˘ˇˆ˙˝˛ ˇ˚˙˛ˆ˝ ˜ ˙˚˛! ˆ˜ · india’s covid-19 death count crossed 40,000 marks on...

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I ndia’s Covid-19 death count crossed 40,000 marks on Wednesday with Maharashtra alone accounting for 334 deaths during the last 24 hours fol- lowed by Tamil Nadu 112 and Karnataka 95 deaths. Wednesday happened to be the worst day for India in terms of fatality as the highest single-day spike in death count. At the same time, the country recorded over 50,000 cases in the past 24 hours for a 7th day in a row, taking its tally of total cases to 1,921,392. Maharashtra reported a record number of 334 deaths and 10,309 positive cases on Wednesday raising the total to 4,68,265, including 1,45,961 active cases, 3,05,521 recovered and 16,476 deaths. A mid chants of Vedic hymns, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foun- dation stone of Ram temple at a site within the Ram Janmabhoomi complex believed to be the birthplace of Lord Ram, thus announcing a formal launch of the construc- tion of the temple. “Nine shilas (bricks) with gold, silver and precious stones embedded on them were wor- shipped and are laid as foun- dation,” Mahant Kamal Narain Das said. Worship was offered to a 40-kilogram silver plaque with details of the Ram temple movement and its construction inscribed on it. It would be fixed at the main wall of the temple. Champat Rai, general sec- retary of the Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, announced that in 1989 Ram Bhakts had donated 2.75 lakh bricks for the construction of the temple. “We chose 9 from them and these were used to lay the foundation today,” he said. The foundation stone was laid after almost 30 minutes of Puja exactly at 12.44 pm with slogans of “Jai Shree Ram” and “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” filling the air. The priest who conducted the puja also narrated in detail the impor- tance of the Ram temple, the Ram Rajya, and how a 500- year-old dream of Hindus was fulfilled today. Before the groundbreaking, the PM offered prayers at the make-shift Ram Lalla temple, thus became the first PM of the country to offer prayers at the temple. The bhoomi pujan cere- mony was attended UP Governor Anandiben Patel, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat besides Shree Ram Janmabhoomi Thirath Khetra Trust members. LK Advani, 92, and Murli Manohar Joshi, 86, the two BJP stalwarts who had led the cam- paign to build the temple in its early days, are said to have watched the live telecast of the event on television sets. Home Minister Amit Shah watched the event from his bed in a Gurugram hospital where the 55-year-old top BJP leader was admitted last week after infec- tion with coronavirus. After the ritual was over, the PM also put tika from the soil on his forehead and recit- ed the mantras amid priests praying for the completion of the Ram temple and well-being of the universe. Rai said that during the groundbreaking ceremony soil and holy water from several religious places across India were collected. “We have received over 2,000 earthen pots carrying holy water of var- ious rivers and boxes carrying soil sent from various Hindu temples and Gurudwaras across India to bless the upcoming temple,” he said. Rai said that temples in the US, Canada and Caribbean Islands held a virtual service to celebrate the occasion. He said over 2,000 temples in Ayodhya have also joined in the cele- brations by lighting lamps and chanting religious hymns. President of India Ramnath Kovind said in his tweet: “Felicitations to all for the foundation laying of Ram Temple in Ayodhya. Being built in tune with law, it defines India’s spirit of social harmony and people’s zeal. It will be a tes- timony to ideals of Ram Rajya and a symbol of modern India.” The construction of the temple will be completed with- in 3 and half years. The origi- nal design for the Ram temple was prepared in 1988 but was changed in 2020 after the court ruled in favour of Hindus. Chandrakant Sompura, the main architect of the temple said as per new design Ram Temple will be 235 feet wide, 360 feet long and 161 feet high. “The temple complex will have a prayer hall, a lecture hall, educational facility, saints residence and a hostel for vis- itors. It will have other facilities like a museum and a cafeteria. Once complete the temple complex will be the world’s third largest Hindu shrine.” P rime Minister Narendra Modi, who along with RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat, attend- ed bhumi pujan at Ayodhya on Wednesday and addressed the congregation gathered there did not mention veteran BJP leader LK Advani’s contribu- tion towards realisation of the Ram Temple. Bhagwat did briefly recall the role of the BJP patriarch in the temple movement and also marked his absence in the cer- emony. The RSS Chief commenced his speech with the struggles faced by each and every person associated with the Ram Temple movement. Bhagwat said he is very happy that finally after 30 years the promise has been fulfilled. He mentioned that many sacrificed their lives in this movement and though they are not pre- sent physically, they are watch- ing us. Rath yatra ka netritav karnewale Advaniji apene ghar per baith kar is karyakram ko dekh rahain honge. Kitne hi log hain jo aa bhi sakte hain, lekin bulaye nahin ja sakte, paristhithi hi aisi hain,” said the RSS head. He also said, “It would have been great if late Ashok Singhal and Mahant Paramhans Ramchandra Das were present, but they are brac- ing us with their blessings.” The Prime Minister in his long speech generally talked about the “struggle” to achieve the goal of Ram Temple but did not mention anyone by name, including Advani. Modi’s speech escaped the history of the temple movement and instead focussed on what it would mean to India’s future and the world. Advani, 92, and Murli Manohar Joshi, 86, the two BJP leaders who made a major contribution towards Ram Temple did not figure in the list of 200 invitees to the ceremony. Advani on Tuesday, in a statement, reminisced his role in “galvanising the aspirations, energies and passions of count- less participants of the move- ment “and recalled his famous Ram Rath Yatra from Somnath to Ayodhya in 1990”. L eaders cutting across party lines welcomed the ground- breaking ceremony for the Ram temple in Ayodhya on Wednesday, hoping the devel- opment would pave the way for national unity and harmony. Many of them used the occa- sion to send a subtle political message against the politics of hate and injustice. While Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said Lord Ram is the ultimate embodiment of supreme human values and can never appear in cruelty, hatred or injustice, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said all religions of this great country are brother. BSP supremo Mayawati credited the Supreme Court for paving the way for its con- struction in Ayodhya and advised all to accept the deci- sion. Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav hoped the pre- sent and future generations will sincerely follow the path shown by ‘Maryada Purushottam’ and will do good to all and bring peace. NCP chief Sharad Pawar said it’s a matter of joy, but he also questioned the timing of Bhoomi Pujan when the coun- try is struggling with so many ailments and battles on front. After refraining from com- menting on the Ram temple issue, the Congress’ top leaders came forward with their mes- sages by extending best wish- es to people on the Bhoomi Poojan function. “Simplicity, courage, restraint, sacrifice, commit- ment, are the essence of the name Deenbandhu Lord Rama. Ram is in everyone, Ram is with everyone. With the mes- sage and blessings of Lord Ram and Mother Sita, the Bhoomi Pujan of Ramlalla’s temple became an occasion for national unity, fraternity and cultural congregation,” she tweeted. Rahul in a tweet in Hindi, said, “Maryada Purshottam Lord Ram is the ultimate embodiment of supreme human values. He is the core of humanism embedded deep in our hearts. Ram is love, he can never appear in hatred. Ram is compassion, he can never appear in cruelty. Ram is jus- tice, he can never appear in injustice,” he said. T he long wait of centuries has ended and India is cre- ating a golden chapter in Ayodhya, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said while addressing the gathering of select dignitaries mostly seers after laying the foundation stone for the construction of a grand 161-feet tall Ram temple in Ayodhya on Wednesday. Asserting that “Ram is everywhere, Ram belongs to all”, Modi said the temple sym- bolises India’s rich heritage and will be an inspiration for all of humanity. The PM said with the con- struction of Ram temple, the Ram Janmabhoomi has broken free of a vicious cycle of demo- lition and resurrection. “A grand temple will now be built for our Ram Lalla who had been staying in a tent. Today Ram Janmabhoomi breaks free of the cycle of breaking and getting built again that had been going on for cen- turies,” he said. He said the Ram Temple will become the modern sym- bol of our traditions and will depict the Indian culture of mankind. “The entire world is witnessing history being made with the foundation of Ram temple,” he said in speech which started with the chant of “Jai Shri Ram”. He said this chant is not just echoing in Ayodhya but in the entire world today when everyone is celebrating the occasion in a big way with ful- fillment of the dream. “Our Independence Day - August 15 - holds importance for us because this day we were able to break free from the tyranny of Britishers. August 5 holds the similar significance for millions of devotees who devoted their lives for the cause of Ram temple. I bow to these people and their family mem- bers for their sacrifice,” Modi said. “Lord Ram is reflected in all walks of our lives. During the Independence struggle Ram was in the Bhajans of Mahatma Gandhi. It was in the couplets of Rahim and Guru Nanak. Ram has touched all spheres of our lives. It has taught us that you should be powerful because love emanat- ed only from fear,” he said. In the construction of this temple history is being repeat- ed. The way boatmen or the Vanar sena helped Lord Ram or the way children helped Lord Krishna to lift Govardhan mountain, similarly with the help of people construction of temple will be completed,” he said. PRESIDENT RAM NATH KOVIND UP CHIEF MINISTER YOGI ADITYANATH CONGRESS LEADER RAHUL GANDHI New Delhi: GC Murmu, the Lieutenant- Governor of Jammu & Kashmir, is front-runner for the post of the country’s new auditor, NDTV has learnt. Sources said Mr Murmu has already resigned and a hunt is on for his suc- cessor. The post of the Comptroller Auditor General, meanwhile, will fall vacant shortly as incumbent Rajiv Mehrishi turns 65. The Comptroller and Auditor General is a constitutional post and cannot be left vacant. RNI Regn. No. MPENG/2004/13703, Regd. No. L-2/BPLON/41/2006-2008

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Page 1: ˘ˇˆ˙˝˛ ˇ˚˙˛ˆ˝ ˜ ˙˚˛! ˆ˜ · India’s Covid-19 death count crossed 40,000 marks on Wednesday with Maharashtra alone accounting for 334 deaths during the last 24 hours

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India’s Covid-19 death countcrossed 40,000 marks on

Wednesday with Maharashtraalone accounting for 334 deathsduring the last 24 hours fol-lowed by Tamil Nadu 112 andKarnataka 95 deaths.Wednesday happened to be theworst day for India in terms offatality as the highest single-dayspike in death count.

At the same time, thecountry recorded over 50,000cases in the past 24 hours fora 7th day in a row, taking itstally of total cases to 1,921,392.

Maharashtra reported arecord number of 334 deathsand 10,309 positive cases onWednesday raising the total to4,68,265, including 1,45,961active cases, 3,05,521 recoveredand 16,476 deaths.

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Amid chants of Vedichymns, Prime Minister

Narendra Modi laid the foun-dation stone of Ram temple ata site within the RamJanmabhoomi complexbelieved to be the birthplace ofLord Ram, thus announcing aformal launch of the construc-tion of the temple.

“Nine shilas (bricks) withgold, silver and precious stonesembedded on them were wor-shipped and are laid as foun-dation,” Mahant Kamal NarainDas said.

Worship was offered to a40-kilogram silver plaque withdetails of the Ram templemovement and its constructioninscribed on it. It would befixed at the main wall of thetemple.

Champat Rai, general sec-retary of the RamJanmabhoomi Teerth KshetraTrust, announced that in 1989Ram Bhakts had donated 2.75lakh bricks for the constructionof the temple. “We chose 9from them and these wereused to lay the foundationtoday,” he said. The foundationstone was laid after almost 30minutes of Puja exactly at12.44 pm with slogans of “JaiShree Ram” and “Bharat MataKi Jai” filling the air. The priestwho conducted the puja alsonarrated in detail the impor-tance of the Ram temple, theRam Rajya, and how a 500-year-old dream of Hindus wasfulfilled today.

Before the groundbreaking,the PM offered prayers at themake-shift Ram Lalla temple,

thus became the first PM of thecountry to offer prayers at thetemple.

The bhoomi pujan cere-mony was attended UPGovernor Anandiben Patel,Chief Minister Yogi Adityanathand RSS chief Mohan Bhagwatbesides Shree RamJanmabhoomi Thirath KhetraTrust members.

LK Advani, 92, and MurliManohar Joshi, 86, the two BJPstalwarts who had led the cam-paign to build the temple in itsearly days, are said to havewatched the live telecast of theevent on television sets. HomeMinister Amit Shah watchedthe event from his bed in aGurugram hospital where the55-year-old top BJP leader wasadmitted last week after infec-tion with coronavirus.

After the ritual was over,the PM also put tika from thesoil on his forehead and recit-ed the mantras amid priestspraying for the completion ofthe Ram temple and well-beingof the universe.

Rai said that during thegroundbreaking ceremony soiland holy water from severalreligious places across Indiawere collected. “We havereceived over 2,000 earthenpots carrying holy water of var-ious rivers and boxes carryingsoil sent from various Hindutemples and Gurudwarasacross India to bless theupcoming temple,” he said.

Rai said that temples in theUS, Canada and CaribbeanIslands held a virtual service tocelebrate the occasion. He saidover 2,000 temples in Ayodhyahave also joined in the cele-brations by lighting lamps and

chanting religious hymns.President of India

Ramnath Kovind said in histweet: “Felicitations to all forthe foundation laying of RamTemple in Ayodhya. Being builtin tune with law, it definesIndia’s spirit of social harmonyand people’s zeal. It will be a tes-timony to ideals of Ram Rajyaand a symbol of modern India.”

The construction of thetemple will be completed with-in 3 and half years. The origi-nal design for the Ram templewas prepared in 1988 but was

changed in 2020 after the courtruled in favour of Hindus.

Chandrakant Sompura, themain architect of the templesaid as per new design RamTemple will be 235 feet wide,360 feet long and 161 feethigh. “The temple complexwill have a prayer hall, a lecturehall, educational facility, saintsresidence and a hostel for vis-itors. It will have other facilitieslike a museum and a cafeteria.Once complete the templecomplex will be the world’sthird largest Hindu shrine.”

�������������������� ���! ��� �"��������������� ��������������������������������������� ���������������������������������������� !��"�������#���� $����%��&��!�#��� ��

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Prime Minister NarendraModi, who along with RSS

Chief Mohan Bhagwat, attend-ed bhumi pujan at Ayodhya onWednesday and addressed thecongregation gathered theredid not mention veteran BJPleader LK Advani’s contribu-tion towards realisation of theRam Temple.

Bhagwat did briefly recallthe role of the BJP patriarch inthe temple movement and alsomarked his absence in the cer-emony.

The RSS Chief commencedhis speech with the strugglesfaced by each and every personassociated with the RamTemple movement. Bhagwatsaid he is very happy thatfinally after 30 years thepromise has been fulfilled. Hementioned that many sacrificedtheir lives in this movementand though they are not pre-sent physically, they are watch-ing us.

“Rath yatra ka netritavkarnewale Advaniji apene gharper baith kar is karyakram kodekh rahain honge. Kitne hi loghain jo aa bhi sakte hain, lekinbulaye nahin ja sakte,paristhithi hi aisi hain,” said theRSS head.

He also said, “It wouldhave been great if late Ashok

Singhal and MahantParamhans Ramchandra Daswere present, but they are brac-ing us with their blessings.”

The Prime Minister in hislong speech generally talkedabout the “struggle” to achievethe goal of Ram Temple but didnot mention anyone by name,including Advani. Modi’sspeech escaped the history ofthe temple movement andinstead focussed on what itwould mean to India’s futureand the world.

Advani, 92, and MurliManohar Joshi, 86, the two BJPleaders who made a majorcontribution towards RamTemple did not figure in the listof 200 invitees to the ceremony.

Advani on Tuesday, in astatement, reminisced his rolein “galvanising the aspirations,energies and passions of count-less participants of the move-ment “and recalled his famousRam Rath Yatra from Somnathto Ayodhya in 1990”.

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Leaders cutting across partylines welcomed the ground-

breaking ceremony for theRam temple in Ayodhya onWednesday, hoping the devel-opment would pave the way for

national unity and harmony.Many of them used the occa-sion to send a subtle politicalmessage against the politics ofhate and injustice.

While Congress leaderRahul Gandhi said Lord Ramis the ultimate embodiment ofsupreme human values andcan never appear in cruelty,hatred or injustice, West BengalChief Minister MamataBanerjee said all religions ofthis great country are brother.

BSP supremo Mayawaticredited the Supreme Court forpaving the way for its con-struction in Ayodhya andadvised all to accept the deci-sion.

Samajwadi Party leaderAkhilesh Yadav hoped the pre-sent and future generationswill sincerely follow the pathshown by ‘MaryadaPurushottam’ and will do goodto all and bring peace.

NCP chief Sharad Pawarsaid it’s a matter of joy, but healso questioned the timing ofBhoomi Pujan when the coun-try is struggling with so many

ailments and battles on front.After refraining from com-

menting on the Ram templeissue, the Congress’ top leaderscame forward with their mes-sages by extending best wish-es to people on the BhoomiPoojan function.

“Simplicity, courage,restraint, sacrifice, commit-ment, are the essence of thename Deenbandhu Lord Rama.Ram is in everyone, Ram iswith everyone. With the mes-sage and blessings of LordRam and Mother Sita, theBhoomi Pujan of Ramlalla’stemple became an occasionfor national unity, fraternityand cultural congregation,” shetweeted.

Rahul in a tweet in Hindi,said, “Maryada PurshottamLord Ram is the ultimateembodiment of supremehuman values. He is the core ofhumanism embedded deep inour hearts. Ram is love, he cannever appear in hatred. Ram iscompassion, he can neverappear in cruelty. Ram is jus-tice, he can never appear ininjustice,” he said.

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The long wait of centurieshas ended and India is cre-

ating a golden chapter inAyodhya, Prime MinisterNarendra Modi said whileaddressing the gathering ofselect dignitaries mostly seersafter laying the foundationstone for the construction of agrand 161-feet tall Ram templein Ayodhya on Wednesday.

Asserting that “Ram iseverywhere, Ram belongs to

all”, Modi said the temple sym-bolises India’s rich heritageand will be an inspiration for allof humanity.

The PM said with the con-struction of Ram temple, theRam Janmabhoomi has brokenfree of a vicious cycle of demo-lition and resurrection.

“A grand temple will nowbe built for our Ram Lalla whohad been staying in a tent.Today Ram Janmabhoomibreaks free of the cycle ofbreaking and getting built again

that had been going on for cen-turies,” he said.

He said the Ram Templewill become the modern sym-bol of our traditions and willdepict the Indian culture ofmankind. “The entire world iswitnessing history being madewith the foundation of Ramtemple,” he said in speechwhich started with the chant of“Jai Shri Ram”.

He said this chant is notjust echoing in Ayodhya but inthe entire world today wheneveryone is celebrating theoccasion in a big way with ful-fillment of the dream.

“Our Independence Day -August 15 - holds importancefor us because this day we wereable to break free from thetyranny of Britishers. August 5holds the similar significancefor millions of devotees whodevoted their lives for the causeof Ram temple. I bow to thesepeople and their family mem-

bers for their sacrifice,” Modisaid.

“Lord Ram is reflected inall walks of our lives. Duringthe Independence struggleRam was in the Bhajans ofMahatma Gandhi. It was in thecouplets of Rahim and GuruNanak. Ram has touched allspheres of our lives. It hastaught us that you should bepowerful because love emanat-ed only from fear,” he said.

In the construction of thistemple history is being repeat-ed.

The way boatmen or theVanar sena helped Lord Ram orthe way children helped LordKrishna to lift Govardhanmountain, similarly with thehelp of people construction oftemple will be completed,” hesaid.

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Page 2: ˘ˇˆ˙˝˛ ˇ˚˙˛ˆ˝ ˜ ˙˚˛! ˆ˜ · India’s Covid-19 death count crossed 40,000 marks on Wednesday with Maharashtra alone accounting for 334 deaths during the last 24 hours

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Chief Minister Shivraj SinghChouhan has appealed to

the people of the State to pro-tect themselves from corona byadhering to social distancingi.e. maintaining safe distance oftwo yards, always using masksand washing hands frequentlywith soap or using sanitizer.With these measures, coronacannot affect anyone. He urgedto be careful. Chief MinisterChouhan thanked all the coro-na warriors who are servingpatients day and night.

After being dischargedfrom Chirayu hospital onWednesday, Chief MinisterChouhan said in his message tothe common man that theymust undergo investigation assoon as symptoms of coronaappear.

Those affected by the virusmust not hide facts. This canput them, their families thepeople around them at risk.

There is no need to get afraidof corona. corona can bedefeated by timely treatment. Itis not an incurable disease.Also, you must make effortsnot to get affected by the virus.

Chief Minister ShriChouhan said that he himselfis a corona warrior. He hasdefeated the disease. On thebasis of experience it seemsnecessary to say that there is noneed to panic. TheGovernment has made allarrangements for treatment,but efforts must be made toensure that the need to gettreated does not come at all.

The Chief Minister,

Chouhan has appealed thatno major events should beorganized at the moment.There should not be crowdedweddings. Markets should notbe crowded. If a crowd gathers,it will be like inviting trouble.Save yourself.

Chief Minister Chouhansaid that he was also reviewingthe condition of corona in theState from the hospital. Theentire State is reviewed everyday. Cooperation of commonman is necessary to eliminatethe disease. With strong deter-mination, we will fight and win,the State will win and thecountry will win.

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The three-day InternationalWeb Conference 2020 was

organized by RabindranathTagore University. The theme ofthis conference was ‘Redefining,Restoring and Rewrapping theWorld for SustainableDevelopment Amidst NewNormal’. The conference wasjointly organized by theUniversity's Department ofManagement, Commerce andEngineering along with specialsupport from BSSA Anand ViharCollege, IEHE Bhopal andCollingam University Chennai.

The conference was inaugu-rated by Sanjeev J. Faselkar, ViceChancellor of Tagore University,Brahma Prakash Pethia,Convenor of CRG Prof. VKVerma and Grand AcademicPortal President Anita Sharmain the gracious presence.

Brahmaprakash spoke aboutstaying away from consumeristculture for sustainable develop-

ment. Faselkar highlighted theimportance of sustainable devel-opment. Professor Verma sug-gested to include education andenvironment more effectively inthe courses.

Anita spoke of the transfor-mation of the real world into avirtual world. At the closing seg-ment, the university's registrar,Vijay Singh, emphasized thechallenges of the New Normal.He said that the purpose of theconference was to discuss theproblems, challenges and oppor-tunities that arose during theperiod of Covid at the interna-tional level.

Expressing gratitude, theDean of the University, SanjeevGupta said that in this three-dayconference, academics from dif-ferent parts of the country includ-ing Iran, Indonesia, Sri Lankahave a wide range of topics likeemployment, sustainable devel-opment, virtual tools, impact ofCovid on higher education to bediscussed.

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Urban Development andHousing Minister

Bhupendra Singh said that thePradhan Mantri Awas (Urban)project should be reviewed. Hesaid that the cost of infra-structure development works ofthis project should be reduced.The urban bodies concernedcan do the work of infrastruc-ture development. Singh gavethese instructions while review-ing the works of PradhanMantri Awas Yojana (Urban).

Urban Development andHousing Minister Singh told tocomplete the works of thosehouses first, which are 80 to 90percent complete. He said thatthe amount under one headshould not be spent on anoth-er head. The amount meant forA.H.P. and B.L.C. works mustbe used for the same works.About 5 lakh 82 thousand 625houses of B.L.C in 374 urban

bodies of the State have beenapproved. Out of these, onelakh 94 thousand 214 houseshave been completed and 2lakh 44 thousand 428 are at theroof level.

Minister Singh alsoreviewed the loan based inter-est subsidy scheme, LHPIndore and rent based afford-able housing complex scheme.

Reviewing the MadhyaPradesh Swachh BharatMission (Urban), UrbanDevelopment and Housing

Minister Singh said that he willvisit the waste processing plant.

He said that works beingundertaken in other States inthis connection should also bestudied. Singh said that anaction plan should be chalkedout soon for waste manage-ment of cities and its imple-mentation should be ensured intime-limit.It was informed inthe meeting that 5.71 lakh per-sonal toilets and 18 thousandcommunity toilets have beenbuilt under the Swachh BharatMission. With the aim of main-taining ODF Plus in all 378urban bodies, the goal is tomove them to ODF Plus-Plus.

Principal Secretary UrbanDevelopment and HousingNitesh Vyas, CommissionerUrban Administration andDevelopment NikunjShrivastava, AdditionalCommissioner Mohit Bundasand other officials were presentat the meeting.

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Seventy one percent ofMadhya Pradesh college-

going youth has worn facemaskevery time in the last sevendays, while 16 percent hasworn it sometime and theremaining four percent hasworn it rarely.

These are findings of anonline survey conducted byPradeep Krishnatray, formerdirector, research and strategicplanning of Johns HopkinsCenter for Communicationprograms, New Delhi andPushpendra Pal Singh, formerprofessor at MakhanlalChaturvedi JournalismUniversity, Bhopal in late July2020. The study is part of thelarge-scale seven state survey offacemask use undertaken bycommunication and journal-

ism faculty. Total 1001 respondents

belonging to 70 towns andcities in Madhya Pradesh filledthe online survey question-naire. Ninety percent of themwere in the age group of 18 to25 and were unmarried. Eightyseven percent of the sample wasfemale and 67 percent wasgraduate; 22 percent were post-graduate and Ph.D; 11 percenthad studied up to secondarylevel and below.

Those who wore facemasksaid that doing so would pro-tect them from infection (54percent), protect others (8 per-cent) and that it is ‘better to besafe than sorry’ (23 percent).Other reasons for using face-mask were that they protectthem as well as others (3 per-cent), and because their ‘nearand dear ones wear’ it.

Those who did not wearfacemasks (9%) gave twoimportant reasons for notdoing so. The first was that theydo not step out of the houseand those that did took care ofthemselves.

A very small percentagesaid that that they are ‘strongand therefore nothing wouldhappen’ to them. A small per-centage said facemasks areexpensive to use.

About 57 percent of therespondents wore facemasksmade of cloth. Others woreN95 masks (20%) and surgicalmasks (18%).About half of therespondents (48%) neverremoved the facemask whiletalking. However, othersremoved it every time (9 per-cent), sometime (21%) or rarely(22%).

More than half of the

respondents (56%) did notfind wearing the facemaskinconvenient while othersfound it inconvenient.

The questionnaire includ-ed five questions related toknowledge of benefit regardingfacemask use.

More than 90 percent ofthe respondents said that face-masks prevent droplets fromtraveling in the air.

About the same percentagesaid that facemasks are impor-tant in social settings wheremaintaining social distancing isdifficult. Seventy one percentsaid that when touched face-masks fail to protect and mustbe replaced.

However, only 42 percentsaid that facemasks are full-proof way to protect oneselffrom Covid 19. Sixty threepercent said that if 90 percent

of the population wears face-mask there will be no need fora lockdown.

55% of the respondentshave reused the facemask morethan once. And more than80% have washed it beforereuse. About 28% said theyhave worn it because of thepolice presence. Respondentsuse a variety of methods to dis-pose of the facemask.

Nearly 60% of all therespondents put it in the dust-bin and wash their hands. Thedustbin is kept either inside oroutside the house. Some bury,burn and throw it away outsidethe house.

However, one-fourth ofthem do not dispose it at all. Insuch cases, the facemask ismade of cloth. Some wash thecloth facemask with water orDettol before reusing it.

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To pay tribute to the leg-endry singer of Bollywood

Kishore Kumar, a solo musicalevent was organised onWednesday. The solo musicalevent was organised to observethe birth anniversary ofKishore Kumar.

The hit tracks of the leg-endry singer Kishore Kumarwere performed here onFacebook Live page of PrayasA Musical Journey which wasmuch enjoyed by the KishoreKumar fans. The Bhopaliteswitnessed every colour ofKishore Kumar’s charm at themusical concert.

He was one of the mostpopular singers in the Indian

film industry and from softnumbers to peppy tracks toromantic moods, Kumar sangin different genres but some ofhis rare compositions whichwere considered classics werelost in time.The hit tracks likeMere Sapno Ki Rani, ‘ChalteyChaltey Mere yeh Geet YaadRakhna.. Kabhi alvida naKehna..’ , ‘Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas..’were presented by Sanjay

Kargaokar. He performed liveon Karaoke of Kishore’s songs.On the occasion, many peopletook the pleasure to go back inthe old times. The concertbegan with the song ‘Bachna aehaseeno’. The programme wasthen followed with the songslike ‘O Hansina’, ‘Yeh Dosti’,‘Janeman Janeman’, ‘Phoolo ka’and more.

The programme was fur-ther followed by rememberingthe memories of KishoreKumar. The programme wasfurther followed by ‘Wo shamKuch Ajeeb Thi,’ ‘Ghungroo KiTarah Bajta Raha Hoon Main..’,‘Gaata Rahe Mera Dil’, ‘ChalteyHain’, ‘Daakiya Daak Laya’,‘Ager Tum Na Hotey’ and ‘JoRaha Chuni’ and many more.

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Habibganj police havenabbed a 39-year-old man

who was charged with abet-ment to commit suicide of her35-year-old wife who commit-ted suicide by hanging with theceiling at Janta Quarters on July30; mother and brother werealso involved in the harassmentand are on the run after casewas registered.

Police have arrestedSandeep who used to harass herwife Madhavi who was his wifeand took extreme step after hus-band used to harass her whilehis mother Leela Bai and broth-er Sanjay supported him.

During the investigationpolice found that the deceasedused to have fights and the rea-son behind the fights wereSandeep’s talking with otherwoman over phone and when-ever she would oppose, hewould fight and harass her.

The other two accusedLeela and Sanjay who wereaware of the fact supported

Sandeep and her suffering con-tinued.

After the death familymembers of Madhavi allegedthat she was harassed by herhusband and in-laws and in theinvestigation the claims werefound correct.

The body was sent for postmortem and case under section174 of the CrPC was registered.The police registered case ofabetment to commit suicideafter it was found that theMadhavi took the extreme stepas she was frustrated over theharassment by the three.

Police arrested Sandeepbut Leela and Sanjay managedto escape. Police have raidedpossible hide-outs but the tworemained absconding, searchhas been intensified.

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The revival of monsoonactivities has been wit-

nessed across the State withwarnings of heavy to veryheavy rainfall in the next 24hours at several places.

Still the rainfall deficit ofthe state is 15 percent and forstate capital heavy rainfall is noton the cards but rainfall withlong intervals has been wit-nessed for the past three days.The pattern of increase rainfallis witnessed across the statewith very few exceptions.

All divisions of the statereceived rainfall which wasdue for long as in the seasonrainfall shied away from severalplaces increasing the deficit.The pattern of weather changedand favourable systems formedinducing good amount of rain-fall. As heavy rains continuedto lash several parts of state andthe regions which recordedgood rainfall till Wednesdayevening were Ujjain 6 cm,Seoni 4.7 cm, Umaria 2.6 m,

Mandla 4 cm, Rewa 1cm,Chhindwara 3.5 cm, Indore 2.8cm, Guna 4. 2cm, Sagar 1 cm.

Patharia recorded 10 cm inthe past 24 hours, Gohparu,Kolaras and Bheempur record-ed 9 cm in the same period oftime. According to the forecastIndore, Ujjain, Bhopal,Hoshangabad, Shahdol,Jabalpur, Gwalior, Chambaland Rewa divisions are likely toreceive thunder showers andthundery activities.

The Met department hasissued warning of very heavyrainfall in Seoni, Dewas andDhar districts while warning ofheavy rainfall and thunderlightening has been issued forSatna, Anuppur, Shahdol,Chhindwara, Mandla,Balaghat, Damoh, Sagar,Chhatarpur, Vidisha,Raisen,Betul, Khandwa,Khargoan, Alirajpur, Badwani,Jhabua, , Indore, Ujjain, Guna,Datia, Rajgarh, NeemuchMandsaur, Umaria, Ratlam,Gwalior, Ashok Gwalior, AshokNagar, Shivpuri districts.

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A25-year-old marriedwoman committed suicide

by hanging with the ceiling ather Iigri village under Gungapolice station area on Tuesday;deceased was angry over herhusband’s refusal to take her toparents on Rakhshabandhan.

Police said that thedeceased Neetu Seharia com-mitted suicide and was rushedto nearby hospital where shewas declared dead.

In the initial investigationthe family members told policethat deceased had dispute withher husband over visiting herparents on the festival but thehusband refused due to lock-down and having no means oftransport to take her home.Afterthe fight enraged deceased wentinside while husband outside,later he came and went to sleep.It was in the morning that hefound his wife hanging with theceiling. Body was sent for thepost mortem after the prelimi-nary investigation.

The police have registereda case under section 174 of theCrPC and started investigation.

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Bodies of two minor girlswho drowned at water filled

quarry at Piplia Keshwa villagewere fished out by NationalDisaster Response Force(NDRF) Bhopal team late in thenight on Tuesday. After receiv-ing information on Tuesdayregarding two girls, MaansuMeena, and Suman Meena, whodrowned at the quarry whenthey had gone to take bath.

The villagers informedpolice, SDM Kolar -RajeshGupta who informed theBhopal team of NDRF.

Immediately after beinginformed, the teamC o m m a n d e r - I n s p e c t o rDevendra Kumar Yadav along

with his team left for PipliaKeshava at 10 pm. On reachingthe spot, all the team membersstarted the rescue operationtogether and the rescue oper-ation went on for almost 4hours at night and by in thenight divers found the bodiesof the girls. Dead bodies ofboth the girls were taken outduring the night and handoverwas carried out by the NDRFteam to the administration.

SDM (Kolar) RajeshGupta, Tehsildar Mahendra

Singh, SHO Kolar SudhirAarjaria and other personnelwere present during the inci-dent. Under the supervision ofAlok Kumar Singh, DeputyInspector General, two teamsof the 11th Corps NDRF weredeployed by the Bhopal admin-istration, in which the officersof both teams was Second in-Commandant DevendraKumar.

Notably one team of NDRFis stationed at NTTTR inShyamala Hills, Bhopal andanother team is stationed atIdgah Hills which are assignedto performs any type of disas-ter management work in theentire Madhya Pradesh anddisaster management workswith the entire administration.

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Nazeerabad police have arrested a 22-year-old youth for sexu-ally assaulting and kidnapping minor for past two years at

Koluakhedi Daang village Sehore; accused was having a reward of�5000. Police said both the accused and victim were acquainted andused to live in the same area. The accused identified as Vikram Saperadeveloped friendship with the victim and later lured her of mar-riage and the two eloped.

The accused took her to Koluakhedi Daang kept her captiveand sexually assaulted her for the past two years.

The victim who was unaware of the ill intentions accompaniedhim and faced the atrocity.

After committing the heinous crime, the accused assured thathe would marry her and later continued to sexually exploit her. Laterwhen the victim asked to marry the accused he refused and con-tinued with the atrocity. The family of the victim lodged a complaintwith the police.

Police registered a case under sections 376 and 506 of the IPCand have started further investigation. During the investigation policeannounced a reward of �5000 on providing the details of accusedwho remained absconding for around two years.

The police got information on Tuesday regarding the where-abouts of the accused and reached the spot to arrest him.Police areyet to find the crime records of the accused.

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Page 3: ˘ˇˆ˙˝˛ ˇ˚˙˛ˆ˝ ˜ ˙˚˛! ˆ˜ · India’s Covid-19 death count crossed 40,000 marks on Wednesday with Maharashtra alone accounting for 334 deaths during the last 24 hours

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Chief Minister Shivraj SinghChouhan has said that such

an arrangement is must toensure that citizens of the Stateshould not go to other States fortreatment. In order to make theState self-reliant in health ser-vices, a campaign will be con-ducted to bring improvementin the condition of districthospitals, medical colleges andtheir affiliated hospitals. Byremoving the shortage ofhuman and technical resources,there is a need to make suchkind of an arrangement whichfacilitate people to get completetreatment in the State itself.

In this context, necessaryimprovement should bebrought in departmental cadreand other shortcomings shouldbe removed within the time

limit. The Chief MinisterChouhan has said that there isa need to take special precau-tions in offices and establish-ments. Many people get affect-ed by one infected person in anoffice. He instructed that actionshould be ensured against offi-cers-employees if found guiltyof negligence in precautions tobe followed in offices for pro-tection from corona.

Chouhan also stressed theneed for commencing aware-ness campaign at wide scale totackle corona in the state.Besides, he sought informationin connection to the awarenesscampaign started in rural mar-kets. The Chief Minister wasreviewing the situation ofCovid-19 and arrangementsin the State through video con-ferencing.

Chouhan has said that

every case of corona infectionin the State is an alarm bell andchallenge. Full care and alert-ness are needed to tackle thisdanger. He further mentionedthat private hospitals shouldalso be instructed that afterobserving symptoms of coronain patients, they should beimmediately referred to covidcare centres and dedicated cen-tres. He also issued instructionsto make necessary arrange-ment for increasing rapid anti-gen tests in the State.

The Chief Minister hassaid that by ensuring the latestguidelines of ICMR, home iso-lation and quarantine should beencouraged in the State. Theeffective monitoring of suchpeople should be ensured bymonitoring app and othermeans.

During the review of situ-

ation in Rewa and Jhabua, theChief Minister Chouhaninstructed to increase the test-ing and contact tracing. TheMinister for Public Health andFamily Welfare PrabhuramChowdhary has said that per-mission for leaving Jhabuashould be granted under onlyinevitable circumstances.Minister Chowdhary also laidemphasis on the need ofincreasing awareness in Rewa.

Additional Chief SecretaryHealth Mohammad Sulemanhas informed that constantimprovement is being record-ed in the recovery rate of thestate. At present, the recoveryrate is 72.9 percent. Currently,the state has 8 thousand 741active cases and till now 26,064people have recovered from thedisease.

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The Department of CultureMadhya Pradesh, is enter-

taining the art lovers during thesocial distancing too. The ini-tiative of presenting culturalperformances of the Stateonline is grabbing applausesfrom the art lovers.

Under the initiative, Karmadance, Saila dance were per-formed on Wednesday. The ini-tiative was started on YouTubeChannel of Department ofCulture.

Event began with the per-formance with ‘Saila dance’ ofthe Rajwar tribe. Saila dance isperformed during the moon-light nights of autumn. It wasnamed Saila due to the poles ofabout a quarter of a hand.

Saila dance is practiced to

please Adidev. It is said that AdiDev Badhesur went toAmarkantak unhappy with thequeen of Surguja, this dancewas practiced by cutting thestrings there. It was a solo per-formance though, but it capti-vated the audience with theirdancing skills as likes hit thechannel.

Next was the Karma dance.Karma dance also known asNaach is a traditional dance ofMadhya Pradesh andChhattisgarh. It is annually

performed during the karmafestival. Karma is a famousautumnal festival, it starts fromthe 11th day of the bright fort-night of the month of Bhadrab.

Besides, performancesfrom Sagar, Katni,Hoshangabad and other dis-tricts were presented. The per-formances included folk danceforms, tabla recital, flute recitaland devotional singing.

It is to be noted that in viewof the worldwide crisis of coro-navirus, a creative initiative istaken by the CultureDepartment Madhya PradeshGovernment by connectingthe artists of the country andState, which has received anencouraging response. All theacts are being uploaded on theofficial YouTube channel ofDepartment of Culture.

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Delivering the Key NoteAddress on the second

day of the four-day VirtualNational Conference organizedby Ambedkar University ofSocial Sciences on ArtificialIntelligence is shaping thefuture of Human Resources,Prof. Ajay Singh, ViceChancellor of Sri Sri Universityof Cuttack said that the wholeworld is now moving towardsdigital transformation. Themain reason for this change isthe inclusion of machines andintelligent systems in humanlife.

Artificial intelligence is aconcept in which a computercontrolled robot or a softwarethinks wisely, just as intelligentpeople think. Making of intel-ligent machines, especiallyintelligent computer programsis made with the use of scienceengineering and use ofArtificial Intelligence is grow-ing rapidly at work sites. Theselection and recruitment

process of human resources inindustrial areas and trainingand development programmesare also done through theseIntelligent Machines.

He further added that thecondition of the Labourersbefore the Factory Act 1948was extremely pathetic. Butthere was some change after theimplementation of the Act.But at present employmentopportunities of 10 to 20 crorepersons have been lost accord-ing to various reports. It is veryunfortunate that there aremany laws and rules in the Actsin India to protect the interestsof the working, but the laws arenot being implemented effec-tively. The situation has notchanged even decades afterthe Industrial Revolution.

Delivering the presidentialaddress, Prof. P.N Mishra,Director of the School ofEconomics, Devi AhilyaUniversity, Indore. said thatboth labor and capital are nec-essary for industries. Laborand capital complement each

other. But in the epidemic,industrial institutions left theirworkers in the lurch. It is nec-essary to maintain a cordialrelationship between labor andcapital. The situation ofemployees working in unorga-

nized sectors has become worseduring the period Pandemic.Employers and the state shouldbe responsible for workers'safety in the event of a tragedy.In the Indian Constitution,there is provision of equality,freedom and justice for all cit-izens.

Giving welcome address,the coordinator of the confer-ence Prof. RK Shukla said thatCovid-19 brought new chal-lenges to us in the beginning of2020 year. There is a need toreinforce ourselves at the timeof this terrible tragedy. Humanresource needs to develop newskills and techniques in indus-trial organisations. It is time forthe employees working in orga-nized and unorganized sectorsto adjust to the new circum-stances.

While giving the vote ofthanks Prof. Kishore John saidthat the Covid-19 has createduncertainty in all areas. Theposition of public sectoremployees is better than privatesector employees.

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Punjab on Wednesdayrecorded the highest num-

ber of coronavirus deaths, 29,in the State in a single day,along with whopping 894 cases— pushing the state’s COVID-19 tally closer to 20,000 figureat 19,856 and death toll at 491.

Ludhiana continued toreport the highest number ofcases, reporting 303 cases andnine deaths in the past 24hours.

Of the total 29 deaths,Ludhiana reported nine, fol-lowed by five in Patiala, four inJalandhar, three in Gurdaspur,two in Sangrur, while onedeath each was reported fromAmritsar, Faridkot, Ferozeour,Kapurthala, Mansa and Ropar.

Besides 303 cases fromLudhiana, 185 cases werereported in Patiala, 101 inJalandhar, 53 in Amritsar, 33 inBarnala, 29 in Bathinda, 27 inSAS Nagar (Mohali), 23 inTarn Taran, 19 in Ferozepur, 18

in Pathankot, 17 in Sangrur, 14each in Moga and FatehgarhSahib, 13 in Faridkot, 11 inMuktsar, 10 in Ropar, nine inFazilka, eight in Kapurthala, sixin Hoshiarpur, and one inGurdaspur.

As many 24 cops — includ-ing 11 from Patiala, four eachin Ludhiana and Amritsar, twoin Moga and one each inPathankot, Fatehgarh Sahib,and one police official inKapurthala — are among thefresh acses reported onWednesday.

Besides, nine BorderSecurity Force (BSF) troopers— including five from Amritsarand four from Tarn Taran,seven frontline workers, oneprisoner from Ferozepur, and21 healthcare workers areamong the fresh cases report-ed in past 24 hours. As many21 positive cases have travelhistory to other states or coun-tries.

In all, 452 patients —including Patiala-183, Sangrur-

26, SAS Nagar-3, Hoshiarpur-8, Gurdaspur-2, Ferozepur-29,Tarn Taran-12, Bathinda-21,Fatehgarh Sahib-5, Moga-28,SBS Nagar-14, Faridkot-25,Fazilka-36, Kapurthala-11,Ropar-41, Muktsar-7, Barnala-1 — were discharged onWednesday after recoveringfrom the deadly contagion.

With this, the total numberof recoveries have reached12,943 (65 percent), with thestate still having 6,422 activecases (32 percent of the totalcases). Among these activecases, 148 patients are on oxy-gen support while 22 patientsare in critical condition and onventilator support.

There are 6,523 contain-ment zones across the State.

13 CRPF personnel who wereto deploy for CaptAmarinder’s security test pos-itive

As many as 13 CentralReserve Police Force (CRPF)personnel, who were about to

join Punjab Chief MinisterCapt Amarinder Singh’s secu-rity detail, have tested positiveon Wednesday.

These CRPF personnelwere not in the contact of theChief Minister at any point oftime, and in fact, their testswere conducted as they were tojoin the Cm’s security.

A senior official main-tained that jawans, who havetested positive, were notdeployed with the ChiefMinister. “There are two unitsof CRPF earmarked for CM’ssecurity and they work onrotation.

One unit is deployed forsecurity of the CM while theother is in reserve. When it isthe time for the reserve unit todeploy for security, all person-nel undergo a mandatory coro-navirus test. When the result ofthis test came out, 13 person-nel tested positive and theyhave been withdrawn and areundergoing treatment,” saidthe officer.

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A25-year-old man was killedwhile his friend was

injured by unidentified personsduring a robbery in west Delhi’sTilak Nagar area. The incidentoccurred on Tuesday night.

According to a police, onTuesday at 11.29 pm, an infor-mation regarding robbery wasreceived at Tilak Nagar policestation.

After reaching the spot,one scooter was found and theinjured were already shifted toDDU Hospital.

“The injured, Dheeraj, wasstabbed in left thigh, whileRanjan, 25, suffered injury inright thigh and was declaredbrought dead. On furtherenquiry, it was found that threemen came on a bike androbbed laptop, mobile andsome money.

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With an aim to boost rev-enue that was restricted

due to Covid-19 pandemic,Delhi Deputy Chief MinisterManish Sisodia on Wednesdaydirected the Dialogue andDevelopment Commission(DDC) to carry out a detailedstudy on measures to improveDelhi Government’s revenuebase.

Sisodia said that DDCshould suggest short and long-term measures to improve therevenue base of Delhi. Thedeputy CM also directed theDDC to present its findingswithin two months.

Delhi has among the high-er per capita incomes in thecountry, but holds 19th posi-tion in terms of own tax rev-enue to ‘gross state domesticproduct ‘ (GSDP) ratio, saidSisodia, adding that DDCshould consult with leadingexperts of the field and relevantorganisations in public financeto carry out this study so as topresent a holistic analysis of thecurrent situation and improve-ment measures that hold themaximum potential.

Citing data from Delhi’seconomic survey 2019-20, hesaid that as per the economicsurvey, though Delhi is one ofthe highest per capita incomestates in the country, its posi-tion is 19th in terms of own taxrevenue as percentage of GSDP(4.73per cent during 2018-19.

“The tax revenue as per-centage of GSDP in 2019-20 areUttar Pradesh 9.1), Kerala (7.7),Rajasthan (7.2), Maharashtra

(7.1) and Andhra Pradesh(7.0),” he said.

Looking at Delhi’s trenditself, its tax revenue to GSDPwas 6.18 per cent in 2019-10,which reduced to 5.38 per centin 2014-15 and further reducedto 4.73 per cent in 2018-19, hesaid, adding that in compari-son, the average tax revenue forall states as a percentage of theirGSDP was 5.94per cent in2009-10, which increased to6.25per cent in 2014-15 andfurther increased to 6.69percent in 2018-19

"There is scope for improv-ing tax to GSDP by improvingthe revenue base. DDC maycarry out a detailed study on allcontributing factors byanalysing all relevant tax-relat-ed data of GNCTD and suggestshort and long-term measuresthat need to be taken toimprove the revenue base inGNCTD,” he said.

Commenting on thisdevelopment, DDC vice-chair-man Jasmine Shah said, "Delhigovernment's early call foropening the economy and arobust healthcare strategy hasset the right conditions for aneconomic revival,”

“The DDC will perform a

rigorous study on the improve-ment of the revenue base ofDelhi. We will involve the fieldexperts to perform this study.Today, the Delhi model offighting against COVID-19 hasbecome a model for acrossIndia and we are confident thatwith time and a proper strate-gy, we will be able to overcomethe revenue deficit too," headded.

In a bid to improve Delhi’srevenue deficit situation, thetrade and taxes department ofDelhi government under thedirections of the FinanceMinister, has started analysingthe return filing status of tax-payers registered under (Goodsand Services Tax) GST.

Sisodia held a meeting onTuesday with the officials of thedepartment where it was pre-sented that around 15000 tax-payers were analysed and near-ly 970 taxpayers have not filedreturns for 2020-21 fromJanuary to March.

The Delhi government hasalso found that this year near-ly 10800 companies paid less-er or zero tax from January toMarch. Taking cognizance ofthese findings the Delhi gov-ernment has prepared a list ofdefaulters.

Sisodia has appealed to allthe companies to immediatelydeposit the taxes. He also saidthat the Delhi government willtake stringent actions againstthe defaulters.

Delhi has till now evaluat-ed 15,000 companies but in thefuture evaluation of seven lakhcompanies registered underGST will be done.

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A12-year-old girl was sexu-ally assaulted by an

unknown person in WestDelhi’s Paschim Vihar area.Theincident took place on Tuesday.

Police said that the girl hasseveral injury marks on herbody and is currently admittedat All India Institute of MedicalSciences (AIIMS) where hercondition is stated to be serious.

According to a seniorpolice official, police receivedinformation regarding the inci-dent on Tuesday evening.

"The victim was taken to anearby hospital where she wastreated and later referred toanother hospital in the city.Police have registered a caseunder relevant sections," saidthe senior police official.

According to A Koan, theDeputy Commissioner ofPolice (DCP), Outer district,police received information onTuesday regarding assault witha minor girl in Paschim ViharWest police station. An FIRunder section 307 (attempt tomurder) and POCSO Act hasbeen registered and furtherinvestigation is under progress.

"During preliminary inves-tigation, it was found that theparents of the girl are labour-ers and work in a factory. Theincident happened with herwhen she was alone in herhouse," said police.

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A22-year-old man and oneof his friends were shot at

allegedly by a group of peoplein outer Delhi’s Narela onTuesday night. Police said thatinitial investigation revealedthat the accused were known tothe victims.

According to a seniorpolice official, the victim Sagarand his three friends --Sandeep, Sagar and Adil --were returning home in a carlate on Tuesday night, when sixmen arrived at Saboli Road ontwo motorcycles and a four-wheeler and fired upon them.

“Sagar and Sandeep, whowere seated in front of the car,were injured while their otherfriends who were sitting at thebackseat escaped unhurt andimmediately informed policeabout the firing,” said the seniorpolice official.

“Sagar and Sandeep wererushed to a nearby hospital.Sagar was discharged after treat-ment but Sandeep has beenreferred to another hospital. Hiscondition is stated to be stable.All the culprits involved in theincident have been identifiedand will be nabbed soon,” saidGaurav Sharma, the DeputyCommissioner of Police (DCP),Outer north district.

“It is suspected that mon-etary dispute might be the rea-son for the attack,” said theDCP.

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Delhi Police CommissionerSN Shrivastava on

Wednesday met all the suc-cessful rank holders of UnionPublic Service Commissionexamination, who come fromDelhi Police family.

The CP congratulatedVishakha Yadav (AIR 6),Navneet Mann (AIR 33),Natisha Mathur (AIR 37),Garima (AIR 459), GauravKumar (AIR 475) andConstable Firoz Alam (AIR645) on their success and pre-sented them with mementos.

During interaction, CP,Delhi underlined that theirsuccess is not only a matter ofpride for Delhi Police, butwould also inspire Delhi Policewards to follow in their foot-steps. The CP, Delhi wishedthem success in all their futureendeavors.

Vishakha Yadav is daugh-

ter of Assistant Sub-Inspector(ASI) Raj Kumar posted inDwarka district, whileNavneet Mann’s fatherInspector, Sukhdev SinghMann is posted in Vigilanceunit.

Both Natisha Mathur andGarima are probationerAssistant Commissioners ofPolice (ACsP) undergoingtraining at Police TrainingCollege (PTC), Jharoda Kalan.Garima is daughter of ASI ShriKrishan posted in PCR unit.Gaurav Kumar is son of lateInspector VK Singh who wasposted as Additional SHO,Sadar Bazar when he left forheavenly abode in 2014.

Constable Firoz Alamjoined Delhi Police in 2010and is presently posted inCPCR unit, Haiderpur.

“He has done exceedinglywell by working hard in atough job and excelling instudies at the same time,” saidpolice.

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ARat snake was found in adesk drawer at the Food

Corporation of India office inMayapuri on Wednesday.

A rescue team membersaid some files, an employeeat the Food Corporation ofIndia office ended up findingmuch more than he bargainedfor. A large Rat snake wascomfortably nestled in thebottom most drawer and onecan only imagine its displea-sure on being disturbed.

Having dealt with reptilesin the office before, the staffimmediately reported theincident to Wildlife SOS ontheir emergency helpline andrequested for aid.

Sharing details on rescuemission, a Wildlife SoS teammember said, “The rescuewas challenging as the snakewas caught between the bot-tom and top drawers.

“ The team exercisedimmense caution so as toavoid hurting the distressedsnake. After disassemblingthe desk, the reptile was safe-ly transferred into a trans-portation unit from where itwas taken to a safe place.”

Rat snake (Ptyas mucosa)also known as the Oriental ratsnake is a highly adaptablespecies and is commonlyfound in urban areas. It is anon-venomous species and ispopularly known as ‘Dhaman’.

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Aman stabbed a couple todeath following a quarrel

in outer Delhi’s Narela andthereafter ended his life by con-suming poison. The incidenttook place late on Tuesdaynight.

Police said that a quarrelbroke out between the coupleand their neighbour over someissue, following which the 50-year-old accused, MohammadMushtaq, stabbed the couplewith a knife. “Later, he went tohis house, changed his bloodstained clothes and thenallegedly consumed poison.He died during treatment,”police said.

The couple had two chil-dren who are now being takencare of by another neighbourtill their relatives arrive fromtheir hometown in Bihar

According to GauravSharma, the DeputyCommissioner of Police(DCP), Outer north district,police received a police controlroom (PCR) call regarding themurder around 2.40 am.

“On reaching the spot, thewoman and her husband werefound dead and the accused -- Mohammad Mushtaq -- hadconsumed poison after killingthe couple. He later died dur-ing the course of treatment,”said the DCP adding that theknife has been recovered and

legal action is being taken.“When police team was

inspecting the crime scene,the accused (who had con-sumed poison before the teamreached) went up to the terraceand hid himself. But one of theneighbours alerted us abouthim and he was nabbed,” said

police official privy to investi-gation.

“After he was caught, theaccused confessed to killing thecouple. He alleged that thevictim used to follow hisdaughter and this annoyedhim. But soon, the accused fellunconscious and was rushed to

a nearby hospital where he diedduring treatment, he said.

“Investigations alsorevealed that the accused hadfights in the past with the cou-ple and other neighbours. Theaccused had a young daughterand was apparently not happywith the victim's dressing sense.The accused had earlier object-ed to his wearing shorts and sit-ting in front of their house.This had lead to many fights,”he said.

The couple hailed from avillage in Bihar. The manworked as a mechanic and his25-year-old wife was a homemaker. They have two children-- a boy aged around six and agirl aged three, police said.

Page 4: ˘ˇˆ˙˝˛ ˇ˚˙˛ˆ˝ ˜ ˙˚˛! ˆ˜ · India’s Covid-19 death count crossed 40,000 marks on Wednesday with Maharashtra alone accounting for 334 deaths during the last 24 hours

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In a first of its kind move, theBorder Security Force (BSF)

has planned a route march of10 km for officers of DeputyInspector General (DIG) rankand above at its training acad-emy at Bhondsi in Haryana inan apparent bid to test theirphysical fitness and endurance.

In an “urgent” letter issuedby the BSF Directorate here onFriday, the paramilitary forcesaid, “I have been directed toconvey that as intimated by DGSecretariat, FHQ (ForceHeadQuarters), DG BSF hasdesired that 10 kms RouteMarch will be conducted at 95BN (Battalion) BSF, Bhondsi,(Haryana) on August 16, 2020.All DIsG (Deputy InspectorsGeneral) and above rank offi-cers posted in Delhi will attendthe same.”

“In view of the above, allDtes (Directorates/ancillaries toforward nominal roll of DIsGposted in yourDirectorates/ancillaries to thisDirectorate by 04th Aug 2020for our further course of action,please,” Second-in-CommandVinod Yadav said in his lettertitled “10 Kms Route March forOfficers of the Rank of DIsGand Above.”

The letter has been for-warded to all Directorates of theBSF Headquarters here includ-ing Medical Directorate/ DG’sS e c r e t a r i a t / L a wBranch/Engineering Branch/AirWing/Finance Wing/IG (HQ)

FHQ/DIG (HQ) and a fewtraining institutions located inand around Delhi.

While the BSF spokesper-son expressed inability in pro-viding the exact number of offi-cials in the rank of DIG andabove in the national capital,sources said there were at least60 officials in the senior rankswho could attend the march.

While a large number ofofficials in the BSF ranks, includ-ing IPS officers are physically fit,those not up to the mark couldfind the route march challeng-ing, insiders said.

The BSF secures capaciouslengths of over 6,000 kmInternational Boundaries withPakistan and Bangladesh run-ning down from HimalayanRanges to Thar Desert and tothe Great Rann of Kutch onWestern borders as also thefrontier in the east.

“These boots on groundare the real strength and theprime resources of force to becared for, catered and groomed.Their holistic well-being will bemy primary tasks in the timesto come,” DG SS Deswal hadsaid in his message after takingadditional charge of the forceearlier this year.

“Capacity building of menand women of force with cor-responding resource manage-ment for the optimal use will becore areas of my priorities,”Deswal, who also heads theITBP, had exhorted.

Deswal is himself a fitnessfreak and undoubtedly one ofthe most physically fit para-military bosses who had under-taken a 100-km speed march inFebruary with senior ITBPofficers from Bikaner district’sMehrasar to Jodhpur inRajasthan.

The routes covered byDeswal on the Himalayanrange include Lipulekh Pass,Sangla Valley (103 KM), AuliTapovan and GangotriTapovan, among others.

The trek record of Deswalincludes 30 km around BhriguLake in Himachal Pradesh andtouched the highest point at14,100 ft, Amarnath Yatra route(42 km, highest point: 14,500ft), Lipulekh Pass (30 km,highest point: 17,060 km),Sangla Valley, Kinnaur inHimachal Pradesh (103 km,highest point: 15,000 ft) andMussoorie (Distance covered:42 km, highest point: 6,800 ft).

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For the first time since thecountry gained freedom, the

armed forces bands will performall over the country celebratingthe Independence Day to paytribute to corona warriors.

Giving this information

here on Wednesday, DefenceMinistry officials said the per-formances are intended as ges-tures of gratitude and appreci-ation of the nation towards theCorona warriors who havebeen steadfastly fighting tostop the spread of the coron-avirus in the country even atthe risk of their lives.

The bands of Army, Navyand Police have performed atPorbandar, Hyderabad,Bengaluru, Raipur, Amritsar,Guwahati, Allahabad andKolkata so far. The Military andPolice Bands performed onWednesday in Vishakha-pat-nam, Nagpur and Gwalior.

On August 7, the MilitaryBands are scheduled to per-form in Srinagar and Kolkata.Tri services Band will be givingthree performances in Delhi,one each at Red Fort, at Rajpathand at India Gate on August 8,9 and 12 respectively. \

Military and Police Bandswill also perform in Mumbai,Ahmedabad, Shimla andAlmora on August 8, inChennai, Nasirabad, ANC(Andaman& NicobarCommand) Flag Point andDandi on August 9 and inImphal, Bhopal and Jhansi onAugust 12. The final perfor-mance of the series will be heldon August 13 in Lucknow,Faizabad, Shillong, Maduraiand Champaran.

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India is mulling a moreintense engagement to break

the logjam on the Line ofActual Control (LAC) inEastern Ladakh with Chinawhile insisting for completewithdrawal of troops. Thenext round of talks, be it mili-tary or diplomatic, will takeplace after studying the groundsituation with New Delhi alsoseeking restoration of statusquo ante on the border.

These issues were in mainfocus during the nearly three-hour-long China Study Group(CSG) meeting here onTuesday to review the out-come of the fifth round of talksbetween the CorpsCommanders in Moldo nearLadakh on Sunday last. Thetalks between Lt GeneralHarinder Singh and MajorGeneral Liu Lin lasted more

than 10 hours.While there was no official

word on the meeting so far,sources said here onWednesday, there was littleprogress made due to China’sreluctance to withdraw itstroops from the contentiousPangong Tso(lake). It was acause of concern as the Chinesehave intruded more than fivekm into India. Besides occu-pying mountain spurs or‘Finger,’ they have also built ajetty and brought scores of

fast interceptor boats to theIndian side of the lake.

In fact, the series of standoffs on the LAC started fromthe Pangong when the Chineseintruded and obstructed anIndian army patrol. It led toexchange of fisticuffs betweenthe two sides on May 5.

Attended by DefenceMinister Rajnath Singh,External Affairs Minister SJaishankar, National SecurityAdviser (NSA) Ajit Doval andArmy chief MM Naravane, the

CSG took stock of the presentscenario on the border after thefifth round of talks.

It was felt that sustainedengagement with China at thediplomatic and political levelwas the way out to defuse ten-sion at the volatile border. TheCSG was of the opinion thatsuch intense and regular par-leys at all levels will finallyensure visible disengagementby both the sides, sources said.

While China more or lesscompletely pulled back itstroops from the Galwan valley,Gogra sand Hot Springs, it wasnot doing so at the PangongTso. The two CorpsCommanders discussed thisissue in great detail on Sundaywith India also maintainingthat the Chinese have to restorestatus quo ante. It means theChinese troops will have to goback to their positions as theyon April 30.

In this backdrop, the IndianArmy is not taking any chancesand is prepared for a long haulif the Chinese do not withdraw.With winter approaching bySeptember end in the higherreaches of Ladakh, theGovernment has given the goahead for purchasing morehigh-altitude tents, pre-fabri-cated huts and other such logis-tical back up to allow the sol-diers to be deployed even intemperature dipping to minus20 degrees, they said.

Also, more than 30,000Indian troops are now accli-matised to function at heightsof more than 15,000 feet wherethe oxygen is less. In fact, mostof these troops are veterans ofdeployment at the Siachenglacier and other such high-altitude areas. They are alreadyat vantage positions in Ladakhand can be moved forward ata short notice.

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The Central IndustrialSecurity Force (CISF) on

Wednesday took over the secu-rity of Leh Airport that wasearlier secured by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP).

The CISF will have a sanc-tioned strength of more than180 personnel to secure theLeh airport. The unit will beheaded by a DeputyCommandant rank officer.With this induction, total unitsunder CISF security coverraised to 349 including 64 air-ports as on date.

During a ceremony at theairport attended by CISF DGRajesh Ranjan, Sonam Norbu,Director, Leh Airport, handedover a key replica to DeputyCommandant, SanketGaikwad as a symbol of hand-ing over the reins of security to

the CISF.In his address, Ranjan elab-

orated on the dynamics ofsecurity at this HypersensitiveAirport. DG, CISF emphasisedthat a coordinated effort is to bemade by all government agen-cies and stakeholders to ensuresecurity of Leh airport.

Kushok Bakula

Rimpochee Leh Airport islocated in Western Himalayas,Ladakh Region and serves asthe main Airport of the wholeLadakh Region.

During winter months,Leh airport is the only gatewayof Ladakh as there is limitedconnectivity by road due toheavy snowfall. Civil com-

mercial flight started in 1978.This is the highest altitude air-port of India that operates inextreme weather conditions(+35 Degrees Celsius to -35Degrees Celsius). This is themost tourist intensive airportof India.

After the function, DG,CISF along-with other seniorofficers of CISF and AirportDirector, Leh airport had asecurity-walk around of allthe areas of airport includingterminal building and airside.

Earlier, on reaching Leh onTuesday, Ranjan interacted withCISF personnel who will beshouldering the security of Lehairport, and exhorted them tostrive hard to achieve the stateof zero-error security. He alsoinaugurated barracks for CISFpersonnel and reviewed theadministrative and operationalarrangements at the airport.

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The Centre on Wednesdayasked all its departments to

conduct disciplinary proceed-ings through video confer-encing against employeesaccused of corruption andother administrative irregu-larities. The move comes afterthe government noticed thatdisciplinary proceedings werebeing deferred or delayed dueto the coronavirus outbreak.

In an order, theDepartment of PersonnelTraining (DoPT) Ministrycited its 2017 order, sayingvideo conferencing should beutilised to the maximumextent possible to minimisetravel undertaken by theEnquiry Officer/PresentingOfficer /Charged Officer.

“It is hereby reiterated thatthe authorities concerned mayconduct the disciplinary pro-ceedings with the aid of videoconferencing, subject to thecondition that principles ofnatural justice are fullyadhered to, while conductingthe proceedings through suchdigital mode,” the ministrysaid in the order issued to allthe Central Governmentdepartments.

On the other hand theDoPT ordered that ConsumerAffairs Secretary LeenaNandan will be part of a com-mittee to examine the repre-sentation of officials sacked foralleged inefficiency or cor-ruption from the Governmentservice. The three-member

panel has been reconstitutedby the ministry. Besides Nandan, AshutoshJindal, Joint Secretary in theCabinet Secretariat, will be theother member of the commit-tee, it said.

One member nominatedby the cadre controllingauthority (under whoseadministrative control thealleged corrupt officials come)will also be part of the panel,the order issued to all secre-taries of central governmentdepartments said. The com-mittee examines the repre-sentation of employees whoare sacked under FundamentalRule (FR) 56 (J), (I) and Rule48 of the Central Civil Services(Pension) Rules 1972. Both theprovisions allow the govern-ment to examine the cases ofgovernment employees whocan be sacked in public inter-est for being allegedly corruptor inefficient.

Almost two years ago thegovernment had launched anonline system for transparentand quicker completion ofdepartmental inquiries against Central Governmentemployees.

A senior DoPT officialon Wednesday issuing thefresh directions said the factorsfor delay include late replies bythe officer charged or acquisi-tion of documents required forproving details of the charges,adjournments during theenquiry, and lack of account-ability for completion ofenquiry.

The online system is acloud based technology andprovides interface to differentstakeholders like the adminis-trative ministry that initiated the enquiry, the cadrecontrolling authority, charged officer and enquiryofficer as well.

Under the system, all doc-uments required for enquirywill be stored online andauthenticated through digitalsignatures. The communica-tion between the differentstakeholders will be throughthe system with provision foremail and SMS alerts. Thesoftware has provision forproviding status of all pendingcases on real time basis.

According to CentralVigilance Commission (CVC),around 5,000 Governmentofficers working in variousdepartments are facing disci-plinary proceedings for theiralleged involvement in cor-ruption or for violation ofservice rules.

According to theGovernment, there had beenserious concerns raised onthe enormous time and delayencountered for completion ofdepartmental proceedingsinstituted against Governmentservants. These proceedingswere taking anywhere up toseven years for completionand ever since implementationof online redresssal these mat-ters now get completed inthree years but theGovernment wants to bring itdown to two years.

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The Ministry of ConsumerAffairs on Wednesday

claimed that States have liftedabout 118 Lakh Metric Tons(LMT) (99 per cent) foodgrains from Food Corporationof India (FCI) and they havedistributed over 111.52 LMT(93.5 per cent) of allocated foodgrains during April-June 2020Prime Minister Garib KalyanAnna Yojana’ (PMGKY).

Due to coronavirus pan-demic, the Modi governmenthas rolled out a special schemeto provide free food grains toabout 81 Crore National FoodSecurity Act (NFSA) benefi-ciaries covered under

Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY)and Priority Householders(PHH) in March 2020.

The government pledgedto provide 5 kg rice or wheatand 1 kg chana, over and abovetheir regular monthly entitle-ments. Later, the governmentextended the deadline ofPMGKAY for five moremonths till November to pre-vent hardships during the fes-tive season. “During this peri-od, a total of 201 LMT foodgrains will be distributedamong 81 crore beneficiaries,as well as a total of 12 LMTwhole chana will be distributedamong 19.4 crore families, saidthe Ministry of ConsumerAffairs.

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Human embryos could be atthe risk of SARS-CoV-2

virus in as early as the secondweek of pregnancy if the would-be-mom is Covid-19 positive,according to a study publishedin the Royal Society’s journal‘Open Biology’.

Conducted by the scientistsfrom the University ofCambridge and the CaliforniaInstitute of Technology(Caltech), the study said thatgenes that are thought to play arole in how the Coronavirusinfects our cells have been foundto be active in embryos as earlyas during the second week ofpregnancy.

“This could mean embryosare susceptible to COVID-19 ifthe mother gets sick, potential-ly affecting the chances of a suc-

cessful pregnancy,’ said the sci-entists.

To examine the risks, theyused technology developed byProfessor Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz at the University ofCambridge to culture humanembryos through the stage theynormally implant in the body ofthe mother to look at the activ-ity - or ‘expression’ - of key genesin the embryo.

On the surface of the SARS-CoV-2 virus are large ‘spike’ pro-teins. Spike proteins bind toACE2, a protein receptor foundon the surface of cells in our

body. Both the spike protein andACE2 are then cleaved, allowinggenetic material from the virusto enter the host cell. The virusmanipulates the host cell’smachinery to allow the virus toreplicate and spread.

The researchers found pat-terns of expression of the genesACE2, which provide the genet-ic code for the SARS-CoV-2receptor, and TMPRSS2, whichprovides the code for a moleculethat cleaves both the viral spikeprotein and the ACE2 receptor,allowing infection to occur.

These genes were expressedduring key stages of the embryo’sdevelopment, and in parts of theembryo that go on to developinto tissues that interact with thematernal blood supply for nutri-ent exchange.

Gene expression requiresthat the DNA code is first copied

into an RNA message, whichthen directs the synthesis of theencoded protein. The studyreports the finding of the RNAmessengers.

Professor MagdalenaZernicka-Goetz from theUniversity of Cambridge andCaltech, said: “Our work sug-gests that the human embryocould be susceptible to Covid-19 as early as the secondweek of pregnancy if the moth-er gets sick.

“To know whether this real-ly could happen, it now becomesvery important to know whetherthe ACE2 and TMPRSS2 pro-teins are made and becomecorrectly positioned at cell sur-faces. If these next steps are alsotaking place, it is possible thatthe virus could be transmittedfrom the mother and infect theembryo’s cells.”

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The Indian Council ofMedical Research (ICMR)

is likely to conduct a longitu-dinal study on the health sta-tus of the Covid-recoveredpatients amid concerns that agood number of them havebeen facing health problemslike falling sick again or fatigue.

A senior scientist from theICMR, on the condition ofanonymity, said that there havebeen various reports appearingfrom various quarters that evensome Covid-19 recoveredpatients are facing some healthissues.

“This is a matter of con-cern. Now six months since thepandemic broke out, we havesufficient recovered caseswhich can be now studied.These study will shed light on

this so-called false-dawn phe-nomenon caused by this mys-terious pathogen that emergedonly six months ago. Solvingthe puzzle will inform a broadrange of challenges, help thecovid-recovered patients howto further take precautions,”said the scientist.

Ongoing problems include

fatigue, a racing heartbeat,shortness of breath, achy joints,foggy thinking, a persistentloss of sense of smell, anddamage to the heart, lungs, kid-neys, and brain, said the sci-entist adding that there couldbe the reason that the virusleaves some residual in thebody which causes changes inthe vital organs. But until astudy is conducted, the reasonswill remain a mystery.

In fact the issue is beingdeliberated at the global levelalso. For instance, Edwin J.R.van Beek, chair of clinical radi-ology at the University ofEdinburgh’s Queens MedicalResearch Institute said in areport, “So far, there hasn’t beenenough research to concludewhy symptoms seem to re-emerge in some people, andwhether they experience rein-

fection or if the virus persistsfor weeks. One possibility isthat Covid-19 causes bloodclots that may cause potential-ly dangerous complicationsunless treated with anticoagu-lant medications.”

There’s “a lot of unknownsand uncertainty in the devel-opment of individual immuni-ty, ‘’ said the scientist, addingthat development of antibodiesinside the body is not neces-sarily development of immu-nity against this disease.

In fact, a study published inNature Medicine in June hadpointed out that people whohave recovered from Covid-19may have antibodies only fortwo to three months.

However, the conclusionsmight not necessarily meanthat a recovered person can getreinfected, stated the authors.

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Page 5: ˘ˇˆ˙˝˛ ˇ˚˙˛ˆ˝ ˜ ˙˚˛! ˆ˜ · India’s Covid-19 death count crossed 40,000 marks on Wednesday with Maharashtra alone accounting for 334 deaths during the last 24 hours

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Prime Minister NarendraModi's foresight and wis-

dom paved the way for a peace-ful resolution of the Ram tem-ple issue and fulfilled the dreamof Indians after 500 years of"long and hard" struggle, UttarPradesh Chief Minister YogiAdityanath said on Wednesday.

After five centuries, thislong-awaited day has come, ful-filling the dreams of 135 croreIndians and devotees across theglobe, he said at the ground-breaking ceremony for thetemple here.

"There was a long and hard

struggle for 500 years. But thepower of Indian democraticvalues, judiciary and executive,under the leadership of PMModi, has shown the worldhow solutions to problems canbe found peacefully throughdemocratic and constitutionalmeans," Adityanath said.

Many generations passeddreaming of a grand temple atthe Ram Janmabhoomi site inAyodhya and many people sac-rificed themselves in the strug-gle, he said.

Thanks to Prime MinisterModi that the path to thepeaceful solution to the issuecould be found through con-stitutional means, while pro-

tecting democratic principlesand ideals, Adityanath said.

"People are experiencingthis proud moment because ofPrime Minister NarendraModi's wisdom and foresight,"the Uttar Pradesh ChiefMinister said.

Describing it as a veryemotional and exciting day,Adityanath said this is not justthe ground breaking ceremonyof a temple, but an occasion topresent before the world theIndia Prime Minister Modihas taken forward in six yearsto signify the idea of 'RamRajya' where there is no dis-crimination on the basis ofcaste, region or language.

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Aligarh is a major centre whereearthen lamps are made in a

huge amount every year. But pottershave to wait for the end of the yearfestive that is diwali to get theirlamps sold and to do business.However amidst this covid crisis,Ayodhya Bhumi Pujan has provento be no less than a festival for thesesmall businessmen to do the busi-ness.

Where the political representa-tives including Yogi Adityanath,the chief minister of Uttar Pradeshand the religious individuals wereasking the nation to light up diyason 5th August so as to celebrate theBhoomi pujan for Ram Mandir atAyodhya, the residents made queueto buy these earthen lamps on this

occasion.Since monday morning more

than 2 lakhs of diya have been soldwithin the city and people were ask-ing to supply diyas till wednesdayevening.

A potter named Prempal toldPioneer that he managedto sell over 6500 diyas since mon-

day morning and had orders forsupply of 10,000 more by wednes-day evening.

Another potter Raj Kumari toldthat she has sold over 5,500 diyas tilltuesday evening and have advanceorder for 5000 more includingsome with special designs. She fur-ther said that August is hardly apeak season for them to sell earth-en lamps but Ram Mandir BhoomiPujan has come as a blessing for usim this covid crisis.

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Aligarh: Covid-19 broke thebackbone of sculpture businessin Aligarh. Ninety per cent ofthe sculpture supplied in tem-ples all over India are manu-factured in Aligarh. The city hasaround 500 small and big fac-tories that manufacture thesculptures of Gods and Godess. They manufacture sculpturesfrom weighing 50g to 500 kg.These are supplied all overIndia and also exported abroadand does a business of about4,500crore including the exportbusiness. Covid -19 has hithard not only on this businessbut also on the workers whoused to work in these factories.

Brass sculpture of God andGodesses are made in Aligarh inall over North India. From herethese idols/sculptures are sup-plied all over India. This is thefirst time since independencethat only few sculptures hasgone out of town. Otherwise, onordinary days, these statues areported within the whole coun-try as well as exported abroad.

Currently the demand hascome down due to the closureof most of the temples in thecountry. Along with religiousplaces like Banaras, Ujjain,Prayagraj, Mathura, Vrindavan,Govardhan Parvat etc. all majortemples are also closed and theshops nearby are also closed.Due to which demand has beenless. Earlier, from Shri KrishnaJanmashtami to Navratri, therewas a great demand for sculp-tures of Gods and Goddesses.

Brass idols are mostly sold,apart fr them earthen statues arealso sold but due to the shinybrass statues, people like themmore. Along with these statues,the entire decoration is alsomade according to the sizewhich goes with these statues.This time this demand is alsovery less. Wholesale traderstold that these idols reach allover the country in tonnesfrom Aligarh.

Vipin Bihari Gupta.Chairman Aligarh StatueSuppliers Association toldPioneer that "All other pil-grimage sites from MathuraVrindavan, Barsana-Gokul,Banaras, Ujjain, Haridwar areclosed. People are in homes.That is why neither shops areopening nor there is a demandfor sculpture. This is the firsttime that there is silence in thewholesale market during thefestival of Janmashtami". PNS

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Political Tamil Nadu watched in awe onWednesday a sitting DMK MLA cross-

ing over to BJP even as Prime MinisterNarendra Modi was performing the BhoomiPuja at Ayodhya for the construction ofLord Ram Temple there.

Ku Ka Selvam, representing theThousand Lights constituency drove downto Kamalalayam, headquarters of TamilNadu BJP on Wednesday morning and tookpart in the special puja for Lord Ram per-formed there in connection with the BhumiPuja at Ayodhya.

Though the local media had reportedthat Selvam was likely to cross over to theBJP, he had categorically denied suchreports. On Wednesday morning, DMK president M K Stalin suspendedSelvam from the party for his Tuesday meet-ing with the BJP’s National President JPNadda.

On receipt of the suspension order,Selvam accompanied by his close aidesdrove down to Kamalayalam where he was

accorded a reception. BJP Tamil NaduPresident Dr Murugan welcomed Selvam tothe Hindutwa fold by draping him in a saf-fron robe.

“Many people are likely to ditch theDMK and cross over to the BJP in days tocome. The DMK is run by the family mem-bers of Stalin. It is Udhayanidhi’s writ(Stalin’s son) that runs in the party. Thereare many persons waiting in the wings toleave the DMK,” said Selvamm.

Selvam is the first lawmaker in the DMKto leave the party and join the saffronbrigade.

He is certain to loss his membership ofthe Legislative Assembly in the backdrop ofthe anti-defection law.

“I was disappointed because the partyleadership did not listen to my request fora suitable post. Till 2017, it was Karunanidhiwho was issuing orders. Then Stalin, his son,started issuing orders. Now it isKarunanidhi’s grandson who is the all-in-all of the party,” said Selvam who has putin more than two decades service for theDravidian major.

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Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjeeremembered Wednesday’s ground-breaking

ceremony at Ayodhya’s Ram Temple as a day thatwould reinforce the Indian legacy which under-scored the idea of Unity and Diversity and vowedto uphold the ideology of unity till her last breath.The State BJP on the other hand demandedAugust 5 to be declared as a national holiday.

This, even as the poll-bound State presenteda mixed picture of both celebrations and conflictwith Trinamool Congress and BJP leaders offer-ing Puja to Lord Rama — in some places and thereworks exchanging fisticuffs in other areas.Tweeting an oft bandied slogan of communal har-mony insisting “Hindu Muslim Sikh Isaai Aapasmein hain Bhai Bhai!” and “Mera Bharat Mahaan,Mahaan Hamara Hindustan,” (In is a great coun-try where, Hindu, Muslim Sikhs and Christianslike brothers,” Banerjee wrote that she would con-tinue to preserve this heritage till her last breath.“Our country has always upheld the age-old lega-cy of unity in diversity, and we must preserve thisto our last breath!” she wrote inspiring the peo-ple of the country to jettison hatred for mutuallove and harmony.

While the saffron leaders also celebrated theday by offering Pujas keeping indoors consider-ing the lockdown protocols as the Government

had declared Wednesday as a lockdown day tobreak the corona chain, State BJP president DilipGhosh made a demand for the day to be declaredas a national holiday.

“This day which signifies the culmination ofa 500-year-struggle is no less important than theIndependence Day and so we will request the cen-tral government to declare August 5 as nationalholiday,” Ghosh said adding “Providence will con-sign to the realms of insignificance those who areopposing the ground-breaking ceremony byinvoking state machinery.

He was criticizing the State Government fordeclaring lockdown on Wednesday. “This wasnothing less than a political lockdown. While you(the Government) changed the dates for other reli-gious groups they refused to do so for this Hindufestival. The people saw this and they willremember this. Those in power (read TMC) willhave to pay for this.”

Incidentally Banerjee’s tweet and Ghosh’strumpeting came in tandem with both TMC andBJP men competing with each other at variousplaces in celebrating the day by offering Puja toLord Rama. TMC leaders were seen offering pujasat Khidderpore in Kolkata, Adra in Purulia, Siuriin Birbhum district and Nandigram in EastMidnapore — where the party men took out along procession with an idol of Lord Rama, sourcessaid.

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While most parts of Kashmirvalley remained shut and

covered with barbed concertinawires along with the presence ofsecurity forces in vulnerablepockets, sweets were distributedand tricolor was unfurled atnumber of places in Jammuregion to mark the first anniver-sary of abrogation of Article 370and reorganisation of the erst-while State of Jammu & Kashmirinto two Union Territories onWednesday.

Even after lifting the curfewrestrictions imposed in Srinagardistrict, at least on a piece ofpaper, the majority of main-stream political leaders wereprevented from stepping out oftheir houses to attend a meetingat the residence of sitting par-liamentarian and NationalConference President Dr FarooqAbdullah.

At the same time, secondrung BJP leaders were allowedto assemble freely in differentparts of Kashmir valley to cele-brate the momentous occasiononly in the company of eachother.

These leaders unfurled tri-color and distributed sweetsafter chanting patriotic sloganshailing 'Mother India'. InAnantnag, a BJP leader RumisaRafiq also hoisted Indian tricolorat Lal Chowk in South Kashmir'sAnantnag district. Her imageswere circulated on various socialmedia platforms. Token cele-brations were also reportedfrom Bandipora where BJP dis-trict President was seen dancingwith a handful of party workersin the office premises after a briefceremony.

In Jammu region celebra-tions were also reported fromdifferent district headquarters ofKathua,Samba, Reasi,Udhampur, Rajouri,Doda andKishtwar as well.

BJP leaders along with partyworkers and local residentsunfurled tricolor at main cityjunctions, state BJP headquaretrsand distributed sweets.

BJP National Vice PresidentAvinash Rai Khanna, J&K BJPPresident Ravinder Raina, alongwith other senior leaders offeredflower garland to Dr ShyamaPrasad Mukherjee's statue &unfurl 110 feet tricolour atKathua on anniversary of abro-gation of Article370 & 35A.

Local residents in Jammu

were also seen hoisting tricoloratop their rooftops.

In Jammu, normal life wenton smoothly while it remainedparalysed in different parts ofKashmir valley due to strictrestrictions on ground zero.

Ironically, a meeting con-vened by the NationalConference President Dr FarooqAbdullah at his Gupkar road res-idence could not take place dueto strict restrictions.

Police vehicles remainedparked outside the residences ofmany leaders and they were pre-vented from stepping out.

Reacting to these develop-ments on ground zero, formerChief Minister Omar Abdullahtook to twitter to share hisangst.

In a series of tweets hewrote, "One year later theauthorities are still too afraid toallow us to meet much less carryout any normal political activi-ty. This fear speaks volumesabout the true situation on theground in Kashmir. "This isGupkar road today - policevehicles opposite our gates, con-certina wire strung across theroad at regular intervals & novehicles allowed. My father hadcalled a meeting of leaders ofMAINSTREAM parties todeliberate on the current situa-tion",tweeted Omar Abdullah.

In another tweet he said,"Clearly the meeting is not beingallowed to go ahead. The BJPgets to announce a 15 day cele-bration to mark 5th Aug & ahandful of us aren’t allowed tomeet on my father’s lawn. Somuch for BJP national leaderswondering why there is nopolitical activity".

"BJP displaying itshypocrisy. They can gather &celebrate. The rest of us can’teven meet to discuss what’shappening in J&K" Omar tweet-ed in response to the celebra-tions in the BJP office inSrinagar.

CPI (M) leader MYTarigami also shared his emo-tions on the occasion. He alsoposted a tweet to share hisanger, "Locks on gates, lockdowns as celebrations and lies asdefences has been the hallmarkof last year. Today, politicalleaders were supposed to meetat Dr Farooq Abdullah's resi-dence to discuss the politicalchallenges the region is facing.But unfortunately, we were notallowed".

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Though Tamil Nadu lost 112 lives to Covid-19in the last 24 hours ending Wednesday

evening, there are some positive signals showingthat the pandemic is gradually though slowly sub-siding in the State.

The number of new persons diagnosed withCovid-19 on Wednesday stood at 5,175 which wason the higher side of the numbers that tested pos-itive on Tuesday. But the total number of activecases in the State as on Wednesday was 54,184which is less than Tuesday’s 55,152.

The day also saw 59,156 persons getting test-ed on a single day in 125 laboratories in the State.Indications from Chennai is that the situation hasstabilised in the capital city as the number of newpatients tested positive for Covid-19 were shownas 1,044.

But the neighbouring districts of Chengalpet(487), Kancheepuram (342) and Thiruvallur(472) continued to be on the higher side of thepandemic. Virudhunagar which used to test 280to 400 new cases per day on an average showedonly 67 cases on Wednesday.

The neighbouring Kerala had 1,195 newCovid-19 patients on Wednesday. The situationin Kerala is causing concern as 971 persons outof the 1,195 positive cases tested on Wednesdaycontracted the pandemic through social trans-mission. In another sign that the situation is gravein the State, 79 persons could not name the sourcefrom where they contracted covid-19. Seven per-sons died because of Covid-19 in the last 24 hoursin Kerala, according to Chief Minister PinarayiVijayan. The Chief Minister stayed clear from anycontroversy when asked whether communitytransmission has set in the State on account of theunprecedented increase in the number of personscontracting the pandemic through local trans-mission. “That is not the major issue in the State.We are focussing only on controlling the disease,”said the chief minister.

The Indo Tibetan Border Police camp atAlappuzha has become another cause of concernin Kerala, said the Chief Minister. “We have askedthe ITBP authorities not to send new staff per-sons to Kerala because we have found that thenewly transferred personnel bring the pandem-ic to the State,” he said.

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The Shiv Sena onWednesday claimed credit

for the start of the constructionof Ram Mandir at Ayodya, bysaying that the developmentmeant the realisation of dreamnursed by late Sena chief BalThackeray, “who had openlysaid that he was proud allthose Shiv Sainiks who hadpulled down the Babri Masjid"and whose crusade for theLord Ram’s temple had come tofruition.

Shiv Sena leader andMaharashtra minister AadityaThackeray put out a tweetclaiming credit for the RamMandir. His tweet accompa-nied an image put out by theShiv Sena that showed pho-tographs of Lord Rama, late BalThackeray and current ShivSena president UddhavThackeray—with the proposedRam Mandir in the backdrop,and carried a caption“Shubharambh Ramarajyacha,S h u b h a r a m b hSwapnapurticha” ( State ofRamarajaya and realisation ofa dream).

“The Bhoomi Puja of thetemple of Hindus’ revered GodLord Ram has taken place.Today is the day of the com-

pletion of a dream nursed bylate Balasaheb Thackeray.Today’s is the most happy occa-sion for all of us. I would liketo convey my heart-felt con-gratulations to all of you,”Aaditya tweeted.

Earlier in the day, in astrongly worded editorial in itsofficial mouth-piece “Saamana”,the Shiv Sena made no bonesdispleasure over the lack ofinvitation for the Ram MandirBhoomi.

“BJP leader Kalyan Singhsacrificed his government, hewas not there on the dais. Weexpected him to be there in theinvitees’ list. Veteran BJP leaderL K Advani and late BalThackeray lit the light ofHindutva in the country. Theysent a message to the countrythat no one can rule the coun-try by ignoring the claims ofthe majority Hindus. Beingsecular does not mean you canlean towards only one religion”.

The Shiv Sena, in its edi-torial, recalled late Thackeraystatement who had lauded theShiv Sainiks who had partici-pated in the demolition ofBabri Masjid, by saying: “Babripadli, ti padnarya ShivSainikancha mala abhimanahe” (I am proud of the ShivSainiks who razed BabriMasjid). “Ram Mandir is theresult of a movement, sacrificesmade and bloodshed byHindus. The Prime Ministermay have performed the bhoo-mi puja at Ayodya, but thoseforgetting the smell of KarSevaks sacrifice emanatingfrom the soil of RamJanmabhoomi would have tobe termed as Ram drohiis.With this Bhoomi Puja of RamMandir, please end the politicsover it. That would be thewishes of Lord Ram. But, thatis the unanimous opinion ofpeople in the country”.

Taking a swipe at the rul-ing BJP and Prime MinisterNarendra Modi for trying tohog limelight over the BhoomiPuja of Ram Mandir, the Senaeditorial said: “The bhoomipuja is a celebration for thecountry and for all Hindus, butit has now become personality-centric and party-centric”.

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�� �������������������������������������������������� �����������Bengaluru: Breaking a short

cycle of more recoveries thanfresh coronavirus infections,Karnataka slipped back to theold pattern of recording morecases than recoveries as 5,619new ones were detected, takingthe state's total tally to 1,5l,449,an official said on Wednesday.

The new cases were report-ed between 5 pm on Tuesday to5 pm on Wednesday. Of thetotal, 73,958 cases are active.

As usual, Bengaluru Urbanaccounted for the highest 1,848new cases, raising the city'stotal tally to 64,881, of which32,757 are still active.

Ballari recorded 631 newcases, followed by Belagavi(293), Mysuru (261), Davangere(224), Dharwad (199),Kalaburagi (197), Udupi (173)and Koppal (154).

Meanwhile, 100 morepatients succumbed to the virus,increasing the state's death tollto 2,804. However, in a positivedevelopment, 5,407 morepatients were cured and dis-charged, taking the total to74,679 recoveries. Bengaluru'sMunicipal Commissioner N.Manjunatha Prasad said thenumber of discharge cases wereincreasing. IANS

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Page 6: ˘ˇˆ˙˝˛ ˇ˚˙˛ˆ˝ ˜ ˙˚˛! ˆ˜ · India’s Covid-19 death count crossed 40,000 marks on Wednesday with Maharashtra alone accounting for 334 deaths during the last 24 hours

Aspecial f lightequipped with med-ical equipment andadvanced techno-logical treatments

for Coronavirus flew to Indiafrom Tel Aviv last week. Also onboard were defence and securi-ty experts as well as Israelidiplomats returning to theirembassies and consulates in theregion. The Israeli team will joinhands with researchers in Indiato develop a rapid testing solu-tion for COVID-19. Dozens ofsophisticated ventilators, whichwere loaded onto the specialflight before take-off, made thename of the mission that muchmore meaningful: BreathingSpace.

Israel went out of its way toapprove the export and transferof these ventilators to India,while both countries continue tofight against the spread of thevirus. Israel’s exceptional gesturewas a welcome “thank you” toIndia, which just a few monthsago sent medicine and otheressential diagnostic equipment,in severe global shortage at thetime, to Israel. In this way,Israel and India successfullytransformed this unprecedent-ed global pandemic into anopportunity to assist one anoth-er and enhance their relations.

The Israel-India relation-ship has improved dramatical-ly over the past several years. It’shard to believe that just threedecades ago, Indian passportswere valid “for every countryexcept Israel.” Today, India hasbecome one of our most signif-icant friendships in the Asianregion. The scope of mutualtrade between the two countrieshas grown from approximately$200 million in 1992 to some $4billion in 2018.

Since former PrimeMinister Ariel Sharon’s first his-toric visit to India in 2003,Israeli and Indian Presidents,Prime Ministers and ForeignMinisters have enjoyed a host ofbilateral visits and discussions.One of the first discussionsForeign Minister GabiAshkenazi held upon enteringhis new role was with his Indiancounterpart, Minister ofExternal Affairs S Jaishankar.

Israel’s Alternate PrimeMinister and Minister ofDefence, Benny Gantz, too, hada word with Indian Defence

Minister Rajnath Singh,expressing hope that the strongbilateral ties between the twocountries would contribute sig-nificantly to the global effortsin combating the COVID-19pandemic. These are just someof the indicators of the surgethat has occurred in relationsbetween the two countriessince diplomatic ties were fullyestablished in 1992.

This upward trend hasyielded success in other fieldsas well. Although it’s difficult toimagine direct flights whileliving under the cloud ofCOVID-19, Air India’s directflight between New Delhi andTel Aviv, inaugurated two yearsago, minimises flight durationby flying over Saudi Arabia.This contributes towards thenormalisation of Israel’s tieswith the Arab world and assuch, assists Israel in achievingits strategic goal of improvingits relations with the region.

Other flights — El Al toMumbai, Arkia flights to Goaand Cochin — are an impor-tant bridge between Israel andIndia. This bridge is furtherstrengthened by a visa reliefpolicy for Indian citizens,which saw the number ofIndian tourists visiting Israelgrow from 16,000 in 2000 to

over 70,000 in 2018.One of India’s most critical

national security challenges isthe provision of food securityto its immense population.Israel’s Foreign Ministry hasconsistently invested a tenth ofthe Agency for InternationalDevelopment’s (MASHAV)budget into India for severalyears now. This has financedthe establishment of more than28 “Excellency Centres” acrossthe many States that make upIndia. These centres serve asagricultural “demonstration”farms, introducing Israeliexperts and innovative Israelitechnologies to Indian farmers.

During his last visit toIndia in January 2018, PrimeMinister Benjamin Netanyahuescorted Prime MinisterNarendra Modi to his homeState of Gujarat. In an excep-tionally moving moment, hun-dreds of farmers rushed tomeet them and share theirpersonal stories. One afteranother, they recounted howtheir fields’ crop yields hadimproved by a hundred percent following their training atIsrael’s Excellence Centres.

Relations between Israeland India clearly don’t justexist between Governmentsbut also between societies. The

Israel-India relationship haspermeated all elements ofIndian society, including that ofthe 650 million Indian citizenswho make a living from agri-culture and who represent halfof the workforce in India.

Israel’s contributions havealso risen to prominence infields ranging from health,security, industry and more.Most critical on our sharedagenda, however, is water andIsrael is uniquely placed to pro-vide solutions to the criticalwater shortage issue that Indiafaces. Both countries share adeep and mutual appreciationfor the benefits that their jointcollaboration brings them atthe community level.

Under the leadership ofNarendra Modi, India isassuming its role as a regionaland world power and ourdiplomacy has succeeded inshowing India the many advan-tages that can come fromstrengthening its ties withIsrael. The Foreign Ministry isdetermined to cultivating itsties with India to ensure thatour relations continue to thrivein the future.

(The writer is DeputyDirector General for Asia andthe Pacific at the Israeli Ministryof Foreign Affairs)

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Sir — This refers to the edito-rial, “Forlorn hopes” (August5). Automobile sales in Julyoffered hope that an econom-ic recovery is nearing. Ascompared to June, there hasbeen a substantial improve-ment in car sales in July. It washeartening to see that manu-facturers such as MarutiSuzuki and Tata Motors haveseen higher car sales. However,unless other car manufactur-ers, like Ashok Leyland andBajaj Auto, too, start showingpositive results, we should notassume that we have reachedpre-COVID days of sales.

We need to factor in onecritical factor which is that dueto the pandemic, there is andthere will still be a shift in thethought process of buyers, atleast for some time until thingsnormalise. Yet people areavoiding the use of the publictransport system and areinstead using two-wheelers orpre-owned cars. The Indianautomobile sector is on a slowroad to partial recovery butthere’s a long way to go.

Bal GovindNoida

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Sir — It has been a year sincethe abrogation of the special

status of Jammu & Kashmir butNew Delhi’s intent to establishpeace and create economicdevelopment in the Valley hasnot yielded concrete results.

The Government’s promisethat such a decision wouldusher in economic develop-ment has not been successful.Most political leaders and

activists remain in detention;there’s a complete absence of apolitical process; no access toInternet and mobile connectiv-ity. Meanwhile, civil and demo-cratic rights of the peopleremain stamped out.

The suspension of theInternet has impacted educa-tion and health. The continueddetention of political leaders isonly an indication that there isno space for opinion or dissentin India’s democracy.

Shariq AlaviLucknow

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Sir — The probe intoBollywood actor Sushant SinghRajput’s death is going on forthe past 40 days and has left twoStates — Bihar andMaharashtra — warring duringthe pandemic. Now that thecase will be handed over to theCentral Bureau of Investigation(CBI), a fair probe must bringclosure to what has become aneedless mess.

MN MusaeedMumbai

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Page 7: ˘ˇˆ˙˝˛ ˇ˚˙˛ˆ˝ ˜ ˙˚˛! ˆ˜ · India’s Covid-19 death count crossed 40,000 marks on Wednesday with Maharashtra alone accounting for 334 deaths during the last 24 hours

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Under the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyanscheme unveiled in May, Finance MinisterNirmala Sitharaman had promised a special

loan of �90,000 crore to fledgling power distribu-tion companies (discoms) to enable them to cleartheir dues to independent power producers (IPPs)and generators in the public sector viz. NationalThermal Power Corporation (NTPC) and so on,subject to their implementing certain reforms. TheGovernment is now keen on hiking the loan amountto �1,25,000 crore and relaxing reform conditions.

This is not the first time that discoms are in direfinancial straits and the Government has bailed themout, subject to their implementing reforms. Since2000, three such bailouts were granted, the latestbeing in 2015 under the Ujwal Discom AssuranceYojana (UDAY) which condoned their whoppingdebt of about �4,00,000 crore. Each time, a promisewas extracted from them and their owners (StateGovernment) for carrying out reforms, only to beflouted with impunity.

From time to time, our policy makers haveharped on reforming Power Purchase Agreements(PPAs); introducing “open access”; making the tar-iff-setting process transparent and reducing cross-subsidy; Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT); trading inelectricity; increase in share of renewals and so on.In each of these reform measures, two objectives res-onate. These are: Electricity supply to consumers ataffordable rates and making discoms “viable.” Yet,what we see on ground zero, is just the opposite.

A PPA is a contract between an IPP and a dis-com which lays down terms of electricity purchaseby the latter from the former, including tariff whichis subject to approval by the State ElectricityRegulatory Commissions (SERCs). Nearly 86 percent of power is sold through long-term PPAs. Ofthe balance, 10 per cent is covered under short-termagreements and four per cent sold on trading plat-forms.

Discoms purchase power from IPPs/NTPCbesides their own generating stations and sell to con-sumers. While sale to poor households and farm-ers is normally made at subsidised rates/free, i.e.below the cost of purchase, wheeling and distribu-tion, the charges for industries and businesses aremuch higher than the cost of supply. Put simply, thetariff policy uses excess payments by the latter tocross-subsidise the former.

The discoms are expected to sign PPAs withthose IPPs who can deliver power at the lowest pos-sible tariff (in fact, the Central Government runs sev-eral schemes which help IPPs to reduce the cost ofgeneration, say by lowering the cost of fuel such ascoal or gas and so on) with the sole objective of mak-ing it affordable to consumers. Unfortunately, thereality is far from it. Let us look at a few examples.

In Andhra Pradesh (AP), promoters of 139power plants based on solar and wind energy (aggre-gate capacity 8,000 mega watt or MW) had signedagreements with the discoms during 2014-19under the erstwhile dispensation led byChandrababu Naidu. Apart from being environ-ment-friendly, the other advantage of buying elec-tricity from these sources was the low cost of sup-ply, about �2.43 per unit, which was nearly half ofthe cost of sourcing it from thermal power plants.Yet, under the PPAs, the discoms had agreed to payIPPs �4.8 per unit i.e. almost double.

The new Government, led by YS JaganmohanReddy, set up a high-level committee in early July,2019 to review those agreements, citing malprac-tices with a mandate to bring down the tariff. The

decision was challenged by IPPs inAndhra Pradesh High Court (APHC). Inits order of September 2019, the APHCstruck down the State’s order on review-ing/renegotiating PPAs and asked the APElectricity Regulatory Commission(APERC) to decide on the matter. Duringthe interim period, it directed the discomsto pay these plants at a provisional rate of�2.43 per unit. Meanwhile, the StateGovernment has asked APERC to levytransmission and distribution charges forwheeling power for these plants, which sellpower directly to industrial consumersthrough the “open access” mechanism.These charges include �3 per unit wheel-ing, �1.5 per unit cross-subsidy and �0.5per unit as distribution charge. Ultimately,the cost to consumers will be �7.43 perunit. What is given from one hand is beingtaken away from the other.

At another extreme, IPPs had agreedto charge low tariff, using the tariff-basedcompetitive bidding (TBCB) method.Under the long-term PPAs signed by TataPower Limited (TPL) and Adani PowerLimited (APL) for their Ultra MegaPower Projects (UMPP) in Gujarat, thesecompanies had committed to sell at therate of �2.26 per unit and �2.35 per unitfor supplies to discoms in the State. Bothare based on coal.

In 2012, TPL/APL petitioned theCentral Electricity RegulatoryCommission (CERC) seeking “compen-satory tariff.” They argued that followingan order of the Indonesian Governmentin September 2011, fixing a minimumexport price (MEP) of coal, they wereforced to pay more, which should be com-pensated. This was allowed by the CERCin February 2014 and confirmed by theAppellate Tribunal for Electricity (APTEL)in December 2016. The Supreme Court,(SC) after initially rejecting the claim, final-

ly directed the CERC “to amend the PPAsto enable pass-through of fuel price esca-lation subject to a cap”. In short, the lowertariff advantage emanating from theTBCB concept, that was promised on sup-plies all through the life of these UMPPs,was taken away. For all future projects, theGovernment excluded fuel costs from thebidding process, which is a “pass-through.”This means that whenever there is a hikein fuel cost, discoms have to pay more.

The policy of “open access” under theamended Electricity Act (2003) allowsbulk consumers (those with consumptiongreater than one MW) to choose their sup-plier. This enables a consumer to drawelectricity directly from an IPP whooffers lower tariff. The SERC is expectedto exercise regulatory oversight andensure that the correct tariff is charged. Butanother provision in the Act requires himto pay an “open Access Surcharge (OAS)”to the discom s/he wants to leave.

The State Governments fix the sur-charge at a level so as to ensure that post-switch, the effective cost to the consumerviz. tariff charged by new supplier plusOAS is higher than what he pays to thediscom. In other words, the levy of sur-charge (embedded in the Act itself) killsthe very soul of the “open access” policy.The OAS was meant to be temporary —to be reduced over a period of time — butStates continue to use this as an instrumentto shield discoms. In the above example,even as discoms in Andhra Pradesh arenow required to pay IPPs at a lower rateof �2.43 per unit under orders from theAPHC, consumers won’t get this benefitas the State gears up to collect the OAS of�1.5 per unit (besides �3 per unit wheel-ing charge and �0.5/unit as distributioncharge). In case the APHC decides infavour of IPPs, requiring discoms to payat the rate of �4.8 per unit as per original

agreements (very likely), the tariff charge-able from consumers would be �9.8 perunit. This is bizarre.

Reducing cross-subsidy by loweringcharges from industries and businesses(under the ‘New Tariff Policy’ in the works,discoms can recover only up to 15 per centof under-recovered power supply costfrom other consumers) is theoretical, tosay the least. This connects with the larg-er issue of State Governments forcing dis-coms to charge less from poor householdsand farmers and revenue loss arising fromlarge-scale theft and underbilling. Aslong as status quo continues in all theseareas, it won’t be possible to reduce tariffon supplies to industries and businesses.

DBT is a transformative reform.Under it, subsidy is given directly to thebeneficiaries even as tariff is market-deter-mined. It will foster competition, improveefficiency, reduce cost, eliminate theft andaugment revenue. This is the most potentway of making power affordable to con-sumers on the one hand and making dis-coms viable on the other. Both the UPAand NDA regimes have made tall claimsin this regard but none has walked the talk.

Opening of power exchanges fortrading is a good move enabling price dis-covery and may help some consumers getattractive price for their needs. However,given that electricity traded on theexchange is a miniscule four per cent ofthe total, this hardly makes an impact onthe overall scenario.

None of the power reforms has takenoff as our netas remain in election modeperennially and are unable to do all thatis needed to make them work. Till theycan deliver on their promises, industrieswill continue to pay high tariff and dis-coms will continue to make losses.

(The writer is a New Delhi-based pol-icy analyst)

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In most parts of the world, the rainbrings with it relief and joy.However, in India, the monsoon

season brings with it a host of prob-lems. For instance, a three-hourdownpour on July 19 in the nationalCapital resulted in serious flooding onthe city’s streets, particularly under theMinto Road bridge and caused thedeath of a mini-truck driver bydrowning. The State administrationactually had to remove a DelhiTransport Corporation (DTC) busand the mini-truck along with othersmaller vehicles submerged in thewater that had collected under thebridge. In Uttar Pradesh, rain dam-

aged the roof of a hospital in Bareillyand flooded a Coronavirus ward aspatients watched in horror. Floodwaters reached the COVID-19 wardof Osmania Hospital in Hyderabad,too.

Parts of Kerala and Karnataka arealso witnessing floods and on thewestern coast, massive overflows arebeing reported from certain parts ofMaharashtra and Gujarat. However, inthe entire country, the States of Biharand Assam are the worst-hit so far.The situation is grim in Bihar aswaters from overflowing rivers, most-ly those originating in Nepal, inundat-ed large parts of the State, leaving over55 lakh residents of over 1,000 villagesaffected. Till date, 4.18 lakh peoplehave been evacuated and 23 teams ofthe National Disaster Response Forceand some of the State DisasterResponse Force have been pressedinto service. However, theGovernment of Bihar is preparing forAssembly elections while the peopleare suffering from heavy rains andfloods.

Assam is in a similar conditionand the floods have affected morethan 56 lakh people in 30 of the 33 dis-tricts of the State, claiming 110 lives.More than 2.6 lakh hectares of thetotal crop area have been affected andthe Kaziranga National Park is inun-dated, too, killing over 100 animals inthe sanctuary. Though now theBrahmaputra and its tributaries havestarted receding, 7,000 people are stillin relief camps and nearly four lakhpeople in 19 districts have beenaffected. Given the massive destruc-tion, it is time to introspect why wehave to go through punishing floods

year after year. The answer is unthink-ing and unchecked development,without any environmental concerns.The fact remains that changes in landuse associated with urban develop-ment affect flooding in many ways.Removing vegetation and soil, grad-ing the land surface and constructingdrainage networks increase runoff torivers and streams after a heavydownpour. As a result, the peak dis-charge volume and the frequency offloods increase in nearby streams andrivers. Changes to channels of riversand streams during urban develop-ment can limit their capacity to

absorb flood waters. Similarly, roads and buildings

constructed in flood-prone areasincrease the danger of floods, includ-ing inundation and erosion. Plus,deforestation in the green belt caus-es landslides which results in riverschanging course and flooding villages.

Floods used to happen earlier, too,but because there were miles of forestson the slopes between the hills and theplains, their effect was not as devas-tating as it is now and their durationused to be shorter too. Plus, as theflood waters carry nutrients and sed-iments, which they deposit on floodplains, enriching the soil, farmerswould wait for them. Yet anotheradvantage of floods is that theyrecharge the water table, ponds andother water bodies and flush out accu-mulated organic and chemical sub-stances brought by untreated drainagewater from farmlands and untreatedeffluents from factories. They restorethe ecological health of stagnantrivers and streams by diluting themand providing clean water.

In 2015, well-known river expertand convenor of the Barh MuktiAbhiyan, Dr Dinesh Mishra, hadsuggested to the Central Governmentthat it control unchecked urban devel-opment and remove obstacles to riverand flood water flow. This wouldensure that the flood waters werespread thin over a larger area and fora shorter duration. This would ensurethat they could spread rich silt on thebanks and the floodplains, rechargethe water table and fill up and cleanthe water bodies in their path.

Even though the Governmentaccepted the importance of Mishra’srecommendations, nothing has beendone to implement them and yearafter year the nation continues to suf-fer from the effects of devastatingfloods. Restoring the green cover, giv-ing rivers back their floodplains andwater harvesting are the only effectivemethods to protect us. If we chooseto ignore conventional wisdom, wewill continue to suffer.

(The writer is a social activist andauthor)

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Page 8: ˘ˇˆ˙˝˛ ˇ˚˙˛ˆ˝ ˜ ˙˚˛! ˆ˜ · India’s Covid-19 death count crossed 40,000 marks on Wednesday with Maharashtra alone accounting for 334 deaths during the last 24 hours

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Ahuge blast in Beirut has left300,000 people homeless

and caused damage across halfof the city estimated to costmore than $3 billion, its gov-ernor told AFP on Wednesday.

"I think there are between250,000 and 300,000 peoplewho are now without homes,"said Marwan Aboud, addingthat the estimated cost of thedamage from Tuesday's explo-sion was between $3.0 billionand $5.0 billion dollars.

Engineers and technicalteams have yet to conduct an official assessment, he said, adding that damage fromthe blast in the port area seems to have extended overhalf of the city.

Taipei, Taiwan: The UnitedStates announced onWednesday its highest-levelvisit to Taiwan since itswitched diplomatic recogni-tion to China in 1979, a moveBeijing blasted as a threat to"peace and stability".

The visit, headed by healthchief Alex Azar, comes as rela-tions between the world's twobiggest powers plunge to his-toric lows.

"This marks... the firstCabinet member to visit in sixyears, and the highest levelvisit by a US Cabinet officialsince 1979," said Washington'sde facto embassy, theAmerican Institute in Taiwan,with no date yet given for thevisit.

Washington remains theleading arms supplier to theisland but has historically beencautious in holding officialcontacts with it.

Beijing views Taiwan as itsown territory -- vowing to oneday seize it -- and bristles atany moves by other countriesto recognise or communicatewith Taipei.

"China firmly opposesofficial exchanges between theUS and Taiwan," WangWenbin, a spokesman forChina's Ministry of ForeignAffairs, said as he called for thevisit to be cancelled.

"We urge the US to abideby the one-China principle...to avoid seriously endangeringSino-US relations, as well aspeace and stability across theTaiwan Strait."

Taiwan said Azar wouldmeet President Tsai Ing-wen.

"(The) timely visit isanother testament to thestrong Taiwan-US partner-ship based on our longstand-ing friendship and shared val-ues," Tsai wrote on Twitter.

Relations have warmeddramatically under PresidentDonald Trump, who has usedembracing democratic Taiwanmore closely as a way to hitback at authoritarian Beijing ashe clashes with China on ahost of issues, including tradeand coronavirus.

Taiwan's success at stop-ping its own virus outbreak —and its emergence as one ofAsia's most progressivedemocracies — has alsoearned the island growingbipartisan support inWashington.

"The Trump administra-tion is increasing its relationswith Taiwan to a record-highlevel, sending a message toChina that the US will not sac-rifice Taiwan for its relationswith China," Eric Huang, aninternational relations analystat Tamkang University inTaipei, told AFP. AFP

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Paris: French PresidentEmmanuel Macron is travellingto Lebanon on Thursday tooffer support for the troubledcountry after a massive, deadlyexplosion that has drawn glob-al pledges of medical andhumanitarian aid.

Macron's office told TheAssociated Press on Wednesdaythat the French leader will meetwith Lebanese political leaders.It provided no further details.

Lebanon is a former Frenchprotectorate and the countriesretain close political and eco-

nomic ties. France is also send-ing several tons of aid andemergency workers afterTuesday's explosion in Beirut,which killed at least 100 peopleand injured thousands.

It was unclear what causedthe blast, which appeared to havebeen triggered by a fire andstruck with the force of anearthquake.

It was the most powerfulexplosion ever seen in the citySeveral other countries acrossthe Middle East and Europe aresending aid. AP

4������.��������������� ���'��������������(��:������ Beirut: Russia's emergency

officials say the country willsend five planeloads of aid toBeirut after an explosion in theLebanese capital's port killed atleast 100 people and injuredthousands on Tuesday.

Russia's Ministry forEmergency Situations will sendrescuers, medical workers, amakeshift hospital and a lab forcoronavirus testing to Lebanon.

France, Jordan and othercountries also say aid is on theway.

International aid in theform of emergency workersand medical personnel is head-

ing to Lebanon a day after amassive explosion devastatedBeirut's port, killing at least 100people and wounding thou-sands.

France says it is sendingtwo planes with dozens ofemergency workers, a mobilemedical unit and 15 tons of aid.

French PresidentEmmanuel Macron's office saysthe aid should allow for thetreatment of some 500 victims.

French peacekeepers sta-tioned in Lebanon, a formerFrench protectorate, have beenhelping since the explosions,Macron's office said. AP

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Beirut: Lebanon's main grainsilo at Beirut port wasdestroyed in a blast along withthe wheat inside, leaving thenation with less than a month'sreserves of the grain althoughother vessels with supplies areon the way, the economy min-ister said on Wednesday.

Raoul Nehme told Reutersa day after Tuesday's devastat-ing blast that Lebanon neededreserves for at least threemonths to ensure food securi-ty and was looking at otherstorage areas.

He said reserves now stoodat "a bit less than a month".

The explosion was themost powerful ever to ripthrough Beirut, leaving theport district a wreck of man-gled masonry and disabling themain entry port for imports tofeed a nation of more than 6million people.

The Beirut silo was capableof holding 120,000 tonnes ofgrain, said Ahmed Tamer, thedirector of the port of Tripoli,Lebanon's second biggest city.

The port in Tripoli,

Lebanon's second biggest port,is not equipped with grainstorage facilities but wheatcould be transferred to ware-houses 2 km (about one mile)away, he said.

At the time of the blast, theBeirut silo held no more than15,000 tonnes of wheat as somemillers had unloaded cargoesdirectly because of a delay inissuing letters of credit forpayment, Ahmed Hattit, thehead of the wheat importersunion, told the local Al-Akhbarnewspaper. AFP

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Beijing: China said onWednesday a visit by a top UScabinet member to Taiwan wasendangering peace and stabil-ity in the region, with relationsbetween the two powers athistoric lows.

Washington's de factoembassy in Taipei said UShealth secretary Alex Azarwould lead a delegation to theself-ruled island, which Beijingclaims as part of China and hasvowed to one day seize.

"China firmly opposes offi-cial exchanges between the USand Taiwan," Wang Wenbin, aspokesman of China's Ministryof Foreign Affairs, said at a reg-ular briefing. "We urge the USto abide by the one-Chinaprinciple... to avoid seriouslyendangering Sino-US relations,as well as peace and stabilityacross the Taiwan Strait." TheUnited States switched diplo-matic recognition from Taiwanto China in 1979. AFP

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Sri Lankans, wearing facemasks and carrying their

own pens, turned out in largenumbers to vote onWednesday in the twice-post-poned parliamentary electionwhich is expected to be won bythe powerful Rajapaksa fami-ly-run Sri Lanka People's Party(SLPP).

According to Chairman ofthe National ElectionCommission MahindaDeshapriya, the election, con-ducted amidst COVID-19 pan-demic fears, concluded in apeaceful manner, with the voterturnout being 70 per cent.

Ampara (72.8 per cent),Killinochchi (71.52 per cent),

Mannar (79.49 per cent ),Vavuniya (74 per cent),Mullaithivu (76.25 per cent),Trincomalee (73.5 per cent),Batticaloa (76.15 per cent) andNuwara Eliya (75 per cent)recorded high voter turnout.

The polls closed at 5 pmlocal time and the ballot boxeswere transported to countingcenters. The counting wouldtake place only on Thursday -a departure from the practiceof counting the ballots from 8PM on the election night.

The results would beannounced by Thursdayevening, Deshapriya said.

"We have to be grateful tothe voting public for recordingsuch a high turnout despitecorona fears," he said.

Washington: The DemocraticParty in the US will end thefreeze on green cards and takesteps to end its backlog, ifvoted to power in theNovember presidential elec-tions, the party's proposed2020 platform said.

Green Card, known offi-cially as a Permanent ResidentCard, is a document issued toimmigrants to the US as evi-dence that the bearer has beengranted the privilege of resid-ing permanently

The proposed platformamong other things hasexpressed opposition to thedecision of President DonaldTrump to temporarily suspendissuing of H-1B visas.

The H-1B visa is a non-

immigrant visa that allows UScompanies to employ foreignworkers in speciality occupa-tions that require theoretical ortechnical expertise. Technologycompanies depend on it to hiretens of thousands of employeeseach year from countries likeIndia and China.

The 2020 DemocraticParty Platform, which is simi-lar to an election manifesto inIndia, would be adopted by theparty's delegates during itsnational convention inWisconsin. The four-day con-vention from August 17 to 20would formally nominate for-mer Vice President Joe Bidenas its candidate for theNovember 3 presidential elec-tions. PTI

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Dhaka: A passenger boat car-rying about 50 people, includingmadrassa students and teachers,capsized on Wednesday innorthern Bangladesh, killing atleast 17 people, according to amedia report.

The incident happened inNetrokona district's Madanupazila, the Dhaka Tribunereported.

A total of 48 people, includ-ing madrassa students andteachers, from Mymensingh,boarded the boat for a cruise.

So far, 17 bodies have been

recovered, 30 people have beenrescued alive, while one pas-senger remains missing, an offi-cial of Madan upazila was quot-ed by the paper as saying.

The cause of the accident isnot immediately known.

Such accidents are com-mon in Bangladesh.

Poor safety standards ofvessels and their reckless drivinghave been repeatedly blamed forfrequent ferry accidents in river-ine Bangladesh. In most of thecases, the ferries carry passen-gers beyond their capacity. PTI

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Beirut: Rescuers searched forsurvivors in Beirut Wednesdayafter a cataclysmic explosion atthe port sowed devastationacross entire neighbourhoods,killing more than 100 people,wounding thousands andplunging Lebanon deeper intocrisis.

The blast, which appearedto have been caused by a fireigniting 2,750 tonnes of ammo-nium nitrate left unsecured ina warehouse, was felt as faraway as Cyprus, some 150

miles (240 kilometres) to thenorthwest.

The scale of the destructionwas such that the Lebanese cap-ital resembled the scene of anearthquake, with thousands ofpeople left homeless and thou-sands more cramming intooverwhelmed hospitals fortreatment.

"We've had some dark daysin Lebanon over the years butthis is something else," saidRami Rifai, a 38-year-old engi-neer, speaking to AFP from ahospital where his two daugh-ters were receiving treatmentafter sustaining cuts despitebeing half a kilometre from theseat of the blast.

"We already had the eco-nomic crisis, a government of

thieves and coronavirus. I did-n't think it could get worse butnow I don't know if this coun-try can get up again. Everyoneis going to try to leave. I will tryto leave," he said, his voicechoked by tears.

In the areas closest to theport, the amount of destructioncaused by the long years of civilwar between 1975 and 1990was achieved in a second by ablast that levelled buildingswithin a radius of several hun-dred metres.

One resident of MarMikhail, one of the most affect-ed neighbourhoods, said shesaw bodies strewn in the mid-dle of the street, apparentlythrown off balconies androoftops by the blast. AP

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Page 9: ˘ˇˆ˙˝˛ ˇ˚˙˛ˆ˝ ˜ ˙˚˛! ˆ˜ · India’s Covid-19 death count crossed 40,000 marks on Wednesday with Maharashtra alone accounting for 334 deaths during the last 24 hours

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Lockdown measures imple-mented to curb Covid-19

outbreak continued to subduethe Indian service sector’sgrowth in July.

Accordingly, the latest PMIsurvey data showed thatgrowth remained severelyrestricted by lockdown mea-sures implemented to curb thecoronavirus disease 2019 pan-demic in July.

“Further substantial reduc-tions in both activity andinflows of new work wererecorded, as ongoing lockdownrestrictions stifled demand andforced companies to ceaseoperations,” IHS Markit said ina statement.

“Subsequently, firms madefurther cuts to staff numbers,with the rate of job sheddingthe most marked on record.”

sAccording to the survey,the 12-month outlook for out-put was negative for a third suc-cessive month, with fears of asubstantial economic down-turn common among surveyrespondents.

Consequently, the IHSMarkit India Services Business

Activity Index registered areading of 34.2 in July, anddespite rising slightly from33.7 in June, “signalled a fur-ther rapid reduction in servicesector output”.An index read-ing of above 50 indicates anoverall increase in economicactivity, or growth, and below50, an overall decrease.

“Moreover, the latest read-ing was among the lowestrecorded in nearly 15 years ofdata collection, surpassed onlyby the unprecedented falls inthe previous three months,” thestatement said.

Furthermore, decelerationin manufacturing and servicesdipped the overall theComposite Output Index inJuly.Resultantly, the CompositeOutput Index fell to 37.2 in July,down from June’s 37.8 “the lat-est figure was indicative of aquicker rate of contraction,albeit not as severe as those inApril and May.”

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Asset quality risks for banksand NBFCs remain elevat-

ed despite the recent decline inloans under moratorium, rat-ings agency ICRA said onWednesday.

Accordingly most of thebanks as well as NBFCs havereported a decline in the loansunder the phase 2 (June-August 2020) of the moratori-um as compared to phase 1(March-May 2020).

“This is due to the fact thatthe last 10-15 percentile of theborrowers who continue toopt for the moratorium will bemore vulnerable to slippages,”ICRA said in a statement.

“Although the gradualrelaxations in restrictionsimposed during the lockdownhave helped in improving thecollection efficiencies andthereby reduction in residualassets under moratorium, thepace of recovery seems lowerthan expected because oflocalised re-imposition of lock-downs by various states overthe last two months.”

The ratings agency hasalready cut the GDP forecastfor the current fiscal to (-) 9.5per cent contraction vis-a-vis

an earlier estimate of a (-) 5 percent contraction.

As per ICRA estimates,the median loans under mora-torium would be around 25-30per cent compared to a broadband of 10-50 per cent of totalloan books with many of theborrowers being commonunder Phase 1 and 2.

“In general, the moratori-um levels across banks arelower than those of NBFCswith private banks having evenrelatively lower levels,” thestatement said.

“Early trends for July 2020indicate a nominal improve-ment in collections over June2020 levels but remain con-siderably lower than the pre-Covid levels of around 90-95per cent for most asset class-es.”

According to ICRA, giventhe commonality of borrowersunder both phases, the assetquality risks are likely to con-tinue to remain high for thelenders.

“However, unlike the pre-vious asset quality cycle, wherethe stressed assets build-upwas driven largely by corporatesegment, this time, the stress isrelatively higher for borrowersin micro small and medium

enterprises (MSMEs), agricul-ture and retail (especially self-employed) segments,” ICRAsaid.

“Therefore, the debate isnow on the need for a furtherextension in moratorium or aone-time restructuring for theborrowers who continue toface challenges and remainunder moratorium by end ofAugust 2020.”

Besides, ICRA said thatwhile loan restructuring couldpostpone the recognition ofstress in the lender book in thenear-term, high share of suchassets would be a credit nega-tive.

“Also, the efficacy of thisrestructuring would be crucialas lenders would be faced withmany requests coming fromthe smaller ticket size borrow-ers (in the retail and MSMEspace) vis-a-vis the large bor-rower restructuring done bythem in the past,” the statementsaid.Furthermore, ICRA said asthe one-time restructuringwindow is made available,more borrowers may opt for itto ease out the near-termuncertainties, conserve liquid-ity and to smoothen their cashflow as the economy takes aturn for revival.

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Domestic equity bench-marks Sensex and Nifty

surrendered early gains to endflat on Wednesday as profit-booking emerged in marketmajors Reliance Industries andHDFC Bank.

Investors also remainedon the sidelines ahead of theRBI’s monetary policy decisionon Thursday, traders said.

After rallying 452 pointsduring the day, the BSE Sensexslipped in the red to end 24.58points or 0.07 per cent lower at37,663.33.

The NSE Nifty inched up6.40 points or 0.06 per cent toclose at 11,101.65.

HDFC Bank and RelianceIndustries were the top dragson the Sensex, tumbling over 1per cent, as investors bookedprofits after their recent bullrun.

PowerGrid, TechMahindra, Infosys, Nestle Indiaand HCL Tech too ended withlosses.On the other hand, TataSteel rallied 6.33 per cent, fol-lowed by Titan, Maruti, BhartiAirtel and M&M.

According to traders,despite positive cues fromglobal markets and sustainedforeign fund inflows, stock-spe-

cific action dictated domesticmarket movement during theday. “Indian benchmark indiceswere volatile in trade beforeclosing flat with a positive bias.Global cues were also positivewhile gold again jumped torecord highs. Positive earn-ings reports are driving stocksand markets around the world,and the same trend is visible inthe Indian markets too.

“Liquidity is a major dri-ver for the markets and it ischasing companies which aredeclaring stable earnings oroutlook. Uncertainties remainwhile in the near term marketswill look forward to the com-mentary and RBI actions at theend of the MPC meetingtomorrow,” said Vinod Nair,Head of Research at GeojitFinancial Services.

BSE energy, power,FMCG, utilities, IT and health-care indices slipped up to 0.87per cent, while metal, auto,basic materials, consumerdurables and telecom rose asmuch as 4.05 per cent.

Broader BSE mid-cap andsmall-cap indices outper-formed benchmarks, rising upto 0.85 per cent.

Meanwhile, India’s servicessector activity contracted forthe fifth successive month in

July as coronavirus-inducedrestrictions stifled demand, amonthly survey said.

The IHS Markit IndiaServices Business ActivityIndex stood at 34.2 in July,slightly higher than 33.7 inJune. Global equities advancedamid encouraging corporateearnings, even as gold zoomedpast the USD 2,000 per ouncemark on safe-haven buying.

Bourses in Shanghai,Hong Kong and Seoul settledwith gains, while Tokyo closedlower. Stock exchanges inEurope were trading on a pos-itive note in early deals. Globaloil benchmark Brent crudejumped 2.09 per cent to USD45.36 per barrel.

In the forex market, therupee settled with gains of 10paise at 74.94 against the USdollar. India’s COVID-19infection tally raced past 19lakh on Wednesday, two daysafter it crossed the 18-lakhmark, with 52,509 people test-ing spositive in a day, accord-ing to the Union HealthMinistry data.

The recoveries havemounted to 12,82,215, whilethe death toll has reached39,795, the data showed.

Globally, coronavirusdeaths have crossed 7 lakh.

New Delhi: Gold pricesjumped �1,365 to �56,181 per10 gram in the national capitalon Wednesday following astrong rally in global market,according to HDFC Securities.

Silver also depicted astrong trend as it zoomed�5,972 to �72,726 per kg from�66,754 per kg in the previoustrade, it said. The preciousyellow metal had closed at �54,816 per 10 gram in the pre-vious trade. “Spot gold pricesfor 24 carat in Delhi rose by�1,365 with strong rally ininternational prices,” HDFCSecurities Senior Analyst(Commodities) Tapan Patelsaid. In the international mar-ket, gold was quoting withgains at USD 2,032 per ounce,while silver was trading atUSD 26.40 per ounce. “Goldprices scaled new highs onweak dollar and concerns overeconomic growth amid risingvirus cases,” Patel said. SriramIyer, Senior Research Analyst atReliance Securities, said,“Investors continue to remainbuyers in the safe-haven gold asthey expect that the metal willhold its value better than otherassets as fallout from COVID-19 cripples the global econo-my.”

New Delhi: With an aim toboost economic activities in thecountry during unlock 3.0, theIndian Railways is offering aslew of incentives, including 50per cent concession in terminalaccess charges for covered wag-ons, to boost freight traffic.

A Railway Ministryspokesperson said that its newpolicy measures will furtherboost the incentives for allsuppliers to transport theirgoods through railways.

In the revised policy, theRailways has worked on thealternate goods shed policy,under which terminal chargewill not be levied on consign-ments booked from alternategoods sheds, instead of identi-fied busy goods shed, the offi-cial said.The railways hasalready surpassed the freightloading figures in August so far,adding that 8.64 million tonnesof freight had been loadedcompared with 8.37 milliontonnes during the correspond-ing period last year.The officialsaid that under the free-timerelaxation for covered wag-ons, zonal railways are empow-ered to relax the free time upto double the normal free timeand/or non-levy of demur-rage/wharfage in case of cov-ered stock up to Sep30. IANS

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Ride-hailing company Uberon Wednesday said it is hir-

ing 140 engineers for its techteams in Bengaluru andHyderabad to build products invarious areas such as rider anddriver growth, delivery andcustomer service.

The US-based company,which competes with Ola andothers in the Indian market,has over 600 people in itsHyderabad and Bengaluruteams. In May, Uber hadannounced laying off about 600employees in India - about aquarter of its staff in the coun-try - as business had taken amajor hit amid Covid-19 pan-demic. The move had impact-ed driver and rider supportoperations, and other func-tions of its India operations“Uber is recruiting 140 moreengineers for its tech teams inBangalore and Hyderabad tobuild cutting-edge products inareas such as rider and drivergrowth, delivery, marketplace,customer service, digital pay-ments, risk and compliance,safety, and finance technology,”a statement said.

New Delhi: Income tax returnspicked up for scrutiny hasreduced to 0.25 per cent of thetotal ITRs filed in assessmentyear (AY) 2018-19, from 0.55per cent in AY 2017-18, theFinance Ministry has said.

“IT Dept is changing-from just enforcement to facil-itating better taxpayer services.In continuation of the same, theno. Of cases selected for scruti-ny has reduced drastically overthe years,” the Ministry said ina tweet late on Tuesday.

Official data releasedshowed the number of incometax scrutiny cases was 0.71 percent in AY 2015-16, 0.40 percent in AY 2016-17, 0.55 percent in AY 2017-18 and 0.25per cent in AY 2018-19.

The ministry, however, didnot give the absolute number ofcases picked up for scrutinyduring these years.

State-wise data alsoshowed while the scrutiny aspercentage of income taxreturns (ITRs) filed has comedown, the number of returnsfiled during AY 2018-19 hasgone up compared to AY 2017-18. Scrutiny cases in Odishareduced to 0.12 per cent in AY2018-19, from 0.37 per cent inthe year before. Similarly, forPunjab, it came down from0.40 per cent to 0.14 per centin AY 2018-19.

As many as 10.29 lakhITRs were filed in Odisha inAY 2018-19, against 8.31 lakhin AY 2017-18.

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Realty firm GodrejProperties on Wednesday

reported a consolidated netloss of �20.23 crore in theApril-June quarter due toCovid-19 pandemic andannounced raising �1,000 crorethrough an issue of debenturesto improve liquidity.

Despite the nationwidelockdown during most part ofthe April-June quarter of 2020-21, Godrej Properties’ salesbookings grew by 71 per centto �1,531 crore in the quarter.

The company posted a lossduring the June quarter as itwas not able to recognise therevenue as construction activ-ities were stalled due to lock-down, Godrej PropertiesExecutive Chairman PirojshaGodrej told reporters througha virtual press conference.

Godrej Properties net prof-it stood at nearly �90 crore inthe year-ago period.Totalincome declined to �195.66crore in the first quarter of thecurrent fiscal from �713.84crore in the corresponding peri-od of the previous year, accord-ing to a regulatory filing. Duringthe last fiscal year, net profitstood at �267.21 crore on a totalincome of �2,914.59 crore.Godrej Properties is the realestate arm of the Godrej group.

On operational front, salesbookings increased to 2.51million sq ft worth Rs 1,531crore in the April-June quarteras against 1.35 million sq ftvaluing �897 crore in the yearago period.The adoption ofdigital tool and attractive 10:90payment plan offered toprospective customers helpedthe company achieve strongsales, Pirojsha said.

“Raised �1,000 crore inJuly through the allotment ofunsecured, redeemable, non-convertible debentures on aprivate placement basis for aterm of three years at 7.5%, thelowest NCD rate achieved inthe real estate industry,” thecompany said in a statement.

Pirojsha said the amountwill be utilised in ongoing pro-jects and future growth oppor-tunities. On market guidancefor this fiscal year, he said itwould be difficult to give anysales and collection guidancebecause on the pandemic. Hesaid the company sees lot ofopportunities in terms of acqui-sition of new projects as mar-ket will consolidate due to liq-uidity crunch. Pirojsha saidthere will be pain in the sectorin the short term but the com-pany remains bullish in themedium to long term growth.

New Delhi: StandingConference of PublicEnterprises (SCOPE), apexbody of Public SectorEnterprises (PSEs).And The Center for CreativeLeadership (CCL),USA,engaged in learning anddevelopment with focus oneffective leadership develop-ment, have signed aMemorandum ofUnderstanding (MoU) to con-duct a study on ‘DevelopingFuture Fluent Leaders in PSEs.’

The MoU was signedbetween Mr Atul Sobti,Director General SCOPE and

Mr. Muniinder Anand, MD-India & South Asia, CCL.

The MoU aims at con-ducting a study on assessing theprevailing leadership gaps andcurating a learning module ondeveloping effective and effi-cient leaders in the IndianPublic Sector.

The study shall adopt aqualitative and quantitativeresearch methodologybased onresponses and experiences ofthe present leadership whichwould be further analyzed toidentify relevant skills, mindsets, and experiences for future-fluent PSE leader in India.

Raipur : Nearly 46 thousand964 beneficiaries to receive�1.65 crore as payment

Mr. Baghel to pay tribute toShaheed Mahendra Karma onthe occasion of his birthanniversary .

Tendupatta SangrahakSamajik Suraksha Yojana to belaunched in the memory ofShaheed Mahendra Karma

Nearly 12 lakh 50 thousandtendupatta labourer familiesin the State to be benefitted

Chief Minister to interactwith cowdung sellers via video

conferencingPresentation on Ram Van

Gaman Path to be givenChief Minister Mr.

Bhupesh Baghel will inauguratethe process of payment againstcowdung procurement to thebank accounts of beneficiariesunder State Government’sGodhan Nyay Yojana, in aprogramme to be organized athis Raipur based residenceoffice on August 5.

Mr. Bahel will also inau-gurate Shaheed MahendraKarma Tendupatta SangrahakSamajik Suraksha Yojana onthis occasion.

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Ebrahim Alkazi was like the Banyantree of theatre. His branches (stu-dents) stood and spoke like him

but he was the one who upheld every-one,” said singer-actor Ila Arun whiletalking about the late theatre director.Alkazi, who was considered the fatherof the modern Indian theatre, was 94when he passed away on Tuesday.

Arun added, “It was under hissupervision I worked in KK Raina’s PeerGhani. For me, it’s a personal loss. Eversince I worked with him, he has beena guru. I have always connected withhim. His teachings have stayed with me.The one thing about him is that no the-atre connoisseur or student can learnwithout his examples. His experienceswill be ever-important. He changed theface of Indian theatre and even today,actors and directors continue to followhis ideas. Be it stage craft, direction,expressions or body language, he has nocomparison. It’s because of him we havepeople like Anupam Kher, late VirendraRazdan, Naseeruddin Shah, RatanThiyam (Indian playwright) and manymore. Aise teacher ab kabhi nahimilenge. It’s certainly the end of an era.”

Actor-filmmaker Kamal Haasantweeted, “A beacon of Indian theatre artand mentor of many great actors, MrEbrahim Alkazi will be remembered formany generations. His love for theatreand the art is unmatched. My deepestcondolences to the family and the NSD(National School of Drama) family.”

Actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui tweet-ed, “The true architect of the ModernIndian Theatre. The Doyen who pos-sessed the extreme knowledge in all theaspects of art. The magician who nur-tured many stalwarts of theatre. Mayyour brightest spark from the heavenkeeps us enlightening.”

Actor Anupam Kher called Alkazi

his “acting guru,” and wrote, “My act-ing Guru Ebrahim Alkazi Saab passedaway. The tallest man ever in our lives.He taught us not only about theatre, act-ing or dramas but also about life. Hemade us discover ourselves. He was ourreference point for great acting. He willbe missed. Om Shanti!!”

Director Anubhav Sinha, who, eventhough “never met him or crossedpaths,” expressed sorrow and said, “Iknow so many artistes who are his devo-tees. Have seldom known any artistesthat everyone barring none will havesuch wonderful things to say about him.What a loss for so many of my friendsand also for the art of theatre.”

Interdisciplinary actor and film-maker Sujoy Prosad Chatterjee said,“Ebrahim Alkazi was a true interdisci-plinary artist. The visual grandeur in histheatre, his disintegration of themes andtexts, his acumen of contemporarystagecraft are matchless. We have lostsomeone who stands for how theatre istoday. A modern mind and a sensitiveone.”

Alkazi was an avid art connoisseurand collector who founded the ArtHeritage Gallery in New Delhi. He hadstaged more than 50 plays during hisdistinguished career and won the BBCBroadcasting Award in 1950.

Actor Kabir Bedi tweeted,“Mourning the passing of EbrahimAlkazi, iconic giant of modern Indiantheatre. I knew him from when he wasthe Director of the National School ofDrama in Delhi in the1960s. He gaveIndia a great theatre and created a newgeneration of actors and directors.”

Filmmaker Ranjan Ghosh, whosefilm, Ahaa Re, was recently selected andscreened at the 20th edition (virtual) ofNew York Indian Film Festival, 2020,said, “Ebrahim Alkazi is a name that werevere not only in theatre but also incinema. As the director of NSD for 15years, he had taught the likes of OmPuri, Naseeruddin Shah, RohiniHattangadi, Surekha Sikri, PankajKapoor and others. Imagine his contri-bution to the Indian cinema! He is thereal father of modern Indian theatre.Alkazi’s theatre productions reflectedthe ambitions of an India then whilealso reaffirming its cultural identity. Hisstories originated in Indian historyand mythology but were presented tointernational audiences too. Probably,his training at the Royal Academy ofDramatic Art in London could bebehind this. He was a proponent of whatwe call the ‘intimate theatre,’ and was-n’t fond of massive audiences. Cases inpoint are Ashadh Ka Ek Din (MohanRakesh), Waiting for Godot and OedipusRex. At the same time, he had grandlypresented Andha Yug (DharamvirBharti), and Tughlaq (Girish Karnad).He had also staged several Greektragedies and also Shakespeare’s plays.He was indeed a colossus, a legend, aninstitution that strode like a lion on thestage of Indian theatre. He had led aworthy life, one that has enrichedmany.”

Theatre director, actor and founderof Akshara Theatre, Jalabala Vaidya,said, “Ebrahim Alkazi was a legend inthe world of Indian theatre. He was oneof a kind.”

Actor Rajit Kapur, a former gradu-ate of NSD, said, “I never interactedwith him but only knew the stories ofhis genius from theatre stalwarts. Hewas a theatre guru to many great actorsof our time. It’s a huge loss for the the-atre connoisseurs.”

In today’s COVID-hit world,our travel bags have barelyseen any light since the past

few months. However, for us toreminisce about how travellingfelt like, comedian RomeshRanganathan is travelling tosome of the world’s mostunlikely holiday destinations. Inhis series, Misadventures ofRomesh Ranganathan, he’s seenheading to African countrieslike Mongolia, Zimbabwe,Colombia and Bosnia to findout whether there’s more tothese places than negative head-lines and if they might in factturn out to be some new andperfect holiday spots.

There’s a problem, howev-er. Romesh can barely negoti-ate a travel plug, let alone a hos-tile foreign situation — so he’sgoing to need a local host tohelp him out. The series docu-ments his encounters of extra-ordinary characters, bizarresubcultures and surprisingshared passions. If he couldonly find a vegan meal, hemight learn to love this life ofadventure.

Excerpts:

� How did your journey as atraveller begin and how has itchanged your perceptiontowards the world?

Well, I came into travellingby accident, a few years ago. Idid a Wednesday show for theBBC, which was based in SriLanka, a place my family orig-inates from. After that, I endedup doing more and more such

works — delving deep into anew culture and place. I was notvery much of a traveller whenI started this whole experience.Now I have been lucky enoughto visit so many different coun-tries and probably the biggestthing which has happened tome is that I have become a lotmore open to experiencing dif-ferent countries and of course,three children.

I would love to see themtravelling as well as I neverrealised how valuable that wasunless I started it myself. I seetravelling as a privilege. Itteaches you to appreciate thedifferences between people andsocieties.

� Where was your best mis-adventure?

Probably, in Ethiopia. I fellin love with that country —food, people, and its scenicbeauty. Everything about it waswonderful. It has got someamazing natural beauty. If youwant to see it, then probablyyou could backpack aroundEthiopia for some time but atthe same time, if you want lux-ury, you could stay at hotels. Itis a place I would go back to.

� What were the challengeswhile shooting?

There were a lot of environ-mental challenges like filmingin very hot conditions to film-ing in very cold weather in theoptic. And filming in thescorching heat is a horror. Wewent to Mongolia, the mostvastly populated country in

the world, and when you are inthe middle of Mongolia, you arereally in the middle of nowhere.

I remember spending anight with some nomads. Wewere driving across the placeand got completely lost. Therewere no landmarks or villagesaround us to look for direc-tions. That was quite frighten-ing. We did not know whichside we were coming from orgoing to. There, we were all justwalking around with the risk ofgetting ourselves stranded orbeing in an unusual situationand much more.

� What has been the mostamusing experience in yourtravel journey?

I would say in Mongolia.When I was there, we went tovisit a wrestling camp which isan important and the biggestpart of the Mongolian culture.They see wrestling as a part ofthe process of becoming a man.My co-host took me to awrestling training camp, and Igot to wrestle. To be honest, Ifound it quite painful but wasa memorable experience.

� What is the secret behindthe effortless blend of traveland comedy?

It is the matter of reactingto things genuinely. We oftendo certain things and if I findthem funny, I react according-ly. It is very much led by theexperiences we are having. It isabout reflex actions to what isgoing on around you and from

there, you get the blend. But thetruth is we do things very care-fully about how to walk thatline about serious travel reflec-tions and those on culture andcomedy. That was the hardestpart in the whole show.

� How have you observed thestereotypes in different placeswhile travelling?

I think people have imagesof different places in theirminds, which might not neces-sarily be true. For instance,there are many images ofAfrican countries in variousplaces as their people starving.But that is not my experience ofthose countries. I went toZimbabwe, Ethiopia, which Ithink are some magical places.I do feel that this show examineda lot of those stereotypes againstSouth Africa.

� Would you like to sharesome travel tips for the Indianaudience?

Speaking as a vegan, takingsome ready-to-eat snacks isquite helpful. They also at timesremind you of home at a placeunknown to you. I personally dothat a lot! The other thing isabout attitude because when youvisit new places, the top travel tipis to go as open-minded as pos-sible. Also, be ready for surpris-es because uncertainty is the firstthing that comes with travelling.

(The series, which startedairing on August 4, airs last onAugust 7 at 10 pm on Sony BBCEarth.)

The second season of the Amazon Originalseries Hunters, the hit conspiracy thriller

created by David Weil and executive producedby Jordan Peele, is all set to stream exclusive-ly on the OTT platform. The first season ofthe series starring Al Pacino, Logan Lermanand Jerrika Hinton premiered February 21.

“I am grateful to Jen and the Amazonfamily for their extraordinary support for theseries,” said Weil. He added, “Alongside ourincredible cast, crew, writers and producers,I am eager to share the next chapter of theHunters saga with the world.”

“With the series, Weil’s vision and imag-ination powered a thrilling, twisty, action-packed first season that engaged customersaround the world. We are thrilled that David,Jordan and the Hunters will be back with usfor more,” said Jennifer Salke, Head ofAmazon Studios.

The debut season of the series followeda diverse band of Nazi hunters living in 1977New York City. The hunters, as they’reknown, have discovered that hundreds ofhigh-ranking Nazi officials are living amongus and conspiring to create a Fourth Reich inthe United States.

The series also stars Josh Radnor, KateMulvany, Tiffany Boone, Greg Austin, LouisOzawa, Carol Kane, Saul Rubinek, DylanBaker and Lena Olin.

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Dushyant Singh Chautalahas achieved a greatfeat in just seven years

of his political career. Manymay attribute it to his lineage,some may call it sheer luck buthe has proved them all wrongby fighting against all odds.

India has witnessed aplethora of political heirs inParliament but very few couldmake their mark. Dushyantentered the Parliament afterdefeating a political dark horseand a two-term serving MPKuldeep Bishnoi, son ofCongress stalwart Bhajan Lal.At 25, he made a record ofbecoming the youngest MP.During his tenure as Hisar’sMP, he stunned fellow mem-bers by reporting 84 per centattendance and an active par-ticipation in 228 debates with-in the House. The two factsthat prove his seriousnessabout raising people’s voices —he raised more than 630 ques-tions in the House whereasother leaders of the state col-lectively could not ask even 250questions; he alone introduced20 private member bills where-as other MPs of the state couldonly move three. These figuresspeak a lot about his deep con-cern on the rooted issues per-taining to Haryana.

In December 2017, theCentral Government took adecision to amend an act withrespect to the treatment oftractor as a commercial vehi-cle and not an agriculturalvehicle. This meant that farm-ers would have to pay toll taxat every toll booth across India.There was no voice of protest

by any MP, who otherwiserepresented farmers’ commu-nity or whose stand in politicsis based on farmers’ voting. Toprotest against tweaking ofrules relating to the MotorVehicles Act, Dushyant decid-ed to ride a tractor to theParliament. His efforts caughtthe eye of the media nation-wide which led to a majoruproar in the Parliament.Eventually, the CentralGovernment was forced towithdraw this amendment.

The year 2018 saw a sim-mering power struggle inIndian National Lok Dal whichled to the expulsion of AjayChautala’s sons DushyantChautala and DigvijayChautala from the Haryana-based party. With just a yearleft for Haryana’s Assemblyelections, this was a politicalturmoil, which saw a split ofIndian National Lok Dal(INLD) and an emergence ofa new political outfit —Jannayak Janta Party (JJP),founded by Dushyant. With a10-month timeline to theAssembly elections, manypolitical pundits termed it as achildish move. Also, there wasspeculation that it was an aspi-rational war for the CM can-didate. But those who knewhim closely were aware that hehas joined to change the oldpolitical style which had con-tinually annoyed many in theparty. Dushyant was a ‘moodof Haryana’, he was a people’sman and he wanted to discardsycophants within the party.There were issues pertaining toassertion and dominance of a

senior leader, which were dis-liked by party workers, themedia and even the bureaucra-cy. This became more evidentafter a large rally at Gohana,where party workers demand-ed his name to be announcedas a candidate for CM.

What surprised many isthat he took a risk when heaffirmed to form his own polit-ical outfit, rather than gettinginto a legal battle with his uncleAbhay Chautala over holdingthe reins of INLD. He did notcontest for securing a partysymbol like Samajwadi Party’sAkhilesh Yadav, who had astrong rift with his uncle over“Jhanda-Danda” of party. JJPthrew its hat in Haryana’s pol-

itics with a new symbol and anew name. Many termed JJP as‘group of boys’, ‘students wing’but Dushyant went ahead qui-etly and worked day and nighton the ground. He even left hishouse and stayed in villages athis party workers’ houses,played cricket with local boysand focussed on social mediaoutreach through a dedicatedteam. Even while travelling ina car, he conducted ‘Facebooklive sessions’ to interact withthe youth of Haryana. Whenhe visits villages, he is aware ofeach booth level worker of hisparty, he calls them by theirnames, eats with them, hearsthem and understands theground issues. This strategy

has created an everlasting loy-alty towards him. This trait ofknowing booth level workers’names is inherited from hisgrandfather Om PrakashChautala, a five term HaryanaCM.

JJP decided to go alone inHaryana’s Assembly elections.While leaders of other partiessuch as INLD, AAP, BSP werecobbling pre-election gath-bandhans in party offices,Dushyant was doing five polit-ical rallies in a day coveringaround 500 km per day. Hisday started from 7 am andended by 12 midnight.Dushyant decided to contest inone of the difficult constituen-cies, Uchana Kalan, held by thethen BJP MLA Prem Lata,wife of former Union Ministerand Haryana strongmanBirender Singh.

The election result onOctober 24, 2019 stunnedevery political pundit as JJPwon with ten seats andemerged in the kingmaker’srole. The ruling BharatiyaJanata Party ended up winningonly 40 seats in the 90-mem-ber Assembly. BJP sought thesupport of Dushyant’s JJP to beable to form a stable govern-ment in power.

Some quick moves and ameeting with Union HomeMinister and BJP presidentAmit Shah sealed the deal andthe BJP-JJP coalition wasformed with a respectablepower sharing formula.Dushyant’s hard bargaininggot him the Deputy CM’s postalong with significant min-istries. The top leadership of

BJP was deeply impressed byhis impeccable performancewithin a short span of 10months. He settled the debateon the legacy of former deputyPrime Minister and Jat stalwartDevi Lal. At 31, he stands fore-most among Jat leaders ofIndia.

After resuming office, hismain focus was to work on prepoll manifesto promises madeby him. Among many one ofthe important and toughpromise to fulfill was thereservation for youth ofHaryana in employmentopportunities. This was chal-lenging as being industriesminister he had to balance onindustrial investment and jobsfor locals. On July 9, 2020, TheHaryana State Employmentof Local CandidatesOrdinance, 2020 and 75 percent reservation became areality after passing throughHaryana’s Cabinet. This willsoon be tabled in the assem-bly.

Since allotment of his offi-cial residence and party officein Chandigarh, each day isdedicated to a Janta Darbar,where people from across thestate come and meet him fortheir concerns and he patient-ly listens to them to resolvetheir issues.

Those who know Indianpolitics know that he is goingto play a long innings and it isjust the beginning.

(The author, Prateek Som,is the practising Advocate inSupreme Court of India andNational Spokesperson ofJannayak Janta Party.)

Coronavirus is a globalcrisis and the biggest

challenge which the worldis facing today. From theworld’s most sophisticatedhealthcare systems to theworld’s largest spendinghealthcare system, everycountry is affected by thepandemic and still strug-gling to control it. Theworld is yet to come up withany targeted cure for it. Inthe absence of a vaccine,plasma therapy is beinglooked upon as a potentialtreatment. Moving ahead inthe direction of plasmatherapy, Northern Railway

Central Hospital, NewDelhi, performed the firstCOVID ConvalescentPlasma donation. Thedonor was a COVID war-rior, post graduate medicalstudent.

Rajiv Chaudhry,General Manager, Northernand North CentralRailways, informed that theplasma availability atNorthern Railway CentralHospital (NRCH) will def-initely help in treating thecritical COVID railwaybeneficiaries and will makethe railways self reliant inplasma treatment.

As the entire world awaitsthe arrival of a vaccine to

neutralise the COVID-19,SRM Medical CollegeHospital and Research Centreat Kattankulathur has joineda group of medical institutionswith a basket of research pro-jects led by its clinical trials of‘Covaxin’, a ‘promising vaccinecandidate’. The project is sup-ported by the Indian Councilof Medical Research (ICMR)and developed by BharatBiotech International Ltd(BBIL), Hyderabad in collab-oration with National Instituteof Virology (NIV), Pune.

SRM Medical Collegemakes it one of the few private

universities in the countrywith a well developed labora-tory and researchers. “Thesehave helped catapult it to theleague of 12 hospitals nowdoing these vital clinical tri-als as part of a national mis-sion,” said professor Lt Col SRavikumar, Pro ViceChancellor, Medical andHealth Sciences, SRMInstitute of Science andTechnology.

The Drug ControllerGeneral of India (DCGI) hasaccorded permission forPhase-I and Phase-II clinicaltrials of Covaxin. Those whohave received the vaccine aredoing well till date and they

would be given one moreshot in the next couple ofweeks. In a month from now,the results of the Phase-I tri-als should be available aftercomplete clinical evaluation,coordinated by BBIL. ThePhase-I trial country-wideinvolved 375 subjects in all asapproved by the DCGI.

By the next week, “Wehope to begin the Phase-II tri-als in the age group of 12-65years,” said Dr Melvin George.Hundred volunteers are need-ed for Phase-II trails. Theywould be checked for theirgeneral health status andscreened for COVID-19before being taken in.

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Lord Ram’s birthplace, the holy landof faith and devotion — Ayodhya

has been the focal point of spiritual-ity since ages. It attracts innumerabledevotees from all over the worldwhich in turn increases the impor-tance of its railway station.

Railways is operating many trainsin Ayodhya, fulfilling its importantrole and responsibilities in convenientmovement of passengers. It will pro-vide high class infrastructural facili-ties, passenger amenities, cleanlinessand various other facilities with highquality standards in the city’s railwaystation. It is noteworthy that theconstruction work of a well-equippedbuilding with the latest and modernpassenger facilities of Ayodhya station

is in progress. For this building anapproval of �80 crore were sanctionedin the financial year 2017-18, whichhas been increased to �104.77 croreat present.

The station building is beingconstructed by the RITES, an enter-prises of railways. The constructionof this building will be in two phas-es, in the first one the developmentwork will be in the current circulat-ing and the holding area and platformnumbers one, two and three. In thesecond phase, the construction of thenew station building and other facil-ities will be taken into account. Thesefacilities include renovation of theinternal and external premises toexpand the number of ticket counters,

waiting rooms, restrooms and dormi-tories. Other desired facilities includean additional foot over bridge, foodplaza, shops, additional toilets. Apartfrom this, the tourist center and taxibooth will be added facilities. All theseworks are reviewed from time to timeby the railways and in due courseinstructions are also passed to com-plete the work with high quality.

Rajiv Chaudhry, GeneralManager, Northern & North CentralRailways informed that in view of theimportance of this city, the railwaysis modernising the Ayodhya railwaystation. Constant efforts are beingmade to provide modern facilitiesequipped with high standards to thevisiting devotees and tourists.

Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL)attained a sales volume of 15.83 lakh

tonnes last month which is its best ever per-formance in the month of July. It recordeda growth of about 50 percent over July’19sales which was 10.59 lakh tonnes. The com-pany sold 12.73 lakh tonnes in the domes-tic market while it exported 3.10 lakh tonnesof steel during July this year, attaining agrowth of 29 and 349 percent respectivelyover CPLY.

Anil Kumar Chaudhary, Chairman,SAIL commented, “The company is work-ing hard and putting in a synergised teamefforts in all areas to improve the overall per-formance. The challenging times have, infact, ignited the zeal to stand stronger andexplore every single opportunity before us.The efforts being put in have started show-ing in these record sales numbers, reducedinventory, improved collections and reducedborrowings. We are focused on reducing theborrowings further towards meeting theexpectation of all the stakeholders.”

He also stressed on calibrating the vol-umes as per the market demand and said,“SAIL is in go-getter mode and ready to ser-vice the market requirements. It has servicedthe special requirements of Railways andDefence even during these challengingtimes and remains fully committed to do soin future too.”

Hardeep Singh Puri, Ministerof State (I/C), Ministry of

Housing and Urban Affairs(MoHUA) released a ARHCsKnowledge Pack (AKP) via avideo conference. Durga ShankerMishra, Secretary, MoHUApresided over the function whichwas attended by senior officers ofState Governments/UTs and rep-resentatives of NAREDCO,CREDAI, FICCI, CII andASSOCHAM connected throughwebinar. COVID-19 pandemichas resulted in massive reversemigration of workers/urban poorin the country. In line with thePrime Minister’s clarion call ofAtmanirbhar Bharat, UnionCabinet on July 8 approvedAffordable Rental HousingComplexes (ARHCs) as a subscheme under Pradhan MantriAwas Yojana (Urban) to provideease of living to urbanmigrants/poor.

ARHCs will be implementedthrough two models:

Model-1: Utilising existinggovernment funded vacant hous-es to convert into ARHCs throughPublic Private Partnership or bypublic agencies for a period of 25

years.The scheme provides an

opportunity for all States/UTs toconvert their existing vacanthouses constructed under various

Central/ State Governmentschemes into ARHCs.

A model RFP has been sharedwith all States for customisationand issuance by them to select a

concessionaire.

Model-2: Construction, oper-ation and maintenance of ARHCsby public/private entities on their

own on available vacant land fora period of 25 years.

A large portion of availablevacant land is lying unutilisedwith various industries, tradeassociations, manufacturing com-panies, educational/health insti-tutions, development authorities,housing boards, Central/StatePublic Sector Undertakings(PSUs) and other such entities. Byproviding with appropriate poli-cy support, enabling suitable pro-visions and incentives, these landscan be utilised effectively fordeveloping affordable housingfacilities for migrants/poor.

Further, MoHUA will issueExpression of Interest (EoI) forshortlisting of entities by ULBs toconstruct, operate and maintainARHCs on their own availablevacant land.

The event had a large partic-ipation from States/UTs/ULBsfrom across the country, realestate industry captains andindustry chambers. All stake-holders had first-hand familiari-sation with ARHC scheme and itsimplementation tools in the formof AKP. MoHUA will extend allpossible support for successfulimplementation of the scheme.

DUSHYANT A NEW VOICE OF HARYANA

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"�2.��C8".�8)524�12B35It has been observed recently that

few cases of COVID-19 have comeup in Chittaranjan township. As ondate there are five positive patients ofCOVID admitted in the COVIDward of KG hospital. Nine patientswere admitted recently with mildfever and some respiratory problemsand their swab test was done. Fivewere found to be positive and rest fourwere discharged. The positive casesare increasing day by day inChittaranjan & our Dankuni unitwhich is serious.

It is requested to Chittaranjan’srailway employees, their families andthe businessmen to maintain socialdistancing. While moving out, it isadvised wear a mask and use handsanitiser.

To further clip the spread of thevirus in the city, the administration istaking precautions. The entry and exitgates of the township and the entry tothe offices will be restricted from nowonwards. Advisory has been issued tooffice staff and officers to refrain frommeeting unknown persons and otherguests from other states so that we canstop the spread of the virus.

Page 12: ˘ˇˆ˙˝˛ ˇ˚˙˛ˆ˝ ˜ ˙˚˛! ˆ˜ · India’s Covid-19 death count crossed 40,000 marks on Wednesday with Maharashtra alone accounting for 334 deaths during the last 24 hours

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Defending championRafael Nadal will skipthe U.S. Open

because of the coronaviruspandemic, putting on hold his

bid to equal Roger Federer’smen’s record for Grand Slamtitles.

Nadal explained hisdecision in a series of

tweets sent in Spanishand English onTuesday.

“The situation isvery complicatedworldwide, the

COVID-19 cases areincreasing, itlooks like westill don’thave control

of it,” Nadalwrote.

The 34-year-old from

Spain called sittingout the tournament scheduledto begin Aug. 31 in New York

“a decision I never want-ed to take," but addedthat he would “rathernot travel.”

“Rafa is one of thegreatest champions in

our sport and we support hisdecision,” U.S. Open tourna-ment director Stacey Allastersaid.

The current No. 1-rankedwoman, Ash Barty, alreadyhad announced she would bemissing the U.S. Open. TheU.S. Tennis Association’s entrylist announcements Tuesdaynoted that 2019 women’s cham-pion Bianca Andreescu is in thefield - at least for now; playerscan withdraw until the start ofplay - but made no mention ofNadal.

The professional tennistours have been on hiatus sinceMarch because of the COVID-19 outbreak, with play resum-ing for women on Monday inPalermo, Italy. The first men'sevent on the main tour isscheduled to be held later thismonth.

Nadal’s plan to skip the U.S.Open came shortly after theMadrid Open, scheduled forSeptember, was canceledbecause of the pandemic.

“We know that the reducedtennis calendar is barbaric thisyear after 4 months stoppedwith no play,” Nadal wrote onTwitter.

“I understand and thank

for the efforts they are puttingin to make it happen.”

In last year’s thriller of amen’s final at FlushingMeadows, Nadal edged DaniilMedvedev 7-5, 6-3, 5-7, 4-6, 6-4 in 4 hours, 50 minutes. Thatgave Nadal four titles at the U.S.Open and a total of 19 acrossall the Grand Slam tourna-ments, just one away fromFederer’s career mark.

Federer will be absent fromthe U.S. Open, too, but becauseof two operations on his rightknee this year.

The last Grand Slam tour-nament contested withouteither Federer or Nadal was the1999 U.S. Open - four yearsbefore Nadal made his debut atone of the sport’s four mostprestigious events.

The USTA has givenrepeated indications it intendsto go forward with the U.S.Open, despite the spikes incases around the United States,saying in a news release lastweek: “New York State contin-ues to be one of the safest placesin the country as it relates to theCOVID-19 virus.”

That is currently true -although the area was a majorU.S. Hot spot early in the pan-

demic, so much so that a build-ing at the U.S. Open site wasused as a temporary hospital.

New York hospitals sawmore than 18,000 patients withCOVID-19 at a time in mid-April when infections surgedand more than 750 patientswith the illness died each dayin hospitals and nursinghomes. Those figures plungedin May, and rates of hospital-izations and new positiveCOVID-19 cases have beenrelatively stable since June.

There are still concernsabout travel, as Nadal noted.

The USTA is planning adoubleheader of sorts at theBillie Jean King NationalTennis Center. The Western &Southern Open, a hard-courttournament normally played inCincinnati, was moved to theU.S. Open site this yearbecause of the pandemic andis scheduled to be played Aug.20-28.

That is supposed to be fol-lowed by the U.S. Open itself.And then, two weeks after theU.S. Open closes on Sept. 13,the French Open is scheduledto begin in Paris, having beenpostponed from its usual Maystart.

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Slovenian qualifier Kaja Juvanupset second-seeded Markéta

Vondroušová of the Czech Republic1-6, 7-5, 6-4 in the first round of thePalermo Ladies Open, the first offi-cial tennis tournament since March.

Vondroušová won the first setin just 29 minutes and then camefrom 4-0 down in the second totake a 5-4 lead and was just twopoints away from winning thematch before Juvan recovered.Juvan took another 4-0 lead in thethird set and secured the matchwhen Vondroušová hit a forehandinto the net. It was her first careerwin against a top-20 ranked oppo-nent.

“She started off really well andI was a little bit nervous, she’s my

first top-20 player,” Juvan said in avideo conference.

“The conditions were reallyhard but in the second and third setI calmed myself and I started play-ing much better.” The WTA tour-nament marks the return of tour-level tennis - men’s or women’s - fol-lowing a five-month break for thecoronavirus pandemic.

A limited number of fanswere allowed into the 1,500-seat stadium court andhad to follow social dis-tancing measures.

There are also strictrules for the players,such as handling theirown towels, not shakinghands with theiropponents, andno autographs or

photos with fans.Juvan was spoken to by the

umpire after throwing items includ-ing her visor and wristbands to the

crowd.“Obviously we get

tested a lot so I under-stand their concern but it

was actually like aninstinct,” Juvan said.

“All of us that arehere are negative andso I was like ‘well Igot the result againtoday' so I thought I

might as well give itto them. Yeah,

maybe I won't do itthe next few days.”

Juvan will next faceCamila Giorgi, who

became the fourth

Italian to progress to the secondround after beating RebeccaPeterson 7-5, 6-4.

Sara Errani, ElisabettaCocciaretto and Jasmine Paoliniwon their first-round matches onMonday.

Top-seeded Petra Martic easedinto the second round with a 6-0,6-3 win over Alison Van Uytvanck.The Croatian will face Russianqualifier Ludmilla Samsonova,who beat Kirsten Flipkens 6-4, 6-2.

“It’s been such a long break andI don't think anyone knows whatto expect when the real matchcomes,” Martic said.

“I really just tried to focus onmy own game and tried to enjoythe fact that we are back on courtagain and I think I managed both.”

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Young Indian tennis playerSumit Nagal is set to com-

pete in his second GrandSlam main draw after receiv-ing a direct entry into the USOpen, which several top play-ers will miss due to theCOVID-19 pandemic.

The world number 127 isthe last man to receive a directentry, according to the tour-nament website.

It will be Nagal's secondappearance at the US Open,starting August 31, and he isthe only Indian in the men’sf ield with PrajneshGunneswaran, ranked 132,missing out.

“It feels good to make amain draw of a Slam againsince I have only made onemain draw yet. I understandthe situation is not the samethis year. I am looking to flyto USA after my challengers inCzech Republic,” Nagal toldPTI from Germany before atraining session.

Last year, Nagal reachedhis maiden Grand Slam at theUS Open after winning all hisqualifying round matches toset up a dream encounter

with the legendary RogerFederer.

In the much-anticipatedclash, the 22-year old fromJhajjar took a set off Federerbefore going down 6-4 1-6 2-6 4-6.

Talking about this year,Nagal said,” I don’t have muchexpectations, I just want to goand do what I enjoy which isplaying tennis.”

Nagal said he won’t haveto serve a quarantine periodafter he reaches New York.

“We are supposed to stayin a bubble area and can onlygo to the hotel and back to thecourts. We will have COVID-19 tests every second day.”

Three-time US Openchampion and world no. 1Novak Djokovic headlines thefield with the likes of Federerand Rafael Nadal giving thetournament a miss.

While Federer has with-drawn from all competitionsthis year owing to a kneeinjury, defending championNadal pulled out due to theCOVID-19 pandemic.

Former champion StanWawrinka, Nick Kyrgios,Fabio Fognini and GaelMonfils are the other topplayers missing from the men’sfield.

“I can’t speak for the peo-ple who chose not to play. It’stheir own decision and youhave to respect that,” saidNagal when asked about adepleted field this year.

Professional tennis tourshave been on a hiatus sinceMarch because of the coron-avirus outbreak, with playresuming for women atPalermo Ladies Open thisweek in Italy.

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Selflessness defines a leader inRohit Sharma’s captaincy rulebook

and that’s why he has no hesitationin calling himself the “least importantperson” in the Mumbai Indiansteam, the most successful franchisein IPL's history.

Indian cricket will hit the restartbutton with the IPL from September19 in the UAE even as the world con-tinues its frenzied battle to contain theCOVID-19 pandemic.

The man, who led MumbaiIndians to four titles, knows that ascaptain, it will not just be about himgetting back into the groove after aforced seven-month break.

“I believe in a theory that whenyou are captain, you are the leastimportant person. Others becomemore important in the larger schemeof things. It works differently for dif-ferent leaders but as far as I am con-cerned, this theory works for me,”Rohit told PTI in an exclusive inter-view. Suresh Raina recently comparedhis cool quotient to that of Mahendra

Singh Dhoni. He prefers to play downthe comparison but there is one unde-niable similarity between the two —Rohit can also remain as unfazed asthe former India captain in the mostdifficult of situations.

“Not showing anger is not a con-scious effort,” he laughs.

“That’s a natural instinct that youhave and you don't try and be some-one that you are not. Try and be your-self all the time,” he said.

“You do get angry, lose temper attimes but it’s important not to showit to your teammates. Hiding youremotions is the most crucial part.”

The Indian vice-captain believesthat there is “enough time” before theIPL starts and he would slowly buildon his strength, stamina and skillsduring the next one month after thelong lay-off.

“Hopefully, the gym will openthis week and I can start my indoor(strength training) sessions. Rightnow, due to Mumbai monsoons, youcan’t train outdoor. I am planning towrite a letter to MCA (on usingindoor facilities),” he said.

Having won an Asia Cup inDubai in 2018, he has a fair idea aboutwhat awaits his team next month interms of conditions.

Rohit said the plan is to build upslowly after being away from his batfor the longest he can remember.

“We have lot of time in ourhands...I will be taking it slow.Luckily, I don’t think there is any rushthat I need to show. We have enoughtime. I will work on getting back tothe ground slowly because the tem-perature in Dubai is 40 degrees. It’snot easy,” he said.

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Chennai SuperKings’ star all-

rounder Suresh Rainabelieves the upcomingIndian Premier League,to be played in theUAE amid theCOVID-19 pandemic,will pose a lot of newchallenges for the play-ers, and clarity ofthought would be keyfor a player to succeed.

The IPL this yearhas been shifted to theUAE because of thepandemic and will beheld in three venues —Dubai, Abu Dhabi andSharjah — fromSeptember 19 to November 10 amid COVID-19 proto-cols laid down by the ICC and BCCI.

“This IPL would be very interesting to see how theplayers are thinking,” Raina said in a webinar after beingnamed as the global brand ambassador for WTF Sportsapp. “You are playing in different circumstances and youhave a lot of protocol from ICC and at the same time youare going to go through tests every two-three weeks.”According to BCCI’s Standard Operating Procedure(SOP), the Indian players and support staff will have toreturn negative for COVID-19 at least five times beforethey start training in the UAE and subsequently will betested every fifth day during the IPL.

“So, I would say coming out from all those tests youneed to be clear with your head on what you are goingto do on the field because at the end of the day when youare playing a sport, you need to enjoy the game,” Rainasaid. Insisting that fitness would be key to success afterbeing struck at home since March due to the pandem-ic, Raina said he was eagerly waiting for the tournamentto begin.

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Beating arch-rivals Englandin their own den and

achieving Test success in Indiaare the “two big mountains”which Australian batting main-stay Steve Smith wants to climbbefore calling time on his career.

Australia had retained theAshes in England last year witha 2-2 draw but the defeat in thelast Test at The Oval still ran-kles Smith, who was the star ofthe series with 774 runs at anaverage of 110.57 from fourTests.

The 31-year-old had scoredthree centuries during the four-Test series in India in 2017 butAustralia still ended up losing1-2 and a Test win against

Virat Kohli and his men rankshigh in his list.

Australia are scheduled totour India in October 2022.

“They’re the two big moun-tains to climb and if you can dothat, it would be pretty special.Hopefully I get another crack atit, we’ll see how we go,” Smithwas quoted as saying byCricket.Com.Au.

“I’m getting a bit old now.You never know how long I'vegot left, and you never knowwhat the future holds. But it'scertainly something to strivefor, that’s for sure.”

Talking about last year’sAshes, Smith said: “To knowthat we’d got the Ashes back waspretty special. Unfortunately, wecouldn’t win them which is

something I’d still like to do.“It just doesn’t feel the same

… you get to the end of theseries and we're there holdingup the Ashes but we’d just lostthe last Test match, and weactually hadn’t won anything.

“ was cool to get them back,but I was actually more disap-pointed that we hadn’t wonthem.” Australia will hope toretain the Ashes at home in2021-22 before getting a chanceto beat England away with thetour scheduled in 2023.

“From my personal per-spective, I think it’s unfinishedbusiness. It’s great to retain theAshes but it just doesn’t sit rightwith me when you don’t win it.We drew the series - good, butnot great.

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Babar Azam reached ahalf-century just before

rain brought an early tea on the firstday of England’s opening Test againstPakistan with the tourists 121-2 onWednesday.

After being invited to bowl first byvisiting captain Azhar Ali, the hosts willhave been happy with a lunch score of53-2 - Jofra Archer and Chris Woakeswith a wicket apiece.

Woakes welcomed star batsmanBabar to the crease with a wonderfuldelivery that might easily have clippedeither the outside edge or the off stumpbut the 25-year-old dominated pro-ceedings in the afternoon session.

He hit nine boundaries as hereached 52 not out in just 71 balls,almost every one of them imperious,

as he set about prov-ing all of the praise he hasgarnered in recentmonths is well placed.

The players wereforced off the field by ashower just before3pm and would havewelcomed the chanceto regroup afterBabar’s onslaught.

As well asstalling England’sprogress his effortsalso placed ShanMasood in theshade, theopener having

ground out a valuable 45 not out acrossmore than three hours.

England began by confirming anunchanged XI, Ben Stokes again select-ed as a specialist batsman as uncertain-ty over his nagging quad injury con-tinued.

Pakistan began their innings undermoody skies and with the floodlightson, but openers Masood and Abid Alishowed sufficient composure to nego-tiate the first hour for 32 without loss.

Both men were beaten on theoutside edge on a couple of occa-sions but stuck admirably to thetask of seeing off the challenge ofJames Anderson and Stuart Broad.

In the end it was the first-change bowlers, retained

here ahead of Sam Curranand Mark Wood, whogot England back intothe conversation.

Archer, who creat-ed more headlines offthe field than on itagainst the Windies,needed just seven deliv-

eries to make his presencefelt.

After pushing the bats-men back in his first over, hestarted the second with afuller ball at Abid, jagging it inoff the pitch and pegging backoff stump.

He made his way back for16, an exit made all the morefrustrating by a brief rainshower which forced the sidesoff after only three more deliv-eries.

It was only a brief recessbut within 10 minutes of the

restart Woakes sent captainAzhar Ali for a more permanenttrip to the pavilion.

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Front foot no balls will be decid-ed by the TV umpire and not the

on-field officials for the first time inTest cricket with the series betweenEngland and Pakistan, theInternational Cricket Council (ICC)announced on Wednesday.

The ICC added that the frontfoot no-ball technology will beassessed before any decisions aretaken regarding its use in futuregames.

“Front foot no-ball technologyto be used in ICC World TestChampionship series featuringEngland and Pakistan, with thesupport of both teams,” the ICCtweeted.

“Performance of the technolo-gy in these Tests will be reviewedbefore any decisions taken on itsfuture use in Test cricket,” it added.

The front-foot no balls wereexclusively monitored by the thirdumpire in the recently concludedODI series between England andIreland, whichwas part of theICC World CupSuper League.

Last year,the technologywas put to trialin the limitedovers seriesbetween Indiaand West Indies.

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India captain Virat Kohli and hisdeputy Rohit Sharma retained the top

two positions in the ICC ODI rank-ings for batsmen, while pacerJasprit Bumrah held on to theno.2 spot among bowlers in thelatest list issued on Wednesday.

Kohli holds the numerouno status with 871 points, fol-lowed by Rohit (855) andPakistan’s Babar Azam (829),while with 719 points Bumrahcontinued to be steady at thesecond spot in the bowler’s list,which is being headed by NewZealand’s Trent Boult.

The batting chart saw some

movement with Ireland captain Andrew Balbirnieimproving four places to 42nd spot after his 113-run innings against England in the final matchat Southampton, while his deputy Paul Stirling's142 lifted him one slot to 26th.

Rookie Curtis Campher's impressive firstseries, which saw him score half-centuries bothtimes he batted, has helped him make a note-worthy entry into the batsmen’s list at the 191st

position.In the bowling chart, Ireland fast bowler

Craig Young’s six wickets in the series has liftedhim 40 places to a career-best 89th position, whileMark Adair (up six places to 138th) and JoshuaLittle (up 38 places to 146th) are the others tomove up after the rubber, which ended 2-1 inEngland’s favour. England captain Eoin Morgan,

who also scored a century in the final ODI, hasgained one place and is ranked 22nd, while

Jonny Bairstow has moved up a slot to 13th posi-tion, thanks to his knock of 82 in the secondmatch. Sam Billings has re-entered the rankingsat 146nd position after aggregating 132 runs.

Among England bowlers, leg-spinner AdilRashid has advanced from 29th to 25th with fivewickets in the series, while left-arm pacer DavidWilley’s eight wickets, including a haul of five for30 in the opening match, not only won him theplayer of the series award but has also lifted himsix places to 51st position.

England’s series win got them 20 points inthe ICC men's World Cup Super League, whichwill see 13 teams vie for direct qualifying placesin the next World Cup in India in 2023. Irelandare on 10 points.

India and seven other teams will make itdirectly from the league with the remaining twogetting a second chance through a Qualifier.

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India captain Harmanpreet Kaur isexcited about playing in the UAE for the firsttime and is looking forward to come out ofthe long break and headline the Women’sT20 Challenge, to be held during the IPL inNovember.

The women’s exhibition games wereconfirmed by the BCCI president SouravGanguly last week. The Indian team has notplayed since T20 World Cup final in March.

The event will have three teams withfour matches expected to be played betweenNovember 1-10.

“Yes definitely (I'm excited for theWomen’s Challenge), because this is our firsttour to Dubai and we haven’t played there

before,” Harmanpreet said during a webinaron Wednesday.

Harmanpreet was named as the globalbrand ambassador of WTF Sports, whichlaunched an app in India.

The T20 skipper is not perturbed by theconditions in the UAE. The event is alsoclashing with the Women's Big Bash inAustralia and it remains to be seen howmany star foreign players turn up in theUAE.

“I had questions like how the wicketswould be. We need to play to our strengthsbecause if you don’t play to your strengths,then your natural game doesn’t come out,”added Kaur, who has played 114 T20s and99 ODIs.

According to Harmanpreet, the players

would like to make most of the opportuni-ty.

“I hope that we grab the opportunitythat we get and we are equally excited forthe women’s IPL (Challenge) like the men’sIPL. I hope we play good cricket in the fourgames that we will get and entertain every-body,” added the dashing batter.

Harman also said that after a big break,it is the mental strength which is a key forany player.

Cricket in the country has come to agrinding halt since mid March due to out-break of COVID19.

“When there is a long break and afterthat however good touch you are in, youstart doubting yourself. Mental strengthhelps here,” she said.

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