RNI NO.: WBENG/2015/65962

VOL. 7, ISSUE 173 | Saturday, 26 June 2021 | Kolkata | Pages 12 | Rs 3.00PUBLISHED FROM DELHI | KOLKATA

MILLENNIUMPOST.IN

No Half Truths

SC annuls HC order refusing to accept replies of Mamata Banerjee, law minister ‘Calcutta High Court shall decide the further course of action and proceed

with the matter after deciding the pleas of the three parties’OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday annulled the Calcutta High Court’s June 9 order refusing to take on record the affidavits of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Baner-jee and Law Minister Moloy Ghatak on their role on the day of arrest of four Trinamool Congress leaders on May 17 by CBI in Narada scam case.

A vacation bench of jus-tices Vineet Saran and Dinesh Maheshwari asked the high court to decide de-novo the fresh pleas, to be filed by Banerjee, Ghatak and the state government by June 28, before proceeding with the main peti-tion of the CBI seeking trans-fer of the scam case to the high court itself.

The top court said the three parties ought to have filed an application for taking their respective counter-affidavits on record, especially when the submissions/arguments of the parties were going on and had

progressed substantially.The bench said the matter

could be remanded to the high court to decide it afresh on the basis of the reasons to be given in the applications which may be filed by the parties within a specified time.

The counsel for the par-ties has graciously agreed to this suggestion of the Court. Accordingly, we dispose of these three petitions with...directions, it said.

In view of the fact that

June 29, 2021, is the date fixed before the High Court, we direct that the petition-ers may file their respective applications giving reasons to bring the counter-affidavits filed by them on June 7 and June 9 respectively on record, by Monday that is June 28, after serving advance copies on the counsel for the Central Bureau Of Investigation and other necessary parties, on or before June 27, the bench said in the order.

CBI and others may file their replies to the applica-tion by June 29, after serving an advance copy to the coun-sel of Banerjee, Ghatak and the state government a day before, it said.

We request the High Court to first decide the aforesaid applications of the petitioners herein, for taking the counter affidavit/affidavits in response on record, before proceeding to decide the merits of the case, it said.

We may further add that to avoid any prejudice to be caused to any of the parties, the order dated June 9 shall stand annulled and the High Court shall decide the matter de-novo, it added.

The top court made clear that the five-judge bench of the Calcutta High Court headed by Acting Chief Jus-tice Rajesh Bindal shall decide the further course of action and proceed with the matter after deciding the pleas of the three parties.

Takeaways » The counsel for the parties has graciously agreed to the suggestion of the Court

» CBI and others may file their replies to the ap-plication by June 29, after serving an advance copy to the counsel of Banerjee, Ghatak and the state government a day before, the bench said

NARADA SCAM

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: India and China on Friday agreed to main-tain dialogue and commu-nication to reach a mutually acceptable solution for com-plete disengagement in all fric-tion points along the Line of Actual Control(LAC) in eastern Ladakh to enable progress in the overall bilateral ties.

The two countries agreed to this as they held another round of diplomatic talks to resolve the prolonged border standoff in eastern Ladakh that erupted in early May last year.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said the two sides

agreed to hold the 12th round of military talks at an early date to achieve the objective of com-plete disengagement from all the friction points along the LAC in the western sector in accordance

with the existing bilateral pacts and protocols.

The diplomatic talks took place under the framework of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination

on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC).

The MEA said the two sides had a frank exchange of views on the situation along the LAC in eastern Ladakh.

“Both sides agreed on the need to find an early resolution to the remaining issues along the LAC in eastern Ladakh keeping in view of the agreement reached between the two Foreign Minis-ters in September 2020,” it said.

“In this regard, the two sides agreed to maintain dialogue and communication through the diplomatic and military mechanisms to reach a mutually acceptable solution for complete disengagement from all friction

points so as to ensure full resto-ration of peace and tranquillity to enable progress in the bilat-eral relations,” the MEA said in a statement.

The MEA said it was also agreed that in the interim, the two sides will continue to ensure stability on the ground and pre-vent any untoward incident.

“The two sides agreed to hold the next round of the Senior Commanders meeting at an early date to achieve the objec-tive of complete disengagement from all the friction points along the LAC in the Western Sector in accordance with the existing bilateral agreements and proto-cols,” the ministry added.

India and China agree to maintain dialogue to resolve LAC standoff in eastern Ladakh

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The government on Friday extended deadlines for various income tax compliances and also exempted from tax the amount given by an employer to employees for COVID-19 treatment.

The last date for PAN-Aadhaar linking too has been extended by three months to September 30, 2021, while the same for furnishing Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) certificate in Form 16 to the employees by employers has been extended till July 31, from July 15, 2021.

Also, ex-gratia payments received from employers by family members in case of employees’ death due to COVID would be

exempt from income tax in fiscal 2019-20 and subsequent years. The limit for such tax-exempted payment would be Rs 10 lakh in case it is received from any other person.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said in a statement that many taxpayers have received financial help from their employers and well-wishers for meet-ing their expenses incurred for treatment of COVID-19. “In order to ensure that no income tax liability arises on this account, it has been decided to provide income-tax exemption to the amount received by a taxpayer for medical treatment from employer or from any person for treatment of Covid-19 during FY 2019-20 and sub-sequent years,” it added. Continued on P5

Centre extends several I-T compliance deadlines

Govt exempts tax on COVID-19 treatment cost, ex-gratia payments received from employers

TWO SIDES AGREE TO HOLD 12TH ROUND OF MILITARY TALKS AT AN EARLY DATE

The MEA said it was also agreed that in the interim, the two sides will continue to ensure stability on the ground and prevent any untoward incident

PAN-AADHAAR LINKING DEADLINE EXTENDED

MPOST BUREAU

NEW DELHI: Amid its strained rela-tions with the Indian government, Twitter on Friday briefly blocked IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad from accessing his account over alleged vio-lation of the US copyright law — a move that was immediately slammed by him as being arbitrary and against IT rules.

This is the first instance of a Twit-ter account of a Union Minister get-ting blocked.

While the exact nature of the violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was not immediately known, Prasad could not access his account ‘@rsprasad’ on Friday morning even though the Twit-ter account of the minister was visible for public viewing.

The access was unlocked about an hour later with a warning that the account may be locked again or poten-tially suspended in case of any addi-tional notices against the account.

Hours after Prasad was blocked from accessing his account, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor claimed he was also denied access to his account. Tha-roor wrote, “Raviji, the same thing just

happened to me. Clearly DMCA is get-ting hyperactive. This tweet has been deleted by @Twitter because its video includes the copyrighted BoneyM song Rasputin.”

After a process, the account was unlocked, the Congress leader said.

“As Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, I can state that we will be seeking an explanation from @Twit-terIndia for the locking of @rsprasad’s & my accounts & the rules & proce-dures they follow while operating in India,” Tharoor said.

Lashing out at Twitter, Prasad — in a series of posts on rival social media platform Koo — said it was apparent that his statements calling out the “high handedness and arbi-trary actions” of Twitter had ruffled feathers. Continued on P5

Twitter denies access to Prasad, Tharoor’s accounts

IT Minister slams platform’s arbitrariness, Tharoor says Parl panel will seek explanation

CitySIT TO PROBE VAX SCAM 3

Nation9 TN FISHERMEN ESCAPE UNHURT 4

Edit

PRICE TO BE PAID 7

InternationalDEATH TOLL IN FLORIDA COLLAPSE RISES 8

BusinessSENSEX SOARS TO LIFETIME HIGH 10

SportHALEP OUT OF WIMBLEDON 11

NEW DELHI: PDP president Mehbooba Mufti on Friday said she herself will not con-test any elections until special status of Jammu and Kashmir is restored and stressed that the central leadership should focus on ensuring “dil ki doori” with the people of the erstwhile state is removed.

The former chief min-ister emphasised on remov-ing the “draconian orders that were passed on August 5, 2019, on abrogation of Jammu and Kahsmir’s special status. The “era of suppression and

oppression” has to come to an end, she said.

Following the abrogation

of special status, the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, was on August 5, 2019, bifur-cated into union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.

“I have made it clear many times that I would not contest any elections under the Union Territory, but at the same time my party is also aware of the fact that we will not yield political space to anyone. We contested the District Devel-opment Council elections held last year, Mehbooba said.

“Similarly, if elections are

announced for the assembly, the party would sit and dis-cuss,” the PDP president said.

However, Mehbooba, who was part of the 14-member delegation that met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday to discuss the road forward for Jammu and Kash-mir, emphasised that there is a need for taking many confi-dence-building measures.

These include providing relief to the tourism and trad-ing community of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh regions, she said. Continued on P5

Will not contest election until special status of J&K restored: Mehbooba

‘Central leadership should focus on ensuring “dil ki doori” with the people is removed’

Mehbooba Mufti

WORD OF CAUTION

Ducks on a flooded street during high tide in Ganga, at Kalighat area in Kolkata, on Friday. The Bengal government has sounded a high alert in three coastal districts ahead of the spring tide (full moon tide) when the water levels in the rivers and sea is expected to swell by a few metres PTI

NEW DELHI: The government’s total liabilities stood at Rs 116.21 lakh crore at the end of March 2021, up 6.36 per cent from the previous quarter, according to official data released on Friday.

The total liabilities (includ-ing liabilities under the ‘Public Account’) of the government were Rs 109.26 lakh crore at end-December 2020.

“This represented a quarter-on-quarter increase of 6.36 per cent in Q4, FY21,” said the Pub-lic Debt Management report for the January-March 2021 quarter, released by the finance ministry. Public debt accounted for 88.10 per cent of total outstanding lia-bilities at end-March 2021. See P9

Govt’s total liabilities rise

to Rs 116.21L cr

City: Pg 3Our govt committed to holistic dev of Alipurduar: Mamata

Nation: Pg 6Rajnath Singh: India’s 1st IAC will be commissioned next year

Film: Pg 12‘Prep is driving everybody ragged’

In today’s paper

...

Why no large-scale testing to prevent spread

of Delta plus variantRahul Gandhi

Covishield, Covaxin work against 4 Covid variants

Delta variants reason for 90% of cases, ICMR study says third wave unlikely to be as severe as second wave

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Vaccines Cov-ishield and Covaxin work against SARS-CoV-2 vari-ants Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta, while effectiveness tests against the Delta Plus variant is ongoing, the government said on Friday.

There are four variants of concern of the Coronavirus disease — Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta — with Delta Plus being a sub-lineage of the Delta variant which is also a variant of concern.

Addressing a press confer-ence, ICMR Director General Balram Bhargava said reduction of neutralisation capabilities of vaccine with different variants, which is based on global litera-ture, shows that Covaxin does not change with the Alpha vari-ant at all and so it is same as it is with the standard strain.

“Covishield reduces slightly with Alpha, by 2.5 times. For the Delta variant, Covaxin is effective but antibody response is slightly reduced to three-fold reduction, and for Covishield, it is two-fold reduction, while in Pfizer and Moderna it is seven-fold reduction,” he said.

“However, Covishield and Covaxin work against the vari-

ants of SARS-CoV-2- Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta — that is well established for these two vaccines,” Bhargava said.

Talking about the Delta Plus variant, Centre said 51 cases have been detected across 12 states in the country, with Maharashtra reporting the highest number of 22.

It said 22 cases of Delta Plus variant have been found in Maharashtra, followed by nine in Tamil Nadu, seven in Mad-hya Pradesh, three in Kerala, two each in Punjab and Gujarat, and one case each in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana and Karnataka. Continued on P5

ALPHA, BETA, GAMMA, DELTA VARIANTS

Highlights » India records 51,667 COVID-19 cases, 1,329 deaths in a day » The number of active cases has further declined to 6,12,868

»Govt asks 8 states, UTs to take up immediate con-tainment measures over Delta Plus variant » 48 Delta Plus Covid variant cases detected in India; Maha with highest cases

A health worker administers a dose of COVID-19 vaccine to a beneficiary during a drive-in vaccination camp by BMC, in Mumbai, on Friday PTI

PUNE: The first batch of Covovax, a COVID-19 vaccine developed by Novavax Inc, is being man-ufactured at the Serum Institute of India’s Pune facility, SII CEO Adar Poonawalla said on Friday.

“Excited to witness the first batch of Covovax (developed by @Novavax) being manufactured this week at our facility in Pune. The vaccine has great potential to protect our future generations below the age of 18. Tri-als are ongoing. Well done team @seruminstindia,” Poonawalla said in a tweet.

In March this year, he had said that the clini-cal trials of Covovax vac-cine have begun in India and the company hopes to launch it by September this year. MPOST

‘Serum manufacturing

first batch of Covovax

vaccine’

THIRD WAVE

2 millenniumpostCitympSATURDAY, 26 JUNE, 2021 | KOLKATA

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SIT to probe vax scam; KMC to provide free jabs to victims

Expert panel starts drawing up plan to battle virus spread

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: The Kolkata Police formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the vaccination scam that was busted after Debanjan Deb, who had impersonated as an IAS offi-cer, was arrested from Kasba.

On the other hand, the state gov-ernment has directed all District Mag-istrates that online portal or Covid vaccine-related app must be used to carry out inoculation drives. It also has to be ensured that there is no wastage of the shots.

A senior KMC official said since a prima facie probe by the KMC revealed that no Covid vaccine was injected to the beneficiaries at the said camp, the civic body would take the opinion of health experts and arrange for inoculating those who had received the fake jab.

Meanwhile, the sleuths interro-gated a few people at Lalbazar on Fri-day to gather further leads. They learnt that Deb had forged the letterhead of state Home & Hill affairs department, Nabanna and had recruited a former BSF officer, Arabinda Baidya — who is also a national-level swimmer — as his security guard.

A lawyer, has meanwhile, filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) at the Calcutta High Court seeking CBI investigation into the case. The mat-ter is expected to be heard next week.

The probe in the case revealed that Deb had reportedly cheated several people to gather money for arrang-ing such fake vaccination camps. On Friday, MLA Tapas Roy and Nayna Bandopadhyay and Rajya Sabha MP Santanu Sen lodged separate com-plaints against Deb for using their names or pictures for his ill motive.

The Kolkata Municipal Corpora-tion (KMC) lodged an FIR against a private bank where Deb had opened a bank account by forging the signa-ture of a senior KMC official. “Bank accounts on behalf of KMC cannot be opened without the permission of Chief Municipal Finance (Accounts). So, we feel that the bank has done a serious offence by opening such an account,” Member Board of Admin-istrators, KMC, in-charge of Health department, Atin Ghosh said.

Deb had claimed during interro-gation that he had a passion for social work. During the period between 2014

and 2017, he had worked in a few event management organisations and also made documentaries and music albums of his own. While working in these events management companies, he had met several people and started maintaining good relationships with them that included some influential people of society. He even managed to enroll himself as a junior filmmaker at the film festival as well. There, Deb met with a few state government offi-cials and had been maintaining con-tacts with them.

During the pandemic, Deb started a business of masks, PPE kits, hand sanitisers and other necessary things. The sleuths learnt that he had pur-chased the purported injections that were used for vaccinating people from a shop located at Mehta Building in Bagri market. Police had questioned the owner of the medicine shop who had claimed that Deb owed Rs 55,000 to him for the purchase. A num-

ber of forged letterheads, logos and rubber stamps of KMC were recov-ered from his office and residence. He had employed some 13 persons in his office at Kasba against payment of salary. Deb had claimed that he had hired a car for the last three months and attached a flag bearing the logo of Biswa Bangla and installed a blue beacon on the roof too.

“What he has done is inhumane as the people of Kolkata are known for their social service and reaching out to each other in trying times. It is not mandatory to seek permission from Kolkata Police for social work. How-ever, we are probing the case thor-oughly. What exactly was the jab that was injected, from where it has been procured, whether any more persons are involved, everything is being inves-tigated,” Kolkata Police Commissioner Soumen Mitra said.

According to senior Kolkata Police officials, they have come to know about two people from whom Deb had taken huge amounts of money by posing as a senior KMC officer. Cops suspect that Deb cheated several more people to arrange funds for his expenses.

Meanwhile, BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari submitted a deputation to the state Health department demand-ing a thorough probe in the case and reiterated that he would raise the issue at the state Assembly which is slated to start from July 2.

District Magistrates told to ensure vaccine-related app is used to carry out all inoculation drives OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: A 10-member expert committee, constituted by the state government to take pre-ventive measures ahead of the possible third wave, has already started to chalk out an elabo-rate plan and identify the chal-lenges and difficulties faced by the Health department during previ-ous two waves so that they can be overcome.

The expert committee held a meeting at Swasthya Bhawan on Thursday to discuss various aspects including the prospects as to how more beds can be dedi-cated for the treatment of children and mothers without hamper-ing general treatment. The com-mittee has also been looking into the difficulties which the various hospitals had faced during the first wave of Covid and also dur-ing the current wave. The expert committee is trying to iron out those problems before the poten-tial third wave.

The committee has also started assessing the requisite infrastructural, logistical and clinical preparedness of vari-ous health establishments to meet the challenges which may emerge in the near future. The expert committee will also exam-ine the rational way to allot beds for the children and mothers. It will also review where and how

more NICU and PICU can be set up for the treatment of children who may be infected with the virus. The committee will make such necessary recommendations to the Health department on the basis of its observation.

The expert committee com-prises Dr GK Dhali, OSD (Covid) and professor of IPGMER, Dr Maitrayee Banerjee from IPG-MER, Dr Dilip Pal, principal of BC Roy Children Hospital, Dr Yogiraj Roy, School of Tropical Medicines, Dr Soumitra Ghosh from IPGMER, Dr Mrinal Kanti Das of IPGMER, Dr Bibhuti Saha of School of Tropical Medicine, Dr Ashutosh Ghosh from IPG-MER, Dr Jyotirmoy Pal, RG Kar Medical College and Dr Abhi-jeet Chowdhury from IPGMER. Director of Health Services and Director Medical Education will work along with the expert com-mittee to ensure that all prepara-tory steps are taken to deal with the third wave of pandemic.

The state Health department has plans to dedicate at least 26,000 beds for women and chil-dren in both government and private hospitals. Around 1,300 PICU and 350 NICU beds would be put in place in the state to han-dle the unforeseen situation. Pedi-atric ventilators will be placed in adequate numbers in the district hospitals so that they can treat critical children.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Single-day Covid infection in Bengal slightly went up as the num-ber reached 1,933 on Friday from what remained at 1,923 on Thursday. The total number of infected cases has therefore gone up to 14,91,219 Covid cases till Fri-day. Around 1,975 Covid patients have been released from various hospitals in the past 24 hours taking the total number of patients being released from hospitals to 14,51,437 so far till Friday.

Number of fatalities dropped to 35 from 41 on Thursday. The total tally of fatalities in the state reached 17,551. The number of active cases remained at 22,231 on Friday. Covid recovery rate stood at 97.33 percent. The percentage of positive cases out of the sample tested remained at 3.48 on Friday. The percent-age of occupancy of Covid beds in the

state stood at 8.36. Bengal has so far con-ducted 1,39,50,686 Covid sample tests so far with around 55,557 samples being tested in the past 24 hours.

Kolkata has registered 6 Covid deaths on Friday while North 24-Parganas has seen 7 Covid deaths. Howrah has reported 2 deaths, Hooghly 1, West Burd-wan 1, East Burdwan 2, West Midnapore 1, Nadia 3, Birbhum 3, South Dinajpur 1, Jalpaiguri 4, Darjeeling 2 and Alipurduar 2. Kolkata in the past 24 hours has regis-tered 190 fresh cases and North 24-Par-ganas 237. The total death toll in Kolkata has so far reached 4,880 whereas North 24-Parganas has lost 4,434 people so far.

According to the Health department’s figure, one new confirmed mucormycosis case was reported from the state on Fri-day. The total number of mucormycosis infected cases has far remained 66 in the state. Nine new suspected cases have,

however, been reported on Friday. Two deaths were reported among suspected cases. No new death has been reported among confirmed cases. Cumulative deaths among confirmed cases remained at 16 on Friday and 36 among suspected cases. The total number of suspected cases reached 162 in the state so far.

The state has so far dedicated around 209 Covid hospitals out of which 196 are run by the government while rest are managed by the private establish-ments. The total number of earmarked Covid beds remains at 24,348 on Friday. The total number of ICU/HDU beds stands at 3,066. Around 200 safe homes are still functional in the state and the total number of beds in Safe Homes is 11,507. Around 122 testing labs have been operational in the state. The total number of people currently in home iso-lation is 18,523.

Meanwhile, the Health department has carried out 3 lakh daily vaccinations for the fifth consecutive day on Friday with 3,79,392 being vaccinated.

Around 2,50,230 people have received the first dose of vaccine on Friday while 66,044 got the second dose. The number of total Covid vaccination centres across the state stands at 2,181 on Friday. Ben-gal had achieved a milestone of carrying out 2 crore vaccinations cumulatively last Wednesday. Around 2,07,31,804 people cumulatively have received vaccination across the state till Friday. As many as 25,76,679 people belonging to the age bracket between 18 and 44 have received the vaccine till Friday since the drive began. The department has successfully conducted more than three lakh daily vaccinations. The Health department has already set a target of vaccinating around 5 lakh people on a daily basis.

1,933 daily Covid cases; 35 deaths reported in past 24 hrs

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: The decision of Railways to rent out Howrah Rail Museum for marriage ceremonies and social events to generate revenue has trig-gered controversy. The move has drawn criticism from State Cooperation minister Arup Roy.

“This government (Modi government) wants to sell everything. There can never be a social event on the prem-ises of a museum. We object to the decision of renting Howrah Rail Museum,” said Roy, who is also the Central Howrah MLA.

He reiterated that he would inform Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee about it. The Howrah Railway Museum was created when Banerjee was the Railway Minister. The museum displays the history of Eastern Railway as a whole, Howrah Station and Railways in Eastern India. It also puts up pictorial history of East Indian Railway, Eastern Railway, East Central Railway, East Coast Railway, South Eastern Rail-way, Northeast Frontier Rail-way, Chittaranjan Locomotive Works and Metro Railway, Kol-kata. According to sources, the revenue of the Railways from passenger fares and freight

transport has reduced due to safety restrictions in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.

The Railway Board has instructed the divisions to find alternative sources of income. Therefore, the Howrah Division of Eastern Railway has decided to increase the revenue by using the resources of the Railways for commercial purposes. “Only the auditorium and park area of Howrah Rail Museum will be given on rent for hosting small functions (marriage cer-emony/birthday parties). Book-ing will be done through an agency (which has been given a one-year contract),” said Sumit Narula, Division Railway Man-ager of Howrah.

The museum has earned popularity among students of History and many of them from different schools were taken before pre COVID-19 era to see the gradual growth of the Indian Railways. Earlier, the Indian Railways decided to allow pri-vate passenger train operators to run 151 trains on 109 routes. It has set a timeline for trains run-ning with the help of the private sector. The first set of private trains will arrive in 2023 having 12 trains. However, all 151 trains will be introduced by 2027.

Minister opposes decision to rent out Howrah Rail

Museum for private events

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Tension prevailed at the Railway Housing Complex in San-tragachi on Friday morning after mis-creants fired two rounds at the flat of a railway employee.

The Railway employee lives at Sanc-tuary View Apartment in Santragachi,

which is commonly known as Rail-way Housing. On Friday morning at around 7 am, a few bike-borne miscre-ants entered a building where the rail-way employee, S K Behra, lives. They fired two rounds aiming at the main door of the G-1 flat and fled.

After a preliminary inquiry, cops found the bullets stuck on the door. It is being suspected that the miscreants may have had the intention to frighten Behra as he is involved in the process of tendering in the Railways.

However, cops are scrutinising the CCTV footage of the area to trace the culprits. Meanwhile, residents of the housing complex are living in fear.

PINAK PANI CHOWDHURY

BALURGHAT: In a bid to reduce acci-dents and excessive traffic congestion dur-ing office hours, the district traffic police department of South Dinajpur has identified 34 Black-Spots or the most accident-prone zones covering both Balurghat and Gan-garampur subdivisions. Of them, 16 spots have been identified as the Special Atten-tion Zones (SAZ).

Sources said special arrangements would be made for 16 SAZ areas. “Adequate police-men will be deployed in SAZ areas particu-larly within 500 meters of the stretch. Apart from this, anti-accident devices, sufficient lights and manually operated barriers will be set up to reduce the number of accidents,” the source added.

A zone is earmarked as black spot if it has witnessed multiple accidents within 500 metres of its radius. The department is now studying four aspects that can be changed to turn the stretch safer including the method of pedestrian movement, chang-ing the traffic signal cycle, making the neces-sary lane markings and finally ascertaining if road dividers or manually operated bar-riers can stop people from coming on to the road illegally.

There are Black-Spots on Balurghat-Hili-more, public bus-stand, Paranpur, Baul, Fulbari, Gangarampur bus-stand, Thanga-para and Gochihar. Apart from this, Air-

port Road in Balurghat, Hatkhola Road and Rolar-more in Patiram, Bolla, Zordighi and Kushmandi markets have been marked as SAZ areas.

Deputy Superintendent of Police (Traf-fic) Gourab Ghosh said the traffic depart-ment of South Dinajpur takes several measures to prevent accidents and traffic menace throughout the year.

Miscreants fire 2 rounds at Rly

staff’s flat

34 accident-prone zones marked in South Dinajpur

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Kolkata Metro Railway is all set to run 22 additional Maintenance Spe-cial Services from Monday. “Keeping in view the increased number of footfall of essential staff, Metro authorities have decided to run 62 (31 UP and 31 DN) Maintenance Special Services instead of 40 from June 28 to ensure social dis-tancing in Metro premises and trains,” said an official of Kol-kata Metro Railway. In the first half, the first train will leave from Dakshineswar and Kavi Subhash at 8:30 am instead of 9 am. The last train will leave from Dakshineswar and Kavi Subhash at 11:30 am instead of 11.15 am.

In the second half, the first service will leave from Dak-shineswar and Kavi Subhash at 3:45 pm (no change in timing) and the last service will leave from Dakshineswar and Kavi Subhash at 6:30 pm instead of 6:00 pm.

Essential staff associated with health care, veterinary service, law and order, court, social welfare homes, bank, correctional services, power, drinking water supply, telecom, internet, fire services, disaster management and civil defence, sanitation, food and beverages, insurance, press, sewerage and funeral services can avail these services after showing their proper ID and Metro Smart Cards.

“These services will ply at an interval of 11-12 min-utes from Monday to Satur-day. There will be no services on Sunday,” pointed out the official.

Meanwhile, Eastern Rail-way increased the number of Staff Special trains in Sealdah Division a day after the pas-sengers intensified their agita-tion demanding resumption of local trains.

“We are running 40 addi-tional Staff Special trains from Friday. Earlier, we were run-ning 270 Staff Special trains. Now, we are running 310 Staff Special trains,” said an official of Eastern Railway.

He reiterated that the num-ber of trains will be further increased from Monday.

AMITAVA BANERJEE

DARJEELING: Vehicular traf-fic has come to a standstill on the Kurseong-Siliguri section of the National Highway-55 with a large portion of the road washed away owing to a major landslide near Tindharia.

Heavy rains triggered the landslide at around 2:30 am on Friday. It occurred near the old hospital area of Tindharia Gair-igaon at Lampatey. The railway lines have been damaged in the landslide. Officials of the dis-trict administration stated that a house has also been damaged in the slide. The residents have been shifted to safer locations.

The lifeline connecting Dar-jeeling to the plains of Siliguri has time and again been dam-aged by landslides. The stretch located in the Ghayabari, Tind-haria area is highly vulnera-ble. The road had undergone repairs and had become oper-ational from the beginning of this year.

However, there are alter-native routes from Kurseong to Siliguri via Rohini and Pankhabari.

KOLKATA: The Calcutta High Court on Friday ordered issuance of notice to necessary parties in connection with a petition by Trinamool Congress leader Sangram Kumar Dolai challenging the election of Ashoke Dinda of the BJP from the Moyna Assembly constituency.

Taking up the election petition by Dolai, the TMC candidate defeated by Dinda, Justice Tirthankar Ghosh noted that prima facie, a case has been made out for issuance of notice.

Dinda, a former India cricketer, won by a margin of 1,260 votes from Moyna.

Submitting before the court, Dolai’s

advocate S K Chakraborty alleged that the BJP candidate of Moyna had sup-pressed facts and furnished false infor-mation while filing his nomination.

Accordingly, under Rule 24 of the Election Petition Rules, 1967, notice was directed to be issued to the neces-sary parties.

He also alleged that corrupt prac-tices were adopted by Dinda during the process of election.

The matter will now be heard on July 9.

Petitioner Dolai was present before the court through virtual mode during

the hearing of his petition.Dolai is one of the five TMC lead-

ers, including party supremo Mamata Banerjee, who filed election petitions before the high court after losing the poll. The four other TMC leaders who

have moved to the Calcutta High Court are Alorani Sarkar, Sangram Kumar Dolai, Manas Majumder and Shantiram Mahato, who lost narrowly in the recent Assembly election to the BJP candidate.

All the four petitions were heard recently by different judges of Calcutta High Court and the mat-ters were posted for further hearing in late June and July. On Thursday, a single Bench of Justice Kausik Chanda reserved order on an application moved by Mamata Banerjee seeking the judge’s recusal from hearing her election petition. AGENCIES

HC orders issuance of notice in defeated TMC leader’s poll petition

Metro to run 22 more special services from

June 28

Landslide cuts off NH-55 at Tindharia

SOUMITRA NANDI

KOLKATA: In the age of smartphones, two long-lost colleagues were united with the help of Ham Radio clubs after 44 years. An octogenar-ian doctor in the city wanted to connect with a former col-league, who had worked with him in 1977 at a health centre in Mathabhanga city of Cooch Behar district. Doctor B Das, who hails from Bansdroni in Kolkata, had been trying to trace his former colleague from Odisha, Nityananda Panda. But, all his efforts had gone in vain until his wife approached the Ham Radio enthusiasts.

Panda used to work in SSKM Hospital in 1976 before being posted as the first medical officer of Ghoksha-danga primary health centre in Mathabhanga. He was an expert in handling pregnancy cases which was a tough chal-lenge during those days as there was no electricity.

However, he left for his native state in 1977 after hand-

ing over the charge to Das.He, along with his family,

had visited Odisha eight times to look for Panda. They sought help from doctors’ organisa-tions and even visited a number of hospitals and nursing homes in search of his ‘dear friend.’ He had traced eight doctors by the surname using the inter-net search engines. But, none of these attempts yielded fruit-ful results.

Meanwhile, Das learnt about the activities of West Bengal Radio Club and their

role in uniting lost persons with their families. On Thursday, his wife called up the Club’s sec-retary Ambarish Nag Biswas. “I received a phone call from Dr Das’ wife who told me that her husband is sick and wants to talk to his long lost friend Dr Panda. I contacted our ham friend Dushmanta Kumar Das and sent a 1977 photograph of Dr Panda. Finally, Dr Panda was traced in Cuttack. On Thursday night, the two friends shared their memories after 44 years,” Nag Biswas said.

Ham radio club unites two long-lost friends after 44 yrs

Panda used to work at SSKM Hospital in 1976

Nityananda Panda (left) & B Das with his wife

It is suspected that the miscreants may have had the intention to frighten Behra

ER increases no. of Staff Spl trains in Sealdah Div a day after protests

intensified

A zone is earmarked as black spot if it has witnessed multiple accidents within 500 metres of its radius

3millenniumpost City mpKOLKATA | SATURDAY, 26 JUNE, 2021

Our govt committed to holistic dev of Alipurduar: Mamata

SOUMITRA NANDI

KOLKATA: Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) is preparing the scheme for con-struction of a bridge across Cir-cular Canal to connect Canal West Road and Raicharan Sadhukhan Road for better traffic movement towards Kolkata railway station.

It has also started soil testing and is expected to start a survey for feasibility of another bridge over the same canal on the western side of Chitpur bridge to connect Rabindra Sarani and Railway Ser-vice Road to ensure better circu-lation of traffic at and around the vicinity of the zone of confluence.

The Traffic Department of Kol-kata Police had proposed the con-struction of these twin bridges for the purpose of better traffic circu-lation to KMDA in March.

The RG Kar Bridge has tre-mendous traffic pressure as peo-ple from North 24-Parganas have to travel through this ageing bridge to reach North and Central Kol-kata. There is also a consider-

able large number of pedestrian movements with patients and their family members visiting RG Kar Hospital by availing this bridge. The Kolkata Station’s close prox-

imity further increases traffic on the bridge.

“We feel that a bridge across Circular Canal to connect Canal West Road and Raicharan Sad-

hukhan Road for better traffic cir-culation towards Kolkata railway station is of utmost importance,”a senior official of Kolkata Police’s Traffic department said.

The second bridge on Circular canal on the western side of Chit-pur bridge to connect Rabindra Sarani and Railway Service Road has been proposed to ease traffic movement along KVV Avenue, Cossipore Road and Chitpur Lock Gate flyover where traffic volume has increased considerably after demolition of the Tala flyover.

The Traffic department has recently sent a proposal to KMDA CEO Antara Acharya for widen-ing of the western flank of Naskar-hat culvert by constructing a new bridge in front of Arsalan Restau-rant on EM Bypass.

“The western flank of EM Bypass is 40 percent narrow at this place because of the Naskar-hat culvert over the existing drain-age canal. So the pressure of traffic during peak hours is immense at this point,” pointed out a senior official of Traffic department.

KMDA mulls building twin bridges in city to ease traffic load The Traffic Department of Kolkata Police had proposed the construction of these

two bridges for the purpose of better traffic movement to KMDA in March

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: At a time when some BJP MPs had demanded the creation of a Union Terri-tory out of eight North Ben-gal districts even as the saffron party declined to support such views, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday assured that her government would always remain “committed to the holistic development of Alipurduar.”

It was Banerjee’s initiative that led to creation of Alipurd-uar as the state’s 20th district on June 25 in 2014. “On this day in 2014, Alipurduar became the 20th district of Bengal. My best wishes to the people of Ali-purduar! Govt. of West Bengal shall always remain committed to the holistic development of the district,” Banerjee stated in a tweet.

Alipurduar was carved out of Jalpaiguri, consisting of Alipurduar Municipality and six community develop-ment blocks including Madar-ihat–Birpara, Alipurduar I and II, Falakata, Kalchini and Kumargram. People from dif-

ferent communities, includ-ing Rajbangshi, Rabha, Metch, Santhals, Madasia, Bodo, Toto and Oraons reside in the dis-trict, which also shares the bor-der with Assam. It also shares an international border with Bhutan.

Creation of the separate dis-trict helped in better admin-istrative steps to ensure an overall development of the area where tea cultivation is a major source of livelihood. The Chief Minister visited the district sev-eral times since its creation. She held administrative meetings ensuring implementation of all state government schemes starting from Kanyashree to

Swasthya Sathi.People of Alipurduar were

largely benefitted with imple-mentation of “Cha Sundari” project. Under the project, con-struction of 3,690 pucca houses is going on in full swing. These houses will be handed over to the homeless tea garden work-ers, mainly in Alipurduar and Jalpaiguri. Each house is being built at a cost of Rs 5.90 lakh and consists of two bed rooms, one kitchen, one com-mon room, one toilet and one toilet. The state government has already sanctioned Rs 210 crore to build the houses each of which measures about 385 square feet.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: The Department of Women and Child and Social Welfare will vaccinate all female sex workers and transpersons in areas under the Kol-kata Municipal Corporation (KMC).

On Friday, Shashi Panja, minister for Women and Child Development and Social Welfare inaugurated one-time assistance to the female sex workers at Milan Tirtha club in Tollygunge. At the same event, about 170 female sex workers were vaccinated.

So far 4,850 female sex workers from Sonagachi, Jorabagan, Rambagan, Bow-bazar, Kalighat, Chetla and Kidderpore and 197 transgender persons have been provided one-time assistance of 5 kg rice and three kg potato.

The camps have been organised by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC). Firhad Hakim, Chairman, Board of Administrators of KMC were present at many of the camps. Apart from the female sex workers and transgender persons, short statured persons and distressed women across the state have been given the one-time assistance.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee took the initia-tive to provide one-time assistance to marginalised distressed women in view of Covid pandemic. The work is being carried out in full swing across the state. Nearly 10,000 female sex workers have been provided one-time assistance across the state.

KOLKATA: Speaker Biman Bandyopad-hyay has convened an all-party meeting on Monday before commencement of the Assembly session. After the all-party meeting, a meeting of the Business Advi-sory Committee to prepare the sched-ule of Assembly’s day-to-day proceedings will be held.

The Budget Session of the Assembly will start from July 2. The session will start with the Governor’s speech and political experts said with the strained relation between the Governor and the state government the former might refuse to read the speech prepared by the state government. Partha Chatterjee, minister for Parliamentary Affairs, is likely to place the Budget propos-als for 2021-2022. Meanwhile, the nomina-tion papers of all 20 MLAs from TMC and BJP for the Public Accounts Committee were found to be valid after scrutiny. The Speaker will nominate the chairman of the committee. This is for the first time since Independence that there will not be any Congress or Left Front MLA in the House.

Trinamool Congress with 212 MLAs (the MLA from Gosaba died recently of Covid) and BJP with 75 MLAs will be the key players. MPOST

JNANESWARI EXP COMPENSATION: DNA SAMPLE COLLECTED FROM ACCUSED KOLKATA: The DNA sample collected from Amritava Chowdhury has been sent for forensic test in Delhi in connection with the investigation of alleged fraudulent activity to get compensation for his family members af-ter the tragic Jnaneswari Express accident took place in 2010. Sample was also collected for his ossification test on Thursday at SSKM. According to sources, on Thurs-day, Chowdhury was taken to SSKM where his blood sample for DNA test and bone ossification test were col-lected. The report of the ossification test is expected to come within a week while the DNA test report may take a few weeks. Though Chowdhury’s family members sub-mitted his DNA report after his death, the CBI suspected the report was forged to get the compensation amount and a job. In Chowdhury’s death certificate, the year of birth was mentioned as 1982. But after arresting Chowdhury, the CBI officers found a difference of age by about 10 years. To clear the confusion about his age, it was decided to conduct an ossification test.

KOLKATA: The Mamata Banerjee government has taken all steps for completion of the renovation work taking place in and around the Jagannath Temple at Mahesh near Serampore in Hooghly before the Ratha Yatra this year.

Indranil Sen, Min-ister of State for Tour-ism, on Friday visited Mahesh to take a stock of the progress of work. This year, the Ratha Yatra will be held on July 12. The ongoing devel-opment work in and around the temple will get com-pleted by July 9. Construction of an archway on GT Road at Mahesh will get over by the end of July. It was the effort of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to ensure an overall development of the place with immense his-torical significance. The one at Mahesh is one of the biggest Ratha Yatras and has been celebrated since 1396. Sen also visited Sabujdwip at Balagarh that is witnessing a massive development in the tourism sec-tor. He held meetings with the top brass of the district and Tourism department in a bid to ensure initiation of the eco-tourism centre in the next six months. The eco-tourism centre will consist a resort with seven cot-tages and dormitories, picnic spot and a separate arena for folk artistes to perform. MPOST

Indranil Sen visits Mahesh to take

stock of repair work

State to vaccinate all sex workers &

transpersons in city

Ahead of Budget Session, all-party meet on June 28

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Over 400 BJP workers joined Trinamool Congress (TMC) in different parts of the state on Friday. More than 300 BJP work-ers joined TMC in Islampur in North Dinajpur district. Kanaiah Lal Agarwal, TMC district president handed over the party flag to them.

The BJP workers alleged that they could not work freely as the local leaders had no power and the Central lead-ership intervened in each and

every local matter. They said during the election, the local leaders had not been consulted and the central leaders pre-pared the schedule of Prime Minister and Union Home minister keeping the local lead-ers in the dark. The situation was so pathetic that the local leaders often got the news from the police or local media.

Earlier, eight important BJP leaders in Alipurduar includ-ing the district president Ganga Prasad Sharma had joined the TMC, affecting the saffron party’s organisation in the dis-

trict heavily. Though the BJP did well in North Bengal in

the Assembly election than in South Bengal, the mass exodus

would affect the party’s organ-isation and it would be difficult to organise movements, politi-cal experts said.

In Domjur, about 35 BJP workers joined TMC in pres-ence of local MLA Kalyan Ghosh. The workers had joined the BJP with Rajib Baner-jee. They left home after the Assembly election results were announced fearing attack. Tri-namool leaders brought them back home and helped them to settle down.

Meanwhile, posters have been put up near the ances-

tral house of Sunil Mondol at Kanksa in East Burdwan, refer-ring to him as a traitor. Modol won from East Burdwan in 2019 Lok Sabha election and joined BJP in February 2021 at a function in presence of Amit Shah in East Midnapore.

Dilip Ghosh, the state BJP president, said these workers had joined the party hoping that it would come to power. “It is good that such opportunist workers leave the party. Their presence or absence will not affect the party in any way,” he maintained.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: With the forecast of water levels in the river and sea to swell by a few metres due to spring tide on Friday, the Bengal government has taken steps to minimise loss of life and property by taking proac-tive measures to evacuate peo-ple residing in vulnerable areas.

This is the second natural calamity that the state would face within a month after a massive destruction caused by Cyclone Yaas.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee held a series of meet-ings with concerned officers in the past few weeks and directed them to ensure that there should not be any loss of life due to the high tide.

There is a forecast of the water to swell up by around 6

metre due to the full moon tide.Alert has been issued for

the coastal districts. Around 175 locations were identified as vulnerable with the forecast of the high tide to hit the state on Friday. Quick Response Teams have been pressed into action in these areas. Separate teams of engineers of the state Irri-gation and Waterways depart-ment have also been deployed at these places.

According to an officer of the state government, man-power at the central control room at Nabanna has been strengthened. Officers of Addi-tional Secretary ranks have been posted at the control to monitor the situation closely. The control room will function round-the-clock.

“However, the good news is that there is no prediction of

heavy rainfall in the next two days. The situation would have turned worse if there would have been incessant showers as it had taken place two days ago,” the officer said.

Since 317 breaches on embankments were spotted

after Yaas, the Chief Minister had directed the state Irriga-tion and Waterways depart-ment to ensure repairing of the same at the earliest. Repairing work, apart from a few places, were completed before June 10. Necessary precautionary

measures have also been taken in the areas where the repair-ing of embankment is partly complete. It was stated that the damages caused to embank-ments in Mousuni Island and Sagar Island would take some more time to get over.

On vigil: State govt steps up measures to combat spring tide

Over 400 BJP workers join Trinamool Congress

News at a Glance

The Traffic department has recently sent a proposal to KMDA CEO Antara Acharya for widening of the western flank of Naskarhat culvert by constructing a new bridge in front of Arsalan Restaurant on EM Bypass

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: The state gov-ernment directed all districts with more than 100 Covid cases to ensure strict contain-ment measures at local Covid hotspot areas.

At the same time, direc-tions have been given to give priority to vaccination in the urban and peri-urban areas with special emphasis on the population in the slum areas. The district authorities have also been directed to ensure creation of necessary infra-structure, apprehending that the third wave of Covid pan-demic may hit the state.

Chief Secretary HK Dwivedi held a video con-ference in this connection with authorities of the dis-tricts where there are still more than 100 Covid cases. These districts include Howrah, Hooghly, Darjeeling, Jalpaig-uri, North and South 24-Par-ganas. This comes at the time when Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has stated that the Covid positivity rate in the state has dropped to 3.61 per cent which was 33 per cent during the eighth phase of the Assembly elections.

There are at present around 250 containment and micro-containment zones in the state. Sources said the district authorities have been directed to ensure stricter measures

in these containment zones by ensuring supply of essen-tial commodities required by the residents of these areas. Vaccination of the people residing in and around these places also has to be ensured with priority.

According to an advi-sory issued by the state Health department on June 24, aggressive vaccination of the super-spreader category should continue and efforts must be made to cover all transport workers, hawkers, small shop owners, vegetable vendors etc in next seven days. All requirements of the second dose have to be made compul-sorily and district authorities also have to do the vaccination planning accordingly. Special care also has to be taken to avoid wastage of the vaccine.

District Magistrates have also been directed to ensure development of needed infra-structure, especially for suffi-cient supply of oxygen. They have been asked to ensure that there are adequate oxygen-ated beds.

Containment norms should be

tightened: CSOUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: The West Bengal Clinical Establishment Regula-tory Commission (WBCERC) directed CMRI Hospital to return Rs 67,617 to a patient’s family, who had alleged that despite having a Swasthya Sathi card, they had to pay Rs 8,67,617 to the hospital.

During the inquiry, the Commission found out that the patient didn’t have a valid Swasthya Sathi card at the time of admission. But the Commis-sion directed the private hospi-tal to refund a token amount to the patient’s family worth Rs 67,617 on a humanitarian ground as the family mem-bers of the patient — Payel Rani Manna (22) of West Mid-napore — faced immense diffi-culty while arranging money to pay the hospital bills.

In another incident, the WBCERC directed Irish Hos-pital to return Rs 50,000 to

the family members of patient Sandip Biswas, whose Swasthya Sathi card was also not regis-tered during the time of admis-sion. The hospital has agreed to refund the amount.

In another incident, Shy-amal Banerjee alleged that he was taken to Fortis Hospital with abdominal pain. Being a state govern-ment employee, his name was enrolled under the West Bengal

Health Service. He was given emergency treatment and later taken to the gastroenterology department. The patient was later told by the hospital that they had no bed.

The hospital had, however, told the Commission that 25 percent of beds reserved for Swasthya Sathi were filled up. The Commission has, however, imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on the hospital.

Regulatory panel asks private hosp to refund Rs 67K to kin of patient

‘CREATE NECESSARY INFRA’

The Chief Minister held a series of meetings with concerned officers for the past few weeks to ensure that there is no loss of life

Members of the Presidency Alumni Association at Kumarmari in the Sunderbans distribute clothes among the cyclone-affected children with the help of Nature Environment & Wildlife Society PIC/MPOST

REPRESENTATIVE IMAGE

A health worker fills a syringe with a dose of vaccine PTI

An LPG cylinder delivery man wades through a flooded street during high tide, at Kalighat, on Friday MPOST

District Magistrates have been asked to ensure development of needed infra, especially for sufficient O2 supply

4 millenniumpostNationmpSATURDAY, 26 JUNE, 2021 | KOLKATA

Army fully alert at borders with China: General M M Naravane

Dark days of Emergency can never be forgotten: PM

DECISION ON NEXT HIMACHAL CM AFTER ASSEMBLY POLLS: BJP DHARAMSHALA/SHIMLA: The BJP will declare the next chief minister of Himachal Pradesh after the 2022 Assembly polls, said party spokesperson Randhir Sharma in Dharamshala on Friday while exuding confidence of winning the polls. He, however, said according to the party tradition, the elections will be contested under the leadership of current CM Jai Ram Thakur. Sharma also exuded confidence of winning the polls, saying the Opposition Congress won’t be able to pose any challenge to the party as it is marred by factionalism.

WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANT AHMEDABAD: Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani on Friday virtually inaugurated the country’s first Fenton Catalytic Reactor, an advanced industrial wastewater treatment plant, at Vatva industrial area of the city. With 30 MLD (million litres per day) capacity, Fenton Catalytic Reactor has been set by the Green Environ-ment Services Co-operative Society Limited (GESCSL) in its premises in Vatva GIDC at a cost of Rs 70 crore, an official release stated.

84 LAKH HOUSEHOLDS GET TAP WATER NEW DELHI: In a major achievement, the Ministry of Jal Shakti has registered a record four-fold increase in tap water supply from 7 per cent to 31 per cent in 117 aspirational districts as 84 lakh households have got tap water connections in just 22 months. Also, the UNDP has appreciated the country’s aspirational districts programme as a very successful model of local area development that should serve as a best practice for several countries.

‘ARMY CAN GIVE BEFITTING REPLY TO ANY NEFARIOUS ATTEMPT OF ENEMY’

Nation Briefs

RAMESWARAM (TN): Nine fishermen escaped unhurt when Sri Lankan naval per-sonnel allegedly opened fire on their boats while they were returning from the Palk Straits after fishing.

At least four boats in which they were on were riddled by bullets fired by the Lankan Navy and one bullet each was recovered from two boats, Aro-kiyam, fishermen's represen-tative and also a fisher, told reporters here. "Luckily, nine of us escaped unhurt," he said.

A fisheries department offi-cial said he has received a com-plaint from fishermen, seeking action to protect them.

They had to face the "Lankan bullets" on their return early on Friday and the island Navy also fired in the air, the representative alleged, add-ing they had set out for fish-ing on Thursday in more than 200 boats with 1,500 fishermen.

This is the third instance of "Lankan Navy opening fire" on fishermen in recent times and they were fishing on the Indian side of Palk Straits, he said.

The two bullets that were found in boats were handed over to fisheries authorities, he added. Video clips of boats rid-dled by bullets surfaced in the social media as well.

Rajya Sabha MP Anbu-mani Ramadoss tweeted say-ing though nine fishermen thankfully escaped unhurt, their boats were damaged. The Central government should condemn this and should pro-vide compensation for dam-aged boats. Condemning the firing, Ramadoss said the Cen-tre should not tolerate such attacks anymore. "To find a permanent solution, the Cen-tre should take legal steps to retrieve Katchatheevu (an islet) that was given to Sri Lanka on a platter," he said.

Ramanathapuram MP, K Navas Kani, meanwhile, has written to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, seek-ing appropriate steps to pre-vent fishermen from being targeted. AGENCIES

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: President Ram Nath Kovind on Friday embarked on a train journey to visit his birthplace in Uttar Pradesh, where he will inter-act with his old acquaintances from school days and the early days of his social service.

It would be after a gap of 15 years that an incumbent presi-dent is travelling by train.

“President Kovind boards a special presidential train from Safdarjung railway station to Kanpur. The train will make two stop-overs, at Jhinjhak and Rura of Kanpur Dehat, and will reach Kanpur Central in the evening,” the Rashtrapati Bha-van tweeted.

Railway Minister Piyush Goyal can also be seen in pic-tures tweeted by the Rashtra-pati Bhavan of the president boarding the train.

This is the first time that Kovind will visit his birthplace after becoming the president.

Though he had desired to visit the place earlier, it could not materialise because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“As he boards the train,

the president will be travel-ling down the memory lane that will cover a span of seven decades of his life, right from his childhood to holding the top constitutional position in the country,” a statement issued on Wednesday by the Rash-trapati Bhavan had said. The two stop-overs at Jhinjhak and Rura are close to the president’s birthplace, Paraunkh village in Kanpur Dehat.

The last time a president travelled by train was in 2006 when A P J Abdul Kalam boarded a special train from

Delhi to Dehradun to attend the passing-out parade of the Indian Military Academy (IMA) cadets.

Records show that the country’s first president, Rajen-dra Prasad, often undertook train journeys, the Rashtrapati Bhavan had said.

Soon after taking office as the president, he visited his birthplace, Ziradei in Bihar’s Siwan district.

Prasad boarded the pres-ident’s special train from Chhapra to reach Ziradei, where he spent three days, the

statement said.He travelled across the

country by train.Prasad’s successors also pre-

ferred train journeys to con-nect with the people.

On June 28, Kovind will board the train at the Kanpur Central railway station to reach Lucknow for his visit to the capital city of Uttar Pradesh.

The railways said that the service of the Presidential Saloon which was in use since independence had been dis-continued on the instructions of the President.

Prez Kovind embarks on train journey to visit birthplace in UP He will interact with his old acquaintances from school days

NEW DELHI: Assets worth over Rs 365 crore have been attached by the ED under the anti-money laundering law in a probe linked to alleged embez-zlement of funds by a coopera-tive society that duped about 20 lakh people in Rajasthan, the agency said on Friday. The properties belong to Adarsh Group of companies/firms, LLPs (limited liability partner-ship), Riddhi Siddhi Group of companies/firms, AOPs (asso-ciation of persons) and others.

"The attached assets are in the form of agricultural, resi-dential and commercial land parcels located in Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi and fixed deposits and bank balances,"

the Enforcement Directorate said in a statement issued here.

The total value of the attached assets, under the Pre-vention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) is Rs 365.94 crore.

The case pertains to the ED taking cognisance of a Rajast-han Police special operations group (SOG) FIR filed against the Adarsh Credit Cooperative Society Limited (ACCSL) and its promoters Mukesh Modi, Rahul Modi and others.

Probe found, the ED alleged, that "Mukesh Modi in collusion with his rela-tives Virendra Modi, Rahul Modi, Rohit Modi and associ-ates including society officials, siphoned off depositors' funds

from ACCSL by way of inter-linked fraudulent transactions."

"Mukesh Modi, his relatives and associates incorporated several companies/firms/LLPs for sole purpose of diverting funds from ACCSL to their real estate business by way of avail-ing fraudulent loans," it alleged.

Mukesh Modi also infused "huge proceeds of crime in these companies as share capi-tal from ACCSL," the agency

alleged. "Huge amount was diverted and siphoned off by means of exaggerated salaries, incentives and commissions to its own kin and companies/firms," it alleged.

"The actions of Mukesh Modi and others caused the society a huge loss and deprived 2 million investors of their life savings," the agency claimed.

Assets worth a total Rs 1,489.03 crore were similarly attached by the ED in this case in October, 2019.

The agency "took posses-sion" of these assets last year and also filed a charge sheet before a special PMLA court in March this year against 124 accused, it said. AGENCIES

DEHRADUN: Uttarakhand Cabinet on Friday decided to partially open the Chard-ham yatra for locals in limited numbers from July 1. Briefing reporters about the cabinet's decision, state government's spokesman Subodh Uniyal said Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gan-gotri and Yamunotri will be opened for residents of Cham-oli, Rudraprayag and Uttar-kashi districts respectively from July 1 with a cap on the number of pilgrims to visit the temples daily. Bringing a nega-tive RT-PCR/Rapid Antigen test report will be mandatory for every pilgrim and the SOPs to be followed by them while visiting the temples will be issued separately, Uniyal said.

An official will be appointed for each of the four Himalayan temples who will coordinate with the district administration concerned about the arrange-ment for pilgrims, he added. Asked whether the Chardham yatra will open for pilgrims from across state from July 11 as planned earlier, the spokes-man said it will depend on overall Covid situation. AGENCIES

NEW DELHI: Air Chief Mar-shal RKS Bhadauria has lauded the Western Air Command (WAC) for its swift response in the face of the bitter border standoff with China in eastern Ladakh and directed it to keep the operational readiness at the "highest level", officials said on Friday. The Chief of Air Staff was addressing a two-day con-ference of the top commanders of the WAC which looks after the security of the country's air space in the sensitive Ladakh sector as well as various other parts of north India.

In his remarks, Air Chief Marshal Bhadauria directed the commanders to ensure that the operational readiness of all platforms, weapon systems and assets are kept at the "highest level", the officials said.

The commanders deliber-ated extensively on security challenges facing the country along the northern border dur-ing the deliberations that con-cluded on Friday.

In his remarks, Air Chief Marshal Bhadauria empha-sised the need for critical anal-ysis of the evolving security matrix, enhancing operational preparedness and ensuring robust physical and cyberse-curity infrastructure.

"The Chief of Air Staff appreciated the swift response and high commitment shown by all bases in WAC in the recent standoff on our North-ern frontiers despite the con-

straints posed by the ongoing pandemic," the IAF said in a statement. Following the esca-lation in tension in eastern Ladakh in mid-June last year, the Indian Air Force (IAF) deployed almost all its frontline fighter jets like Sukhoi 30 MKI, Jaguar and Mirage 2000 aircraft as well as its attack helicopters in the key air bases in eastern Ladakh and elsewhere along the Line of Actual Control.

Since last September, newly-inducted Rafale jets too started carrying out sorties in various forward areas in east-ern Ladakh as part of measures to give a boost to India's com-bat readiness in the region.

The Chief of Air Staff also appreciated the aerospace safety record of the WAC and urged the commanders to con-tinue their efforts towards a safe operational environment.

"He underlined the future of IAF by enhancing opera-tional capability through force structuring along with self-reli-ance and indigenisation with an aim to transform the IAF into a potent aerospace power," the IAF said. India and China were locked in a military stand-off at multiple friction points in eastern Ladakh since early May last year. However, the two sides completed the withdrawal of troops and weapons from the North and South banks of Pangong lake in February fol-lowing a series of military and diplomatic talks. MPOST

OUR CORRESPONDENT

SHIMLA: Chief of Army Staff, General M M Naravane, who was in Shimla on Friday, said the Indian army was fully alert and capable of defending its borders against China.

He said the detailed plans had been prepared for con-struction of roads in the bor-der areas during the next 5 to 10 years. This will help in the development of the border vil-lages and check migration of youths from these areas for economic or livelihood issues.

General Naravane, who met Himachal Pradesh Gov-ernor Bandaru Dattatreya said there should be no fear among the people living in the villages close to China borders in Him-achal Pradesh. The army was guarding the borders efficiently and keeping a close check on the activities on the other side.

During the discussion, the Governor stressed on infra-structure development efforts in the areas of the state border-ing China.

“The Army has an impor-tant role in the development of roads, helipads and other infrastructure. The youth from villages adjoining the border are migrating towards the cities for employment opportunities, which is a matter of great con-cern. We need to explore possi-bilities of self-employment and employment at the local level,” he suggested the Army Chief.

Dattatraya said the Jawans from almost every household of the lower belt of Himachal Pradesh were serving in the Indian army and the number of ex-servicemen was also quite high.

General Naravane recalled that he was well aware about

the contributions rendered by gallant soldiers and offi-cers from Himachal Pradesh, even making their supreme sacrifices.

He had also served at the ARTRAC in Shimla and always considered Himachal as his old home and was always delighted to visit this place.

He said that the Indian Army was capable of giving a befitting reply to every nefari-ous attempt of the enemy.

“As far as the border with China was concerned, talks were going on and there was nothing to worry about. The army was on full alert and ade-quate man and machinery had been deployed on our side,” he said.

General Naravane said that there was a lot of enthusiasm among the youth for the army and a large number of them were willing to join the army. The efforts were on to give rep-resentation to every district of the country in the army. He assured that efforts would be made to start Walker hospital

in Shimla at the earliest.He said that the army was

following a strict protocol as a result of which the Corona cases among the army per-sonnel posted on the border were negligible. The exten-sive testing was being done for the pandemic and the sol-diers returning back from leave period were being tested twice and it was also being ensured that they complete a quarantine period of 14 days.

General Naravane also expressed concern over narco-terrorism in the border areas and said that the local admin-istration was doing better in this direction.

He said that women offi-cers were already working in the army but now recruitment has also been started up to the core of military police and the response was encouraging.

The Army Chief also met family members of Ankush Thakur, who laid down his life at Galwan valley last year. He hailed from Hamirpur district of Himachal Pradesh.

Army chief General M M Naravane with Himachal Pradesh Governor Bandaru Dattatreya

Keep operational readiness at highest level, says IAF Chief

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: As politi-cal developments over grant-ing full statehood to Jammu & Kashmir gain momentum, senior Congress leader P Chi-dambaram on Friday slammed the government led by Prime Minister for insisting on poll in J&K even before granting the statehood.

Demanding to conduct elections only after grating statehood, he said, “Congress and other parties in Jammu and Kashmir must be granted first and the elections later as its bizarre that the government wants to hold elections in J&K first and grant statehood later.”

“The horse pulls the cart. A state must conduct elections. Only such elections will be free and fair. Why does the govern-ment want the cart in front and the horse behind? It is bizarre,” he said.

Nearly two years after the

bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir into two UTs and revocation of its special sta-tus, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday held talks with top political leaders from the erstwhile state, and said that the Centre’s priority is to strengthen grassroots democ-racy there for which delimita-tion has to happen quickly so that polls can be held.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who was also pres-ent at the meeting, had said that the delimitation exercise and holding of peaceful elec-tions in the Union Territory are important milestones in restor-ing statehood as promised in Parliament.

Chidambaram on polls in J&K: Grant statehood first

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: After Prime Minister Narendra Modi recalled the "dark days" of Emergency and called for strengthening the country's democratic spirit, the Con-gress hit back alleging India is under "Modi-gency" for seven years where institutions have been undermined and democracy trampled.

Congress general secre-tary and chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala also said the time has come when peo-ple rise in unison to assess the "annihilation of the very foundation of democracy in India by an arbitrary Modi regime".

His comments came after Modi in a tweet said "the dark

days of Emergency can never be forgotten".

"The period from 1975 to 1977 witnessed a systematic destruction of institutions.

"Let us pledge to do every-thing possible to strengthen India's democratic spirit, and live up to the values enshrined in our Constitu-tion," Modi said.

Today is the 46th anni-versary of the Emergency. On this day in 1975, the then prime minister Indira Gan-dhi had imposed Emergency in the country.

Hitting back at Modi, Sur-jewala tweeted, "Says a PM, who is synonymous with three 'S' - Suppress, Stifle and Subjugate."

"A PM-who has under-mined Parliament, A

PM-who has disdain for Constitution, A PM-who has eroded Institutions, A PM-who has trampled Democ-racy, shouldn't preach, for India is under 'Modi-gency' for 7 years," he alleged.

The Congress leader said that in seven years of Modi rule, "Emergency has now derived a new meaning -- that is Modi-gency".

He said in the last 73 years, for the first time the Supreme Court judges are forced to hold a press con-ference to air their griev-ances including the murder of a judge and for the first time, Parliament has come to a halt with pandemic being used to do away with the par-liamentary oversight of the government.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: On the 46th anniversary of the imposition of Emergency, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said those "dark days" can never be forgotten and called for taking a pledge to strengthen India's democratic spirit and live up to the values enshrined in the Constitution.

"This is how Congress tram-pled over our democratic ethos. We remember all those greats who resisted the Emergency and protected Indian democ-racy," he tweeted, while sharing a link about several draconian measures taken by the then Congress government.

"The dark days of Emer-gency can never be forgot-ten. The period from 1975 to 1977 witnessed a systematic destruction of institutions.Let

us pledge to do everything pos-sible to strengthen India's dem-ocratic spirit, and live up to the values enshrined in our Con-stitution." he said.

Other senior BJP lead-ers also hit out at the Con-gress with Home Minister Amit Shah saying the Con-gress "murdered" democracy on this day in 1975 for its lust

and arrogance of power.Emergency was imposed

to trample on voices that were raised against a family, he said, calling it a dark chapter in India's democracy.

BJP president J P Nadda paid tributes to those who fought against Emergency while suffering numerous atrocities.

The Emergency was imposed by then prime min-ister Indira Gandhi for a 21-month period from 1975 to 1977, when curbs were imposed on the fundamental rights of people.

Gandhi lifted Emergency in 1977 and called for Lok Sabha elections in which the Congress was handed a crushing defeat, its first ever since the country's Independence in 1947, by the combined opposition of Janata Party.

Sri Lankan Navy ‘opens fire’, nine TN fishermen

escape unhurt

ED attaches over Rs 365 crore assets COOPERATIVE SOCIETY FRAUD CASE IN RAJASTHAN

Cooperative society duped about 20 lakh people in Rajasthan

Chardham yatra to open partially for locals from

July 1

President Ram Nath Kovind before boarding a special train

India under ‘Modi-gency’ for seven years: Congress

5millenniumpost Nation mpKOLKATA | SATURDAY, 26 JUNE, 2021

Need more data to begin Covid vaccination for children: ICMR

Leadership will have to be collective, says Pawar

‘COVID-19 VACCINE SHOULD BE GIVEN TO PREGNANT WOMEN’

It is indeed a pleasure throwback of the memory when I recall the days I had conceived the idea about step-ping into the field of social service

with a signature nature. That is reaching out to the unreachable.

And today, I feel extremely grateful to the Almighty and humbled and overjoyed when I recall the day I had started the Kalinga Institute of Social Science (KISS). It all started like a garden and it didn’t take much for the flowers to smile. KISS was kick-started as a small sapling and during years time, it grew into a gigantic tree spreading shadow to many and with an extraordinary outreach of the huge canopy-like spread giving protection to millions today.   

It’s the story of a dream-come-true which took off with125 students on board in 1992-93 and rose like a phoenix, an inspiring tale of   transformation now really beyond my imagination. As a com-mon man, when I laid the foundation of KISS, I simply had the confidence but it was not in the wildest of my imagination that, its growth would be so exponential, impact considerably and revolutionise the pattern of education for tribal boys and girls, never detaching from its core belief - Education empowers. 

Focusing on its formula of 3E - Enable, Educate and Empower, KISS is a residen-tial educational institution providing free education, accommodation, medical care, vocational, athletic & artistic training to 60,000 indigenous children.

The students come from 62 different tribal communities within the region, of which 13 are Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs). Of these, 30,000 students study at the main campus in Bhubaneswar.

A MILESTONE NOWIt has a strong alumni base of 30,000

empowered boys and girls and soon over 10,000 students will study at 10 satellite centers of KISS across Odisha. KISS has indirectly impacted over a million tribal children and youth.

Which is in itself a milestone in the history of tribal children who could wrig-gle out of the years old backwardness and here are they. 

AN INSTRUMENT OF EMPOWERMENTWhile dropouts still remain a aching

sore in our educational system, KISS in its course of existence, for over 30 years, has substantially checked dropouts, child marriage, gender-based harassment, left-wing extremism, proselytization, igno-rance and superstition in a massive scale with its passive intervention through edu-cation and empowerment.

It has stimulated awareness on the importance of education, girl-child empowerment, upskilling and vocational empowerment, entrepreneurship, and in

collaboration with the tribal communi-ties KISS made them real caretakers of the ecosystem, nature and fulfilling its SDGs.

SCALING NEW GLOBAL HIGHSFor its unimpeachable record, KISS

became the first exclusive tribal Deemed to be University in 2017 - a status given by the Ministry of erstwhile Human Resource Development, Government of India. With its growth, I always aspired for University status for KISS to elevate its credibility as an institution commit-ted to research for tribal studies by tribal scholars.

KISS scaled a new high when in 2015 it received international recognition and support. Since 2015, it has been accorded Special Consultative Status by UN-ECO-SOC. Then on a record spree of climbing up, it found itself among the comity of topmost organizations. It has  worked in collaboration with many UN agencies and bodies like UNFPA, UNEP, UNDP, UNI-CEF, UN Women, US Consulate and so on various capacity-building projects and its implementation.

KNOWLEDGE DESTINATIONAchievement speaks for itself and

soon profound appreciation poured in  from Nobel Laureates, Legal Luminar-ies, Academicians, Policymakers, States-man, Writers and celebrities who visited KISS and felt so after an immersive expe-rience. KISS has also institutionalized the KISS Humanitarian Award for awarding men and women of distinction for their service to humanity.

Soon KISS became a destination and its giant leaps helped it scale new highs.  For the achievement of KISS it grew to be phenomenally a point of attraction and a very distinguished panel has joined KISS Deemed to be University at the helms.

Mr. Satya S. Tripathi has joined as the Chancellor. He was the former Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, and Head of the New York Office of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Other distinguished members in the panel of leadership are- Dr. Upendra

Tripathy, IAS (Retd) as Pro-Chancellor, Dr. Deepak Behera as Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Pitabasa Sahoo as Pro-Vice Chancel-lor, Dr. Kanhu Charan Mahali as Direc-tor-General. Under their tenure, KISS Deemed to be University will certainly scale new heights in terms of student achievements, research, collaboration and academic excellence. 

The first is first and always special, and so is the first convocation of KISS Deemed to be University on 27 June 2021. The ceremony will be held in a hybrid mode - both physical and virtual taking into consideration the Covid-19 proto-cols. 143 students will get degrees for completing their Masters and M. Phil courses successfully. The brightest and the most promising graduates will be con-ferred with Founder’s Gold Medal, Chan-cellor’s Gold and Vice Chancellor’s Silver medal at the ceremony. 

The virtual ceremony will be graced by his Excellency the Governor of Odisha, most affable and erudite, Prof. Ganeshi Lal, who will be conferred with Honoris Causa, Doctor of Letters at the first convo-cation of KISS Deemed to be University.

The other Honoris Causa degree recipients, Odia men of high standing, achievements and accolades are Shri Girish Chandra Murmu, Comptroller and Auditor General of India, pride of tribals, Odisha and India, Hon. Swarup Ranjan Mishra, Member of Parliament for Kesses Constituency, Kenya and Found-ing Chairman, Mediheal Group of Hos-pitals, Kenya and Mr. Bibhu Mohapatra, Fashion Designer and Costume Designer, New York.

On this historic occasion, I express my heartfelt gratitude to all the stakeholders of KIIT for their unflinching support. I would like to express my thanks to all the well-wishers of KISS for their love, affec-tion and belief in our cause. I owe a debt of gratitude to the staff and students of KIIT and KISS for their untiring efforts to help KISS reach the level it is today.

KISS, which started as an idea turned into a revolution calling for the creation of more prototypes, has always vouched to provide a local solution to a global problem. We envisage the KISS Deemed to be University to stand as a think tank for tribal related issues of importance, to academic debate, discuss and critically analyse the tribal policies, laws, culture and importance and offer solutions to KISS for its continuous improvement in course of evolution in particular and to the wider society in general.

And as Earnest Hemingway puts, ‘There is nothing noble in being supe-rior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.’, KISS Deemed to be University will always go forward and get better with all humility in its endeavor towards excellence.

 — Founder, KISS & KIIT

First Convocation of KISS Deemed to be University

Dr. Achyuta Samanta

PUNE: NCP chief Sharad Pawar on Friday claimed that formation of any national alli-ance was not the topic of dis-cussion at the meeting of eight opposition parties hosted by him earlier this week, but also said that if any such coalition emerges, its leadership will have to be “collective”.

The aim of the meeting at his Delhi residence on Tues-day was to discuss how they can support the ongoing farm-ers’ agitation, he told report-ers here.

Speculation was rife that the agenda of the meeting, for which no Congress leader was present, was to discuss a possi-ble alliance which could be an alternative to the BJP.

“Currently, farmers are pro-testing on the borders of Delhi. The protest is apolitical, how-ever, we thought as it is related to agriculture, in which way we can support them...The aim was to come together and discuss how we can help the farmers by raising the issues in Parliament and giving sugges-tions to the Centre,” Pawar said.

The idea was to come out

with a white paper and put forth the issues related to the farm sector before the Union government, the former Union agriculture minister said.

Asked what would be the form of any future alliance against the BJP and what would be Congress’s place in it, Pawar said, “There was no discussion on this, however, in my view Congress will be needed to be taken along if any alternative alliance is to be formed.

“I said the same thing at the meeting also,” Pawar said.

Asked about the prime ministerial face of any such alli-ance with Congress on board, the NCP chief again main-tained that there was no dis-cussion on that issue.

“But in my opinion, there has to be collective leader-ship. Keeping this in mind we will have to move ahead,” said Pawar, seen as the archi-tect of the ruling Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress coalition in Maharashtra.

Asked about the talk of him leading such alliance, the vet-eran leader said, “Sharad Pawar did all such things for several years, but now my role will be to help, offer guidance and make efforts to keep everybody united.”

On Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi’s meeting with lead-ers from Jammu and Kashmir and the talk of holding elec-tions there, Pawar said he wel-comed the move.

“When the decision to remove the special status of Kashmir (under Article 370) was taken, we had cautioned the government that it will have bad repercussions, but with-out paying heed to us, the deci-sion was taken. It is good that now the government has finally come to the conclusion that the decision which was taken was not right,” he said. MPOST

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: As apprehen-sions about the vaccination of children are growing among parents due to the spread of Covid-19 pandemic, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) DG Dr Balram Bhar-gava said on Friday that more data is required to take a final call on vaccination of children belonging to age group from 2 years to 18 years.

While addressing a health ministry’s press conference, the ICMR chief said, “Whether very small children will ever need the vaccine, is still a ques-tion. Till such time we have more data on the vaccina-tion of children, we won’t be in a position to vaccinate chil-dren at large.” “However, we have started a small study on children between the age of 2 and 18, and we shall have the results of that by September or

so. However, the international jury is still not out and they’re still debating whether children need to be vaccinated. We’ve

seen that there have some cases of complications in the United States,” he added.

Meanwhile, Bhargava also

said that Covid-19 vaccine should be given to pregnant women as it is useful for them. “The Health Ministry has given

the guideline that vaccine can be given to pregnant women. Vaccination is useful in preg-nant women, and it should be given,” he said.

Notably, several experts have projected that a third Covid-19 wave is likely to hit India in the near future and children below 18 years old would be the potential victims of the third wave.

However, a recent AIIMS-World Health Organization (WHO) study suggested that the third Covid-19 wave, which is imminent, “may not hit chil-dren as its being projected.

Recently, AIIMS direc-tor Randeep Guleria had said that Covaxin, which is man-ufactured by Bharat Biotech, is likely to be approved for children in September. Three other vaccines, including another Bharat Biotech shot, are expected to be available for children soon.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

BAREILLY (UP): A secu-rity guard posted at the Sta-tion Road branch of Bank of Baroda here on Friday alleg-edly opened fire at a customer who was trying to force his way inside without a mask, police said. The customer, Rajesh Kumar, was seriously injured and admitted to the district

hospital while the guard has been taken into police custody, Superintendent of Police (City) Ravindra Kumar said.

Rajesh Kumar had come to the bank for some work at around 11:30 am when an altercation took place with the guard, Keshav Prasad Mishra, who in anger shot at him, the SP said.

The bank, in a statement,

said it regretted the unfortunate incident and extended help to the aggrieved family.

According to eyewitnesses, the guard was heard repeat-edly shouting before he was taken into custody that the customer was trying to force his way inside without a mask and abused him when he was checked for it. He also said that he had to open fire when the

customer forcibly entered.The SP said the customer's

statement will be recorded after he regains consciousness.

Geeta Bhusal, senior man-ager of Bank of Baroda Station Road branch said the forensic team of the police is checking the CCTV footage. The exact status of the incident will be known only after watching the footage, she added.

A beneficiary receives COVID-19 vaccine dose inside a car, in Patna

NEW DELHI: Supreme Court-appointed National Task Force (NTF) of top medical experts, set up to formulate a methodol-ogy for allocation of oxygen to states and union territories, has recommended that the country should have strategic reserves of the gas for 2-3 weeks of con-sumption on the lines of the arrangements made for petro-leum products.

The 12-member NTF also said that all hospitals should have a buffer capacity for emer-gencies and they should set-up oxygen monitoring committees

of senior staff. The top court had set up the NTF on May 6 to formulate a methodology for allocation of oxygen for sav-ing lives of COVID-19 patients and to facilitate a public health response to the pandemic.

"We should have strate-gic reserves of oxygen for the country to cover 2-3 weeks' consumption, similar to the arrangement made for petro-leum products. Similarly, all hospitals should have a buffer capacity for Emergencies, the NTF said.

Dealing with augmenting

the supplies of liquid medi-cal oxygen or LMO, based on present and projected demands during the pandemic, the panel said that about 20 per cent buffer capacity of the states' requirement should be created for allocation over and above baseline demand for alloca-tion to states with rising cases of COVID-19.

Efforts are to be made to further scale up LMO produc-tion in preparation of the next pandemic. There is an urgent need to increase production of LMO from about 5 per cent - 8

per cent of gaseous industrial oxygen. Government should support and subsidize con-cerned industries.

The panel suggested that in an emergency, the states may actively explore setting up some field/make-shift hos-pitals in proximity of indus-trial oxygen production units which can supply piped oxygen with necessary modifications and strict quality control and technology to be put in place to convert nitrogen plants to oxy-gen producing plants in case of an emergency situation. AGENCIES

Make strategic reserve of oxygen for 2-3 weeks like petroleum: NTF to SC

Covishield, Covaxin work...

The Union health ministry has urged eight states and union territo-ries to take up immediate containment measures including preventing crowds, conducting widespread testing as well as increasing vaccine coverage on a pri-ority basis in districts where the Delta Plus variant has been detected.

The measures were suggested by Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan in a letter to Tamil Nadu, Raj-asthan, Karnataka, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Gujarat and Haryana.

He also urged them to ensure that adequate samples of people who test positive for COVID-19 are promptly sent to the designated laboratories of Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomic Con-sortia (INSACOG) so that clinical epidemiological correlations can be established.

The Union government maintained that 90 per cent of the COVID-19 cases in India are being driven by the B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant.

Covid variants of concern have been found in 174 districts in 35 states/UTs with the highest number of cases seen in Maharashtra, Delhi, Punjab, Telangana, West Bengal and Guja-rat, it said. The proportion of COVID-19 cases with variants of concern rose from 10.31 per cent in May, 2021 to 51 per cent on June 20, 2021, it added.

It added that the second wave of COVID-19 is not yet over in coun-try as 75 districts still have more than 10 per cent prevalence and 92 dis-tricts have 5-10 per cent prevalence of Coronavirus.

Meanwhile, if the study paper of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is to be believed, the third wave of COVID-19 pandemic wouldn’t be fatal as like the second wave and it would be even smaller than the first wave.

In a new study, ICMR research-ers have said that due to mutations in Coronavirus, waning population immunity and unrestricted mixing of people would led to the advent of a third nationwide COVID-19 wave in India, but it is unlikely to be as severe as the second wave.

As per the scientific paper, which is jointly prepared by the ICMR and Imperial College, London, the study conducted by researchers of India and UK has indicated that the timing and pattern of the third wave will depend on waning population immunity and mutations of the virus, while the size of the surge could remain either mid-way between the first two waves or be smaller than even the first wave.

India recorded a single-day rise of

51,667 COVID-19 infections that took country’s case tally to 3,01,34,445. The weekly positivity rate declined to 3 per cent on Friday.

The death toll climbed to 3,93,310 with 1,329 more people succumbing to the viral disease in a day.

The number of active cases has further declined to 6,12,868 and now comprises 2.03 per cent of the total infections. A net decline of 14,189 active cases has been recorded in a day, the data updated at 8 am showed.

Recoveries outnumbered daily new cases of COVID-19 for the 43rd con-secutive day with the number of people who have recuperated from the disease surging to 2,91,28,267. The case fatality rate stood at 1.31 per cent.

While the national COVID-19 recovery rate has improved to 96.66 per cent, the weekly case positivity rate has come down to 3 per cent.

According to the Health Minis-try data, the daily positivity rate was recorded at 2.98 per cent. It has been less than 5 per cent for 18 consecutive days.

Will not contest...“Dil ki doori (distance of hearts)

has to be decreased with the people of Jammu and Kashmir and for that all the draconian orders passed have to stop. It’s an era of oppression of suppression in Jammu and Kashmir nowadays, the PDP leader said.

“Anyone who has a grievance against an officer is booked under preventive detention, giving vent to genuine feelings on Twitter lands you in jail. Is this what is called democ-racy,” she asked. Mehbooba said there is an immediate need to put a full-stop to such actions and allow people to breathe freely. AGENCIES

Twitter denies...“Friends! Something highly peculiar

happened today. Twitter denied access to my account for almost an hour on the alleged ground that there was a vio-lation of the Digital Millennium Copy-right Act of the USA and subsequently they allowed me to access the account,” Prasad wrote. He also tweeted on the issue. The temporary locking of the IT Minister’s Twitter account comes at a time when the US-based digital giant has been engaged in a tussle with the Indian government over the new social media rules.

The government has slammed Twit-ter for deliberate defiance and failure to comply with the country’s new IT rules, which has led to the microblog-ging platform losing its legal shield as an intermediary in India and becom-ing liable for users posting any unlaw-ful content.

“It is apparent that my statements calling out the high handedness and arbitrary actions of Twitter, particularly

sharing the clips of my interviews to TV channels and its powerful impact, have clearly ruffled its feathers,” the minister said. He went on to say that it is now obvious why Twitter is refus-ing to comply with the intermediary guidelines and added “because if Twit-ter does comply, it would be unable to arbitrarily deny access to an individu-al’s account which does not suit their agenda”.

Twitter’s actions are in gross viola-tion of IT Rules, where they failed to provide any prior notice before deny-ing access to the account, the minister pointed out.

“Twitter’s actions indicate that they are not the harbinger of free speech that they claim to be but are only interested in running their own agenda, with the threat that if you do not toe the line they draw, they will arbitrarily remove you from their platform,” Prasad said.

The minister made it clear that plat-forms will have to abide by the new IT rules fully and warned that there will be no compromise on that.

Centre extends...In case of taxing capital gains aris-

ing out of transfer of residential house property, the CBDT said for relief in taxation, the re-investment deadline would be September 3, 2021 for such capital gains.

Section 54 of the Income Tax Act provides that in case there is capital gain on account of transfer of a residen-tial house property, such capital gain can be exempt from tax if the taxpayer invests the capital gain amount into another house property within 2 years (in case of purchase of new house) or within 3 years (in case of construc-tion of a house) from date of transfer of original house property.

The CBDT circular now provides that in case any such time period of 2 / 3 years is expiring between April 1, 2021 to September 29, 2021, it will be extended to September 30, 2021.

Besides, the deadline for making payments under the Vivad Se Vishwas direct tax dispute resolution scheme has been extended by two months till August 31.

However, taxpayers have the option to make payments till October 31 with an additional amount of interest.

The due date for furnishing TDS statement for the last (January-March) quarter of the 2020-21 has been extended to July 15, from June 30, 2021.

The quarterly statement in Form 15CC to be furnished by an authorised dealer for remittances made for the June quarter would have to furnished by July 31.

Also, the deadline for furnishing Equalisation Levy Statement in Form No. 1 for the financial year 2020-21, has been extended by a month till July 31, 2021, while for processing Equalisation Levy returns, the time limit has been extended by 3 months till September 30, 2021.

From Page 1

Bank guard in UP opens fire at customer trying to enter without mask

6 NEW JUDGES TAKE OATH IN MP HCJABALPUR: Madhya Pradesh High Court Chief Justice Mohammad Rafiq on Friday administered oath of office to six newly-appointed judges in a ceremony held here. Speaking to the news agency, High Court Registrar General Rajendra Kumar Vani said new judges Anil Verma, Arun Kumar Sharma, Satyendra Kumar Singh, Sunita Yadav, Deepak Kumar Agarwal and Rajendra Kumar (Verma) were sworn in. The total sanctioned post of judges in Madhya Pradesh, includ-ing the chief justice, was 53, of which 30 have been filled, the official said. With this, even after the swear-ing-in of six judges, the Madhya Pradesh High Court, with its bench in Indore and Gwalior, will remain short of 23 judges.

BARN OWL FOUND AT TRINAMOOL BHAVANKOLKATA: A common barn owl, commonly known as Lakshmi Pecha in Bengali parlance, was found from the attic of Trinamool Bhavan at Topsia on Friday afternoon. The owl with an injured wing was handed over to the state Forest department. Sources said the full-grown male owl was found on top of the party chairperson Mamata Banerjee’s room. As per local belief, the sighting of the barn owl is considered to be a good omen. It was spotted while renovation work of TMC’s party office was underway. “Our doc-tor has already examined the bird. It is undergoing treatment,” a senior forest official said.

SEDITION CASE

IN RELIGIOUS CONVERSION

DOCUMENTARY ON MOSQUE DEMOLITION

CROSS-LOC ARMS SMUGGLING CASE

Nation Briefs

6 millenniumpostNationmpSATURDAY, 26 JUNE, 2021 | KOLKATA

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOCHI: India's first Indig-enous Aircraft Carrier (IAC) will be commissioned next year and its combat capabil-ity, reach and versatility will add formidable capabilities in the country's defence, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said here on Friday.

In a statement to the media after visiting the IAC at Ernakulam wharf of the Cochin port to review its construction p rogress, Singh described it as India's pride and a shin-ing example of Atmanirbhar Bharat.

"The project was originally approved by the NDA govern-ment and has made significant progress in recent past despite COVID.

"Commissioning of the IAC next year will be a befitting tribute to 75 years of India's independence", Singh said in the statement read out to the media.

"The combat capability, reach and versatility of the air-craft carrier will add formida-ble capabilities in the defence of our country and help secure India's interests in the maritime domain," the Defence Minis-ter said.

The minister said it was a pleasure to review first-hand, the work being done on the

Indigenous Aircraft Carrier.Singh, who reviewed Proj-

ect Seabird at Karwar, which will be the largest naval base of the Indian Navy in future, and will provide the facilities and infrastructure to support the Navy's operations in the Indian Ocean Region and beyond, said the government is fully com-mitted to a strong navy and

these two projects are exam-ples of our unwavering focus.

"Our impetus to mod-ernisation, harnessing India's indigenous industry and know-how, is a key priority. Forty-two of the 44 warships on order being built at Indian shipyards is a testimony to this", he said.

He said the IAC boasts of nearly 75 per cent indigenous content, from design, to steel used in construction, to key weapons and sensors.

The Defence Acquisi-tion Council (DAC) has also recently accorded approval for RFP of Project 75-I under the Strategic Partnership model, which will give further fillip to indigenous development of niche manufacturing technolo-gies, the Minister said.

"These measures will help enhance the Indian Navy's operational reach and prow-ess to protect India's maritime interests," he said.

Singh said the Indian Navy remains poised and combat

ready to tackle any challenge."Navy's proactive forward

deployment during the Galwan standoff signalled our intent that we seek peace but are ready for any eventuality," the minis-ter added.

He said the Navy has also made significant contri-butions in the fight against COVID, bringing back Indian citizens from overseas dur-ing Op Samudra Setu-I, and much needed Liquid Medical Oxygen during Samudra Setu-II, despite dangers of COVID spread onboard warships.

SAR efforts by the Navy during Cyclone Tauktae show-cased the spirit of daring and courage among our men and women in whites, he said.

"Our efforts are in align-ment with the Prime Minister's Vision of SAGAR, or Secu-rity and Growth for All in the Region, and the wider goal of a Free, Open and Inclusive Indo-Pacific, to ensure peace and sta-bility in the region," he added.

OUR CORRESPSONDENT

KOCHI: The Kerala High Court on Friday granted antic-ipatory bail to Lakshadweep filmmaker Ayesha Sulthana in a sedition case registered against her by the Kavaratti police.

A case was registered on June 9 under section 124-A (sedition) and 153 B (hate speech) of IPC on the basis of a petition lodged by a political leader hailing from Kavaratti.

Granting bail, Justice Ashok Menon said there was no apparent indication in her statement, which amounts to imputations or assertions prej-udicial to the national interest, nor does it propagate any class of persons against another group of persons.

The court said in the event of her arrest, she shall be released on bail on execution of bond for Rs 50,000 with two solvent sureties each for like amount to the satisfaction of the officer arresting her.

Following the registration of the FIR in Lakshadweep, Sulthana had approached the Kerala High Court seeking anticipatory bail.

Last week, the high court had granted her interim antic-ipatory bail for a week, while reserving orders on her antici-patory bail application.

The court had directed her to comply with the notice given by Kavaratti police to appear before them for inter-rogation on June 20 in connec-tion with the case.

The court had ordered that she be granted interim antici-patory bail if she is arrested.

The allegation is that the filmmaker, while participating in a debate telecast by a Malay-alam news channel on June 7, had said the Centre used bio-logical weapons against the people of Lakshadweep.

When the anticipatory bail

plea came up, her counsel had submitted that Sulthana had clarified her remarks later and tendered an apology for mak-ing the statement.

Sulthana submitted that she never realised that usage of the word bio-weapon is an offence and the remark was made not intending to cre-ate hatred in the minds of the people.

She said she was ready to appear before police for ques-tioning but sought protection from arrest.

Opposing her anticipa-tory bail plea, Lakshadweep administration had said Sulthana promoted separat-ism and communalism even in the minds of school children by making such a statement.

Sulthana was interrogated by the Kavaratti police on Sun-day, Wednesday and Thursday in connection with the case.

Emerging from the police station at Kavaratti, after nearly a three-hour long interrogation on Thursday, Sulthana had claimed, "Every-thing is over.I am told that I can go back to Kochi.I will reach Kochi tomorrow or a day after."

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Andhra Pradesh government on Fri-day told the Supreme Court that it has cancelled Class 12 examination which was to be conducted by the state board and would declare results of internal assessment by July 31.

A bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and Dinesh Maheshwari was informed by senior advocate Dushyant Dave, appearing for Andhra Pradesh, that he had discussed the matter with the chief min-ister on Thursday and the state government has decided to cancel the exam.

The apex court had on Thursday told Andhra Pradesh

government that it was not convinced of the precaution-ary measures suggested by the state for holding Class 12 board exams amid the pandemic and had said unless satisfied that there will be no fatality due to COVID-19, it will not allow them.

He (Dave) informed the court that after re-examining the situation, the state gov-ernment has now been well-advised to cancel the XII standard examination, to be conducted by the concerned state board. We place that state-ment on record, the bench said in its order.

In light of this commitment made across the Bar and as we are informed that suitable noti-

fication is being issued shortly, nothing more is required to be done in the present proceed-ings, the bench said.

The top court was hearing a plea seeking directions to state governments not to hold board exams in view of the COVID-19 pandemic. Considering the matter and the way it has pro-gressed, although we had made full preparations for the exam-ination . looking at the senti-ments expressed by the court, I had a discussion with the chief minister yesterday and I advised them. They have also decided to cancel the exam, Dave told the bench during the hearing conducted through video-conferencing on Friday.

Dave said a high-pow-

ered committee, which will be constituted, would devise the assessment scheme within 10 days.

We will follow the time-line of July 31 and declare the results, he said, adding that if the examination was con-ducted then the declaration of results would have gone in August.

Dave said if the entire coun-try is going in one direction, then state of Andhra Pradesh would also go the same way.

We appreciate the practical and very pragmatic stand taken by the state. We wish you could have appeared before us ear-lier, the bench said, adding that probably what was discussed yesterday was avoidable.

NEW DELHI: The Enforce-ment Directorate (ED) has registered a criminal case of money laundering in con-nection with alleged conver-sion of some deaf students and poor people to Islam in Uttar Pradesh with purported fund-ing from Pakistani intelligence agency ISI, officials sources said on Friday.

An Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR), the ED equivalent of a Police FIR, has been filed under the Prevention of Money Launder-ing Act (PMLA), they said.

The matter came to light after the UP Police anti-terr-rorist squad (ATS) arrested two men, residents of Jamia Nagar in Delhi, earlier this week. The UP Police had identified the arrested accused as Mufti Qazi Jahangir Alam Qasmi and Mohammad Umar Gautam.

The ATS claimed that they ran an outfit, named Islamic Dawah Center, that purport-edly had access to funds from Pakistan's inter-services intel-ligence (ISI) and other foreign agencies to carry out their alleged illegal activities.

The ED studied this FIR and registered the money laun-dering case.

Its probe will be focused on the allegation that illicit funds were received from abroad and domestic sources and laundered by the accused and their associates, official sources said.

The agency has powers to attach assets of the accused during the investigation stage and file charge sheet against them before a PMLA court later for prosecution and award of punishment that can range between three and seven years as prescribed under law. AGENCIES

BARABANKI (UP): The Uttar Pradesh Police has filed an FIR against news portal 'The Wire', its two journalists and two oth-ers over a documentary on the demolition of a mosque here which, the administration said, was built illegally.

The case has been regis-tered against journalists Siraj Ali and Mukul S Chauhan, and two others -- Mohammad Anees and Mohammad Naeem -- who gave "provocative" state-

ments in the documentary that spread "prejudiced, misleading and untrue" information, police said on Friday.

The Barabanki adminis-tration had demolished the mosque on May 17, terming it an illegally constructed build-ing and attributed its claim to an April 2 order of the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad HC. The mosque was located adjacent to the tehsil premises and opposite the SDM's residence. MPOST

NEW DELHI: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday said it has filed a charge sheet against seven terrorists of the Tehreek-ul-Mujahideen (TuM) who were "smuggling" arms and explosives into India with the help of handlers based in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

The charge sheet was filed before a special NIA court in Jammu on Thursday against Mohd Mustafa Khan, Mohd Yaseen, Mohd Farooq, Mohd Ibrar, Mohd Javid Khan, Sher Ali (based in Kuwait), and Mohd Rafiq Nai alias Sultan (based in PoK). They have been charged under various sections of the Arms Act, Explosives Act and the Unlawful Activi-ties Prevention Act or UAPA. The NIA had taken over probe in this case in March this year after the Jammu police filed an FIR in December last year relating to the arrest of Mohd Mustafa Khan and recovery of six hand grenades along with "incriminating documents" from his residence.

The probe found, the NIA alleged, that the seven accused named in the charge sheet "were part of a deep-rooted criminal conspiracy by Pakistan-based handlers of TuM and their ter-ror associates based in Poonch

and Kuwait to execute terrorist activities and wage war against the Indian state."

An absconding accused in the case, Rafiq Nai, and other handlers based in PoK, with assistance of Sher Ali based in Kuwait and the other accused living on the Indian side of Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch "smuggled" arms, ammunition, explosives, narcotics etc into the Indian territory, the central probe agency said.

"They were taking advan-tage of the geography, affinities of religion, culture and other ties cutting across both sides of the LoC." "During the course of investigation, a large cache of arms, ammunition, explo-sives, narcotics along with flag, posters and other incriminat-ing material belonging to terror outfit TuM, which was hidden at different places in Poonch was recovered," the NIA said. Further investigation in the case is continuing, it said. MPOST

Rajnath Singh: India’s 1st IAC will be commissioned next year

Commissioning of the IAC next year will be a befitting tribute to 75 years of India's independence, says Defence Minister Singh

Kerala High Court grants bail to Ayesha Sulthana

ED raids premises of former Maha HM Deshmukh in Nagpur, aides in Mumbai

Have cancelled Class 12 board exam, will declare results by July 31: AP tells SC

UP: FIR against news portal, its 2 journalists

UP: ED to probe money laundering

angle

Chargesheet filed against seven

TuM terrorists

NEW DELHI: The Enforce-ment Directorate (ED) on Fri-day conducted searches at the premises of former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh in Nagpur and his associates in Mumbai as part of a money laundering probe against the politician on Rs 100 crore brib-ery charges, officials said.

They said the raids are being carried out under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laun-dering Act (PMLA) and the locations include Deshmukh's residence at GPO Chowk in Nagpur and that of his per-sonal secretary Sanjeev Palande and personal assistant Kundan Shinde in Mumbai. Deshmukh (71), sources told the news agency, is in Mumbai and the agency is expected to question him there.

Palande was brought by the sleuths to the ED office in Bal-lard Estate area of Maharash-tra's capital city for questioning around noon, they said.

The central probe agency had registered a criminal case under the anti-money launder-

ing law against Deshmukh and others last month after studying a CBI FIR.

The ED case came about after the CBI first carried out a preliminary enquiry followed by filing a regular case on the orders of the Bombay High Court that asked it to look into the allegations of bribery made against Deshmukh by former Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh.

Officials said the search teams are looking for additional evidence that can be important for their probe.

The teams are trying to gather evidence and record statements to substantiate the claims made by about 10 bar owners to the ED that they paid about Rs 4 crore "bribe" in cash that was allegedly handed over to the former home minister.

Official sources said these claims have been recorded by the agency under the PMLA and it is trying to corroborate it with additional evidence.

Deshmukh, who had to resign from his post in April

following the allegations, has denied any wrongdoing.

The agency's probe is focused on the allegation that illicit funds were generated in

the transfer, posting of police personnel in Maharashtra and if illegal extortion was done by the cops as claimed by Singh in his complaint. The ED has

powers to attach assets of the accused during the investiga-tion stage and later file charge sheets against them before a PMLA court for trial. MPOST

OUR CORRESPONDENT

AURANGABAD: The NCP on Friday slammed the BJP, saying that it has the habit of using the investigative agen-cies and targeting the politi-cal rivals.

The leaders of the NCP, which shares power with the Shiv Sena and the Congress in Maharashtra, made the remarks a day after the state unit of the BJP passed a res-olution demanding a CBI inquiry against state Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and Transport Minister Anil Parab in connection with the cases related to senior IPS officer

Param Bir Singh and former policeman Sachin Waze.

Their statements come on the day the Enforcement Directorate (ED) carried out searches at former Maharash-tra minister and NCP leader Anil Deshmukh's premises in Nagpur and Mumbai as part of a money-laundering probe against him.

Talking to reporters at Osmanabad, NCP's Maha-rashtra unit chief Jayant Patil said, "The BJP has the habit of using the investigative agencies and its leaders are now passing resolutions in their state body meetings regarding inquiries. They have no work left now."

"...BJP is now very much in the habit of using investigative agencies, like CBI and others. So much so that the Maharash-tra body of their party is pass-ing resolutions to seek inquiry, he said after holding a meeting to review the irrigation projects in Osmanabad district.

Patil asked why BJP lead-ers don't speak about the issues like COVID-19 or development of state. "The BJP's state unit is passing res-olutions to reach out to the CBI for inquiry into any alle-gation. They have this habit of using the investigative agen-cies and people of Maharash-tra are watching, he added.

NCP: BJP using central investigative agencies to target political opponents

Criminal case was filed under anti-money laundering law against Deshmukh, others last month

They have been charged under various sections of the Arms Act, Explosives Act and the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act or UAPA

Ayesha Sulthana

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh waves during a visit to the INS Vikrant, an indigenous aircraft carrier (IAC) in Kochi on Friday PIC/PTI

OUR CORRESPONDENT

DARJEELING: The banned Kamtapur Liberation Organ-isation (KLO) has threatened former MP of Cooch Behar Partha Pratim Roy and for-mer Mathabhanga MLA Binay Krishna Barman with dire consequences.

A press release signed by Daosar Langkam Koch, Assis-tant Information and Publicity Secretary, KLO, dated June 23 stated that Roy and Barman are dancing to the tunes of TMC leaders and has time and again dubbed the Kamtapuri move-ment as “separatist”.

“They have to immediately retract from their stand and should immediately join the agitation for the liberation of Kamtapuri and Cooch peo-ple. If they fail to do so and continue appeasing the rulers

thereby opposing their own people, we will be compelled to take extreme action against them,” stated the release written in Kamtapuri language.

Both Roy and Burman owe allegiance to the TMC. A video clip of the wanted KLO chair-man Jiban Singh had surfaced recently.

Singh in the video mes-sage blamed Chief Min-ister Mamata Banerjee, former Chief Ministers Jyoti Basu and Buddhadeb Bhat-tacharjee for the “sorry plight of Kamtapuris.” He warned all elected public representa-tives of the region to raise the demand for a separate state else “go and live in South Bengal.”

Police are keeping a close tab on the situation. A police official stated that all such leaders have been provided security.

KLO threat to TMC leaders

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Four youths were arrested from Tiljala and Kasba areas of South Kolkata for alleg-edly duping American citizens by assuring them to provide technical support online. They were remanded to police cus-tody till June 30 on Friday.

For the past few months, Kolkata Police had been getting information about American citizens being cheated by some people in the city. Acting on a

recent complaint, cops spot-ted a call centre in the Tiljala area. On Thursday night, a raid was conducted there and police arrested the accused operating at the call centre.

They used to call American citizens using Voice over Inter-net Protocol (VoIP) and pro-vide online technical support for their computers, laptops.

To convince the victims, the accused used to ask them to download software for self-detection of problems in the

computers. The software was actually meant for remote access.

After downloading the soft-ware, the accused used to take control of the system and put some sort of malware which turned the screen of the victim’s monitor black. Later, they used to demand money to repair the flaw. After paying the amount in bank accounts, the accused used to deactivate the software and the system used to run as it was.

4 held for duping US natives on pretext of providing tech help

7millenniumpost Editorial mpKOLKATA | SATURDAY, 26 JUNE, 2021

A stand for peace

Inedible oil

S Jaishankar proposed India’s support for ‘double peace’ in Afghanistan at the UNSC meet and highlighted continued assistance to the country despite Pakistan’s resistance

After petrol and diesel, the sharp rise of edible oil prices is singeing the ‘aam aadmi’

In his statement at the UN Security Council debate on the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan

on June 22, India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar stated that India is concerned about the spike in violence in Afghanistan and has been strongly pressing for a com-prehensive ceasefire.

Tragically, the sordid saga of Afghanistan shows no signs of ending. For centuries, this hapless land has been in the grip of a vicious circle of vio-lence and bloodshed, with the balance of power shift-ing back and forth between warring tribal groups, leav-ing instability and abject pov-erty in the wake. Caught in the middle are ordinary Afghans, who have borne the brunt of the excesses of conflict. The UN Secretary-General report issued last week reaffirmed that the intra-Afghan talks have not resulted in a reduction of vio-lence in Afghanistan.

The peace deal which the Trump administration reached with the Taliban on February 29 last year affected the inter-ests of the Afghan government very adversely. The US had agreed to withdraw its troops completely by May 1, 2021— which Biden has postponed till September 11, 2021, the 20th anniversary of the 2001 attacks. Moreover, the US agreed to lift sanctions against the Tal-iban. In return, the Taliban agreed not to allow al-Qaeda or any other extremist group to operate in the areas they con-trolled. Additionally, the deal also provided for a prisoner swap between the Taliban and Afghanistan government.

If Trump really wanted to bring peace to Afghanistan, then the withdrawal should have been made only after the talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban reached an acceptable out-come. By announcing the with-drawal timetable in advance, Trump played into the hands of the Taliban and their backers in the Pakistani government, especially the ISI. The Taliban quickly realised that Trump had made up his mind to pull out US troops, and they built their strategy around procras-tination and erecting obstacles

in their talks with the Kabul.It must be noted that the

US knows full well what is hap-pening on the ground. General Kenneth McKenzie, head of the US Army Central Command (CENTCOM) said in Febru-ary 2021 that the Taliban are clearly responsible for violence in Afghanistan, with civilians and Afghan security forces tak-ing the brunt of the bloodshed.

The long-awaited intra-Afghan dialogue between the Kabul government and the Taliban started on September 12 last year but it was stalled and is far from achieving any results. The talks have hardly made any progress on some basic sticking points. The Afghan government backs the current socio-political system, while the Taliban wants to reimpose its version of Islamic law as the country’s system of governance. The Taliban, who are Sunni hardliners, are insist-ing on adherence to the Hanafi school of Sunni Islamic juris-prudence, but the government negotiators say this could be used to discriminate against Hazaras, who are predomi-nantly Shia, and other minori-ties in the country.

Jaishankar said: “For

enduring peace in Afghani-stan, terrorist safe havens and sanctuaries must be disman-tled immediately and terrorist supply chains disrupted.” In a veiled attack on Pakistan, he further said: “Those provid-ing material and financial sup-port to terrorist entities must be held accountable”.

He also rightly said, “A durable peace in Afghani-stan requires a genuine “dou-ble peace” — peace within Afghanistan and peace around Afghanistan. It requires har-monising the interests of all, both within and around that country”.

As is well known, this ‘dou-ble peace’ is being derailed by Pakistan, which has always tried to create strategic depth for itself in Afghanistan. It wants unhindered use of Afghanistan’s territory to fur-ther its own nefarious designs. Pakistan wants to ensure that India is prevented from having any role in Afghanistan. The Pakistan Foreign Office spokes-man Mohammad Faisal had unambiguously enunciated his country’s position in January 2019 when he had said “India has no role in Afghanistan”.

Ordinary Afghans see

India as a friend and have high regard for it. For post-Taliban Afghanistan, India has been a steadfast partner and has sup-ported it with over USD three billion in development assis-tance, far more than it has pro-vided to any other nation. The partnership is built on the spe-cific needs and requirements worked out with the govern-ment of Afghanistan.

India’s assistance has taken various forms such as schol-arships to students, infra-structure and transportation projects, medical teams to treat Afghans, and building institutional capacities at the ministry level. The USD 290 million Afghan-India Friend-ship Dam (also known as the Salma Dam), the USD 90 mil-lion Afghan Parliament build-ing in Kabul and the USD 135 million Delaram-Zaranj highway are just some exam-ples. India has also pledged to provide USD 236 million for building a second dam on the outskirts of Kabul. The Shah-toot Dam, as it will be named, is planned to be completed in the next three years.

To provide greater regional connectivity, India has opera-tionalised air freight corridors

and the Chabahar Port. India also extended humanitarian assistance of 75,000 MT of wheat to Afghanistan through the Chabahar Port to overcome food insecurity during the pandemic. Further, as a part of its endeavour to help Afghani-stan tide over the COVID-19 pandemic, India has supplied vaccines to Afghanistan, both bilaterally and through the COVAX facility.

Afghanistan is at a criti-cal juncture and the United Nations needs to step up its role. As Jaishankar puts it, “We support a leading role for the United Nations, since that would help improve the odds for a lasting and durable outcome.”

In this evolving scenario, India’s role in Afghanistan assumes greater significance and could be helpful for the Afghan government as well as for ordinary Afghans. As Jaishankar said, “India con-tinues to stand with Afghani-stan in ensuring restoration of normalcy through a legiti-mate democratic process that is essential for the long-term stability of Afghanistan and the region”.

Views expressed are personal

PRABHU DAYAL

SHUTAPA PAUL

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

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

DearEditor

Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative Bank (PMC) Bank) — a failed entity — has been finally allowed by the RBI to be taken over after a successful bid by the NBFC Centrum and BharatPe; both jointly mooted to convert PMC into a Small Finance Bank (SFB). Unfortunately, the cooperative banks, particularly urban ones, resort to unfair loaning with conflict of interest of their managements. Depositors who are left in lurch do not have any leverage mechanism to prevent fraudulent siphoning of money which has also happened in the past with other cooperative and private banks under RBI’s regulatory eyes. In sharp contrast, entities like Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies (PACS) doing banking operations at the village level have been working rather smoothly, though some political interference in staffing does influence their working. The loan recovery of PACS is better than urban cooperative banks. It will be befitting if RBI frames a suitable policy to delineate the priority areas with more checks and balances in loaning by all the cooperative banks. It is imperative that all cooperative banks must be fast networking under CBS operations in line with other commercial banks to help the rural folks grab the banking advantages fully. The working of cooperative banks globally has not been that bad historically. In the global financial crisis of 2007-2008, the losses of cooperative banks were minimal. If RBI is already overburdened, coupled with its inherent limitation of timely delivery of dictates for the cooperative banking sector, a separate regulator must be mooted. This is the right time to encourage the cooperative banking structure.

The hot topic of discus-sion in every house-hold is the shooting prices of edible oils.

Last year, a litre of mustard oil would cost around Rs 130, today it’s touching Rs 200! Prices spiked similarly for groundnut, soya, sunflower oils, and so on. These rising prices are coming at the back of a horrid one and half years for middle and lower classes. The pandemic has caused inflated medical bills, depleted earnings, and widespread job-lessness. The already mone-tarily stretched out masses are now struggling to even feed their families.

Rising fuel and LPG prices have been adding to house-hold budgets. Petrol and now, even diesel prices, have gone through the roof and crossed Rs 100 a litre. High fuel prices also means that cost of logistics would now be more expensive. This leads to higher food infla-tion, among other problems. Our government has said that unlocking and a good mon-soon will ease the food infla-tion. They also believe that food inflation won’t affect large numbers of Indians who are benefiting from free ration under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana. But what about the ever-vexed, always tortured middle class? Retail inflation in May crossed the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) cautionary 6 per cent, and stood at 6.3 per cent. Whole-sale price-based inflation raced to 12.94 per cent. Food infla-tion surged to 5.01 per cent.

The cost of food and essen-

tials have been steadily rising in the last decade. We have paid more for fuel even when international crude prices were low, our savings pick-pocketed to fill government coffers. The pandemic further intensified our financial woes, and if even we, the privileged, have taken notice of steep prices, can you imagine the challenges faced by the less fortunate? 76 per cent Indians in any case can’t afford nutritious diets, says a paper published last year in the Food Policy journal writ-ten by Kalyani Raghunathan, an economist at the Interna-tional Food Policy Research

Institute (IFPRI). A majority of Indians and at least 63.3 per cent of rural India, faced nutritional poverty, being able to spend more on cereals and proteins and less on dairy, fruits, and dark green vege-tables. Their diets have surely deteriorated further with the pinching prices wherein meat and fish, egg, fruits, and pulses and products skyrock-ets to 9.03 per cent, 15.16 per cent, 11.98 per cent, and 9.39 per cent respectively in May. Added to the common man’s basket of ignominies, is now vegetable oils that he simply can’t afford.

The real cause behind the rise in prices of edible oils is a fascinating one. India is not ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ where edible oils are concerned, instead we are heavily depen-dent on oil exports. We went from being exporters of edi-ble oil pre-Independence to becoming self-reliant from Independence till the 70s, and after two decades of ups and downs, finally became self-sustained in the 90s. Today, however, we are the largest importer of edible oil in the world bringing in oils worth $10 billion every year. An alleged case of corporate sabo-

tage of an Argemone adultera-tion Dropsy case that killed 60 people in August 1998, a series of myopic government policy decisions that forced farmers to give up oilseed cultivations, followed by slashing of import duties on edible oils, murdered the indigenous edible oil mar-ket in India. An intriguing read on this topic authored by B M Vyas, former managing direc-tor of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), is available in the public domain. As per recent reports, 70 per cent of India’s current edible oil demand is met through imports, mak-ing us susceptible to vaga-ries of international markets, which in turn has pushed up the prices of even mustard oil that’s mostly used for domestic consumption.

Slashing import duties on palm oil, crude soya bean, and soya oil will soften prices. Thwarting speculatory trad-ing of edible oils in the futures market will also help. India’s production of oilseed has upped by over 44 per cent from 25.3 million tonnes in the last 5 years. To resolve the choppiness of the oil market in the long-term, oilseed cultiva-tion would require an efficient, well-conceived strategy. This would also increase domes-tic production and help make India truly ‘Atmanirbhar’ in this sector. Government action is urgently needed to give some respite to the overburdened common man.

The writer is an author and media entrepreneur. Views

expressed are personal

Jaishankar said: Those providing support to terrorist entities must be held accountable

— BRIJ B GOYAL, LUDHIANA via email

India is the largest importer of edible oil in the world with annual imports amounting to USD 10 billion

EDITORIALPrice to be paid

As climate change becomes an undeniable real-ity of daily life, the world is faced with the task of reinventing how it develops itself. The old ideas of developments now come with a tangible cost for

the future. Current land-use patterns across the world are having a devastating effect on natural ecosystems. If human-ity is to survive, everything from the way farming is done to the materials and techniques used to build houses will have to change. Although the world at large faces climate change, there are some places that are in more immediate danger than others. The Lakshadweep islands are sinking, its coral reefs gradually wasting away. In 2017, a Lakshad-weep resident and researcher by the name of RM Hiday-athulla published a paper noting the disappearance of one of the small islands in the Bangaram atoll in Lakshadweep. While cataloguing the flora and fauna of the Bangaram atoll as a doctoral student in 2011-12, Hidayathulla noted that there were only four islands in the lagoon, although the Survey of India showed five. The fifth, Parali, had sim-ply disappeared into the waters as erosion had taken a toll. This was a small, uninhabited island but the rate of erosion is picking up across the Lakshadweep. It is being driven by factors that range from changing ocean currents and more frequent storm surges to the coral reefs no longer being able to provide as much protection against beach erosion as they are bleached away and eventually destroyed. All this is hap-pening right now with cascading effects throughout the ecosystem. But things could get even worse from here on. This is what a group of scientists are trying to prevent. This week, the Lakshadweep Research Collective, alongside 60 other signatories, has written to President Ram Nath Kov-ind requesting his intervention to stop the proposed Lak-shadweep Development Authority Regulation of 2021. The sweeping change proposed by this new regulation would essentially give the Lakshadweep authorities a huge amount of control in planning the development of areas identi-fied as having “bad layout or obsolete development”. It also enables the authorities to carve out zonation for land use and indicate areas for roads, airports, museums, etc. while also giving sweeping authority to ‘punish’ anyone caught ‘obstructing’ the development plans. The Lakshadweep Research Collective noted in its statement that “in enabling take-over of local land, we find that this draft regulation is not in consonance with existing laws, such as the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, the Biological Diversity Act 2002, The Environment (Protec-tion) Act, 1986,” Additionally, land and resource use pat-terns being changed under the law pose a serious threat to the island and its biodiversity. A tilt towards large-scale tour-ism for the islands may seem a good idea until one consid-ers the sheer ecological cost of such an endeavour. Increases in reef fishing alone, which are sure to follow to support an expanded tourism industry, would be devastating to the coral reefs that are already under strain from climate change. But fine, development is necessary and tourism is a way for that development to happen. There is no doubt that the community in the islands would appreciate some develop-ment too. But, why must the community be kept outside of the discussion and the efforts to bring development to the islands? In an ecologically sensitive area like the Lakshad-weep, development models cannot come top down, they must be made in collaboration with the local communities which have as yet proven their success in living with sustain-able lifestyles. It is important to not just see the islands as a development opportunity to create an international tour-ism destination like the Maldives, but also as a responsibil-ity. True, the development also envisions the construction of multiple sea walls for safety and prevention of erosion, but most experts say seawalls are no substitute for coral reefs and the many roles they play in helping sustain life on the islands. In conclusion, the scientists and citizens who wrote a letter to the President are not simply people who blindly oppose development. Rather, they are calling for the estab-lishment of a committee of scientists, policymakers and local representatives who can help better plan how to shape a new model of development for the islands that will be more in keeping with its culture and its ecological needs. These diverse viewpoints and substantive arguments, once incor-porated in the plan, will make it more complete — balancing both the developmental needs and ecological and commu-nity concerns. Unless these find reflection in the develop-ment plan, the process is bound to face hiccups. Moreover, holistic development of any region must spring from the heart of its society, taking in all the concerns of those living therein. Also, much is lost with every uncounted voice.

For modern, post-Taliban Afghanistan, India has been a steadfast partner and has supported it with over USD three billion in development assistance, far more than it has provided to any other nation

As per recent reports, 70 per cent of India’s current edible oil demand is met through imports, making us susceptible to vagaries of international markets

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8 millenniumpostWorldmpSATURDAY, 26 JUNE, 2021 | KOLKATA

US, France warn Iran that time is running out to revive deal

PARIS: The United States and France on Friday warned Iran that time was running out to return to a nuclear deal, voic-ing fear that Tehran's sensitive atomic activities could advance if talks drag on.

On the first high-level visit to Paris by President Joe Biden's administration, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his French hosts saluted a new spirit of cooperation after four years of turbulence under Donald Trump, AFP reported.

But the two sides said that one key Biden promise -- to return to the 2015 accord on the Iranian nuclear programme that was trashed by Trump -- was at risk if the clerical regime does not make concessions during talks that have been going on for months in Vienna.

Blinken warned that the United States still had "serious differences" with Iran, which has kept negotiating since last week's presidential election won by hardliner Ebrahim Raisi.

"There will come a point, yes, where it will be very hard to return back to the standards set by the JCPOA," Blinken told reporters, using the for-mal name of the accord.

"We haven't reached that point -- I can't put a date on it -- but it's something that we're conscious of."

Blinken warned that if Iran "continues to spin ever more sophisticated centrifuges" and steps up uranium enrichment,

it will bring nearer the "break-out" time at which it will be dan-gerously close to the ability to develop a nuclear bomb.

But Blinken said that Biden still supported a return to the accord, under which Iran had drastically scaled back its nuclear work until Trump with-drew in 2018 and imposed crip-pling sanctions.

"We have a national inter-est in trying to put the nuclear problem back in the box that it was in the JCPOA," Blinken said.

- Stalling as strategy? -France -- which like Britain,

Germany, Russia and China had stayed in the 2015 accord

despite pressure from Trump -- also ramped up pressure on Iran to move ahead.

"We expect the Iranian authorities to take the final deci-sions -- no doubt difficult ones -- which will allow the negotia-tions to be concluded," Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said at the joint news confer-ence with Blinken.

Talks have stalled in part over Iran's insistence on the lift-ing of all sanctions, pointing to the promises of economic relief under the accord.

The Biden administration says it is ready to lift economic measures related to nuclear work as laid out by the JCPOA --

but that it will keep other sanc-tions, including over human rights and Iran's support to mil-itant movements in the Arab world.

Some experts believe that Iran had been waiting for the election of Raisi, whose hard-line approach is backed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the ultimate arbiter of the Islamic republic's foreign policy.

Analysts have said Iran could strike a deal before Raisi takes office in August -- let-ting him take the credit for the expected economic boost but blame outgoing president Has-san Rouhani, a moderate who

championed a better relation-ship with the West, if the situ-ation deteriorates.

Blinken, who was raised in Paris, saluted the alliance with France and sprinkled his remarks with fluent French, in a sharp change of tone after the sometimes abrasive "America First" approach of the Trump administration.

"My dear Tony, I'm really very happy to welcome you to Paris," Le Drian said as he wel-comed Blinken in an ornate room of the Quai d'Orsay, the French foreign ministry.

"It's expected that you would visit Paris because you're at home here. I would even be tempted to say, welcome home!"

Blinken is on a European tour that also took him to Germany and will continue in Italy, just after Biden visited the continent.

The administration is look-ing to solidify relations with Europeans in the face of growing challenges from a rising China and an assertive Russia.

On hotspots of strategic importance to the French, Blinken also promised soli-darity on tackling extremism in the Sahel and a united front on troubled Lebanon.

"We have decided to act together to put pressure on those responsible. We know who they are," Le Drian said of Lebanon which is engulfed in twin economic and political crises. AGENCIES

Blinken warned that US still had ‘serious differences’ with Iran, which has kept negotiating since last week's presidential election won by Raisi

US to keep about 650 troops in Afghanistan after withdrawal

WASHINGTON DC: Roughly 650 US troops are expected to remain in Afghanistan to pro-vide security for diplomats after the main American military force completes its withdrawal, which is set to be largely done in the next two weeks, US offi-cials have said.

In addition, several hun-dred additional American forces will remain at the Kabul airport, potentially until Sep-tember, to assist Turkish troops providing security, as a tempo-rary move until a more formal Turkey-led security operation is in place, the officials said.

Overall, officials said the US expects to have American and coalition military command, its leadership and most troops out by July Fourth, or shortly after that, meeting an aspira-tional deadline that command-ers developed months ago.

The officials were not authorised to discuss details of the withdrawal and spoke to the AP on condition of ano-nymity on Thursday.

The departure of the bulk of the more than 4,000 troops that have been in the country in recent months is unfold-ing well before President Joe Biden's Sept. 11 deadline for withdrawal.

And it comes amid acceler-ating Taliban battlefield gains, fueling fears that the Afghan government and its military could collapse in a matter of months.

Officials have repeatedly stressed that security at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul is a critical requirement to keeping any U.S. diplomatic staff in Afghan-istan. Still, the decision to keep additional troops there for several more months makes it

more complicated for the Biden administration to declare a true end to America's longest war until later this fall.

And it keeps the embat-tled country near the fore-front of U.S. national security challenges, even as the White House tries to put the 20-year-old war behind it and focus more on threats from China and Russia.

On Friday, Afghan Presi-dent Ashraf Ghani and Abdul-lah Abdullah, chair of the High Council for National Reconcili-ation, are meeting with Biden at the White House.

The two Afghan leaders also are to meet at the Penta-gon with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and possibly other administration officials, the Pentagon announced.

Getting most troops out by early July had been in doubt because of complica-tions including an outbreak of COVID-19 at the U.S. Embassy and the push to get Afghan interpreters and oth-ers who helped the U.S. out of the country.

Officials said U.S. com-manders and NATO allies in Afghanistan have been able to overcome logistical hurdles that might have prolonged the withdrawal process.

But they also warned that plans in place for the final stages of the U.S. military withdrawal could change if airport secu-rity agreements fall through or there are other major, unfore-seen developments.

As recently as last week, there was discussion of pos-sibly extending the U.S. troop presence at Bagram Airfield, north of Kabul, but officials said the U.S. presence at the base is expected to end in the next several days. AGENCIES

UN: 275 mn people used drugs worldwide in 2020BERLIN: Around 275 million people used drugs worldwide last year, while over 36 mil-lion people suffered from drug use disorders, according to the World Drug Report released Thursday by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in Vienna.

The report also said many countries saw a rise in the use of cannabis during the Coro-navirus pandemic. In surveys of health professionals across 77 countries, 42 per cent said cannabis use had increased. A rise in the non-medical use of pharmaceutical drugs was also observed in the same period.

The report further noted that in the last 24 years, can-nabis potency had increased as much as four times in some parts, even as the percentage of adolescents who perceived the drug as harmful fell by as much as 40 per cent. This devel-opment came despite evidence that cannabis use is associated with a variety of health and other harms, especially among regular long-term users.

"Lower perception of drug use risks has been linked to higher rates of drug use, and the findings of UNODC's 2021 World Drug Report high-

light the need to close the gap between perception and real-ity to educate young people and safeguard public health, UNODC Executive Director Ghada Waly said.

According to the latest global estimates, about 5.5 per cent of those between 15 and 64 have used drugs at least once in the past year, while 36.3 mil-lion people, or 13 per cent of the total number of people who use drugs, suffer from drug use dis-orders, the report said.

Globally, over 11 million people are estimated to inject drugs, half of whom are living with Hepatitis C. Opioids con-tinue to account for the largest burden of disease attributed to drug use, according to the report. The report said that by drugs it referred to substances controlled under international drug control conventions, and their non-medical use. AGENCIES

China launches first fully electrified bullet train in Tibet

BEIJING: China on Friday operationalised its first fully electrified bullet train in the remote Himalayan region of Tibet, connecting the provin-cial capital Lhasa and Nyingchi, a strategically located Tibetan border town close to Arunachal Pradesh.

The 435.5-km Lhasa-Nyingchi section of the Sich-uan-Tibet Railway has been inaugurated ahead of the cen-tenary celebrations of the rul-ing Communist Party of China (CPC) on July 1.

The first electrified railway in Tibet Autonomous Region opened Friday morning, link-ing Lhasa with Nyingchi as "Fuxing" bullet trains enter offi-cial operation on the plateau region, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

It has a designed speed of 160 km per hour and operates on a single-line electrified rail-way. It stops at nine stations, including Lhasa, Shannan and Nyingchi and can handle pas-senger and freight transporta-

tion, the report said.Compared to roads, the

Lhasa-Nyingchi railway reduces the travel time from Lhasa to Nyingchi from 5 hours to approximately 3.5 hours, and cuts the travel time from Shan-nan to Nyingchi from 6 hours to approximately 2 hours, it said. The rail line passes through 47 tunnels and 121 bridges and crosses the Brah-maputra river locally called Yarlung Zangbo 16 times.

Tunnels and bridges account for approximately 75

per cent of the total length of the railway track.

Also, it has an annual freight transport capacity of 10 million tonnes which provides strong support for the flow of goods, will promote economic development and improve peo-ple's lives, the report said.

The Sichuan-Tibet Railway will be the second railway into Tibet after the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. It will go through the southeast of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, one of the world's most geologically active areas. AGENCIES

Covid: Russia mandates

vaccinations for some

MOSCOW: They tried gro-cery giveaways and lotteries for new cars and apartments. But an ambitious plan of vac-cinating 30 million Russians by mid-June still has fallen short by a third.

So now, many regional governments across the vast country are obligating some workers to get vaccinated and requiring the shots to enter certain businesses, like restaurants.

As many Western coun-tries lift Coronavirus restric-tions and plan a return to normal life after mass vac-cinations, Russia is bat-tling a surge of infections even though it was the first in the world to authorise a vaccine and among the first to start administering it in December. AGENCIES

‘S’pore bound container ship catches fire in Indian Ocean’

COLOMBO: A fire broke out on a container ship sailing toward Singapore in the Indian Ocean, the Sri Lankan Navy said on Friday, a week after a cargo ship carrying tonnes of chemicals sank near the coun-try’s main port here nearly a month after catching fire.

Navy spokesperson Indika de Silva said the Liberian-flagged MSC Messina ship had left the port of Colombo on June 22 heading for Singa-pore and it caught fire outside the island’s international mari-time borders.

He said the Navy was alerted to the ship’s fire early hours of Friday and since the

ship is still within Sri Lanka’s search and rescue limits they were obliged to respond.

The fire was reported from the engine compartment of the vessel, which is currently located some 483 nautical miles away from Kirinda, the south-ern most tip of the island, the Navy spokesman said.

A merchant vessel in the proximity had been alerted to provide assistance and at this point it was unlikely that Sri Lanka Navy would be called upon to launch any rescue mis-sions, the spokesperson said.

This is the second cargo carrier to catch fire around the Sri Lankan waters. The fire on

board the Singapore-flagged ‘X-Press Pearl’ near to the port of Colombo in May caused the country’s worst marine ecolog-ical disaster. The cargo carrier was carrying 1,486 containers of chemicals when it caught fire. The Sri Lankan Navy, Air-force and the Indian Coast Guard jointly doused the fire in an operation that took sev-eral days. But the cargo sank off the country’s coast on June 17.

More than 60 dead Sea Tur-tles and other sea creatures, including Dolphins, suspected to have died in the aftermath of the ship disaster, have washed ashore along various beaches of the island. AGENCIES

Death toll in Florida collapse rises to 4; 159 still missing

SURFSIDE (US): About 160 people were still unaccounted for Friday a day after an oceans-ide condominium building col-lapsed into a pile of rubble, and searchers combing through a twisted, shifting pile of concrete and metal feared the death toll of at least four could go much higher. With scores of fire-fighters working overnight to reach any possible survivors both from under and atop the remains of the building, hopes rested on how quickly crews using dogs and microphones to sift through the wreckage could complete their grim, yet delicate task.

Every time we hear a sound, we concentrate on those areas, said Assistant Miami-Dade Fire Chief Raide Jadallah. Three more bodies were removed overnight, and Miami-Dade Police Director Freddy Ramirez said authorities were working with the medical examiner's office to identify the victims. Eleven injuries were reported,

with four people treated at hospitals.

Miami-Dade Mayor Dan-iella Levine Cava said rescu-ers were at extreme risk going through the rubble. "Debris is falling on them as they do their work. We have structural engi-neers on site to ensure that they will not be injured, but they are proceeding because they are so motivated and they are tak-ing extraordinary risk on the site every day, she said. With

searchers using saws and jack-hammers to look for pockets large enough to hold a person, Levine Cava said there was still hope of finding people alive. The missing at what was left of the 12-storey Champlain Tow-ers South included people from around the world: A beloved retired Miami-area teacher and his wife. Orthodox Jews from Russia. Israelis. The sister of Par-aguay's first lady. Others from South America. AGENCIES

The missing at what was left of the 12-storey Champlain Towers South included people from around the world

Rescue workers remove a body from rubble where a wing of a 12-story beachfront condo building collapsed, in Surfside area of Miami PTI

President Joe Biden PTI

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, greets Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Mathias Cormann, of Australia, at OECD headquarters, Paris, Friday PTI

Fire kills 18, mostly children, at martial arts school in China

BEIJING: At least 18 people, mostly children, were killed and 16 others injured when a deadly fire ripped through a boarding martial arts school in China's Henan province in the early hours of Friday.

The children, aged between seven and 16, were asleep on the first floor when the blaze broke out at the Zhenxing Mar-tial Arts Centre. A total of 34 students were enrolled at the boarding school in Shuangqiu city's Zhecheng county.

Four people were severely injured and 12 sustained minor wounds in the fire, the Hong Kong-based South China Morn-ing Post newspaper quoted local official media reports as saying.

An eyewitness said he heard the children screaming for help.

All the children screamed and we tried to help by pouring water on the fire, but it didn't stop. It eventually got so fierce there was simply no way for adults to get close, the eyewit-

ness said. All doctors at the local hospital were mobilised to treat the victims.

The owner of the school, Chen Lin, has been taken away by officials for investigation.

According to the emergency management ministry in Bei-jing, 18 of the 34 people at the school were killed in the fire.

The fire at the school was the latest in a series of incidents resulting in high numbers of casualties which prompted the central government to order nationwide safety inspections.

On June 13, twelve people were killed 150 injured in a gas explosion in Hubei Prov-ince. Eight suspects have been detained in connection with the gas explosion.

President Xi Jinping ordered cadres across the country to remain politically vigilant to prevent major safety hazards as the ruling Communist Party was poised to celebrate its cen-tenary on July 1. AGENCIES

In surveys of health professionals across 77 countries, 42 per cent said cannabis use had increased

The departure of the bulk of the more than 4,000 troops that have been in the country in recent months is unfolding well before Biden's September 11 deadline for withdrawal

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGALWEST BENGAL HOUSING INFRASTRUCTURE

N. I. Q No.04 of A.G.M (Tourism) of 2021-2022 Sealed Tenderis invited for Supply of Poultry & Eggs to Café Ekante res-taurant at Eco Island, Biswa Bangla Gate, Business Club, Coffee House, in New Town, Kolkata having experienced in similar nature of supply items. Last date of receiving application-13.07.2021upto 5.00 P.M. All other infor-mation and details may be obtained from the office of the A.G.M (Tourism), WB HIDCO at Eco Island, Eco Park, New Town, Kolkata-700157. Detailed may be seen in our website at www.wbhidcoltd.com.

-Sd- A.G.M (Toursim)WB HIDCO

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGALNOTICE INVITING RE E-TENDER

NIT No.:- HST/COVID/RT-FDI(129)/2021/133; Dated 24-06-2021 Re E tender for procurement of Few Drug Items as per Table-A for one time procurement centrally from CMS is hereby invited from the Manufac-turers / Direct Importers/ Authorised Distributors. Interested bidders may visit the website “https://wbtenders.gov.in” or “www.wbhealth.gov.in” for further details. ; bid submission start date (online) : 24-06-2021; bid submission closing date (online): 02-07-2021; bid opening date (online) : 02-07-2021

-Sd- ICA- T7377(3)/2021 D.D.H.S. (E&S), WB

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGALWEST BENGAL HOUSING INFRASTRUCTURE

NOTICE INVITING TENDERe-N.I.T No.40 (3rd Call) of G.M. (Elect) of 2020-21

Sealed Two Part tenders on Quoted Rate basis are invited for the work of “Electrical work for proposed Health Care Centre, New Town, Kolkata under WBHIDCO” from the agen-cies having ability in execution for similar nature of work. Last date of receiving application 06-07-2021 upto 02.00 P.M. Detailed may be seen in our website at www.wbhidcoltd.com

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGALWEST BENGAL HOUSING INFRASTRUCTURE

e-N.I.T No.58 (3rd Call) of G.M. (Elect) of 2020-21 Sealed Two Part tenders on Percentage basis are invited for the work of “AMC for Day to day Operation & Maintenance of internal & external electrical installation including, 3 no’s Mitsubi-shi make Elevator, operation of pump ,2x320 KVA D.G set etc. at Finance Centre. (For 12 months.) under WBHIDCO” from the agencies having ability in execution for similar nature of work. Last date of receiving application 02-07-2021 upto 06.00 P.M. Detailed may be seen in our website at www.wbhidcoltd.com

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGALWEST BENGAL HOUSING INFRASTRUCTURE

Memo No : 1495/HIDCO/Admn-3885/2021 Dt : 23/06/21NOTICE

OFFERS FROM ELIGIBLE CONSULTANTS ARE INVITED THROUGH E-TEN-DER PORTAL FOR ENGAGEMENT TO IMPLEMENT LITIGATION MANAGE-MENT SYSTEM ON A MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTION BASIS. E-TENDER ID : 2021_HIDCO_334139. Last date of online submission of technical and financial documents: 16/07/2021 upto 18.00 hrs. For details, please visit official website of WBHIDCO Ltd.: www.wbhidcoltd.com & https://wbtenders.gov.in .

General Manager (Law)

ICA- T7313(3)/2021

ICA- T7316(3)/2021

KMDA TENDER NOTICE e-NIT No. KMDA/HOUSING/EE/

DIV-V/Circle II/NIT-36/2021-2022 Online e-Tender is invited by The Executive Engineer, DIV-V, Circle II, Housing Sector, KMDA (Erstwhile KIT), Unnayan Bhavan, DJ-11, Sector-II, 1st Floor, Block-A, Salt Lake, Kolkata-700091, from reliable, resourceful, bonafide and experienced firms / companies / individual / partnership firm contractors for the work, Name of Work, Estimated Amount, Earnest Money, Time of Completion, Repairing and laying sewerage line with new path way backside of Blocks at 229B, CIT Road, Scheme No.VII-M, Natunpally, Kolkata-700054, Ward No.-32 under Housing Sector, KMDA., Rs.10,38,032/- (Inclusive of 12% GST & 1% LWC), Rs.20,770/-, 02 months, Last date & time of Online Bid submission: 20.07.2021 upto 12:00 hrs., For details contact the above office or visit KMDA website. (KMDA-143) www.kmdaonline.org www.wbtenders.gov.in

ICA- T7323(3)/2021

KMDA TENDER NOTICE e-NIT No: 03/EE/MD-V/EM/KMDA

of 2020-21 Online e-Tender is invited by the Executive Engineer, MD-V, E-M Sector, KMDA, Unnayan Bhavan, Block-L, 1st Floor, Sector-II, Salt Lake City, Kolkata-700091, from reliable, resourceful, bonafide, licensed electrical Contractors for the work, Name of Work, Estimated Cost, Earnest Money Deposit, Time of Completion, Operation, guarding, cleaning including daily / periodic Maintenance etc. of the Clear water Pumping equipments and articles etc. of Clear Water Pumping Station at 26MLD Capacity WTP under Bhadreswar Municipal Area., Rs.47,45,564/-, Rs.94,911/-, 36 months, Last date & time of online Tender submission: 20.07.2021 upto 14:00 hrs., For details contact the above office or visit KMDA website. www.kmdaonline.org (KMDA-150) www.wbtenders.gov.in

ICA- T7328(2)/2021

Online percentage rate E-Tender in two parts is invited by the S.E. & Regional Manager, Birbhum Regional O�ce, WBSEDCL, Suri, Birbhum for “Construction of RCC Cable trench, operational slabs, construction of pathway, surrounding development and other allied civil works at Labpur 33/11 KV Sub-Station under Bolpur Division in the district of Birbhum”. Estimated Cost: Rs. 39,55,233/-. Completion Time: 02 (Two) months from the date of handing over of site. Tender documents Download Start Date (online) and Bid Submission Start Date (online): 22.06.2021 at 10:00 hrs. Bid Submission End Date (online): 07.07.2021 up to 14:00 hrs. For further details please visit www.wbtenders.gov.in and www.wbsedcl.in

NIT No: RM/BRO/Civil/e-NIT/2021-22/01 Date: 18.06.2021

ICA- T7333(3)/2021

ICA- T7337(4)/2021

ICA- T7342(3)/2021

ICA- T7347(3)/2021

ICA- T7361(3)/2021ICA- T7364(3)/2021

ICA- T7370(4)/2021

ICA- T7373(3)/2021

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGAL WRI & DD e-NIT

Executive Engineer (A-I), Purulia (A-I) Division, WRDD invites e-tender for 2 Nos. Repairing & Maintenance work of Building vide eNIT No. 01/2021-22, Tender ID- 2021_WRDD_334122_1 & 2021_WRDD_334122_2. Last date of bid submission is 26.07.2021, 17.00 Hours. Intending bidders are requested to visit the website http//wbtenders.gov.in from 30.06.2021 onwards for further details

Sd/-Executive Engineer (A-I),

Purulia (A-I) DivisionICA- T7380(3)/2021

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGALOn behalf of the Governor of West Bengal, 2nd call e-Tender is invited by the Mission Director, National Health Mission, West Ben-gal, GN-29, 4th Floor, Swasthya Sathi Building, Swasthya Bhawan Premises, Sector – V Salt-Lake, Bidhannagar, Kolkata – 700091 for SELECTION OF PATIENT PROVIDER SUPPORT AGENCY FOR TB CARE IN PRIVATE SECTOR IN THE STATE OF WEST BENGAL from eligible supplier having experience in similar nature of works. Technical & Financial Bid Submission Closing Date:- 19. 07. 2021 upto 09:00 A.M. Bid Reference No.: HFW-27035/26/2019-NHM/1794/2021 , Dated:- 24. 06. 2021Interested Bidders may download the tender document and sub-mit their bids online at the website www.wbtenders.gov.in. The ten-der document may also be downloaded from the website www.wbhealth.gov.in. ICA- T7382(3)/2021

9millenniumpost Business mpKOLKATA | SATURDAY, 26 JUNE, 2021

NEW DELHI: The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on Friday published the written order approv-ing Jalan Kalrock Consor-tium’s resolution plan for grounded Jet Airways, and the approval is subject to certain directions.

A separate order regarding the directions would be issued later by the tribunal.

On June 22, the tribunal, through an oral order, cleared the consortium’s plan for the bankrupt-Jet Airways under the insolvency law.

In a filing to stock exchanges on Friday, Jet Air-ways’ Resolution Professional Ashish Chhawchharia said the tribunal has published the “written order (dated June 22, 2021)” approving the resolu-tion plan.

The matter was taken up through video confer-encing by the tribunal on June 22.

“Counsel for the Appli-cant, Successful Resolution Applicant and CoC (Commit-tee of Creditors) are present.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Power Minis-ter R K Singh has said that as much as $70 billion (about Rs 5.2 lakh crore) has been invested in renewable energy across the country in the past seven years.

This assumes significance in view of India’s ambitious target of having 175 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy by 2022.

Singh was addressing at an event on ‘Accelerating Citi-zen Centric Energy Transition’ yesterday evening, organised by The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE). It was conducted in collaboration with the Permanent Mission of India (PMI) to the United Nations and the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW).

The virtual event was organ-ised on the sidelines of the Min-isterial Thematic Forums week (June 21-25) for the UN High Level Dialogue on Energy to be convened on September 20 this year.

India has been designated a Global Champion for Energy Transition, one of the five themes at the dialogue.

Singh said, “During the past seven years, over $70 billion investment has been made in renewable energy in India. India has a liberal foreign investment

policy for renewables allowing 100 per cent FDI through the automatic route in sector.”

He added that ensuring ‘ease of doing business’ is the govern-ment’s utmost priority. “Our continuous focus is on main-taining sanctity of contracts and safeguarding investments.”

The minister also talked about the establishment of dedi-cated project development cells (PDC) and foreign direct invest-ment (FDI) cells in all ministries for handholding and facilitating domestic and foreign investors.

Adequate measures and safe-guards have also been under-taken to address the concerns of businesses and investors aris-ing out of the COVID-19 pan-demic, Singh added.

He launched a booklet on ‘The India Story’, a compila-tion of Indian initiatives that are shaping India’s energy transition.

The minister said ‘The India Story’ booklet captures the essence of some of the flagship initiatives that have accelerated energy transition.

“These will continue to power our ambitious renew-able energy programmes, with the end goal of ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustain-able and modern energy for all, while always keeping the citizen at the center of this transition,” he added.

He also launched a website (www.energytransition.in), which will act as a repository of

energy transition related knowl-edge resources from around the world.

Singh further said a Renew-able Energy Investment Pro-motion and Facilitation Board (REIPFB) portal has also been developed to provide a one-stop assistance and facilitation to the industry and investors for devel-opment of projects and bringing new investment to the renew-able energy sector in India.

He lauded the commitment shown by the Indian industry to India’s energy transition plans.

Several members from the industry have voluntarily declared RE goals and com-mitted to the carbon disclo-sure project (CDP), renewable 100 per cent and science-based targets (SBTs). Many of them are also preparing substantive energy compacts for the Sep-tember Dialogue.

He was pleased to inform that JK Cement, UltraTech, Toy-ota and NTPC have already sub-mitted their energy compacts.

While talking about the ini-tiatives that will pave the way for future of energy transition in India, Singh said rules are being framed for ‘green tariff ’ policy.

The policy will help elec-tricity distribution companies (discoms) supply electricity generated from clean energy projects at a cheaper rate as

compared to power from con-ventional fuel sources.

In addition to that, the gov-ernment is promoting Green Hydrogen with obligations for Fertilisers and Refining indus-tries (Green Hydrogen Purchase obligations).

The minister also mentioned about the recent initiatives in the renewable energy sector such as viability gap fund-ing options for offshore wind energy, launching of green term ahead market and green day ahead market. Rules for facili-tating RE through open access and RE procurement through exchanges will also be notified to promote non-conventional resources of energy.

Singh said that in the past six years, India’s installed renewable energy capacity has increased by over two-and-a-half times and stands at more than 141 giga-watts (including large hydro), which is about 37 per cent of the country’s total capacity (as on June 16, 2021).

During the same period, the installed solar energy capac-ity has increased over 15 times and stands at 41.09 GW. India’s renewable energy capacity is the fourth largest in the world.

India’s annual renewable energy addition has been exceeding that of coal-based thermal power since 2017.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Indraprastha Gas Ltd, India’s largest CNG distribution company, on Fri-day reported 31 per cent rise in January-March net profit on the back of an increase in sales volume.

Net profit of Rs 332.08 crore, or Rs 4.73 per share, in the fourth quarter of 2020-21 fiscal year is compared with Rs 252.63 crore, or Rs 3.62 a share, net profit a year back, the company said in a statement.

Turnover rose marginally to Rs 1,700.52 crore from Rs 1,697 crore in January-March 2020.

“Overall sales volume was 614 million standard cubic meters in Q4 of 2020-21 as compared to 567 mmscm in Q4 of 2019-20 showing a growth of 8 per cent. While CNG reg-istered sales volume growth of 7 per cent, piped natural gas (PNG) showed overall sales volume growth of 11 per cent during the quarter,” it said.

In the full 2020-21 fiscal year, net profit slipped 11 per cent to Rs 1,005 crore as vol-umes were “heavily impacted by the nationwide lockdowns leading to highly restricted mobility on the roads.”

The average daily gas sale during the fiscal was 5.33 mil-lion standard cubic meters per day as compared to 6.44 mmscmd in 2019-20 due to the pandemic restrictions during a major part of the year.

The board of IGL has rec-ommended a dividend of 180 per cent for consideration of the members in the Annual Gen-eral Meeting. IGL operates city gas distribution (CGD) net-works across 27 districts in 10 geographical areas across four states of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan.

After consolidating the financial results of two asso-ciate companies, CUGL and MNGL, the consolidated net profit of the company was Rs 1,172 crore against a profit of Rs 1,248 crore in the previous year.

IGL meets fuel require-ments of over 12 lakh vehi-cles running on CNG in the national capital region (NCR) through a network of 612 CNG stations. IGL supplies piped natural gas for cooking pur-poses to nearly 17 lakh house-holds in these cities.

‘India’s Renewable energy got $70 bn investment in 7 years’While talking about the initiatives for the future of energy transition in

India, Power Minister said rules are being framed for ‘green tariff’ policy

Power Minister R K Singh

IGL net profit up 31% in Q4

MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank on Friday prescribed educa-tional qualifications and ‘fit and proper’ criteria for man-aging directors (MDs) and whole-time directors (WTDs) of primary urban cooperative banks (UCBs) and barred MPs and MLAs from these posts.

Issuing the guidelines for appointment of MDs and WTDs, the RBI said MPs, MLAs and representatives of municipal corporations will not be eligible to hold such positions in the primary UCBs.

It further said the MD/WTD should be a post grad-uate or have qualifications in finance discipline. He or she could be either chartered/cost accountant, MBA (finance) or have a diploma in bank-ing or cooperative business management.

The person should not be below 35 years of age or more than 70 years, it added.

“The person shall have a combined experience of at least eight years at the middle/senior management level in the banking sector (including the experience gained in the con-cerned UCB) or non-banking finance companies engaged in lending (loan companies) and asset financing,” the notifica-tion said.

Besides MPs, MLAs and representatives of munic-ipal corporations and local bodies, persons engaged in business, trade or having sub-stantial interest in any com-pany too will not be eligible for appointment to such posi-tions. Regarding the tenure of appointment, it said the person can be appointed for a maxi-mum of five years and will be eligible for re-appointment.

However, it said the MD or WTD will not hold the post for more than 15 years. After that, the person, if necessary, may be re-appointed after a three-year cooling period. PTI

RBI prescribes qualifications

for MDs, WTDs of UCBs

NCLT issues written order approving resolution plan for Jet Airways

Mr Ashish Mehta, Counsel for DGCA and MoCA is also present. Order pronounced. IA No. 2081 of 2020 is allowed subject to certain directions, vide separate order,” NCLT said in the order.

The applicant was State Bank of India, while the suc-cessful resolution application is Jalan Kalrock Consortium. DGCA is the Directorate Gen-eral of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and MoCA is the Ministry of Civil Aviation.

“All stakeholders are requested to note that the written order mentions that IA No. 2081 of 2020 (i.e. the inter-locutory application relating to the approval of the resolu-

tion plan) is allowed subject to certain directions which will be issued vide a separate order,” the filing said.

A separate order con-taining such directions has not been made available yet, it added. PTI

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The govern-ment’s total liabilities stood at Rs 116.21 lakh crore at the end of March 2021, up 6.36 per cent from the previous quar-ter, according to official data released on Friday.

The total liabilities (includ-ing liabilities under the ‘Public Account’) of the government were Rs 109.26 lakh crore at end-December 2020. “This rep-resented a quarter-on-quar-ter increase of 6.36 per cent in Q4, FY21,” said the Public Debt Management report for Q4 FY2020-21, released by the finance ministry.

Public debt accounted for 88.10 per cent of total outstand-ing liabilities at end-March 2021.

Nearly 29.33 per cent of the outstanding dated securities had a residual maturity of less than 5 years. The ownership pattern shows the share of commercial banks at 37.8 per cent and 25.3 per cent for insurance compa-nies. “The yields on Government securities hardened in the sec-ondary market due to increase in supply of G-secs during the quarter.

“Further, hardening of yields was more on the short end of curve due to increase in weekly borrowing and also announce-ment of resumption of normal liquidity operations by the Reserve Bank,” the report said.

However, the yields were supported by decision of the RBI’s Monetary Policy Commit-tee meeting held on February 5, 2021, wherein it kept the policy repo rate unchanged at 4 per cent and reiterated to continue with the accommodative stance.

During January-March quarter of 2020-21, the central government issued dated secu-

rities worth Rs 3,20,349 crore as against Rs 76,000 crore in the year-ago period, while repay-ments were at Rs 29,145 crore. The RBI conducted nine spe-cial and normal open market operations involving simultane-ous purchase and sale of G-Secs during the quarter.

The Reserve Bank conducted nine special and normal open market operations (OMOs) involving simultaneous pur-chase and sale of government securities during the quarter.

As per the ownership pattern of securities, the share of com-mercial banks stood at 37.77 per cent, slightly lower than 37.8 per cent at end-Decem-ber 2020. Share of insurance companies and provident funds at end-March 2021 stood at 25.3 per cent and 4.44 per cent, respectively.

Share of mutual funds increased from 2.6 per cent at end-December 2020 to 2.94 per cent at end-March 2021. Share of RBI went up to 16.2 per cent from 15.7 per cent at end-December 2020.

Govt’s liabilities rise to `116.21L cr in Q4 FY2020-21

Public debt accounted for 88.10 per cent of total outstanding liabilities at end-March 2021

FAKE REVIEWS OF GOODS

10 millenniumpostBusinessmp SATURDAY, 26 JUNE, 2021 | KOLKATA

LONDON: UK regulators said on Friday that they’re inves-tigating Google and Ama-zon over concerns the online giants aren’t doing enough to stop fake reviews of products and services on their platforms.

The Competition and Mar-kets Authority said it opened a formal investigation into whether the two companies broke U.K. consumer law by failing to protect shoppers. The watchdog started looking into phony reviews on some big websites last year - without identifying any specific ones - amid the pandemic-fueled boom in online shopping.

Our worry is that millions of online shoppers could be misled by reading fake reviews and then spending their money based on those recommenda-tions, the watchdog’s chief executive Andrea Coscelli said in a press statement.

Equally, it’s simply not fair if some businesses can fake 5-star reviews to give their products or services the most promi-nence, while law-abiding busi-nesses lose out.

The CMA said its inves-tigation has yet to determine whether either company broke consumer protection law. If it does, the watchdog could require that they change how they deal with fake reviews or be taken court.

Google and Amazon said they will work with U.K. regu-lators on the investigation.

To help earn the trust of

customers, we devote signifi-cant resources to preventing fake or incentivised reviews from appearing in our store,” Amazon said in statement. The company said it works hard to ensure reviews “accurately reflect the experience that cus-tomers have had with a prod-uct” and noted that it blocked 200 million fake reviews before they were ever seen by shoppers.

Google said its strict poli-cies clearly state reviews must be based on real experiences, and when we find policy vio-lations, we take action - from removing abusive content to disabling user accounts.”

The CMA said its ini-tial probe that began last year raised specific concerns about whether the two com-panies had been doing enough to detect fake and misleading reviews and removing them

quickly from their sites.It’s concerned in particular

about suspicious patterns of behaviour involving reviews, for example when the same users review the same unre-lated products or businesses at around the same time.

Another red flag is when a positive review suggests the reviewer was paid or received an incentive to write it, the CMA said.

Another concern is whether Google and Amazon are doing enough to hand out adequate penalties to reviewers or busi-nesses caught posting false or misleading reviews, as a way to deter frequent offenders.

The watchdog is also look-ing specifically into whether Amazon’s systems are failing to stop some sellers from manip-ulating product listings by co-opting positive reviews from other products. AGENCIES

MUMBAI: The country’s largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) has adjusted to the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic and is well poised to deal with any further pandemic-induced disruptions, its Chair-man Dinesh Kumar Khara said.

He said the bank is comfort-ably placed in terms of growth capital and it will explore oppor-tunities for lending in promising sectors to diversify the portfolio and to contain the risks.

“The bank has adjusted to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and is better positioned to tackle any subsequent wave,” Khara said

while addressing the bank’s shareholders at the 66th annual general meeting held virtually.

“I am cautiously optimistic that the performance trajectory for the FY2021 will continue in FY2022 as well,” he said.

During the financial year ended March 31, 2021, the bank reported the highest-ever standalone net profit of Rs 20,410 crore against a net profit of Rs 14,488 crore in the previous year. The gross NPAs ratio declined to 4.98 per cent in FY21 from 6.15 per cent in the last year. The PCR (provisioning coverage ratio) also improved to 87.75 per cent.

Khara said the business con-tinuity plans that were chalked out have worked well for the bank, and it was reflected in various parameters of the con-solidated financial statements as of March 2021.

He said the current financial

year 2021-22 has begun with an unexpected second wave of COVID-19 infections.

Although the containment strategy this time included avoiding complete lockdown and managing the situation through micro-containment zones, the impact on the econ-omy will nevertheless, be felt, he said. In the current finan-cial year, Khara said the bank will continue to accelerate its digital agenda. The scope and the reach of YONO will be expanded further.

“With the roll-out of pre-packaged insolvency for reso-lution, resumption of courts

and formation of the National Asset Reconstruction Company (NARCL), efforts will be in full force to keep the momentum in stressed asset recovery in the current financial year,” Khara informed the shareholders.

He said the bank is commit-ted to creating an environment of increased risk awareness at all levels. It also aims at constantly upgrading controls and security measures, including cybersecu-rity measures, to ensure the mit-igation of various risks.

Khara said the lender has been tracking the credit port-folio very closely during the current pandemic. PTI

MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank on Friday extended the regu-latory restrictions on Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank by another six months till December 2021 to enable the completion of its takeover by Centrum Financial Services.

Paving the way for takeover of the crisis-ridden bank, the RBI had earlier in the month granted in-principle approval to Centrum Financial Services

to set up a small finance bank (SFB).

“Taking into account the time required for completion of various activities involved in the process...the validity of the ...Directive dated Septem-ber 23, 2019, as modified from time to time, has been extended for a further period from July 1, 2021 to December 31, 2021, subject to review,” the RBI said in a notification.

In September 2019, the RBI

had superseded the board of PMC Bank and placed it under regulatory restrictions, includ-ing cap on withdrawals by cus-tomers, after detection of certain financial irregularities, hid-

ing and misreporting of loans given to real estate developer HDIL. The restrictions have been extended several times since then.

Initially, the RBI had allowed depositors to withdraw Rs 1,000, which was later raised to Rs 1 lakh per account to mitigate their difficulties.

In June 2020, the RBI had extended the regulatory restric-tions on the cooperative bank by six months till December

22, 2020. Later it was further extended

till June 30, 2021.In response to an Expression

of Interest (EOI) floated by PMC Bank for its reconstruction in November 2020, certain pro-posals were received.

After careful consideration, the RBI said, the proposal from Centrum Financial Services along with Resilient Innova-tion was found to be prima facie feasible. PTI

OUR CORRESPONDENT

MUMBAI: The BSE Sensex overcame a choppy start to finish at a fresh lifetime high on Friday, propelled by bank and metal stocks amid a bull-ish trend in overseas markets.

Global equities marched higher after US senators agreed on a bipartisan infrastructure deal, with investors wagering on more stimulus measures in the coming months.

Extending gains for the second session, the 30-share BSE benchmark closed 226.04 points or 0.43 per cent higher at record 52,925.04. Similarly, the broader NSE Nifty advanced 69.90 points or 0.44 per cent to 15,860.35, less than 10 points shy of its all-time closing peak.

Tata Steel was the top per-former in the Sensex pack, ral-lying 4.65 per cent, followed by Axis Bank, SBI, ICICI Bank, Maruti, Bajaj Finserv and L&T.

Index heavyweight Reliance Industries was the biggest loser for the second straight day, tum-bling 2.28 per cent.

NTPC, HUL, Titan, Asian Paints and Bajaj Auto were among the other laggards, drop-ping up to 1.69 per cent.

During the week, the Sensex advanced 580.59 points or 1.10 per cent, while the Nifty surged 177 points or 1.12 per cent.

“Domestic equities rose in today’s session mirroring an upbeat mood in the global mar-kets after US President Joe Biden embraced Senate infrastruc-ture deal to help stimulate the economy. The overall mood in Wall Street was lifted since the US jobless claims ticked down as the economy heals.

Sector-wise, BSE metal, bankex, telecom, finance, cap-ital goods, healthcare and indus-trials indices climbed as much as 2.79 per cent, while energy, oil and gas, utilities and FMCG closed with losses.

In the broader markets, the BSE midcap and smallcap indi-ces rallied up to 1.03 per cent.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Around 10.41 lakh new members joined the ESIC-run social security scheme in April, official data showed on Friday, giving a perspective on formal sector employment in the country.

The gross enrolments with ESIC during 2020-21 dropped nearly 24 per cent to 1.15 crore amid the pandemic, com-pared to 1.51 crore in 2019-20, according to the latest data.

The latest data are part of a report released by the National Statistical Office (NSO).

The government had imposed a nationwide lock-down on March 25 last year to contain the spread of coronavi-rus infections. Later, restrictions were eased for various economic activities in phases.

The NSO report showed that gross enrolment of new sub-

scribers with the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) stood at 1.49 crore in 2018-19. From September 2017 to March 2018, around 83.35 lakh new subscribers had joined the ESIC scheme.

The report said gross new enrolments with ESIC from September 2017 to April 2021 period were 5.09 crore.

The report is based on the payroll data of new subscrib-

ers of various social security schemes run by ESIC, Employ-ees’ Provident Fund Organisa-tion (EPFO) and Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA).

It has been releasing the data of these bodies since April 2018, covering the period starting from September 2017.

According to the report, net new enrolments with retirement fund body EPFO stood at 12.76 lakh in April 2021.

It showed that from Septem-ber 2017 to April 2021, around 4.26 crore (gross) new subscrib-ers joined the Employees’ Provi-dent Fund scheme.

The report, titled ‘Payroll Reporting in India: An Employ-ment Perspective - April 2021’, said that since the number of subscribers is from various sources, there are elements of overlap and the estimates are not additive.

Sensex soars to lifetime high amid bullish trend in markets

Tata Steel was top performer in Sensex pack, rallying 4.65%, followed by Axis Bank, SBI, ICICI Bank, MSI, Bajaj Finserv & L&T

MUMBAI: The rupee saw a marginal 2 paise drop to end at 74.20 against the US dol-lar on Friday as month-end demand for the American currency from oil companies brought the domestic unit under pressure.

At the interbank foreign exchange market, the rupee opened at 74.15 per dollar as against its previous close of 74.18. It hovered in the range of 74.14 to 74.25 during the day before ending at 74.20.

On a weekly basis, the rupee has depreciated by 34 paise against the dollar.

“The Indian rupee depre-ciated for the fourth straight week against the US dollar on increased dollar demand from oil companies amid a persis-tent rise in crude oil prices,” said Sriram Iyer, Senior Research Analyst at Reliance Securities.

Meanwhile, in the overseas markets, the dollar remained flat this Friday afternoon trade in Asia as traders are now

watching out for the US core PCE data for more insights on the Fed’s monetary policy outlook, he said.

Regional currencies were mostly weaker this week and weighed on domestic unit this week, Iyer noted.

Meanwhile, the dollar index, which gauges the green-back’s strength against a basket of six currencies, fell 0.08 per cent to 91.74.

Brent crude futures, the global oil benchmark, declined 0.34 per cent to $ 75.30 per barrel. MPOST

` drops marginally to end at 74.20 against $

ndex heavyweight Reliance Industries was the biggest loser for the second straight day, tumbling 2.28%. NTPC, HUL, Titan, Asian Paints and Bajaj Auto were among the other laggards, dropping up to 1.69%

ESIC adds 10.41 lakh new members in April 2021

The gross enrolments with ESIC during 2020-21 dropped nearly 24 per cent to 1.15 crore amid the pandemic, compared to 1.51 crore in 2019-20

MUMBAI: Sliding from a life-time high, India’s forex reserves declined by $4.148 billion to reach $603.933 billion for the week ended June 18 due to a fall in gold and currency assets, RBI data showed on Friday.

The forex kitty had surged by $3.074 billion to a record high of $608.081 billion in the previous reporting week.

The foreign currency assets

(FCA), a major component of the overall reserves, declined by $1.918 billion to $561.540 billion for the reporting week, as per data by the RBI.

Expressed in dollar terms, the FCAinclude the effect of appreciation or deprecia-tion of non-US units like the euro, pound and yen held in the forex reserves. After a $490 million rise in the pre-

vious week, the gold reserves declined by $2.170 billion to $35.931 billion, the data showed.

The special drawing rights (SDRs) with the International Monetary Fund dipped by $14 million to $1.499 billion. India’s reserve position with the IMF also decreased by $46 million to $4.965 billion in the report-ing week, the data showed. PTI

Forex reserves decline $4 bn to $603.93 bn on slide in gold assets

NEW DELHI: A State Bank of India (SBI)-led consortium that lent loans to fugitive business-man Vijay Mallya on Friday received Rs 5,824.5 crore in its accounts after shares of UBL, earlier attached under the anti-money laundering law, were sold recently, the ED said.

Mallya is accused in a mul-tiple banks loan default case of about Rs 9,000 crore.

The disputes resolution tri-bunal (DRT) had sold these shares on June 23 after the Enforcement Directorate had transferred shares worth about Rs 6,624 crore of UBL to the SBI-led consortium on the directions of a special PMLA court that is hearing the case

involving Mallya in Mumbai.These shares were attached

under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) by the ED, a central probe agency.

“Today, SBI led consortium received Rs 5824.5 crore in its account from the sale of shares of United Breweries Limited.”

“The sale had taken place on 23.06.2021 as sequel to the transfer of the shares to the Recovery Officer by ED,” the central agency tweeted.

The rest of the shares worth about Rs 800 are “expected” to be sold and realised in the accounts of the SBI-led group of banks by June 25, it had ear-lier said.

About 40 per cent of the

money lost by banks in alleged frauds perpetrated by fugi-tive businessmen Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and Vijay Mallya has been recovered so far, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) said after the sale of attached shares worth over Rs 5,800 crore on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, the ED had said the banks had “recovered” Rs 1,357 crore by a similar sale of shares in the case against Mallya.

The liquor baron has lost his case against extradition to India and as he has been denied per-mission to file appeal in the UK Supreme Court, his extradition to India has become final, the ED had said. PTI

UK’s watchdog probes Amazon, GoogleNEW DELHI: The Rail Land Development Author-ity (RLDA) has called for bids for leasing out 16 land parcels across the country with the aim of generating revenue of around Rs 1,904 crore.

Prominent among these 16 sites are Boulevard Road Colony in Delhi, Ramgarh Tal Colony in Gorakhpur, Lucknow Rail-way Station Redevelopment, and plots at Gomti Nagar in Lucknow, near Moula Ali Fly-over in Secunderabad and at Salt Golah in Howrah.

These sites have been cho-sen due to their marketability and exclusive locations which make them eminently suitable for commercial and residential development, the authority said.

“These land parcels are stra-tegically located in important cities across India and hold tremendous potential for resi-dential and commercial devel-

opment. RLDA will lease out these land parcels to prospective developers who will be man-dated to develop these sites in line with local bye-laws,” RLDA vice chairman Ved Parkash Dudeja said.“These sites offer tremendous growth opportuni-ties for investors and develop-ers. Once completed, these sites will lead to economic develop-ment, employment generation and boost real estate prospects of the respective regions, he said.

The authority is targeting revenue generation of Rs 2,000 crore for the Indian Railways in 2021-22, up from Rs 352 crore the previous year.

RLDA is a statutory author-

ity under the Ministry of Rail-ways for the development of railway land. It has four key mandates as part of its develop-ment plan -- leasing of commer-cial sites, colony redevelopment, station redevelopment and multi-functional complexes.

Indian Railways has approxi-mately 43,000 hectares of vacant land across India. RLDA is cur-rently handling 84 commercial (greenfield) sites and 84 railway colony redevelopment projects across India for leasing and the eligible developers for each will be selected through an open and transparent bidding process.

RLDA is also mandated with the redevelopment of railway stations and is currently work-ing on 60 railway stations in a phased manner while its sub-sidiary, Indian Railway Stations Development Corporation has taken up another 63 railway sta-tions across country. PTI

RLDA calls for bids for leasing out 16 railway land parcels

MUMBAI: Digital healthcare company Pharmeasy on Friday announced that it will acquire 66.1 stake in diagnostic chain Thyrocare for Rs 4,546 crore.

API Holdings, the parent of the unicorn Pharmeasy, and A Velumani, Chairman and Managing Director of Thyro-care Technologies, have signed a definitive agreement for the deal. Under the transaction, the Delhi-based company will buy 66.1 per cent stake in Thy-rocare from Velumani and his affiliates at Rs 1,300 per share, according to a statement.

The transaction, which is sig-nificant because an entrenched player is getting acquired by a startup, will also see a subsidiary of API making an open offer to acquire an additional 26 per cent stake in Thyrocare. PTI

‘SBI better positioned to tackle any ensuing Covid wave’

SBI Chairman Dinesh Khara

SBI-led consortium gets `5,824.5 cr in Mallya loan default case, says ED

RBI extends regulatory restrictions on PMC Bank till Dec for completion of its takeover

Paving the way for takeover of the crisis-ridden bank, the RBI had earlier in the month granted in-principle approval to Centrum Financial Services to set up a small finance bank (SFB)

SAN SALVADOR: El Salva-dor’s President Nayib Bukele said in a national address on Thursday that a recently passed law making bitcoin legal tender will take effect on September 7.

El Salvador’s Congress on June 9 approved Buke-le’s proposal to embrace the cryptocurrency.

Athena Bitcoin plans to invest over $1 million to install cryptocurrency ATMs in El Salvador, especially where res-idents receive remittances from abroad, a company representa-tive said on Thursday.

According to Athena Bit-coin’s website you can use their ATMs to buy bitcoins or sell them for cash, Reuters reported.

The firm expects to gradu-ally install some 1,500 ATMs, hire staff and open an office to carry out operations in El Sal-

vador, which in June became the first country to adopt bit-coin as legal tender.

“El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele presented us with a tough challenge of 1,500 ATMs. We will go for that, but in phases. We are a private company and we want to ensure that our development in the country is sustainable,” said the firm’s director for Latin America Matias Goldenhörn.

Bukele has touted the cryp-tocurrency’s potential as a remittance currency for Salva-dorans overseas. AGENCIES

Cryptocurrency Bitcoin to become legal tender in El Salvador on Sept 7

Pharmeasy to acquire

Thyrocare’s 66.1% stake

11millenniumpost Sport mpKOLKATA | SATURDAY, 26 JUNE, 2021

Intra-squad games for India in Durham, says ECB

INDIA IN ENGLAND: NO SELECTORS ALLOWED

NEW DELHI: The Indian cricket team will play two intra-squad games at the Riv-erside ground in Durham before the five-match Test series against England as Virat Kohli's men are unlikely to get any warm-up first-class games against county sides.

India captain Virat Kohli had expressed his displeasure at not being given any first-class games before the England series, starting in Nottingham on August 4.

"Due to COVID-19 proto-cols, they will play two intra-squad four-day matches before the first Test in August," an ECB spokesperson told PTI on Friday.

While it is understood that BCCI had requested ECB for a few practice games, the COVID-19 situation won't allow any such plan to go ahead.

Asked if there is any chance of a game against county sides, the spokesperson said, "No".

In England, cricketers from various counties are regu-larly being tested for COVID but are not being kept in any bubble.

The Indian team, once it assembles in London on July 14 and moves to Durham, will be once again be in a bubble.

"The domestic cricketers of

England not being in a bub-ble is an issue for sure. That's why the games in Durham will be intra-squad ones," a BCCI official said on conditions of anonymity.

India are currently travel-ling with 24 players -- 20 in the official squad and four reserves -- which will allow them to play intra-squad games.

However, legends like Sunil Gavaskar have questioned the amount of preparedness that a simulated match can give the team. The touring teams, in the past, have played multi-ple first-class games against county sides.

In simulated matches, a

player can bat again if he gets out quickly unlike a proper first-class match.

Chairman of national selectors Chetan Sharma and another senior selector Sunil Joshi are not going to England for the five-Test series as strict quarantine rules have become an impediment.

It is understood that India being among the Red List countries, there are no direct flights to the United Kingdom.

Anyone travelling from India either needs to travel by a charter flight like the team or first fly to a country which is not in UK's Red List, quarantine there and then

take a connecting flight to England.

"Yes, Debu (Debasish Mohanty) and Abbey (Kuru-villa) are going to Sri Lanka where the white-ball squad will play six games. They are in quarantine at the Mumbai hotel along with rest of the team. But no selector is trav-elling to UK," a BCCI source informed.

It is also understood in the year of a T20 World Cup, it is more important to check out the younger crop of players in Sri Lanka rather than the tried and tested automatic choices who are in the UK for the tra-ditional format. AGENCIES

Kohli had expressed his displeasure at not being given any first-class games before the England series

2019 champion Halep out of Wimbledon with calf injury

WIMBLEDON: Simona Halep did not get the chance to defend her 2019 Wimble-don title a year ago because the tournament was canceled due to the pandemic. Now an injury will prevent her from competing when play begins at the All England Club next week.

Halep announced shortly before Friday's draw that she was pulling out of the grass-court Grand Slam due to the same torn left calf that kept her from participating at the French Open.

I gave it everything I had in order to be ready to play Wim-bledon and after having such special memories from 2 years ago, I was excited and honored to step back on these beautiful courts as defending champion, Halep wrote in a posting on social media.

Unfortunately, my body didn't cooperate and I'll have to save that feeling for next year.

The 29-year-old from Romania is a two-time major champion and former No. 1-ranked player who is cur-rently No. 3.

Her withdrawal means two of the top three women in the WTA rankings will be missing from one of the sport's most

prestigious events when main-draw action begins Monday: No. 2 Naomi Osaka, a four-time Grand Slam title win-ner, is sitting out Wimbledon while "taking some personal time with friends and family, her agent, Stuart Duguid, said in an email last week.

Two of the top five men in the ATP rankings are also out: No. 3 Rafael Nadal, who said he needed to let his body rest and recover, and No. 5 Domi-nic Thiem, who hurt his right wrist.

The last time Wimbledon was held, two years ago, Halep beat 23-time major champion Serena Williams 6-2, 6-2 in

the final, then stated: I'm very sure that was the best match of my life.

Halep hasn't played on tour since tearing her calf during a match at the Italian Open in May. She wrote Friday the mus-cle has not fully recovered.

I can honestly say that I'm really down and upset about having to take this decision. This period has been difficult but to miss the last two Majors has made it even more chal-lenging mentally and physi-cally," Halep said.

"We will see what the future holds but I'm hoping it will make me a stronger person and athlete. AGENCIES

Uruguay, Paraguay qualify for Copa America knockout round

SAO PAULO: Uruguay and Paraguay secured their spots in the Copa America knockout stage by winning their Group A matches by 2-0 scores.

Uruguay had its first win in the tournament against Bolivia, which could have jumped ahead on the table, but is out of the tournament due to Par-aguay's convincing victory against Chile on Thursday.

Argentina leads Group A with seven points, followed by Paraguay with six. Chile has five, one more than Uruguay. Bolivia has none.

Uruguay's victory started after Bolivian goalkeeper Car-los Lampe, one of the best play-ers of the match, had an own goal in the 40th minute.

Edinson Cavani doubled the Uruguayan lead from short range in the 79th min-ute at the Arena Pantanal in Cuiaba. It was the veteran strik-er's first goal for Uruguay since November.

Paraguay beat Chile with a header by Braian Samudio in the 33rd minute and a goal from the spot by Miguel Almir n in the 58th at the Man Gar-

rincha stadium in Brasilia.Uruguay and Paraguay

will clash on Monday in a match that will decide which team faces defending champi-ons and favorites Brazil in the quarterfinals.

If they draw or Uruguay wins, Chile will face the host. A Paraguayan victory means Uruguay will take that spot.

We have to think about winning, not about choos-ing rivals, Uruguay midfielder Giorgian de Arrascaeta said.

We created a lot of oppor-tunities, we missed some that

were very clear, but this gives us confidence. We never stopped believing in this squad.

Paraguay's Almir n is also optimistic about the future of his team in the tournament.

We have done great work here, he said.

Winning was the most important thing, but the most important thing is how we are playing. Bolivia will play against Argentina on the same day, needing a win against Lio-nel Messi's team and a Para-guayan defeat to have any chance of going through. AGENCIES

Argentina leads Group A with seven points, followed by Paraguay with six. Chile has five, one more than Uruguay

Judoka Sushila Devi qualifies for Olympics

NEW DELHI: Ace Indian judoka Sushila Devi has qualified for the Tokyo Olympics through the continental quota, the sport's international federation confirmed on Friday.

Sushila, who competes in the 48kg category, has 989 points which puts her at seventh spot in the Asian list, the International Judo Federation said.

The continental quotas are allotted based on a judoka's ranking in the region. Asia has 10 quota slots.

This will be the 26-year-old's first participation at the Olympics.

Only one athlete per NOC (National Olympic Committee) per division can qualify. Each NOC is entitled to only one spot through the continental quota. Avtar Singh (90kg) was the lone Indian judoka to compete at the 2016 Rio Olympics. AGENCIES

'Restrictions on Olympic-bound departing from India not applicable on those training abroad'

NEW DELHI: India's Olym-pic-bound athletes, who are training abroad right now and scheduled to reach Tokyo directly from their current bases, will not face the stricter restrictions that have been put in place for those travel-ling from the country, Deputy Chef de Mission Prem Verma said on Friday.

While the Indian contin-gent will be allowed to train during their three-day on-arrival quarantine, they won't be allowed to meet athletes from other countries during the hard quarantine.

"Indian athletes prepar-

ing for the Games overseas and reaching Tokyo directly would not face the restrictions applicable to those who have been residing in India for 14 days before departure," Verma was quoted as saying by the Sports Authority of India in a statement.

This is likely to benefit the shooters, who are currently training in Croatia and Italy, top wrestlers like Vinesh Pho-gat and Bajrang Punia, tennis star Sania Mirza and javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra among others.

Verma also said Tokyo Olympics Organising Com-

mittee has increased the list of accredited laboratories for COVID-19 tests to a number of cities across the country.

Verma told the athletes and support staff that a number of issues raised by the IOA have been addressed by the Tokyo OC to India's satisfaction.

He said there would no restriction on training of Indi-ans, but they cannot meet ath-letes from other countries for the first three days.

India is clubbed with Afghanistan, Nepal, Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, in group 1 countries with serious COVID-19 situation.

The Indian contingent departing from New Delhi will have to upload its health status for each of the seven days prior to departure on the Organising Committee health app along with negative RT-PCR reports from approved labs, 96 and 72 hours prior to the journey.

Apart from this, the Tokyo-bound contingent will also undergo sensitisation work-shops on three modules titled "Life in Tokyo, Playing Clean and From India with Pride."

Life in Tokyo explains the preparations for travel in the fortnight before departure, the formalities to be completed

before travel, including vac-cination, and anti-bodies test reports.

Athletes and support staff from Hockey, Judo, Rowing, Boxing and Wrestling attended the opening session on Life in Tokyo on Friday.

Athletes like Badminton player PV Sindhu, ace pad-dler Sharath Kamal, fencer Bhavani Devi and equestrian athlete Fouaad Mirza were among those who attended the first 'Playing Clean mod-ule', an anti-doping session conducted by officials of the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) on Thursday. AGENCIES

Women's recurve

archery team reaches

final in WCPARIS: The Indian women's recurve archery team, which failed to book an Olympic quota in the Final Qualifier here, was back to their best form to storm into the final of the World Cup Stage 3 on Friday.

The fancied trio of Deep-ika Kumari, Ankita Bhakat and Komalika Bari had lost to lower-ranked Colombia on Sunday to miss the Olym-pic team qualification, but on Friday they just dropped a set before defeating sixth-ranked France 6-2 in the semi-finals.

World Cup Stage 3 is not an Olympic qualifying tournament.

The trio, who had won the first stage of the World Cup in Guatemala City in April, will face Mexico on Sunday in a repeat of the first stage final. World No. 3 Deepika will be in the hunt for a hat-trick of gold medals. Deepika had ear-lier advanced to the mixed pair final with her husband Atanu Das, while she is also in the semi-final of the recurve indi-vidual section.

The second-seeded Indian women's team, who got a bye in the second round, started off by beating 15th seed Spain in straight sets, before oust-ing seventh seed Turkey by an identical 6-0 margin in the quarterfinals.

In the last-four stage, the trio shot 57, 57, 54, 57 to beat the French team of Lisa Bar-belin, Audrey Adiceom and Angeline Cohendet. AGENCIES

Denmark on the road for 1st time to face WalesEURO 2020

AMSTERDAM: After three emotional European Champi-onship matches in Copenha-gen, Denmark will next play in a city that Christian Eriksen once called home.

The Danes will take on Wales in the round of 16 at the Johan Cruyff Arena on Satur-day, a stadium where Eriksen is fondly remembered by Ajax fans as a stylish midfield play-maker from 2010-13 before his transfer to Tottenham.

Denmark lost its first Euro 2020 match to Finland 1-0 after Eriksen suffered cardiac arrest on the field and had to be resuscitated with a defibril-lator. The Danes also lost to Bel-gium before beating Russia 4-1 to finish second in Group B and advance to knockout rounds.

I'm thinking a lot about

Christian and how much I have hoped that he could experience this," Denmark coach Kasper Hjulmand said. He has been looking forward to this summer so much, it's a big, big dream for Christian, and just to know that he's not here hurts.

While Denmark is hitting the road for the first time at a tournament that is being played in 11 cities across Europe, Wales have had a tougher travel sched-ule. The team based itself in Baku, Azerbaijan, where it played its first two matches before facing Italy in Rome.

It's not been easy because we have had to go to Baku and then travel to Italy. We are now going to have to go to Amsterdam, Wales coach Rob Page said.

On paper it sounds like a great idea to have it all around

Europe but logistically it is an absolute nightmare, and throw COVID into that mix as well.

Wales' victory over Turkey and a draw with Switzerland were enough for second place behind Italy in Group A. The Welsh lost 1-0 in their final

match against the Italian, one of the tournament's top teams.

Now Wales is hoping it can build up the same kind of momentum that carried it to the semifinals of Euro 2016, where it lost to eventual cham-pion Portugal 2-0.

Gareth Bale, one of the stars of the 2016 campaign, is his country's all-time leading scorer with 33 goals, but he has not scored in his last 14 internation-als and missed a penalty against Turkey in Baku.

Aaron Ramsey, another of the veterans from the tourna-ment in France, is hoping to improve on the team's perfor-mance five years ago.

We're a threat. We keep games tight, so who knows," Eamsey said.

"Why not go all the way again?

Wales will be without mid-fielder Ethan Ampadu, who is suspended after being sent off early in the second half of the team's final group match against Italy for a foul on Federico Bernardeschi. AGENCIES

Bolt's forecast: Watch out for Bromell

in 100m at OlympicsEUGENE (US): Usain Bolt fig-ures his world record is safe for now. But that Olympic gold medal well, it has to go to somebody else this summer.

The 34-year-old Bolt, retired since 2017, will watch from the comfort of his home in Jamaica as someone other than him captures the title in the 100 and later the 200 for the first time since 2004.

One of Bolt's favorites in the 100 at the rescheduled Tokyo Games will be Trayvon Bro-mell, who won the event last weekend at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials.

The fact I get to watch, it's wonderful and it's a breath of fresh air for me, Bolt told The Associated Press on Thursday.

But I'm competitive. And just to see somebody going out there and winning the 100 meters without me is going to be weird. But I'm excited to watch.

He likes Bromell for his speed and his story. Bromell

was an up-and-comer who fin-ished tied for third at the 2015 world championships in a race Bolt won when he passed Justin Gatlin at the line for a .01-sec-ond victory. But Bromell dealt with persistent Achilles-heel issues following the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games that kept him on the sideline for chunks of time. He has since reemerged and once again demonstrates blazing speed.

Bromell is showing great promise, said Bolt, who shares an agent with Bromell.

I must say, it's something I'm looking forward to. He's been a talent over the years and proven himself to be good. But he's had some bad injuries. He's showing up this season. I'm looking forward to seeing him in the Olympics.

As for the 100 record of 9.58 seconds set at the 2009 world championships Bolt doesn't see anyone breaking that. Not this season, anyway. Possibly down the road. AGENCIES

England and Germany to renew epic

rivalry at Euro 2020LONDON: One of the great rivalries in international soccer will be renewed on Tuesday at the European Championship when England plays Germany in the round of 16 at Wembley Stadium.

The teams have played some epic matches in the past, includ-ing in the 1966 World Cup final and in the semifinals at Euro '96.

They each won one of those matches, but overall the Ger-mans lead with 15 victories, 13 losses and four draws.

1938: ENGLAND 6, GER-MANY 3

Less about the result and more about what unfolded before kickoff in front of 110,000 fans at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, the English visitors gave a Nazi salute dur-ing the playing of the German anthem.

And they did it under Brit-ish government orders.

The act handed Adolf Hit-ler a propaganda coup a year before Britain declared war on Nazi Germany in 1939 after its invasion of Poland.

1966: ENGLAND 4, WEST GERMANY 2

England won its only World Cup title by beating West Ger-many in London in a match that produced an enduring moment of controversy that is still the subject of debate.

In extra time with the scored even at 2-2, Alan Ball crossed to England teammate Geoff Hurst, who turned and shot. The ball thumped down from the underside of the West Ger-man crossbar and Roger Hunt

raised his arms to proclaim the ball bounced over the goal line.

Wolfgang Weber thought he had headed the ball over for a corner, but Swiss referee Got-ffried Dienst conferred with Soviet linesman Tofik Bakh-ramov, who believed there was a goal.

The limited camera angles and lower-quality footage means it's inconclusive to this day whether the ball crossed the line. But it counted on the Wembley Stadium scoreboard as Hurst's second goal.

His third a thumping left-footed drive completed what remains the only hat trick in a World Cup final.

1970: WEST GERMANY 3, ENGLAND 2

The Germans recovered from a 2-0 deficit to officially end England's reign as World Cup champions in the quarter-finals of the 1970 tournament in Mexico.

Alan Mullery and Martin Peters had given England the lead, but Franz Beckenbauer began the recovery midway through the second half. AGENCIES

Uruguay's Rodrigo Bentancur, left, fights for the ball with Bolivia's Henry Vaca during a Copa America soccer match at Arena Pantanal in Cuiaba, Brazil PTI

The teams have played some epic matches in the past, including in the 1966 World Cup final and in the semifinals at Euro '96

Bayern to kick off Bundesliga

season at Gladbach

FRANKFURT: Bayern Munich will kick off the new German season at Borussia M nchengladbach after the 2021-22 fixtures were released Fri-day. The game on Aug. 13 will be the first Bundesliga match in charge for both teams' new coaches after Bayern hired Julian Nagelsmann from Leipzig and Gladbach brought in Adi H tter from Eintracht Frankfurt.

Nagelsmann has been tasked with extending Bayern's record streak of German titles to 10 in a row.

Borussia Dortmund starts its title challenge against Frank-furt on either Aug. 14 or 15 and Leipzig visits Mainz the same weekend. AGENCIES

Team India

Simona Halep

12 millenniumpostLeisure

Entertainmentmp

SATURDAY, 26 JUNE, 2021 | KOLKATA

ALEN PAUL

Ever since lockdown started, people have turned to the mercy of

OTT streamers to beat the boredom. Film and series makers have also treated it as a golden opportunity to create engaging web series for their dear audience. At the moment, viewers have a treasure chest to entertain themselves with.

Though all kinds of shows are welcomed on OTT, it’s the action-spy-thrillers that catch people’s attention the most. Whether it’s Disney+ Hotstar’s ‘Special Ops’ (Kay Kay Menon and Karan Tacker), Voot’s ‘Crackdown’ (Saqib Saleem and Mohammed Iqbal Khan) or Amazon Prime Series’ ‘The Family Man’ (Manoj Bajpayee and Sharib Hashmi), there is hardly anyone who hasn’t binged- watched these doses of thrill and action.

Here, we will talk about one of the aforementioned series - The Family Man (Sea-son one and two) - which broke several records. Season 1 also became the 4th most-watched show in the world.

The Manoj Bajpayee-star-rer is about Srikant Tiwari, a typical middle-class fam-ily man who tries his best to balance the never-ending familial responsibilities and his duties as a spy in ‘Threat Analysis and Surveillance Cell’ (TASC).

A very relatable struggle of a middle-class family man strikes the right cord with the audience. It is refreshing to see a husband managing house-work along with his ‘secret’ government job (as till date only stories about wives flitting between homes and career are shown through movies and series).

Season two begins on a note where Srikant leaves TASC and in a bid to give more time to his family, shifts to an IT company. And when our family man thought that

he would find some respite in his new job, his 28-year-old boss adds to the already exist-ing problems in his life.

Despite Srikant making efforts for his family, nothing changes much on the home front with his estranged wife and kids being all distant from each

other. Even his instructions of not touching their phones while having dinner proved to be an impassable way of bring-ing everyone closer.

While season one showed Srikant poorly balancing his work and home life, season two sees him in a more mis-erable state as he gets crushed emotionally and mentally between both worlds. It leaves Srikant to question only one thing – is he doing injus-

tice to his duty towards his country and family by just denying his true nature? These doubts make me believe that our lead character has devel-oped an existential crisis at that point.

With his unhappiness reaching its boiling point, Sri-kant joins TASC again on JK’s non-stop requests to jump into another life-threatening case. It would be safe to admit that

their friendship is similar to that of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson!

Season two successfully meets the audience’s expec-tations. An engaging story

around sleeper cell of Tamil rebels joining hands with the Pakistani ISI to attack the Indian and Sri Lankan prime ministers keeps the audience glued. However, the family angle in the series does not get justice. One has to figure out what reasons brought Srikant and Suchi’s marriage (played by Priyamani) to a standstill. At a few points, it feels like the aspects of his personal life were forcefully weaved in the action-thriller.

The reality of a middle-class man managing his time in and out of his house and struggling to eliminate terror-

ism from the country seemed fresh in season one, but rep-etition of the very same old reality is likely to bore peo-ple, especially when the series engages in the stereotypical scenarios of Muslim lynching because of their identities.

Season two delivers much more action, subtle humour, punches and heart-stopping scenes like never before in the first few episodes. But after third or fourth episode, the story starts to lose its engage-ment value only to come back on track towards the climax.

Creators did an excellent job in shooting the climax as well as the police station sequence as it keeps the view-ers thoroughly hooked. Bring-ing on board Tamil actors to play the natives of the place was also an appreciable move by the makers.

To sum it up, ‘The Family Man’ is one of the best Indian spy thrillers to enjoy due to its adrenaline rush and rib-tick-ling moments. Undoubtedly there were some flaws in sea-son two as compared to the previous part, but we have a third season to look forward to. Maybe it will compensate for the little disappointment that the viewers have.

Did our family man develop existential crisis in S2?

‘TFM 2’ shows Srikant (Manoj Bajpayee’s character) in the most miserable state as he juggles work and family

The Manoj Bajpayee-starrer is one of the most binge-worthy web series despite its

flaws

OUR CORRESPONDENT

Korean Cultural Centre India’ is presenting its first virtual exhibition

‘Belle du Jour’ by the Indian young artist Guruvinayak Singh Budhwar to deliver the message of hope and vitality in daily life even in the pan-demic era.

The exhibition started on June 21 and will be on view till August 21, 2021.

Through an online pre-sentation with 26 painting works, the exhibition invites viewers to recognise them-selves in the artwork and fall in love with aspects of their existence. In these uncertain times, this exhi-bition would be an attempt to revive hope and con-vey positive human senti-ments among the audiences and may even assist them in understanding their inner complexities.

The exhibition’s title is a French phrase that translates to ‘Beauty of the Day’.

“It extends the idea of bringing home the emotions that resonate with us as we

go about our days. I believe that everyone who has ever existed, human or otherwise, can find common ground when it comes to experienc-ing emotions and being alive and I tend to represent both these aspects in my art. Urges which we frown upon or the ones we appreciate, I have

tried to present to the view-ers of this exhibition,” says the artist.

The exhibition displays 26 artworks that are from two different eras - one from when Guruvinayak first dab-bled into surrealism and the other from what he calls the ‘Triunity’ era, in which one major element is repeated three times in the painting.

Guruvinayak’s paintings have words of the soul writ-ten around the artwork. His artwork does not end at the edges of the canvas. The silk cloth that wraps around the mount is carefully chosen for each painting in a way that complements the art-work the best.

With a memorable debut as the new Captain America in The Falcon and the Win-

ter Soldier’s finale, Hollywood actor Anthony Mackie increased curiosity levels within ‘Marvel Cinematic Uni-verse’ fans when it comes to his beloved character Sam Wilson’s future.

The pretty obvious answer would be ‘Captain America 4’, which is in the works with the popular Disney+ series’ show-run-ner and staff writer Mal-colm Spellman and Dalan Musson co-writing the script.

However, Anthony continues to be vague when asked about Captain America’s upcoming fourth installment. During a recent appearance on Deadline’s ‘The Actor’s Side’ with Pete Hammond, Mackie shifted the focus from an update on ‘Captain America 4’ to Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s progress instead.

“I do not know. The show came out and for the last episode, we had a ‘Zoom’ party with everybody. And that was it. Like I have not heard from anybody since, so ‘Marvel Studios’ have a million things going on,” the

42-year-old actor admitted via ‘ComicBook’.

He added, “I know the prep for ‘Black Panther 2’ is driving everybody ragged, so I do not know. I’m interested to see where it is going.”

Given Chadwick Boseman’s heartbreaking passing, MCU fans are intrigued to know as to how director

Ryan Coogler will continue the story forward in ‘Black Panther 2’ as it was con-firmed that neither recast-ing T’Challa’s role or using CGI to recreate the Oscar-nominated actor will be implemented in the sequel. AGENCIES

Restoring hope and vitality in the pandemic era

Korean Cultural Centre has organised an online exhibition of 26 paintings on the theme ‘Beauty of the Day’

BLACK PANTHER 2

‘Prep is driving everybody ragged’

THE WORLD FROM 1954‘India International Centre’ (IIC) is organising a lecture by Ambassador Thomas R Pickering, to mark the centenary year of Ambady Krishnan Damodaran.

Titled ‘The World from 1954’, the talk will be held as an online webinar on June 29, 2021, at 6:30 pm and will be chaired by N N Vohra, President, IIC. The ambassador will talk about how the world and its future appeared in 1952 when he and Damodaran used to be classmates at the Fletcher School of Law and Democracy, Boston, the USA.

A K Damodaran (1921-2012) was one of the doyens of Indian diplomacy and a freedom fighter. An Indian Foreign Service Officer of the 1953 batch, he retired in 1980 and turned his formidable intellect towards scholarship by penning and editing books on India’s foreign policy. MPOST

Payal arrested for ‘threatening’ neighboursAHMEDABAD: Bolly-wood actor Payal Rohatgi was arrested by the Ahmedabad city police on Friday for alleg-edly threatening the residents of her housing society, an offi-cial said. An FIR was registered against her on Thursday based on a complaint lodged by soci-ety chairman Dr Parag Shah, inspector A S Roy of Satellite police station said.

The 36-year-old actor, who has been living with her parents in a posh society in Satellite area for the last over one year, was booked for uttering obscene words (IPC section 294-b), intentional insult (504) and criminal intimidation (506),

said Roy, quoting the FIR.In his complaint, Shah

claimed that Rohatgi has been harassing society mem-bers including children for some time, and she once even threatened children that she would “break their legs” if they played in the common area of the society.

Although she does not own

a house in the society herself, she attended its annual general meeting with her parents on June 20 and refused to leave despite being pointed out that she was not a member, Shah alleged.

Rohatgi abused society members during the meeting and posted an abusive message on the society’s WhatsApp group, the FIR alleged.

She also threatened the members that she could get them arrested in false cases, the complaint alleged. Shah also claimed that the actor targeted him and other members on her Instagram account. Probe is on, the inspector said. PTI

An FIR was registered on Thursday based on a complaint lodged by society chairman

After Boseman’s death, fans wants to know how the story will continue