Don’t politicise triple talaq: PM - The Pioneer Prajapati in a rape and molestation case has been sus-pended. The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court had on Friday stayed the

USUALSUSPECTSSWAPAN DASGUPTA

E

very election produces winners and losers. It happens all

the time and there is nothing exceptional about the

phenomenon. The winners, while having digs at opponents,

routinely mouth platitudes about being “humbled” by the

verdict and repeat promises about effective implementation

of election promises. The losers, in their turn, speak about

their failure to communicate their message and stress the

need to “introspect”. It is all very familiar.

The aftermath of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi polls

produced the usual quota of template responses. However,

what stood out was the response of two of the losers.

First, there was the Swaraj India, a breakaway group of

the Aam Aadmi Party, which fielded some 212 candidates,

all of whom lost their deposits — an interesting statistic that

is inversely correlated to the media time and space it

managed to hog. Responding to the debacle, its national

president Yogendra Yadav argued that the electorate “has

ordered Swaraj India to be the guard outside the House. We

respect this mandate and humbly accept it.”

As an exercise in spin, this self-defined role is quite

spectacular. The electorate, of course, rejected the new

party which, unfortunately for it, lacked a common symbol

for its candidates. But the reality is starker. Delhi’s voters

may have rejected AAP and Congress but it simply ignored

Swaraj India, an organisation whose existence is premised

on the goodwill it enjoys among a small section of the

media. This act of omission is interesting and indicates that

those who set the terms of intellectual discourse in India

enjoy very little or no electoral traction. It also reveals the

alarming extent to which the media, particularly the English-

language media, is driven by personal agendas of

journalists and editors. Swaraj India has an absolute

Constitutional right to see itself as a watchdog of civic life in

India, but the belief that it has been conferred that right by a

popular mandate smacks of both intellectual arrogance and

delusionary politics.

The electoral

performance of Swaraj

India raises a larger

question centred on the

prevailing political narrative

in India. Increasingly, since

the run-up to the general

election of 2014, we are

witnessing a growing gulf

between what the

electorate thinks and how a

small intellectual elite

perceive happenings in

India. To some extent this is

unavoidable and common

to all societies. Yet there is

a linkage. In India, over the

past few years, the thread

that binds the two has

snapped. We are

witnessing at least two

India talking almost entirely

at cross purposes.

Does it matter? There

are many in the political class who feel that the divergence

between popular aspirations (and tastes) and the views of

a section of the intelligentsia, while being a reality, is

inconsequential. To the intelligentsia, the three-year record

of the Narendra Modi Government constitutes a dark age

for India. From returning State awards and raising the

bogey of intolerance to rubbishing India’s economic

performance, there has been a concerted attempt to

suggest that India is on a slippery slope to hell. Echoing

the English-language media that doesn’t seem to have

reconciled itself to a BJP Government at the Centre, this

doomsday scenario has been picked up by an influential

section of the foreign media. While this unending stream of

negativity has very little political impact — witness how

little the coloured reports by a small coterie of agenda-

driven journalists influenced the outcome in either Uttar

Pradesh or in the various municipal and local bodies

elections in different States — it does shape overseas

perceptions. Modi has tried to counter this negativity by

injecting the diaspora with a sense of India pride but there

is no minimising the damage. This is more so when

misplaced sympathy for the Islamist-driven stone throwers

in the Kashmir Valley comes to be interpreted overseas as

evidence of India’s waning resolve.

The second response of the losers which verges on

the bizarre has been AAP’s reaction to its inability to

secure control of the MCD. By arguing that the defeat,

whether in Punjab or in Delhi, was entirely a function of

doctored voting machines, there is a section of the

opposition (and I don’t include the Congress which,

despite its defeat, responded with dignity) that seems to

have taken the politics of confrontation to dizzying heights.

In choosing to live in its own echo chamber, AAP has

convinced itself that its governance in Delhi was

exemplary and that people were bending over backwards

to ensure that there was an AAP Government in Punjab.

Consequently, it is unmoved by arguments that it is almost

impossible to doctor stand-alone voting machines on an

industrial scale.

The AAP’s slide into conspiracy theories from the

moral high of ‘alternative politics’ that initially drove it is

tragic. However, it is also a function of its desperation to

perform electoral miracles in a very short time. The moral

halo it has conferred on itself is something that stems from

the long association of its founders in Non-Governmental

Organisations. However, believing you have a monopoly of

virtuousness is different from knowing and appreciating

how lesser mortals perceive you. AAP needed a crash

course in humility and the people gave it a monster dose

of it. If Arvind Kejriwal can stop believing that he has been

chosen by some divine power to steer India in the path of

righteousness, he may yet be an effective political leader.

Between the devastating defeats in Bihar and Delhi in

2015 and the resounding victory in UP, Modi read the

warning signs and took corrective action, slowly but surely. It

is that willingness to embrace responsiveness over certitude

that mark a statesman from a poseur.

AAP needed a crashcourse in humility and thepeople gave it a monsterdose of it. If Kejriwal canstop believing that he hasbeen chosen by somedivine power to steerIndia in the path ofrighteousness, he may yetbe an effective politicalleader. Between thedevastating defeats inBihar and Delhi in 2015and the resounding victoryin UP, Modi read thewarning signs and tookcorrective action, slowlybut surely. It is thatwillingness to embraceresponsiveness overcertitude that mark astatesman from a poseur

AAP’s conspiracy

EVM theory tragic

‘REINSTATED’ DGP MOVESSC AGAINST KERALA GOVTNew Delhi: TP Senkumar,recently reinstated as KeralaDGP, has moved the SC seekingcontempt against the KeralaGovernment alleging “wilful,deliberate disobedience” of itsorder reinstating him.

EC TO CALL ALL-PARTYMEET ON EVMs: CECChandigarh: The EC will sooncall a meeting of all politicalparties to assure them that theEVMs are tamper-proof, ChiefElection Commissioner NasimZaidi said on Saturday.

ASSAM DY SP IN SOUPOVER FACEBOOK POSTGuwahati: Assam DeputySuperintendent of Police AnjanBora will face departmentalprobe over his Facebook postagainst a woman MLA.

UNDERTRIAL SHOTOUTSIDE ROHINI COURT New Delhi: An undertrial wasshot at the gate of Rohini courton Saturday.

CAPSULE

PNS n NEW DELHI

Prime Minister NarendraModi on Saturday urged

Muslims not to allow politici-sation of the triple talaq issueand expressed confidence thatefforts to end the practice toliberate “our Muslim daughters and mothers fromthe scourge” would be led by“enlightened” members of thecommunity itself.

Within a month this is thesecond time that the PM hasraised this issue having earlierspoken on triple talaq at theBJP National Executive meet.

Utilising the platform tomark the Basava Jayanti cele-brations in honour of Kannadaphilosopher Basaveswara, Modireferred to the 12th centuryreformer’s movement againstregressive practices to speakabout triple talaq, “MainMuslim samaaj se aagrahkarunga ki triple talaq ke muddeko rajneeti ke daayre mein mataane dijiye. Aap log aage aakariska samadhaan kijiye.”

“That solution will have itsown majesty and generationswill remember you,” said thePM, adding he hoped that“powerful people” wouldemerge from society and help“eradicate outdated practicesand evolve modern systems”.

“I am sure enlightenedpeople will also emerge fromamong Muslims and come for-ward to end this practice, lib-

erating our Muslim daughtersand mothers from the scourge.I am sure enlightened Muslimswill take this responsibilityupon themselves,” Modi said.

He called upon IndianMuslims to lead not just thosefrom the community in thecountry, but to show the “pathof modernity” to Muslimsworldwide. “That is the kind ofpower and energy this land gives to all of us,” he saidamid applause.

Modi had earlier thismonth spoken on the tripletalaq issue at the BJP meet inBhubaneswar. Addressing partymen, he had talked about socialjustice and justice to “Muslim

sisters”. In the context of tripletalaq, he was clear that thereshould be no conflict within theMuslim community over thisissue but efforts have to bemade to wake up society to thesocial evils and to provide jus-tice to the Muslim women.

On Saturday, Modi spokeabout women’s empowerment,equality and good governance,as preached and practised byBasaveswara and released adigital volume of his workstitled “Vachan” in 23 languages.

Turn to Page 6

Enlightened membersamong Muslims willeradicate outdatedpractices, hopes Modi

PNS n ALLAHABAD/LUCKNOW

The judge of a special courtwho had granted bail to

controversial former ministerGayatri Prajapati in a rape andmolestation case has been sus-pended.

The Lucknow bench of theAllahabad High Court had onFriday stayed the bail grantedto Prajapati by Protection ofChildren from Sexual Offences(POCSO) court judge OPMishra.

“The judge has been sus-pended and a departmentalinquiry ordered,” AllahabadHigh Court registrar DK Singhsaid. The decision was taken bythe Allahabad High Court

administration.Prajapati, considered close

to SP patriarch Mulayam SinghYadav, however, failed to walkout of jail as police sought hisjudicial remand in two othercases. The plea was allowed bythe High Court.

The POCSO court judgehad on Tuesday granted bail toPrajapati and two other co-accused in the rape case and

the one related to allegedmolestation of the victimwoman’s minor daughter.

However, the reprieveproved shortlived as the YogiAdityanath government movedthe High Court seeking can-cellation of their bail. Theorder for stay on their bailwas passed by Chief Justice

Turn to Page 6

PNS n LUCKNOW

Reitering his government’sfirm resolve to strictly

impose the rule of law and any-one not ready to follow it waswelcome to leave thestate, Chief MinisterYogi Adityanath sentout a strong signalamong party workersand his supportersas well as generalpublic that no com-promise would bemade with anyonetaking law in hishand.

The Chief Minister saidthat his government wouldensure full safety to women andgirls and the anti-Romeo drivewas just a beginning in thisregard.

Adityanath also said thathis government would pro-

vide new job avenues to youthsso that they did not migrate toother states in search of jobs.

Addressing party workersand supporters who throngedduring his visit to Gorakhpur

on Saturday after-noon, Yogi said thatmore new sugar millswould be opened ineastern UP and hostsof welfare schemeswould be launchedsoon for the people ofthe region as well asfor the entire state.

He also claimedthat the people living in urbanareas would be provided 24-hour power supply.

Yogi Adityanath also hailedthe policies of the Centre anddiscussed in length the futureplan. “The Prime Minister hasended the VIP culture in the

Turn to Page 6

KUMAR CHELLAPPAN n CHENNAI

With the death of formerTamil Nadu Chief

Minister J Jayalalithaa’s ex-dri-ver C Kanakaraj (36) in a hit-and-run case on Saturday, theApril 24 murder of a securityguard posted outside thesprawling Kodanadu Estatesin the Nilgiris owned by Jayahas turned murkier.

Adding mystery to theincident is another road acci-dent in Kerala’s Thrissur onearly Saturday in which KVSayan, alias Syam, was griev-ously injured. Kanakaraj andSayan were the first and secondaccused in the murder of OmBahadur, a security guard at theKodanadu Estate.

“The murder of the securi-ty guard, the death of one of theaccused and another getting

critically injured look fishy andinter-connected. We have towait till investigations are com-pleted,” said an intelligenceofficial monitoring the case.

Kanakaraj, the first accusedin the murder of the securityguard, belonged to Edappadi inSalem district and was killed onSaturday when the two-wheel-er he was riding was hit by aspeeding car. He died on thespot. Police said he was on hisway to a relative’s house andwas in an inebriated condition.The driver of the car has beentaken into custody and a casehas been registered. In anoth-er incident which took place inKerala, the car in which Sayan(35) and his family were trav-elling to Thrissur hit a lorry onthe Palakkadu-Thrissur stretchon early Saturday morning.

Turn to Page 6

AFP n BEIJING

Laden with whisky and babymilk, the first freight train

linking China directly to the UKarrived in the eastern Chinesecity of Yiwu on Saturday after a 12,000-kilometre trip,becoming the world’s second-longest rail route.

The journey is the latesteffort in China’s drive tostrengthen trade links withwestern Europe along a mod-ern-day “Silk Road” route.

“The train arrived around9.30 am to Yiwu on Saturday,”the Yiwu Tianmeng IndustryCompany told AFP.

The world’s top tradingnation launched the “One Belt,One Road” strategy in 2013,and has since poured millionsinto constructing vast infra-structure links.

The train — which wasalso carrying pharmaceuticals

and machinery — departedfrom London on April 10 andpassed through France,Belgium, Germany, Poland,Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan during its 20-day trip beforearriving in Yiwu in easternZhejiang province, a majorwholesale centre for small con-sumer goods.

The new route is longerthan Russia’s famous Trans-Siberian railway, but about 1,000kilometres shorter than therecord-holding China-Madridlink, which opened in 2014.

London is the 15th city tobe linked to a new freight net-work offered by the state-runChina Railway Corporation,

which says its services arecheaper than air transport andquicker than shipping.

The journey should be 30days faster than moving thegoods by ship, the provincialgovernment had said, but thepilot run took two days morethan the 18 days expected.

Turn to Page 6

Security guard’s murder

gets murkier as suspect

& Jaya’s ex-driver killed

UP govt to ensure ruleof law prevails: Yogi

Don’t politicise

triple talaq: PM

Prime Minister Narendra Modi beingfelicitated at the inauguration of BasavaJayanthi 2017 and Golden JubileeCelebration of Basava Samithi in New Delhi on Saturday PTI

RAHUL DATTA/MOHIT KANDHARIn NEW DELHI/JAMMU

Seven months after the Uriattack and subsequent sur-

gical strikes, terrorist trainingcamps are not only back inPakistan-Occupied Kashmir(PoK) but also closer to theLine of Control (LoC), andwith an increase in

its num-

bers. At least, 200 well-trainedand armed militants, now inthe staging areas closer to theLoC, are ready to infiltrateinto Jammu & Kashmir in thecoming weeks to counter anycross-border action by theIndian Army.

Apart from this

development, another cause ofalarm for the security establish-ment is the use of hitherto lessactive infiltration routes in Uriby terrorists, who are activelysupported by a section of thelocal population. The securityestablishment is worried at thenew trend in Uri since it had wit-

nessed little infiltration bids inthe last 10 years.

Apart from this new trend,the security establishment isnow concerned over terroristtraining camps again croppingup in areas in PoK closer to theLoC. Surgical strikes by theArmy on September 29 lastyear had destroyed the terror-ist infrastructure at some keyplaces along the LoC inKupwara, Uri and Poonch. Thecross-border action came aftera terrorist attack on an Armycamp in Uri on September 18in which 18 soldiers had died.

Detection of new camps in

PoK indicated that the PakistanArmy and ISI are again ramp-ing up their efforts to fan trou-ble in Kashmir by pushing interrorists in large numbers inthe coming days, sourcessaid. While there were 30terrorist camps active pre-surgical strikes, officials saidthe numbers now are muchlarger with staging areas clos-er to the LoC to counter anycross-border action bythe Indian Army.

Explaining thereasons for apprehension,officials said on Saturdaythat the last one decade hadnot seen infiltration fromUri sector as areas along theLoC are thickly populated onboth sides of the border.

Moreover, the entire sector iswell guarded by anti-infiltra-tion fence and does not getdamaged by snow in winterseason unlike in some othersectors like Kupwara, which islocated at a greater height thanUri, they said.

Turn toPage 6

Terror camps near LoC back with a bang200 terrorists trying to sneak in with locals’ help viaUri, which has not seen infiltration bid in 10 years

l The journey is the latesteffort in China’s drive —One Belt, One Road — tostrengthen trade links with western Europe

l The train — loaded withwhisky, baby milk, —departed from London onApril 10 and took 20 daysto reach its destination

l London is the 15th city to be linked to a newfreight network offered by this network

Allahabad HC

suspends judge,

orders probe into

bail to SP leader

Pocso judge falls from grace forfavour to rape-accused Prajapati

Silk Road marvels: London-China on track1ST DIRECT TRAIN COMPLETES 12,000-KM RUNON WORLD’S SECOND-LONGEST RAIL ROUTE

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Late City Vol. 153 Issue 117*Air Surcharge Extra if Applicable

Established 1864 RNI No.2016/1957, REGD NO. SSP/LW/NP-34/2016-18

www.dailypioneer.com

LUCKNOW, SUNDAY APRIL 30, 2017; PAGES 12+8 `3

SPORT 10

RCB SUFFER ANOTHERHUMILIATING DEFEAT

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city 02LUCKNOW | SUNDAY | APRIL 30, 2017

Lucknow (PNS): As many as 14 people, including two women,were injured in firing during a marriage ceremony in Medwa vil-lage of Pratapgarh.

Lalganj police station in-charge Santosh Dubey said onSaturday some unidentified persons barged into the weddingvenue late Friday night when a ritual was taking place and openedfire.

Fourteen people were injured in the incident, he said.They were rushed to a local hospital from where six people,

whose condition was stated to be serious, were referred to thedistrict hospital, the officer said.

On the basis of the complaint filed by the mother of one ofthe injured, an FIR has been registered. The matter is being inves-tigated, Dubey said.

In Ghazipur, 17 schoolchildren were injured, three of themseriously, when a van carrying them collided with a truck inJamaniya area of the district, police said on Saturday.

The children of Global Public School were on their way homeafter school on Friday when the accident took place near Talashpurpetrol pump.

The injured children were aged between six and 14. The seri-ously injured children have been referred to a Varanasi hospital,the police said. Both the driver and the helper of the van fled afterthe mishap.

PTI n ALLAHABAD

The Allahabad High Courthas transferred close to

400 judicial officers, nearlyhalf of them of the additionaldistrict and sessions judgerank, in a major reshuffle in thelower judiciary in UttarPradesh.

According to the notifica-tions issued on Friday by theHigh Court’s Registrar GeneralDinesh Kumar Singh, thetransferred judicial officersinclude 199 ADJs posted in reg-ular courts and another eight ofthe same rank posted at fasttrack courts in various districts.

All the judicial officershave been directed to “keepthemselves ready to hand overcharge at their present place ofposting on May 8”.

The reshuffle has beenmarkedly comprehensive inthe districts like Jhansi, Banda,Moradabad and Sitapur —each of them having six ADJsto have been shifted elsewhere.

Lucknow, Meerut,Mainpuri, Bijnor andHamirpur have five transferredADJs each.

Besides, the list of thosetransferred include another118 judicial officers holding the

rank of chief judicial magistrate(CJM), chief metropolitanmagistrate (CMM), additionalCJM, additional CJM(Railway), additional CMM,civil judges/additional civiljudges (senior division) andjudges/additional judges smallcauses courts.

The largest number of judi-cial officers of the aforesaidrank to have been transferredare from Aligarh (10), fol-lowed by Agra (five) andKanpur Nagar, Meerut,Saharanpur, Sonebhadra andVaranasi (four each).

Also, 43 judicial officers ofthe rank of civil judge/addi-tional civil judge (JuniorDivision), judicial magistrateand metropolitan magistratehave been assigned new placesof posting, according to thenotifications that have been putout on the High Court’s officialwebsite.

PNS n LUCKNOW/ALLAHABAD

Taking serious note of vio-lence and arson onAllahabad University

campus, Chief Minister YogiAdityanath has sought adetailed report from ChiefSecretary Rahul Bhatnagar andDGP Sulkhan Singh.

He has also ordered that areview meeting be held withthe AU Vice-Chancellor topromptly sort out the problemsfaced by the students.

A group of students, led byoffice bearers of the students’union, had on Friday sur-rounded the university’s guesthouse in the noon, where theexecutive council meeting wasunderway and shouted slogansdemanding action againstalleged financial irregularities inthe university.

Later, the students wenton the rampage to protest arrestof some student leaders andeviction from hostels andtorched the auditorium of theLaw faculty. After being put outinitially, the fire again engulfedthe auditorium late on Fridaynight, and could be extin-guished in the wee hours ofSaturday. Property worth sev-eral crore rupees was damagedin the fire.

Acting on a complaint fromthe university authorities, theColonelganj police station reg-

istered a case against AllahabadUniversity Students’ Unionpresident Rohit Mishra, vice-president Adil Hamza andarrested them along with 22

others. Besides, about 500

unknown students who wereinvolved in the arson were alsoaccused.

Since then, students havebeen evicted from all the hos-tels and a heavy police force ispatrolling the campus to avertfurther violence.

“Prohibitory orders hadbeen clamped in the area a fewdays back in view of unrestcaused by a drive to evictunlawful occupants from uni-versity hostels following anorder of the Allahabad HighCourt.

“Upon receiving informa-tion that a large number of stu-dents had gathered at the guesthouse without permission, apolice party rushed to the spot.Most of the agitators ran awaybut four of them were arrested,”SSP Shalabh Mathur said.

Some students allegedlyhurled stones at the police per-sonnel, damaging a number ofvehicles parked nearby andsmashing window panes,Mathur said. They allegedlytorched a bus parked near a hos-tel and set fire to a pile of oldtyres on one of the roads, bring-ing traffic to a standstill. Theagitators were chased away withthe help of the Rapid ActionForce and the PAC, the SSP said,adding that the situation wasnow under control.

Lucknow (PNS): The BharatiyaJanata Party state unit is gearing up for thecrucial state working committee meeting inLucknow from May 1 to chalk out the strat-egy for urban local bodies poll and 2019 theLok Sabha elections. The two-day workingcommittee meeting will be the first of itskind after the BJP formed the governmentin the state after 15 years.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath willinaugurate the meeting on May 1 while BJPnational president Amit Shah will addressthe meeting on the concluding day on May2. BJP state general secretary Vijay Bahadur

Pathak said on Saturday that the meetingwould be held at the Scientific ConventionCentre of King George’s Medical University.“On the morning of May 1, a meeting of BJPstate office-bearers will be held to get theirfinal approval to the agenda of the meet-ing. Along with working committee mem-bers, Union and state ministers and per-manent invitees to executive will attend themeeting. All Union ministers and MPs fromUP have been invited along with othersenior leaders, state ministers and others,”Pathak said.

Party national vice-president and in-

charge of UP, Om Mathur, national assis-tant general secretary (organisation) ShivPrakash, all national office-bearers and lead-ers of various cells will be special inviteesto the meeting. Pathak said that the meet-ing would pass political resolutions and paycompliments to prominent people of thestate and party workers for the landslide vic-tory of BJP in the recent Assembly polls.

Meanwhile, a meeting of office-bearersof the BJP state unit was held in Lucknowon Saturday to review the preparations forthe working committee meeting. It wasdecided to make the event a huge success.

Lucknow (PNS): In a bizarreincident reported from Ferozabad,a youth showed red flag to the dri-ver of Delhi-bound SealdahRajdhani Express merely to clicka selfie. Indian Railways is facingproblems in maintaining punc-tuality of trains but now it is fac-ing a queer situation like youthstaking selfie before a train, lead-ing to late running of trains par-ticularly in Uttar Pradesh.

Trains passing through thebusy Delhi-Kanpur route weredelayed on Friday due to the mis-chief of a youth and later a brawlbetween two drivers lead toanother delay. Sources in the GRPconfirmed that a youth waved ared flag to stop the RajdhaniExpress near Pora station inFerozabad around 11 am onFriday. The train driver appliedemergency brakes after seeing thered flag, apprehending danger.But as the train stopped, the youthtook a selfie with the train and ranaway even as the driver gave hima good chase. Later, the driverinformed the control room aboutthe incident and after a 35-minute halt, the train left for itsdestination. Due to the mischief,more than nine trains, includingsome goods train, were halted atdifferent stations.

In another incident, the dri-ver and assistant driver ofSampark Kranti Express had adispute due to which train ser-vices on the Kanpur route weredisrupted for 90 minutes. Sourcesin the Railway said that both thedrivers were in the same loco-motive and had a dispute. Theincident snowballed as the trainneared Jhinjhak station nearKanpur. The duo refused to drivethe train leading to a majorproblem. Later, another pair ofdrivers was sent to run the trainwhile both warring drivers weresuspended. Train services on thesection were disrupted for around90 minutes due to which over twodozen trains were affected.

PNS n LUCKNOW

UP Minister SwamiPrasad Maurya onSaturday sparked a con-

troversy by his comment ontriple talaq in which he saidthat “Muslims choose tripletalaq and keep on changingtheir wives to satisfy their‘lust’.”

Maurya said in Basti, “Koihawas pura karne ke liye lagatarpatni badle, bachchon-patniko bheekh mangane pe maj-boor kare, ise koi achcha nahikahega (Just to satisfy lust, ifsomeone changes his wife andforces children/wife to beg,then no one will appreciate it).

Following public outrage,Maurya retracted his com-ment within hours and clari-fied, “I have only said that I amfor justice to Muslim womenwho are the victims of tripletalaq. This has also been said inBharatiya Janata Party’s electionmanifesto Sankalp Patra for therecent Assembly polls. TheBJP stands with Muslimwomen who have been giventalaq in unreasonable and arbi-trary manner.”

Muslim leaders, however,condemned Maurya’s com-ment saying that they wereprovocative and unwarranted.

Head of All-India MuslimPersonal Law Board ShaistaAmber said, “The comment ofMaurya is outrageous. ChiefMinister Yogi Adityanath isworking hard to provide justiceto destitute women while hisminister is making irresponsi-ble statement. Maurya shouldbe sent to a mental asylum ashe is not fit to be a minister.”

Imam of Aishbagh Idgah,Maulana Khalid RasheedFirangi Mahali, said, “It is an

open attack on Islam as tripletalaq is a matter of Muslim per-sonal law and Shariat. Theminister should tender anunconditional apology.”

Former minister andSamajwadi Party leaderMohammad Azam Khan said,“It is a third rate statement bya third rate leader.”

The BJP minister’s com-ment came at a time whenthere is a raging debate over theissue of triple talaq. Earlier thismonth, All-India MuslimPersonal Law Board had issueda code of conduct for Muslimmen and warned that thosewho give talaq without ade-quate reasons will face socialboycott.

Maurya, who had defectedto the BJP in July last year, alsolashed out at his former men-tor and Bahujan Samaj Partychief Mayawati for her EVM-tampering comments after herparty’s drubbing in the recentAssembly polls.

“The worst ever debacle ofthe BSP has unnervedMayawati and she is unable tocope with the adverse situa-tion,” he said.

PNS n LUCKNOW

Still to reconcile with thecrushing defeat of his party

in the recent Assembly polls,former Chief Minister andSamajwadi Party presidentAkhilesh Yadav equated thetampering with petrol dis-pensing machines with allegedtampering of electronic votingmachines (EVMs) on the socialmedia. However, Akhilesh’scomment backfired and hewas trolled on the social mediasite Twitter.

On Thursday, the SpecialTask Force of UP had busted aracket of under-measuring ofpetrol and diesel at filling sta-tions through electronic chipand remote control device inLucknow and seven petrolpumps were sealed by the dis-trict administration. This pro-vided an opportunity to oppo-sition parties to claim legiti-macy to the allegation thatEVMs were tampered withduring the recent Assemblypoll.

SP president AkhileshYadav was the first to react afterthe racket was busted and hetweeted on Saturday: “If petrol

pumps can be tampered with-out any internet connection, socan the EVMs” (Jab remote kedwara chip se petrol ki choribina kisi internet connection keho sakti hai, to EVM se bhee.Technology ka galat istemaalrokna hoga).

Akhilesh has been repeat-edly demanding a probe intothe alleged tampering of EVMsby the Bharatiya Janata Partyduring UP Assembly polls.Bahujan Samaj Party chiefMayawati also alleged that

EVM tampering led to BJP’s bigvictory in UP and UttarakhandAssembly polls.

But Akhilesh’s tweets didnot go down well with the twit-terati. One Twitter user wrote: “Amar Singh was right thatyou purchased the engineeringdegree.” Another teweeted: “Yuare an engineering student youshould at least talk somethingsensible.”

Another tweet said:“Bhaiyaa ab to Kejriwal bheeaisa nahi ro rahe, ab to manogoondagardi le doobi aapko”(Bhaiyya even Kejriwal hasstopped lamenting the EVMs,you must now accept that theyou lost the elections due togoondagardi).

A Twitter user also linkedthe EVM with the blockbuster‘Bahubali’ saying: “One daycollections of Bahubali areample evidence that EVM wasnot hacked. It’s the nationalmood.”

Another said: “Just for thesake of it, I want to ask whoholds the remote of the EVM.You must do some introspec-tion and find the actual reasonfor the defeat of your party andstop lamenting about EVMs.”

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Triple talaq misused to

satisfy lust: UP minister

Retracts statement after public outrage

PNS n KANPUR

The mortal remains ofCaptain Ayush Yadav, who

was killed in a terrorist attackat an army camp in Kashmir’sKupwara district, were con-signed to flames here with fullmilitary honours on Saturday.

The body was taken toCapt Yadav’s house in JajmauDefence Colony here from themortuary of the 7 Air ForceHospital around 7:30 am, ADMKP Singh said.

People paid their tributesto the martyr at his house.From the captain’s residence,the mortal remains were takento Sidhnath Ghat in a truckwhere he was cremated withfull military honours, Singhsaid.

Capt Yadav had joined theservice some three years ago.

Three heavily-armed ter-rorists had stormed an armycamp in Kupwara district of

Kashmir on Thursday, killingYadav and two other soldiersbefore two of the assailantswere gunned down in a fierce35-minute encounter.

Martyred Capt Yadav crematedCM seeks report on

violence in AU

RAF personnel standing guard outside a hostel of Allahabad Central University in Allahabad after a protest by students, onSaturday Pioneer

Yogi: Act against illegal firecracker factories in state

Lucknow (PNS}: Takingserious note of an incident inGhaziabad where five per-sons died in a blast in firecrackers unit on Friday, ChiefMinister Yogi Adityanathdirected the state officials toidentify illegal firecracker fac-tories and act against thoseoperating them.

The CM expressed grief atthe loss of lives in the tragicincident in which five personswere charred to death whenfire broke out the crackergodown leading to blast.

He directed all districtmagistrates and district policechiefs to identify all illegal fire-cracker factories in the stateand take stern action againstthose operating them.

“No factory should oper-ate without a licence and itshould be ascertained thatthose having the licence areoperating as per norms,“ hetold the officials.

Akhilesh Yadav bombarded by Twitterati for EVM comment

Nearly 400 judicial

officers transferred

Youth stops

Rajdhani

for selfie

BJP gears up for state working committee meet

14 injured in firing


Lucknow (PNS): A labourer died after hefell from the 5th floor of an under-constructionbuilding inside the Bhimrao AmbedkarUniversity on Saturday. Reports said the victim,identified as Rohit Chauhan of Ambedkarnagar,was employed with the construction agencywhich was carrying out the work there. Overseerof the work Jagan of East Godavari in AndhraPradesh told police that Rohit fell down fromthe 5th floor on Saturday. He said Rohit livedat a shelter home inside the university premis-es with his family.

Meanwhile, two miscreants were arrested forlooting bikes after posing themselves as repre-sentatives of an online shopping site on Saturday.Those arrested were identified as Arvind ofGosainganj and Salman of Hasanganj. Thepolice recovered three looted bikes from them.They owned their crime during interrogation. Themiscreants disclosed that they used to search thecell number of customers who had applied forselling their bikes. After having identified an inno-cent target, they used to call the seller to a placeasking him to come with the bike. Later, they usedto take the bike for a trial and flee the scene.

PIONEER NEWS SERVICE n LUCKNOW

Deputy Chief MinisterKeshav Prasad Mauryaon Saturday called on

young doctors to make thestate disease-free in comingyears. He also advised doctorsto forge better communicationwith patients.

“Doctors should not befearsome of the law and theyshould not be abused at work-place. Many former students ofKGMU have been providinghealthcare services in foreignnations. The state governmentis committed to providing freehealthcare to weaker sectionsof society,” Maurya said.

He was speaking on thesecond day of the North ZoneYuva Fogsi 2017 conference atKGMU Scientific ConventionCentre on Saturday.

He also stated that thehealth insurance schemes hadbenefited patients in a largenumber. “Several countries inthe world have been imple-menting health insuranceschemes. Its value is tooacknowledged in India andincreasingly higher number ofpeople are enrolling for healthinsurance schemes. This willalso give a push to cashlesstreatment facility,” the DeputyCM opined.

Speaking on the occasion,Cabinet minister BrijeshPathak said: “Affordablehealthcare services beingoffered in the country haveincreased avenues for medicaltourism. The Asian countriesare gaining popularity for

medical tourism and manypatients from foreign countriesare taking advantage of goodhealthcare services in thecountry.”

Meanwhile, during the sec-ond day of the conference,gynaecologists pointed outincreasing cases of ovariancancer patients. “The womenin the state capital are mostsusceptible to ovarian cancerafter breast and cervical cancer.In the Queen Mary Hospital, asmany as 12 cases of ovarian

cancer are reported every day.The disorder has become morecumbersome to manage giventhe fact that over 60 per centwomen could not be prevent-ed from developing the ovar-ian cancer,” said senior gynae-cologist at QMH Hospital ProfUma Singh in the conference.

“The mortality rate due toovarian cancer can be kept incheck if the disorder is diag-nosed in the first and secondstage of cancer. Diagnosing thecancer in time is an arduous

task. Moreover, a few diag-nostic methods are availablefor identifying the ovariancancer. The cancer can becured with timely diagnosis,”she stressed.

Besides, KGMU V-C MLBBhatt called for better andquick redressal of cases of sex-ual abuse in his address in theconference. “The cases of sex-ual abuse should be addressedat the earliest so that the cul-prits do not get the benefit ofslow legal process,” he said.


There is good news forpatients requiring emer-

gency medicare. The TraumaCentre located on Rae BareliRoad will continue to remainin operation before being hand-ed over to Sanjay GandhiPostgraduate Institute ofMedical Sciences (SGPGI).

Patients in critical condi-tion and requiring trauma carecan still be rushed to Trauma-2 as the facility will continue towork under the administrationof King George’s MedicalUniversity (KGMU) for a week.In the next two weeks, the facil-ity will be run by SGPGI with

active support of KGMU. In order to make the hand-

ing over process smooth with-out impacting patients, theadministrations of two medicalinstitutes reached a consensus.In a recently held meeting, itwas decided that SGPGI wouldtake over the administration ofTrauma-2 as soon as the stategovernment order came in.

“We are waiting for a nodfrom the state government fortaking over the administra-tion of Trauma-2. We willbegin appointments of residentdoctors, specialists and para-medics along with tenderingprocess for the procurement ofmedical equipment. Till then,

KGMU will provide active sup-port with appointed staff in theinterest of patients who reachhere in a critical condition,”Chief Medical Superintendent

of SGPGI Dr Amit Agarwalsaid. Moreover, Trauma-2 willbe an expanded version ofemergency medicine depart-ment of SGPGI. At present,SGPGI has just 30 beds in theemergency, which mostlyremain occupied. The emer-gency care at SGPGI is likely togain mileage with more beds atTrauma-2.

Dr Agarwal added thatfive resident doctors appoint-ed by the KGMU for Trauma-2 would continue to work tillnew appointments were notmade. He also stressed thatdefunct air-conditioning facil-ity at Trauma-2 would be soonrepaired and made functional.


Posing himself as a sub-inspector in UP police, a

fraudster duped a family of Rs3 lakh in the name of dowry inGosainganj on Friday.

As per reports, aGosainganj family settled themarriage of the girl with VinyGupta of Dubagga inThakurganj. His real name isRaj Verma and he had faked hisidentity and also had imper-sonated as a sub-inspector inUP police. His marriage was tobe solemnised on April 28.

To ditch the girl’s family, hemade more dowry demandand threatened to cancel themarriage proposal. To con-vince the family, Viny gavethem his photograph in whichhe had donned the police uni-

form and later entered into anengagement with the girl amonth back.

On Friday, when the samewas revealed to the girl’s fam-ily, they went to his house inDubagga and got to know thathe was not in police job andhad duped them.

The family later lodged acase against Raj Verma akaViny Gupta and his familymembers.

In another incident, a mar-ried man was nabbed for mar-rying a girl while hiding hismarital status in Ashiyana onFriday night.

As per reports, the girllives with her family in RuchiKhand of Ashiyana. Her par-ents settled her marriage toRakesh Pandey of Gorakhpurto whom they had contacted

through a marriage bureau. OnFriday, the baraat came andstayed at a guesthouse inAshiyana. On Friday night,after the marriage was solem-nised, the girl’s family came toknow that Rakesh was alreadymarried and he had a sonfrom his previous marriage.When the news reached thebride’s family, they went to theguesthouse. As Rakesh failedto prove his innocence, thebride’s family membersthrashed him and some of hisrelatives. Later, police reachedthe scene and detained Rakesh.

Rakesh told police that hewas employed with khadiboard and was married. On thecomplaint of the girl, the policeregistered a case of fraudagainst him and later challanedhim.

Dy CM calls for disease-free UP

Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya speaking on the second day of the North Zone Yuva Fogsi 2017 conference atKGMU Scientific Convention Centre on Saturday Pioneer

Trauma-2 to stay in operation

Family duped of `3 lakhin name of dowry


New District MagistrateKaushal Raj Sharma took

charge at Collectorate inLucknow on Saturday. Talkingabout his priorities, he saidthat the policies of the stategovernment would be effec-tively implemented and nolaxity would be tolerated inthis regard.

He said priority would begiven to maintaining law andorder. “All the problems ofpeople will be resolved qual-itatively. At all levels, officerswill be present in their respec-tive offices at 9 am to listen topeople’s problems,” he said.

He pointed out thatemphasis would be onLucknow and all efforts wouldbe made for its developmentas a model city. “A work planwill be made to removeencroachment from roads toease traffic bottlenecks,” saidSharma, who is a 2006-batchofficer and was the chiefdevelopment off icer ofLucknow earlier.

New DM spells out priorities


Atraffic cop allegedly loot-ed cash from a retired

National Thermal PowerCorporation (NTPC) officeron Park Road in Hazratganj.Having failed to get justice,the victim contacted IPS offi-cer Amitabh Thakur, whopetitioned the case to theSSP, Lucknow.

As per reports, the victimidentified as Girish ChandraTripathi of Viram Khand-5 ofGomti Nagar was going toHazratganj for some work onhis scooty. Around 1 pm,when he reached Park Road,a traffic cop stopped Tripathiand asked him why he wasnot wearing a helmet. After abrief argument, the constableasked Tripathi to pay Rs25,000 as fine.

Tripathi said he arguedwith the constable over Rs25,000 fine for not wearinghelmet. “The constable agreedto do me a favour anddemanded Rs 15,000,” he said.

He added that the trafficconstable took Rs 9,800 thathe had in his pocket andlater forced him to withdrawamount of Rs 5,000 and Rs1,000 from his ICICI Bankdebit card at two ATMs, onein Narhi and another nearSewa Chikan on Park Road.

Shocked over the inci-dent, Tripathi went to meetThakur who lived in the samelocality. After Thakur came toknow about the incident, hewrote to SSP, Lucknow,Deepak Kumar about thisincident and talked to him onphone to get an FIR registeredand take strict action. Thepolice spokesman confirmedthat such a complaint hadcome to the SeniorSuperintendent of Police(SSP) office and added thatthe police were investigatingthe case.

Retd NTPC

officer looted

by traffic

constable

Labourer falls to death

Lucknow (PNS): Director(Works) Daljeet Singh anddirector (Rolling Stock)Mahendra Kumar besidesother officials inspectedCharbagh and Singar NagarMetro stations on Saturday. AtCharbagh Metro station, theofficials inspected civil, finish-ing & electrical and mechani-cal works for the blue line. Theyalso asked the contractor tocomplete the work for theentry and exit point whereas onthe other side, the work for thered line is in final stage.

Both Daljeet Singh andMahendra Kumar inspectedthe work of cable tray, rollingshutter, flooring and finishingand asked the civil and systemscontractor to finish the work assoon as possible.

Inspection at Metro stations

Patients in criticalcondition andrequiring traumacare can still berushed to Trauma-2as the facility willcontinue to workunder theadministration ofKGMU for a week

DM Kaushal Raj Sharma assumed charge at Collectorate on Saturday Pioneer


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Lucknow (PNS): At the age of 80years, Prakashi Tomar from Johari vil-lage of Baghpat, won the award formaking a mark in the area of shoot-ing and she looks as fit as a fiddle.

Prakashi started shooting at theage of 50 and bagged 32 medals evenas she inspired many upcomingshooters. Most people at this agewould lose hope for anything andsafely retire but at 60, Prakashi, alsoknown as ‘Shooter Dadi’, inspired andmotivated a lot of younger womenwho won medals at internationallevel. She continues to coach girls forfree and has managed to change theperspective and outlook of villagerstowards girls and boys.

The grand old lady has her prog-eny also following her footsteps.Seema Tomar, who became the firstIndian woman to get a shotgunmedal at the ISSF World Cup inDorset in 2009, is her granddaugh-ter and now an Army Subedar livingin Delhi.

Ruby Tomar, another grand-

daughter of Prakashi, is a sub-inspec-tor in Punjab Police.

Talking to The Pioneer, Prakashisaid that her skills were discoveredwhen she accompanied her grand-daughters to the shooting range.“The trainer saw my skills and toldme that I was extremely good atshooting. Therafter, I practised day inand out and was able to win severalmedals,” she added.

On how how she keeps fit,Prakashi said she stuck to a very smalldiet. “I think I am healthy because Ieat limited food, which includes twothin chapatis in the morning withgreen vegetables and two chapatis inthe evening with a glass of milk. Ourgeneration mostly has been associatedwith agricultural commodities whichis the reason that I have been able tostay healthy,” she pointed out.

On her current job, which istraining young girls in shooting, shesaid: “There are several girls who areeager to learn and I want more andmore girls to learn shooting.”


Actress Prithvi Hatte saidhere on Saturday that she

was eager to buy chikanclothes and relish Lucknowcuisine. She was in the statecapital along with co-starMohit Malhotra for promotionof the show ‘Chupke Chupke’.

Talking to The Pioneer,the actress said: “This is myfirst visit to Lucknow and I amlooking forward to buyingsome chikan garments. Mymother has a blue chikan sareeand I am planning to pick upmore garments because they isgood for summers.”

Talking about the show,Mohit said: “The light-heart-ed romantic story will see twoyoung career-oriented indi-viduals (Meera and Abhishek)trying to run away from mar-riage but eventually end upgetting married albeit on theirterms and conditions, makingit a marriage of contract. Thehumour that emerges is situ-ational comedy.”

Mohit said he was playingthe role of Abhishek Awasthiaka Abhi, who is a softwareengineer and nurtures a dreamto settle in USA. “However, hisfamily holds him back on thepretext of marriage. He is aperfect combination of a hand-some guy who can charmanyone with his wit. On theother hand, Meera, who is an

educated working profession-al, has been raised single-handedly by her father with alot of independence. She isartistic, dynamic and hascarved her own path in adver-tising. Her father’s futileattempts to set her up withprospective grooms have nowstarted getting on her nerves,”he said.

The actor confessed thathe was initially hesitant to takeup TV shows and was focus-ing on Bollywood until he got

an offer for ‘Chupke Chupke’.“The show with the con-

cept of a contract marriage isso well-written that I was con-vinced about being a part of it.I felt I would be able to do jus-tice to my character. I have alot of friends and family whoare extremely career-orientedand for whom marriage is nota priority. But they are feelingthe pressure from their nearand dear ones and society atlarge. Given a scenario likethis, a contract marriage does-

n’t seem like a bad idea at all…it’s a marriage with an expirydate, which is mutually agreedupon,” he added.

On her stint in the show,Prithvi Hatte said: “Marriageis a sacred institution and Icompletely believe in it. But inthe changing times, there is aneed to make yourself secure.In fact, I would like to thinkthat a contract marriage is likean insurance policy. Nobodywants things to go wrong butit never hurts to have a cover.”

LT GEN VENKATESHRETIRES

Lt Gen MD Venkatesh pro-ceeded on retirement after a longstint of 38 years in the Army. AnENT surgeon of internationalrepute, the General Officer hasbeen a teacher and examiner ofmany universities. He will besucceeded by Lt Gen RajvirSingh, who will come on pro-motion from the ArmyHeadquarters. Many events wereorganised on the eve of Lt GenVenkatesh’s retirement. Hereviewed a ceremonial parade atAMC Stadium wherein the sol-diers of Army Medical Corps puttheir best foot forward and dis-played the collective might oftheir soldiering, discipline andtraining. Lt Gen Venkatesh laida wreath at the AMC WarMemorial to pay respect to thebrave soldiers of the ArmyMedical Corps who laid downtheir lives in the line of duty. Headdressed all the officers, JCOs,

OPEN DAY CELEBRATIONS City Montessori School organised ‘Open Day’ celebrations

with enthusiasm Station Road branch. Students of the campusparticipated in different activities and left their parents mes-merised with their talents. Several interesting events were heldfor students after the programme commenced with all-religionand world peace prayers. The students showcased their talentsand creativity through self-made craft items, origami, naturalexhibits, science, oratory, robotics, tabloids, illustrations, utili-ty articles, dance and music etc.


The Lucknow-Kanpur chapter ofFICCI FLO hosted its second

installment of annual awards to felic-itate the outstanding women of UPcontributing to welfare and develop-ment of the community. The pro-gramme was organised at Vivanta byTaj on Saturday.

The chief guest on the occasionwas Governor Ram Naik whileCabinet ministers Ashutosh Tandonand Rita Bahuguna Joshi the guestsof honour. In his speech, theGovernor congratulated all thewomen achievers and praised themfor their continued efforts.

Minister of Women and FamilyWelfare and Maternity and ChildWelfare and Tourism Rita BahugunaJoshi said that female foeticide ratewas very high in UP and that peopleshould collectively work aggressive-ly against this monster. She also men-tioned several projects in the pipelinefor women empowerment.

The programme, which cele-brated women achievers from UP, wasactually the culmination of a two-month process of receiving andreviewing over 200 nominations col-lectively in the 17 domains from boththe urban and rural categories withthe help of an independent 5-mem-ber jury. The award winning womenunder various categories were hon-oured for their contribution in theirrespective fields.

Savitri Rai (Deoria), who won theaward in social sector category, saidthat she faced a lot of problems whenshe first opened a beauty parlour ather residence. “There were peoplewho made fun of me but I went aheadand started visiting villages to formself-help groups who would helpwomen in all kinds of endeavours beit collecting money for any businessor fighting domestic violence,” shereminisced.

Rashmi Gupta, popularly knownas Rashmi Behen in the community,is an icon of hope for unorganisedsector labourers and her fight for therights of labourers resulted in rescu-ing 38 families of bonded labourersfrom Faridpur tehsil of Bareilly. Withthe help of National Human RightsCommission (NHRC), she ensuredstatutory rehabilitation of the rescued

bonded labourers. She worked withNobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi in thebeginning of her career.

Shabnam Parveen is a woman oftalent, especially in chikankari forwhich she went to Germany as a mas-ter trainer, and jute work. With herdedication and hard work, she is nowthe empanelled master trainer ofNational Jute Board. She earns Rs15,000 with the Jute Artisans Guildassociation and around Rs 50,000 fora month’s training which she candeliver in any part of India.

Talking to The Pioneer, Shabnamsaid: “I faced the usual problemswhich women face in any tradition-al household and have been able tosuccessfully resolve them.”

Kumad Tewari is a hockey play-er who has consistently played atnational level from 1986 to 1996 andhas represented India in 1987 inBudapest Hungary.

Customs were broken againstthe will and determination of LallaDevi (Sultanpur) for whom saving thelives of children through properfarming is much more importantthan the dated omens and supersti-

tions. She gave a tough fight tomany, including the panchayat, andalmost all in the village who believedwomen shouldn’t be allowed toplough fields and tried to stop her byburning her house. But with hercourage, she started getting supportfrom women.

“My husband was a labourerand worked in Mumbai. With hardwork, I ploughed two bighas of landand was able to produce enough tofeed my children,” she said.

She later joined hands with otherwomen and started farming withthem. She has managed to help sev-eral women, especially those withouthusbands. From cooking to plough-ing and to panchayat, Lalla is pro-gressing to a better tomorrow forwomen.

Pratima Srivastava fromBarabanki, trained in food process-ing, developed her own pickles andother products that sell around thestate. “I have trained several womenin becoming independent and alsohelped them launch their products inmarket,” said Pratima who also worksextensively for women’s rights.

Women felicitated for dev, welfare works

SCHOOLSCAN

CITYBRIEFS

Women who were felicitated posing for a group photo on Saturday Pioneer

A ‘shooting star’ even at 80

Eager to buy chikan clothes: Prithvi

Actors Mohit Malhotra and Prithvi Hatte strike a pose for shutterbugs in Lucknow on Saturday Pioneer

jawans and recruits of the ArmyMedical Corps Centre andCollege. This was followed by atraditional ‘Barakhana’ whereinLt Gen Venkatesh had lunch withthe entire rank and file of AMCCentre & College.

SAVE FROGS DAYOn the occasion of ‘Save the

Frogs Day’, a mass awareness carwas flagged off from LucknowUniversity with volunteers ofBiodiversity and WildlifeConservation Lab. Around 100schools and a large number ofpeople were sensitised aboutfrogs. Different programmesbased on frogs and their conser-vation were organised atRegional Science City. Around200 students from differentschools and colleges, like La-Martiniere, Gurukul Academy,CMS, Amity, Virendra Swaroop,Green Way, LPS and others,took part in various events andcompetitions like poster-making,power-point presentation andquiz based on frogs and amphib-ians. Amita Kannaujia fromBiodiversity and WildlifeConservation Lab gave an infor-mative lecture on how to makea pond for frog. The programmewas held under the guidance ofKannaujia with the helping handof her research scholars AdeshKumar, Shivangi Mishra, RubyYadav, Ankit Sinha, DayashankerSharma and volunteers.

A woman splashes water on her face on a hot summer day in Lucknow on Saturday Pioneer

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landmark 05LUCKNOW | SUNDAY | APRIL 30, 2017

PIONEER NEWS SERVICE nNEW DELHI

The war within the Keralabureaucracy has reached

the Supreme Court yet again.Senior IPS officer TP Senkumarapproached the Supreme Courtfor a second time around onSaturday with a contempt peti-tion against Kerala ChiefSecretary accusing her of dis-obeying the court’s order direct-ing his reinstatement as head ofKerala Police.

Senkumar had won anorder from the Supreme Courton April 24 directing his rein-statement as Director Generalof Police, a post that he held

from May 22, 2015. But he wasremoved by the PinarayiVijayan Government that tookover in the State in May 2016,thus bringing an abrupt end toan otherwise two-year tenure.He is due to retire in June thisyear and hardly has two monthsbefore he can expect to reap thebenefits of the SC order.

In the contempt petition,Senkumar pointed out thatsoon after the order of rein-statement, he wrote a letter tothe Chief Secretary to imple-ment the court order by issu-ing appropriate directions. TheIPS officer said, “The intentionof the respondent contemnor(Chief Secretary), who is theauthority to issue order ofreinstatement, seems to delaythe implementation willfully sothat the petitioner will not getthe fruits of the decree whichhe has got.”

The Bench is expected totake up the petition soon con-sidering that the summer break

of the court is fast approachingand by the time it reopens earlyJuly, the petitioner would havesuperannuated.

As an additional request,Senkumar in his petition haseven requested the court toconsider extending his tenureas DGP by adding the periodwhen he was illegally removedto his current service. Already,Senkumar has a grudge that theorder of his removal as DGPwas passed at the instance ofthe present Chief Secretary.However, on paper, the KeralaGovernment had blamedSenkumar for failing to containthe public outrage over policeinefficiency in two crimes —Jisha murder case and Puttingalfire tragedy. The SC gave hima clean chit as it found nothingon record to suggest blame onpart of Senkumar in either ofthe two crimes. In the alternate,the Bench directed that a DGPcannot be removed on a StateGovernment’s whim and fancy.

BUREAUCRACY WAR REACHES TOP COURT AGAIN

PIONEER NEWS SERVICE nNEW DELHI

The Congress on Saturdayattacked the BJP over the

alleged leak of Dhingra com-mission report in the RobertVadra case and termed it apolitical vendetta of the worstorder.

Senior party leaderGhulam Nabi Azad said hecannot believe that the BJP cango so low and at the same timepointed that the Congress toohad proof against BJP leadersand their kins but never usedit to harass them.

Azad was referring to theleaked report of DhingraCommission which was set upby Haryana Government toprobe the irregularities ingranting the land licenses to afirm owned by Robert Vadra,son-in-law of Congress presi-dent Sonia Gandhi.

“We had proof of a num-ber of leaders, had proof oftheir kins too but we neverharassed them. We knewwhich businessman is the sup-porter and funder of BJP, butCongress never raided those

parties. This is the politicalvendetta of the worst order,cannot believe they can go solow,” Azad said at AICC briefing

“The Congress party ruledfor decades. And we knew thebusiness houses that werefunding the BJP. But aCongress Government rightfrom the time of (PrimeMinister) Pandit JawaharlalNehru, never harassed orraised those who were fundingthe BJP,” he added.

Reacting to the findings ofthe report, Vadra’s wife andSonia’s daughter Priyanka in astatement said that herfinances had nothing to dowith her husband and hiscompany Skylight hospitality.

The statement mentionedabout Priyanka Gandhi havingbought five acres of agricul-tural land in village Amipur inFaridabad district for `15 lakhon April 28, 2006, six yearsprior to the purported landdeal involving SkylightHospitality. The Commissionhad submitted its 182-pagereport to Khattar on August 31,2016.

VINEETA PANDEY n AIR INDIAONE SPECIAL AIRCRAFT

Vice-President M HamidAnsari said on Saturday

that the countries delaying theIndia-initiated ComprehensiveConvention on InternationalTerrorism (CCIT) at the UnitedNations on the issue of definitionof a ‘terrorist’ are actually look-ing for an excuse to avoid com-mitting themselves to a globalresponse to combat terrorism.

While addressing themedia onboard Air India OneSpecial Aircraft while returningto India concluding five-dayvisit to Armenia and Poland onSaturday, Ansari has said thatterrorism has become a pan-demic and affects every coun-try in a lesser or greater degreeand the problem is under-stood by everyone.

He referred to the timewhen he was the permanentrepresentative of India to UNin New York in 1994, whenIndia had introduced a pro-posal on CCIT and since thenit remains struck due to dif-ference in perception withregard to defining a terrorist.Ansari said that while makingan international agreement, allkinds of legal problems comeup and those who do not wantthis to make progress, come upwith legal technicalities.

“It is an excuse on part ofsome countries to try to avoidcommitting themselves,” headded. On CCIT countries likePakistan have argued that free-dom fighters and jihadis cannotbe clubbed as terrorists. CCITaims to work out a globalresponse to terrorism andstrengthening deeper coopera-tion among all nations. However,despite the pace of CCIT slow,Ansari said the countries arebilateral and regionally joininghands to fight the menace.

In fact during discussionsin Warsaw, Poland ‘wholeheartedly’ supported India onCCIT as the Polish side felt thatit was a matter of chance thatthey were not hit by terrorismbut it was time for a globalresponse to the threat.

Talking about his visit toArmenia and Poland, Ansarisaid both are friendly countriesand his visit has helped regen-erate interest in mutual coop-

eration. Referring to Poland,the Vice President said that itis the biggest economy inCentral Europe and India isexpanding trade with them.“There are investments by bothsides and during the course ofdiscussions, with both thePolish President and the PrimeMinister, we were able to iden-tify some specific areas wherecooperation between these twocountries is either starting orcan start very soon. We wereable to focus on three particu-lar areas of interest; clean coalmining technology, agricul-tural products and techniquesand defence cooperation,”Ansari added.

The Vice President saidthat he had suggested to thePolish leadership for Poland tojoin the Make in IndiaProgrammes and instead ofbeing a seller only, they couldbecome an India based seller,which will give them a muchadditional advantages. He fur-ther said that the Polish sidereacted very positively to thesuggestion and there will besubstantial progress in comingday when the Polish Presidentvisits India. India has interestsin the air defence systemswhile the Polish side offeredmilitary recovery and transportauxiliary vehicles for the Indiansecurity forces.

PNS n NEW DELHI

In an effort to speed up theinternal polls to meet the

Election Commission’s deadlineof December 31 this year,Congress president SoniaGandhi on Saturday approvedthe composition of the CentralOrganisational ElectionAuthority (CEA). With this, theprocess of a revamp in the party,after its spate of drubbings atthe hustings, has also gainedmomentum with insiders say-ing a meeting of the CongressWorking Committee on theissue too will be held soon.

The party’s internal elec-tions, which are due every fiveyears, have to end by December

31. The party has since soughtthree extensions from theElection Commission.

Mullappally Ramachandranwas elected as the chairman ofthe CEA while Rajya Sabhamembers Bhubaneshwar Kalitaand Madhusudan Mistry wereappointed as members. As pera Congress notification,Madhusudan Mistry, AICCgeneral secretary, will not holdany organisational post as perparty constitution.

MP Shamsher Singh Dullo,ex-MP Ashk Ali Tak and MPBiren Singh Ekti were appoint-ed as the advisory committeemembers of the CEA. Thisdevelopment has now kickedoff the process of its organisa-

tional polls long overdue thatwill culminate with the electionof the Congress president byOctober 15 this year.

Earlier, the grand old partyasked all State units to wind upthe ongoing membership driveby May 15. According to theorganisational poll scheduleissued by Ramachandran, theelection to the post of Congresspresident will be held betweenSeptember 16 and October 15and for this he has asked all dis-trict Congress chiefs to end byMay 15 their primary mem-bership enrolment drive thatstarted in 2015. He also askedthem to publish the list ofmembers by May 30.

In the second phase, the

election of president, vice-pres-ident and other office bearersof block Congress committeesis required to be completedbetween August 21 andSeptember 4, while those todistrict Congress committeesare to be completed betweenSeptember 5 and 15.

“I would like to remind youthat under no circumstancesthe date of enrolment and sub-mission of membership formswill be extended beyond May15,” AICC general secretaryJanardan Dwivedi, said in hiscommunication to state chiefsand party office-bearers acrossthe country.

The Election Commissionhad turned down a request by

the Congress for a year’s exten-sion and asked it to completethe formality by the end ofJune. The main Oppositionparty replied that it will be ableto complete the process only byDecember 2017.

After exchanges of letters,the EC had finally acceptedCongress’ request seekingextension of deadline byDecember 31 and asked theparty to submit its list of newoffice-bearers by January 2018.

Sonia OK’s CEA, revamp in Cong gains ground

Dhingra panel’s

report ‘leak’: Cong

hits out at BJP

Ansari: Countries dragging feet onCCIT avoiding anti-terror response

New Delhi: Prime MinisterNarendra Modi has welcomedCyprus’ support to India’s bidfor membership of the 48-nation Nuclear SuppliersGroup (NSG).

Cypriot President NicosAnastasiades also reaffirmedsupport for the “enhancementof the representative character”of the United Nations SecurityCouncil (UNSC) with India asa permanent member in theexpanded body.

He also emphasised onmaking the UNSC “more effec-tive, efficient and representativeof the contemporary geopolit-ical challenges”.

The two leaders also sup-ported forward movement onthe IntergovernmentalNegotiations (IGN) on UNSCreform and reiterated theircommitment to make contin-uous efforts to move towardstext-based negotiations.

“Both leaders underlinedtheir shared interest instrengthening global non-pro-liferation objectives. In thiscontext, Prime Minister Modiappreciated the support ofCyprus to India’s membershipof the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

“India’s membership will

enable it to contribute furtherto global non-proliferationobjectives,” a joint statementreleased by the ministry ofexternal affairs said.

The two sides exchangedviews on developments in theirrespective regions and oninternational issues of commonconcern, most notably the fightagainst international terror-ism, it said.

They also discussed waysto reinforce measures to stemthe financing of terrorism anddisrupt the revenue streamtowards terrorist groups, thestatement said.

During their delegation-level talks yesterday, Modi andAnastasiades had stronglypitched for decisive actionagainst states supporting, shel-tering and sustaining “violencefactories” in their regions.

“The two sides welcomedthe recent adoption of UNSecurity Council Resolution2347 (2017), aiming to com-bat the unlawful destructionof cultural heritage, religioussites and artifacts, and thesmuggling of cultural proper-ty by terrorist groups duringarmed conflict,” the statementadded. PTI

India welcomes

Cyprus support

for NSG bid

PNS n NEW DELHI

Chief Justice of India JSKhehar on Saturday said

that the benefits of legal sys-tem are meant for all sectionsof the society but when thepoor and illiterate Indians areunable to avail this benefit, thecredibility of the legal systemand rule of law comes undersevere strain.

Highlighting the need forreaching legal aid to the poor,marginalised and illiterate sec-tions of the populations, JusticeKhehar said, “In the absence oftimely help to most Indians, thecredibility of the legal systemand the rule of law comes undersevere strain.”He was addressing

a two-day National Meet ofPara-Legal Volunteers (PLV)in the Capital on Saturday.

Union Law and JusticeMinister Ravi Shankar Prasad,also present at the event empha-sised that legal aid should comefrom the heart and not bedone for publicity sake. “Itshould come from commit-ment and dedication”, saidPrasad while indicating that probono lawyers are being identi-fied by the Government at dis-trict, state and block-level.Earlier, at a previous function,the Law Minister had revealedthat pro bono legal work bylawyers will be one of the cri-teria to be considered for select-ing judges under the new

Memorandum of Procedure.With PLVs engaged in the

work of providing legal aid andlegal information to the poor,illiterate masses in the country,the CJI lauded their service tothe justice dispensation system.He compared the service doneby PLVs to be a “super divineduty” more than the “divineduty” discharged by judges.

Justice Dipak Misra, theExecutive Chairman of NALSAspoke about the importance ofPLVs as this year had beendedicated as the year of excel-lence to “Access to Justicethrough Para-legal volunteers”.It will be the job of these vol-unteers to inform the massesabout government schemes and

to help redress their grievances,Justice Misra said.

CJI urged the gathering ofPLVs to be skill-driven in theirapproach by conducing prop-er research and investigatefacts or laws related to a casebefore reaching to the intend-ed section of society. UnionLaw Minister added to it theneed for incorporating tech-nology. He said a move isafoot to link Government’sscheme of common servicecentre (CSC) in villages andsmall towns with access tojustice. This will benefit Dalitwomen, Kashmiri women andpeople from North East to getaccess to justice,” the Ministeradded.

Senkumar approaches

SC with contempt plea

Accuses Kerala’s CSof disobeying court’sorder directing hisreinstatement as DGP

IANS n NEW DELHI

Congress president SoniaGandhi’s son-in-law

Robert Vadra on Saturday saidthat “truth shall prevail” in theallegations against him over a2008 land deal in Haryana.

“Truth shall prevail,”Vadra wrote on his Facebookpage, attaching a news reportheadlined “No Plot was trans-fered by Omkareshwar toSkylight.”

This was Vadra’s first reac-tion over reports in the mediaconcerning contents of theDhingra Commission whichprobed probed grant oflicences for change in land usein four villages of Gurugram,including licence granted toSkylight Hospitality PrivateLtd linked to Vadra.

It had pointed to irregu-larities in the grant of licencesin its report submitted to theHaryana Government inAugust last year.

A report in the EconomicTimes on Thursday said thatthe Dhingra Commission hasreportedly concluded thatVadra made unlawful profitsof `50.5 crore from a land dealin Haryana in 2008 without

spending a single paisa.On Wednesday Robert

Vadra’s wife, Priyanka GandhiVadra had said in a statementthat agricultural land bought byher in Haryana’s Faridabad dis-trict or other property acquiredby her had no links to financesof her husband, his SkylightHospitality or reality major DLF.

The Congress on Fridayaccused the Central and theHaryana Governments of“deliberately leaking” theDhingra Commission reportdespite a court injunctionagainst its publication.Haryana Chief MinisterManohar Lal Khattar rub-bished the allegation.

Truth shall prevail,says Robert Vadra

Legal system benefits meant for all sections of society: CJI

PNS n NEW DELHI

After the humiliation overits handling of the Goa

affairs and ahead of theKarnataka Assembly elections,the Congress on Saturdayremoved senior party leaderDigvijay Singh from managingthe party’s affairs in both theStates. Singh, a close confidantof party vice-President RahulGandhi, was removed as AICCincharge of Goa as well asKarnataka by party chief SoniaGandhi.

While senior party leaderKC Venugopal was appointed asGeneral Secretary Incharge ofKarnataka, A Chella Kumarwas assigned to look into theaffairs of Goa as AICC Incharge.Former Union Minister lateVilas Rao Deshmukh’s son Amitwill be Chella’s colleague asAICC Secretary in Goa.

Venugopal’s new team willcomprise of Mainckam Tagore,PC Vishnunadh, Madhu YashkiGoud and Sake Sailjanath asAICC Secretaries.

Digvijay Singh’s removalcame as a surprise since he wasone of the core members of theparty’s high command and hadbeen advocating Rahul’s eleva-tion. Singh was charged byparty for messing up with theGoa affairs where he failed toform the Government evenafter the Congress being the sin-gle largest party in the recentlyconcluded Assembly polls in thecoastal State. BJP on the otherhand managed regional andindependent MLAs to paveway for the formation of theManohar Parrikar Government.

Diggy gets boot asK’taka, Goa taken

ommunications & Information Technology and Law & Justice Minister RaviShankar Prasad with Chief Justice of India Justice J S Khehar at the national meetof Para Legal Volunteers in New Delhi on Saturday PTI

KESTUR VASUKI n BENGALURU

Three days after the “SaveBJP” convention organ-

sied by rebel leader and theleader of the Opposition in thecouncil KS Eshwarappa inBengaluru, which led to openfeud against BJP strong manBS Yeddyurappa, the CentralBJP leadership have decided todouse the fire of rebellion. Infact Yeddyurappa was in NewDelhi to attend a programmeof birth anniversary of 12thcentury social reformerBasaveshwra where PrimeMinister Narendra Modi madea strong pitch for women’sempowerment and equal part-nership and appealed to theMuslim community againstpoliticising the triple talaqissue.

Yeddyurappa in fact wentthere to meet the party eldersto complain against KSEshwarappa and RSS strong-man BL Santosh and hisalleged role in the rebellion inthe State unit. According toparty sources Central leaderstook serious note of the rebel-lion in the State unit ahead ofthe Assembly polls in just tenmonths, which they think thefeud might affect the chancesof party’s entry into south.

The high command inview of the increased feud and

war of words has sent State in-charge Muralidhar Rao toassess the situation which isgoing out of limits. Accordingto BJP sources Yeddyurappaalso complained to Ram Lal,the organising secretary ofthe party against the conspir-acy allegedly hatched by BLSantosh and Eshwarappaagainst him. RecentlyYeddyurappa blasted Santhoshand blamed him for fuellingrebellion against him in the party.

According to party sourcesMuralidhar Rao who is inBengaluru on Saturday willhave a closed door meetingswith the neutral groups toascertain the facts about therebellion and its consequenceson the party before the elections. He will also trydousing the fire before it takesa major damage on the imageof the party.

However party has

declared Yeddyurappa as theChief Ministerial candidatein the 2018 elections and it iscrucial for the BJP to defeat theruling Congress to enter southwhich might be difficult tasklooking at the intense feud.

Yeddyurappa is also said tohave been advised to ‘amica-bly sort’ the issue with KSEshwarappa. The party seniorleadership has also advisedYeddyurappa, sources said, toattempt a patch up before thecentre intervenes.

Infighting in the BJPtouched a new low when rebelworkers convened a ‘Save BJP’meet in Bengaluru earlier thisweek.

Rao is expected to send areport on the ground reality ofthe dissent in the party fol-lowing which action will beinitiated by the senior leader-ship. Rao is also expected totalk to dissidents and try toaddress their grouse.

Top brass picks Rao to

douse K’taka BJP fire

According to party sources, MuralidharRao who is in Bengaluru on Saturday will

have a closed door meetings with theneutral groups to ascertain the facts

about the rebellion and its consequenceson the party before the elections

Prime Minister Narendra Modi being felicitated by Basava Samithi president Aravind Jatti at the inauguration of BasavaJayanthi 2017 and Golden Jubilee Celebration of Basava Samithi in New Delhi on Saturday PTI

ED told to use penal powersPTI n NEW DELHI

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday vowed to make anexample of money launderers and tax evaders, saying penalis-

ing powers of economic crime-fighting agency ED should be used‘expeditiously’ in cases of non- compliance.

Speaking at the Enforcement Day here, he called on the agencyto ‘strictly’ enforce law to help the exchequer raise legitimate rev-

enue. He felt that non-compliance of tax laws has always hit thelarger public and national interest.

“And that is why the revenue department and the ED have avery important role to play,” he emphasised. “There is an expec-tation of compliance and in the event of non-compliance, there isthe power of penalising that the ED has. This power has to be expe-ditiously used whenever violations are detected.”

Stating that the Government has given citizens the right to dealin foreign exchange with a sense of trust, he said serious offenceof money laundering, including using hawala channels, flight ofcapital out of the country, round tripping of funds and creation ofshell companies to avoid taxes have become a ‘very standardisedpractice’.

nation 06LUCKNOW | SUNDAY | APRIL 30, 2017

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TERROR CAMPS...Also, Kupwara and some

other adjoining districts are thetraditional infiltration routes asthey are located on heights ofmore than 12,000 to 14,000 feetdotted with difficult terrainwhere anti-infiltration fencecannot be erected.

However, latest Intelligencereports indicate that militantsare trying to sneak in throughmountain passes in Uri with asection of local people acting asguides. They are helping theterrorists to avoid Army patrolsand use lesser known ingressroutes thereby making the jobof the counter-infiltration gridall the more difficult, officialsadmitted.

Not ruling out more “fiday-een” attacks on strategic targets,including Army camps likethe one in Kupwara three daysback, they said handlers ofPakistan-based terrorist outfitshad activated their network ofsleeper cells. Hoping to capi-talise on the public angeragainst the security forces indifferent parts of the Valley, thehandlers are also roping inmore and more over groundworkers (OGW) by offeringthem cash incentives and otheremoluments.

Though these terroristhandlers were initially facingcash crunch, they are nowpumping huge sums of moneyto win back support of “oldguards” to help new recruitsconsolidate their grip onground zero. Coupled withsuicide attacks, the bid tospread unrest is part of the planto gain ascendancy over secu-rity forces and deliver a mes-sage among the populationthat militancy is still alive,officials said.

Now, these handlers arefocusing on some districts ofSouth Kashmir, epicentre ofunrest after Hizbul Mujahideencommander Burhan Wani waskilled by security forces in anencounter in July 2016.

The OGWs are directed toidentify “radicalised” localyouth in their areas so that theycan be inducted in and impart-ed terrorist training. Accordingto Intelligence reports, “TheseOGW’s pass on the informa-tion to local commanders withbrief profile of youth and laterthese commanders inductthem.” The role of local OGWsbecomes very significant andcrucial in the wake of repeat-ed incidents of “fidayeen”strikes on vital Army installa-tions. These OGWs not onlyensure protection of infiltratorsafter they successfully sneak inbut also guide them properly toreach their target.

Starting with Pathankot,Uri, Nagrota and more recent-ly Kupwara attack, the mem-bers of suicide squad (fiday-eens) are extended local sup-port by the sleeper cells to hittheir targets. Moreover, recentvideos posted on various socialnetworking platforms clearlysuggest fresh recruits to ter-rorist groups receiving trainingin local training camps in jun-gles of South Kashmir andequipped with AK rifles andbattle fatigue. Rough estimatessuggested more than 100 youthhave joined ranks of terroristoutfits since July 2016 inKashmir. When security forcestargeted local commanders,fresh wave of stone-peltinggripped parts of the Valleyand the Indian Army had totackle angry mobs while con-ducting counter infiltrationoperations in built-up areas.When some of these militantswere neutralised by the securityforces, thousands of local vil-lagers assembled during theirfuneral processions to registertheir angst against the securi-ty forces.

SILK ROAD...And the train, named the

East Wind, has much less car-rying capacity — just 88 ship-ping containers, according to

the Yiwu Government, com-pared to the 10,000 to 20,000containers cargo ships cancarry.

It is unclear how much theventure cost, and some expertshave questioned whether theambitious project makes eco-nomic sense. “It is hard to sayat this stage what the econom-ic return will be, as the eco-nomic benefits will come overa long time,” He Tianjie ofOxford Economics Hong Kongtold AFP. “However, the trainis in some aspects more con-venient and flexible. It canmake multiple stops, allowingfor the pick up and offloadingof cargo along the way. Railtransport is also less affected byadverse weather conditions.Therefore, there may be a rolefor such long-haul rail links,” hesaid. China already has a reg-ular direct freight train serviceto Germany, Europe’s largesteconomy. One route links theChinese megacity ofChongqing to Duisburg, asteel-making town and one ofGermany’s most- importanttransportation and commercialhubs.

SECURITY GUARD’S...Sayan’s wife Priya (30) and

daughter Neethu died on thespot. A critically injured Sayanhas been admitted toCoimbatore Medical CollegeHospital. Kanakaraj and Sayanwere believed to be the mem-bers of the gang which struckthe Kodanadu Retreat on April24 and murdered securityguard Om Bahadur. KrishnaBahadur, another securityguard on duty at the nearbygate of the retreat, was injuredin the attack. Unconfirmedreports said that Kanakarajwas a former driver who usedto work for Jayalalithaa till2012. According to KrishnaBahadur, the duo Kanakarajand Sayan were the members ofthe gang which had barged intothe estate and robbed valuable

documents from the buildingwhich was the Western Ghatsretreat of the former ChiefMinister. Based on the cluesreceived from the injuredKrishna Bahadur, the policehad arrested three personsfrom Thrissur and four personsfrom Malappuram in Kerala.

Mahadevan, AIADMKjailed general secretarySasikala’s nephew, who wasreportedly one of the benefi-ciaries of the Kodanadu Retreatwas found dead in Thanjavuron April 15. All these incidentsare believed to be the fallout ofthe Income-Tax raids on theresidences and business estab-lishments of Tamil NaduHealth Minister Vijaya Bhaskartwo days prior to the RK Nagarbypoll. While the ElectionCommission of India rescind-ed the April 12 bypoll, theIncome-Tax department offi-cials continued with theirinvestigation and grilling.

The arrest of SukeshChandrasekhar, a Delhi-basedconman, and seizure of Rs 1.8crore unaccounted moneyfrom him meant for bribingElection Commission of Indiaofficials for ensuring that the‘two leaves’ symbol was allo-cated to the Amma faction ofthe AIADMK has opened aPandora’s box. Based on thedisclosures made byChandrasekhar, the DelhiPolice arrested AIADMK(Amma) faction’s de facto chiefTTV Dinakaran, Sasikala’sfavourite nephew and the RKNagar bypoll candidate.

DON’T POLITICISE...The works comprise 2,500

sermons delivered by thephilosopher. The event assumessignificance in view of the2018 Assembly elections inKarnataka, where Lingayatsare a formidable community.And Basaveswara, also knownas Basavanna, is their mostpowerful icon. “People shouldget homes, access to powerwithout discrimination.Farmers should get fertilisersand insurance benefits withoutany distinctions. That is themeaning of our government’smessage of ‘Sabka Saath SabkaVikas’,” he said. After the event,the Prime Minister walked upto the audience to meet thefamily of Kannada scholar andrationalist MM Kalburgi, whowas killed in Dharwad,Karnataka, last year

POCSO JUDGE FALLS...Dilip B Bhosale. While

seeking cancellation of the for-mer minister’s bail applica-tion, additional AdvocateGeneral Vinod Kumar Shahihad said Prajapati misled thecourt as his bail plea claimed nocriminal cases were pending

against him. The SP leader, heclaimed, was facing six crimi-nal cases.

Meanwhile, SpecialInvestigative Team (SIT) willprobe the case of gangrape inwhich former Samajwadi Partyminister Gayatri PrasadPrajapati and his six aides wereinvolved.

A four-member team willconsist of circle officer(Chowk), an inspector andtwo women sub-inspectors.ASP, North, Anurag Vats willhead the probe team. The deci-sion to constitute the SIT cameafter SSP, Lucknow, DeepakKumar met IG (LucknowZone) A Satish Ganesh andDIG (Lucknow Range) PraveenTripathi. DIG, Lucknow Range,had sought a report from for-mer SSP, Lucknow, ManzilSaini asking if any laxity wasfound in the probe into thecase. The case was earlier beinginvestigated by Amita Singh,when she was circle officer,Alambagh, and later theresponsibility was given to cir-cle officer, Hazratganj, AwnishMishra.

Giving details, DIG(Lucknow Zone) PraveenTripathi said the probe wouldfocus on two aspects: it will findout the role of DySP AwanishMishra who had conducted theprobe before a chargsheet wasfiled in the court and, subse-quently, Gayatri succeeded ingetting bail from the court.Secondly, Radhey Shyam Rai(CO, Chowk) along with oneinspector and two sub-inspec-tors (one female) will carry outa probe into the rape case.

The Gayatri case was miredin controversies engulfed sincethe beginning of the probe. OnApril 10, then IO of the caseAmita Singh was charged withbeing forceful to the girl whowas recuperating at the AIMSin New Delhi. The family of thegirl had lodged a case with theHauz Khas police station butAmita was later given a cleanchit later. A few days after thisshowdown, on April 5, the IOAmita Singh and her policeteam were accused of kidnap-ping two minor daughters ofthe woman who also is a com-plainant in the GayatriPrajapati case. Subsequently, acase was registered at Karvipolice station of Chitrakoot andthe investigation into the casewas transferred to circle officer(CO), Hazratganj, AwanishMishra. Mishra initially wasaccused of carrying out theprobe at a snail’s pace and laterhe was accused of doing‘favour’ to Gayatri whichhelped the embattled ministersecure bail from the court.

The case was registered atGautampalli police station onFebruary 17 on the directives

of the Supreme Court. Thewoman complainant, who hailsfrom Chitrakoot, had visitedPrajapati’s official residence inGautampalli in connectionwith a project related to min-ing work in 2014. She hadalleged that Prajapati’s closeaide Ashok Tiwari gave herdrinks laced with sedativesafter which Prajapati and hisaides raped her and filmed theincident. “They kept black-mailing me by threatening tomake public the video clip. Iwas hapless and followed theirdiktat. Prajapati also invited meon his birthday party and thegroup raped me. I, along withmy minor daughter, had visit-ed the minister’s residence onthe day. The minister and hismen also tried to force them-selves on my daughter,” she hadalleged in the complaint.

In the case (crime number29/2017) besides Prajapati, hisaides identified as AshokTiwari, Pintu Singh, VikasVerma, Chandrapal, Rupeshand Ashish Shukla were alsonamed. Gayatari was arrestedon March 15 and was sent tojail.

UP GOVT TO ENSURE...country,” Adityanath said

while lauding the move ofNarendra Modi on removingred and blue beacons fromVVIP vehicles.

He said that many welfareprogrammes had been takenup in the state and variousmeasures had been initiated byhim to maintain law and orderin the state. Amidst controver-sy over tampering with elec-tronic voting machines inrecent Assembly polls , Yogisaid the Delhi municipal cor-poration results had given abefitting reply to those ques-tioning the credibility of EVMsand the people there hadshown that the abbreviationstood for ‘Every Vote Modi’.

“The citizens of Delhi inthe recent MCD polls have alsoproved that EVM stands for‘Every Vote Modi’,”

Earlier in the day, formerChief Minister and SamajwadiParty president Akhilesh Yadavhad reiterated his suspicions ofEVM-tampering saying that ifa chip and remote could beused in petrol pumps to stealfuel, the same could be alsoapply in EVMs.

Adityanath, who was on atwo-day visit to Gorakhpur,also inaugurated or laid foun-dations of projects worth overRs 261 crore in Gorakhpur onSaturday. On Sunday, he willvisit Salempur in Deoria toattend a programme for dis-abled and later return toGorakhpur to attend a meetingof Rashtriya SwayamsewakSangh (RSS).

MOHIT KANDHARI n JAMMU

Directing BJP Ministers topull up their socks and

expand the base of the party inall three regions of the State,BJP chief Amit Shah onSaturday delivered a crisp mes-sage — ‘Nation comes first andnot the Government’.

This one line statement byBJP chief is significant in thewake of prevailing political/secu-rity situation in the State ofJammu & Kashmir.

Shah was addressing a spe-cial gathering of party Ministers,legislators, MLC’s and Staterung leaders on the occasion ofhis two-day visit to the State.

Accompanied by nationalgeneral secretaries Ram Lal,Ram Madhav, J&K inchargeAvinash Rai Khanna, MoSPMO, Dr Jitendra Singh. AmitShah was accorded warm wel-come by the party supporters.

From airport he wasescorted by party workers rid-ing motor cycles without wear-ing crash helmets.

Enroute party workersshowered flower petals as hestepped out on the pedestal of

the car and acknowledgedcheering supporters dancing onthe drum beats and tradition-al Dogri musical notes.

The entire route from air-port to convention centre wasdotted with king size hoardings.

Ironically, large number ofthem were twisted and suffereddamages due to high speedwinds.

Sharing his concern forthe current situation inKashmir valley, BJP chief alsomade it clear that the party wasstanding like a ‘rock’ behindjawans of security forces tack-ling situation on ground zero.

Speaking to reporters out-

side the Convention centreAvinash Rai Khanna said,” themain focus of the party chiefAmit Shah was on expandingthe base of the party in the Stateand reviewing the organisationwork. He ruled out possibilityof imposing Governors’ rule inthe state clarifying there was nothreat to the allianceGovernment headed byMehbooba Mufti in the State.

During the hour long meet-ing BJP chief also took stock ofthe report cards of partyMinisters and directed Stateparty chief and State general sec-retary (organisation) to submita detailed report to him.

Nation comes first

not the Govt: ShahPTI n KOLKATA

Popular model and TV primetime host Sonika Chauhan

was killed while actor VikramChatterjee was injured when thecar in which they were travellingmet with an accident in southKolkata on Saturday morning.

Police said the car mount-ed the pavement while trying toavoid an approaching car froma nearby lane and partially tilt-ed on one side at around 4:30am near Rashbehari Avenuecrossing.

Vikram and Sonika, whowere on the driver’s seat andfront seat respectively, werebrought out from the mangledcar by locals and rushed to a pri-vate hospital, police said.

While Sonika was declareddead, Vikram was admitted tothe hospital, police said.

A pall of gloom descendedas the news of the mishapspread and many Bengali filmactors including Dev rushed tothe hospital on EM Bypass.

A hospital doctor saidVikram was stable now andshifted to general bed fromICU after CT scan. He hadinjuries on head, leg, and other

parts of body, the doctor said.Sonika, a popular face in

city and Mumbai modellingcircuits, had also been hostinga prime time show on a nation-al channel.

Vikram, whose last filmKhoj (The Lost) had beenscreened in several film festivals,had also acted in ‘Elar CharAdhyay’ and ‘Ami Ar AmarGirlfriends’.

Meanwhile, the police hasregistered a case suo motuunder Tollygaunge PoliceStation against Vikram for rashdrive, causing death by negli-gence and causing grievoushurt by endangering personalsafety of others.

Model killed, actorhurt in car accident

VR JAYARAJ n KOCHI

Changing their method ofagitation, leaders of Ponpilai

Orumai (Women’s Unity), aforum of thousands of womantea estate workers in Kerala’sMunnar hill resort, on Saturdaynight called off their five-day-long protest fast demandingthe resignation of and an apol-ogy from Marxist PowerMinister MM Mani who hadinsulted the woman workerswith dirty remarks and decid-ed to stage relay Satyagraha tilltheir goal was achieved.

In a show of women’s deter-mination, Orumai leaders saidGomathy Augustine, KausalyaThankamani and Rajeswari hadreturned from the hospital tothe venue of their struggle inMunnar on Saturday night toresume their stir within hoursof their forcible arrest andcompulsory removal to thehospital after their health dete-riorated due to the fast.

Authorities at the TalukHospital in Adimali, 30 kilo-meters away from Munnarwhere they were admitted aftertheir arrest in the afternoon,said Gomathy, Kausalya andRajeswari had left the hospitalon their own. After reachingthe protest venue, they decid-ed to end the hunger strike butto continue Satyagraha tillMani resigned and apologized.

The Orumai leaders hadstarted their protest fast onTuesday against Mani for insult-ing the thousands of woman teaworkers in Munnar with someextremely obscene remarksabout the legendary strugglethey had held in September2015 demanding higher mini-mum wages and bonus.

On Saturday afternoon,the venue of the fast witnesseddramatic scenes amidst thepolice’s bid to arrest Gomathyand Kausalya for removingthem to the hospital after doc-tors reported that their healthhad deteriorated. Gomathy andKausalya fiercely resisted theefforts to take them away butthe police managed to get themaboard an ambulance forcibly.

As she was being taken

away, Gomathy said from theambulance, “This is not a ques-tion of my life. This is a ques-tion of the pride and prestige ofthousands of poor women.Mani should resign and apol-ogize. We will continue our fastin the hospital.” The police hadon Saturday morning shiftedRajeswari to the hospital afterher health deteriorated.

On Saturday night,Gomathy, Kausalya andRajeswari got discharged fromthe hospital as per their ownwish and left Adimali hospitalfor the protest venue in Munnartown. Tension had prevailed inMunnar in the afternoon afterOrumai’s supporters and lead-ers of other political parties sup-porting the protest tried to foilthe police bid to arrest them.

When the doctors said thatGomathy and Kausalya neededimmediate medical help, theyhad agreed to take it at the fastvenue and the medical team hadmade arrangements for this.Then the police insisted that theyhad to be shifted to the hospitalgenerating a feeling that theiractual intention was not to pro-vide medical assistance but todefeat the women’s struggle.

Woman tea workers call

off fast in Munnar

Strike to continuetill ‘dirty-tongue’CPM Min resigns

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

Not holding talks with separatists can be disastrous: FarooqSrinagar (PTI): Opposition NC president

Farooq Abdullah on Saturdayexpressed concern over theCentre’s decision not to holdtalks with separatists in Jammu& Kashmir, saying this policycould be “disastrous” for thefuture of the State.

“The Centre’s submissionin the Supreme Court that it

will not hold dialogue with sep-aratists might prove disastrousfor the future of Jammu &Kashmir. We express our con-cern and regret over the stand,”Abdullah said addressing ameeting of party leaders andworkers.

Terming talks as the “onlyway” for the resolution of theKashmir issue and everlasting

peace in the region, Abdullahurged for early resumption ofdialogue between India andPakistan saying “bombs andbullets will not help”.

The Lok Sabha MP high-lighted the importance offriendly ties between India andPakistan and said good neigh-bourly relations are not onlybeneficial for the two countries

but also holds the key for res-olution of Kashmir and pro-tection of Kashmiris on eitherside. Lashing out at rulingPDP, Abdullah said “had itbeen sincere and serious,(Chief Minister) MehboobaMufti should have kicked thechair to protest the Centre’ssubmission in the SupremeCourt. Leaving the chief min-

istership is a far cry, the PDPdid not even open its mouth toprotest the Centre’s policy,” hesaid. Abdullah said his party’sstand is clear that talks with allstakeholders including sepa-ratists was imperative for res-olution of the Kashmir issuethrough political means.

“Attempts are being madeto suppress Kashmiris by force.

I want to make it clear that ithas yielded no results in thepast nor will it benefit in future.It will only help to fan the fireeven more,” he said.

Referring to protests bystudents and banning of socialmedia networks in the valley,the former Chief Minister said“it shows how bad the situationis in Kashmir”.

world 07LUCKNOW | SUNDAY | APRIL 30, 2017

Sharif sacks trusted aide

PTI n ISLAMABAD

Embattled Prime MinisterNawaz Sharif on Saturday

sacked his trusted aide TariqFatemi after an inquiry foundhim guilty of "leaking" infor-mation to media about a riftbetween Pakistan's civilian andmilitary leaderships during ahigh-level security meet.

Sharif approved an inquirycommittee's recommendationto remove his special assistanton foreign affairs Fatemifromhis post. Fatemi, 72, isconsidered as a trusted aide ofthe prime minister and hisremoval is a setback for thegovernment of Sharif who isalready under pressure due toPanama case verdict.The com-mittee, headed by Justice (retd)Aamir Raza Khan,includedrepresentatives of theIntelligence Bureau, theMilitary Intelligence and theInter-Services Investigation.

It was set up last year toprobe the controversy sur-rounding a controversial reportby daily Dawn about a key

meeting on national security. InOctober, a columnist for Dawnnewspaper wrote a front-pagestory about a rift between civil-ian and military leadershipsover militant groups that oper-ate from Pakistan but engage inproxy war against India andAfghanistan.

"In a blunt, orchestratedand unprecedented warning,the civilian government hasinformed the military leader-ship of a growing internation-al isolation of Pakistan andsought consensus on severalkey actions by the state,” thereport had said It further saidthat "military-led intelligenceagencies are not to interfere iflaw enforcement acts againstmilitant groups that are bannedor until now considered off-limits for civilian action."

The army took strongexception to the Dawn storyand relations between armyand the civil government dete-riorated.The PML-N govern-ment was forced to removethen information ministerPervaiz Rasheed but a probe

was also initiated at thedemand of army to fix theresponsibility. DECISION TO SACK AIDE 'INCOMPLETE'ACTION, SAYS ARMY

In an unusual move,Pakistan's powerful army today"rejected" Prime MinisterNawaz Sharif 's decision to sackhis trusted aide Tariq Fatemifor "leaking" information to themedia, saying his action is"incomplete". Sharif approvedan inquiry committee's rec-ommendation toremoveFatemi, the special assistant onforeign affairs, fromhis postafter he was found guilty of"leaking" information to themedia about a rift betweenPakistan's civilian and militaryleaderships during a high-levelsecurity meet.Hours after thePrime Minister's Office issuedthe directive, the Inter-ServicesPublic Relations said the Armyhad rejected the notification,calling it 'incomplete'."Notification on Dawn Leak is

incomplete and not in linewithrecommendations by theInquiry Board. Notificationisrejected," military spokesmanMajor Gen Asif Ghafoor tweet-ed. In October, a columnist forDawn newspaper wrote afront-page story about a riftbetween civilian and militaryleaderships over militantgroups that operate fromPakistan but engage in proxywar against India andAfghanistan.

... after news leak scandal

EU adopts Brexit talks stance

AFP n BRUSSELS

European Union leaders unanimouslyadopted their Brexit strategy at a spe-

cial summit in Brussels on Saturday, in ashow of unity ahead of two years of toughtalks with Britain. The 27 leaders quicklyagreed on the negotiating guidelines asthey met without Britain for the first timesince Prime Minister Theresa May trig-gered the divorce process a month ago.

They say talks on a future trade dealwith Britain can only start once Londonagrees divorce terms on citizens' rights, itsexit bill and Northern Ireland. "Guidelinesadopted unanimously. EU27 firm and fairpolitical mandate for the Brexit talks isready," EU President Donald Tusk said onTwitter, shortly after the summit began.

Leaders adopted the guidelines,unchanged, within one minute, an EUsource said. Tusk earlier said leaders"need to remain united as the EU 27" butsaid it was "also in Britain's interest" if unityboosted the chances of a swift Brexit deal.

May this week accused the EU of gang-ing up on London, in a war of words withGerman Chancellor Angela Merkel whosaid Britain had "illusions" about thetalks. Brexit has offered the EU a freshchance at unity after years of bitter inter-nal divisions over the euro and migration,although many still fear they could fall outduring the talks. French President FrancoisHollande said as he arrived that "the aimof the summit is unity", adding that

"there will inevitably be a price and a costfor Britain."Merkel said the EU wants"good relations" with Britainbut added that"we also want to defend, at 27, our com-mon interests -- so far we have doneextremely well."

The EU's chief Brexit negotiator,Michel Barnier, said the bloc had a "clearline" on the talks. "But this unity isnot

directed against Britain, I think that it isalso in its interest," he said. The EU 27 haveconsiderably toughened the guidelinessince Tusk first unveiled them a month ago,with Brussels alsodrawing up a detailed listof citizens' rights. Tusk said this issue -- thefate of three million EU citizens living inBritain and one million Britons on thencontinent -- "must be number-one pri-ority for EU and the UK."

Officials hope for agreement on thisby the end of the year. In a further movethat will rile London, the EU is also set toback automatic membership for NorthernIreland if it reunifies with Ireland, and callfor Spain to have a say over any deal thataffects Gibraltar.

The leaders will also discuss for thefirst time the spoils of Brexit -- the relo-cation of EU medical and banking agen-cies that are currently based in London.

The EU guidelines say that only when"sufficient progress" has been made ondivorce issues can these trade talks begin,with sources saying they hope to do thatby the end of the year. EU leaders were dis-cussing how to define this progress afterapproving the guidelines at the summit,EU officialssaid.

While the EU says citizens' rights is apriority, the most touchy issue of all is like-ly to be Britain's exit bill. This is estimat-ed at around 60 billion euros ($65million),which mainly covers financial commit-ments made by the bloc while Britain wasa member.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, right, speaks withItalian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni during a roundtable meeting at an EU summit in Brussels on Saturday.

‘N Korea carries out ballistic missile test but fails'PTI n WASHINGTON

North Korea test-fired aballistic missile but it

failed to go beyond its terri-tory, the US said today, asPyonyang's defiant move amidrepeated warnings fromWashington ratcheted up ten-sions in the Korean Peninsula.

"The US Pacif icCommand detected what weassess was a North Koreanmissile launch at 10:33 AMHawaii time, April 28. Theball istic missi le launchoccurred near the Pukchangairf ield," Dave Benham,United States Pacif icCommand spokesman, said ina statement.

"The missile did not leave(the) North Korean territory,"Benham said. Responding tothe development, USPresident Donald Trumpslammed North Korea for theprovocative move.

"North Korea disrespect-ed the wishes of China and its

highly respected President (XiJinping) when it launched,though unsuccessfully, a mis-sile today. Bad!" Trump said in

a tweet last night, hours afterNorth Korea carried out yetanother missile test. TheNorth American Aerospace

Defence Command(NORAD) determined themissile launch from NorthKorea did not pose a threat toNorth America, Benham said.

"US Pacific Commandstands behind our steadfastcommitment to the security ofour allies in the Republic of

Korea and Japan," he said.According to reports, the mis-sile was likely a medium-range KN-17 ballistic mis-sile.

The North Korea missiletest came a day after theTrump administration praisedChina and its President Xi forhaving prevai led overPyongyang in not carrying outeither a nuclear test or a mis-sile test.

Sending a tough warningto North Korea, the US onFriday said the policy ofstrategic patience was overand no options were off thetable in dealing with thenuclear threat posed byPyongyang. US Secretary of

State Rex Tillerson at a UNSecurity Council meeting onNorth Korea said yesterdaythat Washington's goal was"not regime change" in the iso-lated country nor does it"desire to threaten the NorthKorean people or destabilisethe Asia Pacific region".

"The policy of strategicpatience is over. Additionalpatience will only meanacceptance of a nuclear NorthKorea.

The more we bide ourtime, the sooner we will runout of it," Tillerson said whilechairing the meeting as thePresident of the Council.

Military options for deal-ing with the North were still"on the table", Tillerson hadwarned.

The US is deploying anaval strike group led by anaircraft carrier to the Koreanpeninsula, and a missile-defence system calledTerminal High Altitude AreaDefense (THAAD).

South Korean protesters stage a rally to oppose a plan to deploy the advanced U.S.missile defense system called Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, nearU.S. Embassy in Seoul, South Korea on Saturday.A North Korean mid-range ballisticmissile apparently failed shortly after launch Saturday, South Korea and the UnitedStates said. AP

‘NKorea disrespected the wishes' of China'Washington (PTI): USPresident Donald Trump hassaid that North Korea has "dis-respected the wishes of China"by carrying out another missiletest, as Pentagon confirmeditwas a failed attempt byPyongyang. "North Korea dis-respected the wishes of Chinaand itshighly respected Presidentwhen it launched, thoughunsuccessfully, a missile today.Bad!" Trump said in a tweet lastnight, hours after North Koreacarried out yet another failedmissile test.

The North Korea missile testcame a day after the TrumpAdministration praised Chinaand its President Xi Jinping for

having prevailed overPyongyang in not carryingeither nuclear test or missile test.

"The US Pacific Commanddetected what we assess was aNorth Korean missile launch at

10:33 AM Hawaii time APR 28.The ballistic missile launchoccurred near the Pukchangairfield," Dave Benham,PACOM spokesman said in astatement. "The missile did notleave North Korean territo-ry,"Benham said.

The North AmericanAerospace Defence Command(NORAD) determined the mis-sile launch from North Koreadid not pose a threat to NorthAmerica, he said.

Sundar Pichai received nearly$200 million compensation PTI n HOUSTON

Google 's 44-year-oldIndia-born CEO Sundar

Pichai received nearly USD200 million in compensationlast year, double the amounthe got in 2015. Pichaireceived a salary of USD650,000 last year, slightly lessthan the USD 652,500 heearned in 2015.

But the long-time Googleemployee, who was namedCEOduring the company'sre-organisation in August2015, received a stock awardof USD 198.7 million in 2016,roughly double his 2015 stockaward of USD 99.8 million.

The company's compen-sation committee attributedthe lavish pay to Pichai's pro-motion to CEO and "numer-oussuccessful product

launches", the CNN reported.Larry Page, Google's co-

founder and previous CEO,shiftedhis focus to growingnew businesses under theAlphabet umbrella. UnderPichai, Google has boosted

sales from its core advertisingand YouTube business,while also investing inma-chine learning, hardware andcloud computing, the reportsaid.

In 2016, Google unveilednew smartphones, a virtualreality headset, a router, anda voice controlled smartspeaker. These efforts havestarted to pay off for thecompany. Google's "otherrevenues", a category thatincludes hardware and cloudservices, hit nearly USD 3.1billion in the most recentquarter, a gain of about 50 percent from the same quarter ayear earlier.

Alphabet 's stock hassoared this year, pushing itabove a USD 600 billion mar-ket cap this week for thefirst time, the report said.

Hindu temple vandalisedin Pak's Sindh provincePTI n KARACHI

AHindu temple in Pakistanhas been vandalised in the

southern Sindh province and acase of blasphemy and terror-ism has been registered againstthreeunidentified persons,police said today.Police saididols of deities were damagedand some of the broken partswere found in a nearby sewer-age line. The incident occurredyesterday in Thatta district'sGharo town. A case of blas-phemy and terrorism has beenregistered.Police also registereda FIR against three persons fordesecrating the deities, Dawnreported."Investigation is goingon but so far no arrests have-been made," police officer FidaHussain Mastoi said.

Mastoi was quoted by BBCUrdu that the case would beinvestigated from all aspects,though according to prelimi-

nary probe, the footprintsfound near the temple seem tobelong to a young boy aroundthe age of 12.

Local Hindu councillor LalMeheshwri said that he had-been working late at the tem-ple for a monthly religiousservice."Someone seems tohave entered the templebetween 1:00 am and 5:00 am.When worshippers came in themorning for prayers, the idolswere missing.

This is the first time thatthat sucha thing has happenedin the temple's history," he wasquoted by the report.

Adviser to the Sindh ChiefMinister on Minority AffairsDr Khatto Mal said that attack-ers would be arrested soon.Gharo is situated along theNational Highway some 60kilometres from Karachi.About 2,000 families, who aremostly Hindus, live in Gharo.

PTI n CAIRO

Pope Francis led a jubilantmass forthousands of

Egyptian Catholics today dur-ing a visit to support the coun-try's embattled Christian minor-ity and promotedialogue withMuslims. Worshippers releasedyellow and white balloons withFrancis, flanked by security,circling the Cairo stadium onagolf cart and waving to thecrowds as a chorus sang a joy-ous hymn.

The smiling pontiff wasthen greeted by a group ofchil-dren wearing pharaonic headdresses. Francis kissed analtar set up under a canopy andbowed his head listening to theliturgy before saying a prayerthen listening to a recital fromthe Bible's Acts of theApostles,which tells the story ofthe church's founding.It is the second and last day ofFrancis's visit, which saw himplead for tolerance and peace onFriday as he visited a Copticchurch bombed by the IslamicState group in December.

The spiritual leader of theworld's almost 1.3 billionCatholics also became the first

pope to visit the headquarters ofthe grand imam of Al-Azhar,one of the Muslim world's lead-ing religious authorities.

Worshippers, old andyoung, nuns and priests, hadbeen bussed to the stadiumunder tight security, with thecountry under a state of emer-gency following three IS churchbombings in December andApril that killed dozens of wor-shippers.

"We wanted to see the popeand show him that there is noproblem here and that the sit-uation is safe. We feel proud thathe is in Egypt. It's a message thatwe are still standing on our feet,"said Kanzi Beblawi, a 33-year-old woman, as she waited toboard a bus.

In the stadium some wavedEgyptian flags and released bal-loons the colour of the Vaticanflag and others tied together toform a rosary that rose to thesky.

The event brings togethermembers of all Catholic rites

in the country - Coptic,Armenian, Maronite andMelkite. Egypt's Catholic com-munity is estimated at about272,000. The Argentine pontiff

will give a homily during themass, which is to be held inArabic and Latin.

After lunching withEgyptian bishops, he will meetseminarians before wrapping uphis 27-hour visit in the after-noon. His entire tightly sched-uled trip was heavily secured ashe travelled from one engage-ment to another in a closed car.

IS has threatened furtherattacks after the suicide bomb-ings that killed 29 people inCairo in December, and 45people north of the capital ear-lier this month.

On Friday the 80-year-oldpontiff denounced violence and"demagogic" populism in anaddress to a Muslim-Christianconference."Peace alone... isholy and no act of violence canbeperpetrated in the name ofGod, for it would profane hisname," Francis said.

He criticised what he called"demagogic forms of populism...on the rise", saying they wereunhelpful to peace. Christians,who make up around 10 percent of Egypt's population of 92million, have long complainedofmarginalisation in theMuslim-majority country.

Pope Francis waves as he arrives to celebrate Mass for Egypt's tiny Catholic community, at the Air Defense Stadium in Cairo, onSaturday. AP

Pope Francis leads mass for thousands of Catholics

LUCKNOW | SUNDAY | APRIL 30, 2017 films & tv 08

SUMMER EXPRESS

For many of us, the summers bring back fondchildhood memories and all the masti andmerry-making the holiday season would bring!Raising a toast to the fun-and-frolic flavour ofthe season, Zee TV presents Summer Express2017, a three-hour extravaganza at 6 pm onSunday, April 30 which will have the buddingsuperstars put their best foot forward inacts of comedy, singing and dance.

NEW EPISODE OF MTV BIG

F

The eighth episode of MTV Big FSeason 2, which gives voiceto sexual molestationvictims, uncovers the story of ayoung and free- spirited 18-year-old girl, Diya, whose life takesa turn when she visits heruncle for a vacation and is sexuallymolested by him. Will Diya be able togather the courage to revolt againsther uncle? Or will age old prejudices suppressher from revealing the truth? Tune in on Sunday,April 30 at 7 pm.

AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY

ESPN, in collaboration with Sony PicturesNetwork, brings the Academy Award-Winningdocumentary — OJ.: Made in America toIndia. Two decades after NFL legend, OJSimpson stood trial for the murders of his wife,Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, RonGoldman, the documentary revisits andredefines one of the most widely coveredcriminal trials of all time. At the end of a sagathat seems to be a search for the real truthabout O.J. Simpson— who he is, what shapedhim, what he did — what's revealed is morethan that: a collection of indelible, unshakable,and haunting truths about ourselves and about

race, violence, celebrity, policing and criminaljustice in America.Directed by award-winning filmmaker EzraEdelman, the film was the most acclaimeddocumentary of 2016, and will debut in India asa five-part series beginning Sunday April 30 at12 pm and continuing each Sunday until May28, 2017.

TASTE MATCH WITH ARVIND PUJARA

Pujara, who smashed records by scoring thehighest Test Match runs in a single season,joins Sandeep Patil on his show Taste Matchwhich airs on Living Foodz and &TV. He will talk

about how his father and formerRanji trophy player, ArvindPujara inspired his cricketing

journey and was his firstcoach.

Fondly known asChintu, Pujarafollowed in his

father's footsteps. Viewerscan get a glimpse into the

heart-warming bond sharedby Pujara and his father onthe show. While the two

don’t have a very expressiverelationship, Pujara will talk about how hisfather has made immense sacrifices for himever since his mother passed away. The familymoved to Mumbai so that Pujara could playmore matches.

Sandeep and Pujara will be joined by

Dhawal Kulkarni, the roaring bowler of GujratLions. Dhawal will confess that his confidenceskyrocketed after he won the title of the highestwicket taker at the Satkar trophy. It was thenthat he believed he could successfully representIndia. Sandeep will recall how Dhawalaccomplished an extraordinary feat by gettingVirat for a duck.

Moving on from cricket to cinema, Dhawalwill confess that he is a fan of Katrina Kaif. In alight-hearted moment, Sandeep will also discussDhawal’s uncanny resemble to Ajinkya Rahaneand grill him on his married life.

Join Sandeep Patil and the icons of Indiancricket every Saturday and Sunday at 8 pm.

TELLYTALE

nWhat made you say yes to India’sAsli Championship?

It is a different and originalconcept as compared to Indianadaptations of foreign reality shows.It is not only an adventure fitnessshow but also about brings out thereal champion in you. There is achampion in each of us. We have toget out of our comfort zone and showwhat we are and the attitude we carry. nTell us about the contestants.

They are tough and will surpriseyou with their mental and physicalstrength and endurance. Some of thewomen are tougher than the men, attimes, when it comes to stamina orfear of heights. There will be twowinners — one woman and one man— but the tasks they do will be same— swimming, cycling etc. nWho is your favourite contestant?

There is a girl from West Bengal,Tupa. She is 5’4 and my little superchampion. The other contestantsare good too. nWhereas Bollywood actors comeas judges on TV shows, you areentering as a host. Why?

I cannot judge a show becauseI’m not a master. I can’t run anybodydown. I would rather look at thepositive side and motivate thecontestants to do their best. In thisshow, I am the ‘big brother’mentoring them.nWhat made you a champion inreal life?

The belief in myself, willingnessto fight and never say die attitude. Iam always happy. I don’t judge. nHave you done anything going outof your comfort zone?

I am knocking out a lot oftime, shooting in 40-plus degrees oftemperature. By the time theshooting will get over and I will goback to Mumbai, I will look likeKal ia . When I look in the mirror, I ask why the lights are off.Then I realise that it’s not thelights. It’s me who has becomedark. I’m burnt. nYour look in the show has becomethe talk of the town...

The change of clothes and stylingis something that I have not done itbefore. I have never worn narrowpants and flip-ons and tried to dresslike today’s younger generation. Butsomewhere down the line, it is beenappreciated. I am covered from headto toe but the kind of reaction I amgetting on social media, it is makingme feel that I have done a semi-nudeshot (laughs). The only thing I amshowing are my arms. I am glad thatthat at least I am being accepted onmy journey back. If I am careful andplay the game right, I can enjoy mywork henceforth.nWhat is the reason behind takinga sabbatical for so long?

I was tired of acting in films backto back. I started losing interest inwhat I was doing. In the last 25 years,I had acted in every film that camemy way because it was a friend or a

relative’s movie and there wereemotions attached. I was clear aboutone thing — I let go of a lot of moneybut didn’t let go of the emotionsinvolved. If that was not the case, itwould not take me more than twodays to say ‘no’ to a project. But now,I need to take stock of the situationand explore roles that will suit myage. When I look back, I realise thatI the break has been a long one.

Probably it would have continued ifIndia’s Asli Championship would nothave come my way. My next movieReloaded starring Sidharth Malhotra,Jacqueline Fernandez and DarshanKumar and slated to release inAugust this year.nWhat was keeping you busyduring that time?

The sabbatical helped meunderstand myself and work on

things I like — fitness andtravel. I have beentraining hard physicallyand am trying to evolveand learn differentformats of training,understand diet, food,what’s good for healthand what one is tolerantor intolerant to. I washaving a ‘me’ time whichis very important. Gettingout, understandingnature, reading, gardeningand doing the things youlove. nWhat was the mostbeautiful part of thebreak?

Spending time withmy father who was unwelland bedridden for three-and-a-half years.Unfortunately, we losthim early this year. Afterhe passed away,somewhere I had thisfeeling that probably itwas his energy that toldme ‘beta stop work andspend time with me’. Nowthat I have lost him, Irealise that I spent greattime with him. Hebecame a baby in myarms in his last stages. Idon’t regret not doingfilms even for a second.nDid you ever fear notgetting accepted by fanson your comeback?

Yes, I did feel that fear.I am sure a lot of my fanshave shifted to some otheractors. I probably wouldhave said no to 30-45films during this time. Ihave clearly told peoplethat it’s nothing to dowith them or their film orthe subject. I just don’twant to work. As long asI was saying no, I wouldenjoy it. Then came atime in the last five six

months and people stopped callingme believing that I was not working.That’s when the slight fear set — thatthe industry did believe that I am notinterested in doing films any more.

My fans and media, whoremembered me in Border, Dhadkanand Hera Phere, asked me ‘sir lekinapne picture karna kyon chhod diya?’I used to smile and say I need timefor myself. Nobody understood then.

They believed that picture karnichhod di... Pagal chhodte hai picturekarna. People thought I have gonemad.nWhen can we see you and Athiyaor Ahan together in the film?

We did get offers but it was notgood enough. I am very clear that ifthere is father-daughter or father-sonfilm, it should focus on the daughterand I should be a supporting actor.I don’t want it to be the other wayaround because it is her time and hercareer.nWhat advice you have given toAthiya when she debuted inBollywood with Hero?

I told her not to fear the Fridays.Don’t fear anybody. Be honest toyour work. It’s not the director whois the most important person in thefilm. It is the producer who putsmoney in it. Respect him and be theproducer’s actor, not necessarily adirector’s actor just because they aresuccessful. They don’t realise thatthey are successful because of theproducer. Once a director taste’ssuccess, he treats the producer likea sidekick. I lost out on a lot becauseI was a director’s actor. But that’swater under the bridge. I have

gained a lot of goodwill, love andaffection from this industry and myfans.nHow is Hera Pheri 3 shaping up?

It went on the floor and then gotshelved. I don’t know the reason butit started with other actors and wenton the floor. They shot for 30-40days and then put it on hold. Nowthey are trying to re-make it withAkshay Kumar, Paresh Rawal andme. If it works out it will be fantasticbecause I believe Hera Pheri is agenuinely comic franchise. Therehave been some amazing comedyfilms but Hera Pheri is the baap ofall comedies. You just can’t forgetthe characters of Babu Bhai, Rajuand Shyam.nDoes a reshuffle disturb a goodfilm?

Yes, it does. You can’t playsomebody’s character. You canprobably do a remake after a fewyears with the younger lot butwhen Raju, Babu Bhai and Shyamare alive and kicking, it’s verydifficult to replace them. That’swhy it was probably shelved.Otherwise, we would have been onHer Pheri 5 or 6 by now. Once everytwo years, a new film under afranchise is must as people miss itand want to see you on the bigscreen.

‘Belief in myself made me a champion’

LOVE WITH A TWIST

Romance is in the air on the small screen with shows projecting different shades of love, twists

and turns and unusual pairing. SANGEETA YADAV speaks to the scriptwriters about the trend

From contract marriages tolove triangles to overweight

people falling in love, tomature love stories and evenmisfits romancing, viewers arein for a treat with TV going allout to showcase shades oflove, of course with twists andturns.

Some love stories lookpicture perfect like that of Parth(Siddharth Shukla) andShorvori (Rashmi Desai) of DilSe Dil Tak. Truly in love witheach other, the Parth-Shorvorilove story takes a U-turn whenShorvori has a miscarriage andcan’t have children any more.The couple decides to go in forsurrogacy and in walks Teni, abubbly Gujarati girl.

“Since surrogacy is asensitive subject, weavingromance around it was difficult.Surrogacy has been presented ina different light in films. Wewanted to break the pattern byshowing how a surrogatemother ultimately develops abond of friendship with thefamily,” Shashi Mittal, co-producer of Dil Se Dil Tak andTu Sooraj Main Saanjh Piyagi,tells you.

Love doesn’t see agedifference and that is whatMukhi (Eijaz Khan) and Aru,an ambitious Ahmedabad girlin Yeh Moh Moh Ke Dhaagestory all about. There is love bychance between misfits —Kanak Sooraj Rathi (RheaSharma) and Uma Shankar(Avinesh Rekhi) of Tu Sooraj,Main Saanjh Piyaji. A sequel toDiya Aur Baati Hum, the storytakes a 20-year leap and is anout an out love story with lotsof twists.

“The treatment of eachromantic show depends onwhat my characters are like.

Sooraj and Uma are polesapart. Sooraj is very traditionalwho believes in life’s philosophyand karma; Uma is today’s girl.To make them fall in love witheach other is a challenge. It willhave old school romance whereyou steal some romanticmoments since one is living ina joint family. There is charm inromancing someone by stealingsome moments away fromprying eyes,” Mittal says addingthat her next show PehredaarPiya Ki is also going to be a lovestory.

Then there are love storieslike that of Piyush (MeherzanMazda) and Dipika (AnjaliAnand) from Ekta Kapoor’sDhhai Kilo Prem. Both happento be overweight but havedifferent ideologies.

Another story that hasbecome the talk of the town isZindagi Ki Mehak which hassome sizzling moments.Scriptwriter and producerSaurabh Tewari, who previouslycreated magic in Rangrasiya,likes to give an interestingbackdrop to his stories and

weave in a love track around theprotagonist.

“We started the show withtalking about a girl whosebiggest strength is cooking. Toget the correct storyprogression, it is very importantto incorporate the love anglebecause the target audience of16 to 24 gets attracted towardsthe romance part of the showand the family sticks to thestory. To make a show hit, it’simportant to get theamalgamation these twothings,” Tewari explains.

Some love stories are likefairytales like that of PrinceMadhav (Keith Sequeria) whofalls for superstar Kamini(Sanjeeda Sheikh) in Love KaHai Intezaar. Another romance-drama, Aisi Deewangi, will seePranav Misshra and JyotiSharma in lead.

One may feel that there istoo much love in the air butmakers say that the viewers canfind a love story that they likesince there is a mixed bag ofeverything. “Romance alwaysexisted only the storytelling

kept changing from Jassi JaisiKoi Nahi, Laagi Tujhse Lagan toYeh Hai Mohabbatein, BadeAche Lagte Hain, Naagin, etc.Every six month, there is a newromantic couple on the screen,”Tewari says. Sustaining theromance for a longer run comesas a big challenge. “Love storieswork instantly but they fizzleout after a certain point.Everything looks repetitive andmonotonous after a time,”Tewari says.

Mittal believes in keepingher love stories short and sweet.“There is an adage that I followin my shows — zindagi lambinahi, khoobsurat honi chaiye. Ilike to keep my love storiesshort and sweet. It should touchpeople’s heart. I never think thatmy show will go on for two tofive years. Every love story can’tbe stretched forever. Whatmatters is it should have a goodrun,” Mittal says.

Agrees Tewari. “Madhubalaran for 500 episodes. Iss PyaarKo Kya Naam Doon Season 1ran for 499 episodes. Whoeveris making a love story, it willhave a limited run. But lovestories that have a family dramawoven into them can go on foryears. For instance Qubool Hai,”Tewari explains.

But here, it is important toget the correct balance. If theromance quotient becomes toohigh and the family dramatakes a back seat, the show willonly get the younger audience.“Don’t make it so edgy that thefamily can’t sit together andwatch it. We shoot keeping inmind all the parameters. Wemake sure that the actors arecomfortable to emote toootherwise it would not matterwhat we script as it will neverleave any impact,” Tewari says.

As fans wait for thepremiere of season 7

of Game of Thrones (GOT) in Indiawhich is scheduled for Julypremiere, Star World and StarWorld HD are re-running itsseasons 1 to 6 from Monday toFriday at 10 pm. Here are a fewinteresting facts of GOT Season 1:n The time when the entire Starkfamily is waiting for King Robert inWinterfell, is the only time in theentire show when all the Starks areseen together.n Contrary to popular belief thatCersei had three children, sheactually had 4. Her first born and onlychild was with Robert Baratheon.n In Season 1, Jaime tells Tyrion hewould rather die than be a cripple.And in season 3, he loses his hand.

n Contrary topopular belief, theofficial words ofHouse Lannister arenot ‘A Lannisteralways pays hisdebts’. They are

‘Hear Me Roar'.n The sword Ice that Ned uses toexecute Gared, the deserter from theNight's Watch, was the same sword

that he was executedwith.

nWhen Sansa Stark was betrothedto Joffrey Baratheon, Petyr Baelishproposed betrothing Robb Stark toMyrcella Baratheon when she cameof age.n The role of Gregor Clegane akaThe Mountain has been played bythree different people over thecourse of the series.n Actor Charles Dance who playsTywin Lannister had to actually skina dead stag while filming this scene.n The first person to be shownsitting on the throne was Ned Stark.n The show has killed at least oneking per season: Robert Baratheon(Season 1), Renly Baratheon (Season2), Robb Stark (Season 3), JoffreyBaratheon (Season 4), Mance Rayderand Stannis Baratheon (Season 5)and now Balon Greyjoy (Season 6).nThe character Joffrey Baratheon ismodeled after the unbalancedRoman emperor Caligula, whosefour-year reign, by most accounts,was marked by extreme cruelty andsadismn The opening title includes King'sLanding, Winterfell, the Wall, andwherever Daenerys is that order.

EVERY LOVESTORY CAN’T BE

STRETCHEDFOREVER. WHATMATTERS IS IT

SHOULD HAVE AGOOD RUN

Anna aka SUNIEL SHETTY took a sabbatical forthree-and-a-half years to spend time with his father and dothings that made him happy. He talks to SANGEETAYADAV about his comeback as host of India’s AsliChampionship, fear of not getting accepted by fans andwhy Hera Pheri 3 got stuck in a maze

The sabbaticalhelped me

understand myselfand work on

things that I like— fitness and

travel

FLASH BACK

Things you did not know about

Game of Thrones Season 1!

In December 2016, KapilSharma had bagged the 7th

position in Forbes India Celeb100 list and his show high on

TRPs. April 2017, the rating hasfallen from 7 million to 3.9

(BARC India date) this week.Time to shut shop?

Maybe

special 09LUCKNOW | SUNDAY | APRIL 30, 2017

Iknow it’s pretty unrelated but thefrenzy for The Game of Thrones isjust about gathering up, yet again— this time for the upcomingSeason 7. We have all binged on it,

feeling like rogues on a secret andshameless hunt, not wanting to, but sit-ting through the nights through Seasons1 to 6, in bulk at that. We have vehe-mently derided it, we have curdled at thewanton violence, we have been ashamedat the portrayal of women and we havecringed every time the blood and goresplashed our eyes. But we have againstarted waiting for June because that’swhen this biggest grossing TV serieswith worldwide appeal will hit you aftera veritable gap.

Director SS Rajamouli’s Bahubali cre-ated and sustained a similar kind of fren-zy with much less at hand. No political,social or cultural pornography here, nodisrobing women and parading themnaked through the story, no callous play-ing to the gallery violence, no wanton sexand sleaze, no celebration of debaucheryand degeneration, some of the mostcommon ploys used to enhance a peri-od drama. And yet, Bahubali remainedin public imagination for two long yearswith a “nation wants to, needs to and isdesperate to know” kind of never-beforesyndrome gripping even those who hadnot seen the film initially.

Why and how, are the wondrousquestions. I, who had walked into the the-atre two years ago merely to entertain vis-iting family, was blown away by the visu-al artistry of the prequel. Allergic toTelugu films dubbed in Hindi, I washappy to dip myself in popcorn and colaand wait for the show to get over. Until,the film hit me with its force of near per-fect grandeur.

Two years later, and an even moreforceful sequel for which I waited withbated breath, I am still wondering whatis it that has made this essentiallyregional period drama become such apopulation puller pan spectrum?Emerging as the highest-ever grosser asa dubbed film, beating the Kamal Hasansand the Rajnikants with consummateease, this almost 90 per cent VFX-enabled Bahubali is differently enabled.Here are some possible answers:

Rajamouli’s masterstroke: Bahubalibecame epochal in just that one momentwhich Rajamouli created at the end of thefilm. Any other similarly brilliant filmhigh on VFX, tight editing, visual artistryand a weighty story around royaltywould have been enjoyed, applauded —and eventually forgotten. Bahubali 1would have been the same, but for thatone twist Rajamouli put in the tail, almostas an afterthought. Just when the public

was getting up to go home after seeinga wholesome entertainer, the directorstopped it in its track. An extremely trust-ed servant plunges a sword into the backof his much loved, would-be king justwhen he has won an ultimate war. Themost tantalising moment, perhaps, in thehistory of Indian cinema, was created atthe conclusion. “Why Katappa KilledBahubali?” is the question that kept thefilm alive through two years — anddespite a delay — it catapulted Bahubali2 to becoming the most awaited sequelin the history of Indian cinema. In an agewhere public memory is short, such fren-zy over mere curiosity is an achievementneeding avid research.

Milking the art of exaggeration withrare polish: Bahubali rose from being justany other film to becoming a sagabecause Rajamouli turned exaggerationinto an unmatched art form. Everythingabout his film is grand, glorified, big, life-size and immensely beautiful. It’s acrescendo rooted in unbroken continu-ity, a falsetto that lived because it chosenever to stoop. Each and every fightsequence has been stunningly choreo-graphed. Despite being over-the-top, theaction looks credible, inspirational andaspirational, all at the same time.

The locales, both natural and creat-ed, are breathtaking. The costuming is arich and detailed transponder that takesyou back into the 8th century. The visu-al tapestry keeps the amazement quotientat a constant high. Everything is big, verybig and yet not ungainly or mammoth.Emotions rage through the film withmuch the same ferocity as daggers,bows and arrows, cannons, chariots,bulls, horses, elephants and some unde-fined wild animals emanating fromRajamouli’s fertile imagination.Everything is as deep, expressive andhuge as Rajmata Shivagami’s incrediblywide, shapely and speaking eyes. Yes,exaggeration never looked so good inBollywood before and that’s the reasonBahubali is riding on such an unprece-dented multi-crore profit bag repu-tation.

Innovative marketing strategy: Iam sure the uncanny success of Bahubaliwill soon be a case study in IIMs. Theissues could be management mores likeinnovation, gender diversity, optimal useof resources, strategy, motivation and thepower of thinking out of the box. Lasttime a Bollywood film reached thathaloed academic pedestal was ThreeIdiots. So, what was it that Rajamouli didright to keep the hype goingunabated for

more than 730 days? For one, he choseto throw an inverted blanket at the pub-lic to stoke its imagination with theweapon of secrecy. He did not overtlymarket the sequel. Not a single visual,publicity stunt, or telling poster. Nothingexcept keeping that ultimate questionaround Kattappa alive through discus-sions, hypothesis, quiz contests and thelike on the social media. Other than that,there was chinkless secrecy around thesets, the commitment of the star castwhich stuck to the film for five long yearson a monthly retainership, the crew thatswore not to leak a whisper and did not,the security blanket that made even theagile and snoopy Internet draw a blank.This secrecy was the best marketing strat-egy that the film could have cooked upto keep the curiosity alive — very unlikethe first part which was introduced to thepublic with a high-octane, multi-platformteaser campaign that ran months beforethe film hit the theatres.

Giving period drama technology prop:The optimum use of VFX and CGI wasthe guiding and most powerful force ofthe film, much like the rippling biceps ofBahubali and the pumping chest and thesuperhuman abs of Bhallal Dev. The filmwill go down in history as the turningpoint of CGIs, a mount that cultivatedthe ability to give Hollywood fantasies arun for their money. More than 17 VFXstudios were used for production and“post-production happened at morethan 33 studios across the world,” spe-cial effects incharge R C Kamalakannansaid in a statement. A bulk of the workwas done byM a k u t aV F X .

More than 600 VFX and 3D artists workedtirelessly on the two films. Visual effects likerotoscoping, chroma elimination, wireremoving, match moving, colour correc-tion, live action shooting and CG integra-tion, matte painting and camera projectionswere used to the hilt. And yet the film isin 2D and not 3D. Another grand ploy, aparadox introduced to give the story its dueand weight!

Clean and a high-ideal film: Unlike TheGame of Thrones, Bahubali is a squeakyclean family drama. It showcases idealism,values, commitment, court intrigues, racefor the throne, war, love and hate in equalmeasure but never — ever — slides intodebauchery or titillation in the name ofpowering drama. In fact, it is a befittingplatform for woman empowerment despitebeing centered around male biceps. Whenthe king dies with an infant heir, not hisbrother but the brother’s wife Shivagami(Ramya) becomes the custodian of thethrone, her word is law; Devasena spendsa life under the thumb of male atrocities,is made to live in an animal cage, is chainedthrough her life and yet emanates the powerof patience and silent rage; Bahubali 2 cutsthe head of an eve-teasing senapati and hascomplete faith in the unwavering correct-ness of both his mother and wife. Thewomen here are warriors, masters of war-fare and welfare, seasoned statesmen and

honest stalwarts, people lookup to, despite them beingfully committed to theirmen. The romance here,budding among bows and

arrows, with weaponry kiss-ing the cheeks and tendrils of

beautiful women, isartistry personified,

never belittling thewoman in the bargain of

propelling the hero.Everybody loves good-

ness and uprightness– and Bahubali leaves

nothing wantingin this segment

on which the Indian public dotes.

Professional distribution ploys: Made innine languages, the producers built up anintricate tapestry of distribution rights,maximising profits by roping in majorsfrom all regions, north or south, and evenabroad. No less than Karan Johar’s DharmaProductions bought the dubbed Hindi ver-sion for a whopping `120 crore. Tamil,Telugu and Malayalam rights went for highstakes too. Then there were Korean,Japanese, English, German, French andother territories too. According to tradepundits, Part 2 made ̀ 500 crore before therelease, mostly through distribution rights,CDs, merchandise, animation kits andgames. The film released in 9000 screensacross the world (6500 in India, 1,400 inthe US which is the highest for a Bollywoodfilm and 1,100 elsewhere in the world.

Brilliant starcast: Playing out Rajamouli’sstory is a band of committed actors whostood by him for five years at the cost ofother projects, that too for a nominal retain-ership fee, slicing their share for betterspends on production. Not because theywere small time but because they believedin the film and its power to rock the world.Rajamouli picked seasoned actors fromregional cinema with an impactfull role ortwo in Bollywood too.

Sathyaraj, having played Deepika’sfather in SRK blockbuster Chennai Express,does wonders to the role of Kattappa here,the man who triggered a thousand answersto just one question. Then there wasRamya whose weighty screen presence andspeaking eyes anchor the film from startot finish. Anushka who plays Devasena isa big ticket actor down south and inBahubali she is the embodiment of regalresilience in seeking revenge. Prabhas, a kaBahubali, emerges as an embodiment ofpower and force without which this filmwould not have been. RanaDugabatti, as Bhallal Dev,is the ultimate antago-nist lending menaceto the film; And,

we all know the buffoon villainy of Nasserwho plays the evil uncle here. We have seenhis acting acumen in small but impactfullroles of Shakuni mama and the villainBaapji in Rowdy Rathore.

The prefect release date: April 28 was theperfect opening date for Bahubali 2. It is along weekend with Monday being May 1and, thus, a holiday. That gave Rajamoulia four-day window to showcase his much-awaited movie. With most Governmentsdown south allowing extended five-showsa day schedules and committing mostscreens to this single movie week, there wasno stopping the cash registers from ring-ing. First-day earned more than ̀ 100 crorein India and $2.5 million on Thursday pre-miere alone in the US.

Universal appeal: Folklore, mythology, his-tory, period drama, court intrigue – all suchsubjects are heartwinners for Indians.Rajamouli wove all this and more into amatchless visual delight. Showed old worldwith the most modern techniques and cap-tured imagination, aided and abetted bytranslating the film into accessible lan-guages to net in a wide canvas ranging frompan-India, SEA, the Far East, Europe, USand Latin America.

Brand-name Rajamouli: With his grow-ing Cameron-Speilbergish reputation ofbeing a big canvas director, Rajmouli’sbrand name has a pull all its own. He isrespected for his previous ventures whichgrossed high-scale profits in all mediums.He knows his trade from all angles. He isa marketing genius too, overdoing publicityfor Part 1 and cleverly under-doing it forPart 2 of Bahubali. It worked like magic inboth cases. His Magadheera in Telugu,thanks to dubbed versions, broke allkinds of records and Makkhi made him a

name to reckon with.

SHOW TIMEWITH MEENAKSHI RAO

MEENAKSHI RAO discusses why the Bahubali saga is such a big deal for Indian cinema

The bigness of the film, anddirector SS Rajamouli’s masteryof cinema, can be gauged from

the fact that Bahubali-The Conclusionas a film turned out to be much big-ger than the billion-dollar question onwhich it stayed alive in public imag-ination for two long years.

The brilliant tapestry of VFX-aided visuals, the larger than life warsequences, the intricate action scenes,the pulsating romance, the hate,rage, envy and commitment thatRajamouli wraps the film in, the ulti-mate bigness he lends to the pro-

ceedings, the drama he enhances withreal-time emotions, the pace heunleashes to turn this period dramainto a modern thriller make thesequel as big a blockbuster as its pre-quel.

That he renders the much-await-ed answer to the big question almostirrelevant in the face of a supersplashy story is something that speaksvolumes of his unmatched big-screen,big-movie acumen. It is somewherejust before the intermission that youget to know why Kattappa killedBahubali. But that does not end your

interest or sag the goings-on. That’sthe reason why the film will score big,perhaps biggest ever, and Rajamouliwill make the obvious more clear –that he is a master genius of filmdom.

It is a matter of pride that this isone Indian film that has the muscleto match up to Hollywood’s specialeffects and that will make it go downin history as the movie that turned thetables on Indian cinema’s VFX back-wardness despite major strides in ahost of films like Ra.One and others.

To ride such huge expectationswith such a solid sequel is no mean

achievement and the courage withwhich Rajamouli delayed his saga 2for one extra year would tell you howmuch he believed in the power of hismount and his ability to deliver it asa runaway success.

The story picks up smoothlyfrom where it left off in 2015. It opensbeautifully with an animated run-through of Part 1 which seamlesslymerges into what it’s going to reveal.The revelation may have come gen-tly but it does not, at any time, loseits sheen and you feel the movie isworth the wait — and the hype.

The localing is out of the worldtoo, almost ethereal, and the charac-ters, especially of women, complete-ly fleshed out. There are severalmessages the film delivers, many ofgender sensitivity, but it never straysfrom its core aim: To tell a period talewith all the drama and the grandeurit deserves.

It is a film that turns exaggerationinto a captivating art form, that toowith a thumbs-up in all categories —story, visuals, choreography, pace,drama and emotion, the most whole-some entertainer in quite a while.

The Raymond film from hitech India

● Mumbai theatres screened 20 shows on day of release● Earned upwards of `420 crore in distribution rights● No other movie, not even C graders from Hollywood,

released on the same day as Bahubali-2● Only the 3rd Indian film to be released in IMAX format,

first two being Dhoom 3 and Bang Bang● The movie expected to outdo its prequel and rake in

around `1,000 crore (gross worldwide)● Film released in 9,000 screens worldwide, a record for

an Indian film — 6,500 screens in India, 1,400 in theUS and 1,100 for the rest of the world

● BookMyShow sold a million tickets before the release● Made around `19 crore in advance bookings in the ● Bahubali 2 released in Telugu, Hindi, Tamil, German,

Japanese and Chinese, besides English● Andhra Govt allowed single screen theatres to run six

shows for 10 days. Telangana permitted five daily● Budget: `200 crore● Producer/Distributor: Arka Media Works ● Hindi market distributor, Dharma Productions

BAHUBALIIN BULLETS

LUCKNOW | SUNDAY | APRIL 30, 2017

It is my message for youngstersof Afghanistan to work hard. It

does not matter whether you arefrom Associate or other team, just

do your best, you will get yourachievements

— SRH’s Rashid Khan

ROYALFAILURE

T H E M A T C H A F T E R

Q U O T E U N Q U O T E

T O D A Y I N A C T I O N

PTI n PUNE

Formidable Royal ChallengersBangalore led by India captainVirat Kohli became first team to

be thrown out of contention for play-offs after a humiliating 61-run defeatagainst Rising Pune Supergiant in anIndian Premier League encounter, hereon Saturday.

Although the RCB bowlers man-aged to keep the Pune batsmen undera tight leash restricting them to 157 forthree but another shoddy batting per-formance saw them finish at a dismal96 for 9 after 20 overs.

While Pune kept themselves incontention with their fifth win in ninegames, RCB are practically out of thetournament with their seventh defeatin 10 games and only five points in theirkitty.

Pune bowlers rose to the occasiondefending a sub-par total with a con-trolled bowling performance.

Imran Tahir was the pick of thebowlers with figures of 3/18 from fourovers, while Lockie Ferguson claimed2/7 in four overs to claim the Man ofthe match award.

Jaydev Unadkat, Daniel Christianand Washington Sundar took onewicket each.

This is one of the rarest occasionswhen a team has been bundled outbelow 100 runs twice in the IndianPremier League.

RCB were shot out for 49 by KKRin an earlier game in the tournament.

Chasing a modest 158, Bangalorejust kept losing wickets despite skipperKohli holding his ground at one end.

Apart from Kohli, who came upwith an uncharacteristic 48-ball-55,studded with four boundaries and a six,none of the other RCB batsmen couldreach the double-digit mark.

Earlier, RCB bowlers dominated

the proceedings from the word go afterinviting the Pune outfit to take firststrike, with left-arm spinner PawanNegi returning with impressive figuresof 1/18 from his 4 overs.

Stuart Binny (1/17) and SamuelBadree (1/31) chipped in with wicketapiece.

Despite losing just three wickets,Pune batsmen could not upped the ante

even though the pitch was reasonablybatting- friendly.

Skipper Steven Smith top scoredwith 32-ball-45 that included fiveboundaries and a six, while ManojTiwary (44 no, 35 balls) and openerRahul Tripathi (37) also made impor-tant contributions.

HARD FOR ME TO SPEAK: KOHLIHis team all but out of contention

for a place in the IPL play-offs, a deject-ed RCB skipper Virat Kohli found histeam's horrendous performance inex-plicable.

"I think it's for everyone to see welost that game. It's hard for a captain tostand here and speak after a perfor-mance like this," Kohli said.

The Indian skipper ruled out anyoutside chance of making it to the play-offs winning the remaining four games.

"We are pretty much not in the racefor the Playoffs. All we can do is enjoythe four remaining games," Kohliadded.

Not one to mince words, Kohli saidthat it was RCB which lose the matchrather than Pune winning it.

"We lost the game rather than themwinning it. But got to learn and moveon from these kind of experiences,"Kohli added.

PTI n RAJKOT

Gujarat Lions foughtvaliantly taking the con-

test against Mumbai Indians tothe Super-Over in defence of154, but two-time IPL cham-pions, Mumbai, held theirnerves well to register a hardfought win in Match 35 of theIndian Premier League season10 at Rajkot on Saturday andconsolidated their secondposition in the points tally.Jasprit Bumrah was the star ofthe Super-Over, containingbig-hitters Aaron Finch andBrendon McCullum, givingaway just six runs in the over-over eliminator. Mumbai had

scored 11/2 in one over.Earlier in the night, chas-

ing a target of 154, Mumbaiseemed to be on course for aneasy win with Parthiv Patelscoring 70 off 44 balls, butGujarat's fightback led byJames Faulkner (4-0-34-2)meant Mumbai had to sweat itout in the middle longer fortwo points.

Earlier, Gujarat Lions suf-fered a batting collapse beforea rear-guard action saw thempost a decent 153 for 9 withMumbai Indians producingyet another inspired bowlingperformance in an IPLencounter, here on Saturday.

Save young Ishan Kishan

(48 off 35 balls) and the sea-soned Ravindra Jadeja (28),the other Gujarat Lions bats-men were guilty of playingloose shots with home teamreeling at 101 for 7. It wasAndrew Tye's 12-ball-25 withtwo sixes and two fours and42-run eighth wicket standwith James Faulkner (21 off 27balls) that atleast providedGujarat with a total to fight.This was after the formerIndia U-19 captain Kishan'sattractive strokeplay provideda solid platform which theyfailed to capitalise.

Lasith Malinga (2/33 in 4overs) made a successfulcomeback into the team

removing the dangerousBrendon McCullum (6) andin-form Aaron Finch (1) tomake it easier for the otherbowlers.

Harbhajan Singh (1/23 in4 overs) was once again at hisparsimonious best. He foundan able ally in left-arm spinnerKrunal Pandya (3/14 in 4overs) as the duo tightened thenoose around the Lions bat-ting line-up. In fact, Krunalafter fireworks with the batwas today lethal with the ball.

Harbhajan-Krunal duogave away only 37 runsbetween them in the eightovers bowled and alsopoached four wickets.

PTI n MOHALI

Afghanistan's leg-spinnerRashid Khan says the entire

country watches Indian PremierLeague and the support of thepeople back home gives himenergy to perform better in thecash-rich T20 tournament.

The 18-year-old Rashidreturned with impressive figuresof 4-0-16-1 to help his sideSunrisers Hyderabad beat KingsXI Punjab by 26 runs here.

"The whole of Afghanistanis watching this league. The waythey are supporting us both, meand (Mohammed) Nabi, it is justamazing. The prayers of ourpeople back home help me andwhenever we have a game, theyall pray for us," Rashid toldreporters Friday night after thematch.

"Their back up, their sup-port really helps me and givesme energy," said Rashid, whohails from Nangarhar provincein war-ravaged Afghanistan.

Rashid has impressed oneand all as he not only has been

among the wickets but alsoputting brakes on the oppositionrun flow.

Asked what does his per-formance mean for Afghancricket, he said, "It means a lotto them because coming to thisstage and performing here is avery positive message for thepeople of Afghanistan."

"It is my message for young-sters of Afghanistan to workhard. It does not matter whetheryou are from Associate or otherteam, just do your best, you willget your achievements."

PTI n CHENNAI

Thangarasu Natarajan had tosort out his bowling action

and overcome self-doubts to landa lucrative IPL deal and the left-arm paceman is now enjoying hismaiden season with Kings XIPunjab.

"Initially, I felt a little pressureas it was first season at this level.After the first match, I felt nor-mal. The team members ensured

that I was relaxed," Natarajan said.The 25-year-old Tamil Nadupace-man bagged a ̀ 3 crore IPLcontract with Kings XI Punjabafter an impressive domestic sea-son.

For Natarajan, it was a strug-gle to realise his cricket dreamsas his father worked as a labour-er in a textile unit and mother rana roadside stall selling fried chick-en. Asked what skills he has learntsince joining the IPL team, the

left-arm paceman said, "I amdoing what I know best. I needto give my best now, I can learnnew things as I gain experi-ence."

Asked if there was anychange in the manner in whichhe prepared for matches,Natarajan said, "Not really.However, the foreign playershave a different approach togames and I have been takingnote of that."

PTI n MOHALI

Kings XI Punjab have lost fiveof their eight games so far

but top-order batsman ShaunMarsh feels the team can stillpull itself back into the title raceof the ongoing Indian PremierLeague.

The 33-year-old Australian'ssolid knock of 84 againstSunrisers Hyderabad here onFriday went in vain as KXIP lostby 26 runs while chasing a tar-get of 208.

"Full credit goes to theSunrisers. They played well andoutplayed us in all three facetsof the game. We were not ontonight," Marsh told reportersafter the match.

Marsh justified askingHyderabad to bat first.

"We have chased really wellin this tournament. But we did-n't get off to the start we werehoping for and lost three quickwickets inside six overs," he said.

However, confident ofputting up a good show in the

upcoming matches, Marsh saidthere can be a quick turn-around.

"We can pull ourselves backin the race and keep our hopesalive for the playoffs...The guysare training hard and we can geton a bit of a roll from Sunday(against Delhi Daredevils)," hesaid.

In all, Punjab will play threemore games in Mohali, includ-ing one against Gujarat Lions,whom they defeated once thisseason and KKR.

PTI n MOHALI

Struggling teams DelhiDaredevils and Kings XI

Punjab take on each other in anIPL match here on Sunday as theydesperately seek to get back towinning ways to stay in the huntfor a play-offs berth.

Punjab are placed at sixth spot while Delhi are at the bottomof the league table. For Delhi, it would be a do-or-die match as aloss on Sunday would virtually end their already wafer-thin chancesof making it to the play-offs. KXIP are a bit better off but a slip upon Sunday will also put them in a difficult situation to qualify forthe last-four stage.

The home fans will be eagerly waiting for a big knock fromMaxwell, who got out on a duck against SRH yesterday.

While Punjab's batting needs to fire in unison, the side willbe hoping that their bowling mainstay Ishant Sharma comes goodagainst Delhi on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Delhi have come into this match after a string oflosses, their last one against KKR in Kolkata yesterday. Anotherloss will virtually bring curtains down on their campaign in IPL-10. For Delhi, it will be important to have a consistent show in theirbatting. They have had good starts in their innings and their loss-es against Kolkata, Hyderabad and Mumbai have been primarilydue to their inability to force the pace during middle overs.

Samson, who scored a century early in the tournament, andRishabh Pant have contributed in some games nicely but the sidewill need their top order to fire in unison against Punjab. ShreyasIyer will also be crucial for the visitors if they have to pile up a bigtotal. In the bowling department, South African Chris Morris hasto get support from seasoned pacer and skipper Zaheer Khan, CoryAnderson and Pat Cummins. Amit Mishra will look to do whatyoung leg-spinner Rashid Khan did for SRH against Kings XI here.

PTI n HYDERABAD

Akeen contest is on the cardswhen the rampaging

Kolkata Knight Riders clashwith defending championsSunrisers Hyderabad in a secondphase league match of the IPLhere on Sunday.

Leading the points tablewith 14 points, KKR have beenin sublime form. Sunrisers, onthe other hand, are currently inthe third spot.

KKR captain GautamGambhir holds the Orange Capin batting, Sunil Narine, who isnow a dependable opener forKKR, is at the top in the race for'Most Valuable Player' and RobinUthappa has hit the 'Most Sixes'.

KKR would look to contin-ue their winning streak onSunday,but Sunrisers would liketo avenge their defeat in theirprevious meeting in Kolkataon April 15. SRH batsmen hadfailed to click in their chase of173-run target in that match.They could only score 155 runsin 20 overs to lose the match by17 runs.

However, SRH haveshown much improve-ment since then withcaptain David Warner,opener ShikharDhawan and thee x p e r i e n c e dK a n eWi l l i ams onhaving been ind e s t r u c t i v eform.

Warner ' s51, Dhawan's 77in 48 balls and 54not out byWilliamson pow-ered SRH to 207/3 intheir match againstKings XI Punjab lastnight at Mohali.Though the sea-soned Yuvraj

Singh has not been in the bestof his form, he can turn thingsaround on his day. MoisesHenriques, wicket-keeper-bats-

man Naman Ojhaand Deepak Hoodacan chipped in inthe middle-order.

Sunrisers haveone of the best

bowling attacksamong the IPL teamsthis season. PacerBhuvneshwar Kumarcontinues to hold the

Purple Cap, spinsensation from

A f g h a n i s t a nRashid Khan, sea-soned Ashish

Nehra and Siddarth Kaul havebeen among wickets.

Ben Cutting, new recruitMohammad Siraj, all-rounderMohammed Nabi, BarinderSran and others offer a com-fortable options to the teammanagement in the bowlingdepartment.

RCB all but out of Top 4

Another batting collapse condemns Kohli’s boys to massive 61-run loss vs RPSexpertopinion

SLEDGEHAMMER

PACE FOUNDATION

PRADEEPMOHANTYPRESIDENTSLEDGEHAMMER

PACE FOUNDATION

For me the big question is what hashappened to RCB's batting? If a teamkeeps batting like this without anyconfidence, they will be unable to putup even a small total, leave aside acompetitive one. On the other hand,Lockie Ferguson, Imran Tahir andJaydev Unadkat put in a great bowlingeffort for Pune. They are a goodbalanced side and are producingcollective performances this season.

M W L T/NR P NRR

KKR 9 7 2 0 14 +1.223

MI 9 7 2 0 14 +0.451

SRH 9 5 3 1 11 +0.588

RPS 9 5 4 0 10 -0.240

GL 9 3 6 0 6 -0.318

KXIP 8 3 5 0 6 -0.448

RCB 10 2 7 1 5 -1.578

DD 7 2 5 0 4 +0.514

pointstable

Punjab & Delhi clashin must-win contest

Live on Sony Six

MOHALI

KXIP vs DD

HEADTO

HEADM 19

KXIP 10

DD 9SUNDAY | 4:00 PM

S T A T P I C K

2DAVID WARNERNEEDS TWOCATCHES TO

BECOME THE SEVENTHFIELDER TO COMPLETE AFIFTY OF CATCHES IN IPL.THE AUSTRALIAN TOOK48 CATCHES IN 108MATCHES FOR DELHIAND HYDERABAD SINCE2009

FAISEL FEATURES

RAMPAGING KKRFACE CHAMPIONS

Live on Sony Six

HYDERABAD

SRH vs KKR

HEADTO

HEADM 10

SRH 3

KKR 7SUNDAY | 8:00 PM

My countrymen supportgives me energy: Rashid

‘We can come back into title race’

Natarajan enjoying IPL experience

Bumrah holds nerves in Superover

RSP’s bowler Lockie Ferguson celebrates the wicket of RCB batsman Stuart Binny on Saturday PTI

FULLTIME

10

sport 11LUCKNOW | SUNDAY | APRIL 30, 2017

PTI ■ IPOH

India squandered the lead twice asGreat Britain rallied to earn a 2-2

draw in the rain-delayed openingmatch at the 26th Sultan Azlan ShahCup hockey tournament here.

Akashdeep Singh (19th minute)and Mandeep Singh (48th minute)scored field goals to give India the leadtwo times in the match but only to seethe Britons hit back through TomCarson (25th) and Alan Forsyth(52nd).

India survived a last-minutepenalty corner that was awardedagainst them for an obstruction out-side the circle.

The penalty corner was con-firmed after the video referral byIndia, but British captain Phil Ropersent his drag flick wide to the right.

In the last encounter betweenthese two teams, India had defeatedGreat Britain 2-1 in the ChampionsTrophy in London last year.

Great Britain launched the firstraid in the ninth minute and HenryWeir took a reverse shot at the goalfrom top of the circle, only to see goal-keeper PR Sreejesh pad the ball away.

Three minute later, India couldhave posed a danger to the Britishcitadel when Akashdeep beat adefender guarding the circle with ashot that went straight to SV Sunilinside the scoring zone.

But Sunil failed to trap the balland British goalkeeper Harry Gibsonwas not tested.

India were awarded their firstpenalty corner when Pradeep Mor’sdiagonal ball landed on a defender’sfoot in the circle.

The penalty corner shot could notbe taken as the push was not stopped,but Manpreet Singh, captain for thismatch, picked up the ball on the 25-metre line and sent a firm drive intothe circle. Manpreet’s shot was paddedby the British goalkeeper and therebound went straight to Akashdeep,who capitalised on the chance by beat-ing the custodian with his flick thatput India in the lead in the 19thminute. The British team mounted anattack in the next minute, forcingIndia to pack the circle to thwart anydanger. Great Britain were not to bedenied the equaliser in the 25thminute when a fine foray by OllieWillars split open the Indian defence.

Dribbling parallel to the goal-linefrom the right flank, Willars sent apass to Carlson, who made the most

of his fine positioning by shooting intothe goal. India had their secondpenalty corner cancelled on a videoreferral by Great Britain, who chal-lenged the umpire’s view of a defend-er carrying the ball.

When several replays could notconclusively establish if the ball hadtouched a defender’s foot, the videoumpire reversed the decision.

India reclaimed the lead in the48th minute when Sunil relayed a nar-row-angle pass from Manpreet on theleft flank for Mandeep Singh, whodeflected the ball past goalkeeperGibson. India’s lead was short-lived asthe determined British made themost of their 52nd minute attack evenin a crowded circle.

The Indian defenders were notable to clear the ball, which wasswitched around four Britons beforeAlan Forsyth’s flick beat Indian cus-todian Sreejesh.

Chinappa, Pallikal to vie for women’s title; Ghosal in finalCHENNAI: It will be an all-India final for the first time everin the Asian Squash champi-onship when Joshna Chinappaand Dipika Pallikal Karthikclash in the women’s singlesevent.

Saurav Ghosal, meanwhile,became the first Indian malesquash player to reach themen’s singles final of the pres-tigious event. The two Indianwomen made the final of thetournament with contrastingvictories on Saturday. WhilePallikal, seeded fourth, upsettop seed Annie Au of HongKong 11-9 7-11 11-7 11-9, thesecond seeded Chinappa madeshort work of Hong Kong’ssixth-seed Tong Tsz Wing 11-6 11-4 11-8 to storm into thefinal. In the first semifinal,Pallikal stunned Au in 50 min-utes. Starting brilliantly againstthe pre-tournament favourite,Pallikal took the opening gameto lay down the marker.However, Au came backstrongly to claim the secondgame with a series of impres-sive stroke-making. Pallikalseized the initiative from there-on and kept Au off balance bystaying aggressive. TheChennai-based Pallikal closedout the match for a memorablewin. With this victory, Pallikalhas posted only her third winover the Hong Kong player,ranked 11th in the world, in 10meetings.

KOLKATA: With the title race going downthe wire tomorrow, second-placed MohunBagan will look to post an allout win overChennai City FC in their last outing andalso hope that giant-killers Aizawl FC facedefeat against Shillong Lajong in theHero I-League.

Regional rivals Lajong stand on theway of Aizawl’s historical feat as theMizoram side need at least a draw inShillong to clinch their maiden title.

Should they lose, Mohun Bagan willbe eyeing to win a second I-League titlein three seasons.

The Sanjoy Sen’s brigade lost 0-1 inAizawl in their last outing but they stillhave not given up on the title hopes.

Mohun Bagan have a few injuryconcerns in Subashish Bose and

Pronay Halder, who has been ruled out forthe season, but the former could featurein the Federation Cup beginning nextmonth.

U-22 player Raynier Fernandesreturned to training and could give fellowyoungster Azharuddin Mallick a fight fora place in the starting XI.

With Mallick’s performance muchshort on expectation against Aizawl, Senmay go in for Raynier Fernandes to fulfilthe U-22 quota for the Mariners onSunday.

The Kolkata heavyweights need toensure full points from the clash atChennai and also hope Aizawl fall prey toLajong in order to lay their hands on thetrophy.

Coming to their rivals, the Chennai

debutants have only won in an away matchthis season and to make matters worse theyare here after a 1-6 drubbing at ChurchillBrothers.

The Chennai outfit’s coach VSoundara Rajan, however, is determinedto ‘puncture’ Mohun Bagan’s chances.

“Our players are not going theremerely for attendance. We will play toughand hard. Neither Aizawl nor MohunBagan have won the title yet. So they willhave all to play for and will be under pres-sure,” Rajan said.

“Moreover, Bagan will play at homeand there will be a lot of expectations onthem. For us, there is absolutely no pres-sure. We can go there and play with a lotof freedom. Having lost the last match, wewant to finish on a high,” he said.

TALLAHASSEE: YoungIndian Davis CupperRamkumar Ramanathan andlegendary Leander Paes havereached the singles and doublesfinal of the ATP Challengerevent in Tallahassee after win-ning their respective semi-finals, here.

Ramkumar battled pastItalian qualifier AndreaArnaboldi 6-2 5-7 6-4 in thesemi-finals of the USD 75,000clay court event after two hoursand 34 minutes.

It will be first everChallenger level final for the22- year-old Indian, who nextfaces Slovenian qualifier Blaz

Rola.The Slovenian edged past

American Mitchell Krueger 6-3 5-7 6-4 in the other semi-final.

Paes and Scott Lipsky, thetop seeded Indo-American pairovercame a stiff resistance fromEcuadorian pair of RobertoQuiroz and Gonzalo Escobar 6-1 6-7 (10-3) in the semi-finals.

They face Argentinian pairof Leonardo Mayer andMaximo Gonzalez for the title.

Paes now has chance towin second Challenger leveltitle of the 2017 season havingtriumphed in Leon, Mexicowith Adil Shamasdin.

STUTTGART: KristinaMladenovic ramped up the pres-sure on Maria Sharapova aheadof their Suttgart semi-final whenshe claimed the Russian super-star was getting “extra help” inher comeback from a 15-monthdoping ban.

Sharapova eased into the lastfour of the claycourt tournamentby seeing off qualifier AnettKontaveit for the third straightwin of her comeback.

The 30-year-old five-timeGrand Slam winner has yet todrop a set and powered pastEstonia’s Kontaveit, ranked 73rd, for a 6-3, 6-4 quarter-final win.

The Russian former world number one has been given wildcards by tournament organisers in Stuttgart, Madrid and Romeand played her first match back here on Wednesday, much tothe irritation of many of her rivals, including FrenchwomanMladenovic.

“In sport nowadays it is also about the media and business.Maria is a big name, who makes people come to watch her,” saidworld number 19 Mladenovic after her 6-3, 6-2 win over Spain’sCarla Suarez Navarro.

“On one hand, I totally understand the tournaments wanther in the draw, because she is very famous and they want moreattention, which is part of the business.

“On the other hand, you can ask if it is fair to get a wild card.It’s a fact that she was caught by anti-doping, but she wasn’t thefirst one. “Others have also had the right to come back and playtennis, but with a different road, they wouldn’t get invitationsto tournaments. “Of course, she is authorised to play tennis again,but why would she get that extra help compared to other play-ers?” Sharapova gave a terse answer when asked if Mladenovic’scomments would motivate her in Saturday’s showdown: “Not atall”. “I am not someone that uses it as part of my comeback,” shesaid after beating Kontaveit.

AFP ■ LONDON

Antonio Conte will hopeDiego Costa justifies his

faith in having him rather thanEverton’s Romelu Lukaku as hismain striker and deliver anoth-er three points in Chelsea’schase for the title on Sunday.

Chelsea face their biggestchallenge in their remainingfive matches at Everton, whoare on a run of eight successivehome victories.

However, Conte will hopethey extend their lead overrivals Spurs to seven pointsbefore Tottenham kick-off inthe north London derby withArsenal later on Sunday.

Arsenal, who are still in therace to try and secure aChampions League spot, fivepoints adrift of fourth-placedManchester City and with agame in hand, at least haverestored some battered moralewith two wins this week includ-ing a gutsy victory overManchester City in the FACup semi-final.

Both City and fifth-placedManchester United are also inaction on Sunday and wouldhope to both pick up threepoints as they play two relega-tion candidates inMiddlesbrough and Swansearespectively.

Conte is adamant hewouldn’t swap the tempera-mental Costa, who has 19 goalsto his name this season, includ-ing a welcome return to formwith a double againstSouthampton on Tuesday, withLukaku, who tops the scoringcharts with 24.

“As I’ve said before, for me

my players are the best in theworld. I wouldn’t change myplayers with any other players.”

His Everton counterpartRonald Koeman was not happyat all with his players’ attitudein the goalless draw with WestHam last weekend and is look-ing for a vast improvement.

“It is always difficult if youhave already the seventh posi-tion in the pocket and maybethey get a little bit more holi-day or end-of-season feeling,”said Koeman. “That is what Idon’t like.”

Spurs will be seeking towin the 50th Premier Leaguemeeting with Arsenal to keepthe pressure on Chelsea.

For Argentine managerMauricio Pochettino beatingArsenal is necessary not forbragging rights but to keeptheir dreams alive of winningthe title.

“My feeling is now, when

you are so close — only fouroints the gap — I will be

very disappointed if we don’twin the title,” said Pochettino.

“My challenge or my aim isnot to be above Arsenal. Myaim is to be above 19 teams andto be first, to be on the top.”

Arsenal counterpartArsene Wenger has a greaterspring in his step since his play-ers rediscovered their fightingspirit and he still hasn’t evengive up hope of a top three fin-ish.

“We have an opportunityto be in there only if we win ourgames, we don’t have to spec-ulate at all,” said the 67-year-old Frenchman.

For the Manchester clubs,victories would see themleapfrog third-placedLiverpool, who play Watfordon Monday.

City have had two closely-fought matches already with

Middlesbrough and with thelatter having beaten Sunderlandin midweek Pep Guardiola’sside may find it a tough task totake all three points.

United host a Swansea sidethat at least comes into thegame having beaten Stoke lastweekend to stay in touch withfourth from bottom Hull.

United manager JoseMourinho believes thatwhether his side qualify for theChampions League or not hehas already accomplishedsomething that was lackinglast season under Louis vanGaal.

“I think Mr Van Gaal lefta good group of boys with verygood relations between them,”said the Portuguese handler.

“But I think they missedhappiness, they missed trust,belief, this extra bit that bringsresilience, brings fight and theyhave it now.”

MEDHANSH, GARVIT LEADMedhansh Saxena of City Montessori School

(Kanpur Road) and Garvit Kalra of LaMartiniere won both of their rounds to lead thetable in the class 6 to 8 and class 9 to 12 cate-gory respectively, in the 4th Lucknow DistrictInter-School Excellia Chess Championship onSaturday.

In class KG to 2 category, Akash Verma ofAkash Verma of DPS (Jankipuram) andAadhyansh Saxena of CMS (Kanpur Road) wereleading the pack with two points each.

In class nursery to 2 girl’s category, Jiva Yadavof St Francis’, Kanishka of CMS (Rajendra Nagar)and Gaurangi Bahadur of Loreto won theirrespective games to share the joint lead. Earlier,Excellia School director Ashish Pathak inau-gurated the event.Day 1 Results:BOY’S: (KG-2) Akash Verma, AdhyanshSaxena, Divyansh Joshi (2 points each) (6-8)Medhansh Saxena, Rudraksh, Abhas, SatyamAgrahari, Satvik, Arnav, Tanishq, Kushagra,Prasoon, Vinayak, Adtiya, Shreya, Swastik (2points each) (6-8) Sadhil Mishra, Athrav,Shivam, Rachit, Shreshta (2 points each) (9-12)Garvit, Aniket, Aniket Agarwal, DhairyshDhruv, Jagjoth Singh (2 points each)GIRL’S: (KG-2) Jiva, Kaniksha, Gaurangi,Shivika (2 points each) (6-8) Aarushi, Adrika,Yuvika (2 points each) (9-12) Kopal, Lavanya,Saumya (2 points each).

ANSH TO LEADAnsh Yadav will lead the Lucknow division

team in the Under-16 Inter-division cricket trialmatches between Lucknow, Bahraich andBareilly divisions to be organised by CricketAssociation Lucknow at LDA Stadium from May1.Lucknow team: Ansh Yadav (C), Prateek SIngh,Vipraj Nigam, Satyam Awasthi, Akarsh Gupta,Abhisjhek, Surya Singh, Prince Maurya,Himanshu Yadav, Pradeep Kumar, SomendraTripathi, Vipul Khanna, Prabhat Maurya,Abhishek Rana, Arvind Kapoor, Rishabh Singh.

KRIATIVE XI WINKriative XI edged past Aptico Real Estate by

two wickets in aleague match of LucknowPremier League at Parth Stadium on Saturday.BRIEF SCORES:ARE: 135 (Shareef Shah 47, Raj 18; Atul 44/3)Kriative XI: 139 (Amrender 61, Vipul 23; Pankaj21/2, Amit 24/2, Anuj 28/2)

PIYUSH SLAMS TONPiyush Yadav slammed a ton to help Arya

Cricket Academy thrash Lucknow Cricketers by104 runs in a league match of Prime SPortsTrophy at Chowk Stadium on Saturday.BRIEF SCORES:ACA: 197 (Piyush 107, Udit Awasthi70)LC: 93 (Mudassir 31, Dishant 14; Akhil 14/3,Anshit 31/3).

Bagan face Chennai but title hopes rest on Shillong match

Chelsea, Spurs face stern title tests

Ramkumar, Paes in finalsof Tallahassee Challenger

Sharapova ‘extra help’

blasted by opponent

India squander lead twice to play a draw

IPOH India’s hockey coach RoelantOltmans is unhappy that his strikerscreated very few scoring opportuni-ties in the 2-2 draw against GreatBritain in the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup’sopening match, here on Saturday.

“Overall, I can live with theresult, but I am not happy about thenumber of goal-scoring opportunitieswe created in the game,” Oltmans saidafter India split two points withGreat Britain in the match whose startwas delayed due to lightening andheavy showers.

The teams were warming upwhen forced to run off the pitch dueto lightening, which Oltmans said wasunfair to the three young playerswhom India fielded for their debutwith the senior team.

It was the season’s first tourna-

ment for India, six months after theAsian Champions Trophy they wonin Malaysia’s Kuantan city.

Oltmans said the defenders did agood job, but two unnecessary mis-takes saw them concede goals thatallowed Great Britain to stage come-back twice in the match.

Akashdeep Singh (19th minute)and Mandeep Singh (48th minute)scored field goals to give India thelead twice, but only to see the Britonshit back through Tom Carson (25th)and Alan Forsyth (52nd).

“We made a couple of unneces-sary mistakes that they took benefitof,” said Oltmans. “Otherwise, wedefended fairly well in the wholematch and conceded only one penal-ty corner.”

“I think we can play much better

than we did. But this is the first matchwith this combination and also thefirst since November,” he said. “It’s notstrange that all the rhythms andautomatic movements are not part ofyour game.”

Oltmans said playing this gamewas special for the three juniors –Gurinder Singh, Manpreet Singh Jrand Sumit, who made their seniorinternational debut on Saturday.

“The first match is somethingspecial, but there was a little bit of ten-sion that built up because we had towait for hours for the start,” Oltmanssaid. “All these boys can play hock-ey, there is no doubt about that.Today, it was not the best hockey theyhave showed in their lives before, butI am 100 per cent sure they willimprove their game.”

LOCAL EVENTS

AFP ■ SOCHI

Championship leaderSebastian Vettel admitted it

felt “fantastic” to lead Ferrari totheir first front row lock out innine years after he took poleposition in Saturday’s thrillingqualifying session for theRussian Grand Prix.

The four-time world cham-pion’s blistering fastest lap andFerrari team-mate KimiRaikkonen’s second place onthe grid brought to an endrivals champions Mercedeslong and dominant supremacyin qualifying.

The 29-year-old Germanoutpaced Raikkonen by 0.059seconds with another Finn,Valtteri Bottas of Mercedes,third fastest with less than atenth of a second separating thetop three.

Britain’s Lewis Hamiltonwas fourth fastest, the firsttime Mercedes failed to have acar on the front row for 31races.

“If you have a rhythm hereit feels fantastic,” said Vettel,who has won the last nine racesat which he started from poleposition.

“And I am glad I got it

back. It is great to have bothcars on the front row, but it isonly part of the job done.

“I knew it would be tight,I knew I would be the first onecrossing the line. I got Valtteri’stime — and he did not manageto improve — and when I gotthe message I had got it... I wasover the moon.

“In qualifying, Mercedeshave been very, very strong. Iam sure it will be very closetomorrow, especially over thelong run

“We will see, but for nowwe are full, of joy. We are back— at least if you talk about the

front row!” It was Vettel’s first pole this

year, his second for Ferrari andthe 47th of his career.

Ferrari also achieved afront row lockout for thefirst time in 127 races goingback to the 2008 French GrandPrix, where Raikkonen tookpole.

“It’s hard to understandhow we’re going to make it bet-ter, said Raikkonen.

Vettel’s success alsobrought to an end Mercedes’run of 18 straight pole positionsdating back to last year’sMonaco Grand Prix.

Vettel on pole for Russian GP in Ferrari

Oltmans not happy with team’s failure in creating chances

Have you ever requested someoneto get you a specific snack or amithai from a famous shop far

away from your city? Are you missingyour favourite snack from a city you grewup in because your job took you toanother? You can now order your pre-ferred snack, pickle, sweetmeat andeven mangoes (when in season) all theway from Ratnagiri!

Portals like Salebhai, Place ofOrigin, Tastebells and Flavors of MyCity are offering their services to bringto your doorstep almost whateveryour heart desires — rossogolla fromKC Das in Kolkata, Shrewsberry bis-cuits from Kayani Bakery in Pune,dryfruits from Ramlal Vithaldas & Coin Mumbai, kesar angoori petha fromPanchhi Pethawala in Agra, Sattu fromBihar and much more.

“The idea to provide food itemsfrom across India came when we werelooking at what several e-commerce plat-forms were providing — like apparel. Wewanted to bring a service that was notavailable but people wanted. It beganwith food and moved on to providingitems people were looking for once theymoved to other cities and wanted theirfavourite food item,” Vishwa Vijay Singh,co-founder of salebhai.com, based out ofAhmedabad, says.

To begin with, it was difficult to con-nect with vendors and convince them tobe part of the online platform since theywere already big in their respective city.To convince them, Singh and his teamspoke the language of conventionality.“We told them that if they wanted to selltheir products outside their city, theywould have to look for a distributor, setup a warehouse, etc. All this involves cost.But here, we are offering to take yourfamous product to the rest of the coun-try at no extra cost,” Singh explains.

What the customer sitting, say inDelhi, has to do to order petha from Agrais to go to one of the portals, fill in the

details and place an order. Most of themare not accepting cash on delivery so onehas to pay via credit/debit card. Once theorder is placed, the product is deliveredwithin four days.

A few things to keep in mindthough. Since a cold chain is not pos-sible in India, no food item that hascream is being delivered. This alsomeans that for now, you can’t orderHyderabadi biryani as opposed to theUS where one can even order an icecream from another city. However,items that have a shelf life of around 10days will be delivered in a day, providedthat the order has been placed before2 pm and there is a direct flight frompoint of origin to point of delivery.Otherwise, it takes two days.

The idea has caught on since mostof these portals have a traffic of around8,000 a month which goes up during themango season, which are also a one-daydelivery item. The orders, for now,come from Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune,Delhi, Mumbai Bengaluru andAhmedabad. Bengaluru tops the chartswhen it comes to number of orders.

“The reason could be that the cityis more cosmopolitan than others. Also,people in Bengaluru are more tech-savvy,” says Singh who has been in busi-

ness for two years.So is the case with Place of Origin

which began its operations in June2015. For them, it was love for food thatpropelled them to start their venture andbring food from all over the country toall over the country.

“My partner Sudarsan Metla and mefound that people would ask friends andrelatives to get them special foods fromdifferent places — like coffee from

Coorg or bhakarwadi from Pune — andeven paid money in advance to them infor it. It made sense to convert this intobusiness,” Ashish Nichani, CEO and co-founder of placeoforigin.in based out ofBengaluru, tells you.

Eightyfive per cent of the times theirdelivery is within a day unless it is a pick-le or anything liquid. “Since it is man-dated by law that oil etc can’t be sent byair we are constrained to be sent suchconsignments by road,” he adds.

At present, placeoforigin 325 prod-ucts from 70 places in India and to sus-tain it is operationally heavy. So, after theinitial groundwork and once the vendoris part of the set-up all he has to do isput the food item in the packaging pro-vided in advance. The package is thenpicked up by a courier partner and deliv-ered to the customer directly.

The challenge was to convince tra-ditional, family-run businesses to comeonboard. “There were two vendors inMumbai, Ramlal Vithaldas andTheobroma, who took a lot of convinc-ing. It took Nichani a year-and-a-half tobring Vithaldas on board. But today, heis the No 1 seller on their site.

In order to identify which shop totarget, there was a list to begin with since

some places were obvious and alreadyfamous in a particular city. “But for oth-ers, we were got recommendations byshopkeepers who would tells us what tobuy from other shops in their city.Customers, too, would send in their rec-ommendations at the early stage and alsoarticles on food,” Nichani tells you. Eventhough there are competitors, each hasa different way of conducting business.

“We are at an early stage of our busi-ness and there will be an overlap. Themarket in India is huge, there is no needto worry and there is scope for all of usto grow,” Nichani says. His site has beenbriskly adding one or two vendors a day.

“I am not looking at 5,000 vendors.We want quality. I just want five to 10shops from each city to come on board,”Nichani says.

The good part is that if a bad prod-uct is delivered, all the customer has todo is click a picture of it and mail it andthe portal refunds the money.

Co-founder Smitha Nair of fla-vorsofmycity.com based in Pune, tellsyou that while they do have a refundpolicy, most customers want the itemto be replaced rather than get moneyback. “The whole idea of placing anorder for a particular food item, fromsay Pune, is because they love the dish.It is not the money that counts. In oneper cent cases, where the product getsdamaged while in transit, we resend it,”Nair tells you.

For them, the most traffic comesfrom Mumbai, then Delhi andBengaluru. Interestingly, she has localpeople ordering as they want to avoid thehassle of driving to the shop. In mostcases, the item is delivered within threeto four days, especially in metros.

The best items to buy when peoplecome to her site are Karachi Biscuits fromHyderabad, Dharwad pedha fromBabusingh Thakur Pedha, poha chiwdafrom Laxminarayan in Pune and bananachips from Calicut.

backpack 12

nTell us about Oorja, the footballanthem you have sung?

The project has been helmed by thePMO, specifically by Home Minister

Rajnath Singh. They find the cham-pionship a great initiative. As

I am a sportspersonmyself, hence, when I

was approached forthe song I said

yes. Oorja holdsa special placefor me since Ihave writtenand sung it.n Are youcollaborat-ing with ARR a h m a n

again?Yes, that is

correct. We havecome together for a

song for Sachin’sbiopic. The song is so

brilliant that it will be just aspopular as Jai Ho.

nWhy is it that you give your bestwhen you are with AR Rahman?

The truth is that he is the best com-poser that the industry has to offer.When the composer is good and hecomes up with ideas, the singer toogives his best. Not that I don’t give mybest for other composers. But becauseRahman does things differently, I do thesame. Even the song that I have sungfor the movie Mom is differentnHow has the industry changedsince you started playback singing?

One can’t demarcate that one erawas good and the present bad. Each hashad its good and bad. The good part isthat, as a singer, it is important to acceptthe changes are taking place. As singers,we can choose what we do — be it goodor bad.n Is it the listeners’ fault to expect themelodious songs of the 60s?

Today, life is grey and everythinghas taken that colour, including filmsand songs we hear. But I love colour andrecently asked my designer to use allcolours and keep away from black.During one of our compositions, I toldRahman that I am missing the tone ofthe accordion — the tone of romance.I am missing songs like Roop tera mas-

tana, aap ke kamrey mein koi, lekar humdeewana dil. In the last seven months,I have visited 60 cities, including a hillstation where, in February, the weath-er was warm. There is over population,construction everywhere and stress inour lives. Overall greyness. Where willthe romance come from?nHow would you define music?

I don’t judge music but perfor-mance can be judge. Music is all aboutrelaxation and entertainment. nWhat makes Punjabi songs so pop-ular today?

When they talk about fun, it isPunjab, when it comes to food, it isPunjab. When it comes to songs, it isPunjab since they have a beat to them;it has a crispness that makes peoplewant to get up and dance. I am nottrying to promote these songs but likeBollywood music has a glamour quo-tient, Punjabi music has caught themood of the common man.nOther projects that you have

The aim is not to sing many songs.I love the pace that I have set for myself.But there are songs for films likeSarkar 3 and Toilet-Ek Prem Katha. The

song for Toilet... is something that peo-ple will love as much as the film. nWhy are you not judging realityshows on TV?

I am invited as a guest for manyshows. Though I would love to judgea show but there is this thing aboutlate night shoots that is inconvenientfor me. But if I do judge a show, it willbe my expertise that I will bring to it.nHas the importance of playbacksingers eroded?

Though that there is some truthhere, the fact is that those who havea passion for singing will alwaysremain on top. The best is always fewand demand for the best will never goaway. I won’t say that I want to goagainst the tide but I love doing some-thing that has not been done before.Therefore, choose my songs careful-ly. nShould Oorja not be a little morepeppy?

The aim is not just to create apeppy number. There is a message too— that children should not be coopedup inside homes. They should come outand play field games as well.

THOUGH IT IS TRUETHAT THERE ARE

MANY SINGERS IN THEINDUSTRY, THE FACT IS

THAT THOSE WHOHAVE A PASSION FOR

SINGING WILL ALWAYSREMAIN ON TOP. THE

BEST ONES AREALWAYS FEW AND THE

DEMAND FOR THEMWILL NEVER GO AWAY

lTell us a about your project with Imtiaz Ali.It is a fun song that I have choreographed for Shah Rukh

Khan and Anushka Sharma.lHow has choreography changed over the years?

Today, we are seeing a lot more international move-ment styles in films and TV. Even that however is still at avery basic level with only street and pedestrian contem-porary dance being the main language. This is because amajority of dancers are untrained and the volume and levelof trained professional dancers in the international genreis very limited. lWhy is it that the steps have become more like one isdoing gymnastics rather than in a flow?

That is typical of a young industry where you are try-ing to wow the audience as opposed to communicating artis-tically. This again is because of a lack of maturity in the artistsand the development of the industry in this particular area. lWhy Navdhara India, your dance theatre, when you arean established name in the industry?

India has no representation in the genre of contem-porary dance borne from an international format like clas-sical ballet. This style already has a huge built up audienceoverseas. All the representation comes from Indian clas-sical, Bollywood or contemporary born from Indian clas-sical or folk whoseaudience is very little.My thought was if wecould tap into the larg-er audience using theinternational contem-porary vocabulary for-mat whilst maintainingan Indian thought andphilosophy in contentwe could get moreoverseas audiencesinterested in Indianculture and dance aswe are speaking theirlanguage on an Indianway. lWe don’t see you onTV. Any reason?

This year is a verybusy year with meworking on choreog-raphy for nearly fourfilms, writing anddirecting two stageproductions as well astouring nearly sixcountries with thecompany. Take on anything now would be impossible unlessit’s in a very small window.lYour experience choreographing a full-length ballet inGermany.

It is going to be very interesting. The company has 24professional ballet dancers from around the world. I havemet them briefly and did a small workshop with them. Theyare all very good. I start work in September and Octoberthis year. lIs producing for stage different from films?

Stage is a fixed frame. Film the frame moves so the pos-sibilities are very different. In either case basic content mustalways be strong. With film there are retakes but with stagethere are no retakes. It has to be correct first go. With stageyou can’t break up choreography with film you can shootand perfect smaller sections. Having said that with film therecan be very little mistakes as the camera magnified it. Onstage you can still get away if smaller details are not all there. lWhere does India stand when it comes to profession-al dancing?

In the Indian genres we right up there. In the inter-national genre we are a good 20-25 years behind. lDoes it make a difference to you whether you are chore-ographing for a younger actor or an older one?

Not really. I work with whoever is with me to theirstrengths. lAdvice to those who want to take up dancing as a pro-fession.

Do it professionally and not as a hobby. Have a longterm perspective on your career, especially when training.Never give up.

‘No scope

for mistakes

in films’SHALINI SAKSENA speaks withASHLEY LOBO about his latestproject with Imtiaz Ali,choreographing a full-length balletin Germany and his dance theatre

To mark the celebration of World Penguin Day on April 25, actor SidharthMalhotra posted a photo of an uber cute penguin named Kaadi which he metat the Kelly Tartlon’s Sea Life Aquarium in Auckland, New Zealand which isthe habitat for seven of 18 different types of penguins. Sharing hisexperience, Malhotra said: “My meeting with Kaadi is a memory to cherishand today is the perfect day to remember my adorable friend. There is somuch to learn about these amazing creatures. I can't think of a better placethan New Zealand to celebrate & spread awareness about the lovable birds.”

SANGEETA YADAV n NEW DELHI

He made the entire nationmove to his foot-tapping

numbers Dil Le gayee KudiGujarat Di, Laungda Lashkaraand Kudi Kudi O Kudi. He has alsodone great work in keeping thePunjabi culture and tradition alivethrough his music. Fortyseven-year-old Jasbir Jassi, who recent-ly performed at the Mela Phulkarifestival in Delhi, continues his bigfight against vulgar songs.

“Singing vulgar or doublemeaning songs has become atrend in Bollywood. If I get a musicproject and am asked to do a vul-gar song I refuse. It is a fight I’mhaving with all the singers andproducers. Of course, they arethinking commercially but forme, culture comes first. We arecapable of making good songswithout vulgarity,” Jassi says.

There are many other singerswho have joined the bandwagonin this fight. “Singers like MalkitSingh, Gurdas Maan, SatinderSartaaj and the younger lot inJassi Gill, Firoz Khan, Saleem andmany others have been boy-cotting vulgar music and doinggood work. I feel sad when I seepeople taking Punjabi songs solightly and doing anything formoney,” Jassi says.

In these time of remixes, Jassifeels that singers need to work onthe revival of old melodies. “ThePunjabi music scene has almostcome to a standstill with nothingnew coming in. Rappers havekilled melody. There is only onetype of melody going these days.

We need to focus on preservingand reviving old melodies,” heinsists.

Apart from working on somegood sufi music, Jassi is alsoengaged in acting for which hestarted getting trained in 2011 byNK Sharma. He has acted inPunjabi films Khushiyaan, Dil VilPyaar Vyaar and Heer Ranjha.“When I was getting trained as anactor, I felt that I had done a bigmistake by shifting to acting.People started thinking that I wasout of the music market industry.But I realised it was nothing likethat. Besides giving me the oppor-tunity to diversify, acting hashelped me in my internalgrowth,” he says.

You can now orderyour favouritesnacks and mithaifrom their place oforigin with just a few clicks.SHALINI SAKSENAtells you more

Food on your platter from anywhere

The happy feet moment ‘I’m against vulgar music’

TalktimeSUKHWINDER SINGH

After having songs like Chhaiyya Chhaiyya, Jai

Ho and Udi Udi Jaye, singer Sukhwinder is set to

wow listeners with a football anthem which he

has sung for CAPF U-19 Football. He speaks

with SHALINI SAKSENA about how he miss-

es romance in songs, how change is

good & why he sings only certain

kind of songs

LUCKNOW | SUNDAY | APRIL 30, 2017

Portals like Salebhai,Place of Origin,

Tastebells and Flavorsof My City are offeringthat they will deliver

at your doorstepwhatever your heartdesires - rossogolla

from KC Das inKolkata, Shrewsberrybiscuits from Pune &

sattu from Bihar

‘Rahman brings out the best in me’

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The fortress has been breached and over-run. The enemy is on the retreat. It tookless than three years for the BharatiyaJanata Party (BJP) to avenge its humiliat-ing defeat in the Delhi Assembly

Election at the hands of a juvenile Aam AadmiParty (AAP). Now the child has been shown itsplace. With more than 180 seats out of 270 in theMunicipal Corporation of Delhi elections, the BJPis poised to contest the Assembly poll from a supe-rior position. Winning the MCD battle was anachievement for the BJP, but a greater triumphwould be to govern the civic bodies efficiently.They had become a den of corruption and a case ofclassic mismanagement over the past few years.

Ironically, while the BJP ran the municipalcorporations during this bleak period, it hasescaped the people’s fury. The single and simplereason is this: The voters believed in PrimeMinister Narendra Modi’s leadership and the cred-ibility of the party he leads. They felt that the civicorganisations would revamp their ways of func-tioning under his overarching supervision. It canthus be said without fear of exaggeration that thepeople of Delhi chose the Prime Minister overtheir Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

The credibility of the Prime Minister, now threeyears into his term, is not a result of smart packag-ing as his opponents would term it — though pack-aging has been an important element, and in itselfis not abhorrent. A well-packaged product maycatch the consumer’s attention but the productalone on its merit sells in the long term. If Modirepresented hollow promises burnished by catchyone-liners, three years is a long enough time for theelectorate to have understood the chicanery andbusted the game in the MCD case. This perceptionwould have been fatal for the BJP, combined withthe anti-incumbency factor.

To the contrary, the Prime Minister’s image com-pletely offset anti-incumbency and allowed the partyto cruise to a crushing win over its rivals. An image,like a product, can be pleasingly packaged, but shornof contents, it would collapse sooner than later. InPrime Minister Modi’s case, the Government heleads at the Centre has over the years taken a slew ofmeasures that has won the people’s hearts andminds, and more importantly, the hearts and mindsof the middle class and the lower middle class.

It was not too long ago that the Modi regime hadfaced the barb of a “suit boot ki sarkar” from its prin-cipal opponent at the national level, the Congress.The response was swift in coming. The Governmentstrengthened the MGNREGA, which was meant toprovide rural employment; unleashed a host of stepsto boost agriculture; expanded the scope of socialservices; fortified direct benefit transfers of subsidiesfor the needy through the opening of Jan Dhanaccounts and by effective use of the Aadhaar regime;took significant and sincere steps to enhance thequality and reach of healthcare and educational ser-vices directed at the marginalised sections of society;launched a scheme to ensure that cooking gas wasavailable for near-free to all homes that lived on theperiphery of the economy; and executed plans toprovide greater hours of electricity to rural India.

These were not philosophical fulminations tar-geted to impress the intelligentsia but they led totangible gains. Because the results were there to see— although one can always argue with some elementof truth that the gains have not fully reached thebeneficiaries for a variety of reasons — it becamedifficult for the Opposition to contest them, orbecame hard for the people to accept theOpposition’s claim. In fact, the more the Oppositionparties tried to discredit the Modi regime, the morethey themselves lost credibility.

The MCD victory is another feather in the BJP’scap, which is already brimming with feathers. Onlyrecently, the party crushed its rivals in the UttarPradesh and Uttarakhand Assembly elections andformed Governments in Manipur and Goa. Earlier,it had snatched Assam from the Congress and wrig-gled its way to power in ArunachalPradesh. It finished second to theTrinamool Congress in a West BengalAssembly byelection, pushing asidethe Congress and the Left Front. A littleearlier, it posted remarkable results inthe local body elections in Odisha againstthe formidable Biju Janata Dal. This year-end, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh

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PERFORMANCE PAYS,NEGATIVITY RUINS

vote for a new Assembly, and the BJP is widely expect-

ed to win the two States. There are those who had

confidently predicted Modiwould never be chosen as theBJP’s prime ministerial candi-

date in 2013. Once he was, theyprophesied he would never become the

Prime Minister. When he did, they foresawdoom for the idea of a secular India and therise of a brazen capitalist class. The Left-liber-als were in the forefront of scare-mongering.And now, with that apprehension too goingawry, the opponents are left with nothingbut to condemn electronic voting machines

(EVMs) for playing favourites! This, of course, does not mean that we

should become supplicants and refuse to hearanything of value that cautions us against errorsthe Modi regime could commit. There is aschool of thought, for instance, which wonderswhether the Prime Minister will be able to bal-ance the cap, now heavy with so many feathersthat there is a real fear of its titling and falling tothe ground. Such instances have happened in thepast — Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, and VPSingh are good examples of leaders placed onlofty pedestals and then toppled to the ground.

Modi is nothing if not a political animal, anda shrewd one at that. He learns from the past andtweaks his approach to suit the moment, all the

time not allowing the core of his party’s ideologyto be dented. He became Prime Minister with apro-industry image and assiduously worked torecast that image. In the process, industry wasnot made secondary but agriculture and socialwelfarism became equally primary. The demon-etisation decision was a master stroke. Industrywelcomed it by and large, and the middle classand the poor saw into the move the PrimeMinister’s resolve to punish the corrupt rich. Hadhe not been on the right course, the Oppositionwould not have already conceded defeat in theLok Sabha Election to be held in 2019.

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His anti-Muslim image —created by his rivals fromthe time he was Chief

Minister of Gujarat and primarilyafter the 2002 incident in theState — too has gone for a toss.He hasn’t said one word or doneone thing that can remotely beseen as anti-minority. The sabkasaath sabka vikas slogan hasserved the party well. Althoughthe BJP is yet to gain substantialvotes of the Muslim communityin elections, and all the Muslimcandidates it put up in the MCDelections lost, the party is deter-mined to pursue the path of non-appeasement of any section ofsociety. Of course, this helps con-solidation of majority votes, aswas seen in the Uttar Pradeshelection, but it does not deliber-ately exclude minority welfare.

The BJP’s success in the MCDelections has to be seen, thus,from such a larger perspective. Ifthe positives of the Modi imagecoupled with a brilliant poll strat-egy crafted by party presidentAmit Shah ensured the victory,the negatives contributed by theOpposition gave a helping handtoo. The ruling AAP in Delhireceived valuable lessons in poli-tics from the electorate — thoughit is uncertain if Kejriwal and hiscohorts have learnt it. The first isto never abuse your opponentsand fling unsubstantiated allega-tions against them in the beliefthat some of the muck will stick.

Calling the Prime Minister a psy-chopath and terming seniorUnion Cabinet Ministers corruptwithout a shred of evidenceangered the people.

The second lesson is tounderstand your weaknesses andnot spread yourself too thin. TheAAP, instead of concentrating ongoverning Delhi, grew over-ambi-tious and sought to cast its wingsin Punjab and Goa. In the firstState, it managed just a few moreseats that the Akali Dal-BJP com-bine, but was far behind the even-tual winner, the Congress. InGoa, its candidates lost depositsin nearly all the constituenciesthey contested.

The strategy of going beyondDelhi had nothing to do with theparty’s strength but withKejriwal’s ego. He imagines him-self as some sort of a nationalleader on par with the PrimeMinister. In the 2014 Lok SabhaElection, he contested againstModi in Varanasi and lost miser-ably. Just the fact that he stoodagainst the then would-be PrimeMinister was enough for him to

bask in reflected glory. He needsto trim down his megalomaniaand get rid of those around himwho feed him such nonsense.There is urgency to do sobecause the party may soon bestaring at another crisis if thepetition seeking the disqualifica-tion of 21 AAP Legislators, nowbefore the Election Commissionof India, is accepted.

The Congress’s negativity tooworked in the BJP’s favour. Theentire MCD election strategy wasmismanaged by the party highcommand — effectively Congressvice-president Rahul Gandhi.Neither the Delhi unit chief AjayMaken nor the party in-chargePC Chacko could understand thesimmering discontent over ticketdistribution; or if they did, theyreceived no direction from thehigh command to rectify the situ-ation. The departure of seniorleaders, such as Arvinder SinghLovely, and the discontentmentamong those like AK Walia andSheila Dikshit reflected the messthat the State unit has slippedinto. Dikshit, easily the tallestleader the Congress has in Delhi,was not even asked to campaign.She had earlier too been dealtwith unfairly when after beingmade the chief ministerial face inUttar Pradesh, she was dumpedafter her party allied with theSamajwadi Party and settled forAkhilesh Yadav as the choice.

Now, of course, there is a

spate of resignations or offers ofresignation from those who man-aged the Congress’s affairs inDelhi, but that is bolting the sta-ble after the horses have fled.Even so, the Congress did manage30 seats and ensured the AAP’sfailure on many seats. In the 2015Assembly Election, Congressworkers, having seen the writingon the wall, were reported to havegone around in their strongholdsexhorting their voters to vote forthe AAP and ensure the BJP’sdefeat. This time, the Modi waveand the overwhelming resentmenton the ground against Kejriwal’sGovernment and his party pre-empted a similar strategy. Butlook at where the Congress haslanded: It is reduced to takingsolace from getting at least a fewseats in a State which it had gov-erned uninterruptedly only a fewyears ago for three terms.

The results of the MCD elec-tions have shown a consolidationof votes from all sections of soci-ety in the BJP’s favour, and thisbodes well for the party in thenext Assembly poll. East Delhihad been its weak spot.Coincidentally, it’s also the regionwhich had been the AAP’s strong-hold, and Deputy Chief MinisterManish Sisodia is an MLA fromone the constituencies in the area.It has a large concentration ofPoorvanchali votes — of peoplewho have settled from UttarPradesh and Bihar. It does appear

that the charm of Delhi BJP chiefManoj Tiwari has worked.

In sum, it can be said that theverdict of the MCD polls reflectschange with continuity — conti-nuity with the BJP at the helmbut change in the style of gover-nance. The BJP gained by fieldingfresh faces. Only 12 sitting coun-cillors from across the politicalspectrum managed to retain theirseats. The newcomers will havefresh ideas and novel ways ofimplementing those ideas andthey need to be given adequatespace and opportunity to do so.

Meanwhile, the results haveled to a fresh spurt of calls for“Opposition unity”. The realisa-tion has finally dawned on theOpposition parties that they can-not take on Prime Minister Modiindividually but perhaps as acombine. The confidence and thearrogance at least on this counthas dissipated. But can mere com-ing together without a crediblenarrative serve the purpose? Andwho will lead the coalition? Adiscredited Congress or the mer-curial regional parties that haveno pan-India base? Those whoare flustered by the diminishingspace for the Opposition musttake their advice to the Congress— the only other national partybesides the BJP. For now, itappears that the Congress leader-ship is lending more than a help-ing hand to realise the BJP’s“Congress mukt Bharat” resolve.

Anything and everything aboutJaipur can enchant you. Itsname is enough to grip yourattention and on top of that itsglorious history and archaeol-

ogy. A city with three ancient forts, mindblowing palaces, a museum with rich col-lection of art, a temple of astronomy andmany more such fascinating places withinthe city is an absolute delight for anyone.Thus, it’s no surprise that Jaipur is one ofthe most visited destination by tourists, bothIndian and foreigners.

Almost every great region of Rajasthan’shistory is loaded with stories of brave sac-rifices in the name of dignity and cleverpolitical gambits of compromise to protectinterest. In Jaipur it is very much visible.This pink city of India captivated AlbertEdward Prince of Wallace in 1876 when itswall and buildings were indeed painted pinkconsidered as colour of hospitality by localcustom to impress him.

Today’s capital city of Rajasthan wasmastermind the of Jai Singh-II ofKachawa dynasty. In 1727 the young kingplanned to shift his present capital fromAmber to a planned city and a town plan-ner from Naihati of Bengal namedVidhyadhar Bhattacharya who was anaccounts clerk working in the fort wasinvited to execute the plan.

Thus was born India’s first modernplanned city. Within four years a beautifultown was delivered to the king installed withlake, palaces and forts. Divided into nine sec-tors and protected with eighth gates this cityin the next 200 years will play a significantrole in India’s history where shadows ofMarathas, Jaths and finally Brits will be min-gled. Due to its support to the British EastIndia company in 1857, rulers of Jaipur founda place in the good books of British rulerstill end of the colonial era and it’s prosperi-ty bloomed in several folds over the years.

The most photographed landmark ofJaipur is an engineering marvel namedHawa Mahal the ‘palace of air’. Built in 1799by Sawai Pratap Singh and designed by LalChand Ustad this was built for ladies of royalfamily to watch festivals on the road and toenjoy cool air staying behind the veil of dig-nity. This pink sand stone palace has 593windows on the backside and 360 on thefront side, with stone curtains perfectly pre-venting the view from outside but provid-ing clear view from inside. The typicalMughal-Rajputana style of jharokha,thehanging pavilions are erected in bee hiveshape. The funny thing is that most of thephotographs of Hawa Mahal are taken fromits back side which is exposed to main roadwhereas it’s front side is faced towards royalpalace and not that photogenic as it looksfrom the main road.

Memories of Albert Edward Prince ofWallace still remain in the city of Jaipur. Theman who was once mesmerised by the pinkcolour of this city now has a superb muse-

um named after him. In his 1876 visit princehimself laid down the foundation stone ofthis splendid building originally designed bySamuel Swinton Jacob as a town hall for thecity. Later it was converted into a museumand named Albert Hall Museum. Themajestic building which is illuminated in thenight is an amazing blend of Indo-Saracenicarchitecture. It houses a rich collection of artespecially rare miniature paintings and manyother artefacts. After visiting this museumonce, Rudyard Kipling was so impressed thathe wrote “it is now a rebuke to all othermuseums in India from Calcutta down-wards”. However, the sculptor section of themuseum is weak in collection.

The founder of the city Sawai JaiSingh-II had 28 wives and four concubinesbut this is only a small part to know aboutthe man who gave us modern India’s firstplanned city. He himself was modern withdeep knowledge of mathematics and astron-omy. His love for astronomy was so deepthat in that era he went on to set up theworld’s biggest sundial and astronomicaltower in Jaipur. Considering its perfectionas a scientific equipment UNESCO hasannounced it as a world heritage site.Known as Jantar Mantar to common peo-ple this unique sundial is based on princi-ple of Hindu Sanskrit text where equip-ment’s study three classical celestial coor-dinate system. Sawai Jai Singh-II also set upfour more such sun dials in places like Delhi,Varanasi, Mathura and Ujjain but none ofthose is as grand as this one.

Ancient forts are the real attraction ofJaipur. Besides Delhi there’s no city in Indiawhere so many massive forts loaded with somuch history and archaeological wondersprevail side by side. 11 kilometres away fromthe city on the lap of Aravalli stands the gemof Jaipur. Known as Amer fort or Amber fortthis 16th century citadel is older than thiscity. It was from here many years ago a youngking was forced to shift his capital due toacute water crisis.

Amber fort still stands in a majestic styleover a hill top. A feast for anyone who valueshistory, Amber fort is a gem of its own kind.Started in the hand of Man Singh the com-mander of Emperor Akbar in 1592 the fortis built of red and white sand stone very skill-fully blended and very artistically decorated.Series of gates and cobbled stone path lead tothe pavilion and palaces. The grandeur of thisfort is so majestic that it is still used as backdrop of many historical movies.

A daughter of this fort once becameone of the queens of Akbar through apolitically negotiated marriage. Like anyMughal court this fort also has Diwan-e-Aam, the hall of public audience: a hugehall with extra ordinarily decorated redsand stone pillars open from three sides.This was the place where the king used tomeet the common people for official pur-poses. The other special closed chamberis called Diwan-e-Khas, the hall of special

audience: Where special guests werereceived for confidential matters. This hallis decorated with glass and stone net.

A chamber of Amber fort that has gota permanent place in history of Indian clas-sical cinema is Sheesh Mahal or glasschamber. It is here where many years agoLata Mangeshkar’s iconic song “Jab pyar kiyatoh darna kya” was filmed in the lips of leg-endary actress Madhubala in the filmMughal-e-Azam. Built for queens to enjoythe beauty of the night in flickering reflec-tion this glass chamber still draws maximuminterest of the visitors for its partnership withthe movies. Such is the power of Hindi cin-ema in our country.

Out of many gates the Ganesh pole isworth mentioning as it was the place wherethe victorious kings used to receive theirroyal reception from queens after theirreturn from the battle field.Strange it maysound but the fact remains that the Amberfort of Rajasthan also has a strong Bengalconnection. The stone statue of Sheela DeviJashoreshwari the deity worshipped by thisRajput royal family placed in a templeinside the fort was actually taken fromJessore of Bengal by Raja Man Singh whenhe defeated Pratapaditya of Bengal in 1604.With the image of Kali a priest was alsotaken from Bengal at that time. Oncehuman sacrifice was performed here toplease the Devi but it was stopped by SawaiJai Singh-II the king with a modern out-look and leanings to the knowledge of sci-

ence. Amber Fort can be explored by walk-ing with an audio guide or by riding ele-phants provided by Rajasthan tourism.

Nahargargh fort is another magnet thatattracts lovers of history. Known as theTiger fort this was built in 1734 by JaiSingh-II for another ring of protection ofthe new capital Jaipur. It was never attackedby any invaders but it got its place in his-tory in 1857 when during Indian mutinyall European families of Jaipur took shel-ter here for several weeks under the pro-tection of the king. This four-storey fort hastwo underground floors. Expanded in 1868under Maharaja Ram Singh who hadadded many pavilion for his queens this fortis also known as Sundergargh fort.

The fort saga of Jaipur doesn’t end withNahargargh.There is another small yetbeautiful fort named Jaigargh. Built in 1726as an extension of Amber, this fort was oncefamous for its cannon foundry. History givesthis testimony that various massive Mughalcannons were once manufactured here. Lateron Rajputs mastered the art and as a culmi-nation of that in 1720 Maharaja Jai Singh-II manufactured world’s biggest cannon onwheel named Jaivan. Today this grand can-non rests silently here in Jaigargh under atin shade. Never used in any battle this mag-num opus cannon was fired only once caus-ing an immediate death of its operator andan elephant in its shock wave. More than 100kg of gunpower was in need to make it boomand it had the capacity of throwing 50-kg

fireballs to a distance of 40 kilometres ofrange. The 20.1 feet long barrel has a 11-inchdiameter with floral design on its surface.The weight of the cannon is 5,000 kg.Jaigargh fort came in news in 1976 whenIndira Gandhi ordered a vivid search of hid-den treasure of Maharani Gayatri Devi ofJaipur. Army left no stone unturned butnothing was found. As per many politicalobservers it was just an act of revenge byIndira towards Gayatri Devi. They werenever in good terms since their school daysin Shantiniketan.

Amber and Nahargargh forts are illumi-nated at night and regular cultural pro-grammes are organised here to entertaintourists. Both have restaurants and cafes.Thecity palace of Jaipur is the one that almostevery British Viceroy and guests fromEurope have mentioned in their India trav-elogues. The city palace of Jaipur is abode ofits rulers ever since Jaipur rose as a modernand planned capital city of the region. Thepink and white walled building is a splendidblend of Mughal and Rajput architecture.Packed with grand meeting halls, palaces,pleasure gardens, meeting yards, forum andfountains this dream land was a piece of sur-prise to many Brits who used to visit pover-ty ridden India during the colonial era.

Though established in 1732 by Sawai JaiSingh-II it derived its present look between1862 to 1902 under Sir Samuel SwintonJacob executive engineer of royal family. Theplanner of Jaipur also contributed in itsdesign. Only a part of this palace is acces-sible to common people as the royal fami-ly still lives here. Chandra Mahal houses agrand museum with superb collection ofroyal artefacts and vintage articles like car-pets, mirror, ornaments, paintings etc.Legend has it that here during Maratha inva-sion 21 wives of King Ishwari Singh com-mitted Jauhar by throwing them alive infuneral pyre of their husband who commit-ted suicide in fear of facing Marathas. CityPalace also has meeting halls in the nameof Diwan-e-Khas and Diwan-e-Aam.

Jaipur became part of India almostimmediately with independence but it keptits regal aroma intact for the next 30 yearstill the time Indira Gandhi Governmentstopped privy allowance and all other sup-port to all princely States. From then, till nowJaipur somehow managed to uphold its royalcharm in the form of its majestic palaces,forts, art, food and royal sports like polo. Asthe capital of one of India’s most importantborder States, it also has gained the bless-ings of rapid modernisation.

Its journey with heritage and culturelives up with lakes, temples, gardens andnow India’s top literary festival JLM pro-moted by William Dalrymple. Be it an oldfort or be it a new literary festival, Jaipurthrills every soul in its own regal stylewhich has no match anywhere in India.Jaipur’s story simply doesn’t end with apalace or a grand cannon.

PERFORMANCE PAYS,NEGATIVITY RUINS

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Seeds of Pomegranate is a short-story-photobook written and clicked by the duo IrfanNabi and Nilosree Biswas. Another book that

they worked together on is the much acclaimedAlluring Kashmir: The Inner Spirit.

Seeds of Pomegranate is narrated from theguy’s perspective. We don’t know their exact agebut as you start reading further, you can figure outthat they were in school when they fell in love.The girl’s name is mentioned only once; it’s Ghaz-al. We don’t know what the guy’s name is though.It is more like through flashbacks that the guyevokes certain moments that he had spent with hislove, and on the adjacent page is a photographrelated to the memory being told. Their love storyis a classic case of opposites attract.

For instance, the guy talks about how sheloved vibrant colours whereas he likedbrowns and greys and how she lovedthe sunrise while he hated mornings.In spite of these and many starker dif-ferences between them, they still fell inlove. However, as time goes by, heconfesses that even though he couldnever lose interest in the girl, themonotony of their relationship wastoo much to bear for him. He feltbored and claustrophobic. He didn’tknow how long they could go aheadwith it, so they parted ways.

These flashbacks very sensitivelydepict a myriad of human emotions —from love, boredom, monotony, hate,pain of separation, to making a choicebetween staying with someone you loveor parting ways for your own good. Italso very beautifully narrates a situationwhich we all have gone through — whenwe’re young we believe we have all thetime in the world, but that concept of alot of time is only a mirage.

As the famous quote from the TVseries One Tree Hill goes, “It’s the oldest story in theworld. One day you’re 17 and planning for someday, and then quietly, without you ever really notic-ing, some day is today, and that some day is yester-day and this is your life”. Another important thingthat the book highlights is that when our love is

new, we believe that we will spend the rest of liveswith the person we love however life happens andwe are forced to make decisions we wouldn’t haveever thought about making. One more fact thatthis book brings to light is the feeling you getwhen you meet your loved one after separation;there are zillions of things you want to tell eachother, however, in that moment only silenceengulfs you and either you ignore each other orexchange polite greetings and move forward.

The book ends in between a conversation thatthe ex-lovers are having. They meet in a coffee shopand their conversation is just about to get past thepleasantries when the author ends it and on theadjacent page is boldly written ‘to be cont’d…’- leav-ing the readers wanting for more.

Even though this story of love and romanceisn’t a unique one, the style of writing makes itinteresting. It is different, it pulls you in. You getlost in it while reading it. Also the beautiful pho-tographs add to the book. The fact that they’reblack and white make them intriguing. The wayeach picture captures emotions which can’t bedescribed is amazing.

Irfan Nabi believes images build stories. Hisphotographs have been exhibited at ‘PicturingAsia’ at the International Institute for Asian Stud-ies at Leiden, The Netherlands in 2015 and ‘Food:Our Global Kitchen’ at the National GeographicMuseum, Washington DC, 2014. They have beenpublished and acclaimed by National Geographic’sand Guardian Travel’s online portals. Nabi remainsconnected with film making, script writing andstill imaging, having just completed a public ser-vice film on pedestrian rights in Mumbai. A con-sistent reader, Irfan loves painting and is a self-taught chef. As he puts it “I happened to study andpractice medicine also.”

Co-author and filmmaker Nilosree Biswas’sdocumentary Broken Memory Shining Dust wasan official selection at the 65th Cannes Interna-tional Film Festival. It is now a part of academ-ic library collections including Harvard andColumbia Universities, the School of Orientaland African Studies, University of London andthe permanent archives of Academy of MotionPictures Arts and Sciences (Oscar Library). Sheis based in Mumbai.

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�Please tell us about the title of the book.What is a bijnis woman and why did youchoose this as your topic?Bijnis Woman is the title of the last story inthe collection, a story of a sharp, entrepre-neurial, plucky woman who was uneducatedand poor but didn’t let that become a hurdlein her life. She had clear goals for her family,she was inspiring and awesome and nevergave up. Which is the reason I chose this asthe title for the book.

�Do you think Langhi in Bijnis Woman is the strongest, innovative character who istotally different from the other female characters in the story?I find something to admire in diverse people.Langhi is different from the others, but they arespecial in their own, different ways. Each charac-ter has their own unique circumstances, theirown mistakes to make and paths to forge. Awoman fighting her specific reality for love orone doing it for her children — they’re bothequally fascinating to me.

�You have mentioned in the book, “UttarPradesh, in my experience, is filled with suchstories of great ambition and great failure”.Does it refer to the unfulfilled dreams ofwomen there in the past as well as the present?Not just the unfulfilled dreams of women but ofmen as well. For that matter, in all of humanity,has there been one, single individual since thebeginning of time who didn’t experience, heart-break, failure or disappointment? Living meansnegotiating pain, and yes, women have har-boured a deeper sorrow because the world hasalways been a shining model of patriarchy. Sonaturally, their stories must be told with greatervigour. I’ve always gravitated towards stories ofwomen and they form a big part of the book.That said, there are plenty really interesting maleprotagonists for whom I have a lot of empathy.

�Is telling these stories your way of preservingthe social history of Uttar Pradesh?These stories that I had heard often duringfamily vacations, stayed with me over the years,and I felt if one didn’t record these stories theywould be lost forever. For who cares for thelongings or failures of ordinary people, right?And yet, I feel there is so much to relate to hereeven for modern, urban readers, because we allknow what it’s like to have our hearts broken orour ambitions thwarted; we all know sadness,

and we all treasure laughter. There is no greatmystery to this really — we love stories becausethey remind us of our best and worst selves.And when it’s Uttar Pradesh, it’s just that muchmore absurd, colourful, and memorable!

�What is unique about stories of ordinarypeople’s life and experiences from the State?There is much in Uttar Pradesh that is com-mon with people from anywhere in India oreven the world, and at the same time, there ismuch that is unique to UP. Some quirky habitof a character, their way of expressing love orrevenge, their cultural idiosyncrasies, even aprotagonist’s oddball personal philosophy —these set these stories apart.

�Do you think making use of regional words such as kaan salaayi, maika, madhurawaaz etc make easier for readers to relate to places and its people?Hindi words are not restricted to a particularregion of India, it’s the way they’re used thatmakes them imply a certain place. I’ve usedwords that organically belong to the stories,I haven’t plugged them forcefully just tointroduce a particular flavour. And yet, lan-guage can be such fun! Some words connotemuch more than just their meaning, I’vetried to use these.

� Can we call the wild tales folklore of UttarPradesh? These are just 14 stories from Uttar Pradeshthat have come from what I’ve heard — thinkof the vast treasure house that’s out there, thecountless wild tales that people have heard andtold over years, decades and centuries! These aretoo few to constitute folklore, but yes, they forma tiny part of our great storytelling tradition,and that makes me immensely happy!

�You have written script of well known filmslike Dil Toh Pagal Hai, Zakhm, Tamanna etccentered on female protagonists. Does yourwork inspire you to write this book?These scripts were exciting to work on as well asscripts of films I’ve directed — one learns towrite when one actually writes! Screenplay writ-ing is different from writing books, howeverwhat’s common to both is the urge to tell stories,to forge a plot, to carve characters with real,beating hearts, to touch the listener’s heart. I’mjust a debutant book writer and there’s a longway to go. But it’s an exciting journey.

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Afew days before the Munici-pal Corporation of Delhielections, Ajay Maken,

Delhi Congress president and theman entrusted with the task of try-ing to resuscitate his party onemore time, had appeared on a showhosted by ABP News TV. Hearrived in the studios, brimmingwith confidence and upbeat aboutthe Congress’s performance.

Within minutes of his arrival,news broke about local bossmanArvinder Singh Lovely, who hadstood by the Congress in its badtimes since the fall of the SheilaDikshit Government, jumping shipand joining the BJP. Ajay Makensuddenly looked defeated andabandoned. Maybe he was expect-ing the desertion, maybe he wasquite unprepared that such a blowwould come virtually on the eve ofpopping. The seasoned politician,who has seen far worse, brokedown and took a while to recover.

By itself Arvinder Singh Love-ly’s exit did not mean much. But itreflected the prevalent mood ofdespondency in the Congresswhich did not quite match AjayMaken’s assessment that with theAam Admi Party (AAP) squeezedout of the race, the contest was nowbetween the BJP and the Congress.

Stark reality sank in on countingday. The BJP swept the polls with atally of 181 wards, followed by AAP,a distant second with 48 wards in itskitty. The Congress proved to be astraggler, an also-ran, with 30 wardsto its credit. Ajay Maken did the honourable thing by resigning fromhis post, something which his leaderRahul Gandhi should have done longago and saved the Congress frombeing wheeled into the ICU, where itlies in a coma.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwaland his coterie of flatterers were lessthan graceful in their response to theBJP’s victory and AAP’s total defeat.In fact, they further shamed them-selves and their party in the popularperception, though it remainsunknown whether they realise howshameful their unbecoming conducthas been ever since AAP swept theDelhi Assembly poll. Hubris is unfail-ingly followed by Nemesis.

Umar bhar Ghalib yahi bhoolkarta raha; Dhool chehre pe thi, auraina saaf karta raha. This Urducouplet, attributed to poet MirzaGhalib, is a sharp comment onthose who refuse to see the faultthat lies with them — all his lifeGhalib kept making the same mis-take; the dust was on his face, buthe kept cleaning the mirror.

By mid-morning on counting dayit was obvious that the BJP was head-ed for a sweeping victory in the elec-tions to the three municipal corpora-tions in Delhi. The final tally was inkeeping with the projections made bypollsters before and after the electionson April 23. If there was any devia-tion, it was in the BJP stopping shortof crossing the 200 mark.

In a sense, the outcome of thecorporation elections was a fore-gone conclusion, especially after theBJP’s spectacular performance inthe recent State Assembly elections,more so in Uttar Pradesh andUttarakhand, and in the by-electionto an Assembly seat in Delhi, earli-er held by AAP. Clearly the ‘ModiWave’ is yet to ebb; indeed, unlesssomething dramatically and drasti-cally goes wrong with the PrimeMinister, the political fortunes ofthe BJP will remain the envy of itsfloundering opponents in the foreseeable future.

If the BJP’s victory has not comeas a surprise, it stands to reason thatthe crushing and humiliating defeatsuffered by Delhi’s blunderbuss ChiefMinister Arvind Kejriwal and hisAAP should not amaze anybodyeither. Kejriwal knew that AAP wouldbe roundly rejected in these polls, thathis theatrical entreaties, at timeswheedling and at other times crude,would neither win hearts nor charmminds. The writing on the wall wasloud and clear.

Yet he chose to post himself andhis party as the natural winners ofthese elections when they wereclearly the losers. It could be arguedthat there’s nothing wrong with that.After all, every party contests elec-tions confident of victory even if theodds are too high to overcome.What Kejriwal did was to add arider — victory would be his pro-vided the EVMs were not ‘tampered’with. Predictably, AAP has creditedvictory not to the BJP but to EVMswhose chips bleed saffron.

In doing so, Kejriwal and hiscabal believe they have deflectedattention from AAP’s defeat. In reali-ty, they have been shown to be too-clever-by-half. The arrogance thatlaced their response to the results;their sneering, people-have-erred,condescending attitude; and, thecussedness with which they have dis-owned both accountability andresponsibility for AAP’s defeat, por-tray them as insufferable oafs.

Which takes us back to Ghalib’scouplet. Kejriwal is singularly respon-sible for his party’s abysmal perfor-mance. He is accountable to AAP’ssupporters. But he is loath to admitso. He remains unendurably sancti-monious and vacuously pompous. Herefuses to see the fault that lies withhim. Instead, he blames others. That’s

what he has done all the time he hasbeen in public life.

In the early days of AAP thismay have found favour with its zeal-ous supporters. But now that themasque has slipped off and a run-of-the-mill, just another small time,petty-minded politician hasemerged from the shadows of theactivist he once was, even diehardsupporters have begun to turn theirbacks on him. Politics is a cruelbusiness. Leaders who fall off theirpedestal are like Humpty Dumpty— they rarely if ever rise again.

While it is true that there are nofull stops in politics and no politicianshould ever be written off as a ‘hasbeen’, it would not be entirely incor-rect to suggest that the ‘KejriwalStory’, as we knew it when AAPstormed to power in Delhi two yearsago, is over. Rewriting the story andmaking it saleable once again is atough proposition, if not impossible.The ride this point on will beextremely bumpy and prone tounmitigated disaster.

To point out the Congress hascome a pitiable third in the latestelectoral race is meaningless. Theparty has decided not to make eventhe slightest effort to get out of itscomatose state of existence. Toblame Ajay Maken for the party’sdismal performance would bewrong. He did what he could — hecould not do a lot because he facedinsurmountable obstacles by way offifth columnists in the party thatwas, not many years ago, the domi-nant political force in India frompanchayat to Parliament.

That pole position is nowoccupied by Modi. The BJP is the beneficiary.

(The writer is Commissioning Editor & commentator, ABP News)

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In Switzerland last June,they had a referendum ona Universal Basic Income

(UBI) that would have giveneach adult Swiss citizen$2,500 per month. It was atruly universal basic income,because it would have goneto everybody whether theywere working or not — andthe horrified Swiss rejected itby a majority of more thanthree-to-one.

In Finland last January,the Government actuallylaunched a pilot programmefor a ‘basic income’, but it wasa timid little thing that givesthe participants in the trialjust $600 per month. It cer-

tainly isn’t universal: It onlygoes to jobless people who arereceiving the lowest level ofunemployment benefit.

And in Canada last Sun-day, the Province of Ontariolaunched a pilot programmethat sits somewhere betweenthe other two. It pays outmore than the Finns — CAD$1,400 a month (US$1,050).Moreover, you don’t have tobe unemployed to get it, just poor.

“The project will explorethe effectiveness of providinga basic income to people whoare currently living on lowincomes, whether they areworking or not,” explained

Ontario Premier KathleenWynne. But it’s still far fromuniversal, and its supportersare keen to stress that theultimate goal is to get peopleback into work. As is Fin-land, they believe (or at leastprofess to believe) that theonly real solution to povertyis full employment.

In the early 21st century,this quaint belief is about ascredible as the Easter Bunny,but in last November’s USpresidential election campaignboth Hillary Clinton and USPresident Donald Trump werestill peddling the same sepia-tinted fantasy of crowdedassembly lines and the return

of the good old days.A lot of other people have

finally focussed on the realfuture, however, because ifyou want to understand therise of Trump you first have toacknowledge what automa-tion is doing to jobs, especial-ly in the United States. Andthen you have to figure outhow to prevent this huge shiftfrom causing a great political,economic and social disaster.

That is why UBI is now ahot topic in political circlesthroughout the developeddemocratic countries: It mightprevent that disaster. But thecurious thing is that none oftrials now being undertaken is

actually universal, with every-body getting the same ‘basicincome’ regardless of whatother income they may have.Why not?

UBI is not meant to bemerely a more effective andless bureaucratic means ofhelping the poor. It is alsointended to abolish the stig-ma of ‘unemployment’ andthe misery, anger, and politi-cal extremism it breeds.

If everybody gets thebasic income as a right, theargument goes, then receiv-ing it causes neither shamenor anger. And if the angerabates, then maybe democ-ratic political systems can

survive automation.But nobody really thinks

we should introduce UBI at anational scale today. We willneed a majority of people togo on working for a long timeto come, and we don’t evenknow whether enough peoplewould choose to do so afterthey start receiving the basicincome. That is one of thequestions that the currentpilot programmes aredesigned to answer.

However, these UBI testprogrammes are being smug-gled in disguised as anti-poverty projects, with theannounced objectives ofstreamlining the system and

encouraging people to re-enter the job market.

That’s because the publicreally isn’t ready for full-blooded UBI. There is a verystrong popular belief thatpeople should work for a liv-ing, even if the society as awhole is very rich and thework doesn’t actually need tobe done.

This prejudice appliesespecially strongly to thepoor. As Harvard economistJohn Kenneth Galbraith onceput it, “Leisure is very goodfor the rich, quite good forHarvard professors — andvery bad for the poor. Thewealthier you are, the more

you are thought to be entitledto leisure. For anyone on wel-fare, leisure is a bad thing.”

So these early experi-ments with guaranteedincome pretend to be aimedsolely at getting people backinto work. But meantime theywill be gathering valuabledata about the actual behav-iour of people who have aguaranteed basic income.

When the supporters ofUBI come back with concreteproposals for national systemsin five or ten years’ time, theymay have much more solidarguments than they do now.

(The writer is an indepen-dent journalist)

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First, South Korea followedJapan’s path of registeringrapid economic growth in the

1960s to the 1970s. And emergedas one of the Four Tigers alongwith Hong Kong, Singapore andTaiwan as new growth centres inAsia, in the flying geese pattern ofeconomic development when Japantransferred labour-intensive indus-tries to overseas locations and shift-ed focus to knowledge-intensivesectors of industrial production.When Japan started facing thedemographic challenges with arapidly declining population, SouthKorea too fell into a similar trap.Both these two East Asian nationsare at present facing one of thegreatest population challenges,which unless corrected, can negatemost of the prosperity and eco-nomic dividend available to theirpeople. Last week, I discussed thepopulation challenges that Japan isfacing and what measures are need-ed to address them. Today’s articledeals with a similar situation thatSouth Korea is facing now andwhat the future it portends.

In the immediate Post-WorldWar II years, both these two Asiannations enjoyed a demographicdividend. A demographic dividendis a period where fertility rates falldue to a reduction in infant mortal-ity rates. People tend to focus ontheir careers rather than childrenand this generally causes rapid eco-nomic growth. Both Japan andSouth Korea have high populationdensity, which generally result inhigher cost of living. Both beinghighly urbanised means highercosts to raise a child. For example,though China lifted the One Childpolicy after feeling its negative con-sequences, many in China still pre-fer to have only one child as costsof raising children have increased.Such a trend, for example, is less inthe US and many other high- andmiddle-income countries.

One critical issue in the failureto address the demographic chal-lenge has been the restrictive immi-gration policies that Japan and

South Korea have in place in con-trast to, for example, the US wherethe immigration is more open.However, President Donald Trump,is rethinking this from the econom-ic perspective. If the US didn’t havean open immigration policy, thepopulation pyramid would havelooked more like today’s Japan.Immigrant families tend to beyoung and have more children.

It is a fact that decreasing pop-ulations impact the economy of acountry. For example, Germanyrecently opened its doors to Syrianrefugees. It could have been ahumanitarian gesture but there wasan economic benefit for Germanyas well. With a strong manufactur-ing economy, Germany neededyoung skilled labour as dependingon robotics is not always theanswer to labour shortfall. Theadvantage of young labour force isthat they are more open to changeas opposed to the older population.

The situation in Japan andSouth Korea is different; immigra-tion policy is restrictive. Reasonsvary from social to cultural factors.Language is another barrier. Withan open immigration policy, the USand other Anglophone countrieshave been able to keep theireconomies afloat. The economies ofJapan and South Korea face stagna-tion due to shortage of labour force,though there are also other reasons.

Like Japan, the population pro-jection in South Korea makes wor-rying reading on the nation’s future.South Korea has such a low birthrate that it could become theworld’s oldest country by 2045,with an average age of 50 and if thesame trend continues, the countrycould even go extinct by 2750. Thecountry needs fundamental changein workplace and gender dynamicsto arrest this worrying trend. Theeconomic consequences could also

be telling. Richard Jackson, presi-dent of the non-profit Global AgingInstitute (GAI) and author of “TheGraying of the Great Powers”,observes that “policies that helpwomen (and men) balance jobsand children are the linchpin of anyeffective prenatal strategy”.

According to a GAI study, thenumber of Americans aged 65 andover will nearly double by 2030.More than one in three adults inGermany, Italy and Japan will beretirees by 2040. And there will benearly 100 million Chinese over age80, and more South Koreans maybe turning 90 each year than beingborn by 2050. In an article on ‘TheFuture of Retirement in East Asia’,Richard Jackson observes that therole of the family in retirementsecurity is receding in East Asia,but adequate Government andmarket substitutes have not yettaken its place. The study demon-strates how rapid demographic,economic and social changes arereshaping retirement attitudes andexpectations across the region.

South Korea’s case is conspicu-ous as most Korean women areforced to choose between a long-term career and children — a phe-nomena witnessed more in South

Korea than anywhere else in thedeveloped world. The statistics arerevealing. In terms of wage, womenin South Korea earn 65 per cent ofwhat men earn, though a 2012 sur-vey showed that Korean girls aspireto high status careers more thanboys. The number of Koreanwomen in their 20s is larger thanmen but many drop out of thelabour force in their 30s after mar-riage. Many do return when theyare in their 40s but tend to getmuch less competitive jobs.

According to the Korea LabourInstitute, women spend five timesas long taking care of children andthe home than men. According toeconomist Jisco Hwang, “there arenot enough modern men for thenewly educated women to marry”.South Korea which emerged to beone of the wealthiest nations frombeing one of the poorest countriesin the world in a short span of timehas one of the world’s extremework cultures, something close toJapan’s. Like in Japan, male employ-ees are expected to go out withclients to booze and bond, leavinglittle time to help out at home. Likein Japan, Korean women are toonot interested in marriage or ifmarried, not to have kids.

What can the Government doto address this new situation? Theleast that the Government canprobably do to increase birth rate isto work at the margins- promotegender equality. Nicholas Eberstadt,an American Enterprise Institutepolitical economist points out totwo models that have worked forother developed countries. One isthe “nanny state” model, like inFrance and Sweden, where there isjob guarantee after maternity leave.Sweden’s gender equality approachis that if the mother of a child takesmaternity leave, the father takespaternity leave when a second childis born. In France government pro-vides “family allowances” to thosewho have more kids.

The second model is “flexiblelabour” model like in the US,where it is normal to re-enter theworkforce, work flexibly and com-bine professional and familialambitions. This is not so in Japanand South Korea, where once awoman marries and has kids, shedoesn’t return to work. There couldbe exceptions, however. Both Japanand South Korea are fit cases forthe nanny-state model.

Liberalisation in the immigra-tion policy could be a better option

too. One encouraging developmentin South Korea is that the numberof mixed ethnic families has showna steady increase; it grew 700 percent from 2006 to 2014 as womenfrom countries like China and thePhilippines moved to South Koreafor marrying Korean men. It is esti-mated that by 2030, 10 per cent ofthe population will be made up offoreign-born families, comparedwith a little over two per cent today.Like in Japan’s preference of main-taining racial purity, the Koreanpreference of “pure blood” Koreanwould lose some of the shine asinternational marriages increase. InSouth Korea, there’s a huge stigmaagainst unwed mothers and thegovernment efforts to change socialperception on family norms toboost birth rate have little effect onhuman perception.

Faced with overwhelming pres-sures, when South Korean womenhave gone on baby strike, there areother related issues that take cen-trestage. There are now morefunerals than weddings. In 2016,the number of marriages anddeaths was about even, and in 2017,deaths are expected to outpacenuptials. The number of youngKoreans delaying marriage whilesociety is aging rapidly is increas-ing. It is estimated that 280,000marriages are expected in 2017while 296,000 people would die.Related to this is the business, withmany wedding halls closing as newfuneral parlours comes up. Thenumber of Koreans of marriageableage is declining while deaths areexpected to reach new records.

Half of singles in South Koreaare under 40. Singles eat and drinkalone and live in one-bedroom flats,according to a report by KBFinancial Group’s research centre.They stay close to their workplacesas don’t need to worry about food,

schools and safe streets that troublepeople with children. However,more women tend to be happier liv-ing alone than men. Men tend to bedissatisfied as they grow old andbegin to worry about age-relatedissues. One consequence is thatKorean men run short of brides.There would be a shortage ofwomen who are willing to marry ina decade or so from now. Censusdata forecast that men between 28and 35 will have severe trouble find-ing any bride between 26 and 33 bythe year 2028. According to the sexratio estimate, one in six Koreanmen will not be able to find a bride.

If Korean peninsula is reuni-fied, unthinkable at the moment, asolution could be expected. But if ithappens, demographics would skewslightly younger and the birth ratewould probably rise again. But uni-fication costs could stagger at $500billion, besides huge wild cardsabout the human resources ofNorth Korea. Interestingly, a poll bymatchmaking company Bier-Allerin 2014 found that seven out of 10single men in South Korea are opento the idea of marrying a NorthKorean woman, but no SouthKorean woman would marry aNorth Korean man. The responseendorses the perception that NorthKorean women are beautiful andmen from South Korea are hand-some. While South Korean man isseen as wealthy, educated, wellmannered, and financially sound,which attracts a woman from theNorth, South Korean woman wouldsee a man from the North as skinny,short and clad in ill-fitting uniform,besides ideologically indoctrinated.Given the complexities, reunifica-tion is not the answer to address tothe demographics of the South.With the impeachment of ParkGeun-hye as the President of SouthKorea, and election due on May 9, itis to be seen what the new Presidentdoes to tackle this worrying trend.

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Both the BJP and RSS are wor-ried over the unruliness in thename of Hinduism. They havesent a strong signal againstorganisations that are involved

in violence in the name of vigilantism,who get into brawls over the NationalAnthem, and create unnecessary contro-versies over food preferences.

Sources say that this issue was alsodiscussed in the meeting of ChiefMinisters of BJP-ruled States. The partyhas instructed all CMs that such inci-dents must be curbed and there must notbe any compromise with the law andorder situation. This must be noted thatwhen Sulkhan Singh took charge as theDGP of Uttar Pradesh, he gave a sternwarning to cow vigilantes. Now, it isbeing speculated that he issued this state-ment at the behest of the BJP and StateGovernment. The fact of the matter isthat such incidents are also projecting anegative impression of India abroad, andthat is one reason why attempts are nowbeing made to put an end to such cases.

Recently, the RSS and BJP had acoordination meeting with the UPGovernment. In that meeting, the RSS issaid to have made it clear that the StateGovernment must control such inci-dents. It also discussed the incidents inAgra, Saharanpur, and Bareilly and saidthat the Government should check theenthusiasm of the Right-wing workers.Senior members of the BJP and RSS werepresent in the meeting along with CMYogi Adityanath. Some of his ministerswere also present in the meeting.

Some days ago, there was an agita-tion near the Taj Mahal in Agra. SomeBJP leaders were also there along withleaders from a Hindu organisation. Theparty suspended two leaders, SunilSharma and Ashok Kushwaha, who werepresent in the agitation. By taking sternaction against these leaders, the BJP hasgiven a strict message to others as well.

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MLAs of Madhya Pradesh,Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, and

Rajasthan have nothing to do with theMCD results, yet all eyes are stuck on it.The BJP achieved an impressive victoryin the Delhi civic polls, which has onlymade things challenging for party MLAsof States which will go into elections in

the near future. In fact, the BJP did anexperiment in MCD elections. To nullifythe anti-incumbency factor of 10 years,the party didn’t give tickets to its 153 sit-ting councillors. Not only this, the BJPalso decided that any relative of thesecouncillors will not be given tickets. Thisexperiment was indeed successful andthe party achieved majority in all threeMCDs. Now, it is being said that the BJPcan try out the same strategy in theupcoming Assembly Elections.

Party leaders say that a similar exper-iment was done successfully in the SuratMunicipal Corporation. So possibly, theBJP might use the same technique inGujarat Assembly Elections too. Theparty has been ruling in the State formore than two decades, and there is theobvious anti-incumbency factor. Rightfrom the Centre to States and municipalcorporations, the BJP is ruling, and allthe MPs from the State are from the BJP.Almost all MLAs have won many times.

So, possibly many sitting MLAs mightnot get tickets. In the same manner, theBJP has been ruling in Madhya Pradeshand Chhattisgarh for the past 15 years.There too, the anti-incumbency factor isstrong. In these two States also, manyMLAs have been winning for years, andmight not get tickets this time.Obviously, all MLAs are worried. InRajasthan, the ruling party changes afterevery five years, but despite that the sit-ting MLAs are anxious.

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It seems that the president of WestBengal Pradesh Congress Committee,

Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, is controllingthe State politics according to his ownwhims. The leaders who oppose himhave either been pushed to the marginsor have been thrown out of the party.After taking total control over the organ-isation, he is now deciding the politics ofthe alliance too as per his wishes.

Chowdhury has decided that he willnot allow any alliance between his partyand Mamata Banerjee’s party, theTrinamool Congress (TMC). That iswhy he is getting closer to the CPM.After the Assembly Elections, he hasgone into an alliance with the CPM forlocal body elections. Now, he is tryingto get a Rajya Sabha seat for CPM gen-eral secretary Sitaram Yechury. Thoughthe CPM had decided that no leader ofthe party will go to the Rajya Sabha forthe third time, it is being said thatYechury will be an exception.

Probably, there was a discussion overthis in the meeting between Yechury andSonia Gandhi. But apparently in a bid toanger Mamata, Chowdhury is pushing forYechury to be sent to the Rajya Sabha. Thismust be noted that with all its effort, theCongress will manage to get only oneRajya Seat from West Bengal. Chowdhury’sargument is that Yechury is necessary inthe Rajya Sabha for a strong Opposition.

The Left Front can’t win any seat onits own. The Congress and Left Front willget only one shared seat. Though aftergetting one seat, 25 votes will be left tothem, but there is no use of that as ofnow. In August, elections will be held forsix Rajya Sabha seats from West Bengal.Five seats are likely to go to the TMCkitty, while one could go to the Congress-Left combine. If the Congress leaves itsclaim, the seat can go to Yechury.

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Madhya Pradesh Chief MinisterShivraj Singh Chouhan has started

attacking Jyotiraditya Scindia. Does thismean that the Congress has decided togive the MPCC command to Scindia? Itis being said that Rahul Gandhi hasdecided to give MP’s command toScindia and made him the CM face.

For the past few months, there weresuch speculations but after the Congressvictory on Ater seat, Scindia’s chances lookbright. Byelections were held on two seatsfrom MP. Ater was Scindia’s responsibilityand Kamal Nath was in charge ofBandhavgarh. It was being said that if theCongress gets Ater, Scindia would be incommand, and if Bandhavgarh had beenwon by the party, the State’s reins wouldhave gone into Kamal Nath’s hands. And had the Congress lost both seats,Digvijaya Singh would have been sent to Madhya Pradesh.

However, there was news that KamalNath was not happy and might leave theparty. This is also an indication thatScindia’s name has been decided upon.Amidst the infighting in the Congress,Chouhan has started targeting Scindia,claiming he allegedly grabbed the land ofthe poor in Shivpuri. This is the firstpolitical attack on Scindia by Chouhan.

Before this, he targeted the entireScindia family. It is being said that hewas aware of the planning and strate-gies of the Congress. That is why healleged during the campaign in Aterthat the Scindia family has always sup-pressed the common man. He alsoalleged that the Scindia family washelping the English. After that, therewas news that Vasundhara andYashodhara — who are both in the BJP— were miffed. However, it seems thatChouhan has started his preparations,with Scindia as his main opponent.

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Anne Hathaway has spoken ofher regret over failing to trust afemale director, due to what she

fears was “internalised misogyny”. Inan interview with ABC’s Popcorn withPeter Travers, the actor said that shewas concerned that she “resisted” LoneScherfig, who directed her in the 2011romantic comedy One Day, because ofher gender. “I really regret not trustingher more easily,” Hathaway said. “Andto this day, I am scared that the reasonI didn’t trust her in the way I trustsome other directors is because she’s awoman. I’m so scared that I treatedher with internalised misogyny. AndI’m scared I didn’t give her everythingshe needed because I was resisting heron some level,” she added.

Hathaway also suggested inter-nalised misogyny may have affected herchoices of roles. “When I get a script,[if] I see [it’s] a first film directed by awoman, I have in the past focused onwhat was wrong with it. And when Isee [it’s] directed by a man, I focus onwhat’s right with it,” she said. “I hadactively tried to work with female

directors. And I still had this mind-setburied in there somewhere.”

She said despite her embarrass-ment, it seemed important that the sub-ject be raised. “It feels like a confession,but I think it’s something we shouldtalk about. I can only acknowledge thatI’ve done that and I don’t want to dothat anymore, and maybe talking aboutit could make someone else think aboutwhether or not they do it.”

Will Smith is in talks to takeon the role of the Genie inDisney’s live-action Aladdin.

According to Deadline, the actor, lastseen in the critically disliked fantasyCollateral Beauty, could be followingin the footsteps of Robin Williamswith the comic role in Guy Ritchie’sadaptation. The film will be the latestof the company’s increasing set oflive-action takes of their successfulanimated films.

Smith was in negotiations to takeon a role in Tim Burton’s Dumbo butthe deal failed to work out. Ritchie’sAladdin will start shooting this sum-mer in the UK and Disney is reported-ly seeking unknown actors for the leadroles and there will be no whitewash-ing with producer Dan Lin suggestingthe film will have a “diverse” cast.

According to Sean Bailey, head ofmotion picture production at Disney,the film will be a “highly energised”musical. This year has already seenthe studio celebrating global successfor Beauty and the Beast, with the

film earning over one billion dollarsworldwide. As well as Dumbo andAladdin, the studio also has plans toremake Mulan, Peter Pan, The LionKing, The Little Mermaid andPocahontas. Ritchie’s next film, a freshtake on King Arthur, will be releasednext month. Smith will next be seenin Bright, a Netflix thriller about acop partnered with an orc.

A17 century Dutch old masterpainting stolen by the Nazis isto be auctioned in Vienna next

week, provoking outrage from theheirs of the owners from whom it waslooted who have accused the auctionhouse of moral bankruptcy.

Auctioneers at ImKinsky have notshied away from describing the paint-ing, Bartholomeus van der Helst’sPortrait of a Man, as disputed stolenart in the sales catalogue. They statethat its current owner bought it ingood faith from a German art dealerin 2004, and under Austrian law she

has the right to sell it.Portrait of a Man was one of hun-

dreds of works looted in 1943 fromthe Schloss family, whose huge col-lection of Flemish and Dutch oldmasters was amassed by AdolpheSchloss, a Jewish-German industrial-ist who lived in France.

The portrait was among thou-sands of works singled out for AdolfHitler’s planned Führermuseum inLinz. It was stolen again in 1945, froman Allied collecting point in Munichby thieves who took advantage of thechaos at the end of the war.

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He who burps loudestlaughs best — at least

in this case. Nearly a yearafter a policeman ticketedEdin Mehic for loudly belch-ing next to him, the Viennabartender has won hisappeal. Mehic was fined70 euros ($75) for asonorous post-kebab burpnext to the officer at anamusement park. The ticket saidhe violated “public decencywith a loud belch next to apolice officer.”

But a court documentMehic emailed to TheAssociated Press on Fridayshows authorities have ruled inhis favour. It says there was“never proof ” that he burped toaffront the officer. Mehic’s belchresonated in Austria long after itwas emitted. Groups organised tosupport him, and a kebab chainpaid for both his ticket and an all-expenses trip to Istanbul.

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Los Angeles residents and visitorsseeking to take in some sweet-

toothed culture have a new destina-tion: The Museum of Ice Cream. The

Museum of Ice Cream, whichopened temporarily last sum-mer in New York City,expanded to four times itssize and moved across the

country for this year’sexhibition in Los Angeles’

Arts District.The museum features 10

exhibits and each room features thesmells and tastes associated withice cream and adjacent desserts.“It’s not a museum in any tradition-al sense,” Bunn told KABC-TV. “I

want adults to feel like kids. I wantkids to come in and feel like childrenand it’s just fun.”

The museum features a roomfilled with bananas and a pool filledwith sprinkles. The $29 price of admis-sion — $18 for children and seniors —includes two curated ice cream tastingsas well as other sugary edibles.

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Police in Maine have picked upsome adorable intruders after

two miniature goats escapedfrom their home and wanderedthe streets. A Belfast police offi-cer responded Sunday morningto find the pygmy goats in awoman’s garage. They had been snackingon cat food. Officer Daniel Fitzpatrickused a cat leash to lead them into hissquad car. The trio drove around lookingfor the goats’ owner as Fitzpatrick fedthem carrots and celery. Belfast is a sea-port town about 73 km east of Augusta.The daughter of the goats’ owner sawFitzpatrick’s Facebook post and picked upthe pair, named Louis and Mowgli — butnot before Fitzpatrick snapped a selfie withthe duo. Fitzpatrick called the runaways“good company” and joked about addingpatrol goats to the next police budget.

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An Australian man said unwantedvisitors have been streaming to

his home after Google Maps mistak-

enly labelled it asa pizzeria.

Michael McElwee,69, said it seemed like asimple mistake had beenmade when someone

showed up at his Darwinhome to deliver magazines

meant for a pizza restaurant,but soon another person showed upseeking a job at a pizzeria.

McElwee said would-be pizza cus-tomers started knocking at his door andthat led to the discovery that GoogleMaps had incorrectly labelled his houseas Cucina Sotto Le Stelle, a pop-uppizzeria located in a park near his home.“It is like getting your identity stolen,”McElwee told Australian BroadcastingCorp Radio Darwin. “Your house hasbeen stolen and put in as a pizza shop.”

“My daughter has been approachedby people wanting to know what timewe open,” he said. “I don’t know howmany people have turned up at myhouse thinking it was a pizza place.” Theerror was reported to Google, which hassince corrected the map to put CucinaSotto Le Stelle in the correct location.

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An Indiana woman tweet-ed video of her dog

showing off his hip hop cred by appearing to mouth alongwith anXXXTenta-cion song.

Twitter user@ThatsZoRaven,aka Zoe, tweeted ashort clip Tuesday ofher dog, Gambit, appearing to sing along with XXXTentacion’s “Look at Me.” “He knows all the words,” Zoe tweeted.

Zoe responded in a latertweet to commenters whoincorrectly thought Gambitwas wearing a muzzle in thevideo. “Psa: Gambit is notwearing a muzzle. He is wearing a gentle leader thattrains him to walk withoutpulling & wait for it, he is inno pain!” she wrote.

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Aman who wore a bunny costumeand repeatedly blew an air horn

inside a New Jersey police station haspleaded guilty to disorderly con-duct. Kevin Hemmerich entered

the plea Thursday and was fined$500. The judge also ordered a

police officer charged with striking Hemmerich

in Hopatcong lastNovember to stand trial on July 6.

Hopatcong policeOfficer Nicholas Maresca Jr

has pleaded not guilty tocharges of simple assault and

harassment. More than 50 offi-cers went to court to supporthim. Kevin Hemmerich and hisbrother entered the HopatcongPolice Department lobby to turnhimself in for an outstandingwarrant. He was dressed in abunny costume and repeatedlyblew the air horn. Maresca is seenstriking Hemmerich on videotaken by his brother.

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On the night of April 21,Friday, I had barelyreturned home to myapartment in central Pariswhen I heard on the radio

that there had been a terror shootoutmoments ago on the city’s historicavenue, the Champs Elysees. A lonegunman had opened fire on theChamps Elysees, killing one policemanand wounding two others, before him-self being killed by security forces as hefled the scene. The gunman was identi-fied to be 39-year-old Karim Cheurfi, aFrench national who was carrying anote defending Isis when he shot at theofficers. Isis soon claimed responsibilityfor the attack as well.

Within hours’ messages from politi-cal leaders flew in. Bernard Cazeneuve,France’s Prime Minister, called on theFrench people “not succumb to fear,manipulation, division”. He asked themnot to let the attacks shift their vote inthe first round of the FrenchPresidential election vote, to take placetwo days later. “Another terrorist attackin Paris,” US President Donald Trumpalso tweeted. “The people of France willnot take much more of this. Will have abig effect on Presidential election!”

In what was to be a close racebetween the four finalists — Le Penheading the far-right leaning party,Emmanuel Macron, a political neo-phyte who has never held electedoffice and now represents a brand newcentre-left party, Fillon, the centre-right candidate, and candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon on the far left — it wassuddenly perceived to not be so any-more after Friday night’s shoot out.Would voters — especially those unde-cided — be influenced by the terrorattack in France’s volatile Presidentialelection campaign? Would the elec-tion agenda now tilt heavily towards

ensuring France’s security?Indeed, in the aftermath of

Thursday’s attack, Le Pen stepped upher calls to slash immigration to keepout terrorists from France, arguing thecountry was being “naive” by lettingin so many foreigners. She called forFrance to leave the EU’s visa-freeSchengen travel zone. Macron had sofar focused his political campaign onFrance’s economy. But after the attack,he said he would concentrate on secu-rity issues, promising to set up a taskforce to co-ordinate intelligenceefforts against Isis.

When on Sunday France went tovote, it was clear that the choice thecountry was to make was the following:to either move forward in a more openworld with a pro-EU Macron, or retreatinto a closed cocoon with any of theother three candidates. France’s marchbackward would go the furthest dis-tance if its people would choose to votethe feverishly Islamophobic Le Pen.

The world watched: France’s trajec-

tory would affect the direction forEurope, and indeed also the directionfor the rest of the world that hasalready begun to painfully takenrecourse to more insular politics.Pundits kept a tab on voter turnout —were the young staying home or goingout there to the polling booth?

The suspense was intense: Theopinion poll margins between the fourleading candidates had been small withMacron enjoying a slender lead. But theworld has learnt to stop believing inpre-election opinion polls, as there hasbeen a tendency for voters to not revealtheir choice for right leaning parties toopinion polls. The results of the UK ref-erendum as well as the US Presidentialelections in the past year had alsoproven most opinion polls wrong.

We were cautious: The shockingwin of right leaning political partiesrecently in the US, UK and not so longago in India, has taught the liberals tonot gauge the mood of the voters bytheir own immediate social and onlinenetworks. We tend to choose like-minded people around us, who feed uswith opinions about the world thatseem similar to ours, and then aretaken aback at the victory of the candi-date popular with the masses.

Before the sun went down on Paristhis Sunday, the results of the first roundof elections were out. Approximately 77per cent of the French voters had casttheir ballot. And they had driven thevictory of the globalist over the populist— Macron led with 23.7 per cent fol-lowed by Le Pen with 21.7 per cent ofthe vote. Far-left candidate Jean-LucMélenchon and conservative candidateFrançois Fillon tied for third place withabout 19.5 per cent each.

From terror and fear on Fridaynight, the mood in France was one ofpride to have managed to together step

forward. France’s citizens realised thatto have pulled through had not beeneasy — in the past two years alone,France has suffered at least two dozenterror attacks; immigration has been aconstant issue in French politics, withdeadly riots breaking out every fewyears; there is heightening externalpressure to yield to the political conser-vatives on the extreme right. And yetthey put their faith in a political newbierepresenting a party that is less thaneven a year old and whose politicalagenda does not primarily focus oncountering the relentless terror that hasoverturned France’s peace and order,instead of a second generation politicalaficionado who promises to do exactlyso. Yes, this weekend the world toorejoiced at France’s enlightened choice.

However, the deal is far from done.The two frontrunners Macron and LePen will move into round two of theelections to be held on May 7.Ironically, more people think thatMacron’s win is a done deal, the lessthey would be bothered to vote on May7. Further we can also expect a lot ofdrama until then — Le Pen is tryinghard to reform her image that sticks toher party known for xenophobia andanti-Semitism to herself presenting amodern populist vision of France thatis admittedly anti-globalisation, anti-EU, and anti-immigrant.

There is a saying in France, that theFrench vote with their hearts in thefirst election round and with theirheads in the second round. I hope thatin the second round France comes outto vote in even greater numbers, with acool head. And then let the choice ofthe majority prevail.

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The acronym VIPS has been coined to denote theVery Important Person Syndrome that has beenafflicting the Indian democracy in a big way. The

syndrome is an acquired attribute that can affect at anyage. The decision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi toban the use of beacon lights on the cars of those repre-senting the VIP culture will certainly deal a powerfulblow to those otherwise ordinary mortals masquerad-ing as monarchs. So, full marks to Modi!

Usually politicians don’t act. They distract. Buthere is somebody who acts with an élan that is rarethese days. The decision to ban beacon lights fromMay 1 is a long awaited course correction. Rather,coarse correction for the country that is supposed tobe world’s largest democracy yet full of those veryimportant persons (VIPs) who think they belong tosome other world. And what a day to implement thedecision: May Day, the day of the workers. And theban applies to all, PM included. That it took someseven decades and a man of Modi’s courage to undo apractice that seemed like an aberration to a democra-cy. After all what does a democracy stand for?

An oft quoted one is given by US President AbrahamLincoln. He said that democracy is a government of thepeople, by the people, for the people. But what has beenour experience. Off the people, bye the people, far thepeople. Or can we say of the people, by the people for theVery Important People (VIP). In a democracy, as PMModi tweeted, every Indian is special. Every Indian is aVIP. But the people riding in those cars flashing beaconlights often tried to suggest that the common masseswere, to quote Shakespeare, “dishonourable graves”.Certainly this government has acted where previous onesdithered and due credit goes to Modi.

It is a massive blow to India’s notoriously famousVIP culture. The beacon lights flashing atop the VIPcars signified arrogance and looked down upon thecommon man. This decision will certainly give a boostto the democratic spirit that was reeling under the loadof a pampered VIP culture. Lest we forget, it makessense to quote famous English poet TS Eliot whobelieved that half of the harm that is done in the world isdue to people who want to feel important. Needless tosay that the beacon lights were creating that very feeling,the feeling of being important. Of course, there is still along way to go, with the huge security paraphernalia andthe body guard culture still persisting. Given the ways ofPM Modi, maybe, we will see more improvementstowards democratisation of the Indian democracy.

But undoubtedly, it was a historic decision. Indiandemocracy, then, is on the move. The Supreme Courthad rightly observed that beacon lights were reflectiveof the mentality of those who served the BritishGovernment and treated the natives as slaves. It cer-tainly is a corrective action on the part of the govern-ment to declassify the so called VIP that made merryon public exchequer. The spirit of democracy can bestbe understood in the words of noted author HarperLee who conveyed through one of the important char-acters of her book To Kill a Mocking Bird that it is equalrights to all, special privileges to none. Beacon lightsintended to create a privileged class.

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What is the basis for me to makesuch a statement? I will quotefrom the Bhagavad Gita and

also give a practical example. From theGita, we learn that knowledge by whichone is able to see one undivided imper-ishable reality, which is the soul in allbeings, that knowledge is the properknowledge. (18.20) And all these soulsare parts of God only. (15.7) These soulstake different bodies according to thekarmas (deeds) done by them in theirprevious lives. Some get male bodiesand others female.

Birth either as a male or a femaledoes not make one superior or inferior.What really differentiates them is what that they do; how useful they are; what contributions they make totheir societies, nations, etc. Neither amale body nor a female body is a hin-drance to being a high class humanbeing. Weaknesses such as having prejudices, a sense of discriminationbetween various bodies, etc is.

Now the practical example. Onemale model began to feel increasinglylike a woman though he was in a male’sbody. Not satisfied with this state, heunderwent gender reassignment surgeryand became a female model. Whatchanged? Some bodily changes weremade surgically and the same soulturned from a man to a woman. Did the

person really become different? No, thebody did; soul didn’t, because soul hasno gender. God has created two types ofhuman bodies, ie of a female and of amale. Even in one body, they undergovast changes from a toddler to an oldman. Does the person or the soulchange? No, he or she remains the sameperson or soul.

Then, why is there discriminationbetween a male and a female from timeimmemorial? Yes, males are generallystronger physically but does this makethem superior? Many animal species aremuch stronger than human beings butdo we consider them superior? No, wedon’t. Then, why are women beingforced to call themselves actors beingactresses? Does the tag of actor make

them any different? What will we dowith the term heroine? Can we callfemale actresses heroes? Does this think-ing not take us to being ridiculous?

However, the fact remains that dis-crimination against women has beenpractised even in ancient societies. Theywere limited to mostly doing householdworks. Even in the middle ages, this pat-tern continued with some improvement;women were allowed to become nunsand do trade. Fundamental changesbegan in the Renaissance when rights ofindividuals were begun to be respected.Women were allowed to work outsidetheir homes. In the 19th century, womenbegan to form many kinds of groups,especially in the USA and Britain. Equalrights were sought and educational and

political barriers slowly gave way. Theright to vote came in the early 20th cen-tury in the Western countries.

In short, women have fought fortheir rights and men have grudginglyagreed to accept that they are not inferi-or to men. However, the present scenariois far from being perfect even though weare living in a modern era with greatconnectivity whether in social or otherterms. In today’s India, the averagesalary gap between men and women is asmuch as 67 per cent.

It is really surprising because Godhas made both men and women equalwith men having some qualities anduses and women some other qualitiesand uses. And men and women comple-ment one another. Both are essential forany society to functions. It is time thatboth men and women are seen as per-sons. Even children should be seen aspersons and not extensions of parents.This parity must be accepted at thephilosophical level. Only then, the worldwill progress properly. Just to put somehumour in this serious article somemale chauvinists may get born in awoman’s body in the next life. Time hascome to wake up and give women whatis due to them. A soul has no genderand must be treated as a person only.

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The sound of chirpingbirds returning fromtheir migration from thewarmer climates andsmall animals peeping up

from their hibernation holes heraldthe return of spring. Spring time isso perfect that we want to invite ourfamily and friends to join us to cele-brate the return of this beautifulseason. In the same way we shouldalso welcome God into the home ofour human body. The same prepa-rations taken by us for an outerspringtime party in which familyand friends join us need to be takenby us for our inner party with Godas guest of honour.

For that party, we first need toclean the house. This refers to notonly the outer body being kept neatand clean, but also to the conditionof the soul. Cleaning the soul meansclearing up the dark spots such asanger, violence, greed, attachment,and ego which cover it. Cleaningthe heart means being an ethicaland loving person, introspective,meditating, and having love for Godand all living beings.

In connection to this, there’s astory about four animals. Therewas a fox, a bear, a boar and a rab-bit. They decided to build villagetogether. Each built a house. Whenthe homes were ready, they movedin. As the fox looked out of hiswindow, he saw his neighbour, therabbit eating a carrot. When fin-ished, instead of throwing the car-rot away in the trash bin, the rabbitthrew it on the street.The followingday, the fox looked out its windowand saw the boar walking down the

street while eating anapple. When finished theboar tossed the apple coreinto the street.The fox wasupset that this had hap-pened twice already. Thenfox watched and saw thebear throwing its emptyhoneycombs into the street.This pattern continued fora whole week and thegarbage left by the rabbit,boar, and bear began pilingup on the street. Within amonth, the garbage was somuch that the fox couldbarely walk outside any-more. A few months later,the fox opened his frontdoor to go outside.

The garbage hadgrown so much that itblocked his front door andhe couldn’t get outside.Fed up, the fox packed hisbelongings, found a way toclimb out the back win-dow and moved far away,into a forest to start a newlife where he could live ina clean place. The fox builta new house and lived inthe forest by himself,happy to be rid of hismessy neighbours.

One day, the fox saw therabbit come by, carrying allhis belongings. When thefox questioned the rabbit asto why he had moved intothe forest the rabbit toldhim because the dirt hadbecome unbearable for him.The rabbit then built hisown home near the fox’s. Afew weeks later, the bearand boar came trudging

through the forest

with all their belongings.They gave the same rea-son as the rabbit to moveinto the forest and builttheir respective homes inthe forest as well.

With the four newhomes in the forest, thefox thought the villagewould be clean now thateach of the other threeanimals had learned theirlessons about what hap-pens when they throwtrash into the village. For awhile, the new village inthe forest was clean andthe fox was happy.However, after a while,each of the other threeanimals began throwingtheir trash into the streetsagain. The fox couldn’ttolerate it anymore. Hetold the three animals thatinstead of throwing thetrash on the street theyshould make a compostpile in their own backyardto throw the garbage anduse the waste to fertilisetheir own lawn. Soon, theyeach had a place in theirbackyard to throw theirgarbage so it did not clut-ter up the streets again.The village remained cleanand animals lived happilyever after.

This tale explains whythere are so many prob-lems in the world. Whenwe do not clean the innerhouse of our soul, wespread the waste into theworld. Each person is

dumping their garbage into thestreets. Everybody thinks they arecleaning their house, but insteadthey are throwing their waste intothe streets of this planet.

The trash in the story repre-sents all the negative traits thatpeople have. People are filled withanger, violence, greed, selfishness,and ego. The houses representtheir own body and mind. Insteadof cleaning ourselves of these neg-ative characteristics by eliminat-ing these bad habits, we’re dispos-ing them in the world and defilingour environment and the lives ofthose around us.

Soon, those on whom we throwour anger become angry and pass itonto others. Then, we aren’t theonly ones in a rage, but we spread itto the point that everyone in ourfamily, our community, our city, ourcountry, and the world becomesangry. The same logic applies toselfishness, greed, ego and all theother negative traits within us.Instead of filling up the world withour negative behaviours, we cancleanse ourselves of these traits andcontribute to a more positive world.

The method of developing posi-tive traits is meditation. Each timewe meditate, we come in contactwith the source of all positive quali-ties within us. Each time we con-nect with our ‘inner-light’ and‘sound’, the two manifestations ofGod, we are cleansed from withinand begin to take on positive quali-ties. We are transformed and displaythese ethical virtues in our lives.

Through meditation and ethicalliving, we can transform ourselvesand the world and keep ourselves,our home, and all creation clean.

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Ahuman being is an enigma byoneself, as every being is bornpotentially perfect, in so far as

the instrumentality of a being (body-mind organism) is concerned. If wecould access, and put to use our whole-some indwelling potential, would knowno limits. This, provided we becomeaware of our true-self.

The paradox, however, is that our“Performing-Self ” falls short of its expec-tation, as it remains clouded with a lot ofconstitutional and self-acquired limita-tions. Also, we invariably remain igno-rant of how to rightfully use the instru-ments of our mind. That restricts accessto our wholesome self. Ignorant thus, weare seldom able to fully exploit our in-house resources. So, more often than not,we end up becoming a victim of our ownfault lines. Ostensibly therefore, if weencounter failure, frustration and painsin life, it is not because we are helplesslyso fated. Fact remains that we fail to putin our best, as we do not strive sufficient-ly to unfold immense power within.

In the above light, what should be“Human Calling”, which may enable oneto sail through life with relative ease andcomfort? To find right answer, itbecomes desirable to first know oneself,

which calls for getting into self-searchmode.

Our mind immediately comes intofocus, no sooner the urge to get intoself-search mode arises, and which callsfor looking within. The beauty of thisunique empowerment tool, ‘the mind’, isthat it can see its own image in the mir-ror, it sets for itself. We, thus, would beable to get to know what lies in thedeeper realms of the mind, which drivesa being in real terms.

When we look within, first comes toour notice the clutters in mind that keepus unnecessarily engaged in wildthoughts, that otherwise do not allow usremaining focused to what is desirable.Also, we become short of the mind-spacenecessary to process our thoughts objec-tively. Having cleared them, we comeacross such memory imprints as wouldput us in a bind of undesirable habit ten-dencies that marginalise our productiveabilities. Once we reflect upon andaddress them through fresh educativeinputs, our acquired virtues come intofull play. Even if we could achieve thislevel, it will enable us to successfully sailthrough life with ease and comfort.

The irony, however, is that our ego-tistical mind, ordinarily identifying

itself with one’s predisposition of mind,is invariably not keen to look beyond.Therefore, it doesn’t let us explore andreach out the treasure trove beyond,lying dormant thus far. Ego doesn’t letus acknowledge our fault lines either.We, thus, get caught up in our self-cre-ated bind, and the inevitable follows.Here comes astrology to our aid, whichknows no bias. For, it is premised on thereading of energy-map of the heaven atthe time of one’s birth, which throwslight on one’s inherent mind-traits, andwith a fair amount of precision.

Here is the case of a young man whois suffering from chronic anxiety syn-drome for almost a decade now, whichhas made a dent even on the physiologyof his body. Every morning he gets upworrying about the possible ordeal hemay have to face during the day. Hestarts puking, and out of fear, avoidsfood. Over a period of time he has losthis appetite, and is getting weaker day-by-day. The psychotropic drugs have sofar not been able to help him much. Letus look at his astrological pointers.

The main trickster in this case is hismind-signifying Moon occupying thelagna itself. It locks horns with intelli-gence indicator Mercury, wisdom ori-ented Jupiter, intellectually ordained

Uranus, emotion signifying Venus,inhibitive Saturn, and mischievousNeptune. This, in the first place holdsthe key to his worrisome tendencies,flawed reasoning, and mental inconsis-tencies. Second, emotionally he is toomuch sensitive, whereby he keepsunnecessarily mulling over even trivialissues. Third, with his inhibitive nature,he doesn’t share his problems, andtherefore, carries baggage full of sup-pressed feelings. In the process, histhought process has become incoherent.Comfort loving that he is, as the Sun isbeautifully aligned to Moon, he is averseto taking pains to address his shortcom-ings. The result is there to see.

Otherwise, he is armed withimmense potential, which may come inforce only when his limitations areaddressed. A holistic treatment is neededto regain his normal self, which involves,for pursuing ‘Mind-Detoxification’process as suggested in all seriousness,along with medication, and regular spiri-tual counselling for a while.

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