· The Delhi Police on Tuesday organised its first ever Virtual Passing out Parade for constables...

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T he disengagement process at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Eastern Ladakh progressed smoothly for the second consecutive day on Tuesday with the Chinese troops withdrawing more than one and a half kilometres at the all the face-of sites. The complete disengage- ment, including arriving at modalities to maintain buffer zone to ensure distance between soldiers of the two armies, is expected to take three to four more days. The military commanders of both sides are expected to review the situation after ten days. The two countries have also agreed to keep all lines of communication at the diplo- matic-level open to ensure quick de-escalation at the border. The two armies were in an eyeball to eyeball confrontation for the last eight weeks at four sites in a frontage of 25 to 30 km in Eastern Ladakh. The dis- engagement began on Monday after talks between National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Sunday to ensure peace at the earliest. As of now, the pullback is in full swing at the Galwan val- ley, which saw a bloody clash on June 15, Hot Springs and Gogra, sources said here on Tuesday adding the complete withdrawal by both the armies is expected to be completed at the three locations in a few days. The Chinese also started dismantling temporary struc- tures, including tents and bunkers, at the Pangong Tso (lake), signaling their intent to abide by the agreement to pull back from all the face-off sites in a gradual manner. This agreement was arrived at between the two Corps Commanders in three rounds of talks at the LAC on June 6, 22 and 30. Officials said under the mutual disengagement, both sides will disengage and move back by 1-1.5 km from the fric- tion points. Thereafter, the two Corps Commanders are likely to meet again to hold further talks after the disengagement process is completed, they said. They also said with the Chinese retreating, the Indian troops too have withdrawn an equal distance in all friction zones and the area in between is a buffer zone meant to sep- arate the soldiers of both sides. A future decision on patrolling in the region will be taken after the next round of military talks, sources said. The buffer zone was now under electronic surveillance through drones and satellites. There will be no patrolling by the Armies of either side with- in the Buffer zone. On Sunday, Doval and Yi spoke on the phone for two hours. According to an official statement, the two agreed that “it was necessary to ensure at the earliest complete disengagement of the troops along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and de- escalation from India-China border areas for full restoration of peace and tranquility”. “They reaffirmed that both sides should strictly respect and observe the line of actual con- trol and should not take any unilateral action to alter the sta- tus quo and work together to avoid any incident in the future that could disturb peace and tranquility in border areas,” said the Government statement. China said front-line troops are taking “effective measures” and making “progress” to disengage and ease the tensions in the Galwan Valley. “China and India have made progress coming up with effective measures for frontline troops to disengage and de- escalate the border situation at the third commander-level talks between the two militaries on June 30,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said. S enior officials of the securi- ty and intelligence estab- lishment are camping in Kathmandu to ramp up sup- port for India ahead of the cru- cial meeting of the powerful Standing Committee of the ruling Nepal Communist Party on Wednesday to decide on the fate of Nepalese Prime Minister KP Oli. Chief of Research and Analysis Wing Samant Kumar Goel and Intelligence Bureau chief Arvind Kumar are involved in hectic parleys with leaders of the political spec- trum there. The Chinese ambassador in Kathmandu too is personally meeting the Nepalese leaders, top sources said here. The confabulations by Goel and Kumar with the Nepalese politicians is being undertaken as a damage-control exercise post-Constitutional amend- ment to include Indian terri- tories of Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura in the map of Nepal. The talks by the Intelligence chiefs are being directly monitored by National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, the sources said. Talks have so far been held with Nepal Comnunist Party leaders Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda, Madhav Kumar Nepal, Jhalanath Khanal, Narayan Kaji Shrestha and Keshav Prasad Badal among others. The officials also talked to Barsaman Pun, Shankar Pokharel (considered close to Oli) and Dr Rajan Bhattarai (Oli’s advisor on foreign affairs). Continued on Page 2 A day after setting the acad- emic standards of higher education for current academ- ic session, the HRD Ministry on Tuesday directed the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to reduce its syllabus from Class 9 to 12 for academic session 2020-2021 by up to 30 per cent in order to make up for academ- ic loss amid novel coronavirus pandemic. While State Education boards will take their own calls in framing the syllabus of the school education within their jurisdiction, another pan-India board, ICSE, which has affili- ated schools across the country, last week announced reducing its syllabus by 50 per cent for the current academic year. “Looking at the extraordi- nary situation prevailing in the country and the world, CBSE was advised to revise the curriculum and reduce course load for the students of Class 9th to 12th,” HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal took to Twitter to announce this deci- sion, which came as a big relief for the schools, students, par- ents and all other stakeholders of secondary education. The academic syllabus for primary section was already announced by the Ministry early this month. The reduction in the syl- labus will be in terms of retain- ing the core concepts, the HRD Minister added. “Considering the impor- tance of achieving the level of learning, the syllabus has been rationalised to the extent pos- sible by retaining the core con- cepts,” CBSE said. Continued on Page 2 V ikas Dubey’s plunge into crime coincided with Sunny Deol thriller “Arjun Pandit” which released in 1999. Taking a cue from the movie Dubey also became Vikas Pandit, and has been known so in political circles and even among the police personnel, who referred to him as ‘Pandit’. Local journalist who came to know him, on condition of anonymity said that he was fond of being called Pandit. The Bollywood thriller though panned out to be much different. In the film Arjun (Sunny Deol) became a puppet in the hands of a powerful man and kept quiet about a crime he witnessed. He fell in love with Nisha only to turn into a ruthless gangster after being betrayed by her. Vikas Dubey now absconding was fond of this movie and had seen it hundreds of times says some of the local journalists, who have been familiar with his modus operandi. He even called his victims and only introduced himself as Pandit. However, after the June 3 killing of eight policemen in Kanpur’s Bikru village in his own backyard, Dubey is a pari- ah both to the ruling and the Opposition. While, the Yogi Adityanath Government has increased the bounty on his head to 2.5 lakh, and 300 teams are chasing him under the supervision of STF, the Opposition has also demanded a thorough probe. Posters of all his accom- plices are out and even his wife Richa Dubey is been chased. The family of Vikas Dubey has turned away from the gangster and some have even called for his death, including his mother. I n a move that will adversely impact hundreds of thou- sands of Indian students, the US immigration authority has announced that foreign stu- dents will have to leave the country or risk deportation if their universities switch to online-only classes in this fall semester due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said in a press release on Monday that for the fall 2020 semester students attending schools operating entirely online may not take a full online course load and remain in the US. Meanwhile, India on Tuesday raised with the US its decision to withdraw US visas from foreign students if their universities switch to online- only classes, official sources said. The issue was raised by Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla during an online meeting with US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale. The sources said the US side took note of it and said they will keep the best interests of the Indian students in mind and would try and mitigate the impact of the decision. “The US Department of State will not issue visas to stu- dents enrolled in schools and/or programmes that are fully online for the fall semes- ter nor will US Customs and Border Protection permit these students to enter the United States,” the release said referring to the September to December semester. Detailed report on P8 Washington: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said the US is taking the threat posed by Chinese social media apps like TikTok very seriously and is “certainly looking” at banning them, days after India blocked the popular video-sharing plat- form. India banned 59 apps with Chinese links, including TikTok and UC Browser, on June 29, saying they were prej- udicial to sovereignty, integrity and security of the country. During an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, Pompeo said he and President Donald Trump are taking the reports seriously after he was told by the host that India had already banned the app and Australia is considering doing so. PTI Detailed report on P8 T he Delhi Government-run Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital (RGSSH), a dedicated Covid-19 facility, has received the nod from the ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) to conduct plasma therapy on 200 coron- avirus patients. The RGSSH in East Delhi has treated over a thousand patients after being declared a dedicated facility, and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday felicitated the 1,000th patient who was dis- charged on July 3. “We received the ICMR nod about 10 days ago, and currently we have the permit to do plasma therapy on 200 recipients. We are making all arrangements before we can begin, but we are short of manpower as of now,” said a senior doctor at RGSSH. “A convalescent plasma therapy facility needs a lot of paraphernalia and trained staff. We are trying to augment our infrastructure as well as in the process of hiring required staff, after which we will begin the process” a senior official said. Recently, Kejriwal had inaugurated the country’s first “plasma bank” at the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS), run by the city Government. On the first day, 10 people donated and on the second day, seven donors showed up at ILBS, according to sources. The Chief Minister has been appealing to people, who have fully recovered, to come forward and donate plasma to Covid-19 patients. Continued on Page 2 New Delhi: Coronavirus may have been spreading like wild- fire in India which has occu- pied the third slot among the worst-hit nations in the world, but the Government on Tuesday claimed that the coun- try has one of the lowest Covid- 19 deaths and cases per million population. Referring to the ‘WHO Situation Report-168’ dated July 6, the Union Health Ministry said India’s Covid-19 cases per million population is 505.37 as against the global average of 1,453.25. Detailed report on P4 A day after India and China announced disengage- ment and de-escalation at the Ladakh border, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday asked why India has not insisted on restoring status quo ante, allowed China to “justify” the Galwan Valley clashes and did not mention territorial sover- eignty over the Galwan Valley. Rahul, who has been con- stantly attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the China issue, said the Government of India was duty-bound to pro- tect national interest. “National interest is para- mount. GOI’s duty is to protect it. Then, why has Status Quo Ante not been insisted on? 2. Why is China allowed to jus- tify the murder of 20 unarmed jawans in our territory? 3. Why is there no mention of territorial sovereignty of Galwan valley?” Rahul tweeted. Sharing the Indian and the Chinese press statements, Rahul highlighted a sentence from the China’s Ministry of Foreign Affair that read, “The right and wrong of what hap- pened in the Galwan Valley on the western sector of the China-India boundary is very clear. China will continue safe- guarding our territorial sov- ereignty as well as peace and tranquility in the border areas.” Former Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor too stressed on restor- ing status quo ante. “Disengagement is wel- come, but means little unless the status quo ante is restored. Continued on Page 2 Kathmandu: Nepal’s Oppos- ition parties on Tuesday lam- basted the KP Oli Govern- ment’s “immature” foreign pol- icy, saying it is hampering the country’s relations with its neighbours. Prime Minister Oli has been facing intense criticism ever since his Govern-ment’s move to update the country’s political map by incorporating three strategically key Indian territories — Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura last month. PTI Rio de Janeiro: Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro said he has tested positive for Covid- 19 after months of downplay- ing the virus’ severity. Bolsonaro confirmed the test results while wearing a mask and speaking to reporters in capital Brasilia. “I’m well, nor- mal. I even want to take a walk around here, but I can’t due to medical recommendations,” Bolsonaro said. The President has often appeared in public to shake hands with supporters, at times without a mask. PTI

Transcript of  · The Delhi Police on Tuesday organised its first ever Virtual Passing out Parade for constables...

Page 1:  · The Delhi Police on Tuesday organised its first ever Virtual Passing out Parade for constables at Police Training College, Jharoda Kalan, New Delhi. G Kishan Reddy, the Union

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The disengagement processat the Line of Actual

Control (LAC) in EasternLadakh progressed smoothlyfor the second consecutive dayon Tuesday with the Chinesetroops withdrawing more thanone and a half kilometres at theall the face-of sites.

The complete disengage-ment, including arriving atmodalities to maintain bufferzone to ensure distancebetween soldiers of the twoarmies, is expected to takethree to four more days.

The military commandersof both sides are expected toreview the situation after tendays. The two countries havealso agreed to keep all lines ofcommunication at the diplo-matic-level open to ensure quickde-escalation at the border.

The two armies were in aneyeball to eyeball confrontationfor the last eight weeks at foursites in a frontage of 25 to 30km in Eastern Ladakh. The dis-engagement began on Mondayafter talks between NationalSecurity Adviser (NSA) AjitDoval and Foreign MinisterWang Yi on Sunday to ensure

peace at the earliest.As of now, the pullback is

in full swing at the Galwan val-ley, which saw a bloody clash onJune 15, Hot Springs andGogra, sources said here onTuesday adding the completewithdrawal by both the armiesis expected to be completed atthe three locations in a few days.

The Chinese also starteddismantling temporary struc-

tures, including tents andbunkers, at the Pangong Tso(lake), signaling their intent toabide by the agreement to pullback from all the face-off sitesin a gradual manner. Thisagreement was arrived atbetween the two CorpsCommanders in three roundsof talks at the LAC on June 6,22 and 30.

Officials said under the

mutual disengagement, bothsides will disengage and moveback by 1-1.5 km from the fric-tion points. Thereafter, the twoCorps Commanders are likelyto meet again to hold furthertalks after the disengagementprocess is completed, they said.

They also said with theChinese retreating, the Indiantroops too have withdrawn anequal distance in all frictionzones and the area in betweenis a buffer zone meant to sep-arate the soldiers of both sides.A future decision on patrollingin the region will be taken after

the next round of militarytalks, sources said.

The buffer zone was nowunder electronic surveillancethrough drones and satellites.There will be no patrolling bythe Armies of either side with-in the Buffer zone.

On Sunday, Doval and Yispoke on the phone for twohours. According to an officialstatement, the two agreed that “itwas necessary to ensure at theearliest complete disengagementof the troops along the Line ofActual Control (LAC) and de-escalation from India-China

border areas for full restorationof peace and tranquility”.

“They reaffirmed that bothsides should strictly respect andobserve the line of actual con-trol and should not take anyunilateral action to alter the sta-tus quo and work together toavoid any incident in the futurethat could disturb peace andtranquility in border areas,” saidthe Government statement.

China said front-linetroops are taking “effectivemeasures” and making“progress” to disengage andease the tensions in the Galwan

Valley. “China and India havemade progress coming up witheffective measures for frontlinetroops to disengage and de-escalate the border situation at

the third commander-leveltalks between the two militarieson June 30,” Chinese ForeignMinistry spokesperson ZhaoLijian said.

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Senior officials of the securi-ty and intelligence estab-

lishment are camping inKathmandu to ramp up sup-port for India ahead of the cru-cial meeting of the powerfulStanding Committee of theruling Nepal Communist Partyon Wednesday to decide on thefate of Nepalese Prime MinisterKP Oli.

Chief of Research andAnalysis Wing Samant KumarGoel and Intelligence Bureauchief Arvind Kumar areinvolved in hectic parleys withleaders of the political spec-trum there. The Chineseambassador in Kathmandu toois personally meeting theNepalese leaders, top sourcessaid here.

The confabulations by Goeland Kumar with the Nepalesepoliticians is being undertakenas a damage-control exercisepost-Constitutional amend-ment to include Indian terri-tories of Lipulekh, Kalapaniand Limpiyadhura in the mapof Nepal. The talks by the

Intelligence chiefs are beingdirectly monitored by NationalSecurity Adviser Ajit Doval, thesources said.

Talks have so far been heldwith Nepal Comnunist Partyleaders Pushpa Kamal DahalPrachanda, Madhav KumarNepal, Jhalanath Khanal,Narayan Kaji Shrestha andKeshav Prasad Badal amongothers. The officials also talkedto Barsaman Pun, ShankarPokharel (considered close toOli) and Dr Rajan Bhattarai(Oli’s advisor on foreign affairs).

Continued on Page 2

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Aday after setting the acad-emic standards of higher

education for current academ-ic session, the HRD Ministryon Tuesday directed theCentral Board of SecondaryEducation (CBSE) to reduce itssyllabus from Class 9 to 12 foracademic session 2020-2021by up to 30 per cent in order to make up for academ-ic loss amid novel coronaviruspandemic.

While State Educationboards will take their own calls

in framing the syllabus of theschool education within theirjurisdiction, another pan-Indiaboard, ICSE, which has affili-ated schools across the country,last week announced reducingits syllabus by 50 per cent forthe current academic year.

“Looking at the extraordi-nary situation prevailing inthe country and the world,

CBSE was advised to revise thecurriculum and reduce courseload for the students of Class9th to 12th,” HRD MinisterRamesh Pokhriyal took toTwitter to announce this deci-sion, which came as a big relieffor the schools, students, par-ents and all other stakeholdersof secondary education.

The academic syllabus forprimary section was alreadyannounced by the Ministryearly this month.

The reduction in the syl-labus will be in terms of retain-ing the core concepts, the HRDMinister added.

“Considering the impor-tance of achieving the level oflearning, the syllabus has beenrationalised to the extent pos-sible by retaining the core con-cepts,” CBSE said.

Continued on Page 2

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Vikas Dubey’s plunge intocrime coincided with

Sunny Deol thriller “ArjunPandit” which released in 1999.Taking a cue from the movieDubey also became VikasPandit, and has been known soin political circles and evenamong the police personnel,who referred to him as ‘Pandit’.

Local journalist who cameto know him, on condition ofanonymity said that he wasfond of being called Pandit.

The Bollywood thrillerthough panned out to be muchdifferent. In the film Arjun(Sunny Deol) became a puppetin the hands of a powerful man and kept quiet about acrime he witnessed.

He fell in love with Nishaonly to turn into a ruthless

gangster after being betrayed by her. Vikas Dubeynow absconding was fond of

this movie and had seen ithundreds of times says some ofthe local journalists, who have

been familiar with his modusoperandi. He even called hisvictims and only introducedhimself as Pandit.

However, after the June 3killing of eight policemen inKanpur’s Bikru village in hisown backyard, Dubey is a pari-ah both to the ruling and theOpposition.

While, the Yogi AdityanathGovernment has increased thebounty on his head to �2.5 lakh,and 300 teams are chasing himunder the supervision of STF,the Opposition has alsodemanded a thorough probe.

Posters of all his accom-plices are out and even his wife Richa Dubey is beenchased. The family of VikasDubey has turned away fromthe gangster and some haveeven called for his death,including his mother.

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In a move that will adverselyimpact hundreds of thou-

sands of Indian students, theUS immigration authority hasannounced that foreign stu-dents will have to leave thecountry or risk deportation iftheir universities switch toonline-only classes in this fallsemester due to the coronaviruspandemic.

The Immigration andCustoms Enforcement (ICE)said in a press release on

Monday that for the fall 2020semester students attendingschools operating entirelyonline may not take a fullonline course load and remainin the US.

Meanwhile, India onTuesday raised with the US itsdecision to withdraw US visasfrom foreign students if theiruniversities switch to online-

only classes, official sourcessaid. The issue was raised byForeign Secretary HarshVardhan Shringla during anonline meeting with US UnderSecretary of State for PoliticalAffairs David Hale.

The sources said the USside took note of it and saidthey will keep the best interestsof the Indian students in mindand would try and mitigate theimpact of the decision.

“The US Department ofState will not issue visas to stu-dents enrolled in schoolsand/or programmes that arefully online for the fall semes-ter nor will US Customs andBorder Protection permit thesestudents to enter the United States,” the release saidreferring to the September toDecember semester.

Detailed report on P8

Washington: Secretary of StateMike Pompeo has said the USis taking the threat posed byChinese social media apps likeTikTok very seriously and is“certainly looking” at banningthem, days after India blockedthe popular video-sharing plat-form. India banned 59 appswith Chinese links, includingTikTok and UC Browser, onJune 29, saying they were prej-udicial to sovereignty, integrityand security of the country.During an interview with FoxNews’ Laura Ingraham, Pompeosaid he and President DonaldTrump are taking the reportsseriously after he was told by thehost that India had alreadybanned the app and Australia isconsidering doing so. PTI

Detailed report on P8

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The Delhi Government-runRajiv Gandhi Super

Speciality Hospital (RGSSH), adedicated Covid-19 facility,has received the nod from theICMR (Indian Council ofMedical Research) to conductplasma therapy on 200 coron-avirus patients.

The RGSSH in East Delhihas treated over a thousandpatients after being declared adedicated facility, and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwalon Monday felicitated the1,000th patient who was dis-charged on July 3.

“We received the ICMRnod about 10 days ago, and

currently we have the permit todo plasma therapy on 200recipients. We are making allarrangements before we canbegin, but we are short ofmanpower as of now,” said asenior doctor at RGSSH.

“A convalescent plasmatherapy facility needs a lot ofparaphernalia and trained staff.

We are trying to augment ourinfrastructure as well as in theprocess of hiring required staff,after which we will begin theprocess” a senior official said.

Recently, Kejriwal hadinaugurated the country’s first“plasma bank” at the Instituteof Liver and Biliary Sciences(ILBS), run by the cityGovernment.

On the first day, 10 peopledonated and on the second day,seven donors showed up atILBS, according to sources.

The Chief Minister hasbeen appealing to people, whohave fully recovered, to comeforward and donate plasma toCovid-19 patients.

Continued on Page 2

New Delhi: Coronavirus mayhave been spreading like wild-fire in India which has occu-pied the third slot among theworst-hit nations in the world,but the Government onTuesday claimed that the coun-try has one of the lowest Covid-19 deaths and cases per millionpopulation. Referring to the‘WHO Situation Report-168’dated July 6, the Union HealthMinistry said India’s Covid-19cases per million population is505.37 as against the globalaverage of 1,453.25.

Detailed report on P4

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Aday after India and Chinaannounced disengage-

ment and de-escalation at theLadakh border, formerCongress president RahulGandhi on Tuesday asked whyIndia has not insisted onrestoring status quo ante,allowed China to “justify” theGalwan Valley clashes and didnot mention territorial sover-eignty over the Galwan Valley.

Rahul, who has been con-stantly attacking Prime MinisterNarendra Modi on the Chinaissue, said the Government ofIndia was duty-bound to pro-tect national interest.

“National interest is para-mount. GOI’s duty is to protectit. Then, why has Status QuoAnte not been insisted on? 2.Why is China allowed to jus-tify the murder of 20 unarmed

jawans in our territory? 3.Why is there no mention ofterritorial sovereignty ofGalwan valley?” Rahul tweeted.

Sharing the Indian and theChinese press statements,Rahul highlighted a sentencefrom the China’s Ministry ofForeign Affair that read, “Theright and wrong of what hap-pened in the Galwan Valley onthe western sector of theChina-India boundary is veryclear. China will continue safe-guarding our territorial sov-ereignty as well as peace andtranquility in the border areas.”

Former Minister of Statefor External Affairs ShashiTharoor too stressed on restor-ing status quo ante.

“Disengagement is wel-come, but means little unlessthe status quo ante is restored.

Continued on Page 2

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Kathmandu: Nepal’s Oppos-ition parties on Tuesday lam-basted the KP Oli Govern-ment’s “immature” foreign pol-icy, saying it is hampering thecountry’s relations with itsneighbours. Prime Minister Olihas been facing intense criticismever since his Govern-ment’smove to update the country’spolitical map by incorporatingthree strategically key Indianterritories — Lipulekh, Kalapaniand Limpiyadhura — last month. PTI

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Rio de Janeiro: Brazil’sPresident Jair Bolsonaro said hehas tested positive for Covid-19 after months of downplay-ing the virus’ severity.Bolsonaro confirmed the testresults while wearing a maskand speaking to reporters incapital Brasilia. “I’m well, nor-mal. I even want to take a walkaround here, but I can’t due tomedical recommendations,”Bolsonaro said. The Presidenthas often appeared in public toshake hands with supporters, attimes without a mask. PTI

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Page 2:  · The Delhi Police on Tuesday organised its first ever Virtual Passing out Parade for constables at Police Training College, Jharoda Kalan, New Delhi. G Kishan Reddy, the Union

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The MaharashtraGovernment on Tuesday

added 3,520 beds to its Covid-19 health infrastructure inMumbai, as he inauguratedfour field hospitals at Mulund,Dahisar, MahalaxmiRacecourse and BKC in themetropolis.

Among the four field hos-pitals that the chief ministerthrew open for public use is thededicated Covid-19 health cen-tre at Mulund which has thecapacity of 1,700 beds. ThisCentre has been set up by theCity and IndustrialDevelopment Corporation(CIDCO).

The second field hospital isa 900-bed centre in Dahisar(east) which has been set upwith the help of the MumbaiMetro.

The third facility atMahalaxmi Racecourse has thecapacity of 700, while the oneat Bandra Kurla Complex(BKC) has 112 ICU beds,which is developed by theMumbai Metropolitan Region

Development Authority(MMRDA). Similarly, a 108-bed facility has been set up atDahisar (west).

The event at which thefour hospitals were inaugurat-ed online was attended amongothers by Maharashtra minis-ter Aditya Thackeray, AslamShaikh and Mumbai MayorKishori Pednekar.

Currently, the total Covid-19 bed capacity in the metrop-olis is 21683. Of the total beds,12898 are occupied, while 8785beds are available.

Similarly, of the 15,609total Dedicated Covid hospitals(DCH) beds and DedicatedCOVID health centres(DCHC), 10046 are occupied,while 5583 beds available

Out of the total 6074 Covidcare centre-2 (CCC-2) beds,2852 beds are occupied,while3222 beds are available.Similarly, out of the 1606 ICUbed capacity, 1482 beds areoccupied, while 124 beds areavailable.

“Earlier today, ChiefMinister Uddhav Thackeray jipresided over the commis-

sioning ceremony of 4 fieldhospitals. These field hospitalsadding a total of 3205 beds and222 ICU/ acute care beds wereadded from Mulund, Dahisar,BKC and Mahalaxmi race-course,” Aditya Thackeraytweeted.

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The total number of Covid-19 deaths in Mumbai

crossed 5,000 mark on Tuesday,even as the infected casesdropped further inMaharashtra from Monday’s5,368 cases to 5,134 and asmany as 224 people succumbedto coronavirus in various partsof the State.

With 224 new deaths and5134 fresh infections, the totalnumber of deaths in the staterose to 9,250 while the totalnumber of infections jumpedto 217121.

Of the total deaths,Mumbai alone accounted for64 deaths, taking the totalnumber of deaths in the city to5,002 now, while the number ofCovid-19 positive cases wentup by 785 cases to touch86,509.

Significantly enough,Mumbai surpassed China interms of total deathsand infections and. China haswitnessed 4,634 deaths and83,565 cases, ranking at no. 22on the Worldometer, as against5002 deaths and 86509 infect-ed cases recorded in Mumbai.

Apart from 64 deathsrecorded by Mumbai, therewere 54 deaths in Thane, 37deaths in Pune, 13 in Nashik,10 each in Palghar and Solapur,nine in Raigad, eight in Jalgaon,five in Aurangabad, three inLatur, two each in Dhule,Yavatmal and Jalna, one each inAhmednagar, Nanded,Osmanabad, Satara and onefrom another State.

New Delhi: India on Tuesday raisedwith the US its decision to withdraw USvisas from foreign students if their uni-versities switch to online-only classes,official sources said.

The issue was raised by ForeignSecretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla dur-ing an online meeting with US UnderSecretary of State for Political AffairsDavid Hale.

The sources said the US side tooknote of it and said they will keep the bestinterests of the Indian students inmind and would try and mitigate theimpact of the decision.

It also conveyed to India thatdetailed guidelines for implementation of the decision are yetto come out.

In a move that will adversely impacthundreds of thousands of Indian stu-

dents, the US immigration authorityannounced that foreign students willhave to leave the country or risk depor-tation if their universities switch toonline-only classes in this fall semesterdue to the coronavirus pandemic.

The US immigration agency saidthat the students currently staying in theUS and enrolled into such programmes"must depart the country or take othermeasures, such as transferring to aninstitute with in-person tuition toremain in lawful status". PTI

London: Prime Minister NarendraModi will make a major worldwideaddress, expected to focus on India'strade and foreign investment prospects,at India Global Week 2020 organised inthe UK from Thursday.

Modi, who will connect remotely tothe event pitched as one of the biggestinternational events on India's global-isation, is likely to lay out numerousinvestment and manufacturing oppor-tunities that India has on offer as theworld emerges from the Covid-19 pan-demic.

"As the world battles to emerge outof the shadows of Covid-19 , India withits immense talent pool, its technolog-ical prowess, and growing appetite forleadership has a central role to play inglobal affairs. I am sure the IndianPrime Minister's message to the worldwill resonate with the #BeTheRevival:India and a Better New World theme ofIndia Global Week," said Manoj Ladwa,Chairman and CEO of the India Inc.Group, the UK-headquartered media

house behind the annual event.The three-day summit, being held

on a virtual platform given the coron-avirus pandemic lockdown, had earli-er confirmed senior Cabinet ministers,including External Affairs Minister SJaishankar, Railways and Commerceand Industry Minister Piyush Goyal,Ccivil Aviation and Urban AffairsMinister Hardeep Singh Puri, ITMinister Ravi Shankar Prasad and SkillDevelopment Minister Mahendra NathPandey, among some of the prominentspeakers from India.

On the UK side, Prince Charles willbe making a special address at the eventand the British government is lining upa high-profile set of speakers, includingForeign Secretary Dominic Raab, HomeSecretary Priti Patel, Health SecretaryMatt Hancock and International TradeSecretary Liz Truss. Gaitri Kumar willalso be addressing the event later thisweek, among her inaugural engage-ments as the new Indian HighCommissioner to the UK. PTI

Washington: The US military"will continue to stand strong"in relationship to a conflictbetween India and China oranywhere else, a top WhiteHouse official has said, after theNavy deployed two aircraftcarriers to the strategic SouthChina Sea to boost its presencein the region.

"The message is clear. We'renot going to stand by and letChina or anyone else take thereins in terms of being the mostpowerful, dominant force,whether it's in that region orover here," White House Chiefof Staff Mark Meadows toldFox News on Monday.

"And the message is clear.Our military might standsstrong and will continue tostand strong, whether it's inrelationship to a conflictbetween India and China oranywhere else," Meadows saidin response to a question.

He was told that Indiabanned Chinese apps becauseIndian soldiers were killed by

Chinese troops last month andasked what's mission of the twoaircraft carriers - the RonaldReagan and the Nimitz - andwhat's America's mission.

The troops of India andChina are locked in an eight-week standoff in several areasin eastern Ladakh includingPangong Tso, Galwan Valleyand Gogra Hot Spring. The sit-uation deteriorated last monthfollowing the Galwan Valleyclashes that left 20 IndianArmy personnel dead as thetwo sides significantly bolsteredtheir deployments in most areasalong the LAC.

The Chinese military onMonday began withdrawingtroops from the Galwan Valleyand Gogra Hot Spring afterNational Security Advisor AjitDoval and Chinese ForeignMinister Wang Yi held lengthytalks on Sunday. Doval andWang are also the special rep-resentatives on the India-Chinaboundary talks.

The United States has sent

two of its aircraft carriers to theSouth China Sea. "Our missionis to make sure that the worldknows that we still have the pre-eminent fighting force on theface of the globe," Meadowssaid.

President Donald Trumphas invested more in the USmilitary, more in not only thehardware, but the men andwomen who serve so sacrifi-cially each and every day, hesaid. "He (Trump) continues todo so," he added.

China is engaged in hotlycontested territorial disputes inboth the South China Sea andthe East China Sea. Beijing hasbuilt up and militarised many ofthe islands and reefs it controlsin the region. Both areas arestated to be rich in minerals, oiland other natural resourcesand are vital to global trade.China claims almost all of theSouth China Sea. Vietnam, thePhilippines, Malaysia, Bruneiand Taiwan have counter claimsover the area. PTI

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From Page 1Recently, the city

Government-run LNJPHospital had resumed plasmatherapy at the facility after get-ting a fresh nod from theIndian Council of MedicalResearch (ICMR), which gaveit the permit to conduct thetherapy on 200 patients.

Plasma therapy on a trialbasis was permitted by theICMR earlier but then it hadput it on hold.

After the fresh nod fromICMR in June, LNJP Hospitaland Max Hospital, Saket havedone plasma therapy on novelcoronavirus patients.

Delhi Health Minister

Satyendar Jain, 55, after con-tracting Covid-19 was on June20 administered plasma ther-apy at the Max Hospital, afterwhich his condition improvedand he was discharged on June26. He too had appealed to peo-ple to donate plasma after fullyrecovering from Covid-19, andif permitted by doctors.

For donors, there are somestrict criteria and counsellingand screening is done beforethe donation process begins.So, about two to two-and-a-halfhours is the total time perdonor.

Each donor, a person whohas recently recovered fromCovid-19, develops antibodies,which are transferred to therecipient through plasma.

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From Page 1President of Nepali

Congress Sher Bahadur Deubaand other party colleagues DrMinendra Rijal, VimlendraNidhi and Krishna Sitaula havealso been contacted by the topofficials of the Indian covertagencies, the sources said.

Leaders of Madhesi PartyMahant Thakur, UpendraYadav and Dr BaburamBhattarai have also been cov-ered in the talks.

Amid the outreach byIndia, Chinese Ambassadorin Kathmandu Hou Yanqi, aformer intelligence chief ofEurope Sector of Beijing’s spyagency, also met a slew of lead-

ers including Prachanda, Nepaland Khanal among others.

India has a deep-rootedcivilisational and cultural tieswith Nepal but the amendmentin the Nepalese map seeks tothreaten the ties between thetwo nations even as New Delhihas initiated high-level com-munication to limit the erosionof trust and bring the ties ontrack, the sources added.

Meanwhile, the NepalSamajbadi Party has decided torecall party leader Saraita GiriGiri for defying the party whipto endorse the constitutionalamendment by NepaleseParliament to revisit the map.The party has decided to sack

her from her position as a law-maker and the party member.

During the last one year,India’s external agency’s rolehas been found to be wantingas it could not get an inkling ofthe introduction of six bills inthe European Parliamentagainst India over the CAAissue.

Likewise, the map issue inNepal also went unnoticed aspreemptive measures couldnot be taken. The agency alsocould not monitor the con-gregations of Tabligh Jamatheld in the neighbourhoodand extended neighbourhoodand their suspected role inspreading Covid-19 in India.

From Page 1The board also mentioned

that the heads of schools andteachers may ensure that thetopics that have been reducedare also explained to the stu-dents to the extent required toconnect different topics.

“However, the reduced syl-labus will not be part of the top-ics for Internal Assessmentand year-end BoardExamination,” the statementread.

Alternative AcademicCalendar and inputs from theNCERT on transacting thecurriculum using differentstrategies may also be part ofthe teaching pedagogy.

Pokhriyal also added thathe had received more than1,500 suggestions from educa-

tionists across the country onthe reduction of the syllabusunder the hashtag#SyllabusForStudents2020.

According to CBSE offi-cials, the comprehensive cur-riculum is aimed at ensuringonline well-being of studentsand preparing them for thefuture of work.

Earlier, amid the ongoingcoronavirus pandemic, theeducational board had told theSupreme Court that the pend-ing board examinations forClass 10 and 12, which werescheduled to take place from 1-15 July, were now cancelled.

The education board saidthat it would conduct theremaining exams when theconditions become conducive.

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The US has thanked Indiafor hosting the Dalai Lama

since 1959 as the world com-memorated the 85th birthdayof the Tibetan spiritual leader.

The Dalai Lama has beenliving in India ever since he fledTibet in 1959 following aChinese crackdown on anuprising by the local popula-tion. The Tibetan government-in-exile operates fromDharamsala in HimachalPradesh. Over 1,60,000Tibetans live in India.

"Happy 85th birthday toHis Holiness @DalaiLama, whohas inspired the world throughhis peace & kindness, and as asymbol of the struggle forTibetans and their heritage. Wethank India for hosting HisHoliness and Tibetans in free-

dom since 1959 & wish HisHoliness happiness," the USstate department's South andCentral Asian Affairs (SCA)bureau tweeted on Monday.

Speaker of the US House ofRepresentatives Nancy Pelosialso conveyed her greetings tothe Tibetan spiritual leader onhis birthday.

"The Dalai Lama is a mes-senger of hope, whose spiritu-al guidance has been a vital forceto advance warm-heartednessand compassion, promote reli-gious harmony, secure humanrights and preserve the languageand culture of the Tibetan peo-ple," she said.

Sadly, the aspirations ofHis Holiness and the Tibetanpeople remain unfulfilled as theoppressive Chinese regime con-tinues its disgraceful campaignof persecution, Pelosi said.

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Mumbai: In an effort to elim-inate contact and reduce riskto its medical staff, the PodarHospital introduced Robot‘Gollar’ at its facility at Worliin south-central Mumbai onTuesday.

Announcing the intro-duction of Robot ‘Gollar’,Maharashtra Chief MinisterUddhav Thackeray tweeted:“Robot ‘Gollar’ has reportedon duty at Podar Hospital inMumbai! It’ll get you food,water & medicines. This is animportant step in our#WarAgainstVirus as it willeliminate contact and reducerisk for our medical staff inCovid Facilities”. PNS

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Noida (UP): Uttar Pradesh'sGautam Buddh Nagar onTuesday recorded one moredeath due to Covid-19 and 115new patients, pushing the tallyof cases in the district to 2,935so far, an official data showed.

The district's death tollhas now reached 29, while thenumber of active cases rose to1,121, according to datareleased by the Uttar PradeshHealth Department for a 24-hour period.

Also, 23 patients were dis-charged during the period,taking the overall number ofrecoveries to 1,785 in the dis-trict, the data showed.

The recovery rate droppedto 60.81 per cent from 62.23per cent on Monday and 63.61per cent on Sunday, accordingto official statistics. PTI

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Aday after monumentsacross the country

reopened their doors for visi-tors following a gap of morethan three months amid coro-navirus-induced lockdown,only a handful of people visit-ed these sites.

The Archaeological Surveyof India (ASI) which opened itsmonuments and museums onJuly 6 has capped visitor entryat every site from 1,000-2,500per slot --9 am to 12 pm and 12pm to 6 pm, officials said.

Tickets to visit these placescan be booked online.

ASI's top sites which gen-erate the maximum footfalland revenue have been hithard.

According to officials,around 60 visitors bought tick-ets for Qutub Minar in Delhiwhich had a capping of 1,500visitors per slot, on Tuesday.

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From Page 1Otherwise we’ll yet again see both sides declare peace, with

China having changed the facts on the ground & moved the LACcloser to where it wants. The May-June status cannot becomethe ‘new normal’ “, tweeted Tharoor as the Congress insisted onrestoring the status that existed on the borders before May 5.

On Monday, senior Congress leader Anand Sharma describedit as a positive development but sought to praise the Armed forcesfor “standing firm to protect India’s territory”.

Hitting a different chord, party’s chief spokesperson RandeepSurjewala asked why the Prime Minister had not wished TibetanSpiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

“We waited for @PMOIndia to lead the nation in wishingHE the Dalai Lama a very Happy Birthday. Modi ji may havehad his compulsions for not doing so. On behalf of the entireNation, we wish HE @DalaiLama a long and healthy life. We areprivileged for your blessings,” Surjewala tweeted.

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Page 3:  · The Delhi Police on Tuesday organised its first ever Virtual Passing out Parade for constables at Police Training College, Jharoda Kalan, New Delhi. G Kishan Reddy, the Union

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The Delhi Police on Tuesdayorganised its first ever

Virtual Passing out Parade forconstables at Police TrainingCollege, Jharoda Kalan, NewDelhi.

G Kishan Reddy, the UnionMinister of State (Ministry forHome Affairs) was the ChiefGuest on this occasion. ChiefGuest took the e-Salute fromVimarsh Hall in Police HeadQuarters (PHQ). The eventwas streamed live on Facebookand YouTube page of DelhiPolice. On the occasion, DelhiCommissioner of Police, S NShrivastava welcomed the chiefguest and congratulated thetrainees on completion of theirtraining.

The CP, Delhi underlinedthat during this training atten-tion was paid to make themsound physically, mentally andtechnically. Apart from knowl-

edge of Law, they were speciallytrained in Police Science,Computer Science, CyberCrime, Criminology, person-ality development and investi-gation related training.

The Chief Guest congrat-ulated all the passed outtrainees for choosing to join asocial service like Police andcalled upon them to delivertheir best to face the challengesof Police service and to workfor enhancing the image ofpolice. He also appreciated thework done by officers of train-ing division while in partingtraining to the trainees.

According to Anil Mittal,the Additional Public RelationOfficer (APRO), a total 1320Recruit Constables including407 Women Recruit Constableshave passed out. "These include47 (35 male and 12 female)Recruit Constables fromDAMAN and DIU Police," hesaid.

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NEW DELHI: The two com-mon bio-medical waste treat-ment facilities (CBWTF) in thecity are grappling withincreased load due to theCovid-19 pandemic, with theiroperators saying the pressure isset to increase with rising cases.

The two CBWTFs in Delhiare SMS Water Grace BMWPrivate Limited in Nilothi inwest Delhi and Biotic WasteSolutions Private Limited inJahangirpuri, with an opera-tional capacity of 12 tonnes and34 tonnes per day, respective-ly.

Together, these facilitieshave been disposing of around19 tonnes of COVID and 16tonnes on non-COVID bio-medical waste per day, accord-ing to their representatives.

SMS Water Grace collectsCOVID bio-medical wastefrom government hospitals,including LNJP and SafdarjungHospital, quarantine centres,isolation facilities, testing cen-tres, dispensaries, private hos-pitals and laboratories in sixdistricts of Delhi -- west, south-west, central, Shahdara, eastand northeast.

Biotic waste solutions covernorth, northwest, New Delhi,south, and southeast districts.It collects COVID waste fromAIIMS, Ram Manohar LohiaHospital and Lady HardingeMedical College etc.

Municipal corporations areresponsible for collectingCOVID-19 bio-medical wastefrom houses of patients under-going home quarantine. Thiswaste goes to the waste-to-energy plants, which haveincinerators with large capac-ities.

Delhi has three waste-to-energy treatment plants, atSukhdev Vihar-Okhla, Narela-Bawana and Ghazipur.Amit Nilawar from SMS Water

Grace said before the coron-avirus, his facility had beenoperating at 50 percent capac-ity. "Now, it is operatingbetween 90 percent and 110percent capacity due to theadditional COVID-19 waste,which has increased the risk ofshutdowns."

The incinerator is burning13 tonnes of bio-medical waste(Covid and non-Covid)per daynow against around six tonnesin the pre-coronavirus times.The machinery needs rest, hesaid.

Nilawar said the opera-tion cost per day has increasedmanifold because of the"tremendous pressure" on thefacility. "The plant is beingoperated in three shifts now ascompared to two shifts earlier."

"We had 100 employeesearlier. Due to the increasedworkload, we hired another 50.We have been providing per-sonal protective equipment(PPE) kits, gloves, and masks toeveryone," he said.

Besides alcohol-based sani-tisers for employees, a largequantity of hypochlorite solu-tion is needed to sanitise vehi-cles.

According to the CentralPollution Control Board's

guidelines for collection anddisposal of COVID-19 waste,separate vehicles are needed totransport COVID and non-COVID bio-medical waste.

"We need help from theDelhi government. It shouldmake it compulsory for waste-to-energy plants in the city todispose of our surplus waste,"he said.

PPE kits, masks, gloves,face shield, head cover, shoecover, plastic bottles, sanitiserbottles and other such wastehave high calorific value. It canbe best used at waste-to-ener-gy plants, can be autoclavedand shredded or recycled,Nilawar said.

SMS Water Grace hasurged the government to allowit to expand in a nearby plotand increase the capacity, con-sidering the increased loaddue to COVID-19 waste.

It has also demanded thatthe Directorate General ofHealth Services pay it Rs 50 perkg of COVID-19 waste as the"facility is struggling to meetthe expenses".

The demands are beinglooked into at the appropriatelevel, according to a senior gov-ernment official.

Vikas Gehlot of BioticWaste Solutions said the facil-ity had been treating 14 tonnesof bio-medical waste per daybefore the coronavirus out-break.

"Now, we are disposing ofaround 22 tonnes of waste (12tonnes COVID and 10 tonnesnon-COVID) per day," he said.

The facility has requestedthe Delhi Pollution ControlCommittee to transfer waste towaste-to-energy plants for two-three days so that it can carryout preventive maintenance.

The pressure is going toincrease as the number of casesgrow, he said. PTI

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Delhi Police has arrested a24-year-old alleged sharp-

shooter of Hashim Baba gangafter a brief exchange of firefrom east Delhi’s Shahdara area

The accused has been iden-tified as Sachin Kumar, a resi-dent of Nand Nagri.

According to PramodSingh Kushwaha, the DeputyCommissioner of Police (DCP),Special Cell, on Monday, infor-mation was received thatKumar, who was wanted in sev-eral cases of murder, attempt tomurder and extortion, willcome to Shahdara along withhis associate.

“Later, a trap was laid nearShyam Lal College at Shahdara.At 11.25 pm, accused was spot-ted near the college. He wasasked to surrender, but theaccused took out his pistol andfired at police,” said the DCP.

"Police team also fired andoverpowered him. One pistol,along with three live cartridges,and a motorcycle were recov-ered from his possession, theDCP said.

"He was involved in sever-al criminal cases. On May 28,Kumar, along with his associ-ates, killed one Haider on thedirections of Hashim Baba.Haider was related to theirrival Nasir gang," the DCPadded.

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The Delhi Police has arrest-ed a 36-year-old man for

allegedly duping a nursing offi-cer at AIIMS of �34 lakh on thepretext of marriage. Police saidthat the accused was nabbedfrom Vijayawada in AndhraPradesh on Monday with thehelp of mobile phone and tech-nical surveillance.

The accused, identified as

Mohammad Sadik Imran.According to Atul Kumar

Thakur, the DeputyCommissioner of Police (DCP),South district, the matter wasreported to them by the womanat the Mehrauli police station inSouth Delhi on March 3.

"The woman, who works asa nursing officer at All IndiaInstitute Of Medical Sciences(AIIMS), New Delhi, stated inher complaint that she received

a friend request from theaccused on Facebook in 2018.After verifying his friend list,she accepted his request," saidthe DCP.

"She told police said duringthe course of their friendship,he also promised to marry herand even took her to Leh,Ladakh on a vacation. Afterwinning her confidence, heinduced her that he wanted tostart a hotel business before

their marriage and asked her totransfer Rs 34 lakh in his bankaccount," said the DCP.

"After she transferred theamount, he started avoiding hercalls and when she realised thatshe had been cheated by him,she reported the matter topolice. Based on her complaint,a case was registered under rel-evant sections of the IndianPenal Code (IPC), includingsection 420 (cheating and dis-

honestly inducing delivery ofproperty)," said the DCP.

"During investigation, itwas established that theaccused was in Vijayawadaand a police team was sentthere to arrest him. He was pro-duced before the concernedcourt in Vijayawada andbrought to Delhi on transitremand and produced beforethe Saket court on Monday,"the DCP added.

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The Delhi Police in itschargesheet filed at a Delhi

Court, has stated that TahirHussain, the suspended AamAadmi Party (AAP) Councillorwas allegedly in contact withPinjra Tod members andJawahar Lal Nehru University(JNU) students NatashaNarwal and Devangana Kalitato hatch a well planned anddeep rooted conspiracy tocause widespread riots in northeast Delhi in February thisyear.

The chargesheet, in a caserelated to communal violencein the area, was filed last monthbefore Metropolitan MagistrateRakesh Kumar Rampuri and itwill next come up for hearingon July 20.

In the charge sheet policestated that a flow chart show-ing Hussain speaking and con-necting with a host of other co-conspirators who were involvedin organising protests againstthe Citizenship AmendmentAct (CAA) in Delhi at variousprotest sites, is provided for theperusal of the court.

As per flo chart in thechargsheet, Hussain wasallegedly in touch with Narwaland Kalita; Wajid Khan(allegedly involved in organis-ing protest at Shaheen Bagh),Haji Ballo (allegedly involved inanti-CAA protests at KhajuriKhas area), Haji Mangta(allegedly involved in orga-nizing the protest at ChandBagh area) and Hasibul Hasan(allegedly involved in protestsat Jaffrabad area).

The chargesheet filed inthe case of rioting namedHussain as the main accusedalong with ten others in con-nection with communal vio-lence in north east Delhi dur-ing protests against theCitizenship Amendment Actin February.

It further claimed thatHussain was also in touch withowner of Al-Hind hospital DrM A Anwar, social activist andanti-CAA protestor WasimAkram Tyagi, alleged PopularFront of India member Danishand some advocates.

"Call detail records analy-sis of accused Tahir Hussain

revealed that since the startingof the anti-CAA protests inDelhi, he was in touch withother accused persons namelyLiyakat Ali, Irshad, Shadab,Abid, Mohd Rehman aliasArshad Pradhan, etc alreadyarrested in the case and withKhalid Saifi (anti-CAA pro-tester and arrested rioter inJagatpuri area), persons whowere involved in organisinganti-CAA protests in varioussites such as Haji Mangta(protest site at at Chand BaghMazar), Haji Ballo (protest siteat Shri Ram Colony, KhajuriKhas), Wajid Khan (protestsite at Shaheen Bagh), Dr M AAnwar (protest site at BrijpuriPulia near Farooqia Masjid)and with some advocates.

"All of these persons, alongwith Tahir Hussain, havehatched a well planned anddeep rooted conspiracy to pre-cipitate and cause widespreadriots in north east Delhi.Together these persons areresponsible for the death of 53persons, injury to countlessinnocent individuals, destruc-tion of properties worth croresof rupees and causing a tear inthe social fabric of the nationas a whole," the charge sheetsaid.

Kalita and Narwal havenot been arrested in this case.However, they have beenarrested in connection with twoseparate cases related to rioting.Kalita was also arrested inconnection with the violence inold Delhi's Daryaganj area inDecember last year duringanti-CAA protests.

The charge sheet furtherclaimed that disclosure state-ment of Hussain has revealedthat he planned these riotswith Khalid Saifi and formerJNU student leader UmarKhhalid in their meeting onJanuary 8 at Shaheen Bagh andhe was also in touch with otheranti-CAA protest organisersand arranged/ distributedcashh among anti-CAA pro-testors and rioters throughtransfers of money from hiscompany accounts to shellcompanies.

Saifi was a member ofUnited Against Hate, a citizens'campaign launched in 2017 toprotest against series of lynch-

ing in the country and wasallegedly involved in the violentprotests against the CitizenshipAmendment Act in whichfinancial support was provid-ed by the the PFI, formed in2006 in Kerala as a successorto the National DemocraticFront (NDF).

The chargesheet also stat-ed that Hussain allegedly trans-ferred around Rs 1.10 crorefrom the accounts of compa-nies owned by him to allegedfake companies.

He received the amount incash in the second week ofJanuary, 2020 through a chainof transactions and thereafterdistributed the money to anti-CAA protestors.

According to thechargesheet, the bank accountdetails showed six suspicioustransactions from EssenceCellcom Pvt Ltd. Amounting toRs 92 lakhs to two otheraccounts.

"His (Hussain's) anothercompany Show EffectAdvertising Pvt Ltd showed atransfer of Rs 20 lakh onJanuary 8... All these chains oftransactions are being investi-gated," it said.

Pinjra Tod (Break theCage) was founded in 2015with an aim to make hostelsand paying guest accommoda-tions less restrictive for womenstudents. In 2015, Jamia MilliaIslamia University had issued anotice restricting female stu-dents to stay out after 8 pm.

When the DelhiCommission for Women(DCW) questioned the Jamiaadministration on it, a group ofwomen students decided toprotest against the restrictionsnot only in Jamia but other uni-versities in Delhi.

Later named as Pinjra Tod,the group mobilised peoplearound several issues faced byfemale residents of hostels andPGs.

Police said Hussain alongwith the two women and sev-eral others were allegedlyresponsible for the death of 53persons, injury to countlessinnocent individuals, destruc-tion of properties worth croresof rupees and causing a "tear inthe social fabric of the nationas a whole".

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In an important step to pro-vide relief to people amid

Coronavirus pandemic, DelhiChief Minister Arvind Kejriwalon Tuesday decided to providemonthly free ration to all PDS(Public Distribution System)card holders till November2020.

With an aim to mitigate theeconomic hardship caused byCovid-19 the Delhi govern-ment will continue to providefood grains free of cost to theNational Food Security (NFS)beneficiaries in Delhi, the gov-ernment said in a statement.

The decision was taken bythe Chief Minister along withthe Food and Civil SupplyMinister Imran Hussain.

“The government will beproviding PDS ration to NFSbeneficiaries for the next fivemonths including July, August,September, and October up toNovember, free of cost. The dis-tribution of food grains for July

2020 is scheduled to start in aphased manner from 8th Julyonwards,” it said.

PDS covered by theNational Food Security Act inDelhi and more than 17.54 lakhhouseholds get ration. Thisscheme benefits nearly71,40,938 and they get subsi-dized food grains from theDelhi government, it said.

“These include 68,465Antodya Anna Yojna (AAY)households with 2,78,954 ben-eficiaries who are providedsubsidized food grains. NFSbeneficiaries are provided withfive kg of food grain everymonth including 4 kg of wheatand 1 kg of rice,” it said.

Regular entitlement underAAY category is 25 kg wheat

per household, 10 kg rice perhousehold and 1 kg sugar perhousehold, it said, adding thatcost fixed for entitlement is Rs2 per kg for wheat and Rs 3 perkg for rice, which shall not becharged from the NFS benefi-ciaries (including AAY benefi-

ciaries) while obtaining theration for July 2020 toNovember 2020.

Hussain said, “During thelockdown the Department of

Food and Supplies has suc-cessfully made all-out effortstowards meeting the foodrequirements of the poor andvulnerable sections of the cityincluding NFS beneficiaries.Delhi govt had earlier provid-ed entitled ration free of cost tothe NFS beneficiaries for April-June also.”

The food minister cau-tioned the ration beneficiariesto be aware and not to pay any-thing for the foodgrains beingprovided to them as theGovernment of Delhi hasdecided to provide ration to thebeneficiaries, free of cost forJuly-November. “In case ben-eficiaries face any problem inreceiving ration free of cost atFPS, they may contact officersof the F&S Department forimmediate redressal,” he said.

The beneficiaries can makea complaint to the respectiveAssistant Commissioner, FoodSupplies Officer (FSO) or FoodSupplies Inspector (FSI). Theymay also complain about the

helpline number 1967 andother grievance redressal por-tals including PGMS.

Hussain also said that foreffective management at FairPrice Shops, the governmenthas deployed civil defence vol-unteers to ensure social dis-tancing norms and orderly dis-tribution of food grains.

The departmental officialsincluding assistant commis-sioners, food supply officersand food supply inspectorshave been deployed in the fieldround the clock to facilitate thedistribution of food grains, hesaid.

“All department officialsand the distribution team ofFPS are working seven days aweek without any weekly off.Members of the vigilance com-mittee are also actively moni-toring the distribution process.Area MLAs including ministersare also inspecting the FPSsfrom time to time to motivatethe staff and to ensure smoothdistribution,” Hussain added.

Gurugram : The death toll dueto Covid-19 in Gurugram hasreached 102 with one moredeath, health officials said onTuesday.

Gurugram, which has thehighest number of coronavirusdeaths among other districts inHaryana, also reported 123 freshcases. The district has 6,183patients and 5,117 of them haverecuperated from their ill-ness.Gurugram now has 964active cases and 732 of them arein home isolation, officialsadded.

Virender Yadav, CivilSurgeon of Gurugram, said thatthe administration has intensi-fied contact tracing in contain-ment zones.

Also, the district healthauthority will soon get arount10,000 more rapid antigen kits.Earlier they had 8,000 antigen

kits.“In the last 13 days, 10,000

people have been tested forcorona in Gurugram throughrapid antigen test kits and 347 ofthem were found positive. Now,for the prevention of corona, thedistrict administration andhealth department of Gurugramhave insisted on testing moreand more persons,” Yadav said.

Gurugram has eight suchcontainment zones where infec-tion rate was high. “We have ini-tiated door to door screening inthese zones to identify suspects.We are using the rapid antigenkit to test suspects," he said.

"We are offering free ofcharge tests in 13 centres in thecity and have also appealed toresidents who are having symp-toms to reach these centres fortesting," he added.

Staff Reporter

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New Delhi: With 2,008 newcases and 50 deaths in the last24 hours, the national capital'scoronavirus tally has risen to1,02,831 and toll to 3,165.

Till now, 74,217 peoplehave recovered, almost threetimes the number of activecases that stand at 25,449. Over3,165 deaths mean that thecity's fatality rate is 3 per cent.

While the city crossed thegrim milestone of 1,00,000cases on Monday, the silver lin-ing was the recovery rate thatexceeded 70 per cent.

According to Delhi gov-ernment's daily bulletin, 2,129patients recovered in the last 24hours. IANS

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Page 4:  · The Delhi Police on Tuesday organised its first ever Virtual Passing out Parade for constables at Police Training College, Jharoda Kalan, New Delhi. G Kishan Reddy, the Union

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With the price ofRemdesivir, the only

antiviral drug that is currentlyknown for treating Covid-19,shooting as high as upto�70,00-80,000 per vial in theblack market in some cities,doctors have called upon theGovernment to step in urgent-ly to check hoarding/pilferageof the medicine and ensure itsadequate availability to save thelives. The maximum retail priceof per 100 mg vial ofRemdesivir is between �4,800and �5,400, depending on thebrand.

“There have been variousreports from across the coun-try that relatives of the Covid-infected patients have beenrunning from pillar to post toget the vial and in many caseshave to shell out as high as�80,000 per vial as well.

“Covid 19 is a humanitar-ian crisis and during these dif-ficult times hoarding and blackmarketing can be big setback aswell as demoralising for thedoctors patients and families,”said Dr Rajinder K Dhamija ,Head of Neurology,Department at Lady HardingeMedical College and SSKHospital. He hoped that theGovernment would interveneat the earliest to ensure its avail-ability in hospitals and openmarkets as well.

In the absence of any otherproven medicine it is beingused as the main drug alongwith Tociluzumab and, unfor-tunately, both are in short sup-ply, he pointed out.

While four-fifths of theCovid-19 cases in India areasymptomatic and mild, theremaining 20 percent are mod-erate, requiring oxygen sup-port. Remdesivir has been

approved by the DCGI, coun-try’s drug regulator, for treatingsuch moderate cases with oxy-

gen support. “Presently,Remedesivir is not available inthe free market and is only dis-tributed through hospitals andthat creates a gap betweendemand and supply,” said DrDhamija.

The Government hadrecently revised the dosage ofthe Remdesivir being admin-istered to hospitalized Covid-

19 patients from the earlier six-day to five-day treatmentcourse, informed Dr RahulBhargava, Director and Head,Haematology and BoneMarrow Transplant, FortisMemorial Research Institute,Gurugram.

He too stressed on increas-ing the production and checkon pilferage. He explained the

modus operandi being used bythe hospitals too. In somecases, we have got reports thatdoctors avail Remdesivir foreven those Covid patients whodo not need it and then sell itin the open market to makemoney. There should be amechanism to check this pil-ferage, he said adding thatcurrently the drug is not under

Schedule H.Prof Bejon Misra, Founder

Director, Patients Safety andAccess Initiative was of theview that there is a need toreduce the price of each vialbecause in India affordability initself an issue especially duringthe pandemic situation.

Along with Cipla, Hetero,and Mylan, Gilead has licens-

ing deals with Jubilant LifeSciences, Dr Reddy's , ZydusCadila and Syngene to manu-facture and distributeRemdesivir in India and 126other countries. The DCGI,meanwhile, has also approvedMylan's version of Remdesivirwhile Hetero has been allowedto supply the drug to hospitalpharmacies.

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From scarcity to abundance.Against the backdrop of

sufficient supply of masks andsanitisers in the country, theGovernment has now takenout the two items from thepurview of the EssentialCommodities Act, 1955. Inother words, the Governmenthopes that the huge volumewill automatically check pricesof these two items that are con-sidered important for main-taining hygiene during theCovid-19 pandemic.Consumer Affairs SecretaryLeena Nandan said on Tuesdaythat there is sufficient supplyof the two items now and the‘essentials’ tag was no longerrequired. On March 13, theUnion Consumer AffairsMinistry had declared facemasks and hand sanitisers asessential commodities for 100days to boost supply and pre-vent hoarding of these items inits fight to check the spread ofcoronavirus.

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Coronavirus may have beenspreading like wildfire in

India which has occupied thethird slot among the worst-hitnations in the world, but theGovernment on Tuesdayclaimed that the country hasone of the lowest Covid-19deaths and cases per millionpopulation.

Referring to the ‘WHOSituation Report-168’ datedJuly 6, the Union HealthMinistry said India’s COVID-19 cases per million popula-tion is 505.37 as against theglobal average of 1,453.25.The recovery rate has alsoincreased to 61.13 per cent, itsaid.

As per the WHO report,

the US , Brazil, Spain, Russia,the UK, Italy and Mexico have8,560.5, 7,419.1, 5,358.7,4,713.5, 4,204.4, 3,996.1 and1,955.8 cases per million,respectively.

Similarly, even smallcountries like Chile has wit-nessed 15,459.8 COVID-19cases per million population,while Peru has 9,070.8 casesper million people, it said.

“The WHO SituationReport also shows that Indiahas one of the lowest deaths[due to COVID-19] per mil-lion population. India’s casesof death per million popula-tion is 14.27 while the globalaverage is more than its fourtimes, at 68.29,” the Ministrysaid in a statement here.

“Early detection and time-

ly effective clinical manage-ment of COVID-19 cases haveresulted in increasing dailyrecoveries,” said the Ministry adding that India hasramped up its hospital infra-structure adequately andeffectively.

Regarding Covid—19related deaths per million,

the WHO report said that theUnited Kingdom has 651.4,while the metric for Spain,Italy, France, the U.S., Peru,Brazil and Mexico is 607.1,576.6, 456.7, 391.0, 315.8,302.3 and 235.5 deaths,respectively.

The preparednessincludes arrangement of oxy-

gen support, ICU and venti-lator facilities. As on July 7,there are 1,201 dedicatedCOVID hospitals, 2,611COVID healthcare centresand 9,909 COVID care centres to look after patients with ‘very severe’ to‘very mild’ coronavirus symp-toms, it said.

“Such level of prepared-ness has shown results incontinuously improving therecovery rate and resulting inlow case fatality rate,” theMinistry said.

“As on date, the numberof recovered cases exceededthat of the active cases by1,80,390 on Tuesday. Therecover y rate among COVID-19 patients hasincreased to 61.13%,” it said.

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In what could come as a dis-appointment to India, which

has been looking towardsachieving “herd immunity” asa way to tackle the Covid-19, aSpanish study conducted onmore than 60,000 people hasshown that just about 5 per centof them developed antibodies.

Herd immunity is achievedwhen enough people becomeinfected with a virus to stop itsspread.

“Only 5 per cent from atotal of 61,000 patients thatparticipated in the research inSpain developed antibodies tobe able to fight the Covid-19 res-piratory disease debunking theconcept of “herd immunity”,according to a population-basedseroepidemiological survey in astudy published in the LancetJournal.

Experts found that Spain

was "very far" from reaching the60 per cent rate of infectionwithin the community for theherd immunity to work, withthe challenge of one-third of itspopulation asymptomatic aftercontracting the virus.

The study found that SARS-CoV-2 antibodies were notdeveloped in all of the 35,883households infected with thecoronavirus. "At present, herdimmunity is difficult to achievewithout accepting the collater-al damage of many deaths in thesusceptible population andoverburdening of health sys-tems," researchers said.

Despite the high impact ofCovid-19 in Spain, prevalenceestimates remain low and areclearly insufficient to provideherd immunity, the studyauthors said.

Additionally, theresearchers observed that for theherd immunity to develop, over

70 per cent to 90 per cent of thetotal population had to buildresistance to coronavirus, whichimplied most people in thecommunity had to be infected.With coronavirus symptomsfor each patient different, therewas a huge risk factor involved.Moreover, the study found thatCovid-19 antibodies were lessthan 3 per cent in the coastalregions, the large stretch ofareas in Spain.

The study holds impor-tance in the context of Indiawhere the Government hadbeen banking on achieving‘herd immunity’ sooner orlater to control the virus thathas infected over seven lakhspeople and killed over 20,000in the country. In this situation,social distancing measures andefforts to identify and isolatenew cases and their contactsremain imperative for futureepidemic control.

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The debate whether asth-matic patients are more

prone to Covid-19 or saferrages on.

Does inhaled corticos-teroids, which are commonlyused to protect against asthmaattacks, a saviour for asthmat-ic patients? Researchers havefound that while older age andconditions such as heart dis-ease, high blood pressure,chronic obstructive pulmonarydisease, diabetes and obesityare prone to progression ofCovid-19, the same is not truefor persons with asthma.

The study published in theJournal of Allergy and ClinicalImmunology, said that inhaledcorticosteroids, which are com-monly used to protect againstasthma attacks, may reduce thevirus' ability to establish aninfection.

However, many studieshave shown that steroids maydecrease the body's immuneresponse and worsen theinflammatory response.

Researchers from RutgersUniversity in the US found thatpeople with asthma - eventhose with diminished lungfunction who are being treat-ed to manage asthmaticinflammation - seem to be noworse affected by SARS-CoV-2 than a non-asthmatic person.

"Older age and conditionssuch as heart disease, highblood pressure, chronicobstructive pulmonary disease,diabetes and obesity are report-ed risk factors for the develop-ment and progression ofCovid-19," said Reynold A.Panettieri Jr, a pulmonary crit-ical care physician and directorof the Rutgers Institute forTranslational Medicine andScience.

But then, asthma is not yetproven as one such risk factor.

"There is limited data as towhy this is the case - if it isphysiological or a result of thetreatment to manage theinflammation," said PanettieriJr.

Children and young adultswith asthma suffer mainly from

allergic inflammation, whileolder adults who experience thesame type of airway inflam-mation can also suffer fromeosinophilic asthma -- a moresevere form.

In these cases, people expe-rience abnormally high levels ofa type of white blood cell thathelps the body fight infection,which can cause inflammationin the airways, sinuses, nasalpassages and lower respiratorytract, potentially making themmore at risk for a serious caseof Covid-19.

In addition, an enzymeattached to the cell membranesin the lungs, arteries, heart, kid-ney and intestines that hasbeen shown to be an entrypoint for SARS-CoV-2 intocells is increased in response tothe virus.

"This enzyme is alsothought to be beneficial inclearing other respiratory virus-es, especially in children. Howthis enzyme affects the abilityof Covid-19 to infect peoplewith asthma is still unclear,"said the study.

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Defence Minister RajanthSingh on Tuesday directed

the Border Roads Organsiation(BRO) that work on the strate-gic Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat BegOldi (DSDBO) road in EasternLadakh be fully completed byOctober this year. This was con-veyed at a meeting to review theprogress of construction activ-ities in border areas with BRODirector General Lt GeneralHarpal Singh.

“On the 255 km Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldi(DSDBO) road, the ongoingconstruction is almost done.About 45 km of black toppingwork is pending. Rajnathdirected that this has to be com-pleted by October 2020,” theysaid.

Stating that an alternateroute is also being made here,they added there is full focus onconnectivity terming it a toppriority. China has been object-ing to Indian road and infra-structure development at sev-eral points along the Line ofActual Control (LAC). A roadbranching from the DSDBO

road towards the Galwan Nalahis believed to be one of the rea-sons for Chinese objectionshere.

In May as the standoff wasunderway, the BRO stepped upefforts to fully resume con-struction work on all borderroads which was delayed due toCOVID pandemic. It is alsobuilding the 61 strategic Indo-China Border Roads (ICBRs)measuring 3323.57 Km inlength under the direction ofthe China Study Group (CSG).With COVID restrictions eas-ing and also obtaining specialpermission, construction

labour were moved in largenumbers to forward locationsby special trains.

In March this year, theParliamentary standing com-mittee on defence was informedthat the Border RoadsOrganisation (BRO) has com-pleted 75% of the constructionwork on the 61 Indo-ChinaBorder Roads (ICBRs) of length3323.57 km. Of these 12 roadsmeasuring about 1,064 km arein the Union Territories of‘Jammu and Kashmir’ andLadakh while three roads mea-suring about 62 km are inSikkim.

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The National MedicinalPlants Board (NMPB) and

ICAR-National Bureau of PlantGenetic Resources (NBPGR)have signed an agreement toconserve genetic resources ofmedicinal and aromatic plants.

According to theAgriculture Ministry, theobjective of the Memorandumof Understanding (MoU),signed on Monday, is to con-serve genetic resources ofmedicinal and aromatic plantsat designated space of ICAR-NBPGR in long-term storagemodule (as per availability) inthe National Gene Bank, andor at Regional Station formedium-term storage module.The agreement also aims toprovide hands-on training onplant germplasm conserva-

tion techniques to the workinggroup of NMPB under theAyush Ministry.

As per the MoU, NMPBand ICAR-NBPGR, on behalfof the Indian Council ofAgricultural Research (ICAR),would develop detailed modal-ities for seed storage of genet-ic resources of medicinal andaromatic plants, and submitperiodic progress reports totheir respective organisations.

Both NMPB and ICAR-NBPGR are committed toserve the national intereststhrough conservation ofgermplasm on a long-termbasis, safely and cost-effec-tively for present and futuregenerations to ensure socialand economic security, it said.

Medicinal plants areregarded as rich resources oftraditional medicines and are

being used for thousands ofyears in the health care sys-tem. India has a rich diversi-ty of medicinal plantresources, the ministry said.The natural resources aregradually getting depleted dueto various developmentalactivities in its habitat. Thereis a need to conserve theseresources and make sustain-able utilisation of them, itadded.

The conservation of plantgenetic resources is an integralpart of bio-diversity conser-vation. The purpose of con-servation is to make sustain-able development by protect-ing and using naturalresources in ways that do notdiminish the variety of genesand species or destroy impor-tant habitats and ecosystems,it said.

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MPs attendingParliamentary Standing

Committee meetings will haveto sit six feet apart, and notmore than two witnesses fromthe ministry concerned canappear before the panel at atime.

This is part of the eight-point protocol set by the RajyaSabha secretariat on Tuesdaykeeping in mind the COVID-

19 pandemic, ahead of themeetings of the StandingCommittees on Science andTechnology and Home Affairson July 10 and 15 respectively.

As per the protocol formeetings of Rajya SabhaCommittees, members have toensure conformity with phys-ical distancing norms.

"Members of theCommittee to be seated at adistance of 6 feet and appro-priate arrangements to be made

to accommodate the maxi-mum possible participation.

Only two witnesses fromthe Ministry/Departmentappearing before theCommittee for evidence wouldbe allowed at a time and if morenumber of witnesses were to beexamined, it would be done inturns.

There is no restriction onthe number of witnesses to beexamined by the Committees,"the new protocol said.

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The bitter trading ofcharges between the BJP

and the Congress continueduninterrupted on Tuesday onthe stand-off on the India-China border with BJP’s RajyaSabha MP Shiv Pratap Shuklaseeking apology from theCongress for repeatedly crit-icising Prime MinisterNarendra Modi for his state-ment on China.

Asserting that India hasgiven a clear message toChina under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, theBJP leader said, “ I feel thatIndia has succeeded in bothdiplomatic and military leveltalks. The Prime Minister’srecent visit to Leh also boost-ed the morale of jawans”, hesaid.

Shukla slammedCongress for seeking apologyfrom the Prime Minister forhis last statement on Chinaand called for a reverse apol-ogy from the oppositionparty.

“I think Congress shouldapologise to the country foraccusing PM Modi so manytimes , who is deeply associ-ated with the public”, the RSMP was quoted by newsagency ANI as saying.

The Congress demandedan apology after the reportsthat Chinse troops were mov-ing back from their currentheld position at Galwan valley in Eastern Ladakh.Congress sought to contrastthe development with “noincursions” statement of thePrime Minister in the all-party meet, last month.

BJP and the Congresshave been verbally clashingwith each other on the dailybasis on the India-China face-of f on the Line of Actual Control with BJP por-traying the latest develop-ments on the border as vic-tor y for the Modi-Government whereas theCongress doubting govern-ment assertions and demand-ing “restoration of status quoante”.

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The Supreme CourtTuesday asked the Uttar

Pradesh government to file astatus report on news articlesthat 57 minor girls of Kanpur-based shelter home have test-ed positive for COVID-19.

The top court has takensuo motu (on its own) cog-nizance of the condition ofchildren in protection -- be it

juvenile, foster or kinshiphomes across the country --amid the coronavirus orCOVID-19 pandemic.

Recently, lawyer AparnaBhat moved a plea seekingproper “medical treatmentand facilities” to 57 minorgirls, who have tested positivefor COVID-19 in a Kanpur-based shelter home in UttarPradesh.

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Page 5:  · The Delhi Police on Tuesday organised its first ever Virtual Passing out Parade for constables at Police Training College, Jharoda Kalan, New Delhi. G Kishan Reddy, the Union

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The death toll in the July 1boiler explosion mishap at

Neyveli Lignite Corporation’spower station reached 12 as sixmore persons admitted to acorporate hospital in Chennaisuccumbed to the injuries dur-ing July 3 to 5, said a releaseissued by the public sectorgiant.

The dead include onedeputy chief engineer, twojunior engineers, a foremanand two contract staff. Sixcontract workers had lost theirlives in the accident site itselfon July 1.

The release said that theNLC management has declareda solatium of Rs 30 lakh to thefamilies of the deceased. Thecompensation is given by theMinistry of Coal and the NLC.

A deputy general managerand an additional deputy gen-eral manager have been sus-pended as part of the inter-departmental inquiry orderedby the company into the factorswhich led to the boiler blastand the loss of lives.

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There was some relief forTamil Nadu on Tuesday as

the State saw a small fall in thenumber of persons tested pos-itive for coronavirus. Accordingto the bulletin issued by the

Tamil Nadu Government,3,616 persons were diagnosedwith the pandemic on Tuesdaywhile the fatalities continued tobe on the higher side. The Statesaw 65 persons succumbing toCovid-19 on Tuesday.

On July 2, the total num-ber of persons tested positivefor Covid were 4,343 and sincethen there has been a fall in thenumber of cases, though small.As on Tuesday, there were 45,839 active patients in the State

while the total number ofcovid-19 cases tested till datereached 1.18 lakh.

The 96 laboratories acrossthe State tested 35, 423 personson Tuesday while the totalnumber of persons tested pos-itive till date reached 1.3 mil-lion. The day also saw 4, 545getting discharged from thehospitals across the State andthis took the number ofpatients cured of the disease to71,116.

The decrease in the num-ber of positive cases over thelast five days is in synch withthe statement by HealthMinister Dr Vijaya Baskar thatthe flattening of the infectioncurve has begun in the State.“Due to measures taken by theGovernment , the curve is notpeaking but flattening inChennai,” the minister hadtold local journalists.

Chennai tested 1,203 per-sons with Covid on Tuesday

and this is an important devel-opment. The Metropolis hadtested 1,747 persons with covidon Monday. Similarly,Chengalpet registered 87 per-sons on Tuesday against the fig-ure of 213 on Monday. Thenumber of persons tested pos-itive in Kancheepuram tooshowed a major change onTuesday. While 106 persons inthe district were found to bepositive on Tuesday, there were182 cases tested on Monday.Only Thiruvallur districtshowed an increase in thenumber of persons (217)afflicted with covid on Tuesday.

The districts of Madurai,Virudhunagar andThoothukudi continued to beproblematic for theGovernment as there has beennotable increase in the numberof cases which may necessitatelock down, according to doc-tors in these districts.

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In an apparent precursor to itsfuture plans of making the

Central Government’s “sweepingprivatisation” exercise as one ofits main electoral planks in thenext year’s Assembly electionsthe ruling Trinamool Congresson Tuesday launched campaignsthroughout Bengal against theBJP demanding immediate rollback of what its leaders called “aconspiracy to privatise the IndianRailways.”

Senior party leaders includ-ing MP Mala Roy, Firhad Hakimled hundreds of slogan shoutingdemonstrators at various placesof Kolkata includingKhidderpore, Tollygunge andBehala. The district and blockunits protested at Purulia,Hooghly, Birbhum, Malda andother parts of the State.

“This BJP Government hasa defined policy of dividingIndia along religious lines andtaking advantage of a dividedelectorate create a dictatorship ofthe capitalist forces … India willhenceforward be divided into acapitalist India and poor man’sBharat where the capitalists willrule through their puppets in theBJP,” Hakim a senior Minister in

the Mamata Cabinet said.In what looked like state-

ments taken directly out of theLeft leaders’ mouths he said“the privatization goes hand inhand and through privatizationof Railways and other profit-making institutions thisGovernment will mortgage thecountry into the hands of Indianand foreign capitalist powers.”

Demanding immediate roll-back of the decision to run 159private trains throughout IndiaRoy, the South Kolkata MP saidthe “As has been the practiceMamata always takes up a causewhile other parties follow it. Inthis case too we have launchedthis movement … we will not leta sale-out of the public wealthlike this.”

The Left and Congress toostaged a joint demonstration atdown town Park Street demand-ing a withdrawal of the decision.“India does not belong to the BJP,neither it belongs to theexploiters… it belongs to thepeople in general particularly, thetoiling mass whose sweat and toilhave gone into making of whatIndian Railways is today. So ahandful of leaders in the Centrecannot take this important deci-sion and it has to be taken

back,” said CPI(M) politburomember Biman Bose.

Congress MP PradipBhattacharya too attacked theCentre for taking “arbitrary deci-sions by-passing the people’srepresentatives and by takingadvantage of the handicap thatthe opposition suffers from dur-ing the corona period. TheCongress and the Left firmlydemands its roll back.”

The Left and the Congresshave also decided to build up ajoint movement against the deci-sion to disinvest Coal India, theleaders nsaid. “How can a PSUwhich has registered a profit ofRs 27,000 crore last year be soldat one go … there is larger con-spiracy behind what the BJP isdoing and they will have torepent for it in future,” saidForward Bloc leader Naren Dey.

SRINAGAR: The NIA hasarrested a Pulwama resident forallegedly providing logisticalsupport to terrorists involved inplanning the attack on a CRPFconvoy that left 40 jawans deadin the south Kashmir district inFebruary last year, officialssaid on Tuesday.

Bilal Ahmed Kuchey, a res-ident of Kakpora of Pulwamadistrict, is the seventh personto be arrested in connectionwith the attack.

The sawmill owner wason Monday produced before adesignated court in Jammuwhich sent him to NationalInvestigation Agency custodyfor 10 days, the officials said.

They said he had allowedthe terrorists to use his houseas a hideout and also providedthem with high-end mobilephones used for communica-tion with Pakistan-based han-dlers of the Jaish-e-Mohammed.

The same mobile was usedby Adil Ahmed Dar, the suicidebomber, for recording hisvideo, they said.

On February 14 last year,the suicide bomber blew him-self up next to a CRPF bus,which was part of a 78-vehicleconvoy carrying over 2,500personnel on their way fromJammu to Srinagar. Forty CRPFpersonnel were killed. PTI

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Alarmed at the steep rise incorona cases the Bengal

Government on Tuesday decid-ed to re-impose lockdown incontainment zones which inany case went up by at least 11digits in Capital Kolkata alone.

Following recommenda-tions from 10 districts includ-

ing North 24 and South 24Parganas, Malda, NorthDinajpur the State Governmenthas decided to slap lockdownonce again in all the contain-ment zones where no businessapart from essential serviceswill be allowed to remain open.The new phase of lockdownwill begin from July 9 theGovernment circular said.

The order will be imple-mented in Kolkata too wherethe number of containmentzones went up from 17 onMonday to 28 on Tuesday.After the State Capital, North 24Parganas continued to witness

highest number of cases whichhad crossed the 4,000 marks.

“At present only the urbanareas of the district will remainunder lockdown,” sources saidadding large parts of Maldaincluding Ingrez Bazaar munic-ipality, Old Malda andKaliachak had once again beenbrought under lockdown.Dalkhola region at the junctionof NH 31 and 34 connectingrest of India to the North Easttoo have been brought underlockdown, sources said.

In Kolkata the MunicipalCorporation authorities com-plained the rise in the number

of cases was because of the“wayward attitude of the upperechelon of the society.”

“There are reports that thepeople living in high rise apart-ments and private mansions arenot following the guidelineswhich is why Kolkata is wit-nessing a steep rise in coronacases… if this is not stoppedhere and now then things cantake uglier turn,” Atin Ghosh asenior member in the KMC’sadministrative team and formerDeputy Mayor said.

Out of the 255 cases thatKolkata recorded in the past 24hours only 13 came from the

slums where as the remainingcases came from the rich andmiddle class families meaningthereby that they are not fol-lowing the norms, Ghosh said.

The total number of casesin Bengal has crossed 23,000with only one inspiring newsthat the recovery rate has goneas high as about 69 percent,sources said. As of Mondayevening, there were 6,973 activecases in the State, while the totaltally is at 22,987.

Meanwhile after suspend-ing flights linking Kolkata tohotspot cities the Centre hasnow decided to reduce the fre-

quency of trains coming toHowrah.

With Bengal seeing a spikein corona cases the IndianRailways have decided toreduce the number of specialtrains to Howrah fromMumbai, Ahmedabad andDelhi.

The special trains will nowrun weekly instead of daily,sources said adding the decisionwas taken following requestsfrom the State Government tothe Railway Ministry. StateChief Secretary had earlierwritten a letter in this regard tothe Chairman of the Railway

Board.Accordingly the Howrah-

Ahmedabad Special will runonce a week instead of daily,from July 10 and reverse fromJuly 13, while the

Howrah-Mumbai CSMTSpecial will run weekly fromJuly 15 and reverse from July 17.

The Howrah-Delhi viaPatna will run once a weekfrom July 11 and reverse fromJuly 12, whereas, Howrah-Delhivia Dhanbad will run weeklyfrom July 16 and reverse fromJuly 17. Flights to Kolkata fromhotspot zones would remainsuspended till July 16.

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Pinarayi Vijayan, ChiefMinister of Kerala, who is in

the eye of a storm over reportsabout gold smuggling throughdiplomatic channel viaThiruvananthapuram Airportwith the connivance of theChief Minister’s Office, putthe blame on the CentralGovernment for its failure tocheck such activities.

“Airports in the countryare all managed by the CentralGovernment. The Customsofficials deployed in these air-ports are Central Governmentofficials and if smuggling ofgold is happening in airports,it shows the incapability of theCentre. The KeralaGovernment has no role in itand we are always ready to helpthe investigating agencies withany help,” said the ChiefMinister when he was askedthe alleged role of his trustedofficial in the incident of goldsmuggling through diplomat-ic channel.

Vijayan pointed out thatthe parcel which arrived at theairport was addressed to theUAE Consulate and not to the

Kerala Government. “Thename of a lady (Swapna Suresh)has been roped in by some peo-ple to discredit the ChiefMinister’s Office. She has norole in the CMO and she is nota staff of the CMO,” said theChief Minister who decried theattempts by the Opposition todefame him by spreading fakenews.

The Chief Minister saidthat Swapna Suresh was hiredby a placement agency to workfor the IT Department basedon her previous experience inthe UAE Consulate and AirIndia SATS (Singapore AirportTerminal Services) . “You haveto find out who helped her toget a job in Air India SATS , aCentral Government ownedenterprise. We in KeralaGovernment do not have any-thing to do with her,” said theChief Minister.

He reiterated that SwapnaSuresh was working on con-tract basis for the ITDepartment of Kerala and shehas no direct dealings with theGovernment. Vijayan blamed asection of the media was tryingto distort his image in thebackdrop of the upcoming

election to the legislativeassembly. Kerala will go to thepolls in April-May 2021 toelect a new legislative assembly.

On Sunday, the Customsofficials had seized a consign-ment of 30 kg gold (valued atRs 15 crore in Indian market)addressed to the UAEConsulate in the capital citywhich was booked as a diplo-matic baggage. Sarith, a formerUAE Consulate staff has beenarrested in connection with theincident while Swapna Suresh,the kingpin is missing sincethen.

M Sivasankar, principalsecretary in the CMO who wasalso the IT Secretary is report-ed to have close liaison with thecontroversial woman.Sivsankar has been shunted outof the CMO and removed fromthe post of IT Secretary onTuesday.

Meanwhile RameshChennaithala, leader of oppo-sition has written to PrimeMinister Narendra Modi seek-ing CBI probe into the wholeaffair. The name of SwapnaSuresh has been linked to someof the top CPI(M) leaders inthe State.

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An unprecedented situationhas emerged in Kerala,

according to Chief MinisterPinarayi Vijayan. Briefingmedia persons in a virtualpress meet, the septuagenari-an Vijayan who looked visiblyupset said that Tuesday saw272 persons getting diagnosedwith Covid-19. “This is thehighest number to be testedpositive on a single day in theState. While 157 of those whodiagnosed with Covid-19 on

Tuesday were from foreigncountries and 38 are thosefrom other parts of the State,it has been noted that 68 per-sons got infected of the pan-demic through transmission,”said Vijayan.

The Chief Minister spentmost of his briefing time plead-ing with the people of the Stateto cooperate with the govern-ment in observing the rulesand regulations like social dis-tancing and wearing of facemasks to prevent the spread ofthe pandemic.

“It is time for us to observemaximum caution and safetymeasures to prevent the spreadof the disease. As on today,there is no sign of communi-ty transmission in Keralathough the number of peoplewho are afflicted throughsocial contacts is on the high-er side,” said Vijayan.

The chief minister said ason date there were 3,034 per-sons undergoing treatment inthe hospitals in Ketrala. “OnTuesday, 378 persons werehospitalised because of coron-

avirus affliction. The numberof hotspots in the State havegone up to 169 on Tuesday,” hesaid.

According to the chiefminister, the State has collect-ed 2.85 lakh samples tillTuesday for testing for Covid-29. He also said that till date4.99 lakh persons have comeback to the State since theannouncement of lock down.“Out of this, 1.85 lakh are fromabroad and the remainingfrom other parts of India,” hesaid.

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Guwahati: A door-to-door Covid-19 test-ing programme has been launched here onTuesday following a surge in Covid-19 casesin the past two weeks. Health MinisterHimanta Biswa Sarma is personally moni-toring the programme in the Pandu area ofthe Guwahati Municipal Corporation(GMC), and is asking people to cooperate,not panic.

"In the state, 786 new cases were detect-ed on Monday night. Of this, 598 were fromGuwahati alone. We aim to conduct 3,000tests in the Ward No 2 (Pandu area) in twodays," he said. According to the Health andFamily Welfare Department officials, the stategovernment has procured 200,000 rapid anti-gen testing kits for quick testing.

The pilot project was launched in the

Pandu area as it turned into a hotspot of'community transmission". "Among the33,000 population, majority have no travelhistory," said an official.

After withdrawal of travel restrictions,3,11,217 people returned to Assam by road,trains and air from different parts of thecountry, which raised the number of coro-navirus cases, they said. IANS

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The COVID-19 pandemic hasexposed the fault lines, vulner-abilities and infirmities thatexist in India’s labour law andpolicy framework. On the sur-

face, the country’s legal structure boastsof 200 State laws and around 45 Centralrules that govern the employer-employ-ee relationship. India is a labour surpluscountry with 47 million unemployedbelow the age of 24 years and 12-13 mil-lion youths joining the labour marketevery year. Almost 93 per cent of India’slabour force works in the unorganisedsector, the majority of whom are unskilledand poorly educated. Nearly 90 per centof India’s estimated 47 crore workforce isnot benefitting from the existing labourlaw provisions.

But the irony is that the multitude oflaws have neither uplifted the socio-eco-nomic conditions of the workers nor havethey incentivised economic develop-ment. This because they “over regulate”and create legal hurdles at every stage ofrunning an enterprise.

Last year, the Union Governmentdrafted four labour codes as part of aprocess to streamline these laws. Theywere the Code on Wages (approved byParliament), the Industrial RelationsCode, Code on Social Security andWelfare and the Code on OccupationalSafety, Health and Working Conditions.These codes will subsume within them-selves various legislations related to spe-cific areas of labour law. TheGovernment’s move guarantees trans-parency and accountability. But this isalso an opportune time to revisit theselaws in the light of the health, safety andlivelihood challenges faced by the work-ers.

Another striking feature of the Indianlabour landscape is that the proportionof informal workers in the total partici-pating labour force is a staggering 90 percent. In other words, 90 per cent of thework force does not have job security ora social safety net.

This became apparent when migrantworkers, who form part of the circulareconomy, were left in the lurch withoutany social security net to tide over theCOVID-19-induced lockdown. Left withno guarantee of shelter, their next mealor any certainty as to when the lockdownwould end, the workers started a long andperilous walk back to their home States.

It is paramount to consider the linkbetween the inadequacies in an existinglaw, its implementation and accountabil-ity vis-à-vis the State and the enterprisethat has to abide by it. Let us first exam-ine the laws and regulations that arealready in place.

For the workers’ benefit, theGovernment has created certain socialsecurity nets like the Employees’ State

Insurance Scheme (ESI) andthe Provident Fund (PF) forlabourers who work in theorganised sector. It is the dutyof the employers or the con-tractors to register theiremployees under theseschemes but in practice, theygrossly under report the num-ber of such workers to reducecompliance costs. As a result,the JAM trinity-linked directtransfer schemes are difficult toimplement because a largenumber of employees are invis-ible.

Further, schemes such asthe Building and OtherConstruction Workers(BoCW), a welfare fund set upunder the Building and OtherConstruction Workers(Regulation of Employmentand Conditions of Service)Act, 1996, meant for the largestsection of the migrant workersand informal labour also relyon registration. The LabourMinistry reported that around�31,000 crore was lyingunspent in BoCW funds.Several activists have also high-lighted that migrant workersdid not receive any benefitand that the BoCW fund hasregistered many bogus workers.

In this context, the need foran accountability and fair workombudsman has been verymuch felt. Such an institutionwould ensure that worker ben-

efit schemes are better imple-mented and utilised so thattheir true beneficiaries receivethe required social safety net,especially in times of crisis.

Uncertain times call fordrastic changes to the labourlaws in order to deliver stake-holder benefits. However, in thepast month, several States havetaken steps to suspend extantlabour laws rather thanstrengthen them.

The primary logic, ratherthe zeal, behind this move is toincentivise economic growth onthe assumption that deregula-tion through labour lawreforms will enhance econom-ic prospects. The Uttar PradeshGovernment has proposed thesuspension of all labour laws forthe next three years. Only thosethat are related to payment oftimely wages, prohibition ofbonded labour and health andsafety of workers are excluded.

The Madhya PradeshGovernment’s amendmentsfocus on new factories andestablishments which would beexempted from the provisionsof the Industrial Disputes Act,1947. These State Governmentshave also suspended the work-ing of the Act, which hampersthe rights of a worker toapproach the IndustrialTribunal in case of an industri-al dispute or seek compensa-tion in case of layoffs and

retrenchments.However, a conjoint read-

ing of Article 246, 213 and 254of the Constitution demon-strates that a Governor cannotpromulgate any ordinancewithout the assent of thePresident in relation to anordinance which suspendslabour laws. As of date, thePresident has not granted suchassent to these changes pro-posed by various States.

One cannot do away withthe labour law regulations justto ease pressure on economicgrowth. Their removal is anti-thetical to the idea of a socialnet that makes the workers feelsecure at their workplace. Mostimportantly, these labourchanges will last for only threeyears. Such a sunset clause isbound to detract rather thanattract investments due to theshort-lived nature of theseincentives. Industry requires alabour law structure that is sta-ble and secure rather than onewhich changes every few years.

The need of the hour is thatGovernments, while continu-ing the process to streamlineexisting laws, strike a balancingact and implement beneficialand investor-friendly labourreforms, which address thedeep-rooted problems for theworkers’ welfare.

(The writer is a Delhi-basedlawyer)

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Sir —This refers to the editorial,“Too long a distance” (July 4).Indeed, it is good to see reformstaking place in Indian Railways.They were long overdue. TheRailways do not generate profitand are barely able to meet theiryearly expenses due to various rea-sons. Privatisation of 109 routeswill not only improve efficiencybut also passenger experience.

Now, the bigger question iswhether private companies wouldbe able to make this a viable pro-ject. The private players are like-ly to charge more for tickets andthey will have to share their prof-its with the Railways. Also, theRailways will run on the sameroutes within an hour of the pri-vate trains. So, the Railways willhave to come out with a strategywhich should be long-term andsustainable for both the privateplayers and the public enterprise.

Bal GovindNoida

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Sir —The proposal to launch anindigenous COVID-19 vaccine is

a welcome step as our country hasa huge population and the pan-demic has caused unprecedenteddamage. However, the date oflaunch proposed by the IndianCouncil of Medical Research(ICMR) appears to be too closeand there is an apprehension thatcertain procedures may be com-

promised to meet that deadline. India will be the single-largest

consumer of the vaccine globallyand if we have to get priority indistribution of the vaccine, weshould have our own source ofsupply. Further, going by thetrack record of the companywhich has developed the candi-

date, there is hope for success.While it is understood that elab-orate trials and documentation asfollowed in the US may not be fea-sible in this case in view of theurgency to save lives, the safetyand efficacy of the vaccine shouldnot be compromised. One hopesthat the identified investigators

will do a fair job. The nationawaits the right vaccine at the righttime.

Harshal Suresh Desale Pune

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Sir — The deaths of Irrfan Khan,Rishi Kapoor, Sushant SinghRajput and now Saroj Khan aregreat blows to the Hindi filmindustry. All of them have leftbehind memorable pieces of workthat will continue to set standardsfor Indian cinema. Khan, who hada career spanning four decades,was an iconic choreographer anda teacher who made dancing lookeasy. Credited for over 2,000 dancenumbers, she created signaturemoves for actors like MadhuriDixit in Tezaab, Aishwarya RaiBachchan in Taal and Sridevi inMr India. Khan also mentored afew aspiring choreographers whobecame successful in their ownright. Her death is an immeasur-able loss to the film industry.

Jubel D’CruzMumbai

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Page 7:  · The Delhi Police on Tuesday organised its first ever Virtual Passing out Parade for constables at Police Training College, Jharoda Kalan, New Delhi. G Kishan Reddy, the Union

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During the last three weeks of June, the oilmarketing public sector undertakings(PSUs), namely the Indian Oil

Corporation Limited (IOCL), Bharat PetroleumCorporation Limited (BPCL) and HindustanPetroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL),increased the retail prices of petrol and dieselcontinuously almost daily. The cumulative hikeworks out to about �9 per litre of petrol and �11per litre in case of diesel. As a result, the cur-rent price of both the fuels in Delhi is �80.5 perlitre. In April/May, petrol was selling at �71 perlitre whereas diesel was �69 per litre.

The prices of these fuels are deregulated(petrol since June 2010 and diesel since October2014). Under the subsisting arrangement, oilmarketing PSUs calculate their prices at thepump by adding four components, viz. the ex-refinery price (ERP), freight charges, dealer com-mission and taxes. The ERP in turn is linked tothe import parity price (IMPP) and export par-ity price (EPP) of respective fuels in the ratio of80:20. The price is fixed on a daily basis takinginto account the variation in IMPP/EPP. Changesin the other components, if any, are also reflect-ed as and when these happen.

The IMPP/EPP or international prices (asunderstood in common parlance) of theseproducts move in tandem with the movementin international prices of crude oil — the basicraw material that is processed in refineries to geta variety of petroleum products (POL), includ-ing petrol and diesel. The price of crude oildepends on the global supply and demand bal-ance. If the demand exceeds supply, the priceincreases; in case supply exceeds demand, theprice decreases.

In January, when the international price ofcrude was ruling at about $60 per barrel, the priceof petrol (in Delhi) was �76 per litre and that ofdiesel �68. In February/March when theCOVID-19 crisis was building up, leading to acontraction in global demand, the OPEC(Organisation of Petroleum ExportingCountries) and non-OPEC suppliers wanted toclinch a deal to reduce supplies but failed. As aresult, the crude price plunged to around $30 perbarrel in March. In that month, even as the priceof petrol was down to about �70 per litre, dieselcontinued to hover around the same level as itwas in January.

By April the devastation caused by the con-tagion reached its zenith. This resulted indestruction of global oil demand by an unprece-dented 29 million barrels per day (MBPD). Thistime around, the OPEC and others reached anagreement to cut supplies by 10 MBPD. However,the agreed cut being far short of the contractionin demand, the deal failed to stem the slide incrude prices which plummeted to a low of $17per barrel. Despite this, the price of petrol anddiesel more or less remained unchanged at �71per litre and �69 respectively.

During May/June, with calibrated unlock-ing in different parts of the world and easing ofexcess supply, the crude price firmed up to about$30 per barrel in May and further up to a littleabove $40 per barrel in June. Correspondingly,the retail price of petrol and diesel has escalat-ed to about �80.5 per litre each. The above trendspoint towards brazen violation of the underly-ing principle of pricing. Despite the price ofcrude in April being nearly one-fourth of its level

in January, the consumers in Delhi werepaying for diesel at the same ratewhereas, for petrol they paid margin-ally less by �5 per litre. By June, whencrude increased to $40 per barrel(which is two-third of the Januarylevel), they are paying more than �80per litre for both — significantly high-er than January level. The blame liessquarely with the Centre and States,which raised taxes when the interna-tional prices were moving south (up toApril) but did not lower them when theprices reversed the trajectory(May/June). On March 14, the CentralGovernment increased Central ExciseDuty (CED) on petrol and diesel by �3per litre each. In May it resorted toanother hike in CED, this being muchsteeper at �10 per litre on petrol and�13 per litre on diesel. In a short spanof less than a month, it has increasedduty on petrol by �13 per litre and ondiesel by a whopping �16. The States,too, increased Value Added Tax (VAT)substantially; e.g. Delhi by as much as�7 per litre.

Faced with a steep decline in taxrevenue during the current year (thiscould be as high as �4,00,000 crore) andballooning expenditure commitments,including health as well as livelihood-related and given the compulsions ofavoiding a major slippage in fiscaldeficit, the Centre saw a golden oppor-tunity to raise extra resources by hik-ing the CED. This could pass muster aslong as it didn’t result in higher priceto consumers. But, this wouldn’t beacceptable if it starts pricking them.And this is precisely what happened inJune. The Government could haverolled back a portion of the hike in CED

when crude prices firmed up inMay/June. But that was not done lead-ing to a steep increase in prices at thepump.

Under the scheme of sharingCentral taxes with States as per the rec-ommendation of the FinanceCommission, the Central Governmentis required to transfer 42 per cent of itscollection to them. However, the Roadand Infrastructure Cess (RaIC) — apart of CED — is kept out of the divis-ible pool. In other words, the formercan keep the whole of RaIC with itself.No wonder, out of the steep increase inCED at �10 per litre on petrol and �13on diesel in May, the Centre collected�8 per litre each in the form of RaIC.Out of the current CED on petrol at �33per litre, �18 per litre comes from thecess whereas, for diesel, out of �32 perlitre CED, RaIC is �12 per litre.

It is abundantly clear that irrespec-tive of the international price scenario(whether low or high), the NarendraModi Government appears to havetaken a conscious policy decision tokeep the CED high and that, too, most-ly in the form of RaIC, which enablesit to retain an overwhelming portion ofthe collection with itself. Not to be leftbehind, the States also extract theirpound of flesh.

We thus have an abhorrent situa-tion whereby taxes alone account forabout two-third of the price at thepump. The high fuel price contributesto high inflation and higher cost of fer-tilisers and food. Since the Governmentcontrols their prices at a low level tomake them affordable to users, a goodslice of extra revenue is given back ashigher subsidy. To that extent, the rev-

enue gain from higher CED is imagi-nary. The cost of fuel is a major com-ponent of operational cost of any firmincluding micro, small and mediumenterprises (MSMEs). It is ironic thaton one hand, the Government is mak-ing all out efforts (moratorium on loanrepayment, additional working capital,lower interest rate and so on) to ensurethat they come out of the crisis. On theother, it increases their cost of opera-tions (courtesy, steep hike in CED).

The high taxes are also a major bot-tleneck in the way of removing the cur-rent tag of “zero rating” under theGoods and Services Tax (GST) whichis a jargon to continue petrol, diesel(besides natural gas, crude and aviationturbine fuel or ATF) under the erst-while regime of CED, VAT and otherlocal taxes. Even if these fuels were tobe put under the highest tax slab, theapplicable rate will be 28 per cent.Against this, the current incidence oftax under CED/VAT being more thandouble the cost of supply, the Centreand States will shudder at the very ideaof including these products under theGST dispensation.

The Government must not becometoo dependent on oil taxes for increas-ing its revenue and maintaining the fis-cal balance. With 2020-21 being anexcruciating year, it may continue withcurrent CED for now, but from nextyear, the hikes affected in March/Mayshould be rolled back. Thereafter, itshould gradually reduce it to reasonablerates preferably to a level less than �10per litre (in 2014, CED was �9.8 per litreon petrol and �3.8 per litre on diesel).

(The writer is a New Delhi-basedpolicy analyst)

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The world is constantly beingfed news and reports focussedon COVID-19-related mat-

ters. The most exciting among themis any news about the possible dis-covery of a wonder drug or a vaccineagainst COVID-19 that would helpmankind get rid of this pandemicand solve all problems resultingfrom it.

People get excited as soon as anew drug development is announcedand TV channels grab eyeballs bybreaking news about newer vaccineshaving been developed by scientistsfrom around the world. Let mereassure you that no drug or vaccine

can be developed overnight. In factit takes years of research and clini-cal trials before any new drug or vac-cine can be made available for com-mercial use. Most people wouldwonder why. The answer lies inunderstanding how any vaccine dis-covery process works.

The first step is the exploratorystage, where the scientists identifynatural or synthetic antigens thatmight help prevent or treat a disease.These antigens could include virus-like particles, weakened viruses orbacteria, weakened bacterial toxins.This stage alone usually takes at leasttwo years but with COVID-19, sci-entists have a head start because thisisn’t the first Coronavirus they havetried to make a vaccine for. Vaccinetrials for Severe Acute RespiratorySyndrome (SARS) and Middle EastRespiratory Syndrome (MERS) hadalready begun in 2003 and 2012respectively but were abandonedwhen those outbreaks receded on

their own. Then comes the pre-clin-ical stage where animal testing isundertaken using rats, rabbits ormonkeys. Scientists may vaccinatethe animals and then try to infectthem with the target pathogen, to testthe immune response of the candi-date vaccine as well as its safety. Thesestudies give an idea of the responsethey might expect in human bodiesand help arrive at a safe starting doseas well as a safe method of adminis-tering the vaccine.

Many candidate vaccines neverprogress beyond this stage becausethey fail to produce the desiredimmune response. This process takesat least a year. On successful comple-tion of animal trials, an institution,private sponsor or company puts upapplications to regulatory authoritiesfor approval of the investigationalnew drug. Human trials can onlybegin after such approvals are grant-ed.

The vaccine now enters phase I

of human trials, which may have asmall group of 20 to 50 participants.Participants are injected with the vac-cine to assess the type and extent ofimmune response in humans. Asmall minority of participants maybe injected with the pathogen afterthey have been vaccinated.

Promising results in this phaseallow the drug to enter into the PhaseII of testing. Several hundred volun-teers participate in Phase II testing.These are randomised trials andinclude a controlled group of peoplethat are given the drug and a place-bo group of people that are givensaline or water.

The objectives of Phase II test-ing are to further evaluate the vac-cine’s safety, immunogenicity, pro-posed doses, schedule of immunisa-tions and method of delivery.

Successful Phase II candidatevaccines move on to larger trials orPhase III. This phase involves thou-sands of people and the experimen-

tal vaccine is tested against a place-bo. These trials are randomised anddouble blind which means that nei-ther the volunteer nor the health offi-cials are aware of who received thevaccine and who got the placebo. Tofully assess the protective efficacy andsafety of a vaccine, this phase of test-ing usually requires hundreds ofthousands of participants. The Salkpolio vaccine was tested on over 1.3million people. On successful com-pletion of this phase the vaccine getslicenced for commercial produc-tion.

The World Health Organisation(WHO) recommends that if a vac-cine contains genetically modifiedorganisms (GMOs) anEnvironmental Risk Assessmentshould also be undertaken andapproved by the appropriate agency.

In general, non vaccine drugs aredeveloped, tested and regulated in amanner almost similar to vaccinesexcept that the number of human

subjects in vaccine trials is usuallylarger.

Scientists caution that less than10 per cent of the drugs that enterclinical trials in the US are approvedby the Food and DrugAdministration. The rest fail becausethey are not effective or have toomany side effects. Because of thishigh failure rate, we must have mul-tiple potential vaccines to test.

To put things in perspective, thehistory of vaccine developmentworldwide is not encouraging. Therecord in the US for developing anentirely new vaccine is four years.Despite all the efforts under way tofast track administrative clearances,experts in the US believe that a vac-cine against the Coronavirus couldbe developed in 12 to 18 months.

And beyond this point lie thechallenges of production and distri-bution at scale. All vaccines requiremaintenance of the cold chain to pre-serve their efficacy. Setting up scaled

production and distribution infra-structure will require collaborationbetween the public and private sec-tors which in turn will add to thetime to market.

So one must not get too excitedby the frequent breaking news on TVand our WhatsApp groups. Anyclaim of an instant breakthrough inCOVID-19 care is a sham for sure.And any Government or organisa-tion claiming that they would havea drug or vaccine ready in a matterof months should be taken to task forspreading false hope and makingirresponsible claims. The truth is thatscience cannot be rushed and thedevelopment of a reliable and safevaccine or drug by any institution, nomatter where, will need to follow thehighest standards of rigour, and thatwill take time. In the meantime,social distancing is the only protec-tion you need from the pandemic.(The writer is a neurosurgeon atApollo Hospital)

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Page 8:  · The Delhi Police on Tuesday organised its first ever Virtual Passing out Parade for constables at Police Training College, Jharoda Kalan, New Delhi. G Kishan Reddy, the Union

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Washington/New York: In amove that will adversely impacthundreds of thousands ofIndian students, the US immi-gration authority hasannounced that foreign stu-dents will have to leave thecountry or risk deportation iftheir universities switch toonline-only classes in this fallsemester due to the coronaviruspandemic.

The Immigration andCustoms Enforcement (ICE)said in a press release onMonday that for the fall 2020semester students attendingschools operating entirelyonline may not take a fullonline course load and remainin the US.

“The US Department ofState will not issue visas to stu-

dents enrolled in schoolsand/or programmes that arefully online for the fall semes-ter nor will US Customs andBorder Protection permit thesestudents to enter the UnitedStates,” the release said referringto the September to Decembersemester.

The agency suggested thatstudents currently enrolled inthe US consider other measures,like transferring to schools within-person instruction.

International studentsenrolled in academic pro-grammes at US universities andcolleges study on an F-1 visa andthose enrolled in technical pro-grammes at vocational or otherrecognised non-academic insti-tutions, other than a languagetraining programme come to

the US on an M-1 visa.India sent the largest num-

ber of students (251,290) to theUS after China (478,732) in2017 and 2018, according to thelatest Student and ExchangeVisitor Program (SEVP) ‘SEVISby the Numbers Report’ 2018.

The number of studentsfrom India increased from 2017to 2018 by 4,157.

The immigration agencysaid that the active students cur-rently in the US enrolled in suchprogrammes “must depart thecountry or take other mea-sures, such as transferring to aschool with in-person instruc-tion to remain in lawful statusor potentially face immigrationconsequences including, butnot limited to, the initiation ofremoval proceedings.”

Spelling out the criteria forinternational students to stay inthe US, the ICE said that stu-

dents attending schools operat-ing under normal in-personclasses are bound by existing

federal regulations.“Eligible F students may

take a maximum of one class or

three credit hours online,” it said.

Nonimmigrant F-1 students

attending schools adopting ahybrid model—that is, a mix-ture of online and in-personclasses— will be allowed totake more than one class orthree credit hours online, it said.

These schools must certifyto the Student and ExchangeVisitor Programme that thecourse is not entirely online, thatthe student is not taking anentirely online course load forthe fall 2020 semester, and thatthe student is taking the mini-mum number of online classesrequired to make normalprogress in their degree pro-gramme.

The above exemptions donot apply to F-1 students inEnglish language training pro-grams or M-1 students pursu-ing vocational degrees, who arenot permitted to enrol in anyonline courses, the ICE said.

The guidance is certain to

cause severe anxiety and uncer-tainty for the hundreds of thou-sands of international studentswho are studying in the coun-try and for those who werepreparing to arrive in the US tobegin their education when thenew academic session begins inSeptember.

The US is the worst-hitcountry by the COVID-19 pan-demic. The virus has infectedmore than 2.9 million people inthe country and killed over130,000, according to JohnsHopkins University data.

International travel restric-tions in place due to the pan-demic have made it increasing-ly difficult for foreign studentsin the US to return to theirhome countries, while thoseoutside America are uncertainif they will be able to travel tojoin their courses in Americancolleges and universities. PTI

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Washington: ProminentAmerican academicians andlawmakers have reacted sharplyto the new US guideline to kickout foreign students pursuingdegrees in the country if theiruniversities switch to online-only classes, calling it as “hor-rifying” and “cruel.”

The Immigration andCustoms Enforcement (ICE)on Monday announced thatforeign students pursuingdegrees in America will have toleave the country or risk depor-tation if their universities switch

to online-only classes in this fallreferring to the September toDecember semester.

The decision will adverse-ly impact hundreds of thou-sands of Indian students in theUS. It said that for the fall 2020semester students attendingschools operating entirely onlinemay not take a full onlinecourse load and remain in theUS. The new regulation drewwidespread backlash with manytaking to social media to venttheir anger.

The American Council on

Education (ACE), which repre-sents university presidents, saidthe guidelines are “horrifying”and will result in confusion as schools look for ways toreopen safely.

“On its face, the guidancereleased by the ICE is horrifying.While we would welcome moreclarity about international stu-dents studying in the UnitedStates, this guidance raises morequestions than it answers andunfortunately does more harmthan good,” ACE President TedMitchell said in a statement. PTI

Washington: Secretary of StateMike Pompeo has said the USis “certainly looking” at banningChinese social media apps,including TikTok, days afterIndia blocked the popularvideo-sharing platform.

India banned 59 apps withChinese links, including TikTokand UC Browser, on June 29,saying they were prejudicial tosovereignty, integrity and secu-rity of the country.

During an interview onMonday with Fox News’ LauraIngraham, Pompeo said that heand President Donald Trumpare taking the reports seriouslyafter he was told by the host thatIndia had already banned theapp and Australia is consideringdoing so.

“We are taking this veryseriously and we are certainlylooking at it. We have workedon this very issue for a longtime, whether it’s the problem ofhaving Huawei technology inyour infrastructure -- we’vegone all over the world and weare making real progress gettingthat out -- we had declared ZTEa danger to American national

security,” Pompeo said. “With respect to Chinese

apps on people’s cell phones, Ican assure you the United Stateswill get this one right too,” hesaid, adding that he did notwant to dive into specifics andpotentially “get ahead” of anypresidential announcement.

“But, it is something we arelooking at,” he said, going on towarn Americans that theyshould be cautious in usingTikTok, lest they want their pri-vate information “in the handsof the Chinese CommunistParty.” Pompeo’s remarks on theChinese social media apps cameamid growing tensions in bilat-eral ties with Beijing on a rangeof issues, including on the coro-navirus outbreak and the con-troversial national security lawimposed in Hong Kong.

The US has banned Huaweifrom their 5G networks over

concerns of security andWashington has been pressur-ing other countries to restrictthe operations of the Chinesetelecom firm.

The recent ban by India onChinese apps has been widelynoted in the US and someprominent lawmakers haveurged the American govern-ment to follow suit as it isbelieved that the short video-sharing app is a major securityrisk to the country.

Republican CongressmanRick Crawford tweeted that“TikTok must go and it shouldhave been gone yesterday.”

US National SecurityAdvisor, Robert O’Brien hadalleged that the ChineseGovernment is using TikTok forits own purposes.

“On TikTok, a Chinese-owned social media platformwith over 40 million American

users, probably a lot of yourkids, and younger colleagues,accounts criticising the CCP(Chinese Communist Party)and Beijing’s policies are rou-tinely removed or deleted,”O’Brien said in his publicremarks.

At least two bills are pend-ing in the US Congress to banfederal government officialsfrom using TikTok on their cellphones., reflecting such a sen-timent can gain momentum inthe US after India’s decision.

“Would that be the sameChinese TikTok that was usedto tank attendance at the TulsaRally?” tweeted Peter Navarro,Assistant to the US President forTrade and ManufacturingPolicy, as he tagged a newsreport from The New YorkTimes on India’s decision to banthese Chinese social mediaapps.

Earlier, Fox News anchorIngraham urged the US to dothe same. “LEADING THEWAY, WHERE’S THE US?India bans dozens of Chineseapps including TikTok” she saidin a tweet on June 29. PTI

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Moscow will apply counter-sanctions against Britain,

the Kremlin said on Tuesday,after London blacklistedRussian officials for theiralleged involvement in thedeath of lawyer SergeiMagnitsky.

“We can only regret suchunfriendly measures,”

Kremlin spokesman DmitryPeskov told reporters.

“Obviously the principle ofreciprocity will be applied,” headded, without elaborating.

The 25 Russians includedon the sanctions list drawn upby Britain’s Foreign Office wereincluded for their allegedinvolvement in the death ofMagnitsky.

Magnitsky, a tax consultantfor British financier WilliamBrowder, died in prison ofuntreated illness in 2009 afteraccusing Russian officials of taxfraud of $230 million.

Hong Kong: Hong Kong’sleader Carrie Lam offered scantreassurance on Tuesday over anew national security law thatcritics say undermines libertiesand legal protections promisedwhen China took control of theformer British colony.

A year ago, Hong Kong res-idents felt secure enough in theirfreedoms under the territory’s“one-country, two-systems”regime to bring their children tomass protests.

Now, after the June 30implementation of the securitylaw, some are worrying theymight be punished for what theypost in their Facebook orTwitter accounts.

The legal system left inplace when the British left HongKong on July 1, 1997, allowedthe city’s 7 million residents afree press and other freedomsforbidden in the communist-ruled mainland, for at least 50years. Many of Hong Kong’solder generations fled politicalupheaval on the Chinese main-land. Younger Hong Kongersgrew up expecting to achievemore democracy in their life-times.

All are struggling to under-stand the implications of thenew law, which prohibits whatBeijing views as secessionist,subversive or terrorist activitiesor as foreign intervention in thecity’s internal affairs.

“I didn’t have a strong viewagainst formalizing a nationalsecurity law but the way it wasimplemented is intrusive anddisrespectful,” said Jen Au, whoworks in the banking industry.“It’s basically just bullying. HongKong has come a long way in

the last 20 years to warm up toChina and this really just back-fired.” Lam, the city’s Beijing-backed chief executive, saidTuesday the work of theCommittee for SafeguardingNational Security she chairs,which oversees enforcement ofthe law, will not be made pub-lic. So implementation rules giv-ing police sweeping powers toenforce it won’t be subject tojudicial review.

Asked if she could guaran-tee that media can still reportfreely in Hong Kong withoutfacing censorship, Lam said, “Ifthe Foreign CorrespondentsClub or all reporters in HongKong can give me a 100 per centguarantee that they will notcommit any offences under thisnational legislation, then I cando the same.”

Hong Kong was convulsedwith massive, sometimes violentanti-government demonstra-tions for much of last year.

Initially, the protests wereagainst extradition legislation,since withdrawn, that mighthave led to some suspects fac-ing trial in mainland Chinesecourts. But they expanded toencompass calls for greaterdemocracy and more policeaccountability. Critics see thesecurity law as Beijing’s boldestmove yet to erase the dividebetween Hong Kong’s western-style system and the mainland’sauthoritarian way of governing.

The new law criminalisessome pro-democracy sloganslike the widely used “LiberateHong Kong, revolution of ourtime,” which the Hong Konggovernment says has separatistconnotations. AP

Kathmandu: A Nepalese law-maker was sacked by her partyon Tuesday for defying its decision to unanimouslyendorse the constitutionalamendment to revise the coun-try’s map to include three strate-gically key Indian territories,according to media reports.

The Opposition JanataSamajbadi Party (JSP) decidedto sack Sarita Giri for breachingthe party whip to withdraw heramendment registered at theParliament Secretariat againstthe Nepal government’s secondamendment to the Constitution.

A three-member panel ledby party general secretary RamSahay Prasad Yadav recom-

mended that the party sack Girifrom both as a lawmaker andthe party member, and themeeting of the officer bearers ofthe party took the decision onTuesday, the Kathmandu Postsaid.

The Constitution amend-ment, which was aimed atupdating the new administrativeand political map of the coun-try on the national emblem, wasunanimously endorsed by theHouse of Representatives onJune 18.

The SJP and the mainOpposition Nepali Congresshad backed the move by thegovernment of Prime MinisterK P Sharma Oli. PTI

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Hong Kong:TikTok said onTuesday it will stop opera-tions in Hong Kong, joiningother social media companies in warily eyeingramifications of a sweepingnational security law that tookeffect last week.

The short-form video app’splanned departure from HongKong comes as various socialmedia platforms and messag-ing apps including Facebook,WhatsApp, Telegram, Googleand Twitter balk at the possi-bility of providing user data toHong Kong authorities.

The social media compa-nies say they are assessingimplications of the securitylaw, which prohibits whatBeijing views as secessionist,subversive or terrorist activitiesor as foreign intervention in thecity’s internal affairs.

In the communist-ruledmainland, the foreign socialmedia platforms are blocked byChina’s “Great Firewall.” Criticssee the law as Beijing’s boldest

step yet to erase the legaldivide between the formerBritish colony and the main-land’s authoritarianCommunist Party system.TikTok said in a statement thatit had decided to halt opera-tions “in light of recent events.”

Facebook and its messag-ing app WhatsApp said in sep-arate statements Monday thatthey would freeze the review ofgovernment requests for userdata in Hong Kong, “pendingfurther assessment of theNational Security Law, includ-ing formal human rights duediligence and consultationswith international humanrights experts.”

Hong Kong was convulsedwith massive, sometimes vio-lent anti-government protestsfor much of last year as the for-mer British colony’s residentsreacted to proposed extraditionlegislation, since withdrawn,that might have led to somesuspects facing trial in main-land Chinese courts. AP

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Page 9:  · The Delhi Police on Tuesday organised its first ever Virtual Passing out Parade for constables at Police Training College, Jharoda Kalan, New Delhi. G Kishan Reddy, the Union

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The Indian Government andthe World Bank on Tuesday

signed a loan agreement toenhance support for theNamami Gange programmethat seeks to rejuvenate theGanga.

The Second NationalGanga River Basin Project willhelp stem pollution in theiconic river and strengthen themanagement of the river basinwhich is home to more than500 million people.

The $400 million operationcomprises a loan of $381 mil-lion and a proposed guaranteeof up to $19 million.

The agreement for the $381million loan was signed bySameer Kumar Khare,Additional Secretary, EconomicAffairs, Ministry of Finance on

behalf of the government, andQaiser Khan, Acting CountryDirector (India), on behalf ofthe World Bank. The guaranteeinstrument will be processedseparately.

Khare said that the Gangais India’s most important cul-tural, economic and environ-mental resource, and the gov-ernment’s Namami Gange pro-gramme seeks to ensure thatthe river returns to a pollution-free, ecologically healthy state.

The new project willextend the government’s andWorld Bank’s engagement inthis critical national pro-gramme to make the Ganga aclean, healthy river.

The World Bank has beensupporting the government’sefforts since 2011 through theongoing National Ganga RiverBasin Project, which helped set

up the National Mission forClean Ganga (NMCG) as thenodal agency to manage theriver, and financed sewagetreatment infrastructure in sev-eral riverside towns and cities.

Rajiv Ranjan Mishra,Director General of theNational Mission for CleanGanga, said that the continuityprovided by the SecondNational Ganga River BasinProject will consolidate themomentum achieved underthe first World Bank project,and help NMCG introducefurther innovations, andbenchmark its initiativesagainst global best practices inriver rejuvenation.

“The government’sNamami Gange Programmehas revitalized India’s efforts torejuvenating the Ganga,” JunaidAhmad, World Bank Country

Director in India, said. “Thefirst World Bank project helpedbuild critical sewage infra-structure in 20 pollutionhotspots along the river, andthis Project will help scale thisup to the tributaries. It will alsohelp government strengthenthe institutions needed to man-age a river basin as large andcomplex as the Ganga Basin.”

The sprawling Ganga Basinprovides over one-third ofIndia’s surface water, includesthe country’s largest irrigatedarea, and is key to India’s waterand food security. Over 40% ofIndia’s GDP is generated in thedensely populated basin. Butthe Ganga river is today is fac-ing pressures from human andeconomic activity that impactits water quality and flows.

Over 80 per cent of the pol-lution load in the Ganga comes

from untreated domesticwastewater from towns andcities along the river and itstributaries. For this, sewagenetworks and treatment plantsin select urban areas would bebuilt to help control pollutiondischarges. These infrastruc-ture investments and the jobsthey will generate will alsohelp India’s economic recoveryfrom the Covid-19(Coronavirus) crisis.

To ensure that these infra-structure assets function effec-tively and are well maintained,the project will build on theinnovative Hybrid AnnuityModel of public private partnership introduced underthe ongoing NGRBP, andwhich has become the solution of choice for sewagetreatment investments in theGanga Basin.

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Property prices across topeight cities in the country

declined 1-5 per cent in April-June quarter amid the coron-avirus pandemic, according tothe Magicbricks PropindexReport Q2.

The report said that inApril prices slumped by 2-9 percent, but later recovered.

It said that as India’s econ-omy has started getting back toa ‘new normal’ following theCOVID-19 outbreak and thenational lockdown, the realestate sector has also started towitness some green shoots ashomebuyers are back in themarket, though in lower num-bers across tier-I cities.

It suggests that the prop-erty buyer market sentimentsare on the path to recovery withthe buyer searches on the prop-erty portal set to surpass thepre-COVID levels, indicatingrobust underlying fundamen-tals on the demand side.

Commenting on thePropIndex, Sudhir Pai, CEO,Magicbricks, said: “India’s realestate sector is on road torecovery. Prices have shown amarginal decline whereasdemand has been steadily com-ing back.

Actions have been takenby the Government on therecovery package and the RBIhas also reduced repo rates bymore than 100 basis pointssince the lockdown.

This augurs well for theindustry.

“Our data suggests thatsearch activity is almost back at

pre-COVID levels and this istherefore the right time fordevelopers to grab the attentionof the homebuyers throughattractive deals and offers,” headded.

The markets ofHyderabad, Chennai andBengaluru - India’s best-per-forming markets in the pre-COVID-19 phase - witnessedmaximum price decline butleast drop in consumerdemand, indicating that home-buyers are now active in thesemarkets and are looking forexciting deals.

Gurugram and Noida inthe National Capital Region(NCR), which were alreadyfacing headwinds for quitesome time, resisted downwardpressure on price.

Mumbai MetropolitanRegion (MMR) fared slightlybetter compared with otherregions, despite being worst-hitby COVID-19.

The average price declinewas in the range of 0.4 and 0.8per cent.

The Chennai residentialmarket clocked a 2.3 per centyear-on-year growth, but therecent pandemic brought a 3.1per cent decline in prices in Q22020.

Around 87 per cent of thecity’s demand falls under the 2-and 3-BHK configuration,showing domination of mid-segment consumers.

In Delhi, prices droppedacross most budget categories,with the highest price declinewitnessed in the premiumproperties costing more than�15,000 per square feet.

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The Finance Ministry onTuesday said banks have

sanctioned loans of about �1,14,502 crore under the �3-lakh crore Emergency CreditLine Guarantee Scheme forMSME sector reeling under theeconomic slowdown causedby the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, disbursementsagainst this stood at � 56,091.18lakh crore till July 4 under the100 per cent ECLGS for micro,small and medium enterprises. The scheme is the biggest fis-cal component of the �20-lakhcrore ‘Aatmanirbhar BharatAbhiyan’ package announcedby Finance Minister NirmalaSitharaman in May. The latestnumbers on ECLGS, asreleased by the FinanceMinistry, comprise disburse-ments by all 12 public sectorbanks , 20 private sector banksand 10 non-banking financialcompanies .

“As of 4 July 2020, thetotal amount sanctioned underthe 100% Emergency CreditLine Guarantee Scheme by#PSBs and private banks standsat �1,14,502.58 crore, of which�56,091.18 crore has alreadybeen disbursed,” the financeminister said in a tweet.

Under the ECLGS, the loanamounts sanctioned by PSBsincreased to �65,863.63 crore,of which �35,575.48 crore hasbeen disbursed as of July 4, shesaid.At the same time, private

sector banks have sanctioned�48,638.96 crore and disbursed�20,515.70 crore.”Compared to1 July 2020, there is an increaseof �4,158.51 crore in the cumu-lative amount of loans sanc-tioned and an increase of�3,835.65 crore in the cumula-tive amount of loans disbursed,by both #PSBs and private sec-tor banks combined as on 4 July2020,” Sitharaman said. Marketleader SBI has sanctioned�20,628 crore of loans and dis-bursed �13,405 crore. It is fol-lowed by Punjab National Bank,which has sanctioned �8,689crore. However, its disburse-ments stood at �2,595 crore asof July 4. The business units ofMaharashtra have got the high-est cumulative sanction of�6,856 crore from banks, whiledisbursement was to the tune of�3,605 crore as of July 4. It is fol-lowed by Tamil Nadu, withsanction of �6,616 crore loansand disbursements of �3,871crore.On May 21, the Cabinetapproved additional funding ofup to �3 lakh crore at a con-cessional rate of 9.25 per centthrough ECLGS for MSMEsector.Under the scheme, 100per cent guarantee coverage willbe provided by the NationalCredit Guarantee TrusteeCompany for additional fund-ing of up to �3 lakh crore to eli-gible MSMEs and interestedMicro Units Development andRefinance Agency borrowers inthe form of a guaranteed emer-gency credit line facility.

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Reliance Industries’ unlimit-ed free video conferencing

app JioMeet on Tuesday addedadditional security features toprevent Zoom-like attackswhere hackers posted obsceneimages on screens.

JioMeet, which allows up to24 hours of free video confer-encing that are encrypted andpassword-protected, has addeda safety feature that gives theconference host to disallowguests from joining a meetingwithout sign-in and disclosingtheir identity.

The feature, company

sources said, was added par-ticularly in light of reports of obscene imagesappearing on screens during an online class beingconducted on video-confer-encing tool Zoom.

JioMeet, in the very firstweek of going live, unveiled sixfeatures and enhancementsincluding new functionalitiesfor enterprise customers,sources said adding the newfeatures prevent hackers fromentering a conference.

The enhanced feature appis available on Google’s PlayStore and will be shortly avail-able on iOS, they said.

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Diesel price in the nationalcapital on Tuesday

touched an all-time high fol-lowing a rate hike after a week-long hiatus.Diesel price onTuesday was increased by 25paise per litre, according to aprice notification of state-owned oil marketing compa-nies.

This took the retail sellingprice of diesel to �80.78 per litrein the national capital - thehighest ever.There was nochange in petrol price for the8th straight day, and it contin-

ues to be priced at �80.43 perlitre. Rates vary from state tostate depending on the inci-dence of local sales tax orVAT.Petrol and diesel pricewere last revised on June 29.

In the last one month, dieselprice has been increased on

23 occasions while petrol rateshave risen 21 times.

The cumulative increase sincethe oil companies started the

cycle on June 7, totals to �9.17for petrol and �11.39 in diesel.In Mumbai, petrol is priced at�87.19 - unchanged since June29, while diesel was hiked to�79.05 a litre from �78.83.

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The EnforcementDirectorate (ED) has reg-

istered a money launderingcase against the GVK group,the Mumbai InternationalAirport Limited (MIAL) andothers to probe violationsunder the Prevention of MoneyLaundering Act (PMLA) tothe tune of Rs705 crore in theMumbai airport operations.

The ED has filed anEnforcement Case InformationReport (FIR in police parlance)under the PMLA after takingcognisance of a recent CBI FIR

that booked these entities toprobe criminality in terms ofcriminal conspiracy and graft.

The agency will probe ifgenuine funds were launderedto amass personal assets by ille-gal routing of funds or pro-ceeds of crime, sources said.

The CBI case in this con-nection relates to the allegedsiphoning off Rs 705 crorefrom the funds of the MumbaiInternational Airport Limited(MIAL), a joint venture underpublic-private partnership(PPP) between the GVKAirport Holdings Limited andthe Airports Authority of India

(AAI) besides other investors,by showing inflated expendi-ture, under-reporting of rev-enues, fudging of recordsamong others

The CBI has bookedGunupati, a director in MIAL,his son GV Sanjay Reddy,Managing Director in MIAL,the companies MIAL, GVKAirport Holdings Limited (aGVK group company) andnine other private companiesallegedly used to camouflagethe inflated figures of expen-diture through sham deals andunidentified AAI officials, thesources further said.

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Niti Aayog CEO AmitabhKant on Tuesday said

green shoots are visible and theeconomy, which has been hithard by the COVID-19 pan-demic, will bounce back soon.

The pandemic has impact-ed economic activities severe-ly as the country had to gothrough a nationwide lock-down to check the spread ofcoronavirus. The Governmenthad to announce a slew of mea-sures, including fiscal package,to boost the economy. “I am agreat believer that India willbounce back. We are alreadyseeing green shoots in theeconomy.

We are seeing that key sec-tors like FMCG (fast-moving

consumer goods) have alreadycome back. “I am hopeful thatwe will bounce back and bounceback with a vengeance,” he saidwhile speaking at ‘FICCIFRAMES 2020’ .The slowdownin economic activities led to adecline in the Government’s rev-enue collection.

However, with the gradu-ally unlocking, economic activ-ities are reviving. The GST rev-enue collection in June rose to�90,917 crore from � 62,009crore mopped up in May and�32,294 crore in April.

Kant further said the pan-demic is a massive challengenot merely for India but for thewhole world, including the USand European countries.

“Every crisis is also anopportunity. Therefore, this

crisis is also going to have hugelosers and winners. India candecide whether it wants tolose or whether it wants to win,”he said.

Kant stressed that Indiamust pick up 12-13 areas ofgrowth that are going toemerge as winners for tomor-row and listed out areas likedata, artificial intelligence,genomics, mobility, and cre-ative industry.

“We must identify 12-13sectors where India mustbecome a global championand really drive vigorouslywith full energy,” he said addingthat those sectors will takeIndia to sustain high growth over the next 10-12 years and create a vastnumber of jobs.

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Market gauges Sensex andNifty extended gains for

the fifth straight session onTuesday, helped by intensebuying in financial stocks asinvestors brushed aside surgingdomestic COVID-19 cases tofocus on monsoon progress.

After swinging betweengains and losses during the ses-sion, the BSE Sensex finallyended 187.24 points or 0.51 percent higher at 36,674.52; whilethe NSE Nifty settled with 36points or 0.33 per cent gains at10,799.65 - the longest winningstreak for both gauges in amonth.

On the Sensex chart, BajajFinance was the top gainer, ral-lying around 8 per cent, fol-lowed by IndusInd Bank, BajajFinserv, Infosys, ICICI Bank,Axis Bank and HCL Tech.

On the other hand, NTPC,ITC, PowerGrid, Tata Steel

and ONGC were among thelaggards.

Sectorally, BSE IT, bankex,finance, teck and auto indicesended up to 2.10 per centhigher; while oil and gas, util-ities, metal, energy and telecomindices fell up to 2.42 per cent.Broader midcap and smallcapindices rose up to 0.58 per cent.

“Bulls were in completecontrol as evident in thebreadth of the market withfinancials leading the charge. Agood monsoon also cheered ahost of companies in auto partsand farm equipment as a feelgood factor returned with moreparticipation seen fromInvestors,” S Ranganathan,Head of Research at LKPSecurities, said.

Analysts also attributedthe Indian equities perfor-mance to easing tensionsbetween India and China at

Ladakh border.The Chinese military on

Monday began a limited pull-back from a number of frictionpoints in eastern Ladakh, a dayafter NSA Ajit Doval andChinese Foreign MinisterWang Yi agreed on completing the ongoing disen-gagement process along theLAC “expeditiously”,Government sources and offi-cials said. Investor sentimentwas further boosted by otherpositive factors like sustainedforeign fund inflows.

Foreign institutionalinvestors were net buyers in thecapital market on Monday,purchasing equities worth �348.35 crore, provisionalexchange data showed.Though, experts cautioned thatrising COVID-19 cases willcontinue to weigh on investors’risk appetite going ahead.

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The rupee declined by 25paise to end at 74.93

against the US currency onTuesday due to dollar buyingby foreign banks and gains inthe greenback in overseasmarkets.

Forex traders said foreignfund inflows and easing crudeoil prices supported the rupeewhile factors like strong dollar and rising COVID-19cases dragged down the local unit.

The rupee opened weakat 74.74 at the interbankforex market and fell further to touch an intra-daylow of 74.97.

The unit settled at 74.93against the US dollar, downby 25 paise over its previousclose of 74.68, marking itssecond straight day of losses

The dollar index, whichgauges the greenback’sstrength against a basket of sixcurrencies, rose 0.26 per centto 96.97.

On the domestic equitymarket front, the 30-shareBSE benchmark Sensexended 187.24 points, or 0.51 per cent, higher at36,674.52.

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As the COVID-19 pandemicspreads across the globe, a major-

ity of countries, including India, haveannounced temporary closure ofschools, impacting the education ofchildren worldwide. With a mission toimprove the learning experience andoutcomes for children in these diffi-cult times, Navneet has launchedMom I Know, a learning programmeto help parents at home.

The programme caters to chil-dren in the age group three to fiveplus, and has customised boxes foreach age group. Each box containsseven books of literacy skills, three-

books of numeracy skills, two booksof general awareness and reward ormotivational stickers.

With schools starting late forchildren or getting disrupted duelocal lockdowns, the programmeserves as a perfect support to schoolprogram, reinforcing learning athome. The MIK kit includes child-friendly pictorial activities aligningto the school curriculum, a com-prehensive and methodical pro-gramme for independent learners,and easy-to-use school readinesskits which are designed for familiesto help children build essential foun-dation skills. The programme spandsover a year.

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Overcoming theuncertainties and

disruptions caused bythe on-goingCOVID-19 pandem-ic, Ansal University,Gurugram gears up toconclude its admis-sion process forundergraduate andpostgraduate pro-grammes.

The registrationsare on-going and thelast day of the appli-cation submission isAugust 14, 2020. The

university is all set toimplement educationthe right way by digi-tising the curriculum.

Encouraging dis-tance learning forthose who cannotmake it to the univer-sity, the institutionstake one step forwardto make sure onlineeducation reaches outto every inquisitivemind. Following theguidelines by UGC,the university has digi-tised the curriculumso that it doesn’t affectthe regular studies.

With this current situation fullof uncertainties and sur-

rounded by the pandemic crisis,students after Class XII are defi-nitely seeking for a stable career.And with all the odds in the favour,the five-year integrated manage-ment programme at IIM is worththe bet. The IIM IPM is one of themost sought-after courses for anymanagement aspiring student.

The Indian Institute ofManagement (IIM) conducts itsnational aptitude test once everyyear and over 20,000 studentsappear annually. The aptitude testfacilitates admission to their five-year integrated programme in man-agement. The admission processconsists of the IPM Aptitude test,on clearing the cut-off for whichstudents proceed for the nextround, Written Ability Test (WAT)and Personal Interview (PI).

IPM is a unique course struc-ture that provides a holistic devel-opment rather than just the man-agerial skills. This is a uniquecombination that no other gradu-ate programme can match.

Preparing for the entranceexam IPMAT: IIM is no rocket sci-ence and to understand how, it isalways better to start the prepara-tion a year before, than to have last-

minute stress. Once you are clearabout the career you want to getinto, the syllabus looks humongousbut when segregated and plannedperfectly it becomes much easier.

IPM selection is a rigorousprocess of selecting students withdiversified portfolios. They choosecrème de la crème from the appli-cations received. This potpourri initself provides a unique fragrancethat is a priori. Yes, it requires hardwork to sustain in the program butat the end it is reflected in your per-sonality, once you are ready to facethe world with challenges.

Five-year integrated pro-gramme for management

A multi-dimensional per-

spective: The entire five-year courseis divided into two parts — threeyears and two years. The first threeyears are the intensive foundationstones/pillars that are laid withutmost precision. This wouldinclude understanding of human-ities subjects as philosophy, psy-chology, mathematics, statisticsand economics. Next two years arein sync with the CAT selected stu-dents. The IIM IPM believes inshaping managers who are social-ly conscious and relevant in today’sscenario. The five-year duration isso meticulously designed that itprovides high analytical rigourthrough mathematics & economicsand socially responsible managers

by understanding of humanities.This opens a multi-dimensionalperspective.

Social internships: As most ofthe students in India, after ClassXII, do not have exposure to work-ing, IPM provides a unique oppor-tunity to understand the workingculture & ethics with the help ofsocial internship after the end offirst year. To sync, after the end ofeach year, a student goes for dif-ferent internship programmes.Students of IPM also have theopportunity to go for sabbatical fora maximum of two years. These twoyears may be used to acquire expe-rience, earn or anything else thatwould help a student grow.

Foreign exchange pro-grammes: Foreign exchange pro-gram is another feather in the hat.Not many programmes, apart fromIPM, have such articulatedexchange programs. These uni-versities are in part of Europe,Taiwan and Brazil. This programmeranges from three to five monthsand the student derives a newdimension to his understandingprocess. Mind it, a student has toearn this programme and it doesnot come as a suo-motu function.

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The Ministry of InformationTechnology recently disclosedthat number of internet users are

more in rural India as compared tourban. In terms of consumption of data,rural India has surpassed the urbanhubs. It’s very indicative and has a lotof impact in every sector. The lock-down has affected each and every sec-tor and education sector is also not anexception. There is no doubt that stu-dents are getting badly affected due tothis unwarranted crisis.

However, the alternate side of thecoin merits to be scrutinised. There isa bright side too. Institutional edu-cation, that is confined within the fourwalls of classrooms, have transformedinto virtual classrooms aided by dig-ital environments and this change inthe education structure will bring pos-itive changes in the system.

Education includes research,study and evaluation. Classes arebeing conducted through differentvideo conferencing applications likeSkype, Zoom, Google Team, GoogleHangout, Google Classroom, Cisco-WebEx and the list will increase. Manyuniversities are tying up with ITcompanies to develop digital platformfor the students. IT companies are alsocompeting with each other in the fieldof developing user friendly and inter-active platform for the educationsector.

Students and teachers will beconnected through such platforms forinteracting and learning. This form ofeducation will continue to gain mus-cles as educational institutes wouldaim to reap the most out of the invest-ments they make. Therefore, an exten-

sive database of video lectures isbeing developed which would cater tothe needs of students and prove to bea valuable asset in the near future. InIndia majority of the students are fromrural areas and they are joining in thevirtual classroom through smart-phones. This is the reason the num-ber of internet users is now more inrural India than urban. The day is notfar away when internet will be con-sidered as an intrinsic part of every-day life, i.e right to life. As right to edu-cation is a fundamental right in Indiaand when that will be dependent oninternet then it will obviate the Stateto declare as fundamental right, as isthe case in numerous Scandinaviancountries.

This pandemic is helping to devel-op the online infrastructure which willbring about a revolution in the edu-cation system. Innovative methods arebeing implemented to conduct class-es virtually which will help the stu-dents to come out of the boringmonotonous classroom lectures.There will be a shift from knowledge-based education system to skill-based

education system. Needless to say, stu-dents will be benefitted out of that andthey would have enough time at theirdisposal to multitasking. They canearn and continue education simul-taneously. Also, the attendance of stu-dents in virtual classrooms is morethan classrooms in colleges whichexudes the technologically dependantnature of the present generation in

schools and colleges. In the postCOVID-19 era, teachers would becompelled to have a fragment of thesyllabus to be covered online.

The online evaluation patternwill also witness substantial reforma-tion. Teachers have to frame applica-tion based question intelligently sothat answers will not be availabledirectly either from book or online.Naturally, students will be more ana-lytical in answering those questionsand will be more innovative.Education wouldn’t be only degreecentric. Skill and value-based educa-tion would gain muscles in the after-math of the lockdown. It is observedthat many famous universities areoffering online courses. In futurealso students will like to have knowl-edge through webinar or some othermeans. Distance education wouldthrive once again. Information isalready available in the digital plat-form so students will not come in theclass for the same information againand would rather dedicate that timeelsewhere. Rather they will prefer skillas well as value based education.

Artificial Intelligence (AI), wouldfurther consolidate the use of virtualclassrooms and promote online edu-cation. AI will substitute those admin-istrative posts where archetypaladministrative work is done byhumans. It will open the floodgates ofresearch in interdisciplinary fields.Teachers spend a lot of time inadministrative work and evaluatingcopies. AI can perform all thosework and teachers will get more timeto devote in research. Collecting datafrom in-app or following onlinemovement of a teachers AI can easi-ly figure out what method of learningwill be best for a teacher. In such waythe efficiency of the teacher will beincreased and the same will be output-oriented.

If the academicians are thinkingthat this is temporary, they are livingin fool’s paradise. This change willmake a great impact on the educationsystem even when the world willbreathe fresh air bereft of any virus-es.

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COVID-19, the dreaded pandem-ic of the century has torn asun-

der the fabric of the world economy.It has affected every industry and thefood industry is no exception.

Despite being one of the largestagricultural producers in the world,India is facing low levels of produc-tion and also in its other related facetslike packaging, processing, storage,cold chain and transportation. This ismainly due to lack of skilled manpower and due to this food safety andquality of the food has sufferedimmensely.

Adverse effects are being noted onthe growth of the industry which isvital in delivering its true potential tostrengthen the agricultural economyof India. The importance of thisindustry has been highlighted duringthe lockdown phase.

However, one must rememberthat new opportunities spring out ofevery dire situation. COVID-19 toohas given birth to new ideas forgrowth of business and industriesadopting and adapting new tech-nologies and measures for the safetyof their employees as well as their con-sumers by limiting the spread of thevirus.

Automation will help face thesechallenges faced by the sector and isgaining traction, particularly in pack-aging, warehousing and distribution

operations. Rapidly advancing artifi-cial intelligence technologies andautomation process brings in moreefficiency and helps removes humanerror. As demand for fresh foodsincreases, distribution and ware-housing facilities will need to be incloser proximity to consumer markets.

Further, demographic and eco-nomic resources of India has to bebacked by a highly skilled workforceto achieve its true potential. This isimperative in this age of globalisationwhere competition is the hallmark.This will also ensure quality on a glob-al scale and the success of this will leadto a better working environment,health and a brighter future for theworkforce.

Skill Development to act as thedriving force

The Government is focusing ondeveloping the requisite skills in thefood processing sector. In fact, theMinistry of food processing has col-laborated with several skill develop-ment organisations such as the FoodIndustry Capacity and Skill Initiative

(FICSI) to bridge the skill gap in thefood processing industry. The coun-cil introduced some special coursesrelated to safe hygiene practices to befollowed during COVID-19, to spreadawareness in the industry and amongstakeholders associated in the foodchain on how to prevent the spreadof the virus.

It is indispensable for the foodindustry to reinforce personalhygiene measures and provide newtraining on food hygiene principlesto wipe out or reduce the risk offood surfaces and food packagingmaterials becoming contaminatedwith the virus from food workers.

Globalisation and increasedcompetition in the market hasintensified the need for a highlyskilled workforce in the economyto meet global standards of quali-ty and such industry bodies are tire-lessly working to create a betterfuture by providing a skilled work-force.�����������A<%B�������������� ���

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The Jindal School of Environment andSustainability (JSES), the newly estab-

lished ninth school of OP Jindal GlobalUniversity has forged substantive collabo-rations with 20 international and Indianorganisations working on environmental andsustainability issues for its undergraduatestudents. These collaborations will enable thestudents to get a practical understanding ofecological and conservation issues throughwork experience and will result in intern-ship and placement opportunities.

JSES has confirmed collaborations with20 leading organisations, which will provideresearch and internship opportunities to thestudents enrolled in the BA (Hons) in envi-

ronmental studies. The world is headedtowards a climate crisis and students musthave hands-on experience in workingtowards a greener future.

The 20 organisations in collaborationwith JSES are: The World Wildlife Fund,Pacific Environment, World ResourceInstitute, MC Mehta Foundation,Environment Support Group, Global PolicyInsights, Toxics links, Tagore Society forRural Development, Navdanya Foundation,Indian Council for Enviro — Legal Action,Delhi Greens, Envipol, Green Munia,Dhiway — Research, Uneako, Centre forScience & Environment, Rajputana Societyof Natural History, Future group — CSR,Hyundai Electric and the Directorate ofEnvironment & Climate Change.

These collaborations will enable JSESstudents to undertake internships at theseorganisations, thereby adding to their under-standing of environmental and sustainabil-ity issues. Consequently, graduates of JSESwill have multifarious career opportunitiesat international, national, regional, state andlocal government institutions and agencies,NGOs and the private sector, where corpo-rations and industry also need expertise indeveloping projects that require environ-mental impact assessments.

The curriculum incorporates sevenaspects of environmental studies: ecologyand biology; demography and science;human and environment interaction; climatechange; renewable energy; environmentallaws; and forests and wildlife.

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The Sarthak EducationalTrust and National

Abilympics Association of Indiain collaboration with flaggedoff- Dhristikone: Level upStrategy 2020 for DisabilityEmpowerment to initiate a dia-logue with national and inter-national leaders to give animpetus on required initiativesto empower the disability sec-tor.

The advocacy campaignfocusses on combating theeffects of COVID-19 on varioussegments of disability namelyhealthcare, Inclusive Education,vocational skilling andEmployment. The panel of keyspeakers from NITI Aayog,NSDC and representative fromGOI came together to address12 years journey of inclusion &empowerment which high-lighted the journey of SarthakEducational Trust and thedevelopments in the disabilitysector in the verticals of health-care, inclusive education, voca-tional skilling, sustainable

employment, advocacy andAbilympics.

This three month longseries of virtual symposiumsorganised by SarthakEducational Trust will give themuch needed impetus to theproblems faced by PwDs dur-ing COVID-19.

The campaign will high-light CSR support for strength-ening disability sector andGlobal Prospective of COVID-19 on disabled community eraof online intervention servicesfor children with special needsand road map to strengthenInclusive Education and endingwith topics like Dharma for per-sons with disability, parentalrole in shaping future of a per-son with disability and RDSM:Collaborative Action towardsempowered nation.

“People with disabilitiescan positively contribute to thenational economy if they areprovided with resources andadequate opportunities to buildthemselves”, shared Dr JitenderAggarwal, Founder CEO,Sarthak Educational Trust.

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The Bhartiya Skill Development University, Jaipur (BSDU)adopts contactless admission process and invites applica-

tions for Bachelor of Vocational programmes in multiple sis-ciplines.

The BVoc degree is a UGC approved degree, equivalent toany other graduate degrees, and is based on the National SkillQualification Framework (NSQF) to address the critical require-ments of skill sets in the country.

The duration of the programme is three years.Eligibility: Canditates must have passed Class XII or

equivalent. They should have two years of ITI after Class X.Polytechnic Diploma holders will be considered for lateral entryinto the second year of BVoc.

Program specifications: The programme is modular innature and offers multiple entry and exit points at certificate,advanced diploma and BVoc. It has six semesters with 30 cred-its each resulting in a total of 180 credits to earn a BVoc degree.

The last date for submission of applications is July 31, 2020.8/:�/1��$�+1�1�'8�$'�E������������� ������.�������������� ������������������������������.������������ ��������������������� � �#�� ������������������� ����� ���������������#������������������������������.�������(����*&����

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Page 11:  · The Delhi Police on Tuesday organised its first ever Virtual Passing out Parade for constables at Police Training College, Jharoda Kalan, New Delhi. G Kishan Reddy, the Union

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The COVID-19 pandemic has upendedour lives in many ways, bringing a rapid,dramatic shift towards everything vir-

tual. Education has undergone a complete dig-ital overhaul, with students turning to e-learn-ing after the viral outbreak resulted in schoolsshut in most parts of the world. According toa recent report released by the WorldEconomic Forum, more than 1.2 billion chil-dren across 186 countries have been affectedby school closures due to the pandemic.

While advocates of edtech believe that thisnew arrangement will reshape education, oth-ers would argue that the unprecedentedmove to online learning with little planningand preparation can significantly harm thelearning progress. Taking into account thesechallenges, it becomes imperative that edu-cators follow certain guidelines when impart-ing lessons online.

Implementing ground rules for studentswill establish discipline: Discipline is an indis-pensable part of any classroom, be it physi-cal or virtual. Hence, students must followbasic etiquette. They should be punctual, dressappropriately and avoid eating during class.Ask them to find a distraction-free area orpreferably a separate room to avoid disruptionsand make it mandatory to keep their videoson throughout the duration of the class.Remote learning is only effective if all studentscontribute to classroom discussions. As ateacher, encourage active participation fromeveryone by allocating the last 10-15 minutesfor questions and answers.

Muting the entire class can be a goodidea and a bad idea: It goes without sayingthat controlling a class of around 40-50 stu-dents is difficult, and even more so througha laptop screen. Muting the entire class is aneasy way to eliminate the chatter, back-ground noises, and anything that might dis-rupt the flow of your lesson, but it can also putyou at a disadvantage. As such, studentengagement might get affected as it sets a lesswelcoming tone for participation. If you findyourself conflicted, you can choose to unmutethe class only during questions or interactivesessions.

Posting lessons online before the classwill help students keep up: It is important toremember that some students may needmore time than others. Hence, they will findit more challenging to learn lessons virtuallyand cope with the pressure. While giving stu-dents individual attention is not feasible, youcan post lessons online before the class startsso that they get an overview. Establish a dig-

ital home base where both students and teach-ers can refer to digital content, MCQs, pastyear papers and assignments.

Creating a student-centric classroom willlead to improved learning outcomes: As ateacher, the responsibility lies on your shoul-der to ensure your students are not laggingbehind. Focus on their learning needs, theircapacity to comprehend complex topics andthen set a pace of teaching at which every stu-dent feel comfortable to pick up notes. Onceyou understand the purpose of the lesson,modify or break the content in parts to helpthem better understand difficult areas. Longerstudent-driven assignments also tend to bemore effective in an online learning environ-ment, allowing students to apply their criti-cal thinking and problem-solving skills.

Practising cyber hygiene: Maintainingproper cyber hygiene is critical as education-al institutes have become particularly vul-nerable to cyber-attacks with the sudden riseof online learning. Try to keep your work PCseparate from your personal PC, and if notpossible, then secure the network with a vir-tual private network (VPN) while teaching theclass. It is advisable to keep original passwordsfor different applications. You can use a pass-word manager to maintain a diversity of pass-words.

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With Indian stu-dents who hadplanned to go to

the US for further studies,unsure about how to pro-ceed with the continuedclosure of the US ConsularOffice (which issues visas),American universities havebeen reaching out to themwith options, assurancesand answers to their FAQs.

The University ofSouth Florida has gone astep ahead and announcedWe Got U-SF Scholarshipand waiver programme, aone-time scholarship tosupport students who areenrolled full-time in theFall 2020 semester — foronline or on-campus class-es.

While most studentsfrom India admitted forUG programmes arealready on USF’s merit-based scholarships (makingthem ineligible), severalhundred graduate admitsfrom India have beenoffered over $2,060.

The USF has taken aflexible approach and isoffering students variousenrollment options if theycan’t come to campus bythe opening Fall 2020 dateof August 20. They canenroll in online classes and

come to campus byJanuary 2021.

The Clark (Mile-End)Bursary Fund is lookingfor high achieving appli-cants who have the poten-tial to complete higher edu-cation in the UK.

Eligibility: They canpursue a subsequent degreeand PG degree offered bythe University of Glasgowand University ofStrathclyde. The education-al awards will only be paidto applicants who at thetime of payment are resi-dent in the UK. Non-UKstudents may apply to theaward in advance of theirarrival in the UK but willonly be eligible for consid-eration if they are residingin the UK prior to the clos-ing date for applications.The participants areexpected to already haveobtained an honoursdegree from abroad and arenow studying for, or apply-ing to study at the universi-ties. If the applicant’snational language is notEnglish, then they need todemonstrate the Englishlanguage ability throughthe IELTS or TOEFL test.

How to apply: Takeadmission. After that, youare eligible to complete theonline applying form infavor of the funds.

Application deadline:The last date to apply isSeptember 15, 2020.

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Now, returning to the waythings were before thepandemic is not part of

the plan as nothing will reallybe normal again. The key is tobe flexible between each sce-nario, and prepare for multiplerealities. If the worst-case sce-nario becomes reality, the newlyturned-aspiring entrepreneurwill know whom to call aboutthe excess and which arms ofthe business to eliminate.

The critical ingredient tostart a business is getting on thesaddle. A lot of people haveideas —but few decide to dosomething about them. Nottomorrow. Not next week, buttoday. The true entrepreneur isa doer, not a dreamer.

You are an aspiring entre-preneur. That means that youaren’t taking the easy road. Yourise to meet challenges heads-on. Now’s the opportunity tokind of see what you can createin the midst of all this down-time. Creativity often comes outof the most challenging of sce-narios.

THINK BIG, START SMALLGreat ventures start from

small beginnings. Alwaysdream big, but that doesn’tmean you have to start big andthere is nothing wrong withstarting small. To win a boxingmatch first thing is to enter the

boxing ring. To live yourdreams, you must start workingon it. Every great organisationstarts with a handful of likeminded people, every greatauthor starts with a single para-graph. You don’t have to beafraid of the situations; neitheryou have to wait for the perfectsituation.

In the business sense of theword, adaptability entails beingopen to new ideas and concepts,being able to work on an inde-pendent basis or with a team asthe situation demands, and jug-gling multiple projects withoutgetting flummoxed when con-ditions abruptly change. Theability or degree of willingnessto which one adapts in such sit-uations essentially determinesone’s level of flexibility — andpossibly the heights they willachieve in the future.

INVEST IN SMARTSCustomers come second,

employees first. Invest in clock-changer employees who arewilling to go the extra mile toaccomplish a task that everyoneelse is skirting. People canmake anything possible.Building a successful businesswon't be anything like youimagined. You will face failures,even when things are bloomyand economy is doing great.

You have to rise to the

occasion however, rising to theoccasion can be fun for day-dreaming, but in the real worldit rarely plays out with a fairy-tale ending.

REMOTE WORK OPTIONAs things are rapidly mov-

ing digital, remote work isbecoming easier than ever.Having remote employees canbe cost-effective, especiallywithout renting office spaceeach month. The talent pool forpotential employees can grow toinclude anyone around theworld. And with fewer cars onthe road at rush hour, remotework is the more sustainableoption.

BODY LANGUAGEPandemic or no pandemic

your body language and visionshould always be in sync. Bodylanguage in business sets thefoundation for people to com-municate with others on adeeper level. Your body lan-guage, the unspoken languageyou portray in conversation, canmake or break your businessfuture.

READY FOR UNEXPECTED Shouldn’t you have more

reason to be scared of theuncertain scenario? Yes, youshould, and that’s a good thing,for you. It's wise to stop assum-

ing the most likely outcome willturn up at the conclusion ofevery situation. A successfulcompany prepares for multipleoutcomes regardless of what'sexpected. Foresight enables youto respond effectively in allcircumstances. The best way toprepare is to include all depart-ments and employees in theplanning process. You'll getfresh, unique perspectives thatare more likely to result incritical and innovative thinking.

In every crisis, there’sopportunity to engage, inno-vate, and connect. If you sit andwait for the right opportunity,you may lose out on the pre-cious time that you could haveinvested in working. Know thatnow is as good a time as any toinitiate a business. Instead ofcontemplating for 24 hourswork for 24 minutes, that shallyield more results.

QUALITY VS QUANTITYYou know you’re in love

when you can’t fall asleep anddon’t feel hungry because real-ity is finally better than yourdreams. It’s sleepless nights,early mornings and one toomany late nights out. It’s for-getting to sleep, eat and dream.A good business will make youforget about sleeping and eating.

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Page 12:  · The Delhi Police on Tuesday organised its first ever Virtual Passing out Parade for constables at Police Training College, Jharoda Kalan, New Delhi. G Kishan Reddy, the Union

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International sport finallyreturns to Britain onWednesday when England

plays the West Indies in theworld’s first cricket test matchsince the start of March becauseof the coronavirus pandemic.

It’s clear the match beingstaged at the Ageas Bowl inSouthampton is about muchmore than just cricket.

A smoothly run test series,played in a strict isolated envi-ronment featuring repeatedCOVID-19 testing and socialdistancing, can lay the blueprintfor future matches and tours incricket but also events in othersports targeting a resumption.

“If you get one thing wrong,it might blow this whole ‘gettingsport back onto the radar' fur-ther back,” England stand-incaptain Ben Stokes said onTuesday in his eve-of-gamenews conference.

Stokes also spoke about the“responsibility on our shoul-ders” to deliver a “massive occa-sion” for TV viewers who havebeen without internationalcricket for four months.

A BLM logo will be on thecollar of the test shirts worn byplayers from both teams andthere is set to be a “gesture”made by the teams before thegame. West Indies players havesaid the movement is a sourceof motivation on this tour.

“Not only has this been a

period for us getting ready fora test match,” Stokes said, “it hasalso been great for us to haveeducational chats as a teamaround this and it has been real-ly beneficial for a lot of ourmembers.

“I feel as a team we have anopportunity to send a real pow-erful message and I am reallyexcited as an individual, and theteam is really excited, that we areable to be a part of that.”

Cricket’s oldest format kicks

off a very new era for the sport.One where there are no specta-tors at matches, one-way sys-tems inside venues to maintaindistancing, twice-weekly testingfor coronavirus,and players notallowed out oftheir hotels.

Players fromthe two teams will come intovaguely close contact with eachother only on the field of play.

TV viewers will have thechoice of adding a so-called“Lord’s hum” during coverage,but there will be no artificialcrowd noise in the ground or

music between overs, ensuringan eerie silence once the matchbegins except for selectiveannouncements over the pub-lic address system about things

such as milestonesor bowling changes.

The big screensaround the venuewill show key high-

lights, DRS and sponsor mes-sages.

The West Indies squad hasbeen here since June 9 in orderthat the players could first quar-antine at Manchester's OldTrafford ground and then prac-tise there in lockdown condi-

tions. They had two intra-squadmatches - England has hadonly one - before the squad trav-elled to Southampton for thematch.

“We’re about to show thatother places can start puttingthings together,” West Indiescoach Phil Simmons said.

“The England and WalesCricket Board have to be com-mended for all the work theyhave done to get the series onthe road and let's see whatother countries take from it.”Simmons has had to self-isolatein his hotel room for a periodafter leaving camp to attend his

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West Indies coach PhilSimmons believes the

opening Test will be a battlebetween two all-rounder cap-tains in which he expects hisskipper Jason Holder to “get ontop” of his England counterpartBen Stokes.

Holder and Stokes, bothtop all-rounders, will lead theirrespective sides with the latterstanding in for regular captainJoe Root who will miss theopening ‘bio-secure’ Test forthe birth of his second child.

The three-Test series beginswith the opening match at AgeasBowl here on Wednesday.

“I think that it’s going to bea toss-up between these two all-rounders and hopefully Jasoncan do what's necessary to get ontop of Ben in this first Test,”Simmons told reporters on theeve of the opening Test.

“Ben is one of them wholeads from the front. That’sbeen shown by all his exploitsbefore in cricket, (so) we willhave to make sure that we get onto him very early, because helikes to do what is necessary forhis team.”

The 57-year-old also does-n't necessarily see Root's absence

as an advantage.“You have to be careful

how you use an advantagebecause, with Root not beingthere, you have some youngsterwho wants to make a name forhimself.

“And sometimes that's evenharder than the players youknow, so you have to be verycareful about saying that it’s anadvantage,” he said.

Simmons said Stokes lack ofexperience as a captain wont bean issue as veterans like Jimmy(Anderson) and (Stuart) Broadto turn to for suggestions.

“Ben has not had that time(as captain) but they’ve had asuccessful team for a while, andthat helps,” he added.

“With the experience thathe has behind him - Jimmy(Anderson) and Broad and peo-ple like that, there’s a lot of expe-rience to help him on the fieldif he comes a cropper. But it’shard to really say if that’s a bigadvantage.”

Simmons also said he is notworried about his batting unit asthey will have to produce thegoods in all three facets of thegame to outwit England athome.

Batting is often consideredto be the weakling of the WestIndies team, which had lost theopening Test against England inBirmingham by an innings and209 runs during their last tourin 2017 due to the failure of thebatsmen.

Simmons said the battershave prepared well and it is allabout mindset now.

“I’m not concerned aboutthe batting. The batsmen haveworked very hard on getting towhere they are now, and all thatit takes now is for their mind-set to be right for the Testmatch,” Simmons said.

“We keep talking about thebatting, and the bowling hasbeen strong, but we must fieldwell and catch well also to giveourselves that chance. Our frameof mind is that we have to playwell in all three facets of thegame in order to beat England.”

���� *20*���

Mahendra Singh Dhoni went onto become one of the best fin-

ishers in the game but on his 39thbirthday, former India captainSourav Ganguly said the World Cupwinning skipper would have beeneven more lethal if he batted higherin the order.

Ganguly, the current BCCI pres-ident, led a barrage of birthdaywishes for ‘captain cool’.

“He’s one of the great players ofthe world cricket, not just a finish-er. Everyone talks about the way he

finishes lower down the order. Ialways believed that he should bat upthe order because he was so destruc-tive,” Ganguly said in a chat showhosted by young India openerMayank Agarwal on BCCI’s Twitterhandle.

Most of Dhoni’s India and IPLteammates, including Virat Kohli,too paid glowing tributes to him onhis birthday.

A BCCI source confirmed thatPandya brothers, Hardik and Krunal,are on a charter flight from Barodato Ranchi to wish Dhoni in person.

“Hardik has always looked up to

Dhoni and they share a specialbond. Flight connectivity is limiteddue to the COVID-19 situation, sothey have taken a charter flight andshould be landing in Ranchi soon,”the source told PTI.

Ganguly, who had handed Dhonihis international debut againstBangladesh on December 23, 2004,recalled how he rose to fame with his148 against Pakistan batting atNumber three.

“It was fantastic. If you look overa period of time in the history ofone-day cricket, the best players canfind the fence under pressure con-

sistently. MS Dhoni was one ofthem and that’s why he was special,”said Ganguly in his chat withAgarwal.

Asked whether it was him whopicked Dhoni in the team, Gangulysaid: “Ya that’s true, but that’s my jobisn’t it? That’s every captain's job topick the best and make the best teampossible.

“You go by your instincts, you goby the faith on that player that he’lldeliver for you. And, you know, I’mhappy that Indian cricket got aMahendra Singh Dhoni, becausehe’s unbelievable,” Ganguly said.

��� &-�)-�&-�9

Werder Bremen hung on to sealBundesliga survival on away

goals by drawing at second-divisionHeidenheim 2-2 in the second legof their relegation-promotion play-off.

An own goal forced by Americanforward Josh Sargent in the

third minute and LudwigAugustinsson’s strike in the fourthminute of injury time were enoughfor Bremen to keep its placein Germany’s top 18-teamdivision.

Tim Kleindienst equal-ized in the 85th minute togive the home side some hope ofan upset before Fin Bartels set upAugustinsson on a counterattack tokeep Bremen safe.

Kleindienst’s penalty in theeighth minute of injury time wastoo late for the home side.Heidenheim would have needed

another goal to clinch its first pro-motion to the Bundesliga.

The playoff pitted the sidethat finished third from bottom in

the top division, four-timechampion Bremen, against thethird-place finisher in the seconddivision, Heidenheim.

There were no goals in thefirst leg between the sides inBremen on Thursday.

Bremen made a good start andSargent was poised to strike whenHeidenheim defender NormanTheuerkauf ’s attempted clearanceended up in his own net after twominutes of the the second leg.

��� 02�)2�

When Tottenham captainHugo Lloris confront-

ed Son Heung-min on thefield at halftime, JoseMourinho was far fromannoyed.

The manager renownedfor his own flashpoints andvolatility was delighted to seetensions between teammateserupting in public view.

“It was beautiful,” he said.“Probably it’s a consequenceof our meetings."

Angered by the timidityof a 3-1 loss at SheffieldUnited in the previousEnglish Premier Leagueround, Mourinho saw thepassion he wanted asTottenham this time secureda 1-0 victory over Everton onMonday.

Just before the break,with Tottenham leading, Son

lost the ball which led toRicharlison having a chanceto equalize but striking wideof Lloris’ post.

“I think to concede achance a few seconds beforehalftime because we don’tmake the pressing properly,”

Lloris said, “that annoys mebut it's part of football. Moveon.”

Only, Lloris didn’t whenthe whistle blew for halftime,shouting as he raced over toSon. Giovani Lo Celso andHarry Winks intervened to

split the clashing teammatesbefore they headed into thedressing room.

Son had created the goalin the 24th minute. The

South Korea forwardknocked the ball for-ward to Harry Kanewho squared for LoCelso to strike on theturn and Evertondefender Michael

Keane deflected the ball intohis own net.

“An amazing kid thateveryone loves like Sonny, ateam boy,” Mourinho said.

"But in that situation thecaptain thought the lastminute of the first half youhave to do more for theteam. You have to give a dif-ferent effort than you give. Acouple of bad words but Ithink it’s something veryimportant for the team togrow up."

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It was a night to remember for Sevillaforward Lucas Ocampos in the Spanishleague on Monday.

The Argentine led his team to a crucialvictory by scoring the winning goal early inthe second half and making the winning savedeep in stoppage time while replacing histeam’s injured goalkeeper.

The 1-0 victory over Eibar strengthenedSevilla’s grip on fourth place and kept the

team on track to secure the final ChampionsLeague berth. With four rounds to go,Sevilla opened a six-point gap to fifth-placedVillarreal, which lost to Barcelona on Sunday.Sevilla was within two points of third-placedAtlético Madrid.

Ocampos scored in the 56th minute, thenhad to put on the goalkeeper’s gloves and jer-sey after Tomás Vaclik hurt his left leg whilecolliding with an opponent in the final

minute of stoppage time. Vaclik could notcontinue and Sevilla had already made allfive substitutions.

Eibar had a throw-in for the last playof the match and Ocampos ended up hav-ing to make a big save - from a shot bythe opponent’s goalkeeper - to secure his

team the home win.Eibar goalkeeper Marko Dmitrovic had

gone toward the area for the final play andreceived an open shot from close range afterpicking up a loose ball inside the box. But hisattempt went toward Ocampos, who batteredthe ball away just before the final whistle.

Ocampos scored with a right-footedtouch from close range after Jesús Navascleared a couple of defenders and made awell-placed cross toward the far post.

Eibar nearly equalized when KikeGarcías’s shot hit the post in the play in whichhe collided with Vaclik as the goalkeepercharged from his net.

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The Badminton WorldFederation (BWF) on

Tuesday cancelled two moreinternational tournaments —China Masters and Dutch Open-- from its revamped 2020 cal-ender because of the COVID-19pandemic.

“Two BWF Tour Super 100tournaments have been can-celled from the revamped BWFTournament Calendar for theyear - the Lingshui ChinaMasters 2020 and YONEXDutch Open 2020,” the govern-ing body said in a release. TheLingshui China Masters was ear-lier scheduled to be held fromFebruary 25 to March 1 but was

postponed twice due to theCOVID-19 outbreak. “It wasinitially postponed until Mayand then moved again to 25-30August 2020,” the BWF said.

The Dutch Open was due totake place from October 6 to 11in Almere, Netherlands.

“Badminton Netherlandsannounced the cancellation oftheir flagship tournament citingcontinued risks associated withthe COVID-19 pandemic,” theinternational body said.

In May, the BWF hadunveiled a revised internation-al calendar to salvage theremainder of the season, dis-rupted by the global health cri-sis which is showing no signs ofabating.

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About 12 years ago, ayoung boxer from

Haryana wrote his namein the history books ofIndian sport after winningthe country’s maidenOlympic medal in boxing.Vijender Singh's bronzemedal at the 2008 BeijingOlympics changed theface of Indian boxing andinspired many to take upthe sport.

However, while talk-ing during India’s risingtable tennis player MuditDani’s online lockdownlive chat show 'In TheSportlight’, Vijenderrevealed how watchinghis fellow countrymanRajyavardhan SinghRathore finishing on thepodium at the 2004Olympic Games inspiredhim and made him hun-gry for the metal. ShooterRathore clinched India'sfirst-ever Olympic medalin an individual category

when he won silver inAthens where Vijenderhad appeared in his firstOlympics at the age of 18.

“It’s an amazing feel-ing to represent yourcountry at the Olympicsand for me 2004 was a lotlike that as I was happyand satisfied being presentthere, witnessing theopening ceremony andwatching the contingentsfrom other countries;inspecting the villages andenjoying the food andatmosphere. But it wasonly when I saw themedal ceremony and sawRajyavardhan SingRathore winning the silvermedal is when the urge ofwinning a medal hit metoo and the realisationthat more than participa-tion, it’s winning themedal that matters,"Vijender said.

“After winning thatmedal, the adulation hegot from everywhere onlyconvinced me to work

harder and then four yearslater, despite a tough qual-ification, I managed towin that medal and every-thing changed for me.Since then there has beenno looking back,” headded. The 34-year-oldVijender, who turned pro-fessional in 2015, is hope-ful of sporting actionresuming soon, which hashalted due to COVID-19pandemic. However he's

enjoying spending timewith his two kids at homewhich seems impossiblenormally due to a busyschedule.

“I enjoy spendingtime with my kids. I’mwatching web series,movies and listening toPunjabi songs as there isnothing much to do. I'mhopeful of getting back inthe ring in the next two-three months," said theAsian Games Goldmedallist.

After having tastedgreat success on the pro-fessional circuit, Vijenderis now aiming to win theworld championship title.

21-year-old MuditDani, who clinched hisfirst senior internationalmedal at the US Open lastyear, started the lockdownonline live Instagram chatseries - In The Sportlight- with the sole purpose ofdelivering inspiration toother young athletes andfans.

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Batting legend Brian Larabelieves West Indies will

need to adopt a proactiveapproach in the upcomingthree-Test series againstEngland and consider thematches as four-day games asthe visitors doesn’t have thefirepower to last five days.

The 51-year-old formerskipper said while West Indies’boast of a formidable bowlingattack, their batting depart-ment is a concern, which isprecisely the reason behind hisstatement.

The three-Test seriesbetween England and theWest Indies starts onWednesday at Southamptonin a “bio-secure” environ-ment, marking the resumptionof international cricket whichwas shutdown in March dueto the COVID-19 pandemic.

“They (West Indies) haveto be able to pounce immedi-ately. England are not beatenvery easily at home and areoverwhelming favourites,”Lara was quoted as saying byBBC Sport.

“They have to hit the

road running and stamp theirauthority on England. I don’tthink they can last five days,so they have to take thesegames in four days. Theyhave to establish a lead andkeep it.”

Lara, who has scored arecord 11,953 runs for theWest Indies in 131 Tests, saidadaptability to the Englishconditions would be key forWest Indies, who are the hold-ers of the Wisden Trophyafter winning 2-1 in theCaribbean last year.

The former left-handedbatsman said it would be agreat achievement for WestIndies if they can win theseries as they have not won aseries in England since 1988.

“It’s going to be a seriesthat's watched all around theworld and everybody is hop-ing to see a competitive series,”said Lara, who scored 34 Testcenturies.

“It would mean a lot to allWest Indians if they could win.If they play good cricket on thefirst day of the Test series,show they have the mettle toperform against England,that's the key."

father-in-law’s funeral last week.England’s buildup has been

interrupted, too, by captain JoeRoot having to leave camp to beat the birth of his second child.He will not feature in the firstof three tests, meaning Stokeshas the captaincy for the firsttime.

“I haven’t had much advicebut there has been a lot of opin-ions flying around,” Stokes said.“The best message that I havereceived was when I got myphotos done yesterday in theblazer. Rooty just left a messageon the hanger which said: 'Doit your way.’”

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West Indies fast bowlerKemar Roach is a “gen-

uine great” and can “easily”achieve the milestone of 300Test wickets with proper "work-load management”, says leg-endary pacer Courtney Walsh.

Roach will be a key bowlerfor West Indies when theybegin the three-Test seriesagainst England at Ageas Bowlin Southampton on Wednesday.

“Workload management issomething that they can look atit. I don’t think he has played alot of shorter versions of thegame. But it’s up to him as anindividual as well to set the stan-

dards, set the goals he wants toachieve,” Walsh e told‘ESPNcricinfo’.

“He will get 300 quite eas-ily once the workload manage-ment is good and he is playingconsistent cricket. What youdon’t want to happen to him is

that every time he comes backhe starts all over again.”

The 57-year-old Walsh isimpressed by the work ethicand patience shown by Roachin his bowling over the years.

“... His patience shows hewill stick around, and he knowswhat to do and how to go aboutachieving that. To me that iswhat has got him to be as con-sistent as he is now. His workethic has gone up as well andhe’s doing all he can do to beone of the greats.

“He’s a genuine great. Hisachievement shows that. WhatI like about him is his manner-ism: he’s always cool and collect-ed and he’s prepared to work.”

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