First India Bureau

Lucknow: Chief Min-ister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday asked party MPs and MLAs to go door-to-door to meet beneficiaries of gov-ernment schemes and see how the deprived sections of society have been at the center of the government’s poli-cies. He said that people now felt that the BJP government and party

workers were part of their family.

“You need to reach out to those who re-ceived benefits of the welfare schemes. Their belief in our govern-ance is our capital,” the CM said while discuss-ing development pro-jects with BJP MPs, MLAs and district heads of Gorakh and Kashi provinces on Sunday.

The programme was

organised at the Chief Minister’s residence and attended by BJP’s UP election in-charge Dharmendra Pradhan, State President Swatan-tra Dev Singh, State General Secretary (Or-ganisation) Sunil Bansal and Deputy Chief Ministers Kes-hav Prasad Maurya and Dr Dinesh Sharma. Talking to MPs and MLAs district-wise, the CM said that there

would be no assembly constituency where development projects worth less than �1,000 crore were not approved.

Pradhan asked public representatives to go to the public with facts and logic. “We all have felt the sensitivity of CM Yogi during the co-rona period. If we have done a good job, then we have to tell it to the peo-ple,” said Pradhan.

People’s trust our capital, our path to victory: Yogi PRADHAN TELLS MPs, MLAs TO GO TO PEOPLE WITH ‘FACTS AND LOGIC’

CM Yogi speaking at the MPs-MLAs meet at 5, Kalidas Marg on Sunday. To his right sits BJP State President Swatantra Dev Singh (L in pic) and to his left, UP election in-charge Dharmendra Pradhan.

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LUCKNOW l MONDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2021 l Pages 12 l 3.00 RNI NO. UPENG/2020/80229 l Vol 1 l Issue No. 298

OUR EDITIONS: JAIPUR, AHMEDABAD, LUCKNOW & NEW DELHI

Nearly twenty-three years ago when Narendra Modi, the then party worker of the BJP, was sent to the Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh as its in-charge, no one had even thought how he would completely change the political paradigm of the hill state, writes SHASHIKANT SHARMA. P4

Petrol price increased by 54 paise and soared to `101.18 per litre on Sunday while diesel price increased by 59 paise to reach ` 93.26 per litre in Lucknow on Sunday. According to industry experts, there may be continuous hike in coming days due to rising crude prices.

PERSPECTIVE: HOW MODI SECURED

‘HIMALAYAN ORCHARD’ FOR BJP...

ANOTHER HIKE, STEEP ONE,

IN PETROL & DIESEL PRICES

CORONA CATASTROPHE

UPINDIA

18,166new cases

214new fatalities

18new cases

00new fatalities

IS PM MODI AUTOCRATIC?Amit Shah’s response to criticsNew Delhi: Union Home Minister Amit Shah strongly defended Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi from a sugges-tion that he was at times dictatorial or autocrat-ic, saying that in his decades-long associa-tion, he had “not seen a listener like Modi ji”.

“All these people who are accusing us, these accusations are base-less. I have not seen a listener like Modi ji. If there is a meeting for any problem, Modi ji talks less and patiently listens to everyone and then takes a decision. We often think ‘what is there to think so much?’. He takes a deci-sion patiently after 2-3

meetings,” he said in response to a question during an interview to the state-run Sansad TV channel.

“Every person’s sug-gestion based on its quality is given impor-tance by Modi ji and not based on who the

person is. So, saying that he imposes his de-cisions as PM is not true at all. Whoever has worked with him, even the critics would agree that the cabinet has never functioned in such a democratic man-ner,” he said.

Amit Shah also de-fended PM Modi over the farmers’ protest, saying their concerns about the laws intro-duced last year were unfounded and that the BJP government had taken great steps to help the growers.

PM Modi and Amit Shah have worked closely since their early days in BJP. —FILE PHOTO

Every person’s suggestion based on its

quality is given impor-tance by Modi ji and not based on who the person is. Whoever has worked with him knows that the cabinet has nev-er functioned in such a democratic manner.

—Amit Shah, Union Home Minister

BLACKOUT CRISIS An energy crisis is looming in some states, including Delhi and Punjab, due to a combination of factors such as excess rainfall hitting coal movement and imported coal-based power plants generating less than half of their capacity due to record high rates

PULLING STRINGS Power plants across the country regulated generation after stock ran low. Against the requirement of maintaining 15 days to 30 days of stocks, over half of the country’s 135 coal-fired power plants, which in total supply around 70 per cent of the nation’s electricity, have fuel stocks of less than two days, as per the data from the grid operator

States battling crisisn PUNJAB: Severe coal shortage at thermal power

plants in Punjab has forced power utility PSPCL to cut down power generation and impose rota-tional load shedding at several places, prompt-ing the state government to slam the Centre for inadequate coal supply. Coal-fi red power plants are running at a reduced capacity because of shortage of coal, said an offi cial of Punjab State Power Corporation Limited on Saturday.

n RAJASTHAN: Rajasthan is resorting to one hour power cuts on a daily basis. Tata Power, which has signed contracts to supply 1,850 MW of electricity to Gujarat, 475 MW to Punjab, 380 MW to Ra-jasthan, 760 MW to Maharashtra and 380 MW to Haryana from its imported coal-based power plant at Mundra in Gujarat, has stopped generation. P7

n TAMIL NADU: The Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (Tangedco) said that power will be suspended in parts of Chennai for carrying out maintenance work in the city.

n ANDHRA PRADESH: Andhra Pradesh has been meeting grid demand of about 185-190 mega units (MU) daily. Power generation stations oper-ated by APGENCO, which supply about 45 per cent of the state's energy needs, hardly have coal stocks for 1 or 2 days and generation from these could be impacted further.

n DELHI: Tata Power Distribution Ltd (TPDDL), which supplies electricity to parts of the national capital, on Saturday warned of intermittent rota-tional power cuts as units supplying electricity to Delhi discoms have coal stocks to meet genera-tion requirements for 1-2 days, its CEO Ganesh Srinivasan said. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Ke-jriwal shot off a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over "a power crisis" Delhi could face.

n UTTAR PRADESH: 14 power plants temporarily shut, 8 due to lack of fuel

n JHARKHAND AND BIHAR are also among the worst affected by the

coal shortage.

Centre attempts

COALCOMFORTThe country has four days’ reserve. We have sufficient power available. We are supplying power to the entire country. Whoever wants, give me a requisition and I will supply them, said Union minister for Power RK Singh

New Delhi: The huge coal shortage affecting power plants will be handled in the next few days, the Centre said as several states, including Delhi, raised concerns over impend-ing blackouts. The shortage is due to a hike in global coal prices, the Centre said.

The supply, accord-ing to Union minister for power RK Singh, routinely drops dur-ing monsoon as the mines get flooded, but the demand remains high especially with the growing economy. In October, as the de-mands drop, the stockpiles will start growing again. “Ear-

lier, we used to have 17 days of coal stock from November till June,” he added.

An inter-ministeri-al sub-group led by the Coal Ministry has been monitoring the coal stock situation twice a week.

The ministry has as-sured that they are making efforts to send 1.6 metric tonnes of coal a day in the next three days and will try to reach 1.7 MT a day.

THEY ALSO SAID NO OXYGEN CRISIS: SISODIA SLAMS CENTRE ON COAL CRISIS

Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish

Sisodia on Sunday said the centre’s statement that all is well with the coal stock situation is “irresponsible”. Siso-dia drew parallels with the medical oxygen shortage in Delhi dur-ing the COVID-19 sec-ond wave. “When we had an oxygen crisis, they kept saying there was no such crisis. The coal situation is simi-lar. We have a crisis today,” Sisodia said.

CRUCIAL READEASTERN LADAKH ROW: INDIA, CHINA HOLD 13TH ROUND OF MILITARY TALKSLadakh: After a gap of over two months, India and China on Sunday are holding another round of high-level military talks with an aim to move forward on the dis-engagement process in the remaining friction points in eastern Ladakh. The 13th round of Corps Commander-level talks are taking place at the Moldo border point on the Chinese side of LAC in eastern Ladakh, sources said.

AT LEAST 16 KILLED AS RUSSIAN L-410 PLANE CRASHES IN TATARSTAN REGIONMoscow: An L-410 plane crashed near a city in Tatarstan region on Sunday, killing 16 people and injuring seven. The plane had been carrying a group of parachute jumpers on board, the Emer-gencies Ministry said. Seven people were pulled alive from the wreckage.

Priyanka: Govt shielding MoS, son; Modi won’t meet farmersVaranasi: Launching a scathing attack on the BJP government over the deaths in Lakhimpur Kheri, AICC general sec-retary Priyanka Gandhi Sunday said that the gov-ernment is “shielding” Union MoS Ajay Mishra’s son Ashish, and the Centre has never listened earnestly to is-sues being faced by the farmers.

“Last week, the son of Union MoS (Home) mowed down six farm-ers with his vehicle. Families of all the vic-tims said they want jus-tice but all of you have seen is CM Yogi Adity-anath is shielding the minister from a public forum. Have you seen in

any country that a per-son who mowed down six people is being ‘in-vited’ by the police to talk to them?” Gandhi

said while addressing the ‘Kisan Nyay’ rally in Varanasi.

She added, “PM Modi came to Lucknow for

Azaadi Ka Amrit Ma-hotsav but couldn’t go to Lakhimpur to share the grief of the victim families.

ATTEMPTS TO TURN LAKHIMPUR INTO HINDU V/S SIKH BATTLE: VARUNNew Delhi: Days after being dropped from the party’s national executive, BJP Lok Sabha member Varun Gan-dhi on Sunday said that an attempt is being made to turn the Lakhimpur Kheri incident into a Hindu vs Sikh battle.It is dangerous to create these fault-lines and reopen wounds that have taken a generation to heal, he tweeted. P7

Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi gestures to the crowd as she addresses Kisan Nyay rally in Varanasi on Sunday.

CM Yogi has said that con-struction of the

Uttar Pradesh State Institute of Forensic Sciences should be started from October 15, 2021 now that the tender process has been completed.

CM Yogi Aditynath has expressed

deep condolences on the demise of former MP and MLA Raj Narayan Budholia alias Rajju Maharaj.

Chief Minister Yogi Aditya-nath CM Yogi

has congratulated the winners of ISSF Junior World Championships, in which India has topped the medal tally with 40 medals including 16 gold.

CM Yogi has

Yogi SpeaksYogi Speaks

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MANY FROM BSP JOINSAFFRON BRIGADE

Former MLAs Dev Narayan Singh, GM Singh, Mukesh Dixit among joinees

First India Bureau

Lucknow: Several leaders of the Sama-jwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Uttar Pradesh joined the BJP in the presence of state BJP chief Swatantra Dev Singh and the state in-charge of the BJP, Radha Mohan Singh, who handed over the new membership of the party to the new leaders coming from other parties.

Altogether 17 lead-ers of different politi-cal parties, joined the BJP. On this occasion Swatantra Dev Singh said that today Uttar Pradesh is becoming Uttam Pradesh. With all-round development in the state, the rule of law has been estab-lished.

“During the tenure of our government, every person has got the benefit of all schemes. Now the tar-get is to provide pucca house to every poor by 2024,” he announced.Prominent among those who joined the

BJP are former BSP Ministers of State Dev Narayan Singh and GM Singh. Singh was an MLA from Sahjanwa seat of Gorakhpur dis-trict. He has found a new home in the BJP after resigning from the BSP.

Former MLA GM Singh too shared the information about his resignation from BSP on Facebook.

Along with this, Mukesh Dixit, who was MLA of Bahujan Sa-maj Party from Saha-ranpur Nagar also joined BJP today. Sub-odh Parashar of Bi-

jnor, who was a mem-ber of the Legislative Council from the Bahu-jan Samaj Party, joined the BJP along with his wife Gayatri Parashar, a former district pan-chayat member.

BSP leader Virendra Singh Saithwar from Hata in Kushinagar as well as dalit leader RK Chaudhary, who con-tested on Congress ticket from Haidergarh in Barabanki, also-joined the BJP.

Ruby Prasad, ex In-dependent MLA from Duddhi in Sonbhadra, Virendra Kumar Pasi, former BSP MLA from

Hardoi, Suraj Pal, ex BSP MLA from Agra, Dr. Bhavna Patel, BSP leader from Rohanian in Varanasi, National Lok Dal leader Viren-dra Singh Laur from Bulandshahr, Chaud-hary Pratap Singh and SP leader Shubham Gupta from Varanasi also joined BJP. Raju Ahlawat, the regional general secretary of BKU from Muzaffarna-gar, too joined BJP.

BKU had announced its state executive on Sunday, which did not include Raju Ahlawat. Hurt by this, Raju Ahl-awat has quit BKU.

Leaders from different parties joined BJP in presence of State President Swatantra Dev Singh at party offi ce in Lucknow on Sunday. —PTI PHOTO

First India Bureau

Lucknow: Launching a scathing attack on Sa-majwadi Party’s pro-posed ‘Vijay Yatra’, gov-ernment spokesperson Siddharth Nath Singh ridiculed the SP Chief Akhilesh Yadav com-menting “the one who dumped the harried peo-ple during the corona times is going to public in his ‘five-star rath’.”

This would be anoth-er insult to the people of UP who were deceived by him on every occa-sion,’’ said the Minister.

He said when CM Yogi was running from one district to another to provide relief to the people during Corona, the SP leader was busy tweeting from his air-conditioned drawing room from where he is going to land in his air conditioned luxoruri-ous ‘Rath’ pretending to go to the people.

“Probably he does not realise that people of this state have come to understand that he has nothing to do with the sufferings of the com-mon man and this is

just another gimmick ahead of UP assembly

polls”, the MSME Min-ister said.

He said that CM Yogi worked day and night to

save the people of the state from the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Those sitting inside AC rooms are now strug-gling to maintain their existence in the political arena, “ added Singh.

Singh went on to say that, “Samajwadi Party was rejected by the pub-lic due to their insensi-tivity. “No Vijay Yatra will be able to fulfil Akh-ilesh’s dream of ‘acquir-ing power’. Those who failed to serve people and handed over the state’s honour and dig-nity to criminals and

goons, have no right to be in power,” Singh said.

Sidharth Nath Singh further asked the Sama-jwadi Party Chief what he would tell the public? Would he say that Yogi government had paid Rs 1.44 lakh crore to the cane farmers during the last four and a half years which included arrears of SP regime pe-riod also. Would he say that the steps taken to-wards doubling the in-come of farmers had been appreciated widely and that the state is now free of Mafiaso?

Minister ridicules Akhilesh Yadav’s ‘5-star’ Rath Yatra POINTING GUNS

Singh said that the opposition was rattled by

the popularity of CM Yogi, who despite testing

Corona positive worked day and

night to save people of his

state

UP govt’s spokesperson Sidharth Nath Singh. —FILE PHOTO

TAPPING MINORITY SUPPORT

Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma addresses the State Working Committee of Minority Front of BJP at Atal Bihari Vajpayee Scientifi c Convention Centre Auditorium situated in Chowk on Sunday.

UP on top, finances 3588 units with ` 123 crore under PMEGP campaignFirst India Bureau

Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh financed the highest number of units in the country under Prime Minister Employment Genera-tion Programme (PMEGP). The UP gov-ernment has facilitat-ed to provide a total of over Rs 123 crore as margin money through various banks to about 3588 units under PMEGP with a total cost of projects worth over Rs 450 crore dur-ing the current finan-cial year so far.

In the financial year 2021-22, during six months from April to present, applications for the sanction of about Rs 608 crore of more than 19000 pro-jects been forwarded to the banks.

Out of these, the margin money to the tune of about Rs 157 crore to about 4770 units have been sanc-tioned while Rs 123 crore of 3588 units has already been dis-bursed.About Forty thousand people have got employment in these projects.

Significantly, it has been done in just over six months of current financial year, one and

a half times of the tar-get set for the entire 2021-22. As per esti-mate based on these statistics, the achieve-ment during 2021-22 is likely to be about 150 percent. During the previous financial year 2020-21, against the tar-get of sanctioning Rs 258.19 crore margin money for MSME and Khadi units, Rs 327.92 crore was disbursed to 9954 units, the achieve-ment of over 127%.

Now the youth of the state are becoming not only job makers but also job creators.

Navneet Sehgal, Ad-ditional Chief Secre-tary, MSME said that the state has the larg-est number of indus-tries in the country fi-

nanced under PMEGP. This has provided

employment opportu-nities to thousands of people directly and in-directly.

Yogi brought smiles to many in UP. —FILE PHOTO

Mission Shakti-III, a success3269 arms licences up for cancellation: AwasthiFirst India Bureau

Lucknow: On the instructions of UP CM Yogi, Home epartment has done a thorough review of action taken this year under Gangster Act, Arms Permission and Section 107/116 CrPC. Giving this information, Ad-ditional Chief Secretary (Home) Avnish Kumar Awasthi said under Uttar Pradesh Gang and Anti-Social Activities (Prevention) Act 1986, 2470 gang charts had been submitted for approval in state so far this year, of which District Magistrates approval has been given in 2429 and 1567 charge sheets have been filed in court.Awasthi said for effective control over incidents of misuse of licensed arms, suspension/cancellation has been recommended against 3269 arms licenses so far this year, of which 3088 cases were registered and 2293 arms licenses were suspended. Also 38,038 weapons have been depos-ited so far this year.

First India Bureau

Lucknow: The third phase of Mission Shakti that has been running from August 21 onwards has shown fruitful results under the aegis of CM Yogi Adityanath.

Additional Chief Secre-tary (Home) Awanish Ku-mar Awasthi said during this period, the Prosecu-tion Department had suc-ceeded in getting death sentence awarded to total of 4 accused through ef-fective advocacy, of which two accused were of two cases of Firozabad be-sides that of one case each in Hathras and Lucknow.

ACS Home, Awanish Kumar Awasthi said dur-ing this period, in 74 cases going on in different dis-tricts of state, 134 accused have been awarded life imprisonment most of whom hail from Aligarh, Bareilly and Sitapur dis-tricts.

He further informed that in 89 cases, 98 accused were awarded 10 years and more than 10 years punishment, most of whom were from Sitapur, Bareilly and Shahjahapur respectively.

Similarly, in 221 cases, 262 accused received pun-ishment of less than 10 years, most of whom were from Kanpur Nagar, Ali-garh and Kasganj. Apart from this, bails of 1027 ac-cused have been rejected in 977 cases.

Kisan Union meets ACS AwasthiLucknow: A delegation of Kisan Mazdoor San-gathan, Lucknow met Additional Chief Secre-tary Awanish Awasthi and discussed their 16 point demands in Lok Bhavan.

Giving this informa-tion national spokes-person Lalit Rana said that the organization demanded for covering farmers under labor law.Farmers held dis-cussion with ACS re-garding loan waiver, enactment of support price law on farmers’ crops and provision of punishment for pur-chases below support price. Farmer leaders also demanded a Kisan Mazdoor Sahayata Pen-sion of Rs 6000 per month to elderly farm-ers and laborers after 50 years of age.

Knp Police Commissioner donates bloodFirst India Bureau

Kanpur: Asim Kumar Arun, Police Commis-sioner Kanpur on Sun-day participated and donated blood in the blood donation camp organized for children suffering for children from Thalassemia by Kanpur Police Com-missionerate.

Pictures of the Police Commissioner donat-

ing blood started trend-ing the in the social me-dia thereby spreading the much-needed awareness about the blood donation camp.

Blood camps in sev-eral police stations are being organised every Sunday across Kanpur district for children suffering from Thalas-semia.

Asim Arun donates blood.

ACS Awanish Awasthi —FILE PHOTO

SPECIAL ASSEMBLY SESSION ON OCT 18

ON AKHILESH

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2 ABSCONDING COPS IN MANISH GUPTA CASE ARRESTED, HANDED OVER TO SIT

DROWNING CAUSED DEATH OF TIGER AT KATARNIAGHAT, FINDS POST-MORTEM

Lucknow: The post-mortem report of Gomti hotel employee confi rmed two bullet shots. First bullet scratched left jaw while other one was penetrated

into right jaw which was stuck in there. To clear all ambiguity second post-mortem will be conducted on instruction of senior offi cials. Police said the second post-

mortem will be conducted by three doctors panel in presence of forensic experts and it will be recorded. Gomti hotel employee Ashok Pathak had commit-ted suicide by shooting self at his residence.

CRUCIAL READ

Gorakhpur: Two policemen were arrested here on Sunday evening in connection with the killing of Kanpur businessman Manish Gupta, police said.SP (City) Sonam Kumar said Inspector JN Singh and Sub-Inspector Akshay Mishra, who were both under suspension, were handed over to the Kanpur SIT. Kumar said the two planned to surrender before court on Monday but they were arrested on Sunday evening itself after police received a tip-off. Gupta, a 36-yr-old property dealer, was allegedly thrashed by cops in a Gorakhpur hotel last month, leading to his death.

Bahraich: The carcass of a tiger that was found fl oat-ing in water of at Girija Barrage of Katarniaghat has forest offi cials worried. DFO of Katarniaghat, Akash Deep Badhawan said that the post-mortem report of the tiger has revealed that it died due to drowning and that the deceased tiger is possibly from Nepal as the database of all tigers in India did not return a match for the pattern found in the deceased tiger. Katarniaghat Century Range which is spread over 550 square kms has close to 30 to 40 tigers and Government of India has allocated Rs 180 crore for taking care of the tigers in the country.

CM cautions against letting guard down in festive timesFirst India Bureau

Lucknow: Chief Minis-ter Yogi Adityanath said Covid-19 graph had dipped considerably but it was far from over and all precautions and so-cial distancing norms should be strictly fol-lowed, especially in the festive season ahead.

He was reviewing the Covid-19 situation in a high-level meeting con-vened at his official resi-dence here on Sunday. The CM was told that in last 24 hours, 18 new cases of corona had been reported in the state. During this period 13 persons were dis-charged after successful

treatment. At present the number of active cases in the state is 141.

Districts Aligarh, Am-roha, Ayodhya, Badaun, Baghpat, Ballia, Balram-pur, Basti, Bahraich, Bhadohi, Deoria, Etah,

Etawah, Fatehpur, Ghaz-ipur, Gonda, Hamirpur, Hapur, Hardoi, Hathras, Jalaun, Kanpur Dehat, Kasganj, Kushinagar, Lakhimpur Kheri, Lalit-pur, Maharajganj, Ma-hoba, Mau, Mirzapur,

Muzaffarnagar, Pilibhit, Rae Bareli, Rampur, Sant Kabir Nagar, Sham-li, Shravasti, Sitapur, Sonbhadra, Sultanpur, Unnao and Varanasi do not have a single Covid patient.

Dandiya night at Farzi Cafe in Lucknow on Saturday.

98.7% RECOVERY

Singhal putts hisway to ace it in Golf Club turf

First India Bureau

Lucknow: Senior IAS office Mukul Singhal won a sec-ond term as Presi-dent of the prestig-ious Lucknow Gold Club in a closely con-tested election, the results for which were declared late on Sunday night.

Singhal pipped Ad-ditional Chief Secre-tary, (ACS, Informa-tion) Navneet Se-hgal, who was also in the fray for the post, by 174 votes.

The election frenzy was witnnesed since morning as some of the most affluent in-dividuals of the city congregated to exer-cise their franchise to elect the new presi-dent, captain, secre-

tary, joint secretary and members of the managing committee of the elite club.

According to club sources, the club has around 2,300 mem-bers, out of which 1,296 cast their votes on Sunday.

Among others who were elected in-clude Adesh Seth, Captain, Sandeep Das, honorary secre-tary and Labir Singh Bisht as joint secre-tary-cum -treasurer of the club.

First India Bureau

Lucknow: With an eye on Punjab elections early next year the Congress is trying to fish in troubled water in Lakhimpur Khiri is-sue where four Sikh farmers were killed and several injured during violence with the BJP workers on Oc-tober 3. In fact, the Congress has been do-ing Punjab politics in Lakhimpur Khiri by its posturing towards Sikh farmers.

Punjab CM Charan-jit Singh Channi rushed to Khiri along with Priyanka, Rahul Gandhi and his Chhat-tisgarh counterpart Bhupesh Baghel and announced ex-gratia payment of Rs 50 lakh each to the kin of four Sikh farmers and one journalist Raman Kashyap. Baghel also announced similar compensation to the five families.

There is a feeling in political circles that

more than rejuvenat-ing crumbled structure of the party in UP, the Congress seems to have targeted its Punjab sup-port base by approach-ing the aggrieved Sikh farmers in Khiri re-gion, which is known as “mini Punjab” The Terai area of Pilibhit and Lakhimpur has close proximity with Punjab. Leaders of BJP and other parties have also see that Con-gress’ weak situation in UP- just 8% vote base- is unlikely to be political-ly benefited from the fall out of the Khiri in-cident. Thus, the whole exercise seems to be

aimed at attracting the Sikh community in Punjab. After Channi’s visit, Punjab Congress president Navjot Sidhu also landed in Khiri and resorted to hunger strike demanding ar-rest of main accused Ashish Mishra. Simi-larly, a delegation of J&K Youth Congress led by general secre-tary Ninramdeep Sin-gh Bhullar landed at Haryana-UP border on way to Khiri.

There is a feeling that more than UP, Kh-iri violence and death of four farmers could have impact on Punjab election where the BJP

does not have much stake. While BSP has also entered into an al-liance with Akali Dal in Punjab, there is also race between Congress and AAP to take advan-tage of the crisis. A del-egation of Akali Dal also visited Khiri. In view of AICC gen-eral secretary Priyan-ka Gandhi running UP Congress show, it was politically necessary for her to rush to Khiri but Rahul’s move to bring Punjab and Chhattisgarh CMs to UP, was indicative of Congress under-standing the impact of Khiri on Punjab.

First India Bureau

Muzaffarnagar: A to-tal of 119 new cases of HIV were found in Ut-tar Pradesh’s Muzaffa-rnagar district over the last six months from April 1 to September 30 this year, authorities said.

Of the new cases, 78 were men, 34 women, and three transgender persons, and also in-clude one girl and three boys, VK Johri, in-charge of Anti-Ret-roviral Treatment (ART) Centre at the district hospital, said on Saturday.

No one among the cases reported this year have died so far, he said.

According to the ART Centre, the dis-trict has seen 2,239 cas-es in the last seven years — an average of 319 every year — of whom 221 patients died during treatment.

First India Bureau

Kanpur: A major acci-dent happened in Amauli village near Kanpur city where a truck in a bid to over-take had a head-on col-lision with a tractor causing death of driv-ers of both the vehicle and assistant of the truck. The accident in the highway caused a 10 KM long traffic jam for 5 hours.

The accident took

place around 2:30 AM on Sunday, when a truck collided head-on with a tractor on the Kanpur Sagar highway and caught fire.

Arvind, a survivor,, said when the accident happened, he managed to escape from the vehi-cle before it caught fire.

He added that seeing the vehicles go up in flames, he called the po-lice and fire brigade, which arrived at the spot and managed to extinguish the fire.

He further added that the tractor collid-ed with the truck in its bid to overtake another truck on the highway.

First India Bureau

Lucknow: District Magistrate Abhishek Prakash on Sunday made a surprise inspec-tion of examination centres of Civil Service (Premilinary) examina-tion. The DM reached the examination centre located in the UP Public Service Commission examination building and saw the arrange-

ments of examination rooms, examination su-pervisors in relation to the smooth conduct of the Civil Services (Pre-milinary) examination of the Public Service Commission.

During the inspec-tion, the District Magis-trate was informed that the duty of Sector Mag-istrate and Zonal Mag-istrate has also been imposed for the purpose

of conducting the ex-amination peacefully and without copying.

He was further in-formed that mobile jam-mers have been set up at all the centres to avoid the possibility of cheat-ing in the examination.

The DM further in-structed officials to en-sure that all the Covid protocols should be fol-lowed including social distancing,etc.

Senior IAS offi cer Mukul Singhal with his family and friends after wining the second presidential term of prestigious Golf Club in Lucknow on Sunday evening.

Over 100 HIV+ cases in Muzaffarnagar in 6 months

Three killed as truck collides with tractor on Knp-Sagar highway

DM on surprise inspection of UPSC exam centres

DM Abhishek Prakash inspecting an exam centre on Sunday.

Priyanka Gandhi at a farmers’ rally in Varanasi on Sunday.

Both vehicles cauight fire in the mishap.

A10-KM long traffic jam took place for five hours on the highway.

Congress clinches Khiri opportunity to strengthen support in poll-bound Punjab

ECLECTIC MIX

Mayor Sanyukta Bhatia inaugurated the Utsav Exhibition at Hyatt Hotel where she visited several stalls set up by designers from across the country.

SECOND AUTOPSY OF HOTEL MANAGER IN PRESENCE OF FORENSIC EXPERTS

POLITICALLY WISE

Singhal pipped nearest contender ACS Information, Navneet Sehgal,

by 174 votes.

FOR ADVERTISEMENT BOOKING9 6 9 5 3 5 8 3 5 8 , 8 8 9 6 9 6 2 0 0 9

NavratriNavratriHappy

—PHOTO BY ASHOK DUTTA

—PHOTO BY ASHOK DUTTA

PERSPECTIVELUCKNOW | MONDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2021

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Printed and published by Anita Hada Sangwan on behalf of First Express Publishers. Printed at Amar Ujala Ltd. B-5 Amausi

Industrial Area Kanpur Road Luc-know. Published at 98, Friend’’s Colony, Raheem Nagar, Dudouli Road, Madiyaon, Lucknow (UP).

Editor-In-Chief: Jagdeesh Chandra. Editor: Anita Hada Sangwan

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Promoted by First India News International Pvt. Ltd.

SPIRITUAL SPEAK

Neither fire, nor wind, birth, nor death, can erase our good deeds.

—Buddha

IN-DEPTH

Hardeep Singh Puri @HardeepSPuri

By bringing fundamental shift in project planning & execution, the geo-spatial digital platform #PMGatiShakti to be launched

by PM Modi Ji will do just as its name suggests - lend more power & speed to development projects under the national master plan.

Jagat Prakash Nadda @JPNadda

Addressed the Intellectual Meet in Imphal, Manipur. Under the

dynamic leadership of Hon PM Shri @narendramodi Ji lot of new steps have been taken. Peace & harmony

is there, fundamental rights are being protected and economic

activity now growing.

TOP TWEETS

AFTER BRITAIN, WILL POLAND NOW PART WAYS WITH THE EUROPEAN UNION

fter Brexit the Euro-pean Union has come under further strain with Poland’s top court, the Constitu-

tional Tribunal, ruling against the primacy of EU laws over Pol-ish legislations in some areas. The Tribunal also told Polish judges not to use EU laws to ques-tion the independence of some of their peers. It is the core legal principle of the EU that rulings by the European Court of Justice will be binding on all member countries. Poland’s Prime Minis-ter Mateusz Morawiecki is spear-heading the move against EU’s judicial supremacy. Most judges in the Constitutional Tribunal are sympathetic to the ruling Law and Justice Party. People, though, are opposed to the PM’s move. The European Commis-sion is firm that only EU rulings will have primacy.

This has stoked fears of Po-land’s exit from the EU which would be detrimental for both.

A

early twenty-three years ago when Narendra Modi, the then party worker of the Bharatiya Janata Party, was sent to the Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh as its in-charge, no one had even thought how he would com-pletely change the political paradigm of the hill state.

Due to the role that Modi played in forming the Dhu-mal government formed in 1998 in Himachal, his status in organization and the party increased manyfold. This government, led by the BJP without a majority, started amidst political ‘hiccups’ but by the end of the term it had strengthened itself. The story of the formation of this gov-ernment is also quite inter-esting. At the time of its for-mation, the current BJP President Jagat Prakash Na-dda was also an MLA in Himachal and also became the cabinet minister for the first time in this government. In fact, the political ‘fortunes’ of Nadda also started with this government.

Before the 1998 assembly elections, Shanta Kumar himself got out of state poli-tics which was a develop-ment no one could even imag-ine. Shanta Kumar, who did not fit in with Modi’s style of functioning, refused to lead

the BJP in this election and this is what Modi wanted. On the other hand, Prem Kumar Dhumal, although he had ‘lived’ in the Parliament, de-cided to enter into the state’s political foray. The party de-cided to contest the election without projecting any lead-er in the election, but Modi got this decision changed before the election.

Narendra Modi gave a strong reasoning that BJP would appear like a ‘baraat procession’ without its groom. He stressed with the then ‘high command’ that it is im-portant to know who will be the face of BJP against Virb-hadra Singh of Congress. It goes without saying that Con-gress was extremely confident of victory in this election. There were two reasons for this, one is the retreat of Shanta Kumar due to Modi, and the other is the popularity of the Virbhadra government.

Such was Virbhadra Sin-gh’s confidence that even be-fore completing his full term, and with one year still to go, he got the assembly dissolved and the elections held sud-denly. He felt that in the fight between Modi-Shanta-Dhu-mal, the BJP would not be able to compete with the sud-den elections. Virbhadra Singh’s guess was not wrong either as Shanta Kumar was also thinking on the same line. Almost the same thing happened. Congress was ahead of the BJP when the election results came.

But in this rise of Congress, perhaps the sunrise of future politics of Modi, Dhumal and

Nadda was hidden. In the gen-eral elections held in the win-ter of 1998, elections were held on only 65 of the total 68 as-sembly seats in Himachal. The remaining three were tribal seats whose elections were postponed till summer due to snowfall. Thus, for a majority it was necessary for any po-litical party to get at least 33 seats. In this election, the Himachal Vikas Party of Sukh Ram, a former communica-tion minister and a staunch opponent of Virbhadra Singh, was also trying his luck for the first time. Sukhram was sur-rounded by allegations of cor-ruption due to about five crore rupees received from his house during the CBI raids. He had fielded his candidates in all the assembly seats.

Perhaps for the first time in the history of Indian De-mocracy did any result come which had such far-reaching effects that even though a party which became the sin-

gle largest party, failed to form government while the party with second-most seats secured the position to the government.

In the election results Con-gress got the maximum 32 seats out of 65 and despite winning as the largest party this party was left behind by only one seat from the major-ity. The BJP could not even take 33 seats required for ma-jority and had to contend with 29 seats. Meanwhile, Sukh Ram’s Himachal Vikas Congress won four seats.

In this way BJP and Himachal Vikas Congress to-gether could have touched a majority of 33 seats but before they could stake claim at form-ing government, another ac-cident happened. On the night of the announcement of elec-tion results, one BJP MLA died due to heart attack and the number of MLAs in BJP’s kitty fell back to 32. Now even if BJP and Sukhram’s party got together, they would have been equal to 32 MLAs of Con-gress. In such a situation, the key to form the government came in the hands of an inde-pendent MLA- Ramesh Dha-wala- the lone independent MLA, had won the election for the first time and the ruling Congress was desperately searching for him. This is the moment from where begins the true story of Narendra Modi’s political skills which made him the ‘apple of the eye’ of the party high com-mand.

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY THE AUTHOR ARE PERSONAL

To be continued...

SHANTA KUMAR

PREM KUMAR DHUMAL

JP NADDA

MODI COMPLETES 20 YEARS IN PUBLIC LIFE: DOWN THE MEMORY LANE ... (2.0)

How Modi secured ‘Himalayan orchard’ for BJP, eventually becoming ‘apple of

the eye’ of party high command!

SHASHIKANT SHARMA

The writer is senior journalist

At the time of formation of Dhumal govt in Himachal in 1998, the current BJP

President Jagat Prakash Nadda was also an MLA

in Himachal and also became the cabinet

minister for the first time in this government. In

fact, the political ‘fortunes’ of Nadda also started with this government

N

Due to the role that Modi played in forming the Dhumal government

formed in 1998 in Himachal, his status in

organization and the party increased manyfold. This

government, led by the BJP without a majority, started amidst political

‘hiccups’ but by the end of the term it had

strengthened itself. The story of the formation of

this government is also quite interesting

NARENDRA MODI

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M Sharma

Gandhinagar: Gandhi-nagar political and bu-reaucratic circles are abuzz about likely links between a top politician and his family and a real estate group which was recently raided by the Income Tax authori-ties in Saurashtra re-gion.

According to sources, the tax authorities dur-ing the raids in various premises of the group have apparently found some “incriminating

links including money trail in land parcels” between several indi-viduals closely related to the political figure’s family and the realty group.

“The raids were car-ried out just a few weeks before the political overhaul in the state,” a source in the state capi-tal said, adding that the details of the raids were shared with political bosses in New Delhi.

The group is among Gujarat’s prominent real estate and develop-

ers and is actively en-gaged in realty, con-struction and land trad-ing businesses in and around Rajkot. More

than 40 premises were covered in the search operation. It has been learnt that top political figures occupying im-

portant portfolios in the previous administra-tion were on the radars of the central govern-ment and its various

agencies.In September, Guja-

rat witnessed a political earthquake when sud-denly but not entirely

unexpectedly CM Vijay Rupani resigned paving the way for a change of guard in the state. Sub-sequently; Bhupendra Patel was chosen as Ru-pani’s successor while no minister who served in the Rupani adminis-tration was retained in the new dispensation.

Since then; there have been speculations about possible causes that led to the drastic changes the BJP affect-ed in Gujarat; the home state of PM Narendra Modi and Union HM

Amit Shah.“The party high com-

mand had reportedly received details from revenue, urban develop-ment, energy, mining and port departments about alleged irregu-larities and high ticket corruption,” a top func-tionary of the ruling BJP said.

After the change of guard, the politician in question has suddenly become low profile and hardly engages with any political activities in the state.

Rakesh Ranjan

New Delhi: Personal records of many Indian Coast Guard officers have reportedly disap-peared in thin air.

What does it say? One simple thing! The sys-tem created by first de-fense secretary HM Pa-tel, ICS, and modified and sustained through about 38 of his illustri-ous successors and cur-rently lorded by Ajay Kumar, IAS, isn’t work-ing, nay, it may be in a horrible shape and probably demands an immediate overhaul.

Because the loss of personal records of sen-ior Coast Guard offi-cials directly impacts

our coastal security where an avoidable breach caused 26/11.

Data in the modern world is a weapon. Since our civilization and cul-tural adversaries can’t win a direct open war with us, it can’t but be assumed that the per-sonal records of senior coast guard officials were stolen to analyse and figure out the capa-bility/weaknesses of officers whose records were stolen.

It’s also reported that the issue of the missing personal records or the Annual Confidential Reports of senior offic-ers was raised during an inquiry by the de-fence ministry into the

manipulation of ser-vice records of officers at the inspector general and additional director general ranks.

That it has been hap-pening frequently for a very long time is known to retired and serving ranking officers. Some-times, the issue is raised, then buried, and no institutional re-forms take place be-

cause successive con-cerned top authorities have apparently shown no commitment or abil-ity to institutionalize defence of India, or en-suring that every cog in the wheel of defence of India is neither weak nor out of tune with the requirement of the modern world.

Following the charges made about tampering

of person records by an inspector-general rank officer who complained to the defence ministry that his records were manipulated, which led to the change in merit, lowering his mark, an investigation was or-dered and is reportedly being carried out by two JS rank officers.

As the investigation progressed, it was gath-ered that many apprais-al reports of officers of additional director gen-eral-rank officers have also disappeared.

Meantime, a promo-tion board’s functioning has been suspended till the inquiry report is submitted and the min-istry figures out what

exactly had happened: whether it was yet an-other routine criminal act or a case of espio-nage or both.

Either way, it may do no harm if the whole system of maintenance of records is examined afresh and best global practices adopted to maintain the inviolabil-ity of official records.

The current dispensa-tion will earn gratitude and respect of officers if it puts his talent into building a firewall against tampering ACRs of military personnel. If he does it, his name will figure in the hall of fame of defence secre-taries. Or lapse as one more DS in the long list.

Archaic system lets personal records of Coast Guard officials go missing

Nexus between top politician, realty group under I-T scanner?RAIDS AT REAL-ESTATE FIRM UNEARTHED CASH TRANSACTIONS WORTH ̀ 350 CR JUST BEFORE REGIME RESHUFFLE

Dubai: The winners of the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2021 will take home a winners' cheque of USD 1.6 mil-lion while the runners-up will get half that amount, ICC confirmed on Sunday.

As in 2016, there will be a bonus amount for every match that teams win in Super 12. The victors in each of the 30 games in that phase will this time win USD 40,000, total pot of USD 1,200,000.

SUPER 12 TEAMSThe teams confirmed to be competing in Super 12 are Afghanistan, Australia, England, In-dia, NZ, Pakistan, SA, and WI.

The 8 teams whose ICC Men's T20 World Cup campaigns end at that stage will automat-ically receive USD 70,000 each, a totally of USD 560,000. The first-

round victories - with USD 40,000 available to those who win each of the 12 games, amount-ing to USD 480,000. —ANI

T20 WORLD CUP Winner to get USD 1.6 million, says ICC

New Delhi: After the historic Air India priva-tisation, govt will now start work on monetis-ing its four other sub-sidiaries, including Al-liance Air, and over Rs 14,700 crore worth non-core assets like land and building, DIPAM Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey said.

The government on October 8 had an-nounced that salt-to-software conglomerate Tatas have won the bid to acquire debt-laden national carrier Air In-dia for Rs 18,000 crore.

This includes a cash payment of Rs 2,700 crore and taking over Rs 15,300 crore debt. The deal, which is ex-pected to be completed by December-end, also includes sale of Air In-dia Express and ground

handling arm AISATS."It (sale of subsidiar-

ies) could not be started because these all are intimately linked. Un-less and until Air India goes, we could not pro-ceed with other things," he said.

As a precursor to AI sale, the government in 2019 had set up a special purpose vehicle AIAHL for holding debt and non-core assets of the

Air India group.Four Air India sub-

sidiaries -- Air India Air Transport Services Ltd (AIATSL), Airline Al-lied Services Ltd (AASL), Air India Engi-neering Services Ltd (AIESL) and Hotel Cor-poration of India Ltd (HCI) -- along with non-core assets, painting and artefacts & non-op-erational assets, was transferred to SPV. —ANI

3 AI subsidiaries to start now: T Kanta

Work to monetise Alliance Air

Jammu: The National Conference suffered a major setback in Jammu as two prominent leaders Devender Rana and Surjit Singh Slathia re-signed from the party on Sunday. They are likely to join the BJP in Delhi on Monday. "Dr Farooq Ab-dullah has received & ac-

cepted the resignations of Salathia & Rana. No further action or com-ment is deemed neces-

sary," a NC spokesman tweeted. Rana, a former MLA and younger brother of Union min Jitendra, had taken over the post of provin-cial president of the NC in 2011 after relinquish-ing his office as politi-cal advisor to then CM Omar Abdullah. —ANI

New Delhi: PM Naren-dra Modi will virtually launch the Indian Space Association (ISpA) on Monday at 11 am and also interact with rep-resentatives of space industry.

Echoing PM’s vision of Aatmanirbhar Bharat, ISpA will help

in making India self-reliant, technologically advanced and a leading player in the space are-na. ISpA is the premier industry association of space and satellite com-panies, which aspires to be collective voice of Indian space industry. —ANI

2 leaders Rana, Slathia resignPM to virtually launch Indian Space Association on Oct 11

NC SUFFERS MAJOR JOLT IN JAMMU

CBDT ISSUES STATEMENT

The IT department after the raids that lasted 36 hours found details of cash transactions worth

Rs 350 crore. “Total unaccounted cash receipts in various projects of approximately ₹350 crore have been unearthed alongwith corroborative evidence. Further, evidence related to land purchase of approximately Rs 154 crore has also been found, out of which, Rs 144 crore was purportedly paid in cash," a statement issued by the CBDT after the raids in August stated.

Anita Hada

New Delhi: Punjab is the only state out of 28 states and eight union territories in the country where a Dalit is the chief minister. Punjab is the state with the largest Dalit population and for the first time since inde-pendence, a Dalit has become the Chief Minister. Think, the Dalit population of the country is close to 16% and in Punjab 33% of the population is Dalit. Yet how many obstacles are there in the way of Charanjit Singh Channi, the first Dalit CM of the state and the only Dalit CM of the coun-try! He has to fight on several fronts at once, be it other parties, the union govt, dissen-sion in his own party or powerful castes in his state. However, taking advantage of

his political acumen and the unconditional support of the Con-gress high command, he has started fixing everything. But think how Navjot Singh Sid-hu tried to make him function, by guiding him and holding his hands, however, Chan-ni has now left Sidhu and moved ahead.

Soon after he be-came the CM, there was such uneasi-ness in the e n -tire

system that the former CM Captain Ama-rinder Singh reached Delhi and made an is-sue of national securi-ty by meeting the Un-ion HM and the Na-tional Security Advi-sor. After his meeting with Amit Shah and Ajit Doval, the entire media started describ-ing the almost com-pletely peaceful border of Punjab as disturbed.

A Dalit Chief Minister and a horde of obstacles

Many barriers are in way of

Channi, the first Dalit CM of the

state, only Dalit CM of nation!

DIPAM will now get down to work-ing out plan for monetising special purpose vehicle AIAHL and setting

off the liabilities. There will be a plan for monetising the assets of AIAHL. It is a very big task again of clearing of AIAHL liabilities and disposal of assets. —Tuhin Kanta Pandey, DIPAM Secy

ICC RELEASES STATEMENT...

All 16 competing teams will receive

part of USD 5.6 million allocated as prize money for tournament, which will be played in UAE and Oman from Oct 17 to Nov 14. “The two losing semi-final-ists will receive USD 400,000 each from the games taking place on Nov 10 and 11,” ICC said in official release.

Charanjit Singh Channi

SORRY STATE OF AFFAIRS

Rakesh Ranjan

New Delhi: Former SAIL Executive Direc-tor Alok Sahay has succeeded Dr Bhaskar Chatterjee as the new Secretary-General of the Indian Steel Asso-ciation (ISA).

Dr Chatterjee, for-mer Union Secretary of Department of Pub-lic Enterprise, conclud-ed his four years-long tenure as the Secre-tary-General on Sep-tember 30, 2021, on completion of 70 years of cut-off age whereas Sahay retired as ED SAIL in May this year.

The Association is the common platform for the Indian iron and

steel industry for echo-ing the collective voice of its common mem-bers and acts as a bridge between the industry and the government and other stakeholders within and outside In-dia in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations, including but not limited to the competition laws in In-dia and abroad, for the time being, in force.

Sahay is Secy Gen of Indian Steel Assn

‘INCRIMINATING LINKS’

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First India Bureau

New Delhi: India's COVID-19 vaccination coverage crossed the landmark of 94 crores, with 66,85,415 vaccine doses administered in the last 24 hours, the Union Minister in-formed on Sunday.

According to the pro-visional reports issued by the ministry at 7 am on Sunday, India has so far administered 94,70,10,175 COVID-19 vaccines. This has been

achieved through 92,12,314 sessions. Meanwhile, the Health Ministry earlier in the day informed that India

reported 18,166 fresh COVID-19 infections in the last 24 hours, the low-est in over 7 months. In-dia reported 214 COV-

ID-19 deaths in the last 24 hours. The death toll in the country now stands at 4,50,589. The active caseload of the country

is presently at 2,30,971. Consequently, India's re-covery rate stands at 97.99 per cent, the high-est since March 2020.

Over 94 cr vax doses administered in the countryINDIA FIGHTS CORONA

India’s COVID-19 vax

coverage crossed the

landmark of 94 cr, with

66,85,415 doses in the last

24 hours, the Union Min said

TRUCE BEING WORKED OUT WITH G-23 BEFORE CONG MEET

Nadda: From violence to peace, a change in Imphal

Modi silent on murder of farmers, inflation: Rahul

Congress has been mired with internal rift since Aug 2020 last year when a letter was written to Sonia Gandhi for visible and effective leadershipFirst India Bureau

New Delhi: Truce is be-ing worked out between G-23 leaders and the Congress leadership in the party ahead of the Congress Working Committee CWC meet-ing slated for Saturday.

The CWC, which is the highest decision making body of the par-ty, is likely to give a nod to the organisational polls, which is the key demand of the dissent-ing group. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is reach-ing out to the other camp through emissar-ies. Kamal Nath has been talking to the dis-senting group and Pri-yanka has also been try-ing to reach out to the G-23 by involving Bhupinder Hooda's son Deepender Hooda with her protest on Lakhim-pur Kheri violence. She has also taken the jun-ior Hooda to Varanasi for her rally. The sign of thaw emerges from the Congress letter, which

has been written by party General Secre-tary K.C. Venugopal seeking an appoint-ment with President Ram Nath Kovind to submit a memoran-dum on the Lakhim-

pur Kheri incident. The signatories of the letter include Ghulam Nabi Azad on the sec-ond number after Ra-hul Gandhi. Azad is one among the G-23 leaders.

First India Bureau

Imphal: BJP National President Jagat Prakash Nadda on Sun-day lauded the initia-tives taken by the Cen-tral govt under the lead-ership of PM Modi, which he said had con-tributed to peace and harmony in the state and contributed to growth in its economic activity.

Addressing achievers and prominient celebri-ties at City Convention centre in Imphal, Na-dda said, “Under the dynamic leadership of PM Modi, a lot of new steps have been taken. He said, “2.60 lakh toi-lets have been con-structed only in Ma-nipur under Swacch Bharat Mission. Nadda said that a few years ago Manipur was known for its politics of destruc-tion and there were blockades, instability, insurgency inequality and the politics of haves and have nots. “But to-day we find a change - from disruption to dia-logue, from violence to peace, a change where through political dia-logue participation of polity is there and devel-opment is taking place.

First India Bureau

New Delhi: Rahul Gan-dhi on Sunday slammed PM Modi saying that he is silent over the alleged murders of farmers and BJP workers in the Lakhimpur Kheri inci-dent and on issues of rising inflation, surge in oil prices, and unem-ployment in the country.

“PM silent- Rising inflation - oil price, un-employment, farmer and BJP worker mur-dered, PM violent - Lack of camera and photo ops, true criti-cism, Question on friends,” the Wayanad MP wrote in a tweet

Samyukta Kisan Morcha, an umbrella body of several farmer unions, alleged that Ash-ish Mishra Teni, son of Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Ajay Mishra Teni arrived with three vehicles around the time that farmers were dispersing from their protest.Mean-while, Petrol and diesel prices were hiked across the country.

Imphal: Bharatiya Ja-nata Party national president JP Nadda on Sunday offered prayers at the Shri Govindji Temple in Manipur’s Imphal on second day of his visit to the state.

Nadda was accompa-nied by Manipur CM N Biren Singh. Nadda reached Manipur on Saturday on a two-day visit. Assembly polls are due in Manipur. Earlier on Saturday, while ad-dressing a public rally at Manipur’s Bishnupur, he called the state the “gateway for Atmanirb-har Bharat”.The BJP chief also praised the current BJP-led govt in

the state and said that CM N Biren Singh brought “only develop-ment” during the last four years. Nadda also claimed that BJP will return to power in the state on grounds of the development work done since 2017. He further praised and said that CM N Biren Singh brought “only develop-ment” during the last four years.

BJP National President Jagat Prakash Nadda.

Rahul Gandhi slams PM Modi

‘Giving tickets thrice to defectors was shameful’

Nadda: BJP will return to power due to devp works

Panjai: Senior Con-gress leader P Chidam-baram on Saturday said giving tickets to habitual defectors in Goa in the past was a shameful chapter of the Congress and as-sured party workers that it would not be re-peated ever again.

Chidambaram, who was addressing party workers in Canacona Assembly constituency in South Goa, said he was shocked to learn that “a defector was given a ticket not once, not twice, but three times”. “This is a shameful chapter of Congress history. I have come to assure you the shameful chap-ter has now been closed. Never again will we r e p e a t it,” he

said in the presence of the party’s Goa desk in charge Dinesh Gundu Rao, state unit chief Girish Chodankar and Leader of Opposition Digambar Kamat among others.Chidam-baram said the chal-lenge before the Goa Congress was to redeem its reputation and hon-our in the coastal state. He said Congress work-ers have been totally loyal and have worked very hard to ensure poll victories, but, unfortu-

nately, the win-ning candi-

d a t e betrayed

t h e party.

NIA RAIDS VALLEY, 70 DETAINEDFirst India Bureau

New Delhi: The National Investi-gation Agency (NIA) on Sunday carried out raids at 16 locations across Kashmir Valley in connec-tion with two cases ISIS voice of Hind case and TRF case.

The raids are still going on at nine locations. As many as 70 youths have been de-tained in Srinagar and a total of 570 people have been detained across in the past 2-3 days. In Kashmir, house of commander Saj-jad Gul has also been raided.

First India Bureau

New delhi: The Depart-ment of Food and Public Distribution in a land-mark decision has im-posed stock limits on Edible Oils and Oilseeds to soften the prices of edible oils in the domes-tic market for a period up to March 31, 2022, in-formed the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food, and Public Distribution on Sunday.

According to a state-ment issued by the min-istry today, the removal of licensing require-ments, stock limits and movement restrictions on specified foodstuffs (Amendment) Order, 2021 has been issued with immediate effect from Sept 8.The Centre’s decision will soften the prices of edible oils in the domestic market, thereby, bringing great relief to consumers across the country, it said. The Ministry said

the high prices of edible oil in the international market have a substan-tial impact on the domes-tic edible oil prices. Un-der the visionary leader-ship of PM Modi, the Centre has formulated a multi-pronged strategy to ensure that the prices of essential commodi-ties like edible oils re-main controlled. Meas-ures like rationalization of import duty struc-ture, launching of a web portal for self-disclosure of stocks held by various stakeholders had al-ready been taken.As per the release, the stocks held by respective legal entities are higher than the prescribed limits.

—REPRESENTATION PHOTO PM MODI SEEKS MAA KUSHMANDA’S BLESSINGS FOR VARIOUS ENDEAVORS

HOCKEY INDIA CAN’T UNILATERALLY PULL OUT OF CWG: ANURAG THAKUR

New delhi: PM Modi offered prayer to Goddess Skan-damata and Goddess Kushmanda of the occasion of Navratri. Sharing a stuti video of Goddess Kushmanda, PM Modi tweeted: “We pray to Maa Kushmanda and seek her blessings for our various endeavours.Offering his prayer to Goddess Skandmata in another tweet, the prime minister wrote: “Goddess Skandmata is wor-shiped during Navratri. I pray that Maa Skandmata gives strength to her devotees to overcome all diffi culties.”

New Delhi: Sports Minister Anurag Thakur on Sunday slammed Hockey India for pulling out of next year's Commonwealth Games and said that they federation can’t take unilateral decisions without consulting the govt."I think any federation should refrain from giving such statements and discuss with the govt fi rst be-cause its just not federation's team, its national team," he told. "In a country of 130 crore population, there are not just 18 players to represent the country. CWG is a global event I feel that they should engage with govt.

MANDAVIYA INAUGURATES INSTITUTE OF GASTROENTEROLOGY SCIENCES IN BLG

RELIANCE ACQUIRES REC GROUP IN $771 MILLION BUY OUT

PORTALS OF SIKH SHRINE HEMKUND SAHIB CLOSES FOR WINTER MONTHS

Bengaluru: Union Health Min Mansukh Mandaviya on Sunday inaugurated the Institute of Gastroenterology

Sciences and Organ Trans-plant in Bengaluru. Karna-taka CM Basavaraj Bommai and state Health and Medical Education Min Dr K Sud-hakar were also present at

the event. "Inaugurated the Institute of Gastroenterology Sciences and Organ Transplant in Bengaluru along with state Health and Medical Edu Min Mandaviya tweeted.

Mumbai: Reliance New Energy Solar, a wholly owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) on Sunday

announced acquisition of 100 per cent shareholding of REC Solar from China National Bluestar (Group) Co Ltd for an enterprise value of US$ 771 million. The acquisition of REC will help

Reliance with a ready global platform and the opportu-nity to expand and grow in key green energy markets.

Chamoli: The portals of Gu-rudwara Hemkund Sahib in Chamoli district were closed on Sunday for the winter season. Hemkunt Sahib is visited by thousands of

devotees from all over the globe every summer. The Gu-rudwara is beside a lake and it is believed that the 10th Sikh Guru, Gobind Singh had meditated at the site.

CRUCIAL READ

VIDEO CLAIMING PUNJAB REGIMENT JAWANS PROTESTING WITH FARMERS IS FAKE: ARMYNEW DELHI: The Indian Army on Sunday clarifi ed that the video circulating on social media showing army personnel standing with civilians under a tent saying that Punjab regiment soldiers are protesting with farmers was fake. The Army offi cials further clarifi ed that the ex-servicemen of the unit had arranged tea for the serving personnel while they were moving from one

location to another.”A video is circulating on social media showing Indian Army jawans standing with civilians under a tent saying that Punjab regiment soldiers are protesting with some farmers. This is fake news,” an army offi cial said.

Price check! Govt imposes stock limit on edible oils

INDIA EXPORTS VAX TO OTHER COUNTRIES

P Chidambaram

There is no president in our party, so we do not know who is taking all the decisions. We know

it, yet we don’t know, one of my senior col-leagues perhaps has written or is about to write to the interim president to immedi-ately convene a CWC meeting so that a dialogue can be initiated. — Senior party leader Kapil Sibal had said recently

—FILE PHOTO

NEWSLUCKNOW | MONDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2021

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ATTEMPTS TO TURN LAKHIMPUR INTO HINDU VS SIKH BATTLE: VARUN GANDHI

BJP MP Varun Gandhi Sunday said there was an “attempt to

turn Lakhimpur Kheri into a Hindu vs Sikh battle.” Calling it “immoral” and “dangerous,” Gandhi asked parties to “not put petty political gains above national unity.” “An attempt to turn #LakhimpurKheri into a Hindu vs Sikh battle is being made. Not only is this an immoral & false narrative. It is dangerous to create these fault

lines & reopen wounds that have taken a generation to heal. We must not put petty political gains above national unity,” Gandhi, MP from Pilibhit tweeted on Sunday. Talking to a newspaper, Varun Gandhi said that the “struggle for justice in Lakhimpur is about the cruel massacre in the face of an arrogant local power elite. It has no religious connotations.” “To use the word Khalistani liberally to describe the protesting farmers was not only an insult to

the generations of these proud sons, but it is also extremely dangerous for our national unity if this provokes the wrong kind of reaction,” he added. Last week, Varun Gandhi and Maneka Gandhi were dropped from BJP’s new national executive committee. Varun’s exclusion came hours after he condemned the incident in Lakhimpur Kheri, in which a Union Minister’s convoy allegedly ran over and killed four protesting farmers. Gandhi had also written to Chief

Minister Yogi Adityanath seeking the registration of a murder case against those involved in the death of four farmers in the Lakhimpur Kheri incident.

—First India Bureau

WIFE OF DECEASED BUSINESSMAN BECOMES SPECIAL OFFICER IN KDA

Meenakshi wife of deceased businessman Manish Gupta

was on Sunday given the appointment letter of (Offi cer on Special Duty) OSD in KDA by KCM and Additional Secretary Gunakesh Sharma in the presence of MLA Surendra Maithani.

Meenakshi will now have to submit all the required forms and

medical certifi cates to KDA in a day or two after which she will be able to join duty on Navrathri. Meenakshi was overwhelmed while receiving the appointment letter as her father had once suggested to her to study and try for a government job but then due to her family responsibilities she was unable to pursue it. After getting the appointment letter, she assured her father-in-law that now she will be able to take care of him and her son.

KDA Vice President Arvind Singh said that Meenkashi’s appointment letter had come from government after which he along with Additional secretary Gunakesh Sharma reached her home to hand over the appointment letter.

—Sumit Awasthy

2nd FIR says protesters attacked BJP workersThe FIR, filed by a BJP worker, makes no reference to the alleged mowing down of farmers by min’s sonLakhimpur Kheri: The second FIR lodged over the Lakhimpur Kheri violence claims “bad elements” among farm law protesters at-tacked workers of Bharatiya Janata Par-ty (BJP) who were in an SUV but makes no reference to the mow-ing down of farmers or presence of Union minister Ajay Mishra’s son Ashish in the car.

The FIR was lodged on October 4 at the Tikonia police station. It mentions only one “unnamed rioter”, who has been charged with IPC Sections 302

(murder), 324 (causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means) among others.

According to Jaisw-al, journalist Raman Kashyap, car driver Hari Om and BJP work-ers Shubham Mishra and Shyam Sunder were lynched by the protesters.

However, parents of the journalist have al-leged that he was among those knocked down by a vehicle.

“The applicant along with the workers of Bharatiya Janata Par-ty was going to the Kale Sharan chowk and

was in the Mahindra Thar (UP 31 AS 1000). Driver Hari Om, who was driving the vehicle, and my friend namely

Shubham Mishra, were going to welcome the chief guest,” the FIR, seen by PTI, stated.

“The bad elements in

the farmers’ protest had attacked the vehi-cle by bamboo sticks, bricks and stones due to which driver Hari

Om got injured and stopped the car on the road side,” Jaiswal al-leged.

“After this, the said

protesters who took Hari Om out of the car and started to thrash with bamboo sticks and sword. We were

pelted with stones and tried to run away from there and during this, the said persons caught my friend Shubham Mishra and started to beat him up,” Jaiswal alleged. He claimed he somehow managed to run away from the spot, otherwise, he too would “have been killed”.

He claimed he later got to know through so-cial media that Hari Om and Shubham Mishra have been killed while “two other unidentified” BJP workers have also died, as per the FIR. —PTI

More than 50 arrested for religious conversion in Mau First India Bureau

Mau: On specific in-formation, local po-lice raided a house in Sahadatpura colony under City Kotwali area here and took more than 50 persons into custody for al-leged conversion of people to Christianity in the name of com-munity prayers to treat the sick.

Police sources here said that Pastor Abra-ham was organising prayer assembly in Vijendra Rajbhar’s house in Sahadatpura area for the past five years. They said that neighbours had been complaining about the assembly as they believed that illegal

religious conversions were being performed in the assembly. Bhanu Pratap Singh, district in-charge of Hindu Jagran Manch, and other workers in-formed police that people at Rajbhar’s house were involved in religious conver-sions after luring peo-ple in the name of prayers that they said would cure diseases.

The complainants al-leged that followers of Christianity were also misguiding inno-cent villagers and persuading them for conversion.

Dhananjay Mishra, Deputy Superinten-dent of Police here, said that several peo-ple were questioned about the rituals and alleged conversions during the prayer as-sembly. He said that some of them were Christian missionar-ies while few others were first-time visi-tors. He said that in-vestigations were un-derway and action would be taken if any forcible conversion was being conducted in the assembly.

—REPRESENTATIONAL IMAGE

Police seek remand of Ashish for further probeFirst India Bureau

Lucknow: Police will appeal for remand of Ashish Mishra ‘Monu’ prime accused of Lakh-impur Kheri violence for further interroga-tion. Ashish, son of union home minister for state Ajay Mishra, was arrested after 12 hours long interroga-tion on Saturday. He was sent for 14 days of judicial custody when he was presented in front of judicial magis-trate Diksha Bharati.Appeal for police cus-tody remand of the ac-cused was submitted in court and the court will hear the applica-tion on Monday, a sen-ior official said adding

that the Union minis-ter’s son was taken to the Lakhimpur district jail, where he has been placed under Covid-19 quarantine.

“Initially, inmates are kept in isolation, away from the main barrack. Jail food is be-ing given to him. The

quarantine period is of 14 days and his (medi-cal) tests will be done,” the official said. Ash-ish was named in an FIR following allega-tions that he was in one of the vehicles in the convoy that mowed down four farmers at the anti-farm law pro-

test site in Lakhimpur Kheri, where they were protesting UP Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya’s visit on October 3. Apart from the farmers, two BJP workers and their driver and a local jour-nalist Raman Kashyap also died.

Noida plans to curb winter pollutionNoida: In a measure to prevent air pollution, the Gautam Buddh Na-gar administration has asked the district police to impound diesel vehi-cles older than 10 years and petrol vehicles old-er than 15 years in com-pliance with a Supreme Court order.

Police have also been asked to ensure that ve-hicles not destined for Noida or Greater Noida use bypasses or periph-eral expressways, ac-cording to the ‘winter action plan’ issued by the Gautam Buddh Na-

gar district administra-tion. The administra-tion on October 6 asked the police to list traffic hot-spots in the district and release it and an ad-visory accordingly.

“Deploy additional man power and civil de-fence volunteers to en-sure smooth traffic flow at identified traffic hot-spots and impound die-sel vehicles older than 10 years and petrol vehi-cles older than 15 years in compliance of the Supreme Court’s or-der,” the plan stated.The police have also

been asked to keep strict vigilance and en-forcement of pollution under control (PUC) norms besides ensuring stoppage of encroach-

ment on footpaths.“Check and resolve is-sues such as congestion and unusual dust emis-sion due to traffic or parking, and ensure

compliance of action plans on the identified pollution hotspots in the city,” according to the plan.

Earlier, the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Con-trol Board identified eight key air pollution hot spots in Noida and Greater Noida. The ma-jor air pollution sources have been identified as road dust, construction and demolition (C&D) waste, industrial dust emissions, unpaved roads and traffic con-gestion, the administra-tion said. —PTI

Indian Youth Congress members hold a protest over the Lakhimpur Kheri incident.

AN UNNAMED RIOTER

Class 10 student commits suicideafter being molested by classmateBulandshahr: A class 10 student died by sui-cide in Bulandshahr after she was allegedly molested by a classmate and being threatened by his relatives, police said on Sunday. The 15-year-old girl was found hanging from the ceiling on Saturday.

The police have reg-istered a case under provisions of the POC-SO Act and IPC sections 306 (abetment to sui-cide), 354 (assault or criminal force to wom-

an with intent to out-rage her modesty), 452 (house-trespass after preparation for hurt,

assault or wrongful re-straint) among others against seven identi-fied and eight unidenti-fied people on the basis of a complaint lodged by the girl’s father.

On October 8, the girl’s classmate alleg-edly molested her and made obscene remarks against her, according to the complaint. The victim informed the school’s principal about the incident, following which he promised to scold the accused. —PTI

4 killed & 3 injured in road mishap in Agra First India Bureau

Agra: Four persons in-cluding a couple died while three others se-verely injured in road mishap in Akbarpur area in-front of KD Med-ical college at Agra-Del-hi highway. Police sources said that Anish Kumar resident of Trinesh Nagar under Fursatganj police sta-tion area Raebareli was returing to home town from Gurugram with family and friends when their car rammed into stationary truck at high-way from behind. The impact was so intense that car was badly dam-aged & 4 died on the spot. Deceased were identified as Kusum Lata, Dharmendra Ku-mar, Lakshmi & Mohini while Anish, Mohit & Anirudhh were injured.

LAKHIMPUR KHERI VIOLENCE

Ashish Mishra being taken from Crime Branch offi ce to the magistrate in Lakhimpur Kheri on Saturday. —PHOTO BY PTI

—REPRESENTATIONAL IMAGE

—FILE PHOTO

INTERROGATION

—PHOTO BY PTI

LUCKNOW | MONDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2021082NDFRONT

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Mathura: Considering the deteriorating health condition of undertrial PFI activist Atiqur Rah-man in jail, a request will be made to the court here on Monday to di-rect authorities to make immediate arrange-ments for his bypass surgery, his counsel said.

Father of two chil-dren, undertrial Rah-man is a PhD scholar at the Chaudhary Charan Singh University Meerut.

Rahman along with Popular Front of India (PFI) activists Aalam and Masood, and Del-hi-based Kerala journal-ist Siddique Kappan was arrested while go-ing to a Hathras village to meet the family mem-bers of a Dalit woman who had died after being gang-raped last year.

They have been booked on charges of sedition and terrorism.“As per Sections 417 and 456 of the Uttar Pradesh Jail Manual, it is the

duty of the superinten-dent of a jail to take care of the health of a under-

trial prisoner,” Rah-man’s counsel advocate Madhuban Datt

Chaturvedi said on Sun-day. He alleged that in this case, the set proce-dure is not being fol-lowed even after the or-der of a special court in Lucknow, dated Septem-ber 23, which had taken note of the seriously deteriorating health of PFI activist Rahman.

“The applicant is a patient of severe aortic regurgitation (AR), meaning destruction of the aortic wall, and is a known pre-condition of cardiac arrest. Hence,

the applicant be re-ferred to the AIIMS (All India Institute of Medi-cal Sciences) in New Delhi,” the order of PMLA court Lucknow had said.

The court order of September 23 was im-plemented after a fort-night -- on October 8 -- when Rahman was sent to AIIMS. “The govern-ment should make im-mediate arrangements for the surgery of my son-in-law Atiqur Rah-man, as AIIMS doctors

have expressed 60 per cent danger t

o his life,” the PFI ac-tivist’s father-in-law Shekhavat Khan said, adding that submission of 10 units of blood and Rs 2 lakh, according AIIMS authorities, is are pre-conditions for the bypass operation.

Jail Superintendent Brajesh Kumar said he will send a letter to the government on Monday for releasing funds for the surgery of the PFI activist. —PTI

Court to be requested for bypass surgery of jailed PFI activistHATHRAS ARRESTS

Rahman was arrested last

year while going to a

Hathras village to meet family

of a Dalit woman who

had died after being raped

PFI activist Atiqur Rahman

Politics of Rath Yatra of Saifai family

Gyanendra Kumar Shukla

Lucknow: The Akh-ilesh Yadav-led Sama-jwadi Party is gearing up to register its strong presence once again through ‘Rath Yatra’ in UP which is heading towards the assembly elections.

In fact, Rath Ya-tras have a lot of im-portance in the politics of Mulayam Singh Ya-dav’s “Saifai’ family. In the year 1987, Mulayam Singh Yadav took a tre-mendous entry in the politics of UP through Rath Yatra. In the be-

ginning of his political journey, Akhilesh Ya-dav had toured the en-tire state from July 31 to October 14 in 2001.

After this, during the BSP rule, on Septem-

ber 12, 2011, he took out the Rath Yatra and gained power. On November 3, 2016, Akhilesh

took out the third yatra when the conflict between Akhilesh and Shivpal had deepened.

According to Sama-jwadi Party sources, Akhilesh Yadav consid-ers Unnao district lucky for his election debut. On July 21 this

year, he took out Rath Yatra from Lucknow, reached Unnao and un-veiled the statue of Ni-

shad leader Manohar Lal and had a public meeting.

This Rath Yatra was

considered as the elec-tion bugle of the Sama-jwadi Party. At that time SP leaders de-scribed this visit as a “short trip with a strong message”, it was said on behalf of the SP that this is the be-ginning of a series of big events to be orga-nized by the party in the future.

Now all the prepara-tions have been done for the much talked about ‘Samajwadi Vi-jay Rath Yatra’ of Akh-ilesh Yadav to be held on October 12.

From Lucknow via Unnao, Rath Yatra will reach Kanpur, where a public meeting will be organized, which is considered as the for-mal kick off of the par-ty’s campaign ahead of next year’s assembly elections.

But the interesting aspect is that Shivpal Singh Yadav-led Pragatisheel Samajwa-di Party (Lohia) is also taking out a ‘Samajik Parivartan Yatra’ from Mathura from October 12. These two events concerning the Saifai family can add a new dimension to the family feud.

First India Bureau

Lucknow: Senior UP Minister Suresh Khan-na on Sunday launched a scathing attack on Congress National Gen-eral Secretary Priyanka Vadra. Referring to the lynching of a Dalit in Rajasthan, he ques-tioned the stony silence of the Congress general secretary.

In Chhattisgarh, the leader of another com-munity beat up a Hindu worker for raising the flag, the police imposed a curfew by lathi-charging, the minister said while asking when will Priyanka go to Ra-jasthan and Chhattis-garh to get justice for them?

He also questioned why does Congress stop-speaking when Hindus

are killed in Kashmir. Khanna added that the entire Congress is re-sponsible for derailing the development and progress of the country. Khanna pointed out that when the people of the country saw through these things they booted the Congress out of power and that now a desperate and frustrat-ed Congress was trying hard to mislead the people.

SP chief Akhilesh Yadav during the Rath Yatra. —FILE PHOTO

Minister Suresh Khanna

Mulayam Singh made entry in UP politics with Rath Yatra in 1987

This Rath Yatra is considered as the election bugle of SP

YATRAS MAY ADD TO FAMILY FEUD2022

ELECTION WITH

22EL ON W

‘When will Priyanka go to Raj to get justice done?’

Danish PM calls Taj Mahal ‘beautiful’First India Bureau

Agra: Prime Minister of Denmark Mette Frederiksen and her husband on Sunday visited Taj Mahal in Agra and admired the beauty of the monu-ment. She described it as a beautiful place. The Taj Mahal which is included in the list of the wonders of the world was during the visit of the Danish PM closed for the public.

Frederiksen spent one-and-a-half hours in-side the Taj Mahal with her husband and took interest in the history of the monument explained

by the tour guide. Prime Minister Met-

ter Frederiksen who was in awe of the mon-ument exclaimed at the beauty of the monu-

ment and in the visi-tors’ book wrote that the beauty of the Taj is so precious that it is not the responsibility of any one department

but of all of us to pre-serve it. She also thanked the personnel who helped during tour of the monument for the memorable tour.

Denmark PM Mette Frederiksen with her husband at the Taj Mahal on Sunday. —PHOTO BY PTI

Guv, staff enjoy Durga puja at Raj BhawanFirst India Bureau

Lucknow: On the oc-casion of Shardiya Navratri, Durga Puja and colorful Garba dance programme was organised at Raj Bha-wan.

Governor Anandiben Patel participated in the puja. The officers and employees of the Raj Bhavan along with their family en-joyed the Garba dance. Many dignitaries also participated in it.

First India Bureau

Muzaffarnagar: Azad Samaj Party members on Sunday protested outside Purkazi Police Station. They were de-manding the arrest of those accused of killing a Dalit person in the town earlier this month.

Led by the party’s district president Jag-dish Pal, they shouted slogans outside the po-lice station calling for the accused to be im-mediately arrested in the case.

Dhir Singh (55), a Dalit, had gone to his

agricultural field and was later found dead in a pond at Mandla village under Purkazi police station area on October 1. Police had registered a case but no arrests have been made in this connec-tion till now.

Arrest Dalit’s murder accused: Azad Samaj

First India Bureau

Varanasi: Congress leader Priyanka Gand-hi Vadra on Sunday invoked Goddess Durga and urged the audience to chant ‘Jai Mata Di’ as she ad-dressed a rally in Vara-nasi, one of the holiest cities of Hindus and the parliamentary con-stituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“I am on fast and I will start my speech with the ‘stuti’ (prayer) of Maa,” she said at the public meeting held to express solidarity with farmers in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh.

The Congress gener-al secretary recited two shlokas in Sanskrit and urged the people to chant ‘Jai Mata Di’ with her to which the audience reciprocated. She also ended her speech with the saluta-tion ‘Jai Mata Di’ and greeted the people on the festival of Navratri when Goddess Durga is worshipped.

Priyanka Gandhi’s gesture is significant as the Congress has been projecting “Hin-duism that is inclusive and secular” as a counter to the BJP’s Hindutva, which the opposition party has

dubbed as a “political doctrine based on exclusion.”

As the public meet-ing started, Priyanka Gandhi, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhu-pesh Baghel and other Congress leaders pres-ent on the dais chanted ‘Har har Mahadev’. It was followed by a read-

ing of excerpts from the holy Koran and the Gurbani.“The Con-gress under the leader-ship of Priyankaji will comprehensively de-feat the demon power which has unleashed itself in various parts of the state,” UP Con-gress spokesperson Ashok Singh said.

Priyanka invokes Goddess Durga, urges people to chant ‘Jai Mata Di’

Huge cutouts of rahul and Priyanka at the venue of the Kisan Nyay rally in Varanasi on Sunday.

Priyanka Gandhi being felicitated at the rally in Varanasi. —PHOTOS BY PTI

Congress leaders present on the dais chanted ‘Har har Mahadev’. It was followed by a reading of excerpts from the holy Koran and the Gurbani. Chhatisgarh Chief Minister Bhu-pesh Baghel was also present.

HAR HAR MAHADEV

Courage is a daily habit of all successful people, not just soldiers; to break the comfort

zone and confront the new!—Jagdeesh Chandra, CEO & Editor-in-Chief, First India

LUCKNOW, MONDAYOCTOBER 11, 2021

or the past two and half decades, Mo-hit Falod has keen-ly focused on his handcrafted crea-tions while main-taining the light-

ness and focusing on the ease of wear for brides on their special day. Never compromising on the garment's move-ment and fluidity, he has found ways to work with traditional and modern techniques to fabricate these verita-ble pieces of art in mo-tion. This season's col-

lection ‘PAKEEZAH’ would be distinct from Falod's pre-vious offerings. For the past eight months, he and his entire team have been work-ing on it. "My mother start-ed a boutique, and I started designing for the boutique, that's how I developed an interest in designing. Later I went and did a designing course. And now I have started my fashion label 'M M Falod'," said Mohit.

The regalia collection is a tribute to Rajasthan's Royal Rajwada culture, dates back

to the early 1900s. This series will fea-ture antique cuts, materials, and jew-els worn by royals.

The bridal col-lection features a colour palette that ranges from deep peacock blues to roohafza pink, a staple for many of his previ-ous collections. Pakeezah has taken a lot of effort, patience, and time. Each attire has been meticu-lously made to make one feel like a regal Indian bride. It's an amalgamation of history, nature, customs, and monarchy that makes the per-son feel both real and mys-tical.

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ACE FASHION DESIGNER MOHIT FALOD, THE OFFICIAL DESIGNING PARTNER OF THE FIRST INDIA FC SEASON 10, IS KNOWN FOR

DESIGNING BRIDAL WEAR. IN AN EXCLUSIVE CONVERSATION WITH CITY FIRST, MOHIT FALOD SHARES DETAILS OF HIS LATEST

COLLECTION 'PAKEEZAH' AND HIS DYNAMIC JOURNEY SO FAR!

PAKEEZAH

F

ATTIRE THAT WILL TALK ON YOUR BEHALF

MITALI DUSADmitalidusad01@gmail.com

THE WAIT IS OVER!The much-awaited First India Fashion Connect Season 10 is fi nally happening! The grand event will be held at Hotel Fairmont today, October 11 from 7 pm onwards!

Mohit Falod with his wife Anjula

10ETC

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CITY FIRST

irls face a lot of issues in their life, whether it's India or any other coun-try in the

world, they are ex-pected to suffer and bear the pain. Start-ing from female in-fanticide to gender inequality to sexual abuse, there is no dearth of issues. Thus, to curb these menaces and to recognise girls' rights and the unique challeng-es girls face around the world, International Girl Child Day is observed every year.

This day is celebrated annually on October 11 to empower and amplify the voices of young girls around the world. The theme, this year, is “Digital generation. Our generation”. Like every year, the United Nations Chil-dren's Fund (UNICEF) will celebrate International Day of the Girl Child 2021 reaf-firming its pledge to promote the progress of girls and safeguard their rights.

SIGNIFICANCEAchieving gender equality and women's empowerment is an integral part of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals that UN member na-tions adopted in 2015. The International Day of the Girl Child holds the key to achiev-ing this as empowering wom-en and girls, who represent half of the world's popula-tion, is crucial to accelerat-ing sustainable development. Nations need to pledge to as-

sist young girls to grow

into empowered women, who have

access to proper healthcare, skill-

based learning facilities and equal opportunities in

a world free from gender-based violence and discrimi-nation.

The world is home to more than 1.1 billion girls under age 18, who are “poised to become the largest genera-tion of female leaders, en-trepreneurs and change-

makers the world has ever seen,” ac-

cording to the United Nations.Right from shaping homes to moulding world econo-mies, women have a crucial role to play. “I don’t believe

there’s any econ-omy in the world

that can be successful with-out tapping into the incredi-ble potential of women going forward. I just don’t believe that’s possible,” believes In-dra Nooyi, chairperson and chief executive officer (CEO) of PepsiCo. This Internation-al Girl Child Day, let’s pledge to always push the women in our homes and lives to keep

their best foot forward. With Digital era bestowed upon us as a blessing, women have all the more opportunities today to showcase their talents. To-day, the world breathes on-line and no career field is untouched by women. All they need is a helping hand, equal treatment at workplac-es and a healthy environ-

ment to perform their abso-lute best. Therefore, let’s take it upon us as an aware society to create a better eco-system for women from all walks of life. With hopes of a safer, more evolved world for women, City First wishes its readers, a very progres-sive International Day for Girl Child.

INTERNATIONAL GIRL CHILD DAY

G

Investing in the pathways to employment: For adolescent girls and young women in low and middle-income countries. Nearly 1 in 4 girls aged 15–19 globally are not in education, employ-ment or training, compared to 1 in 10 boys. The analysis lays out six core investment themes and examples of investable opportu-nities and calls on commercial organizations and investors, with an eye on social and economic impact, to adopt bold investment approaches across these themes.

SOURCE: https://www.un.org/en/observances/girl-child-day

““DIGITAL GENERATION, DIGITAL GENERATION, OUR GENERATIONOUR GENERATION””

As Bella Hadid celebrated her birthday on October 9, the model received a sweet birthday wish from Gigi

Hadid. On Instagram, Gigi wrote the sweetest messages to ring on Bella’s special day as she said, “We celebrate you today and eve-ry day.” Along with a photo of Bella and Khai, Gigi praised her sister for being “forever protec-tor” as an auntie.

Gigi’s post consisted of a photo, showing Bella holding her niece Khai where the duo is back facing. —Agency

YG Entertainment has broken its si-lence on the talks doing the rounds

about its artist BLACK-PINK’s Jisoo. There were rumours that the singer is dating footballer Son Heung Min following her return to South Korea from Paris. The label called the ru-mours groundless and has asked people to refrain from reckless speculation. In an official statement re-leased on October 10, YG Entertainment has re-sponded with:

“We would like to make it clear that all dating ru-mours related to BLACK-PINK’s Jisoo are ground-less. —Agency

ETCwww.fi rstindia.co.in I www.fi rstindia.co.in/epaper/ I twitter.com/thefi rstindia I facebook.com/thefi rstindia I instagram.com/thefi rstindia LUCKNOW | MONDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2021

11

nushaasan, Pratishtha, Parampa-ra…now that’s what I am reminded of when I think of the grandeur of Mr Bachchan. Right from his stride of pride to the assertion in his talk, the man exudes charisma, every step on the way. An entertainer of

generations, not one person has been left untouched by the excellence of his craft. Be it a Vijay Deenanath Chauhan from

Agneepath or a Jai from Sholay, every character single-handedly hallmarked

an era by its name. The unflagged host of KBC for 21 tireless years,

senior Bachchan has charmed the global audiences with his play-

ful banters with celebrities and contestants on the

show. A family man at best,

he wears his heart on the sleeve

for madam J a y a

a n d

his beautiful family. A ‘sac-

cha yaar’ for his filmy friend Dhar-mendra, Amit Ji is the epitome of m a g n a n i m i t y. ‘Hero’ of the most celebrated ro-mantic fanfic, his and Rekha’s is an unfinished sto-ry that shat-tered a million hearts in one breath. A friend, philosopher and lover of life, Amitabh Bach-chan is truly the beat-ing heart of the film fraternity.

Unparalleled at 79, Big B will always hold the ba-ton of the most iconic and celebrated Hindi film star of all times. As he successfully signs off another year of his life, City First wishes Amit Ji, a very Happy Birthday!

APOORVI SINGHAL cityfirst@firstindia.co.in

Happiest Happiest Birthday, Birthday, Big BBig B

South’s popular and notable filmmak-er SS Rajamouli celebrated his 48th birthday on Sunday, and the direc-tor has been flooded with wishes

from fans and industry folks. Alia, who will be working with Rajamouli in her first pan-Indian film titled RRR, took to social media to pen a few words for him. “Happy Birthday to the master storyteller! So grateful and honoured to have been di-rected by you! Wishing you all the love and happiness in the world.” —Agency

SWEET GESTURE!

Dating Goal fails!

Amitabh & Jaya Bachchan

Still from the fi lm Paa

Amitabh Bachchan

Jai and Veeru from SholayBig B’s iconic style A still from the film Silsila

Alia Bhatt...her IG story

Jisoo

FOREVER FOREVER PROTECTOR!PROTECTOR!

...her post

Gigi Hadid

HIS

FAN

! Jasmin Bhasin’s new music video ‘Pyaar Ek Tarfaa’ is making a lot of noise, for all good reasons of course. The song has been crooned

by Amaal Mallik and Shreya Ghoshal. The ‘Tashan-e-Ishq’ actress is paired with Amaal in the song. Speaking about working with Amaal, Jasmin said: “He is super talented, very sweet, simple, down-to-earth and a humble person who is serious and passionate about his craft. I respect him a lot and like him for the kind of person he is. I have be-come his fan.” —Agency

Jasmin Bhasin

12LUCKNOW | MONDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2021www.fi rstindia.co.in I www.fi rstindia.co.in/epaper/ I twitter.com/thefi rstindia I facebook.com/thefi rstindia I instagram.com/thefi rstindia

CITY BUZZGET VACCINATED

STAY MASKED

IAS Aspirant Aditi - British High Commissioner for a DayCITY FIRST

Twenty-year-old Adi-ti Maheshwari from Rajasthan has spent a full day

leading the British High Commission in New Delhi after winning a competi-tion. Aditi, who aspires to join the Indian Adminis-trative Service, is the fifth winner of the India edition of the ‘High Commission-er for a Day’ competition, organised annually since 2017 to celebrate the Inter-national Day of the Girl

Child (October 11). As the UK’s top diplomat

in India, Aditi experienced a broad variety of diplo-matic activities. She ob-served the India-UK Ener-gy for Growth Dialogue alongside Ministers Raj Kumar Singh and Kwasi Kwarteng. She met with beneficiaries of a leadership pro-gramme for aspiring fe-male politicians funded by the Chevening Alumni Programme Fund; climate experts from the Council on Energy, Environment

and Water (CEEW), who signed the UK in India

Pledge for Progress, to show their leadership in

gender equality; and young leaders from the not-for-profit Global Youth.

Aditi Maheshwari, High Commissioner for the Day, said, “I had ap-plied for the competition last year as well and I’m really pleased that I got the opportunity. The inter-action with senior diplo-mats and with women from ‘She Leads’ leader-ship programme were the two personal highlights of the day for me. I also en-joyed being driven around in an electric vehicle by

the High Commissioner. The amount of work that both the UK and India are doing to tackle issues like climate change and gen-der inequality made me really hopeful as a young woman. I will cherish this day for a long time to come.”

Alex Ellis, Deputy High Commissioner for the Day (on other days, High Com-missioner to India), said, “It was a pleasure for me to work with Aditi throughout the day. Her confidence and thought-

fulness on important is-sues like climate change and women’s rights shone through. The UK is work-ing with India to provide a platform for young women like Aditi to help them reach their potential. I am pleased that so many young girls sent in their entries for this year’s com-petition which focussed on climate change. I wish Aditi the very best for the future and hope that she enjoyed this experience as much as I did.”

cityfirst@firstindia.co.in

The fi fth day of Navratri is dedicated to Goddess Skanda Mata, Lord Kartikeya’s moth-er. Skanda is another name for the war god Kartikeya and Mata is a term used for moth-er. This is why the Goddess is known as Skanda Mata. She is the motherly incarnation of Goddess Durga. On this pious occasion, City First wishes its readers a very prosperous Navratri.

GODDESS SkandaBrushstrokes and

MEMORIES

he twentieth episode of virtual art talk and studio visit, Open Spaces, fea-tured artist, Lakhan Singh Jat in conver-sation with Amit

Harit. During the session, Vidhyasagar Upadhyay was also invited as a special guest.Lakhan Singh Jat is an artist who hails from Rajasthan, finds inquisitiveness among people. A keen observer of life, his paintings are proof

that he relates childhood with a lot of his themes. He shared, “Born in a village, I was curious about life, what

it meant, and, how is life in the city, as I started growing as an artist, I incorporated the qualities of change, es-

cape from the real world, among others.”

Vidhyasagar Upadhyay who had been a guru to the budding artist praise his work and appreciated his hard work. Amit Harit spoke to him in-depth about the im-pact of his life in his crea-tion, the process of making paintings and their colours and forms, mentioning the impact of his memories.

Apart from holding solo and group exhibitions of paintings, Lakhan has re-ceived special honors from the State Award Lalit Kala Akademi Rajasthan in 2011. The virtual session was mod-erated by Bhupendra Astha-na, founder of Asthana Art Forum with First India as the media partner and supported by Roopkriti Open Art Space.

THE VIRTUAL PLATFORM ‘OPEN SPACES’ EXPLORED THE JOURNEY OF ARTIST LAKHAN SINGH JAT AS HE CANDIDLY SHARED HIS TALES IN CONVERSATION WITH AMIT HARIT!

SUSHMITA AINDsushmita.aind@firstindia.co.in

TNAVRATRI IN FULL BLOOM!

The city has immersed in the true festive spirit ahead of Navratri celebrations. With decked up tableaux and adorned idols of Maa Durga, the devotees pray to the goddess for their health and prosperity.

—PHOTOS BY SUMIT KUMAR

Dancing to the hearty tunes of Navratri, Lucknowites celebrated the arrival of Maa Durga with Dandiya Raas at Cafe Farzi on Saturday night. Amidst Gujarati beats, scintillating Indian attire and the clink of Dandiya sticks, the city reverberated with joy.

DANDIYA RAASDANDIYA RAAS

—PHOTOS BY ASHOK DUTTAHAPPY B’DAY!

The birthday of (from top)IAS Deepak Agrawal, IPS Dinesh Singh, and IPS Sureshwar was on Sunday, October 10. We wish them all the best!

HEALTH IS WEALTH

INAUGURATED!

A state-level Yoga festival organised by Uttar Pradesh Yoga Association in KDC College came to a conclusion on Sunday. Students from many districts of the city showcased their fl exibility on the occasion. District Manager Dinesh Chandra extended a token of appreciation to the organisers in the form of a reward of 51,000/-.

A STEP AHEAD!

PCS Prasun Dwivedi, SDM Sadar Noida, has been appointed as the OSD of Noida Development Authority.

Mayor Sanyukta Bhatia inaugurated Utsav Exhibiton at Hyatt Hotel on Sunday. She browsed through the resplendent collection at various stalls during her visit. Stay tuned to City First for a detailed review of the exhibition tomorrow.

Diksha

Tripti and Jaya

Arushi, Abhimanyu and Prachi

Artwork by Lakhan Singh Jat Artwork by Lakhan as showcased in the virtual event

Artist Lakhan Singh Jat in action

—PHOTOS BY ASHOK DUTTA

Aditi Maheshwari with Alex Ellis