Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
VOL. 13, ISSUE 48 | Saturday, 17 February 2018 | New Delhi | Pages 16 | Rs 3.00
millenniumpost.in RNI NO.: DELENG/2005/15351REGD. NO.: DL(S)-01/3420/2018-20
PUBLISHED FROM DELHI & KOLKATA
Workers prepare dry 'gulal' powder ahead of Holi festival in Mathura on Friday PTI
GEARING UP FOR HOLI
NO HALF TRUTHS
In today’s paper
...
Chandrayaan-2 launch in April, to aim for moon’s south pole
JITENDRA SINGH
CITY
MONTHLY TRAINING FOR TEACHERS 3
NATION
ROUHANI VISITS QUTUB SHAHI TOMBS 7
OPINION
WHERE FORGERY WINS 9
INTERNATIONAL
THREE TURKEY SCRIBES GET LIFERS 11
BUSINESS
5G ROAD MAP TO BE READY BY JUNE 12
SPORT
OZ CHASE DOWN RECORD TOTAL 15
CHINA PUTS WAR ON POLLUTION ABOVE TRADITION IN LUNAR NEW YEAR PG10
DON’T OBSTRUCT VC, STAFF FROM WORKING: HC TO JNU STUDENTS PG4
UP GOVT TO FOCUS ON HEALTH, FARMERS PG5
GEETANJALI GROUP CHEATED PNB OF `4,886 CRORE: CBI
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: The passports of celebrity jeweller Nirav Modi and his business associate Mehul Choksi have been suspended amid investigations into the Rs. 11,300 crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam. Their passports could be cancelled if they do not return to India within four weeks.
The CBI on Friday also regis-tered a fresh FIR against the Gitan-jali Group promoted by Mehul Choksi, uncle of billionaire jewel-ler Nirav Modi, following a com-plaint from Punjab National Bank, and also approached the Interpol to locate them.
Officials said the fresh FIR was based on a complaint from the PNB dated February 13. Accord-ing to it, the alleged loss to PNB was over Rs 4,886 crore, they said.
The agency on Friday also car-ried out searches on the premises of the Gitanjali Group at 20 places in Mumbai, Pune, Surat, Jaipur, Hyderabad and Coimbatore.
"Searches are at locations belonging to Gitanjali group of Mehul Choksy, other directors of the accused companies and other group factories and plants includ-ing offices, factories and resi-dences," a CBI spokesperson said here on Friday.
The officials also said the cen-tral agency approached the Inter-pol with a request for issuing Diffusion Notice which was aimed at locating an individual.
The CBI was confident about getting a location of Modi and his family by Friday, they said.
However, in a related devel-opment English news channels claimed to have tracked down the billionaire jeweller to a swanky New York hotel on Friday.
Modi, who was alleged to have
carried out fraudulent transac-tions worth over Rs 11,400 crore in PNB, had left the country in the first week of January.
The question as to why the PNB did not send a complaint to the CBI and decided to give it in tranches is also under the scanner of the agency, they said.
The bank has claimed in three complaints to the CBI that so far it has detected 150 Letters of Undertaking (LoUs) which were fraudulently issued by its officials
in connivance with Modi and the other accused in the case, the offi-cials said.
The ED on Friday issued a sum-mons for appearance to billionaire diamond merchant Nirav Modi and his business partner Mehul Choksi in connection with its money laundering probe.
Thirty-five new locations were raided, covering 11 states, by the ED. Diamond and gold worth Rs 549 crore were seized, bringing the total recovery to Rs 5649 crore.
Twenty-nine immovable proper-ties were also identified during the raids.
ED also directed Nirav Modi's company head office to make sure that "no sales should take place at its four outlets abroad - Macau, Beijing, New York and London".
Punjab National Bank has sus-pended eight more officials, includ-ing one at the general manager level, for their suspected involve-ment in the multi-crore scam, a senior government official said.
The official also said that PNB will repay other banks their dues by March 31 and would be funded from internal resources.
See also inside
Passports of Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi suspended; raids go on
Compete with yourself: PM Modi tells students
DHIRENDRA KUMAR
NEW DELHI: At a first of its kind interactive session with students, Prime Minister Narendra Modi pre-sented himself as a friend of students, their parents and family members instead of a Prime Minister of the country and complimented them for being “born politicians”.
Before taking questions from the students during Pariksha Par Char-cha, the PM said that it was his exam today and thanked his teachers for whom he is “still a student”. “They inspired me to keep the student alive in me,” Modi said.
“Just forget about that I’m a Prime Minister and consider me as a friend of yours; discuss whatever you want,” Modi said at the Town Hall session, which was organised by Human Resource Development Ministry at Talkatora Stadium on Friday.
Though at the stadium there were over 2,300 students, the PM said that he was speaking to as many as ten crore people across the coun-try through various platforms to beat the exam stress.
Students from different parts of the country asked questions on the issues of social pressure, time man-agement, comparing one child with other by their performance, parent’s high expectations, etc. at the Town Hall session.
On the subject of peer pressure, the Prime Minister spoke about the
importance of “Anuspardha” (com-peting with oneself), rather than “Pratispardha” (competing with others).
In the end, when he was asked by a student if he was prepared for the Lok Sabha elections, the PM said he was confident of passing his “exam next year”. “I have the wishes of 125 crore Indians with me,” the PM reiterated.
FOR ADVERTISING kindly contact at 9810195709
FOR SUBSCRIPTION kindly contact at 8800854665
It began in UPA regime, says BJP; Cong in Udaan barb
SIMONTINI BHATTACHARJEE
NEW DELHI: The war of words between the Congress and the BJP over the Rs 11,300 crore Punjab National Bank scam turned shriller on Friday.
The BJP hit out at the Congress, retorting that the scam had actually “started during UPA’s reign in 2011.”
“It is the alertness of the NDA gov-ernment which has brought this scam to light,” said Union minister Prakash Javadekar.
“All the NPAs, the wrongful distri-bution of loans, amongst others were all passed down to us by the UPA gov-ernment. This is a scam by the bank and not the government,” he charged.
The BJP also referred to Dinesh Dubey, a former director of the Alla-habad Bank, who on Friday alleged that the Nirav Modi scam started during the UPA government.
Dubey also claimed he resigned from his post after being pressured to approve a loan, purportedly hav-ing to do with Mehul Choksi’s Gitan-jali Gems.
“Finance secretary during UPA’s regime, instead of taking action, forced Dinesh Dubey to resign. We are asking who pressurised the finance secretary to pressurise Dinesh Dubey,” Javadekar questioned.
Former banking secretary Rajiv Takru, however, refuted the allegations, saying: “I met this person only once in my life. He had come to my office to resign in 2013. The reason for the res-ignation was that he was unhappy over something. I accepted his resignation. I have never spoken to him.”
The Congress, in an earlier press conference, alleged that what it calls “India’s biggest bank loot scam” has now grown to the tune of Rs 21,306 crore, as “layers of conspiracy get unearthed by the hour.”
“No wonder ‘Udaan’ is the buzz-word of Modi government, wherein every scamster can fleece and fly - unchecked and undetected,” mocked party spokesperson Randeep Surjewala.
Surjewala demanded to know how the scam had “escaped everyone’s atten-tion”, despite every bank having to go through four kinds of audit.
“Obviously, someone was protect-ing this network of fraud,” he charged.
The Congress reiterated its claim about the culpability of the BJP-led gov-ernment at the Centre, including the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).
In a scathing attack on Thursday, the party had alleged that the PMO was informed about the alleged fraud perpetrated by billionaire jewellery designer Nirav Modi in July 2016, but had failed to act in the matter.
MPOST BUREAU
NEW DELHI: India's top court on Friday directed the Karnataka government to release 177.25 tmcft of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu from its inter-state Bili-gundlu dam.
The judgement clarified that Karnataka will now have an enhanced share of 14.75 tmcft water per year while Tamil Nadu will get 404.25 tmcft, which will be 14.75 tmcft less than what was allotted by the tribunal in 2007.
Earlier, under the 2007 award of the Cauvery Water Dispute Tri-bunal (CWDT), Karnataka had a share of 270 tmcft of Cauvery water. This will now increase to 284.75 tmcft.
The long-awaited judgement was pronounced by a bench com-prising Chief Justice Dipak Misra
and Justices Amitava Roy and A M Khanwilkar, which had on September 20 last year reserved the verdict on the appeals filed by Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala against the 2007 award of the tribunal.
Reading out the operative por-
tion of the verdict, the chief justice said the 2007 tribunal award of 30 tmcft to Kerala and seven tmcft water to Puducherry will remain unchanged.
The apex court also allowed Tamil Nadu to draw an additional ten tmcft 'groundwater' from a
total of 20 tmcft beneath the Cau-very basin.
It said the increase in the share of Cauvery water for Karnataka by 14.75 tmcft is because of the ten tmcft groundwater and 4.75 tmcft drinking water requirement for Bengaluru residents.
Stating that drinking water has to be kept on the highest pedestal, it said its order on Cauvery water allocation would continue for the next 15 years.
During the pendency of appeals of the neighbouring states against the arbitral award of 2007, the apex court had passed sev-eral orders directing Karnataka to release Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu.
On September 30, 2016, it had pulled up Karnataka for its repeated "defiance" in flouting its orders on the issue and said no
one would know when the "wrath of the law" would fall on it.
Later, Karnataka had moved a review petition in the apex court against its three orders on the issue and direction to the Centre to create the Cauvery Water Man-agement Board (CWMB). It said "grave miscarriage of justice" was caused by it following the three apex court orders of September 20, 27 and 30, 2016, by which it was directed to release water.
Tamil Nadu had earlier as well alleged that Kerala was drawing water more than what was allo-cated to it by the tribunal.
The apex court had on Decem-ber 9, 2016, upheld the maintain-ability of appeals filed by the riparian states, saying it has the "jurisdiction to decide the param-eters, scope, authority and juris-diction of the tribunal".
Cauvery ruling: TN share cut, K’taka to get more
MPOST BUREAU
NEW DELHI: The railway ministry has directed its zones to discontinue past-ing reservation charts on reserved coaches of all trains at A1, A and B category sta-tions as a pilot project for six months from March 1, an official statement said today.
However, physical and digital display of charts will continue at the platforms, the ministry statement said.
Based on the income from passengers, the rail-ways classifies its stations into seven categories A1, A, B, C, D, E and F. It has 17 zones.
"At those stations where electronic charts display plasma has been installed, and the same is functioning properly, physical reservation charts at such platforms can be stopped," it added.
Earlier, pasting of res-ervation charts on reserved coaches of all trains was dis-continued at New Delhi, Hazrat Nizamuddin, Mum-bai Central, Chennai Cen-tral, Howrah and Sealdah stations.
Rlys to do away with reservation charts on trains from March 1 On trial basis
SC DIRECTS KARNATAKA TO RELEASE 177.25 TMCFT TO TAMIL NADUPoll candidates must disclose source of income: Apex court
MPOST BUREAU
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday directed that all candidates contesting elections must disclose their "sources" of income, includ-ing those of their spouse and dependent children.
In a landmark judge-ment, a bench headed by Justice J. Chelameswar said the candidate has to disclose his, his wife's and dependent children's source of income when they file nomination for elections.
The court verdict came on a peti-tion filed by NGO, Lok Prahari, which has sought the inclusion of a column in the nomination form seeking details of income sources.
The petitioner has claimed that the candidates while filing their nomina-tion papers were disclosing their assets, assets of their spouse, children and other
dependents, but they were not revealing the sources of income.
As per the law, at pres-ent, a candidate is required to disclose details of assets and liabilities for themselves, spouse and three depen-dents while filing nomi-nation paper but not their
source of income. Earlier, during the hearing of the
case, the apex court had criticised the government for not investigating the massive increase in assets, by up to 500 percent, of politicians from what they show at the time of nomination.
The Election Commission had also told the top court in January that it must be made mandatory for the candidates to disclose their sources of income along with that of their spouse and dependents at the time of filing nomination to bring transparency in the election process.
‘IT IS TOUGH TO MATCH TIGER’S ENERGY’ PG16
PM'S MANTRA TO BEAT EXAM STRESS Andhra Pradesh: Seven workers die of asphyxiation inside drain
MPOST BUREAU
AMARAVATI: At least seven workers of a private hatchery died of asphyxiation inside a drain in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh this morn-ing, the police said.
The incident occurred when one of the workers got into the drain at the hatchery premises in Palamaneru man-dal, for cleaning it. As he fell unconscious due to asphyxi-ation, eight other workers got down to rescue him and suf-fered the same fate, they said, adding the sewer had chemi-cal residue.
Residents of nearby Morum village rushed to the hatchery,
broke open the drain's hatch and pulled out the trapped workers. Four of them died on the spot, while three others died while undergoing treat-ment, the police said.
One worker regained con-sciousness following treatment and was stated to be stable, while another worker was shifted to the District Head-
quarters Hospital in Chittoor, they said.
Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister N Chinaraj-appa, who also handles the Home portfolio, expressed grief over the incident and spoke to the Chittoor district Superin-tendent of Police about it.
Meanwhile, the police have launched a manhunt for the hatchery manager who is on the run following the deaths.
An investigation into the incident is underway, the police said, adding, according to their initial assessment there was "serious negligence" on the part of the hatchery management in ensuring adequate safety mea-sures at the site.
Highlights » Searches continue across showrooms and offices » CBI approaches Interpol to locate Nirav Modi » PNB suspends 8 more officials » Diamond and gold worth Rs 549 crore were seized, bringing the total recovery to Rs 5649 crore
» ED issues summons to Nirav Modi and uncle Mehul Choksi
A file picture shows Cauvery river flowing in to Kallanai Dam in Tiruchirapalli
ED team raids the Viviana Mall after a complaint filed by Punjab National Bank over Nirav Modi's fraud case, in Thane PTI
qNIFTY 10,452.30 (-93.20) qSENSEX 34,010.76 (-286.71) pDOW JONES 25,262.79 (+62.42) pNASDAQ 7271.73 (+15.30) pRUPEE/DOLLAR 64.21 (-0.21) qRUPEE/EURO 79.94 (-0.17) qGOLD/10GM 31,820 (+170.00) pSILVER/K 39,380 (+590.00)
2 MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Saturday, 17 February, 2018mp around town
Although every possible care and caution has been taken to avoid errors or omissions, this publication is being sold on the condition and understanding that infromation given in this publication is merely for reference and must not be taken as having authority of or binding in any way on the writers, editors, publishers, and printers and sellers who do not owe any responsibility for any damage or loss to any person, a purchaser of this publication or not for the result of any action taken on the basis of this work. All disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of competent court and forums in Delhi/New Delhi only
Printed & Published by Jaiyendra Kumar Sharma on behalf of Front Row Media Pvt. Ltd. and printed at The Indian Express Pvt. Ltd., A-8, Sector-7, Noida-201 301 (U.P.) and published from First Floor, Pratap Bhawan, 5 Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi 110 002. Editor: Durbar Ganguly, Executive Editor: Arya Rudra. Email: [email protected], Tel. No. 011-47777500
BLACK PANTHER
Director: Ryan Coogler; Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyongo, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Sterling K. Brown, Florence Kasumba, John Kani, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, Andy Serkis; Rating:
Vibrant, impressive
“Black Panther” is a com-pelling visceral film with sound, images and char-acters combined into a
decidedly brilliant visual experience that evokes the feel of a graphic novel. And like all Marvel superhero films, it seems charged from within by its power as a fable that blends superhero adven-ture with pop-corn entertainment.
With an original story, an Afro-cen-tric twist that features a nearly all-black cast and focusing on a fictional coun-try in Africa called Wakanda, this film is not only exciting but also fantastic. It is the 18th and a radically different kind of comic-book and superhero film from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The narrative begins with a pro-logue that explains about Vibranium, a source of power that landed in the heart of Africa, and how the country Wakanda was formed.
Now hidden from the world, Wakanda, though known as a “third-world country” outside its borders, is defined by royal traditions and is home to the world’s most technologi-cally advanced city that is protected by a ruler with special powers. He also happens to wear a fearsome black pan-ther costume.
The story kicks off dramatically when Prince T’Challa after his father’s death has to prove himself as the latest Wakan-dan leader. He dons an upgraded cat-suit courtesy his tech-savvy sister, Shuri.
The plot includes Prince T’Challa fighting for his crown, his country and his life when a series of adversaries arrive on the scene. And what’s more,
with intense drama and action the film becomes a deadly game of thrones, with spies, betrayals and an all-out war.
There’s a real and sustained sense of jeopardy for the kingdom and the fighting significantly involves the female warriors, who are very cool indeed. The entire experience is thrilling.
Each scene is meticulously crafted and every frame is a visual delight. And the scenes that shine are during the cor-onation. You can feel the tension during the brutal primordial combat scenes in the pond atop the cliff.
Even though the tempo of the nar-rative dips at times it is the spirit of the film that keeps it moving. The patriotic energy of the cast is palpable and the beauty lies in the vibrancy of the per-formances, the costumes, the produc-tion designs, action and the computer generated effects that make some of the scenes appear like a clip of a video game.
Honestly, though Chadwick Bose-man as Prince T’Challa holds his own, he is unimpressive as the superhero, but the director humanises him to such a degree that he appears more as a deeply conflicted world leader and thus suits the role to perfection.
He is accompanied by two spear-wielding warriors Okoye and Nakia played by Danai Gurira and Lupita Nyong’o. The two formidable antago-nists in the fray are Ulysses Klaue and Erik Killmonger essayed by Andy Serkis and Michael B. Jordan. Both are equally impressive.
Overall, the Black Panther is an exceptionally impressive film worth witnessing on the large screen. IANS
MOVIE OF THE WEEK
OUR CORRESPONDENT
It’s been 19 years that Mata Bhagwanti Chadha Niketan, one of India’s largest schools for specially-abled, has been enabling ‘children with special needs’.
To commemorate the achievement, the school celebrated its 19th Annual Day on February 16.
Mata Bhagwanti Chadha Niketan works under the aegis of The Ponty Chadha Foun-dation which works towards the social and economic development of the society. On this momentous occasion, the school announced the launch of its new initiative, ‘Centre for Research, Innovation and Tech-nology for Disability’ – which is another step towards improving the lives of the spe-cially-abled through high-quality research, development of new technology, support services and facilities.
The R&D at the centre will focus on certain social aspects of disability, iden-tify barriers to the social inclusion of disabled people and produce policy rec-ommendations to appropriate stakehold-ers. The first project under the aegis of this centre would be ‘Virtual Learning Programme’ – a learning platform for teaching life skills using latest technolo-gies. It will be a mobile-based self-instruc-tional interventional tool for parents in remote corners of India who do not have access to special education and therapeu-tic interventions.
On the occasion, Manpreet Singh Chadha, Vice-Chairman, Wave Group said, “We try and walk on the path shown to us by Ponty Chadha and every year we move closer to his vision of creating an environment where children with special
needs could become socially and economi-cally independent. With the launch of the R&D centre and the ‘Virtual Learning Pro-gramme’, we aim to provide parents and teacher access to special education pro-gramme in the remotest parts of the coun-try on their mobile phones. We believe that these initiatives will give an impetus to our ongoing efforts in bringing vital changes to the lives of hundreds of specially-abled children.”
Some other initiatives by the school
include ‘Vaakya’ – a picture based app available on both iOS and Android plat-forms, designed for people who are speech impaired; ‘Swayam’ – a programme under which the school operates a shopping portal, integrated with its website (www.mbcnschool.org) that allows customers to buy handmade products made by the spe-cial children of the school. ‘Emotional Well Programme – Share and Care’ is another such initiative which helps children and parent cope with stress. The school also
conducts a number of year-long campaigns to raise awareness regarding the needs of specially-abled people.
Vandana Sharma, Director, Mata Bhag-wanti Chadha Niketan said, “As we cel-ebrate 19 wonderful years of this great institution, we have undertaken some very innovative methods to bring specially-abled children into the mainstream. With the launch of the R&D centre, we plan to partner with Universities, researchers, and organisations to create ICT-based acces-sible technology environment. We will continue to channelize our efforts towards empowering the specially-abled.”
With dance performances and other programmes highlighting the theme – ‘Tele-Hungama’, the students enthralled the parents and guests. The school also felicitated students for their achievements in various national and International competitions.
With the vision of enabling the disabled, Mata Bhagwanti Chadha Niketan (MBCN), an initiative of Late Ponty Chadha, WAVE Group was established for the differently-abled children in the society.
The institution was founded in 1999, with a special endeavour to educate and equip special children to live in the com-munity. The school is one of the very few private rehabilitation institutions, which provides gratuitous service to over 1000 students (free of cost), subjugating the cash-strapped society.
MBCN is the largest day-care special school where students are endowed with free hearing aids, wheelchairs, crutches, uniform, stationery and bus-transport, fos-tering independence for daily living skills in real life settings.
19 years of empowering
specially-abled CHILDREN
‘Mata Bhagwanti Chadha Niketan’, one of India’s largest schools for specially-abled, has been working to provide gratuitous service to over 1000 students for free
OUR CORRESPONDENT
Riviera 2018, the annual sports and cultural extravaganza event that attracts some of the finest young minds from all over the world
and which has become one of the most popular students’ International sports and cultural festival in India began at VIT in Vellore on Thursday.
Former Indian cricketer Gautam Gambhir inaugurated the gala event and gave away prizes to winners of the mara-thon held earlier in the day to mark the beginning of Riviera’18.
Over 38,000 students from 400 univer-sities and colleges, including those from Russia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Germany, Singapore, Bhutan, Uganda,
Malaysia, Philippines, Rwanda, Zimba-bwe, Zambia, France, Afghanistan and Mauritius are taking part in this colourful international event held every year at VIT.
Dr G. Viswanathan, Founder and Chancellor of VIT University, in his pres-idential address, said that the institution was in the forefront of innovations and creating new things every year. This year’s Riviera has surpassed the festival of the previous year.
After setting free a flock of pigeons to mark the auspicious inauguration of the event, Gautam Gambhir said that he had heard about the quality education imparted to the students, VIT hospitality and its humanitarian outlook. “Today, I got an opportunity to witness that,” he said.
He said that after looking at the infra-
structure and other facilities here, he had no doubts that VIT University will become the number one educational institute in India.
He told the students that they have got a wonderful opportunity to pursue engi-neering in one of India’s topmost institu-tions and that they should make full use of the opportunity.
After his address, he interacted with the students and also took a selfie with them.
In the marathon event held over 9.9 kilometres earlier in the day, Mikiyas of Ethiopia won the first place, followed by Santhosh of Islamiya College, and Vani-yambadi and Binu Peettam of Kottayam St. Stephen’s College secured the third place.
In the woman’s event, Kalaiselvi of Trichy Jenny’s College won the first place, second place was secured by M. Vanitha and Marina Mathew of Kochi and a for-mer student of VIT won the third place.
All of them received their prizes from Gau-tam Gambhir.
G V Selvam, Vice President of VIT, pre-sented a shawl and a memento to Gamb-hir. Among others who took part in the inaugural event included Vice-Chancellor Dr Anand A. Samuel, Pro Vice-Chancel-lor Dr S. Narayanan, Director, Students Welfare Prof. Amit B. Mahindrakar and Organiser of Riviera cultural festival Prof. S. Sasikumar.
Friday evening at VIT saw musical per-formances by Vijay Prakash, Saindhavi and Shirley Setia. The event also included programmes featuring directors Pushkar and Gayathri, Puri Jagannath, actors Pooja Devariya, Shradha Srinath, music com-poser S.S. Thaman and Dhara Singh, who will receive the Mr India title.
Actor Rana Daggubati of Bahubali fame will take part in the valedictory func-tion to be held on February 18.
Riviera’18: When Gambhir met VIT students
Gautam Gambhir, Former Indian cricketer, giving away prizes to winners at Riviera 2018
SANJAY KUMAR
“A TEACHER AFFECTS eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” - Henry Brooks Adams
Selfless love and care, commitment, dis-cipline, readiness to help, upright, always stand up for truth, and spirit of national-ism…. though isolated but these words res-onate in one’s mind because they describe one man – Dr Vedagya Arya, a teacher in St Stephen’s who had become an institu-tion in himself. These are not mere words; he lived them and taught hundreds of stu-dents to chart their own destiny.
Someone has rightly said that every-one who remembers his own education remembers teachers, not methods and tech-niques. It appears so true when one thinks of Dr. Arya. He left an indelible impres-sion on his students. Learning was a treat with him in Stephen’s. Apart from being a truly eminent scholar, a great educator, a man of vision, extraordinary leadership and having tremendous positive energy, Dr Arya had a sensitive and warm approach. He took a keen interest in the well being of his students.
His informal way of teaching and talking about other topics besides studies broadened and shaped the students’ vision.
Festivals celebrated at his place ensured
that students from outside Delhi didn’t miss their homes. The sumptuous jalebi and samosa after Holi festivities are remem-bered even today by his students. Although he taught Sanskrit and Hindi yet he knew most of the students by name and was respected by all.
Dr Arya was born in 1926 as Naga Bal-layya Rao in a Telugu speaking family in Hyderabad. His spirit of quest made him leave home at a young age of 15, he trav-eled on his own all the way to North India and studied in a Gurukul. While in Hyder-abad he was involved in the anti-Razakar movement.
From Gurukul, he shifted to Amritsar
to study and took an active part in freedom struggle. He participated in demonstrations and was also involved in transporting explo-sives across the region on his bicycle dur-ing the freedom struggle. During his stay in Amritsar, he was quite influenced by Arya Samaj teachings and proudly wrote his name as Vedagya Arya.
Later he shifted to Delhi topped, the Delhi University as a Hindi and Sanskrit scholar and joined St Stephens college as a lecturer in 1952 where he taught for 42 years. His spirit of nationalism after inde-pendence led him to join NCC and he became a Major where he did few stints on the Kashmir border along the Naushera Sector.
After retirement from Stephen’s, he was settled in Roorkee. He had done significant research on Saraswati river and Ram Setu.
His students just want to say, “Thank you, sir, for the memories which will never fade, thank you for believing in me when I did not believe in myself. You were an incredible educator and a friend that only comes along once in a lifetime.”
Sanjay Kumar studied at St. Stephen’s College and has dedicated his life to serving the society through socio-spiritual move-ment ‘Art of Living’. The above mentioned piece is written in memory of his teacher-who passed away at the age of 90 recently.
To Sir, with love: A final adieu
OUR CORRESPONDENT
SUDAMA PREMIER LEAGUE, a cricket tournament to be held in Delhi, is one of the boldest initiatives of encourag-ing talent from the financially backward classes of the society by Prasar, (People’s Right and Social Research Centre) a non-profit NGO.
The promoters have taken the novel way of sourcing players from the BPL and EWS categories for the cricket tour-nament through screening. These play-ers were trained by luminaries from the cricket world and shaped up in the T20 format to compete with other teams in the tournament.
Kapil Dev, a legendary captain of the Indian Cricket Team, inaugurated the match and spoke with the teams to moti-vate them and guide their performances to the optimum levels. Atul Wassan, a cricketer of the Indian team and well-known commentator, also graced the occasion to mentor the players.
On being asked for an autograph by a player, Kapil Dev said, “I want to see the
world requesting your autograph, not mine. That is the motive of this initiative.”
India has an untapped bouquet of unlimited talent and skills which ‘Prasar’ has endeavored to bring into the public stage. This will motivate these players to overcome the challenges they face due to lack of resources, and this unique for-mat and a bold initiative will also render an exercise in nation building and social engineering.
To make the event a grand success, an open and transparent screening was con-ducted which witnessed a turnover of 750 youths in the age group of 16 years to 23 years from East, West, North and South Delhi regions. The trials that followed for
a final selection yielded 300 young and talented boys who have undergone men-torship and guidance under Atul Wassan, Sanjeev Sharma, K. Hariharan and have also been given uniforms, cricket kits, and other amenities during the training period for free. The trained boys will now play in the cricket tournament being held in batches from February 14 to March 11, 2018.
The opening ceremony was thrown open with stalwarts from the sport, speaking and motivating the young team members. This was followed with stel-lar performances by groups showcasing talent on the field providing wholesome entertainment to the audience.
The winners in the tournament will then be sent to an international cricket academy for further training and the run-ners-up will be sent to cricket training academies all over India for special train-ing. The entire training will be free of cost for the winners and the runners-up.
Sudama Premier League is a lifetime opportunity to dream big and see these dreams take the form of reality.
Ex-cricketers join hands to encourage players from backward classes
mp city 3MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Saturday, 17 February, 2018
SAYANTAN GHOSH
NEW DELHI: As part of its month-long anti-rape cam-paign ‘RapeRoko,’ the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) plans to reach out to school children as well as women from unauthorised col-onies and slums.
Students from various edu-cational institution, including Delhi University, have joined this campaign, which was launched by DCW chief Swati Jai Hind to protest against the sexual harassment of a DU stu-dent in a moving bus.
Through DCW’s interven-tion, an FIR was registered in the matter at Vasant Vihar police station.
On Friday, hundreds of students and other protestors marched through Connaught Place in central Delhi, along with members of DCW.
Various teams of DCW vol-unteers are worked through out the day campaigning against rape in Dellhi.
“Our teams are taking the campaign to various places, like important markets, shop-
ping malls and crowded places, such as Connaught Place, Hauz Khas Village, among others,” said an official, adding that teams are also undertaking a signature campaign.
The DCW chief, along with
the core group, visited unau-thorised colonies and slums of the city, as well as Delhi govern-ment schools to interact with the children.
“We think that children should be reached out to on a priority basis, as the trend shows that children are the worst victims of such cases.
“General enlightenment on sexual harassment is lacking in our system,” said an official.
She added that “our cam-paign or target is not gen-der-biased and we think that same kind of enlightenment is needed for the boys.”
“We are also talking with boys of schools and telling them about various issues. A general sex education in a child-centric manner can stop such acts,” she further said.
The Commission now plans to take the campaign to the streets of Delhi through nuk-
kad nataks (street plays).According to DCW, the
street plays will be conducted till March, 8 to raise awareness amongst the people and move them to join the movement to fight sexual crimes against women and children.
“After the nukkad natak is performed, volunteers of the ‘RapeRoko’ campaign will speak to the crowd and discuss with them the demands of the movement,”an official said.
Jai Hind said, “Real change will occur when the govern-ment and teh society awaken against the evil of crimes against women and children. The nukkad nataks are a great way of reaching out to people and raising awareness.”
“We should no longer remain quiet. When people throng the streets on March 8, change is bound to happen,” she added.
RapeRoko campaign reaches out to children, slum dwellers
Delhi Commission for Women chief Swati Jai Hind marches along with protestors to promote the RapeRoko campaign on Friday PIC/MPOST
Monthly training programme for Delhi govt teachers soon
SAYANTAN GHOSH
NEW DELHI: In a bid to improve the environment in its school classrooms, the Educa-tion department of Delhi gov-ernment is considering starting a monthly training programme for its teachers.
Earlier, the teachers had been sent for training to Sin-gapore and IIM-Ahmedabad.
“We think that teacher training on a regular basis is needed. For this, we will give responsibility to some senior and well-trained teacher in every school, who will then train teachers of their schools every month,” said a senior Delhi government official.
He added that the govern-ment is looking for subject experts as well, who can train the teachers regarding the lat-est developments in that par-ticular subject.
Recently, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had said that in its first year, the
Delhi government had con-centrated on improving infra-structure, training of teachers training in the second year, and in the third year their focus would be on creative learning methods.
In its 2017-18 budget, the Delhi government had allo-cated Rs 11,300 crore, almost a quarter of its budget, to the education sector alone, to build 10,000 new classrooms and 400 new libraries among other things.
Educationists lauded the newfound emphasis on edu-cation, especially public education.
However, some also expressed concerns over a few of the government programs.
Recently, six teachers from Delhi government schools were awarded the Fulbright Teach-ing Fellowship, to travel to the United States and attend spe-cial programmes at various universities. They are the only Indian teachers selected for the
programme.Sisodia, who also serves as
the Delhi Education minister, had said, “It is a proud moment for Delhi, since this is the first time that all teachers chosen from India are from Delhi gov-ernment schools.
“I have always believed that Delhi’s teachers are very tal-ented. It is heartening to see them receive international recognition for their service to Delhi’s children.”
Recently, the minister had also met with teachers, as well as students of Delhi govern-ment schools, where he found that classes are becoming more interactive than earlier expected.
“We want the classrooms to be more interactive and this will require training of teach-ers. The classes can become interactive only through new teaching techniques, which we want to implement in the classes,” said an official of the Directorate of Education.
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: With the aim to ensure quality education, South Delhi Municipal Cor-poration (SDMC) has decided to bring structural changes in its schools.
As part of its new initia-tive ‘Project Buniyaad’, SDMC has introduced several mea-sures, including providing new uniforms to students, hold-ing summer camps, opening of English medium nursery classes, installing CCTV cam-eras and making Saturday a bag-free day, among others.
SDMC Mayor Kamaljeet Sehrawat said that as per the ‘National Achievement Survey,’ the result in mathematics and language subjects of students in classes III and V were found
not up to the expectations.“Keeping the survey in
mind, we have decided to introduce the project from April 2018 to improve basic understanding of students,” the Mayor said.
She further said that after assessing the abilities of the stu-dents of these classes, special
summer vacation camps will be organised in all SDMC schools.
“In these summer camps, teachers will specially focus on weak students, so that before re-opening schools after sum-mer vacations, they will be able to achieve the minimum stan-dard in language and maths.
“The basic level of students
will be assessed on ASER tools in July. After the reassessment, students who achieve grade-level performance will be labelled as ‘Ujjawal,’ those who achieve medium level perfor-mance will be labelled ‘Uta-karsh,’ and those who need to work harder will be labellled ‘Udyam’. During July and August, classes will be held on performance based grouping,” Sehrawat said.
SDMC Chairman Standing Committee Bhupender Gupta said that from the coming ses-sion, all students will be seen in colourful uniforms, for which the subsidy has been increased from Rs 500 to Rs 1,100 per stu-dent. He further stated that 100 per cent attendance has been achieved in the Corporation’s schools on Saturdays.
SDMC Mayor Kamaljeet Sehrawat during a meeting on Friday PIC/MPOST
South MCD to introduce major structural changes to its schools
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: The Uttar Pradesh govern-ment gave a major boost to the Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) project on Friday by allocating Rs 250 crore to the National Capital Region Transport Cor-poration (NCRTC).
The Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut RRTS corridor, likely to be operational by 2024, will be highly useful for commuters as it will reduce travel time between the Capi-tal and Meerut to about an hour.
The Delhi-Meerut corridor will be started from Sarai Kale Khan Terminus station, which would become a transit hub, with the existing bus terminal at Hazrat Nizamuddin railway station and an upcom-ing Delhi Metro station.
The corridor would pass through densely populated areas of Delhi, Sahib-abad, Ghaziabad City, Guldhar, Duhai, Muradnagar, Modinagar and Meerut and terminating at Modipuram.
“The allocation of Rs 250 crore in the
Uttar Pradesh budget for RRTS will further boost the ongoing works related to RRTS Phase I of the National Capital Region Transport Corporation on Delhi-Meerut corridor. Earlier, in the Union Budget, the Centre had allocated a sum of Rs 659 crores for this project,” said Sudhir Sharma, Chief Public Relation Officer, NCRTC.
The Corporation has already created
the first field unit in Ghaziabad and posted officers. More project offices will be set up at various points.
The pre-construction work on Delhi-Meerut section has already started.
“Saving time is the priority of every com-muter and the project will help complete the journey between Meerut and Delhi in 60 minutes. On Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut, corridor we have planned multi-modal integration at multiple places. Sarai Kale Khan, Anand Vihar, Sahibabad are few such points, where a passenger will get to interchange for other available modes of transport,” Sharma added.
NCRTC is a joint venture of the Union government, and state governments of Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Rajas-than. The Corporation is executing three prioritised RRTS corridors, namely Delhi-Alwar, Delhi-Meerut and Delhi-Panipat in the first phase. Eight corridors have been identified under the Integrated Transpor-tation Plan 2032, prepared by the National Capital Region Planning Board.
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: The Delhi gov-ernment on Friday initiated the testing of ‘anti-pollution towers’ at Indraprastha Marg Flyove in ITO, on a pilot/experimental basis, for dem-onstrating its effectiveness in reduction of particulate matter – i.e. PM 2.5 and PM 10 – and other suspended particulate matter in the air.
These towers absorb partic-ulate matter from surroundings and release fresh air back into the atmosphere.
“The performance of these towers will be monitored and the results obtained will be evaluated for checking their efficacy and utility.
“Based on these results, the government will take further necessary decision for instal-lation of more anti-pollution towers at other prominent locations in the city to curb pollution, especially at busy traffic intersections,” said Delhi Environment Minister Imran Hussain.
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: Commuters of Delhi Metro faced trouble yet again on Friday, after services were slowed down for over 20 minutes due to signalling issues at three major stations on the busy Yellow Line, which connects Samaypur Badli and Huda City Centre.
A senior Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) offi-cial said, “The snag occurred at Rajiv Chowk, Kashmere Gate and Vishwavidyala sta-tions around 11.30 am. Train services slowed down, but did not stop.”
“Due to a signalling issue at these interlocking stations of Line 2 (Yellow Line), trains were manually given routes from 11.30 am to 12.04 pm. This caused a little bunching of trains on Line 2 during this period,” he said.
The issue was rectified within an hour and services were getting restored with nor-mal movement, the DMRC statement said.
Delhi govt begins testing anti-pollution
towers
Technical snag hits services at Yellow Line for
over 20 minutesOUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: Aiming to spread awareness about the environment and turning Delhi into a “clean and green city,” Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Friday urged Del-hiites to plant trees to combat pollution, at the launch of the 31st Garden Tourism Festival at the Garden of Five Senses here.
The Festival serves as a plat-form for garden lovers to meet, interact and showcase the fruits of their labour.
The festival will remain open for public, from 11 am to 8 pm, till Sunday, with the Delhi Tourism department providing free shuttle service to and from Saket Metro Station.
Sisodia said the practice of gardening and planting trees plays a pivotal role in better-ing the human-nature relation-ship, and appealed to resident welfare associations (RWAs) in the city to attend the three-day festival.
“Everybody is concerned about fighting pollution and
cleaning the air. It can only be ensured by planting trees and growing gardens,” he said.
Planting a sampling in the garden to mark the occasion, Sisodia further said, “There is a need for organising more gar-den festivals at a larger scale to set examples for developing a sustainable urbanised city.”
The theme of this year’s fes-tival, which is organised annu-ally during the spring, is ‘Grow Garden: Save Delhi’.
Spread across 22 acres, the Garden of Five Senses houses more than 325 species of plants.
Some of the attractions at this year’s festival are court of palm, court of cactii, herbal garden, tree museum, topiary garden, zen garden, aromatic garden and butterfly zone.
Major participants at the festival include the horticul-ture departments of New Delhi Municipal Council, East and South Delhi Municipal Corpo-ration, Delhi Jal Board, Delhi Development Authority and Northern Railways among others.
OUR CORRESPONDENT
GURUGRAM; In a city where every three out of ten crimes is a cyber crime, the official operation of the Cyber police station beginning later this month, will come as a relief for residents of Gurugram.
The state-of-the-art police station, located in DLF-V area, is spread over one acre. A total of 50 police personnel will be manning the station, which will be headed by an official of the Assistant Commissioner rank.
Last year, cyber crimes including online banking thefts, credit and debit card frauds were the highest crimes reported in the city.
In 2016, there were 1,343 such crimes registered with the Cyber Crime Branch of Guru-gram Police. This year, the number stood at 1,848 cases.
The menace of cyber crime further came to the forefront, after Cyber Crime Branch busted two call centres in Delhi in two separate cases.
These call centres used to employ boys and girls, who would call customers and take their vital financial informa-tion, which was later exploited.
The previous year saw a sharp increase in crimes against women in forms of molestation, stalking and phys-ical assault. Worryingly, many of these crimes were commit-ted through digital means.
In 2017, the number of complaints of sexual harass-ment of women online rose by over 40 per cent, compared to 2016. In 2016, there were over 200 such cases registered with Cyber Crime Branch, while in 2017, more than 350 cases come to the fore.
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: The sixth edi-tion of the three-day Delhi Lit-erature Festival will kick off on February 23 at Dilli Haat.
Featuring a diverse mix of writers of commercial and lit-erary books, the upcoming lit-erary gathering promises to be a lively affair for book lovers in the national Capital.
“We are delighted to come up with the sixth edition of Delhi Literature Festival. The three-day festival will hold many discussions and book readings as great attractions. Our objective is to promote young and inspiring authors, inculcate reading habits among the youth and promote Indian literature across the globe,” Bharati Bhargava, founder Director of the Festival told reporters here on Friday.
She added that a host of speakers, including Sanil Sachar, Ashwin Sanghi, Dur-joy Dutta, Milee Ashwarya, Simran Khara, Chiki Sarkar, Jaya Jaitly, Rakshanda Jalil, Mayank Austeen Sufi, Nilotpal Mrinal, R.V.Smith, Ankit Lal, Prashant Jha, Anant Padma-nabhan, Rajat Sethi, Riva Gan-guli Das and Parismita Singh among others will be partici-pating in the literature festival.
The festival will open with a music session, where singer and author Minu Bakshi will share her views. It will be fol-lowed by a discussion with young author Sanil Sachar, whose book ‘Rebound’ was released recently.
“Poet-lyricist Prasoon Joshi, Chairperson of CBFC, is expected to attend the festi-val too,” the organisers said in a statement.
Sisodia throws open 31st Garden Tourism Festival
Uttar Pradesh Budget: Rs 250 crore for Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut RRTS
UP CM Yogi Adityanath and state Finance Minister Rajesh Agarwal, ahead of the Budget presentation in Lucknow on Friday PIC/PTI
Ggn’s Cyber police station to start operations this month
Three-day Delhi Literature Festival to begin on Feb 23
mp city4MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Saturday, 17 February, 2018
Don’t obstruct VC, staff from working: HC to JNU students Students continue protest demanding rollback of mandatory attendance
DU student dies in road accident,
two injured
MAN MURDERED IN BURARINEW DELHI: A 23-year-old man was murdered in North Delhi’s Burari area. According to police, the inci-dent came to light at 8.48 pm on Thursday when they received a PCR call regarding an accident at Pushta Burari. “A deep cut of 12 cm on his neck was noticed by the doctor. The deceased declared brought dead. One mobile phone and Rs 1500 was found,” police said. Police claimed that from the deceased mobile his parents were called who identified deceased as Chand Mohd, a resident of village Mukundpur who works as a labourer. “Interrogation from the persons with whom he was seen last is being made. Case is be-ing registered under section 302 of IPC,” police said.
CRPF GROUP CENTER INSPECTEDNEW DELHI: The group centre of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) was visited by a Board of Officers Constituted by IGP, Northern Sector for selection of the Best GC trophy. Various institutions of group centre were inspected by the Board and further also physi-cally inspected the various Craftworks done by lady wives of family welfare centre and highly praised their works for Make in India. Saplings were also planted by the Inspecting Officers at Fruit Garden of this group centre. On this occasion, DIGP Sunil Joon, Commandant Satish Kumar, Subhash Chand Chandel, Ved Prakash, CMO I/C Dr Joyce Chara, Dr Jyotshna Shukla, Second-in-Command Shri Hajari Lal and other officers with Jawans were also present.
CITY BRIEFS
PIYUSH OHRIE
GURUGRAM: Various inci-dents of corruption reported in the process of residential plot allotment have caused many residents not able to get their dream home in Gurugram. While the issue of multiple plot allotment scams has still not been resolved and is being heard in the Punjab and Hary-ana high court, now the latest issue of irregularities in EWS plot allotment has emerged.
Under this the land that was to be allotted at 500 rupees per square yard for those who were earning Rs 3500 per month in areas of Sushant Lok -2 and 3. However, as per complaints the land has not been given to the required allottees. The case is now being heard in the Guru-gram sessions court where the recently summoned officials of Haryana Urban Develop-ment Authority (HUDA) and Department of Town and Country Planning (DTCP)
sought an explanation.This case follows after the
multiple land allotment scams that resulted in the loss of credibility of HUDA and also impacted the integrity of many public and defence person-nel. Through the RTI, it was revealed that various public officials who were designated to receive one residential plot were given two or more than three plots. The investigations into the case revealed that there were as many 44 HUDA offi-cials who were involved in the connivance and indulging in unethical practices.
Presently, the case is being heard in the Punjab and Hary-ana high court and the next hearing is slated to be on March 1. For a city where population is over 20 lakhs, various central and state schemes are being ini-tiated for providing affordable housing.
However, most of these initiatives are not yielding the desired results. One such
example has been the failure of Ashiana housing scheme at Sector 47 near Sohna road. Set up in 2011, the housing proj-ect was to provide 1080 flats under the EWS category. Yet, in seventh year of its comple-tion, there has not been a single occupant of the flats. The poor condition of the flats is only increasing the maintenance costs of cash strapped HUDA.
Taking cognisance of the opaque processes in the land allotment process that often results in corruption, the Hary-ana government has made all the processes of HUDA digi-tal. “No doubt in the past there has been certain practices by our officials that impacted the credibility of our organisa-tion. Steps however are being taken to make the process more transparent. Not only are our services now made digi-tal but there has also been a time frame in which we have to deliver our services,” said a senior HUDA official.
Corruption mars Gurugram EWS plot allotment scheme
ABHAY SINGH
NEW DELHI: Keeping in mind the fact that ‘drug abuse’ in children is a major concern and most affected are those kids who live on the streets of the national capital, Delhi Police took the help of Nukkad Natak to generate awareness at railway stations. The city police also celebrated Valentine’s Day with the vulnerable children to motivate them.
Police sources claimed that in most of the cases they found that when children went miss-ing or ran away from their homes they reached rail-way stations and without any money, they started doing odd jobs like rag picking and came under the influence of drugs like sniffing glue which harms their body.
In another instance, the city police during the investi-gation of several criminal cases observed that the accused had committed snatching to fulfill their drug addiction. In order to protect children from the
drug abuse and to stop crime, police took help of street plays.
Once such street play was organised at New Delhi railway station where the children from street spread awareness about drug abuse in the children.
Different railway stations in the national Capital will also see different street plays as most of the street children lives nearby area and they are more vulnerable to drug abuse. Helped by ACP Meera Sharma and SHO (New Delhi) Akash Rawat, these children show-
cased the harmful effects of drug abuse.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Railway) Perwez Ahmed told Millennium Post that the reason behind the street play near railway station was to generate mass aware-ness. “Passengers, coolie and other people witnessed the play and we want to root out drug abuse in children,” said the DCP.
The meaning of Valentine’s Day for Delhi Police was to bring the smile on the face of
600 underprivileged children. The non-traditional' Valen-tine's Day was the most endear-ing way of loving, sharing and caring for all.
“With street children, other kids having good economic background joined the cele-bration demolishing the social and economic divide between the slum dwellers and the afflu-ent or the rich and poor,” police said. East Malviya Nagar RWA also helped police.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (south) Romil Baaniya motivated all these children and shared initiatives run by Delhi Police like Yuva skills training and invited them to join the training programme to change their lives.
Through Twitter DCP South Delhi tweeted “Let's be d change we want to see in d world, Celebrating this #Val-entine’s Day with underpriv-ileged kids, a unique prog. participated by more than 700 children org. wid #PoliceMi-tra #RWA East Malviya Nagar #SouthDistrict.”
Children stage street play at Rly station to spread awareness on drug abuse
Street children perform Nukkad Natak at New Delhi railway station to spread awareness about drug abuse in the children
OUR CORRESPONDENT
GURUGRAM: The state of water crisis can be gauged from the fact that it is still not peak summer and lack of water supply is already being reported from certain areas of Gurugram. To solve the cri-sis of water supply in the city, the Gurugram Metropoli-tan Development Authority (GMDA) along with Munici-pal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) is planning to set up underground water tanks in various part of the city.
According to official sources as of now there are plans to set up 10 such tanks. At present most of the residents get their water supply through the bore wells. However lack of proper surveillance has resulted in this form of source being exploited for long as a result crisis of water supply has been a major challenge in the city.
GURUGRAM: The state of pathetic public healthcare sys-tem in Gurugram was once again exposed after a woman gave birth in the ambulance of civil hospital. The incident was reported in the wee hours of February 14 when the preg-nant woman along with her husband visited the civil hos-pital for delivery. According to her husband Sunil from 2:00 am when they visited the hos-pital till 5:00 am there was no doctor who paid attention to her ordeal. After three hours she was referred to Safdar-jung hospital where en route to Delhi she delivered a baby in the ambulance.
Following the incident, two doctors have been sent show cause notices by the principal medical officer. This incident follows after the shocking case of a 25-year-old woman giving birth outside OPD after she was denied treatment as she did not have an Aadhar card. After the shocking incident, the senior staff at the hospital not only issued clarification that there will be no Aadhar required for emergency treatment but also announced steps to improve the gynaecology ward. MPOST
YOGESH KANT
NEW DELHI: Jawaharlal Nehru Uni-versity (JNU) students are not willing to surrender on protests but vacated the administrative block on Friday after having occupied it for two days. How-ever, the students continued their pro-test demanding rollback of attendance. With this new attendance rule, stu-dents would be forfeited of their hostel accommodation and scholarship/fel-lowship in case they do not achieve 75 percent attendance. Moving away from the block, students said that they were not doing anything illegal.
“We are not in the admin block any-more. There was no siege as such. It's all a lie. But we are continuing with the strike,” Simone Zoya Khan, JNU Stu-dents’ Union (JNUSU) Vice President said.
Moreover, Delhi high court also issued a notice to office bearers of Jawa-harlal Nehru University Student Union (JNUSU) on a plea seeking contempt action against students for violating a court ruling, which restrains them to protest within 100 metres of admin block of the university. “The respon-
dents (the JNU Students Union’s four office bearers including its president) shall not block the ingress and egress of the Vice-Chancellor, Pro Vice-Chancel-lor, Registrar and connected staff to the administrative block of the university for tomorrow, day-after-tomorrow and on Monday,” the court said.
This comes a day after a group of JNU students confined top officials in the admin building of the varsity in a protest against the compulsory atten-dance system. The court also sought a
reply by February 20. It also issued an interim direction barring JNU student leaders from restraining entry of vice-chancellor, pro vice-chancellor, regis-trar and staff into the Admin building till Monday. The court further observed that the JNU administration can take help of Delhi Police if any extreme sit-uation occurs. Moreover, police have also registered an FIR against all the office bearers.
Vice Chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar had called the students gathering at the
campus a ‘siege’ and also accused the students of manhandling an official.
“Taking the university to ransom by JNUSU led students and confining the top officials in admin building since morning is highly condemnable. Let us raise our voice against such unwelcome behaviour. You can see the pictures to realise how they are bent upon creat-ing unrest in JNU,” he had tweeted on Thursday.
Earlier on Friday, the JNUSU in a statement said that the college admin-istration should meet the students and teachers and ‘not dictate through media, court, police and punishments.” The stu-dent union further alleged that the vice-chancellor and its top administrators have been spreading falsehoods about the JNU students’ protests.
“Students are not fighting for the right to not attend classes, they are fighting for their right to learn with-out pointless and arbitrary regimenta-tion, in the best traditions of JNU, that have sustained its academic excellence for decades. In fact, teachers have been supporting the students’ strike by hold-ing classes and even exams in the open air,” said the JNUSU statement.
ABHAY SINGH
NEW DELHI: Small railway stations in the National Capital can be used for trafficking of illicit liquor to different States during Holi festival, taking a note of the situation, the secu-rity of small stations has been heightened.
Police sources claimed that with five major stations in Delhi, the security of other 40 stations has been height-ened as police suspect that the
traffickers might use the small stations for liquor trafficking.
An order has also come from the Police Headquar-ters for all the police districts to keep a tab on the supply of illicit liquor supply.
Sources further claimed that lack of security at the small stations proved to a boon for the liquor traffickers. Deputy Commissioner of Police (Rail-ways) Parwaiz Ahmed told Millennium Post that patrol-ling is going on at the small
stations. “We have briefed our staffs
about the security measures and we have heightened the patrolling in the small sta-tions,” said the DCP.
Bringing the liquor from Haryana in the bus to National Capital, the traffickers take trains from the small railway station because of less footfall and also to dodge police.
Even after liquor ban in Bihar, the traffickers target the state for supplying the ille-
gal alcohol as in three sepa-rate cases Delhi Police arrested three persons from different railway stations in the Capital who were taking the liquor to the dry state to get profit.
Further interrogation of the accused revealed that they brought liquor for Rs 150 or Rs 200 and wanted to sell it for 400 rupees in Bihar. The past records of the three accused have been scanned to ascer-tain whether they supplied the liquor to the dry state.
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NOIDA/GHAZIABAD: In two separate cases of suicide, a 22-year-old newly married woman and a 15-year-old girl allegedly committed suicide by hanging themselves from the ceiling fan inside their house.
In the first incident, the woman identified as Babli com-mitted suicide by hanging her-self from the ceiling fan inside her in-law’s house at Sadar-pur area of sector 45 in Noida on late Thursday night. Police arrested her husband, Dheeraj, over suspicion of spurring her to take the extreme step.
Babli was married to Dheeraj two years before and since then the couple often quarrel with each other over small issues. Dheeraj worked as a driver in Kothari Interna-tional School. The couple lived in a rented house at sector 45, Noida. Police said that the couple had a fight on Thurs-day afternoon as well and since then Babli was very upset.
“The house owner con-
veyed the information to us. The woman was put down from the ceiling fan by her husband before the police could reach. We have arrested her husband in connection with the inci-dent. However no suicide note has been recovered from the spot,” said a senior police offi-cer of sector 39 police station.
In another case of suicide reported from Khora area of Ghaziabad, a class 10 girl stu-dent, 15, identified as Manisha committed suicide by hang-ing herself from the ceiling fan inside her house on Fri-day afternoon. Police said that the girl took the extreme step to end her life after she was depressed over her illness.
Two commit suicide in separate cases
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: A 19-year-old Delhi University student died and two others including Delhi Police constable were injured in a road accident in North Delhi's Burari area on Friday. Police claimed that they have formed teams to arrest the accused in the case.
According to the police, the deceased was identified as Kapil Ratnu (19), a native of Jaisalmer in Rajasthan and was the first-year student of Ram-jas College. Additional Dep-uty Commissioner of Police (North) Harendra Singh stated that the incident came to light after they received a PCR call at 10:40 am at Maurice Nagar police station. A police team rushed to the spot and the vic-tims were rushed to the hospi-tal where Kapil was declared brought dead.
Singh claimed that when police team reached the spot they found an Alto car bear-ing Delhi number in the acci-dental condition at Maurice Nagar. Nearby the spot, Delhi Police personnel were also
there on the motorcycle who was injured in the accident. “The car first hit Constable Mukesh of Jaguar and then hit a pedestrian Kapil. Then the car also hit another pedestrian girl identified as Jagriti, a stu-dent of the third year, Political Science from Ramjas College,” said the senior police official.
Kapil Ratnu was declared dead in hospital whereas Jag-riti is in Trauma Centre and receiving treatment. Mukesh is also in the hospital. Police claimed that both are out of danger. Police further claimed that during the investigation they came to know that reg-istered owner of the car is one RC Vyas, a resident of Kalyan Bagh in Kalyan Puri area.
“Teams have been formed to identify and nab the driver as he fled from the spot after abandoning the car,” said Singh.
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: Praising Delhi Police for the arrest of Indian Mujahideen operative Ariz Khan, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday said the force was capable of meet-ing the highest level of chal-lenges. Speaking at the Raising Day Parade of the Delhi Police, the home minister asked the force to create an atmosphere of security in the city so that the people feel safe.
“The arrest of Junaid (alias Ariz Khan), who was giving security agencies the slip for a decade, by the Delhi Police cannot be praised enough. Also, the security arrange-ments made by it during the
ASEAN summit proves that Delhi Police is capable of han-dling any kind of challenge,”
Singh said. He announced Rs 5 crore for Delhi Police’s ‘martyr fund’ while asserting that the
government was committed to the welfare of police.
Addressing top officers and staff at the Kingsway Camp here, Singh called for adopt-ing of policing methods fol-lowed in New York and Latin American cities. “By bringing down crime, an atmosphere should be created so that peo-ple feel safe in the city,” the minister said.
Singh also presented med-als to the Delhi Police person-nel. The best police station trophy was given to the SHO of Punjabi Bagh. Delhi Police Commissioner Amulya Pat-naik emphasised the chal-lenges before the force while highlighting the drop in crime graph of the city.
NEW DELHI: Crime Branch of Delhi Police has arrested a 37-year-old who was involved in killing his wife. Police claimed that he was released on interim bail for a period of four weeks, but he did not sur-render on the fixed date.
Police claimed that the accused was identified as Ravinder Chauhan, resident of Vijay Vihar. He had killed his wife in 2009 and after the murder, he surrendered him-self in the police station Vijay Vihar. In 2011, he was convicted in the case to undergo life imprisonment. In 2016, High Court of Delhi had granted him four weeks of interim bail but did not surrender on the fixed date.
“He had been hiding at different places and surviving by doing some odd jobs,” police said. A team was made under the supervision of ACP Aditya Gautam and the accused was arrested from Dwarka Mor. DCP (crime) Bhisam Singh stated that dur-ing probe, Chauhan disclosed that he mur-dered his wife in the 2009 on the suspicion that she was having an illicit affair. MPOST
Police to check liquor trafficking at 40 small Rly stations on account of Holi
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: A woman suffered inju-ries on her ear when her earrings were snatched in South West Delhi's Uttam Nagar area. The incident happened nearby the spot where a day before snatchers had targeted a 47-year-old woman and torn her ear near the metro station on Tues-day. Police have so far not been able to track the accused behind both the snatch-ing incidents.
The victim was identified as Kamla Bharti, a resident of Uttam Nagar area. The incident happened around 2 pm when the Kamla Bharti was buying fruits near the Uttam Nagar terminal when two youth on a motorbike grabbed her ear and removed her gold earnings. After snatch-ing the woman felt a lot of pain and her right ear started to drip blood yet the vic-tim chased them to the metro station but they fled.
Police claimed that they are suspect-
ing that same accused may be involved in both the cases. A list of the local criminals with the same modus operandi has been checked. A case has been registered under appropriate sections of IPC and investiga-tion is going on.
After the incident, cops have tight-ened the vigil around the area to nab the miscreants. Some CCTV footages from the area are being scanned to identify them. The woman so far has sustained one stitch to the right ear, while in the previ-ous case of Vandana Sharma, the woman had reportedly got her earlobes torn off.
The latest Delhi Police compendiums of around 1,000 pages have the names of more than 1,000 active snatchers and robbers in the national Capital. Police sources told Millennium Post that the two compendiums were made by the Crime Branch of Delhi Police. Approximately 465 active snatchers were named in the compendium whereas around 576 active robbers were there.
Woman suffers injury after her earrings get snatched
Absconding man held for killing wife
Create an atmosphere in city so that people feel safe: Rajnath
Police said that girl Manisha of Khora, Ghaziabad, took extreme step after she was depressed over her illness
Police claimed they have formed teams to arrest the accused in case
Water crisis: Under ground
water tanks soon in Gurugram
No doctor to attend, Ggn
woman gives birth in ambulance
mp nation 5MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Saturday, 17 February, 2018
OUR CORRESPONDENT
LUCKNOW: Yogi Adityanath government on Friday pre-sented its Rs 4,28,384.52-crore budget for 2018-19 which is 11.4 per cent higher than the last fiscal.
“We have formulated the budget for the state’s all-round development, keeping in mind all sections of society, includ-ing farmers, youth, women and rural development while main-taining financial discipline,” chief minister Yogi Adityanath said while briefing reporters after the budget.
The 2019 parliamentary elections are crucial for the BJP-led state government as the saffron party and its allies won 73 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh in 2014 and aim to grab all 80 seats next year.
Special emphasis was given on sectors directly related to the people such as health, edu-cation and religious tourism.
However, a major challenge of mobilising resources stares the state government in the face as no new taxes have been pro-posed to fund the budgetary allocations despite the declin-ing receipts that are expected to come down from the bud-geted Rs 3,77,190.88 crore to Rs 3,60,165.78 crore in 2017-2018.
Minister for finance Rajesh Agarwal, while presenting the budget, said the Uttar Pradesh Investment Summit is being organised on February 21 and 22 to develop the state as a potential destination for global investment.
Agarwal said a roadmap has been worked out for dou-bling the income of farm-ers and an amendment to the Uttar Pradesh Mandi Act has been proposed to ease the pro-cess of marketing the farmers’ produce.
Agarwal said, “The bud-get size for 2018-19 is Rs 4,28,384,52 crore, which is 11.4 per cent higher than the last fiscal”.
The budget earmarks Rs 650 crore for Bundelkhand express-way project, Rs 550 crore Gork-ahpur link expressway project, Rs 1,000 crore for Purvanchal expressway, Rs 500 crore Agra-Lucknow expressway.
Budgetary provisions of Rs 30 crore have been made for e-office system in all govern-ment offices and a start up fund of Rs 250 crore has been cre-ated. For power sector schemes, Rs 29,883 crore has been allo-cated while Rs 1,500 crore has been kept for Kumbh Mela-2019 in Allahabad and Rs 98.5 lakh for Kanha Gau-shala and Besahara Pashu Ashray yojna.
For basic education depart-ment, Rs 18,167 crore has been earmarked for Sarv Siksha Abhiyan, Rs 76 crore and Rs 40 crore respectively for pro-viding free books and uniforms for all students of class 1-8th.
For mid-day meal Rs 2,048 crore and Rs 167 crore for dis-
tributing fruits to students have been allocated in the budget. The government earmarked Rs 500 crore for furniture, pota-ble water and boundary walls of schools run by Basic edu-cation department. In a bid to improve secondary education, Rs 480 crore has been allotted while Rs 26 crore for operating Deen Dayal Upadhyay govern-ment model schools.
Govt to focus on health, farmersUP BUDGET 2018
Hikes spending by 11.4% with new schemes worth `14.34 crore
LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh budget for 2018-19 has projected total receipts of Rs 4,20,899.46 crore in the next fiscal, leading to a deficit of Rs 44,053.32 crore or 2.96 per cent of the state GDP.
Total receipts include Rs 3,48,619.37 crore by way of revenue receipts and Rs 72,280.09 crore by way of capi-tal receipts, according to the budget documents presented in the assembly today.
The revenue receipts include Rs 2,56,248.40 crore by way of tax revenue share, including Rs 1,22,700.00 crore by way of the states own and Rs 1,33,548.40 crore by way of the state’s share in the central taxes. Total state expenditure is estimated at Rs 4,28,384.52 crore, which includes Rs 3,21,520.27 crore by way of
revenue expenditure and Rs 1,06,864.25 crore by way of capital expenditure.
A revenue saving of Rs 27,099.10 crore is estimated in 2018-19.
The fiscal deficit of Rs 44,053.32 crore is estimated in the financial year 2018-19, which is 2.96 per cent of the Gross State Domestic Product.
The states debt liability is estimated to be 29.8 per cent of the States Gross Domestic Product.
After deducting total expenditure from the receipts of consolidated fund, a defi-cit of Rs 7,485.06 crore is esti-mated. Net receipts of Rs 8,100 crore are estimated from pub-lic account.
Net result of Rs 614.94 crore from all transaction is estimated in 2018-19. MPOST
Budget pegs deficit at 44,053.32 crore
OUR CORRRESPONDENT
LUCKNOW: The Yogi Adity-anath government has for the first time proposed an allo-cation of Rs 98.5 crore in the Uttar Pradesh budget for oper-ating shelters for stray cows across the state.
“To overcome the problem that farmers are facing due to stray cows, the government has decided to open gausha-las (cow shelters) in a phased manner across the state,” chief
minister Yogi Adityanath said after finance minister Rajesh Agarwal presented the state budget here on Friday.
According to officials of the state government, initially, cowsheds will be opened in urban areas and thereafter at the tehsils and villages.
Farmers are affected by stray cattle which damage standing crops.
The chief minister had announced earlier that the government will open shel-
ters for stray cows, the num-ber of which was said to have shot up after a crackdown on illegal slaughter houses. The crackdown was launched after the Yogi government assumed office on March 19 last year.
“We have saved cows from slaughter and now we will find a way for their proper rearing,” the CM had said at an event in Vrindavan earlier this month, while laying the foundation stone of the Mahamana Gau Gram scheme.
`98.5 crore for cow shelters allocated
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and UP Finance Minister Rajesh Agarwal hold a briefcase containing State Budget for 2018-19 ahead of presentation, at Vidhan Sabha in Lucknow on Friday PTI
OUR CORRESPONDENT
BENGALURU: In his pre-assembly election budget for 2018-19, Karnataka Chief Min-ister Siddaramaiah on Friday announced schemes for uni-versal health coverage, provid-ing free LPG gas connections and mitigating miseries of dry land farmers.
The chief minister also said the implementation of the sixth pay commission for 5.93 lakh state government employ-ees and 5.73 lakh pensioners would cost Rs 10,508 crore to the exchequer.
The commission has rec-ommended 30 per cent hike in the salary structure and with increase in pay and other steps to increase productivity and efficiency, the government would be in a better position to implement its welfare mea-sures, he said.
Siddaramaiah, who holds the finance portfolio, announced a scheme to waive loan of up to Rs one lakh taken by a farmer member from a pri-mary agricultural credit coop-erative society on his death.
No fresh levies were announced in the Budget, which proposed an increase in rates of additional excise duty on Indian-Made Liquor by eight per cent, depending on the slabs.
The ‘Arogya Karnataka Yojana’ (universal health cov-erage), to be launched this month, would be implemented across the state by the end of this year. The scheme will make available primary, and specific secondary and tertiary treat-ments to all people.
Over 9,000 health and well-ness centres would be set up by upgrading existing sub-cen-tres for every 5,000 population in rural areas during the next
seven years for providing high quality comprehensive primary health care services, he said.
A total budgetary alloca-tion of Rs 6,645 crore has been made for the health and family welfare department.
The announcement comes close on the heels of what was touted as the world’s largest public health scheme to cover 10 crore families unveiled in the Union Budget.
In an apparent move to counter the Centre’s Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Scheme, Sidda-ramaiah announced that under the ‘Mukhyamantri Anila Bha-gya Yojana’, free gas connec-tion with twin burner stove and two refills would be provided to 30 lakh beneficiaries with an expenditure of Rs 1,350 crore.
The scheme comes against the backdrop of sharp differ-ences between the Siddara-maiah government and the Centre over the implementa-tion of Ujjwala scheme.
Siddaramaiah also unveiled ‘Raitha Belaku’, a scheme to give direct income assistance to mitigate miseries of dry land farmers. Under the scheme, Rs 5,000 per hectare, subject to a maximum of Rs 10,000 would
be provided to each farmer growing rain-fed crops with money transferred directly to farmers’ bank accounts.
It entails expenditure of Rs 3,500 crore every year and around 70 lakh farmers would be benefited.
On GST, Siddaramaiah said due to implementation prob-lems in the initial months, sys-tematic analysis of data and rigorous enforcement activi-ties could not be undertaken.
However, implementation of the Karnataka model of e-way bill in the entire coun-try is expected to bring about qualitative change in tax com-pliance and streamline GST collection across the country.
Asserting that the state gov-ernment was committed to the comprehensive development of Bengaluru, Siddaramaiah said necessary action would be taken to prepare project report for 105.55 km line under the Bengaluru Metro Phase-3.
With this, the total length of Bengaluru metro rail, including all phases, would be 266 km.
To manage goods and pas-senger transport more effi-ciently and quickly a feasibility study would be undertaken.
KARNATAKA BUDGET 2018
Siddaramaiah announces free LPG gas and universal health scheme
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah arrives at Vidhana Soudha to present the state budget in Bengaluru on Friday PTI
OUR CORRESPONDENT
CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Dep-uty Chief Minister O Panneer-selvam on Friday said that the government would work dil-igently to get to farmers and people of the state, the 177.25 tmcft apportioned by the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court earlier on Friday directed the Kar-nataka government to release 177.25 tmcft of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu from its inter-state Biligundlu dam.
“The government will diligently work to bring the 177.25 tmcft, apportioned by the Supreme Court to Tamil Nadu, to the farmers and the people,” he said.
The judgement clarified that Karnataka will now have an enhanced share of 14.75 tmcft water per year, while Tamil Nadu will get 404.25 tmcft, which will be 14.75 tmcft less than what was allotted by the tribunal in 2007.
Panneerselvam said the government’s formal reaction to the verdict would follow after a scrutiny of the judgement.
On opposition DMK’s charge that the state govern-ment had not properly pre-sented the state’s case before the apex court, leading to lower Cauvery water allocation to Tamil Nadu, he said that the DMK, despite being part of the Congress-led UPA at the Cen-tre, could not even get the tri-bunals final award published in the Central gazette.
“When did the DMK get us Cauvery water? I would like to remind that the DMK
regime, despite being part of the Congress-led UPA could not even get the tribunals final award published in the Central gazette,” Panneerselvam said.
Earlier, DMK working M K Stalin had demanded a meeting of political parties and farmers associations to decide on the next course of action on the Cauvery issue.
He termed the verdict a “shocker” and accused the Palaniswami regime of not properly presenting the state’s case before the apex court and losing it.
Stalin recalled that when DMK chief M Karunanidhi was chief minister, he got the Cauv-ery Tribunal set up, worked to get its interim and final award.
“But all such rights (got through the interim, final awards of the tribunal) have been squandered by the AIADMK regime,” he alleged and taunted the ruling party as a “horse-trading regime.”
While the final award
was pronounced in 2007, the gazette notification was done by the Centre in 2013 follow-ing a Supreme Court order during the previous AIADMK regime, when late J Jayalalithaa was Chief Minister.
The Deputy Chief Minis-ter said it was Jayalalithaa who had waged “historic battles” for getting Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu.
Film star Kamal Haasan, who is set to embark on his political journey, on Fri-day appealed to both Tamil Nadu and Karnataka to main-tain amity in the wake of the Supreme Court judgement on sharing of Cauvery waters between the two states.
While expressing disap-pointment over the apex court awarding lower quantum of water to Tamil Nadu as against the demand, he said the con-soling factor was that the court had maintained that the rivers are common and do not belong to anybody.
CHENNAI: ‘Superstar’ Rajini-kanth on Friday said the Supreme Court verdict reduc-ing the quantum of water to Tamil Nadu from Cauvery river was “very disappointing” and urged the state government to file a review petition.
“Since the final verdict by the Supreme Court on the Cau-very water sharing amounts to further affecting the livelihood of the farmers in Tamil Nadu, it is very disappointing,” he said in a tweet.
The actor, who has announced that he will soon make the political plunge, fur-ther said that the Tamil Nadu government should take steps to file a review petition on the matter.
The Supreme Court on Fri-day raised the 270 tmcft share of Cauvery water for Karnataka by 14.75 tmcft and reduced Tamil Nadu’s share while com-pensating it by allowing extrac-tion of 10 tmcft groundwater from the river basin.
The court said the issue of drinking water has to be placed on a “higher pedestal”.
CAUVERY WATER DISPUTE VERDICT
OUR CORRESPONDENT
BENGALURU: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday said that though the Supreme Court verdict on the Cauvery issue was not as per the state’s appeal, he was happy with it as “we have got some relief ”.
Siddaramaiah also said he did not want to say that the ver-dict was a defeat for any state and noted that the apex court had only responded to “our dif-ficulties.” In his reaction, Sid-daramaiah told reporters that Karnataka’s appeal had been partly allowed by the Supreme Court which has allotted 14.75 TMC ft more to the state while Tamil Nadu was allowed to extract 10 tmcft, out of 20 tmcft groundwater.
“Since this is an inter-state dispute,I don’t want to say it is a defeat for any state. The Supreme Court has responded to our difficulties,” he said, when asked if he was satisfied with the judgment.
Asked if Karnataka was in a position to release water, he said, “We always have to obey court orders.We cannot depend on rainfall. Normal years we have to leave. If there is no normal year, distress for-mula we have to adopt. That is there.”
On the court directing constitution of the Cauvery
Water Management Board in six weeks, which the state had always been opposing, he said, “it is not being considered by the Supreme Court. It is left to the government of India.”
He added, “though the ver-dict is not in accordance with our prayer in the appeal, we have got some relief. I am happy with this verdict.”
In its judgement, the Supreme Court today raised the 270 tmcft share of Cau-very water for Karnataka by 14.75 tmcft and reduced Tamil Nadu’s share while compensat-ing it by allowing extraction of 10 tmcft groundwater from the river basin.
By virtue of today’s apex court verdict, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Union Territory Puducherry would be annually entitled to 404.25 tmcft, 284.75 tmcft, 30 tmcft and 7 tmcft of Cauvery water respectively out of a total of 740 tmcft.
Govt will work diligently to get TN share: Dy CMWe have got some relief,
says Karnataka CM
A file picture shows Cauvery river water flowing through Mettur Dam in Tamil Nadu PTI
Verdict ‘very disapointing’
NEW DELHI: The Congress on Friday decided to go it alone in the Parliamentary bye-elec-tions in Uttar Pradesh and declared its candidates.
Party general secretary Janardan Dwivedi told PTI Dr Sureetha will be its candidate for the Gorakhpur Lok Sabha bypoll, and local leader Man-ish Mishra will contest from the Phulpur parliamentary seat.
The bye-elections were necessitated after Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Aditya-nath vacated the Gorakhpur Lok Sabha seat and his deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya vacated
the Phulpur seat.The elections will be held
on March 11 and the results will be announced on March 14. Filing of nominations began on February 13 and the last date is February 20.
Adityanath and Maurya had resigned as Lok Sabha members in September last year after being elected to the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council.
It is speculated that BSP chief Mayawati, who had last year resigned from the Rajya Sabha, may contest the Phul-pur bypoll. MPOST
NEW DELHI: An NGO, which had challenged the allo-cation of 2G spectrum during the erstwhile UPA regime, on Friday moved the Supreme Court against the appointment of Additional Solicitor Gen-eral Tushar Mehta as the spe-cial public prosecutor in the case, claiming it amounted to contempt of the court.
The NGO Centre for Public Interest Litigation said Mehta’s appointment as CBI prosecu-tor was in violation of the apex court orders passed in 2011 and 2014 which made senior advo-cate Anand Grover as the spe-
cial public prosecutor in the case relating to 2G scam.
The apex court had in 2011 appointed then senior advo-cate U U Lalit as the special public prosecutor for the 2G cases. However, due to his elevation to the top court, it appointed Grover on Septem-ber 2, 2014 on the suggestion of then senior lawyer K K Venu-gopal, who is now the Attorney General.
A special CBI court on December 21, 2017 had acquit-ted former telecom minister A Raja, DMK MP Kanimozhi and all other accused in the
2G scam case holding that the prosecution “miserably failed” to prove any of the corruption and money laundering charges.
On February 8, the Depart-ment of Personnel and Train-ing in the official gazette issued a notification appointing Mehta as the prosecutor for the case.
The plea filed by NGO has sought action against Ajay Mittal, Secretary of the Union Home Ministry’s Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) for having allegedly “willfully disobeyed” the order of the apex court. MPOST
RANCHI: The Jharkhand High Court on Friday granted four-week provisional bail for treatment to former Bihar chief minister Jagannath Mishra, who is in jail after being con-victed in a fodder scam case last month.
Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh granted provisional bail to Mishra till March 15 after a medical report said he is suffer-ing from cancer and required a treatment which is not avail-able here.
The 80-year-old former chief minister, who surren-
dered on February 5 to serve the jail term, was directed by the high court to surrender on or before March 16 this year.
The Superintendent of Rajendra Institute of Medi-cal Sciences (RIMS), Ranchi, has written to the court that Mishra needs super special-ist chemotherapy, which is not available in the RIMS. He has been under treatment of a doc-tor at a private hospital of Gur-gaon in Haryana.
On January 24, Special CBI judge S S Prasad awarded
Mishra five years rigorous imprisonment in connection with a fodder scam case involv-ing fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 37.62 crore from the Chaibasa Treasury in early 1990s.
However, because of a death in his family, the three-time chief minister was not present in the court on Janu-ary 24 when he, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad and 48 others were convicted.
He surrendered later on February 5 before the court to serve the jail term awarded to him. MPOST
2G: Contempt plea filed in Apex court challenging ASG’s appointment
Congress to go it alone in UP bypolls, declares candidates
Jagannath Mishra granted 4-week bail for treatment
MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Friday asked the CBI to confirm whether the four police officials, who had accompanied Tulsiram Praj-apati, an aide of Sohrabuddin Shaikh, to Ahmedabad just days before his death in an alleged encounter, had gone with him as his escort team on previous occasions as well.
The court’s question came after Rajasthan IPS officer Dinesh MN, one of the dis-charged accused in the encoun-ter case of Sohrabuddin Shaikh, a gangster, his wife Kausar Bi, and their aide Prajapati, denied all charges against him.
Dinesh claimed he had no role in choosing the escort team officials who had accom-panied Prajapati to Ahmed-abad for a court hearing.
According to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), soon after the court hearing in December 2006, Prajapati was killed in a fake encounter by a team of Gujarat and Rajasthan police officers.
However, the four officials, who were part of his escort team, made up a false story about Prajapati having escaped from custody while they were returning to Udaipur in a train, it said. Inspector Nara-yan Singh, ASI Yudhveer Singh and constables Dalpat Singh Rathod and Kartar Singh, from the Surajpol police station in Udaipur, were part of the escort team that had accompanied Prajapati from Udaipur Cen-tral Jail to Ahmedabad for the court hearing. Dinesh’s counsel
Raja Thakre told the high court that since the jail authorities had asked for an escort team on the ground that they did not have adequate number of offi-cials, he merely directed the Surajpol police to send a team.
“The team was not chosen by me. Therefore, even if one is to presume for a minute that there was a conspiracy to kill Prajapati, I couldn’t have played any role in it.
“I didn’t know which police officers were going with him,” Thakre said.
Justice Revati Mohite-Dere, however, remarked that some of the compilations of witness statements submitted by Ruba-buddin Shaikh, the brother of Sohrabuddin Shaikh, had pointed out that the same team of the four officials had trav-elled with Prajapati between Gujarat and Rajasthan for court hearings on some previous occasions as well.
The judge asked the CBI to confirm this. The high court is conducting a day-to-day hear-ing on pleas filed by Rubabud-din Shaikh challenging the discharge of three accused and the CBI challenging the dis-charge of two of the 15 accused from the case by a special court between August 2016 and Sep-tember 2017.
Sohrabuddin Shaikh and Kausar Bi were killed in an alleged fake encounter by the Gujarat Police in November 2005, while Prajapati was killed in another alleged fake gunbat-tle by the Gujarat and Rajast-han Police in December 2006.
HC poser to CBI over Prajapati’s escort team
SOHRABUDDIN CASE
MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Saturday, 17 February, 2018
ONE DEAD, 11 HOSPITALISED AFTER SUSPECTED GAS LEAKAGETHANE: A 34-year-old worker died and 11 others were hospitalised after suspected leakage of hazard-ous gas in a rayon manufacturing unit at Shahad in Kalyan in the district, police said on Friday. The incident took place late last night, they said. “The process of mixing of three different gases was in progress at the unit, when around 11.30 pm some workers complained of nausea, eye irritation and suffocation, possibly due to leakage of hazardous gas. They were rushed to a hospital,” a police officer said.
STUDENT, CONDUCTOR KILLED IN SCHOOL BUS ACCIDENT IN AMBALA AMBALA: A class 8 student and a bus conductor bus were killed and 33 students injured when their school bus overturned on the Ambala-Naraingarh highway on Friday, police said. The bus carrying 40 students overturned when it was close to the NCC Public School near Panjokhra village. SHO Rajneesh Yadav of the Baldevnagar Police Station said the police was inves-tigating how the accident occurred. According to some accounts, the bus driver lost balance while trying to avoid hitting a cyclist. Civil Surgeon Vinod Gupta said 33 students were brought to the hospital, out of which 21 were discharged after being given first aid.
IRS OFFICER IN CBI NET FOR TAKING `1.50 LAKH BRIBE IN MAHA NAGPUR: The anti-corruption wing of the Central Bu-reau of Investigation (CBI) has caught an Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer while allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 1.50 lakh from a private tuition class owner, offi-cials said on Friday. The official, Mukul Vishwas Telgote, posted as Deputy Commissioner (GST) in Amravati, was caught taking bribe on Thursday. According to sources, Telgote had sent notices to the tuition class owner in Ya-vatmal, asking him to submit service tax-related papers. When the complainant submitted the documents, the officer said that the papers were not complete.
TWO NAXALS KILLED IN GUNBATTLE WITH POLICE IN CHHATTISGARHRAIPUR: Two naxals, including a woman, were gunned down by the security forces in an exchange of fire in Chhattisgarh’s insurgency-hit Sukma district, police said on Friday. The skirmish took place late last night in a forest near Tokanpalli village under Chintagufa police station limits when a joint team of District Reserve Guard (DRG) and Special Task Force (STF) was out on an anti-naxal operation, Deputy Inspector General of Police (south Bastar range) Sundarraj P said. The exchange of fire broke out between the two sides, when the patrol-ling team was cordoning off the forests adjoining Tokan-palli, located around 500 kms away from here, he said.
PARRIKAR DOWN WITH PANCREATITIS, TO BE DISCHARGED SOONPanaji: Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, who has been hospitalised in Mumbai for mild pancreatitis, is expected to be discharged in a day or two, his office said on Friday. Parrikar, who was initially referred to the Goa Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) here, was Thursday taken to Mumbai’s Lilavati Hospital, where he is currently undergoing treatment. “It’s a case of mild pancreatitis. The chief minister is well and under obser-vation. He is likely to be discharged in a day or two,” the Chief Ministers Office (CMO) said in a statement here.
TEZPUR UNIVERSITY GETS NEW VCTEZPUR (ASSAM): Former Professor of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Vinod Kumar Jain has been ap-pointed as the new Vice Chancellor of Tezpur University.Jain has been appointed by the President of India, in his capacity as the Visitor of the Tezpur University, accord-ing to an official release issued by the University today.He will serve as the Vice-Chancellor for a period of five years from the date on which he enters upon his office or until he attains the age of 70 years, whichever is ear-lier. A seasoned academician, Prof Jain has studied B.Sc from Agra University and completed M.Sc from Aligarh Muslim University. He was conferred D. Phil from Sussex University, Brighton UK (1982).
NATION BRIEFS
mp nation6
India committed to protecting environment, says PM Modi
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: Prime Minis-ter Narendra Modi on Friday said India is committed to pro-tecting the environment and is doing everything required for it but expects others to also fulfil their commitments.
Modi said nations took a stand to come together at the 2015 COP-21 summit in Paris and work towards the common cause of sustaining the planet.
“As the world committed to bring about change, so did we. While the world was discussing ‘inconvenient truth , we trans-lated it into convenient action . India believes in growth but is also committed to protect-ing the environment,” he said at the World Sustainable Devel-opment Summit here.
India was on track to meet the 2030 Intended Nation-ally Determined Contribution (INDC), he said. The UN Sus-tainable Development Goals put us on the path of equal-ity, equity and climate justice,
he added.“While we are doing every-
thing that is required of us, we expect that others also join in to fulfil their commitments based on common but dif-ferentiated responsibility and equity,”Modi said, without tak-ing any names.
The National Geographic Greendex Report of 2014, which assesses the environ-mental sustainability of con-sumer choice, recently ranked India at the top for greenest consumption pattern, he said.
Discussing the goal of cre-ating a carbon sink of 2.5 to 3
billion tonnes of carbon diox-ide equivalent by 2030, Modi said it had once seemed diffi-cult to many but India had con-tinued with its steady progress on that path.
“According to the UNEP Gap Report, India is on track to meet its Copenhagen Pledge of reducing the emissions intensity of its GDP by 20 to 25 percent over 2005 levels by 2020,”Modi added.
Invoking Mahatma Gan-dhi, Modi said all resources and wealth belong to nature and the almighty and “we are just the trustees or managers of this wealth”.
Mahatma Gandhi, too, advocated this trusteeship phi-losophy, he added.
Stressing the need for mak-ing the planet safer, the prime minister said,
“We are proud of our long history and tradition of harmo-nious existence between man and nature.”
The prime minister also raised concerns about the
issue of water availability and asserted his commitment to ensure that no farm goes with-out water.
“We are working to electrify every household of the coun-try. With growing urbanisa-tion, our transport needs are growing too, we are expand-ing the metro system as well,” he said.
The theme of this year’s summit is Partnerships for a Resilient Planet .
Over 2,000 delegates are participating in the summit, which seeks to create action frameworks to resolve some of the most urgent challenges facing developing economies in the backdrop of climate change.
Eminent international speakers will address a vari-ety of issues, including reduc-ing impact on land, air and water, as well as look at ways and means to utilise energy and resources in a more effi-cient manner in the plenary sessions.
Chandrayaan-2 launch in April, to aim for moon’s south pole: Jitendra SinghOUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: Chandray-aan-2, the lunar mission under which the ISRO will for the first time attempt to land a rover on the moon’s south pole, will be launched in April, Jitendra Singh, in-charge of the Department of Space said on Friday.
The rover of India’s second lunar mission, costing nearly Rs 800 crore, will be made to land near the yet-unexplored south pole, ISRO’s newly-appointed chairman K Sivan said.
“India is going to launch Chandrayaan-2 in April. It is under Chandrayaan-1 mission that the ISRO spotted water on
the moon. Chandrayaan-2 is a further extension of the proj-ect and it is as good as landing a man on the moon,” Singh told reporters here.
Chandrayaan-2 will be
ISRO’s first inter-planetary mission to land a rover on any celestial body.
Sivan noted that the win-dow to launch the mission is between April and November
this year. “The targeted date is April. In case we miss the April date, we will launch it in November,” Sivan added.
Citing the reason behind landing the rover near the south pole, Sivan said it is a “very tricky area” with rocks formed a million years ago.
“It has very old rocks. This could possibly help us under-stand the origin of universe,” he said.
Another reason, he cited, behind landing the rover near the south pole was that the area has not been explored by other missions. “Most of the lunar missions in the past have explored the area around the equator of the moon,” Sivan added.
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: The BJP on Friday said the claim that the Centre was not helping Andhra Pradesh was “deliberate dis-tortion of facts” and asserted that the Narendra Modi gov-ernment had gone beyond its means to help the state after its bifurcation.
As Andhra Pradesh’s rul-ing TDP, a BJP ally, and vari-ous opposition parties mounted pressure on the government seeking more funds for the state, BJP spokesperson GVL Nara-simha Rao said, “Please do not continue with this propaganda that the Centre is not helping the state. The Centre has gone way beyond its means to help the state.” He said that over the past few weeks, many statements had been made by various peo-ple about the implementation of the Andhra Pradesh Reor-ganisation Act, 2014. “These statements seem to be deliber-ate distortion of facts as far as the support of the Government of India is concerned,” he told
reporters at the BJP office here.Whatever was promised in
the act, the current government has done more than that in a short span of time, he said.
Explaining in detail about various initiatives and projects taken up by the Narendra Modi-led government for the state, the BJP leader said, “It is time to place the facts before the people. It is time to clear the air.” List-ing various development works initiated by the NDA govern-ment, Rao said 11 institutions
and one super-speciality hospi-tal have to be established in the state by 2022, out of which nine have already become functional.
Three airports in in Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada and Tirupati have been expanded to international standards and were made operational.
Rao, accompanied by the state BJP president , shared a 17-page note with the media listing various initiatives taken by the Centre for the develop-ment of the state.
Days before the presenta-tion of the Union Budget for 2018-19, cracks appeared in the alliance between BJP and TDP, which is ruling Andhra Pradesh, after Chief Minister N Chan-drababu Naidu had said his party was ready to chart its own course if the former was not keen to continue with the alli-ance. Naidu had been demand-ing special package and more allocation of funds for the state, while the BJP is maintaining that it has been making all nec-essary allocations for the state.
Centre has gone beyond its means to help Andhra: BJP
Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks at the inauguration of World Sustainable Development Summit 2018 (WSDS), the flagship forum of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi on Friday PTI
BJP spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao said: Please do not continue with this propaganda that the Centre is not helping the state. The Centre has gone way beyond its means to help the state
Manik Sarkar fights against resurgent BJP in Dhanpur
JAYANTA BHATTACHARYA
DHANPUR: The Dhanpur constituency in Sipahijala dis-trict has emerged as one of the main battlefields in poll-bound Tripura with its hillocks and paddy fields dotted with red and saffron flags.
The constituency, bordering Bangladesh, is the home turf of Chief Minister Manik Sarkar. He is looking forward to his fifth straight victory from the seat in the February 18 polls.
This time, however, Sarkar’s CPI(M) is pitched not just against its old rival Congress, but also the saffron party that has been making steady inroads into the state.
The BJP has fielded its state general secretary Pratima Bhowmick from the seat. This
is the second time Bhowmick will be locking horns with Sarkar. She fought and lost the elections from this seat way back in 1998.
The Congress has nomi-nated former minister Laxmi Nag from the seat.
The saffron party’s high-profile campaign in Tripura, however, has projected Bhow-mick as Sarkar’s main con-tender in this election.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during a rally on Febru-ary 8, had asked the voters to throw away Manik (the Manik Sarkar government) and go for HIRA (H for highways, I for Internet way, R for roadways and A for airways).
Dhanpur, largely agrarian in nature, has 21 villages, mostly inhabited by Hindus, Muslims
and tribal people. Muslims live near the India-Banglagesh bor-der and the tribal groups reside in the hilly areas.
According to the state gov-ernment, the rate of literacy in Dhanpur is around 80 per cent. The constituency has eight rural hospitals, consisting of
10 to 30 beds each, and three primary health centres.
The chief minister said, “When I first came here in 1998, there were no proper roads. My vehicle got stuck in muddy roads and I had to get down to push it forward. Now a highway runs through the constituency and many con-crete roads have been laid in the region.”
The constituency also lacked drinking water facili-ties and women, with vessels, would go around in search of water. Pipelines have been extended from the border areas to the hills, Sarkar said.
The BJP candidate from the seat, however, countered Sarkar’s claims saying clean water remains a distant dream for the villagers here. PTI
NEW DELHI: The Elec-tion Commission on Fri-day opposed in the Delhi HC the plea of TTV Dhinakaran, AIADMK (Amma) faction leader, seeking a temporary name and symbol for his group till his petition laying claim to the ‘two-leaves’ symbol is decided.
The poll panel told the high court that only a recog-nised or registered political party can be allotted a sym-bol or given a name, and Dhi-nakaran’s faction was neither. A similar stand was taken before Justice Rekha Palli by the faction headed by CM EK Palaniswami and his deputy O Panneerselvam who contended that the proper forum for filing the petition was Madras HC as the entire dispute was confined to the state. Appearing for the Palaniswami-Panneerselvam faction, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi said Dhinakaran was trying to create “a party within the party”. MPOST
OUR CORRESPONDENT
AMARAVATI: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Friday said, in an indi-rect warning to the BJP, that people would take “harsh deci-sions” if they felt “cheated”.
Naidu, who had so far spo-ken only in the Telugu Desam Party’s internal meetings in the last fortnight about the “injus-tice” done to AP in the Union Budget 2018-19, opened up for the first time at an official meet-ing in the secretariat here this afternoon.
Addressing a budget pre-paratory conference here this afternoon, Naidu said that Andhra Pradesh had not got what was due from the Centre as per the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014.
“The Centre has not ful-filled its promises (made in the Reorganisation Act and in Parliament). Funds were not adequately granted to the state. If people come to a firm opin-ion that they have been cheated and made to lose, they will take
harsh decisions,” the AP CM warned.
He added that the Congress had split the state in an “irra-tional manner” and had paid the price.
“The Congress party, which was in power at the Centre, split the state in an irrational manner. So people gave their verdict (in the 2014 elections) very strongly and made the party bite the dust. It could not even save its depos-its,” he pointed out.
Meanwhile, the Chief Min-ister announced that the Budget session of the Andhra Pradesh Legislature would commence here on March 5, with Governor E S L Narasimhan addressing a joint session of the AP Legis-lative Council and Legislative Assembly.
The state Budget for 2018-19 would be presented on March 8, Naidu informed.
While the state achieved an average economic growth rate of 11-12 per cent in the last three years, the target for the com-ing year had been set at 15 per cent, he said.
People will take harsh decisions, says Naidu
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: Punjab National Bank has said it filed the first fraud report with the RBI and the CBI four days after it stumbled upon the alleged Rs 11,394.02 crore fraud by diamantaire Nirav Modi, and made regulatory disclosures only after 10 days.
After stock exchanges sought clarifications on the fraud, PNB in a late night fil-ing detailed the sequence of events and how Modi and com-panies linked to him used fake bank guarantees worth USD 1.77 billion to obtain loans from the overseas branches of Indian banks.
PNB stumbled upon the scam on January 25, 2018, and a fraud report with the Reserve Bank of India on January 29. On that day, a criminal com-plaint for registration of FIR was also made with the CBI. Stock exchanges were informed of the fraud on February 5.
This was followed by another fraud report being submitted to the RBI on Feb-ruary 7, the day one more com-plaint was filed with the CBI.
On February 13, an FIR was filed with the CBI against Nirav Modi Group, Gitanjali Group and Chandri Paper & Allied Products Pvt Ltd as also a com-plaint filed with Enforcement Directorate. Stock exchanges were informed the next day, PNB said in the filing.
In the complaint, PNB alleges that Modi and com-panies linked to him colluded with some of its officers includ-ing a former deputy general manager Gokulnath Shetty, who was posted in the for-eign-exchange department of its Mumbai branch. They fraudulently acquired guaran-tees worth USD 1.77 billion to obtain loans from the over-seas branches of Indian banks, claiming to need the cash to import pearls.
“On January 16, 2018, the partnership firm of Nirav Modi group approached our branch at Brady House, Mumbai and presented a set of import doc-uments with a request to allow buyers’ credit for making pay-ment to the overseas suppliers,” PNB said in the filing.
This happened after Shetty had retired.And since there
was no sanctioned limit for the firms, the branch officials asked them to furnish at least 100 per cent cash margin for issuing Letter of Undertaking (LOU) for raising buyer’s credit.
“On denial, the firms con-tested that they have been avail-ing such transactions since past several years,” PNB said.
On scrutiny, it was found that earlier LoUs were issued previously and internal mes-saging system was bypassed by placing instructions via the SWIFT global payment sys-tem asking overseas branches of Indian banks to fork out the cash as loans. PNB said this fol-lowed a series of meetings with representatives of Nirav Modi group and Gitanjali group at Delhi and Mumbai “to impress upon them to pay the amount.”
“Upon confirming the first maturity of LoUs liabilities on January 25, 2018 as fraudu-lently credit against bank, an FMR-1 (fraud report format of RBI) was submitted to the RBI on January 29, 2018 amounting to USD 44.22 million equiva-lent to Rs 280.70 crore (related to three group firms of Nirav Modi),” it said.
Punjab National Bank went to CBI 4 days after stumbling upon 11,394.02 cr fraud
Dhinakaran can not be granted
temporary name and symbol: EC
ICA/T 1158(3)/2018
mp nation 7MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Saturday, 17 February, 2018
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Friday said it would consider asking some visually impaired persons to exam-ine the new currency notes and coins recently issued by the government to see if they faced problems differenti-ating between the various denominations.
A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Jus-tice C Hari Shankar made the observation after the Centre and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) told the court the new currency has been introduced after consulting and taking into account the suggestions made by various associations for the visually impaired.
The central government, represented by Additional Standing Counsel Sanjay Jain,
told the court that Rs 10 note would be soon done away with and replaced by coins. The sizes of the Rs 20 and Rs 50 denomi-nation notes could be easily dif-ferentiated by blind persons, it claimed.
The government and the RBI told the court that intaglio markings, a printing technique where image is incised into a surface, are not being made
in the Rs 20 and Rs 50 notes as these denominations are widely used, as these markings, which are expensive, would get smudged with time.
However, the notes of denominations of Rs 100 and above have the intaglio mark-ings, they told the bench.
The ASG also said that the new coins of Re 1, Rs 2, Rs 5 and Rs 10 would be having stri-
ations of various lengths at the edges to make them discernible from each other.
The court asked the Centre to file an affidavit on the steps it was taking to make the coins discernible from each other and listed the matter for next hearing on March 7.
The bench was hearing PILs filed by three advocates, a com-pany secretary and NGO All India Confederation of Blind, who had sought a change in the new currency notes to make them easily identifiable and differentiable for the visually impaired. The PIL by advocate Rohit Dandriyal sought direc-tions to the authorities to with-draw the Rs 50 notes which do not have any identification marks and stop printing them.
He said that, according to the RBI, a special feature has been introduced on the left of
the watermark window on all notes, except the Rs 10 denomi-nation ones.
"This feature is in different shapes for various denomina-tions. For example, a vertical rectangle denotes a Rs 20 note, a square means Rs 50 (in older notes), triangle and circle for Rs 100, a diamond denoted the Rs 1,000 currency which is not a legal tender now," the advo-cate's PIL said.
The petition by the NGO said the visually impaired peo-ple were facing hardship in identification, usage and trans-action of the new currency notes of Rs 2000, Rs 500, Rs 200 and Rs 50 denominations.
Maintaining that the size of old and new notes were dif-ferent, the NGO also sought replacement of coins of Rs 10, Rs 5, Rs 2 and Re 1 saying these were of a similar structure.
Canadian PM Trudeau arrives todayOUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: National secu-rity advisers of India and Can-ada met here this week, ahead of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's seven-day visit to India from tomorrow aimed at intensifying defence and counter-terror coopera-tion besides expanding trade and investment ties.
In their meeting a couple of days ago, the two NSAs pre-pared the ground for Trudeau and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to expand the defence and security ties. India's con-
cern over rising Sikh radicalism in certain parts of Canada may have been discussed, Canadian diplomatic sources indicated.
On the long-pending Com-prehensive Economic Partner-ship Agreement between the two countries, the sources said Canadian investments in India were likely to decline in absence of a mechanism to protect them. The negotiators of both the countries met last week to remove the hurdles and move forward, the sources said, add-ing the issue may figure in talks between Modi and Trudeau, who will be on his first visit to
India as prime minister.They said Canadian invest-
ments in India were around USD 15 billion in the last cou-ple of years, and a free trade pact will further encourage the investors from that country.
A number of Canadian pension funds are also keen to invest in India. The sources said the objective of the Cana-dian prime minister's visit here would be to expand the overall ties between the two countries with a focus on defence and security, counter-terror coop-eration, trade and investment and tackling climate change.
Will ask visually challenged to examine new notes: HC OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: Congress Pres-ident Rahul Gandhi today dissolved the party's highest decision-making body, Central Working Committee (CWC), and formed a 34-member Steering Committee that will work in its place for the upcom-ing plenary session.
While all CWC members are part of the new commit-tee, some of the permanent invitees like Amarinder Singh, Vilas Muttemwar, RK Dha-wan, Shivajirao Deshmukh, MV Rajasekharan and Moh-sina Kidwai, as well all special invitees have been dropped.
The Steering Committee will meet tomorrow to decide on the schedule for the plenary session, which is likely to be held before the start of the sec-ond part of budget session of Parliament on March 5.
The AICC plenary will rat-ify the December 11 election of Rahul Gandhi as Congress
president, ending the entire process of organisational elections.
The Steering Commit-tee will function till the ple-nary session, after which a new CWC will be put in place.
As per the party's Consti-tution, the 25-member CWC has 12 elected members and 11 nominated members, besides the Congress president and the chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party.
The new members of the CWC will be elected either at the plenary or after it.
"Congress President Rahul Gandhi has constituted a Steer-ing Committee for the forth-coming plenary session as per
Article XV (vii) (b) of the par-ty's Constitution. The Steer-ing Committee will function in place of the Working Commit-tee of the party," AICC general Secretary Janardan Dwivedi said in a statement.
He said the meeting of the Steering Committee will be held on February 17 at 4 pm at the party headquarters.
The Steering Committee includes the party president and CPP chairperson Sonia Gandhi, besides former prime minister Manmohan Singh.
The Steering Commit-tee also includes party lead-ers A K Antony, Ahmed Patel, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ambika Soni, Janardan Dwivedi, Ashok Gehlot, Sushilkumar Shinde, P Chidambaram, Oscar Fer-nandes, Anand Sharma, CP Joshi, Digvijay Singh, BK Hari Prasad, Kamal Nath, Mallikar-jun Kharge, Motilal Vora and Hemo Prova Saikia, besides party's communications incharge Randeep Surjewala.
Rahul dissolves CWC, forms steering committee for Congress plenary
Iranian Prez visits Qutub Shahi tombs in Hyderabad
OUR CORRESPONDENT
HYDERABAD: Iranian Pres-ident Hassan Rouhani visited the famous Qutub Shahi tombs here on Friday on the second day of his Hyderabad visit.
Rouhani visited the tombs of Qutub Shahi rulers in Gol-conda area in the city. These monuments are popularly known as seven tombs and built in Iranian architecture style. "The Iranian president reached the tombs around 9 am. He was briefed about the historic site by officials," DCP (West Zone) Venkateshwar Rao said.
A project for restoration of the over 400-year-old com-plex started in 2013 after the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) signed a memoran-dum of understanding with Telangana Department of Archaeology and Museums.
Telangana government offi-cials and AKTC office-bearers briefed the Iranian president about the tombs. In the after-noon, Rouhani would address a Muslim congregation at the historic Mecca Masjid after performing Friday prayers, official sources said. Religious scholars from different schools of thought would also partici-pate in this session, they said.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani visits the Qutb Shahi tomb at Ibrahim Bagh in Hyderabad on Friday PTI
Assam worst in MMR, spent just 13.58% of NHM fund in 2017-18OUR CORRESPONDENT
GUWAHATI: Assam is at the bottom of the list with regard to maternal mortality rate(MMR) with a figure of 300 against the national aver-age of 167, while the fund spending under National Health Mission (NHM) is just 13.58 per cent for 2017-18.
Addressing a press con-ference here, Union Minister of State for Health and Fam-ily Welfare Ashwini Kumar Choubey said the government
is working to reduce the MMR in Assam.
MMR is the annual num-ber of female deaths per 1,00,000 live births from any cause related to or aggra-vated by pregnancy or its management.
"MMR in Assam is very high. It is 300 at present against the pan-India average of 167. It is at the bottom of the list. It was 383 fours ago and was 447 in 2002 in Assam," Choubey said.
The declining rate of MMR
in the state, however, is the highest in country and is "very encouraging", he said.
The Centre is aggressively carrying out vaccination and other medication to reduce the MMR across many districts of Assam, including Nag-aon, Dhubri, Goalpara, Karbi Anglong, Kokrajhar and Chi-rang under 'Mission Indradha-nush', he added.
The minister said that the infant mortality rate(IMR), which is the number of deaths per 1,000 live births of chil-
dren under one year of age, in Assam is also on higher side at 44 at present against the national figure of 37.
He said the Centre had allocated Rs 1,056.25 crore for Assam under National Health Mission (NHM) for 2017-18.
"Out of that, we have released Rs 514.81 crore. The state's share is Rs 35 crore. As per our information, the state has spent Rs 143.42 crore till now," he said adding 81 dif-ferent schemes are going on under NHM across the state.
Speaking about the num-ber of doctors, he said Assam bears a sorry figure with just one practitioner against 3,000 people.
"The WHO standard is to have one doctor against every 1,000 people. The country's average is one doctor against 1,592 people. The scene is very bad in North East," Choubey added.
In Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh, there are just one doctor against around 4,000 people, Choubey said.
Free sanitary napkins in schools soon: Uma BharatiNEW DELHI: Keeping in mind the issue of men-strual hygiene, the Centre is soon going to come out with a scheme focusing on providing free sanitary napkins and safe disposal methods for the convenience of women, Union minister Uma Bharti said on Friday. The Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation has issued guidelines for menstrual hygiene management which is an inte-gral part of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM).Briefing the media today, the Minister for Drinking Water and Sanitation said that the government is working on a three-pronged project focusing on women hygiene. The minister also stated that she wants to ensure that a part of the amount which is given to gram panchayats is compulsorily spent on steps for menstrual hygiene. MPOST
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday directed the CBI to seek instructions on a plea of the widow of a Mus-lim labourer from West Ben-gal, who was hacked and burnt alive in Rajasthan on Decem-ber 6 last year, seeking an independent probe into the murder.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice A M Khanwilkar asked the law-yer appearing for the agency to take instructions on conduct-ing the probe and providing of adequate compensation sought by the petitioner.
Gulbahar Bibi, wife of 50-year-old Afrazul Khan, has also sought a direction that the video of her husband's ghastly murder and setting him ablaze be withdrawn from the internet and social media sites.
Senior advocate Indira Jaising, counsel for Bibi, also sought transfer of the probe from Rajasthan to West Bengal.
The top court, however, said it would look into the issue at a
later stage.Earlier, the apex court had
termed as "horrendous" the video of the labourer being hacked and burnt alive in Raj-asthan's Rajsamand district on December 6 last year.
Sheikh's widow is seeking an impartial probe by a central agency into the murder, besides withdrawal of the video from being circulated on the inter-net. Jaising had said the video has already been seen by mil-lions of people and a direction be issued to the Centre and the state government to ensure that it was not circulated any fur-ther and withdrawn from the internet.
She had also said the vic-tims should be granted fun-damental right to access to justice, as "unruly crowd has been attempting to stall the judicial process to favour the accused."
The plea sought appoint-ment of special public prose-cutor to conduct the trial and transfer of the investigation to Malda district in West Bengal where the petitioner resides.
Apex Court directs CBI to seek instructions
Union Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, along with his junior colleague CR Chaudhary and Secretary Ravikant, kicks off Swachhta Pakhwada of his ministry on Friday
Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh, along with Chemical and Fertilizer Minister Ananth Kumar, Minister of Statistics Sadanand Gowda, MoS Skill Development Anantkumar Hegde, at farmer’s conclave in Bangalore on Friday
MINISTERS AT WORK
NEW DELHI: General Man-ager, Northern Railway Vish-wesh Chaube conducted an extensive inspection of Mohri- Adarsh Nagar rail section on the Delhi- Kurukshetra route on Friday. He was accompanied by RN Singh, Divisional Rail-way Manager (DRM) Northern Railway Delhi, Principal Head of Departments & Senior Divi-sional Railway Officers.
Chaube carried out an extensive inspection of Mohri station inspecting the turn-outs and tracks in the station yard. On his onward inspection program, the General Man-ager undertook an inspection
of Kurukshetra railway station reviewing upkeep and cleanli-ness of platforms, toilet facil-ities etc. at the station. Shri Chaube also inspected the traf-fic safety training school. He also took an over-view of the railway colony at Kurukshetra
and took part in the tree plan-tation ceremony at the station.
On the onward route, he inspected level-crossing No. 73 and Curve No. 17 on the Bhaini Khurd- Karnal section before proceeding to Karnal station. MPOST
Railways officer inspects Mohri-Adarsh Nagar rail section
MAN'S HACKING IN RAJASTHAN
OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI: In a strong reac-tion to China's objection to Prime Minister Narendra Modi visiting Arunachal Pradesh, India on Friday said its lead-ers and people have the right to visit the northeastern state, asserting that it is an integral part of the country.
PM Modi had on Thursday visited Arunachal Pradesh after which China, which claims the state as part of the South Tibet, asked India to refrain from tak-ing any action that may "com-plicate" the boundary question.
"Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India. Our lead-ers and people have the right to visit Arunachal Pradesh," external affairs ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar told reporters when asked about Chinese objection.
Reacting to PM Modi's visit to Arunachal Pradesh, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang was quoted as saying by state-run Xinhua news agency that "The Chinese government has never recog-nised the so-called Arunachal Pradesh and is firmly opposed to the Indian leader's visit to the disputed area."
The India-China border dispute stretches across 3,488 km. Both sides have held 20 rounds of talks so far through their special representatives to resolve the issue.
Our leaders, people have the right to visit Arunachal Pradesh:
India to China
BILASPUR: The Chhattisgarh unit of the Congress on Friday requested the judicial commis-sion probing the 2013 Jhiram valley Naxal attack to exam-ine CM Raman Singh and then Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde as witnesses.
In the application filed before the commission headed by Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra, the opposition party also sought examination of then Union minister of state for home RPN Singh, and then
state home minister Nanki-ram Kanwar. Advocate Sudip Shrivastav, who is represent-ing the main opposition party, said the commission has exam-ined 66 witnesses so far. The Congress application said the commission has examined pri-vate persons or officials of the state police or Central Reserve Police Force, but not those who were in power and hence accountable under the Consti-tution, including the CM and home minister. MPOST
Congress wants examination of Raman Singh in Jhiram valley atttack inquiry
SRINAGAR: In the last two days, hundreds of people carry-ing the national flag took to the streets in Kathua district near Jammu demanding the release of the accused in the rape and murder case of a nomad girl.
Eight-year-old Ashifa was brutally murdered last month after she was kidnapped and allegedly held captive for a week at Rasana village.
Referring to the protests, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Friday called them "nothing short of desecration of national flag".
A Special Investigation Team of the Crime Branch has arrested a special police offi-cer (SPO), Deepak Khajuria, and a juvenile for the gruesome crime.
Over the last two days, pro-testers, marching under the banner of Hindu Ekta Manch, were seen on the Jammu-Pathankote Highway. The pro-testers alleged that the Crime Branch had falsely implicated the SPO, who was part of the investigation team formed ini-
tially to trace the girl.The protesters have threat-
ened agitation if the accused are not released. Carrying national flags and shouting anti-Paki-stan slogans, the marchers want the case to be handed over to the CBI because they don't trust the Crime Branch.
Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said she was appalled by these protests and "horrified" to see the use of national flag to defend the accused in the Kathua rape-and-murder case.
"Appalled by the marches & protests in defense of the recently apprehended rapist in Kathua. Also horrified by their use of our national flag in these demonstrations, this is noth-ing short of desecration. The accused has been arrested & the law will follow its course" Ms Mufti tweeted.
The case was handed over the crime branch follow-ing a major controversy over botched-up investigation by the local police.
Deepak Khajuria was part of the police team that was sent to trace the missing girl, Ashifa,
on January 12 and when her body was found on January 17, he was again with the police team, which handed over the body to the family.
The crime branch has said it would not be cowed down by these protests.
"I have already said we have clinching evidence against those who have arrested. Fur-ther investigations are on" Alok Puri, Additional, Director Gen-eral of Police, Crime Branch told agencies as saying.
Puri has already written a letter to the Director General of Police pointing out glaring lapses in initial police inves-tigations conducted by police officers at the Hiranagar police station and the Special Investi-gation Team of Kathua police. The accused, Deepak Khajuria, was posted at the police station.
According to the inves-tigators, the girl was raped and murdered to create fear among the members of the nomad community. The accused had chosen their target well in advance, the probe reveals. AGENCIES
'Horrified' Indian flag used to support Jammu rapist: Mufti
mp editorial8MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Saturday, 17 February, 2018
ARUN MITRA
SHUTAPA PAUL
The standing commit-tee on health headed by Ram Gopal Yadav had called vari-
ous stakeholders to put for-ward their viewpoints on the National Medical Commis-sion (NMC). Since health is an issue of concern to all, such a consultative process is a welcome step. The process to revamp the medical regulation was initiated after the Supreme Court took cognizance of the malfunctioning of the Med-ical Council of India (MCI) and directed for a new system, which would redress the ills in the MCI with a view to stream-lining medical education and healthcare in the country. As a result, the NITI Ayog drafted the NMC in its present form, which the government wanted to pass in the Parliament as such. It would have been better if the NITI Ayog had formed a multi-stakeholder commit-tee to draft this bill. But, it was only after strong protests by the medical organisations and a public statement by Jairam Ramesh, a prominent mem-ber of the standing commit-tee on health, that the bill was referred to the standing com-mittee for public consultations.
The MCI had lost its cred-ibility because of allegations of corruption against the high ups, including its erstwhile president Ketan Desai. Thus, there was a need that some effective corrective measures were taken. One was that the MCI could have been restruc-tured but retained essentially with its autonomous character in its day-to-day functioning alongside government control on larger matters. But, the gov-ernment thought it wise to dis-solve the MCI and form a new body which they named the NMC. The bill, in a way, rejects the self-regulatory mecha-nism; instead, it pushes for a techno-bureaucratic model of regulation. Therefore, out
of 25 members in the body, only five have been proposed to be elected from amongst the medical fraternity, an approach that belies the basic principle of self-governance and democ-ratisation. Failure of any self-regulation is a reflection of the socio-political system prevail-ing in the country. However, since health is not a concern of medical professionals only, such a body must have suffi-cient representation from the public and movements working for ethical healthcare.
The Bill, while recognising problems in the medical edu-cation system and healthcare, fails to go into the real cause of the ills. A close scrutiny of medical education brings forth that the problems of substan-dard medical education, denial of medical seats to deserving but economically weak sec-tions, exorbitant charges by the colleges, underhand transac-tions in admissions, advance booking of seats to medical undergraduate and postgradu-ate courses and issues of ghost faculty came up after the open-
ing up of medical colleges by the private players and forma-tion of deemed universities. The Bill does not say a word on this, rather, makes it easy for the private players to start their medical colleges.
Medical education in our country used to be within the reach of students from ordi-nary families as it was in the state sector. These colleges were well regulated and maintained the required standard in accor-dance with the contemporary period. Going by the infor-mation from the website of the Medical Council of India, at the time of Independence, there were 20 colleges, out of which only one was in the pri-vate sector. Most new additions were in the state sector till the late-eighties. But after a shift in economic policies, the sce-nario changed. We find that in the period of 1981 and 1990, out of 32 new colleges 25 were opened in the private sector. In the period of 1991 to 2000, out of 43 new colleges opened, 31 were in the private sector and only 12 in the government
sector. In the ensuing period till 2010, out of 123 colleges, only 34 colleges were opened in the state sector and 89 in the private sector. The trend con-tinued and in the three years from 2014 to 2017, the colleges opened in the private sector were 58 while only 36 were in the state sector. Thus, we find that between the period 1990 to 2017, 238 colleges were opened in the private sector while only 115 begun in the state sector. Many of these were deemed universities with their own examinations, admission sys-tem and fee structure.
All these colleges in the pri-vate sector have not only been charging exorbitant fees, many of them have been carrying out mindless examinations. Admissions were being made on the basis of the money paid, which amounted to crores of rupees in some cases. Aston-ishingly, seats were reserved in advance. Even advertise-ments have been appearing in print media to reserve seats in medical colleges. This com-pletely defied the principle of
natural justice. The present bill has ignored this contentious issue. It says that the govern-ment will regulate fees for up to 40 per cent seats only, while the rest will be left to be charged at the mercy of the management. This would increase the cost of medical education further and thenceforth, add to the cost of healthcare.
The Alliance of Doctors for Ethical Healthcare (ADEH) in its submission before the standing committee has clearly spoken of this matter and demanded that all seats be regulated. Fees in 40 per cent seats should be at par with the government colleges and the rest could be marginally higher so that deserving candi-dates are not denied admission. What the standing committee thinks of and what the govern-ment ultimately does is to be seen, but concerned opinion demands this. IPA
(The author is senior vice-President, Indian Doctors for Peace and Development. The
views expressed are strictly personal.)
Scrutinise medical educationEDITORIAL
Privatisation has ruined the quality of medical colleges—government intervention is essential to rejuvenate healthcare
In the period of 1991 to 2000, out of 43 new colleges opened, 31 were in the private sector and only 12 in the government sector. In the ensuing period till 2010, out of 123 colleges, only 34 colleges were opened in the state sector and 89 in the private sector
The latest cold-blooded killing spree in a Florida High School was, given the track record of the United States in recent times, waiting to happen. By the latest count, 17 are dead and 15 have been
hospitalised. That is not as important as the fact that despite so many killings, 90 mass shootings so far, US Presidents, Senators and Congressmen have failed to bring in strong legislations and gun control laws. It is often observed that the gun lobby has become so strong in the last 50 years that politicians do not dare “touch” it. Odd as it may seem, espe-cially since so many instances and facts have borne out, it is the hard truth. Contrary to many perceptions—school shootings are not unique to the United States. Germany, for instance, went through several attacks between 2002 and 2009. Earlier, major school shootings also occurred in Finland, Japan and Scotland, among other countries. But in Europe, there has not been a major high-casualty gun attack on a campus in a decade. Meanwhile, the lat-est shooting in Florida was already the 18th of its kind in the United States this year, just 45 days into 2018. While Europe appears to have learned some lessons, a study has indicated that a decrease in the number of weapons would also result in a decrease in instances of shootings. That is exactly what happened in Australia after the country tight-ened gun legislation following a mass shooting in 1996. It would also explain why countries where gun owner-ship is rare, such as France or Britain, have largely been spared of such catastrophic incidents. An interesting case in point is Switzerland. It has one of the world’s highest ratios of firearms per person, with an estimated 45.7 guns per 100 residents, according to the Small Arms Survey. Only two countries have a higher ratio: Yemen, with 54.8 guns per 100 residents, and the United States, with 88.8 guns per 100 residents. Other studies have even indicated that the share of households with weapons may almost be the same in Switzerland as it is in the United States. Those statistics may have margins of error, but they still point to a legitimate question. Why has there never been a school shooting in Switzerland, despite the Swiss enthusiasm for weapons? With about eight million citizens, Switzerland is, of course, much smaller than the United States. Many of Switzerland’s weapons are distributed to so-called citizen soldiers. Conscription is mandatory for male Swiss citizens and conscripts can keep their semiautomatic assault rifles at home even after returning to their nonmilitary careers. Meanwhile, those who wish to buy weapons themselves need to undergo weeks-long background checks. Swiss authorities have a list of about 2,000 individuals they suspect of being willing to commit shootings. All of them are fre-quently approached by authorities along with psychologists. Hence, while almost every home in Switzerland may have a weapon, access is still indirectly regulated and the use of weapons usually follows strict societal norms. There is also another crucial difference with the United States: extensive, mandatory health insurance, which allows schools to have direct and immediate access to psychologists and interven-tion teams. Similar measures are still being implemented in Germany, the nation with the most school shootings in contemporary European history. Following a large num-ber of attacks, the country tasked a number of academics and professionals to come up with guidelines on how to spot potential attackers. When President Trump took to Twitter on Thursday, he urged students and others to alert authorities about anyone whose behaviour strikes them as suspicious.“So many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed, even expelled from school for bad and erratic behaviour,” Trump wrote in the tweet. “Neighbours and classmates knew he was a big problem. Must always report such instances to authorities, again and again!” But experience from the world over shows that awareness alone may not be enough. Other countries, including Germany, have attempted to set up government-led national networks dedicated to spot potential attackers and to stop them before they can strike, if at all. In a first step, funding for in-school psychologists was increased exponentially. Teachers at every school are now being trained to act as “trusted per-sonnel,” as a first point of contact either for students who want to seek psychological support themselves or for others who want to raise alarm over the behaviour of an individ-ual. Psychological tests are now also standard practice for Germans younger than 25 who want to purchase firearms. Age restrictions were tightened and a national registry of all weapons was created in 2013. Even the best prevention programmes will not provide 100 per cent safety but they can at least do something. And that is what really matters.
The sensational disclosure of the Rs 11,300-crore fraud at the Fountain Branch of Punjab National Bank (PNB) in Mumbai committed by billion-
aire jewellery designer Nirav Modi and some of his fam-ily members has rattled the government, besides sending shock waves across the banking and gems and jewellery industry in the country. The bank stumbled on the fraud early-January and informed the CBI and the ED about the case on January 29. The agencies registered an FIR on Janu-ary 31. A fortnight after the FIR, the two investigating agen-cies have raided Nirav’s and Gitanjali Gems’ assets across the country and are said to have seized cash and jewellery worth over Rs 5,000 crore. Meanwhile, politics has begun playing out on the issue. Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has said that the process to cancel the passports of Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi, Nirav’s maternal uncle and managing director of Gitanjali Gems, has been initiated. Congress President Rahul Gandhi has blamed the govern-ment for the fraud, more for the way all the four accused, Nirav, his wife Ami, brother Nishal and maternal uncle Mehul Choksi left the country in the first week of January this year, around the same time when the PNB stumbled upon the fraud. Gandhi also equated the running away of Nirav and his family members after committing the fraud with Vijay Mallya and Lalit Modi, suggesting that people in the Narendra Modi government may have informed all the three before the investigating agencies could lay their hands on the fugitives. The Congress also released a photo-graph of Prime Minister Narendra Modi posing for a pic-ture with a delegation of Indian businessmen that included Nirav Modi at the World Economic Forum’s annual meet-ing in Davos last month. Replying to this, Prasad said that Gandhi was present in a jewellery exhibition in 2013 organ-ised by Gitanjali Gems at Delhi’s Imperial Hotel. The BJP countered the Congress by saying that the fraud began in 2011 when the UPA was in power. It also clarified that Nirav was not a part of the official delegation of PM Modi. Meanwhile, the PNB management has said that the bank will come out of the current crisis clean and stronger. The bank also said that it is confident that the entire amount of the fraud will be recovered as the main accused in the case has promised to repay all his liabilities. In addition to the Rs 11,300 crore fraud, PNB has an exposure of Rs 1,700 crore to Nirav and Choksi’s companies. As nearly half a dozen banks had offered credit facilities to Nirav and Choksi’s businesses based on the PNB guarantees, PNB has said that it has enough funds to provision the debts taken by Nirav and Choksi’s businesses from other Indian banks.
In cold-blood
PNB : The day after
Log on to write letters to the editor or send them to
[email protected] You can also send your
comments to The Editor,Millennium Post,
Pratap Bhawan, 5 Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi 110 002
millenniumpost.inFEDEX CHUGS ONdear
EDITOR
The evergreen Roger Federer is all set to script history by becoming the oldest man to reclaim the number one tennis ranking at 36. While his great rivals Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray are battling injury woes, the Swiss superstar shows no signs of slowing down. The much-loved American tennis player Andre Agassi achieved the feat at 33. Federer's remarkable turnaround in 2017 had the tennis experts shaking their heads in disbelief. Maybe, the best is yet to come!
PRITISH SINGH Via email
Beware the barrenness of a busy life
Quote martial
SOCRATES
One of my biggest pet peeves in life has been the issue of space. Having grown up in a compact Kolkata
flat, I loathed the lack of space and privacy. Shacking up with my room-mates while in college and eventu-ally, flatmates early on in my work life, stressed me out internally. I was thrilled to finally be able to afford my own digs; obviously, I sacrificed on several other counts for the luxury of my own space. Small price to pay for autonomy, I always thought.
Over the last decade or so, very few, mostly chosen, people have been allowed into my sanctum sanctorum. Most are allowed to cohabit my precious space only for the short-term and only if deemed absolutely necessary. If it is a rare long-term coexistence, I expect the
recipient to appreciate my graciousness. The latter does not obviously happen; but in my head, I would like it to. To put it succinctly, I love my space and I share it sparingly.
In India though, the concept of per-sonal space is alien. Most parents, even today, urge their young adult children to live within the protective emotional and physical precincts of the family home rather than venture out into the world. In order to live by themselves, youngsters have to shift cities just so that it seems more socially acceptable. Living independently while one’s par-ents live in the same city is yet to catch on. I am glad I have done that; enjoy-ing my parents’ indulgences while being able to retreat to my own space at the end of the day.
The concept of personal space is
not just about mental space, it is about physical space too; not easy in a coun-try where we jostle for space on a daily basis. The other day, I was making my way out of the aircraft, one of the last few to get off. I consciously get off late in order to allow the other passengers, who always seem to be in a hurry, to alight first. I had failed to see the woman behind me—who insisted on first push-ing my backpack and then me, repeat-edly. When I asked her to stop, she looked shocked! I did not push her, she told her husband. What I thought to be pushing was to her well-meaning prodding. I am not cattle, I wanted to tell her. I still fail to understand why we as a nation insist on jumping up and crowding the passageway in the aircraft as soon as the plane lands. Why are we in such a hurry? Where exactly are we
headed? We honk incessantly at traffic signals, hoping that the vehicles ahead of us develop wings?
With Chandigarh Airport closed for upgradation, I had to take the Shatabdi this week for an event. As I waited for the train on a bench at the platform, I was accosted by another woman want-ing me to make space for her on the bench. As I moved to accommodate her, the rotund woman not only plonked herself down, she also made space for her wimpy kid husband. To my pro-tests that I barely had space to sit, she answered ‘safar mein karna parta hain adjust’ (you have to adjust in a journey). Her ‘safar’ was clearly my ‘suffer’, so I lifted her half buttock and one arm off of me, and asked her to sit comfortably; at least someone should.
We do not understand the concept of personal space. Stand in a line leav-ing a normal gap between the person in front of and behind you; invariably you will find someone slink into that gap. ‘Almost senior citizens’ want to be treated differently; they want to move on in front of you and expect you to ‘kindly adjust’. Try to get off the metro, reassuring touches on the shoulders, waist, hands, is ensured to follow.
All this ‘friendly touching’ and inability to offer personal space to fel-low citizens makes me believe that Indi-ans are a scared lot. We have grown up knowing very little space; our homes are crowded, our public utilities brim at the seams with an ever-growing population; we are packed into transport vehicles like sardines, and many times, dangling from them holding on to our dear lives. Being so used to a cramped existence, we are afraid of being alone in any jour-ney, whether it is on the train, flight, or life’s sojourn. We need the reassurances of our family, and in their absence, co-passengers will do.
(The writer is a journalist and media entrepreneur. The views expressed are strictly personal.)
We do not understand the concept of personal space. Stand in a line leaving a normal gap between the person in front of and behind you; invariably you will find someone slink into that gap
In India, the concept of personal space is alien—whether at home, or on the train, or even, in life
No space for space
Personal space exists only metaphorically in urban India
Plush private colleges charge exorbitant fees and notoriously reserve seats for the undeserving (Representational image)
9mp in focusMILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Saturday, 17 February, 2018
JOHN HAYLETT
SUGATO HAZRA
South Africa’s African National Congress has, in giving Jacob Zuma his marching orders on February 15 and replacing him
with Cyril Ramaphosa, shown a capacity for decisive action that many feared was beyond it. Ramaphosa’s narrow victory over Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma for the ANC presidency, his supporters’ failure to win a clean sweep of the top six posi-tions and the national executive commit-tee’s knife-edge division into apparently clear pro and anti-Zuma camps, foretold confusion and indecision.
Similarly, Zuma’s initial efforts to string out negotiations over retirement encouraged speculation that he might brazen it out, relying on ANC loyalties to thwart opposition no-confidence motions. He has rapidly been disabused of such notions, with even erstwhile Zuma supporters acknowledging the need for change and falling in behind the ANC president. Zuma has had to accept the ANC discipline, as his pre-decessor Thabo Mbeki did previously when the demand for Zuma to take over became deafening.
Mbeki was accused of improper use of state intelligence services in legal pro-ceedings against his then deputy Zuma. He had also built a high-level of criti-cism within the revolutionary alliance for supporting his health secretary’s nonsensical and deadly recommenda-tion of beetroot and garlic rather than anti-retroviral medication for HIV/Aids patients and for also making pub-lic attacks on his party’s Communist Party (SACP) allies.
Zuma built an initially close relation-ship with the SACP, accepting that the identity and role of communist ministers would be agreed with the SACP leader-ship rather than solely by presidential decision, as Mbeki had done. That close relationship has broken down as the SACP moved gradually — some might think too gradually — from supporting Zuma to demanding his resignation or removal by the ANC. Zuma’s decision last year to sack SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande from his higher edu-cation ministerial post sparked renewed demands from the SACP and Cosatu-affiliated trade unions that he should go. The ex-president’s assertions that he has done nothing wrong, that the ANC failed to itemise concerns over his actions and that he should be allowed to
complete his second five-year term while Ramaphosa learns the state presidency ropes and concentrates on winning next year’s elections are breathtaking.
Zuma’s name has become a byword for corruption over public money spent on his Nkandla compound, his rela-tionship with the Gupta family that prompted allegations of state corporate capture and countless charges of bungs paid to him or family members through dodgy business deals. The ANC’s share of polls in general elections has fallen steadily since the euphoric days of the country’s first democratic elections in 1994. Voters’ impatience to see the emer-gence of the advances envisaged in the ANC Freedom Charter is one factor, but more striking is the popular awareness that the belt-tightening and self-restraint prescribed for them by their govern-ments have not been applied equally to those in office.
Capitalist interests, both domestic and overseas, took the political demise of their former apartheid regime allies in their stride, reaching out to
the new rulers even before the transi-tion to democracy. Citing the Soviet Union’s self-induced disappearance to pronounce that socialism was off the agenda and a market economy was the only game in town, the ANC leaders’ new-found friends offered assistance of all kinds to woo them into compliance and against radical change. The policy of black economic empowerment (BEE) transformed comrades of modest means almost overnight into multimillionaires.
When Mandela, who had favoured miners’ union leader Ramaphosa as his successor, was persuaded to back Mbeki by, among others, his close comrade Oli-ver Tambo, Ramaphosa took the BEE route, hovering up directorships and becoming, by repute, the second-rich-est African in the country. Ramaphosa, who was backed strongly by the trade unions in Cosatu for the presidency against Zuma’s estranged wife Nkosa-zana Dlamini Zuma, is viewed by them as honest in comparison to former Presi-dent Zuma.
ANC campaigning for next year’s
general election wouldn’t have got off the ground with Zuma holding on to the presidency. His subsequent corrup-tion trials might well tarnish the party’s efforts in any case. Ramaphosa’s great-est asset in his new post is that he is not Zuma, but that will not be enough in itself. The Cosatu trade union move-ment, which Ramaphosa played a lead-ing role in building, has wasted no time in reiterating demands that his presi-dency should provide for a develop-mental state that creates a million new decent jobs a year. It insists on an end to corporate corruption and privatisa-tion and the sacking of ministers seen in the pockets of big business.
The future of the ANC government lies in Ramaphosa’s readiness to involve all sections of the revolutionary alli-ance and civil society in mapping a route away from greed and division to achieve the goals of the ANC Freedom Charter. IPA
(The author is the Political Editor of London-based Morning Star. The views
expressed are strictly personal.)
The frequent exposures of scams indicate that ours is a country of crooks. Our systems can be easily violated. People in authority are either incompetent or complicit. In sum, they have neither the ability nor the willingness to clean the Augean stable
The future of the ANC government lies in Ramaphosa’s readiness to involve all sections of the revolutionary alliance and civil society in mapping a route away from greed and division to achieve the goals of the ANC Freedom Charter
Where forgery wins Repeated scams in the banks of our country highlight how our system is essentially flawed
ANC’s change of guard
In the stressed life of an average Indian, excitements come in the form of screaming headlines on scams. To any ordinary passerby
along the capital’s Lala Lajpat Rai Sarani, the tastefully decorated build-ing at the Defence Colony with Nirav Modi carefully carved on top was one of the few joints where only the rich could frequent. That such a nirav (silent) building would turn into a sarav (talking) entity and become the talk of the nation suddenly was beyond anybody’s thought. Perhaps, this was not even contemplated by the people who had been beneficial participants in the trade called scam nor by the regulators who are there for checks and balances against such frauds. Strangely, Nirav Modi’s case is neither the first to surface nor, given the frequency of collaborative fleec-ing perfected by the Indian system, will it be the last. Volumes will be said on who is the fraudster, who are his cronies with mud thrown at several public personalities and in the end, the headlines will go the Bofors way.
What will never get highlighted with desired corrective measures, are the systemic ailments. Few will understand the glaring loopholes in the systems and procedures, even fewer will try to understand—leav-ing the next scamster to surface down the line. If the enterprising swindler manages to defraud bigger amounts, the headlines and discussions will match, and might even surpass the present level. In order to save the curious ones the trouble of studying the modus operandi, let us dissect it in simple terms here.
For that, one needs to differentiate between fund based and non-fund based exposures of a bank. When a bank lends money to a company for buying say raw material, it sanctions a line of credit to facilitate such pur-chases, this is fund based lending. This requires the lender to assess the need for such funds, the end use of it with a view to ensuring that the com-pany will be in a position to generate the surplus from business to repay the debt. The other type of exposure a lender takes on a corporation is issuing guarantee – that the lender certifies the creditworthiness of the corporation and undertakes to pay the money on its behalf in case of an exigency like a default. In the case of Nirav Modi, the PNB branch had issued such a guarantee – the nomen-clature for that is “Letter of Undertak-ing” (LOU). Such LOUs were issued
to foreign banks through a system called SWIFT. SWIFT or the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication provides a net-work that enables financial institu-tions worldwide to send and receive information about financial transac-tions in a secure, standardised and reliable environment. Once a mes-sage is received through SWIFT with the proper business identifier codes or SWIFT codes, the recipient bank acts on it without any further verifica-tion. In case of PNB, such LOUs were issued through the SWIFT network.
The standard norm for issuing a guarantee is to ensure that the client has the ability to repay the guaran-teed amount in case the issuing bank has to meet the obligation. In other words, this is a non-fund based facil-ity provided to a client. As per the capital adequacy norms of banks: any exposure must have an adequate capital (as stipulated by the regulator – Central Bank in the case of banks)
to fund in case of default.Capital Adequacy Ratio is the
ratio of a bank’s capital to its risk. It is a measure of a bank’s capital. It is expressed as a percentage of a bank’s risk-weighted to credit expo-sures. A national regulator (RBI in our case) tracks a bank’s capital ade-quacy to ensure that it can absorb a reasonable amount of loss and com-plies with statutory capital require-ments. A guarantee is a non-fund based exposure and requires to be fully protected with adequate capital (as rules specify). In case of PNB, the LOU – guarantee in layman’s term – did not reflect in the bank’s books. Officials just issued the LOU over SWIFT which was honoured by the recipient bank branch. For the receiv-ing bank, which actually paid the money against the LOU since the exposure was fully guaranteed by a creditworthy bank, the money lent did not trigger any capital adequacy norm.
There were two glaring omis-sions on the part of the PNB branch issuing the LOU. First unauthorised, even fraudulent, use of SWIFT with-out there being a matching entry in the bank’s books. This indicates the lackadaisical manner of bank super-vision – first, on the part of the bank management and second, but no less, on the part of the much-revered reg-ulator, the Reserve Bank of India. The regulator did not even have a proper auditing facility to detect such intransigence. It is doubtful if even after such frauds being unearthed the same will be initiated. One rea-son for the doubt is the case of Zoom Developers where its promoter, Vijay Chowdhury, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in May 2017. It was a similar case of defraud-ing Punjab National Bank but no sys-temic correction is known to have been adopted by either the PNB or the RBI. This provides the option for future Niravs to hog the limelight.
SWIFT will continue to be used by enterprising bank men for certain enterprising transactions.
Second and no less critical is the fact that, neither the RBI nor the bank management has any clue of non-fund based exposures which could hit the banking system, like the pres-ent case. One can simply issue guar-antee and not record the same in the books of the bank. Only in case of invoking such guarantee – that is only in the rare instance of the bank being asked to pay – will the manage-ment know of the exposure. In other words, neither the bank nor the RBI, the regulator, has any system which can prevent bank men from defraud-ing the system in concert with enter-prising corporations.
Take a look at the bank which accepts the LOUs and funds the cor-poration. There is a limit for how long such exposure can remain in the books. Depending on the rules, it is safe to assume that in about a year, the
corporation must repay the money so lent or else the bank funding it will go to the LOU issuing bank for pay-ment. In that case, the forgery will be exposed. So, the next step is to obtain another LOU from the collabora-tive bankers and approach the bank which lent the money to issue a fresh advance backed by the LOU. With the money so lent, the previous loan could be paid. In each such round, the amount of LOU and therefore, fund lent, will increase to account for commissions—official or under the table – and also meet the bigger appetite arising out of the first round of success. The trend can continue as long as the collaboration lasts. In the case of PNB, the thread broke due to the retirement of a collaborating bank official. Had the bank, which is actually lending with the backing of LOU, been a little conscientious, it would have checked the business model of the LOU carrying client. The chain could have stopped then. Since in the Nirav case, all remained nirav (quiet) it gives the uncomfort-able feeling of complicity at the lend-ing end as well. Since in this case, these were branches of Indian banks the suspicion only increases.
What could be the outcome of such a glaring loophole in India’s banking system? The global finan-cial market regulators, if they are sincere, should downgrade Indian regulator RBI and banish it to share the table with countries like Nigeria. None of its past, present or future Governors must be seen delivering sermons on finance or economics. Any guarantee issued by any Indian bank must be compulsorily reveri-fied with the appropriate authorities of the bank management. Third and also necessary is multiple checks on any Indian entity seeking any trading facility from a banking unit located in the jurisdiction of well-run finan-cial markets.
The frequent exposures of scams indicate that ours is a country of crooks. Our systems can be eas-ily violated. People in authority are either incompetent or complicit. In sum, they have neither the ability nor the willingness to clean the Augean stable. Nirav has zoomed before someone else comes in the headline. We the people will look from one set of the super-rich to another set of aspiring ones and in the end, we will not recognise who is who.
(The views expressed are strictly personal.)
With Zuma out of the way, President Ramaphosa must unite all factions
tweetRETWEET
KARUNA NUNDY @karunanundy
NARENDRA MODI @narendramodi
BARACK OBAMA @BarackObama
RAMESH SRIVATS @rameshsrivats
How many farmers would be alive today with 11,000 crores of loan forgiveness and investment in agricultural infrastructure. 21,000 farmers killed themselves in Madhya Pradesh alone. No Davos champagne for you. #ModiRobsIndia
BJP seeks an opportunity to serve Tripura. There is a lot of work to be done. We want to transform Tripura and give wings to the aspirations of the state’s youth.
We are grieving with Parkland. But we are not powerless. Caring for our kids is our first job. And until we can honestly say that we're doing enough to keep them safe from harm, including long overdue, common-sense gun safety laws that most Americans want, then we have to change.
Somewhat apt that this Nirav Modi scam broke on Valentine’s Day. It’s after all the day of LoU.
Ramaphosa holds the key to rebuilding ANC’s future
Nirav ModiScamRepResentation
Nirav Modi
Approaches PNB for a request of LoU #1
Restart the whole cycle again to avoid default
At the time of maturity NM has to pay
If payment was not honoured by NM at the end of maturity of LC
Nostro A/C of PNB gets triggered. #4
PNB sends message through SWIFT to process request. #2
Through SWIFT, asks Overseas Banks to issue Letter of Credit
(LC) in lieu of LoU
LC used to settle payments with the suppliers of NM
Suppliers got paid in cash #3
The game ends as Nostro A/C trigger puts the liability in the books of PNB #4A
SWIFT entry not reflected in PNB books bank
Deficiencies Responsibility#1 LOU (Guarantee) issued without any record PNB managementCapital adequacy ignored Weak regulator-RBI#2 No check on message exchanged through SWIFT PNB ManagementDespite having implication on Bank balance sheet – andFree access of SWIFT at bank level RBI as regulator
Deficiencies Responsibility#3 Supplier to NM is actually a related concern Overseas Bank/PNB#4 Debit of Nostro account – did it ever trigger? PNB Management#4A Safe to assume Nostro debit did not happen
of
mp world10MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Saturday, 17 February, 2018
China puts pollution war over tradition in Lunar New Year
BEIJING: Beijing began the Year of the Dog on Friday with eerily silent streets, as the usual thunderous bursts of fire-crackers and fireworks were silenced by a strict ban that sacrifices tradition in the name of an anti-pollution campaign.
Overnight, police patrolled deserted neighbourhoods in the Chinese capital -- normally abuzz with excitement as the country welcomes the arrival of the Lunar New Year.
"I never imagined it would be this quiet! Its usually packed," said a Bei-jing resident surnamed Wang who had been out in the city centre following a traditional New Years Eve family dinner.
A migrant worker from neighbour-ing Hebei province surnamed Zhu said that without the firecrackers, "the magic of the New Year is gone".
The low-key celebrations were in stark contrast to previous years, when the streets were crammed with Bei-jingers setting off firecrackers and the sky was lit by near-constant firework displays, unleashing a deafening thun-der until dawn.
But the tradition, conceived as a way to ward off evil spirits, has this year been targeted by authorities anxious to lower winter pollution levels.
Some 440 Chinese cities have banned the use of firecrackers and fireworks -- which are also set off during weddings or when moving house -- since last year.
Beijing introduced a ban in December."Like all Beijingers, I have been light-
ing firecrackers since I was a child. But times have changed (...) air quality is what matters most to people now," said a man who gave his surname as Zhang. The government has launched a huge campaign to reduce pollution during the winter, ordering polluting factories to leave Beijing and its surroundings, and designating "no-coal zones" where more
than three million homes have abruptly switched to gas or electric heating.
In 2017, the level of PM2.5 particles -- which penetrate deep into the lungs -- in Beijing over the New Year was 26 times higher than the level recommended by the World Health Organisation. But on Friday the sky was a brilliant blue.
"It (the ban) is a good thing, given the disastrous state of the environment," said Xi, a young student, before adding: "Even if it deprives us of a little pleasure".
Safety is another reason behind the ban. Every year there are numerous acci-dents caused by pyrotechnics, many of which are of poor quality in China. Dong Weiwei, a resident who had volunteered
to patrol his street, stood ready to alert police should he see anyone flouting the new regulations.
"In the past I have seen people wounded, an eight-year-old child whose finger was blown off by a firecracker explosion," he said. In southwestern Yunann province, a fireworks explosion killed four people and injured five oth-ers last night, state media said.
The ban has made some happy, including Zhu Ye, an elderly Beijinger who took advantage of the peace and quiet to take her dog Xiao Mi for a night-time walk.
"I no longer liked it at my age... with the fireworks and firecrackers every-where, we didnt dare to go out," she said.
"But this year, there are not many people in the streets and I am finally able to walk my dog."
Ahead of New Year celebrations, hun-dreds of millions of Chinese travel back to their home towns, often on crowded trains, making it in the worlds largest annual human migration.
Meanwhile in Hong Kong a spec-tacular fireworks display scheduled to mark Lunar New Year was cancelled as the city mourns victims of a deadly bus crash. A speeding double-decker overturned in northern Hong Kong on Saturday evening, killing 19 and leaving more than 60 injured, some critically. AGENCIES
Trump has strong relation with Modi, says US state deptWASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has a "strong relationship" with Prime Min-ister Narendra Modi, a State Department official said on Fri-day, emphasising that India-US ties are important.
"President Trump, certainly has a strong relationship with Prime Minister Modi, State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert told reporters at a news conference.
"I know that his daughter (Ivanka) really enjoyed having been over in Hyderabad late last year, and so it s an impor-tant relationship, an increas-ingly important relationship," she said. Nauert also applauded India s developmental role in Afghanistan.
"This is a good example of the world coming together and working through places that may not have countries that may not have worked together in the past. This is an example of how that is now being done. Saudi Arabia is helping out in Iraq, she said.
Early this month, US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said that "sky is the limit" for India-US ties and she praised Prime Min-ister Modi for being aggres-sive in pursuing economic and administrative reforms. AGENCIES
US judge sets long sentences for two Russian ‘hackers’
NEW YORK: A US judge sen-tenced a pair of Russians who led a massive hacking and data breach scheme to lengthy crim-inal sentences, the US Depart-ment of Justice announced on Friday.
Vladimir Drinkman, 37, was sentenced to 12 years in prison, while Dmitriy Smil-ianets, was sentenced to over four years by US District Judge Jerome Simandle in New Jersey.
The Russian nationals, who had previously pled guilty, are part of a gang that targeted major retailers and the Nas-daq stock exchange. They stole some 160 million credit card numbers and then sold them through online markets, offi-cials said.
The conspiracy resulted in millions of dollars of losses, "one of the largest such schemes ever prosecuted in the United States," the Justice Department said.
The hackers, who were extradited to the United States from Holland, penetrated the networks of the Nasdaq, 7-Eleven, Carrefour, and Dow Jones, among others, which
collectively lost more than USD 300 million between 2005 and 2012.
The biggest hack at the time was at Heartland, a major pay-ment processor hit by malware that allowed thieves to steal 130 million card numbers, resulting in more than USD 200 million in losses.
"These defendants oper-ated at the highest levels of illegal hacking and trafficking of stolen identities," said First Assistant US Attorney William Fitzpatrick.
"Perpetrators of some of the largest data breaches in history, these defendants posed a real threat to our economy, privacy and national security, and can-not be tolerated." AGENCIES
Hubble captures Neptune's mysterious shrinking storm LOS ANGELES: NASA s Hub-ble Space Telescope has cap-tured Neptune's mysterious dark storm that probably smells like rotten eggs, and is shrink-ing out of existence.
Immense dark storms on Neptune were first discovered in the late 1980s by NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft, accord-ing to the Hubble team.
Hubble found two dark storms that appeared in the mid-1990s and then vanished. This latest storm was first seen in 2015, but is now shrinking.
Like Jupiter's Great Red Spot (GRS), the storm swirls in an anti-cyclonic direction and is dredging up material from deep inside the ice giant planet's atmosphere.
The elusive feature gives
astronomers a unique oppor-tunity to study Neptune's deep winds, which can't be directly measured.
The dark spot material may be hydrogen sulphide, with the pungent smell of rotten eggs.
"The particles themselves
are still highly reflective; they are just slightly darker than the particles in the surround-ing atmosphere," said Joshua Tollefson from the University of California at Berkeley in the US.
Unlike Jupiter's GRS, which
has been visible for at least 200 years, Neptune's dark vortices only last a few years. This is the first one that actually has been photographed as it is dying.
"We have no evidence of how these vortices are formed or how fast they rotate," said Agustin Sanchez-Lavega from the University of the Basque Country in Spain.
"It is most likely that they arise from an instability in the sheared eastward and westward winds," said Sanchez-Lavega.
The dark vortex is behaving differently from what planet-watchers predicted.
"It looks like we're captur-ing the demise of this dark vor-tex, and it's different from what well-known studies led us to expect," said Michael H Wong
of the University of California at Berkeley.
"Their dynamical simula-tions said that anticyclones under Neptune's wind shear would probably drift towards the equator. We thought that once the vortex got too close to the equator, it would break up and perhaps create a spectacu-lar outburst of cloud activity," said Wong.
However, the dark spot, which was first seen at mid-southern latitudes, has appar-ently faded away rather than going out with a bang.
That may be related to the surprising direction of its mea-sured drift: toward the south pole, instead of northward towards the equator, research-ers said. AGENCIES
Australia’s Victoria state govt to fund Hindu temple MELBOURNE: With Hindu-ism emerging as one of the fast-est growing religion in Australia, Victorian government on Friday announced over 160,000 dollars funds for the upgradation of Shri Shiva Vishnu Temple here.
The Cultural and Heritage Centre also known as Shri Shiva Vishnu Temple was consecrated in 1994. It is said to be the larg-est Hindu temple in the south-ern hemisphere.
The Victoria's Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Robin Scott who visited the temple on Friday said the government will provide over 160,000 dollars funds to the Hindu Society of Victoria to upgrade its Cultural
and Heritage Centre. He said the state government is keen to promote an inclusive society where every Victorian can pre-serve and share their culture and traditions in spaces of their own heritage. Under the new funding from the Labor Government, the driveway and entry points of the Cultural and Heritage Centre will be upgraded and
more than 300 car parks will be added on the site. The new proj-ect is also expected to benefit thousands of Hindus and wider community members from Car-rum Downs suburb where the temple is located. The funding is being provided through the Labor Governments Commu-nity Infrastructure and Cultural Precincts (CICP) programme which aims to promote greater use of community facilities by states culturally diverse commu-nities, increasing their partici-pation in activities, improving access to services and enabling states cultural precincts to remain attractive for cultural and tourism activities. AGENCIES
Oz PM’s fight over deputy’s affair with staff turns uglyCANBERRA: Australia's prime minister and his deputy have criticised each other in an open and hostile rift over politically damaging revelations that the deputy is expecting a baby with a former press secretary.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Thursday accused Deputy Prime Minister Barn-aby Joyce of making a "shock-ing error of judgment" by having an office affair that hurt his wife, his four daughters and his new partner who is due to give birth in April.
"He has set off a world of woe for those women and appalled all of us," Turnbull said.
Joyce hit back on Friday, describing Turnbulls remarks as "inept" and "completely unnec-essary." "All thats going to do is basically pull the scab off for everybody to have a look at," Joyce told reporters.
Since the scandal became public last week, Turnbull had avoided commenting for the sake of Joyces estranged wife
and four daughters. But Turn-bull responded on Thursday by banning his ministers from having sex with staff.
Turnbull last week talked down the prospect of a U.S. House of Representatives-style ban on lawmakers having sex with staff, arguing that elected officials had a right to consen-sual sexual relationships.
Critics argue that the Aus-tralian prohibition has opened ministers private lives to media scrutiny. The Australian polit-ical press has traditionally steered clear of politicians sex
lives unless there is a legitimate public interest.
Joyce said the ban "will create immense fodder for the good people in the media and it will obviously reverberate across all political parties." But he said ministers in his Nation-als party, the junior partner in the coalition government, would abide by the new rule.
Later Friday, Turnbull said he stood by his criticism and after watching a video of Joy-ces press conference, added: "I understand it is a very stress-ful time."
In a move interpreted by some as punishing his deputy, Turnbull announced Thursday that Joyce would not become acting prime minister next week when Turnbull travels to the United States.
He explained on Friday, before Joyce's angry news con-ference, that his deputy "has taken some leave and he is con-sidering his position." "Barn-aby Joyce has my confidence as deputy prime minister," Turn-bull said.
But Joyce said Friday he had no intention of quitting.
"This was a personal issue, a personal issue that's been dragged into the public arena and I dont believe people should be resigning in any job over personal issues," Joyce said.
Many agree with Joyce that his marriage breakdown and his current relationship with Vikki Campion are private mat-ters. But questions have been raised about her employment in two government jobs after working in Joyce's office and the
rent-free apartment owned by a wealthy political donor where Joyce and Campion now live.
Joyce is deputy prime min-ister because of a longstanding agreement between Turnbull's conservative Liberal Party and the Nationals. Whoever the Nationals choose to lead them also becomes the nations dep-uty leader.
Joyce warned that any pres-sure on the Nationals to dump him "locks people in as they lock-in behind the leader." Turnbull later replied: "I have not sought in any way to influ-ence the deliberations of the National Party," referring to the party's name before it was changed to Nationals in 2003.
The Nationals held a crisis meeting on Wednesday over whether Joyce should con-tinue as their leader. Nation-als President Larry Anthony, the party's most senior bureau-crat and a former legislator, said the meeting resolved to give Joyce more time to ride out his controversies. AGENCIES
100 new planets discovered beyond our solar system
LONDON: Scientists have confirmed nearly 100 new planets outside our solar sys-tem, bringing the total num-ber of exoplanets found using NASA's K2 mission to almost 300.
"We started out analysing 275 candidates, of which 149 were validated as real exoplan-ets. In turn, 95 of these planets have proved to be new discov-eries," said Andrew Mayo, doc-toral student at the Technical University of Denmark.
"This research has been underway since the first K2 data release in 2014," said Mayo, main author of the research published in the Astronomical Journal.
Mayo and his colleagues analysed hundreds of signals of potential exoplanets to deter-mine which signals were cre-ated by exoplanets and which were caused by other sources.
"We found that some of the signals were caused by multiple star systems or noise from the spacecraft. But we also detected planets that range from sub Earth-sized to the size of Jupi-ter and larger," said Mayo.
One of the planets detected was orbiting a very bright star.
The Kepler spacecraft was launched in 2009 to hunt for exoplanets in a single patch of
sky, but in 2013, a mechanical failure crippled the telescope.
However, astronomers and engineers devised a way to repurpose and save the space telescope by changing its field of view periodically.
This solution paved the way for the follow-up K2 mis-sion, which is still ongoing as the spacecraft searches for exo-planet transits.
These transits can be found by registering dips in light caused by the shadow of an exoplanet as it crosses in front of its host star.
The dips are indications of exoplanets, which must then be examined more closely in order to confirm their nature.
The first planet orbiting a star similar to our own sun was detected in 1995. On Friday some 3,600 exoplanets have been found, ranging from rocky Earth-sized planets to large gas giants like Jupiter.
"We validated a planet on a 10-day orbit around a star called HD 212657, which is now the brightest star found by either the Kepler or K2 mis-sions to host a validated planet. Planets around bright stars are important because astrono-mers can learn a lot about them from ground-based observato-ries," said Mayo. AGENCIES
Afghans submit 1.17 million war crimes claims to ICC
KABUL: Since the International Criminal Court began collect-ing material three months ago for a possible war crimes case involving Afghanistan, it has gotten a staggering 1.17 million statements from Afghans who say they were victims.
The statements include accounts of alleged atrocities not only by groups like the Tali-ban and the Islamic State group, but also involving Afghan Security Forces and govern-ment-affiliated warlords, the U.S.-led coalition, and foreign and domestic spy agencies, said Abdul Wadood Pedram of the Human Rights and Eradication of Violence Organization.
Based in part on the many statements, ICC judges in The Hague would then have to decide whether to seek a war crimes investigation. Its uncer-tain when that decision will be made. The statements were col-lected between November 20, 2017, and January 31, 2018, by
organizations based in Europe and Afghanistan and sent to the ICC, Pedram said.
Because one statement might include multiple vic-tims and one organisation might represent thousands of victim statements, the num-ber of Afghans seeking justice from the ICC could be several million.
"It is shocking there are so many," Pedram said, noting that in some instances, whole villages were represented. "It shows how the justice system in Afghanistan is not bring-ing justice for the victims and their families." The ICC did not give details about the vic-tims or those providing the information.
"I have the names of the organisations, but because of the security issues, we dont want to name them because they will be targeted," said Pedram, whose group is based in Kabul. Many of the repre-
sentations include statements involving multiple victims, which could be the result of suicide bombings, targeted kill-ings or airstrikes, he said.
Among those alleging war crimes is a man who asked The Associated Press to be identified only by his first name, Shoaib, because he fears for his safety.
Shoaib said his father, Naimatullah, was on a bus in Dawalat Yar district in Afghani-stans central Ghor Province in 2014 when a band of gunmen stopped it and two other buses, forced the passengers off and told them to hand over their identity cards.
The 14 Shiites among them were separated from the rest and killed, one by one, he said.
The slayings outraged the country. A Taliban commander was soon arrested and brought before the media, but no news about a trial or punishment was ever reported, said Shoaib, who is in his 20s. AGENCIES
Turkey Army plane crashes; 2 pilots dead Ankara: Turkey's military says a plane used to train pilots has crashed in western Turkey, killing its two pilots. A military statement said the SF-260D light trainer plane went down on Fri-day after taking off from Cigli air base near the Aegean port city of Izmir. Its wreck was discov-ered some 3 kilo-meters north of the base. The military said an inspection was underway but gave no details on the possible cause of the crash. AGENCIES
Brazil declare 'emergency' on Venezuela border
BRASILIA: Brazil on Friday said it will declare a "state of social emergency" and boost troops on its border with Ven-ezuela in response to an influx of people fleeing the crisis in that country.
The declaration will free the authorities to allocate "infra-structure funds and to put in place humanitarian mea-sures" on the Venezuelan bor-der, the government said in a statement.
In addition, "military assets will be doubled to 200 soldiers," said Defence Minister Raul
Jungmann said. A decree should be signed
in the next few days, the state-ment said.
The Brazilian government says that some 40,000 Venezu-elans have now fled the eco-nomic breakdown and political unrest in their oil-rich coun-try to take shelter in Boa Vista, capital of Brazil's border state of Roraima.
Temer's decree on the emergency will also order more checkpoints in the state and a field hospital to help deal with the migrants. AGENCIES
Student charged with making threats about
using sniper rifle PITTSBURGH (US): Author-ities say a Pittsburgh college student who sent an anony-mous message to a teacher about using a sniper rifle from a rooftop has been charged with making terroristic threats.
Investigators say 18-year-old Carnegie Mellon Univer-sity student Derek Li sent the email through a class site on February 7.
Authorities say Li told them he copied the message's text from an online discussion board.
A university faculty mem-ber received the message through an anonymous student feedback section that's used as part of a course.
Li told investigators he doesn't have access to a gun. It wasn't known on Friday if he's retained an attorney. AGENCIES
Govt imposes complete ban on all kinds of
firecrackers & fireworks
mp world 11MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Saturday, 17 February, 2018
Pak sending troops to Saudi on 'training & advice' mission
US-led West’s subversion bid failing... Putin set for easy win
Israeli A-G lauds police probe into Netanyahu graft charges
MOSCOW: Running with a lacklustre slogan, no pro-gramme and refusing to debate his opponents, it sometimes seems like Russian President Vladimir Putin is not cam-paigning for re-election at all.
But it is unlikely to matter for the 65-year-old strongman who is cruising towards victory and a historic fourth Kremlin term in next month's election, with a result that seems so inev-itable analysts are calling it a return to the Soviet era.
"Putin is the only candidate without a programme. That is extremely alarming," said Andrei Kolesnikov of the Carn-egie Moscow Center, describ-ing it as "a demonstration of disregard for his people."
As always, Putin has bowed out of debates and has symboli-cally refused his free television airtime as a candidate.
But he already benefits from wall-to-wall news coverage, and Channel One state televi-sion has been rebroadcasting Oliver Stone's four-part docu-mentary about him although it won't show the last episode until after the vote following a slap on the wrist from the elec-toral commission.
The most visible sign of his campaign are the images of him plastered on billboards along highways outside Moscow
under the slogan: "A strong president makes for a strong country."
Generic posters from the Central Electoral Commis-sion urging people to vote are everywhere.
Putin's main task is to ensure a respectable turnout, with state pollsters VTsIOM predicting 80.4 percent although last time, participa-tion was just over 65 percent.
"We have returned to what we had hoped to leave behind after the collapse of Soviet power: ritualistic elections where... the result is pre-pro-grammed," wrote columnist Fyodor Krasheninnikov in the independent weekly, The New
Times.And others agree."This is the most meaning-
less of all the presidential polls in Russia, the most lacking in substance," said Kolesnikov.
So far, the most striking moment of Putin's "campaign" was when he joined millions of Orthodox Christians in plung-ing into an ice hole wearing swimming trunks for the Jan-uary's Epiphany holiday.
He has since skipped sev-eral events this week after com-ing down with a rare cold.
Functions he has attended have been highly choreo-graphed such as a recent meet-ing with local mayors, when Putin was choppered in, met
with a star-struck few as jour-nalists watched on a screen from another room.
Although the numbers planning to vote for him have dipped from last year's high of 76.9 percent, Putin still com-mands a 71.5 percent of sup-port, VTsIOM figures show.
For pro-Kremlin observers, Putin's campaign is laying the ground for his future term and eschewing stunts that would only gain him a few points in the election.
"We see real hands-on work that has significantly greater results than populist fussing around for the sake of an extra one to two percent in elec-tions," said Nikolai Kalmykov of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.
With opposition leader Alexei Navalny barred from standing due to a fraud convic-tion, he is urging his support-ers -- many of them young -- to boycott the polls.
The latest VTsIOM polls suggest the lowest turnout is likely to be among 18 to 24-year-olds.
Among those running against Putin are two new colourful characters who may have a political future ahead of them.
Ksenia Sobchak, a former
reality show host turned lib-eral journalist, is standing on a "none of the above" ticket and has called for Navalny to be allowed on the ballot.
While she is forecast to come a distant fourth, this outspoken daughter of Saint Petersburg's former mayor -- Putin's political mentor -- is one of the few people who doesn't fear him, and sparks could fly if they were to meet.
Another is debonair busi-nessman Pavel Grudinin, the little-known director of an agri-business who was chosen as the Communist candidate in December after veteran leader Gennady Zyuganov chose not to stand.
The moustachioed 57-year-old businessman, who has praised Stalin, scored well in early polls, prompting a wave of negative coverage from state and pro-Kremlin media over fears he could do better than planned, observers said.
If the vote were held on Fri-day, he would win 7.3 percent, polls show. “There is a cam-paign and it does have an ele-ment of intrigue... Sobchak and Grudinin,” said Kolesn-ikov, who said the polls would test Sobchak’s potential for leading a liberal party and Grudinin’s to take over from Zyuganov. AGENCIES
JERUSALEM: Israel's attor-ney general has praised a police investigation into the prime minister over corruption alle-gations, saying it was conducted "thoroughly" and "by the book" even as the Israeli leader has shrugged off its conclusions.
In a speech at Tel Aviv Uni-versity, Avihai Mandelblit on Thursday lauded the more-than-yearlong probe into a pair of corruption scandals that have engulfed Prime Minister Ben-jamin Netanyahu, culminating this week when police recom-mended that he be indicted on bribery and breach of trust charges in both cases.
The recommendations now go to Mandelblit, who will review the material before deciding whether to file charges.
"The investigations were car-ried out by the book, exactly as is expected by law enforce-ment authorities to deal with cases like these: professionally, thoroughly, creatively and with sophistication, with the aim to get to the truth," he said.
Netanyahu has denied wrongdoing and has called the police recommendations, which said he accepted nearly USD 300,000 in gifts from two bil-lionaires, among other allega-tions, "biased, extreme, full of holes, like Swiss cheese." Netan-yahu has accused the police of being overly aggressive in their probe and his supporters in par-liament have bashed the police, claiming they were orchestrat-ing a coup d'etat. Mandelblit said he intends to ignore the
noise and plans to make a deci-sion based on the evidence.
The police recommenda-tions dealt an embarrassing blow to the Israeli leader but they do not yet threaten his lengthy rule. Immediate reac-tion fell along partisan lines, an indication that his coalition will stand behind him for now. He can remain in office while Man-delblit makes his decision, a pro-cess which could take months. Netanyahu has vowed to remain office and even seek re-election.
Mandelblit, a Netanyahu appointee, did not say when he expects to make his deci-sion. However, noting the sig-nificance of the case, he said he plans to conduct the pro-cess without "unnecessary delays." AGENCIES
Three Turkey scribes get lifers for colluding with ‘US puppet’ preacher
ISTANBUL: A Turkish court on Friday jailed three prom-inent journalists for life on charges of links to the group blamed for the 2016 failed coup, state media said.
Veteran journalists and writers Nazli Ilicak and the brothers Mehmet and Ahmet Altan were handed the life sen-tences at a trial in Istanbul over links to the outlawed group of US-based preacher Fethul-lah Gulen, the Anadolu news agency said.
A similar punishment was handed to three other suspects. Gulen denies links to the coup bid.
Ilicak, 73, was one of the very first journalists arrested in July after the coup bid. Briefly an MP from 1999, she wrote for several dailies including Hurriyet.
Ahmet Altan, 67, is a nov-elist and journalist who has written for some of Turkey's leading dailies including Hur-riyet and Milliyet as well as founding the now closed oppo-sition daily Taraf.
Mehmet Altan, 65, has writ-ten books on Turkish politics. Both were detained in early September although Ahmet
Altan was released in mid-September before rapidly being re-arrested.
In the same case, the court gave life sentences for former Zaman newspaper market-ing manager Yakup Simsek, police academy instruc-tor Sukru Tugrul Ozsengul and Zaman layout designer Fevzi Yazici.
The Altan brothers and Ili-cak are also accused of appear-ing together on a TV show on a pro-Gulen channel just before the coup bid and issuing a mes-sage that the attempted over-throw was in the offing.
Mehmet Altan was in Janu-ary ordered to be freed by the Constitutional Court but its ruling was not implemented by the criminal court in a move that outraged supporters.
The failure to release Mehmet Altan and fellow writer Sahin Alpay -- who is being tried in a separate case -- raised new alarm over the rule of law in Turkey.
The Ankara-based Con-stitutional Court had ruled that Mehmet Altan and Alpay should be freed on the grounds that their rights had been violated. AGENCIES
ISLAMABAD: In a major pol-icy shift, Pakistan will deploy troops in Saudi Arabia under an existing bilateral security cooperation agreement with its close ally which is involved in a civil war in neighbouring Yemen.
Pakistan Army announced the decision to send troops on a training and advise mission to Saudi Arabia after a meet-ing between Army Chief Gen-eral Qamar Javed Bajwa and Saudi ambassador to Pakistan Nawaf Saeed Al-Maliki at the army headquarters in Rawal-pindi on Thursday.
"In continuation of ongo-ing Pak-Saudi bilateral secu-rity cooperation, a Pakistan Army contingent is being sent to Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) on training
and advise mission. These or troops already there will not be employed outside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia," the Pakistan Army said in a brief statement.
It also said the army "main-tains bilateral security coop-eration with many other Gulf/regional countries".
The move comes three years after Pakistan decided against sending soldiers to join the Saudi-led military interven-tion in strife-torn Yemen.
Already around 1,000 Pak-istani troops are deployed in Saudi Arabia, a close ally of Islamabad, in various advisory and training roles, the Dawn newspaper quoted officials as saying.
There was no official word on the number of additional troops being sent to kingdom
but the paper quoted "mul-tiple sources" hinting that it might be the size of a compos-ite brigade.
It also quoted army spokes-man Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor that the new deployment would be much lesser than a division, and that he would give details later.
Saudi Arabia has been pushing fellow Sunni-major-ity Pakistan to provide troops since 2015 when it joined Yemen's civil war but Paki-stan steadily refused, saying it would not become party to any regional conflict.
The civil war in Yemen stalemated and the situa-tion has aggravated with the rebels firing missiles at reg-ular intervals towards the kingdom. AGENCIES
Top jihadist killed by rival Syria rebels
BEIRUT: A prominent jihad-ist commander was killed by a rival hardline group in northern Syria on Friday, a monitor said, in a new sign of fierce intra-rebel tensions in the area. An array of rebel factions still hold parts of Aleppo province and almost all of neighbouring Idlib, but they have clashed several times in a struggle for influence. Fighters from the Islamist Nureddine al-Zinki rebel group "fired on a car as it was crossing one of their checkpoints in the village of Al-Huta after midnight," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. "Abu Ayman al-Masri, a top commander of Hayat Tah-rir al-Sham (HTS), was in the car and was killed," the Britain-based war monitor said. AGENCIES
Humans blink on environmental demandsBERLIN: Humans uncon-sciously trade off the loss of information during a blink with the physiological urge to blink, a study suggests.
Blinking is an omnipres-ent involuntary process that maintains stable and healthy vision. With 15 blinks per min-ute on average it is one of the most frequent human actions, researchers from Technische Universitat Darmstadt in Ger-many said.
However, during a single blink, our visual perception is interrupted for about a third of a second, they said.
Although our conscious perception suggests a contin-uous and stable world, about 10 per cent of the time we are missing potentially important visual information from our surroundings.
For this reason it is advan-tageous, whether for our ances-
tors roaming the savanna or the modern human crossing a busy road, to coordinate our blink-ing intelligently.
Previous studies have revealed an intriguing multi-tude of additional factors influ-encing human blink rates.
Blinking is closely inter-twined with cognitive func-tions connected to dopamine, a neuromodulator involved in reward related behaviour and
learning.In particular, blink rates are
elevated when we are tired and are related to our activities, as they go up when we are talk-ing and go down when we are reading.
While blinking is clearly related to these cognitive processes, so far it has been unknown, how blinking relates quantitatively to properties of our environment.
Researchers led by profes-sor Constantin Rothkopf from Technische Universitat Darm-stadt, showed for the first time quantitatively, how blinking is related to environmental task events.
Participants in an experi-ment were instructed to detect short events presented on a computer monitor.
The probability of an event occurring was systematically modified by the researchers to reveal participants' blinking strategies.
Participants learned the hidden regularities of the visual events and progressively improved their performance of detecting the events.
The analysis of the blinking behaviour showed that partici-pants unconsciously blinked less and less the more proba-ble they believed an event was about to occur. AGENCIES
Venezuela's Maduro to attend Americas summitCARACAS: Venezuelan Presi-dent Nicolas Maduro has said he will attend a summit of Western Hemisphere nations in April despite host Peru say-ing he is unwelcome.
"Are they afraid of me? They don't want to see me in Lima? They're going to see me, come rain, thunder or light-ning!" a defiant Maduro told a press conference in Caracas on Thursday.
The leftist Venezuelan pres-ident vowed to get to the sum-mit venue in Lima "by air, land or sea!"
Peru's Prime Minister Mer-cedes Araoz hit back at Madu-ro's comments.
"A head of state cannot come to a country without an invitation, so he cannot get to step on Peruvian soil without
an invitation," she told a press conference.
Describing Maduro's atti-tude as "aggressive" she said: "neither the Peruvian soil, nor the Peruvian sea, nor the Peru-vian air can be invaded by a for-eign force."
Peru had said on Tuesday that Maduro's "presence will no longer be welcome" after a decision to hold early presiden-tial elections in his crisis-torn country without reaching an agreement with the opposition.
Peru's statement followed hot on the heels of a meeting of the 14-nation Lima Group urging Venezuela to reconsider holding elections on April 22 on the grounds that condi-tions for a free and fair vote, as demanded by the opposition, did not currently exist. AGENCIES
Turkey seeks 18-year jail for
German-Turkish journalist
ISTANBUL: An Istanbul court on Friday ordered the condi-tional release of German-Turk-ish journalist Deniz Yucel after receiving an indictment from prosecutors seeking a prison sentence of up to 18 years, state media reported.
The prosecutors accused the 44-year-old Yucel of "making terror propaganda" and "incit-ing public hatred and hostility", state-run news agency Anadolu said.
Yucels official indictment comes after his one-year incar-ceration without charge badly affected Turkey's ties with Ger-many. Turkish Prime Minis-ter Binali Yildirim earlier this week said he hoped Yucel would soon be set free and insisted that Turkish courts were independent.
Meanwhile German Chan-cellor Angela Merkel said the detention of Yucel, and other German citizens, "clouded" relations and marked a con-tinuing "burden". Yucels law-yer and employer Die Welt had announced the decision to release the journalist, who was imprisoned in Silivri prison on the outskirts of Istanbul. AGENCIES
GOVERNMENT OF MAHARASHTRA PUBLIC WORKS DIVISION BHOKAR DIST. NANDED
E-TENDER NOTICE NO. 48 OF 2017- 2018
Online E-Tenders In B-1 Form from the Contractors registeres with Public Works Department of Governarnent of Maharashtra for the undermentioned works is hereby invited by the Executive Engineer, Public Works Division, Bhokar. The online Tender papers may be downloaded from the website https://pwd.maharashtra.etenders.in. Power to accept or reject any/ all tenders is reserved with Executive Engineer, Public Works Division, Bhokar. Conditional tenders will not be accepted.
Online availibility of E-tenders 14 /02/2018 to 6/3/ 2018 Opening of E-tenders 12/3/2018 The information regarding E-tenders is available on 1.www.mahapwd.com 2.https://pwd.maharashtra.etenders.in In case of change in the subjected tender notice, the change will be reflected on above website. 3.Notice Board of Executive Engineer, Public Works Division, Bhokar
Outward No./AB/Tender/ in the Office of Executive Engineer, Executive Engineer Public Work Division Bhokar P.W.Division, Bhokar. Dt. 7/2/2018
DGIPR/2017/2018/6155
mp business12MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Saturday, 17 February, 2018
NEW DELHI: The govern-ment is looking at a proposal to set up a joint venture with participation from Nalco, HCL and MECL in a bid to acquire strategic mineral assets overseas, a government official said on Friday.
The proposal was at a pre-formative stage, and has been approved by the Boards of all the three PSUs, he said.
“We are also looking to have a joint venture com-pany with participation from Nalco, MECL and HCL which will look at exploration opportunities and acquir-ing of assets abroad,” mines secretary Arun Kumar told reporters on the sidelines of Geological Board meeting here.
He also said though the JV would primarily look at
strategic minerals, others would also be on the radar.
“There is a primary aim and if the primary aim for some reason is not making business sense for exam-ple or opportunities are not there, so they will not be constrained but our primary objective is to look at strate-gic minerals.
“We would like to focus on strategic minerals. Rare minerals are part of strategic minerals.,” Kumar said.
According to official sources, the three PSUs have entered into an Memoran-dum of Understanding with the objective of making the country self reliant in the areas of strategic minerals that are either not available in the country or not present in optimum quantity. PTI
Govt mulls JV to acquire overseas mineral assets
NEW DELHI: The Centre on Friday said the apex court ver-dict cancelling iron ore leases of 88 companies in Goa will affect the "individual businesses" but not hit steel and iron ore production.
"First of all let us be clear that minerals belong to the state. The miners are lease holders and in this particular case the mineral belongs to the state of Goa...So yes individual businesses will be affected, that goes without saying," Mines Secretary Arun Kumar told reporters here.
The Supreme Court had earlier this month quashed the second renewal of iron ore mining leases given to 88 com-panies in Goa in 2015, saying the sole motive of the compa-nies behind the commercial activity was profit maximisa-tion and no social purpose was attached to it.
Asked whether steel pro-duction will be hit due to the apex court verdict, the secre-tary said, "You see Goa iron ore is essentially export-oriented. Last year, they had exported
20 million tonnes and I believe that the local consumption was only about 3-4 million tonnes. If at all there was this figure... that can be easily met from other mining jurisdic-tions neighbouring Goa. So steel and sponge (production) would certainly not take a hit."
The government expects the pace of auction of mineral blocks to pick up in the next fiscal year.
"...I think that the pace (of mineral block auction) will double from the current fiscal year. If we are talking roughly
(in this fiscal) auctioning out about Rs 80,000 crores worth of minerals ..next year I am very confident that it will be Rs 1,60,000 crore," Kumar said.
He also said that explo-ration time of the mineral blocks will reduce by half from six years to three because of change in methodology, among others.
The government had ear-lier said that a total of 88 major mineral blocks have been noti-fied by 9 states for auction and 33 blocks have been success-fully auctioned. PTI
SC’s Goa mine lease order not to hit steel, ore output: Centre PANAJI: The Airports Author-
ity of India (AAI) will invest Rs 15,000 crore in financial year 2018-19 to expand the exist-ing terminal buildings and con-struct new ones.
AAI chairman Guruprasad Mahapatra said the authority has decided to have additional facilities at all the terminal buildings across the country.
"All our terminal buildings will have additional facilities. For financial year 2018-19, ter-minal building projects worth Rs 15,000 crore would be launched," he told reporters at the launch of the airport oper-ation's control centre at Dabo-lim airport.
"AAI plans to build 15 new terminal buildings in FY19," he added. Mahapatra informed that the construction of new airport at Pakyong in Sikkim has been completed at a cost of Rs 650 crore, along with Tezu airport in Arunachal Pradesh.
"Both the airports will be operational soon," he said.
Elaborating on the status of new airports across the coun-try, Mahapatra said Jharsug-uda airport in western Odisha has been completed at a cost Rs 200 crore and would be inaugu-
rated in April, the foundation stone for the Navi Mumbai air-port would be laid soon, while another airport at Jewar in Greater Noida is in the plan-ning stage.
The work on a greenfield airport at Mopa in Goa is going on, while a similar air-port is being planned in Vizag, Andhra Pradesh, he said.
"We are seriously following up with West Bengal and Tamil Nadu for a second airport in Kolkata and Chennai," he said.
Mahapatra said the existing airport at Allahabad (UP) will undergo major expansion and
the first phase would be ready by February 2019, when Ardh Kumbh Mela is scheduled to take place.
"The existing one is a very small airport. Allahabad is going to have Ardh Kumbh Mela in February 2019, we have taken up the challenge to do new capacity within 11 months and we are hopeful that it would be operational before the Ardh Kumbh Mela," he said. The airport in Allahabad is being expanded at a cost of Rs 100 crore, which would be developed in two phases, he said. PTI
AAI to invest 15,000 crore on airport terminals in FY19
SAN FRANCISCO: With a record 51 per cent revenue share, Apple took more than half of the global smartphone revenues in the fourth quarter of 2017, a report has said.
According to market research firm Strategy Ana-lytics, total global smartphone wholesale revenues grew eight per cent annually to reach an all-time high of $120 billion during the fourth quarter of 2017.
"The smartphone industry's wholesale average selling price surged 18 per cent annually from $255 in fourth quarter of 2016 to $300 in fourth quarter of 2017," Linda Sui, Director
at Strategy Analytics, said in a statement late on Thursday.
Sui added that South Korean tech giant Samsung grew its global smartphone wholesale revenues by 16 per cent annu-
ally to $19 billion in fourth quarter of 2017. Both Apple and Samsung's smartphone whole-sale average selling price (ASP) grew strongly, rising 21 per cent annually to $254 in the quarter.
"The popularity of premium Note 8 and Galaxy S8 models, as well as fewer low-end sales in its core Asia markets such as China, drove the growth," Sui added.
The company is reportedly gearing up to introduce three new iPhones this year and one of them will be more popular than the others, a top analyst with Taiwanese business group KGI Securities said.
According to Ming-Chi Kuo, the most famous analyst with KGI Securities when it comes to Apple, the tech giant will aim to sell 100 million units of "a 6.1-inch iPhone it's plan-ning to release this year". IANS
Apple bites record 51% of Oct-Dec global smartphone revenuesGovt expects to finalise 5G service roadmap by JuneNEW DELHI: The Department of Telecom ex-pects to finalise a roadmap for 5G services by June this year, a top official said. "By June this year, I hope we will be able to unveil India's 5G roadmap," Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundarara-jan said at an Assocham event on Friday. Glob-ally, standards around 5G are expected to be fi-nalised this year. The telecom ministry has set up a high-level committee to work on 5G roadmap so that India gets access to the next generation technology when it is available for commercial roll-out globally. PTI
NEW DELHI: Telecom regu-lator Trai on Friday said it will impose financial disincentive of up to Rs 50 lakh per circle on operators if their service rates are found to be predatory in nature.
"In case of tariff being found predatory, the service provider shall, without prejudice to the terms and conditions of its licence...or directions issued, thereunder, be liable to pay by way of financial disincentive an amount not exceeding Rs 50 lakh per tariff plan for each service area as the Authority may by order direct," Trai said on Friday.
There are 22 telecom circles in the country. Leading telecom operators Bharti Airtel, Voda-fone, Idea Cellular and Reliance Jio have operations in all the
circles. State-run telecom firm BSNL operates in 20 circles and MTNL in two. Aircel operates in select circles.
The new rules from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) come following allegations by established play-ers like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular that Reli-ance Jio is offering predatory pricing.
A tariff will be considered predatory if in a "relevant mar-ket", a telecom operator with over 30 per cent market share offers services at a price which is below the average "variable cost", with a view to reduce competition or eliminate the competitors in the "relevant market", as per an amendment made by Trai in the Telecom-munication Tariff order. PTI
NEW DELHI: Reliance Indus-tries on Friday said it will acquire 65 per cent stake in Indian Film Combine Pvt Ltd, which is building a drive-in theatre, hotel, retail mall and club on a 12-acre plot in Mum-bai, for Rs 1,105 crore.
Reliance Industrial Invest-ments and Holdings Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of RIL, will acquire stakes in IFC, which was incorporated in 1942, the company said in a regulatory filing.
"RIIHL will be acquiring 65 per cent of current paid-up equity share capital of IFC from the existing shareholders for Rs 1,105 crore (20 per cent from Mauritian arm of Xander Group, Inc based in USA for Rs 340 crore and 45 per cent from entities belonging to the pro-moter group of RIL for Rs 765 crore)," it said.
The remaining 35 per cent of IFC continues to be held by the Maker Group.
The acquisition is expected to be completed by May 31, 2018. IFC is setting up a drive-in theatre and hospitality pre-cinct comprising a hotel, a retail mall and a club, built on approximately 12 acres of land in Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC), Mumbai. PTI
MUMBAI: The Ahmedabad-based GSEC Aviation and Mon-arch Networth Capital have bought over the GR Gopinath-promoted Air Deccan, besides jointly acquiring majority stake in Air Odisha, which is set to launch its services on regional routes from on Saturday.
Significantly, GSEC Avi-ation is owned by Rakesh Ramanlal Shah, who is mar-ried to Prity, the sister of the $11-billion Adani Group chair-man Gautam Adani.
Under the new structure, both the airlines will be owned by a new company called GSEC Monarch Aviation in which Gopinath's Air Deccan will hold 50 per cent stake while the rest will be held by GSEC Aviation and Monarch Networth.
Confirming the "strategic investment" in the two carri-ers, GSEC Aviation whole-time Director and Rakesh Shah's son Shaishav Shah said both Air Deccan as well as Air Odisha will now be run under a new holding company called GSEC Monarch Aviation.
Shah, however, did not disclose the investment being made into the two companies.
Under the new structure, the Radhakanta Pani family,
which is the original promoter of the Bhubaneswar-based Air Odisha, will divest 60 per cent of their stake to GSEC Avia-tion and Monarch Networth, he said.
"We are making a joint ven-ture company called GESEC Monarch Aviation, which will be 50 per cent owned by GSEC Aviation and Monarch Net-worth Capital and the rest will be with Air Deccan," Shah said.
The JV will hold 100 per cent of Air Deccan and 60 per cent of Air Odisha, he said, add-
ing both GSEC Aviation and Monarch have acquired equal stake in the two carriers.
While Gopinath will be the chairman of the new entity, Shaishav Shah will be the man-aging director and Himanshu Shah of Monarch will be dep-uty managing director, he said.
For Gopinath, this is the third aviation venture hav-ing sold his maiden airline--Air Deccan--to Kingfisher in 2007 and then burned his fin-gers with a cargo venture with around Rs 100 crore invest-
ment from Mukesh Ambani, and the thrid one being sold to the Adani kin now.
Air Odisha, which started its services as a non- scheduled operator in November 2012, was granted the flying permit by the DGCA to launch flights under government regional connectivity scheme last Tues-day. It has bagged 50 routes under the RCS scheme.
It is set to commence opera-tions as a scheduled commuter airline from on Saturday mak-ing its maiden flight to Mundra from Ahmedabad. The services will be launched by Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani.
Interestingly, Mundra is home to the country's largest private sector port as well as a special economic zone, owned by the Adanis.
Air Deccan, which had ceased to exist after being acquired by the now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines in 2007, was also revived last year with the Bengaluru-based carrier bag-ging 34 routes to fly under Udan scheme in the first round of bid-ding in March 2017.
It started operations last December 23 with first flight to Jalgaon in Maharashtra from Mumbai. PTI
MUMBAI: The rupee plum-meted 30 paise to end at a fresh one-week low of 64.21 against the US dollar on Friday, hit by a double whammy of rising global crude prices and wors-ening trade deficit.
This is its biggest fall since February 1, when it had lost 44 paise.
Overall, sentiment was weak after the country's trade defi-cit widened to an over three-year high on higher oil and gold imports.
The trade gap soared to $16.3 billion in January on account of a 26.1 per cent increase in imports to $40.68 billion due to increased inbound shipments of crude oil, as per data released by the commerce ministry.
The rupee opened with a sharp gap-down at 63.85
against on Thursday's close of 63.91 at the Interbank Foreign Exchange (forex) market and remained under immense pres-sure throughout the session, despite weak dollar overseas.
It finally finished at 64.21, a steep loss of 30 paise, or 0.47 per cent.
On the international com-modity front, global crude prices consolidated recent gains at around $64 a barrel.
Brent crude futures were trading higher at $64.56 a bar-rel in Asian trading.
The BSE benchmark Sensex dropped 286.71 points, or 0.84 per cent to end at 34,010.76, while Nifty shed 93.20 points, or 0.88 per cent to 10,452.30.
In other cross-currency trades, the rupee took a fur-ther knock against the pound sterling and finished at 90.34 per pound from 89.79. It also dropped sharply against the Japanese yen to close at 60.50 per 100 yens from 59.95 on Thursday.
The home unit also drifted lower against the euro to end at 80.18 as compared to 79.73. PTI
sinks 30p to 64.21 a $ on trade deficit concernsBSE Sensex falls by 287 points while NSE Nifty sheds 93.2 points
Adani kin’s firm buys Air Deccan, picks up 60% stake in Air Odisha
Telcos face 50 L fine per circle for predatory tariff
GSEC Aviation is owned by Rakesh Ramanlal Shah, who is married to Prity, sister of $11-billion Adani Group’s Chairman Gautam Adani
NEW DELHI: National Pay-ments Corporation of India (NPCI) on Friday said it has allowed WhatsApp to beta test its payments service with lim-ited user base of one million and low transaction limit.
WhatsApp payment service will rival the likes of Paytm, whose founder Vijay Shek-har Sharma has been critical of the Facebook-owned com-pany and has even alleged that the US firm was getting unfair advantage.
"Currently, NPCI has given its consent to roll out What-sApp BHIM UPI beta launch with limited user base of one million and low per transaction limit. Four banks will join the multi-bank BHIM UPI model in phases (in the coming weeks) and full feature product shall be released after the beta test is successful," NPCI said in a statement.
It added that multi-bank model offers advantages such as transaction load distribu-tion between banks and helps to integrate popular apps eas-ily with BHIM UPI.
NPCI said its broad prin-ciples for inter-operability include ability to send and receive money through any BHIM UPI ID, intent and col-lect call and, read and generate BHIM/Bharat QR code that are required in final BHIM UPI app.
"BHIM UPI enabled app which fulfils such principles only will be permissible for
full scale-public launch," it emphasised.
NPCI -- an umbrella organ-isation for all retail payments in India -- asserted that it fol-lows "well-defined guidelines" for BHIM UPI services with the objective of making its platforms "inter-operable and based on open standards, con-venient and secure".
Sharma had raised a storm after Facebook-owned What-sApp started testing payments through its platform. He alleged that WhatsApp's UPI payment platform has security risks for consumers and is not in com-pliance with the guidelines.
Alleging Facebook of hav-ing "arm-twisted" UPI to derive benefits, Sharma had said Facebook was "killing beautiful open UPI system with its custom close garden implementation."
Emails sent to WhatsApp for their response remained unanswered. PTI
NPCI okays WhatsApp beta test... with limited user
base, low transaction limit
RIL to acquire 65% stake in
IFC for 1,105 cr
MUMBAI: Hyosung Corpora-tion of South Korea, the larg-est global spandex producer, is likely to invest around Rs 3,000 crore in a manufacturing facil-ity in Maharashtra, a top gov-ernment official said on Friday.
The project will be set up in Aurangabad Industrial City (AURIC), a greenfield smart industrial city being developed across 10,000 acres, as part of the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), the official said.
"Hyosung Corporation is likely to invest around Rs 3,000 crore in a manufacturing facil-ity in Maharashtra. In the first phase of the project, the com-pany will invest Rs 1,250 crore and the state government will soon take a decision on its request to allot 100 acres land near Aurangabad," the official said.
"Work on the project will begin in April this year and the production is expected to start in May next year," the official said.
The land cost would be around Rs 120 crore and the company has already paid around five per cent of the
amount, he said.Around 1,000 jobs are
expected to be generated in the first phase of the project, the official said.
During his visit to South Korea in September 2017, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had met Hyosung Corporation presi-dent H S Cho.
Hyosung Chairman and CEO Cho Hyun-joon will be attending the 'Magnetic Maha-rashtra' investor summit in Mumbai next week, the offi-cial said.
Hyosung, a leading chemi-cal and technological textile company, had then evinced an interest in investing in spandex manufacturing for the textile sector, the official said. PTI
S Korea Hyosung Corp to invest 3,000 cr in
Maha spandex projectSTOCKHOLM: The heads of Swedens largest companies, including clothing giant H&M and telecoms maker Ericsson, denounced on Friday deporta-tions of highly-skilled workers as the nations technology sec-tor suffers a shortage of staff.
In a letter published by the financial daily Dagens Industri and signed by around 30 bosses – including H&M CEO Ste-fan Persson and Ericsson chief executive Borje Ekholm -- they write that expulsions of foreign employees "harm business" and that "Swedish companies need to hire globally".
"We cannot expect engi-neers, IT-technicians, and other specialists to leave their coun-tries if they risk expulsion from Sweden for unpredictable rea-sons," they added.
The migration agency has faced criticism for refusing to extend foreign employees work permits, leading to expulsion, on controversial grounds. Hus-sein Ismail, a Lebanese at a bio-tech company that he founded in 2012, is facing deportation along with his wife and children after cutting his own wage for three months in 2015 to help his company survive. PTI
Swedish cos rap Trump-style
deportation of skilled workers
Airports Authority of India plans to build 15 new terminal buildings next fiscal
US technology giant WhatsApp’s payment service will rival Paytm
mp business 13MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Saturday, 17 February, 2018
NEW DELHI: All India ESIC Officers Federation appreciates the latest initiatives undertaken by ESI Corporation. Multi-pronged approach to deal with the deficiencies as well as hin-drance for improvement in services being rendered to its stakeholders will go a long way in elevating the level of benefits/medical services.
The prime function of the Corporation is to extend up to mark delivery of benefits/medi-cal services through its large net-work of Hospitals/Dispensaries/Regional Offices/Branch Offices across the country. Accordingly, the initiatives of the ESIC man-agement to improve health
delivery through optimum uti-lization of Medical workforce are laudable and is in tune with 'Minimum Government Maxi-mum Governance'.
ESIC is having the post of Regional Directors as head of the Region/State who acts as Insurer and is responsible for delivering of al benefits to the stakeholders i.e. Employers and Insured Persons(Workers). The ESI(General) Regulation, 1950 vide Regulation 2-sf mandates the appointment of Regional Directors as "a person appointed by the Corporation as such for a specified region" Regional Director liaions with the State Government and is also ex-offi-
cio Secretary of Regional Board which is the highest body in the state for reviewing the per-formance of the ESI scheme in the State and recommends for requisite policy changes to the Corporation.
Accordingly, Regional Director's position as head of State function is justified.
The steps taken to merge the function of SSMC with the office of the Regional Director is positive steps towards bring-ing Uniformity of Command in the Region/State.
With this action stake-holders will be relieved from approaching multiple authori-ties tin the same office. MPOST
NEW DELHI: Investors may have been shocked when one of India’s biggest banks disclosed a $1.77 billion fraud by billion-aire jeweller Nirav Modi, but the central bank has recorded data that shows the problem runs far deeper and wider.
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data, which a Reuters reporter obtained through a right-to-information request, shows state-run banks have reported 8,670 “loan fraud” cases total-ling 612.6 billion rupees over the last five financial years up to March 31, 2017. In India, loan frauds typically refer to cases where the borrower intention-ally tries to deceive the lending bank and does not repay the loan. The figures expose the magnitude of the problem in a banking sector already under pressure after years of poor lending practices. Bad loans surged to a record peak of nearly $149 billion last year.
Bank loan frauds have steadily increased as well, reaching 176.34 billion rupees in the latest financial year from 63.57 billion rupees in 2012-13, according to the data, which doesn’t include the PNB case.
Punjab National Bank, India’s second-largest state lender, said on Wednesday two junior officers at a single branch had illegally steered $1.77 billion in fraudulent loans to compa-nies, most of them controlled by billionaire jeweller Nirav Modi. It was India’s biggest fraud ever.
“This might be the tip of the iceberg or the middle, and that is the worry,” said Pratibha Jain, partner at law firm Nishith Desai Associates, who advises on bankruptcy cases.
“The fact is we don’t know what else is out there.” The RBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But in
June 2017 the central bank, in its Financial Stability Report, called frauds in banks and financial institutions “one of the emerg-ing risks to the financial sector”.
“In a number of large value frauds, serious gaps in credit underwriting standards were evident,” the RBI said, adding that some of the gaps include lack of continuous monitoring of cash flows and cash prof-its, diversion of funds, double financing and general credit governance issues in banks.
The RBI has been com-mended for forcing Indian banks to fully disclose its bad loans, speed up their recovery, and stop hiding fraud cases as non-performing assets.
Yet to some critics, the RBI has, at the same time, been too guarded about publicly sharing data on loan defaults or fraudu-lent loans. This is partly due to legal constraints on disclosing individual cases and worries investors would pummel the affected banks, making loan recovery even harder.
In fact, the numbers of loan fraud cases across India could be even higher since they only include cases reported to the RBI, which involve only loans
of 100,000 rupees or more.In its right-to-information
request, Reuters sought data from 20 of India’s 21 state-run lenders and obtained 15 replies.
PNB topped the list with 389 cases totalling 65.62 billion rupees over the last five finan-cial years, in terms of the total amounts involved.
Reuters was unable to obtain a detailed breakdown on the exact nature and method of the loan frauds the banks reported to RBI over the last five finan-cial years. After PNB, Bank of Baroda had the highest amount of loan fraud reported, with 44.73 billion rupees from 389 cases and Bank of India ranked third, with loan frauds total-ling 40.5 billion rupees from 231 cases over the same period, the data shows. India’s biggest lender, State Bank of India reported 1,069 loan fraud cases in the last five financial years but did not disclose the amount.
It was also unclear how much has been recovered by the banks over the years.
The magnitude of the bad debt in India forced the gov-ernment last year to bail out the sector by pledging to inject $32 billion over this financial
year and next. Yet analysts and credit rating agencies have long warned that solving the bad debt at India’s banking sector needs to also involve wholesale reforms of the lending practices that led to the surge in bad loans.
Bankers have been blamed for steering funds to politically connected business tycoons, such as Vijay Mallya, without due diligence, or after being pressed by government offi-cials to steer funds to sectors it wanted to promote, such as infrastructure. Mallya stands accused in India of fraudulently palming off losses from his now defunct Kingfisher Airlines onto banks by taking out loans he had no intention of repaying, an allegation he denies.
Nirav Modi, the jeweller accused in the PNB fraud case, posed for pictures with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he was part of India’s delega-tion of corporate leaders. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has denied any link with Nirav Modi, who is not related to India’s Prime Minister. AGENCIES
PNB just tip of nation’s bank fraud syndrome
NEW DELHI: Chartered accountants' apex body ICAI will review the $1.77 billion fraud at Punjab National Bank to look at whether there have been lapses on the part of audi-tors and has sought information from investigation agencies as well as from markets regula-tor Sebi.
ICAI President Naveen N D Gupta said it has taken suo motu cognisance of the fraud at Punjab National Bank.
"The Financial Reporting Review Board (FRRB) has been
advised to "initiate suo motu review" of Punjab National Bank and Gitanjali Gems (mat-ter)," he said.
The board, set up by the institute, reviews the compli-ance with various accounting and auditing standards.
The institute has written to Punjab National Bank, Sebi, Enforcement Directorate and CBI seeking information on the matter, Gupta, who took over as the President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) last week, said.
According to an official, the institute would be looking at the role of auditors in these cases to ascertain whether there have been any violation at their end.
The FRRB restricts reviews to the published general-pur-pose financial statements only and that its work would not be verification of the entire audit (re-audit) or review of work-ing papers of the auditors con-cerned, as per the ICAI website.
In one of the biggest scams in the Indian banking industry, the public sector lender has dis-
closed $1.77 billion (nearly Rs 11,400 crore) fraud perpetrated by way of fraudulently acquiring Letter of Undertakings (LoUs) of the Punjab National Bank and probe agencies are already investigating the case.
A multi-agency probe is underway against diamanta-rie Nirav Modi and his rela-tive as well as close associate Mehul Choksi have also come under the scanner of Sebi and stock exchanges. Choksi is the Managing Director of Gitanjali Gems. PTI
NEW DELHI: Shares of Union Bank of India on Friday declined more than 3 per cent in morning trade after the lender said it has an exposure of Rs 1,900 crore to the PNB fraud case.
The stock fell 3 per cent to touch an intra-day low of Rs 116.50, which was also its 52-week low level, on BSE.
The stock slumped to its 52-week low level of Rs 116.50 on NSE as well, down 3.07 per cent over its previous close.
"We wish to inform you that the bank through our foreign branches has been taking expo-sure with Punjab National Bank (PNB) as counterparty under various Letters of Undertakings (LoU) issued through authenti-cated SWIFT message," Union Bank of India said in late night filing to stock exchanges.
State-owned Punjab National Bank on February 14 said it has detected a Rs 11,400 crore scam where billionaire jeweller Nirav Modi allegedly acquired fraudulent letters of undertaking from a branch in Mumbai to secure overseas credit from other Indian lend-ers. While PNB did not name the other lenders, besides Union Bank of India, Allahabad Bank and Axis Bank are said to have offered credit based on letters of undertaking (LOUs) issued by PNB. Shares of Allahabad Bank also fell to the 52-week low level of Rs 53.10, and Axis Bank fell 1.23 per cent to an intra-day low of Rs 537.05 on BSE on Friday. PTI
PNB loot: ICAI to look into auditors’ role
AAI goes all out to raise passenger convenience at Goa International AirportNEW DELHI: With an objec-tive of improving overall effi-ciency of airport operations for the benefit of passengers and other stakeholders, Dr Guru-prasad Mohapatra, Chairman, Airports Authority of India inaugurated an Airport Oper-ations Control Center (AOCC) and a help desk at Goa Interna-tional Airport on Friday.
Goa airport has become the 12th airport to have an AOCC. This center will provide real time information about flights like actual Time of Arrival/Departure, boarding gate num-ber for departing passengers and baggage conveyor number for arriving passengers on Flight Information Displays. It will also help AAI, airline operators and ground handling agencies
to ensure optimum utilization of available resources.
In another effort to add new facilities for better passenger facilitation, AAI has awarded an expenditure contract for Opera-tion and Management of Help Desk and Reserve Lounges at Goa Airport.
A dedicated Help Desk/ Information Counter will have flight information Display and Computer system which will provide latest flight informa-tion and assistance to pas-sengers/visitors during their travel through Goa Interna-tional Airport.
This help desk will also supervise the operations of air-lines as well as the ground han-dling agencies at the airport. A dedicated round-the-clock
Help Line number will also be launched soon.
Keeping up AAI’s commit-ment of providing assistance towards ensuring better med-ical facilities and generating awareness on Cancer, especially Cervical Cancer, a ‘Free Wom-en’s Wellness Camp’ was orga-nized by AAI’s Women’s Welfare
Association – Kalyanmayee in association with Manipal Hos-pitals Goa and Goa Cancer Society.
The camp was inaugurated by Anjali Mohapatra, President, Kalyanmayee in the presence of Dr Guruprasad Mohapa-tra, Chairman, AAI; Bhupesh C H Negi, Airport Director,
Goa International Airport; Dr Shubha Jyoti, Consultant Radia-tion Oncologist, Manipal Hos-pitals Goa and Jayarama, Sales and Marketing Head, Manipal Hospitals Goa.
The objective of the Well-ness Camp was to create aware-ness and to educate the public on timely medical intervention to detect Cancer. During the camp, participants underwent a Free Random Blood Sugar Test, Blood Pressure Check, screening by the Resident Medical Officers after which the women in the age bracket of 30 to over 50 years and symp-tomatic positive cases of Cer-vical Cancer were referred by the Radiation Oncologist to Manipal Hospitals Goa for a Free Pap Smear Test. MPOST
PANAJI: The Airport Author-ity on Friday said there is enough demand for two air-ports to co-exist and grow in the tiny Goa.
The tourist state is build-ing a greenfield international airport at Mopa in the north which is scheduled for com-missioning by 2020. The state has an airport at Dabolim now which is primarily a Navy facility.
"Goa has only one airport but the way air traffic growth
is taking place, we can see that both the airports can grow and exist," Guruprasad Mahapatra, AAI chairman told reporters at Vasco on Friday while inaugu-rating the airport operations control centre facility.
"There are always take-off (teething) issues when a new airport comes up, but those are gradually taken care of.
I strongly feel that both the airports should continue to grow," he said. India is seventh largest aviation market globally
at present, and is expected to be the third largest by 2025, after the US and China.
"Today we are in the 46th consecutive month of double-digit growth. The Goan market is growing at 15 per cent," he said, adding this growth rate will continue for another 10 years.
"There are 900 more air-craft, of all sizes, coming into the country. These arrivals show that there is a tremen-dous potential," he said. PTI
NEW DELHI: State-run power equipment maker BHEL on Friday said it has commis-sioned 18 megawatt (MW) Mukerian hydro-electric proj-ect (HEP) in Punjab.
"With the commissioning of the second 9 MW hydro generating unit, Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) has suc-cessfully commissioned the 18 MW Mukerian hydro-electric project (HEP) stage-II in Pun-jab," the company said in a reg-ulatory filing.
Located on the Mukerian canal in Hoshiarpur district of Punjab, the 18 MW Mukerian project is a surface powerhouse of Punjab State Power Corpo-ration Ltd (PSPCL).
"The generation from Mukerian HEP stage-II will
contribute significantly in reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and will help in achieving a low carbon devel-opment path for the nation," the company added.
The first unit of the Muke-rian HEP was commissioned in May last year.
Shares of BHEL were trad-ing 0.16 per cent higher at Rs 94.85 on BSE. PTI
NEW DELHI: Life Insur-ance Corporation of India (LIC of India), India’s largest life insurer, has announced its audited figures for nine months ended December 2017.
New Business performance by the Corporation for nine months ending December 2017 has shown an impressive growth of 19.47 per cent in its first year premium by posting a figure of Rs. 99783.33 crore. The Corporation has already achieved its Single Premium Target for the FY 2017-2018 as on December 31, 2017.
Pension &Group Super-annuation Business have col-lected Rs. 62385 crore as New Business Premium Income as against Rs. 51004 crore in the previous year corresponding period showing a growth of 22 per cent. The vertical has cov-ered Rs. 5.96 crore lives under its Social Security Schemes.
The Corporation as at December end 2017 collected over Rs. 2,23,854 crore of Total Premium Income as compared to Rs. 2,00,818 crore collected during the corresponding period last year showing a very robust growth of 11.47 per cent.
Total policy payouts amounted to Rs. 1,21,986 crore for the period ending Decem-ber 31, 2017 as compared to Rs. 1,12,194 crore for the cor-responding period last year, showing an incroreease of 8.73 per cent. This includes a payout
of Rs. 59,671.50 crore for claims outgo covering 1,39,45,571 claimants for the nine month ending December 31, 2017 as compared to Rs. 55359.52 crore and 1,19,23,937 claimants in the corresponding period pre-vious year.
The Corporations Gross Total Income grew to Rs. 3,78,599 crore for the period ending December 31, 2017 from Rs. 3,37,466 crore as at the last corresponding period, showing a handsome growth of over12.19 per cent. MPOST
KOCHI: Country s largest lender State Bank of India on Friday launched a Global NRI centre in the city, to centralise NRI operations spread across various states and branches.
The centre, opened in Ker-ala - the state that receives the highest number of remittances in the country, will be one-stop customer service centre for all NRI banking related services.
It will be a single point of contact for SBI branches, cus-tomers, relationship managers, representative offices and for-eign offices.
"We have witnessed consis-tent growth of our NRI bank-ing portfolio. Our endeavour is to offer our products and ser-vices on the digital platform so the our NRI customers experi-ence the ease of banking with us from wherever they are in the world," the bank s chairman
Rajnish Kumar told reporters here.
"That s why we have cen-tralised all our services besides offering them specialised ser-vices," he added.
Kumar said technological advancements were creating opportunities to modernise and de-risk the way vital remit-
tances are transferred across borders.
As of January 2018, the bank s NRI customer base stood at 33 lakh with around 53 lakh accounts and an NRI deposit base of Rs 1.95 trillion.
Almost 30 per cent of the bank s NRI total deposits comes from Kerala.
The bank also launched a bunch of services - wealth management, SBI Intelligent Assist, free post box service and SBI Mingle for NRIs remittance facility for US-based custom-ers, for NRI customers.
The bank's NRI customers can avail SBI's banking services from any part of globe through a wide range of online facilities such as account opening, in-principle sanctions of loans and instant remittances and a con-tact centre to offer customer support and issue resolution. PTI
SBI launches Global NRI Centre at Kochi
CORPORATE KALEIDOSCOPE
United Bank of India has moved a step ahead towards Digital Banking by Launching United e- Collect – A digital Platform for Online Payment / Fee Collection Services. The Digital Product was launched by MD & CEO Pawan Bajaj in presence of Executive Director Ashok Kumar Pradhan, Deepak Chandanani, CEO, M/s World Line India Private Limited and other Senior Executives of the Bank
NSIC CMD Ravindra Nath, has been conferred with ‘CEO with HR Orientation Award ( PSU focus)’ at the Times Ascent - World HRD Congress ( Mumbai) to honor visionary CEOs in building HR into the fabric of Business
Chairman Rajnish Kumar announced the launch of the Global NRI Centre at Kochi
LIC’s 9-month new business performance grows 19.47%
Bhel commissions 18-mw Punjab hydro-power project
BENGALURU: Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has offered the indigenous 'Advanced Light Helicopter-Dhruv' (Civil version) for man-ufacturing to potential Indian private companies through Transfer of Technology.
The company on Friday said it has invited Expression of Interest (EOI) for identifica-tion of Indian Partner.
HAL which is the Design Authority and Original Equip-ment Manufacturer (OEM) of ALH-Dhruv, in a release said the company is now looking forward to develop a reliable Indian Partner (IP) to service the potential demand to differ-ent customers in civil sector in
shorter time span. The selected Indian Partner would also be required to provide support to the customers throughout the life of the product (20 years) thereby ensuring long term business relationship, it said.
"Considering the increas-ing need of helicopters in civil operations of the country, this will be a mega deal from HAL which is the OEM and Licensor," HAL CMD T Suvarna Raju said.
As a technology provider, HAL said it shall provide trans-fer of technology through license and transfer of know - how, technical assistance and license rights for production of ALH-Dhruv (Civil) for the selected business partner. PTI
KOLKATA: State-run Alla-habad Bank on Friday said it has an outstanding exposure of about $366.87 million in the $1.8 billion fraud detected by another public sector bank PNB, but added it was confident of receiving the payment.
Meanwhile, other public sec-tor banks Union Bank of India and State Bank of India have reported $366.87 million and $212 million outstanding expo-sure respectively.
"The outstanding exposure related to the incident is approx-imately $366.87 million and the bank is fully secured by LoU documents and fully confident to receive the payment," it said in regulatory filing.
The lender said it, through its overseas branch in Hong Kong, has been taking exposure with PNB as counter party under various LoUs issued through authenticated SWIFT message.
An LoU is in effect a guaran-tee issued by one bank to the branches of other banks, based on which foreign branches offer credit to buyers.
The bank has also purchased some buyers' credit assets from Axis Bank extended against PNB LoU through risk par-ticipation as a part of normal international business practice.
“We wish to inform you that the bank through our foreign branches has been taking expo-sure with Punjab National Bank (PNB) as counterparty under various Letters of Undertakings (LoU) issued through authenti-
cated SWIFT message,” Union Bank of India said in late night filing to stock exchanges.
The bank has also purchased some Buyers Credit assets from Axis Bank through Risk Par-ticipation as a part of normal International Business Prac-tice, it said. “The outstanding exposure related to the incident is approximately $300 Million and the Bank is fully secured by LoU /LC /Other documents and fully confident to receive the payment,” it said.
We don’t have any direct exposure on Nirav Modi but we do have some exposure on Punjab National Bank, State Bank of India Chairman Rajnish Kumar told reporters here.
He said the bank has lent $212 million to Modi on the basis of LoU issued by PNB.
Kumar, however, said the bank has some exposure to Gitanjali Gems. AGENCIES
Allahabad Bank has $367 mn exposure, Union Bank $300 mn, SBI $212 mn
Allahabad Bank, Union Bank
shares plummet to 52-week lows
HAL invites Indian firms for ALH-Civil production licence
Enough demand for two airports in Goa: AAI chief
ESIC officers’ body fully supports service improvement initiatives
mp sport14MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Saturday, 17 February, 2018
LONDON: Arsene Wenger had expressed concern that his Arsenal team had never prac-ticed, much less played, on an artificial surface like the one at Swedish side Ostersund.
He neednt have worried.Arsenal had little trouble
easing to a 3-0 win thanks to an early strike by Nacho Monreal and passes by Henrikh Mkh-itaryan that led to two more goals.
Monreal scored after 13 minutes when he pounced after a shot by Alex Iwobi was saved by goalkeeper Aly Keita.
Mkhitaryan, who joined Arsenal from Manchester United two weeks ago, inter-cepted a pass in the area before his cross went in off Oster-sund player Sotirios Papagian-nopoulos in the 24th minute.
Mkhitaryan then laid on the third goal for Mesut Ozil in the 58th minute before Arse-nal goalkeeper David Ospina saved a stoppage-time penalty by Tom Pettersson.
“People wondered why we didnt practice (on the pitch) before but the warm-up is good to adapt to the speed of the ball, for technical ability and the accuracy of the passing,” said Wenger.
“We adapted very well because were at a good techni-cal level. They were very ner-vous at the start and we took advantage of it.” Arsenal was without injured striker Alexan-dre Lacazette while Aubamey-ang is ineligible to play in the competition.
Winning the Europa League may be the best chance for Wengers team to return to the Champions League next season.
Arsenal is sixth in the Eng-lish Premier League, eight points behind Chelsea, which holds the fourth and last quali-
fying berth.
In Italy, Michy Batshuayi scored twice, the second goal arriving in stoppage time, to earn Borussia Dortmund a 3-2 comeback win over Atalanta in the first leg of their Europa League last-32 tie on Friday.
Batshuayi, who has been in sparkling form since joining from Chelsea on loan in the mid-season transfer window, helped host Dortmund record its first victory in European competition this season.
Dortmund hadnt won in eight previous appearances and only joined the Europa League after finishing third in its Champions League group.
Andre Schurrle put Dort-mund ahead after 30 minutes, only for Josep Ilicic to score twice for the Italian visitors in the 51st and 56th.
Batshuayi equalized in the 65th before grabbing the late winner. The Belgian striker replaced striker Pierre-Emer-
ick Aubameyang at Dortmund following his move to Arsenal.
“Michy is a real goal-scorer, it was a good move to bring him here,” Dortmund manager Peter Stoeger said. “Things are looking good. He is well liked, fully integrated and our goals and his personal goals align.”
Atletico Madrid overcame an early deficit in Denmark and strolled to a 4-1 win over Copenhagen.
After Viktor Fischers opener, Atletico responded with goals by Saul Niguez, Kevin Gameiro, Antoine Griez-mann and substitute Vitolo.
Atletico has reached two Champions League finals since winning the Europa League in 2012. It returned to the con-tinents second-tier competi-tion after a disappointing group phase in this seasons Champi-ons League.
Napoli is staring at an exit after falling 3-1 at home to Leipzig. Substiute Adam Ounas gave Napoli the lead in the 52nd minute but Leipzig fought back with a double by Timo Werner and another goal by Bruma.
Leipzig is a distant sec-ond to Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga. AFP
MADRID: Before their Champions League clash with Chelsea in London, Lionel Messi and Barcelona put their unbeaten record in La Liga on the line against Eibar in the rather less glamorous sur-rounds of Ipurua on Saturday.
The modest 7,000-seat ground in the Basque Coun-try welcomes a Barca side who have laboured to draws against Espanyol and Getafe in their last two outings.
Those results have allowed Atletico Madrid to cut Ernesto Valverdes sides lead at the top of the table to seven points, with the clubs due to meet at the Camp Nou early next month. Barca’s advan-tage is still significant, and they have no major injury worries, but the danger is that the return of the Champions League is a distrac-tion for them.
“We will need to proceed with caution because a bad result can mean that you sud-denly go from having a very good year to not such a good one,” Gerard Pique warned this week at a sponsors event, where the talk was of Chelsea rather than Eibar.
Real Madrid, meanwhile, travel to Seville to face Betis
hoping to build on their fine Champions League win against Paris Saint-Germain.
Zinedine Zidanes side are still fourth in
the table behind Valencia -- who go to Malaga -- but they have taken 10 points from the last 12 available in the league.
“We have gone through a difficult phase, but in the last few weeks we have raised our game,” Toni Kroos told Ger-man media after the PSG clash. “I am confident that we have a lot of success ahead of us.” Real are 17 points adrift of Bar-celona, but they do have a game in hand to come. AFP
MANCHESTER: Manchester United will be desperate to bounce back in the FA Cup fifth round against Huddersfield on Friday, their first match featuring opinion dividing video assistant referee (VAR) technology.
Defeat at the hands of Newcastle at the weekend left Jose Mourinhos men second in the Premier League but just four points clear of Tottenham in fifth as the race for the top four heats up.
Now they travel to Huddersfield -- where they lost in the league earlier this season -- ahead of a testing run of fix-tures that could define their season, with major questions over how best to deploy club record signing Paul Pogba and new boy Alexis Sanchez.
“Its very difficult to put me in a position where I have to criticise my players,” said Mourinho when quizzed on Pogbas lack
of form, which saw the £89 million ($125 million) midfielder dropped by his Por-tuguese manager when United last faced Huddersfield a fortnight ago.
There have been mixed reactions to the VAR system, which has been used in a handful of League Cup and FA Cup ties.
The recent fourth-round FA Cup tie between Liverpool and West Brom proved particularly contentious as the extra offi-cial awarded Jurgen Klopps side a penalty, ruled out a goal for his opponents then confirmed another would stand.
Mourinho backs VAR“When people ask us if we like it, if we
dont like it, if we agree with it or dont agree with it, I think honestly its a question for the referees,” said Mourinho, who said he backed the system but that it needed adjust-ments to preserve the flow of the game.
“They want to perform the best they can, they dont like to make mistakes. And sometimes they make mistakes because its a human mistake and you cannot go over it unless you have some technologi-cal support.
“So if the referees are happy with that technological support, then yes, lets go for the VAR. I think, from my perspective, I like the feeling.” Mourinho is likely to name a strong line-up as he has done in previous rounds against lower-league opponents Derby and Yeovil, with the FA Cup Uniteds best chance of silverware this year.
Marcus Rashford and Ander Herrera missed last weekends costly defeat but could be backa in contention.
Eric Bailly is expected back in full train-ing this weekend but will not be rushed into
action after a lengthy spell on the sidelines with an ankle injury.
However, Mourinho also has to bal-ance of the demands his Cup ambitions with a tough Champions League trip to in Sevilla in midweek, as well as upcom-ing Premier League clashes against Chel-sea and Liverpool.
Opposite number David Wagner is more likely to rest key players with his team in the thick of a relegation fight despite an impressive 4-1 win over Bournemouth.
Aaron Mooy suffered a gashed knee in that game and could well be rested as could defender Christopher Schindler. January signing Alex Pritchard is cup-tied and striker Laurent Depoitre, who scored against United in Huddersfields victory in October, may be recalled to enable Steve Mounie to rest. AFP
GUWAHATI: Kerala Blasters FC coach David James is up against a man who coached him in the past but pleasant-
ries will be exchanged only till kick-off as the visitors look for nothing less than full points against NorthEast United FC
at the Indira Gandhi Ath-letic Stadium, Guwahati, on Saturday.
Kerala Blasters have a fight-ing chance of qualifying for the semi-finals of the Hero Indian Super League with 21 points from 15 matches. They must win all three remaining matches to have a chance of qualifying and may still not make it. And James, the for-mer England goalkeeper, will have to start it all by outwit-ting NorthEast United coach Avram Grant, who was his coach at Portsmouth FC in 2010.
Portsmouth, captained by James, made it to the final of the FA Cup against all odds, where they lost 0-1 to Chelsea FC, who also won the English Premier League that season.
“The coach was my player. Eight years ago we made it to the final of the (FA) Cup. We had an unbelievable achieve-ment. He was the captain. I wish him all the best but we will try to win the game. It’s good for the f uture that the team will not give up and show good mentality,” said North-East United coach Avram Grant during the pre-match media interaction.
NorthEast United are already out of the competition but will need the three points to give their home fans some-thing to cheer. Two of the three victories for NorthEast United have come at home.
“You all know what hap-pened in the first half of the season. We tried to improve things that needed to improve. We came out of the situation. From being good in counter, now we dominate and cre-ate a lot of chances. Last three games is typical to what hap-pened, control the game, miss
chances and rivals score from one half-attack. The results are better than the first half but not like we expected,” said Grant.
Kerala Blasters allowed defending champions ATK to snatch points from them with a late draw in their last game which halted their run of two successive victories. Assistant coach Hermann Hreioarsson admitted that the focus has been on them ahead of this clash and they are now ready to put their best foot forward.
“We are still in it. We have to go into every game playing for a win. We are happy with our progress. In the last game, we created many chances: 18 shots and 25 crosses,” said Hreioarsson.
Kerala Blasters can reach a maximum of 30 points and will need FC Pune City (28 points), Chennaiyin FC (27 points) and Jamshed-pur FC (25 points) to drop points. MPOST
BENGALURU: FC Pune City stopped Bengaluru FC from registering a record run of six consecutive victories in the Hero Indian Super League as they settled for a 1-1 draw at the Sree Kan-teerava Stadium, Bengaluru, on Friday.Bengaluru FC had matched Chennaiyin FC’s five-match winning run of 2015 and were a match away from creat-ing a record of their own. However, Sarthak Golui’s goal in the 20th minute gave Pune the advantage, while Miku ensured Bengaluru got at least a point with the equaliser in the 75th minute.Bengaluru FC have already quali-fied for the semi-finals and continue to top the group with 34 points from 16
matches. A point may not have been enough for second-placed Pune City (29 points) to secure qualification for the playoffs but their coach Ranko Popovic can’t be too unhappy how things panned out on the night. Bengaluru FC started the first half in a commanding fashion but 20 minutes into the game they found themselves a goal behind against the run of play. The Pune goal came Marcelinho who squared the ball for Emiliano Alfaro Alfaro to have a strike at goal. But he instead of putting his foot through, laid it off for Golui to do the rest. BFC had 60 per cent of the possession in the first half of the match. MPOST
EAST BENGAL FACE TRICKY GOKULAM TESTKOZHIKODE: Title aspirants East Bengal will be aiming to ward off a stiff challenge from debutants Gokulam Kerala in an impor-tant away encounter of the I-League, here on Saturday. Currently placed third in the league table with 26 points from 14 matches, East Bengal are likely to face a tricky test from the minnows at their own backyard. Gokulam shocked Kolkata giants Mohun Bagan in their last game and can proved to be a proverbial banana peel for Khalid Jamil’s men.
K’AKA QUALIFY FOR HAZARE TROPHY KOALUR (KARNATAKA): Karnataka beat Railways by 16 runs on Friday to qualify for the knockout phase of the Vijay Hazare Trophy from Group A alongside table toppers Baroda. Mayank Agarwal continued his good form with a fine 89 off balls (15 fours) and shared a 132-run fourth-wicket partnership with Pavan Desh-pande (65, 67 balls, 9X4, 1x6) as Karnataka made 257 all out in 48.1 overs.
ARROWS RALLY TO HOLD VASCO 2-2 NEW DELHI: TYoung guns from Indian Arrows showed a lot of heart as they rallied twice holding defending defending champi-ons Aizawl FC to a creditable 2-2 draw in an I-League encounter, here on Friday. Interestingly, this was a home encounter for the Indian Arrows, who remained at 8th position with 15 points from 16 games while Aizawl, who are out of the championship race are placed sixth with 18 points from 14 games. Indian Arrows first restored parity through Edmund Lalrindika in the 48th minute.
NO TURF TROUBLEDespite Wenger’s reservations over pitch, Arsenal score 3 past Swedish side in Europa League
Nacho Monreal celebrates the opening goal with Arsenal teammates in Ostersund on Friday
Kerala Blasters’ Iain Hume during practice session
Dortmund hadn’t won in eight previous appearances and only joined the Europa League after finishing third in its Champions League group
Barca face tricky Eibar trip in Liga
Mourinho wants response from stuttering MUFC
Blasters take on Guwahati in ISL
PUNE CITY DRAW HALTS BENGALURU’S RECORD RUN IN ISL
mp sport 15MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Saturday, 17 February, 2018
CENURION: Young paceman Shardul Thakur made his first appearance in the series count with a four-wicket haul as India yet again choked the South African batsmen, dismissing them for a below-par 204 in the sixth and final One-Day Inter-national, here on Friday.India were 136/2 at the end of 21.2 overs as Virat Kohli (unbeaten on 76) chases another ton. The skipper was partnered by Ajinkiya Rahane, who played the role of sheet anchor.Starting the innings, India lost its first wicket promptly -- at 19 runs -- as Rohit Sharma (15) fell cheap to pacer Lungi Ngidi. But Kohli and Shikhar Dha-wan (18) upped the ante as they steadied the ship through a 61-run partnership.
Thakur (4/52), playing in place of rested Bhuvneshwar Kumar, picked his best figures in ODI cricket in this third match.
Spinners Kuldeep Yadav (1/51) and Yuzvendra Chahal (2/38) finished with 33 wick-ets together in this six-match series.
Aiden Markram (24) and Hashim Amla (10) made another sedate start. Thakur was impressive in his first spell, even though Markram took him for two boundaries to start off proceedings.
Jasprit Bumrah (2/24) kept a check on the scoring with his
guile at the other end. The duo added 23 runs for the opening wicket before Amla was caught behind, pulling down leg side off a short ball from Thakur.
The pacer struck for a second time within the first power-play as a clever change of pace foxed Markram com-pletely and he simply chipped a catch to Shreyas Iyer at cover, who caught well for a change.
It brought AB de Vil-liers (30) and Khaya Zondo (54 runs) to the crease, and they rebuilt the innings with a 62-run partnership for the third wicket. They rotated the strike well and looked to
be positive even against the spinners.
Zondo was even harsh on Chahal and smacked him for two sixes in an over. It was per-haps the liveliest session of bat-ting from South Africa in this series, barring their late assault
during the Pink ODI.De Villiers and Zondo
brought up their 50-partner-ship off 52 balls as the Proteas crossed 100 in the 19th over.
This is when things turned downwards again. Chahal bowled de Villiers in the 21st
over as the batsman backed away and looked to make room. The breakthrough almost squeezed the scoring rate as the batsmen started eat-ing up deliveries.
57 balls passed without a boundary and the scoring rate fell from 4.7/over to 4.27/over after de Villiers’ dismissal. In this passage of play, Zondo and Heinrich Klaasen (22) added only 30 runs off 58 balls.
Klaasen tried taking more risks but only managed to hit straight to Virat Kohli at short cover off Bumrah. It became a quick double blow as Ferhaan Behardien (1) wasted his first
outing in the series and holed out to third man off Thakur where Bumrah held a stun-ning catch. South Africa had lost two wickets in the space of six balls and were reduced to 136 for five in the 32nd over. Chris Morris (4) further exas-perated his dressing room as he holed out off Yadav in the deep two overs later.
Zondo and Andile Pheh-lukwayo (34) tried to bring some stability to the innings. In doing so, Zondo scored his maiden ODI half-century off 67 balls. He was out shortly afterwards, caught in the deep in a bid to slog Chahal.
AUCKLAND: Australia com-pleted the highest run chase in Twenty20 history to beat New Zealand by five wickets and maintain their unbeaten record in the T20 tri-series in Auckland on Friday.
In a roller-coaster match, the Black Caps set an impos-ing target of 244 on the back of opener Martin Guptill’s cen-tury but the Australians over-hauled it with seven balls to spare.
A combination of Eden Parks short boundaries and a flat pitch produced a bats-man’s paradise that frustrated bowlers from both sides and set records tumbling.
Australia’s total of 245 for five exceeds the previous record chase of 244 scored by India against the West Indies in 2016.
The unlucky Guptill also became international T20’s highest run-scorer after mak-ing 105 off 54 balls.
It took his international T20 career total to 2,188 runs, sur-passing compatriot Brendon McCullum’s 2,140, with India’s Virat Kohli the next highest on the all-time list with 1,956.
Guptill’s 49-ball century was New Zealand’s fastest T20 ton and the team total of 243 equalled the highest posted by the Black Caps.
The match also had its share of bizarre moments, including New Zealand batsman Mark Chapman’s dismissal, when a fizzing Billy Stanlake ball knocked off his helmet and sent it rolling into the stumps.
The umpires also ordered Black Cap seamer Ben Wheeler out of the attack after two high no-balls, with the unfortunate bowler conceding 64 runs off 3.1 overs.
Australia have already
reached the series final in Auckland next Wednesday, with four wins from four in preliminary matches.
New Zealand’s hopes of reaching the decider now rest on their meeting with England in Hamilton on Sunday.
Guptill plundered nine sixes and six fours after New Zealand won the toss and elected to bat, supported by fel-low opener Colin Munro, who made 76 off 33 balls.
Australia made a flying start in reply, with openers David Warner and Darcy Short rac-ing to 51 without loss after four overs.
Warner’s half century came off just 20 balls and the part-nership reached 121 before spinner Ish Sodhi bowled the Australian captain on 59.
His departure did not slow down Short, who anchored the innings with 76 from 44 to earn the man-of-the match award.
He said the Australians were not overawed chasing such a large total.
“We have the firepower to do it, we knew that,” he said.
“We knew we had to go out hard and get ourselves a start and everyone had to get going when they came in.”
New Zealand’s bowlers pro-duced a nervy display that did not help their cause, conceding 18 wides.
But captain Kane William-son refused to be too critical of his attack after a run-feast that featured 32 sixes over both innings.
He said such a high-scor-ing game was bound to happen at Eden Park when conditions were right and there was little his players could do to stem the flow of boundaries. AFPEAST LONDON (SOUTH
AFRICA) : Veteran Mithali Raj and opener Smriti Mand-hana hit stylish half centuries as India cruised to a comfort-able nine-wicket victory over South Africa in the second women’s T20 International here on Friday.
The Harmanpreet Kaur-led team is now 2-0 up in the five-match series, having won the opening encounter by seven wickets.
Chasing a modest 143, India cantered to victory in 19.1 overs as Mandhana hit a blistering 57 off 42 balls while Raj anchored the innings to perfection with her second suc-cessive half-century, remain-ing unbeaten on 76 off 61 balls.
Raj was declared ‘Player of the Match’ once again.
“The wicket was on the slower side and it wouldn’t have been easy for a new bat-ter to come in and start hit-ting straightaway. The century partnership (with Mandhana) was really important,” Raj said at the post-match presentation
ceremony.Her skipper Harmanpreet
was equally ecstatic with the senior pro’s performance.
“We had discussed that if a player gets settled, she would have to bat through. It was a
fantastic effort from Mithali di as she performed the role of a senior player,” she said.
Mandhana struck four boundaries and three sixes --- one off leg-spinner Dane van Niekerk and another two
off Raisibe Ntozakhe. It wasn’t exactly a flawless innings as she was dropped twice during her second half century in the shortest format.
Along with one day skip-per Raj, Mandhana added 106 runs for the opening stand in 14.2 overs.
Mandhana, who scored a century and a half-century in India’s ODI series win, was in her element, attacking the Pro-teas bowling from the word go and reaching her half-century off only 37 balls.
Raj, on the other hand, completed her 12th T20 half century off 48 deliveries. She waited for the loose deliver-ies to hit her customary cover drives and also rotated the strike well.
Only after Mandhana was adjudged leg before, she took charge with 23 needed off the last three overs.
She targeted medium pacer Ayabonga Khaka, bowling the 18th over, hitting her for two boundaries to ease off any pres-sure that was there. PTI
Pyeongchang: Indian skier Jag-dish Singh today finished a dis-mal 103rd in the men’s 15-km free cross-country race at his debut Winter Olympics here, ending another disappointing campaign for the country at the quadrennial extravaganza.
The 26-year-old Jagdish clocked 43.03 minutes to be the 103rd skier to cross the fin-ish line in a line-up of 119 at the Alpensia Cross-Country Ski-ing Centre.
Jagdish’s time was 9:16.4 minutes slower than Switzer-land’s Dario Cologna, who took his third straight Olympic gold by clocking 33:43.9. Norway’s Simen Krueger (34:02.2) won the silver, while Denis Spitsov (34:06.9), an Olympic Athlete from Russia, took home the bronze.
The disappointing finish aside, it was quite a feat for Jagdish to even compete at the Games. He almost didn’t make it after the Winter Games Fed-
eration of India (WGFI) and his employer, the Indian Army, delayed his departure until the 11th hour over the nomination of a coach to accompany him.
The Indian, who trains at the High Altitude Warfare School (HAWS) at Gulmarg, was around 40 seconds slower than the leader at the initial 1.5km mark but the gap wid-ened as the race progressed.
At the halfway stage, Jag-dish was 4:28 minutes slower than the leader and the gap kept increasing though he was
able to finish a few places above his 116th position start.
In cross-country skiing, athletes have to glide across a 15 km-long path on a snow-covered field in the short-est possible time. The track has uphill, level and downhill terrains.
The end of his campaign also ended India’s run at the Games. The country was being represented by only two ath-letes. On February 11, Shiva Keshavan had finished 34th in the men’s luge singles event in his sixth and last Winter Olympics.
India have not produced any worthwhile performance in the Winter Olympics with Kes-havan’s six appearances being the nation’s only remarkable achievement.
India took part in the Win-ter Olympics for the first time in 1964 in Innsbruck, Austria, where Jeremy Bujakowski rep-resented the country. PTI
Shardul hunts ProteasThakur claims 4 scalps in his first match of series as SA bundle for 204; Kohli on course to ton
South Africa had lost two wickets in the space of six balls and were reduced to 136 for five in the 32nd over. Chris Morris (4) further exasperated his dressing room as he holed out off Yadav in the deep two overs later
OZ set record; chase down 244
Bhambri meets top seed Jordan in Chennai FinalChennai: India's Yuki Bhambri, seeded two, on Friday set up a final clash with No 1 seed Jordan Thompson of Australia in the Chennai Open ATP Challenger tennis tournamenthere. Bhambri got the better of Korea's Duckhee Lee, the third seed, 7-5, 6-2 in one hour and 25 minutes while Thompson beat unseeded Spaniard Pedro Martinez 6-1, 7-6.The first set saw an even contest between the
Indian number one, ranked 112 in the world and the speedy Korean. Bhambri played well within himself from the baseline and made the occasional foray to the net to finish off points.A solitary break did the trick for Bhambri, a former Australian Open junior champion, in the first set.The second set was one-way traffic as the Indian stepped up his game and hit winners from both flanks. Two service breaks showed Lee's struggles in the set. PTI
Raj, Mandhana fire India to win over SA
India’s Winter Olympics campaign over with Jagdish
CHENNAI: England's lim-ited overs specialist Sam Bill-ings wants to use his stint with Chennai Super Kings in the upcoming Indian Premier League as an opportunity to learn the finer points of the game from none other than Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
"I'm extremely excited to play in such a great side and learn a lot from all the expe-rienced players that we have. I am very much looking for-ward to working with (MS) Dhoni, someone whom I have admired as a player for a long time as we play in similar roles (’keeper-bat). So looking for-ward to learning from him,” the 26-year-old Kent captain said in an interview to CSK's official website.
Billings currently plays as a specialist batsman for his coun-try (Jos Buttler dons the big gloves) and has made a name for himself as a superb fielder.
About the pressure of expectation on turning out for high-profile CSK, Billings said there is pressure every time
one walks to the crease but it would be exciting to be part of the franchise.
“Ultimately there’s pres-sure every time you walk to the crease representing anyone. It’s more exciting to be a part of this awesome franchise and play with and against the best players in the world," he said.
“That’s why we play the game, to be a part of groups like this and play on the world stage, so I just see it as a hugely exciting and fantastic oppor-tunity to showcase what I can do," the England cricketer said.
The 11th edition of the pre-mier competition kicks off on April 7 with CSK taking on defending champions Mum-bai Indians at the Wankhede Stadium.
“Billings can make a big dif-ference to the team as a floater as he is someone who can bat equally well at any position,” said Kashi Viswanathan, CEO, Chennai Super Kings.
The CSK signed up former South Africa Eric Simons as consultant. PTI
Billings hopes to learn from Dhoni during CSK stint
GOVERNMENT OF MAHARASHTRA EGS (Works) DIVISION, AHMEDNAGAR
Adders:- Bandhakam Bhawan, Nagar -Aurangabad Road, Ahmednagar E-mail:- [email protected] Phone/Fax No. 0241-2422938
E-TENDER NOTICE NO. 16 for 2017-18
Online E-Tenders in B-1 Form for the following works invited by Executive Engineer E.G.S. (Works) Division, Ahmednagar From Registered Contractors in appropriate only Class with Government of Maharashtra, Public Works Department. Tender Document can be Downloaded from Government web site www.pwd.maharashtra.etenders.in Executive Engineer, E.G.S.( Works) Division, Ahmednagar who reserves the right to reject any or all tenders without assigning any reason therefore. Conditional tender will not be accepted.
The details of works are provided in the websites as below 1. www.mahapwd.com 2. www.pwd.maharashtra.etenders.in (Change if any in above Schedule can be seen on above websites) 3. On Notice Board in the office of Excutive Engineer E.G.S.(Works) Division Ahmednagar No.AB/TC/ 480 of 2018 Executive Engineer Office of the Executive Engineer, E.G.S.(Works) Division E.G.S.(Works) Divison Ahmednagar Ahmednagar Date 06/02/2018 DGIPR/2017/2018/6158
16MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Saturday, 17 February, 2018
mp Entertainment
‘It is tough to match TIGER’S ENERGY’
MUMBAI: Actor Disha Patani, gearing up for the release of her upcoming film Baaghi 2, says it is tough to cope up with the energy level of her co-star Tiger Shroff. Tiger is considered as one of the best dancers from the Hindi film industry. Asked about her experience of danc-ing along with Tiger in Baaghi 2, Disha said: “I am very excited for Baaghi 2. The trailer is coming on February 21, so let’s see. I can’t wait to see the trailer of our film.”
“I had to do lot of hard work because he is very hardworking and to cope up with his energy levels, is very hard. It was difficult, but we share a rapport together, and I managed it.”
Disha was present at the Nykaa.com Femina Beauty Awards recently in Mumbai.
On her experience working with direc-
tor Ahmed Khan in Baaghi 2, she said: “He is amazing and he is such a darling. Whatever I have performed in the film, is because of him”
Disha is known for her amaz-ing dancing skills and she combines her dancing with her daily routine of exercise, She keeps posting her dance videos on Instagram and these are well-received by netizens.
“I do it as a hobby. I like dancing and I want to learn different forms of dancing.”
Asked about a negative thing she feels she has in her personality, Disha said: “I am socially super awkward but I can fake it well.” IANS
Disha, who would be seen dancing along with Tiger Shroff in Baaghi 2, had to do a lot of
hardwork to cope up with his energy levels
MUMBAI: National Award-winning actor Akshay Kumar has installed a sanitary pad vending machine in Mumbai Central ST Bus Depot and hopes to put several across India.
Akshay, whose latest release Pad Man delves with menstrual issue and hygiene,
especially in rural India, took to Twitter recently to share a photograph of him along with Shiv Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray inaugurating the vending machine.
“Placed a sanitary pad vending machine at Mumbai Central ST Bus Depot today, hoping to place more across the state and eventually hopefully the whole country. Thank you Aaditya Thackeray for your sup-port,” he captioned the image.
Thackeray thanked Akshay and said that the film should cross the Rs 100 crore-mark soon.
“Should cross the Rs 100 Crore mark soon! Thank you Akshay Kumarji for always being an inspiration to do good!” Thackeray tweeted.
Pad Man produced by Akshay’s wife Twinkle Khanna, is based on the life of social entrepreneur and activist Arunachalam Muruganantham, who invented a low-cost sanitary napkin mak-ing machine. The film, which released on February 9, also stars Sonam Kapoor and Radhika Apte. IANS
MUMBAI: Neeraj Pandey’s Aiyaary, a film with a patriotic undertone, has been barred from release in Pakistan.
“The film is banned. Its content was disapproved,” Satish Anand, who was to distribute the movie in Paki-stan, told via social media.
The spokesperson for the film in India too confirmed the development.
This is not the first time Pan-dey’s movie is not releasing in Paki-stan. His movies Baby and Naam Shabana – both of which dealt with intelligence agencies on a chase for terrorists – too did not make it to the screens there.
Aiyaary is set against an army backdrop.
It features Sidharth Malhotra and Manoj Bajpayee playing the roles of army officers in a storyline that brings to the forefront corruption within the system.
In India, the movie got a green signal for release after the Central Board of Film Certification reviewed the film, followed by a screening for the Ministry of Defence, which pre-scribed certain modifications. IANS
‘AIYAARY’ BANNED
in Pakistan
‘Trolls affect our family, friends,’ says Zareen Khan
Pad Man Akshay installs sanitary pad vending machine
MUMBAI: Actor Zareen Khan says she is glad that her mother is not on social media as she will get disturbed with the way she (Zareen) gets trolled.
“Trolls don’t realise that whatever they write not only affects us but also affects our family and friends. I
am very thankful for the fact that my mother is not on social media because such bad and abusive comments would defi-nitely disturb her,” Zareen said in a statement.
Zareen has been a victim of trolls on social media plat-forms. She approached MTV to be a part of their new show ‘MTV
Troll Police’ after watching an episode with actor Taapsee Pannu. “I have seen Taapsee’s ‘MTV Troll Police’ episode. I feel this is a great
initiative and a great thing that MTV has come up with to help people who are targeted without any reason. There is a certain section of people in our society who hide behind the anonymity of Internet and troll people like me,” said Zareen, who made her Bollywood debut with Veer.
“Such kind of people are a threat to either themselves or the entire society because they do not realise how their actions affect others. That’s the rea-son I have come on ‘MTV Troll Police’. I want to know if my biggest trolls have the courage to face me and say the same things on my face,” she added.
On her biggest troll, she said: “I am surprised to see my biggest troll. He is just 23 years old. The world is his oyster now... He should concentrate on his life but instead what he is doing is criminal level trolling. I feel sorry for him.”
She has a subtle warning for all trolls. “In the world of social media no one can hide. The power of social media
is so strong that you will be tracked.” IANS
LONDON: Actor Daniel Craig, who has played secret agent James Bond in four films, will sell his personal Aston Martin numbered 007, at a Christie’s auction in April.
“The bespoke, midnight-blue 2014 Cen-tenary Edition Vanquish – numbered 007 - will be offered on 20 April in New York. Sale proceeds will benefit ‘The Opportunity Net-
work’, which helps young people with career development,” the auction house said in a statement, reported Efe.
The automobile, worth an esti-mated $400,000 to $600,000, is being sold under Christie’s ‘The Excep-tional Sale’, described by the auction house as “a highly selective, tightly curated auction of decorative arts masterpieces and significant cultural icons”.
“This Aston Martin Vanquish is a tour de force of automobile engineering and a distinct pleasure to drive,” Craig said.
“While I will miss it, I am keen to further the very important work of The Opportunity Network with its sale,” he added.
Craig, 49, worked with Aston Mar-tin’s design chief to customise his personal vehicle.
The actor had made his debut as Agent 007 in Casino Royale (2006) and also played the character created by Ian Fleming in Quantum of Solace (2008), Skyfall (2012) and Spectre (2015).
Last August, Craig ended months of spec-ulation over who would star in the next film in the James Bond series, confirming he would return as Agent 007 in the next, yet-untitled instalment. IANS
Amy Schumer marries boyfriend Chris Fischer
LOS ANGELES: Actor Viola Davis says she is compared to icons like Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore and Sigourney Weaver but she is nowhere close to them when it comes to remunerations and job opportunities.
At a session here, the award-win-ning actor opened up about feeling underpaid and overlooked through-out her 30-year career, reports peo-ple.com.
“I have a career that’s probably comparable to Meryl Streep, Juli-anne Moore, Sigourney Weaver,” Davis said.
“They all came out of Yale, they came out of Juilliard, they came out of New York University. They had the same path as me, and yet
I am nowhere near them. Not as far as money, not as far as job opportu-nities, nowhere close to it.”
Davis, who is black, said her compensation has not been compa-rable to her white contemporaries.
“People say, ‘You’re a black Meryl Streep … We love you. There is no one like you’. Okay, then if there’s no one like me, you think I’m that, you pay me what I’m worth.”
Davis also said she was disap-pointed with the roles available to her.
“As an artiste, I want to build the most complicated human being but what I get is the third girl from the left,” added the star of How to Get
Away With Murder – which is aired in India on Star World and Star World HD. IANS
If I’m Meryl Streep, pay me well: Davis
Craig’s own ‘007’ Aston Martin to be auctioned
LOS ANGELES: Actor Amy Schumer has tied the knot with her boyfriend Chris Fischer in a surprise wedding.
The Trainwreck star shared the photos from her wedding to Fischer, who is a chef, on her official Instagram page.
The actor also clarified that she is not pregnant and asked fans to donate to the non-profit Everytown for
Gun Safety instead of sending her gifts.“2 things. No I’m not pregnant. And no gifts
but thank you for asking. Instead please con-sider donation to Everytown for Gun Safety,”
Schumer posted.Her plea comes two days after the
deadly Florida school shooting.“Thought of Mayce and Jillian a
lot yesterday and sending love to everyone who has been affected
by gun violence.” The actor was earlier in a relationship with
Ben Hanisch. They broke up in May last year
after dating for two years. PTI
