· Rohit, son Narain Dutt Tiwari, former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, said he...

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A llegations of sexual harass- ment have cropped up against Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi prompting him to convene an urgent extraordi- nary hearing on Saturday and assert that the charges by a for- mer apex court staffer were “unbelievable” and part of a con- spiracy by some “bigger force” to “deactivate” the CJI’s office. As the allegations by the former woman staffer who had worked at Gogoi’s home office in Delhi and dating back to October stunned the judiciary, Gogoi said he would not stoop too low even to deny them. At the hurriedly called hearing in Court No 1 presided by him after the allegations were carried by some news por- tals based on the affidavit by the woman, the apex court said it is leaving it to the “wisdom of media” to show restraint and act responsibly so that indepen- dence of judiciary is not affect- ed. The court, however, decid- ed not to issue any gag order. A three-judge special bench headed by Gogoi was constituted after a sworn affi- davit by the woman, copies of which were sent to the resi- dences of 22 apex court judges, became public. In her affidavit, the woman described two incidents of alleged molestation by Gogoi days after he was appointed CJI last October and her subse- quent persecution. The woman alleged that she was removed from service after she rebuffed his “sexual advances”. She claimed that her husband and brother-in- law, both of whom were head constables, were suspended for a 2012 criminal case that had been mutually resolved. She was later also made to prostrate before Gogoi’s wife and made to rub her nose at her feet in the Chief Justice’s residence, she alleged in her affidavit, adding that her dis- abled brother-in-law was removed from service at the Supreme Court. There was no immediate reaction from the Government or any major political party. The court held the hearing for about 30 minutes during which Gogoi said indepen- dence of judiciary was under “very serious threat” and “unscrupulous allegations” of sexual harassment had been levelled against the CJI as some “bigger force” wanted to “deac- tivate” the office of the Chief Justice. He did not elaborate on who the “bigger force” was that he was referring to. The CJI also said the woman had a criminal record and two FIRs were lodged against her. “How can she become a Supreme Court staff when an FIR was pending against her,” the CJI asked, adding that two criminal cases were also pend- ing against her husband. The court, which said the judiciary “cannot be made a scapegoat”, said the media should not publish the woman’s complaint without verifying its truth. The CJI said this issue has cropped up when a Bench headed by him is scheduled to hear “many, many sensitive cases” next week and this was also last few weeks of the Lok Sabha elections. The CJI did not name any of the cases. Besides the CJI, the Bench also comprising jus- tices Arun Mishra and Sanjiv Khanna, said the “bigger force” behind the controversy has the potential to shake the faith of public in the judicial system. Though the CJI was head- ing the Bench, he left it to Justice Mishra to take a call on passing any judicial order. Dictating the order, Justice Mishra said, “Having consid- ered the matter, we refrain from passing any judicial order at this moment, leaving it to the wisdom of the media to show restraint, act responsibly as is expected from them and accordingly decide what should or should not be pub- lished, as wild and scandalous allegations undermine and irreparably damage reputation and negate independence of judiciary.” A day after BSP chief Mayawati termed him a ‘fake’ OBC, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday hit back saying the ‘farzi friend- ship’ of the SP and the BSP will fall apart the day election results are announced. Also, the PM took a dig at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee saying the “speed-breaker Didi” has lost sleep after the first two phases of polls. Modi held back-to- back rallies in West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh ahead of the third phase of polling, sched- uled for April 23. “You all remember the friendship that was struck dur- ing the Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh that came to an end with the announcement of the results and turned into rivalry,” he said in Etah referring to the understanding in 2017 between the Congress and the SP. “The farzi dosti of ‘bua’ and ‘babua’ will also end the same way,” Modi said referring to Mayawati and her SP counter- part Akhilesh Yadav. “The date of this friendship has also been fixed. May 23, Thursday, this ‘farzi dosti’ (fake friendship) will fall apart,” he said. “That day ‘bua’ and ‘babua’ will start part 2 of their rivalry,” the PM said. At the joint rally of the Opposition alliance in Mainpuri on Friday, Mayawati had said it was SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav who was a real backward unlike Modi, who, she alleged, was a ‘farzi’ or ‘naqli’ backward. A day after Delhi Police reg- istered a case of murder in Rohit Shekhar Tiwari death, his mother Ujjwala said his son did not share a cordial relationship with his wife and was appar- ently upset over his political career not taking off. Police on Saturday ques- tioned Rohit’s wife Apoorva in the mysterious death case. According to Ujjwala, 40- year-old Rohit, and she went to Haldwani to cast their vote on April 11. They were supposed to return to Delhi on April 12, but changed their plan after Rohit, son Narain Dutt Tiwari, former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, said he wanted to meet his people. On April 15, the mother- son duo returned to Delhi. While Rohit went to his resi- dence in Defence Colony, Ujjwala went to Tilak Lane and returned later. “When I came back, I asked Apoorva (Rohit’s wife) about him, she told me he was tired, so he had dinner and went to sleep,” said Ujjwala. “I left for Tilak Lane at around 11.30 pm that day and returned around 2 pm the next day but could not meet my son. I had severe pain in my thumb, so I immediately took an appointment at Max Hospital. Before leaving, I asked Apoorva about Rohit. She told me he was sleeping and I thought I shouldn’t disturb him,” she said. “I trusted Apoorva and did not question her as to why was Rohit sleeping till so late,” she said. Ujjwala said she reached Max Hospital around 4.30 pm and went to the emergency ward. New Delhi: Hardik Pandya and KL Rahul were on Saturday fined 20 lakh each by the BCCI Ombudsman DK Jain for their sexist comments on a popular TV show, ending an infamous saga that dented the reputation of the two India cricketers. In the order published on the official BCCI website, Jain wrote that no further action will be taken against Pandya and Rahul, who had missed five ODIs while serv- ing their provisional suspen- sion, and tendered an uncon- ditional apology for making loose comments on women. Instead, he directed the World Cup-bound players to pay a fine of 20 lakh each that included a payment of 1 lakh each to “each of the most deserving widows of 10 constables in paramilitary forces who have lost their lives while on duty, through “Bharat Ke Veer App”. Jain also instructed them to deposit 10 lakh each in the fund “created by the Cricket Association for the blind”. New Delhi: Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, who became the face of the tense military confrontation between India and Pakistan, has been shifted out of Srinagar and posted to a frontline air base in the western sector, official sources said on Saturday. It is also learnt that the IAF is to recommend Varthaman’s name for Vir Chakra, the cov- eted wartime gallantry medal, which is the third highest after the Paramvir Chakra and the Mahavir Chakra. The transfer came after the IAF assessed a security threat to Wing Commander Varthaman’s life from terror organisation Jaish- e-Mohammed (JeM) which has been trying to attack Indian mil- itary locations and personnel. Varthaman, who was cap- tured by Pakistan on February 27 during an aerial combat with Indian Air Force, had returned to his squadron in Srinagar last month though he was on a four-week sick leave. Orders have been issued for his transfer from Srinagar to another base in the western sector, sources said, terming the transfer as “routine one”. The IAF pilot went on leave in mid-March after secu- rity agencies completed a near- ly two-week debriefing follow- ing his return from Pakistan. Sources said a medical board will review his fitness to help the IAF top brass decide whether he can return to fight- er cockpit as desired by him. Varthaman was captured by the Pakistani Army on February 27 after his MiG-21 Bison jet was shot down in a dogfight with Pakistani jets during aerial combat. Before his jet was hit, he downed an F-16 fighter of Pakistan. Varthaman was released on the night of March 1 by Pakistan. After he was cap- tured, Varthaman showed courage and grace in handling the most difficult circumstances for which he was praised by politicians, strategic affairs experts, ex-servicemen, celebri- ties and people in general. Tensions between India and Pakistan escalated after Indian fighters bombed terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed’s biggest training camp near Balakot, deep inside Pakistan on February 26. Pakistan retaliated by attempting to target Indian military installations the next day. However, the IAF thwart- ed their plans. New Delhi: A Delhi court on Saturday said it would hear on April 24, a police plea to can- cel the bail of a former woman Supreme Court employee, who has accused Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi of sexual misconduct, in a cheating and criminal intimidation case. Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Manish Khurana listed the matter for Wednesday as the accused woman was not served with the copy of the police’s plea. The police sought cancel- lation of the bail granted to the woman on March 12, after the complainant claimed that he was being threatened by the former Supreme Court staffer and her associates. An FIR for the alleged offences of cheating, criminal intimidation and criminal conspiracy was lodged against the woman on March 3, after a complaint was filed by Naveen Kumar, a resident of Jhajjar in Haryana, at the Tilak Marg Police Station here. Kumar has alleged that the former apex court employee had defrauded him of 50,000, which he claimed she took as part of a bribe, promising him a job at the Supreme Court. He claimed that in June 2017, he met the woman through a common friend, Mansha Ram, regarding his employment and she had told him she was a personal assis- tant of a judge in the Supreme Court and her husband was also an officer. New Delhi: The Election Commission on Saturday directed Eros Now to immedi- ately take down a web series on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and all related contents till further orders.

Transcript of  · Rohit, son Narain Dutt Tiwari, former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, said he...

Page 1:  · Rohit, son Narain Dutt Tiwari, former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, said he wanted to meet his people. On April 15, the mother-son duo returned to Delhi. While

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Allegations of sexual harass-ment have cropped up

against Chief Justice of IndiaRanjan Gogoi prompting him toconvene an urgent extraordi-nary hearing on Saturday andassert that the charges by a for-mer apex court staffer were“unbelievable” and part of a con-spiracy by some “bigger force”to “deactivate” the CJI’s office.

As the allegations by theformer woman staffer who hadworked at Gogoi’s home officein Delhi and dating back toOctober stunned the judiciary,Gogoi said he would not stooptoo low even to deny them.

At the hurriedly calledhearing in Court No 1 presidedby him after the allegationswere carried by some news por-tals based on the affidavit by thewoman, the apex court said itis leaving it to the “wisdom ofmedia” to show restraint and actresponsibly so that indepen-dence of judiciary is not affect-ed. The court, however, decid-ed not to issue any gag order.

A three-judge specialbench headed by Gogoi wasconstituted after a sworn affi-davit by the woman, copies ofwhich were sent to the resi-dences of 22 apex court judges,became public.

In her affidavit, the womandescribed two incidents of

alleged molestation by Gogoidays after he was appointed CJIlast October and her subse-quent persecution.

The woman alleged thatshe was removed from serviceafter she rebuffed his “sexualadvances”. She claimed thather husband and brother-in-law, both of whom were headconstables, were suspended fora 2012 criminal case that hadbeen mutually resolved.

She was later also made toprostrate before Gogoi’s wifeand made to rub her nose ather feet in the Chief Justice’s

residence, she alleged in heraffidavit, adding that her dis-abled brother-in-law wasremoved from service at theSupreme Court.

There was no immediatereaction from the Governmentor any major political party.

The court held the hearingfor about 30 minutes duringwhich Gogoi said indepen-dence of judiciary was under“very serious threat” and“unscrupulous allegations” ofsexual harassment had beenlevelled against the CJI as some“bigger force” wanted to “deac-

tivate” the office of the ChiefJustice. He did not elaborate onwho the “bigger force” was thathe was referring to. The CJIalso said the woman had acriminal record and two FIRswere lodged against her.

“How can she become aSupreme Court staff when anFIR was pending against her,”the CJI asked, adding that twocriminal cases were also pend-ing against her husband.

The court, which said thejudiciary “cannot be made ascapegoat”, said the mediashould not publish the woman’scomplaint without verifyingits truth.

The CJI said this issue hascropped up when a Benchheaded by him is scheduled tohear “many, many sensitivecases” next week and this wasalso last few weeks of the LokSabha elections.

The CJI did not name anyof the cases. Besides the CJI, theBench also comprising jus-tices Arun Mishra and SanjivKhanna, said the “bigger force”behind the controversy hasthe potential to shake the faithof public in the judicial system.

Though the CJI was head-ing the Bench, he left it toJustice Mishra to take a call onpassing any judicial order.

Dictating the order, JusticeMishra said, “Having consid-ered the matter, we refrain

from passing any judicial orderat this moment, leaving it tothe wisdom of the media toshow restraint, act responsiblyas is expected from them andaccordingly decide what

should or should not be pub-lished, as wild and scandalousallegations undermine andirreparably damage reputationand negate independence ofjudiciary.”

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Aday after BSP chiefMayawati termed him a

‘fake’ OBC, Prime MinisterNarendra Modi on Saturday hitback saying the ‘farzi friend-ship’ of the SP and the BSP willfall apart the day electionresults are announced.

Also, the PM took a dig atWest Bengal Chief MinisterMamata Banerjee saying the“speed-breaker Didi” has lostsleep after the first two phasesof polls. Modi held back-to-back rallies in West Bengal andUttar Pradesh ahead of thethird phase of polling, sched-uled for April 23.

“You all remember thefriendship that was struck dur-ing the Assembly polls in UttarPradesh that came to an endwith the announcement of theresults and turned into rivalry,”he said in Etah referring to the

understanding in 2017 betweenthe Congress and the SP.

“The farzi dosti of ‘bua’ and‘babua’ will also end the sameway,” Modi said referring toMayawati and her SP counter-part Akhilesh Yadav.

“The date of this friendshiphas also been fixed. May 23,Thursday, this ‘farzi dosti’ (fakefriendship) will fall apart,” hesaid. “That day ‘bua’ and‘babua’ will start part 2 of theirrivalry,” the PM said.

At the joint rally of theOpposition alliance inMainpuri on Friday, Mayawatihad said it was SP founderMulayam Singh Yadav who

was a real backward unlikeModi, who, she alleged, was a‘farzi’ or ‘naqli’ backward.

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Aday after Delhi Police reg-istered a case of murder in

Rohit Shekhar Tiwari death, hismother Ujjwala said his son didnot share a cordial relationshipwith his wife and was appar-ently upset over his politicalcareer not taking off.

Police on Saturday ques-tioned Rohit’s wife Apoorva inthe mysterious death case.

According to Ujjwala, 40-year-old Rohit, and she went toHaldwani to cast their vote onApril 11. They were supposedto return to Delhi on April 12,but changed their plan afterRohit, son Narain Dutt Tiwari,former Chief Minister of UttarPradesh and Uttarakhand, saidhe wanted to meet his people.

On April 15, the mother-son duo returned to Delhi.While Rohit went to his resi-dence in Defence Colony,Ujjwala went to Tilak Lane andreturned later.

“When I came back, Iasked Apoorva (Rohit’s wife)about him, she told me he wastired, so he had dinner andwent to sleep,” said Ujjwala.

“I left for Tilak Lane at

around 11.30 pm that day andreturned around 2 pm the nextday but could not meet my son.I had severe pain in my thumb,so I immediately took anappointment at Max Hospital.Before leaving, I asked Apoorvaabout Rohit. She told me hewas sleeping and I thought Ishouldn’t disturb him,” shesaid.

“I trusted Apoorva anddid not question her as to whywas Rohit sleeping till so late,”she said.

Ujjwala said she reachedMax Hospital around 4.30 pmand went to the emergencyward.

New Delhi: Hardik Pandyaand KL Rahul were on Saturdayfined �20 lakh each by theBCCI Ombudsman DK Jain fortheir sexist comments on apopular TV show, ending aninfamous saga that dented thereputation of the two Indiacricketers.

In the order publishedon the official BCCI website,Jain wrote that no furtheraction will be taken againstPandya and Rahul, who hadmissed five ODIs while serv-ing their provisional suspen-sion, and tendered an uncon-ditional apology for makingloose comments on women.

Instead, he directed theWorld Cup-bound players topay a fine of �20 lakh eachthat included a payment of �1lakh each to “each of the

most deserving widows of 10constables in paramilitaryforces who have lost theirlives while on duty, through“Bharat Ke Veer App”.

Jain also instructed themto deposit �10 lakh each inthe fund “created by theCricket Association for theblind”.

New Delhi: Wing CommanderAbhinandan Varthaman, whobecame the face of the tensemilitary confrontation betweenIndia and Pakistan, has beenshifted out of Srinagar andposted to a frontline air base inthe western sector, officialsources said on Saturday.

It is also learnt that the IAFis to recommend Varthaman’sname for Vir Chakra, the cov-eted wartime gallantry medal,which is the third highest afterthe Paramvir Chakra and theMahavir Chakra. The transfercame after the IAF assessed asecurity threat to WingCommander Varthaman’s lifefrom terror organisation Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) which hasbeen trying to attack Indian mil-

itary locations and personnel.Varthaman, who was cap-

tured by Pakistan on February27 during an aerial combatwith Indian Air Force, hadreturned to his squadron inSrinagar last month though hewas on a four-week sick leave.

Orders have been issuedfor his transfer from Srinagarto another base in the westernsector, sources said, terming the

transfer as “routine one”.The IAF pilot went on

leave in mid-March after secu-rity agencies completed a near-ly two-week debriefing follow-ing his return from Pakistan.

Sources said a medicalboard will review his fitness tohelp the IAF top brass decidewhether he can return to fight-er cockpit as desired by him.

Varthaman was captured

by the Pakistani Army onFebruary 27 after his MiG-21Bison jet was shot down in adogfight with Pakistani jetsduring aerial combat.

Before his jet was hit, hedowned an F-16 fighter ofPakistan. Varthaman wasreleased on the night of March1 by Pakistan. After he was cap-tured, Varthaman showedcourage and grace in handlingthe most difficult circumstancesfor which he was praised bypoliticians, strategic affairsexperts, ex-servicemen, celebri-ties and people in general.

Tensions between Indiaand Pakistan escalated afterIndian fighters bombed terrorgroup Jaish-e-Mohammed’sbiggest training camp nearBalakot, deep inside Pakistanon February 26.

Pakistan retaliated byattempting to target Indianmilitary installations the nextday. However, the IAF thwart-ed their plans.

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New Delhi: A Delhi court onSaturday said it would hear onApril 24, a police plea to can-cel the bail of a former womanSupreme Court employee, whohas accused Chief Justice ofIndia Ranjan Gogoi of sexualmisconduct, in a cheating andcriminal intimidation case.

Chief MetropolitanMagistrate Manish Khuranalisted the matter forWednesday as the accusedwoman was not served withthe copy of the police’s plea.

The police sought cancel-lation of the bail granted tothe woman on March 12,after the complainant claimedthat he was being threatenedby the former Supreme Courtstaffer and her associates.

An FIR for the allegedoffences of cheating, criminal

intimidation and criminalconspiracy was lodged againstthe woman on March 3, aftera complaint was filed byNaveen Kumar, a resident ofJhajjar in Haryana, at theTilak Marg Police Stationhere.

Kumar has alleged thatthe former apex courtemployee had defrauded himof �50,000, which he claimedshe took as part of a bribe,promising him a job at theSupreme Court.

He claimed that in June2017, he met the womanthrough a common friend,Mansha Ram, regarding hisemployment and she had toldhim she was a personal assis-tant of a judge in the SupremeCourt and her husband wasalso an officer.

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New Delhi: The ElectionCommission on Saturdaydirected Eros Now to immedi-ately take down a web series onPrime Minister Narendra Modiand all related contents tillfurther orders.

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Page 2:  · Rohit, son Narain Dutt Tiwari, former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, said he wanted to meet his people. On April 15, the mother-son duo returned to Delhi. While

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Aheavy duty romance with a visual and verbal onslaughtdrawn from the Partition saga may not be a regularKaran Johar kind of movie. But Kalank, with a soaked

out star cast in which Madhuri Dixit and Sonakshi Singh agreeto be sidebars along with Sanjay Dutt, would definitely cash inon initial curiosity which it does with a big opening. But is itpopular stuff? Far from it. Overly dramatical, visually artisticand banking on dialogues which are much too theatrical, thefilm will go down into the shelf as a magnum opus which wasbrilliantly laid-out but somewhere down the line forgot howthe soul of cinema has been hijacked by populist GenX mores.

Alia (Roop) as the central point of the film is brilliant — astunning persona which encases a free spirit, histrionicacumen and a screen presence that carries the film on petitshoulders. As the Kohl-lined bastard son of her father-in-law,Varun Dhawan, a ka Zafar, simmers much like his “auzaar-making cauldron” both not having much to do except simmerwithout business. Aditya Roy Kapur does his bit to the screenwhere ever he finds an entry into the storyline which is notpretty often. Centred around a love story when the HinduMuslim divide on the other side of the border was just aboutconcretising, there is a lot of “how to make it sound grand”effort in a film which encapsulates the drama and theambience of Partition days much like a splashy painting by amaster artist. A lot of colour, a lot of big talk, a lot ofdeliberation, a lot of costume, make-up and hitech shots ofeveryday life do make you sit up and look in awe. But there isnothing much in the story where all the situations are so overthe top that you are left wanting for some kind of a reality, to-the-ground moment in the film which it does not have.Madhuri, despite pancake coming home for free, fails to clearthe wrinkles and Sonakshi is grand but in an empty kind ofway. Sanju Baba merely stares down as a veteran who can onlystand and stare, to no avail.

Alia is the only show-stopper in this film, the onlyheartbeat. The other thing you could put your hands togetherin this film is the art director who makes this one a visual treat.

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��������������������������With every episode, the super

talented Li’l Champs continueto deliver breath-taking

performances and winning hearts of theaudience on Zee TV’s popular show SaRe Ga Ma Pa Li’l Champs. This week, theshow extended a hand of solidarity to theIndian Cancer Society, India's firstvoluntar y, non-profit , NationalOrganization for awareness, detection,cure and survivorship of those affectedwith this disease. Young Saujanya, whofought cancer with the help of IndianCancer Society, had recently participatedin the auditions for this season. She madea comeback to the platform in thisspecial episode dedicated to the causewhere she crooned beautifully to the songAgar Tum Saath Ho in front of judgesRicha Sharma, Shaan, Amaal Mallikand dignitaries from Indian CancerSociety — the managing trustee NaveenKshatriya, Trustee in charge Dr PurnaKurkure and Director Vandana Pathak.

Right after Saujanya performed,Amaal shared how her story and singingreminded him of his grandfather (Nana)who he lost to cancer. On the other hand,Richa Sharma expressed that ‘I will beobliged, if I can support you in anymanner’.

It was an equally special momentwhen Emmanuel, another talented cancersurvivor supported by Indian CancerSociety came on stage and sang the songHum Hai Ugam with judge Shaan.Shaan revealed that this was a song hehad actually sung and composed as ananthem for the Indian Cancer Societyeight years ago and that he was gratefulto Zee TV for getting him to recreate thisanthem on the sets of Sa Re Ga Ma PaLi’l Champs after all these years!

The dignitaries of Indian CancerSociety took to the stage and sharedawareness about their movement. Theyspoke of how cancer — if detected earlyespecially amongst children, has highchances of complete recovery and howtheir experience of treating the diseaseis not just about healing the patientsphysically but about counselling andhand-holding them on an emotional levelfor social adjustments and cultivating theright positive approach in life!

It’s time to think of what you aredoing as individuals to support thecause of children with cancer. Donate,volunteer, collaborate, accept cancerpatients — help remove the myths andstigma. It is the least you can do for thenoble cause.

Sony SAB’s Aladdin: Naam Toh SunaHoga has got the viewers glued to

their screens with its exciting magicalworld and shocking revelations. AsGinoo (Raashul Tandon) has nowturned evil, Aladdin (Siddharth Nigam)and Yasmine (Avneet Kaur) are on thequest to turn him back to his originalgood self.

With Ginoo being under Zafar’s(Amir Dalvi) control and becoming theevil Ginn, he has now forgotten his oldaaka, Aladdin. While Aladdin isheartbroken over this, he and Yasmineare on a mission to bring Ginoo backwhich eventually brings the two closerto each other. As romance is developingbetween the two, on the other hand,there is a huge revelation about to bemade in front of Ammi (Smita Bansal).To her surprise, she comes face to face

with Omar (Gireesh Sachdev) and isabout to find out that her husband isin fact, alive.

What will this first meetingbetween Omar and Ammi lead to?

Smita Bansal, playing the role ofAmmi said: “Ammi has been, until now,unaware of the fact that her husbandis alive and is about to come face to facewith him. The upcoming episodes aregoing to raise the curiosity levelsamongst the viewers as to what willhappen with this first encounterbetween the two.”

Gireesh Sachdev, playing the roleof Omar said: “Although aware of whohis wife is, Omar is extremely reluctantto meet her. So, what happens whenthey are finally about to come in frontof each other, is going to be reallyexciting for the viewers.”

'����������������8�"�������������������-�'���Laughter is said to be the best form of therapy and

setting this with the perfect example are thetelevision besties Mona Singha and Gaurav Gera.This duo will be seen competing against each otherin a cook off battle on Colors’ Kitchen Champion.They have not only amused the viewers with theirchemistry and comic timing on television, but havealso created a storm on social media with their wittyand funny videos.

While they took on a challenge for the ultimatecook — off, they were also ready to entertain theaudience with their funny antics. When, hostAditya Narayan, asked them to perform on thefamous song Kajra Re, they immediately decided toadd their own twist to it. Mona disguised herself asAmitabh Bachchan, Aditya as Abhishek Bachchanand Gaurav as Aishwarya Rai. This performance lefteveryone into splits as Gaurav even flirted withAditya only to make him awkward and to make theact more amusing.

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From Khichdi to Sarabhai vs Sarabhai, heis the man behind creating iconic shows

on TV. All his shows have set a benchmarkin the the comedy genre. He is flawless,unique, humorous in his approach towardscomedy and that’s what sets him apart.

Meet JD Majethia, producer of showslike Khichdi, Baa, Bahu and Baby , Sarabhaivs Sarabhai and Bhakarwadi, who preferscomedy shows which have potential tobring the family together even if it is for thetimespan of the show. All of Majethia’sshows have been a hit with fervent demandfor more seasons.

He came up with Khichdi while he wasdoing theatre. At that time the culture ofdaily soap was at its peak. “I was doingtheatre along with Aatish Kapadia who hadwritten Ek Mahal Ho Sapno Ka, the firstdaily soap to have aired 1000 episodes.Then, came the saas- bahu shows withKahani.... and Kyunki.... We thought ofdoing something different and came upwith a unique pariwaar, similar to our reallives where we all fight, but still love eachother with a pinch of madness. At that time,most of the shows were sugar-coated withno connect with real life. Aatish wrote thefirst episode and we initially planned tomake it a daily runner. Then Star Plus askedus to make it a weekly show as it would thenreach more people. That’s how we came upwith the concept,” Majethia tells, adding thatthat the name Khichdi was an accident.

“We had submitted the episodes andscripts but had not finalised the name. Wewent for a theatre trip to South Africa.Suddenly Aatish said ‘Khichdi naam kesalageche?’ I laughed but was interested in it.He pointed out how the show would be amixture of different family members andthe audience would relate to khichdi. Thename was both simple and tedha just likeour show so we went to the channel withthe name. The channel liked it too as alsothe letter K... un dinon K ka bol-bala thha,so that’s that,” he tells you.

Majethia went on to do somethingdifferent once again and came up with yetanother brilliant idea of Sarabhai vsSarabhai.

“After Khichdi, people started callingus up for similar shows with Gujaratifamilies in them. But we didn’t want tokeep on making the same show. Peoplewanted something like Khichdi and werealised that we were of being typecast. StarPlus was launching its new channel StarOne and looking for upmarket familycomedy shows. Aatish took inspirationfrom some of his family members to shapethe script of Sarabhai vs Sarabhai. Our onlyaim at that time was that it shouldn’t becompared to Khichdi and it should set itsown benchmark,” he explains.

The casting process is equally important

as that of a good script. “The major thingthat we keep in mind during the castingprocess is that we don’t only go for look.Look is important but there are otherequally important factors too. We have verylayered characters so we need versatile andtalented actors who would suite the role.There are a lot of nuances that come in ourshows so we need actors who have thecapability to do it. The other thing is wego for surprise casting which means we

pick those actors who haven’t played aparticular role before and the audiencewill not expect them in that role, likeSupriya Pathak (who played Hansa)was seen doing very serious roles andRajeev Mehta (who played Praful) wasfamous for doing negative roles, so wecasted them. The same was forSarabhai vs Sarabhai, for MayaSarabhai we came up with the nameof Ratna Pathak but it was verydifficult to make her say yes becauseshe was not willing to do TV at that

time. Then we went to her and gave herthe narration of the script. She liked the

script very much and said yes to the roleon one condition that the show shouldnot lose its essence like other TV showsand we promised her the same. ThenRajesh Kumar was also a surprise cast,he played a negative role in Ek MahalHo Sapno Ka. This is how we got suchbrilliant actors on-board,” he tells youadding that his latest showBhakarwadi’s casting was verydifficult because it have19 actors in

it.He adds that the humour in his

shows is character driven and it takes a lotof time to develop chemistry between eachand every character of the show. Thereshould be a chemistry in conflict too. If twopeople don’t go well with each other in reallife there should be chemistry betweenthem too on-screen to bring that reality inthe show.

The USP of his shows is that all thecharacters play an important part in theshow unlike the other shows where thereare two lead — male and female and therest are just in supporting roles.

Though the concept of comedy showsis growing and the competition is growing,Majethia don’t fear it. “Yes, the competitionis growing with so many new showscoming up with younger people butchallenges are good. They help us improve.The shows that I make are very differentfrom others. They are completely familybased shows meant for the whole family towatch it together. And every show has itsown USP and runs on it,” he tells you.

At present, his show Bhakarwadi isrunning successfully and we hope to seesome more shows like these in future too.

Page 3:  · Rohit, son Narain Dutt Tiwari, former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, said he wanted to meet his people. On April 15, the mother-son duo returned to Delhi. While

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In a blatant violation of theGovernment orders and

acting against Prime MinisterNarendra Modi’s consistentefforts to provide cheap genericmedicines to the poor patients,the doctors of the GovernmentDoon Medical College(GDMC) hospital areprescribing branded medicinesfrom private medicine shops tothe patients. Theadministration of the GDMChas given repeated orders in thepast to the doctors of thehospital to prescribe only thegeneric medicines which areeither available free of cost atthe medicine counters of thehospital or the cheap medicinecounters like Jan AaushadhiKendras (JAK). However, theseorders appear to have fallen ondeaf ears as the doctors areprescribing costly brandedmedicines with impunity. Thesituation has become sopathetic that the free medicines

available in the stores of thehospital are becoming uselesswith many of them gettingexpired. Similarly the JanAaushadhi Kendra (JAK)opened with much fanfare inthe hospital premises toprovide cheap genericmedicines to patients in May2017 is on verge of closure. OnSaturday, this correspondentsaw many prescriptions inwhich the doctors hadprescribed only brandedmedicines. Mahesh Kumar, aresident of Bhagat SinghColony said that he had to shellout a sum of Rs 1700 for themedicines prescribed by theskin specialist of the hospital.

The love of the doctors forthe branded medicines isunderstandable as thepharmaceutical companiesprovide them highcommissions and offerattractive incentives like foreigntrip in lieu of prescribing theirmedicines. In an attempt togive credence to their practiceof prescribing branded

medicines many doctors haveeven started a campaign todiscredit the generic medicines.“The doctor told me that theresults of the generic medicinesare not good,’’ said a patient.

The JAK of the GDMChospital which is beingoperated by the Indian Red

Cross Society is reporting steepdecline in the sales. Thesecretary of district Red Crosssociety of Dehradun, Dr M SAnsari told The Pioneer thatsale of the JAK counter in theGDMC Hospital has dippedfrom Rs 4 Lakh from about anyear ago to Rs 2.5 lakh a month

now. He accepted that thedoctors of the hospital are notcooperating and continuouslyprescribing medicine fromoutside. Dr Ansari said that hewould take up the issue to thedistrict magistrate ofDehradun.

When contacted, theMedical Superintendent (MS)of the hospital Dr K K Tamtasaid that all the doctors havebeen asked to prescribe genericmedicines only from time totime. He said that strictdisciplinary action would beinitiated against the doctorprescribing branded medicines.

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The announcement of theresults of the class X and

XII of Uttarakhand boardexamination would get delayedat least by a week due to theLok Sabha elections. TheUttarakhand VidhyalayiShiksha Parishad (UVSP)popularly called UttarakhandBoard started the process of theevaluation of the answer sheetsof the students on Saturday.This process usually starts onApril 1 and ends by third weekof April. This year the LokSabha elections, the pollingfor which was held in the state

on April 11 resulted in delay inthe evaluation as the teachers,other staff members ofeducation department andemployees of Uttarakhandboard were assigned for theelection duties. The class X andXII examinations ofUttarakhand board started onMarch 1 and concluded onMarch 26.

The Secretary of the UVSP,Neeta Tiwari said that theprocess of the evaluation wouldbe completed in next twentydays. She hoped that the boardwould be able to release theresult by the first week of June.The UVSP usually releases theresult in last week of May.

She said that more than4500 teachers would evaluatethe answer sheets of thestudents. The UVSP has set up30 evaluation centres across thestate.

The board has also madestrict security arrangementsaround these evaluation centresand vigil would be maintainedduring transport of these sheetsto these centres. The secretaryUVSP further added thatspecial training sessions wereheld in the Ramnagar office of

the board on April 16 to April18 in which the master trainersgave training to evaluators.

After the process ofevaluation the UVSP wouldstart preparation fordeclaration of the results.Laying emphasis on quality inassessment of answer sheets,the board secretary said thatentire process of the evaluationwould be closely monitoredand no laxity would betolerated. She said that theevaluators have been asked toadopt step wise pattern ofevaluation. Under this patternthe evaluators divide theanswer in steps and award

marks accordingly. Thestudents get more marks in thispattern of evaluation. Facingflak for being stingy inawarding marks whencompared with other boardsthe UVSP officials are leant tohave told the evaluators tofocus on positive things in theanswer sheets and be lenient inawarding marks to thestudents.

A total of 149737candidates were registered forHigh school (Class X)examination of the board while124183 candidates wereenrolled for Inter (Class XII)examination of the board.

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After some reluctance,Umesh Kumar, the man

who had created a high dramaby alleging that her new bornbaby boy was changed by theGovernment Doon MedicalCollege ( GDMC) hospitalstaff and someone else’sdaughter was handed over tohis wife, accepted the DNAreport which proved that he isthe father of the girl child. Thereport which vindicated thestand of GDMC hospitaladministration that Umesh isfather of the girl child washanded over to him onSaturday by the hospitaladministration in presence ofthe Chairperson of the StateCommission for Protection ofChild Rights (SCPCR) UshaNegi.

On receiving the reportUmesh Kumar raised suspicionon the authenticity of thereport and said that thehospital administration should

have provided the report in asealed envelope to him.

On this the SCPCRchairperson Negi reprimandedhim and said that it is wrongto cast doubt on authenticity ofreport. She said that he (Umesh) can approach thecourt for the authenticity ofreport but warned him that ifthere also the fact mentionedin report are found true thana police case would be slappedon him. After this threatUmesh accepted that he isfather of the girl child.

The drama started on

March 4 when two pregnantwomen both named Artidelivered babies in themorning almost at same time.One of the women, wife ofUmesh who was handed overthe girl child claimed that thenurses had told that she hadgiven birth to a boy but latershe was handed over a girlchild. Umesh later lodged acomplaint at a local policestation. After the interventionof the SCPCR, DNA test wasconducted which confirmedthat Umesh is the father of thegirl child.

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Though the BJP leadershiphas managed to bring to an

end the acrimonious war ofwords between two of itsMLAs, Pranav SinghChampion and DeshrajKarnwal, the oppositionCongress has firmly clenchedthe issue of fake caste certificate

of Deshraj Karnwal raised byChampion with both hands.The spokesperson of the stateunit of congress party, GarimaDasauni said that the issue isvery serious cannot be sweptunder the carpet. She said thatthe fact remains that an MLAwho is a very important andresponsible member of thesociety has claimed that thecaste certificate of Karnwal isfake. Dasauni said thatdocuments of the Karnwalshould be scrutinised to checktheir authenticity. Launchingan attack on chief ministerTrivendra Singh Rawat, theCongress spokesperson saidthat the whole episode exposes

the ‘Zero tolerance oncorruption’ policy of the chiefminister.

She said that the fact thatthe chief minister had tointervene in the conflictbetween the MLAs even whenthe party had issued showcause notices to them raisessuspicion on the authenticity ofcaste certificate of Karnwal.

She claimed that the BJPshould clear its stand on thederogatory statements made byits MLA against MahatmaGandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.Dasauni said that the congressparty is seeking legal opinionin order to initiate actionagainst Champion on the

remarks made by him onMahatma Gandhi andJawaharlal Nehru.

It is pertinent to mentionhere that unsavoury war ofwords between Khanpur MLAPranav Singh Champion andJhabreda MLA DeshrajKarnwal erupted after boththese leaders projected theirwives as possible candidate ofBJP from the Haridwar LokSabha seat. Ignoring theirclaims the party reaffirmed itsfaith on its sitting MP, RameshPokhariyal ‘Nishank’ but theacrimony between the twoMLAs continued. In the war ofwords, Champion claimed thatthe caste certificate on the

basis of Karnwal contested andwon from a reservedconstituency is fake.

Karnwal retaliated bycharging that Pranav Singhhas not won even a local levelcompetition in any event ofsports but he uses Championafter his name. Karnwal alsoraised question on Championusing the word Raja ( King)before his name and claimedthat there was no princely statename Landhaura in India.During the bitter battlebetween the BJP MLAs,Champion even said that Dr BR Ambedkar and not MahatmaGandhi should be the father ofthe nation.

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The activists of the ‘Makinga Difference by Being a

Difference (MAD), a prominentsocial group organized a YouthParliament on Saturday. Theobjective of the event was tohighlight important issues facedby the state.

About 50 students tookpart in the first phase of theprogramme in which theyrepresented the three prominentpolitical parties of the state, theCongress, Bhartiya Janta Party(BJP), and Uttarakhand KrantiDal (UKD). The organisershave planned a total of sixsessions for the event out ofwhich three were held on

Saturday.The event highlighted six

key issues related to state like‘Sanitation in Uttarakhand’,‘Environment policy ofUttarakhand’, ‘Rejuvenation ofStreams in Uttarakhand’,‘Tourism, Migration andSustainable Development’ and‘Five major problems and fivesolution to save Uttarakhand’.The founder of MAD, AbhijayNegi said, “The programmewas organized with an idea ofgenerating a commonknowledge among our youngstudents about the city and ourstate. We held a test in 23schools in which around 50students were selected from 18schools. They were further

provided with the readingmaterial for the Youthparliament event. Sadly wefound that the students aretaught more about global issueshowever they have a very bleakknowledge about their own cityor the state. A majority ofstudents failed to answer whatRispana river which passedthrough Dehradun. It is veryimportant the students have thebasic knowledge about the citythey are living and the issuesthere city is facing. The morestudents will be aware the moresteps will be successful to saveour state.”

Panel judge of the event andenvironmentalist Paramjeet

Singh said, “It is very importantthe future generation of ourstate knows the problem thatour state is facing. The moreaware will be the youth themore steps will be taken to saveour place on time.”

A student representingCongress party in theParliament, Neha Ahuja said,“Many of us were not awareabout Rispana and many otherseasonal rivers. Similarly theproblem of migration andimportance of the sustainabledevelopment is not known tochildren. This programme wasvery enlightening and it alsogave us a chance to know moreabout our state.”

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Page 4:  · Rohit, son Narain Dutt Tiwari, former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, said he wanted to meet his people. On April 15, the mother-son duo returned to Delhi. While

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Jannayak Janata PartyMember of Parliament

Dushyant Chautala may haveparted ways with his uncle andIndian National Lok Dalleader Abhay Singh Chautalabut still owes Rs 22 lakh to twocousins and political foesArjun Chautala and KaranChautala, according to his affidavit.

According to nominationpapers filed by JJP nomineeDushyant Chautala, the elderson of jailed leader Ajay SinghChautala, from the Hisar LokSabha seat on Saturday, he had

borrowed unsecured loan ofRs 17 lakh from ArjunChautala and Rs 5 lakh fromKaran Chautala.

Both Arjun and Karan aresons of Ajay's younger broth-er and INLD leader AbhaySingh Chautala. Arjun is mak-ing his electoral debut fromthe Kurukshetra Lok Sabhaseat on the Indian NationalLok Dal (INLD) ticket.

According to the affidavitfiled by Dushyant before thereturning officer in Hisar, hehas also borrowed Rs 99.19lakh from his father AjayChautala and Rs 34.09 lakhfrom his mother and Dabwali

MLA Naina Singh Chautala.His total liabilities com-

prising loans were to the tuneof Rs 7.06 crore, as per the affi-davit filed by him.

Dushyant Chautala hasdone Bachelor of Science inBusiness Administration fromCalifornia State University inUS and an LLM from NationalLaw University, Delhi, as perthe affidavit.

He has shown his movableand immovable properties tothe tune of Rs 23.64 crore andRs 53.28 crore, respectively.

He owns agricultural landat Sirsa, Karnal and Faridabad;a shopping complex in Sirsa

and 2,280 square feet flat atVasant Kunj in Delhi.

Dushyant Chautala alsopossesses gold jewellery worthRs 77.25 lakh and diamondsand valuables stones worth Rs62.90 lakh while his wifeMeghna Ahlawat has goldjewellery and diamonds worthRs 1.74 crore.

The great grandson of for-mer deputy prime ministerDevi Lal also has a SUV worthRs 10 lakh.

Notably, the biggest polit-ical spectacle in Haryana in2018 was the feud in theINLD—which finally splitbetween Ajay Chautala and

Abhay Chautala.The feud saw Ajay

Chautala and his sonsDushyant and Digvijay beingexpelled from the Haryana-based party by Om PrakashChautala, who threw hisweight behind his youngerson Abhay Chautala.

With his father serving jailsentence, Dushyant hadlaunched the JJP in December2018.

Meanwhile, bureaucrat-turned-politician BrijendraSingh, son of Union ministerand prominent Jat leaderBirender Singh, also filed hisnomination papers from Hisar

seat.The 46-year-old IAS offi-

cer has voluntarily retiredfrom the Haryana govern-ment to carry on the politicallegacy of his great grandfatherand peasant leader Sir ChhotuRam.

Singh has movable andimmovable properties of Rs8.24 crore and 6.39 crorerespectively. His liabilities areamounting to Rs 2.72 crore.His total assets and liabilitiesalso comprise that of his wifeJasmeet Sial, who holds theposition of the vice presidentat a private bank inChandigarh.

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BJP National Secretary AnilJain on Saturday said the

opposition was repeatedlyshouting Modi Hatao, ModiHatao since it had no issue dur-ing their campaigning in theLok Sabha elections.

Jain, who is a Rajya SabhaMP and is also In-charge ofHaryana BJP, was talking tomedia after the filing of nomi-nation papers for the Hissar LokSabha seat by the bureaucratturned politician BrijendraSingh.

Brijendra Singh’s fatherUnion Steel Minister BirendarSingh, MP D P Vats andHaryana BJP President SubhashBarala were also present.Brijendra was a senior IAS offi-cer of Haryana cadre whorecently took voluntary retire-ment to contest from Hissar.

Jain said that BJP was say-ing Garibi Hatao (removepoverty), increase the security ofthe nation, eliminate terror-

ism, casteism, nepotism anddirt. The issues before BJP andits intention are clear, he added.

The BJP leader targetedCongress saying there was an

atmosphere of chaos and uncer-tainty in the grand old opposi-tion party which is also in a stateof confusion.

He said though the process

of filing of nominations for theMay 12 Lok Sabha elections iscurrently on, the Congress hasnot been able to announce allthe 10 candidates because no

one is ready to contest on theirbehalf.

Due to uncertainity andlack of confidence in Congresscadres, the opposition party isrepeatedly misguiding the peo-ple who understand everythingand avoiding the Congress flag,Jain added.

He said the kind of atmos-phere prevailing in Haryana andother parts of the country, it isclear that the people are inclinedtowards the BJP to ensure returnfor a second term to acceleratethe process of development ofvarious sections of the society.

Asked which party was themain competitor for the BJP inHaryana, Jain said that there isnone. The opposition has notbeen able to announce theircandidates so far; he said thatthe opposition parties were fac-ing internal bickering.

He said on the other handthe BJP is clear on its issues andhas many achievements of itsfive year rule to detail before themasses.

Shimla: As polling for thefour Lok Sabha seats ofHimachal Pradesh is almost amonth away, the Ellersliebuilding -- housing the statesecretariat -- wears a desertedlook these days with none ofthe Ministers in the Jai RamThakur-led cabinet turningup.

Even 'lazy' bureaucrats andofficials prefer to stay awaymost of the time, much to thedisappointment of the public,who comes from farawayplaces daily to get their griev-ances redressed.

Octogenarian Durga Negi,who comes to meet the ChiefMinister to get monetary assis-tance for her son's treatment,said: "I am coming daily tomeet him but I am told by hisstaff that he is busy in electiontours but he will come tooffice any day."

Carrying medical bills,this farm labourer fromChopal in Shimla district isseeking a financial assistanceof Rs 200,000 from the ChiefMinister's Relief Fund. Herson is suffering from a conge-nial heart disease.

On an average, over ahundred people from acrossthe state come on a daily basisto meet the Chief Ministerwith some problems. Five to 10visitors are those who gen-uinely come for some financialassistance, officials admit.

The other beneficiariesinclude students who needmoney for higher studies.

Most of the bureaucratsare stationed outside the stateto manage parliamentary polls

in other states. Those who arehere prefer to stay away fromthe Secretariat.

The attendance is almostthin after lunch.

"The normal working ofthe Secretariat comes toalmost standstill for at least amonth in every election -- beit Assembly, Lok Sabha or thelocal bodies. Most of the offi-cials prefer not to take deci-sions on pretext of the modelcode of conduct," admitted asenior government func-tionary.

The Chief Minister hasbeen repeatedly advising hiscabinet colleagues to spendmore time in offices ratherthan touring constituenciesbut during the elections thesituation gets worst, he added.

Even the security person-nel appeared relaxed in theabsence of VIPs in the secre-tariat.

Senior CPI-M leader andlegislator Rakesh Singha onFriday lashed the state BJPgovernment over its failure toannounce compensation forthe growers whose fruit andvegetable crops were dam-aged extensively by hailstormsin Shimla district on April 18.

He claimed the farmershas suffered a loss of Rs 7crore. In a letter to ChiefSecretary B.K. Aggarwal, hedemanded immediate assess-ment of crop loss and releaseof compensation.

Himachal Pradesh will goto the polls for the four LokSabha seats -- Shimla,Hamirpur, Kangra and Mandi-- on May 19.

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On the last date for filingclaims for enrolment as

electors, a total number of1,82,890 Form-6 were receivedunder continuous updation ofelectoral rolls till Friday,Additional Chief ElectoralOfficer D.K.Rattan said hereon Saturday.

He said these forms will bedisposed of by the ERO con-cerned (Electoral RegistrationOfficer) by April 29 and theapplicants whose forms will beaccepted by the EROs will beeligible to cast their votes onMay 19 in the Lok Sabha elec-tions.

Rattan said, in addition toit, 69 forms for enrolment aselectors have also beenreceived from the overseas cit-izens which will also beprocessed and decided by April29.

The official stated that15,803 forms for deletionreceived before the date ofannouncement of electionshave already been decided.He said after special summa-ry revision, final publication ofelectoral rolls was made on 21January and at that time,50,96,869 electors were registered which includ-ed 25,84,183 male, 25,12,627female and 59 third gender. Atthe time of final publication, the number offirst time electors was 88,127which has now increased to1,33,083.

This number will furtherincrease when forms receivedwill be decided and disposed off by the EROs uptoApril 29.

Rattan added that numberof service electors which was62,131, at the time of final pub-lication made on 22 Februarywill also increase as 5,437more applications have beenreceived from the ArmyRecord Offices which will alsobe decided and disposed.

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New executive committeeof the Uttarakhand

Kranti Dal (UKD) would beconstituted during the twoday conclave of the partywhich starts from April 24.The conclave would be held inKotdwar town of Pauri dis-trict.

Addressing media per-sons here on Saturday, theVice President of the UKD,Harish Pathak stated that theterm of the existing commit-

tee which is working from lasttwo years has ended and anew committee would beelected to steer the party.

Pathak said, “We will behaving a meeting with themembers of our party mem-bers on 24 and 25 April anda new executive committeewill be formed. The commit-tee will manage all the worksrelated to holding of theannual session, regional elec-tions and financial manage-ment of the party.”

Expressing views on thepresent scenario of the state,Pathak said, “It is very sad tosee that the present scenarioof the state is becoming worsewith each passing day. In thename of the development allthe people of the state are get-ting is fake promises and cor-ruption. Both BJP andCongress are out to destroy

the state ever since it was cre-ated. Nearly 3000 schools areclosed, the sale of liquor hasbecome rampant and themedical services are so pathet-ic that pregnant women areforced to birth to their babieson road. The crime rate hasalso increased in the statewhich has never happenedbefore. The parties are playingin the name of ‘Chowkidar’but none of them are talkingabout the real issues or thedevelopment of the state.”

Pathak claimed that theUKD has always worked forthe betterment and develop-ment of the state. He addedthat UKD has stood for Water,Forest and Land, Forest, Water( Jal, Jungle, Zamen) “It willbe our main priority to savethe state and develop it in away that it was supposed tobe,” he quipped.

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The Woodstock School,Mussoorie lifted the Doon

Cup Football 2019 Trophy inthe under 19 category. In finalmatches of tournament, playedat Ecole Globale InternationalGirls School, Dehradun onSaturday, the boys of theWoodstock School, defeatedGems Modern Academy,Dubai by 4-1 goals. In theUnder -14 category final Ateam of the Andro School,Manipur defeat its B team by 2-1 goals.

In three day football tour-nament nine teams took part inunder -19 category while seventeams participated in under -14category

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The residents of Ward no -24( Shivaji Marg) organised a

vehement protest at the office ofthe Municipal Corporation ofDehradun (MCD) on Saturday.Led by the councillor of theward which covers areas aroundShivaji Marg, Vishal the resi-dents said that the despiterepeated requests about door todoor garbage collection andpathetic condition of streetlights no steps have been takenby the authorities. They claimedthat the people of the ward aresuffering from the mismanage-ment of the MCD.

Councillor Vishal said“The MCD has failed to collectgarbage from our ward under itsdoor to door collection scheme.The street lights of the ward arealso not functioning. We sub-mitted a complaint in MCD onApril 2 which was not respond-ed by any of the official. OnApril 16 we again submitted amemorandum but nothing wasdone. Nearly 15 days havepassed but noting has movedhere. The garbage lies littered invarious places and majority ofstreet light are not working. Ourrepeated complaints are uselessas officials are failing to fulfiltheir assigned duties properly.”

Later the Mayor SunilUniyal ‘Gama’ met a delegationof the residents and assuredthan the issue is in his knowl-edge and all the problems willget resolved soon.

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BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP,Mahesh Poddar, on

Saturday raised questions onthe proposed Nyay Scheme ofIndian National Congress say-ing that when the party claims‘Ab Hoga Nyay’ (justice will beserved now) it also implies thatCongress was responsible for allthe injustice happening tilldate.

“Before announcing anysuch new scheme, the Congressparty should repent and apol-ogise to the public,” Poddarsaid.

He added, “Before this,they (Congress Party) hadrepeatedly shouted out the slo-gans of ‘Gareebi Hatao’ (removepoverty). However, povertywas not removed but poorwere. Now how can publictrust them with this new slo-gan?”

Taking a jibe at RahulGandhi’s statement aboutrecovering the money fromNeerav Modi and Vijay Malyato fund the Nyay Scheme,

Poddar said that this is mis-guiding people, as the moneyfrom these people belongs tothe banks.

“Here, Subodh Kant Sahaysays that the money for thisscheme would be derived bycutting down expenses of otherongoing schemes. How is itgoing to help people?” he said.

The MP pointed out thatthe expenses for Nyay Schemeis estimated to be Rs. 3.6 lakhcrore which is much morethan the budget for socialscheme 2019-20, which is Rs.3.34 lakh crore. “If the ongoingschemes are not shut downbefore starting this NyayScheme then the governmentwill have to give a subsidy of Rs.6.9 lakh crore under socialschemes which is not justimpossible but also suicidal forthe country’s economy,” Poddarsaid.

Talking about the propos-al of Minimum IncomeGuarantee Scheme, Poddarsaid that the promise of payingRs. 72,000 annually to the ben-eficiaries will lead to the col-

lapse of the financial order ofthe Country.

“The total cost of thescheme will be 2 per cent ofthe GDP and 13 per cent ofthe budget. This will not ful-fil the real needs of the pub-lic,” he said.

He emphasised on howthe Modi government’s intro-duction Mudra Yojna helpedmuch more fruitful in pro-

viding employment to citi-zens.

“Congress governmentpromised one rank, one pen-sion in 2008 and FoodSecurity in 2013 but could donothing. It was Modi govern-ment which implementedthese long pending schemes,”the MP said.

Poddar alleged that theCongress Party started orga-

nized loot in 1971 withnationalisation of banks. “In2008, bank loan was Rs. 16lakh crore which increasedthree fold in six years to Rs. 52lakh crore in 2014. Modi gov-ernment rectified 22 banksthrough PCA,” he said.

The MP pointed out onhow Allahabad High Courtissued a notice to theCongress Party questioning

that why this announcementshould not be considered as abribe to the voters and whyshould the party not bebanned. Poddar emphasisedon the various schemes of BJPgovernment claiming that twolakh Jandhan accounts wereopened, 70 lakh gas connec-tions allotted and electricityreached in 50,000 housesevery day.

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Page 5:  · Rohit, son Narain Dutt Tiwari, former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, said he wanted to meet his people. On April 15, the mother-son duo returned to Delhi. While

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The Union Home Ministryhas allowed risk and hard-

ship allowance to non-fieldunits of CRPF in Jammu &Kashmir and Naxal-affectedStates after revising the earlierguidelines which provided forsuch allowances exclusively tothe personnel deployed in thefield units and not those locat-ed in a district headquarter.

The move is expected topositively impact thousands ofthe CRPF personnel as theparamilitary has deploymentover one lakh men in Jammu& Kashmir and Naxal-affectedareas.

“It is clarified that since thenew classification of field areashas been made on geographi-cal basis for drawal of RHA forall CRPF offices situated in aparticular classified field area,hence Risk and HardshipAllowance is applicable to allthe officers and personnel post-ed in the same classified area,”reads an internal circular issuedon April 16.

“…approval is herebyaccorded to draw RHA to allOfficers/personnel to drawRHA in the areas classified videMHA OM (office memo) dated22/2/2019..while issuing sanc-

tion for RH Allowance, thecomplete postal address of theoffice including Block , subdivision, tehsil and districtshall be mentioned.

These allowances areapplicable wef 22/2/2019,” itfurther said.

A committee was consti-tuted under the chairmanshipof Union Home Secretary toreview the existing classifica-

tion of field areas in respect ofJammu & Kashmir and LeftWing Extremism affected dis-tricts where troops aredeployed for anti-Naxal oper-ations.

On the basis of report ofthe Committee, the UnionHome Ministry issued onFebruary 22 thi year conveyedsanction to the CRPF to drawrisk and hardship allowance

according to field areas classi-fied in a series of annexures tothe order.

After the order from theHome Ministry, a number ofreferences were received at theCRPF headquarters here fromvarious CRPF offices fromJammu & Kashmir and Naxal-hit States asking for permissionto allow them the allowanceaccording to the new classifi-

cation of field areas as clearedby the Home Ministry inFebruary.

Following this, a clarifica-tion from the Financial Advisorwas taken before the paramil-itary allowed the allowance inthe entire terror or Nazalism hit districts of Jammu& Kashmir besides ultra-Leftinsurgency affected areas, anofficial said.

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Chief Justice of India RanjanGogoi, who held an extra-

ordinary hearing in theSupreme Court on Saturdayover allegations of sexualharassment against him, cited“criminal record” of the accuserduring the proceedings.

The CJI, who along withJustices Arun Mishra andSanjiv Khanna assembled tohear the matter which wasdescribed as of “great publicimportance touching upon theindependence of judiciary”,said that the woman, a formerapex court employee, had acriminal record and two FIRswere lodged against her.

In a letter addressed to 22other apex court judges, thewoman had said that she wasa junior court assistant in theapex court. She said she hadjoined the service on May 1,2014 and her service was ter-

minated on December 21,2018. During the hearing,Justice Gogoi said when shewas employed with the apexcourt, an FIR was pendingagainst her.

“How can she become aSupreme Court staff when anFIR was pending against her?”

the CJI said, adding that twocriminal cases were also pend-ing against her husband.

A third FIR was registeredagainst her following which shewas arrested, he said, addingthat after getting bail, shethreatened the complainant ofthe third case with dire conse-

quences. He said the womanwas in jail for four days becauseof the criminal cases lodgedagainst her and she was alsowarned by the police a coupleof times to maintain goodbehaviour.

The CJI said that in thethird case, the police has movedthe lower court seeking can-cellation of the bail granted toher and the matter was listedfor hearing in the Patiala Housedistrict court today itself.

Later in the day, a trialcourt said that it would hear onApril 24 the plea filed by policeseeking cancellation of the bailgranted to the former womanSC employee in a cheating andcriminal intimidation case.

Chief MetropolitanMagistrate Manish Khuranalisted the matter for Wednesdayas the accused woman wasnot served with the copy of thepolice’s plea.

The police sought cancel-

lation of the bail granted to thewoman on March 12, after thecomplainant claimed that hewas being threatened by theformer Supreme Court stafferand her associates.

An FIR for the allegedoffences of cheating, criminalintimidation and criminal con-spiracy was lodged against thewoman on March 3, after acomplaint was filed by NaveenKumar, a resident of Jhajjar inHaryana, at the Tilak MargPolice Station here.

Kumar has alleged that theformer apex court employeehad defrauded him of �50,000,which he claimed she took aspart of a bribe, promising hima job at the Supreme Court.

The apex court took suomotu (on its own) note ofreports carried by four newsportals on allegations of sexu-al misconduct levelled by theformer apex court womanemployee against the CJI.

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Questions on Congress pres-ident Rahul Gandhi’s citi-

zenship and educational qual-ifications resurfaced onSaturday prompting theAmethi Returning Officer todefer the scrutiny of his nom-ination papers from the seat tillApril 22, giving the BJP a han-dle to hit out at him as it askedhim to come clean on theissue.

An independent candidatefighting from Amethi hasraised doubts over Rahul’sIndian citizenship, leveled alle-gations of non-disclosure ofassets and properties of the UKcompany whose documents

show him as a British citizenand non-matching of docu-ments related to his educationalqualifications. The issues hadearlier too cropped up and theBJP has had targeted him thenalso. Citing the complaint filedwith returning officer ofAmethi against Congress pres-ident, the BJP also raised ques-tions on Rahul’s citizenshipand educational qualification,and asked him to come cleanon the matter. The returningofficer (RO) has fixed Mondayas the next date of hearing onthe matter.

BJP spokesperson GVLNarasimha Rao told reportersit was “stunning” that Rahul’slawyer sought time to reply to

the objections. “These are serious allega-

tions. Is Rahul Gandhi anIndian citizen or not? Did heever become a British citizen?He should come out with thereal story,” he said.

Election Commissionsources said the returning offi-cer is the final authority onsuch a matter, but he cannotcheck the veracity of whateveris written on an election affi-davit.

“If someone approachesan RO raising objections, hemust hear the affected party. Ifanyone has any objection towhatever is recorded in anaffidavit, the person shouldapproach court. The EC has no

role in any objection made toelection affidavit,” they said.

Rao claimed that a Britishcompany, in which Rahul hadsaid in 2004 that he madeinvestment, in its submission tothe authorities there stated thatRahul was a British citizen.

Under Indian law, oneceases to be a citizen of thecountry if he gets citizenship ofany country, he said and askedthe Congress president toanswer the questions raised inthe complaint. If the Britishcompany made a false state-ment, then did Rahul actagainst it, he asked.

Referring to the complaint,the BJP spokesperson saidthere are “discrepancies and

attempts to suppress facts” inRahul’s affidavits filed duringdifferent elections from 2004 to2014.

The Congress chief hadsaid that he did M Phil indevelopment economics fromCambridge University, but laterclaimed it was in developmentstudies, Rao alleged.

The BJP spokesman said

inquiries show that one RaulVincy and not Rahul Gandhigot the degree in that particu-lar year.

“We will like to know ifRahul Gandhi goes by multiplenames in different countries,”Rao said. He also wondered ifthe Gandhi scion’s qualificationwas like Congress manifestoesthat change every five years.

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Attacking what he called“present generation of

dynast” in Congress, UnionFinance Minister Arun Jaitleyon Saturday claimed that it hasbecome a liability for theCongress party and hopedthat the “aspirational India”would find it increasingly dif-ficult to accept “dynasties”.

“If the Congress’s dynasthas only an ability to deliver 44seats or 60 seats in Parliament,what then is the incentive forconventional Congressmen tobear humiliation of subjectingthemselves to a dynast?Ultimately, in dynastic partiesone has to accept politicalslavery,” Jaitley said in a blogtitled, ‘Will 2019 Witness theDynasty as a Liability on theCongress Party?’

The grand old party is ledby Rahul Gandhi , grandson ofIndira and son of Rajiv, and isassisted by his sister PriyankaVadra.

Jaitley said the two PrimeMinisters that BJP gave to thenation — Atal Bihari Vajpayeeand Narendra Modi — were bya mile the “tallest politicians oftheir generation”, adding thatthis could happen only inmerit-based parties and notdynastic ones.

“A relevant question withthis changing socio-econom-ic profile of India is — Aredynasties an asset for a partyor are they a liability?Unquestionably, the presentgeneration of dynast hasbecome a liability rather thanan asset for the CongressParty,” he said.

Jaitley further said, “Is

history going to witness some-thing wholly unprecedented?Are we going to witness therejection of caste based anddynastic parties? And willaspirational India make aharsh judgement on electing amerit based leadership? Thismay well be the case.”

Referring to other dynas-tic parties, Jaitley said theIndian National Lok Dal(INLD)has splintered, whilethe Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)got zero in the Lok Sabha elec-tions in 2014 and 19 seats inthe assembly elections.

The Samajwadi Partycould only retain seats for itsfamily members in the 2014elections, while the RJD wasdown to two seats, he noted.

Commenting on the firsttwo phases of polling for thegeneral elections, Jaitley saidthe momentum was clearlywith the BJP and PrimeMinister Modi.

“In terms of nationalleadership contest for a PrimeMinisterial election, it isalmost becoming a one horserace. There is nobody elsemeasuring up to PrimeMinister Modi’s level of capac-ity and acceptability,” he soughtto say.

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Cracking the whip, theElection Commission on

Saturday ordered the transfer ofthe Malda police chief in WestBengal, just days ahead of theApril 23 Lok Sabha polls in thedistrict.

The Commission askedthe state government to shuntout Arnab Ghosh as SP, Malda,and replace him with AjoyPrasad, who is heading a statearmed police battalion.

The EC also made it clearto the state government thatGhosh should not be put onelection duty.

Malda goes to polls onApril 23 in phase three of LokSabha elections.

Recently, when the pollwatchdog had transferred somesenior police officials, stateChief Minister MamataBanerjee had accused it ofworking as a “tool” of the BJP-led government at the Centre.

Rejecting the allegation,the EC had said it was wellwithin its rights to transfer offi-cials during election period.

Meanwhile, the nodal elec-tion officer of Nadia distrci,Arnab Roy, who has been miss-ing Thursday, continued to betraceless.

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Former Union Minister andCongress leader from

Kerala S Krishna Kumar onSaturday joined the BJP sayingthat he wanted to work tostrengthen Prime MinisterNarendra Modi’s leadership.

The 80-year-old leader wasinducted into the party by BJPleader Anil Baluni andShahnawaz Hussain at theparty headquarters here.

Kumar said Modi has beenworking to develop India andhe should continue to lead thecountry.

He has been elected to theLok Sabha three times during80s and 90s, and was also aminister in the then CongressGovernments at the Centre.

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The Bar Council of IndiaSaturday condemned the

“false and cooked-up” sexualharassment allegations againstChief Justice of India RanjanGogoi and said the entire barwas standing with the CJI, andagainst this “attempt to malignthe institution”.

“These are all false andcooked-up allegations and wecondemn these kinds of acts.These kind of allegations andactions should not be encour-aged. This is an attempt tomalign the institution. Entirebar is standing in solidaritywith the Chief Justice of India,”Manan Kumar Mishra, BCIchairperson, told PTI.

He said an emergencymeeting of the top bar bodywould be convened on Sunday

and a resolution be passed inthis regard.

“We will pass the resolu-tion and then try to meet theCJI to make him aware of the(BCI’s) decision,” Mishra said.

The Supreme Court BarAssociation (SCBA) presidentand senior advocate RakeshKhanna, who was present dur-ing the extraordinary hearingin the matter on Saturday,however, refused to comment.

“We are not part of thecase...There is no lis (litigation)before the court. I am not giv-ing any interview (on the con-troversy). Thank you,” he said.

However, former SCBApresident and senior advocateVikas Singh said the propercourse would be to have an in-house inquiry by some seniorSupreme Court judges toauthoritatively find out thetruth “this way or that way” ina time-bound manner.

“If it is a false allegationthen this definitely is a threatto independence of judiciary,but if it is true then it is alsovery serious,” he said.

“There should be an in-house inquiry by some seniorSupreme Court judges to findout authoritatively this way orthat way in a time-bound man-ner,” Singh told PTI.

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The National InvestigationAgency (NIA) on Saturday

arrested Mohammad Gufranfrom Amroha in Uttar Pradeshin connection with the ISISconspiracy case relating to a sis-nister plan to target Delhi-NCRand Uttar Pradesh. Gufran isthe 13th accused to have beenarrested in the case. Duringinvestigation, role of saidaccused person had surfaced asone of the key conspirators inplanning to carry out terroristattacks in Delhi NCR and UP.

“Arrested accusedMohammad Gufran wasinspired by ideology of ISISwhich is a proscribed organi-zation under UAPA (UnlawfulActivities (Prevention) Act)and formed a pro-ISIS modulenamely Harkat Ul Harb-e-Islam with the help of accusedpersons arrested earlier to wagewar against Government ofIndia,” NIA spokesperson said.

Investigation revealed thathe was instrumental in pro-curement of arms and ammu-nition and also explosives tocarry out terrorist attacks inDelhi NCR and UP, the NIA

spokesperson further said.Twelve accused persons

have earlier been arrested in thecase.

The case relates to a groupof pro-ISIS terrorists whoformed a terrorist gang whichwas engaged in acts prepara-tory to commission of terrorattacks with a view to wage waragainst the Government ofIndia.

“The group was found tobe inspired by ideology of ISISand was conspiring and prepar-ing to target places of impor-tance in and around NationalCapital Territory of Delhi. It

was gathered that Mufti Mohd.Suhail alias Hazrath, resident ofJafrabad, Seelampur, Delhi,was the Amir of pro-IS mod-ule who mobilized funds andprocured weapons, ammuni-tion and explosive materials toprepare IEDs etc with his otherassociates, the spokespersonadded.

Gufran will be producedbefore the designated NIACourt, Patiala House, NewDelhi on Sunday.

Meanwhile, (the NIA onSaturday carried out searches atthree locations in Hyderabadand Wardha in another ISIS-related case known as AbuDhabi Module case

During the searches con-ducted in this case, a numberof digital devices including 13mobile phones, 11 SIM cards,onr iPad, two laptops, oneexternal hard disk, six pen dri-ves, six SD Cards and threeWalkie Talkie Sets (Kenwoodbesides a number os suspiciousdocuments have been seizedfrom the houses of the suspects.

“Questioning of the foursuspects is going on,” thespokesperson said without anelaboration.

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Page 6:  · Rohit, son Narain Dutt Tiwari, former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, said he wanted to meet his people. On April 15, the mother-son duo returned to Delhi. While

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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI)said on Saturday it has not issued

any direction with regard to a five-daya week working for commercial banks.

“It has been reported in certainsections of the media that commer-cial banks would have a 5-day weekin terms of RBI instructions. It is clar-ified that this information is not fac-tually correct,” the RBI said in arelease.

The RBI has not issued any suchdirections, it said. Currently, branch-es of commercial banks observe hol-iday only on second and fourthSaturday of a month apart fromSunday.

Remaining Saturdays are a fullworking hour for banks.

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Employees of Jet Airwayshave written to President

Ram Nath Kovind and PrimeMinister Narendra Modi seek-ing their intervention to recov-er outstanding dues as well asto expedite the process ofemergency funds for the airline,which has shuttered its oper-ations temporarily.

Cash-starved Jet Airways,which has around 23,000employees, has delayed pay-ment of salaries to the employ-ees, including pilots. Amiduncertainty over the futurecourse of the carrier, twoemployees’ unions have nowwritten to the President and the

Prime Minister.In separate but similarly-

worded letters this week, theSociety for Welfare of IndianPilots (SWIP) and Jet AircraftMaintenance EngineersWelfare Association (JAME-WA) have requested help inclearing their outstandingsalary dues.

“We request you to con-sider the situation with theurgency it deserves and directthe management of Jet Airways(India) Ltd to expeditiouslydisburse all outstanding dues toaffected employees.

“We also urge you toexpedite the process of emer-gency funding, as every minuteand every decision is very crit-

ical in these testing times,” oneof the letters said.

After months of uncer-tainty, Jet Airways announcedtemporary suspension of itsoperations on April 17 as itfailed to receive emergencyfunds from lenders.

The unions highlightedthat a section of employees

have not been paid theirsalaries on time for the lastseven months and that thedistressing situation was alsobrought to the notice of theMinistry of Labour andEmployment in March.

“The management of JetAirways has gone back on itssalary arrears payment sched-

ule conveyed by mail datedDecember 7, 2018. The out-standing amount for pilots andengineers as of now is threemonths salary (full salaries forthe months of January,February and March), and forall other staff is one month’ssalary,” the letter said.

Noting that employees didtheir best to keep up the high-est standards of safety and pro-fessionalism in these tryingtimes, the grouping said non-payment of salaries is causingextreme hardships to employ-ees. “Even after all our efforts,we are not seeing any ray ofhope and so it is our humbleplea to take this matter underyour guidance for an imme-

diate action for the revival ofthe entire system,” the lettersaid.

SWIP has around 1,200members while JAMEWA rep-resents more than 500 employ-ees.

“We have also realised thatalong with our Jet Airwayssinking, we are not only 23,000employees who will be affect-ed directly but a number ofpeople who are running busi-ness or are associated with ussome way or the other.

“Even the shops at the air-ports are facing a lull. Such abig airline going down willleave a huge vacuum behind.Passengers are already facingthe brunt of it,” they said.

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Private lender HDFCBank on Saturday

reported a 23 per cent jumpin its net profit to �5,885.12crore for the quarter endedMarch 2019 on a healthygrowth in its net interestincome.

The bank had registereda net profit of �4,799.28crore in the January-Marchquarter of 2017-18. Totalincome for the quarterended March 31, 2019, stoodat �31,204.5 crore, up by 22.1per cent from �25,549.7crore for the quarter endedon March 31, 2018, the bank

said in a regulatory filing. Net interest income

grew by 22.8 per cent to�13,089.5 crore in the lastquarter of FY2018-19 from�10,657.7 crore in the year-ago quarter driven by aver-age asset growth of 19.8 percent and a core net inter-est margin of 4.4 per cent,the bank said.

On asset front, bank’sgross non-performingassets (NPAs) were at 1.36per cent of gross advancesas on March 31, 2019, asagainst 1.30 per cent as onMarch 31, 2018. Coverageratio as on March 31, 2019was 71 per cent.

������������������!���� ��#������:��������*��#������.��������������� ��������������������������������������������������

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Net employment generationin the formal sector

almost trebled to 8.61 lakh inFebruary compared to 2.87lakh in the same month of lastyear, according to the latestEPFO payroll data.

The retirement fund bodyEmployees’ Provident FundOrganisation has been releas-ing payroll data from April2018, covering the periodstarting September 2017.

According to the latestdata, the highest job creationwas recorded in January 2019at 8.94 lakh against the provi-sional estimate of 8.96 lakhreleased last month.

During February 2019, thehighest number of 2.36 lakhjobs were created in the 22-25years age group, followed by2.09 lakh in the 18-21 years agebracket.

The data showed that 80.86lakh new jobs were created inthe 18 months period fromSeptember 2017 to February2019.

However, the EPFO hasrevised downward the numberof net subscribers added ornew jobs created fromSeptember 2017 to January2019 to 72.24 lakh from 76.48lakh released last month.

The sharpest revision wasfor March 2018 in the latestreport which showed con-traction or exit of 55,934 mem-

bers from the EPFO subscrip-tions. Last month, the EPFOpayroll data had showed that asmany as 29,023 members exit-ed from its schemes in March2018. ‘

In February 2019, theEPFO data had showed that asmany as 5,498 members joinedEPFO schemes in March 2018.

On contraction in March2018 numbers, the EPFO said,“March 2018 figure is negativedue to large number of exitsreported in the month ofMarch, in view of it being theclosing month of the financialyear.”The EPFO said the data isprovisional as updation ofemployee records is a contin-uous process and gets updatedin subsequent months.

This is age-band wise dataof new members registeredunder the EPFO where the firstnon-zero contribution receivedduring a particular month. Foreach age-wise band, the esti-mates are net of the membersnewly enrolled, exited andrejoined during the month asper records of the EPFO, itadded.

�� � ��5���8�0

Paytm Payments Bank Ltd(PPB) on Saturday said it

has appointed entrepreneurSairee Chahal to its board ofdirectors.

Chahal is the founder andCEO of SHEROES -- a com-munity platform for women.

“We are delighted to haveMs Sairee Chahal on our board.She has comprehensive expe-rience of customer serviceecosystem. We will benefitfrom her knowledge and exper-tise,” PPB Managing Directorand CEO Satish Gupta said ina statement.

PPB, which was incorpo-rated in August 2016, formal-ly began its operations in2017.Paytm Founder VijayShekhar Sharma holds 51 percent stake in PPB, while therest is held by One97Communications.

Gupta had recently statedthat PPB has 4.4 crore savingsbank accounts with deposits ofover �400 crore as well as 26crore wallet accounts.

�� � ��0�����6�0:��

India’s growth trajectory holdsimmense potential for glob-

al stakeholders to establishenergy, infrastructure andtechnology collaboration withthe country, a UN forum herehas been told.

Counsellor in India’sPermanent Mission to the UNAshish Sinha stressed onWednesday at the ECOSOCForum on Financing forDevelopment Follow Up thatIndia wanted to use growth asa mechanism to pull the max-imum number of people out ofpoverty and improve quality oflife in an inclusive manner.

“India has retained its posi-tion as the world’s fastest grow-ing major economy. Indianeconomy has been growingover 7 per cent for several yearsand the forecast for the futureis equally robust,” he said.

Sinha noted that Indiaimproved its ranking by 23positions in the World Bank’sEase of Doing Business rank-ings last year.

India improved its rankingon the World Bank’s ‘ease ofdoing business’ report for thesecond straight year, jumping23 places to the 77th position

on the back of reforms relatedto insolvency, taxation andother areas.

“India’s growth trajectoryholds immense potential forour global stakeholders toestablish energy, naturalresource, and infrastructureand technology collaborationwith us,” Sinha said.

The current global eco-nomic outlook also reiteratesthe need for the promotion ofpolicies for enhancing eco-nomic growth and growthinducing investments, he said.

Earlier this month, theWorld Bank said India’s GDPgrowth was expected to accel-erate moderately to 7.5 per centin fiscal year 19-20, driven bycontinued investment strength-ening, particularly private-improved export performanceand resilient consumption.

“The objective is to bankthe unbanked, secure the unse-cured, fund the unfundedand service the un-serviced

areas,” Sinha said.Noting that India has taken

strong initiatives for financialinclusion, he said in the thepast three years, the govern-ment has opened over 320 mil-lion bank accounts for thosewho never had an account.

“We have leveraged thesebank accounts with the powerof a biometric identity systemand mobile phones, to deliversubsidies and services to thedeserving poor,” he said, addingthat 1.6 million people havebenefited from the recentlylaunched cashless health insur-ance scheme called ‘AyushmanBharat’ in the first four monthsof its launch.

India is also the sixthlargest producer of renewableenergy in the world and Indiansolar power capacity will growrobustly at an annual averagerate of 15.3 per cent to reach105.9 GW by 2028, up from 26GW in 2018, he said.

Sinha noted that researchand innovation would be thedriving force in the 4th indus-trial revolution era. The Indiangovernment has introducedthe flagship programme Start-up India with 1.4 billion dollarsfund for four years to create astartup ecosystem in India.

�� � ��5���8�0

Reliance Industries onSaturday said it is not in

violation of the US sanctions onVenezuela and had purchasedcrude originating from theLatin American nation fromcompanies such as Russia’sRosneft in full knowledge of USauthorities.

In a statement, Reliancesaid reports suggesting that itwas involved in an arrange-ment that leads to cash pay-ment for oil supplies toVenezuelan national oil com-

pany PDVSA via third partiesare “false and reckless”.

“Reliance has purchasedVenezuelan crude oil fromcompanies such as (Russia’s)Rosneft long before the impo-sition of the US sanctions, asthey do get title to Venezuelanoil in return for reduction intheir prior debt. “Since sanc-tions were imposed, Reliance

has made such purchases withthe full knowledge andapproval of the US Departmentof State (USDOS), and Reliance has informed USDOSof specific volumes and trans-actions. Such transactions donot lead to any consequent pay-ment to PDVSA and do notviolate US sanctions or poli-cies,” it said.

Reliance said its priceagreement with such sellers isat market price and paymentsare settled in cash or by prod-uct supply bilaterally betweenit and such sellers.

�� � ��5���8�0

The Government hasextended the last date for

filing summary sales return,GSTR-3B, for March monthby three days until April 23.

“Due date for filing GSTR-3B for the tax period March2019 has been extended toApril 23, 2019,” a ticker onGST portal ‘gst.Gov.In’ said.

The last date for filing

summary sales return andpayment of taxes for March isApril 20, 2019.

AMRG & AssociatesPartner Rajat Mohan said,“Glitches in GSTN is leadingto frequent extensions in thefiling of tax returns. Tax filersalso need to improve the habitof filing at the last date, lead-ing to burden on the serversresulting in the collapse of thesame.”

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Page 7:  · Rohit, son Narain Dutt Tiwari, former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, said he wanted to meet his people. On April 15, the mother-son duo returned to Delhi. While

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Thousands of Indians onSaturday rejoiced and par-

ticipated in the foundationstone laying ceremony of thefirst Hindu temple in UAE’scapital Abu Dhabi. MahantSwami Maharaj, spiritual headof the Bochasanwasi ShriA k s h a r - P u r u s h o t t a mSwaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS),which is constructing the tem-ple, presided over the four-hour ceremony followingwhich sanctified bricks wereplaced at the main pooja sthal(place of worship).

Indian Ambassador toUAE Navdeep Suri read outPrime Minister NarendraModi’s statement on the occa-sion, congratulating the Gulfnation for this initiative.

“On behalf of 130 croreIndians, it is my privilege toconvey our greetings to my

dear friend and the CrownPrince of Abu Dhabi, HisHighness Sheikh Mohammedbin Zayed Al Nahyan,” Suriquoted Prime Minister Modias saying.

“When complete, this tem-ple will symbolise the univer-sal human values and spiritu-al ethos that form a shared her-itage of both India and theUAE,” he said.

Suri said that the templeembodies the timeless Vedicvalues of VasudevKutumbakam, the whole worldis one family.

“I am sure this temple willbe a source of inspiration forthe 33 lakh Indians residing inthe UAE as well as of peoplefrom all other cultures,” Suriquoted Prime Minister Modi assaying.

The plan to build the tem-ple in Abu Dhabi was approvedby the Abu Dhabi government

during Modi’s first visit to thecountry in 2015.

Priti Vaishnav, educationand development expert,termed the temple as a well-deserved recognition of a thriv-ing Indian community in theUAE.

“This will also serve as agreat venue for tourism from allover the world as these templesspearheaded by BAPS are

amazing pieces of architectureas well as famous for their larg-er than life manifestation,”Vaishnav said.

The temple will be a cul-tural complex with art gallery,halls, library and gym.

It will comprise of seventowers representing the sevenemirates in the UAE and comeup on a 14-acre piece of land atAbu Mureikhah, close to the

Abu Dhabi-Dubai highway.The stones for the temple

will be carved by temple arti-sans in India and assembled inthe UAE.

Bindu Suresh Chettur,prominent Indian lawyer, saidthis is a welcome developmentfor the 3.3 million Indians liv-ing in the UAE and that it willhelp enhance people-to-peoplecontact.

“This country has alwaysbeen a role model when itcomes to giving respect toeveryone. This step will furtherboost the relations betweenthe two countries. Also, theBAPS temple architecture isvery unique so it will add tothe long list of marvellousarchitectures in the UAE,”Chettur said.

Sajeev Purushothaman,spokesperson of the NRI cell ofBharatiya Janata Party, said,“It’s very significant and sym-

bolic in this year of tolerance(being marked in the UAE).This temple is not just a placeof worship, it is a place forhuman development and har-mony to be created amongcommunities.”

“Just after the Pope’s visit(to the UAE), we have BAPSspiritual guru poojya mahantMaharaj Ji and being NRI, weare proud of this temple andrequest all NRIs to be a part ofthe making,” he added.

Sheikh Nahyan MabarakAl Nahyan received SwamiMaharaj and his delegation ofHindu priests at Al MaktoumInternational Airport onThursday.

While interacting withSheikh Nahyan, SwamiMaharaj prayed for the goodhealth and the prosperity of therulers and people of the UAE.

Swami Maharaj is theSpiritual Head of over 1,200

temples and 4,200 centers ofspirituality worldwide. Heguides the BAPS’ social, spiri-tual, cultural, educational,health, disaster relief and otheractivities.

He is the sixth and presentspiritual guru of the BAPSSwaminarayan Sanstha.

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Asenior North Korean officialslammed US National

Security Advisor John Bolton onSaturday, accusing him of mak-ing “stupid” comments onstalled denuclearisation talksand warning “nothing good”would come of them.

Bolton is the second, topranking US politician to be criticised byPyongyang in recent days, after it labelledSecretary of State Mike Pompeo as “reck-less” Thursday, demanding his removalfrom talks over the North’s banned nuclearprogramme.

Those comments came hours after theisolated state claimed to have tested a newkind of weapon.

Pyongyang and Washington have beenat loggerheads since the collapse of a sum-mit between Kim Jong Un and DonaldTrump earlier this year.

In an interviewwith Bloomberg pub-lished on Wednesday,Bolton urgedPyongyang to give a“real indication” it iswilling give upnuclear weapons.

In commentscited by NorthKorea’s official KCNA

news service, Vice Foreign Minister ChoeSon Hui said Bolton’s remarks may haveshowed a “lack of understanding about theintentions of the two leaders”. But, “theyall sound uncharming and stupid to me”,she said. “Nothing good would come toyou if such insensitive remarks persist.”

In the Bloomberg interview, Boltonsaid that for a third Trump-Kim summitto take place, “a real indication from NorthKorea that they’ve made the strategic deci-sion to give up nuclear weapons”, would beneeded.

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Islamic State group jihadists havekilled 35 pro-Damascus fighters

in Syria, in what a monitoringgroup described on Saturday astheir deadliest operation since thefall of the “caliphate”.

The Syrian Observatory forHuman Rights said four seniorSyrian army officers were amongthe troops and allied militiamenkilled in the desert east of Homsprovince over the past 48 hours.

The Amaq propaganda arm ofIS, which lost the last vestige of its“caliphate” to Kurdish-led forceslast month but retains desert andmountain hideouts in both Syriaand Iraq, said its fighters carriedout the operation. Another eightsoldiers and militiamen, includingtwo officers, were killed in a sep-

arate attack in neighbouring DeirEzzor province on Thursday night,the Observatory said.

The attack targeted a desert vil-lage south of the city of Mayadeen,upstream from the stretch of theEuphrates Valley where IS made adesperate last stand for its“caliphate”, the Britain-based warmonitor said.

Observatory chief Rami AbdelRahman described it as the“biggest attack and the highestdeath toll among regime forcessince the caliphate was declared

defeated”.Six IS fighters were killed in

the clashes, the Observatory said.Amaq said that IS had

launched its assault on Thursdayevening after government forcestried to track down its fighters.

The vast Syrian desert, knownin Arabic as the Badia, stretches allthe way from the capital Damascusand the cities of Homs and Hamato its north to the Euphrates Valleynear the Iraq border, where the“caliphate” was defeated in the vil-lage of Baghouz last month.

Commanders of the US-ledcoalition, which provided air andartillery support for the Kurdish-led operation, have warned repeat-edly that the jihadists’ loss of theirlast piece of territory did notmean their elimination as a fight-ing force.

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Two teenage men have beenarrested after the shooting

dead of a journalist in NorthernIreland, police said on Saturday.

The 18 and 19-year-oldswere arrested in Londonderryunder anti-terror laws andtaken to Belfast for questioning,the Police Service of NorthernIreland said.

Journalist Lyra McKee wasshot in the head late Thursdayin Derry by, police believe, dis-sident republicans linked to theNew IRA paramilitary group

as they clashed with police onthe Creggan estate in NorthernIreland’s second city.

Tributes to the 29-year-oldwere led by her partner, SaraCanning, who said McKee’s“amazing potential was snuffedout by this single barbaric act”.

Detectives hunting thegunman had released footageof the unrest, hoping that thecommunity would help traceher killers.

Belfast-born McKee, 29,had posted an image from theriots, accompanied by thewords “Derry tonight. Absolute

madness”.Images of the unrest on

social media showed a car andvan ablaze and hooded indi-viduals throwing petrol bombsand fireworks at police vehicles.

Police chief MarkHamilton said Friday “a singlegunman fired shots in a resi-dential area of the city and asa result wounded Ms McKee”.

Some officials blamedThursday’s unrest on the “NewIRA”, a republican paramilitarygroup opposed to the shifttowards non-violent tactics tobring about a united Ireland.

���� �&63��

Czech billionaire Prime MinisterAndrej Babis said on Saturday he

would not resign if indicted for hisalleged role in a two-million-euro EUsubsidy fraud.

Police this week recommendedthat Babis be indicted over the casewhich could see him and several oth-ers, including family members,spending five to ten years in prison.

“I would not resign because I havebeen saying from the beginning thatthis is a political process,” Babis toldthe DNES broadsheet which heowns.

The 64-year-old agro-chemicalsmogul pegged by Forbes as the sec-ond-wealthiest Czech is suspected ofabusing EU funds to build the luxu-ry Stork Nest resort and farm nearPrague in 2007.

He allegedly took the farm out ofhis sprawling Agrofert food, chemi-

cals and media holding to make it eli-gible for a subsidy awarded to smallcompanies before eventually puttingit back.

Charged by police in 2017, Babisand several others — including hiswife, brother-in-law and daughter —are suspected of subsidy fraud andharming the EU’s financial interests.

“If I weren’t in politics, nobodywould have heard about the StorkNest,” Babis told DNES.

“People keep plotting affairsagainst me, delving into the past. Thisaffair is 12 years old,” he said, callingcharges against his family “incredi-ble filth”.

��� �6&0�

French Yellow Vest protestersmarched on Saturday to remind the

Government that rebuilding the fire-ravaged Notre Dame Cathedral isn’tthe only problem the nation needs tosolve.

Security was extra-high in Paris asauthorities braced for resurgent YellowVest anger, and Paris police said some70 people were detained by mid-morning.

Multiple protest events are beingheld around Paris and other cities onSaturday for the 23rd weekend of theYellow Vest movement against wealthinequality and President EmmanuelMacron’s leadership.

One group of about 200 peopletried to march on the president’sElysee Palace in central Paris, but riotpolice blocked them at the neo-clas-sical Madeleine Church.

Another group gathered aroundthe Finance Ministry in eastern Paristo demand lower taxes on workers andpensioners and higher taxes on the

rich.Yet another group is trying to

demonstrate yellow vest mourningover the Notre Dame blaze while alsokeeping up pressure on Macron.

The group wanted to march toNotre Dame itself, but were banned bypolice, who have set up a large secu-rity perimeter around the area.

Many protesters were deeply sad-dened by the fire at a national monu-ment.

But at the same time they areangry at the USD 1 billion in NotreDame donations that poured in from

tycoons while their own demandsremain largely unmet and they strug-gle to make ends meet.

Some 60,000 police officers weremobilised for Saturday’s protestsacross France as the interior ministerwarned of the risk of resurgent vio-lence.

The movement is largely peacefulbut extremists have attacked treasuredmonuments, shops and banks andclashed with police.

The heavy police presence meantsubway stations and roads aroundParis were closed Saturday, thwartingtourists who converged on the Frenchcapital for an exceptionally warmspring day.

“Paris is very difficult right now,”said Paul Harlow, of Kansas City,Missouri, as he looked sadly at thedamaged Notre Dame.

He and his wife Susan are in Parisonly for a few days, and didn’t makeit in time to see the cathedral — andtheir efforts to visit museums Saturdaywere derailed by closed subways andbarricaded roads.

���� �6?�8

Suicide bombers and gunmenlaunched an attack near a

Government Ministry in cen-tral Kabul on Saturday, officialssaid, in an ongoing assault thatdestroyed weeks of relativecalm in the capital.

The attack near the com-munications Ministry occurredone day after planned talksbetween the Taliban andAfghan representatives werecancelled.

No one claimed immediateresponsibility for the assault,which left people stranded in thetall building. Six people wereinjured, according to a HealthMinistry spokesman.

Initial reports were con-fused, with officials from dif-ferent agencies saying three orfour attackers were involved. Itwas not clear how many weresuicide bombers and how manywere gunmen involved in a fol-low-up assault. AFP journalistsheard one big blast at around

11:40 am (0710 GMT), fol-lowed by sporadic gunfire formore than an hour afterward.

“The information that wehave is four attackers have placedthemselves near the communi-cation ministry and are engagedin gun battles with the Afghansecurity forces,” AmanduddinShariati, a security official inKabul told AFP. On Twitter, theMinistry of Information saidthree suicide bombers hadattacked a post office building atthe communications ministry.

General Sayed MohammadRoshan Dil, the Kabul policechief, said four attackers hadbeen wearing police uniformsand had targeted a shrine nearthe ministry. One of the attack-ers was killed, he told Tolo.

Local television footageshowed a small plume of smokenear the ministry, and peopleclimbing out windows on alower level. On Facebook, a mannamed Syed Jaillani Jallan saidhe was trapped inside theMinistry.

���� -60&:

Egyptians voted on Saturdayin a referendum that aims

to cement the rule of PresidentAbdel Fattah al-Sisi, the formercoup leader who presents him-self as a rock of stability in aturbulent region.

Voters were being asked toback amendments to the con-stitution to allow Sisi, 64, torun for another six-year termwhile boosting his control overthe judiciary and giving themilitary even greater influencein political life.

The three-day referendumbucks the trend of NorthAfrica’s mini-Arab Spring, inwhich mass pro-democracyprotests this month swept awayveteran presidents in Algeriaand Sudan.

Sisi himself was amongthe first to vote when pollsopened, casting his ballot inthe upmarket Cairo suburb ofHeliopolis.

In Shubra, a working-classneighbourhood of the capital,dozens of voters, mostlywomen carrying their chil-dren, queued outside a pollingstation in the local high school.

In Cairo, troops and policewere deployed in numbersalthough the interior ministrydenied to give any nationwidefigures.

Egypt is still battling ajihaidst insurgency based in theSinai Peninsula that has seenattacks in Cairo and other

cities.Sisi has argued that he

needs longer to complete thejob of restoring security andstability after the turmoil thatfollowed the overthrow ofveteran autocrat HosniMubarak in the Arab Spring of2011.

Out on the streets, his sup-porters waved flags bearingtheir campaign motto: “Do theRight,” as they pressed passers-by to turn out and vote ‘Yes’.

At a polling station inManyal, a Cairo suburb over-looking the Nile, MohamedAbdel Salam, 45, told AFP hewas voting enthusiastically insupport of the changes.

“I don’t care about thepresidential terms,” he said.”Sisicould stay forever as long as he’sdoing his job... And he hasalready done a lot”.

Sisi won his first term aspresident in 2014, a year afterhe led the army in overthow-ing elected Islamist presidentMohamed Morsi followingmass protests against his singleturbulent in power.

Standing virtually unop-posed after the disqualificationor withdrawal

���� @�?6

South Sudan President SalvaKiir on Saturday urged

opposition leader Riek Macharto return home “urgently” tohelp form a Government ofnational unity.

A failure by the former vicepresident to do so woulddestroy any hope for peace inthe war-torn country, he said.

“Even now, it’s not toolate,” Kiir told reporters.

“I am inviting Dr RiekMachar to urgently return toJuba so that we can worktogether to expedite the processof forming the revitalisedTransitional Government ofNational Unity”.

A peace deal signed by theparties of the country’s six-year-old conflict calls for theformation of a government ofnational unity on May 12.

Machar, who is a signato-ry of the agreement, onThursday asked for a delay ofsix months, saying it was notsafe for him to return to Juba.

According to leaders ofhis party he is in Khartoum, theSudanese capital. Machar “willnot come to Juba without secu-rity arrangements,” said PuotKang Chol, representingMachar’s SPLM-IO rebel groupat the National Pre-transitionalCommittee (NPTC), the bodycharged with implementingthe peace agreement.

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Page 8:  · Rohit, son Narain Dutt Tiwari, former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, said he wanted to meet his people. On April 15, the mother-son duo returned to Delhi. While

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Atop-heavy SunrisersHyderabad will look to

tame an Andre Russell-reliantKolkata Knight Riders in ahigh pressure clash of theIndian Premier League hereon Sunday.

Both teams have eightpoints though SRH haveplayed one match less. Thehosts snapped their three-match losing streak with a winover table leaders CSK andKKR now need to do thesame having lost their last fourgames.

The race to play-offs isheating up and both sidesknow the value of a win onSunday.

A rampaging Russell andNitish Rana almost pulled offa miraculous win on Fridaynight after the KKR top-order

left them with too much to doin the death overs. Russelleven questioned the team'sdecision to send him lowerdown the order when the likesof Robin Uthappa struggled.

There is little doubt thatthe KKR think tank will beworking overtime to get backto winnings ways.

The hosts too have con-cerns of their own, mainly

their over-reliance on openersDavid Warner and JonnyBairstow, who will be leavingat the end of the week to joinEngland's World Cup.

When the opening duohas fired, SRH have done wellbut on other occasions themiddle-order has let themdown. The World Cup-boundVijay Shankar is due for a bigscore and so is captain KaneWilliamson.

However, Bairstowdefended the his team's mid-dle-order batsmen. "We havegot some fantastic players inour middle-order and David

and I have done a fairly goodjob at the top. There are play-ers who are in the World Cupteam. Yusuf Pathan's recordsspeak for itself. There is a rea-son why they have done sowell in the last couple ofyears," said Bairstow.

Asked on how they planto tackle the Russell threat, headded: "We could bowl some-one like Rashid (Khan) orSandeep (Sharma), who exe-cutes slower balls so well.Russell is playing well, nodoubt but at the same time heis still human, he can still getout. "If we can concentrate onwhat we do well, if are able toplay the way we did againstChennai (Super Kings) theother day, and put on a com-plete performance togetherthen we should be in a goodplace. The pitch has beenbrilliant here," he added.

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Chennai Super Kings will beexpected to shrug off a rare

loss and effectively seal a play-off berth against RoyalChallengers Bangalore in theIndian Premier League here onSunday.

Defending championsCSK, who lost to SRH in theprevious game for only theirsecond loss this season, will getto 16 points with a win at theChinnaswamy and it should beenough to guarantee a place inthe top-four.

Their leader M S Dhonimissed the game against SRHdue to a stiff back but will prob-ably be fit for the game onSunday.

"Probably he will play inthe next game against RCB,"stand-in skipper Suresh Rainahad said after the loss to SRH.

Following the tournamentopener between CSK and RCBin Chennai, both teams havehad contrasting campaigns.While CSK have lived up totheir reputation again, RCBcontinue to under-perform.

No doubt, RCB will befired up after the win againstKKR at Kolkata on Fridaynight when they finally man-aged to defend despite a brutalassault from Andre Russell andNitish Rana. It was only theirsecond win in nine games inthe season so far though theyit still kept them mathematical-ly alive in the tournament.

RCB could also take a cuefrom a similar situation in2016 when they had lost five of

their first seven games, butended up in the playoffs afterwinning six of their last sevenmatches.

In the absence of indis-posed AB de Villiers on Friday,Virat Kohli took it all uponhimself to post a big total andin the process scored his firstcentury of the season. With ABexpected to be back, RCB willbe aiming to please their loyalfans with a victory at last ontheir home ground.

Despite the arrival of DaleSteyn, their bowling remains aworry as it was evident at theEden Gardens where Russelland Rana almost pulled off theimpossible after KKR needed113 off the last six overs. Thehosts just fell short by 10 runsas Moeen Ali saved the day forRCB with both bat and ball,having defended 24 in the finalover.

On the the other hand,CSK will fancy themselvesagainst RCB and sail into theplay-offs. Dhoni, who hasscored 230 runs in eight gamesincluding two half-centuries,will hold the key once again.

The star bowler for CSKthis season has been 40-year-old Imran Tahir, who has taken13 wickets. The South Africanimport has executed his skip-per's plans brilliantly.

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Steve Smith celebrated hisreturn at the helm with acaptain's innings that pow-

ered Rajasthan Royals to a five-wicket victory over a formida-ble Mumbai Indians in anIndian Premier Leagueencounter here Saturday.

Chasing a target of 162,Royals won the game with fiveballs to spare as the formerAustralia captain anchored theinnings with an unbeaten 59 off48 balls.

India U-19 World CupperRiyan Parag (43 off 29 balls)also showed good tempera-ment as he matched his skipperstroke for stroke during their 70runs stand in 9.4 overs thatpaved the way for a comfortablevictory.

Smith, who replacedAjinkya Rahane after the Indiavice-captain's disastrous run, hitfive boundaries and a six whileAssam lad Riyan also had iden-tical number of hits to thefence.

This is Rajasthan's thirdwin in nine games as they arenow placed seventh in theleague table above woodenspooners Royal ChallengersBangalore even though a play-off qualification looks a longshot as of now.

Rajasthan Royals, who werein a must-win situation, racedto 39 in 3.3 overs but Rahane(12 off 12 balls) departed asSuryakumar Yadav took a div-ing catch at covers off leg-spinner Rahul Chahar, whowas the pick of the bowlers withfigures of 3 for 29.

Credit should also be givento Sanju Samson for his whirl-wind 35 off 19 balls that set thepace and enabled Smith toanchor the innings in the man-ner only he can.

Riyan's composure also

helped even though Chahar andthe seasoned Jasprit Bumrah(1/21 in 4 overs) bowled well atthe back end but the home teamshowed enough firepower.

Earlier, Quinton de Kockcontinued his impressive runwith another solid half-centu-ry as Mumbai Indians put up adecent 161 for 5 batting first.

De Kock smashed 65 off 47balls with six fours and twosixes, adding 97 runs off 68 ballsfor the second wicket withSuryakumar Yadav (34 off 33balls) that helped MI total gaina semblance of respectability.

Reinstated as skipper inplace of Rahane, Smith intro-duced leg-spinner Shreyas

Gopal (2/21 in 4 overs) in thethird over.

He deceived rival skipperRohit Sharma (5), who steppedout only to offer a return catchafter failing to read a googly.

Gopal could have got ridof De Kock off the last ball ofthe over but Jofra Archerdropped a difficult chance atlong on.

Making most out of thisreprieve De Kock helped histeam reach 50-run mark in 6.5overs.

He reached his own half-century in 34 balls and hispartnership with Suryakumarwas broken when latter wascaught in deep off Stuart Binny

in the 14th over.A few balls later De Kock

too was holed out in long-onas Hardik Pandya and Pollardjoined forces with scoreboardreading 112 for 3 in 15 overs.

Pollard (10 runs 7 balls)was dropped by Archer onceagain. Hardik played anotherof his cameos scoring 23 off 15balls.

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Delhi Capitals strike regularly in betweenovers and nullify Chris Gayle block-

buster start before a late cameo by debutantHarpreet Brar lift Kings XI Punjab to 163for 7 during Indian Premier League clashat Feroz Shah Kotla stadium on Saturday.

West Indian Chris Gayle smashes 37-ball 69 which includes 6 fours and 5 big sixes.While Brar adds 12-ball 20 runs in the endwhich includes a last ball six to KagisoRabada that took Punjab past 160 runsmark.

Earlier, Shreyas Iyer won the toss andopted to field first at the tricky Kotla track.Delhi made three changes into the line-upby bringing in Sandeep Lamichhane, ColinIngram and debutant Sherfane Rutherfordin place of Colin Munro, Keemo Paul andChris Morris.

While winner in the previous tiebetween these two sides, Kings XI Punjabreplaces Mujeeb, Pooran and Arshdeep withhat-trick hero Sam Curran, pacer HardusViljoen and debutant left arm mystery spin-ner Harpreet Brar.

Coming to bat first, in-form KL Rahulwelcomes Sandeep Lamichhane with afirst ball six, straight down the ground in thesecond over of the innings and then strokeda four in the third ball to put pressure onthe bowler early on. But Sandeep got hisrevenge in the fourth ball when a brilliantpiece of glove work by Rishabh Pant sent KLback to the pavilion. He was out for 12 runsin nine balls.

However Rahul’s dismissal had noeffect on Gayle and he hammered Ishant fora four and a 101 m six in the third overbefore hitting four boundaries to SandeepLamichhane.

But on the other hand, Mayank Agarwalfailed to get boundaries and the pressure ofdot balls forced him to go big but it result-ed in his dismissal. He was out for just 2 offnine balls by Kagiso Rabada.

Next up to bat at 4 was David Miller.The South African started with a first ballfour.

Kings XI completed its first 50 in 5.4overs when Gayle hits Ishant for a four. Andthen he hammered Amit Mishra for big sixdown the ground in the first over after pow-erplay.

But in process of matching his partner,David Miller throws his wicket. He was outfor 7 runs in five balls and was caught byPrithvi Shaw near the boundary line in the

first ball of Axar Patel’s spell.But even this also had no effect on Gayle

as he hits another big six down the groundto Amit Mishra and then takes a single tocomplete his fifty in just 25 balls.

He hits another one (his 4th of the night)in the fourth ball of the ninth over. But wassent back to the dugout after Colin Ingramtook a brilliant catch near the boundary linewhich was completed by Axar Patel, asIngram passed the ball to him before cross-ing the boundary line.

He was out for 69 in just 37 balls. At thattime KXIP was 106 for 4 in 12.2 overs.

The visitors suffered another setback inthe same over as Sam Curran was sent backfor nought by Lamichhane (c & b).

With this twin blow in one over, KXIPscoring rate dip down as Mandeep (30 off27 balls) and Ravichandran Ashwin (16 off14 balls) failed to hit boundaries on a reg-ular interval. However it was the last ball ofthe innings that took them past 160 whenBrar hits Rabada for a six.

For Delhi, Lamichhane was the mostsuccessful bowler with 3 for 40, whileRabada and Axar Patel also got 2 wicketseach.

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Virat Kohli has said theonus was only on him to

bat through the innings in theabsence of AB de Villiers andthe RCB skipper lived up to theexpectations with a 58-ball 100for his first century of IPL 2019.

RCB eked out a 10-run winover KKR for only their secondsuccess of the season afterAndre Russell and Nitish Rananearly pulled off the impossi-ble. De Villiers was under theweather before the start of thegame and Kohli decided to resthim.

"It was important to batalong when AB is not here, asa senior player. AB was disap-pointed for not making it forthe game tonight and I told himthat I'll give him a hug if we wintonight," Kohli said at the post-match presentation on Friday.

RCB finally managed todefend a total after posting 213for four at the Eden Gardens.

"There's no point in pan-icking in these types of situa-tions, you got to leave it to thebowlers to decide what hewants to do. Few good deci-

sions by (Marcus) Stoinis andthen Moeen in the end. I thinkthe way Stoinis bowled thosetwo-three dot balls, it was verycrucial," Kohli said of Stoinispenultimate over.

"They (Moeen and Stoinis)both showed composure andthat's what you expect fromyour teams mates. Our com-munication during secondtime-out was to get 170-175, wedidn't think we could get 200-plus."

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Pacer Navdeep Saini, whois among India's stand-

bys for the World Cup, sayshe is ready for his big breakin the mega event should theneed arises.

After attracting selec-tors' attention with a splen-did season for Delhi indomestic cricket, the 26-year-old has impressed withhis pace and bounce forRCB in the IPL.

The uncapped pacer isthe sole bowler among thestandbys with the othersbeing Ambati Rayudu andRishabh Pant. Saini will alsobe travelling with the WorldCup squad as one of the fournet bowlers alongsideKhaeel Ahmed, Avesh Khanand Deepak Chahar.

"Absolutely (I'mready)... The confidence ofdoing well in IPL will giveme a big boost. If I get achance in World Cup, Ihope to do well," the shy ladfrom Haryana told reportersafter RCB's 10-run win over

Kolkata Knight Riders at theEden Gardens here onFriday.

On his World Cuppreparation, he said: "Wetalk during the matches butthe most important thing isto pay full attention at thenets. If you do well at thenets, you will do well in amatch as well.

"My dad has always toldme to give your 110 per centeffort wherever you play. I'mputting in that extra effortalways in practice session

and in a match."Saini is also gaining

from the vast experience ofSouth African great DaleSteyn who has come onboard as a replacement forNathan Coulter-Nile.

"I had a discussion withhim on the eve of the match.He just told me to bowl thesame way and not try any-thing different," Saini said.

Saini returned with fig-ures 1/31 taking the prized-scalp of the explosive KKRopener Sunil Narine.

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Sunrisers Hyderabad opener JonnyBairstow on Saturday expressed his

desire to help the team win the next twogames and take few steps closer to makingthe IPL play-offs before heading back to joinEngland's World Cup camp.

Bairstow will play two more games forthe Sunrisers -- against Kolkata KnightRiders here on Sunday and against thedefending champions Chennai Super Kingsin Chennai on April 23.

After that he will go back home to pre-pare for the World Cup, beginning May 30in UK, with the rest of the England ODIsquad.

"So far it has gone well. To be in the topfive leading run scorers...It is really verypleasing. Hopefully I can finish on a highin the next two games as well and we couldbe in the position to make the play-offs bythe time I leave," said Bairstow during around table conference here on the eve ofthe home game against Kolkata KnightRiders.

All the English players featuring in theongoing IPL are suppose to be back inEngland.

Currently placed fifth on the highestrun-scorer's list in the ongoing IPL,Bairstow's absence will be a big blow for theSunrisers. In his debut IPL season for theHyderabad-based franchise, the openerhas scored 365 runs so far in eight gamesat an average of 52.14, including a hundredand a half-century.

"We get back after the Chennai game onApril 23. Then we've got the World Cupcamp. We then play Pakistan in the five-ODIseries and then we've got two warm-upmatches in which we play Afghanistan andAustralia. And then we go into the WorldCup.

"It's a lot of cricket leading into theWorld Cup. And then we've got five AshesTests after that," Bairstow told reporters.

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In order to grasp and convey thecomplex reality of wartime cen-sorship, accounts of policy andofficial hand-wringing need to besupplemented with a narrative of

the lived experience of censorship.Fortunately for the historian, vividdescriptions are available in the mem-oirs of journalists living and workingduring the Second World War (1939-45). The job of press correspondentsduring wartime was not an easy one.They stayed and were briefed togetherwhen they were covering organisedtheaters of war, and this left little scopefor individual scoops. In an alreadydifficult situation, the operation of cen-sorship added a further complication.Sending news out from the war frontwas no easy task either: It could be sentout on a plane, or via army signalingequipment, in which case the wordlimit was severely restricted.

In his memoir titled Leaves From AWar Reporter’s Diary, Dinker RaoMankekar, who served as Reuters’ cor-respondent first in Colombo and thenon the Burma front, recalled that as hewas the only correspondent to staywith the British Second Division tillthe end (in the Burma front), they —not unmindful of the benefits of pub-licity — allowed him use of their wireless transmitter with a daily wordlimit of 600. This was transmitted tothe closest signaling point, eitherCalcutta or Comilla. On the otherhand, the American sector providedbetter facilities, and General Stilwell’sHeadquarters in North Burma evencarried a mobile wireless transmitterfor the use of the press. In his opinion,soldiers (via letters from family)received press cuttings featuring theiractivities, and this had a positiveimpact on morale.

And then there were the censors. In her memoir, Portrait of Myself,Margaret Bourke-White, accredited asa war correspondent with the US AirForce in 1942 (and best known in India for her photographs of Partitionrefugees) described censors thus:“Censors are a peculiar breed ofmankind. They are born with red pencils in their mouths, and they simply have to use them…”

Mankekar’s account of life as a warcorrespondent is replete with accountsof dealing with military censors, and ofthe irrationality of censors and of cen-sorship, generally. For example, when hewrote a profile of Naga warriors thatreferred to their poison-tipped spears,the war office censor deleted the termpoison, on the grounds that internation-al law forbade the use of poison in war.The report was passed only after thejournalist assured the censor that thereference was not to the present war.

Between 1942-43, the army inBurma was a forgotten army, as Britishand Indian newspapers gave maximumcoverage to the European and Pacifictheaters of war. It was only in March1944 that Burma became front pagenews and remained so for three months.On the Burmese war front, censorshipwas imposed by two authorities: The

GOI as well as South East AsiaCommand (SEAC) censors. Mankekarwas in Burma when news reached himabout the Japanese invasion of India viaManipur and Assam, and SEAC censorsrefused him permission to file the story,citing GOI instructions. At Calcutta,too, he was told by Lt Col Thompsonthat there was an order to the effectthat no story about the Japanese inva-sion was to be passed. The taboowords, according to the order, were“Japanese invasion of India”.Mankekar wrote the following cable,faithful to the letter of the law:

���� � ���������� ���� � �-12$������ ������ �� ���� �HLt Col Thompson was puzzled, then re-read the rules. Mankekar threatened toreport the delay to the SEAC headquar-ters in Kandy, Sri Lanka. Thompsonpicked up his rubber stamp andstamped the cable ‘passed’. The 9.30 pmAll India Radio bulletin carried thenews. This report gave Mankekar aninternational byline for the first time,and the next morning, he found him-self on the front page of many newspa-pers. The GOI was furious andlaunched an investigation. AsMankekar put it: “The rules of thegame were fully accepted by theGovernment, under which the corre-spondent’s duty is to get his storythrough and that of the Censors is tosee that the wrong story did not escapetheir lynx-like eyes, and if any did,then it is the Censor and not the corre-spondent that is to blame. ColThompson, I can never forgive myself,became Major Thompson, as a sequel— which was far from my intention.”

This incident contains at least twoimportant insights into the nature ofcensorship. One, that even rigorouslyenforced censorship could not standbetween a determined journalist andhis readers. Two, while in times ofpeace, journalists were the ones whowere prosecuted, in times of war, whencensors took on enlarged powers, theirresponsibilities also increased. As thisincident shows, the journalist merelywent to his next assignment; the censorwas the one who was penalised.

Mankekar’s memoirs are full ofexamples how censors’ decisions wereoften counter-productive. During theJapanese siege of Imphal, for example,when newspapers were forbidden fromcalling it a siege, Mankekar tookrecourse to an indirect strategy: In hisreport, he described the topography ofthe Imphal valley in great detail, aswell as the fact that there were onlythree land outlets from it. He thenmentioned the distance of the Japanesefrom Imphal on each of these outlets.Nowhere was the term ‘siege’ men-tioned. In his words, this roundaboutmethod of reporting gave a “muchmore alarming picture of the ever-tightening ring on Imphal than theword ‘siege’ could ever have given. Thestory passed the Censor, and thatnight, it created a crash in the Calcuttastock market”. Another scoop was his

report about the lifting of thesiege of Imphal. Mankekar hadexclusive access to this news asall other correspondents hadleft the town during the mon-soon months, but he had stayedon with the 33 Corps.

Another example of thecounter-productive nature ofcensorship: War correspon-dents had been forbidden fromreporting the fall of Kohima,even when almost all ofKohima was captured by theJapanese except for a tiny hillholding a British garrison.Consequently, when the Britisharmy began reclaiming thetown, a problem arose. Havingmaintained that they had neverlost Kohima, the militaryauthorities had to explain whatthey were attacking in Kohima.Hence, they re-christened nine-tenths of Kohima, which was inthe hands of the Japanese asthe ‘Naga village’, and renamedthe remaining one-tenth, com-prising a small hill on the edgeof Kohima town, as ‘Kohima’!

Mankekar himself had greatdifficulty while trying to“explain to readers why Britishtroops were attacking a British-held town”! In his opinion, thiscensorship was self-defeating:Japanese radio could easily belistened to in India and it broad-cast exaggerated reports of theirmilitary successes in Indian ter-ritory. By censoring news, thispropaganda could not be coun-tered. Furthermore, even whenKohima was re-captured by theBritish after two months, theBritish army was unable to makethe most of this victory in termsof propaganda since far fromgoing to town, with all fanfare,on the great and deserved Alliedvictory, the correspondents wereset to the embarrassing task ofhaving to explain to the worldhow the British forces per-

formed thefeat of recap-turing what theyhad themselvesbeen valiantly defend-ing all that time!

What was worse for thecolonial state was that in themeantime, Japanese radio hadbeen broadcasting news of thearrival of Subhas ChandraBose’s Indian National Army inKohima, the ceremonialunfurling of the Indian flag onIndian soil, and the establish-ment of the Azad HindGovernment in that area. Herewas a case where censorshipleft a vacuum easily filled byrumours. Some journalists (orat least the British ones) evenhad the luxury of seeing thelighter side of censorship. TheGOI had asked newspapers notto carry information about theweather so as to deny this infor-mation to the Japanese. Oneday, The Pioneer (then edited byits last British editor, HEBCatley) carried a news item tothe effect that there were leaveson the streets and the electricitysupply was disturbed. The col-umn asked if there was a storm,and concluded, “Hush, the cen-sor is listening.” Although cor-respondents usually got the bestof the censor, even Mankekaracknowledged that there weretimes when an intelligent censorwas of great help in pointingout errors. The censor duringwar-time was thus also editorand proof-reader. Occasionally— if unintentionally — the cen-sors did get it right.

Mankekar recounts an inci-dent when he filed a story,based on a British militaryintelligence report, that theRani of Jhansi regiment (awomen’s regiment of SubhasChandra Bose’s Indian NationalArmy) had arrived in Kohima.

The storywas killed by the

censors, and it laterturned out that Sikh jawans ofthe Indian National Army dry-ing their hair, when seen fromafar, had been mistaken forwomen. The conflict betweenjournalists and censors was, inhis opinion, mainly over theterms ‘security’ and ‘morale’.Censors applied rules mechani-cally, and war correspondentsinterpreted them more flexibly.The GOI, especially in theIndia-Burma theater of war,was inclined to be inflexibleabout allowing any informationthat they considered coulddampen morale. The problem,in Mankekar’s opinion,occurred because this covered“almost everything in thosetense days of external war-cum-internal-nationalist struggle”.

The line dividing the politi-cal from the military was notthin, but invisible. Accordingto Mankekar, it was for reasonsentirely political and not mili-tary that it was consideredadvisable by the powers inDelhi that the Indian publicshould not know aboutKohima’s capture, or about theJapanese invasion in theManipur sector. Corroborationof this statement is provided byexamples cited by journalistKedar Ghosh in his memoirstitled No Apology. Ghosh’sreport on a strike in a steel fac-tory engaged in war productionwas not passed by a press cen-sor. Irrespective of the colourof pencils used, the politicalwas impossible to separatefrom the military.

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An intimidatingh i g h - s e c u r i t yprison-like doorat the entrance, adark chamber

with discouraging number ofsecurity personnel and con-stantly gazing CCTV camerasover the visitors. As you enterthe room, you can’t miss thesense of unusualness of theoccasion. Spotlights focusedon glass cases displaying someof the most precious gem-stones, glittering gold, andsparkling diamonds, and aroom filled with babble thatwould only grow intensewhile moving from one exhib-it to the next. Well, this is theglimpse of the past in all itsshimmering glory for you atthe Nizams’ jewellery exhibi-tion curated for public displayat the National Museum inNew Delhi. It is a “never seenbefore” moment for manyvisitors gawking at the jew-ellery and regalia in all itssplendour. The sheer weightof the jewellery and preciousstones adorned by the erst-while Nizams so nonchalant-ly as displayed in the mono-chromatic photographs willperhaps give you a sense ofthe scale and heft of theirwealth in the yesteryears.

The Nizams were caughtin the crosshairs of thegeopolitics and made choicesthat didn’t pay off. And there-in lies the intrigue and mys-tery that dogged their wealthand quandaries. The Asaf Jahidynasty, familiar to all by thetitle of its representative, the

Nizam, owes its origin to MirQamaruddin Chin Qilij Khan,better known as Asaf Jah-I.This dynasty ruled the State ofHyderabad in Deccan forseven generations (1724-1948). It was one of the lead-ing Princely States in India.The area of the dominion wasequal in size to Italy. The trea-sures of Golconda and theDeccan region has been leg-endary. The Golconda mineswere the sole suppliers ofdiamonds to the world till thebeginning of the 18thCentury. Many famous dia-monds, which adorn thecrown jewels across the world,came from these mines. The‘Orlov’, ‘Darya-I-Noor’,‘Regent’, ‘Florentine’, ‘GreatMughal’, ‘Nizam’, ‘Sancy’ are afew examples of famous dia-monds mined in the Deccan— the dominion of theNizams. Geographically, theGolconda area for diamond

mining stretched to parts ofAndhra Pradesh andKarnataka during the 16th-19th Century.

The Nizam and the princeswould wear ceremonial regaliato attend official functions. Inaddition to the sarpench, aturra of gold wire, a distin-guished ornament worn onlyby members of the royal house-hold used to be worn. Princesoften wore a smaller sarpench,the turra as well as necklaces,armbands, and belts. Onlyhigh-ranking officials wouldwear turban ornaments. Thecrown jewels constitutedexquisite pieces and large gem-stones as head ornaments forthe head-dress was an impor-tant component of dressing ofthe princes. Some of theexquisite pieces and large gem-stones were used as head orna-ments. The sarpench signifiedpower and hierarchy.

The neck would be

adorned as the occasion war-ranted with an assortment ofnecklaces: A kanthi, a padakmarvareed , and finally, a har-murassa (a necklace). Theachkan (coat) would havejewelled buttons, a pocketwatch in addition to the baglus(belt) on the waist. Importantofficials and members of theroyal household would wearjewelled baglus on formal

occasions, ornamented withlarge gemstones attached tothe woven gold belts.

In the early 20th Century,as pocket watches became afashion statement in Parisand London, the style alsocaught the eye of Indian roy-alty and they incorporated itin the ceremonial regalia. Theupper arms would be adornedwith three armbands, the bhu-jbands, bazubands, andnavaratna bazubands, and thehands would have dastbands(bracelets) and rings.

The Nizams enjoyed heav-enly treasures and worldlycomforts and pleasures. HisExalted Highness Nawab SirMir Osman Ali Khan, whowas the last Nizam, is remem-bered for being the staunchestally of the British in India. TheNizam made a gift of diamondjewels, including a tiara andnecklace, to Queen Elizabethon the occasion of her mar-riage and it is still worn by theQueen — the Nizam ofHyderabad necklace.

He refused to submit tothe Indian state during theBritish withdrawal. He finallysurrendered to the Indianarmy in 1948. He was appoint-ed to a ceremonial position ofRajpramukh. The stature ofthe Nizam reduced in 1956when his dominion was trifur-cated during the reorganisa-tion of Indian States on a lin-guistic basis. The Nizam thentook retirement with threewives, 42 concubines, 200 chil-dren, 300 servants, and agingretainers, including a private

army, according to an estimate.Apparently, he provided pen-sion to around 10,000 depen-dents of his former empire.

After his death in 1967, theprogeny feud started. Thedescendants claimed theirshare and wanted to sell jew-ellery to international bid-ders. However, theGovernment of India inter-vened and termed it a nation-al treasure. After two decadesof negotiations, a deal wasstruck, and the Government ofIndia acquired the collection in1995 after paying the descen-dants. The jewels include themindboggling 185-carat Jacobdiamond that the Nizam

apparently used as a paper-weight. In today’s world, someestimates suggest the jewelleryis worth �50,000 crore.

Our uncaring attitudetowards the country’s leg-endary wealth is troubling.With so many treasures lyingunaccounted for in varioustrusts, temples, and mutts, itis important to systematical-ly list the countries enormousheritage, jewellery traditions,craftsmanship, design, aes-thetics, and safeguard themfor the coming generations torelish for posterity.

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An entrepreneur is someonewho sees a specific issue inhis community and comes

up with a new idea or business,usually with the purpose of resolv-ing it, ultimately leading to his ownbenefits and profits. But truth betold, their impact is very vast andsignificantly important to society.A social entrepreneur, unlike abusiness entrepreneur (who mostlikely tend to CSR), resort toinnovation and willingness tobring solutions that can helpresolve the problems of society bybuilding up strong and sustainableorganisations that choose to puttheir mission before profits.

Social entrepreneurship is theprocess of bringing about socialchange on a major and more effec-tive scale than a traditional Non-Governmental Organisation(NGO). They tend to make broad-based, long-term changes, insteadof small-scale and time-limitedchanges. There are various ways inwhich a social entrepreneur cangive to society and work for itswell-being. Adopting a mission tocreate and sustain social values,along with continuous innova-tion, and relentlessly pursuing newopportunities to achieve that mis-sion, without being limited by theresources currently in hand canreally bring about a crucial trans-

formation in the current scenario.Today, as our country struggles

with problems including poverty,violence, environmental change,health, education and more, socialentrepreneurs can help alleviatethese issues by putting those lessfortunate on a path towards aworthwhile life. Rather than leav-ing societal needs to theGovernment or business sectorsonly, they can solve the problem bychanging the system.

The most important issue thatneeds to be addressed right awayis rural education. Majority ofIndia still lives in villages, and sothe topic of rural education is ofprime importance. India is facinga huge rural-urban divide when itcomes to education. Significantcontributions have been made bythe Government, social entrepre-neurs and various organisations toimprove the scenario of educationin our country, but even after thewide education expansion inrecent years, including infrastruc-ture of schools and enrollment ofstudents, illiteracy rates are stillhigh. Considerable reasons behindthis unfortunate output, despitenoteworthy investments, are poorquality of teaching, lack of digiti-sation, non-availability of propermaterials, and disinterest of stu-dents towards education.

According to various surveys,no matter how many students inrural areas are attending schools,50-70 per cent of them in Class Vare still unable to read a secondgrade textbook, or solve basicmathematics problems.Government schools, though exist,cannot provide the kind of quali-

ty education when compared toprivate schools. Poverty in therural areas and inability of schoolsand urban kids to socially acceptthe backward children stops themfrom fulfilling their dreams ofdoing something great.

Some Government schools areover-packed with students, becauseof which teachers aren’t able tofocus on students and give all ofthem personal attention. Difficultyfor students in understandingEnglish textbooks is another draw-back. Quality of education is farpowerful than poverty and lack ofresources. But that also has beendegrading ever since. The focus ofthe students and teachers is just onpassing their exams instead ofgaining any valuable knowledge,ultimately leading to the decline inthe level of education in India, inspite of many efforts.

The foundation to transformIndia into a highly literate nationhas to be laid down at primaryrural levels, so that quality ofeducation from the beginningshould be kept up to the mark.Students’ textbooks can be mademore interesting by using graph-ics to explain complicated con-cepts. Improvement in conditionof infrastructure, training theteachers, and providing them withincreased salaries should all be a

part of development. The gap between city and vil-

lage students has to be bridged byunderstanding the needs of theweaker lot and uplifting them.New methodologies and technolo-gies can be brought into classroomsas a way of teaching, and also tokeep up with the modernisation inthe digital world. Current age ofdigital connectivity can help usaddress many problems in ruralschools. Social entrepreneurs caninvest in bringing their innovationsand expertise to make our ruralclassrooms more advanced. Theproblem of shortage of qualityteachers and high drop-out ratescan be solved by e-learning plat-forms and smart classrooms.

There are many successfulexamples of entrepreneurs andorganisations, who with theirefforts have contributed signifi-cantly in bringing about a changeand a sense of encouragement inunderprivileged children, helpingthem shape a bright future.Together, social entrepreneurs inassociation with education super-intendents can build a solutionaround these problems which willresolve the overall issues of ruraleducation and pave the way for abetter and educated India.

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What about the compe-tent authority? Where is

it? Are they all set to slayUnited States President DonaldTrump but something is defi-nitely in the offing! The com-petent committees in the UShas already absolved theTrump Presidency of thealleged grim crime of conniv-ing with the Russian establish-ment, their espionage andindustrial-financial sectors toromp home a vaunted victoryover the Democrats. With alarge bevy of women candi-dates entering the fray for the“US Presidential” race such asKamla Harris and JuliaGabbard, personages such asJoe Biden need to tighten uptheir hugging and felicitationacts with the eminent ladies inthe American political firma-ment. Paul Manafort might bethe personage to go-after butthe American judicial appara-tus has given a clean chit toPresident Trump.

Akin to the tryst withBrexit accompanied by UKPrime Minister Theresa May inBritain, it is a rather tall orderto bid adieu to the conservativeand the “WASP method” in theAmerican homeland. No clearcut linkage has been unearthedby the Congressional andinvestigative committees alongwith the work carried on by theConsul, Robert Mueller.Despite consistent haranguingby the Democratic apparatus,President Trump’s parapher-nalia has survived and hasregistered quite a few success-ful vantage points both in thesphere of domestic polity andglobal politics/foreign policy of

the US. Before an electoral trav-elogue may be written, one canshed light upon how the fre-quent changes in the CapitolHill has evaded rational expla-nation; but President Trumpmust have had plausible rea-sons to go ahead with topplingof positions in theGovernment. All in all, theRussian connection has notbeen established though, itsblithe and rote filibusteringhas definitely soured the pitchfor the President.

The strain in the somesegments of US mainstreammedia have centred aroundthe ministration to spawn a“Putin scratch Trump’s back”approach which is largely posit-ed on a gladiatorial mediacomplex. Lampooning RussianPresident Vladimir Putin andPresident Trump as oligarchspar excellence, involved in aglobal staging exercise of inter-national proportions, has beenthe provisional pout of some ofthe media and has had animpact upon the health andlarger visage of the TrumpPresidency. Still, what needs tobe realised and understood isthat the United States is no sim-pleton oligarchy devoid of avibrant, dominant democraticand egalitarian political culture.Industry does domineer in theland of milk and honey, but isnot the sole purveyor in eco-nomics and public opinion inthe larger American state.Russia is on the rebuild, tangi-bly and psychologically as aEuropean empire. But the USis no banana republic or a tinpot nation as some soulfulobservers pinpoint about the

follies and fracas of the hiddenhand in Trump’s America.There is no Wikileaks worthynarrative to be told or hiddenabout the imagined commu-nities, akin to a recalibratingRussia and a comely ubiquitousAmerica.

The linkages betweenPresident Trump and theRussian connection have beenevery WASP’s pet peeve sincethe time the allegations begansurfacing. Michael Flynn hasbeen investigated by the three-some of FBI, Congressionaland Senatorial committees. Itwas alleged by the New YorkTimes report on February 14,2017, that Paul Manafort andother protégés of the TrumpAdministration conspired withMoscow but a direct presence

of Trump and his associatescould not be established with-in the idiom of the allegedRussia-Trump connect.Attorney General William Barhas come out with a bipartisanfinding that neither Trumpnor his associates have any-thing to do with the Russianoligarchic overarch in a March2019 release.

Hannah Levintova writesin the alternative narrative dis-course, Mother Jones, “Despitehis claims to the contrary, thePresident’s ties to Russia arelong, deep, and, above all, mys-terious. In the 1980s, before theSoviet bloc crumbled, Trumpwas already trying to get afoothold behind the IronCurtain. Since then, he hasannounced on at least three

occasions plans to build aTrump Tower in Moscow inpartnership with various powerplayers and oligarchs.”

Ivanka Trump too as aninstrumentality has cut dealswith the Russian industry butall these details do not naturallyleave the US President in asoup, as before his grandilo-quent anointment, Trump wasa true blue entrepreneur moguland if he did business for prof-iteering then it was a naturalrecourse to trading and cor-porate turnovers which is anintrinsic part and parcel of theAmerican dream and theirattendant way of life and devel-opment/progression. It is in theAmerican tradition that anupward lurch on the career lad-der and amassing of wealth is

looked upon as an achievementand a qualifying characteristicof any mundane Americandenizens and being prosperousand being a profiteer is notlooked down upon as some-thing which is not sacrosanct.After screening the Americanmedia and the global media, itcan be surmised that there is anawful lot of innuendo and sub-terfuge surrounding theRussian connection ofPresident Trump and thedoughty Republicans. TheWashington Post too hasreported that President Trumphas continued to vociferouslyreject the allegations that theRussians had a well defined roleto play in the 2016 USPresidential elections. TheWashington Post on the con-trary reported, “Fusion GPSwas hired in mid-2016 by alawyer for Hillary Clinton’spresidential campaign and theDemocratic NationalCommittee to dig into Trump’sbackground. Earlier that year,the firm had investigatedTrump for a conservative web-site funded by a Republicandonor, but that client stoppedpaying for the work after itbecame clear that Trumpwould win the GOP presiden-tial nomination, according topeople familiar with the mat-ter.” Still, it would be prepos-terous to contend thatPresident Donald Trump is aRussian agent as the alternatemedia in the United States hasrepeatedly arraigned in its can-tankerous cacophony.

The answer to the posercan indicate an attractiontowards the domineering world

view of Putin, as PresidentTrump is enamoured of thenationalistic and patriotic scaleof reference of the Russianleader. As an attendant fact,President Trump does notattach much importance tothe institutions such as NATOand the United Nations and hasa diffident perception about theavowed American zeal ofspreading democracy in thelarger global space. PresidentJimmy Carter too opposed theSoviet incursion in Afghanistanbut President Trump has cho-sen to follow his own doctrineand not take regular recourseto history. Trump has alsosupported the moderatetakeover model where-in Putinintervenes in Poland andBelarus, and initially PresidentTrump too supported theseshenanigans emanating in theNATO’s backyard.

Now, even PresidentTrump has concluded thatRobert Mueller acted honor-ably after months of dispar-agement. It can be cited fromCNN transcripts that, “Russiadid not participate and influ-ence the American PresidentialElections in 2019.”

The denunciation and de-recognition received by theRussian diplomats in theUnited States also speaks vol-umes about the general coldwar mindset of PresidentTrump who believes in with-drawing the larger Americanoverarch.

(The writer teachesInternational Relations atIndian Institute of PublicAdministration, Delhi)

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Sudan and its people heaveda sigh of relief after dethron-

ing notorious Omar al-Bashir,who ruled the country since1989 with an iron fist. The peo-ple of Sudan have earnedrespect and admiration from allquarters around the globe forOmar’s ousting, somethingconsidered impossible foralmost three decades.

The most significant partof this peaceful uprising wasthe unprecedented tractionamong women, many of whomhad suffered under the brutalBashir regime.

How this uprising started?Who initiated this process tooverthrow an all-powerfulBashir? Lt General Bashirseized power in an Islamistbacked coup in June 30, 1989.He became the President ofSudan, when the RevolutionaryCommand Council was dis-solved and the country wasrestored to civilian rule inOctober 1993.

Bashir’s removal was madepossible by a five day-longround-the-clock peacefulprotest in which thousands ofpeople gathered outside theArmy headquarters inKhartoum, demanding his res-ignation. In fact, on April 6 theanti-Bashir mobilisationreached to its zenith thatmarked the anniversary of asymbolic non-violent move-ment which in 1985 broughtdown the regime of JaafarNimeiri.

Though people from allwalks of life raised voicesagainst the economic hard-ships faced by them because ofyears of sanctions imposed bythe US Government, it was theSudanese ProfessionalAssociation (SPA) that finallyled the protests against theBashir regime. The SPA is aconglomeration of doctors,health workers and lawyerswho have pinned down anintractable regime whose

President became the first headof a state to be indicted by theInternational Criminal Court(ICC) way back in 2009. Theseprotesters widely chanted slo-gans used for the regimechange during the historicArab Spring of 2011. What hasbeen significant throughoutthis anti-Bashir uprising is thatwomen participants were ashigh as 70 per cent whobelonged to almost all ages andbackgrounds. These womenprotesters highlight the factthat they are demonstratingagainst “sexist attitudes” in aconservative Muslim nationwherein hardcore Sharia lawsare practiced.

What has unfolded afterthe fall of the Bashir regime isnow critical both for prevent-ing unrest and guaranteeingpeace in this African nation.After Bashir’s ouster and arrest,first Vice-President andDefence Minister Lt GeneralAwad Ibn Auf suspended theConstitution, dissolved theNational Assembly, anddeclared national emergencyfor three months with the for-mation of a military-ledTransitional Council that willrule the country for the com-ing two years.

When Auf declared thetransitional Government, peo-ple heard in his declaration his“master’s (Bashir) voice”. Auf isa career soldier very muchlike his former boss who wasmade the Defence Minister ofSudan by the latter. WhenBashir declared a year-longstate of emergency on February22 this year in response tomonths of protests nationwideand calls for his resignation,Auf was promoted to serve asVice-President, indicating thathe can become the President ofthe country once Bashir’s con-stitutional term comes to anend by April 2020.

But now the problem isthat Auf was also the head of

the military intelligence duringthe conflicts in Darfur whichforced the US Government toput him in the list of targetedfinancial sanctions. Therefore,the moot point is what is instore for Sudanese people?

Will Bashir be replaced bysome new face with the systemintact or a new leader willemerge to bring in changes giv-ing relief to Sudanese.

Is that all a call enoughevoked by millions of populacefor a civilian government inSudan: Certainly not. TheChairperson of the 55-memberpan-African UnionCommission, Moussa FakiMahamat, who has been close-ly monitoring the crisis inSudan from the beginning hasexpressed the conviction that“the military takeover is not the

appropriate response to thechallenges facing Sudan andthe aspirations of its people”.

Further, Mahamat recallsthe 2000 Lome Declaration onthe unconstitutional change ofGovernment and the AfricanCharter on Democracy, elec-tions and governance thatstrongly condemn any uncon-stitutional change ofGovernment and commitmember states to the respect ofrule of law, democratic princi-ples and human rights.

While reiterating thesecrucial documents and provi-sions, he is looking forward tomeet the commission’s Peaceand Security Council to take anurgent decision to prevent acatastrophe in the resourcerich African nation.

What the US stated is that

the Sudan’s Army must incor-porate civilians into the newtransitional government andtwo years time for transition istoo long. Robert Palladino, theState Department spokesper-son, said Washington wouldcontinue to “call for thoseresponsible for the horrificcrimes that were committed inDarfur to be held accountablefor those actions” without spec-ifying whether Bashir or Aufshould be extradited in duecourse of time.

Also, the US is publicly air-ing the view that the Sudanesepeople should be given freehand in deciding who willlead them in future and theyare quite clear that they need acivilian administration to cometo Khartoum. British ForeignSecretary Jeremy Hunt made it

clear that military rule is notthe solution and what Sudandemands is a representativegovernment without any delay.

Meanwhile, top most inter-national organisations such asthe European Union and theUN have called for an inclusivegovernment in Sudan that willmeet the democratic aspira-tions of its people. All theseshow that both the interna-tional agencies and respectivenational governments of vari-ous countries simply want apopularly elected governmentin Sudan. It is very clear that noone wants to trust the same oldmilitary generals in a newdesign. Clearly, though militaryswung into action in the nameof preventing chaos, its hiddenintensions are very clear: Theyjust want to cling to the levers

of power so as to save their sta-tus and property. They are notreally interested in bringing ademocratic regime to powersooner or later.

The international commu-nity must keep tabs on thedevelopments in Sudan. TheTransitional Government maybe a grand game plan ofBashir’s cronies to protect theirprivileged access to power andwealth as they want to simplydemonstrate that they do carefor the concerns of the ordinarySudanese. And that’s why theyhave taken over to stop blood-shed. Hence, no one knows thetricks of the canny securocratswho are expert in handlingsuch situations and continue toremain in power for the sake ofstability. What needs to bedone at the moment is that theAfrican Union, along with theUN and the top global players,must first ensure normalcyand then gradually convincethe military to back a civiliangovernment within no time.Else, Sudan may slip into anabyss. This will embolden theextremists and the generals toplay their roles to exploit thecurrent situation. Finally, thecommon people will againcome back to the same irre-versible cycle of pain, poverty,and primarily misrule.

Peace and stability inSudan is crucial to the rest ofNorth Africa as it is borderedby globally significant areas andcountries such as the Red Sea,Egypt, Libya, Chad, CentralAfrican Republic, South Sudan,Ethiopia and Eritrea. Therefore,mismanagement of affairs inSudan might spread like wild-fire to the rest of Africa and cansimply add to the misery of thealready disadvantaged neigh-bours. In fact, Sudan itself issensitive in its ethnic mosaic asit has a large number of diverseethnic groups living across thecountry like Sudanese Arab(approximately 70 per cent),

Fur, Beja, Nuba and Fallata.However, after the separationof South Sudan in 2011, it hasbecome a predominantlyMuslim nation (especiallySunni Muslims), leavingbehind a small Christianminority in Sudan.

Today, Sudan’s economy isin a mess. It has lost most of itsoil reserves, estimated betweenfive and seven billion barrels,after the secession of SouthSudan. And also, its physicalsize has shrunk to the thirdposition, ranked after Algeriaand the Democratic Republicof the Congo. Therefore, inter-national donors and nationssuch as the US must make itclear to Sudanese leadershipthat Bashir’s ouster alone is notsufficient to rescue Sudan fromthe current debt trap.

To jumpstart its sick econ-omy, political stability througha democratic regime asinformed by the Sudanese civilsociety is a must. Washingtoncan make it straight that coun-terterrorism efforts fromKhartoum must continue so asto avail aids from global agen-cies as leaders of Bashir’s staturehad offered safe haven to glob-al jihadists like Osama binLaden in the 1990s.

Hence, the post-BashirSudan is to see that civil andpolitical rights are widelyrespected. A nation in tattersafter long autocratic rule ofBashir sincerely demands bud-getary transparency, end ofcorruption in high publicoffices and the ouster of the oldclusters of the ruling NationalCongress Party from key posi-tions in the country. This willfinally ensure offering breath-ing space to the common peo-ple, indicating political repre-sentation to them, for whichthey are yearning for decades.

(The writer is an expert oninternational affairs)

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The other day, someone came asking:“Can a Guru change a person’ssamskara or inherent mental ten-

dencies?” Well, a Guru doesn’t use a mag-ical wand to change disciple’s mind-traits.He would rather help you remould your-self. He, in the first place, shows a being’smirror image. Second, he triggers a spiri-tual seed in a being, which is there ineverybody, but in large majority lies dor-mant. Third, he offers lessons in how toself-reflect upon the inner frame of mindto explore indwelling thought-seeds thathold the key to inherent habit tendencies.The process helps identify and acknowl-edge one’s fault lines. Following which,one could address them by continuedreflection upon fresh educative inputsprovided either by the Guru himself orphilosophical scriptures. Once the educa-tive inputs get firmly absorbed in themind, they may spontaneously findreflection in our day-to-day conduct. Healso lends assistance in pursuing theprocess in right earnest. In the process,one also becomes aware of indwellingpotentials to further optimise them. Atthe end of the day, however, it all dependson a seeker’s conscious efforts, which isguided by three factors: First, the consul-

tee needs to be receptive enough to lookat the advisory with an open mind, freefrom any preconditioning whatsoever.But for which, he/she may not be able toabsorb them in sense and spirit. Second,the seeker needs to exercise his/her freewill option, an exclusive human preserve,to change his/her thought process. Third,sustained pursuance of the process sug-gested in right earnest.

The paradox, however, is that habittendencies die hard. Given a small trig-ger, they spring out again and again, andmore often to our detriment. So, it is noteasy to change one’s inherent tendencies.Only a resolute person having faith inthe Guru succeeds. What further com-pounds the problem is one’s ahamkara(sense of ego consciousness). It makesyou believe your own personality traits,coming as they may as a reflection ofKarmic carryover from the past, andaccordingly self-defines them as operat-ing principles of individual life.Ahamkara does also get drawn towardstempting influences of the outer worldand makes them the dream destination.In the process, it won’t invoke humanbeing’s empowerment tool, buddhi (thefaculty of discriminate intelligence), for

due diligence. The worst is that caughtup in the usual flow of life, ahamkaradoesn’t allow time and space to explorethe inner frame of mind. Consequently,one fails to dispassionately identify andacknowledge one’s own fault lines, and inmany cases, even one’s indwelling poten-tial. And if you are not aware of yourown self, how can you address the faultlines or optimise the strength potential?

“How is a Guru able to show the dis-ciple’s mirror image,” asked the man.Well, only such people qualify to be aGuru who purifies his/her mind and risesabove all mental and emotional limita-tions. They are able to access full land-scape of their mind. On that strength,they intuitively read a disciple’s mind.Alternatively, astrology can be used as adiagnostic tool to figure out one’s person-ality traits with a fair amount of preci-sion. “Is there any proof of what you havestated,” said the man. Ancient India’slearned masters during deep meditativestate have intuitively discovered the subtlerealities of life that find reflection inphilosophic scriptures. I reflected uponthose learnings for long. And then, usingastrology as a diagnostic tool, I appliedthem on hundreds of people in realterms. The experiences, thus gained,bears testimony to the above facts.

A case in point is that of a youngman who could not relate well to his par-ents and was under tremendous stress.He came seeking guidance. A look at hischart revealed that more than anythingelse, he was himself responsible for hispredicament. The reason: He had aninflated ego, as would 8th aspect of Marson Jupiter may mean. Moon placed inMercury owned Virgo sign, and that tooplaced adverse to Mars and Sun, in thefirst place, brings in a sense of “I am theonly right person syndrome”. He felt thatpeople don’t pay attention to his intelli-gent stand. Second, he wished things hisexclusive ways, and therefore, could notdigest contrarian views, no matter howrelevant they may be. Third, he was tem-peramental, impulsive, hot-headed, andirritable. The Sun opposite mischievousNeptune made him stuck to his fancifuldream perceptions, distanced fromground realities. What further put him atodds with his father was that the Sun wasill-disposed to Saturn. Continued...

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