BUILDING COLLAPSES CRASH, RUPEE IN SEELAMPUR …S CITY SS BUSINE TWO KILLED AS BUILDING COLLAPSES IN SEELAMPUR STOCK MARKETS CRASH, RUPEE FALTERS H H.thehansindia.com VOL. 2 NO. 312

WINDOWS

CITY

BUSINE

SSTWO KILLED ASBUILDING COLLAPSES

IN SEELAMPUR

STOCK MARKETSCRASH, RUPEE

FALTERS

H Simultaneously published from Hyderabad | Warangal | Tirupati | Amaravati | Visakhapatnam | Khammam | Kurnool | Delhi: RNI No: DELENG/2017/74095 H

VOL. 2 NO. 312 DELHI PAGES 16 `5.00www.thehansindia.com

Forecast: More sun than clouds. Temp: Max.33°C. Min.27°C. Humidity: 68% Sunrise: 06:00 Sunset: 06:39WEDNESDAY 4 SEPTEMBER 2019

3 CISF men among 4 dead in ONGC blaze

Raigad: Three CISF firemenand a unit head were killed,while three others injuredwhen a massive fire brokeout in a storm waterdrainage network at theONGC's oil and gas process-ing plant in Uran, NaviMumbai, o�cials said hereon Tuesday. Following this,several CNG stations were

shut in Mumbai. MahanagarGas Limited (MGL) thatsupplies both CNG and PNGin Mumbai MetropolitanRegion said: “Due to the fire,gas supply to MGL’s citygate station at Wadala hasbeen severely a�ected.” Thevictims are ONGC's Resi-dential Chief Plant Supervi-sor C N Rao, 50, and CentralIndustrial Security Force(CISF) jawans of the FireWing (ONGC Unit), whowere killed in the line ofduty, are E Nayaka, M KPaswan and S P Kushwaha.

Police said that according toinformation received bythem, around 6.45 am, theCISF fire brigade was alertedof a gas leak near the LPGplant on the complex and ateam of ONGC and CISFpersonnel rushed to the spot.They managed to detect andclose a leaking valve andwere waiting to observe ifthere were more leaks, butsuddenly there was a hugeblast followed by a massivefire, killing the three CISFfiremen and the plant super-visor. Con�nued on Page 4

Pathankot: The Indian AirForce inducted the firstbatch of eight US-madeApache Guardian AttackHelicopters AH-64E at thePathankot Air Force Sta-tion on Tuesday. IAFChief Marshal B S Dhanoawas the chief guest at theinduction ceremony.

“Apache attack helicop-ters are being purchased toreplace the IAF’s existingMi-35 fleet,” the Chief Mar-shal said. “They will en-hance the operation capa-bilities of the IAF and thestrike force,” he said. Healso said the Apache chop-pers are equipped with lat-

est tech which is 24X7 all-weather capable with highagility and survivability.

The helicopters hadreached India at IAF Hin-don Airbase in Ghaziabadon July 27 and after a se-ries of trials, they weresent to Pathankot airbaseto be inducted into theIAF.

The Apache helicoptersare the world’s most lethalmulti-role combat heli-copters. Armed with fire-and-forget Hellfire mis-siles, the Apache attackchoppers can track up to128 targets in a minuteand prioritise threats. Themissiles equip the gun-ships with heavy anti-ar-

mourc a p a b i l i -

ties. It is also equippedwith 70 mm Hydra rocketsand air-to-air Stinger mis-siles. Apache also carriesone 39 mm chain gun with1,200 rounds as part ofarea weapon sub-system.

Con�nued on Page 4

New Delhi: A speedingdumper truck ploughedinto at least three auto-rickshaws and a scooternear India Gate in theearly hours of Tuesday,killing a man and his eight-year-old daughter out foran ice-cream treat and in-juring two, police said.

The horror unfoldedshortly after midnightwhen the truck driver lostcontrol of his vehicle andran over vehicles andpedestrians before cross-ing the divider and landingin the lawns of the CentralDelhi boulevard.

Kewal Diwan (42) andhis daughter Manya, wholeft their home in eastDelhi's Geeta Colony on ascooter around 9.30 pm onMonday, were killed, thepolice said.

The impact of the acci-dent was so intense thatthe vehicles were reducedto a mangled heap of metal.The driver, identified asRaman (24), a resident ofBadarpur, was arrestedfrom the spot and the vehi-

cle seized, they said. "Wereceived informationaround 12.20 am regardingthe accident near IndiaGate on Man Singh Road. Ateam rushed to the spotand found that onedumper had entered Raj-path lawns (south side) af-ter hitting several vehiclesand crossing over the foot-path," said a senior policeo�cer.

Eyewitnesses told thepolice that the dumper

first hit the divider afterwhich it hit the autos andpedestrians standing nearthe footpath.

A man aged around 42years was also found lyingnear the dumper. He wasimmediately shifted to theRam Manohar Lohia hos-pital where he was de-clared brought dead. Hewas later identified as Ke-wal Diwan. Manya was alsodeclared brought dead tothe hospital.

FAMILY OUTING TURNS INTO TRAGEDY

Passerby look at the mangled remains of an auto and ascooter, which met with an accident a�er the driver of adumper truck lost control and ran over autos andpedestrians near India Gate

Clerics of different faiths offer prayers during theinduc�on ceremony of eight US-made Apache AH-64Ea�ack helicopters into the Indian Air Force, at AirforceSta�on, Pathankot on Tuesday

SEVERAL CNGSTATIONS SHUT,GAS SUPPLY HIT

A view of ONGC gasprocessing plant

engulfed in flames

HANS NEWS SERVICE

Khammam: Themissing youthfrom Khammamfound dead inLondon. Ac-cording to thefamily mem-bers, the youthfrom KhammamSanne Ujawala SriHarsha (24), who wentmissing 13 days back in

London was found dead ata London beach on

Tuesday. He wasthe son of BJP

Khammamunit chiefUdayPratap.

Sri Harshawent to Lon-

don for pursinghigher studies

completing B Tech. Hewas studying MS at Queen

Mary University in Lon-don. He went missing onAugust 21. The Londonpolice registered a miss-ing case and informed theparents.

After 13 days, his deadbody was found at Sussexin East Born Beach inLondon on Tuesday. Thepolice suspect that it wasa suicide. They found acellphone, laptop and asuicide note at the spot.

Missing Khammam youthfound dead at London beach

Sri Harsha

S These are world’smost lethal mul�-role combathelicopters

S The choppers arearmed with fire-and-forgetHellfire missiles

S Can track up to 128targets in a minuteand priori�sethreats

Capital issuelikely on AP

Cabinetagenda todayHANS NEWS SERVICE

Amaravati: The statecabinet is scheduled tomeet on Wednesday.This meeting assumesimportance since thiswould be the firstmeeting after the con-troversy on the capitalcity broke followingthe statements madeby Minister for Mu-nicipal Administra-tion and Urban Devel-opment BotsaSatyanarayana. It islearnt that this issuewould also be dis-cussed by the cabinet.The cabinet apartfrom giving its nod forthe merger of APSRTCwith the government,will also discuss theaction plan to imple-ment 19 bills whichthe state governmenthad passed during thebudget session. Thisincludes Right to Edu-cation Act and im-prove the standard ofeducation in the stateand the AndhraPradesh Infrastruc-ture (Transparencythrough Judicial Pre-view) Bill 2019.

‘Akka’ Tamilisaito enter TS as‘Chellemma’on Sept 11HANS NEWS SERVICE

Hyderabad/Chennai:Tamilisai Soundarara-jan, the newly-ap-pointed Governor forTelangana, is likely toassume the office onSeptember 11. Incum-bent Governor ESLNarasimhan is learnt tohave spoken to his suc-cessor in this regard.Apart from finding outthe date when shewould be taking charge,he also wished her allsuccess in her endeav-our. Tamilisai said she isknown as ‘Akka’ inTamil Nadu and wouldbe coming to Telanganaas ‘Chellemma’. She saidshe would also learnTelugu soon.


Tamilisai Soundararajanwith her father

HANS NEWS SERVICE

Hyderabad: What will ESLNarasimhan do when hewould lay down his o�ce asGovernor of Telangana dur-ing the second week of Sep-tember? “I will go back to myhome state Tamil Nadu, en-joy wearing a dhoti, eat hotsteaming idlis, crispy dosasand will spend quality timewith my wife Vimala. Thereis no question of me takingplunge into active politics, in-stead I would prefer to be-come a priest in the future,”the outgoing Governor toldmedia in an informal interac-tion with media on Tuesday.

Walking down the mem-ory lane, Narasimhan whohas achieved the distinctionof being the longest servingGovernor in the Telugustates said that as Governorhe never abrogated his con-stitutional responsibilitiesand never favoured anyone.“I never took sides. I neversupported any politicalparty and I treated everyparty and its leadersequally.” The most challeng-

ing task for him, he said, wasmaintaining a clear line re-garding o�cial duties andpersonal friendship withevery leader who visited himat Raj Bhavan.

Narasimhan narratedhow he dealt with the di�-cult situation during theTelangana movement whenit was at its peak and thePresident rule imposed intwo Telugu states of Telan-gana and Andhra Pradeshafter the bifurcation. He ex-tolled the state police formaintaining restraint dur-ing Telangana struggle.


Narasimhanprefers to bepriest than apolitician

I will go back to myhome state TamilNadu, enjoy wearing

a dhoti, eat hot steamingidlis, crispy dosas and willspend quality time with mywife Vimala. There is noquestion of me takingplunge into active politics,instead I would prefer tobecome a priest in thefuture

—ESL Narasimhan

Union Health MinisterHarsh Vardhan rides abicycle to the venue of 72ndSession of the WHORegional Committee forSouth-East Asia meet, inNew Delhi on Tuesday

‘K genocide’ claim a lost case:Pak ICJ lawyerNew Delhi: Pakistan’s lawyer inthe International Court of Justice(ICJ) has left his country redfaced. Khawar Qureshi in an openadmission has accepted thatthere is no significant evidencewith Pakistan for its claims ofgenocide in Kashmir. Qureshi hassaid, "in absence of these evi-dences, it is extremely difficult forPakistan to take this case to theICJ". Qureshi was speaking toPakistani media. Earlier, Pakistanthreatened to take India to the ICJover the issue of Kashmir. S P9

Centre hikesethanol prices tocut oil import bill

New Delhi: The government onTuesday raised the price of sugar-cane-extracted ethanol used forblending in petrol by up to Rs 1.84per litre as it looked to cut oil im-port bill by $1 billion annuallythrough its greater use in auto fu-els. State-owned oil marketingcompanies will buy ethanol fromsugar mills, for mixing in petrol, atenhanced rates for ethanol yearbeginning December 1, PetroleumMinister Dharmendra Pradhansaid here. He was briefing re-porters on the decisions taken bythe Cabinet Committee on Eco-nomic Affairs. S P11

Truck goes berserk, killsfather, daughter

8 APACHE HELICOPTERSINDUCTED INTO IAF

Apachehelicopters, the

world’s most lethalmul�-role combat

choppers, reached India atIAF Hindon Airbase in

Ghaziabad on July 27, 2019and a�er a series of trials,

they were sent toPathankot

airbase

Water crunch may push AsiaPulp & Paper out of AndhraNARESH NANDAM

Ongole: The Asia Pulp andPaper, which laid founda-tion stone eight monthsago, is exploring greenerpastures in other states forwant of water to run the 5-million-ton capacity papermanufacturing industry. Ifthis happens, it would be abig jolt to the developmentof Andhra Pradesh.

The Asia Pulp and Paper,a subsidiary of one of thelarge paper manufacturersin the world and the In-donesian conglomerate,Sinar Mas Group, has ze-roed in on Chevuru village.After much deliberations in2018, o�cials from theAndhra Pradesh EconomicDevelopment Board andAsia Pulp and Paper fi-nalised the site of 2,500acres (1000 hectares) inChevuru village of Gudlurumandal, near Ramayapat-nam port in Prakasam dis-trict for their abundance ofresources.

Ramayapatnam was se-lected at the time of the ex-change of MoU on January9, 2019, due to availability ofland parcel near the sea(with right sea draft) forcaptive jetty, freshwater

availability, proximity toabundant wood supply andbasic infrastructure such asnational highway, rail line,airport and power.

It was projected that thepulp and paper mill willprovide direct employmentto approximately 4,000 millworkers, indirect employ-ment for another 10,000 en-gaged in ancillary servicesalong with benefitting over50,000 farmers who will besupplying wood. The fac-tory was assured that therequired water would besupplied from the Ralla-padu reservoir. The thenchief minister N Chan-drababu Naidu, the execu-tive director of the AsiaPulp and Paper Suresh

Kilam and other o�cialslaid foundation for theplant.

The Prakasam districtgrows eucalyptus and sub-abul plantations in about 2lakh acres, the secondlargest producer of pulp-wood in the country. Butthe social forestry farmersare now struggling for a bet-ter price. The farmers par-ticipated in large numbersfor the foundation-layingceremony of the Asia Pulpand Paper at Ramayapat-nam and celebrated theevent. But they are cluelesswhy the construction of theproject has not yet startedeven after eight months ofthe foundation ceremony.


File photo

https://t.me/Towardstomorrow

DELHI WEDNESDAY 4 SEPTEMBER 2019

ASKARI JAFFER

Her sculptures showcasenature, its beauty, andhighlight the perils of

damaging it. They tug at the heart-strings of the audience and coaxthem to recognise the part theyplay in the destruction of it. Shedraws huge inspiration from Rad-ha – Krishna. “I strive to recreatethat immortal and timeless ro-mance,” shares Hyderabad-basedartist Snehlata Prasad, who hasfound her calling as an artist anddabbles in a variety of mediums.Her installations of sculptures instone and bronze are displayedin various places across the coun-try. And her paintings areprimar-ily figurative, and on occasionsabstract as well.

Born in Nagpur, Maharashtra,Dr Snehlata Prasadnarrates herartistic journey, “As a child, I hadan innate sense of perceivingbeauty of milieu and expressingit in the form of drawing. I knewthat I wanted to pursue a careerin art and focus on art study. Ifurther channeled my creativeabilities to evolve by pursuingpost- graduation inthe visual arts.Afterthis I started partici-pating in art exhibi-tions, camps andworkshops both atthe national and In-ternational levels. Itwas here that I un-derstood how the artscenario in the coun-try worked and start-ed developingthoughts on how toimprove it.”

Regarding her viewon art, she says, “Arthas a way of tran-scending boundariesand making the worldunite as a single force,even if it is for a singlemoment. When I look

at a piece of art, it becomes a partof a complex microcosmic entitythat shares various thoughts, trig-gers various sensory pathways inthe brain, but eventually comestogether as one beautiful emo-tion- bypassing the bound-aries of space, time,race, language, sexand social strata.”

Apart from sev-eral other distin-guished awardsand commenda-tions, in 2017,Snehlata was be-stowed with GreatAsia Achiever Award(awarded by the PrimeMinister of India NarendraModi). Shehad the honour of re-ceiving the highest award for artin her home state of Rajasthanfrom the Lalit Kala Academy. Shealso holds a Limca Book of WorldRecords for attempting the largestpainting spanning 64 feet.

“In 2019, my work was show-cased in the 19th solo Show atArt Entrance Gallery, Kala GhodaAssociation, Mumbai and in 2018the 18th Solo Show at ICCR Art

Gallery,IndianCouncil for

Cultural Rela-tion, New Delhi.

Apart from these, myworks have been displayed in var-ious solo shows in Hyderabad,Goa, Haryana,” she adds.

She is currently working to-wards making her art initiative,“Sneha Arts is an initiative thatis aimed towards showcasing mywork, ideology and sharing mythoughts and creative processwith the rest of the world. It isalso meant to be a platform show-casing traditional, modern, con-

temporary art, especially Indianart. It also showcases works ofseveral art masters and other up-coming masters.

Though she is born in Nagpurshe is connected in a special wayto the city of pearls, “Having madeHyderabad my home after mar-riage, I present the local art scenewith snippets of my life from backhome in Rajasthan through mywork.”

Sharing thoughts about howwomen take to art more naturally,she says, “I truly believe that artis the best profession for women.I feel this is due to the innate

artistic sense that hasbeen imbibed inwomen through mil-lennia of evolutionand because of this,women see the worldvery di�erently.”

“I am passionateabout helping peopleunderstand my visionfor the field, mydreams and aspira-tions for the art cir-cuit in India and ideasas to how the nextgeneration has to benurtured and devel-oped so that they cancarry forward thelegacy they have beenhanded, and set newceilings for their suc-cessors,” she states.

YouTube sensation LillySingh talks about hersexuality, which, she says,was one of the scariestexperiences of her life

YouTube sensation Lilly Singh says openingup on social media about her bisexuality ear-lier this year was one of her scariest experi-

ences in life.Lilly Singhtook to Instagram on Tuesday to write:

“It’s been one year since I mustered up the courageto share my truth with some of my dearest friends.When I decided to come out on social media earlierthis year, I did so through a very pointed post.Having shared so much of my life with an audiencefor so long, this is one aspect of my life I didn’twant to explain. That is what felt right and authenticto me.”

“Having said that, it’s been a year and now I dofeel compelled to share a few thoughts withthose willing to read them. Firstly, I’velearned that there is NOTHING moreimportant than living your truth.It’s scary, it’s nerve wrecking andoften times it’s painful but ul-timately it is worth it. Period.But this post isn’t just aboutthe bright side, it’s aboutraw truth. Coming outwas one of thescariest expe-riences ofmy life.I’d loveto telly o ut h a tevery-o n ew a ssupport-ive andthat peopledidn’t treatme di�erentlybut I’d be lying,” sheadded.

Despite ignoring what othersthink, Lilly felt insecure more thanonce over the past year.

“Even if I ignore the actions ofothers and focus on myself, admit-tedly dealing with the warfare in my mind has beenhard. Coming out lifted a weight o� my shouldersbut at the same time it placed the weight of judge-ment on my chest. Maybe that's the culture I wasraised in or maybe it's all in my head but either wayfor me it’s real. I’m so happy that my coming outhas inspired so many people but at the same time Iam not oblivious to the fact that some find my truthdisappointing or not ideal,” she wrote.

“Whether I agree with them or not, I can’t deny

that those energy waves have made me feel insecuremore than once in the past year. For so many yearsI lived with the privilege of relating to every lovesong and rom com and now that my place on thespectrum has shifted, I realize how sad it is thatnot everyone can. Why am I sharing all of this? Be-cause over the past year I learned the power ofbeing kind to other people even if they’re di�erent.Every friend and family member that reached outto me with words of encouragement, you don’trealise how much that meant to me during an un-certain time.”

The Indian-origin Canadian artiste, who is alsoa comedian, author and an Unicef Goodwill Am-bassador, urged people to “spread light, not dark-ness”.

“Life is tough enough for the LGBTQ+ communityand various other communities. Kindness, com-passion and humanity can go a really long way. Addlight, not darkness. Love each other,” she added.

Many celebrities including Dwayne Johnson andJessie Paege reacted to Lilly's post.

Dwayne, aka The Rock, commented: “Beautifullysaid. Cheers sis to the most powerful thing we canbe - ourselves. Always easier said than done.”

Paege called Lilly “incredible”.

Scariest experiences in life

As a role-modelto a lot of women

around the globe, Singhalso created her #GirlLoveini�a�ve to break the cycle

of girl-on-girl hate andencourage posi�vity

towards eachother

Expression of emotion

Be it the stone sculptures of Radha Krishna and nature, or her paintingsthat are both figurative and abstract,art for Dr Snehlata Prasad is comingtogether of various thoughts as one

beautiful emotion

Hindi Film Music of 1990swas dominated by melodi-ous music, sung by the su-

perstar duo of Alka Yagnik andKumar Sanu. Theyperformed livein concert at Gachibowli IndoorStadium, Hyderabad on Saturday.The blockbuster duo’s voices in-spired many film creators andmusic composers, hence givingus a string of innumerable hits in-dividually and together. Theirmusic ruled the musical chartsand hearts through the goldenera of the melodious 90’s.

Alka Yagnik has more than

15,000 songs under her cadreacross languages and a journeyspanning over three decades.Alka has been a seven-time Film-fare award winner, a five-timescreen awards winner and hasalso been honoured with two Na-tional awards. Alka has a stringof hit songs and to name just afew will not suffice and is also animpossible task. Alka has lent hergolden voice to almost all theheroines, which has had a hugecontribution in changing the ca-reer course of these leadingladies.

90’s music superstar Alka Yagniksings with Kumar Sanu

In2017, Snehlata

was bestowed withGreat Asia AchieverAward by the Prime

Minister of IndiaNarendra Modi

A private kiosk for nursing mothersBreast-feedingkiosk, whichprovidesprivacy tonursingmothersinaugurated atall WomenEmployeesBegumpetRailway Station

Abreast-feeding Kiosk, a firstof its kind, to facilitate nurs-ing mothers inaugurated in

Hyderabad at Begumpet RailwayStation. Incidentally, Begumpet Rail-ways Station is also the first of itskind All Women Sta� Railway Stationin the South-Central Railways.

The Kiosk was set up by Rotary In-ternational District 3150 with the sup-port from South Central Railways. Itwas formally inaugurated by one of thetop Rotarians in the world, Gary CKHuang, Chairman, The Rotary Foun-dation who was on five-city visit to Indiaand Archana Rachel, Asst CommercialManager, South Central Railways

The Kiosk which is the brainchild ofRotarian Sesh Sai Kumar. It has been inhis mind since he saw one in Chennai four

years back. He designedand executed the kioskalong with RotarianSrikanth Gummely, whoprovided interior designsupport. The kiosk is lo-cated on platform 1.

Hyderabad, Secun-derabad and Vijayawadadivisions of South-Cen-tral Railways has issuedletters to Rotary Dis-trict 3150 for settingup of the Kiosks invarious stations intheir divisions. Thereare three such kiosksat Secunderabad,Hyderabad and

Bidar. But they were set up by SCRon its own. This kiosk is the first of its kind set up with

private partnership. Informed Arachana Rachel of SCR.

Dr Snehlata’s work

Dr Snehlata Prasadwith her works

Lilly Singh

Dhaatri completes two years India’s biggestmother’s milk bankDhaatri at Niloufer issaving infants lives forthe past two years

Dhaatri Mother's Milk Bank, In-dia's biggest mother's milk bankat 500 bedded Niloufer hospital

completes two years. In the last twoyears, the Bank has made fast stridesand saved many infants lives.

There are more than 18 full-fledgedhuman milk banks working around thecountry today and trying to ensure ac-cess to breast milk for babies. DhaatriMother's Milk Bank is the largest amongall, feeding newborns, especially lowbirth weight babies with pasteurizedbreast milk for the past two years.

It was established in October 2017.Since then till June 2019, 18060 mothersvisited it. Nearly 6636 mothers weretreated. 5170 mothers donated milk.The total milk expressed was1,063,546ml, the amount of milk donatedfor PDHM (Pasteurized Donor HumanMilk) was 6,78,000 ml out and amountof milk taken back as MOM (MothersOwn Milk) which 3,84,874 ml.

“Given the capacity of the hospital,we are in need of expanding the facility.We started collecting

milk from outside. Currently we pro-vide milk only to the patients at NilofourHospital. And to those babies who arebelow 1.5 kgs,” says Dr Santhosh Kumar,the founder director of Dhaatri,

The milk bank is open from 8 am to6 pm. Though there are day to day run-ning costs - to maintain the equipment,storing breast milk, analysing donormother’s blood samples etc - we collectand donate milk free of cost, she informs.Breast Milk has been shown by manyresearch studies to be the absolute bestfood for babies. Mother's Milk is thesafest and the healthiest food for a babyas it gets easily digested and providesall nutrients that a baby need. It is ababy’s first vaccine, the first and thebest protection they have against illnessand disease.

In the year 2015-2016, Niloufer hadseen a substantial number of neonataldeaths: both, in-born as well as out-born admissions. This was later foundto be due to asphyxiation, lack of properfeeds, etc with a number at an alarming1700 neonate deaths out of a total of16000 neonatal admissions in that year.

After due deliberations with domainexperts, it was decided to establish amother’s milk bank, which could proveto be vital to save neonates.

“Mother’s milk bank, Dhaatri” stemsfrom the thought that newborns de-prived of their own mother’s milk canbe given donor mother milk.

It is a donor milk bank and also aComprehensive Lactation ManagementCenter (CLMC). It is only of its kind inTelangana & Andhra Pradesh. It givesthe mothers a chance to donate theirexcess milk and help babies in need.The services o�ered at the milk bankinclude Selection of carefully screeneddonors, collection of milk, pasteuriza-tion, freezing and distribution of milk;Counseling to mothers about properlatching techniques, motivating to do-nate excessive milk. treatments andmassages for sore, cracked, invertednipples and engorged breasts.

IN T

HE

NEW

S


3DELHI WEDNESDAY 4 SEPTEMBER 2019 CITY

New Delhi (PTI): A father-daughter duo was killed andthree others were injured afteran under-construction buildingcollapsed in Seelampur area,following which two peoplewere arrested, police said onTuesday.

Delhi Chief Minister ArvindKejriwal on Tuesday said he willorder an inquiry into the matter.Police received information re-garding the incident at 11.32 pmon Monday.

During the rescue operation,five people were taken out of thedebris and rushed to hospitalwhere Moni Sarfaraz, 21, andher 65-year-old father Moham-mad Yaseen, residents of K-Block Seelampur, were declaredbrought dead, said Atul KumarThakur, Deputy Commissionerof Police (North East). Six firetenders were rushed to the spot,the fire department said.

The National Disaster Re-sponse Force and District Dis-aster Management Authorityalso joined in the rescue opera-tion. The impact of the collapsewas such that the neighbouringhouses were destroyed. Whiletwo of the injured Arman, 33,and Sahajan Begam, 33, are un-dergoing treatment at the GTBHospital, another person, iden-tified as Samshudin, 45, was dis-charged after first aid. Two men-- Ikramuddin, 60, and his sonGufran, 32, -- have been ar-

rested in connection with al-leged negligence in the matter,police said. "I was standing out-side my house and my sisterMoni (Hina) and my fatherYaseen, along with other mem-bers, were inside the house.When the neighbouring build-ing collapsed, it fell on our

house and both of them gottrapped. She was the sole-breadwinner of her house aftermy father fell sick around cou-ple of months ago," said Danish,the family member of deceased.

Kejriwal said he will ensurestrict that action is taken againsterrant o�cers who allowed the

construction of the building. "Itis a very serious matter. Thereshould be a strict action againstthose o�cers during whosetenure this building was allowedto construct. I will get the inquirydone into the incident and a strictaction will be taken against o�-cers," he told reporters.

New Delhi (PTI): The Delhi Cabinet on Tuesday decided to includeother Backward Class and general category students in its 'Jai BhimMukhyamantri Pratibha Vikas Yojana', and enhance financial assis-tance from Rs 40,000 to Rs 1 lakh for coaching for various competitiveexams.

Briefing reporters on the Cabinet decisions, Chief Minister ArvindKejriwal said earlier, the scheme was only for the scheduled caste(SC) category students under which financial assistance of up to Rs40,000 would be provided.

The decision comes ahead of the Delhi Assembly polls which arescheduled to be held early next year. Kejriwal said that for instance,a civil service aspirant will be provided Rs one lakh financial assis-tance for 12-month coaching. Later in a tweet, he termed his govern-ment's decision as "historic" and said, "every child is a part of hisfamily. It is his responsibility to take care of his education."

Kejriwal, in a press conference, said an applicant whose annualfamily income is less than Rs eight lakh will be able to avail thescheme. "Children born in poor families are also very intelligent, butin the absence of resources for coaching, they are left behind, andonly those with su�cient economic resources have access to coach-ing," the chief minister said.

Kejriwal said the Delhi government is committed to ensure thatno child is denied coaching for competitive exams due to lack of fi-nancial resources. "It was for this very reason that the Delhi govern-ment had launched 'Jai Bhim Mukhyamantri Pratibha Vikas Yojana'a year back,".

Delhi students belonging to SC, ST, OBC and EWS categories withtotal family income less than Rs eight lakh per year will be eligiblefor the scheme. For the judicial services examination, the Delhi gov-ernment will provide Rs one lakh for coaching of up to 12 months.For the entrance examination of professional courses for studentswith science stream like engineering, NDA and CDS, an 11-monthcoaching will be provided with the financial assistance of Rs one lakh.

The AAP government will give financial assistance of Rs 50,000for coaching for the entrance examination for other professionalcourses such MBA, CLAT, etc.

Expedite welfareschemes for advocates: CMNew Delhi (PTI): Delhi ChiefMinister Arvind Kejriwal hasdirected the Law departmentto expedite implementation ofwelfare schemes for advocates."My govt is committed to thewelfare of advocates. We haveset aside Rs 50 crore for vari-ous welfare schemes of advo-cates in this year's budget. Ihave directed the Law dept toexpedite its implementation,"he tweeted.

Lieutenant Governor AnilBaijal had on Monday advisedthe Delhi Chief Secretary to re-solve the issues expeditiously."Earlier the LG had, on the ba-sis of media reports, directedChief Secretary for expedi-tious resolution of schemes orissues related to welfarescheme or fund for advocatesas per law," a statement fromthe LG House said.

"The LG had observed thatadvocates play a pivotal role injustice delivery, therefore, en-suring their welfare is essen-tial for the robust functioningof the legal system. Stressingthat the matter of advocatewelfare should be dealt withutmost priority, the LG has ad-vised the Chief Secretary againfor speedy resolution of thematter," it added. The LGHouse clarified that these mat-ters have never reached his of-fice.

New Delhi (PTI): The SouthDelhi Municipal Corporation(SDMC) on Monday launched awebsite for pre-registration ofcommercial vehicles for radiofrequency identity (RFID) tags.The SDMC is the nodal agencyfor implementing the new cash-less border toll system at 13 busyborder points of the nationalcapital. It has decided that non-RFID commercial vehicles won'tbe allowed to enter the city afterSeptember 13.

The new RFID system allowsautomatic collection of MCD taxand environment compensationcharge from commercial vehi-cles. It is aimed at reducing pol-lution by easing tra�c conges-tions and plug revenue leakageby ensuring transparency. Oncea person buys an RFID tag andpastes it on his registered vehicle,MCD tax and environment com-pensation charge (ECC) will bededucted at the 13 toll plazas au-tomatically. "To make the pre-registration process smooth, wehad asked commercial vehicle

owners to send their documentsvia email and gave them immu-nity from penalty for seven days,till they receive RFID tags. Peo-ple can also go to any of the 13toll plazas, submit their docu-ments and procure tags," SDMCAdditional Commissioner Rand-hir Sahay said.

"Many people have been e-mailing wrong documents to usfor pre-registration of vehicles.Also, we have been witnessinglong queues at the toll plazas,"Sahay said during the launch ofthe website -- ecctagsdmc.com.

Commercial vehicle owners canupload copies of the documentsrequired for pre-registration di-rectly on the website and selectthe nearest toll plaza and time tocollect RFID tags. Only the doc-uments needed for pre-registra-tion of vehicles -- photograph ofthe vehicle, registration certifi-cate, driving license, insurancepapers and others -- can be up-loaded on the website. It willeliminate confusion, the SDMCadditional commissioner said.The website can also be used forrecharging RFID tag wallets.

New Delhi (PTI): Welcoming theapex court's direction on using ra-dio frequency identification tagsfor parking management in Delhi,the Environment Pollution (Pre-vention and Control) Authority(EPCA) said on Tuesday it will ex-plore if tags for commercial vehi-cles can be used in private ones ora new system will be needed. TheSouth Delhi Municipal Corpora-tion, which is the nodal agency forimplementing cashless bordertoll system in the national capital,is selling RFID tags to commercialvehicle owners. It had decidedthat non-RFID commercial vehi-cles won't be allowed to enter thecity after September 13. The newsystem allows automatic collec-tion of MCD tax and environment

compensation charge from com-mercial vehicles. It is aimed at re-ducing pollution by easing tra�ccongestions and plug revenueleakage by ensuring transparency,EPCA chairman Bhure Lal said.

On the Supreme Court direc-tion to prepare and implement pi-lot projects, involving RFIDs, forparking management, EPCAmember Sunit Narain said, "Afterpilot projects in Lajpat Nagar, Kr-ishna Nagar and Kamla Nagar arecompleted, EPCA will be able toanswer if all vehicles need RFIDtags." "We will also see if the RFIDtags, being used in case of com-mercial vehicles, can be used forprivate ones or a new system willbe needed. All new vehicles haveRFID tags installed in them. We

will see how can they be used tocheck illegal parking," she added.

Narain, the director general forCentre for Science and Environ-ment, said the pilot projects forparking management in LajpatNagar, Krishna Nagar and KamlaNagar have to be completed byDecember 30. "After the comple-tion of the pilot projects, EPCAwill submit a report in the apexcourt on the learnings, benefits,shortcomings and how it can betaken forward... replicated in theentire city," she said.

EPCA has always maintainedthat parking in residential areasneeds to be regulated. The Delhigovernment will have to notifyparking rules after the SupremeCourt order, Narain said.

Only 165 vehiclesmade RFID payments:SDMCNew Delhi (PTI): Only 165commercial vehicles havemade payments through radiofrequency identity (RFID)tags since the new cashless tollsystem came into force at 13busy border points in the na-tional capital on August 24, aSenior South Delhi MunicipalCorporation (SDMC) officialsaid on Tuesday.

Randhir Sahay, AdditionalCommissioner of the SDMC,the nodal agency for imple-menting the RFID project inthe capital, said over 3.6 lakhradio frequency identity tagshave been sold so far but only547 of them have beenrecharged.

Once a person buys an RFIDtag and pastes it on his regis-tered vehicle, the MCD taxand environment compensa-tion charge (ECC) will be de-ducted at the 13 toll plazas au-tomatically. "So far, only 165commercial vehicles have paidMCD tax and ECC throughRFID tags. On the first day it-self, 6,000 people were chal-laned at 13 toll plazas for notusing RFID tags," he said.

General Manager Northern Railway TP Singh inaugurated the 74th Men’s and 13th Women All India Railway Boxing Championship2019-20 at Karnail Singh Stadium, New Delhi on Monday. A large number of par�cipants and sports enthusiasts were present onthe occasion. The championships are being organised by the Northern Railway from September 2 to September 5 at Karnail SinghStadium in New Delhi. In these Championships, 67 men and 29 women boxers are par�cipa�ng in different weight categoriesfrom all the Zones /Workshops/ Public Sector Undertakings of Indian Railway

Two killed as buildingcollapses in Seelampur

Rescue opera�ons underway a�er a four-storey building collapsed late Monday night, in Seelampur area of Delhi on Tuesday

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal during a press conference at Delhi Secretariat, in New Delhi on Tuesday

Jai Bhim MukhyamantriYojana includes OBC,general category

Website on RFID commercial registrations

Environment Pollution Authority

Examines RFID tags for private vehicles

All India Railway Boxing ChampionshipNew Delhi (PTI): The Delhi Commis-sion for Women on Tuesday issued anotice to the Delhi Police in connec-tion with the thrashing of a pregnantand deaf-mute woman over suspi-cion of being a child-lifter in north-east Delhi. The four-month pregnantwoman was beaten up by a mob inHarsh Vihar on August 27 over sus-picion that she was a child-lifter.

Woman, a resident of southeastDelhi's Tughlakabad, was admittedto a hospital by her family and hercondition was stated to be stable.

According to police, five persons,including two women, have been ar-rested till now. The women's panelhas sought a report in the matter andhas asked police to provide a copy ofthe FIR.

New Delhi (PTI): The JawaharlalNehru University Teachers' As-sociation on Tuesday accused thevarsity administration of spread-ing "blatant false-hood" on its letter tohistorian RomilaThapar asking her tosubmit her CV anddemanded that it im-mediately retractsuch letters sent to 12professors emeriti,besides tenderingpersonal apology.

The JNU adminis-tration's decision to ask historianRomila Thapar to submit her CVfor assessment for her continua-tion as professor emerita haddrawn sharp criticism from vari-ous quarters with JNUTAterming it "politically motivated",following which the JNU registraron Monday said that there are 11others who have also been askedto submit their CVs. The univer-sity had said it was done with the

objective of ascertaining Thapar's“availability” and “willingness” tocontinue her “association withthe University” and not to assess

her for continuation.The JNUTA on

Tuesday released theletter sent by the var-sity to Thapar, sayingit was doing so tocounter "such blatantfalsehood". It notedthat the subject lineof the "o�ensive let-ter" read, 'Assess-ment of Past Work of

Professor Emeritus in Jawahar-lal Nehru University for the com-mittee to decide on continua-tion'. This "is all the evidenceneeded to expose the true inten-tions of the JNU administra-tion", the JNUTA said in a letter"The JNUTA finds it laughablethat the current JNU adminis-tration thinks that confessing toan insult on a larger scale countsas a defence.

Romila row: Teachers want JNU to apologise

Cobra rescued fromMetro stationNew Delhi (PTI): A four-foot-long cobra was rescued fromthe basement of Dwarka Sector8 Metro Station, Wildlife SOS,an NGO involved in wildlifeconservation, said on Tuesday.

It said the snake was releasedback into the wild after beingkept under observation for afew hours. The common cobra(Naja naja) is one of the big fourvenomous snake species foundin the Indian subcontinent andis protected under Schedule IIof the Indian Wildlife Protec-tion Act, 1972. "The nearlyfour-foot-long cobra createdquite a stir at the Dwarka Sec-tor 8 Metro Station on the BlueLine (on Monday evening),"Wildlife SOS said in a state-ment. A DMRC o�cial said,"The maintenance sta� foundthe snake hiding in a pile of dis-carded material kept near thestorage room. They immedi-ately reported the incident tous." The authorities reportedthe matter to Wildlife SOSwhich sent a two-member teamto rescue the snake.

Cops told to act over assault on pregnant woman

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NEWS4��

HANSNEWSSERVICE

Tirupati: In a bid to combat malnu-trition in the country, the Centralgovernment has called for observingthe month of September as “PoshanAbhiyan”.

Prime Minister Narendra Modihas announced this flagship pro-gramme to improve nutritional out-comes for children, adolescents,pregnant women and lactatingmothers by leveraging technology, atargeted approach and convergenceof all nutrition related schemes.

Accordingly, September being ob-served as ‘Poshan Maah’ and various

programmes will be held from Sep-tember 3 to 30.

Several ministries includingWomen and Child Development,Health and Family Welfare, Drinkingwater and Sanitation, Rural Devel-opment and others will participatein the programme and undertake ac-tivities. The main target of the mis-sion was to bring down stunting inchildren in the age group of 0-6 fromthe current 35 per cent to 25 per centby 2022 and reduce anaemia amongwomen and adolescent girls (agegroup of 15-49 years) and reduce lowbirth weight.

National Nutrition Mission

(NNM) will ensure proper synergyand linking various schemes witheach other to achieve common goal.

Various programmes will be heldduring the month in all States. Thetheme for this year’s programmewould be ‘Complimentary feeding’and activities aimed at taking the im-portance of nutritious food to everyhome. ICDS sta� will take up thecampaign to reach every home andcreate awareness on the need to takeclean drinking water, maintain per-sonal hygiene and problems relatedanaemia and other aspects.

In Chittoor district, a rally wasconducted in Chittoor town in which

ICDS personnel participated in largenumbers. District Collector Dr NBharat Gupta flagged o� the rally andunderlined the key elements of thePoshan Maah.

Awareness programmes will beheld during the month in all Angan-wadi centres for children, adoles-cents and both pregnant and lactat-ing women. District Medical andHealth department will also be in-volved in these programmes.

Tests to detect anaemia will beheld for students in all governmentand private schools and iron tabletswill be distributed. Women aged be-tween 15-49 years will be screenedfor anaemia at Angangwadi centres.If any child is found to be malnour-ished during the house visits ofASHA, Anganwadi volunteer etc.,they will be sent to the Nutrition Re-habilitation Centre in Tirupati.

ORS packets and zinc tablets willbe distributed during the course. Im-munisation aspect also will be takencare of and vaccination will be donewherever it was not covered earlier.

Emphasis will also be laid onhome-based neo natal care andhome-based young childcare.

The DM&HO Dr B Ramagiddaiahhas said that about 70 per cent ofpregnant women were anaemic inthe district which should be takencare of seriously along with reducingmother and child mortality rates.

In charge ICDS PD G Aruna Devihas said that several programmeswill be taken up during this monthto focus on anaemic women andmalnourished children.

Centre to combat malnutrition in a big way� Centre observing

‘Poshan Abhiyan’ in themonth of September

� Objective is to bringdown stunting inchildren in the agegroup of 0 to 6 from 35 per cent to 25 percent by 2022

� Reduce anaemiaamong adolescent girlsand women (Age groupof 15 to 49 years)

� Several programmesbeing organised by the departments ofWomen and ChildDevelopment, Healthand Family Welfare,Drinking Water andSanitation and RuralDevelopment

� National NutritionMission (NNM) willensure proper synergyand linking variousschemes with eachother to achievecommon goal

Vice-President leavesfor New Delhi

HANSNEWSSERVICE

Tirupati: Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu left for NewDelhi from Tirupati airport on Tuesday. He reached airportby IAF helicopter from Nellore where he participated vari-ous programmes during his three-day visit. Venkaiah wasgiven a warm send off at the airport by Deputy Chief Minis-ter K Narayanaswamy, Collector Dr N Bharat Gupta, UrbanSP KKN Anbu Rajan, RDO V Kanaka Narasa Reddy, AirportDirector Suresh and other officials. BJP leaders GBhanuprakash Reddy, C Ramachandra Reddy, Kola Anandand G Gopinath were also present.

HANS NEWS SERVICE

Amalapuram: Police arrestedVarikuti Venkata VenudharPrasad of Koduru village in Kr-ishna district on Tuesday inconnection with suicide of DrPenumatsa Rama Krishnam-raju, his wife P Lakshmi Deviand son son Dr KrishnaSandeep on August 30 here.

Producing the accused beforemedia here on Tuesday, deputysuperintendent of police Ma-sum Basha said rice pullingscam perpetrated by the ac-cused Venudhar Prasad is sus-

pected to be the main reasonfor the suicide of doctor’s fam-ily, who believed to have lostabout Rs 5 crore in the scam.

A gang from Krishna districthas been cheating the innocentpeople saying that white metaldevice which allegedly attractsrice grains brings huge amountof money and good luck to the

family. They also cheated thedoctor the same way and finallyhe resorted to suicide unable toclear debts.

Other member of the gangShawalis, Anantha Ram andSrinivasa Rao were at large andthey would be arrested shortly.Inspectors Bhima Raju, Sureshand Rajasekhar were present.

Varikuti VenkataVenudhara Prasad and

his gang reported tohave cheated

Penumatsa RamaKrishnamraju of crores

of rupees in the name ofrice pulling devices

ONE HELD OVER SUICIDE OF DOCTOR’S FAMILY

��

HANSNEWSSERVICE

Kadapa: The murder case offormer minister Y SVivekananda Reddy took aninteresting twist on Tuesday asone of the suspects committedsuicide by consuming sleepingpills. He took the pills late onMonday night and died whileundergoing treatment at a pri-vate hospital in Proddutur onTuesday morning.

The deceased was identifiedas S Srinivasulu Reddy, 52, ofKasunuru village inSimhadripuram mandal underPulivendula constituency. Heis said to be a close relative ofK Parameswara Reddy, whowas one of the accused inVivekananda Reddy murderand was even sent for Narcoanalysis test recently. Hisbrother-in-law ParameshwarReddy, said they had been serv-ing the YSR family for the last

30 years. He said that theywere in no way connected toVivekananda Reddy’s murderbut they were taken to Gujaratfor narco analysis test. Srini-vasulu Reddy was residing inProddatur town. He is survivedby wife and two sons.

According to his wife S Pad-mavathi, her husband wascalled by SIT (Special Investi-gating Team) o�cial C I Srira-mulu two days ago to Puliven-dula police station for aninquiry. She alleged that SITo�cial Sriramulu harassed herhusband in all possible mannerthough she said, he was no wayconnected to the murder ofViveka.

She also has showed two let-ters purportedly written bySrinivasulu Reddy to ChiefMinister Y S Jagan MohanReddy and YS Bhaskar Reddy(one of the brothers ofVivekananda Reddy).

One letter explains he wasin no way connected with themurder case but SIT o�cial CI Sriramulu had had been ha-rassing him using unparlia-mentary language during theinterrogation.

It may be recalled that for-mer minster YS VivekanandaReddy was found brutally mur-dered on March 15 in the bath-room of his own residence inPulivendula town.

Suspect in Viveka murder case ends life ��

��

��

HANSNEWS SERVICE

Srikakulam: The state governmentsanctioned a 200-bed super specialtyhospital at Palasa as part of e�orts toprovide succour to kidney patientsin Uddanam area in the district.

The government issued GO MSNo 102 on Tuesday through APVaidya Vidhana Parishad (APVVP)in this regard. Chief Minister Y S Ja-gan Mohan Reddy assured to estab-lish 200-bed super specialty hospitalat Palasa to conduct research on kid-ney diseases in Uddanam area dur-ing his election campaign.

The GO comes ahead of ChiefMinister’s visit to the district on

September 6. District o�cials saidon Tuesday that Jagan MohanReddy will reach Palasa in themorning on the day and set thestone for the hospital.

The government sanctioned Rs 50crore for the 200-bed research cen-tre and hospital. Along with regularposts, 98 contract and 60 outsourc-ing posts have been sanctioned forthe facility and recruitment processwill be started soon.

“The hospital will help in provid-ing better treatment to kidney pa-tients in Uddanam area,” said districtmedical and health o�cer M.Chen-chayya and district coordinator forhealth services B.Surya Rao.

On Sepember 6, in addition to set-ting the stone for hospital at Palasa,the Chief Minister will visit IIT cam-pus at Etcherla and lay foundationstone for academic buildings. He willalso inaugurate central kitchen atSingupuram which was built by Ak-shayapatra Foundation. District Col-lector, J Nivas, SP R N Ammi Reddyand other o�cials inspected loca-tions where Jagan will tour.

CM to lay stone for 200-bed hospital at Palasa � Govt issues GO sanctioning

hospital to serve kidneypatients in Uddanam area

� Jagan promised hospitalduring his election campaign

� Rs 50 cr sanctioned for the research centre-cum hospital

��

Continued from P1Even as reinforcements

were summoned, the otherscontinued to fight the blazein which three were hurtand hospitalised.

According to preliminaryreports, the suspectedcause of the fire could be aleakage and a blast in oneof the pipelines in thesprawling high-securitycomplex which is out ofbounds for all.

Local eyewitnesses saidthey heard a huge explo-sion and within seconds,saw the inferno with cloudsof dark smoke billowing outof the conflagration on theONGC complex, which wasvisible for several kmsaround. "There is no impacton oil processing. Gas has

been diverted to Haziraplant (in Gujarat). The sit-uation is being assessed,"an ONGC spokespersonsaid.

The blaze was broughtunder control after nearlythree hours and then cool-ing operations taken up.Preliminary reports indi-cate massive damage to thegas and oil pipelines whichcould disrupt supplies toconsumers for some time.In an immediate fall-out ofthe fire, gas supplies of bothPNG and CNG were se-verely hit in Mumbai, ac-cording to Mahanagar GasLtd (MGL).

The Mahanagar Gas Ltd,which supplies domestic,industrial and vehicular gas,said that gas supply to its

City Gate Station, Wadala,has been badly affected."We are ensuring that sup-ply to domestic PNG con-sumers is maintained onpriority without interrup-tion. However, many CNGstations in Mumbai may notoperate due to low pressurein the pipeline," thespokesperson said.

By evening, the MGL saidsupply to the Wadala sta-tion was partially restoredand supply to CNG stations,industrial and commercialcustomers were being pro-gressively restored. TheMGL network is spreadacross entire Mumbai,parts of Thane, Palghar andRaigad, serving lakhs of do-mestic, industrial and otherconsumers.

8 Apache helicoptersinducted into IAFContinued from P1

To add to the lethality of the heli-copter, it carries fire control radar,which has 360-degree coverage andnose mounted sensor suite for targetacquisition and night vision systems.It also has modern electronic warfare(EW) capabilities to provide versatil-ity to helicopter in a network-centricaerial warfare.

IAF has signed a contract with Boe-ing and the US government for 22Apache attack helicopters. The firsteight helicopters have been deliveredon schedule and the last batch of thehelicopters is to be delivered byMarch 2020.

The induction of Apache at AIF’sPathankot air base assumes signifi-cance as plains of Punjab has alwaysbeen the main theatre of all wars withPakistan. Their induction will providean additional punch to the Indianarmy on the ground as well.

Amar takes charge as GovtAdvisor, Interstate A�airsHANS NEWS SERVICE

Vijayawada: Devulapalli Amartook charge as an advisor fornational media and interstatea�airs to the government ofAndhra Pradesh here onTuesday. On this occasion, hesaid that he would strive toprovide publicity to the wel-fare schemes of the State gov-ernment.

He also said that he wouldmake efforts to fulfill thedream of house plots forjournalists. He further saidthat he had 43 years of ex-perience in journalism andhe would use it for the wel-fare of the journalists.

Government advisor(public affairs) Sajjala Ra-

makrishna Reddy, seniorjournalist K RamachandraMurthy and Information DepartmentCommissioner T Vijayaku-mar Reddy were present.

Senior APUWJ leadersAmbati Anjaneyulu, SubbaRao, Chandu Janardhan,Chava Ravi, N ChalapathiRao and some others felici-tated Amar.

HANSNEWS SERVICE

Vijayawada: Former Chief MinisterN Chandrababu Naidu on Tuesdaywrote a letter to Union FinanceMinister Nirmala Sitharaman re-questing the latter to retain andprotect the distinct identify ofAndhra Bank (AB) by continuing itscurrent status as Andhra Bank is ahousehold name among Telugupeople.

He has written the letter in viewof the decision taken by Centralgovernment to merge AndhraBank with the Union Bank of India(UBI) and Corporation Bank aspart of the national policy ofmerger of banks. ChandrababuNaidu reacted sharply to the deci-sion of the Central governmentand dashed o� a letter.

He said Andhra Bank is a house-

hold name among Telugu peopleand it continues to inspire the Tel-ugu people in achieving and con-tributing to the nation. He furthersaid the Bank was founded in 1923by noted freedom fighter Dr Bhog-araju Pattabhi Sitaramayya inMachilipatnam and it would cele-brate 100 years of formation in2022.

The TDP leader said if themerger of Andhra Bank is unavoid-

able with two others banks, AndhraBank should be made anchor Bankand its name should be continuedas usual.

He felt the decision would inspiregenerations coming together. Hesaid he was writing the letter withheavy heart on behalf of the Telugupeople regarding the merger ofAndhra Bank and requested the FMto withdraw the decision or makeAndhra Bank as the anchor Bank.

Naidu strongly opposes mergerof Andhra Bank with UBI

�Writes a letter to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman

��Points out that the bank was set up way back in 1923 by freedom fighter Dr Bhogaraju Pattabhi Sitaramayya in Machilipatnam

Continued from P1Replying to The Hans India,

the Asia Pulp and Paper repre-sentatives said that the com-pany is still evaluating the eco-nomic and logisticalconsiderations for the develop-ment of pulp and paper mill atRamayapatnam, including sitesuitability, regulatory approvalsand the supply of sustainableplantation wood.

Executive director of thecompany Suresh Kilam said,“Main issue is water. What wehad asked for and what is beingtalked about is not even 30 percent of our requirement. It hastaken too long so meantime wethought of exploring otherstates as well.”

Meanwhile, member of

Andhra Pradesh Social ForestryFarmers Association and presi-dent of Prakasam District De-velopment Forum, ChunduriRangarao said that Prakasamdistrict grows 62 per cent of thewood that is available in thestate while Nellore districtgrows another 22 per cent. Thegovernment can supply waterfrom Ramateertham orSangameswaram projects to theRallapadu reservoir to the plant.

However, Minister for Power,Forests, Environment, Scienceand Technology Balineni Srini-vasa Reddy said the industriesdepartment is in talks with thecompany and all issues will beresolved soon. The governmentis committed for the welfare ofthe farmers, he said.

Continued from P1“Except tear-gas shells,

not a single bullet wasused in the entire Tmovement,” he said. TheGovernor said he washeckled by Telanganaforces while deliveringspeeches in the Assemblyduring the T struggle, buthe displayed patience bykeeping a smile on hisface. Recalling an inci-dent Narasimhan saidduring the agitation forseparate state when a re-porter asked me on De-cember 31 what will hap-pen now, he said he had

casually replied that Jan-uary 1 would usher in andhe was accused of beingagainst formation of Tstate.

He said he faced sev-eral challenges in resolv-ing post-bifurcation is-sues between AP andTelangana in an amicableway. Commenting on hisrelationship with variouschief ministers during hislong tenure in the unitedAndhra Pradesh and postbifurcation, he said, “Allchief ministers are good.Only small small di�er-ences would be there.” He

also spoke about the wayhe tried to resolve thecontentious issues be-tween the two Telugustates in an amicablemanner. He said he wouldbe going back as a happyperson as all the chiefministers, leaders of po-litical parties and the me-dia too extended full co-operation to him.

He, however, ex-pressed anguish over me-dia invading into his pri-vacy at times.Narasimhan said that vis-iting temples was part ofhis private life. He felt

hurt whenever his visit totemples had becomeheadline story and theway media used to criti-cise him. He said he likesvisiting holy places likeTirumala, Yadadri andAnajaneya Swamy templeat Khairatabad to payobeisance.

As a parting advice,Narasimhan said stresswill be there in every pro-fession and the best stressbuster is spending valu-able time with the familyevery day. He said this issomething which every-one should follow.

Water crunch may push AsiaPulp & Paper out of Andhra

3 CISF men among 4 dead in ONGC blaze

‘Akka’ Tamilisai to enter TS as‘Chellemma’ on Sept 11Continued from P1She said her appointment as Governor was a surprise for her.She said her term as president of the Tamil Nadu BJP was toend in December and when the party high command asked herfor her resume, she was under the impression that they wouldgive her some other responsibility in the party. She thankedthe party leadership for recognising her services. She said sheis studying about Telangana and its issues so that she can dis-charge her duties smoothly as per the constitutional provi-sions without fear or favour. She hoped that the people ofTelangana would welcome her as their sister. She said she hadnever met Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao orpresent Governor ESL Narasimhan on any occasion.

Narasimhan prefers to be priest than a politician


5�� TELANGANA

P V SATYANARAYANA

Khammam: A total of 48,500workers in the Singareni Col-lieries Company limited ( SCCL)are eagerly waiting for an-nouncement of share of profitswith employees. The companyannounced profit during 2018-19 financial year at Rs 1,766crore. It is a record that the com-pany made such a huge profit.SCCL Chairman and ManagingDirector ( CMD) N Sridhar an-nounced that the company hadmade record profit.

The workers of the companyhave been pinning hopes on get-ting good share in profits thisyear. They also expect 35 percent share in profits. The CMDannounced after he met theChief Minister that the companywould announce the percentageof share in profits to the workers.

AITUC central committeemember Vanga Venkat de-manded 35 per cent share inprofits to workers. He explainedin detailed percentage of profitsgiven to workers for the last 10years. He said the company dur-ing 1999-2000 gave 10 per centshare inn profit. The processcontinued every year, he said. He

said in last ten years the com-pany had given the share in prof-its to workers.

in the years 2009-11, 2010-11the SCCL gave 16 per cent sharein profits to workers, 2011- 201217 per cent, 2013-14 20 per cent,2014-15 21 per cent, 2015-16given 23 per cent, 2016-17 given25 per cent and 2017-18 27 percent. This year 2018-19 the com-pany had achieved big profit Rs1,766 crores, he said.

Another recognised union

leader Telangana Boggu GhaniKarmika Sangham State vice-president M Raja Reddy said, thecompany would provide goodamount of share in profits toworkers. Hind Mazdoor Sabha(HMS) State Secretary R Ahmedsaid the recognised union hadfailed to exert pressure on man-agement. Workers Union addi-tional secretary M Rangaiah de-manded that company provide35 per cent share in profit toworkers.

SCCL workers expect 35 pcshare in company’s profits

Singereni Collieries Company Limited makes record profit of �1,766 crore during 2018-19

HANS NEWS SERVICE

Gadwal: Telangana RashtraSamithi Party (TRS) activisthere has expressed their dis-sent over the way the TRSparty Chief and Chief MinisterK Chandrashekar Rao is treat-ing some senior leaders likeHarish Rao and Eatala Rajen-der.

Expressing his disagree-ment, TRS party ScheduledCaste Cell former vice-presi-dent Chintakunta Vishnu fromGadwal visited Jougmaba BalaBramehswara Temple on Tues-day and broke 1,116 coconutspraying the lord to ensure jus-tice to former Irrigation Minis-ter Harish Rao. He felt thatHarish Rao was sidelined bythe TRS party chief by not in-ducting him into the Cabinet.

“We are not happy at the waythe Chief Minister is dealingwith the party leaders who hadfought for separate TelanganaState. The Chief Minister wasgiving priority to only thosewho opposed seperate Telan-gana State during movement

and had handed over plumpposts to Errabelli Dayakar Rao,Malla Reddy and others whohad never taken part in theTelangana movement, he said.

He demanded that the TRSchief immediately make Har-ish Rao either deputy chief

minister or TRS party presi-dent. “Among all the leaders inTRS party it is Harish Rao whocompleted the Kaleshwaramirrigation project. It is Harishwho had taken out his extratime to help complete theYedula reservoir, he said.

Harish’s exclusion from Cabinet resentedTRS party Scheduled

Caste Cell former vice-president Chintakunta

Vishnu demands thatformer Irrigation Minister

be made either deputychief minister or

Telangana Rashtra Samithipresident

ADEPU MAHENDER

Mahabubabad: It is a show ofbravado in this part of the tribalhinterland. A patient holding asaline bottle or a couple of pa-tients sharing a single bed is nostrange phenomenon in the AreaHospital at Mahabubabad (alsoknown as Manukota). The districtis in the grip of viral fevers andother contagious diseases for thelast few days. With the State Gov-ernment’s promise to upgrade theArea Hospital remained unful-filled, the healthcare services arethe worst hit in the district.

Contrary to the government’sclaims that it has been dispensinghealthcare services on a par withthe corporate entities, a visit tothe hospital on Tuesday revealedthe pathetic state of a�airs in theMahabubabad Area Hospital.With rains around for the last fewdays, the hospital was teemingwith patients su�ering from viralfevers and other seasonal dis-eases.

There was no empty space left

in the hospital with the patientsoccupying every nook and corner.The bravado of patients is also infull show with some of them get-ting intravenous (IV) drip areseen moving with saline bottles intheir hands. The window grills of

the hospital have also becomemakeshift drip stands with pa-tients those who failed to getbeds.

Speaking to The Hans India,Bhaskar, who was su�ering fromhigh fever, said: “The situation in

the hospital is horrendous. Thesta� told me to get some medi-cines. When I asked, the sta� toldme ‘no beds’ and it’s up to mewhether to stay in the hospital orlook for an alternate. Theyhanged the saline bottle to a win-

dow near doorway and started thedrip.”

Another patient said: “The sta�told me to share a bed with an-other patient who was coughingprofusely to which I rejected fear-ing I might be a�ected with othercontagious diseases.”

Admitting that patients have toshare bed with others, the hospi-tal superintendent Bhim Sagar:“We have to deal with hundredsof patients coming from the tribalpockets of the district. Eventhough the hospital has just 100beds, we cannot refuse to treatthe patients who are seekinghealthcare services in large num-bers. We have made requests tothe o�cials concerned to increasethe capacity of hospital.”

It may be recalled here that thethen Health Minister C LaxmaReddy who visited the hospital inJune 2016 and again inApril 2018promised to upgrade the 100-bedhospital to a 300-bedded facility.Meanwhile, the patients allegedthat the hospital did not even hasproper drinking water facility.

Life stuck in the whirlpool of viral fevers

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HANS NEWS SERVICE

Athmakur (S) ( Suryapet ): Min-ister for Education G JagadishReddy on Tuesday describedChief Minister K ChandrashekarRao as visionary. The Chief Min-ister’s schemes like HarithaHaram were being copied by otherStates.

Along with Kodad MLA BollamMallaiah Yadav, the Minister par-ticipated in Jalashakthi AbhiyanKisan mela at Nemikal village un-der Athmakur (s) mandal in thedistrict. Speaking on this occasion, he said the Chief Minister hasbeen striving hard to transformthe State. As part of Haritha pro-gramme, thousands of plants were

planted on Hyderabad- Vi-jayawada national highway in Nal-gonda and Suryapet district. Theprogramme was launching by theChief Minister at Gundrampallyvillage of Chityal mandal in Nal-gonda district.

He appreciated agriculture sci-entists and Krishi VignanaKendram contributions for thedevelopment of agriculture and

forest coverage in erstwhile Nal-gonda district. Increase in agricul-ture production by 2,000 per centin the State in past five years in-dicated the government’s waterconservation and increased irri-gation facilities through irrigationprojects. As much as 50 lakh acresof land in the State is securing ir-rigation facility through presti-gious Kaleshwaram irrigation

project. He urged people to plantsaplings and conserve every dropof water for the welfare of theState and in the interest of futuregenerations.

MP Badugula Lingaiah Yadav,ZP Vice-Chairman Venkat-naryana Goud, District Librarychairman N Srinivas Goud , JointCollector Sanjeeva Reddy andothers were present.

Minister urges people to plant more saplingsG Jagadish Reddydescribes Chief

Minister K ChandrashekarRao as visionary

for designingHaritha Haram

programme

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NM SATHEESH

Hyderabad: With a view to im-prove the participation of peoplein the administration of villagesand ensure transparency, thePanchayat Raj Department hasbeen planning to constitutestanding committees in GramPanchayats. The department hasissued guidelines to elect thestanding committees recently.They have been issued in tunewith Section 49 of the PanchayatRaj Act of the State.

Each Gram Panchayat wouldhave four standing committeesand each one would have 15 mem-bers. The standing committeesshould discuss the issues beingfaced in the villages and shouldmake recommendations for mak-ing resolutions in Gram Sabhas.

The Gram Sabha of the villagewould discuss them and wouldadopt resolutions. The resolu-tions would be implemented bythe o�cials of the Gram Pan-chayat with the funds availablewith them. Each committeewould have a convener and mem-bers of the committee should bevoters of that GP as per the guide-lines. The standing committee

members should not be wardmembers or should not be mem-ber of any other village level com-mittees.

The guidelines say that thosewho have knowledge in the sub-ject being allotted to the particu-lar standing committee should bethe member. All sections of thevillage should be provided withequal participation in the com-mittees. The standing commit-tees should take the permissionof the village committees to electthe convener. The GP should holda special meeting to elect themembers of the standing commit-tees and the conveners. Thesarpanch, panchayat secretaryand extension o�cers would beheld responsible for the failure inelection of the standing commit-tees. Out of the four committees,one would be elected to look aftersanitation, dumping yard and theburial ground. Whereas mainte-nance of the streetlights would begiven to another standing com-mittee. Growing plants would begiven to one standing committee.And the fourth one would dealwith the markets.

According to o�cials the stand-ing committees would help thesarpanch and ward members todeal with the issues of the villagee�ectively. The election of stand-ing committees would ensuretransparency in the working ofthe panchayats. The residents andvoters of the Gram Panchayatwould come to know the spendingof the funds from the panchayat.The people would be able to ques-tion the sarpanch and panchayatsecretary if the problems were notsolved.

Economic expertscall on Vinod Kumar

Hyderabad: Several economicexperts called on TelanganaState Planning Board Vice Chair-man B Vinod Kumar on Tuesdayand made some suggestions tothe preparation of the budgetoutlay for 2019-20 financial yearto be presented in the Assemblyon September 9. Former TSPSCmember and retired DirectorRevenue (Taxes) T Vivek metVinod Kumar and discussed thecurrent economic scenario in-cluding the measures that can betaken to stimulate the economicactivity.

The TSPSC member and thePlanning Board took stock of an-nouncements made by theUnion Finance Minister NirmalaSitharaman and also on themeasures to be taken for stimu-lating economic activity. It wasfelt that Telangana should lever-age the policy measures put inplace by the Union governmentsuch as FDI relaxation in retailsector. In addition, governmentshould place emphasis on smalland medium enterprises and in-dustry which requires relativelylesser capital and providesgreater employment which trig-gers the purchasing power andcreates demand for goods andservices.

The leaders opined that Telan-gana had great geographical ad-vantage for investment climatewhich should be highlighted forattracting invest ments and as alogistics hub. Former AdvisorPlanning Commission of IndiaNew Delhi and former TelanganaState Electricity RegulatoryCommission (TSE RC) Chairman Ismail Ali Khan alsomet Vinod Kumar and discussedthe development activities in theState, particularly in power sector.

Now, GPs too will havestanding committees � ��

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HANS NEWS SERVICE

Hyderabad: TSRTC Employees Union onTuesday gave strike notice demandingmerger of RTC with the government and onthe wage agreement between the workersand management in 2017.

Talking to media after serving the strikenotice, the Employees Union president SBabu and general secretary K Raji Reddysaid that the proposal for merging of TSRTCwith the government was made in October2013 and a GO was also released regardingthis. The process stopped because the gov-ernment has not taken any step on this. Hequestioned the management why it was un-able to provide job security to the driversand conductors.

The management has been harassing the

drivers and conductors in the name ofchecking and because of this they are com-mitting suicides, alleged Raji Reddy.

Raji Reddy further alleged that the em-ployees are facing problems because theyare deprived of pay revision even thoughthey were assured to provide revised payscales from 2017. The TMU which was partyto agreement has given up the issue and theagreement was not implemented for 29

months. The workload on the sta� has in-creased because of non-recruitment of moresta� during the last five years, he alleged.

The EU leader demanded the manage-ment to cancel the diesel incentive beinggiven to the hired buses, which is causinghuge losses to the corporation. He also de-manded the government to crack whip onthe private travels for not following therules.

He said that the retired employees are notgetting settlement even after one year andlow pension was also leading to financialproblems to them.

The EU leaders including working presi-dent M Venkati Goud, vice president ArunaKumari, E Venkanna, Ahmad Ali, D Gopal,K Ramireddy, K Rajender, A Trilochana, BJakkaraya and others were also present.

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HANS NEWS SERVICE

Hyderabad: International Human Rights As-sociation (IHRA) Southern region directorDr A V Swamy hailed the appointment of

former Union Minister Bandaru Dattatreyaas Governor of Himachal Pradesh by theCentre. Dr Swamy said that the appointmentof Dattatreya is his recognition of selflessservice for the cause of backward and other

marginalised sections. He also welcomed theappointment of Tamilisai Soundarrajan asthe Governor of Telangana State and hopedthat she would ensure upholding of demo-cratic traditions in the State.

Dattatreya’s appointment as HP Governor hailed

HANS NEWS SERVICE

Hyderabad: The special operation team, Bhongir Zone on Sun-day raided a farmhouse and arrested eight persons, the primeaccused and owner of the farmhouse T Chander Yadav is ab-sconding. O�cials also seized net cash of Rs 2.56 lakh, eightmobile phones and a car all worth Rs 5.2 lakh.

The arrested were identified as N Yellappa Yadav (55), K Sri-sailam (50), J Ramulu (50), T Vijay Kumar Yadav (38), T Suresh(40), R Madhu (35), B Santhosh Reddy (40) and S Umapathi(60). According to o�cials, prime accused T Chander Yadavowns a farmhouse en route of Ramakrishnapuram road, Bhon-gir. Chander Yadav used to provide his farmhouse to accusedpersons now and then besides providing all necessary ameni-ties. The accused persons are friends and usually play cards bybetting huge amounts. Police registered a case under 3 & 4 ofGaming Act and took up investigation. Police warned gamblers,such activities are not tolerated in the limits of RachakondaCommissionerate.

Cops bust gaming den infarmhouse; �5.2L seized


EDIT6��

Apoet and lit-erary person-ality, Dr.

Ramesh PokhriyalNishank, presentMinister for HRDauthored around 60books in Hindi.During the 90s, theOpen InternationalUniversity (OIU) of

Colombo conferred a D. Litt for his con-tribution in literature. Prior to that alsohe received a D. Litt degree from thesame university for contributions in thefield of science. It is reported that OIUis neither registered as a foreign univer-sity nor as a domestic university in SriLanka.

A BJP leader from Himachal PradeshManoj Verma has filed a petition on Au-gust 27 before President of India appeal-ing for declaring his oath-taking as Cab-inet Minister null and void based onallegedly ‘fake’ doctorate degree. Vermaobjected that he should not have takenoath calling himself ‘Dr RameshPokhriyal Nishank”, because prefix “Dr”will become fake when degree was fake,as that was given by a dubious university.

He also doubted the validity ofPokhriyal’s MA and BA degrees.Pokhriyal’s affidavit to the ElectionCommission, and his official website,claims that he did his master’s fromHemwati Nandan Bahuguna (HNB) Uni-versity, Garhwal, in Srinagar, Uttarak-hand.

PS to HRD Minister Purushottam saidthe minister’s BA degree was “not rele-vant” given that he had an MA from HNBGarhwal University, Srinagar in 1986 and‘he was conferred Doctorate (HonorisCausa) from Graphic Era University(Deemed to be University), conferredDoctorate (Honoris Causa) by Uttarak-hand Sanskrit Vishwavidyalaya. He saidthat he did not have information aboutthe BA at hand and undertook to providelater.

To an RTI request of Statesman re-porter, the High Commission of India inColombo stated that the “Open Interna-tional University for ComplementaryMedicines in Colombo (Sri Lanka) is notrecognised by the UGC of Sri Lanka. Italso has reportedly stated that the Uni-versity was unregistered…fake, bogus ordubious education institute operatingfrom Colombo”. Indian Government hasalso not recognised this Sri Lanka basedUniversity.

A copy of the 1998 letter of Council ofScientific & Industrial Research (CSIRletter No. 17/66/27/94-PPS dated18.11.1998) circulated to the heads of itsnational laboratory discloses, “I am di-rected to forward herewith a copy of let-ter No. OE/D/98/1381 dated 27.8.98 fromDr S.K. Jain, Director, Institute of Eth-nobiology, C/o NBRI, Lucknow alongwith a copy of letter dated 12.8.98 fromUGC regarding non-validity of D.Sc. De-gree awarded by Open International

University for Complementary Medi-cines, Colombo and informing that norecognition should be given to the De-gree/Diploma or any other academic dis-tinction conferred by this University, foryour information and record.”

The Council of Scientific and Indus-trial Research (CSIR) is an autonomousresearch and development agency work-ing in the areas of science and technol-ogy has categorically stated that any de-gree given by the university should notbe recognised. But the HRD Ministerand Ministry ignores it.

The affidavit filed for contesting the2019 Lok Sabha elections, Pokhriyal hasdisclosed about completing his mastersfrom H.N.B Garhwal University but de-cided to mention his Doctor of Philoso-phy and Doctor of Literature degrees(both honorary), but it did not mentionthe university from where he obtainedthese academic qualifications.

After becoming Uttarakhand ChiefMinister, he was conferred honorary de-grees by the Graphic Era University andUttarakhand Sanskrit University. Boththese universities are recognised andhence he can use the prefix of ‘Dr.’ Fakeuniversities and academic institutionswill be rushing forward to award highestdegrees to those who are in power. Ifpeople in power accept them it will lend

undue credence to the bogus institu-tions, who can cheat millions.

Why University refused to give de-tails?

A way to avoid such controversy iscomplete transparency. The Universityis not ready to disclose educational in-formation of Pokhriyal. Madhukantsought information on 2.6.2014 aboutthe MA degree, enrolment number andrelated copies of documents of Mr.Ramesh Pokhriyal, son of Late Shri Per-manand Pokhriyal. There was no re-sponse from CPIO of University. Firstappeal was filed. Then the CPIO andFirst appellate Authority gives responseon same day i.e., 16.08.2014 denying it asthird party information. This shows theUniversity authorities have deliberatelyasked CPIO to deny this information.Whenever high-profile personalities areinvolved, the authorities are denying in-formation on the pretext of privacy orthird party. Awarding degrees in Univer-sity is public activity. From admissionsto graduation, the Registrar must main-tain register of records of every studentand the purpose of registering is to main-tain a public record, for reference andaccess. Like land or property transactiondocuments, the degrees and related in-formation also is in public domain.Though original degree certificate will

be given to the candidate, its authenti-cation details should be accessible in theregister and no law prohibits disclosureof degree related information.

There is neither merit nor legality inthe contention of the University that de-gree related information was third partyinformation. If it is third party informa-tion of Pokhriyal; the PIO under Section11 (1) of RTI Act has to seek his opinion”.Even if Pokhriyal raises objectionagainst disclosure, it is the duty of PIOto examine independently the public in-terest factor and decide whether infor-mation was to be disclosed. There is norecord to show that the PIO of HNBGUniversity has taken any independentdecision on these lines prescribed by RTIAct, nor he gave any reason for the re-jection.

We should know the judgment ofSupreme Court Bench of Justice A RDave and Justice L Nageswara Rao inCivil Appeal No. 2649 of 2016 inMairembam Prithviraj v. PukhremSharat Chandra Singh, quashing theelection of Manipur Congress MLA,Mairembam Prithviraj for falsely declar-ing in his nomination papers that he hadan MBA degree. The Supreme Court heldthat right to vote would be meaninglessunless citizens were well informed aboutthe antecedents of candidates, includingtheir educational qualification.

It said all information about a candi-date contesting elections must be avail-able in public domain as exposure topublic scrutiny was one of the surestmeans to cleanse the democratic govern-ing system and have competent legisla-tors. The apex court has held that everyvoter has a fundamental right to knowthe educational qualifications of a can-didate. The court noted that he madefalse declarations.

The University should have verifiedformer CM’s record before contendingthat the information sought was thirdparty information. Once a student passesan examination and qualifies to securea degree, the degree and passing detailscannot be treated as private or third-party information. HNBG University(Srinagar, Uttarakhand) was directed theto provide complete information aboutthe MA degree of Pokhriyal as availablewith the University, before 30th Decem-ber 2016.

The Manoj Verma’s petition to Presi-dent says such information was not fur-nished. Except an issue of propriety,there is nothing before President to in-validate oath of Pokhriyal. One degree isenough for him to claim to be ‘Dr’. Hehas four honorous causa degrees, even iftwo are from invalid University, it willnot affect his doctorate. But Universityand Ministry has to give complete infor-mation about BA and MA as the ‘degree’of accountability demands.

(The writer is former CentralInformation Commissioner and

Professor of Law, at BennettUniversity, Greater Noida)

‘Education’ is not third-party information

Road safety, a collective e�ortAmendments to the Motor Vehicles Act, e�ective Sep-

tember 1, with heavy penalties on defaulters are wel-come. It is a step to minimise accidents on roads. But ifaccidents take place due to potholes, it should be the re-sponsibility of the department concerned and o�cialsshould be penalised. Lousy roads are a menace thoughout India. Encroachers on roadsides should be taken totask and parking facilities should be improved and su-pervised. The menace of stray dogs/ cattle should be han-dled to reduce accidents. Amendments should not be usedto collect revenue and encourage corruption in police de-partments. All concerned should share responsibility toimprove the system.

J S Acharya, Hyderabad

Pak should release Jadhav It is very sad to learn that the retired Navy o�cer Kulb-

hushan Jadhav who was sentenced to death in Pakistanfor alleged espionage is now under extreme pressure toparrot a false narrative to bolster Pakistan’s untenableclaims. Charge d’ A�airs of the Indian High Commissionin Islamabad Gaurav Ahluwalia spent two hours withJadhav on Monday afternoon at a makeshift jail set up inthe Pakistan foreign o�ce in the federal capital and thusgot to know the ulterior motives of Pakistan to tarnish

India’s image in the international realm. However, re-garding Jadhav’s health condition, there was no mentionin the Indian o�cial statement. But he is being mentallytortured, ill-treated in prison in Pakistan. He has becomea mental wreck by now, and he is leading a condemnedand miserable life with constant fear. All his mirth is goneand resigned to his fate of being killed any time. This is aterrific condition for a human being is concerned.

So, Jadhav has already su�ered too much in captivityin Pakistan. By being lenient towards him, Pakistan mustrelease him immediately if they believe in humane justice.It may be recalled that Jadhav has been in a Pakistanprison since March 3, 2016, after he was abducted fromIran, where he was pursuing his business. Later, a Pakmilitary tribunal awarded him capital punishment oncharges of being a spy. Indian government must interveneand take practical steps to get Jadhav released from theclutches of Pakistan immediately.

T K Nandanan, Kochi

SC should intervene in KashmirKashmir is an integral part of India that nobody will

deny it. But in a democratic country like India, thegovernment have to listen the voices of the people to pro-tect their rights. It is a fundamental right of every Indiancitizen to raise his or her voice either individual or plu-ralistic. But whereas, after the annulment of Article 370

& 35A announced by the Govt. on 05.08.2019, the Centreis denying the people of Kashmir to speak.

Besides, the people of Kashmir have been kept underhouse arrest including the Chief Minister, MuftiMehbooba, the former CMs Dr.Farooq Abdullah andOmar Abdullah for more than twenty eight days. Kash-miris are unaware to know the whereabouts of their fam-ily members and other relatives, since thousands of civil-ian youths has been arrested and put them into the jailswithout any reason or who were protesting Art.370/35A.Schools, colleges and other establishments have beenshut down. People from all walks of life are passingthrough from a di�cult situation, since the stock of fooditems have almost exhausted.

Apart from that, tele-communication landline services,mobile phones and social media services has also beencut o�. The Kashmiris are living under a sort of fear asdue to several lakhs of Indian Armed personal has beenstationery for a long time. It is a big jolt to the Indiandemocracy which is unacceptable to the people of India.However, the CMMufti Mehbooba and former CM OmarAbdullah who were detained a day before the strip of Ar-ticle 370 have been now allowed to meet their kin. But,the NC President and three time C.M. Dr.Farooq Abdullahis still under house arrest, despite of his repeated requestto allow him to meet his own son Omar Abdullah.

Whatever is happening in Kashmir is a matter of greatconcern. Before the situation in Kashmir goes from bad

to worse, time and again - the Supreme court should in-volve in the matter to act explicitly without further delayon behalf of the Kashmiri people to stand behind themto save their rights as well as democracy and the Consti-tution of India which are in peril.

Syed Amjad Ali, Secunderabad

New TS Governor, a misfit?Apropos the editorial "New TS Governor to boost BJP

is State"? and report "Appointment of BJP's Tamilisaias Guv spurs political activity (THI 2 Sep). It is big shamethat BJP while in Opposition used to slam Congress forsending Congress political misfits from its party as Gov-ernor. BJP is turning worst when it comes to appoint-ment of Governors. From hardcore RSS members andBJP leaders are blatantly being sent to Raj Bhavan whichare being tuned into BJP's Regional O�ce. The govern-ment has wantedly chosen Dr Tamilisai Soundarajan whohas been active parry leader until her appointment hasbeen sent to Telangana with specific task of creating trou-ble to the ruling party in Telangana. With BJP leadershipbent upon observing Hyderabad Liberation Day, the statewhich has been peaceful for quite some time is likely towitness trouble. We can only pray that Dr TamilisaiSoundararajan does not turn up as "Tamilhimsai" (Tamiltrouble) for the Telugu speaking state.

N Nagarajan, Hyderabad

By refusing to give information about educationalqualifications of high-profile leaders, the Universitiesare creating doubts about genuineness. An Honorarydegree of D.Litt granted by an unrecognized privateUniversity to powerful politicians also create doubts.How can senior politician use such degrees as qualifi-cations and fondly call one-self a ‘Doctor’? More thanan issue of legality, it is concerned with the dignity

Madabhushi Sridhar

Acharyulu

LETT

ERS

Recently there was an article in theHindu where in Indian diplomat posted

at Tajik capital Dushanbe one Mr MuthuKumar was recounting how between 1996and 2000 India was providing military andmedical assistance to Masood and his forcesin their ongoing fight with Taliban.Whether such a vivid description of sensi-tive secret mission by a former diplomatcalls for action against him I am sure theExternal Affairs ministry would take care

of. I felt after reading the article there was no need for him tohave divulged such sensitive information to warn Government ofIndia against any misadventure of placing Indian boots on Afghansoil - a misadventure I am sure Government of India is not con-templating at all.

India has consistently played an important role as part of peace-keeping mission under the UN umbrella . It is part of almost all50 peacekeeping missions with two lakh personnel deployed rightfrom Korea to Rwanda and South Sudan. Indian forces by andlarge got excellent appreciation as part of these peacekeepingmissions and the Wall Street journal has the following to say aboutthe reputation of the Indian forces as part of UN peace keepingforce.

"Indians have "won hearts and minds" as well. Indian troopshave dug wells, constructed schools and mosques, run mobile dis-

pensaries and relief camps. In Rwanda,they helped build refugee camps; inAngola, they built an airstrip and ledthe de-mining of an arterial road. In-dian troops have policed in theBalkans and in Latin America."

While the reputation they gained aspart of the UN peacekeeping missionwas remarkable but when they weredeployed in Sri Lanka as part of a bi-lateral agreement between India andSri Lanka the experience was different. Though their mandate was not to getinvolved in significant combat they gotembroiled in a battle with LTTE to en-force peace. Sri Lanka became India'sVietnam.

Another close brush with disastercame calling in 2003 when after de-posing Saddam Husain USA was verykeen that India should get involved bysending forces to Iraq to restore peace.There were strong forces urging Indiato get involved including the then

home minister Advani. There were a number of paid articles I amsure paid by USA in some of the leading newspapers and magazinesurging India to get involved by sending an army contingent toIraq. It goes to the credit of Vajpayee to have built up a consensusagainst it and saved the nation from getting involved in a conflictwhich has no end. Further given the fact that USA is a very unre-liable partner in these issues and has a knack of starting a warwhen it suits them and pulling out without anything beingachieved leaving the people to their fate not of their making , thedecision of Vajpayee in those days was statesmanly.

Today again USA is keen that India should get involved in theongoing conflict in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is much more com-plicated and nobody who entered into a conflict in that countrycame unscathed . Whether it was the British when they foughtthe Anglo Afghan wars or the Russians who got involved in thecountry for about a decade from 1979-89 and finally had to with-drawal bleeding and now the Americans.

True a Taliban government is not in the interests of India . Butit is also not in the interests of world peace either . External sup-port to factions who are sympathetic to Indian cause would bethe right way of protecting our interest in Afghanistan. But a directboots on involvement is only an invitation for disaster.

(Writer is former Chief Secretary, Government of Andhra Pradesh)

India should keep away fromAfghan a�airs

[email protected]

Controversy about degree of Pokhriyal

IYR COLUMN

Krishna Rao IYR

Gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate in firstquarter of current fiscal slipped to a disappointing

level. As per o�cial data released last week, the GDPgrowth rate was five per cent during April-June 2019period, the lowest reading in the last six years. If wecompare the first quarter growth with correspondingperiod last financial year, we can understand the trendbetter. In the same period last fiscal, GDP registered ahealthy growth of 8.2 per cent, the second highest dur-ing the Narendra Modi regime so far. Thereafter,growth rate went into a decline, clocking 7.1 per cent insubsequent Q2FY19 followed by 6.6 per cent in Q3FY19.It fell further to 5.8 per cent in Q4FY19 (January-March2019) before hitting six-year low of 5 per cent in thelatest quarter. That way, economy has begun the cur-rent fiscal year on a subdued note at a time when the

BJP-led government, buoyed by second consecutiveterm with higher majority at the Centre, has set a goalto take India's economy beyond $5 trillion mark by theyear 2025.

A close look at the numbers reveal that economyclipped at a high growth of 8.2 per cent in Q1FY19thanks to robust performance of agriculture and man-ufacturing sectors which registered 5.3 per cent and13.5 per cent upswing respectively. Construction, at 8.7per cent, and utility services (7.3 per cent) also did ex-tremely well during April-June 2018 period. Growth inthese key sectors moderated in the subsequent quarteri.e. Q2FY19, with agriculture and manufacturing grow-ing at 3.8 per cent and 7.4 per cent respectively. Agri-culture continued its downward journey as its growthrate fell to 2.7 per cent in Q3FY19(Oct-Nov 2018) andslipped into negative zone by contracting by 0.1 percent in Q4FY19. Manufacturing sector followed the suitwith lower growth rate of 6.7 per cent and 3.1 per centduring the above period.

Though agriculture picked up some traction andclipped at 2 per cent in the first quarter of current fiscalagainst the 0.1 per cent contraction in the previous

quarter, manufacturing growth slipped further to 0.6per cent in Q1FY20. Consecutive five-quarter declinein manufacturing which accounts for 18.32 per cent ofGDP took a heavy toll on the economy. Agriculturewhich contributes 14.39 per cent to GDP has not beendoing well for the past one year. Slower traction in agri-culture means distress in rural areas where majorityof Indians live. No surprise that sales of soaps too hitslow lane in recent months.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently an-nounced a slew of measures to spur economy. Going bysignals from auto industry which registered deep de-cline in sales in August too, these initiatives may notpay requisite dividends. The Central governmentshould announce bigger stimulus package and initiatestructural reforms to infuse animal spirits into theeconomy. Otherwise, deceleration in economy will ac-celerate, pushing the country into deeper recession. Ifthat happens, the country is unlikely to achieve higherGDP growth in next few years. That way, $5 trillioneconomy target will remain a pipe dream. And BJP willpay a heavy political price in 2024 if economy remainsin bad shape for long.

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7�� PERSPECTIVE

TIME TO PARTY

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The Congress high command is ontenterhooks as the ongoing powerstruggle between Madhya Pradesh

Congress leaders Jyotiraditya Scindia,Kamal Nath and Digvijay Singh over theselection of a new state party presidentthreatens the very existence of the partyin the state.

A rebellion has broken out in the stateparty ranks and sources told IANS thatchances of Scindia leaving the grand oldparty cannot be discounted if he doesn'tget the post himself or for a leader of hischoice.

When Congress came to power inMadhya Pradesh after 15 years, Scindiawas confident of being called in to helmthe new government. But state Congresschief Kamal Nath prevailed over theparty leadership, which made him theChief Minister.

A dejected was left Scindia licking hiswounds. But now with the Congress look-ing for a new state party president,Scindia sees a chance for himself. Onlythat Kamal Nath wants his man in thatseat.

Scindia has met Sonia Gandhi twice inthis regard. Following his last meetingwith the interim Congress chief, KamalNath was called to Delhi.

Meanwhile pro-Scindia factions -- in-cluding Datia district Congress presidentAshok Dangi and Morena district chiefRakesh Mavai -- are openly threateninga revolt if Scindia is overlooked in thestate party chief's selection.

"Some state Congress leaders are find-ing it hard to digest Scindia's popularityand conspiring to keep him out of Mad-hya Pradesh," said Dangi.

State Congress leaders are holdingdharnas and posters have cropped upacross MP demanding Scindia as MadhyaPradesh PCC chief. In all these posters,Scindia's photo overwhelms miniatureimages of Sonia and Rahul.

Though state Congress spokespersonDeepak Vijayvargiya has gone on record

to claim that the party is going through aphase of intense dissatisfaction and im-balance, this unilateral rebellion by dis-trict party chiefs against the Congresshigh command is unfathomable withoutthe backing of a leader (read Scindia).

The infighting within the MP Congressis not new. What's new though is the in-tensity of the rebellion that Scindia hasmounted on the top Congress leadership.Though he says he has left it to the 'high-command' to decide upon the PCC chief's

name, and will accept whatever its 'deci-sion' is, the reality is di�erent.

"If he is ignored, Scindia might leavethe Congress and nothing can be saidabout what will happen then," a closeScindia aide told IANS on the conditionof anonymity.

Sources say that out of Congress' 114MLAs in MP, 25 are Scindia loyalists, andat least 15 of them will leave the party ifhe resigns. This will only destabilise thestate's Congress government, which hasa wafer-thin majority over the BJP.

Chances of Scindia's switch to the BJPalso cannot be denied because his familyshares a long and close association withthe sa�ron party. From his grandmotherVijayaraje Scindia to aunts VasundharaRaje and Yashodhara Raje Scindia -- allhave been BJP leaders.

Reports of Jyotiraditya Scindia havingmet BJP President Amit Shah in Delhirecently are already doing the rounds.

Congress' MP unit secretary Vikas Ya-dav said the party has only "used andthrown" Scindia. "He is pushed forwardwhen there are elections, but ignoredwhen it's time to recognise his contribu-tion," he said.

Political analyst Shiv Anurag Pateriasaid: "The RSS and the BJP believe thatthe challenge posed by Congress betweenGwalior-Chambal and Malwa will be overif Scindia joins the BJP."

But the question remains, if snubbedby 10 Janpath, would Scindia make hisway to 6 Deen Dayal Upadhaya Marg?

ANAND SINGH

Dr M. Srinivas, a professor inthe Department of Pediatric

Surgery at AIIMS Delhi, who washandpicked by the Central gov-ernment in 2016 to bring the Em-ployees' State Insurance Com-pany (ESIC) Hospital andMedical College in Hyderabad"out of coma", has over the pastthree and a half years turned itinto one of the country's busiesthospitals. "In February 2016,when I was sent from AIIMS toHyderabad, the hospital here wasnothing but concrete walls withno doctors and sta�. Only dogsroamed the campus," said DrSrinivas, who is also the Dean ofthe ESIC Medical College.

Early that year, the IndianMedical Council (IMC) twicecancelled the licence of the col-lege, as it did not meet its stan-dards. "But within months, wewere able to turn things aroundwith the help of technology," hetold IANS.

"For recruitment of doctorsand other sta�, we devised a sys-tem that involved judging appli-cants online on 70 parameters.For example, marks were as-signed for gold medals, researchpaper publications and othersuch achievements. As soon acandidate entered these details,the computer generated his/hertotal marks and the candidatesgot shortlisted online for thespecified posts," he said.

"Thus we eliminated nepo-tism, recommendation andbribery from recruitments. To-day, we have a team of over 300-plus doctors and 800 supportsta�," he said.

"We were the first institutionin the country to use Aadhaar-

Enabled Biometric AttendanceSystem (AEBAS) to check late-coming sta�. The technology wasalso used for improving atten-dance and preparing salaries,"said the ESIC Dean, who isknown to be a stickler for time.

"With the AEBAS systemlinked to the salaries of the hos-pital sta�, arriving late for threedays in a month is considered aCasual Leave, and beyond three,leads to deduction in salary.Though, there is grace period of15 minutes," he said.

"Thus the average time thatdoctors spend in the hospital hasincreased from two hours toeight hours over the past threeyears," he added.

The AEBAS also allows thehospital to find out the locationof its doctors within the hospital."As soon a doctor punches histhumb or finger on the system inany department, his location isrecorded in the system and canbe viewed from the tab on the go,"he said.

"Our aim to ensure good gov-ernance played a major role in

ensuring hassle-free recruitmentof sta�, elimination of proxy at-tendance, reduction of referralsand weeding out of bogus pa-tients at the hospital," he added.

Dr Srinivas used technology tonot just improve facilities as thehospital, but also curb the men-ace of corruption there. The prac-tice of referrals by doctors to pri-vate facilities with the intent ofgetting kickbacks has beencurbed to a great extent as thedoctors referring the patientshave to now give their biometricdetails with every such case.

Sharing the data of referralsfrom the hospital, he said: "Nowonly three per cent of patients,with genuine problems, are re-ferred to outside facilities."

All these e�orts helped im-prove the ESIC Hospital's repu-tation considerably. Today, thehospital OPD, on an average,caters to around 4,000 patientsdaily and its bed occupancy hasbeen nearly 90 per cent over thepast three years. It has also con-ducted over 36,000 major andminor surgeries over this period.

According to Dr Srinivas, thehospital now provides Super Spe-cialty facilities for cardiology,plastic surgery, nephrology, en-docrinology, urology, neurology,hematology and rheumatology."Some facilities are provided inPPP (public private partner-ships) too," he said.

On August 21, Union Ministerfor Labour (IndependentCharge) Santosh Kumar Gang-war and Minister of State forHome A�airs G. Kishan Reddylaid the foundation stone for anew outpatient departmentplanned at an estimated cost ofRs 124 crore.

The hospital has over 700 bedsat present, and more are likely tobe added increasing their num-ber to 1,500.

However, Dr Srinivas refusesto take credit for the hospital re-vival. "Building institutions is im-portant. Individual are nobody.Today we are here, tomorrow wewon't be. So the system is impor-tant. If this institution runs be-yond me, it's not my success. It'ssystem's success."

The Labour Ministry runsmore than 150 ESIC hospitalsacross the country to cater to thehealthcare needs of both privateand public sector industrialworkers, who earn below Rs21,000 a month and subscribe tothe Corporation. The hospitalsare funded by the insurancemoney paid by the employers andthe employees.

Finance Minister NirmalaSitharaman recently announcedthat the contribution to the ESICFund has been reduced from 6.75per cent to 4 per cent -- 0.75 percent of which is paid from the ba-sic salary of the workers, and 3.25per cent by their employers.

VIJIT RAOMAHADIK

Article 21A of the Indian Consti-tution mandates that all chil-

dren between the age of six andfourteen be provided with free andcompulsory education. However, inKheda Buj village in MadhyaPradeshs Neemuch district, chil-dren of about 50 tribal families arebeing denied this fundamental rightfor four years.

In 2015, the residents of Chain-pura, part of the Gandhi Sagar Sanc-tuary, were displaced from the for-est area to the village in Kheda Bujin Rampura tehsil. The rehabilita-tion also had a compensation pack-age from the administration at thetime.

However, since the relocationfour years ago, the children haven'tbeen to school because there is nonein the new village. While the nearestschool is just three kilometres away,the threat of wild animals in thedense jungle on the way deters par-ents from sending their wards to theschool.

Chhote Lal Bhil, a resident of thevilage, said that it is unfeasible forthe parents to drop their childrenat school as that would mean beinglate for daily labour work, whichearns them their livelihood.

The children take care of theiryounger siblings and learn to dohousehold work at an age theyshould be in school learning di�er-ent subjects. Rumours of child-lift-ing also add to the worry of the par-ents.

The problems of the village arenot only limited to the domain ofeducation. There is no Anganwadicentre for women and children inthe village. The final kilometre ofthe road leading to the village canonly be covered by foot. Themakeshift electricity poles are up-rooted by the faintest of rains and

add to the danger when the livewires fall on puddles.

The village also has one hand-pump for the entire population. Inthe last four years, the residents ofthe village have requested the localMLA and the district administra-tion for proper facilities. But theyhave received nothing more thanassurances. The residents have nowcome to believe that since they be-long to the tribal community, theirvoice has no power.

Dinesh Padaypati, a socialworker, said the residents of KhedaBuj have not been provided withproper electricity or water facilities.He added that most of the residentsare labourers and they are deprivedof even the basic amenities.

Ram Dayal, a resident of the vil-lage, said that besides children hav-ing to miss school, the solitaryhand-pump has been the root causeof many quarrels.

Another villager, Devkanya Bai,said the money they received ascompensation during the displace-ment was used to buy land and set-tle here. Since then, she stated, theadministration hasn't helped themat all.

P.S. Goyal, an o�cial of the dis-trict planning committee, said sincethe nearest school is less than threekilometres away, a new school hasnot been constructed in the village.However, he assured that immedi-ate action would be taken after con-sultation with the education depart-ment.

Vinay Kumar Dhoka, the addi-tional district collector of Neemuch,told 101Reporters that problems re-garding the absence of school willbe solved after discussion with theauthorities of the education depart-ment. He said it is yet to be seen ifthe village is part of the o�cialrecords, and then other develop-ment work will be carried out.

ADITI KHANNA

Mumbai-born SalmanRushdie's tragicomic novel

'Quichotte' is among six titlesfrom around the world to benamed on the shortlist of the2019 Booker Prize for Fiction re-leased in London on Tuesday.The 72-year-old former BookerPrize winning British Indiannovelist has famously also wonthe Booker of Bookers for 'Mid-night's Children' during anniver-sary celebrations of the presti-gious literary award. This year heis shortlisted alongside anotherformer winner, Margaret At-wood, besides Lucy Ellmann,Bernardine Evaristo, ChigozieObioma, and Elif Shafak.

"Like all great literature, thesebooks teem with life, with a pro-found and celebratory human-ity," said Peter Florence, founderand director of the Hay Festivaland Chair of the Booker Prizejudging panel this year. Theshortlist was selected from 151submitted books published in theUK or Ireland between October2018 and September 2019.

"A picaresque tour-de-force ofcontemporary America, with allits alarms and craziness. Rushdieconjures a celebration of story-

telling and language that will de-light lovers of Cervantes, loversof daytime television and loversof life," was the comment of afive-member judging panel inreference to Rushdie's latestwork, which is inspired by theclassic 'Don Quixote' by 16th cen-tury Spanish author Miguel deCervantes. Canadian authorMargaret Atwood is shortlistedfor ‘The Testaments', which thejudges describe as "terrifying andexhilarating". Lucy Ellmann isshortlisted for ‘Ducks, Newbury-port', Bernardine Evaristo for‘Girl, Woman, Other', ChigozieObioma for ‘An Orchestra of Mi-norities', and Elif Shafak for ‘10Minutes 38 Seconds in ThisStrange World'.

The judging panel said thisyear's shortlist o�ers an insightinto di�erent worlds from thedystopian setting of Gilead, themonologue of an Ohio housewifeand the tragicomic tale of a trav-elling salesman in America; tomostly female, mostly Black,British lives across generations,the trials of a young Nigerianman on a quest to improve hisprospects and true allegianceswithin the brothels of Istanbul.

Florence noted: “The commonthread is our admiration for the

extraordinary ambition of eachof these books. There is an abun-dance of humour, of political andcultural engagement, of stylisticdaring and astonishing beauty oflanguage. "Anyone who reads allsix of these books would be en-riched and delighted, would beawe-struck by the power of story,and encouraged by what litera-ture can do to set our imagina-tions free." Gaby Wood, LiteraryDirector of the Booker PrizeFoundation, adds: “It was hard towatch the judges narrow downtheir longlist to this shortlist:they were so committed to all 13of the books they'd chosen justover a month ago that the discus-sion was intense.

"Still, these six remain ex-traordinary: they bring news ofdi�erent worlds; they carry awealth of lives and voices; they'rein conversation, in various ways,with other works of literature."Each of the shortlisted authorswill receive 2,500 pounds and aspecially-bound edition of theirbook. The 2019 Booker Prizewinner will be announced on Oc-tober 14 at an awards ceremonyat London's Guildhall, with awinning prize of 50,000 pounds.Last year's winner was NorthernIrish writer Anna Burns for'Milkman', which has soldaround 546,500 copies in all for-mats since the award.

The Booker Prize for Fiction,first awarded in 1969, is open towriters of any nationality, writingin English and published in theUK or Ireland. The prize is sup-ported for the first time this yearby venture capitalist MichaelMoritz and novelist wife HarrietHeyman's charitable foundationCrankstart, rather than the ManGroup.

Tribal MP villagepaints sorry picture

of apathy

Jyotiraditya Scindia

Leader who has put Cong on notice

How AIIMS Professor breathed new lifeinto ESIC Hyderabad, helped it flourish

Salman Rushdie's ‘Quichotte’on Booker Prize 2019 shortlist


AP8��

HANS NEWS SERVICE

Vijayawada: TDP opened a shel-ter to provide protection toparty workers of Palnadu areawho were facing attacks by YS-RCP activists.

Former Chief Minister NChandrababu Naidu visited theshelter in Guntur city on Tues-day. He alleged that the YSRCPgovernment was encouragingattacks on TDP workers.

He said that there was no lawand order in the State. Naidu ex-

pressed concern over the policefoisting cases on TDP workers.He pointed out that cases wereregistered against 11 TDP MLAs.

He asked Chief Minister YSJagan Mohan Reddy to controlhis party cadre and see that at-tacks are stopped on TDP ac-tivists. Naidu said that so far,seven TDP leaders were killedand 22 others were attacked bythe YSR Congress workers.

The leaders of YSR Congressconstructed a wall on the roadin Palnadu area to create panic

among the TDP sympathisers.He said that he never witnessedsuch incidents in the past.

The TDP sympathisers werebeing forced to vacate their na-tive villages. He said that hewould visit all the villages andbring the victims to the sheltersset up by the party. They wouldreturn to the villages after nor-malcy is restored

The police should take actionagainst the culprits to preventrecurrence of the attacks, Naidusaid. The police officers should

act with responsibility to do jus-tice to their posts. Stating thatno party can remain in powerpermanently, he asked the offi-cials to bear this in mind.

Naidu lamented that 20 lakhconstruction workers were fac-ing challenges due to lack of em-ployment. He said that the Stategovernment created sandscarcity to loot the publicmoney. He said that the poorersections were facing hardshipsto lead their regular life.

Former Minister NakkaAnanda Babu, MLA MaddaliGiri and several senior TDPleaders were also present.

HANS NEWS SERVICE

Vijayawada: Twenty crestgrates of Prakasam Barragewere opened on Tuesday to re-lease the floodwater into thesea. Nearly 20,000 cusecs offloodwater was released fromPrakasam Barrage.

According to officials, 50,000cusecs are coming from thecatchment area of PrakasamBarrage. The barrage is receiv-ing floodwater as heavy rainwas recorded in the down-stream of Pulichintala Projectand several parts of Khammam

district. Krishna District Col-lector Md Imtiaz instructed the

authorities to alert the peoplewho are living in the low-lyingareas.

He also stated that about20,000 cusecs of water was be-ing released from PrakasamBarrage into the canals for irri-gation purpose.

However, rainfall in thecatchment area of Pulichintalacaused floods to Prakasam Bar-rage, said the Collector on theoccasion.

The people need not worryand the situation would returnto normalcy within 48 hours,the officials said.

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HANS NEWS SERVICE

Vijayawada: Left parties stagedprotests in various parts of thestate on Tuesday against the de-cision of the Union governmentto merge Andhra Bank (AB) withthe Union Bank of India and de-manded immediate rollback ofthe decision. The Left parties al-leged the Centre was meting outinjustice to the state on variousissues. The protests were held inresponse to the call by CPI andCPM to organised state-wide

demonstration against the pro-posal.

CPI state secretary K Ramakr-ishna while participating in aprotest in Ongole demanded thatthe Centre immediately with-draw the decision to merge

Andhra Bank with Union Bankof India. He said the AndhraBank had grown into a large bankwith over 21,000 employees and2,800 branches. He said AndhraBank was playing key role in thedevelopment of the country and

it should be continued as is it.In Vijayawada, CPI city secre-

tary Donepudi Sankar led thedharna staged in front of thezonal o�ce in One Town. CPMstate secretariat member YVenkateswara Rao taking part inthe stir said Andhra Bank was inprofits having branches all overthe country. Accusing the BJPgovernment of deliberately tar-geting Andhra Pradesh, he alsopointed out failure to accordSpecial category Status (SCS) tothe state and non-sanctioning offunds for construction of capitalAmaravati and for backward dis-tricts’ development.

The CPI city secretaryDonepudi Sankar said AndhraBank was the pride of Telugupeople and founded by freedomfighter Bhogaraju PattabhiSitaramayya 96 years ago. Hesaid the Andhra Bank has verylong association with Telugupeople around the country andfelt it was wrong to merge thebank with another bank.. AITUCstate general secretary Obulesu,CPM state leader ChigurupatiBabu Rao and others spoke onthe occasion.

Similarly, Left parties staged aprotest at Lodge centre in Gun-tur seeking withdraw of mergerdecision. The protests were heldin Rajamahendravaram, Tirupatiand other parts of the state.

HANSNEWS SERVICE

Guntur: YSRCP Tadikonda MLAUndavalli Sridevi alleged that shewas abused in the name of hercaste by some TDP activists whenshe had gone to a Vinayaka pandalon the occasion of VinayakaChaviti at Ananthavaram villageon Monday night.

According to MLA Sridevi, shewent to the Vinayaka pandal topray to the deity. When she wasgoing towards her car after pray-ing to Vinayaka, some TDP ac-tivists commented that her pres-ence ‘defiled’ the pandal.

In a statement on Tuesday, shesaid their comments hurt hersince she belongs to the SC com-munity and demanded that thosewho abused by caste name shouldbe arrested. She alleged that theTDP leaders were unable to digest

the victory ofYSRCP in thecapital region.She alsosought arrestTDP chief NChandrababuNaidu also inthis case as ac-cused belong

to the TDP and Naidu was pam-pering them.

Later, she lodged a complaintwith DGP Gautam Sawang seek-ing action against the culprits.

TDP MLC Dokka ManikyaVaraprasad on Tuesday con-demned the incident and de-manded that the culprits be pun-ished rigorously. He urged thepolice to arrest the accused irre-spective of political a�liation.

AP Women’s Commissionchairperson Vasireddy Padmamet Guntur rural SP R Jayalak-shmi and asked her to take strin-gent action against who abusedthe Dalit MLA Sridevi.

Meanwhile, police registeredcases against three persons in-cluding a minor under SC/ST(Prevention of Atrocities) Act.DSP Srinvasa Reddy identifiedthe two accused as K Shivaiah andK Ramakrishna. He said police ar-rested Shivaiah in connectionwith the case and were searchingfor Ramakrishna.

Vigilance probeordered into Sadavarthy lands

HANS NEWS SERVICE

Amaravati: The state govern-ment ordered a probe into al-leged illegalities in the Sa-davarthy Choultry lands byvigilance and enforcement de-partment. There are allegationsthat the TDP leaders havetaken lands at throw awayprices in the last five years. YS-RCP MLA Alla RamakrishnaReddy has been fighting againstthe TDP leaders from last fouryears on the issue.

Manmohan Singh, specialchief secretary, revenue (vigi-lance) has ordered the probeinto alleged irregularities thathave taken place in respect oflands belonging to SadavarthyChoultry, as per the assurancegiven by minister for endow-ments on the floor of Assemblyin the recent budget sessions.He said on Tuesday that the casewas entrusted to the vigilance &enforcement department.

Commissioner of endow-ments department is requestedto hand over the entire recordsin respect of lands belongingthe Sadavarthy Choultry to thevigilance and enforcement de-partment.

YSRCP govt is encouraging attacks on TDP cadres: Naidu

��

� Expresses concernover police foistingcases on TDPactivists

� Points out thatcases wereregistered against11 TDP MLAs

� Naidu visits ashelter set up inGuntur city for party activists whowere attacked inPalnadu region

� Alleges that theYSRCP govt createdsand scarcity to lootpublic money

PRAKASAM BARRAGE RECEIVES FLOODWATER

� 20,000 cusecsreleased from theBarrage on Tuesday

� Rains in thecatchment area ofPulichintala Projectresult in increasedinflows into thePrakasam Barrage

Left stages stir over AB merger

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CHIRPY DAY!

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HANSNEWS SERVICE

Vijayawada: Jana Sena Partypolitical a�airs committee(PAC) will meet at Dindi vil-lage near Razole in East Go-davari district on September5 and 6. Party presidentPawan Kalyan will participatein the meetings where partysenior leaders will share theirideas on di�erent issues dur-ing the interaction with theparty’s young leaders.

The issues like politics inthe past, contemporary poli-tics, agriculture sector, publicmeetings, conferences, voic-ing party policies in debatese�ectively, Right to Informa-tion, civic rules, overview andawareness about local bodiesand other issues will be dis-cussed at the two-day meet.

PAC chairman NadendlaManohar and other members,party leaders will reach Dindiby September 4.

2-day Jana Senameet at Dindi

from tomorrowVarious issues like

contemporary politics,local bodies, ways of

voicing party stance ondifferent platforms will bediscussed in the politicalaffairs committee meet

HANS NEWS SERVICE

Kakinada: Agriculture ministerK Kanna Babu assured that spe-cial focus would be laid on co-conut crop, including rejuvena-tion of existing plants, toimprove the income source ofcoconut farmers in the state.

This is besides establishingCoconut Research Institute(CRI) in East Godavari with as-sistance of Central PlantationCrop Research Institute(CPCRI).

Participating in the Interna-tional Coconut Day organisedhere on Monday at his camp of-fice, the minister said that to re-juvenate coconut farms, a specialscheme would be taken up largescale in the state.

He said coconut plantations inGodavari districts were provid-ing regular income to farmingcommunity.

Besides these two Godavaridistricts, in Uddanam area inSrikakulam, Nellore andVizianagaram districts havelarge tracts of coconut planta-

tions, he said. Responding onlow-yield in crop due to pest af-fects, he said to overcome thisproblem, the governmentlaunched rejuvenation pro-gramme.

The minister said coconutfarmers would be provided Rs2.73 lakh in a three-year periodfor hectare covering both wageand material component underNREGS. He also said that underYSR Rythu Bharosa, insurancewill be covered for coconut farm-ers also. For this 75 per cent pre-mium will be paid by CoconutBoard and State governmentjointly, he added.

Coconut ResearchCentre to come

up in East Godavari

� Police register caseagainst 3, including aminor under SC/ST Act

� MLA says the incidenthappened when shevisited a Vinayaka pandalin capital region to pray

� Some TDP activists thereallegedly commentedthat her presence‘defiled’ the pandal

��https://t.me/Towardstomorrow

9NATION

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ED arrests CongtroubleshooterShivakumarNew Delhi (IANS): The Enforce-ment Directorate on Tuesday ar-rested former Karnataka ministerand senior Congress leader D.K.Shivakumar in a money launderingcase, o�cials said. A senior ED o�-cial told IANS: "Shivakumar was ar-rested on Tuesday evening followinghis questioning for the fourth timeby the agency."

He said Shivakumar was arrestedon charges of money laundering.The o�cial said that Shivakumarwas evasive and non-cooperativeduring questioning by the agency.

Shivakumar deposed before thefinancial probe agency on Friday forthe first time after the KarnatakaHigh Court rejected his petition forinterim protection from arrest bythe agency. Shivakumar has been onthe radar of the Income Tax Depart-ment and the ED since demoneti-sation in 2016. An Income Taxsearch at his New Delhi flat on Au-gust 2, 2017 led to seizure of unac-counted cash worth Rs 8.59 crore.

Thereafter, the Income Tax De-partment lodged cases against theCongress leader and his four otherassociates under Sections 277 and278 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 andSections 120(B), 193 and 199 of theIPC. Based on the I-T Departmentchargesheet, the ED registered amoney laundering case against Shiv-akumar. Shivakumar has accusedKarnataka Chief Minister B.S.Yediyurappa of indulging in vindic-tive politics by targeting him andother state opposition leaders.

Shahjahanpur (UP): A local policeteam, which had gone to formerUnion minister and BJP leaderChinmayanand's Haridwarashram to question him in connec-tion with harassment allegationslevelled by a woman law student,did not find him there, police saidhere on Tuesday.

"A team had gone to Haridwarto probe the charges.... It has re-turned on Monday as Chin-mayanand was not found in hisashram there," Superintendent ofPolice, City, Dinesh Tripathi said.He said that the family membersof the woman are in New Delhi,but security is deployed outsidetheir house here.

The father of the woman toldPTI over phone from Delhi thatwhen they reached the nationalcapital to meet their daughter, sheappeared "frightened" and brokedown after meeting her mother.

"We have assured her that theadministration and court are withus and no one could harm us. Shesaid that she wanted to returnhome but due to fear left for Ra-jasthan. She has all the proofagainst Chinmayanand and shehas kept them in safe place," hesaid. The woman, who is a studentat a college run by Chin-mayanand's trust, was missingsince August 24, a day after she

posted a video on social media al-leging that a "senior leader of thesant community" was harassingand threatening to kill her. She didnot name Chinmayanand in thevideo. Her father had filed a com-plaint with police accusing Chin-mayanand of sexually harassingher, a charge refuted by the BJPleader's lawyer who claimed it wasa "conspiracy" to blackmail him.

She was found in Rajasthan onAugust 30 by UP police. The Shah-jahanpur police has booked Chin-mayanand on charges related toabduction for murder and criminalintimidation on the complaint ofthe girl's father.

The Supreme Court on Mondaydirected the Uttar Pradesh govern-ment to set up an SIT, headed byan IG-rank o�cer, to investigatethe charges of the woman as wellas two related FIRs, and said thatan Allahabad High Court benchwill monitor the probe.

After interacting in-chamberwith the woman and her parents,a bench of justices R Banumathiand A S Bopanna had issued a slewof directions, including asking thestate to provide police protectionto her parents and family mem-bers and explore the possibility ofadmitting the woman and herbrother in another college atBareilly in Uttar Pradesh.

Chinmayanand case Babri litigantIqbal Ansariattacked inhis houseAyodhya (PTI): Iqbal Ansari, one ofthe main litigants in the BabriMasjid dispute, was on Tuesday al-legedly physically assaulted at hishouse here by two people who, heclaimed, threatened to kill him ifhe did not withdraw the case.

His security personnel inter-vened and saved him from the at-tackers who were detained by po-lice. Ansari told PTI that onTuesday afternoon, a man and awoman reached his residence."The woman introduced herself asVartika Singh and claimed that shewas an international shooter.

They asked me to withdraw myclaim from the dispute, threateningthat she would otherwise shootme," he said.

"They then attacked me but Iwas saved by my security person-nel," Ansari said, adding that hedid not sustain any injuries in theattack. Talking to PTI, Faizabad Su-perintendent of Police (City) VijayPal Singh said, "We have detainedthem." When asked whether thepolice have filed an FIR, he said, "Iwill let you know".

The Supreme Court on Tuesdaysought responses from two per-sons for allegedly threatening sen-ior advocate Rajeev Dhavan fortaking up the case on behalf of theSunni Waqf Board and other Mus-lim parties in the Ram Janmab-hoomi-Babri Masjid land disputematter.

Anna Hazare hospitalised

Pune: Anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare was onTuesday admitted to a hospital in Pune district of Ma-harashtra after he complained of cold, cough and weak-ness, his close aide said.

According to doctors, there is "nothing to worry" andthey have advised the 82-year-old social activist to takecomplete rest, he said. Hazare was taken to VedantaHospital in Shirur taluka of Pune from his native Rale-gan Siddhi village in neighbouring Ahmednagar districton Tuesday morning for a check-up after he complainedof cold and cough.

He was examined by a team of doctors and later ad-mitted to the hospital, the activist's close associate said.

"Due to cold, he had some infection in the chest andbecause of this, he complained of cough and weakness.However, doctors have said that Hazare is stable andthere is nothing to worry," he said.

Gurgaon: A Gurgaon scooter rider has been fined Rs. 23,000 for notcarrying his vehicle's registration documents and his driving li-cence, days after the amended Motor Vehicle lawcame into effect. The man, Dinesh Madan, later saidthat the value of his scooter is Rs. 15,000, adding thathe will carry his documents from now on.

Madan was not wearing a helmet, and the pollutioncertificate was also missing. He was fined Rs. 5,000for driving without licence; Rs. 5,000 for not carryingthe registration certificate; Rs. 2,000 for driving with-out insurance, Rs. 10,000 for violating pollution lawsand Rs. 1,000 for driving without helmet. The cumula-tive fine for all the traffic rules' violation was Rs.23,000.

"I wasn't wearing a helmet and didn't have the reg-istration certificate (RC). The traffic police asked meto give him my scooter's key but I refused. He imme-diately printed a challan of Rs. 23,000 and seized myvehicle," Madan was quoted by news agency ANI assaying. Under the new rules, penal provisions have

been made more stringent for common traffic violations. Speedingcan now invite a penalty of Rs. 1,000- Rs. 2,000. For driving without

insurance, there will be a fine of Rs. 2,000; thosedriving without helmets will have to shell out Rs.1,000 and can face three-month suspension oftheir licence.

Under the new law, the fine for driving withoutlicence has been hiked from Rs. 500 to Rs. 5,000.For driving despite disqualification, the fine hasbeen raised from Rs. 500 to Rs. 10,000.

Driving without a seat-belt can now invite a fineof Rs. 1,000, which was earlier Rs. 100. Use of mo-bile phone while driving can invite a fine betweenRs. 1,000-5,000. Earlier it was Rs. 1,000.

For drunk driving, the fine has been hiked fromRs. 2,000 to Rs. 10,000. Drivers will be fined Rs.10,000 for not giving way to emergency vehicleslike ambulance and fire brigade.

The law came into effect on September 1. Onthe first day, the Delhi Police issued 3,900 challans.

The names of 19 members of the family of a freedom fighter wereallegedly left out of the final National Register of Citizens in Assam,

according to his grandson. "My grandfather Ahmed Ali was a freedomfighter. He was in the British army for a year and later joined the In-dian freedom movement. Despite belonging to his family, whose nameis itself a proof of being an Indian citizen, we were left out of the finalNRC list," Abdul Samad Chowdhury said. He said that 19 members ofhis family were excluded from the final list whereas the names of hismother and sister figured in the draft as well as the final list despitehaving all documents. "It is humiliating and shocking for me and myfamily," he said. A resident of Kaurbaha village of Guwahati district,Chowdhury is also a leader of All India United Democratic Front.

"We also went to a Nagrik Sewa Kendra in Nagaon with all of ourfamily members. The officials told us to produce school pass certifi-cates and assured us that the issue will be sorted soon. However, wewere not included in the final list either," Chowdhury added.

The family has also urged the government and NRC authorities toreconsider including in the list the names of people who have properdocuments. Over 19 lakh people were excluded from the final NRC listthat was published on Saturday. However, those excluded can still ap-

ply to the designated Foreigners' Tribunals within 120 days for theircases to be heard. "A total of 3,11,21,004 persons are found eligible forinclusion in final NRC, leaving out 19,06,657 persons, including thosewho did not submit their claims," NRC State Coordinator Prateek Ha-jela had said. The list is aimed at segregating Indian citizens living inAssam from those who had illegally entered the state fromBangladesh after 1971.

Man fined �23K under new tra�c laws

‘K genocide’ claim a lost case: PakNew Delhi: Pakistan’s lawyer in the In-ternational Court of Justice (ICJ) has lefthis country red faced. Khawar Qureshi inan open admission has accepted thatthere is no significant evidence with Pak-istan for its claims of genocide in Kash-mir.

Qureshi has said, "in absence of theseevidences, it is extremely di�cult for Pak-istan to take this case to the ICJ".

Qureshi was speaking to Pakistani me-dia.

Earlier, Pakistan threatened to take In-dia to the ICJ over the issue of Kashmir.

Pakistan PM Imran Khan tried his bestto internationalise the issue by ringingthe heads of states of di�erent countries,including the United States. He spoke toPresident Donald Trump after whichTrump o�ered to mediate in the matter.But with India making it clear that Kash-mir is a bilateral issue, the US agreed withIndia''s stand.

Imran Khan said he will raise the Kash-mir issue at every international forum,including the United Nations General As-sembly. But now his own lawyer at theICJ has accepted that they don''t have ev-idence to back up their claim.

"Will these big countries keep lookingat their economic interests only? Theyshould remember, both countries havenuclear weapons," Imran Khan had saidlast month after India abrogated Article370 of the Constitution that gave specialstatus to Jammu and Kashmir. Khan had

said, "In a nuclear war, no one will win. Itwill not only wreak havoc in this region,but the entire world will face conse-quences. It is now up to the international

community". Meanwhile, two Pakistaninationals nabbed by the Army on the In-dian side of the Line of Control (LoC)were to guide a large group of terrorists

to infiltrate into J&K for disruptingpeace in the aftermath of the abrogationof Article 370 and division of the Stateinto two Union Territories, Defencesources said.

Khalil Ahmad and Mozam Khokar,both Pakistani nationals, were arrestednear the LoC in Boniyar sector of Bara-mulla district during the interveningnight of August 22 and 23, sources said.

Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesdayassured a delegation from Jammu andKashmir that the communication clam-pdown in the Valley will be lifted in 15days. Shah, who met village heads, alsoannounced Rs 2 lakh insurance for allpanchs and sarpanchs.

Mobile services and internet, includingBSNL's Broadband and private leased-line internet, were snapped on August 5after the Centre abrogated provisions ofArticle 370 of the Constitution and reor-ganised the state into two Union territo-ries J&K and Ladakh.

The move has led to a harrowing timefor residents of the Valley, who were un-able to contact their loved ones. Emotionsand anxiety ran high as people stood inserpentine queues to speak to their kin.

Two Pakistani nationals arrested for planning to guide terrorists into Kashmir

New Delhi (PTI): P Chidambaram onTuesday won a reprieve from theSupreme Court and avoided theprospect of being sent to Tihar jail tillThursday after the CBI was orderedto take further custody of the formerfinance minister despite its insistencehis custodial interrogation was nolonger required in the INX Media cor-ruption case.

The apex court simultaneouslyasked the 73-year-old Congress leadernot to press for the interim bail pleafiled before the trial court till Thurs-day. The plea was filed on Monday andwas to be taken up during the day. Justan hour after the apex court orderedthat Chidambaram will continue to bebe in the CBI custody till Thursday, hewas produced before the trial court.The court of Special Judge Ajay KumarKuhar remanded him to two moredays of CBI custody.

Thursday will be a crucial day forthe Congress veteran when his 15-dayCBI remand ordered by Judge Kuharin five spells comes to an end. The apexcourt on Tuesday said it would hearon Thursday Chidambaram's plea inwhich he has challenged the non-bail-able warrant (NBW) issued againsthim as well as the subsequent trialcourt orders remanding him to theCBI custody in the case.

PC’s CBI custody extended till tomorrow

Priyanka to get fullcharge of UP unit New Delhi: Three months after the drubbing in theLok Sabha elections, Congress General SecretaryPriyanka Gandhi Vadra will soon take over full re-sponsibility of the party in Uttar Pradesh, where sheis currently in charge of the eastern region, and doa revamp of the organisation there, sources said.

Ahead of 2019 General Elections, Priyanka wasappointed Congress in-charge of eastern UttarPradesh while the responsibility of the western partof the state was given to Jyotiraditya Scindia.

The Congress could only win a single seat in UttarPradesh. The party has decided to announce thenew chief of Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee,who will replace Raj Babbar, a few days after the an-nouncement regarding Priyanka will be made.

The new UPCC team will not be big like the earlierteam, the sources said.

Lucknow: The Central Institute of Subtropical Horticulture(CISH) has come up with a bio-formulant to save bananacrops from fungal infection ‘fusarium oxysporum TR4’, orPanama Wilt, which is causing havoc for banana crop inseveral countries. A ‘banana emergency’ has been de-clared in Columbia and other Latin American countries,parts of Asia, Africa and Australia, where the crop hasbeen struck with the deadly disease that leads to wiltingof the plant. CISH Director Shailendra Rajan said: “Thebio-formulant – ICAR fusicont — is a mix of fungi and bac-teria that has succeeded in fighting the deadly diseaseknown as Panama Wilt 4. This could be of immense valuein saving the largest crop in several countries.”

Banana has been the most expanding crop of UttarPradesh and is threatening to overtake other states likeMaharashtra, Bihar and West Bengal in terms of acerageand farmers evincing their interest in it. The crop area isreaching 92 lakh hectares in Uttar Pradesh.

The banana of Uttar Pradesh is in high demand in other

states, in terms of size, shape, weight and shelf value. Butin the last few years, a fungal disease has quietly grippedthe crop in eastern UP – Gorakhpur, Kushinagar and otherplaces – as well as Bihar’s Katihar and has destroyed thecrop to a large extent. The CISH Director said that the dis-ease crept into UP farms through the Ghaghra, Gandakand Kosi rivers from Nepal and silently destroyed thecrop, causing panic among banana cultivators.

The disease is said to be so challenging that once itgrips a plant/crop, it is nearly impossible to be eradi-cated. It attacks roots and blocks the plant’s vascular sys-tem. Like other soil-dwelling strains, TR4 cannot be con-trolled using fungicides and fumigants, Rajan said.

Spot inspection and laboratory tests and two-year-longinvestigations have confirmed that it is the same ‘fusar-ium’ epidemic which has led to the declaration of ‘bananaemergency’ in the Latin American countries and farmersin Asia, Africa and Australian continents were also strug-gling against this.

Beef curry dropped from menu New Delhi: The Consulate General of India in Frankfurt has re-portedly asked a Kerala body to remove beef curry from itsmenu during a food fest after a group of Hindutva activistsraised objections. A few members of the organisation laterheld a silent protest against the "growing intolerance".

The India Fest in Frankfurt was held on August 31. KeralaSamajam Frankfurt, a Malayali cultural organisation in Ger-many, had prepared the food items, which included beefcurry and parotta, a popular combo among Keralites.

KSF executive committee, in a Facebook post, said the In-dian Consulate requested them to revise the menu after a fewpeople with vested interests threatened to create a ruckus atthe event.

“While preparing for the Indian Fest, all Indian organisa-tions were explicitly asked to present the common delicaciesof each state with the only restriction being alcohol. As perthese instructions, Kerala Samajam Frankfurt had preparedthe menu based on the common food interests of Kerala and

its people,” the post on Facebook said.“When some people with vested interests raised objection

and threatened to make ruckus during the event, CGI Frank-furt kindly requested us to revise our menu so that the eventcould be held without any incidents,” it added. “As per CGIFrankfurt request, we as a responsible cultural organisation -representing the peace-loving “God’s own country” - decidedto comply to maintain peace and harmony.”

Donny George, a Keralite who attended the event, claimedthat a group of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) had called for aprotest against serving beef at the event.

“A group of VHP workers called for a protest after theycame to know about the menu at the Kerala Samajam event,following which the Indian consulate requested the KeralaSamajam authorities to remove beef and parotta from themenu. Kerala Samajam members boycotted the event later,”George wrote on Facebook.

19 kin of freedom fighter excluded Final Assam NRC list

��

Govt mocked over GDP dataChidambaram took a jibe at the govern-ment on Tuesday over the growth rateof 5 per cent in April to June quarter.The Congress leader, who appeared be-fore special CBI court in Rouse Avenue,refused to answer when a reporter askedhim if he wants to say anything abouthis custody. He, however, only said, "5per cent". "Five per cent. What is 5 percent? You remember 5 per cent?" he re-sponded with a smiling face, mockingthe government after the GDP slumpedto an over six-year low.

According to government data, theeconomic growth slowed to a seven-yearlow to 5 per cent in April to June quarterfrom 8 per cent a year ago.

BJP leader not foundin Haridwar ashram

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Indian Food fest in Germany

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Mumbai: Benchmark stock in-dices on Tuesday crashed over 2per cent and the rupee tumbled97 paise to a level not seen in over9 months as unpleasant newscontinued to flow in for the In-dian economy.

The BSE Sensex crashed about770 points and the NSE Niftydived over 225 points after in-vestors indulged in panic sello�sas dismal GDP print, weak coresector growth and disappointingauto sale numbers pointed todeepening economic crisis in thecountry.

The benchmark indices alsosaw their biggest intra-dayplunge in nearly 11 months. Mas-sive sello�s in equities saw in-vestor wealth eroding by Rs 2.55lakh crore. Indian markets, afteran extended weekend, opened onTuesday sharply lower reactingto country's worsening macro-economic situation as well asweak global cues attributed tolong-lasting US-China trade ti�.After plunging 867 points duringthe day, the 30-share index ended769.88 points, or 2.06 per cent,lower at 36,562.91.

The broader Nifty too sank225.35 points, or 2.04 per cent, tosettle at 10,797.90. Top losers inthe Sensex pack included ICICIBank, Tata Steel, Vedanta, HDFCIndusInd Bank, Tata Motors, RILand ONGC -- falling up to 4.45 percent. Only two IT stocks --

TechM, HCL Tech -- ended withmild gains, tracking weaker ru-pee. The Indian rupee plunged 97paise to close at 72.39 per $ onTuesday. All sectoral indicesended in the red, with BSE metal,energy, consumer durables, tele-com, bankex, finance, oil and gas,realty and capital goods indicessettled 3.23 per cent lower.

Broader BSE midcap andsmallcap indices too closed up to1.65 per cent lower. "The sharpfall in the Q1 GDP growth to 5 percent and the weak core sectorgrowth are the key factors thathave caused a fall in the marketsas it opened after a long weekend.

The continuing negative globalcues, the raging tari� war be-tween the US and China, and thelikely sluggishness in the eco-nomic fortunes of economiesaround the world have also beenbehind the rot in the marketshere as well as elsewhere," saidJoseph Thomas, Head of Re-search - Emkay Wealth Manage-ment.

Weak domestic consumptionespecially in rural areas has re-sulted mainly from low employ-ment levels and non-availabilityof finance, which are issues thatcall for immediate measures tosalvage the situation, Thomas

said. Public sector bank stocks also

ended in significantly lower afterthe government announced themerger of 10 state-run lendersinto four. It gives a positive signalto investors that the governmentis not just focusing on recapital-ising the bank, but also in improv-ing the governance in the publicsector banks, experts said.

However, the merger will stillbe painful as a result of the geo-graphic and cultural diversity ofthe merging entities, they added.Despite several e�orts by the gov-ernment to boost the economy,market sentiment took a hit onaccount of weak macroeconomicdata releases and double-digit de-cline in auto sales in August asthe sector continued to reel un-der one of the worst slowdownsin its history.

O�cial data released aftermarket hours on Friday showedthat India's GDP growth slippedto an over six-year low of 5 percent in the June quarter of 2019-20, hit by a sharp deceleration inmanufacturing output and sub-dued farm sector activity. Addi-tionally, the country's manufac-turing sector activity declined toits 15-month low in August, ow-ing to slower increases in sales,output and employment, the IHSMarkit India ManufacturingPurchasing Managers' Indexshowed. (PTI)

TODAY’S QUOTE

I congratulate Yasir al-Rumayyan, governor of the PublicInvestment Fund, on his appointment as chairman of the

board of directors of Saudi Aramco, which is an importantstep to prepare the company for the public offering.

Rumayyan, already an Aramco board member, and who is the head ofthe Saudi sovereign wealth fund will do well to spearhead theambitious plan to diversify the kingdom's oil-reliant economy

– Saudi Arabia Energy Minister Khalid alFalih

“I welcome Rumayyan as Aramco chairman

LIFE SAVING DRUGS

The Pakistan government has allowed the import of life-saving drugs from India despite escala�ng tensions betweenthe two countries over the Kashmir issue, according to amedia report on Tuesday. Pakistan's ministry of commerce,through a statutory regulatory order, gave the permission toimport and export medicines from India, Geo TV reported.Trade rela�ons between the two neighbours were alreadystrained following the Pulwama terror a�ack

US Dollar 73.48

Euro 80.31

UAE Dirham 20.18

Thai Baht 2.45

British Pound 88.22

Australian Dollar 49.4

Canadian Dollar 54.97

Swiss Franc 74.47

FOREX (in `)

Pak allows imports from India South

African Rand 5.00

Hong Kong Dollar 9.68

Japanese Yen 0.74

New Zealand Dollar 46.16

Saudi Riyal 19.61

Swedish Krona 7.68

Singapore Dollar 52.73


New Delhi: The deep discountsdoled out by the online food aggre-gators are cannibalising dine-inrestaurants and the burden isshifting to restaurants, interimfindings from a report by the Com-petition Commission of India(CCI) has found.

Restaurants also feel that onlinefood aggregators are using datataken from them to promote theirown 'Cloud Kitchens' and are in-creasing the commission chargedunilaterally and arbitrarily, thefindings showed.

The online platforms, however,denied the charge, saying they doshare the data with restaurants.

The country last month saw abitter war between the NationalRestaurant Association of India(NRAI), the restaurants' tradebody, and online food aggregatorslike Zomato Gold, over deep dis-counting practices.

According to the CCI study,

restaurants said thatonline platforms'search ranking algo-rithms are opaque,non-transparent andads are interspersedwith organic results.

Platforms arguedthis is not the case andorganic listing are dis-tinguishable from advertised list-ing. The CCI's study on e-com-

merce in the countryalso found that restau-rants earned around 28per cent of their revenuethrough online plat-forms.

"Nearly 78 per cent re-spondents have onlinepresence and 69 per centwent online between

2016 and 2018 on three platformson average," said the study. While

restaurants blamed dual role ofplatforms, the online platformssaid they are bridging the supply-demand gap and are helping part-ner restaurants scale up and givingmore choice to consumers. TheNRAI said on August 30 that thereis an in-principle agreement be-tween the association and the twomajor online delivery platforms,Zomato and Swiggy, to resolve theissues of the industry includingdeep discounts.

However, Zomato is hellbent oncarrying on with its plans to makeits contentious Gold programmenow available for delivery. The CCIstudy mentioned that restaurantsare "compelled to use online plat-forms' hired fleet and there are re-strictions on using their own fleet".

The platforms said the use oftheir fleet is an e�cient exerciseand there are no restrictions onrestaurants to use their deliverynetwork.

Meet on Gig Economy in HydHyderabad: The founder ofFlexiOrg and Get Me Experts,Ajay Sharma said he will bespeaking about Gig Economy –Opportuni�es for Talent Acqui-si�on on September 6, 2019from 6 pm to 7:30 pm at Wave-labs in Hitec City. The round-table is open for heads of HRdepartment, TA managers andhiring managers. Ajay Sharma, athought leader in Gig Economysaid that he is working to de-velop an ecosystem to supportgig professionals with health in-surance, providing emo�onalsupport system and most im-portantly con�nuously helpingthem with skill development.“It’s a myth that Gig profession-als are only for low cost remotejobs. Alongside the usual office-based workforce employed on afull-�me basis, gig workers arenow slowly but steadily becom-ing an indispensable part ofcompanies,” he added.

Miniso hitsmilestoneHyderabad: Miniso, a Japanesedesigner lifestyle brand onTuesday announced theachievement of 100 stores mile-stone in India at a closed-doorevent held at Pullman Hotel inAerocity, New Delhi. The brandhas been opera�ng in India forthe last two years. Currently, ithas 106 stores across over 43ci�es in India. Miniso said it hasalso forged partnerships withkey global IP’s like Marvel, Car-toon Network, Pink Panther, WeBear Bare etc., to further en-hance the brand recogni�on inthe market. Tyron Li, GeneralManager-India, Miniso, said:“This celebra�on is our way ofshowing gra�tude to all ourpartners and facilitate a crosslearning experience amongstthe stakeholders of the com-pany.” The official further in-formed that their vision is tonow explore strategic businesspartnerships within the country.

StanChart’sDigiSmartHyderabad: Standard CharteredBank on Tuesday announcedthe launch of its “DigiSmart”credit card. The bank said thatthe credit card will offer instantdiscounts and benefits acrosskey e-commerce categories oftravel, entertainment, fashion,groceries and food deliverythroughout the year. In the ini-�al phase, Standard Charteredinformed to have partnered withbrands like Myntra, Grofers, Ya-tra, Zomato, Ola and Inox. Fur-ther the bank informed that thecredit card is available for amonthly fee of Rs 49. However,this fee will be waived off if thecustomer spends Rs 5,000 ormore in the previous month, itadded. Jinesh Shah, MD, Stan-dard Chartered - India, said: “To-day’s upwardly mobile youth arekeen to adopt latest trends lead-ing to a rising demand for simplecredit products.”

Vaishnavi Group,Katerra tie-upHyderabad: Vaishnavi Group, aBengaluru-based real estatecompany on Tuesday said ithas partnered with Katerra, atechnology-driven offsite con-struc�on company to intro-duce the la�er’s offsite manu-facturing technology and theconcept of DfMA (Design formanufacturing and assembly)in the developers upcomingproject. Vaishnavi Group willunveil Vaishnavi Serene thatwill showcase Katerra’s tech-nology at Yelahanka in Ben-galuru. Darshan Govindaraju,Director, Vaishnavi Group, said:“With this collabora�on, thequality of construc�on we areoffering to poten�al home-owners is unparalleled. Thistechnology ensures thathomes are handed over as perschedule along with an assur-ance on quality.”

BIZ BRIEFS

Online platforms cannibalising dine-in restaurants: CCI

New Delhi: Public sector bankstocks, led by Canara Bank,Union Bank and Punjab Na-tional Bank, tumbled up to 10.6

per cent on Tuesday after thegovernment announced themerger of 10 state-run lendersinto four. Shares of Canara

Bank dropped 10.59 per cent,Union Bank of India fell 9.08per cent, Punjab NationalBank plunged 8.55 per cent,Oriental Bank of Commercefell 8.10 per cent and Alla-habad Bank dropped 5.67 percent on the BSE.

Corporation Bank fell 3.98per cent, while Syndicate Bankdropped 1.08 per cent. How-ever, Andhra Bank gained 0.51per cent and United Bank roseby 0.38 per cent. Equity mar-kets were closed on Monday for'Ganesh Chaturthi'. Continu-

ing its firefight against thedeepening economic slow-down, the government on Fri-day unveiled a mega plan tomerge 10 public sector banksinto four with a view to creatingfewer and stronger global-sizedlenders with robust balancesheets that can be used to boostcredit and spur growth.

The mergers announced onFriday, together with two setconsolidations done last year,will reduce the number of pub-lic sector banks to 12 from 27in 2017.

PSB stocks plunge up to 10.6% post-merger announcement

GDP SLOW DOWN

Stock markets crash, rupee falters Sensex sheds 770 points, investors lose `2.55 lakh cr, ` plunges 97 paise against $

HANS BUSINESS

H y d e r a b a d :Serial Entre-preneur, in-vestor andfounder ofPulsus Group, Dr SrinubabuGedela, will represent STPITelangana and AndhraPradesh at the Thessaloniki’sInternational Fair (TIF), oneof the most popular festivals inNorthern Greece.

Srinubabu representingcompanies got highest numberof seats allotment through In-dia Business Promotionscheme by Software Technol-ogy Parks of India (STPI) inAndhra Pradesh and Telan-gana.

Part of Government of In-dian Delegation for EuropeanBusiness, Srinubabu said “I amdelighted to be part of IndianDelegation to bring more Eu-ropean business to India. NowIndian companies should fo-cus more on European busi-ness apart from America”.

Dr Srinubabu to represent STPIs ofTelugu States at TIF

Study bycompe��onbody revealsthat onlineapps using

data topromote their

own ‘cloudkitchens’

New Delhi: After a slew of reformmeasures announced in the pastfortnight, the Central Governmentis likely to come up with major an-nouncements to boost the real es-tate industry this week.

According to o�cial sources, thepackage for real estate industrywould include additional funds forhousing finance companies (HFC)and norm relaxation for developersseeking bank loans. The govern-ment's next tranche of stimulus islikely to feature decisions to helpcomplete the stalled housing proj-ects. Sources said that a corpus tothe tune of around Rs 8,000 croreis likely to be announced for stalledreal estate projects.

Responding to the realty players'demands of widening the ambit ofa�ordable housing, the govern-ment is likely to increase the ambitof a�ordable houses from Rs 45lakh to Rs 70 lakh.

Further, announcements on thesubvention scheme concerning

housing finance are also likely tobe made. On August 23, FinanceMinister Nirmala Sitharaman hadannounced that the NationalHousing Bank would provide anadditional liquidity on Rs 20,000crore to HFCs and the Ministerhad said that she would come upwith announcement for the realestate sector including for stalledprojects soon.

Earlier, the Minister had met thestakeholders of the sector includingdevelopers and home buyers, anda suggestion of Rs 10,000 crorestress fund was put forward to herfor the completion of the stalledprojects. (IANS)

New Delhi :The recent measuresannounced by the governmentto help auto industry overcomethe ongoing slowdown is yet totake e�ect at ground level anduncertainty over GST reductionis making customers postponepurchases, automobile dealersbody FADA said on Tuesday.

The Federation of Automo-bile Dealers Association (FADA)however said it was cautiouslyoptimistic about retail sales tobe either flat or marginally pos-itive during this festive seasoncompared to last year whenthere was degrowth.

"On the ground situation, Ican't say right now if I have seenmuch change from what we lastreported. Inquiries are stillthere but postponement contin-ues as of now," FADA PresidentAshish Harsharaj Kale said herein a media interaction.

He was responding to queryon whether the measures an-

nounced by Finance MinisterNirmala Sitharaman to help theauto industry has had any tan-gible e�ect. It is too early tocomment. Whatever measureswere announced were very re-cent and for them to actually re-flect on the ground and in turnreflect into numbers will taketime, he added.

"Towards September-end wewill actually come to knowwhether measures announcedby the government have reallyhelped us grow volumes. Cur-rently, postponement contin-ues," Kale said.

Gold prices gain`538 per 10 gmNew Delhi: Prices of 24 karatgold rose by Rs 538 to Rs38,987 per 10 gram in the na-tional capital on Tuesday,mainly on the back of recoveryin global rates, according toHDFC Securities.

Silver prices too witnesseds i m i l a rtrends. Therate of silverzoomed by Rs1,080 to Rs47,960 perkilogram inthe nationalcapital, as per the data. "Goldprices traded positive on Tues-day on trade talks uncertaintyafter new tari�s from the USand China came into e�ectfrom September 1," Tapan Pa-tel, Senior Analyst (Commodi-ties), HDFC Securities said.

On Monday, gold pricesstood at Rs 38,449 per 10 gram,while silver was at Rs 46,880per kilogram. In the interna-tional market, gold pricesruled at $1,530 an ounce inNew York while silver wasquoted at $18.50 an ounce.

New Delhi: Bajaj Energy has re-ceived capital markets regulatorSebi's go ahead to raise an esti-mated Rs 5,450 crore through aninitial share-sale o�er.

The company, which filed itsIPO papers with Sebi in April,obtained the regulator's ‘obser-vations’ on August 30, latest up-date available with the capitalmarkets watchdog showed.Sebi's observation is necessaryfor any company planning tolaunch public issues.

According to draft papers, Ba-jaj Energy's initial public o�er(IPO) comprises fresh issuanceof shares aggregating up to Rs5,150 crore and an o�er for saleof scrips up to Rs 300 crore byBajaj Power Ventures. The com-pany plans to utilise the pro-ceeds from the IPO to purchase6,99,36,900 equity shares of Lal-itpur Power Generation Com-pany from Bajaj Power Venturesand Bajaj Hindustan Sugar forRs 4,972 crore, and the remain-ing amount will be utilised forgeneral expenses. Bajaj Power

owns 100 per cent stake in BajajEnergy, which is into develop-ing, financing and operatingthermal power plants with agross installed capacity of 2,430MW. The 2,430-MW capacitycomprises 450 MW from fiveoperational plants of 90 MWeach, owned and managed byBajaj Energy, and 1,980 MWfrom the power plant owned andmanaged by a special purposevehicle of Lalitpur Power.

Bajaj Energy intends to ac-quire Lalitpur Power's 1,980MW from the proceeds of the of-fer, it said. Edelweiss FinancialServices, IIFL Holdings and SBICaps are the lead managers tothe issue, while IDBI CapitalMarkets is the co-book runninglead managers to the issue.

`5,540-cr Bajaj EnergyIPO gets Sebi nod

‘Measures to reviveauto sector yet to makeimpact on ground level’

Stimulus for real estate likely this week


BUSINESS

ADANIPORTS 361.3 365.7ASIANPAINT 1576.75 1616.2AXISBANK 645.7 663.9BAJAJ-AUTO 2764.2 2788.3BAJAJFINSV 7026.3 7119.55BAJFINANCE 3258.5 3332.5BHARTIARTL 336.85 346.8BPCL 356.2 355.25BRITANNIA 2707.85 2701.65CIPLA 469.55 472.45COALINDIA 181.05 184.75DRREDDY 2532.8 2557.5EICHERMOT 15775.8 16258.45GAIL 126.8 129.8GRASIM 696.25 710.95HCLTECH 1108.35 1100.35HDFC 2089.9 2166.45HDFCBANK 2210.95 2227.95HEROMOTOCO 2557.45 2572.05HINDALCO 178.4 184.45HINDUNILVR 1841.85 1881.9IBULHSGFIN 454.55 455.35ICICIBANK 392.15 409.65INDUSINDBK 1343.95 1395.75INFRATEL 248.25 250.45INFY 814.25 814.9IOC 117.25 122.45ITC 241.55 245.65JSWSTEEL 210.15 217.45KOTAKBANK 1414.3 1431.45LT 1294.4 1328.25M&M 515.45 528.8MARUTI 6049.7 6123.75NTPC 117.65 121.65ONGC 117.15 121.2POWERGRID 197.05 200.5RELIANCE 1206.4 1248.55SBIN 268.4 273.85SUNPHARMA 439.35 450.4TATAMOTORS 112.65 116.7TATASTEEL 331.4 344.9TCS 2251.6 2259.6TECHM 704.5 693.65TITAN 1059.65 1105.1ULTRACEMCO 3885.55 4052.25UPL 553.35 563.2VEDL 134.15 139.15WIPRO 253.65 254.4YESBANK 58.75 59.95ZEEL 361 373.1

Aishwarya Telecom 1.65 1.59Alphageo (India) 203.9 210.8Alufluoride 92.5 95.4Amara Raja Batteries 619.45 619.95Andhra Bank 19.9 19.75Andhra Cements 2.96 2.82Andhra Petrochemicals 39.45 40.5Andhra Sugars 283 288.1Aries Agro 50.9 51.45Astra Microwave Products 75.65 76.75Aurobindo Pharma 604.35 600.7Avantel 199 204.85Avanti Feeds 312.4 318.3Balaji Amines 244.55 253.2Bambino Agro Industries 138.35 149.9Bartronics India 2.47 2.48Bhagiradha Chemicals 412 406.65B N Rathi Securities 19.1 18.85BNR Udyog 19.1 19.45Country Club Hospitality 3.75 3.89CCL Products (India) 232.8 235.25Celestial Biolabs 3 3.09Cil Securities 13.7 13.67Coromandel International 379.35 382.1Cambridge Technology 30 28.5Cybermate Infotek 1.61 1.75Cyient 421 421.15Danlaw Technologies India 62.15 65.8Deccan Cements 358.7 359.65Diamond Power Infrastructure 0.58 0.58Divis Laboratories 1639.6 1628.9Divyashakti Granites 70 68.4Dr Reddys Laboratories 2531.9 2555.15Empee Sugars & Chemicals 0.6 0.63Everest Organics 211.3 222Facor Alloys 0.98 1.06Gati 40.4 41.75Gayatri Projects 105.9 106.25Gennex Laboratories 3.34 3.42GMR Infrastructure 14.75 15.06Godavari Drugs 17.2 17.6Goldstone Technologies 10.45 10.24Granules India 90.1 90.65GVK Power & Infrastructure 4.24 4.42HBL Power Systems 15.05 15.05Heritage Foods 349.2 346.9Hindustan Fluoro Carbons 11.66 12.1ICSA (India) 1.33 1.4Incap 21.4 22.5International Paper APPM 444.35 443.25Kakatiya Cement Sugar 160.7 159.85Kallam Textiles 8.7 8.5K C P 71.75 71.45Kernex Microsystems (India) 20 19.5KNR Constructions 215.5 211.8Krebs Biochemicals 69.95 70Kaveri Seed Company 465.55 470.7Lokesh Machines 35.7 35.55Lotus Chocolate Company 15.35 16.65Brightcom Group 3.25 3.39NACL Industries 26.25 26.9

Natco Pharma 542.8 541.1NCC 54.1 54.9NCL Industries 106.15 107.65Neha International 0.95 1Nettlinx 18.4 18.5Neuland Laboratories 477.6 461.3Nihar Info Global 7.4 7.75NILE 181.7 178.45Oil Country Tubular 7.28 7.11Olectra Greentech 162.05 166.25Padmalaya Telefilms 1.97 2.07Palred Technologies 17.95 18.7Pennar Industries 25.1 26.3PFL Infotech 9.9 9.46Phyto Chem (India) 19.8 22Pitti Engineering 36.7 37.2Pokarna 124.85 129.15Prajay Engineers Syndicate 7.85 7.63Premier Explosives 165.65 165.8Prism Johnson 85.95 88.65Rain Industries 79.5 80.85Raj Packaging Industries 27.1 28.5Restile Ceramics 2.54 2.42Sagar Cements 558 570.05Samkrg Pistons & Rings 106.05 107.1Sampre Nutritions 17.7 17Sanghi Industries 46.85 47.45Sathavahana Ispat 8.95 9.4SMS Pharmaceuticals 44.95 46.6Steel Exchange India 11.55 11.46Surana Solar 6 5.85Suryaamba Spinning Mills 54 51.95Suryachakra Power Corp 0.21 0.2Suryalakshmi Cotton Mills 17.75 17.75Suven Life Sciences 258.8 259.6TajGVK Hotels & Resorts 123.35 120.75Tanla Solutions 52.5 50Transport Corporation 278.05 292.95Transgene Biotek 2.67 2.58Transcorp International 17 17.3Viceroy Hotels 1.22 1.22Vijay Textiles 29.45 31.15Vimta Labs 89.5 95.55Virat Crane Industries 19.4 20.5Virinchi 39.85 39.25Visaka Industries 290.15 295.3Vivimed Labs 15.05 15.25VST Industries 3426.3 3415.65VST Tillers Tractors 1026 1020.9Waterbase 101.5 101.75Zenotech Laboratories 27.2 25.95Zen Technologies 54.5 55.6XL Energy 0.45 0.47Zenotech Laboratories 25.95 24.75Zen Technologies 55.6 57.05Zen Technologies 57.05 56.55Waterbase 100.2 96.25XL Energy 0.47 0.48Zenotech Laboratories 22.5 21.9Zen Technologies 52.9 53.05Zen Technologies 70.05 71

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JSWSTEEL 210.15 -3.84ADANIENT 133.4 -3.33TATAGLOBAL 270.6 -3.18PFC 101.9 -3.09SUNTV 427.55 -2.77DLF 164.15 -2.55CASTROLIND 120.25 -2.51HINDZINC 212 -2.46BALKRISIND 728.65 -2.23CUMMINSIND 555 -2.08

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STOCK MARKET

Mumbai: The mega publicsector bank mergers plan an-nounced over the weekend isunlikely to create any mean-ingful cost synergies and re-vive credit growth or im-prove their profitability, saysa report.

Last Friday, the govern-ment had unveiled a megaplan to merge as many as 10public sector banks into fourto help create strongerglobal-sized banks. Accord-ingly, Punjab National Bankwould take over OrientalBank of Commerce andUnited Bank of India; Syn-dicate Bank would mergewith Canara Bank; UnionBank of India wouldtakeover Andhra Bank andCorporation Bank; and In-dian Bank would take overAllahabad Bank.

"Given the limited flexibil-ity on restructuring and ra-tionalisation, meaningfulcost synergies from thesemergers are unlikely," Swissbrokerage Credit Suisse saidon Tuesday. Even as size andscale of operations increase,core profitability of thesebanks is likely to remainweak, it said, adding, "thesebanks will continue to de-

pend on government forfunds." With these mergers,together with the two previ-ous consolidations in thepast two years, the numberof public sector banks to 12from 27 in 2017. The govern-ment had also said it wouldinfuse Rs 52,250 crore intothese 10 banks to boost theirbalance-sheets.

"While the recap amountputs all four merged entitiescomfortably above the regu-latory threshold of eight percent CET1, given the recentexperience of SBI and BoB,we believe the focus on inte-gration a�ects near-termgrowth, and hence, expectgrowth to be impacted," thereport said.

New Delhi: State-ownedIndian Bank expects tocomplete the merger withAllahabad Bank by the endof current fiscal, a top o�-cial said.

Last week, the govern-ment announced consoli-dation of 10 public sectorbanks into four megastate-owned lenders, in-cluding merger of Alla-habad Bank with IndianBank. "We have to go toboard first. There is aprocess to follow. In the

next few months, boardsof both banks should com-plete the process. I expectthat all the process shouldideally be over by March31," Indian Bank Manag-ing Director PadmajaChunduru said.

Indian Bank last weekreceived a communicationfrom Ministry of Financethat the Alternative Mech-anism after consultationwith Reserve Bank of In-dia has cleared a proposalfor the merger.

New Delhi: The Indian e-com-merce marketsize is likely toreach $230 billion in a decade asit's outpacing the o�ine retailsegment's growth, according toa report released on Tuesday.

"The Indian e-commercemarket is outpacing the o�ineretail growth and is expected totouch $230 billion by 2028. In-dia is at the cusp of a massive on-line boom, fueled by low datatari�s, a�ordable smartphonesand growing Internet usage," thereport by the E-CommerceCouncil of India (TECI) andChannelPlay said.

According to the report, an-other 40-50 crore shoppers areexpected to come online in 10years, joining the nearly 10 croreonline shoppers in India.

"E-commerce in India hasgrown beyond the first wave ofmetro consumers in tier-I cities.It is now rapidly adding millions

of buyers from tier-II, III citiesand beyond," it said.

According to the report, 89per cent respondents said neu-trality of the marketplace wasimportant as a core principleand it should not have any of itsown or related party sellers onthe platform.

E-comm mkt to touch$230 bn by 2028New Delhi: Commercial vehicle major Ashok Ley-

land on Tuesday said its entire range of heavy dutytrucks has been upgraded to meet BS-VI emissionnorms, which come into force from April 1, 2020.

The company has become the first Indian origi-nal equipment manufac-turer (OEM) to meet BS-VI emission normsacross its full range ofheavy duty trucks withgross vehicle weight of16.2 tonne and above, the

Hinduja group flagship said in a statement. On August 29, Ashok Leyland Chief Technology

O�cer N Saravanan received certificates from Au-tomotive Research Association of India (ARAI)confirming compliance with BS-VI emission stan-dard, it added. ARAI is an autonomous body a�li-ated to the Ministry of Heavy Industries and PublicEnterprises, which o�ers comprehensive certifi-cation and homologation services for all kinds ofvehicles. "The company has always been a pioneerin the introduction of new technology in the com-mercial vehicle industry and this achievement ofmeeting the BS-VI emission standard across ourheavy vehicle range further reinforces our positionas technology leaders," Ashok Leyland ChairmanDheeraj Hinduja said.

New Delhi: The government onTuesday approved Rs 9,300crore fund infusion in IDBI Bankto help improve the bank's capi-tal base and turn it profitable.

Briefing media about Cabinetdecisions, Information andBroadcasting Minister PrakashJavadekar said it will help incompleting the process of IDBIBank's turnaround and enable itto return top r ofit a b i l i t yand normallending andgiving govern-ment the op-tion of recov-ering itsinvestment atan opportunetime.

Of the Rs 9,300 crore needed,LIC would meet 51 per cent (Rs4,743 crore), he said. The re-maining 49 per cent, amountingto Rs 4,557 crore, is proposedfrom the government as its shareon one-time basis, he added. Theshareholding of the governmentwas reduced to 46.46 per centfrom 86 per cent while LIC stakein the bank increased to 51 percent in January this year. LIC ac-quired controlling 51 per centstake in the bank, making it thelender's majority shareholder inJanuary this year. After this in-fusion, IDBI Bank expects to be

able to subsequently raise fur-ther capital on its own and ex-pects to come out of RBI'sPrompt Corrective Action (PCA)

f r a m e w o r ksometime nextyear, he said.

"This cashneutral infu-sion will bethrough recapbonds i.e. Gov-ernment infus-ing capital intothe bank and

the bank buying the recap bondfrom Government the same day,with no impact on liquidity orcurrent year's Budget," he said.IDBI Bank needs a one-time in-fusion of capital to complete theexercise of dealing with itslegacy book, he said, adding ithas already substantially cleanedup, reducing net NPA from peakof 18.8 per cent in June 2018 to8 per cent in June 2019.

The capital for this has tocome from its shareholders. LICis at 51 per cent and is not al-lowed to go higher by the insur-ance regulator.

New Delhi: The government onTuesday raised the price of sug-arcane-extracted ethanol usedfor blending in petrol by up toRs 1.84 per litre as it looked tocut oil import bill by $1 billionannually through its greater usein auto fuels.

State-owned oil marketingcompanies will buy ethanol fromsugar mills, for mixing in petrol,at enhanced rates for ethanolyear beginning December 1, Pe-troleum Minister DharmendraPradhan said here.

He was briefing reporters onthe decisions taken by the Cabi-net Committee on Economic Af-fairs, chaired by Prime MinisterNarendra Modi. The price ofethanol from 'C-heavy molasses'has been raised by 29 paise perlitre to Rs 43.75 while the samefrom 'B-heavy molasses', alsocalled as intermediary molasses,by Rs 1.84 to Rs 54.27 a litre.

Ethanol is a by-product of mo-lasses generated on crushing ofsugarcane and the higher priceis to encourage sugar mills to di-vert from sugar production.

Cane-based ethanol can beproduced three different ways —directly from cane juice, from B-grade and C-grade molasses.Pradhan said the higher price isexpected to increase the pro-curement of ethanol to 260crore litres between December2019 and November 2020, upfrom 200 crore litres bought inthe previous ethanol year.

"Increased ethanol blendingin petrol is expected to replace2 million tonnes of oil annually,helping save $1 billion in importbill," he said. The percentage ofethanol being doped in petrolwill rise from about 6 per centnow to 7 per cent next year andto 10 per cent by 2021-22, hesaid. Price of ethanol was lastrevised in September last year

when the CCEA had approved a25 per cent hike in the price ofethanol produced directly fromsugarcane juice to Rs 59.13. Nowit has been hiked to Rs 59.48. Atthat time, the price of ethanolproduced from B-heavy mo-lasses was hiked from Rs 47.13to Rs 52.43 but that from C-heavy molasses marginally re-duced to Rs 43.46 from Rs 43.7.

Commenting on the decision,Indian Sugar Mills Association(ISMA) director general Abi-nash Verma said: "Government'sdecision to increase ethanolprice once again, with specialemphasis and a higher increasefor ethanol made from B-heavymolasses, confirms the govern-ment's commitment towardsencouraging more diversion ofthe surplus sugarcane/sugarinto ethanol."

"The second very importantdecision of allowing a singlepremium price for the ethanolmade from partial or 100 percent sugarcane juice is anotherbig and positive step in this di-rection," he said.

HANSBUSINESS

Hyderabad: Du� & Phelps,a global advisor on Tuesdayannounced the launch of atechnology and innovationcentre at Hitec City in thecity. The centre will housesoftware engineers, tech-nologists and senior leadersworking on software devel-opment, automation andinnovation.

The 150-seater facilityspread over 9,000 sft joinsthe firm’s footprint of morethan 85 o�ces servingclients across 28 citiesworldwide.

“We continue to makesignificant investments intech-enabled growth to

transform processes, im-prove e�ciency and max-imise turnaround times,”said Brett Marschke, ChiefOperating O�cer, Du� &Phelps.

In addition to Hyder-abad, the firm has a pres-ence in Mumbai, New Delhiand Bengaluru. VarunGupta, Managing Director,Du� & Phelps, said: “Hyder-abad is an important hubfor our expansion strategy

for India as well as for serv-ing our global clients. In ad-dition to the innovationcentre, the Hyderabad of-fice will also service localclients in the areas of valu-ation, property tax, restruc-turing, fraud, investigationsand due diligence. India ishome to the third-largestDu� & Phelps team afterNew York and London.”

Du� & Phelps enteredthe Indian market with theacquisition of American Ap-praisal in 2015. In May 2018,the firm further expandedits Indian presence with theacquisition of Kroll, aprovider of risk mitigationand corporate investigationservices.

Zydus get DCGI nodto market rabies drug New Delhi: Zydus Cadila onTuesday said it has received mar-keting authorisation for Twinrab,used for treating rabies, from theDrug Controller General of India. "The novel biologic which willbe marketed under the brandname, Twinrab, is indicated incombination with rabies vaccinefor rabies post-exposure prophy-laxis," Zydus Cadila said in astatement. Rabies, a viral diseasewhich gets transmitted throughthe bite of a rabid animal, a�ectsthe central nervous system. Zy-dus said in 2008, it had enteredinto an agreement with theWorld Health Organisation(WHO) to explore opportunitiesin the development of a cocktailof monoclonal antibodies for thetreatment of rabies.

Centre hikes ethanol pricesto cut oil import bill

Price goes by `1.84 to `54.27 per litre of ethanol used for blending in petrol

Fitch lowersglobal steelprice forecastNew Delhi: Fitch SolutionsMacro Research on Tuesdaysaid it has revised downwardsits 2019 global steel price fore-cast as global prices continueto be hammered by poor senti-ment amid ongoing US-Chinatrade tensions and increasingdownside risks to the globaleconomy.

In the long term, Fitch So-lutions maintains its view thatprices will ease and embark ona multi-year declining track asfundamentals loosen withfalling demand and increasingproduction.

"We are revising down our2019 global steel price forecastfrom an average of$650/tonne to $600/tonne, asprolonged weak investor sen-timent on the back of the on-going trade tensions betweenthe US and China and increas-ing downside risks to theglobal economy continues topressure prices," Fitch Solu-tions Macro Research said in astatement.

In terms of fundamentalfactors, in China, while de-mand from infrastructure andconstruction sectors provedexceptionally strong in theyear to date as targeted stimu-lus measures take e�ect, steelproduction has also soared,loosening the market, it said.

IDBI Bank to get `9,300 cr capital support

Even as size andscale of opera�ons

increase, coreprofitability of these

banks is likely toremain weak, who

will con�nue todepend on

government forfunds, says Swissbrokerage Credit

Suisse

Mega bank mergers not to revive credit growth

Indian Bank, Allahabad Bank to merge by March 31

State-owned oil marke�ng companies will buy ethanolfrom sugar mills, for mixing in petrol, at enhanced

rates for ethanol year beginning December 1 – Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan

Ashok Leyland gets BS6 certification

Du� & Phelps opens tech centre in Hyd

India is at the cusp of amassive online boom, fueledby low data tariffs, affordablesmartphones and growingInternet usage, says TECI and ChannelPlay report

Of the total amount, LICwould meet Rs 4,743 crore,

the remaining Rs 4,557crore is proposed from

the government

11DELHI WEDNESDAY 4 SEPTEMBER 2019


12 SPORTS

Printed and Published by K. Hanumanta Rao, on behalf of Hyderabad Media House Pvt. Limited, Flat.No.609, 6th Floor, Kirti Shikhar Building, Plot.No.11, Dist.Center, Janakpuri, New Delhi 110058. and Printed at M/s. Marutinandan Printers & Publishers, A15, Bara Bagh, G.T Karnal Road, Industrial Area, New Delhi 110033. Editor: V Ramu Sarma. RNI No: DELENG/2017/74095

New Delhi (PTI): Indianwomen’s cricket great and

ODI captain Mithali Raj onTuesday announced her re-

tirement from T20 Interna-tionals, a format in which she

signs o� as the country’s leadingrun-scorer despite a controversy-

ridden last leg. The 36-year-old said she wants

to focus on her ODI career, keep-ing in mind the 2021 World Cupin New Zealand. The veteran’s an-

nouncement came as a surprise,considering that she last week made

herself available for the home seriesagainst South Africa, beginning Sep-

tember 24. “After representing India in T20 in-

ternationals since 2006, I wish to retirefrom T20Is to focus my energies on

readying myself for the 2021 ODI WorldCup,” said Mithali in a BCCI statement.

Mithali ended her T20 career with 2364runs from 89 matches at an average of 37.5 anda highest score of 97 not out. She made her T20Idebut in 1999 and played her last match in

March against England in Guwahati. Mithali is also the first Indian woman toreach the landmark of 2,000 T20 runs.

The senior opener captained the coun-try in 32 T20 Internationals, includ-

ing the three World Cups in 2012(Sri Lanka), 2014 (Bangladesh)and 2016 (India).

With the announcement, shecan now put all her focus on the50-over World Cup in 2021. She

had captained India to their sec-ond World Cup final in 2017, a feat

that gave a much needed impetusto women's cricket in the country.

“It remains my dream to win aWorld Cup for my country and I want

to give it my best. I thank the BCCI for theircontinuous support and wish the Indian T20team good luck as they prepare for the homeseries against South Africa women,” saidMithali who captained India in their first everT20 International back in 2006. The Jodhpur-born player, who was no more a sure starter inthe T20s playing eleven, was earlier expectedto retire after the home series against Englandin March. After expressing her desire to playthe five-match series against South Africa lastweek, Mithali seems to have had a change ofheart.

Speculation was rife over Mithali’s future inT20s ever since she was controversially left outof the playing eleven for the World T20 semi-finals against England last year.

The dropping blew into a major furore dur-ing which she accused the then coach RameshPowar of trying to destroy her career. It iswidely believed that she has had a fall out withT20 captain Harmanpreet Kaur, who hadbacked her ouster from the team at the time.The controversy ended after Powar was sackedand W V Raman came in as the new coach ofthe team.

A senior BCCI o�cial told PTI that Mithali’sdecision was the right one and on expectedlines. “I don't know why she made that state-ment last week, that she wanted to play theSouth Africa series. She was not an automaticselection in the eleven anymore with the T20World Cup early next year, it is important thatenough chances are given to the youngsters,”said the o�cial.

“She has been a great of the game and allgreat players know when to exit. She has takenthe right decision,” the o�cial added. Mithaliremains a colossus in women's cricket and isthe batting mainstay in the ODI line-up. In 203ODIs, she has scored 6720 runs at an averageof 51.29 with seven hundreds. She has alsoplayed in 10 Tests with 663 runs including ahundred.

Mumbai (PTI): Former Indiacaptain Shantha Rangaswamy on

Tuesday said that Mithali Raj tookthe right decision by retiring from T20Internationals as it will help her focus

more on the 2021 ODI World Cup.Besides being the leading run-getter ODIs,

Mithali has scored the most number of runsfor India in the shortest format.

“See, there was lot of hue and cry abouther inclusion or non-inclusion (in the

T20 side), but in T20 also she wasthe first Indian to score 2,000 runs.It is only after that Rohit Sharma

and Virat (Kohli) did it. Thepoint is no one can take-

away the fact that she hasby far been the great-est batter for India,

forget the contro-

versies,” 65-year-old Rangaswamy said. “It is in our systemthat whoever succeeds, we try to pull them down. In-fact Iwas waiting for this announcement because we need herfor the ODIs and she needs to conserve her energy (as) sheis not going any younger. I think, she should have an-nounced her retirement sometime back but happy that shehas taken this decision,” added 65-year-old Rangaswamywho played 16 Test matches.

Rangaswamy backed Mithali's decision saying that theshortest format of the game could be energy sapping. “Shehad problem with her knee, but came out of it because ofher fitness regime. I think it is a good decision because T20can be energy-sapping because it calls for very quick action

and things like that. “So, I think, she has taken the right decision and I

am happy and would like to place on record my ap-preciation of all the services she has rendered evenin the T20 format,” added the former women's cap-

tain. Congratulatory messages also poured in onthe social media with former playersAustralian Lisa Sthalekar and formerIndia international Anjum Choprapraising the veteran batswoman for herimmense contribution to the game.

Mithali made right decision: Rangaswamy

Dubai (PTI): India skipper Virat Kohlilost his numero uno status after beingtoppled by Australia's Steve Smith inthe batsman's chart, while JaspritBumrah rose to third position amongbowlers in the latest ICC Test Rank-ings released on Tuesday.

Kohli slipped to No.2 spot followinghis first-ball duck in the Jamaica Test,while Smith returned to the top spotriding on his twin centuries in the firstAshes Test against England and 92 inthe second match.

Among others, Ajinkya Rahane re-turned to top 10, rising four places toNo.7, after following up his half-cen-tury and hundred in Antigua with an-other useful fifty in Jamaica. HanumaVihari, described by Kohli as “the findof the series”, shot up 40 places toNo.30 after just six Tests following afruitful West Indies tour.

With India beating West Indies by257 runs in the second Test here onMonday, Kohli registered his 28th Testwin from 48 matches, surpassing Ma-hendra Singh Dhoni's 27 wins from 60Tests, to become the country's mostsuccessful captain in the longest for-mat.

However after having made 76 in thefirst innings of the second Test againstthe West Indies, Kohli made a first-ballduck in the second essay. He is yet toadd to his 25 Test hundreds after threeTests this year. That allowed Smith,who missed the third Test at Headin-gley, to open up a single-point lead inthe latest rankings. He has a chance toextend that lead in the fourth AshesTest, starting at Manchester onWednesday.

Smith was on the top spot since De-cember 2015. It was only in August2018, when he was serving a ban for

his role in the ball-tampering scandal,that Kohli overtook him after reachingcareer-high rating points in the seriesagainst England.

The Australian No.4 has fought hisway back up the charts in his first se-ries back from the ban, making twincenturies in the first Test against Eng-land and 92 in the second. He now av-erages 63.2 in Test cricket. Kohli's nextchance to challenge Smith will be inthe home Test series against SouthAfrica, starting on October 2.

In ICC Test rankings for bowlers,Bumrah, who is currently the No.1 ODIbowler, continued his impressive runto climb up to the third spot with a ca-reer-best 835 rating points. Bumrah isnow only behind Australia's Pat Cum-mins and South Africa's KagisoRabada.

West Indies skipper Jason Holder,who is already No.1 on the ICC Testrankings for all-rounders, rose sevenplaces to join England’s James Ander-son at the fourth spot. He picked upsix wickets in the second Test, includ-ing 5/77 in the first innings. Amongother movers in the bowling chartwere India's Mohammed Shami (upone to No.18) and Ishant Sharma (upone to No.20).

Bumrah, who earlier in the seriesbecame the fastest Indian to pick up50 Test wickets, has had an exceptionaltime in red-ball cricket since his debutin early 2018, racing to 62 wickets injust 12 matches. In the just-concludedtwo Tests against the West Indies,Bumrah finished with 13 wickets at astrike rate of 9.23. That included fig-ures of 5/7 in the first Test and a hat-trick in the first innings of the secondTest at Sabina Park, Jamaica. Indiawon the series 2-0.

Smith reclaims No. 1 Testranking from Kohli, Bumrahto 3rd spot among bowlers

West Indies’Rahkeem Cornwall

scores runsfrom the

bowling ofIndia’s JaspritBumrah (le�)

during daythree of the

second Test atSabina Park

cricket groundin Kingston,

Jamaica Sunday

Manchester (AP): Steve Smithreturns to the Australian teamwhile top-order batsman Us-man Khawaja and pace bowlerJames Pattinson have beendropped for the fourth Ashescricket test against Englandbeginning on Wednesday atOld Trafford.

Smith did not play in thethird test at Leeds due to aconcussion sustained from abouncer which hit his helmetin the drawn second test atLord’s. The series is level 1-1with two Tests remaining.

Khawaja has a series aver-age of 20.33, with his top scoreof 40 coming in the second in-nings of the first Test won byAustralia at Edgbaston. Mar-nus Labuschagne is expectedto take Khawaja’s No. 3 posi-tion in the batting order with Smith to slot back intohis customary No. 4. MitchellStarc has also been named inthe squad and is in contentionto play his first test of the series.

Head coach Justin Langersaid Australia's final XI will beconfirmed shortly before theTest gets under way. “The de-cision on the 12th man will beone of the bowlers,” he said."We're very clear what the bat-ting is.”

Langer said the playerswere still reeling from theone-wicket loss in the thirdtest, where a victory wouldhave seen Australia retain theAshes. But Ben Stokes came tothe rescue for England. Hescored 135 runs over 5½hours, masterminding hisside's biggest fourth-inningschase in test cricket.

Smith to returnfor Australia in 4th Ashes test

Kingston (Jamaica) (PTI): “Cap-taincy is just a C in front of yourname.” With that comment, si-multaneously modest and mag-nanimous, Virat Kohli embracedhis all his teammates and gavethem credit for a personal mile-stone as India’s most successfulTest captain.

After beating West Indies by257 runs in the second Test hereon Monday, Kohli now has 28wins from 48 Tests, surpassingMahendra Singh Dhoni's 27 winsfrom 60 Tests as captain.

“Captaincy is just a C in frontof your name. It’s the collectivee�ort that matters. It's a by-product of the quality team wehave here,” Kohli said on thenewest record against his name.

“If you see these guys runningin -- (Mohammed) Shami's spelltoday, (Jasprit) Bumrah afterhaving a small niggle, Ishant(Sharma) bowling his heart out,(Ravindra) Jadeja bowling a longspell. If we didn't have thebowlers we have, these resultswouldn't have been possible,” headded.

Sourav Ganguly and Moham-mad Azharuddin are third andfourth in the list of successful In-dian Test skippers with 21 and 14wins respectively.

Overall, former South Africaskipper Graeme Smith remainsthe most successful skipper inthe world with 53 Test wins, fol-lowed by ex-Australia captainRicky Ponting, who recorded 48Test wins in his captaincy tenure.

India have made a superb startto the World Test Championshipand the win in the second matchnot only helped them sweep theseries 2-0 but also put them ontop of championship points

table. With 120 points from two

games, India lead the nine-teamtable even though Pakistan,Bangladesh and South Africa areyet to begin their bilateral cam-paigns in the championship. Un-der Kohli, India have achievedsome memorable victories inboth India and abroad.

Earlier this year, Indiaclinched their maiden Test seriesin Australia, beating the hosts 2-1 in their own backyard. In thematch here, India entered thefourth day needing eight wicketsto win and Kohli's men com-pleted the task after lunch, dis-missing the hosts for 210 in 59.5overs in their chase of a near-im-possible target of 468.

The bowling quartet of IshantSharma (2/37 in 12 overs), Mo-hammed Shami (3/65 in 16overs), Jasprit Bumrah (1/31 in11 overs) and lone spinner Ravin-dra Jadeja (3/58 in 16.5 overs)were relentless in their pursuitof keeping the home team bats-men on a tight leash.

Such was India’s dominance inthe two Tests that West Indiescouldn't even cross 250 in any oftheir four innings and the onlyhalf-century was scored byShamarh Brooks (50) in thisgame. It was one of the most sat-isfying tours for skipper Kohli ashis team claimed dominating tri-umphs in all three formats (3-0in T20Is, 2-0 in ODIs, and 2-0 inTests).

Kohli gives teammates credit for beingIndia’s most successful Test skipper

India captainVirat Kohliwalks withthe series

trophy a�erday four ofthe secondTest cricket

matchagainst West

Indies atSabina Park

cricketground inKingston,

Jamaica onMonday

New Delhi (IANS): The Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administra-tors (CoA) has decided to appoint observers for 10 state bodies to overseethe functioning of the associations, as well as to guide them in cricketingmatters.

The move has not gone down well with the associations and some of themhave even questioned the board's intent.

The associations to have these observers are -- Arunachal Pradesh, Naga-land, Sikkim, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Bihar, Chandigarh, Uttarakhandand Pondicherry.

In a mail sent to the associations, accessed by IANS, the observers will begiven six terms of reference and they will act in accordance:� To observe and guide the SCA's in cricket administration activities.� To observe and guide the cricket operations team in formulating local

cricket activities.� To act as an observer in all the selection committee meetings.� To assist the SCA in preparing youth development program for boys

and girls.� To act as a facilitator between the SCA and BCCI cricket

operations team.� To act as a facilitator between the SCA and BCCI finance

observer," the mail read.While the name of the observers appointed in this regard will be circulated

shortly, a senior BCCI official questioned if the Committee was looking to actbeyond the scope of the newly registered constitution.

“The collegium is not required. The CoA has given themselves the powersof the Supreme Court. Just because the court is busy with the Ram Janmab-hoomi issue, the CoA has found it an opportune time to repeatedly runroughshod over the orders of the apex court.

“This is just another in a long line of such decisions that have been taken inthe last few weeks. “Under what provision of the BCCI constitution -- thathas been finalized by the SC -- are they doing this? What gives them the au-thority to do this? They are playing with the orders of the court and they willbe held accountable for this mess,” the official told IANS.

A state association official echoed the sentiments and questioned if theCoA is looking to externally look at ways to influence the elections.

“This has only made it clear that the CoA is only interested in influencingthe BCCI elections. This is their version of rigging elections. First they de-cided to illegally plan a way to bar associations from participating in the BCCIelection process. They have done this against the orders of the court. Thenthey decided to illegally plan a way to add more votes to the BCCI voter listdespite knowing fully well that they are acting against the orders of thecourt. Then they decided to issue clarifications to the orders of the courtwhich only the Supreme Court may do.

“Now, this takes the cake, they are now effectively trying to influence 8-10votes by acting illegally to appoint observers over these associations. Whichrule are they following? This is a gross abuse of their powers. It seems theywant particular people to be made the new office bearers of the BCCI and ifso, why make a mockery of the Supreme Court and the election process?They should just appoint whoever they want to the posts in the BCCI, no?”the state association official enquired.

CoA to appoint observers in 10states, BCCI associations see red

NZ check Lankato 161-9 in second T20Kandy (AFP): Fast bowler SethRance claimed three wickets asNew Zealand kept down Sri Lankato 161 for nine in the secondTwenty20 interna�onal in Kandyon Tuesday. The hosts lost regularwickets a�er elec�ng to bat firstin their bid to stay alive in thethree-match series led by NewZealand. Kiwi skipper TimSouthee returned impressive fig-ures of 2-18 and fellow pacemanSco� Kuggeleijn also took twowickets. Avishka Fernando andNiroshan Dickwella put on 68runs for a crucial third-wicketstand but the rest of the ba�ngdid not make an impression.

India beat SouthKorea to enterAsian Jr TT finalUlaanbaatar (Mongolia) (PTI): In-dian boys entered the final of the22nd Asian Junior and CadetTable Tennis Championships,bea�ng South Korea 3-2 to assurethemselves of at least a silvermedal here on Tuesday. The re-sult also helped the team to di-rectly qualify for the World JuniorChampionships to be held in Thai-land in November. China blankedout Taipei 3-0 and will take on In-dia in the final. Top three teamsat the con�nental event herequalify for the Worlds but with nothird-place playoff, the thirdteam's fate will be decided on theindividual players’ performancefrom Tapei and Kore, the bronzemedallists and other teams in-cluding Japan. In the individualevents Japanese players stand agood chance to qualify as thethird squad for the Worlds.

India's Mithali Raj inac�on during the ICCWomen’s World Cup

match against Australia in Bristol

Mithali retires from T20Is to focus on 2021 ODI World Cup

She hasbeen a

great of thegame and

all greatplayers

know whento exit

—A senior BCCI official

Shantha Rangaswamy




@ thehansindiawebthehansindia

www.thehansindia.com

New Delhi: Students at a Mum-bai school have come up with"do-it-yourself compost kits" toensure waste-free GaneshChaturthi celebrations in sev-eral parts of the city."The stu-dents found out that approxi-mately 900 to 2000 metrictonnes of garbage is generatedas a result of Ganesh Chaturthicelebrations in Mumbai. Mostof this is immersed in the ,seathreatening our marine life andecosystem.

Hence, they have come upwith an innovative solution."The idea is to educate the com-munity to collect all the com-postable offerings like flowers,leaves etc and use it to make or-ganic fertilisers at practically nocost. The students have fash-ioned their own do it yourself

(DIY) composting kits that con-vert all degradable waste intofertilizers," Mona Seervai, Prin-cipal, Mount Litera Interna-tional School said.

The students are visiting res-idential complexes and corpo-rate offices after school hours toexplain the functioning of kits,techniques to form fertilisersand encourage them to use the

composts. "So far they havereached out to 100 families inresidential complexes and morethan 200 employees across cor-porates. The students informtheir audience that the compostcan be used for household plantsand trees as an excellent fertil-izer. The fertiliser is completelyorganic in nature and hence to-tally safe," she said.

WASTE- FREE GANESH CHATURTHI CELEBRATIONS

Mumbai school studentsdevelop compost kits

DR K SAROJA DEVI

Asimple aspect in our mind-set assures success to our

career. It’s nothing other thanPositive Attitude, which hasa bearing on your career po-tential.

One positive thought sendsforth energy and it is contam-inating. One positive thoughtleads the way to another forgetting the things done easilyand for yielding excellent re-

sults. It’s similar to the ripple in a pond as oneripple creates many others. This sequential out-come of positive thinking can have an impact notonly in terms of career growth but also on psycho-logical and physical well being of a human being.

The outcomes of posi�ve thinkingWith relevance to career growth, positive

thinking brings out the results mentioned below. S Compassion for one’s ideasS Gets goodwillS Draws attention to achievementsS Enhances confidence and energy levelsS Improves performance in every aspectS Broadens mind to see innovative possibili-

tiesS Boosts physical fitness with sound sleep –

lowers stress levels & lowers blood pressureHow to acquire posi�ve thinking?

Human beings have got a natural tendency tothink pessimistically – a mistake will be remem-bered for far longer than a good deed. And, un-doubtedly, positive thinking doesn’t mean thatyou simply fail to notice life’s most tricky situa-tions. Instead, it’s cultivating a positive approachthat is viewing a tough time as something that willoutdo in course of time.

If you tend to have a suspicious outlook, youcan change it if you take on a few simple strategies.Adopting a positive mindset in your life will cer-tainly bring in good results. Positive thinkingspreads if you let it proceed with its vibrant path.

Be indebted Try to think of three things every day that you

are grateful for. Some people like to write thisdown or record it as a note on their phone, otherssimply think of them. You can follow your ownstrategy. Set a daily alarm on your phone to re-mind you and carefully think of at least threethings that happened on that specific day thatmade you feel positive.

Be compassionate The pay it forward campaign has had proven

success in improving people’s mental health.Pay for the person behind you when ordering acoffee, open doors for people, take time to in-teract with , when you come across someone inthe street. But, here’s the crucial part, notewhat you have done and how it made you feel.Observe your own experience.

Avoid catastrophising Catastrophising is when you take a small issue

and expand it in your mind until it seems unde-featable. Check things which irritate you andtry to think of simple steps to help keep youcalm.

Surround yourself with posi�ve people As per a study, even though you have ten posi-

tive people in a room but you only need one nega-tive person to drain all that energy away. Follow asimilar approach in your life by spending moretime with the most positive people you know.

Posi�ve self-talk Instead of telling yourself what you can’t do,

try to change your approach. It’s easy to stayon mistakes and lose confidence in your abilitiesand allow yourself a maximum amount of timefor complaining. Instead, think of three posi-tives you took from a negative experience. Itdoesn’t matter how minute they are! Try to ini-tiate each day with a positive outlook – what areyou looking forward to make the day a construc-tive one? How will you reward yourself for suc-cess?

To end with, it’s important that you keep prac-ticing, especially if you have a likely tendencyto be pessimistic. Nobody is ideal, and we areall constantly learning, so allow yourself timeto develop this approach to establish your ca-reer and your life.

THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING

New Delhi: The University GrantsCommission (UGC) has issuedguidelines to higher education in-stitutions across the country toimpose a ban on single-use plas-tic.

The move comes ahead ofPrime Minister Narendra Modilaunching a mass revolutionagainst single-use plastic from Oc-tober 2, which will mark the 150thbirth anniversary of MahatmaGandhi.

The guidelines state that the in-stitutions should systematicallyban the use of plastic on their cam-puses and replace it with "environ-ment friendly substitutes." It alsomandates that every higher edu-cation institution in the countryshould ban single-use plastics incanteens, hostels and shoppingcomplexes in the institution'spremises.

"Carry out awareness drives andsensitisation workshops on theharmful impacts of single-useplastics, mandate all students toavoid bringing non-bio-degrad-able plastic items to the institu-tion, install necessary alternative

facilities like water units to avoidthe use of plastic," the guidelinesstate.

The UGC guidelines also ask theinstitutions to encourage the stu-dents to sensitise their respectivehouseholds about the harmful ef-fects of plastics and make theirhouseholds 'plastic-free'. Theguidelines are an e�ort to encour-

age the universities and collegesto adopt policies and practices to-wards cleaner and plastic-freecampuses.

The guidelines also ask thehigher education institutions,which have adopted villages underthe Unnat Bharat Abhiyan, to un-dertake a campaign in theiradopted villages till they are con-

verted into 'plastic-free villages'through promoting awareness andencouraging shift to alternativeproducts.

The higher education regulator,while issuing the guidelines, saidthat plastic waste has emerged asone of the biggest environmentalconcerns adversely impacting thesoil, water, health and well-beingof citizens at large and that timehas come for a systematic cam-paign to reduce the usage of plas-tics.

It added that the educational in-stitutions have the unique spreadand influence to educate the stu-dents and households on the needto avoid the usage of plastics.

Prime Minister Modi in his In-dependence Day speech had urgedcitizens to eliminate the use of sin-gle-use plastic, besides suggestingthat shopkeepers should provideeco-friendly bags to the cus-tomers.

Subsequently, in his monthly"Mann Ki Baat" address, Modi hadsaid that the time has come for thecitizens to join hands in curbingsingle-use plastic.

UGC asks varsities to ban single-use plastic

New Delhi (IANS): A report on‘fitness levels of Corporate Indiaby HealthifyMe health and fit-ness app on Tuesday revealedthat 63 per cent of executives areoverweight with a Body Mass In-dex (BMI) greater than 23.

The report has been compiledby reviewing the diet and activitylevels of close to 60,000 workingprofessionals across 20 pluscompanies over a period of 12months.

These professionals rangefrom factory workers, sales pro-fessionals, IT professionals,bankers and others in cities likeDelhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru,Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkataand remote locations like Jha-gadiya, Khandala and Vapi. Theprofessionals were in the 21 to60 age group.

When it comes to the numberof steps taken in a day, an impor-tant indicator of activity levels,consumer goods sector hastaken the pole position with a

count of 5,988 when it comes toaverage steps taken in a day.

The least active are executivesfrom the financial sector whohave an average count of just4,969 steps. While, executivesfrom other sectors like retail,manufacturing, marketing andIT take upwards of 5,000 steps.

According to the data, runningis the most popular activity forboth males and females. Otheractivities that are popular

amongst male executives are bi-cycling, gym workouts andswimming. Women prefer moreof indoor activities that can bedone at home, for e.g. Yoga andother home workouts.

The data also shows thatweekends are the least activedays of the week for workouts.The calorie burn rate dropsdown to an average of 250 onweekends compared to 300 onweekdays.

63 per cent of Indian executivesare overweight: ReportHANS NEWS SERVICE

H y d e r a b a d :S p o r t s m e n ,dancers, artists,poets are allraised in schools.School is a placewhich o�ers chil-dren to blossomwith many tal-ents. Givingprominence tosports and cul-tural activitiesalong with educa-tion, Delhi PublicSchool, Nadergulorganised itsfourth Annual Interschool fest, Udbhav on Saturday. The school hasbecome a platform for many young talented children. Students fromvarious schools took part in this mega event. Around 3000 Studentsfrom 27 di�erent schools grabbed the opportunity to showcase theirtalents. Balsastavat Kreeda Sakthaha as stated by Shankarachari,childhood melts o� in sports and play. To make this true, a feast ofindoor and outdoor games likes chess, carroms, taekwondo, swim-ming and a few other sports were conducted with a large number ofstudents taking part in it. Western dance, Classical dance and musiccompetitions became a center of attraction with the enthralling per-formance by students filling the school ground with music andrhythm. Students evoked the poets and writers in them by indulgingthemselves in several literary activities like performance poetry, dra-matic monologue, one act plays, essays and poetry writing and manymore.

Principals and teachers from various schools witnessed the eventand cheered the participants. They also shared that this kind of in-terschool fests hosted by DPS, Nadergul every year enrich the sportiveand team spirit amongst their students. On this celebrative notethePrincipal of the school stated her joyous words“Delhi Public School,Nadergul continuously believes in shaping the students as all-rounders. Our school is always a common platform to encourage thestudents and exhibit their abilities in sports as well as in academics.”

This mega event concluded with the valedictory ceremony award-ing all the prize winners for showcasing their skills and talents totheir best. The CCA team, admin sta�, teachers and supporting sta�under the able guidance of the Principal, Padma Jyothi Turaga andthe Vice Principal, Kiran Khanna ensured the event’s grand success.

Giving wings to passions ‘Zenith’ at GITAMon September 6,7

HANS NEWS SERVICE

Hyderabad: Kalakriti (the presti-gious cultural club) of GITAMDeemed-to-be University, Hyder-abad is going to organize two-dayliterature and cultural event ‘Zenith’on September 6 & 7. Kalakriti will beorganising this wholesome experi-ence event with prior registration.During the two-day event the teamKalakriti has scheduled the eventslike, V4 band, What do you meme?,A Tale of four pictures, Chamber ofSecrets, Ishq-e-film, SuperheroShowdown, Zoya-The Musical, De-battle, Entertainment Opinion: Thisor That?, JAM, Music Workshop,Dance Workshop, Symphony, Beatit! Vol1, Open mic, Zumba Work-shop, Vectorise and Treasure Huntetc. This event ends up withstandup comedy by Naveen Richard.He was the founder of the BetterLife Foundation, the South Indianboy stuck in Space from Star Boyz orthe angry kids library owner fromPushpavalli. For more details, con-tact student coordinator Akhil 9515108455 and Shravya 94412 07374.

HANS NEWS SERVICE

Hyderabad: Mahindra EcoleCentrale (MEC) College of En-gineering, Hyderabad organisedits First National Conference onFuturistic Approaches in CivilEngineering, FACE 2019. Thestated objective of the Civil En-gineering Department for theconference was to connect thepast and current practices with

future approaches and technolo-gies.

P Ravinder Rao, Engineer inChief, Roads & Buildings Depart-ment, Government of Telangana,and Managing Director, TSRDCgraced the event as the ChiefGuest. Renowned experts likeDr. Satish Chandra, Director,CSIR-CRRI, Dr. Gopalakrishnan,Director, CSIR-CBRI, Dr. LigyPhilip, Professor, IIT Madras, Dr.

KVL Subramaniam, Professor,IIT Hyderabad, and Dr. UmaShankar, Associate Professor,IIT Hyderabad delivered thekeynote lectures at the confer-ence.

“At Mahindra Ecole Centrale,our constant focus is to meaning-fully contribute back to the do-mains that we operate in. We takepride in the fact that our first na-tional conference on FACE not

only presented the best develop-ments in the field of Civil Engi-neering but also focused on sus-tainability. We will be coming outwith books on the proceedings, sothat practitioners can benefit fromthe key takeaways at the confer-ence”, Says Dr. Yajulu Medury, Di-rector, Mahindra Ecole Centrale.

The participants at the confer-ence contributed papers and pre-sentations.

YouTube invests inlearning content New Delhi: Google-ownedYouTube which has over 265million users in India is now ac-tively investing in acceleratingthe growth of learning contentacross languages in the country,a top company executive hassaid.

Towards this, the companyprovided learning fund to eightIndian creators to develop high-quality content during its"EduCon" summit held here onSunday.

"With over 265 millionmonthly active users onYouTube, we're seeing incredi-ble viewership coming from tier2, tier 3 cities and even smalltowns," Satya Raghavan, Direc-tor Content Partnerships,YouTube in India, said in a state-ment.

"We're now actively investingin accelerating the growth oflearning content on YouTubethrough mentorship for our cre-ators across languages, andfunds for them to develop highquality content on a wide varietyof topics," Raghavan added.

The eight Indian creators whoreceived YouTube LearningFund are: ExamFear EducationHindi, Learn Engineering, Don'tMemorise, Study IQ Education,D'art of Science, Learnex-Eng-lish Lessons Through Hindi,GetSetFlySCIENCE and Let'sMake Engineering Simple.

These creators are developinghigh-quality learning content,covering topics like English lan-guage training, environmentalscience, political science, calcu-lus, genetics and chemistry inEnglish, Hindi and Tamil.

MEC holds first national conference

Representa�onal picture


DENIS WAITLEY

With the passing of everynew year, each of us

needs to understand the mag-nitude of social and economicchange in the world. In thepast, change in business andsocial life was incremental anda set of personal strategies forachieving excellencewas not required.

Today, in the knowl-edge-based world,where change is therule, a set of personalstrategies is essentialfor success, even sur-vival. Never again willyou be able to go toyour place of businesson autopilot, comfort-able and secure that the or-ganization, state or govern-ment will provide for and lookafter you.

You must look in the mirrorwhen you ask who is respon-sible for your success or fail-ure. You must become a life-long learner and leader, for tobe a follower is to fall hope-lessly behind the pace ofprogress. The power brokersin the new global arena will bethe knowledge facilitators.

Ignorance will be even morethe tyrant and enslaver thanin the past. As you look in themirror to see the 21st Centuryyou, there will also be anotherimage standing beside you. Itis your competition. Yourcompetition, from now on,

will be a hungry immigrantwith a wireless, hand-held,digital assistant.

Hungry for food, hungry fora home, for a new car, for se-curity, for a college education.Hungry for knowledge. Smart,quick thinking, skilled andwilling to do anything neces-sary to be competitive in the

world marketplace.Working long

hours and Saturdays,staying open later,serving customersbetter and morecheerfully. To be aplayer in the 21stCentury you have tobe willing to givemore in service thanyou receive in pay-

ment.These are the new rules in

the game of life. These are theactions you must take to be aleader and a winner in yourpersonal and professional life.By mastering these pro-foundly simple action steps,you will be positioned to be achange master in the new cen-tury. Action Step Number One– consider yourself self- em-ployed, but be a team player.What this means is that youare your own Chief ExecutiveO�cer of your future. Startthinking of yourself as a serv-ice company with a single em-ployee. You’re a small com-pany that puts your services towork for a larger company.

www.getmotivation.com

Across1 Porgies (5)6 Quench (5)9 Structured poem

(7)10 Primp (5)11 Exchange of

goods for moneyor for othergoods (5)

12 Figure (5)13 Nazi police (7)15 Actor Mineo (3)17 Fine and delicate

? (4)18 Excessively (6)19 Ridge (5)20 Kiosks (6)22 Noted times (4)24 Superlative suf-

fix (3)25 Scoops (7)26 Big or huge (5)27 Devour (3,2)28 Greek epic (5)29 In the correct

manner ? (7)30 Outcome (5)31 Work dough (5)

Down2 Eye part (6)3 Attractive to the

eye (6)4 A male child (3)5 American state,

capital Boise (5)6 Mountain range

in Central India(7)

7 Tempt (4)8 Abduct (6)12 Cooking aids (5)13 A round ball (5)14 Go swiftly (5)15 Meager or thin (5)16 Fertile loam (5)18 Close-fitting (5)19 Very alert person

(7)21 Hollywood Acad-

emy Awards (6)22 Novelist Waugh

(6)23 Silky wool source

(6)25 Hindu holy man

(5)26 Spiritual teacher

(4)28 Kind (3)

SOLU

TIO

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EPTE

MBE

R 1

SOLU

TIO

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EPTE

MBE

R 1

� Crossword � Sudoku

Researchershave created

a comprehen-sive catalogue ofhuman gut bac-teria by isolat-ing and pre-serving samplesof 7,758 strainsof the microbes-- an advancethat may helpdevelop newtreatments for several dis-eases.

The human digestive sys-tem houses thousands of dif-ferent strains of bacteria,many of which are beneficial,while some have been linkedto metabolic disorders and in-flammatory bowel diseases forover a decade.

To know more about howthese microbes changed in in-dividuals over time, the re-searchers at the Massachu-setts Institute of Technology(MIT) in the US collectedstool samples from about 90people from the Boston area,for up to two years. Resultsfrom the data set (BIO-ML),published in the journal Na-ture Medicine, should help inunderstanding the way inwhich microbial populationschange in the human gut, re-searchers said.

This may also help scien-tists develop new treatmentsfor a variety of diseases, saidEric Alm, a professor of bio-logical engineering and of civiland environmental engineer-ing at MIT. "There's a lot of ex-citement in the microbiomefield because there are associ-ations between these bacteriaand health and disease. Butwe're lacking in being able tounderstand why that is, what's

the mechanism,and what are thefunctions ofthose bacteriathat are causingthem to associ-ate with dis-ease," said Alm.

"More thanever before,modern tech-niques allow usto isolate previ-

ously uncultured human gutbacteria. Exploring this ge-netic and functional diversityis fascinating -- everywherewe look, we discover newthings," said Mathilde Poyet,a senior postdoc at MIT andone of the lead authors of thestudy. "I'm convinced that en-riching biobanks with a largediversity of strains from indi-viduals living diverselifestyles is essential for fu-ture advancements in humanmicrobiome research," sheadded.

"This is the first time we'regetting a glimpse of these re-ally different dynamics," Almsaid. In a case, the re-searchers found three relatedstrains of Bacteroides vulga-tus coexisting within a singleperson, all of which appearedto have diverged from oneancestor strain within thehost.

In another case, the studynoted one strain of Turi-cibacter sanguinis com-pletely replacing a relatedstrain of the same speciesnearly overnight. For mostpart of the research, Alm andhis team focused on mi-crobes found in about adozen individuals who hadprovided samples over an ex-tended period.

From motivation tomotive-action

Comprehensive catalogue ofhuman gut bacteria created

14 DELHI WEDNESDAY 4 SEPTEMBER 2019

R L TRIKHA

Academic excellence is whatevery student aspires for and

looks forward to attaining thesame. Big Bang Edge Test is aunique platform for aspiring stu-dents to help them to know andmaximize their current inherentpotential for National and Inter-national Competitive/ScholasticExams. The test will unleash awhole new set of possibilities forstudents hoping to scale and seta benchmark in JEE Advanced,JEE Main, Olympiads, KVPY,NTSE, School Excellence andmore.

Big Bang Edge Test will triggera never-ending process of intel-lectual evolution, creativity andgrowth for serious students. Thiswill set them on a course for ex-traordinary growth in terms ofability to evaluate their potential,present capability, real inclina-tions towards pursuing a careerof their choice at National as wellas International levels.

Students presently in Class V,VI, VII, VIII, IX, X & XI (going toClass VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI & XIIin 2020) and looking for all-round Academic Success mustappear in Big Bang Edge Test, tobe held on 20th October 2019 atnational level.

How students will bebenefi�ed?

The test will showcase stu-dents’ readiness for the goalsthey aspire for, such as JEE(Main & Advanced), KVPY,Boards, BITSAT, NTSE andOlympiads.

Big Bang Edge Test is a plat-form that not only provides as-piring students to carve out aniche for themselves with earlyjoining academic benefits but

also enhances their IQ level,Mental ability, develops LogicalThinking, enables Online accessto NTSE Test series, prepares forOlympiads and so on. Early Startfor preparation ofCompetitive/Scholastic Examswill help students get an edgeover their peers. Simply stated,Big Bang Edge Test means un-matched Academic Benefits byproviding students the following:

Position / Rank at NationalLevel along with Rank PotentialIndex (RPI) for various Compet-itive & Scholastic Exams.

Detailed Analysis of CurrentReadiness & what students needto do for the aspired goal as wellas Intermediate Milestones (Jr.Olympiad, NTSE, X/XII Boards,KVPY, BITSAT, Olympiads).

Current IQ & Potential Evalu-ated. Besides this, students willalso get detailed Relative Per-formance Analysis across Sub-jects, Chapters & Concepts.

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HANS NEWS SERVICE

Hyderabad: AISECT, which isIndia’s leading social enterpriseworking in the area of Skill De-velopment in semi urban and ru-ral parts of the country, has part-nered with Micro FocusSoftware University, an initiativeof pure-play software companyMicro Focus. Under this part-nership, AISECT will o�er cut-ting-edge and industry alignedtechnology certification pro-grams in Artificial Intelli-gence/Machine Learning(AI/ML), Cyber Security andQuality Engineering. Thebatches for the AI and ML pro-grams are scheduled to startfrom 10th September.

While driving innovationacross sectors, the emergingtechnologies are also making alot of human jobs redundant. Itis estimated that 54 per cent ofIndian employees in 12 key in-dustry sectors will need to be re-skilled by 2022. Addressing thechanging job scenario, AISECTis o�ering global certification inAI/ML, Cyber Security andQuality Engineering for stu-dents and early stage profession-als to prepare them for the fu-ture jobs market. These coursesare o�ered through AISECT’sonline learning platform AISEC-TOnline.com, which o�ers over225 educational programmesand numerous digital services.

The certification programsunder this partnership have awell-tailored and innovative cur-riculum, which is designed basedon relevant skills across variousmajor industries. LeveragingMicro Focus’ industry expertise,the courses have been designedby keeping in mind the industrydemand in order to make thestudents ready for the jobs mar-ket.

As part of the programme,students will train in cutting-edge technologies that are inhigh demand. Interactions withsubject matter experts and theopportunity to pursuevirtual/physical internship willhelp the students get the muchneeded practical experience inthe industry. Online and face-to-face instructor-led learning en-vironment coupled with projectand lab-based learning will pro-vide a comprehensive environ-ment to students.

Students will have access toiTrack, a world-class e-learningplatform o�ering an array ofsupport like allied courses, forexploratory learning. They willreceive proper guidance from in-dustry mentors that will helpthem hone their skills. Further-more, e-assessments will benefitthe students by providing quickand invaluable insights into theirlearning. On successful comple-tion of the course, students willbe awarded a globally recognizedcertificate. Support will also beprovided to help students getplacement opportunities in theirdesired skills.

HANS NEWS SERVICE

Srikakulam: Pragada KanchanaBalasri Vasavi class-X student ofgovernment model school atEedulavalasa in Polaki mandalreceived rare honour. She willobserve Chandrayaan-2 experi-ments at Bangalore along withPrime Minister (PM), NarendraModi.

Indian Space Research Organ-ization (ISRO) conducted quizcompetitions to students acrossthe nation from August 10-20 toselect two candidates from eachstate. Students who answeredmore number of questions in aspan of ten minutes were se-lected to see Chandrayaan-2 ex-periments along with PM.

All the selected candidatesacross the nation will see ISROChandrayaan-2 experiments atISRO’s headquarters at Banga-lore along with PM, NarendraModi on September 7. BalasriVasavi answered more questionsin ten minutes and was selectedfor the honour. Balasri Vasavi’snative village is Talasamudram

in Polaki mandal a remote vil-lage and studying atEedulavalasa model school inthe same mandal.

She belongs to a farm worker’sfamily and her father, GovindaRao died six years ago due to illhealth. Her mother, Tejeswari is

running the house by attendingfarm works as labour.

‘I have been working as farmlabour and earning meagreamount and sending my twodaughters to schools for theirbetter future’ said mother of Bal-asri Vasavi. I am very happy on

receiving information that myelder daughter, Balasri Vasaviwas selected by ISRO’ she said.‘As a principal I am proud abouthonour received by my student,Balasri Vasavi’ said governmentmodel school principal, I.Srini-vasa Rao.

Guwahati: In a bid to promote learn-ing through Artificial Intelligence(AI), a team of postgraduate studentsfrom the Indian Institute of Technol-ogy (IIT) Guwahati, along with theirfaculty members are developing anArtificial Intelligence-enabled chat-bot named "ALBELA" to teach andsupport first year students of Electri-cal and Electronics Engineering (EEE).

"We have been working on its de-velopment since last 7 months with ateam of dedicated 7 research schol-ars of the department. Earlier we didthe trial runs of the chatbot, andstarted using from this academic ses-sion onwards.

"The response from the studentshas been overwhelming and we hopethat this will become the new normalin near future. Prof. Rohit Sinha, HeadEEE Department, and the team IBMhave extended their continuous sup-

port for this activity," Praveen Kumar,Professor, Department of EEE, IITGuwahati, said in a statement.

The chatbot would help studentsfind their class schedule, tutorialschedule, and examination queriesvia a AI-based chat window. Studentsat times may hesitate to approach aninstructor regarding their queries,but with this chat-based system stu-dents can clear their doubts, bothtechnical and non-technical, accord-ing to the institution.

"The team is developing the analyt-ical problem solving skill. It will behelpful for the students to learn howto solve analytical problems relatedto the course. Within next one year,we will extend it to biomedical signalprocessing, electrical machinecourses, said Samarendra Dandapat,Professor, Department of EEE at IITGuwahati.

IIT-G develops AI chatbot for EEE students

AP student to observe Chandrayaan-2 with PM

AISECT partnerswith Micro Focus SoftwareUniversity

To offer global cer�fica�onprogrammes in Ar�ficial

Intelligence /MachineLearning, Cyber Security and

Quality Engineering

Pragada Kanchana Balasri Vasavi (centre) with members of school staff


15DELHI WEDNESDAY 4 SEPTEMBER 2019

Rio de Janeiro (PTI): Teen stars Manu Bhaker andSaurabh Chaudhary staged a remarkable come-back to claim the mixed 10m air pistol gold, pro-viding a fitting finale to India’s unprecedenteddominance of the medal tally in the ISSF WorldCup Rifle/Pistol stage here.

Representing the other Indian team in thesame event, Yashaswini Deswal and Ab-hishek Verma won the silver as the countrypicked up the maximum possible medals onthe final day of the tournament.

The results ensured an unprecedented topfinish for India across all four ISSF WorldCup stages this year, including the lone jun-ior world cup. India's final tally here stood atfive gold, two silver and two bronze medals fora total of nine. No other country won morethan one gold medal here.

World number one in women’s 10mair rifle, Apurvi Chandela, hadearlier partnered DeepakKumar to win India theirfourth gold on the con-cluding day of the event.The pair won the topmedal in the mixed airrifle event.

Anjum Moudgil andDivyansh Singh Pan-war, representing In-dia 2, who won the pre-

vious two World Cup editions of the same event,won bronze as India continued to reach never-before-seen heights in rifle and pistol shooting.

In the air pistol final, the pairof Manu Bhaker and Saurabh

Chaudhary prevailed overYashaswini Singh Deswaland Abhishek Verma 17-15in a nerve-wracking con-test. Manu and Saurabh,both 17, have now won eachof the four ISSF MixedTeam Air Pistol world cup

golds this year. They were,at various stages of the final,down 3-9, then 7-13 and

then finally 9-15 beforewinning the next

four duelsstr a ig h t

t ostage

a

remarkable come-from-behind win. The winningpair had earlier shot 394 out of 400 in round twoof qualification, including a stunning 100 each inthe final 10-shot series, to top the eight teamround while Yashaswini and Abhishek, both freshfrom their individual gold medal winning exploitsin the competition ear-lier, came in secondwith 386.

Hungary andChina 1 were leftfighting for thebronze, whichwas won by thepair of Pang Weiand Jiang Riaxinof China. Earlier,Apurvi andDeepak blew awaythe Chinese pair ofYang Qian and YuHaonan 16-6 in ao n e - s i d e dfinal.

India won eight of the 11 single-shot duels be-tween the teams, where the combined score ofone pair is compared to that of the other and thehigher total awarded two points. The first to 16points wins and this is the format which will beused in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

After comfortably getting through round oneof qualification, the pair of Apurvi and Deepaktopped the board after 20 individual shots inround two, featuring the top eight teams from theprevious round. Their total of 419.1 enabled themto get straight into the gold medal match wherethey found themselves against the Chinese pairwho had come in second with 418.7.

Anjum and Divyansh shot 418.0 to lie fourthand qualified for the bronze medal match againstthe Hungarian pair of Eszter Meszaros and PeterSidi, who shot 418.6 to finish third. Anjum andDivyansh also won their bronze-medal matchagainst the Hungarians with relative ease, chalk-ing out a 16-10 result.

India have collected a whopping 22 medals inthe four ISSF Rifle/Pistol World Cup stages this

year, including an awe-inspiring 16 goldmedals. Their highest tally before this was

eight last year. In the history of theISSF World Cup before 2019, India

had collected a total of 19 goldmedals, only 11 being in the rifle

and pistol disciplines while eightcame from the shotgun discipline.

Manu-Saurabh clinch gold,

unprecedented top finish for India

ISSF WORLD CUP

New Delhi (PTI): India footballcoach Igor Stimac on Tuesday saidhis team is capable of upsettingOman in their World Cup qualifyingopener but conceded that the visi-tors will start outright favourites inthe September 5 clash.

Stimac, who took charge of theteam in May, predicted a toughmatch on Thursday, considering thatIndia have never won any FIFA-recognised match against Oman.

“Realistically, Qatar and Oman arethe favourites in our group. We havenever won an official match againsteither of them. So it’s not going tobe easy at all. In Guwahati we are go-ing to give everything on the pitch,aiming to win it,” Stimac told PTI inan interview.

“Results are important now andthey are our priority. We have usedthe last few months wisely. I feel weare ready for the challenge,” said the51-year-old who had experimentedwith the line-ups during the Kings’Cup (in June) and IntercontinentalCup (in July).

The last meeting between the twoteams ended in a goal-less draw in afriendly game in December last yearin the run-up to this year's AsianCup. “Don’t get me wrong but I don'tconsider friendly games relevant atall. But having said that, there is notaking away from the draw last De-cember in the run-up for Asia Cup,”said the former defender who waspart of Croatia’s 1998 World Cupthird place finishing team.

Besides Qatar, Oman and India,

the other teams in Group E areAfghanistan and Bangladesh.

The Indian team will travel toDoha to play against Asian champi-ons Qatar on September 10. Eachteam will play home and awaymatches till June next year.

The top team from each of theeight groups and the four best run-ners-up across all the groups will ad-vance to the third round of theWorld Cup qualifiers.

“I think the group is competitive,and is giving us hopes of doing well.After the draw I immediatelyjumped into my office chair andstarted the work on Oman and Qatarmatches, not thinking for a secondabout other groups and how easy ortough they are,” Stimac said.

“We need to perform well everygame to keep our hopes alive, notonly against Oman. No game is goingto be easy, and that’s the way how weneed to prepare our players. Thereare also Afghanistan and Bangladeshin our group and we need to equallyrespect them,” said the former Croa-tia head coach.

He agreed that given a choice hewould have loved to face Oman awayfirst than playing against the Gulfnation at home in the openingmatch. “If there was a possibility ofchoosing where and whom we wouldhave preferred to play our opener,we may have chosen the Oman awaymatch.”

Asked if he has got enoughmatches to prepare for the World

Cup qualifiers since his appoint-ment in May, Stimac said, “I had tofollow what was agreed before myappointment. Matches are not al-ways pertinent. Practice time withplayers is more important.”

Stimac wants the Indian team toplay a brand of football which buildsup from the back and goes on attackmode in a smooth transition, and hesaid the players are excited aboutthe new style.

“I think that (brand of football) iswhat all of you want us to do, and sodo our fans. That's something play-ers are excited about, and look for-ward to in trying to please all withthe improvements they have made.But for me, that is only one of theoptions available,” he signed off.

Oman favourites but we are hoping for an upset, says Stimac

Guwahati (PTI): ‘Building from theback’ is the new mantra for the In-dian football team under head coachIgor Stimac and the players are lov-ing the approach as they get readyfor their opening World Cup quali-fiers match against Oman here onThursday.

Stimac wants the Indian team toplay a brand of football which buildsup from the back and goes on attackmode in a smooth transition, thoughhe said it was only one of the optionsavailable.

Senior defender Sandesh Jhingansaid the players are “loving” the newsystem. “Everyone has seen how thecoach wants us to play. It’s not easyto implement a new possession-based style. We have to be brave andI can say that from our games againstCuracao (King’s Cup) to Syria (In-tercontinental Cup), we have im-proved a lot,” the seasoned centreback said. “We have the right kindof players and everyone in the teamhas loved the new approach,” he said.The team underwent a training campin Goa, which began on August 20,ahead of the Oman game.

Talking about the transition in theplaying style, Jhingan mentioned thatthe players have been working on itboth on and o� the pitch. ‘Training has

been about building patterns on thepitch and making them a natural partof our games. As a centre-back, I haveto play out from the back and everyplayer is adapting to his new role aswell. "O� the field, we are studying aswell. We keep getting videos and clip-pings from the sta�, that help us learnbetter,” he explained.

One of the key players for Stimachas been midfielder Sahal AbdulSamad, who has appeared in each ofIndia’s five international games un-der the Croatian. He said he has de-veloped a “great understanding ”with his fellow midfielders.

“We have developed a great under-standing in the midfield and knoweach other’s movements -- when tomake what run and when to stayback. Knowing that I have the sup-port behind me also gives me the con-fidence to push forward as well,” saidSahal.

Anirudh Thapa, who scored thelone goal in India’s win away to Thai-land in the King’s Cup in June, said,“The coach wants us to keep the balland keep possession. I like it and itsuits me well. Adapting to it is a chal-lenge but we are gelling well to-gether in midfield. We are workingon improving our understanding andgame-reading.”

‘Building from back’: Players lovingIndian football team’s new mantra

Hyderabad: In the State LevelTournament held at Bhupalpallyfrom August 31 to September 2, 10students of the Ideal School got se-lected for the National Level Meetto held at Khanpur. The tourna-ment was conducted by New Telan-gana Sports Association.

Under-14 Sathwik, Kareem, Re-vanth, Rayan, U-17 Swarjpaul,Prashanth, Shivakumar, Abdullah &In yoga Eshwar got 3rd , U-17 CricketFaizan Ali selected for National Level.The school management and sta�congratulate the students. School cor-respondent Syed Iqbal Mohiuddin,Principal Sarfaraz, PET’s Khajapashaand Praveen were also present.

Ideal students picked for National Level Meet

Bengaluru (IANS): The 66th match of theongoing Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) season7 between Dabang Delhi and Patna Piratesmarked the mid-point of the league stageof this campaign and the action so far hasbeen nothing short of breath-taking. FromNaveen Kumars outstanding nine succes-sive Super 10s to the domination of defend-ers; the first half of the season was undoubt-edly a package full of surprises.

With the beginning of the second half ofthe league stage, which is the ‘ToughestHalf', captains and coaches of the teams

met in Bengaluru to share their thoughtson the first half of the season.

Speaking during the mid-season reviewpress conference, Randhir Singh, coach,Bengaluru Bulls said: “We have completed13 matches, and at the mid-season the firstthing we have realised is that it was verytough. All my fellow coaches here will agreethat the competition this season is extreme.Second thing is the beauty of the leaguewhich has changed the thought of kabaddibeing a raiders game; for the past 6 seasonsraiders dominated - but this season there's

a cleardomina-tion ofdefencein allteams.”N e w l ya p -

pointed Puneri Paltan's coach Anup Kumaralso echoed Randhir saying: “This seasonin indeed tough, all teams are performingwell and giving their best shot. But onething that should be taken care of bycoaches is the weaknesses of the team -there have been games where all the sevenplayers perform very well, and some gameswhere all 7 fail. In such situations under-standing the problem and fixing it with analternate route or strategy is important.”

Joginder Narwal, skipper of DabangDelhi, who currently tops the points table,said: “We are half-way through the leagueand no team has a confirmed spot for theplayo�s, any team can move up on the tabledepending upon their performance. How-ever, the one thing that is surely going tohappen is that the upcoming matches aregoing to be some of the toughest ones inthe season.

Coaches, playersterm PKL 7

the ‘toughest’

New Delhi (PTI): The Interna-tional Hockey Federation (FIH)has no plans to conduct theOlympic qualifying matches be-tween India and Pakistan in Eu-rope if the arch-rivals draw eachother in the battle for a 2020Tokyo Games berth.

A Pakistan Hockey Federa-tion (PHF) o�cial last weekclaimed that the FIH wasmulling the idea of conductingthe potential Olympic qualify-ing clashes between India andPakistan in Europe due to re-cent political tensions betweenthe two nations.

India’s opponent for the two-leg Olympic qualifier would beconfirmed on September 9 af-ter a live draw at the FIH head-quarters in Laussane with alikely clash at home againstPakistan on the cards. But theworld body made it clear thatthere are no plans to have thematches in Europe if India andPakistan draw each other andas already announced, the top-eight ranked teams will hostthe matches.

“There is no truth in this(claim by PHF o�cial). This iswrong,” the FIH told PTI in anemail communication. Indiaand Pakistan have been seededin two separate halves of thedraw by FIH and there is a pos-sibility that they could meet inthe Olympics qualifying tour-nament.

The draw would see 14 teamsdrawn into seven pairs with thewinners on aggregate going toTokyo in 2020. The FIH HockeyOlympic qualifiers will each fea-ture two nations playing twoback-to-back matches, with na-tions drawn to play each otherbased on their rankings at theend of the last 2018/2019 Con-tinental Championship, namelythe Oceania Cup (8 September).

The matches will be hostedby the higher-ranked of the twocompeting nations. As per cur-rent rankings and eight spotsconfirmed by the FIH, Indiawill host both the Olympicqualifiers of its men's andwomen's teams in late Octoberor early November.

‘No plans to haveIndo-Pak Oly qualifier in Europeif drawn each other’

Manu BhakerSaurabh Chaudhary https://t.me/Towardstomorrow

16 TALKIES

Kartik on Monday shared a photograph of him-self enjoying some cheesy pizzas.

"When Patni wants foodie Pati to look fit. Thankyou Bhumi Pednekar for sending pizzas. Full ondiet chal rahi hai Lucknow mein," Kartik captionedthe image.

In Mudassar Aziz's romantic-comedy ‘Pati PatniAur Woh,’ which is a remake of the B R Chopraclassic of the same name (1978), the actor will beseen in a character called Chintu Tyagi. The filmalso stars Ananya Panday.

Kartik Aaryan has quite a few films in his kittyincluding ‘Pati Patni Aur Woh.’

The 28-year-old actor will be seen alongsidehis rumoured girlfriend Sara Ali Khan in ImtiazAli's romantic drama slated to release in Feb-ruary next year. He will also be seen in AneesBaazmee's ‘Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2,’ a sequel toPriyadarshan's 2007 blockbuster ‘Bhool Bhu-laiyaa.’

Venkatesh Daggupati and his nephewNaga Chaitanya are teaming up for thefirst time in much-awaited ‘Venky Mama’.

On the occasion of Vinayaka Chathurthi, themakers unveiled a poster featuring Venky andChaitanya in traditional attire. The film wasshot in Rajahmundry as well in Kashmir andother places. According to the latest update,the makers have finalized the release date of‘Venky Mama’ and it will be released in October.The official confirmation regarding the releasedate is awaited.

Sometime ago, Venkatesh Daggubati took tohis official Instagram handle to share the up-date and he shared a picture from the beautifuland snowy hills of Kashmir while shooting therefor 25 days. Pretty damsels Payal Rajput andRaashi Khanna are playing the female leads inthis wholesome entertainer. Recently the mak-ers roped Mr India World Prateek Jain in the filmto play the crucial role. Prateek Jain wascrowned with the Mr India World title in 2014.He is from the Bengaluru, and is a martial artsfighter.

‘Venky Mama’ is being directed by KS Ravin-dra alias Bobby and is produced by Suresh Babuunder Suresh Productions.

Venky, Chai in a laugh-riot

Prominent Tollywoodproducer NV Prasad

is releasing the movie‘Bandobast’ (Kaapaan inTamil) in the two Telugustates on September 20.Ahead of the film's release,he is planning a grand pre-release event in the secondweek of September.

Tamil star Suriya, who en-deared himself to the Teluguaudience with this nichemovies like 'Ghajini' and 'Sing-ham', is returning with anotherpath-breaking action thriller.'Rangam' fame director KV

Anand has directed this much-awaited movie.Subaskaran of Lyca Productions, who broughtthe acclaimed film 'Nawab' and the visualwonder '2.0' to the Telugu audience, is pro-ducing this multi-cast movie. StarringSayyeshaa Saigal as Suriya's pair and fea-turing Malayalam superstar Mohanlal in acrucial role (as India's Prime Minister),this film is slated to release very soon.

'Enno Tharala Sangamam', a patrioticsong released on Independence Day, hasbeen a big hit, aver makers . The masssong 'Cheruku Mukkalanti' has alsohighly impressed the listeners, addmakers. Suriya as farmer as well as acommando have upped the curiosity ofthe audience. The film's teaser andtrailer have trended big-time onYouTube and social media. Harris Ja-yaraj's music has received a tremen-dous response and bound to leave

audience spell-bound, conclude makers.

‘Raju Gari Gadhi-3' is getting ready for agrand Dasara release. Marking the aus-

picious Ganesh Chaturthi, the film's producer-director Ohmkar has unveiled the First Look.True to the genre (horror-comedy), lead pairAvika Gor and Ashwin Babu are seen in spookyget-ups. It's not clear if they are scaring eachother and if they are out to spook each other,it would be interesting to watch the possibili-ties the element entails.

Avika Gor was last seen in the hit movie'Ekkadiki Pothavu Chinnavada'. The 'UyyalaJampala' actress holds a lot of promise andthis horror flick marks her comeback to T-town. Ohmkar failed to click with Nagarjuna-Samantha's 'Raju Gari Gadhi-2' last year.Hope he bounces back this time around.

Avika Gor is new ghost

N V Prasad buys

out ‘Bandobast’

Actress Shraddha Kapoor, who hastwo very different looks in her

upcoming release, ‘Chhichhore,’ saysvanity is a very small part of her life inreality.

"Vanity is a small part of my profes-sion. That is not all in an actor's life, so Iam quite easy with it. I love playing withcolours and different hairstyles. When itcomes to my characters in films,makeup is an important part to build acharacter," Shraddha told IANS.

In real-life, however, Shraddha saysshe is not too worried about how shelooks. "I am not over-conscious with theway I look in real life. There are days Imany have a pimple, (there are) bad hairdays and my skin looks tired because ofextensive travel. I am photographed likethat at the airport, and I am ok with it.Pimple comes naturally and we all are

human, not plastic," laughed the ac-tress, who endorses several beauty andcosmetic brands.

Shraddha is currently on a roll atthe box-office, with back-to-back re-leases in two weeks. Her latestfilm ‘Saaho,’ starring Telugu su-perstar Prabhas, opened acrossfour languages on Friday, andNitesh Tiwari's ‘Chhichhore’ isslated to release in the nextweekend.

"That is an interesting film for mebecause I play two characters oftwo generations. I play a collegestudent and also the mother of ayoung girl. Playing two genera-tions in the same film is inter-esting," said Shraddha, abouther role in ‘Chhochhore,’ whichreleases on September 6.

Bollywood buffs are being introduced to new starkids every year and the conversation on nepo-

tism never seems to end. Actress NushratBharucha, an outsider who has made it bigwithout banking on a filmi bloodline, how-ever, defends the star kid brigade say-ing even star kids have had to provetheir worth with acting skills andcommercial value to get to thetop of the entertainmentbusiness.

"Even star kids havehad to prove theirworth to be at the topof the game. Star kidsmight get great launch-pads, but all of them haveproved their worth commercial-ity and creatively," Nushrat, whowill soon to be seen in the film ‘DreamGirl,’ Nushrat told IANS.

"We are in the business of entertainmentwhere we have to make sure that we are eitherhighly skilled with our acting, or we build such aconnection with the audience that it can add com-mercial value to a film. That is why, though I am anoutsider, I never felt victimized," she added.

Over the past couple of years star kids such asSara Ali Khan, Janhvi Kapoor, Ishaan Khatter,Ananya Pandey, Meezan, Sharmin Sehgal, Pranutanand Abhimanyu Dassani being launched, and soonKaran Deol, son of Sunny Deol, will make his debut.

Nushrat cites examples of Alia Bhatt and VarunDhawan to explain how these young actors, despite be-longing to illustrious Bollywood clans, are successful in

their own right after proving theirworth commercially and cre-

atively.After her performance

in ‘Pyaar Ka Punchnama’(2011) brought praiseand popularity, she was

seen in films like ‘Akaash

Vani,’ ‘Darr @ The Mall,’‘Meeruthiya Gangsters.’

"None of these filmsworked at the box office.Then 'Pyaar Ka Punch-nama 2' and 'Sonu KeTitu Ki Sweety' released,and both worked for me.In between, I got a lot of

character role offers but Iwas sure I only wanted to

play the female lead. In-stead of blaming the situa-

tion on why people arenot writing roles for

me, I grabbed the op-portunity to prove

the fact that even ifI have five scenes,

I will nail themwith my per-formance," saidNushrat.

In her up-coming film‘Dream Girl,’

the actressplays the love

interest of themale protagonist.

She continued:"I take up such chal-

lenges as an actressand make it real. It

was a challenge for meto play a part in a filmlike ‘Dream Girl’ be-cause the central char-acter in the film is ofLokesh played byAyushmann. Peoplewill come to the theatreto watch his story.

My challenge is, inthe end, when theyleave the theatre, theyshould go back with myperformance also inmind -- like the waypeople couldn't forgetMC Sher in ‘Gully Boy'although the film wasabout on Ranveer(Singh) and Alia(Bhatt)," she shared.

Actor Anil Kapoor reminisced abouthis days as a struggler and said that

‘Woh 7 Din,’ his maiden film as a main-stream hero, was a life-changing momentand role.

Anil on Monday took to Twitter, toshare a still from the sets of the 1983 film.

"From 1977 to 1983 I had been work-ing... Struggling to get that one definingchance that would change everything and'Woh 7 Din' was that chance! A lifechanging moment and role!" he cap-tioned the picture. The 62-year-old ac-tor, who has a career spanning over threedecades, says his career has been a dreamcome true for him since then.

"Since then it's all been a dream cometrue! Till date I feel so blessed to be doingwhat I do!" ‘Woh 7 Din,’ directed by Bapu,co-stars Padmini Kolhapure andNaseeruddin Shah. The film's songs,composed by Laxmikant-Pyarelal be-came very popular on its release.

Actor Boman Irani, whoplays Nobel Peace Prize

recipient Kailash Satyarthi inhis forthcoming film ‘Jhalki,’has said that he doesn’t be-lieve in doing imitation as anactor. Asked how he preparedto play the role of Kailash Sat-yarthi, Boman said: "I saw alot of his videos on YouTube,but I have learnt one thing.While acting, when you focus

more on mannerism, bodylanguage, or look of the char-acter, you forget what's goinginside his heart. So, I feelworking on the mannerismand look of a character is likegarnishing or decoration. Ifeel if I don't talk in Kailash(Satyarthi) ji's voice, it is finebut I have to identify hisspirit, world view and inten-tions while playing his char-acter. So, I don't believe in do-

ing imitations, I feel actorsshould be able to presentcharacter's view point andsoul onscreen."

Boman Irani was interact-ing with the media at thetrailer launch of ‘Jhalki’ alongwith co-actors Sanjay Suriand Divya Dutta, besides thefilm's directors BrahmanandSingh and Tanvi Jain on Mon-day in Mumbai.

Satyarthi is the founder ofBachpan Bachao Andolan,Global March Against ChildLabour, Global Campaign forEducation, Kailash SatyarthiChildren's Foundation, andRugmark now known asGoodWeave International.His team at Bachpan BachaoAndolan have liberated morethan 88,000 children in Indiafrom child labour, slavery andtrafficking.

Boman Irani donning a renowned role

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BRIGADE

Naga Chaitanya and Venkatesh

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Shraddha KapoorKar�k Aaryan

Boman Irani

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