The Pioneer · On February 11, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh told ... The Indian delegation at ......

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H onouring the pact to defuse tension, India and China have carried out pull back of their troops from the stand-off sites at the Pangong Tso (lake) in Eastern Ladakh. The military commanders of the two Armies will meet on Saturday to focus on the other friction points, including Hot Springs, Gogra and the Depsang valley. The upcoming meeting of the Corps Commanders is part of the agreement that stipulates that the two officials will meet 48 hours after the complete withdrawal of troops from the southern and northern banks of the Pangong lake. This will be the tenth round of such meeting since the face-offs between the two Armies at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) started over ten months ago. The upcoming round will start at 10 am at the Moldo bor- der meeting point on the Chinese side in the Chushul sector, sources said here on Friday. Confirming that the two sides abided by the agreement to completely withdraw their troops and tanks from the Pangong lake, officials said the process, which began on February 10, was over on Thursday. It is the first step in the long process to restore peace at the LAC in Ladakh, they said, adding local com- manders of the two armies ver- ified the withdrawal. Also, the Chinese pullback was constantly monitored via drones and satellite imagery by India round-the-clock, official said. The disengagement will also be reviewed by the Corps Commanders on Saturday. As regards the agenda for the upcoming talks, officials said India is likely to press for faster disengagement of troops from both the sides at the remaining stand-off sites. At present, more than one lakh troops besides tanks and heavy guns are deployed in forward areas at the LAC in Ladakh since the stand-offs began in May last year. On February 11, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh told Parliament about an agree- ment between India and China on disengagement in the north and south banks of Pangong lake. The agreement mandated both sides to “cease” forward deployment of troops in a “phased, coordinated and ver- ifiable” manner. Under the agreement, he said, China will pull back its troops to east of “Finger 8” areas in the northern bank of Pangong lake while the Indian troops will be based at their permanent base at Dhan Singh Thapa Post near “Finger 3” in the region. Similar action would take place on the south bank of the lake, he said. Sources on Friday confirmed that troops from both the sides had gone back to their respective positions agreed upon by India and China. The Indian delegation at Saturday’s talks will be led by Lt Gen PGK Menon, the Commander of the Leh-based 14 Corps while the Chinese side is expected to be headed by Maj Gen Liu Lin, the com- mander of the South Xinjiang military district of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). In his statement in Parliament, the Defence Minister also said it was agreed to convene the next meeting of senior commanders of both sides within 48 hours of com- pletion of the disengagement in the Pangong lake areas so as to resolve all other remaining issues. He also said talks were on at the diplomatic and military levels to bring down tempera- ture. Rajnath, however, reiter- ated that India did not concede anything during the talks and subsequent agreement. The Chinese military built several bunkers and other structures in the areas between Finger 4 and 8 and had blocked all Indian patrols beyond Finger 4, triggering strong reaction from the Indian Army. In the nine rounds of mil- itary talks, India had specifi- cally insisted on withdrawal of Chinese troops from Finger 4 to Finger 8 on the north bank of Pangong Lake. The moun- tain spurs in the area are referred to as Fingers. The Chinese insisted dur- ing the talks that the Indian troops should pull back from some strategic hilltops on the southern ban of the lake. In August last year, Indian troops occupied a number of strategic heights in the Mukhpari, Rechin La and Magar hill areas around the southern bank after the Chinese PLA attempted to intimidate them in the area. F or the first time, China has officially admitted that its soldiers were killed in the bloody brawl with the Indian troops on June 15 last year in the Galwan valley in Ladakh. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) put the number of its casualties to four. The fierce hand-to-hand fight, in which the Chinese used iron rods and sticks stud- ded with nails, claimed lives of 20 Indian Army personnel, including the commanding officer. Acknowledging the casu- alties on its side, China on Friday said four officers and soldiers stationed in the Karakoram Mountains have been recognised by the Central Military Commission of China (CMC) for their sacrifice in the border confrontation with India. This admission was published in the PLA Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese military. Incidentally, the Chinese admission comes at a time when Armies of the two coun- tries are disengaging from the friction points in Ladakh. As regards the casualties, the CMC, the overall high command of the PLA headed by President Xi Jinping, has awarded Qi Fabao, the regi- mental commander from the PLA Xinjiang Military Command, the title of “Hero regimental commander for defending the border,” Chen Hongjun with “Hero to defend the border,” and awarded first- class merit to Chen Xiangrong, Xiao Siyuan and Wang Zhuoran, state-run Global Times quoted the PLA Daily report as saying. According to the report, three PLA soldiers were killed in the combat while another soldier died while crossing the river when he went to sup- port the others. Qi Fabao, the regimental commander of the Chinese military, sustained a serious head injury, it said. The PLA Daily report claimed the Indian soldiers attacked the Chinese military personnel with steel tubes and cudgels and threw stones. This is the first time China has acknowledged casualties and details of these officers and soldiers’ sacrifice, four of whom died when dealing with the Indian military’s “illegal trespassing” of the Galwan Valley Line of Actual Control (LAC), the report said. While India has announced the casualties immediately after the inci- dent, China did not officially acknowledge the casualties until Friday. The Russian official news agency TASS reported on February 10 that 45 Chinese servicemen were killed in the Galwan Valley clash. According to an American intelligence report last year, the number of casualties on the Chinese side was 35. “It is noticeable that the PLA Daily report used ‘foreign military’ to refer to the Indian military, a move that showed China’s kindness of not incit- ing sentiments of the people against the background of the current disengagement of troops from China and India along the border areas,” the Global Times report said. T he fortified central Kashmir districts of Budgam and Srinagar on Friday witnessed two back to back terror strikes in which three Jammu & Kashmir policemen attained martyrdom while another received injuries. Three local terrorists belonging to Al-Badr terrorist outfit were also gunned down by the joint team of the secu- rity forces soon after they res- cued the family members from inside the house in which these three terrorists were hiding in Badigam area of South Kashmir’s Shopian dis- trict. These three incidents of terrorist violence came close on the heels of the visit of foreign diplomats from 24 countries to the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir. The most daring strike of the day was reported from Baghat Barzulla area at the out- skirts of Srinagar where a pher- an-clad terrorist fired indis- criminately upon policemen with an automatic weapon concealed inside his Pheran. The attack took place steps away from the local police sta- tion in the busy market area. The gory images of the terror attack, recorded in the CCTV footage, went viral immediate- ly. The unarmed policemen were targeted from behind while they were seen standing in front of a local shop. In this terror incident, two policemen namely SgCT Mohammad Yousuf of Zurhama Kupwara and Ct Suhail Ahmad of Logripora Aishmuqam received critical gunshot injuries. They were shifted to hospital for treatment where they succumbed to their injuries and attained martyr- dom. Suhail Ahmad, residence of Logripora Aishmuqam, was an orphan. He left behind his widow mother, wife and two small kids. A Special Police office (SPO) martyred in the Beerwah area of Budgam has been identified as Mohammad Altaf while SgCt Manzoor Ahmad received injuries and is undergoing treatment in a local hospital. Lt-Governor Manoj Sinha paid tributes to the J&K policemen who attained mar- tyrdom in the terrorist attack. He said such cowardly attacks are being carried out to vitiate the peaceful atmosphere & assured that the perpetrators will be brought to justice. Briefing media persons after attending the wreath lay- ing ceremony at DPL, Srinagar for the second time during the day, Inspector General of Police (IGP) Kashmir range Vijay Kumar said that two Lashkar- e-Toiba terrorists, including a local resident, carried out the attack in which two policemen were killed in Baghat area of Barzulla in Srinagar on Friday and that both attackers have been identified. The IGP said that two Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) ter- rorists including a foreign ter- rorist and a local who has been identified as Saqib, carried out the Baghat attack. The two policemen were on routine duty and were at a shop to buy something. They were fired from the back. A fter several years, the national Capital has regis- tered substantial decrease in all types of crimes — including crime against women. Total 2,66,070 cases were registered in 2020, marking a drop of over 15 per cent as against 2019 crime data, said Police Commissioner SN Srivastava on Friday. The Delhi Police chief claimed effective policing and measures taken by them for the reduction in the graph as the year also witnessed complete lockdown, due to Covid-19 outbreak, in the city. The Delhi Police regis- tered 472 cases of murder in 2020, which is 9.40 per cent less than in 2019. “There were nine cases of dacoity registered in 2020 while 2019 had seen 15 cases of dacoity. The dacoity cases were reduced to 40 per cent,” stated the data. Rape cases came down by 21.63 per cent, molestation cases by 25.16 per cent and insult to modesty of women dropped to 12.32 per cent. Addressing the Press con- ference at the Delhi Police headquarters, the CP said, “Around 2,66,070 Indian Penal Code (IPC) cases were regis- tered in 2020 as against 3,16,261 cases in 2019, show- ing a decline of 15.87 per cent. The percentage of arrest increased to 15.43.” A total of 38.19 per cent fewer PCR calls were received in 2020 as compared to the pre- vious year. In 2020, a total of 18,08,384 calls were received as compare to 29,25,531 in 2019. The murder cases have gone down by 9.40 per cent as 472 murders including 53 of North-East Delhi riots were registered in 2020 whereas 521 murder cases were registered across city in 2019. Cases of kidnapping for ransom too have reduced by 26.67 per cent, burglary by 27.33 per cent, motor vehicle theft by 24.23 per cent and other theft by 30.52 per cent, as per data. “However, the numbers of robbery case have shown a marginal hike of 0.35 per cent. The police registered 1,963 cases previous year as compare to 1,956 in 2019. However, the number of snatching cases has gone up by 27.11 per cent to 7,965 cases. Meanwhile, the CP also said 2020 was challenging for the Delhi Police, but the force has risen up to the challenge. He also released a book “Rising to the Challenges-2020” show- casing various initiatives undertaken by the force to maintain law and order in the national Capital. The CP also praised his men and officers for the use of technology in solving cases. “A total of 755 FIRs were regis- tered in connection with the North-East Delhi riots. Investigating teams extensive- ly used technology to solve the cases and around 231 accused were arrested on the basis of CCTV footage analysis. “Of them, 137 were iden- tified through FRS (Facial Recognition System) when matched with criminal records and the remaining 94 were through driving licence pho- tographs,” said the police chief. J harkhand High Court on Friday rejected Lalu Prasad's bail plea in a Fodder Scam case relating to Dumka treasury. The RJD chief will have to remain in jail for the time being. In the last hearing, the court had directed to hand over a verified copy of half the sen- tence of Lalu Prasad, who is currently in Delhi AIIMS get- ting treatment. The trial lasted for about two and a half hours in the court. Senior Supreme Court Advocate Kapil Sibal present- ed arguments on behalf of the applicant and Rajiv Sinha on behalf of the CBI. After hear- ing both the parties the HC refused to grant bail and dis- missed the petition. Lalu had filed an appeal in the High Court against the four cases of fodder scam, in which Lalu Prasad has been convict- ed by a special CBI court in Ranchi. In this, the High Court has already granted him bail in three cases. He requested to grant him bail in the Dumka treasury illegal withdrawal case. Prasad is facing five cases in Jharkhand in the fodder scam. He has been convicted in four of these cases. Lalu has already got bail from the High Court in two more cases in Deoghar and Chaibasa. The trial in the Doranda treasury case is currently going on in the lower court. Prasad got caught up in the mathematics of the CBI in calculating the period spent in jail custody during the hearing on Friday in the Jharkhand High Court. Due to this, he could not get bail in the illegal withdrawal case from Dumka treasury. The bench of Justice Apresh Kumar Singh rejected Lalu Prasad's claim of serving half the sentence. The court said that about 2 months' time is left to complete half the sen- tence of Lalu Prasad. The court said that if the applicant Lalu Prasad wishes, he can go to the Supreme Court. Senior advo- cate Rajiv Sinha, on behalf of the CBI, argued to the court that Lalu Prasad has already served 37 months and 15 days in jail in this case. Therefore, half of his sen- tence has not been completed yet. For this reason, their peti- tion should be dismissed. At the same time, Advocate Kapil Sibal said that the 42-month sentence of Lalu Prasad has been completed. C hief Minister Hemant Soren today said that in order to effectively implement schemes under MGNREGA work culture should be changed. Holding a meeting of State Employment Guarantee Council (SEGC), the CM asked officials to ensure that a meet- ing of the SEGC is held at the scheduled time of every year. “Several ambitious schemes are being run for employment generation under MGNREGA. Assess the changes in the living standards of the beneficiaries with these schemes. Regular reviews of all the schemes should be done, the schemes should be brought down to 100 per cent level and ensure that there is a positive change in the standard of liv- ing of those for whom the schemes are running,” he said. The CM said that the fenc- ing work in the fields should be carried out in mission mode. At present, water resources are very important. The fencing in the fields and shelters will help in stagnation of water level for agriculture. Soren asked the officials to open micro nurseries at the vil- lage level. People associated with agriculture will get the benefit of micro nursery. He said that especially those farm- ers who cultivate vegetables, fruits etc throughout the year will get 100 per cent benefit of the rural nursery. He directed the officers to fix compost management system in rural areas. The CM said that for the successful operation of the schemes running under MGN- REGA, develop a single win- dow system. This will save time for the beneficiaries and will provide maximum employment time. All depart- ments create a single window system for the beneficiaries by mutual coordination. In the meeting, MNREGA commissioner Siddharth Tripathi gave detailed infor- mation about progress of MGNREGA schemes, impor- tant decisions and achieve- ments in the financial year 2020-21 through PPT. He apprised the Chief Minister of the action plan for the financial year 2021-22. The schemes and goals include target of creation of 11 crore mandays, horticulture, treatment of one lakh hectare of Tand land (Nilambar- Pitambar Jal Samridhi Yojana) under 25 thousand acres of Birsa Green Village Scheme, Didi Bari Scheme for 5 lakh families, development of 1500 additional playground Veer Shaheed Poto Ho Sports Development Scheme), con- struction of 20 thousand irri- gation wells, construction of 25 thousand animal sheds, con- struction of 50 thousand soak peat, construction of 25 thou- sand compost peat, construc- tion of 2600 Anganwadi Rural Development Minister Alamgir Alam, Chief Secretary Sukhdev Singh, Development Commissioner KK Khandelwal, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Rajiv Arun Ekka, Principal Secretary / Secretary of all departments, Divisional Commissioner, Deputy Development Commissioner of various districts and other officers were present in the meeting.

Transcript of The Pioneer · On February 11, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh told ... The Indian delegation at ......

Page 1: The Pioneer · On February 11, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh told ... The Indian delegation at ... rity forces soon after they res-cued the family members

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Honouring the pact todefuse tension, India and

China have carried out pullback of their troops from thestand-off sites at the PangongTso (lake) in Eastern Ladakh.The military commanders ofthe two Armies will meet onSaturday to focus on the otherfriction points, including HotSprings, Gogra and theDepsang valley.

The upcoming meeting ofthe Corps Commanders is partof the agreement that stipulatesthat the two officials will meet48 hours after the completewithdrawal of troops from thesouthern and northern banksof the Pangong lake. This willbe the tenth round of suchmeeting since the face-offsbetween the two Armies at theLine of Actual Control (LAC)started over ten months ago.

The upcoming round willstart at 10 am at the Moldo bor-der meeting point on theChinese side in the Chushulsector, sources said here onFriday.

Confirming that the twosides abided by the agreementto completely withdraw theirtroops and tanks from thePangong lake, officials said theprocess, which began onFebruary 10, was over onThursday. It is the first step inthe long process to restorepeace at the LAC in Ladakh,

they said, adding local com-manders of the two armies ver-ified the withdrawal.

Also, the Chinese pullbackwas constantly monitored viadrones and satellite imagery byIndia round-the-clock, officialsaid. The disengagement willalso be reviewed by the CorpsCommanders on Saturday.

As regards the agenda forthe upcoming talks, officialssaid India is likely to press forfaster disengagement of troopsfrom both the sides at theremaining stand-off sites. Atpresent, more than one lakhtroops besides tanks and heavyguns are deployed in forwardareas at the LAC in Ladakhsince the stand-offs began in

May last year.On February 11, Defence

Minister Rajnath Singh toldParliament about an agree-ment between India and Chinaon disengagement in the northand south banks of Pangonglake.

The agreement mandatedboth sides to “cease” forwarddeployment of troops in a“phased, coordinated and ver-ifiable” manner.

Under the agreement, hesaid, China will pull back itstroops to east of “Finger 8”areas in the northern bank ofPangong lake while the Indiantroops will be based at theirpermanent base at Dhan SinghThapa Post near “Finger 3” in

the region. Similar action would take

place on the south bank of thelake, he said. Sources on Fridayconfirmed that troops fromboth the sides had gone back totheir respective positionsagreed upon by India andChina.

The Indian delegation atSaturday’s talks will be led byLt Gen PGK Menon, theCommander of the Leh-based14 Corps while the Chineseside is expected to be headed byMaj Gen Liu Lin, the com-mander of the South Xinjiangmilitary district of the People’sLiberation Army (PLA).

In his statement inParliament, the Defence

Minister also said it was agreedto convene the next meeting ofsenior commanders of bothsides within 48 hours of com-pletion of the disengagement inthe Pangong lake areas so as toresolve all other remainingissues.

He also said talks were onat the diplomatic and militarylevels to bring down tempera-ture. Rajnath, however, reiter-ated that India did not concedeanything during the talks andsubsequent agreement.

The Chinese military builtseveral bunkers and otherstructures in the areas betweenFinger 4 and 8 and had blockedall Indian patrols beyondFinger 4, triggering strongreaction from the Indian Army.

In the nine rounds of mil-itary talks, India had specifi-cally insisted on withdrawal ofChinese troops from Finger 4to Finger 8 on the north bankof Pangong Lake. The moun-tain spurs in the area arereferred to as Fingers.

The Chinese insisted dur-ing the talks that the Indiantroops should pull back fromsome strategic hilltops on thesouthern ban of the lake.

In August last year, Indiantroops occupied a number ofstrategic heights in theMukhpari, Rechin La andMagar hill areas around thesouthern bank after theChinese PLA attempted tointimidate them in the area.

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For the first time, China hasofficially admitted that its

soldiers were killed in thebloody brawl with the Indiantroops on June 15 last year inthe Galwan valley in Ladakh.The People’s Liberation Army(PLA) put the number of itscasualties to four.

The fierce hand-to-handfight, in which the Chineseused iron rods and sticks stud-ded with nails, claimed lives of20 Indian Army personnel,including the commandingofficer.

Acknowledging the casu-alties on its side, China onFriday said four officers andsoldiers stationed in theKarakoram Mountains havebeen recognised by the CentralMilitary Commission of China(CMC) for their sacrifice in theborder confrontation withIndia. This admission waspublished in the PLA Daily, theofficial newspaper of theChinese military.

Incidentally, the Chineseadmission comes at a timewhen Armies of the two coun-

tries are disengaging from thefriction points in Ladakh.

As regards the casualties,the CMC, the overall highcommand of the PLA headedby President Xi Jinping, hasawarded Qi Fabao, the regi-mental commander from thePLA Xinjiang MilitaryCommand, the title of “Heroregimental commander fordefending the border,” ChenHongjun with “Hero to defendthe border,” and awarded first-class merit to Chen Xiangrong,Xiao Siyuan and WangZhuoran, state-run GlobalTimes quoted the PLA Dailyreport as saying.

According to the report,three PLA soldiers were killedin the combat while anothersoldier died while crossingthe river when he went to sup-port the others. Qi Fabao, theregimental commander of theChinese military, sustained aserious head injury, it said.

The PLA Daily reportclaimed the Indian soldiersattacked the Chinese militarypersonnel with steel tubes andcudgels and threw stones.

This is the first time China

has acknowledged casualtiesand details of these officers andsoldiers’ sacrifice, four ofwhom died when dealing withthe Indian military’s “illegaltrespassing” of the GalwanValley Line of Actual Control(LAC), the report said.

While India hasannounced the casualtiesimmediately after the inci-dent, China did not officiallyacknowledge the casualtiesuntil Friday.

The Russian official newsagency TASS reported onFebruary 10 that 45 Chineseservicemen were killed in theGalwan Valley clash.According to an Americanintelligence report last year, thenumber of casualties on theChinese side was 35.

“It is noticeable that thePLA Daily report used ‘foreignmilitary’ to refer to the Indianmilitary, a move that showedChina’s kindness of not incit-ing sentiments of the peopleagainst the background of thecurrent disengagement oftroops from China and Indiaalong the border areas,” theGlobal Times report said.

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The fortified central Kashmirdistricts of Budgam and

Srinagar on Friday witnessedtwo back to back terror strikesin which three Jammu &Kashmir policemen attainedmartyrdom while anotherreceived injuries.

Three local terroristsbelonging to Al-Badr terroristoutfit were also gunned downby the joint team of the secu-rity forces soon after they res-cued the family members from inside the house inwhich these three terrorists

were hiding in Badigam area ofSouth Kashmir’s Shopian dis-trict.

These three incidents ofterrorist violence came close onthe heels of the visit of foreigndiplomats from 24 countries tothe Union Territory of Jammu& Kashmir.

The most daring strike ofthe day was reported fromBaghat Barzulla area at the out-skirts of Srinagar where a pher-

an-clad terrorist fired indis-criminately upon policemenwith an automatic weaponconcealed inside his Pheran.

The attack took place stepsaway from the local police sta-tion in the busy market area.The gory images of the terrorattack, recorded in the CCTVfootage, went viral immediate-ly. The unarmed policemenwere targeted from behindwhile they were seen standingin front of a local shop.

In this terror incident, twopolicemen namely SgCT

Mohammad Yousuf ofZurhama Kupwara and CtSuhail Ahmad of LogriporaAishmuqam received criticalgunshot injuries. They wereshifted to hospital for treatmentwhere they succumbed to theirinjuries and attained martyr-dom.

Suhail Ahmad, residence ofLogripora Aishmuqam, wasan orphan. He left behind hiswidow mother, wife and twosmall kids. A Special Policeoffice (SPO) martyred in theBeerwah area of Budgam has

been identified as MohammadAltaf while SgCt ManzoorAhmad received injuries and isundergoing treatment in a localhospital.

Lt-Governor Manoj Sinhapaid tributes to the J&Kpolicemen who attained mar-tyrdom in the terrorist attack.He said such cowardly attacksare being carried out to vitiatethe peaceful atmosphere &assured that the perpetratorswill be brought to justice.

Briefing media personsafter attending the wreath lay-ing ceremony at DPL, Srinagarfor the second time during theday, Inspector General of Police(IGP) Kashmir range VijayKumar said that two Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorists, including alocal resident, carried out theattack in which two policemenwere killed in Baghat area ofBarzulla in Srinagar on Fridayand that both attackers havebeen identified.

The IGP said that twoLashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) ter-rorists including a foreign ter-rorist and a local who hasbeen identified as Saqib, carriedout the Baghat attack. The twopolicemen were on routineduty and were at a shop to buysomething. They were firedfrom the back.

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After several years, thenational Capital has regis-

tered substantial decrease in alltypes of crimes — includingcrime against women. Total2,66,070 cases were registeredin 2020, marking a drop of over15 per cent as against 2019crime data, said PoliceCommissioner SN Srivastavaon Friday.

The Delhi Police chiefclaimed effective policing andmeasures taken by them for thereduction in the graph as theyear also witnessed completelockdown, due to Covid-19outbreak, in the city.

The Delhi Police regis-tered 472 cases of murder in2020, which is 9.40 per cent lessthan in 2019.

“There were nine cases ofdacoity registered in 2020 while2019 had seen 15 cases ofdacoity. The dacoity caseswere reduced to 40 per cent,”stated the data.

Rape cases came down by21.63 per cent, molestationcases by 25.16 per cent andinsult to modesty of women

dropped to 12.32 per cent.Addressing the Press con-

ference at the Delhi Policeheadquarters, the CP said,“Around 2,66,070 Indian PenalCode (IPC) cases were regis-tered in 2020 as against3,16,261 cases in 2019, show-ing a decline of 15.87 per cent.The percentage of arrestincreased to 15.43.”

A total of 38.19 per centfewer PCR calls were receivedin 2020 as compared to the pre-vious year. In 2020, a total of18,08,384 calls were received ascompare to 29,25,531 in 2019.

The murder cases havegone down by 9.40 per cent as472 murders including 53 ofNorth-East Delhi riots wereregistered in 2020 whereas 521murder cases were registeredacross city in 2019. Cases ofkidnapping for ransom toohave reduced by 26.67 percent, burglary by 27.33 percent, motor vehicle theft by24.23 per cent and other theftby 30.52 per cent, as per data.

“However, the numbers ofrobbery case have shown amarginal hike of 0.35 per cent.

The police registered 1,963cases previous year as compareto 1,956 in 2019. However, thenumber of snatching cases hasgone up by 27.11 per cent to7,965 cases.

Meanwhile, the CP alsosaid 2020 was challenging forthe Delhi Police, but the forcehas risen up to the challenge.He also released a book “Risingto the Challenges-2020” show-casing various initiativesundertaken by the force tomaintain law and order in thenational Capital.

The CP also praised hismen and officers for the use oftechnology in solving cases. “Atotal of 755 FIRs were regis-tered in connection with theNorth-East Delhi riots.Investigating teams extensive-ly used technology to solve thecases and around 231 accusedwere arrested on the basis ofCCTV footage analysis.

“Of them, 137 were iden-tified through FRS (FacialRecognition System) whenmatched with criminal recordsand the remaining 94 werethrough driving licence pho-tographs,” said the police chief.

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Jharkhand High Court onFriday rejected Lalu Prasad's

bail plea in a Fodder Scam caserelating to Dumka treasury.The RJD chief will have toremain in jail for the timebeing. In the last hearing, thecourt had directed to hand overa verified copy of half the sen-tence of Lalu Prasad, who iscurrently in Delhi AIIMS get-ting treatment.

The trial lasted for abouttwo and a half hours in thecourt. Senior Supreme CourtAdvocate Kapil Sibal present-ed arguments on behalf of theapplicant and Rajiv Sinha onbehalf of the CBI. After hear-ing both the parties the HCrefused to grant bail and dis-missed the petition.

Lalu had filed an appeal inthe High Court against the fourcases of fodder scam, in whichLalu Prasad has been convict-

ed by a special CBI court inRanchi. In this, the High Courthas already granted him bail inthree cases. He requested togrant him bail in the Dumkatreasury illegal withdrawal case.

Prasad is facing five casesin Jharkhand in the fodderscam. He has been convicted infour of these cases. Lalu hasalready got bail from the HighCourt in two more cases inDeoghar and Chaibasa. Thetrial in the Doranda treasurycase is currently going on in thelower court. Prasad got caughtup in the mathematics of theCBI in calculating the periodspent in jail custody during the

hearing on Friday in theJharkhand High Court. Due tothis, he could not get bail in theillegal withdrawal case fromDumka treasury.

The bench of JusticeApresh Kumar Singh rejectedLalu Prasad's claim of servinghalf the sentence. The courtsaid that about 2 months' timeis left to complete half the sen-tence of Lalu Prasad. The courtsaid that if the applicant LaluPrasad wishes, he can go to theSupreme Court. Senior advo-cate Rajiv Sinha, on behalf ofthe CBI, argued to the courtthat Lalu Prasad has alreadyserved 37 months and 15 daysin jail in this case.

Therefore, half of his sen-tence has not been completedyet. For this reason, their peti-tion should be dismissed. Atthe same time, Advocate KapilSibal said that the 42-monthsentence of Lalu Prasad hasbeen completed.

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Chief Minister HemantSoren today said that in

order to effectively implementschemes under MGNREGAwork culture should bechanged. Holding a meeting ofState Employment GuaranteeCouncil (SEGC), the CM askedofficials to ensure that a meet-ing of the SEGC is held at thescheduled time of every year.

“Several ambitiousschemes are being run foremployment generation underMGNREGA. Assess thechanges in the living standardsof the beneficiaries with theseschemes. Regular reviews of allthe schemes should be done,the schemes should be broughtdown to 100 per cent level andensure that there is a positivechange in the standard of liv-ing of those for whom theschemes are running,” he said.

The CM said that the fenc-ing work in the fields should becarried out in mission mode. Atpresent, water resources are

very important. The fencing inthe fields and shelters will helpin stagnation of water level foragriculture.

Soren asked the officials toopen micro nurseries at the vil-lage level. People associatedwith agriculture will get thebenefit of micro nursery. Hesaid that especially those farm-ers who cultivate vegetables,fruits etc throughout the yearwill get 100 per cent benefit ofthe rural nursery. He directed

the officers to fix compostmanagement system in ruralareas.

The CM said that for thesuccessful operation of theschemes running under MGN-REGA, develop a single win-dow system. This will savetime for the beneficiaries andwill provide maximumemployment time. All depart-ments create a single windowsystem for the beneficiaries bymutual coordination.

In the meeting, MNREGAcommissioner SiddharthTripathi gave detailed infor-mation about progress ofMGNREGA schemes, impor-tant decisions and achieve-ments in the financial year2020-21 through PPT. Heapprised the Chief Minister ofthe action plan for the financialyear 2021-22.

The schemes and goalsinclude target of creation of 11crore mandays, horticulture,

treatment of one lakh hectareof Tand land (Nilambar-Pitambar Jal Samridhi Yojana)under 25 thousand acres ofBirsa Green Village Scheme,Didi Bari Scheme for 5 lakhfamilies, development of 1500additional playground VeerShaheed Poto Ho SportsDevelopment Scheme), con-struction of 20 thousand irri-gation wells, construction of 25thousand animal sheds, con-struction of 50 thousand soakpeat, construction of 25 thou-sand compost peat, construc-tion of 2600 Anganwadi

Rural DevelopmentMinister Alamgir Alam, ChiefSecretary Sukhdev Singh,Development CommissionerKK Khandelwal, PrincipalSecretary to Chief MinisterRajiv Arun Ekka, PrincipalSecretary / Secretary of alldepartments, DivisionalCommissioner, DeputyDevelopment Commissionerof various districts and otherofficers were present in themeeting.

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On the second day of hisLohardaga tour the first

Chief Minister of Jharkhandand BJP Legislature Partyleader, Babulal Marandi alongwith MP Sudarshan Bhagat,met the families of the Chamoliflood victims under their vil-lage Kisco block and expressedgrief.

Marandi met all the vic-tims’ families and got detailedinformation about the inci-dent from the families andwrote all their problems in hisdiary. Marandi said that theCentral government has madea complete system on its behalfand he will also speak to theState government ofUttarakhand. “This incidenthas happened due to lack ofemployment, there is a need toincrease employment inJharkhand. I will also talk to theJharkhand government toensure maximum help to theaffected families,” he said.

The entire Bharatiya JanataParty family is standing withthe victim family, said Marandi.MP Sudarshan Bhagat saidthat the day he got informationabout the incident, he spoke tothe local administration and

Uttarakhand CM and region-al MP and constantly kept get-ting updated information. Heassured the victims’ kin thatfurther he will continue toassist in whatever process hap-pens and the Central govern-ment.

Later at a press conferenceMarandi said that the incidentof Chamoli is very sad. “We willtry to help the family peopleand the State governmentshould also give Rs 50000 to theaffected persons as financialassistance. South Chotanagpurarea is an agro-based area, thefacilities which could havebeen based on agriculture needto be further strengthenedhere. People are migratingtoday due to lack of employ-ment and such problems are

coming before them. The peo-ple are forced to flee even in themidst of the current global epi-demic. It is some of the short-comings of the State govern-ment that it is unable to fulfillits promises,” he said.

On the occasion, he alsomentioned the Corona period.“One year of the governmenthas been completed, so even ifwe do not discuss development,the arrangements which werein place, the government couldnot ensure anywhere due towhich mismanagement is ram-pant across the State today.People are forced and are alsofalling prey to accidents. InCorona period, I myself wroteletters to the deputy commis-sioners in the State govern-ment.

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An ImprovisedExplosive Device

(IED) weighing 30 kg andother incriminating materialswere seized during a joint comb-ing operation by CRPF andGiridih police in the forest areasof Chitramo forest in the districton Friday.

According to sources, abomb disposal squad defusedthe bomb suspected to be plant-ed by the Maoists in the forest.The combing operation hasbeen intensified in the forest fol-lowing the recovery of explo-sives.

Giridih police and securityforces are getting success con-tinuously during the ongoinganti-Naxal operations againstMaoists. On Friday, the jointoperation of the CRPF and theDistrict Police Force against theMaoists was going on.

The joint operation waslaunched in Chitramo village inDumari under the same policestation limits, on the basis of spe-cific information received,by

ASP Gulshan Tirkyhad led to uncover-ing of the Maoisthideout along withseizure of IED,andother explosives.

Police sources said that dur-ing the operation, the movementof the force took place nearChitramo forest in Dumri policestation area of Giridih. Duringthis time a 30 kg ID bomb wasfound planted under the bridgenear Chitramo forest.

The security force took thefront after getting the ID at thebottom of the bridge andsecured the ID under the firstbridge by sieging the area fromall sides.

After this, on the instruc-tions of the ASP, the 30 kg IDwas blasted and deactivatedafter seeing it in a deserted place.

The purpose of setting upan ID plant under the bridge wasonly to harm the security forcesbut it was already given stronginput by the ASP's intelligenceplant to plant the bomb underthe bridge. Therefore, theMaoists plan once again col-lapsed.

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For the session 2021-22 inBokaro Steel Welfare School

Sector - 3D (for boys and girls)Class 1 only and Bokaro SteelGirls School Sector - 9B (forgirls only) operated by BokaroSteel Plant under CorporateSocial Responsibility.Enrollment of children of poorfamilies has started and enroll-ment is free. The registrationcum application form forenrollment will be distributedfree of cost from 19 Februaryto 5 March in the respectiveschool. For enrollment, theage limit of the children shouldbe between five years to sevenyears on 1 April-21.

The nomination of poor,non-BSL family children ofBokaro Urban Zone will bedone after submission of BPLcard, income certificate, birthcertificate, residential certificateand Aadhaar card .The selec-tion process determined bylottery draw. Detailed infor-mation related to enrollmentcan be done by viewing thenotice board of these schools.

Jamshedpur: Jamshedpur-basedauthor Ajitabha Bose has comeup with a book titled 'TheYouTube Stars of India'.

Published by AjitabhaPublishers, a firm that Boselaunched during Covid to giveplatforms to young authors, thebook was released on Feb 18with 10,000 copies in the firstprint.

Bose who stays in Delhi buthails from Ghorabandha inJamshedpur has managed tobring 15 well-known YouTubersaltogether for the first time.The book features Carryminati,Amit Bhadana, AshishChanchlani, Technical guruji,Prajakta Koli, Harsh Beniwal,Flying Beast, Shruti Anand,Mortal, Vinay Thakur, RVCJ,Vipul Goyal, Mumbiker Nikhil,Jannat Zubair, and KunalChhabhria.”These Youtubershave got millions of followers. Inthe new Internet age, there aremore people who want to beYouTube stars than a Bollywoodstar. The followers they have andthe content they generate issomething that people watch. However, their real story wasn'tavailable so far. Therefore, Iwanted to bring all of themtogether, know their stories andtell them to the world. This isprobably the first book not ontheir success but also the strug-gle they faced,” said Bose (29),an alumnus of Gulmohur HighSchool in Telco. Bose preferredto publish the book under hisnew publishing house as healso wants the proceeds to go fora social cause. PNS

Jamshedpur: Students ofNarayana IIT / NEET Academy,Jamshedpur have succeeded inIndian Olympiad Qualifier inMathematics (IOQM). Directorof Narayana Jamshedpur Center,Shyam Bhushan said thatKashish Agarwal and SrijanRanjan, students of NarayanaJamshedpur Center, haveachieved success in the results ofIndian Olympiad Qualifier inMathematics (IOQM) - 2021.

Bhushan informed that bothKashish Agarwal and SreejanRanjan, are students of VidyaBharati Chinmaya Vidyalaya(Telco). Giving best wishes forthe bright future of these stu-dents, Bhushan further said thatthese students will be J.E.E.(Main and Advanced) amongthe top rankers of the city in the2022 exam.

Narayana IIT / NEETAcademy is not only noted for

its superior teachers, coursematerials, but most important-ly besides the better disciplinedacademic environment and a fulllibrary that Narayana plannedunder an Academic Calendar atall India level. Preparation ofmedical and engineering is donefrom Bhushan said that everyweekly test is also being con-ducted at the entire India levelat the Narayana JamshedpurCenter. PNS

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Surgery is generally the firstline treatment for localized

kidney cancer (cancer that hasnot spread). Partial nephrecto-my is the surgical removal of aportion of a kidney (normallyused to treat cancer), while pre-serving as much healthy kidneytissue as possible.Traditionallythis procedure has been per-formed as an open surgerythrough a larger 8-12 inch inci-sion in the flank, sometimesrequiring removal of one of thepatient's ribs or through mini-mally invasive approaches suchas laparoscopic or roboticsurgery. Robotic partial nephrec-tomy is a minimally invasivealternative, performed with spe-cialized finely articulating instru-ments inserted through tinyincisions ,which are used to pre-cisely remove the tumor aloneand preserve the remaining kid-ney under hand control of sur-geon (the surgeon does notneed to place his/her handinside the abdomen) These min-imally invasive approaches giveequal cancer control to that ofopen surgery and make for aneasier recovery after surgerywith low overall complicationrates and allows for patients toreturn to their daily lives with aminimum of inconvenience,despite having undergone majorsurgery.

Why would someone needa robotic partial nephrectomy?

Patients may be candidatesfor robotic partial nephrectomyif they have a small kidneytumor or when removing theentire kidney could result in kid-ney failure and the need for dial-ysis. Because of recent medicalbreakthroughs, robotic partialnephrectomy is the preferredmethod of surgical interventionfor patients with smaller kidneytumors<4 cm in size. However,tumors between 4 and 7 cen-timeters can be treated withrobotic partial nephrectomy ifthey are located in certain areasand based on the surgeon'sexpertise.

What happens before arobotic partial nephrectomy?

You will be assessed for fit-ness by an anaesthetist beforesurgery. If you take blood thin-ners such as warfarin/aspirinyou will be instructed to stoptaking those 5 to 7 days beforesurgery. Anti-inflammatorymedications and certain vitaminsupplements can cause increasedbleeding which has to be dis-closedto your surgeon and anes-thesiologist. It is very importantthat in preparation for yoursurgery to stop smoking.Tobacco harms the body's nat-ural ability the heal itself whichis very important after robotickidney surgery.You will be asked

to not eat or drink anything aftermidnight the night before yoursurgery. You will be instructedto take your blood pressuremedicine the morning beforesurgery and you may do so withsmall sips of water.

What happens during arobotic partial nephrectomy?

You will be given generalanesthesia so they can be uncon-scious/asleep for the procedure.You will lie on your side duringsurgery. A robotic partialnephrectomy is performedthrough 3-4 “keyhole” incisions,each= 1cm in the abdomenwhere the robotic surgical equip-ment and camera can be insert-ed. The abdominal cavity isthen inflated with carbon diox-ide gas to provide space for themanipulation of the surgicalequipment and camera to accessthe cancerous tissues. The bloodflow to the cancerous kidneycould be temporarily stopped,allowing the kidney to be dis-sected under hand com-mand/control of the surgeonandcancerous portion to beremoved from the surroundinghealthy tissue. Special tools likeintraoperative ultrasound is usedto confirm the site of the tumorand help guide the resection byaccurate imaging of the tumorwith an ultrasound probe. A spe-cial dye(firefly imaging) may beused to help differentiate tumorfrom normal kidney to ensurethat as much normal kidney issaved as possible. The surgeonsews the remaining section ofhealthy kidney tissue backtogether.The tumor is placedinside a retrieval bag andremoved through one of theincisions. Small drainage tube isplaced inside the abdomen andincisions are closed. Tumorissent to the pathologist to ensurethe entire tumor was removedwith no residual tumor leftbehind and to know the type ofcancer.

What happens after arobotic partial nephrectomy?

After your surgery, you willbe monitored closely and treat-ed for post-procedure pain withpain medications and manage-ment techniques that are appro-priate for you.You'll be encour-aged to walk around shortly afteryour surgery to encourage heal-ing, blood flow, and to restorenormal functioning. Walkingafter surgery also helps preventpneumonia, DVT(clotting inblood vessels) and other com-plications.The post op day 1,you'll be given a liquid diet. Asyou heal and recover fromsurgery, you'll be reintroduced toa solid normal diet. Urinarycatheter is removed on day 1 andthe drain is usually removed onday 2. You will be discharged onday 2 or 3 and adviced to followup at regular intervals.

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Dhanbad: A week-long Filariaeradication drive in the districtis to commence from February22, during which over 24 lakhpersons would be administereddrugs.A mass drug administra-tion programme has beenchalked out here for the same.Media persons were sensitizedof this project today by districtand health authorities . DeputyDevelopment CommissionerDC Das chaired the pro-gramme.On the first three daysstarting from February 22 peo-ple would be provided drugs at2199 booths and on the nextthree days the health workerswould be visiting house to houseand provide drugs to people toensure total coverage of theidentified population. PNS

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During the financial year2020-21, the Government

of Jharkhand was rankedamongst best performing statesin terms of generating thehighest number of mandaysunder MGNREGA.Additionally, the governmentwas successful in providing asustainable source of liveli-hood to the vulnerable and

economically weaker popula-tion in the state by introducingthe Birsa Harit Gram Yojna.

Through this scheme,26,41,429 saplings of fruit treeshave been planted across 263blocks in 24 districts, encom-passing a total area of 25695.3acres and covering 30,023 ben-eficiaries during 2020-21.

Under this scheme, Mango,Guava, Lemon, Jackfruit, ThaiBerries, Custard Apples have

been planted along with certainaromatic species of plants likeLemon Grass, and Palmaros tocreate a long-term livelihoodopportunity for the rural pop-ulation in the state. Prior to thelaunch of Birsa Harit GramYojna, in the years 2016-20,only 7741 beneficiaries couldbe benefitted from the planta-tion scheme.

During the launch of thescheme, Chief MinisterHemant Soren had comment-ed, “This scheme will not onlyhelp in providing 100 days ofemployment to the tribal,small, and marginal farmers,

but it will also create a longterm sustainable livelihoodsolution for the beneficiaries.”

Under the scheme, mainlythe plantation of Mango,Guava, Lemon is being pro-moted. The plantation drivemostly focuses on areas whichare inhabited by the economi-cally weaker population.Additionally, the governmentland and roadside barrenspaces are also being coveredunder the plantation drives.

For the year 2020-21,approximately 3,26,800 fruittrees and 8,00,000 timberplants are sprouting over a

space of 31667.68 acres, inhab-ited by 37764 rural families inthe state. Apart from this, 150acres of land is being utilized topromote Tasar production andlacquer rearing.

The goal of the State gov-ernment is not limited toemployment, economicempowerment, and asset cre-ation, but also the capacitybuilding of the beneficiaries.

To build upon the capaci-ty of the respective beneficia-ries under Birsa Harit GramYojana and MGNREGA, 45state-level trainers, 800 block-level chief instructors, and

4840 horticulture friends at thepanchayat/village level havebeen trained for the purpose.

The training programme ishelping ensure a high survivalrate of 88 per cent for theplants. In light of the cleardirectives of the state govern-ment, the standard of pur-chasing horticulture-relatedmaterials is being seriouslymonitored. NationalHorticulture Board recognizedNurseries have been enlistedfor the purchase of qualitysaplings. The saplings havebeen procured through tendersfrom the listed nurseries.

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In an attempt to attract people's attentionagainst three agricultural laws passed by the

Central Government, Jharkhand PradeshCongress Committee (JPCC) is prepared toorganise a huge tractor rally in Hazaribag onSaturday. It is expected that all senior leaders ofthe party from the State including JPCC Chief,Rameshwar Oraon, JPCC in Charge, RPN Singhand all MPs and MLAs will participate.

In support of the farmers, Congress party hascalled the tractor rally in Hazaribag, to protestagainst the laws and demand the withdrawal ofthe laws. Congress’ Rajya Sabha MP from the State,Dhiraj Sahu is in Hazaribag to know preparationwork of the rally on Friday. He along with JPCCChief, Rameshwar Oraon visited several districtslike Hazaribagh, Chatra, Latehar and others toensure success of the rally.

Barkagaon MLA Amba Prasad informed thatthe tractor rally to be held on February 20 wouldbe historic and the Central Government wouldhave to withdraw all three agricultural laws. Shesaid that thousands of farmers along with thou-sands of tractors and bullock carts will reachHazaribag to protest against the laws fromBarkagaon Keredari. Prasad also said that theCongress party has always been working for thebenefit of the poor and farmers. “Food and waterwill be provided for the farmers coming from faroff places and along with our workers, we will alsolook forward to their cooperation,” she added.

JPCC Spokesperson Lal Kishorenath Shahdeosaid that following the instruction of All IndiaCongress Committee (AICC) a nationwide farm-ers' movement is being organized against the agri-culture law of the Central Government, in sup-port of this, phase-wise programs are being orga-nized by the party in Jharkhand. “The responsi-bility of organizing this rally has been entrustedto Agriculture Minister Badal. In order to makethe rally a success, programmes are being orga-nized in all the districts with great emphasis fromthe party. Badal is constantly visiting Hazaribagh,Ramgarh, Koderma and other districts includingChatra and meeting with party workers and giv-ing necessary guidelines for making the rally a suc-cess,” he added.

JPCC had organised an 80 kilo meter longtractor rally from Godda to Deoghar on January31. Along with JPCC Chief, Badal and MLAs likePradeep Yadav and Dipika Pandey Singh had par-ticipated in the programme.

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In a big leap for State Capitalin improving infrastructure

facilities, Ranchi has found aplace in the 25 cities selectedfor the NurturingNeighbourhood Challengeunder the Smart City Mission.The Housing and UrbanAffairs Ministry on Thursdayannounced the names of citieswhich have found a place in thelist. Under the Smart CitiesMission cities selected forNurturing NeighbourhoodChallenge.

The Challenge is a 3-yearinitiative aimed at supportingearly childhood-friendly neigh-bourhoods. Cities selected forprojects will carry out diverseprojects such as creating tod-dler-friendly walking corri-dors in residential neighbour-hoods; safer commutes to earlychildhood services for vulner-

able young children and care-givers living in urban slums;increasing opportunities fornature play and sensory stim-ulation; and adapting under-used open spaces within gov-ernment school grounds intopublic play areas after schoolhours.

Besides streets and openspaces, other proposed pilotsaim to address the need forearly childhood amenities ingovernment office premises,bus shelters and transit hubs;developing anganwadis with

nutrigardens and age-appropri-ate play equipment; and trans-forming outdoor waiting areasfor PHCs with shade, seating,and lactation cubicles.

Ranchi Deputy MayorSanjeev Vijayvargiya welcomes

the decision to select Ranchiunder the project. Vijayvargiyasaid, “It is proud moment forRanchi to be part of NurturingNeighbourhoods Challenge.With the selection of Ranchi inthe project, more infrastructureprojects in Ranchi will come up.The projects aim at beautifica-tion of the City keeping envi-ronment and people in mind.”

Sources said that some ofthe projects in Ranchi, whichwill be initiated, include devel-oping Children Park atMorhabadi for children, devel-oping roads so that small chil-dren can walks on pavements,developing footpath and cycletracks so that children can useit, creating open space atMorhabadi for recreation ofchildren such as developingparks and amusement parks,developing environmental andhealth zones at Morhabadiarea.

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The NDA is going to put upa united face in the

Madhupur bypoll election so asto check the split of votesbetween BJP and AJSU party.In the 2019 Assembly election,the contest was between JMM’sLate Haji Hussain Ansari andBJP’s Raj Paliwar. AJSU, whichwas not the part of NDAalliance in the Assembly elec-tion, had put Ganga NarayanRay as its candidate.

With AJSU putting up itscandidate from Madhupur, theassembly constituency, whichhas been represented by bothBJP and JMM on previousoccasions, turned out to be atriangular contest. JMM’sAnsari was polled 38.40 percent votes getting 88,115 votes.BJP candidate Raj Paliwar, whowas runner up, had polled28.34 per cent votes getting65,046 votes.

AJSU party candidateGanga Narayan Ray emergedthird securing 19.88 per centvotes with 45,620 people repos-ing faith in the candidate.Based on the last assemblyelection outcome, AJSU thistime too has expressed its will-ingness to contest the election,but the BJP is confident thatparty will be successful in con-vincing AJSU to join NDA

camp.BJP spokesperson, Pratul

Shahdeo said, “In last assemblyelection the margin of victoryof JMM candidate was only23,069 votes. However, thecombined votes of BJP andAJSU candidates were 1.10lakh which was around 24,000votes more than what JMMcandidate had polled.” Shahdeosaid that the effort is to bringAJSU and BJP on the sametable and put up a BJP candi-date from Madhupur.

Sources said that BJP islikely to field former ministerRaj Paliwar from theMadhupur seat. The Madhupurseat in Deoghar district ofSanthal Pargana having sizeableMuslim population has beenrepresented by both BJP andJMM on earlier occasions. In2005, the seat was representedby Paliwar of BJP. However, in2009 the seat went to JMMwith Haji Hussain Ansari win-

ning the seat. However, in2014, the BJP once again wonthe seat, while in 2019 the seatwas wrested by JMM Ansari.

Last year in October theseat fell vacant after HajiHussain Ansari’s death. TheJMM to retain the seat is like-ly to field late Haji HussainAnsari’s son Hafizul Hassaneyeing sympathy votes.

Chief Minister HemantSoren on February 2 expand-ed his Cabinet for the thirdtime inducting Hafizul Hassanin his Cabinet. Hassan, who isnot a member of JharkhandAssembly, is likely to be field-ed from Madhupur seat. As lateAnsari has representedMadhupur seat in Deoghardistrict for three terms, theJMM by fielding his son is eye-ing sympathy votes. Moreover,Hassan was made minister ofminority affairs along with theMinister of Tourism, Sportsand Youth affairs.

Ranchi: State BJP spokespersonPratul Shahdeo today termedthe Congress's tractor rallyscheduled in Hazaribag onFebruary 20 a pure photo oppor-tunity. Pratul said that sinceindependence, the Congress hasonly used farmers as a vote bank.Due to this majority of thefarmers either run the plowthemselves or use bullock carts.Farmers will remain missing inthis programme organised forfarmers this time as before, butthe Congress leaders will sure-ly brighten their faces with smil-ing faces and creased clothes, hesaid.

Shahdev also asked RPNSingh, the State Congress in-charge, to clarify how many col-lections he has brought from theministers of the Congress thistime? Pratul said that formerCongress MP Furkan Ansarihad accused RPN Singh of col-lection from Congress ministersbut despite this no action wastaken on Furkan Ansari. He saidthat it is clear that Congressagrees with Furkan's statement. PNS

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The Jharkhand Governmentwill soon start issuing

unique numbers for land hold-ings as part of an exercise tobring transparency and enddubious land ownerships. Thedepartment of revenue, regis-tration and land reforms hasstarted the process in this con-nection.

Chief Minister HemantSoren said on Thursday, “TheState Government is in processof issuing unique numbers tolandholdings. The process willbring transparency and willalso check multiple and dubi-ous claims on landholdings.”

Soren said, “The uniqueIDs of land will be big toolsagainst land mafias who are inillegal sale and purchase busi-ness of tribal land. A lot of workin issuing unique IDs has beendone and soon the processwill be completed.”

Sources said that theunique IDs will have all neces-sary details of land such as plotnumber, size, and ownership,location of land which will bevillage, panchayat, tehsil, block,district and state. The UniqueID of landholding will belinked with the Aadhar num-ber of the owners. Once theland gets a Unique ID its cate-gory will be known to thegovernment.

The Unique ID of land-holdings a scheme of Centre

was introduced in 2019 andproposal was sent to severalstates. The JharkhandGovernment after receivingthe proposal started work inthis direction. Sources saidthat the department of revenue,registration and land reformshas written letter to all DCs andCommissioners seeking theirfeedback on digital identity ofland. The Government has alsosought feedback from ITs andGIS experts. The governmentafter studying all these expertswill work in direction of assign-ing digital identity to land-holdings.

The digital identity of land-holdings will crack down dubi-ous landholdings and the entireprocess will facilitate real estatetransactions, help resolve prop-erty taxation issues andimprove disaster planning andresponse efforts. Moreover, theprocess of land acquisition forpublic projects would becomeeasier.

Meanwhile, tribal leadershave welcomed the decision ofthe Government to bringUnique IDs for landholdings.Central Sarna Committee,president Phulchand Tirkeysaid, “The decision is a goodstep in protecting tribal land.With unique ID of land, theownership of land will be pro-tected.” He also said that apartfrom Unique IDs the govern-ment should work in strength-ening the CNT/SPT Act.

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Jharkhand Renewable Energy DevelopmentAgency (JREDA) and Center for Environment

& Energy Development (CEED) jointly organ-ised a consultation workshop ‘Energising Accessin Jharkhand: Stakeholder Consultation for MiniGrid Policy’ today with key stakeholders rep-resenting several government departments andagencies, renewable energy developers, thinktanks, academia, industry and civil societyorganisations.

The draft ‘Jharkhand State Policy forPromotion of Mini and Micro Grid-2021’ hasa vision for ‘Energy Access to all’ and it focus-es on the development of mini and micro-gridspowered by various renewable energy sourcesin unserved and under-served parts of the Statewith an objective to meet the growing demandof power in an environmentally sustainable man-ner.

Speaking on the occasion, KK Verma,Director, JREDA said that, “The State govern-ment is committed to support mini and microgrid operations powered by renewable energy

throughout the state. The draft policyhas a provision for installation ofMini grid projects of 1 kWp to 500kWp capacities and various hybridmodels using a combination of renew-able sources such as solar, biomass andhydro, etc can be deployed throughgovernment subsidy or private orcommunity funded projects with 'BuildOwn Operate and Maintain/BuildOwn Operate, Maintain and Transfer’(BOOM/BOOMT) basis. JREDA iskeen to provide a conducive atmos-phere to attract more investment, tech-nological innovations and demonstra-tion and create a level playing field for

all concerned parties to enable energy access inunderserved regions of the state.”

As per an estimate, the demand of power inJharkhand is all set to reach 6000 MW in thenext four-five years. To keep pace with increas-ing demand, the State Energy Department andJREDA are exploring various avenues andcleaner means of energy sources. In this con-nection, as per the JREDA, 246 mini-grids havebeen installed in different parts of the state.

Elaborating the salient features of the draftpolicy, Ashwani Ashok, Head-Renewable Energyat CEED said, “This policy will strengthen theidea of energy access in the rural regions, whereround the clock quality and reliable electricityis a bigger challenge. This will also contributein meeting the Renewable Purchase Obligation(RPO) targets of the state and help in fulfillingthe country’s climate change related pledge. Miniand Micro grids are well positioned to fill theenergy access gap for a sizeable number of ruralconsumers and further help in reviving the ruraleconomy and enable the state to move onto thepath of sustainable energy transitions benefit-ting all.”

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The EnforcementDirectorate (ED) has

attached properties worth�281.42 crore of variousaccused and their associates inconnection with Gurgaon landscam.

The attached assets include54 per cent portion of projectin the name of DoveInfrastructure Pvt. Ltd. per-taining to Atul Bansal/ Groupcompanies at Faridabadamounting to �108.86 crore, 50per cent of the portion of“Business Bay Project” in thename of company SeriatimLand & Housing Pvt. Ltd per-taining to Atul Bansal/ Groupcompanies amounting to �78.09 crore and flats and FDRpertaining to AngliqueInternational Ltd. amounting to�3.39 crore.

Other attached assets are� 25.53 crores refund fromHSIIDC sanctioned to GuruNanak InfrastructuresDevelopers Pvt. Ltd., 13.77

acres and 5.65 acres of land val-ued at �29.48 crore pertainingto Frontier Home DevelopersPvt. Ltd., 20 flats valued at �22.72 crore pertaining toFrontier Home DevelopersPvt. Ltd. and 95.09 bighas ofagricultural land at Behrorand Neemrana (Both inRajasthan) valued at �� 13.31crore pertaining to Lalit Modi.

The ED had initiatedinvestigation by recordingECIR on the basis of an FIRNo. RCCHG2015A0019 datedSeptember 15, 2015registeredby the CBI, ACB, Chandigarhunder section IPC Sectionrelating to criminal conspira-cy, cheating and forgery amongothers besides provisions of thePrevention of Corruption Actagainst unknown public ser-vants of GovernmentofHaryana and unknown privatepersons.

It was alleged in the FIRthat the Government ofHaryana had issued notifica-tion under section 4 of theLand Acquisition Act, 1894 on

August 27, 2004 and hadissued notification under sec-tion 6 of the said Act onAugust 25, 2005 for acquisitionof land measuring about 912acres for setting up anIndustrial Model Township invillages Manesar, Naurangpurand Lakhnoula of district,Gurugram.

A large number of landowners, in distress, had to sellabout 400 acres of their land atthrowaway prices to privatebuilders and caused a wrong-ful loss to the land owners ofthese villages.

“PMLA investigationrevealed that the land waslater freed from compulsoryacquisition by the StateGovernment as a result ofconspiracy by politicians,bureaucrats and privatebuilders causing huge loss tothe land owners andGovernment exchequer.

Further, investigationrevealed that mostof the landwas purchased by ABWILGroup controlled by AtulBansal and after obtaininglicences, ABWIL had sold thelicensed/ unlicensed land andlicensesto the other private per-sons/ developers, thus makingprofit worth crores of rupees.

The ED investigationrevealed that the above prop-erties worth �281.42 crores areProceeds of Crime underPMLA, 2002.

Two ProvisionalAttachment orders amountingto �08.76 have already beenissued and stand confirmed bythe Adjudicating Authority.

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On a day its vaccinationnumbers crossed the

one-crore mark making Indiathe second-fastest country inthe world after the US toreach the milestone, UnionHealth Minister HarshVardhan on Friday appealedto the healthcare and frontlineworkers to get vaccinatedagainst Covid-19.

Vardhan further said thatno severe adverse event post-immunisat ion has beenrecorded in the country andthose reported are also 0.0004per cent. “No death has beenrecorded due to COVID-19vaccination. All state gov-ernments have been asked tovaccinate every healthcareand frontline worker,” he said.

The cumulative numberof Covid 19 vaccine dosesadministered to healthcareand frontline workers reached1,04,49,942 through2,20,877sessions, as per theprovisional report till 6 pm on

Friday.These include 62,95,903

healthcare workers who havetaken the 1st dose and7,56,942 healthcare workerswho have taken the 2nd dose,along with 33,97,097 frontlineworkers with 1st dose.

While the countrywidevaccination drive was rolledout on January 16, 2021, vac-cination of the frontline work-ers was started from February2, 2021.

A total of 6,58,674 vacci-nations were administeredon 18th February 2021. Thisconstitutes the highest singleday vaccinations during theon-going COVID-19 vacci-nation drive.

Dr Harsh Vardhan saidthat the vaccines were safe

and fill all the criteria ofimmunogenicity. “I want toappeal to all healthcare andfrontline workers to get inoc-ulated with COVID-19 vac-cine doses as per schedule.The vaccines are safe. Don’tbelieve any rumour and mis-information,” he said.

Every state/union territo-ry has been asked to scheduleall healthcare workers forvaccination at least oncebefore Februar y 20 andimmediately thereafter organ-ise mop-up rounds for them.

The Minister alsoapplauded the country forcrossing the one crore markin Covid vaccination saying:Congratulations India oncrossing a major milestone!

According to the Unionhealth ministry, India’s vacci-nation coverage ranks third inthe world, after the US with55.2 million doses and the UKwith 16.12 million doses.Both, the US and the UK havecompleted over 60 days ofvaccination.

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Pharma major DrR e d d y ’ s

Laboratories on Fridaysaid that it has initiat-ed the process with theDrugs ControllerGeneral of India(DCGI) for emergency useauthorisation (EUA) of humanadenoviral vector-based plat-form vaccine candidateSputnik V.

As part of the reviewprocess, Dr Reddy’s will pre-sent the safety profile of phasetwo study and interim data ofphase three study which isexpected to complete byFebruary 21.

“The efficacy of Sputnik Vwas reported to be 91.6 percent by the Lancet, which is animpressive development inthe fight against Covid-19,”said Cochairman andManaging Director G VPrasad.

“The initiation of theemergency use authorisationprocess will be a critical stepforward for us in ensuringspeedy access to the SputnikV vaccine in India,” he said ina statement.

In September 2020, DrReddy’s partnered with theRussian Direct InvestmentFund (RDIF) to conduct clin-ical trials of Sputnik V and forits distribution rights in India.

Sputnik V has demon-strated an efficacy rate of 91.6

per cent in interim analysis ofphase three clinical trial whichincluded data on 19,866 vol-unteers in Russia, whoreceived both the first and sec-ond doses of the vaccine.

Sputnik V maintained aconsistent efficacy at 91.8 percent even among the group of2, 144 volunteers over 60years old. The vaccine devel-oped by the GamaleyaNational Research Instituteof Epidemiology andMicrobiology was registeredby the Ministry of Health ofRussia on August 11 last yearand became the world’s firstregistered vaccine againstCovid-19 based on the humanadenoviral vector platform.

More than 250 clinicalstudies over two decades haveproven the safety, efficacy andlack of negative long-termeffects of adenoviral vaccines.

Sputnik V is one of onlythree vaccines in the worldwith an efficacy of 91.6 percent and has most authorisa-tions granted with 26 coun-tries globally. The vaccine hasalready been administered tomore than 20 lakh peopleworldwide.

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Amid farmers’ protests, theModi Government on

Friday reiterated that it has nointention to eliminate arthiyas(middlemen) in Punjab andHaryana and no directionshave been issued to eliminatearthiyas from the mandi sys-tem and adding that boththese States will compulsori-ly have to use electronicmodes to pay crop price(MSP) to farmers. The min-istry of consumer affairs andfood said that � 1,16,653.96crore reflected in Public

Financial ManagementSystem (PFMS) towardsPunjab and � 24841.56 crorein respect of Haryana. TheGovernment further said thatit will release nearly �3 lakhcrore more food subsidy inthe remaining two months ofthe current fiscal as it looks toclear all previous backlogs.

The Government saidthat electronic mode of pay-ment ensures that all partic-ipants including farmers,Arthiyas and mandis receivetheir payments directly onlinein order to ensure trans-parency and trail of pay-

ments.“This is not a replacement

of the current APMC system.It only strengthens trans-parency and elimination ofleakages,” it added.

Stating that e-mode ofMSP payment is already inforce across India, the min-istry said the Centre has beentrying to ensure the same inPunjab and Haryana at leastsince 2015-16.

“ The CentralGovernment is regularly pur-suing with Punjab andHaryana Governments forensuring direct online pay-

ment into farmer’s accountssince 2015-16. However, boththe state Governments havebeen routinely approachingthe Centre for grantingexemption/seeking time forimplementation of directonline payment initiative.

“The Government ofIndia has therefore, directedState Government of Punjab and Har yana toensure online payment tofarmers through e-mode fromupcoming season and thatno further relaxation on thisaccount will be accorded,”the ministry said.

The ministry informedthat e-mode of payment hasalready been adopted par-t ia l ly by Haryana and Punjab.

A part of payment for thispaddy procurement was donethrough the e-mode only.

“Direct online payment tofarmers predates the threefarm laws. In Punjab, pay-ment of MSP was paid to thefarmers through Arthiyas and in Haryana, FCImade payment of MSP direct-ly to farmer’s bank accountsthrough online mode, where-as State agencies made pay-

ment of MSP to the farmerspartly through Arthiya andpartly directly to farmer’saccount through online modeas per option given by thefarmers in e-Kharid portal,”the statement said.

The three new farm Actswere enacted in Septemberlast year. Thousands of farm-ers, mainly from Punjab,Haryana and Western UttarPradesh, have been protesting at Delhi bordersfrom over two months now,seeking repeal of three farmlaws and a legal guarantee ofthe MSP.

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The Agriculture Ministryhas been permitted to use

drones for remote sensing datacollection under PradhanMantri Fasal Bima Yojana(PMFBY). This will allow theagriculture ministry to usedrones for remote sensing datacollection in agricultural areasof 100 districts of the countryfor gram panchayat level yieldestimation, under PMFBY.

“The Ministry of CivilAviation and DirectorateGeneral of Civil Aviation havegranted conditional exemp-tion for Remotely PilotedAircraft System (RPAS) usageto the Ministry of Agricultureand Farmers Welfare(MoAFW),” an official state-ment said on Friday.

Union AgricultureMinister Narendra SinghTomar has earlier tweeted

that use of UAV data in thescheme will add new dimen-sion to ensure timely settle-ment of claims in the schemeas well as for crop area esti-mation, losses due tolocalised calamities and toresolve yield dispute betweendifferent stakeholders underthe scheme. “The use of highspatial resolution UAV datamay also be explored in otheragriculture-related schemesin India”, stated the Minister.

The conditional exemp-tion will be valid for one yearfrom the date of issue of thepermission letter or until theoperationalisation of theDigita l Sky Plat form,whichever is earlier, thestatement by the civil aviationministry said. This exemp-tion shall be valid only if allconditions and limitationsare strictly adhered to, itsaid.

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Amid the rising fuel prices,Congress on Friday called

upon the Centre to reduce theexcise duty on petrol anddiesel to provide relief to130 crore citizens. Lamentinghow can the ModiGovernment pass the buck ofrising fuel price to CongressGovernments which was sixyears ago, the Oppositiontermed the BJP led govern-ment as nothing less thanIndhan Tax Jivi Sarkar (FuelTax Goverment and is aBhayankar Janloot Sarkar.

AICC chief spokesmanRandeep Surjewala pointedthat the Centre had increasedthe price of petrol and dieselper litre by �15.21 and �15.33respectively after assumingpower in May 2019.

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ACalicut-bound Air IndiaExpress flight with 104

passengers on board made aprecautionary landing at theTrivandrum InternationalAirport at noon on Fridaydue to a technical snag in thehydraulic system of the aircraft.

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The CPI(Marxist) receivedover �19.69 crore from 239

donors as donations exceeding�20,000 in 2019-20. Agitatingfarmer union leader HannanMollah, DMK and CPI(M)leaders are among the contrib-utors. The Desiya MurpokkuDravida Kazhagam (DMDK)party has shown ‘nil’ donationsabove �20,000 in the year 2019-20.

According to the ElectionCommission’s website, theCPI(M) received a total of Rs19,69,36,150 as donations fromentities, individuals and theDMK. Mollah donated �4 lakhin eight installments of �40,000each.

The DMK had contributed�10 crore to the Left party dur-ing the 2019 Lok Sabha elec-tions. The party’s contributionwas reflected in its poll expen-diture report submitted to theEC after the elections.However, this was not reflect-ed in the last contributionreport of the CPI(M). The Leftparty has now shown the con-tribution in its report for 2019-20. The contribution by theDMK was made in April 2019in multiple installments. SeniorCPI(M) leader and party gen-eral secretary Sitaram Yechurycontributed �2.28 lakh,Mohammad Salim Rs 1 lakh,Brinda Karat �1.38 lakh,Elaram Karim �13.2 lakh andSuhasini Ali �1.44 lakh.

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Amaravati: Senior Yuvajana SramikaRythu Congress Party (YSRCP)leader and Rajya Sabha MP V.Vijayasai Reddy on Friday lambast-ed Telugu Desam Party (TDP)National President N. ChandrababuNaidu alleging that he orchestratedthe sale of 54 government compa-nies.

“Who sold Nizam SugarsLimited, dozen cooperative sugarfactories, Allwyn watches, spinningmills and paper mills, all together 54companies,” Reddy alleged.

He doubled down on the TDPSupremo following his censure of the state governmentand Chief Minister Y. S. JaganMohan Reddy for failing to stop theCentral government's decision of pri-vatising Visakhapatnam Steel Plant(VSP).

“Further, who emptied 100 morecompanies and sent lakhs of employ-ees home with voluntary retirementservice (VRS)? Don't people knowyour crocodile tears Babu,” Reddyclaimed attacking Naidu.

According to the Rajya SabhaMP, the ruling YSRCP party leaderswould undertake a 25-km 'padaya-tra' (walkathon) on Saturday inVisakhapatnam, starting from theMahatma Gandhi statue at the citycivic body office and terminating atthe steel plant arch.

He ridiculed that a leader like N.Chandrababu Naidu, who allegedlysold away 54 government companies,is now claiming to fight for the steelplant.

“He (Naidu) spewed venom themoment it was announced thatVisakhapatnam would be made theexecutive capital. Using media hous-es favouring him, he propagated thatVizag is prone to tsunamis andearthquakes,” Reddy alleged.

The 'padayatra' will traversethrough Asilmetta Junction, SangamSarath, Kali Temple,Thatichetlapalem, Kancharapalem,Urvasi Junction, 104 area,Marripalem, NAD Junction, air-port, Sheela Nagar, BHPV, OldGajuwaka and Srinagar.

Commenting upon the pan-chayat poll results, the YSRCP leaderclaimed that the ruling party alignedcandidates won more than 85 percent 'sarpanch' posts in the thirdphase of the polls.

He alleged that people wouldremove oxygen support for TDPwhich is already on ventilator andclaimed that the opposition leaderfiled petitions in the courts to stall'Amma Vodi' and public housingschemes for the poor.

Meanwhile, Naidu alleged thatthe panchayat polls were 'lawless' andit was democracy which got defeat-ed.

“TDP and its allies have postedgood results and got 41.41 per centseats in the third phase of panchay-at polls. They have won more than1,093 panchayats as the final resultsare emerging. The TDP has alreadywon 38.74 per cent seats in the firstphase and 39.52 percent seats in thesecond phase,” Naidu claimed. IANS

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Panaji: Maratha emperor Shivajiand his son Sambhaji helped pre-serve Hindu culture in Goa at thetime of religious conversion, ChiefMinister Pramod Sawant said at aShiv Jayanti function held here onFriday.

Sawant also said that likePrime Minister Narendra Modi'scall for 'Make in India' and 'SkillIndia', the Maratha king had alsobelieved in a similar philosophy,especially when it came to locallymanufacturing arms used to fightthe brutal oppressive regimes.

“Not just in Maharashtra,Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj tookefforts to preserve Hindu dharmaand the concept of Swadharma inGoa too. The biggest contributionto preserving Hindu religion andSwadharma (in Goa) was made byShivaji Maharaj and Sambhajimaharaj. He (Shivaji) played amajor role in preserving Hinduculture at a time of conversion,”Sawant said.

Born in the 17th century,Shivaji's regime coincided with thecolonial Portuguese rule in Goa,early part of which witnessedlarge-scale conversion of the nativepopulation.

Sawant in his speech said thatPrime Minister Narendra Modi'scalls for an 'Atmanirbhar Bharat' intimes of an adversity like Covid-19,as well as other missions like'Make in India', 'Skill India' mir-rored similar initiatives launchedby Shivaji in his era.

“Prime Minister NarendraModi advocates 'Make in India','Skill India', concepts whichChhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj hadidentified then. If you go back inhistory, during Shivaji's fightagainst injustices and brutalregimes of the time, the weaponsused by his army were locallymade. If the Make in India conceptis in vogue now, its foundationswere laid by Shivaji Maharaj,”Sawant said. IANS

+����0����������� ����������������������������J�+���� Patna: Rashtriya Janatad Dald leader Tejashwi Yadav on

Friday said the class 10 exam paper of the Bihar SchoolExamination Board was leaked and Chief Minister andEducation Minister of Bihar do not have any knowledgeabout it.

After the conclusion of day one of the budget sessionin the Bihar assembly, Yadav said it is a reflection on theNDA government in Bihar. “It is simply unimaginable thatthe Social Sciences question paper of class 10 leaked at sev-eral places and the Chief Minister and the education min-ister do not know about it. What kind of government isNitish Kumar running in Bihar? If they were aware of it,why are they hiding it?” asked Yadav.

“When I informed the assembly about the paper leak,neither Chief Minister Nitish Kumar nor or EducationMinister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary clarify the matter in theHouse,” Yadav further said.

“Papers of every examination in Bihar are leaking thesedays and the mentors of education are doing nothing. Infact they are playing with the lives of students,” Yadav said.He further claimed that during his speech, Governor PhaguChauhan said the state government is buying paddy on MSPbut there is no buying on the ground. Farmers are sellingpaddy in Rs 700 to 800 in several districts.

“Over 260 farmers have died during the last threemonths during the agitation. When we asked to pay respectsto the farmers in the house, our request was turned down.It that the BJP and Nitish Kumar are anti-farmer.” IANS

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Even as the battle for Bengal’s masnadheated up, a Kolkata court on Friday

issued summons to Union Home MinisterAmit Shah in a defamation case lodged byAbhishek Banerjee, Trinamool CongressMP and nephew of Chief Minister MamataBanerjee.

Shah has been asked to appear beforethe court meant of MLAs and MPs atMayukh Bhawan in Salt Lake personallyor through a representative on February22, lawyers of Banerjee said.

The case relates to some alleged“defamatory” speeches given by the HomeMinister in August 2018 when he used theterm “Bhaipo” (nephew in Bengali) toattack Banerjee.

Shah had allegedly said that Bhaipowas linked to Narada, Sharada and RoseValley scams. He has also alleged that mostcentral funds meant for public welfare werebeing siphoned off by Bhaipo’s men whoacted through syndicates.

Banerjee had subsequently slapped alibel suit against Shah and the case cameup for hearing on Friday when the desig-nated special court judge directed the

defendant to appear before him “in per-son/by pleader” at 10 am on February 22.

Meanwhile, Shah on Friday attendedthe “Shauryanjali” programme at theiconic National Library where he onceagain invoked Netaji Subhas Chandra Bosesaying “his bravery and valour would beremembered by the country for ages.”

He said that the people of the coun-try should once again start looking up toNetaji for inspiration saying “the com-mittee formed by Prime Minister NarendraModi will ensure that the people will paytheir homage to the great leader genera-tion after generation.”

Shah who flagged off a cycle rally inthree routes that will reach the homes ofthe crores of Indian freedom struggle saidthat the youth of the country should startreading about Bose a lot as “it will teachyou a lot.”

Elsewhere Bengal would soon startreceiving central forces for the coming elec-tions. The first 125 companies of the total1000 companies would reach the statesoon. Five companies were likely to reachthe State and start patrolling duty from asearly as February 25, sources said.

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The sinister plot hatched bythe Pakistan based

Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) terroroutfit to disturb peace and thetourist related activities in theKashmir valley has beenexposed by the Jammu &Kashmir Police with the arrestof three terrorists involvedbehind the attack on KrishnaDhaba on February 17. AkashMehra, son of an eatery owner,had received gunshot injurieson his chest during indiscrim-inate firing.

According to Jammu andKashmir police the attack wasaimed at terrorising the nonlocals living in the valley andto disrupt the tourist activitywhich has seen an upsurgefrom past two months as thefood outlet was very famousand popular among the touristsvisiting the valley.

Briefing media personsabout the daring terror strikewhich coincided with the visit

of the foreign diplomats from24 countries IGP, KashmirVijay Kumar on Friday saidsoon after the terror attack dif-ferent police teams were set upto investigate the attack.

He said crucial leads weredeveloped after screeningCCTV footage and other cru-cial data based on human intel-ligence

The police teams fromSrinagar, Pulwama andAnantnag were roped in andseveral raids were conductedwhich led to the arrest ofVilayat Aziz Mir son of AbdulAziz Mir resident of HaniporaWampora Pulwama.

Similarly, Suhail AhmadMir son of Fateh Mohd Mirand Owais Manzoor Sofi son ofManzoor Ahmad Sofi, bothresidents of Dangerpora werearrested during the raids by thepolice teams, IGP told reportersduring the press conference.

IGP Kashmir also claimed,during the course of investiga-tion, it was learnt that Vilayat

was in contact with one Ghazi,an active terrorist who hadtrained him locally a monthbefore.

He performed the recce ofDalgate Durganag area alongwith other terrorist associatesten days prior to attack.

“On 17/2/2021 the trio onthe bike of Suhail Ahmed Mirson of Fateh Mohd Mir residentof Dangerpora, at around 7:15reached Krishna Dhaba andfired indiscriminately on thestaff, injuring critically AakashMehra S/O Ramesh KumarMehra”.

According to the policerecords, “Owais Manzoor waspreviously involved in caseFIR No 46/2018 under section148, 149, 336, 152 RPC of PSNowgam.

The case was challaned on4/12/2018 at district & sessionsjudge Budgam.

According to a policespokesman,”The Pak based ter-rorist organisation have adopt-ed new strategies by recruitinglocal youths who are in their

teens and allowing them to mixup with the family friends andlive normally and trainingthem for a day or so. They aregiven tasks by their masters andin case they get caught a pub-lic opinion is generated thatthey were not active militantsand joined only on the day ofthe incident”.

Police has also recoveredweapon of crime (pistol) andgrenade along with otherincriminating material includ-ing bike used by terrorists'

According to IGP Kashmir,the trio during interrogationhave confessed their involve-ment in the crime. A case hasalready been registered in thisregard under relevant sectionsof law and further investigationis on.

IGP Kashmir Vijay Kumaralso complimented theSrinagar, Pulwama andAnantnag Police who speedilycarried out the investigationjointly under the close super-vision of DIG Central Kashmirrange Amit Kumar.

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!"���#����#���$�������%�������&���������� Mumbai: Sending alarm bells ringing,

several Maharashtra leaders acrosspolitical parties have been infected byCovid-19, including two who havetested positive for the second time,officials said here on Friday.

The infected dignitaries includeNationalist Congress Party StatePresident and Water ResourcesMinister Jayant Patil, Health MinisterRajesh Tope, Food & DrugsAdministration Minister Dr. RajendraShingne, Minister of State for Labourand Prahar Janshakti leader BachchuKadu. Maharashtra CongressPresident Nana F. Patole has gone intoisolation after two of his staffers test-ed positive and his test reports areawaited, said a party source.

Besides, Home Minister AnilDeshmukh is also in isolation at hisNagpur residence after testing positiveearlier this week, and senior NCPleader Eknath Khadse is also infect-ed.

Both Kadu and Khadse have test-ed positive for the second time, whilethe latter's daughter-in-law and BJPMP from Raver Raksha Khadse hasalso been infected.

Khadse had been infected inNovember last year which had led to

a delay in attending to theEnforcement Directorate summons,displayed Covid-19 symptoms againin December and first week of Feb, andhas not tested positive.

The concerns are further com-pounded by the upcomingMaharashtra Legislature's BudgetSession starting here on March 1 withthe Budget likely to be presented onMarch 8. The Maharashtra LegislativeCouncil Chairman Ramraje Naik-Nimbalkar has urged the Centre andState governments to ensure priorityvaccination drive for all legislators andLegislature staffers.

“We have 287 MLAs, more than60 MLCs Plus, around 700-800 peo-ple work in the Legislature complex,besides officials from Mantralaya andministries set up camp offices hereduring the sessions,” Naik-Nimbalkarpointed out.

In the past 11 months since theonset of the Covid-19 pandemichavoc, around 15 state ministers havebeen infected, besides several MPs,MLAs, MLCs, senior leaders of dif-ferent political parties, close aides orsecurity personnel of various bigwigsincluding Chief Minister UddhavThackeray. IANS

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Varanasi: A Kabir Mahotsav will be held in Varanasiat the end of February, showcasing the life of 'Sant'Kabir, the 15th-century Indian mystic poet and seer,whose writings influenced the Bhaktimovement.

The Mahotsav will also focus on other Bhakti cultmystics, including Guru Nanak, Gorakhnath andRahim Das, who were contemporaries of the 'sant'poet. The district administration has forwarded a pro-posal on holding Kabir Mahotsav between February23 and 25.

District Magistrate Kaushal Raj Sharma said: “Onthe state government's directive, we have prepareda proposal for holding a three-day Kabir Mahotsavand have forwarded it to the culture department toseek state government's approval.”

As per the plan, the festival will showcase thejourney of Kabir's life.

With the inauguration of the event, a Yatra willalso be flagged off from Varanasi, where the mysticpoet was born, and culminate at Magahar village inSant Kabir Nagar district, where he attained salva-tion. Many cultural events, exhibition and other activ-ities will also be organized in Kabir Math in KabirChaura and areas around Lahartara -- a historicalpond associated with Kabir's birth.

“It has also been planned to link the Mahotsavwith Sant Kabir's contemporary poets and saints, likeGuru Nanak, Gorakhnath, Rahim Das, Dadu Dayal,Ghasi Das and others, who had connections withUttar Pradesh, by holding separate events on themas a part of this festival. The government's approvalon it is awaited,” Sharma said.

The traditional celebrations at the birthplace ofSant Ravidas in Shri Govardhanpur area will be com-paratively subdued this year due to the pandemic.

Trustee Kishanlal Saroa said NRIs will not becoming this year and the special trains for bringingthousands of pilgrims from different states, have alsonot been booked this year due to thepandemic. IANS-�. �����������������������)��� ���.� �3 ��7���������������&�������� ������ ���

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Jaipur: Seven migrants fromPakistan, including three cou-ples, who have been living inRajasthan, were on Friday granted Indian citizen-ship by Jaipur's DistrictCollector Antar Singh Nehra inhis office.

Those who received thecertificates included JawaharRam, Sonari Mai, Gojar Mai,Gordan Das, Ganesh Chand,Basan Mai and Arjan Singh.

Gordan Das, who has beenliving as a Pakistani migrant for9 years in Mansarovar, said thathe came here from Punjabprovince' Rahimayar Khan sit-uated in Pakistan.

“We came to India becauseof insecurity looming largeover us as we could not see thefuture of our children there,” hesaid.

After receiving the citi-zenship certificate, these newIndian citizens expressed con-fidence of ensuring all therights to their children. Besides,they will also enjoy the bene-fits of all the employment andgovernment facilities andschemes, officials said.

Additional DistrictCollector Dakshin ShankarlalSaini was also present on theoccasion.

The Pakistani migrantswho were granted citizenship,settled here between 7 and 15years ago. IANS

Lucknow: The Congress suf-fered a jolt in Uttar Pradesh onFriday when it lost anotherbatch of senior leaders -- thistime to the Samajwadi Party.

Two former ministers, R.K.Chaudhary (Lucknow) and JaiNarain Tiwari (Sultanpur) leftthe party to join the SamajwadiParty.

R.K. Chaudhary was a cab-inet minister in the BahujanSamaj Party government andhad later joined the Congress.

Jai Narain Tiwari was aminister in the Kalyan Singhgovernment and member ofthe breakaway BSP groupcalled Jantantrik BSP.

Talking to reporters, theformer ministers said that theCongress had become direc-tionless and 'delusional'. Theysaid they were feeling 'suffo-cated' in the party. IANS

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Shiv Sena MP PriyankaChaturvedi on Friday won-

dered that since many coun-tries had benefited from the“Vaccine Maitri” initiative bythe Ministry of External Affairs(MEA), was it not high time forthe Centre to make vaccine eas-ily available for all the Indians,especially at a time when theCovid-19 vaccine supplies areunder-utilised in the country.

In a letter shot off to UnionHealth Minister HarshVardhan, Priyanka said, “Indiais once again seeing an increasein Covid-19 cases and the var-ious strains of the virus havealso been detected. As per theHealth Ministry data, Covid-19vaccine supplies are under-utilised.…. If this is the casethen shouldn’t we reconsiderour policy of regulating theavailability of vaccines?”.

Substantiating the under-utilisation of Covid-19 vaccinesupplies, the Sena MP said: “…the data of vaccine suppliesshows that only 31.45 per cent

of Covishield and 11.75 percent Covaxin have been admin-istered to frontline workers”.

Alluding to the shortfalls inthe implementation of the firstphase of vaccination acrossthe country, Priyanka said:“The CoWin App has been fac-ing glitches with data. Also,there are loopholes that existfor those who have access tonetworks and money to getvaccine shots on priority, whilethose who are from the weak-er section of society suffer theconsequences of such govern-ment regulation”.

“Many countries have ben-efitted from the Vaccine Maitriinitiative by the Ministry ofExternal Affairs, isn’t it hightime that Indians get the samebenefits of having a vaccineeasily available for them?,” sheasked.

Making a strong case for arapid voluntary vaccinationfor senior citizens, citizenswith co-morbidities and amass-scale administration torest of the population, Priyankasaid: “All states are adminis-tering it to our frontline war-

riors and many have started thesecond round of dosage too;however our population is largeand the fear of another wavethat can have tremendousimpact on our economy henceit becomes our responsibility toensure rapid voluntary vacci-nation for senior citizens, citi-zens with co-morbidities andthe rest on a mass scale so thatlife resumes to safety soonerthan later”.

The Sena MP urged theUnion Health Minister to ropein private hospitals in theimmunisation drive, consideropening up more mobile vac-cination centres and plug theissues faced on CoWin App.

“I would request you tokindly consider de-regularisingthe sale of vaccines and cappingthe cost of the same to ensurethat there is no heavy cost forthe citizens to bear or the fearof hoarding. It would be unfairto the country that we do notuse our own strength andleverage all our availableresources to help the society riditself of the virus,” shestated.

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The CBI on Friday laid a trap and caught an offi-cer of Standard Chartered Bank red handed while

accepting a bribe of Rs 3 lakh from the complainant.

The agency also conducted searches in Chennaiat the premises of the accused officer of the privatebank, Rajendran, Authorized Officer, StandardChartered Bank, Group Special Assets Management,Rajaji Salai, Chennai and recovered Rs 18 lakh in cash,property documents and locker keys in a case relat-ed to bribery of Rs three lakh.

A case was registered against the accused officeron the allegations of demanding undue advantage ofRs 3,00,000 from the complainant (representative ofborrower firm) to help and support for favourable set-tlement of the case pending in Debts RecoveryTribunal (DRT) in the matter of immovable

properties offered as collateral securities inthe loan availed from Standard Chartered Bank, theCBI said.

“It was further alleged that the complainant’s firmhad availed OD/Term Loan facilities from StandardChartered Bank, D B Branch, Coimbatore for a totalamount of Rs 27,70,00,000 during the period from2005 to 2016 with sufficient collateral.

The bank accounts became NPA with the out-standing of Rs 26,37,12,444 as on 30.04.2017. It wasalso alleged that the Standard Chartered Bank initi-ated action Under SARFAESI Act, 2002, and theaccused was the Authorized Officer to dispose of theimmovable properties of the borrowers which weremortgaged as collateral,” it said.

The properties were allegedly sold by auction fora total amount of Rs 22,11,00, 000 in January 2021against market value of Rs 61.5 crore as claimed bythe borrower. Aggrieved by the sale, the borrower fileda case before the Debts Recovery Tribunal court,Coimbatore during February, 2021 and got a stay orderagainst the sale. Since the matter was pending beforethe DRT, the accused demanded undue advantage ofRs 3,00,000 from the complainant to help and sup-port the borrower.

The accused was produced before the court ofPrincipal Special Judge for CBI Cases, Chennai andwas remanded to judicial custody till March 3.

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The CBI on Friday arrested a Sub-Divisional Officer-I working in

Defence Estates Office, AhmedabadCantonment (Gujarat), Hasmukh Parmarand two officials including a Manager ofFCI, Ludhiana, Punjab in two separatecases of bribery.

The first case was registered againstParmar on the allegations of demandinga bribe of Rs 50,000 from the complainanttowards releasing his three vehicles whichwere confiscated by the accused.

The CBI laid a trap and caught theaccused red handed while demanding andaccepting a bribe of Rs 50,000 from thecomplainant.

Searches were conducted at thepremises of the accused which led to recov-ery of some incriminating documents,including property documents and detailsof bank accounts.

In another case, the agency has arrest-ed Manager (Quality Control), PremKumar and a TA, Raj Karan, both of FCIin a bribery case of Rs 50,000. A case wasregistered on a complaint alleging there-in that the Manager (Quality Control) wasdemanding a bribe of Rs 50,000 for check-ing and stacking of complainant’s rice con-signment at PSWC Godown, Kailpur,Ludhiana.

The CBI laid a trap and caught theManager Karan Kumar while demandingand accepting a bribe of Rs 50,000.

During investigation, it was revealedthat the bribe amount was to be sharedwith TA, FCI, leading to his arrest.Searches were conducted at the residencesof both the accused at Ludhiana.

The accused were produced in theCourt of Special Judge, CBI Cases, Mohali(Punjab) and remanded to one-day policecustody.

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Page 6: The Pioneer · On February 11, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh told ... The Indian delegation at ... rity forces soon after they res-cued the family members

nessed on February 17 hun-dreds of thousands of peopleattend the largest single rallysince the beginning of theprotest movement. The move-ment has united nearly 7,50,000doctors, lawyers, civil servants,railway workers, electricityproviders and others, includingGovernment employees work-ing in tax offices and the gen-eral administration. Both trainservices and power supplyhave been disrupted. Businessinterests of the Tatmadaw andthe Government functionsessential to military rule havebeen targeted.

Meanwhile, Hannah Beechpoints out in a report in TheNew York Times of February 17that the atmosphere in the dailyprotest rallies in Myanmar’smajor cities is that of a cultur-al carnival. “Graffiti artists,” sheadds, “have spray-painted mes-sages mocking Senior GeneralMin Aung Hlaing, the Armychief who staged the coup.Poets have declaimed in angryverse. A cartoonists’ unionmarched holding hand-drawnfigures. Street dancers twirledwith abandon.”

The Tatmadaw, however,refuses to concede the civil dis-obedience movement’sdemand to undo the coup,release Aung San Suu Kyi andothers arrested and allow her

party, the National League forDemocracy, which swept theNovember 2019 parliamentaryelection, to form aGovernment. On the otherhand, it seems set on pursuinga course of keeping her underdetention by levelling utterlyspurious charges of illegallyimporting and possessing sixwalkie talkie radios and violat-ing the country’s natural dis-aster laws. Also, it continuestrying to crush the civil disobe-dience movement with repres-sion, though it has not yetresorted to the kind of savageviolence it used to crush pro-democracy protesters in 1988and Buddhist monks, pro-democracy activist and otherswho, in August and Septemberof 2007, peacefully demon-strated against the Junta’s near-ly two decades of dictatorialrule and economic bungling.

Three questions arise here.Why has the Tatmadaw notunleashed that kind of murder-ous violence this time? Is it like-ly to do so? How can the restof the world prevent such aneventuality? As to the first, itclearly did not anticipate thekind of nationwide upsurgetheir coup has provoked.Second, it is worried about theeconomic consequences ofsuch a bid. The Generals haveextensive involvement in eco-

nomic ventures which will beaffected if the economy faltersas a result of domestic disorderand sabotage, and sanctionsspecifically targeting them.

The Tatmadaw may resortto a savage crackdown if it feelsthat it could afford the costs.Hence the democracies mustdisabuse it of any such idea,and make it clear that theGenerals and their families willpay a very heavy price for anysuch misadventure. The UShas slapped sanctions on 10current and former Generalswho led the coup and threeeconomic ventures. It has alsotaken steps to prevent theGenerals from improperlyaccessing more than one bil-lion dollars in BurmeseGovernment funds held in theUS, and immediate action tolimit exports of sensitive goodsto the Burmese military andother entities associated withthe recent coup. This is agood beginning. While con-demning the coup andproposing resolutions criticalof it, and supportive of democ-racy and Suu Kyi, theEuropean countries have nottaken comparable measures.They must put their moneywhere their mouth is.

(The author is ConsultingEditor, The Pioneer. The viewsexpressed are personal.)

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3���� ������ �������&��� ��The coup by Myanmar’s

rogue military, official-ly called Tatmadaw, hasclearly triggered a grow-

ing confrontation between itand almost the entire people ofthe country. Except large-scalekilling of civilians, in which it hasa record not many uniformedforces can match, it has resort-ed to almost every repressivemeasure in the book for stamp-ing out mass upsurges. It hasproclaimed a state of emergencywhich is to last for a year andamended the penal code pre-scribing 20 years’ imprisonmentfor inciting hatred for theGovernment or the Army orhindering efforts of the securi-ty forces to ensure State stabili-ty. Seven years in prison is thepunishment for preventing thesecurity forces from performingtheir duties, and three years forspreading fear, “fake news” oragitating against Governmentemployees. All this was besidesthe power given to the Tatmadawto detain people indefinitelyand/or search private property,besides revalidating a law requir-ing people to report overnightvisitors to their homes.

The steps on the groundinclude the deployment of troopsand armoured vehicles on theroads of Yangon, Myitkyina (cap-ital of Karen State) and Sittwe (thecapital of Raknine State), firing ofrubber bullets, the use of watercannons against demonstrators,arrests during night curfew hoursand detention of a wide range ofpeople including political leaders,Government officials, activists,journalists, student leaders andmedical personnel. According tothe Myanmar’s AssistanceAssociation for Political Prisoners,the number of people arrestedsince the coup reached 495 onFebruary 17 and was growing.Further, the Tatmadaw hasannounced that it had issued war-rants for the arrest of six celebri-ties, including a film director,actors and a singer, under an anti-incitement law for instigatingcivil servants to join the protests.Gatherings of five or more per-sons have been banned.

All this notwithstanding, thecivil disobedience movementcontinues to swell. Yangon wit-

SOUNDBITE����������� ������������� �������Sir—This refers to the editorial ‘Ignominiousrecord’ (February 19). We must understandthat a crime is a crime, whether commit-ted by a man or woman. Both men andwomen deserve the same quantum of pun-ishment for committing similar crimes.

Such judgments strengthen our faithin the judiciary and constitutional institu-tions. Shabnam was convicted along withher lover Salim of axing seven of her fam-ily members to death in 2008. The Amrohadistrict court had sentenced them both todeath. The convicts appealed their sentencefirst at the Allahabad High Court and thentook their plea to the Supreme Court, butboth courts refused to reduce their sentence.They then sent a mercy petition to thePresident but it too was rejected.

A woman cannot be pardoned for suchheinous crime just because of her gender,nor the quantum of punishment should bemade lesser for her. It is only under extra-ordinary circumstances, like when she ispregnant or have a deadly disease that thequestion of pardoning arises. The hangingwill be justice for those who have been slainby the psycho duo. We must also keep inmind that being educated doesn’t mean thata person will likely not commit a brutalcrime. Shabnam holds Masters degrees intwo subjects and taught at the village pri-mary school. She initially pretended that herhouse was attacked by unidentifiedassailants. However, she later confessed thatshe had abetted Salim in the crime andmade her family members drink milk lacedwith sedatives and thereafter throttled herlittle nephew. What a shame!

Azhar A Khan | Rampur

������������������ �������������Sir —Facebook has blocked many sourcesof news for its users in Australia, leavingthem in a tizzy. Many people get all of theirnews from Facebook and are now feelinguninformed by this step. The AustralianGovernment is enacting a legislation thatwould require digital companies, includ-ing Facebook and Google, to pay for newscontent. Although most of these news sto-

ries can be obtained from their home sites,the blocking of any media and newsreporting by anyone is worrying. It couldbe that this is Facebook’s way of saying thatif you want us to pay for your journalism,we are not going to play the game at all.

It is a matter of concern that Facebookpages that have been blocked include StatePolice, health sites and even the Bureau ofMeteorology. The spread seems overlybroad at this stage, with commercial andcharity pages blocked from new postings,perhaps any area they says “News.”Facebook should have thought twicebefore taking the action. It is not that onlyAustralia will suffer but it adds no feath-ers to the Facebook’s reputation either.

Dennis Fitzgerald | Australia

����������������� ������������Sir —Maharashtra Congress chief NanaPatole has rightly admonished Bollywoodactors Amitabh Bachchan and AkshayKumar for not speaking out against theCentre even when the price of petrol has

touched �100 in the country. He haswarned that he would stop the shootingof their films.

Actors like Bachchan and Kumar arejust flatterers who toe the line of the BJP,which rules the Centre, for their selfishgains. They are not concerned with theMumbaikars at all and are only worriedabout their films.

They live in luxury bungalows andcommute in high-end cars and the spikein fuel prices is hardly a cause of concernfor them. They have more than dozen carsand some of them are imported. AmitabhBachchan must have received a huge sumfor the advertisement in which he can beseen teaching others to wear a mask andsanitise their hand, or he must have doneit for popularity. But the common mancontinues to reel under the rising petroland diesel prices.

Bhagwan Thadani | Mumbai

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Page 7: The Pioneer · On February 11, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh told ... The Indian delegation at ... rity forces soon after they res-cued the family members

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The recent Supreme Court directive orderingvirtual recording of testimonies of child traf-ficking survivors and prosecution witness-

es, who are required to depose in courts which arefar from their place of residence, will be a giantleap forward in ensuring that survivors obtain jus-tice. Despite being illegal in India, the malaise offorced and bonded labour is widespread and com-mercial sexual exploitation of children and childtrafficking persist, often with impunity for the per-petrators of the crime and limited legal recoursefor the survivors. Children, both girls and boysfrom marginalised families in the country, are traf-ficked to engage in various exploitative situations.While minor boys are subject to child labour,forced labour, bonded labour, most of the girls endup serving as domestic help and sex slaves, wherethey are commercially exploited for sex. Sadly, childtrafficking is a demand-driven problem. There isa demand for children in the labour and commer-cial sex market, so there is a supply. In fact, thereare industries which primarily run on the nim-ble fingers of children such as bangle-making, zari-making, firecracker production and also cottonfarming. Children are engaged in cotton farmsbecause of their short height that enables fasterplucking of cotton.

Shockingly, the crime of human traffickingthrough Section 370 of the Indian Penal Code(IPC) was codified post the 2012 Nirbhaya gan-grape-cum-murder incident, although it hasbeen termed unconstitutional in the country fromthe time the Constitution of India became effec-tive. According to the National Crime RecordsBureau (NCRB) figures released in 2018, therewere 1,830 reported cases of human trafficking inthe nation. However, activists say that the actualfigure could be much higher as many victims donot register cases with the police, largely becausethey do not know the law or fear the traffickers.

In the same year, the Government complet-ed prosecution in 545 cases, convicted 322 traf-fickers in 95 cases and acquitted 1,124 suspects in450 cases. The acquittal rate in trafficking casestouched 83 per cent in 2018. Poverty, involvementof huge money and an extremely low rate of con-viction contribute to child trafficking becominga huge problem in the country.

After victims are rescued and a criminal caseis lodged, often the subsequent police investiga-tion and prosecution does not result in a convic-tion as a majority of cases are inter-State and thereis a weak mechanism for coordination among theStates to deal with such crimes. Survivors or wit-nesses are either taken to the court by the traffick-ers to speak in their favour or the victims fail toappear in the court because they do not have time,money and the energy to pursue the case.Consequently, the traffickers often get away withthe crime with impunity. On the other hand, sur-vivors are often harassed, intimidated and becomevulnerable to social stigma, on top of poor inves-tigations and slow trials resulting in the victim feel-ing further victimised.

Cases of intimidation of the witnesses and theirfamilies are very high. A perfect example of thisis the Raushan case (not his real name). Raushanalong with four other children, all natives of Gaya,Bihar, was rescued from one of the bangle-mak-ing factories of Jaipur, Rajasthan, in 2016.

Afterwards they appeared in theJaipur court and recorded their tes-timonies against the alleged traffick-er. They had to face severe threatsand intimidation upon arrival intheir home State. After threemonths, Raushan, his mother andthe mother of another child labour-er who had also testified against thetrafficker, were kidnapped. Theywere being taken to Jaipur by a trainto turn hostile in the court caseagainst the traffickers when theywere rescued just 110 kms awayfrom Gaya. This was done throughthe swift intervention of the ADG-CID who was approached for helpby social workers. Consequently, asecond FIR of kidnapping of threepersons was lodged against thesame trafficker and his accom-plices in Gaya. In the absence of astrong protection mechanism, re-trafficking is another major chal-lenge in the fight against child traf-ficking. This is because traffickedchildren become skilled over aperiod of time and become assets forestablishments that require their ser-vices. That’s why they become sub-ject to re-trafficking upon being res-cued or soon after reintegration withtheir families.

For instance, during the lock-down necessitated by theCoronavirus pandemic, a 12-year-old boy Shailendra (not his realname) was rescued from a bangle-making factory in Jaipur alongwith other children. However, his13-year-old elder brother Narendra(not his real name), was hidden bythe traffickers during the rescue

operation. After Shailendra wasre-united with his family in Gaya,he revealed the shocking nature ofthe torture that he along with otherchildren had been going through atthe hands of the factory owners.

“If we did not do the work prop-erly, or accidentally broke a bangle,we were thrashed mercilessly. Afterlong working hours when we dozedoff late in the night chilli powderwas sprinkled into our eyes aspunishment for sleeping. They hada music system in the room andwhenever they would beat us theywould play the music at full volumeto drown out our cries, so that noone could know what was happen-ing in the factory,” Shailendra toldhis parents.

However, within a week of therescue, the trafficker arrived attheir home asking for Shailendra tobe taken back to the factory inJaipur. This was vehementlyopposed by the parents and theyinsisted that their older son,Narendra be sent home, too. But thetrafficker kept mounting pressureon them to allow the child to goback to Jaipur with him. He told theparents that if they did not complywith his wishes their elder childwould be killed. The mother spokewith Vijay Kewat, a social workerassociated with a non-governmen-tal organisation fighting againstchild trafficking, who took her to anearby police station to lodge an FIRagainst the trafficker. The FIR wasregistered and Narendra was final-ly brought back home by Gayapolice in December 2020. A witness

protection application with thesupport of an NGO has been movedto the competent authority in thedistrict in this regard.

Given the grim scenario sur-rounding child trafficking, record-ing of testimonies through video-conferencing will have a hugeimpact on the thriving racket in thecountry. There are around 12 to 15child traffickers in a few cities ofBihar who have been active for along time and are still involved inaiding and abetting of trafficking ofchildren. Over the last three years,922 children, all natives of Bihar,have been rescued from Jaipur.

After the apex court’s order, twocases have been identified on a pilotbasis for the recording of the testi-monies virtually. One is to be donebetween the Protection of Childrenfrom Sexual Offences (POCSO)Court-2, Jaipur, and the POCSOCourt, Gaya in Bihar and the otherwhich has already been put inmotion, is between the AdditionalSessions Court, Karkardooma,Delhi, and the POCSO Court,Sitamarhi in Bihar.

The traffickers often belong tothe neighbouring or same village asthe survivors, and are well-off andpolitically well-connected. The traf-fickers are always in a position toinfluence survivors or their familieswho usually hail from margin-alised communities. Hence, they areresourceless and powerless and ifthey are not provided proper careunder the witness protectionscheme, the whole exercise willprove futile.

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In a country where the Sunis worshiped, solar power isjustly considered the energy

of the future. Solar power’sabundant availability in Indianot only ensures scalability butalso bolsters our energy secu-rity. India can generate 748 GWof solar energy provided threeper cent of the waste land is cov-ered with solar photovoltaic(PV) modules. Pursuing thisgoal is the Government’sNational Solar Mission (NSM)which is mandated to developIndia as a global solar energyleader. The NSM’s purpose is toinstall 100 GW grid-connectedsolar power plants by 2022and assist India to realise theIntended NationallyDetermined Contributions(INDCs) target of achieving 40per cent cumulative electricpower installed capacity fromnon-fossil fuel-based energyresources and to reduce theemission intensity of its GDP by

35 per cent by 2030.But these lofty ambitions

do not match the develop-ments on the ground and theslowdown in capacity additionin recent years is a proof of thesame. The cause of this slug-gishness is the presence of avariety of unaddressed hurdlesthat have been allowed to growby a lethargic Government pol-icy regime. This is further evi-dent by the state of PV cell pro-duction which is yet to becometruly competitive. Adding tothese challenges are the trans-mission losses at approximate-ly 40 per cent, which make solarpower generation highly unfea-sible. These conditions are fur-ther made worse by the scarci-ty of per capita land availabili-ty in India, especially near sub-stations for exclusive installationof solar cells.

On the other hand projectcosts are increasing, debt ismounting while nearly a third

of the 23,600 MW renewablepower projects, won by variousplayers after quoting the lowestrates in reverse auctions con-ducted by the Solar EnergyCorporation of India (SECI) forthe Inter-State TransmissionSystem (ISTS), are staring at anuncertain future as the agencyhas not yet found buyers forpower from these solar/windenergy generation units.

There are systemic issues aswell. For instance, on the sup-ply side the main grouse forsolar power suppliers are therock bottom tariffs which areamong the world’s lowest. Ontop of this, State governmentsinsist that companies sell powerto discoms at cheap priceswhich hurts these firms’ profitmargins and negatively affectsfocus on quality and innova-tion. Low tariffs combined withchronic delay in paymentsmean that even the banksbecome reluctant to lend to

these firms, because they areunsure of profit sustainability.The lack of Government inter-vention in these conditions isdisturbing enough but whatmakes it even more concerningis when State Governmentsrenege on the terms of PowerPurchase Agreements (PPA)and demand tariff renegotiationat the time of payment. Theseunhealthy practices must becurtailed by the Centre if thesolar power sector is to flour-ish. The recently-announcedBudget was a fantastic oppor-

tunity to address these concernsand put the sector firmly backon track, but somehow that didnot happen.

The Budget left the renew-able energy sector feeling letdown as not only have itsrequirements not been met butsome of the existing benefitshave been taken away, too. Anunwelcome change in thisregard relates to the customduty for machinery, instru-ments, appliances, componentsor auxiliary equipment, includ-ing those required for testingand quality control of solarpower generation projects,which was capped at five percent previously. This exemptionhas been taken away.Developers would now be bur-dened by the increased costs ofimport and this would also leadto litigation under the PPAs forchange in law claims.

Instead of a lacklustreattempt to support the solar

power industry, theGovernment would have donewell to address the challenges.The complexity of the subsidystructure and involvement oftoo many agencies, electricityboards and the electricity reg-ulatory commission makes thedevelopment of solar PV pro-jects difficult. The Budgetshould have demolished allthese complex structures andfocused on critical issues suchas financing, which is a majorissue for PV manufacturers.

The Government shouldhave installed a robust financ-ing infrastructure, models andarrangements to spur the PVindustry and consumption ofPV products, besides trainingand development of humanresources to drive industrygrowth and PV adoption.

This would have had apositive cascading effect andimproved intra-industry coop-eration for expanding the PV

supply chain as well, whichwould have contributed in low-ering costs.

Additionally, the Centrecould have focused on the needto build consumer awarenessabout the technology, econom-ics and right usage of PV prod-ucts and modules. At the man-ufacturer end, the awarenesscould have been driven bysharing technical informationthrough conferences and work-shops, in collaborating with bal-ance of systems manufacturersand in gathering and publish-ing accurate market data, trendsand projections. Finally, theGovernment should havelinked the solar energy targetswith ‘Make in India’, the ‘SmartCity Mission’ and ‘Digital India’.This would have given thispromising sector a fresh per-spective and ensured the devel-opment and transformation ofthe entire renewable powersystem in the country.

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The writer isan environmental

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Nairobi (Kenya): The scale ofviolence in South Sudan is “alot worse” than during thecountry’s five-year civil war, aUnited Nations commissionannounced on Friday, accusingsenior officials of supportingarmed groups that at timeshave included tens of thou-sands of fighters.

The new report by theCommission on Human Rightsin South Sudan was a sharpwarning that civilians are asmuch at risk as ever for atroc-

ities including gang rapes,forced displacement andabductions.

The civil war that ended in2018 killed an estimated near-ly 4,00,000 people, and millionsof people are still struggling torecover. “The violence is con-tinuing because people knowthey can get away with it,” com-mission chair Yasmin Sookatold reporters in Geneva. Thereis “no doubt that the coordi-nation is really coming fromthe top.” AP

Washington: The United Statesis back in the Paris climateaccord, just 107 days after it left.

While Friday’s return isheavily symbolic, world leaderssay they expect America toprove its seriousness after fouryears of being pretty muchabsent.

They are especially antici-pating an announcement fromthe US in coming months on itsgoal for cutting emissions ofheat-trapping gases by 2030.

The US return to the Parisagreement became officialFriday, almost a month afterPresident Joe Biden told theUnited Nations that America

wants back in. “A cry for survival comes

from the planet itself,” Bidensaid in his inaugural address.“A cry that can’t be any moredesperate or any more clearnow.”

Biden signed an executiveorder on his first day in officereversing the pullout orderedby his predecessor, PresidentDonald Trump.

The Trump administrationhad announced its withdrawalfrom the Paris accord in 2019but it didn’t become effectiveuntil Nov. 4, 2020, the day afterthe election, because of provi-sions in the agreement. AP

San Diego: After waitingmonths and sometimes years inMexico, people seeking asylumin the United States are beingallowed into the country start-ing Friday as they wait forcourts to decide on their cases,unwinding one of the Trumpadministration’s signature immi-gration policies that PresidentJoe Biden vowed to end.

The number of asylum-seekers coming in initially willbe very limited, beginningFriday at a border crossing inSan Diego and expanding toBrownsville, Texas, on Mondayand El Paso, Texas, next Friday.

US officials are warningpeople not to come to the US-Mexico border, saying an esti-mated 25,000 people with activecases in the “Remain in Mexico”program and several hundredwho are appealing decisionsshould register on a website thatthe UN High Commissioner forRefugees is launching early nextweek. The InternationalOrganisation for Migration, theUN migration agency, plans totest asylum-seekers for COVID-19 and will quarantine anyonewho tests positive for 10 days

before they enter the UnitedStates.

Friday marks a key mile-stone in unraveling one of for-mer President Donald Trump’scornerstone policies to deterpeople from seeking protectionfrom persecution and returnsthe US asylum system to the wayit worked for decades.

But there are unansweredquestions, including howCentral Americans whoreturned home will get back tothe US-Mexico border.

It’s also unclear how long itwill take to work through morethan 25,000 active Remain inMexico cases, with the oldestgoing first. US officials say twoof the border crossings can eachhandle up to 300 people a dayand a smaller crossing can takefewer, but they will start wellbelow those numbers. The offi-cials didn’t specify the crossings.

Biden is quickly makinggood on a campaign promise toend the policy known officiallyas “Migrant ProtectionProtocols,” which Trump saidwas critical to reversing a surgeof asylum-seekers that peaked in2019. AP

Washington: The Bidenadministration has said it iswilling to sit down for talkswith Iran and world powers todiscuss a diplomatic way for-ward on Tehran’s atomic pro-gramme, in the first majorstep aimed at reviving the 2015nuclear deal that was close tofalling apart after the previousTrump regime withdrew fromit.

Former president DonaldTrump pulled the US out of thedeal in 2018.

Under the deal, Iran hadagreed to greatly limit itsnuclear programme through2025. However, Trump arguedthat this gave the Iranians apathway to nuclear weapons.

President Joe Biden and hisadvisors have said that they willrejoin the deal if Iran returns tocompliance with the agree-ment.

“The United States wouldaccept an invitation from theEuropean Union HighRepresentative to attend a meet-ing of the P5+1 and Iran to dis-cuss a diplomatic way forwardon Iran’s nuclear programme,”State Department SpokespersonNed Price said on Thursday.

P5+1 include the five per-

manent members of theSecurity Council — namelyChina, France, Russia, theUnited Kingdom, and theUnited States — plus Germany,who during the Obama admin-istration had entered into anagreement with Iran.

The announcement onIran came after Secretary ofState Antony Blinken met vir-tually with his counterpartsfrom the three European co-signers (E3) of the deal.

A senior administrationofficial told reporters thatPresident Biden is committedto resuming an American mul-tilateral diplomatic role in try-ing to resolve the issues thatthey have with Iran.

The US wants “to seewhether we could get to a sit-uation where Iran is back incompliance with the JCPOAand the US is back in compli-ance with the JCPOA, and usethat as a platform to then nego-tiate a longer, stronger deal, andalso to deal with some of theregional security concerns thatthe US and its partners in theregion have,” the official said.

The Joint ComprehensivePlan of Action (JCPOA),known commonly as the Iran

nuclear deal or Iran deal, is anagreement on the Iraniannuclear programme reachedin Vienna on July 14, 2015,between Iran and the P5+1together with the EuropeanUnion.

In a joint statement, the USand E3 expressed their sharedfundamental security interestin upholding the nuclear non-proliferation regime and ensur-ing that Iran can never devel-op a nuclear weapon.

In this context, the con-clusion of the JCPOA was a keyachievement of multilateraldiplomacy.

“The E3 welcomed theUnited States’ stated intentionto return to diplomacy withIran as well as the resumptionof a confident and in-depthdialogue between the E3 andthe United States,” the jointstatement said.

The ministers affirmedstrong interest in continuingtheir consultations and coor-dination, including with Chinaand Russia, on this key securi-ty issue, recognising the role ofthe High Representative of theEuropean Union asCoordinator of the JointCommission, it said. PTI

Washington: A bicameral USCitizenship Act of 2021 propos-ing a pathway to citizenship to11 million undocumentedworkers, elimination of percountry quota for employment-based green cards and workauthorisation for dependents ofH-1B foreign workers, wasintroduced in the Congress.

The bill, if passed by boththe chambers of the Congress– House of Representatives andthe Senate – and signed into lawby President Joe Biden wouldbring citizenship to millions offoreign nationals, includingundocumented and those whocame to the country legally.

The legislation would alsobenefit hundreds and thou-sands of Indian IT profession-als and their families.

Authors of the bill –Senator Bob Menendez andCongresswoman Linda Sánchez– told reporters that the USCitizenship Act of 2021 estab-lishes a moral and economicimperative and a vision ofimmigration reform that isexpansive and inclusive.

It grows the economy bymaking changes to the employ-ment-based immigration sys-tem, eliminating per-country

caps, making it easier for STEMadvanced degree holders fromUS universities to stay, improv-ing access to green cards forworkers in lower-wage indus-tries, giving dependents of H-1B holders work authorization,and preventing children of H-1B holders from aging out ofthe system.

“I am the daughter ofimmigrant parents fromMexico. I have dedicated mycareer to building an immigra-tion system that lets people livewithout fear, and a system thatgives immigrants – like my par-ents – who sought a better lifeand contribute to our nation afair opportunity to thrive,”Sanchez said.

“Immigrants contributegreatly to our country andsociety. They own businesses,pay taxes and teach our chil-dren. They are our coworkers,neighbors and friends,” saidMenendez.

“We have a historic oppor-tunity to finally enact boldimmigration reform that leavesno one behind, addresses rootcauses of migration, and safe-guards our country’s nationalsecurity. We have a moral andeconomic imperative to get

this done once and for all,” hesaid.

The ruling Democrats havea majority in both the Houseand Senate. However, in theupper chamber, they need sup-port of 10 Republicans to getthe legislation through theCongress before it can be signedinto law.

The Democratic leader-ship and the White House hopethat they will get the necessarysupport in the interest of mil-lions of non-citizens living inthe country.

Supported by the WhiteHouse, the bill creates an earnedroadmap to citizenship for all11 million undocumentedimmigrants, with an expeditedthree-year path to citizenship,and giving all other undocu-mented immigrants who passbackground checks and paytaxes with an eight-year path tocitizenship without fear ofdeportation.

It reforms family-basedimmigration system to keepfamilies together by recapturingvisas from previous years toclear backlogs, including spous-es and children of green cardholders as immediate familymembers. PTI

Jerusalem: Israeli PrimeMinister Benajmin Netanyahu’soffice announced early Fridaythat it had completed aRussian-mediated prisonerswap to bring home a youngIsraeli woman who crossedthe border into Syria.

In a statement, Netanyahu’soffice said the woman was onher way home, hours afterIsrael announced it hadreturned to Syria two shep-

herds who crossed into Israeliterritory in recent weeks.According to Israeli mediareports, the 25-year-old womanwas sent by Syria to Russia,where an Israeli plane was dis-patched to retrieve her.

Netanyahu thankedRussian President VladimirPutin for helping engineer thedeal, saying he had reached outto the leader for help. “I askedfor his help, and he indeed

acted,” Netanyahu said, callingthe Russian leader “my friend.”

Little is known about whythe woman entered Syria.Israeli media have said she is aformer resident of an ultra-Orthodox West Bank settle-ment, but she has not beenpublicly identified. Syrianmedia said she accidentallyentered Syrian territory aftercrossing from the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights. AP

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Yangon (Myanmar): A youngwoman who was shot in thehead by police last week duringa protest against the military

coup in Myanmar died Friday,her family said.

It was the first confirmeddeath among thousands of

protesters who have faced offagainst security forces sincethe junta took power onFebruary 1, detained the coun-try’s elected leaders and pre-vented Parliament from con-vening.

Mya Thwet Thwet Khine

was shot during a demonstra-tion in the capital, Naypyitaw,on February 9, two days beforeher 20th birthday.

Video showed her shelter-ing from water cannons andsuddenly dropping to theground after a bullet penetrat-ed the motorcycle helmet shewas wearing.

She had been on life sup-port in a hospital with whatdoctors said was no chance ofrecovery. AP

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Beijing: As the spectre of age-ing population coupled withdeclining birth rates continueto loom large despite relaxationof the one-child policy in 2016,a concerned China hasapproved three provinces tocarry out full assessments andresearch into possible effects offurther easing of birth policy.

After implementingdecades old one-child policy,China is facing demographiccrisis with rapidly ageing pop-ulation over 60 years, whichaccording to official figureshas increased to 420 million in2019.

The two-child policy failed

to make impact on the lowbirth rates as the number ofbirths dropped by two millionin 2018.

China as a whole saw580,000 fewer births in 2019than in 2018, marking thethird consecutive year ofdecline since the implementa-tion of the universal two-childpolicy in the mainland, accord-ing to official data.

According to China’s sta-tistics bureau, the country hada population of 1.34 billion in2010 with an annual growthrate of 0.57 per cent, downfrom 1.07 per cent a decadeearlier. PTI

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Islamabad: Pakistan has decid-ed to register Himalayan pinksalt as Geographical Indications(GI) to prevent its unauthoriseduse by other countries.

A GI tag is a sign used onproducts that have a specificgeographical origin and possessorigin-based qualities and rep-utation in the region.

The precious salt is extract-ed from the Salt Range inPunjab which extends along thesouth of the Potohar Plateau andthe north of the Jhelum River.

The decision was taken ina meeting with the IntellectualProperty Organisation (IPO)Pakistan chaired by CommerceAdviser Razak Dawood. PTI

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The new public sector enter-prises policy envisages that

the strategic sectors have lim-ited number of players restrict-ing it to maximum four publicsector enterprises of the hold-ing nature, a top official said onFriday.

Department of PublicEnterprises (DPE) SecretarySailesh said the remainingenterprises will be rationalisedin terms of mergers, amalga-mations and privatisation if fea-sible.

As part of the‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan’package, Finance MinisterNirmala Sitharaman had inMay announced that there willbe a maximum of four publicsector companies in strategicsectors, and state-owned firmsin other segments will eventu-

ally be privatised.The DPE secretary was

addressing a webinar organisedby PHDCCI.

Sailesh said, “We need tobuild our capabilities andemphasise our domestic pro-duction for global and domes-tic outreach at a globally com-petitive cost.”

The new paradigm frame-work in which the govern-

ment is working on will makePSU a pivotal part and there isa strength towards asset mon-etisation in the brownfield pro-ject, he added. “We need toensure that the desired resultsare achieved in the collabora-tive effect of the private sectorto enhance wealth, improveR&D, and growth of the econ-omy.

“The secretary also saidthat with the announcementsof the new PSU policy, the govtwishes to have a strong andimpactful public sector in astrategic sector. “MSMEs(micro, small and mediumenterprises) have the potentialin the sectors such as defence,infrastructure, manufacturing,power, petroleum, coal, min-ing, ports, airports, and manymore, which will help to createbetter running of governmentassets,” he said.

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Union Finance MinisterNirmala Sitharaman on

Friday held an informal meet-ing with top industrialists ofTamil Nadu to elicit their viewson the budget she presented onFebruary 1.

TVS Motor ChairmanVenu Srinivasan, MRF LtdChairman M Mammen, IndiaCements Ltd Vice Chairman NSrinivasan, former AshokLeyland Chairman RSeshasayee and ApolloHospitals MD Sunita Reddywere among those who tookpart in the meeting, sourcessaid.

This is the first time sheis meeting industry captains inTamil Nadu after presenting thebudget. However, the meetingwas out of bounds for themedia and the points discussedwere not known. Industrysources said the FM listened tothe views put forth by theindustrialists during the inter-action.

The India Cements LtdManaging Director N

Srinivasan said he thanked theFM for presenting an ‘out-standing’ budget that wouldspur growth.

“The budget will spurgrowth. I told her that duringthis calendar year itself, all theindustries, including manu-facturing, will be runningtowards full capacity”,Srinivasan told PTI.

The official twitter handleof the FM’s office shared imagesof the Minister interacting withthe industrialists.

Earlier in the day, BJPTamil Nadu unit President LMurugan received Sitharamanand presented a ‘Vel’ to her aspart of welcoming her to thestate.

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Holding that banks cannotwash off their hands

towards their customers for theoperation of lockers, theSupreme Court Friday direct-ed the Reserve Bank of India(RBI) to lay down regulationswithin six months mandatingthe steps to be taken by bankswith respect to locker facilitymanagement.

A bench comprisingJustices M M Shantanagoudarand Vineet Saran said with theadvent of globalization, bank-ing institutions have acquireda very significant role in the lifeof the common man as bothdomestic and internationaleconomic transactions withinthe country have increasedmultiple folds.

The top court said peopleare hesitant to keep their liquidassets at home as “we aresteadily moving towards a cash-less economy.”

“Thus, as is evident fromthe rising demand for such ser-vices, lockers have become anessential service provided byevery banking institution. Suchservices may be availed of bycitizens as well as by foreignnationals,” the bench said.

Moreover, due to rapidgains in technology, “we arenow transitioning from dualkey-operated lockers to elec-tronically operated lockers,”the top court said.In the elec-tronically operated lockers,though the customer may havepartial access to the lockerthrough passwords or ATMpin, etc., they are unlikely topossess the technologicalknow-how to control the oper-ation of such lockers, the benchsaid.”On the other hand, thereis the possibility that miscreantsmay manipulate the technolo-gies used in these systems togain access to the lockers with-out the customers’ knowledgeor consent,” it said.

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The country’s foreignexchange reserves fell by

USD 249 million to USD583.697 billion in the weekended February 12, RBI datashowed on Friday.

In the previous week, thereserves had declined by USD6.24 billion to stand at USD583.945 billion. It had toucheda record high of USD 590.185billion in the week endedJanuary 29, 2021.

In the reporting week, thedecrease in reserves was main-ly due to a fall in the foreigncurrency assets (FCAs), a majorcomponent of the overallreserves.

FCAs decreased by USD1.387 billion to USD 540.951billion, weekly data by theReserve Bank of India (RBI)showed.

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The Sensex tumbled 435points while the Nifty

slumped below the 15,000-mark on Friday as marketsbuckled under selling pressurefor the fourth session on thetrot amid a lacklustre trend inglobal markets.

The 30-share BSE Sensexended 434.93 points or 0.85 percent lower at 50,889.76, pres-sured by robust selling in bank-ing and auto counters.Similarly, the broader NSENifty gave up the 15,000 level,dropping 137.20 points or 0.91per cent to 14,981.75. A dayafter topping the Sensex gain-er’s chart, ONGC emerged asthe biggest laggard in Friday’ssession, tumbling 5.06 per cent.It was followed by SBI, AxisBank, ICICI Bank, Bajaj Auto,Maruti and M&M, which shedup to 3.77 per cent. On theother hand, IndusInd Bank,

HUL, Dr Reddy’s, NTPC,Reliance Industries and BajajFinserv were among the gain-ers, climbing up to 1.97%.

During the week, theSensex declined 654.54 pointsor 1.26 per cent, and Nifty fell181.55 points or 1.19 per cent.

“The Nifty-50 and BSESensex declined by 1.2 percent this week as market moodbecame cautious on risingglobal and local bond yields.

The broader markets thatis NSE Mid Cap 100 Index andBSE Small Cap Index are bothin the green this week. The US10 Year Bond yields have risenfrom below 1 per cent to 1.29per cent, building in econom-ic impact of the USD 1.9 tril-lion stimulus package.

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Petrol price onFriday crossed

the �90-per-litremark in the nation-al capital, and dieselsoared to �80.60after rates wereincreased for the11th consecutiveday in a row.

Petrol price onFriday was hiked by31 paise per litre and diesel by33 paise, according to a pricenotification of state-owned fuelretailers.

This pushed the petrolprice to �90.19 a litre in Delhiand to �96.62 in Mumbai.

Diesel now comes for Rs80.60 a litre in the national cap-ital and for �87.62 in Mumbai.

The increase follows aspurt in prices of oil in theinternational market, on whichIndia is 85 per cent dependentto meet its needs. Brent oilcrossed USD 65 a barrel onThursday as a worsening US

energy crisis took out almost 40per cent of the nation’s crudeproduction.

In 11 days, retail petrolprices have risen by Rs 3.24 alitre, a record since the pricingwas deregulated in 2010, anddiesel rates have gone up by Rs3.47.

Petrol price has alreadysurged past the Rs 100-mark insome places in Rajasthan andMadhya Pradesh, which levythe highest VAT on the fuel.Retail pump prices defer fromstate to state depending on thelocal taxes (VAT) and freight.

New Delhi:Despite talks with US-based Cairn Energy, the Indiangovernment may soon go ahead with an appeal against the arbi-tration award in the retrospective taxation case, sources said.

An official source told IANS that government will contestthe award as taxation is its its sovereign right.

Further, the Centre will also contest other suits filed by CairnEnergy at various other international courts. PTI

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The Centre has given regu-latory approval for drone

deployment for remote sensingdata collection in agriculturalareas of 100 districts of thecountry.

The move will be benefi-cial for Gram Panchayat levelyield estimation, under thePradhan Mantri Fasal BimaYojana.

The Ministry of CivilAviation and the DirectorateGeneral of Civil Aviation hasgranted conditional exemp-tion for Remotely PilotedAircraft System usage to theMinistry of Agriculture andFarmers Welfare.

“The exemption shall bevalid from the one year fromthe date of issue of the per-mission letter or until theoperationalisation of the‘Digital Sky Platform’, whichev-er is earlier,” the ministry saidin a statement.

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Filmmaker Anubhav Sinha has roped ininternational action director Stefan Richter

for the forthcoming Ayushmann Khurrana-star-rer Anek.

Richter is known for his larger-than-life yetrealistic action choreography, evident in actionsequences he designed for Ryan Reynolds andSamuel L Jackson in the 2017 Hollywoodthriller The Hitman’s Bodyguard, and for ShahRukh Khan in the 2011 Bollywood release Don2.

“Anek is the biggest film of my career interms of scale, and Anubhav Sinha is leaving nostone unturned to give the audience a huge big-screen experience with his vision. It is true thatStefan Richter has been roped in for our film.He comes in with a wealth of knowledge and hasbeen an architect for big scale action moviesaround the world,” said Ayushmann, disclosingthe news of the collaboration along with an on-set image of Richter that he posted.

He added that he would be doing somethingnew in the film courtesy Ritcher.

“With his craft, the action sequences of Anekwill match global standards and give the audi-ence a thrilling visual experience. Anubhav sirand Stefan are making me do something that isextremely new for me. As an artiste, I relishdoing different things and constantly exploremyself. Anek is taking me on a new journey thatI’m really enjoying,” the actor added.

Actor Ranveer Singh feels younghip-hop and rap artiste Spitfire is

a big reason why everybody tuned intohis 2019 film Gully Boy.

Spitfire, whose real name is NitinMishra, was dubbed as a prodigy forthe incredible lyrics of the song, AsliHip Hop.

“Nitin AKA Spitfire is a lyricalprodigy. He is a large part of the rea-son everybody tuned into Gully Boyduring its first promo when he wroteAsli Hip Hop. He is the one who wroteMurad’s part in all of the rap battles,”said Ranveer, referring to his charac-ter of Murad in the film, a youngsterfrom the slums who goes on to becomea hip-hop star.

Ranveer added, “When his match-less raw talent and pure passionrevealed itself to me, it became a largepart of the reason I even wanted to par-ticipate in the business in the firstplace.”

He also spoke about his favourite

track in Spitfire’s new EP titled Partein,which released on Friday.

“This new EP features one of myfavourite tracks so far, Zalzala (a track

from the EP). When I am in the gymit gets me hyped and pumped up.When I hear Sangeet and Afterparty(other tracks from the EP) they trans-

port me into an elevated spiritualspace and put me in a deep, thought-ful, reflective frame of mind,” said theactor.

The EP speaks of the rapper’s ver-satility, fearlessness and his beautifulspirit, said Ranveer. “Partein is ademonstration of skill and maturity.Tune in and hear your heart out. I can’twait for his next evolution,” he added.

Ranveer has founded the indepen-dent record label IncInk with NavzarEranee. Spitfire is managed by the label.

IncInk is his passion project thataims to give a platform to raw talentswith no connection in the musicindustry from across the country toexpress their skills and present their tal-ent to the global audience.

Actor Shraddha Kapoor describes the lock-down phase of last year as one of her cru-

cial phases for self-realisation. It was a periodwhen she could learn to unlearn and redefinethe value of zero, the spiritual meaning of shun-ya, she says.

“I think every time we start a film, westart from zero, from shunya. Lockdown wasa time for me to understand the value ofseveral things, including self-love, thefamily and my emotional and spiritu-al health. I also think that it made memore independent, and things likethe power of yoga to develop afocussed mind so that I can chooseto be a part of any project — film orentrepreneurial venture — morefearlessly,” Shraddha said.

“As an actor, being a part of showbusiness, we have to look in a cer-tain way and that changes also withevery film that we do, every char-acter I play. Recently I invested ina beverage project in which I real-ly do not have to count my calo-ries while having my favouritedrinks. In a way, during lock-down, I have understood andredefined the value of shunya,and now I know the brand ofproduct or even brand of cin-ema I would like to associate

myself with. It is a learning that has happenedthrough last year,” she added.

Shraddha has been around in Bollywood foraround a decade, and she has faced success,

failure, praise and criticism. Her debut filmTeen Patti fared below expectation, herthird film Aashiqui 2 was a musical super-hit, followed by Ek Villain. She has tried

dance and action in various films includ-ing ABCD 2, Baaghi, Street Dancer 3D,and Saaho.

What has her decade in Bollywoodtaught her? “Firstly, whenever I get anew film, I receive it with a lot of grat-itude because a producer is investingmoney to make the film and makingme part of that journey. As an actor,I always put my 100 per cent, butresult is certainly not in our hand. Itis in the hands of the audience.Interestingly, the result plays a parton my next opportunity, becauseit is the nature of the business ofcinema. I have learnt to look atthings from a broader perspec-tive,” she summed up.

Shraddha finished a portionof the shoot for director LuvRanjan’s untitled film co-star-ring Ranbir Kapoor in Delhilast month and is gearing up

for her next schedule.

�What fascinated you to say yes to theseries 1962 The War In The Hills?

There are two major reasons — one,it was a war story, based and inspired bya real incident which I had read and wasabsolutely aware of. Any kind of storythat is related to Indian Army or defence,I get really excited. And the second rea-son was the director Mahesh Majrekar.I had worked with him earlier and Iwanted to do so again.

�How was your experience of playingan Army Officer?

I always love to work on films basedon the Army or any defence service forthat matter. I love wearing uniforms. I amvery fortunate that very early in my lifeI have played a cop, an officer and a spe-cial commando in a series called Testcase.I find myself very lucky to play all thesecharacters.

�What research went into it? Was itmore mental than physical?

See, when you play any char-acter, there are always two kindsof research involved — physicaland mental. The physical one isusually related to the professionof the character. So, since I amplaying an Army officer, Imade sure that I look like one.I wore the uniform properlyand made sure that I appear fitenough and be able to do allthose physical activities, whichare required to be done to playmy part. And I think mentalresearch is always importantfor an actor. As far as that isconcerned, it has to be thecharacter’s emotions, whichcan be of any kind. Forinstance, in this particularstory, I am in a healthy compe-tition with Abhay Deol’s char-acter, where I feel that I am moretalented than him but he got thechance to lead the battle while Iam on a standby. So I think theseare the emotional points where youhave to work as a character. In thisseries, the important aspect was thatI should look apart and my body lan-guage should reflect my character. Sothat preparation was quite important.

�Any insight into the storyline...It’s a very emotional story because

this war happened when we were a newlyindependent as a country. We were notequipped to handle a war. Somewheredown the line, I personally feel that it’smore of an emotional inspiration. Whenyou have less resources and facilities, but

even then you have to fight for yournation. So during that time your will andpassion matter more. That is the reasonthat even when we had 3,000 opponentsfighting 126 soldiers, we won. Just byimagining the numbers one gets goose-bumps. I must say it was a battle of daunt-less courage.

�Why do you think it’simportant to make showson such subjects?

As a creative personwhen you are makingsomething, you tend to get

inspired by stories. Youmight even get inspired by a

crime, so that it reaches a larg-er audience and people get

aware that, ‘oh! It was a heinouscrime and we should be careful

to not get into a situation like this.We should be alert in life.’ In a very

similar manner, there are so manystories out there which are inspira-tional. Also, I was reading some-where that in today’s time, IndianArmed Forces — Indian Army,Indian Navy and Indian Air Force— deliberately promotes a lot sothat the youngsters feel motivat-ed to join the services. So I thinkthese kind of stories becomevery important. I feel it encour-ages people to understand theimportance of these professions,especially the youngsters. Showslike these will help them realise

how important soldiers are for a coun-try. I am sure a lot of youngsters will getencouraged.

�You’ve worked with MaheshManjrekar earlier in Hathyar. Andrecently, in an interview you also men-tioned that, “we’re quite familiar witheach other’s style of working.” Do youthink that made your ride smooth here?

I know how Maheshji works. Initially,I was a little apprehensive about my rolebecause I thought there’s no conflict inmy character. But then deep down I knewthat even if there’s no conflict, I can trustthe director with the effectiveness of myrole. The visual journey is through thecamera. If it captures you well, only thenan actor’s emotion reaches the audienceperfectly. That’s why I trusted him withmy role, emotions and presentation.When you’ll see the series, you’ll realisethat my character has that vulnerabilityand softness.

�Can you share a few anecdotes...I can recall a very interesting and

highly emotional scene from the series.It is when I come to inform Shagun Singh

(Mahie Gill), who’s playing Major SurajSingh’s (Abhay Deol) wife, about whathappened in the battle. After hearing thenews, his daughter gets hysterical. It wasabout how I control her emotions andcalm her down. There were no dialoguesin this particular scene. Maheshji had aconversation with the three of us —Mahi, the girl who’s playing Suraj’sdaughter and me. He explained to us thecrux of the scene and said, “This is whatI want out of it. This is the emotion I wantthe audience to feel when you performit.” He then told us, “I am placing thecamera in this direction and now every-thing is up to you guys... how you do itto create the perfect shot.” So he gave usa lot of details of what we are supposedto deliver as actors. That scene took quitesome time because it was a bit difficultas well as emotional since there was nota single dialogue. We just had to conveythrough our feelings and emotions. Asthey say, “Silence speaks louder thanwords.” So we had to make the audiencefeel the moment by playing with ouremotions.

(The series releases on February 26 onHotstar.)

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Russia’s Daniil Medvedevoverpowered StefanosTsitsipas to make his first

Australian Open final on Friday,where he will bid to stop worldnumber one Novak Djokovicfrom clinching an unprece-dented ninth title.

The fourth seed proved fartoo strong for Greece’s Tsitsipas,crushing him 6-4, 6-2, 7-5 infront of more than 7,000 noisyfans at Rod Laver Arena toextend his win streak to 20.

The 25-year-old, ultra-con-fident on the back of his unbeat-en run, which includes threetitles, has been knocking on thedoor of Grand Slam success forsome time, but has yet to win atitle. To finally get over the linehe must on Sunday beat topseed Djokovic, who has won alleight finals he has played atMelbourne Park.

But nobody on tour hasmore momentum thanMedvedev, whose tricky gamehas stymied all opponents sinceNovember, and he has wonthree of his last four against the17-time Grand Slam-winningSerb.

“It definitely wasn’t easy,”said Medvedev, only the thirdRussian after YevgenyKafelnikov and Marat Safin toreach the Australian Open final.

“I got a little bit scared andtight (in the third set) becauseit’s a semi-final of a Slam... buthappy I was able to turn mygame on, especially in sometight moments on my serve.”

Medvedev came into theshowdown boasting a 5-1 edgein their head-to-heads and afrosty relationship stemmingfrom Shanghai in 2019, whenthe popular Greek blasted hisslugfest playing style as “boring”.

FLAG-WAVING FANSFifth seed Tsitsipas was

backing up from a stunningfive-set upset of 20-time GrandSlam champion Rafael Nadal,but it was an energy-sappingfour-hour epic and he appearedto feel the effects.

In front of vocal, flag-wav-ing Greek fans, the servers con-trolled the points as they movedto 2-2 in the opening set before

the Russian, anchored to thebaseline, drew first blood.

Until then, Tsitsipas hadonly faced eight break points inthe entire tournament, butMedvedev earned two and con-verted on the second when theGreek sent a return long.

Medvedev, who alsoreached the 2019 US Openfinal, stayed focused and workedtwo set points at 5-4. ButTsitsipas defended both success-fully with deep, aggressivereturns as the crowd lifted theirvolume.

He sent down his first dou-ble-fault of the match on histhird before blasting an ace anda winner to take a one-set lead.

Medvedev dominated thelong rallies, with Tsitsipas need-ing to fight hard for every point,and he was broken again after aseven-minute marathon gamewhen the Russian blasted a siz-zling forehand down the line for2-1 second-set advantage.

Frustrated, Tsitsipasslammed his water bottle to theground at the changeover, withthe ballkids forced to mop upthe mess after it burst andsprayed everywhere.

Medvedev was command-ing on serve and a glumTsitsipas unravelled, brokenagain, to love, on his next gameas the Russian raced through theset in 36 minutes.

He was broken again earlyin the third set and appearedspent, but roared on by thecrowd he found new reserves tobreak back for 3-3.

For the first time in thematch, Medvedev was underpressure but held his nervewith a glorious passing shot giv-ing him another break for 6-5before he calmly served out towin.

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India’s Ankita Raina onFriday claimed her maiden

WTA title by lifting the PhillipIsland Trophy along withRussian partner KamillaRakhimova, a feat which willcatapult her into the top-100in the doubles for the first timein her career.

Ankita and Kamilla eraseda one-set deficit to beat theRussian combination of AnnaBlinkova and AnastasiaPotapova 2-6, 6-4, 10-7 in thesummit clash here.

The 28-year-old Indianshared the $8000 prize moneywith her partner and earned280 ranking points, which willtake her to 94 from the current

115 when the WTA doubleschart is updated next week.

Ankita will become onlythe second player to crack thedoubles top-100 since SaniaMirza, who is a six-time

Grand Slam champion.The past two weeks have

been extremely memorablefor the gritty Indian, whomade her Grand Slam debut atthe Australian Open in the

doubles, and also won a roundin the main draw of a WTAsingles tournament.

Elated at her performanceand the result, Ankita says thesingles top-100 is also justaround the corner.

“It’s been a great week.Kamilla and I played togetherfor the first time. We signed upjust 20 minutes before thedraw because there was a lot ofconfusion with the entry list.

“Kamilla plays veryaggressive, has good strokesand I just had to ask her to beaggressive at the net, whichshe did,” Ankita said.

“It was not that draw waseasy, we beat some good play-ers who were tough not onlyin doubles but in singles, too.Kamilla has great fightingspirit. It’s great... First WTAtitles and doubles top-100,too. I am looking forward tocrack singles top-100,” sheadded.

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Some established names such as ShikharDhawan and Shreyas Iyer will be aiming

to make an impression before the white-ballseries against England when the VijayHazare 50-over competition gets underwayin bio-secure bubbles across six venues onSaturday.

Shreyas Iyer, who missed the SyedMushtaq Ali Trophy as he was recoveringfrom shoulder injury, along with others likeBhuvaneshwar Kumar and Dhawan will bekeenly watched during the tournament.

While Tamil Nadu, winner of therecent Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, has a strongteam and others like Karnataka, Mumbaiand Delhi will also fancy their chances.

The tournament will give the players achance to impress the national selectors,before the ODI and T20 series againstEngland, which will begin in March. Indiais slated to play five T20s in Ahmedabad andthree ODIs against England in Pune.

This is the second domestic tournamentto be conducted by the BCCI in this cur-tailed season after the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20Trophy.

The focus will be firmly on Shreyas, whois back to lead Mumbai, the domestic giants,who also have a new coach in former Indiaoff-spinner Ramesh Powar.

He will be eager to make an impact andso will the prolific Suryakumar Yadav, whois close to making the Indian team.

Even Prithvi Shaw, who has beennamed Shreyas’ deputy and has been shortof runs, will want to bounce back stronger.

Mumbai had an eminently forgettableouting in the Mushtaq Ali Trophy, failing tomake it past the group stage and going downto minnows Puducherry.

Pacer Bhuvaneshwar Kumar, who willlead Uttar Pradesh, will be raring to go aswell and so will another white-ball special-ist Shikhar Dhawan, who last played in theseries against Australia.

He will be playing under PradeepSangwan for Delhi.

Baroda, after their impressive runners-up show in the Mushtaq Ali Trophy, will bebolstered by the return of skipper and all-rounder Krunal Pandya, who had to leavethe national T20 championship, mid-wayfollowing his father’s demise.

Tamil Nadu, led by Dinesh Karthik, willbe aiming to make it two out of two this sea-son. They have the team to aim for a dou-

ble.The squad, however, will be missing the

services of yorker specialist T Natarajan afterhe was released following a request fromBCCI, which wanted him to be fresh for thewhite ball series against England.

It won’t be easy for Tamil Nadu, as theywill face stiff competition from teams likePunjab and Karnataka, always a force toreckon with in national competitions.

Bengal will miss the services of experi-enced campaigner Manoj Tiwary and it willbe a challenge for stand-in-skipper AnustupMajumdar after the team made a group exitin Mushtaq Ali.

Explosive left-handed opener VivekSingh is in sublime form and will look toprove himself again after the IPL snub.

Abhimanyu Easwaran has been releasedfrom the India squad and is available andhe will form the back-bone of their batting.

The teams have been divided into sixgroups — five Elite Groups, one Plate Group.The group stage will be followed by quar-terfinals with the summit clash scheduledfor March 14.Elite Group A: Gujarat, Chhattisgarh,Hyderabad, Tripura, Baroda, Goa (Surat)Group B: Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Jharkhand,Madhya Pradesh, Vidarbha, Andhra(Indore)Group C: Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala,Odisha, Railways, Bihar (Bengaluru)Group D: Delhi, Mumbai, Maharashtra,Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Pondicherry(Jaipur)Group E: Bengal, Services, Jammu andKashmir, Saurashtra, Haryana, Chandigarh(Kolkata)Plate: Uttarakhand, Assam, Nagaland,Meghalaya, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh,Mizoram, Sikkim (Tamil Nadu).

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Fast bowler Mark Wood feelsEngland, boasting one of

the game’s finest seamers inJames Anderson, can fancytheir chances in the upcomingday/night Test against India ifthe pink ball moves around.

The four-match Test seriesis level at 1-1 heading into theday-night Test at the new110,000-capacity Sardar PatelStadium here.

“As soon as the ball moves,we know how good our seambowlers can be. We’ve got gooddepth there, good skills and

two of the best-ever (JamesAnderson and Stuart Broad).

“Hopefully, if the ball doesmove and it is seamer-friend-ly we can be very confidentgoing into the game,” Woodsaid during a virtual interactionon Friday.

Along with Jonny Bairstow,Wood joined the Englandsquad ahead of the third Test.

While the spinners havetaken the bulk of wickets in thefirst two Tests of the ongoingseries, Indian pacers took all 20wickets to win their only pre-vious day-night match onhome soil, against Bangladesh

in Kolkata.“We’ve been bowling with

them in the nets - they haveswung quite a bit and they’velasted longer which was inter-esting to see,” said Wood.

“With the ball, as soon asit moves, every one of thebowlers from the past coupleof months is dying to get it intheir hand. I’m not the onlyone who’s trying to get hold ofit. “The wickets in the netshave been a bit green and hadgood pace and carry too. Idon’t know if that’s anythingto go by or whether it’s a bitof a trick.”

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Bruno Fernandes scored twiceas Manchester United

romped to a 4-0 victory overReal Sociedad in their EuropaLeague last-32 first leg onThursday, while Gareth Baleimpressed for TottenhamHotspur in a 4-1 thrashing ofAustrian side Wolfsberg.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’sUnited are all but into the last 16,with four away goals to take intothe return game in a week’s time,after the first leg was played inTurin due to coronavirus trav-el restrictions.

The Premier League outfitgrabbed the lead in the 27thminute when Fernandespounced on a defensive mix-upto slot in from MarcusRashford’s clipped pass.

Solskjaer’s men doubledtheir advantage 12 minutes intothe second period as Fernandesstroked home his 21st goal of theseason.

United continued to play ata pace Sociedad could not dealwith and Rashford finally got hisgoal in the 65th minute follow-ing a blistering counter-attackstarted by goalkeeper DeanHenderson. The tie was surelyput to bed in the final minute ofnormal time as Daniel Jamesraced clear and fired into thebottom corner.

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