PUBLISHED FROM DELHI & KOLKATA VOL. 12, ISSUE 218 | Tuesday, 8 August 2017 | New Delhi | Pages 16 | Rs 3.00

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BIG BROTHER

School children tying rakhis on the wrist of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Raksha Bandhan, in New Delhi on Monday PTI

NO HALF TRUTHS

RAJYA SABHA ELECTION TODAY

MPOST BUREAU

AHMEDABAD: After weeks of fast-paced political developments, Gujarat looks set for a thrilling contest in the Rajya Sabha elections which will decide among others the fate of Ahmed Patel, the influen-tial political secretary to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.

It is after a gap of about two decades that a contest is happen-ing in Rajya Sabha polls in Guja-rat, where official nominees of major parties used to get elected unopposed.

The ruling BJP has fielded party chief Amit Shah, Union minis-ter Smriti Irani, and Balwantsinh Rajput, who till recently was Con-gress’ chief whip in the House, for the three RS seats.

While its first two candidates will sail through, the BJP will have to manage extra votes to enable Rajput beat Patel.

Ahmed Patel, who met Con-gress MLAs after they returned from their Bengaluru sojourn, said he was confident of his victory.

These MLAs have now been hosted at a resort in Anand district.

The Congress, which has been out of power in the state for over

a decade-and-a-half now, was caught off-guard by the abrupt exit of party stalwart Shankarsinha Vaghela recently.

It was jolted further when its six MLAs, including Rajput, a rel-ative of Vaghela resigned from the Assembly.

Three of them later joined BJP, setting off alarm bells for the party in Gujarat where Assembly elec-tions are due later this year. The beleaguered Congress packed off its 44 MLAs to Bengaluru to ward off any threat of “poaching” by the BJP.

However, six of the 51 MLAs still in the Congress, apart from Vaghela, have not put their cards

on the table. They were not among the MLAs packed off to Bengaluru.

Vaghela, who resigned from the party and as the leader of the oppo-sition, has not quit the House yet, giving Congress the jitters.

A candidate will require 45 votes for a straight win in the poll, and the BJP with 121 MLAs can secure easy victories for Shah and Irani. The party will be left with 31 surplus votes for Rajput, who will require the backing of rebel MLAs of the Congress and smaller par-ties to win.

For now, Ahmed Patel looks like having the clear backing of 44 Congress MLAs, but even if none of them cross-votes or uses NOTA

(None of the Above) option, the Congress candidate will require one additional vote for his victory.

However, NCP leader Praful Patel who on Sunday said his party had not made up its mind on Mon-day hinted at backing BJP.

Keeping his cards close to the chest, Vaghela on Monday chose to maintain silence on his choice of candidate for the Rajya Sabha polls, but said Congress nominee Ahmed Patel remained a “friend.”

Meanwhile, Amit Shah, who has helmed the party to spectacular victories in several elections since 2014, is camping in Gujarat strat-egising on how to get all three BJP nominees win.

Poll humdinger in Gujarat

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GAUTAM LAHIRI

NEW DELHI: Amidst the Doklam stand-off with China, Exter-nal Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will travel to Kathmandu for two days. Though the visit is for attending the two-day conclave of Foreign ministers of the BIMSTEC members countries, it will cre-ate much noise across the Himalayas. Swaraj is likely to meet her Nepalese counterpart to apprise him about the current standoff with China. Recently the Chinese head of mission met the Nepalese Ambassador to brief him on the Doklam standoff. After her kidney opera-tion, this will be Swaraj’s first foreign visit.

At the Kathmandu conference, Foreign min-isters of Bangladesh, Myanmar and Bhutan would also be present. It is customary for Indian minister to meet all the neighbouring coun-tries at one place. Other than Nepal, the Indian foreign minister’s meeting with the Bhutanese Foreign minister will also assume significance.

For the past few months, China is increasing its influence on Nepal which is a matter of con-cern for South Block.

Recently China and Nepal have agreed on a joint military exercise. And, Nepal’s participa-tion in much debated OBOR Project and espe-cially the decision to award a Chinese company the deal to build an 11 thousand megawatt hydro power project without any tender process did not go down well with India.

Swaraj to brief Nepal on Doklam standoff

MPOST BUREAU

NEW DELHI: The National Green Tribunal has rapped four northern states — Punjab, Hary-ana, UP and Rajasthan — for not submitting action plans to pre-vent pollution emanating from crop burning after the harvest-ing season.

A bench, headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar, warned the state govern-ments that if they failed to com-ply with its directions, it would order attachment of the treasury account of the states.

“Despite our judgement and subsequent orders, the state government have failed to com-ply with the directions and take preventive precautionary and controlling measures for air pol-lution resulting from crop resi-

due burning.“We grant last and final

opportunity requiring them, at least, to file action plans with complete accountability and ele-ments of performance, within one week... (If) compliance is not made, we will be compelled to attach the treasury account of the states concerned,” the bench,

also comprising expert member B S Sajwan, said.

The matter has been fixed for further hearing on August 11.

Earlier, the tribunal had directed the Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Raj-asthan governments to state how the field staff of the departments concerned and the state pollution

control boards were going to con-trol pollution caused by crop resi-due burning.

The NGT had earlier fixed the environment penalty amounts per incident of crop burning to be paid by small land owners hav-ing less than two acres of land at Rs 2,500, medium land owners holding over two acres and less

than five acres at Rs 5,000 and those owning over five acres at Rs 15,000.

It had also directed the state governments to take coercive and punitive action against per-sistent defaulters and asked them to withdraw the assistance pro-vided to such farmers.

The green panel had said the five states — Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Delhi — which had issued noti-fications prohibiting agriculture crop residue burning, should ensure that these notifications were enforced rigorously and proper action was taken against the defaulters.

The NGT’s order had come on a plea by environmentalist Vikrant Tongad who had sought a ban on burning of agricultural waste and remnants in open fields.

NGT raps Punjab, Haryana, UP, Rajasthan on crop burningGREEN TRIBUNAL TICKED OFF WITH STATES OVER NON-COMPLIANCE

MPOST BUREAU

KOCHI: In a big relief to cricketer S Sreesanth, the Ker-ala High Court on Monday lifted the life ban imposed on him by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in the 2013 Indian Premier League (IPL) spot-fixing case. The seamer was charged along-side two of his Rajasthan Roy-als teammates, Ajit Chandila

and Ankeet Chavan, for spot-fixing in IPL-6. Sreesanth was, however, acquitted in the case in July 2015.

The cricketer who has been

fighting for justice since his acquittal but BCCI continued to hold out and didn’t lift the life ban imposed on him. In a hearing in March, the High Court sought BCCI’s stand on the plea filed by Sreesanth challenging the life ban. The bowler had then filed a petition challenging the BCCI’s deci-sion not to lift the ban despite being exonerated by the Delhi High Court in 2015.

Kerala High Court lifts life ban on Sreesanth

No political pressure on us: Chandigarh Police

MPOST BUREAU

CHANDIGARH: Two days after a woman was chased on the streets of Chandigarh, tail-gated and almost kidnapped allegedly by the Haryana BJP chief Subhash Barala’s son, the party has dismissed calls for the veteran’s sacking. 23-year-old son Vikas Barala and his friend are accused by Varnika Kundu, the daugh-ter of a Haryana bureaucrat, of stalk-ing and terrorizing her in a frightening account posted on Facebook.

The two alleged stalkers were out on bail within hours of their arrest because the charges against them were bailable. Vital evidence against them is in doubt as five of seven CCTV cameras on the road are missing.

Senior BJP leader Anil Jain, in charge of the party’s Haryana affairs, on Tuesday ruled out the resignation of its state unit chief Subhash Barala .

Jain’s statement ruling out Barala’s resignation comes a day after Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar also said that the BJP state unit chief had “noth-ing to do with the incident”.

Varnika Kundu, a DJ, wrote in her Facebook post that the men blocked her way, banged on her windows and even tried to force the door open.

The police are yet to add the charge of kidnapping, an offence that does not allow bail.

The Chandigarh Police on Monday said it will not hesitate to add non-bail-able provisions in the case of a woman

who was allegedly stalked by a BJP leader’s son here if the legal opinion is in its favour.

Senior Superintendent of Police Eish Singhal said they were investigating the mat-ter with an “open mind” and were taking legal opinion on several issues pertaining to the case.

He rejected the claims that the force was under any kind of pressure.

Barala’s deputy Ramveer Bhatti was trolled on social media for question-ing why Kundu was “allowed to stay out late”.

“It is none of his business, it is my business and my family’s what I do and where...,” Varnika retorted.

The woman’s father, Virender Kundu, on Monday said he would not “back out or stand down, irrespective of hardships or pressures”. He took to social media to seek “maximum pun-ishment” for the accused, adding that he will move court if charges against the duo were “diluted”.

The comments were also denounced by the opposition Congress. The party says five of seven CCTV cameras on the road where Kundu was chased are missing, which indicates an attempt to destroy evidence.

Kirron Kher, the BJP MP from Chandigarh, hit out at her party col-league Bhatti’s comments and said: “There is no watering down of the case. I have been assured that the CCTV footage will be safe and the police will act.”

MPOST BUREAU

KOCHI: The Congress is facing an “existential cri-sis”, senior party leader Jai-ram Ramesh on Monday said and pitched for “a collective effort” by party leaders to “overcome” the challenges it faced from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah.

Ramesh also said that business as usual approach will not work against Modi and Shah and advocated for a flexibility in approach to make Congress relevant.

“Yes, the Congress party is facing a very serious cri-sis,” Ramesh said on Monday.

He said the Congress had faced “electoral crisis” from 1996 to 2004 when it was out of power. The party had also faced “electoral crisis” in 1977 when it lost the elections held soon after the emergency.

“But today, I would say that the Congress is facing an existential crisis. It is not an electoral crisis. The party really is in deep crisis,” he said when asked whether the threat of “poaching” of MLAs posed by the BJP in Gujarat had forced the party to transport its MLAs to Kar-nataka to ensure party leader Ahmed Patel’s victory in the Rajya Sabha polls.

Congress facing ‘existential

crisis’: Jairam

STALKING CASE

Subsidy on LPG for poor to stay: Govt

MPOST BUREAU

AGARTALA: The subsidy on LPG cylinder for domestic use for the poor will continue, Union Oil Minister Dharmen-dra Pradhan said on Monday.

“We have no plan to with-draw subsidy on LPG for domestic use. Subsidy on LPG and kerosene will continue for the poor and common people,” Pradhan told reporters here.

Pradhan said the ministry has taken up with Bangladesh the laying of a pipeline to carry natural gas from Chittagong to Tripura to tackle the LPG crisis in the North-East.

“We are laying a pipeline for transportation of diesel from Siliguri in West Bengal to Parvatipur in Bangladesh.

There is a pipeline for car-rying diesel from Numaligarh oil refinery in Assam to Sili-guri,” he said. “In exchange, we have given the proposal for a gas pipeline from Chittagong to Tripura. We are pursuing the matter diplomatically and I will visit Bangladesh soon.”

The pipeline, if approved by the Bangladesh government, would be laid next to the rail-way line near the Indo-Bangla international border, he said.

Pradhan launched the

Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana in Tripura here and distributed LPG connection to 20 below poverty line (BPL) families.

In Tripura, 9.22 lakh house-holds have LPG connection and efforts are on to extend it to all.

The oil minister laid the foundation for a new 60 tmtpa (thousand metric tonnes per annum) capacity grassroots bottling plant here at an esti-mated cost of Rs 143 crore. It will be completed by 2019.

Pradhan said requirements of nearly 4.5 lakh households are catered to by the existing bottling plant. With the com-pletion of the new facility, the capacity of LPG supply is expected to double and cover most households.

NEW DELHI: The number of I-T returns filed for 2016-17 year grew by 25 per cent to 2.82 crore, as increased num-ber of individuals filed their tax returns post demonetisa-tion, the tax department said on Monday.

The growth in ITRs filed by Individuals is 25.3 per cent with over 2.79 crore returns having been received up to August 5 as against over 2.22 crore returns filed in the cor-responding period last fiscal.

“As a result of demoneti-sation and Operation Clean Money, there is a substan-tial increase in the number of Income Tax Returns (ITRs) filed,” an official statement said.

The total number of returns filed as on August 5 stands at over 2.82 crore as against over

2.26 crore filed during the cor-responding period of 2016-17. This was an increase of 24.7 per cent compared to growth rate of 9.9 per cent in the pre-vious year.

The last date for filing of income tax returns by individ-uals and HUFs, who need not get their accounts audited, was August 5.

The finance ministry said that the number of ITRs filed showed that substantial num-

ber of new tax payers have been brought into the tax net subse-quent to demonetisation.

The effect of demonetisa-tion is also clearly visible in the growth in direct tax collections, it said.

Advance tax collections of personal income tax (other than Corporate Tax) as on August 5 showed a growth of about 41.79 per cent over the corresponding period in 2016-17.

Personal Income Tax under Self Assessment Tax (SAT) grew at 34.25 per cent over the corresponding period in 2016-17.

“The above figures amply demonstrate the positive results of the government’s commit-ment to fight the menace of black money,” it added. MPOST

DEMO EFFECT: ITR filings for 2016-17 grow 25% to 2.82 cr

In today’s paper

...

Bihar to increase green cover to 15 per cent by 2017

NITISH KUMAR

A bench, headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar, warned the state governments that if they failed to comply with its directions, it would order attachment of the treasury account of the states

» Cong MLAs moved to resort in Gujarat

» Cong’s Ahmad Patel needs one vote more to reach magic figure

» BJP president Amit Shah is camping in Gujarat

» Shah, Irani should sail through

HIGHLIGHTS

CITY

GGN SEX RATIO DIPS BELOW 900 3

NATION

ONION PRICE RISE TEMPORARY 5

EDIT

HAVOC BY MAN-MADE FLOODS 8

INTERNATIONAL

TRUMP BASE STRONGER THAN EVER? 11

BUSINESS

CESS ON SUVS: AUTO MAJORS UPSET 12

SPORT

‘NEYMAR NOT BIGGER THAN BARCA’ 15

Varnika Kundu

MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 8 August, 20172

Published & printed by Durbar Ganguly on behalf of Front Row Media Pvt. Ltd. from Pratap Bhawan, 5 Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi 110 002 & printed at The Indian Express Ltd., A-8, Sector-7, Noida-201 301 (U.P.) RNI REGN. NO.: DELENG/2005/15351, REGD. NO.: DL(S)-01/3420/2015-17 Editor: Durbar Ganguly, Executive Editor: Arya Rudra. Tel. No. 011-47777500, Email: durbarganguly@gmail.com, Lucknow Office: 401, Chintels House 16, Station Road, Lucknow Ph: 0522-4013126

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

mp townDAYINDAYOUT What’s on Around Town

BEYOND THE CANVASWhen you meet someone who is passionate about something, it can be contagious, whether you like the subject or not. Following your pas-sion is an art and more than that, daring to dream. KAD group invites all the dreamers in their upcoming exhibition, Abhivyakti, an expression beyond canvas, which will have at least 16 renowned artists displaying their work.WHEN: August 4 – 8WHERE: Artizen Art Gallery, Peary Lal Bhawan TIMING: 10 am – 7 pmSMELL OF RAIN AND CHAICome monsoon and we crave for a hot sweet cup of chai. With its new mon-soon menu, Shangri La’s Eros Hotel offers a variety of delec-table desi bites with the signature Cutting Chai served in a traditional chai ke tapri. The delicacies are inspired by a desire to satiate the taste buds which are activated at the first pitter-patter of the raindrows of the season. From Pakodas, ram ladoo, bhutta to pakora bhaji, you get it all. WHEN: Till August 31WHERE: Mister Chai, Shangri La’s Eros Hotel TIMING: 11 am – 9 pmRUM DAY CELEBRATIONSUnwind yourself with interesting Rum Cocktails all month long at Plaza Premium Lounge. The wild and stormy Plumpkin Cocktail, made from the favourite summer fruit which is the delicious Plum, promises to make all guests ask for more. Plaza Pre-mium Lounge is giving a twist to the all-time favourite classic Mojito with a dash of the nutritious Green Apple which is bursting with flavours and essential vitamins.WHEN: Till August 31WHERE: Plaza Premium Lounge, Departures at Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad

Go beyond just using pea-nut butter on a toast, and get innovative with it for health-ier options, say experts.

With increasing awareness about super foods and their health benefits, peanut butter has now made its way to most of the Indian households. It is rich in proteins, energy, carbohydrates and good fat. Nutritionist and weight management consultant Kavita Devgan said, “Peanut Butter is the most inno-vative ingredient to complement the benefits of peanut in our daily diet. For vegetarians, it can be added to pulses, baby spinach roasted peanut bowl, basil peanuts pesto or sesame peanut chikki. Peanut Butter also goes well with pork and prawn recipes and even pairs very well with tofu.”

* Peanut Butter Museli Bar: Eat healthy and tasty muesli bars while

on the go. To make delicious bars add muesli, sesame seeds, coconut, cinna-mon powder and nuts in a pan and dry roast all. In another pan cook peanut butter, honey and dates for one min-ute. Pour the peanut butter mixture in the bowl with the dry ingredients and fold the ingredients together, freeze and serve.

* Bengal PB Chop: Grace your snack time with easy to make peanut butter chops. Make round balls from a mixture of cooked green chili, ginger, beetroot, potato, carrot, red chili pow-der, cumin powder, coriander powder. Stuff them with a mixture of peanut butter, raisins and nuts. Then make cutlets and deep fry with coating of suji and breadcrumb.

* Peanut Butter Chicken Skew-ers: Give a delicious twist to chicken with peanut butter. Prepare a mixture

of yoghurt, peanut butter, coriander leaves, garlic, salt and red chilli for mar-ination. Place chicken alternatively in skewers and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Heat oil in a non-stick pan (medium flame) and grill skewers for three to four minutes from both sides or until cooked.

* Thai Style Peanut and Vegeta-ble Curry: In a blender jar, add gar-lic, onion, red chilli, turmeric powder, cumin powder and 50 ml water and grind it to form a thick paste, cook the paste for three to four minutes till dry. Add coconut milk, peanut butter, coriander, remaining water, salt and cook for 2-3 minutes until the sauce thickens. Then add lemon juice, broc-coli, mushroom, carrot

and pineapple. Serve hot with boiled rice.

* PB Smoothies: Smoothies are a perfect filling snack and quick on-the-go choice for both adults and chil-dren. Choose your favourite base – be it strawberry, banana or chocolate dessert topping. Add peanut butter, yoghurt, milk, honey, ice-cubes and blend it until smooth in a blender jar. Pour in a glass and serve chilled. IANS

Men and women who have younger spouses are happier with their marriage, but this mar-

ital satisfaction fades over time in couples who have a significant age gap, a study has found.

The findings, which examined 13 years of data from thousands of households, also suggest that mar-riages with large age gaps are less resilient in the face of economic downturns relative to their similarly-aged counterparts.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the find-ings show that men reported greater marital satisfaction when paired with a younger spouse, especially in the early years of marriage.

However, the reverse appears to be true as well.

“We find that men who are mar-ried to younger wives are the most satisfied, and men who are married to older wives are the least satisfied,” said Terra McKinnish, a professor at University of Colorado Boulder in the US.

“Women are also particularly dis-satisfied when they’re married to older husbands and particularly sat-

isfied if they’re married to younger husbands,” said McKinnish.

That initial satisfaction erodes rapidly, however, after 6-10 years of marriage for the couples with a big age gap between the partners.

“Over time, the people who are married to a much older or younger spouse tend to have larger declines in marital satisfaction over time com-pared to those who are married to spouses who are similar in age,” said

McKinnish.One mech-

anism for this decline could be how the age differ-ence between spouses affects the couple’s abil-ity to respond to negative economic shocks, such as a job loss, McKinnish said.

“We looked at how couples respond to negative shocks and in

particular, if they have a major bad economic shock or worsening of their household finances,” she said.

“We find that when couples have a large age difference, that they tend to have a much larger decline in marital satisfaction when faced with an economic shock than cou-ples that have a very small age dif-ference,” she added.

A possible explanation for this is that similarly-aged couples are more in sync on life decisions that affect

both partners (hav-ing children; general

spending habits) and thus may be

better equipped to adjust to a negative financial

shock, McKin-nish said.

By contrast, an unexpected finan-

cial shakeup could expose underlying ten-

sions and mismatches in couples with a larger age gap. The study was published in the Journal of Popula-tion Economics. PTI

The right kind of eye-wear can make or break your entire

look. While black rimmed glasses are for the fall sea-son, oversized glasses look great with high waist trou-sers and polo T-shirt, sug-gest experts.

Ishaan Kataria, Gem Opticians and Salesh Gro-ver, Business Head, OSL luxury, have rolled out tips on how you can amp up your outfits with the per-fect glasses:

* FORMAL: The trend-ing black rimmed glasses are meant for the fall sea-son and the formal look. Another easy fit for any formal look is the gradient almost transparent lenses that can add the right amount of suave to your persona.

Formal wear in classic hues of blue, grey, black should be accessorised with basic frames which do not subdue the simple and suave look.

* CASUAL: Face shape and size is an important determinant to choose the eyewear. The dou-ble framed look (frame in frame look) with tinted lenses could make an inter-esting eyewear option.

Pastel colour shirts, T-shirts go well with big framed or double framed glasses. Checkered shirts and a pair of shorts or jeans along with simple gold rimmed aviator also does the trick.

* CLASSIC: The gold wired metal glasses are a classic and look radically cool. A much less aggres-sive version of an aviator adds an unusual sense of depth. Also the oversized wired metal glasses harkens back to the 1970’s, minus the weight.

For that classic 1970’s look keep your outfit sub-tle and stylish. Like a pair of high waist trousers, polo T-shirt and oversized sun-glasses. IANS

How to include goodness of peanut butter in diet

LARGE AGE GAP MAY ERODE MARITAL SATISFACTION

Amber Heard and Johnny Depp had an age gap of 23 years

Pair the right eyewear with RIGHT ATTIRE

American singer and songwriter Meghan Trainor’s lyrics “Yeah, my momma

she told me don’t worry about your size” aptly sums up the Indian fashion industry today, given how designers are taking notice of the plus size segment and adding oodles of style to it.

Plus size cannot be ignored, say designers like Falguni and Shane Peacock, Payal Singhal and Monisha Jaising.

Falguni and Shane Pea-cock, who are participating in the fifth edition of the Vogue Wedding Show 2017 luxury bridal exhibition, say, “at times, it seems that the fashion industry really believes all women are the size of those skinny models on the runways”. But that is changing now.

“Almost half the women in this country are size 12 or larger, and finally, the clothing industry is tak-ing note. On runways, in stores, even in the pages

of magazines, the plus size woman is finally get-

ting some fashion respect – not because the industry has

decided it’s okay to be big, but because it can no longer afford to

ignore her,” the duo said.Opening up about the economics

of the fashion business, Singhal, whose forte is wearability, versatility and comfort, says the industry is finally acknowledging that the demand for larger sizes – just like the frame – is big.

Singhal, known for her celebrity clientele like Kareena Kapoor Khan, Sonam Kapoor, Shilpa Shetty Kundra and Sonakshi Sinha, asserts that it is not only about business.

“The fashion industry as a community is coming out to endorse body positive images and that’s great as it’s time we take some responsibility and help women accept themselves the way they are versus the stick thin photoshopped model images they see in magazines,” she explained.

Gone are the days when stick-thin models used to catwalk on the ramps and make some women sitting in the front row go on a guilt trip.

There are active campaigns to pro-mote a healthy body image through fashion shows around the world.

With global superstars like Adele, Amy Schumer, Ashley Graham, Ste-fania Ferrario and Indian celebrities like Vidya Balan and Huma Qureshi owning up their curves, people are

getting the confidence to embrace the plus size. Plus size beauty pageants like Hardeep Arora’s Ms Plus Size North India 2017 are being organised in India as well.

Ace designer Wendell Rodricks has collaborated with aLL. “The win-ners from the plus size model audi-tions chosen were a great mix of different sizes who had varied per-sonalities and walked with absolute poise and confidence,” Rodricks said. He is all in for fashion democracy.

“Fashion should be for every-one; no matter the age, colour, size or shape. I intend to break all myths about colours and shapes for volup-tuous figures,” Rodricks added.

Monisha Jaising, who is also part of the show, feels the fashion world is increasingly counting on “plus-size customers, a demographic that it has long ignored” to fuel

growth. “Fashion brands are now shifting their focus on body positiv-ity by designing for a larger range of sizes,” Jaising said, crediting social media for the changing attitudes in the fashion business.

“Plus size fashion bloggers too are driving this transformation. They are social advertising at their best! Plus size models and bloggers around the world are the new face of the future of fashion. The plus size revolution defi-nitely cannot be ignored,” she added.

Gaurav Gupta, known for his edgy garments, took healthy note of the trend, saying: “In general, women are becoming much more aware about fitness and a lot more girls are now fitter than before. Having said that, there is a parallel trend of easy shaped couture, with silhouettes which work on many more body types.” IANS

Fashion world fits PLUS SIZE in its frame

There are active campaigns to promote a healthy body image

around the world now with designers adding oodles of style to the

plus size segment

3MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 8 August, 2017

mp cityFestival rush, heavy downpour brings Delhi traffic to its knees

ZAFAR ABBAS AND SAYANTAN GHOSH

NEW DELHI: Heavy rains lashed parts of Delhi-NCR on Monday afternoon, bring-ing much needed respite to residents from the muggy weather.

However, heavy traffic for the Raksha Bandhan festival, some bus breakdowns and water-logging due to heavy showers brought some stretches of the capital to a near standstill.

Many people were seen running for temporary shelter from the heavy rains on Monday afternoon.

The temperature remained above 30 degree Celsius.

However, if the rains persist, the tem-

perature is expected to stay lower for the week. The sky was mostly cloudy and 82 per cent humidity was recorded at 3 pm.

Earlier, the Meteorological Depart-ment had said that it will rain on Monday. According to the department, heavy rains are likely to continue till Tuesday.

Thereafter, there is a chance of medium showers throughout the week. The maxi-mum temperature will stay within 30-35 degree Celsius.

The MeT department predicted that there will not be much change in humidity and added that this year Delhi is witness-ing a ‘good monsoon’. Proper showers are likely to continue till the end of September.

Apart from Delhi, there have been

reports of showers from various neigh-bouring parts.

Meanwhile, the heavy rains took a toll on the movement of vehicles, as jams were seen in various parts throughout the day

Delhi Traffic Police advised motorists to avoid certain stretches, on account of heavy rush for Raksha Bandhan festival.

“Traffic is heavy at Shastri Park, Seelampur, Maujpur Chowk, NH-24 and Kondli due to festive season. Kindly avoid this stretch,” posted the Delhi Traffic Police on its Twitter account.

Vehicles were seen crawling on major arterial roads and intersections, such as Dhaula Kuan and ITO, a Delhi Traffic Police official said.

“The situation on major stretches was chaotic but after the rains, our personnel had a hard time manging traffic.

“Extra personnel were deployed but owing to water-logging and encroach-ments on major roads commuters faced problems,” said an officer of the Traffic Police.

Meanwhile, a dead camel near Delhi Secretariat caused obstruction of traf-fic along the ITO-Laxmi Nagar corri-dor, the Delhi Traffic Police said through Twitter.

Moreover, three Delhi Transport Cor-poration (DTC) buses, at Dhaula Kuan, Roshnara Road and Delhi Gate, suffered mechanical failures, causing tailbacks.

Traffic was heavy at National High-way-24 towards Sarai Kale Khan (both carriageway) due to heavy water-logging. Cops also appealed to motorists to avoid the stretch.

Breakdown of DTC in various parts of the city was one of the main reasons for lasting traffic jams.

Many motorists were also seen taking shelter under flyovers and underpasses, as the rains made it nearly impossible to travel for about an hour and a half in the afternoon.

Even the Noida-Delhi linking DND flyway saw heavy traffic. Congestion was also seen at Maharani Bagh and Ashram in South East Delhi.

Sex ratio in Gurugram drops to below 900

PIYUSH OHRIE

GURUGRAM: After showing a steady improvement in the recent past, sex ratio figures in Gurugram once again took a hit, falling below 900 the mark.

For July, the sex ratio in Gurugram was recorded at 879 females for every 1,000 males.

This number is signifi-cantly lower than that of June this year, which was recorded at 904 females per 1000 males.

The drastic fall in the figures prompted a high-level meeting headed by the Deputy Commissioner Vinay Pratap Singh, where various factors to improve the female population in the district were discussed.

Among the key points dis-cussed included taking strict measures against clinics that conduct illegal abortion of girl foetuses.

Parents who wish for a male child not only frequent ille-

gal abortion clinics in Guru-gram, but also in parts of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and even Delhi.

While Haryana, which has been infamous for its poor sex ratio continues to witness improvement, its richest dis-trict continues to paint a dis-mal figure in the improvement of women population.

With respect to sex ratio, Gurugram has for long been

at the bottom half, mostly between the 15th and 18 ranks, among the 22 districts of Haryana.

“It is shocking that Guru-gram, which has more than 80 percent of literacy rate, continues to have a poor sex ratio. There are certain inci-dents that have been reported from the city, where the girl foetus is aborted and action is being taken against such clin-

ics and parents,” said a senior official from the Women and Child Ministry of Haryana government.

“Another reason causing Gurugram to have such a low sex ratio is because of large scale of migrations that are tak-ing place from the city,” the offi-cial added.

“Female infanticide has always been a major challenge in south Haryana, not only in the rural parts but also in the urban parts. The District Police is doing its part by penalising the clinics in the city which commit female foeticide,” said a senior official of Gurugram Police.

“We have improved a lot but the challenges remain. Mindsets that have been pre-vailing for a long time cannot be changes instantly. How-ever, with effective carrot stick policing, we hope to achieve our objective,” the official fur-ther added.

No of malaria cases recorded in July highest since 2013ANUP VERMA

NEW DELHI: With six cases of malaria being reported last week, the number of people affected by the vector-borne disease in Delhi in 2017 has reached 356. A total of 94 malaria cases have been reported in July this year, the highest for the month in the last four years.

As per the status report of the Munici-pal Corporations released on Monday, the number of dengue and chikungunya cases recorded since January stand at 365 and 246, respectively, till August 5.

13 cases of dengue have been reported since last week, with 117 fresh cases being reported last month, while 15 were recorded in June.

Despite the municipal corporations claiming to have taken all necessary mea-sures to control the menace, cases of vec-tor-borne diseases in the Capital do not seem to recede.

The situation could worsen, as the National Institute of Malaria Research (NIMR) has found two new species of mosquitoes, namely Anopheles stephensi (urban vector) and Anopheles culicifacies (rural vector) circulating this year. The parasitic infection was lying dormant after mutating, but it has made a comeback after a gap of five years at a time when Delhi is

already reeling under the scourge of den-gue and chikungunya.

Experts have raised red flags after the resurgence of this deadly parasite and have advised Government agencies to take adequate measures to arrest the spread of malaria, which could play havoc with people’s health.

Some experts said that a few inexpen-sive, eco-friendly measures had been ruled out by medical health officers, resulting in a sudden spurt in cases of vector-borne diseases. The intriguing fact is that even Mayors and Additional Commissioners themselves advocated the need to adopt such practices and pitched for its promo-tions among masses.

Sources in the civic bodies claimed that spraying of insecticide is a futile exer-cise and the agencies are fooling people by doing it.

Explaining the process, from procure-ment of insecticides from a particular com-pany to further distribution to the district heath officer (DHOs), a source said, “First, insecticides are purchased by the agency and then allotted to DHOs on demand. But there is an elephant in the room that has not been noticed till now, as there is no mechanism to check whether the DHOs are further using the insecticides in a desired quantity or not.”

GURUGRAM: Along with host of major diseases like dengue, diarrhoea and swine flu, now malaria scare too has gripped residents of Gurugram. Four confirmed cases have al-ready been reported from the city, all from Old Gurugram. Large-scale construction has mostly proved to be a chal-lenge in tackling the rise of vector-borne diseases. Most such sites have poor drain-age facilities, causing water to stagnate and giving mosquito larvae room to thrive. Six den-gue cases have already been confirmed in the city. Ma-laria, meanwhile, has heavily impacted Gurugram’s neigh-bouring Mewat, where 1,000 cases have been reported. MPOST

Malaria cases on the rise in Gurugram

NEW DELHI: Toxic fumes inside gutters and sewers have snuffed out seven lives in the national capital within a month, but agencies are busy passing the buck, or washing hands off by pinning the blame on private contractors.

Bezwada Wilson, the national convener of the Safai Karamchari Andolan, said the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) cannot simply get away by saying the workers who died of asphyx-iation on Sunday were not employed with the agency, as they were cleaning a sewer line owned and maintained by it.

“We are reporting every death to the authorities. Each and every elected representative have been given memorandums detailing the extent of the issue, but nothing is happening.

Their hands are soaked in the blood of safai karamcharis,” Wilson said.

Moreover, Section 7 of the Prohibition of Employment

as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, clearly states that no person, local authority or any agency shall engage or employ, either directly or indirectly, any per-son for hazardous cleaning of a sewer or a septic tank.

Wilson said too often these agencies are absolved of crimi-nality as the workers are not employed directly by them, but by private contractors.

“You have money for bul-let trains, but no resources are being spared to put an end to these deaths. Mere tall talk on Swachh Bharat will not suffice. Why do we even have Article 21 providing Right to Life in our Constitution?” he said.

Four men had died while cleaning a tank containing poi-sonous sewage in south Del-hi’s Ghitorni in July 15 while three died while cleaning a sewer line in Lajpat Nagar on Sunday. In both the cases, the deceased were working for pri-vate contractors.

A report prepared by the Delhi State Legal Services Authority (DSLSA), which had identified 233 manual scaven-gers in Delhi, shows the extent to which workers, without proper safety gears, are clean-ing sewers and tanks under pri-vate contractors.

The DSLSA had pointed out in its report, which was submit-ted in the Delhi High Court, that

out of these workers, 104 were attached to government agen-cies while 129 were working as outsourced or private contract workers.

The court had termed as “disgraceful” the existence of manual scavengers in the city.

The Supreme Court, in 2014, had issued a series of directions to all states for strict imple-mentation of the law by acting against violators, and ensure education, employment and rehabilitation of affected people.

“Our sewer lines have to be modernised. Most of them date back to the British period. The whole cleaning process must be mechanised. Workers must be provided with safety gears.

“When will we introduce technology that can potentially change lives? And one needs to take the bull by the horns and deal with the widely prevalent casteist mindset, which is at the root of manual scavenging,” Wilson said. AGENCIES

Despite ban, manual scavenging ‘privately’ thrives in Delhi

NEW DELHI: Heavy rains and overcast sky prevented Delhi-ites from viewing the lunar eclipse on Monday.

Several parts of the national capital experienced heavy rains and cloudy sky.

The Nehru Planetarium here had decided to set up tele-scopes to help visitors observe the moon before the eclipse and the partial phases of the eclipse at the Teen Murti lawns.

However, the plan had to be put off due to inclement weather.

“Viewing the eclipse is diffi-cult in current situation.

If the weather clears up then our staff will set up the tele-scopes,” N Rathnashree, direc-tor of the Nehru Planetarium, said.

The penumbral part of the lunar eclipse, which is difficult to discern, began at 9:20 pm, while the partial phase would start at 10:52 pm, she said.

The partial eclipse will end at 12:48 am, while the penum-

bral eclipse will end at 2:20 am on August 8.

A penumbral lunar eclipse occurs when the sun, the earth, and the moon align in an almost straight line.

In this scenario, the earth blocks some of the sun’s light from directly reaching the moon’s surface and covers all or part of the moon with the outer part of its shadow, also known as the penumbra.

“An interesting aspect of lunar eclipse is that anywhere on earth from where the moon is visible during eclipse, the time will be the same. This is in contrast to a solar eclipse in which the timings of the contacts change as the loca-tion changes on earth,” Rath-nashree said.

Also, the US and Can-ada can view the total solar eclipse on August 21, but can-not see the lunar eclipse. How-ever, parts of Africa and Asia, including India, will miss the total solar eclipse. AGENCIES

Rains, overcast sky mar lunar eclipse viewing

PIC/PTI

SAYANTAN GHOSH

NEW DELHI: Delhi Water Minister Rajendra Pal Gautam, along with Deputy Chief Min-ister Manish Sisodia and the CEO of Delhi Jal Board, will visit the families of the three sanitation workers who died on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the Delhi government has ordered an inquiry into the incident where the three men died of asphyxia-tion inside a manhole in Lajpat Nagar.

“I am leaving to meet the families of the deceased along with the Deputy CM, CEO of DJB and DM of Kalyanpuri and Khichripuri,” Gautam had said earlier in the day.

However, due to heavy rains, the team could not reach on Monday and planned the visit for Tuesday.

The government assured that it will look into the case and take all possible action against the people responsible. “I am very sad to know that three workers expired during cleaning of a sewer at Lajpat Nagar. I have set up an inquiry,” Gautam said.

A source in the government

said that the Water department is likely to monitor every small work taken up by labours, as there are various cases where unregistered people work. “It is learnt that the workers were neither employees of DJB nor authorised by DJB,” the source said.

Gautam had earlier told Millennium Post that the Department will soon not allow any person not autho-rised by DJB to work on water-

related issues.He also asked citizens not

to employee plumbers or sew-age workers personally, as if accidents occur such workers could get impacted.

Gautam, who is formulat-ing a new water policy, revealed that his department will make it mandatory that only DJB workers will be allowed for plumbing works as he noted that due to unauthorised work-ers the DJB fails to record cer-tain issues.

The minister also noted that people only approach DJB when a big fault occurs.

However, as there is no record of smaller faults, the Board faces a lot of trouble to settle them.

Gautam, Sisodia to meet families of deceased sanitation workers today

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The four-day Monsoon session of the Delhi Assembly will begin on Tues-day, with the Arvind Kejriwal government looking to re-intro-duce three bills which had ear-lier been returned by the Centre with some objections.

The Opposition BJP, mean-while, is planning to corner the AAP government over several issues, including what it claimed were ‘unfulfilled poll promises of the ruling party’.

The Minimum Wages (Delhi) Amendment Bill, 2015, The Delhi (Right of Citizen to Time Bound Delivery of Ser-vices) Amendment Bill, 2015 and NSIT Bill (amendment) were among the 14 bills passed

by the House. However, the Centre had sent back most of the proposed legislations.

Nine crucial bills, passed by the Delhi Assembly, since the AAP came to power in 2015, have been pending with the Union Home Ministry.

These include Delhi Jan Lokpal Bill, 2015, Minimum Wages Bill, Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (Amend-ment) Bill 2015 and a bill to amend the Working Journalists and Other Newspaper Employ-ees (Condition of Service) Act, among others. Last month, Kejriwal had directed the Law department to submit a “way forward” roadmap on legislative bills which are awaiting clear-ance from the Centre.

Meanwhile, the BJP, which

has four MLAs in the 70-mem-ber House, said that its legisla-tors would taken on the AAP government on what it called its “U-turn” on promises made to the people and “repression” of the opposition.

Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Vijender Gupta alleged that the government was adopting “unconstitutional measures” and “repressing” the opposition as well as senior gov-ernment officials.

“The Opposition will launch an all-out attack on the govern-ment in the Monsoon Session for the U-turn on its promises, repression of the opposition and senior government officers and unconstitutional measures adopted by it,” Gupta had said reporters last week.

Gautam, Sisodia and the CEO of Delhi Jal Board had planned to meet them on Monday; however, the plan had to be cancelled due to heavy rains

Govt looks to clear pending bills as Monsoon Session kicks off today

YOGESH KANT

NEW DELHI: After suffer-ing two consecutive defeats, the Congress’ teachers unit, Indian National Teachers Con-gress (INTEC) has decided not to field any presidential can-didate in the upcoming Delhi University Teachers Associa-tion (DUTA) elections for the

2017-2019 term.“We have decided not to

field any presidential candidate. The decision has been taken by the INTEC members keep-ing in mind our poor perfor-mance in last year’s election,” said a senior Congress leader, who did not wish to be named.

“We, however, will focus on getting a majority in the Exec-

utive Committee and work for the cause of teachers in DU,” he added.

In 2015, Nandita Narain, the presidential candidate of the Left-affiliated Demo-cratic Teachers’ Front (DTF) had won the election, bagging 2,390 out of total 6,068 votes polled followed by the BJP-backed National Democratic

Teachers’ Front (NDTF) can-didate V S Negi, who got 2,165 votes. INTEC candidate Sanjay Kumar had won only 536 votes.

The election for the office of president and 15 members of the executive committee for 2017-2019 will be conducted on August 31. DUTA is a teach-ers’ representative body of the teachers of Delhi University.

The elections for its office bearers are conducted every two years.

“By not fielding a presi-dential candidate, INTEC has already accepted their defeat. It clearly shows that they don’t have teachers support at the campus,” said AK Bhagi, NDTF president and assistant profes-sor at Dyal Singh College.

INTEC president Ashwini Shankar, however, denied the claims and said the decision had been taken to avoid elec-toral division. “By not fielding any presidential candidate we have not accepted any defeat. The decision has been taken in a bid to avoid electoral divi-sion. The Opposition will soon realise our motive behind the

move,” he said.“We will support whoso-

ever will get elected and work for the regularisation of ad-hoc teachers, promotion and pension of permanent teach-ers among other issues,” said Surendra Kumar, general sec-retarym INTEC and a can-didate for DUTA’s Executive Committee.

No presidential candidate from Congress for upcoming DUTA election

NEW DELHI: The CBI has registered a case in connection with toxins released by illegal industrial units in North East Delhi residential areas which purportedly claimed the lives of two people.

The agency filed the case against unidentified officials of the East Delhi Municipal Cor-poration and the Government of Delhi on August 4, accord-ing to its FIR.

The case followed directives from the Delhi High Court which took cognisance of a news report about the death in May of two residents, alleg-edly from toxins discharged by a demin washing process, which was the main work of many of the units.

It was reported that the tox-ins contaminated the drinking water in the area, leading to the incidence of diseases such as cancer.

The Delhi High Court had on May 25 directed the CBI to investigate unauthorised com-

mercial and industrial activities in the Shiv Vihar and Karawal Nagar area.

The CBI has registered the case against the unidenti-fied officials under stringent charges of criminal conspir-acy and causing grievous hurt by acts endangering the life or personal safety of others and for acts of corruption.

The High Court had directed the agency to ascertain the dates from which the indus-trial units in the residential areas started operating and how long they functioned, besides identifying officials responsible for the toxin discharge.

The agency will also ascer-tain the number of deaths reported from these areas and the cause of their deaths, it said.

The order directed the CBI to identify the names and par-ticulars of the Assistant Engi-neer, Executive Engineer and Superintendent Engineer of the Municipal Corporation in Shiv Vihar. AGENCIES

Death from toxins: CBI registers case

A report identified 233 manual scavengers in Delhi, working without proper safety gear

NEW DELHI: The National Green Tribunal has directed a Delhi BJP MLA to file afresh his plea alleging that hookah bars were “ruining” youth by turning them into “drug addicts”.

A Bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatan-ter Kumar directed the counsel appearing for Manjinder Singh Sirsa to file a proper application with complete facts.

Sirsa, who is a BJP MLA from Rajouri Garden, has sought immediate action against hookah bars in the national capital.

“The counsel appearing for the applicant wishes to with-draw this application with lib-erty to file proper application after giving complete facts and analysis report, if any, and by bringing the application within the scope and ambit of under Section 14 of the National Green Tribunal Act, 2010,” the Bench said in its order recently.

In a statement, Sirsa said he had written to the NGT chair-person, alleging that hookah bars were “ruining” the youth of Delhi by turning them into “drug addicts”. AGENCIES

NGT directs BJP MLA to file fresh

plea against hookah bars

For the month of July, the sex ratio in Gurugram was recorded at 879 females for every 1,000 males REPRESENTATIVE IMAGE

mp city4MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 8 August, 2017

Four killed in 2 separate bike accidents in south Delhi

ZAFAR ABBAS

NEW DELHI: Four persons were killed in two separate accidents in south Delhi in the intervening night of August 6 and 7.

The first incident was reported from Chattarpur which two persons who were on bike reportedly died when they were hit by a dumper.

The second incident occurred when an unidenti-fied vehicle crushed two men to death while they were on NH8 near Mahipalpur.

The Mehrauli Police Station received a call at around 11:45 pm on Sunday that a dumper had crushed two men near Dera village.

Soon a team of policemen reached the spot and found two men lying in a pool of blood. They were immediately

taken to AIIMS Trauma Cen-ter where both were declared brought dead. The deceased have been identified, Umesh Sharma, 26, who worked as a chef in a local restaurant and

hailed from Uttarakhand.“Umesh was riding pillion

and Sanjay was driving the bike when their vehicle was hit by the speeding dumper. Umesh was crushed under the wheels

of the dumper,” said a relative of deceased Umesh.

“Sanjay was a resident of Uttar Pradesh, he was also approximately 26 years of age,” said a police officer.

In another incident in south Delhi, the Vasant Kunj North Police Station received a call around 7:28 am on Monday that an accident has happened at NH8 near Mahipalpur. A team of police officers was dis-patched at the accident site.

The cops found two men in an unconcious state at the acci-dent site. One was identified as Devender Lama, a resident of Durga Vihar in Chhawla and the second was Milan Rana.

“Devender worked in Obe-rai farms and Milan was doing some part time job. On satur-day afternoon both of them went to Haridwar on motor cycle and were returning when the accident happened. We are investigating the incident,” said Additional DCP South Chin-moy Biswal.

The cops are still looking for the vehicle that had hit the bike.

Husband stabs wife to death over alleged affair

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Enraged over the refusal of his wife to go to his house and suspecting of her having an affair, a husband murdered his wife brutally with a knife and later hit her with a cylinder to make sure she had died in south east Del-hi’s Badarpur area on Saturday afternoon.

The man, identified as Parveen, was soon arrested by the district police.

Police said that the man was annoyed with his wife as she overstayed at her parents’ place.

He suspected her to have an affair as an apparent reason for leaving his house. She was stay-ing there for more than four months. When her wife didn’t return, he too moved in at his in-laws place.

Both got into frequent argu-ments as Minakshi refused to accompany him to his house in Molarband Village.

On Saturday, when none

was at home except Parveen’s wife and children, he asked her if she is ready to go with him.

As Minakshi said again refused to come home with him and said no, Parveen made up his mind and sent the kids upstairs.

He soon took out a knife and attacked Minakshi, he slit

her throat and when she laid on the ground bleeding, he took up the LPG cylinder and hit her to make sure she is dead.

“The lady had injury marks on her neck. We have appre-hended the accused husband. Parveen is a private driver and he suspected his wife to have illicit relationship and mur-dered her,” said DCP South East Delhi Romil Baaniya.

OFFICE OF THE DISTRICT ELECTION OFFICER/D.C.(NORTH) GOVERNMENT OF NATIONAL CAPITAL TERRITORY OF DELHI

G.T. KARNAL ROAD, ALIPUR, DELHI-36 REVISED PUBLIC NOTICE

Delhi Legislative Assembly Bye-Election — 2017 for AC — 07 (Bawana) (SC)

General public is hereby informed that Sh.P.R. Shivaprasad, KAS has now been appointed as the General Observer in place of Sh.T. Venkatesh, IAS for the ongoing Bye-Election to the Assembly Constituency, Bawana Delhi. The details of the Observer are as under:

No. & Name of

AC

Name of Observer

Designation Office address & Meet-ing Hours

Mobile/Land line No.

07 — Bawana

Sh. Mr. P.R. SHIVAPRASAD

(KAS)

OBSERVER R.No.05, 0/o the DEO/DM (North) Office Com-

plex, Alipur, Delhi-36 03.00 P.M. to 04.00 P.M.

(on all working days)

9910925367

(SAKSHI MITTAL) DIP/SHABDARTH/1350/17-18 DISTRICT ELECTION OFFICER (NORTH)

Three highway robbers targeting women arrested

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Delhi Police have arrested three highway robbers on August 4 for their involvement in a string of high-way robberies and targeting women travelling in the area.

According to police, the accused were said to have targeted several women. The arrested accused have been identified as Rahul Kumar, Imran and Zahid.

Further, the police have recovered one improvised Eng-lish pistol, two country-made pistols, six live cartridges, 18 snatched mobile phones and one Apache Motor cycle.

The police had received information about their where-abouts after which a team was

constituted to look into the case. They were later arrested from Jaffrabad area and upon their interrogation, they con-fessed to their involvement in a string of robberies. “Dur-ing the course of interroga-tion, they disclosed that they started committing snatch-ing since 2012 and had been arrested several times. They usually commit snatching near highway areas like Ring roads of Delhi, Pushta Road, NH-24 and would target women trav-eling in TSR’s or wait near bus stands,” said a police official.

The police have claimed that the accused have sold more than 500 stolen mobile phones.

The receiver of the stolen property is now being tracked by the police.

Three robbers pose as CBI officials arrested

Transgender in HC against guidelines for changing name and gender

Two more all-women police stations in Ggn?

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Three people have been arrested by Delhi Police on Sunday for allegedly posing as CBI officials and committing dacoity in a jew-eller’s house on the pretext of conducting a raid.

The accused who were arrested on Sunday had con-nections with gangs affiliated to jailed gangster Neeraj Bawa-nia .

The arrested accused told police that they decided to rob the jeweller after watching a Bollywood movie which deals with con men posing as CBI officials.

According to police, the accused have been identified as Narender Vesnav (30), Madan

(28) and Neeraj (38).They were arrested from

Shahbad Dairy after the Crime Branch had received inputs about their whereabouts.

“They were arrested from St Xavier School. The trio tried to flee on their motorbikes after they managed to identify our team. We recovered a country made pistol and a Delhi Police uniform from the accused,” said a police official.

The police are still trying to ascertain the whereabouts of six other associates who were roped in for the dacoity case.

The three accused had in their interrogation confessed to their involvement in the crime.

The police have claimed that the three men had on July 26 decided to target a promi-

nent jeweller’s house in Karol Bagh.

The gang had initially made a recce around the jeweller’s house before committing the crime.

On the day of the incident, they were armed with two country made weapons and entered his house.

“Narender posed as a Delhi Police official and entered the house claiming that he was under orders from CBI to con-duct a raid,” the official said.

Before the occupants of the house could make any sense of what was happening, the accused entered the house and stole some jewellery items.

The Crime Branch is now on the look out for the six other accused in the case.

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has sought response of the Centre, CBSE and the Delhi University (DU) on a trans-genders plea challenging the guidelines of these authorities for change of name and gender by a person.

According to the petition, the university norms say that for change of name and gender, the same have to be first altered in the records of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE).

The guidelines of the Board, on the other hand, say that request for such changes in its records would be entertained only if it is made before pub-lication of the result, the Pub-lic Interest Litigation (PIL) has said.

The Department of Publi-cations of the Centre requires that a sex reassignment surgery

be undergone before change of name and gender, it said.

Taking note of the PIL, a bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar issued notice to the Centre, CBSE and DU.

They also sought their response on the petition which challenges all these require-ments for change of name and gender.

The court also told the Board why it does not take an interest in the issue and why it was not doing it (making the change) on its own.

“Why dont you show your own interest in the issue? You should do it on your own,” the bench said and listed the matter for hearing on November 27.

According to the petition, the petitioner was assigned the male gender at birth but identi-fies self as a transgender.

The plea, filed through advocate Yashraj Singh Deora, has alleged that the crite-ria laid down by the various authorities for change of name and gender are “arbitrary and unreasonable”.

It also claimed that the Supreme Court had in 2014 held that insistence on a sex reassignment surgery for declaring ones gender was ille-gal and immoral.

It also added that the peti-tioner “routinely faces dis-crimination on account of the incongruity between self-identified gender and the male identity given at birth”.

The petitioner has con-tended that the guidelines are “depriving her of the right to live with dignity and to self identify her gender which is different from the one assigned at birth”. AGENCIES

OUR CORRESPONDENT

GURUGRAM: Taking into cognisance of the rising crimes against women and minors, there are plans to open two more women police station in Gurugram.

On Sunday, the single women police station situ-ated in Sector -51 completed two years since it was open to people.

Speaking at the event, Sandeep Khirwar, Gurugram Police Commissioner, stated that there are plans to open two more women police station in the city that also included opening one in Old Gurugram.

The plan to open two women police station comes at a time when there has been a huge increase in crimes against women and minors.

Recently, the official data from Gurugram Police had stated that year on year, there has been a 25 per cent increase in the crimes against women.

Besides solving cases related to crimes against women, the women police station is also known for having the child friendly police station being set up.

Named, Phulwari (garden

of flowers), the main objective of the police station has been to deal with the children that have been affected by sexual crimes and domestic violence and remove the sense of fear among them during interrogation.

Besides the child friendly police station, there are also counsellors who consult fam-ilies affected by domestic violence.

Jamia girls send rakhis to bravehearts at border

ZAFAR ABBAS

NEW DELHI: The girls of Jamia Millia Islamia University gath-ered in colourful dresses on the occassion of RakshaBandhan in the university premises for a special reason of a goodwill ges-ture and sent bunch of Rakhis to the Indian soldiers posted at the borders.

The Rakhis would be sent to the Army Chief General Bipin Rawat so that they could be dis-tributed to the soldiers at the front.

“We have also written some messages for our brothers who are guarding our borders and we want to let them know that we are always keeping them in our good wishes,” said Umaina, a Jamia student, displaying a beau-tiful rakhi she was holding.

The girls were also seen writ-ing messages for the soldiers and placing them inside the enve-lopes. “We have written mes-sages for our soldiers who spend sleepless nights at the borders so that we could sleep in peace. On RakshaBandhan, a brother

pledges to safeguard and pro-tect her sister and that’s what our soldiers do at the border. We just want them to know we care for them,” said Maria Khan, a JMI student.

The girls said they bought the rakhis well in advance and had planned to send them at the borders this Raksha Bandhan. There were some who have got an opportunity to send a rakhi

to the soldiers for the first time.“The girls at Jamia had shown

that they do care for our brave-hearts protecting Indian borders. Considering the tough condi-tion they are in from snow clad borders to deserts, this love and affection from the university girls would certainly bring them a self of satisfaction and a smile on their face,” said Ahmad Azeem, PRO Jamia University.

Women cops tie rakhis to traffic violators

OUR CORRESPONDENT

GURUGRAM: In a first of its kind initiative, the Gurugram Police and Road Safety Organisation used the occasion of Raksha Bandhan for rais-ing awareness among the commuters regarding the road safety rules.

Rather than imposing a fine on traffic violations, the women police staff and Road Safety volunteers tied Rakhi on the wrist of traffic violators and in return as a token gift asked the traffic violator to take pledge and follow the traffic rules not only for his protection but also for the safety of the other commuters travelling with him.

Over 1,000 traffic violators took the pledge to drive safely and fol-low the traffic rules after getting the Rakhis tied.

The campaign was started at 10 locations which were Sector- 4 road, HUDA City Centre, Jharsa chowk, Kherki toll plaza, Mahavir chowk, Kataria chowk, Sethi chowk, Pataudi chowk, Basai and Sohna road.

The campaign was kicked off by Sandeep Khirwar, Gurugram Police Commissioner, who was accompa-nied by other senior district police

officials that included Simardeep Singh DCP (traffic), Pankhuri Yadav ACP (traffic) along with other police personnel.

“Raksha Bandhan has been an important tradition in the history where there is expression of affection, safety and well being by the brother. Taking a cue, we have used Rakhi as a knot of protection to make commut-ers aware the peril of drunken and rash driving,” said Sandeep Khirwar.

“It’s good initiative by the Guru-gram Police. Most of the times the commuters do not feel like admit-ting their mistake because of the high handed approach of the police personnel. Through these initiatives the more humane side of police is revealed,” said Nitya Sharma, a city resident.

NEW DELHI: The National Green Tribunal has directed a Delhi BJP MLA to file afresh his plea alleging that hookah bars were “ruining” youth by turning them into “drug addicts”. A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar directed the counsel appearing for Manjinder Singh Sirsa from Rajouri Garden to file a proper application with complete facts who im-mediately took action. In a statement, Sirsa said he had written to Kumar, alleging that hookah bars were “ruining” the youth of Delhi by turning them into “drug addicts”. AGENCIES

NGT directs BJP MLA to file fresh plea against hookah bars

Essel Towers’ RWA to have mandatory ID cards

OUR CORRESPONDENT

GURUGRAM: The Resident Welfare Association (RWA) of Essel Towers along the MG Road plans to have more CCTV cameras installed in the condominium society road and also ensure that all the society members must have manda-tory identity cards.

The move comes amid the controversy of the administra-tive members barring single tenants to let people of opposite sex come into the apartment from 10 pm to 8 am.

The decision which has resulted in many raising eye-brows has also put strict direc-tives for letting even relatives enter the apartment without proper verification.

Even though the decision by the RWA is an year long, on the night of August 4, there was a heated argument between the certain tenants and the soci-ety members of breaching this rule. The argument that lasted for around six hours resulted in one of the members even highlighting that the rule was imposed to prevent sex-trade activities occurring in the apartment. There are more than 100 single tenants that are presently living in the Essel tower apartment that is located along the MG road. Most of the young tenants working in the multinational companies opt for the condominium society because of its central location and its proximity to commer-cial areas of the city.

Death from toxins: CBI

registers caseNEW DELHI: The CBI has registered a case in connection with toxins released by illegal industrial units in North East Delhi residential areas which purportedly claimed the lives of two people.

The agency filed the case against unidentified officials of the East Delhi Municipal Cor-poration and the Government of Delhi on August 4, accord-ing to its FIR.

The case followed directives from the Delhi High Court which took cognisance of a news report about the death in May of two residents, alleg-edly from toxins discharged by a demin washing process, which was the main work of many of the units.

It was reported that the tox-ins contaminated the drinking water in the area, leading to the incidence of diseases such as cancer.

The Delhi High Court had on May 25 directed the CBI to investigate unauthorised com-mercial and industrial activities in the Shiv Vihar and Karawal Nagar area.

The CBI has registered the case against the unidenti-fied officials under stringent charges of criminal conspir-acy and causing grievous hurt by acts endangering the life or personal safety of others and for acts of corruption.

The High Court had directed the agency to ascer-tain the dates from which the industrial units in the resi-dential areas started operating and how long they functioned, besides identifying officials responsible for the toxin discharge.

The agency will also ascer-tain the number of deaths reported from these areas and the cause of their deaths, it fur-ther said. AGENCIES

Parveen took out a knife and attacked Minakshi and slit her throat, following which he took up the LPG cylinder and hit her to make sure she is dead in south east Delhi’s Badarpur area

Ggn soon to open vintage photography

museumOUR CORRESPONDENT

GURUGRAM: Gurugram may have swiftly transitioned into digital images, however, for those who still admire the vintage photography may still have a reason to rejoice.

Soon, there will be a vintage photography museum to come up at Chakkarpur village.

On Tuesday, the Munici-pal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) will sign a Memoran-dum of Understanding (MOU) between Aditya Arya of the photo archive foundation for setting up of the museum. A collection of over 2,000 vintage cameras will be exhibited in the museum. There will also be a lot of images of independence struggle and World War II.

Jamia Millia Islamia University students with rakhis on Monday PIC/MPOST

–––- RAKSHA BANDHAN CELEBRATION ACROSS DELHI, NCR––––

5MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 8 August, 2017

mp nation

OUR CORRESPONDENT

BENGALURU: Karnataka minister D K Shivakumar on Monday appeared before the Income Tax department offi-cials at the IT office here in connection with the raids con-ducted at various properties linked to him last week.

After being grilled by the officials for three consecutive days in connection with an alleged tax evasion case, the state power minister was issued summons to appear before the Income Tax department on Monday for questioning.

Shivakumar, who appeared along with his brother and Ben-galuru Rural MP D K Suresh, said the officials might call him again, whenever required.

“The Income Tax authori-ties have every right to sum-mon and question any assesse, businessman or individual. I have come here several times earlier also. They had asked me to appear anytime after 11 am, so I have come here,” he said.

He added that the IT offi-cials discussed his earlier state-ment and treated him “very respectfully”.

“They are guiding me for my good,” said Shivakumar.

He added that the officials did not ask him to come tomor-row or the day after and said they would inform him when-

ever required.In a swoop down that has

stirred a political controversy, the IT department, on August 2, began raiding various prop-erties linked to Shivakumar, who hosted 44 Gujarat Con-gress MLAs at a resort on the city outskirts, to thwart the

“poaching” attempts by the BJP ahead of tomorrow’s Rajya Sabha polls in that state.

Ahmed Patel, the politi-cal secretary to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, is a contestant in the election to the Upper House of Parliament from Gujarat.

During the IT raids at about

66 places across the country, the officials said they had seized cash and jewellery, worth over Rs 15 crore.

The IT department is yet to make an official statement regarding the outcome of the raids.

Asked about the ‘panch-

nama’ (seizure list) and details of the reported recoveries made by the IT sleuths, Shivakumar said, “I have asked for it. My auditor has to apply for it...they (IT officials) have asked us to apply in accordance with the procedure. I will ask my audi-tor to collect it.”

K’taka minister Shivakumar appears before I-T Dept

OUR CORRESPONDENT

THIRUVANANTHA-PURAM: The issue of politi-cal violence involving members of the ruling CPI(M) and the BJP rocked the first day of the Kerala Assembly on Monday, leading to its adjournment after Congress-led UDF opposition stalled proceedings.

Slamming the state govern-ment for the present spurt of political violence, opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala equated the cycle of violence between CPI(M) and BJP activ-ists with the ‘blue whale’ game that leads teenagers to death.

The Congress alleged that police had failed to check recurrence of violence while Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan maintained that strin-gent action had been taken against offenders irrespective of party affiliations.

Vijayan said there was a “deliberate attempt to portray” Kerala as a trouble-torn area, which he said, would have an adverse impact on the state’s development prospects.

Hitting out at the BJP and the RSS for the violence in the state, he said it was a con-scious attempt to divert the attention from the graft allega-tions against its party members over the issue of grant of MCI clearance to a private medical college, which shook the BJP’s state unit recently.

“The allegation that the law and order situation in the state has collapsed was false and baseless. There was no con-tinuing communal tension or political violence in the state. Whatever happening is isolated incidents,” he said.

Not satisfied with the reply of the Chief Minister that law and order situation was stable, opposition members stood up and moved towards the well of the House raising slogans and displaying banner stating “end BJP-CPI(M) violence and restore peace in the state”.

As the disruption by the opposition members con-tinued, Speaker P Sreera-makrishnan took up other business slated for Monday and adjourned the House for the day ahead of schedule.

Vijayan, while replying to a notice of adjournment motion moved by Congress MLA K Muraleedharan on the alleged collapse of law and order sit-

uation, said everyone should unite to defeat the “planned move” to tarnish the image of Kerala.

Incidents like lynching in the name of food and religion were not happening in the state because of its strong secular consciousness of the general public, he said.

Referring to the all-party meeting held here yesterday, the Chief Minister said all political parties extended full support to the peace initiatives taken up the government to end political violence.

However, Vijayan said police alone could not end such violence completely and it needed the support and coop-eration of parties.

He also exhorted everybody to eschew violence.

Rejecting the opposition charge that police remained mere spectators, he said all accused in these incidents had been taken into custody.

Kerala Assembly stalled over political violence issue

OUR CORRESPONDENT

ANAND: On the eve of the crucial Rajya Sabha polls in Gujarat, Congress candidate Ahmed Patel on Monday said he has support of “enough” number of MLAs, including those belonging to the NCP and JD(U), to win the polls.

The political secretary of Congress chief Sonia Gan-dhi also accused the ruling BJP of “intimidating and tor-turing” Congress MLAs and their families to “trigger more defections”, which forced his party to shift 44 legislators to Bengaluru.

Patel was talking to reporters after he met the 44 Congress MLAs at Nijanand Resort located on the out-skirts of Anand, where they have been put up after their

return from Bengaluru. The party legislators will stay there till tomorrow morning.

“This poll is not at all about anyone’s prestige. I have full faith in my MLAs. Apart from these 44 (Con-gress) legislators, two of NCP and one of JD(U) would give their vote to me,” he said in response to a query on how he would get the magic number of 45 to win the poll. “Apart from them, seven other Con-gress MLAs, who have not opened their cards yet, may vote for me. Even Shankersinh Vaghela has announced that he will give his vote to me,” Patel said outside the resort.

The senior Congress leader claimed that although NCP had yesterday said that it had not decided about giv-ing support to any party, “lat-

est reports suggest that NCP has taken a decision to sup-port me”.

Patel also hit out at the saf-fron party for forcing Con-gress MLAs to shift their base to Bengaluru.

“I do not understand why the BJP decided to field its third candidate (against him) when they are still short of 16 votes. The way Congress MLAs were targeted for defec-tion, our democracy has been turned into a ‘banana repub-lic’. We were even kept under surveillance. Even I was kept under surveillance by the gov-ernment,” he claimed.

“In a bid to trigger more defections, our MLAs and their families were intimi-dated and tortured. That is why our MLAs were shifted to a safer location,” he added.

I have enough numbers to win RS polls: Ahmed Patel

Six sacked Trinamool Congress MLAs join

BJP in TripuraOUR CORRESPONDENT

AGARTALA: Six Tripura MLAs, who were earlier sacked by the Trinamool Congress and who had voted for NDA nom-inee Ram Nath Kovind in the July 17 presidential election, on Monday formally joined the BJP. The six legislators, led by former leader of the opposi-tion (Congress) in the Tripura Assembly Sudip Roy Burman, were welcomed into the saf-fron party by Union minis-ter Dharmendra Pradhan, the party’s North-East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) convener Himanta Biswa Sarma, state BJP chief Biplab Kumar Deb and state party observer Sunil Deodhar.

Besides Roy Burman, the

other MLAs are Ashish Kumar Saha, Diba Chandra Hrang-khawl, Biswa Bandhu Sen, Pranjit Singha Roy and Dilip Sarkar. The MLAs had met BJP president Amit Shah in Delhi on August 5.

On July 3, TMC secretary general Partha Chatterjee had said the party would have no relations with the six MLAs.

The six legislators had quit the Congress and joined the TMC in protest against the Congress’ electoral tie-up with the Left, ahead of the 2016 West Bengal Assembly election.

In the run-up to the pres-idential poll, the MLAs had announced that they would not vote for a candidate supported by the CPI(M) and were sacked by the TMC.

J&K: Separatists call for shutdown

on August 12OUR CORRESPONDENT

SRINAGAR: Separatists in Kashmir on Monday called for a shutdown on August 12 to protest what they termed attempts to abrogate Arti-cle 35-A of the Constitution and other issues. People are appealed to observe a shut-down on Saturday, August 12 against the attempts to abrogate the state subject law (Article 35-A) which has been in vogue here for centuries, separatist leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and JKLF chief Yasin Malik said in a joint statement here. They warned the Centre and the state government of a protest agi-tation if attempts are made to fiddle with Article 35-A.

If these plans are not stopped, then we will appeal to people to come out and start an agitation, the statement said.

SC constitutes Bench to hear Ayodhya disputeOUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has constituted a three-judge bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra to hear a batch of petitions challenging the Allahabad High Court ver-dict in the Ayodhya land dis-pute case from August 11.The bench, whose other members are justices Ashok Bhushan and Abdul Nazeer, would adjudi-cate the dispute over ownership of Ram temple-Babri masjid land. The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court had in 2010 ruled a three-way divi-

sion of the disputed 2.77 acres area at the Ram Janambhoomi-Babri masjid site in Ayodhya.

The three-judge bench of the high court, by a 2:1 major-ity, had said the land be par-titioned equally among three parties -- the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla.

On July 21, a bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar had said that it would soon take a decision to list the matter for early hearing.

The court’s remark had come on a plea of BJP leader Subramanian Swamy who

sought urgent listing and hear-ing of the matter.

Swamy had said that the main appeals against the Alla-habad High Court order are pending for the last seven years in the apex court and these required urgent hearing. He had also said that a separate petition had earlier been filed by him seeking enforcement of his right to worship without much hassle at the site. The BJP leader had told the court that he has been allowed by the apex court to intervene in the matter and is seeking expeditious dis-posal of the cases.

CBI has a month to get sanction to prosecute ex-DoS official

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: A special court has granted a month’s time to the CBI to obtain from appro-priate authorities the sanction to prosecute a former addi-tional secretary in the Depart-ment of Space (DoS) in the Antrix-Devas deal case.

Special Judge Virender Kumar Goyal was told by the CBI that the agency was yet to obtain the sanction to pros-ecute Veena S Rao after which the court posted the matter for further hearing on Sep-tember 16.

The CBI had on May 1 informed the court that the sanction to prosecute ex-ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair and others -- A Bhaskar Narayana Rao, the then Direc-tor in ISRO, and K R Sridhar Murthy, the then Executive Director of Antrix -- has been

received.The CBI had filed an FIR

on March 16, 2015 against Nair and others accusing them of facilitating “wrong-ful” gain of Rs 578 crore to private multi-media company Devas by Antrix, the commer-cial arm of ISRO. The agency had on August 11 last year filed a charge sheet against the accused, alleging that they had caused a loss of Rs 578 crore to the exchequer by abusing their official position to favour a private company.

The case relates to leasing of S-Band, a restricted wave-length of the INSAT satellites to deliver video, multimedia and information services to mobile receivers in vehicles and mobile phones to Devas Multimedia by Antrix.

It was alleged in the FIR that the lease was given in violation of the rules, caus-

ing an undue gain of Rs 578 crore to Devas Multimedia and corresponding loss to the exchequer.

The charge sheet had accused the then Secretary, Department of Space, Chair-man, ISRO and Antrix Corpo-ration Madhavan Nair, Devas Multimedia and seven others of criminal conspiracy, cheat-ing and under provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act.

Besides Nair, Narayan Rao, Veena S Rao and Murthy, oth-ers named in the charge sheet as accused included Devas Multimedia Pvt Ltd, former Managing Director of Forge Advisors and CEO of Devas Ramachandra Vishwanathan and the then Director of Devas M G Chandrasekhar.

Two directors of Devas Multimedia D Venugopal and M Umesh were also named in the charge sheet as accused.

Senior Congress leaders Bharatsinh Solanki, Arjun Modhwadia, Ahmed Patel at Ahmedabad airport during arrival of the party’s MLAs from Karnataka on Monday, ahead of Rajya Sabha elections PTI

Chodankar blames Parrikar for ‘plight’ of Panaji constituencyOUR CORRESPONDENT

PANAJI: Congress candi-date for Panaji bypoll, Girish Chodankar on Monday said his opponent and Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar has “failed” to resolve various issues plaguing the constitu-ency which he had represented in the past.

The AICC secretary, a con-fidante of the party vice-pres-ident Rahul Gandhi, is pitted against Parrikar for the byelec-tion scheduled on August 23.

The bypoll was necessitated due to resignation of sitting MLA Sidharth Kuncalienker who vacated the seat for Par-rikar who is yet to become a member of the Goa Assembly.

Parrikar sworn in as chief minister in March this year.

“Panaji is still grappling with so many issues though the BJP has been represented the seat for the last 23 years,” Cho-

dankar said in a written appeal addressed to people of Panaji.

Taking a swipe at Parri-kar who had assured that the issues concerning the state cap-ital will be resoved in a year, the Congress leader said, “...The BJP and their chief min-ister have the audacity to say that all issues of the city will be resolved in 365 days”.

“Despite the former MLA of Panaji (Parrikar) serving as chief minister of the state thrice and also as defence minister, he has miserably failed to tackle the problems. Just see the mess and destruction of our Mira-mar beach due to beaching of a casino ship there because of an irresponsible governance,” he said.

Chodankar also accused Parrikar of “fooling” people and doing a “U-turn” after voicing his strong opposition to offshore casinos anchored in Mandovi river.

Onion price rise temporary phenomena: Agri Secretary

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The rise in onion prices is a temporary phenomena and the situation will improve with the arrival of new crop from next month, a top government offi-cial said on Monday.

Agriculture Secretary Shobhana K Pat-tanayak said that there is sufficient supply of onion to meet the domestic demand till next month and the government is closely monitoring wholesale and retail prices of the bulb.

Retail prices of onion ruled in the range of Rs 32-40/kg in metros on Monday, as per official data.

“In some wholesale markets, prices are in the range of Rs 20-22/kg. We are closely watching the prices. I don’t think this (price rise) will remain for long. It is a temporary phenomena. Prices will see correction,” Pattanayak said.

He further said that early kharif onion, which should have come from Karnataka at this time, has not hit mandis yet as the crop been affected due to poor rains.

However, the secretary expressed con-fidence that the supply will improve from next month when the crop from states like Andhra Pradesh will start arriving at the mandis.

Already, early sown kharif onion is

being harvested in some states, specially Andhra Pradesh. This will improve sup-plies and cool down prices in coming days. The availability of some local onion in Raj-asthan will also improve the supply, he said.

Early kharif onion from Kurnool in Andhra Pradesh is being sold in Odisha and West Bengal at present in view of spike in rates in Nasik and Lasalgoan in Maha-rasthra, the country’s leading producer of the bulb crop, he added.

The secretary also said that fall in kharif output is unlikely except in some states like Karnataka where production has been hit due to poor rains. Otherwise, the onion crop in most of the states is in good con-dition, he said.

Last week, Nasik-based National Horti-cultural Research and Development Foun-dation (NHRDF) Director P K Gupta had indicated that there would be 30-40 per cent fall in acreage of kharif onion this year due to poor rains in some growing states.

About 30-40 per cent of the country’s total production comes from the kharif season and the rest from the rabi season.

Bihar to increase green cover to 15 per cent by 2017:

Nitish KumarOUR CORRESPONDENT

PATNA: Battling low green cover area in Bihar at 9 per cent, the Nitish Kumar gov-ernment is all set to enhance green cover to 15 per cent by the end of this year.

“We have set a target to increase green cover of Bihar to 15 per cent by end of 2017 and making all efforts to achieve this,” Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said after tying a rakhi to a tree on the occasion of Raksha Bandhan.

Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, who also holds portfolio of Forest and Environment, was with the CM at the event of tying Rakhi to a tree at Veer Kuer Singh Park in the state capital.

The CM said as part of “Hariyali (greenary) mission” launched in 2011 in Bihar, a target was set to increase green cover of the state to 17 per cent by planting 24 crore saplings.

By the end of this year we would achieve 15 per cent and expand it to 17 per cent soon, Kumar said.

Sushil Modi said “after achieving target of 15 per cent green cover by end of 2017, we would try to expand it to 17 per cent in the next five years”.

He said tree plantation work was carried out under MGN-REGA scheme at a large-scale and trees were planted by side of roads and embankments.

Farmers have been encour-aged to plant trees around their fields which would also increase their income, the CM said.

ATS gets transit remand of suspected Bangladeshi terrorist

OUR CORRESPONDENT

MUZAFFARNAGAR: A local court on Monday granted the transit remand of a suspected Bangladeshi terrorist to Uttar Pradesh police’s Anti Terror-ist Squad (ATS), a day after his arrest here. Chief Judicial Mag-istrate Gopal Tiwari allowed the ATS transit remand of Abdullah after which it took him to Lucknow.

Abdullah is allegedly asso-ciated with Islamic extrem-

ist group Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT). He was living in the area for the past one month, IG, ATS, Asim Arun said.

Earlier, Abdullah had been residing in the Deoband area of Saharanpur district since 2011. He had managed to get an Aadhaar card and passport prepared on the basis of fake identity, the officer said.

He was associated with the ABT and involved in preparing fake identity proofs of terror-ists, especially from Bangla-

desh, and help them find safe hideouts in India, Arun alleged.

According to the police, ABT is an Al-Qaeda inspired Islamic extremist group based in Bangladesh. ATS teams from Saharanpur, Muzaffar-nagar and the district police team from Shamli conducted searches after Abdullah’s arrest, the police said. Abdullah told ATS sleuths that he used to pre-pare fake identity proofs with the help of one Faizan, resident of Deoband, IG Arun said.

HEAVY RAIN LIKELY IN ODISHA BHUBANESWAR: Heavy rainfall is likely in Odisha in the next 24 hours, the Indian Meteorological Depart-ment (IMD) on Monday said. "Heavy raibfall is likely to occur in one or two places in interior parts of Odisha during the next 24 hours," IMD said in a statementThe Meteorological Centre, Bhubaneswar, Director S Sahu said the rainfall continued in the state since last week due to an active south-west monsoon. He said many places yesterday experienced rainfall at many places over interior and coastal region.

DILIP KUMAR IMPROVING, STILL IN ICU: HOSPITAL MUMBAI: Legendary actor Dilip Kumar, who is being treated for dehydration and kidney-related ailments, is recovering but is still kept in the ICU for observa-tion, a senior official said on Monday. The 94-year-old actor was admitted to the Lilavati hospital in suburban Bandra on August 2 due to dehydration and urinary tract infection. "He is improving. He is doing fine. His creatinine levels have reduced. He is not on ventilator but is in the ICU. Due to the age factor, we have to keep him under observation," Lilavati Hospital's vice president Ajaykumar Pandey said. "He will be in the hospital for a few more days," Pandey said.

WEEKLY BUS SERVICE RESUMES ON SRINAGAR-MUZAFFARABAD ROAD SRINAGAR: The Karavan-e-Aman weekly bus service across the Line of Control on the Srinagar- Muzaf-farabad road resumed on Monday, a week after it was suspended. The trade on this route is scheduled to resume on Tuesday. "The Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service operated today after an agreement reached with authorities from Pakistan- occupied Kashmir last week," an official said here. He said 116 passengers boarded the bus bound for Muzaffarabad, the capital of PoK, this morning. "It includes 110 residents of PoK who are returning home after spending time with their relatives here while six persons from Jammu and Kashmir are going to meet their relatives on other side of LoC," he said.

LET MILITANT FROM PAKISTAN KILLED SRINAGAR: A Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant from Pakistan was today killed in an encounter with secu-rity forces in Pulwama district of Kashmir. The militant identified as Umar was part of the Abu Ismail group of Kashmir, which is behind the July 10 attack on Amarnath pilgrims that left eight devotees dead and several others injured, a police official said. The official said that security forces launched a cordon and search operation in village Samboora late last night follow-ing information about presence of militants there. One militant was killed in the encounter, he said.

6MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 8 August, 2017

mp nation

NATION BRIEFS

AMARNATH YATRA

COMRADE IN ARMS

Women constables of the Border Security Force (BSF) tying rakhis to their male colleagues on Raksha Bandhan, at the India-Bangladesh border near Balurghat in South Dinajpur district of West Bengal on Monday PTI

OUR CORRESPONDENT

THIRUVANANTHA-PURAM: A bill for regulat-ing admission and fixing fees in private medical colleges in Kerala was introduced in the state assembly on Monday.

The bill, titled 'The Ker-ala Medical Education (Regulation and Control of Admission to Private Medi-cal Education Institutions), 2017', seeks to provide res-ervation of seats to persons belonging to scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other backward classes in these institutions.

It was moved by Health Minister K K Shailaja.

On objects and reasons, the bill said since the govern-ment had received reports of malpractices by various man-agements to tide over the admission procedures, it has decided to enact a legislation to regulate admission and fees in these institutions.

A 11-member Admission and Fee Regulatory Commit-tee, chaired by a retired judge of the supreme court, would be formed to determine fee and admission process.

The bill provides that any person aggrieved by an order of the Committee could appeal before the high court within 30 days from the date of such orders.

The House, which was adjourned following disrup-tion by Congress-led UDF Opposition over the issue of political violence between CPI-M and BJP-RSS activi-ties, referred the bill to the subject committee without discussion.

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and leader of AIADMK (Amma) faction, K Palaniswami on Monday said he expected to see the much anticipated but delayed merger of the two factions in the ruling party soon.

"I expect to see it (merger) soon," he told reporters here without elaborating.

His comments come in the wake of the rival O Panneer-selvam-led Puratchi Thalaivi Amma faction stating that it had not heard from the Amma camp on the merger talks.

The merger has been on the cards for sometime.

Panneerselvam had last

week said leaders in the rival camp were "only making com-ments" on the unification.

The former chief minister had on June 11 disbanded a seven-member panel formed by his faction to hold merger talks with the Amma camp, vir-tually bringing down the cur-

tains on the unification talks.Palaniswami's remarks on

Monday also came amid his faction's sidelined deputy gen-eral secretary T T V Dhina-karan trying to re-assert his position in the party, follow-ing the expiry of a 60-day dead-line he had set for the merger of the two factions.

On Friday, Dhinakaran, sidelined by a section of the AIADMK cabinet including Palaniswami, had appointed his loyalists to key party positions, even as he announced embark-ing on a state-wide tour from August 14 to strengthen the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). MPOST

MUMBAI: Children below the age of 14 years cannot partici-pate in the Dahi Handi festival, the Maharashtra government on Monday said in the Bombay High Court, which accepted the statement, but refused to impose any restriction on the height of human pyramid formations.

A division bench of Justices B R Gavai and M S Karnik said it was not for the high court to impose restrictions on the age of the participants, famously known as 'govindas', in the festival and the height of pyramids.

"Imposing age and height restrictions is out of our pur-view. This falls exclusively in the domain of the state legislature.

"If we enter the arena of the state legislature then we would be encroaching. It is for the state legislature to decide and pass an enactment on the restrictions if required," Justice Gavai said.

"We accept the statement

made by the state government that it would ensure children below 14 years of age would not participate in the Dahi Handi festival," the judge said.

Additional Solicitor Gen-eral Tushar Mehta, appear-ing for the state government, told the court that according to the Child Labour (Prohi-bition and Regulation) Act, children below 14 years of age would not be allowed to par-ticipate in the festival since the government had in August last

year declared Dahi Handi as an adventure sport.

The high court was hear-ing two petitions filed by city residents, raising concern over the participation of minors in the festival and lack of safety measures due to which several accudents have occurred.

Dahi Handi, a festival mark-ing the birth of Lord Krishna, will be celebrated next week. The festivities involve forming a human pyramid and breaking an earthen pitcher filled with

buttermilk which is tied to a rope at a height. In 2014, the high court had passed an order saying children below the age of 18 years could not partici-pate in the festival, and had also imposed a height restriction of 20 feet for the pyramids.

The state government had then appealed in the Supreme Court which on August 1 this year referred the matter back to the high court directing it to hear the petitions afresh.

"While the concerns raised by the petitioners are laudable, we feel that most of the direc-tions issued by the high court in its 2014 order pertaining to safety and remedial mea-sures have been accepted by the state government," Justice Gavai noted. The court referred to an affidavit filed by the state government in the apex court giving an assurance that all pre-cautionary and remedial mea-sures would be taken to prevent accidents and to provide imme-diate medical attention in case any accident.

Kids below 14 years cannot take part in Dahi Handi: Govt to HC

OUR CORRESPONDENT

JAMMU: A heightened level of alertness and a strong multi-tier security set up prevented terrorists from disrupting the annual 40-day Amarnath yatra in the Jammu region, a senior CRPF official said on Monday.

While the yatra ended peacefully in Jammu, a terror attack on a bus on July 11 in Anantnag district of Kashmir left eight devotees dead and several others injured.

"Barring the July 16 road accident near Banihal which claimed the lives of 17 pil-grims and left 26 injured, the yatra ended peacefully here and it is because of coordinated efforts by all security agencies," Inspector General of the CRPF (Jammu sector) Abhay Vir Chauhan told reporters here.

He said there were intelli-gence reports about a possi-bility of terror attacks but the terrorists could not succeed due to the alertness of the Army, CRPF, police and other agencies.

"No such thing (terror attack) was witnessed in the Jammu region, but we were

fully prepared to deal with any situation," the CRPF officer said. He said the government reposed faith in the force and gave it the added responsibil-ity of securing the entire route from the Bhagwati Nagar base camp here to the base camps in Kashmir.

More troops were deployed and gadgets were used this year as against previous years in

view of the intelligence inputs "suggesting a determined attempt by terrorists to target the yatra", Chauhan said.

The pilgrimage began from here on June 28, a day ahead of its commencement from the twin routes of Pahalgam in Anantnag district and Baltal in Ganderbal district.

A total of 2.60 lakh pil-grims performed the yatra,

which ended on Monday. The pilgrimage concludes on the festival of Raksha Bandhan every year.

He said adequate steps were taken for the peaceful conduct of the pilgrimage "but there's still a place for improvement".

Timely departure of devo-tees from the Bagwani Nagar camp will help them reach their destination in time before dusk,

he said."Ensuring timely depar-

ture of convoys was a major challenge. Traffic snarls were another cause for concern. If the pilgrims could leave the camp early, we could avoid traf-fic congestion on the highway," the CRPF rpt CRPF IG said.

"At times, convoys reached the base camps in Kashmir after dusk, which is not good from the security point of view," he said, adding the delay was due to unavoidable circumstances.

He said the Bhagwati Nagar base camp, which was his area of responsibility, was fully for-tified. "The CRPF, for the first time, used unmanned aerial vehicles to keep a close watch on everything. Where naked eyes could not see, we deployed UAVs," Chauhan said.

While CRPF and police personnel were deployed on road opening duties on the highway, the Army secured the hills overlooking the arte-rial roads.

"Landslides is not in our control but we were prepared to deal with such a situation to ensure normal traffic move-ment on the highway.

Alert forces ensured peaceful Yatra in Jammu region: CRPF

OUR CORRESPONDENT

JAIPUR: Rajasthan has received excess rainfall this monsoon season, recording 26 per cent higher than nor-mal rains.

Of the total 33 districts in the state, 8 received abnormal rains, 7 recorded excess and as many normal while 11 districts recorded deficit rainfall.

The state, which saw floods in Jalore and in parts of Barmer, Sirohi and Pali dis-tricts, received 367.83 mm rains against the normal rain-fall of 290.89 mm from June 1 to August 6, which is 26.4 per cent higher, according to water resources department.

Districts which recorded abnormal rainfall (60 per cent or more) are Barmer, Jais-

almer, Jalore, Jodhpur, Pali, Rajsamand, Sirohi and Udai-pur while Ajmer, Banswara, Chittorgarh, Churu, Dungar-pur, Nagaur and Pratapgarh received excess (20 to 59 per cent more than normal) rains.

Bhilwara, Bikaner, Hanu-mangarh, Jhalawar, Jhunjhunu, Sikar and Tonk received nor-mal rainfall (19 per cent high or 19 per cent less than normal) whereas Alwar, Baran, Bharat-pur, Bundi, Dausa, Dholpur, Sriganganagar, Jaipur, Karauli, Kota and Sawaimadhopur received deficit rainfall (-20 per cent to 59 per cent than normal).

Out of the 831 total dams in the state, 164 are totally filled and 333 partially filled and 334 are empty. The situation there is now gradually improving.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

SRINAGAR: The 40-day annual pilgrimage to the Ama-rnath shrine in south Kashmir Himalayas ended on Monday, with 2.60 lakh pilgrims offer-ing prayers this year despite a terror attack on a bus that left eight devotees dead.

The pilgrimage concludes on the festival of Raksha Band-han each year.

This year's figure of pilgrims visiting the shrine is the second lowest in the past 14 years. Last year, only 2.20 lakh pilgrims had visited the cave shrine due to the summer unrest.

The holy mace of Lord Shiva -- Chhari Mubarak -- carried by a group of 'sadhus' and dev-

otees led by its custodian Mah-ant Deepindra Giri, arrived at the holy cave in the early hours for day-long prayers, officials of the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board (SASB) said.

The group of sadhus and devotees trekked 42 km from Pahalgam to reach the shrine with night halts at Chandanwari, Sheshnag and Panchtarani.

After traditional rituals at the sanctum sanctorum, the holy mace would start the return journey before dusk later on Monday.

While the holy cave will be closed for darshan from Monday, pujan and visarjan (immersion) ceremonies for the journey of Chhari Mubarak

would be performed on the banks of Lidder river in Pahal-gam on 9 August.

It will be followed by a tra-ditional open kitchen, the last ritual of the pilgrimage.

The holy mace would return to its abode at Ama-

reshwar temple at Dashnami Akhara here the same day, the officials said.

The yatra had commenced from Pahalgam and Baltal routes amid strict security arrangements on 29 June.

While stringent security arrangement had been put in place for the yatra, Lashkar-e-Taiba militants managed to tar-get a bus full of pilgrims on 10 July. Eight pilgrims were killed while 21 others were injured in the attack. Forty other pil-grims, including 16 in a road accident on Jammu-Srinagar Highway on 16 July, died dur-ing this edition of the pilgrim-age with cardiac arrest being the major cause of deaths due to medical reasons.

Amarnath yatra concludes Expect to see merger of factions soon: Palaniswami

Desert state records excess rain this monsoon

OUR CORRESPONDENT

LUCKNOW: In the backdrop of three MLCs recently quit-ting the party and joining the BJP, Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on Mon-day said those who wanted to go, should go without offering any excuse, so that he could ascertain who were with him in "bad times".

Referring to the "excuses" put forward by the three MLCs -- Bukkal Nawab, Sarojini Agarwal and Yashwant Singh -- while leaving the party, Yadav said, "Some people are saying they were feeling suf-focated as the atmosphere of the party had gone bad. This should not be an excuse for leaving the party, they should find a better excuse." Asserting that the party was doing well and a large number of women, farmers and youths had joined it recently, he said, "Those who want to leave the party should not give any excuse...they can just leave. In that case, at least I will get to know who are with us during bad times."

The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister was address-ing the party workers at the SP headquarters here on the occasion of Raksha Bandhan.

Yadav said he had paid a visit to Nawab on Eid and had

'sewai' (a sweet dish) with him."At that time, he (Nawab)

had not mentioned that he was planning to leave the party. It has come to our notice that there was some land issue, due to which he was being pres-sured," he added. In a dig at Nawab and the BJP, Yadav said, "They (BJP) are doing good work. It is ironic that when a person is not in the BJP, he is labelled as a land mafia and

when he joins the party, he becomes honest, upright and a gentleman." On Agarwal, who runs a medical college in Meerut in the name of SP patri-arch Mulayam Singh Yadav, Yadav said he was not aware of what the matter was with her.

"There could be a land issue behind it as well," he added.

A number of women work-ers of the SP tied rakhi to Yadav on the occasion.

Those who want to quit SP should leave without giving any excuse

Bill to regulate private medical

colleges in Kerala

OUR CORRESPONDENT

HYDERABAD: TRS MP K Kavitha on Monday tied rakhi and gifted her brother and Telangana Minister for Indus-tries and IT K T Rama Rao a helmet to promote road safety.

Raksha Bandhan was cele-brated with traditional fervour across the state on Monday.

According to a statement issued by the Lok Sabha mem-ber, she has started a campaign to "gift your brother a helmet this rakhi" which is getting immense support.

The campaign is aimed at spreading awareness to curb two-wheeler accidents and wearing helmet to have a safe ride.

Prominent personalities that include central ministers Nitin Gadkari and Smriti Irani, shuttlers Jwala Gutta and Saina Nehwal, cricketers Mithali Raj, Virendra Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir and Chief Minis-ters of Karnataka and Orissa have supported the campaign started by Kavitha.

Lakhs of people have sup-

ported Kavitha's social media campaign in which she has appealed to all the sisters to gift a helmet to their brothers and spread awareness on curbing two-wheeler accidents, it said.

Lok Sabha speaker Sumi-tra Mahajan recently launched Kavitha's weblink www.sister-s4change.org and supported the campaign by appealing to all the sisters to gift helmets to their brothers.

Meanwhile, a Raj Bhavan official said school girls tied rakhi to Governor ESL Nara-simhan as part of the festival celebrations.

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao's sisters tied rakhi to him.

TRS MP K Kavitha gifts brother KTR helmet on Raksha Bandhan

Referring to the 'excuses' put forward by three MLCs—Bukkal Nawab, Sarojini Agarwal and Yashwant Singh —while leaving the party, Yadav said, 'Some people are saying they were feeling suffocated as the atmosphere of the party had gone bad. This should not be an excuse for leaving the party, they should find a better excuse'

7MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 8 August, 2017

mp nation

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: With the reported cross-voting in the recent Presidential and Vice-Presidential elections, the opposition unity is in a disar-ray. Congress President Sonia Gandhi is likely to call an all opposition party meeting on August 11, where West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Baner-jee would also be present.

Sources said, Banerjee would reach the national cap-ital on the eve of the meet-ing. However, the time for the meeting has not been final-ized as yet. The TMC sources claimed that aiming to discuss the political strategy further, Gandhi has called the meet-ing and sought for Banerjee’s participation.

The TMC chief has always been vocal against the incum-bent Modi-BJP government and its alleged communal pol-itics. Even last year, she held a public meeting here at the Jantar Mantar. Thus, her pres-ence would hold political significance.

The recent political devel-opment in Bihar has also put the opposition unity in a dis-array. Bihar Chief Minister and once Grand Alliance part-ner Nitish Kumar ditched RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and turned to BJP and formed the

state government for the sixth time. Thus boosting up the unity among non-NDA parties and countering BJP’s alleged vote consolidating policy are also prime focus of the Con-gress President Sonia Gandhi now, ahead of 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Apart from TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, BSP chief Mayawati, SP senior leader and the former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Akhilesh Singh Yadav, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, and Odisha Chief Minister and BJD chief Naveen Patnaik have also been asked to come under

the same umbrella to fight against Modi-government.

However, NCP has report-edly extended its support to BJP in the Gujarat Rajya Sabha polls. On the other hand, even after supporting Gopal Krishna Gandhi, opposition’s Vice Pres-idential candidate in the recent poll, sources said some BJD MPs voted for NDA candidate M Venkaiah Naidu along with JD-U MPs. Meanwhile, RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav has confirmed his presence and he would also hold a mega rally in Patna on 28th of this month, where senior non NDA lead-ers would take part.

Sonia likely to call Opposition parties' meeting on August 11

Govt nod to set up 20 world class educational institutes

DHIRENDRA KUMAR

NEW DELHI: In a major deci-sion, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) has given its green signal to the framework for establish-ing 20 world class institutes in the country. According to the sources, the selection of 20 such institutions—10 public and 10 private—would be finalised by next April.

The sources further said that the government would provide financial support of Rs 1,000 crore to every selected public institution for a period of five years, while private institutes would have to develop them-selves as world class institutions on their own as the government would not extend any financial support to them.

According to sources, the selection of Institution of Emi-nence would be done through challenge method wherein their detailed proposals would be evaluated by an Empowered Expert Committee compris-ing of 3-5 persons of eminence, which would be constituted by

the University Grants Commis-sion (UGC) with the approval of Appointments Committee of Cabinet (ACC).

“The process of selection of Institution of Eminence would begin from this month with the formation of search and selection committee com-prising of Cabinet Secretary, Higher Education Secretary and UGC chairman. The panel would select 3-5 persons of emi-nence to finalise the selection of 20 institutions,” the sources

said, adding that the empow-ered committee would invite the different public and private institutions to participate in the process for the selection of Insti-tution of Eminence.

Notably, only those insti-tutions ranked in the top-50 of National Institute Ranking Framework (NIRF) would be eligible for the participation in the selection process.

“All the selected 20 institu-tions would get full autonomy and they wouldn’t have to take

any approvals from the HRD, UGC or any other regulator. They would be free frame their own policies,” the source said, adding, “The HRD Ministry is hopeful that 3-4 IITs, 2-3 IIMs, 1-2 IISER and 1-2 central uni-versities would make up in the final list of 10 public institu-tions to be developed as Insti-tution of Eminence.” According to a senior HRD official, the government has approved the enabling regulatory architecture for setting up of 20 Institutions

of Eminence to enable them to reach amongst top 500 of world institutions in 10 years and in top 100 eventually.

“The objective behind set-ting up of such Institution of Eminence is to allow Indian students to get the education of highest international stan-dards in the country itself. The 20 world class institutes would act as a nucleus catalysing improvement in the quality of other educational institutions,” the official said.

Empowered panel to finalise selection process of 10 govt & 10 private institutions for establishing Institution of Eminence by April next

District Health & Family Welfare Samity Paschim Medinipur

Memo No.DH&FWS-Mid(w)/NUHM/2017/3804 Dated: 04/08/17Recruitment Notice

(Female Only) Applications are invited for engagement of Staff Nurse for National Urban Health Mission (NUHM) under District & Family Health Welfare Samiti, Paschim Medinipore. Eligible candidates (only female) may apply in the prescribed format, available in the office Notice Board & Website www.wbhealth.gov.in Details are also available in the same website.Last date of submission of filled application : 24/08/2017: Sd/-

Member Secretary, DH&FWS &CMOHPaschim Medinipur

NOTICETHE 3RD REGIONAL LEVEL SELECTION TEST-2016 HELD ON 19.02.2017 FOR RECRUITMENT OF NON-TEACHING STAFF (GR.D) IN THE STATE GOVT.

AIDED/SPONSORED SECONDARY & HIGHER SECONDARY SCHOOLS (EXCEPT HILL REGION)-VERIFICATION OF DOCUMENTS FOLLOWED BY

PERSONALITY TEST IN RESPECT OF QUALIFIED CANDIDATESMemo. No.823 /6 879/CSSC/ESTT/2017 Dated: 04.08.2017It is hereby notified for general information that The West Bengal Central School Service Commission will conduct programme for verification of documents in respect of educational qualification & others followed by Personality Test of the candidates qualified in the aforementioned written examination. Candidates qualified for Personality Test are requested to appear in the programme personally with all relevant documents in original as per details notified in Commission’s official website i.e .www.westbengalssc.com. Candidates under reference are requested to download intimation letter from official website of Commission noted above feeding their 14digit roll no. and date of birth. Intimation letter will be made available from the afternoon of 7th August, 2017. No further communication shall be made. Candidates may also download their application form from the official website of the Commission. The programme will commence from 16th August, 2017 and will be concluded on 31st August, 2017. For details please visit Commission’s website:-www.westbengalssc.com. Sd/-

SecretaryWest Bengal Central School Service Commission

The West Bengal Central School Service CommissionACHARYA SADAN:

11 & 11/1, Block-EE, Salt Lake; Kolkata-700091

WB HIDCOe-Tender notice No.74 of 2017-2018

e- tender is invited for “Construction of interior work including sitting arrangements and furnishing for the office of West Bengal School administrative commission in Block-B of Finance Centre, New Town, Kolkata.” in the manner as described in the detailed e-tender notice available on WBHIDCO website- www.wbhidcoltd.com in e-tender portal Last date of Bid submission closing (on line)-21.08.2017 upto 2.00 P.M. Detailed may be seen in our website at www.wbhicicoltd.com. ICA/T 3189(3)2017 General Manager (Engg.)-IV

WB HIDCOe-Tender notice No.72 of 2017-2018

e- tender is invited for “Construction of Electrical Substation near Japanese forest in Eco-Park New Town Kolkata.” in the manner as described in the detailed e-tender notice available on WBHIDCO website-www.wbhidcoltd.com in e-tender portal Last date of Bid submission closing (on line)-07.08.2017 upto 2.00 P.M. Detailed may be seen in our website at www.wbhidcoltd.com. ICA/T 3188(2)2017 General Manager (Engg.)-IV

WB HIDCOe-Tender notice No.66(2nd Call) of 2017-2018

e- tender is invited for “Construction of boundary wall along Biswa Bangla Sarani of Plot No-IIE/2 within New Town, Kolkata.” in the manner as described in the detailed e-tender notice available on WBHIDCO website-www.wbhidcoltd.com in e-tender portal Last date of Bid submission closing (on line)-07.08.2017 upto 2.00 P.M. Detailed may be seen in our website at www.wbhidcoltd.com.

ICA/T 3187(3)2017 General Manager (Engg.)-IV

WB HIDCOE0I No.6 of 2017-2018 of GM(E)-IV, WB HIDCO An Expression of Interest is invited from the Experienced Agencies having experienced in similar nature of works for “Construction of Single story earthen hutment with thatched roof the replica of Bengali Village ‘Tomay Bhalobasi’ at New Town, Kolkata.” Last date of receiving application-16.08.2017 upto 2.00 P.M.

ICA/T 3198(3)2017 General Manager (Engg.)-IVWB HIDCO

WB HIDCOe-N.IT. No. 12 of G.M.(E) - I of 2017-2018

Tender is invited for above NIT having experience in similar nature of works from any Govt. Organization. Last date of submitting application 11.08.2017 up to 3.00 pm. Detailed may be seen in the websites at wbtenders.gov.in/nicgep/app & www.wbhidcoltd.com.

ICA/T 3190(3)2017 General Manager (Engg.)-I

ICA/T 3185(3)2017

ICA/T 3186(3)2017

August 15 to be celebrated as

Sankalp Parva, says Govt

NEW DELHI: The Centre has decided to observe this Inde-pendence Day as 'Sankalp Parva' and asked the people to dedicate themselves to social causes and share their ideas to make a new India. The 70th Independence Day on August 15 to be celebrated as the 'Sank-alp Parva', the Ministry of Per-sonnel said in an order.

Terming 'Quit India Move-ment' as an important mile-stone, the government has asked people to take a pledge to create a new India that is strong, prosperous and inclusive.

The Quit India Movement or 'August Kranti' began on August 9, 1942. "Under the leadership of Mahatma Gan-dhi, people across India, in every village, city, transcend-ing all barriers came together with a common mission to uproot imperialism," the order said. As the nation would be observing 75th anniversary of the Quit India Movement this year, five years from now i.e. in August 2022, we will com-plete 75 years as an indepen-dent nation, it said.

"This five-year period, from 2017-2022, gives us an unique opportunity of 'Sankalp' to 'Siddhi' towards a new India. Hence, August 15, 2017 be cele-brated as the 'Sankalp Parva' or the Day of Resolve, and in 2022 our nation will transform that resolve into 'Siddhi' or attain-ment," it said. MPOST

Goa's fiscal position declined in FY ending 2016: CAG report

OUR CORRESPONDENT

PANAJI: The fiscal position of Goa had declined in terms of key parameters in the finan-cial year ending March 31, 2016 indicating overall imbalance in the finances of the state govern-ment, the CAG report has said.

The Comptroller and Audi-tor General (CAG) report was tabled on the floor of the Goa assembly on Monday.

It has recommended fis-cal correction to the state's finances.

"The fiscal position of the state had declined in terms of key parameters as compared to the previous year. The param-eters like revenue, fiscal and primary deficits indicate the extent of overall fiscal imbal-ance in the finances of the state government during the spec-ified period," mentions the CAG report which has audited state's finances ending March 31, 2016.

The audited report has said that during 2015-16, revenue surplus was Rs 132 crore less than the previous year's surplus of Rs 279 crore due to reduced growth of receipts as compared to the expenditure.

"Fiscal deficit during 2015-16 increased to Rs 1,483 crore

from Rs 948 crore in 2014-15. Due to increase in the fiscal def-icit by 56.43 per cent and inter-est payment by 6.64 per cent, the primary deficit increased to Rs 408 crore in 2015-16 from a primary surplus of Rs 60 crore in 2014-15," the CAG has noted in its report.

In the financial year 2015-16, the state was governed by Laxmikant Parsekar-led gov-ernment with chief minister himself holding the finance portfolio.

The CAG has pointed out that the state managed to keep fiscal deficit relative to GSDP to 2.44 per cent which was within the limit of three per cent fixed by the Goa Fiscal Responsibil-ity and Budget Management Act (first amendment) Act, 2014.

The audited report has said that during 2015-16, revenue surplus was Rs 132 cr less than the previous year's surplus of Rs 279 cr

VP-elect Venkaiah Naidu

offers prayers at Tirumala shrine

TIRUPATI: Vice President-elect M Venkaiah Naidu on Monday offered prayers at the famous hill shrine of Lord Venkateswara in Tirumala near here. Naidu arrived here with his family members last night and stayed at a heavily guarded Tirumala Tirupati Devast-hanams (TTD) guest house on the hills.

On his arrival at the shrine, he was accorded a warm wel-come and conducted to the the sanctum sanctorum of the shrine by TTD Executive Offi-cer AK Singhal and other top officials. He was in the shrine for about 20 minutes, temple sources said.

After worshipping at the Sri Ranganayaka Mandapam, the vice president-elect was honoured with the sacred silk cloth and holy prasadams by the management of the shrine.

Later, speaking to report-ers, Naidu said, "I have become the vice president because of the love of the people of India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and importantly the blessings of Lord Venkateswara, my family God to whom I have been offering worship since I was 13." MPOST

Sena rubbishes allegations against its minister Desai

OUR CORRESPONDENT

MUMBAI: The Shiv Sena on Monday came out in support of its leader and Maharashtra Industries Minister Subhash Desai, against whom the oppo-sition NCP has levelled allega-tions of flouting norms in the acquisition of 400 acres of land in Nashik by a state agency.

Leader of the Opposition in the state Legislative Coun-cil, Dhananjay Munde, had on Friday alleged that 400 acres land acquired by the MIDC in Nashik was returned to the original owners, flouting the norms.

He demanded an inquiry into the matter.

The Sena, in an editorial in the party mouthpiece 'Saa-

mana', on Monday accused the opposition of levelling "baseless allegations" and said the land was given back to the farmers in accordance to their wishes.

"The opposition has tried to level baseless allegations against Subhash Desai. The allegations could not stand because there was not an iota of truth in them. The oppo-sition claimed that there was a scam in the acquisition of MIDC land...but in reality it (the land) was given back to the farmers in accordance to their wishes," it said.

"The opposition on the one hand is opposing the land acquisition process for the Samruddhi (Mumbai-Nagpur) Expressway claiming justice is not served to farmers and on

the other hand is finding fault even when land was given back to farmers as per their wishes," the Sena said.

Moving an adjournment motion in the Legislative cou-nicl on Friday, Munde said a series of agreements were made between the state government and some companies during the 'Magnetic Maharashtra' event in 2016 but the investors were not getting the required land to start operations.

"Industries minister had ordered exclusion of 60 per cent of the notified land of MIDC," he said.

Munde further alleged that Desai had denotified a large parcel of land earmarked in Nashik district to benefit a builder.

SRINAGAR: A major infil-tration bid has been prevented in Jammu and Kashmir's Machil Sector on Monday . Five infiltrators were killed by security forces along the Line of Control when they were trying to cross over into the Machil. "A major infiltra-tion bid was foiled on Monday in the Machil sector by alert

troops," a defence spokesman said in Srinagar. "Five weapons have been recovered from the terrorists. The operation is still going on in the area," Defence Ministry spokesman Colonel Rajesh Kalia said. Around 40 terrorists trying to cross the Line of Control have been killed by security forces this year. MPOST

5 terrorists killed in Jammu & Kashmir's Machil Sector

mp editorial

Kerala Chief Minis-ter Pinarayi Vijayan remains the tough guy of the State's

politics unlike his predeces-sors, who rarely lost their cool even in difficult situations. His agony and apathy seem to reflect on to the forefront more frequently than expected, much to the ire of those who stand against him.

His "get out" direction to the photo-journalists last Monday from the room where he was to meet BJP and Sangh leaders on Kannur violence only symbolises the style of the CPI-M leader. Even though his frustration could be attached to the current con-dition in Kerala, where RSS-CPI(M) face offs have yet again emerged as disruptive forces in civil society, his attitude, many would say has more to do with his demeanour than with the ground conditions of the State.

In the last 14 months as Chief Minister and close to a decade as the supremo of the CPI-M in Kerala, 73-year-old Vijayan has spared no one —be it a Christian bishop, one of the State's most decorated editors, bureaucrats, lead-ing opposition politicians, his senior party colleague VS Achuthanandan and last, but not the least, the media. His sheer ire and apathy have been extended to all who have stood in his path, and often rightfully so; yet often, not always.

Many expected that on becoming Chief Minister, replacing the ever-smiling Oommen Chandy, Vijayan would mellow down to a cer-tain degree. That, however, did not happen, and given what one has seen in the past 14-months, it is unlikely that there is going to be a change anytime soon. One reason why Vijayan's tactics hit the head-lines is that he has always kept the media at an arm's length, unlike his legendary party col-league and Kerala's longest-serving Chief Minister, the late E.K. Nayanar.

What Nayanar had, and Vijayan does not have, is the rustic humour that he employed to get away from

tricky situations — situations that were often created by Nay-anar's own loose tongue —and he used it very effectively whenever he hit a rough patch. Even though Nayanar had sev-eral brushes with the media, he, for some reason, was able to get away with them, but with Vijayan, this has not been the case. One of the things that Vijayan would quite often say during his later period as the state Secretary of the party was that a "media syndicate" was working in the state capital and he was their target — even as it delivered bouquets to his arch rival and then Chief Minister Achuthanandan.

Knowing very well that Vijayan is someone who can-

not be diplomatic or change the way he conducts himself, the national leadership astutely asked the most popular pol-itician in the state then— Achuthanandan— to lead the election campaign last year.

And after the veteran got the job done, when Chandy and the Congress-led United Democratic Front— which was eyeing a successive term—received a drubbing at the hustings, Vijayan took cen-tre stage in a flash, relegating Achuthanandan with just a title— Kerala's Castro.

His tough stance towards the media was evident right from day one and, as a first step, he ensured that he would speak to journalists only when

he wanted and not the other way round. His antipathy (not even apathy) towards the media became clearer when he cancelled the customary weekly post-cabinet meet-ing briefing that had been the practice for several decades and called for a briefing at a time and periodicity decided only by him.

On Monday, Vijayan yet again exhibited his tough stance towards the media when he angrily asked jour-nalists to "get out" from a hall when they came to take the opening visuals of a peace meeting of the CPI-M leader-ship with BJP/RSS leaders. He not only turned his ire against the media but also against his own party Secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, who tried to calm him down.

Those who know Vijayan, however, are not surprised as this is the way he has always behaved, and it remains to be seen how far and how long he will be able to carry on with this tough posture. Though given the volatility in Kerala at this point in time, being tough would be the right way ahead; yet, sparing journal-ists would be a consideration that he could make. After all, in times of need, it is the media who will take his story to the world. IANS

(Sanu George is a Kerala-based journalist. The views

expressed are personal.)

8MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 8 August, 2017

By announcing a spe-cial grant of Rs. 400 crore to improve the Brahmaputra’s water-

holding capacity that will, in turn, help flood control in Assam, the prime minister has indirectly echoed West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Baner-jee’s concern that the current spate of floods in the coun-try is largely ‘man-made’ and not enough is being done to maintain the depth of rivers. Mamata was concerned mainly about West Bengal, where 14 of its agriculturally-rich dis-tricts were flood-ravaged this time around, killing at least 50 people and rendering lakhs homeless.

A good part of the lat-est flood havoc in Bengal was caused by massive water discharge by Damodar Val-ley Corporation, the earliest public sector undertaking set up soon after India’s indepen-dence. West Bengal witnessed the worst ever floods in 1943 from the Damodar. The river spans over an area of 25,235 sq. km covering Jharkhand and West Bengal. The catastrophe caused by the 1943 floods, led to serious public indignation against the British govern-ment, then. Mamata Banerjee

pointed out that DVC’s dis-charge was primarily respon-sible for regular flash floods. DVC has failed to control the growing silt deposits in the riverbed by proper dredging and creating strong embank-ments to prevent erosion of its banks. DVC has a network of four multi-purpose dams — Tilaiya and Maithon on the Barakar River, Panchet on the Damodar and Konar on the Konar River— and Durgapur barrage on the Damodar. Over the years, a sheer neglect by DVC led to the river’s inability to hold the water and prevent floods, especially in south- Bengal districts. The DVC dams were built to store 1,292 mcm of water as ‘flood reserve capacity.’ This can moderate a peak flood of 18,395 cumecs to a safe carrying capacity of 7,076 cumecs. The Durgapur barrage is supposed to supply irrigation water to the Burd-wan, Bankura and Hooghly districts.

While the prime minister’s intention to provide the spe-cial fund to improve the water holding capacity of the Brah-maputra in Assam is highly laudable, the investment may go completely to waste if the river is not managed properly.

In fact, the union government may be required to invest a larger amount of funds to con-trol the mighty Brahmaputra River and its banks during the monsoon. Incidentally, China is building a massive dam on the Brahmaputra River close to its source in Tibet. A large water release from the upper Brahmaputra dam could cause a disaster in Assam and also in parts of Bangladesh. There-fore, a proper Brahmapu-tra river management on the Indian side becomes of cru-cial importance. The prime minister’s special provision of Rs. 400 crore for this pur-pose as part of a Rs. 2,700 crore flood relief package announced last week for the north-east-ern region thus assumes great significance. Narendra Modi himself went to inspect the flood-ravaged region and held separate review meet-ings with chief ministers of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland. The floods have claimed nearly 100 lives, mostly in Assam, and displaced over two lakh peo-ple. In Arunachal Pradesh, 14 were reportedly killed in land-slides, while 20 lost their life in Nagaland floods. Modi also announced the setting up of

a committee to study ways to synergise efforts towards find-ing a long-term solution to the problem of recurrent floods in the region. Initially, Rs 100 crore was earmarked for the purpose that will include stud-ies on the Brahmaputra and its tributaries besides all other major rivers of the region.

In West Bengal, the ‘man-made’ flood damaged around 59,398 hectares of paddy seed-bed out of the 3, 17,675 hect-ares of cultivated land in the three districts. Overall, the latest flood damaged some 1, 79,000 hectares of paddy seed-beds out of the total of nearly eleven lakh hectares. The state agriculture department will soon start distributing paddy seeds to farmers. Inci-dentally, the prime minister’s own state of Gujarat is prob-ably the worst affected by this year’s heavy rains and floods, especially in Banaskantha and Patan districts. Gujarat floods have brought about the largest death toll, over 220. Ironically, the weather department said that the monsoon was normal in most states in the country except for parts of south India. The question is: If the rainfall is normal, what is causing the abnormal floods? To what

extent are these floods truly man-made? Few will disagree that flood in urban areas are mostly caused by poor drain-age and drain management systems, haphazard and illegal constructions and conversion of water bodies and wetlands into residential blocks. The rural areas are often victims of the neglect of nearby riv-ers, rivulets and canals. Inter-river linkage, the building of embankments for large rivers, banning riverbed quarrying and riverbank sand mining would have certainly lowered the prospects of floods in most parts of the country.

In this context, a report by the Comptroller and Audi-tor General shows how care-less the concerned authorities have been in river and rain water management. The latest CAG report on “schemes for flood control and flood fore-casting” tabled in Parliament pointed out that “there were huge delays in completion of river management activities” leading to problems of flood-ing in Assam, north Bihar, eastern Uttar Pradesh among others. It said that “there were discrepancies in the execution of works.” CAG sampled 206 flood management projects, 38 flood forecasting stations, 49 river management activi-ties and works related to bor-der area projects and 68 large dams in 17 selected states and union territories during 2007-08 to 2015-16. The report also stressed official apathy towards flood control measures. It noted recommendations of the Rashtriya Barh Ayog (National Flood Commission) regarding “identification of areas affected by flood remains unfulfilled.” One only hopes that the prime minister’s fund provision for Brahmaputra flood control does not get washed away to become a victim of such prac-tices as one witnessed in the management of 69-year-old DVC, originally designed on the lines of the USA’s famous Tennessee Valley Authority. (IPA SERVICE)

(The views expressed are strictly personal.)

Havoc by man-made floodsEDITORIAL

Despite elaborate measures to recover flood hit zones, little is being done to prevent this man-made disaster from striking each year

While the prime minister’s intention to provide the special fund to improve the water holding capacity of the Brahmaputra in Assam is highly laudable, the investment may go completely to waste if the river is not managed properly. In fact, the union government may be required to invest larger amount of funds to control the mighty Brahmaputra River

His tough stance towards the media was evident right from day one and, as a first step he ensured that he would speak to journalists only when he wanted and not the other way round

The top posts have all finally been sealed, now com-fortably belonging to the Lotus party who have been ruling at the Centre, and are also expected to make a come-back in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. After

Ram Nath Kovind, whose election saw him take his seat as the revered Head of the country in July, M Venkaiah Naidu, comes next, securing his deal as the Vice-President, after the election that took place this Saturday August 5. Yet again securing a comfortable victory, Naidu won the elections by securing 67 per cent of the votes polled. Out of a total of 771, he received 516 nods towards his candidature. Naidu has been traversing the volatile land of political action from his glorious days of youth, beginning in the Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh. Coming from a family of farmers, he expressed deep grati-tude to our Nation and to the Prime Minister for providing the opportunity to a farmer’s son, to occupy one of the high-est offices in the country. He said in great exhilaration, “I am very humbled. I am also thankful to the Prime Minister and all party leaders for their support. I will seek to utilise the vice-presidential institution to strengthen the hands of the presi-dent and secondly uphold the dignity of the Upper House.” As the ex-officio Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha, a great deal of calm, composure and diligence is expected of Naidu. He has long been applauded for his oratory skills, grasping audiences with fiery speeches. He is also one of the few leaders from the South, who mastered the Hindi language and continues to deliver in this tongue, most commonly spoken across North-ern India. The BJP who just overtook the Congress to form the single largest party in the Rajya Sabha this Friday, will now have a smoother run in the Upper house which has witnessed severe disruptions in the recent past, where several bills have been stalled by protests from members of opposition parties. Yet, opposition parties continue to maintain their majority, which is unlikely to be toppled in this Modi regime. Even though Naidu secured a comfortable victory, he was up against a formidable opponent in Gopal Krishna Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi. As Governor of West Bengal, Gandhi had garnered great respect. Both competitors were equally worthy of holding the Chair. Gandhi is known for his quiet intelligence, and powerful words; whereas Naidu is known for his upright diligence, and use of unmistakable acronyms and puns. Speaking of acronyms, in his speech as Vice Presi-dent-elect, Naidu came up with a promising new acronym, to define the India that he will endeavour to secure. For him, this India would be a nation with: Integrated National Develop-ment Impacting All Indians, equally well. This is the mission for India, he proudly said. A long time politician, Naidu has been a champion for the rights of farmers, a most important segment who continue to form the pivot of India’s policies; as even today, our economy continues to be largely agrarian. Given the rampancy of farmers’ distress, manifesting in sui-cides, and demands of loan waivers, it is time to bring about an effective farming policy that would alleviate the position of India’s most priced populace. The entire population, includ-ing members of the opposition have strong hopes from Naidu, one who has been respected across political circles. Known for hosting great luncheons, and being a jolly conversational-ist; Naidu is a man who has his head in the right place. While all this rings well for the BJP, as well as for the citizens of our great country, the only draw-back would possibly be this: The absence of a strong opposition. An opposition not only pos-its timely criticism but also shapes and strengthens the one in power. A strong opposition not only brings in rightful bellig-erence but also provides the necessary critique that is essential to the growth of any super-power. India is at a crucial juncture in its economic tenure. With China and Japan showing dips in their growth, and India presenting a rapidly growing eco-nomic nexus, a time like this optimizes the need for effective governance, and demands even more for a critical opposition. With all seats secured in favour of the BJP, the scope for this little piece of oppositional view that would further strengthen our Nation, rather than simply halt or delay actions could be missing. An opposition not only criticizes but it has a more productive role which is to critique- weigh the good and bad, polish the policy, and move ahead with greater finesse. The Congress which is dwindling is hardly an opposition. And the recent days in the Rajya Sabha has shown that parties are more willing to raise their voice and cause disruption than move ahead with a productive plan. However, having said this, Naidu still shows marks of remarkable promise, having said himself that, “There is no my party or your party. Now I am a non-party man.” There are sincere hopes that being a non-party man will provide that essential productive critique that will rise above the biases of party ranks. For now though, the lotus blooms in great vigour.

For many, the IAAF Championship in London this weekend presented an unanticipated heartbreak. The Lightning Bolt, as he is lovingly called by his fans across the globe, revolutionised the field of Ath-

letics like nobody before him had. Running his last 100m race, many had expected Bolt to bag the gold medal like he always does, making it seem like a simple stroll down the park. Yet, this time, it was not his day. At 30, standing at a height of 6ft 5inches, Usain Bolt, has given the unthink-able to athletics. Nobody before him had ruled this sport with the invincibility and sheer glamour that he has. Since he made his breakthrough at the Beijing Olympics, clock-ing a record time of 9.69 seconds, there has been no turn-ing back. One championship after another, one Olympic after another, the one man who was assured of the gold was this Jamaican giant—who ran with elan and celebrated his victory with his signature gratitude to the Gods. This time however he had to settle for a bronze being tipped over by Justin Gatlin, a legend of the sport in his own right, whose success had been clouded largely by the Bolt phenomenon; and Christian Coleman, a 21-year old American who is showing marks of promising progress, looking to set forth the beginning of a new legacy. Bolt has created and broken, only to recreate world records for himself. The fastest man in the world, as he is proudly referred to, broke his own record of 9.69 seconds, by setting a 9.58 seconds record at the World Championships in Berlin in 2009. He came back in London in 2012, to clock a new Olympic record, break-ing his previous one at Beijing by clocking in a time of 9.63 seconds. Winning countless medals, and setting numerous records, Bolt changed the face of athletics in today’s time. Garnering love and unanimous support from sports lovers all across, his farewell left many in dismay. His defeat was unprecedented for many who equated his gift as almost godly. There was stunning, arguably a deafening silence in the Olympic Stadium at London, where a crowd of over 55,000 could not believe what they had just witnessed. The God had finally fallen. This only reminds us all, that he too is human. A fantastic human whose dedication and success in the sport left hundreds spell-bound, yet he was human, bound to fall at some point in time. In his last Olympics too in Rio, Bolt had managed his three gold medals across his three major events. This was his last solo event, “I’ve proved to the world I’m one of the greatest athletes. This doesn’t change anything,” he rightfully said. A legend, he will be fondly remembered for his candour and legendary signa-ture victory sign pointing to the skies, bidding farewell to Bolt will not be easy. Yet, such is the world of sport, a legend gone, only signifies a new legend to be born.

All seats sealed

Sad farewell

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millenniumpost.inOPPOSITION NEEDS TO REWORK STRATEGYdear

EDITOR

Cross-voting in both the President and Vice-President polls prove that all is not well within the Opposition. The attempt to forge an anti-BJP front seems to be coming un-done. This is bad news for the Opposition ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. If this current trend continues the BJP will rampage on its winning ways. Politics like cricket is a game of glorious uncertainties. The Indian voter, too, is notoriously fickle. At any rate, the Opposition will need to come up with a cohesive plan to harbour any hopes of stopping the Modi juggernaut.

NANTOO BANERJEE

Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be

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KHALIL GIBRAN

Pinarayi Vijayan and his problem with the media have been well accounted since the time he took office as the Chief Minister of Kerala writes Sanu George

VIJAYAN’S ANTIPATHYSHRUTI MUKHERJEE Via email

The tough Vijayan has displayed little patience for anyone, including the media

The Brahmaputra River causing periodical floods requires planned preventive intervention

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Women-led development is our aim. India's Nari Shakti has shown that given the right opportunity, they can shine in every field.

NARENDRA MODIVerified @narendramodi

The failing @nytimes, which has made every wrong prediction about me including my big election win (apologized), is totally inept!

DONALD J. TRUMPVerified @realDonaldTrump

U.S. slaps new sanctions on Russia, then with support of Russia (and China, a friend to none) gets UN to slap new sanctions on North Korea.

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Cultural nationalism is illiberal it promotes intolerance and an arrogant patriotism says Hamid Ansari in his final address as Vice President

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9mp in focusMILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 8 August, 2017

In a strong and punitive judgement, the Supreme Court (SC) has come down heavily on the

mining companies that have been illegally extracting iron and manganese ore in Odi-sha. Due to various illegalities, these mine leases have been earlier suspended by the apex court. A two-judge bench of Justice Madan B Lokur and Jus-tice Deepak Gupta has directed the state government to recover 100 per cent compensation from the mining companies. The compensation will be pay-able “from 2000-2001 onwards at 100 per cent of the price of the mineral”, and should be deposited on or before Decem-ber 31, 2017, directed the SC. The cases by Jindal Steel and Power Ltd., Rungta Mines Ltd., Sarda Mines Pvt. Ltd. and Essel Ltd. for the resumption of min-ing will be heard separately by the apex court.

The compensation on the companies has been levied as per provisions of the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957 (as amended in 2015). Section 21(5) of the Act, empowers the state government to recover the price of the illegally-mined ore from each defaulting lessee. In addition, the government can also recover any rent, roy-alty or tax, for the period dur-ing which such illegal mining activity was being carried out outside the mining lease area, which has also been noted by the Supreme Court.

The issue of illegal iron and manganese ore mining in Odi-sha before the SC particularly involves three districts, Ken-dujhar, Sundargarh and May-urbhanj. The first two are also among the top two iron ore mining districts of India. The apex court noted that while such illegal mining fetched “megabucks” to the viola-

tors, it has, on the other hand, “destroyed the environment and forests and perhaps caused untold misery to the tribals of the area.”

The SC had taken up the matter of illegal mining in Odi-sha in early 2012, following a petition, filed by the non-profit, Common Cause. The petitioner had sought judicial interven-tion to terminate all mining leases that are involved in ille-gal mining activities in Odisha, highlighting the observations of the report of the Justice M B Shah Commission. The Shah Commission was set up by the central government in Novem-ber 2010, to look into the illegal mining of iron ore and man-ganese in the country and had pointed to large-scale illegal mining especially in Odisha.In 2014, the court had asked its Central Empowered Com-mittee (CEC) to investigate the matter and identify the lessees who are operating the leases in violation of the law. The Odi-sha government and the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF & CC) were asked to

cooperate with the investiga-tion. The CEC report of April 2014 had observed that at that time, out of the 187 mine leases granted in the three concerned districts in Odisha, a total of 102 leases were in violation of various statutory clearances and permits. These included violations of required environ-mental clearance (EC), forest clearance (FC), consents from state pollution control boards (SPCBs), operating beyond permissible limits etc.

Observing such violations, by its interim order of May 2014, the SC had restrained operations in the 102 mining leases. Restraints were also put on an additional 29 leases, whose lease applications were rejected or had lapsed. Among the remaining 56 operational mines, the SC had put a further suspension order on 26 mines, saying they have not received the required renewals under the mining law. However, these 26 leases were later allowed to operate in 2016, after the amendment to the MMDR Act in 2015. After the amend-ment, the renewal clause for

mine leases was removed and a flat leasing period of 50-years was given (except coal, lignite and atomic minerals).

However, for all suspended leases, the apex court had left it open to apply for modification of the May interim order on obtaining necessary clearances. In due course, the mining com-panies had filed a number of applications before the apex court, seeking revocation of the suspension order, asserting that they had obtained all necessary approvals and thus were eli-gible to recommence mining operations.

The Odisha Government in all likelihood will now recover big bucks from the mining companies. The SC has also clearly noted this saying that “we also expect that as a result of the orders that we are pass-ing today, very large amounts will again be made available to the state of Odisha.” On the basis of irregularities observed, the CEC had earlier estimated a recovery amount over Rs 61,000 crore, from various ille-gal leases. The bucks in ques-tion could get much bigger.

The SC has directed that the compensation amount recov-ered should be used for “benefit of tribals in the affected dis-tricts”. These districts such as Kendujhar and Sundergarh are also currently receiving huge amounts of money by the way of district mineral foundations (DMFs) for benefitting people in mining affected areas. Just as an estimate, Kendujhar cur-rently has a corpus or nearly Rs. 1,000 crore in DMFs.

The money recovered from compensation will go towards a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV). This SPV was earlier created by the Government of Odi-sha in 2014, as a pursuant to another order of the apex court. At that time, the SC had directed “ad hoc CAMPA to transfer to the SPV 50 per cent of the additional amount of the Net Present Value (NPV) for undertaking tribal welfare development works.” Now, combining this with the recov-ered compensation amount, this SPV will have a huge cor-pus for tribal development. Being wary of this, the SC in its present order has directed that the Chief Secretary of Odi-sha may “file an affidavit stating the work done as well as pro-viding the audited accounts.”

Finally, the Supreme Court has directed the Centre to revise the National Mineral Policy by December 2017, as it is outdated to deal with the pres-ent day challenges. Speaking of the ineffectiveness of it, the bench said that the policy “seems to be only on paper and is not being enforced per-haps due to the involvement of very powerful vested inter-ests or a failure of nerve.” The court directed that the new policy should be “fresh and more effective, meaningful and implementable.” DOWN TO EARTH

(The views expressed are strictly personal.)

The shameful somersault by Nitish Kumar of JD(U) and the speed with which the BJP extended its support to Nitish Kumar after his resignation drama displays the meticulous planning of this entire charade. That this is some kind of posturing against “corruption” is almost laughable

The apex court noted that while such illegal mining fetched “megabucks” to the violators, it has, on the other hand, “destroyed the environment and forests and perhaps caused untold misery to the tribals of the area”

Testing grounds of federalismThe recent upheaval in the State of Bihar has uncovered critical insight into the uses

and abuses of a federal structure

Countering illegal mining

The Bihar state of the Indian Union has just witnessed the most serious post-elec-tion reversal of its people’s

electoral will. In its last assembly elections, the citizens of Bihar had delivered a direct reversal of the elec-toral mandate of Lok Sabha 2014 that had enabled the BJP to perform a near sweep of Bihar’s Lok Sabha seats. It is quite likely that this was no reversal at all. It meant that the 2014 Lok Sabha results were a fluke in their own way, the results of a for-ward caste centric formation win-ning when the backward groups stood greatly divided. In fact, in 2014, the RJD and JD(U) fighting sepa-rately, won many more votes than the BJP even at the height of the “Modi wave”; only if the RJD and JD(U) votes were tallied together.

This assembly was elected through a direct fight between the lower caste centric anti-communal forces of the RJD-JD(U) led combine versus the upper-caste centric com-munally fuming forces led by the BJP. The shameful somersault by Nitish Kumar of JD(U) and the speed with which the BJP extended its support to Nitish Kumar after his resignation drama displays the meticulous plan-ning of this entire charade. That this is some kind of posturing against “corruption” is almost laughable. Most ministers of the JD(U)-BJP government that Nitish Kumar has been able to cobble together have pending cases against them. There will be no “inner voice” now. That the BJP engineered a reversal of such a massive mandate against them should send alarm bells throughout the system and to other nations who may have harboured certain conve-nient illusions about the nature of democracy in the Indian Union.

During the assembly election campaign in Bihar, Union Prime Minister Narendra Modi had prom-ised a huge “Bihar package”. One would assume that this is some sort of a real decision and not a planned blackmail on the citizens of Bihar through which their votes are sought after in lieu of “Central” cash. And when people didn’t vote the way BJP had desired them to, this “Cen-tral” cash vanished. Not a single upper-caste Hindi speaking arro-gant loud mouth ever talked about those thousands of crores any longer.

And even such pronouncements of money for Hindi states are a shame. Whose money is this anyway? It is the money collected from non-Hindi states as revenue—a large portion of it undoubtedly is. And why must such packages even exist? Is the role of the Union government to make non-Hindi states pay money for the privilege of being part of the Union. What privilege are we talking about anyway? To subsidise other people when people of your own state are still poor, and your language and identity is being marginalised on an everyday basis by Delhi forces, which too are directly paid for by you! The

carrot like dangling of the Bihar spe-cial package was unwarranted, to say the least. I am glad that Naren-dra Modi didn’t keep his promise, for that is mostly the money which Bihar never produced. Such “special packages” are infrequent things. The transfer of money, assets, resources, and jobs from non-Hindi states to Hindi states and the marginalisation of non-Hindi states by Hindi people from Hindi states – this is a daily crime that does not show any imme-diate signs of halting. But anyway, we were talking about Bihar.

BJP showed in Bihar and then in Gujarat and then in Karnataka, how

with shred planning they can realign the powers of the governor and that of central police/military/investiga-tion/intelligence agencies to directly destroy politics in opposition parties and even in opposition ruled states. That is an emergency situation and the world must take notice because we are talking about a Union govern-ment that has centralised so much power that structurally, this kind of criminal belligerence underwritten by ideologies of hate and loot, need to be brought to notice of human-ity because this organisation rules over nearly a sixth of humanity. It is everybody’s problem. If White peo-

ple’s micro problems deserve “global” attention, this one does too. Nitish Kumar resigned from the Chief Min-ister’s post. What should the gover-nor have done? Called the largest party; that is the RJD. Or call the largest pre-poll opposition, which was RJD-JD(U)-Congress, which does still exist as RJD-Congress. The governor used his discretion to carry out BJP’s master plan. Nitish Kumar was called again; this time with support from the BJP. This well-orchestrated drama was a shame and the Governor of Bihar is a complete party to it. This is a very dangerous moment. Post-1977, after the rise of

State based pro-federalism forces, in the non-AFSPA states of the Indian Union, the fully dictatorial discre-tionary powers of an unelected Delhi agent like the Governor had been reduced. Now that discretionary powers beast is in a rebound mode. BJP is reconquering territory that Congress had lost for Delhi – its dic-tatorial powers over the actual repre-sentatives of any State.

In Gujarat, the BJP has been trying to simply eat up the elected opposition legislators to the Guja-rat state assembly by various threats and enticements, or as has been com-monly seen, both. The Congress needed to physically fly them out and that shows the nature of dem-ocratic political space that exists in Gujarat. Clearly, its nature is quite despicable. And it is a gang from here that at present rules over the rest via their capture of the Union govern-ment’s key posts. The Congress kept the Gujarat Congress MLAs in Kar-nataka at the resort of a Karnataka Congress leader. And now the Union government has launched investiga-tions related to financial crime on the Karnataka Congress leader’s busi-nesses and property. Whether he is Mr Clean or not is immaterial. One has to see how agencies are being used to completely destroy the oppo-sition. This is the Indian state coming into its real own self with a Hindi-Hindu core. They know they have ascended the throne and the system allows them to rule indefinitely even as they progressively tighten the grip on all hues of the opposition, espe-cially the non-Hindi and the non-Hindu. But there are differences.

In Tamil Nadu or West Bengal, BJP couldn’t have done what they did in Bihar or Karnataka. People would take to the streets against this usurper controlled from outside. It is not as if the BJP doesn’t try – they have the present ruling party the AIADMK on its knees and eating from its hand in Tamil Nadu. In West Bengal, it has unleashed all the powers that Delhi could manage to destroy the soci-ety of West Bengal and its political representation. They have failed. The CBI or Enforcement Directorate couldn’t deliver. West Bengal is not a walk over. It shall fight back—with unquestioned vigour.

(The views expressed are strictly personal.)

Supreme Court fines illegal miners in Odisha, directs funds to be used for tribal benefit in mining districts

The Nitish Kumar-Narendra Modi patch-up has left several questioning the nature of democratic political processes in contemporary Indian society

A THOUSAND MIRRORS

GARGA CHATTERJEE

SRESTHA BANERJEE

Illegal mining in Odisha has come under the Supreme Court scanner

mp world10MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi |Tuesday, 8 August, 2017

N Korea vows ‘thousands-fold’ revenge on US over sanctions

TOKYO: North Korea has vowed to exact “thousands-fold” revenge against the US after the UN imposed new sanctions in response to the regime’s recent tests of inter-continental ballistic missiles.

In a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency, the regime said the sanctions were a “violent violation of our sovereignty” and part of a “hei-nous plot to isolate and stifle” the country.

On Saturday the UN secu-rity council unanimously backed new sanctions that could slash the regime’s $3bn in annual export revenue by a third. The measures target key export revenue earners such as coal, iron, lead and seafood — but not oil.

Pyongyang threatened to take “righteous action”, describ-ing the sanctions as a “crime” for which the US would pay “thousands of times”.

The UN measures also for-bid China, Russia and other countries from hiring any more North Korean labourers, whose remittances help fund the regime, as well as prohibit joint ventures with the coun-try and any new investment in existing business partnerships.

The US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, described the measures as “the single largest economic sanctions package ever levelled” against

North Korea.In a telephone call on

Monday Donald Trump and his South Korean counter-part, Moon Jae-in, agreed that Pyongyang’s nuclear and mis-sile programmes “pose a grave and growing direct threat” and vowed to apply “maximum pressure” on the regime.

The North Korean state-ment did not indicate what action it was considering in response to the UN move, but said additional sanctions would not force it into nego-tiations over its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. “We will not put our self-defensive nuclear deterrent on

the negotiating table … and will never take a single step back from strengthening our nuclear might,” it said. Pres-sure on China—North Korea’s main ally and by far its big-gest trading partner—to sign up to, and then enforce, more robust sanctions has mounted since the regime conducted two ICBM tests last month.

While many experts believe that Pyongyang is still some way off being able to mount a miniaturised nuclear war-head on a long-range missile, the regime now has missiles that, theoretically, are capable of striking the US mainland.

The KCNA alluded to

North Korea’s new capabil-ity on Monday, saying: “There is no bigger mistake than the United States believing that its land is safe across the ocean.”

The White House said in a statement that Trump and Moon had agreed that advances in North Korean missile technology, achieved despite eight rounds of mul-tilateral sanctions in the past 11 years, posed “a grave and growing direct threat to the United States, South Korea, and Japan, as well as to most coun-tries around the world”. In an hour-long phone call on Mon-day, the leaders said they would continue to apply pressure to

the North. Joint US-South Korean military exercises this month are expected to pro-voke an angry response from the regime.

Moon, who supports cau-tious engagement with North Korea, told Trump that the door should remain open to dialogue, provided Pyongyang agreed to abandon its nuclear programme, according to pres-idential office spokesman Park Su-hyun.

In a Twitter post, Trump said he was “very happy and impressed with 15-0 United Nations vote” on the sanc-tions, but China has warned that any punitive actions target-ing North Korea must “avoid bringing disaster” to the eco-nomically fragile state.

In a front-page commen-tary on Monday, the overseas edition of the ruling Com-munist party’s official People’s Daily said sanctions must be employed with precision.

“Sanctions to the great-est possible extent must avoid causing negative impacts to ordinary people and to third countries, and avoid bringing disaster to the country in ques-tion’s normal and legal trade and business exchanges with the outside world, people’s nor-mal lives and the humanitarian situation,” the paper said. “A precision blow is the essential part of sanctions.” AGENCIES

North Korea dismisses

South’s talks offer: Yonhap

SEOUL: North Korea dis-missed offers of talks from the South during a rare exchange between the two rivals’ foreign ministers, Seoul’s Yonhap news agency reported today after the UN imposed a new round of sanctions on nuclear-armed Pyongyang. News of the brief encounter on the sidelines of a regional forum in Manila came as the South’s President Moon Jae-In urged a “peaceful resolution” to the tensions in a telephone conversation with his US counterpart Donald Trump. Even a conventional conflict on the peninsula could cost a million dead or wounded within months, estimates say.

Moon told Trump the South “cannot let another war to break out” on the peninsula after the 1950-53 Korean War that sealed the division of two Koreas, the presidential Blue House said in a statement.

The South’s Foreign Min-ister Kang Kyung-Wha shook hands with her Northern coun-terpart Ri Yong-Ho ahead of an ASEAN Regional Forum dinner yesterday, Yonhap said.

Kang urged Ri to accept Seoul’s offers of military talks to lower tensions on the divided peninsula, and for discussions on a new round of reunions for divided families. The encounter came a day after the UN Secu-rity Council passed sweep-ing sanctions on the North over its first successful test of an ICBM. AGENCIES

US, Australia, Japan slam Chinese

island-building

MANILA: The United States, Australia and Japan on Monday denounced Beijing’s island-building and militarisation of the South China Sea, in con-trast to the increasingly tepid response from Southeast Asian nations over the festering issue.

China claims nearly all of the sea, through which USD 5 trillion in annual shipping trade passes and which is believed to sit atop vast oil and gas deposits.

Its sweeping claims over-lap with Vietnam, the Philip-pines, Malaysia and Brunei — all members of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc — as well as Taiwan. But in recent years Beijing has managed to weaken regional resistance by courting some ASEAN mem-bers. On Sunday, Beijing scored a coup when ASEAN ministers issued a diluted statement on the dispute and agreed to Bei-jing’s terms on talks during a security forum which the bloc is hosting in Manila.

China insists that a much-delayed code of conduct between it and ASEAN mem-bers over the disputed sea must not be legally binding, a demand to which South-east Asian countries have so far acquiesced. But in a joint statement after their foreign ministers met on the sidelines of the same gathering, the US, Japan and Australia delivered a noticeably sterner rebuke to Beijing.

Criticising ongoing “land reclamation, construction of outposts, militarisation of dis-puted features” in the disputed sea, the trio said any code of

conduct must be “legally bind-ing, meaningful and effective”, a demand noticeably absent from the ASEAN statement.

The three nations also called on China and the Phil-ippines to respect last year’s international arbitration rul-ing which dismissed much of Beijing’s claim in the sea.

The Philippines had been one of the most vocal critics of China and filed a case before a UN-backed tribunal.

But after the election of President Rodrigo Duterte last year, Manila has played down the verdict in favour of pursu-ing warmer ties with Beijing, a move that led to offers of bil-lions of dollars in investments or aid from China.

Critics of China have accused it of assiduously divid-ing ASEAN, which operates on a consensus basis, with strong-arm tactics and chequebook diplomacy, enticing smaller countries in the bloc such as Cambodia and Laos to support it. Vietnam, which had been pushing for stronger language in Manila, has been largely left to fend for itself since Duterte’s China rapprochement.

The US, Australia and Japan oppose Beijing building giant artificial islands that could be used as military bases, fearing it will eventually establish de facto control over the waters.

China insists the three countries should stay out of what it says are purely bilateral disputes with its neighbours.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned any interference from “outside parties” could jeop-ardise negotiations over the code of conduct. AGENCIES

Israel to strip Arab attacker of citizenship for first time

JERUSALEM: An Israeli court has decided to strip an Arab Israeli attacker of his citizenship, legal sources said on Monday, in what a rights group said was the first ruling of its kind.

The Haifa district court decided to strip Alla Zayud of his citizenship yesterday by applying a 2008 law that allows the interior ministry to deprive of their nationality those involved in “terrorist activities”, the sources said.

Adalah, an Arab Israeli rights group, said it was the first court deci-sion of its kind.

The 22-year-old, from Umm al-

Fahm in northern Israel, was con-victed on four counts of attempted murder after driving a car into Israeli soldiers and stabbing civilians in October 2015.

He was sentenced to 25 years in jail in June 2016.

His mother is an Israeli citizen while his father is a Palestinian with permanent residence in Israel.

Adalah and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel in a joint state-ment said they would appeal the rul-ing to the supreme court.

They said the court decision devi-ated “from the principles of interna-

tional law, and from the general rule according to which an individual can-not be stripped of (their) citizenship and left stateless”.

Arab Israelis are the descendents of Palestinians who remained on their land when the Jewish state was estab-lished in 1948.

They number around 1.4 mil-lion, some 18 per cent of Israel’s population.

Since a wave of violence erupted in October 2015, more than 290 Palestinians or Arab Israelis and 47 Israelis have been killed, according to an AFP toll. AGENCIES

More than 180 migrants storm Morocco-Spain

border postMADRID: More than 180 migrants stormed a border post between Morocco and the Spanish territory of Ceuta on Monday, careering through with agents unable to stop them, authorities said.

“They entered at five in the morning running through,” a spokesman for the central gov-ernment’s representative office in Ceuta told AFP, adding there were 187 people in total.

Footage of the incident broadcast on local television showed the migrants from sub-Saharan Africa sprinting over the border from the Moroccan side while it was still dark.

Once on Spanish soil, they celebrated, raising their hands in joy to the camera, one man kneeling on the floor.

Ceuta and Melilla, another Spanish territory on Morocco’s northern border, have the EU’s only land borders with Africa.

As a result, they are entry points for migrants desper-ate to get to Europe and who regularly try to climb the high border fences, swim along the coast or hide in vehicles cross-ing the frontier.

A police spokesman, how-ever, said this type of border- crossing attempt—sprinting through manned posts —was very rare.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve had any attempt of this kind here,” he said.

The migrants who reached Ceuta were eventually rounded up and taken to a reception centre, where they can apply for asylum in Spain.

Ceuta is ringed by a dou-ble wire fence eight kilometres (five miles) long. The six-metre high fence also has rolls of barbed wire.

Last week, about 200 migrants stormed the high bor-der fence, with 73 managing to get through using wire cutters and mallets. AGENCIES

Grenfell Tower families, firefighters offered free seaside holidaysLONDON: Families who survived the Grenfell Tower disaster and the firefighters who rushed to save them are being offered hundreds of free, crowd-sourced holidays.

Hundreds of holiday stays are being made available by members of the Grenfell Tower Holiday Appeal group on Face-book, organised by two Devon women.

Angie Mays and Kay Gil-bert, two friends from Ilfra-combe, originally started the initiative to help firefighters “come to terms with what they have experienced that night and after”.

However, the pair soon extended the offers to families

who survived the blaze. “It’s just been amazing.

We’ve got over 400 holidays. We’ve had messages from Aus-tralia, New Zealand, people offering their places,” Ms Mays told Sky News.

“We’ve had people book to go on holiday in Spain, York-shire, just all over really. There’s no end to where people have messaged us from, it’s incred-ible, so much support.”

Several organisations have also risen to the challenge, including charity Play Asso-ciation and Felpham Sailing Club, which has offered fami-lies seaside holidays.

One family that took up the offer told Sky it has made a real

difference.“It’s amazing. From the

moment I saw the sea. Breath-

ing the air... it’s something different,” Nabila, whose fam-ily has been unable to return

to their home near Grenfell Tower since the fire, told the broadcaster.

“We’re really grateful, we’re so honoured to have this moment of a day and to see [the children] smiling and say ‘it was the best day!’”

Less than a third of the Government’s offers of housing have been accepted by survivors, with claims that a number of the properties were highly unsuitable.

The majority of the survi-vors of the Grenfell Tower fire, which killed at least 80 people, remain in emergency accom-modation, seven weeks after the devastating blaze. AGENCIES

German couple jailed for

rape-murder of Chinese studentBERLIN: A German couple received lengthy jail sentences Friday for brutally raping and killing a Chinese student in eastern Germany, in a shock-ing crime that caused outrage in both countries.

The court in the city of Des-sau found that the 21-year- old defendants, named only as Sebastian F. and Xenia I., lured the 25-year-old architecture student to an empty apartment in May last year, DPA news agency reported. They submit-ted their victim to a horrific ordeal that led to her death.

Presiding judge Uda Schmidt called the case an “incomprehensible crime”, handing down a life sentence to Sebastian F., meaning at least 15 years in prison, and a juve-nile sentence of five years and six months to his partner at the time, who is the mother of three children.

The two defendants, who sat impassively as the verdict was read out, were also ordered to pay a total of 60,000 euros ( 71,300) for the pain and suffer-ing of the victim’s parents, who were co-plaintiffs in the case.

Schmidt said the pair’s sole motive had been to fulfil a sadistic sexual fantasy.

After trapping her in the flat, the pair repeatedly sexually assaulted the woman, leaving her with such severe injuries that they assumed she would die, the court found.

When the couple returned hours later and found the vic-tim, identified in media reports as Li Yangjie, still alive, they carried the severely injured woman away and abandoned her in underbrush.

After friends in Germany and China alerted the author-ities that she was missing, police organised a search for the woman, who was from the eastern province of Henan. Her corpse was found two days later. AGENCIES

Macron under fire for plan to give wife ‘first lady’ role

PARIS: The French president, Emmanuel Macron, is facing a people’s revolt against plans to give his wife an official “first lady” role. More than 150,000 people have signed a petition against the move that would give Brigitte Macron an office, staff and an allowance from the public purse.

The rebellion comes as Macron’s popularity continues to plummet. Polls last month showed he had dropped seven percentage points with only 36% of French people saying they were happy with their new leader. At the same period in their mandate Macron’s prede-cessors François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy were at 56% at 66% respectively.

During his presidential campaign, Macron promised to “clarify” the role of the French president’s wife by giving them an official status, describing the current situation as a “kind of French hypocrisy”.

“I would like a defined framework and I will ask for the subject to be worked on,” he said at the time. “The person living with you should be able

to have a role and be recognised for that role.”

Neither the French consti-tution nor accepted protocol gives the president’s partner an official status, leaving them to create a role as they see fit. They are allowed an office, staff, security guards paid for out of the Elysée budget and esti-mated by the official auditors at about €450,000 (£406,000) a year. Creating an official title would create a separate bud-get for the president’s partner. The plan has struck a particu-larly discordant note in France coming as Macron prepares to

force his “morality” law, ban-ning parliamentarians from employing wives and family members.

The artist and author Thi-erry Paul Valette, who is behind the petition, said: “There is no reason why the wife of the head of state should be given a bud-get out of public funds. At pres-ent, Brigitte Macron has two or three assistants as well as two secretaries and two security staff, and that’s enough.”

Valette said any deci-sion should be made by referendum and not presidential decree. AGENCIES

Indian-American rams vehicle into

Disney World bus; 5 hurt

HOUSTON: An Indian-American has allegedly rammed his vehicle into a Disney World bus after jump-ing a red light in Florida, leav-ing five persons injured, media reports said on Monday.

Ritesh Bhagani, 34, of Florida’s Winter Gar-den was driving on Buena Vista Drive around 6:30 PM (local time) when he ran the red light and collided with the bus in Osceola county, highway patrol Sergeant Kim Montes was quoted as saying by The Orlando Sentinel.

Five persons were injured after his vehicle rammed into the Disney World bus carrying 19 people, the report said.

Bhagani and a woman in his vehicle were injured.

The driver of the Disney World bus, Collins Yakep, 47, of Orlando was taken to a nearby hospital with serious injuries.

Two others on the bus were also injured, the report added. AGENCIES

‘Sikhs one of the top targets of hate crimes in US’

WASHINGTON: Sikhs are one of the top targets of hate crimes and sectarian violence in the US, the community lead-ers have said as they remem-bered victims of the 2012 mass shooting by a white suprem-acist that claimed the lives of six Sikhs at a Gurdwara in the Wisconsin city.

Several eminent Sikh-Americans from across the US, lawmakers, government officials and local leaders par-ticipated in prayers held on the weekend to mark the five-year anniversary of the mass shooting. “We have made com-mendable efforts to secure our Gurdwara Sahib’s all across the country and taken many pre-ventive measures. But Sikhs are still one of the top targets of hate crimes, sectarian vio-lence, and bullying in Ameri-can schools. In recent years, attacks have rather increased in manyfold, said Gurinder Singh Khalsa, who heads the Sikhs Political Action Committee.

“Hate has no colour. Hate has no face. Yet we all saw hate five years ago,” Blahair Dulai, president of the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin, said, addressing the gathering. “When you come

together and those hearts and minds connect, the presence of the divine is there and you don’t even have to say a word,” he added. Among the speakers yesterday at the Gurdwara was retired Oak Creek Police officer Brian Murphy, who was shot fifteen times before the shooter was brought down.

“When something is stolen from you, when the lives were stolen from everyone here, you can’t get that back,” Murphy said. Remembering the victims, he said, “The voices of the peo-ple that were lost are still here. August 5, 2012 changed a lot of people’s lives, but remem-ber the people that were here on August 4 and all the times before that.” AGENCIES

Two jailed in Hong Kong over riot protestsHONG KONG: Two Hong Kong men were jailed for three years on rioting charges on Monday, the latest in a series of legal actions against demonstrators. The unrest in February 2016 saw police fire warning shots in the air in the commercial district of Mong Kok as they clashed with protesters who hurled bricks torn up from pavements and set rubbish alight. It was one of the worst violences the city had seen. The demonstra-tions were led by “localist” activists seeking more autonomy. AGENCIES

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un waves to his officers

Emmanuel Macron with his wife Brigitte Macron

mp world 11MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi |Tuesday, 8 August, 2017

WASHINGTON: President Trump took to Twitter on Monday morning to declare that his political base is “bigger & stronger than ever before” despite recent polling — which he branded “fake” — that shows a drop-off in support.

In a series of tweets from Bedminster, NJ, where Trump is on what aides describe as a 17-day “working vacation,” he ticked off a number of fac-tors that he said have “driven the Trump base even closer together.”

[President Trump settles in for 17-day vacation at his secluded New Jersey club]

Among them: record stock-market numbers, strong jobs reports, his Supreme Court pick earlier this year and a backlash against “the Fake News Russian collusion story.”

“Will never change!” Trump declared about the strength of his base. A poll last week from Quinnipiac University found that just 33 percent of voters overall approve of Trump’s job per-formance, a new low. Notably, support among white voters without a college degree — a key Trump demographic — had fallen off as well.

Just 43 percent of that group approved of Trump’s job performance while 50 percent disapproved, the Quinnipiac poll found. In June, 53 percent of white voters with-out a college degree approved of the president.

In last year’s election against Democrat Hillary Clinton, 66 percent of whites with no col-lege degree voted for Trump,

according to exit polls.Trump fared somewhat bet-

ter last week in Gallup’s daily tracking surveys, which found his over approval between 36 percent and 38 percent, just above his record low points in its surveys.

As evidence of his support among his base, Trump in his tweets cited recent campaign rallies he has held in Pennsyl-vania, Iowa, Ohio and West Virginia. The most recent of those, in Huntington, W.Va., last week, drew thousands of boisterous supporters to a downtown arena.

“Hard to believe that with 24/7 #Fake News on CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, NYTIMES & WAPO, the Trump base is getting stronger!” he said in one of his morning tweets.

Trump, who is staying at his golf club in Bedmin-ster, where it was pouring rain on Monday morning, has bristled at characteriza-tions of his stay as a “vacation.” “Working hard from New Jer-sey while White House goes through long planned reno-vation,” he tweeted Monday morning, referring to an over-haul of heating and air con-ditioning system in the West Wing, among other things.

“Going to New York next week for more meet-ings,” Trump added. White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters told reporters Monday that Trump plans to spend the first half of next week in New York.

The president has no public events scheduled on Monday. AGENCIES

Trump says his political base is ‘stronger than ever’ despite

polling to the contrary

Rex Tillerson to Lavrov: Russian meddling led to mistrust

MANILA: US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Monday he believes Wash-ington and Russia can find a way to ease tension, saying it wouldn’t be useful to cut ties over the single issue of sus-pected Russian meddling in the US election.

Tillerson said Russia had also expressed some willing-ness to resume talks about the crisis in Ukraine, where a 2015 ceasefire between Kiev’s forces and Russian-backed separatists in the east-ern part of the country is regularly violated.

“We should find places we can work together... In places we have differences we’re going to have to continue to find ways to address those,” Tillerson told reporters.

Tillerson met his Rus-sian counterpart, Sergei Lav-rov, on the sidelines of an international gathering in Manila on Sunday, where he also asked about Moscow’s retaliation to new US sanctions against Russia.

The meeting was their first since President Donald Trump reluctantly signed into law the sanctions that Russia said amounted to a full-scale trade war and ended hopes for bet-ter ties. Lavrov on Sunday said he believed his US colleagues were ready to continue dia-logue with Moscow on com-plex issues despite tensions.

Tillerson said he discussed

Russia’s suspected meddling in the 2016 US presidential election with Lavrov to “help them understand how seri-ous this incident had been and how seriously it damaged the relationship” between the two nations. But Tillerson said that should not irreversibly dam-age ties.

“The fact that we want to work with them on areas that are of serious national security interest to us, and at the same time having this extraordinary

issue of mistrust that divides us, that is just what we in the diplomatic part of our relation-ship are required to do,” Tiller-son said.

The United States sent its special representative on Ukraine, Kurt Volker, a for-mer US envoy to NATO, to Ukraine last month to assess the situation in the for-mer Soviet republic. Wash-ington cites the conflict as a key obstacle to improved rela-tions between Russia and the

United States.“We appointed a special

envoy to engage with Russia but also coordinating with all parties. This is full visibility to all parties. We are not trying to cut some kind of deal on the side,” Tillerson said.

Meanwhile, Tiller-son said on Monday that a UN Security Council vote to impose sanctions on North Korea showed that world pow-ers were united behind a push for a denuclearised Korean

peninsula.Washington’s top diplomat

said Kim Jong-Un’s regime must halt ballistic missile tests if it wanted to talk to the United States about resolving the standoff.

“It’s quite clear in terms of there being no daylight between the international community as to the expecta-tion that North Korea will take steps to achieve all of my objec-tives, which is a denuclearised Korean peninsula,” he said.

Tillerson held talks in Manila with foreign ministers Wang Yi of China whom he said were in support of a tough stance on Pyongyang’s arsenal.

While Wang called for a resumption of dialogue with North Korea, Tillerson insisted Kim must first stop the mis-sile tests.

“The best signal that North Korea could send that they’re prepared to talk would be to stop these missile launches,” he said, holding out the prospect of US envoys sit-ting down with Pyongyang’s isolated regime.

But he would not set a time-frame on when this might be possible or how long North Korea might have to refrain from testing more long-rang missiles. “We’ll know it when we see it,” he said. “I’m not going to give someone a spe-cific number of days or weeks. This is really about the spirit of these talks.” AGENCIES

MANILA: The Trump admin-istration has yet to decide how to respond to Russia’s move to expel hundreds of American diplomats, but plans to deliver a response to Moscow by Sep-tember 1, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said today.

A day after sitting down in the Philippines with Rus-sia’s top diplomat, Tillerson said he’d asked “clarifying questions” about the Krem-lin’s retaliation announced last month following new sanctions passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump.

The Trump administration has struggled to determine how the move will affect the US dip-lomatic presence in Russia, as well as the broader implications for the troubled relationship between the nuclear-armed powers. Despite the Rus-sian move, which seemed to plunge the two countries even further into acrimony, Ser-gey Lavrov emerged from the meeting declaring a readi-ness for more engagement with the US on North Korea, Syria and Ukraine, among other issues. AGENCIES

Tillerson said he discussed Russia’s suspected meddling in the 2016 US presidential election with Lavrov to ‘help them understand how serious this incident had been and how seriously it damaged the relationship’ between the two nations

US to respond by Sept 1 to Russia’s

expulsion of diplomats

9-year-old applies to be NASA’ s planetary protection officer

Indian-origin scientist creates

Twitter account to track moped gangsLONDON: An Indian-origin data scientist, who was a vic-tim of a growing number of moped-riding thieves in Lon-don, has taken to social media to track the gangs operating on the streets of the British capital.

Dr Hira Virdee has launched a new Twitter account - @MopedSpotted - after his mobile phone was grabbed by a moped gang while walking in Lincoln s Inn Fields area of central London last month.

The 28-year-old then took a taxi to chase the four youths who were on three mopeds and also witnessed them snatch a phone from another victim nearby.

While he reported the thefts to Scotland Yard, days later he received an email from the Metropolitan Police say-ing they were taking no fur-ther action because there were no leads.

“I understand the police are overwhelmed but I doubt whether they followed up all the CCTV leads they could have. I decided if no one else was going to collect evidence then there was an opportunity for someone else to collect information on moped crimes and suspects,” Virdee told the ‘Evening Standard’.

His Twitter account asks people to report sightings of possible moped suspects so they can be tracked in real time.

It is aimed at then passing on the information collected to police. Dr Virdee, who has a PhD in physics and engi-neering and works for a data company, says he has already tracked one suspect group in Finsbury Park, north London.

“It means we can quickly identify hotspots of crime and build up a picture of where these criminals are operating. I get a lot of cab drivers report-ing sightings of mopeds,” he explained. AGENCIES

Aus finds crashed US military aircraft with 3 marines deadSYDNEY: A US military air-craft that crashed off the Aus-tralian coast has been found, authorities said on Monday, with divers preparing to try and locate three missing marines.

The MV-22 Osprey — a hybrid helicopter-turboprop with a chequered safety record - went down today off Shoal-water Bay in Queensland state.

Twenty-three personnel were quickly saved, but three marines remained missing despite an air and sea search.

The Royal Australian Navy survey ship HMAS Melville joined the search overnight and soon found the wreckage.

“Shortly after commenc-

ing survey operations in the area, the submerged aircraft was located,” Defence Min-

ister Marise Payne said in a statement.

A navy diving team has

since headed to the Melville via landing craft and was to conduct “remotely operated underwater vehicle operations” on Monday evening.

On Sunday, the US Marine Corps said recovery and salvage operations could take months to complete, while the cause of the crash was being inves-tigated. The MV-22, which is half-helicopter half-turboprop, has two engines positioned on fixed wingtips that allow it to land and take off vertically. It can travel much faster than a helicopter. The Japan-based air-craft was in the region as part of the Australian-US joint mili-tary exercise Talisman Sabre.

Japan’s new defence minis-ter today told the US military of his “many concerns” after it flew an Osprey tilt-rotor air-craft in the country following a weekend crash off Australia, the defence ministry said.

Itsunori Onodera, appointed Thursday as Japan’s defence minister, had asked the US to temporarily stop flying the aircraft in his country fol-lowing the accident.

“We have still many con-cerns,” Onodera said dur-ing a meeting with Maj Gen Charles Chiarotti, deputy commander of US Forces in Japan, according to a defence ministry spokesman. AGENCIES

TWO JOURNALISTS IN TWO DAYS MURDERED IN PHILIPPINESZAMBOANGA: Two journalists have been shot dead in two days in separate inci-dents in the Philippines, reinforcing the country’s image as one of the world’s most dangerous for media workers, officials said on Monday. Broadcaster Rudy Alicaway and columnist Leo Diaz were the third and fourth journalists to be killed since Presi-dent Rodrigo Duterte, a vocal critic of the press, took office last year, said Dabet Pan-elo, secretary-general of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP). In both cases the victims were riding motorcycles when gunmen on another motorcycle came up behind and shot them dead. Diaz, 60, a correspondent of Manila tabloid Balita (News) and a columnist for a community newspaper, was killed in the southern town of President Quirino on Monday, said Fort Yerro, a Balita consultant. Diaz, a former policeman, had covered stories on political corruption, illegal gambling and drugs, said Yerro, but added that he did not know of any threats against him. Alic-away, 47, who hosted a weekly community affairs show on DXPB radio station, was killed in the town of Molave on Sunday, a police report said. AGENCIES

Toddler dies after wall collapse

caused by rolling Range Rover

WALES: The parents of Pearl Black, a one-year-old girl who died after an accident involving a car in south Wales on Sunday, have said “she has left a massive hole in our hearts. The world will be a darker place without her. She was the reason we all lived.” Police are believed to be investigating reports that an unoccupied car rolled down a hill into a wall, which then col-lapsed, at an address in Heol-gerrig, Merthyr Tydfil. Pearl was taken to Prince Charles hospital in Merthyr Tydfil by air ambulance after the inci-dent at 1.39pm on Sunday but died a short time later.Rebecca Morgan, a local resident, said she saw the girl’s father stand-ing near the scene of the acci-dent on Sunday night. Morgan said she understood that the family had been to the park and had been walking back when the accident happened. AGENCIES

Search efforts for three US Marines missing after their MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft crashed into the sea off Queensland’s coast

TRENTON: When NASA announced last week that it was looking for a new plan-etary protection officer, the space agency received some incredulous responses.

Some were agog at the six-figure salary: between $124,000 and $187,000 per year. Oth-ers laughed at the fantastical job title, one that conjured up science-fiction fantasies and battles with aliens. (In real-ity, NASA says, the position is focused on preventing astro-nauts from bringing biological contaminants from space back

to Earth — and vice versa.)But one 9-year-old boy in

New Jersey took the vacancy seriously. So he took a sheet of paper and an obviously well-sharpened pencil and carefully hand-wrote his application.

“Dear NASA, My name is Jack Davis and I would like to apply for the planetary protec-tion officer job,” Jack wrote. “I may be nine but I think I would be fit for the job.”

Among his qualifica-tions? For one, he wrote, his sister says he’s an alien. Jack also said he had watched the

TV show “Marvel Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” and “almost all the space and alien movies I

can” — though not yet “Men in Black.” (In Jack’s defense, the 1997 hit movie with Will Smith

and Tommy Lee Jones came out more than a decade before he was even born.)

Toward the end of his letter, Jack casually mentions that he is great at video games. But his final assertion is perhaps the most persuasive.

“I am young, so I can learn to think like an alien,” Jack wrote.

He signed off with his name and appended it with “Guard-ian of the Galaxy” and “Fourth Grade.”

Jack soon got that sim-ple yet elusive thing every job

seeker wants: confirmation that his application had been received. James L. Green, direc-tor of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, wrote back to him right away.

“I hear you are a ‘Guardian of the Galaxy’ and that you’re interested in being a NASA Planetary Protection Officer,” Green wrote. “That’s great!”

He also took the time to dis-pel any myths about what the job entailed.

“It’s about protecting Earth from tiny microbes when we bring back samples from the

Moon, asteroids and Mars. It’s also about protecting other planets and moons from our germs as we responsibly explore the Solar System.”

In short, it’s light on the alien encounters. But Green signed off on an encouraging note, telling Jack to “study hard and do well in school” so that they could see him at NASA eventually.

As a bonus, Jack also received a phone call from NASA’s headquarters in Wash-ington to congratulate him on his interest. AGENCIES

‘Severe turbulence’ on American Airlines flight leaves 10 injured

ATHENS: Ten people were hospitalized on Saturday after an American Airlines flight heading to Philadelphia experi-enced “severe turbulence” with nearly 300 people on board.

American Airlines Flight 759 was heading to Philadel-phia International Airport after departing from Athens, Greece, when it “briefly encountered severe turbulence” just before it landed, the airline said in a statement to FOX29.

“The seat belt sign was on at the time. Three passengers and seven crew members were transported to a local hospital

for evaluation. We are taking care of our passengers and our crew members at this time and want to thank our team mem-bers for keeping our passengers safe,” the statement read.

There were 287 passen-gers and 12 crew members on board at the time. Passenger Ian Smith told WPVI it was 30 minutes before landing when the flight attendants told every-one to get in their seats. “Thirty minutes out. They were giv-

ing us our drinks. The flight attendants were in the last cou-ple rows when they said ‘fasten your seat belts,’” Smith recalled to the news station. “And then they said for the flight atten-dants to get to their seats, and they didn’t even have time,” Smith said. “It started shaking, then it took a big drop. Babies screaming, people in front of us hitting the ceiling.” Passen-gers said the turbulence lasted for about 15 seconds. AGENCIES

Pearl Black

Downing Street denies £40 bn Brexit

divorce Bill claim

LONDON: British Prime Min-ister Theresa May’s office today denied weekend media claims that the UK government was reconciled to paying the Euro-pean Union nearly €40 Billion as part of a so-called Brexit divorce Bill.

“I don’t recognise the fig-ure,” said May’s official spokes-person when asked about the figure published by ‘The Sun-day Telegraph’, quoting three separate sources within the British civil service and gov-ernment with knowledge of the UK’s Brexit negotiating strat-egy. “As the secretary of state for Exiting the European Union has made clear, we will meet our international responsibil-ities but the UK will not pay more than it needs to,” added a UK government spokesperson.

A prominent Conservative MP, Jacob Rees-Mogg, said there was “no logic to this fig-ure. Legally we owe nothing.”

His fellow MP Peter Bone also said it would be “very strange” for Parliament to vote in favour of such large sums.

The paper had claimed that UK government negotiators for Britain s exit from the Euro-pean Union have been able to ascertain that the EU’s actual opening position is around €60 Billion not €100 Billion as pre-viously suggested.

“The 27 say they can’t knock off the bits of their ‘Bill’ until the very end but politically we can’t move on money until the 27 member states start to show compromise. As a negotiation process, it just doesn t work,” a senior civil servant based at Whitehall in London told the newspaper.

“We know their position is €60 Billion, but actual bot-tom line is €50 Billion. Ours is closer to €30 Billion, but the landing zone is €40 Billion, even if the public and politi-cians are not all there yet,” the source added.

A second Whitehall source confirmed the UK bottom line was “€30 Billion-40 Bil-lion”, while a third political source put the figure in May’s mind at “north of 30 Billion euros”. British Brexit negotia-tors concluded after second-round talks last month that the EU had created a non-negotia-ble stance by refusing to talk about trade until it had reached a settlement on citizens rights, money and Northern Ireland.

UK officials have been looking at a compromise by proposing a transition deal in which Britain would offer to continue to make net pay-ments of some €10 Billion a year for up to three years after Brexit. AGENCIES

mp business12MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 8 August, 2017

NEW DELHI: Luxury vehi-cle manufacturers on Mon-day hit out at the move to hike cess on large cars and SUVs to 25 per cent, saying it was against the spirit of liberal market dynamics and would affect future plans of expansion under ‘Make in India’ initiative.

Toyota Kirloskar Motor, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and BMW were unanimous that increase in cess on large, lux-ury cars and SUVs that had become cheaper after GST roll-out would dampen the spir-its of the industry across the entire value chain. The compa-nies also said a constant shift in policy makes long-term plan-ning for the market highly risky, and it would only have an adverse impact on India’s financial ratings.

Under the current GST rates, SUVs, large and luxury cars attract top tax rate of 28 per cent with an additional 15 per cent cess.

“The message that we are getting from the government from such a move is that it is not looking at the auto sector to spur economic growth,” Toyota Kirloskar Motor Vice Chair-man and Whole Time Direc-tor Shekar Viswanathan said.

He further said increasing cess on large cars and SUVs will “selectively benefit some com-panies, while putting others at a disadvantage”.

Mercedes-Benz India MD and CEO Roland Folger said the company was highly dis-appointed with the move and

it would be a strong deterrent to the growth of luxury cars in this country.

“As a leading luxury car maker, this will also affect our future plans of expansion under ‘Make in India’ initia-tive, which aims at making and selling world-class products in India, with the latest technol-ogy for end-consumers,” he said in a statement.

Expressing similar senti-ments, Audi India Head Rahil Ansari said: “We will be forced to re-evaluate our business plans in light of this develop-ment. This move unfortunately is against the spirit of liberal market dynamics and we can only request to reconsider this proposal.”

This proposed increase in cess will most definitely adversely impact the sales, he added.

Companies such as Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota had reduced prices on several of their luxury cars and SUVs by up to Rs 10 lakh passing on GST benefits to consumers.

Ansari further said although the luxury car indus-try in India is small in volumes, it contributed over 10 per cent in value terms.

“The proposal of further increasing the cess on the lux-ury car industry will dampen the spirits of not only the com-panies, dealers and customers but also workers and employ-ees working in this industry,” he added.

The taxes were already very high and the industry was expecting that the unfulfilled potential of this segment to increase after the implementa-tion of GST and rationalisation of taxes, Ansari added.

BMW Group India Presi-dent Vikram Pawah also said that long-term stability in tax reforms and regulations are of paramount importance to fos-ter growth of any industry in the country. He further said, “While BMW Group India welcomes the implementa-tion of the Goods and Service Tax (GST) in India, immedi-ate changes and fluctuations on motor vehicles cess will adversely affect the stability and growth of the automotive industry in India.”

The finance ministry today said the GST Council has approved a proposal to hike cess on large cars and SUVs to 25 per cent from 15 per cent now. A decision on when to raise the actual cess leviable on the same will be taken by the GST Council in due course.

Folger said the move once

again reiterated the need for a long-term roadmap for the luxury car industry, “which has been at the receiving end of arbitrary policies”.

“The constant shift in pol-icy makes our long-term plan-ning for the market highly risky and we think this would only have an adverse impact on the country’s financial ratings,” Fol-ger said.

He claimed that the govern-ment was causing more dam-age to the environment and slowing down overall growth pace of India’s economic growth, which it is striving to achieve by making better tech-nology more expensive.

Increase in cess would also reverse the positive momen-tum that the industry wanted to achieve with the introduc-tion of the GST.

“With this hike in cess, we expect the volumes of the luxury industry to decelerate, thus offsetting any growth in the potential revenue genera-tion, that could have come with the estimated volume growth,” Folger added.

He further said one month was too short a period to con-sider an upward revision in rates and market performance should have been watched for at least six months, before it was relooked. “The current proposal of increase in cess, clubbed with the increased road tax rates, will take the effective consumer price much above the pre-GST scenario level,” Folger said. PTI

Auto firms lash out at move to hike cess on SUVs, large cars

Demo effect? Wage hikes, voluntary

attrition slide in Q1

SEOUL: South Korean prose-cutors on Monday demanded the heir to the Samsung empire be jailed for 12 years over his role in the corruption scandal that brought down the coun-try’s last president.

At the final hearing in the trial of Lee Jae-Yong, the vice chairman of Samsung Elec-tronics, prosecutors called him the “ultimate beneficiary” of crimes committed in the scan-dal, which culminated in the impeachment and dismissal of president Park Geun-Hye.

If the judges convict him and agree with the sentence recommendation it will be among the harshest penalties ever passed on a top execu-tive of a chaebol, the business groups that dominate Asia’s fourth-largest economy.

Lee and four other execu-tives of Samsung –the world’s biggest smartphone maker and the country’s biggest firm –are accused of bribing Park’s pow-erful confidante with millions of dollars to win presidential favours and ease a controver-sial 2015 merger deal.

“The defendants were

closely tied to power and sought personal gains,” the prosecutors said. They sought a 12-year sentence for Lee, who is also charged with embezzle-ment and hiding assets over-seas among other offences, 10-year terms for three of his co-accused, and seven years for the last of the defendants in the trial.

Taking the stand for the first time in his defence last week, Lee claimed that he had no role in decision-making at the wider Samsung group and “mostly listened to other

executives”. His lawyers say the allegations were unjusti-fied and the defendants never sought anything in return for the money that was donated.

The verdicts are expected later this month. Lee, 49, has effectively been at the helm of Samsung, which has revenues equivalent to about a fifth of the country’s GDP, since his father was left bedridden by a heart attack in 2014. One of the favours Lee allegedly sought from Park was state approval for a controversial merger of two Samsung units in 2015,

seen as a key step to ensuring a smooth power transfer to him.

The deal was opposed by many shareholders who said it had wilfully undervalued shares of one of the two firms. But it eventually went through after the national pension fund –a major Samsung shareholder –approved it.

“The special prosecutors failed to give any evidence for the existence of such a succes-sion operation,” Lee’s lawyers argued at Monday’s hearing.

If Lee is found guilty it will be a blow for Park, who is on trial separately on 18 charges including bribery, coercion and abuse of power following her dismissal from office in March.

Park was formally impeached after public uproar over her questionable ties with confidante Choi Soon-Sil sparked mass nationwide pro-tests for months.

Choi is also on trial for using her presidential ties to force top South Korean firms including Samsung to “donate” nearly 70 million to non-profit foundations which she controlled. AFP

South Korea prosecutors seek 12-year jail for Samsung heir

NEW DELHI: Air India is looking for bridge loans worth up to $740 million to finance purchase of six Boeing 787-8 planes, according to a tender document.

While the government is working on final contours for a strategic disinvestment of its stake in loss-making Air India, the airline is ready with plans to fly to more overseas destinations.

The airline has sought offers from banks and financial institutions to arrange bridge financing of up to $740 million for the six aircraft. The amount translates into around $123.3 million per plane.

At the current exchange rate, $740 million is around Rs 4,720 crore.

“In addition to the Govern-ment of India guarantee, Air India will offer the aircraft as a security. The facility should be a direct loan without the requirement for formation of a special purpose vehicle structure which requires title transfer,” the tender document, floated last Friday, said.

Air India has an agreement with Boeing Company for pur-chase of 27 B787-8 planes. Out of them, the airline has com-pleted the sale and lease back

for 21 aircraft.For three B787-8 planes –

each of which was delivered in November 2016, January and July –Air India had arranged bridge financing without Indian government’s guarantee.

Among the remaining three aircraft, two are scheduled to be delivered this month and one in October.

According to the document, the government has indicated that it would issue guaran-tee for the six B787-8 aircraft, which includes three that have already been delivered.

“Therefore, Air India would like to refinance the bridge loan for 22nd to 24th B787-8 air-craft and needs interim bridge financing for the remaining three B787-8 aircraft (25th to 27th) for 15 months at the time of delivery,” the document said.

Air India has a fleet of 110 planes, including 33 Boeing aircraft.

Air India, which has the largest international market share among domestic car-riers, will soon be launch-ing flights to Stockholm and Copenhagen. Last month, the airline started direct service between New Delhi and Wash-ington, its fifth destination in the US. PTI

AI seeks $740 mn loan to fund six Boeing planes’ purchase

Govt annuls 5th round of coal mines’ auction due to tepid response

GST Council has approved a proposal to raise cess on SUVs to 25% from 15%

MUMBAI: Insurance Reg-ulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) on Monday said though Aadhar is not a mandatory require-ment for Know Your Customer (KYC) in the insurance sector, it is the most simple form of KYC document.

"Aadhar is not mandatory for the (insurance) sector but is the most simple one. On the government level they are creating a platform for all the KYC.

"We are also working with the government for very simple KYC. But what can be simpler than a Aadhar," IRDAI Chair-man T S Vijayan told reporters on the sidelines of CII's 19th Insurance Summit here.

Talking about Life Insur-ance Corporation's (LIC) shareholdings in listed com-panies, Vijayan said regulation for investment is 15 per cent, in exceptional circumstances sometimes exemptions are given to invest more.

"All the investment should be for the benefit of policy holders and investors and the companies should not be lock-ing the money in and they should use the funds for the

policy holders."Regulation is 15 per cent,

and when someone asks, in exceptional circumstances, we will give them some exemptions.

Sometimes we give them liberty to invest more. At some point of time we advice them to bring it down to 15 per cent," he added. Talking about dis-tribution, the regulator urged the industry to strengthen dis-tribution saying there is a need for merging technology with human touch.

"We have to understand that more than 20 lakh people get their income from distri-bution. Even if technology is adapted extensively insurance

products distribution needs a human touch.

"However, one has to under-stand that the agent require-ment and growth depends on the company's growth strategy," he added.

Also present on the occa-sion, LIC Chairman V K Sharma said only technology cannot prevent incidents of frauds.

Regarding digitisation and frauds, he said, "Only digiti-sation and technology cannot solve the problem of frauds. As technology advances frauds also go up. We have to develop digital and human matrix cap-turing individual behavioural data to prevent frauds." PTI

Irdai working with Govt to create simple KYC platform

TOKYO: SoftBank said on Monday its quarterly net profit plunged after booking a big gain from the sale of part of its stake in Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba a year ago.

The Japanese mobile giant said net profit for the three months to June came in at 5.5 billion yen ($50 million), com-pared with 254.2 billion yen when it sold off part of its stake in Alibaba.

Operating profit for the April-June period, however, surged 50.1 per cent to 479.3 billion yen as it included gains from its SoftBank Vision Fund in the latest figures and as US subsidiary Sprint lifted its profitability.

The Japanese firm is set-ting up the $100 billion tech-nology investment fund with Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund and other partners.

SoftBank's revenue in the quarter rose 2.8 per cent to 2.18

trillion yen, SoftBank said.The Japanese firm also

logged gains from its Yahoo Japan business, but they were offset by sluggish domestic tele-com operations and losses at British iPhone chip designer ARM Holdings, which Soft-Bank bought last year.

The company did not release earnings estimates for the fiscal year through March 2018, which is not unusual for SoftBank.

Led by flamboyant founder Masayoshi Son, Softbank has embarked on a string of inter-national acquisitions both big and small in recent years, while he was among the first business people to meet Donald Trump after his November election victory.

Son pledged to invest $50 billion in business and job-cre-ation in the United States, win-ning open praise from the then president-elect. AFP

SoftBank logs quarterly profit dive after Alibaba stake sale

NEW DELHI: Average salary hikes and voluntary attrition levels in top sectors declined during April-June quarter over last year, amid uncertain hiring prospects and lesser job oppor-tunities, says a survey.

According to online recruitment and career solu-tions portal Wisdomjobs.com, most industries witnessed con-servative appraisals that were considerably lower than the two-digit salary hikes seen in the previous year. "Most sec-tors have seen conservative appraisals this quarter on the back of several external factors that impacted them in the pre-vious two quarters," Wisdom-jobs.com founder & CEO Ajay Kolla said.

Kolla further said, "hiring outlook of Indian companies, although still positive, will be characterised by a wait-and- watch approach as they come to terms with the real impact of automation especially in the IT sector - and the con-sequent need for re-skilling their employees". This trend is likely to continue for a couple of quarters before picking up again, he said.

The survey noted that while layoffs, especially in the IT sec-

tor, contributed to maintain the overall attrition levels, volun-tary attrition levels declined in the first quarter of this year.

"This can be attributed to the uncertainty in the job mar-ket, and the consequent slow-down in hiring across most sectors," the survey said.

Amid conservative apprais-als in most sectors, the survey said the IT industry was in the forefront with several compa-nies deciding to defer apprais-als for middle and senior level staff. The healthcare and retail sector topped the salary hike chart at 10.8 per cent, followed by hospitality and IT with 9.9 per cent and 9.8 per cent, respectively, the survey added.

FMCG & Telecom gave a hike of 9.6 per cent, while employees in infrastructure and manufacturing got salary hike of 9.2 per cent and 9 per cent, respectively.

Location-wise, Bangalore topped the list at a 9.7 per cent followed by Chennai and Pune at 9.1 per cent & 9 per cent, respectively. Hyderabad, Mum-bai & Kolkata show nearly sim-ilar rates at 8.9 per cent, 8.7 per cent and 8.5 per cent, respec-tively. Delhi showed the lowest hike rate at 7.7%. PTI

KOLKATA: Private low-cost carrier Go Air would start flying overseas from October this year, its Man-aging Director Jeh Wadia said. "We have plans to start overseas operations from October this year", Wadia said on Monday.

He said, initially, the air-line would fly to the destina-tions of Asia and reviewing the destinations within the region.

Go Air, which had ordered for 143 Airbus neo A320 aircraft to add to the existing 24-strong fleet, had got the delivery of five of them only.

"There are issues with the engine for which the deliveries are getting delayed", Wadia said.

He denied any plans of an IPO, he said. PTI

MUMBAI: Security com-pany Palo Alto Networks on Monday announced that it is formalising its coopera-tion with the Interpol Global Complex for Innovation (IGCI).

This agreement aims to combat criminal trends in cyberspace, cyberthreats and cybercrime globally through sharing threat information generated by Palo Alto Net-works and Unit 42, its threat intelligence team, the com-pany said in a statement.

Palo Alto Networks will be involved in the opera-tional briefings at IGCI and vice versa."Cybercrime rep-resents a significant amount of risk for businesses and organisations today. This col-laboration marks a mutual commitment to information sharing, which is necessary in preventing successful cyber-

attacks," said Sean Duca, vice president and regional chief security officer for Asia-Pacific, Palo Alto Networks.

A threat intelligence expert from Unit 42 will be assigned to collaborate with the IGCI, helping provide a clearer understanding of the current landscape, which can equip law enforcement officers with powerful infor-mation needed to prevent successful cyberattacks, it added. Early this year, Palo Alto Networks was one of seven private sector compa-nies that provided support to an Interpol-led operation targeting cybercrime across the ASEAN region, resulting in the identification of nearly 9,000 command-and-control (C2) servers as well as hun-dreds of compromised web-sites, including government portals, the release said.

Palo Alto Networks, IGCI ink pact to tackle cyber-crime

NEW DELHI: The govern-ment has annulled the fifth round of coal mines auction due to poor response from bidders.

In a notice to the bidders, the government said "the ten-der process for the coal mines being auctioned under 5th tranche of auction of coal mine has been terminated in accor-dance with Clause 3.3.2(b) of the tender document".

Thus, the tenders of six mines will stand terminated, the notice said.

According to a govern-ment official, the fifth round of coal blocks auction has been annulled as there was not good response from the bid-ders because the steel industry is in a bad shape.

Six coking coal blocks were to go under the hammer in the fifth round, five of which are in Jharkhand and one in Madhya Pradesh.

The six coal mines are: Brahmadih, Choritand Tiliaya, Jogeshwar and Khas Jogeshwar, Rabodih OCP and Rohne in Jharkhand, and Urtan North in Madhya Pradesh.

In December 2015, the gov-ernment annulled the fourth round of coal mine auctions

planned for January 2016 on account of tepid response from bidders in sectors such as steel besides depressed commod-ity prices and adverse market conditions.

The Centre earlier announced that it would auc-tion six coking coal mines.

The move was seen as an attempt to augment the sup-ply of the fuel used for steel-making, to cater to the growing demand.

According to an official, the entire demand of metallurgical coal is not met indigenously as the supply of high quality coking coal in the country is limited. Thus, no option is left other than importing of such fuel.

Coal India Ltd (CIL) which produced 55.22 million tonnes (MT) of coking coal last fiscal is eyeing 59.77 MT of metallurgi-cal coal in the ongoing financial year, the official added.

CIL, which accounts for over 80 per cent of the domestic coal production, is eyeing 63.55 MT coking coal in the next fis-cal and 72.30 MT in 2019-20.

In FY16, India imported 43.51 MT of coking coal and 43.71 MT of fuel used in steel-making in FY15. PTI

NEW DELHI: The country's 12 major ports saw their cargo traffic go up by 4.13 per cent to 221.95 million tonnes (MT) in April-July period of the ongo-ing fiscal, riding on the back of surge in demand, according to data from ports' body IPA.

These top ports, under the administrative control of the Centre, had handled 213.15 MT cargo in the April-July period of the last fiscal.

Increased demand from sectors like iron ore, petroleum oil and lubricants (POL) and containers led to higher move-ment of cargo during the last four months, according to the Indian Ports Association (IPA).

Iron ore traffic volumes moved up 32.28 per cent to 15.61 MT during April-July as against 11.80 MT in the same period a year ago, while those of POL rose 10.40 per cent to 75.18 MT.

Container traffic rose 6.16 per cent to 44.06 MT.

The Kandla port handled the highest traffic volume at 36.10 MT during April-July this year, followed by the Para-dip port at 32.93 MT and JNPT at 21.84 MT, data showed.

Volume of sea-borne cargo is essentially in the nature of derived demand and mainly shaped by levels and changes in both global and domestic activity.

India has 12 major ports, namely Kandla, Mumbai, JNPT, Mormugao, New Man-galore, Cochin, Chennai, Ennore, V O Chidambaranar, Visakhapatnam, Paradip and Kolkata (including Haldia), which handle approximately 61 per cent of the country's total cargo traffic. PTI

April-July cargo traffic at 12

major ports up 4% to 222 mt

GoAir to take off on

foreign trips in October

Lee Jae-Yong is escorted by prison guards as he arrives at Seoul Central District Court

mp business 13MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 8 August, 2017

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Aiming to set up energy co-operation with neighboring countries, the Government of India is plan-ning to lay huge pipelines from Myanmar, Bangladesh and Nepal to India’s various parts, especially in North-Eastern region, Union Minister Dhar-mendra Pradhan asserted in Tripura on Monday.

While inaugurating a new grass-root bottling plant at Agartala, Pradhan mentioned, “Through diplomatic chan-nels, India already tied up to set up an energy cooperation network with Myanmar, Ban-gladesh and Nepal. All the countries have already agreed to this ambitious mission.”

The Ministry for Petroleum and Natural Gas has also taken up with the Government of Bangladesh for laying a pipeline carrying natural gas from Chit-tagong to Tripura to address the cooking gas shortage of the North East, the minister added. He laid the foundation stone for a 60 metric tonne per annum capacity LPG (cook-ing gas) bottling plant at Bod-hjungnagar industrial park (20 km north of Agartala). A sum of Rs 143 crore would be spent for the plant, which would be commissioned by June 2019.

Pradhan said, now about

4.5 lakh households are cov-ered by the existing bottling plant out of total 9.22 house-holds having LPG connection.

With the completion of the new bottling plant the capac-ity of supplying LPG would be doubled and most of the households would be covered, he added.

While addressing the news-men at Agartala, Pradhan also mentioned that, “We are laying a pipeline for transportation of diesel from Siliguri in West

Bengal to Parvatipur in Bangla-desh. There is pipeline for car-rying diesel from Numaligarh oil refinery in Assam to Siliguri. In exchange, we have given the proposal for a gas pipeline from Chittagong to Tripura. We are pursuing the matter diplomati-cally and I would also visit Ban-gladesh soon.”

According to ministry offi-cials, as part of the “Hydro-carbon Vision 2030” for the North-East region, 6,900 km of pipelines would be laid con-

necting Sitwe (Myanmar), Chittagong (Bangladesh), most northeastern states and West Bengal’s Siliguri and Durga-pur. As the mountainous in the region are landslide prone and carrying of petroleum products in the region is a big problem, the proposed pipelines would be a great help for the area, they also claimed.

Moreover, through the pro-posed pipelines, diesel, lique-fied petroleum gas (LPG) and other petroleum products

would be ferried.Along with the Left ruled

state government’s Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Minister Bhanulal Saha, Prad-han also launched the Prad-han Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) scheme and distrib-uted PMUY connections to 20 women beneficiaries belonging to below poverty line.

Currently, large quantities of gas are flared (burned) in the region because it can’t be piped to the consumers.

Gas lines likely from Myanmar, B’desh, Nepal to N-E: Pradhan

KOLKATA: Leading FMCG company Britannia Indus-tries will invest Rs 1000 crore at its proposed largest plant at the Ranjangaon food park in Maharashtra, a company offi-cial said.

“There will be an invest-ment of Rs 1000 crore at the Ranjangaon food park over a period of four to five years with an employment potential for 3000 people”, MD of Britan-nia Industries Varun Berry told reporters after the company’s AGM here on Monday.

The plant would have six biscuit lines, and one each for rusk and croissant, he said, adding that plans were there for a flour mill and a dairy unit also.

The company would make a capital expenditure of Rs 400 crore in the current fiscal, he said.

Britannia was already hav-ing 98 acres there and another 48 acres would be added, Berry said.

Besides, Britannia would set up its first greenfield unit in Nepal, he said, besides com-missioning two plants one each at Mundra and Guwahati.

Post completion of all the plants, total biscuit manufac-turing capacity would be 13 lakh per annum.

Earlier at the AGM, chair-man of Britannia Industries Nusli Wadia said that the JV with Greek company Chipita would come up at the food park and be commissioned in June 2018.

He said that the company had been to gain market share

year-on-year making it the leader in the country.

Wadia said the main focus of the company would be cost saving and product innova-tion. He said that the company would go for consolidation of its brands in its portfolio. PTI

Britannia to invest `1,000 crore on

Ranjangaon plant

NEW DELHI: State-owned gas utility GAIL India is seeking to renegotiate price of the LNG it has contracted from the US –following a similar one with Australia –to reflect current market realities.

GAIL, India’s biggest gas transporter, has deals to buy 5.8 million tonnes of US LNG per annum for 20 years.

“We need to be in sync with the market, whether it is buyer or seller. So, if market dynamics has changed and there is a glut of gas the world over with fall-ing rates, the same should also reflect in our prices,” a source said requesting anonymity as the talks are private.

GAIL, he said, is approach-ing US LNG sellers to reopen the contracts. It wants to rene-gotiate the 2011 sales and pur-chase agreement (SPA) with Cheniere Energy for import of 182.5 trillion British ther-mal units of LNG (equivalent to approximately 3.5 million tonnes) annually, with yearly fixed fees of $548 million and a term of 20 years.

GAIL had agreed to pay Cheniere a price of $3 per million British thermal unit (mmBtu) plus 115 per cent of the final settlement price for the New York Mercantile Exchange Henry Hub natu-ral gas futures contract for the month in which the relevant cargo is scheduled.

Also, 15 per cent of the fixed

portion of the contract sales price will be subject to annual adjustment for inflation.

The source said GAIL wants the fixed portion to be lowered to bring down landed cost of LNG to around $7-8 per mmBtu as against the present $9.7. LNG in the spot or cur-rent market is available for less than $6 per mmBtu.

US supplies are scheduled to begin from the next year.

Cheniere, currently the only US company exporting LNG, is reportedly not in favour of reopening the signed con-tracts as it expects the signed ‘take-or-pay’ agreements to be honoured. Besides the 3.5 mil-lion tonnes per annum of LNG from Houston-based Cheniere, GAIL has booked 2.3 mt a year capacity at Dominion’s Cove Point liquefaction facility.

GAIL had previously sought reopening of the August 2009 deal for import of 1.44 mt per annum of LNG for 20 years from Australia’s Gorgon

project.Gas from Gorgon is indexed

at 14.5 per cent of prevailing oil rate. The indexation agreed was one of the highest in the world.

Gorgon LNG at an oil price of $50 per barrel would cost $7.25 per mmBtu at the load-ing port. Added to that will be shipping cost and import duty as also the cost of con-verting the super-cooled liq-uid gas back into its gaseous state, taking the price to $9.5. ExxonMobil-led Gorgon has not accepted the demand so far.

In 2015, India renegotiated price of the long-term deal to import 7.5 million tonnes per year of LNG from Qatar, help-ing save Rs 8,000 crore.

The price of imported LNG under this agreement had been linked to crude oil (Japanese Customs Cleared Crude or JCC) and had a concept of floor and ceiling indexed to last 5-year average. The rate thus arrived was higher than spot LNG. PTI

GAIL wants reworking of US LNG price pact

CORPORATE KALEIDOSCOPE

NTPC’s wholly owned subsidiary NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam (NVVN) paid final dividend of Rs 30 crore, equivalent to 150 per cent of equity of NTPC, for the financial year 2016-17. The dividend cheque was given by A K Garg, CEO, NVVN to Gurdeep Singh, CMD, NTPC in the presence of senior officials of both the companies. NVVN has paid cumulative dividend of Rs 137.63 crore to NTPC since inception

NTPC Director (Projects) S C Pandey visited Ramagundam. Upon his arrival, Prasant Kumar Mohapatra, RED-South (Incharge) and D K Dubey, ED-Ramagundam along with other senior officials welcomed him. During his visit, Pandey inaugurated Telangana Project Office Complex and Telangana Site Office Complex. At a meeting held at Telangana Office Complex, Chief Guest Pandey released the Technical Booklet and Best Practice Safety Booklet along with CD

NEW DELHI: Equity mutual funds saw a record inflow of Rs 12,727 crore in July primar-ily due to a rally in the stock markets and hopes of rate cut by the Reserve Bank. This also marks the 16th straight month of inflows into equity schemes. Prior to that, such funds had witnessed a pullout of Rs 1,370 crore in March 2016.

The strong inflows have pushed the asset base of equity mutual funds (MFs) by more than 6 per cent to Rs 6.3 lakh crore at the end of July from Rs 5.91 lakh crore in the preced-ing month.

According to data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi), equity funds, which also include equity-linked saving schemes (ELSS), saw net inflows of Rs 12,727 crore in July, higher than Rs

8,164 crore in the preceding month.

Stock markets have been on an upswing, touching new highs this year.

"The continuing rally in equity markets and hopes of a rate cut by RBI in its August 2 monetary policy meet were primary reasons for the robust inflows in equity oriented funds in July.

"Successful implementation of GST with no major business disruptions being reported, drove investors into equity mutual funds. The quarterly results have been better than expected from most businesses and this helped sentiments," Bajaj Capital Chief Executive Rahul Parikh said.

According to Vidya Bala, head of MF Research at Fundsindia.com, advertising

campaigns started by mar-kets regulator Sebi and indus-try body Amfi have helped in increasing penetration of mutual funds in the country.

"Decline in interest income from fixed income products such as bank FDs is attracting investors towards equity.

Further, gold and real estate are not giving good returns over the past few years, mak-ing the investors move towards equity mutual funds," she said.

Bala said that System-atic Investment Plans (SIPs) have been the preferred route for many investors to invest in mutual funds. SIP is an investment vehicle that allows investors to invest in small amounts periodically instead of lumpsums. The frequency of investment is usually weekly, monthly or quarterly. PTI

Equity mutual funds see record `12,727 crore inflows in July

NEW DELHI: Tata Motors-owned Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) on Monday reported retail sales of 46,074 units for July, up 3.6 per cent from the same month last year.

The company said sales during the last month grew 34.4 per cent in China on the back of launch of long wheel base Jaguar XFL as well as strong sales of F-PACE, Dis-covery Sport, Range Rover Sport and Evoque.

Retail sales were, however, down across various mar-kets, including the UK, North America and Europe during the last month.

"July has been another successful month for Jaguar Land Rover, particularly in China, where we reinforced our commitment to the mar-ket by opening our new engine plant in Changshu on July 21," JLR Group Sales Operations Director Andy Goss said in a statement.

The Jaguar brand reported retail sales of 12,964 units in July, down 1.8 per cent, impacted by low sales of XE.

Land Rover saw sales of 33,110 vehicles in July, up 5.8% as compared to July 2016, reflecting sales ramp up of the all-new Discovery and con-tinuing strong sales of Discov-ery Sport and Range Rover as well as the introduction of the new Range Rover Velar. PTI

PANAJI: American hospitality group Marriott International Inc will have 100 operational hotels in the country by 2018, a top executive has said.

The world's largest hotel chain which begun its opera-tions in the country in 1997 with a project in Goa, currently has 86 hotels and 15 brands spanning 35 cities.

"Marriott International has 86 hotels in the country and we are the biggest hotel company in the world. We have so far opened four hotels in the coun-try this year and will open six more during the year," Marriott International South Asia presi-dent Neeraj Govil said.

He said they are looking at tertiary cities like Indore, Amritsar, Coimbatore, Jaipur and others for more properties.

"We will hit our hundred in 2018. We also have another 100 hotels in the pipeline, so we are

looking at opening somewhere between 15 and 20 hotels a year in the country every year over the next five years," Govil said.

He further said the tourism growth has been very strong due to the measures intro-duced by government which has made the destinations more people-friendly. "One of the pillars of growth, as projected by the government is tourism.

The government is also very proactive in infrastruc-ture development which helps bring in lot more people."

Marriott as a company, he said, is targeting all the cus-tomers, be it leisure or groups. "Most importantly we've turned our focus towards domestic consumers. Because we've 15 brands we play at var-ious price points. We don't get into the market from pricing perspective. We try to win the customers." PTI

NEW DELHI: FMCG major Britannia Industries Monday reported a 1.40 per cent decline in consoli-dated net profit at Rs 216.12 crore for the June quarter, impacted by the GST roll-out and subdued growth in international business.

The company had posted a net profit of Rs 219.21 crore in the April-June period a year ago, Bri-tannia Industries said in a BSE filing. Its net sales were up 6.41 per cent to Rs 2,300.93 crore as against Rs 2,162.16 crore in the corre-sponding period of the pre-vious fiscal.

"It has been a good quar-ter in the face of challenging market environment and de-stocking in trade due to GST. While GST created a short term impact, it is expected to generate a pos-itive momentum going for-ward," Britannia Industries' MD Varun Berry said. PTI

NEW DELHI: Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) Chairman Anand Mahindra took home salary of Rs 7.67 crore during 2016-17, an increase of 16.38 per cent from the previous fis-cal, says the company's annual report.

In terms of ratio of his remuneration to that of the median remuneration of employees, it was 108.27, the report added.

Similarly, Managing Direc-tor Pawan Goenka received Rs 7.39 crore as remuneration, excluding perquisite value of ESOPs exercised for 2016-17. This was an increase of 15.86 per cent, said the report.

The ratio of Goenka's remu-neration to that of the median remuneration of employees was 104.43. As per the report, the median remuneration of employees of the company in 2016-17 was at Rs 7.08 lakh.

"In the financial year, there was an increase of 0.43 per cent in the median remuneration of employees," it added.

The report further said the average percentage decrease made in the salaries of employees other than mana-gerial personnel in 2016-17 was 1.46 per cent whereas the decrease in the managerial remuneration for the year was 7.35 per cent. PTI

Anand Mahindra got 16.38% wage hike to `7.67 cr in FY17

NEW DELHI: Steel giant Tata Steel on Monday posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 921.09 crore for the quar-ter ended June 30, 2017 on the back of higher revenue from operations.

The company had posted consolidated net loss of Rs 3,183 crore in the year-ago period, Tata Steel said in a fil-ing to BSE.

"Our sales were up by 28 per cent on a y-o-y basis as the smooth ramp up of our Kalinganagar facility helped us increase our volumes and increase our market share," T V Narendran, Managing Direc-tor, Tata Steel India and South East Asia said in a statement.

The consolidated revenue from operations during April- June quarter was at Rs 30,973 crore, registering an increase of 19 per cent.

"We saw strong growth in our branded products, retail and solutions segment which increased 19 per cent y-o-y and now contributes around 48 per cent of overall revenues," Nar-endran said.

However, consolidated total expenses increased to Rs 28,844 crore, over Rs 25,003.7 crore in the year-ago period.

"From a sequential per-spective, there was inventory destocking across the chan-nel in the run-up to the GST implementation which led to a drop in volumes. While realisa-tions were under pressure dur-ing the quarter, we are seeing a recovery in prices on the back of stronger domestic demand and better international prices," Narendran said.

The company said gross debt at Rs 87,812 crore as on June 30, 2017 went up by nearly

Rs 4,798 crore from the previ-ous quarter on account of forex impact, inventory buildup in India as a result of GST imple-mentation and seasonal trends in Europe.

However, net debt was sig-nificantly lower at Rs 71,703 crore.

Elaborating on its Indian operations, the company said that there were "deliver-ies of 2.75 million tonnes in Q1FY18.

An increase of 28 per cent over the corresponding quarter of the last year (was) largely due to the ramp up of Kalinganagar facility. Sequential decline of 14 per cent due to seasonal factors, GST and planned shutdowns."

Liquid steel production in the first quarter of 2.79 mil-lion tonnes was seven per cent higher on a sequential basis and y-o-y basis. PTI

CHENNAI: Bank employee unions have called for a nation-wide strike on August 22 to protest against privatisation and merger of public sector banks, among other demands, a union leader said on Monday.

The All India Bank Employ-ees Association (AIBEA), which represents nine bank unions and employees of pub-lic and private sector banks, has called for a nation-wide strike on August 22 to press for vari-ous demands, its general secre-tary C H Venkatachalam said.

Nearly 10 lakh employees would participate in the strike

to protest plans to privatise public sector banks, merger and consolidation of banks and other demands including not to write-off non-performing assets (NPAs) in banks, Ven-katachalam said in a statement.

Some of the other demands put forth by the unions include declaring wilful default of bank loans as criminal offence, implementation of the rec-ommendations of Parliamen-tary Committee on recovery of NPAs.

Giving some financials, Venkatachalam claimed that bad loans that were written off

by State Bank of India group in the last five years stood at Rs 93,041 crore.

While bad loans by the country's largest public sector lender State Bank of India as of 2016-17 was Rs 20,339 crore, for SBI Group as a whole it was Rs 27,574 crore.

Stating that people should not be penalised for corporate default, he said after the pro-posed stir on August 22, a mas-sive rally would be conducted on September 15. Some time in October or November, contin-uous strike for two days would be conducted, he said. PTI

Bank employee unions call nationwide strike on Aug 22

Tata Steel clocks ̀ 921 crore Q1 profit against ̀ 3,183 cr Q1 loss last fiscal

Will have 100 hotels in India by 2018: Marriott

JLR sales rise by 3.6% to 46,074

units in July

Quarterly net dips by 1.4%

to `216 cr

mp sport14MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi |Tuesday, 8 August, 2017

ANDY MURRAY MAINTAINS TOP SPOT IN ATP RANKINGSMADRID: Britain’s Andy Murray has maintained his position on top of the men’s Association of Tennis Professionals world singles rankings released on Monday, with 7.750 points. There were no changes in this week’s rankings, with Spain’s Rafael Nadal on the second spot, followed by Switzerland’s Roger Federer on third, reports Efe.

INDIA U-17 SIDE HOLD CHILE 1-1NEW DELHI: The India Under-17 football team pro-duced a spirited display to hold fancied Chile to a 1-1 draw in the final match of its Torneo de 4 Naciones Tournament tour in Mexico City. Chile, who finished runners-up to Brazil in their South American Under-17 Championships to qualify for the World Cup, scored in the 40th minute after India’s defence failed to clear the ball.

CHELSEA FC OWNER ROMAN ABRAMOVICH AND WIFE DASHA ZHUKOVA TO SPLITMOSCOW: The Russian billionaire and owner of Chelsea foot-ball club, Roman Abramovich, is splitting from his wife, Dasha Zhukova, the couple have announced. “After 10 years together, the two of us have made the difficult decision to separate, but we remain close friends, parents, and partners in the projects we developed together,” said a joint statement on Monday.

RARE PAIR

India in the FIBA Asia Cup basketballBEIRUT: India’s mens basketball team is all set to participate in the International Basket-ball Federation, FIBA Asia Cup, starting here on Tuesday. The team will be captained by power forward Amjyot Singh Gill and will see the timely return of the seasoned Vishesh Bhriguvanshi, who has made a speedy recov-ery from an injury he sustained at the BRICS Games in June. He is joined by players like Amritpal Singh, Satnam Singh, the first Indian to be drafted in the NBA. AGENCIES

Virat Kohli was seen spending some time with a special guest, none other than The Great Khali in Colombo. After leading Team India to yet another comprehensive victory and a series win over Sri Lanka, Kohli caught up with the Indian wrestler. Dalip Singh Rana, who goes by his ring name The Great Khali, is a popular name in the world of sports entertainment and is the first Indian to receive a big break in the industry. “It was Great to meet The Great Khali, what a guy!” Kohli wrote

Keeping up with Jadeja-Ashwin, Wriddhiman loves the challenge

COLOMBO: Keeping on pitches that offer turn and bounce makes the job of a stumper challenging but for Wriddhiman Saha it becomes more enjoyable when Ravindra Jadeja and R Aswhin bowl on such wickets.

Ashwin and Jadeja exploited the spin-friendly conditions to torment the Sri Lankans in the second Test, which India won by an innings and 53 runs.

“I enjoy keeping to Ashwin-Jadeja on such wickets. If a lot of balls come to the keeper it is good, otherwise we only get 10-12 balls all day coming to us. If you get more balls coming to you then you are always more focussed,” Saha said at a press conference. “If you have to adjust to the bounce you have to get up a little early and it went well. It is a basic. I have been seeing and learning this from childhood that

you have to get up with the bounce of ball. But on this track there was more bounce so I changed a bit to get up a fraction earlier. “The wicket had some spots where the ball was getting more bounce, almost like a bouncer off spinners as well. I was getting up

early for the bounce but pacers weren’t bouncing it as much. Hardik or Shami, they were using slower balls and cut-ters, so I was standing up so that edge could carry but they didn t come apart from that inner edge off Kusal Mendis.

“We have to make such adjust-

ments. We work and prepare differ-ently with R Sridhar for such pitches,” he explained.

Saha pulled off two stunning catches, one to dismiss Kusal Men-dis and the other to get rid of Angelo Mathews. However, he also outlined which other catches he considers his best efforts in Test cricket.

“First when Mendis got the inner edge I thought he will be bowled, the ball came in but hit the pad and lobbed up. The pace was slow so I got more time to get to the ball and I could dive because of that time based on my assumption.

“It was a good wicket. It helped increase my confidence on a tough wicket. The Mathews catch just stuck. I was lucky.

It could have gone over Ajinkya Rahane but I was lucky it got stuck,”

said Saha, with a laugh. “Steve O Keefe in Pune (2015), AB de Villers in Ban-galore (2015), and Mathew Wade in Bangalore (2017), I think they are my best catches in Test cricket,” he added.

In the second Test, Saha also con-tributed 67 runs and put on partner-ships with Ashwin, Jadeja and Hardik Pandya, allowing India to scored 622/9d.

“Team management sets the bat-ting order, whether no. 6 or 7, what-ever they decide we have to apply ourselves accordingly. They see who can bat better with the lower order and adapt and they want to extend the batting line up also by sending Ashwin ahead and holding me back.”

“He is consistently making runs and taking wickets, so individual pref-erences don’t count. Team is always first.” AGENCIES

Sinquefield Chess: Anand crushes Caruana

to jump to joint 2nd

‘Sledging not compulsory, Dhoni never did that’

India’s ‘Faith Runner’ falters on final straight

ST LOUIS (USA): Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand crashed through the defences of world number two Fabiano Caruana in the fifth round and jumped to the joint second spot in the Sinquefield Cup, here.

If the first four games were easy draws, Anand showed to the world that he was patiently waiting for his chances. The Indian showcased one of his best games in recent times, a game that will find its way in the collections of best games ever played by Anand.

Caruana clearly overesti-mated his chances in the mid-dle game, arising out of an English opening. Not going for the tried and tested varia-tions, the American managed a decent position with his black pieces but then got tempted with a tactical sequence that spelt doom.

Caruana’s judgement was not by his side but Anand was at his best in calculation as he figured out a beautiful combi-nation involving a queen sac-rifice. Putting his queen en prise, Anand knew it was all over and it took a moment for Caruana to register the facts on board. The game lasted a mere 29 moves.

The victory took Anand closer to the tournament leader Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France who tried to compli-cate but could not scare Levon Aronian of Armenia. The draw

for the Frenchman meant he inched up to 3.5 points out of a possible five while Anand is now right behind him on three points along with World Champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway.

Carlsen meanwhile recov-ered greatly following a loss to Vachier-Lagrave in the previ-ous round. On the receiving end was Wesley So of United States who has been clearly struggling to carry on with his stupendous form last year when he won literally everything.

Carlsen called Wesley s bluff by accepting a pawn sac-rifice and then had little trou-bles in converting that in to a full point. The other two games of the day were drawn as Ian Nepomniachtchi misplayed a better position and drew with his Russian compatriot Sergey Karjakin.

The latter had to again came up with some splendid defense in a difficult situation and proved yet again that he was worthy of the title minis-ter of defense awarded to him.

Hikaru Nakamura of United States was seen pressing against Russian Peter Svidler but that too petered out to a draw leaving Aronian, Caruana and Karjakin tied for the fourth spot on 2.5 points apiece.

There are four rounds still remaining in the super tour-nament and the battle will resume after the only rest day of the event. AGENCIES

COLOMBO: Wriddhiman Saha wears his reticence like a badge of honour and, quite like his predecessor Mahendra Singh Dhoni, doesn’t believe in sledging opposition bats-men as most wicketkeepers are wont to.

“I haven’t seen MS Dhoni sledge ever. So it is not com-pulsory that you have to sledge. Sometimes (in order to unset-tle opposition), we can twist things and say like the pitch is poor, or you have played a poor shot. That much is fine,” said Saha, when asked about his take on sledging.

Like many of his contem-poraries, his idol is Australian Adam Gilchrist.

“I liked Adam Gilchrist from childhood — both his batting and keeping style. I think of him as an ideal ’keeper.

There are other wicketkeep-ers like Mark Boucher and Ian Healy. They were also good. But

Adam Gilchrist is my favou-rite,” said Saha.

He loves being under the radar and is happy when his performance makes an impact in result. “My childhood coach Jayanta Bhowmick used to tell me that if I do well then auto-matically your name will be prominent in selection cir-cles. He told me not to play for myself but for the team when-ever you get even small oppor-tunity keep contributing to the team’s cause. I have tried to do that only. Even now I am only trying to do well for the team and if my contribution is there I will be very satisfied,” he added.

He was blissfully unaware that third Test against Sri Lanka will be his 100th first-class game. “I am just being told that this is my 100th first-class match. I didn’t know. It is a milestone but I will try playing as long as possible,” he said. AGENCIES

MUMBAI: Tormented by blisters, illness and injuries, Indian ultra-marathoner Samir Singh got to within 36 kilometres of his goal of run-ning 10,000 km in 100 days when pain and exhaustion beat him.

Singh, dubbed “The Faith Runner” and inevitably com-pared to Forrest Gump, spent nearly three months running between Mumbai’s slums and business district using donated clothes and equip-ment, and living on just $3 a day.

At the end of his attempt on Sunday, the 5ft 7ins (170cm) running coach, who also suffered stomach prob-lems and viral fever, weighed just 40 kilogrammes (88 pounds).

Singh started on April 29 in Mumbai’s scorching heat, and has been running through the monsoon rains without skipping a day. He

needed to clock 150km (93 miles) on the final day on Sunday, after falling behind schedule through illness.

But the 44-year-old could only complete 114km, falling agonisingly short of his tar-get — which was the equiva-lent of about a quarter of the Earth’s circumference.

“He was plagued by gastro-intestinal infections and contracted viral fever but has run 9,964.19 kms in 100 days,” Vikram Bhatti, who handled Singh’s cam-paign, said.

Dressed in a blue sports vest, Singh started each day in the early hours from the northern Mumbai slums and headed to the business district in the city’s south.

“My journey of running 100 kilometres per day is very challenging but I wanted to show the endurance limit of human spirit,” Singh said ahead of the final run. AGENCIES

‘Grateful to God’ says Sreesanth on HC verdict

Oz Olympic legend Betty Cuthbert dies

KOCHI: Cricketer S Sreesanth on Monday said he is “grateful to God” after the Kerala High Court lifted the life ban imposed on him by the BCCI in the wake of the 2013 IPL spot-fixing scandal.

Sreesanth said he has started preparations for play-ing the game and his aim was to find a place in the Kerala cricket team.

The Kerala Cricket Associ-ation said it would take a posi-tive decision on Sreesanth’s bid to play in state cricket tournaments.

In his order, Justice A Muhamed Mustaque also set aside all proceedings against Sreesanth initiated by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

“It is to be noted that there are no incriminating evi-dence to pinpoint Sreesanth’s involvement in sport fixing deal,” the judge said.

All the 36 accused, includ-

ing Sreesanth, Ankeet Cha-van and Ajit Chandila were let off in the spot-fixing case by a Patiala House court in

July 2015. The BCCI, however, had refused to alter its disci-plinary decision even after the verdict. AGENCIES

SYDNEY: Australian Olympic icon Betty Cuthbert, the only athlete to ever win gold in the 100m, 200m, and 400m, has died aged 79 after a long battle with multiple sclerosis, officials said on Monday.

Cuthbert shot to fame as a little-known 18-year-old at the 1956 Melbourne Olym-pics, winning the 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay, earning her the nickname “Golden Girl” by local media.

She suffered a hamstring injury at the Rome Games four years later and briefly retired, before being coaxed back to the track to win the 400m at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo.

During her career, she set nine world records, four of

them in 1958, and remains the only athlete, male or female, to win Olympic gold in the 100m, 200m and 400m.

Swimmer Ian Thorpe is the only Australian to claim more Olympic gold medals, with five.

“Betty was the Golden Girl of the track and a national her-

oine,” said Australian Olym-pic Committee president John Coates.

“It’s very sad to lose such a great champion. Betty bat-tled her illness for many years and showed tremendous cour-age, but more importantly she always managed to smile.”

Athletics Australia presi-dent Mark Arbib called her “inspiring”. “She is the only athlete, male or female, to win Olympic gold in the 100m, 200m and 400m, with her trophy cabinet also including three medals from the Com-monwealth Games,” he said.

“She will be forever remem-bered as a legend of the sport and a trailblazer for our female athletes.” AGENCIES

2 silver, 6 bronze medals

for IndiaNEW DELHI: Gold eluded India as Satender Rawat (80+kg) and Mohit Khat-ana (80kg) settled for silver medals after losing their final bouts in the Asian Junior Box-ing Championships in Puerto Princesa, Philippines on Monday.

Satender lost to Uzbeki-stan’s Almatov Shokrukh in a split verdict, while Mohit went down to Kazakhstan’s Togam-bay Sagyndyk.

India thus finished the tournament with two sil-ver and six bronze medals, a creditable performance by the team.

Earlier, Ankit Narwal (57kg), Bhavesh Kattimani (52kg), Sidhartha Malik (48kg), Vinit Dahiya (75kg), Akshay Siwach (60kg) and Aman Sehrawat (70kg) had claimed bronze medals.

All of them lost in the semi-finals. AGENCIES

BENGALURU: Indian Super League (ISL) franchise Benga-luru FC on Monday announced the signing of Spanish forward Braulio Nóbrega Rodríguez on a one-year deal.

The 31-year-old Spanish La Liga veteran becomes the fourth Spaniard at the club join-ing fellow countrymen Juanan Gonzalez, Dimas Delgado and Antonio Dovale. The former Spain Under-20 international joins the Blues after netting ten goals in 15 league games along with two in the cup for Doxa Katokopias FC in the 2016-17

Cypriot First Division league while helping his side survive relegation. Born in Puerto del Rosario on the Canary Islands in the Atlantic, Braulio, who came through the ranks at Atlético Madrid, turned pro-fessional in 2004 joining the reserve side of the Rojiblancos.

He scored 17 goals in 26 games for the ‘B’ side while also playing frequently with the main team in the La Liga.

During the second half of 2005-06 season, he joined fel-low La Liga side Mallorca on loan before having another

loan spell with UD Salamanca where he scored 14 times in the Segunda Division.

Braulio was then signed by La Liga side Getafe CF for the 2007-08 season where he not only featured regularly during the league campaign but even starred at the continental level scoring thrice in the UEFA Cup — the highlight being a fan-tastic back-heel goal against Tottenham Hotspur, along with a game-levelling strike past Oliver Kahn of Bayern Munich in the competition’s quarter-final. AGENCIES

Bengaluru FC sign Spanish striker Nobrega

mp sport 15MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi |Tuesday, 8 August, 2017

ALL SMILES

Korea’s In-Kyung Kim celebrates her victory with the trophy after her final round during day four of the 2017 Women’s British Open at Kingsbarns Golf Links, St Andrews, Scotland on Sunday AP/PTI

Mexican Open hopes to have Federer in 2018 draw

I will help England U-17 team as much as I can: Constantine

Tori Bowie wins women’s 100 m world title, Thompson flops

‘Neymar not bigger than Barcelona’

French Open finalist Sara Errani fails

dope test: Reports

LOS CABOS (MEXICO): The Mexican Open in Acapulco, an ATP 500 event, is negotiat-ing to have Swiss great Roger Federer in the draw next Febru-ary, when the tournament will celebrate its 25th anniversary.

Federer, who has won a record 18 Grand Slam titles, turns 36 on Tuesday and is playing some of the best ten-nis of his career this year, win-ning the Australian Open and Wimbledon, reports Efe.

“It depends on his sched-ule and if he wants to come, I don’t see it as a financial issue. We have a great relationship with Tony Godsick, Roger’s agent, but we have to wait,” tournament director Raul Zurutuza said.

Spain’s Rafael Nadal, who has a shot at regaining the No. 1 ranking this month, won titles in Acapulco in 2005 and 2013, and appears likely to play in the Pacific resort city in 2018, Zurutuza said.

“I think something is miss-ing from the tournament if Rafa’s not there and that’s not good because people like to watch him and he likes Mexico. I can almost say that he’s signed for 2018,” Zuru-tuza said.

The Mexican Open, the top tournament in Latin America, hopes to celebrate its 25th anni-versary with Serbia’s Novak Djokovic, Britain’s Andy Mur-ray and Switzerland’s Stan

Wawrinka, among other top players, in the field.

“We’re working on it, we have instructions to have an appropriate and responsi-ble party, and we have to see how to square things,” Zuru-tuza said.

The 2018 event in Acapulco will continue to focus on meeting the needs of play-ers, fans, sponsors and the media, the tournament direc-tor said. AGENCIES

NEW DELHI: Indian senior football team coach Stephen Constantine will help the Eng-land Under-17 team to the best of his ability when they come to India to take part in the World Cup starting October 6.

“The Under-17 World Cup is in India and the FA have reached out (to me) and I will help them as much as I can. That in itself is recogni-tion from them,” the British coach who helped India reach the 96th spot in FIFA rank-ings was quoted as saying by the Independent. Constantine, in his just released autobiog-raphy, From Delhi to the Den, has lamented not getting rec-ognition from his own coun-try, England, in terms of offers to coach various clubs.

“I’m not saying give me the England job, but if you’ve got the knowledge of people out there, use them. If you’re Eng-lish, you want to help England,” Constantine said on helping England colts for the U-17 World Cup. England have done

well in age-group tournaments, winning the U-20 World Cup and U-19 European Cham-pionships. “I’ve not had the opportunity to be at a big club for people to say: ‘Yeah, he can handle it’,” the 54-year-old said.

“What’s to handle? Do you think there’s less pressure on me in a country (India) of 1.3 billion people than if I man-aged a Championship club or a Premier League club. No, I’m sorry, that’s not pressure,” he added.

Constantine, a Uefa Pro

Licence holder, studied along-side Steve McLaren and Mark Hughes. The London born coach is also a FIFA instruc-tor and has coached the Nepal, Malawi, Sudan and Rwanda national teams and several sides in his father’s native Cyprus. In England, Constan-tine found it tough to get going. Aside from his forgettable foot-ball coach stint, Constantine’s main English football experi-ence has been confined to a spell as Millwall’s first-team coach in 2005/6. AGENCIES

LONDON: American Tori Bowie won the women’s 100 metres world title making up for her sil-ver in last year’s Olympics while Rio gold medallist Elaine Thomp-son struggled home in fifth place.

The 26-year-old on Sunday made up metres on long time leader Marie-Josee Ta Lou of the Ivory Coast to edge her with the final dip on the line.

Bowie fell to the ground after crossing the line and initially it was Ta Lou who celebrated only for the board to say otherwise.

“I had no idea that I had won,” said Bowie, who has a habit of hurling herself at the line in major championships finals having done a similar thing in the Olympic 200m final last year which saw her take the bronze.

“The only thing I knew was that tonight I was going to lay it all on the line.” The Netherlands’ Dafne Schippers finished third while hot favourite and 100m Olympic champion Thompson faded to fifth. The 25-year-old

Jamaican had started well but by halfway she had been swallowed up and was unable to find an extra gear as she had done most of the season. Ta Lou then emerged as the clear leader but Bowie ate into her advantage and then produced the dip of her life to take the title from under the diminutive Ivori-an’s nose. Ta Lou’s compatriot and 2013 world double sprint med-alist Murielle Ahoure also suf-fered frustration in being edged out of bronze by Schippers, who will look to retain her world 200m title later in the week. AGENCIES

BARCELONA: Barcelona president Josep Maria Bar-tomeu insisted no player is bigger than the Catalan giants on Monday in the wake of Neymar’s world record 222 million euro ($264 million) move to Paris Saint-Germain.

Bartomeu and his board are under pressure to wisely reinvest the huge sum, which more than doubled the pre-vious record for a transfer fee, before the transfer win-dow closes on August 31.

“No player is above Barca,” Bartomeu told the world congress of Barca sup-porters groups. “You know that Neymar formed part of the success of our club, but Neymar is now history. He wanted to go. It was his decision although we did everything in our hands for him to stay.” Barca were powerless to stop Neymar leaving after PSG met the buyout clause in the Brazil-ian’s contract, which he had signed just last year. How-ever, Bartomeu defended himself from criticism that the club should have insisted

on inserting a much higher buyout clause in that deal to fend off PSG’s millions. Ney-mar’s clause rose from 200 to 222 million from July 1 and would have jumped to 250 million had he entered the third year of the five-year deal.

“We foresaw that he could leave in the future, that is why we raised his buyout clause in the new contact,” added Bartomeu.

“Receiving this money allows us to face the future with guarantees to strengthen the team.

“When the doubts over his future began we were calm because his decision would be a good one.

“If he stayed we would maintain a great player and if he went, obviously pay-ing his clause, we had the guarantee of being able to bring new players.” Barca have been linked with a series of potential replace-ments for Neymar with Liv-erpool’s Philippe Coutinho heading their wish list. Yet, Bartomeu promised to be act with “prudence” despite having to deal in a trans-fer market characterised by hyperinflation due to boom-ing television rights deals.

“The 222 million euros that we received for Neymar Jr will be administered with prudence, rigour and seren-ity,” he said. AGENCIES

FORMER French Open finalist Sara Errani has failed a doping test for

a hormone that can hide the presence of the male hormone testosterone, two Italian newspapers reported on Monday.

Traces of anastrozole, used in the treatment of breast cancer but also a masking agent, were found in the urine of the 30-year-old former world No 5 during a doping control carried out by the International Tennis Federation, the Gazzetta dello Sport and the Corriere della Sera said.

The tests were carried out in Febru-ary at her home, the reports said. Errani was the beaten finalist at Roland Garros in 2012 and reached her highest ever world ranking of five the following year,

a meteoric rise for a player who had only just broken into the world top 100.

According to the reports Errani, now 98th in the world, was due to play in Canada but has returned

to Italy to defend herself ahead of a pub-lic announcement expected by the ITF.

Italian rower Niccolo Mornati, a four-time medallist at the world cham-pionships, tested positive in 2016 for the same substance. AGENCIES

GENEVA: A Swiss court rejected on Monday an urgent provisional management shakeup at amateur boxing’s ruling body AIBA, ruling the push to oust embattled presi-dent Wu Ching-Kuo could wait for a proper hearing.

“The Swiss court has announced today (Monday) its decision to reject the requests for urgent provisional mea-sures,” AIBA said in a state-ment. “The court has decided that the condition of extreme urgency was not fulfilled.”

Wu’s executive commit-tee has passed a motion of no- confidence against his leadership and had asked Swiss courts to approve a temporary administration, accusing the Taiwanese president of finan-cial mismanagement. AIBA’s executive committee meeting in Moscow last month passed the no-confidence motion, claiming that the body was on the brink of bankruptcy.

The organisation’s head-quarters in Lausanne, Swit-zerland were closed for a week following the no-con-fidence vote, before reopen-ing on August 2. Executive committee member and Wu rival Pat Fiacco of Can-ada told AFP last week that AIBA had racked up debts worth 15 million Swiss francs (15 million, 13.1 million euros).

Fiacco said they wanted Swiss justice to take “provi-sional measures” until October or November when an AIBA board meeting will vote on the no-confidence motion.

Wu has meanwhile charged his rivals with trying to pull off “a military coup”, and insists the organisation is on sound finan-cial footing. According to Mon-day’s statement, the Lausanne court saw no reason to rush through emergency measures.

“A hearing is scheduled on 17 August 2017, at the occa-sion of which the parties and their legal counsels will be heard. A decision on provi-sional measures will then be rendered by the court,” it said. “This decision maintains the status quo and AIBA will there-fore keep functioning in full accordance with its statutes,” it added, stressing that this meant Wu and his manage-ment team would remain in place. According to a spokes-woman for the Lausanne court, Liliane Beuggert, a ruling in the case is not expected until Sep-tember. AGENCIES

‘Status quo’ at AIBA until September court ruling

Tori Bowie, left, celebrates with Trinidad and Tobago’s Kelly-Ann Baptiste after winning the gold in the Women’s 100m final in London on Sunday AP/PTI

Bowie fell to the ground after crossing the line and initially it was Ta Lou who celebrated before the board showed otherwise

MUMBAI: India’s Yuki Bhambri is reap-ing the rewards of his impressive march to the quarter-finals of last week’s Citi Open in Washington in the form of a 41-spot jump in the latest ATP rankings released on Monday.

Ranked 200 before the ATP 500 event, Bhambri, who stunned world number 22 and defending champion Gael Monfils enroute to the last eight in the American capital, has soared to 159.

The 25-year-old had followed up his remarkable 6-3, 4-6, 7-5 round two upset of the flashy Frenchman with a come-from-behind 6-7(5), 6-3, 6-1 win over Argentin-ian Guido Pella before finally bowing out to the towering Kevin Anderson in the quarter-finals.

Even against the South African, Bham-bri demonstrated plenty of grit as he broke

the world number 45’s huge serve on his way to clinching the second set. Anderson won the contest 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 and eventu-ally advanced to Sunday’s final where he lost 6-4, 6-4 to rising German star Alex-ander Zverev.

It was the second time Bhambri had reached the last-eight hurdle of an ATP event, the other occasion being the Chen-nai Open in 2014.

For a player who enjoyed a career high ranking of 88 as recently as November 2015, Bhambri will surely be looking to build on this run of form with a US Open main draw spot his next big target.

“I am healthy now and so I am trying to put all the negativity behind me and focus on these tournaments and then the US Open qualifiers which is my target right now,” he said after shocking Monfils. AGENCIES

SKOPJE (MACEDONIA): Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane called up his entire roster, including Cristiano Ronaldo, on Monday for the upcoming final of the UEFA Super Cup against Manches-ter United.

Current Champions League and La Liga champion Real Madrid is set to face Man-chester United on Tuesday at the Philip II Arena here, reports Efe. On this occasion, the French coach decided to summon all players to com-pete against the UEFA Europa League champion. Last year, Zidane excluded starters from the previous edition of the UEFA Super Cup so they could rest from the preceding Euro 2016.

Cristiano Ronaldo was included in the list, although Zidane has yet to decide whether the Portuguese super-star will appear in the final. Although Cristiano took part in just two training sessions after a 37-day vacation, the Portuguese forward remained

in good physical shape.The 24-player list of Real

Madrid included: Keylor Navas, Kiko Casilla, Luca Zidane, Dani Carvajal, Vallejo, Achraf, Sergio Ramos, Varane, Nacho, Marcelo, Theo Hernan-dez, Casemiro, Marcos Llor-ente, Kroos, Modric, Kovacic, Ceballos, Marco Asensio, Isco, Lucas Vazquez, Bale, Cris-tiano Ronaldo, Benzema and Mayoral.

The Spanish side is set to hold the final training session later on Monday at the Philip II Arena stadium. AGENCIES

Citi Open run helps Yuki Bhambri jump to 159

Real coach summons entire roster for UEFA Super Cup

LONDON: Newly-crowned world 100m champion Jus-tin Gatlin had to endure more insult as he was booed yet again by the crowd at the Olympic stadium during the medal cere-mony while Usain Bolt received massive cheers despite his third place finish.

The 35-year-old Gatlin, who has served two suspensions for doping offences, ruined retir-ing Usain Bolt’s fairytale fare-well on Saturday by beating the Jamaican sprint superstar in a highly anticipated 100m final.

Bolt, who is expected to be a part of Jamaican title defence in men’s 4x100m relay on August 12, came third, behind Gatlin and another American Chris-tian Coleman.

Stunned to see their favou-rite Bolt losing the race, the crowd booed Gatlin while chanting ‘Usain Bolt! Usain Bolt!’

Gatlin was simply cold-shouldered by the London crowd and the American had responded with a ‘keep quiet’ gesture by putting his index fin-

ger on his lips. During the vic-tory ceremony on Sunday, held just before the afternoon ses-sion, Gatlin was booed a again by the crowd.

When bronze winner Bolt’s name was announced, the crowd responded with loud cheers. But as soon as the announcer in French took Gat-lin’s name, the crowd booed him. It was not a prolonged boo though as some sections of the crowd began to clap in acknowledgement of Gatlin’s victory.

Gatlin took the abuse on his chin as he stood stoically on the podium without showing any emotions. He later called up Bolt and silver medal winner

American compatriot Cole-man to pose together for the shutterbugs.

Interestingly, athletics’ world governing body (IAAF) chief Sebastian Coe had earlier said that the American should have been banned for life for a 2006 dope offence.

The IAAF President Coe also gave away the medals to Gatlin, Coleman and Bolt as it’s customary for the global body cheif to do the honours of the blue-riband event of the championships.

Coe shook hands with Gatlin before honouring the newly-crowned champion with the gold medal, just as he did with Coleman and Bolt. AGENCIES

Crowd jeers Gatlin again, this time at medal ceremony

The 35-year-old Gatlin, who has served two suspensions for doping offences, ruined retiring Usain Bolt’s fairytale farewell on Saturday by beating the Jamaican sprint superstar in a highly anticipated 100m final

mp Entertainment16 MILLENNIUM POST | New Delhi | Tuesday, 8 August, 2017

I realised I couldn’t relate to BUBBLY ROLES anymore: Anushka Sharma

NEW DELHI: Her initial years in Bollywood saw her play the bubbly girl in films, but actor Anushka Sharma says she has now progressed in her career and moved beyond the “extrovert kind of roles”.

The 29-year-old actor, who made her Bollywood debut oppo-site Shah Rukh Khan in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, says she realised after a while that she could no lon-ger identify with such characters.

“I remember there was a time in my life when I did a lot of these extrovert kind of roles. But there was this phase when I got really... Maybe because I was changing as a person, I realised I could not relate to these things anymore,” Anushka said.

The actor says this change con-fused people around her, who felt she had suddenly become a differ-ent person.

“There were people around me, who had perhaps known me for a while like friends, industry people and journalists, they felt that there was something wrong

with me. That suddenly I was dif-ferent. But that’s the natural pro-gression that you go through.” 

The actor, who has emerged as one of the top female stars in Bollywood within a short span of time, has teamed up with Shah Rukh for the third time with Jab Harry Met Sejal, a romance drama by director Imtiaz Ali.

The actor says while the prag-matic outlook of her character may appear like her real-life per-sona, Sejal was quite dissimilar to her and it took her a while to understand and approach the part.

“Imtiaz and Shah Rukh have also said that Sejal, according to them, is similar to me but a lot of times we associate a screen image that an actor has to his or her

own personality. How we diver-sify these roles is very simple – the girl is either bubbly or she is serious.”

“But this extrovert persona carries a lot of other personali-ties. I think Sejal and I are quite dissimilar,” she says.

Talking about Imtiaz’s films, Anushka says she likes his approach towards women and his ability to take the usual and create something unique out of it.

“His female characters are seeking freedom, whether they are aware of it or not. It is some-thing that most Indian girls will be able to relate to. This is why his stories are so popular, espe-cially amongst the youth and peo-ple who are at the fulcrum of that

change. It happened to me when I saw ‘Jab We Met’ because I was at that stage in my life.” 

Anushka says while there is a lot of discussion on women’s rights and equality, she belongs to the generation, which is still rooted that is also seeking independence.

“Today we talk about how women want to be treated in a certain way and rightfully so. At the same time, I feel that we, espe-cially my generation, come from the protected family set-ups. And while we are working and getting educated, we are also the genera-tion which is in the middle of pro-tectiveness and at the same time seeking that freedom.” 

The actor says while some peo-ple might feel Ali’s characters are not feminists, they do not realise that these women are coming out of the strong holds of their fami-lies. She says Ali understands this duality and the conflict arising out of it. “Imtiaz’s female charac-ters fight for that freedom. We, as women, have to fight for our free-dom. I know I have.” PTI

‘Maybe because I was changing , I could not relate to these things anymore’

MUMBAI: Actor Rajkummar Rao, who is playing the role of Pritam Vidrohi in forthcoming film Bareilly Ki Barfi, says the kind of variations the character has is very unique.

Director Nitesh Tiwari had nar-rated the script of Bareilly Ki Barfi to Rajkummar before the release of Aamir Khan starrer Dangal.

“The moment he started reading Pritam Vidrohi, I was sold that I am doing this film. The kind of variation that Pritam has is very unique,” Raj-kummar said in a statement. 

Rajkummar was impressed with Tiwari’s narrating style.

“It was one of the best narrations, and personally I prefer reading my scripts, but Nitesh sir is such an amazing actor himself and he knew his characters inside out,” the actor added. 

The story of Bareilly Ki Barfi revolves around three persons – Chi-rag, Pritam and Bitti played by Ayush-mann Khurrana, Rajkummar and Kriti Sanon. The film is releasing on August 18. IANS

Role in ‘Bareilly Ki Barfi’

very unique: Rajkummar Rao

Sidharth Malhotra keen on turning producerMUMBAI: He may have started his career as an assistant director but actor Sidharth Malhotra says there is still time for him to helm a movie and the more “immedi-ate step” is to produce films.

The actor was an assistant on Karan Johar’s My Name is Khan before he switched to acting and made his debut with the film-maker’s directorial Student of the Year.

“Direction is really far fetched but I would definitely want to produce and back content which I believe in,” Sidharth said.

“That’s more immediate step, to put all money in a film and hope that it brings you back rewards. Directing will be some-thing, somewhere later in life,” he adds.

The 32-year-old actor says he doesn’t always think like a director on sets but definitely “observes” how things work.

“Thinking like a direc-tor depends on what film I am doing. If there is a senior reputed director, then I wouldn’t get in

his way. Not that I want to bully a first time director but I defi-nitely observe, as someone who has also been behind the cam-era,” he says.

“If I can give a suggestion, be it for the prop, a scene, or dia-logue, I’d give it hoping that it

would make the film better,” Sid-harth adds.

The actor, who will be seen next in A Gentleman, says he instantly agreed to be part of the “mad cap” universe of film-maker duo Raj and DK when they offered him the movie.

“The world I come from, the cinema I’ve done, I have never gone to this kind of comedy. They (Raj and DK) have a very new take on everything, they are audience turned directors, so they are always creating stuff which is edgier, newer, cooler.

“We have kind of collab-orated Raj & DK’s world with mine and created this animal called ‘A Gentleman’. It’s slick and stylish and also a family enter-tainer,” he says. PTI

LOS ANGELES: The 28-year-old actor has admitted she “really loves” working and she doesn’t like to take any time out of her busy schedule to relax, although she forces herself to take at least one week break in between each film to “decompress”.

Speaking about her hard work ethic, the blonde haired beauty said: “I really love working. I think that’s also part of the prob-lem, because I don’t want to have free time. I like to go from one film to the next to the next with just maybe a week or two in between, because that’s all I really need to decompress.”

And the Avengers: Age of Ultron star has admitted she was very keen to throw herself into every project that came her way when she first embarked on a career in the enter-tainment industry, although her excitement meant she didn’t make “discerning decisions”.

She explained: “I think I just got a little excited at the beginning, and I wasn’t mak-ing the most discerning decisions.

“I think the first, I would say, four or five years of working, I was just so excited to be working. I was excited to do every kind of movie. I wasn’t thinking, really, about the producers or the directors, the DP. My mind didn’t work in that way. I wasn’t even think-ing about, ‘What’s a creative arc that I want to create for myself?’ That has altered and that has changed.”

But the star has since learned from her mistakes and makes more decisions involv-ing her job prospects, and she has even decided to dive “a little bit” into the “devel-opment side”.

She told RottenTomatoes.com: “Now, I do feel like I have made decisions, even though it’s almost impossible to com-pare and contrast ‘Ingrid Goes West’ and ‘Wind River’. They were both projects I really wanted to be a part of, and I thought made sense for me, for what I want to put out there, that are completely different. They don’t have to be similar. It is interesting, and now I’m diving a little bit into the devel-opment side of things.

“It hasn’t even been 10 years yet for me, but it’s still a much more knowledgeable per-spective now, obviously, than I had in 2012 after working for like a year and a half or something. I seemingly get wiser.” IANS

Don’t want to have

FREE TIME: Elizabeth

Daniel Craig on verge of two Bond movies

LOS ANGELES: Actor Daniel Craig is signing up for two more James Bond movies.

The 49-year-old is set to make his fifth and sixth appearances as the famous British spy in the forthcoming films after producer Barbara Broccoli persuaded him to make two more films, and the next motion picture may be called Shatterhand, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

“There was plenty of talk about who would be the next Bond but Barbara has managed to talk Daniel into two more films,” a source told The Sun newspaper. 

“He is loved by audiences around the world and has driven a real resurgence for the movies at the box office, so bosses knew they couldn’t lose him just yet. The script is nearly ready for the 25th film, provi-sionally titled ‘Shatterhand’ and scheduled to be released in Novem-ber 2019, so there is no time to waste on getting Daniel locked in,” the source added. There are reports that the sixth Bond movie is a remake of the 1969 film “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”, in which George Lazenby portrayed the spy.

“But the deal is almost done and the idea of returning to ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ for the 26th movie is really exciting. The film sees James get married, only for his wife to be killed, so it would be an explosive way.” IANS

LONDON: Action star Jackie Chan believes in doing his own stunts as his audiences expect him to do that.

The 63-year-old mar-tial arts expert says using a stunt double would leave his fans feeling disappointed, reported Metro.

“I do my own stunts most of the time, that’s what audiences expect from me. I used doubles in a few shots but I do over 90 per cent of my stunts.“But I think action for me is still easy. Doing stunts is what I am best at,” Chan says.

However, the Rush Hour actor also relies on special

effects and “camera angles” to help him.

“Of course, I used some special effects and camera angles to help, but I think action for me is still easy,” he added.

Chan says he trains with his stunt doubles, who he calls as his “brothers”.

“We rehearse the stunts together. The JC Stunts Team was established in 1975. We spend most of our time together and they are like my brothers – we fight alongside each other.” And because of the ‘Shanghai Noon’ star’s hectic work schedule, the only time he gets to relax is when he is on a plane. PTI

‘Audiences expect me to do my own stunts’

‘People who have known me for a while felt that there was something wrong with me; that I was different, but that’s the natural progression that you go through,’ said the 29-year-old actor