The Pioneer€¦ · Kalraj Mishra (78), who will ... was the CM of UP at time the Babri Masjid was...

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An erstwhile prominentMuslim face of the

Congress who protested againstthen Prime Minister RajivGandhi’s move to rescind theSupreme Court verdict formaintenance to triple talaqvictim Shah Bano, ArifMohammed Khan was onSunday appointed theGovernor of Kerala, where theBJP is eager to gain a foothold.

Besides Khan, who joinedthe BJP in 2007, the Centreappointed three more partyleaders as Governors andreplaced incumbent KalyanSingh in Rajasthan. Singhwill now lose immunity fromtrial in the Babri Masjid demo-lition case after he retires fromthe gubernatorial post onMonday.

While BJP leader and for-mer Uttarakhand ChiefMinister Bhagat SinghKoshyari, 77, will be the newGovernor of Maharashtra,

BJP’s Tamil Nadu chiefTamilisai Soundararajan, 58,has been appointed theGovernor of Telangana, andformer Union Labour MinisterBandaru Dattatraya, 72, hasbeen choses as HimachalPradesh Governor, replacingKalraj Mishra (78), who willsucceed Kalyan Singh as theGovernor of Rajasthan.

Koshyari replaces Vidya

Sagar Rao as the MaharashtraGovernor, whileSoundararajan will succeedESL Narasimhan in Telangana.

Reacting to Khan’sappointment as Governor, theCongress said it was an “entire-ly expected decision” as the hisrecent statements were an indi-cator of him getting rewardedby the BJP.

“Congratulations to Arif

Mohammed Khan on beingappointed as Governor ofKerala. An entirely expecteddecision. His statements madein the recent times were anindicator of him soon gettingrewarded by the BJP. Thereward is well deserved andwas long awaited,” Congressleader Abhishek Manu Singhvisaid in a statement.

Khan, who will succeedformer Chief Justice of India PSathasivam in the Kerala RajBhavan, has been a vocal crit-ic of the practice of instanttriple talaq and calling forreforms in the Muslim per-sonal laws for long.

Khan’s speech inParliament in 1985 in the wakeof the Shah Bano judgmentextending the Rajiv Gandhi Government’s initialsupport to it was muchacclaimed.

However, when the RajivGandhi Government made aU-turn under pressure fromMuslim clerics and brought aBill to nullify the Supreme

Court verdict, Khan resignedfrom the Ministry. The UttarPradesh politician later joinedthe BJP in 2007 but remainedinactive since then.

Recently, when the ModiGovernment brought a Bill tocriminalise the practice ofinstant triple talaq, Khan sup-ported it. In the Shah Banocase, the Supreme Court haddelivered a judgment favouringmaintenance to an aggrieveddivorced Muslim woman.

On April 19, 2017, theSupreme Court had orderedrevival of criminal conspiracycharges in the Babri Masjiddemolition case against seniorBJP leaders LK Advani, MurliManohar Joshi and UmaBharati. But the SC had clari-fied that Kalyan Singh, whowas the CM of UP at time theBabri Masjid was demolishedin 1992, could notbe brought in as an accused toface trial in view of the con-stitutional immunity grantedto Governors under Article 361of the Constitution.

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The civilian population inJammu & Kashmir alone

has not been hit by the snap-ping of communication linesafter the abrogation of Article370, it has also badly affectedintelligence gathering whichhas seen a sharp 70 per centdecline in the last three weeks.

Intelligence gathering wasthe key reasons for the successof many recent anti-terroroperations in which top mili-tants were neutralised followingpin-point real time tip-off.

Restrictions on movementand communication have seenfew anti-militant operations inthe last three weeks. Officials inthe security establishment saidthe perfect synergy among localpolice, paramilitary and theArmy led to neutralisation ofnearly 140 terrorists, includingthe top leadership, this year sofar. The figure crossed the 200-mark last year again due to pin-point intelligence, they added.

However, the local admin-istration, paramilitary forcesand police are now totallyfocused on maintaining law andorder in sensitive regions of theKashmir Valley, which has

impacted the intelligence gath-ering network

Moreover, the informersare not able to relay the intelli-gence due to restrictions oncommunication and move-ment. Similarly, the militantsare also not moving from oneplace to another which gener-ally gives away their locationleading to encounters. Thisphenomenon is more pro-nounced in South Kashmirwhich is more urbanised anddensely populated due to over-whelming deployment of forcesto ensure restrictions, sourcessaid.

Meanwhile, the securityforces are exercising maximumrestraint and local commanderswere instructed to conductanti-militancy operations inthe night hours. The main rea-son for this is to prevent peo-ple gathering at the encounter

site and indulging in stone-pelt-ing leading to law and order sit-uation, they said. This restric-tion is also followed to avoidcollateral damage in the presentsituation.

As regards the PakistanArmy’s bid to stoke violence,officials said at least 10 infil-tration bids were foiled sincethe revocation of Article 370 onAugust 5. However, theseattempts will increase in thecoming days as the ISI and thePakistan Army are determinedto push in large number of ter-rorists from across the Line ofControl (LoC)to carry out ter-rorist strikes within the State,they said. Some spectacularterrorist incidents in other partsof the country are also feared,officials said adding more than100 Afghan fighters recruitedby Pakistan are poised to comein from across.

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Bad news for the Indianeconomy continued to pile

on. After the GDP for April-June 2019 quarter touched asix-year low at 5 per cent, thecountry’s Goods and ServicesTax (GST) collections inAugust has dropped to�98,202 crore from over �1.02lakh crore in the previousmonth, and auto sales num-ber for the same period hasforcefully reflected the alarm-

ing slowdown in the economy. While Maruti saw a

decline of 33 per cent, TataMotors sales figure collapsedby 58 per cent and HondaCars India Ltd (HCIL) report-ed a 51.28 per cent decline indomestic sales.

This is the second timeduring this year that the rev-enue collection from the GSTslipped below the �1 lakhcrore mark. First, it happenedin June when the collectionwas �99,939 crore. However,it was �1.02 lakh crore in July.However, total GST forAugust was 4.5 per cent high-er than the �93,960 crore col-lected in the same monthlast year.

Central GST collectionsstooT �Integrated GST col-lection stood at �48,958 crore(including Rs 24,818 crorecollected on imports) duringAugust this year, a statement said.

It further said that cesscollection stood at Rs 7,273crore (including Rs 841 crorecollected on imports).

The number of GSTR 3BReturns (summary of self-assessed return) filed for themonth of July up to end-

August totalled 75.80 lakh. Asper the statement, Rs 27,955crore has been released toStates as GST compensationfor June-July 2019. “TheGovernment has settled Rs23,165 crore to CGST and Rs16,623 crore to SGST fromIGST as regular settlement.The total revenue earned bythe Central Government andthe State Governments afterregular settlement in themonth of August 2019 is Rs40,898 crore for CGST and Rs40,862 crore for the SGST,” itsaid.

Gross GST collectionsduring April-August stood atRs 5,14,378 crore, up from Rs4,83,538 crore in the corre-sponding period of the lastfiscal. This shows a growth of6.3 per cent during the fivemonths of the current fiscal.

For 2019-20, theGovernment proposesto collect Rs 6.10 lakh crore

from CGST and Rs 1.01 lakhcrore as compensation cess.

The IGST balance hasbeen pegged at Rs 50,000crore. The CGST collection in2018-19 was Rs 4.25 lakhcrore, while compensationcess was over Rs 97,000 crore.

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Apregnant and deaf-mutewoman was beaten black

and blue by a mob over suspi-cion of being a child-lifter inNortheast Delhi, police said onSunday. A resident of SoutheastDelhi’s Tughlakabad, the womanis recuperating in hospital andis stated to be stable.

Three people have beenarrested for the assault on a com-plaint lodged by the woman’sfamily members.

“We have arrested threepersons, Deepak (27), BShakuntala (52) and Lalit Kumar(29), residents of Mandoli,” saidDeputy Commissioner of Police(Northeast) Atul Kumar Thakur.

The four-month pregnantwoman was beaten up by a mobin Harsh Vihar

on August 27 over suspicionthat she was a child lifter, theDeputy Commissioner of Policesaid.

The woman’s family allegedthat her in-laws had banishedher from their Faridabad homeon August 18 and said she wasmissing since then. “Somehowthe woman reached HarshVihar and was staying on afootpath.

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India on Sunday thwarted anattempt by Pakistan to raise

the Kashmir issue during theSouth Asian Speakers’ Summitin the Maldives, sayingIslamabad should end all statesupport to terrorism which isthe “biggest threat” to human-ity. The two sides had a heat-ed exchange during summitheld in the MaldivianParliament where the repre-sentatives of the South Asiancountries had gathered.

Pakistan’s Deputy Speakerof the National AssemblyQasim Suri tried to raise theKashmir issue during the dis-cussion on SustainableDevelopment Goals.Indiaimmediately raised a point oforder after which the presid-ing officer asked Suri to let theIndian representative, RajyaSabha Deputy ChairmanHarivansh, to speak, but he didnot pay any heed, leading tocommotion.

In a strong response,

Harivansh hit out at Pakistanfor raising India’s internalissue and politicisation of theforum.

“We strongly object to theraising of internal matter ofIndia in this forum. We alsoreject to the politicisation ofthis forum by raising the issueswhich are extraneous to thetheme of this summit,”Harivansh said.

“There is a need forPakistan to end cross borderterrorism and all kinds ofstate support to the same inthe interest of regional peaceand stability. Terrorism is thebiggest threat to the entirehumanity today. Therefore,unanimously we should notallow in this august gatheringany kind of circulated state-ment to become a part of theproceedings,” he said.

Pakistan SenatorQuratulain Marri objected toHarivansh’s remarks and saidthat SDGs for women andyouth cannot be achievedwithout human rights.

Harivansh hit back atPakistan saying a country thatperpetrated a genocide of itsown people has no moral rightto speak on the human rightsissue.

Raising a point of orderagain, the Rajya Sabha DeputyChairman retorted:“Excellency, I would like to askwhat moral rights this coun-

try has to raise issues relatedto human rights? The worldknows how they committedgenocide in a part of their owncountry and that country isnow separate entity calledBangladesh.

“Since they have raisedhuman rights issue ofKashmir, I would like to statefacts that Pakistan has occu-pied our part of Kashmirknown as Pakistan-occupiedKashmir.

“This Pakistan-occupiedKashmir comprises 2 areas, theso-called Azad Jammu &Kashmir (AJK) and GilgitBaltistan (GB) which Pakistanhas illegally occupied througharmed action in 1947.

“Pakistan has kept peopleof this region guessing ontheir status.

As a constitutional entity,the so-called ‘AJK’ is unique.It has been given the trappingsof a country with a President,a Prime Minister and aLegislature of its own. But theso-called AJK is neither acountry nor a province,” hesaid, as Marri was on her feetagain protesting India’sremarks.

The Karachi Agreement(April 28, 1949) truncatedPOJK and brought more than85 per cent of the land, strate-gically important for its con-nectivity with China and con-trol of rivers, under Pakistan’s

direct control, Harivansh said. From the time of the

Karachi Agreement, the so-called AJK President andPrime Minister

have enjoyed only titularpower, that too at the pleasureof the Ministry of KashmirAffairs, he said.

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On a recent trek to themouth of the Ganga, one

was surprised to see markingsall along that indicated how theglacier has been receding overthe years. It was shocking thatdespite scientific evidence thatthe glacier has indeed beenreceding over the century, verylittle is being done to mitigatethe damage.

Gaumukh is a glacier situ-ated at an altitude of 4,023metres. Ringing the glacier arelofty peaks, which are called theGangotri group of mountains.These include peaks likeChaukhamba, Kedarnath,Thalay Sagar, Shivling, Meruand Bhagirathi I, II and III.Gaumukh is connected withthe Gangotri temple by a foottrail, about 15 kilometres long,a popular trek among tourists,while also being a pilgrimageroute since millennia.

More than half a millionyears ago there was an unprece-dented rise in the number andintensity of glaciers in theHimalayas, which coincidedwith a massive tectonic move-ment, uplifting the crust andthe upper mantle of the earth,that drove the snowline, muchfurther south than it is today,across the lesser Himalayanranges and the Shivaliks. Thiscreated the lofty feet of theHimadri Range, the snow-capped upper Himalayanranges. These glaciers havebeen feeding the river sinceseveral centuries. It is believed

that during a different part ofthe Holocene, before the earth’sclimate became as volatile as itis today, the Gaumukh glaciermust have been situated atGangotri. It is here, at Gangotrithat the sage Bhagirath is saidto have practiced penance tobring the Ganga to earth.

The ice cave has nowmoved at least sixteen kilome-tres upstream. Today, the glac-ier may be receding, but theglacial melt is still able to leadto a perennial flow. But for howlong will this flow continue isa matter to scientific predictionand should be of concern to allof us.

Legend has it that whilesearching for his lost sheep, ashepherd boy reached near aglacier in Gangotri, the snoutof which exactly looked like themouth of a cow, thus giving itthe name Gaumukh. Fromthen on, many saints, as well aspilgrims have considered it themouth of the holy river.Gaumukh has been the subjectof several expeditions and his-toric researches.

Even though pilgrims andascetics must have visitedGaumukh much before the19th century, no records can betraced.

The first recorded visit toGaumukh is dated May 31,1817, by John Hodgson andJames Herbert who traced theglacial origin of the river. Thisis what they said about whatthey witnessed,

A most wonderful scene, theBhagirathi or Ganges issuesfrom under a very low arch atthe foot of the grand snow bed,the river here is bounded to theright and left by high snow androcks, but in front the mass ofsnow is perfectly perpendicular,and from the bed of the summitwe estimated the thickness a lit-tle less than 300 feet of solidfrozen snow, probably accumu-lation of ages.

The early phases in theexploration of the source of the

Ganga have been depicted byColebrooke and describe thefirst attempts to provide a reli-able map of the area, startingfrom China, because it wasthen believed that the sourcewas north of the Himalayas andthat the river was several hun-dred kilometers longer than itactually is. One of the earlymaps was published inTeiffenthaler’s three volumeset of a description ofHindustan. Gangotri is men-tioned first by British colonialofficers since Fraser visited theplace as the first European in1815. His and other reports arerather brief; Hodgson’s accountis somewhat longer but for themost part only geographical.However, these reports give usa wealth of information.

After Fraser in 1815,Hodgson followed in 1817 tovisit Gangotri. The geograph-ical knowledge of the natives atthat time was apparently accen-tuated by mythical beliefs.Thus, Skinner reports that,according to a statement of aninhabitant, the spot of conflu-ence of Bhagirathi and Jahnavinear Bhairon Ghati, ten kilo-meters below Gangotri, wasconsidered narrow enough toleap over (whereas Skinnermeasured sixty yards). Thefirst European travelers didnot get farther than a few hun-dred metres beyond the villageand they report the natives'opinion that it is impossible to

venture higher.On our trek from Gangotri

to Gaumukh, we came acrossseveral markings by geologists,from the past, that pointedtowards severe recession ofthe Gaumukh glacier. This isworrisome for the future healthof the Ganga. Let us delve a lit-tle deeper into what is causingthis and its effects.

Glaciers are the conse-quence of the ice ages.Gaumukh or Gangotri glaciercover of the Himalayas is theconsequence of the QuaternaryIce Age, and geologists havereasons to believe that the icelimit may have, once, extend-ed beyond the southern limitsof the outer Himalayas. Sincethe last glacial cycle of theQuaternary Ice Age-about10,000 years ago, practicallyevery glacier has shown degen-eration in mass and volume.Same is true of the Gangotriglacier also.

Gaumukh glacier is a sys-tem with a glacierized area ofabout three hundred squarekilometres. It is situated in theBhagirathi valley of theUttarakhand Himalayas, andcomprises a cluster of morethan seven glaciers, most ofwhich merge or flow in to themain trunk. Behaviour of thisglacier, since the last glacialactivity, can be better illustrat-ed by referring to three distinctobservations.

Glaciers, wherever they

exist or existed, leave a distinctsignature in the form of glaci-er landforms. These landformscan be the consequence of theglacier erosion or deposition. Asurvey of the Bhagirathi valley,

downstream of the Gangotritemple, has revealed the exis-tence of numerous character-istic glacier landforms likeglacier pavements, saw cuttrenches, link cavity systemand till deposits almost up toJangla, a linear distance ofabout fifty kilometres fromthe present snout position.Presence of so many charac-teristic glacier land forms leavesno doubt in one’s mind that, atone time in the past - most like-ly during the last phase ofglacial activity 10,000 yearsago - Bhagirathi valley musthave been more glacierizedthan at present; and theGangotri glacier must haveextended at least up to Jangla.

The word Gangotri standsfor Ganga + utri i.e. Ganga’sdescent.

The glacier has become apart of the legend that speaksof the descent of the Gangafrom the heavens, and cantake pride of place, thoughindirectly, of being the earliestexplored glacier, in human his-tory, by Bhagirath about 5,500odd years back.

In Skanda Purana,Bhagirath is quoted to havesaid, “Then came down fromthe sky, Ganga the daughter ofthe snowy mountains, andMahadev (Shiva) received it(Ganga) on his own head”.

We may presume thatBhagirath was an explorer whodid the journey as penance totrace the source of this mightyriver. What Bhagirath may infact have stated, when he hadthe view of the entire glacierfrom a point up in the moun-tains, could be, “Ganga coming

from the skies frozen aroundthe shoulders of a mighty peakthat appeared like the Shivling– a personification of the LordShiva”. Bhagirath visualisedthat if the whole glacier would

melt all at once, the waters soreleased would cause havocdown below. In fact, it would bedisastrous. And he apparentlystated it as such. That, in duecourse, became the legend thatLord Shiva held the river backin his locks lest Ganga cause thehavoc. Legend further tells usthat, “Ganga, when it finallymanaged to come out of theintricate dark locks (or moraineridges) of Shiva which are asfearsome and large as theHimalayas itself, was still sopowerful that it went down tothe nether world before com-ing on the surface.” Bhagirath'smetaphorical reference of theShivling peak, moraine ridgesand the water fall at Gangotriclearly indicates that, at thetime of Bhagirath’s visit, thesnout of the Gangotri glaciermust have been at and aroundGangotri town.

Obviously, there was no icecave, as no mention ofGaumukh has been made, andthe glacier apparently musthave been in active phase. Thisview is held by the head priestand other holy men around theshrine of Gangotri.

Taking the three possiblesnout positions, and differentperiods of time into consider-ation, Jangla (10,000 years ago),Gangotri (about 5,500 yearsago, based on secular retreat)and the present position atGaumukh, it can be concludedthat the glacier has vacated atotal linear distance of 47 kilo-metres in about 10,000 years -the glacier would appear tohave shown an average secularretreat of 27.5 metres per year,during the last 500 years.

Snout of the Gangotri glac-ier marked by the prominentice cave has been the celebrat-ed destination for explorers andthe pilgrims over the centuries,for it is where, according tothem that Ganga originates.The earliest photograph of thesnout is that of Samuel Bournepublished in 1863. Yet anoth-er picture of the snout ofGaumukh was published in1870. Griesbach, of theGeological Survey of India vis-ited the glacier snout in 1889and made a sketch of the snoutfront showing Gaumukh locat-ed on the western side of thesnout. Dr Auden of theGeological Survey mapped andphotographed the glacier snoutin 1935 and has, since, been fol-lowed by a number of teamsfrom GSI and some other insti-tutes in recent years. A com-parative study of the pho-tographs of the snout taken,from time to time, shows thatthe position of Gaumukh hasbeen shifting from the westernlimits to the eastern limits ofthe snout expanse.

Birbal Sahni Institute ofPaleobotany, Lucknow, hasdated the trees that are grow-ing over the old terminalmoraines at Bhojbasa, about 12kilometres downstream of thepresent Gaumukh to be about415 years old. This wouldmean that the terminalmoraines at Bhojbasa would beabout five hundred years old, assome time gap must haveoccurred between the vacationby the glacier and growth ofvegetation.

Taking that as the base,Geological Survey of Indiateams have, more or less, reg-ularly since 1935, been moni-toring the snout of this glacierand, as a part of the monitor-ing activity, map of the snoutfront has been prepared atvarious times. Comparison ofthe snout positions between1935 and 1996 has revealed thatthe glacier front, especially the

position of the ice caveGaumukh, has been constant-ly changing and the glacier hasretreated by about 1,100 metresduring the period of 61 years(1935 to 1996), that is, anaverage retreat of eighteenmetres a year. A recent study,with the help of satellite imageshas revealed that the positionof Gaumukh along the easternlimits has further retreated atan average of about 15 metresper year in 2001 and 2002.Observations also show thatRaktavaran Nala (melt waterstream from the Raktavarangroup of glaciers) that hadbeen flowing sub glacially tillup to 2002 has eroded away theglacier ice on the eastern sideand has now started flowingalong the valley wall by passingthe eroded glacier ice.

Recent publications havecome out with the frighteningprospect of this glacier van-ishing from the surface of earthin the immediate future.

One publication has goneto the extent of giving 2035 asthe destiny day. The danger,however, may not be thatimminent.

In the words of Bhagirath,“Ganga, one day shall berecalled to the heavens!”Reading between the lines, itconnotes the fact that Bhagirathrealised, thousands of yearsago, that this glacial river hav-ing come from the skies (heav-en) shall one day retreat to theskies.

If we assume that this glac-ier will continue to retreat, sayat the rate of 15 to 18 metres ayear, as it is doing at present,even then it will take almostone and a half century for theglacier, so to say, to go back tothe skies. Are we prepared forthis eventuality?

(The writer is an anthro-pologist, author, traveler &activist who also runs a publicwalking group called BeenThere, Doon That?)

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Studying in Class VIII atDelhi Public School,

Ranipur, Garv Saxena is amongthe two students from the Stateof Uttarakhand who would bewitnessing the lifetime event oflanding of Chandrayaan 2along with Prime MinisterNarendra Modi.

His letter of confirmationfor participation has been sentfrom ISRO. Garv had partici-pated in the online quiz contestby ISRO in which 20 questionswere asked. He is one of the two

students selected from the Stateand among 22 students from

across the country who wouldhave this once in a lifetimeopportunity.

He will be leaving for theevent on September 4, said hisfather Pankaj Saksena. Garvwill be leaving with his parentsfor ISRO tracking centre,Bengaluru by train for whichthe fare shall be borne by theGovernment.

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Students of various streamsposed varied questions dur-

ing a motivational lectureseries organised at Baba FaridInstitute of Technology atSuddhowala in Dehradun. Inall, 500 students participated inthe hour-long interactive ses-sion in which they came outwith their anxieties.Representing PatanjaliYogpeeth as a speaker, RadhikaNagrath, said that the simplestformula for stress busting in

any domain of life was toknow the root cause and if theroot cause is treated properly,one can remove the stress for-ever. Citing examples of thereal life heroes like PV Sindhu,the badminton world champi-on, she said there was noshortcut to success in lifewhich requires hard work andpassion along with a little bitof sacrifice was as exemplifiedby Sindhu who abstained fromsugary foods, internet andmobile phone for eight monthsas guided by her coach.

Giving his presidential

address, the registrar of theinstitute, Bhupender SinghArora, said that a singlethought could change thecourse of one's life and stu-dents must keep good compa-ny to ward off negativethoughts and stress.

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In a meet organised by FICCIFLO and Trikon Society,

Tourism secretary, DilipJawalkar, discussed the partic-ipation of women entrepre-neurs of FICCI FLO in thetourism department.

Jawalkar discussed theschemes being run by thedepartment, which women cantake advantage of. He also dis-cussed in detail the problems ofwomen entrepreneurs and

talked about the single windowsystem.

FICCI FLO, Uttarakhandchapter head Nazia Izzuddinsaid that the main objective ofthis discussion was to encour-age greater participation ofwomen in tourism. TrikonSociety head Neha Sharmaalso expressed his views on theoccasion.

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The State’s chief electoralofficer, Sowjanya, launched

the Electors VerificationProgramme (EVP) here onSunday. Speaking on the occa-sion at the secretariat, she saidthat the Election Commissionof India is conducting electors’verification programme fromSeptember 1 to October 15.The aim of this campaign is toensure 100 per cent verificationof voters list and making themerror free. She appealed to thepeople of Uttarakhand to con-nect with the largest voters ver-ification campaign. Voters cancheck their and their family’sdetails on the voter card andverify the same. This can makethe voters list 100 per cent errorfree. To check one’s details, avoter will have to use the votercard number of log in onwww.nvsp.in. The voter shouldthen verify the name, date ofbirth, sex, relation or relative’sname, address and photo. Incase of error, one should markthe correct information forchange in details or photo-graph.

Informing about docu-ments necessary for making thesaid changes, the CEO that anIndian passport, drivinglicense, Aadhaar card, bankpassbook, PAN card or latestwater/telephone/electricity/gas

connection bill-anyone of thesecan be uploaded. One shouldalso state the mobile phonenumber and e-mail address toreceive services in the future.She further informed that on

providing the mobile phonenumber, the voter will also beable to receive regular SMS-based alerts. A family living inone place will be placed in onepolling centre.

For further information,one can make a call to the voterhelpline at 1950 or also use thevoter helpline mobile applica-tion.

Sowjanya further said thatvoter facility centres have alsobeen set up. Those attaining theage of 18 years by January 1,2020 can register their nameshere. After the voters verifica-tion campaign, the voters listwill be published on October15. Any complaints regardingthis can be lodged tillDecember 15. After addressingthese complaints, the new vot-ers list will be published onJanuary 1, 2020.

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After being appointed asGovernor of the State of

Maharashtra, formerUttarakhand Chief Ministerand former MP, Bhagat SinghKoshyari, said that his appoint-ment to the post was an hon-our not only for him but alsofor the State of Uttarakhand.Koshyari said this after beingfelicitated by his supporters atState guest house in Haridwaron Sunday.

Speaking to the mediapersons, Koshyari said thatPrime Minister NarendraModi had honoured him andUttarakhand by appointinghim Governor ofMaharashtra. He said hisappointment was a message tothe common man that pover-ty could not stop anyonefrom coming forward in lifeand be in the mainstream. Hesaid it was a moment of pridefor him to be appointedGovernor of a big State likeMaharashtra.

When asked about themajor challenges on gettingthis constitutional post, hesaid that he was always work-ing constitutionally in everymatter and was a law abidingcitizen having an RSS back-ground. So, the constitution-al Sanskars were inbuilt inhim and he will continuedoing that while administer-ing his duties as Governor.

He said Maharashtra wascentre of Bollywood andIndian cinema and had enor-mous tourism opportunities

which he would work on bybuilding a bridge betweenUttarakhand tourism andMaharashtra tourism depart-

ments. More opportunitiescould be explored in devel-opment of the State, he said,since he was going from the

State of Chota Kailash to theland of Vitthal, the religionwas a common factor pre-dominant in both the States.

So, there is enormous scopefor enhancing rel igioustourism in Maharashtra, headded.

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Chief Minister TrivendraSingh Rawat and Bharatiya

Janata Party State presidentand MP Ajay Bhatt haveexpressed happiness at BhagatSingh Koshyari’s appointmentto the post of MaharashtraGovernor. The veteran politi-cian has been active in politicssince his student days andalso worked as a teacher andjournalist.

He was born on June 17,1942 to Gopal Singh Koshyariand Motima Devi atPalanadhura Chetabgarh inBageshwar district ofUttarakhand. He holds a mas-ter's degree in English andstudied at Almora College ofAgra University, now SSJ cam-pus of Kumaon University.During this period, Koshyariwas also a general secretary ofthe students' union of AlmoraCollege during 1961-62. Hehas also represented the exec-utive council of KumaonUniversity, during 1979-82,1982–85 and 1988-91.

He has had a successfulcareer as a teacher and jour-nalist. He had worked as a lec-turer at Raja Inter College, RajaKa Rampur, Etah district, UttarPradesh for few years. Koshyariis the founder and managingeditor of Parvat Piyush, aweekly published fromPithoragarh, Uttarakhandsince 1975. He has also pub-lished two books, Uttaranchal

Pradesh Kyun? andUttaranchal Sangharsh EvamSamadhan

He joined the RashtriyaSwayamsevak Sangh (RSS),took part in the struggleagainst the Emergency andwas imprisoned in Almoraand Fatehgarh Central Jailunder the Maintenance ofInternal Security Act (MISA),from July 3, 1975 to March 23,1977.

In May 1997, he became amember of Uttar PradeshLegislative Council, the upper

house of legislature of UttarPradesh. In 2000, he wasappointed Minister of Energy,Irrigation, Law, and LegislativeAffairs of the newly createdstate of Uttaranchal. In 2001,he replaced Nityanand Swamias the Chief Minister ofUttarakhand. He has alsoserved as the State president ofthe BJP. As a result of hisparty's defeat in the 2002Assembly elections, heresigned in March 2002 as theChief Minister. However, hewas elected from Kapkot

Assembly constituency andbecame the leader of theOpposition of theUttarakhand LegislativeAssembly, till 2007.

In the 2007 Assembly elec-tions in Uttarakhand, he waselected again from KapkotAssembly constituency. InNovember 2008, he was elect-ed a member of the RajyaSabha from Uttarakhand andremained a member till hiselection to the Lok Sabha in2014 from Nainital-UdhamSingh Nagar constituency.

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Chief Minister unveiled thefoundation stone for the

Nathuvawala drinking waterscheme to be built at an esti-mated cost of �22.48 crore atNathuvawala in Dehradun onSunday. The scheme is to beexecuted under the WorldBank funded Uttarakhandpotable water programme forsemi-urban areas.

Addressing the gatheringon the occasion, Rawat saidthat work on the scheme will becomplete by December 2020.Once functional, the schemewill provide drinking watersupply for 16 hours daily. Watersupplied through this schemecan be lifted up to 40 feet with-out any pump. He said thatthere was semi-urban drinkingwater scheme worth about �1,000 crore for the whole State.

During the past two years,work on such schemes costingmore than �60 crore had beenstarted in Balawala, Badripur,Natthanpur and Nawada areaswith work on schemes costing�36 crore having been com-pleted. Rawat said that theNathuvawala scheme will pro-vide water till 2050. Budgetaryprovision has also been madefor the Saung dam. After con-struction of the dam, this entirearea will get recharged. Afterconstruction of the Saung dam,water for the Rispana river willbe arranged, he said, whilestressing that the StateGovernment is undertakingvarious measures for revival ofrivers.

Referring to PrimeMinister Narendra Modi’sMann ki Baat, Rawat said thatthe PM had talked about con-servation of water, e-payment,population control, freedomfrom malnutrition and anti-polythene campaign. The con-tribution of every citizen isimportant in effectively

addressing these issues, he said.The cooperation of the publicis vital in taking the nationahead on the path of happinessand cleanliness as envisionedby the PM.

Speaking on the occasion,Dehradun mayor Sunil Uniyal‘Gama’ requested the public toassist the Government in free-ing the State of polythene.

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In this monsoon season whenmore than 500 people have

tested positive for dengue andtwo have died in Dehradun sofar, citizens and authoritieshave still remained apathetic tothe importance of sanitation atvarious places in the city.

Residents of Majra wardsaid that they have met officialsat Municipal Corporation ofDehradun (MCD) on multipleoccasions but till date theircomplaints have not been takenseriously. The area faces waterlogging situation which

becomes worse after rainfall.The small canal that earlierused to come under the juris-diction of irrigation depart-ment now has been convertedinto a drain. The canal turneddrain is blocked at severalplaces due to garbage and con-struction debris which in turncauses water logging on roads.

A local resident from theward said that he had filedcomplaints with the chief cityhealth officer Dr Kailash Joshiwho initially also sent fewworkers of Nala Gang to cleanthe area, however due to theencroachment activities of few

households in the area thecanal keeps getting blocked. Healso said that some of the localpeople are under the protectionof politicians which is whywhenever people try to raisecomplaint regarding the matterthey threaten to call goons.

Another resident said thathis home is under constructionin the area, which is about amile away from an education-al institute that is situated atBrahmanwala. The road lead-ing towards that institute isfilled with potholes whichresults in water logging situa-tion. Moving further along on

the road a small canal emergesbut it is filled with plasticwaste, stagnant dirty water anddebris from left over construc-tion work which overflows on

the road. As the road is alreadyfilled with potholes the dirtywater then gets collected inthose potholes.

Local residents have also

expressed their unhappinessregarding the fogging that isbeing done by the MCD andhealth department, stating thatthe fogging machine has onlyworked in some parts of the area that also onlyone or two times. People alsosaid that the local councillor isfar from the reach of commonpeople.

It is pertinent to mentionhere that Dharmpur MLAVinod Chamoli promised tolook into the matter.

The local councillor AftabAlam was however not avail-able to comment on the issue.

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After more than a year takenin the process, the six

clocks in the Clock Tower ofDehradun have started func-tioning. After decades, thechime of the bell has also beenrestored albeit in an electron-ic version. The six clocks wereinstalled at Clock Tower onFriday night. For the preserva-tion of old heritage clocks,mayor Sunil Uniyal ‘Gama’has announced to make amuseum at MunicipalCorporation of Dehradun(MCD) premises.

According to the informa-tion provided by MCD officials,Chennai based companyIndian Clocks provided thesesix electronic clocks. MCDalso took a separate powerline from Uttarakhand PowerCorporation Limited (UPCL).

These clocks cost about �9.5lakh.

According to officials, itwas difficult to uninstall the oldmachinery from Clock Tower.With new clocks and machinerythe sound of bell ringing has alsostarted coming from the tower.

Local shop owners havepraised MCD’s efforts statingthat it is good to see that theclocks at clock tower are alsoilluminated during the night.The chime of the bell ringing hasalso been appreciated by thelocal citizens.

It is pertinent to mentionhere that mayor ‘Gama’ andmunicipal commissioner VinayShankar Pandey inspected thenew clocks on Saturday. Theyalso made it a point to ensurethat the loud ringing sound ofbells from Clock Tower do notdisturb people during nighttime. Bridge Ropeway Tunnel

and other InfrastructureDevelopment Corporation ofUttarakhand Limited (BRID-CUL) has earlier also done workon strengthening the ClockTower structure. For the beau-tification of the tower premisesMCD is planning a musicalfountain.

It is also important to men-tion here that some heritageexperts even now raise theirdoubts about the uninstallingprocedure of the old clocks.One expert further said thatMCD has no proper docu-mentation of heritage clocksand thus it can be presumedthat even if some parts of theold clocks are missing MCDwill never be able to verify it.Emphasising on the fact thatthese clocks have high value inantique market, he said that anofficial enquiry should be con-ducted in this matter.

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Municipal Corporation ofDehradun (MCD) will

be starting an InformationEducation andCommunication (IEC) basedsource segregation campaign.This campaign will be con-ducted till September 14 andseveral activities will be carriedout during this time.

These activities will include‘Swachhata Rath’, which isschedule to be flagged off onMonday. Through ‘Har GharDastak’ door to door cam-paign regarding waste segre-gation will be encouraged bylocal councillors, then sourcesegregation activities will beconducted at school level andlastly felicitation of rag pickerswill be organised.

According to the informa-tion provided by a representa-tive of Ramky company, theawareness campaign will beconducted in the wards withthe help of local representativesand company employees.Parallel to this campaign phasewise source segregation ofwaste implementation will beinitiated.

In the first phase that is tostart from September 2 to 15,first five wards that are Mata

Mandir, Race Course North,Race Course South, Rest Campand MKP. The second phasewill be held from September 16to 30. The third phase will beheld from October 1 to 15. Thefourth phase will be held fromOctober 16 to 31. The fifth andthe final step will be held fromNovember 1 to 15. This imple-mentation process is designedfor 66 wards.

It is pertinent to mentionhere that in order to take sug-gestions through an open plat-form from several stakeholdersMCD has conducted meetingin two phases.

In the first phase mer-chant association, local busi-nessman and non-govern-mental organisations partici-pated while in the secondphase local members of the councillorbody were present. Most of thesuggestions were to conductawareness campaigns againstpolythene usage in order totake support from the citi-zens.

However, some stakehold-ers have raised concern on thework plan that MCD is makingstating that authorities are notclarifying that what type ofpolythene and plastic isbanned.

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In the murder case of a 32-year-old woman at Mata

Mandir Road in Dharmpuron August 29, the police havestill not been able to arrest themain accused. According to thesources, on the basis of suspi-cion raised by the guardian ofdeceased, Kamna Rohilla, onher husband, Ashok Rohilla,and his family, the Rohillafamily is also under the lens ofthe police.

According to the sources,the body of deceased KamnaRohilla was sent to All IndiaInstitute of Medical Sciences

(AIIMS) Rishikesh for postmortem. In the post mortemreport it was disclosed that thebullet was shot from behind.The angle of the shot is also asif she was lying on the bed andthe shooter was standing.

Sources further stated thatdistrict police have also posi-tioned two police personnel atthe private hospital inPatelnagar where AshokRohilla is undergoing treat-ment. He was shot on thesame night in his midriff but isout of any immediate danger.Police have also found the bul-let lodged in the bed whereKamna Rohilla was shot. Based

on the post-mortem reportlocal police are further inves-tigating the case.

It is pertinent to mentionhere that the main accused-Ajay Verma alias Rinkuallegedly shot the couple result-ing in the death of Kamna andinjury to her husband. The hus-band in his statement hasalleged that three people cameand shot both of them at about12 AM.

Brother of the deceasedwoman has filed a complaint inNehru Colony police station.Deceased woman’s family alsosuspects involvement of Rohillafamily in the murder.

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Heading a team from Schoolof Planning and

Architecture (SPA), New Delhi,associate professor and head ofDepartment of ArchitecturalConservation, AnuradhaChaturvedi said they werelooking at the carrying capac-ity of Dehradun and Mussoorieto save the valley from degra-dation. She said this during aninteractive session between theState’s former chief secretary SKDas and students from theSPA at Natraj: The GreenBookshop.

Chaturvedi said that there isa need to look for a capital at asuitable place in the mountainswhich will take care of themigration problem, job oppor-tunities and rapid over-all devel-opment of the state, particular-

ly for those living in the moun-tains. This will surely bring peo-ple back to their roots, just as ithas happened in the neighbour-ing state of Himachal Pradesh.

The team from SPA is on avisit to Dehradun to look at themulti-layered cultural landscapeincluding sacred landscapes, cul-tural and pilgrimage routes link-ing numerous historic settle-ments, relict landscapes and his-toric urban landscapes associat-ed with settlement typologiesand modulated landscapes devel-oped during the 19th and early20th century. The team willfocus on mainstreaming heritagemanagement, sustainable con-servation and development ofcultural landscapes into gov-ernment programmes.

Speaking on the occasion,Das shared his experience withthe development agenda for the

city and urged the team to focuson critical issues being faced bythe current administration inmaking the city truly smart. Heexpressed the hope that with theyounger generation taking inter-est, it will be possible to restorethe city to its past glory.

The book “Sals of the Valley:A Memorial to Dehradun” byPradeep Singh was also releasedon the occasion. The book is atribute to the Sal forests that sym-bolise the strength and the per-manence of the virtues of theDehradun valley. They form thedramatic backdrop of the sevenstories in this anthology. Singh,whose family has lived inDehradun for over 300 years dis-closed that he was in possessionof a British document that cer-tified Dehradun suitable to bemade the Capital of India at onepoint.

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When humans act withcruelty we characterise

them as ‘animals’ yet the onlyanimal that displays cruelty ishumanity.” The quote aptlysums up the cases of cruelty

against animals that the coun-try has been witnessing lately.

The recent gruesome caseof a stray dog, ‘Lucky’ dyingafter being mercilessly beatenup for taking shelter inside aresidential complex and anoth-er case of a female dog beingsexually abused in Mumbai

have triggered a debate onhow India do not seem to reg-ister animal cruelty as a keyissue.

Troubled by the incidents,actress-producer AnushkaSharma had even began a cam-paign recently demandingstricter laws against animal

cruelty while other B-Town’sanimal lovers like SonamKapoor, John Abraham andMalaika Arora too had raisedtheir voice against the incidentsof cruelty against animals.

With the country witness-ing rise in the number of ani-mal abuse cases, the animal

rights activists are now stress-ing on the need to excogitate onthe issue of animal welfare. Butthis is not the first time that thistopic has received widespreadattention and gained substan-tial prominence in media cov-erage.

The appalling incidents –a

horse named Shaktiman dyingweeks after being hit over andover with a stick by a BJP law-maker during a protest inDehradun (Uttarakhand), aman mercilessly throwing awhimpering dog off the edge ofa tall building in Chennai(Tamil Nadu) and a stray dogbeing tied upside down with atree and beaten mercilessly ata group housing society inChandigarh—all three episodeshappening in the year 2016 arestill afresh in people’s mind andhad led to the demand oftougher punishment for animalabusers.

But after nearly three yearsand several protests by variousanimal rights activists andNGOs demanding tougherlaws for animal welfare, theplight of animals in the coun-try does not seem to improveeven a little bit.

The animal rights activistsbelieve that lack of awarenessamong people and lack ofeffective laws in the countryhas encouraged the occur-rences of incidents of animalabuse over the years. And, notonly dogs, the animals that areprone to abuse and crueltyalso included horses, cats, mon-keys, birds and livestock.

In India, one can get awaywith inflicting inhuman tortureon animals by paying a fine ofanything between Rs 10 to Rs50. For, “The Prevention ofCruelty To Animals Act, 1960”provides for a fine which shallnot be less than ten rupees butwhich may extend to fiftyrupees in case of a first offence,and in the case of a second orsubsequent offence committedwithin three years of the pre-vious offence, fine shall not beless than twenty-five rupees butwhich may extend to one hun-dred rupees or with imprison-ment for a term which mayextend to three months, or withboth.

In tricity includingChandigarh, Mohali andPanchkula, the animal rightsactivists have been receivingseveral complaints related toanimal abuse on daily basis.Recent bizarre cases includeda stray dog being beaten todeath, a stray dog dying due toacid attack, another stray dogbeaten with iron rod, a crowbeing killed and tied upsidedown to a tree to scare off otherbirds, a monkey being poi-soned, to name a few.

“Around four-five cases ofcruelty against animals arereported to me every weekfrom Chandigarh and Mohali,”says Inder Sandhu, an honoraryanimal welfare officer of theAnimal Welfare Board of India.

Sandhu, who is also thefounder of Peedu’s People,working for animal rescue andchanging perceptions of peopletowards stray animals says,“The number of cases report-ed everyday are just the tip ofthe iceberg as a large numberof cases of animal cruelty thatoccur daily go unnoticed andare never reported.”

“For instance, as per thelaw, 750 kg is the maximumweight allowed for horse drawnvehicles. Also, it is illegal to usedraught and pack animals from12 noon to 3 pm during sum-mer season. However, peopleare not aware of such laws andhorses are forced to toil in allweather extremes all day long,”he says.

Talking about the nature ofcases of animal abuse, he tells,“Stray dogs being beaten upand killed, pets being kept incage and not being taken careof by their owners, dog fight-ing, dog racing, abandoningunproductive cattle, overloadedhorse carts and donkey carts,birds starved and confined towire enclosures at poultryfarms, illegal breeding of exot-ic marine species, bovinespecies not being taken care ofat gaushalas (cow shelter) aresome of the complaints that I

have come across in thisregion.”

Sandhu further says that beit dogs or cows, stray animalsare mostly mistreated. Peopledo not want any stray animalto sit outside their house orinside residential complex evenduring rainfall. Cases of argu-ments between residents arealso often reported when ani-mal lovers allow dogs to sitinside residential complex orfeed them, he says.

“If someone is an animallover, his love for the animalsshould not only be restricted topetting his own pet or feedingthe stray dogs, they should alsoraise their voice against animalabuse,” he adds.

In Chandigarh, around 157challans have been issued tillJuly this year under the “ThePrevention of Cruelty toAnimals Act, 1960”. 7 challanswere issued in January, 12 inFebruary, 22 in March, 21 inApril, 30 in May, 35 in June and30 in July.

“While 157 challans havebeen issued till July this year,more than 500 challans wereissued to the violators underthe Act,” informs DharminderDogra, Inspector, Society forthe Prevention of Cruelty toAnimals, Chandigarh.

He tells, “Maximum chal-lans were issued regarding cru-elty on chickens and horses. Atmost places, chickens are keptin unhygienic conditions,cramped cages and are not fedproperly. In case of horses,challans were issued related tooverloading of horse drawnvehicles that ply in the city.Most of such vehicles are over-loaded and horses are subject-ed to cruelty. Challans have alsobeen issued to those horse cartdrivers, who were caught sell-ing fruits or vegetables byroadside while their horsesilently bore the heat.”

“Few complaints of petsbeing kept in cages and notgiven food were also received.In such cases, we issue warn-ing to the concerned ownerand later, issue challan or takethe animal in our custody ifrequired,” he adds.

Interestingly, the animalsoccupy an important place inour Hindu culture, which firm-ly believes that animals possesssouls just like humans anddeserved to be treated well andto be allowed to evolve in theirown natural ways.

Particularly, the cows arerespected and worshipped inthe country and strict laws arein place against cow slaughterand smuggling. Over the pastfew years, the country haseven witnessed cases of lynch-ing in the name of cow pro-tection but the stray cattlesearching for food in opengarbage dumps, cattle dyingdue to accidents on roads andpoor conditions at gaushalasremain hardly a matter of con-cern.

Cow lovers do turn up inlarge numbers at gaushalas topour their love and feed thebovine species on special occa-sions like Gopashtami but theyusually don’t bother about thefood and protection of straycows.

In a survey report releasedlast year, the Federation of theIndian Animal ProtectionOrganisations (FIAPO) hadstated that it investigated livingconditions and practices in179 gaushalas across 17 statesand found 154 (or 86 per cent)got bulls to impregnate cowsand extracted milk during lac-tation periods.

The investigation alsofound that many of the gausha-las ran as “dairies in disguisewith rampant malpracticesleading to severe suffering ofbovines.”

Another survey madeshocking revelations about thecruel practices against egg-laying hens and broiler chick-ens in the country. The survey

by an animal rights group inMaharashtra, Hyderabad andHaryana in 2016 revealed con-fining hens in small-wiredcages not only leads to a num-ber of deaths every year, butalso leaves them bleeding, withsores, cracked and deformedfeet owing to the wired floor ofthe cages. Some of them werealso found to be missing feath-ers and suffering from abra-sions and skin irritations.

Yet another investigation inseveral hatcheries and farms inAndhra Pradesh and Telanganarevealed cruel practices –which include incubation, sex-ing, debeaking, burning,drowning among other atroc-ities – against chicks whilethey are still alive.

While the dreadful revela-tions make our heart boil,there has been no end to suchcruel practices against ani-mals.

Vikas Luthra, founder ofChandigarh based FureverFriends, a group of animallovers says, “It has been a long-time demand of animal rightsactivists and animal lovers tostrengthen the existing laws ofcruelty against animals. Theanimal abusers go scot-freedue to paltry fines under theexisting Act and zero convic-tion in cases of animal cruelty.The Government of India hadproposed to amend the Act fewyears ago but nothing has beendone so far.”

Commenting on how theanimal cruelty cases are dealtwith, Vikas tells, “Most of thetimes, the police personnel donot understand the cases ofanimal cruelty. Due to lack ofawareness, they do not knowhow to go about it and avoidregistering such cases. Policegenerally focus on settlement ofdispute between two sideswhen it comes to complaintsregarding animal abuse. Evenwhen either a case is registeredby police or a legal notice issent by an advocate to animalabusers, such cases are notpursued further and does notreach Court at all.”

“We receive about 16 -18calls a week from Punjab andChandigarh regarding com-plaints of animal abuse. Ourcounseling team of about eightpeople which includes doctors,police officials among othersfocuses on the counseling ofviolators and making themaware about various laws andthe punishment they may facefor animal cruelty,” Vikas says.

“Besides strengthening theexisting laws, the governmentshould give special training topolice personnel to deal withthe cases of animal cruelty,” headds.

Notably, the Governmentof India is working on revisingthe unjust penalties under thecurrent laws and the statutoryadvisory body-Animal WelfareBoard of India- had recently setup a committee to strengthenthe existing laws on animalwelfare.

Even as the animal rightsactivists are pushing forstrengthening the laws on ani-mal cruelty, we must also makesure that our moral concernsprompt us to act on indiffer-ence towards animals.

The next time you witnessany animal being subjected tocruelty, do not forget to reportthe matter to the concernedauthority because, “We mustspeak for those who can’t speakfor themselves”.

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People left off the NRC arenot "stateless" and will

continue to enjoy all the rightsas before till they exhaust all theremedies available under thelaw, the Ministry of ExternalAffairs (MEA) said on Sunday.

It said exclusion from theNRC has no implication on therights of an individual residentin Assam and that they will notbe deprived of any rights orentitlements which they haveenjoyed before.

The MEA's commentscame in the wake of commen-taries in sections of the foreignmedia about certain aspects ofthe final NRC which it said are"incorrect".

The National Register ofCitizens (NRC) has been pre-pared to identify Indian citizensliving in Assam since March 24,1971 or before.Out of 3.3 croreapplicants, over 19 lakh peoplewere excluded from the finalNRC published on Saturday.

"Exclusion from the NRChas no implication on therights of an individual residentin Assam. "For those who arenot in the final list will not bedetained and will continue to

enjoy all the rights as before tillthey have exhausted all theremedies available under thelaw," MEA spokespersonRaveesh Kumar said.

"It does not make theexcluded person 'Stateless'. Italso does not make him or hera 'foreigner', within the legalmeaning of the term. They will

not be deprived of any rights orentitlements which they haveenjoyed before," he added.

The spokesperson also saidthat to expedite the process of

receiving applications for inclu-sion, the Assam government isestablishing 200 more tri-bunals, in addition to the exist-ing 100.

"A further 200 more tri-bunals will be set up by theState of Assam by December2019. These Tribunals will beset up at block level for the con-venience of appellants," he said.

Kumar said that anyoneexcluded from the list at thisstage has a right to file an appealwithin 120 days of receiving anotification of exclusion to thedesignated tribunal.

"All appeals and excludedcases will be examined by thistribunal i.e. A judicial process.This judicial process will com-mence only after the appellateperiod is over. Thereafter, any-one still aggrieved by any deci-sion of being excluded will havethe right to approach the HighCourt of Assam and then theSupreme Court," he stated.

He also said that the Indiangovernment will even assist inproviding directions on how todeal with such appeals.

"Through the District LegalService Authorities, the gov-ernment has provisioned toextend legal aid to the needy.The State of Assam has assuredprovision of free legal assistanceto any person excluded fromthe list and who is unable to

afford such legal assistance.This is to enable people, espe-cially the disadvantaged sec-tions, to have access to the bestpossible legal assistance," hestated.

He said that the updatingof NRC is a "statutory, trans-parent, legal process" mandat-ed by the Supreme Court.

"This is not an executive-driven process. The process isbeing monitored by theSupreme Court directly and thegovernment is acting in accor-dance with the directives issuedby the court. The apex court of the land has itself setthe deadlines for all steps thathave been taken so far," he stat-

ed.He said that the NRC is a

fair process based on scientif-ic methods.

"Inclusion in the NRC is aunique process, as it is based on'application' rather than 'houseto house enumeration'. Itmeans that any person inAssam could have sought to beincluded in the list on thebasis of having documentationto prove lineage from an enti-tled person, i.e A person whowas a resident of Assam as onMarch 24, 1971," he explained.

He also stated that it is anon-discriminatory process,which leaves no room for biasand injustice.

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Dealing a blow to the coun-try’s wood work industry,

a global body on the endan-gered species has spurnedIndia’s demand to lift interna-tional trade restriction onproducts made of sheeshamand rosewood timber.

The 18th meeting of CoP ofConvention on InternationalTrade in Endangered Species ofWild Fauna and Flora (CITES)at Geneva recently refused to beconvinced with India's con-tention that the prized timberwas available in abundance inthe country and that the restrict-ed trade has adversely affectedlivelihood of the poor farmersas well as over 50,000 artisans.

Since 2016, the productsmade of Dalbergia genusspecies, around 250 in totalincluding sheesham and rose-wood have been enlisted in theAppendix-II of the CITES, amultilateral treaty to protectendangered plants and ani-mals. Items falling underAppendix-II are subject totrade restrictions to check over-utilisation.

The move has already hithard India's handicraft industry.It has been observed that despiteof having potential export ofover Rs 1000 crores of handi-craft of this species only, exportof Rs. 617 crores only could takeplace in 2017-18 due to thisincreased control on trade, asper the government report.

"Export market of rose-wood handicraft, a thrivingsector has nearly crashed sincean international agreementcame into effect in 2017, reg-ulating the trade in all the 250rosewood species (underDalbergia genus)," a senior inUnion Environment Ministryadmitted.

Since then India along withNepal, Bhutan and Bangladeshhave been jointly demandingremoval of trade restrictions onthe Dalbergia sissoo, one of theDalbergia genus species.

In 2016, the Dalbergiagenus species was broughtunder the Appendix-II of theCITES after several Africanand Latin American countrieshad raised concerns over a"considerable rise in interest inthe wood of Dalbergia in inter-national markets, primarily inChina". According to them, this

was fuelling an illegal trade,which was decimatingDalbergia populations.

However, since all speciesof Dalbergia are not threatened,India had submitted thatCITES should regulate thetrade of individual speciesbased on their conservationstatus. In its proposal at theCITES meeting at Genevarecently, India cited non-detrimental finding (NDF)study carried out by BotanicalSurvey of India stating thatDalbergia sissoo does not fallinto any threatened categoryand is available in abundanceboth in wild and cultivatedpopulations, a source in CITESManagement Authority forIndia, the body responsible forimplementing rules of the con-vention said.

India had also argued thatthe species grows at a very fastrate and has the capacity tobecome naturalised outside itsnative range, it is even invasivein some parts of the world.Listing of Dalbergia genus maycreate unnecessary complica-

tions in the trade of commonspecies like D sissoo, which arebeing managed and monitoredthrough the management plansof forest areas and are protect-ed under the forest laws ofIndia, said the Ministry.

India also pointed out thatthe listing of Dalbergia inCITES Appendix II hasadversely affected livelihood ofthe several poor farmers as wellas artisans (over 50000) inIndia due to increased controlof the trade.

"Hence, we would like tourge the CITES Secretariat forreconsidering the opinion onthe proposal for de-listingDalbergia sissoo fromAppendix II of CITES, whilethe proposal is considered dur-ing the CITES CoP-18 atGeneva, Switzerland.

Export market of rose-wood handicraft, a thrivingsector has nearly crashed sincean international agreementcame into effect in 2017, reg-ulating the trade in all the 250rosewood species (underDalbergia genus).

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In an alarming trend, nearly one bat-talion of the CRPF deployed in the

Special Operation Zone(SOZ) ofChhattisgarh has been found to be ofLow Medical Category (LMC).

A total of 22 battalions are deployedin the SOZ and as many as 894 per-sonnel have been found to be LMC.

The CRPF treats SOZ,Chhattisgarh as a "high conflict zone"where every CRPF personnel is expect-ed to maintain highest level of physicalfitness and remain battle ready to beinducted into intense counter Naxaloperations at a very short notice.

LMC cases not only hamper theoperational performance of each com-pany but also become burden on thecommandants who are engaged inrelentless counter Naxal operations, arecent order issued by the Force said.

"You are earnestly requested torecall all the LMC cases posted in theAdministrative Units of your sectoroperating in SOZarea for the largerinterest of the counter Naxal opera-tions," CRPF Inspector General GHPRaju said in a letter circulated to all theformations of the Naxal-affected States.

Seeking to arrest the dwindling

health profile of the Force in one of theworst Naxal-hit states, Raju also advisedthe formations to stop of disbursal ofspecial Risk and Hardship Allowance tosuch LMC cases. Each CRPF personneldeployed in the Naxal-hit States up tothe rank of Inspector is entitled to amonthly allowance of Rs 17,300 and forofficers the amount is to the tune of Rs25,000 per month. The allowance wassubstantially enhanced by the UnionHome Ministry on March 8 this year fol-lowing the Pulwama hit by the Pakistaniterror group Jaish-e-Mohammad inwhich 40 paramilitary men were killed.

In his letter, the IG further said, "Asyou are aware , this is a specialallowance extended to CRPF person-nel who are giving their best in the mostdifficult and high riskoperations.

The Commandant cannot detailLMC cases for Naxal operations. Hence,the LMC cases are not eligible to drawrisk allowance. Allowing them to drawrisk allowance amounts to extending

undue favour to these (LMC) cases atthe cost of the government exchequer,

which must be stopped forthwith toavoid audit objections in future."

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Khadi and Village IndustriesCommission (KVIC) on

Sunday welcomed the govern-ment's decision to put restric-tions on imports of agarbattiand other similar productsamid reports of significantincrease in inbound shipmentsfrom countries like China andVietnam.

KVIC Chairman VinaiKumar Saxena had raised theissue during his meetings withCommerce and IndustryMinister Piyush Goyal andMSME Minister Nitin Gadkarion August 29. Union MSMEMinister Nitin Gadkari alsoshown his concern about heavyimports of these products.

"Import policy of agarbat-ti and other odoriferous prepa-rations which operate by burn-ing...Is revised from free torestricted," the DirectorateGeneral of Foreign Trade(DGFT) said in a notificationon Saturday. Importers of

restricted category goodsrequire licence from the gov-ernment for import purpose.

"I was shocked to see thatin 2016-17, we had established2,831 projects of agarbatti mak-ing with the disbursement Rs10.06 crore as margin moneyand created 22,648 directemployment in this field. Sadly,in 2017-18 and 2018-19, wecould establish only 279 and397 units respectively - whichhas created a heavy loss inemployment in the agarbatti-making industry," Saxena said.

In a statement, KVIC quot-ed responses of agarbatti man-

ufacturers supporting the gov-ernment's move.

Subhash Bhatia, who headsthe Raw AgarbattiManufacturers' Association(RAMA), said the price of rawagarbatti available to the localperfumers, that had gone downfrom Rs 70/kg in 2009 to Rs48/kg in 2018, has been up byat least Rs 5/kg in less than aday of this notification. It willcreate not less than 20 lakh jobsin some months.

Bhatia, who hails fromJabalpur and heads the RawAgarbatti Manufacturers'Association (RAMA) - an

organisation who had beenstruggling from many years forputting Agarbatti and otheritems in the restricted catego-ry, says, "The effect of this boonfrom the Narendra Modi gov-ernment has already startedreflecting. The price of RawAgarbatti available to the localperfumers that had gone downfrom Rs 70/kg in 2009 to Rs48/kg in 2018, has been up byat least Rs 5/kg, in less than aday of this notification. It willcreate not less than 20 lakh jobsin some months now."

Corroborating similarviews, Bikram Singh Deka ofGuwahati (Assam) and BhavikSah of Ahmedabad (Gujarat)said that the recent amendmentof import policy of agarbattiand other odoriferous prepa-rations would not only paveway for village industry unitsinvolved in agarbatti-makingbut would also check theimport dependency of Indianperfumers to a significant level.

Saxena further said thatKVIC would establish at least

50,000 Prime MinisterEmployment GenerationProgramme (PMEGP) unitsof agarbatti-making acrossthe nation in the present fis-cal.

Expressing their gratitudefor Khadi and VillageIndustries Commission(KVIC), they said unanimous-ly: "It was the Herculean effortof KVIC Chairman thatbrought ray of hopes for IndianAgarbatti-makers, otherwisesuch amendment was a miragefor us."

Imports of agarbatti andother odoriferous preparationsstood at USD 17.75 million(about Rs 125 crore) duringApril-June 2019-20. It was USD83.58 million (about Rs 585crore) in 2018-19 as againstUSD 84.95 million (about Rs595 crore) in the previous fiscal.

Agarbatti imports fromChina dipped to USD 6.39million in 2018-19 from USD8.53 million in the previous fiscal.

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By 2022, the CentralGovernment Health

Scheme (CGHS) serviceswould be made available in 100cities from present 71 cities,said Dr Harsh Vardhan, UnionMinister of Health and FamilyWelfare at the inauguration ofthe state-of-the-art CGHSBhawan here at an event.

"The CGHS services whichstarted in 1954 from GolMarket in Delhi expanded toonly 25 cities till 2014.However, in the last five yearsunder the NDA Governmentthey have been extended to as

many as 71 cities," said theMinister adding that morecities will be covered soon.

The new Bhawan is theCGHS Headquarters and hous-es the administrative section,the CGHS Card section, and astate-of-the-art modern andwell equipped Wellness Centre.

Dr Harsh Vardhan saidthat CGHS services haveundergone a remarkable posi-

tive change. While the ruleshave been simplified, severalpeople friendly facilities havealso been added.

"The scheme has thepotential of becoming one ofthe best in the world," he saidadding that all positive reformsshall be incorporated in theplanning. In addition, he appre-ciated the new CGHS initiativeof calling telephonically andinquiring about the health ofbeneficiaries who are above 80years of age. The HealthMinister stressed on the needfor compassion and politenessin the behaviour of doctorstowards their patients.

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Monsoon may have beenlate in arrival, but it has

been more than generous dur-ing the last two months, brin-ing in excess rains in majorparts of the country.

According to data sharedby the India MeteorologicalDepartment (IMD), nearly halfof the country received 15 per-cent excess rainfall than normalin August. This is the secondconsecutive month the countryrecorded above normal rainfall.

June recorded deficientrainfall at 87 per cent of theLong Period Average (LPA),while July saw above normalrainfall at 109 per cent of LPA.August recorded rainfall at 115per cent of the LPA. The cur-

rent LPA is 89 cm, the averagerainfall in the period between1951 and 2000.

The overall rainfall depar-ture in the country from June 1to August 31 is zero per cent, KSathi Devi, head of the NationalWeather Forecasting Centre toldnews agency PTI. September,the last leg of the four-monthrainy season, is expected toreceive normal rainfall, D Pai,

head of the IMD Pune said.He added that El Nino, the

phenomenon associated withthe heating of Pacific waters,and that is also believed to havean impact on the Indian mon-soon, has turned neutral.

Pai said there is a positiveIndia Ocean Dipole, a phe-nomenon associated with cool-ing of the Indian Ocean waters.This is believed to have a pos-

itive impact on the Indianmonsoon. Twenty six per centof the country received "largeexcess" rainfall in August, while22 per cent received "excess"rainfall.

Twenty-three per cent of thecountry received normal rainfall,while 29 per cent recorded defi-cient rainfall. The south Indiapeninsula and central India divi-sions of the India MeteorologicalDivision (IMD) saw 56 and 39per cent more rainfall than nor-mal respectively.

The south peninsula divi-sion comprises all states ofTamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka,Andhra Pradesh and the unionterritories of Puducherry,Andaman and Nicobar islandsand the Lakshadweep. Thestates of Karnataka and Kerala

saw heavy rainfall in August.Thecentral India division consists of10 subdivisions covering statesof Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa,Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarhand Odisha. Madhya Pradesh,Maharashtra and Gujarat alsosaw heavy rainfall and floodingin August.

The month recorded 38per cent rainfall deficiency inthe east and northeast divisionand one per cent deficiency innorthwest India division. Eastand northeast division com-prises states of the northeastIndia, Bihar, Jharkhand, WestBengal, while northwest Indiaconsists of Uttar Pradesh,Punjab, Haryana, JammuKashmir, Uttarakhand,Himachal Pradesh, Delhi andRajasthan.

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Iterating that the Centre mustensure no genuine Indians

are left out of the NRC, WestBengal Chief Minister MamataBanerjee on Sunday said shewas "shocked" to find out thatone lakh people of the Gorkhacommunity have been exclud-ed from the list.

The TMC supremo insist-ed that "justice should be metedout to all Indian brothers andsisters".

"Earlier I was not aware ofthe full NRC fiasco. As moreand more information is com-ing in, we are shocked to seethat names of more than 1 lakhGorkha people have beenexcluded from the list,"Banerjee said in a statementissued by the TrinamoolCongress (TMC) leadership.

"In fact, names of thou-sands and thousands of gen-uine Indians, including those ofCRPF and other jawans, fam-ily members of formerPresident Fakhruddin AliAhmed, have been excluded(from the list)," she said.

The updated NationalRegister of Citizens (NRC),which identifies bona fideIndian citizens in Assam, wasreleased on Saturday.

A total of 3,30,27,661 peo-

ple had applied for inclusion inthe register. Of them, 19,06,657were excluded, a statement

from the NRC StateCoordinator's office said.

"The government must takecare that genuine Indians arenot left out and justice is metedout to all of our genuine Indianbrothers and sisters," Banerjeeadded. On Saturday, the CMhad expressed concern overthe exclusion of large numberof Bengalis from the register.

Dubbing the updated finalNRC as a "fiasco", she had saidit exposed those who are try-ing to gain "political mileage"out of the exercise.

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Guwahati: Citizens for Justiceand Peace, an NGO helmed byrights activist Teesta Setalvad,said on Sunday that those left outof the NRC should immediate-ly get hold of a copy of the exclu-sion order, which would enablethem to file appeals before tri-bunals in stipulated time.

The NGO also said that thenitty-gritty and modalities forfiling the appeals were stillawaited.

Every excluded person willneed access to a "certified copyof the exclusion order and the

list of documents submitted bythem to the NRC authorities",CJP Secretary Teesta Setalvadsaid in a statement.

"We hope the authoritiesmake the documents availableat the earliest and clarifywhether the deadline of 120days starts after these docu-ments are accessed," she point-ed out.

The updated NationalRegister of Citizens (NRC),which identifies bona fideIndian citizens in Assam, waspublished on Saturday. PTI

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In the run up to two key UNsummits on Climate Change,

India has raised the pitch forfinance and technology supportto developing nations to achievethe Paris Agreement goals ofkeeping a global average tem-perature rise this century wellbelow 2 degrees Celsius.

Union Minister forEnvironment, Forest andClimate Change PrakashJavadekar said India, under theleadership of Prime MinisterNarendra Modi, was takingdecisive steps in achievingNationally DeterminedContributions (NDCs), which isthe heart of the 2015 Paris pact.

Javadekar spelt out the suc-cess stories of India on ParisNDCs to reduce national emis-sions and adapt to the impactsof climate change.

"In Chile, when we meet inthe next COP (Conference ofthe Parties), we will be taking astance that every country needsto follow their own commit-ments to reduce national emis-sions and advanced countriesneed to provide finance andtechnology support, that is mostimportant to developing world,he told PTI here during his visitfor a function on Friday.

The nations under theUnited Nations negotiated andadopted the Paris Agreement in

which India made four com-mitments, including reducinggreenhouse gas emission inten-sity of its GDP by 33-35 percent below 2005 levels by 2030,under its NDC. NDCs embodyefforts by each country toreduce national emissions and adapt to the impacts of cli-mate change.

Referring to theGovernments ambitious CleanIndia mission, its effortstowards eliminating single useplastic, harnessing solar andwind energy and, creating moretree cover for protection ofenvironment, Javadekar saidthese will be highlighted in var-ious UN Climate forums.

A climate action summitbeing hosted by UN Secretary-

General Antnio Guterres willbe held this month and theUnited Nations summit hostedby Chile in December.

He also said the PrimeMinisters ambitious renewableenergy programme to create175 GW by 2022 "is a huge suc-cess and India has alreadyreduced energy intensity by 22per cent. His remarks are in linewith the statementby theBASIC group of nations —Brazil, South Africa, India andChina — in which they urgeddeveloped countries to under-take ambitious actions toreduce greenhouse gas (GHG)emissions and meet theirfinance commitments, includ-ing by mobilising $100 billionannually by 2020.

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Jammu: Jammu & KashmirGovernor Satya Pal Malik inau-gurated the annual LadakhFestival, the four-day extrava-ganza aimed at promotingtourism and the region's richculture, in Leh on Sunday.

Malik said the UnionTerritory (UT) status forLadakh "will open new doorsfor employment and develop-ment in the region".

He said Ladakh's pristinebeauty, traditions, culture, lan-guage and heritage would beprotected.

Malik said Ladakh's exclu-sive landscape and people, whoare deeply rooted in their tra-ditions and culture, have alwayspulled him towards the region.

He said that like the major-ity of them who follow tenetsof Buddhism, he is also abeliever in Buddha's philoso-phy which preaches ultimatepeace.

"Ladakh's pristine beauty,traditions, culture, languageand heritage will be protectedand people will benefitimmensely from the UT statuswhich will open new doors foremployment and develop-ment," he said.

He said the CentralGovernment under the lead-ership of Prime MinisterNarendra Modi has alwaysbeen considerate to aspira-tions of Ladakh and fulfilledthem as promised.

The Governor said he andhis administration will alwayswork for development ofLadakh and observed that evenwhen he is not at the helm ofaffairs, he will continue towork as its goodwill ambas-sador.

Malik also welcomed thelarge number of tourists whoare presently in Ladakh andwished them an enjoyable andcomfortable stay in the region.

BJP MP Jamyang TseringNamgyal expressed gratitude tothe Centre for granting UT sta-tus to Ladakh and to theGovernor and his administra-tion for their efforts in makingit possible.

"It was a long pendingdemand of whole Ladakh andUT status will definitely lead toprogress and prosperity of itspeople," he said.

The Central Governmentabrogated special status ofJammu & Kashmir underArticle 370 of the Constitutionand divided the State into twoUnion Territories — Jammu &Kashmir, and Ladakh — lastmonth. PTI

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Chennai: The Indian space agency on Sundayevening successfully completed the fifth and finallunar bound orbit change for the Chandrayaan-2spacecraft.

According to Indian Space ResearchOrganisation (ISRO), the spacecraft's maneuverbegan at 6.21 p.m. using its onboard propulsionsystem for 52 seconds.

The orbit achieved is 119 km x 127 km. Allspacecraft parameters are normal.

The next crucial operation is the separation ofVikram, the lander, from the spacecraft scheduledon September 2 at 12.45 p.m. -1.45 p.m.

After Vikram's separation, there will be twode-orbital operations on September 3 and 4 so thatit could soft land on the moon's south pole onSeptember 7 at 1.30 am-2.30 am.

On July 22, the �978 crore Chandrayaan-2 waslaunched into the space by India's heavy lift rock-et Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-Mark III (GSLV Mk III) in a text book style.

The spacecraft comprises three segments —the Orbiter (weighing 2,379 kg, eight payloads),the lander 'Vikram' (1,471 kg, four payloads) androver 'Pragyan' (27 kg, two payloads). IANS

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Gaya: A group of men beat up a 40-year-oldfarmer and hanged him from a tree leading tohis death, and assaulted his wife when she triedto protect her husband in Gaya district onSunday, the police said.

Siyasharan Yadav, a farmer of Sikandarpurvillage under Paraiya police station area, wasattacked while he and his wife Soni Devi wereworking in the fields, Sub-Divisional PoliceOfficer Nagendra Singh said.

"The attackers are said to have been six innumber. After severely assaulting Yadav, theyhung him from a tree using cloths, resultingin his death," Singh said.

Soni Devi tried to put up a fight and criedfor help but nobody came, the police officersaid adding that she suffered blows andwatched helplessly as the attackers killed herhusband.

"An FIR has been registered on the basisof her statement. She alleged that the couplehad a feud with a neighbouring family formany years and she suspected their hand inthe incident," the SDPO said. PTI

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Jammu: Asserting that the situationin Kashmir is fast limping back tonormal, Jammu & KashmirGovernor's advisor Farooq Khanon Sunday said the number ofactive terrorists in the Valley haddeclined to 150 or 200 from thou-sands earlier.

However, he said the terroristswould either have to go to jail or getprepared to face the consequences

"Pakistan is making attemptson Kashmir since 1947. Expectinggood from it will be the biggest mis-take and every citizen of the stateneed to remain cautious," Khantold reporters on the sidelines of afunction here.

Lauding the role of people inhelping the security forces to dealwith terrorists over the past threedecades, he said "they are our eyesand ears as they know everythingwhat is happening and where.

"They will continue their coop-eration and support like in the pastwhich led to the successful tacklingof the terrorism in the state.

The terrorism was not easy todealt with without the support andcooperation of the people which ledto number of terrorists declining to150 or 200 from thousands earlier,"the retired IPS officer, who is seenas being instrumental in breakingthe backbone of militancy in the1990s, said.

Khan, who joined the BJPafter his retirement as IGP, said thesituation in the valley is fast limp-ing back to normal.

"No doubt that the peoplefaced some sort of communicationproblem in the valley for sometimebut today nothing like that is hap-

pening. Till date, 75 per cent oflandlines were restored and cellphones in some districts also start-ed working. More restrictions willbe eased in the coming days," hesaid.

Khan said schools have openedin most parts of the valley. Thoughthe student attendance was thinearlier, it has also started picking upas "we are preparing for 9th to 12thclass state board of school educa-tion examinations shortly".

"I want to assure the people ofKashmir and Jammu that there isno need for concern in the new setup for Jammu and Kashmir, whichwill come into effect after October31. You will witness large scaledevelopment in every field, whetherrelated to tourism or any other sec-tor, with each passing day.

"Jammu people, who were notgiven due attention in earlier times,be assured that such a thing willnever happen again. All the areaswill witness equitable develop-ment under the Union Territory,"

Khan said. The advisor said the biggest gift

which the people of Jammu andKashmir is getting in the comingmonths is 50,000 jobs which will befilled up in the next three months.

"The recruitment process willbe 100 per cent transparent andbased on merit without any dis-crimination," he said.

On the reports that relatives ofdetained persons including formerchief ministers are not allowed tomeet them, Khan termed it as a"false propaganda by vested inter-ests" and said as per the jail man-ual and law of the land, the relativesof the detained persons are allowedto meet them.

"The state administration isfunctioning as per the law of theland," he said.

In response to another questionabout restoration of mobile inter-net services in Jammu where thesituation is peaceful, he said thefacility would be restored in theregion in due course of time. PTI

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Kozhikode (Ker): Students of acollege near Parambra waved aflag that resembled Pakistan'snational flag during an electioncampaign on the campus and thepolice have on its own registereda case against them.

The green colour flag, whichwas similar to Pakistan's, waswaved as part of a college elec-tion programme organised bythe Muslim Students' Federation(MSF).

The leadership of MSF, thestudents' wing of the IUML(Indian Union Muslim League),however rejected the charge andclaimed it was the outfit's officialflag and not the Pakistan flag aswas alleged.

The case was registered aftera video footage of the August 27incident at the Silver Arts andScience College had gone viral

on the social media, police toldPTI on Sunday. The case wasregistered under various sectionsof IPC including 153 (wantonlygiving provocation with intent tocause riot), 143 (unlawful assem-bly) and 147 (punishment forriot). "The incident came tolight after a video footage wentviral.

Further action would bedecided upon after a compre-hensive probe," an investigatingofficer told PTI.

"The logo of MSF was miss-ing in this controversial flagwhich was also not proportion-ate to the standard size," the offi-cial added. Six college studentshave been suspended from thecollege in this regard and theywere absconding, the officialsaid adding that a search was onto nab them. PTI

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Empty houseboats, vacanthotels and deserted resorts

present a gloomy picture ofKashmir's tourism sector whichis going through one of its worstphases due to the prevailing sit-uation after the Centre abro-gated provisions of Article 370of the Constitution and reor-ganised the State into twoUnion Territories.

Kashmir has been facingunprecedented restrictions fornearly a month now, as normallife remains affected across theValley with markets shut andpublic transport off the roadssince August 5.

Days before announcing

the decision on Article 370, theState Government had asked alltourists in Kashmir to leave theValley. According to officials inthe Tourist Department, about20,000-25,000 visitors were pre-sent in the Valley, which was inits peak tourist season.

Since then, the Valley iswithout tourists, which hasbrought the industry —believed to be the backbone ofKashmir's economy — to itsknees. Sonamarg — consideredas the gateway to Ladakh region— is a picturesque resort in cen-tral Kashmir's Ganderbal dis-trict and usually remainedcrammed with visitors.

However, the resort looksdeserted with most of the

hotels, restaurants and shopsclosed for business.

A manager at a hotel heresaid the only business they hadwas of a few local visitorsputting up for a night or two.

"We have not seen touristsfor the last few weeks now.There were a few of them hereeven after the advisory by thegovernment. But after they left,we have had no tourists here.Only locals come for a night ortwo and then leave," he said.

According to official fig-ures, 1.74 lakh tourists visitedKashmir in June, followed by1.52 lakh, including 3,403 for-eigners, in July.

However, officials in theTourism Department said the

department has no record oftourist arrivals in August.

"We have no reports of anytourist arrival. There may havebeen a few of them, but we donot have any records," NisarAhmad Wani, director oftourism, Kashmir told PTI.

Another official of thedepartment, on the condition ofanonymity, said while thedepartment keeps no record ofthe domestic tourists because ofthe advisory which asked thevisitors to leave, about 800 for-eign tourists have been regis-tered for the month.

"The state's CID registersthe foreigners, so that numberis officially available. But, sincethere is a ban on tourists, the

number of domestic touristarrivals is not officially taken,"he said.

Stakeholders said thechances of revival of tourism inthe Valley were bleak this year.

"Summer season is ourpeak season and now the win-ter is approaching and it is con-sidered a dull tourist season.With the situation as it is, we donot see much chances of anyrevival this year or till March,"a travel agent said.

The famous Dal lake inSrinagar, which otherwise is astar attraction for the visitors,is calm and the only activitytaking place there is of some locals trying their handsat angling.

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Vadodara: Physiotherapists currently on a protestmarch in Gujarat have sent an email to PrimeMinister Narendra Modi demanding the settingup of an independent national council for the pro-fession and changes in a draft medical bill.

Some 800 physiotherapists from across thecountry began a ten-day 254-km march onAugust 25 from Dandi in south Gujarat toSabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad for severaldemands, including rectifying issues concerningthe profession in the draft Clinical Establishment(Central Government) Third Amendment Rules,2019. The march will end at Sabarmati Ashramin Ahmedabad on September 3.

"We have sent an email to Prime MinisterNarendra Modi for the formation of a central inde-pendent physiotherapy council. PM Modi hadestablished Gujarat State Physiotherapy Councilwhen he was CM of the state. The email was sentafter the physiotherapists' march reached Vadodaraon Saturday," said march organising committeechairperson Umashankar Mohanty. PTI

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Barrackpore BJP MP ArjunSingh on Sunday received

serious head injuries as freshclashes broke out between theruling Trinamool Congress and the BJP in Bhatpara-Jagatdal-Shyamnagar belt ofNorth 24 Parganas.

All hell broke loose inBarrackpore zone even as bothsides fought with bombs andbrickbats, thus forcing police to lathicharge the ram-paging mob from both sides try-ing to attack and capture eachother’s party offices.

Things reached to such apass that BarrackporeCommissioner of Police, ManojVerma, had to resort to fire inthe air from his personal pistollate on Sunday noon, sourcessaid even as Singh, who receiveda fractured skull, told reportersthat the he was selectively tar-geted and beaten up by thePolice Commissioner.

Reports said that the skir-mish started near Feeder Roadat Shyamnagar from where violence spread like wild fire to other.

Clashes started after theBJP MP who had come to meet

his party workers followingreports of clashes between thetwo parties was gheraoed andattacked by the ruling partymen. “They not only smashedmy car but attacked my menand me. When we started aprotest demonstration againstthis unprovoked violence thepolice commissioner resorted tolathi-charge and he personallyhit me with a lathi on my head,”Singh himself considered to bea local strongman said.

The saffron MP had been afour-time TMC MLA fromBhatpara and switched over tothe BJP just before the generalelections only to defeat sittingTrinamool MP Dinesh Trivedi.

The two sides had engagedeach other in a bloody turf warever since the central forces left

the area after the elections. Halfa dozen people have been killed and many houses havebeen burnt in the past three orfour months.

A temporary truce hadbeen arrived at a couple ofmonths ago after Verma tookcharge as the new CP but thingserupted once again on Sundayas the area witnessed continuedbombing and gun fights sinceSunday morning.

“No one can organise ademocratic movement inBengal. There is no scope for theOpposition parties to carry outtheir programmes as the TMCwill not let them do so,” Singhsaid adding while his partymen were attacked by the TMCgoons in presence of police theCP personally beat him up.

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An Indian Army jawanattained martyrdom in

heavy exchange of firing alongthe Line of Control in Poonchsector on Sunday.

Till the time of filing thereport, the identity of the soldier,who made supreme sacrifice inthe line of duty, could not beascertained.

Confirming the report relat-ed to fatal injury suffered by oneof the jawans, Defence PRO inJammu, Lt Col Devender Anandsaid, “one Army soldier attainedmartyrdom during ceasefireviolation in Poonch on Sunday”.

Since August 15, fourthIndian army jawan has lost hislife in Pakistan firing in theregion. In the last one monthalong over 280 incidents ofceasefire violations were report-ed from across the line of con-trol.

According to groundreports, Pakistan Army initiat-ed ceasefire violation in Poonch

sector by targeting several for-ward posts and civilian areasaround 12.00 pm Pakistan Armyfired mortar shells to targetcivilian areas,official sourcessaid.

In response, Indian Armyretaliated effectively causingextensive damage to few launch-ing pads in the area.

According to reports,Pakistan Army was targetingforward areas to divert attentionof the Indian Army so as to pushheavily armed group of infiltra-tors inside the Indian territory.Local villagers in Poonchclaimed, after a long gap boththe sides exchanged heavy firingin the forward area. Large num-ber of people remained strand-ed inside their houses due toheavy exchange of firing.

Indian Army Chief GeneralBipin Rawat had earlier visitedthe forward areas of Poonch onSaturday to take stock of the pre-vailing security situation andreview operational readiness ofthe units.

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Bengaluru: Continuing toexpress doubts over the longevi-ty of the BJP Government inKarnataka, Senior Congressleader Siddaramaiah on Sundaysaid he asked his party men toprepare for Assembly polls.

Hitting out at the BSYediyurappa-led Government,the former Chief Minister said,there was no administration inthe State for last one month.

“I have said, it is difficult forthis Government to completethree-and-half years. With thesupport of 17 Congress-JD(S)people (disqualified former leg-islators) if they (BJP) say theywill run the government, howlong can it survive?”Siddaramaiah asked.

Speaking to reporters inMysuru he alleged all the 17Congress-JD(S) disqualifiedMLAs have gone with the BJPfor the sake of “power”.

“With those who are notcommitted to a party’s principlesand programmes, with thosewho don’t have political valuesif you form a government, howlong can it survive?” he ques-tioned.

As the BS Yediyurappa-ledBJP Government completedone month in office last week,Siddaramaiah had claimed thatit may last one year at themost.

Claiming that it was diffi-cult for the BJP Government tosurvive for long, Siddaramaiahon Sunday said, “Yesterday alsoduring party workers meeting in

Mangaluru I have told ourparty men that first the by-elec-tions will come, after thatassembly election may alsocome, so all of you get ready.”

Absence of 17 Congress-JD(S) MLAs during the trustvote had led to the collapse ofthe HD Kumaraswamy headedcoalition Government in July,and helped BJP to come topower.

The then Assembly SpeakerRamesh Kumar had disqualified17 Congress-JD(S) MLAs underthe anti-defection law, whichthey have challenged in theSupreme Court.

On getting relief from theapex court, some of them wouldbe inducted into the cabinet asper the arrangement agreedupon, BJP sources have said.

Responding to a questionwhether the BJP Governmenthas taken off, Siddaramaiahsought to know if it existed at all.

“Where is theGovernment?” he asked.

“Yediyurappa headed thesingle member cabinet for about25 days.. Now 17 of them have

become Ministers, but theyhave not begun their work. Sothere is no government for lastone month,” he alleged.

Following the collapse ofCongress-JD(S) coalition gov-ernment, Yediyurappa wassworn in as the Chief Ministeron July 26, and subsequently heproved majority on the floor ofthe assembly on July 29.

More than three weeks afterhe was sworn in as the ChiefMinister, Yediyurappa hadexpanded his cabinet on August20 by inducting 17 Ministers,and a week after that he allo-cated portfolios to them.

Both Cabinet expansionand allocation of portfoliosthere after that saw appointmentof three Deputy Chief Ministershad lead to discontent withinthe BJP.

Alleging that theGovernment has not beeneffective in addressing theneeds of those affected byfloods, Siddaramaiah said, theyhave not been able to managethe situation and relief work“properly.” PTI

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Sitamarhi (Bihar): Making amockery of jail rules, a murderconvict cut a cake and servedmutton curry to other inmateshere on his birthday as the‘invitees’ recorded the celebra-tion on mobile phones, a videoof which surfaced online fol-lowing which seven prison offi-cials have been suspended.

In the undated video, PintuTiwari, who is serving life sen-tence for killing two engineersin Darbhanga, is seen sharingsweets with other inmates whopresented him with gifts andtook selfies together on theirmobile phones, Sitamarhi JailSuperintendent Rajesh KumarRai said. A platter of rice andmutton curry was served at thegathering while some of the

inmates whipped mobilephones out of their pockets andclicked selfies with Tiwari, hesaid. Rai said the revelry tookplace in violation of the jailmanual and the entire episodewas captured on mobilephones, the entry of which isbanned inside the prison.

Tiwari, a sharp-shooter ofthe Mukesh Pathak gang, hadcarried a reward of �50,000 onhis head. He was arrested fromPatna three years ago. It was notclear when the birthday partywas held but the video was wide-ly shared on Saturday night,leaving the jail authorities red-faced. Inspector General ofPolice (Jail) Mithilesh Mishra onSunday ordered the suspensionof seven prison officials. PTI

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Guwahati: Doctors in Assam on Sunday called for a 24-hour ‘withdrawal ofmedical services excludingemergency’ across the Stateon September 3 in protestagainst the killing of an elder-ly doctor by associates of apatient who died at a tea gar-den hospital in Jorhat.

Doctors will withdrawtheir services from 6 am but theemergency in all hospitals willremain open, President of theAssam State Branch of theIndian Medical Association,Dr Satyajit Borah said.

The Teok Tea estate doctor,73-year-old Dr Deben Duttawas assaulted on Saturday bygarden workers following thedeath of a person in the estatehospital. Dutta later died at the

Jorhat Medical CollegeHospital.

Borah said the assault onDutta is the third major inci-dent of physical attack on doc-tors serving in tea gardens andthe number of such incidentsis increasing.

“As a mark of protestagainst these incidents andfailure of the Government toprovide security to the doctorsand convict the culprits, doc-tors have decided to withdrawservices for 24 hours,” he said.

The IMA demanded thatthe government ensures exem-plary punishment of the cul-prits and beef up security mea-sures such as installation ofsurveillance cameras in allhealth establishments includingthose in tea gardens. PTI

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Union Home Minister andBJP president Amit Shah on

Sunday sounded the bugle forthe Maharashtra Assembly pollsby making removal of Jammu &Kashmir’s special status under370 of the Constitution as amajor plank for the StateAssembly polls to be held inMaharashtra.

Addressing a public rallyorganised at Solapur in westernMaharashtra to mark the con-clusion of the second phase ofChief Minister DevendraFadnavis’ statewide tour“Mahajanadesh Yatra”, Shahdared former Congress presi-dent Rahul Gandhi and NCPfounder-president to come cleanon whether they supported ornot the Centre’s decision toabrogate Article 370. “The peo-ple of Maharashtra want toknow as to what is the stance of

the Congress and NCP withregard to the removal of Article370. Do they want the terrorismto continue unabated in thecountry? Do they want Pakistaniterrorist continue to infiltrateinto the country and engineeracts of violence?”.

Linking the abrogation ofArticle 370 with theMaharashtra Assembly pollsdue in October this year, Shahsaid: “After the abrogation ofArticle 370, the first elections are

being held in Maharashtra.Rahul Gandhi says the annul-ment of Article 370 was a verybig blunder. Let the people ofMaharashtra decide if it is abro-gation of Article 370 was ablunder. Will you the peopledecide? . Rahul Gandhi has tofight the State Assembly polls onArticle 370. We have nothing toworry on this count, because thepeople of this country are stand-ing by Narendra Modi like ahard rock.”

Hitting out at Gandhi for hisstatement that there had beenviolence in Kashmir ever sincethe abrogation of Article 370,Shah said: “Rahul Gandhi hassaid that violence has broken outKashmir after the abrogation ofArticle 370. I would like to tellyou that after the abrogation ofArticle 370 on August 5 an 6, notsingle bullet has been fired norhas a single tear gas shell beenburst. No one has been killed inany untoward incident.”

Shah said that the Gandhi’sstatement there was no peace inKashmir after the removal ofArticle 370 was being used byPakistani Parliament to criticiseIndia. “Rahul Gandhi’s statementis being used by Pakistani for-eign minister to make a petitionin the UN. I would like to askRahulji as to which country youare speaking. Pakistan is sayingthe same thing that you are say-ing. Should we not ask as to why

Rahjuji is making such state-ments?,” he said.

The Union Home Ministerslammed the former Congresspresident for not standing by theGovernment in matters relatingto national security. “Wheneverthere are issues of national secu-rity, the Congress takes a differ-ent stand than the Government.I would like to ask him if it is notcorrect on the part of all theOpposition parties to raise abovetheir party affiliations and standwith the Government on issuesof national security.

There are so many issues tofight the elections. Let us fightit out politically in elections. Noone is afraid of you. But, whenit comes to the national securi-ty, why should there be differ-ence of opinion? When we werein the Opposition for manyyears, we always supported theGovernment on issues of nation-al security,” he said.

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Kolkata: A candidate of theWest Bengal Integrated ChildDevelopment Society (ICDS)examination on Sunday wasallegedly compelled to breast-feed her baby in the open out-side due to lack of facilities forit inside the building.

The incident took place ata school building in South 24Parganas district’s Baruipur.

The 21-year-old woman’shusband told reporters thatthe baby started crying justbefore the start of the exami-nation and she was told by theguards that there was noarrangement for breastfeedingat the examination centre, as allother rooms of the building

were locked on a holiday.Finding no other alterna-

tive, he took her to a lane adja-cent to the examination centreand the baby was fed, he said.

The man’s claim was cor-roborated by locals who helpedthe couple.

The young woman thenreturned to the examinationcentre and wrote the papers forWest Bengal ICDS FemaleSupervisor Recruitment 2019,her husband said. The examcentre authorities, however,said all help was extended tothe woman in the prevailing sit-uation and she was guided toan area within the compoundof the school building. PTI

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Solapur: Maharashtra ChiefMinister Devendra Fadnavis onSunday took a dig at theCongress and the NCP overtheir EVM tampering allega-tions by equating them with a“dim-witted child, who blamesit on a faulty pen for failing inan exam”.

He was speaking here atthe conclusion of the second legof his ‘Mahajanadesh Yatra’, amass contact programmelaunched on August 1. BJPchief and Union HomeMinister Amit Shah was alsopresent at the event.

“The situation of Congressand NCP is like a dim- wittedchild, who does not study at alland fails in exam, but blamesit on a faulty pen. When NCPcandidate Supriya Sule winsfrom Baramati, then there is no

problem with EVMs, but whenBJP wins in other places, theyblame it on the machines,”Fadnavis said.

“There is no problem withEVMs, but certainly with yourhead,” he added.

Ahead of the Lok Sabhapolls, NCP chief Sharad Pawarhad said that if Sule does notwin from Baramati, he will loseconfidence in EVMs.

Recently, prominent oppo-sition leaders, including stateCongress president Balasaheb

Thorat, MNS chief RajThackeray, NCP’s Ajit Pawarand Chhagan Bhujbal, hadheld a press conference, wherethey termed the Lok Sabhapolls results as “shocking”.Raising concern over the use ofEVMs, they had also made apitch for reverting to the use ofballot papers.

Meanwhile, CongressMLA Jaykumar Gore fromMann-Khatav segment inSatara, former NCP MPDhananjay Mahadik, NCPMLA Rana Jagjit Singh Patilfrom Tuljapur assembly seg-ment of Osmanabad district onSunday joined the BJP in thepresence of Amit Shah.

The third phase ofFadnavis’s ‘Mahajanadesh Yatra’will begin after the ten-dayGanesh festival. PTI

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Imphal: The cabinet of Manipur Chief MinisterN Biren Singh has declared a drought-like sit-uation in the state owing to scant rain that haveled to crop failures in over 70 blocks of the state,a government release said.

The decision was taken on Saturday to seekrelief from the Centre, the statement by NGeoffrey, secretary to the chief minister, said.

“Rain deficit this year has affected crops inover 70 blocks of the state. Villages that have wit-nessed crop failures ranging between 33 per centand more than 50 per cent have been categorisedas moderately and severely affected,” it said.

Prior to the Cabinet meeting, the chief min-ister chaired a high-level emergency meetingwith cabinet ministers, MLAs, top officials,deputy commissioners of 16 districts and rep-resentatives of agricultural institutes to discussthe situation, it said. PTI

(��#��!� �� Panaji: The Opposition Congress in

Goa on Sunday contested the BJP-led state government’s claim that allvillage panchayat areas have becomeopen defecation free.

Leader of Opposition in theLegislative Assembly, DigambarKamat, said the government has“manipulated” facts and figures tocreate a “false picture” of acquiringODF status, which he said willaffect the “image of Goa”, a populartourist destination. PanchayatMinister Mauvin Godinho had saidall 180-odd panchayats have beenofficially declared as ODF.

“Goa declared 100 percent ODF:This is expected from theGovernment which has mastered theart of manipulating facts & figuresto create fake feeling of Acche Din”.

“This announcement will now

turn all those people who are com-pelled to use open spaces to answertheir natural calls as criminals,pure-ly because Government has miser-ably failed to provide them with ade-quate toilets,” Kamat said in a tweet.

Contesting Godinho’s claim thatthe government had installed ade-quate number of toilets, includingcommunity ones, in these areas,Kamat said information provided tothe Assembly had “showed that ahuge number of houses lacked toiletfacilities”. “It is surprising thatGovernment has just ignored facts and figures to create a false pic-ture. This will severely affect theimage of the state. I urge theGovernment to understand theground reality by reading variousmedia reports in today’s local news-papers,” he added. PTI

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Recently, during a conversation,the line “Depression is a richman’s disease” was mentioned.This was followed up by the factthat the poor do not have the

mental bandwidth to get “depressed” astheir concerns are almost always moreabout material things. This is patentlyuntrue and, in fact, a casual observationof suicide statistics across the world willprove just that. Sure, a majority of farmersuicides, about which we often wring ourhands, are due to financial stress but thevery act of taking one’s own life, some-times murdering even our loved ones,requires a certain sort of psychologicalstress. A very cogent argument can bemade that to really reduce farmer suicides,one does not need financial bolstering asmuch as sending an army of psychologiststo rural India. But we do not even haveenough psychologists to cover majorIndian cities, let alone our villages.

It is estimated that about one in eightIndians needs some sort of mental health-care at some point in their lives. Only about10 per cent of them receive help. And whilenot all help is needed from certified pro-fessionals, there is a severe shortage of eventrained counsellors, particularly in educa-tional institutions. When it comes totrained clinical psychologists, there are justabout a 1,000 doctors across the countrywith an extreme bias towards the large met-ropolitan areas of Delhi-NCR and GreaterMumbai. An article that appeared in theTimes of India, which talked about the hor-rible statistics on mental health, mentionedthat there are more Indian psychologists inthe UK and the US than in India. The num-ber of social workers and nurses specialis-ing in mental health is equally low. Andwhat about criminal psychologists, the typesyou see glorified in American and Britishcrime dramas? Almost none.

One reason for this extreme shortageis that mental health issues are treated asan embarrassment by many Indian fami-lies. They fear having a crazy person, whowill have to go to a pagalkhana. This wouldstigmatise the family in society and nobodywould want to associate with them. But thetruth is that for every severe case of men-tal illness, with outward symptoms, thereare hundreds of cases of perfectly normal,seemingly happy people who are deep inthe throes of depression. This could be dueto some traumatic event in the past; it couldbe due to unhappiness in love or due toone’s career and sometimes it could be dueto nothing at all, really. And the reason Iknow this is because I have been theremyself, down a dark hole of nothingness butoutwardly, everything seems fine.

I was fortunate in the sense that I hadaccess to professionals and medication andwhile it was not all about a switch in myhead, I did, with help from others, snapback. But on the face of it, one might won-

der why someone like me, achild of privilege in this coun-try, would feel the way I did. Ido not know frankly, despiteissues while growing up, partic-ularly around my parents’ sep-aration. That is something Imanaged to deal with. Mycareer was fine. Yes, it couldhave been better but really, interms of everything, thingswere not bad per se and on theface of it, if you had met meback then, I was the same gre-garious, talkative person you’dsee today. Yet, inside, I was ina horrible place with thoughtsof self-harm and killing myself.And it is not me alone, actorDeepika Padukone, too, openedup with the challenges shefaced surrounding mentalhealth.

There is no reason to feeldepressed and to go down therabbit hole of clinical depres-sion. Being depressed is notabout being unaware to expressjoy or happiness when oneneeds to, but yes, there is asense, at least for me at thattime, of extreme loneliness.And possibly the recalibrationI had to make with my relation-ships, particularly at a timewhen so many are facile orpurely transactional, helped.

The biggest help, however,was not just seeing someone buthaving my mother ensure thatI went to a doctor. And thatsupport was critical becausemany people, who need help,

do not have that kind of sup-port from their families. Andthis is what must change,whether it is a teenager or a 50-year-old. Families need tounderstand that if someone isactively seeking help, he/sheshould be provided the support.The problem should not beswept under the carpet and theymust not insist that mentalissues are a passing phase.

While talking and under-standing why someone is goingthrough such problems is a startand friends and families makea difference, a mental healthprofessional, often by virtue ofbeing a new voice of support, anew place to offload the issuesthat one has and also someonewho will not judge, is the go-toremedy. Oversight is a mistakethat friends and families make,not necessarily deliberately butjust by virtue of being humans.Sadly, the lack of support orunderstanding often worsensmatters and drives sufferers toself-harm or worse, suicide.

It is also important that theGovernment promotes theestablishment of more institu-tions and trains more mentalhealth professionals. This hasbeen addressed to a certainextent in recent Budgets.However, the fact remains thatmental health still ranks low onthe list of healthcare prioritiesin a country as large as Indiawhere basic healthcare needsare far more pressing.

This requires a new sort ofthinking and the highest levelsof policy-making. People mustunderstand that this is a press-ing problem because millions ofIndians suffer mental illness.Ergo, it is also important forthose, who have been throughsuch problems, includingmyself, to talk and write aboutthese issues to ensure that thosegoing through clinical depres-sion realise that they are notalone, they are not screwed upin the head or whatever elsethey are told.

There is a lot of cutting-edge research being done intomental health issues, particular-ly post-traumatic stress disor-der and the treatment of thoseproblems with unconventionalmeans such as MDMA andmarijuana. Not only shouldIndia catch up with suchresearch, we should establishmore institutes that can dealwith these problems and do ourown research.

But most importantly, wehave to realise that we have aproblem when it comes tomental health and we have tohelp those who might havestopped by the wayside of life.If someone says that he/sheneeds help even if they do notverbalise it, do not ignore it. Bethere for them and direct themto the help that they so desper-ately need.

(The writer is ManagingEditor, The Pioneer)

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Sir — This refers to the article,“Give a dog a bad name” (August31) by Hiranmay Karlekar. Thewriter has made a good caseagainst the municipal culling ofstray dogs. It would reallyamount to an ecological disasterif we try to exterminate thesenatural scavengers or even pestpredators like rats.

Animal activists such asManeka Gandhi had attributedthe same reason to the outbreakof plague in Surat in 1994.According to her, if stray dogs ofone area are killed, their spacewould be filled by an equal num-ber from another area.

For long, we have tried tomanage this issue by brutallyputting the dogs down. That, too,with poorly trained workers. Asa win-win solution, activists haveadvocated sterilisation, whichemasculates the biting instinct inmale dogs. But sterilisation pro-grammes for stray dogs in ourcountry are in tatters and need to be strengthened. Wemust look for compassionateways to handle the stray dogproblem instead of eliminatingthem completely.

Let me recall an inspiringanecdote in this context. Wheneminent educationist and free-dom fighter Madan MohanMalaviya was young, he once sawa dog on the road, which was flail-ing in pain from an ear wound.Moved by its plight, he rushed toa veterinary doctor for medicineand determinedly went to theunapproachable dog in spite ofthe doctor’s warning that it might

charge at him. He soaked a pieceof cloth with the medicine andtied it to one end of a long stick.Holding the other, he applied themedicine to the dog’s ear from asafe distance even as it kepthowling. The burning sensationsoon subsided and the afflictedanimal fell asleep. Relieved,Malaviya left the place.

CV Krishna ManojHyderabad

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Sir — This refers to the editorial,“Brexit brink” (August 29). Byagreeing to leave the EuropeanUnion (EU), the British had inflict-ed self-harm and with a massivedivide between the people acrosssociety, no one knew exactly whatwas in store or what should bedone. In this context, maverick

Boris Johnson had pledged a “noifs, no buts” exit from the EU. Andhe did precisely that by prorogu-ing Parliament for five weeks.This has shocked most Britishersmore so because the October 30deadline is just 60 days away andnothing concrete has happenedever since Theresa May left 10,Downing Street. This would alsomean that the lawmakers willhave less time to debate Johnson’sBrexit plan. The best option for theUK is to stay put in the EU as itwould be a win-win situation forthem and rest of the world.

Bal GovindNoida

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Sir — The Government’s move tomerge various Public SectorBanks (PSBs) and reduce theirnumbers to 12 was unwarrantedand is aimed at deflecting atten-tion from the economic slow-down. It did not even think it fitto engage the bank unions beforemaking a structural shift.

RaviVia email

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Democracy is one of the cardinal princi-ples of constitutional values guaranteedto the citizens of India. The State, as a

social institution, draws its contemporary pow-ers and sovereignty from its citizens.Constitutionalism demands electoral democra-cy and popular sovereignty, which in turn requirenot just theoretical representation but alsoequal representation. Since the end of the ColdWar, the universality of elections and electoralreforms has been institutionalised by democra-cy.

A radical move was taken by theConstituent Assembly by adopting the parlia-mentary system of governance in India. It is alsoessential to understand that it was implement-ed at a time when more than three-fourths ofthe world’s population lived under autocraticor partly free governments. It was still a dis-tant dream for a majority of the world popu-lation to exercise their civil liberties and tofreely participate in political life. The successof Indian elections is not limited to just polit-ical liberalisation or democratic advancement.It has also played a vital role in the transfer ofpower from the entitled to the empowered.

A vibrant democracy requires timelyreforms. The Constitution of India has put acap on the maximum number of representatives(Members of Parliament) elected to the LokSabha at 550. In countries like the UnitedKingdom (UK), there are 650 MPs, with eachone representing roughly 1 lakh individuals. InIndia’s present demography, each MP representsabout 24 lakh citizens if we divide 1.3 billionamong 545 Lok Sabha MPs. India is one of themost disproportionately represented parliamen-tary systems in the world. The problem is notlimited to this as the bigger elephant in theroom is the issue of unequal representation.India is the second populous country in theworld and there is a growing need to exercisedelimitation of constituencies to ensure equi-table representation.

Delimitation is the act or process of fixinglimits or boundaries of territorial constituenciesin a country or a province having a legislativebody. A delimitation commission is set up toundertake the exercise across the country.There are multiple methodologies used fordelimitation such as the Jefferson method, theHamilton method, Quota method, Webstermethod, etc. India used the Webster method orone-person-one-vote method. India redrew itsLok Sabha boundaries in 1952, 1963, 1973 and2002. The Indian Constitution has laid down cer-tain basic rules for delimitation and left out otheractual procedural regulations to be decided bythe Parliament. The idea of delimitation is tohave each MP represent roughly an equalnumber of voters.

Articles 81, 82, 170, 330 and 332 of theConstitution touch upon the constitutionalprovision of delimitations and electorate mat-ters. As per Article 82, delimitation shall be car-ried out by such authority and in such manneras the Parliament may, by law, determine.

Article 81 (3) after the 42nd Amendmentprovides that in this article, the expression pop-ulation means the population as ascertained atthe last preceding census of which the relevantfigures have been published. The Constitution(84th Amendment), Act 2001 under Section 3extended the deadline from 2000 to 2026. Thiswas done because States like Kerala, Punjab andTamil Nadu would lose several seats as they hadbrought down their fertility rates, whereaspoor family planning programmes had ensuredthat the population in Uttar Pradesh (UP), Biharand Rajasthan continued to be high. Thiswould have affected the representation of Statesin the Lok Sabha.

Both the 42nd and 84th amendments froze

the number of Lok Sabha seats from1981 to 2031 for 50 years. The popu-lation of India according to the 2011Census is around 121 crore, out ofwhich 83.41 crore are registered vot-ers. Keeping the 1971 Census with a54.81 crore population and a 27.4 croreregistered electorate as a yardstick todemarcate constituencies to repre-sent today’s 1.3 billion people iscounter-productive to democracy.Given the 2026 timeline, fresh delim-itation would be done after 2031 withnew census figures. This is expected torevamp the existing territorial bound-aries of seat allocation to the States inParliament.

By making the provisions of Article370 of the Constitution of India otiose,the Modi Government has given hintsof addressing the delimitation issues ofthe Legislative Assembly seats in theUnion Territory of Jammu andKashmir (J&K). Non-applicability ofPeople’s Representation Act of India inJ&K has been a common hindrance tothe delimitation of parliamentary seatsas recommended by the Justice KuldipSingh Commission. The KashmirValley, comprising the total area of15,953 sq km, had 46 Assembly seatsas compared to 37 seats for Jammuwith a geographical area of 26,293 sqkm. There are wide disparities withconstituencies based on demography.For instance, Gurez Assembly hasmerely 18,000 voters as against aroundtwo lakh voters in Jammu West andGandhi Nagar constituencies. Kishtwarregion has only two Assembly seatswith an area of 7,824 sq km, which ishalf of the area of Kashmir.

Delimitation is not just a politicalprocess, its an administrative actionbacked with political intent. If imple-mented in 2031, the process wouldlead to some substantial problems.Politically it might expand the North-South divide. There would be a sub-stantial increase in the number of MPsfrom the States in the Hindi belt butnot from those of the South as theseStates have managed population con-trol better.

2018 already saw the southernStates coming together to express theiranger against the 15th FinanceCommission which determines theshare of each State in the nation’sresources. They claimed that the rich-er and less populous States in SouthIndia end up contributing more thanthey receive. The success of urbandevelopment programmes and start-uphubs in Telangana and Andhra Pradeshhas led to large foreign investments inthe region, which are all set to econom-ically advance their contribution to thenational economy.

According to an IndiaSpendanalysis of a Kotak Securities reporton the demographic dividend ofIndia’s Gangetic belt, which includesUttarakhand, UP, Rajasthan, MadhyaPradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand,Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, ifIndia’s parliamentary seats were to bere-allocated on the basis of population,the Gangetic belt would send 275 of548 MPs to the Lok Sabha. It was alsoreported that around 33 per cent ofmembers of the Lok Sabha will comefrom three states — UP, Bihar andWest Bengal. Then there’s the admin-

istrative problem of gerrymandering,which is redrawing boundaries in amanner that it tilts the outcome of anelection in favour of a particularparty or candidate. Democracy can beeasily hijacked as a legitimising toolby undemocratic forces. The 2002Delimitation Commission had politi-cians as its members and this led tocharges of malpractices and manipu-lation being raised.

With an upper limit on the maxi-mum number of representatives man-dated by the Constitution, it is upon thepolicymakers to look for alternatives.It can be adopting the presidential sys-tem of governance or decentralisingpower. The number of MPs in metro-politan cities can be reduced substan-tially by empowering mayors orstrengthening municipal corporations.

The process of defining the areasand nature of such constituencies isimportant to ensure good governanceand accountability.Underrepresentation of voices of thepeople in the Parliament is a greatthreat to our constitutional mandate.While constitutions of countries likeNew Zealand and South Africa provideexplicitly for delimitation, in others likeIndia and Ireland, it is left to theParliament to make legislations. 2031is not far away and it is crucial for theGovernment to start consultationswith States and bring more legal clar-ity in the matter.

(Abhishek Negi is an AssistantProfessor of Law at DharmashastraNational Law University and AdithyaAnil Variath is a student of Master ofLaws at the institute.)

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In an article t it led‘Disempowering the Soldier’,published in The Pioneer on

November 30, 2018, this authorattempted to highlight the precar-ious state of functioning of theArmed Forces Tribunal (AFT),thanks to deliberate inaction on thepart of the Central Government.Since then, the situation has onlytaken a turn for the worse and hasnow reached a stage where theAFT, for all practical purposes, islikely to be dead before the yearend.

To recapitulate, each of the 17benches of the AFT across thecountry require at least one judi-cial and one administrative mem-

ber, if it is to function and hearcases. However, as per the AFTwebsite itself, there are a total ofonly three judicial members,including the chairperson, andfive administrative membersappointed as on date. This impliesthat only three Benches can actu-ally function at present and withsome members about to retiresoon, it will be down to two func-tional Benches by October-end andnone by December. Rest in Peace.

Well not quite, because whatthis horrific and wholly unjustifiedstate of affairs has done is toimpinge on the constitutionalrights of the members of the mil-itary community, serving andretired, leaving them completelydisempowered. This is becauseunder our laws, the AFT is the onlychannel available to military per-sonnel to seek justice in matterspertaining to “disputes and com-plaints with respect to commission,appointments, enrollments andconditions of service”, as well as“appeals arising out of orders,findings or sentences of courts-

martial.”If that were not enough, under

Article 33 of the Constitution a twoJudge Bench of the Supreme Court(SC) in its order of March 2018 hastaken away the right of HighCourts (HC) to hear writ petitionsfiled against the orders of theAFT. It has instead directly takenupon itself the burden of such lit-igation, which in plain speak,given that it only entertains appealsthat concern “point of law of gen-eral public importance” involvingthe case, casts doubts on whichappeals it will hear. Ironically, thiswas done to ensure that membersof the armed forces receive speedyjustice, something that most citi-zens can only crave.

So, in plain language, one isdamned to perdition if one is a mil-itary man or woman, unhappy atthe manner in which they havebeen treated by the Service, as allavenues to getting justice have beenshut. While one can still approachthe AFT and file a petition, but ifthe situation remains as it is, thengiven the pendency of cases,

reportedly 16,000 at last count, thechances of the case being heardand resolved within a reasonableperiod of time are negligible, if atall.

Also, if one did get an adverseresolution, there is no other courtin the land that one can approach,except for the highest, and that toowith permission of the Tribunal.Whether the SC will be willing tohear the appeal remains a matterof conjecture given its policy on theissue. If all of this does not countas a serious miscarriage of justiceand a violation of human rights,then what does?

Thus what our Governmenthas been able to achieve is toensure that people from the armedforces do not have the right to beheard, something which everymurderer, rapist or for that mattereven Pakistani terrorist, AjmalKasab, took for granted. Utterlyshameful for a Government thatsupposedly lives and breathesnationalism.

What is most frustrating andreprehensible is that matters have

come to this pass despite the SCthwarting all attempts by bureau-crats to subvert the independenceand working of the AFT throughthe Finance Act, 2017. In fact, theAFT Bar Association filed a com-plaint with the SC in September2016 for immediate filling ofappointments of judicial mem-bers that was taken cognisance ofand converted into a PublicInterest Litigation (PIL).

In addition, there is anotherappeal pending in the SC on a peti-tion that was allowed by the Punjaband Haryana HC in 2012, accept-ing contentions that the AFT oughtnot to operate under the defenceministry but under the law min-istry. The rationale behind the peti-tion was that this constituted aclear conflict of interest since theDefence Ministry was invariablythe first party in cases before thetribunal, and in addition, theDefence Secretary was part of thecommittee to appoint members.When William Congreve wrotethat “hell hath no fury like awoman scorned”, he hadn’t met the

Indian Babu!That the Government’s motives

are clearly suspect as can be seenfrom the fact that, recently asAugust 13, 2019, the advertisementissued for appointment of admin-istrative members is blatantly incontravention of SC directions. Ina facile attempt at deception, it haspublished this advertisement onlyin Hindi, unlike its other advertise-ments which are in English.

Moreover, there are uncon-firmed reports doing the roundsthat names forwarded for judicialand administrative members by theselection committee, early thisyear, have been held in abeyance bythe Prime Minister’s Office (PMO)because they refused to considernames of candidates who did notmeet the criteria set by the SC.While the blame for the delay inappointing members clearly restswith the Government, the SC, too,held the last hearing on the PILmore than a year ago.

The military leadership is alsonot beyond reproach for not ensur-ing that an essential element of the

military criminal justice system isnot harmed. Its long-term reper-cussions on the morale of theforces are not difficult to envision.Finally, there is little doubt thategos are at play here and that isunacceptable.

Criminal negligence of thiskind cannot and must not be con-doned, and those responsible mustbe held to account. What could bemore disgraceful than denyingjustice to members of the armedforces who willingly sacrificeeverything for the nation?

This should not be a game ofone-upmanship or a battle of willsand while the Government fiddles,lives, careers and futures are beingdestroyed on a daily basis. It alsospeaks ill of the state of our democ-racy and surely our military mendeser ve better? Will PrimeMinister Modi or the SC please actbefore it is too late.

(The writer, a military veteranis consultant with the ObserverResearch Foundation and a SeniorVisiting Fellow with The PeninsulaFoundation, Chennai)

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The Trump administration’slatest round of tariffs on

Chinese imports took effectearly Sunday, potentially rais-ing prices Americans pay forsome clothes, shoes, sportinggoods and other consumergoods in advance of the holidayshopping season.

The 15 per cent taxes applyto about $112 billion ofChinese imports. All told, morethan two-thirds of the con-sumer goods the United Statesimports from China now facehigher taxes. The administra-tion had largely avoided hittingconsumer items in its earlierrounds of tariff hikes.

But with prices of manyretail goods now likely to rise,the administration’s movethreatens the US economy’smain driver: Consumer spend-ing. As businesses pull back oninvestment spending andexports slow in the face of weakglobal growth, American shop-pers have been a key bright spotfor the economy.

As a result of Trump’s high-er tariffs, many US companieshave warned that they will beforced to pass on to their cus-tomers the higher prices theywill pay on Chinese imports.Some businesses, though, maydecide in the end to absorb thehigher costs rather than raisefor their customers.

After Sunday’s tariff hike,87 per cent of textiles andclothing from China and 52 percent of shoes will be subject toimport taxes.

On December 15, theadministration is scheduled toimpose a second round of 15per cent tariffs — this time onroughly $160 billion of imports.If those duties take effect, vir-tually all goods imported fromChina will be covered.

The Trump administrationhas been locked in a trade warwith China for more than a year,spurred by its assertion thatChina steals US trade secretsand unfairly subsidises its owncompanies in its drive to over-take the United States in suchhigh-tech industries as artificialintelligence and electric cars.

To try to force Beijing toreform its trade practices, theTrump administration hasimposed import taxes on billionsof dollars’ worth of Chineseimports, and China has retali-ated with tariffs on US exports.

The president has insistedthat China itself pays the tariffs.But in fact, economic researchhas concluded that the costs ofthe duties fall on US business-es and consumers. Trump hadindirectly acknowledged thetariffs’ impact by delaying someof the duties until December 15,after holiday goods are alreadyon store shelves.

A study by JP Morganfound that Trump’s tariffs willcost the average US household$1,000 a year. That study wasdone before Trump raised theSeptember 1 and December 15tariffs to 15 per cent from 10per cent.

The president has alsoannounced that existing 25per cent tariffs on a separate

group of $250 billion ofChinese imports will increaseto 30 per cent on October 1.

That cost could weaken analready slowing US economy.Though consumer spendinggrew last quarter at its fastestpace in five years, the overalleconomy expanded at just amodest 2 per cent annual rate,down from a 3.1 per cent ratein the first three months of theyear. The economy is widelyexpected to slow further in themonths ahead as incomegrowth slows, businesses delayexpansions and higher pricesfrom tariffs depress consumerspending.

Companies have alreadyreduced investment spending,and exports have droppedagainst a backdrop of slowerglobal growth.

Americans have alreadyturned more pessimistic inlight of the trade war. TheUniversity of Michigan’s con-sumer sentiment index,released Friday, fell by themost since December 2012.

“The data indicate that theerosion of consumer confi-dence due to tariff policies isnow well underway,” saidRichard Curtin, who overseesthe index.

Some retailers may eat thecost of the tariffs. Target con-firmed to The Associated Pressthat it warned suppliers that itwon’t accept cost increases aris-ing from the China tariffs. Butmany smaller retailers won’thave the bargaining power tomake such demands and willpass the costs to customers.

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Foreign investors pulled outa net amount of �5,920

crore from the Indian capitalmarkets in August even as thegovernment rolled backenhanced surcharge on FPIslast week.

The withdrawal from thecapital markets (both equityand debt) in August is “con-trary to the expectation” sincethe Centre last weekannounced revocation ofenhanced super-rich tax on for-eign and domestic equityinvestors imposed in theBudget, said HimanshuSrivastava, senior analyst man-ager research at Morningstar.

According to the latestdepositories data, foreign port-folio investors (FPIs) withdrewa net amount of �17,592.28crore from equities andpumped in a net sum of�11,672.26 crore in the debt

segment, translating into atotal net outflow of �5,920.02crore during August 1 - 30.

In July, overseas investorshad pulled out a net amount of�2,985.88 crore from the cap-ital markets.

Prior to the announce-ment of enhanced super-richtax in the Union Budget for2019-20 in July, FPIs were netbuyers for five consecutivemonths. FPIs had infused a net�10,384.54 crore in June,�9,031.15 crore in May, �16,093crore in April, �45,981 crore inMarch and �11,182 crore inFebruary into the Indian cap-ital markets.

“Concerns over slowingdomestic economy, volatility inthe global markets andincreased fears of global reces-sion due to escalating trade wartension between US and Chinaovershadowed the positivemove of withdrawal of sur-charge,” Srivastava added.

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The Government’s decisionto consolidate 10 public

sector banks (PSB) into fourmega state-owned lenders willact as a building block forachieving $5 trillion economytarget, Finance Secretary RajivKumar has said.

“To support next level ofgrowth, the country neededbig banks. The mega mergerannounced on Friday aims toachieve that objective. Wewill now have six mega bankswith enhanced capital base,size, scale and efficiency tosupport high growth that thecountry requires to break intoclub of middle incomenations,” he told PTI in aninterview.

The consolidation willhelp create strong and globallycompetit ive banks witheconomies of scale and enablerealisation of wide-rangingsynergies, he said adding thatnow they would have widerreach, stronger lending capac-ity and better products andtechnology to serve customersof new India.

Asked about the road mapfor future, he said the bankingsector would be “technologydriven, clean, responsive” andthere will be no gaming of sys-tem by any of the stakehold-

er in the financial sector spacebe it auditors, rating agencies,creditors, or bankers. “All wellcapitalised well provisionedbanks to support $5 trillioneconomy.”

The state-owned bankscan now look forward to effi-ciency gain, higher profit,better services to customersand also more benefits totheir employees, he said.

For bigger banks, he said,the government has provided0.25 per cent higher capitalthan required keeping in themind their domestic system-ically important status.

Moreover, he added, theIndian banks are having oneper cent higher core capitalrequirement than the Basel IIInorms.

On the effective date ofmerger, he said it would befixed after consultation withrespective bank boards as hadhappened in case of Bank ofBaroda.

“There is a process whichneeds to be followed. Thereare some regulatory approvalswhich are required. Bankshave sufficient time for chart-ing out smooth and seamlessamalgamation date. It couldhappen from January 1 orApril 1 depending on theirreadiness. It would not be laterthan April 1,” he said.

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Macroeconomic datapoints and global trends

mainly from the US-Chinatrade conflict would drive theequity markets in a holiday-shortened week ahead, ana-lysts said.

Stock markets will beclosed on Monday for ‘GaneshChaturthi’.

Official data released aftermarket hours on Fridayshowed that India’s GDPgrowth slipped to an over six-year low of 5 per cent in theJune quarter of 2019-20, hit bya sharp deceleration in man-ufacturing output and sub-dued farm sector activity.

“The continuation of theslowdown in GDP growth wasexpected but the 5 percentgrowth in Q1 is worse thanexpected...GDP growth fig-ures will pick up in Q3 and Q4benefitting from the low baseof previous financial year.

“Also the rate cuts by theRBI will act strongly in Q3 andQ4 since monetary policy

impacts with a lag of 2 to 3quarters. We need structuralreforms like labour and landmarket reforms to stimulateand sustain growth,” said V KVijayakumar Chief InvestmentStrategist at Geojit FinancialServices.

“The week ahead would belackluster and there will be adearth of triggers from thecorporate side, therefore inter-national triggers could be thedriving factor,” said JimeetModi, Founder & CEO,SAMCO Securities &StockNote.

Meanwhile, the govern-ment on Friday unveiled amega plan to merge 10 publicsector banks into four as partof plans to create fewer andstronger global-sized lendersas it looks to boost economicgrowth.

Deepak Jasani, Head ofRetail Research, HDFC secu-rities said, “The announce-ment of PSU bank consolida-tion is welcome and a goodfirst step in sustainably turn-ing around the PSU banks.”

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Continuing its efforts to bol-ster supervision and iden-

tify non-compliance, regulatorSebi plans to deploy data ana-lytics and new generation tech-nologies to deal with variouschallenges in the market.

The watchdog has beentaking strict action againsterring entities, apart from stepsto protect investors and ensureintegrity of the market.

Sebi Chairman Ajay Tyagihas said that apart fromenhancing investor awarenessand improving access to thesecurities market, the regulatorwould continue to strengthenmarket supervision throughvarious steps such as technol-ogy solutions being built toachieve the objective of iden-tifying non-compliance andassisting in investigations.

Deterring, effective andtimely enforcement actionsagainst errant entities wouldalso be taken to maintain dis-cipline and the overall marketintegrity.

“Going ahead, SEBIendeavors to deploy data ana-lytics and new generation tech-nologies to understand andhandle various challenges inthe market.

“Sebi would encourageadoption and usage of financialtechnology to further developand maintain an efficient, fairand transparent securities mar-ket ecosystem which also pro-motes innovation in the secu-rities market,” Tyagi said in hisstatement in the regulator’sannual report for 2018-19.

Besides, steps are beingtaken to deepen the corporatebonds market, widen the pen-etration of mutual funds acrossthe country and strengthenthe commodity derivativesmarket.

With various Sebi regula-tions, Tyagi said access toinformation has increased,leading to more transparencyfor informed decision makingby investors. Overall gover-nance has become conducivefor the protection of investors’interests and overall marketdevelopment, he added.

In 2018-19, the main thrustof various policy measureswere aimed at improving cor-porate governance, revisitingthe procedures followed in theprimary market, reviewing therisk management frameworkfor equity derivatives, devel-oping the mutual funds indus-try and promoting ease ofdoing business, among others.

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The National Company LawAppellate Tribunal

(NCLAT) has rejected the oilministry’s plea seeking $314million (around �2,245 crore)from insolvency-boundVideocon Industries in unpaidprofit petroleum from theRavva oil and gas fields in theeastern offshore.

The ministry had onOctober 22 last year sentVideocon a demand noticefor payment of Government’sshare of profit petroleum,which is calculated after allcapital and operating cost isdeducted from the sale of oiland gas.

Videocon, which holds 25per cent stake in Ravva oil andgas fields, had been admittedto insolvency and the resolu-tion professional (RP) over-seeing the process approachedthe Mumbai-bench of theNational Company LawTribunal (NCLT) against thedemand saying the companycannot be asked to part withany money, including share ofprofit, during the moratoriumperiod.

NCLT upheld the RP’splea, which was challengedbefore the NCLAT.

A three-member NCLATbench headed by chairpersonJustice S J Mukhopadhaya alsoupheld the same and said thatthe petroleum ministry couldnot recover these proceedsduring the moratorium periodfrom Videocon Industries,against whom insolvency wasinitiated in June 2018.

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Indian companies are nowusing industrial zones such

as KIZAD in Abu Dhabi as abase to expand across theGulf Cooperation Council aswell as increase exports tocountries in the Middle Eastand further afield to Africa, atop UAE official said Sunday.

According to FalahMohammad Al Ahbabi, mem-ber of the Abu DhabiExecutive Council, there hasbeen significant investmentfrom India in Abu DhabiPorts’ subsidiary KhalifaIndustrial Zone (KIZAD).

“Some $90 million hasbeen attracted in Indianinvestment at the zone since itopened in 2012. We believethis is a reflection of the pow-erful combination of AbuDhabi’s strategic location,KIZAD’s logistics efficienciesand the connectivity offeredby Khalifa Port,” Al Ahbabitold PTI.

He said Indian companiesacross the metals, food pro-cessing and packaging, phar-maceutical, construction and

automotive industries havebeen household names in theUAE for decades.

He said that PrimeMinister Narendra Modi’srecent visit to the UAE, wherehe was decorated with theOrder of Zayed, would furtherstrengthen relationship andincrease trade between thetwo nations, which alreadystood at nearly $60 billionannually.

Al Ahbabi, who is alsochairman of Abu Dhabi Ports,is of the view that both Indiaand the UAE have extensivemaritime pedigrees and avision for the future that seesthe industry at the forefront ofglobal trade through harness-ing the latest trends and tech-nologies, from automation toartificial intelligence.

“Indeed, Maqta Gateway,a subsidiary of Abu DhabiPorts, has been testing inter-national blockchain solutionSilsal with MSCMediterranean ShippingCompany to provide a seam-less and secure link betweenstakeholders across the tradecommunity,” he said.

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National Health Forum,an NGO working in the

field of tobacco control, hasrequested the Centre to sup-port Union Health Ministry’sdecision to end manufacture,distribution, import and saleof e-cigarettes and ensurethat such products arebanned.

The NGO said that theHealth Ministry’s decisionagainst e-cigarettes and sim-ilar such products is “correctand laudable”.

“...All other Ministriesmust support this moveMinistr y of Health andensure that such productsare banned and are notincluded as legal productsunder the COTPA (Cigarettesand Other Tobacco ProductsAct) or the Drugs andCosmetics Act,” MandakiniSinh (Managing Trustee) ofNational Health Forum saidin a letter dated August 27 tothe Health Minister HarshVardhan.

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Athree-day All India MediaConference (AIMC) -

2019 on “DigitalCommunication &Empowerment: EmergingOpportunities and KeyChallenges” will be organisedin City of Lakes — Udaipur.Premier media advocacyorganisation Lok SamvadSansthan that has the legacy oforganising three All IndiaMedia Educators’ conferencealong with NACC accredited‘A’ grade university — MLSukhadia University, Udaipurthrough its Department ofJournalism and MassCommunication will host thisconference from September27 to 29 at Udaipur.

Naresh Kumar, GeneralManager (CorporateCommunications), Power GridCorporation of India and alsothe member of the organisingcommittee said that duringthis conference, ‘Walkathon’will be organised on September28, 2019 for promoting‘Violence Free Society forChildren’.

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Life Insurance Corporationof India enters 64th year of

its incorporation on 1stSeptember, 2019. LIC hasplayed a significant role inspreading the message of lifeinsurance among the massesand mobilization of people’smoney for people’s welfare.

In this journey, LIC hascrossed many milestones andhas set unprecedented perfor-mance records in variousaspects of life insurance busi-ness. In its 63 years of existence,LIC has grown from strength tostrength be its customer base,agency network, branch officenetwork, new business premi-um and has a significant role inspreading life insurance wide-ly across the country.

At the end of the FY 2018-2019, LIC had 32 plans for saleunder Individual Business. Theproducts satisfy different needsof various segments of thesociety.

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The merger of Indian Bank(Anchor Bank) and

Allahabad Bank will create arobust amalgamated entitywith a Pan-India presence,said the MD and CEO ofIndian Bank, PadmajaChunduru.

“Currently, we are instrong position in South Indiawhereas Allahabad Bank ispresent in northern and east-ern India. Further, the mergerwill lead to the emergence ofa of strong globally focussedbank with a cumulative expe-rience of over 266 years(Indian Bank is in existence for112 years whereas AllahabadBank is a 154-year-old Bank)”she added.

Post-merger, Indian Bankplus Allahabad Bank willemerge as the 7th largest PSBwith a business of �8.08 lakhscrore (approx. 1.9 times of pre-merged Indian Bank); anation-wide presence spreadover 6,100 branches andaround 43,000 employees.

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Over 5.65 crore income taxreturns were filed by tax-

payers for the Assessment Year2019-20 as the deadline endedon August 31, showing a 4 percent rise in ITR filing over theprevious year, according to thetax department data.

Total number of incometax returns (ITRs) filed for AY2018-19 was 5.42 crore.

The government had lastyear extended the deadline forITR filing for AY 2018-19 tillAugust 31, 2018, while a spe-cial extension till September 15,2018 was given in this contextto the taxpayers of flood-hitKerala.

Nearly 50 lakh people filedtheir tax returns online onAugust 31, the last date for ITRfiling, the Central Board ofDirect Taxes (CBDT) datashowed.

“The Income TaxDepartment has made historywith a quantum jump in the e-filing of ITRs with an all-timehigh record of 49,29,121 ITRsfiled in a single day on August31,” it said in a statement.

From August 27 to 31,1,47,82,095 people filed onlineincome tax returns, an increaseof 42 per cent as compared tothe same period of AY 2018-19.

It said that the I-T depart-ment is actively interacting withtaxpayers on social media tohelp them resolve their griev-ances and e-filing related queriesand getting accolades in return.

The last date for submis-sion of e-filing of ITRs for AY2019-20 was August 31. Itadded that the peak filing rateper second was at 196 ITRs.

It also said that the infor-mation security team of I-Tdepartment thwarted over2,205 malicious attacks on thewebsite aimed at disruptingservices in the peak period.

Out of the 5.65 crore ITRsfiled so far, 3.61 crore have beenverified.

“A large number of tax-payers about 2.86 crore (79 percent) have opted for e-verifi-cation, mostly using AadhaarOTP. The I-T Departmentintends to carry out campaignsto increase awareness about e-verification of ITRs where ver-ification is still pending,” it said.

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State-run steel maker SteelAuthority of India Ltd

(SAIL) is shutting down two ofits subsidiaries located in UttarPradesh and Jharkhand.

“SAIL has initiated actionsfor closure/exit from certain JVcompanies as well as sub-sidiaries which are either non-performing or non-opera-tional. The closure action fortwo subsidiary companies vizSAIL Jagdishpur Power PlantLimited and SAIL SindriProjects Limited under FastTrack Exit Mode is inprogress,” the company said areport.

The two subsidiary com-panies have filed applicationfor closure under Fast TrackExit Mode as per provisions ofSection 248(2) of theCompanies Act, 2013 and Rule4 (1) of the Companies(Removal of Names of theCompanies from the Registerof Companies) Rules, 2016.

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State-run Central Bank ofIndia on Sunday said it will

be offering repo-linked inter-est rate (RLIR) on home andvehicle loan products withimmediate effect.

The lender said the exist-ing borrowers will also begiven an option to switch overto the new repo-linked inter-est rate at a fee, a statementsaid.

Separately, the bank hasalso signed an agreement withECL Finance, a subsidiary ofEdelweiss Financial Services,for co-origination of loans tomicro, small and mediumenterprise (MSME) customers.

This is the first co-origi-nation partnership of thebanks with an NBFC.

“This partnership shallenable us to collaborate andharness technology, bring inthe best practices in creditunderwriting finer pricing andrender a far superior experi-ence in terms of turnaroundtime to customers,” the bank’smanaging director and CEOPallav Mohapatra said.

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Airstrikes by the Saudi-ledcoalition fighting Yemen’s

rebels hit a detention center inthe southwestern province ofDhamar on Sunday, killing atleast 60 people, officials and therebels’ health ministry said.

The officials said theairstrikes targeted a universityin the city of Dhamar, whichthe rebels, known as Houthis,use as a detention center.Dhamar is located around 100kilometers, 62 miles, south ofthe capital Sanaa.

The center is one of dozensof detention centers run by theHouthis in areas under theircontrol in the conflict-wearycountry.

Yemen’s bloody civil warerupted in September 2014,

when the Houthis swept intothe capital city of Sanaa. TheSaudi-led coalition intervenedhalf a year later to back theinternationally recognisedGovernment of President AbedRabbo Mansour Hadi.

The strike occurred asSweden’s Foreign Minister washolding talks in Jordan onSunday, part of her attempt torelaunch talks between Hadi’sGovernment and the Iran-backed Houthis and break thewar’s long stalemate.

The rebels’ Health Ministrysaid in a statement at least 60people were killed in theairstrikes. Another 60 werewounded. It said they havebeen pulling bodies from thesite.

The Saudi-led coalitionsaid it had hit a Houthi military

facility used as storages fordrones and missiles in Dhamar,“in accordance with interna-tional humanitarian law.” Itsaid “all precautionary mea-sures were taken to protectcivilians.”

Mohammed Abdul-Salam,spokesman for the Houthis,posted on his telegram accountgraphic photos that showedbodies under the rubble.

Abdul-Qader el-Murtaza, arebel official, said there were170 captured Governmentfighters in the detention center.

“The targeted prisonhoused over 170 prisoners ofwar, most of whom were sup-posed to be part of a localexchange deal,” he was quotedas saying by the Houthi-run al-Masirah TV.

Local residents, however,said family members arrestedfor being critical of the Houthiswere imprisoned in the deten-tion center. They said at leastseven airstrikes hit the area.

The officials spoke on con-dition of anonymity becausethey weren’t authorised to briefthe media. Local residentsdemanded anonymity for fearof reprisals.

The coalition faces wide-spread international criticismfor airstrikes that have killedcivilians and Sunday’s attackwas bound to trigger reactionsby human rights groups.

Yemen’s civil war hasclaimed tens of thousands oflives, thrust millions to thebrink of famine and spawnedthe world’s worst humanitari-an crisis.

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More than a dozen flightswere cancelled Sunday as

thousands of pro-democracyactivists blocked routes toHong Kong’s airport, a day afterprotesters and police foughtpitched battles in some of theworst violence seen in the citysince unrest began threemonths ago.

At least 16 flights werecancelled, the airport’s websitesaid, with the departure hallpacked with a backlog of pas-sengers who had struggled tomake it to the terminals.

Earlier, operators of theAirport Express train sus-pended services after the sta-tion was besieged, while black-clad protesters — hiding fromCCTV cameras under umbrel-las — built barricades at the busterminus and attempted tostop traffic on the main roadleading to the facility.

Stranded travellers wereforced to abandon their liftsand drag their luggage alongthe airport road.

Sunday’s action is the lat-est in three months of increas-ingly violent protests sparkedinitially by opposition to aproposed law that would haveallowed extraditions to main-land China, but which mor-

phed into a broader anti-gov-ernment movement.

Outside one airport termi-nal, protesters set off fire extin-guishers, piled luggage trolleysinto makeshift road barricadesand smashed surveillance cam-eras before being driven awayby police.

“It’s out of our control,” saidAndy Tang, 26, returning toAustralia from a week’s holidayin Hong Kong. “So there’s nopoint getting annoyed about it.”

The airport is covered byan injunction banning pro-testers from entering —imposed after a shutdown inAugust which ended in uglyclashes — but protesters haveroutinely ignored legal movesto ban their actions.

On Sunday city sanitationworkers were seen clearingdebris and removing graffitiafter a night of pitched battlesbetween protesters and police.

Hours earlier, a huge fireburned in the city’s commercialdistrict as chaos ripped throughthe centre of a city usuallyrenowned for its stability andprosperity.

Hardcore demonstratorsSaturday hurled petrol bombsat government buildings andpolice, who responded withtear gas and water cannonlaced with chemical dye before

making mass arrests inside thecity’s underground metro sta-tions.

Video footage captured bylocal media showed policecharge a crowd cowering insidea train carriage — with oneman, drenched in pepper spray,crying in anguish as he tried toprotect his female friend.

Officers made 40 arrests atone station.

Anger at police tacticsswirled across social media.

“The police are a licenced

mob,” Kwok Ka-ki, a pro-democracy lawmaker, told AFP.

Decrying the “horrifying”police raid on the train car-riage, Amnesty Internationalcalled for a probe into policeconduct.

“Violence directed atpolice... Is no excuse for officersto go on the rampage else-where,” Man-kei Tam, directorof Amnesty International,Hong Kong said in a statement.

Police said officers alsofired two warning shots into

the air after being attacked bya group of “violent protesterswho attempted to once snatchpolice pistols”.

“Escalating violence and(the) progressively lethalweapons of protestors, the safe-ty of police officers and... Thepublic is seriously threatened,”police said in a statement.

Some 31 people wereadmitted to hospital withinjuries following the clashes,including five who remain in aserious condition.

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Britain’s Prime MinisterBoris Johnson on Sunday

issued a stark warning to rebelswithin his own ConservativeParty to fall in line with hisBrexit plans or risk a govern-ment led by Opposition Labourleader Jeremy Corbyn.

The warning came amidreports of secret Governmentplans to de-select Tory MPswho vote against Johnson inorder to block a no-deal Brexit,as Opposition MPs plan urgentlegislation to be tabled whenthe UK Parliament resumesafter its summer recess nextTuesday.

The urgency followsJohnson’s announcement tosuspend Parliament from theweek of September 9 untilOctober 14, depriving MPs ofcrucial sitting days in which toscrutinise Brexit plans andtriggering street protests bythousands across the UK onSaturday against what has been branded a“coup” by the British PrimeMinister.

“Jeremy Corbyn has madea historic decision to turn hisparty into the anti-democratic,referendum-cancelling party.That’s his decision. I think it’stotally wrong,” Johnson told‘The Sunday Times’.

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Israel said it was returning fireon Sunday after anti-tank

missiles were launched at itsterritory from Lebanon, raisingfears of a serious escalationwith Hezbollah after a week ofrising tensions.

“A number of anti-tankmissiles were fired fromLebanon towards an (Israelimilitary) base and militaryvehicles,” an Israeli army state-ment said.

“A number of hits havebeen confirmed. (Israel’s mili-tary) is responding with firetowards the sources of fire andtargets in southern Lebanon.”

After the initial reports offire from Lebanon, a military

spokesman called on Israelisliving within four kilometres(2.5 miles) of the Lebanese bor-der to remain at home and pre-pare shelters.

Tensions have risen in thelast week between Israel and itsenemy Hezbollah, the LebaneseShia movement backed by Iran.

Hezbollah chief HassanNasrallah said Saturday thegroup’s response to an allegedIsraeli drone attack on thegroup’s Beirut stronghold hadbeen “decided”.

The pre-dawn August 25attack involved two drones --one exploded and caused dam-age to a Hezbollah-run mediacentre and another crashedwithout detonating due to tech-nical failure.

Israel has not claimedresponsibility for the incident.

The attack in Lebanoncame just hours after Israellaunched strikes in neigh-bouring Syria to prevent whatit said was an impendingIranian drone attack on theJewish state.

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ASri Lankan court onSunday banned two ultra-

nationalist Buddhist organisa-tions from demonstratingagainst a major Shia holy day,the first on the island since thedeadly Easter Sunday suicidebombings.

Police spokesman RuwanGunasekera said ColomboMagistrate’s court issuedrestraining orders against thetwo groups led by Buddhistmonks who planned to disrupta gathering in Colombo ofDawoodi Bohra, a Shiite sect.

An estimated 25,000adherents from around theworld have been meeting inColombo since Saturday for a10-day religious event culmi-nating with Ashura.

It is one of the holiest daysin Shia Islam and commemo-rates the 7th century martyr-dom of Prophet Mohammed’sgrandson.

Gunasekera said police hadinformation that two national-ist groups were planning to dis-rupt the event in the capital,where police and troops havestepped up security.

It was not immediatelyclear what the groups wereplanning, but nationalistgroups have usually taken ahardline stand against reli-gious minorities in theBuddhist majority nation of 21million people.

Sections of a key road nearthe main Shia Huseini mosquehave been shut to accommo-date the large number of pil-grims.

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Afourth Rohingya refugeewas shot dead, Bangladesh

police said on Sunday, amidgrowing fallout over the mur-der of a ruling party official thatsparked a violent backlashfrom locals.

There has been an out-break of violence in recentweeks at refugee camps insoutheast Bangladesh, wherenearly one million Rohingyalive after fleeing crackdowns inMyanmar. At least fiveRohingya men have died inclashes in the settlements —allegedly over gang violence —while an Awami League officialwas shot in the head in lateAugust at Jadimura camp in the border town ofTeknaf.

Police blamed OmarFaruk’s death on Rohingya hit-men, and have shot dead three

refugees over the past week inconnection with the incident.The latest to die was 36-year-old Nur Mohammad, who offi-cers allege was a Rohingyagang leader who arrived inBangladesh in 1992 and wasoperating in the hills aroundthe refugee camps.

Local officials sayMohammad was a drug traf-ficking kingpin involved inusing refugees to smuggle yaba,a popular methamphetaminepill, from across the Myanmarborder.

“He was arrested overFaruk’s murder on Saturday.We took him to find out hisweapons in a hill when hisaccomplices fired on police(on Sunday),” policespokesman Ikbal Hossain told AFP.

Rights groups have previ-ously accused Bangladeshpolice of extrajudicial killings.

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The US and the Taliban areon the brink of striking a

deal after 18 years of war,Washington’s top negotiatorsaid Sunday, ahead of a visit toKabul where he was to meetwith Afghan officials.

The apparent progress atthe latest round of talks to con-clude in Doha came even as theTaliban launched a broadoffensive on the city of Kunduzin northern Afghanistan, andviolence flared.

“We are at the threshold ofan agreement that will reduceviolence and open the door forAfghans to sit together to nego-tiate an honourable and sus-tainable peace,” tweetedWashington’s special envoy toAfghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad.

His comment came just

hours after Afghan securityforces said they had clearedKunduz of Taliban fighters,who on Saturday launched abroad assault on the provincialcapital in a bid to score arepeat of a 2015 takeover.

Afghan forces, backed withlocal and US air power, wereable to stop the city falling andrepel the Taliban, but 20 troopsand five civilians were killed.

The brazenness of theassault was highlighted by asuicide bomber blowing him-self up and killing policespokesman Sayed SarwarHussaini as he briefed reporterson the fighting. At least 10 oth-ers were also killed, officialssaid. In 2015 the Taliban over-whelmed local forces andbriefly seized Kunduz, and itwas only retaken by Afghanforces with US air support.

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President Donald Trump hasnominated prominent

Indian-American attorneyShireen Mathews as a judge ofthe US District Court for theSouthern District of California.

If confirmed, Matthewswill be the first Asian PacificAmerican woman and firstIndian-American to serve as anArticle III federal judge in theSouthern District, National Asian PacificAmerican Bar Association(NAPABA) said.

Article III judges “holdtheir office during good behav-ior”, which means they have alifetime appointment, exceptunder very limited circum-stances. Article III judges can

be removed from office onlythrough impeachment by theHouse of Representatives andconviction by the Senate.

Currently, Matthews is apartner at Jones Day, the fifth-largest law firm in the country,in San Diego.

Prior to joining the firm,Matthews served as anAssistant United StatesAttorney in the CriminalDivision of the United StatesAttorney’s Office for theSouthern District of California.Before entering governmentservice, Matthews was an asso-ciate with Latham and WatkinsLLP in San Diego, the WhiteHouse said in a statement.

NAPABA has applaudedTrump’s intent to nominateMatthews.

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An Afghan asylum seekerwho killed a man and

stabbed several others in theFrench city of Lyon sparked arow about immigration onSunday as new details emergedabout his rampage.

Investigators said the killerappeared to have psychologicalproblems and had smokedlarge quantities of cannabisbefore stabbing a 19-year-old todeath and injuring eight otherson Saturday afternoon at a busstation in the Villeurbannesuburb.

He was found in publicrecords with two identities andthree different dates of birth,making him either 33, 31 or 27years’ old, prosecutor NicolasJacquet told a press conferencein Lyon on Sunday.

During “confused” inter-views with police, he said hewas Muslim “who had heardvoices saying God had beeninsulted and instructing him tokill,” Jacquet said, adding thatthe case was being treated as acriminal, rather than terrorist,incident.

Jacquet paid tribute tothree bus drivers and othermembers of the public who hadsucceeded in cornering theman and persuading him todrop his knife and a meatskewer before the police arrivedon the scene.

“I want to pay tribute to theactions of witnesses. Theircourageous and controlledintervention was decisive inending these criminal acts,” headded. Sofiane, a 17-year-oldfrom the area, told AFP onSunday that the dead man wasone of the first to try to reasonwith the knifeman.

The killer “stabbed himand then when he fell on theground, he continued,” Sofianeexplained.

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Pope Francis said on Sundayhe was late to his weekly

Angelus prayer because he hadbeen stuck in a Vatican eleva-tor and had to be freed by fire-men.

“I have to apologise forbeing late,” the smiling 82-year old pontiff told crowds offaithful patiently waiting forhim to appear at his study win-dow overlooking Saint Peter’sSquare.

“I was trapped in a lift for25 minutes, there was a poweroutage but then the firemencame,” he said.

“Let’s give a round ofapplause to the fire service,” hesaid, prompting cheers andapplause from the crowd.

Italian television networksthat live-stream the Angelushad been concerned that theunprecedented seven-minutedelay might have been due tohealth reasons.

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At least five persons werekilled and 21 others injured

when a gunman opened fire atrandom on Saturday in the sec-ond mass shooting in the USstate of Texas in a month,police said. The shooting - the38th mass killing by firearms inthe US this year - occurred inthe West Texas cities ofMidland and Odessa.

The gunman, who waswhite and in his mid-30s, wasshot dead by police at theCinergy movie theatre after achase. However, police didnot identify the shooter by hisname.

The gunman opened fire

around 3 pm (local time) afterhe was pulled over by trafficofficials. He shot at the troop-er who stopped him and beganshooting people at random,local media quoted ChiefMichael Gerke of the OdessaPolice Department as saying.

The driver then beganshooting at other people in sev-eral other locations. At onepoint, he abandoned his carand stole a postal truck beforecontinuing his spree. He wasshot dead by police at a cine-ma complex.

“We have at least 21 shoot-ing victims and at least fivedeceased,” Gerke told reporters.Three police officers wereinjured, he added.

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��1��7��Lured back to her hometown, a famous horror writer

discovers that the evil spirit who plagues her dreams is nowwreaking havoc in the real world. Starring Victoire Du Bois,Lucie Boujenah and Tiphaine Daviot, the series is slated torelease on September 13.

��7��(��1��After a young woman is accused of lying about a rape, two

female detectives investigate a spate of eerily similar attacks. Theseries is inspired by true events. Starring Toni Collette, MerrittWever and Kaitlyn Dever, it releases on September 13.

��+1�After years of

slouching throughlife, 6-foot-1 teenJodi resolves to con-quer her insecuritiesand gets caught upin a high school lovetriangle. StarringAva Michelle,Griffin Gluck andSabrina Carpenter,the film is slated torelease onSeptember 13.

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Food, music and dance — there are sever-al things that connect Pacific Rim coun-

tries. And it was to celebrate all this and morethat High Commissions of New Zealand,Australia, Papua New Guinea and Fiji cametogether. At Namaste Pacific, the hosts donnedtiaras on their heads, sported multi-colouredtraditional clothes with floral prints — in short— created an ambience that transported theguests across the oceans to these countries.

But the culture trip did not end here.Traditional masks and artefacts which dottedthe walls gave an insight into the traditionalwooden art as the smoothly-carved antiqueshinted at the heritage of these places. Certainlya treat for the eyes.

The guests were enamoured and soakedthemselves into each aspect of the culture withlove. Fiji’s traditional dance form which alsotells a story was accompanied by rhythmicclapping and drumbeats and created a festiveatmosphere as the audience joined in to grooveto the music.

To add more charm to the evening, a cul-tural performance by Aaradhna, a music bandfrom New Zealand, followed. Interestingly, thesinger was part Indian and part Samoan. A rip-ple went around as she was the perfectembodiment of Namaste Pacific. The power-ful lyrics of her song created a vibe that wasunmistakable as people sung along with theband and waved their hands.

Any country’s culture is steeped into itsfood and gives an insight into its history andtradition. Naturally an array took the guestson a delicious journey. The meat and vegeta-bles dishes which were slow-cooked in anearthen oven were the star of the evening,which was clearly evident from the excitementof the people queuing up for food. It markedthe exchange of culture, food, friendship andfun among the countries.

An exclusive station served Fiji’s nation-al drink, Kava, a muddy, earthy beverage thatcalms you and numbs your mouth andthroat.

The New Zealand High CommissionerJoanna Kempkers who feels India is a strate-

gic region to collaborate with, said, “It is aboutbringing forth the issues that concern us.” Shefurther highlighted the theme of the festival— climate change and solar energy as theyimpact the entire world. She stressed upon

forming an international solar alliance for thesame.

To show their commitment to solar ener-gy and to highlight the theme of the event,there were displays from the InternationalSolar Alliance, Pollinate Energy both ofwhich are based in Australia, Nepal and India.There were solar lanterns from BarefootCollege in Rajasthan which trains people inrural areas about the use and consumption ofsolar energy. People seemed impressed by thedisplays as they left their feedback.

The event broadened the concept of cul-tural display of all the countries. HarinderSidhu, the Australian High Commissionersaid, “Along with food and culture we alsohave games like Rugby for people to try theirhands at. It is something unique and unusu-al.”

Paulias Korni, The High Commissionerof Papua New Guinea was glad about thisimproved relations with India and wanted tostrengthen it. “We have 800 languages and adiverse culture like India. We can strength-en the bilateral and developmental issues andprovide assistance in education, medicine,water management and many others,” headded. The Pacific spirit, where like a fami-ly, they collectively pooled in their resourcesto stage the event was on display in its fullglory.

Do you know what trekkers and hik-ers find when they finish their sum-mits at major mountain ranges? A

sense of tranquility, peace and victory, onemay answer. However, in reality, it’s all kindsof plastic waste — that neither degrades norgets disposed. When a few years ago, ParasSaluja, founder and director of ShaynaECOunified, reached the Everest basecamp, successfully completing his summitand saw plastic waste being dumped on the“world’s most beautiful place,” a realisationhit him. He wanted to bar not the use ofplastic, but the disposal of it, completely.But how? He wondered. Meanwhile,Vietnam was his next travel destination.During one of his walks through a foodstreet, which was completely based on theuse of plastic products, he “surprisingly”found out the next morning that there was-n’t a trace of filth of that plastic and all thewaste was very carefully disposed. It wasdone through a van that took the roundsand collected waste. It was then recycledand used for miscellaneous purposes. Anepiphany then struck him — “if a smallnation like Vietnam could so well and col-lectively manage their plastic waste dispos-al, why cannot we despite being a countrywith such a humongous population?”

Today, his company uses plastic wastematerials and turns them into high perfor-mance materials in the form of HighDensity Composite Polymer (HDCP) tilesand blocks. These tiles are weather-resis-tant, chip-resistant, acid-proof, durable andhave better structural stability at a lowercost as compared to conventional materi-als in addition to reduced plastic dumping.He says that generally, even the waste plas-tic products, which are made from recy-cling the polymers, are dumped in the land-fills eventually. They could be used forsometime but they do have an expiry date.“I wanted to create something that lives for50 years. And the kind of plastic that weuse can be recycled thrice. So if the tiles aredamaged after 50 years, they could be recy-cled thrice post that too to manufacturenew ones,” he says. And the bonus withthese interlocking tiles is that they are “anti-microbial, antistatic and anti-bacterial.”

The Greater Hyderabad’s MunicipalCorporation’s (GHMC) dog park was thefirst reflection of what they have been pro-ducing. And it’s not just the concept thatthe park is only meant for dogs, but alsoits bright green-pink-blue tiles on the pave-ments, which enhances the park’s vibe.Paras tells us that out of the seven types ofpolymers available for such use, they areutilising three types, which are alsocoloured. The plastic waste is segregatedinto three categories — Polypropylene (PP),High-Density Polythylene (HDP), andLow-Density Polythylene. They consist ofdisposable cutlery, chairs and tables andtoys; PET bottles and their caps; and milkpouches, simultaneously. He says, “Whenyou recycle this kind of plastic, it natural-ly gives out some or the other colour. Andif we use particularly green or blue plas-tic, it gives out green and blue colour.However, we don’t go for pastel colours oreven white or yellow, since they fade outeasily. Though we also produce redcoloured-tiles if the demand be.”

Another such organisation is theDehradun-based Sustainable GreenInitiative Foundation, which aims at pro-ducing bricks with the use of low-valueplastic waste. Durgesh Raturi, founder anddirector, tell us that multi-layered plasticpackaging is highly problematic and com-

panies have not realised it in years. Andhence, it came to him that they could uselow-value plastic like Kurkure wrappers,regular-use polythene bags, Parle-G biscuitpackets, etc. “These packets are usuallydouble or multi-layered which make themeven harder to recycle. The waste is collect-ed through various sources and thenheated and compressed with sand to befashioned into a brick,” he says.

Listing the differences betweencement-based bricks and these, he tells thatthese plastic waste-based bricks have the“compressive strength, which is almosttwice as that of the cement-based ones.And, of course, emit less polluting chem-icals and elements. “One great elementabout these bricks is that whatever wrap-pers or packets or plastic waste we receiveis not even washed with water before its use.It’s directly put to use. Even if a wrapperis dirty with mud, we wouldn’t use waterto clean it up. So we also have no-water-wastage policy.”

So where does he source the plasticwaste from? The non-profit organisationaims to be more inclusive in terms of cre-ating a space for a healthy environment. Hesays, “We source a lot of our waste fromragpickers. And one of the major contrib-

utors to our waste is the Jaivik Vasudha, astartup by two young boys who went doorto door collecting plastic waste from peo-ple’s houses and giving it to recycling busi-nesses. We have been closely working withthem.”

Well, there would be multiple resourcesthat we might be using in our daily livesand routines. We do not even care whetherthese will be available to us for the lifetime,as they are exhaustible. However, waste issomething that would always be availablein abundance. It will never exhaust. Naturalresources will. Atiya Rakyan, chiefRawcycle officer at Raw Pressery, who,under their initiative #RawCycle, has col-lected 1.2 million plastic PET (polyethyl-ene terephthalate) bottles to recycle and hasrecently launched the first edition of t-shirts, which are made of 95 per cent recy-cled plastic polyester and five per cent driftspandex.

Seven waste PET bottles are used tomake one t-shirt. Talking about theprocess, she tells us that the bottles arewashed, crushed and then chopped intoflakes. She says, “They are later melted at270 degrees and formed into chips and thenextruded into yarn. The yarn is then woveninto the fabric and then, coloured using

eco-friendly processes. The entire processis very clean. We don’t use any kind ofchemical-based dyes to colour the t-shirt,which is currently priced at �1,000. Thereis no emission of pollutants which, unlikeother cloth processing companies, are letinto rivers and other water bodies.”

The idea to bring this up hit Atiyawhen at a cultural event, she saw numer-ous plastic bottles being dumped in, out-side and around the dustbin. “Whichwould have ultimately ended up in land-fills.” She believes that it’s been long thatwe have been using resources and throw-ing them after use. And now is the timeto preserve that waste and use it to cre-ate non-perishable products. “Those bot-tles at weddings, which you think are ofno use after the water/juice is being con-sumed, are a raw material for me. It’s atreasure. I can make a living out of it. Wedon’t need to look at it as trash anymore.It’s like gold in the dust,” says she, empha-sising on the approach of designers, who“should be looking at other measures ofcreating their fabric. We can’t just keepgrowing and exhausting cotton for fabricanymore.”

While some may choose to sweep theenvironmental warnings under the carpet,

The Rug Republic is fighting against envi-ronmental degradation by recycling plas-tics into... carpets. Aditya Gupta, founder,tells us how they are making outdoor andindoor art pieces while using minimumnatural resources and now they have takenanother giant leap by using recycledbicycle tubes, PET yarns extracted fromrecycled water bottles, recycled silk yarns,and other multi-fiber textiles to createunique rugs and carpets. “They are alsocost-effective — though expensive thancotton, they’re cheaper than wool.”

While Paras tells us that depending onthe size of the tiles, it may take about onekg of plastic waste to make four tiles oreven two kg of plastic to make one,Durgesh points out that his product is likeusing �1 for 50 years unlike other, usualones ,which consume �1 for one year.Well, plastic recycling costs are indeedexpensive but given their durability, theylast more. The problem is its initial cost,which is high. And this leads to the ques-tion that when there are other good qual-ity products available at cheaper prices(though not eco-friendly), how can thesesustainable products get a proportionateshare in the Indian markets and takeoverpeople’s utility choices?

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We all know that a fullstop ends a sentencegiving it a definite

meaning. In that sense, theend of anything gives it fullclosure and creates a way fora new beginning. It’s a cycle oflife. There are so many end-ings and beginnings in ourlife. Often, most of us preparefor the various endings inour life, like — end of a par-ticular season, project, educa-tion, career, relationship, dealand so on.

We may also sometimesreflect about the biggest end-ing — Death. Some endingsare known and expected whileothers are quite sudden. Mostof the time, when an end isnear, we usually get somekind of signals or maybe cluesto make us aware and help usmeet it with grace and equa-nimity.

The current world sce-nario presents an interestingview of multidimensionalforces influencing human des-tiny in the present time. Onone hand, we see amazingwonders of science, technol-ogy, information explosionand development on severalother fronts of material life.On the other hand, we witnessthe fast degeneration of val-ues, ethics, extreme levels ofviolence, hatred, corruptionand suffering on a daily basis.Today, the world is riddledwith numerous problems ofevery kind — political con-flicts, economic recession,environmental hazards,poverty, terrorism, naturaldisasters, inflation, social andfamilial divides — the list oftroubles seems never endingand even gets multiplying.Apart from the looming dan-gers of global warming, ourworld is precariously balancedon a stockpile of nuclear arse-nals that can trigger a holo-caust of unimaginable magni-tude.

While we watch, hear andread about major scams, andcrime, there are numeroussuch incidents of violenceand moral turpitude thatoccur on a daily basis in indi-vidual lives. Similarly, hatred,jealousy, greed, ego, lust, intol-erance and mistrust haveseeped deep into the humanpsyche influencing everythought and action.

Beneath the turbulentwaves of change and disinte-gration, the human conscious-ness is awakening to the real-ity of a new world that isshaped by more aware,enlightened, spiritual lyempowered and responsible

human beings, who arealigned to the great values.

We all know that everyproblem generate a search forsolutions, which leads to newknowledge, invention andchange. If look at today’sworld scenario, we wonderwhat could be the solution toend al l our sufferings?Moreover, one must remem-ber that no situation can con-tinue forever and hence evenproblems escalate and come toan end.

So when will the end to allour problems begin? Well,practically, it has alreadybegun. Time, nature and theincidents in the world are allgiving us a loud and clear sig-nal about the impendingchange. The end is here but itis a benevolent and beneficialone. It is the catalyst that willopen the door to liberationfrom all the sufferings. It willestablish a new world of puri-ty, peace and happiness thatevery human soul has beenyearning for.

Now is the time for every-one to realise that supremealmighty himself is changingthis old world into a new one.He is honouring his supremewisdom and blessings direct-ly to help us regain our orig-inal purity and virtues. He isawakening us to realise ourtrue nature to manifest ourinborn divinity. We shouldthus not wait for the end,instead we should wait to flyand reach our magnificence.Just remember, the old worldis finally coming to an endand a new one is being estab-lished. Now it is up to uswhether to become a part ofthis change towards the newworld by connecting with thesupreme or remain in an illu-sionary world, where every-thing is artificial and un-real-istic.

Aspecial attention was givento various ambitious plansof the Modi government inthis year’s budget, whichalso included the

Saubhagya scheme. The scheme incor-porates electricity connection to allhouseholds in rural as well as urbanareas by the year 2022. The scheme waslaunched back in 2017 and the initialdeadline was December 2018. InFebruary, Jammu & Kashmir baggedthe Saubhagya Excellence Award forbeing the first state to achieve success-ful implementation of the scheme.

On October 17, 2018, GreaterKashmir, a Kashmir based English daily,published a report quotingCommissioner Secretary PowerDevelopment Department (PDD),Hardesh Kumar that 100 per cent elec-trification had been completed in sixdistricts of Srinagar, Badgam, Pulwama,Jammu, Samba, and Kathua whereas in16 other districts, the work is in the finalphase. At the same time, he alsoinformed that infrastructure had beenbuilt to connect 102 border villages ofthe state to provide electricity connec-tion. By May 31, 6,337 villages ofJammu and Kashmir had received theconnection under the Sahaj Bijli HarGhar Yojana (Saubhagya), which is con-sidered as Prime Minister NarendraModi’s dream project. Around �133.42crores have been approved out ofwhich �53.24 crores have already beenreleased. Also, �435.13 crores have beenincurred from the additional amountof �875.03 crores. According toDeendayal Upadhyaya Gram JyotiYojana, DDUGJY and Saubhagya,15,10,271 out of a total of 18,72,195households have been electrified.Electrical connections have been pro-vided to 8,861 additional householdssince February 1.

The figures from Jammu &Kashmir’s electricity department revealthat the power system is up to the markand the process of electrifying is beingimplemented at a rapid pace. But on theother hand, if we look at the groundreality, the difference between what is

being claimed and the reality is polesapart.

Even after the deadline had passedlast year, the aim has not been achieved.However, since the launch of theSubhagya scheme, there has been greatimprovement in the situation but thereare many such areas where electricitywires and pillars are yet to reach. Froma geographical perspective, most areasof the valley are located on mountain-ous regions, which are covered withsnow for more than half of the year. Insuch areas, uninterrupted supply ofelectricity is the biggest challenge.Several times, the snow storms badlyaffects the power system. Besides that,the electric system is disrupted inmany areas because wooden poleshave been used to support the electriccables, which often crumble underheavy thunderstorm and rain. Many atime, there have been incidents whenthe electricity current that runs through

the broken poles has proved fatal for thelocal residents.

The problems do not end here. Tomeet high electricity demands, thepower supply system is modified,which would then lead to low voltageand in turn creates trouble for the vil-lagers. Ladoran, a village located on theNorth West Hills, which is 10 km awayfrom Kupwara, the district headquar-ter, is also a victim of power misman-agement. The village has a populationof 3,200 people. But even today, theelectricity in the village is negligible.Villagers have to make alternativearrangements even when the bulb is litdue to low voltage. It was a challeng-ing task to transport electric wires andpoles to the mountainous village, butthey were installed successfully.However, the continued issue with lowvoltage of electricity in the village hasraised questions about the success ofthe state electricity department. Poor

electricity is affecting the health of thevillagers as well the students whosestudies are constantly being inter-rupted.

A local student studying in tenthclass, Dilshada Bano, says, “Eventhough there is electricity, we are notable to make a good use of it due tosuch low voltage. The students of theclass are unable to complete theirhomework on time because of whichthe teachers scold them. Also, thefuture of the students preparing forcompetitive exam looks grim.” This isthe major reason why so many studentsare giving up on their studies gradu-ally. Although the state electricitydepartment has spent millions indelivering electrical equipment to thevillage, but due to high demand, thelow-megawatt transformers installedcould not solve the problem. In a sit-uation like this, the availability of elec-tricity is considered as equivalent tonone. Due to high costs involved withsolar power, the option is not availableto the villagers.

In this regard, village Sarpanch,Ghulam Mohiuddin Vani, also consid-ers the electricity complaints of peoplecompletely valid. He says that in rela-tion to low voltage, he has raised theirconcerns to the high officials of thedepartment many times but nothinghas happened except for their assur-ance. Sarpanch says, “The villageneeds at least 10 MW whereas only 6MW transformers has been installedby the department due to which exces-sive load on the transformer increas-es and results in low voltage problems.The issue can easily be addressed byinstalling high MW transformers.”

Apart from this, the difficultythat the villagers face can be fixed bytimely repairs of electrical wires and byreplacing the wooden poles with theproper ones. Though the departmenthas nominated this village under theDDUGJY last year, the villagers are yetto receive its benefits. Let’s hope thatthe flame of education does not burnone day.

J-��!��

For many kids, headingback to school meansmore than resuming class-

es and homework. It means get-ting back to clubs and studentorganisations focussed on sus-tainability — everything fromcomposting and recycling toreducing food waste and pro-moting cleaner oceans andwaterways.

“Young people tend to beincredibly active in sustain-ability issues, much more thanso many adults,” says AprilPeebler, executive director ofHeirs to our Oceans (H2OO),a Berkeley, California-basedorganisation that tries to help12 to 17-year-olds from aroundthe world learn and advocatefor the environment. “There’s alot of passion there and astrong desire to deal with theproblems facing the environ-ment that they are going to beinheriting.”

Hannah Ono, 15, ofBoston, has already been advo-cating for the environment foryears. In fourth grade, she andsome friends started a petitionasking Dunkin Donuts to stopusing Styrofoam cups. “TheChange.org petition drew3,00,000 supporters and helpedpersuade the company to ditchStyrofoam cups by 2020,” shesays. “My next petition is for thecity of Boston to ban Styrofoamcontainers. I just put it up a cou-ple months ago on Change.org,and it has about 300 signaturesso far,” says Ono, a risingsophomore at Phillips AcademyAndover.

She’s also one of a group ofstudents who got a $1,000 grantfrom her school to raise aware-

ness this year about sustainablefashion. “We want people toknow more about where theirclothes are coming from. Fastfashion can be really harmfulfor the environment,” adds she.

“We’re going to be the onesliving with the consequences ofclimate change, so it’s importantfor us to take these steps,” Onosays.

Perhaps the most famousteen dedicated to the environ-ment is Greta Thunberg, theSwedish climate activist, whoinspired coordinated climate-change strikes around the worldlast year. She arrived in NewYork on Wednesday and willspeak at the United NationsClimate Action Summit, thenjoin world leaders who will pre-sent plans to reduce greenhousegas emissions.

Thunberg is taking a yearoff school to pursue heractivism. Joelle Alley heads aCalifornia non-profit,EarthTeam, that offers a paidinternship programme for kidsinterested in sustainability. Shesays the group starts eachschool year by presenting theirprogramme to around 10under-resourced high schoolsin the Richmond, California,area.

“We recruit teams of 14interns from each school andthe interns work with coachesto identify environmental prob-lems on their campus and intheir community. Then thekids come up with action cam-paigns to help solve the prob-lems,” Alley says.

The kids “have a uniqueperspective on their familiesand communities, and oftenspot issues that outsiders wouldmiss. They walk everywhere,

they hang out in parks, and theysee a lot of things. We providethe structure, tools andresources, but they are the onesidentifying the issues and com-ing up with campaigns,” saysshe.

Through the FoodRecovery Network, one of thelargest student-led movementsfighting food waste and hunger,students at college campuses in44 states and the District ofColumbia connect with college

dining halls, local shelters andfood pantries to make sureexcess food is delivered tothose in need, instead of goinginto the trash.

“We coach and mentor stu-dents to help them build localfood recovery programmes,”says the organisation’s executivedirector, Regina Anderson.“There’s an incredible amountof food waste on universitycampuses and this is a verypractical way to help our envi-

ronment.”Through the network, stu-

dents have recovered 3.9 mil-lion pounds of food so far,Anderson says. “At any giventime, we work with 5,000 col-lege students,” as well as somehigh school-age volunteers,she says.

Educators say studentswho care about sustainabilitycan have a huge impact, partic-ularly as they enter the work-force.

“We’re seeing this manifestin two ways,” says JonathanDeutsch, professor of Foodand Hospitality Managementin the College of Nursing andHealth Professions at DrexelUniversity, in Philadelphia,where the Food RecoveryNetwork has been active foryears.

“Students are very mindfulof their own impact, opting forreusable water bottles and cof-fee mugs. But it’s taken to amuch wider-reaching level inthe case of students in profes-sional programmes. Someonestudying to be a food servicemanager in a hospital, forexample, who is launchingtheir career with a sustainabil-ity-oriented mindset, reallymoves the needle,” he says.“They are making decisionsabout thousands of meals a day,and that adds up to a hugeenvironmental impact.”

Thunberg told politicaland business leaders in Davosrecently, “I don’t want you to behopeful. I want you to panic. Iwant you to feel the fear I feelevery day. And then I want youto act.”

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Defending champion NaomiOsaka consoled a tearfulCoco Gauff after a crushing

US Open victory in a showdownbilled as "the future of women's ten-nis" while Rafael Nadal cruised intothe last 16.

World number one Osakaoverpowered 15-year-old Gauff 6-3, 6-0 in 65 minutes to keep her titledefense on track before sharing awarm embrace with an opponentoverwhelmed by the occasion inthe New York spotlight.

The emotional clash was fol-lowed by tearful on-court inter-views, Osaka asking Gauff to joinher with the microphone as theymet at the net.

"It was kind of instinctivebecause when I shook her hand, Isaw that she was kind of tearing upa little. Then it reminded me howyoung she was," Osaka said.

"I wanted her to have herhead high, not walk off the courtsad. I want her to, like, be aware thatshe's accomplished so much andshe's still so young."

Osaka said the match was oneof her best since winning theAustralian Open title.

"This is the most focused I'vebeen since Australia," Osaka said,telling Gauff: "Sorry for playing youin this mentality."

The primetime third-round

clash at Arthur Ashe Stadium pit-ted 21-year-old Japanese star Osakaagainst the American, who madea fourth-round Wimbledon run onher Grand Slam debut.

Serena Williams, the 23-timeGrand Slam champion, called it"the future of women's tennis",while Novak Djokovic labelledGauff "a new superstar".

But Gauff, the youngest play-er through to the third round heresince Anna Kournikova in 1996,struggled in her first match underthe lights on Ashe.

"She (Osaka) did amazing andI am going to learn a lot from thismatch," Gauff said.

"She's the number one playerin the world right now, so I knowwhat I need to do to get to that

level."Osaka next faces Swiss 13th

seed Belinda Bencic, who washanded a walkover when AnettKontaveit withdrew due to illness.

Three-time champion Nadalreturned from an extended rest todispose of 170th-ranked SouthKorean qualifier Chung Hyeon 6-3, 6-4, 6-2, having benefited fromthree days off after a walkover.

The Spanish second seed willmeet 2014 champion Marin Cilicfor a place in the quarter-finals.

"I'm happy to be in the fourthround for one more time. It was agood match," said Nadal, whoquit with injury against JuanMartin del Potro during last year'ssemi-final.

"I'm trying to play a little bit

more aggressive and a little bit lessthan before."

"It's true last year I had sometough matches. You never knowwhat's better or worse," he said ofhis serene progress this week.

Cilic, the 22nd seed and 2017Wimbledon finalist, took out topUS hope John Isner in four tightsets.

"I've played quite a few timeswith Rafa. When you play these topguys you have to come up withyour great tennis," said Cilic.

Sixth seed Alexander Zverevmade it to the second week in NewYork for the first time after fight-ing past Aljaz Bedene 6-7 (4/7), 7-6 (7/4), 6-3, 7-6 (7/3).

Andrey Rublev, a 2017 quarter-finalist, beat Nick Kyrgios in three

entertaining sets while 13th seedGael Monfils is the highest-rankedplayer left in that quarter of thedraw after he outlasted DenisShapovalov in five sets.

Canadian teenager BiancaAndreescu, seeded 15th, brushedpast two-time US Open runner-upCaroline Wozniacki 6-4, 6-4 toextend her best Grand Slam run.

The 19-year-old, a winner atToronto and Indian Wells thisseason, improved to 30-4 for theyear despite missing much of theclay and grass portion with ashoulder injury.

"I think everything is justclicking with me," said Andreescu,who had never gone beyond roundtwo at a major prior to this tour-nament.

"I've been through a lot withinjuries and have just taken every-thing I've learned from the pastcouple of years and brought it intothis year."

American qualifier TaylorTownsend continued her surpriserun after reaching the last 16 forthe first time at a Slam.

Townsend, ranked 116th, fol-lowed up her shock win overreigning Wimbledon championSimona Halep by beating anoth-er Romanian, Sorana Cirstea, 7-5,6-2.

�� /:�4&�.��&�/:

An authoritative Yashaswini Singh Deswalsecured India's ninth Olympic quota in style,

upstaging the women's 10m air pistol's numerouno shooter Olena Kostevych of Ukraine for aGold in the ISSF World Cup.

The 22-year-old former junior world cham-pion on Saturday recorded 236.7 in the eight-woman final of the season's fourth ISSF WorldCup for pistol and rifle shooters.

Ukraine's world number one Kostevych, alsoa former Olympic and world champion, claimedthe Silver with 234.8, while Serbia's JasminaMilavonovic bagged the Bronze with 215.7.

Such was the dominance of Yashaswini thatshe ended the final a massive 1.9 points aheadof the event's next best performer, Kostevych.

She had also topped the qualifications by amile, aggregating a score of 582.

Starting the finals with 10.1, 10.5 and 10.1,the Indian was third after the first five-shot seriesof stage 1.

A 10.6 pushed her to number two and a 10.1to the top, eventually ending the stage as num-ber one.

She started the elimination rounds with abumper 10.4, which was followed by 10.0.

The standing was not disturbed despite a 9as her lead was pretty big by that time.

She briefly slipped to second with a 9.1, buta humongous 10.8, soon after, firmly establishedYashaswini's place at the top.

After confirming the quota, Yashaswini shota perfect 10.9, extending her dominance andsecuring the top prize with an effortless perfor-mance.

Her two final shots were in the 9s, but impor-tantly, both were higher than those of theUkranian champion.

The brilliant performance saw Yashaswinijoin Sanjeev Rajput, Anjum Moudgil, ApurviChandela, Saurabh Chaudhary, Abhishek Verma,Divyansh Singh Panwar, Rahi Sarnobat andManu Bhaker as India's other quota holders forthe 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

�� 79�/�

Kalidou Koulibaly handedJuventus a dramatic win

with a last-gasp own goal thatconsigned Napoli to a painful 4-3 Serie A defeat after his sidehad battled back from threegoals down to level the scores.

The Senegal internationalshanked in Paulo Dybala's free-kick under no pressure in thesecond minute of stoppage timeto hand Juve the three points inTurin on Saturday and putMaurizio Sarri's side top with amaximum six points, leavingNapoli with nothing to show fortheir Herculean efforts.

"It was a rollercoaster. Welost control of the game and gotdistracted, so they managed toequalise, but fortunately in theend we still won," said GonzaloHiguain, who spun Koulibalybefore slamming home Juve'ssuperb second.

"It is a very important vic-tory. We have a lot to improve,but we gave our all on the pitchand were eventually rewarded."

Koulibaly's blunder undidall of Napoli's good work infighting back from the deadwith less than half-an-hour left,with goals from Danilo just 20seconds after he came on as asubstitute, Higuain back atJuventus after loan spells at ACMilan and Chelsea andCristiano Ronaldo giving thereigning champions whatlooked like an unassailable lead.

However two goals in asmany minutes from KostasManolas and Hirving Lozanoshortly after Ronaldo had madeit three brought Napoli backinto the game, and Giovanni DiLorenzo sent the away fanswild with a close-range finish toset up a tense final nine min-utes.

But with at least pointseemingly in the bag, Koulibalymade it a nightmare end forCarlo Ancelotti's men, whofinished on the wrong end of a4-3 scoreline after winning bythe same margin at Fiorentinalast weekend.

The champions made lightof the absence of captainGiorgio Chiellini, out with ante-rior cruciate ligament kneeinjury, and Sarri, who is battlingpneumonia and was not on thebench.

Ironically it was Koulibalywhose injury-time winner hadgiven Napoli there only victo-ry in the Allianz Stadium underformer coach Sarri in April2018.

Earlier Turkey midfielderHakan Calhanoglu claimed ACMilan's first three points of theseason after scoring the onlygoal in a 1-0 win over newly-promoted Brescia.

The 25-year-old connectedwith a cross from Spanishwinger Suso to head in after 12minutes after Milan had losttheir opener to Udinese lastweekend.

�� ;&�+/�

Union Berlin pulled off perhaps thebiggest victory in their turbulent

history, defeating Borussia Dortmund3-1 at the Stadion An der AltenFoersterei on Saturday night.

Dortmund came into the matchheavily favoured to win and reclaimtheir place on top of the table butstruggled to match Berlin's enthusiasmin sweltering conditions in theGerman capital.

Union were 1-0 in the 22ndminute, with Marius Buelter scoringthe side's first ever top-flight goal athome.

Buelter latched onto a Berlin cor-ner which had been struck low andfast, hammering the ball into the bot-tom right of the net.

The goal stung Dortmund intoaction, who equalised just two min-utes later through Paco Alcacer.

Dortmund coasted through theremainder of the first half, dominat-ing possession and territory as theywent in search of what seemed like aninevitable second.

It was Union who would scorenext, however, with Buelter grabbinga second by pouncing on a desperateclearance from Dortmund keeperRoman Buerki.

Sebastian Andersson addedanother in the 75th minute to put thehome side 3-1 up and seal their firstever win in the top division.

Union manager Urs Fischer said

he was proud of his side's performanceand planned on letting them savourthe victory.

"We knew that it would be a real-ly difficult 90 minutes, when you wantto take points off (Dortmund) youhave to work hard and try everything.And we did it," Fischer said.

"I think there might be a beer ortwo tonight, we'll see if we get around

to completing the video analysistonight or not."

Dortmund captain Marco Reussaid the entire team was to blame forthe loss.

"We had plenty of opportunitiesbut the last pass seemed to fail us everytime," he said.

"We simply didn't put in enoughtonight."

�� /'

Nice won for the first timeunder new ownership to

draw level on points withleaders Paris Saint-Germainon Sunday when they inflict-ed a first defeat of the seasonon Rennes.

The 2-1 win moved Niceonto nine point after fourgames, the same as Rennes aswell as champions PSG andAngers, who both won earli-er in the weekend. TheParisians already have a signif-icant advantage in goal differ-ence.

In the other early game onSunday, last season's runnersup Lille lost 2-0 at Reims.

On Wednesday, in theirfirst match after English petro-chemical billionaire JimRatcliffe's Ineos completed hispurchase of the club, Nice lostat home to Marseille.

That game was dominat-ed by the over 10-minute sus-pension ordered by matchofficials as part of a crackdownon offensive chanting fromFrench football authorities.

Nice started badly onSunday at Roazhon Park.

Defender Gautier Lloris,the younger brother ofTottenham goalkeeper Hugo,

scored an own goal at a cor-ner after 25 minutes.

The visitors dominatedthe second half and won apenalty when BenjaminBourigeaud and HamariTraore sandwiched YoucefAtal. Wylan Cyprien convert-ed from the spot.

Nice won the game twominutes into added time.Racine Coly, at the far postfrom a corner, scored the win-ner with his knee.

In Champagne country,Lille finished with 10 men.

The game was still goallesswhen Lille midfielder YusufYazici received a second yellowcard after 52 minutes.

The visitors conceded apenalty for a foul on MoussaDoumbia, and after a delay forvideo review, the winger con-verted in the 73rd minute.

In the 90th minute, RemiOudin's cross flew into theLille net.

The visitors won a penal-ty deep into added time, butgoalkeeper Pedrag Rajkovicpushed Jonathan Bamba's spot

kick onto the post. New sign-ing Renato Sanches was first tothe rebound but missed thegoal.

Later on Sunday strug-gling Monaco travel toStrasbourg and Marseille hostSaint-Etienne.

Union Berlin pulled offperhaps the biggest victory intheir turbulent history, defeat-ing Borussia Dortmund 3-1 atthe Stadion An der AltenFoersterei on Saturday night.

Dortmund came into thematch heavily favoured to winand reclaim their place on topof the table but struggled tomatch Berlin's enthusiasm insweltering conditions in theGerman capital.

Union were 1-0 in the22nd minute, with MariusBuelter scoring the side's firstever top-flight goal at home.

Buelter latched onto aBerlin corner which had beenstruck low and fast, hammer-ing the ball into the bottomright of the net.

The goal stung Dortmundinto action, who equalisedjust two minutes later throughPaco Alcacer.

Dortmund coastedthrough the remainder of thefirst half, dominating posses-sion and territory as they

went in search of what seemedlike an inevitable second.

It was Union who wouldscore next, however, withBuelter grabbing a second bypouncing on a desperate clear-ance from Dortmund keeperRoman Buerki.

Sebastian Anderssonadded another in the 75thminute to put the home side3-1 up and seal their first everwin in the top division.

Union manager UrsFischer said he was proud ofhis side's performance andplanned on letting themsavour the victory.

"We knew that it would bea really difficult 90 minutes,when you want to take pointsoff (Dortmund) you have towork hard and try everything.And we did it," Fischer said.

"I think there might be abeer or two tonight, we'll seeif we get around to complet-ing the video analysis tonightor not."

Dortmund captain MarcoReus said the entire team wasto blame for the loss.

"We had plenty of oppor-tunities but the last passseemed to fail us every time,"he said.

"We simply didn't put inenough tonight."

�� /'

Neymar is set to stay at ParisSaint-Germain after seeing

his desire to transfer back toBarcelona fail, according to pressreports on Sunday.

"Se queda," Spanish for he'sstaying, read the L'Equipe headlineon its front page with a photo ofthe Brazilian.

"Faces with the impossiblity ofcompleting his transfer toBarcelona, Neymar had informedhis entourage he has decided toend the season at PSG," the dailysaid.

Spanish sports newspaperMundo Deportivo carried similarnews, which comes just ahead ofthe transfer market deadlines inFrance and Spain on Monday.

"Neymar's entourage admit it:it's finished," it said.

Neymar, 27, became theworld's most expensive playerwhen PSG paid 222 million euros($ 264 million at the time) for histransfer from Barcelona two yearsago.

A scorer of 51 goals in 58appearances in his two seasons inthe French capital, Neymar has notfeatured at all for his current clubthis season amid the uncertaintysurrounding his future.

He trained with PSG onThursday, but coach ThomasTuchel omitted him from the teamthat beat Metz 2-0 in Ligue 1 actionon Friday.

Efforts to negotiate a suitablylucrative transfer back to Barcelonahave seemingly floundered, withPSG sporting director Leonardosaying on Friday there was "noagreement. It depends onBarcelona"

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Iowe my hat-trick to the cap-tain," Jasprit Bumrah told an

enamoured Virat Kohli afterblowing away the West Indieswith his heady cocktail of lineand length, pace and bounce.

Known as much for hisinfectious energy as for hisincredible batting, Kohli wascaught on the stump mic say-ing, "What a bowler, man!What a bowler", after Bumrahremoved one the West Indiesbatsmen.

Part of the credit forBumrah's hat-trick go to skip-per Kohli, who insisted on areview after Roston Chase, histhird victim, was initially givennot out by the on-field umpirePaul Reiffel.

The review was correct asBumrah became only the thirdIndian to claim a hat-trick inTest cricket.

"Actually I didn't know, Iwas not very sure of the appeal,I thought it was bat so I did-n't appeal so much, but itwas a good review in theend. So, I think, I owethat hat-trick to the cap-tain," Bumrah said asKohli held the micfor 'BCCI TV'during an interac-tion.

It is not easyto sweep Kohlioff his feet, butBumrah hasdone that a fewtimes in recenttimes, and thesecond day ofthe secondTest againstthe WestIndies wasone of thosemoments.

In a lethal openingspell, Bumrah (6/16) rat-tled the West Indies bypicking up the first fivewickets, three of whichcame in successiveballs in the ninthover.

"Sometimeswhen there is so

much of help in the wicket, wesaw in the previous inning aswell there was a lot of bouncethey were getting a lot ofbounce, they were getting latemovement as well.

"So, sometimes, when thereis so much of help you can getgreedy, you can go for wickets,you can try to be over aggres-sive, that time you have to keepthings simple, just try andbowl good balls and createpressure. That was the thingthat was going on in my head,"Bumrah said.

The leader of the teamasked the leader of the pacepack about understandingamong the fast bowlers.

"Understanding is verygood with other pacers. Thereis a lot of communication thatgoes on and off the field as well.

When I am gettingwickets, some-body else' job atthat time is tocreate pressure,when somebodyelse is gettingwickets my job is

to create pressure."So a lot of

communicationgoes -- when there is

no help what we cando -- Ishant has playedmore than 90 Testmatches, Shami hasplayed a lot of Tests.

"So lot of ideascome in and then wetry to help each other ifthings are not goingwell, push each other. Sothat's a good relationgoing on and hopefullywe will continue,"

Bumrah said.

�� -/�0'7:�

India's Hanuma Vihari dedicatedhis maiden Test ton to his late

father, keeping a promise he madeto himself right after he lost one ofhis favourites 13 years ago.

Apart from remembering hisfather, Vihari thanked bowler IshantSharma for batting, at times, betterthan the recognised batsman at theother end during their partnershipin the second Test against WestIndies.

The unassuming Vihari feltIshant helped him keep his word.

"Actually, my dad passed awaywhen I was 12 so ever since, I have

decided that when I play internation-al cricket I want to dedicate my firsthundred to him," Vihari said after hiscareer-best 111.

The 25-year-old added, "Todayis an emotional day and I hope heis proud wherever he is and I'm real-ly happy that I achieved that."

Together with Ishant (57 off 80balls), who scored his maiden fifty,Vihari shared 112 runs off 28.3 overs

for the eighth wicket to frustrate theWest Indies for a long time.

"Happy that I got a century andcredit should go to Ishant. He lookedmore like a batsman today than me.The way he was going, we kept dis-cussing what the bowler was doingand his experience really helped."

Vihari is gradually emerging asa reliable man for crisis situations inTest cricket.

"When I was batting overnighton 42, I did not sleep really well asmy thoughts were obviously runningon how to get a big score today. I'mreally happy that I could get my firsthundred, especially on those condi-tions. It gives me a lot of satisfaction,"Vihari said.

This one is for Dad (Headline)Hanuma dedicates maiden Test

hundred to late father

�� 4&�;<

Australia's pace spearhead Josh Hazlewood isconfident of doing well in the remaining two

Ashes assignments, as he feels he is bowling welland hitting the right areas.

"The body's really good," Hazlewood was quot-ed as saying by www.cricket.com.au.

"I felt a lot better at Headingley than Lord's,just getting those miles into the legs in that firstTest (back)," he added.

Hazlewood did not play the first Test whichAustralia won before returning to the squad inLord's following a back injury. He was impressivein Headingley with a career-best match haul of 9-

115, which included 5-30 in England's firstinnings of 67.

"I can't see why not unless we bowl a moun-tain of overs in the next game, but the body's feel-ing really," Hazlewood said when asked about theworkload pacers need to take in such a long five-day series.

On his bowling, he said: "It certainly feels likeI'm bowling well. Ever since I bowled at Worcestera few weeks back, I took it into Lord's and intoHeadingley."

The fourth Ashes Test starts from Wednesdayin Manchester after England rode Ben Stokes' epic135 not out to level the five-match series 1-1 atHeadingley.

�� -/�0'7:�

The incomparable Jasprit Bumrahbecame only the third Indian topick a Test hat-trick after

Hanuma Vihari's maiden ton, power-ing the visitors to a commanding posi-tion in the second match against theWest Indies here on Saturday night.

In a lethal opening spell onSaturday, Bumrah (6/16) rattled theWest Indies by picking up the first fivewickets, three of which came in succes-sive balls in the ninth over.

As a result, the hosts, trailing 0-1in the two-match series, were totteringat 87 for seven at stumps on the secondday.

Bumrah made inroads into WestIndies line-up in the seventh over byinducing an edge from John Campbell,which Rishabh Pant accepted gleeful-ly.

Bumrah was at his best as he pickedup the wickets of Darren Bravo,Shamarh Brooks and Roston Chase toregister his name in the record books.

He first had Bravo caught by K LRahul in the second slip and then hadboth Brooks and Chase LBW in thenext two balls.

Part of the credit for Bumrah's hat-trick must also go to skipper ViratKohli, who insisted on a review afterChase was given not out by on-fieldumpire Paul Reiffel.

Bumrah, thus, joined HarbhajanSingh and Irfan Pathan to register a hat-trick in Test cricket for India.

Shimron Hetmyer (34) was cleanedup by Mohammad Shami before

Bumrah came back to dismiss WestIndies skipper Jason Holder.

West Indies trailed India by 329runs with three full days play remain-ing.

Earlier, Vihari scored a career-best111 off 225 balls with the help of 16

boundaries.Together with Ishant (57 off 80

balls), who scored his maiden fifty,Vihari shared 112 runs off 28.3 oversfor the eighth wicket.

While Vihari looked rock solid,Ishant gave him the perfect support

from the other end, as the duo frustrat-ed the West Indian bowlers for a longtime. The hosts needed 140.1 overs tobowl out the visitors.

Coming on to bat at the overnightscore of 42, Vihari stuck to his task andheld one end together.

Resuming at overnight 264 for five,India lost Rishabh Pant (27) on theopening delivery of the day.

Pant was cleaned up by Holder(5/77) with an inswinger as the bats-man leaned for a drive.

Thereafter, Vihari and RavindraJadeja played according to the situationto nullify any threat from the WestIndies bowlers.

Vihari notched up his fifty in 96balls.

Jadeja (16) did all the hardwork butgave away his wicket when it mattered,top-edging a Rahkeem Cornwall(3/105) delivery to Bravo at mid-onwhile going for a big slog.

An over later, Vihari got a bigreprieve when he was dropped byCampbell off Cornwall in the first slip.

To add to the West Indies' woes,Vihari picked up two boundaries in theremaining balls off Cornwall's over.

Vihari, who scored 93 in Antigua,reached his maiden Test ton in 200balls, with the help of a single off Roachin the 133rd over.

Ishant was not to be left behind ashe followed his senior batsman byreaching his first Test half-century, off69 balls, with a single off Cornwall.

After reaching the milestone,Ishant started to play some looseshots, which eventually led to hisdownfall.

Mohammad Shami didn't troublethe scorers as he nicked a Cornwalldelivery to Jahmar Hamilton.

Vihari also ran out of patience andplayed a lofted shot, only to be caughtby Roach for Holder's fifth wicket.

�� '��,�)��:��5�%�'

Charles Leclerc just held off Lewis Hamilton to winthe Belgian Grand Prix from pole position on Sunday,

securing the first victory of his Formula One career andending Ferrari's long wait for a win.

Hamilton was within one second of Leclerc on thefinal lap, but the 21-year-old from Monaco held his nerve.

"He was catching very quickly so I had quite a bitof pressure," Leclerc said after his win.

He dedicated it to French driver Anthoine Hubert,who died on Saturday following a heavy crash duringan F2 race held on the same track. Drivers paid theirrespects onSunday.

Mom e nt safter winning,Leclerc pointedto the sky andthen to Hubert'sname writtenon the side ofhis car.

Hamiltonextended hischampionshiplead because hisMercedes team-mate ValtteriBottas wasthird, finishingahead ofF e r r a r i ' sSebastian Vettel.

Ferrari hadnot won sinceformer driverK i m iR a i k kon e n ' svictory at theUnited StatesGP last October.

Vettel is 21races without awin since lastseason's BelgianGP as his miser-able form con-tinued.

"I gave it absolutely everything," Hamilton said. "Itwas a difficult race. I got as close as I could but maybeI needed another couple of laps."

On the last lap, Alfa Romeo's Antonio Giovinazzicrashed out but Leclerc kept his focus.

"He had that win coming," Hamilton said of Leclerc,who had taken his third pole position of the season, withhis teammate Vettel starting from second on the gridahead of Hamilton and Bottas.

Ferrari topped all three practice sessions and all threesections of qualifying, with Leclerc beating Vettel in fiveof them in sunny and warm conditions.

But as is the often the case in Spa, which is locat-ed in the Ardennes forest, the weather can changequickly and temperatures cooled significantly, greyclouds rolled overhead, and drops of rain fell beforethe race. Two hours later, the sun was out and the 7-kilometer (4.3-mile) track - the longest in F1 - was dryagain.

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UP Yoddha produced adefensive master class to

outfox Bengal Warriors 32-29 in a Pro Kabaddi Leaguematch at the Sree KanteeravaStadium here on Sunday.

Nitesh Kumar, with aHigh 5, was the star in UP'sdefence as they tackledSeason 7's best raiding unitout of the match.

Bengal Warriors, theteam in form, raced to aquick start with their raidingtrio of Maninder Singh, KPrapanjan and MohammadNabibakhsh looking in form.The Bengal side went intothe match as the best raidingunit in Season 7 (19.8 aver-age raid points) and quick-ly moved to take a lead.

Monu Goyat's absencein the team meant the raid-ing duties fell in the hands ofan out-of-form RishankDevadiga and the raideronce again struggled toimpress on the mat.

But Nitesh Kumar's twoSuper Tackles kept the UPside in the game. Ankush

came in for Yoddha with 7minutes remaining in thehalf to salvage the situationand the young raider morethan rose up to the chal-

lenge, securing two touch-points in a do-or-die raid tobring his team back into thematch.

Both teams traded blows

with the defenders, especial-ly Yoddha's Nitesh Kumar,who raced to a High 5. Thehalf ended with the Bengalside leading 13-12.

The UP side had themomentum with them inthe early minutes of the sec-ond half. Shrikant Jadhavproduced an important two-point raid, taking out RinkuNarwal, K Prapanjan in thethird minute and Yoddhawent on to seal an All-Out inthe 6th minute of the half tomove to a two-point lead(19-17).

UP's defensive pair ofNitesh Kumar and Sumitwere in outstanding form,not allowing Maninder andPrapanjan a chance to pickup points while at the otherend Baldev Singh, whosecured a High 5, and RinkuNarwal were equally impres-sive for the Warriors'defence.

UP moved to a three-point lead with less thanthree minutes remainingafter Bengal tried to play onthe do-or-die situations. Thedefence ensured theyremained focused to see UPYoddha through to animportant victory andavenge for their 31-pointdefeat early in the season.

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Opening batsman Kusal Mendis hit a quick-fire 79 to help Sri Lanka post 174 for four

in the first Twenty20 international against NewZealand in Kandy on Sunday.

Mendis took charge after the hosts elect-ed to bat first, building crucial partnershipsincluding a 63-run third-wicket stand withNiroshan Dickwella, who made 33.

Opener Kusal Perera made 11 beforefalling to Kiwi skipper Tim Southee and num-ber-three batsman Avishka Fernando was outfor 10 as Sri Lanka slipped to 68 for two.

Mendis held firm to complete his fifth T20fifty with a boundar y off Colin deGrandhomme and went on to register hiscareer-best score in the shortest format. Hisprevious-best was 70.

He survived a reprieve on 55 when IshSodhi dropped a tough catch at short fine legto add crucial runs in his 53-ball stay that waslaced with eight fours and two sixes.

Mendis was finally holed out at deep mid-wicket off Southee, who returned figures of 2-20 from his four overs of pace.

The tourists suffered a blow when pacemanLockie Ferguson broke his thumb in trainingon Saturday to be ruled out of the series.

The hosts have handed leg-spinnerWanindu Hasaranga his first T20 cap at thestart of the three-match series

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Avesh Khan hogged thelimelight with his maid-

en first class half-century inan incredible rearguardaction as India Red andIndia Green set up theDuleep Trophy title clashagainst each other after play-

ing out a draw, here onSunday.

The day belonged toKhan, who produced a 56-ball 64 in a last-wicket 73-run stand with SandeepWarrier (5 off 40 balls) tolead the Red team to 441 allout for a slender one-runlead.

Replying to Green's totalof 440, the Red team hadresumed the day's proceed-ings at a precarious 404 fornine.

It was a remarkable bat-ting show as the Reds werereduced to 368 for nine atone stage.

Green (0.057) advanced

to the final on the basis of abetter Net-Run-rate as it wastied on two points with IndiaBlue (0.028) but took secondplace.

India Red took the topspot with six points.

Khan, who had hit fivesixes on Saturday, added twomore to his kitty, dashing

Indian Green's hopes of tak-ing lead and three points.

He was finally caught bywicket-keeper AkshayWadkar to give AnkitRajpoot his third wicket.

In the second innings,India Red crawled to 98 for3 in 54 overs before play wascalled off.

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The Pioneer€¦ · Kalraj Mishra (78), who will ... was the CM of UP at time the Babri Masjid was...

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