RNI NO.: DELENG/2005/15351REGD. NO.: DL(S)-01/3420/2018-20

VOL.16, ISSUE 203 | Friday, 23 July, 2021 | New Delhi | Pages 12 | Rs 3.00PUBLISHED FROM DELHI | KOLKATA

MILLENNIUMPOST.IN

No Half Truths

Pegasus row disrupts both Houses of Parliament for 3rd day in a row

Active cases show increase for 2nd day

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: India saw a sin-gle-day rise of 41,383 Coro-navirus infections taking the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 3,12,57,720, while the active cases registered an increase for the second consecu-tive day and were recorded at 4,09,394, according to the Union Health ministry data updated on Thursday. The country’s COVID-19 death toll rose to 4,18,987 with 507 fresh fatalities.

The active cases com-prise 1.31 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 97.35 per cent, the data updated at 8 am showed.

An increase of 2,224 cases has been recorded in the active

COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours. As many as 17,18,439 tests were conducted on Wednesday taking the total cumulative tests conducted so far for detection of COVID-19 in the country to 45,09,11,712.

The daily positivity rate was recorded at 2.41 per cent. It has been less than three per cent for 31 consecutive days, the minis-try said, adding the weekly pos-itivity rate was recorded at 2.12 per cent. Continued on P4

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Amnesty Inter-national on Thursday said it “categorically stands” by the find-ings of the Pegasus Project and asserted that the data is irrefutably linked to potential targets of NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware.

The comments by Amnesty International came after some media reports quoting a few Israeli journalists said the human rights group has claimed that it never said the recently leaked phone numbers was specifically a list of numbers targeted by Pegasus spyware.

Amnesty claimed that the “false rumours” being pushed on social media are intended to distract from the widespread unlawful targeting of journalists, activists and others that the Pega-sus Project has revealed.

Continued on P4

Categorically stand by findings: Amnesty

International

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: High drama continued in both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha for the third straight day of the Monsoon Session on Thursday as Opposition MPs staged protests over a range of issues, including the Pegasus snooping controversy and I-T raids on media houses.

In the Rajya Sabha, Elec-tronics and Information Technology minister Ash-wini Vaishnaw was forced to cut short his statement on the row by the uproar among Opposition members.

When Vaishnaw rose to speak on Pegasus, Trinamool Congress MP Shantanu Sen

snatched his papers, tore, and flung them at Deputy Chair-man Harivansh Narayan Singh, forcing the minister to lay the paper on the table instead.

In the statement, Vaish-naw, whose phone number was among those listed as compromised by Washing-

ton Post, called the reports an “attempt to malign the Indian democracy and its well-estab-lished institutions”.

“A highly sensational story was published by a web portal last night. Many over-the-top allegations made around this story,” he said. Continued on P4

UPROAR IN RS: TMC MP TEARS VAISHNAW’S STATEMENT

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Income Tax Department on Thursday conducted raids across sev-eral states against prominent media group ‘Dainik Bhaskar’ as well as Uttar Pradesh-based TV channel ‘Bharat Samachar’ for alleged tax evasion, draw-ing a sharp response from sev-eral quarters, sources said.

The raids against the multi-media Dainik Bhas-kar Group, which has a pres-ence in 12 states and runs newspapers as well as oper-ates radio stations, web por-tals and mobile phone apps, were taking place in 30 loca-tions, including Bhopal, Jai-pur, Ahmedabad and Noida, sources said. The searches started around 5.30 am and

went on till evening.“The group is also involved

in textiles and mining busi-nesses and the department is also looking into these trans-actions,” an official said on condition of anonymity.

There was no official word from the Income Tax Depart-ment or its policy-making body, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), on the

searches targeting the pro-moters and staffers of ‘Dainik Bhaskar’, and ‘Bharat Sam-achar’. Hours later, the issue was raised in the Rajya Sabha. It also came in for wide con-demnation from several lead-ers, including Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Rajasthan’s Ashok Gehlot and Delhi’s Arvind Kejriwal.

Continued on P4

I-T dept raids Dainik Bhaskar, Bharat SamacharGovt maintains ‘no interference’; Oppn says ‘paying the price’

ABHAY SINGH

NEW DELHI: Amid tight security and under the con-stant vigil of a police cam-era, around 200 farmers on Thursday finally reached Jan-tar Mantar to protest against the three farm laws in tandem with the Monsoon Session of Parliament.

Interestingly, the farmers, who have been at the border for hundreds of days now had initially intended to protest at Jantar Mantar on Novem-ber 27, when they were force-

fully stopped and barricaded at the borders. In the after-noon, buses started moving towards Jantar Mantar from the Singhu border area. The farmers had identity cards on them and had made sure only those registered to protest on Day I boarded the buses. The police checked the buses for suspicious objects and also checked the identity cards. At around 1.30 pm to 2 pm, the farmers reached Jantar Man-tar, shouting slogans and rais-ing flags well before getting off the buses. Continued on P4

Farmers finally make it to Jantar Mantar, Tomar

asks them to end stir

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: The report sub-mitted by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on the post-poll violence that transpired in West Bengal after the 2021 Assembly elections is politically motivated, the Mamata Banerjee government told the Calcutta High Court on Thursday.

Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi representing the Bengal government, told the five-judge Bench hearing the case, that the State should be given adequate time to respond to the NHRC report.

“NHRC report is a polit-ically motivated report. The homilies on independence of NHRC is laughable,” Singhvi submitted. Continued on P4

NHRC report politically motivated: State tells Cal HC

City: Pg 2‘Very unlikely’: SC on cops’ plea to cancel UAPA bail

Nation: Pg 6India can’t have parallel legal systems for rich and poor: SC

Film: Pg 12‘Everybody expects actors to be seen in a certain body type’

Ashwini Vaishnaw speaks in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday PTI

Will not allow Parliament to function till PM Modi makes statement on Pegasus controversy: TMC

Highlights »When Vaishnaw rose to speak on Pegasus, Trinamool Congress MP Shantanu Sen snatched his papers, tore, and flung them at Deputy Chairman Harivansh Na-rayan Singh, forcing the minister to lay the paper on the table instead

» There was a heated exchange of words between Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri and the Trinamool MP, after which marshals had to

intervene to bring the situation under control » The Rajya Sabha was later adjourned till Friday, the third time through the day. It was first adjourned till noon and then till 2 pm after MPs trooped into the Well of the House raising slogans and hold-ing placards » Sen said after the House was adjourned, Puri threat-ened him and “was about to attack me physically”. “My colleagues came to my rescue. This was very unfortunate,” he added

‘Very unlikely’: SC on cops’ plea to

cancel UAPA bail

Unprecedented protest barricading hits trafficABHAY SINGH

NEW DELHI: By Thursday morning, the Delhi Police had fortified the entire area around Jantar Mantar ahead of the farmers’ protest there and gone to the lengths of placing unprec-edented security measures around the area to ensure no disturbance marr the planned protest. But amid this heavy bar-ricading and security measures, traffic in the area was severely hit even as traffic units worked on diversionary routes.

New and heavy barricades, CCTV cameras were put in place as security measures. “CCTV cameras were installed at strategic points including trees to capture all the events,” an official said. The whole Jan-tar Mantar was turned into a fortress where after entry it can be closed.

The traffic unit also prepared the route map including the diversions which will be given to commuters on Thursday.

“Traffic movement is affected due to Local Police Picket on following roads, AIIMS towards Aurobindo chowk, Noida towards Delhi at Kalindi Kunj, Noida towards Akshardham at Chilla Border, Noida towards Ashram at DND and Ghaziabad towards Delhi at Pandav Nagar,” tweeted Delhi Traffic Police.

After the DDMA permit-ted the protest on Wednesday, Commissioner Balaji Srivastava had also taken rounds around Jantar Mantar to check security measures.

Later in the day, meetings were held between the top brass of Delhi Police and also the district police held their own meeting regarding the security arrangements.

In bordering areas as well, deployments were made and barricades were put in place. And policemen were deployed at strategic locations. Before the protest, Delhi Police once again held meetings and were seen

briefing the staff on the spot regarding their deployment.

Moreover, even the Intel-ligence Bureau had raised a security alert about a video being allegedly circulated by the banned Sikhs for Justice outfit. Security agencies were alerted and security was tight-ened. There were also specu-lations about January 26-like violence being repeated.

Deepak Yadav, DCP (New Delhi) said they had made full-proof security arrangements and

Jantar Mantar was totally sealed. “Both Delhi Police and para-military forces were deployed. Women companies were also deployed,” he said.

“Elaborate security arrange-ments were made by Delhi Police to ensure that the pro-gramme remained peaceful, keeping in view the ongoing Parliament session and the Inde-pendence Day requirements,” he said, adding that similar cooper-ation and coordination is antici-pated in future.

Minor scuffle: However, the protest on Thursday was briefly disrupted by a minor scuffle between some media persons, after which the Delhi Police temporarily detained a person claiming to be a freelance jour-nalist — and had hitched a ride to the protest with the farmers. The police have not received a formal complaint in the matter.

A media person said a per-son was abusing a woman journalist while she was doing live for her channel. When he along with other people tried to stop him, that person attacked them. Later in the night, the police released the man.

Police said a scuffle took place in the media enclosure in the morning between two journalists one Nagender Gos-ain (Hindi news channel) was allegedly hit by one Parabh-jot Singh (freelancer) at Jantar Mantar. He has an injury on his hand.

‘DY CM’S CHARGE OF L-G ENCROACHING ON ELECTED GOVT’S DOMAIN BASELESS’ NEW DELHI: Lt Governor Anil Baijal on Thursday wrote to Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia reject-ing as ‘baseless, lacking facts and evidence’ the lat-ter’s charges of him holding meetings with bureaucrats and instructing them about works that fall under the purview of the elected government in Delhi.

DSGMC ELECTIONS TO BE HELD ON AUG 22, DELHI GOVT TELLS HC NEW DELHI: Directorate of Gurdwara Elections informed the Delhi HC on Thursday that elections to the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee will be held on August 22 and the result would be announced by August 31. Advocate Satyakam, appearing for the Directorate and its officials, told a bench of Chief Jus-tice D N Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh that entire pro-cess of the DSGMC elections would be over by August 31, with counting scheduled to begin on August 25.

SC SEEKS TIME FRAME FROM GOVT FOR CREATING PORTAL ON INMATES NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court Thursday directed the Delhi government to apprise it about the time frame within which it would create a portal for pro-viding details about the period of incarceration un-dergone by inmates in prisons. A bench headed Chief Justice N V Ramana said the inmates have the right to know the period which they have spent inside jails and this can be provided to them and their counsel through the portal. It asked Additional Solicitor General Jay-ant Sud, appearing for the Delhi government, to do the needful at the earliest.

NEW DELHI: Delhi Prison authorities on Thursday allowed two-time Olympic medallist Sushil Kumar, lodged in Tihar jail in connection with the Chhatrasal Stadium brawl, to watch television in the com-mon area of his ward ahead of the Olympic games, which is set to begin on July 23, officials said.

On July 2, Kumar through his advocate had urged prison authorities to provide him a television to remain updated about wrestling matches and other happenings outside the jail.

The COVID-hit Olympic

games will begin at Tokyo in Japan on July 23.

Director General (Delhi Prisons) Sandeep Goel said, “We have allowed Sushil Kumar to watch television in the common area of his ward along with others since the Olympics is set to begin from tomorrow.

“He has made a request through his lawyer for a TV to stay updated about wres-tling matches and other happenings.”

Kumar was arrested along with co-accused Ajay Kumar on May 23 from outer Delhi’s Mundka area. MPOST

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court in an order has ruled that an assurance given by the Chief Minister in any press confer-ence should be treated as an enforceable promise and that the CM should exercise author-ity and enforce such a promise given out to the public.

A single judge bench of Jus-tice Pratibha M Singh in her order noted that “good gover-nance requires that promises made to citizens, by those who govern, are not broken, without valid and justifiable reasons”.

The order added that a rea-sonable citizen would by way of the press conference believe that the Chief Minister is speaking on behalf of the gov-ernment and hence his or her actions should be enforceable.

The bench was hearing a petition moved by daily wage labourers who were unable to pay their monthly rent and sought enforcement of Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal’s prom-

ise in a speech made on March 29 last year where he requested landlords and property dealers to postpone collecting money from their tenants in view of the Covid-induced financial crisis.

“The CM is expected to have had the said knowledge and is expected to exercise his authority to give effect to his promise/assurance. To that extent, it would not be out of the place to state that a reason-able citizen would believe that the CM has spoken on behalf of his Government, while making the said promise,” Justice Singh noted in her order.

The Court was dealing with a petition filed by daily wage labourers/ workers, who were unable to pay their monthly rent, to seek enforcement of a promise made by the Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal dated March 29 last year. In their plea they claimed that the said promise was not honoured by the CM and sought enforcement of the same on an urgent basis.

Sushil Kumar gets to watch Tokyo Games

HC directs Delhi govt to fulfill its promise of paying rent for poor

PIYUSH OHRIE

GURUGRAM: Two days after the first showers of the season exposed Gurugram’s drainage infrastructure, Haryana Home Minister Anil Vij on Thursday made a surprise visit to the offices of the Municipal Cor-poration of Gurugram in Sec-tor-34 and suspended up to two officials for negligent and irre-sponsible work.

“Situation over here is not good. There is no staff ratio-nalisation and accountability and responsibility of officials and workers over here are not fixed due to which the resi-dents are facing problems. I have directed certain steps of improvement and I will moni-

tor the situation,” said Anil VijVij, who also is the minister

for Urban local bodies.Much to the senior minis-

ter’s discomfort, he found sev-eral deficiencies and improper work conduct being practiced not only by junior officers but also the senior officials.

Inspection thereon by Vij

led to more inefficiencies and a lackadaisical work approach being practiced in the office of Haryana’s richest municipal body. On directions of Vij, two sub-divisional officers (SDO) were suspended after it was found that the officials had not worked in solving the com-plaints handed over to them

for months. Vij stated that a com-

mittee would be formed to probe the failures of MCG in preventing waterlogging. Vij acknowledged that he had been receiving complaints of ram-pant corruption and irregulari-ties in the MCG.

There have been sev-eral incidents that have been reported in the past where MCG and its officials have been accused of corruption in awarding tenders for various infrastructure projects.

During the pandemic when MCG incurred heavy losses in terms of revenue a large num-ber of these workers were sacked that also led to several protests.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Aam Aadmi Party slammed the Central government for its new Electricity Amendment Bill under which electricity will no longer be a right of the states and the move will take away subsidy from the farmers.

AAP’s Punjab president Bhagwant Mann and MLA Jarnail Singh said that after suppressing the farmers with the three black farm laws, the Modi government is now add-ing to that injury by introduc-ing the Electricity Amendment Bill, 2021.

Mann said that it is the same bill on which discussions had taken place during the 11 rounds of meetings between the farmers and BJP ministers Piyush Goyal and Narendra Singh Tomar.

The two AAP leaders said that the farmers have been demanding the repeal of the three black farm laws, and instead of listening to the farm-

ers the Central government has opted for “an insensitive and shameless stance”. The Modi government is conspiring to make farming ultra-expen-sive so that farmers surrender their lands to capitalists, alleged Mann.

“During the meetings, the farmers were promised that this bill will not be introduced. However, later during the all-party meeting, I was told that the promise was made under the condition that if these talks with the farmers reach some positive conclusion they will

not introduce the electric-ity bill. However, because that dialogue never reached any conclusion, they are now intro-ducing this bill,” he added.

The AAP leaders said that the Central government is now snatching electricity rights from the states, like they did with GST, agriculture, health, and education. Punjab gives 40 per cent of grains to the cen-tral pool, and the electricity at the tube wells was free for the farmers. “However, with this bill, the electricity subsidy that the farmers were getting from

the Punjab government will end,” he said.

“It is a loot on the rights of the states and is dangerous for the federal structure. The dic-tatorial Modi government is trying to destroy the states by forcibly imposing its orders,” Mann said.

He also said that his party will continue its protest against the black farm laws along with the Electricity Amendment Bill in the streets of Punjab till the Parliament.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday said that “it is very unlikely” that the Delhi Police will be able to convince the Court to set aside the bail given to anti-CAA activists Devangana Kalita, Natasha Narwal and Asif Iqbal Tanha by the Delhi High Court in the UAPA case related to the Delhi riots last year — but they are welcome to try.

A division bench of Justices SK Kaul and Hemant Gupta also asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta if they were aggrieved with the bail granted to the activ-ists or the interpretation of the UAPA as put forward by the HC in its order.

On this, SG Mehta said that they were aggrieved with both the issues and would like to address the Court on both counts. However, Justice Kaul shot back saying he had an issue over statutory provisions being discussed in bail orders.

“This has troubled us many times. Bail matters are heard at length in trial court, High Court and here. You can’t do it here. We only propose to hear this mat-ter for only a couple of hours,” Justice Kaul said.

However, when SG Mehta persisted that he will argue the matter on both the pointers, the Court said, “Very unlikely, but you can try”.

Justice Kaul added that bail orders are not in the nature of final adjudicatory proceedings and that a final call has to be taken on whether bail should be granted or not.

During the course of pro-ceedings, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Devangana and Natasha, submitted that he

wants to file the 20,000-page chargesheet that has been filed in the conspiracy case and sought permission to submit it in a pen drive so that he can refer to it while arguing the case.

The division bench allowed the same and adjourned the mat-ter for four weeks at the request of Sibal which wasn’t opposed by SG Mehta.

In an earlier hearing, the apex court had declined to stay the High Court order as sought by the Delhi Police in their Special Leave Petition (SLP) but had said that the interpretation of UAPA should be looked into.

The bench observed that one is the issue of bail and the other

is that in a bail proceeding, lots of observations have been made. Mehta said that this is not a polit-ical matter. At this, Justice Kaul observed, “Don’t make me lose my patience. Am I precluded from asking any question? You are making us say all this. You are not letting me speak. I am trying to segregate the case.

The bench told Mehta, Please don’t presume that we are against you. We only want to segregate the issue.

Additional Solicitor General Aman Lekhi, who also appeared for the police, said the issue is regarding the applicability of sec-tion 15 of the Unlawful Activi-ties (Prevention) Act (UAPA).

NORTH-EAST DELHI RIOTS

After rain havoc, 2 MCG officials suspended

City Briefs

2 millenniumpostCitympFRIDAY, 23 JULY, 2021 | NEW DELHI

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Pegasus row: Press associations demand SC-monitored probe

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Press associa-tions and journalist bodies on Thursday condemned the cases of alleged snooping on activ-ist, journalists and civil society members through the Israeli software Pegasus spyware and has demanded a Supreme Court-monitored inquiry into the same while demanding the government to provide answers on the surveillance mounted on their colleagues.

In a press conference held at the Press Club of India condemning the matter, The Editors Guild of India, Press Association, Delhi Union of Journalists, Indian Women’s Press Corps, Working News Cameraman Association and other media bodies strongly condemned the surveillance mounted on Indian journal-ists, activists, ministers, par-liamentarians and members of the judiciary.

MK Venu, co-founder of The Wire and also one of the victims of alleged snooping, claimed that it was a human rights issue and persons who are concerned about human

rights should equivocally con-demn such an act. He added that if the government is deny-ing it then atleast it should find out who carried out the snoop-ing of their phones.

“We can take this to court and a good case will me made out of this for appropriate adju-dication,” Venu said.

Senior journalist Puran-joy Guha Thakurta, whose phones was also among the ones allegedly infected by Peg-asus, said that he was writ-ing a story on Reliance and their business activities when his phone was snooped on in 2018.

Meanwhile, senior journal-ist Prem Shankar Jha said the said act is an attempt to muzzle dissent and that media bodies should be ready to go to courts if need be.

“The use of Pegasus spy-ware to snoop on Indian cit-izens and groups endangers Indian sovereignty and it is necessary that the government of India should intervene deci-sively and clarify how and why this was done,” the press bodies said, while demanding an SC-monitored probe.

Max temp settles at 34 deg Celsius, light rain expected

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The maximum temperature in the national capital settled at 34 degrees Celsius on Thursday, one notch below normal, the India Mete-orological Department (IMD) said.

The minimum temperature recorded at Safdarjung Obser-vatory was 25.6 degrees Celsius in the morning, two notches below normal, it said.

The relative humidity recorded at 5.30 pm was 70 per cent. The weatherman has predicted “generally cloudy sky with light rain’’ on Friday.

The maximum and min-imum temperatures are expected to settle around 35 and 25 degrees Celsius, respec-tively on Friday.

Delhi is likely to witness a generally cloudy sky with light rain or drizzle on Thursday, the

India Meteorological Depart-ment (IMD) said.

A MeT department official on Wednesday had said there won’t be heavy downpours till July 25, but there will be a good spell of rain after Monday.

Delhi’s air quality was in the “satisfactory” category in the morning. According to

the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the hourly air quality index (AQI) stood 78 at 7.05 pm.

An AQI between zero and 50 is considered “good”, 51 and 100 “satisfactory”, 101 and 200 “moderate”, 201 and 300 “poor”, 301 and 400 “very poor” and 401 and 500 “severe”.

‘THE BILL WILL END THE ELECTRICITY SUBSIDY FOR FARMERS’

Electricity Amendment Bill will snatch away rights of states: AAP slams Centre

IN OTHER NEWS » The JNU informed the HC on Thursday that its student Natasha Narwal, an accused in cases related to Delhi riots, has been granted provisional registration for PhD programme. Justice Prateek Jalan was informed by the varsity that even during pendency of proceedings emanating from a notice issued to Narwal by the authori-ties, pursuant to her registration she will be entitled to all the benefits of provisional registration. The court took the statement of advocate Monika Arora, representing JNU, on record and said no further orders are required to be passed and disposed of the petition

Highlights » The Modi govt is conspiring to make farming ultra-expensive so that farmers surrender their lands to capitalists, alleged Mann » Punjab gives 40% of grains to the central pool, and the electricity at the tube wells was free for the farmers

3millenniumpost City mpNEW DELHI | FRIDAY, 23 JULY, 2021

All Covishield doses now reserved as second dose

HC to resume physical functioning from Aug 16 on experimental basisOUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court Thursday said it may on experimental basis resume from August 16 its physical function-ing which was restricted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

An administrative order of the high court said this will be done in a restricted manner subject to further orders based on evaluation of the situation of the pandemic in Delhi.

The Full Court has further been pleased to observe that

physical hearings in this court may be resumed in a restricted manner with effect from August 16, 2021 on an experimental basis, subject to further orders based on evaluation of the sit-uation of the pandemic in the NCT of Delhi, the order issued by high court Registrar General Manoj Jain said.

Meanwhile, the order said all the benches of the high court, registrars and joint registrars (judicial) shall continue to take up urgent matters, as per the existing arrangement, through

video conferencing till August 13.

The order also said that all the pending routine or non-urgent matters listed in the high court between July 26 and August 13 shall be adjourned en-bloc to corresponding dates between September 10 and Sep-tember 30.

A similar order has been passed with regard to district court in Delhi where also phys-ical hearings may resume in a restricted manner from August 16 on experimental basis.

It also said that with effect from July 24, all the judicial offi-cers shall endeavour to take up all matters of their respective courts through video conferenc-ing and the weblinks of all the courts shall remain functional throughout the working hours.

Presently in the district courts, the judicial officers have been taking up urgent matters and final arguments cases’ of their respective courts through video conferencing till July 23 while the other matters are being adjourned.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: On account of the limited supply of Covid vaccines from the Centre, the Delhi government on Thurs-day issued an order to reserve Covishield shots only for ben-eficiaries whose second dose is due, across all its vaccination centres till July 31.

And with 80 per cent of Covaxin stocks also reserved for those due for their second dose, just about 50,000 doses of vaccines are available (as of Thursday morning) for those wishing to take their first dose

According to the latest data from the Delhi government, around 72 lakh people have received at least one dose of the vaccine, whereas around 22 lakh have received both doses.

A total of over 95 lakh doses have been adminis-tered in the Capital so far. The pace of vaccination in Delhi has been intermittent — in correspondence with the intermittent supply chain. Due to the regular delays in the sup-ply of vaccines, the pace has been disruptive.

However, what is of

note is that the supply is too less for Delhi to get even close to its daily capacity. According to an analysis of data from July so far, the city has administered over 1 lakh vac-cinations only on six days - the maximum being 1,61,901 on July 3.

But according to the Delhi government, the city is capa-ble of administering over 2.2 lakh shots every day across over 700 vaccination sites. The order issued by the Direc-torate of Family Welfare on Thursday said, all slots, booked online or availed through walk-in shall be reserved.

“Vaccination of 18-44 cohort began on May 1, 2021 and with the completion of the 84-day interval for second dose of Covishield, many of them would now become eligible for the second dose in coming weeks,” reads the order.

“In view of limited sup-ply of vaccine, all slots, both for online booking and walk-in vaccination in the sessions being planned in government CVCs administering Cov-ishield vaccine will be reserved for a second dose of Covishield

with immediate effect till July 31,” it said.

Both Covishield and Covaxin vaccines are admin-istered at Covid vaccina-tion centres (CVCs) run by the city government. The bulletin said Delhi had less than a day’s stock of vaccine doses left on Wednesday morn-ing after administering over 71,000 doses on Tuesday.

The national capital had received 85,810 doses of Cov-ishield on Tuesday, taking the total number of doses available in Delhi to 1,08,300

Delhi on Thursday reported 49 new Covid cases and one more death from the virus, tak-ing the active case tally here to 585.

The daily positivity rate on Thursday was recorded at 0.08 per cent with 58,502 tests con-ducted in the last 24 hours.

According to the CoWIN portal, maintained by the Cen-tral government, Delhi had administered around 48,000 doses of the vaccine until around 10:30 pm on Thursday

Significantly, the July data for vaccination in Delhi showed that average daily vaccinations

were around 75,000 doses. Delhi had been reeling under a brutal second wave of the pandemic that is sweeping the country, claiming a massive number of lives daily, with the recent oxygen supply shortage issue at various hospitals, add-ing to the woes.

Since April 19, both daily cases and single-day deaths count had been spiralling up, with over 28,000 cases and 277 deaths recorded on April 20; rising to 306 fatalities on April 22.

On May 3, the city reg-istered a record 448 deaths, as per the official data. However, the number of cases have shown a downward trend and the positivity rate too has been shrinking in the last sev-eral days.

The number of deaths per day has also been showing a decline in the last couple of days.

DIRECTION TILL JULY 31, SUPPLY SHORTAGE CITED

JAIN ADMINISTERS OATH OF OFFICE TO NEW DERC CHIEF J(RETD) HUSNAIN NEW DELHI: Power Minister Satyendar Jain on Thurs-day administered the oath of office to Justice Shabihul Husnain, a retired Allahabad High Court judge, as the new chairman of the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Com-mission, a government statement said. The appoint-ment of Justice Hasnain as the DERC chairman was approved last week by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal after his name was suggested by the selection commit-tee constituted under the Electricity Act 2003.

IMRAN HUSSAIN CONDUCTS SURPRISE INSPECTION OF FAIR PRICE SHOPS NEW DELHI: Food and Civil Supplies Minister Imran Hussain on Thursday conducted surprise inspections of fair price shops in Burari to take stock of the distribu-tion of ration through e-PoS devices under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) 2013 and the Pradhan Man-tri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojna (PMGKAY) for July 2021.

DISABILITY PENSION OF MANY PEOPLE PENDING SINCE 2017: DELHI MINISTER NEW DELHI: The disability pension of many people has been pending since 2017, Delhi Social Welfare minis-ter Rajendra Pal Gautam said on Thursday, following a surprise inspection of the department’s district offices. He asked officials to send an anganwadi worker or any officer to the applicant’s house to complete the docu-mentation in case the person could not be contacted.

City Briefs

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Sir Ganga Ram Hospital has reported 14 cases of unusual, large, multiple liver abscesses in patients who recov-ered from the second wave of COVID-19 infections, the hos-pital said on Thursday. “During the second wave, a number of COVID-19 patients presented with some unusual manifesta-tions. We saw for the first time in the last two months unusually large and multiple liver abscesses in 14 patients after recovery from COVID-19 infection”.

Liver abscess (pus formation in liver) is commonly caused by a parasite known as Entamoeba histolytica which is transmitted by contaminated food and water. “What we found unusual was that after recovery from Covid within 22 days in patients who were otherwise immunocompe-tent had large areas of both lobes of liver filled with pus at multi-ple locations requiring drainage and hospitalization”, said prof. Anil Arora, Chairman, Institute of Liver Gastroenterology and Pancreaticobiliary Sciences, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital.

He added: “These patients were between 28-74 years of age, 10 were males and four females. All patients had fever and upper abdominal pain and three patients also had associ-ated lower GI bleeding with black coloured stools. Eight of these patients received steroids for the management of COVID-19 symptoms. Six patients had multiple large abscesses in both lobes of liver of which five had unusually large abscess. Thirteen out of 14 patients were success-fully treated while one patient with large multiple abscesses died due to massive bleeding in abdomen after rupture of abscess in the abdominal cavity.”

Doctors found multiple and large abscesses in these patients which is very unusual for an immunocompetent person. Doc-tors believe that suppression of immunity by COVID-19 infec-tion along with use of steroids to treat Covid infection per se, low index of suspicion for liver abscess and delay in treatment in patients recuperating from Covid in this pandemic probably led to development of multiple and large abscesses in the liver.

14 post-Covid patients suffer large abscesses

in liver, one dies: SGRH

ACTIVE CASES

585DEATH TOLL

25,040

DELHI COUNT

COVID-19

The supply is too less for Delhi to get even close to its daily capacity

4 millenniumpostNationmpFRIDAY, 23 JULY, 2021 | NEW DELHI

Pegasus row“The press reports appeared a day before the

Monsoon Session of Parliament. This can’t be a coincidence.”

He added: “In the past, similar claims were made regarding the use of Pegasus.... Those claims had no factual basis and were categori-cally denied by all parties.” Amid the ruckus, Vaishnaw implored all members of the House to “examine the issue on facts and logic”.

There was a heated exchange of words between Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri and the Trinamool MP, after which marshals had to intervene to bring the situation under control.

Meanwhile, Trinamool Rajya Sabha MPs, Sukhendu Sekhar Roy and Derek O’Brien said protest in both the Houses of Parliament would continue till Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home minister Amit Shah made a struc-tured statement on the floor of the House on the Pegasus issue.

“We will not accept any written statement by the duo, which will be read in Parliament, but a thorough discussion on the matter,” O’Brien said. The Rajya Sabha was later adjourned till Friday, the third time through the day.

It was first adjourned till noon and then till 2 pm after MPs trooped into the Well of the House raising slogans and holding placards. “Members seem to be not interested in discussing peo-ple’s issues,” Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu said, adjourning the proceedings earlier in the day.

Sen said after the House was adjourned, Puri threatened him and “was about to attack me physically”. “My colleagues came to my rescue. This was very unfortunate,” he added.

The government will seek action against some Opposition MPs who allegedly misbehaved with the Treasury Bench members in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday after Sen snatched papers from Vaishnaw and tore those as he was about to make a statement on the alleged snooping row.

Government sources said some Opposition MPs “misbehaved” with the Treasury Bench members, including a minister, even after the House was adjourned.

The Central government will bring a privilege motion against TMC MPs who misbehaved with the IT minister, ANI reported citing sources.

“We are approaching the Rajya Sabha Chair-man seeking action against them as their behav-iour is a blow to parliamentary decorum,” a Union minister, who did not wish to be named, said.

The ruling BJP has described the Opposition’s conduct as a “new low” in Parliament.

The BJP on Thursday claimed that the story on the alleged snooping through Israeli spyware Pegasus is “concocted, fabricated and evidence-less” and that the new reports based on it call for “defamation”.

Union minister and BJP leader Meenakshi Lekhi cited reports to claim that Amnesty Inter-national, the human rights group associated with Pegasus Project, has denied the existence of a list of potential targets of the alleged snooping.

Addressing a press conference at the BJP headquarters, she alleged that the “fake” list is

like a collection of mobile numbers drawn from yellow pages and those have been used for “yel-low journalism”.

The Lok Sabha proceedings were repeatedly adjourned on Thursday amid sloganeering by Opposition members over various issues, includ-ing three recent farm laws.

When the House re-assembled at 4 pm after the repeated adjournments, the uproarious scenes continued even as Bhartruhari Mahtab, who was in the Chair, asked the protesting mem-bers to go back to their seats.

However, the Opposition members did not relent, forcing the Chair to adjourn the proceed-ings for the day. The Lok Sabha will meet at 11 am on Friday.

Earlier, the proceedings were adjourned thrice and the last adjournment was till 4 pm.

The Opposition members raised slogans over a range of issues, including the Pegasus snoop-ing row and demanding a rollback of the three farm laws.

I-T dept raids“Agencies are doing their own work and

there is no interference in them,” Union minister Anurag Thakur said in response to the criticism.

“One should take complete information and sometimes many issues come up that are far from truth...,” he said, replying to a question on the Congress’ allegation that the raids were intended to throttle the voice of democracy.

Both ‘Dainik Bhaskar’ and ‘Bharat Samachar’ have been critical of the COVID-19 manage-ment in the country and done numerous stories highlighting the failings of authorities and the distress of people during the second wave of the pandemic.

Giving details of the searches, sources said the premises of ‘Bharat Samachar’ and its promoters and staffers were raided in Lucknow.

‘Bharat Samachar TV’ said on its official Twit-ter handle that searches are being conducted at the “house of its Editor-in-Chief Brajesh Mishra, state head Virendra Singh, houses of some employees and the channel office”.

Tax sleuths also raided some premises linked to BJP MLA from Uttar Pradesh’s Harraiya Assembly seat Ajay Singh and his associates. It was, however, not immediately clear if the raids were connected to the media groups.

In Bhopal, personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force and the Madhya Pradesh police were seen providing security to tax officials searching the residential premises of Dainik Bhaskar’s promoters.

‘Dainik Bhaskar’ posted a message on its web-site saying the government was scared of its true journalism. From bodies in the Ganga to Corona deaths, the group that brought the real num-bers in front of the country is being raided by the government, it said in a message in Hindi. “I am independent because I am Bhaskar, only the readers will matter in Bhaskar,” it added.

The group said the raids were carried out at the homes of many staffers. The mobile phones of those in office were seized and they were not being allowed to go out, it said.

“Officials involved in the raids said this was part of the process and they will be released after panchmana proceedings are done,” it said, add-ing that the digital team working on the night shift was released only at 12.30 pm.

Senior income tax officers in the team have not clarified the reason for these searches till now, it said.

Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh CM Digvijaya Singh said on Twitter that tax offi-cials had been “present” at half-a-dozen prem-ises of the Dainik Bhaskar Group, including at its office at the Press Complex in Bhopal.

Singh also raised the matter in the Rajya Sabha, where proceedings were adjourned twice after Opposition members tried to bring up the issues of income tax raids on the Dainik Bhas-kar Group and alleged snooping using Pegasus spyware.

“The attack on journalists and media houses is yet another BRUTAL attempt to stifle democ-racy. #DainikBhaskar bravely reported the way @narendramodi ji mishandled the entire #COVID crisis and led the country to its most horrifying days amid a raging pandemic,” Mamata Banerjee tweeted.

“Urging everyone in the Media to stay strong. Together we shall never let the autocratic forces succeed!” she said.

Reacting to the raids, Kejriwal termed the searches an “attempt to scare the media”.

His counterpart in Rajasthan, Congress leader Gehlot, said the raids “on Dainik Bhaskar newspaper & Bharat Samachar news channel are a brazen attempt to suppress the voice of media”.

“Modi government cannot tolerate even an iota of its criticism. Due to its fascist mentality, the BJP doesn’t want to see the truth in a demo-cratic setup,” he tweeted.

His party colleague, Madhya Pradesh Con-gress chief Kamal Nath, described the searches as an attempt by the Central government to sup-press the “fourth pillar of democracy” and pre-vent the truth from coming out.

Report politically motivated

The Court eventually granted the State gov-ernment time till July 26 to file its response to the NHRC report and posted the case for further hearing on July 28.

“Request has been made by State to give them further time to file response to NHRC report. One last opportunity is granted to file affidavit of any before July 26. Matter to be taken up on July 28 at 11 am,” the Court ordered.

A seven-member committee of the NHRC had visited Bengal to hold an inquiry into allega-tions of widespread political violence in the state after the TMC had swept to power for the third consecutive time after inflicting a resounding defeat on the BJP.

The NHRC probe itself came pursuant to an order passed by the Calcutta High Court, on June 18, directing the Chairperson of NHRC to constitute a committee to examine complaints by persons displaced by post-poll violence.

The order was passed on a bunch of petitions alleging that many people from the Opposition party were subject to violence by TMC workers.

The NHRC after the investigation had sub-mitted its report accusing the ruling TMC of turning affairs into the “law of ruler”, instead of “rule of law”.

When the case before the High Court was heard on Thursday, NHRC counsel Subir Sanyal

maintained that the allegations should be probed by an independent agency without any interven-tion from the state government.

The Court, however, did not approve of the NHRC taking such a stand.

“You (NHRC) should not tell how to go for-ward based in report. That is for petitioner and State to argue. You (NHRC) are not a contesting party. You are not allowing others to make sub-missions,” the Bench remarked.

Refraining to comment on the issue as the matter is sub-judice, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday accused the NHRC of sub-mitting a report that was prepared by the BJP containing fabricated stories — like fake videos — to the Court in connection with the issue. Moreover, it had been made public before the Court gave its verdict.

She also claimed that her party workers were killed in those areas where BJP has won seats in the Assembly polls.

“There was no post-poll violence in the state. The incidents had taken place when the law and order situation was under the Election Commis-sion’s jurisdiction. I had taken oath on May 5 and made necessary changes in the administrative set-up as all officers were changed by the EC. BJP killed people wherever they have won,” Baner-jee said.

She further maintained: “They have posted a BJP’s man as a member of the NHRC. If needed, check his details on social media. The report was given as per the directions received from the BJP party office. It was made public before the Court gave its order in the matter. Fabricated incidents have been highlighted in the report, including circulation of fake videos.”

Jantar MantarThe buses were fully packed with people,

flags and placards — with little room for social distancing.

“Today is a historical day in a historical peo-ple’s movement,” said Samyukt Kisan Morcha. As per farmer leaders, on the call of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha, a Kisan Sansad was organised at Jantar Mantar, near Parliament.

At this Sansad, farmer leaders spoke about repealing the three farm laws and also about the Pegasus scandal. They asked Parliamentarians to raise their voice in both Houses for the repeal of the three farm laws. BKU leader Rakesh Tikait said that these sessions will be held to show MPs how they should be deliberating on the three farm laws.

Already having decided that they would eat their own food, the farmers had arranged for lan-gars that had been prepared and packed for them to eat at the protest.

The Delhi Police briefly stopped the press from entering the site but subsequently, let them in. At 5 pm, the farmers peacefully boarded their buses back to the Singhu border, with the police concluding that the first day of agitation was peaceful and without trouble.

However, even as the farmers decided to return on Friday, Union Agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar appealed to them to end their protest and come to the table for dialogue. He asserted that the three contentious farm laws had been hailed by “farmers across the coun-try” and said the government is willing to discuss anything other than the repeal of the laws.

Asserting that the government is sensitive towards farmers, the minister said in the last seven years under the leadership of Prime Minis-ter Narendra Modi, major steps have been taken in the agriculture sector, the benefits of which are reaching cultivators across the country. WITH PTI INPUTS

Covid casesThe number of people who have recuperated

from the disease surged to 3,04,29,339 and the case fatality rate stands at 1.34 per cent, the data stated.

Cumulative vaccine doses administered so far has reached 41.78 crore under the nationwide vaccination drive.

The Delta variant of SARS-CoV2 continues to be the dominant lineage for new cases across the country, while the other Variants of Con-cern (VoC) are at a lower rate and declining, INSACOG, a consortium of government panels involved in the genome-sequencing of the Coro-navirus, has said.

There is currently no evidence of any new Delta sub-lineage that is of greater concern than Delta, it has said.

“Delta continues to be the dominant lineage for new cases across all parts of India in recent samples and remains the most rapidly rising lin-eage globally that is responsible for multiple out-breaks, including across Southeast Asia, which shows the fastest growth in new cases globally,” the INSACOG said.

Regions with high vaccination and strong public health measures, such as Singapore, con-tinue to do well, it noted.

The Delta variant was behind the deadly sec-ond wave in India that killed thousands and infected lakhs from March to May.

The INSACOG said a study by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has con-firmed that most of the clinical cases in vaccine breakthrough were infected with the Delta vari-ant but only 9.8 per cent cases required hospitali-sation, while fatality was found to be restricted to 0.4 per cent.

It added that the data for higher infectivity of Delta continues to grow with the secondary attack rate in household contacts being almost double for Delta, when compared to Alpha (Pub-lic Health England, July 9 update). The other VoC continues to be very low in India and are declining relative to Delta globally.

“Public health measures to reduce trans-mission and vaccination remain critical,” the INSACOG stressed. No cases of the Lambda variant have so far been reported in the country, it added.

Amnesty International

“Amnesty International categorically stands by the findings of the Pegasus Project, and that the data is irrefutably linked to potential tar-gets of NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware. The false rumours being pushed on social media are intended to distract from the widespread unlaw-ful targeting of journalists, activists and others that the Pegasus Project has revealed,” Amnesty International said in a statement.

From Page 1

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said on Thursday that in last five years, BJP has appointed three “zero-work ministers” as the CM of Uttarakhand.

He questioned if the people of Uttarakhand want to choose the corrupt government of the opposition party to lead them or do they want an honest and staunch patriot like Colonel Ajay Kothiyal to become the next CM of Uttarakhand.

“When I visited markets and restaurants of Uttarakhand

today, I met diverse groups of people and asked people how the Chief Minister of Utta-rakhand should be – some-one who increases corruption and doesn’t stop it, or some-one who is a staunch desh-bhakt, who serves its people and leads the path for national development like Col. Kothi-yal. I received positive answers from the youth when asked if Col. Kothiyal should be the next CM of Uttarakhand,” Siso-dia said.

Sisodia said that the party in power in Uttarakhand was pre-viously led by Trivendra Singh

Rawat and then Tirath Singh Rawat, both were loosely called “zero-work chief ministers”. "Now Pushkar Dhami has been appointed as the new CM of Uttarakhand who has openly said that he will not stop any-one from stealing," he said.

The Deputy CM alleged that Uttarakhand has immensely corrupt and irresponsible lead-ers under the garb of Chief Ministers but it also has strong patriots like the Aam Aadmi Party’s minister Colonel Ajay Kothiyal who is renowned for his sincerity, good work, and service.

Anil Ambani among potential Pegasus spyware targets: Report

MUMBAI: Chiplun, Khed and some other towns in Maha-rashtra's Ratnagiri were inun-dated following heavy rains, with inclement weather and incessant downpour creating difficulties for the government agencies to carry out res-cue operations in this district located in the Konkan region, a state minister said on Thursday.

An official said that two persons died due to a landslide near Parshuram ghat in the dis-trict during the day.

Teams of the Army and Navy are assisting rescue oper-ations in the flood-hit Raigad and Ratnagiri districts of the coastal Konkan region.

An Air Force helicopter too has been made available for res-cue operations in Ratnagiri dis-trict, said a statement from the Chief Minister Uddhav Thac-keray’s office.

The chief minister was in constant touch with the local authorities, it said. Teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Coast Guard, Navy and Army have been deployed in the region and the State Disaster Management Authority has begun rescue and relief operations, it said.

NDRF teams have been sent to western Maharashtra’s San-gli, Satara and Kolhapur dis-tricts too, the CMO added. Two teams of the force have been deployed in Shirol and Karvir tehsils of Kolhapur, it informed.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thac-keray about the situation in some parts of the state and assured him of all possible sup-

port from the Centre.Nearly 6,000 passengers

were stranded as train services on the Konkan Railway route in Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri district were suspended on Thursday after a river overflowed follow-ing heavy rains, while inces-sant downpour badly hit road and rail traffic in several parts of the state.

“Spoke to Maharashtra CM Shri Uddhav Thackeray and discussed the situation in parts of Maharashtra in the wake of

heavy rainfall and flooding. Assured all possible support from the Centre to mitigate the situation. Praying for everyone’s safety and well-being. @Offi-ceofUT,” Modi said in a tweet.

Major rivers in Ratnag-iri district, including Jagbudi, Vashishti, Kodavali, Shastri, Bav have been flowing above the danger level following heavy rains. As a result of this, Khed, Chiplun, Lanja, Raja-pur, Sangameshwar towns and nearby areas have been affected

and the government agen-cies are engaged in the task of shifting local residents to safer places, the Maharashtra Chief Minister's Office (CMO) said earlier.

Talking to PTI over phone, Transport Minister Anil Parab, who is the district guardian minister of Ratnagiri, said that road connectivity in parts of the district has been completely snapped due to heavy rains.

"Chiplun town is com-pletely inundated. Similar sit-uation prevails in Khed. There is difficulty in reaching these places since all roads are closed. Rescue teams from municipal-ity, Coast Guard, Customs are using their boats to shift people from the low- lying areas. We have opened marriage halls, school buildings so that the evacuated people can spend their night there," he said.

Parab, who is in Ratnagiri to monitor the rescue and relief operations, said that National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams are unable to reach the spots due to unfa-vourable weather conditions.

"The helicopters that are engaged in the operations had to go back. The stranded peo-ple will be evacuated to safer places when choppers reach. Till then, we are providing food and water to the affected peo-ple, he added.

The minister said that the region has been witnessing continuous rain and the water level of rivers is not showing signs of receding.

Ratnagiri collector told PTI that incessant showers led to an incident landslide in the dis-

trict, in which two persons were killed.

"The landslide near Parshuram ghat claimed the lives of two persons. A rescue team has reached the spot to assess if there was any more damage. Identification of the victims is being carried out. Heavy rainfall and flooding on the streets have affected the communication in the region," he said.

"The flooding in Chiplun town has not claimed any life so far. But we will be able to assess the damage to life and property only after the water recedes," Patil said.

Earlier in the day, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray took a review of the situation in Ratnagiri and Raigad districts by holding a meeting with the officials. During the meeting, he said that the India Meteoro-logical Department (IMD) has issued an alert of heavy rain-fall in this region for the next three days.

Two persons were miss-ing after landslide took place in the Wai tehsil of Western Maharashtra’s Satara district on Thursday evening, an official said. The incident took place at Devrookhwadi, a remote area of the tehsil, said district col-lector Shekhar Singh.

“Twenty-seven people from five affected houses were res-cued but two persons are still missing, he told PTI. We had to halt the rescue operations due to incessant rains and the possi-bility of further landslide at the same site. The operation will commence tomorrow morn-ing, he said. AGENCIES

Maha: Ratnagiri inundated after heavy rains, 2 dead in landslide

Army, Navy teams deployed in flood-hit Konkan; PM Modi discusses situation in parts of Maharashtra with Thackeray, promises all help

Buses submerged in a flood affected area following heavy rains, at Chiplun in Ratnagiri district, on Thursday PIC/PTI

Manish Sisodia campaigns for Col. Kotyal in U'khand

NEW DELHI: Eight phones of the then CBI director Alok Verma and his family members were put in the list of devices tar-geted for snooping using Peg-asus spyware by an unknown Indian agency soon after he was divested of the coveted charge on October 23, 2018, The Wire reported on Thursday.

Along with Verma, phones of his second-in-command Spe-cial Director Rakesh Asthana, against whom he had registered a corruption case on October 21, 2018, and the then Joint Direc-tor A K Sharma were also put on the list for surveillance using sophisticated malware, it said.

According to the report, eight phones belonging to Verma family, including three of him along with those of his wife, daughter and son-in-law were put in the list of persons of interest targeted by the Israeli snooping malware. All these numbers, including that of Ast-hana and Sharma, remained in

the list for a short period till Verma retired from service on January 31, 2019. They were taken off the list in February, 2019, it said. The potential tar-gets also include industrialist Anil Ambani as well as a senior official of ADA Group.

The Wire has reported that phone numbers that have been used by Anil Ambani and one other official of the Reli-ance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) were added to the leaked list that was analysed by media partners of the Pega-sus Project consortium.

“Apart from Ambani, the other company official whose numbers appear on the list include corporate communi-cations chief Tony Jesudasan, as well as Jesudasan’s wife,” the report said while adding that it could not be confirmed whether Anil Ambani is currently using the number listed. There was no immediate comment from ADAG on the report. As per

the report, the number for Das-sault Aviation’s representative in India, Venkata Rao Posina, for-mer Saab India head Inderjit Sial and Boeing India boss Pratyush Kumar all appear in the leaked database at different periods of time in 2018 and 2019.

The number of Harmanjit Negi, head of the French firm energy EDF, is also in the leaked database, a significant choice given that he was a member of Emmanuel Macron’s official delegation during the French president’s visit to India during this period, it added.

Israeli group NSO insists the leaked database accessed by French non-profit media organisation Forbidden Sto-ries has nothing to do with it or its software Pegasus which is being used by "vetted governments".

The government and the ruling BJP have dismissed the Pegasus Project reports as con-cocted and evidence-less. AGENCIES

‘Former CBI chief Alok Verma, kin on Pegasus snooping list’

5millenniumpost Nation mpNEW DELHI | FRIDAY, 23 JULY, 2021

DHIRENDRA KUMAR

NEW DELHI: As farmers take the centrestage in Lutyen’s Delhi after being allowed to protest at Jantar Mantar against the controversial agriculture laws, the Congress on Thurs-day changed its strategy in Lok Sabha and started protest-ing against the government in support of farmer’s demand of withdrawal of all three contro-versial agriculture laws.

Prior to raising farmers’ issue, the Congress had joined other opposition parties in tak-ing on the government over the Pegasus ‘hacking’ controversy which led to repeated disrup-tion of Lok Sabha.

The sudden change in the Congress’ strategy in the House is aimed at showcasing its pro-farmer stand to gain the sup-port of the farming community in the upcoming assembly elec-tions, mainly in the states of Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. The elections in these two impor-tant states are due in the next year.

The protest against the controversial agriculture laws

started by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who along with party MPs, staged a protest in the Parliament premises in sup-port of farmers.

Congress MPs from both houses gathered outside Mahatma Gandhi’s statue in

the Parliament complex and raised slogans against the gov-ernment and the prime minis-ter. They also carried placards and hoardings to raise slogans in support of the farmers and their demands.

The party leaders believe

that the issue of farmers would give them more visibility than the Pegasus row and put the BJP on the backfoot.

Congress leader in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowd-hury said that the party MPs in both houses of Parliament

are urging the chair to allow a discussion on the farmers’ issue and have given adjourn-ment notices, but the same is not being accepted.

The government claims that it is ready to discuss anything, but when Congress MPs give notices for a discussion, the same are disallowed, Chowd-hury alleged.

“What kind of politics is being played by the BJP? They have cornered us from all sides. We are not shown on the tele-vision inside the House, we are not allowed to speak inside Parliament,” Chowdhury said.

He also said that the pro-testing farmers have been dubbed as Pakistanis, terror-ists and anti-nationals by the BJP-led government, but they are not going to budge.

In Rajya Sabha, Congress MPs Deepender Singh Hooda and Partap Singh Bajwa gave a notice of breach of privilege against the Delhi Police to the Rajya Sabha secretary general, alleging attempts by cops to obstruct them from briefing the media on farmers’ issues at Vijay Chowk.

Congress changes strategy in House, shifts focus on farmersParty leaders believe that farmers’ issue would give them more visibility

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Trinamool Con-gress (TMC) MPs in Rajya Sabha demanded on Thurs-day that the draconian farm laws should be scrapped immediately.

While addressing a press conference in New Delhi, TMC Rajya Sabha MPs, Sukhendu Sekhar Roy and Derek O’ Brien said during the meeting of the Business

Advisory Committee of Rajya Sabha, the party legislators urged the deputy chairman not to allot time to discuss the issue instead repeal the laws immediately.

Later, Roy said despite repeated requests, the Cen-tre had not taken any step to resolve the impasse. “The dilly-dally attitude of the Centre has affected the farmers badly and time has come when it should come forward and resolve the

impasse,” he said.Meanwhile, Trinamool

MPs, both from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha met over lunch at the residence of Sukhendu Sekhar Roy on Thursday after-noon. Abhishek Banerjee, the newly appointed all India general secretary of the party attended Lok Sabha on Thurs-day and held discussion with his colleagues. This was Baner-jee’s maiden visit to Delhi after getting the new post.

It was learnt the MPs dis-cussed the strategies to be formulated to put pressure on the Modi government on key issues like the failure to bring down the prices of fuel and cooking gas and Covid pandemic, Pegasus issue and scrapping of the farm laws. Yashwant Sinha, TMC national vice-president and PK also met the Parliamentar-ians over lunch.

It may be mentioned that

Trinamool Congress chair-person Mamata Banerjee is going to Delhi for 2 to 3 days next week.

She will meet the Prime Minister and is most likely to meet the President. She had also requested the opposition leaders on Wednesday to fix a meeting so that she could meet them and begin talks to pave the way for the unity of the opposition parties against the BJP.

Scrap farm laws immediately: TMC in Rajya Sabha

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi with party MPs and other members takes part in a protest against the farm reform laws, during the Monsoon Session of Parliament, in New Delhi, on Thursday PIC/PTI

SIMONTINI BHATTACHARJEE

NEW DELHI: Trinamool Con-gress will continue its protest in the Parliament till both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Union Home Minister Amit Shah respond to the Pegasus spyware controversy.

The decision has been taken by the TMC parliamentary party on Thursday, while the newly appointed general secretary and Lok Sabha member Avishek Banerjee chaired a meeting in the morning of the same day. The meeting took place at the parliamentary party office, fol-lowing a lunch in the after-noon at the residence of senior TMC leader and Rajya Sabha member Sukhendu Sekhar Roy at the Mahadev Road. While addressing the media per-sons TMC Rajya Sabha mem-ber Derek O'Brien informed that the Chief Whip and other three members of the Upper House submitted notice under Rule 267 to discuss the serious spyware issue.

"Pegasus software is being used to track terrorism and other pressing matters inter-nationally. However, now it is being used for surveillance pur-

poses on opposition leaders, judges, officers and journalists, who are the pillars of the democ-racy," he mentioned.

According to media reports published so far, the phone numbers of former Con-gress president Rahul Gan-dhi, TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee and elec-tion strategist Prashant Kishor figure on the list of num-bers allegedly under surveil-lance by the spyware Pegasus. "TMC demands a single-line answer from the Indian gov-ernment that whether it has paid NSO for the spyware! This is not a video game. It is some-thing serious, using interna-tional services to spy on specific persons of the country. Hence, both the Prime Minister and the Home Minister have to answer, not the IT minister," O'Brien added.

Union Information Technol-ogy Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has already addressed the Parlia-ment over the snooping issue, however, the opposition party leaders see it as preposterous. Trinamool also claimed that after the Narendra Modi gov-ernment came to the power, no proper discussion has taken

place under Rule 267, senior TMC Rajya Sabha member Sukhendu Sekhar Roy claimed. Making a scathing attack on the incumbent BJP-led NDA government, Roy claimed that during 2019 general election used the snooping software to rig the TMC's election strategy and managed 18 Lok Sabha seats from West Bengal.

The party MPs also raised the issue of repealing the farm laws. The TMC parlia-mentary party appealed to the incumbent government not to allocate any time slot to only discuss but to revoke. Trinamool chairperson and West Bengal chief minister will be on her visit to the national capital in the next week. She is scheduled to hold a slew of important political meetings with other opposition leaders over various issues.

Banerjee has also confirmed her meeting with Prime Min-ister Narendra Modi and will be meeting President Ram Nath Kovind. This will be her first meeting in New Delhi after her stupendous victory in the West Bengal Assembly Elections in May. She retained power for the third time.

TMC to continue protest on Pegasus till PM, HM respond

NEW DELHI: A petition has been filed before the Supreme Court seeking a court-moni-tored probe by a Special Inves-tigation Team (SIT) into the reports of alleged snooping by government agencies using Israeli spyware Pegasus over journalists, activists, politicians and others.

The petition, filed by advo-cate M L Sharma, said the Peg-asus scandal was a matter of grave concern and a serious attack upon Indian democracy, judiciary and country's security and the widespread and unac-

countable use of surveillance is morally disfiguring .

Privacy is not about the wish to hide, as is often asserted. It is about having a space of one's own where our thoughts and being are not the instrument of someone else's purposes. It is an essential com-ponent of dignity and agency, it said.

The plea said the use Pega-sus was not just eavesdropping on conversations but can be used to access the entire digital imprint of one's life as it ren-ders helpless not just the owner

of the phone hacked but every-one who is in contact with him.

The petition, which is likely to come up for hearing in the coming days, said the national security implications of the revelations were enor-mous as the explosive growth of surveillance technology ven-dors is a global security and human rights problem. The PIL claimed that around 50,000 phone numbers were believed to be targeted by clients of the company, NSO Group, since 2016, that was leaked to major news outlets. AGENCIES

Plea filed in SC seeking SIT probe into Pegasus snooping allegations

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REVIEW MEETING

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar holds a review meeting regarding implementation of Atal Bhujal Yojana in the state at Chandigarh, on Thursday PIC/PTI

12 MINOR GIRLS ESCAPE FROM GOVT SHELTER, RECOVERED WITHIN HRS BALLIA (UP): Twelve minor girls escaped from a government protection home after scaling its bound-ary wall in Ballia district of Uttar Pradesh, but were recovered by police within a couple of hours, an of-ficer said on Thursday. Six employees of the Govern-ment Children Home (Girls) in Phephna area of the district have been suspended for negligence after the inmates managed to escape on Tuesday night. The superintendent of the home informed the police about the incident and within two hours, all of them were safely recovered, District Probation Officer Samar Bahadur Saroj said.

MASTERMIND IN SURGEON KIDNAP-PING CASE KILLED IN ENCOUNTER AGRA (UP): The mastermind in the kidnapping case of a senior surgeon, along with his colleague, was killed in an encounter here, police said on Thursday. Badan Singh and his gang had kidnapped senior surgeon Dr Umakant Gupta on July 13 and demand-ed Rs 5 crore as a ransom for his release, they said. However, with the joint efforts of the Agra Police and the Rajasthan Police, Gupta was rescued on July 15 from the ravines of the Chambal valley in Rajasthan’s Dholpur, police said. Senior Superintendent of Police, Agra, Muniraj G said main accused Badan Singh, along with his colleague, was shot dead in an encoun-ter with police in the forests of Kachhpura under the Basai Jagner police Station area in Agra rural on the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday.

Nation Briefs

6 millenniumpostNationmpFRIDAY, 23 JULY, 2021 | NEW DELHI

OUR CORRESPONDENT

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Thursday said the CBI can inquire into the trans-fer and postings of police personnel and the reinstate-ment of Sachin Waze in the police force, "so far as this has a nexus with Maharashtra's former home minister Anil Deshmukh and his associates".

A division bench of Jus-tices S S Shinde and N J Jama-dar also noted that it was the duty of the Commissioner of Police to enforce the law of the land and he is "not a servant of anyone, but the law itself ".

The court also said that the CBI, a premier investigat-ing agency, can and must be allowed to take responsibility and authority in the investi-gation, and with an assurance that it shall act in accordance with law.

The court dismissed a petition filed by the Maha-rashtra government seek-ing for two paragraphs from the Central Bureau of Inves-tigation's (CBI) FIR against NCP leader Anil Deshmukh to be set aside.

While one paragraph is about allegations levelled against Deshmukh by Sachin Waze, who has been dismissed

from police service after his arrest in the Antilia bomb scare case, the second para-graph pertains to corruption in transfers and postings of police officials.

The investigating agency (CBI) in our view can legit-imately carry on its inquiry into the transfer and post-ings of police personnel and the reinstatement of Sachin Waze in the police force after 15 years, so far as this has a nexus with the former home minister (Deshmukh) and his associates, the court said.

The bench in its order also made remarks on police com-missioner, saying, The Com-missioner of Police is not a servant of anyone, but the law itself.

We hold it to be the duty of the Commissioner of Police to enforce the law of the land and he must take steps to post his men so that crime is detected and honest citizens can go about their work, the bench said.

Notably, when Deshmukh was the state home min-ister, senior IPS offi-cer Param Bir Singh had served as Mumbai's police commissioner. In March this year, Singh in a letter to Maha-rashtra Chief Minister Uddhav

Thackeray levelled allega-tions of corruption against Deshmukh.

The high court on Thurs-day noted that conversely, the observations made by another bench of the HC in its order of April 5 this year, directing the CBI to carry out a preliminary enquiry against Deshmukh, cannot be construed as to giv-ing unfettered authority to the agency to inquire into trans-fers and postings of police per-sonnel in general.

The CBI, a premier inves-tigating agency, can and must be allowed to take respon-sibility and authority in the investigation and with an assurance that it (CBI) shall act in accordance with law, the court said.

Senior counsel Rafiq Dada, appearing for the Maharashtra

government, sought the HC to stay its judgment for a period of two weeks.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the CBI, however, opposed it and said a stay would amount to inter-ference with the investigation.

The high court refused to stay its judgment.

The CBI on April 21 this year registered an FIR against Deshmukh on charges of cor-ruption and misuse of official position.

The FIR was lodged after the agency conducted a pre-liminary enquiry against the NCP leader following an order from the HC on April 5.

The state government in its petition had said issues regarding transfer and post-ings of police personnel and allegations levelled by Waze against Deshmukh were not relevant to the central agen-cy's case.

One of the paragraphs, which the government has challenged, stated that the central agency in its Pre-liminary Enquiry (PE) had found former state home minister Anil Deshmukh was aware of the reinstatement of dismissed assistant police inspector (API) Sachin Waze into the police after 15 years

and sensitive and sensational cases being given to Waze for investigation .

Waze is presently behind bars after being arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) for his alleged role in the case of an explosives-laden vehicle found near the resi-dence of industralist Mukesh Ambani here in February this year and the subsequent mur-der of businessman Mansukh Hiran.

The second paragraph, challenged by the govern-ment, stated that Deshmukh and others exercised undue influence over the transfer and postings of police offi-cers, as alleged by former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh.

The state government in its plea claimed it does not want to interfere in the CBI's probe against Deshmukh and others beyond these two allegations, which were not mandated to be investigated as per the April 5 order of the HC.

The plea, filed by the state government on April 30, said inserting the said two para-graphs was to find out some material enabling opposition parties in the state to try and destabilise the present govern-ment in Maharashtra.

NEW DELHI: India cannot have two parallel legal systems, one for the rich and resource-ful and those who wield polit-ical power and the other for small men without resources and capabilities to access jus-tice, the Supreme Court said on Thursday.

The apex court also said the "colonial mindset meted out to the district judiciary" must change to preserve the faith of citizens and stated that judges are "made targets when they stand up for what is right".

The top court made these crucial observations while cancelling the bail granted to Madhya Pradesh BSP MLA's husband, who was arrested in over two-year-old murder case of Congress leader Devendra Chourasia.

An independent and impartial judiciary is the cor-

nerstone of democracy and it should be immune from political pressures and con-siderations, the top court said. India cannot have two paral-lel legal systems, one for the rich and resourceful and those who wield political power and the other for small men with-out resources without capabili-ties to gain justice.

The existence of dual sys-tem will only chip away the

legitimacy of the law. The duty also falls on the state machin-ery to be committed to the rule of law, the top court said.

A bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and M R Shah said district judiciary is the first point of interface with the citizens. If the faith of citizens in the judiciary is to be pre-served, it is the district judi-ciary on which attention must be focused, the bench said.

The top court said trial court judges work amidst appalling conditions, lack of infrastructure, inadequate pro-tection and there are examples of judges being made targets when they stand up for what is right. Also there is sadly a subservience to the adminis-tration of the high courts for transfers and postings which renders them vulnerable, the bench said. MPOST

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The govern-ment is very concerned about the well-being of women farm-ers protesting at Delhi borders, Women and Child Develop-ment Minister Smriti Irani told the Rajya Sabha on Thursday.

Replying to a question, Irani said the agriculture min-istry has appealed to the pro-testing farmers' unions that women should be requested to go home keeping in view the severe weather conditions and Covid pandemic.

"The government has been very concerned about the well-being of women farmers. The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare during dis-cussions with the farmers' unions appealed to them that children and elders, especially women, should be requested to go home keeping in view the severe weather conditions and the Covid pandemic," Irani said in a written reply.

"Basic amenities for taking care of the condition of citizens, including that of women farm-ers, are provided by the con-

cerned local body and state/UT government," she added.

Thousands of farmers from across the country have been agitating at three Delhi bor-der points -- Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur -- against the three farm laws that they claim will do away with the minimum support price system, leav-ing them at the mercy of big corporations.

Over 10 rounds of talks with the government, which has been projecting the laws at major agricul-tural reforms, have failed to break the deadlock between the two sides.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

MUMBAI: Mumbai police has registered an FIR against senior IPS officer Param Bir Singh, five other police per-sonnel and two more persons for allegedly demanding Rs 15 crore from a builder to with-draw cases against him, an offi-cial said on Thursday. Based on the builder's complaint, the case was registered at the Marine Drive police station in south Mumbai, he said.

The five other cops accused in the case are - DCP (crime branch) Akbar Pathan, inspec-tor Shrikant Shinde, Asha Korke, Nandkumar Gopale and Sanjay Patil, the official said.

Two of the builder's part-ners, Sunil Jain and Sanjay Punamia, have been arrested in the case, he said.

According to the com-plaint, Jain and Punamia had conspired with police officials and demanded Rs 15 crore from the builder to withdraw some cases against him, he said. The builder had named for-mer Mumbai police commis-sioner Param Bir Singh along with others in his complaint,

the official said. The case has been registered

under Indian Penal Code Sec-tions 387, 388, 389, 420, 120-B, 403, 409, 423, 464 (making false document in name of fictitious person), and 465, 467 468, 471, and other sections.

NEW DELHI: In a bid to pro-hibit any agitation and strike by anyone engaged in the essential defence services, the govern-ment on Thursday introduced the Essential Defence Services Bill, 2021.

The bill was introduced by Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt amid the ruckus created by the Opposition over three new agriculture laws and the alleged Pegasus snooping controversy.

The proposed Bill empow-ers the government to prohibit strike in essential defence ser-vices and provides for disci-plinary action, including dismissal, against employees participating in strike. It also provides for penalties for “ille-gal strikes, instigation thereof and providing for financial aid to such illegal strikes.” As per the Statements of Objects and Reasons of the Bill, Indian Ordnance Factories is the old-est and largest industrial set up which functions under the Department of Defence Pro-duction of the Ministry of Defence.

The ordnance factories form an integrated base for indigenous production of

defence hardware and equip-ment, with the primary objective of self-reliance in equipping the armed forces with the state-of-the-art bat-tlefield equipment.

In order to improve autonomy, account-ability and efficiency in ordnance supplies, the gov-ernment decided to convert the Ordnance Factory Board into one or more one hundred per cent government-owned cor-porate entity or entities to be registered under the provisions of the Companies Act, 2013, it stated.

“Against the decision, the recognised federations of the employees gave a notice for an indefinite strike. The con-ciliation proceedings initi-ated by the government at the level of Chief Labour Com-

missioner failed in the meeting held on June 15 and on June, 16, the government decided to convert the Ordnance Fac-tory Board into seven Defence Public Sector Undertakings,” it read. “Despite the govern-ment’s assurance to take care of Ordnance Factory Board employees, the recognised fed-erations of the employees have reiterated their intention to go on an indefinite strike from July 26,” it read.

Since, ordnance factories need to function without any disruptions, it was felt nec-essary that the government should have the power to meet the emergency created by such attempts and ensure the main-tenance of essential defence services in all establishments connected with defence, in the public interest, it read. MPOST

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Andhra Pradesh government Thursday withdrew from the Supreme Court its plea challenging the high court order which had stayed the SIT probe into alleged irregularities in the land deals in Amaravati during the previous TDP Regime.

The state government told a bench of Justices Vineet Saran and Dinesh Maheshwari that it will approach the high court.

The state government had told the top court on March 5 that it was agreeable to a court monitored CBI probe into alleged irregularities in land transactions during shifting of the state capital to Amaravati.

It urged the court to lift the stay granted by the high court on the probe by the Spe-cial Investigating Team (SIT) into the alleged scam and allow the investigation to go on in the case. The Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy government had con-stituted the 10-member SIT, headed by a Deputy Inspec-tor General of Police - rank IPS officer, to conduct a com-

prehensive investigation into various alleged irregularities, particularly the land deals in the Amaravati Capital Region, during the previous Chandra-babu Naidu regime.

The top court was hear-ing an appeal filed by Andhra Pradesh government through advocate Mahfooz Ahsan Nazki against last year's Sep-tember 15 order of the high court. On November 25 last year, the top court had stayed the high court direction restraining the media from publishing news regarding an FIR lodged on alleged irreg-ularities in land transactions during shifting of the state capi-tal to Amaravati.

DEORIA (UP): A teenaged girl died after she was allegedly thrashed by her family mem-bers over her insistence to wear jeans at a village here, police said on Thursday.

Family members have also been accused of trying to dis-pose of the body by throwing it from over the Patanwa bridge on the Deoria-Kasya here but it got stuck in its railing and was spotted by police later.

The 17-year-old Neha Pas-wan from Savreji Kharg vil-lage was severely thrashed by her family members after she insisted on wearing jeans and a top on Monday.

According to the complaint given by her mother, the girl received serious head injuries when she was beaten up, lead-ing to her death, Circle Officer (City) Yash Tripathi said.

The post-mortem examina-tion has also confirmed severe injury and fracture in the head, the CO said.

Earlier Vivek, the younger brother of the girl, had told reporters that their uncles and grandfather were angry with her over washing of clothes and thrashed her. MPOST

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The government Thursday said it has no informa-tion as on date regarding data on increase in cases of child abuse due to the Covid-related lock-down situations and data on the increase in child marriage cases across the country due to financial difficulties caused due to coronavirus.

In a written reply in Rajya Sabha, Women and Child Development Minis-ter Smriti Irani said her min-istry has issued advisories and guidelines to state gov-ernments and union territory administrations for care and protection of children during the pandemic.

"As per information pro-vided by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), there is no information as on date regarding data on increase in cases of child abuse due to the COVID-19 related lock-down situations and data on the increase in child marriage cases across the country due to financial difficulties caused due to COVID," she said.

Responding to another

question, Irani gave data on the number of complaints received and dis-posed of by NCPCR during the last five years.

According to the data, in the

last five years from 2016-17 to 2020-21 the National Commis-sion for Protection of Children received 50,857 complaints out of which 20,836 have been dis-posed of.

Among states, highest num-ber of complaints have been received from Madhya Pradesh at 9,572 followed by Uttar Pradesh at 5,340, Chhattisgarh at 4,685 and Odisha at 4,276.

NEW DELHI: A total of 645 children lost their parents to COVID-19 from April to May 28 this year during the second wave, the Women and Child Development Ministry said on Thursday. In response to a question in the Rajya Sabha, Women and Child Develop-ment Minister Smriti Irani gave data on the children orphaned during the second wave of COVID-19.

According to the data, a total of 645 children lost their parents to Covid from April 2021 to May 28. The highest number of such children was reported from Uttar Pradesh at 158 followed by Andhra Pradesh at 119, Maharashtra

at 83 and Madhya Pradesh at 73.

The states and UTs have been jointly requested by the Ministry of Women and Child Development and the Depart-ment of School Education & Literacy (DoSEL), Ministry of Education to ensure con-tinuity of education of the children who have lost their parents in the COVID-19 pandemic, while accommo-dating them under the var-ious schemes being run by Department of School Edu-cation and Literacy, Irani said in a written reply. She further said that the prime minister has announced a scheme to support the children who have

lost both parents or surviv-ing parent or legal guardian or adoptive parents due to the pandemic.

"The scheme provides sup-port for education and health and will create a corpus of Rs 10 lakh for each child when he or she reaches 18 years of age. This corpus will be used to give a monthly financial sup-port/ stipend form 18 years of age, for the next five years to take care of his or her per-sonal requirements during the period of higher education and on reaching the age of 23 years, he or she will get the corpus amount as one lump-sum for personal and profes-sional use," Irani said. MPOST

‘CBI can inquire into transfers, postings of cops by Deshmukh’

India can't have parallel legal systems for rich and poor: SC

AP withdraws plea in SC against HC order

on Amaravati land case

UP: Teenager thrashed over insistence to

wear jeans, diesAs per the Statements of Objects and Reasons of the Bill, Indian Ordnance Factories is the oldest and largest industrial set up which functions under the Department of Defence Production of the Ministry of Defence

‘Very concerned’ about well-being of protesting women farmers: Irani

No info on increase in child abuse cases due to Covid lockdowns: Govt

‘645 children lost their parents to Covid from April-May 28 this yr’

FIR against Singh, 5 other cops on

charges of extortion

'It was the duty of the Commissioner of Police to enforce the law of the land and he is not a servant of anyone, but the law itself'

Anil Deshmukh

Supreme Court

Param Bir Singh

Bill to prohibit strikes by essential defence services staff introduced

5 other cops accused in the case are - DCP (crime branch) Akbar Pathan, inspector Shrikant Shinde, Asha Korke, Nandkumar Gopale and Sanjay Patil, the official said

Smriti Irani

7millenniumpost Editorial mpNEW DELHI | FRIDAY, 23 JULY, 2021

Log on to write letters to the editor or send them to letter2editor.mp@gmail.com. You can also send your comments to The Editor,

Millennium Post, Pratap Bhawan, 5 Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi 110 002

DearEditorMore clinical replies have come on deaths due to lack of oxygen. Following the Central health ministry, states and UTs have also stated that no death has occurred due to a shortage of oxygen during the second wave. Health is indeed a state subject and the onus to report such deaths lies on the states. We all know that what happened in Delhi and other states due to lack of oxygen. When cases were rising at that time, people were struggling for oxygen. With the statements of zero death due to oxygen shortage, we lose the opportunity to affix responsibility and accountability on concerned administrations for those sufferings.

— ANUSHKA PANWAR, UJJAIN via email

— ANTHONY HENRIQUES, MUMBAI via email

EDITORIALAt a massive cost

Finally, after a year of postponement, and so many hic-cups, the Tokyo Olympics is off to a start — giving 11,500 athletes a platform to showcase their talent and stamina before the world. A total of 339 medals are

on offer across 33 sports to be held at 42 venues. It is also an opportunity for Japan to claim to the world that it stands tall despite a series of devastating catastrophe it has braced over the past decade; perhaps the greatest threat — COVID-19 pandemic — still taking a heavy toll in the country. But this opportunity comes at a great cost. As per the official figures, Japan has spent more than USD 15.4 billion on the Tokyo Olympics so far — more than half of which comes from tax-payers’ money. Japan would have to forgo this massive invest-ment had the Games not been held. International Olympic Committee has the sole right for the cancellation of Games. Any initiative from Japan in this direction would mean that it would have to incur a great financial loss. Japan had little option left than to go ahead with the Games. The human cost involved in the conduction of games may even out-weigh the financial costs. The COVID-19 situation is still in a sorry state of affairs in the country. Domestic spectators are banned from nearly all venues in the wake of the pandemic. Japan has played a big gamble and it remains to be seen how it fares for the country. Despite the sophisticated preparations put in place by Japan, more than 75 positive cases have been reported so far. This scenario puts a blanket of uncertainty over the completion of the Games. IOC president Thomas Bach has said that above 80 per cent of the people staying in the athletes’ village will be vaccinated by July 23. In compari-son, the overall vaccination in Japan has been somewhere close to 20 per cent. Despite the vaccination effort in the ath-letes’ village, and overall safety arrangements, the possibil-ity of cancellation of the Games has not been ruled out. The conduction of the Olympics is quite a different phenomenon when compared to the organising of IPL, cricket tournaments, Euro Cup etc. — solely because of the scale and the diversity of participants involved in the Games. A great challenge lies ahead of Japan; it remains to be seen how Japan tackles it. A hidden rivalry with China also seems to be in place here. After successfully showing its prowess by holding the 2008 Beijing Olympics, China is all set to hold Winter Olympics next year. But more than the prowess of any country, it is the prevailing conditions that matter the most. The Covid situation in Japan is not very encouraging at this juncture. Nevertheless, since the start has been made, there has to be no looking back any-more. The path is to go ahead in the best possible way. Despite the paramount challenges faced by the country, it has shown a remarkable gesture by vowing to limit carbon emissions to 2.93 million tonnes this Olympics, compared with the 3.3 mil-lion tonnes during London Olympics 2012. Coming to the participation of India, as the Games progress, the people in our country have high hopes from the Indian contingent of 126 athletes. We should hope for improvement in the efforts of our athletes and celebrate the same, at the same time, pray-ing for their safety. It is true that we have been lagging far behind on medal tally all through the history of Olympics, but there has been a considerable improvement over the past two decades in the Olympics and other games. Preparing a coun-try for such a highly competitive event is a time-taking and a rigorous task. What is good for us is that we are headed in the right direction. At present, we have thirty athletes among the top ten in their respective sports. It is also well-known that our improving performance is limited to set of sports like archery, wrestling, shooting, boxing etc. But this range is only going to expand over the coming events. This is not to procrastinate or be overly optimistic. Required efforts have to be made for improvements, and criticism should always be welcome, but it has to be more on grounds of efforts than on medal count. Improvement is a continuous process. Let’s celebrate every moment of it. Olympic Games represent high values of the joy of effort, fair play, respect for others; pursuit of excellence; and balance between body, will and mind — needed more at the present time than ever before. Let us hope and pray that Japan finds a suitable completion to the start it has made.

Tweet of the day

HEENA SIDHU@HeenaSidhu10

World no.1 skeet shooter out of Olympics due to Covid! How many more will have a “No show” in front of their names and how many medals will be given without a fair game. This is a new brand of the Olympic spirit.

millenniumpost.in

NO ACCOUNTABILITY!

SNOOPGATE

Unfounded criticismThe grounds on which Rajiv Gandhi Kisan Nyaya Yojana is being criticized lack logic

and stand contrary to a climate-smart agriculture policy; writes Ajay Deouskar

A run-off-the-mill sounding scheme, Rajiv Gandhi Kisan Nyaya Yojana

(RGKNY) has lately been a topic of debate among envi-ronmentalists, some storm in the rice bowl, as it kicks off this Kharif season (2021) in Chhat-tisgarh. The scheme incentiv-izes farmers for shifting from paddy cultivation to other food crops like millets, pulses, oil-seeds, sugarcane, scented vari-ety rice; fruit crops like papaya, banana and other horticulture species as well as woody peren-nials that include bamboo and eucalyptus.

While the stated objectives of the scheme are to increase crop diversity, productivity and farm income, the state, by weaning away farmers from paddy cultivation, stands to save around Rs 10,000 per acre, after three years of supporting farmers for the same amount. More importantly, it will free the state’s resources from the tedious process of arranging logistics for the procurement of more than 21 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) of excess paddy that no one wants.

In 2020-21, in the state of Chhattisgarh, 92 LMT of paddy was procured as against 59 LMT in 2015-16 — a jump of 56 per cent in five years. At Rs 2,500 per quin-tal of procurement price, the productivity rate of around 15 quintals per acre ensures an income of 35,000 plus per acre, something that no Kharif crop comes even close to. The impact of this shift to paddy monoculture has been dev-astating for the state. Almost 90 per cent of the kharif crop is paddy now. From being a rice bowl of hundreds of rice varieties, the state’s rich crop diversity has been reduced to a handful of rice varieties like Masuri and Mahamaya — the varieties that are most remu-nerative under the state pro-curement programme.

So, why this sense of dis-trust, when it looks like a policy shift, from competi-tive populism to pragmatism, something that was long over-due? Let’s examine.

The first concern of some environmentalists is that relax-ing norms for harvesting tree crops on farmland will pro-mote illegal felling of trees

from forest lands, as now the farmer has to only inform con-cerned authorities instead of seeking permission to do so. It’s hard to believe that some still root for this archaic colonial forest law in this age of tech-nology when you can monitor every tree by looking at an aer-ial picture taken from a drone or satellite. It’s like saying, ban all private vehicles running on diesel and let this privilege be exclusively for government vehicles, to stop the theft of diesel from government vehi-cles. I know it’s an oversimpli-fication and things are more complex on the field, but why penalize a farmer for it. If at all, wood crops on farmland will share the burden. I have been practising agroforestry for the last three decades in Chhattisgarh and there hasn’t been a day when I won’t rue my decision to go for bamboo and khamar (Gmelina arbo-rea) plantation. It has been a harrowing experience. Despite all the paperwork and regis-tration documents of trees that I had planted with con-cerned departments, it took me months before a Transport Permit was granted for har-vesting and transporting my crop. By then the buyer was gone. For a farmer who wants to diversify her crops, doing away with the archaic law is the most proactive policy decision that we have been waiting for.

The second apprehension is

that monoculture plantations will lead to loss of biodiver-sity and degraded ecosystems. Replacing a variety or two of paddy with plantations of dif-ferent species like khamar, bamboo, mango, guava, lemon, sweet lime, babool will lead to this? How come? Even a euca-lyptus plantation, with all its allelopathic effect on soil, has a better environmental benefit to cost ratio. While acting as a carbon sink, it takes only 785 litres of water per kilogram of biomass produced. Paddy, on the other hand, needs 2,500 litres of water and significantly contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. And yes, that debate is settled. Roots of Eucalyptus don’t go beyond three meters of depth, so in areas where the water table is below five meters, as is the case with most parts of Chhattisgarh, the plantation can be carried out by all means. Extensive root structure plays a vital role in arresting soil and water runoff, making it a worthy species for both cli-mate change mitigation and adaptation.

Some civil societies believe that a shift from paddy to other crops will severely com-promise the food security of tribal communities. Again, not true. Chhattisgarh and Mad-hya Pradesh are predicted to be the top two hotspots of climate change in the country. A shift from water-guzzling paddy to less water-demanding crops

like maize, kodu-kutki, ragi will only reduce production risks as all of them are more drought resistant. Also, the fact that they are loaded with nutrition and well-integrated in local dietary patterns, a shift to millet cultivation stands to enhance food, nutritional and water security. The govern-ment is anyway providing 35 kilograms of rice per month to each family, almost free of costs and, with the Food Corpora-tion of India (FCI) overflowing with surplus, water and nutri-tional security should be the top priority of the state.Trends, ecosystem and conclusions

From 1987 to 2013, the National Sample Survey Orga-nization (NSSO) reported a decreasing trend for foodgrains like rice and wheat, and a sig-nificant upward trend for non-grain food items like edible oil, milk, fish, meat and eggs for both rural and urban house-holds. Therefore, in Chhat-tisgarh also, it is high time we move on from monocul-ture paddy to a more balanced Integrated farming system, a climate-smart agriculture strategy to mitigate climate change risks and to be in sync with the changing dietary pat-tern of the country.

India being a net importer of timber, an ecosystem of the timber-based industry will not only save foreign exchange but also provide a stable market

to the farmers. In absence of demand for its products, the farmer is bound to shift back to tried and tested low-risk farming systems like paddy again. Farmer Producer Orga-nizations, in consultation with timber research organizations, could be incentivized to set up timber industries in the vicin-ity of the produce.

With ever-shrinking com-mon lands, bringing them fur-ther under plantation schemes will make livestock farming that much more difficult. Encouraging villagers to go for high yielding grass vari-eties like super Napier, with green fodder yield as high as 400 tons per hectare, might be a better option for commons.

The scheme promises to change the agriculture land-scape of Chhattisgarh and make it climate change resil-ient, provided critical linkages like livestock are identified and strengthened. Also, with Chhattisgarh having three dis-tinct socio-economic regions, species selection could be done in a more targeted man-ner according to the climatic conditions and needs of the farmers. Initially, only farm-ers with large landholdings or those who are into shared cropping would venture into it. But strategy should be to bring in even small and mar-ginal farmers in due course of time as they are least equipped to deal with a crop failure.

Recent studies suggest that intermittently, flooded paddy fields might be emitting 30 to 45 times more nitrous oxide than current estimates. With a global warming potential of more than 265 to that of car-bon dioxide, the carbon foot-print of rice might be far more than a mere five per cent of a country’s emissions.

I still remember the walk, way down the memory lane, through lush green paddy fields and the aroma of rice that would fill me with every breath. Now it has come to this. Fumes of nitrous oxide and methane. There could be no better time or reason for farm-ing systems in Chhattisgarh to take a course correction.

The writer is an IIFM alumni and practices sustain-

able and integrated agricul-ture in Chhattisgarh. Views

expressed are personal

The shift to paddy monoculture has been devastating for ChhattisgarhChhattisgarh’s rich crop diversity has been reduced to a handful of rice varieties like Masuri and Mahamaya — the varieties that are most remunerative under the State procurement program

The inclusion of the lady, along with her close circle, who had accused the ex CJI of snooping by the Pegasus software opens up scary possibilities which would have disastrous consequences for the nation. The opposition, as well as the aggrieved persons who were likely to be spied upon, may approach the courts. Some journalists have already made their stand clear of approaching the courts. The present CJI must immediately take the matter in hand and order a court-supervised investigation — with no sealed covers kind of orders. It also strengthens the defence of the Bhima Koregaon accused who are languishing in jails on the basis of the evidence found on their computers. Sophisticated computer programmes could have easily planted the emails. The NIA must prove their case or let some better-equipped agencies investigate what was found on their computers. Fr. Stan Swamy is no more, but justice for him is to be expected.

A clear transgression?Formation of the Ministry of Cooperation goes against the federalism principles — it allows

the interference of Central government into a state subject; asserts Asis Chakraborty

Even after the passing of 74 years of inde-pendence, the coop-erative sector remains

overlooked. The Central gov-ernment must be applauded for its decision to institute a separate ministry for the most disenfranchised sector – cooperative.

But, at the same time, some serious questions have been raised about the government’s decision. What necessitates the institution of cooperation min-istry at this point in time by hampering the federal struc-ture of the country. Coopera-tive is enlisted as a state subject under the seventh schedule of the Indian Constitution. So, what is the motive of the gov-ernment behind this attack on the federal structure through interference in a state subject? Is the total matter even lying in the safe hands?

The answer is no. This mat-ter is not so straightforward. There are 1,482 urban and 58 multi-state cooperative banks in the country with 8.60 crore depositors, having total sav-ings of close to Rs five lakh crore.

The intention of the gov-ernment is evidenced from the fact that in the FY 2019-20, the Government of India had taken a record high surplus reserve of Rs 1,76,051 crore from the RBI — comprising Rs 1,23,414 crore of surplus from the year 2018-19 and Rs 52,637 crore of excess pro-

visions identified under the revised Economic Capital Framework — after approv-ing all the recommendations of the Bimal Jalan-led expert committee. The committee — technically known as the Expert Committee to Review the Extant Economic Capital Framework — was constituted to decide the size of capital reserves that the Central bank should hold. It had made sev-eral recommendations with regard to risk provisioning and surplus distribution. Very recently, on May 28, 2021, The Reserve Bank of India (RBI)

decided to transfer a surplus of Rs 99,122 crore to the Cen-tral government. The decision was taken at the 589th meet-ing of the RBI’s central board of directors.

The government has given huge loans to the people who have left the country and all that money is people’s money; now they have an eye on this Rs five lakh crore of coopera-tive banks.

The Banking Regulation (Amendment) Bill, 2020 was passed in September last year to amend the Banking Regula-tion Act, 1949. The amended

Act brought cooperative banks under close supervision of the RBI. Finance Minister Nir-mala Sitharaman had noted at that time: “For the last two years, depositors of cooper-ative banks and small banks are facing problems. We are trying to bring this amend-ment in order to protect the depositors”. Further, on May 24 this year, the Reserve Bank said it will consider the amal-gamation of District Central Cooperative Banks (DCCBs) with State Cooperative Banks (SCBs), subject to various con-ditions, including that a pro-

posal should be made by the concerned state government. The vital issue lies here. If these changes are made, the coop-erative interest of the DCCBs may be hampered.

The fact remains that the RBI has not been able to avoid many bank failures even after regulating and taking complete supervision of them.

Bank failures have been an integral part of Indian finan-cial history since the RBI came into existence on April 1, 1935.

From 1969 onwards, 36 private banks have been put under a moratorium in the public interest owing to mis-management and have gone out of existence. Several of them were merged with healthy public sector banks. These things may happen to the cooperative banks also. As a result, maybe in the near future, the whole cooperative sector may lose its identity.

From this, it is clear that the RBI has not been able to avoid many bank failures even after regulating and taking complete supervision of them.

In the end, I wish that the Cooperative Ministry will look into problems of the nation-wide cooperative sectors, espe-cially the matter of housing cooperatives and help us reani-mate the growth of the Indian economy from the root.

The writer is Chairman of WB State Cooperative

Housing Federation. Views expressed are personal

Cooperative banks were put under close supervision of RBI through amendment of BRA, 1949

From 1969 onwards, 36 private banks have been put under a moratorium in the public interest, due to mismanagement and have gone out of existence REPRESENTATIONAL IMAGE

millenniumpost NO H ALF TR U THS

millenniumpost.in

I, Aradhya Poddar S/o Deepak Poddar R/o A-103 Sukhsagar Apartments, I P Extension, Delhi. That I have changd my name from Aradhya Poddar to Aaradhya Poddar for all future purposes. That Aradhya Poddar and Aaradhya Poddar are one and the same person i.e. myself.

CHANGE OF NAME

8 millenniumpostWorldmpFRIDAY, 23 JULY, 2021 | NEW DELHI

Syrian govt shells in rebel area kill 7 of same family

BEIRUT: Syrian government artillery shells struck a village in the last rebel enclave in the country on Thursday, killing seven members of the same family, including four chil-dren, rescue workers and a war monitor said.

The shelling is part of an ongoing military escala-tion in the area in northwest-ern Syria, which had been under a cease-fire sponsored by Russia and Turkey since last year.

So far it is unclear what caused the escalation, which prior to the attack had already killed at least 17 children this month, according to figures confirmed by the U.N. chil-dren's agency, UNICEF.

The rescue workers in opposition areas, known as the White Helmets, said the shells landed in the village of Ibleen in southern Idlib province. A mother and her four children were among the dead pulled out from under the rubble of a destroyed house. Seven other people were injured, according to the group.

Rami Abdurrahman, the head of the Britain-based Syr-

ian Observatory for Human Rights, said the children's grandfather and uncle were also among the killed. He said the father was injured in the attack.

According to the Obser-vatory's records, 21 people, including 11 children and six women, have been killed in government strikes on the rebel enclave since Saturday.

The strike on Thursday came on the last day of the Eid Al-Adha holiday, one of Islam's most important feasts.

Syria's government, which agreed to the Russia-Turkey

negotiated truce last year, has vowed to restore control over territory it has lost during the 10-year conflict.

The truce, covering the area home to nearly 4 million most displaced persons, was negotiated between Turkey, which supports Syria's oppo-sition and has troops deployed in the area, and Russia, the Syrian government's main backer.

At the time, it halted a crushing Russian-backed gov-ernment air and ground cam-paign aimed at retaking the region. AGENCIES

14 killed, 26 hurt in Pak rain-related incidentsPESHAWAR: At least 14 people were killed and 26 others injured in rain-related incidents in Pak-istan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in the last 24 hours, officials said on Thursday.

The Provincial Disas-ters Management Authority (PDMA) said that incessant monsoon rain stuck various

parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and inundated low lying areas in the province's Dera Ismail

Khan, Hazara and Malakand divisions and resulted in the complete damage of four houses and partial damage of 21 others.

Houses were damaged due to the continuous mon-soon rain that struck Khyber Pakhtunkhwa resulting in the death of 14 people and inju-ries to 26 others in the last one

day, a senior official from the PDMA said.

The respective district administrations in the prov-ince have geared up relief and rescue activities in areas affected by the monsoon rains and issued necessary travel advisory for the tourists, the official said. AGENCIES

Violence flares in Haiti ahead of slain Prez’s funeralQUARTER-MORIN (Haiti): Hundreds of workers fled busi-nesses in northern Haiti after demonstrations near the home-town of assassinated President Jovenel Mo se grew violent ahead of his funeral. AP jour-nalists observed the body of one man on Wednesday who witnesses said was shot in the community of Quartier-Morin, which is near Trou-du-Nord, where Mo se grew up. Road-blocks were set up between the two communities, temporarily barring cars from entering or leaving as two plumes of thick, black smoke rose nearby. AGENCIES

Hong Kong police arrest 5 trade union members for

seditionHONG KONG: Hong Kong police on Thursday arrested five trade union members over children's books they described as seditious, and a court denied bail for four editors and journalists held on charges of endangering national security, as part of a widening crackdown on dis-sent in the city.

The five who were arrested are members of the General Association of Hong Kong Speech Therapists, according to local media reports.

The association published three children's books that Li Kwai-wah, a senior superin-tendent of the national secu-rity department, said have seditious intent.

The books feature sto-ries that revolve around a village of sheep that has to deal with wolves from a different village. AGENCIES

Covid: China flatly rejects WHO’s plan to revisit Wuhan lab leak theory

BEIJING: China on Thurs-day categorically rejected the WHO's plan for the second phase of Coronavirus origin-tracing in Wuhan, especially to probe the lab leak theory, as it dismissed reports that some of the employees of the facility were infected with the deadly virus before it spread to the city and the world.

China will not follow the World Health Organisation's suggested plan on the second phase of COVID-19 origin-tracing, Zeng Yixin, the vice minister of the National Health Commission (NHC), told a media briefing here.

The work plan on the sec-ond-phase origins study pro-posed by the WHO contains language that does not respect science, he said.

China's broadside against the WHO and its Director Gen-eral Tedros Adhanom Ghebr-eyesus, who previously won Beijing's praise and support for praising President Xi Jin-ping's handling of the Coro-navirus, came after he asked China to be transparent and provide raw data.

Asking actually China to be transparent, open and cooper-ate, especially on the informa-tion, raw data that we asked for at the early days of the pan-demic. We owe it to the millions who suffered and the millions who died to know what hap-

pened, he had said.Zeng said the plan has listed

the hypothesis that China had violated lab regulations and leaked the virus as one of the major research objectives, and he was "very shocked" after reading the proposal, state-run China Daily reported.

Instead, the next-phase ori-gin tracing should focus on var-ious regions and countries, he said, reiterating Beijing's oft-repeated claim that the Corona-virus broke out in several places in the world and China was the first to report about it in Decem-ber, 2019 when it emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

Zeng said he was shocked by

the WHO's work plan as it has been compromised by political manipulation and disrespect of scientific facts.

He said China had allowed the WHO experts to visit all places they wanted to go and meet all people they wanted to see early this year, adding that the results of the WHO-China joint study are able to stand the test of time.

"We hope the WHO can carefully consider the advice by Chinese scientists, take investi-gating the origin of the COVID-19 virus as a scientific question free from political interference, and proactively and properly conduct sustained investiga-

tions into the origin of the virus in various countries across the world," the vice minister said.

Zeng also dismissed reports that the three employees of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), from where the US alleges the virus may have been leaked, fell sick shortly before the first documented cases of COVID-19. There was zero infection among staff and stu-dents at the WIV, he said.

China has also refused to share the details about the hospital admissions, saying it constitutes a breach of individ-ual privacy and the raw data as asked by the WHO comes under the national security

regulations.Liang Wannian, team leader

of the Chinese side of the joint expert team of the WHO-con-vened Global Study of Origins of SARS-CoV-2, said that the study on the origin of COVID-19 should focus on animals and it should be carried out in countries and regions with bat distribution.

Zeng, also the deputy director of the NHC, said at the briefing that the WIV has no man-made viruses and has never conducted gain-of-func-tion research.

The US has been pushing for a probe into the possibility of Coronavirus having leaked from the WIV since early 2020. Former US president Donald Trump, who termed the Coro-navirus as Wuhan virus , had demanded a probe into the lab leak theory. Trump's successor Joe Biden has asked the intelli-gence community to redouble its efforts to get to the bottom of the origins of the Coronavirus, after new reports raised ques-tions whether it spread from the laboratory in Wuhan.

The probe into the origin of the pandemic was hampered by the lack of raw data, especially on the first days of its spread.

A joint WHO-China team had travelled to Wuhan and spent four weeks visit-ing various places, including the WIV. AGENCIES

China's broadside against the WHO and its Director General came after he asked China to be transparent and provide raw data

Death rates soar in South-East Asia as virus wave spreads

KUALA LUMPUR: Indonesia has converted nearly its entire oxygen production to medical use just to meet the demand from COVID-19 patients strug-gling to breathe. Overflowing hospitals in Malaysia had to resort to treating patients on the floor. And in Myanmar's larg-est city, graveyard workers have been laboring day and night to keep up with the grim demand for new cremations and burials.

Images of bodies burning in open-air pyres during the peak of the pandemic in India horrified the world in May, but in the last two weeks the three Southeast Asian nations have now all surpassed India's peak per capita death rate as a new Coronavirus wave, fueled by the virulent delta variant, tightens its grip on the region.

The deaths have followed record numbers of new cases being reported in countries across the region which have left health care systems strug-gling to cope and governments scrambling to implement new restrictions to try to slow the spread.

When Eric Lam tested pos-itive for COVID-19 and was hospitalized on June 17 in the Malaysian state of Selangor, the center of the country's outbreak, the corridors of the government facility were already crowded with patients on beds with no room left in the wards.

The situation was still bet-ter than in some other hospitals in Selangor, Malaysia's richest and most populous state, where there were no free beds at all and patients were reportedly treated on floors or on stretchers. The government has since added

more hospital beds and con-verted more wards for COVID-19 patients.

Lam, 38, recalled once dur-ing his three weeks in the hospi-tal hearing a machine beeping continuously for two hours before a nurse came to turn it off; he later learned the patient had died.

A variety of factors have contributed to the recent surge in the region, including people growing weary of the pandemic and letting precautions slip, low vaccination rates and the emer-gence of the delta variant of the virus, which was first detected in India, said Abhishek Rimal, the

Asia-Pacific emergency health coordinator for the Red Cross, who is based in Malaysia.

With the measures that countries are taking, if people follow the basics of washing the hands, wearing the masks, keeping distance and getting vaccinated, we will be seeing a decline in cases in the next cou-ple of weeks from now, he said.

So far, however, Malaysia's national lockdown measures have not brought down the daily rate of infections. The country of some 32 million saw daily cases rise above 10,000 on July 13 for the first time and they have stayed there since.

The vaccination rate remains low but has been picking up, with nearly 15% of the popu-lation now fully inoculated and the government hoping to have a majority vaccinated by year's end. Doctors and nurses have been working tirelessly to try to keep up, and Lam was one of the fortunate ones.

After his condition ini-tially deteriorated, he was put on a ventilator in an ICU unit filled to capacity and slowly recovered. AGENCIES

in Myanmar's largest city, graveyard workers have been laboring day and night to keep up with the grim demand for new cremations and burials

Houses were damaged due to the continuous monsoon rain

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGALOFFICE OF THE PINGLA BLOCK DEVELOPMENT

OFFICER PINGLA DEVELOPMENT BLOCK E-mail:- pinglablock@gmail.com, Ph& Fax No.:- 03222-238542

Pingla, Paschim Medinipure – Tender Notice

Invites e – Tender for the work of 1) CONSTRUCTION OF 2ND FLOOR OF EXISTING HOSTEL BUILDING ATTACHED TO SAHARDA KALIPADA VIDY-APITH UNDER PINGLA DEVELOPMENT BLOCK. e –NIT NO :- 02/TD/BDO/PINGLA/2021-2022Bid submission End date :- 09.08.2021 up to 5.30 PMDetails of the Tender notice is available in https://wbtenders.gov.in

Sd/- Block Development Officer Memo no. 816(3)/ICA/Pas.Mid Dtd: 22.07.2021 Pingla Development Block

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGALOn behalf of the Governor of West Bengal, CMOH & Secretary has invited e-Tenders for Repairing & Renovation works in different Health Units of South 24 Pgs. under NHM. Details will be available in Website : www.wbtender.gov.in , on & from 23/07/2021 05:00 P.M.Technical & Financial Bid Submission Closing Date: 06/08/2021 at 02:00 PM For Detail, Please visit the website www.wbtenders.gov.in or the Office of the Undersigned. ICA- T8743(2)/2021 – Sd/- Secretary, DH&FWS, S24 Pgs

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGAL North 24 Parganas Zilla

Parishad TenderAdditional Executive Officer, North 24 Parganas Zilla Parishad invites online tender as follow – NIT NO:- NPG/N-86/20-21 (Eng) (2nd Call) (Part-II) dt: 16/07/2021 published under North 24 Parganas Zilla Parishad. Last date of tender submission is 04.08.2021 up to 18.00 hours. The Details can be obtained from the website : http://wbtenders.gov.in & or http://etender.wb.nic.in.

Sd/- Additional Executive Officer,North 24 Parganas Zilla Parishad.

1142(4)/DICO/N24Pgs,dt. 22.07.21

ICA- T8723(3)/2021

ICA- T8727(3)/2021

KMDA TENDER NOTICE e-NIQ No: KMDA/EM/SE/EC-II/NIQ-

05/2021-22 (2nd Call) e-NIQ is invited by the Superintending Engineer, Electrical Circle-II, EM Sector, KMDA, Unnayan Bhavan, Block-C, 2nd Floor, Salt Lake City, Kolkata-700091, from the eligible tenderer for the work,, Name of Work, Amount, Earnest Money Deposit, Time of Completion, Supply, installation, testing, commissioning and one year maintenance of 4 Nos. Machine Room Less 13 Passenger Lift for Administrative Building-II at Barasat, 24 Parganas (N)., Rate to be Quoted, Rs.2,00,000/-, 04 months, Last date & time of online Tender submission: 20.08.2021 upto 14:00 hrs., For details contact the above office or visit both websites. www.kmdaonline.org (KMDA-241)

ICA- T8728(3)/2021

ICA- T8735(4)/2021

ICA- T8740(3)/2021

ICA- T8748(3)/2021

ICA- T8753(3)/2021

ICA- T8758(3)/2021

ICA- T8770(3)/2021

ICA- T8772(3)/2021

ICA- T8775(3)/2021

ICA- T8777(3)/2021

ICA- T8779(4)/2021

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGALWEST BENGAL HOUSING INFRASTRUCTURE

e-N.I.T No.08 of G.M. (Elect) of 2021-22 Sealed Two Part tenders on Percentage basis are invited for the work of “Providing street lighting arrangement on Street No.783 in Action Area – IIE at New Town Kolkata under WBHIDCO” from the agencies having ability in execution for similar nature of work. Last date of receiving applica-tion 04-08-2021 upto 06.00 P.M. Detailed may be seen in our website at www.wbhidcoltd.com

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGAL SILIGURI MAHAKUMA PARISHAD Haren Mukherjee Road, Hakim

Para Siliguri 734001NIeT No.03-DE/SMP/2021-22

Tender Notice is invited for various types of schemes under 15th F.C. (TIED Fund) Siliguri Mahakuma Parishad.Bid Submission start date (Online): 24.07.2021 & Bid Submission end Date (onlilne) : 06.08.2021. Details may be seen on office Notice Board. and SMP Web-sited www.smp.org.in.

Sd/- DE SMP

9millenniumpost Business mpNEW DELHI | FRIDAY, 23 JULY, 2021

GOA MINING

SPECIALTY STEEL

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Financial bids for Air India are likely to be received from qualified inter-ested bidders (QIBs) by Sep-tember 15 this year, Minister of State for Civil Aviation V K Singh said on Thursday.

The Centre had invited Expression of Interests (EoIs) for Air India on January 27, 2020. The last date of submis-sion — after multiple extensions due to COVID-19 pandemic — of EoIs was December 14, 2020.

“Multiple EoIs were received by Transaction Advisor. The EoIs were evaluated by the Transaction Advisor for selec-tion of QIBs. Request for Pro-posal (RFP) along with draft Share Purchase Agreement (SPA) have been shared with QIBs by the Transaction Advi-sor on March 30, 2021, for sub-mission of financial bids,” Singh stated.

“The financial bids are likely to be received by September 15, 2021,” he added in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha.

The Centre has not revealed the names of QIBs as yet.

Of the airline’s total debt of Rs 60,074 crore as of March 31, 2019, the buyer would be required to absorb Rs 23,286.5 crore, while the rest would be transferred to Air India Assets Holding Ltd (AIAHL), a special

purpose vehicle, stated the EoI floated in January 2020.

Singh told Lok Sabha on Thursday: “Monetization pro-ceeds of non-core assets of Air India are to be used to offset the debt of Air India transferred to AIAHL.”

Currently, Air India has been trying to sell a couple of its properties to reduce its debt.

The reserve prices of Air India’s properties were fixed by the airline’s Oversight Commit-tee as the highest value received from three valuers, the minis-ter stated.

“The Oversight Committee approved 10 per cent reduc-tion in the reserved prices of

16 properties after previous attempts to auction the prop-erties failed to attract bidders,” Singh noted.

The Centre had announced in October 2020 that the bid-ding for Air India would be done based on enterprise value instead of equity value.

Enterprise value of a com-pany includes the equity value, debt as well as cash with the company. Equity value measures the value of a company’s shares.

The Centre had said in Octo-ber 2020 that whatever enter-prise value the bidder quotes, minimum 15 per cent of that has to be given in cash to the gov-ernment and remaining value

has to be taken as debt along with Air India.

After its unsuccessful attempt to sell Air India in 2018, the government in Janu-ary last year restarted the divest-ment process and invited bids for selling 100 per cent of its equity in the state-owned air-line, including Air India’s 100 per cent share holding in Air India Express Ltd and 50 per

cent in Air India SATS Airport Services Private Ltd.

In 2018, the government had proposed to off load 76 per cent equity share capital of the national carrier as well as trans-fer the management control to private players.

However, the offer failed to attract any bidder when the deadline for initial bids closed on May 31, 2018.

NEW DELHI: The govern-ment on Thursday approved a Rs 6,322-crore production linked incentive (PLI) scheme to boost production of spe-cialty steel in India.

A decision in this regard was taken during the meeting of the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi, Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur informed.

He said that incentives worth Rs 6,322 crore will be provided over five years and it would create over 5.25 lakh jobs.

“It will boost manufac-turing and help in reducing imports,” he told reporters.

In a statement, the Min-istry of Steel said the scheme will also attract an additional investment of about Rs 40,000 crore and lead to a capacity addition of 25 million tonnes (MT).

The duration of the scheme will be five years, from 2023-24 to 2027-28.

The PLI scheme will cover coated/plated steel products, high strength/wear resistant steel, specialty rails, alloy steel products, steel wires and elec-trical steel.

These steel products are used in white goods, automo-bile body parts and compo-nents, pipes for transportation of oil and gas, boilers, ballis-tic and armour sheets meant for defence application, high-speed railway lines, turbine components, electrical steel meant for power transformers and electric vehicles.

The Steel Ministry further said India presently operates at the lower end of the value chain

in steel sector. Value added steel grades are largely imported in India.

“This is because of the disabilities faced by the steel industry to the tune of $80-100 per tonne, on account of higher logistics and infra cost, higher power and capital cost and, taxes and duties.”

The objective of the PLI scheme for specialty grade steel is to address this chal-lenge by incentivising produc-tion of specialty steel within the country, it said.

The scheme proposes to incentivise eligible manufac-turers by paying between 4 per cent to 12 per cent incentive on incremental production.

PLI incentive will also help the Indian steel industry mature in terms of technology and move up the value chain, the ministry said.

Any company registered in India, engaged in manufactur-ing of the identified ‘specialty steel’ grades, will be eligible to participate in the scheme, according to the Steel Ministry.

The company has to ensure that the steel used for making ‘specialty steel’ is ‘melted and poured’ in the country, thereby ensuring end-to-end manu-facturing keeping in view the Prime Minister’s Atmanirbhar Bharat’ vision.

The statement further said the PLI scheme for specialty steel is expected to play an important role in strengthen-ing domestic steel value chain and will incentivise the steel sector to invest in technologi-cal capability building to con-tribute to global steel value chain by producing value added steel. MPOST

NEW DELHI: As many as 56 Air India employees have died due to Covid-19 till July 14, minister of state for civil aviation V K Singh said on Thursday.

“A total of 3,523 employ-ees of Air India Limited have been affected by Covid-19. Out of this, 56 employees suc-cumbed to this pandemic till July 14, 2021,” he stated in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha.

The minister said the national carrier has taken various measures to safe-guard the interests of Covid-affected employees and their families.

He stated that the carrier

paid a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to the family of each per-manent employee who died due to Covid-19.

When a fixed-term con-tractual employee died due to Covid-19, Air India paid his or her family a compensation of Rs 5 lakh, he noted.

Employees infected with Covid-19 were granted a paid quarantine leave of 17 days, he said. “Reimbursement of vaccination charges are being provided to employees and their families if paid by them,” he said.

The minister said medi-cal facilities were also being provided to Covid-positive employees. MPOST

‘Financial bids for Air India likely to be received by Sept 15’Centre has not revealed the names of qualified interested bidders as yet

NEW DELHI: Air India is a separate corporate entity with its own management and board so there is “no likely impact” on its ongoing disinvestment pro-cess due to the lawsuits filed by Cairn Energy and Devas Multi-media in the US court, Minister of State for Civil Aviation V K Singh said on Thursday.

Cairn Energy and Devas Multimedia, respectively, are seeking $1.725 billion and $1.2 billion — which they won in international arbitrations — from India.

“Cairn Energy and Devas Multimedia have filed lawsuits in the United States District Court for Southern District of New York seeking declaratory and money judgement against Air India Limited as an alter ego of the Republic of India,” Singh said in a written reply to a ques-tion in Lok Sabha. There is “no likely impact” of the lawsuits on the ongoing disinvestment process of Air India Limited as it is a separate corporate entity with its own management and board, he mentioned.

“The case is being defended by Air India Limited. The com-pany has appointed lawyers to defend its interests,” Singh said.

Meanwhile, in a reply to another question in the Lok Sabha, Singh said financial bids for Air India from quali-fied interested bidders is likely to be received by September 15 this year.

The Centre had started the disinvestment process for Air India in January last year. PTI

‘Lawsuits not likely to impact AI

privatisation’

Covid claimed lives of 56 Air India employees: Govt

Of the airline’s total debt of Rs 60,074 crore as of March 31, 2019, buyer would be required to absorb Rs 23,286.5 crore

Govt okays `6,322 cr PLI scheme to boost domestic production

NEW DELHI: The Depart-ment of Telecom is awaiting the details of investors from Vodafone Idea for clearing the telco’s Rs 15,000 crore for-eign direct investment pro-posal, an official source said on Thursday.

Debt-ridden Vodafone Idea (Vi) has sought govern-ment approval to raise Rs 15,000 crore to fund its oper-ations in the country.

“There is no issue in Voda-fone Idea raising Rs 15,000 crore but they need to pro-vide investors’ details for the processing of the application. The final approval has to be given by the Cabinet,” an offi-cial source said.

The board of Vodafone Idea in September 2020 had approved raising up to Rs 25,000 crore but the company could not go ahead with its fund-raising plans.

The board approval also included issuance of “unse-cured and / or secured, non-convertible debentures” up to an aggregate amount of Rs 15,000 crore, by way of public offering or private placement basis or otherwise, in one or more tranches.

The fund-raising will throw a lifeline to cash-strapped VIL, which has suffered massive losses, as it has been losing subscribers and average rev-enue per user (ARPU), and faces outstanding AGR dues

of Rs 50,399.63 crore as per government data.

Vodafone Idea Man-aging Director and CEO Ravinder Takkar in a state-ment on June 30 had said, “We are in active discussion with potential investors for fund raising, to achieve our strategic intent.”

The company in the last quarter of 2020-21 had reported narrowing of its con-solidated loss to Rs 7,022.8

DoT awaiting investors detail from Voda-Idea for `15K crore FDI plea

crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2021.

Total income of Voda-fone Idea declined by about 19 per cent to Rs 9,647.8 crore from Rs 11,920.4 crore in the corresponding quarter of 2019-20.

The gross debt (excluding lease liabilities) as of March 31, 2021 stood at Rs 1,80,310 crore. PTI

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has come down on the State of Goa and mining giant Vedanta for filing delayed review petitions after the judges who decided the min-ing lease case and delivered the judgment in the same in 2018, retired from office (Vedanta v. Goa Foundation).

In February 2018, a Bench of Justices Madan Lokur and Deepak Gupta had cancelled mining leases renewed in favour of 88 leaseholders by the State Government of Goa, after find-ing that the licences had been renewed in contravention of Supreme Court directions passed in 2014.

The Court while doing so had observed that “rapacious mining was going on in Goa” and the private entity who was the mining lease holder, was the beneficiary of such uncon-trolled mining.

As per the Supreme Court Rules, review petitions are to be heard by the same judges who delivered the judgment, if they are available. Justice Madan Lokur who headed that Bench, had retired from the Supreme Court in Decem-ber 2018 while Justice Deepak Gupta had retired in May 2020, Bar & Bench reported.

In the order passed on July 9 in the review petitions, a Bench

of Justices DY Chandrachud and MR Shah noted that while State of Goa had preferred its four review petitions with a delay of 651 days and after the retire-ment of Justice Lokur , Vedanta filed its review petitions with a delay of 907 days and after Jus-tice Deepak Gupta also demit-ted office.

“The judges comprising the two-judge bench in Goa Foundation II, Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta, retired from this Court on 30 December 2018 and 6 May 2020, respectively. The State of Goa

preferred its four review peti-tions in the month of Novem-ber 2019, after Justice Madan B Lokur’s retirement, while Vedanta Limited preferred its four review petitions in the month of August 2020, right after Justice Deepak Gupta’s retirement. Such practise must be firmly disapproved to pre-serve the institutional sanctity of the decision making of this Court. The review petition-ers were aware of the decision of this Court,” the Supreme Court said in its review peti-tion judgment.

As per the Supreme Court Rules, 2013, the limitation for filing a review petition is 30 days from the date of the judgment.

“In accordance with Rule 2 of Order XLVII of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013, an appli-cation for review of a judge-ment has to be filed within thirty days of the date of the judgement or order that is sought to be reviewed. No cogent grounds have been fur-nished for the delay between 20 and 26 months by the two parties in filing their applica-tions for review,” the Court further noted.

The Court, therefore, pro-ceeded to dismiss the review petitions both on grounds of limitation and merits. AGENCIES

SC slams Goa govt, Vedanta for filing delayed review petitions

Justice Madan Lokur who headed that Bench, had retired in December 2018 while Justice Deepak Gupta had retired in May 2020

NEW DELHI: The Union Cabi-net on Thursday approved rais-ing the foreign investment limit in privatisation-bound public sector oil refiners, a move that will aid the sale of government stake in BPCL.

Officials said the Cabi-net has approved a proposal to allow foreign direct invest-ment (FDI) limit in public sector refineries that are dis-investment candidates to 100 per cent from the current 49 per cent.

At present 49 per cent FDI is allowed in oil refineries pro-moted by public sector compa-nies under the automatic route.

This limit meant Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) couldn’t have been sold to a foreign player.

Two out of the three com-

panies that have put in an ini-tial expression of interest (EoI) for buying out the government’s entire 52.98 per cent stake in BPCL are foreign entities.

“What has been allowed is raising of FDI limit only for disinvestment cases,” an offi-cial explained. The FDI limit in PSU-promoted oil refineries will continue at 49 per cent - a limit that was set in March 2008.

As of now, the government is selling the stake in only BPCL. Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), the nation’s largest, is the only other oil refining and marketing company under direct govern-ment control.

Hindustan Petroleum Cor-poration Ltd (HPCL) is now a subsidiary of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC). PTI

BPCL sale: Cabinet nod to raise FDI limit

At present 49% FDI is allowed in oil refineries promoted by public sector cos

10 millenniumpostBusinessmpFRIDAY, 23 JULY, 2021 | NEW DELHI

NEW DELHI: The Road Trans-port and Highways Ministry has constructed 13,327 km of National Highways in 2020-21, which works out to about 37 km per day, Parliament was informed on Thursday.

In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, Gadkari said to mitigate COVID-19 pandemic effect, his ministry took initiatives under Atmanirbhar Bharat and pro-vided several COVID-19 relief measures to contractors, con-cessionaires and consultants, including extension of time for 3-9 months.

He also noted that the cost of ongoing projects may increase due to site, local and project specific factors or other factors

including price escalation dur-ing the project time cycle.

In BOT projects, escalation cost is absorbed by the conces-sionaire, while in other proj-ects, price escalation is payable as per contract conditions, and the actual amount of price esca-lation and inter-alia the actual

increase in project cost, if any, is known only on actual com-pletion of the project and final settlement of bills.

Replying to a separate ques-tion, the minister said out of total 1,39,032 km, about 37,058 km National Highways have 4/6 lane infrastructure.

Gadkari said the Cabi-net Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) had approved the proposal for investment approval for Phase-I of Bharat-mala Pariyojana on October 24,2017 for an amount of Rs 5,35,000 crores.

“Once Bharatmala Pariyo-jana is implemented, it is envis-aged that the National Highway network of length 70,000+

km (50 per cent of National Highway Network) will have a consistent 4-lane and above infrastructure,” he said.

Bharatmala Pariyojana Phase I includes development of about 24,800 km NH net-work such as Economic cor-ridors, Inter-corridor & feeder roads, National Corridors Effi-ciency Improvements, Border and International Connectivity roads, Coastal and Port Con-nectivity roads, Expressways as well as 10,000 km of roads under balance NHDP.

Replying to another ques-tion, Gadkari said the ministry has set a target of construction of 12,000 km of National High-ways in 2021-22. PTI

BENGALURU: Indian out-sourcing giant Infosys Ltd told employees last week they could resume work from offices, according to a memo seen by Reuters that offers an early sign of the country’s $190 billion technology services sector mov-ing to get back on track.

The Bengaluru-based IT ser-vices company stopped short of calling all employees back to work, reflecting wider cau-tion across the sector as Indian officials warn about the loom-ing threat of a third wave of COVID-19 infections.

Still, after a devastating sec-ond wave of infections in May, the country’s daily numbers are roughly a tenth of the peak, with infections falling to the lowest in

four months on Tuesday.Health experts have

appealed to state governments and citizens to not lower their guard against COVID-19, say-ing a third wave was inevitable.

Other sectors such as avia-tion and manufacturing have had to call some employees back to sites, or are staying closed entirely as the pandemic dis-rupted travel and many states imposed lockdowns to curb ris-ing cases.

In its memo, Infosys said the country’s safety situation seems to be improving, with growing vaccination cover-age. Infosys did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment on the memo.

The company said it had

been operating in emergency mode for months but noted that the situation in the country was now improving.

“We have been getting requests from certain accounts to allow their team members to work from Infosys campuses. In addition, some of our employ-ees have also been asking to come back and start work-ing from office, as a personal preference.”

After reporting results last week, Infosys executives told analysts that roughly 99% of its staff was working from home, and the company would make efforts to get “more and more people to come to office” over the next couple of quarters. AGENCIES

MUMBAI: India’s coffee exports have seen a steady decline in the last decade amid growing need for value addition across mul-tiple stages of coffee processing globally and rising demand for specialty coffees, according to a report.

India exported nearly $720 million worth of coffee in 2020-21, out of which 42 per cent mainly constituted the Robusta coffee beans exports, accord-ing to a report by global trade finance company Drip Capital, which quoted the data from Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT).

According to the report, India’s coffee exports have

dropped at an annual decline of 3 per cent between 2011-12 till 2020-21. In FY12, India’s coffee exports, the eighth-largest pro-ducer and exporter of coffee by volume, stood at $953 million.

According to the report, the fall can partly be attributed to COVID-19, where in FY2019-20, India’s overall coffee exports reached a nine-year low in dol-lar value terms and plummeted by 44 per cent in April 2020.

Moreover, the crisis signif-icantly impacted green coffee beans’ shipments in March 2020, which is the crucial period for Robusta coffee harvesting and exports, it added. “Even before the pandemic, the Indian coffee

industry had been witnessing stagnation for a while due to a growing need for value addition across multiple stages of coffee processing. However, all is not bleak. Recently, the popular-ity of specialty coffees like the Monsooned Malabar coffee for one is increasing so much that certain micro coffee estates and

roasters are currently trying to tap into this new opportunity on a small, experimental scale,” Drip Capital co-founder and CEO Pushkar Mukewar said.

Besides, Covid-19 also led to a shift in the consumption patterns and an alteration in the product mix in demand, he said.

“Globally, the sales of cof-fee machines soared as coffee enthusiasts turned towards making the beverage at home rather than venturing outside, he added. The report by Drip Capital is based on publicly available data and insights from coffee exporters in the country.

The report further found that statewise, Karnataka dominates the coffee industry, accounting for most exports, followed by Andhra Pradesh that exports more than 50 per cent of instant coffee, which commands a 31 per cent share in the country’s export basket.

According to the report, Italy is India’s largest market,

accounting for over 20 per cent of bean coffee exports.

While exports to the Middle East comprise Arabica coffee, Europeans prefer the stronger and bitter flavours of the Indian Robusta blend. Also, in FY20, Russia, Poland, the USA, Turkey and Malaysia imported over 50 per cent of coffee preparations produced in India, worth close to $141 million.

At present, India is the third-largest exporter to Poland in terms of coffee preparations, Indian exporters should con-tinue focusing on building a significant market share in Poland and the USA for instant coffee. PTI

OUR CORRESPONDENT

MUMBAI: Market bench-marks roared back to life on Thursday after a three-session losing streak as investors piled into IT, banking and finance stocks amid a bullish trend overseas.

A recovering rupee and optimism surrounding the flurry of initial public offers (IPOs) added to the momen-tum, traders said.

The 30-share BSE Sensex soared 638.70 points or 1.22 per cent to finish at 52,837.21. Similarly, the broader NSE Nifty vaulted 191.95 points or 1.23 per cent to 15,824.05.

Tech Mahindra was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, jumping 5.65 per cent, followed by Bajaj Finance, Bharti Airtel, Bajaj Finserv, Tata Steel, L&T, Infosys and ICICI Bank.

On the other hand, HUL was the biggest laggard, tum-bling 2.27 per cent, even as the FMCG major reported a 10.7 per cent increase in its consolidated net profit at Rs 2,100 crore for the June quarter.

Asian Paints, Bajaj Auto and M&M were the other los-ers, shedding up to 1.73 per cent.

Market breadth was in favour of bulls, with 26 of the

Sensex 30 stocks closing in the green.

According to Milind Much-hala, Executive Director, Julius Baer, Indian markets made a smart pull-back supported by the positive global set-up and a decent start to the Q1FY22 earnings season.

“Markets are clearly

rewarding the stocks/sectors where the earnings momen-tum is strong (such as IT - especially midcap IT, cement, metals) or where growth vis-ibility remains good (such as chemicals, healthcare, etc.).

Moreover, with the flurry of IPOs, which are seeing a very healthy response from inves-

tors, the related sectors are see-ing interest due to benchmark valuations. Also with the head-line index remaining steady at elevated levels, the broader market (Midcaps/Smallcaps) continues to witness a lot of excitement/participation,” he

said.BSE metal, telecom, capital

goods, industrials, power and IT indices rose up to 3.02 per cent, while the FMCG gauge ended in the red. Broader BSE midcap and smallcap indices rose up to 1.52 per cent.

NEW DELHI: The Reserve Bank is working on a phased implementation strategy for its own digital currency and is in the process of launching it in wholesale and retail segments in the near future, RBI Deputy Governor T Rabi Sankar said on Thursday.

He said the idea of Cen-tral Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is ripe, and many cen-tral banks in the world are work-ing towards it. Sankar further said CBDC is needed to protect consumers from the “fright-ening level of volatility” seen in some of the virtual curren-cies which have no sovereign backing.

He said central banks across the globe are engaged in explor-ing CBDCs, and a few coun-tries have also introduced such concepts. “Perhaps the idea for CBDCs is near,” he said while participating in an online dis-cussion organised by The Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.

In India, a high level inter-ministerial committee consti-tuted by the Ministry of Finance has examined the policy and legal frameworks, and has rec-ommended the introduction of CBDC as a digital form of fiat money in the country.

“Like other central banks, RBI has also been exploring the pros and cons of introduction of CBDC since quite some time,” he said, and added generally countries have implemented specific purpose CBDCs.

The Reserve Bank, he said, is currently working towards a phased implementation strat-egy and examining cases which could be implemented with little or no disruption in the banking system and the monetary policy.

“...conducting pilots in wholesale and retail segments may be a possibility in the near future. So, some progress has been made. You know we could likely come up with this in the near future,” Sankar said.

The Deputy Governor fur-ther said legal changes would be necessary as the current provi-sions have been made keeping in mind currency in a physical form under the Reserve Bank of India Act. He said conse-

quential amendments would also be required in the Coinage Act, Foreign Exchange Manage-ment Act (FEMA) and Informa-tion Technology Act. “These are some of the things that.. we are looking at internally,” he added.

The Deputy Governor further said some of the key issues being examined by the RBI include scope of CBDCs, underlying technology, and vali-dation mechanism.

He also highlighted some the risks associated with digital currencies, like sudden flight of money from a bank under stress.

“There are associated risks...but they need to be carefully evaluated against the potential benefits,” he added. PTI

Sensex snaps 3-day slide; rises 639 points, Nifty above 15,820

Tech Mahindra was top gainer in Sensex pack, followed by Bajaj Finance, Bharti Airtel, Bajaj Finserv, Tata Steel, L&T, Infosys and ICICI Bank

MUMBAI: The rupee strengthened against the US currency for the sec-ond straight session on Thursday, closing 15 paise higher at 74.46 (provi-sional) amid a rally in the domestic stocks.

At the interbank forex market, the rupee opened at 74.46, and hit an intra-day high of 74.33 and a low of 74.53. It finally finished at 74.46, higher by 15 paise over its last close. On Tues-day, the rupee had settled at 74.61 against the US dollar. Forex market was closed on Wednesday on account of ‘Bakri Id’. Brent crude futures, the global oil benchmark, rose 0.98 to $72.94 per barrel.

Meanwhile, the dol-lar index, which gauges

the greenback’s strength against a basket of six cur-rencies, slipped 0.01 per cent to 92.74. Meanwhile, for-eign institutional investors were net sellers in the cap-ital market on Tuesday as they offloaded shares worth Rs 2,834.96 crore, as per exchange data. MPOST

gains for 2nd straight session, settles at 74.46/$

HUL was the biggest laggard, tumbling 2.27 per cent, even as the FMCG major reported a 10.7 per cent increase in its consolidated net profit at Rs 2,100 crore for the June quarter

RBI planning digital currency launch in near future: Dy Guv

RBI Deputy Governor T Rabi Sankar said CBDC is needed to protect consumers from the ‘frightening level of volatility’ seen in some of the virtual currencies which have no sovereign backing

He said idea of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is ripe, and many central banks are working towards it

Road Transport & Highways ministry built 13,327km of highways in FY21, says Gadkari

Road Transport & Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari

NEW DELHI: There was no job loss in the ports and ship-ping sector despite the COVID-19 crisis impacting the major ports and causing a consider-able decline in the total traffic and containers traffic, Union minister Shripad Naik informed Parliament on Thursday.

In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Ports, Shipping and Waterways, Shripad Naik said the ministry has given monetary compensa-tion of Rs 50 lakh to the depen-dent members or legal heirs of the employees who lost their lives due to acquired COVID infection at work place.

“The impact of Covid-19 at

major ports started from March 2020. There was a considerable decline in the total traffic and containers traffic ... there is no job loss in this sector,” Naik said.

He said Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways has issued necessary directions from time to time to ports to put in place a screening, detection and quarantine system of dis-embarking Seafarers or cruise passengers, to obtain self-dec-laration from arriving crews/passengers, to install thermal scanners.

Replying to a separate question, he said there was no adverse impact on the overall lndian maritime trade due to

the blockage of the Suez canal arising out of the grounding of the shipping vessel Ever Given.

“One Indian vessel had to wait in queue for the traffic to open up,” he said.

The Ever Given ship got stuck in the Suez Canal on 23 March 2021 and after numerous salvage operations for 6 days, the ship was freed and the canal, cleared.

Relying to another ques-tion, Naik said Indian ship-ping enterprises have also been allowed to acquire ships abroad and also flag them in the country of their convenience, under the lndian Controlled Tonnage scheme. PTI

No job loss in ports, shipping sector, says Union Min Naik

NEW DELHI: About 1.5 lakh weavers have been onboarded on Government e-Market place (GeM), a move which would enable wider market access for handloom weavers, artisans and producers, Parliament was informed on Thursday.

Minister of State for Tex-tiles Darshana Jardosh said steps have been taken to on-board weavers / artisans on the GeM to enable them to sell their products directly to vari-ous government departments and organisations.

“So far about 1.5 lakh weav-ers have been onboarded on the GeM portal,” she said in a writ-ten reply in the Rajya Sabha. PTI

1.5L weavers onboarded

on GeM: Min

Infosys reopens offices as India Inc eyes long road back to work

FORT WORTH (Texas): American Airlines eked out a second-quarter profit of $19 million, its first since the pan-demic started, thanks to nearly $1.5 billion in federal relief.

The report on Thursday underscored the progress air-lines are making in rebuilding after the coronavirus crushed air travel and how much far-ther they still have to go to fully recover.

American’s revenue jumped more than four-fold from a year ago, but was down 37 from per cent the same quarter in 2019.

Excluding American’s share of $54 billion in federal relief to help airlines cover payroll costs, and other special items, the Fort Worth, Texas-based

carrier would have lost $1.1 bil-lion. That is American’s small-est adjusted loss in any quarter since 2019. We have taken a number of steps to solidify our business ... and it shows in our second-quarter results, CEO Doug Parker and President Robert Isom said in a memo to employees.

The number of airline pas-

sengers flying in the US each day has been rising for more than a year and recently hit 2 million, or about 80 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.

Domestic leisure travel is roughly back to normal, but business and international trav-elers key customers for Ameri-can and other huge US airlines are still mostly absent. AGENCIES

NEW DELHI: The Depart-ment of Posts lost 1,163 per-sonnel due to COVID-19 and family members of 97 deceased have been given government job or engagement, Parliament was informed on Thursday.

According to the data shared by Minister of State For Communications Devusinh Chauhan, the Department of Posts (DoP) lost 508 depart-mental employees and 655 gramin dak sevaks (GDS) due to the Covid-19.

“Department of Posts had proposed extension of the benefit of payment of com-pensation of Rs 10 lakh to all departmental employees and Gramin Dak Sevaks to cover death due to covid-19 while discharging official duties.

However, on account of financial implications and with a view to have a uni-form stand on this issue across various Departments, the proposal could not mate-rialize,” Minister of State For Communications Devusinh Chauhan said.

A total of 27 individuals belonging to the family mem-bers of the deceased depart-mental employees and 70 from deceased GDS family have been given government job or engagement.

Postal service is among the essential services and it was operational during the pan-demic and assisted in delivery of medicines, medical equip-ment, payments etc during the lockdown. PTI

‘India Posts lost 1,163 personnel due to Covid’

American Airlines turns small profit due to $1.5 billion relief

‘India’s coffee exports witnessing decline, hit 9-yr low in FY20’According to report, India’s coffee exports have dropped at an annual decline of 3% between 2011-12 and 2020-21

According to report, Italy is India’s largest market, accounting for over 20% of bean coffee exports

NEW DELHI: State-owned Bank of Maharashtra (BoM) on Thursday reported more than two-fold jump in its net profit at Rs 208.01 crore in first quarter ended June of this fiscal on healthy interest income and fall in bad loans.

The Pune-headquartered lender had posted net profit of Rs 101.02 crore in the same quarter of 2020-21.

Total income during Q1FY22 jumped to Rs 3,794.53 crore as against Rs 3,264.81 crore in Q1FY21, Bank of Maharashtra said in a regula-tory filing.

Interest income during the quarter rose to Rs 3,103.55 crore as against Rs 2,896.24 crore in

year ago period.Bank’s income from invest-

ment and from other sources was also higher in June quarter.

On asset front, there was significant improvement as the gross non-performing assets (NPAs) came down to 6.35 per cent of the gross advances as of June 31, 2021, as against 10.93 per cent by year ago period.

Net NPAs or bad loans were also trimmed at 2.22 per cent as against 4.10 per cent.

In value terms, the gross NPAs stood at Rs 7,021.63 crore as of June 30, 2021, down from Rs 10,558.53 crore as of June 2020. Net NPAs were of Rs 2,352.75 crore, down from Rs 3,677.39 crore. PTI

BoM net profit rises over two-fold at 208 cr in Q1

11millenniumpost Sport mpNEW DELHI | FRIDAY, 23 JULY, 2021

20 Indian athletes, 6 officials to take part in opening ceremony

TOKYO: A total of 20 Indian athletes from seven sports and six officials will participate in the Olympics opening cere-mony on Friday as COVID-19 concerns and competitions lined up the next day led to a majority of the contingent deciding to stay away from the event.

Athletes from sports like shooting, badminton, archery and hockey, will skip the cere-mony as the Indian delegation is not willing to expose them to the risk of contracting the virus with their events lined up on Saturday.

From hockey, only flag-bearer, men's team captain Manpreet Singh, will partici-pate in the ceremony.

The list of 20 attendees include four paddlers, includ-ing Manika Batra and A Sharath Kamal, and as many sailing team members.

Lone fencer C A Bhavani Devi, gymnast Pranati Naik and swimmer Sajan Prakash besides as many as eight box-ers will also be there.

Apart from MC Mary Kom, who is also a flag-bearer alongside Manpreet, Lovlina Borgohain, Pooja Rani, Amit Panghal, Manish Kaushik,

Ashish Kumar and Satish Kumar will participate in the ceremony.

India is being represented by more than 125 athletes in the Games with the overall con-tingent size being 228, includ-ing officials, coaches, other support staff and alternate ath-letes in view of the COVID-19.

"Archery, Judo, Badminton, Weightlifting, Tennis, Hockey (men and women), Shooting, the above are not participat-ing due to matches on 24th,

practice sessions on 24th and staying safe," Indian Olympic Association President Narinder Batra said.

"The march past will be in Japanese alphabetical order and India's number is 21st," he added.

"Both the flag-bearers ie M C Mary Kom and Manpreet Singh are participating in the opening ceremony," Batra said.

The six officials who will be part of the event are India's Chef de Mission Birender

Prasad Baishya, Deputy Chef de Mission Dr Prem Verma, Team doctor Dr Arun Basil Mathew, manager of table ten-nis team MP Singh, boxing coach Muhammad Ali Qamar and gymnastics coach Lakhan Sharma.

IOA secretary general Rajeev Mehta had earlier stated that no more than 50 will attend the ceremony. Only six officials from each country are being allowed take part in the march-past.

"We won't like to create a situation where our athletes are in danger of getting infected. So a decision has been taken to limit the number of athletes and officials participating in the opening ceremony within 50," Mehta told PTI.

The decision was taken after a meeting between chef de mis-sion B P Baishya and coaches here this morning.

Along with the shooters, archers and the men's and women's hockey teams are also scheduled to compete the day after the opening ceremony.

While Mary Kom is not scheduled to compete the next day, Manpreet will be leading the side out for the first Pool A game against New Zealand on Saturday.

"Those who are quarantin-ing are also not allowed," dep-uty chef de missio Prem Kumar Verma had said about the ath-letes and officials, who have recently landed in the Japa-nese city.

Among other countries, Britain will have no more than 30 athletes taking part in the ceremony due to COVID-19 fears.

The UK has 376 athletes in fray at the Games. AGENCIES

Athletes from sports like shooting, badminton, archery and hockey, will skip the Olympics opening ceremony as they have events lined up on Saturday

Tokyo Games gold winners to get Rs 75 lakh from IOA

NEW DELHI: The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) on Thursday announced that it would give the Tokyo Olym-pics gold medal winners a cash award of Rs 75 lakh apart from giving each of the participat-ing National Sports Federa-tions (NSFs) a bonus amount of Rs 25 lakh.

The IOA Advisory Commit-tee has recommended that silver medal winners will be presented Rs 40 lakh, while the bronze winners will get richer by Rs 25 lakhs. "It also recommended a sum of Rs. 1 lakh to each ath-lete representing the country at the Tokyo Olympic Games," IOA said in a statement.

The IOA has also acknowl-edged the suggestions of its advisory group that a bonus of Rs. 25 lakh be given to each participating NSF and a further support of Rs 30 lakh to each medal-winning NSFs.

Besides, a support of Rs.15

lakhs each will be received by other member National Sports Federations.

"This is the first time IOA is giving reward to medal winners and medal producing NSFs to

such an extent," IOA secretary general Rajeev Mehta said.

The advisory group also rec-ommended a pocket allowance of USD 50 per day to each mem-ber of the Indian contingent for their actual days of stay in Tokyo. IOA also said that the member State Olympic Associa-tions "will also receive a sum of Rs 15 lakh each, as a contribu-tion from IOA towards devel-oping sports infrastructure in the states and in encouraging more athletes to take up sports."

Mehta said: "The Indian Olympic Association under-stands the hardships faced by the athletes and the federations and felt that support and aid is required by all National Sports Federations, State Olympic Associations and most impor-tantly the athletes, after hav-ing overcome the hurdles and hard times during the Corona-virus pandemic since March last year." AGENCIES

Olympic opening ceremony director fired for Holocaust jokeTOKYO: The Tokyo Olympic organizing committee fired the director of the opening cere-mony on Thursday because of a Holocaust joke he made during a comedy show in 1998.

Organizing committee president Seiko Hashimoto said a day ahead of the opening ceremony that director Kentaro Kobayashi has been dismissed. He was accused of using a joke about the Holocaust in his comedy act, including the

phrase "Let's play Holocaust.""We found out that Mr.

Kobayashi, in his own perfor-mance, has used a phrase rid-iculing a historical tragedy," Hashimoto said.

"We deeply apologize for causing such a development the day before the opening cer-emony and for causing trou-bles and concerns to many involved parties as well as the people in Tokyo and the rest of the country."

Tokyo has been plagued with scandals since being awarded the Games in 2013. French investigators are look-ing into alleged bribes paid to International Olympic Com-mittee members to influence the vote for Tokyo.

The fallout forced the resignation two years ago of Tsunekazu Takeda, who headed the Japanese Olympic Committee and was an IOC member. AGENCIES

After Avesh, Washington out of England series

NEW DELHI: The Indian team in England was dealt another injury blow on Thurs-day when spin bowling all-rounder Washington Sundar was ruled out of the five-Test series beginning August 4.

Washington is the third player after Shubman Gill and Avesh Khan to be ruled out of the tour.

It has been learnt that Washington has fractured a finger after being hit by a Mohammed Siraj delivery on the second day of the first class warm up game between India and County XI.

"Yes Washy has a fractured finger just like Avesh who had a thumb dislocation. Both are out of Test series and will go home," a senior BCCI offi-cial told PTI on conditions of anonymity.

"He will also take at least five weeks to start bowling and so no point keeping them here," the source said.

It is understood that the

short ball from Siraj that accounted for Washington hit his fingers harder than expected and he was in excru-ciating pain after returning to pavilion.

While Washington or Avesh were not first team reg-ulars but are integral part as net bowlers and the Tamil Nadu all rounder with his superior bat-ting abilities would have been in the mix during some point of the series. AGENCIES

India's conundrum whether to experiment or not after series win

THIRD ODI

COLOMBO: India coach Rahul Dravid will have to choose between experiment-ing and continuing the win-ning combination in his bid to ensure a clean sweep against Sri Lanka in the third and final one-dayer here on Friday.

While Shikhar Dhawan-led India won the first game by seven wickets, Deepak Cha-har pulled a heist in the second one with his match-winning unbeaten 69 as the visitors won by three wickets.

Now, it remains to be seen whether India continue with Prithvi Shaw, who got scores of 43 and 13, to partner the skipper at the top, or go in for classy Devdutt Padikkal or an equally elegant Ruturaj Gai-kwad -- both superb List A players.

If Shaw gets another opportunity, he would be more

than keen to get a big score, as he failed to convert his start in the first game.

Another dilemma for the team management would be whether to persist with aggres-sive Ishan Kishan or give an opportunity to Sanju Sam-son, another hard-hitting batsman, to make his ODI debut.

The likes of Manish Pan-

dey and ever-improving Suryakumar Yadav are cer-tain to maintain their places as the duo are the middle-order backbone.

With vice-captain Bhu-vneshwar Kumar making it clear that there are no fitness issues with Hardik Pandya, the flamboyant Baroda player and his brother all-rounder Krunal are expected to play. AGENCIES

Djokovic knows ‘history is on the line’ at OlympicsTOKYO: Novak Djokovic knows how close he is.

Not just to creating history and becoming the first man to achieve a Golden Slam by winning all four major tennis tournaments and an Olympic singles gold medal in the same year.

Sure, that's on Djokovic's mind as he enters the Olympic tournament starting Saturday.

But it's the bigger end prod-uct that would be the result of such an achievement that is weighing most heavily on him surpassing Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal to be con-sidered the greatest tennis player ever.

The goal is so great that Djokovic doesn't even want to consider the consequences.

"I don't want to be part of the debate. I don't want to be compared to anybody, the top-ranked Serb said Thursday. It's still a very long way to a poten-

tial historic achievement."I know that there is a lot

of things on the line. I know there's history on the line. I'm privileged and motivated to be in this position. I've worked very hard to be here. But let's talk about history if everything goes great here," Djokovic added. "Right now all focus goes to the next challenge."

In Serbia, the debate is already over. AGENCIES

Australia to play 5

Twenty20s in Bangladesh next month

DHAKA: Australia will play five Twenty20s within a week in Bangladesh next month, the Bangladesh Cricket Board announced Thursday.

They will be played at Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Sta-dium in Mirpur, Dhaka from Aug. 3-9.

It will be Australia's first trip to Bangladesh since they played two test matches in 2017. The team is sched-uled to arrive in Dhaka on July 29.

"The BCB and Cricket Australia have worked tire-lessly together for confirm-ing the itinerary," BCB chief executive officer Nizam Uddin Chowdhury said in a statement.

"Naturally this was a chal-lenge due to the COVID-19 pandemic as ensuring health safety and security is a priority prerequisite for holding any cricket series in these times."

He added that "a compre-hensive bio-security plan is in place and will be implemented during the tour for the pro-tection of players and staff of the two teams and the match officials."

The Australians will be quarantined in their hotel for three days before they start practicing at the venue. AGENCIES

Tokyo Olympics: IOC to include athletes kneeling in highlights and social media

TOKYO: After images of Olym-pic soccer players taking a knee were excluded from official highlight reels and social media channels, the IOC said Thurs-day that kneeling protests will be shown in the future.

Players from five women's soccer teams kneeled in sup-port of racial justice Wednes-day, the first day it was allowed at the Olympic Games after a ban lasting decades.

The concession under Olym-pic Charter Rule 50, which has long prohibited any athlete pro-test inside event venues, was finally allowed this month by the International Olympic Com-mittee. The IOC has tried to rec-oncile enforcing the rule while recognizing, and sometimes celebrating, the iconic image of American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos each raising a black-gloved fist on

the medal podium at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.

On Wednesday, the Brit-ish and Chilean teams kneeled before the opening games and were followed by the United States, Sweden and New Zea-land players in later kickoffs. The Australia team posed with a flag of Australia's indigenous people. Those images were excluded from the official Tokyo Olympic highlights package provided by

the IOC to media including The Associated Press that could not broadcast the games live.

Official Olympic social media channels also did not include pictures of the athlete activism. "The IOC is covering the Games on its owned and operated platforms and such moments will be included as well," the Olympic body said Thursday in an apparent change of policy. AGENCIES

Indian Table Tennis team at the Games Village, in Tokyo, Thursday PTI

Gymnast Pranati Nayak at podium training ahead of the Summer Olympic Games 2020, in Tokyo PTI

Washington Sundar

India coach Rahul Dravid with Shikhar Dhawan

Deemed 'extreme risk' nation, India denied entry

into ITF World Junior Finals

NEW DELHI: The Indian team has been denied entry into the upcoming ITF World Junior Tennis Finals in Pros-tejov as India has been classi-fied as 'extreme risk' nation in COVID-19 times.

The Czech Republic Embassy here has refused to issue visas to the players.

The All India Tennis Associ-ation (AITA) earlier this month named a three-member Under-14 boys team comprising of Rethin Pranav RS, Kriish Ajay Tyagi and Tejas Ahuja for the prestigious tournament, sched-uled to be held from August 2 to 7. The AITA reached out to the Sports Ministry on July 17, seeking intervention in the mat-ter and the SAI subsequently approached the External Affairs Ministry on July 19.

But the matter remained unresolved. "It's unfortunate. The boys needed exposure. If they had to deny us visas, why did the ITF enter our team in the tournament," said AITA secretary General Anil Dhupar.

India reeled under a horrific second wave of Coronavirus but the situation has improved now, prompting the central and state and governments to re-open the economy. AGENCIES

S KANNAN

NEW DELHI: To say that Sumit Nagal has been lucky to get into the men's singles draw at the Tokyo Olympics would be indeed uncharitable.

The 23-year-old boy from Jhajjar, Haryana, who stepped out into the lonely world of professional tennis, has led a very hard life. Had it not been for the motivation and push from his mentor Mahesh Bhu-pathi and the support lent by the Virat Kohli Foundation, Nagal may not have made it this far. He is currently ranked 144 in the world.

Last week, when he got into the singles draw as Yuki Bham-bri's slot fell vacant due to an

injury, Nagal did not know whether to believe it, at first. He has spent the last 16 months of COVID-19 enforced lock-down in solitude in Germany.

Staying away from the glare and razzmatazz of a big city, Nagal trained hard during lockdown and played events when he got the opportunity in Europe. Staying in Germany has been hand-to-mouth exis-tence and he even said last year he was living off his savings.

He grabbed headlines in 2019 when he took a set off Roger Federer at the US Open in New York. Yet, the support he got from his own federation (AITA) was zilch. "I knew the rankings were going to drop for the Olympics. But none

the less I am very happy that I got in. I am getting a chance to wear the Indian colours and represent the country. I cannot complain about it," Nagal told Millennium Post. The Olym-pics opening ceremony is on Friday.

To be sure, it could have been even better for Nagal had the AITA planned better. Then, Nagal could have made the doubles draw as well with Rohan Bopanna. However, lack of planning from the fed-eration has caused damage.

"To be honest, I have been struggling with a few things, but I do not want to talk about it. I think getting into Olym-pics will change things in my career. I mean, it doesn't mat-

ter what people tell you about the experience at the Olympics. It is going to be an amazing experience for me and I will give it my 100 per cent on the court," said Nagal, who is phys-ically and mentally strong. He is ready for the humid weather in Tokyo.

Pressed further on the Olympics, Nagal opened up. "This was not easy, such a change in my schedule at the last minute. I mean this is the Olympics and I was actually thinking about it last year. The Olympic Games come once in four years and it has been my main goal to compete in it. My main goal was to play the Olympics last year. Now that I have got in, I am going to give it

my 100 per cent shot. In tennis, anything is possible and those are the things I am looking for-ward to," explained Nagal.

This year has been a tough one for Nagal. He missed Wim-bledon and does not want to talk about it.

"I am not going to talk about my injury. I want to focus on being positive and play my very best tennis," said Nagal, for whom the hard courts should be conducive.

He has produced many good results in the Davis Cup in the past and does not suf-fer from stage fright. Hope-fully, he can show to his fans he will come out firing, irrespec-tive of who his opponents are in Tokyo.

‘Getting into Olympics will change things in my career’“I am very happy that I got in. I am getting a chance to wear the Indian colours and represent

the country. I cannot complain about it," tennis player Sumit Nagal tells Millennium Post

Novak Djokovic PTI

12 millenniumpostLeisure

Entertainmentmp

FRIDAY, 23 JULY, 2021 | NEW DELHI

Gehana Vasisth, who had worked on multiple projects for Raj Kundra’s controversial

app, came to his defense after he was arrested in connection with a pornog-raphy racket. He got remanded to police custody till July 23.

Vasisth is out on bail in the same case.

Recently, she responded to com-ments made by Poonam Pandey against Raj. Poonam had said that she was threatened by the company to do things she did not want to and that even after her contract had ended, material fea-

turing her was shared on the platform.According to a leading organisation,

Gehana said, “In 2011, Poonam said that she will go nude in the field if India wins. Now she is making nude videos for so many years. How can these people say that Raj has put them in the adult industry? They used to make such videos even before Raj launched his company.”

“Today, Poonam is not with Raj,

she is with her husband. With her hus-band, she makes MMS videos where she shows her private parts. Does Raj tell her to do all this? A man is stuck and everyone is trying to take advantage of the situation,” she added.

Raj Kundra was taken into police custody on the night of July 19 after being booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Information Technology (IT) Act. AGENCIES

Arjun Kapoor talked about how certain audiences criticise his

body type because they expect actors to look a certain way and are not familiar with his struggle.

In an interview with a lead-ing daily, the actor said that his ‘condition’ makes it dif-ficult for him to achieve ‘quick results’. He was not merely overweight grow-ing up but had a medical condition. He also said that the negativity was magnified when he was going through a rough patch in his career.

“Not many know, but I have been battling obesity for the longest time. I was just not a fat kid, it was a health issue. It has not been easy. My underly-ing health condition has always

made it a struggle for me to constantly stay a certain size. While I have been criticised a lot for my physique, I have taken it on the chin because

people expect actors to be seen in a certain body type. I understand that. They have not understood the struggle that I have gone through and it is

alright. I have to only prove it to myself and to people who believe in me,” shared Arjun.

He added, “The pressure to be relevant in the industry is immense and the negativ-ity does get to you. When my films were not working to the level that I expected them to,

the negativity mounted up. The triggers that had caused

my health issue in the first place came back, but

I tried hard to keep going and make every day count.”

“When you are constantly engulfed in work, you do not realise the struggle that you could be going through. You could be crumbling from inside while putting on a brave face. It happened to me. It happens to a lot of people,” he said. AGENCIES

‘Everybody expects actors to be seen in a certain body type’Arjun says the pressure to be relevant in the

industry is immense and negativity affects you

‘Poonam used to make such videos even before Raj launched his company. A man is stuck and everyone is trying to take advantage of the situation,’ she said

‘I have been battling obesity

for the longest time. I was just not a fat kid, it was a health issue.

It has not been easy’

Gehana Vasisth defends Raj Kundra

Veteran actor Dipika Chikhlia, known for play-ing Sita in Ramanand

Sagar’s mythological TV show Ramayana was facilitated by the Governor of Maharashtra, Bhagat Koshiyari in Raj Bhavan, Mumbai along with legendary singers Udit Narayan, Kumar Sanu and ‘Bhajan’ maestro Anup Jalota.

While Chikhlia had worn a gorgeous saree for the special occasion, Udit Narayan had worn a formal suit. Kumar Sanu was in kurta-pajama and Anup Jalota wore a silk sherwani along with a shawl.

Dipika was beyond happy to get felicitated and she shared the pictures of the event on her ‘Insta-gram’ handle. The celebrities were conferred with the title of ‘Made in India Icons 2021’.

She captioned the post by writ-

ing, “Felicitated by the Governor Bhagat Koshiyari ji in Raj Bhavan, Mumbai along with many digni-taries like Udit Narayan ji, Anup Jalota ji and Kumar Shanoo ji.”

Udit Narayan was recently seen at the sangeet party of newlywed Rahul Vaidya and Disha Parmar. He was seen enjoying the night along with the performances of Daler Mehndi and others.

Kumar Sanu was last seen in ‘Indian Idol 12’, where he was a special guest along with Anuradha Paudwal.

Anup Jalota was in the lime-light with his stint in the reality show ‘Bigg Boss 12’.

Dipika Chikhlia made her come back to the film industry with Ayushmann Khurrana-star-rer ‘Bala’. AGENCIES

Bollywood filmmaker Anurag Kashyap’s daugh-ter, Aaliyah Kashyap, said

that she was bothered by him being misrepresented after #MeToo alle-gations were made against him in 2020.

In a recent interview, Aaliyah, who is an influencer

with her ‘YouTube’ channel, said that those who know her father know that he is a ‘teddy bear’. She said that he has been deliberately trying to shield her from controversies, as it exacer-bates her anxiety.

“The #MeToo claims both-ered me a lot. The hate does not get to me - it is the misrepre-sentation of his character that bothers me. Peoplethink he is a terrible man, but ask anyone close to me and they will say that he is the biggest softy teddy

bear you will ever meet,” said Aaliyah.

She added, “This is what gives me anxiety and not hate. I know that whatever hate I get for him is just from people who do not have anything better to do with their lives. My dad also has been trying to make more of an effort to keep his things away from me because he does not want it to make my anxiety worse.” AGENCIES

ALEN PAUL

Bollywood star Manjot Singh, who gained popularity for his portrayal of Lali in 2013 comedy ‘Fukrey’, got

candid with ‘Millennium Post’ regarding his character in SonyLiv’s new web series ‘Chutzpa’ and his career taking shape with-out any godfather.

Revealing about his character briefly, Manjot shared, “Rishi is a guy who is in search of love but lacks confidence when it comes to confessing his feelings to any girl who he starts liking. One day he meets a girl online, named ‘Wild Butterfly’ (played by

Elnaaz Norouzi). Rishi feels his world has become beautiful and lively once he starts gaining confidence by talking to her and then decides to confess his feelings to her.”

So what makes Rishi different than Man-jot’s previous characters played by the lat-ter so far?

“What makes Rishi different is the fact that he is a naïve and innocent person who believes that the world around him is a bet-ter place because he is a good person. But as things slowly unfold in front of him, he learns that not only distant friends, but even his close ones are not what he used to per-ceive them as,” he mentioned.

Speaking on whether Rishi and the actor have any similarities, Manjot replied, “Not at all! In ‘Chutzpa’, the audience will see Rishi spending all of his time in front of a laptop chatting online and video calling with his friends and playing poker. I, on the other hand, am not that much active on social

media. I prefer meeting people face to face and chill out with friends. I cannot stay at home and be stuck with a laptop all day.”

When it comes to his film career, Man-jot feels ‘blessed’ to be a part of the Hindi cinema where he got opportunities to work with skilled actors and filmmakers.

“Coming from a non-film background, I never thought that one day I will be doing films. I feel blessed that film offers came my way unexpect-edly after my debut movie and I got several opportunities to work with talented actors and directors. With each film, I grew to realise that it will take time for me to get films without the help of any godfather,” said the ‘Fukrey’ star.

Mainstream Bol-lywood has always preferred A-list celeb-rities for best scripts and awe-inspiring roles and restricted Sikh actors to funny roles only - something which Singh feels is changing gradually.

“I believe that Sikh actors are now being taken seriously for comical as well as for other roles,” he said. The young actor however believes that making people laugh is the most difficult job. “It is not very tough to make people cry with the help of serious roles, emotional stories and heartbreaking incidents. But to make people laugh within a specific time takes a lot more. Essaying a funny character is very challeng-ing. No one teaches actors how to make any-one laugh at the right time as it is something in-built,” revealed Manjot.

If given a chance, Singh said he would love to try romantic roles in future.

‘It is a tough job to make people laugh’Manjot Singh opened up on how making the audience laugh at the right time is ‘in-built’, something that cannot be taught

‘BTS’ to attend 76th UN General Assembly as ‘special envoy’NEW DELHI: On July 21, South Korean President Moon Jae-in appointed the Grammy-nominated music group ‘BTS’ as the ‘Special Presidential Envoy for Future Generations and Culture’, carrying forward their work

in ‘spreading hope and posi-tive energy’ through music.

According to a series of tweets posted on the veri-fied ‘Twitter’ account of the Office of the President, the Republic of Korea, the septet will also attend the 76th UN General Assembly in Sep-tember as part of their duties.

The band, comprising RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook will lead ‘the global agenda for future gen-erations, including sustain-able growth and expanding diplomatic power in line with Korea’s elevated status in the international community’.

“ ‘BTS’ will attend major international conferences such as the 76th UN General Assembly in September to deliver messages of comfort and hope to young people around the world as a ‘special envoy for future generations

and culture’. We also plan to carry out various activities to promote international coop-eration to solve global issues such as environment, pov-erty, inequality improvement and respect for diversity,” the tweet read.

‘BTS’, whose full name is ‘Bangtan Sonyeondan’ (meaning ‘Bulletproof Boy Scouts’) or ‘Beyond The Scene’, is one of the most popular all-male groups in the world courtesy hit songs, like ‘Boy in Luv’, ‘ON’,

‘Dope’, ‘Black Swan’ and their Grammy-nominated ‘Dyna-mite’, which was their first

full-fledged English track.BTS’ participation at this

year’s UN General Assem-

bly will be their third, follow-ing an in-person appearance in 2018 and their second, a pre-recorded video message in 2020 owing to the novel Coronavirus pandemic.

The group, whose music underscores the themes of identity, self-growth, heal-ing and togetherness, has

been in constant touch with their fans, collectively called ‘ARMY’, during the pandemic through several online concerts and interac-tions on social media.

‘BTS’ recently released two back-to-back English songs ‘Butter’ and ‘Permis-sion to Dance’. PTI

It is not very tough to make people cry through serious roles, emotional stories but making people laugh is a lot more challenging

Dipika, Udit conferred with ‘Made in India Icons 2021’ titleThey were felici-tated by Governor of Maharashtra Bhagat Koshiyari at the Raj Bhavan in Mumbai

Aaliyah was miffed by #MeToo claims against her father

She said that Anurag has been deliberately trying to shield her from controversies, as it exacerbates her anxiety

BTS’ participation at this year’s UN General Assembly will be their third, following an in-person appearance in 2018 and their second through a video