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Shutdown, Curbs Mark Martyrs Day Governor Skips Official Function; Barring BJP, Politicians Across Spectrum Offer Tributes To Martyrs Of 1931Observer News Service

SRINAGAR: Governor Satya Pal Ma-lik on Saturday skipped the official function at the Martyrs' graveyard here and instead deputed his advi-sor and divisional commissioner Kashmir for paying homage to the 22 people martyred in firing by forces of Dogra ruler Maharaja Hari Singh on this day in 1931.

Authorities also imposed re-strictions in parts of Srinagar and placed Hurriyat Conference chair-men under house arrest in wake of Martyrs Day, while as a complete shutdown was observed in the Val-ley to mark the day.

ADGP, Armed, S. J. M. Gillani, ADGP, Law and Order, Muneer Ah-mad Khan, IGP Kashmir S P Pani, DIG CKR, V. K. Birdie, Deputy Com-missioner Srinagar, Shahid Iqbal Choudhary, SSP Srinagar, Dr. Has-eeb Mughal, Commandant JKAP 9th Battalion, Manzoor Dalal, besides other senior officers of the district and divisional administration were also present on the occasion.

A contingent of J&K Police posted the bugle and presented the ceremo-nial guard-of-honour to the Martyrs.

Barring the Bharatiya Janata Party, the entire spectrum of politi-cal ideologies in the state observes July 13 as martyrs day in J&K.

Malik's predecessor N N Vohra had also skipped the of-ficial function last year but did

pay homage to the martyrs of 1931 in 2017.

However, Malik in his Fri-day's message on the eve of Martyrs' Day called for collec-tive efforts from all sections of the society to secure rapid

growth and development of the state on all fronts.

The governor said Jammu and Kashmir has always been known for its glorious pluralis-tic ethos and harmony and em-phasised the More On P8

7 Killed As Cab Rolls Down A Ravine On Highway

Observer News Service

RAMBAN/SRINAGAR: Eight per-sons were killed in two separate road accident in Ramban and Pul-wama districts on Saturday.

Seven persons were killed while another person suffered critical inju-ries after a vehicle they were travel-ling in plunged into a deep gorge in Ramban district.

Reports said that a passenger cab on its way from Ukhral to-wards Alinbass skidded off the road and plunged into a deep

gorge, resulting into the death of five passengers and serious inju-ries to three others.

A police official while confirm-ing the accident said that five persons including driver of the vehicle were killed while three persons suffered critical injuries. He said a joint rescue operation by police and civilians were launched to remove the injured to hospital.

The people who were killed on the spot have been identified as Mohammad Iqbal Jaral, Javid Ahmad Jaral (Driver), More On P8

Army Chief Warns Pak Against ‘Any Misadventure’Says Addition Of Cyber & Space Domain Has Changed Battlefield ScenarioPress Trust of India

NEW DELHI: Any misadventure by Pakistan Army will be repelled with punitive response and no act of militancy will go unpunished, Army chief General Bipin Rawat said Saturday.

Speaking at an event on '20 Years after Kargil Conflict', Rawat said Pakistan Army, time and again, resorts to misadventure,

either through state-sponsored militancy or intrusions in India.

"The Indian armed More On P8

‘No Intrusion By Chinese In Ladakh’ NEW DELHI: Army chief General Bipin Rawat Saturday said there has been no intrusion by the Chinese in Ladakh’s Demchok sector.His statement comes amidst reports of Chinese soldiers crossing the Line of Actual Control More On P8

Sooner Or Later, Assembly Elections Will Be Held: FarooqDecries ‘Unscrupulous, Undemocratic Gags’ On Local Media

Track-II: India, Pak Activists Engage In Dialogue

India, Pak Kartarpur Talks Today NEW DELHI: Key issues such as connectivity at Zero Point and the number of pilgrims to be allowed through the Kartarpur corridor will be discussed on Sunday when Indian and Pakistani delegates hold a meeting on modalities re-lated to the project, government sources said. More On P8

Promotion Plea of Tainted Patwari SpurnedObserver News Service

SRINAGAR: The Jammu and Kash-mir High court has dismissed a pe-tition for promotion by a Patwari (revenue official) who is facing trial in a corruption case.

The petitioner—Manzoor Ah-mad Bhat, who is working as Patwari, had approached the Court, seeking a direction to the government for grant of promo-tion to the post of Girdawar from October 2015 as per his seniority.

“The alleged misuse of the of-ficial position by the More On P8

Press Trust of India

ISLAMABAD: Civil society ac-tivists from India and Pakistan have participated in a two-day Track-II dialogue held here to resolve the differences, the first such interaction after the Pulwama attack that further strained the ties between the two neighbours.

The dialogue titled 'Be-

yond Politics and Polemics New Beginning on a Difficult Trail' was organised by the Islamabad-based think tank Regional Peace Institute (RPI).

It came ahead of a meeting on Sunday between the offi-cials of both countries at the Attari-Wagah border on the Kartarpur corridor.

Though there was no for-mal communique More On P8


SRINAGAR: National Conference president Farooq Abdullah on Satur-day said that assembly elections will be held, sooner or later, in the state.

Talking to reporters after paying tributes to 13 July 1931, Farooq also governor Satya pal Malik was expect-ed to be present at Martyrs Grave-yard here “being BJP’s governor.”

“Why not? Sooner or later, elec-tions will be held,” Farooq, who is also National Conference’s parliamentar-ian from Srinagar seat, told reporters on the sidelines of the function.

Responding to question wheth-er skipping of official function by Governor Satya Pal Malik tanta-mount to disrespect to the 22 mar-tyrs of 13 July 1931, Farooq said:

“He is BJP’s governor and how can he come here.

Earlier addressing party func-tionaries he said the incident of 1931 was the culmination of the growing unrest in the people against the oppressor and the ty-rant. “The martyrs gave their life for securing dignity and self-re-spect of their countrymen. Never had Kashmir More On P8

UNDER THE SHADOW OF GUN! A man with his grandson walks past the heavily baricaded martyrs cemetery in old city on Saturday- KO Pix Abid Bhat

Former Top Cop Farooq Khan Is Governor’s 5th AdvisorObserver News Service

SRINAGAR: Retired IPS officer and National Secretary of BJP Farooq Khan, who once spear-headed anti-militancy opera-tions in Jammu and Kashmir, was on Saturday appointed as fifth advisor to the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir.

“Sanction is hereby ac-corded to the appointment of Shri Farooq Khan, IPS (Retd), as Advisor to the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir with ef-fect from the date he assumes charge,” reads an order issued here by the General Adminis-

tration Dcepartment.“His appointment shall be

governed by the terms and conditions as are applicable to other Advisors in terms of Gov-ernment Order No. 1110-GAD of 2018 dated 09-07-2018,” the order added. More On P8

P11/Life & Times....... P6/OPINION

CRICKET & SOUTH ASIA’S FAULT LINESThe vivid measure of the mutual suspicion and hatred which tear South Asia apart is offered by one sport-- cricket.

P7

|

P10

News In Brief

We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.

--John Dryden

Nearly 17K Pilgrims Visit Cave Shrine SRINAGAR: On the 13th day of the ongoing Shri Amarnathji Yatra, 16,916 Yatris paid obei-sance at the Holy Cave.“Till date, 1,73,978 Yatris had the darshan of the Shivling at the Holy Cave,” an official statement by the SASB said.

5 Held During Nocturnal RaidKULGAM: At least five youth were detained during the nocturnal raids in Zazripora area of South Kashmir’s Kulgam district.Locals alleged that forces raided the locality on late Friday night and detained at least five youth from their respective houses.The forces, they said, barged into the houses of youth, creating panic in the entire area, and detained five youth including two brothers. Some of the arrested youth have been identified as Zubair Mohuddin, Junaid Ahmed Bhat, Aaqib Ahmed, all residents of Zazripora area in Kulgam.An official confirmed that five youth have been arrested from the area for questioning. (Agencies)

2 Held For Making ‘IEDs’SRINAGAR: Two people who were allegedly involved in mak-ing improvised explosive de-vices were arrested from south Kashmir's Shopian district, police said Saturday.A police spokesman said that on a credible input, searches were conducted at various locations in the district in the early hours of Saturday."During the searches, industrial explosives planned to be used in fabricating IEDs was recovered in a large quantity," he said.He said two people were ar-rested and efforts were on to nab the other “conspirators”."The police has registered a case under relevant provisions of law and investigation has More On P8

Youth Kills Grand Parents In Kathua SRINAGAR: An elderly man and his wife were allegedly murdered by their grandson in Kathua dis-trict of Jammu and Kashmir.Police here said that a man identified as Chand (82), son of Bhagtu Ram of Ward Number 01, Kathua and his wife Sanjogta, 75, were allegedly assaulted by their grandson.“The couple was attacked with some sharp objects resulting into their on the spot death,” police said here on Saturday. The accused is said to a be youth who is absconding, they said. (agencies)

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RUNAWAY PRINCESS COULD PROVE POLITICALLY EXPLOSIVE Princess Haya, one of Dubai ruler's six wives, who fled UAE is hiding in a $100 million home in London.

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Junk food consumption ups allergy risk in kidsAccording to a new study conducted at the University of Naples Federico II in Italy, high levels of advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) are associated with food allergies in kids.

Researchers have found that high consumption of junk food such

as microwaved foods and barbequed meats may be

responsible for food aller-gies in children.

The study, presented at the 52nd Annual Meeting of the European Society for Paediatric

Gastroenterology Hepa-tology and Nutrition, shows that high levels of advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) are associated with food al-

lergies in kids.AGEs are present in

high levels in junk foods such as sugars, processed foods, microwaved foods and roasted or barbequed meats. They are known to play a role in the develop-ment and progression of different oxidative-based diseases including diabe-tes, atherosclerosis and neurological disorders, said the researchers.

For the study, the research team observed 61 children aged between 6 and 12 years. They were identified in three categories – those with food allergies, those with respiratory allergies and healthy controls.

The study revealed a significant correlation between AGEs and junk food consumption, said Roberto Berni Canani, Associate Professor at the University of Naples Federico II in Italy.

PW(R&B) DepartmentGovernment of Jammu & Kashmir

Jhelum &Tawi Flood Recovery Project (World Bank Funded) BID [TENDER] No.60/CDII/6328-38 of 2019-20 Dated 10.07.2019

NATIONAL COMPETITIVE BIDDING (Two-Envelope Bidding Process with e-Procurement)

NAME OF WORK: Construction of Additional Classroom Block at Govt College for Women, M.A Road, Srinagar, J&K.

PERIOD OF ONLINE AVAILABILITY OFBIDDING DOCUMENT:

From 11/07/2019 Time 1000 HoursTo 07/08/2019 Time 1600 Hours

TIME AND DATE OFPRE-BID CONFERENCE:

Date 20/07/2019Time 1100 Hours in the office of Chief Engineer PW(R&B)Deptt; Kashmir Rajbagh Srinagar

LAST DATE AND TIME FOR Date 07/08/2019

ONLINE SUBMISSION OF BIDS: Time 1600 Hours

*TIME AND DATE OF ONLINE OPENINGOF BID’s-Technical part1:

Date 07/08/2019Time 1630 Hours

PLACE OF OPENING BIDS: Office of Chief Engineer PW(R&B)Deptt; Kashmir Rajbagh Srinagar

OFFICER INVITING BIDS: Executive Engineer (R&B) Construction Division 2nd Srinagar

Sd/- DIPK-NB-1648/19 Executive Engineer R&B Construction Division No.II Srinagar

Office Of The Financial Controller J&KPCCLTd.

e-NIT No: 02/FC/JKPCC/Srinagar/2019-20 Dated:11-07-2019For and on behalf of Managing Director J&KPCC Ltd. e-Tenders are invited from Registered and Experienced Chartered Accountants as per the details given here under:

1. Name of work Conducting of Audit of Accounts and Consultancy services of J&KPCC Ltd

2. Number of covers Two3. Cost of tender document 1000/- (one thousand only)4. Date of issue of tender notice 11-07-20196. Date and time of publishingof NIT on-

line11-07-2019 from 06:00 PM

7. Date and time of submission of bids online

11-07-2019 from 06:00 PM

8. Last date and time of submission of bids online

17-07-2019 upto 4:00 PM

9. Date of opening of Technical bids on-line

18-07-2019 at 12:00 Noon

10. Date of opening of financial bids To be notified separately

-sd-No. FC/1038-47 Dt. : 11/07/2019 Financial ControllerDIPK-NB-1656/19 J&KPCC Ltd. Srinagar

SRINAGAR MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONGIST TO NIT No. 13 of 2019-20

Dated: 10/07/2019 For and on behalf of Commissioner Srinagar Municipal Corporation tenders are invited from bidders for the following works:-S. No. Name of work Quantity Total value of

the work (Rs. In lacs)

Earnest money (in Rupees)

Period of completion in days

1. Supply of Welding Electrodes

(a)Welding Electrodes 8SWG----15 Boxes of 120 packets (Sandeep Make)(b) Welding Electrodes 10SWG----20 Boxes of 80 packets (Sandeep Make)

1.55 lacs2% of the total value of the con-tract

07 days

Detailed NIT with terms and conditions can be downloaded from the Departmental website www.smcsite.org from 11/07/2019 10 AM to 27/07/2019 up 04 PM.

Sd/-EXECUTIVE ENGINEER

DIPK-NB-1661/19 MECHANICAL DIVISION SRINAGAR MUNCIPAL CORPORATIONNo.SMC/EEM/ 599-603Dated: - 10/07/2019

1

Sig. Of Bidder

(A J&K State Govt. Undertaking)

--------------------------------

NOTICE INVITING TENDER E_NIT No. 27 of 2019-20 Dated:- 08-07-2019

On behalf of Managing Director, Jammu & Kashmir Projects Construction Corporation Ltd., the Deputy General

Manager, Unit-Kishtwar, JKPCC Ltd., Jammu invites e-tenders from Electrical Contractors for the following work: S. No Name of Work Estimated Cost

(Rs. in lacs) Cost of

document (Rs.)

Earnest Money (Rs. in Lacs)

Time of completion

Class of Contractor

1. Providing Electrification to Multipurpose Indoor Sports Hall at Kishtwar

Rs. 19.00 Rs. 1000 Rs. 0.38

In tandem with civil works

“A “

Qualification criteria, scope of work, tender documents, BOQ and all other terms & conditions can be seen and downloaded from www.jktenders.gov.in.

Critical Dates:

1. Period of downloading of NIT 10-07-2019 from 1000 Hrs. to 25-07-2019 upto 1400 Hrs.

2. Bid submission dates 10-07-2019 from 1000 Hrs. to 25-07-2019 upto 1400 Hrs.

3. Date of opening of Bid 26-07-2019 at 1200 Hrs. in Office of Deputy General Manager, JKPCC Ltd., Rail Head Complex, Jammu

4. Original Hard Copies of Technical Bid will be invited from L1 only

Any other information regarding e-tendering process can be had from the office of Deputy General Manager, Unit-Kishtwar, JKPCC Ltd. Rail Head Complex, Jammu or e-tendering Cell, Jammu.

Deputy General Manager, J&K PCC Ltd. Unit Kishtwar,

No: DGM/JKPCC/KU/793-98 Dated: -08-07-2019 Copy to the: -

1. Managing Director JKPCC Ltd, Srinagar for information. 2. General Manager (J), JKPCC Ltd Jammu for information. 3. Deputy Director Information Jammu for information. It is requested that the notice may please be published in two leading

English daily newspapers of State and one National Paper for its wide publicity. 4. Accounts Officer J&K PCC Ltd. Jammu for information. 5. E-Tendering Cell for uploading the Tender on www.jktenders.gov.in and www.jkpcc.com 6. Office Copy.

DIPK-NB-1667/19

Office Of The Assistant Regional Transport Officer Budgam

NOTICEWhereas, an application has been received from on shr/Mrs Nushtaq Ah-mad Khan .S/o Moham-mad Akram Khan .R/o Lodhi Mohalla Lassipora Near pathan masjid

sharief Budgam .(transferor) Alto –K10 bearning of registration no JKO4E-4110 .Chasis No 00439985:engine no 8089975 .model 2018 . in favour of shri. Mohammad Yousuf Dar S/o Habib –ullah Dar .R/o Frasi pora as well as cancellation of HPA with Mahindra &mahindra Financial service ltd srinagar Now it is therefore, notified for general information that objections, if any to the proposed cancellation of Hire Purchase Agreement shall be filed in writing in the office of the Regional Transport Officer, Kashmir within a period of 7days from the date of publication of this notice in the daily newspaper.Kashmir ObserverNo. 1379/ Budgam Dated 10-07-2019 Sd/ ASSISTANT Regional

Transport Officer, Budgam

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This Day in History• 1865 - English mountaineer Edward

Whymper leads first expedition to climb the Matterhorn (four die on the descent)

• 1891 - John T Smith patents corkboard• 1914 - Robert Goddard is granted the first

patent for liquid-fueled rocket design• 1938 - Benito Mussolini publishes anti-

Jewish/African manifesto• 1945 - Battleship USS South Dakota is

1st US ship to bombard Japan• 1957 - Soviet steamer "Eshghbad" sinks

in Caspian Sea, drowning 270• 1958 - General Abdul K Kassem

forms a military government in Iraq overthrowing the monarchy.

• 1959 - USS Long Beach, first nuclear powered cruiser launched at Quincy, Mass

• 1965 - Israeli/Jordanian border fights• 1965 - US Mariner IV, 1st Mars probe,

passes at 6,100 miles (9,800 km)• 1967 - Surveyor 4 launched to Moon;

explodes just before landing• 1969 - The United States $500, $1,000,

$5,000 and $10,000 bills are officially withdrawn from circulation.

• 1976 - USSR banishes dissident Andrei Amalrik to Netherlands

• 1977 - US House establishes permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

• 1983 - Mario Bros. is first released by Nintendo in Japan as an arcade game about an Italian-American plumber

• 1984 - STS 41-D vehicle moves to Vandenberg AFB for remanifest of payloads

• 1984 - USSR performs nuclear Test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR

• 1986 - NASA's plan to implement recommendations of Rogers commission

• 1987 - Taiwan ends 37 years of martial law• 1991 - Failed military coup in Mali• 2012 - Suicide bomber attacks a

wedding reception and kills 22 people and inures 22 in northern Afghanistan

• 2014- The death toll from the West African Ebola outbreak passes 500

• 2014- The Egyptian government propose a cease fire in the Israel–Gaza conflict

• 2014 - After 7 days, Israel has struck Gaza 1320 times, while Gaza has fired 940 rockets at Israel

• 2015 - Scientists from the Large Hadron Collider announce the discovery of a new particle called the pentaquark

• 2015 - Arms deal agreed between 6 world powers and Iran limiting Iranian nuclear arms but ending sanctions

CRPF personnel stand guard near a barricade amid restrictions in Nowhatta area of Srinagar

HIJRI CALENDAR

10 ZUL-QADAH

1440

PRAYERSFAJR3: 48ZUHR12: 36

ASR5:35

MAGRIB7:47ISHA9:25

From KO Archives

‘Don't Look Towards New Delhi’


SRINAGAR - Accusing the Centre of not being serious in resolving the Kashmir issue, President of opposition National Conference Omar Abdullah today said the solution of the problem lies neither with India nor Pakistan but with the people of Kashmir, and coun-selled the Hurriyat Conference not to trust New Delhi.

"The solution to Kashmir issue neither lies in the hands of India nor Pakistan. This complicated and long-standing issue could be resolved only in accordance with the wishes and aspirations of the people of Kashmir," Omar said addressing party workers and sup-porters at martyrs graveyard at Naqashband Sahib in Srinagar today.

Omar cautioned the Hurriyat Conference against trusting New Delhi, saying that his party too had lost faith in the Centre because of its dithering on the setting up of an autonomy committee.

"The Hurriyat should not place any trust with New Delhi," he said."The antics of the conglomerate on this front are futile. All that

the Hurriyat will get out of its talks with the central government is having a up of tea with the leaders," he said.

National Conference from its inception has been demanding reso-lution of Kashmir issue in accordance with the wishes and aspira-tions of the people but unfortunately India has never been serious to address the long standing problem, the NC chief said. Claiming that Centre was perusing a double standard with regard to Kashmir, the National Conference President said Centre has always used "puppets" like Mufti Mohammad Sayeed (Chief Minister of Jammu and Kash-mir) to deviate attention of the people from the real issue.

"Sayeed is part of double policy of New Delhi. He is speak-ing in different tones to divert attention of the people from the basic issue," he said adding Sayeed at times talks about healing touch and sometimes beating the drum to highlight the opening of Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road. The reality is that the people are being oppressed on the name of healing touch, poor people are deprived of electricity to light their homes, he alleged.

The NC president also attacked the Centre for rejecting his party's de-mand for greater autonomy to the state, passed in the Assembly in 2000. Omar said Union Home Minister called him six months ago and asked to make the demand afresh for autonomy. He also made an announcement of formation of a high level committee to look into the issue but so far nothing has been done, he added.

(Kashmir Observer, 14 July, 2005)

Shalby Hospitals announces monthly OPD in Srinagar


Srinagar: Shalby chain of multi-specialty hospitals on Friday an-nounced to start its Joint Replace-ment OPD at Srinagar.

Addressing a press conference at Kashmir Press Club, Srinagar today, Dr Pranay & Dr Bhalla (Dr Vikram Shah’s Team) and Dr Vijay Bansal, both Orthopedic & Joint replacement surgeons and Onco-surgeon respectively said that OPD will be held once in a month.

Shalby Group is a chain of 11 hospitals owned by Dr Vikram Shah, who is the CMD of the Group and is known worldwide for Joint Replacement Surgeries. Started with 6 beds, Shalby is now a group of 2000 hospitals.

Dr Shah was the first surgeon

in India who started the joint replacements in year 1994 at Ahmedabad. Till now one lakh joint replacement surgeries are credited to Dr Shah name in last 26-years. Dr Shah’s team holds OPD’s in different parts of India and elsewhere around the world including in African countries and in Dubai. A surgeon from Dr Shah’s team will attend patients during OPD at Srinagar. For hold-ing monthly OPD ,Shalby will soon do a tie up with one of the Srinagar’s hospital.

Meanwhile Shalby in associa-tion with Rotary Club of Kashmir is also organizing a free joint re-placement and oncology camp at Ahmad Hospital, Srinagar on Sunday(14th July) from 10am to 2pm.


SRINAGAR: J&K Muslim Wakf Board Saturday said it will raise commercial structures in Mu-nawarabad and Eidgah areas of this summer capital city The decision was taken during the 28th Board of Directors (BoD) meeting of the Wakf Board, an official spokesperson said. The meeting was held under the Chairmanship of Chairman, J&K Wakf Board and Advisor to Governor Khurshid Ahmad Ga-nai on Friday. During the meet-ing the Chairman appreciated the steps taken by the Board to strengthen the recovery mech-anism and effective utilisation

of assets of the Board.“A plethora of welfare and

developmental works were ap-proved during the meeting. It was decided that the assets of the Board would be utilised up to their full potential to gen-erate the maximum revenue out of them. It was also unani-mously decided that the recov-ery from the debtors would be further geared up in future,” the spokesperson said.

“The Board decided to uti-lise the prime space available at Munawarabad and Eidgah, Srinagar for raising commer-cial structures with available funds. This, the Board, viewed would boost the resource base of the Wakf in the long run. These structures, the Board decided, will be constructed after consulting the Chief En-gineer PWD (R&B) Kashmir and Chief Town Planner of the state and would be completed in six months’ duration only,” the spokesperson said. It was also decided by the BoD that

a well-equipped diagnostic centre would be set up at Kh-anyar, Srinagar to lessen the burden of medical expenses lesser privileged sections of the society. The centre would be operated by retired doctors and para-medics on ‘No profit No loss’ basis and would con-duct all kinds of diagnostic ex-aminations.

“Each member gave nod in the meeting to donate Rs 10000/- towards the ‘Zakat Fund Account’ to be estab-lished by the Board this year. General public will also be en-couraged to contribute their charity towards this fund. The Board decided to use this

corpus fund for the treatment of poor cancer patients in consultation with the SKIMS administration,” the spokes-person said. In order to start the Masters in Nursing at Bibi Halima Nursing College from the current session, the Board was informed that the requisite positions have al-ready been created as per the norms of Nursing Council of India. The chair was informed that the college would soon be shifted to new campus con-structed at Kathi Darwaza, Sri-nagar. It was further apprised that sufficient hostel facilities have been created at this new location which would suffice our needs for many years to come. For timely intervention in making the Wakf properties appealing and better utilised, the Board decided to autho-rise the Vice-chairman to in-stantly undertake minor re-pairs wherever required. The members of the Board also de-cided to adopt a school each in

their vicinity to look after its functioning. They were asked to give their feedback and sug-gest measures for its better management and results.

Ganai, who is also Chairman of the Wakf Board entreated upon the members to invest their valuable time towards the functioning of the Board. He said that this will help the Board to grow and serve the so-ciety better. He expressed that the Board would take all the measures to enhance its rev-enue and recovery in the times ahead. The members resolved to bring more efficiency in the functioning of the Board so that people feel contented with its performance. Hurriyat(M) condemns July 13 curbs Sri-nagar: Hurriyat Conference (M) on Saturday termed it ex-tremely sad that people and leadership were stopped from paying homage to the martyrs of 13 July 1931. A Hurriyat (M) spokesperson in a statement criticized the imposition of curfew and restrictions in and around the martyr’s graveyard at Khwaja Naqshband Sahib (RA), and other areas of down-town and putting the chair-man of the amalgam Mirwaiz Umar Farooq under house ar-rest. A rally at the graveyard to pay homage to the martyrs and offer Fateh to them was a democratic right of people and applying curbs on it totally au-thoritarian, he said.

“The martyrs of July 13, 1931 laid down their life for a great cause of standing against the then autocratic Dogra rule and high and by offering priceless sacrifice these great martyrs laid the foundation for the struggle of rights and justice for people of Kashmir,” he said.

The spokesperson further said: “Even after the passage of seven decades, there is no let-up in the atrocities and rights violations. Youth continue to languish in various prisons in and outside the State for their no crime. Valley has been con-verted into a military fortress while under the impunity of unbridled powers of black laws; all political and religious rights of people are compro-mised and even a peaceful march becomes a threat to peace in Kashmir.”

Wakf to raise commercial structures in city

Omar's Homily To Hurriyat

Pic Abid Bhat

Approves Zakat Fund Account, modern diagnostic centre at Khanyar

Rasheed leads processionSrinagar: Engineer Abdul Rashid led an Awami Itehad Party march to Mar-tyrs graveyard Naqashbandh Sahab Srinagar to pay tributes to martyrs of 13 July 1931, a spokesman said. On the occasion, Er Rasheed as per a statement addressed a gathering at the graveyard and urged New Delhi and Islamabad not to make Kashmir a battle field and should fulfill the promises made with Kashmiris at United Nations and other places from time to time.

Amid slogans, Er Rasheed asked New Delhi not to forget that Jawahar Lal Nehru was India’s Prime Minister and commitments made by him need to be fulfilled and respected. He lashed out at Governor for not visiting the graveyard and said “No doubt the martyrs don’t need tributes from those who are carrying the legacy of those who butchered them on 13 July 1931, but the state being under Governor’s rule, Malik was duty bound to visit the martyr’s graveyard. It is horrible that as usual BJP disgraced the martyrs and no one from the party turned up to the place.”

Er Rasheed said by such acts, BJP is proving that it has no respect for the state constitution and they should be booked under law for this horrible arrogance. “New Delhi has lowered the stature of its own parliament by passing a resolution, claiming entire J&K to be India’s integral part but never giving a roadmap to fulfill its claim.

Woman among two peddlers held in cityObserver News Service

Srinagar : A woman is among drug peddlers arrested by police as part of its action against drug dealings here.

“One person identified as Ayaz Ahmad Dar son of Gh Mohd Dar resident of Kursoo Rajbagh Sri-nagar was arrested and charas was recovered from his poses-sion. He has been shifted to Police Station Shergheri where he remains in custody,” a police spokesman said.

Officers at the checkpoint seized charas weighing 50gms from his possession. An Auto bearing registration number JK01AD-3359 has also been seized in the matter.

Case FIR No 48/2019 under relevant sections of law has been registered in Police Station Shergerhi and investigation has been taken up. On his disclo-sure, a lady drug peddler Nige-ena resident of Samoon colony was also arrested and 210gms of Charas was recovered from

her residential house.“Community members are re-

quested to come forward with any information regarding drug peddlers in their neighbour-hood. Persons found indulging in drug peddling will be dealt as per law,” the spokesman said.

“Our consistent actions against drug peddlers should reassure the community mem-bers that we are making efforts to keep our society free from the scourge of drug menace,” the spokesman said.

Hurriyat (M) condemns July 13 curbs


Srinagar: Hurriyat Conference (M) on Saturday termed it ex-tremely sad that people and leadership were stopped from paying homage to the martyrs of 13 July 1931. A Hurriyat (M) spokesperson in a statement

criticized the imposition of curfew and restrictions in and around the martyr’s graveyard at Khwaja Naqshband Sahib (RA), and other areas of downtown and putting the chairman of the amalgam Mirwaiz Umar Farooq under house arrest. A rally at the graveyard to pay homage to the martyrs and offer Fateh to them was a democratic right of people and applying curbs on it totally authoritarian, he said.

“The martyrs of July 13, 1931

laid down their life for a great cause of standing against the then autocratic Dogra rule and high and by offering price-less sacrifice these great mar-tyrs laid the foundation for the struggle of rights and justice for people of Kashmir,” he said.

The spokesperson further

said: “Even after the passage of seven decades, there is no letup in the atrocities and rights violations. Youth continue to languish in various prisons in and outside the State for their no crime. Valley has been con-verted into a military fortress while under the impunity of unbridled powers of black laws; all political and religious rights of people are compromised and even a peaceful march becomes a threat to peace in Kashmir.”

NEWS Sunday|14-07-2019 4I R A N F M I N S Y R I A

Making Sense Of The World Around U s

Agencies

ISTANBUL: Russia flew a fresh shipment of advanced air de-fense equipment to Turkey on Saturday, the Turkish Defense Ministry said, continuing to implement a deal that is likely to trigger US sanctions against a NATO ally.

The ministry said a fourth Russian cargo plane landed at the Murted air base near the Turkish capital Ankara, a day af-ter three huge Russian air force

AN-124 planes offloaded equip-ment at the base.

Washington has tried for months to prevent the deal, ar-guing that the Russian S-400 air defense system is incompatible with NATO systems. It also says that if the S-400s are deployed near US F-35 jets, which Turkey is buying and helping to pro-duce, they would undermine the stealth fighter planes’ defenses.

US officials had warned that

Turkey would be thrown off the F-35 program if it took delivery of the S-400s, and would also face sanctions under US legislation seeking to prevent countries from buying military equipment from Russia.

Turkey says S-400 is a strate-gic defense requirement, above all to secure its southern bor-ders with Syria and Iraq. It says that when it made the deal with Russia for the S-400s, the United States and Europe had not pre-sented a viable alternative.

The dispute between the countries with the two largest armies in NATO marks a deep division in the Western military alliance, which was forged after World War Two to counter Mos-cow’s military power.

Reaction from Washington was limited on Friday, with act-ing Defense Secretary Mark Es-per saying the US stance had not changed. Esper later spoke with Turkish counterpart Hulusi Akar.

US House Votes To Curb Trump’s Authority To Strike Iran

Russia Delivers More S-400 Air Defense Equipment To Turkey

Christchurch AttacksNew Zealanders Give Up Weapons After Mosque KillingsPress Trust Of India

Christchurch, July 13: Dozens of New Zealanders handed in their fire-arms Saturday as a gun buyback scheme went into operation aimed at ridding the country of semi-automatic weapons in the wake of the Christchurch mosque attacks. The first of more than 250 collections to be held nationwide was held in Christchurch where 51 Muslim wor-shippers were gunned down while at prayer less than four months ago.

The government, with support from opposition parties, immedi-ately rushed through legislation to tighten New Zealand’s gun laws. Police Minister Stuart Nash said the one objective was to “remove the most dangerous weapons from circulation”. With armed police moni-toring the handover, 68 firearms owners handed in 97 weapons and 94 parts and accessories in the first two hours.

The regional police commander Mike Johnson said 903 gun own-ers in the Canterbury area had registered 1,415 firearms to be handed in. “Police recognise that this is a big change for the law-abiding fire-arms community and we are hearing really positive feedback from people as they come through today that they are finding the process works well for them,” Johnson said.

Ray Berard, who moved to New Zealand from Canada 25 years ago, handed in an assault rifle and told reporters he had been in the Cana-dian army and on the Canada shooting team but believed there was no place for military-style firearms in modern society. “My wife is work-ing as one of the project directors on the hospital rebuild and we were there on the day of the shooting and watched the 35-odd hearses leave the next day,” he said. Christchurch Terror Attack: Facebook Tightens Rules For Video Live Streaming Feature.

A person can “do a lot of damage to a lot of people... if you’re men-tally unwell and you have a weapon that can shoot 100 rounds a min-ute.” Australian-born Brenton Tarrant has been charged with the kill-ings and is alleged to have used an arsenal of five weapons, including two military-style semi-automatic rifles (MSSAs), in the attacks on two mosques. He has pleaded not guilty to terrorism charges, as well as 51 counts of murder and 40 of attempted murder.

A group of Iranian Kurdish women who have joined Kurdish peshmerga fighters take part in a training session in a military camp in Erbil, Iraq. REUTERS/Ako Rasheed

Agencies

Washington: The US House of Representatives has voted to limit President Donald Trump’s power to attack Iran militarily, express-ing concern that such hawkish policies are pushing toward an un-necessary war.

The Democratic-led House ap-proved an amendment on a broad de-fense bill Friday that would require the president to obtain Congress’s approval before he can authorize

military force against Tehran.Representative Ro Khanna,

the Democrat who led the amend-ment, said that move was symp-tomatic of the fact that the United States was fed up with war.

“Frankly, what it will prevent

is what this president promised to the American people not to do - to get into another endless, costly war in the Middle East,” he said on the House floor.

Meanwhile, Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, de-scribed the amendment as “reck-less,” saying that the US Armed Forces should not be held up by a potentially long legislative process.

“This will tie our military’s hands at a perilous time,” he said.

However, Representative Matt Gaetz, a Republican who co-spon-sored the amendment, said that his colleagues did not level with US troops on the reason why they could be sent to be killed.

“My war-hungry colleagues

- some of whom have already sug-gested that we invade Venezuela, North Korea and probably a few other countries before lunchtime tomorrow - if they’re so certain of their case against Iran, let them bring their authorization to use military force against Iran to this very floor,” he said.

Tensions have been running high between the US and Iran since Washington’s decision in May last year to abandon the 2015 Iran nucle-ar deal and reimpose sanctions on Tehran as part of a “maximum pres-sure” campaign aimed at forcing it to renegotiate a new deal that ad-dresses its ballistic missile program and regional influence as well.

Tensions between the two na-tions deteriorated after Iran shot down a US surveillance drone on June 20 following its violation of Iranian airspace, although Wash-ington insists that the aircraft was flying above international waters.

The United States has engaged in significant regional military buildup, including by sending an aircraft carrier, a bomber task force, an assault ship, and around 1,500 ad-ditional forces to the Middle East.

Tehran has time and again said that it does not seek military confrontations with the United States, yet stands ready to defend its interests in the region.

Agencies

DUBAI: Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards used drones and missiles to strike the headquarters of a Kurdish militant group near Iran’s border with neighbouring Iraq’s Kurdistan region, the Iranian semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Friday.

“A large number of terrorists were killed and wounded in the attacks that had started from Wednesday to target terrorist head-quarters and their training camps,” said the agency, citing a state-ment from the elite Guards.

A report from Tasnim in Arabic and a tweet in English from Iran’s Press TV described the strikes as taking place on the Iraqi side of the border. However, the full statement in Farsi said only that the strikes had taken place along the border.

The statement said the strikes were launched in retaliation for recent attacks by the group that killed at least five members of the

Guards in northwest and western Iran.“The Iraqi Kurdistan government is expected to take Iran’s

warnings seriously and not allow terrorists to use its territory as a shelter to train, organise and endanger Iran’s sustainable security by carrying out terrorist attacks,” the statement said. “The Guards ... will respond harshly to any aggression against Iran’s security.”

There are frequent clashes in the area between Iranian security forces and Iranian Kurdish militant groups based in neighbouring Iraq, such as the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), accused by Tehran of having links to Kurdish PKK insurgents in Turkey.

Iran Strikes Opposition Positions On Border With Iraqi Kurdistan

N E W S M A K E R S

US teen points fake gun at cop, killed; incident caught on cam

US police sniff out suspect after loud fart gives him away

DUBAI: A suspect in Missouri ac-cidentally slipped out “a hint” as police were searching for him, leading to his own arrest.

The suspect, wanted for drug posses-sion, blew the cover by releasing a loud fart, the state’s law enforcement posted on their Facebook.

“If you’ve got a felony warrant for your arrest, the cops are looking for you and you pass gas so loud it gives up your hiding spot, you’re definitely having a (poop emoji) day. #ItHappened,” the sheriff’s office said.

The authorities have not revealed any ad-ditional information on the suspect or the case.

“We’ve gotta give props to Liberty PD for using their senses to sniff him out!” the sheriff’s department told St. Louis’ Fox 2.

Liberty, a city in Clay County in Mis-souri, commented on the post on Twitter.

“Thanks to @SheriffClayCo for airing out a wanted person’s dirty laundry and fanning the flames. The Liberty Police De-partment was surprised to see this incident slip out, which stinks for the arrestee. For-tunately, no one was injured during his ar-rest #nervousbelly #nocomment.”

CALIFORNIA: A 17-year-old girl killed by a California police of-ficer last week appears to have been pointing a replica gun at

the officer when she was shot, video foot-age released Friday showed.

The graphic video, released by the Fullerton police department following questions from the teen’s family, shows Hannah Williams collapsing and plead-ing for help after she was shot on July 5.

The replica gun can be seen lying next to her in the video.

Police on Friday also released au-dio of an emergency call the teen’s fa-ther, Benson Williams, made about 90 minutes after the shooting to report his daughter missing.

Williams tearfully tells the dispatch-er in the call that he fears his daughter might harm herself and that she was on anti-depressants.

Police said the deadly encounter unfolded after the officer involved in the shooting spotted the teen driving at high speed on a freeway as he was taking his

K-9 dog to the veterinarian.He chased her vehicle and attempt-

ed to stop her, but at some point she made an abrupt U-turn into oncoming traffic and skidded to a stop facing the wrong way.

The video footage showed the offi-cer exiting his car and walking around the van Williams was driving. As he ap-proaches the driver’s side of the vehicle, he is confronted by Williams who can be seen walking towards him with her arms outstretched in a “shooting stance.”

Shots are then fired and Williams is seen collapsing on the ground and plead-ing for help.

Pakistan sacks judge accused of ‘blackmail’ in ex-PM Sharif case

A senior Pakistani judge accused of convicting the jailed former Prime Min-ister Nawaz Sharif in a

corruption case “under pressure” has been removed from his office, the country’s law ministry said.

Accountability judge Arshad Ma-lik who in December handed Sharif a seven-year jail term was relieved of his duties, Law Minister Farogh Nas-eem announced on Friday.

This came days after Maryam Nawaz, Sharif’s daughter and oppo-sition leader, claimed the judge - in a secretly videotaped conversation - admitted he convicted Sharif of cor-ruption after being coerced.

She said Malik also admitted there was no evidence against Shar-if, a claim the judge denies.

The allegations were made during a press conference where she aired a video that purported to show the judge admitting to le-gal fallacies in the case against her father and saying he was “black-

mailed” into delivering the verdict.“Judge Arshad Malik was

asked to stop working on the basis of the alleged video and the press release,” Naseem told a news con-ference on Friday.

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) in a statement, said, the law ministry would decide if an inquiry against the judge would be con-ducted by the ministry itself or by the IHC.

#FreeNawazSharifMalik’s removal on Friday

prompted immediate calls by Shar-if’s PML-N party for the release of the 69-year-old former prime minister, who is currently serving a seven-year jail sentence in the Kot Lakhpat jail in the eastern city of Lahore.

“The decision against Nawaz Sharif should be dismissed and he should be released immediately,” party spokeswoman Marriyum Au-rangzeb said, adding that Sharif’s con-viction should be considered “void”.

Sharif was convicted and jailed last year after failing to prove the source of income that had led to his ownership of a steel mill in Saudi Arabia. Under Pakistani law, this is taken to prove corruption.

In her press conference, Nawaz claimed the judge had told Nasir Butt, a PML-N party worker, that he was being blackmailed by unspeci-fied people who had videos of him engaging in acts of a personal nature.

2,896 Scientist Posts Lying Vacant In 70 Govt-Owned Institutes In IndiaPress Trust Of India

New Delhi: The top 70 insti-tutes and laboratories under the Ministry of Science and Technology have nearly 2,900 vacant posts of scientists, the government said on Friday.

The vacancy of scientists

in five institutes—National In-stitute of Oceanography, Goa, Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad, Na-tional Chemical Laboratory, Pune, Fourth Paradigm Insti-tute, Bengaluru and Central Flood technological Research

Institute, Mysuru—is 100 or more, Science and Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan said in a written response to a ques-tion in Lok Sabha.

According to the informa-tion shared by Vardhan, 70 in-stitutes under the Ministry of S & T have 2,896 vacant posts of

scientists. The Ministry of Science

and Technology has three de-partments: the Council for Scientific and Industrial Re-search, Department of Science and Technology and Depart-ment of Biotechnology.

Agencies

BEIRUT: The head of Lebanon’s He-zbollah movement has said that US ally Israel would not be “neutral” if a war broke out between the United States and Iran and that “all of the Zionist state was within the range of Hezbollah missiles”.

Nasrallah made the remarks during a televised interview al-Manar television on Friday on the occasion of the 13th anniversary of the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

Nasrallah’s remarks came af-ter weeks of increasing tensions between the US and Iran, and as US President Donald Trump steps up his war of words with the Islamic Re-public, the key backer of Hezbollah.

“When the Americans understand

that this war could wipe out Israel, they will reconsider,” Nasrallah said.

“Our collective responsibility in the region is to work toward prevent-ing an American war on Iran,” he said.

On Friday, the US House of Representatives voted to restrict Trump’s ability to attack Iran, voic-ing fear that his hawkish policies are pushing toward a needless war.

“Once we said that we could strike targets south of Haifa. Today, we can say that if Israel has sites south of Eilat, then we can also hit them. All of Israel is under the range of our missiles,” he said.

However, he said a war with Is-rael was unlikely to happen anytime soon, stressing that Israel will not risk another war thanks to Hezbol-lah’s deterrent force. The Hezbollah leader, while presenting the group’s developed capabilities, warned that in case of any confrontation, the Zionist entity would be brought to the “verge of vanishing, and it knows this.”

Israel Could Be ‘Wiped Out’ In A War With Iran, Hezbollah Leader Warns

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards attacked positions of the Iranian armed opposition in the Kurdistan region of Iraq with drones and missiles. (File/AFP)

S H O R T S T O R I E S

Sunday | 14-07-2019 05News

Cop held with heroin worth lakhs in Kupwara


Srinagar: Amid concern and calls for stepping up efforts to tackle growing drug menace in Kashmir, police Saturday said it has arrested a cop with nearly a kilo of heroin in Handwara area of Kupwara district. Mushtaq Ahmad Peer of Kalmuna Hand-wara was arrested after officers at a checkpoint established at Chogul seized 750 grams of heroin concealed in a poly-thene bag from his possession, a police spokesman said.

“It is learnt that the arrested person works in Armed Police,” the spokesman said, adding a car bearing registration num-ber JK01V-1178 has also been seized in the case.

The accused is posted with Bomb Disposal Squad (BDS) of Handwara Police, a local news

agency quoted officials as say-ing. The seized contraband is worth over Rs 20 lakhs, the of-ficial were quoted as saying.

The spokesman said police has registered a case in the matter and the accused re-mains in custody.

Meanwhile, two alleged inter-state drug smugglers were arrested with over 2 kg poppy in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua district Saturday, offi-cials said. A police team inter-cepted a car on the highway at Lakhanpur belt and seized 2.2 kg poppy and Rs 5.70 lakh cash was from the possession one Dharmendar Singh and accom-plice Kulwant, both residents of Phillaur in Jalandhar, Punjab, they said. A case was registered and investigation is on, police said. Hurriyat Conference(M) chairman and Mutahida Majlis-

e-Ulema chief Mirwaiz Umar Farooq recently called a confer-ence of ulema and imams to launch a grassroots campaign for eradication of drug abuse in Kashmir. Expressing con-cern over the “alarming levels” of drug menace in Kashmir, the Mirwaiz urged ulema and imams to use mosque pulpits to spread awareness against the threat. At least three deaths have been attributed to drug overdose in recent months in Anantnag and Srinagar districts of Kashmir division.

A recent survey by the Union ministry of social justice and empowerment said that 4.9 per cent of the state’s popula-tion, or around six lakh people, had been abusing opioid drugs amid apprehensions that the actual figures could be much higher.

‘Shahpur-Kandi dam to be functional in 3 years’

National Lok Adalat held in courts across J&K

Missing woman suspected of having crossed LoC


Jammu: The Shahpur-Kandi dam project on the Ravi river, which was stuck for over four decades now, will be functional by 2022, most likely in the first half of the year, Union minister Jitendra Singh said Saturday.

He said the dam will prove to be a game changer, particu-larly for the border districts of Kathua (in Jammu & Kashmir) and Gurdaspur (in Punjab).

Briefing the media after his visit to the site in Kathua where the construction work is un-derway, he said the project was held up for over forty years and was revived after the interven-tion of Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi. He said the Centre prepared fresh documents which were signed by Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and J&K Governor Satya Pal Ma-lik and the work on the project started in November 2018.

Singh, the Minister of State for Prime Minister's Office, also said the project will help ar-rest the flow of Indian share of water under the Indus Water Treaty into Pakistan.

During his visit, Singh was accompanied by the project's chief engineer and government representatives from Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir.

Singh said the project would cost around Rs 2,800 crore and upon completion, it would help irrigate about 5,000 hectare of land in Punjab and 32,173 hect-are in Kathua and Samba areas of J&K. The power generated from the project will also benefit the border districts of both Punjab and Jammu & Kashmir, he added. Referring to the Ujh Multipurpose Project, Singh said, it was also re-vived by the Modi government after nearly half a century. But the execution of work got delayed because it has been planned to set up a simultaneous canal system so that the surplus water from the dam could be made to flow through the canal into neighbour-ing Indian states of Punjab, Hary-ana and Rajasthan, rather than flowing into Pakistan.

The construction of Shahpur Kandi project, located in Pun-jab's Gurdaspur, was taken up in May 1999. It, however, was discontinued in 2014 following dispute between the two states.


SRINAGAR, JULY 13: A National Lok Adalat, second in the se-ries of 2019, was held in all the courts across the State in-cluding both wings of the High Court of J&K today.

The National Lok Adalat was held under the guidance and supervision of Justice Gita Mittal, Chief Justice High Court of J&K and Patron-in-Chief J&K State Legal Services Authority and under the guid-ance of Justice Rajesh Bindal, Judge High Court of J&K and Executive Chairman J&K State Legal Services Authority, and under the aegis of National Legal Services Authority.

Mohammad Akram Chow-dhary, Member Secretary J&K State Legal Services Author-ity, on the basis of information collected from all the courts disclosed that the Lok Adalat was organized in all the court complexes of three divisions – Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh.

Out of a total number of 19686 cases taken up by 133 Benches in the day-long Lok Adalat at various courts across the state, 12884 cases were dis-posed of and an amount of Rs 54,04,22,009 approximately

was awarded as compensation/settlement amount in Civil, Criminal, Labour disputes, Elec-tricity and Water Bills cases, Land Acquisition, Family Mat-ters, Cheque dishonor and Bank Recovery Cases.

Meanwhile, National Lok Adalat was today organized at both wings of High Court J&K in the ADR Centres High Court Complex, Srinagar/Jammu.

The National Lok Adalat was organized under the patronage of Justice Gita Mittal, the Chief Justice, High Court Jammu and Kashmir and Patron-in-Chief, J&K State Legal Services Au-thority, under the guidance of Justice Rajesh Bindal, Judge, High Court of J&K and Execu-tive Chairman, J&K State Legal Services Authority, and under the supervision and special guidance of Justice Ali Moham-mad Magrey, Judge, High Court of J&K and Chairman J&K High Court Legal Services Authority.

Total 285 post-litigation and 175 pre-litigation cases of dif-ferent nature like MACT cases, Bank cases, services writ mat-ters, Criminal Compoundable cases, 138 Negotiable Instru-ments Act, 561-A Cr. P.C Cases and more were listed before the National Lok Adalat.

In both the wings of the High Court, 31 cases which included MACT Cases (3), Bank Cases (Recovery) Pre-Litigation (16), Services Writ Petition (8), Criminal Com-poundable Cases (2), Other Civil Cases (2), were settled today. Besides, compensa-tion of Rs 64,50,000 was also awarded during the Adalat.

National Lok Adalats were held across Kashmir division wherein various pre and post litigation cases related to dif-ferent matters were taken up, an official spokesperson said.


Srinagar: A woman missing from her home in frontier area of Uri in north Kashmir’s Baram-ulla district is suspected to have crossed the Line of Control, a media report said today.

According to The Economic Times, Shaheena Begum, who is married in Nambla village of Uri, went missing in the first week of July, from Sahoora vil-lage, one of the last habitations on LoC in Uri. This village falls after the border fence and is thus manned by the Army con-tingent and all entries and exits are controlled through a gate in the fence, said the report.

“We have registered a missing report regarding a woman, who has reportedly crossed to the other side after going to a vil-lage to meet her relatives,” SSP

Baramullah, Abdul Qayoom was quoted as having said in the re-port. Quoting the locals, the re-port said that Shaheena, mother of four, was staying in Uri in a rented accommodation along with her family. “She informed her husband that she would go to Sahoora village to meet her relatives. At the fence gate she told the officials the same rea-son and was allowed to go inside the village,” a local from Uri was quoted as having said by The Economic Times. She has report-edly visited her relatives but af-ter leaving from there she failed to report back at the exit gate of the village, which alerted the security establishment, said the report. The woman, it said, has reportedly made a phone call from the other side of the LoC informing that she has crossed the border and is fine.

Nearly 30 shops gutted in fireSrinagar: Nearly 30 shops were gutted in a fire incident on Saturday in tourist resort of Gulmarg in Baramulla district. According to sources the fire emerged from a wooden shop near Police Station Gulmarg and eventually engulfed nearly 30 shops. Eyewitness said that fire was brought under con-trol with the rigorous efforts of Police, Fire services and the Shop owners.SHO Gulmarg said that 30 shops were damaged out of which only about 15 shops were functional. – CNS

Minor girl slips into stream, diesSrinagar: A 2-year-old girl drowned after slipping into a stream in south Kashmir’s Shopian district on Saturday. Reports said Hafsa Shakeel Bhat daughter of Shakeel Bhat slipped into the stream adjacent to her house in Shirmal village of Zainapora area. The incident occurred when she was playing on the bank of the stream, they said. Soon after the incident, family and neighbours immediately removed her to nearby by PHC where she died later. A police office also confirmed the death of the child due to drowning. --GNS

‘Mann-ki-Baat’ helps revival of 'Purgi'Srinagar: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Mann-ki-Baat’ pro-gramme is helping in the revival of Kargil region’s dying language Purgi, a dialect of Tibetan spoken in western Ladakh. “The efforts for the revival of Purgi got further encouragement with Prime Minister Modi’s Maan-ki-Baat broadcasts,” secretary Purgi Literary Society, Mohammad Issa Sabiri, said.After the Prime Minister started his Mann-ki-Baat broadcast, AIR Kargil decided to broadcast a regional version of each episode, he said. Executive Councillor of LAHDC, Kargil Aga Syed Abass Razvi called for Mann-ki-Baat broadcasts in the regional languages.

Kashmiri Pandit groups observe July 13 as 'Black Day'

Protest held for abolishment of holiday

Press Trust of India

Jammu: Several organisations representing displaced Kash-miri Pandits observed July 13 as 'Black Day', saying on this day in 1931 the community faced "persecution" in the Kashmir Valley. Members of the organ-isations held a demonstration outside the Raj Bhawan here, even as Martyrs' Day was ob-served in Jammu and Kashmir.

July 13 is observed as Mar-tyrs' Day in Kashmir as on this day in 1931, 22 people were killed in firing by the forces of Dogra ruler Maharaja Hari Singh. Observing July 13 as Martyrs' Day by political par-ties and the government in the state is akin to "rubbing salt into the wound of the displaced community", All State Kashmi-ri Pandit Conference (ASKPC) general secretary T K Bhat told

reporters. The demonstration was led by ASKPC president Ravinder Raina and over 400 members from the displaced community assembled in front of the Governor's House.

"This day is being observed by the Kashmiri Pandit com-munity as 'Black Day' since 1932 in commemoration of the persecution that was in-flicted upon the community on this fateful day in the valley of Kashmir," Bhat said.

On this day in 1931, the com-munity was subjected to "loot, arson, murder and mayhem on a large scale in the Valley, forcing the Maharaja's forces to protect them", he said.

Those who participated in the demonstration included leaders from Panun Kashmir, the All India Kashmiri Pandit Conference and the All Party Migrant Coordination Commit-tee. Terming the 'martyrs' day' observed on July 13 as a 'black day', the Yuva Rajput Sabha (YRS) staged protests here de-

manding abolishment of holi-day on Saturday. The 'martyrs' day' is observed in Jammu and Kashmir on July 13 every year in memory of those killed in firing by soldiers of Dogra ruler Maharaja Hari Singh on this day in 1931, YRS president Su-rinder Singh Gilli said.

He said the community ob-served the holiday as a 'black day' as it was a reminder of large scale arson, loot and sec-tarian carnage against the mi-nority Hindus. Over 300 activ-ists, led by Gilli, gathered here and staged protests against the 'martyrs' day'.

Alleging that the incident had not been portrayed right, Gilli appealed to Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik to declare July 13 as a working day. Gilli said the YRS had also urged the Modi gov-ernment to abolish the public holiday on July 13 and declare September 23 as a gazetted holiday on birth anniversary of Maharaja Hari Singh.


Srinagar: Two people who were allegedly involved in making im-provised explosive devices were arrested from Jammu and Kash-mir's Shopian district, police said Saturday. A police spokes-man said that on a credible in-put, searches were conducted at various locations in the district in the early hours of Saturday.

"During the searches, industri-

al explosives planned to be used in fabricating IEDs was recov-ered in a large quantity," he said.

He said two people were ar-rested and efforts were on to nab the other conspirators.

"The police has registered a case under relevant provisions of law and investigation has been taken up. Among other things, the investigation will focus on the source of the recovered ex-plosives," he added.


Srinagar: National Conference leader Omar Abdullah on Sat-urday mocked the cleanliness drive at the Parliament complex, saying it was one of the cleanest places in the country.

The former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister was re-

sponding to a Swachh Bharat programme held inside the Parliament complex in which several BJP MPs, including actor-turned-politician Hema Malini, could be seen wielding a broom.

"But the Parliament complex is one of the cleanest places in the country, especially when the sessions are on, so what were they sweeping?" Abdullah, a three-time member of the Lok

Sabha, tweeted. A short video of the Bollywood actor cleaning a road inside the complex came in for severe criticism on social me-dia as the broom of the Mathura MP was not even touching the ground as she swept.

"Ma'am please practice how to wield the (broom) in private be-fore your next photo op," Abdul-

lah tweeted. "This technique you've employed won't contrib-ute much to improving cleanli-ness in Mathura (or anywhere else for that matter)."

Pre-empting any criticism, the NC vice-president said: "I knew sweeping the dormitories in Sanawar (Himachal Pradesh) would be useful for something. I'm now qualified to comment on the (sweeping) technique of others."

Two arrested for making IEDs: Police

Omar mocks cleanliness drive at Parliament complex

Out of 19,686 cases 12,884 disposed; Rs 54.04 cr awarded as compensation

Information centre sought for Hajj pilgrimsSrinagar: The United Kingdom-based Association of British Hujjaj has urged Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to take measures to deal with the issue of a large number of Hajj and Umrah pilgrims, including the elderly and sick, suffering from “mental anguish and trauma as they get lost in the huge complex of the Grand Mosque and large crowds in and around it.” “ They struggle to find their way back to their hotels and accommodation. Due to language barriers they are unable to communicate with others or

ask for directions. Unfortunately, little help is available around the Grand Mosque for these pilgrims. Similarly, after the ston-ing at jamarat in Mina, returning to the camps is an uphill struggle for a substantial number of pilgrims. Searching for the lost pilgrims also causes great distress to their family members and loved ones,” it said in a statement. “There should be an informa-tion centre (booth) around the central area of the Grand Mosque to answer any queries as well as provide guidance and help to lost pilgrims. The officials deployed in the information centre should be multilingual, and should be equipped with computers which carry all relevant information of the Makkah hotels and other residential areas. All roads and streets in Makkah should be clearly signposted,” the statement said. Pilgrims should be made aware of the infrastructure of Masjid Al-Haram, details of its entrance doors, the facilities avail-

able to them and contact details of officials in case any pilgrim needs assistance. A map of Haram and surrounding areas including hotels and accommodation should be made available to all pilgrims. “This will help protect them from getting lost and make their movements stress-free. Similarly, appropriate arrangements should be made for Mina,” the statement said. It urged Saudi Arabia to take “appropriate action and make efforts to improve conditions for Hajj/Umrah pilgrims so that they may perform their religious obligations in peace and harmony.”

First batch of Hajis leaves from JammuJAMMU: District Development Commissioner Jammu, Ramesh Kumar flagged off first batch of 46 Hajj pilgrims of Jammu district here today. S P South, Vinay Sharma, team of civil and police officers, besides a large number of people were present to see off the pilgrims. Interacting with the pilgrims, the DDC congratulated for getting the opportunity to perform holy Hajj. He also wished them safe and secure pilgrimage and appealed them to pray for peace and prosperity of the state.The group of pilgrims including 17 women left in buses from Hajj House Jammu to New Delhi International Airport from where they will take international flight to Saudi Arabia.

Police ‘counsels’ youthAwantipora : Police Saturday held a counselling cum interactive session with a group of youth and their parents at District Police lines here. The session was chaired by SSP Awantipora Shri Tahir Saleem- JKPS. SDPO Tral & DYSP DAR were also part of the session, a police spokesman said.“During the interactive session, the youth were properly counselled and were later handed over back to their parents as a part of community out-reach programme. These youth had indulged in violence and created law and order disturbances in the area,” the spokesman said.“While interacting with them, the parents were advised to take appropriate care of their wards and not to allow them to move out unnecessarily in case of disturbance of law and order situation. The youth were counselled and advised to focus on their studies and channelize their energy in positive direction so that they evolve as better citizens of the state who will be committed to the welfare of our society,” the spokesman said.

A boy lays a wreath of flowers at the Martyrs Graveyard in Srinagar on Saturday. Pic Abid Bhat

Sunday|14-07-2019

Sunday Observer

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Editor-in-Chief : Sajjad Haider

Legal Counsel: Tasaduq KhwajaSwitchboard: (0194) 2106304Editorial: (0194) 2502327Email editorial: [email protected] & Published by Sajjad Haider on behalf of the Kashmir Observer LLPPublished from: # 1- Boulevard, Srinagar-190001Printed at: KT Press Pvt. Ltd, Rangreth Ind Area, Srinagar.RNI Registration No: 69503/98Postal Registration No-L/159/KO/SK/2014-16

Surendra in ‘The Hindu’

Think!Opinion, Analysis, Essays

The age profile of those martyred on 13th July reveals a startling analysis. Out of the total 22 martyred, 20 or 91% belonged to the age group of 18 - 35 years, the most reproduc-tive age group and the remaining two i.e 9% were above 35 years. This pattern of killing, which has continued till this day is a grim reminder of the fact that while the killer might have changed, the target remain the same.

Abdul Majid ZargarAmong all the countries of the world, I have found only Scan-dinavia livable for a human being aspiring to live in dignity, freedom and equality. Rest every country has its own bigotry to unleash. South Asia is hell hole of the universe. Justice and equality have never touched its shores.

Mohammed Afaaq

ALL IN A DAYS WORK

Cricket World Cup Highlights South Asia’s Fault Lines

Fans use matches to score political points against regional rivalsSreeram Chaulia

SOUTH Asia is one of the world’s most divided and least integrated regions. Its eight coun-tries -- from Afghanistan in the north to the Maldives in the south -- suffer from an abys-

mally low volume of trade, poor connectivity, bitter border tensions and violent religious extremism.

But an even more vivid measure of the mutual suspicion and hatred which tear South Asia apart is offered by the one sport which has a fervent mass following there -- cricket.

The twelfth edition of the men’s cricket world cup tournament, which features the national teams of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, alongside five more countries, is being played far away in England, but it has unleashed po-litical passions in South Asia.

The most anticipated clash of competing na-tionalisms was between fans of India and Pakistan. Even though the players of the two teams get along and have displayed goodwill, there was an explosion of emotions from fans during the teams’ encounter in Manchester on June 16.

News media in both countries hyped the game as a contest of national prestige and one-upmanship. The pressure to perform or perish was captured by Pakistani prime minister and former cricket cap-tain Imran Khan’s tweet on the eve of the match that the Pakistani team must "banish all fear of losing" and "fight till the last ball" while not forgetting that it was carrying the "nation’s prayers" with it.

Following the match, which India won, Paki-stani fans cried their hearts out and lambasted their team for failure in full media glare while Indian sup-porters celebrated as if it were a festival.

The unique edginess between India and Paki-stan in cricket reflects political conflicts over Kash-mir and jihadist terrorism. In the wake of recent military skirmishes between the two countries, the intensity around their cricket matches has risen.

In this world cup, the sense of epic enmity has tran-scended India-Pakistan games and spilled over into an interlinked and wider set of regional animosities.

On June 29, when the teams of Afghanistan and Pakistan squared off in Leeds, mysterious aircraft flew over the stadium with giant political banners reading "Help End Disappearances in Pakistan" and "Justice for Balochistan" -- a reference to the Paki-stani army’s harsh counter-insurgency tactics in its western province.

The Pakistani government alleges Baloch na-tionalists are being clandestinely encouraged by the government of India to fight for secession.

Brawls broke out between fans of Afghanistan and Pakistan that day outside the cricket ground, grabbing headlines. The resentment that Afghans nurse toward Pakistanis for sponsorship of the Tali-ban was also on display inside the stadium, with the former holding posters such as "Neighbor, send us your players not bombers."

On social media, large numbers of Afghans and Bangladeshis cheered for the Indian team and dissed Pakistan, giving vent to their respective likes and dislikes which stem from decades of political be-liefs and attitudes.

On July 11, during the semifinal between Aus-tralia and England in Birmingham, another political banner saying "World must speak up for Balochistan" was flown by unknown aircraft over the stadium.

Not to be outdone by the anti-Pakistan memes and propaganda, there were also anti-India mani-festations and outbursts during the world cup. In a tit-for-tat move, private aircraft flew over the Leeds cricket stadium during the India versus Sri Lanka game on July 6 with the banners "Justice for Kash-mir," a region disputed by India and Pakistan, and

"India stop genocide, free Kashmir."To the chagrin of the tournament organizers,

the apolitical International Cricket Council, much focus on and off the field in this world cup has been on raw nationalism. Some of it may be the handi-work of state agencies and not just free expression of overloaded patriotism by fans.

But apart from nationalism derived from the current state of foreign relations among South Asian countries, a pervasive phenomenon during the world cup has been the surge in subnational identity expression.

Many Balochis and Pashtuns, two disgruntled minority ethnic groups in Pakistan, openly came out on Twitter and Facebook in favor of the Indian team against the Pakistani team. Conversely, Kash-miri Muslims who feel colonized by India identified with the Pakistani team and conveyed hopes that it would prevail over the Indian team.

A video showing a Sikh man waving the Paki-stani flag and chanting for a separate Khalistan or independent country for India’s Sikh minority during a New Zealand versus Pakistan game in Birmingham on June 26 went viral in Pakistani social media.

The frustrations of Sri Lanka’s small Muslim minority community, especially following the Eas-

ter Sunday bombings and religious persecution in the island nation, were also visible, with most of them rooting for the Pakistani team against Sri Lan-ka, presumably because Pakistan was formed as a homeland for the subcontinent’s Muslims at the end of British rule.

The men's cricket world cup, which has been played on national lines since 1975, was always a ba-rometer of "who hates whom" in South Asia. But in the social media age, this premier tournament has become even more politicized by fans and interested parties to extract global publicity and pursue psy-chological warfare.

With hundreds of millions glued to their televi-sion sets and online streaming services during live coverage, taking a dig at countries or communities one dislikes while glorifying those one sympathizes with has a clickable real-time appeal. The first two weeks had a viewership of 183 million in India alone, research from the Broadcast Audience Research Council of India found.

The Prussian military thinker Carl von Clause-witz wrote that "war is the continuation of politics by other means." In South Asia, cricket is a continu-ation of war by other means.

Notwithstanding innovative formats like the Indian Premier League, where mixed club teams have players drawn from multiple countries, the core national and subnational loyalties which drive cricket, particularly in multinational tournaments like the world cup, remain dominant.

Detached observers have decried the jingoism and politicization of cricket as harmful to the spirit of what the British used to call a "gentleman’s game." To them, cricket is just a pastime which should be played with sportsmanship.

India’s cricket captain, Virat Kohli, even said on the eve of the match against Pakistan that the play-ers "can't get too emotional or too overexcited." But he nodded to the bigger reality and the grand politi-cal theater provided by the world cup: "I can't tell the fans to think of the game in a particular manner."

South Asians live and die by their cricket affilia-tions. They vent their feelings and longings through cricket, which is why it is the people’s game. The wars on and off the pitch will go on.

Sreeram Chaulia is a professor and dean at the Jindal School of International Affairs in Sonipat,

India. His forthcoming book is "Trumped: Emerging Powers in a Post-American World"

EVERY once in a while, if we are lucky, we get a book which brings the early days of Islam alive for us in a way that is fresh and new. Martin Lings’s seminal biography of

the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was one such effort. Fatima Mernissi’s vibrant account of the Islamic rev-olution in gender roles is the closest thing we have to a women’s history of Islam. Lesley Hazleton recently introduced an entire generation of readers to the epic tale of the Shia-Sunni divide. And now we have Juan Cole focusing a spotlight on the “rich vein of peace” that characterised the Prophet’s mission.

This book is titled Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires. Cole is a professor at the University of Michigan and a well-known public in-tellectual and prominent commentator on Islam and Middle Eastern affairs. He has written extensively on Islamic themes and has translated Khalil Gibran into English and key American writers such as Thomas Jef-ferson into Arabic. He has a special affinity with Paki-stan; he serves on the editorial board of the academic journal Pakistaniat. His wife hails from Lahore.

Islamic history is usually taught to us as a kind of closed universe, unlike Judaism or Christianity where world empires loom large and historical personages such as Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus and Alexander make appearances. But even with Islam, we sometimes get hints of a subtext. Only recently have scholars started to highlight this fascinating new dimension.

Celebrated Western scholar Juan Cole situates the birth of Islam in the middle of an apocalyptic showdown between Rome and Persia, two of the larg-est empires the ancient world had ever seen

Cole situates the birth of Islam square in the middle of an apocalyptic showdown between Rome and Persia, two of the largest empires the ancient world had ever seen. Most Arab tribes at the time were politically aligned and some served as vassals for these two powers. The Prophet himself interact-ed with Christians and Jews as part of his prophetic mission. As a merchant, he travelled to Roman and Persian territories such as Damascus and Yemen, the most cosmopolitan cities of the age, where he likely interacted with men of different faiths and cultures. Cole contends that this constant atmosphere of war is a necessary backdrop to understand and illuminate Islam’s novel views on warfare.

Cole introduces us to the kings and the power bro-kers: in Persia, there is the emperor Khosrow Parvez, the most powerful man in the world. The poets would later recast him as one of Persian literature’s greatest figures in the epic Shahnama and the tragic romance of Khosrow and Shireen. With him are his generals, the most notable being Shahr Varez, who — clad in his famed, glittering scale armour — carves out a trail of conquest and destruction across the Middle East. On the Roman side, we have Herakleios [Heraclius] the Armenian, successor to the Caesars. We have the notables of his court, the poets and the philosophers, the Roman senate and clashing sects within the Christian faith. And on the peripher-ies we find Jewish communities en-gaged in dangerous games of politics and intrigue for an ever-precarious self-preservation.

The book is a rich, immersive ex-perience. Cole paints vivid pictures of desert landscapes, oasis communi-ties and ruined mountain cities, so much so that one can feel the desert sand in one’s mouth and hear the march of armies on the move.

We follow the campaigns and battles: the Persians dominate with a string of magnificent victories, seizing Damascus and Egypt from the Romans. The darkest mo-ment is the conquest of Jerusalem, where Shahr Varez deploys ballistas to breach the stone walls and launch a massacre. The patriarch is tortured till he reveals the location of the True Cross, the remnants of the legend-ary cross from the Crucifixion, which is then promptly dispatched to Persia. An eyewitness recounts, “The

heavenly Jerusalem wept for the one down below.”Khosrow Parvez sends Herakleios a letter urging

that he submit and live out his days on a generous feu-dal estate in Iran. Herakleios assembles his nobles in the Hagia Sophia cathedral and shares the humiliating missive with them. Then they all fall to the stone floor in front of the sacred altar, “weeping, to show Christ how abject they had become.” Defeat seems certain.

The fledgling Muslim community in Arabia, who consider the Christians their natural allies, is also cast into despair at the news, and here the Holy Quran consoles them with promise of an imminent Roman victory. The Battle of Nineveh then turns the tide,

forcing Khosrow to flee, driving Persia back to its borders, where a power struggle breaks out. Khos-row is tossed into a dungeon by his own son, Shiroyeh. Shahr Va-rez is forced into a retreat and the Persian empire is wracked by civil war shortly after. Roman glory is restored. The court poet, Georgios of Pisidia, addresses Herakleios: “He worshipped fire; you, mighty

sovereign, adore the sublime wood of the Cross; when this wood rose high into the heavens, the fire of Persia could not touch it.”

It is at that point that the Quran also directly addresses Zoroastrians, urging them to peaceful co-existence: “The believers, the Jews, the Sabians, the Christians, the Zoroastrians and the pagans — God will decide among them on the Resurrection Day. God sees all things” (The Pilgrimage, 22:17).

We see Cole’s main thesis: Islam is inclusivist

with regards to theology, in that Islam alone possess-es the truth whereas other faiths retain a corrupted version of it. However, more importantly, Islam is pluralist in terms of salvation — in stark contrast to Christianity or Judaism and perhaps more akin to Hinduism, since it acknowledges that other faiths possess equally valid paths to God. This is explicitly spelled out in the Quran: “Those who believed, and the Jews, and the Christians, and the Sabians, and whoever has believed in God and the Last Day and performed good works, they shall have their reward with their Lord” (The Cow, 2:62). Cole argues that the early Muslims viewed Islam not as a faith sent to sup-plant other faiths, but as a vanguard community in a commonwealth of believers, a “brotherhood of mono-theisms.”

In this light, our early history is infused with new meaning: Cole suggests that the Prophet may even have considered his own battles against unbelievers as playing a part in this overarching conflict between Persia and Rome, another front in the cosmic war between paganism and monotheism, and explicitly a defence of Christians. We have the revelation: “He endorsed those who fought because they had been wronged, and in truth God is able to aid them — those who were expelled from their homes unjustly, solely for saying our lord is God. Had God not checked one people with another, then monasteries, churches, oratories and places of worship wherein God is much mentioned would have been razed to the ground” (The Pilgrimage 22:39-40).

However, Cole’s narrative can also be a little dis-concerting; in places, he fills in the gaps in the his-torical record with guesswork, he argues that certain events may well be inventions of later biographers and he mentions apocryphal Hadith to support his thesis. Whereas these positions are not uncommon in mod-ern scholarship, they may sound a discordant note for traditionalists. A far bigger disappointment for the Pakistani reader, though, is to consider the vast gulf between Cole’s erudite investigation and what passes for religious discourse in our madressahs. Even as we wrestle with extremism at home, this book makes us realise that we have yet to counter it at the ideological level — and what a long way we have to go.

Dawn

Contextualising The Dawn Of Islam

Taha ali

Muhammad: Prophet ofPeace Amid the Clash

of EmpiresBy Juan Cole

Bold Type Books, USISBN: 978-1568587837

336pp.

Sunday|14-07-2019Think!Opinion, Analysis, Essays

Zaira Wasim's Decision: Hold Up, Breathe, Analyse

HOW many creatures in the world can match the intel-lectual abilities of humans? Although we are physically

much weaker than most of the animals, we largely control them. We can even tame a lion. We have reached outer space, created sophisticated instru-ments to cure disease. This is a fact, and it must be for reason.

Those who believe in spirituality and the existence of God can relate this to the creator, and those who are unbe-lievers put it differently and try to ex-plain it through other means. But all of us largely agree that the quest to gain wisdom and knowledge about the uni-verse is a persistent thirst that humans have not quenched yet, and perhaps will never do. Our curiosity to explore the universe will never die and if one dives deeper to know why, and what makes us to do this, we may turn our pages of wis-dom within us and start exploring life differently. This is a normal cycle for any conscious human being, and this is exactly what Zaira Wasim might have been going through when she decided to quit Bollywood.

I think the growth of humans on earth is not merely to survive and increase in size but to think and act wisely. Zaira Wasim had this quest to discover herself. Her life seems to have distracted this very purpose, which can happen to anyone and in any field, not just in the film industry. Why would any conscious soul get offended by such a choice? It is our life and we have the right to explore it, and discover and re-discover it.

I think, Zaira, while working in Bol-lywood, understood that the direction and script that was given to her to act on is the reflection of a larger picture of what this universe is all about. She

perhaps glimpsed into that infinite world where God is the director, and we all are actors. The scripts, our holy scriptures, are just instructions to fol-low to make our stay in the world one of the best experiences. Think of a movie where an actor refused to follow a given script and direction, the outcome might be disastrous. Zaira has explored the world where God is the director, and started to follow those instruction, any sensible actor would do the same. How can such a decision be controversial? And this makes sense to anyone who understands that humans are a part of a project that God has planned a long time back, and there everyone will be accountable to what he/she has done in life. So death is the final destination and God will reward or punish people based on what they have achieved in life.

A major problem that humans face in the present world is the existence of extreme hatred amongst ourselves (in-cluding intra-and inter-religious prob-lems) and between religious and non-religious people. And, ironically, these groups have maintained a long distance to explore each other’s worlds. How are

we going to solve a problem if we do not understand that very problem.

How many people, who are offended by Zaira Wasim’s decision, have opened a chapter in Quran (the religious script-ture of Muslims), and explored it to map and understand what she has decided to follow. At least this would have made the criticism worthy of a discussion.

Academic and research criticism on old and new findings/beliefs is a world that one loves to explore. Because such discussions, if done professionally, would enrich you with a wealth of in-formation and the reader would enjoy every moment of it. But unfortunately, such criticism is rare these days, and the problem is that people read less, ex-plore less, but comment a lot. And this gets ignited further with false nation-alism, and the supremacist attitude of people who believe in such ideas which are basically worth nothing; if we just turn a few pages of human history on the planet Earth.

So, I feel the thirst to explore the world of knowledge, the treasure of in-formation amongst and between believ-ers and non-believers has to be shared.

We must work on our tolerance to dis-cover the beauty of this planet that we call home. There is no harm in reading about religious or non-religious texts with a motivation to fully comprehend the bigger picture of why, what, and how. Why do Muslims believe in one God, and what does that mean? Why do polytheists believe in many Gods, and what does it signify?

There is so much beauty in diver-sity, only if it enriches you. Your love to climb mountains will take you to the highest point on the planets and your love to explore the worlds will have ab-solutely no end. So let us be explorers of this universe, and set stage for all of us to reach the zenith of humanity, where we love to help people to make them live in peace and prosperity.

--------------Dr. Afroz Ahmad Shah is an Assistant

Professor in Structural Geology, Physical & Geological Sciences,

Faculty of Science, Universiti Brunei Darussalam.. He can be reached at:

[email protected]

A major problem that humans face in

the present world is the existence of extreme hatred amongst our-selves (including intra-and inter-religious prob-lems) and between religious and non-reli-gious people. And, ironi-cally, these groups have maintained a long dis-tance to explore each other’s worlds. How are we going to solve a problem if we do not understand that very problem.

Dr. Afroz AhmAD ShAh

The Youth: Unemployment, Drugs And The Cycle Of Distress

firDouS AhmAD BAhAr

HOW dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use !" - Ulysses, Alfred Lord Tennyson

Why are the youth of Kashmir fading away in their bloom, in the prime of their lives? If we have a debate over the issue, I assure you, fire-works will go off.

Unemployment is a big issue that the current generation faces. It's a major setback which drags the young minds of Kashmir into holes of shame-less pits. Many who have completed their degrees; undergraduates, postgraduates and even Ph.D. scholars, are stuck, wasting away their time. Once you get to know them you’ll realize their unfulfilled potential. Thus, having no other alternative to tackle their odious circumstances, they resolve to finding euphoria in the dark lusters of time. i.e. tak-ing drugs, relieving themselves of the burden they carry. Keeping their faux companionship safe and intact, where they believe resides their strength and unity, they recline with their vulnerabilities out in the open.

On such a route, the youth slowly and gradually get in touch with people involved in this hideous business. Therefore, what could be the most obvi-ous dereliction from the state government than this, the states constant alienation and abuse towards its people, pushing us towards eternal darkness. Prom-ises and plans are presently the vogue, endeavors are functional now but to no avail. There might still be someone who would abide by on a crystal expec-tancy that a day will come when his/her or their dreams will congeal, shall consummate by some di-vine aid. Alas! in order to pick them up or to assert it more congenially, smear the lotion of anodyne over their bruises. But, responsible hands hurl them back into the dungeons of the dark abyss, towards the extremes, among the blood-sucking leeches and blind annelids. Where they, the future crowns of na-tion, remain suspended as an antique metallic resi-due throughout their lives.

Don't forget, these are the same youth upon whom some great stalwart columns of the nation claim that once they get the proper and apt counsel-ling, they might revolutionize the entire country and strengthen the task of nation building. First, excuse me for the faint definition, seeking refuge in advance from aftermath rants and castigations for this inadequacy of mine. But let me tell you, it's not

due to the lack of knowledge or any other deficiency, but for some readership, those definitions will not strike the concord out here. And apart from all this, I would like to retain the logic intact in my main standpoint as it is. So, I deem it quite appropriate not to elongate my written discourse any further by definitions but by my own nude experience.

However, the above enunciation of nation build-ing goes for the Kashmiri youth as well. I don't think that they lack the potential to stand in vie with the rest of the globe. In lieu of it, they have profuse cal-cium and mettle present in them. They only need some help, which I believe ought to be the step of an opportunity for recognition, to give them a platform, so that they could display their concealed dexterity and special skills to the world. Or, it could be the ini-tiative of creating jobs and eradicating unemploy-ment to pull out this ailment of canker and fungoid of infirmity from this land of matchless beauty. Oth-erwise, be ready to have offspring’s of a vibrant God in a society where they will generate raucous and strike an imbalance and disequilibrium in the cur-riculum and function of the society. Once we cater the needs of those deserving candidates, who have turned towards debauchery and roving indulgences,

half of their frustration and mental stress will ap-pease itself. It's this obsession which compels them to indulge in un-hygienic exercises. The results are uploaded on the internet and almost on all means of electronic and social medias, which results in dis-honour and shame for the nation. That doesn't only harm the repute of the state but rests as a blot on the structure of our society and country.

Therefore, to avoid these noxious impulses which are capable of uprooting any foundational edifice, no matter how big and gigantic, democratic governments should welcome the cognizance of the youth and their potential should be governed and fa-cilitated onto the grand and magnificent shores, and give them the jobs available, as per their qualifica-tion and intelligence. This act would engage them and their creative calibre and give them no space for instability and illegitimacy of any sort. Presently, to describe the predicament of the Kashmiri youth, they desperately need support to keep them at the apex of prosperity.

The method of creating jobs and eradicating unemployment seems to be the most effective initia-tive to uplift young minds of Kashmir. The step of creating more job opportunities would sweep away this curse of unemployment, which has our young generation by their collars and has hurled them into bottomless pits.

Hence, the scheme of creating jobs is currently the alchemy to every ill and evil out here. It's an acknowledged matter of fact, sitting idle is a bane, vested underneath the veneer of sloth. So, it's bet-ter to make an advancement with handsome paid tâche[s] (French for job), than to face the gush of this sloths lazy insurgency which has adopted vari-ous forms over the years.

Don't stay idle, because the Idle mind is the dev-il's workshop. Thus, there should be proper facilita-tion of jobs. The youth in urban and particularly in the rural areas will be motivated and take an inter-est in educating themselves which will restrict them from taking part in paltry activities. Apart from this, education, which guards and prepares the youth for the hurdles they face in life, might synthesize them to run their own business units as independent en-trepreneurs. That will give pride to them, their fam-ily, the society and the nation as such.

------Author is pursuing M.eD programme at the Cluster University, Srinagar and can be reached at:

[email protected]

Hence, the scheme of creating jobs is currently the alchemy to every ill and evil out here. It's an acknowledged matter of fact, sitting idle is a bane, vested underneath the veneer of sloth. So, it's better to make an advancement with handsome paid tâche[s] than to face the gush of this sloths lazy insurgency which has adopted various forms over the years.

"

Sunday | 14.07.2019 08J&J Denials Of Asbestos In Baby Powder Spur Criminal ProbeThe US Justice Department is

pursuing a criminal investiga-tion into whether Johnson &

Johnson lied to the public about the possible cancer risks of its talcum powder, people with knowledge of the matter said.

The criminal probe, which hasn’t been reported previously, coincides with a regulatory investigation and civil claims by thousands of cancer patients that J&J’s Baby Powder talc was responsible for their illness. Now, a grand jury in Washington is examining documents related to what company officials knew about any carcinogens in their products, the people said.

Baby Powder accounts for only a tiny fraction of J&J’s annual revenue, but it’s been a core brand for the company for more than a century. Questions about the product’s safety have led to more than 14,000 law-suits from consumers asserting that the company’s talc products caused their ovarian cancer or mesothelio-ma, a rare form of the disease linked to asbestos exposure.

J&J disclosed in February that it had received subpoenas, but little

was known then about the inves-tigation behind them, including whether the matter was civil or criminal. The filing didn’t mention a grand jury.

The company said in a statement Friday that there had been no new developments. “We have been fully cooperating with the previously disclosed DOJ investigation and will continue to do so," said J&J spokes-woman Kim Montagnino. “John-son’s Baby Powder does not contain asbestos or cause cancer, as sup-ported by decades of independent clinical evidence."

The Justice Department didn’t re-spond to requests for comment.

Shares of J&J declined by 4.2% to close at $134.30.

J&J, the world’s largest maker of health care products, has said safety tests of its Baby Powder over many de-cades have shown no presence of as-bestos. But some of the lawsuits have turned up internal memos as far back as the 1960s and ’70s that contain warnings from company scientists that asbestos detected in J&J’s talc was a “severe health hazard" that could pose a legal risk for the company.

News

FROM FRONT PAGE

Shutdown, Curbscrucial importance of maintaining unity and

brotherhood for ushering the state towards peace and prosperity.

National Conference president Farooq Abdullah, senior PDP leader A R Veeri and Congress leader Peerzada Sayeed were among the host of main-stream politicians who paid homage to the martyrs.

CPI (M) leader Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami, President of Democratic Party Nationalist Ghulam Hassan Mir, Chairman of Peoples Democratic Front Hakeem Yaseen and President of Awami Ithad Par-ty Er Rasheed also offered tributes to martyrs.

Separatist leaders including moderate Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaz Umar Farooq were placed under house arrest to prevent them from visiting the graveyard.

The separatists have called for a shutdown as a mark of respect to the martyrs' of 1931 and to press for resolution of the Kashmir issue.

Normal life in the valley was severely affected due to the strike called by joint resistance leader-ship as shops and other business establishments remained closed while public transport remained off the roads, the officials said.

They said some private vehicles, however, could be seen plying various intra-city and inter-district routes of Kashmir.

Army Chief Warnsforces stand resolute and ready to defend our

territorial integrity. Let there be no doubt that misadventures will be repelled with a punitive response," he said.

The rise of non-state actors and the readiness to use militancy and other irregular methods of fighting have become a new norm, he said.

Addition of cyber and space domain has changed the battlefield scenario, the Army chief noted.

Rawat also asserted that no act of terror will go unpunished. "Surgical strikes post-Uri and Balakot have amply demonstrated our political and military resolve against (militancy). Any act of (militancy) will not go unpunished," Rawat added.

‘No Intrusion By(LAC) last week after some Tibetans hoisted Ti-

betan flags on the occasion of Dalai Lama’s birth-day on July 6.

“Chinese come and patrol to their perceived Line of Actual Control…we try and prevent them. But at times there are celebrations that take place at the local levels. Celebrations were going on our side by our Tibetans in the Demchok sector. Based on that, some Chinese also came to see what was happening. But there has been no intrusions. Ev-erything is normal,” the Army chief said.

India and China share a disputed border and the armies of the two countries were engaged in a stand-off for 73 days in 2017 in Doklam

Former Top CopHis appointment by the competent authority

followed after Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs, conveyed approval vide letter (No. 11012/03/2018-K.I ) on Saturday.

Khan retired from service in 2013 and later joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The former Inspector General of Police Khan, a 1994-batch IPS officer was administrator of Lakshadweep.

Khan was the first Muslim from Jammu and Kashmir to get a prominent place in the BJP within 15 months of his joining the party. He had joined the BJP at an election rally in the presence of Naren-dra Modi, who was then the party’s prime ministe-rial candidate.

He retired as head of the Sher-e-Kashmir Police Academy Udhampur in the rank of Inspector Gen-eral of Police.

The former IPS officer became the first head of the anti-militancy Task Force popularly known as Special Operations Group.

The sexagenarian also had his share of contro-versies which included gunning down of five civil-ians at Pathribal in South Kashmir. After enquiries made at various levels followed by a CBI probe, Khan was given a clean chit and army officers were held responsible for the killings.

His grandfather Colonel (retired) Peer Moham-mad Khan, who was in the army of Maharaja Hari Singh, was the first state president of the Jammu and Kashmir Jana Sangh.

Khan’s appointment comes more than six months after Skandan Krishnan, a retired IAS of-ficer of 1982 batch, who was Incharge of Kashmir Division in the Government of India for five con-secutive years from 2007 to 2012, as fourth Advisor

to the Governor Satya Pal Malik. After imposing Governor’s Rule in the State on

June 20 alst year following withdrawal of support by BJP to Mehbooba Mufti-led coalition Govern-ment, then Governor NN Vohra had appointed three Advisors to him including BB Vyas, then Chief Secretary of the State, who was on extension after completing his retirement age, Khurshid Ahmad Ganai, who was working as Chief Information Com-missioner (CIC) after retirement from the services and K Vijay Kumar, who was then Security Advi-sor to the Union Home Ministry after retirement as Director General of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).

However, on November 8, 2018, Kewal Krishan Sharma was appointed fourth Advisor to Governor Satya Pal Malik, who had replaced Vohra on August 23 last year but on December 14, Vyas resigned as the Advisor following his appointment as member of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). Later on Skandan Krishnan was appointed as an-other advisor to the governor.

Promotion Pleapetitioner in entering mutations is not in dispute.

Investigation was conducted and FIR No.39/1999 P/S VOK was registered against the petitioner and he is facing trial for the offence allegedly commit-ted by him under Prevention of Corruption Act, which is pending,” said a bench of Justice Rajesh Bindal after hearing counsel for accused as well as state’s senior Additional Advocate General N H Shah.

“Keeping in view the allegations levelled against the petitioner, I do not think that the petitioner deserves relief of promotion, when on the post he was holding there were allegations of corruption for which he is facing trial,” the court said and dis-missed the petition.

In 2015, the Vigilance Organisation Kashmir pre-sented Challan against the Syed Giyas-ud-Din, the then Naib-Tehsildar Rajpora Pulwama, Mohammad Akbar Bhat, the then Girdawar Rajpora and Man-zoor Ahmad Bhat, then Patwari Hardul Hanjan Ra-jpora Pulwama in the Court of Additional Anti-cor-ruption Judge Pulwama for alleged abuse of their official positions for tampering with the mutation of a land measuring three Kanals. According to Vigilance, the case was registered on the outcome of a verification conducted into the allegations that the accused public servants by abuse of their offi-cial positions have mutated land measuring three Kanals Gair Mumkin Abadi in favour of accused beneficiaries namely Wali Mohammad, Ghulam Mohammad, Mushtaq Ahmad sons of Nabir and Abdul Razaq, Ghulam Mohammad, and Moham-mad Yousuf sons of Rehman Nangroo residents of Harduhanjan, Rajpora Pulwama.

“The investigation of the case proved against accused public servants and beneficiaries,” the Vigilance Organization had said. After the accord of prosecution sanction from government against the accused persons, the Challan of the case was produced in the Court of Additional Anticorruption Judge Pulwama in presence of the accused.

Soon Or Laterwitnessed a forceful upsurge until 1931, a pro-

found departure from the traditional stoism,” he said, adding, “It taught all shades of opinion not to imagine them separate of an all embracing Mus-lim identity which subsequently became vibrant with the toil of Sher-e-Kashmir. Not just Muslims, Sheikh Sahib told masses that the ills of the masses can be remedied by carrying Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs together.”

Farooq also decried advertisement ban on vari-ous local dailies and said, “Media plays a crucial role of gate keeping and exposing the ills of society in a democratic set up. It also exposes the loopholes in a democratic system which ultimately helps the government to undo wrongdoings, thereby making the administration more responsive and efficient.”

However, he said, the situation is much differ-ent in this part of the world. “Today we are being denied a vibrant press. The sole reason behind the curbs is to pressurize the media fraternity from not reporting the issues of greater public importance. Today an unconventional version of democracy is being pushed on us. This all is done to suit the pur-pose of forces as are inimical to the special status of the state.”

The reason behind such “unscrupulous and un-democratic gags” on local dailies is to impede their impartial working, he said. “Putting curbs on the press is analogous to throttling democracy. It must end without any delay. The ban of Government adds to various local dailies should be revoked.”

He said the forces are as inimical to special con-stitutional position will try their level best to widen

the communal tension in the state. “Such forces want to rob our state of its flag, of its own consti-tution and of its unique constitutional identity and they will employ all sorts of dishonest routes to achieve their end. They will try to buy our con-viction with money and muscle power,” he said, adding, “They will use their servile henchmen in the state to divide the voice of Kashmiri Muslims. They will try to fan sectarian strife; however it is the unity that affords us a universal remedy against the intrigues of our enemy. At the same time the gravity of the situation demands us to remain cau-tious of the veiled enemies that are propping up in the every street of Kashmir playing catchy slogans.”

On Wednesday last, the Government of India evaded direct response to delay in holding assem-bly elections in state.

Responding to a question by senior congress leader and former Chief Minister of the state, Gh-ulam Nabi Azad, minister of state in the ministry of Home Affairs, G. Kishan Reddy said Election Com-mission of India has not yet fixed the dates.

He responded in affirmative to the question whether it was a fact that on 3rd January this year, the then Home Minister (Rajnath Singh) had stated in the Rajya Sabha that the Central Government was ready to hold elections in Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly along with Lok Sabha Elec-tions, if Election Commission desires so

“The superintendence, direction and control of conducting elections to Parliament and State Leg-islatures are vested with the Election Commission of India,” Reddy said responding to the question on the reasons for not holding the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections along with Lok Sabha elections and when does Government plan to hold polls.

The Governor's rule in Jammu and Kashmir was imposed initially on June 20, 2018, and the State Assembly was kept in suspended animation after the state plunged into a political crisis when the Mehbooba Mufti-led coalition government was re-duced to minority following withdrawal of support by the 25-member BJP in the state.

Governor on November 21, 2018, dissolved the 87-member state assembly after the PDP, support-ed by the Congress and their arch-rivals National Conference, had staked claim to form the govern-ment.

Simultaneously, the two-member People's Con-ference led by Sajjad Lone had also staked claim to form a government with 25 members of the BJP and other 18 unknown members.

The governor had dissolved the assembly citing horse-trading and lack of stability to form a govern-ment as the reasons.

Track-II: Indiaissued, RPI chief executive Raoof Hassan said in

a tweet that the two sides were trying for peace."Here we are finally trying to untangle the tricky

knot! It is always the scent of possibilities that sus-tains my hope for the future. Let's do a toast to a tomorrow of peace and reconciliation," he said.

The organisers said six delegates from India par-ticipated in the interaction on Friday and Saturday and discussed issues like security, trade and peo-ple-to-people contacts.

The theme of the first session was 'With young leading the charge - discovering new paths for rec-onciliation and progress'.

The topic for the second session was on 'Moving to overcome challenges formulating a vision of the future'. Another session was titled 'Commonality of stakes Connectivity as the gateway to develop-ment'.

It was the first such interaction after the Pulwa-ma attack which brought the two counties to the brink of war.

The second round of Track-II dialogue will take place in New Delhi in September this year.

India, Pak KartarpurThe meeting will take place at the Attari-Wagah

border on the Pakistani side.They said India will also flag its concerns over

the security aspect. New Delhi had earlier con-veyed its strong concerns to Pakistan over the presence of a leading Khalistani separatist in a committee appointed by Islamabad on the proj-ect.

Matters related to the modalities of the cor-ridor, who can use the corridor and its facilities, will be discussed.

Besides this, the documents required for the movement of pilgrims, the number of people to be allowed would be on the meeting agenda, sources said.

They would also discuss the issue of connectiv-ity at the Zero Point, they added.

Sources here said India has high expectations

from the upcoming meeting and hoped that is-sues like connectivity at the Zero point and visit of a large number of pilgrims on the special occa-sions will be discussed thoroughly.

The project will allow easy access to Sikh pil-grims from India to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur in Pakistan, the final resting place of Guru Nanak.

The sources said the work on a four-lane high-way on the Indian side is in full swing.

The four-lane highway connecting the Zero Point of the Kartarpur Corridor up to National Highway-354 is being constructed by the Nation-al Highways Authority of India (NHAI). Pakistan is constructing a two-lane highway.

Officials said the work on the four-lane high-way should be completed by September.

The sources said India is constructing a bridge at the Zero Point and has urged Pakistan to build a similar bridge on its side that will provide safe and secure movement of the pilgrims and address concerns regarding flooding.

The bridge is over a creek, of which the major-ity part falls in Pakistan.

Pakistan said it would build a mud-filled em-bankment, a move which would not only lead to flooding in areas on the Indian side but also pose a threat to the structure of the Indian bridge, the sources added.

The creek floods during the monsoon when the Ravi river swells.

Another proposal put forth by Pakistan was to build a causeway, the sources said, adding that it was unacceptable to India as it would not provide an all-weather road.

They said the construction work at the site of passenger terminal complex at Dera Baba Nanak in India is on full swing.

The work has been planned to be completed by October 31 before the commemoration of 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak in November.

In November 2018, Pakistan agreed to set up the border-crossing linking Gurdwara Darbar Sa-hib in Kartarpur, the final resting place of Sikhism founder Guru Nanak, to Dera Baba Nanak in Pun-jab's Gurdaspur district.

Kartarpur is located in Pakistan's Narowal dis-trict, about four km from Dera Baba Nanak.

Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu and Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had on Novem-ber 26 last year laid the foundation stone of the Kartarpur corridor in Gurdaspur district.

Two days later, the Pakistani prime minis-ter laid the foundation stone of the corridor in Narowal, around 125 km from Lahore.

2 Held For Makingbeen taken up. Among other things, the inves-

tigation will focus on the source of the recovered explosives," he added.

7 Killed As CabTarda Devi, Sanvi Devi and Neelofar Bano.The injured were shifted to a hospital for treat-

ment, said the official. However, one among the injured, identified as Sandeep Singh, succumbed while he was being airlifted to a hospital in Jammu for specialised treatment. Identity of remaining vic-tim could not be established immediately.

Meanwhile, a youth was killed and two others were injured in a road accident at Kachechkoot area of Awantipora in Pulwama South Kashmir district.

Sources said that the accident occurred on Satur-day evening when a Taveera vehicle (JK04C-0170) col-lided with a motorcycle, leaving three youth including the motorcyclist and two pillion riders injured.

The injured were rushed to SKIMS Soura in a critical condition, they said. One of them, Aaqib Fayaz, later succumbed to wounds while two oth-ers—Tasaduq Ahmad Dar and Abid Rashid from Sri-nagar—continue to battle for life at the Valley’s only tertiary care hospital, they added.

Authorities Arrest Top Executive At Future Group Over Unpaid DutiesNEW DELHI: Federal authorities arrested a top executive at the re-tail conglomerate Future Group, one of the largest retailers in the country, on customs fraud charges involving more than $2 million of unpaid customs duties on garment imports, a government statement said on Saturday.

The Directorate of Revenue In-telligence, part of the finance min-istry, arrested Dinesh Maheshwari, executive director and chief finan-cial officer of Future Enterprises Ltd, for flouting import rules that allow duty-free shipments of cer-tain items under a free trade pact with Bangladesh. It didn't say where he was detained.

Future Group did not respond to a Reuters e-mail and phone calls seeking comment.

The imports were being sup-plied from other countries but being directed through Bangla-desh and passed off as being of Bangladeshi origin after minimal processing, the finance ministry statement said.

Future Enterprises Ltd is an in-frastructure arm of a diversified retail business founded by bil-lionaire Kishore Biyani. The group runs a series of retail chains in the country, including many local and international apparel brands, the fashion stores FBB, Big Bazaar

supermarket stores and premium lifestyle food superstore Foodhall.

"Specific intelligence was re-ceived by Directorate of Revenue Intelligence that M/s. Future En-terprises Ltd. was importing read-ymade garments from Bangladesh through Petrapole LCS without

payment of Basic Customs Duty," the statement said.

Petrapole LCS is a land customs station on the Indian side of the border with Bangladesh.

"Investigations further reveal that the garments were supplied by third country suppliers based in

Dubai and Singapore, but were de-livered from Bangladesh after some minimal processing, not enough as per the norms for the product to be called as of Bangladeshi origin."

The government said cases of abuse of the free trade pact "di-rectly affect the 'Make in India' campaign of the country and dis-tort the level playing field for gen-uine Indian manufacturers."

For several years, Prime Minis-ter Narendra Modi has been push-ing his flagship "Make in India" programme to boost local manu-facturing and provide jobs to mil-lions of youth entering the work-force every year.

Low wages have helped Bangla-desh build the world's second-larg-est garment industry, behind China, with some 4,000 factories employ-ing about 4 million workers.

Bangladesh is among the world's largest exporters of ap-parel sold by Western companies like H&M and Walmart. It wasn't immediately clear whether Ma-heshwari remained in custody.

09 | Sunday | 14-07-2019

BusinessSENSEX

GOLD

J&K BANKNIFTY

SILVER

HDFC BANKAXIS BANKICICI BANK

38,736.23

32,845.00

DOLLAR POUNDKUWAITI DINAREURO YUAN SAUDI RIYAL68.87 82.58 238.13 91.36 10.48 18.36

39.8011,552.50

36362.00

2,390.00754.05427.30

−86.88 (0.22%) +0.20 (0.51%)

−17.15 (0.71%)

−12.35 (1.61%)

+0.75 (0.18%)

−30.40 (0.26%)

55.00 ((99.9%)

-272.00 (-0.74%)

S H O R T S T O R I E S

Govt to look into 20% tax applicability on share buybacks by listed companies

J&K Bank commissions 6 ATMs at Kishtwar


Srinagar - J&K Bank on Friday commissioned six Automated Teller Machines(ATMs) at vari-ous places in district Kishtwar besides throwing open a new state-of-the-art premises of its Business Unit TP Kishtwar.

J&K Bank President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Ra-jni Saraf inaugurated the ATMs and the new premises along with Zonal Head Jammu North, Sajad Hussain Malik in pres-ence of Cluster Head, Shashi Sharma. Senior officials of the bank, locals of the area and

businessmen were also present of the occasion.

Pertinently, the ATMs inau-gurated were commissioned at offsite locations at Malik Market, Tulsi Nagar, Palmar and Sarthal as well as at TP Kishtwar and Dul Hasti Busi-ness Units for customer conve-nience. Reiterating the bank’s commitment to take banking facilities to every nook and corner of the state, the Presi-dent and CFO said, “J&K Bank is committed to serve the people of the state and beyond irre-spective of their geographical location and status. This pre-mier financial institution of the state has all the necessary in-gredients like talent, resources, character, resilience and perse-verance that enables it to serve the people with utmost sin-cerity and efficiency”, adding, that the bank has transcended

the boundaries of doing only formal banking and works to-wards the socio-economic up-liftment of the people, trying to meet their expectations.

Following the inauguration, the President and CFO had a detailed interaction with the locals including senior citizens and businessmen. Further-more, she advised the con-cerned to educate the locals about various welfare schemes and conduct financial literacy campaigns about the bank's digital delivery channels like mobile banking application- mPAY, debit cards, credit cards

and internet banking besides directing them to provide best-in-class customer service and exploring the potential for in-novative services for an en-hanced customer experience.

Urging the customers to avail state-of-the-art personalized services of the bank backed by latest technology and more than eight decades of opera-tional experience, she exhorted them to act as a brand ambas-sador for promoting the prod-ucts and services of the bank.

Speaking on the occasion Zonal Head, Sajad Hussain Malik assured full support to customers and aspiring entre-preneurs interestedinstarting their ventures under various credit schemes of the bank.Notably, after commissioning of the six ATMs at Kishtwar, the number has increased to 18 in the district.

Nabard to raise Rs 55K crore from market in FY20New Delhi: National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) said it plans to raise about Rs 55,000 crore from the market in the current fiscal to fund its business growth and also support various agricultural and rural development schemes of the government. "The

borrowing from the market will be similar to last financial year. We in-tend to raise about Rs 55,000 crore through the public platform from the domestic market in 2019-20," Nabard chairman Harsh Kumar Bhanwala said, adding, Nabard has already raised Rs 12,000 crore from the market in the first quarter of the current financial year. The financial institution raises funds through long term bonds - usu-ally of 10-15 years tenures. Last

financial year, Nabard raised a total of Rs 56,069 crore through non-convertible debentures, of which Rs 33,169 crore was for the government schemes and the remaining was for the organ-isation's own funding requirements. (Agencies)

Modi Govt never allowed inflation to raise its dirty head: Sitharaman

Press trust Of India

New Delhi - The Modi gov-ernment never allowed retail inflation to "raise its dirty head" to cause inconvenience to the common man and has kept complete control over price rise since 2014, Finance Minister Nirmala Sithara-man said Friday. Replying to a general discussion on Union Budget 2019-20 in the Rajya Sabha, she said inflation is an important indicator through which the management of the economy is undertaken.

"In 2014-15, one of the rea-sons which also formed a very important part of the cam-paign of 2013-14 election to the Lok Sabha was food infla-tion which was beyond the

reach of ordinary citizens."It was at 6.4 per cent level,

making food grains very ex-pensive, food products very expensive," the minister said.

The BJP-led NDA came to power with full majority in May 2014 and was re-elected for another term this year with a bigger mandate. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi had just formed the govern-ment, the headline inflation was at 5.9 per cent, she said, adding between 2014-15 up to April 2019, that inflation based on Consumer Price Index (CPI)

has come down to 3 per cent."We have ensured that all

through and nowhere is there a dip and rise," the minister said. She said in 2014-15, the inflation was 5.9 per cent; in 2015-16, 4.9 per cent; in 2016-17, 4.5 per cent; in 2017-18, 3.6 per cent; and in 2018-19, 3.4 per cent and now in May 2019, it has come down to 3 per cent.

"Inflation has never been allowed to raise its dirty head to cause inconvenience to the consumers...

"Complete control over in-flation is the achievement of this government between the last term and...after coming now. So, inflation is a very, very powerful tool to gauge people and to know what their level of satisfaction is,"

she added. Meanwhile, as per the CPI data released by the Central Statistics Office Friday, retail inflation in June 2019 inched up to 3.18 per cent, from 3.05 per cent in May, though remaining well below the comfort level of the Re-serve Bank of India (RBI). The RBI has been mandated by the government to ensure retail inflation remains around 4 per cent. The central bank uses several instruments, including benchmark short-term lend-ing rate (repo) to keep infla-tion under check.

Press Trust Of India

NEW DELHI: The Finance Minis-try has said that it will look into the applicability of 20 per cent tax proposed in the 2019-20 Budget on the current share buybacks by listed companies.

Finance Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg, speaking at a CII event, said the proposed tax on listed companies is aimed at dis-couraging share buybacks and en-couraging investments.

Asked if the government would consider grandfathering those share buybacks which are already underway from the proposed levy, Garg said: "I am not in a position to say whether that (grandfathering) can work or not, but will discuss with revenue department".

Finance Minister Nirmala Sith-araman in her 2019-20 Budget speech proposed to provide that listed companies shall also be li-able to pay additional tax at 20 per cent in case of share buy-back, as is the case currently for unlisted companies.

The move was aimed to dis-courage the practice of avoid-ing Dividend Distribution Tax (DDT) through buybacks by listed companies.

Garg said buyback is mainly undertaken by those companies which have cash, but see no invest-ment opportunities.

"Our preference would be - they invest so that there is no need to do buyback. In this economy, how the buy back is being done in digital economy space, there also

enormous opportunity (for invest-ment) exist. Our objective was to close the arbitrage. The intent is to encourage investment," he said.

Share buybacks offer a route for companies to return some wealth to their shareholders, while poten-tially boosting their stock prices.

In a share buyback, a company will absorb or retire the repur-chased shares, and rename them as treasury stock.

Buying back stock is also a route to make a business look more at-tractive to investors. By reducing the number of outstanding shares, a company's earnings per share ra-tio is automatically increased.

Dividend Distribution Tax is paid by companies who distribute their profits to their shareholders in the form of dividends.

Walmart reinforces commitment to support India's smallholder farmers


Agra - Walmart Internation-al President and CEO Judith McKenna Friday reiterated the company's commitment to support India's smallhold-er farmers as she discussed steps suppliers can take to

enter supply chains of global companies.

During a visit to Bichpuri vil-lage in Agra, McKenna spent time to meet and interact with farmers and Farmer Producer Or-ganisations (FPOs) where she re-iterated Walmart's commitment, the US-based retail major said in a statement. McKenna took

the opportunity to reinforce the commitment to support India's smallholder farmers through investments from the Walmart Foundation and by sourcing 25 per cent of all fresh produce in 'Best Price Stores' directly from farmers and FPOs, it said.

She also met Commerce and

Industry Minister Piyush Goyal in New Delhi on Thursday to dis-cuss local sourcing norms for the domestic market. She discussed local sourcing and boosting sales of 'Made in India' products, which will benefit local busi-nesses and the overall domestic market. The meeting assumes significance as the government

in the Union Budget proposed measures to relax these norms for foreign direct investment (FDI) in single-brand retail.

Walmart runs 25 cash-and-carry stores in wholesale-format in the country. McKenna also expressed Walmart's commit-ment to support 'Make in India'

by sourcing domestically. Flipkart Group CEO Kalyan

Krishnamurthy, Walmart India CEO Krish Iyer and Chief Corpo-rate Affairs Officer Rajneesh Ku-mar were also present during the meeting with the minister.

Walmart has acquired e-com-merce platform Flipkart along with Myntra and PhonePe.

Forex kitty soars by $2.23 bn more, hits a new high of $429.9 bn


Mumbai - The forex kitty con-tinued to surge for the fourth successive week to scale a new lifetime high of USD 429.911 billion, after a heavy increase in the value of gold and cur-

rency assets during the week to July 5, the Reserve Bank said Friday. The reserves have jumped by USD 2.23 billion, while in the past reporting week the same had increased by USD 1.262 billion to reach a new high of USD 427.67 billion.

During the reporting week, foreign currency assets, which are major component of the overall reserves, increased

by USD 906.8 million to USD 400.809 billion, the RBI said.

Expressed in dollar terms, foreign currency assets include the effect of appreciation/de-preciation of non-US units like the euro, pound and yen held in the reserves. The value of

the gold reserves swelled by USD 1.345 billion, taking the total to USD 24.304 billion, ac-cording to the RBI data.

The special drawing rights with the International Mon-etary Fund came down by USD 4.7 million to USD 1.451 billion.

The country's reserve posi-tion with the Fund also dipped by USD 15.3 million to USD 3.346 billion.

TVS Motor launches ethanol-powered bike

Agencies

New Delhi: TVS Motor Company launched India's first ethanol-based motorcycle on Friday in line with the government's initiative to opt for green and sustainable future mobility solutions.

TVS Apache RTR 200 4V etha-nol concept was first showcased

at Auto Expo 2018 held in the national capital. TVS Apache is the flagship brand of TVS Motor Company with over 3.5 million customers across the globe.

"The two-wheeler industry is looking at green and sustainable future mobility solutions span-ning across electric, hybrid and alternate fuels," said company's Chairman Venu Srinivasan.

"This is due to the easy com-patibility in transition to ethanol and its sustained positive impact on the environment without com-

promising on performance and total cost of ownership," he said in a statement.

Ethanol is domestically pro-duced from renewable plant sources. It is non-toxic, biode-gradable and safe to handle, store and transport. An oxygenated fuel that contains 35% oxygen, ethanol reduces nitrogen oxide emissions

from combustion.It helps reduce carbon monox-

ide emissions, particulate matter and sulphur-dioxide. The govern-ment believes use of ethanol as a fuel will also reduce dependence on the import of petroleum and increase energy security.

However, many industry lead-ers remain concerned by the potential repercussions of NITI Aayog's approach of completely banning two-wheelers up to 150cc that are powered by inter-nal combustion engines.

Second round of India-US trade talks in US soonNEW DELHI: The Indian and US officials who met on Friday to resolve a trade spat between the two giant nations made some headway, but will meet for anoth-er round of meetings in the US soon to settle the row. The American team led by Assistant US Trade Rep-resentative Christopher Wilson also met Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal. The Indian delegation was led by Sanjay Chadha, additional secretary, Department of Commerce, and included senior officials from other ministries. While Americans pressed for a rollback of higher tariffs that India had imposed on US imports in a tit for tat tariff war, and demanded opening up of India market to US agricultural and technology products, the Indian side sought better market access for domestic products. Indian officials said they were unlikely to agree to changes in norms for e-commerce firms at this juncture.

Inaugurates new premises of TP Kishtwar Business Unit

Infosys to hire 18,000 people from campuses in FY20Bengaluru: India's second largest IT services firm Infosys Friday said it will recruit 18,000 peo-ple from campuses this fiscal. Infosys, which has over 2.29 lakh employees, is also battling high

attrition, although the company asserted that this has not impacted its deliverable."Overall for this quarter, we have recruited close to 8,000 people, of which freshers are about 2,500... For the year, we are looking at about 18,000 people or so from the universi-ties," Infosys Chief Operating Officer UB Pravin Rao said. Infosys added 906 people (net) during the June 2019 quarter. The attri-tion (annualised consolidated) was at 23.4 per cent up, compared to 20.4 per cent for the quarter ended March 2019. The company said there was no impact of attrition on its

deliverables and that historically, the first quarter of the fiscal has a higher level of attrition. Infosys has initiated a number of measures for employee engagement, investment in career op-portunities and enrichment of experience for employees, he said.

SUNDAYJULY201914

Eoin Morgan England

CURRENT AGE 32 years 302 days

2019 Cricket World Cup

Final ODI 48 OF 48

July 14,Sunday, 3:00 PM STADIUM Lord's, London

Kane WilliamsonNew Zealand

CURRENT AGE 28 years 337 days

ENGLAND V/S NEW ZEALANDFINAL

“IT’S GREAT TO WIN THE $9 MILLION but I just don’t want to lose to him and give him the satisfaction because the bragging rights are what is going to be even worse than the money,” Mickelson

CRICKET WORLD CUP

Vibrant England, rejuvenated New Zealand battle for maiden World Cup title

Agencies

The sacred aisles of the Home of Cricket shall be brimming with excite-ment as hosts England

face 2015 runners-up New Zea-land in the title clash of the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup 2019.

OverviewNew Zealand v England, FinalLord's, LondonIt took England a significant

change in approach and a stag-gering 27 years to find them-selves competing in a World Cup final. Their resurgence post the disappointing exit from the 2015 edition, started with a 3-2 triumph in a high-scoring bilat-eral one-day international se-ries against the then runners-up New Zealand. On Sunday, they face the same opponents, as they aim to win their first World

Cup final after three previously failed attempts in 1979, 1987 and 1992. Jason Roy's return to the playing XI has had an instant impact on the Eoin Morgan-led side as they staged a remarkable comeback after back-to-back defeats to Sri Lanka and Austra-lia in the league stage. Their top three have been a match-win-ning trio, having amassed 1,471 runs between them. The bowl-ing too, led by Chris Woakes' discipline and Jofra Archer's intensity has mounted pressure on their opponents on a consis-tent basis.

New Zealand, with their re-markable win against the league stage table-toppers and favou-rites India, have given enough evidence of the game's unpre-dictable nature, as much as their own. The experienced duo of Kane Williamson and Ross

Taylor has been shouldering the responsibility with the bat after frequent failures from the top order. Their bowling attack, powered by the intensity of Lockie Ferguson and Matt Henry and nurtured by the calming and disciplined influence of Trent Boult has been producing match-defining results in the tournament.

Playing their second suc-cessive World Cup final, New Zealand will desperately need a strong foundation from their openers to set the game in their favour. Considering the recent form, league stage result and home conditions, England seem to have their noses slightly ahead. However, New Zealand's ability to excel as a team on big occasions, promise a tough chal-lenge for the hosts.

Key Players

Martin Guptill (New Zealand): Guptill, the leading run-scorer of the 2015 edition has had a disappointing World Cup cam-paign so far, but so did Adam Gilchrist in 2007 before his monumental match-winning effort in the finals. The aggres-sive opener will look to put his recent form aside and produce an innings of similar impact to power his side to a historic re-sult.

Joe Root (England): England's run machine over the last few years, Joe Root has continued the trend in this World Cup hav-ing scored 549 runs in 10 innings so far. Root, who is England's leading run-scorer against New Zealand in ODIs with 925 runs to his name so far, could well be the torch-bearer of the famed batting line-up in the big final.

The weather on Sunday is ex-

pected to be dry, with low clouds gradually clearing to give some sunny spells in afternoon and eve-ning. Both captains would look to bat first considering the 'scoreboard pressure' factor in a big game and the recent results at Lord's.

TeamsNew Zealand: Kane Wil-

liamson (c), Ross Taylor, Tom Latham (wk), Tom Blundell (wk), Mitchell Santner, Colin de Grandhomme, Lockie Fergu-son, Tim Southee, Trent Boult, Colin Munro, Ish Sodhi, Henry Nicholls, Martin Guptill, Matt Henry, Jimmy Neesham

England: Eoin Morgan (c), Moeen Ali, Jofra Archer, Jonny Bairstow, Jos Buttler (wk), Tom Curran, Liam Dawson, Liam Plunkett, Adil Rashid, Joe Root, Jason Roy, Ben Stokes, James Vince, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood

Final tickets up for sale at Rs 1.4 lakh

Rohit Mahajan

London: Two days ago, before India were knocked out of the tournament, tickets for the final were being sold online at a min-imum of £2,000. With India get-ting ousted, the prices fell: tick-ets were now priced from £830 on the same website. That’s in-dicative of the fall in the interest among fans of the Indian team.

However, on other websites, ticket prices shot up—for in-stance, today two seats in the Compton Stand at Lord’s were available for £16,584.80 each—that’s over Rs 1.4 lakh each! The

face value of those two tick-ets was £295 each (Rs 25,400). When India played England in Manchester in the round-robin stage, around 80 per cent of the 25,000-strong crowd was sup-porting India. That proportion was also expected for the second semifinal expected between In-dia and England, but that match never materialised.

Indian fans were seen selling their tickets outside the Edg-baston ground in Birmingham yesterday, when Australia and England clashed in the second semifinal. They had spent hun-dreds of pounds on a ticket each, because India were expected to play the second semifinal in Bir-mingham, against England.

South Africa’s defeat of Aus-tralia in the last match of the

group stage was a shocker—it shocked the Aussies and sent shockwaves among Indian fans. They were now desperate to buy the tickets for the first semi-final at Old Trafford, and sell the ones for the second semi-final. India lost deliberately to England in their round-robin match to knock Pakistan out of the tournament, believe many Pakistanis. And just how did Australia lose to South Africa in the last match of the round-robin stage? “That was to make sure that India got to play an easy team in the semifinals!” said a Pakistani journalist. So he

believed that Australia under-performed deliberately. But New Zealand turned out to be a rather difficult team for India in the semifinals — they knocked India out! “That was to make sure that England played an easy team in the final,” said another Pakistani journalist, who has been maintaining for weeks that there was a plan among the Big 3 (England, Australia and India) to make sure that England won this World Cup.

Another Pakistani journalist came up with a gem to explain why England would be “given” the opportunity to win the World Cup: “Queen Elizabeth is 93 years old and is not likely to be there when the next World Cup takes place in England. ” Genius!

Morgan tells England to replicate Australia form in finalLONDON (Reuters) - England captain Eoin Morgan knows New Zealand have the ability to defend small totals and says the hosts will need to replicate their near-perfect game against Australia to prevail in Sunday’s Cricket World Cup final.

Morgan’s men dished out a ruthless performance against

arch-rivals Australia, bowling out the five-times champions for 223 and romping home with nearly 18 overs to spare in a lop-sided semi-final at Edgbaston. Asked if they would need to maintain a similar standard against the 2015 finalists, Morgan said: “I think we will need to, yeah.

“New Zealand are an extreme-ly tough side, with a lot of expe-rience, a lot of skill. They were the best side in the group stage and they improved, very similar to us, from the group stage to the

semi-final performance.“We are striving to improve on

our performance. No doubt they (also) will.” New Zealand are one of the two sides, along with Af-ghanistan, who have not posted a 300-plus total in the tourna-ment, but successfully defended a modest 239 against India in the first semi-final. organ does

not expect Sunday’s final to be a high-scoring contest and feels the likes of Trent Boult and Matt Henry could prove quite a hand-ful for his batsmen.

“Throughout the tournament the scores have been a lot lower than they have previously here in the last three or four years. Us adjusting to that has been harder work than it normally is,” Morgan said. “New Zealand have done it brilliantly and Lord’s isn’t ever a high-scoring ground. I’d say tomorrow isn’t going to be a

high-scoring ground, so it will be a bit of a battle.”

With Sunday’s match avail-able on free-to-air television in England, Morgan acknowledged the importance of winning Eng-land’s maiden men’s 50-overs World Cup title though his focus remains on the final only.

“I haven’t allowed myself to think about lifting the trophy,” said the left-handed batsman.

“Cricket and sport in particu-lar is very fickle. If you ever get ahead, it always seems to bite you in the backside.

“So for us to win it, I think around the country it would be awesome, great for the game.

“I think quite iconic in cer-tainly young kids’ memories if they are watching it at home and we manage to lift the trophy, it would be awesome.”

Morgan paid tribute to Bren-don McCullum, saying the for-mer New Zealand captain had made a deep impact on his leadership style. “We are close mates and he’s taught me a lot about leadership and I think in 2015 the way that New Zea-land played is very similar to the way they are playing at the moment.”

Morgan credited the former wicketkeeper-batsman for New Zealand’s distinct brand of crick-et. “They proved to everybody that you can perform at the high-est level and get to the top by being yourselves and not trying to be somebody else, or a differ-ent team, or be somebody that is a bit of a novelty for everybody else, so that’s quite cool.”

'Never played better': Halep leaves beaten Serena 'like deer in headlights'

Agencies

Simona Halep said she had "never played better" af-ter shattering Serena Williams's latest bid to

capture a record-equalling 24th Grand Slam on Saturday as she stormed to a sensational victory in a 56-minute Wimbledon fi-nal. The 27-year-old Romanian captured her second career ma-jor with a 6-2, 6-2 victory, add-ing a maiden Wimbledon to her 2018 Roland Garros triumph.

"I never played a better match," said Halep.

"My mom said when I was 10 that if I want to do something in tennis I have to play in the final at Wimbledon

"I had lots of nerves, my stom-ach wasn't very well.

"I said at the start of the tour-nament that one of my motiva-tions was to win and become a lifetime member of the club."

Defeat for 37-year-old Wil-liams, a seven-time Wimbledon champion who won the last of her 23 Slam titles at the 2017 Australian Open, meant her at-tempt to equal Margaret Court's all-time record for major wins was put back on ice until at least the US Open. Williams was undone by 26 unforced errors to Halep's two in a personal horror show on Centre Court.

"She played out of her mind," said Williams. "I was like a deer in headlights."

De Ligt close to Juventus after skipping Ajax training campAgencies

Matthijs de Ligt is closing in on a move to Juventus after Ajax announced on Saturday that the rising star will skip the Dutch champions pre-season train-ing camp due to his expected departure. In a statement, Ajax named a 28-man squad travel-ling to the camp in Bramberg in Austria on Saturday afternoon, adding that "awaiting a possible transfer, Matthijs de Ligt is not travelling with the group".

Last week the player's agent Mino Raiola told Dutch news-paper De Telegraaf that a deal had been struck between Juve and the powerful centre-back,

reportedly a five-year contract worth 12 million euros ($13.5 million) a season with a 135 million-euro release clause. However the two clubs had been locked in negotiations with Ajax reportedly demanding 75 mil-lion euros, but the Gazzetta dell Sport claims that the a fee of 70 million euros is set to be agreed.

De Ligt, who turns 20 next month, is expected to join Serie A champions Juve after wowing with superb displays during Ajax's thrilling charge to the Champions League semi-finals last season. He captained the team to a domestic double as their fairytale European run -- which included wins over Real Madrid and Juve -- came to

a heart-breaking end with semi-final defeat to Tottenham Hotspur after leading 3-0 on aggregate at half-time in the second leg. The signing would be the sixth of what has already been a busy summer for Juventus, who have brought in Maurizio Sarri as coach after removing Massimiliano Allegri and signed Paris Saint-Germain's want-away midfielder Adrien Ra-biot, Aaron Ramsey, Luca Pellegri-ni, Merih Demiral and 41-year-old Gianluigi Buffon, who returns to Turin after a year alongside Rabiot in the French capital.

It would also be Ajax's second big sale after Frenkie de Jong left for Barcelona in a 75 million euro deal.

Life & Times 11Sunday | 14.07.2019

Runaway Princess Bride Could Prove Politically Explosive for Gulf RoyalsBy Jamie Dettmer

A divorce case in London later this month featuring Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Mak-

toum, Dubai's billionaire ruler, and his runaway estranged wife is likely to cast a highly unflattering light on one of the Arab's world richest families, according to analysts.

It also may help solve a two-de-cades-old mystery of how a teenage daughter of the sheikh was bundled back to the Gulf after she fled from a family home in the English country-side with plans to pursue a life inde-pendent of the Emirati royals.

The divorce case against 45-year-old Princess Haya bint al-Hussein is due to start in Britain's high court at the end of the month. The princess is one of the Dubai ruler's six wives and the daugh-ter of the late King Hussein of Jordan. She fled to London with her two chil-dren and now reportedly is hiding out with them in a $100 million home in a posh west London neighborhood on a street known as Billionaires' Row.

The princess reportedly has request-ed political asylum in Britain. Brit-ain's interior minister has declined to confirm or deny the reports, saying it doesn't comment on individual cases. But friends of Princess Haya told the BBC she fled Dubai "in fear of her life."

Angry poemFollowing her departure, her

69-year-old husband, who is also an amateur poet, posted an angry poem written in Arabic on Instagram. It was addressed to an unnamed person, but it is believed to directed at the prin-cess, a claim Dubai authorities deny.

The poem read in part: "You betray-er, you betrayed the most precious trust, and your game has been re-vealed ... You no longer have any place with me/ Go to who you have been

busy with!/ And let this be good for you; I don't care if you live or you die."

Both the sheikh and his estranged wife have hired some of the highest-profile divorce lawyers money can buy in the British capital. One of the attorneys represented Prince Charles in his 1996 split from Princess Diana; another was lead counsel for movie director Guy Ritchie in his divorce from pop star Madonna.

And the London gossip columns and tabloids have been having a field day with the clash, publishing allegations that the British-educated princess, who attended a private British board-ing school and Oxford University — wants to marry one of her bodyguards, a Briton. A former Olympic equestrian, the first hint of trouble came earlier this year when the princess didn't appear at Britain's Royal Ascot horse races, which she normally attends without fail.

But the high society drama of a prin-cess fleeing an aging Gulf potentate has serious potential political ramifi-cations both for Britain's relations with Dubai and could roil ties among Mid-dle Eastern royal families. The sheikh is also the UAE prime minister.

Political repercussions

The Jordanian royal family, includ-ing her half-brother, Jordan's reigning monarch King Abdullah, reportedly are alarmed at the possible ramifica-tions of the marital breakdown. Jor-dan relies on aid from the UAE and other Gulf countries.

The UAE is a key Middle Eastern ally for Britain, which has lucrative de-fense contracts with Dubai and is ea-ger to boost business with the UAE af-ter Britain leaves the European Union. Princess Haya enjoys good relations with Britain's monarch, Queen Eliza-beth, as does her husband, and with the younger British royals, who share her commitment to global humani-tarian issues. The princess has been a U.N. messenger for various causes.

"How will the queen avoid being dragged into one of Britain's biggest ever divorces?" Britain's Daily Mail headlined recently.

Even more importantly and po-litically disruptive, the case may shed some light on what happened to two of the sheikh's daughters, who fled in previous years, but were subsequent-ly bundled back to Dubai.

One of Princess Haya's stepdaugh-ters, Princess Latifa, was seized on a

yacht off India by Emirati commandos while allegedly attempting to escape Dubai in March last year.

Alleged abductionBefore she was intercepted, Prin-

cess Latifa posted a video on a social media site alleging she had suffered abuse at the hands of her father and Emirati authorities. The Emirati au-thorities dismissed allegations over Latifa's treatment, claiming she was "vulnerable to exploitation" and had been kidnapped.

The UAE has refused to cooperate with a United Nations inquiry about Princess Latifa's alleged abduction.

Rights campaigners are hoping that Princess Haya's case, if it devel-ops into a full-scale contested legal battle and isn't settled privately, may also reveal some clues about a two-decades-old mystery over another one of the sheikh's daughters, Shamsa al-Maktoum, who is now 37 years old.

That could prove more politically explosive.

Princess Shamsa ran away from the family estate in southern England in 2000. She appeared to have been seized near the English town of Cam-bridge and flown back to Dubai. She has not been seen in public since. The British police launched an investiga-tion into abduction allegations but failed to reach a conclusion.

"Human rights violations, abuse, and unlawful detention are not private family matters; they are crimes; and the victims must be protected, and the witnesses need to testify about what they know," said Radha Stirling of the campaigning group Detained in Dubai, which was founded in 2008.

"Princess Haya, in all likelihood, is both a victim and a witness; and thus we hope she will remain safe, and that she will also cooperate with international authorities," she added. (Agencies)

SCHOLARSHIPS THIS WEEKKashmir Observer in association with Bud-dy4Study presents scholarships available for the meritorious students of Jammu & Kashmir.

Ist ScholarshipCategory: Means BasedScholarship: HDFC Bank Educational Crisis Scholarship Support 2019Description: HDFC Bank has announced this scholarship for students who are economi-cally challenged and are victims of the cri-sis in their family. The program is aimed at financially aiding them in continuing their education at a critical time and reducing dropout rates from schools.Eligibility: Class 6 to 12, undergraduate, post-graduate or doctoral students pursuing any full-time, part-time course, ITI, diploma, poly-technic, Ph.D. course from recognized institu-tions and facing any family crisis (orphaned, terminal illness/death of earning member, physical disability etc.) since last 3 years or less.Prizes & Rewards: ₹10,000 as the one-time amount to selected school students and ₹25,000 to selected university, ITI, Diploma and Polytechnic students.Last Date to Apply: July 15, 2019Application Mode: Online applications onlyShort URL: http://www.b4s.in/Observer/HEC6

2nd ScholarshipCategory: Need basedScholarship: SHDF Scholarships 2019Description: Sikh Human Development Foun-dation (SHDF) and Nishkam Sikh Welfare Coun-cil are providing financial assistance to margin-alized but brilliant students who wish to pursue professional courses for higher education.Eligibility: Students who have scored at least 60% marks in two latest academic examina-tions, and are pursuing a professional course at a recognised institution in India may apply for this scholarship program if their family income is below INR 1.80 Lakhs per year.Prizes & Rewards: Based on their financial need and performance in scholarship test, selected scholars will be provided scholar-ships worth up to INR 30,000 each.Last Date to Apply: July 27, 2019Application: Submit offline applicationsShort URL: http://www.b4s.in/Observer/NSW1

3rd ScholarshipCategory: Merit-cum-Means basedScholarship: GEV Memorial Merit Scholar-ship 2019 for Law StudentsDescription: Dr. Goolam E. Vahanvati Schol-arship Fund is providing scholarships to stu-dents pursuing law degree courses across the nation to study at premier law institutions. This scholarship program will provide stu-dents a chance to be mentored by elite judi-ciary communities of India.Eligibility: Indian students pursuing LLB/LLM courses in any year of their course curricu-lum, at premier law institutions of India may apply for this scholarship. Students who have cleared CLAT, LSAT-India, AILET, or any other law entrance exam in 2019 may also apply. Applicants’ family income should not be more than ₹10.00 Lakhs per annum. Every applicant should have scored at least 60% in class 10 and 12 exams.Prizes & Rewards: Selected scholars will be awarded a scholarship sum of ₹50,000 to ₹2.00 Lakhs per year to pay for academic ex-penses. Scholars would also receive training and mentorship.Last Date to Apply: July 31, 2019Application: Apply onlineShort URL: http://www.b4s.in/Observer/GMM2

In Paris, Cars Forced To Make Way For The Two-Wheel RevolutionPARIS: With the wind rushing

through their hair, they zip past on bikes, electric scooters and mono-

wheels, effortlessly passing lines of hot-and-bothered drivers stuck in the end-less Paris traffic.

In the French capital, the new mobili-ty revolution has caught on fast, with lo-cals and tourists embracing the growing array of app-based ways to get around.

And with climate change bringing frequent heatwaves and more peak pol-lution alerts, Paris is beginning to push back against the dominance of the car.

Not only is the city upgrading its pub-lic transport system offering of inter-urban trains, buses and the metro, it is also enjoying an unparalleled explosion of alternatives.

“Our cities have been colonized by cars. They get into the smallest gaps, today we need to put them back into their proper place,” says Christophe Naj-dovski, the city’s deputy mayor who has responsibility for transport.

“In Paris, they are only used for 10 percent of daily trips but they take up 50 percent of the public space.”

But the city has been at the forefront of innovation, setting up a pioneering bike-share service back in 2007.

Known as Velib’, it has since been copied across the globe, from London to Chicago.

Then came the Autolib’ electric car-sharing scheme which was followed by a flood of dockless bikes, and then the overnight appearance of e-scooters that exploded onto the streets in the sum-mer of 2018.

And that’s without mentioning other pri-vate mobility devices such as two-wheeled e-hoverboards or electric unicycles.

But is there enough space?Not according to the taxi drivers, who

are already infuriated with the growing demands on their space and

Paris is planning 1,000 kilometers bike lanes that are due to be completed by 2020.

And the estimated 15,000 e-scooters on the streets have also triggered a backlash, with riders initially dumping them ran-domly on pavements, cluttering the curb and creating a nuisance for pedestrians.

“I’d like to slap them,” fumes Nordine, a woman in her 40s walking through the Marais district, muttering furiously about “the lack of public spirit.”

“Paris is a great playing field but the space is saturated. They need to bring

it back down to two or three operators, like San Francisco, which has just two,” says Najdovski from the mayor’s office.

At its height, Paris had 13 companies running scooter fleets, but that number dropped to around seven earlier this month after the city brought in a raft of demands for operators.

Every day, there are some 41 million trips made in the Paris region, of which 15 million are by car and 10 million by public transport.

Since July 1, all diesel vehicles regis-tered before 2006 have been banned from entering the city, but should the authorities go further and shut the en-tire city center to cars?

Today, just over a third — 37 percent — of Parisian homes have a car, and that drops to one in five in the city center, ac-cording to the mayor’s office.

“The priority is to enable city dwellers to get around,” says Jean-Pierre Orfeuil, an engineer who specializes in urban mobility.

“Generally speaking, those who are us-ing these new means of transport are peo-ple who used to use the metro,” he said.

“So, they haven’t played a role in eas-ing the traffic.”

To get away from fuel-powered ve-hicles, the focus should be on electric bikes, which could potentially help

those living in the suburbs, he says.But even there, the infrastructure is lacking.“In France, we are two or three times

worse off than Germany or the Nether-lands” in terms of the number of electric bikes, he said.

Although car-sharing has been slow to take off in France compared with its neighbors, one way to encourage this could be shared lanes, notably on the city’s choked peripherique, its 34-kilo-meter ring road.

“At rush hour, you have an average of 1.1 people in every car. If you increased that to 1.7 it would get rid of the conges-tion,” Nadjovski said.

But these new forms of transport don’t work for everyone, notably raising questions for those with families.

And for many city dwellers, the car is a private space akin to their living room which offers a certain form of intimacy, says Orfeuil.

“You can make private calls, you can listen to music.”

For Mireille Apel-Muller, a sociologist who heads the City on the Move Institute, mobility is about more than just transport.

“It’s a way of life,” she said.“All these new forms of transport

require a smartphone and applications which you have to master. Otherwise, it becomes exclusive.” (Agencies)

Hong Kong Bakery Sells Cakes With Messages On Them

HONG KONG: A Hong Kong bakery is doing a roaring trade in mooncakes stamped with messages asking residents to keep up pro-democracy protests.

Wah Yee Tang, a family owned bakery in the district of Sai Ying Pun, offers the tradi-tional cakes with messages stamped on top such as “Hong Kong People” and “Let’s Fight Together”. Some mooncakes are inscribed with the text “Report Your Mother”, a hu-morous take on an obscene insult hurled at journalists by police at a recent protest.

“All I want is to make the Hong Kong peo-ple happier,” said Naomi Suen, the 33-year-old manager of bakery. “What I know is that I need to do something for the commu-nity where I grew up.” Hong Kong has been thrown into turmoil in recent weeks by pro-tests against a proposed extradition law that for the first time would have allowed China to seek extraditions from the city. Hong Kong’s leader said on Tuesday the bill was dead.

Suen, who runs the bakery with her moth-er, also sell a variety of breads, cookies and pastries at the colourfully decorated shop.

She says that the high level of demand for her mooncakes is unusual at this time of the year, as they are typically eaten in connection with the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Customer Linda Chan said she had heard about the bakery in a newscast and made a 45-minute journey to buy two large boxes of the mooncakes.

“I thought it was really unique, those words written on top,” Chan told Reuters.

Hong Kong has seen many different kinds of creative expressions sprouting in recent weeks, including several “Lennon walls” appearing in residential neighbourhoods, where protesters write political messages on subways, tunnels and overpasses. (Agencies)

Hard Soil, Big Jumps And Epiphanies — What It's Like On The MoonTwelve American men walked on the

Moon between 1969 and 1972, with most describing in great detail their

experiences on the dusty, low-gravity world lit by the blinding light of the Sun.

Here are their impressions, collected from a series of oral history interviews by Nasa during the 1990s and 2000s, unless otherwise stated.

Right after landing"That's where you experience the most

quiet moment a human being can experi-ence in his lifetime. There's no vibration. There's no noise. The ground quit talking.

"Your partner is mesmerised. He can't say anything. The dust is gone. It's a reali-sation, a reality, all of a sudden you have just landed in another world on another body out there (somewhere in the) uni-verse, and what you are seeing is being seen by human beings, human eyes, for the first time."

Gene Cernan, Apollo 17

Totally black sky"We had a few moments to look around,

to look up in the black sky ₹ a totally black sky, even though the Sun is shining on the surface, it's not reflected; there’s no dif-fusion, no reflection ₹ a totally black sky and seeing another planet: planet Earth [...] You think to yourself, just imagine that millions of people are living on that planet and don't realize how fragile it is."

Alan Shepard, Apollo 14

The horizon"I was surprised by the apparent close-

ness of the horizon. I was surprised by the

trajectory of dust that you kicked up with your boot, and I was surprised that even though logic would have told me that there shouldn't be any, there was no dust when you kicked. You never had a cloud of dust there. That's a product of having an atmosphere, and when you don't have

an atmosphere, you don't have any clouds of dust.

"I was absolutely dumbfounded when I shut the rocket engine off and the par-ticles that were going out radially from the bottom of the engine fell all the way out over the horizon, and when I shut the

engine off, they just raced out over the horizon and instantaneously disappeared, you know, just like it had been shut off for a week. That was remarkable."

Neil Armstrong, Apollo 11"There's a problem on the Moon. Your

₹ with depth perception, because you're

looking at objects you've never seen be-fore, so a big object far away looks very similar to a smaller object close in. You don't have any pole ₹ telephone poles or houses or trees or cars to sit and judge scale like we did [...] down here on Earth."

Charlie Duke, Apollo 16

A lazy lope"There seems to be no difficulty in

moving around ₹ as we suspected. It's even perhaps easier than the simulations of one-sixth g that we performed in the various simulations on the ground. It's absolutely no trouble to walk around." Armstrong to Mission Control shortly after descending from Apollo 11's lunar module.

"I started jogging around a bit, and it felt like I was moving in slow motion in a lazy lope, often with both of my feet float-ing in the air. One of the pure joys of being on the Moon was our somewhat lightfoot-ed mobility."

Apollo 11's Buzz Aldrin in his book "Magnificent Desolation: The Long Jour-ney Home from the Moon"

"I would say that balance [while walk-ing] was not difficult; however, I did some fairly high jumps and found that there was a tendency to tip over backwards on a high jump. One time I came close to fall-ing and decided that was enough of that."

Armstrong during his 1969 technical debrief

The gloves"The biggest problem is that the gloves

are balloons [...] to pick something up, you have to squeeze against that pressure, 3.7

psi [...] That squeezing against that pres-sure causes these forearm muscles to fa-tigue very rapidly. Just imagine squeezing a tennis ball continuously for eight hours or ten hours, and that's what you're talk-ing about."

Harrison Schmitt, Apollo 17

Hardened soil"Getting the flagpole to stand in the lu-

nar surface was more difficult than we an-ticipated... For the first time a shot of panic seared through me. Since childhood I had seen pictures of great explorers planting their flags in their new worlds. Would I be the first to plant the flag and have it fall over?"

Aldrin in "Magnificent Desolation"

Nasty dust"I noticed some of the moon dust on the

floor [of the lunar module]. It had a gritty charcoal-like texture to it, and a pungent metallic smell, something like gunpowder or the smell in the air after a firecracker has gone off. Neil described it as having a 'wet ashes' smell."

Aldrin in "Magnificent Desolation"

An epiphany"All of a sudden I realised that the mol-

ecules of my body and the spacecraft and my companion were prototyped in an an-cient generation of stars. And somehow it suddenly became very personal instead of an objective: 'Oh, yes. Molecules and atoms were made in those stars.' No. My molecules were made in those stars, and this was a 'wow!'"

Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 (Agencies)

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SUNDAY 14072019 Kashmir Observer12 Observer Outpost

Novel Silicon Chip Converts Wasted Heat Into ElectricityPress Trust of India

Scientists have discovered a way to produce more electricity from heat than thought possible by using a

newly developed silicon chip.It is estimated that as much as two-

thirds of energy consumed in the US each year is wasted as heat, said re-searchers from University of Utah.

Take for example, car engines, laptop computers, cell phones, even refrigera-tors, that heat up with overuse.

The method, described in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, uses a silicon chip called "device," that converts more thermal radiation into electricity.

Researchers have previously deter-mined that there is a theoretical "black-body limit" to how much energy can be produced from thermal radiation (heat).

However, the team demonstrated that they can go well beyond the blackbody limit and produce more energy if they create a device that uses two silicon sur-faces very close together.

The researchers produced a 5mm-by-5mm chip (about the size of an eraser head) of two silicon wafers with a na-noscopic gap between them only 100 nanometres thick, or a thousandth the thickness of a human hair.

While the chip was in a vacuum, they heated one surface and cooled another surface, which created a heat flux that can generate electricity The concept of creating energy in this manner is not unique, but researchers have discovered a way to fit the two silicon surfaces uni-

formly close together at a microscopic scale without touching each other.

The closer they are to each other, the more electricity they can generate.

"Nobody can emit more radiation than the blackbody limit. But when we go to the nanoscale, you can," said Ma-thieu Francoeur, an associate professor at University of Utah.

In the future, Francoeur envisions that such technology could be used to not

only cool down portable devices like lap-tops and smartphones but also to chan-nel that heat into more battery life, pos-sibly as much as 50 per cent more.

A laptop with a six-hour charge could jump to nine hours, for example.

The chips could be used to improve the efficiency of solar panels by increas-ing the amount of electricity from the sun's heat or in automobiles to take the heat from the engine to help power the

electrical systems.They could also be designed to fit in

implantable medical devices such as a pacemaker that would not require re-placeable batteries, researchers said.

Another benefit is such technology can help improve the life of computer processors by keeping them cool and reducing wear and tear, and it will save more energy otherwise used for fans to cool the processors, they said.

Apple iPhone India prices slashed, up to Rs 40,000 off

With the Amazon Prime Day just around the corner, it’s that time of the year to in-

dulge yourself and splurge on prod-ucts that are heavily discounted. As a part of the Prime Day extravaganza, the prices of the highly sought after iPhone XR, iPhone 6S and iPhone 7 have all seen their prices slashed up to Rs 40,000 off. If you have been hold-ing out on purchasing these handsets and have been daunted by the huge price tag that’s associated with Apple iPhones, then this is the perfect time for you to grab these highly sought af-ter smartphones.

The iPhone XR, which is the most recent handset from Apple, is a part of this Prime Day offer. Amazon has discounted the price up to Rs 40,000 which makes it a complete steal. This handset is available in six colour op-tions and is designed for anyone who wants Apple’s current flagship at an

unbeatable price.The iPhone XR comes with a 6.1-

inch Liquid Retina Display and has IP67 water and dust resistant certifi-cations. This allows you to immerse it in water up to a depth of 1 metre for a span of 30 minutes without it getting damaged. On the rear, there is a very capable 12MP camera with OIS that’s arguably one of the best snappers on a smartphone the world over. Upfront, It has a 7MP TrueDepth sensor that sup-ports Portrait mode, Portrait Lighting, Depth Control, and Smart HDR. It also comes with Face ID for authentication that’s much more secure than Touch ID. The handset is loaded with an A12 Bionic processor and a next-genera-tion Neural Engine. It also supports wireless charging just like its higher-end siblings — the iPhone XS and XS Max. Lastly, the iPhone XR also comes with iOS 12 with Memoji, Screen Time, Siri Shortcuts, and Group FaceTime.

Clean Them Or Pay Fine! Dubai To Impose Heavy Penalty For Dirty CarsDUBAI: United Arab Emirates is known for its strict laws and authorities are very par-ticular about their implementation. The lat-est rule would compel the citizens to keep their car clean.

As per the new rule, parking a dirty car on public roads could lead to a fine of Dh 500 which is over Rs 9000 in Indian currency.

In a tweet, Dubai Municipality said that such things can “tarnish the aesthetics appearance of the city”. The mu-

nicipality inspectors have started identify-ing stranded cars and are sticking a notice on their windscreen. The notice allows the citizen 15 more days to clean their vehicles or they would tow away the cars.

Moreover, the vehicle will be auctioned by the municipality if the owner doesn’t contact them.

This step is taken by the Municipality to pre-serve its aes-

Bishop To Pour ‘Holy Water' From Helicopter In ‘Mass Exorcism' Over Colombian CityCOLOMBIA: A Colombian bishop is planning to exorcise an entire city this weekend, sprinkling holy water from a helicopter.

Monsignor Rubén Darío Ja-ramillo Montoya, the bishop of Buenaventura, would say a prayer intended to purge the area of de-monic infestation.

The exorcism is being per-formed as city is beset by violence, drug smuggling and poverty.

Montoya told local radio: “We have to drive the devil out of Bue-naventura, to see if we can restore the peace and tranquillity that our city has lost due to so many crimes, acts of corruption and with so much evil and drug traf-ficking that invades our port.”

“We want to go around the whole of Buenaventura, from the air, and pour holy water on to it to see if we exorcise and get out all those demons that are destroy-ing our port, so that God’s bless-ing comes and gets rid of all the

wickedness that is in our streets,” he added.

According to The Guardian, Co-lombia’s Army is reported to be providing the bishop with a heli-

copter for the aerial exorcism dur-ing the city’s annual patron saints’ festivities.

Buenaventura, on Colombia’s Pacific coast, was named as the

country’s most violent place in 2014. Local media reported 51 ho-micides in the city in the first five months of this year, 20 more than the same period last year.

WE WANT TO GO AROUND THE WHOLE OF BUENAVENTURA, from the air, and pour holy water on to it to see if we exorcise and get out

all those demons that are destroying our port, so that God’s blessing comes and gets rid of all the wickedness that is in our streets.”

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