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

VOL.16, ISSUE 186 | Tuesday, 6 July, 2021 | New Delhi | Pages 12 | Rs 3.00PUBLISHED FROM DELHI | KOLKATA

MILLENNIUMPOST.IN

NEW DELHI: A medium-intensity earthquake hit Jhajjar in Haryana on Monday night, tremors of which were felt in Delhi and nearby areas, the National Centre for Seismology (NCS) said.

According to the NCS, the earthquake of magnitude 3.7 occurred at a depth of 5 kilometres at 10.36 pm.

On June 20, a low-inten-sity quake of magnitude 2.1 hit the Punjabi Bagh area in the national capital.

Since last year, the Delhi-NCR has reported a few quakes, most of them of lower intensity.

The NCS has deployed additional earthquake recording instruments for close monitoring of seismic activity in and around Delhi after the NCR region wit-

nessed a series of tremors from April to August last year. Based on the analysis of satellite imageries, sig-natures of active faults have been observed at various locations like Wazirabad, Timarpur and Kamla-

Nehru-Ridge in Delhi; Jhunjhunu and Alwar district of Rajasthan; Sonipat, Sohna, Guru-

gram, Rohtak, Rewari and Nuh districts in Hary-ana; and Baghpat district in Uttar Pradesh.

The National Capital Region of Delhi and its sur-roundings had experienced minor and small magnitude earthquakes from April to August 2020. The epicentres of these earthquakes were located in areas of north-east Delhi, Rohtak, Sonipat, Baghpat, Faridabad and Alwar. AGENCIES

Earthquake hits Jhajjar in Hry, tremors felt in Delhi

No Half Truths

India records 39,796 new Covid cases, 723 deaths

India to make CoWIN available to all countries as ‘digital public good’, says Prime Minister Narendra Modi

84-year-old tribal rights activist Stan Swamy dies in hospital waiting for bail

OUR CORRESPONDENT

MUMBAI: Tribal rights activ-ist Stan Swamy, arrested under an anti-terror law in the Elgar Parishad case, died at a Mum-bai hospital on Monday in the middle of his fight for bail on health grounds.

The 84-year-old Jesuit priest — possibly the oldest person to be accused of ter-rorism in India, as per his law-yer — had been on a ventilator since Sunday after his health worsened rapidly.

Dr Ian D’souza, director of the Bandra-based private Holy Family Hospital, where Swamy was undergoing treatment, and the tribal rights activist’s lawyer Mihir Desai informed a bench of the Bombay High Court of his death following cardiac arrest.

The bench, comprising Jus-tices S S Shinde and N J Jama-dar, expressed shock over the news and said it was at a loss of words and hoped Swamy’s soul would rest in peace.

Senior counsel Mihir Desai claimed the NIA had been negligent in providing timely

and adequate medical aid to Swamy, and asked the HC to initiate a judicial inquiry into the circumstances that led to the undertrial activist’s death.

He said Swamy was taken to the state-run J J Hospital 10 days before his admission to the Holy Family Hospital on May 29 but was not tested for COVID-19 at the J J Hospital.

Swamy’s report came out positive for Coronavirus when he was tested at the pri-vate hospital, the lawyer said.

“The NIA did not seek Swa-my’s custody even for a single day, but kept on opposing his bail pleas,” he added.

Desai pointed out that since Swamy died while being in custody, the state authori-ties were mandated to conduct a post mortem in accor-dance with guidelines of the United Nations Human Rights Commission.

While the HC did not pass any orders initiating a judicial inquiry, it recorded in its order

that the amended section 176 (1A) of the CrPC mandated judicial inquiry into every case of death in custody.

The court directed the state authorities to complete all formalities and hand over Swamy’s body to his associate, Father Frazer Mascarenhas.

The directive came after Desai told the court that while normally a dead body was handed over to one’s family, Swamy was a priest and had no family. Continued on P4

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Expressing con-cern and anguish over the dis-tress caused to the common people with “shocking” rise in prices of petrol and diesel, Chief Minister Mamata Baner-jee on Monday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to substantially reduce the Cen-tral taxes on fuel to provide relief to people by checking the present inflationary trend in the country.

Banerjee held the Centre’s policy of collecting hefty tax from oil and petroleum prod-ucts as the sole reason behind the abnormal jump in fuel prices and stated in her letter that hikes in petrol and diesel prices triggered inflation that resulted to “significant hard-ship” for the common people of the nation as “major inflation in prices reduces” their “real income”.

“Shockingly, the retail price of petrol in many states across the country has crossed an unprecedented Rs 100 per litre. I have come to learn that petrol and diesel prices were hiked by your government eight times since May 4 and out of these, prices were hiked 6 times in the month of June and shockingly, 4 times in one week.

Continued on P4

Reduce hefty taxes charged by Centre on fuel: Mamata

writes to Modi

OUR CORRESPONDENT

SRINAGAR: The People’s Alli-ance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) on Monday said Assem-bly elections should be held only after restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir and asked the BJP-led central government to honour its commitment made on the floor of Parliament.

It also expressed disappoint-

ment over the outcome of the June 24 meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, citing the absence of any confidence-building measures and concrete steps to end the “siege and atmo-sphere of suppression” that have “choked” the people of Jammu and Kashmir since August 2019.

The PAGD is an alliance of six mainstream parties — National Conference, Peoples’ Demo-

cratic Party, CPM, CPI, Awami National Conference and Jammu and Kashmir People’s Movement — that was cobbled after the Cen-tre abrogated the special status of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir on August 5, 2019 and divided it into two union terri-tories (UTs). “To this end (res-toration of statehood to J-K), the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Dec-laration has decided to reach out

to other political parties in Jammu and Kashmir with a view to take a common position on the issue,” PAGD spokesperson and CPM leader M Y Tarigami said in a statement.

On the abrogation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status by the Centre and its subsequent bifurcation into two UTs, the PAGD reiterated its commitment to fight together to reverse the

unconstitutional and unaccept-able changes “foisted” on the peo-ple of the erstwhile state “using all constitutional, legal and political means at its disposal”.

The PAGD’s statement comes a day after the alliance meeting on Sunday under the chairmanship of Farooq Abdullah the National Conference (NC) president — at his Gupkar residence here.

Continued on P4

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: India saw a single-day rise of 39,796 new Covid infections, which took the tally of cases to 3,05,85,229, while the death toll climbed to 4,02,728 with 723 more fatalities, the lowest in around 88 days, according to Union Health Ministry data updated on Monday.

The active cases have fur-ther declined to 4,82,071 and comprise 1.58 per cent of the total infections, while the national Covid recovery rate has improved to 97.11 per cent, the data updated at 8 am showed It said that there has been a decline of 3,279 active cases in a span of 24 hours.

The ministry said that 15,22,504 tests were conducted on Sunday, taking the total cumulative tests conducted for detection of Covid in the coun-try to 41,97,77,457.

The daily positivity rate was recorded at 2.61 per cent. It has

been less than five per cent for 28 consecutive days, it said.

The weekly positivity rate has declined to 2.4 per cent, according to the health ministry.

Recoveries continue to out-number daily cases for 53 con-secutive days, it said, adding that the number of people who have recuperated from the dis-ease has risen to 2,97,00,430.

The case fatality rate stands

at 1.32 per cent, the data stated.Prime Minister Naren-

dra Modi on Monday offered CoWIN, India’s technologi-cal platform spearheading its COVID-19 vaccination drive, as a “digital public good” to the world, asserting that it has been committed to sharing its expertise and resources with the global community in com-bating the pandemic. Continued on P4

Restore J&K’s statehood before polls: Gupkar Alliance

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA/NEW DELHI: On a day when Trinamool Congress (TMC) MPs submitted a memo-randum to President Ram Nath Kovind seeking immediate removal of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta for his alleged meeting with tainted BJP MLA Suvendu Adhikari, Trin-amool all-India general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Monday sar-castically stated that Mehta could continue serving as the saffron par-ty’s secret general but not as the country’s law officer.

“Even after 72 hours, Mr Tushar Mehta, Hon’ble SG of India, has failed to release the 20 mins of CCTV footage of his OWN HOUSE to cor-roborate his OWN STATEMENT. Mr SG, with such weak defence you can continue serving as @BJP4India’s SECRET GENERAL, not INDIA’S SOLICITOR GENERAL,” tweeted

Abhishek. Earlier, Abhishek had tweeted on Sunday requesting Mehta to present the CCTV footage of his residence to clear the doubts about the meeting held between him and Adhikari, whose name has surfaced in both Narada and Saradha cases.

Earlier in the day, TMC MPs—

Sukhendu Sekhar Roy, chief whip of Trinamool Legislature party in Rajya Sabha, and Mohua Moitra, party’s Lok Sabha MP—met the President at Rashtrapati Bhavan and submit-ted the memorandum.

While addressing the press after meeting the President, Sukhendu Sekhar Roy said it was really aston-ishing that Suvendu Adhikari had gone to official residence of Tushar Mehta “unannounced.” “Can any person go to the house of the Solic-itor General without any prior appointment?” he asked, adding “it is quite possible that the CCTV foot-age has been manipulated.”

Mohua Moitra said it was evi-dent that when Adhikari’s vehicle was driven to the residence of the Solicitor General, the security guards were seen talking over the walkie-talkie, which indicated that he had an appointment with Mehta. Continued on P4

TMC MPs submit memo to President demanding removal of Tushar Mehta Serve as BJP’s secret general, not as Solicitor General: Abhishek

TMC MPs Sukhendu Sekhar Ray and Mahua Moitra address a press conference after submitting memorandum to President PIC/NAVEEN SHARMA

A medic administers a dose of vaccine to a student in Bengaluru, on Monday PTI Highlights » The active cases have further declined to 4,82,071 and comprise 1.58 per cent of the total infections

» The daily positivity rate was recorded at 2.61 per cent

» The weekly positivity rate has declined to 2.4 per cent

» The case fatality rate stands at 1.32 per cent

Takeaways » The 84-year-old tribal rights activist had been seriously ill since May, but was moved to a private hospital only after the high court intervened

» Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said Swamy deserved justice and humaneness

» Left parties alleged that “inhuman treatment” was meted out to Swamy and

demanded that all those responsible for his death be arrested » EU, UN Human Rights representatives term Swamy’s death as devastating » The court directed the state authorities to complete all formalities and hand over Swamy’s body to his associate, Father Frazer Mascarenhas » Swamy’s funeral will be held in Mumbai

City: Pg 3‘Varsity should be safe space for students to dissent’; Govt gets AUD to drop pupil’s fine

IN ITS MARCH 24, 2015 VERDICT, SC HAD SCRAPPED SECTION 66A OF IT ACT

MPOST BUREAU

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court Monday said it is amaz-ing and shocking that people are still being booked under Section 66A of the Information Technol-ogy Act that was scrapped by the apex court verdict in 2015.

Under the scrapped section a person posting offensive mes-sages could be imprisoned for up to three years as also fined.

A bench of Justices R F Nari-man, K M Joseph and B R Gavai issued notice to the Centre on an application filed by an NGO, ‘People’s Union for Civil Liber-ties’ (PUCL).

Don’t you think this is amaz-

ing and shocking? Shreya Singhal judgement is of 2015. It’s really shocking. What is going on is ter-rible, the bench told senior advo-cate Sanjay Parikh, appearing for PUCL. Parikh said that despite express directions of the court in 2019 that all state governments should sensitise police personnel about the March 24, 2015 judge-ment, thousands of cases have been registered under the section.

The bench said, Yes, we have seen those figures. Don’t worry we will do something.

Parikh said there has to be some kind of method to handle the matter as people are suffering.

Attorney General K K Venu-gopal, appearing for the Centre,

said that on perusal of the IT Act it can be seen that section 66A features in it, but in the footnote it

is written that the provision has been scrapped.

Now when a police officer has

to register a case, he sees the sec-tion and registers the case with-out going through the footnote. Instead what can be done is that we can put a bracket just after section 66A and mention that it has been scrapped. We can in the footnote put the entire extract of the verdict, Venugopal said.

Justice Nariman said you please file counter in two weeks. We have issued a notice. List the matter after two weeks.

The top court was hearing a fresh application of PUCL say-ing, That, shockingly, despite the order dated February 15, 2019 and steps taken towards compli-ance thereof, the Applicant dis-covered that Section 66A of the

IT Act has continued to be in use not only within police stations but also in cases before trial courts across India.

The NGO said, That in spite of the order passed by this Court on February 15, 2019, directing that copies of the judgment of this Court in Shreya Singhal should remain available with every High Court as well as all the District Courts and that the police depart-ments in the entire country i.e. all States and UTs be sensitized about the said judgment, the facts men-tioned above show that not only the investigations under Section 66A by the police are continuing but even in the trial courts.

Continued on P4

Shocking that people still booked under scrapped section 66A of Information Technology Act, says SC

CityDELHI RECORDS 54 FRESH CASES 3NationSINGH BROTHERS BOOKED AGAIN 5Edit DUE DIGNITY 7InternationalSPUTNIK V TRIALS AMONG 12-17S START 8

BusinessHOUSEHOLD DEBT UP 9SportMESSI DRIVING ARGENTINA AT COPA 11

In today’s paper

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He is skipper for SL series but Dhawan too needs to secure his T20 WC spot

VVS Laxman

NEW DELHI/LUCKNOW: The CBI has reg-istered a case against 189 people, including 16 government servants, for alleged irregularities in the Rs 1,437-crore Gomti river front develop-ment project in Lucknow undertaken during the tenure of the Samajwadi Party (SP) government in Uttar Pradesh headed by Akhilesh Yadav, according to officials, who said this was one of the highest numbers of people booked by the agency on a single FIR.

After registering the case, the agency sleuths swooped down on 42 locations spread across 13 districts of Uttar Pradesh, Alwar in Rajasthan and Kolkata in West Bengal, they said.

The agency had registered a Preliminary Enquiry (PE) into the case, which was converted into an FIR against 16 officials and 173 contrac-tors and their firms on June 2 and was made public on Monday to ensure a smooth conduct of searches in connection with the case. See P6

MUMBAI: Twelve BJP MLAs were suspended from the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly for one year after the state government accused them of “misbehaving” with presiding offi-cer Bhaskar Jadhav in the Speaker’s chamber on Monday.

The motion to suspend the MLAs was moved by state Parliamentary Affairs Minister Anil Parab and passed by a voice vote.

The 12 suspended members are- Sanjay Kute, Ashish Shelar, Abhimanyu Pawar, Girish Maha-jan, Atul Bhatkhalkar, Parag Alavani, Harish Pimpale, Yogesh Sagar, Jay Kumar Rawat, Nara-yan kuche, Ram Satpute and Bunty Bhangdia.

Parab said during the period of suspension, the 12 legislators will not be allowed to enter the Legislature premises in Mumbai and Nagpur.

Objecting to the decision, BJP members, led by Devendra Fadnavis, said the Opposition would boycott the House proceedings. See P6

GOMTI RIVER FRONT CASE: CBI BOOKS 189 PEOPLE

12 BJP MLAs SUSPENDED FROM MAHA ASSEMBLY FOR 1 YEAR

Quick News

Swamy’s lawyer asks HC to initiate a judicial inquiry into the circumstances that led to the undertrial activist’s death

Film: Pg 12‘I was treated like a different species’

Under the scrapped section a person posting offensive

messages could be imprisoned for up to three years as

also fined

Nation: Pg 5CBSE’s spl assessment scheme: 2 term-end exams to be conducted

PM Narendra Modi addresses the CoWIN Global Conclave 2021, through video conferencing PTI Civil rights activist Stan Swamy

FILE PHOTO

PIYUSH OHRIE

GURUGRAM: For more than two months, an uneasy calm sur-rounds south Haryana especially several villages of Nuh and Guru-gram. There are allegations reli-gious polarisations surrounding the brutal murder of a 25-year-old man by a mob.

On May 16, Asif Khan, a resi-dent of Nuh was abducted when he was on his way to Sohna. He was subsequently shot dead after being beaten mercilessly by some men. Six arrests have been made in the case while four main accused are still absconding.

While Asif ’s friends and fam-ily claimed it to be a hate crime, family members of those who

have been arrested claim that their sons are being framed and that Asif was a local goon who used to harass people in the neighborhood.

Following this, at a Hindu mahapanchayat organised in Pataudi near Gurugram on July 4, a host of incendiary remarks were made. This included pro-vocative speeches by BJP leader Suraj Pal Amu. Present in the event was a man, who was a

juvenile when he opened fire at anti-CAA protestors on Janu-ary 30, 2020. Similar to this one, another panchayat was organised in Indiri village in Nuh where the same BJP leader had made several controversial remarks.

With Nuh being a Muslim dominated district, these fringe groups have levelled several alle-gations about forced conversions and love jihad.

Meanwhile, Asif ’s family refused comment as his father did not want to vitiate the atmo-sphere. With no action being taken so far on any of the pro-vocative speeches made in these mahapanchayats, several groups are now holding gatherings for communal harmony.

‘BJP wants to replace Delhi govt’s prosecutors in farm protest cases’

Gulfisha’s plea: Judges recuse, cite lawyer Pracha’s ‘heckling’

ARNABJIT SUR

NEW DELHI: Citing “heckling” by a lawyer “who doesn’t even know basics of law”, a division bench of the Delhi High Court on Monday recused from hearing a habeas corpus petition moved by Delhi riots accused and MBA student Gulfisha Fatima where she has claimed her custody pertain-ing to the case of alleged “larger conspiracy” behind the commu-nal carnage as “illegal”.

A division bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Anup J Bhambhani recused from hear-ing advocate Mehmood Pracha, representing Fatima, while not-ing in its order that instead of responding to questions posed by the court, the counsel was resort-ing to “heckling” and hence the matter should be listed before another bench subject to approval of the Chief Justice.

During the course of the hear-ing, advocate Pracha argued that his client’s custody in the case was illegal as only a special court judge holds the power to remand her to custody and not a Sessions judge. Meanwhile, Special Public Pros-ecutor Amit Mahajan opposed the plea, stating at the outset that the plea was not maintainable.

However, the court, while

questioning the petition, stated that the same was earlier filed by Fatima’s brother which later got dismissed, following which he moved the Supreme Court. “You can’t assail the findings in a previous habeas corpus by way of a fresh petition. Please ask yourself if the issue can be reagitated…”

On this advocate Pracha sub-mitted that his client’s custody became illegal through a judge-ment which was passed by the Supreme Court in October. “The proposition we made was upheld by the SC in another case..” Pra-cha submitted.

However, the court shot back stating that while the earlier plea was made by the brother of the petitioner and while the brother is not here anymore, the sister was making a prayer for herself. “Pracha relied on a Supreme Court decision pertaining to Bikramjit vs The State of Pun-jab to claim that according to the judgement, Fatima’s custody became illegal in August itself. “Habeas corpus is qua custody of the prisoner,” Pracha submitted.

“...one the SC has made a law, it will be assumed that it was always the law. But what will happen to the prior orders? Have you not exhausted your remedy?”

the court further asked Pracha.However, Pracha stated

that the custody of Fatima was extended by a Sessions Judge and hence the same was illegal. “If custody is extended, you tell the Sessions judge you cannot extend it next time. Why are you here before us?” Justice Mridul remarked.

Justice Bhambhani also stated that the Supreme Court’s judge-ment will not be applicable in the present case and that once a remand order is passed by a court, it cannot be set aside by a Habeas Corpus petition. On being asked about when Fatima’s last remand order was passed, Pracha submitted that he had no knowledge about the same and no one was telling him about it.

After the court asked Pra-cha to file an affidavit stating that he didn’t have the remand order, Pracha asked the bench to record his statements per-taining to it but the bench asked him that he wasn’t addressing a rally but a court of law and that everything has to be on record.

Subsequently, a visibly irri-tated bench noted that instead of addressing them on merits, Pracha was resorting to heck-ling and transferred the case to another bench.

3 HELD FOR KILLING MAN IN DELHINEW DELHI: Three members of a gang were arrested for allegedly killing a person in Rohini’s Kanjhawala area, police said on Monday. The accused have been identified as Pankaj alias Ajay (24), a resident of Sonipat in Haryana, and Aniket (23) and Shiv Jeet (41), both residents of Gurgaon, they said. On June 25, the police rushed to a shop in Qutubgarh village after they received information that shots had been fired, officials said.

MAN SHOT DEAD BY 3 GANGSTERS, INCLUDING SON OF RETIRED ACP NEW DELHI: An 18-year-old man was shot dead by three gangsters, including son of retired Delhi Police ACP in Kanjhawala area. The accused have been identified as Pankaj alias Ajay (24), a resident of So-nipat in Haryana, and Aniket (23) and Shiv Jeet (41), both residents of Gurgaon. “Shiv Jeet’s father was retired ACP of Delhi Police. His parents have expired. He is strong-headed since his tender age. He stabbed one of his classmates at the age of 17,” official said. On June 25, the police rushed to a shop in Qutubgarh village after they received information that shots had been fired, officials said.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: AAP MLA Raghav Chadha alleged that the BJP through Delhi’s L-G Anil Baijal wants to replace the Delhi government’s law-yers with its own to harass and defame innocent farmers in the farmer agitation related cases.

Chadha went on to state Baijal himself had admitted in a meeting last week that the state government’s lawyers are quite capable and the removal of the same indicates only one thing— the BJP’s inten-tion to interfere in the impar-tial judicial actions of the case.

The AAP leader said in a virtual meeting which took place between the L-G and the Home Minister it was admit-ted that the Delhi government’s public prosecutors are doing a good job. It was also mentioned that the cases are being handled properly and everything is pro-gressing with ease. There is no

complaint against the public prosecutors.

“Still in that meeting, BJP’s appointee Hon’ble Lieuten-ant Governor of Delhi said that they will still remove the Delhi Government’s lawyers and that they wish to get new lawyers because they want that the farmers are punished; that they wish to teach these farm-ers a lesson,” he said.

The AAP leader further said that no complaint against the Delhi government’s lawyers has been received and yet the Lieutenant Governor wants to replace them with BJP’s lawyers to teach the farmers a lesson through judicial intervention. The country has been wit-nessing ‘BJP vs Kisan’ for the last 8 months and BJP’s anti-farmer face is showing up day by day. BJP’s Central govern-ment has so far failed to resolve the issue of farmers sitting on Delhi’s threshold for 8 months, he said.

In the cases lodged by the Delhi police against the farm-

ers the BJP is trying to remove the Kejriwal government’s lawyers and place them with their own lawyers, Chadha alleged.

“This is not being done with the intention of providing jus-tice but with the intention of seeking revenge. They want to cause damage to the farmers. They want to punish the farm-ers and seek vengeance. I am talking about BJP’s conspiring intentions under which today

they’ve made a filthy attempt at imposing their preferred law-yers on the Delhi Government,” he said.

Calling the Modi gov-ernment “shrewish and ego-istic”, the AAP leader said that the Central govern-ment has stooped down to the level of influencing the cases, the probe, and even the prosecution process to defame and punish innocent farmers.

Meanwhile the AAP has asked the BJP not to inter-fere in the judicial process and

stop their attempts at pun-ishing innocent farmers. The Kejriwal government will pro-tect the farmers and prevent BJP from seeking revenge. The duty of the Centre is not to seek revenge but to bring justice.

As long as the Kejriwal gov-ernment is in power in Delhi, BJP’s Central government can’t mess with the farmers, Chadha added.

He said, “We favour justice. I am repeating again that the Aam Aadmi Party wants justice and not any revenge.

AAP ASKS BJP NOT TO INTERFERE IN THE JUDICIAL PROCESS

City Briefs

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Protection extended for woman who wilfully converted to Islam

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court Monday extended the interim protection till July 22 granted to a woman who claimed that she and her family are fac-ing life-threats and being witch hunted by the UP police, media and vigilante groups after her wilful conversion from Hindu-ism to Islam.

Justice Rekha Palli noted that no one appeared on behalf of Director General of Uttar Pradesh Police and the UP gov-ernment, against whom the woman has raised grievances and said it needs to hear them before passing any orders.

Despite service of advance

notice, none appeared Respon-dent no 4 and 5 (UP author-ities). It appears that the primary grievance raised by the petitioner (woman) is against respondent no. 4 and 5 who are situated beyond the territorial jurisdiction of this court.

Before passing any orders, it is deemed appropriate to hear them, the court said and directed the woman’s counsel to serve a copy of the petition to the coun-sel for UP in Supreme Court.

List on July 22. In the mean-time, interim orders to continue, it said.

The high court had on July 1 granted interim protection till July 5 to the woman and had

asked Delhi Police to take appro-priate steps to protect her, not-ing that she was a young woman who has expressed apprehension regarding her security.

Advocate Tanya Agarwal, representing the woman, sub-mitted that the petitioner was 29-year-old and has willfully converted to Islam from Hindu-ism in Delhi and that she appre-hends that she will be forcibly taken to Uttar Pradesh and will be reconverted to Hinduism.

Advocate Sameer Vash-isth, representing Delhi Police, said the woman has stated that she has no grievance against Delhi Police and her issue is only against the UP authorities.

ARNABJIT SUR

NEW DELHI: Accused of alleg-edly carrying out “forced con-versions” of Hindu women into Islam inside his chamber at the Karkardooma Court here, a law-yer’s license to practice has been suspended pending a disciplin-ary proceeding against him and his chamber has been directed to be sealed by the Bar Council of Delhi (BCD) for undertaking “illegal” and “totally disgrace-ful” activities which negate the dignity of the legal profession.

In its suspension of enrol-ment-cum-showcause notice, BCD has pulled up the lawyer, one Iqbal Malik, for indulging in forced conversions of women

inside his chamber and issuing the marriage certificates to them from the chamber itself which acted as a conversion trust.

The council was acting on a complaint of one Sohan Singh Tomar who alleged that Malik was using his chamber for “anti-social” and “illegal activities”, so much so that his chamber was used for conversion of religion and performance of Muslim marriages or Nikah.

In his complaint, seen by Mil-lennium Post, Tomar has alleged that his daughter, Aarti Singh, had fled from her house on May 28, following which he got to know that a person named Kam-ran Khan had allegedly lured her and escaped with her.

“...later the SHO of Pandav Nagar Police Station told us that Aarti had fled with a Muslim man and that she has volun-tarily converted to Islam...the marriage certificate showed that the place of marriage was the lawyer’s chamber which as per my knowledge is an illegal act ,” the complaint stated.

The BCD notice, taking cog-nisance of the complaint men-tioning the place of marriage as “F-322, Karkardooma Third Floor, MazarWali Masjid”, stated that: “The description tallies with your chamber, but it has been described as ‘Mazarwali Masjid’.which makes the alle-gations made in the complaint much more serious”.

“It is also revealed from the documents annexed with the complainant that a Conversion Trust is being run by you from your chamber,” the notice said, adding: “the name of Quazi has been mentioned as Mohd. Akbar Dehlvi…”

The notice added that the alleged activities are not per-missible nor are part of the professional activities of an advocate and “your conduct in performing a Nikah and issu-ance of certificate of conver-sion and Nikahnama/Marriage Certificate is totally disgraceful and negates the dignity of legal profession”.

Noting these points, BCD directed immediate suspension

of Iqbal’s license to practice while forming a Special Disciplinary Committee, consisting various office-bearers of BCD, to look into the allegations with assis-tance from Delhi High Court registrar, District Judge con-cerned and the district DCP. While Iqbal’s chamber has been sealed, he has been directed to file a response within seven days of receipt of notice and has to appear in person before the com-mittee on July 16, failing which appropriate action will be taken.

While Malik was unavailable for comment despite repeated attempts, one of his colleagues, requesting anonymity, claimed that the allegations were “bogus” and nothing of this happened.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Noting that public parks cannot be used for social, cultural, commercial, marriage or other functions, the National Green Tribunal Mon-day formed a committee to sub-mit report on a plea against the allotment of space by the DDA to a temple in District Park here.

A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel constituted the committee comprising offi-cials from District Magistrate, North Delhi, Delhi Develop-ment Authority , Delhi Pollution Control Committee and North Delhi Municipal Corporation.

We direct the Joint Com-mittee to furnish a factual and action taken report in the matter by e-mail.The DPCC will be the nodal agency for coordination

and compliance, the bench said.The matter is listed for next

hearing on November 8.The NGT was hearing a plea

filed by city resident A K Malik against the allotment of an open park by DDA to Agrani Matri Mandir in District Park, Sector 14, Rohini.

The plea alleged that this has affected the right of the residents to open space and also created a source of noise pollution.

Loudspeakers and DJs are

played at full volume even after 10:00 pm. Commercial activities are also carried out in the form of holding functions. It is well settled that a public park cannot be used in the manner alleged in the application, the plea said.

The NGT had earlier directed the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) to ensure that no park is used for holding any social, cultural, commercial and marriage or other functions in the national capital.

BCD suspends lawyer’s license over alleged ‘forced religious conversion’ in his chamber

Attempt to murder: Bollywood movie inspires man to hatch conspiracy, implicate witnesses

ABHAY SINGH

NEW DELHI: Inspired by the Bollywood film ‘Drishyam’, a man planned his attempt to murder in the Civil Lines area of North Delhi following which one was arrested, police said.

On June 29, an incident of gunshot firing and a person sustaining a bullet injury was reported. The injured was iden-tified as Amarpal. He had inju-ries of pellets of the bullet on his back. Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) Anto Alphonse said On July 2, during the inves-tigation, family members of the injured were examined and they suspected one Ombir in the case.

“There were certain discrep-

ancies in the version of the family members. It came to the notice that Amarpal has come out of jail on parole just one month ago (came out on interim bail for 60 days). The family of Amarpal (injured in the present matter) had some altercation with his neighbour Ombir’s family over some trivial issue. Amarpal along with his friends and family mem-bers had killed Ombir’s mother. In that case, Amarpal and others were charge-sheeted,” he said.

After releasing on parole firstly he tried to win over the witnesses by pressurising them but when he failed to win them over, he decided to conspiring to implicate them in a false case. He hatched a deep conspiracy with

his brother and cousin brother. He made his coconspirators watch the movie “Drishyam”. He decided to create the scene and witnesses to prove his story of being shot.

On basis of his plan, he started convincing people that he is being threatened by Ombir’s family for revenge. Amarpal arranged a country made pistol and live cartridges that too with pellets and not bullets, so that it would not be deadly. He motivated and conspired with his brother Guddu and cousin brother Anil to exe-cute it finally.

As per the conspiracy, injured Amarpal visited the decided place, Khyber Pass and spent more than one hour roaming

around and convincing peo-ple that he was being followed. Thereafter, he called his brother Guddu to execute the plan.

“Guddu, Anil and Manish reached the pre-decided place. After seeing Guddu, Amarpal came towards the dark side of the road where Anil fired at him as per the conspiracy,” the official said. Anil, Guddu and Manish ran away from the spot and went to their respected houses while Amarpal went to his friend’s place in an injured state making it look like his enemies tried to kill him. The team of Civil Lines police station led by SHO Ajay Kumar nabbed Anil. He nar-rated that he was a part of the conspiracy hatched by Amarpal.

Muslim man’s death triggers polarisation in South Haryana

Public parks can’t be used for social, cultural function: NGT

ON DDA ALLOTTING SPACE TO A TEMPLE

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Agatha Sangma, Member of Parliament from Tura in Meghalaya, has now written to the Union Home Minister requesting him to ini-tiate a probe into the mysteri-ous deaths of two youths from Dimapur in Delhi.

Police said they are waiting for the post-mortem report for further action.

In the letter, MP wrote that “a couple of days back, Rosy Sangma complained of a medi-cal condition and was taken to the hospital for medical inter-vention where she succumbed to it and her brother Samuel Sangma, who was attending her sensed medical negligence and registered a complaint into the event leading to her death.”

As per the MP, subse-quently the next day, Samuel Sangma was found hanging in his hotel room by his friends, the circumstances leading to his death rose suspicion of foul play and now there is an enormous indignation in the public space and call for jus-tice is growing with every pass-ing day.

“Prima-facie this appears to be a case of orchestrated homi-cide, which requires investi-gation of highest order to underneath the truth leading to the death of two young per-sons in their prime,” letter read.

As per official, they have not found any foul play in Samuel’s case. Prima facie, it appears that he died by suicide. They are waiting for post-mor-tem reports. Will take action if we find anything suspicious.

‘Mysterious’ deaths of

two youths: Tura MP

seeks probe

Customs seized heroin worth over Rs 600 cr at IGIA in last six monthsOUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Customs officers have seized heroin worth over Rs 600 crore being smuggled into the country at the interna-tional airport here in the last six months, officials said on Monday. A total of 20 accused, 18 for-eigners and two Indians, were arrested in 14 cases registered between December 2020 and June this year, they said.

Around 86 kg of heroin, esti-mated to be worth more than Rs 600 crore in the international market, was seized in these cases, the officials said.

Of the 20 foreigners, six were Afghan nationals and 12 from African countries including Uganda, Zambia, Kenya, Tan-zania, Malawi and South Africa.

The recent seizures were the result of the enhanced surveil-lance at the Indira Gandhi Inter-

national airport mounted by customs officials.

“These are unprecedented seizures at the airport and the result of the increased surveil-lance maintained by the field formation under the supervi-sion of senior officials, the in-charge of the IGI airport. All officers are alert round the clock to check any incident of smug-gling at the airport,” a senior officer said, crediting the suc-cess to “team efforts”.

He said the seizures signal a worrying demand for the con-traband in India, especially at a time when regular international flights are suspended due to the pandemic.

Giving details of one of the biggest seizures effected last month, the officer said heroin worth Rs 126 crore was seized from two South African men at the airport.

Highlights » BJP’s Central government has so far failed to resolve the issue of farmers sitting on Delhi’s threshold for 8 months, AAP MLA Raghav Chadha said » The AAP leader further said that no complaint against the Delhi government’s lawyers has been received and yet the Lieutenant Governor wants to replace them with BJP’s lawyers » The duty of the Centre is not to seek revenge but to bring justice, he said

3millenniumpost City mpNEW DELHI | TUESDAY, 6 JULY, 2021

THIRTY-SIX CASES OF DENGUE IN CITY SO FAR THIS YEARNEW DELHI: Thirty-six cases of dengue have been reported in the national Capital this year, according to a civic report released on Monday. The number of dengue cases for the January 1-July 3 period is also the highest this year since 2018 when the count had stood at 33 in that same duration. No case has been reported in the month of July, as per the report. Dengue mosquito larvae breed in clear, standing wa-ter, while those of malaria thrive even in dirty water. Cases of vector-borne diseases are usually reported between July and November but the period may stretch till mid-December.

BOY UNDERGOES CHALLENGING SPINE CORRECTIONAL SURGERY AT CITY HOSPNEW DELHI: Doctors at a leading facility in Delhi have given a new lease of life to a 12-year-old boy by performing a challenging spine correctional surgery on the child facing a high risk of death due to an inherent disorder, hospital authorities said on Monday. The six-hour operation was complex as it was a pediatric case with an increased risk of developing malignant hyper-thermia and also due to the potentially long surgery in prone position, risk of bleeding and requirement of intensive care after the surgery, doctors said.

RESPOND TO PLEA ALLEGING INORDINATE DELAY IN REOPENING SPA CENTRES: HCNEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court Monday sought response of the Delhi government and the Centre on a plea alleging inordinate delay in issuing guidelines to reopen spa centres, which were closed in April due to the second wave of COVID-19, while salons, gym-nasiums and yoga institutions have been allowed to be open. Justice Rekha Palli issued notices and sought replies of Delhi government, Ministries of Home Affairs and Health and Family Welfare on the petition filed by owners of two spa centres here. It is expected that respondent no. 1 (Delhi government) on the next date of hearing will be ready with the explanation as to why in light of the (earlier) order of this court, spas are not permitted to be open, the court said and listed the matter for further hearing on July 22.

THE COURSES WILL SEE ENROLMENT OF 6,000 STUDENTS IN THE INITIAL PHASE

NEW EXCISE POLICY

‘MOST-DELAYED IN 15 YEARS’ City Briefs

DSEU launches 11 UG courses, admissions to begin from today

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Skill and Entrepreneurship Uni-versity (DSEU) on Monday launched 11 flagship skill-based undergraduate courses and admissions for 6,000 seats in their inaugural academic year (2021-22) will begin from Tuesday.

Niharika Vohra, vice chan-cellor, DSEU announced dur-ing an online press conference that the university shall be accepting applications for 15 diploma courses, 18 under-graduate courses (11 flagship courses, BCA and 6 B.Tech. courses) and two post-gradu-ate courses, to be offered across 13 campuses in Delhi.

“The university is formed with an aim of changing the entire paradigm of skilling, the whole idea is how do we make skilling aspirational and how do we become a partner in upskilling, reskilling of our nation and helping the industry in that entire process,” she said.

Describing the newly launched flagship courses

such as e-commerce opera-tions, data analytics, digital design and media, facilities and hygiene management, medi-cal laboratory technology, the vice chancellor said, “The university aspires to support entrepreneurs and entrepre-neurship directly. Our courses are industry embedded, there are partnerships and linkages in diploma and undergraduate degree program where we will prepare each student to face the world and in gaining employ-

able skills for the industry.”Adhering to Covid pro-

tocol, the admissions shall be completely online through the centralised admission portal of the university (www.dseu-online.in).

To ease the process, the university shall support the candidates throughout the application process via helpline numbers (a toll free number (18003093209) for admission-related queries and a separate helpline number

(01141169950) for technical assistance in filling the form), admission counselling rooms in all institutes, social media platforms, virtual walk-in help desk, etc.

Students enrolling for the undergraduate programs (except B.Tech.) are required to take an interest profiling test — Personality, Entrepreneurial Mindset and General Ability Test — to help them choose the course they are most suited for, the VC said.

“We want the student to go and make a career in the indus-try. For this, we would like the student to ascertain their inter-est and then take admission, so that later they do not feel stuck in a vocation,” she said.

“The curriculum for all courses including the estab-lished diploma courses are being revamped by experts from academia and industry to ensure that the courses com-ply with market requirements, with a special emphasis on employability and life skills via experiential learning. The uni-versity shall also provide multi-ple entry and exit options as per NEP, 2019 in all the courses,” she added.

The university will support all deserving students through scholarships, freeships and financial assistance for get-ting loans and support from Delhi government schemes for higher education, Vohra said.

The university was estab-lished last year by the Delhi government to provide quality education in applied sciences and skill education.

‘Varsity should be safe space for students to dissent’; Govt gets AUD to drop pupil’s fine

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Monday directed the authorities to ensure that no action is taken against the Ambedkar Univer-sity student fined for allegedly posting “distasteful remarks” online against Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, prompting the varsity to withdraw its ear-lier order.

Sisodia, who spoke to the penalised student on Monday, also ordered that relevant direc-tions be issued to all universities that come under the aegis of the Delhi government to ensure that no such action is taken against students in future for express-ing their opinions, unless they are damaging to the social fab-ric of the country or go against its constitutional values.

A fine of Rs 5,000 was imposed on Neha, a final year student of the university, last week for allegedly posting “dis-tasteful remarks” online against the chief minister during the annual convocation on Decem-ber 23 last year. Kejriwal was the chief guest at the event.

“It has been brought to my notice that disciplinary action

is been taken against a student of Ambedkar University Delhi for voicing certain remarks against the chief minister and myself. Firstly, no action should be taken against any student for expressing a viewpoint that is different from the gov-ernment or the university, unless the said statement dam-ages the social fabric of our country or is against our con-stitutional values,” Sisodia said in an official order.

“Secondly, since the student was expressing her viewpoint against the government, as being reported in media, the matter should have first been brought to our notice before initiating any action against her. A uni-versity should be a safe space for students to freely voice their opinions, debate and develop their points of views. No stu-dent should be punished for exercising their right to free

speech within the university space,” he added.

Sisodia, who is also Delhi’s Education Minister, further said, “This is not the vision I have for my country or any of our uni-versities. If voices of criticism and dissent cannot be expressed against political leaders in our country, then we are no longer a democracy but a dictatorship. And this, in itself, is a reason why the Right to Freedom of Speech must be secured for every student and every citizen”.

The deputy chief minister directed the principal secre-tary, higher education to look into the matter and ensure that the fine imposed on the student is cancelled and she faces no action for her remarks.

According to university offi-cials, the order imposing the fine on the student has been with-drawn following Delhi govern-ment’s order.

DDMA cracks down on markets, Lajpat Nagar, many others shut

AAISHA SABIR

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Disas-ter Management Authority (DDMA) on Monday issued notice to Lajpat Nagar Central Market in south Delhi district of the Capital to remain shut on Sunday due to non compli-ance of Covid Protocols and will continue to do so until fur-ther orders.

The DDMA has asked the Lajpat Nagar Market Traders Association to show cause why action should not be initiated against the market for flouting coronavirus norms.

“It is, hereby, directed that the above market (Lajpat Nagar Central Market) is closed with immediate effect until further orders,” the DDMA order stated.

An order, which was released on Sunday, directed the traders' association to ensure that all unlock standard operating pro-

cedures (SOPs) are enforced in the market within one day.

The enforcement team under the supervision of the sub-divi-sional magistrate conducted an inspection of the Lajpat Nagar Market and noticed COVID-19 norm violations following which, the authorities issued notice to the market association asking them to shut it down.

Several markets like Rui (cotton) Mandi in Sadar Bazar market will also remain shut on Monday and Tuesday due to flouting covid protocols. During an inspection visit, authorities saw a number of people in the market, who were not wearing their masks properly or were not maintaining any distance, an official in the DDMA told Millennium Post.

Witnessing such violations we decided to shut it down so that shopkeepers take precau-tionary measures themselves,

the official added. SDM Kotwali, Arvind Rana, issued the order for closure of the Rui Mandi in Sadar Bazar.

“Market shopkeepers, ven-dors and general public in Rui Mandi, Sadar Bazar, are not following Covid appropriate behaviour. Due to large footfall, market associations and shop-keepers are unable to ensure Covid protocols,” the order said. “Covid protocols are being contravened in the Rui Mandi, Sadar Bazar which may cause super spreading of coronavirus. Therefore I, Arvind Rana, Inci-dent Commander, SubDivision Kotwalihereby order shutting down of the entire Rui Mandi, Sadar Bazar, market from July 5 to July 6 or further orders,” the order stated.

However, traders in the Rui Mandi and Lajpat Nagar market association members said that it is largely the people who are

not following covid behavior which is the government’s job to ensure that the general pub-lic is following it. We are there to sell our goods, not impose protocols.

“By shutting down mar-kets you cannot teach people to wear masks properly. This only affects the livelihood of the sev-eral people who are associated with markets, even labourers,” one of the shopkeepers in Rui Mandi said adding that on the roads and at bus stops people gather and do not follow covid norms yet transport is not being shut down.

The DDMA on June 30 ordered shutting down of main Laxmi Nagar market, Mangal Bazar, Punjabi Basti Market, Gandhi Nagar market all in east Delhi and Janata market in the Nangloi market area in west Delhi for not following Covid protocols.

Not in our power to check crowding: Mkt associations

NEW DELHI/NOIDA: As the Delhi government ordered the closure of Lajpat Nagar market and Rui Mandi in Sadar Bazar for violation of COVID-19 norms, representatives of vari-ous trader bodies claimed that crowding is mainly due to the presence of street vendors and it is up to the administration to prevent it.

Holding that closure of markets is not a solution, they suggested that authorities come up with uniform SOPs for all market associations after holding discussions with traders.

“Traders sit in their shops or work from their godowns, then how are they responsible if there is a crowd in the mar-ket, which is mostly caused by unorganised roadside vendors.

“It is not in our power to

control them,” said Paramjit Singh Pamma, vice-chairman of the Federation of Sadar Bazar Traders’ Association. He alleged that there were not enough police personnel in the area to ensure that COVID-19 norms are followed in the market.

“We have deputed our guards outside shops, but the street vendors don’t listen to anyone, they don’t wear masks or maintain distance. The police challan shopkeepers, who are sitting inside their stores, instead of the vendors outside,” Pamma claimed,

Meanhwile, the market associations and shopkeepers of Noida have urged admin-istration and police to keep a check and ensure strict enforce-ment of Covid safety guidelines including social distancing and wearing masks. MPOST

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The national Capital on Monday recorded 54 fresh COVID-19 cases, the low-est since April 15 last year, and two more deaths while the posi-tivity rate dropped to 0.09 per cent, according to data shared by the health department here.

Delhi has recorded 14,34,608 coronavirus cases since the pan-demic began last year. So far, over 14.08 lakh patients have recovered, the health depart-ment bulletin said.

The death toll stands at 24,997, it said.

There are 912 active

COVID-19 cases in Delhi, the bulletin stated. This is the low-est since April 10 last year when 862 cases were recorded.

There are 300 people under home isolation while the num-ber of containment zones stands at 701, it said. Delhi had reported 59 COVID-19 cases and two deaths on Monday.

On Sunday, the city had reported 94 cases of COVID-19 with a positivity rate of 0.13 per cent and seven deaths. The national capital had recorded 86 cases with a positivity rate of 0.11 per cent and five deaths on Saturday while 93 cases with a positivity rate of 0.13 per cent

and two deaths were recorded on Friday.

According to covid19India.org, a crowdsourced initiative that collects data on COVID-19 and vaccination in India, Delhi had recorded 17 cases on April 15 last year.

The bulletin said 61,405 tests, including 49,607 RT-PCR tests, were conducted the pre-vious day.

Delhi faced a brutal sec-ond wave of the pandemic that claimed a large number of lives daily. The rapid rise in the num-ber of cases led to a shortage of medical oxygen at various city hospitals.

Delhi records 54 fresh cases, lowest since April 15 last yearMonsoon likely to

reach Capital by July 10, says IMDOUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Southwest Monsoon will reach Delhi around July 10 this year, the India Meteorological Depart-ment said on Monday, adding it will be the most-delayed mon-soon in the Capital in the last 15 years.

“The monsoon is likely to advance over remaining parts of west Uttar Pradesh, some more parts of Punjab, Hary-ana and Rajasthan and Delhi around July 10,” the IMD said in a statement.

The weather system is very likely to increase rainfall activ-ity over northwest and central India from July 10, it said.

According to Kuldeep Sriv-astava, the head of the IMD’s regional forecasting centre, the monsoon had reached the cap-ital on July 7 in 2012 and July 9 in 2006.

In 2002, Delhi received its first monsoonal showers on July 19. The city had recorded the most-delayed monsoon arrival on July 26 in 1987, he said.

Meanwhile, the maximum temperature in the national Capi-tal settled at 39.5 degrees Celsius on Monday, the India Meteoro-logical Department said.

It said thunderstorm with light to moderate rains would occur in northwest, north, south, and southwest Delhi in the next two hours.

The relative humidity was recorded at 40 per cent at 5.30 pm.

The minimum temperature in the city settled at 28 degrees

Celsius, it said.The city is expected to wit-

ness a partly cloudy sky on Tuesday with minimum and maximum temperature settling at around 29 and 41 degrees Cel-sius, respectively.

Delhi’s air quality was in the moderate category on Monday morning.

AAP criticises EDMC’s moveNEW DELHI: The AAP on Monday held a protest out-side the East Delhi Munici-pal Corporation headquarters here over alleged demand by the municipal body of Rs 2,000 per month from doctors for col-lecting biomedical waste. React-ing to the allegations, East Delhi Mayor Shyam Sunder Aggar-wal claimed that the Delhi gov-ernment is creating pressure on corporation officials to levy such charge. He said that no such charge will be levied by the EDMC for collection of bio-medical waste. Calling it a “fel-ony tax”, AAP leader Durgesh Pathak said his party demands that the BJP withdraw its deci-sion to levy this tax otherwise a big agitation will be started.MPOST

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The cramped and dingy liquor vends with people shoving and pushing outside will be replaced by spa-cious, air-conditioned stores across the city with walk-in facility for customers, says the new Excise Policy of the Delhi government put in the public domain on Monday.

The retail vend in the form of L-7V (Indian and foreign liquor) can be opened in any of the markets, malls, commer-cial roads and areas, local shop-ping complexes and such other places, said the policy docu-ment uploaded on the govern-ment website.

Under its Excise Policy, Delhi governnent has already

floated tenders for L-7V licences in 32 zones in which the city has been divided.

“Every vend shall provide a walk-in experience and will be designed accordingly. Cus-tomers will not be allowed to crowd outside a vend or on the pavement and buy through the counter,” said the document.

Each customer will be given access inside the vend and the

entire liquor selection and sale process will be completed within the vend premise, it said.

The vends will need to be air-conditioned and well lit and glass doors. They will have CCTV cameras installed inside and outside the shop and the recording will be maintained minimum for a period of one month.

Adequate security arrange-ments will be provided by the licensee in and around each vend. Licensee will also be responsible for law and order and security around their shop, says the new Excise Policy.

In case the shop causes “nui-sance” for the neighbourhood and a complaint is received by the government, the licence of that particular vend will be can-

celled, it stipulates.As per the Excise Policy,

2021-22, the 272 municipal wards in 68 Assembly Constit-uencies in Delhi are divided into 30 zones.

Each zone will have a maxi-mum of 27 retail vends (L-7V), with an average of three retail vends in each ward.

The New Delhi Munici-pal Council(NDMC) area and Delhi Cantonment will have 29 vends, while there will be 10 retail vends at the Indira Gandhi International airport.

Delhiites will now be able to fill their bottles or 'growlers' with freshly brewed beer from any microbrewery in the city as the Delhi Excise policy for 2021-22 promises to promote such establishments.

CHHAVIANSHIKA SINGH

NEW DELHI: A recent col-laborative research study on the B.1.617.2 Delta variant on over 100 health care workers (HCWs) across three centres in Delhi including Sir Ganga Ram Hospital has revealed that in vitro, the variant is less sen-sitive to neutralising antibodies in sera from recovered individ-uals, with higher replication efficiency as compared to the Alpha variant.

The study was done by researchers from Cambridge University’s Institute of Thera-peutic Immunology & Infec-tious Disease, India’s National Centre for Disease Control, Imperial College London, doctors from Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, and others. The study is available on-line as a non-peer reviewed preprint ver-

sion in research in RESEARCH SQUARE.

Delta variant shows 8 fold reduced sensitivity to vaccine elicited antibodies. Mutant has enhanced spike proteins for attachment to the lung epithe-lial cells which has provided it much higher capacity to infect many more people than the Wuhan strain.

In an analysis of vaccine breakthrough in over 100 healthcare workers across three centers in India, the B.1.617.2 Delta variant not only dominates vaccine-break-through infections with higher respiratory viral loads com-pared to non-delta infections (Ct value of 16.5 versus19), but also generates greater transmission between fully vaccinated HCW as compared to other variants B.1.1.7 or B.1.617.1.

Cheers! Liquor vends to be air-conditioned, spacious; microbreweries will be encouraged

‘Delta variant 8 times less sensitive to Covid

vaccine antibodies’

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Public Works Department (PWD) will install CCTV cam-eras at vulnerable points to monitor waterlogging in the national Capital and has asked its officials to con-duct night inspections dur-ing the rainy season.

These instructions were issued by the PWD engi-neer-in-chief after his meet-ing with the PWD secretary last month.

Later, a circular in this connection was issued by the department which stated that executive engi-neers and other field staff will be responsible for any waterlogging and drainage or pumping issue at under-passes and other vulnerable points.

PWD to install CCTVs to

keep tab on waterlogging

Pupil had made remarks against CM, Sisodia says student cannot be punished for this

‘Centre should be held accountable for Stan Swamy’s custodial murder’

Oppn, Muslim leaders say action should match words

OPPOSITION LEADERS AND ACTIVISTS HIT OUT AT THE GOVT

4 millenniumpostNationmpTUESDAY, 6 JULY, 2021 | NEW DELHI

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Opposition leaders and activists hit out at the Centre after the death of Jesuit priest and activist Stan Swamy on Monday, saying it should be held accountable for the "ruthless" and "inhu-man treatment" meted out to the 84-year-old who was suf-fering from multiple ailments and awaiting bail on medical grounds.

They termed Swamy's death a "custodial murder" and alleged that the Centre and the judges who repeatedly denied bail to him had "blood on their hands".

Swamy was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) from Ranchi in Octo-ber 2020 under the stringent Unlawful Activities Preven-tion Act (UAPA) in connec-tion with the Elgar Parishad case and lodged at the Taloja Central Jail in Navi Mumbai.

He died at the Holy Family Hospital, where he was admit-ted on May 29, in Mumbai on Monday, a day after he suffered a cardiac arrest and was put on ventilator support.

Taking to Twitter, senior Congress leader Rahul Gan-

dhi said Swamy deserved jus-tice and humaneness.

Expressing shock over Swa-my's death, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren said the central government should be held accountable for its "absolute apathy" towards the octogenarian.

"Shocked to learn about the demise of Father Stan Swamy. He dedicated his life to working for tribal rights. I had strongly opposed his arrest & incar-ceration. The Union govern-ment should be answerable for absolute apathy and non-pro-vision of timely medical ser-vices, leading to his death," he said in a tweet.

Left parties too alleged that "inhuman treatment" was meted out to Swamy and demanded that all those responsible for his death be arrested.

CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said he was "deeply pained and outraged" over Swamy's death.

"A jesuit priest & social activist he tirelessly helped the marginalised. Draconian UAPA custody, inhuman treatment since October 2020 with no charge established. Accountability must be fixed

for this murder in custody," he tweeted.

The Tamil Nadu state committee of the CPI(M) announced that it would hold state-wide demonstrations on July 8 to protest the injustice that Swamy faced.

All those arrested in Bhima Koregaon and other cases with "political motives" should be released, CPI(M) state secre-tary K Balakrishnan said in a statement.

In a statement, the CPI alleged that Swamy was denied medical treatment.

"His death raises several questions regarding the judi-

ciary, treatment in custody, denial of medical facilities, torture in custody... The party demands arrest of all those responsible for foisting false cases on him, his continued detention and inhuman treat-ment. They should be held accountable for his death and given proper punishment," it said.

The Elgar Parishad case relates to alleged inflammatory speeches made by some activ-ists at a conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017.

Police claim these speeches triggered violence the next day near the Koregaon-Bhima war memorial located on the out-skirts of the city and that the conclave was organised by peo-ple with alleged Maoist links.

Kavita Krishnan, a mem-ber of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) polit-buro, tweeted, "It's over. Modi and Shah have accomplished the custodial killing of the gen-tle Jesuit social worker Fr Stan Swamy, who spent his life serv-ing the oppressed. I hope the judges who denied him bail never get to sleep at night: they have blood on their hands."

Kerala Chief Minister Pina-rayi Vijayan said it was unjusti-

fiable that a man who fought all through his life for our society's most downtrodden had to die in custody.

"Such travesty of justice should have no place in our democracy. Heartfelt condo-lences!" he tweeted.

Anti-graft crusader and RTI activist Anjali Bhardwaj termed Swamy's death an "institutional murder".

"With UAPA, the process is the punishment. The death of 84-year-old Father Stan Swamy should be recognised for what it is - institutional murder. RIP Father Stan," she tweeted.

Rights activist Shabnam Hashmi spoke in the same vein.

"#StanSwamy passes away. Fr. Stan Swamy passes away as undertrial in state custody under fake charges under UAPA, NIA, sedition. This is not death, this is custodial murder. Government has to be held accountable," she said in a tweet.

Karwan-e-Mohabbat, a people's campaign devoted to equality, freedom and justice said, "Father Stan Swamy has died. He is now free. The state that inflicted cruelties on this brave, noble soul has murder on its hands".

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Centre on Monday told the Delhi High Court that social media giant Twitter Inc has failed to com-ply with India's new IT Rules, which could lead to losing its immunity conferred under the Information Technology(IT) Act.

The Centre, in an affidavit filed in the high court, said as per the details obtained from Twitter's website or mobile application, as an interim, the grievances from India are being handled by the plat-form's official located in the US which amounts to non-com-pliance of the IT Rules, 2021.

The IT Rules, 2021 are the law of the land and Twitter is mandatorily required to com-ply with the same, said the affi-davit filed in response to a plea by lawyer Amit Acharya, in which he claimed non-com-pliance of the Centre's new IT Rules by the microblogging platform. The matter is sched-uled to come up for hearing on Tuesday.

The Centre's affidavit, filed by N Samaya Balan, working as Scientist-E in the Cyber Law Group with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY), said admittedly Twitter Inc is an intermediary within the mean-ing of provision of IT Act, 2000

and a Significant Social Media Intermediary (SSMI) under the IT Rules 2021.

It said that inspite of the three months' time granted to all SSMIs to comply with the IT Rules 2021 having expired on May 26, Twitter has failed to fully comply with the same. The IT Rules were notified on February 25.

I submit that the respon-dent no.2 (Twitter Inc) had initially appointed the interim resident grievance offi-cer (RGO) and the interim nodal contact person. Later the respondent no.2 (Twit-ter Inc) informed the answer-ing respondent (MEITY) that the said interim RGO and

nodal officer have withdrawn/ resigned from their positions.

I submit that as per the details gleaned from the respondent No. 2 website/mobile application, in the interim the grievances from India are being handled by personnel of respondent No. 2 situated in the United States of America which amounts to non-compliance with the IT Rules 2021, the affidavit said.

The affidavit, filed through Central government stand-ing counsel Ripudaman Singh Bhardwaj, said that Twitter has failed to comply with the IT Rules, 2021 as on July 1 for the following reasons -- chief com-pliance officer has not been

appointed; the position of the RGO is vacant; the position of nodal contact person (even on an interim basis) is vacant, and the physical contact address, which was shown to be there on May 29, is not available again on Twitter website.

I submit that the IT Rules, 2021 are the law of the land and respondent no. 2 is mandato-rily required to comply with the same.

I submit any non-compli-ance amounts to breach of the provisions of the IT Rules, 2021 thereby leading to respon-dent no. 2 losing its immu-nity conferred under section 79(1) of the IT Act, 2000, the officer said.

NEW DELHI: RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's comments that the DNA of all Indians is the same and those asking Muslims to leave the country cannot call themselves Hin-dus drew reactions on Mon-day from opposition and some community leaders who said actions on the ground should match words.

However, Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi hailed RSS chief 's remarks, saying the RSS ideology has always been full of harmony, brotherhood and nationalism, and it was the propaganda by "Bharat bashing brigade" that had painted a negative picture of the Sangh.

Addressing an event, organ-ised by the minority wing of RSS on Sunday, Bhagwat said the DNA of all Indians is the same, irrespective of religion, and urged Muslims not to get "trapped in the cycle of fear" about Islam being in danger in India.

Those asking Muslims to leave the country cannot call themselves Hindus and those indulging in lynching people in the name of cows must know that they are against Hindutva, the RSS chief added.

Reacting to Bhagwat's remarks, Congress leader Digvijaya Singh said if he is true to his words, he must give directions that all those BJP leaders who have "harassed" innocent Muslims be removed from their posts, while AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi alleged that cowardice, violence and murder "are an integral part of Godse's Hindutva thinking" and the lynching of Muslims is also the result of that.

On the RSS chief 's DNA remark, BSP supremo May-awati said there is a differ-ence between what the Sangh Parivar, the BJP and the government say and their actions.

She also said the RSS chief 's statement was like "Muh mein Ram, bagal mein chhuri", a Hindi expression that roughly

translates to someone who is two-faced.

Emphasising that in the past too, those in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), through their service to the people, did a lot of work for the unity of the society, Naqvi said but the 'gumrahi (mislead-ing) gang', not only in India but in the world, always conspired to break the brotherhood and social fabric by creating hulla-baloo about the Sangh.

Some opposition lead-ers also called on the Centre to frame a strong law against mob lynching.

"Actions should match words. If they are so serious about mob lynching, why don't they frame a law against mob lynching and also ensure it is implemented," BSP's Lok Sabha MP Danish Ali said.

Congress' minority cell chief Imran Pratapgarhi said his party has always demanded that there should be a strong law against lynching.

"Now that Mohan Bhagwat has also condemned lynch-ing, I appeal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he should bring a law against lynchings so that such 'terror acts' can be reined in," he said.

Strongly reacting to Bhag-wat's remarks on lynchings, Owaisi said those criminals who carried out lynchings may not know the difference between a cow and a buffalo but the names of Junaid, Akhlaq, Pehlu, Rakbar, Alimuddin were enough for them to kill.

"This hatred is the product

of Hindutva and these crim-inals have the patronage of a government backing Hindu-tva", the president of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Mus-limeen (AIMIM) alleged.

Owaisi referred to a number of violent attacks on Muslims allegedly by cow vigilantes over the past few years.

"Alimuddin's killers are gar-landed at the hands of a Union Minister... the tricolor is laid over the body of Akhlaq's killer... a mahapanchayat is con-vened in support of the killers of Asif ," he claimed.

"Cowardice, violence and murder are an integral part of Godse's Hindutva think-ing. The lynching of Muslims is also the result of this think-ing," Owaisi said in a series of tweets in Hindi.

Tagging a report on the RSS chief 's remarks, Digvi-jaya Singh said, "Mohan Bhag-wat ji, will you pass on these views to your disciples, preach-ers, Vishwa Hindu Parishad/Bajrang Dal workers also? Will you pass on these teachings to Modi-Shah ji and BJP chief minister also?"

"Mohan Bhagwat ji, if you make it obligatory for your dis-ciples to follow this thought, I will become your admirer," the former Madhya Pradesh chief minister said.

Alleging that the RSS had instilled "hatred" between Hin-dus and Muslims, Singh said it was now not easy to remove the "seeds of hatred" that have been sown against Muslims from "Saraswati Shishu Man-dir to the intellectual training provided by the Sangh."

Referring to Bhagwat's remarks giving primacy to being Indian, he asked Bhag-wat to explain this to his dis-ciples first as they "advised me to go to Pakistan many times".

Taking a dig at Bhag-wat's remarks, Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera tweeted,"elders have rightly stated about this organization: They don't do what they say and don't say, what they do." AGENCIES

Swamy died on Monday, a day after he suffered a cardiac arrest and was put on ventilator support

RSS CHIEF’S ADDRESS

Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi hails comments

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat

Twitter Inc failed to comply with IT Rules: Centre to HC

India records...Addressing the CoWIN Global Conclave via

video conference, he said the platform is being made open source so that it is available to all countries. He said vaccination is the best hope for humanity to emerge from the pandemic suc-cessfully and noted that India decided to adopt a completely digital approach for the exercise.

This helps people in proving that they have been vaccinated, expediting the normalcy in the post-pandemic globalised world as they will not have to carry fragile pieces of paper, he said, adding that a safe, secure and trustworthy proof helps people to establish their vaccination.

Modi said experience shows that no nation, no matter how powerful and prosperous, can solve a challenge like this pandemic in isolation.

“Right from the beginning of the pan-demic, India has been committed to sharing all our experiences, expertise and resources with the global community in this battle,” the prime minister said. “Despite all our constraints, we have tried to share as much as possible with the world,” he said, adding that the biggest lesson from the pandemic is that for humanity and the human cause, all nations have to work together and move ahead together.

“We have to learn from each other and guide each other about our best practices,” he said.

Noting that technology is integral to India’s fight against COVID-19, Modi said luckily, soft-ware is one area in which there are no resource constraints. “That’s why we made our COVID tracing and tracking App open source as soon as it was technically feasible,” he said.

Indian civilization considers the whole world as one family and this pandemic has made many people realise the fundamental truth of this phi-losophy, he said. “That’s why, our technology platform for COVID vaccination - the platform we call CoWIN- is being prepared to be made open source so (that) it will be available in any and all countries,” Modi said.

About 50 countries, including Canada, Mex-ico, Nigeria, Panama and Uganda, have shown interest in adopting CoWIN to run their vac-cination drives, Dr R S Sharma, the CEO of the National Health Authority (NHA), had said recently, adding that India is ready to share the open-source software for free.

Stan Swamy dies The Jesuits were his only family, he said.The HC said Swamy’s funeral will be held in

Mumbai in accordance with the COVID-19 pro-

tocols applicable in the city.Condolences poured in for the tribal rights

activist, with many bemoaning his demise.Taking to Twitter, senior Congress leader

Rahul Gandhi said Swamy deserved justice and humaneness. Left parties too alleged that “inhu-man treatment” was meted out to Swamy and demanded that all those responsible for his death be arrested. CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said he was “deeply pained and out-raged” over Swamy’s death.

Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren and his Kerala counterpart Pinarayi Vijayan have posted messages of tribute and condolences, as have Congress leaders Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Shashi Tharoor, and intellectuals and art-ists like TM Krishna. European Union’s Special Representative for Human Rights Eamon Gilm-ore and United Nations Special Rapporteur for human rights defenders Mary Lawlor are also among those who have spoken out.

Lawlor tweeted, “The news from India today is devastating. Human Rights Defender and Jesuit priest Father Stan Swamy has died in cus-tody, nine months after his arrest on false charges of terrorism. Jailing HRDs is inexcusable.”

Gilmore re-tweeted Lawlor’s post and said: “India: I am very saddened to hear that Father Stan Swamy has passed away. A defender of indigenous peoples’ rights. He was held in deten-tion for the past 9 months. The EU had been raising his case repeatedly with authorities.”

Swamy the oldest among the 16 accused per-sons arrested in the Elgar Parishad case and, pos-sibly the oldest in India be charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).

Those arrested include some of India’s most-respected scholars, lawyers, academicians, cul-tural activists, and an ageing radical poet, who then contracted Coronavirus in prison.

In November, Swamy, who suffered from advanced stages of Parkinson’s disease and sev-eral other ailments, made three applications before the special NIA court, seeking direc-tions to the NIA to provide him with a sipper and straw to help him eat. “I cannot hold a glass as my hands are unsteady due to Parkinson’s,” Swamy had said in his application.

The NIA had asked for four weeks to respond to Swamy’s request.

In December, the NIA told both the special court and the Bombay high court that the state prison authorities had provided a sipper to him. “Not just sipper and straw, we are providing him other facilities too like a wheelchair, walking stick, walker, and two attendants were also pro-vided to him,” the NIA had told HC.

While in the Taloja prison, Swamy had written to his friends saying that other prison inmates helped him bathe and eat. My two inmates help out during supper, in washing my clothes and give massage to my knee joints, he wrote. They are from very poor families. Please remember my inmates and my colleagues in your prayers. Despite all odds, humanity is bubbling

in Taloja prison, his letter read.In May this year, Swamy had told the HC

judges via video conferencing that his health had declined steadily while at the Taloja prison.

When I first came here, I could bathe, take a walk, write a bit, all by myself. But now, I need help with everything, he had said. On the NIA producing “some extracts” allegedly taken from his computer that pointed to his links with Mao-ists, Swamy had said they were “fabrications” that were “stealthily” put into his computer.

He had told NIA that his advanced age, health complications, and the raging pandemic would make it difficult for him to travel to Mum-bai, and hoped “human sense would prevail.

The Elgar Parishad case is related to inflam-matory speeches made at a conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017, which, the police claimed, triggered violence the next day near the Koregaon-Bhima war memorial located on the outskirts of the western Maharashtra city.

The police had claimed the conclave was organised by people with alleged Maoist links.

TMC MPs submit memo to President

After Trinamool Congress had raised the matter, Mehta issued a statement that he did not meet Adhikari who had waited for 20 minutes or so and left. Mehta apologised for not meeting Adhikari because of his busy schedule.

“How can the Solicitor General who has been appointed as the Special Public Prosecutor by the CBI, can apologise to a person who has been accused in both Narada and Saradha multi-crore scam?” experts asked.

In Narada sting operation, Adhikari was seen taking money. In the Saradha multi-crore scam, Sudipta Sen, the prime accused, had given a written statement that he had paid money to Adhikari. Moreover, on July 1, Adhikari went to the house of Mehta after meeting the Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

“A meeting between an accused person is a grave criminal offence. The Solicitor General of India, who is advising the very investigating agencies in both these cases, meeting the accused of the same cases, is a blatant conflict of inter-est. Such a meeting makes a total mockery of the criminal justice system in our country and would only serve to destroy the common man’s faith in the Judiciary,” Moitra added.

Reduce hefty taxes... These rather cruel hikes in petrol and diesel

prices have affected the common people most adversely and have directly impacted the danger-ously rising inflation in the country,” Banerjee

wrote to the Prime Minister.Repeatedly drawing attention to the inflation

caused by the hike in fuel prices in her letter to Modi, the Chief Minister further stated: “You are aware that the Wholesome Price Index (WPI) in the country rose by 12.94% in May 2021, com-pared to May 2020. Similarly, Consumer Price Index rose by 6.30% where the prices of edible oils used by common people every day, rose by 30.8%, eggs by 15.2%, fruits by 12%-and health-related items, in the middle of the pandemic, by as much as 8.44%...I express my deep concern and anguish to you for pursuing policies which have resulted in this significant hardship for the common people of the nation”.

This comes when the Mamata Banerjee gov-ernment has withdrawn Re 1 cess from petrol and diesel to give relief to the common people.

Raising her demand for substantial reduction in the Central taxes, Banerjee expressed her won-der knowing that the Centre collected revenue of Rs 3.71 lakh crore only from oil and petroleum in the 2020-21 fiscal when people were extremely distressed amidst Covid pandemic. “In the midst of this Covid pandemic, the Government of India has collected revenue of staggering Rs 3.71 lakh crore from oil and petroleum products in the financial year 2020-21. In fact, over the last six years of your government, Government of India’s tax collection from oil and petroleum products has jumped by a staggering 370% since 2014-15, due to constant hikes in Central Excise Duty on oil and petroleum products including cesses and surcharges, at the cost of the common people,” her letter reads.

She also took a jibe stating urging the Prime Minister “to desist from the anti-federal trend developed in the last few years” after stating that she was alarmed knowing that the Centre is “constantly increasing the Cess component of central tax revenues which results in denying the States its legitimate share of 42% of tax collected by government of India, without sharing with the states”.

The petrol price in Kolkata is just 16 paise short of hitting Rs 100 mark as it stood at Rs 99.84 with an increase of 39 paise on Monday. Though there was no change in diesel price (Rs 92.27 a litre) on Monday, the price of petrol has hovered between Rs 100.01 to Rs 100.88 at dif-ferent places in 19 out of 23 districts in the state. The places where the petrol price hit Rs 100 includes Diamond Harbour, Duttapukur, Krish-nanagar, Chinsurah, Burdwan, Asansol, Bankura, Purulia, Cooch Behar, Suri, Kharagpur, Digha, Murshidabad, Alipurduar, Darjeeling, Balurghat, Kalimpong and Jhargram.

Trinamool Congress will hold state wide pro-test rallies and sit-in-demonstration at every block and towns on July 10 and 11 from 10 am to 4 pm protesting against the spiralling fuel prices.

Trinamool Congress Secretary General Par-tha Chatterjee said: “They have turned the lives of common people quite miserable as the price of cooking gas has also been increased when

people are facing a trying time with an abnormal increase in the prices of petrol and diesel”. Sup-porters of the rulling party in the state also held protest rallies at Haldia in East Midnapore and Raghunathpur in Purulia. Congress supporters too staged demonstrations protesting against the same near Airport gate number 1.

In Delhi, the petrol price soared to Rs 99.86 per litre while diesel rates remained unchanged at Rs 89.36. Price of petrol in Mumbai and Chen-nai stood at Rs 105.92 a litre and Rs 100.75 a litre respectively. The diesel prices in these two metropolises were Rs 96.91 and Rs 93.91 respectively.

Restore J&K’s statehood

The meeting was attended by alliance vice-chairperson and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti, Tarigami, NC leader Hasnain Masoodi, Peoples Movement chief Javed Mustafa Mir and Awami National Conference senior vice president Muzaffar Ahmed Shah. The meeting was called to discuss the all-party meeting chaired by the Prime Min-ister in Delhi on June 24, the PAGD spokesper-son said.

Shocking that people still booked

It sought direction to the Centre to collect all data/ information regarding FIRs/ investigations where Section 66A has been invoked as well as pendency of cases in the courts throughout the country where proceedings under the provision are continuing in violation of the 2015 judgment.

The PUCL also sought direction to top court registry to communicate to all the District Courts throughout the country (through respec-tive High Courts) to take cognizance of the 2015 judgment, so that no person should suffer or face any adverse consequences which violate his fun-damental rights under Article 21 of the Consti-tution. The NGO said the Centre be directed to issue an advisory to all police stations not to reg-ister cases under the repealed Section 66A.

On February 15, 2019, the top court had directed all state governments to sensitise their police personnel about its March 24, 2015 verdict which had scrapped Section 66A of Information Technology Act, so that people are not unneces-sarily arrested under the struck down provision.

It also asked all the high courts to send the copy of the verdict to all the trial court to avoid people being prosecuted under the scrapped pro-vision which provided for jail terms to people who posted offensive content online.

From Page 1

5millenniumpost Nation mpNEW DELHI | TUESDAY, 6 JULY, 2021

CBSE’s spl assessment scheme: 2 term-end exams to be conducted

Delhi has lifted 5,739 MT foodgrains till July 4: FCI

BOARD EXAMS 2022

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Now it is just three steps away for any resident of Bengal, class X and above up to 40 years, to get their dream of pursuing higher studies come true with the Mamata Baner-jee government launching Stu-dent Credit Card scheme. It has come up as the Bengal model across India to scale up the gross enrolment ratio (GER) in higher education.

The unique scheme – for the first time in the country – facilitates a collateral security free soft loan up to Rs 10 lakhs with the Mamata Banerjee gov-ernment as guarantor enabling students pursue higher educa-tion without having any finan-cial constraints.

Students from Bengal are going to reap the bene-fit of the benevolent scheme under supervision of the gov-ernment’s Higher Education Department when the recently released All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) 2019-20 report revealed that the GER in higher education in India is only 27.1 per cent for 2019-20, which has witnessed a little increase from the pre-vious fiscal by only 0.8 per-cent. It stood at 26.3 per cent in 2018-19.

Followed by a detailed study and necessary research work, the scheme has been launched making the scope wider for students to undertake secondary, higher secondary, undergraduate and postgrad-

uate level studies including professional degree, diploma courses and research at doc-toral or postdoctoral level or other similar courses in any school, madrasah, college, uni-versity, IITs, IIMs, IIESTs, ISIs, NLUs, AIIMSs, NITs, XLRI, BITS, SPA, NID, IISc, IIFTs and ICFAI Business School and other affiliated institutes within and outside the country.

With Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee always encouraging more IAS and IPS from the state, students studying in various coaching institutions for appearing in different competitive examina-tions like engineering, medical, law, IAS, IPS, WBCS, UPSC, PSC, SSC etc can also avail the facility to opt for the soft loan at only 4 percent per annum simple interest from the state cooperative bank and its affili-ated central cooperative banks and district central coopera-tive banks and public or private sector banks. Even one percent interest concession will be pro-vided if the interest is fully ser-viced during the study period.

As the Chief Minister had stated that course fee would not be sufficient enough to help a student pursue higher studies as they need to bear a heavy expense for lodging if they move out to any other part of the country or abroad, the credit card would also facili-tate them to meet the expen-diture for accommodation (either in the institute’s hostel or as a paying guest living out-

side the hostel). It can also be used to purchase books, com-puter, laptop, tablet and to meet any other expenses required to complete the course such as study tours, project works, the-sis, etc. The student can incur expenditure up to 30 percent of the total loan sanctioned for non-institutional expenses and up to 20 percent for living expenses for the duration of the course. The student just has to be a resident of Bengal for a minimum of 10 years.

Fulfilling her promise given before the elections to roll out the same, the Chief Minister launched the scheme on June 30 and said: “It is not just mere fulfilling of our promise. But it is a major step forward to secure the future of our stu-dents’ community. The Stu-dent Credit Card scheme is launched to make the dream of students come true and no lon-ger any parent in Bengal have to repent failing to arrange money to help their wards higher stud-

ies. I feel proud saying that no longer any people in the state have to sell out their land, houses or any other property for their children’s higher stud-ies. Financial constraints will no longer come up as a barrier between the dream and reality of our students to become doc-tor, engineer, professor, teacher, IAS and IPS”.

A state government officer involved with the project said that the process of getting the loan has been kept very sim-ple. A separate portal - https://wbscc.wb.gov.in/ - has been launched. One just needs to enter the portal and follow just two steps – “Register” and “Apply” – to reach the third step that is “loan sanctioned”. A sep-arate “green colour” button has been provided at the top of the portal for “student registration”. One will be directed to a new page by a single click on the same where the applicant has to key in basic details includ-ing name, date of birth, gen-

der, Aadhaar number or class X registration number along with information of present course of study and contact depart-ments. The applicant will be provided with an “applicant ID” and a password that has to be used to apply for the loan by clicking on the “student login” button available on the same portal. The online appli-cation will get landed with the Higher Education Department that will forward the same after due examination to the bank to issue the credit card after nec-essary verifications. A student can avail the loan at any time during the course of study. One will get a repayment period of 15 years for the same.

Most importantly, there will be a life cover in the name of the student up to the sanc-tioned loan amount.

Even one may dial a dedicated toll free number 1800-102-8014 or write at sup-port-wbscc@bangla.gov.in for any assistance in this regard.

Banks will not put any unnecessary restrictions or conditions regarding collateral security and it will also not insist on the same in tangible or intangible form other than co obligation of the parents or legal guardians as the state gov-ernment to enter into an agree-ment with the banks separately in this regard.

Overwhelmed with the introduction of such a scheme, a class XII student Ankhi Ban-dyopadhyay said: “It seems that the dark cloud above my dream

of becoming a doctor has been removed. I feel like becoming self dependent to pursue my higher studies. I am also confi-dent of becoming successful in my venture and repaying the loan once I fulfil my dreams of becoming a doctor”.

The scheme becomes cru-cial when the gross enrolment at higher education level has gone up from 13.24 lakhs to 21.61 lakhs in the past 10 years with a huge expansion carried out by the Bengal government in schools and higher educa-tion institutions. The gross enrolment in Higher Second-ary level has gone up from 11.8 lakhs to 16.6 lakhs after pass-ing Class X. Every year around 12 lakhs and 9.5 lakhs stu-dents qualify class X and class XII examinations respectively in the state to pursue higher studies.

In his message in this regard, the state Education minister Bratya Basu said that the priority of the Bengal gov-ernment is providing quality education to the students of our state. The CM dreams of restor-ing the glory of Bengal, when we used to lead our country in the fields of arts and culture, science and technology, com-merce and industries and our students need to be trained in the advanced streams of edu-cation to achieve the dream. “I believe that this historically significant step of introducing Student Credit Cards will accel-erate the process of develop-ment in Bengal,” he said.

Pursuing higher studies now easier in Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee launched Student Credit Card scheme on June 30

The Student Credit Card scheme is launched to make the dream of students come true, CM Mamata Banerjee had said

ABHAY SINGH

NEW DELHI: Malvinder Mohan Singh and Shivinder Mohan Singh, ex-promoters of Religare Enterprises Ltd (REL) have been booked yet again –this time in a cheating case based on a complaint of For-tis Healthcare Limited. As per the EOW, they have received multiple complaints against the Singh brothers.

The complainant in the case told police that the Singh Brothers were promoters/shareholders and holding top managerial positions in the complainant company until February, March 2018.

Malvinder Mohan Singh was appointed as a whole-time director of the complainant company. Similarly, Shivinder Mohan Singh was appointed as executive vice-chairman of the complainant company. The brothers resigned (through email) from their respective positions in the company on February 8, 2018. "Dur-ing their respective tenure as majority shareholders, pro-moters as well as employees

of the complainant company, Singh brothers misused their respective positions," the com-plaint reads.

The complainant told police that the Singh brothers caused a wrongful loss of Rs 7.98 crores to Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre Limited (EHIRCL).

Additional Commissioner of Police (EOW) RK Singh said they have registered a case in this regard." Multiple FIRs are registered against them of cheating and fraud," he added.

Last year, the EOW had said Religare Finvest Ltd (RFL) filed complaint against Malvin-der Mohan Singh,Shivinder Mohan Singh, one Sunil God-hwani and others holding

key managerial posts that the alleged persons having abso-lute control on Religare Enter-prises Limited (REL) and its subsidiaries put Religare Fin-vest Limited (RFL) in poor financial condition by way of disbursing the loans to the companies having no financial standings.

These companies willfully defaulted in repayments and caused wrongful loss to RFL to the tune of Rs 2,397 crore. "This was also pointed out and flagged during their indepen-dent audit by RBI and SEBI," one official said.

In 2019, ED had arrested one of the brothers and former CMD of Religare Enterprises Ltd (REL) Sunil Godhwani in a money-laundering case related to alleged misappropriation of funds of Religare Finvest Ltd (RFL).

According to the ED, both the accused, along with oth-ers, transferred an amount of approximately Rs 1,000 crore to various persons from enti-ties linked to the corporate loan book and finally, the money was siphoned off.

Singh brothers booked again, this time in cheating case

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Centre on Monday said that dis-tribution of free foodgrains under the fourth phase of the Pradhan Mantra Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMG-KAY) has started in seven states and about 14,700 tonnes have been given to beneficiaries so far.

According to Food Dis-tribution Secretary Sud-hanshu Pandey, under the scheme, each beneficiary will get 5 kg dry ration every month for free till Novem-ber. The beneficiary would get either rice or wheat under the PMGKAY, which was first introduced in 2020 for eight months to provide relief to 80 crore beneficiaries covered under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) from COVID-induced eco-nomic hardships.

The dry ration provided

under the PMGKAY is sepa-rate from the ration provided to economically weaker sec-tions through Public Distri-bution System (PDS) and ration card holders would continue to get their ration

About 70.6 lakh tonnes of foodgrains were distrib-uted in the third phase of PMGKAY between May and June. The food grains will be provided to states by the Food Corporation of India (FCI). The scheme was rein-troduced this year for third phase implementation for two months till June and later extended till Novem-ber under the fourth phase.

The Food Secretary said that during the third phase of PMGKAY, about 89 per cent of the allocated foodgrains was distributed to beneficia-ries. The distribution was 94 per cent in May and it should reach that level in a week or so, he said.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Working on a mission mode to ensure lift-ing of foodgrains meant for the beneficiaries of the Prad-han Mantra Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY), FCI’s general manager (Delhi region) Sudhir Kumar said that of the 72,780 MT addi-tional food grains allocated by the Centre to Delhi state for the month of May and June, 100 per cent lifting has already been completed by the Delhi state through DSCSC by June 15 and 72,77,995 beneficiaries have been benefitted from it.

Notably, the Centre has allocated dry ration for the dis-tribution of 5 kgs of foodgrains per person per month to all NFSA beneficiaries apart from their regular allocation for May and June under the third phase of PMGKAY allocation.

Under the fourth phase of the scheme, the Centre has allocated 1,81,950 MT food grains to Delhi government for next the five months, which means from July to Novem-ber and lifting of foodgrain has already started, Kumar said, adding that 5,739 MT of foodgrains have already been lifted as of July 4.

Giving details about the bumper procurement done by FCI’s north region exec-utive director Sanjiv Kumar said, “Even when the Covid-19 pandemic was at its peak, the FCI procured a record pur-chase of 5954.55 MT of wheat benefitting 760 farmers and an amount of Rs 11.76 crores has been transferred directly to farmers’ bank accounts.”

Also, after a gap of 5 years, the FCI’s Delhi region procured 27.6 MT of wheat from farmers at the MSP during RMS 2020-21, Sanjiv Kumar added.

Replying to a question on

foodgrain wastage, the execu-tive director said, “The FCI’s north region has not reported any wastage of grains as there is a robust storage capacity. The FCI has a storage capacity of 900 lakh MT and out of that only 1,800 MT get damaged due to some other reasons. In Delhi circle, there is no wast-age as it's all storage facilities are scientific.”

However, he maintained that if any political leader tries to lure beneficiaries by taking the credit of the free-ration scheme of the Centre, actions would be taken against them as per the law.

FCI Executive Director (North) Sanjiv Kumar along with FCI General Manager (Delhi region) Sudhir Kumar launches Pradhan Mantra Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana

NEW DELHI: In a remark-able feat, three athletes – Dutee Chand, C. A. Bhavani Devi and Shivpal Singh - and Dr. Sudeep Satpathy, a sports medicine doctor, from KIIT Deemed to be University have made the cut for the forthcoming Olym-pic Games. KIIT is the only university in India to send three athletes and one official (doctor) to the Tokyo Olym-pic Games, which is scheduled to start from July 23, informed Dr. Achyuta Samanta, Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha) and Founder, KIIT & KISS.

Interacting with the jour-nalists at a national virtual press meet in Bhubaneswar, Dr. Samanta said, KIIT and KISS have been able to achieve such unique distinction as they have been promoting sports and games in a big way among the students since their incep-tion. Remarkably, KISS has produced 5000+ sports talents at the state, national and inter-national levels, who include medal winners for the country at international sports meets like Commonwealth Games, Asian Games and World Uni-versity Games. Many KIIT stu-

dents have also brought glory for the institution, state and country by their performance at various national and inter-national games. It will be the second consecutive Olympic appearance for Dutee Chand, a law student at KIIT, who quali-fied in two events - women’s 100m and 200m sprints - on the basis of her world ranking. An Arjuna Awardee athlete and national record holder in 100m with a time of 11.17s, the high-light of her career is winning two silver medals in 2018 Asian Games. She is the only Indian to participate in two events for two times in Olympics, Dr. Samanta added.

C. A. Bhavani Devi, who is pursuing Ph.D. degree at KIIT, is the first Indian fencer to ever qualify for the Olym-

pics. She secured qualification in the women’s sabre event at Tokyo 2020 Olympics through the Adjusted Olympic Rank-ings, following the World Cup in Hungary on March 14, 2021. Ranked 42nd in the world, she made history by becoming the first Indian to win a gold medal at the Senior Commonwealth Fencing Championship in Aus-tralia in 2018 in the sabre event.

Javelin thrower, Shivpal Singh, a BBA student at KIIT, qualified for his maiden Olym-pic Games by breaching the qualification mark with a throw of 85.47m at the ACNW League Meeting in South Africa on March 9, 2021. The throw also earned him the Gold Medal at the event. He will represent India along with star javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra. MPOST

Unique achievement: 4 delegates from KIIT in Tokyo Olympics

CHANDIGARH: Two teams of State Vigilance Bureau (SVB), Haryana on Monday arrested two police officials red handed while accepting bribe worth Rs. 2 lakh and Rs 4000 respectively. Both the officials have been booked under the Prevention of Cor-ruption Act.

Sharing more details in this regard, a spokesperson of Bureau said that the first case is related to Sirsa district, wherein the SVB team had caught Sub Inspector (SI) Ajay Kumar, Incharge CIA, Dab-wali while accepting bribe of Rs. 2 lakh from complainant Sukhbir Singh resident of Sec-tor-20, Sirsa.

The spokesperson said that complainant Sukhbir Singh had approached the Bureau alleging that his father aged about 75 years was undergo-ing imprisonment of 10 years under NDPS Act and was on Parole. He could not return to Jail in time due to illness and COVID-19 Pandemic, as such, a case under Parole Act was registered against him.

The said CIA Incharge was demanding bribe of Rs. 2 lakh in lieu of not arresting his father in this case. He said CIA Incharge was also threaten-ing them that if the demand is not fulfilled, he will also arrest the family members for giving shelter to the accused, said the spokesperson. MPOST

SVB, Haryana nabs two

cops while accepting

bribes

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Bifurcating the academic session, holding two term-end exams and rationalis-ing the syllabus were part of the special assessment scheme for class 10 and 12 board examina-tions next year announced by the Central Board of Second-ary Education (CBSE) on Mon-day in view of the COVID-19 pandemic. The term one exams will be conducted by the Board in November-December, 2021 while the second term exams will be conducted in March-April, 2022, as per an official order by Joseph Emmanuel, Director (Academic) of the CBSE.

The syllabus for the board examination will be rational-ised, similar to that of the last academic session, and will be notified in July 2021, it said and also announced plans to make the internal assessment and project work more "cred-ible" and "valid".

At the end of the first term, the board will organise exams in a flexible schedule between

November-December 2021 with a window period of 4-8 weeks for schools situated in different parts of the country and abroad.

"The exams will have Mul-tiple Choice Questions (MCQ) including case-based MCQs and MCQs on assertion-rea-soning type. Duration of test will be 90 minutes and it will cover only the rationalised syllabus of the first term. The question papers will be sent by the CBSE to schools along with the marking scheme.

"The exams will be con-ducted under the supervision of the external center superinten-dents and observers appointed by CBSE. The responses of stu-dents will be captured on OMR sheets which, after scanning may be directly uploaded at the CBSE portal or alternatively may be evaluated and marks obtained will be uploaded by the school on the very same day," he added. At the end of the second term, the board would organise Term II or year-end examination based on the rationalised syllabus.

"This examination would be held around March-April 2022 at the examination centres fixed by the board. The paper will be of two hours duration and have questions of differ-ent formats (case-based/ situa-tion based, open ended- short answer/ long answer type). In case the situation is not con-ducive for normal descrip-tive examination a 90-minute MCQ-based exam will be con-ducted at the end of the second term also," Emmanuel said.

The CBSE has decided that in case the situation of the pan-demic improves and students are able to come to schools or

centres for taking the exams, the board would conduct Term I and II examinations at schools or centres and the theory marks will be distributed equally between the two exams.

"In case the situation of the pandemic forces com-plete closure of schools during November-December 2021, but second term exams are held at schools or centres, the Term I MCQ based examina-tion would be done by students online or offline from home but their weightage will be reduced in the final score," he said.

Similarly, if the November-December exams are conducted

in schools or centres and situa-tion is not conducive in March-April, the result will be declared on basis of first term exams. "In case the situation of the pan-demic forces complete closure of schools and Board conducted Term I and II exams are taken by the candidates from home in the session 2021-22, results would be computed on the basis of their marks clubbed with inter-nal assessment subject to the moderation or other measures to ensure validity and reliability of the assessment," Emmanuel explained.

The syllabus for the aca-demic session 2021-22 will be divided into two terms by fol-lowing a systematic approach by looking into the intercon-nectivity of concepts and topics by the Subject Experts.

"The Board will conduct examinations at the end of each term on the basis of the bifur-cated syllabus. This has been done to increase the probabil-ity of having a board conducted classes 10 and 12 examinations at the end of the academic ses-sion," he said.

CHANDIGARH: The Pun-jab police has busted a major drug racket with the arrest of four Afghan nationals in Delhi and seizure of 17 kg heroin that has a value of Rs 90 crore in the international market.

Police have also recovered assorted chemicals and lab equipment, used to manufac-ture the drug, from the Neb Sarai unit, they said.

With this, the police have dug up another trail, leading to Uttar Pradesh where a team has been sent to unravel the network, Director General of Police (DGP) Dinkar Gupta said on Monday.

The accused have been identified as Mujahed Shin-wari, a native of Nangarhar in Afghanistan and Moham-mad Lal Kaker, Jannat Gul Kakar and Samiullah Afghan from Kunduz. The arrests and seizure resulted from a lead uncovered by a police team in Hoshiarpur, led by SSP Navjot Singh Mahal, which was inves-tigating into earlier FIRs regis-tered under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.

On May 18, the team recovered 0.07 kg heroin after arresting Pushpinder Singh alias Tinku and Amit Choud-hary, who disclosed that they had procured drug from Jas-vir Singh Gajju of Jandiala in Amritsar and Sarabjeet Singh Sethi of Hoshiarpur. AGENCIES

Four Afghan nationals held

with 17 kg heroin worth

Rs 90 cr

The complainant told police that the Singh brothers caused a wrongful loss of Rs 7.98 crores to EHIRCL

Distribution of free foodgrains under

PMGKAY-IV begins

MUMBAI: MAN HELD FOR STABBING, INJURING TAXI DRIVER Mumbai, Jul 5 (PTI) A 23-year-old man was arrested on Monday for allegedly stabbing and injuring a taxi driver in Matunga, a Mumbai Crime Branch official said. A video of the incident, in which the accused can be seen stabbing the cab driver multiple times, had gone viral on social media.

INJURED TIGER DIES DURING TREAT-MENT AT NAGPUR RESCUE CENTRE NAGPUR: A tiger which was shifted to the Gorewada wildlife rescue centre in Nagpur after being found in-jured in Chandrapur’s Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve died in the early hours of Monday, forest officials said. The tiger, officially called T-50, was found in an injured condition and unable to walk on May 8 last year in TATR after which it was brought here on May 10, they said.

INFANT KIDNAPPED BY DUO THAT TOOK HIM FOR VACCINATION BULANDSHAHR (UP): A one-month-old baby was allegedly kidnapped in a village here on Monday by two people who took him away on the pretext of getting him vaccinated, police said. A man and a woman took the child from his family in Doongra Jogi village in a car but didn’t return, they said. Five police teams have been formed to search for the boy, Police Circle Officer of Anoopshahr Vandana Sharma said.

Nation Briefs

6 millenniumpostNationmpTUESDAY, 6 JULY, 2021 | NEW DELHI

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: After a break, Southwest Monsoon is set to revive and spread to remaining parts of north India includ-ing Delhi by July 10, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Monday.

According to the lat-est numerical weather pre-diction model guidance, the Southwest Monsoon is likely to revive gradually over the south peninsula, including west coast and adjoining east-central India from July 8.

A low pressure area is likely to form over west-central and adjoining northwest Bay of Bengal off north Andhra Pradesh-south Odisha coasts around July 11, it said.

The moist easterly winds in lower level from Bay of Ben-gal is likely to establish gradu-ally over parts of eastern India from July 8 onwards. It is likely to spread into northwest India covering Punjab and north Haryana by July 10.

"Accordingly, southwest monsoon (is) likely to advance over remaining parts of west Uttar Pradesh, some more parts of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan and Delhi around 10th July," the IMD said.

"This is very likely to cause increase rainfall activity over northwest and central India from July 10, the IMD said.

After a good spell of rains in the first two and half weeks of June, the Southwest Mon-soon has not advanced further since June 19. Delhi, Haryana, parts of west Uttar Pradesh,

Punjab, west Rajasthan are yet to see the arrival of the monsoon.

In its forecast for July, India Meteorological Department said the country as a whole will witness good rainfall this month.

However, parts of north India, some parts of south peninsula, central, east and northeast India could witness rainfall in the category of nor-mal to below normal.

It added that the condi-tions are not favourable for the monsoon's progress till July 7 due to the lack of a weather system.

The northern Limit of southwest monsoon (NLM) is currently passing through Aligarh, Meerut, Ambala and Amritsar, the IMD said.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The CBI has booked 189 officials and con-tractors in its second FIR related to irregularities in the Rs 1,437-crore Gomti river front development project in Lucknow, which was under-taken during the tenure of the previous Samajwadi Party gov-ernment in Uttar Pradesh, offi-cials said on Monday.

Samajwadi Party (SP) presi-dent Akhilesh Yadav was the chief minister then.

After registering the fresh FIR on Friday, following a preliminary inquiry, the Cen-tral Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday carried out searches at 42 locations spread across 13 districts of Uttar Pradesh, Alwar in Rajasthan and Kolkata in West Bengal, they said.

The operation, which started early in the morn-ing, is going on and it may be expanded during the course of the day, the officials said.

This is the second FIR related to the project by the

CBI. An earlier FIR has already covered work orders worth over Rs 1,031 crore.

In the present FIR, in which 16 officials, including chief engineers, and 173 contractors are accused, the CBI has alleged that 30 notices inviting tenders have come under the scanner.

Out of these, only five were published in newspapers while the remaining 25 forged letters were sent to the Department of Information and Publication to show compliance, it alleged.

The agency has listed sev-eral similar irregularities, including award of tender on the basis of forged documents and forgery in publication of notices inviting tender, accord-ing to the present FIR.

The preliminary inquiry also showed that 27 work orders each over Rs 1 lakh, including one for import of an international standard musical fountain, worth over 55.95 lakh

Euros (Rs 49.3 crore at the pres-ent exchange rate), from the Aquatique Show in Strasbourg, France, were issued without any tender, it alleged.

This was in violation of gov-ernment orders which stipulate that no order of above Rs 1 lakh can be awarded without an ten-der, the CBI said.

The quotation notice for the fountain was issued by Akhil Raman, the then superinten-dent engineer, and it was genu-inely published, it said.

"However, prior to issuance of quotation notice a normal tendering process notice was shown by Raman. This notice was not published and forged receipt letter, release order and copies of newspaper clippings were placed in the records," an official said.

The estimate was approved on the basis quotations in 2016. Roop Singh Yadav, another the then superintendent engineer, directly wrote to the French company for signing the con-tract. He recommended for issuance of supply order for the company, the CBI alleged.

MUMBAI: Twelve BJP MLAs were suspended from the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly for one year after the state government accused them of "misbehaving" with presiding officer BhaskarJad-hav in the Speaker's chamber on Monday.

Leader of Opposition DevendraFadnavis termed the allegation as false and said Jadhav's account of the inci-dent was "one-sided". However, Jadhav sought a probe into the allegation that some Shiv Sena members and he himself made uncharitable remarks, and said he was ready to face any pun-ishment if it was proven true.

The motion to suspend the MLAs was moved by state Parliamentary Affairs Minis-ter Anil Parab and passed by a voice vote. The 12 suspended members are- Sanjay Kute, Ashish Shelar, Abhimanyu Pawar, Girish Mahajan, AtulB-hatkhalkar, Parag Alavani, Har-ish Pimpale, YogeshSagar, Jay Kumar Rawat, Narayan Kuche, Ram Satpute and Bunty Bhang-dia. Parab said during the period of suspension, the 12 legislators will not be allowed to enter the Legislature prem-ises in Mumbai and Nagpur.

Objecting to the decision, BJP members, led by Fadna-vis, said the opposition would boycott the House proceedings.

"This is a false allegation and an attempt to reduce the numbers of opposition benches, because we exposed the government's falsehood on the OBC quota in local bodies," Fadnavis said.

He said the BJP members

had not abused the presid-ing officer. "It was Shiv Sena MLAs who used abusive words. I brought our MLAs out of the Speaker's chamber," Fadnavis said.

Ashish Shelar apologised and the matter ended, the for-mer CM said, claiming that what Jadhav said was a "one-sided" account.

Earlier, NCP leader and minister Nawab Malik accused the BJP members of misbehav-ing with BhaskarJadhav and the state Assembly was adjourned four times over the issue.

The House was initially adjourned for 10 minutes after Jadhav put to vote the resolu-tion urging the Centre to pro-vide 2011 census data to enable the State Backward Class Com-mission to prepare an empirical data of the OBC population, in a bid to restore political reser-vations for its members in local bodies.

Some BJP members, includ-ing Girish Mahajan and San-jay Kute, climbed the Speaker's podium and argued with the Chair. Later, after the House reassembled, minister Nawab Malik and Shiv Sena member Sunil Prabhu demanded that action be taken against the opposition members for their behaviour with Jadhav.

"What happened in your chamber is not right," Malik said addressing Deputy Speaker NarhariZirwal. The Deputy Speaker then adjourned the House for 15 minutes.

Later, presiding officer Dil-ipBankar adjourned the House for another 15 minutes and again for 30 minutes. AGENCIES

JODHPUR: Five people were killed after the SUV they were travelling in collided head-on with a truck in Rajasthan's Jodhpur district, police said on Monday.

The incident occurred on the Jodhpur-Jaipur high-way near Dangiyawas late on Sunday night. Two injured are undergoing treatment at a hos-pital, they said.

Station House Officer, Dan-giyawas, Kanhaiyalal said the driver of the SUV was speed-ing while trying to overtake another vehicle. During the process, the SUV collided head-on with a truck that was coming from the opposite direction.

The impact of the collision left the SUV badly mangled and all those inside stuck. Vil-lagers and police, who rushed to the spot, had a tough time pulling out the victims, he said.

"Two of the passengers died on the spot while two died on the way to the hospital. Another passenger died during treatment at the hospital today (Monday) afternoon while two injured are undergoing treat-ment," Kanhaiyalal said.

All victims were residents of LondariMalgaon in Beawar sub-division of Ajmer district and were headed back to their village from Jodhpur, the police said. The truck driver fled from the spot immediately after the collision. The truck has been seized and efforts are being made to nab the driver, they said. Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot expressed his condo-lences to the bereaved families of the victims over the "unfor-tunate" incident. MPOST

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KASARAGOD (KERALA): Three fishermen died astheir boat capsized in rough tidal waves at an estuary near Nel-likunnu harbour in this north Kerala district.

A search operation was on to trace the missing persons but their bodies were found floating at Kodi beach here Monday morning, coastal police said.

The bodies were later sent for postmortem, they said.

The deceased were identi-fied as Ratheesh (44), Karthik (20) and Sandeep (36), all hailing from different fishing hamlets here.

According to police, the boat, in which the fisher-

men were travelling, had overturned following high tidal waves and rough sea on Sunday.

Though there were a total of seven people in the boat, four of them, who were hold-ing on to the sinking boat, were rescued by other fisher-men who had come across the accident.

The rescued persons sus-tained minor injuries only and were shifted to a nearby gov-ernment hospital, police said.

A search operation was on soon after the incident under the aegis of Indian Coast Guard teams, coastal police and local people but rough sea and inclement weather posed difficulties in the mission to trace them, they added.

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court Monday said it would hear on July 12 the plea of yoga guru Ramdev seeking a stay on proceedings in connection with multiple FIRs lodged over his alleged remarks against the use of allopathic medicines during the COVID pandemic, saying it received original records of his statements late Sunday night only.

The apex court was sched-uled to examine the original records of the statements of Ramdev on the use of allo-pathic medicine following his plea to stay investigation and transfer the cases lodged against him in this connection to Delhi.

Yesterday night at 11 PM, we got bulky files having copies of statements and videos, said a bench comprising Chief Justice N V Ramana and justices A S Bopanna and Hrishikesh Roy.

We are posting the matter after a week, the CJI said after senior advocate MukulRohatgi,

appearing for Ramdev, offered that the matter can be taken up on some other day.

Earlier, the bench had sought original records per-taining to the alleged state-ments made by Ramdev on the issue.

Multiple FIRs have been lodged against Ramdev in Patna and Raipur following complaints by the Indian Medi-cal Association.

Besides seeking quashing of criminal complaints, Ramdev has sought their clubbing and transfer to Delhi. As an interim relief, Ramdev has also urged for a stay on the investigation in connection with the crimi-nal complaints. AGENCIES

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The ED on Monday said it has arrested Kewal Krishan Kumar, chair-man and managing director (CMD) of Delhi-based Shakti Bhog Foods Limited, in a money laundering case linked to an alleged multi-crore bank loan fraud.

Kumar was arrested on Sunday here and later pro-duced before a special Preven-tion of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court that sent him to ED custody till July 9, the fed-eral investigative agency said in a statement.

The agency, prior to the arrest, also raided at least nine premises in Delhi and Haryana.

"During the searches, vari-

ous incriminating documents and digital evidences have been recovered," it said.

The ED case filed under criminal sections of the PMLA is based on a CBI FIR that was filed early this year against Shakti Bhog Foods Limited for an alleged fraud of Rs 3,269 crore on a consortium of 10 banks led by the State Bank of India (SBI).

The CBI complaint came after the SBI registered a com-plaint against the company.

According to the SBI, the directors allegedly falsified accounts and forged docu-ments to siphon off public funds.

The 24-year-old company, which is into manufactur-ing and selling wheat, flour,

rice, biscuits, cookies etc., had grown organically as it ven-tured into food-related diver-sification over a decade with a turnover growth of Rs 1,411 crore in 2008 to Rs 6,000 crore in 2014, the bank had said.

The ED said the "alle-gations against the accused include diversion of funds from loan accounts by round-tripping through related enti-ties and siphoning of funds was being done by way of suspicious sale/purchase from various entities."

The bank report to the CBI said the turnover growth of the company came to an abrupt halt in 2015 with the account turning into a Non-Performing Asset (NPA) and it was ulti-mately declared a fraud in 2019.

DEWAS (MP): Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Kamal Nath on Monday demanded a CBI inquiry into the murder and burial of five members of a tribal family in Nemawar town here.

The bodies of MamataBa-lai. her daughters Rupali and Divya as well as relatives Puja and Pawan, missing since May 13, were found buried 10 feet deep in an agricultural field on June 29, Dewas Superintendent of Police Shivdayal Singh said, adding that seven people had been arrested so far in con-nection with the crime. Nath, along with party colleagues Arun Yadav, KantilalBhuria, Sajjan Singh Verma, JituPatwari and NakulNath, on Monday met the kin of the deceased and

announced financial help of Rs 25 lakh on behalf of his party.

"Today, I met the victim's family and this brutal murder has pained me a lot. The fam-ily members are still in fear and there was dilly-dallying in fil-ing their report. Efforts were made to hide the incident and the accused were roaming with-out any fear and misleading the police. The matter should be probed by the CBI," he told reporters after meeting the kin of the deceased.

As per the police, their probe zeroed in on one Suren-dra Rajput, who confessed that he and one of the deceased, Rupali, were in a relationship and his marrying another girl had angered her. AGENCIES

OUR CORRESPONDENT

BILASPUR: The Chhattis-garh High Court has observed that rights of a woman over the property of her deceased hus-band would cease if her remar-riage is "strictly proven" as per the law.

A bench of Justice Sanjay K Agrawal made the observa-tion in a recent order, while dis-missing an appeal related to a property suit filed against Kiya Bai by her deceased husband's cousin brother Loknath, who claimed that she had remarried as per local rituals.

"According to Section 6 of the Hindu Widows' Remar-riage Act 1856, in case of remarriage, all the formalities for marriage are required to be proved," the order said.

" ..The effect of the valid remarriage is the widow losing her right in the property inher-ited from the previous husband. Therefore, where remarriage is set up as defence, it has to be strictly proved looking to

devastating consequences to be befallen upon the widow in the shape of depriving her the right to property," it said.

As per the order, the dispute relates to the sharing of prop-erty of Kiya's husband Ghasi, who died in 1942 at Chicho-rUmaraiya village in the state's Raigarh district. The property in dispute originally belonged to Sugriv, who had four sons- Mohan, Abhiram, Goverd-han and Jeeverdhan - all dead now. Goverdhan had one son Loknath, the plaintiff in the case who is also now dead, and Ghasi was the son of Abhiram.

Loknath had moved the court claiming that Kiya, after

her husband's death, remar-ried in 1954-55 through 'Chudi' form (a traditional custom in Chhattisgarh wherein a man marries a widow by offering her bangles). Therefore, she and her daughter would get no share in the property, being governed by clause 29 of the Raigarh State Wajib-ul-arz.

Kiya, who also died dur-ing pendency of the suit, and her daughter in a joint state-ment had said the partition of the property took place when Ghasi was alive. The duo had said that after Ghasi's death, they remained in posses-sion of the suit property and Kiya's name was included in the revenue records by tehsil-dar (revenue officer) in 1984 in accordance with the law. They

had said Kiya never remar-ried and the civil suit should be dismissed.

After hearing the matter, the HC in its order said there is no admissible evidence on record to hold that Kiya had remarried and lost her right to the prop-erty. "..as it has already been held that the effect of remar-riage would be, widow loses her right in the property inherited from her husband and unless the fact of remarriage is strictly proved after observing the cer-emonies required as per Sec-tion 6 of the Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act 1856, the fact of remarriage cannot be said to be established by which the right to property, which is a constitutional right, is lost that too by widow," it said.

LUCKNOW: BSP supremo Mayawati on Monday accused the BJP of giving political colour to the issue of religious con-version in an attempt to hide its failures ahead of the 2022 assembly elections in five states. "It seems that now they (BJP) want to give political colour to (religious conversions) to cover their weaknesses ahead of the assembly elections to be held in some states of the country. If this is really a conspiracy, it is highly condemnable," May-awati said.

Alleging that the BJP has a political interest in cases of reli-gious conversion, the former UP CM said, looking at the entire Muslim community with suspi-cion is wrong. It is completely illegal to convert someone by intimidating, threatening or luring them and strict action should be taken against the cul-prits after proper investigation of such cases, Mayawati said.

The BSP chief further said as per a well thought out strategy and conspiracy , it is being por-trayed as a Hindu-Muslim issue .

Looking at the entire Mus-

lim community with suspicion is not correct This is the belief of Muslim community and other people also. This is creating a sense of insecurity among Mus-lims. The BSP condemns it in the strongest terms," she said

It is being claimed that a conspiracy to harm the coun-try under the guise of religious conversion was going on for a long time. If this is true then what were the intelligence agen-cies of the country doing till now. The action that is being taken now should have been taken long back," she added.

Mayawati, without naming anyone, claimed the properties confiscated or demolished by the Yogi government as they were allegedly owned by mafia elements mostly belonged to Muslims. AGENCIES

‘Monsoon to reach remaining parts of north India by July 10’

CBI registers 2nd FIR on Gomti River Front project

189 officials, contractors booked

The moist easterly winds in lower level from Bay of Bengal is likely to establish gradually over parts of eastern India from July 8 onwards

12 BJP MLAs suspended for 'misbehaving' with

presiding officer

Bank fraud: ED arrests Shakti Bhog CMD in money laundering case

3 fishermen dead as boat capsizes off Kasaragod

5 killed in SUV-truck collision

in Jodhpur

‘Woman's rights over deceased husband's property cease if remarriage proven’

‘BJP giving political colour to religious conversion issue’

Tribal family killings: Nath seeks CBI probe

Remarks on Allopathy: SC to hear Ramdev's plea on Jul 12

The property in dispute originally belonged to Sugriv, who had four sons- Mohan, Abhiram, Goverdhan and Jeeverdhan - all dead now

According to Section 6 of the Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act 1856, in case of remarriage, all the formalities for marriage are required to be proved

People bathe at Kharanja waterfall following monsoon rains in Mirzapur on Sunday PIC/PTI

Yoga guru Ramdev

BSP supremo Mayawati

7millenniumpost Editorial mpNEW DELHI | TUESDAY, 6 JULY, 2021

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

DearEditor

Keeping aside intense grief, chauvinism and the patriarchal practice, Mandira Bedi performed the last rites of her husband even as she has a son living with her. In doing so, she has shown tremendous courage and conviction. There is no doubt that her courageous act will influence other women to follow suit. But for most of the women, it will still be a taboo and breach of lakshmanrekha. We need a transformative change in society for gender-neutral execution of any task or ritual because the society has already earmarked those as gender-specific. Most outdoor activities have been assigned for males whereas females look after household chores. While making the above categorisation, the society stresses on the psyche, nature and physique of both genders, and accordingly different jobs are assigned to male and female. With society’s progressiveness, these domains are no longer in water tight silos and often get fused or transgressed. But still, there exists differentiation. To bring both male and female at a par in society, there should be no distribution of tasks based on gender. Only emancipation and empowerment of women through education will do the above needful. This seems to be a herculean task and can only be achieved through a long journey rather than in a short spell. In the abovementioned utopian egalitarianism — regarded as a flip side in society — a bickering on task distribution for male and female — can be taken as a flop side — can arise. We know that both men and women have some inborn proficiency, superior to the other gender, to perform some particular tasks. This lag can be addressed also. The balancing in this regard is most appropriate, whatsoever our gender-based contemplation might have been shaped over the years.

— CHANCHAL NANDY, DURGAPUR via email

EDITORIALDue dignity

Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Youth Affairs and Sports, Kiren Rijiju tweeted that the sportspersons who have won medals in national and international level games and are

living under financial stress can approach the ministry to avail the benefits provided under Pandit Deendayal Upadhy-aya National Welfare Funds for Sportsperson (PDUNWFS). The minister’s attempt to ease the distress of sportspersons is indeed appreciable. But the message also reads ironically as it acknowledges that the sporting gems of the country who have glorified India’s position at the international stage with their sporting spirit and dedication are living under dis-tress. What is even more disturbing is that the PDUNWFS has been continuing since 1982, nearly 40 years, with the acceptance that very little has changed over the years. The situation, as it stands today, is that many of the sportsper-sons who we see on the shining stages of various sporting megaevents, struggle back at home to continue their train-ing, to buy sporting kits and also to arrange a two-time meal for their family members. What keeps them going is their strong spirit which provides the inner strength to continue managing two different worlds at the same time. But still, this spirit need not be glorified or boasted about. It can at best be grieved upon. Many of these athletes are at a very tender age. News reports have revealed that athletes below the age of 20 years are forced to do works like veg-etable selling, rickshaw driving, teaching etc. This is in no way to demean the dignity and importance of these works but the different kinds of talent that the sportspersons pos-sess is being wasted. There have also been reports of them contemplating the quitting of the sports field altogether. Further, other sportspersons have served the nation in their lifetime but now find it difficult to arrange even basic neces-sities for themselves. The sports minister had come up with occasional intervention in the past also to help out particu-lar sporting individuals by providing them with an ex-gratia sum of money. The PDUNWFS besides providing suitable assistance to ‘outstanding sports persons’ living in ‘indigent’ conditions also provides assistance to sportspersons who get injured during training of a competition or the competi-tion itself. First of all, there is a need to change the approach towards the sector. The government cannot perpetually allow the situation to worsen on one hand, and keep paying them occasionally on the hand to alleviate their condition. There has to be a system where the situation is not allowed to worsen in the first place. We have shining examples of sports like Cricket where the country is counted among the best both in terms of performance and administration. The core thing is that the game and its administrative system has evolved at par with the growing competitive nature of sport worldwide. A lot of lessons can be learnt and replicated. The cost for national glory and fame has to be paid from the national coffers. It should not come at the cost of sweat and hunger of the sportspersons. It is encouraging that from the vast pool of India’s youth population, many are coming from small towns and villages, and showing a willingness to take national and their own fame to the very next level even as they face a shortage of resources and funds. The government has to start working as a facilitator by providing appropri-ate steady infrastructure and institutional development at the ground level in the villages and towns. Providing sup-port to financially distressed sportspersons is good from a short-term perspective but the real challenge is to build up a systematic framework where there are fewer holes. History has shown us that Indian land is rich with spirited youths who have excelled in sports and many stand unmatched in the world. Dhyan Chand, Milkha Singh, Sachin Tendulkar are just a few names the very utterance of which makes all Indians raise their heads high with pride. The present is no different where an overwhelming talent remains largely latent. These budding talents offer a great opportunity. Once tapped systematically, they will provide India and the world with heaps of inspiration. It’s a disgrace that they have to demand assistance and dignity. They represent India at the national and international stage and it is a national respon-sibility to ensure their financial stability and dignity. The nation needs to strive towards days when there barely is the need to ease the financial stress of ‘outstanding’ sportsper-sons who have brought ‘glory to the nation’.

millenniumpost.in

V ANANDARAJAN

BOLD STEP

Contemplating the future

Universally applicable

Most of the COVID-affected areas in India are in states with lesser forest cover and vice versa; asserts Sunil Prasad

The immune system in living beings is boosted by internal and external factors.

Many species play a notewor-thy role in neutralising threats from other species irrespective of their origin and structure. Humans rely on numerous plants for immunity as plants’ components like nuts, fruits, leaves and rhizomes include natural immunity booster ele-ments like antioxidants that enhance their immune system.

Besides holding various immunity booster elements, many plants produce partic-ular chemical compounds to fight various diseases. They discharge some of these chemi-cals into the environment to defend themselves against rot-ting and insect attacks.

These air-borne chemi-cal compounds referred to as phytoncides are equally ben-eficial to humans. Phytoncides manage or destroy numer-ous micro-organisms and viruses in air, cleanse the air and improve our self-cleans-ing ability.

Q Li and others explained that when people inhale phyt-oncides, their bodies respond by boosting the action and increasing the number of nat-ural killer (NK) cells, a type of white blood cell. Actually, these NK cells discharge perfo-rin, granzymes and GRN pass-ing through granule exocytosis pathways and are reported to

destroy virus-infected cells in the human body.Forests and human immunity

Forests, as the biggest storehouse of plants, are great sources of phytoncides and therefore are hugely impor-tant for human immunity. By tracking urinary cortisol and dopamine levels, NK activity and CD4 / 8 ratios, T Komori and others revealed that citrus fragrance found in forests had an effect on human endocrine and immune systems.

Volatile oil release from Zanthoxylum rhoifolium leaves, showed significant immuno-modulatory action in mice.

Forest trees such as Pinus mugo have been reported to have antioxidant properties.

A significant increase in NK cells’ activity from a three-day, two-night forest trip lasted for more than 30 days. Even a one-day forest stay increases the NK cells by about 40 per cent which boosts the immune system. Due to the construc-tive relationship between forests and the release of phy-toncides in the atmosphere, a decline in forest cover means the lack of phytoncides or loss of human immunity.

In view of the above facts, I and my fellow scientists

wanted to discover the relation between forests and the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.Forests’ impact on COVID-19

All Indian states and Union territories have been catego-rised into three classes on the basis of forest presence, using current records of the Indian State of Forest Report: Good forest cover (more than 60 per cent), fair forest cover (20-60 per cent) and poor forest cover (less than 20 per cent).

According to the report, 11 states/Union territories had good forest cover, 12 had fair forest cover and 13 had poor

forest cover.We collected information

on the red and green zones of the COVID-19 pandemic from the official bulletin (April 30, 2020) of the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. An analysis of the above data set confirmed a clear impact of forest area on the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Overall, it was found that: a) A greater share of red zones (most-affected areas) had been recorded in bad forest cover states and b) The high-est percentage of green zones (COVID-19-free areas) had been recorded in those states and Union territories having good forest area.

These findings show that forests reduce the spread of COVID-19. If we take regu-lar ‘forest baths’ (taking in the forest atmosphere), plant extra forests and reduce the defor-estation rate, we can fortify ourselves against pandemic illnesses like COVID-19.

As human immunity is directly related with many diseases, forests need to be used for pandemic manage-ment and a forest area ought to be identified as a location of human protection or ‘Immu-nity Area’.

Our primary investigation acknowledged forest zones as immunity booster areas and it needs to be investigated fur-ther. DTE

Views expressed are personal

For the uninitiated, Gresham’s Law is a law of economics pro-pounded, as the name

might suggest, by Gresham. Put simply, the law states that bad money drives out good money from the market. More specifically, if two or more coins have the same value as legal tender, but contain met-als of different value, the coins made up of the cheaper metal will be used for payment, while those made of more expen-sive metal will be hoarded or otherwise disappear from circulation.

In all likelihood, Sir Thomas Gresham, who lived in 16th century England, him-self never realised the full import of his momentous dis-covery. Actually, as we shall see, the application of his law is by no means limited either to the use of money as legal tender or even to the field of economics alone. The impact of the basic principle underly-ing his law that bad drives out good is nearly all-pervading in our daily lives, and truer today than ever before.

Consider for instance the phenomenon of fake news. A recent study on rumours and false news stories circulat-ing on Twitter over 11 years, conducted by scholars from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) found that bogus news travelled faster and reached more people than true news. Bogus news stories were 70 per cent more likely to be re-tweeted than true stories, and it took true sto-ries around six times longer to reach people. Furthermore, while true stories were rarely shared beyond 1,000 people, some of the most popular false news stories could reach up to 1,00,000! If this is not a manifestation of the princi-ple underlying Gresham’s law, then what is it?

Perhaps nowhere is the effect of the law more evi-dent than on 24-hour TV, with channels vying with one another to adopt the lat-est worst practices in the industry, and attain the low-est common denominator in the fastest possible time. The Kitman’s Law, which can be seen as a light-hearted vari-ant of Gresham’s law, is spot

on when it proclaims: “On the TV screen, pure drivel tends to drive off ordinary drivel”. Creative fiction and dramas have long since yielded space to reality shows driven by the voyeuristic urge to find enjoy-ment in the discomfiture of others. Prime-time debates are slanging matches that special-ize in generating a lot of heat without throwing any light on the subject at hand. Everyone has an opinion, a rather strong one at that, but no one has the relevant facts. Decibel always triumphs. Open name-calling is not out of bounds either. On occasion, the debate ends up in an outright brawl in the very studio. For all those who value their sense of balance and pro-portion, the solution perhaps lies in emulating Groucho Marx who remarked with the characteristic cynicism only he is capable of: “I find television very educational. Every time someone turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”

But then, literature itself is no exception to Greshamite

logic. That inferior literature drives out better literature is intuitively known to everyone whoever concealed a comic book inside their textbook as a child. During late adolescence, the comic book in turn often ended up yielding ground to other printed material of a more unsavoury kind, barely masquerading as ‘literature’. Clearly, Hardy was no match for the bawdy. Proof of applica-tion of Gresham’s law to litera-ture comes in other ways too, for instance from the fact that ‘Mein Kampf ’ still outsells ‘My Experiments with Truth’.

And what of bad music? Remember that crass Bolly-wood pop number with utterly pedestrian lyrics that kept on playing in, or rather ‘prey-ing on’ your mind for over three days in an endless loop? Experts call it the “stuck song syndrome”. More commonly though, they are just called “earworms” which is what they truly are. Try replacing that pesky earworm with a mag-nificent Khayal or Bhajan sung by a maestro of classical music.

Fat chance! In fact, as age starts catching up, you can’t seem to remember either the lyrics or the tune of a song unless you truly hate it from the bottom of your heart!

You may spend long hours painstakingly tending to the plants in your garden, only to find them withering away and dying. And yet, lush green weeds will appear out of nowhere each passing day under your very nose. Evi-dently, they require no care at all. In fact, they say if you are someone who has difficulty telling garden plants from weeds, one of the surest ways to accomplish the task of dis-tinguishing them is to uproot them all. The ones that grow back would be the weeds!

That junk food trumps healthy food is a no-brainer. “Parsley is gharsley”, declared the ever-intuitive Ogden Nash, the master of light verse. A recent study conducted at Johns Hopkins University found that junk foods like potato chips or candy, are twice as distracting as healthy food.

And when it comes to junk food, our own street food is no pushover. The humble bread-pakoda (preferably deep-fried in re-heated oil) will boldly go where bran fears to tread.

Gresham’s law might also explain a host of other contem-porary phenomena, including why civilized debate quickly deteriorates into acrimonious bickering and partisan posi-tion-taking in social media groups that are otherwise thought to consist of “like-minded” persons, why online humour is dominated by noisy slapstick rather than subtle sat-ire, why the first few words that you learn of a new lan-guage are always swear words rather than pleasantries, why the longest queues are always witnessed outside liquor shops rather than at the grocer’s or the medical stores whenever a lockdown is announced, or even why the little sparrow has disappeared from the cit-ies. Promising areas for further research of the ‘Freakonomics’ kind perhaps.

Views expressed are personal

A decline in forest cover means the lack of phytoncides or loss of human immunity

Even a one-day forest stay increases the NK cells by about 40 per cent which boosts the immune system

Creative fiction and dramas have long since yielded space to reality shows driven by the voyeuristic urge to find enjoyment in the discomfiture of others

Though Gresham’s law relates to economics, it can be extended to all walks of life where bad things are adopted faster than the good

Rumours are more likely to spread than facts, bad literature than good, and weeds than garden plants

8 millenniumpostWorldmpTUESDAY, 6 JULY, 2021 | NEW DELHI

US ‘coming back together,’ but Covid not yet finished: Biden

WASHINGTON DC: Calling a vaccination "the most patri-otic thing you can do," Presi-dent Joe Biden on Sunday mixed the nation's birthday party with a celebration of freedom from the worst of the pandemic. He tempered the strides against COVID-19 with a warning that the fight against the virus wasn't over.

"Today, all across this nation, we can say with confi-dence: America is coming back together," Biden declared as he hosted more than 1,000 service members, first responders and other guests for a July Fourth celebration on the South Lawn of the White House.

For Biden it was a long-awaited opportunity to highlight the success of the vaccination campaign he championed. The event was the largest yet of his presidency, the clear-est indication yet that the US had moved into a new phase of virus response. Shifting from a national emergency to a local-ised crisis of individual respon-sibility, the nation also moved from vaccinating Americans to promoting global health.

"This year the Fourth of July is a day of special celebration, for we're emerging from the dark-ness of a year of pandemic and isolation, a year of pain fear and heartbreaking loss," the presi-dent said before fireworks lit up the sky over the National Mall.

Noting the lockdowns that shuttered businesses, put mil-lions out of work and separated untold numbers of families, Biden said, "Today we're closer than ever to declaring our independence from a deadly virus. That's not to say the bat-tle against COVID-19 is over. We've got a lot more work to do."

Biden wanted all Americans to celebrate, too, after endur-

ing 16 months of disruption in the pandemic and more than 605,000 deaths. The White House encouraged gather-ings and fireworks displays all around the country to mark, as though ripped from a Holly-wood script, the nation's "inde-pendence" from the virus.

And there was much to cheer: Cases and deaths from COVID-19 were at or near record lows since the outbreak began, thanks to the robust US vaccination program. Busi-nesses and restaurants were open, hiring was picking up and travel was getting closer to pre-pandemic levels.

However, Biden's optimism was measured for good reason. The vaccination goal he had set with great fanfare for July Fourth, 70 per cent of the adult population vaccinated, fell short at 67 per cent, according to fig-ures from the Centers for Dis-ease Control and Prevention.

More concerning to officials was the gap between heavily vacci-nated communities where the virus was dying out and lesser-vaccinated ones where a more infectious variant of the virus was already taking hold.

More than 200 Americans still die each day from COVID-19, and tens of millions have chosen not to get the lifesav-ing vaccines. "If you've had the vaccine, you're doing great," said Dr Mati Hlatshwayo Davis, an infectious disease physician at the John Cochran VA Medical Center and St Louis Board of Health. "If you haven't had the vaccine, you should be alarmed and that's just the bottom line, there's no easy way to cut it."

"But that doesn't take away from the fact that this country is in a significantly better place," she said.

Still, about 1,000 counties have a vaccination rate below 30 per cent, and the federal govern-

ment is warning that they could become the next hot spots as virus restrictions ease.

The administration was sending "surge" teams to Col-orado and Missouri. Additional squads of infectious disease experts, public health profes-sionals and doctors and nurses were getting ready to assist in additional locations with a com-bination of low vaccination rates and rising cases.

Overall, the vastly improved American landscape stood in stark contrast with much of the rest of the world, where there remained vast vaccine deserts and wide community spread that could open the door to even more dangerous variants. The Biden administration was increasingly turning the federal response to the complicated logistics of sending excess US vaccines abroad in an effort to assist other nations in beating back the pandemic.

With US demand for vac-cines falling even as they have been widely available for months, and as governments and businesses dangled an array of incentives at Americans to get a shot, officials were increas-ingly emphasizing that the consequences of disease now largely reflect the individual choices of those who are not yet vaccinated.

"The suffering and loss we are now seeing is nearly entirely avoidable," said the CDC's director, Dr Rochelle Walensky.

When asked about the potential risks of holding gath-erings around July Fourth in areas where there are large pock-ets of unvaccinated individuals, White House press secretary Jen Psaki had countered that "if individuals are vaccinated in those areas, then they are protected." AGENCIES

Biden wanted all Americans to celebrate, too, after enduring 16 months of disruption in pandemic and over 605K deaths

Sputnik V trials among 12-17s start in Moscow

MOSCOW: Early trials of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine among children ages 12 to 17 have started in Moscow, city officials said Monday.

Deputy Mayor Anasta-sia Rakova said 100 volun-teers have been recruited who haven't been previously infected with the Coronavirus and don't have health issues that would prevent them from getting the shots. Rakova said the youths will receive a small dose of Sputnik V than what is usually administered for adults.

The new trial comes as Russia faces a sharp surge in Coronavirus infections and struggles to ramp up its low vaccine uptake. As of last week, only 23 million people, or just over 15% of the coun-try's 146-million population, have received at least one shot of a Coronavirus vaccine.

In the meantime, the num-ber of daily new virus cases have more than doubled over the past month, going from roughly 9,000 a day in early June to over 24,000 this week. On Monday, Russia's state Coronavirus task force reported 24,353 new cases and 654 deaths.

Russian authorities have registered over 5.6 million confirmed cases of the virus in the pandemic and 138,579 deaths. AGENCIES

President Joe Biden arrives to speak during an Independence Day celebration on the South Lawn of White House, in Washington DC PTI

Indian national found murdered in Nepal

KATHMANDU: An Indian national has been found mur-dered by suspected robbers inside his house in Nepal, police said.

Satya Narayan Parik, 59, was found lying face down in a pool of clotted blood when police and neighbours discov-ered his body inside his rented house at Sanepa in Lalitpur dis-trict on Sunday, the Himalayan Times reported.

He was working as a sales manager at a local electronic materials supplying company. Lalitpur is one of the three dis-tricts in the Kathmandu Valley.

According to police, Parik's body was found on Sunday at

least 36 hours after the incident."Circumstantial evidence

proves that Parik was mur-dered on Friday evening after the housemaid left the house," Senior Superintendent of Police Kiran Bajracharya said.

"The culprits had broken the back window of the house to barge in and left the house from the same window after killing and robbing him," he said.

Bajracharya, chief of Metro-politan Police Range, Lalitpur, said that the preliminary inves-tigations showed that the mur-derers barged into the room with the motive of robbery, but eventually killed Parik after he tried to stop them. AGENCIES

Japan searches for dozens missing in mudslide; 4 deadATAMI (Japan): Rescue workers dug through sludge and debris Monday looking for dozens of people who may be trapped after a a torrent of mud, trees and rocks ripped with a roar through a Japanese seaside resort town, killing at least four people.

Eighty people were still unaccounted for two days after the landslide, according to Shizuoka prefectural disaster management official Takamichi Sugiyama. Officials planned to release their names, hoping that perhaps some were away when the disaster struck, since many of the apartments and houses in Atami are second homes or vacation rentals.

Initially, 147 people were unreachable, but that number was revised downward after officials confirmed some had safely evacuated or were simply not at home. In addition to the four people found dead, offi-cials said 25 people have been rescued, including three who were injured.

The disaster is an added trial as authorities prepare for the Tokyo Olympics, due to start in less than three weeks, while Japan is still in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic,

with cases steadily climbing in in the capital and experts sug-gesting a need for another state of emergency.

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga told reporters that res-cue workers are doing their utmost to rescue those who may be buried under the mud and waiting for help as soon as possible".

Three coast guard ships, and six military drones were backing up hundreds of troops, firefighters and others toiling in the rain and fog.

The landslide occurred Sat-urday mid-morning after days of heavy rain in Atami, which

like many seaside Japanese towns is built into a steep hill-side. It tore through the Izusan neighbourhood, known for its hot springs, a shrine and shop-ping streets. The town has a registered population of 36,800 and is about 100 km (60 miles) southwest of Tokyo.

Shizuoka Gov. Heita Kawakatsu, who inspected the area Monday where the mudslide was believed to have started, said rain soaked into the mountainside apparently weakening the ground under a massive pile of soil at a con-struction site that then slid down the slope. AGENCIES

Rescuers continue a search operation at the site of a mudslide at Izusan in Atami, Shizuoka prefecture, southwest of Tokyo Monday PTI

Gunmen kidnap 140 students in

NigeriaKADUNA: Gunmen have kid-napped 140 students from a boarding school in northwest-ern Nigeria, a school official said on Monday, the latest in a wave of mass abductions tar-getting schoolchildren and stu-dents. Heavily-armed criminal gangs often attack villages to loot, steal cattle and abduct for ransom in northwest and cen-tral Nigeria, but since the start of the year they have increas-ingly targeted schools and colleges.

Gunmen scaled a fence to break into the Bethel Baptist High School in Kaduna state in the early hours of Monday, tak-ing away most of the 165 pupils boarding overnight.

"The kidnappers took away 140 students, only 25 students escaped. We still have no idea where the students were taken," Emmanuel Paul, a teacher at the school told AFP.

Kaduna state police spokes-man Mohammed Jalige con-firmed the early Monday morning attack, but could not give details on the number of pupils taken. AGENCIES

Record COVID-19 cases, deaths force B’desh govt

to extend lockdownDHAKA: Bangladesh's sin-gle-day COVID-19 deaths and cases surpassed previous records on Monday with 164 more fatalities and 9,964 fresh infections, forcing the govern-ment to extend the nationwide lockdown by one more week.

According to officials, the Coronavirus has so far claimed 15,229 lives and infected 954,881 people in the country.

"The COVID-19 toll now stands at 15,229 with 164 (over-night) deaths as many as 9,964 people tested positive, rais-ing the infection rate to 29.30 per cent during the 24-hour time span," Directorate Gen-eral of Health Services (DGHS) spokesman Professor Nazmul Islam said.

According to the official data, the country witnessed the highest number of single-day deaths alongside infection cases on Monday. The previ-ous highest toll was 153 and the number of infection cases was 8,822, recorded on July 4 and June 30 respectively.

The DGHS report came shortly after authorities ordered the extension of a seven-day nationwide "strict restrictions" until July 14 "in view of the cur-

rent situation of the COVID-19 surge".

"Punitive legal actions will be taken if someone comes out of home without very emergency needs during the (shutdown) period," a cabinet division statement said, add-ing that military troops would patrol the streets alongside police to enforce the order.

Bangladesh started witness-ing the fresh surge last month when officials said the deadly Delta variant of the virus was engulfing districts border-ing India. The authorities ini-tially tried to protect Dhaka by enforcing a lockdown in seven districts surrounding the capi-tal on June 22. However, they were forced to enforce a nation-wide lockdown last week, clos-ing all offices and businesses, ordering vehicles to stay off the roads and suspending train movements and domestic flight services. AGENCIES

US military denies American troops in Syria were attacked

BEIRUT: A facility housing US troops in eastern Syria came under attack late Sunday when rockets were fired from nearby areas, an opposition war monitor, state media and a spokesman for US-backed fighters said, though the US military denied there was any attack.

"There is no truth to the reports that US forces in Syria were attacked by rockets today," tweeted coalition spokesman Col Wayne Marotto.

Earlier Sunday, Siyamend Ali, a spokesman for the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, said two rockets were fired at al-Omar field in Syria's eastern province of Deir el-Zour without inflict-ing any casualties. He added that it was not immediately clear where the rockets were fired from.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the rockets were fired from areas controlled by Iran-backed fighters in the area of Maya-deen, also in Deir el-Zour.

Syria's state news agency, SANA, also reported that al-Omar facility was hit with two rockets. AGENCIES

UK PM to set out plans for end of lockdown on July 19

LONDON: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will host a press conference on Monday to set out plans for the final step of the lockdown roadmap in England to give businesses and the public time to prepare for the July 19 time-line, Downing Street said.

UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid will announce the plans for an end to all legal lock-down restrictions from July 19 to Parliament. The gov-ernment said its plans will be data-driven and will be con-firmed next Monday on July 12, following a review of the latest Coronavirus infections and hospitalisations statistics.

Johnson has said that he wants the last stage of the lock-down roadmap to be "irre-versible" and has previously dubbed July 19 as "terminus day".

Thanks to the successful rollout of our vaccination pro-gramme, we are progressing cautiously through our road-map. Today we will set out how we can restore people's freedoms when we reach step 4, he said.

But I must stress that the pandemic is not over and that cases will continue to rise over the coming weeks. As we begin to learn to live with this virus, we must all continue to care-fully manage the risks from COVID and exercise judge-ment when going about our lives, the prime minister said.

Downing Street said the

latest data from Public Health England (PHE) shows that COVID vaccines are highly effective against severe illness and hospitalisation from the Delta variant, first detected in India. The analysis suggests the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is 96 per cent effective, and the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine 92 per cent effective against hospitalisation after two doses.

As on Monday, there were

27,714 new positive cases in England, with 331 peo-ple were admitted to hospi-tal with COVID-19 and there were 1,611 patients in hospital.

The latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) esti-mates show that one in 260 people have COVID-19 in England.

The government admitted that latest data and scientific modelling suggest that cases will continue to rise as restric-tions are eased, but the link to hospitalisations and deaths has been weakened due to the vac-cination programme.

The UK prime minis-ter is set to confirm the rules around the current one-metre plus social distancing require-ments, face coverings, and working from home, based on the findings of the social distancing and certification review. AGENCIES

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson leaves 10 Downing Street, in London PTI

Johnson has said that he wants the last stage of the lockdown roadmap to be “irreversible” and has previously dubbed July 19 as “terminus day”

The Executive Engineer, (B&R) Division, HPPWD, Baijnath on behalf of Governor of Himachal Pradesh, invites the item rate bids in electronic tendering system from the eligible and approved class of contractors registered with HP.PWD for the works as detailed in the table.

Sr. No.

Name of work Estimated Cost Rs.

Startng Date for downloading

Earnest Money

Time limit Deadline for sub-mission of bid .

Cost of Tender form.

1 A/R & M/O Baijnath Chobin Balander Road Km.0/0 to 14/200 ( SH: Providing /Laying Interlocking paver block with footh-path at RD 0/700 to 0/800)

6,78,719 14.07.2021 14,600 Two Months 29.07.2021 350

2 A/R & M/O Baijnath Chobin Bal-ander Road Km.0/0 to 14/200 ( SH: Providing /Laying Interlocking paver block with foothpath at RD 0/600 to 0/700)

6,78,719 14.07.2021 14,600 Two Months 29.07.2021 350

3 Construction of Salehra Dagoh road Km. 0/0 to 1/500 ( SH: Formation cutting in earth work at RD. 0/270 to 1/00

9,06,627 14.07.2021 18,300 Two Months 29.07.2021 350

TThe bidders are advised to note others details of tenders from the department Website www.hptenders. gov.in. Executive Engineer

Baijnath DivisionNo 2128/2021-2022 PWD Baijnath

HIMACHAL PRADESH PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT Annexure “A” E-PROCUREMENT NOTICE

INVITATION FOR BIDS (IFB)

9millenniumpost Business mpNEW DELHI | TUESDAY, 6 JULY, 2021

NEW DELHI: India has pro-cured the first shipment of one million barrels of 'Liza light sweet' crude oil from Guyana, in a significant move marking diversification of its sourcing of petroleum products.

The Indian High Commis-sion in the South American nation said the consignment was lifted for the Indian Oil Corp Ltd from Liza Destiny FPSO and that the purchase reflected the enhancement of bilateral ties.

"Concrete step in Indo-Guyana economic relations, 1st 1 million barrels of Guyana Liza crude for @IndianOilcl loaded from FPSO Liza Des-tiny," it tweeted, describing the move as an important step in the diversification of crude sourcing by India as well as a reflection of "future roadmap". India has been majorly sourcing crude oil from the Gulf countries.

It is learnt that the consign-ment from Guyana may reach India's Paradip port on August 6.It was the first purchase of Guyanese crude oil from the government of Guyana's share of oil by an Indian PSU refiner.

The High Commission said the procurement is a reflection of enhanced bilateral coopera-tion between India and Guyana.

It is learnt that the collabo-ration could potentially expand and could include India acquir-ing oil blocks, long-term agree-ment for sourcing crude from Guyana. AGENCIES

MPOST BUREAU

NEW DELHI: State-owned miner NMDC on Monday announced government plans to offload 4 per cent stake in the company through an offer for sale (OFS) which opens for subscription on Tuesday.

The floor price for the offer shall be Rs 165 per equity share, NMDC informed the stock exchanges. The President of India, acting through and represented by the Ministry of Steel, Government of India, is the promoter of NMDC Ltd, the company said.

"The promoter proposes to sell up to 11,72,24,234 equity shares of the company, (repre-

senting 4 per cent of the total issued and paid up equity share capital of the company on July 6 for non-retail investors and on July 7 for retail and non-retail investors who choose to carry forward their un-allotted bids with an option to additionally sell 10,22,78,144 equity shares representing 3.49 per cent of the total issued and paid-up equity share capital of the com-pany," it said.

The floor price for the offer shall be Rs 165 per equity share, it added.

On Tuesday, the offer shall take place during trading hours on a separate window of the stock exchanges at 9:15 AM and shall close at 3:30 PM.

MUMBAI: Household debt has sharply jumped to 37.3 per cent of the GDP in the pan-demic year from 32.5 per cent in FY20, says a report, confirming the deeper financial impact of COVID-19. It also warned that the ratio may rise further this fiscal due to the second wave of the pandemic.

In fact, household debt has been steadily increasing ever since the GST implementation in July 2017, which was pre-ceded by demonetisation in November 2016.

In four years since FY18, the household debt has jumped by 720 bps -- from 30.1 per cent in FY18 which was the year of GST implementation, to 31.7 per cent in FY19, 32.5 per cent in FY20 and to a massive 37.3 per cent in FY21, according to the report by SBI Research on Monday. Household debt includes retail loans, crop loans and business loans from financial institu-tions like banks, credit societies, non-banks and housing finance companies.

The decline in bank depos-its in FY21 and the concomitant increase in health expenditure may result in further increase in household debt to GDP ratio in FY22, as per the report, pen-cilled by Soumya Kanti Ghosh,

the group chief economic adviser at State Bank of India (SBI). However, even at over 37 per cent, the household debt to GDP ratio is still lower than most other countries, he said.

During the initial lockdowns in 2020, deposits of all commer-cial banks increased due to less avenues to spend. However, sub-sequently they declined margin-ally in the festive months.

The trend of deposits during the first wave (March-Decem-ber 2020) of the pandemic --

as revealed by banks for 711 districts across all states/union territories -- shows deposit out-flows from 112 districts at Rs 1.06 lakh crore.

However, since March 2021 the deposits outflow only declined to Rs 38,295 crore from 61 districts, suggesting revival in economic activity despite the second wave. The beginning of the second wave, however, has resulted in significant deposit outflows from banking system in alternate fortnights, the pace

of which has now moderated though. Between March and December 2020, 599 districts saw an inflow of Rs 11,19,776 crore, while 113 districts saw an outflow of Rs 1,06,798 crore.

Higher household debt indicates the falling household financial savings rate due to the rise in consumption and health spends.

Conversely, the decline in bank deposits and the increase in health expenditure may result in further increase in household debt to GDP in FY22, it said.

Though India's household debt to GDP ratio is still lower than most other countries (highest at 103.8 per cent in Korea, 90 per cent in Britain, 79.5 per cent in the US, 65.3 per cent in Japan, 61.7 per cent in China, and the lowest in Mex-ico at 17.4 per cent), we need to supplement wage income, it added. If we proxy employee expenses as wage income, as percentage of corporate gross value add for around 4,000 listed companies, it has come down to 30.6 per cent in FY21 from 34.1 per cent in FY20, even as their net income as percentage of corporate gross value add has significantly grown from 13.4 per cent in FY20 to 23.7 per cent in FY21. PTI

NEW DELHI: Leading FMCG companies in the country are expecting their sales growth numbers in high double digit in the April-June quarter, a period when the broader market was severely impacted by the second wave of the COVID-19 pan-demic. FMCG companies such as Godrej Consumer Products Ltd (GCPL) and Marico, in their quarterly updates to bourses, informed about double-digit sales growth.

While Tata Consumer Prod-ucts Ltd (TCPL) MD and CEO Sunil D'Souza in an interview had said, the Tata Group FMCG firm expects higher growth in the Q1/FY'22 over the Q4/FY'21

GCPL on Monday said it expects sales in India to grow "in high teens" in the first quarter ended June 30, while at a consol-idated level also it is confident of delivering "strong double-digit" sales growth.

In its quarterly update for Q1 2021-22, the company said, "During the quarter, demand trends in our categories across the key countries we oper-ate in, remained steady." In India, GCPL said, "We expect to deliver sales growth in high teens, driven by strong volume growth and calibrated price increases."

The Godrej group firm witnessed strong double-digit sales growth in its home care and personal care categories. While the home care was led by strong growth in household While Marico had last week said its domestic business has wit-nessed over 30 per cent growth in the April-June quarter helped by double-digit volume growth.

The company is seeing improving demand trends, as the second wave appears to be receding and the vaccination drive is progressing steadily, said Marico in its quarterly update for Q1 of FY2021-22.

The India business delivered 30 per cent plus revenue growth, backed by a robust double-digit volume growth, said Marico.

On the international busi-ness, Marico said, it has posted constant currency growth in the low 20s" on the back of sustained momentum in Bangladesh and broad-based recovery across other markets.

According to Edelweiss Financial Services Executive Vice President Abneesh Roy, in Q1/FY'22, the first three weeks of April saw continued growth momentum from Q4/FY'21 then the Covid cases shot up sharply leading to May being a very challenging month. AGENCIES

NEW DELHI: The Department of Telecom has proposed to fur-ther tighten the noose on pesky callers by imposing a Rs 10,000 penalty for every call and SMS made by telemarketers after 50 violations, according to an offi-cial source.

The Department of Tele-com (DoT) has proposed to make the norms more strin-gent by reducing the slabs for levying penalty to Rs 1,000 per violation for 0-10 breaches, Rs 5,000 each for 10-50 vio-lations and Rs 10,000 each for more than 50 violations. The slabs under the present Tele-com Commercial Communi-cations Customer Preference Regulations (TCCCPR), 2018 are 0-100, 100-1,000 and more than 1,000 violations. Besides, the DoT's Digital Intelligence Unit (DIU) will check viola-tions at the device-level as well.

The DIU will send a system generated message to suspected numbers for verification.

"In case of non re-verifica-tion, all those numbers will be disconnected and associated IMEIs will be put under sus-pected list. No calls, SMS or data will be allowed for the IMEIs in suspected list for a period of 30 days," the source said.

Any communication made by pesky callers from a new connection using the device with IMEI number recorded in the grey list will be asked for re-verification. If the pesky caller thereafter changes the device, the IMEI number of the new device will also be put

in the suspected list by the sys-tem until the re-verification gets completed. If the pesky caller's number is activated after re-ver-ification and is again found to be violating norms, then usage of the new connection will be capped to 20 calls and 20 SMSes per day for six months.

"In case the violation con-tinues thereafter, then identity and address proof used for buy-ing telecom connections will be blocked for a period of 2 years," the source said.

DCC clears satellite con-nectivity for telecom networks; Rs 19,041 cr BharatNet tender

Telecom department’s apex body the Digital Communica-tions Commission (DCC) has cleared a provision of using sat-ellite connectivity in telecom networks to provide services in remote areas where it is difficult to lay optical fibre network, a senior official said on Monday.

Telecom Secretary Anshu Prakash said that the DCC has also cleared the Request for Pro-posal for the rollout of Bharat-Net project for broadband services in villages in 16 states in public private partnership mode with viability gap fund-ing of Rs 19,041 crore. AGENCIES

NEW DELHI: Finance Min-ister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday attended a meeting of the G20 High-Level Inde-pendent Panel (HLIP) and shared India's preparedness and response to COVID-19 while highlighting the slew of measures undertaken to support the economy dur-ing the pandemic.

The meeting, held vir-tually, was also attended by Singapore Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, former US treasury secretary Lawrence H Summers and World Trade Organisation (WTO) Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the finance ministry tweeted.

The meeting discussed the panel's work which will be presented during the Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors (FMCBG) meeting to be held later this month.

"FM Smt. @nsitharaman shared India's #preparedness and #response to #CoVID19 and highlighted the slew of measures undertaken by the Government in strengthen-ing the #healthsystem and supporting the #Indianecon-omy in the fight against the pandemic," the ministry said in a tweet. PTI

FM shares India’s

response to Covid with G-20 panel

‘Household debt jumps to 37.3% of GDP in FY21’

Report claims that household debt has been steadily increasing ever since GST implementation in July 2017

DoT for `10,000 fine on every call, SMS by pesky callers after 50 violations

India buys 1 mn barrels of crude oil

from Guyana

Centre to sell up to 4% stake in NMDC

NEW DELHI: Airlines can now operate a maximum of 65 per cent of their pre-Covid domestic flights instead of the 50 per cent allowed till date, the civil avia-tion ministry said on Monday.

The carriers have been oper-ating only 50 per cent of their pre-Covid domestic flights since June 1 in accordance with a May 28 order of the ministry. Before June 1, the cap was at 80 per cent.

The May 28 decision to bring down the cap from 80 to 50 per cent was taken "in view of the sudden surge in the number of active COVID-19 cases across the country, decrease in pas-senger traffic and the passenger load (occupancy rate) factor", the ministry had said.

It issued a fresh order on Monday, wherein it modified the May 28 order stating that "50 per cent capacity may be read as 65 per cent capacity".

Monday's order also stated that the 65-per cent cap will be applicable till "July 31, 2021 or until further orders, whichever

is earlier".When the government had

resumed the scheduled domes-tic flights on May 25 last year after a two-month break, the ministry had allowed the car-riers to operate not more than 33 per cent of their pre-Covid domestic services. MPOST

‘Airlines can operate maximum of 65% pre-Covid domestic flights’

NEW DELHI: State-owned engineering firm BHEL has supplied medical oxygen plant in record time to SLG Hospitals - Hyderabad.

In response to the critical situation arising out of shortage of medical oxygen in the sec-ond half of April, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) has once again risen to the occasion by venturing into the manu-facturing of medical oxygen plants, a BHEL statement said.

BHEL's first medical oxy-gen plant developed and manufactured, using CSIR-IIP technology, was formally handed over to SLG Hospitals Hyderabad in a record time of less than 35 days from receipt

of order.It had signed an agree-

ment with the Council of Sci-entific and Industrial Research - Indian Institute of Petroleum (CSIR-IIP) on May 3, 2021, for the transfer of technology for medical oxygen plants of 500 LPM and higher using pres-sure vacuum swing adsorp-tion (PVSA) technology. The agreement entails the develop-ment and deployment of 500 LPM medical oxygen plants and design upscaling to 1,000 LPM and more. Work for the development of a prototype was initiated on a war footing in three of BHEL's biggest man-ufacturing units (Hyderabad, Bhopal and Haridwar). MPOST

NEW DELHI: NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam Limited (NVVN) a wholly owned subsidiary of NTPC ltd, has invited tenders for deploying of Hydrogen Fuel Cell Buses (FCEBs) in Delhi and Leh.

The bid document sale has commenced from 30th June, 2021 and will continue till 16th July, 2021.

These e-buses would be zero emission vehicles in true form, as the hydrogen would be generated from renew-able energy making it a pure green initiative ushering a new era of Hydrogen based Zero Emission futuristic mobility solutions.

The green hydrogen would be supplied to the buses by the NTPC Renewable Energy Ltd. Green hydrogen is produced using renewable energy and electrolysis to split water. MPOST

BHEL supplies medical O2 plant in record time

NVVN invites tenders for FCEBs for

Delhi & Leh

FMCG firms see double-digit sales

growth in Apr-June

The slabs under the present TCCCPR, 2018 are 0-100, 100-1,000 and more than 1,000 violations

In four years since FY18, the household debt has jumped by 720 bps -- from 30.1 per cent in FY18 which was the year of GST implementation, to 31.7 per cent in FY19, 32.5 per cent in FY20 and to a massive 37.3 per cent in FY21

ICA- T7790(4)/2021ICA- T7796(3)/2021

KMDA TENDER NOTICE e-NIT No.

KMDA/HOUSING/SE/Circle II/NIT-39/2021-2022

Online e-Tender is invited by The Superintending Engineer, Circle II, Housing Sector, KMDA (Erstwhile KIT), Unnayan Bhawan, DJ-11, Sector-II, 1st Floor, Block-A, Salt Lake, Kolkata-700091, from reliable, resourceful, bonafide and experienced firms / companies / individual / partnership firm contractors for the work, Name of Work, Estimated Amount, Earnest Money, Time of Completion, Dismantling of existing old dilapidated buildings and construction of new ones including rehabilitation at Maniktala Model Dwelling Units at Maniktala (2nd Call)., Rs.18,25,42,901/- (Inclusive of 12% GST & 1% LWC), Rs.10,00,000/-, 24 months, Last date & time for Online Bid Submission: 06.08.2021 upto 17:00 hrs., for details contact the above office or visit both website. (KMDA-178) www.kmdaonline.org www.wbtender.gov.in

ICA- T7811(2)/2021

ICA- T7815(4)/2021

ICA- T7821(3)/2021

ICA- T7824(2)/2021

ICA- T7833(3)/2021

ICA- T7799(4)/2021

ICA- T7823(2)/2021

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGAL WRI&DD. e-NIT

Executive Engineer (A-M) Burdwan (AM) Division, WRDD invites e-tender for following work: CONSTRUCTION AND INSTALLATION ( INCLUDING SUPPLY AND DELIVERY OF ALL RELATED MATERIALS , ALL-IN-ONE WORKS ON TURN KEY BASIS ) OF SUNUR (PURBA) & SUNUR (PASCHIM) SOLAR MINI RLI SCHEME IN BHATAR BLOCK UNDER BURDWAN (A-M) SUB DIVISION UNDER BURDWAN (A-M) DIVISION in Purba Bardhaman District vide e-NIT no. 11/WRDD/EE (AM) /BURDWAN (AM) DIVN of 2020– 2021 (3rd Call), Tender ID- 2021_WRDD_335163_1 & 2 Tendered value of Rs. 24,96,464.00 and Rs. 24,96,464.00 last dropping date: 20.07.2021 at 12.00 Hrs. respectively. Corrigendum if any will be published in website only. Details of N.I.T and Tender documents may be downloaded to visit the website http//wbtenders.gov.in for details.

Sd/- S.S. Bera Executive Engineer (A-M) Burdwan (AM) Division

ICA- T7837(3)/2021

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGALWEST BENGAL HOUSING INFRASTRUCTURE

N. I. T No.6 of A.G.M (Engg.)-III of 2021-22 Sealed Tender is invited for the works having experienced in from any Govt. Organization. Last date of receiving appli-cation- 14.07.2021 upto 2.00 P.M. All other information and details may be obtained from the office of the A.G.M (Engg.)-III, WB HIDCO at HIDCO BHABAN, 35-1111 MAR, New Town, Kolkata.

Sd/- Addl. General Manager(Eng-III), WB HIDCO

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGALPrincipal, Rampurhat Govt. Medical College & Hospital, Ram-purhat, Birbhum, invites E-Tender for providing Canteen Service at Rampurhat Govt. Medical College & Hospital for Intern Hos-tel, Resident Doctor’s Hostel and UG students’ (Boys & Girls) Hos-tel at Chakmondala Campus (Vide memo No. RPHGMCH/882 Date:30/06/2021).Online Bid Submission End Date:28/07/2021For Details, Please visit:-www.wbhealth.gov.in, http://birbhum.gov.in

ICA- T7846(3)/2021

ICA- T7841(2)/2021

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGAL

Executive Engineer (E) Newtown Kolkata Development Authority

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGAL

NEW DELHI: Direct sell-ing companies like Amway and Tupperware will not be allowed to offer the pyra-mid and money circulation scheme, as the government has come out with a draft norms to regulate such firms and protect the interest of consumers in the country.

For the first time, the Union consumer affairs minis-try has framed the Consumer Protection (Direct Selling) Rules, 2021, and sought pub-lic comments by July 21.

Earlier, in 2016, the minis-try had come out with a set of guidelines for these companies which were advisory in nature. The draft rules now propose penalties for violations.

As per the draft rules, direct selling companies are banned from promoting a pyr-amid scheme and money cir-culation scheme.

A pyramid is a multi-lay-ered network of subscribers to a scheme formed by subscrib-ers enrolling one or more sub-scribers in order to receive any benefit, directly or indirectly, for enrolment of additional subscribers to the scheme.

Direct selling companies have to register themselves under relevant Indian laws and also with the Depart-ment of Promotion of Indus-try and Internal Trade (DPIIT) for allotment of registration number. They should have minimum one physical location as registered

office in India.The companies are

required to appoint chief compliance officer, grievance redressal officer and a nodal contact person for coordina-tion with law enforcement agencies.

The companies are required to maintain proper and updated website with all relevant details of the entity, contact information, product information, price and griev-ance redressal mechanism for consumers. The companies should issue proper identity cards and documents to its direct sellers fulfilling KYC verification requirements. They should maintain a record of all direct sellers who have repeatedly offered defective or spurious goods.

"A direct selling entity and a direct seller shall not induce consumers to make a purchase based upon the representation that they can reduce or recover

the price by referring prospec-tive customers to the direct sellers for similar purchases, if such reductions or recov-ery are contingent upon some uncertain, future event," the draft rules said.

To regulate direct sell-ers, the government has pro-posed that they will not visit a consumer's premises with-out identity card and prior appointment or approval.

Direct sellers should not provide any literature to a prospect, which has not been approved by the parent direct selling entity.

Also, any person who sells any product or service of a direct selling entity through an e-commerce platform must have a prior written consent from direct selling entity.

A convicted person or bankrupt should not be engaged in the business of direct selling, the draft rules said. PTI

ZOMATO GETS SEBI’S GO-AHEAD TO FLOAT `8,250-CRORE IPO NEW DELHI: Food delivery platform Zomato has received markets regulator Sebi’s go-ahead to raise Rs 8,250 crore through an initial share-sale. The initial public offer (IPO) comprises fresh issue of equity shares worth Rs 7,500 crore and an offer-for-sale to the tune of Rs 750 crore by Info Edge (India) Ltd, according to draft red herring prospectus. Zomato, which filed preliminary IPO papers with Sebi in April, obtained its observation on July 2, an update with the regulator showed on Monday. Sebi’s observation is very necessary for any company to launch public issues like IPO, follow on public offer (FPO) and rights issue.

IN ITS MAIDEN TRANSPORT BET, KKR ACQUIRES GIP’S 7 HIGHWAY ASSETS MUMBAI: In its maiden investment in the transport sector in Asia, global buyout major KKR on Monday announced the acquisition of seven highway assets from Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) for an undis-closed sum. Definitive agreements have been signed under which KKR will acquire GIP’s entire interest in HC1 and seven highway assets with a total length of 487 kilometres, as per a statement. The HC1 platform manages GIP’s road portfolio which spans across seven states -- Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Meghalaya, Rajasthan, TN, and Telangana. “Roads are one of the largest and most crucial infrastructure assets in India, where the world’s second-largest road network is located,” KKR’s MD Hardik Shah said.

NEW EXCISE POLICY Business Briefs

Highlights » Earlier, in 2016, the ministry had come out with a set of guidelines for these companies which were advisory in nature » As per the draft rules, direct selling companies are banned from promoting a pyramid scheme and money circulation scheme » A pyramid is a multi-layered network of subscribers to a scheme formed by subscribers enrolling one or more subscribers in order to receive any benefit, directly or indirectly, for enrolment of additional subscribers to the scheme

10 millenniumpostBusinessmpTUESDAY, 6 JULY, 2021 | NEW DELHI

NEW DELHI: Special excise adhesive labels, inspection teams and a state-of-the-art lab are some of the steps planned by the Delhi gov-ernment to regulate the con-duct of retail liquor vends and check tax evasion and sale of spurious alcohol.

The new Excise Policy 2021-22, which was approved in June, was uploaded on the Excise department's website on Monday.

According to the policy, the Excise Department has introduced Excise Adhesive Labels (EALs) with high-end security features manufac-tured by Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India Limited (SPMCIL) to avoid tax evasion and plug leakages in the supply chain.

These EALs have necessary clauses regarding advanced technology and high-security features like anti-counterfeit-ing special tag printing ink, mark with 3-D features and online verification of labels with Checko App used in the

printing of EAL, developed by IIT Kanpur. The EALs man-ufactured by SPMCIL shall be implemented in a timely manner.

"The new labels have high-end security features which cannot be cloned and dupli-cated, thereby extenuating the chances of duty evasion. Fur-ther, till the implementation of the new barcodes, the pres-ent system of bar-coding and ordering through Excise Sup-ply Chain Information Man-agement System (ESCIMS) will continue," it says.

The policy also states that

Special Inspection Teams will be set up to constantly check and examine the conduct and operation of retail vends and warehouses to ensure that none of the licensing terms are being violated.

"This will be done to main-tain the quality standard that is expected of any shop being set up in Delhi," according to the policy document.

An officer will be appointed as Deputy Com-missioner (Wholesale Opera-tions), it said.

The policy also states that teams will be set up to system-

atically pick up samples from bonded warehouses, retail vends, hotels, clubs and res-taurants across all brands and the report of the same will be published on the website.

"Any L-1 license holder or retail shop owner found in possession spurious liquor will lose their entire licence and will be subject to crimi-nal proceedings as per appli-cable laws.

"They will be permanently blacklisted and barred from operating in Delhi, and in good faith, the information of the same will be provided to the Excise Department of all other states (sic)," the docu-ment said. While stating that the supply of spurious liquor is a serious public health hazard, the policy states that the Delhi government will set up a state-of-the-art lab that will special-ise in detecting spurious and counterfeit liquor.

The government will work with the industry to set the safety standards and practices for it, the policy says. PTI

NEW DELHI: Stock exchanges and other market infrastruc-ture institutions as well as their top officials are liable to face penalties for lapses in han-dling and recitfying technical glitches, with Sebi putting in a place a stricter compliance system driven by "financial disincentives".

The markets watchdog has come out with a detailed Standard Operating Proce-dure (SOP) for Market Infra-structure Institutions (MIIs) less than five months after a technical glitch halted trading at the country's largest bourse NSE for nearly four hours.

There will be a "financial disincentives" structure for MIIs -- stock exchanges, clear-ing corporation and deposi-tories -- for any business disruption beyond pre-defined time, according to a circular issued on Monday.

Under the structure, MIIs will have to pay in the range of Rs 1 lakh each working day to Rs 2 crore for flouting SOP while Managing Director (MD) and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the MIIs con-cerned will have to cough up 10 per cent of their respective annual pay. The penalties will be subject to various timelines specified by Sebi with respect to declaration as well as rec-tification of technical glitches

at the MIIs.MIIs will also attract pen-

alties in case there is a delay in submitting a comprehensive Root Cause Analysis (RCA) report about a technical glitch.

The move will encourage MIIs to constantly monitor the performance and efficiency of their systems and upgrade their systems to avoid any pos-sibility of technical glitches and restart their operations expedi-tiously in the event of such dis-ruption, Sebi said.

There have been instances of technical glitches impact-ing trading activities, includ-ing the one on February 24 this year due to which trading at the National Stock Exchange (NSE) was halted for nearly four hours.

"With increasing depen-dence on technology, as the

operations and functioning of MIIs are fully automated right from order entry to order matching to trade confirma-tion leading up to clearing and settlement of trades, the instances of technical glitches at MIIs, leading to business disruption, have been occur-ring, despite various mecha-nisms stipulated by Sebi," the regulator noted.

To avoid technical glitches, Sebi has suggested that MIIs should have Business Continu-ity Planning, disaster recovery policies and system audit pro-cesses in place.

Considering the criticality of smooth functioning of sys-tems of MIIs as any disruption adversely impacts all classes of investors, market participants as well as the credibility of the securities market, Sebi said

that specifying a pre-defined threshold for downtime of systems of MIIs becomes desirable.

"For any downtime or unavailability of services, beyond such pre-defined time, there is a need to ensure that 'Financial Disincentive' is paid by the MIIs as well as Managing Director (being the executive head in-charge of all the day to day operations) and Chief Technology Officer (being the executive head in-charge of technology) of the MII," it added.

With regard to incidents resulting in business disrup-tion, Sebi said MIIs will have to submit information of tech-nical glitch on immediate basis but not later than two hours from the time of occurrence of the glitch to the regulator.

This is subject to the condi-tion that glitches of the nature of a disaster will be reported immediately upon declaration of the disaster.

MIIs will also have to submit a preliminary report within 24 hours of the occur-rence of the glitch.

Further, they have to sub-mit a Comprehensive Root Cause Analysis (RCA) report and corrective action taken to address the technical glitch within 21 days of the incident.

Such a report will be sub-

mitted to Sebi after placing the same before the Stand-ing Committee on Technol-ogy (SCOT) and the governing board of the MII and con-firming compliance with their observations.

RCA submitted by a MII should include exact cause of the technical glitch, includ-ing root cause from vendors, if applicable, exact duration of the technical glitch, chronol-ogy of events, list of business processes or systems and time for which they were impacted, recommendations of SCOT or governing boards of the MII concerned.

In addition, RCA should include details of correc-tive/ preventive measures taken (or to be taken) by MII along with timelines and any other aspect relevant to the technical glitch.

As part of RCA, MIIs are required to demonstrate com-pliance with various require-ments of the SOP. RCA will also include details regarding time of incident, time when operations were restored and in the event of a disaster, time when disaster was declared.

All communication and information with regard to a technical glitch need to be shared by the MII with Sebi through a dedicated e-mail address. PTI

NEW DELHI: The government has set up a nine-member advi-sory council, including Nan-dan Nilekani from Infosys and National Health Authority CEO R S Sharma, on steps required to design and accelerate adop-tion of open network for digital commerce (ONDC).

The DPIIT in an order said it has initiated a project on ONDC and the task has been assigned to Quality Coun-cil of India. "ONDC aims at promoting open networks developed on open sourced methodology, using open specifications

and open network protocols independent of any specific plat-form," it said.

It is expected to digitise the entire value chain, standardise operations, promote inclusion of suppliers, derive efficiencies in logistics and enhance value for consumers. PTI

NEW DELHI: Investors' wealth has jumped by Rs 2.19 lakh crore in two days of market rally, with the mar-ket capitalisation of BSE-listed companies reaching a fresh record of Rs 2,31,74,726 crore.

Gaining for the second straight session, the 30-share BSE Sensex closed 395.33 points or 0.75 per cent higher at 52,880 on Monday. The benchmark had closed 166.07 points higher on Friday.

Following the buoy-ant sentiment, the market capitalisation of BSE-listed firms zoomed Rs 2,19,283.79 crore in two days to its all-time high of Rs 2,31,74,726 crore.

"Overall sentiment were positive on account of fall in COVID-19 infections and indications of more avail-ability of vaccines. Hopes of a sustained reopening of the economy led to buying in sec-tors which were most affected by COVID," said Siddhar-tha Khemka, Head - Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services.

In Monday's trade, State Bank of India was the biggest gainer in the 30 frontline com-panies pack, gaining 1.92 per

cent, followed by Tata Steel, L&T, Bajaj Finserv, Larsen & Toubro and Axis Bank.

In contrast, Tech Mahin-dra, Dr Reddy's, HCL Tech, Titan, Bharti Airtel and TCS were the laggards, falling up to 1.34 per cent.

In the broader market, the BSE mid-cap and small-cap indices gained up to 0.78 per cent. From sectoral indi-ces, only power closed lower, while realty topped the chart with a gain of 2.84 per cent,

followed by metal at 1.49 per cent. Meanwhile, the rupee surged by 43 paise, its best sin-gle-session gains in nearly three months, to settle at 74.31 against the US dollar on Mon-day, tracking stronger Asian peers against the American currency and a firm trend in the domestic equity market. At the interbank forex market, the local unit opened at 74.51 against the greenback and wit-nessed an intra-day high of 74.00 and a low of 74.55. PTI

NEW DELHI: The govern-ment on Monday extended till August 5 the deadline for public comments on proposed amendments to the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020. Earlier, the last date for public comments on the draft e-commerce rules was July 6. "It has now been decided to extend the timeline for receipt of comments/sugges-tions on the draft E-Commerce Rules. Views/ comments/ sug-gestions on the proposed amendments may be sent by August 5, 2021," a government notice said.

At a meeting organized by the consumer affairs min-istry on July 3, many e-com-merce players had requested the government to extend the July 6 deadline for submit-ting comments. On June 21, the ministry had released draft e-commerce rules under which it banned fraudulent flash sale and mis-selling of goods and services on e-commerce plat-forms. PTI

MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank on Monday said the first pur-chase of government securi-ties for an aggregate amount of Rs 20,000 crore under the G-sec Acquisition Programme (G-SAP 2.0) will be conducted on July 8.

On June 4, RBI Gover-nor Shaktikanta Das had announced that the cen-tral bank will conduct open market purchase of gov-ernment securities of Rs 1.2 lakh crore under the G-SAP 2.0 in the sec-ond quarter of 2021 -22 to support the market.

On Thursday (July 8), the RBI will purchase five government securi-ties of different maturities through a multi-security auc-tion using the multiple price method.

The RBI said it reserves the right to decide on the quan-tum of purchase of individ-ual securities, and purchase marginally higher/lower than the aggregate amount due to rounding-off. PTI

NEW DELHI: The Income Tax Department on Monday extended the deadline till July 15 for manual filing of forms related to foreign remittances.

As the new I-T portal faced technical issues after its launch on June 7 and users complained of glitches, the department had allowed manual filings of Form 15CA/15CB (required for for-eign remittances) with banks till June 30.

"It has now been decided to extend the aforesaid date to July 15, 2021. In view thereof, taxpayers can now submit the said forms in manual format to the authorised dealers till 15th July, 2021," the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said in a statement.

As per the Income Tax Act, 1961, there is a requirement to furnish Form 15CA/15CB elec-tronically. Presently, taxpayers upload the Form 15CA, along with the chartered accountant certificate in Form 15CB, wher-ever applicable, on the e-filing portal, before submitting the copy to the authorised dealer for any foreign remittances.

The CBDT has also advised authorised dealers to accept such manual forms till July 15 for the purpose of foreign remittances.

"A facility will be provided on the new e-filing portal to upload these forms at a later date for the purpose of gener-ation of the Document Identi-fication Number," the CBDT

said.The new portal was

launched on June 7, which the tax department as well as the government said was aimed at making compliance more taxpayer-friendly. As the web-site continued to face glitches from the first day of its launch, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had asked Infosys -- the vendor who developed the site -- to fix the issues on priority.

In a meeting with Infosys top officials on June 15, Sith-araman had asked Infosys to address all issues without fur-ther loss of time, improve their services, redress grievances on priority as it was impacting tax-payers adversely. PTI

MUMBAI: Notwithstanding a massive spike in equity cap-ital markets deals and a 37.4 per cent jump in M&As in H1 of 2021 at USD 55.1 billion, investment banking fees fell 10 per cent to USD 438 mil-lion, making it the lowest first half since 2016, industry data showed.

Overall, SBI Caps has taken the top spot in the investment banking fee league tables with 9.5 per cent wal-let share and USD 41.6 million in fees, according to Refinitiv, an LSG group entity, on Monday.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) reached a three-year high of USD 55.1 billion in the first half, up 37.4 per cent y-o-y in the first half, Of this, cross-border M&As amounted to USD 21.73 billion across 210 deals, up from USD 16.02 bil-lion across 195 deals, according to Refinitiv.

Investment banking activi-ties generated USD 437.9 mil-lion in the first half of 2021, a 10 per cent dip y-o-y, making it the lowest first half period since 2016 when it was USD 263.6 million, according to the

Refinitiv data.Equity capital markets

underwriting fees reached more than a decadal high with USD 126 million, a 25.2 per cent increase as IPOs grossed up USD 3.9 billion, more than three times over the amount raised last year. On the other hand, debt capital market underwriting fees were down 34.5 per cent to USD 84.4 mil-lion, the lowest first half period since 2018.

Second quarter volume this year grew 6.8 per cent in value and 13.5 per cent by number of announced deals compared to the first quarter of 2021, push-ing overall M&As activity to reach a three-year high with USD 55.1 billion in the first half, a 37.4 per cent increase in value from a year ago, Elaine Tan of Refinitiv said.

Domestic companies saw record levels of IPO issu-ances during the first half totalling USD 3.9 billion, more than triple y-o-y and a healthy IPO pipeline is expected to retain buoyancy for the rest of the year, includ-ing the upcoming IPO from Zomato, Tan said. PTI

KBK graphicsInfo

Intra-day on July 5, 2021

9am 10 11 12 1pm 2 3 4 9am 10 11 12 1pm 2 3 4

Previous close:

52,484.67

Previous close:

15,722.20

NSE NIFTYIntra-day on July 5, 2021

BSE SENSEX

Low: 52,604.35

Close:

52,880.00

Close:

15,834.35Low: 15,762.05

High:

15,845.95112.15

(0.71%)

High:

52,919.17395.33

(0.75%)

Open:

15,793.40

Open:

52,682.89

Stock exchanges liable to face penalties for tech glitches: Sebi

Centre draft norms ban direct selling cos from offering pyramid

and money circulation scheme

Deadline for filing of forms related to foreign remittances extended till July 15

1st purchase of G-secs worth `20K cr under G-SAP 2.0 on

July 8: RBI

Investors' wealth jumps `2.19L cr in two days of market rally

M-cap of BSE-listed companies at record high

Deadline for public

comments on draft e-comm rules extended

till August 5

Government forms advisory council on adoption of ONDC

Despite jump in M&As, IPOs, i-banking fees dip

10% to $438 mn in H1Labels with high-end security features among

steps to check duty evasion, sale of spurious liquor

MIIs will also attract penalties in case there is a delay in submitting a comprehensive RCA

The EALs manufactured by SPMCIL shall be implemented in a timely manner

11millenniumpost Sport mpNEW DELHI | TUESDAY, 6 JULY, 2021

Spain, Italy take unbeaten runs into Euro 2020 semisLONDON: Luis Enrique thought for a couple of sec-onds, looked straight back at the questioner, and gave the curtest of replies.

No, said the Spain coach, with the blankest of looks on his face, after being asked if he had seen a better team than his at the European Championship.

An answer out of blind loy-alty? Perhaps.

Or was it the fact that Spain is the leading scorer at Euro 2020? Maybe.

Or the fact that La Roja is on an unbeaten streak stretch-ing back to October, a run of 13 games? Quite possibly.

Spain's opponent in the

European Championship semi-finals on Tuesday might have something to say about all that.

Italy, another of the conti-nent's traditional powers, brings an even better run of form to Wembley Stadium a national-record 32 matches unbeaten, going all the way back to Sep-tember 2018. From the moment tenor Andrea Bocelli cleared the field at Stadio Olimpico after his stirring rendition of Nes-sun Dorma at the opening cer-emony, making way for the start of the tournament, the Italians have been right on the money.

Three impressive wins in the group stage, without con-ceding. A gutsy victory over a

better-than-expected Austria in the round of 16. The elimi-nation of top-ranked Belgium in the quarterfinals. Maybe Luis Enrique isn't aware, but Italy is rolling at the moment.

This might be a match between teams who have almost forgotten what it feels like to lose Spain has only one defeat in its last 29 games but Italy looks to have the edge, at both ends of the field. Much has changed since Roberto Mancini took charge in May 2018, with the team having evolved into a high-energy unit that presses hard and attacks at pace. But the Azzurri's defense needs little introduction. AGENCIES

AFC decides to reschedule qualifiers of

2022 Women's Asian Cup

KUALA LUMPUR: The Asian Football Confederation (AFC)'s executive commit-tee has decided to reschedule the qualifying tournament of the 2022 Women's Asian Cup scheduled in India owing to the unprecedented health emer-gency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The tournament proper is supposed to be held in India from January 20 to February 6, 2022, while the qualifying event is currently scheduled for September 13 to 25 this year.

"In preparation for the AFC Women's Asian Cup India 2022, the AFC Executive Com-mittee also decided to provide greater flexibility in finalising the dates for the Qualifiers...," AFC said in a release.

The governing body said it has taken into consider-ation "the challenges that may arise from the availability of hosts, team travel arrange-ments, quarantine and medical measures imposed by several nations."

The AFC Executive Com-mittee has also approved the Women's Football Commit-tee's recommendation to can-cel next year's U-17 Women's Asian Cup Indonesia and the U-20 Women's Asian Cup Uzbekistan. The AFC Execu-tive Committee acknowledged the importance to priori-tise the health and safety of all stakeholders in particular, the continent's youth players against the backdrop of the ongoing uncertainty and chal-lenges caused by the current pandemic. AGENCIES

Messi driving Argentina at Copa AmericaThe 34-year-old Messi is still seeking his first major success with Argentina

BRASILIA (Brazil): Argentina is enjoying the Barcelona ver-sion of Lionel Messi at the Copa America ahead of his 150th appearance for the national team. The 34-year-old Messi is still seeking his first major suc-cess with Argentina, not count-ing Olympic gold in 2008.

But with four goals and four assists in the tournament so far, Messi has led Argentina to the semifinals where it plays Colom-bia on Tuesday at the Man Gar-rincha Stadium in Brasilia.

On Saturday he scored one goal and provided two assists in Argentina's 3-0 win against

Ecuador in the quarterfinals. It was Messi's first game since his contract with Barcelona expired.

Messi has played a record

149 matches for Argentina. His inspired performances in the last five are being compared to his best days with Barcelona,

including his vision on the field, the quality of his passes and two goals from free kicks.

We have to take it easy, think about Colombia now, they are a tough team with players who are great, experienced, very quick up front, good defenders and fast counterattackers, Messi said.

We hope to go step-by-step ... and be at this final we crave for. Nine Argentina coaches have tried some more than others to replicate with Argen-tina the same Barcelona model that allowed Messi to shine and become the Catalan club's all-time leading scorer. AGENCIES

Novak Djokovic joined by parade of newcomers in Wimbledon quarters

WIMBLEDON: Novak Djokovic reached his 12th Wim-bledon quarterfinal Monday to pull even with Arthur Gore, who had a 117-year head start, while a parade of newcomers also made the final eight.

First-timers on the men’s side included Canadian Denis Shapovalov, Italian Matteo Ber-rettini, Marton Fucsovics of Hungary and Russian Karen Khachanov, who won a bizarre fifth set to beat American Sebas-tian Korda on his 21st birthday.

Women advancing to their first Wimbledon quarterfinal included No. 1-seeded Ash Barty, No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus, Tunisian Ons Jabeur, Karolína Plíšková of the Czech Republic and Viktorija Golubic of Switzerland.

Another upstart was elim-inated when 2018 champion Angelique Kerber beat 17-year-old Coco Gauff 6-4, 6-4.

Djokovic, the two-time defending champion, held every service game to tie Gore and beat No. 17 Cristian Garín, 6-2, 6-4, 6-2. Three-time cham-pion Gore first played Wimble-don in 1888. Djokovic made his debut in 2005, and they share third place on the men’s all-time list for most men’s quarterfinal berths, behind Roger Federer’s 18 and Jimmy Connors’ 14.

“It’s a privilege to break

records in the sport that I truly love,” Djokovic said. “I’m devoted to this sport as much as I think anybody out there on the tour. I just try to do my best.”

Khachanov, seeded No. 25, outlasted Korda 3-6, 6-4, 6-3, 5-7, 10-8. With both players bat-tling fatigue and nerves, there were 13 services breaks in the final set, and for Korda, it was a disappointing end to an oth-

erwise impressive Wimbledon debut.

“I’m still super happy with how the whole tournament and today was,” Korda said. “I fought my hardest. I don’t know what was happening out there. We just couldn’t hold serve.”

Khachanov will next face the No. 10-seeded Shapovalov, who hit 15 aces and beat No. 8 Roberto Bautista Agut 6-1,

6-3, 7-5.The No. 7-seeded Berrettini

became the first Italian man in 23 years to reach the Wimble-don quarterfinals by ousting Ilya Ivashka 6-4, 6-3, 6-1.

The unseeded, 29-year-old Fucsovics became the first Hun-garian to reach the Wimble-don men’s quarterfinals since 1948 by upsetting No. 5 Andrey Rublev 6-3, 4-6, 4-6, 6-0, 6-3.

Jabeur became the first Arab woman to reach the quarters by rallying past 2020 French Open champion Iga Świątek 5-7, 6-1, 6-1. Jabeur, seeded 21st, converted all seven-break point chances and enjoyed hearing happy fans singing at the end of her match. “Tunisians are every-where, I’ve got to say,” she said with a smile. “They were singing a football song. I felt the need to sing with them.”

Barty was troubled again by a shaky serve but saved eight of 10 break points and did man-age an ace on match point to end French Open champion Barbora Krejčíková’s 15-match win streak, 7-5, 6-3.

Barty has yet to play her best in the tournament but is the favorite to claim her second Grand Slam title. The Australian won the 2019 French Open and was the Wimbledon girls singles champion in 2011.

“I love coming out here and test myself against the best in the world,” Barty told the crowd. “And there’s certainly no place I’d rather be at the moment.”

Sabalenka earned her first berth in a Grand Slam quarter-final by beating Rybakina 6-3, 4-6, 6-3. Plíšková, seeded eighth, has now reached the final eight at every major after hitting 10 aces and eliminating Liudmila Samsonova 6-2, 6-3. AGENCIES

Women advancing to their 1st Wimbledon quarterfinal included No. 1-seeded Barty, No. 2 Sabalenk, Tunisian Jabeur, Plíšková and Golubic

Mary Kom, Manpreet Singh to be India’s flag bearers

NEW DELHI: Celebrated boxer M C Mary Kom and men's hockey team skipper Manpreet Singh will be the country's flag bearers at the opening ceremony of Tokyo Olympics, the Indian Olym-pic Association announced on Monday.

One of India's biggest medal hopes, wrestler Bajrang Punia, will be the flag bearer at the closing ceremony on August 8.

The IOA has communi-cated the decision in this regard to the organising committee of the Tokyo Games.

In a first, India is having two flag-bearers -- one male and one female -- at the upcoming Tokyo Games to ensure "gen-der parity". This was recently informed by IOA chief chief Narinder Batra.

"It would be a huge huge moment for me given that it is my last Olympics. Who knows I might even get emotionally overwhelmed," Mary Kokm told PTI after being named as one of the flag bearers.

"I am truly honoured to get this opportunity of leading the team out during the open-ing ceremony and I thank the sports ministry and IOA for naming me. It would be added motivation for me. I promise to do my best for a medal," the six-time world champion added.

The country's lone indi-vidual Olympic gold-medal-list Abhinav Bindra was the

flag bearer at the opening cer-emony of the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro.

"This is amazing, and I am speechless. I think it's a huge honour to be named the Flag Bearer for the opening cere-mony alongside the incredi-ble Mary Kom," Manpreet was quoted as saying in a Hockey India release.

"I have always been inspired by her journey in boxing and personally for me, this is a big moment in my career, and it is also a huge moment for hockey.

"I thank the Indian Olym-pic Association for this great opportunity, and I am looking forward to the responsibility at the Opening Ceremony in Tokyo," he added.

The Tokyo Games are scheduled to open on July 23 and over 100 Indian ath-letes would be gunning for podium finishes at the show-piece, which was postponed by a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

At its executive board meeting last year, the Interna-tional Olympic Committee had made provisions for flag-bear-ers from both genders at the opening ceremony.

"...the IOC Executive Board also decided that there should be for the first time ever at least one female and one male ath-lete in every one of the 206 teams and the IOC Refugee Olympic Team participating at the Games of the Olympiad," IOC chief Thomas Bach had said. AGENCIES

Denmark expect to be outnumbered, not outplayed at Wembley

HELSINGOR (Denmark): Outnumbered in the stands, not outplayed on the field.

That is the expectation of Denmark's players ahead of their European Champion-ship semifinal match against England at Wembley Stadium on Wednesday.

Entry restrictions to Britain amid the pandemic are stop-ping Danish fans from travel-ing to London from abroad to cheer on their team at English soccer's national stadium. Only Danish people already in Eng-land, or who live in England, can buy a ticket from the coun-try's allocation of about 5,800 from an expected capacity of 60,000 spectators.

Denmark midfielder Chris-tian Norgaard is gearing up for a hostile environment at Wem-bley. That, though, might not be such a bad thing.

They'll get wild support, Norgaard said.

But maybe they'll turn on their own team if things don't go well for them.

There is pressure on them, he added in Danish newspa-per BT.

We can play more freely. We have always been able to do that, but we also have expec-

tations of ourselves. We believe we can deliver something.

Like Norgaard, a defen-sive midfielder for newly pro-moted English team Brentford, Andreas Christensen also plays in England with Chelsea and has already been to Wembley twice this season in the FA Cup

for the team's win over Man-chester City in the semifinals and a loss to Leicester in the final.

The center back knows Eng-land's players well and doesn't see a massive gap between the teams.

Player by player, they will probably say yes, said Chris-tensen, when asked if England was the favorite.

I feel like we have the quali-ties to play against everyone. As a team, I would not say they are that much better.

Denmark has been struck by a groundswell of support following Christian Eriksen's collapse in the team's open-ing group game against Fin-land, when he suffered cardiac arrest and had to resuscitated with a defibrillator. The way Eriksen's teammates acted during and after the incident at Parken Stadium attracted widespread praise. AGENCIES

BURTON UPON TRENT (UK): Bukayo Saka recovered from a knock and trained on Monday as England built up towards the Euro 2020 semi-final against Denmark.

Having topped Group D unbeaten, the Three Lions followed up a 2-0 win against Germany in the last 16 by beating Ukraine 4-0 in Rome at the weekend.

Saka started against Ger-many last Tuesday but was not included in the squad for Saturday's match at the Sta-dio Olimpico due to a slight knock.

But the 19-year-old was back training with the rest of the 26-man squad on Mon-day as Gareth Southgate's side stepped up their preparations for the Denmark semi-final.

Saka back training as England prepare for semis

AFI names 26-member squad for Tokyo GamesNEW DELHI: The Athlet-ics Federation of India (AFI) on Monday announced a 26-member team, including ace sprinter Dutee Chand, to compete in the upcom-ing Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Dutee (women's 100m and 200m), MP Jabir (men's 400m hurdles), Gurpreet Singh (men's 50km race walk) and Annu Rani (women's javelin throw) have been assured of entries on the strength of their rankings.

Gurpreet is the latest inclu-sion assured of qualification, according to the AFI.

The 26-member team includes 16 athletes, who will compete in the individ-ual events, five male athletes for the men's 4x400m relay event and two men and three women for the mixed 4x400m relay.

All three women set to compete in the mixed 4x400m relay were picked by the feder-

ation on the basis of trials held on Sunday.

The athletics events start on July 31 and will run through August 9.

AFI President Adille J. Sumariwalla said the federa-tion is looking forward to a good show by the team.

"We are happy that it is a well prepared team, physically and emotionally, for the Olym-pic Games.

“The world has been through a lot and athletes have been challenged to stay in good shape, retain form and in good spirits.

"We are pleased that our athletes have remained in training ever since lockdown was lifted," he said.

Sumariwalla said it was significant that as many as 12 individual athletes and the 4x400m mixed relay team had attained Entry Stan-dards, laid down by World Athletics, to secure automatic berths. AGENCIES

Osaka's return to action

highlights Olympic tennisTOKYO: As it was, Naomi Osaka would have been one of the most-watched, most-dis-cussed, most-supported ath-letes at the Tokyo Olympics.

She's the highest-earning female athlete in the world, a tennis superstar and represents Japan, making her a strong medal contender for the host country.

Then, of course, came the series of events that began unfolding about two months before the July start of the Sum-mer Games.

Just ahead of the French Open in late May, Osaka who is ranked No. 2 and owns four Grand Slam titles on hard courts, the surface being used in Tokyo announced she wouldn't speak to the press at Roland Garros, saying those interactions create doubts for her. AGENCIES

World Champion boxer Mary Kom PTI

Serbia's Novak Djokovic plays a return to Chile's Cristian Garin during the men's singles fourth round match on day seven of the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Monday PTI

One of India's biggest medal hopes, wrestler Bajrang Punia, will be the flag bearer at the closing ceremony on August 8

India, Oz, 15 others express interest to host white-ball events during next cycle

DUBAI: India, Australia and England are among 17 mem-ber nations to have expressed interest in hosting ICC white-ball events during the next eight-year tournament cycle from 2024-2031, the game's global governing body said on Monday.

As per a PTI report, the BCCI last month decided to bid for three global events -- including two World Cups in shorter formats -- during the next cycle that starts from 2024, but the Indian board is not keen on paying any hosting fee.

There will also be an issue of tax waiver which BCCI needs to get from its own government to host any ICC event.

The BCCI took the decision during its last Emergent Apex Council meeting. It was learnt that the BCCI would bid for one Champions Trophy, a T20 World Cup and a 50-over World Cup. Following the expansion to its event programme in the next cycle, the International Cricket Council has commenced the process to identify the hosts for men's white-ball events to be held post 2023.

The hosting of the ICC World Test Championship Final, the ICC women's and under-19 events in the new cycle will be determined in a separate pro-cess that will get underway later this year, the ICC said in a press release.

Eight men's ODI and T20 events, comprising two men's ODI World Cups, four men's T20 World Cups and two ICC Champions Trophies, will be staged from 2024-2031 cycle and the members were invited to submit a preliminary technical proposal as a potential host. This included individual country submissions as well as joint pro-posals. Initial submissions have been received from Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, Ire-land, Malaysia, Namibia, New Zealand, Oman, Pakistan, Scot-land, South Africa, Sri Lanka, West Indies, UAE, USA and Zimbabwe.

ICC acting chief executive Geoff Allardice said: "We are delighted with the response from our Members to hosting ICC men's white-ball events post 2023. This process gives us an opportunity to extend our range of hosts and grow inter-est in cricket worldwide reach-ing more fans whilst creating a long-term legacy for the sport.

"Cricket has more than a bil-lion fans around the world and ICC events have a proven track record of bringing significant economic and social benefits for host counties. "These events provide hosts with a wonderful opportunity to work closely with local communities to grow the game whilst supporting eco-nomic and social development public policy goals." AGENCIES

TOKYO OLYMPICS OPENING CEREMONY

VISHAL BHARADWAJ ON ‘CINEMATOGRAPH BILL’

MRUNAL ON WORKING WITH RAKEYSH OMPRAKASH MEHRA

12 millenniumpostLeisure

Entertainmentmp

TUESDAY, 6 JULY, 2021 | NEW DELHI

MUMBAI: Mrunal Thakur said that she entered Bollywood with a dream to work with filmmaker Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra but never imag-ined that the opportunity would come so early in her career with ‘Toofaan’.

In the upcoming sports drama headlined by Farhan Akhtar, Thakur plays Ananya, a doctor who is instrumental in transform-ing its protagonist Aziz Ali from a henchman to a professional boxer.

Even before Mrunal officially met the director of acclaimed films like ‘Rang De Basanti’ and ‘Bhaag Milkha Bhaag’, she recalled how she was ‘extremely nervous’ when Mehra showed up during the dubbing of Nik-khil Advani’s 2019 drama ‘Batla House’.

Later, when the duo dis-cussed ‘Toofaan’, Thakur said she

was surprised by the faith Mehra showed in her.

“Rakeysh sir did not know I’m a Maharashtrian and the character we were discussing was also one. At that point, I knew I still did not have the film - I had to work hard for it. It was necessary for me to test for the char-acter, for him to believe I could play it and for me to get closer and under-stand what this girl is about,” said the actor.

She added, “It was my dream to work with him. I thought it would take me at least 15 films to even get that opportunity but I’m blessed that I got it at such an initial stage of my career.”

Mrunal said that her char-acter in ‘Toofaan’ has the potential to ‘inspire’ people, especially filmmakers to write stronger female roles.

“My character is a liberal and lovely girl. She is a catalyst who helps Ajju to transform into Aziz, to follow his passion and channelise his energy in doing nice things. Ananya is some-one who is not just going to inspire the audience but also change the way film-makers and people look at Bollywood actress. This is one of the meatiest characters I got a chance to perform. I feel fortunate to have played the role. Characters like these are not written often,” shared Thakur. PTI

‘Veer Di Wedding’ star Sonam Kapoor said

that she does not go for the roles for which she demands just pay, but she can afford to let go of certain oppor-tunities because she is ‘privileged’.

In an interview with a leading newspaper, the Bollywood actor shared that she has no right to judge anybody.

“The pay gap is ridiculous. I can stand

up to it, but then I do not get those roles and I’m okay with that. I can afford to do that. I realised over the past two or three years that I have no right to judge anybody. I’m privileged, so making difficult choices is not difficult,” revealed the actor.

Sonam Kapoor’s comments came shortly after ‘Haseen Dilruba’ star Taapsee Pannu had said that the male actors, who started their

careers with her, make three to five times more money than her.

Sonam was last seen in 2019’s ‘The Zoya Factor’. She appeared in a cameo in ‘AK v/s AK’, in which she played a version of herself alongside her father Anil Kapoor and filmmaker Anurag Kashyap.

She will be seen next in ‘Blind’, which is a remake of a South Korean thriller, co-produced by Sujoy Ghosh. AGENCIES

Vishal Bhardwaj recently talked about why ‘big actors’ like Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh

Khan are ‘silent’ about current affairs in the country.

In an interview, the ‘Haider’ direc-tor also discussed a proposed ‘Cin-ematograph Bill’ that will allow the Centre to re-examine films that have already been cleared for release by the ‘Central Board of Film Certifica-tion’ (CBFC).

“They are giving the film medium undue importance. Earlier, Aamir Khan used to say things. Now even he is silent,” said the filmmaker.

Speaking on whether the film industry brought

this situation upon itself by allowing itself to be pushed around, Vishal stated, “Star power exists. People lis-ten when they speak. Maybe it is

to divert some attention from some other issue?”

“From what I understand, if Shah Rukh says something and is trolled for it, there are 300 others who are asso-ciated with him whose careers will be impacted by it. It will affect the Rs 100 crores-Rs 200 crores that a pro-ducer has invested in a project. Personally, if you meet Shah Rukh, he has his voice, he has his conviction and he articulates it so beautifully. Even Aamir Khan does it too. But the fear is that their words will impact the lives of 300 others. If they were to be held accountable for their words, I think they would still speak,” shared Vishal.

In June, the Centre came out with the draft ‘Cinemato-graph (Amendment) Bill 2021’ seeking comments from the general public, including one provision which allows power to re-examine films that have been cleared by CBFC. The proposal irked several filmmakers, includ-ing Sudhir Mishra, Anurag Kashyap, Hansal Mehta and many others.

Bharadwaj further said that in the aftermath of the ‘Tandav’ con-

troversy, his series about the hijack-ing of Indian Airlines Flight IC 814 was canned by a streaming platform. AGENCIES

After delaying their impending nuptials for months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Blake

Shelton and Gwen Stefani tied the knot in an intimate ceremony in Oklahoma after registering for a marriage license in the previous week. As per reports, the couple tied the knot on July 3 in a romantic ceremony that saw their close family and friends in attendance.

The couple had expressed their urge to get married this summer after sev-eral COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, thus allowing them to host a ceremony that could have their friends and family in attendance. According to ‘Page Six’, Gwen’s parents were spotted arriving for the ceremony.

As per the photos obtained by ‘Page Six’, Stefani and Shelton exchanged their vows at a church built on their Okla-homa estate. Shelton’s Oklahoma ranch was known to be their wedding venue ever since the news of a chapel being built there especially for the duo to tie the knot had made the news.

Stefani and Shelton began dating after working together on ‘The Voice’ in 2015. During their relationship, the couple also collaborated for work and since getting together, the musi-cians together worked on songs such as ‘Nobody But You’, ‘Happy Anywhere’ and ‘You Make it Feel Like Christmas together’.

In terms of their previous rela-tionships, Stefani shares three chil-dren – Kingston (15), Zuma (12) and Apollo (7) with her ex-hus-band Gavin Rossdale. As for Shelton, the musician was previously mar-ried to Miranda Lambert and split in 2015. AGENCIES

‘Harry Potter’ fame Jessie Cave revealed that she was treated

like ‘a different species’ on set after gaining weight between the last two films.

The actor, who played the role of Lavender Brown in the ‘Harry Potter’ films, is now a successful author, comedian and illustrator. Since the films, she is known for her self-depre-cating humour on stage as well

as in her cartoon-strip doodles.Speaking about her time

on the ‘Harry Potter’ sets to ‘The Independent’, she said, “I gained a

lot of weight after doing ‘Harry Potter’ because I was not starving myself and I

was growing up and that is just what hap-pens,” she admitted.

When Cave returned to ‘Deathly Hal-lows’ parts one and two, she shared her experience: “I was treated like a different species. It was horrible. It was probably more me and my insecurity, knowing that I was not fitting into the same size jeans, but it was not a time where actresses were any bigger than a size eight. I was a size 12 when I came for ‘Deathly Hallows’. So

that was horrible. It was an uncomfortable experience.”

Jessie also said that the attention she got from playing Lavender Brown ‘felt like a light was being shone on her’.

“But you get a bit bigger or you are not as relevant. It goes off and you have to make your way in the dark. I felt invisible

when I gained a little bit of weight,” stated the actor.

In the ‘Harry Potter’ franchise, Lav-endar Brown was Ron Weasley’s annoy-ing girlfriend. Later, she participates in the ‘Battle for Hogwarts’ before ultimately dying.

Talking about her experience, she added, “Since then, it made me have weird issues with weight and work and it is so messed up, but it is just how it is. Women have to deal with that all the time.” AGENCIES

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OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: India is participating at the ‘Cannes Film Market 2021’ vir-tually due to current pandemic. It is the second time that the country is participating through virtual India pavilion.

The pavilion will be showcasing Indian cinema across linguistic, cul-tural and regional diversity, with the aim of forging an increasing number of international partnerships in the realms of distribution, production, filming in India, script development and technology, and promoting film sales and syndication.

The main focus of the virtual India Pavilion is to celebrate the centenary year of the legendary filmmaker Saty-ajit Ray, promote India as an impor-tant shooting destination for the world cinema and encourage co-production between Indian filmmakers and their global counterparts. The focus will also be on celebrating India@75.

The virtual India pavilion will be inaugurated by Prakash Javadekar, Minister of Information and Broad-

casting; Environment, Forest and Cli-mate Change and Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, Government of India today at 3 pm.

The inaugural session will also be addressed by Amit Khare, Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broad-casting, Government of India; Jawed Ashraf, Ambassador of India to the Republic of France and Principality of Monaco; Neerja Sekhar, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Information

and Broadcasting, Prasoon Joshi, writer, poet and Chairman, CBFC; Subhash Ghai, filmmaker and educa-tionist, Chairman, ‘Mukta Arts Ltd’ and Ekta Kapoor, Joint MD, ‘Balaji Telefilms’.

The virtual India pavilion can be attended at www.cannes-india.com. To watch the inaugural ses-sion, one can visit the ‘YouTube’ link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdHFiFowOEI.

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Stefani and Shelton began dating after working together on ‘The Voice’ in 2015 and later collaborated on songs

‘I was treated like a different species’

Jessica Cave revealed that she felt uncomfortable being treated indifferently on Harry Potter sets after she had gained weight

The couple tied the knot in an intimate ceremony in Oklahoma on July 3, 2021

The inaugural session will also be addressed by Amit Khare, Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India with others