2 militants behind sniper malik meets rajnath attacks ... filec m y k c m y k ast age p . 8 21...

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Infant sleeping bags, or sleep sacks, are at least as safe as other bedding in preventing sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and might be safer, a new analysis concludes. SIDS is the sudden, unexplained death of a baby younger than 12 months. While little is known about the condition, factors like putting a baby to sleep face down, or using soft bedding, have been found to increase the risk of SIDS.

'Sleep sacks' better than blankets for

babies, experts say

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News Digest

2 Cops, DD News Cameraman killed

Law Minister For All-India Judicial Service

5 Policemen, 3 Prisoners Injured

Pak Parl Passes Resolution On Kashmir

New School Timings From Tomorrow

RAIPUR: Two policemen and a cameraperson of Doordarshan were killed and two others were injured on Tuesday when around 100 naxals attacked a security patrol party in poll-bound Chhat-tisgarhsDantewada district, the police said.Two to three naxals were also believed to be killed in retaliatory action by the security forces after the ambush in a forest area P10

NEW DELHI: Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad Tuesday pitched for an all-India service to recruit judges for the lower judiciary but said the concept cannot take shape without consultations as several states and high courts are opposed to the idea.Addressing a seminar here on the subject, he also said the proposed All-India Judicial Services would ensure that lawyers from P10

SRINAGAR: Five policemen and three under-trial prisoners were injured after a vehicle they were travelling in met with an accident in Brazloo area of Kulgam in south Kashmir on Tuesday.Reports said said that the police vehicle heading towards the dis-trict jail in Pulwama from a local court in adjoining Kulgam district with under trails skidded off the road and rolled down from P10

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's parlia-ment on Monday unanimously passed a resolution condemn-ing the alleged violence against people in Kashmir by the Indian security forces.The resolution was presented in the National Assembly, the lower house of the parliament, by Pakistan's Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan Ali Amin Gandapur.The house said in the resolution that Kashmir issue should be resolved in light of United Nations Security Council resolutions.

SRINAGAR: The Directorate of School Education Kashmir (DSEK) on Tuesday ordered change in school timings in Kashmir from November 01.As per the order by DSEK, all the Government and recognized private schools falling in the areas of Srinagar municipal limits will remain operational from 10 am to 3 pm.The timing for schools P10

P10

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2 Militants Behind Sniper Attacks Killed In TralAmong Slain Includes Masood Azhar’s Nephew Usman, Says JeM

8 Soldiers Injured In Kupwara, Ex-Cong Leader’s House Attacked in Shopian SRINAGAR: An officer was among eight army soldiers in-jured in an accidental blast at Rajwar Handwara in north Kashmir's Kupwara district while suspected militants at-tacked house of a former congress leader in P10

Advisor Reviews Kashmir’s Security ScenarioSRINAGAR: Advisor to Governor, K Vijay Kumar, on Tuesday chaired a meeting at Police Headquarters (PHQ) Srinagar to review the overall security scenario in the Kashmir division.

He stressed on enhancing coordination | DETAILS ON P5

Army commander visits LoC, HAWS SRINAGAR: Army’s Northern Commander Lt Gen Ranbir Singh visited the forward areas of Kashmir region to review the prevailing security situation on the Line of Control.

Accompanied by the Chinar Corps Commander Lt Gen AK Bhatt, the Army Commander visited forward P10

NIA Raids Businessman’s 3 Houses In Srinagar

MeT Forecasts Rains, Snow From Today JCB Machine Operator Killed, Highway Closed For Many Hours

Safety Of Mines, Mine Workers On High Court Radar

JRL To Consult All Factions Of Society, To Frame ‘Joint Strategy’

Observer News Service

SRINAGAR: Two militants of Jash-e-Mohammad militant outfit, one of them said to be Jash-e-Mo-hammad chief Azhar Masood’s nephew, were killed at Chankitar

area of Tral in south Kashmir’s Pul-wama district, police said.

“So far two bodies of the (mili-tants) have been recovered. They are affiliated with JeM outfit.,” a po-lice official said, adding, “Searches are still going on in the area.” P10

Seeks Details From Govt In Four weeks Observer News Service

SRINAGAR: The J&K High Court on Tuesday granted four weeks’ to the government to supply the details regarding safety measures being taken for mines, mine workers and the mining property in the state.

Hearing a Public Interest Litiga-tion, a division bench headed by Justice Ali Mohammad Magrey ob-served that the state government was asked to file the affidavit with regard to implementation of exist-

ing safety measures as provided under the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act and the Rules.

The government filed an affi-davit but it did not disclose the safety measures as was directed but talks of the rules and the laws on the subject as it states that the State of Jammu and Kashmir is bound to ensure the safety of their Mines, Mine Workers and the Mining Property in accor-dance with the safety measures as are provided under these Rules/ Law, the court observed.

“Thus the information sought by the Court is not furnished,” the

division bench said.Senior additional advocate

general B. A. Dar sought four weeks’ time to supply the details with reference to the safety mea-sures being taken for the safety of the Mines, Mine workers and the

Mining Property in the State.The details in respect of the

appointments made for different positions in the mining activities with particulars of their position and qualification have been fur-nished by the government and M I Qadiri, senior counsel rep-resenting petitioner sought and was granted time to respond to the affidavit. P10


SRINAGAR: Joint Resistance Leader-ship (JRL) on Tuesday decided to have wide-ranging consultations with all factions of the society to frame a comprehensive joint strategy.

The JRL comprising both factions of Hurriyat Conference headed by Syed Ali Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq besides JKLF-led by Muham-mad Yasin Malik also termed Indian army Chief Bipin Rawat’s recent statement an encouragement to the

men in uniform “to increase brutality and killing against Kashmiris.”

“The suppression has reached a stage where it has become unbear-able for the population which cannot

silently tolerate it further. In order to defeat these cruel designs of New Delhi, the JRL has decided to have wide-ranging consultations with all factions of the society including political organizations, religious or-ganizations, lawyers, traders, trans-porters, employees, academicians, civil society and others to frame a comprehensive joint strategy and present it before the people,” the leadership said in a statement issued after they held a meeting at the Hy-derpora residence of P10


SRINAGAR: The Meteorological department here on Tuesday forecast light to moderate rain and snow in Jammu and Kash-mir over the next few days.

An advisory issued by the

Met department said: "A spell of light to moderate rain and snow, over higher reaches, is likely in Jammu and Kashmir from the night of October 31 to November 3 with maximum in-tensity on November 1 and 2."

It also cautioned about the

blocking of major highways leading from the Valley to La-dakh and the Jammu region.

Meanwhile, one person was killed in a landslide that shut down a stretch of the Jammu-Srinagar highway in Ramban district for several hours P10

Press Trust of India

SRINAGAR: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday raided three residences of absconding businessman and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen supporter Nasir Safi Mir and his family at the Lal Bazar area in Srinagar in connection with a funding case, officials said. Mir, 48, is accused of funding Hurriyat leaders and believed to have

fled the country after jump-ing bail. The case was re-reg-istered by the NIA nearly 10 months ago.

Details of the raids were not immediately available as NIA teams, assisted by the Jammu and Kashmir Police and para-military forces, were in the process of collect-ing documents from the three places where the raids were conducted, the officials said.

The NIA probe is P10

THIS WAS THE MODULE RESPONSIBLE for recent stand-off attacks.” A number of sniper rifle attacks were carried in the south Kashmir in last few days, leading to killing of a few army soldiers and had raised quite a concern among the security establishment.

MALEGAON BLAST CASE

Lt. Col. Purohit Charged With MurderNEW DELHI: Ten years after an RDX planted on a motorcycle at Male-gaon in Nashik district of Maharashtra killed six people, a National Investiga-tion Agency (NIA) court on Tuesday framed charges against seven accused.

Special judge Vinod Padalkar charged Lt. Col. Prasad Purohit, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, Sameer Kulkarni, Major (retd.) Ramesh Upadhyay, Sud-hakar Chaturvedi, Ajay Rahilkar and Sudhakar Chaturvedi with murder, abetment and conspiracy for the blast.

The court read out the order in open court in the presence of all ac-cused in Hindi. It said, “The Abhinav Bharat organisation was formed with the common object to spread terror-ism and a bomb with RDX P10

Kashmiri Student Assaulted Outside Goes MissingSRINAGAR: The family members of a teenager who is missing from Sharda University, Greater Noida from last three days have sought public help to trace him.

Ehtisham Bilal (27) a resident of Khanyar went missing from Sharda University, Greater Noida on Sunday.

According to the family, a missing report in this regard has been filed in the concerned police station.

“He is the only son to his father who is suffering a lot and is eagerly waiting for him,” said family sources.

The family has appealed to the gen-eral public to help them in tracing their missing son.

Malik Meets Rajnath In New Delhi


NEW DELHI: Governor Satya Pal Malik on Tuesday met Home Minister Rajnath Singh and discussed about the pre-vailing situation in the state where panchayat elections are to be held, officials said.

During the 30-minute meeting, the governor briefed the home minister on the “law and order” situation in the Kashmir Valley, which has witnessed several attacks on government personnel in the recent past.

The governor apprised the home minister about the situ-

ation in the Kashmir valley as well as in the border areas, a Home Ministry official said.

Panchayat polls will be held in Jammu and Kashmir in nine phases beginning November 17. Elections to the state's urban local bod-ies were held recently in four phases between October 8 and October 16.

Malik, who is at the helm of affairs as Jammu and Kashmir is currently under Governor's rule, also briefed Singh about the elections to the urban lo-cal bodies and the upcoming panchayat polls.

Both the elections P10

DISCLAIMER: KASHMIR OBSERVER MAKES EVERY EFFORT TO ENSURE THAT THE INFORMATION CARRIED IN DISPLAY/ CLASSIFIED ADVERTISEMENTS, APPEARING IN THE NEWSPAPER IS CORRECT. HOWEVER THE NEWSPAPER TAKES NO RESPONSIBILITY NOR DOES IT NECESSARILY ENDORSE THE CONTENTS OF THESE ADVERTS. THE READERS ARE THEREFORE REQUESTED TO VERIFY THE CONTENTS BEFORE ACTING THEREUPON. MANAGEMENT

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BAZAR OBSERVER

RN ANG RZ ANG

V/s

909696

8/11/2018

Bashir Ahmad Bajad (40Yrs) S/O Ali Mohammad Bajad R/O Gogji Thaji Khansahib District Budgam

(Petitioner/ Applicant)

V/S1. Gh Qadir Bajad 2. Mohammad Shafi Bajad 3. Seera Begum 4. Naza Bano Sons and Daughters of Ali Mohammad Bajad R/o Gogji Thaji Khansahib District Budgam 5. Public at large

(Non- Applicants/ Respondents)

Office Of The Assistant Regional Transport Officer Budgam Kashmir

NOTICEWhereas an application has been recieved from one. Shri : Mohammad Aslam Qadri S/o: Ghulam Ahmad QadriR/o: Jahama Budgam owner of vehicle bearing Registration No: JK04E-4744 for cancellation of hire purchase agreement with M/S J&K Bank B/U Residency Road SgrNow therefore it is notified for the information of the general public that objections if any to the proposed cancellation of hire purchase Agreement shall be filed in writing in the office of the Assistant Regional Transport office ARTO Budgam within a period of 12 days from the date of publication of this notice in the daily newspaper . No. ARTO/ BUDGAM.10367 Dated 30/10/2018

Assistant Regional Transport officer Budgam Kashmir

V/s

67760

15/11/2018

1. Ghulam Mohammad Wafai S/O Ghulam Hassan Wafai 2. Tahira Shah W/O Late Najam Ud Din Wafai 3. Mohammad Zuban S/O Najam Ud Din Wafai 4. Zubana Najam D/O Najam Ud Din Wafai All Residents Of Housing Colony Chanapora At Present Sheikh Pora Tehsil And District Budgam

(Petitioner/ Applicant)

V/SPublic at large

(Non- Applicants/ Respondents)

OFFICE OF THE DEPUTY GENERAL MANAGER, JKPCC LTD, UNIT 5TH , ANANTNAG, KASHMIR

(J & K State Government Undertaking)CIN No.U45205JK1965SGC000296)

E-Mail: [email protected]

Head Office : Jammu Office :Haft Chinar, (Near SherGari Police Station) Rail Head Jammu Srinagar, Kashmir-190009 Tawi) 180012Ph. 01932 222968 Ph. 471423, 471428, 471440.No. Dated:

TENDER NOTICE

NIT No: - 04 /e-Tendering/DGM/5TH /ANG/JKPCC OF 2018-19 DATED: 29/10/2018.

For and on behalf of Managing Director JKPCC Ltd. e –Tenders (In Single Cover System) are invited on item rate basis from approved and eligible Contractors Registered with J&K State Government / Piece Workers registered with JKPCC/ SSI Unit Holders for the following work. S No. Name of Work Approx.

Estimated CostRs. In lacs.

E/M In rupees

Cost of bid documents In rupees

Time Class of Contract

1. Supplying / fixing Deodar Wood Frames in Door / Window to Community Centre & Tourist Reception Centre at Harnag, Anantnag.

15.7831560.00

1500.00 45 days

“B” & “C” Class / Unit Holder /JKPCC piece workers

Position of Funds :- DemandedThe NIT consisting of qualifying information eligibility criteria, technical specifications bill of quantity, set of terms & conditions & other details can be seen / downloaded from the JK Governments official web site www.jktenders.gov.in

1 Date of Issue of Tender Notice 29/10/2018.2 Date of online publication 31/10/2018.3. Period of downloading of bid

document form 31/10/2018 to 15/11/2018

4. Bid submission start date 31/10/2018 from 10.00am 5. Bid submission end date 15/11/2018 up to 4 pm 6.. Date & time of opening of bids online 17/11/2018

In the office of The Deputy General Manager JKPCC Ltd. Unit 5th, Anantnag.

The Piece-Workers / PWD Contractors in the biding / tendering process shall have to submit a experience certificate issued by concerned Ex. Engineer / Dy. General Manager to the effect that he has executed a similar nature of work in JKPCC / PWD during the last three years.

Sd/=(Er. Gulam Hussan Dar)

DIPK-NB-3582/18 Deputy General Manager,Unit 5th JKPCC Ltd., Ang.

No:- e-tendering/DGM/5TH /JKPCC/ 2009-17 Dated:- 29/10/2018

Government of Jammu and KashmirPublic Works (R&B) Department

Civil Secretariat, Srinagar(HRM-Branch)

Subject: Retrospective effect to the promotion of Draftsman (Mech.) to Junior Engineer (Mech).

Notice Inviting Objections.

WHEREAS, vide Government order No. 299-PW(Hyd) of 2004 dated 09.08.2004 issued by Public Works Department, the following draftsman who have acquired degree/ diploma qualification were included in the final seniority list of draftsman issued vide Government Order No. 463-PW(R&B) of 2002 dated 16.10.2002 at the serial numbers shown against each:-

S No Name of the official Seniority No Allotted

01 Mehmood Ahmad Wani 110A

02 Tariq Ahmad 118A

03 Vimal Krishan Sidha 119A

04 Raj Kumar 129A

05 Nazir Ahmad 131A

06 Abdul Lateef Mir 131B

AND WHEREAS, Shri Raj Kumar has been placed as Junior Engineer (Mech), by giving him retrospective effect from 09.02.2004 vide Government Order No. 187-Public Works of 2006 dated 18.12.2006;AND WHEREAS, his seniors namely Shri Mehmood Ahmad Wani and Shri Tariq Ahmad Bhat who were also promoted as Junior Engineers vide Government Order No. 13-PW (Hyd) of 2005 dated 10.01.2005 are pleading that they may also be given retrospective effect for their promotion as I/c Junior Engineers (Mech) from the date (i.e., 09.02.2004) when their junior namely Shri Raj Kumar has been placed as Junior Engineer;AND WHEREAS, the matter was taken up with PHE/ I&FC Department vide this depart-ment letter No. PW(R&B)/HRM/52/2017 dated 29.11.2017 who vide their letter No. PHE/NGK/128/2017 dated 22.02.2018 has furnished the relevant documents of Shri Raj Kumar, Tariq Ahmad Bhat and Mehmood Ahmad Wani;AND WHEREAS, after perusal of the case it has been decided to invite objections, before accepting the claim of retrospective effect.NOW, THEREFORE, in view of the above, before accepting the claim of Shri Mehmood Ahmad Wani and Tariq Ahmad Bhat, Junior Engineers (Mech), Public Works department, objections, if any, are invited through the medium of this notice from any person (s), if any, likely to be affected by giving them retrospective effect notionally w.e.f. 09.02.2004 i.e, from the date when their junior counterpart (Raj Kumar) has been promoted. The objection(s) should reach this department within a period of 21 days from the date of is-suance/publication of this notice. After stipulated time period, no claim, whatsoever shall be entertained.

(Dr. Zahoor Ahmad Raina)KAS

DIPK-11638/18 Deputy Secretary to Government Public Works(R&B) DepartmentNo. PW(R&B)HRM/13/2018 Dated. 24-10-2018

Government of Jammu and KashmirOffice of the Child Development Project Officer Khag

Mtr. Safiya Bano AW Worker Of AWC Sitaharan "C" No. CDPO/ICDS/Estt/khag/2018/236-39 Dated 29-10-2018 Subject :- Show cause Notice

Whereas you have been working as AW Worker at AW Centre Sitaharan (C) of ICDS Project Khag (Budgam ) for last 10 years. Whereas as reported by the Supervisor concerned that you had been found absent from duty 01-03-2018 as a result of which the functioning of Anganwadi centre sitaharan (c) has suffered badly in respect of supply of nutrition immu-nization of children etc.Whereas, you were informed through Explanation issued vide letter No:- CDPO/ICDS/Estt/Khag/ 2018/205-07 dATED 10-10-2018 TO RESUME YOUR Duties within 07 days positively otherwise your honorary service will be terminated. Whereas despite the said Explanation which was published in the Daily News Paper "Srinagar Times" dated 17-10-2018 where in you were informed to re-sume your duties within 07 days but you opted not to respond which shows/ reveals that you are not interested to resume your duties.Now therefore, through this show cause notice you are being provided last chance to resume your duties within 10 days positively from the date of pub-lished otherwise your honorary service will be terminated

Child Development Project DIPK-11648/18 Officer Khag Budgam

Royal Springs Golf Course Cheshmashahi SrinagarShort Term E-NIT No. 35 of 2018-19 Dated 29-10.2018

For and on behalf of Secretary Royal Springs Golf Course, Cheshmashahi, Srinagar e-tenders (In single cover system) invited on item rate basis from approved /registered sup-pliers/ dealers with J&K State for each of the following item/work,

S. No

Name of work Est. cost (Rs in lacs).

Earnest money/ Bid Security (In Rs)

Cost of tender document (in Rs

Time of Comple-tion

Class of contract

Major Head of Account

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 81. Supply of various spares used in

running operation for turf ma-chinery at RSGC Srinagar

4.90

Lacs

9800 /=in Shape of CDR/FDR pledged to Turf Manager

500/= Non Refundable in shape of DD pledged to Secretary

30 work-ing days

Registered Supplier/ Dealers

5452-Tour-sim

Position of Funds: DemandedSpecial conditions : -

I. In case the offered bid is below 60% of the advertised cost or more, such bid / bids will be out rightly rejected.II. In case more than one bidders have quoted equal bid amounts or bids are found to a “Tie” these bids shall be rejected out rightly and CDRs of such

tenderers shall be forfeited without any further notice.The Bidding documents Consisting of qualifying information, eligibility criteria, specifications, bill of quantities (B.O.Q), Set of terms and conditions of contract and other details can be seen/downloaded from www.jktenders.gov.inas per schedule of dates given below:-

1. Date of Issue of Tender Notice 29. 10.2018 4:00 PM2. Period of downloading of bidding documents From 29.10.2018 to 12.11.2018 (4.00PM) 3. Bid submission Start Date 29. 10.2018 4:00 PM4. Bid Submission End Date 12. 11.2018 4:00 PM5. Date & time of opening of Bids(Online) 13 .11.2018 1:00 PM in the office of Turf Manager

RSGC SrinagarGeneral Conditions:1. The successful bidder shall submit original Demand Drafts/CDR and copies of Registration Certificate and PAN/TIN/GST No. in person within two days from the opening of the bids failing which proceeding as warranted under rules shall be initiated in the matter. 2. The bidders will provide email ID and complete postal address including cell numbers. 3. The date and time of opening of Bids shall be notified on Web Site www.jktenders.gov.inand conveyed to the bidders automatically through an e-mail message on their e-mail address. The bids of Responsive bidders shall be opened online 4. The bids for the work shall remain valid for a period of 90 days from the date of opening of Bids5. The earnest money shall be forfeited, If:-

a. Any bidder/ tenderer withdraw his bid/ tender during the period of bid validity or make any modifications in the terms and conditions of the bid.b. Failure of Successful bidder to furnish the required performance security within the specified time limit.c. Failure of Successful bidder to execute the agreement within 28 days after fixation of contract.

6. If the bidder has not uploaded rate for any item/items of the rate list/quantity schedule, the item for which no rate has been quoted/uploaded deemed at HTR (Highest Tendered Rate) received for the particular work at the time of evaluation while preparing comparative statement, however, LTR (Lowest Tendered Rate) shall be allowed in the allotment of the contract as per standard practice, in case such bidder is successful bidder. Furthermore in case the tenderer has uploaded/ quoted rates as “Free of cost” or “nil rates” against all items of the work, the tenderer shall be out rightly rejected. The rates uploaded/quoted by the tenderer for the items/items shall be entertained upto 2 digits only after decimal for the calculation purposes. However, in case the rate quoted is equivalent to zero value, the same shall be calculated on HTR basis.9. Bidders are advised not to make any change in BOQ (Bill of Quantities) contents. In no case they should attempt to create similar BOQ manually. The BOQ downloaded should be used for filling the item rate inclusive of all taxes and it should be saved with the same name as it contains.10. Price escalation and Taxes:-The unit rates and prices shall be quoted by the bidder entirely in Indian Rupees and the rates quoted shall be deemed to include price escalation and all taxes uptocompletion of the work, unless otherwise specified. Deduction on account of taxes shall be made from the bills of the contractor on gross amount of the bill as per the rates prevailing at the time of recovery.11. Bidders are advised to use “My Documents” area in their user on e-Tendering portal to store such documents as reqd.12.The bidder at his own responsibility and risk should visit and examine the site of work and its surroundings before submission of bid.13.Non attendance of pre-bid meeting will not be cause of disqualification of the bidder.14.All documents relating to the bid shall be in the English Language.15. Any bid/s received beyond 15% above the advertized cost of the work shall not be entertained and fresh tenders shall be invited without any further notice.16.The date of start of the work shall be reckoned within one week from the date of issuance of LOI/Contract allotment as the case may be.17. Penalty for delay in completion:-In case of delay in completion of work beyond stipulated period of completion, penalty upto Rs.5000/- per day shall be imposed.18. Time extension:-Suitable time extension shall be granted in case of increase in scope of work and in the event of delay beyond control of contractor to be determined by the department.19. Advance Payments:-No mobilization advance/equipment advance shall be paid unless otherwise specified in the SBD.20.The earnest money of all bidders except the 1st two lowest bidders shall be released after the contract for the work is fixed.21. Bids from joint ventures are not allowed.22. Retention Money:-10% shall be deducted from each running bill of the successful contractor which shall be released after virtual completion of work in all respects.23. Schedule of Payment:-The payment schedule shall be fixed after award of contract in favour of successful bidder, on the basis of availability of funds and value of work executed, shall be determined by the Engineer.24. The tender receiving authority reserves the right to accept or reject any tender or all tenders without assigning any reason thereof.25. Restoration of work:-On completion of contract the contractor shall be responsible to remove all un-used material and restore all work in its original position at his own cost.26. Traffic regulations:-The contractor is bound to adhere to traffic regulations as is applicable from time to time and ensure arrangements of smooth regulation of traffic during execution of work.27. Arbitration:-The arbitration shall be conducted in accordance with the arbitration procedure stated in the J&K conciliation and Arbitration Act No:-xxxv of 1997 issued vide SRO No:-403 vide Notification of J&K Govt., “Law Department” 11th December-1997.28. Discoveries:- Anything of historical or other interest or of significant value unexpectedly discovered on the site shall be the property of the Govt. Sd/No:- RSGC/TM /2018-19/816-18 Turf Manager DIPK-NB-3588/18 Royal Springs Golf Course Srinagar.Dated:- 29. 10.2018.

OFFICE OF THE COLLECTOR LAND ACQUISITION PDD

BEMINA SRINAGARNOTIFICATION

In exercise of the power conferred upon me under section 4(1) of Land Acquisition Act, Samvat 1990 and in pursuance to indent placed by Chief Engineer S&O PDD Bemina Srinagar communicated vide his letter No. CE/S&0/342-46 dated: 18-04-2017, I Riyaz Ahmad Beigh (KAS) SDM East Srinagar in charge Collector Land Acquisition PDD/MHPS Bemina Sri-nagar do hereby notify the land particulars whereof are given below needed for public purpose namely for construction of tower foundation of LILO Magma located at Lalpora Tehsil Kunzar District Baramulla.Any objections with regard to Acquisition of said land will be received by the undersigned within 15 days from the date of its publication.

S. No.

Vil-lage

Teh-sil

District Tower No.

Khas-ra No.

Area involved

M S Sft01. Lal-

poraKun-zar

Baram-ulla

06 (B+3)

2416 min

8.50 - -

Total . 8.50 - -

No: LA-PDD/MHPS/582-94 Dated: 30-10-2018

DIPK-11660/18

Collector Land Acquisition

PDD Bemina Sriangar

NOTICThat in the year 2004 I was picked by the army personal at Bijhebara and future I was taken to sicop Bijbehara where the said personnel have to kill me and future I was escaped from the staid place and in this regard I saved myself because at that time I was not feeling mentally fit and future. Ashiq Dar and Parvaiz Bhat both residents of Papaibal Anantnag threatened to kill me and threatened me to take away my life, and for all consequences Ashiq Dar, Parvaiz Bhat are responsible, in conclusion all namely Ashiq dar, Parvaiz Bhat, Parvaiz Dar, Afzal Dar and Nizam Din are responsible for my killing. This persons do not affair. After that I have no information any person infront of army. This person make fir.

MQ BUD

SAT BU

SAT BURN ANT

Wednesday | 31-10-2018 03Srinagar Observer

From KO Archives

DIAL-EMMA• TRAFFICPOLICE:9419993745,01998-266686• PCR:0194-2452092,2455883• PDD:0194-2450213• FIREANDEMERGENCYSERVICES: 2479488,2452222,2452155• CAPD:18001807011• SMCHEALTHOFFICER:9469409081

AIRPORTS

SHIEKULALAMAIRPORT:01942303311

RAILWAYS• SRINAGAR:0194-2103259• ANANTNAG:01932-228243• BARAMULLA:0194-102029• BIJBHERA:01932-228243• PAMPORE:01933-294132• PATTAN:01954-293507• QAZIGUND:01951-296153

HIGHWAY STATUS• Srinagar-Jammuhighway---(Open)• MughalRoad-(Open)• Srinagar-Leh-(Open)

HIJRI CALENDAR 21SAFAR1440PRAYERS

• FAJR---5:26• ZUHR---12:15• ASR---4:02• Magrib—5:43• ISHA---7:04

This Day in History• 1876-GreatBackerganjCycloneof1876ravagesBritish

India(Modern-dayBangladesh),over200,000killed• 1914-GreatBritain&FrancedeclarewaronTurkey• 1917-WorldWarI:BattleofBeershebainsouthern

Palestine-“lastsuccessfulcavalrychargeinhistory”performedbythe4thAustralianLightHorse.

• 1922-BenitoMussolini(IlDuce)becomespremierofItaly• 1924-WorldSavingsDaywasannouncedinMilan,

Italy,bytheMembersoftheAssociationatthe1stInternationalSavingsBankCongress(WorldSocietyofSavingsBanks).

• 1940-BattleofBritain,foughtbetweentheRAFandLuftwaffeovertheEn

• 1942-9thdayoftheBattleofElAlamein• 1943-WorldWarII:F4UCorsairaccomplishesthefirst

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begintobombEgypttoreopenSuezCanal• 1959-USSR&EgyptsigncontractsforbuildingAswanDam• 1960-CyclonehitscoastofGulfofBengal;about10,000die• 1968-USPresidentLyndonB.Johnsonordersahaltto

allbombingofNorthVietnam• 1980-SenegalroutestroopstoGambiaduetoLibyanthreat• 1984-IndianPrimeMinisterIndiraGandhiis

assassinatedbyherbodyguards,SatwantSinghandBeantSinghatherhomeinNewDelhi

• 1985-LastdayinTestcricketforZaheerAbbas• 1989-TurgatOzalelectedpresidentofTurkey• 1989-USperformsnucleartestatNevadaTestSite• 1990-Pakistanmake3-0drubbingofNZ,WaqarYounis

29serieswkts• 1991-PalestiniansattendUSmideastpeacetalksinMadrid• 1992-DonKellermakeshis18,000thskydive• 1993-25peoplekilledduringGhana-IvoryCoastsoccermatch• 1998-Iraqdisarmamentcrisisbegins:Iraqannouncesitwould

nolongercooperatewithUnitedNationsweaponsinspectors.• 1999-RomanCatholicChurchandLutheranChurch

leaderssigntheJointDeclarationontheDoctrineofJustification,endingacenturies-olddoctrinaldisputeoverthenatureoffaithandsalvation.

• 1999-EgyptAirFlight990travelingfromNewYorkCitytoCairocrashesoffthecoastofNantucket,Massachusetts,killingall217on-board.

• 2000-ThelastMultics(MultiplexedInformationandComputingService)machinewasshutdown.

• 2000-AcharteredAntonovAn-26explodesaftertakeoffinNorthernAngolakilling50

• 2000-ASingaporeAirlinesBoeing747-400operatingasFlight006collideswithconstructionequipmentupontakeoffinTaipei,Taiwankilling79passengersandfourcrewmembers

• 2002-AfederalgrandjuryinHouston,TexasformallyindictedformerEnronCorp.chieffinancialofficerAndrewFastowon78countsofwirefraud,moneylaundering,conspiracyandobstructionofjusticerelatedtothecollapseofhisex-employer.

• 2003-AbankruptcycourtapprovesMCI’sreorganizationplans,essentiallyclearingthetelecommunicationscompanytoexitbankruptcy.

• 2003-MahathirbinMohamadresignsasPrimeMinisterofMalaysiaandisreplacedbyDeputyPrimeMinisterAbdullahAhmadBadawi,markinganendtoMahathir’s22yearsinpower.

6 of family hammered to death


JAMMU: In a gruesome massacre, six members of a Bihari family, including’four children, were done to death. Police said unidentified ‘miscreants’ used hammers to kill the la¬bourer’s family in their shop-cum-residence at Chapper Morh village in Kathua district in Jammu division yesterday.

The couple with their four children, hailing from Raipur district of Madhya Pradesh, were living in the village for last couple of years, police said. The crime was allegedly committed by a group of people having rivalry with the couple, police said, adding a blood stained hammer was recovered from the scene. Police has rounded up seven suspects and investigation were continuing.

(Kashmir Observer, October 31, 2000)

GOVERNMENT FORCE personnelcheckingthevehiclesinSrinagarPicAbidBhat

Restrictions On Commuters As Jehangir Chowk Flyover Work Gets Delayed


Srinagar: The commuters will face traffic restrictions in Srinagar after the new advisory which has been issued by the Traffic Police in the wake of constructions on Jehangir Chowk-Rambagh fly-over, the work on which has been delayed by several months. The Traffic police on Tuesday issued a diversion plan on the directions of Divisional Administration. A police official said that “no traffic shall be allowed to ply from Je-hangir Chowk upto Naaz crossing and vice versa.”

"As informed by Director Eco-nomic Reconstruction Agency in a meeting chaired by Divisional Commissioner Kashmir, the construction work of Jehangir Chowk-Naaz Crossing flyover stretch has started and traffic on that stretch has to be stopped," said a spokesman.

As directed by Divisional Ad-ministration “no traffic shall be al-

lowed to ply from Jehangir Chowk upto Naaz crossing and vice versa.’’

“Passenger Service Vehicles including Sumos/Taveras/TATA-407 coming from Rawalpora-Sanatnagar and Hyderpora shall take left turn at Barzullah Bridge towards Old Barzullah-Bailey Bridge-Alochibagh- Cargo Cross-ing stretch-Bakshi Stadium Cross-ing upto Naz Crossing-L.D cross-ing and back via New Flyover or Tulsibagh,” said the advisory.

“Only one way traffic from Alo-chibagh upto Magarmal crossing will be allowed. Private vehicles/LMVs coming from Baghat/Sanatnagar and surrounding area can use the same route via from Allochibagh/Cargo cross-ing/Magarmalbagh crossing or Reck Chowk towards Jehangir Chowk and Batmaloo respec-tively. PSVs including Sumos/Taveras/TATA-407 coming from Channapora-Natipora-Nowgam shall adopt Rambagh Bridge Solina-Tulsibagh-Stadium cross-

ing-Naz crossing-L.D Crossing and back. LMVs coming from Hy-derpora and surrounding areas shall adopt Tangpora-Batmaloo route and vehicles coming from Nowgam Natipora-Channapora shall take right turn at Ram-bagh bridge towards Bund-Amar Singh College-Jawharnagar-Ra-jbagh-Radio Kashmir,” it added.

“Channapora-Natipora-Now-gam bound vehicles shall adopt Radio Kashmir-Rajbagh-Jawhar-nagar-Jawharnagar bund route or use New Flyover. Vehicles moving towards Hyderpora are requested to adopt Batmaloo-Tengpora road. Maharaja Bazaar road will be open for one way traffic and vehicles from Amira Kadal and surrounding areas can use this road to reach Natipora/Baghat and surrounding areas via New Flyover/Tulsibagh. People are requested to follow the route plan strictly and inconvenience caused is highly regretted,” said the spokesman.


Srinagar: The Hurriyat Confer-ence (G) Tuesday castigated the government forces for committing excesses on the people in Kashmir.

The separatist conglomer-ate held its Majlish Shoora (Executive Council) meeting here which was presided over by its Secretary General, Gh-ulam Nabi Sumji. The meeting was attended by the heads and representatives of the constit-uent parties of the amalgam. The meeting discussed various issues including the “prevail-ing most critical situation of the state.” In the meeting, “ a grave concern was expressed on the attitude adopted by forces, which have been in-strumental for the prevailing volatile situation in Kashmir.”

In his presidential speech, Sumji said, “India is using its military might to crush our genuine movement by kill-ings, vandalizing of properties, ruthlessness and arrests spree against the people of Kashmir.”

“Such intriguing and vile acts of repression have failed in the past to bend the people and in future any such pres-sure tactics by India shall meet its own end,” he said.

He added, “the present armed struggle against the

Indian subjugation is a sheer reaction of our educated youth against the Indian barbaric and inhuman attitude and their de-ceit, arrogance and persistent denial of realities. It is not a hobby of our youth engaged in an armed struggle but a reac-tion of Indian military occupa-tion on Jammu and Kashmir.”

Hurriyat (G) leader while highlighting “the need for a peaceful settlement of Kash-mir issue” said, “the coercive measures, killings, detentions and suppressions will yield nothing and will instead lead to devastation. Indian lead-ers should accept the ground realities and should be real-istic in their approach for the peaceful settlement of this long standing dispute.”

He urged upon the “ people to stay away from the Pan-chayat elections at any cost as they did it in Municipal elec-tions and said that it has been used as a tool of subjugation by Indian in international lev-el and also it is a deceit against our martyrs who are sacrific-ing the precious lives.”

Hurriyat (G) Secretary Gen-eral appealed the UN and the “civilized member countries of the world to take cogni-zance of the prevailing grue-some situation in Jammu and Kashmir.”

Hurriyat (G) Castigates Govt Forces For ‘Excesses’ on People

MasaratShiftedBackToKotbalwalJail


Srinagar: The incarcerated chair-man of Muslim League, Masarat Aalam Bhat, was brought from Kot Bhalwal jail Jammu to Sri-nagar for the hearing on Tuesday in connection with a case of pu-rusuing pro-freedom activities that was registered against him in 2015. Masrat was produced in Forest Court where after hear-ing the arguments the judge fixed the next hearing of the case on November 20. According to League spokesperson, Sajad Ayobi, Masrat was taken back to Kotbalwal Jail jammu. Ayobi said that State and Central gov-ernments “under a well hatched conspiracy have been delaying the release of Aalam and this is highly condemnable.”

He said that prolonging the “illegal detention of Masar-rat showed their frustration.” “ Government instead of honour-ing court orders are ignoring all norms and rules. Alam is being subjected to political vendetta.”


Srinagar: The Geology and Min-ing department Tuesday seized 26 tippers carrying the sand which was illegally extracted

from river Jehlum along Kadla-bal Pampore to Rajbagh belt.

“It was a joint operation su-pervised by District Mineral Of-ficer Srinagar and Budgam re-spectively. Twenty-six tippers were seized along Jehlum Belt in Kadlabal, Pantha Chowk and Rajbagh areas,” Sartaj Ahmed,

District Mineral Officer, said. He added that “strict action will be initiated against violators in future as well.”

All the 26 vehicles after sei-zure were handed over to police

station Pantha Chowk. An of-ficial said that over Rs 3.5 lakh was realized from the violators.

“We have been continuously receiving complaints that a ma-fia is using tippers to mine ma-terial from the Jehlum. We have decided to go tough against these violators,” he added.

26 Tippers Seized For Illegally Ferrying Sand


Srinagar: The Government Unani Medical College Ganderbal in col-laboration with Regional Research Institute of Unani Medicine Haz-ratbal (RRIUM) Tuesday launched a cleanliness drive as part of Swach-hata Pakhwada which is being celebrated from 16 to 30 October across India.The function was part of series of such programmes and activities that were organised at RRIIUM campus and adjoining vil-lages of the Unani Medical college premises. The programmes that were organised include local “folk plays, dramas, health and hygiene programmes, cleanliness drives, awareness programmes by faculty members of the college to create awareness among general public.”

Dr Abdul Kabir Dar, Commis-sioner Food Safety, J&K and Prin-cipal Government Unani Medical College Ganderbal were the chief guest on the concluding ceremony. Kabir Dar stressed on coordina-tion between different institu-tions and departments to make clean India campaign, a success.He lauded “the work done by faculty members of Unani Medical Col-lege Ganderbal, all staff members of RRIUM, food safety officers in generating the awareness during this fortnight and making this fort-night successful.”

He said that “safe food and safe health is of paramount impor-tance which is a key component of Swachhata Pakhwada besides health and hygiene which is con-nected with cleanliness.”

Cleanliness Driver Launched At RRIIUM Campus


Srinagar: A training programme for Medical Coordinators and Arogya Mitras was held under Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) at Polytechnic College Srinagar. The training pro-gramme is being held for all the districts of the State from 30 Octo-ber to 2 November.

“The participants shall be trained in two modules consisting of Ben-eficiary Identification System (BIS) and Transaction Management Sys-tem (TMS) that shall enable the participants to identify the ben-eficiaries at the hospital level and generation of golden record cards and verification of the packages by Medical Coordinators booked for the patients and thereof give the

pre-authorisation by the insurance company,” said an official.

The training shall be monitored by Principal Secretary Health and Medical Education Department Atal Dulloo, and is being conducted by State Health Agency AB-PMJAY under the supervision of Bhupin-der Kumar, Chief Executive Offi-cer for Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana in the State. The AB-PMJAY is aimed at providing health protection cover to poor and vulnerable families to reduce their out-of-pocket expen-diture on healthcare. The scheme will provide cashless and paper-less access to services for the ben-eficiaries at the point of service in any empanelled hospitals (both in public and private sector) across the country.

Training Prog For Medical Practitioners Held


Srinagar: The Jammu Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party (JKDFP) on Tuesday rued the ill treatment that was meted out to the Kash-miri prisoners lodged at Tihar Jail. The JKDFP said that its incarcerated chief Shabir Shah is representing the political sentiments of majority population of the State and was tar-geted for his political ideology.

The JKDFP spokesperson said in a statement that Shabir “is script-ing a new history of resistance by not succumbing to the hardships of Tihar jail despite being ill.”

“Shabir Shah has advocated a policy of reconciliation throughout his career and he has been strongly supporting right to self determina-tion for the people of Jammu Kash-

mir. That is why he has been made to suffer a lot throughout his life by spending 31 years in different jails and interrogation centres so far. But Shabir Shah never gave up his just political stance on Kashmir dispute,” the party said. The JKDFP pledged to take the mission of “its incarcerated chief forward till the goal is achieved. Every party office bearer and worker is strongly hold-ing the principles of Shabir Shah so that people of Jammu Kashmir can get their acknowledged right and decide their political future.”

The JKDFP spokesperson said that Indian authorities have “failed to prove anything against Shabir Shah in last more than 14 months still they are hesitant in setting him free. The so called charge sheet against Shabir Shah also could not

be proved in the court proving all accusations against him as wrong and manufactured.”

The Spokesperson said that those Kashmiris languishing in different jails of the “State and outside are going through tough times as these political prisoners have to tolerate harsh weather conditions and rude behaviour of the jail authorities.”

“The Kashmiri prisoners are not being provided proper medical aid despite the fact that majority of them are suffering from serious ailments and they are not even pro-duced before courts in time hence prolonging their incarcerations.”

The Spokesperson stressed upon the “international forums dealing with prisoners to shun their policy of silence over the Kashmiri politi-cal prisoners.”

JKDFP Rues Ill-treatment Of Kashmiri Prisoners In Tihar

NEWS Wednesday| 31-10-2018 4I R A N F M I N S Y R I A

Worst Pollution of season recorded in DelhiNEW DELHI: Delhi’s air qual-ity was on the brink of turning severe on Tuesday morning which witnessed worst pollu-tion of the season as stubble burning in neighbouring states intensified, authorities said.

The air quality of Delhi was recorded at 397, just three points below the severe level and highest of this season, ac-cording to the data of the Cen-tral Pollution Control Board.

Seventeen areas of the na-tional capital recorded severe air quality, the data said.

An AQI between 0 and 50 is considered “good”, 51 and 100 “satisfactory”, 101 and 200 “moderate”, 201 and 300 “poor”, 301 and 400 “very poor”, and 401 and 500 “severe”.

The Centre-run System of Air Quality Forecasting And Research (SAFAR) attributed “heavy stubble burning in the last 24 hours and calm winds as the reason behind the further deterioration of air capital. The SAFAR said about 28 per cent of pollution by PM2.5 (presence of particles in the air with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometres) on Tuesday was caused due to regional factors like stubble burning. PM2.5 was recorded at 251, the highest of this season. Fine particulates can be a matter of more serious health concern than PM10. The PM10 level (particles in the air with a diameter of less than 10 micrometres) in Delhi stood at 453, according to the CPCB data.

The SAFAR said the pollu-tion is likely to increase further tomorrow and day after and then slow down.

Bangladesh, Myanmar to restart Rohingya repatriation in NovDHAKA : Bangladesh and Myanmar agreed Tuesday to start returning Rohingya refugees in November, less than a week after UN investi-gators warned that a genocide against the Muslim minority was still ongoing.

More than 720,000 of Myan-mar’s stateless Rohingya fled a brutal military crackdown in August last year, taking shelter in crowded camps in Bangladesh and bringing with them harrow-ing tales of rape, murder and arson in a military crackdown.

Investigators have said senior Myanmar military of-ficials should be prosecuted for genocide in Rakhine state, but the country has rejected these calls, insisting it was defending itself against militants.

Myanmar and Bangladesh announced a large-scale repa-triation plan in November 2017. But the process hit bureaucratic hurdles almost immediately and it failed to take off, as both sides blamed the other for the delay and rights group warned returning the Rohingya to Myanmar would con-demn them to further reprisals.

‘Time for Saudi Crown Prince To Go’SUSAN RICE |NEW YORK TIMES

New York: The young prince's almost certain culpability in Mr. Khashoggi's killing under-scores his extreme recklessness and immo-rality while exposing him as a dangerous and unreliable partner for the United States", Rice wrote in what is being dubbed as a damning in-dictment of Saudi Crown Prince so far.

"No astute observer should be surprised to discover that Prince Mohammed is capable of such action. Yes, we may be shocked by how heinous Mr. Khashoggi's murder was, and by how blatant the many lies told by the Saudis have been. Of course, many Americans, from Silicon Valley to the editorial pages of our lead-ing papers, were snowed by the crown prince's promises of reform and the deft marketing of his leadership. But, for those willing to see past his charm offensive, Prince Mohammed had already revealed his true character through numerous impulsive and vicious actions", she wrote.

Rice said, the deadliest exhibit is the war in Yemen, which has cost tens of thousands of lives and killed countless civilians, including children, because the "Saudis arrogantly refuse to employ responsible targeting techniques. It has been a Prince Mohammed operation from the start".

At home, the crown prince has locked up civil society activists. He imprisoned for months hun-dreds of members of the royal family and other influential people in the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton and demanded they surrender huge sums of money and valuable assets in exchange for release. He has forced out rivals and close relatives, includ-ing former Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef. And, as the Khashoggi case suggests, he has un-dertaken a global purge of Saudi dissidents wher-ever they reside, she writes.

The crown prince kidnapped the Lebanese prime minister and denied it. He imposed a spiteful, full-blown blockade on neighboring Qatar, another important American partner, and has sought to goad the United States into

conflict with Iran. Stung by two mildly criti-cal tweets by the Canadian foreign minister, Prince Mohammed abruptly downgraded diplo-matic ties with Ottawa, yanked 7,000 Saudi stu-dents out of Canadian universities and limited transport and trade links, she went on.

"As this litany of lunacy shows, Prince Mo-hammed is not and can no longer be viewed as a reliable or rational partner of the United States and our allies. If we fail to punish him directly and target only those around him, the crown prince will be further emboldened to take ex-treme actions. If we do punish him, which we must, Prince Mohammed, petulant and proud, is equally likely to behave more irresponsibly to demonstrate his independence and exact retribution against his erstwhile Western part-

ners. Either way, the Trump administration must assume that Prince Mohammed will con-tinue to drive his country and our bilateral re-lationship over the proverbial cliff".

Unfortunately, according to Susan Rice, King Salman seems unwilling or unable to rein in his 'rogue son'. "With critics cowed into submission and rivals pushed aside, there is no obvious alternative-in-waiting who might provide Saudi Arabia with sober, responsible leadership."

"Absent a change at the top, we should brace ourselves for a future in which Saudi Arabia is less stable and more difficult to govern. In this scenario, the potential risks to American se-curity and economic interests would be grave. The United States was wrong to hitch our wag-

on to Prince Mohammed, but we would be even more foolish to continue to do so."

Looking ahead, Rice suggested, Washington must act to mitigate the risks to our its interests. "We should not rupture our important relation-ship with the kingdom, but we must make clear it cannot be business as usual so long as Prince Mohammed continues to wield unlimited power. It should be United States policy, in conjunction with our allies, to sideline the crown prince in order to increase pressure on the royal family to find a steadier replacement."

Rice urged US should start by leading the push for an impartial international investiga-tion into Mr. Khashoggi's killing. "We must be consistent and public in our judgment that the United States believes the killing could not have occurred without Prince Mohammed's blessing or, more likely, his order."

Next, Rice said US should terminate all military support for the 'misbegotten Yemen campaign' and pressure the Saudis to reach a negotiated settlement.

"We should immediately suspend all Amer-ican arms sales to the kingdom and conduct a careful, comprehensive review of any future deliveries, halting all but those we determine, in close consultation with Congress, advance United States national security interests."

Finally, Rice writes," we should stop follow-ing Prince Mohammed down blind alleys and bring a healthy skepticism to our dealings with him, particularly any that require relying on his word or judgment.

We need to stop privileging Jared Kushner's relationship with the crown prince, and finally fill the vacant ambassadorship to the kingdom, to engage with a broader range of senior Saudi officials. President Trump's inexplicable infat-uation with Prince Mohammed must end, and he must recalibrate American policy so that it serves our national interests -- not his personal interests or those of the crown prince."

7 accused in 2008 Malegaon blast booked for terror conspiracy, murderAGENCIES

MUMBAI: A special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in Mumbai on Tuesday framed charges against Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and five others under the Un-lawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and sections of the IPC in the September 2008 Malegaon bomb blast case.

Judge Vinod Padalkar, presiding over the special Na-tional Investigation Agency (NIA) court, framed charges against the accused people.

The Bombay High Court on Monday refused to stay framing of charges by the tri-al court against Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit and other accused people in the 2008 Malegaon bomb blast case.

It directed the National Investigation Agency (NIA) counsel Sandesh Patil to file a reply to Lt Col Purohit's plea by November 21, the next date of hearing.

The bench refused Lt Col

Purohit's request for staying the proceedings in the trial court, noting that in the past, both the Supreme Court and the Bombay HC had passed orders directing the trial court to expe-dite the hearing in the case.

Under the UAPA, the ac-cused have been charged with being part of a terrorist act, and under IPC they have been charged with criminal con-spiracy and murder. Framing of charges is a process after which the trial in a criminal case starts.

Apart from Purohit and

Sadhvi, the other accused are Major (Retd) Ramesh Upadhy-ay, Ajay Rahirkar, Sudhakar Dwivedi, Sudhakar Chaturve-di and Sameer Kulkarni.

All the accused were pres-ent in the court when the judge read out the charges against them.

Six people were killed and over 100 injured when an ex-plosive device strapped on a motorcycle went off near a mosque in Malegaon, a town about 200 km from here in North Maharashtra, on Sep-tember 29, 2008.

Doordarshan cameraman, 2 cops killed in Maoist attack in Chhattisgarh

Ritesh MishRa & s KaReeMuddin

hindustan tiMes

NEW DELHI: “I saw my col-league fall in front of me,” says Dheeraj Kumar, a 37-year old journalist who survived in the Maoist attack near Sameli in Dantewada on Tuesday morning.

Two police personnel and a cameraman of Doordarshan were killed in the ambush. The deceased were ASI Rudra Pratap, constable Manglu and cameraman of Doordarshan Acchutanand Sahu.

One another, Doordarshan journalist survived in the at-tack and while two more police-men were injured, said police.

Dheeraj Kumar, who hails from Begsurai district of Bi-har and works for Doordashan , was on heading for coverage towards Nilwaya about 5 km from CRPF camp of Sameli.

“We were planning to cover a newly-built polling station in Nilwaya where people haven’t voted since 1998,” said Dheeraj.

The CRPF, which received an SOS message, rushed troops for reinforcement and evacuation.

We are trying to find out what were they covering (re-porters). The true face of the Maoists are coming out. We will investigate the matter. We all need to fight this together.

Deputy Inspector General P Sundarraj told news agency ANI that the attack exposes the “true face of naxals”.

Union Information and Broadcasting minister Ra-jyavardhan Rathore also con-demned the killing.

“We stand in solidar-ity with family of the camera-man... We will take care of his family. We salute all those media persons who go for coverage in such dangerous situations and remember their bravery,” the minister said, ac-cording to ANI.

In tweets condoling the deaths, Prasar Bharati later said the public broadcaster had deployed a camera team for election coverage includeing cameraman Achyuta Nanda Sahu, reporter Dhiraj Kumar and light assistant Mormukt Sharma. The team came under attack by Maoists this fore-noon near Dantewada.

Korean NGOs protest against conferment of Seoul Peace Prize to Modi, call it a 'disgrace'AGENCIES

SEOUL:- At least 20 South Korean nonprofits, including human rights groups, have raised strong objections to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi being awarded the prestigious Seoul Peace Prize, stating that "Mr. Modi's win is a disgrace to the past laureates of this prestigious award."

"We demand (the Seoul Peace Prize Cultural Foundation) retract its deci-sion to give the Seoul Peace Prize to Mr. Modi," the 26 groups, including the Centre for Refugee Rights in Korea and the Korean House of International Solidar-ity, were quoted as saying in the South Ko-rean media.

According to local media reports, the South Korean groups further invoked the 2002 riots to argue their case against PM Modi, stating that "Modi deliberately allowed anti-Muslim riots in India that killed more than 1,000 people in 2002."

PM Modi is the fourteenth recipient of Seoul Peace Prize, constituted in 1990 to commemorate the success of the 24th Olympic Games held in Seoul. The past recipients of the award have included Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and UN's Secretary General Kofi Annan among others

While announcing the decision to confer the award on PM Modi, the Seoul Peace Prize Cultural Foundation had called him a "perfect candidate" and cred-

ited "Modinomics" for "reducing social and economic disparity between the rich and the poor" in India."

A statement by the Ministry of Exter-nal Affairs this week informed the public that PM Modi had accepted the award, which would be bestowed upon him at a mutually convenient time.

"The Committee lauded PM's initia-tives to make the government cleaner through anti-corruption measures and demonetisation. The Committee also credited Prime Minister for his contribu-tion towards regional and global peace through a proactive foreign policy with countries around the world under the Modi Doctrine and the Act East Policy," said the MEA statement this week.

However, all the laudatory claims about Modi have been disputed by the Korean NGOs, who have compared the

Indian Prime Minister to a former South Korean leader who had a con-troversial past.

"Giving Mr. Modi this prize for 'Modinomics' is almost equivalent to giving Mr. Chun Doo-hwan a peace prize for Korea's economic develop-ment in the 1980s and the hosting of the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games," a Ko-rean protestor was quoted as saying in local media. Doo-hwan had been accused of "orchestrating a massacre of civilians during his time in office, recounted the local media.

Incidentally, the worsening in-come inequality in India had been flagged as a major concern by various interna-tional outfits earlier this year, even as "Modinomics" is lauded for reducing the wage gap in India.

While India's richest one percent of the population was found to hold 58 percent of country's wealth last year, survey findings by Oxfam showed that that the share of the wealth of the richest persons had increased to 73 percent this year. According to the sur-vey, India's poorest saw their wealth rising by one percent during the same period.

PM Modi is the fourteenth recipient of Seoul Peace Prize, constituted in 1990 to commemorate the success of the 24th Olympic Games held in Seoul. The past recipients of the award have included Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and UN's Secretary General Kofi Annan among others.

Trump should help reveal the truth: Khashoggi's fianceeAGENCIES

London: The fiancée of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi has hit out at US President Donald Trump's response to his murder, saying he must not let Riyadh cover up the killing.

"I am extremely disap-pointed by the stance of the leadership of many coun-tries, particularly in the US," Hatice Cengiz told a memorial event in London late Monday.

"President Trump should help reveal the truth and ensure justice be served. He should not allow my fiance's murder to be covered up," she said in Turkish, according to a video published by British media.

She said she believed the Saudi regime knew where Khashoggi's body was, and called for the "evil criminals and their cowardly political masters" to be held to account.

Khashoggi was a Saudi journalist who went into self-imposed exile in the United States last year after falling out with the kingdom's powerful Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman.

He was killed after entering the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul on October 2 to obtain paper-work for his marriage to his Turkish fiancée.

Western powers have expressed outrage at his killing and demanded answers from Riyadh, although Trump warned against halting a Saudi arms deal to increase the pressure, saying it would harm US jobs.

Cengiz said Khashoggi's death had "left a void in (her) heart and soul", adding: "If only I knew what would hap-pen, I would have entered the consulate myself.

"If only I knew that would be the last time I would see my Jamal, his smile, hear his laughter, I would have stood in front of that murderous team myself."

The head of the Saudi investigation, Attorney General Sheikh Saud al-Mojeb, last week acknowl-edged that the killing was "premeditated", based on Turkish evidence.

The Bombay HC on Monday refused to stay framing of charges by the trial court against Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit and other accused

people in the 2008 Malegaon bomb blast case.

2 Saudi sisters' bodies recovered from NYC riverbank: reportAGENCIES

WASHINGTON : The bodies of two sisters from Saudi Ara-bia who were seeking asylum in the United States (US) were recovered from a New York City riverbed, tied together with duct tape, The New York Times reported on Monday.

According to the NYT, the police had initially struggled to identify the women but lat-er said they were 22-year-old Rotana Farea and 16-year-old Tala Farea who lived in Fair-fax, Virginia.

Police said there were no obvious signs of trauma on their bodies, adding that both had been reported missing multiple times in the past, and had recent-ly requested asylum in the US.

NYT reported that inves-tigators were trying to de-termine how the two sisters ended up in the riverbank at Riverside Park.

According to an Arab News report cited by the NYT, the younger of the two sisters had been living with their mother in Fairfax, while the older one had been living in

New York.Their mother reported the

younger sister missing two months ago, but the search was called off when Tala was discov-ered visiting her older sister.

Both sisters were reported missing in Virginia by some-one in October as well, New York police officials said.

Tala and Rotana's mother also reported them missing last year. When the sisters were lo-cated, they asked the police for protection and were placed in a shelter, police told NYT.

Arab News reported that both sisters were in touch with their mother until about a week ago.

Police said the mother, who was not identified, had received a call from the Saudi embassy in Washington in-forming her that her daugh-ters had applied for asylum, NYT reported.

The Saudi consulate-general in New York said it was "conducting a continuous follow-up to find out the facts" regarding the incident, accord-ing to a statement shared by Al Arabiya on Tuesday.

Wednesday | 31-10-2018 05State


Srinagar: Authorities on Tuesday reviewed the security in Kashmir as the incidents of militancy in-creased considerably for the last two months. Advisor to the Gov-

ernor, Vijay Kumar, reviewed the internal security situation here.

A police official said that the Advisor chaired a security review meeting at Police Headquarters (PHQ) Srinagar.

“The meeting was attended by Director General of Police (DGP), J&K, Dilbag Singh, Additional Di-rector General of Police (ADGP), Muneer Khan, Inspector Gen-eral of Police (IGP), Kashmir, SP Pani and senior officers of Police CRPF and SSB,” he said. The DIGs of Kashmir zone, DIG CRPF, DIG SSB, Commandants of Armed,

IRP, CRPF & SSB, SSP Srinagar, SSP Budgam, Zonal SPs also attended the meeting. During the meet-ing, Kumar “took a comprehen-sive review of the present secu-rity scenario and also discussed various measures undertaken to

further enhance the security in Kashmir.”

DGP Dilbag Singh and senior police officers including ADGP Law & Order and IGP Kashmir briefed the Advisor regarding “overall security scenario and oth-er issues pertaining to the present security scenario.” “The measures put in place by the various secu-rity agencies to check activities of unlawful elements were also dis-cussed in the meeting.”

Addressing the meeting, Ku-mar stressed upon enhancing coordination among the security

agencies to maintain vigil and to maintain peace in the state. “There is always a scope for the improvement and every possible step in this regard must be taken to strengthen the security grid in the state,” he added.

All the field officers briefed the meeting about the security situ-ation in their respective areas and also gave their inputs and suggestions to further the atmo-sphere of peace and strengthen security grid in the valley.

The meeting came in the back-drop of the increase in the inci-dents of militancy across Kash-mir. Three forces personnel were killed while two others were in-jured in separate sniper attacks recently. As many as 38 people died in the month of October in Kashmir. Among those who died

were 20 militants, 12 civilians and 6 government force person-nel. On October 21 Kashmir wit-nessed 16 killings including that of 7 civilians, 5 militants, 3 sol-diers and a trooper.

On October 19 five militants

were killed in two separate in-cidents. Three militants were killed in Pather Baramulla along with LoC while two militants were killed in Kralhar Baramulla, when according to police, they tried to flee from a check post.

Among those who were killed include two workers of National Conference (NC), Nazir Bhat and Mushtaq Wani, who died after they were fired upon by uniden-tified gunmen at Karfali Mohalla in Srinagar. Another NC worker Shakeel Ahmed was critically in-jured.

Security Reviewed In Kashmir As Militancy Escalates Observer News Service

Srinagar: Five policemen and three prisoners were wounded after a vehicle they were trav-elling in met with an accident at Brazloo area of Kulgam Tuesday afternoon.

According to officials the police vehicle was returning from a local court in Kulgam towards the district jail Pul-wama when it skidded off the

road and rolled down from a bridge resulting in the inju-ries to the travellers. Medical Superintendent of Sub District Hospital, Kulgam, Dr GM Bhat said that they received eight injured persons including five cops and three prisoners.

Station House Officer (SHO), Kulgam, Irshad Reshi, con-firmed that the accident took place, adding that the injured have been hospitalized and

“their condition was stable.”He said that the police team

was carrying the “three under trails from Pulwama jail to a lo-cal court in Kulgam for hearing.”

A police spokesperson said said that the the local police evacuated all the injured to the nearby hospital for medical treatment. “They are stated to be stable,” the spokesman said. Police is probing the cause of the mishap, he said.

5 Cops, 3 Under Trials Injured In Road Mishap


Srinagar: MLA Langate and AIP president, Er. Rasheed, Tuesday slammed Uttar Pradesh (UP) Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath, for his claims that Hindus and Sikhs were safe in Kashmir in Mahara-ja’s rule and afterwards they faced life threats. Rasheed said that Yogi Adityanath was “trying to polarize situation in J&K to strengthen his vote bank in UP.”

In a statement, Er. Rasheed said, “While India claims to be largest democracy in the world, it is laughable that Yogi is not only praising an autocratic ruler who committed huge atrocities on Muslims but is distorting the facts. Of course Hindus were not only safe but a dominant community in the entire state only for the reason that Maharaja was from the minority community and had suppressed the voice of 80% Muslims in entire state. Jammu province then used to be a Mus-lim dominated province and in 1947 with the consent of Maha-raja around five lakh Muslims were butchered and lakhs were forced to migrate to Pakistan, thus the demography of the Jammu region was changed.”

“History has already an-nounced its verdict who is com-munal and Yogi Adityanath has just lied and lowered his stat-ure by trying to put a blame on Muslims”.

Rasheed added that Kash-miris Pandits migrated “of their own will and not only they but thousands of Muslims families from Chinab valley, Pir Panchal region and Kashmir too migrat-ed from their places after 1989.”

He said,“While Kashmiri Pan-dit families were given not only packages, relief and other huge facilities in the entire India, the Muslim migrants are still begging from door to door at various places. No one speaks even a word over the fate of hundreds of families who were forced by security agencies to migrate to other side of LoC in 1989, only because they are Muslims”.

Taking a dig at those “crying” about sufferings of Kashmiri Pandits, Rasheed asked them to explain if Pandits “are in exile how they have been managing to participate in the ongoing lo-cal body elections.”

He added “It is laughable that they are both migrants and so called public representatives,

thus exposing their designs. The fact is that they don’t want to come to Kashmir and loose various perks and privileges. If Pandits believe situation is un-conducive for their return how is it conducive for them to par-ticipate in ongoing elections”.

Rasheed asked Adityanath to contact Sikhs of Chati Singhpo-ra and “know their views about the massacre that took place there when US President Bill Clinton visited India.”

He challenged Yogi Aditya-nath to get even such a single Kashmiri Pandith in support of his claim “who had not left the valley and has been residing here with complete harmony and brotherhood with the ma-jority community.’’

‘Yogi Praises Maharaja Who Committed Atrocities on Muslims’


Srinagar: Former Minister and National Conference (NC) MLA from Sonawari, Mohammad Akbar Lone, lashed out at Yogi Adityanath over his remarks that the Hindus and Sikhs were unsafe in Kashmir.

Akbar Lone told a local news agency, “Yogi is not in his sens-es, that is the reason he is giv-ing such type of statements. India is a democratic country and all people be it Muslims, Hindus or from any other re-ligion have right to live in the country.”

He added that, “Yogi’s mind is not working properly. With such statements he is creat-ing controversies”. “This also seems that BJP is going to add more fuel to fire in Kashmir which is facing bloodshed like situation”, he added.

“There will be a time when

India will be broken into pieces if such statements continue from these leaders. It’s the misconception of such people, if they think that only Hindus have right to live in India” he said. Lone further slammed Yogi saying “Yogi is mentally disturbed”.

Yogi Not In His Senses: Akbar Lone


Srinagar:The Janta Dal (United) on Tuesday lashed out at UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for play-ing with the “sentiments and as-pirations of people of state.”

The party termed his state-ment irresponsible that Hindus and other minorities living in the state are not safe in the state under the leaderships of Muslim Chief Minsters. JDU State presi-dent G M Shaheen made this statement at a function at party headquarter Rajbagh Srinagar

where Ittihad Party was merged with Janta Dal United party in presence of other senior party leaders and members. Shaheen said that the remarks of UP CM indicate that BJP is planning to make Hindu the next CM in state.

"This also seems that BJP is going to add more fuel to the fire in Kashmir Valley which is facing bloodshed like situation. Such kinds of remarks will not lead to peace in the Valley. This will dis-turb the present situation in Val-ley ahead of Panchyat elections."

He further asked the UP CM to

concentrate on “your state and not to indulge in the affairs of the peo-ple of Jammu and Kashmir who are still deprived of their fundamental rights since independence.”

He added that J&K “people are well educated and aware about their wisdom and are capable to decide and elect the next Chief Minister of the state of their own choice.”

Meanwhile, Shaheen and state youth wing president Raja Wa-sim welcomed Mudasir Tantray president of J&K Itthad Party who has merged with JDU J&K along with other members.

JD (U) Asks Yogi Adityanath To Mind His Own Business


Srinagar: The Kashmir Pandit organisation, Panun Kashmir, Tuesday said that the “stone pelting has assumed the status of an alternative terror mecha-nism” in the Valley. Panun Kashmir chief Ashwani Kumar Chrungoo told reporters that the “ supporters of this mecha-nism can be found in every po-litical party in the region.”

Citing the recent death of an Army personnel due to having been pelted on by stones, he said: “Stone pelting has for-mally assumed the status of an alternative terror mechanism and its advocates have, unfortu-nately, made their way into ev-ery political party (in Valley).”

The Panun Kashmir presi-dent also endorsed Indian Army Chief General Bi-

pin Rawat’s statement that stone pelters in Jammu and Kashmir were “overground workers of terror groups and should be dealt with sternly”. He appealed the government of India (GoI) and the Gover-nor to “think afresh about the menace of stone pelting and review the policy regarding the same.”

On Saturday, Rawat had said that there were some people who ask for “stone-pelters not to be treated as over ground workers of terrorists.”

“The jawan who lost his life after being attacked by stone pelters was guarding a bor-der roads team which was constructing roads, and then we have some people saying don’t treat stone pelters like OGWs(over ground workers) of terrorists,” he said.

Stone-Pelting Assumed Alternative Terror Mechanism: KP Group


Srinagar: The newly elected Municipal Councillors of Mu-nicipal Committee (MC) Ram-ban, Batote and Banihal, were administered oath of office at a swearing-in ceremony held at Ramban on Tuesday.

In Batote oath was admin-istered by Additional Deputy

Commissioner (ADC), Ram-ban, Dr. Basharat Hussain to all elected members including two women of 7 wards of Munici-pal Committee Batote at Town Hall Batote. Similarly Assistant Commissioner Revenue (ACR), Ramban, Vevaik Puri adminis-tered the oath to 6 elected mem-bers for MC Ramban including two women at community hall Maitra. In MC Ramban the elec-tion in ward no 2 was counter-manded due to the death of BJP candidate Azad Singh Raju.

Like wise SDM Banihal, Za-meer Rishu, administered oath to six elected members includ-ing 2 women of Municipal Committee, Banihal at Town hall Banihal. Due to some health related problem Mohammad Sharief Ganie who was also elected as member for MC Bani-hal was not present on the occa-sion. MLA Banihal Vikar Rasool

Wani attended the function. While congratulating the

elected members, who showed enthusiasm in strengthening the grass root level democracy, all the officers urged “upon them to meet the expectations of people and take development scenario to new heights in their town.”

Among others, Tehsildar Batote Amit Manhas, Executive Officers of MC, Ramban, Bani-hal and Batote also attended the swearing-in ceremony function in their respective MCs.

Chenab Valley Municipal Councillors Administered Oath


Ganderbal :Secretary Social Wel-fare, Farooq Ahamd Lone. Tues-day reviewed the functioning of J&K Women Development Coop-eration (JKWDC) at Mini Secre-tariat Ganderbal.

The District Social Welfare Of-ficer gave an overview of various welfare schemes and scholarship programmes which are being of-fered by the department.

The meeting was informed that under Integrated Social Se-curity Scheme (ISSS) 16355 ben-eficiaries are given assistance, under National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP) 5268 are benefited and under State Mar-riage Assistance Scheme 468 are currently availing assistance out

of 507 sanctioned cases.While reviewing the Integrated

Child Development Scheme, the Secretary directed the officials to provide nutrition to children as per the protocol at an earliest for holistic child development be-sides scheme be implemented in

a mission mode in the district so that it could achieve the desired targets. Underscoring the need for proper implementation of Social Welfare schemes, Dr Lone said that there is a need for gen-erating greater awareness among the masses about the schemes so that the benefits reach the in-tended sections of the society in an efficient manner.

Taking a review of JKWDC functioning in the district, the Managing Director WDC briefed

the Secretary about the pres-ent status of various schemes launched by the Corporation for the uplift of the womenfolk in the district. She informed the meeting that cooperation has trained 45 trainees in the district besides Rs 9 lakh loan availed by different Self Help Groups in the district. The meeting was also informed that under differ-ent centrally-sponsored loaning schemes in district Ganderbal, JKWDC has disbursed Rs 572.27 lakh financially and Rs 482 lakh physically up to ending March 2018. Similarly, for the financial year 2018-19, JKWDC has dis-bursed Rs 89.31 lakh financially and Rs 39 lakh physically up to October 24, 2018.

On the occasion, Dr. Lone said that the sole aim of the Coop-eration with other concerned de-partments should be to empower the women folk socially and eco-nomically so that they are able to earn their livelihood dignifiedly. He emphasized on giving due priority to the uncovered areas so that people especially women living there can avail the benefits of various welfare schemes of the Corporation besides to en-sure that the benefits of these schemes percolate down to the deserving population.

Later, Dr. Lone visited the Bal Ashram Kangan where he re-viewed the facilities being pro-vided at the centre.

Director General Social Wel-fare Ruksana Ganai, Managing Director JKWDC Nahida Soz, Pro-gram Officer ICDS, District Social Welfare Officer Ganderbal other officers of the Social Welfare De-partment attended the meeting.

Functioning of Social Welfare Deptt Reviewed


Anantnag: A mega legal servic-es-cum-awareness camp was organized by District Legal Ser-vices Authority, Anantnag here on Tuesday. The camp was in-augurated by Principal District & Sessions Judge Anantnag Syed Tawqeer Ahmad and District De-velopment Commissioner Mo-hammad Younis Malik. It was held as per the directions of Chief Justice Gita Mittal.

During the camp, 32 stalls were established by government departments, various banks, and NGOs wherein brochures, leaf-lets and folders of various devel-opmental and welfare schemes under implementation in the district was made available to the people. On the occasion, Princi-pal District & Sessions Judge said that aim of organizing the legal services camp is to make the people aware about various cen-tral and state-sponsored welfare schemes and programmes being implemented in the district. He said DLSA Anantnag is commit-ted to providing legal aid to the “needy people particularly weak-er sections of the society.”

About 125 schemes includ-ing ISSS, IGNOAPS, Marriage as-sistance, NFBS, Prosthetic aids, NULM, UMEED, CEWSN under IED component, Agriculture, Horti-culture, Sheep Husbandry, Animal Husbandry, Fisheries, UJWALA

YOJNA and other welfare schemes are being implemented in the dis-trict. Importance of Attal Pension Yojna, Mudra Yojna, Stand-up India, Pradan Mantri Jiwan Joti Yojna, and Suraksha Bema Yojna was also highlighted on the occa-sion. The DDC in presence of Prin-cipal District & Sessions Judge, Anantnag distributed sanction letters under PMEGP among six beneficiaries dealing with manu-facturing units. Cheques worth Rs.36.74 lakh were also distrib-uted among 335 labour class ben-eficiaries as financial assistance by the labour department. Sanc-tion letters to 210 beneficiaries under ISSS by Social Welfare De-partment, 50 certificates among urban poor beneficiaries under Deen Dayal Antyodaya Yojana by DODA, 27 free LPG connections to AAY families under Ujwala Scheme by FCS&CA, six covering nets, 12 Handle nets, 12 Plas-tic storage drums, six Tubs, six Buckets to fishermen by Fisher-ies department, two wheelchairs, 20 crutches, 13 hearing aids by CRC Bemina, three IP sets from Agriculture Departments, sanc-tion letters for 20 Vermicompost kits, certificates & loan sanctions among 35 beneficiaries trained by RSETI, loan sanction letters among 40 beneficiaries spon-sored by various departments amounting to Rs.1. crore by LDM, J&K, Bank Anantnag were also disbursed during the camp.

Legal Service Camp Held


Pulwama: The Assistant Commis-sioner Revenue (ACR) Pulwama Qazi Masood Tuesday adminis-tered oath to the 11 newly -elect-ed members of Municipal Com-mittees of Pulwama, Pampore, Tral and Awantipora here.

On the occasion, ACR urged them to work towards strengthen-ing “democratic institutions.” He reiterated that the newly “elected members should prioritize the de-velopmental initiatives as per local wards. Executive officers of Munic-ipal committees, other concerned officers were present on the occa-sion. The newly elected Municipal

Committee members of Kulgam, Devsar, Yaripora Municipal Com-mittees of Kulgam also took oath of office at a swearing-in ceremony at Rest house Kulgam. The oath was administered by Additional Dis-trict Development Commissioner (ADDC), Kulgam Khawaja Nazir Ahmad to all the elected members.

The ADDC urged upon them to meet the expectations of people and take development scenario to new heights in all towns of Kulgam and work in tandem for betterment of people. Executive Officers of all Municipal Commit-tees of Kulgam and district and sectoral officers were present on the occasion.

MC Members Administered Oath in South Kashmir

Hurriyat and Pakistan

IN an interview to a national daily, Governor Satya Pal Malik said that the former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf had told Hurriyat leaders to negotiate concessions for Kashmir

from New Delhi as Pakistan wouldn’t be able to forc-ibly wrest the state from the superpower India. The fresh alleged revelation comes in the wake of several contentious statements made by the Governor about the politics of the state. Earlier he had asked the main-stream and separatist parties to refrain from pitch-ing for talks with Pakistan on Kashmir. He has also accused the PDP for irregularities in the select list of J&K Bank. But by claiming to know that Musharraf had advised Hurriyat to arrive at a settlement with New Delhi over some concessions on Kashmir, Gov-ernor has sought to paint Azadi struggle as pointless.

As far as the truth of whether Hurriyat had got any such message, Pakistan’s policy on Kashmir dur-ing Musharraf’s rule gives a reason to believe other-wise. The peace process between Musharraf and the former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and later taken forward by the former Prime minister Manmohan Singh had nearly pulled off a Kashmir solution. Even though Hurriyat was taken on board, the peace process was largely bilateral in nature. At no point was Hurriyat talking to centre for a Kashmir solution exclusive of Pakistan. On the contrary, they were part and parcel of the Indo-Pak dialogue - hold-ing talks simultaneously but separately with New Delhi and Islamabad. True, Musharraf did influence a powerful group of separatist leaders. He persuaded them to be realistic in their expectations of a Kashmir settlement and brought them around to his four point proposals which envisaged a solution without dis-turbing the existing boundaries. And yes, he turned his back on the Hurriyat G chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani when he opposed the four point formula. But just when the protracted negotiations seemed ready to bear fruit, Musharraf lost power. Even though suc-cessor governments in India and Pakistan have failed to revive the process, Musharraf’s approach to Kash-mir resolution and the positive response to it from Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh remains the most pragmatic way out of the decades old logjam on the state. The answer to the reigning conflict is not a pro-cess of dialogue that excludes Pakistan but one which involves it. It has to be an integrated process inclu-sive of all actors. Otherwise, all efforts to find peace in Kashmir are bound to end in failure. And the past seventy years stand a testimony to this fact. As things stand, use of force has become the only option for New Delhi to maintain an uneasy calm in Kashmir. And there is little hope that things will change un-less centre adopts a political and humane approach towards the state, geared to address the festering is-sue in its political and historical context.

Wednesday| 31-10-2018 OPINION

Sunday Observer

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NO HOLDS BARREDK A S H M I R

Editor-in-Chief : Sajjad HaiderLegal Counsel: Tasaduq KhwajaSwitchboard: (0194) 2106304Editorial: (0194) 2502327Email editorial: [email protected] & Published by Sajjad Haider on behalf of the Kashmir Observer LLPPublished from: # 1- Boulevard, Srinagar-190001Printed at: KT Press Pvt. Ltd, Rangreth Ind Area, Srinagar.RNI Registration No: 69503/98Postal Registration No-L/159/KO/SK/2014-16

ALL IN A DAYS WORK

...

If Indian women can start MeToo movement against sexual harassment, Kashmir Civil society has to start a movement against Corruption.We have all suffered in one way or the other because of this corruption. So we should share experiences to make it a movement against Corruption.Movement against Corruption.

Sofi Rafeeq Political influence in jobs is nothing new in our state. In fact, our history has been such that unless there is some sort of influence no work gets done.

Ashish SeliThroughout human history, all-pervasive pain, hopelessness and depression are known to have impaired human sense of judgement. Yet, throughout history, positivity and optimism have triumphed over every negativity.

Arjimand Talib

O T H E R O P I N O N

Israeli rapprochement?

LAST week, it was reported that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu flew into Oman for a secret meeting with Sultan Qaboos; news and pictures of the visit were only made public after Mr Netanyahu was back in Tel

Aviv. Following the visit, a senior Omani minister told a con-ference in Manama that it was time to accept the Zionist state.

Along with these political developments, Israeli competi-tors and ministers have been in the UAE and Qatar of late as part of sports and cultural activities, with Israel’s flag flying at the venues, along with the playing of its national anthem.

Then, of course, there were reports of an Israeli busi-ness jet mysteriously flying into Pakistan; the reports have been vehemently denied by the government, but the rumours refuse to die down. It would be naive to assume all these de-velopments — especially the growing bonhomie between Tel Aviv and the Gulf Arabs — are mere coincidences.

It is highly likely that both parties are being given a ‘friendly’ nudge by the US to make peace officially (backchan-nel contacts are a barely kept secret), especially considering that both Israel and the Arabs are under American patronage.

In pictures: ‘Bloodiest day in Israel-Palestine conflict’ as US moves embassy to Jerusalem

This perception is given credence as senior US officials have welcomed the contacts. If peace — and justice for the Pal-estinians — are the goals, then there may be no harm in diplo-matic initiatives. However, if there is a sinister plan at work, such as isolating Iran, then there is cause for alarm. Both the US and the Gulf Arabs have no love lost for Tehran, and vice versa, hence the normalisation of Arab-Israeli ties could be linked to further squeezing Iran.

But while geopolitics may be governed by selfish interests rather than morals, it should be remembered that Israel con-tinues to slaughter Palestinians at will. In fact, as Gulf Arabs were posing for pictures with Israeli officials, the Zionist state’s military was busy exterminating Palestinian children in Gaza.

Israel’s behaviour towards Palestinians, especially under the current Likud regime, has been appalling, hence the Arab autocrats will have a tough time explaining the sudden warm-ing of relations with Tel Aviv. As for Pakistan, considering that this push for rapprochement in the Gulf may be linked to isolat-ing Iran, as well as the repeated violation of Palestinian human rights by Israel, the government needs to proceed very carefully.

DAWN

Surendra in ‘The Hindu’

4 Kashmir ObserverFriday, 01 February, 2013 OPINION

KASHMIR OBSERVERKASHMIR OBSERVERSRINAGAR, Friday, February 01, 2013

Striking at Roots

SOCIETAL TRENDS guided by the political elite have shornthe teaching profession of its status and sanctity, turning itinto just another vocation with little to distinguish it from,say, hawking garments on the streets. The adventurous, glam-

orous and challenging enterprise of kindling, illuminating and en-lightening tender young minds has become a lack-lustre anduninspiring activity devoid of its sorely-needed spirit, mainly be-cause successive leaderships (if they deserve that name) have beentoo occupied with other, more lucrative, concerns to bother aboutwhat is the corner-stone of the well-being of a people. This has hada direct bearing on the condition of schools and their performance.

By an ironic twist of circumstance, the teaching profession hasbeen for long, the last resort of the capable and the destination ofchoice for those who are unable to fit in anywhere else. When thescreening process for entry into this field - on which the entire socialedifice rests - should have been highly stringent, it had largely be-come a hit- and-trial exercise with the barest minimum regard fortalent, skill and temperament.

Having been active partners in ruining the state-run school sys-tem, the ruling classes now abdicate all responsibility by dumpingthe educational sector into the private lap. This is seen in the lavishsupport to fashionable and prohibitively expensive private schoolsand the mushrooming of lesser copycats who are making a finan-cial killing in the absence of a dependable and affordable publicstructure. It is nothing short of a scandal that parents should avoidsending their wards to government schools on account of the latter’sdismal record, and prefer seedy and crowded private options nomatter how mercenary they are.

Students cleared by the state-run school system in Kashmiroften barely make the grade in rudimentary literacy, particularly inrural and remote areas. This is sought to be cloaked by the perfor-mance of a handful of private schools, with no thought for thecolossal amounts spent on running a vast network of under-per-forming institutions. Howsoever sound the system may appear onpaper, on the ground it is as rickety and run-down as the schoolhouses spread all over rural Kashmir chronically starved of staff andproper equipment. Reports of under-manned schools, particularlyat the primary level, are a routine feature such areas, while insti-tutes in the city appear to bursting at the seams with needlessstaff, Schools in far-flung areas function at the sweet discretion oftheir often lone teachers, and instances of just one or two tutorshandling multiple classes and hundreds of students are common.The standards of such schools and the education they impart canwell be imagined.

The situation has been allowed to drift for far too long in thehope that with time the growing, engineered preference for pri-vate schools would phase the government system out of existence.It remains to be seen how well measures taken in desperation, likerecruitments scrounged in haste, are able to turn the tide for soci-ety, particularly low-income, rural and agrarian classes for whomstate-run schools were the mainstay of hope.

O T H E R O P I N I O N.....................................................................................

THE PAKISTAN women’s cricket team’s visitto India for the World Cup has turned into

a security and logistical nightmare. First, theteam could not go to Mumbai, where itsmatches were originally scheduled, after theShiv Sena started issuing its usual threatsagainst visiting Pakistani teams.

Now, hotels at the alternative venue ofCuttack and neighbouring cityBhubaneshwar have refused lodging to ourplayers out of fear.

Our cricketers now have to play this all-im-portant tournament under virtual house ar-rest, with their accommodation being pro-vided at the clubhouse of the stadium inwhich all their matches will be played. Everyother team will be staying in five-star hotels.

Discrimination Against CricketersN O H O L D S B A R R E D.................................................................................................

MAIL YOUR LETTERSP.O. Box # 337, GPO, Srinagar-190 001email: [email protected]

OBSERVER MAIL All letters intended for publication must include the writer’s name and address, even if a pseudonym is used. Letters are edited as clarity, spaceand accuracy of expression require. Our publishing a letter does not mean we agree with everything or even anything in it. -EDITOR

VIEWPOINT

This discrimination is undoubtedly unfairand puts our team at a significant disadvan-tage. The team has been conciliatory aboutits treatment but the International CricketCouncil (ICC) should take note of this.

International teams have refused to visitPakistan over justified security fears. It seems,however, that if we simply put internationalteams at clubhouses in stadiums and refuseto let them go anywhere else, the securityproblem would apparently be solved.

No country, of course, would accept suchconditions to play cricket in Pakistan. Yet, ourwomen cricketers are expected to put up withthis in India. Additionally, the final of thetournament is supposed to be held inMumbai. India needs to explain how our crick-

eters will be able to stay in Mumbai in thecurrent climate if we reach the final.

The ICC also needs to consider if India shouldbe allowed to hold multi-nation tourna-ments at a time when it can’t guarantee safetyof all players.

It is now too late to reschedule the WorldCup and our pulling out of the tournamentin protest will only heighten tensions. Weshould make clear that we are only playingunder duress and that such conditions areunacceptable if any of our sportspersons tourIndia again. Instead of appeasing the anti-Pakistan extremists, the Indian governmentmust ensure the safety and comfort of ourplayers.

-EXPRESS TRIBUNE

NILOOFAR QURESHI

Kashmir’s Fate is Just Consequential!DEAR EDITOR,

I would like to comment on theletter, written by one Shoaib Bhat,Kashmir Observer, Jan 22, titled, "Whois Responsible For LoC Killings?" Imust say to Shoaib that, you seem toknow a lot.

If it is true, there should beinvestigation and appropriate actiontaken against those who provokedpeace and created this environment

of mistrust. Could you also tell us whobeheaded and mutilated the bodies ofthe Indian soldiers? This should nothave happened in any case.

UN roles in Kashmir has beenminimised post 1971 for India. It isjust symbolic now.

It seems that the United Nationshas not played any role in this sectorfor a long time. In my view, it is morea political point on part of both these

countries, one wanting to and theother avoiding its role in Kashmir.

It is not in the interest of any oftwo countries India and Pakistan toindulge in any misadventure here oranywhere.

No one should man Kargil or otherhigher reaches, the rough terrain andall this is in the extreme frigid coldand hostile environment. The militaryon both sides should be minimised but

there is something that seems toinvite and incite the elements toKashmir. It is part of the history of thesub-continent.

We need to overcome it for oureternal peace. Unfortunately,Kashmir's fate is just consequential!

Shoaib, keep writing and stay safe.Khuda Hafez!

-VORSHALVia: email

FOR THOSE WHO HADPLACED THEIR BETS ON‘AMAN KI ASHA’, 2013 HASCERTAINLY BROUGHTBAD NEWS. BUT AREN’TTHEY THEMSELVES TO BEBLAMED FOR EXPECTINGTHE IMPOSSIBLE?

A LONG WAY TO GO

EXPECTING THAT thevenom of hatred infusedinto their people over theyears by the leaders onboth sides could easily

and quickly be remedied merely bythe antidote of ‘Confidence Build-ing Measures’ (CBMs) while theythemselves continue to foster an en-vironment of mutual mistrust!

The reaction of New Delhi andIslamabad to the recent incidents onthe LoC serves as a grim reminderthat the basic philosophy of ‘build-ing bridges’ through CBM initiativesby increasing ‘people to people’ con-tact is flawed.

Flawed, not because the conceptin itself is wrong, but because theleaders themselves don’t seem to beinterested in setting an example bydisplaying confidence in each other.Though, both countries are nowshowing some sanity in their deal-ings, the damage done to the pre-carious bilateral relationship betweenthe two by irresponsible statementslike “there can be no business asusual” and “war mongering” has

undone whatever little may havebeen achieved by the CBMs.

However, despite both sides re-iterating that the bilateral ties had notbeen derailed, the recent turn ofevents suggest otherwise. NewDelhi, suddenly like a bolt out of theblue, raked up theissue of the rel-evance of the UNMilitary ObserverG r o u p(UNMOGIP) onthe LoC in Jammuand Kashmir.

Declaring that“UNMOGIP’s rolehas been over-taken by theShimla Agreementof 1972 betweenIndia and Paki-stan, signed bythe Heads of thetwo governmentsand ratified bytheir respectiveparliaments,” theIndian representa-tive suggested itstermination.

As expected,Pakistan stronglydenounced NewDelhi’s contentionby saying that nobilateral agree-ment between thetwo nations had“overtaken or affected” the role orlegality of the UNMOGIP.

New Delhi initiated theUNMOGIP debate under the garb ofbetter spending of resources allo-

cated for the Observer Group else-where in difficult economic times.

However, as expected, this‘noble’ proposition with fiscal importfailed to cut any ice as the issue un-der discussion was an open debateon peacekeeping and not on auster-

ity measures.Why New

Delhi decided todeviate from itsage-old policy of‘letting the sleep-ing dogs lie’ tobring up theUNMOGIP issueand the timing itchose to do so,defies compre-hension. So,while nothingcame out of thisdebate, oldwounds were re-opened andnormalisation ofthe bilateral tiesbetween NewDelhi andIslamabad hastaken yet anotherbody blow.

Islamabad tooseems to be itch-ing for a chanceto ‘take on’ NewDelhi. Just a dayafter the Jamaat-ud-Dawa Chief,

Hafiz Saeed offered ‘asylum’ toBollywood star Sharukh Khan, Paki-stani Interior Minister Rehman Maliktoo joined in by saying that thoughSharukh Khan “is a born Indian and

he would like to remain Indian, but Iwill request the government of India(to) please provide him security.”

Not content with his ‘request’ tothe Government of India, Malik wenton to appeal to the Indian public that,“I would like to request all Indianbrothers and sisters and all thosewho are talking in a negative wayabout Shah Rukh, they should knowhe is a movie star."

While New Delhi may be an-noyed at Malik’s ‘request’, thepeople of India will perhaps remainever grateful to the Pakistani Inte-rior Minister for enlightening themwith the fact that Shahrukh Khan is“a movie star!”

Can bilateral ties between Indiaand Pakistan improve if Pakistanagrees that the UNMOGIP is not re-quired any longer in J&K and Indiareciprocates by providing ShahrukhKhan ‘Z’ category security?

Though the recent exchanges be-tween New Delhi and Islamabad maybring a whiff of humour into our lives,the dismal future of the bilateral rela-tions, which the present ‘line of en-gagement’ portends, is disquietingand sends shivers down the spine.

It is high time that leaders of bothcountries stop behaving like school-children and remedy the serious‘foot-in-the- mouth’ disease, whichseems to have afflicted them. Till thishappens, ‘Aman ki Asha’ will remaina distant dream and bilateral rela-tions will become another ‘comedycircus’!

NILOOFAR QURESHI is based in New Delhi andcan be reached at: [email protected]

DEAR EDITOR,Apropos news, ‘AFSPA Immu-

nity For Forces’ Sex Crimes MustEnd’, Kashmir Observer, January28, I want to say that we thepeople of Kashmir appreciatewhat Dr.Kiran Bedi said but whohas to initiate the action.

It is India who has to take theaction, but this country is neverready to bother for innocent

killings and heinous crimescommitted by its army and suchall other agencies that too withthe help of Indian puppets ofKashmiri origin.

-M. R. BABAVia: email

‘IN CONCLUSION’ was a favouritephrase of a teacher of mine — a man of scien-tific qualification; a man who looked at youand perceived atoms and molecules. Mr P, let’scall him, for he very well may still be alivemonitoring the masses that passed throughhis hands.

It was the Sixties, of course. The HippieMovement was winking naughtily from out-side classroom windows, “Come out and tastethe freedom!”

The band Uriah Heep did indeed sing,plaintively, Free Me, which may well havebeen the anthem of many a classroom boundschoolboy of that time.

It was also still the Years of Collusion —between teacher and parent to ensure at allcost that Johnny put his head down peeredinto the laboratory microscope and avertedhis gaze from the classroom windows. Theworld outside can wait, a good educationcouldn’t.

Tired of Thinking? Come to a ConclusionIf he were a cricketer — which I rather

doubt since he possessed not one jot of cricketvocabulary in his speech — but if he were acricketer Mr P would have been categorisedas an all rounder. This is because he was threescience teachers rolled into one. He taughtPhysics, Chemistry and when the frogs wereplentiful he was found in theBiology rooms giving lessonson dissection which non-bi-ology-inclined ones like my-self found hard to stomach,especially the drawing ofblood or the severing of flesh in order to peerat the undercoating and the insides.

“One has to have a stomach for thesethings,” Mr P would instruct, directing hiswords at the ones who’d gone a whiter shadeof pale and generally stood in the back rowsat the dissecting table so they missed a gooddeal of what was going on.PREPARING TO FACE LIFE: “Life is going totoss things at you that are a lot harder to take,so get used to it. In any case, you have to do ityourself come exam time. It carries a good deal

of marks, remember.”This generally got the ashen-faced ones

moving a few feet forward in a determinedeffort to overcome their resisting wills.

Chemistry periods were about tableswith cryptic symbols and water that changedcolour magically with the introduction of dif-

ferent powders. I once remem-ber naively being drawn intotaking a deep sniff from abottle of chlorine that nearlytook my sinuses for a walkright out of my body.

Physics was about equations, balanceand sticking pins in paper while trying totrace angles of reflection and refractionthrough a thick glass slab.

Most things in Mr P’s class started out aspremises before gradually working their waythrough a series of reasoning stages to a finelydrawn conclusion.

Dispute that, he’d say, pointing to asolved equation on the blackboard. Of course,who could? Especially who could who had hishead wrapped around other notions — those

of total freedom to pursue the pathways ofone’s own mind, frolic in the fields of an idyl-lic nature and dream of writing lines thatrhymed and described life in a more naturalway — a way that had nothing to do withscience?

A young man dreaming is how I come toview my school reports of that day and agewhen I glance at them occasionally thesedays yellowing in a plastic sleeve. Mr P obvi-ously had a kind heart too for his marksawarded to me in their own scientific wayreflect a kindness.

If the dissecting of a frog taught me any-thing it pointed me in the direction of veg-etarianism and a kindness to all animals greatand small. Science provided me with an in-sight into laterality. That is, you could beseated in the lap of science and be totally atease contemplating poetry.

Science didn’t care because ultimately itseems everything is relative. There is no end,no conclusion to be drawn because like somewise person once said, “A conclusion is theplace where you got tired of thinking.”

KEVIN MARTIN

LIFE IN ACLASSROOM OF

THE SIXTIES

Why New Delhidecided to deviate from

its age-old policy of‘letting the sleeping

dogs lie’ to bring up theUNMOGIP issue and

the timing it choseto do so, defies

comprehension. So,while nothing came out

of this debate, oldwounds were reopenedand normalisation of

the bilateral tiesbetween New Delhiand Islamabad has

taken yet another bodyblow. Islamabad too

seems to be itching fora chance to ‘takeon’ New Delhi.

Hail Kiran Bedi

OBSERVER

MAILAll letters intended for publication must include the writer’s name and address, even if a pseudonym is used. Letters are edited as clarity, spaceand accuracy of expression require. Our publishing a letter does not mean we agree with everything or even anything in it. -EDITOR

4 Kashmir ObserverFriday, 01 February, 2013 OPINION

KASHMIR OBSERVERKASHMIR OBSERVERSRINAGAR, Friday, February 01, 2013

Striking at Roots

SOCIETAL TRENDS guided by the political elite have shornthe teaching profession of its status and sanctity, turning itinto just another vocation with little to distinguish it from,say, hawking garments on the streets. The adventurous, glam-

orous and challenging enterprise of kindling, illuminating and en-lightening tender young minds has become a lack-lustre anduninspiring activity devoid of its sorely-needed spirit, mainly be-cause successive leaderships (if they deserve that name) have beentoo occupied with other, more lucrative, concerns to bother aboutwhat is the corner-stone of the well-being of a people. This has hada direct bearing on the condition of schools and their performance.

By an ironic twist of circumstance, the teaching profession hasbeen for long, the last resort of the capable and the destination ofchoice for those who are unable to fit in anywhere else. When thescreening process for entry into this field - on which the entire socialedifice rests - should have been highly stringent, it had largely be-come a hit- and-trial exercise with the barest minimum regard fortalent, skill and temperament.

Having been active partners in ruining the state-run school sys-tem, the ruling classes now abdicate all responsibility by dumpingthe educational sector into the private lap. This is seen in the lavishsupport to fashionable and prohibitively expensive private schoolsand the mushrooming of lesser copycats who are making a finan-cial killing in the absence of a dependable and affordable publicstructure. It is nothing short of a scandal that parents should avoidsending their wards to government schools on account of the latter’sdismal record, and prefer seedy and crowded private options nomatter how mercenary they are.

Students cleared by the state-run school system in Kashmiroften barely make the grade in rudimentary literacy, particularly inrural and remote areas. This is sought to be cloaked by the perfor-mance of a handful of private schools, with no thought for thecolossal amounts spent on running a vast network of under-per-forming institutions. Howsoever sound the system may appear onpaper, on the ground it is as rickety and run-down as the schoolhouses spread all over rural Kashmir chronically starved of staff andproper equipment. Reports of under-manned schools, particularlyat the primary level, are a routine feature such areas, while insti-tutes in the city appear to bursting at the seams with needlessstaff, Schools in far-flung areas function at the sweet discretion oftheir often lone teachers, and instances of just one or two tutorshandling multiple classes and hundreds of students are common.The standards of such schools and the education they impart canwell be imagined.

The situation has been allowed to drift for far too long in thehope that with time the growing, engineered preference for pri-vate schools would phase the government system out of existence.It remains to be seen how well measures taken in desperation, likerecruitments scrounged in haste, are able to turn the tide for soci-ety, particularly low-income, rural and agrarian classes for whomstate-run schools were the mainstay of hope.

O T H E R O P I N I O N.....................................................................................

THE PAKISTAN women’s cricket team’s visitto India for the World Cup has turned into

a security and logistical nightmare. First, theteam could not go to Mumbai, where itsmatches were originally scheduled, after theShiv Sena started issuing its usual threatsagainst visiting Pakistani teams.

Now, hotels at the alternative venue ofCuttack and neighbouring cityBhubaneshwar have refused lodging to ourplayers out of fear.

Our cricketers now have to play this all-im-portant tournament under virtual house ar-rest, with their accommodation being pro-vided at the clubhouse of the stadium inwhich all their matches will be played. Everyother team will be staying in five-star hotels.

Discrimination Against CricketersN O H O L D S B A R R E D.................................................................................................

MAIL YOUR LETTERSP.O. Box # 337, GPO, Srinagar-190 001email: [email protected]

OBSERVER MAIL All letters intended for publication must include the writer’s name and address, even if a pseudonym is used. Letters are edited as clarity, spaceand accuracy of expression require. Our publishing a letter does not mean we agree with everything or even anything in it. -EDITOR

VIEWPOINT

This discrimination is undoubtedly unfairand puts our team at a significant disadvan-tage. The team has been conciliatory aboutits treatment but the International CricketCouncil (ICC) should take note of this.

International teams have refused to visitPakistan over justified security fears. It seems,however, that if we simply put internationalteams at clubhouses in stadiums and refuseto let them go anywhere else, the securityproblem would apparently be solved.

No country, of course, would accept suchconditions to play cricket in Pakistan. Yet, ourwomen cricketers are expected to put up withthis in India. Additionally, the final of thetournament is supposed to be held inMumbai. India needs to explain how our crick-

eters will be able to stay in Mumbai in thecurrent climate if we reach the final.

The ICC also needs to consider if India shouldbe allowed to hold multi-nation tourna-ments at a time when it can’t guarantee safetyof all players.

It is now too late to reschedule the WorldCup and our pulling out of the tournamentin protest will only heighten tensions. Weshould make clear that we are only playingunder duress and that such conditions areunacceptable if any of our sportspersons tourIndia again. Instead of appeasing the anti-Pakistan extremists, the Indian governmentmust ensure the safety and comfort of ourplayers.

-EXPRESS TRIBUNE

NILOOFAR QURESHI

Kashmir’s Fate is Just Consequential!DEAR EDITOR,

I would like to comment on theletter, written by one Shoaib Bhat,Kashmir Observer, Jan 22, titled, "Whois Responsible For LoC Killings?" Imust say to Shoaib that, you seem toknow a lot.

If it is true, there should beinvestigation and appropriate actiontaken against those who provokedpeace and created this environment

of mistrust. Could you also tell us whobeheaded and mutilated the bodies ofthe Indian soldiers? This should nothave happened in any case.

UN roles in Kashmir has beenminimised post 1971 for India. It isjust symbolic now.

It seems that the United Nationshas not played any role in this sectorfor a long time. In my view, it is morea political point on part of both these

countries, one wanting to and theother avoiding its role in Kashmir.

It is not in the interest of any oftwo countries India and Pakistan toindulge in any misadventure here oranywhere.

No one should man Kargil or otherhigher reaches, the rough terrain andall this is in the extreme frigid coldand hostile environment. The militaryon both sides should be minimised but

there is something that seems toinvite and incite the elements toKashmir. It is part of the history of thesub-continent.

We need to overcome it for oureternal peace. Unfortunately,Kashmir's fate is just consequential!

Shoaib, keep writing and stay safe.Khuda Hafez!

-VORSHALVia: email

FOR THOSE WHO HADPLACED THEIR BETS ON‘AMAN KI ASHA’, 2013 HASCERTAINLY BROUGHTBAD NEWS. BUT AREN’TTHEY THEMSELVES TO BEBLAMED FOR EXPECTINGTHE IMPOSSIBLE?

A LONG WAY TO GO

EXPECTING THAT thevenom of hatred infusedinto their people over theyears by the leaders onboth sides could easily

and quickly be remedied merely bythe antidote of ‘Confidence Build-ing Measures’ (CBMs) while theythemselves continue to foster an en-vironment of mutual mistrust!

The reaction of New Delhi andIslamabad to the recent incidents onthe LoC serves as a grim reminderthat the basic philosophy of ‘build-ing bridges’ through CBM initiativesby increasing ‘people to people’ con-tact is flawed.

Flawed, not because the conceptin itself is wrong, but because theleaders themselves don’t seem to beinterested in setting an example bydisplaying confidence in each other.Though, both countries are nowshowing some sanity in their deal-ings, the damage done to the pre-carious bilateral relationship betweenthe two by irresponsible statementslike “there can be no business asusual” and “war mongering” has

undone whatever little may havebeen achieved by the CBMs.

However, despite both sides re-iterating that the bilateral ties had notbeen derailed, the recent turn ofevents suggest otherwise. NewDelhi, suddenly like a bolt out of theblue, raked up theissue of the rel-evance of the UNMilitary ObserverG r o u p(UNMOGIP) onthe LoC in Jammuand Kashmir.

Declaring that“UNMOGIP’s rolehas been over-taken by theShimla Agreementof 1972 betweenIndia and Paki-stan, signed bythe Heads of thetwo governmentsand ratified bytheir respectiveparliaments,” theIndian representa-tive suggested itstermination.

As expected,Pakistan stronglydenounced NewDelhi’s contentionby saying that nobilateral agree-ment between thetwo nations had“overtaken or affected” the role orlegality of the UNMOGIP.

New Delhi initiated theUNMOGIP debate under the garb ofbetter spending of resources allo-

cated for the Observer Group else-where in difficult economic times.

However, as expected, this‘noble’ proposition with fiscal importfailed to cut any ice as the issue un-der discussion was an open debateon peacekeeping and not on auster-

ity measures.Why New

Delhi decided todeviate from itsage-old policy of‘letting the sleep-ing dogs lie’ tobring up theUNMOGIP issueand the timing itchose to do so,defies compre-hension. So,while nothingcame out of thisdebate, oldwounds were re-opened andnormalisation ofthe bilateral tiesbetween NewDelhi andIslamabad hastaken yet anotherbody blow.

Islamabad tooseems to be itch-ing for a chanceto ‘take on’ NewDelhi. Just a dayafter the Jamaat-ud-Dawa Chief,

Hafiz Saeed offered ‘asylum’ toBollywood star Sharukh Khan, Paki-stani Interior Minister Rehman Maliktoo joined in by saying that thoughSharukh Khan “is a born Indian and

he would like to remain Indian, but Iwill request the government of India(to) please provide him security.”

Not content with his ‘request’ tothe Government of India, Malik wenton to appeal to the Indian public that,“I would like to request all Indianbrothers and sisters and all thosewho are talking in a negative wayabout Shah Rukh, they should knowhe is a movie star."

While New Delhi may be an-noyed at Malik’s ‘request’, thepeople of India will perhaps remainever grateful to the Pakistani Inte-rior Minister for enlightening themwith the fact that Shahrukh Khan is“a movie star!”

Can bilateral ties between Indiaand Pakistan improve if Pakistanagrees that the UNMOGIP is not re-quired any longer in J&K and Indiareciprocates by providing ShahrukhKhan ‘Z’ category security?

Though the recent exchanges be-tween New Delhi and Islamabad maybring a whiff of humour into our lives,the dismal future of the bilateral rela-tions, which the present ‘line of en-gagement’ portends, is disquietingand sends shivers down the spine.

It is high time that leaders of bothcountries stop behaving like school-children and remedy the serious‘foot-in-the- mouth’ disease, whichseems to have afflicted them. Till thishappens, ‘Aman ki Asha’ will remaina distant dream and bilateral rela-tions will become another ‘comedycircus’!

NILOOFAR QURESHI is based in New Delhi andcan be reached at: [email protected]

DEAR EDITOR,Apropos news, ‘AFSPA Immu-

nity For Forces’ Sex Crimes MustEnd’, Kashmir Observer, January28, I want to say that we thepeople of Kashmir appreciatewhat Dr.Kiran Bedi said but whohas to initiate the action.

It is India who has to take theaction, but this country is neverready to bother for innocent

killings and heinous crimescommitted by its army and suchall other agencies that too withthe help of Indian puppets ofKashmiri origin.

-M. R. BABAVia: email

‘IN CONCLUSION’ was a favouritephrase of a teacher of mine — a man of scien-tific qualification; a man who looked at youand perceived atoms and molecules. Mr P, let’scall him, for he very well may still be alivemonitoring the masses that passed throughhis hands.

It was the Sixties, of course. The HippieMovement was winking naughtily from out-side classroom windows, “Come out and tastethe freedom!”

The band Uriah Heep did indeed sing,plaintively, Free Me, which may well havebeen the anthem of many a classroom boundschoolboy of that time.

It was also still the Years of Collusion —between teacher and parent to ensure at allcost that Johnny put his head down peeredinto the laboratory microscope and avertedhis gaze from the classroom windows. Theworld outside can wait, a good educationcouldn’t.

Tired of Thinking? Come to a ConclusionIf he were a cricketer — which I rather

doubt since he possessed not one jot of cricketvocabulary in his speech — but if he were acricketer Mr P would have been categorisedas an all rounder. This is because he was threescience teachers rolled into one. He taughtPhysics, Chemistry and when the frogs wereplentiful he was found in theBiology rooms giving lessonson dissection which non-bi-ology-inclined ones like my-self found hard to stomach,especially the drawing ofblood or the severing of flesh in order to peerat the undercoating and the insides.

“One has to have a stomach for thesethings,” Mr P would instruct, directing hiswords at the ones who’d gone a whiter shadeof pale and generally stood in the back rowsat the dissecting table so they missed a gooddeal of what was going on.PREPARING TO FACE LIFE: “Life is going totoss things at you that are a lot harder to take,so get used to it. In any case, you have to do ityourself come exam time. It carries a good deal

of marks, remember.”This generally got the ashen-faced ones

moving a few feet forward in a determinedeffort to overcome their resisting wills.

Chemistry periods were about tableswith cryptic symbols and water that changedcolour magically with the introduction of dif-

ferent powders. I once remem-ber naively being drawn intotaking a deep sniff from abottle of chlorine that nearlytook my sinuses for a walkright out of my body.

Physics was about equations, balanceand sticking pins in paper while trying totrace angles of reflection and refractionthrough a thick glass slab.

Most things in Mr P’s class started out aspremises before gradually working their waythrough a series of reasoning stages to a finelydrawn conclusion.

Dispute that, he’d say, pointing to asolved equation on the blackboard. Of course,who could? Especially who could who had hishead wrapped around other notions — those

of total freedom to pursue the pathways ofone’s own mind, frolic in the fields of an idyl-lic nature and dream of writing lines thatrhymed and described life in a more naturalway — a way that had nothing to do withscience?

A young man dreaming is how I come toview my school reports of that day and agewhen I glance at them occasionally thesedays yellowing in a plastic sleeve. Mr P obvi-ously had a kind heart too for his marksawarded to me in their own scientific wayreflect a kindness.

If the dissecting of a frog taught me any-thing it pointed me in the direction of veg-etarianism and a kindness to all animals greatand small. Science provided me with an in-sight into laterality. That is, you could beseated in the lap of science and be totally atease contemplating poetry.

Science didn’t care because ultimately itseems everything is relative. There is no end,no conclusion to be drawn because like somewise person once said, “A conclusion is theplace where you got tired of thinking.”

KEVIN MARTIN

LIFE IN ACLASSROOM OF

THE SIXTIES

Why New Delhidecided to deviate from

its age-old policy of‘letting the sleeping

dogs lie’ to bring up theUNMOGIP issue and

the timing it choseto do so, defies

comprehension. So,while nothing came out

of this debate, oldwounds were reopenedand normalisation of

the bilateral tiesbetween New Delhiand Islamabad has

taken yet another bodyblow. Islamabad too

seems to be itching fora chance to ‘takeon’ New Delhi.

Hail Kiran Bedi

[email protected]

We want to live in peace, with freedom and dignity

EVERY day our youth lay down their lives. Every day the monster of violence wreaks havoc in the valley of flow-

ers. Every day devil enters paradise to commit sins. Every day we carry the bullet-ridden bodies of our budding flowers and bury them, express an-guish and shed tears. We mourn, and then there is a sort of truce and then we start once again and the whole cycle continues. That is Kashmir for you. Bleeding, crying for peace, and awaiting the promises made to it.

There are various narratives with regard to Kashmir: The narrative of Indian and Pakistani government, re-spective civil society of both the coun-tries and the narrative of world com-munity etc. All buzzing around, heard, discussed and finding a place at world forms, seminars, convocation and in media. We, who live the Conflict, too have a narrative, which however finds less sympathetic ears. Our narrative is, both ignored and accused of being barrowed or sponsored from outside. Our voice finds barricades on earth,

under water and even in air. Simply, we feel chocked.

The problem is, that world seems confused about us or plays ignorance. However, we do not want anything unacceptable out of blue. We simply deserve, what was promised to us and that is plebiscite. No one can take away our right to self-determination. We have no love for alienation or ha-tred towards social integration. We simply want peace, conflict resolution, respect for our property, lives, dignity, a space of freedom, for us, in our own land. That is no sin, off course.

What shocks us is that, those who experienced the wrath of colonial-ism on themselves should not have indulged in colonial acts. Those who once supported the freedom move-ments of many countries, like Bangla-desh and South Africa etc should not have muted a similar voice in Kash-mir. Those who once led non-align movement now have aligned them-selves in such a way that the entire south Asia rests on a nuclear volcano with the trigger in Kashmir. Those

who once stood for human rights now carry the acquisitions of human rights violations in Kashmir. Those who once propagated nonviolence and “Satyagraha” have adopted the policy of ruling with iron hand in Kashmir. You tell them reality, and with one stroke of “nationalism” “unity and in-tegrity”, “soldier and boarders”, they will put an end to all your arguments, forgetting that their own preamble aims to secure to all its citizens jus-tice, liberty and equality too, even if we set aside historical context of Kash-mir, instrument of accession and the promise of plebiscite.

Regarding the world community, why should they make any efforts to resolve world conflicts including Kashmir, when that is what keeps their economy going. Those econo-mists of conflict and violence manu-facture wars, if their arms business seems going down. With conflict of Palestine, Middle East, Afghanistan, Rohingiya crises etc finding no solu-tion, what hope we should keep from such civilized world? UN has not jus

failed us but also the whole world.People in both India and Pakistan

need to wake up from deep coma. They need to know that their tax money is being used for all kinds of evils. They need to know that resolution of Kashmir conflict is for their own bet-terment and for the good of humanity at large. They need to know that the conflict is probably been kept alive by a third party which looks at Kash-mir conflict as a business opportunity only. Let they be shuddered by bitter truth, that, for politicians in India and Pakistan, Kashmir is an issue of elec-tion campaign. For Armies of both the countries, it is a place to play games and be like unbridled horses. For arms companies, it is abusiness hub. How-ever, for us it is our paradise, turned into a living hell. Truth, even though twisted by knaves to make trap for fools, stands clear: We deserve and want to live in peace, with freedom and dignity.

Imran Khan (M.Phil in Psychology)

Kashmir University

The Past In Modern IdiomL

OOKING at the chal-lenges women face at their place of work or even at home in India or

Pakistan, among other venues, I wondered how Prof Kailas Nath Kaul would have analysed the phenomenon. The late raconteur believed that our languages har-boured our ugly past, samples of which may still be lodged in our DNA waiting to jump out at a tiny provocation.

Being a Lucknow-based brother of Nehru’s wife, Kama-la, Kaul Saahab was a perma-nent invitee at family gather-ings among the city elite. He was also a botanist by training, and set up the city’s fabled botanical gardens where as a child I first saw Nehru.

According to Prof Kaul, certain phrases in Indian lan-guages are commonly used in a quarrel or even in jest, and that reveals a cannibal past. Likewise, mothers, sisters and daughters are at the receiving end of a widely accepted sexual violence that’s ingrained in our daily conversation.

People threaten to drink each other’s blood, chew each other raw or eat one alive, or make mincemeat of the other at the drop of a hat. Even a vegetar-ian doesn’t have trouble at the prospect of a blood-drenched threat in a rage. Where did we recently see a foetus plucked from the womb of a slaughtered woman and hoisted on a sword to a mob’s glee?

I believe the cause of wom-en’s liberation or equality in our region continues to be challenged by a deep-seated culture of male violence, of which they were vic-tims then and remain so today.

It has been argued that the Mahabharata may have been fought to the bitter end between warring men, but it was a war waged over the winning and losing of a helpless woman in a game of dice between two power-ful groups.

In more contemporary times, women are stoned to death in so-called honour killings in Pakistan. The phenomenon is a South Asia-wide malaise.

As a journalist, I have met the kangaroo court that ordered the torture and murder of a boy and a girl from different castes in Barsana near Mathura, the

legendary Radha’s village, after they had apparently eloped. The upper caste chiefs of the girl’s village disapproved and the po-lice looked the other way. The victims were first hanged low by a banyan tree, and their bod-ies tortured, before they were thrown on a pyre amid bizarre public rejoicing.

At one level, the pervasive abuse of women might seem like a particularly tribal or rural phe-nomenon, but Tehmina Durrani revealed years ago how gender violence and an inbuilt injustice against women has been woven in our modern power structures.

It is thus that in cosmopoli-tan Mumbai, MeToo-inspired women have publicly spoken of their experiences of rape and harassment in the movie world, while in Delhi, senior and re-spected journalists are in the dock for alleged abuse of their women colleagues.

Can MeToo succeed in a culture where children are married off for social or eco-nomic exigencies?

The accused men are not unconnected with their social origins, nor for that matter are the women. Part of the problem lies in not respecting the facts of history.

A well-regarded parochial historian has argued, for ex-ample, that Hindus have had a social renaissance, which In-dian Muslims lacked. That’s an exaggeration given the fact that there were liberalising elements in both communities and both were bludgeoned by a surge of reaction from within their folds.

It was the seemingly urbane men at the helm of India’s na-tional movement who fought shy of social reforms that were pushed by a more enlightened group of men and women. The result is that child marriages, among other social evils, are pervasive in India.

It’s a direct legacy of the in-terventions that men like Tilak and W.C. Bonnerjee, the first head of the Indian National Congress, made against increasing the age of consent for women/girls. Can MeToo succeed in a culture where children are married off for social or economic exigencies?

While there has been a de-cline in child marriage across the country, research has re-

vealed that Rajasthan has re-ported the highest incidence of child marriages. It is another matter that the state chief min-ister is female.

The study, based on the 2011 census, states that 2.5 per cent of marriages of minor girls were reported in Rajasthan, which is followed by 15 states, including Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Sikkim, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Nagaland, Assam, Ma-harashtra, Tripura, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and Karnataka. Where is the renaissance? And child marriage is equally a Mus-lim problem.

According to the census study, 12.9pc of girls were mar-ried between the ages of 10-17 years and 43.6pc between 18-20 years. However, only 4.9pc of boys were married in the 10-17 age group, and 11.2pc in the 18-below 21 age group.

“In terms of numbers, we find that 69.5 lakh boys and 51.6 lakh girls have been married before their respective legal age according to census 2011,” says the report.

The study shows a minor de-cline of 0.1pc in the marriage of minor girls. The decline in rural India, between the 2001 and 2011 census, was marginally higher than in the whole of the country.

Here comes the rub: “Howev-er, the incidence of child marriage among girls increased substan-tially in urban India from 1.78pc in 2001 to 2.45pc in 2011… the absolute number of girls married below le-gal age was 5.1 million.”

Justice A.K. Sikri of the su-preme court, who supervised the report, observed that there was a conflict between the ‘secular’ Prevention of the Child Mar-riage Act and personal laws, which needed legislative inter-vention for a resolution. Anyone stepping forward?

Marrying children is an of-fence under the secular laws, but it is only ‘voidable’ at the girl’s instance after she attains major-ity. Well, when she does attain majority after dodging the early marriage trap, she meets the predator at work.

The writer is Dawn’s cor-respondent in Delhi.

[email protected]

Jawed Naqvi

...

People threaten to drink each other’s

blood, chew each other raw or eat one alive, or make mincemeat of the other at the drop of a hat. Even a vegetarian doesn’t have trouble at the prospect of a blood-drenched threat in a rage. Where did we recently see a foetus plucked from the womb of a slaughtered woman and hoisted on a sword to a mob’s glee?

AMONG the so-called neurotics of our day there are a good many who in other ages would not have been neurotic — that is, divided against themselves. If they had lived in a period and in a milieu in which man was still linked by myth with the world of the ances-tors, and thus with nature truly experienced and not merely seen from outside, they would have been spared this division within themselves.

– Carl Jung, Swiss psychoanalyst

WHEN winter arrives, the village folk come down from the mountains to their vil-lages, bringing back cattle fattened on the highland grass. Soon there will be snow,

confining them to their homes. They will slaughter an ox or a goat and salt and dry its carcass — as part of Nasalo, their winter festival. This, along with fruit dried and grain harvested in summer months, will sustain them through a long, cold winter.

But before the villagers move into closed in-doors, they must exorcise evil spirits that have moved in while they were away.

The spirits are quiet and secretive. From their hiding places, they are expelled through a rite of noise — villagers knocking walls and doors with a pickaxe or a rolling pin. Residents are not allowed to sleep inside their houses during exorcism because if they do, the spirits will possess them to stay on with them. The ritual done, the villagers have a feast of goli – bread rolled in butter – to declare their houses safe for habitation.

In mountain valleys of Chitral and Gilgit-Baltistan, communities are as disciplined and sin-gle-minded as ants. The clockwork of their lives is regulated by nature – through its bounties and scar-cities, through the harsh and kind turns of seasons – as they work through summers to save for winters. Their naturalist outlook on life, and a mountain cul-ture conceived and preserved in isolation from the rest of the world, hint at their region’s Shamanic past even when these communities have long em-braced Islam. Largely symbolic than being an article of faith today, doman koh, or the rite of exorcism, is a throwback to an age covered in mists of time like the mountain peaks in clouds on a rainy day here.

Of late, though, the mountain folks have re-turned home to find that evil spirits have hardened themselves to withstand the ritual. Not only do they insist on staying, they demand a sacrifice far bigger than slaughtering a goat or a cockerel.

While the elders were in the mountains beseech-ing fairies for fecund cattle and bountiful harvest, their children left villages to get education in cities. They returned disabused of myths, divested of faith in fairies their forefathers bow to and seek counsel from in time of adversity. Drawn to the gods of globalisation – Oracle, Nike, Hermes, Mars: brands, not deities from

mythology – the children have become split personali-ties, torn between an ancient world and a new one.

As the culture, festivals and traditions that give the locals a sense of self and sociocultural identity die so do the bonds that hold mountain communities into a cohesive whole. As those bonds die, they leave a curse behind. The locals find themselves amidst a zone where the self stands on shaky ground between the solid world it once inhabited and the virtual one that lacks a core.

The self stands lost. And there is no help from fairies in the face of an onslaught from fiends – the relentless, faceless forces unleashed by modernity, globalisation, sectarianism, radicalisation and state oppression – that snuff all hope for self-realisation.

At the altar of these raging demons, the moun-tain communities must sacrifice their own lives and those of their children. With a cockerel, a goat, a prayer, they cannot be allayed.

WHEN life blooms in spring, they go to die.

You would not know it from the young hopeful faces of children in school uniforms, saddled with colourful

bags and holding hands as they walk to school from home through poplar-shaded streets.

You would not know it from the retired soldier, feather-crest in his pakul cap, who stops to buy muntu – dumplings made with onions and mince-meat – from a shop along the road; or from the young man wearing a jeans folded half way up his shins and a red T-shirt, leaning forward on the seat of his mo-torcycle, who stops along the way so he can text on his phone. You would not know it from the shadows on the tree-lined street leading up to the river, from the wind that suddenly rises in the evening as a dy-ing sunlight lingers over peaks surrounding the val-ley, or from the blazing, bright afternoon that leaves eyeballs scalded, hot and itching from sunlight.

Neither would you from the child who laughs as he runs across the street, chased by a young father who plants his rosy cheeks with kisses, laughing as he tickles the child’s face with his own.

You would not because Ghizer has valleys redo-lent with the scent of bairer trees. Its villages reso-nate with the song of mayun, the golden oriole, that echoes in the small hours before dawn and seems to

celebrate nature’s bounty: “the apricots are ripe, the apples are rotten,” is how local residents interpret its fragile notes.

These, as anyone would tell you, are the sights, sounds and scents of eternity. Of life as it always was and always will be — thriving and exuberant.

You only know it from a ping that makes Shara-fat Ali, an Ismaili social activist who works with the youth, pick up his phone and announce anxiously: another suicide.

You do not want the news of another suicide, not here in Gahkuch town, the district headquarters of Ghizer. First, because if life and death are mutually exclusive, how can they coexist in the same space with the same intensity? Second, you have come to dread suicide as if it is a madness you might also catch.

The news reinforces observations, speculations and fears you are out to challenge and hopefully lay to rest, hoping against all hope that Ghizer’s reputation for a high rate of suicides is wrong or, at least, blown out of proportion. That the river snaking through the heart of this paradise is no serpent; that there is no worm eating into the vitals of life here; that there is no tragedy lying in wait for the village folk, like the cracks from several earthquakes in the walls of their houses that perhaps would not survive another.

Sharafat Ali’s phone receives a picture: a stur-dy young man with a clean crew cut and bulging muscles that strain against the tight sleeves of his T-shirt. Merely 25. A life cut short, now frozen in a picture of a hopeful face. A hope that is lost.

Who else lost hope when he died — a parent, a spouse, a sibling, a friend?

They say suicide in these parts has become a fashion, a rage for the copycat youth. He, too, is a role model for them. Young. Handsome. Dead.

The only consolation is that he is not from Ghiz-er. He is from Hunza. But how is that a consolation? Is it not ironic that Hunza, a place where the old are known to live to ripe old age should also have a repu-tation for the young killing themselves prematurely?

From Buni town in Chitral to Yasin valley in Ghizer, young men and women in Pakistan’s north are choosing death when they should be alive with ambi-tion and hope. In Ghizer, more girls than boys are com-mitting suicide; in Hunza, it is the boys. Local settle-

ments, scenic and placid on the surface, have suicide points just like they have picnic spots or lover lanes.

Every suicide has a story and you wonder about the story of the young man whose photo Sharafat Ali has received.

In Ghizer, there are 203 stories of those who have committed suicide between 2006 and 2017. Every-one here has a story of a suicide to tell, sometimes even two or three. Of a brother who shot himself, of a sister who jumped into the river, of a cousin who took poison. It is not unlike the time when terrorism peaked in Pakistan and in your hometown you knew someone – a friend, a family member, yourself – who had survived a suicide bombing or lost someone to it. It is that random but it is also different.

Suicide bombers die for what they believe is a cause. Those who commit suicide have none to live for. The motives of suicide bombers may be “altruis-tic” — as defined by French sociologist Emile Dur-kheim whose suicide theory is considered seminal in sociology. They think they are dying for a shared ideal or a collective purpose that is larger than their own lives. A suicide is “fatalistic” when in reaction to oppression from the state or the system, or “ego-tistic” when an individual commits suicide because he or she fails to integrate in a social set-up.

In Chitral, people report a surge in suicides ev-ery spring — between February and April. “It must have something to do with a psychotic disorder that tends to aggravate around spring,” says a local as-sociate of the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme, a non-governmental organisation (NGO).

A young doctor in Ghizer, who routinely per-forms autopsies on those who have committed sui-cides or treats suicide survivors, confirms the same. The local season of suicides, he says, follows interna-tional trends. Change in seasons and effects of light on hormones, he says, prompt suicides between April and June in northern Pakistan — just as they do in the rest of the world.

But it is August and the young in Chitral are still killing themselves for scoring low in exam results. In Ghizer, too, they are dying of reasons other than seasons and sunlight.

On a recent night, knots of young boys lean on the railing of a bridge over the Ghizer River, looking down, casting long shadows under the lights. From below the bridge rise the roar and the rattle of the river, wild waves rippling like scales on a serpent.

Night after night, young men in Ghizer are drawn to the river like moths to the lamplights on the bridge. To some, it is the river’s soothing sound that strangely deepens the night’s silence. To others, it is a call.

In Chitral, they say do not go near the river when it is the season for grapes to ripen because the river calls for blood then.

To be continued

Wednesday| 31-10-2018

15% Of Students Admit To Buying Essays. What Can Universities Do About It?

NEW research on plagiarism at university has revealed students are surprisingly unconcerned about a practice known as “contract cheating”.

The term “contract cheating” was coined in 2006, and describes students paying for completed assessments. At that time, concerns over the out-sourcing of assessments were in their infancy, but today, contract cheating is big business.

In 2017 alone, the UK’s Daily Telegraph re-ported more than 20,000 students had bought pro-fessionally written essays from the country’s two largest essay-writing services.

According to a 2018 study, as many as 31 mil-lion university students worldwide are paying third parties to complete their assessments. This staggering figure was drawn by reviewing 65 stud-ies on contract cheating. Since 2014, as many as 15.7% of surveyed students admitted to outsourc-ing their assignments and essays.

The growth in contract cheating speaks vol-umes about the modern view of education as a commodity.

Who’s cheating?A recent survey, led by the University of South

Australia, found international students demon-strated proportionately higher cheating behav-iours. So did students who spoke a language other than English at home.

In 2013, a large online survey on academic honesty at six Australian universities found in-ternational students were significantly less aware of academic integrity processes, and much less confident about how to avoid academic integrity breaches.

A 2015 study of US student demand for com-mercially produced assignments found students with English as their first language who liked tak-ing risks were about as likely to buy an assessment as students who were reluctant risk-takers, but who spoke English as a second language.

It’s no surprise that students whom we ag-gressively court for their higher fees and who are working in a less familiar language environment are turning to these services at higher rates.

A recent study on contract cheating in Aus-tralia concluded that the over-representation of non-native English speaking students in cheating surveys is linked to the failure of universities to provide support for language and learning devel-opment. Students are tasked with completing as-sessments for which they lack the basic English language skills.

What’s being done about it?Widely used plagiarism-detection companies,

such as Turnitin, can detect similarities to materi-al that already exists. But essay-writing companies loudly promote the fact their product is original.

In February this year, Turnitin announced plans to crack down on contract cheating. Its pro-posed solution, authorship investigation, hopes to automate a process familiar to any human marker: detecting major shifts in individual students’ writ-ing style that may point to help from a third party.

But despite these technological advancements,

students who are turning to such services have reasons far more complicated than laziness or dis-regard for personal responsibility.

Is it worth it?Despite the moral panic over grades for cash,

there’s some evidence to suggest students turning to essay mill services are not getting what they pay for. A 2014 mystery shopping exercise in the UK revealed the astonishingly low standard of com-missioned work produced by essay mills. Of all the essays purchased, none received the requested grade, and many fell dramatically short of expect-ed academic standards.

Rather than buying top grades, desperate stu-dents are being exploited by companies that take advantage of the very shortcomings (lower litera-cy and an ignorance of plagiarism protocols) stu-dents are hoping to mitigate.

One less obvious aspect of contract cheating that can’t be fixed by intelligent software is the predatory nature of essay mill companies. Accord-ing to a 2017 study on cheating websites, commer-cial providers rely on persuasive marketing tech-niques. They often repackage an unethical choice in the guise of professional help for students who are weighed down by a demanding workload.

How can we discourage it?In recent years, several scholars have ex-

plored the legality of contract cheating, along with the possibilities of defining a new offence under criminal law of providing or advertising contract cheating.

In 2011, for example, a law was introduced in New Zealand that makes it a criminal offence to provide or advertise cheating services. Yet the criminalisation of such services leads inevitably to the prosecution of cheating students, something

the legal system has so far been reluctant to do.But even discounting the possibility of legal

action, plagiarism has hefty consequences for university students under misconduct policies, in-cluding revoking course credits, expulsion, and a permanent record of cheating.

Redesigning assessments is the primary way to tackle the growing problem of contract cheat-ing. Recent suggestions focus on the development of authentic assessments: tasks that more closely mirror the real-world demands students will face after they graduate from university.

Rather than simply completing an essay, for example, a history student might be tasked with interviewing a local non-profit organisation, and producing a podcast episode.

Teachers who use authentic assessments hope to reduce cheating by tying learning to student’s hopes for their futures, but one obvious benefit is the difficulty of cheating in such individualised tasks. One key problem for overhauling assess-ment design is the troubling proliferation of casual labour in universities. The development of assess-ments is rarely, if ever, accounted for in casual teaching rates.

Turnitin works to reduce students’ work into patterns and algorithms, weeding out supposed cheats and frauds. But a more considered response must take into account the complex reasons stu-dents turn to these services in the first place.

Understanding why students are willing to pay for assessments might also illuminate a problem at the heart of tertiary education – one that is re-lated to our present repackaging of knowledge as a resource to be bought, rather than an ennobling pursuit that is worthy of all the energy, time, and attention teachers and students can devote to it.

By arrangements with The Conversation

Jedidiah evans

Teachers who use authentic

assessments hope to reduce cheating by tying learning to student’s hopes for their futures, but one obvious benefit is the difficulty of cheating in such individualised tasks. One key problem for overhauling assessment design is the troubling proliferation of casual labour in universities. The development of assessments is rarely, if ever, accounted for in casual teaching rates.

Why High Hills Have A High Suicide Rate

aurangzaib Khan

Wednesday | 31-10-2018 08Life & Times'Sleep sacks' better than blankets for babies, experts sayInfant sleeping bags, or sleep sacks, are at least as safe as other bedding in preventing sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and might be safer, a new analysis concludes.

SIDS is the sudden, unexplained death of a baby younger than 12 months. While little is known about the condition, factors like putting a baby to sleep face down, or using soft bedding, have been found to in-crease the risk of SIDS.

In response to prevention guide-lines warning against putting infants to sleep with blankets, parents have been putting them to sleep in sleep-ing bags. These “bags” are sleeveless sacks that cover the shoulders, con-taining the rest of the body, with the arms outside of the sack to prevent it from rising over the head.

“Infant sleeping bags are used by many parents around the world but it is important not to assume that popularity is equivalent to safety,” said Alessandra Glover Williams of Britain’s Royal United Hospitals Bath.

Williams and her colleague Fiona Finlay analyzed four previous stud-ies of Austrian, Mongolian, Dutch and English infants that examined the impact of sleeping bags on risk of SIDS or SIDS risk factors. They re-ported their findings in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood.

“There are not many trials looking into infant sleeping bags and risk of

SIDS but those available are of high quality,” Williams said.

Two of the studies looked at the effect of infant sleeping bags on the risk of SIDS. The other two consid-ered temperature regulation.

The Dutch study, published in 1998, found that cotton sleeping bags lowered the risk of SIDS by 65 percent and that babies who wore them were less likely to turn prone or face-down.

The English study found at first that sleep sacks did decrease babies’

risk of SIDS. But after the researchers accounted for other factors affecting SIDS risk, they could no longer say for sure that the lower SIDS rate was ac-tually due to wearing the sleep sacks.

The Austrian study found that infants stayed just as warm when they slept in sleep sacks as when wrapped in blankets. The study in Mongolian babies found similar body temperatures in infants wear-ing sleep sacks or swaddled.

The Lullaby Trust, a British char-ity that aims to prevent unexpected

deaths in infancy, recommends sleeping bags for babies as a good alternative to blankets but does not specifically say they reduce the chance of SIDS.

“I think most UK parents are aware of SIDS,” said Dr. Joanna Garstang of the University of Warwick, who re-viewed the paper.

“Most (SIDS) deaths in the UK now occur in socially deprived fami-lies who struggle to engage with safe sleep messages,” Garstang said. “Sadly, a very common scenario is of

a baby dying co-sleeping with par-ents who have consumed significant amounts of alcohol or taken drugs.”

“Sleeping bags are generally used by higher income families who are anyway at the lowest risk of SIDS,” she adds.

Launched in the 1990s, the Back To Sleep public education campaign, now renamed Safe to Sleep, has strived to educate caregivers about SIDS and ways to reduce it. Since the campaign began, SIDS rates have fallen dramatically, although the condition remains a leading cause of death for American infants.

Because SIDS is rare, “it is hard to accumulate enough data to fully un-derstand what factors might come together to cause (it),” said Dr. David Schwebel of the University of Ala-bama at Birmingham, who was not involved in the study.

Garstang said the main limitation of the new analysis is that it lacked data, since there are very few pub-lications about sleeping bags and SIDS. Dr. Schwebel agrees.

“The studies reviewed are excel-lent, but there are few of them, and some of them (were small),” he said. “The overall conclusion is that there is some evidence these sleeping bags are safe when used properly, and at least some initial indication they could help to prevent SIDS. But the evidence is preliminary right now, not definitive.” (Agencies)

New study links tooth loss to malnutrition

WASHINGTON DC: According to a new study, older adults with tooth loss are at higher risk of both impaired oral health and malnutrition.

The study, which appeared in the Journal of Aging Re-search and Clinical Practice, analysed the health records of 107 community-dwelling se-nior citizens treated at the Rut-gers School of Dental Medicine clinic between 2015 and 2016.

The results showed that more than 25 per cent of the patients had malnutrition or were at risk for malnutrition.

"The mouth is the entry-way for food and fluid intake. If its integrity is impaired, the functional ability of an individual to consume an ad-equate diet may be adversely impacted," said lead author Rena Zelig, director of the Master of Science in Clinical Nutrition Program at Rutgers School of Health Professions.

According to Zelig, the findings showed that dental clinics are ideal locations to perform nutritional status

screenings as they can iden-tify patients who may not regularly visit a primary care provider and who may be at risk for malnutrition.

"Clinicians also can provide patients with referrals to Reg-istered Dietitians and com-munity assistance programs such as Meals on Wheels to prevent further decline in nutritional status," she added.

This was the first part of a mixed-methods grant to research the associations be-tween tooth loss and nutri-tional status in older adults. The second part of the grant built on these results and qualitatively studied the eat-ing experience and eating-related quality of life of com-munity-dwelling older adults using qualitative interviews.

The study set the stage for further research to examine the relationships between tooth loss and malnutrition risk and the impact of tooth loss on the eating experience and eating-related quality of life. (Agencies)

If you worry too much, playing Tetris could help calm you downPlaying the classic game of Tetris can help sooth the mind when you are awaiting uncertain news - such as medical test results or outcome of a job interview, a study has found.

The venerable video game was used in a recent experiment to cre-ate a state of flow - the term psy-chologists use to describe a state of mind so engaged it makes the rest of the world fall away, and time pass more quickly.

Researchers from University of California (UC) Riverside in the US have found that state of perfect dis-engagement may improve the other-wise-emotionally unpleasant expe-rience of waiting for uncertain news.

In place of Tetris, in which blocks are flipped every which way and stacked into rows, one can sub-stitute flow activities such as rock climbing, carpentry, playing chess, or swimming, researchers said.

“Flow - if it can be achieved - in-curs benefits. And video games are perfect for flow as long as it’s a game that meets and slightly pushes the skill level of the player,” said Kate Sweeny, a professor at UC Riverside.

“Flow is most readily achieved with activities that challenge the person somewhat, but not too much; have clear, achievable goals;

and that provide the person with feedback about how they’re doing along the way,” Sweeny said. For the research published in the jour-nal Emotion, 290 undergraduate students were told the study would be about physical attractiveness. They filled out a questionnaire, after which a photo was taken of them. They were then told that students in another location would rate their physical attractiveness.

While they were ostensibly be-ing rated, the students were then asked to play Tetris for 10 minutes.

The game was introduced at vary-ing levels: one level was “low chal-lenge,” ie, easy; the second was “adaptive,” changing in difficulty as participants’ abilities increased; the

third was “high challenge,” or difficult.After the game, they completed

a survey measuring flow, worry, and emotion. Finally, the study’s research assistants explained the true nature of the research.

The participants who achieved flow - those in the adaptive group - experienced less negative emotion, and greater positive emotion than those who were bored, or for whom the level of play was too difficult.

“The Tetris study is key because it experimentally manipulates flow and shows effects of that manipu-lation, which provides convincing evidence that flow actually causes well-being during waiting periods, not that it just happens to coincide with well-being,” Sweeny said. (PTI)

Trusting people live longer, claims new study

People who are very trusting liver much longer, while those who don't are at risk of early death, a new US study has revealed.

Between 1978 and 2010, re-searchers studied the attitudes of close to 25,000 Americans from different backgrounds, the Daily Mail reported.

Researchers say the reason for the trust-mortality connection is simple. Trusting people are more social and not so stressed - two factors that promote good health.

"Whether or not you trust other people, including strangers, makes a difference of about 10 months in terms of life expectancy," co-

author of the study, Alexander Miething, researcher at Stockholm University, told the Daily Mail.

However, the study also found a decline in the number of people that are trusting in the country and warn it could pose a major public health concern.

Previous research has also found taking vacation can help prolong your life. "Don't think to have an otherwise healthy lifestylAgencie-sompensate for working too hard and not taking holidays. Vacations can be a good way to relieve stress, Professor Timo Strandberg, one of the researchers, is quoted as saying by ANI. (Agencies)

Here's how cancer spreads so easily through body

The reason behind cancer being able to spread so easily may finally have been uncovered.

It turns out that tumours push through blood vessels with 200 times the force of or-dinary cells, according to a study by Univer-sity College London.

The study adds that this is thought to be due to cancerous cells having more receptors on their surfaces, which allow them to cluster together and act as one strong unit.

The study also highlights that blocking these receptors may help to prevent cancers spreading in the body.

The researchers created a microscopic diving-board like device to test the strength of both healthy and cancerous cells. Results showed breast cancer cells push with a force that is up to 200 times bigger than healthy cells.

Cancer cells cluster together and form a net-work that sticks to the walls of veins and arteries and this generates a strong force that lets tumours break through weak points in blood vessels.

Tumours are thought to be stronger due to them having more of these receptors on their surfaces and researchers believe block-ing these receptors could reduce a tumour's force on blood vessel walls, which may slow or prevent cancers from spreading.

The study was published in the Nature journal Communications Biology. (Agencies)

Here's why toddlers need their afternoon nap

A new study now says that parents whose toddlers are learning to speak should re-member the importance of naptime.

According to the study, a short sleep of 90 minutes could help young children remem-ber words better.

The experiment saw researchers taking 24 children with an average age of two and taught them made-up words such as ‘bope’ and ‘dake’ made to sound like English.

Those children who took a nap after learn-ing the words remembered them better four hours later, according to the University of Arizona team. Researchers believe this may be because 'dreaming' sleep, known as REM sleep, helps the brain to consolidate memo-ries and pick up language.

Children were taught the words by plac-ing a space-themed computer game, with a recording using phrases such as 'Look! A dake' or 'Touch the dake'.

Then the toddlers were presented with pic-tures of the objects named with these words and asked 'Which one is the dake?' or 'Point to the dake'. The children, who were studied at home, had a nap shortly after the learning session or stayed awake.

Those who napped were better at remember-ing the new words both four hours and 24 hours afterwards, when they had slept overnight.

This result, published in the journal Pro-ceedings of the National Academy of Scienc-es, did not apply to another 25 children in the study with Down's syndrome. Their brains may have differences in the memory centre, known as the hippocampus. (Agencies)

World War I radically changed women's role in societyPARIS: Driving trams, ploughing fields and manning production lines: World WarI radically changed women's role in society, as they stepped into the boots of men gone to fight for their countries.

In cities across Europe, women took on traditionally "male" jobs -- waiting on tables, delivering the mail, teach-ing in boys' schools or handling cash as bank clerks. "Women rapidly became indispensable, not only in the nursing and welfare services but in offices and factories and agriculture, changing the whole balance of society in the pro-cess," says historian Michael Howard.

As soon as war broke out in 1914, France's prime minister Rene Viviani called on women to "replace in the work-place those who are on the battlefield".

In Germany 44 percent of Bavarian farms were being run by women by 1916, according to the historian Benja-min Ziemann, with some even forced to pull carts in place of horses requisi-tioned for battle.

From 1915 onwards, Europe's indus-try -- devoted to the war effort -- relied massively on the female workforce, as did that of the United States from 1917.

"Without women, victory will tarry," warned Britain's soon-to-be prime minister David Lloyd George in 1915.

Some 400,000 women were toiling in France's war factories by 1918 -- a quarter of the workforce -- handling some 2,500 shells per exhausting 11-hour shift.

In Britain women's share of the work-force had risen by 50 percent by the end of 1917, with one million employed in war factories in 1918. Many were married and from the middle classes, few of whom worked outside the home until then.

Most, but not all, roles were again re-versed after the end of the conflict in 1918 as returning men looked to regain their jobs.

Women's contribution is also widely held to have helped secure them the vote, as early as November 1918 in both Britain and Germany, and in 1920 in the

United States. Up until the outbreak of war, femi-

nists on both sides had pledged them-selves to peace in a kind of transnation-al women's solidarity, according to the historian Joshua Goldstein.

But within months all the major fem-inist groups had thrown their weight behind their respective governments, predicting that patriotism would en-hance the prospects for women's suf-frage, he said.

- 'Pretty English girls in khaki' -Women contributed mostly on the

home front, but more than 80,000 also served in Britain's Women's Army Aux-iliary Corps as nurses, mechanics, cooks or ambulance drivers. An emblematic few were exposed to the danger of war, as soldiers -- or spies.

Among them was Mata Hari, the Dutch-born dancer, seductress and spy who was executed by a French firing

squad during the war. Another famous figure was Edith Cavell, the British nurse celebrated for saving the lives of soldiers from all sides without distinc-tion in Brussels. She was found guilty by a German military court of assisting the enemy and shot by firing squad on October 12, 1915.

After a visit to nurses working on the Belgian front line in 1914, journal-ist Sarah Macnaughton paid tribute to them in testimony published by Brit-ain's Imperial War Museum.

"It is a queer side of war to see young, pretty English girls in khaki and thick boots, coming in from the trenches, where they have been picking up wounded men within a hundred yards of the enemy's lines, and carrying them away on stretchers... I lift my hat to you!" she said. A tiny number of wom-en even went into combat.

One was Dorothy Lawrence, an am-

bitious 20-year-old journalist who be-came the only woman soldier enlisted in the British army by passing herself off as a man.

She turned herself in after only 10 days, worried for the safety of the men who helped her.

Flora Sandes, another Englishwoman, enlisted with the Serbian army in 1916, aged around 40, and reached the grade of sergeant major. She stayed on after the war, eventually becoming a major.

Some women in Russia also took part in combat, driven both by patriotism and the desire to escape a drab exis-tence. Most joined up dressed as men, but a few served openly as women.

The most famous were the "Battalion of Death" -- several hundred women soldiers led by a 25-year-old peasant girl named Maria Boshkareva, who set up the battalion with permission from the tsar. (Agencies)

‘Specialised course to help cut deaths due to medical errors’With nearly 50,00,000 Indians dy-ing due to medical negligence every year, experts claim that a specialised course for doctors and hospital staff focusing on how a critically ill or in-jured patient should be handled could bring down the figure by almost 50%.

The Acute Critical Care Course (ACCC), developed in the early 1980s in Europe, has come as a boon for medical institutions abroad by reducing the death rate of patients by nearly 10%, even in serious health complications including sepsis, said Ajay Sharma, a transplant specialist and consultant at the Royal Liver-pool University Hospital in the U.K.

The two-day course has become mandatory for surgical trainees both

in the U.S. and the U.K., which annu-ally lose over 400,000 and 98,000 patients respectively due to medical errors, Mr. Sharma said.

A study by the Harvard Univer-sity last year showed that nearly 50,00,000 deaths occur in India annually due to medical errors trig-gered by lack of practical knowledge among the doctors and nurses to handle patients when brought to the hospital.

The ACCC aims to train the medi-cine specialists and the surgeons of various specialisation such as surgi-cal, gynaecology, orthopaedics and emergency to suspect and identify patients at a risk of deterioration, Sharma said.

09 | Wednesday | 31-10-2018

BusinessSENSEX

GOLD

J&K BANKNIFTY

SILVER

HDFC BANKAXIS BANKICICI BANK

33,891.13

31923.00

DOLLAR POUNDKUWAITI DINAREURO YEN SAUDI RIYAL73.21 83.45 241.13 94.59 0.65 19.51

43.1510,198.40

38921.00

1,912.00564.40346.00

−176.27 (0.52%) +1.70 (4.10%)

−14.30 (0.74%)

−2.30 (0.41%)

−3.40 (0.97%)

−52.45 (0.51%)

55.00 (0.17%)

38921.00

PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

New Delhi, Oct 30 (PTI) In his strongest criticism of RBI yet, Fi-nance Minister Arun Jaitley Tues-day hit out at the central bank for failing to check indiscriminate lending during 2008 and 2014 that has led to the present bad loan or NPA crisis in the banking indus-try. The remarks by Jaitley came amid reports of mounting ten-sion between the finance ministry and RBI after the central bank's Deputy Governor Viral V Acharya in a speech on Friday warned that undermining autonomy and inde-pendence of RBI could be "poten-tially catastrophic". This was seen as a veiled reference to RBI push-ing back hard against the govern-ment pressure to relax its policies and reduce its powers.

"You see (between) 2008 to 2014, after the global economic crisis, to keep the economy artifi-cially going, banks were told open your doors and lend indiscrimi-nately," Jaitley said at India Lead-ership Summit organised by US-India Strategic Partnership Forum. "The central bank looked the other way, there was indiscriminate lending," he said. "I am surprised that at that time the government looked the other way, the banks looked the other way. I don't know what the central bank was doing (because) it was the regulator of these. They kept pushing the truth under the carpet."

The government of the day, he said, was pushing banks to lend which resulted in credit growth

in a year shooting up to 31 per cent from the normal average of 14 per cent. Jaitley said banks went into projects of demerit which did not have the capacity to sustain the capital.

"Total bank credit in India from Rs 18 lakh crore in 2008, by 2014 went up to Rs 55 lakh crore. And this is something the banks couldn't sustain, the borrowers couldn't sustain and you had the NPA problem," he said.

The non-performing assets or NPAs were put at Rs 2.5 lakh crore during those times but when an asset quality review was ordered by the new govern-ment in 2014, it was discovered that bad loans were of the order of Rs 8.5 lakh crore, he said.

Delivering the AD Shroff Me-morial Lecture in Mumbai on Friday, Acharya called for greater powers for RBI to regulate public sector banks as it seeks to clean up the banking system. This in-dependence, he said, was neces-sary to secure greater financial and macroeconomic stability.

Neither the finance ministry nor Jaitley has so far responded officially to the comments.

Jaitley, who had previously stated that politicians have to unfairly take the blame for any wrongdoing while supervisors get away relatively easy, did not refer to Acharya's speech or the reported tension between his ministry and RBI during his com-ments at the event Tuesday.

Sources in the finance ministry said differences between the cen-

tral bank and the ministry are not new and several Governors in the past have had run-ins with the government over various issues. Accepting this, former RBI Gover-nor Y V Reddy in his autobiogra-phy has said the differences with the then Finance Minister P Chi-dambaram reached a level where he wanted to quit mid-way. His successor D Subbarao also had his share of differences with the finance ministry. Not impressed with the monetary policy action of Subbarao in 2012, Chidam-baram had said:"Growth is as much a challenge as inflation. If government has to walk alone to face the challenge of growth, then we will walk alone."

Difference with Raghuram Ra-jan and the present government is

an open secret. The sources how-ever refused to say if the finance ministry has taken cognizance of the issues raised by RBI and if there would be any dialogue to re-solve the differences. In his speech Tuesday, Jaitley said reforms un-dertaken by the government have led to significant improvement in revenues. "My own estimation is that from 2014 to 2019, we will be almost very close to doubling our tax base," he said.

This has been possible be-cause of formalisation of the economy that demonetisation brought about, the new indirect tax structure (GST) and improve-ment in indirect tax structure without raising rates.

"This gave us the flexibility to take a departure from the past

where there were only slogans," he said. "Demonetisation (was a) difficult step but helped us to make it clear that formalisation of the economy is our clear in-tent." India, he said, had 3.8 crore income tax filers when the BJP government took office in 2014.

"In four years, it has already moved up to about 6.8 crore. This year, I am sure it will be very close to 7.5-7.6 crore which is almost double," he said adding the first year of Goods and Services Tax (GST) implementation has raised the indirect tax assessee by 74 per cent. Recounting achievements of the government, Jaitley said all vil-lages are close to being connected by roads, the target of houses for all is likely to be achieved by 2022 and all households will have elec-tricity by year-end.

"I think the whole concept of governance has seen a sea change," he said adding corpo-rate leaders no longer visit corri-dors of power because approvals are available online and discre-tion in the allocation of natu-ral resources like coal mines or spectrum has been eliminated.

This, he said, has eliminated corruption. The finance minister said demonetisation ended ano-nymity of cash as depositing the junked old 500 and 1,000 rupee note in banks was the only option.

While those who honestly paid taxes had nothing to worry, those who evaded "had to pay a heavy price" as notices were sent and they asked to deposit taxes on unaccounted cash, he said.

Jaitley Criticises RBI For Indiscriminate Lending By Banks

Agencies

NEW DELHI: The Indian government is considering putting Infrastructure Leas-ing and Financial Service Ltd (IL&FS) up for sale or divest-ing some of its assets as it seeks to end the company's debt crisis, a person with di-rect knowledge of the matter said on Tuesday. The govern-ment, in a rare move, took control of IL&FS this month after the company defaulted on some of its debt, trigger-ing fears of contagion across India's financial system.

The government-appointed board plans to propose a sale of the whole firm, some of

its units or individual road projects, according to the source, who did not want to be named before the propos-als are submitted to the Na-tional Company Law Tribunal on Wednesday. It could take six to nine months to fully ad-dress the problems at IL&FS, a major infrastructure financ-ing and development com-pany, the source said.

IL&FS's foreign sharehold-ers include Japan's Orix Corp and the Abu Dhabi Invest-ment Authority.

"We will be able to gauge buyers' interest only when we hit the market," the source said, adding the company had road projects totalling about 12,000 km that could be sold if "some-one wants to finish whatever work is left and collect tolls".

IL&FS's subsidiaries include transport network builder IL&FS Transportation Net-works Ltd, engineering and

procurement company IL&FS Engineering and Construc-tion Co Ltd and financier IL&FS Financial Services Ltd.

IL&FS defaulted on some debt it owes banks in recent weeks, and its credit rating has been downgraded to junk from investment grade by ratings agencies.

The defaults triggered sharp falls in India's stock and debt markets in recent weeks amid fears about risk in the rest of the country's financial sector. That prompted the Indian government to take control of the company and replace its board with six se-lected nominees.

Government officials, how-

ever, have ruled out any di-rect state financial support for IL&FS, which has 348 businesses and gross debts of around 910 billion rupees ($12 billion). Government-owned firms, including Life Insurance Corp of India and State Bank of India, own near-ly 40 per cent of the company, while Orix Corp owns 23 per cent, and the Abu Dhabi In-vestment Authority has a 12 per cent stake.

There was also a plan to ask state-run road developer, National Highways Authority of India, to take over some of IL&FS' incomplete road projects and award them to other companies, govern-ment sources told Reuters last week. Officials of India's finance ministry and market regulators met in New Delhi on Tuesday to discuss a li-quidity crunch following the defaults by IL&FS. (Agencies)

‘Govt may put IL&FS up for sale, among other options’

Agencies

New Delhi: As much as Rs 32,000 crore lying in the integrated goods and services tax (IGST) pool has been apportioned between the centre and states in the month of October.

The states' share would be over Rs 15,000 crore, the official told PTI. The apportionment would add to the goods and services tax (GST) revenue of both the centre and states for October. The total revenue collec-tion figures for the month would be released on November 1. This is the fifth time that IGST funds have been

divided between the centre and states. As much as Rs 29,000 crore was settled in September, Rs 12,000 crore in August, Rs 50,000 crore in June and Rs 35,000 crore in Febru-ary this year. When some substantial amount accrues to IGST pool it is ap-portioned between the centre and states so that it does not lie idle with the centre, the official said, adding Rs 32,000 crore had been appor-tioned this month.

Under GST, the tax levied on con-sumption of goods or rendering of service is split 50:50 between the centre and the state.

Such tax is known as central GST (CGST) and state GST (SGST). On in-ter-state movement of goods as well as imports, an IGST is levied, which accrues to the centre.

A cess is levied on top of these taxes on sin and luxury goods which make up for the compensation kitty used to make good of any revenue shortfall faced by states on imple-mentation of GST.

Ideally, there should be 'nil' bal-ance in the IGST pool since the amount should be used for payment of CGST and SGST.

As some businesses are ineligible

to claim the benefits of input tax credit (ITC), the balance gets accu-mulated in the IGST pool.

he finance ministry has targeted monthly GST collections to be Rs 1 lakh crore for this fiscal, but the ac-tual mop-up has fallen short of the target month after month.

The sole exception was the month of April in which the numbers ex-ceeded Rs 1 lakh crore.

The collections stood at Rs 94,016 crore in May, Rs 95,610 crore in June, Rs 96,483 crore in July, Rs 93,960 crore in August and Rs 94,442 crore in September. (PTI)

Centre, states apportion Rs 32,000 crore IGST in October


New Delhi: Gold prices rose by Rs 70 to Rs 32,620 per 10 gram Tuesday amid pick-up in fes-tive demand. Silver, however, declined by Rs 260 to Rs 39,240 per kg due to tepid demand by industrial units. Bullion traders said that due to the upcoming Diwali festival there has been a rise in gold coin demand.

In the international market, gold stood at USD 1,224.83 an ounce in New York.

In Delhi, gold of 99.99 and 99.5 per cent purity rallied by Rs 70 each to Rs 32,620 and Rs 32,470 per 10 gram, respective-ly. Last week on Thursday, gold prices traded at over six-year high of Rs 32,625 per 10 gram. Meanwhile, sovereign gold Tuesday also rose by Rs 100

to Rs 24,900 per piece of eight gram. On the other hand, silver ready prices went down by Rs 260 to Rs 39,240 per kg and sil-ver weekly-based delivery by Rs 388 to Rs 38,345 per kg. Sil-ver coins, however, remained unchanged at Rs 75,000 for buying and Rs 76,000 for sell-ing of 100 pieces. (PTI)

Gold rallies as festive demand picks up


New York, Oct 30 (PTI) In wake of the IL&FS crisis, efforts are underway by the Indian government, RBI as well as SBI to try and stabilise the system very quickly , and things are likely to return to normal in a couple of weeks, SBI Chairman Rajnish Kumar said here. Kumar said that the Infra-structure Leasing and Financial Ser-vices (IL&FS) was a unique institu-tion operating in the infrastructure financing and construction space.

It is an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contrac-tor, holding assets as well as its fi-nances - it was a 3-in-1, Kumar said, adding that whether it is banks or non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), if they are in infrastructure financing, they have faced trouble in

India. Infrastructure, particularly the BOT (build operate transfer) model, has caused a lot of problem even to the banks. We ourselves have suf-fered in the financing of infrastruc-ture, Kumar said during an interac-tive session at the 9th New India Lecture' organised at the Indian Consulate under the aegis of Consul General Sandeep Chakravorty.

The lecture series is organised by the Consulate in partnership with the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF). Responding to a question on IL&FS and the impact of shadow banking on the Indian econ-omy, Kumar said since it is an NBFC, it has had a contagion effect.

Because of the IL&FS default, there is pressure on mutual funds. The cor-porates who were providing liquid funds to mutual funds have become

very cautious. In turn, the mutual funds have become cautious about their investments, he said.

Kumar added that in wake of the IL&FS crisis, the SBI stepped up in a big way. This is how we are trying to stabilise the system and tackle the sit-uation. RBI has announced measures around improving liquidity for NBF-Cs. The government, RBI and SBI - all of us are trying that the system stabi-lises very quickly. For this process to succeed, it is important that cases are referred at the earliest sign of trouble. Definitely there's a paradigm shift in the creditor-debtor relationship in In-dia, he added. He said as a potential weapon, the Insolvency and Bank-ruptcy Code works very well, but we have to be careful before we exercise it. The threat works much better than the actual resolution. (PTI)

..........IL&FS crisisNormalcy to return to system in couple of weeks: SBI Chief


NEW DELHI: The BSE Sensex Tuesday fell over 176 points on emergence of heavy sell-offs mainly in financial and energy sector stocks as cau-tion prevailed among market participants in view of mixed quarterly earnings and up-coming trade tariff talks be-tween the US and China.

The 30-share benchmark in-dex fell 176.27 points, or 0.52 per cent, to close at 33,891.13; while the broader NSE Nifty lost 52.45 points, or 0.51 per cent, to end at 10,198.40. Markets globally are keenly awaiting the US response next month how it goes with tariffs on all remaining Chi-nese imports. Besides, mixed corporate earnings so far did not help in sustaining last session's positivity on the domestic bourses. The bench-mark indices Sensex and Nifty Monday rose over 718 points and 220 points, respectively.

Global markets continue to witness mixed activity with a negative bias and volatil-ity remains high as the market struggle to find its bottom and define the further course.

"Weak global cues and sell-ing pressure in stocks that un-veiled below expected results dragged the indices. Drop in oil prices will provide leeway to maintain support in the mar-ket while triggers like upcom-ing trade talks between the US and China give more cues to investors," Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Financial Ser-vices Ltd, said.

In the Sensex pack, index heavyweight Reliance Industries

fell 2.84 per cent to Rs 1,057.15 after reports that the company's oil assets may take a hit due to the government's imposition of cost controls on soaring petrol and diesel prices. Other top los-

ers were IndusInd Bank, HDFC, HDFC Bank, Kotak Bank, Coal India and Sun Pharma, falling up to 3.5 per cent. While, Infosys, HUL, SBI, TCS and Tata Mo-tors bucked the weak market trend and rose up to 2.48 per cent. Mid and smallcap shares outperformed larger peers as the BSE MidCap and SmallCap indices rose nearly 1 per cent each. Shares of sugar manu-facturers jumped up to 10 per cent during the session after industry body ISMA said sugar output may fall by 3 per cent to 31.5 million tonnes in the current marketing year due to untimely rains and pest at-tacks on cane crop. Oil prices fell marginally on Tuesday.

Brent crude oil futures were down 11 cents at USD 76.75 a barrel. Elsewhere in Asia, Shanghai Composite ended 1.02 per cent higher, while Hang Seng Index fell 0.91 per cent. Japan's Nikkei closed 1.45 per cent up.

In Europe, DAX was down 0.37 per cent and STOXX50E rose 0.27 per cent. (PTI)

Sensex slips over 150 points; financial, energy stocks drag


NEW DELHI: The country's larg-est lender SBI has halved the daily cash withdrawal limit from ATMs for certain debit-card hold-ers to Rs 20,000 from Wednes-day. The withdrawal limit has been curtailed on Classic and Maestro debit cards, held by a large number of the bank cus-tomers. However, customers with other variants of SBI debit card can continue to enjoy higher daily withdrawal from ATMs.

As per a senior SBI official, the average cash withdrawal from ATMs per card is less than Rs 20,000 and the move will help in checking frauds and promote digital transaction.

About a month ago, the State

Bank of India (SBI) had alerted its customers holding Classic and Maestro debit cards regarding the reduction of cash withdrawal limit to Rs 20,000 a day from ATM start-ing October 31.

The SBI had put out the follow-ing message on its website: "Daily cash withdrawal limit for Clas-sic and Maestro debit cards has been reduced from Rs 40,000 to Rs 20,000 per day with effect from October 31. If you require higher daily cash withdrawal limit, please apply for a higher card variant."

SBI Managing Director PK Gupta had said the reduction in with-drawal intends to protect custom-ers from fraudulent cash with-drawals from ATMs and also to spur more digital transactions.

"We analysed all the ATM trans-

actions and we found that most of them are less than Rs 20,000 a day. In case of frauds reported to us, we found that in all such cases with-drawals of Rs 40,000 (the maxi-mum) have happened. So, this is basically to protect the customers and secondly, we want that more digital transactions should hap-pen," Gupta had said.

If any customer wants a higher limit of cash withdrawal, he or she can ask for a higher variant card.

When asked how many such customers/cards are to be im-pacted due to this reduced limit, he said a very large number of cus-tomers fall into this category.

However, the bank has lots of customers with a higher variant debit card, so they are not impact-ed. (PTI)

Rs 20,000 withdrawal limit for SBI customers effective from today

Wednesday | 31-10-2018 10

NASA’s

PARKER Solar Probe closest ever to Sun

As the mission progresses, the space-craft will repeatedly break its own records, with a final close approach

of 3.83 million miles from the Sun’s surface expected in 2024.

NASA’s historic Parker Solar Probe — enroute to the Sun to unravel its mysteries — has become the closest spacecraft to it. The spacecraft passed the current record of 26.55 million miles from the Sun’s surface on October 29, as calculated by the Parker Solar Probe team, NASA said in a statement on Monday.

The previous record for closest solar ap-proach was set by the German, American Helios 2 spacecraft in April 1976.

As the Parker Solar Probe mission pro-

gresses, the spacecraft will repeatedly break its own records, with a final close ap-proach of 3.83 million miles from the Sun’s surface expected in 2024.

“It’s been just 78 days since Parker So-lar Probe launched, and we’ve now come closer to our star than any other spacecraft in history,” said Project Manager Andy Driesman from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. “It’s a proud moment for the team, though we remain focused on our first solar encounter, which begins on October 31.”

The Parker Solar Probe team periodically measures the spacecraft’s precise speed and position using NASA’s Deep Space Net-work or DSN.

Parker Solar Probe will begin its first so-lar encounter on October 31, continuing to fly closer and closer to the Sun’s surface un-til it reaches its first perihelion — the point closest to the Sun — on November 5.

“The spacecraft will face brutal heat and radiation conditions while providing hu-manity with unprecedentedly close—up observations of a star and helping us un-derstand phenomena that have puzzled scientists for decades,” said NASA.

Earlier this month, the probe success-fully completed its first flyby of Venus at a distance of about 1,500 miles. Throughout its mission, the probe will make six more Venus gravity assist and 24 total passes by the Sun.

FROM FRONT PAGE

NewsDr Mir Sammiullah performs 200 stapled stitchless surgery for pilesSRINAGAR: In a rare feat Dr Sammi-ullah has successfully completed two hundred stapled hemmoroidopexies (MIPH) for hemmoroids (piles).

This surgery is latest in treatment of bleeding piles and has many ad-vantages over conventional open surgery like having no wound, less pain and scar-less surgery.

Speaking on the occasion of com-pleting two hundred such surgeries Dr Sammiullah emphasized on the need of making such surgeries rou-tine .He has conducted almost 10 training camps to educate the sur-geons working in peripheries .

Out of the various types of medi-cal and surgical interventions avail-able to treat Piles, Minimally In-vasive Procedure for Hemorrhoids (MIPH) 0r painless stapler surgery is known to be very popular since it acts an alternative approach to sur-gical interventions made for piles.

MIPH is defined as a minimally invasive surgical technique in which a band of loose or prolapsed mu-cosa and sub mucosa in the rectum is excised , proximal to the piles and disrupted mucosa is fixed by ‘stapled end to end mucosal anastomosis’.

This will ultimately occlude the blood supply to the superior hem-orrhoidal artery above the hemor-

rhoidal tissue, resulting in the re-traction of prolapsed mucosa back to its original anatomical position. A special circular stapler known as PPHO3 is used in the anastomosis and the whole maneuver will take around 30–45 minutes.

Indications for this type of a sur-gery include, Grade III hemorrhoids (comes out on straining and needs to be pushed in) and grade IV hem-orrhoids (prolapsed out and cannot be pushed in) which are found to be reducible on manipulation at surgery.

However, there can also be some contra indications, which may

prevent from an individual under-going MIPH, which include very large internal hemorrhoids, inter-nal hemorrhoids which may not heal even after non-surgical treat-ments, large external hemorrhoids which cannot be manipulated in the operating room and patients with full thickness rectal prolapse or anal stenosis.

MIPH, has several advantages over surgical treatments such as minimal pain, minimal blood loss, quick recov-ery and reduced hospital stay. In fact, patients will be able to return to their normal daily activities within a day.

2 Militants Behind.... The identities of the killed militants are being as-

certained, the official said. However, the Jash-e-Mohammad militant outfit

in a statement issued here to a local news agency GNS confirmed one of the slain to be the nephew of outfit’s Chief Masood Azhar.

Identified as Mohammad Usman, the JeM also paid tributes to him as well as the second militant whom it identified as “Showkat Ahmad”, a local .

IGP Kashmir, SP Pani confirmed said that “this was the module responsible for recent stand-off attacks.” A number of sniper rifle attacks were car-ried in the south Kashmir in last few days, leading to killing of a few army soldiers and had raised quite a concern among the security establishment.

The gunfight ensued Chankitar village of Man-doora area of Tral on Tuesday afternoon, soon after a joint team of army’s 42RR, SOG and 180 BN CRPF launched a cordon and search operation following specific information about presence of some mili-tants there.

As the joint team of government forces intensi-fied searches, the militants hiding in the area fired upon at government forces, triggering off an en-counter. During the course of the gunfight, sources said, the house was razed to rubble and massive searches launched. Two charred bodies of the mili-tants were recovered, they said.

Meanwhile, police requested the citizens not to venture inside the encounter zone since such an area can prove dangerous due to stray explo-sive materials. “People are requested to cooperate with police till the area is completely sanitized and cleared of all the explosives materials if any.”

8 Soldiers Injured...Shopian district of south Kashmir on Tuesday.

Reports said that army domination party of 21 RR was passing through the woods when the blast took place.

Police sources, however, said that the grenade was exploded accidentally while the army officer was given the demonstration to the soldiers in the forest, a local news agency GNS reported.

In the blast, eight soldiers including the army major suffered serious injuries, they said.

All the injured were taken to military hospital Drugmulla where from two seriously wounded including an army major Surab Suman have been referred to army’s 92 base hospital for advanced treatment.

Meanwhile, suspected militants attacked the residence of a former Congress leader on Tuesday evening in south Kashmir's Shopian district.

A police official said that militants lobbed a gre-nade at the residence of Mohammad Shafi Banday in Bonbazar Shopian around 8:10 PM.

The grenade fell near the compound wall and exploded without causing any fatalities, he said, adding that the blast was also followed by firing.

The policemen guarding the residence of Banday also retaliated, forcing the militants to flee from the spot, said the official.

Army commander...posts in the frontier districts of Kupwara and

Baramulla, wherein he was briefed on the counter infiltration grid and operational preparedness of the formations, according to an official statement issued here.

“The Army Commander was appreciative of the measures and Standard Operating Procedures in-stituted by the units and formations to meet the challenges posed by the inimical elements,” it said.

Later in the day, the Army Commander also vis-ited the High Altitude Warfare School (HAWS) in Gulmarg and interacted with the “troops” under-going specialised training in snow-craft and winter warfare.

He commended the high standards of training provided by HAWS, which is an epitome of special-ised training in mountain, high altitude and snow warfare.

Malik Briefs...have been boycotted by the state's two major re-

gional political parties -- the National Conference and the Peoples Democratic Party.

The home minister last week had visited Jammu and Kashmir where he had interacted with top of-

ficials of the administration and the security forces besides meeting some political leaders.

NIA Raids...likely to ascertain how Mir alias Babul managed

to secure a passport from a southern State and al-legedly used it in Nepal to leave for Europe in Oc-tober, 2008.

Arrest in New Delhi in 2006resident of north Kashmir, Mir allegedly used

carpet trade and later a money exchange business in Dubai for sending hawala money to separatist leaders in Kashmir. He was arrested from Lajpat Nagar by the elite Special Cell of the Delhi Police on February 3, 2006. The police seized ₹55 lakh in cash and explosives from him.

During his trial, Mir managed to secure bail on a plea that his mother was ill.

Mir, who the investigators believe was based in Dubai and owns a carpet showroom and money exchange firms in the gulf, regularly reported to the nearest police station while on a bail till early October, 2008.

But after that, he failed to turn up at police sta-tions or in court for hearings.

According to intelligence inputs, Mir reached Dubai in 2011, making a detour through countries in Europe and Libya.

Mir, against whom a non-bailable warrant was issued in 2009, travelled to Nepal from India, and then used the passport secured from a southern State to fly out, the officials said.

Mir dropped out of school in 1983 to get into the carpet business. He continued with the trade till 1990 after which he shifted to the national capital and started living in Lajpat Nagar.

In the late 1990s, he went to Dubai after his fa-ther was arrested for alleged links with militants.

Mir had told investigators that in Delhi he first opened a firm, Kashmir Master Computers, after which he set up a company, Failala, but closed it in 1998.

In 1999, he started a firm called Idekas and then opened an information technology company, he had said.

Police found that in 2002, he opened two money exchange companies, Reems Exchange and Cash Express, in Dubai.

In 2015, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) at-tached ₹55 lakh that had been seized from Mir.

He was subjected to extensive interrogation by central security agencies during which he allegedly spoke about his links with separatists groups and the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen.

According to the ED attachment order, the cash that was in the custody of the Special Cell was “pro-ceeds of crime of funding and money laundering and hence stands attached”.

This was the first major action against militancy funding in the country under the stringent provi-sions of money laundering laws where the onus is on the accused to prove that he or she is “not guilty”.

Kashmiri Student...“If anybody has any information about him

please call 9797100477, 7006222493,” a family member said in his appeal.

Pertinent to mention here that Ehtisham was also assaulted in clashes between two groups of students at Sharda University on October 4, 2018.

JRL To Consult...resistance leader Syed Ali Geelani “where they

had a thorough discussion over the prevailing situ-ation in Kashmir.”

Strongly condemning the wide-scale “blood-shed, arrest spree of youth, thrashing of residents during CASO and damaging property at large scale across the length and breadth of Kashmir by the In-dian forces present in the Valley”, the JRL said that the Indian forces have unleashed a “naked aggres-sion against the people of Kashmir where youth are being selectively killed and property damaged under a sinister design to consolidate the grip of occupation over Jammu & Kashmir by New Delhi.”

The JRL termed the blowing up of houses with explosive material, thrashing of relatives including women of even slain armed youth, merciless beat-ing of people during CASOs and damaging prop-erty including the apple and other fruit orchards as crimes against humanity committed by the gov-ernment forces.

The JRL urged international community to take serious note of the events unfolding in the “pain-stricken Kashmir.”

While strongly denouncing these “inhuman acts”, the JRL said people of Kashmir, especially people living in south Kashmir have completely been left at the mercy of the Indian forces, who have made the life of common citizens “hell by not even allowing them to go to their paddy fields and orchards to reap the crop.”

The JRL said that it is so unfortunate that who-soever tries to raise a voice against the “brutality of forces”, is silenced either by ruthless torture or through other means of “repression”.

The leadership said that government forces have turned Kashmir into a killing field where innocent people including women are killed with immunity anytime, anywhere.

The JRL strongly condemned the crackdown on the resistance leadership stating that most of the resistance leaders have been booked under PSA and lodged in jails outside the J&K State which reflects the “dictatorial and authoritarian approach of New Delhi to muzzle the voice and rights of the people through a naked display of its military might.”

The JRL said those who complete their term un-der PSA, are even slapped with second and third PSA just to ensure their illegal and continues deten-tion. The number of political prisoners of Kashmir is increasing with every passing day as they are not even produced before the respective courts for trial.

The JRL said that despite “ultimate repression being unleashed across Kashmir,” the resistance leadership and every single citizen of Kashmir is committed to their birth right, the right to self de-termination and for that the ongoing struggle will continue at all levels, the statement added.

Safety Of Mines...In the PIL, the petitioner submits that the en-

vironment and the landscape are required to be maintained while extracting minerals in Jammu and Kashmir.

The petitioner also seeks directions to the au-thorities to appoint sufficient number of managers, assistant managers, mining engineers and assistant mining engineers having requisite qualification.

“All required steps be taken to preserve and maintain deposits and health of mines as also environment, ecology, landscape and habitation around the mines be preserved”, pleads the peti-tioner in the litigation filed in the public interest.

Lt. Col. Purohit...was planted on a motorcycle in Malegaon that

killed six, injured 101 people and destroyed prop-erty.”

The accused have been charged under sections in the Indian Penal Code, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and the Indian Explosives Substance Act. They have pleaded not guilty. Lt. Col Purohit told the court, “My integrity was never questioned and I never expected it to happen this way.”

The court is likely to begin recording of evidence and commence the trial on November 1 .

MeT Forecasts Rains...on Tuesday, police said.The operator of a JCB machine was killed after

being hit by rubble sliding down mountain sides in Digdol area.

"Men and machines were moved to remove the landslide and clear the highway," a traffic depart-ment official said.

He said while traffic has been restored, the trav-ellers are advised not to undertake any journey without contacting Jammu and Srinagar control rooms.

New School Timings...falling outside municipal limits of Srinagar has

been fixed as 10:30 am to 3:30 pm.“All the heads of the Government, as well as

recognized private schools, shall ensure that the school timing is followed in letter and spirit,” the order reads.

5 Policemen...Zig near a bridge at Brazloo.In the mishap, five policemen and the three in-

mates were injured, they said.Medical Superintendent, district hospital Kul-

gam, Dr GM Bhat said that they have received eight injured persons including five cops and three pris-oners, said the report.

Station House Officer (SHO), Kulgam Irshad Reshi also confirmed the mishap and said that all the injured have been hospitilized and their condi-tion is said to be stable.

The officer said that the mishap occurred in the area when they were returning to the district jail Pulwama after attending the court hearing.

A case has been registered and further investiga-tions have been initiated, he said.

2 Cops, DD News...near Nilawaya village, around 450 kms from

here, the police said.The ambush was to target the CRPF patrolling

team and create fear among road contractors and workers engaged in road construction works in the area, D M Awasthi, Director General (anti naxal op-erations), told reporters here.

"Unfortunately, the media team reached there and was caught in the cross-fire, he said.

The incident took place at around 11 am when security personnel were carrying out patrolling for security of road construction work underway in the area, the officer said.

"Road construction work between Sameli and Nilawaya villages (where the attack took place on Tuesday) has been going on for past couple of months. Maoists have been opposing the construc-tion, he said.

Giving details of the incident, Awasthi said the incident occurred when a Road Opening Party (ROP) of the CRPF was sanitising the area.

At the same time, a three-member team of Door-darshan, along with police personnel, was also

heading towards Nilawaya on motorcycles, to cover news related to development works and poll prep-arations, he said.

The DD team from New Delhi was camping in the area from past couple of days to cover devel-opment works and polling related news, he added.

Law Minister For...the "marginalised" communities get due repre-

sentation in the lower judiciary.He said if such a service comes up, it would help

create a pool of talented people who could later become part of the higher judiciary -- the 24 high courts and the Supreme Court.

Prasad rejected criticism that people from other states will face problems in holding court proceed-ings due to language barrier.

Proceedings in lower courts are held in regional languages.

He said an IAS officer from Kerala learns to speak in Hindi while posted in Uttar Pradesh or Bihar. Similarly, people can learn other languages, he said.

But at the same time he said that several states and high courts are opposed to the concept and the idea cannot be implemented without consultations.

"The time has come for all-India services to re-cruit lower court judges," Prasad said.

His address was disrupted on a few occasions when some in the audience objected to his oblique remarks against the Congress while referring to the role of B R Ambedkar and Sardar Patel in building post-independence India.

Nine high courts have opposed a proposal to have an all-India service for lower judiciary, eight have sought changes in the proposed framework and only two have supported the idea, a law minis-try document says.

Wednesday | 31-10-2018 11SportsLOPETEGUI SACKED AS REAL

Madrid coach

SOCCER FOOTBALL - CHAMPIONS LEAGUE - Group Stage - Group G - Real Madrid v Viktoria Plzen - Santiago Bernabeu,

Madrid, Spain - October 23, 2018 Real Madrid coach Julen Lopetegui before the match REUTERS/Paul Hanna/File Photo

Reuters

MADRID : Real Madrid sacked coach Julen Lopetegui three months into his first season in charge after the Spanish giants were beaten by arch rivals Barce-lona over the weekend, the Euro-pean champions said on Monday. Real have failed to win in La Liga since beating Espanyol on Sept. 22, losing to Sevilla, Alaves, Le-vante and drawing with Atletico Madrid before Sunday’s 5-1 thrashing by Barcelona.

Former player and reserve team boss Santiago Solari has been put in caretaker charge after negotiations between the club and former Chelsea, Italy and Juventus boss Antonio Conte broke down on Monday, the club added.

“The Real Madrid board met

today and decided to renounce coach Julen Lopetegui’s contract with the club,” the club said in a statement. “The board feels there has been a disproportionate dif-ference between the squad Real Madrid possesses... and the re-sults obtained until now.”

Lopetegui has now lost two jobs in under five months as he was also fired by the Spanish Football Federation as coach of the national team the day be-fore the World Cup started in June for announcing his move to Real behind the organisation’s back, throwing Spain’s tourna-ment preparations into chaos.

The 52-year-old replaced Zin-edine Zidane as Real coach after the Frenchman decided to step down from the role having guid-ed the club to three successive Champions League titles in May.

After the club’s all-time top scorer Cristiano Ronaldo also departed for Juventus in July, Lopetegui’s stint at Real got off to a difficult start as they were beaten 4-2 by city rivals Atletico Madrid in the UEFA Super Cup.

His side then won four of their opening five La Liga games and a 3-0 win over AS Roma in their Champions League opener.

But things started to fall apart when they were thrashed 3-0 by Sevilla last month, a result that started a run of four defeats in five matches in all competitions. During that stint, they also failed to score a goal for eight hours.

Last Tuesday’s 2-1 win over Viktoria Plzen in the Champions League provided a brief respite but the team were still booed off the pitch after an unconvincing display.

“THE REAL MADRID BOARD met today and decided to renounce coach Julen Lopetegui’s contract with the club,” the club said in a

statement. “The board feels there has been a disproportionate difference between the squad Real Madrid possesses... and the results obtained until now.”

Rayudu promises to end India's No 4 woes

The problem has been acute at number four with Ajinkya Ra-hane, Manish Pandey, Lokesh Rahul and Dinesh Karthik being trialled at the crucial spot and found inadequate

Rohit Sharma struck yet an-other 'daddy hundred' but it was probably Ambati Rayudu's relatively modest century on

Monday which pleased India captain Virat Kohli more as he seeks an end to a pesky prob-lem seven months before next year's World Cup.

An undercooked middle or-der has been the direct result of having an in-form trio - Ro-hit, Shikhar Dhawan and Kohli - at the top of India's batting

order of late. The problem has been acute at number four with Ajinkya Rahane, Manish Pan-dey, Lokesh Rahul and Dinesh Karthik being trialled at the crucial spot and found inad-equate. For the first time since January 2017, an India batsman at No. 4 or lower has scored an ODI hundred!

Rayudu's second 50-plus score in four matches against West Indies has filled Kohli with optimism he may not need to fret over the issue anymore.

"Rayudu has taken his oppor-tunity with both hands," Kohli said after the team's victory in the fourth one-dayer against West Indies in Mumbai.

"We need to back him till the World Cup and give him more confidence. He is feeling good about his game and he is a very confident man."

Rayudu exhibited both sides of his batting in his 211-run stand with Rohit on Monday, first playing second fiddle to his partner and then using the long handle to good effect in his bril-liantly paced knock of 100.

In the end, he matched Ro-hit's four sixes and also reached the 50 and 100 marks in fewer balls than his partner.

"He reads the game re-ally well, so we are happy that someone with intelligence is batting at number four," Kohli said. Rohit was equally im-pressed with the ability of Ra-yudu, who registered his third ODI century on Monday, to play according to the situation.

"I think it's a very important knock," the India vice-captain said of the 33-year-old.

"Hopefully he has solved all the mysteries of number four. I guess till the World Cup, there won't be any talk of number four."

India cricketer Ambati Rayudu plays a shot during the fourth ODI against West Indies at the Brabourne Stadium AFP

"RAYUDU HAS TAKEN HIS OPPORTUNITY with both hands," Kohli said after the team's victory in the fourth one-dayer against West Indies in Mumbai.

Five things about Real's new coach Solari

AFP

Solari was the coach of Madrid's B team, Castilla, and is now expected to take Madrid for their

Copa del Rey game against Me-lilla on Wednesday

Santiago Solari has been put in temporary charge of Real Ma-drid after Julen Lopetegui was sacked on Monday.

Solari was the coach of Ma-drid's B team, Castilla, and is now expected to take Madrid for their Copa del Rey game against Melilla on Wednesday.

Let's takes a closer at the Ar-gentinian: Zidane teammate at Real Santiago Hernan So-lari played five seasons at Real (2000-2005) including four alongside Zidane, who arrived in 2001, during the 'Galactico' era. He began the move that resulted in Zidane scoring one of his finest goals, the famous volley against Leverkusen in the 2002 Champions League final. In total, Solari played 167 games and scored 16 goals for the club.

Santiago Solari has replaced Julen Lopetegui at Real Madrid.

Also played for Atletico Born in Rosario, Argentina,

Solari made his name at River Plate, winning the Libertadores Cup in 1996. In 1999 he crossed the Atlantic to join Atletico Ma-drid. The midfielder tasted the disappointment of being rel-egated to the second division before Real activated his release clause to sign him in 2000.

Monday brought change at the helm of #ClubWC holders@realmadriden, as Santiago Solari took interim charge of the Span-ish giants after the departure of coach Julen Lopetegui

From footballing stock Santiago's father, Eduardo So-

lari, was a professional player in Argentina while his brothers David and Esteban also had a ca-reer in football, as did his cousin

Augusto. His uncle, Jorge Solari, played in Mexico and was nick-named "El Indio", which gave Santiago Solari his own nick-name of "El Indiesito", the Little Indian. Santiago Solari is Real Madrid's preferred candidate to replace Julen Lopetegui, accord-ing to Sky in Italy. Named "sexi-est player" of 2002

In 2002, Solari received an-other trophy: the sexiest player of the year, which was present-ed to him by the subscribers of the Spanish channel Canal +. "I thank the people who voted for me, but I'm sure it's rigged," he said. "We'll see if I'm offered an-other career in the film industry when I leave."

Coaching career started at Real Solari chose to stay in football after the end of his playing career. He coached Real Madrid's junior teams, before taking the reins of Castilla, the club's B team, in the summer of 2016. They finished 11th and eighth in Segunda B, the Spanish third tier, during his two com-pleted seasons in charge.

Cricket Australia chairman urged to quit after ball-tampering review

AFP

Peever, a former Rio Tinto min-ing executive who was reap-pointed for a second term as chairman only last week, said

on Monday that he wouldn't step aside Cricket Australia chairman David Peever faced growing calls to quit Tuesday after a damning re-view slammed the body's conduct leading up to a major ball-tamper-ing scandal. The independent re-view released Monday found that an "arrogant" and "controlling" culture within Cricket Australia contributed to players cheating in the pursuit of victory. Peever has so far avoided an exodus of senior fig-ures after the scandal, when players were caught using sandpaper to al-ter the ball in a Test match against South Africa in March. Cricket Aus-tralia CEO James Sutherland, coach Darren Lehmann and team perfor-mance boss Pat Howard all resigned. Then-captain Steve Smith and his deputy David Warner were banned for 12 months, and batsman Cameron Bancroft for nine months.

"It's not a hiccup, it's much more than that...when I saw that com-ment, I thought Australian cricket can do better in choosing its chair-man." Peever, a former Rio Tinto mining executive who was reap-pointed for a second term as chair-man only last week, said on Monday that he wouldn't step aside.

"The work was never about wanting to dwell on negatives," Peever told national broadcaster ABC Monday night when asked why he and the CA board should not resign. "This is a very impor-tant day for cricket and we are moving forward from here," he

added. But former Australian bowl-er Geoff Lawson said the chairman should be replaced by someone who played at the elite level.

How did CA end up with a blis-tering culture review all but calling for the heads of its chairman David Peever and his fellow directors?

By commissioning it in a manner that left its authors open to ques-tion "We need a serious cricketing figurehead, not a corporate cricket figurehead," he told Fox News.

"The business of cricket has over-whelmed the playing of cricket." Former prime minister Kevin Rudd also entered the debate, tweeting #PeeverShouldResign. "So let's get this straight. #CricketAustralia, un-der David Peever, has overseen the destruction of the intn'l image of our national game. But Peever gets re-appointed as Chair last wk, 3 days before release of damning Longstaff Report?" The Australian Cricketers'

Association (ACA) said in light of the scathing assessment, CA must share responsibility for the scandal, calling the bans on Smith, Warner and Bancroft to be lifted. Watch @leighsales interview Cricket Austra-lia chairman David Peever and you will perfectly appreciate all that's wrong with the administration of the game: https://t.co/m1J1GvR4ut

"With this new information, com-mon sense, common decency, basic fairness, proportionality and natu-ral justice demand that the punish-ment is reduced," ACA President Greg Dyer told reporters in Mel-bourne. "The players have already lost time in the game, chances to play for Australia, endured public humiliation and faced massive fi-nancial penalties." The CA review by the Sydney-based Ethics Centre accused Cricket Australia of ignor-ing the spirit of the game, leaving players without moral guidance. "My message to Cricket Australia is a simple one: These contrite men have been punished enough. Let these contrite men play," Dyer said. ACA also called for the "urgent" implementation of all 42 recom-mendations in the 145-page report, which also included complaints from those involved in the sport of a bullying culture in elite men's cricket. Among the recommenda-tions was an anti-harassment code to stop sledging, and training to improve team leaders' "moral cour-age". The team, who have struggled for form in the absence of batting stars Smith and Warner, also re-leased a "players pact" promising to respect the traditions of the game. Similar initiatives in the past, such as the "Spirit of Cricket" charter in 2003, had little impact.

Manchester City Win Pitch Battle as Riyad Mahrez Sinks Tottenham HotspurAFP

Pep Guardiola claimed Man-chester City's 1-0 win over Tottenham was extra spe-cial because of the problems

posed by Wembley's damaged pitch. Playing on the scarred Wembley turf just 24 hours after it was torn up by an NFL fixture, City's peerless qual-ity and a predatory finish from Riyad Mahrez helped them win the pitch battle. A sixth victory from their last seven league games lifted Guar-diola's unbeaten side back above Liverpool on goal difference. And the City manager admitted he was relieved to see his players cope with the treacherous conditions.

"It was a great victory in special conditions, against one of the most physical teams in Europe," he said.

"It was not football conditions to

play. We reacted well. For our play-ers and the players of Tottenham, hopefully they will sort the problem for the future. "It's a question for the Premier League and Tottenham. We were invited to come here today for the fixture hopefully they can solve that problem." Guardiola hailed City's Champions League win over Shakhtar Donetsk last week as the finest display of his reign in Man-chester. This was a far more prosaic performance as City's defenders took centre stage, equalling the club re-cord of six consecutive league clean-sheets. Guardiola was frustrated that City wasted several chances to kill off Tottenham and warned them they must improve if they want to retain the title and win the Champi-ons League. "We had many chances. We needed to score and we didn't. We have a lot of things to improve,"

he said. "Of course we are very good side, I'm not saying the opposite, but if you are going to play in the later stages of big competitions we need things we don't have at the moment.

"We will talk and work and hope-fully we can improve."

It was a dispiriting evening for fifth placed Tottenham, who now trail City by five points after their first league defeat in five games.

Tottenham defender Toby Alder-weireld blamed the pitch, saying: "I have to be honest, the pitch wasn't good. "Both teams like to play out from the back and to play football in these circumstances, it was very dif-ficult." But his manager Mauricio Po-chettino was more frustrated by the woeful defending that led to City's goal. "The circumstances of the pitch were the same for both sides. It was the kind of cheap goal you cannot

concede in this type of game. Foot-ball will punish you," Pochettino said. "I'm proud of the effort, we created a lot of chances. Last season it was difficult to compete against Manchester City, but today the level was closer." Flowing Move

Pochettino's cause wasn't helped by the presence of the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Philadelphia Eagles at Tottenham's temporary home a day earlier. There were large areas of worn brown turf down the middle and both flanks, while the NFL logo in the centre circle and yard-line mark-ers the length of the pitch were all still visible. But City were unfazed as they raced into the lead after just six minutes. Tottenham defender Kieran Trippier misjudged a long kick from City goalkeeper Ederson, his errant header allowing Raheem Sterling to steal possession and cut past him into

the penalty area. Sterling showed tre-mendous composure as he picked out Mahrez's run and the Algerian finished the raid with a clinical close-range finish. It was an emotional mo-ment for former Leicester star Mahrez just 48 hours after the death of Foxes owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha in a helicopter crash outside the club's King Power Stadium on Saturday. Mahrez pointed his fingers to the sky in what appeared to be a tribute to Vichai. City seemed less troubled by the surface and they scythed through the Tottenham defence with a flow-ing move that ended with Hugo Llo-ris pushing Mahrez's drive onto a post. Sent clean through on goal by Erik Lamela's pass, Harry Kane had a golden chance to equalise but his poor first touch, which couldn't be blamed on the turf, allowed Ederson to block with his legs.

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Washington Post publishes missing journalist Khashoggi's 'last piece' on Arab press freedom


WASHINGTON: Two weeks after he disappeared, The Washington Post has published what it said ap-pears to be Jamal Khashoggi's final column, in which the missing Saudi journalist writes of the importance of a free press in the Arab world.

Such a forum is currently lacking, says Khashoggi, a Post contributor and US resident who disappeared

entering Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul on October 2.

"The Arab world is facing its own version of an Iron Curtain, imposed not by external actors but through domestic forces vying for power," he writes.

"The Arab world needs a mod-ern version of the old transnational media so citizens can be informed about global events. More impor-tant, we need to provide a platform

for Arab voices," Khashoggi writes."Through the creation of an in-

dependent international forum, isolated from the influence of na-tionalist governments spreading hate through propaganda, ordinary people in the Arab world would be able to address the structural prob-lems their societies face.

"The ultimate fate of Khashoggi - whose writings have been criti-cal of powerful Saudi Crown Prince

Mohammed bin Salman - is still unknown, but leaks by anonymous Turkish officials have painted a picture of him allegedly meeting a grisly demise in the consulate at the hands of Saudi agents.

Saudi Arabia has denied to the United States having knowledge of what happened at the consulate.

In the introduction to Khashog-gi's column - which was accom-panied by a photo of the smiling

writer -- the Post's Global Opinions editor Karen Attiah said the news-paper held off on publishing it in the hopes that he would return.

"Now I have to accept: That is not going to happen. This is the last piece of his I will edit for The Post," Attiah wrote.

"This column perfectly captures his commitment and passion for freedom in the Arab world. A free-dom he apparently gave his life for".

IHC directs ministries to submit inquiry reports of former ISI chiefThe Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday ordered the Defence Ministry to submit an inquiry report of former In-ter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Lt (r) Gen Asad Durrani by General Headquar-ters (GHQ) after he sought removal of his name from the Exit Control List (ECL).

IHC Judge Justice Mohsin Akhtar Ki-yani was hearing Durrani’s petition and ordered the Interior Ministry to submit a reply explaining “why Durrani’s name had been placed on the ECL”.

Defence Ministry Law Branch Director Falak Naz said, “Durrani had written a book along with the former chief of the Indian spy agency,” adding that “Dur-

rani had remained the DG Military In-telligence and the DG ISI and there was a pending inquiry against him in GHQ”.

The law branch director further said that he could not speculate about when the inquiry would be completed.

He continued to add that the former ISI chief had also been a part of the 2012 Asghar Khan case regarding the distri-bution of money to politicians.

The former DG ISI’s lawyer Omar Fakhar Adam said they did not receive any notice regarding an inquiry into Durrani after the book was released.

Adam pointed out, “In the Asghar Khan case, General Beg’s name had not

been placed on the ECL.”He argued that his client had to “go

overseas for a conference on Novem-ber 26 and 27 and his name should be removed from the ECL”. Justice Kiyani said that until the GHQ inquiry report and Interior Ministry’s reply were sub-mitted, nothing could be done. The case was postponed until December 3.

Earlier, it was reported that upon Pakistan Army’s request, Durrani’s name was placed on the ECL after he visited GHQ to clarify his stance in The Spy Chronicles, a book co-authored by him and former chief of Indian spy agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) Am-

arjit Singh Dulat.Following this, the former ISI director

general had petitioned the IHC seeking removal of his name from the no-fly list.

Moreover, Air Marshal (r) Asghar Khan had accused former army chief General (r) Mirza Aslam Beg and Durra-ni of corrupting the democratic process with money. Following that, in 2012, the apex court ruled that “the 1990 general elections had been polluted by dishing out Rs140 million to a particular group of politicians only to deprive the people of being represented by their chosen representatives” and send notices to 21 army officials and politicians.

Facebook launches 'war room' to combat manipulationIn Facebook's “War Room,” a nondescript space adorned with American and Brazil-ian flags, a team of 20 people monitors computer screens for signs of suspicious activity.

The freshly launched unit at Facebook's Menlo Park headquarters in California is the nerve centre for the fight against misinformation and manipulation of the largest social network by foreign ac-tors trying to influence elec-tions in the United States and elsewhere.

Inside, the walls have clocks

showing the time in various regions of the US and Brazil, maps and TV screens showing CNN, Fox News and Twitter, and other monitors showing graphs of Facebook activity in real time.

Facebook, which has been blamed for doing too little to prevent misinformation ef-forts by Russia and others in the 2016 US election, now wants the world to know it is taking aggressive steps with initiatives like the war room.

“Our job is to detect ... any-one trying to manipulate the

public debate,” said Nathan-iel Gleicher, a former White House cybersecurity policy director for the National Secu-rity Council who is now head-ing Facebook's cybersecurity policy.

“We work to find and re-move these actors.”

Facebook has been racing to get measures in place and began operating this nerve centre — with a hastily taped “WAR ROOM” sign on the glass door — for the first round of the presidential vote in Brazil on October 7.

Apple launches new MacBook Air with Retina DisplayApple has launched an all-new

13-inch MacBook Air with Retina display, Touch ID, the latest pro-

cessors and an even more portable de-sign. The new MacBook Air is available in three colours — Gold, Space Gray and Silver. The Retina-display Mac includes an Apple-designed keyboard, a spa-cious Force Touch trackpad, faster SSDs, wide stereo sound, the Apple T2 Secu-rity Chip and Thunderbolt 3.

Retina Display comes to MacBook AirThe new MacBook Air features a 13.3-

inch Retina display with over 4 million pixels of resolution and 48 per cent more colour than the previous gen-eration. The new MacBook Air also in-cludes a built-in FaceTime HD camera, which is good for Group FaceTime calls as well as a three microphone array for better sound quality when making calls and improved voice recognition for Siri.

Featuring Touch ID and Apple T2 se-curity chip

MacBook Air now includes Touch ID — a fingerprint sensor built right into the keyboard — which allows you to instantly unlock your MacBook Air, au-thenticate your identity, and make fast, simple and secure purchases using Ap-ple Pay, as per the company. To support Touch ID, MacBook Air comes with the Apple T2 Security Chip. The T2 also fea-tures an SSD controller with on-the-fly data encryption for everything stored on the SSD. These allow MacBook Air to offer the most secure boot process and most secure storage of any notebook.

T2 also features an always-on proces-sor that enables “Hey Siri,” which lets you make requests to Siri with just your voice for things like finding files or opening an app.

Latest generation Keyboard and Trackpad

MacBook Air also features the third-generation Apple-designed keyboard for more precise and responsive typing. Each key is individually backlit using low-power LEDs. The new MacBook Air also includes Force Touch trackpad, which delivers pressure-sensing capa-bilities and haptic feedback, and is 20 per cent larger than on the previous generation MacBook Ai.

Audio experienceWith more advanced speakers and

audio processing technology, MacBook Air is claimed to deliver higher qual-ity audio experience and wide stereo playback that makes watching movies and listening to music more immersive than ever. The speakers are 25 per cent louder with two times more bass than the previous generation for more dy-

namic range and fuller sound.1

Performance to power your daily ac-tivities

The new MacBook Air features an 8th generation Intel Core i5 processor, Intel UHD Graphics and faster 2133 MHz system memory up to 16GB, delivering the performance you need for everyday activities like organizing your photos, browsing the web, creating presenta-tions or viewing and editing videos, Apple said. MacBook Air also features SSDs up to 1.5TB in capacity, that is said to be up to 60 per cent faster than the previous generation and make launch-ing apps and opening files feel snappier and more responsive.

Thunderbolt 3MacBook Air now comes with two

Thunderbolt 3 ports, which allow you to charge your notebook, quickly trans-fer data via USB and Thunderbolt, out-put video in three formats and connect to a whole host of devices including external storage, docks for additional ports, 4K and 5K displays, and eGPUs for faster graphics. It’s the most versa-

tile port ever. With over 700 Thunder-bolt 3 devices in the ecosystem and growing, along with thousands of USB-C devices, MacBook Air allows you to take advantage of a whole new genera-tion of accessories.

Portable designThe new MacBook Air is claimed to

deliver up to 12 hours of battery life during wireless web use and up to 13 hours of iTunes movie playback. Fea-turing a significantly smaller footprint, the new MacBook Air takes up 17 per cent less volume, is 10 per cent thinner measuring just .61 inches at its thick-est point, and at just 2.75 pounds is a quarter pound lighter than the previous generation.

MacOS MojaveAll new Macs come with macOS Mo-

jave, the latest version of the world’s most advanced desktop operating sys-tem, with new features inspired by pros but designed for everyone. In macOS Mojave, a new Dark Mode transforms the desktop with a new look that puts the focus on user content. The new Stacks feature organises messy desk-tops by automatically stacking files into neat groups. Familiar iOS apps, includ-ing News, Stocks, Voice Memos and Home, are now available on the Mac for the first time. FaceTime now adds support for group calling, and the Mac App Store gets a full redesign featuring rich editorial content and the addition of apps from top developers, including Microsoft and Adobe.

Apple expected to unveil iPads with facial recognition

Apple on October 30 is ex-pected to unveil updates to its Mac computers

and iPads that include facial recognition features that have been available in the iPhone lineup at an event in Brooklyn.

Analysts expect a new ver-sions of Apple’s iPad Pro, its higher-end tablet computer that competes with the Mi-crosoft Surface, with thin-ner bezels and more screen space, along with the face un-lock system found on Apple’s newer iPhones. They also expect updates to the firm’s Mac lineup such as rede-signed MacBook Air, Apple’s $999 entry-level laptop.

Apple introduced new iPhones and Apple Watches last month, but the older product lines accounted for $45 billion in sales in the most recent fiscal quarter. In comparison, iPhones brought in revenue of $141.3 billion.

“They really wanted to show the world they haven’t forgotten about the iPad and the Mac,” said Mika Kitagawa, a senior principal research analyst at Gartner. Apple de-clined to comment.

In July when Apple reported its most recent quarter, the company had its worst quarter of Mac sales since 2010, with unit volumes down 13 per cent year over year. And iPad unit sales were up only 1 per cent versus a year earlier, and revenue for both was down 5 per cent from the prior year.

But some of that dip in Mac sales was explained by tim-ing — Apple waited to release new Macs until July, when it had in previous years offered them in June. More broadly, Macs sales growth has out-paced the PC market and the iPad has been the most successful tablet in a market that simply turned out to be

smaller than Apple hoped when it released the device in 2010.

While Apple has held prices down on some items like its entry-level iPads for schools, analyst do not expect it to do so with iPad Pros or Mac laptops. With Mac lap-tops in particular, consumers increasingly use phones or tablets for quick computing tasks and only reach for a full-fledged computer when they need extra horsepower. Apple is unlikely to cut corners to drop the price of its entry-level laptops, analysts said.

“With Apple, ‘cheap’ is al-ways more expensive than everybody else,” said Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Cre-ative Strategies. Apple is like-ly to pick a price where “you don’t feel like you’re breaking the bank, but you don’t feel like you’re compromising your experience.”