecolours of the drivers, appoint-ed on temporary basis.

RTC woman worker collapsesPNS n MANCHERIAL

Mild tension prevailed at theMancherial Bus Depot here onTuesday when a woman,working with the TSRTC, col-lapsed after losing conscious-ness. The incident happenedwhen the woman, along withothers were participating theRTC strike, which entered18th day on Tuesday.

She was rushed to a gov-ernment hospital for treat-ment. She is learnt to have suf-fered a heart stroke. Later, thepolice did not allow the pro-testors to join their colleaguesin the dharna camp. Theworkers retaliated against thepolice leading to a minoraltercation between the work-ers and police. During the

meelee, a lady worker of theTSRTC collapsed.

The workers condemnedthe police highhandedness.The workers are growingimpatient as government didnot invite the JAC leaders for

talks. They stepped up theirstir. Meanwhile, the ChiefMinister has been reviewingwith top officials the scenarioin the light of HC orders andon what could be the govern-ment stand on the strike.

Though TelanganaHigh Court has twicesuggested to boththe parties toresolve the issuethrough talks, noinitiative was takenby either side tobreak the impasse.JAC convenorAshwathama Reddysaid they were readyfor talks if thegovernment orTSRTC invited them

Dharmadi Satyam did whatNavy, NDRF failed to doPNS n KACHCHALURU

Dharmadi Satyam accom-plished what the Indian Navyand NDRF could not. He issynonymous with salvagingboats that went under thewater. He is not highly edu-cated and not technically savvy,but he earned rich experiencein salvaging boats from riversand seas.

He attracted the attentionof everyone with the suc-cessful haul of the RoyalVashishta. When the boatcapsized, the flood level inGodavari was very high.Therefore, none came farwardto salvage the boat. The Navy,NDRF and Uttarakhand emer-gency operations team afterinitial trials threw off theirhands out of helplessness.

The special officer fromNDRF visited the mishap sitebut of no avail. The state gov-ernment awarded Rs 22.7-lakh contract to DharmadiSatyam team's Balaji Marine.The team started operations onSeptember 28 but gave up onOctober 3 because of heavyfloods to the river.

As the flood level receded,the operations continued fromOctober 16. With the help of

iron ropeand anchors,

the team pin-pointed the area where theboat went under the water andintensified salvaging efforts.The anchor dropped couldonly bring out railing of theboat. As efforts bear no fruit,consultations were held withscuba divers ofVisakhapatnam. The diverswere initially reluctant to dothe job. But Satyam convincedthem to take part in the oper-ations. Following the strategyof Dharmadi Satyam, thedivers managed to tie iron ropeto the boat. The boat wastugged with the help of the

proclainer at last salvaging iton Tuesday. Several have beenappreciating Dharmadi Satyamfor accomplishing the taskwhich the Navy and NDRFcould not accomplish. Severalfishermen from Kachchaluruand its surrounding villagesdid not go deep into the riverwhere the incident happened.

As the boat was successful-ly salvaged the fishermen areready to go for fishing in thearea. Dharmadi Satyamresponded saying "He couldnot save the tourists but couldonly share the grief of theirfamilies by successfully sal-vaging the boat and bodiestrapped in it."

ROYAL VASISTA RETRIEVED

Revanth's action irks senior leadersK VENKATESHWARLUn HYDERABAD

RTC strike is creating internalripples in Telangana Congress.The party's Pragathi Bhavanseizure programme held onMonday in support of RTCstrike has created differencesamong Telangana Congress lead-ers. The party senior leaders haveexpressed anger over TPCCworking president and MalkajgiriMP A Revanth Reddy allegingthat the latter announced theprogramme unilaterally withoutinforming about it.

It is learnt that the samesenior leaders, who were beingconfined to their residences withthe house arrests, are contem-plating to lodge a complaint withthe party high command againstRevanth Reddy's attitude. Aspart of it, the seniors held a meet-ing at Congress Legislature Party(CLP) office here on Tuesday.They shared their pain withCLP leader Mallu BhattiVikramarka. They questionedRevanth to tell as to whom heconsulted before announcingthe Pragathi Bhavan seizure pro-gramme. The seniors alsolamented that even TPCC chief

N Uttam Kumar Reddy too wasnot informed about it. Theyexpressed anger over Revanthalleging that the latter joinedparty couple of years ago dictat-ing terms, it is learnt.

Senior leaders Mallu BhattiVikramarka, Madhu YashkiGoud, M Kodanda Reddy, ChVamshichand Reddy, SASampath Kumar and VHanumantha Rao participated inthe meeting.

Earlier Revanth Reddy hadstated that all the programmes,to be held in support of RTCemployees, would be held underthe banner of Congress party, buton Monday all of a suddenRevanth Reddy took up Pragathi

Bhavan siege without informingthe senior party leaders, it islearnt.

It may be recalled that,Revanth Reddy in a press meethad announced that Congresswill lay seize to Pragathi Bhavanon October 21 in case the gov-ernment failed to respond on theongoing RTC strike by October19, only after discussing onlywith two party senior leadersDamodara Raja Narsimha andShabbir Ali at Gandhi Bhavan.

TPCC Chief N Uttam KumarReddy had issued a statement aday before the Pragathi Bhavanseizure asking the party leadersand cadre to participate in theprogramme in a big way. This

also made the party seniors tofeel anger at the Revanth Reddyand Uttam Kumar Reddy. Theircontention is the party has tosend message regarding PragathiBhavan seizure.

On the other hand, the policetoo made had put the seniorsleaders under house arrests. Butthe programme attracted mediaattention in a big way as it is partof RTC strike making the seniorsnot to digest it. They wereexpressed objection on RevanthReddy for announcing the pro-gramme unilaterally.

They opined in the meetingthat the party has a tradition ofconvening a meeting when ittakes up big programmes likePragathi Bhavan seizure.However, Revanth Reddy isbehaving against the party's tra-dition, they contended.

However, after the meeting,Madhu Yaskhi Goud informedthe media that they discussed onpublic issues and party's issues inthe meeting.On the other hand,Revanth Reddy's followers ques-tioned the party seniors to tellwhether they succeeded in con-ducting Pragathi Bhavan seizureby announcing it united in thelast six years.

‘BJP has no rightto hold GandhiSankalp Yatra'PNS n HYDERABAD

TPCC working presidentPonnam Prabhakar hasalleged that the BJP has takenup 'Gandhi Sankalp Yatra'expecting political benefitsonly.

"BJP has taken up SankalpYatra in the name of Gandhibesides describing NathuramGodsey, who killed Gandhi,as a patriot," he said express-ing anger at the saffron party.He questioned BJP to tell asto how it will take up SankalpYatra while praying the killerson the other side.

On Tuesday, Ponnamalleged that it is atrocious onthe part of TRS governmentas it is not responding on theRTC strike. He asked the stategovernment to solve theemployees' demandsresponding on the RTCstrike. He also asked the stategovernment to divert theYellampally water, which isgoing waste downwards, tofill the tanks and ponds as theMid Manair project's repairsare going on.

He alleged that the state'seconomical conditiondestroyed due to non-pay-ment of bills to the Sircillahandloom workers, who pro-duced Bathukamma sarees.

Panel to help determine Amaravati’s statusPNS n AMARAVATI

The Andhra Pradesh govern-ment will decide on the futureof the state's new capital,Amaravati, once the expertpanel constituted to draft acomprehensive plan for itsdevelopment, submits itsreport, official sources said.Exactly four years ago on thisday, Prime Minister NarendraModi had laid the foundationstone for building Amaravati.

The then Chief Minister NChandrababu Naidu hadunveiled computer graphicsof the city-that-would-be,

promising it to be the "heavenon earth" akin to God Indra'scapital. The new dispensationled by Chief Minister Y SJaganmohan Reddy has put thecapital city project on the back-burner citing several reasonsincluding alleged irregulari-ties in land procurement dur-ing the Telugu Desam Partyrule.

"Where the capital should beand how it should be will bedecided only after the expertscommittee submits its report,"Municipal Minister BotsaSatyanarayana said. The com-mittee, headed by retired IAS

officer G N Rao, was consti-tuted by the state governmenton September 13 with a six-week deadline to submit itsreport.

"The Committee report isexpected only in Decemberand the government mayannounce the fate of the capi-tal in January," official sourcessaid.

After the regime change inthe state in May this year, theSingapore consortium thatwas supposed to develop the1691-acre Start-up Area inthe capital backed out of theproject and sought its equity

share back. The Indo-UKMedicity project has beenscrapped while the BR ShettyMedicity venture too is almostclosed.

Both projects did not takeoff after the foundation stoneceremonies in 2016. The APCapital Region DevelopmentAuthority has reportedlyissued only Letters of Intent tocentral government organisa-tions over land allotment. But,in many cases, the registrationswere not done. This wasbecause the CRDA wanted arevision in the Master Plan,official sources said.

‘TS will play big role in farm sector’PNS n HYDERABAD

The two-day workshop on"Youth as Torchbearers ofBusiness Oriented Agriculture inSouth India" has concluded hereon Tuesday. B Vinod Kumar,Vice Chairman, planning Board,Government of Telangana hasattended as chief guest and DrSK Joshi, Chief Secretary was theGuest of Honor.

Speaking on the occasion, BVinod Kumar has suggestedthe young graduates to find outthe way to prosper agriculturein the country and think ofnew innovative ideas to growthe agriculture as profitable tothe farmers. He further sug-gested that, the young studentsmust ventured in to agriculturebusiness and captured theopportunities in this sector.

And also search innovativeideas for marketing of thefarm produce, he said.

B Vinod kumar told aboutthe initiatives of the Telanganastate government in agricul-tural sector for profitable to thefarmers. He said that,Telangana has become thecase study for other states byimplementing of several novelschemes for the welfare of the

farmers. He assured thatTelangana will be played agreat role in the country by set-ting of examples in agriculturesector. He requested the organ-isers to conduct similar work-shops in the rural areas toencourage the rural youth inagri business for remain in theagriculture profession.

Amazon stafferpart of burglarygang, nabbedPNS n HYDERABAD

Malkajgiri police along withMedipally police nabbed afour-member gang of bur-glars along with an Amazonemployee, who allegedlyreceived stolen property fromthe gang. Police recovered 23TVs, together worth Rs 4lakh from them.

According to the police,the offenders used to reccewarehouses and showroomsduring the day and break intothem in the night. They con-fessed to stealing the TVs anddisposing them with the helpof Santosh. The gang wasproduced before court andremanded in judicial cus-tody.

He requestedthe organisersto conductworkshops inrural areas toencourage ruralyouth to take upagri business

The party seniorleaders expressedanger over RevanthReddy alleging thatthe latter announcedthe Pragathi Bhavanseizure unilaterallywithout informing

HYDERABAD | WEDNESDAY | OCTOBER 23, 2019 nation 05SHORT READS

PM Modi, Nobellaureate Banerjee holdextensive discussionon varied issuesNEW DELHI: Nobel laureateAbhijit Banerjee on Tuesdaycalled on Prime MinisterNarendra Modi and held a"healthy and extensive"interaction on various subjects.Banerjee, an India-bornAmerican professor atMassachusetts Institute ofTechnology, has won Nobel ineconomics, jointly with wifeEsther Duflo and MichaelKremer for "experimentalapproach to alleviating globalpoverty". "Excellent meetingwith Nobel Laureate AbhijitBanerjee. His passion towardshuman empowerment is clearlyvisible. We had a healthy andextensive interaction on varioussubjects. India is proud of hisaccomplishments. Wishing himthe very best for his futureendeavours," Modi said in atweet, sharing a picture of theirmeeting at his officialresidence. While congratulatingBanerjee for winning the prize,Union minister Piyush Goyal ata media briefing in Pune earlierthis month, had described himas a "Left-leaning" person.

Punjab: BSF spotsthree drones alongIndo-Pak borderPNS n FEROZEPUR

BSF personnel posted inPunjab's Hussainiwala sec-tor have spotted threedrones along the India-Pakistan border, officialssaid on Tuesday.

Though there werereports that Border SecurityForce (BSF) troops fired atthe drones coming fromthe Pakistani s ide onMonday night, there was noofficial confirmation.

Earl ier this month,drones were sighted by res-idents of Basti Ram Lal,Tendi Wala and HajaraSingh Wala villages, fol-lowing which the BSF wasput on alert.

At that time, search oper-ations were carried out bythe BSF and the PunjabPolice but nothing suspi-cious was found.

ED arrests close aideof Iqbal Mirchi inmoney laundering case

Seize Prateek Hajela'spassport till NRC auditis completed: APWGUWAHATI: The originalpetitioner in the Supreme Courtseeking updation of the NRC inAssam on Tuesday urged thegovernment to "seize" thepassport of the NRC StateCoordinator, Prateek Hajela, tillauditing of the entire processwas completed. The apex courton Friday had directed theCentre and the Assamgovernment to transfer theAssam National Register ofCitizens (NRC) Coordinator toMadhya Pradesh for themaximum period. DescribingHajela's "dramatic exit" from thestate as a matter of graveconcern, president of the AssamPublic Works President (APW),Aabhijeet Sharma, said in astatement that the governmentshould ensure that he cannotleave the country till auditing ofthe NRC process wascompleted. The government hasa major responsibility to find outhow a government official whohas been solely responsible forspending Rs 1,600 crore ofgovernment money can leaveAssam without submitting anydetailed report of expenses,Sharma said. The NRC was aprocess on which the people ofAssam had pinned their hopesbut the release of the final listwas "full of flaws and it hasbroken the hearts of many",Sharma said.

MUMBAI: The EnforcementDirectorate has arrested a closeaide of late gangster IqbalMirchi in connection with amoney laundering case,officials said on Tuesday. IqbalMirchi alias Iqbal Memon wasan associate of global terroristDawood Ibrahim. HumayunMerchant was arrested underprovisions of the Prevention ofMoney Laundering Act onMonday night here, the officialssaid. He will be producedbefore a special court inMumbai for further custody,they said. Merchant was statedto be a "close friend" and aideof Mirchi. It is alleged by theED that Merchant "planted"tenants to purportedly usurpthree immovable properties SeaView, Marium Lodge and RabiaMansion in Worli belonging tothe Sir Mohammad YusufTrust. The tenants were"dummy", the agency's probehas found.

PNS n BHUBANESWAR

The Centre will be setting upESI hospitals in every districtof the country, Union LabourMinister Santosh KumarGangwar said on Tuesday,asserting that the NarendraModi government was com-mitted to the well-being of thecountry's labour force.

Addressing a regional con-ference of labour ministersand principal secretaries fromeastern states, he said there willbe a 30-bed hospital for every20,000 workers.

"Over 450 ESI hospitalsoperate across the countryand measures will be taken toextend the network to all dis-tricts.

"There will be at least one30-bed hospital for every20,000 workers. For areas with50,000 or more workers, stepswill be taken to establish 100-bed ESI hospitals," the Unionminister said.

Asked about the possibilityof establishing an ESI medicalcollege in Bhubaneswar, hesaid the Centre will not be ableto take any initiative in thisregard.

The Employees StateInsurance Corporation (ESIC)has been entrusted with the jobof looking after the welfare ofthe labour force, not with set-

ting up of medical colleges,Gangwar explained.

Noting that a 100-bed ESIhospital is already operationalin Bhubaneswar, he said pro-posals for setting up similarfacilities in Paradip, Jeypore,Balasore and Berhampur willbe considered, if these districtsmeet the criteria.

"The Narendra Modi gov-ernment is committed to well-being of the country's labour-force. It will ensure that thereis no dearth of doctors or para-medical staff at the ESI hospi-tals, which will be equippedwith modern healthcareamenities," he added.

Every district in the country willhave ESI hospital: Gangwar

Kashmir students say they are not ready for exams, want cut in syllabusPNS n SRINAGAR

Students in Jammu and Kashmir,particularly in the Valley, are ina dilemma as authorities havedecided to go ahead with annu-al examinations for various class-es according to schedule butalmost half of the syllabus is yetto be completed due to the clo-sure of schools post August 5.

The school administrationshave also charged fees from thestudents for these non-workingmonths, parents allege. Now,the authorities have announcedthe schedule for the annualexaminations without any relax-ation in syllabus, they say.

Parents as well as students arewary that if the examinations areconducted on schedule withoutany reduction in the syllabus, the

students may not secure goodmarks, but if the annual exami-nations are not conducted, a pre-cious year would be lost.

Students say they are dis-tressed by the prevailing cir-cumstances and they have stud-ied only around half of the pre-

scribed syllabus."We have been inside our

homes since August 5. There hasbeen no classes and studying inthe prevailing atmosphere hasbeen very difficult. How can weprepare for the examinations,"asks Nyla, a student of class 12 at

a private school here.She says private tuition has also

been affected in the valley due tothe restrictions and shutdown.Students from government-runschools also have the same tale totell. While the governmentannounced gradual re-opening ofschools across the valley and theteachers attended to their duties,the students stayed away.

"We could not go to our

schools. Our parents cannotafford private tuition. We havenot covered our entire syllabus,so how can we be prepared forthe annual examinations," saysMusaib, a government schoolstudent studying in class 10.

The students want examina-tions to be deferred or at leastsome reduction in the syllabus sothat question papers be setaccordingly. "The government

should defer the examinations orshould at least reduce the syllabusand then set the question papersaccording to the reduced syl-labus. That will reduce our bur-den a bit," says Nyla.

On August 5, the governmentrevoked Article 370 of theConstitution to withdraw thespecial status given to Jammuand Kashmir and bifurcated thestate into two Union Territories-- Jammu and Kashmir, andLadakh. Parents are also worriedabout the safety of their wards.

"They have not completedthe syllabus, there have been noclasses for the second semester.The atmosphere is not good forprivate tuition and learning.How will they appear the exam-inations? How will they fare?

"In today's world of cut-throat

competition, merely passing isnot an option, the students haveto secure very good marks. Allthis is adding to the pressure theirminds already have," says JavedAhmad, father of a class 12 stu-dent. Most of the private schoolsask the students to collect assign-ments, in flash drives, from theschools in the absence of anyclasses. Several schools -- includ-ing government-run -- con-ducted home examinations of thestudents in the lower classes dueto the prevailing situation.

Ahmad claims the govern-ment was using the students asa "cannon fodder" to show a sem-blance of normalcy in Kashmir.

"By conducting the examina-tions, the government wants toshow that everything is hunky-dory in Kashmir, which it is not.

They are using the students as acannon-fodder to enforce nor-malcy here. How can our kids goto the examination centres in theprevalent circumstances? Whowill ensure their safety? Thegovernment should first ensurethe situation to get normal andthen conduct the exams," he says.

"The students are caughtbetween devil and the deep sea.They do not want to lose the year,but they are also concernedabout faring well in the exami-nations," Ahmad says.

Officials in the Directorate ofSchool Education Kashmir(DSEK) say the governor'sadministration is uncompro-mising on both holding exami-nations according to scheduleand not providing any reductionin the syllabus.

PNS n NEW DELHI

Nobel laureate AbhijitBanerjee, speaking to themedia after his meeting withPrime Minister NarendraModi, today said he would notget into controversial state-ments because he had beenwarned - by the PrimeMinister.

"I had a cordial and goodmeeting. PM Modi started bycracking a joke on how mediais trying to trap me to say anti-Modi things... He's been watch-ing the TV and he's beenwatching you guys. And heknows what you are trying todo," Abhijit Banerjee remarked.He had been asked about themeeting taking place againstthe backdrop of a debate overhis comments on an econom-ic slump.

Dr Banerjee, who shares the2019 Economics Nobel withEsther Duflo and MichaelKremer, also said that thebanking crisis "is critical andfrightening".

Dr Banerjee declined torespond to a question onIndia's low ranking on the

Human Development Indexand said: "I have had no con-tribution to the HDI and it isdoing quite okay without me.So, I don't want to get intosomething I am not involvedin."

Earlier, just after the meet-ing, he had said that the PMtalked about his way of think-

ing about India. "The PM waskind enough to give me quitea lot of time and to talk a lotabout his way of thinkingabout India, which was quiteunique. Because one hearsabout policies but one rarelyhears about the thinkingbehind them," he said.

"He talked about the way he

sees governance in particular.And why maybe the mistrustof the people on the groundcolours our governance... Andhow it therefore creates struc-ture of elite control over thegovernance process, (whichis) not a responsive govern-ment. In that process, he verynicely explained how he's try-ing to reform the bureaucracyto make it more responsive, tounderstand ways in whichpeople's views need to betaken into account and toexpose them to reality on theground. It is important forIndia that we have a bureau-cracy that lives on the ground,"the economist said.

"Thank you, PM... that wasa unique experience," headded.

PM Modi tweeted that hehad an "excellent meeting"with the Nobel winner. "Hispassion towards humanempowerment is clearly visible.We had a healthy and extensiveinteraction on various sub-jects. India is proud of hisaccomplishments. Wishinghim the very best for his futureendeavours," said the PM.

“PM joked media trying totrap me to say...”: Abhijit PNS n NEW DELHI

The Supreme Court Tuesdayrefused to accept the CBI con-tention that 'flight risk' of eco-nomic offenders be viewed as a"national phenomenon" becauseseveral such persons includingindustrialist Vijay Mallya havefled the country.

The apex court, which grant-ed bail to senior Congress leaderand former finance minister PChidambaram in the INX Mediacorruption case, said there can-not be a "straight-jacket formu-la" for this so as to deny bail toan accused due to conduct ofother offenders.

"At this stage itself, it is nec-essary for us to indicate that weare unable to accept the con-tention of the Solicitor Generalthat 'flight risk' of economicoffenders should be looked at asa national phenomenon and bedealt with in that manner mere-ly because certain other offend-ers have flown out of the coun-try," said a bench headed byJustice R Banumathi.

The bench, also comprisingjustices A S Bopanna andHrishikesh Roy, said the issueregarding an accused being a'flight risk' has to the consideredon a individual basis and beinguninfluenced by the uncon-nected cases.

"The same cannot, in our view,be put in a straight-jacket for-mula so as to deny bail to the onewho is before the court, due tothe conduct of other offenders,if the person under considerationis otherwise entitled to bail onthe merits of his own case," the

bench said while setting aside theSeptember 30 verdict of theDelhi High Court which haddenied bail to Chidambaram.

"Hence, in our view, such con-sideration including as to 'flightrisk' is to be made on individualbasis being uninfluenced by theunconnected cases, more so,when the personal liberty isinvolved," the top court said.

While opposingChidambaram's bail plea in theapex court, Solicitor GeneralTushar Mehta, appearing forthe CBI, had argued that the highcourt had erred in saying that theCongress leader was not a 'flightrisk' as country is facing a prob-lem where persons accused infinancial frauds and economicoffences are fleeing India.

"We are not comparing any-one with this individual(Chidambaram) but one of themwas even a Member ofParliament," Mehta had argued,in an apparent reference toMallya, who owed over Rs 9,000crore to banks and fled India in2016.

In its 27-page judgementgranting bail to Chidambaram,

the apex court said he is neithera "flight risk" nor is there a pos-sibility of "his abscondence fromthe trial".

"The appellant is not a 'flightrisk' and in view of the condi-tions imposed, there is no pos-sibility of his abscondence fromthe trial," the bench said.

It also dismissed CBI's pleachallenging the findings of thehigh court which had said thatChidambaram was not a "flightrisk" and there was no possibil-ity of him tampering with theevidence.

Chidambaram was arrestedby the CBI on August 21 in thecorruption case which was reg-istered on May 15, 2017 allegingirregularities in a ForeignInvestment Promotion Board(FIPB) clearance granted to theINX Media group for receivingoverseas funds of Rs 305 crore in2007, during Chidambaram'stenure as finance minister.

Later, the EnforcementDirectorate (ED) also lodged amoney laundering case in 2017.Chidambaram is presently inED's custody in connection withthe money laundering case.

Parents as well as students are wary thatif the examinations are conducted onschedule without any reduction in thesyllabus, the students may not securegood marks, but if the annualexaminations are not conducted, aprecious year would be lost

"The PM was kind enough to give mequite a lot of time and to talk a lot abouthis way of thinking about India, which wasquite unique. Because one hears aboutpolicies but one rarely hears about thethinking behind them," he said

SC rejects CBI contentionFlight risk of economic offenders a ‘national phenomenon’

INX MEDIA CASE

There will be atleast one 30-bedhospital for every

20,000 workers. For areaswith 50,000 or moreworkers, steps will be takento establish 100-bed ESIhospitalsSANTOSH KUMAR GANGWAR

Union Labour Minister

PNS n NEW DELHI

Labelling the USD 20 servicefee proposed by Pakistan foreach Kartarpur pilgrim as"jazia tax", Congress leaderManish Tewari said onTuesday that the BJP govern-ment should bear the cost asa Sikh devotee paying for thevisit to the gurudwara goesagainst the grain of "khule dar-shan" (open darshan).

India and Pakistanare set to sign a memorandumof understanding (MoU) onOctober 23 for the opening of

the Kartarpur corridor thatwill link the Indian sidethrough a corridor to theKartarpur gurdwara, wherefirst Sikh guru Nanak Devspent his last days.

‘Govt should pay USD20 Pak ‘jazia tax' onKartarpur pilgrim’ PNS n ALLAHABAD

The Allahabad High Court onTuesday gave two weeks to anSIT and BJP leaderChinmayanand's lawyer to filetheir objections to a bail plea bythe law student who has accusedthe politician of rape. While theformer Union minister has beenbooked under the Indian PenalCode's section 376C, a chargeshort of rape, the woman andthree others face a separate caseof trying to blackmail him.

A special investigation (SIT)of the Uttar Pradesh police hasbeen probing the parallel cases.

Seeking bail for her, theShahjahanpur woman's counsel

argued that she is a victim of sex-ual harassment and all allega-tions against her are fabricated.

However, counsel for the stategovernment and SwamiChinmayanand opposed thebail plea, arguing that she is themain accused in the extortioncase and there is sufficient evi-dence to prove it.

HC asks SIT and Chinmayanand'scounsel to file reply

BAIL APPLICATION OF LLM STUDENT

Any effort to savetriple talaq will befutile: UP ministerPNS n LUCKNOW

A day after a Muslim bodychallenged the law criminal-ising instant triple talaq in theSupreme Court, Uttar Pradeshminister Chetan Chauhan onTuesday said any effort to savethe malpractice, whichbecame a "custom" because ofslackness of previous govern-ments, will prove futile.

"Several Muslim countrieshave put a ban on tripletalaq. It is difficult to under-stand why the AIMPLB hasknocked on the doors of theSupreme Court against thenew law," he said.

"This new law is in theinterest of Muslim womenand any effort to challenge itin the court will prove to befutile," the minister said.

The All India MuslimPersonal Law Board onMonday filed a plea in theapex court, challenging TheMuslim Women (Protectionof Rights on Marriage) Act,2019, which makes talaq-e-biddat or any other similarform of talaq, having theeffect of instantaneous andirrevocable divorce pro-nounced by a Muslim hus-band, void and illegal.

PNS n NEW DELHI

The Central government hasincreased the monetary limitsfor accepting gifts for all itsemployees, relaxing the ceilingby more than three-fold, offi-cials said on Tuesday.

All officials under Groups 'A'and 'B' categories shall notaccept any gift without thesanction of the government ifthe value exceeds Rs 5,000, theysaid, citing recently amendedrules. The limit to accept giftsfor these groups of employeeswas Rs 1,500 earlier.

Similarly, Group 'C' employ-ees will be able to accept giftsup to Rs 2,000 instead of Rs500 without taking govern-

ment approval. Governmentemployees under Group 'A' aresenior officials. Governmentemployees under Group 'B'could either be gazetted ornon-gazetted officials. Mostclerical posts and multi-task-ing staff fall under Group 'C'.

Officials said the ceilinglimits were revised to bring

them on par with those for thethree all India services --Indian Administrative Service,Indian Police Service andIndian Forest Service.

Gifts include free transport,boarding, lodging or otherpecuniary advantage when pro-vided by any person other thana near relative or personal friendhaving no official dealings withthe government servant.

A casual meal, lift or othersocial hospitality is not con-sidered a gift, according toexisting rules. The govern-ment has also removed thelimit of Rs 1,000 for govern-ment employees to receiveand retain gifts from foreigndignitaries.

Centre relaxes gift policy foremployees, hikes monetary limits

PNS n NEW DELHI

The Delhi government willredesign and landscape allroads in the city managed bythe Public Works Departmentin accordance with "interna-tional standards", ChiefMinister Arvind Kejriwal saidon Tuesday. The governmenthas selected nine roads mea-suring 45 kilometres on apilot basis, the chief ministersaid at a press conferencehere.

In Delhi, the PWD managesaround 1,260 kilometres ofroads. "All (PWD) roads inDelhi will be redesigned underwhich bottlenecks will beremoved.

"We have selected nineroads on a pilot basis. Workorder to redesign one stretchof road has been issued.Redesigning of nine roadswill be completed within a

year," Kejriwal said.He said redesigned road

stretches will be at par withroads in European countries.This will include landscapingand space for pedestrians,non-motorised vehicles as wellas differently-abled persons,the chief minister said.

The cost of the project,which will increase road effi-ciency, will be around Rs 400crore.

Delhi roads to be redesigned,landscaped: Kejriwal

Returning to one’s roots in soldier-ing is replete with nostalgia, inspi-ration and feeling 10 years younger.Revisiting the National DefenceAcademy (NDA), Khadakwasla,

Maharashtra, after more than six decades wasre-living one’s days when well-rounded headswere being fitted on square shoulders. We werethe pioneers, who in 1955, moved from theJoint Services Wing (JSW) in Clement Town,Dehradun, to the emerging military townshipof Khadakwasla near an iconic lake — thespectacular landscape overlooked by Shivaji’simpregnable Sinhagad Fort. In the sixth andfinal term, Sinhagad became the touchstonefor long-range patrolling, stamina and survival.Sticking out of the earth was the majestic cen-tral cupola, the nerve centre of the academy,flanked by the cadets’ mess and the educationblock. Neat rows of road radiate from thesecommanding heights in three directions —towards the Pashan Gate, the Central Vista andthe Avenue to the Lake.

In January 1955, trainloads of cadets wererelocated in their new home Khadakwasla, thepride of India. It was to become the cradle ofmilitary leadership and excellence where“jointness came naturally.” All the 1,000 cadetswould branch out after three years togetherfor their choice of service: Army, Navy or AirForce. Potential Army cadets were cross-trained. For example, I was sent on IndianNavy frigate Cauvery for a week while a Navyvolunteer went to an Army establishment andsimilarly, the Air Force to a different sister ser-vice. After the sixth term, one would go to theNaval, Air Force and Army military acade-mies for the final year of training. Currently,cadets indicate their choice of service after thefourth term. Last week in Khadakwasla, I wit-nessed change and what has not changed andis still reminiscent of 1955. First, the change.All the way from Pune’s Southern CommandOfficers Mess, the 25-km stretch toKhadakwasla was then desolate, habitated withlush green woods. What took one hour on abicycle, took two hours, given the concrete jun-gle that has crept towards NDA and much isin the possession of the Defence Research andDevelopment Organisation (DRDO) — itskingdom. Farmhouses, luxury resort hotelsand restaurants have encroached on theprecincts of Khadakwasla. The Pashan Gateis new with a massive security apparatus.

The welcome landmark is the GoleMarket — nothing has changed here. Thismarket is etched in my memory because aweek before we were to “pass out” and moveto the Indian Military Academy, Dehradun,our joyful celebration was rudely interrupt-ed by one “Major The Sandhu”, an infantryofficer who was uniformly dreaded bycadets. It was past midnight. Four riding anordnance-issued bicycle, strictly meant forone, was sacrilege, especially when MajSandhu, who was returning in his car fromPune, nearly collided with the overloadedbicycle. For breaking several military regu-

lations, Maj Sandhu used multi-lingual invectives and had fourof us charge-sheeted.

Punishment: While all of the11th course was allowed to passout on December 1, 1956, wewere detained for 14 days. Thedriver of the bicycle wasDivisional Cadet Captain JaswantSingh, who was complimented bythe Commandant, Maj GenInayat Habibullah, for “steering abicycle as expertly as a horse.”

The cadets’ living room isthe same except that a limited wi-fi is now available. Like Jammu& Kashmir was put in a lock-down, cadets are forbidden theuse of cellphones. The technol-ogy of the bicycle is vintagethough the satchels the cadetscarry has improved.

From 12 squadrons, theacademy now has 18 squadronsand a cadet strength of 2,000.“Item” has become “India”squadron, my “Fox” squadron to“Foxtrot” and “Dog” to “Delta.” The Ante Room has thefamiliar aquarium but now a bil-liards table, too.

Barbara Bonny, the wife ofour Squadron Commander, MajLKM Bonny, used to teach us theFoxtrot and on the weekends,commandeered busloads ofPune lasses for live practice.Gen Habibullah and his wifeHamida put the cadets throughsessions of Indian cultural train-ing — music, drama, mushairaand once even Bollywood.

There was no change in thecadets’ mess. Rations and qual-ity of food match any reputablerestaurant. Outside are picturesof early times. Former President

Rajendra Prasad, dining with thecadets, flanked by GenHabibullah and Gen Moti Sagar,both drinking port… the classicshows Premier Chou en Lai in ablack Mao jacket in the cadets’mess during our passing outparade.

As the chief guest, he pre-sented me with the inter-com-pany Squash trophy, which iscaptured in the film on 1962 war,Hum Dono. This was the era ofPanchsheel and Hindi ChiniBhai Bhai (India and China arebrothers) full of banter andbonhomie even as the Chinesehad started building the roadthrough Aksai Chin, which for-mer Prime Minister JawaharlalNehru divulged to Parliamentonly in 1959. There are fabulouspictures, which must be the envyof memorabilia collectors —Pandit Nehru and GenHabibullah, both on horseback,surveying the academy from avantage point as it was being built.It is clear from other pictures ofNehru that the Khadakwaslaproject was his baby. Another pic-ture is of Lt Gen JN Chaudhuryand Nehru engaged in seriousconversation. Army Chief GenKS Thimayya and Nehru in atete-e-tete. Thimayya and Nehruwere good friends, enjoyedimmense rapport despite profes-sional differences.

Today, like yesterday, thereis total lack of rapport and con-versation between top militaryleaders and the political elite.The last Army Chief, who couldchat up politicians, was GenBipin Joshi. The absence ofmeaningful dialogue between

the political and military lead-ership has let the bureaucracyusurp critical advisory space.Today, the Prime Minister can-not find the time to have a use-ful conversation with his ServiceChiefs.

The Habibullah Museum,meagre in space, contains richmemories and souvenirs, includ-ing a stunning ornamentalkhukuri, presented by C in CRoyal Nepal Army, GenSurendra Bahadur Sahib (mustbe Shah) in January 1966. Theonce-splendid Bombay Stadiumhas alas gone to seed. So have theSquash courts near it. The cadetsplay individual sports likesquash, tennis and golf. The GolfCourse doubles as the militarytraining area and is named afterthe legendary Russian languageteacher Jaouralov.

Notwithstanding our fear ofMaj Sandhu — he would famous-ly counsel “do not trust wife, rainand enemy” — he taught us thebest field craft to be a cat burglar,poacher and marksman thatsaved our lives and those of themen under our command in allthe skirmishes and wars. NDA istruly tri-service and a uniquetraining institution, which sowsthe seeds of camaraderie, militaryethos, customs and traditions.That is how DCC Jaswant Singhbecame the Defence Minister ofIndia.

(The writer is a retiredMajor General of the IndianArmy and founder member ofthe Defence Planning Staff, currently the revampedIntegrated Defence Staff)

The military in Pakistan has alwaysthought of civilians elsewhere as second-class citizens as was evidenced by the

brutal genocides against Bengalis in 1970-71or Indians. Proxy attacks by Pakistan-spon-sored terrorists have cost thousands ofIndian civilians their lives over the past threedecades — be it during the height of the Punjabcrisis or to this day, with Kashmiri terrorismbeing influenced by the likes of Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) chief Hafiz Saeed. However,Pakistan’s Army, the Inter-Services Intelligence

(ISI), and the establishment have always had an answer. They were not direct-ly responsible for the deaths. After all, anonymity is the advantage of proxy forces.However, the unprovoked firing of artillery and mortar shells over the Line of Control(LoC) in the Jammu region over the past few days has hit civilians hard, maim-ing and killing Indian villagers. This is unacceptable and serves little purpose unlessthe aim is to give covering fire to terrorists trying to cross the LoC.

Pakistan has been nursing the black eye that India gave it with the Balakotair strikes. Then the failure of its own counter-attacks and the subsequent revo-cation of Article 370 by the Indian Government, which caught the Pakistani mil-itary and its Government headed by Imran Khan off-guard, have dented its “bleed-ing cuts” strategy vis-a-vis India. The attempts by Pakistan-backed terrorists tosabotage the local economy, particularly targetting apple growers and truckers,have also fallen flat. While the Indian paramilitary forces and intelligence forceshave managed to keep a lid on active acts of terrorism in the Valley, the area stillremains in a virtual lockdown even after two months of the abrogation of Article370, although things appear to be easing ahead of winter. Pakistan is getting des-perate to hurt India despite its economic situation, which is still far worse thanIndia’s, becoming almost a virtual pariah state. Even the Chinese money, sup-posed to flow in through investments, is drying up. China, which has for longpropped up Pakistan as a counterfoil to India, has realised that investing moneyin Pakistan is worse than burning it. Besides, Pakistan’s own hypocrisy in con-demning Indian actions on Kashmir while ignoring the Chinese treatment of theUighur Muslims has become more apparent. The Army has made a few raidsinto Pakistan but if these unprovoked attacks on Indian villages continue, it seemswe cannot get the new Rafale jets soon enough.

Acrucial aspect got swamped by exit pollresults that predicted a thumping androadrolling win for the ruling BJP in the

Assembly elections in Haryana andMaharashtra. While hyperactive anchors acrossTV channels wondered about the margin of vic-tories and whether the BJP would best its ownrecord in the Assemblies so far, Haryana record-ed the lowest turnout in 50 years andMaharashtra in 39. According to the ElectionCommission’s figures, 63.55 per cent turnoutwas recorded in Haryana, while only 56.65 per

cent came out to vote in Maharashtra. The former has seen its lowest voter turnoutin Assembly elections since 1968 whereas the latter’s figures are lowest sincethe 1980 election. Not only that, both percentages are significantly lower than theturnouts in the last round of State polls in 2014 and the Lok Sabha elections inMay. This means that almost half the voters did not exercise their choice despitegreater awareness and an increase in polling booths, either out of a sense of res-ignation or a deep distrust. This is surprising considering that behaviourally, thevoter seems most invested in local self-governance issues and, therefore, is expect-ed to turn out for the Assembly elections that are fought on local affairs ratherthan national ones. Clearly, there is fatigue at work. Now this can be interpretedin many ways. Could it be that there is an immediacy of contexts, the Lok Sabharesults having bolstered the image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with such anoverarching appeal that any other State, where his party is in power, is assumedto be operating as a satellite? The voter probably believes that the continuity ofthe same regime at the Centre and States would automatically ensure a Central-level urgency to resolving local issues. Perhaps, this unitary rather than federalcharacter of governance has bred complacence. Even though both Chief Ministers,Devendra Fadnavis in Maharashtra and Manohar Lal Khattar in Haryana, have man-aged to consolidate their positions and blend in, the former a non-Maratha andthe latter an outsider, they, too, encountered a voter slide. Nagpur south-west, fromwhere Fadnavis is contesting, recorded 49.25 per cent of votes, down from 56.44per cent in 2014, while Khattar’s constituency Karnal recorded 49.3 per cent ofvoter turnout, down from 67.84 per cent.

Also, there is now legitimacy to a majoritarian discourse given the BJP’s bigwin in the Lok Sabha and a larger acceptance of the muscularity of the party inpushing the One India narrative. The collective decimation of the Opposition par-ties and the total annihilation of the only other nationalist party of consequence,the Congress, have meant that the common man has already accepted the “therecan be no alternative” formula in States where the BJP is in command. In the lightof this understanding and absence of a real contest, many voters may have justthought that the ballot process would anyway be a futile exercise. Particularly forthose with divergent views, there is a sense of helplessness that their vote wouldbe too minuscule to matter or that their dissent was unwanted. Tidal verdicts insuccession have meant that very few seats in “friendly” States are considered“unsafe” for the BJP. Besides, at the State level, not even the ruling party is seenas following through with pledges to keep the voter animated as a decision-maker.Or it could be plain disgust at the thought that nobody would anyway give thema hearing. This ennui is dangerous to the extent that it undercuts the value of elec-tion in a democracy and actually veers it to a measure of a personality cult anda presidential style debate. This could also mean that the committed Oppositionvoters have dissipated somewhat and driven to as much irrelevance as the par-ties they feel echo their concerns. Particularly in Haryana and Maharashtra, theCongress failed even to get its basic act together with faction fights tearing it apartand turf leaders working at cross purposes. In Maharashtra, the party bled likenever before with several key leaders deserting the ship. No wonder the mono-lithic predictability has dampened enthusiasm and though there is a younger demo-graphic that’s perhaps gung-ho, the older registered voters are still a sizeable chunkof the pie. This is not new. Even in the UK, from where we have derived our par-liamentary democracy, a large proportion of voters have shunned the “politicalelite.” Indeed, the Brexit vote has been viewed by many commentators as a voteof disillusionment. However, this only lulls the political class into an illusionary senseof popularity. The vote matters in ensuring checks and balances.

More power to women

Sir — The story of the life andstruggles of Pranjal Patil, thecountry’s first visually challengedwoman IAS officer, reminds usthat nothing is impossible if onehas the determination to perse-vere against all odds. Patil hastruly struggled far more than oth-ers to achieve her goal of becom-ing an IAS officer. Losing visionat the age of six did not deter theyoung girl from Ulhasnagar,Maharashtra, from pursuing herdreams. In spite of several hur-dles, Patil has become the firstvisually-challenged woman inthe country to hold such a highpost in the bureaucracy. The oldEnglish proverb, “where there isa will, there is a way”, holds com-pletely true in this instance.

M PradyuKannur

Guarding our lives

Sir — This refers to the report,“Efforts being made to demonisetech: PM” (October 21). Theimpact of technology on thefuture of human society is diffi-cult to predict. With the advent of

any widely accepted new technol-ogy, people’s lifestyle changes inmultiple ways. If in the future weneed to stop the use of technolo-gy, we will need to campaignharder. For example, when plas-tic was discovered to be lightweight, durable, cheap and easyto mould, people appreciated it asa symbol of progress in life. Buttoday, the world knows how

demonic it is. The tragedy of oursociety is that we either blindlyreject any form of modernism orwe accept it without providingspace to reject it if necessary.When someone says, “Check itbefore use”, we criticise that per-son either as “Leftist” or someoneheralding foreign ideology.

PP SenNew Delhi

Alarming figures

Sir — According to NationalCrime Records Bureau (NCRB)data, India saw a total of 100deaths in police custody in 2017,which is up by eight, comparedto 2016. Police are known toapply third-degree methods toelicit confession from “crimi-

nals” to buttress their case in thecourts. There are many caseswhere undertrials have suc-cumbed to physical and mentaltorture from cops. Unable tobear the torture, there are alsocases of people resorting to theextreme step of committing sui-cide. Sadly, even natural deathsin police custody are treated ascustodial death.

Deaths of these kind wouldhave, perhaps, occurred even ifsuch a person was not in custody.In the case of undertrials, thecourts are also to be blamedsince many cases drag on for yearsbefore they are even listed forhearing. It is appalling that out of56 cases registered, only three of48 people were chargesheetedand convicted for human rightsviolation. The fall in custodialdeaths is not possible unless thepolice involved in the crime ofphysical and mental torture areconvicted of the offence.Expeditious disposal of cases incourts can substantially con-tribute to drastic reduction in cus-todial deaths.

KV SeetharamaiahHassan

P A P E R W I T H P A S S I O N

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op nionHYDERABAD | WEDNESDAY | OCTOBER 23, 2019

06

A ride into military school

ASHOK K MEHTA

The defence academy at Khadakwasla is truly tri-service and a unique training institution,which sows the seeds of camaraderie, military ethos, customs and traditions

I will love to see India-built applications used in the US. Iwould love to see India-built datasystem used around the world.That will be the biggest win.

Former Google CEO—Eric Schmidt

My next one is about climatechange, it's my obsessionnow. There's no time to discuss anymore, it's time to act.

Filmmaker—Fernando Meirelles

We believe that direct dialoguebetween India and Pakistan, asoutlined in the 1972 ShimlaAgreement, holds the mostpotential for reducing tensions.

US diplomat—Alice Wells

S O U N D B I T E

L E T T E R S T O TT H E E D I T O R

Poll results shouldn’t be surprising

As expected, a bunch of exit polls has projected anemphatic victory for the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP)-led alliance in Maharashtra and Haryana,

which went to the polls recently. They suggest that theCongress, the principal Opposition in both States, hasnot begun to recover from its decimation in the 2019Lok Sabha election in May this year. Given the increas-ing power of State Governments in the day-to-day livesof people, the outcome of elections in Maharashtra andHaryana will have clear governance implications for theirdevelopment and growth.

Though both States are currently ruled by the BJP,the notable fact is that before 2014, neither Maharashtranor Haryana was a stronghold of the party. To their cred-it, both the Chief Ministers, Devendra Fadnavis andManohar Lal Khattar, under the supervision of the Modi-Shah duo, have made the BJP the dominant player intheir respective States. The rise of these two ChiefMinisters and the free hand their party allowed them inrunning their Governments helped the BJP expand itsvote base. But the BJP’s dominance has also been due

to the collapse of the Opposition, with its major part-ner, the Congress, being in tatters. No wonder, most pollshave given nearly three-fourths majority to the ruling BJP-Shiv Sena combine in Maharashtra and a similar mar-gin to the BJP in Haryana. By this count, incumbentsFadnavis and Khattar are on the course for second termsas Chief Ministers in their respective States.

Padmini RaghavendraSecunderabad

TODAY, LIKEYESTERDAY,

THERE IS TOTALLACK OF RAPPORT

ANDCONVERSATION

BETWEEN TOPMILITARY

LEADERS AND THEPOLITICAL ELITE.THE ABSENCE OF

MEANINGFULDIALOGUE

BETWEEN THEPOLITICAL AND

MILITARYLEADERSHIP HAS

LET THEBUREAUCRACY

USURP CRITICALADVISORY SPACE

Send yyour ffeedback tto:letterstopioneer@gmail.com

In the firing lineThey say there is Ramrajya in theState. Yeh Ram ko dhoka hai. Itseems they (BJP) have learntfrom Ravan. This is why they are working as Kalyugi Ravan.

Samajwadi Party chief—Akhilesh Yadav

Amid predictions of a cakewalk for the BJP in Haryana andMaharashtra, low turnout signals disenchantment

Pakistan’s use of deadly force on civilians is reprehensible.Not that condemnation will stop it

Is there voter fatigue?

Finding the path to happiness

POINTCOUNTERPOINT

Last week I had the pleasure of releasing TheStatus of Women in India report in Nagpur,which is a comprehensive survey conduct-

ed by the Sangh-linked organisation Drishti Stree.I share my reflections in two parts on this verythought-provoking survey: The problems red-flagged in the report and how most of the solu-tions can be addressed through the big digital rev-olution in the offing in the country.

While the sample size of 74,000 is large, thefact remains that had more people from metro-politan cities and States with high literacy rateslike Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala been includ-ed and more inputs been taken from profession-als like bankers, lawyers, corporate executives andso on, the report might have arrived at betteraverages. Because while the real Bharat residesin its villages, it also comprises the aspirationalclass in the cities. In some areas the report is aneye-opener, while in some it just confirmed pre-conceived notions.

The following findings did not surprise any-one: Recently, India slipped 10 places in theWorld Economic Forum’s (WEF) GlobalCompetitive Index. This was attributed to a pooremployable skill base, lack of worker protectionrights and critically-low participation of womenin the workforce. All three factors were accurate-ly captured in this survey conducted last year,confirming the authenticity of the Dristhimethodology.

Workers from tribal areas are given low wagesand subjected to trafficking and inhumanexploitation in the unorganised sector of domes-tic staff. Therefore, employment agencies mustbe accredited and regulated and the Governmentmust ensure that statutory provisions for med-ical coverage, dignity of labour and minimumwages are enacted.

The survey revealed that there is an increasedparticipation by women in voting, which showsthat there is more understanding of local andnational issues, enough for them to assert theirelectoral preference.

According to the survey, there is also a needto ensure that women, especially in the ruralareas, are equipped to handle every adverse sit-uation in life. Any social scientist would confirmthat over-dependency is a complacent state ofbeing, hence women must also learn how to copewith every contingency.

Because, with life expectancy increasing —and wives are known to outlive their husbands— in order not to be economically vulnerable,women need to be included in the decision-mak-ing process of deployment of family savings andunderstand the basics of matters like title-deed,financial securities and savings instruments. Thereport confirmed the healthy trend that “todayone-third of the women participate in decision-making in the family”, which was earlier a maledomain.

The survey captured high dropout rates upto high school and that women were falling offthe employment curve due to family responsi-bilities between the ages of 18 to 30 years, whichis also the peak earning period for most people.The future success of globalised economies willlie in the increased participation of women.Regrettably, on the Gender Inequality Index,India ranks as low as 132 out of 136 countries.Gender parity is a basic human right and its

achievement has multiplier socio-eco-nomic implications. Empoweringwomen makes for thriving economies,elevates their self-worth and protectsthem from domestic violence. Further,according to the survey, Jan DhanYojana figures revealed that 79 per centwomen have individual bank accounts,which is a step towards financial inclu-sion. However, just opening a bankaccount without earning adequateincome is not enough. The Drishtistudy confirmed the NABARD’s(National Bank for Agriculture andRural Development) pan-India findings— which had a larger sample size —that median income was between`5,000 and `20,000.

Most actionable solutions toDristhi’s findings on literacy, health andemployment will come through the bigdigital revolution that is in the offing.

Low per capita income and low percapita savings can only increase throughincreased economic opportunities. Thesolution is rapid industrialisation ofrural India by bringing employment tothe villages. This can happen throughincreased digitisation and advancementof online commerce. Because ruralwomen are hesitant to travel far insearch of jobs and for skilling or edu-cational purposes, we need to lower thecost of smartphones and increase inter-net penetration.

It is heartening that literacy ratesimproved to 79.63 per cent up tograduation levels. But acceleration isneeded to improve the figure of 46 percent in achieving primary literacy. Tofurther improve India’s low ratings inthe Human Capital Index, NITI Aayoghas proposed to increase education out-lays from the current three per cent ofthe Gross Domestic Product (GDP) tosix per cent by 2022.

Our education system hasremained static for too long and we are

ill-equipped for the Fourth IndustrialRevolution.

The solution, according to the lat-est McKinsey report, lies in lifelonglearning and upgradation of skills, soas to be continuously prepared for chal-lenging technological disruptions anda paradigm shift from theoretical toexperiential learning in specialiseddomains like agriculture, InformationTechnology, tourism and so on.

Online education through e-class-es and skill training through distantlearning will bridge the gaps in teach-ing quality of Government schoolswhere there is a shortage of brick andmortar schools in villages, and bridgethe low student-teacher ratio. There aremega e-learning platforms like Byju’sand so on that have sprung up in thecountry, but awareness of these insti-tutions is low. Increased digitisation willprovide “stay-at-home employment”through e-commerce jobs for womenin rural areas and Tier-1 and Tier-2cities. Digital commerce bought mil-lions out of poverty in China, as itlinked the remotest craftsmen andfarmers to the global marketplace. InIndia, we have the successful model ofKhadi Gramodyog, that linked clustersand communities to national market-ing networks, so as to get a market-linked price for their commodity.

As India progresses from being ahigh-cash economy towards a digitaleconomy, even dispensing credit tothose that lack credit histories and col-laterals will become easier, as algo-rithms in future will determine cred-itworthiness of borrowers.

As regards healthcare, becauseIndia has a low patient-doctor ratio, andpoor patient-hospital bed capacity, weneed to progress to online doctor con-sultations. This will help take medicalexpertise to remote areas and fulfil theneed for preventive care and diagnosis.

With this in mind, the NITI Aayoghas proposed increased outlays forhealth from a paltry 1.5 per cent tothree per cent of the GDP. Also, med-ical insurance premiums must be low-ered for women, as only 20 per cent ofthem are covered by it at present.

However, the findings of the sur-vey that surprised were that the GrossHappiness Index (GHI) scores were ashigh at 80 per cent, regardless of try-ing circumstances and stresses of dailylife.

What was hard to endorse was thatthe survey found that “income has noinfluence on levels of happiness.” I amsure that most would agree that moneyis not everything, but is surely a neces-sity for self-sufficiency.

To the contrary, the World HealthOrganisation’s (WHO’s) 2017 report ondepression, shows India in the top 10slot. It also states that depression hasrisen by 50 per cent in the last eightyears.

Look at Punjab and Delhi, wheresubstance abuse is on the rise and drugsare available freely in betel shops, theincrease in farmer and student suicidesand rise in divorce rates.

How can we be high on the GHI?There exists a powerful correlationbetween a country’s economic develop-ment and social progress, and GHI isa composite picture of multiple feel-good factors linked to increased liter-acy levels and employment opportuni-ties; increased per capita incomes andsavings; advanced amenities for betterliving conditions; decrease in inci-dence of lawlessness and crime; socialsecurity; high quality and accessiblehealthcare; physical exercise and nur-turing spiritual practices.

(The writer is an author, columnistand Chairperson of the NationalCommittee on Financial Inclusion atNITI Aayog.)

Most actionable solutions to the findings of a recent survey on the status of women andtheir health, literacy and employment, will come through the digital revolution

analysis 07F I R S T C O L U M N

An alternative todirect investing

HIMA BINDU KOTA

Through mutual funds, small investors can putmoney in the stock markets and benefit from any

upswing in share prices

BINDU DALMIA

ACCORDING TOTHE SURVEY,

THERE IS A NEEDTO ENSURE THAT

WOMEN,ESPECIALLY IN

THE RURALAREAS, ARE

EQUIPPED TOHANDLE EVERY

ADVERSESITUATION IN

LIFE. ANY SOCIALSCIENTIST

WOULD CONFIRMTHAT

OVER-DEPENDENCY IS A

COMPLACENTSTATE OF BEING;HENCE WOMEN

MUST ALSOLEARN HOW TO

COPE WITHEVERY

CONTINGENCY

The growth of mutual funds (MF) as a worthy alternative to directequity investment over the years has been humongous.According to the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI),

the Assets Under Management (AUM) of the Indian MF industry hasgrown from `6.28 trillion in September 2009 to `24.51 trillion inSeptember 2019, a four-fold increase in a decade. Depending onhow the money is being invested, there are different categories ofMFs based on asset class, structure and investment objective. Onthe basis of asset class, MFs are of the following type:

Equity funds: Here at least 70 per cent of the money is invest-ed in stocks of listed firms. Equity funds can be further classifiedbased on sectors like infrastructure funds, IT funds; size of the com-pany like large cap, mid-cap; purpose, like equity-linked savingsschemes that give benefit of tax savings; tracking a index throughindex funds; or fund of funds (FoF) which invests in other MFs.

Debt Funds: Here, majority investments are in debt instrumentslike Government bonds, firm debentures and other fixed income assets.

Hybrid/Balanced Funds: These invest in both the asset class-es of equity and debt instruments with the proportion of equity anddebt varying in different funds. A balanced fund could be 60 per centinvested in equities with remaining 40 per cent in debt or vice-versa.

Money Market Funds: These invest in money markets that areshort-term in nature and are highly liquid and are mostly preferredby companies to park their idle cash and by large institutions andthe Government to meet their short-term fund requirements.

MFs can also be categorised based on structure as open-endedor closed-ended. Although the industry is growing, investors are alsoincreasingly concerned about fund selection and are demandingdetailed information and investment advice. Due to the large num-ber of funds, evaluating and selecting MFs can be challenging.

So what are the metrics that are used to analyse and comparethe performance of different MFs? For debt schemes, credit ratingis important as it is a known fact that debt funds are prone to inter-est rate risk, credit risk and liquidity exposure. While interest rate per-ils and liquidity exposure affect the returns and redemption of debtinvestments, the credit risk tends to affect the principal value of theinvestment. Hence, various credit rating agencies, like CRISIL, CARE,ICRA, measure and evaluate the credibility and creditworthiness ofthe borrower and these ratings are derived on the basis of the cre-dentials of the entity, which may be the balance sheet, profit andloss statement, or any other financial information. Equity MF investorscan also use several ratios to analyse the performance of their invest-ments. It is a misconception that higher returns mean better perfor-mance, since returns cannot be judged in isolation and have to besimultaneously measured with the risk taken to generate the returns.This is where Sharpe Ratio is helpful, as it assesses the returns gen-erated by a portfolio against per unit of risk undertaken. A higherSharpe Ratio represents a higher return generated per unit of risk.Investors should also note that any ratio would only make sense ifit is compared to the benchmark index.

Treynor Ratio, also known as reward-to-volatility ratio, like SharpeRatio, helps analyse returns in relation to the market risk of the fundexcept that it uses beta or market risk as the volatility measurementand gives the return over the risk-free per unit of market risk, where-as Sharpe Ratio uses standard deviation.

By comparing the beta of the investment to the volatility in theentire stock market, people can assess the risk associated with theinvestment. Stocks with a beta greater than one tend to increaseand decrease in value faster and more quickly than stocks with abeta of less than one. Higher the Treynor Ratio, the better the per-formance under analysis. For instance, if the fund’s average returnis 10 per cent and the risk free rate is seven per cent, the differencebecomes three per cent. If the historic beta of the fund is 1.5, thenthe Treynor Ratio is 2 (3 divided by 1.5). This means that in the past,the fund has given two units of return for one unit of its market risk.

Small investors, who are trying to make the most of their invest-ments are often plagued by questions whether MFs are safe? Arethey safer than direct equity investments?

MFs are an easier way for small investors to put money in thestock markets with low initial investment as they can get the ben-efit of any upswing in the prices of the shares because of the exper-tise of fund managers. However, small investors should be awarethat since MFs in turn invest in shares, the returns are subject tothe fluctuations of the stock market and are not fully insulated fromit. The extent of risk, and also the returns come down with the inclu-sion of debt securities in the portfolio of MFs and investors shouldunderstand their risk tolerance before investing. MF investing canbe a good alternative for small investors provided they tread withcaution.

(The writer is Assistant Professor, Amity University)

Ayodhya is getting ready to facethe impact of the SupremeCourt (SC) ruling on the Ram

janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title suit,next month. The verdict is expected toput a lid on the dispute between thetwo communities on the right ofownership of the site.

A violent mob of Karsevaks andprominent politicians had pulled downthe mosque adjacent to the Ram tem-ple in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992,which has tested the communal fab-ric of the country since then. TheHindus — represented by seven par-ties — have argued in the apex courtthat there was a temple dedicated to thebirthplace of Lord Ram before the

Babri Masjid was erected duringmedieval times. The verdict is likely tobe delivered before November 17, bywhich time the present Chief Justiceof India Ranjan Gogoi will be retiring.

The BJP leaders are upbeat andhoping for a favourable ruling. Theparty is happy that their “Mandir wahinbanayenge (we will construct the tem-ple on that spot)” slogan could at lastbecome a reality, after a wait of near-ly three decades.

Local BJP leaders claim that over65 per cent of the stone craving workfor the proposed temple has been com-pleted and a lot of Karsevaks have vol-unteered to work for its construction.According to BJP MP Sakshi Maharaj,if the verdict goes in favour of theHindus, Prime Minister NarendraModi could lay the foundation stoneon December 6.

Uttar Pradesh (UP) ChiefMinister Yogi Adityanath has also saidthat he is hopeful of a favourable rul-ing. He has already prepared the Stateadministration to face a post-verdictscenario. The Faizabad District has

been renamed asAyodhya, which isbeing developed asa tourist attractionwith wider roads,spruced up ghatsand refurbishedheritage temples.

The Ayodhyaverdict would havelegal, political andreligious ramifica-tions. Though theapex court’s ordermight put a lid on the legal aspect, itsimpact on politics and communal har-mony will be equally significant.

It is likely that the two sidesmight accept the SC’s judgment.Muslim religious scholars and leadershave also said that parties on both sidesof the dispute should accept the ver-dict, whatever it may be.

It will be a big gain for the BJP, asthe party’s political and electoral for-tunes in the past three decades owetheir rise to it, as the BJP began its cam-paign for the Ram temple in the ’90s.

The razing of theBabri Masjid in1992 was a turningpoint in the historyof the BJP and itsHindutva politics.In fact NarendraModi, who was asenior Gujaratleader at that time,had a role to play inBJP stalwart LKAdvani’s Ram rathyatra, which began

from Somnath in Gujarat to Ayodhyain 1990. However, the yatra did not cul-minate in Ayodhya as planned, asAdvani was arrested.

The Babri Masjid demolition notonly changed the political narrative ofthe country but it also helped the BJPestablish itself in national politics.

Post the Babri Masjid demolition,the BJP acquired a national identityand stature. The party, which wasknown as a Bania–Brahmin party andhad a strong presence only in the Hindibelt, has expanded as a pan-national

party now, replacing the grand oldparty, the Congress.

The Ayodhya agenda has been arecurring theme, to which the SanghParivar and its affiliates, most impor-tantly the BJP, have returned to againand again. The party has been consis-tently talking about building the Ramtemple and had included it in its pollmanifesto since 1996.

However, after the demolition,Advani had said that “the agitation isnot just for constructing a temple, butto propagate Hindutva’s foundationalidea — cultural nationalism.”

Other political parties, includingthe Congress, Samajwadi Party (SP),the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and theRashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) have beentreading on the issue very cautiously.

Seeing the phenomenal rise of theBJP, the Congress has also been tryingto play soft-Hindutva politics in recenttimes, with party leaders like RahulGandhi visiting temples before elec-tions. The SP, BSP, RJD and other par-ties relevant in the ’90s have lost theirsheen now.

The BJP’s future agenda dependson how it plays its Hindutva card. Atpresent, the party would primarily liketo consolidate its base all over the coun-try. It has to expand in the North-Eastand the South and it is also planningto expand in West Bengal, AndhraPradesh and Tamil Nadu. Moreover,the economic agenda needs priority asit is slipping beyond its control.Creation of jobs and boosting the econ-omy needs immediate attention. It iseasier said than done when the glob-al economy is also facing a slowdown.

The saffron party’s next agenda islikely to be Pakistan Occupied Kashmir(PoK). In fact, BJP chief Amit Shah andthe Minister for External Affairs SJaishankar have gone public onreclaiming the PoK after the revoca-tion of Article 370. But there is enoughtime for this until the next elections.Of course, one week is said to be longtime in politics and five years are a very,very long time and there could be otherissues, which may come up.

(The writer is a senior journalist)

Ayodhya holding its breath as verdict loomsThe Supreme Court’s ruling would have legal, political and religious ramifications. Though the apex court’s order might put

a lid on the legal aspect, its impact on politics and communal harmony will be equally significant

KALYANI SHANKAR

HYDERABAD | WEDNESDAY | OCTOBER 23, 2019

www.dailypioneer.com

SHE'S (GABBARD) THE FAVOURITE OF THE RUSSIANS.THEY HAVE A BUNCH OF SITES

AND BOTS AND OTHER WAYS OF SUPPORTING HER.—DEMOCRATIC PARTY LEADER

HILLARY CLINTON

ANYBODY THAT IS OPPOSED TO HER (HILLARY) IS ARUSSIAN AGENT. THAT'S A SCAM THAT WASPRETTY MUCH PUT DOWN.—US PRESIDENTDONALD TRUMP

F O R E I G N E Y E

The size of the ExtinctionRebellion (XR) protests overthe past year add weight tothe idea that people in thisdecade were in revolt beforethey had any clear idea whatform a revolution mighttake. Politically it looked likea whole generation was upfor grabs. In the beginningof the decade this angerveered leftwards withmovements like Occupy, butat the end it has movedgreenwards, under XR. Thequestion is how much ofthe country will go with it.

(The Guardian editorial)

SOMETHING TOPONDER ABOUT

HYDERABAD | WEDNESDAY | OCTOBER 23, 2019 money 08

CAPSULE

Sebi invites bids toprovide outsourcedstaff, securityNEW DELHI: Capital marketregulator Sebi plans to rope inan independent agency toprovide contract staff,including receptionist andsupervisor, for its office. Inaddition, the regulator is alsoplanning to hire an agencythat will provide securityguards. In two separatenotices inviting expression ofinterest (EoI) from theinterested parties, Sebi saidthe services would berequired at the regulator'soffice in Kochi. Spelling outthe eligibility criteria, Sebi saidthe agency would beresponsible for providing theservices of the outsourcedstaff such as receptionist, dataentry operator, office assistantand house keeper. Forproviding security guards,Sebi said the agency shouldbe registered with theappropriate authorities forproviding services of securityguards and should have atleast five years of experiencein providing such service tovarious office premises.

Kotak MahindraBank Q2 net up38% at Rs 2,407 crNEW DELHI: Kotak MahindraBank on Tuesday reported a38 per cent increase inconsolidated net profit at Rs2,407.25 crore for theSeptember quarter mainly onhealthy core income. Theprivate sector lender hadposted a net profit of Rs1,747.37 crore in the year-agoquarter. Total income jumpedto Rs 12,542.99 crore in thethree months endedSeptember, as against Rs10,829.08 crore in the samequarter of 2018-19, the banksaid in a regulatory filing. "ForQ2FY20, the bank'scontribution to PAT was Rs1,724 crore. The subsidiaries'and associates' netontribution was 28 per cent ofthe consolidated PAT," it saidin a release. The bank'sincome from interests for theJuly-September quarter roseto Rs 8,418.75 crore asagainst Rs 7,285.46 crore inyear-ago period.

Welspun India Q2 net up 66.5 pc at Rs 202.6 crNEW DELHI: Home textilesmajor Welspun India onTuesday reported a 66.5 percent jump in consolidated netprofit at Rs 202.6 crore for thequarter ended September 30.The company had posted aconsolidated net profit of Rs121.69 crore in the samequarter last fiscal, WelspunIndia said in a regulatory filing.Revenue from operationsduring the second quarterstood at Rs 1,824.92 crore ascompared with Rs 1,779.94crore in the year-ago period,up 2.53 per cent, it added. Thecompany has started flooringbusiness under WelspunFlooring (WFL) fromSeptember 13, 2019, it said.

Sensex plunges 335 points,Infosys’ shares sink 16%PNS n MUMBAI

Snapping its six-session risingstreak, equity benchmark BSESensex plunged 335 points onTuesday, dragged by a massiveplunge in Infosys' shares fol-lowing a complaint againstthe company's chief execu-tive. The 30-share BSE Sensexended 334.54 points, or 0.85per cent, lower at 38,963.84. Ithit an intra-day low of38,924.85 and a high of39,426.47.

The broader NSE Nifty tootumbled 73.50 points, or 0.63per cent, to settle at 11,588.35.

IT major Infosys was thebiggest loser in the Sensexpack, plummeting 16.21 percent after an anony-mous group claim-ing to be employ-ees of the firmplaced awhistleblowercomplaint tothe company'sboard, accus-ing CEO SalilParekh and CFONilanjan Roy ofindulging in unethicalpractices to boost short-termrevenue and profits.

Other losers were TataMotors, Bharti Airtel, HCLTech and Bajaj Finance, shed-ding up to 3.51 per cent.

Among thegainers wereICICI Bank,

Sun Pharma,Bajaj Auto, HUL

and HDFC, risingup to 3.06 per cent.

Elsewhere in Asia, boursesin Shanghai, Hong KongTokyo and Seoul ended on apositive note after USPresident Donald Trump onMonday said progress in devel-

oping the text of a partialtrade pact with China meanshe will likely be able to sign itnext month. Equites in Europewere trading on a mixed notein their respective early deals.

Meanwhile, the Indianrupee appreciated by 22 paiseto 70.92 against the US dollarintra-day. Brent crude futures,the global oil benchmark, rose0.36 per cent to USD 59.17 perbarrel.

Other losers were Tata Motors,Bharti Airtel, HCL Tech and Bajaj

Finance, shedding up to 3.51per cent

PNS n NEW DELHI

The government will soonmake changes to the defini-tion of a micro, small andmedium enterprise, UnionMinister Nitin Gadkari saidon Tuesday and hoped togenerate five crore jobs in theMSME sector in five years.Finance Minister NirmalaSitharaman had in Augustsaid the government wouldconsider amending theMSME Act to move towardsa single definition.

The update in the defini-tion of micro, small andmedium enterprises(MSMEs) may allow a singledefinition for purposes relat-ed to taxation, investment,etc. The new definition islikely to be effected throughan amendment to the MSMEAct and may lead to furtherimprovement in India's easeof doing business scenario.

In February last year, theUnion Cabinet had approvedamendments to the law tochange the criteria for clas-sifying MSMEs from 'invest-ment in plant and machinery'to 'annual turnover'.

Asked about proposedchanges to the definition ofMSME, the minister for

micro, small and mediumenterprises said this will soonbe implemented. "We willhave one meeting and thenfinalise it (changes to MSMEdefinition)," Gadkari said,

adding that extensive changeswill be made soon.

The minister was speakingon the sidelines of the LuxurySymposium 2019 here.

Observing that MSMEs are

the heart of the Indian econ-omy, contributing 29 per centto the gross domestic prod-uct and have created 11 crorejobs till now, the ministersaid "now, the mission forfive years is that we need tocreate more than five crorejobs in five years, particular-ly in tribal, rural and agri-cultural areas".

He said the government isalready in the process ofsanctioning 13 clusters underthe Solar Vastra scheme andevery cluster has a potentialof creating 3,000-3,500 jobs.

Besides, Gadkari, who alsoholds the portfolio of theroad transport and highwaysministry, said work hasbegun on the 12-lane con-crete express highwaybetween New Delhi andMumbai and mooted the ideaof setting up an internation-al standard museum on thehighway which would provebeneficial for marketing ofIndian Handlooms andHandicraft and also promotetourism. He said the govern-ment is making use of kul-hads (earthenware) manda-tory at 400 railway stations inthe country and also plans toimplement the same at air-ports.

Government to soon changedefinition of MSMEs: Gadkari

PNS n NEW DELHI

At a time when growth is slow-ing, productivity gains are fad-ing and digital pressures are onthe rise, the banking sectorshould ungently consider a suiteof radical measures, both organ-ic or inorganic, to strengthenprofitability and boost returns,says a report. The McKinsey'sGlobal Banking Annual Reviewlaunched on Tuesday, warnedthat the bottom third of banksneed to rapidly reinvent theirbusiness models in the face ofcontinued threat posed by fin-techs and big technology com-panies that are taking stakes inbanking businesses.

Banks need to adopt defen-sive moves like improving riskmanagement with advancedanalytics and offensive moves

such as dramatically loweringcosts by outsourcing non-dif-ferentiated cost drivers to indus-try utilities. "History tells us that40 per cent of the top bankstoday will drop to the bottomhalf of peers in the next cycle. Sothe time for bold and criticalmoves is now," said Joydeep

Sengupta, Singapore-basedMcKinsey Senior Partner andreport co-author.

Sengupta further said that"moves made today, be it tobuild scale or restructure busi-ness models, will have a defin-ing role in combating the prob-ability of that slide". On India,

the report said revenue growthwithin India's banking sectorhas dropped from 22 per cent(2002-07) to 10.3 per cent(2010-18). Moreover, banks inIndia have experienced a dra-matic drop in 'Return onTangible Equity' over the last fiveyears, from 17.7 per cent in 2013to 2.3 per cent in 2018, thereport said. It further said thatIndian banks typically have ahigher cost base, in part becausemany maintain large on theground networks to serve ruralcustomers. As per the report,

machine-learning models canimprove predictive accuracy inidentifying the riskiest potentialcustomers by 35 per cent.

Banks should also considertheir options for building scaleor competence through inor-ganic ways including both merg-ers and acquisitions as well aspartnerships. Moreover, banksneed to work hard to close thedigital-skills gap, as technologyhas overtaken banking in per-ceived attractiveness of com-pensation and benefits, thereport noted.

Banks need to rapidly reinvent for profitabilityBanks need to adopt defensive moves likeimproving risk management with advancedanalytics and offensive moves such asdramatically lowering costs by outsourcing non-differentiated cost drivers to industry utilities

In February last year, the Union Cabinet had approvedamendments to the law to changethe criteria for classifying MSMEsfrom ‘investment in plant andmachinery' to ‘annual turnover’

PMC BANK SCAM

Court extends HDIL promoters' ED custody till Oct 24PNS n MUMBAI

A Mumbai court on Tuesdayextended the ED custody ofHDIL promoters RakeshWadhawan and his son SarangWadhawan, arrested in con-nection with Rs 4,355 crorePunjab and MaharashtraCooperative (PMC) Bankscam, till October 24.

The EnforcementDirectorate (ED) producedHousing DevelopmentInfrastructure Ltd's (HDIL)chairman and managing direc-tor Rakesh Wadhawan and hisson before special Preventionof Money Laundering Act

court judge P Rajvaidya, aftertheir remand ended onTuesday.

It sought further custody of

the father-son duo to probethem further in connectionwith the scam.

The probing agency's coun-

sel Kavita Patil said the accusedplayed a crucial role in laun-dering huge amount of moneyand were concealing materialfrom investigation.

The money trail of proceedsreceived from the bank andproperties derived from thesame were yet to be ascer-tained, the ED said.

The court extended the EDcustody of the duo tillThursday.

The Wadhawans were arrest-ed last month by MumbaiPolice's Economic OffencesWing (EOW).

The EOW earlier this monthregistered a case against them

and top officials of the PMCBank for allegedly causing loss-es to the tune of Rs 4,355.43crore to the bank.

It alleged that the bank man-agement, in cahoots with theWadhawans, concealed fromthe banking regulators' scruti-ny huge loan defaults by theHDIL group firms.

The bank officials replaced44 loan accounts of the HDILwith 21,049 fictitious accountsto camouflage huge loandefaults by the real estategroup, it said.

The ED case of money laun-dering was based on the FIRregistered by the EOW.

PNS n HYDERABAD

Uber chief DaraKhosrowshahi on Tuesdaysaid India is fundamental tothe company's growth, and theUS-based ride hailing platformis investing in talent here todevelop products that can betaken to other countries.

Khosrowshahi, who is on afive-day trip to India, alsolaunched 'Public Transport'feature on the Uber app inDelhi to allow commutersplan their trips using Delhimetro.

"India is a fundamental partof Uber's growth story. It is avery important market for us.It is among the top 10 marketfor us and we continue tobelieve in and invest in India...Our business here is improv-ing," Khosrowshahi toldreporters here.

He noted that some prod-ucts were improving on theprofitability scale, and thatthe company would continueto invest towards long-termgrowth profile of India.

Khosrowshahi added thatIndia not only offers scale, butis also an innovation gateway

for Uber to the rest of thedeveloping world. "...Over thenext 10 years, this growth isgoing to be defined by marketslike India, Africa and theMiddle East more than thedeveloped markets such asthe US and Europe. What wesee here is obviously scale,(and) we see innovation," hesaid. Khosrowshahi said he isvisiting Uber's centres inBengaluru and Hyderabadthat work on various productsand features.

Many of these features likecash rides and Uber Lite weredeveloped in India and thenextended to other countries.The company said it willexpand its headcount to about

1,000 people in these centresover the next few months.

"...We can build in India,and then export all around theworld," he added.

Talking about the partner-ship with Delhi Metro RailCorporation (DMRC), UberIndia and South Asia PresidentPradeep Parameswaran said'Public Transport' will providelive transit information aboutDelhi Metro and DelhiTransport Corporation (DTC)on the Uber app.

This will make travel easi-er for riders, he added.

Uber had won a public bidto offer its mobility servicesacross 210 Delhi Metro sta-tions.

PNS n NEW DELHI

The government and industrymust collaborate for digitisationand modernisation of kiranastores as they are major part ofthe Indian retail sector, accord-ing to a Deloitte report.

It said traditional and mod-ern retail, including e-com-merce, have their own meritsthat must be integrated to pro-vide a common platform.

As retail markets are evolv-ing from 'bricks-and-clicks' toan intermix model, the brandsmust use multiple channels toensure a seamless shoppingexperience for consumer acrossall channels, the report added.

"Kirana stores form a majorpart of the Indian retail and will

continue to do so in the nearfuture. Thus, the governmentand the industry must collab-orate for their digitisation andmodernisation," the reportadded. It also said there is aneed to focus on rural marketsas overlooking of non-urbancentres may lead to undesirableresults.

"The strategies must bedevised to cater to the demandsof all the target segments," itsaid adding brands need toinvest in modern technology,including IoT, artificial intelli-gence and data analyticsthroughout the value chain toeffectively engage with cus-tomers. Further, it said that per-sonalised advertisements, andleveraging modern technolo-gies can help brands in the retailsector to engage effectivelywith their consumers.

"Social media sites, compa-ny websites, blogs, emails,phone calls and texts, in-storecommunications, and otherphysical and online touchpoints should be used," itadded.

India is a fundamentalpart of Uber's growthstory. It is a very

important market for us. It isamong the top 10 market forus and we continue to believein and invest in India... Ourbusiness here is improving

— DARA KHOSROWSHAHIUber chief

16-yr-oldwants Amazon,Flipkart to cutplastic use

Jyothy LabsQ2 profit risesRs 53.59 crPNS n NEW DELHI

FMCG firm Jyothy Labs onTuesday reported a 16.12 percent rise in consolidated netprofit at Rs 53.59 crore for theSeptember quarter.

Revenue fromoperationsfor theq u a r t e ru n d e rr e v i e wrose 8.67per cent at Rs474.85 crore as against Rs436.94 crore same period lastyear. Jyothy Labs, which ownsbrands such as Ujala, Maxo,Exo, Henko, Pril and Margo,posted total expenses of Rs417.51 crore as against Rs381.19 crore, up 9.52 per cent.

"The quarter under reviewwitnessed good growth inspiteof slow down in the economy.With the normal monsoon, weare hopeful for a good businessperformance in the comingquarters. We will continue toexpand and strengthen ourfootprint by taking necessaryactions," Jyothy Labs Chairmanand Managing Director M PRamachandran said.

PNS n HYDERABAD

Coromandel InternationalLimited has reported the finan-cial results for the quarterended 30 September 2019.

During the quarter ended 30September 2019, theCompany’s consolidated totalincome is Rs. 4,867 cr in com-parison to the correspondingquarter last year of Rs. 5,018 cr.Profit before depreciation,interest, taxes and exception-al item (EBITDA) for the quar-ter has grown by 7% to Rs. 713cr vs. Rs. 666 crores duringcorresponding quarter of last

year. Consolidated net profitafter tax for the quarter is Rs.503 crores in comparison toRs. 366 crores for the corre-sponding quarter last year reg-istering a year on year growthof 37%.

For the half year ended 30September 2019, theCompany’s consolidated totalincome is Rs. 7,008 crores(Half year ended 30 September2018 Rs. 7,555 crores), profitbefore tax is Rs. 710 crores.

PNS n NEW DELHI

The National Green Tribunalon Tuesday sought a reportfrom the Central PollutionControl Board on a plea by aminor boy seeking directionsto e-commerce giants Amazonand Flipkart to stop excessiveplastic use in packaging. Abench headed by NGTChairperson Justice AdarshKumar Goel directed the apexpollution monitoring body tosubmit the report within amonth. Aditya Dubey, 16,through his legal guardian,has pleaded the NGT to directAmazon and Flipkart to stopexcessive use of plastics inpackaging goods delivered bythem. "The e-commerce com-panies are covered under thePlastic Waste ManagementRules, 2016 but due to lack ofmonitoring and implementa-tion agencies, the respondentscontinue to use excessiveamounts of plastic in wrappingand packaging their solditems," the plea, filed throughadvocates Meenesh Dubey andDivya Prakash Pande, said.

Nobel laureate Banerjeeexpresses worry aboutbanking crisisPNS n NEW DELHI

Nobel laureate AbhijitBanerjee on Tuesday flaggedconcerns about banking cri-sis in India and called foraggressive changes to dealwith the situation.

There is a need to bring inimportant and aggressivechanges to deal with the cri-sis, he said during interac-tions with media here.

Banerjee said there is needto bring down stake of thegovernment to below 50 percent in banks so that the deci-sions are taken without fearof Central VigilanceCommission (CVC).

The banking system hasbeen afflicted by the scourgeof high NPAs for nearly fiveyears now, which has led tonetworth erosion and dis-covery of scams in the sector,with the Punjab andMaharashtra CooperativeBank (PMC) being the newaddition.

Earlier in August, CentralVigi lance Commission

(CVC) had constitutedAdvisory Board for BankingFrauds (ABBF) headed byformer VigilanceCommissioner T M Bhasin toexamine bank fraud over Rs50 crore and recommendaction.

On August 30, FinanceMinister Nirmala Sitharamanhad said that the profitabili-ty of public sector banks wasimproving as the total grossnon-performing assets ofpublic sector banks camedown to Rs 7.9 lakh crore atend-March 2019 from Rs8.65 lakh crore at end-December 2018.

Govt, industry must collaborate fordigitisation, modernisation of kirana stores

India fundamental to Uber'sgrowth story: Khosrowshahi

Coromandel Internationalposts Rs 503 crores profit

hanteras, a Hindufestival that is cel-ebrated beforeDiwali, is thatauspicious time ofthe year where

people prefer to buy gold orsilver. But this year an initia-tive called Project Streedhanhas launched a digital cam-paign, which urges womento increase the iron contentin their body rather thaninvesting in gold and silverin their almirahs. The initia-tive calls to attention thealarming fact that one outof every two women in thecountry is anaemic.Anaemia is iron deficiencythat results from a lack ofhealthy red blood cells andit ultimately leads to weak-ness and other chronicissues. Despite havingwidespread access to infor-mation and hi-tech med-ical facilities, women inurban India continue tosuffer from health issuesfrom inadequate nutrition.

The campaign,#InvestInIron, aims to raiseawareness among womenby equating ‘the purity ofgold’ with the ‘valuableiron count in a woman’sbody’ that needs to be ingood supply in everywoman’s diet.

Created by advertisingagency FCB Ulka, theminute-long digital cam-paign features multiplewomen dressed in festivewear both traditional and infusion styles consuming var-ious iron rich food itemsincluding almonds, water-melon, pomegranate, cornand fish. The powerfulimages are beautifullybrought together by a foottapping rustic backgroundscore, urging women toinvest in nourishing theirbody with iron rich food.

Loha chakh le (taste theiron) is the central theme ofthe background score. Thecampaign, uploaded onProject Streedhan’s YouTubechannel on October 17, isresonating well with neti-zens garnering over 277kviews so far.

In support of the cause,Bollywood actress VidyaBalan took to Instagram andposted a photograph of hereating dates, which are richin iron content. In the post,

she stated several facts aboutthe prevalence of anaemiaamong women while alsomentioning her own strug-gles with the problem foryears. She then urgedwomen to get themselvestested for anaemia thisDhanteras and to invest iniron instead of gold, refer-ring to Project Streedhan.

Project Streedhan waslaunched by Dutch StateMines (a global major spe-cialising in nutrition and

sustainable living)to raise awarenessabout anaemia andmotivate women tofocus on theirhealth.

CONSCIOUSSHOPPING:

This Diwali why not investin mindful shopping? Be itclothes or any other item asso-ciated with the festival. Doyour research before investingin your favourite apparel.Look for ethical brands andclothes that are mindfullymade. Several fashion storeshere in Hyderabad offer alarge variety of eco-safe andethical products. Such brandsensure that even the artisanswho work behind the screenget appropriately paid for thework they put in.

GOING LOCAL: With the advent of online

shopping several stores havebeen facing a dip in their rev-enue. So this time, take a strolland help those little shopsearn their livelihood.

DITCH CHINESE,LED LAMPS:

Also, it’s about time toditch the Chinese and LEDlamps and go for eco-friendlydiyas and lanterns that aremade in India. Don’t knowwhere to look? You can findthem in stores like IKEA or

Shilparamam in Hyderabad.Several stores sell eco-friend-ly goods that can even beused around the year and arenot exclusive to just the fes-tive season.

CELEBRATE WITHA CAUSE:

Help a few families cele-brate a happy Diwali bydonating old clothing, booksand other material that aregathering dust at home. Onecould also spend time at anorphanage or old age home.You could also volunteer inNGOs and help people. Ifthese ideas seem too far-fet-ched you can also buy prod-ucts made and sold by mem-bers of such foundations, sothat every penny you spendlights up their Diwali too.

“Samprathi is a foundationwhich fosters several kids.We often take to redecoratingschools and public spaces.During the festive season weencourage volunteers andchildren to paint diyas, mugsand plant pots which wouldlater be put up for sale, thusraising funds for the founda-tion,” says Surbhi, co-founderof Samprati foundation.

“There has been anoverwhelming response, andtruth be told, the youth todayare aware and willing to makeconscious decisions and und-erstand their obligationtowards society. I believe plat-forms like these can helpchannelise their desire to be apart of change,” she continued.

This Diwali, while we lightup every corner of our home,let’s spread the light and takea purposeful step towards abetter future and invest ourtime and money in creatingmemories that last longerthan the fireworks by takinga few mindful decisions.

Follow us on@TheDailyPioneerfacebook.com/dailypioneer

D

WednesdayOctober 23, 2019

D I IW A LCELEBRATING MINDFUL

Festivals are often associatedwith dressing up and gorging on

sweets. And no Indian festivalcan beat it when it comes to

Diwali. All Indians have a softcorner for the festival and love

the lights and colours associatedwith it. With Diwali fast

approaching, we get ready for aseason of family gatherings,mouth-watering sweets andcheat meals for people on a

diet. On the flip side, thefestival is also associated with

pollution. Here's a list of thingsyou can try for the upcoming

celebrations, writes ANUSHKA PRADEEP

HANDMADE GIFTS:This concept has been

around for time immemorialand is definitely not going outof fashion any time soon. One

can gift friends and familyhomemade greeting cards andbookmarks or get innovativeand create paper cups or papercube string lights. You couldalso try your hand at making

jewellery boxes out of upcy-cled tin cans. Upcycling anyunused item at home not justensures you gift something,but also helps you do your bitfor the environment.

Deepika, PV Sindhu turn

‘BHARAT KI LAXMI' for Narendra Modi

ctress DeepikaPadukone alongwith world bad-minton champi-on P.V. Sindhuwill be repre-

senting Prime MinisterNarendra Modi’s campaign‘Bharat Ki Laxmi’, whichcelebrates womanhood.

Deepika and Sindhushared a video on theirsocial media pages. In thevideo, the two icons wereseen talking about the ini-tiative that aims to bringlight at the commendablework done by womenacross the nation.

Modi on Tuesday tweet-ed, “India’s Nari Shakti epit-omises talent and tenacity,determination and dedica-tion. Our ethos has alwaystaught us to strive forwomen empowerment.Through this video,@Pvsindhu1 and @deepika-padukone excellently conveythe message of celebrating#BharatKiLaxmi. (sic)”

On the acting front,Deepika will be next seen indirector Meghna Gulzar’sChhapaak, a film based onthe life of acid attack sur-vivor Laxmi Agarwal,which is also produced byher.

She will also be seensharing screen space withher husband Ranveer Singhin filmmaker Kabir Khan’s

’83”. Ranveer plays KapilDev, who lead the underdogIndian cricket team to afamous victory against themighty West Indies in thefinal of the 1983 WorldCup. Deepika plays Kapil’swife Romi.

“’83 also features Tahir

Raj Bhasin, Ammy Virk,Hardy Sandhu, and ChiragPatil among others.

The film is co-producedby RelianceEntertainment,Phantom Films andNadiadwala GrandsonEntertainment.

A

LIKE GOLD BUTCHOOSE IRON

MOMENTOF PRIDE

The INIFDHimaya-

tnagarbranch’s 17th AnnualGraduation Ceremony

was held in the city at astart hotel. Several

Fashion and InteriorDesign students were

given GraduationCertificates. Anil Khosla,CEO of INIFD along withseveral other dignitaries

graced the event. DeepalJain, winner of Lakme

Fashion Week 2019along with several other

students whorepresented INIFD atvarious national andinternational fashion

weeks, were awardedtrophies at the event.

10

Hyderabad Wednesday October 23, 2019

FUN TIME

Rules

ARCHIE

GARFIELD

SUDOKU

REALITY CHECK SPEED BUMP CROSSWORD

GINGER MEGGS

NANCY

CALVIN AND HOBBES

l Each row and column cancontain each number (1 to 9)exactly once.

l The sum of all numbers inany row or column mustequal 45.

Yesterday’s solution

what’s brewing?

l SamahaaraTheatre Co-operativepresents DongaDonga, a hilariousTelugu comedy,directed by RathnaShekar at PhoenixArena, Hitec City.Donga Donga is ahilarious farceadapted from twoshort plays written by Shri. ShankaramanchiPartha Saradhi.The play is scheduled to be heldon October 25 at 7.30 pm.

GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS l CinephilesFilm Club will bescreening themovie GlengarryGlen Ross atLamakaan ontoday at 7 pm.The plotrevolves aroundan office full ofNew York Cityreal estatesalesmen whoare given thenews that all but the top two will be fired at theend of the week.

CITY GUIDE

lGoethe-Zentrum incollaborationwith Salar JungMuseum isconducting aphotographyexhibition, ‘ThePower ofEmotions' tillOctober 31 atSalar JungMuseumbetween 10 amand 5 pm.

ART AAND CCULTURE

CHALAM'S MAIDANAMlSamahaaraTheatre Co-operative isstaging a play,Chalam'sMaidanam onNovember 2 atPhoenix Arenafrom 7.30pm. It isone of the mostfamous and mostcontroversial of Chalam's novels, dramatises hisideas on marriage, freedom and the moral issuesinvolved in them.

COMEDYl On popular demand, Ms Varuna Anand is back with her NEW Heirloom Collection —splendor of Kashmiran — exclusive collection ofluxurious Pashmina shawls along with her otherwide range of hand embroidered and hand wovenshawls. To meet the ever increasing demand, thisyear she is also showcasing Kalamkari shawls andfusing it with classic embroidered borders toenhance the look of these shawls. The collection will be showcased at Taj KrishnaPearl room today between 11 am and 7 pm.

GET YOUR EVENT LISTED: To get your events listed, please send your detailsalong with a poster and contact number to features.pioneer@gmail.com

COMEDY CRACKERSlFunny side up inassociation withComedy Central Indiapresents a new materialnoght show —Comedy Crackers —with Hyderabad's veryown Rohit Swain andSaikiran where theyperform many of theirnew jokes some good,some bad, mostlyinteresting.At CLOwork on October27 at 11.30 am

POWER OF EMOTIONS

lAn NGO,Cultivating Art isconducting thesecond edition ofHyderabad OpenArt Competitionon November 10at Phoenix Arenafrom 10 amonwards. It is a platform to encourage everyone topractice art, explore ideas from school children,encourage all budding artists.

OPEN ART COMPETITION

DONGA DONGA

SPLENDOR OF KASHMIR

l The playSkepticism,written &directed byAmaanAhmad willbe stagedtomorrow atLamakaanfrom 7.30pm. It is apsychologicalandphilosophical play, which touches the elements ofabsurdism, surrealism and skepticism. The storyrevolves around a psychologically disturbed artistwho's going through an existential crisis.

SKEPTICISM

PARTY

l Anil Khosla, CEO

l Ishika Jain l Sukmeet Kaur l Swati Janu

l Shikha Agarwal

l Deepali Jain

l Kanishka Katri

lM

anika

and

Gok

ul K

arwa

.

he feud withinMAA is gettingmurkier day byday. Following theSunday casualmeet that snow-

balled into a big controversy,the film body has decided toamend laws of the associa-tion so that an ‘extraordinary’general body meeting will beconvened at the earliest toresolve issues pertaining tothe organisation. Reacting toit, MAA president Naresh,who didn’t attend the Sundaymeet, said, “Out of the 550members, only 70-80 mem-bers attended that Sundaymeet. I did not attendbecause I was told it was onlya friendly meet. Later, I wastold it was a general bodymeeting and I was accused ofinterfering with it. I believethe meet damaged MAA’sreputation. Usually suchmeetings are called once in ayear and by the presidenthimself.”

“No resolutions werepassed as such in the meetingexcept for indicating thatlaws should be changed intune with modern days. Itcame as a shocker to me.Around 26years ago

Megastar Chiranjeevi startedMAA. Ever since, the likes ofMurali Mohan, Naga Babuand Rajendra Prasad amongothers ran it with the samelaws. If changes in laws ismooted, the proposal shouldbe first put forward to expe-rienced personalities likeKrishna and Krishnamrajufor their opinion before itgoes to the lawyers,” headded.

Listing out his achieve-ments for the last six monthsas the MAA president,Naresh said that for the firsttime in the history of MAA,850 members were providedlife insurance coverage.“Medical insurance has beenhiked to Rs 3 lakh, while eli-gible artistes are getting Rs6,000 pension deposited intheir accounts directly everymonth instead of the earlierpractice of handing overcheques. No film body in thecountry took such measures.We are also very close to car-rying out an event to raisefunds,” he said

He further said that hedoesn’t want to attract anycontroversies and wants tomove forward with the helpof experienced personalities.

“I will take everyonealong with me toensure that our goalsare met. Office bear-ers should worktogether in the bestinterest of MAA,” headvised.

AADI signs a

new-age

entertainerith his latest, Operation Gold Fish, too failing to

do any good to his career, Aadi Saikumar’s market

has come crashing down. However, the actor

continues to attract offers. The latest we hear

about him is that he has signed debutant Sai Raj’s

film. “It’s a new-age romantic comedy that goes well with

his persona. It requires him to be his natural self. The actor

believes it’s the film that will bail him out of his poor streak

and garner him fame as an actor. He will start shooting for

it next month,” says a source.

That’s not all! The actor also has a couple of other pro-

jects in his kitty. While one with Karthik Vignesh is an

action-drama, which will mark his Tamil debut, he is

also currently shooting for first-timer Srinivasa Naidu’s

love story that will see him in multiple shades. The lat-

ter is a joint production venture between Chitalapudi

Srinivas and Chavali Ramanjaneyulu where Aadi will

be seen alongside Surbhi.

Hyderabad Wednesday October 23, 2019

T

W

11

tollywood

It is always frustrating to have a story inmind and not have the means to tell it.

Kontaddi Surender speaks to NAGARAJGOUD about how he channeled hisfrustration into making his first filmt proved to be a toughtask for KontaddiSurender, with no con-tacts in the industry, toget his first chance toassist a director and hone

his skills. Left with no choice and anintense desire to realise his dreams,he decided to turn into a juniorartiste mid of last decade to get a feelof how the industry works. Now, hesoon will be debuting as a directorwith Amrutha Ramam.

“The plan worked as I managed todevelop some contacts in the indus-try after which I got to work as anassistant director for my first film,Shiva. Soon films like Seetharamudu,State Rowdy and Mayagadu followed.I later assisted Gunasekhar for Nippuand Sunil Kumar for Thikka. ForThikka, I was the associate writer aswell,” he shares with The Pioneer.

After Nippu he decided to pursue asolo shot at direction, but was metwith little success. He intensified hisefforts after Thikka, narrating scriptsto multiple actors, but luck contin-ued to elude him. “Amrutha Ramamwas born out of all that frustration,"he declares, adding that, “I realisedthat to get an appointment with amid-range hero, I would be requiredto wait for a year and even if thehero likes the story, it would takeanother year and 18 months for thefilm to roll out.”

Surender decided to take mattersinto his own hands. With financialaid from his friends in Australiabacking his efforts, he began to workon a love story. He set the story inAustralia where he roped in local tal-ent to act as he couldn’t afford flyingout actors from Hyderabad. “To castTelugu actors from there we didintense workshops with them beforegoing on the sets. We began shootinglast August in Sydney, Canberra,Dubbo and Snowy Mountains andwrapped it up in 45 days. On anygiven day, the maximum crew on setdidn’t exceed more than 25members,” he says.

He dubs AmruthaRamam as a purelove story. “It istold from the

girl’s (Amitha Ranganath) point ofview and focuses on her uncondi-tional love. The male lead (RamMittakanti) will be a guy who is onthe hunt for a job after completinghis Masters. Love gives joy but alsocomes with sacrifices is the film’sgist,” he shares, crediting his wifeYogitha, a news presenter with aTelugu news channel, for believing inhim when no one around him did.“It’s difficult to shoot in India withthe circle of people you know, letalone shooting in a different conti-nent. I’ve always been a confidentperson but my wife has always beenthere for me in times of need.”

S.N. Reddy, who produced theManchu Manoj-starrer OkkaduMigiladu, came to his rescue on thepost-production front. “He was ini-tially reluctant to associate with thefilm but it seems he had a change ofheart after watching it. He gave methe financial support I needed dur-ing post-production. He is the prin-cipal producer of the film now.Likewise, Annapurna Studios as well,impressed with the film, extendedtheir help. They allotted their studioswhenever I needed for post-produc-tion and never bothered to troubleme over money,” he states.

But the icingon thecake forhimwas

when leading producer Suresh Babudecided to distribute it under hisesteemed Suresh Productions.Surender adds, “I know producerMadhura Sreedhar very well. Heloved the film and felt that it neededto be promoted in a right way toreach the audience. I asked himwhether he can show it to SureshBabu and he said he would. He tookthe onus on himself and Suresh garuwatched the film last week. He point-

ed out to some minor issues butlauded the way I treated the

whole film. He later toldSreedhar garu that his

banner would bereleasing it.”

AMRUTHA RAMAMIS A PURE LOVE STORY: DIRECTOR SURENDERI

fter welcoming a petdog Bugaboo last year,actress Samanthaadopted two moredogs, which she namedas Hash Akkineni and

Drogo Akkineni, earlier this May.The latest is that she might havebrought another dog, going by anInstagram post on her account.Even though, this time, it lookslike her husband Naga Chaitanyais dead set against the idea, Sammay have had her way finally.Sharing an interesting conversa-tion that transpired betweenthem, along with a picture of oneof their pets resting in Chay’s lap,she wrote, “Dad: I don’t want adog !! Mom : gets dog anyway ...Dad and the dog (sic).” The postwon hearts of many netizenswhile some felt bad for Chay.

On the work front, Chay will benext seen in Venky Mama, whileSam has recently wrapped upfilming for the Telugu remake of’96, where she reprises the rolethat was essayed by Trisha in theTamil original.

A

SAM andCHAY'Spuppylove

NARESH: Weshould all

work togetherfor MAA

PTI n RANCHI

India captain Virat Kohlifeels that time has come

for the BCCI to zero in onfive permanent Test centresfor future home series, sim-ilar to the English andAustralian model when topteams tour those countries.

In Australia, Melbourne,Sydney, Perth, Brisbane andAdelaide are the five desig-nated Test centres whenev-er the big teams come call-ing.

Similarly in England,the Lord’s, Oval, Trent

Bridge, Old Trafford,Edgbaston, Southamptonand Headingley are theseven main Test centres forany marquee series(Ashes/India).

Asked about the luke-warm response in Ranchi,the Indian skipper lapped upthe question.

“That’s a great question.

We have been discussingthis for a long time now. Andin my opinion, we shouldhave five Test centres.Period,” the skipper made hispoint, something that thenew BCCI president SouravGanguly might now have tolook into.

“Look if you want tokeep Test cricket alive and

exciting, I totally agree withthe fact that we need five Testcentres at max. It can’t besporadic and spread over somany places where peopleturn up or they don’t,” theskipper didn’t mince words.

“So in my opinion,absolutely, we should havefive strong Test centres wherethe team coming to Indiaknows that this is wherewe’re going to play andnowhere else,” he said.

The BCCI follows therotation policy across for-mats but it has now morethan 15 Test centres.

PTI n RANCHI

Aformidable Indian teamticked all the boxes withease as it completed a 3-0

rout of an out-of-sorts SouthAfrica with an innings and 202runs victory in the third and finalTest at Jharkhand State CricketAssociation stadium on Tuesday.

With another 120 points inthe ongoing World TestChampionship, India now sitpretty on top of the table with240 points as the formalitieswere completed within the firsttwo overs of the fourth day.

This was Virat Kohli’s 11thseries win as captain and the firstclean sweep over the Proteas whowere no match for the hosts. Thiswas India’s 11th successive seriestriumph on home soil.

The scoreline was not onlyan indicator of India’s absolutedominance but also the declinein standard of South Africancricket as the visitors couldn’thandle the might of India’s bat-ting and the fiery pace attack ledby Mohammed Shami (13 wick-ets in the series).

Debutant left-arm spinnerShahbaz Nadeem (2/18 in 6overs) wrapped it up in the sec-ond over of the day as SouthAfrica were all out for 133 intheir second innings, 29 runsshort of their dismal first inningsscore of 162.

This was India’s sixth cleansweep at home in a three-Testseries and the side didn’t put afoot wrong during the three-match series, winning the firstTest by 203 runs and the secondone by an innings and 137 runs.

If Rohit Sharma’s coming ofage in his new role as an openerwith 529 runs, turned out to bea masterstroke in home condi-tions, Mayank Agarwal also con-solidated his place in the sidewith a double century and a ton,easing India’s long time openingwoes.

“I was very happy to makemy debut in Australia and makelittle contributions to the team.It’s hard work over a period ofmany areas,” Agarwal said afterthe match.

However, what stood outduring the series was how lethalthe Indian pace attack lookeddespite their premier pacerJasprit Bumrah’s absence due toa stress fracture.

Rarely has there been a serieswhere the impact of pacers has

been as much as the spinners.If Ravindra Jadeja (13 wick-

ets) and Ravichandran Ashwin(15 wickets) shared 28 amongthemselves, Mohammed Shami(13 in 3 Tests), Umesh Yadav (11

in two Tests) and Ishant Sharma(2 in 2 Tests) picked 26 wickets.

“We are always ready to ful-fill our responsibility. As a cap-tain, Virat gives you confidence,lets you do what you want. We

try to keep the ball in the rightareas and bowl the right length,”Shami said at the end of match.

It was one such series, whereSouth African batsmen lookedscared and scarred by the feroc-ity of India’s pace attack. The pac-ers did a lot of damage with thenew ball and reversed the oldball.

Two hundreds and fourfifties is all that the South Africanbatting line-up managed andSouth African skipper Faf duPlessis agreed that they werecompletely outplayed on sportingtracks unlike the ones in 2015where the ball was turningsquare.

“They were ruthless and theywere better than us in everydepartment — spin bowling, fastbowling, batting and even thefielding. They are a difficultteam to overcome,” Du Plessisagreed.

Pleased as punch, skipperKohli couldn’t agree more withhis opposite number.

“You guys have seen howwe’re playing. Making thingshappen on pitches that don’tseem to offer too much, is some-thing we’re very proud of,” Kohlisummed it up aptly.

sport 12HYDERABAD | WEDNESDAY | OCTOBER 23, 2019

PTI n RANCHI

The intent has always been honest and that pre-cisely is the reason for the stupendous results

that the Indian cricket team is currently deliver-ing, skipper Virat Kohli said after a thumping 3-0 whitewash.

“As long as we keep working with honestintent, those things will follow. We have wantedto be the best team in Test cricket, and as long aswe compete, things will work out well for us,” Kohlisaid at the post-match presentation ceremony.

The best part about the win was taking theconditions out of equation, said Kohli.

“Amazing. You guys have seen how we’re play-ing. Making things happen on pitches that don’tseem to offer too much, is something we’re veryproud of,” the skipper said.

“Even when we travelled away from home, wewanted to compete. Getting into the right kind ofmindset is something these guys have worked real-ly hard to get into... To be the best side in the world,you have to be multi-dimensional,” skipper said.

“Spin was always our strength, batting wasnever a problem for us. Ishant (Sharma) was theonly experienced bowler for us. We said we canplay an extra bowler, and as batsmen we said we’llget the job done.

“We’ve got runs in every Test match, our catch-ing has been good too. (Goal) As I said, even with-out much experience, we travelled very well. Webelieve we can win anywhere,” the skipper added.

His counterpart Faf du Plessis also agreedthat it was high quality pace bowling from India.

“I think it’s the skill of the bowlers. They havea skiddy nature and they hit the right spots andthe stumps at all times. Those are the things wetalked about before we came here, but natural-ly the length in South Africa has to be a littleshorter, and that takes time to adjust,” Du Plessissaid.

The fight tapered off after the first Test inVisakhapatnam and du Plessis acknowledged thathis side wasn’t up to it.

“That’s the frustrating part of the tour. Therewere some really good signs, but it went the otherway,” the Proteas skipper said when dissectingperformance on the tour.

“Every Test, we made more mistakes. But wehave to give credit to the Indian team. They wereruthless and they were better than us in everydepartment — spin bowling, fast bowling, bat-ting and even the fielding. They are a difficultteam to overcome.

“The mindset after 2015 was to prepare our-selves for really spinning tracks, but it’s been theopposite. Really sporting tracks — fantastic forfast bowlers and even for batsmen. There’s a lotto learn for us,” he added.

The visiting skipper said that this is a youngteam which wold learn to fight its way out of trou-ble in adverse conditions.

“It’s important that we have some young guys,and they’ll experience this in 3-4 years ago. It wasimportant for us to take something back again.

“We have to learn to compete the next timeagain. This is the toughest tour on the circuit...(India’s) 11 series wins in a row bears testamentto that.”

PTI n RANCHI

Skipper Virat Kohli feels that no onebut Rohit Sharma alone “deserves

credit” for overcoming “anxiety and hes-itation” while performing commendablyin his new role as an opener, givingbowlers enough time to take 20 SouthAfrican wickets in the 3-0 sweep.

Rohit turned out to be a revelationas opener with scores of 176 and 127 inthe first Test and 212 in the third Test.The team management’s stand that hecould be a game-changer in the longestformat stood vindicated.

“Credit solely goes to the player forthe way he overcame his anxiety and hes-itation and performed in such a mannerthat he was adjudged Man-of-the-Seriesin the first series as an opener. It’s beenoutstanding for him,” Kohli was effusivein praise for his white-ball deputy.

“There is always an anticipation onhow would you per-form as an openerin Test cricket, as hehas been the world’sbest opener in ODIcricket for a longtime. Despite missingclose to two sessionsbecause of rain, hispace in the batting gaveus so much of time tobowl them out twice,” theskipper said.

The top-order had per-formed brilliantly in theseries, something that theskipper finds deeply satisfying.

“Mayank (Agarwal) alsohas done very well. Despite beingnew to opening, he performedconsistently. Ajinkya (Rahane) alsogot a century at home after a longtime (three years, 188 v NZ October2016, Indore).

“He also got a Test century in WestIndies after a long time. Things aremoving in the right direction inthe last two-three months. So Isaid, it feels very pleasing to seeindividuals performing collectivelywell.”

Umesh Yadav andMohammed Shami took 24 of the60 South African wickets and theirstrike-rate is something that makesthem stand apart from a lot of

Indian fast bowlers over the years, saidthe skipper.

“If you look at these two guys, theirstrike-rate is probably the best in Indianconditions in history. So it tells you thatthese guys hit the stumps and the padsmore. It’s a great sign of intent thebowlers are running with. The fitnesslevels have gone up,” Kohli said.

‘WILL MMEET && TTALK AABOUT DDHONI’India captain Virat Kohli on Tuesday

said he hasn’t had any conversation withSourav Ganguly with regards to MSDhoni’s international future and believesthat the BCCI’s President-elect will getin touch with him when he needs to.

After being nominated as the BCCI’sPresident-elect, Ganguly had said that hewould like to speak to the selectors aswell as Dhoni to know what they had inmind.

“I congratulated him (Ganguly). It’sgreat that he has become BCCIPresident. But he’s not spoken to meabout that (MS) yet. He will get in touchwith me when he has to. I am sure I willgo and meet him when he tells me to,”the Indian skipper said at the post-matchpress conference.

PTI n RANCHI

An exultant India coach Ravi Shastrion Tuesday said Rohit Sharma has

shown himself to be of different class inthe newly-acquired role of a Test open-er, acclimatising exceptionally well to thechallenges posed by the position.

“Ajinkya Rahane was always there inthe middle order, he only needed torediscover, which he did himself. Rohitis different class. As an opener he need-ed to have a different mindset, he accli-matised. It was a difficult pitch to startwith but usne jhela," Shastri told officialbroadcaster Star Sports at the end of thematch. “He has it in him to be unfazedby difficult conditions. What he hasdone in this series is tremendous,” headded. Shastri lauded the mindset of theteam, which he said, is never perturbedby the conditions it encounters whetherat home or abroad.

“Our philosophy has been bhaadmein gaya pitch (to hell with the pitch).We need to take 20 wickets and it does-n’t matter if it’s Mumbai, Auckland,Melbourne, anywhere. Once we havetaken those 20 wickets, our batting, onceit gets going is like smooth-runningFerrari,” he quipped.

"When you have five bowlers whocan take 20 wickets, bas that’s what mat-ters," he added.

Despite the individual brilliancethat shone through, Shastri said the tri-umph was, in the end, a team effort.

“It’s a team effort. A captain wholeads from the front. You have openingbatsmen who got double hundreds.Middle-order batsmen got hundreds.Normally in India, you have two play-ers who hog the limelight. Here we’vehad six or seven payers. This is goingwell, enjoy,” he said.

PTI n RANCHI

Humiliated by a ruthlessIndia, the South African

team will go back with “men-tal scars” as skipper Faf duPlessis rued a lack of visionthat impeded phasing out oftheir great players.

“A tour like this revealsthat there’s a lot of mental scarsthat can happen and thenobviously it’s difficult to comeout of that hole,” Du Plessissaid after they conceded theirheaviest defeat to India in thethird Test. “It’s just a relentless,ruthlessness the way they putbig totals on the board everytime. The effect it has on youmentally as a batting lineup, ittakes a lot of energy and ittakes a lot of toll and that’s whyyou could see towards theend our batting was mentallyweak. You don’t want to bementally weak.”

Blaming Cricket SouthAfrica, the visiting skipperfurther said the tour exposedthe lack of planning as they didnot think for future after greatslike Hashim Amla and AB deVilliers retired. “It shows thatour structures are not wherethey need to be. The gapbetween domestic cricket andInternational cricket. If youlook back three or four years

and if someone had the visionof saying, in three or four years’time there will be a lot of inex-perienced guys. A lot of 34, 35,36 year olds could possibleretire. So what do you do tomake sure you get yourselfready for when that timecomes? “And possibly we areguilty of not planning or whenthese guys going at the sametime. And now you’ve got toreplace not only one player butfour or five of your best play-ers. Perhaps we could’ve beena little bit smarter in our plan-ning phase, and the phasingout of the great players,” hesaid.

Asked about the way for-

ward, Du Plessis said they haveto find the right people to buildthe side. “It’s a rebuildingphase. You have to start iden-tifying characters that willdrive the team forward. Youlook for personalities within ateam that you see in 3-4-5-6years to come. And then theprocess starts. It’s a toughplace to start right at thebeginning.

“The process will probablytake a little bit longer. So forme, our next journey now istrying to make sure that we geta lot stronger as a cricketingteam mentally. So if there’swork that needs to be done inthat department, then so be it.”

We want to bethe best: Kohli

One Plus One Equals 11

Members of Indian team pose with the winners trophy after their win on the fourth day of third and last Test match between India and South Africa in Ranchi AP

“Indian conditions werealways known to be spinfriendly. Now we have thatpower, among our pacers,that we can make batsmendance with the bat.”

— MOHAMMAD SHAMI

“The support of the coachand captain helps. I amthankful for the opportunityto the management for thatopening slot.”

— ROHIT SHARMA

“They were ruthless andthey were better than us inevery department - spinbowling, fast bowling,batting and even thefielding. They are a difficultteam to overcome”

— FAF DU PLESSIS

INDIA’S BBIGGEST WWINS IIN TTESTSMargin Opponents Venue SeasonInnings & 272runs West Indies Rajkot 2018-19Innings & 262 runs Afghanistan Bengaluru 2018Innings & 239 runs Bangladesh Dhaka 2006-07Innings & 239 runs Sri Lanka Nagpur 2017-18Innings & 219 runs Australia Kolkata 1997-98Innings & 202 runs South Africa Ranchi 2019-20

MOST WWICKETS BBY IIND PPACERS IIN AA 33-MMATCH HHOME SSERIESOpponent Season Overs Runs WktsEngland 1933-34 353.3 926 30Sri Lanka 2017-18 235.4 758 30England 2005-06 254.5 763 27South Africa 2019-20 152.5 455 26South Africa 1996-97 221.3 625 25

MOST CCONSECUTIVE TTEST SSERIES WWINS AAT HHOMETeam Series PeriodIndia 11 February 2013 to October 2019Australia 10 November 1994 to November 2000Australia 10 July 2004 to November 2008West Indies 8 March 1976 to February 1986England 7 May 2009 to May 2012South Africa 7 March 1998 to November 2001

FAISEL FFEATURES

MS Dhoni speaks with Shahbaz Nadeem after the end of third Test BCCI/Twitter

MS checks inRANCHI: A notable absentee for theduration of the Test, former Indiaskipper Mahendra Singh Dhonifinally showed up after Indiawrapped up the Test series, posingwith Ravi Shastri among others.

Ranchi’s most popular sonwas expected to turn up during thethird Test, and he did, but onlyafter the formalities had beencompleted by Virat Kohli and hismen here.

“Great to see a true Indian leg-end in his den after a fantasticseries win #Dhoni #TeamIndia#INDvsSA,” Shastri tweeted with

a picture of him with a grinningDhoni.

In fact, when a scribe askedabout Dhoni, a beaming skipperKohli said in jest: “He is here in thechange room. Come and say helloto him.”

The BCCI also posted a pic-ture of Dhoni, wearing his all-access accreditation card, in theIndian dressing room.

In the picture posted by theIndian board, Dhoni is seen inconversation with debutant left-arm spinner Shahbaz Nadeem,who took four wickets. PTI

All credit goes to Rohit 5 Test venuesSkipper Virat backs Aussie, English modelof having only five permanent Test centres

Shastri likens Indian batting toFerrari, calls Hitman different class

Mohammed Shami celebrates by showing brokenwicket after dismissing Dane Piedt in Pune AP

‘Ind tour caused mental scars’

Faf du Plessis & Zubayr Hamza, left, leave the field at the end of day’s play AP

Indian captain Virat Kohli shakes hand with Faf du Plessis AP

India complete 3-0 clean sweep formalities in two overs & win consecutive 11th series at home under Kohli